Adore You

 That song keeps playing through my head 'My Eyes Adore You' Frankie Valli. Elysha's Top Most Favourite Movie of all time. She watches it every day and when we drive down to visit mum & dad or Jessie & Keegan or actually anywhere that the drive will take more than 20 minutes she brings the CD to the car and sits there waiting for me to say 'ok' then we play it extremely loud and sing along with our tone deaf voices and Elysha tells me I sing wonful (wonderful) and I tell her the same cause thats what you do to make people happy. Lucky we got copies of the words so we can sing along without too many mistakes.

Okay thats todays trivia. Feeling a bit better, as you should be able to see with the straighter photos. Headache is constant but its not a migraine so easier to ignore.

I decided to make this creation for the Paper Smooches April Challenge, using their flower

die (love it) and sentiments (love them) and this brilliant kraft, gold foiled cardstock. From a local shop a pad of all these amazing foil covered papers that I have been dying to use.

Once complete and I take photos and edit, add to my blog then I re read the notes I had taken on the challenge. I used the wrong image/sentiment. Rainbow colours was an option but the Challenge was

for Showers - Baby/Wedding. Looks like I need to think of a different Challenge, bugger. Thought I was so clever.

I have die cut this flower twice, once from white card stock and once from a piece of Acetate that I have added lots of Alcohol Ink colours too. I added that wonderful double sided tape I told you before to the Acetate and it works perfectly. Sticks the pieces in and doesn't show up behind the Acetate.

The colours are so translucent that you can see the gold foil behind the flower.

To finish it off I have die cut the sentiment three times, layered then glued in place and a few

clear gems and its done.

In reference to the Acetate sheet I tend to do those as  A4 (Letter size) and have 2 or 3 and just leave on the dinning table for a day or two (with Protector sheet under them). 

Each time I walk past I drip, splot, drop and  air can blow or straw blow or add squirts of Blender solution to move it around a bit and reactivate an area. My usual is two sheets of multi colours with gold and one of blues & purples with silver. That way I end up with lots to play with later. Every little bit is used.

This makes for great backgrounds. One thing I did find was that I needed to run the die cut flower twice through with the acetate to get a clean cut.

These photos don't show it up as wonderful as I reckon it is IRL but not too bad.

Challenges:

HLS April Anything Goes With Dies

613 Avenue Create Challenge #196 Anything Goes

Optional Twist - anything Spring

I think my card meets the twist.

Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Must Use Snippets

The Acetate used was a snippet and I had to cheat

and use some extra small recut snippets for pieces

that jumped off the table and hid and needed to be

replaced :) The sentiment was also cut from white

card stock snippets.

Addicted to CAS Challenge #109 Rainbow

Im not sure on this one, is the background too busy

to be considered CAS - anyway let me know if not

andI can remove.

Thanks so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.

I want to be you when I grow up!!

 Only one card today. I have been off for a bit as I have been under the weather.

Now boredom is setting in. I have done lot of colouring but not made any cards

as I found trying to make cards and coughing don't go together too well.

Bit like my photography here.

I had an instant inspiration when I saw the CASology Challenge Week 245 GROW

I have a stamp set, yes another NBUS with the perfect images and sentiment

for my interpretation.  Now just ignore the crookedness of the photo please.

The stamps and sentiment are from a Paper Smooches set. I decided the little bird needed

to be standing on his buddies head so the big bird could see him. The big bird already had

funny eyes. One bigger than the other.

BUT I found these googly eyes in the dollar shop and couldn't resist them. No plain

black and white eyes for me. I got the ones with eyelids (notice how they match

my bird as well) in colour and eyelashes. 

PS The sentiment is straight, its the photography thats wonky.

I coloured the birds with Copics and the big bird is with my new favourite flower

colour combination. You will have to wait to see the flowers on a card later

as the has just about finished me off. 

I didn't want to miss the CASology challenge as it closes tonight for me.

Finished off the card with the gem heart just to stress how much that little bird

loves and admires big bird.

My son thought it was hilarious with these eyes so I hope you enjoy it too. I hope you have enjoyed your visit and come and visit again soon. 

Card making will be up and running again from tomorrow I hope. Take care.

