About Me

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Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
I have been crafting since May 2008, when in desperation to find an unusual birthday card for my Mum, I gave up looking in the shops and decided to have a go at making my own. I soon realised that crafting is addictive and I haven't brought a card since. In 2011 I completed my certificate in papercrafting as a result of the work I did as part of the course I started entering challenges on line and in magazines. I applied for design teams and also started making samples for Ooh La La Creations for their shows on Create and Craft. I have now completed my Diploma in professional crafting and most recently been runner up in the Papercrafter of the Year 2013 a competition run by Papercraft essentials magazine, I don't have a particular style I like to use elements from lots of styles and techniques, although I do love all things vintage. In 2014 I started to move more towards scrapbooking to take care of the huge family archive of photographs that were stored in my attic. I have continued cardmaking and Scrapbooking through 2015 and 2016 but have also become interested in off the page projects. I hope to be able focus on these in the future.

Friday, 15 March 2013

Floral Fantasies Competition

In one of the comments on my recent designs Brenda told me she was running a competition on her blog to celebrate her 4th blog birthday and soon to be 4000 followers.

I popped over to take a look and to enter I became a follower, left a comment and designed a card, and added a link on my side bar to the competition.

The brief was to design a card that was inspired by Brenda's blog. It could be anything from the blog or even a cased card from one of Brenda's designs. So here is my effort


As soon as I saw her blog the obvious things was poppies - as you can see in the link. So after a quick search  I found this beautiful digi stamp at http://www.mcmahonfivedesign.com designed and drawn by Sue McMahon. I coloured it using Spectrum Noir alcohol markers.

Now I could have just left it there but I decided to delve a bit deeper into Brenda's blog to search for more inspiration. Discovering she was on several Design Teams including the one for Pretty Little Ribbons decided me on the addition of the gingham ribbon.

I noticed that Brenda also uses the Marianne frame dies in her crafting I wanted to reflect this but rather than use the same frame die I cut 3 slats using one of the new release fan dies from Marianne. 

A number of Brenda's cards have a lovely vintage feel to them so I found the lovely Polka dot papers at Jeka  heath designs and printed them using draft quality print tone the colour down and give them a more vintage feel. I aged them further by roughing the edges and using Ranger Distress ink around the edges.

In the published work section of her blog Brenda talks about the massive thrill she got when she discovered her designs were sharing a double page spread with the master himself none other than Tim Holtz. I could totally relate to her excitement as I am a huge fan of Tims work - my husband even refers to him as my other man. So to add a little Tim to the design I used Kraft card as the base and added the hope dream and wish tags from his ideology range.

I then went back to the header image on the blog and added more poppies from Wild Orchid crafts and three tiny punched poppies that I cut from some off cuts of red paper. I also added a die cut butterfly cut from black card using a crafty individuals die. I glittered the butterfly's body and the centres of the poppies on the digi stamp using black stickles just to give a subtle touch of sparkle.



Inside the card was decorated using images from the Ooh La La CD 'Carnival of Colour' and I added another strip of ribbon for good measure, to decorate the pocket for the bookmark. 


The final touch was the blank panel for the greeting and three tiny punched poppies and a butterfly.

All that remains for me to say is Happy Blog Birthday Brenda and here's to reaching your 4000th follower very soon only another 118 to go at the time of writing.

I am entering this card into the following challenge

http://stamping-fantasies.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/a-special-celebration-with-prizes.html





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1 comment:

  1. brenda15 March 2013 at 17:48

    I can tell from reading your post Alli (hope I've got the name right) that you really have put so much thought into your lovely creation.

    Your card incorporates so many of the things I love most in my crafting right down to the thoughtful addition of the ribbon and I am always in awe of people that take that extra time to decorate the inside of their cards. It's something I always promise myself to do, but never quite get there.

    I shall tell my husband about the extra man in our lives, I had never thought about it like that and he always just calls him the inky fellow, how cruel is that.

    Thank you so very much for the time you have taken to create your card, your kind words and joining in my blog celebration, all of which is very much appreciated.

    B x

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