Springtime cards for Challenge 12!

Back again with a challenge inspiration card! It's Challenge 12 on The Craft Addicts Challenge Blog and this time the theme is "Springtime/Anything goes."

This challenge is sponsored by Oddball Art Co and I have chosen to make a "Get Well Soon" card featuring Lizzy Love's Big Eyed Girl - Stormy. The Prize for this challenge is 3 free digistamps!

The card is coloured with polychromo pencils onto kraft card. I used a Joy die for the clouds and added glossy accents to the rain drops. Inside it says "I hope you have a spring in your step soon."

This is my first try at "no lines colouring" and I printed a very feint version of the digistamp onto the card before colouring it. I was worried I would lose a lot of details, but I don't think it's too bad. Some polka dots has gone missing, and a few eyelashes, but nothing major :)

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A few mugs!

Just a few pics of the new batch of knitty kitty mugs that have been printed, and in situ next to the knitty kitty teapot! If you are interested in purchasing a mug, drop me a message :) Just at the moment, we have some of every design, but not for long!

Am hoping to convert this designs into digistamps for the etsy shop too!

 Cats on Pinterest and Soft Kitty (Coloured)

 Kitty Star Signs and Soft Kitty (Black and White)

 Kitty Line Up and Line Up Teapot

Using the adult colouring craze for cards!

I've already posted how I'm keen to make use of the "adult colouring" pictures for cards and other projects. This time I am using one of the postcards from "Pretty Animal Postcards" by Buster Books. (Designs by Felicity French, Cindy Wilde, Hannah Davies and Hannah Wood).

I lightly sketched a circle onto the design and just coloured, with polychromo pencils, inside the circle. I added a greeting, some bling, and foampadded it onto a card blank. This was for personal use, not for sale, I gave it to my Mother-in-law :)

These are meant to be pugs!

Commission was for a man that enjoys walking a pug... so I'm really keen to develop some dog digistamps so I tried to draw some... not sure it worked! They are more pug-like than pugs and could almost pass as a bulldog! I hope they liked them, and guessed they were pugs! I need to practise drawing pugs from a side angle, it's not as easy as it looks :)

Red Red Wine.

Commission card featuring a red wine element and a chance to use a set of stamps by Sheena Douglass, A Little Bit Scenic Collection - Provence!

I really like this set, but haven't had the chance to use it much before now. I stamped the images and then coloured them with copics. I glossy accented the grapes. I mounted them onto the background image with 3D foam. The wooden texture paper is a set from Joy! Used Seedless Preserves Distress Ink to colour the cardstock around the edge.

Challenge 11 at the Crafty Addicts.

Another inspiration card, this time for Challenge 11 at the Crafty Addicts Challenge Blog.

The theme this challenge is as normal "Anything Goes" but also "Add a charm".

The sponsor  is Digistamps4joy with a $10 voucher for their store as the prize. I chose the stamp "Lil Gypsy" and have coloured it using polychromo pencils on kraft card.

To include a charm, I gave her a necklace with a small gold butterfly hanging from it.

Close up of the card.

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Garden Colouring....

I've been looking for a way to use parts of colouring books in my cards, for personal use, so I can do something with the images after I have enjoyed colouring them. It also occurred to me that they'd make pretty nice backgrounds just as they were!

This background image is from The Secret Garden - Available as a free download from The Adult Coloring Club. I have drawn two birds based on an element within the "colouring image" to make a feature for the card and added diecut bunting (Die'sire) , fence and watering can (Trimcraft). Birds and fork handles coloured with copics. They are meant to be a male and female bullfinch! :)

New Crafty Addicts Facebook Challenge!

Hi everyone! Just here to tell you that a new challenge (Number 5) has gone live in The Crafty Addicts Facebook Challenge Group. The March Challenge has two themes, Anything Goes or Card for a child.

It is kindly being sponsored by Melonheadz (offering a whole free bundle) and PPinkydolls (offering 3 free digis!)

I have used a bundle called "Hey Diddle Diddle" from Melonheadz for my challenge inspiration card. Such a cool set, it comes with pre-coloured versions of the stamps too (I used them on the inner). This is using polychromo pencils on kraft card. ( I know?? again!... can't help myself at the moment, just love the effect!).

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You can never have too much coffee...

Two coffee themed cards this time. I don't have any coffee themed stamps or papers, so I went on Pinterest for some inspiration!

