Mother's Day

As regular readers of my blog will know I lost my Mum back in 2009. She always really encouraged my card making and when I brought some peel off verses recently there was one dedicated to 'Mother' in there. I decoded to make a Mother's card with it and decided to do one that I just know my Mum would have loved. here is the result

I started by sticking the peel off verse to a piece of white card and cutting round the border using decoupage snips I then used this as a template to draw and cut an aperture in a piece of A4 card which I then embossed using a flowers and swirls embossing folder from cArt.Us. Using the sentiment as a template again I found the centre of the front of an A5 card blank and cut a rectangular aperture slightly larger than the sentiment. Once this was done I turned my attention to the inside of the card and lined the inside with some beautiful Swedish Paper from the Vive Gade range I covered both the inside front and back and then working from the front of the card cut away the excess paper leaving a narrow border that could be folded through the rectangular aperture to give a neat finish. I then highlighted the corners of the aperture using just the corners from a Marianne frame die and adhered the sentiment panel to the inside back of the card to line up with the aperture as shown below.

I cut a rectangle of acetate slightly larger than the aperture which I stuck to the front of the card and then stuck the embossed panel over the front.

The embellishments were made from off cuts of white paper, white glitter paper and white velum with a silver script design, using a Tim Holtz tattered flowers die. I layered these up and added acrylic crystals as centres, all apart from the largest flower where I used a metallic and crystal flower as the centre. I used a Mariane die to cut some leaves from the scraps of white glitter paper I had left.

Using self adhesive clear crystals I ran a border along the bottom edge of the card, before arranging the flowers and leaves I allowed the leaves to over lap the acetate panel so they can bee seen when the card is opened.

I finished it off with a little net butterfly - on one of the very few visits my Mum ever made to a craft shop with me she spotted the butterflies and fell in love with them so whenever I see them on other peoples projects or use one on my own it reminds me of Mum.

The process of making this card was really calming and although I can't give it to my Mum I think she would have liked it.

I am entering this card into the following challenges
http://thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/ - white on white ( I hope the touches of silver aren't too much)
http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.com/ - Anything goes
http://paperplaychallenges.blogspot.com - For a Mother
http://craftycatzweeklychallenge.blogspot.com - Something beginning with B - Butterfly and Blooms
http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.com/ - Anything goes
http://2sisterschallengeblog.blogspot.com/ Anything goes
http://divasbydesignchallenge.blogspot.com/ - Bling it up
http://crazychallenge.blogspot.com/ - use a die or punch

Inspiration OLL Design team

I have been a bit quiet on here of late - due to a faulty internet connection, which having reported and been passed back and forth from Orange to BT they finally managed to get fixed. The upside of this was it let me get ahead with some of the design team stuff, and at least I am back in time to post for the fortnightly challenge which starts today at Ooh La La creations challenge blog. We had a huge number of gorgeous entries for the 'Be My Valentine' Challenge congratulations if you were a winner. This week we are working with this photograph as inspiration.....

I just love the bold colours and interesting shapes of the flowers. I decided that the new 'Shoes in Bloom 2' CD had the perfect images and papers for this challenge and chose the Hellebores design. Not only do the colours work perfectly but Hellebores were my Mum's favourite flowers and I have a large patch of them in my garden which I am allowing to naturalise. So here is my card.

As you can see I have taken my colour scheme from the photograph - I decoupaged the shoe and then mounted it on orange card and bright pink miricard that I have had in my stash for ages and been unable to find a use for it. The frame was made by stamping around the edge of a piece of white card using Momento green ink and a lovely corner stamp that was free with a recent issue of  'Cardmaking and Papercraft' I coloured it in using promarkers and then I cut away the inside of the white card to form a frame. I used the card from the centre section to stamp and colour more flowers which I decoupaged at the corners and finished off by highlighting with glitter glue in neon pink and orange. The two butterflies are peel offs, which I stuck to white card and coloured with the promarkers before covering with a thin layer of glossy accents once this was dry I cut around the butterflies and stuck them to the sides of the frame. The tag was made from off cuts of the orange and Pink card and a pink ribbon and glittery peel off were added to make a sentiment. I added a organza ribbon bow to mirror the one in the photograph and two stick pins which I made using translucent orange beads.

