Fancy Fold Fairy Flora

Challenges:
Mo’s Digital – fancy fold & flowers

Cute Card Thursday – play on words

Pocketful of Posies – floral fantasy

Lexi’s – flower power

Shabby Tearoom – inspired by nature (or use inspirational photo)

Karber’s – card for a girl

Charisma – something new (the fancy fold)

Everybody Art – different card shape

Hi all. I had fancied making a card with one of these folds, and the challenge at Mo’s this week gave me the opportunity to try it out. Using the gorgeous image of Fairy Flora, (from Mo’s Digital Pencil, of course!), I sat little Flora amongst the daisies and coloured her accordingly. After all, if she wasn’t blending in so well, we would be seeing fairies all the time? Right? LOL. Anyway, I kept the colour palette fairly simple (or fairy simple!...sorry, couldn’t resist LOL), using my Promarkers, the only hints of other colours showing in her shimmering wings. Everyone else might be doing Autumn colours but Flora here is definitely still in Spring mode. The paper is recognisably K & Company and I used a Marianne Creatable die to cut out the extra daisies, which were added to the side panels as well as the front panel. The sentiment, featuring the play on words, the challenge this week at CCThursday is from TLC.

Hope you like today’s offering to blog-land!

Tine :)

Digi Doodle #24 Charm Me - Rhinestone Cowgirl

Other challenges:

A Spoonful of Sugar - animals

Everbody Art - make your own flower

Lexi's - flower power

Crafts and Me - gems & sparkle.

Today’s card as GDT at Digi Doodle, depicts one of their more recent additions to the range, that of ‘Cowgirl and Horse’. As the theme this week is to use a charm, out came my lucky horse-shoe from my stash, though to be perfectly honest, to be lucky, the horse shoe should be the other way up. This way the luck falls out! Still, I didn’t make the charm and it looks odd when I try to use it the other way up!

Why did I choose this particular image to work with? Well, the horse is my favourite animal so I couldn’t resist it. Simple! LOL. The image is basically coloured with Promarkers, though I chalked the sky and grass background on the image as I wanted a light and airy feel, an indication of a wide open space. I also paper-pieced the yoke of her denim jacket and its turned-back sleeves with a light blue and white tiny gingham check. It was only when I had got it all together that I realised that it is all but identical to an outfit I made myself a long time ago….LOL. Mind you, I didn’t add any rhinestones to mine. The old, worn painted fence posts seemed right but it took me a few minutes to decide on what colour to use for my faithful steed. Should he be a dun, an Appaloosa maybe? Went for a grey in the end as you can see, but it was a close-call.

The lower part of the background I have portrayed as a stable door, complete with a ‘metal’ top so a bored horse can’t chew at the wood (cribbing). This ‘metal’ is lovely matt mirri board with two punched circles also in the mirri, to represent the rivets holding the metal in place. The wood of the door was created from a paper from a ‘Cardmakers pack’ from HOTP, but I went over it with a Promarker to make wood-like knots and lines in it before I de-bossed the individual planks. The de-bossing didn’t show up too well, so I turned the paper over and used the same Promarker to draw onto the embossed lines. As the Promarker bled through the paper, it helped to show the delineation of the de-bossing better. The sky printed paper is also from the HOTP pack.

The flower was created using a Marianne Creatable die and some denim which I had around from turning up my daughter’s jeans. I frayed one edge and gathered the other, popping a big red rhinestone on top to match those on the girl’s jacket. I used some dried coriander stems from my garden to represent hay or straw.

Right, enough of me prattling on….why not join in the Digi Doodle Challenge yourselves…just remember to use a charm on your card this week.

Tine :)

#31 His own transport!

Hello again, and the theme this week at I ♥ Promarkers is ‘Transport’. With this in mind, I chose this youngster leaning on his VW clutching a set of car keys. The image is ‘Mikey’, part of a set from Charmed Cards and Crafts, and I have depicted him as just having passed his driving test. He is of course, coloured with Promarkers.

For the backing paper, I created my own, making a light grey road with white central marking and then layering my own created tyre marks on top of one another before dotting with a few motoring signs I made on the PC. The ‘L’ plate was also created on the PC before I used pinking scissors through the centre. The sentiment, also concocted by my good-self on the PC, hopefully reflects our licence plates. Now please don’t tell me that there should be more stars on the European sign, I do know, but my excuse is that it is the same reason that cartoon people don’t have 5 fingers – it looked better. LOL. The mats are navy blue, red and silver mirri, though the one behind the ‘L’ plate looks brown rather than silver.