The Flower Challenge #7 Sketch 1 Reminder

Its time to remind everyone that The Flower Challenge #7

has reached its half way point and that if you want to enter and are struggling

with ideas the brilliant Design Team has come up with even more examples

to share with you.

My card I cut a stitched rectangle of copic card stock then stamped these sweet

little flowers from the Altenew stamp set randomly on the piece then

coloured lightly with Copics.

I coloured some of the bigger flowers with the same colours but added a wee bit

of bright pink RV04 to the centre near the yellows and feel that worked really well.

I added Glossy Accents to the flower centre and fussy cut the flowers and leaves.

I finished the card off with this Penny Black 'thanks' die cut

in gold cardstock. You can see the 'thanks' better IRL  and I am

happy with how it looks there. I did move it around a bit but found 

I just didnt like it anywhere else.

Now its time to go check out the Design Teams creation and

remember once there you can go to any of the teams blogs to read

about how they made their cards and what the stamps and dies are.

I look forward to seeing all your wonderful creations at 'The Flower Challenge'

 

Thank you so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.

You Are So Tweet

there're so many Challenges going on at the moment I think where everyone is

hoping that Spring is knocking at your door. For us Autumn is here and

the indicators are that the days are getting shorter and the nights cooler. There is

still plenty of heat and birds are all around my house singing so I am pretending

Spring is Sprung.

My inspiration for this card is the  Muse Card Challenge #210

This wonderful card by Anita is such a delight and as I looked at

it I could see what I wanted to do instantly. 

I loved the heart embossed background and have a heart background folder but its

smaller so I fiddled around until I got the background I wanted.

I stamped these cute images from Taylored  Expressions on Linen card stock

then coloured very lightly with Copics going for soft pastels. First time I have used

these stamps, so bad. I am working on it, everyday hopefully you will see

this being used again soon.

A little bit of masking so I could add three birds and splashes as its only one bird

that splashes. The other two birds are 'love birds' and I didnt use them. I added a

wee bit of Wink of Stella to the water drops and the water in the birdbath.

This set comes with a die for the bird bath and the bird. You know what I love

about Taylored Expressions stamps. The picture you can see here is a hard plastic

and the stamps can stay on the back for storage. The only thing Im not so

keen on is that they are rubber (I know a lot of people prefer this) but its harder to

line up things and make sure they are straight. But thats what the Misti is for.

So here it is all finished. My inspiration was the heart embossed background,  The separate

layer with the birds and birdbath, the soft colours. 

Love this little spike thingy, I think its for flowers but I have seen people use them

before to hold cards up. Works well but have to watch you don't wreck the card as your trying

to wedge it.

Muse Card Challenge #210

Don't go into shock people a full 4hrs and 50 mins before

the doors lock.

Darnell's NBUS Challenge #11 &  Annual April Fools BooBoo Blogshop

Wahoooo I've managed to snack one more card in. Stamps not

used before but again no Boo Boo. Will work on that for next year 

Darnell.

Stamplorations  Things With Wings Spring Blog Hop

This is my first card for this challenge. Not Stamplorations

products this time.

Thats it, thanks so much for coming to have a look and I will see you again soon. I hope.

Two Cards to Say Hi and photos galore

If you are here to look at my cards for today and don't want to read the trivia scroll on down.

Where have I been in the last week. Finishing off cards. I wonder how many people do the same

as me or are you all totally organised and each card gets totally finished each go. I make

and make, I colour and colour, I look for challenges and take lots of photos but then I put the

cards aside to finish off later.

That means adding the inside layer for people to write on, find the right envelope and a cello sleeve

to put the card in to keep it clean and undamaged.

They then go in this box that I made like 20 years ago and it just sat on the sideboard in my

room looking pretty but empty.

As you can see I have managed to not only fill it but also a large shoe box which since this

photo has been filled to capacity also. I am amazed how many are there as I constantly give

away bags of cards as gifts and also sell my cards through my hairdresser.

Since  stopping work to help with mum and dad deal with their Alzehimers, the Retirement Village then the Nursing Home I obviously have too much time to craft......nah never. It keeps me balanced

and calm through the heartache and changes. 

I also discovered this week why people purchase Envelope Makers. I have a terrible habit of making my cards and never measuring for them to fit particular envelope sizes. I just make the card then when envelope time comes I cant fit them. I have become fussy enough now that close enough is not good enough. So I bought my first envelope maker........what a beauty, I made like 100 odd sized envelopes to fit my odd sized cards. I am happy.

