Inspired by nature at Ooh La La

Good Morning, I hope you are enjoying the bank holiday. Well it's Monday and time for another challenge over at Ooh La La Creations. We had some fabulous entries last time for our 'Seeing Red' Challenge, as it was Wendy's challenge she gets to pick the winners and you can check out her choices on the challenge blog. After all the drama and vibrancy of red Pauline has chosen 'Inspired by Nature as this weeks theme.

Here is my card

I used the 'Yesterday's Memories' CD and decided to try something a little different. I viewed the CD in My Craft Studio and chose the sepia image of the Blue Tit but printed it at only 50% opacity. I then added colour using KArs peralised chalks to give a subtle effect to the image. The two backing papers are from teh same folder on the CD and I mounted a square of the first paper onto a square panel of Kraft card and trimmed to leave a narrow border and added faux stitching with a white gel pen. I mounted the second paper onto a strip of kraft card that I had punched using a Martha Stewart punch. I stuck this to the right of the square panel and wound a length of gold organza and satin ribbon around the whole thing before sticking it to a 6x6 card blank.

I then added the coloured image (which I has 'fixed' with cheap hairspray) at an angle. The wooden leaves were part of a prize I won in one of my previous challenges and I added the flowers which were  punched from the off cuts of the first paper and layered up and finished with a tiny tan coloured pearl in the centre. The single flower had two leaves added that were embossed using a Crafters Companion board out of scraps of kraft card. finally the computer generated sentiment was mounted onto kraft card and trimmed to leave a narrow border and a tan pearl added in the corner. To keep with the natural feel of the card I added three wooden buttons from my stash to the top right.

I lined the inside of the card with the same paper as used on the decorative strip on the front and added a panel of kraft card for the sentiment with a leafy flourish at one side to finish.

I am entering the card into teh following challenges 

http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - Happy Birthday 

http://ppp-makeitmonday.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything Goes 

http://crazychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - use sentiments 

Going Green for Dad

I have recently been asked to make a number of Fathers Day cards for a friend at work and here is one of the designs I came up with.

I actually started from the wording on the sentiment, which I found on sheet of rub off sentiments which I have had in my stash for so long I forgot about them until a recent tidy up. This sort of set the theme as being seaside and sailing. I used the image of a lovely light house from Ooh La La Creations Boys to Men CD and I printed it off several times so that I could cut and layer the foreground up to add dimension. I also coated the areas of water with glossy accents to give a shine to the image. 

For the background I used a tag from the Boys to Men CD and resized it in My Craft Studio to give an 8x8 cloud background. I also printed a smaller version of the tag and added the sentiment to this. Once I stuck this onto dark blue card I matted and layered fine sand paper over the bottom half to make a beach

The waves were seagulls and an anchor were cut from scraps of card using x-cut build a scene dies.

The sailing ship was stamped using one of the new stamps from Papermania in the Ahoy There range. I fussy cut it and coloured it with promarkers and added black lines with a fine liner to give teh appearance of wood grain. The sails were actually stamped onto scraps of printable canvas from another project, and the sail was coloured green.

The 'fishing net' is a scrap of a net bag that once held cooking tomatoes ( I have a thing about recycling these net bags from fruit and veg as any regular readers will know and now even have my dad saving them for me) I stamped the star fish using a Kars stamp and coloured these with promarkers and added glossy accents. The 'drift wood sign' was printed onto a lovely white wood grain paper from the latest CD from Ooh La La - faithful friends and the the sign was stamped round it using another of the Ahoy There stamps from Papermania and was then fussy cut.

The finishing touches were the anchor which was threaded with bakers twine and three tiny sea shells that a friend's mum gave me because she thought they may come in useful for my card making.

I finished the card off by resizing the light house image from the front to 8x8 and then reducing the opacity of the image before printing. One side had a oval added using the digital punch function on My Craft Studio and a sentiment added. the final element was a light house cut from a design on the Ooh La La Creations CD Everyday Ocassions, which was placed at the edge of the oval to replace the original light house on the image which was partially obscured by the oval.

I am entering this card into the following challenges 

http://challenges4everybody.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything goes 

http://papertakeweekly.blogspot.co.uk/ - If the paper fits ( sails of the ship paper pieced using printable canvas)

http://perfectsentimentschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything Goes 

http://cdsundaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - Go Green (green used in the sail of the ship but the net is not only green in colour but also because it has been recycled)

http://tuesdaythrowdown.blogspot.co.uk/ - Sail away 

Seeing Red at Ooh La La Creations

Hello it's time for a new challenge over at Ooh La La Creations this week. Once again thank you for all the gorgeous entries in the vintage/nostalgia challenge always a popular challenge and I love this style so it was great fun looking at the cards and commenting. Well done to the winners who can be found on the Ooh La La Creations Challenge Blog.

The theme for the challenge this time was chosen by Wendy and is seeing red- use red in the design.
There was no doubt in my mind which CD I would be using for this challenge as I love Poppies and they fitted the brief perfectly so here is my creation.