Right then, do go and browse the DT’s blogs for inspiration and see how they created their cards this week, then get out those Promarkers and create a card with a ‘Transport’ theme for yourselves….thinking caps out…. & I look forward to leaving comments on your blogs.
Tine :)

Challenges for my card this week include:

Crafty Creations - transport

Charisma - song title (Cars - Gary Numan)

Allsorts - new beginnings (the start of life behind a wheel).

Cupcake - books (Highway code)

Karber - for a boy

Crazy 4 Challenges - books (Highway code)

Cowgirl's Sunday - anything goes.

All Shook Up

Challenges:
Polka Doodle – shaped card

Creative Inspirations (Sat. Challenge) – shaped card

Secret Crafter – clean and simple

Crafty Cardmaker – clean and simple

Justinklined – use one of their digis

Charisma – song (All Shook Up – Elvis (had to be! LOL)

Crafts and Me – gems and sparkle

Shabby Tearoom – tag (on inside of card)

For today’s card, made especially for my brother-in-law’s birthday (same day as my son’s), I have made a shaped card - a speech bubble in gorgeous pearlescent cardstock.

The image is called ‘Throwback Fred’ from Justinklined, and I thought this Elvis imitator would be perfect for a male’s birthday card - and to that end at least, I must be onto a winner, as even my husband likes it….and he doesn’t usually say much about my cards!!! Coloured with Promarkers the image is simply matted onto embossed gold mirri and stripey paper rectangles whose corners I rounded to match those of the speech bubble. His outfit needed the necessary bling with added tiny gems and a mirri medallion completed his ensemble. I then made myself suitably shaped insert for inside, adding a similar but smaller embossed mirri rectangle with a tag emblazoned across the top, leaving room for the ‘To’ and ‘From’ (as if they would never have guessed anyway!?!?!) on the other side.

Kept it short and sweet today, but hope you like it! Sorry the photos are not up to much today, but the clouds are rolling in. :(

Tine :)

James

Challenges:
Friday Sketchers – design sketch

Creative Cottage – celebrations (his birthday)

Cupcake – digi (image and some papers)

Penny’s – Happy Birthday

Papertake – just the one (sentiment – if numbers count as a sentiment?!?!)

Secret Crafter – simple (no embossing, embellishments etc, just cut out paper/card)

Cards for Men – long summer days (he has spent his entire summer holiday from college shopping or window shopping!)

Charisma - song (Thea - Baby Boy)

Bee Crafty - use digi - but anything goes.

This is the card I have made for my son’s birthday which is coming up shortly. This is him, summed up – shopping bag in hand, earphones round neck and mobile phone in pocket somewhere. I have used one of a set of images available from Charmed Cards and Crafts called ‘Mikey’, though to make it more like my son other than giving him red hair, I have made a set of earphones for round his neck using a thin sliver of card (even the slight ‘flatness’ of that would be easier to adhere than say thread might be I thought), with tiny cut out shapes for the ear buds at the ends.

The main backing paper is a digi - one of TLC’s, and digis too are the stripes and musical symbols which are from Cardmaking & Papercraft, though the one with blue circles is from Brenda Pinnick. Whilst the layout might seem rather ‘busy’ at first glance, all the papers as well as the image were cut out using my trimmer rather than any Nesties etc, and without any stitching or further embellishments etc, I still feel it is rather simplistic and compared to some cards I make, relatively quick to do as well. LOL.

I am quite happy with this one –maybe because it sums my son up so well, even the colours. LOL. Hope you all like it too!

Tine :)

Digi Doodle #23 Use a Sentiment

The beautiful image of a young girl, lost in her own thoughts amongst the daisies is from Digi Doodle, of course, and is available here. For my card today, I coloured her with Promarkers though for her hat, I paper-pieced with a separate digi paper hoping to give the effect that it was made with a weave not dissimilar to a straw hat. That particular paper is from Crafter’s Companion, though the straw-like pattern is a little lost on the photo. I then went over the paper-piecing with my Promarkers to add shading and also some colour to the hat band.

I am sure most of you will recognise the backing papers I have used here as being from Tim Coffey at K & Company. Whilst hardly new designs, I love the subtlety of these coordinating papers which seemed just perfect to combine with this image. I used my Crop-a-Dile to add the eyelets into which I threaded a printed ribbon from my stash before mounting onto the base card which I only bought a few days ago but is not only a brilliantly thick gsm, it has such sparkle and depth of colour, it is totally gorgeous on its own.