Because the papers on the CD are so lovely I wanted to show those off too so this card has a bit of a twist - well it's actually a twisted easel card ......

I covered the base of the easel with a gorgeous basket weave design from the hellebores collection on the CD and made a stopper by embellishing a square of the orange and pink card with a single hellebore bloom from the decoupage sheet.

It is quite difficult to see the detail on the basket weave paper so here below is a close up it really is vibrant just like our inspiration photograph.

I hope you liek it and if it has inspired you then take a trip to the Ooh La La Creations Challenge blog and use the linky tool to enter your card in this weeks challenge.

I am also entering this card into the following challenges
http://craftycatzweeklychallenge.blogspot.com/ - favourite things - The Hellebores, and ribbon and beaded pins
http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.com - Anything goes
http://thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com - ribbons flowers and glitter

Valentine's Day OLL Design Team

Well as it is Monday it must be time for a new challenge over at Ooh La La Creations. Thanks to everyone who joined in the Seeing Double Challenge and congratulations to the winners. The Challenge this time is Valentine's Day.

My starting point for this card was the topper of the romantic couple from the Passion for Fashion  CD. I wanted to work with a red/black and grey colour palette to pick out the colours in the topper. I used the Femme Fatale CD for the backing paper and for the sentiment backgrounds. 

I used scraps of glitter paper in my stash and cut the flourishes using  Marianne creatables dies. The Key was liberated from a necklace I picked up in a high street fashion store. More scraps of glitter paper was used to cut the keyhole. I used one of the keyhole stamp from the urban stamp range by papermania and stamped the design on the rear of the red glitter card and cut it out before turning over to leave the glittered side showing and mounting it on black glitter card.

I printed the sentiments onto the backing paper using my computer and then cut these using the large label dies from x cut.

The flowers were cut from the black lace backing paper on the Femme Fatale CD and I cut individual flowers out and highlighted them using black ultra fine glitter and shaped then using a ball tool and an embossing pad.

It took me a while to juggle all the elements to come up with a composition I was happy with.

I am entering this card into the following challenges....

http://lilredwagon.blogspot.com - Valentines Day or Love 

http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.com - Love is in the Air

http://hookedoncraftchallenges.blogspot.com/ - Hearts 

http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.com/ - Have a heart

Love is in the air

I was really sad to read this week that  http://diecutdreams.blogspot.com will be closing after the current challenge is over. This is one of my favourite Challenge blogs and one of the first I had enough confidence to enter. The members of the design team have always been really encouraging with their feedback and I will miss the interesting challenges they came up with. The last challenge they will host is to use red and pink and hearts and here is my creation for the challenge.

It is a little outside my comfort zone in that I have used a stamped image that I have coloured with promarkers, I am still very much a beginner when it comes to colouring and getting the shading right but I do have fun trying. The image is one from the Sarah Kay collection and is called first Kiss which I thought was entirely appropriate for a Valentine's Card. 

The backing paper was free with the latest edition of Making Cards Magazine and I love the patchwork feel to it. I simply mounted this onto red card stock and attached it to a base card. 

Once I had coloured the image I used an x-cut label die to cut out the shape and mounted this onto red card and then used very fine scissors to trim it to leave a very narrow border.

The doily is one from a pack from my local craft shop and the heart motif is plastic and started life as cream which I coloured with a pro-marker and then coloured the word Love in black to make it stand out.

The flowers are a mixture of white roses and red poppies from Wild Orchid Crafts and red roses from the Papermania range, the little heart charm is recycled from some old jewellery and the bow was tied using a glitter girls bow maker and some ribbon from a recent prize I won from simply cards and paper craft.

I finished off the card by adding some adhesive pearls to the corner. 

I would like to wish all the team at http://diecutdreams.blogspot.com good luck in the future and I will really miss them.

I am also entering this card in the following challenges.

http://diecutdreams.blogspot.com - Red pink and hearts

http://ceschallenges.blogspot.com - Check it out - I hope the patchwork counts 

http://inkyimpressionschallenges.blogspot.com - Pearls or Bling 

http://lilredwagon.blogspot.com - Valentine's Day or Love

http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.com/ - Have a Heart

http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.com/ - Love is in the Air

http://thestampmanchallenges.blogspot.com - embellish it 

http://tuesdaythrowdown.blogspot.com - use hearts