Busy Tuesday

Well another day and another couple of challenges (I wonder if I can keep this up??)

This card is for the Paper Craft Planet sketch challenge sk012310.

I used a dark brown base card and layered it with a lighter brown. I cut out a whole lot of circles and other shapes with my Cricut at the weekend so I was able to use some of these on this card. The yellow circle I embossed with the swiss dots Cuttlebug folder. I stamped the other piece with one of my Tanda stamps and coloured it with Tombow markers and water brush. I then used  yellow, orange and mahogany distress inks to provide the colour around the edges. The sentiment is a Hero Arts stamp. 

The second card was for the 2 Sketches 4 You challenge this week.

For this one, I used a Montarga stamp for the centrepiece and layered the white on black card. The feature at the bottom of the black card was a border stamp from Fiskars that I embossed with white. I used a Fiskars scallop border punch to create the bottom layer for the ribbon.
The card needed something else, so used some stick-on dots for the corners.

Monday

Today is the first day of my challenge to myself to participate in challenges from various blogs associated with card making.

Sarah over at the Cardpatterns blog set a nice challenge this week.
I made this in pink and silver. The silver paper was embossed with the swiss dots folder using the Cuttlebug. Layered a little lace doily I had, which I have been wanting to use (still have another 99 to use!). I attached 2 ribbons, a silver one on top of a pink. gauzy one, then attached the stamped, watercoloured flower.

I also learned how to put a signature on the bottom of the picture using Photoshop.
 

The second challenge for today was  from Carol's Sketch Fun. I used the sketch to make an anniversary card for Roger for our wedding anniversary on Wednesday. The colours don't show terribly well in the photo. However, I used a wine coloured base card with cream and gold metallic card for the decorative bits. Again, used the cuttlebug to emboss the cream background with the hearts folder.

Stamped two hearts and embossed with gold. Layered one over the other and swiped the edges with gold ink. The sentiment is embossed with gold also. Two little gold brads finish the card.

Twin's Birthday

We have been invited to a birthday party for my cousin's twin grand daughters. They are now a whole year old and the time has gone so fast. I thought I would make a card each for them - the same but different!

I made a box base with a slot in the top and attached a piece of card to stand up in the slot. I layered an embossed piece on top of the base card and swiped it with ink to show the embossing.

I bought a new cupcake stamp from Montarga last week, so decided to stamp and colour these. Used different colours for each one and highlighted the icing with Kindyglitz. I cut out the numbers and letters using the Alphalicious cart on the Cricut.

Playtime

Yes, I know, I said I was going to spend more time doing stuff and blogging - well I have been doing stuff but it has not been cardmaking or blogging! Actually, I did do some playing over the last couple of days and have "discovered" my distress inks again. Found Tim Holtz demos on the net and spent some time looking at them and getting ideas, Tried them out on a couple of things. The first was on a bit of card as an example. I blended a couple of colours (red and blue) on the card then stamped it. I think it came out quite well for a first effort.

The next thing was an ATC - haven't been into these before  and thought it was a chance to have a go with a try out of another technique.

With this one, I blended the same colours for the background, then stamped the image. I then used a natural sponge to dab red/brown colour on to the corners and a bit round the sides. This made a "spotty" effect which I then spritzed with water and it produced a mottled effect.
Finished it off with a punched lace border and strip of fancy yarn. Small buttons adorn the corners of the stamped image.

Tanda Challenge
The Tanda Challenge for this week is Lace. I found a Montarga stamp  I have not used very much that has a lace border on it. I stamped it using Stazon Black ink on white card. I then used a range of yellow, orange and red distress inks to blend the colours onto the picture. I did mask the lady so she would not get coloured!

I then masked the outside of the card so I could colour the dress.
To make the card, I stamped a background all over the card. I used a lace border punch for the card edging, layered it on the card with ribbon.
I embossed the layering cards with the cuttlebug. The tag was stamped and attached with a brad.

I decided that I quite like using the distress inks so will keep practising!

Challenges

I decided that now I have more time, I will take part in some of the stamping and cardmaking challenges that abound on the net! Yesterday, I found these two challenges while I was browsing the blogs that I follow and, after cleaning up my work area, got down to making them.

The Stamp Something challenge was to make a card with one image. I used the Cuttlebug to emboss the green strips and light blue squares. The stamp is one I bought recently and I really love the sentiment on it. I used watercolour pencils for colouring as the tombow pens were a bit too strong for the delicate flower. I punched the border of the background card for the stamp using a Fiskars border punch.




The second card was one for the Allsorts challenge. Since Valentine's Day is coming up, I thought that I would try out a stamp I haven't used before to make the card. I layered the heart and used Kindyglitz to highlight it.

I used a Spellbinders Nestabilities scalloped circle to cut the image out. The papers used were freebies from a magazine. Added heart brads to the corners to finish it off.

Wedding Card

This is the card I made for our neice who is getting married tomorrow - 9 Jaunary 2010. I used metallic card and the trim is made from paper with a metallic shine as well. I cut the cake using my Cricut - the Weddings cart. I cut three images then layered them to create a three tiered cake. I used some tiny stick on dots to make the decoration on the cake stand out a bit more. The flowers were also cut with the Cricut - same cart.

Tanda Challenge Card for this week.

Had some time today so thought I would have a go at creating something for the Tanda Challenge this week. The theme was Pretty as a Peacock and the challenge was to use the peacock of the colours that are typical of the peacock. Because New Zealand Paua shell is very similar in colour, I chose to use that as the basis for the card.

I found some paper serviettes in a kitchen shop recently that were based on the paua shell image, so I pasted the top layer onto card and used that as the lower part of the card. I stitched the two different pieces of card onto the base card and glued pieces of paua shell onto the card. I love these colours.

A New Year and a new beginning

Well, 2010 is upon us and I have now finished working for a living - well for a while anyway! The Christmas break was just great - spent time at Waikawa Bay and read 4 books as well as making 50 wedding invitations and generally enjoying being with the family and sitting in the sun for a bit.

Before Christmas, a friend asked me to make some little boxes for her to hang on the tree with chocolates inside them. I used the Cricut Wedding cart to makes these little boxes. I made 12 in all, 3 of each colour - red, green, gold and cream. I added gold cord to tie them to the tree.

One of my challenges for this year is to get more use from my Cricut - I invested a lot of money in it and now need to make more use of it. I have found a website that sends free SVG designs regularly that can be used with the Cricut. You can also purchase others from them.

We also had some landscaping done before Christmas. An area outside the lounge was looking decidedly tatty and needed something doing to it. we found a landscaper who did a simple design for us and did the work. Really pleased with the results. The picture on the top right shows one view of the new area.