The sentiment, the all important part of the Challenge on Digi Doodle this week, is from TLC and the mats are the same as for the image itself.

Hope you all like today’s creation especially for the Digi Doodle Challenge and I know the team there would love you to take part yourselves. Just remember to add a sentiment to your card this week.


Other Challenges:
Allsorts – park inspiration

Papertake - just one (one ribbon & one sentiment)

Crafty Emma – anything goes

Bee-Crafty – anything goes

Daisy Doodles – anything goes

Cute Card Thursday - fabric/material/ribbon.

Charisma - songs (Daisy a Day) .

Tine :)

Nicecrane’s Little Mermaid

Hi everyone, and today I am using this beautiful image from Nicecrane Designs of the Little Mermaid. If you are a fan of giving & collecting ATCs, he has a choice of designs available from his on-line store, but he is expanding his range to include digital images, and this particular one is an example of his work.

I did not want to over complicate the layout and embellishments on this card, so that the total focus would be on this wonderful mermaid untangling her golden locks. I chose to use the sketch over at Sunday Sketch & Stamp, as it seemed to fit my criteria to a ‘T’.

I coloured the image with Promarkers, though I used chalks around the top edge of her oval mat. The background paper is a digi design on a CD from Create & Craft, which I chose as its design undulates like the sea and the scroll-work pattern reminded me of tossing seaweed. Onto this paper I dotted the tiniest gemstones I could find to represent the glistening sun on the waves. The border mat lying horizontally across the card has been sewn using the sewing machine, into stitched waves in the palest of blue - and then pearls dotted randomly either side of the image hopefully echo the sea theme.

I hope you all like my card for Ignacio over at Nicecrane Designs as I anticipate that I shall be creating more cards using his digis and ATCs in the weeks to come.

Challenges for this card:

Sunday Sketch & Stamp – design layout

Crafty Cardmakers – glitter and sparkle

Stamping Royalty – rhinestones and pearls

Cupcake - digis

Crafty Emma – anything goes

Daisy Doodle – anything goes

Bee Crafty – use a digi but anything goes

Stamping for the weekend – anything goes.

Tine :)

#30 Myth and Mystery – Siren of the Sea

This week’s challenge at I ♥ Promarkers is to make a card with the theme of Myth and Mystery – so there’s lots of choice if you think about it. Fairies, witches, wizards, dragons…. & I have gone for a mermaid, a siren of the sea so beautiful that she will lure an unwitting sailor to crash his wooden boat upon the rocks as he is drawn ever closer to her. Well, so the story goes…. My mermaid hasn’t set her sights on anyone at the moment, but is happily taking a lazy swim in the currents of the high seas. This young lady certainly isn’t a manatee..!

She is coloured with Promarkers (of course!), but I have also coloured her background with Promarkers, hoping to give the idea of a gentle current of water around her with darker, more turbulent waters to either side of her. The idea is that there is light dappling down from the surface above, catching the ebbing currents which move not only our mermaid’s hair as she relaxes, but also the seaweed on the ocean’s floor – well, I hope that is the effect I’ve got! LOL. She is coloured in such a way so she will blend easily into her environment – so it is harder to find her, naturally. LOL. The darker ‘waters’ at either side of her are additional layers on top of the original image/card, overlapping one another and the seaweed too, as I wanted the effect that we were catching a glimpse of her only because the water’s swell allowed us a peek at her. This was all then mounted onto glossy black card.

The lower half of the easel card has a background constructed of Promarker coloured cut strips, made in the same way as the darker side elements of the main part of the card, cutting my Promarker strips into undulating wave shapes and adhering to the glossy black card. The sentiment strip which holds the easel element in place features ‘Sea floor coral’, an image from Meljen Designs, but the the 3 other elements of the mirror, fish and sentiment itself are each from the prolific Paulette at TLC. Hopefully, it looks like she has just dropped the mirror and it has floated down to the seabed…LOL.

Well, I hope you will visit the blogs of the others on the DT to see how they have created their cards this week, and will feel suitably inspired to enter our challenge. Just remember to colour using Promarkers (don’t think you have to do it all with Promarkers like I have done – well chosen papers as backgrounds are the norm!), and I would love to visit your blogs to see which image you decided to use & how you have interpreted our challenge. Good luck!

I will enter my card for a few Challenges too:

Dare U To Digi Stamp – shaped card

Papertake – just the one (used no papers, just white card)

Bee Crafty – digi image but anything goes

Crafty Emma – anything goes.

Daisy Doodles - anything goes

Tine :)