I then sat and wrote out a pile of cards for my friends overseas. If I mentioned parakeets to you. I got it wrong, its rainbow Lorikeets.

See this sweet bird, well we wake to approx 30 of them each morning in the trees in our front yard.

Apparently they sound lovely (a noise I cant hear but apparently wakes my husband each morning) We have four trees that are huge and get these cherries/berries in Autumn and fluffy white

flowers in Spring and these birds love them. They natter and eat and drops bits all day. At night

the bats come in and they eat and pooh purple and Aaron has a hissy fit every morning because he has to wash the purple pooh off his bright yellow car before it wrecks the sheen.

If you have stuck with me so far now come the cards. I bought myself some Polychrome pencils to try out as so many people rave about them. I coloured in today. One panel with Copics the other with Polychromes. Can you pick which is which??

Loved colouring but it was a killer on my hands. Copic colouring is so quick now and took me less than 1/2 hour. Pencil was layers and I think I may have been gripping the pencils too tight, I need to learn to relax. Love the colours and vibrancy but it took me a couple of hours till I was happy. But very happy for my first time with these pencils.

This is the copic panel.

The pencil panel .

 I loved how I could mix different coloured pencils and

blend with baby oil to get a nice mix i.e. the coffee cups and mugs.

First card

First I have die cut the Copic coloured panel with the 'hi' die from Winnie & Walter

then used the negative from the die cut panel for this card.

I then cut two layers with pink fun foam and one layer of gold then

glued them back in place;

I wasn't sure if it was too much but my judges (Aaron & Racheal) gave

the nod of approval for double foam and gold layer It didn't need anything

else.

This card I die cut 'hi' from linen cardstock then added the cut out

floral 'hi' and inset it so the card is one layer.

I forgot to mention this wonderful panel was given as a free download from Stamplorations

during the Spring Coffee Blog Hop as an image to use for the blog hop if you wanted.

 I printed it up but ran out of time to colour it. I assume its still okay to use it as 

long as I tell you where I got it and here's the link. Stamplorations - 

Shery Russ is so so generous and talented.

I love how this looks and have seen so many people use the large die cuts this ways and cant

believe I took so long to do so myself.

Thanks for coming to visit and I hope you enjoyed the long story as well as the cards.

Challenges:

Stamplorations Anything Goes Never-ending Challenge

Will enter the first card with gold 'hi'

4 Crafty Chicks #345 Flowers

The first card with the gold Hi and all those

flowers fit this challenge perfectly.

Inkspirational Challenge #132 ' Spring'

The first card with the gold Hi and

all those flowers just makes me think Spring.

HLS April CAS Challenge: Blending

Second card with the inset die cut. Blending of Copics

I hope this is right for the Blending Challenge if

not let me know and I will remove.

Addicted to Stamps and More #236 Anything Goes

Second card, inset die cut.

Darnell's NBUS #11 and  2nd Annual BooBoo Challenge

No BooBoo cause I forgot to take a photo of my mistakes and either

binned them or remade them. But something new - image and die cut.

The Flower Challenge #7 A Sketch

Well its a brand new month and so its time for a wonderful new Challenge at

The Flower Challenge and Vivien has come up with a wonderful

Sketch.

Now remember a sketch is for inspiration and can be done either the way it is shown here or turned on its side, or flipped. The circle is for guidance only and you can put any shape you want there as long  as the  basics of the sketch can be seen on your card. But remember that flowers must be included and they must be the main feature of your card. A sentiment is optional and can be placed anywhere.

For my card I made a watercoloured panel with a couple of different purples from Tim Holtz distress inks and added a little silver from my Silks colours for shimmer. I then die cut with a rectangular stitched die.

I stamped and white embossed the flowers from Happy Little Stampers Flower set and

watercoloured with zigs. I then fussy cut all.

I attached the watercoloured panel then the flowers  added the silver sparkle

paper die cut 'celebrate'

Now it's time to go over to The Flower Challenge and see what the Design Team have done to inspire you. Each card will have a link to their blog with more details on their particular cards.

I hope you will join us this month with a card or two of your own. Thank you

so much for coming to visit and I hope you come again soon.