I used the Shoes in Bloom CD which is available from the Ooh La La Creations shop. I wanted the poppies on a plain white background but the decoupage sheet has them on a green background, not to be deterred I used My Craft Studio to crop the image of the poppies from the bottom of the bookmark and resized it and printed it onto decoupage paper three times. I used a plain oval die and having fussy cut the bud at the top of the image left this outside the die whilst cutting the oval. I then selected the bits I wanted to add dimension to from the other images and cut them out, and shaped them using a ball tool and an embossing mat. 

The white wood grain paper and the black spotty paper are from the new Faithful Friends CD and I added some strips of red polka dot Washi tape and black and white and red and white gingham ribbon. I made the poppy in the bottom right hand corner using flowers cut from plain copier paper using the tattered flowers die from Tim Holtz and colouring two medium flowers with alcohol markers in bright red and a small flower coloured in black, I then added a small punched flower in red and finished with a tiny stamen coloured black. I also added the punched butterfly some gems at the top and three polka dot buttons from the range at Ooh La La Creations.

The spotty theme continued inside the card and I made a pocket from the white wood grain paper to hold the book mark. I decorated this with more washi tape, butterflies and a doily with the image from the top corner of the book mark in the centre.

I added a panel of the white wood grain paper to the right hand panel and wrapped this with more of the gingham ribbon before adding the word friend in letters die cut from red card and some gems. I then matted a piece of white card onto black then red card trimming to leave narrow borders and fixed this in the centre of the right hand panel for a message.

I am entering this card into the following challenges
http://cdsundaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - ornate blooms
http://cupcakecraftchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - lots of layers
http://ppp-makeitmonday.blogspot.co.uk/ - anything goes
http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - die cuts/ punches

Something Old, Something New

Something Borrowed, Something Blue...or so the saying goes. I used this as the basis for my design for this weeks challenge at CD Sunday, where love is most definitely in the air with the challenge being weddings.

I used Crafty Catz a touch of Steampunk CD - I wanted to something a bit different so decided to mix Steampunk with Shabby Chic ( something New well it is for me anyway). As well as the strong male themed colours this particular CD also has a lovely pastel colour pallet so not only did I use the image from the CD but also the backing papers.

My something old is the rusty metal heart in the bottom left hand corner not only is it old but it is something that I have had in my stash for years and I had forgotten all about it until I was having a sort out this week.

The something borrowed are the flowers which were made for another project entirely but they seemed to go so well that I had to make some more for the other project. - They are from the flower sheet on the Debbi Moore Deco Rome CD.

Something Blue - well the backing paper has a really pale blue tinge to it, and just to make sure the text is in blue and two of the flowers are blue.

Inside I used more of the backing papers and some die cut hearts,

I am entering this into the following challenges.

http://2sisterschallengeblog.blogspot.co.uk/ - Bingo I chose punches/die cuts, sentiment and flowers

http://challenges4everybody.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything Goes

http://craftyourpassionchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/- Floral delights

http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - Flower Power 

http://papertakeweekly.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything Goes 

http://cdsundaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - Weddings

http://twistedtuesdaychallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ _ Free for All 

Lilac, Perfume and pearls.

When I saw this weeks challenge at CD Sunday had been set by Wendy (Purple Crazy) It came as no surprise that the challenge was to use purple in the design. I was lucky enough to win a challenge at CD Sunday recently, and my prize arrived on Saturday morning. Thanks to Carol over there I am now the proud owner of some of Debbi Moore's gorgeous Shabby chic CD's. I managed to have brief browse on Saturday evening and so when I saw the challenge I knew exactly which CD I could go for. I have used the Debbi Moore Shabby Chic Paris CD, for the backing papers and alphabets on the card below.

I printed off the lilac striped backing paper and mounted this onto dark purple card and added a faux stitched border using a white gel pen. I also printed off two different backing papers featuring the roses over text and also over musical scores, a sheet of the decoupage roses and the alphabet. 

The other papers were matted onto pieces of pale lilac card stock from my scrap box as were the letters and there was enough of the lilac card fro me to punch a fancy border for the alphabets to be stuck to. The topper was a freebie with a magazine but had a lovely feminine feel to it and the butterflies are reflected in the die cut butterfly I added, which was just sitting on my craft table as a left over from another project. I added two types of Organza ribbon one a lovely wide lilac check, I bought this last summer and have never used it and the polka dot ribbon has been in my stash for nearly two years. Behind the topper I added some purple net that was recycled from a bag that held fruit - I love recycling these fruit nets and have been known on a couple of occasions to but fruit because of the colour of the net - I hasten to add that so far I haven't ever bought a fruit I don't actually eat just t get a  pretty colour net though and all the fruit I buy does get eaten by myself or hubby so does contribute to a healthy lifestyle. 

I used the remainder of the text and music papers to line the inside of the card. I lost my mum a few years ago but colleagues at work often ask me to make a card fro them to give to their mum's so next time someone asks all I need do is add a suitable verse to the inside and they have their card.

I am entering this into the following challenges.

http://celebratetheoccasion.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything Goes
http://craftyourpassionchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - Well Read text and music scores on the backing paper
http://joannasheenchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/recycle.html - Recycle the purple netting and Lilac Card
http://perfectsentimentschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/- Make it feminine
http://cdsundaychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - Purple Paradise
http://twistedtuesdaychallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - Free for All
http://useittuesday.blogspot.co.uk/ - For Mom