Using this card as a starting point, by Mar Merelo, I made this card. I didn't make it a shaker card, but did use a coffee bean image printed onto kraft card to recreate the backing paper and used the tag and centre of the card for the sentiment. Coffee cup hand drawn and coloured with polychromo pencils.

Next one was based on a card by Lisa Young. I loved this layout, and although I didn't match the sketch as she had done, this is pretty close! Just using my own papers and fonts, it's still a similar layout. Can't remember when I got my unlabelled coffee cup, but it appears to be the same as a Stampin' Up one, so that must be where it was from! Papers were all magazine freebies, including the vellum version.

Wooooot! Good news! :)

Am very chuffed to report that I won a competition! The "Card for a Man" that I made for the current Crafty Addicts Blog Challenge Inspiration  won Doctor Digi's First Card Creation Challenge! I'm really pleased - it was a pleasure to colour, and now I get three free new Dr. Digi digistamps to enjoy.

(Original Blog Post Here.)

It was very hard picking just one as part of the CA design team to showcase their stamps for the challenge they sponsored.  I had narrowed it down to four favourites before finally picking "Santa Selfie". Now I get the chance to own the three I didn't get! They are going to be great to colour, can't wait! :)

Thanks Dr Digi's House of Stamps! :)

Winning Card

More bike cards!

Not sure how many bike cards I have made, but here are two new ones! :) Both are commissioned cards for a family that are into bikes, and I've made lots of cards in the past for them, so the struggle is making something new! This card is using my new set of stamps from Lawn Fawn called " Blue Skies" (LF511) and an old favourite set by Hero Arts called "Joy Ride" (CL481). I stamped the balloons without their baskets and then stamped bikes where the baskets had been. Then I masked the balloons, and text (It was all on one layer) and used the distress ink + cloud mask technique for the background. The balloons are coloured with Copics and the added clouds are a diecut from Joy.

I managed to acquire some new cards from Paperchase that had been rejected for some reason, and a few had this great bike backing paper. I cut them up and then decoupaged on some of the bikes, as I had multiples of the same bike card. The greeting was printed onto the red backing paper and the bikes stuck on top of that. Added a bit of bling on the "Dad".

Sew Special Sheila.

Commissioned card for Sheila's 80th birthday. Theme - machine sewing! :) I continually try to make an orange and green combo card, and I don't know why I keep doing it! It's really tough I think, and I'm not sure I succeeded with this card either. It's hard to get the right balance, but as I was matching the backing paper from the start off, it kind of had to be tackled.

Ingredients:

• Elements from Hero Arts Sew Crafty Digikit
• Papermania/Do Crafts Happy Days 12x12 pad
• Chipboard Mannequins from Craftworkcards.com
• Joy Wood texture paper bloc (15cmx30cm)
• Die cut paper embellishment pack from Paperchase.
• Distress Inks, White ink, Heart pins, Card, buttons, thread - all from the stash. 

Close up detail. Singer Sewing Machine image from Google, recoloured using Paint Shop Pro.  Cotton reels, Scissors and buttons all elements from Hero Arts Digikit. 

Sneaky Lazy Purchase.

I have to confess, I always thought these were for lazy people, but no... I was completely wrong....they are for anyone who colours with pencils! Have done a fair few pictures with my polychromos recently and actually gave myself a blister from sharpening them. I am weak. :) I also gave myself a massive bruise where I hold my clip board whilst I colour in front of the tele, but that's just me being a numpty.

Anyway, I actually want a derwent one of these, but foolishly did not buy them when they were a tenner on amazon, and now they are something like £70? Which is bonkers. Anyway, trying a cheap £10 one, with reasonable reviews. It seems ok, but I don't like that it has no automatic cut-out when the nib is sharp... so may have to keep hunting for an affordable alternative.

Also, it's called a O'huhu, which makes me chuckle :)

Challenge 10 at The Crafty Addicts Blog!

Hi everyone, just sharing my new inspiration-card for the new challenge on The Crafty Addicts Challenge Blog.

This time the theme is - Anything goes/ Card for a Man - and there are two sponsors, Doctor Digi's House of Stamps (Prize of  2 free digistamps) and Crafty Sentiments (Free 3 digi stamps for the winner!) So you've got a better chance of winning a super prize.

I chose " Selfie Santa " for my card, a digistamp from Dr. Digi! I think these are my fav digistamps to colour.

Close up of the card.

I used polychromo pencils directly onto kraft card. I love how it looks! Think not only is this my fav stamp, but my fav way to colour it! Takes a lot longer than copics, but I like the result.

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