Frenchie Cactus!

(Catchupmageddon Post). A commissioned card for a frenchie lover! I was aiming for something clean and modern looking with this card.

I used two stamp sets - 

We love dogs from Apple Blossom Craft Collection (STOB0012)

Prickly Plants from For the Love of Stamps by Hunkydory (FTLS203)

I stamped them straight onto the card in this layout and coloured them with copic markers and white posca pen.

Font is All Hooked Up. Enamel bling from the stash.

How does your garden grow?

Quick easel card using the Hunkydory, How does your garden grow, craft stack.

I actually purchased this stack quite recently, on first glance it seemed filled with ideas and potential but on reflection, it's only really useful for a particular style of card, and doesn't really match other things I have for gardeny cards. In most cases, the pop outs are foiled, and it's really hard to match foiled items with non-foiled. This gardening apron is one of the few non-foiled toppers. Not worth the purchase price, but you live and learn!

Scottish Wedding!

A wedding card I made for a commission, the theme was Scottish! I was pleased to have a lot of parts left from my Hunkydory Twilight Kingdom kit so used them with some diecuts (The kit has a stag but no doe!) that Helen cut for me.

Ribbon, leaves, flowers and feathers all from the stash.

Sneaky Hunkydory Goodness.

I really like these Pretty Pansy pot cards from Hunkydory! It's a kit, so it's kinda cheating, but it meant I had eight very quick cards suitable for ladies of a certain age. I seem to need alot of them :)

The kit has eight pansy pots, two in each colour, and I have been adding a personalised tag and greeting inside (as per the pot on the left).

They push out really well (no rips or tears) and everything fits together perfectly. (Mini review! lol). The only problem with them is they don't stand up very well, once you understand how to get them to stand straight it's fine, but until you do, it seems wonky is the only option! :)

Cactusness.

It's a bit of a cactus themed post today. I want to share with you a link to my friend Olga's new wordpress blog where she has very kindly uploaded a fab "Cacti and succulents" image that you can colour yourself! It's awesome! Please pop by and have a look at her new blog!

Prior to her posting that I had been on the hunt for some Cactus stamps! After a lot of looking at the huge choice of cactus/succulent stamps out there at the moment, I decided on the Hunkydory, For the Love of Stamps, Prickly Plants set! I love it :) Made this card for one of my besties. The "Luvyoo" is a long standing joke, I'm not sure any explanation will make sense!

One of the craft mags had a similar idea to this and I've had a look online but can't find who to credit the idea with but shall declare this as "inspired" by someone else's work.

I also got a chance to use some cute stickers and washi tape I have collected on the inside. The washi tape was from Hobbycraft and the stickers were cheapy ones from The Range.

I coloured the images with copics. I printed and stamped the greeting onto vellum.

Confessions.

Sometimes it's nice to make a kit card. Shhhh. Don't tell! I really like the twilight kingdom collection from Hunkydory, and finally managed to get the cat topper set to make for a friend who likes cats. It's not super inventive but it was so nice to have decisions made by someone else of what to put on! :)

Apart from the bling, card stock base and matting/layering card, all the other elements are in the topper kit. Just did cutting and sticking, hurrah for an easy make!!

Bali and New Zealand Bound

A quick commissioned card- a birthday card for a chap currently travelling in Bali and New Zealand. This was a island digi stamp from Make it Crafty that I added free clip art to. I coloured it with polychromo pencils.

Elements from old Docrafts and Hunkydory kits. Papers from Hunkydory and Magazine Freebies. Envelope stickers from an Usbourne Sticker Book.

Final Challenge of the Year!

Final challenge for 2016 on The Crafty Addicts Challenge Blog! Challenge 31 is optionally themed " Let it Snow" or Anything Goes, as normal :) Super sponsor this time, Lemon Shortbread, offering 3 free digis to the winner, tbh it will be very hard to only pick 3!

I used Poinsettia Girl by Lemon Shortbread for my DT inspiration card, if you enjoy colouring hair, she is fabulous to tackle!

I have to admit, I was going to do a black and white card with just a pop of red in the poinsettia, but then remembered It has to go with the theme "Let it Snow!" Doh! So it's now somewhat more colourful. I just used the copic cool greys and black to colour her on smooth cardstock. She's 3D foamed to add some dimension to the card.
The snowflakes are from a hunkydory christmas kit.
The stamp is one of the set called "Hand Drawn Greetings" (JGS457) from Woodware.
Background paper is from "Tis the season" collection by BoBunny.
With added Stash Bling, Yellow Stickles, Glossy accents etc.

Close up of the card.

This is the first time I have tried to colour black hair with copic pens. I can see now where I need to get more light/shine, but I think it was ok for the first go! :)

Sponsor Badge

Sports Cards

I had in an order for a Man U football card so decided to use this Hunkydory kit called "Man of the Match!" I made the kit up as per the layout they suggest and added personal elements to tailor it for the order. Afterwards I wasn't happy with it so I had a rethink and added some stars to make it seem a bit more fun and special. What do you think? Did the stars work?

I also used the kit to make a rugby card at the same time for a friends birthday.

Before

 After

Hunkydory!

I know some people think using kits is cheating, but sometimes it's just so nice to have lots of lovely elements to use with little fuss!

This card is made using Hunkydory's Feathered friends. Another commissioned card for someone that likes flowers and gardening.

I constructed a standard easel card and then used the kit to create the main parts of the card.
Ribbon and enamel bling from stash and flowers from QVC.
I had to include two cats, so I popped them behind the greeting,  just poking their heads out!

More Christmas Cards.

Some of these I made to send myself and some were commissions.

It's getting super hard on line to track down whether images are copyrighted or not. I suppose I should say if I am claiming the artwork as my own, because I would happily credit an original artist if I could find out who it was....and as I only make one card with it, the lack of mass production and making money from it would probably influence how an original artist would feel about it perhaps?
I don't know though, I'd be pretty cross if my artwork was on line with no watermark and anyone could use it. Hopeful I have found images safe to use - I'm saying this because I couldn't track down where the Scrooge Silhouette was from, anywhere!

Die cut window and snowflakes. Hero Arts stamp background behind window. Fussy cut dog silhouettes. Blue pearls.

Hunkydory frames and papers. Die cut icicles. Hand drawn Church scanned and put into grey scale. Green pearls. The church is Trinity Methodist Church in Shifnal.

This was a special card for one of my bezzie's Mum's to give her daughter. They've just had a baby and the wall paper in the picture is the same as the paper in their nursery. Die cut window. Hero Arts stamped scene behind window. Greeting from Hunkydory. Bottle, chair, bear and box all stickers from the Royal Doll's House Sticker Book by Usbourne 2013.

These ginger bread/cookie toppers and papers were all freebies in a magazine and I've been saving them forever. The main ginger bread men were stamped and coloured with copics.

I've been loving the kraft card this Christmas. This was a combo of two stamp sets for the bunnies and the base of the snow globe. I used two circle die cutters to make the right size snow globe outline. Stamped bunnies coloured in with  polychromo pencils.

I promise this was appropriate wording for the sender/recipient! :) I printed out the Scrooge silhouette and masked off the writing, then cosmic shimmered the background and added some bling. I like the effect.

Sheena Douglass Stamps painted with watered-down distress inks. Snowy night sky made by flicking water onto a dark distress ink background.

Final card for the post. Just made me chuckle :)