Happy Birthday Mr Moo!

It's my Husband's birthday this week and as he's a guitar nut (he has 7 and is making No.8 himself!) I just had to use the gorgeous Billy RockStar digi from Pink Cat Studio.

I've followed Sketch 72 from Sweet Sketch Wednesday and used the colours Red, Brown and Cream as set by For Fun Challenges.

I'm also entering Emma's challenge over at the CES Challenge Blog, which is to create a male birthday card.



Here's my card...

I used ProMarkers to colour in Billy and to add the dots & dashes borders. The 'rockstar' letters and background paper behind Billy were freebies from Shabby Princess. The stamped greeting, metal tag and cardstock were all from Stampin' Up!

Childhood memories

For weeks now I've been wanting to make a card for the InStyle Stamps Blog Inspiration Challenge this month. They've set the challenge to be Inspired by Books - a favourite childhood book to be precise.

I chose 'The Quangle Wangle's Hat' - a nonsense poem by Edward Lear about a strange creature who lived in a tree and wore a huge hat. The hat was so beautiful it attracted weird and wonderful animals from miles around to come and make their home in it. It is a timeless poem, written around 1877, which succeeded in delighting my Sister and I during the 1970's and beyond. In fact, what child could fail to be delighted by such creatures as 'The Pobble, who has no toes' and 'the Dong with the luminous nose'.

I created the verse using MS Word and printed it onto patterned paper. Using my border punch I created a deckle edge to three sides. The Quangle Wangle himself was hand drawn, based on a copyright free image I found online. I coloured him using promarkers and then decorated his hat and the card border using buttons, ribbons and brads.

I would also like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Sweet Stampin Challenge #48 - Ribbons
Allsorts Challenge Week 74 - Let's Play Bingo (Brads, Buttons, Punch)

Welcome Baby Ethan

My friend Jo gave birth to a beautiful baby boy last week, who they've named Ethan. He's so cute and his big Sister Ruby seems to be very happy to play Mummy :)

I wanted to make a card to welcome him into the world and this week's colours at The Play Date Cafe were perfect to work with.

I knew I wanted to use a particular digistamp that I bought from DigiStampBoutique and I wanted to use an oval frame, so the sketch challenge #124 over at Friday Sketchers was ideal.

I chose to rotate the sketch to fit the orientation of my digistamp and stamped a cute tag using one of the 'Little Bit of Everything' stamps from Stampin'Up! I added a bow to the tag using ribbon that came on the packaging of a pair of pyjamas - always remember to reuse and recycle folks ;)

Instead of using patterned papers for the rectangles I decided to try something new and cut out the panels as windows onto the beige card underneath. I paper pieced the babygro, bunny and socks. Paper piecing is fast becoming my favourite technique!

Here's my card...

Here comes Incy Wincy

I'm so excited about showing off this card because it contains so many new techniques for me. I was originally inspired by a sketch on CPS (which I then went and missed the deadline for - d'oh!) and by the For Fun Challenge - Googlie booglie, which is to use googly eyes on a card.

This card features an Incy Wincy Spider, that I made using a scallop punch. I made a spiral spring from card to help him 'bounce' around his web.  He's just spun a sentiment of 'Hang In There' which I stamped in white onto black card (Your Next Stamp - Nicely Negative Challenge). The spider webs were created using a Fiskars texture plate. I then lightly rubbed an inkpad over the raised embossed image.

I chose Incy as it tied in with Halloween (Stampin for the weekend - Challenge 49), the 'What's Buggin You?' challenge at Cute Card Thursday , 'Something Spooky' challenge for Polka Doodles Week 41and the Nursery Rhyme challenge over at Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge #54.

I've never made a card using more than one fold before but when I saw that both Charisma Cardz #41 and the Crafty Cardmakers spotlight challenges were for fancy folded cards I thought I should rise to the challenge.

I added a cute ghost, using the free digistamp from Some Odd Girl, to the reverse. I applied black ink lightly using a dry baby wipe in a circular motion to give him a wispy look.

I added a 'Happy Halloween' and a 'Keep Out!' warning, then secured the card shut using a card latch and button. The final touch was the white edging, added using my Signo Opaque white gel pen.

I'd also like to enter this card in the Papercutz Challenge #63 as it's an 'Anything Goes' week.

Do-nut ya just love this digi?

I recently bought a few digis from Tiddly Inks and was dying to use them. I soon got a chance to use this 'sweet' image as Fab 'n' Funky Challenges chose the theme of yummy yummy yummy for their #44 challenge.








I teamed this theme with the equally yummy colours in this week's Color Throwdown #114...

...and the Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #31 which is to 'Step away from the square' and make a non-square card...

...and came up with this design!

 

It's a round card with a normal rectangle card attached to the back so it stands up properly.

I used paper piecing for the do-nut, chocolate topping, trousers and boots. Lilly Bean's skin, hair and top were coloured using promarkers.

To add more interest to the card I decided to try out the Fiskars texture plates I bought recently. You're supposed to use a special texture tool with the plates but as I don't have one yet I just used my embossing stylus. Unfortunately this was really time consuming so I'm definitely buying the tool soon! I love the effect though so it was all worthwhile.

Mmmmm blog candy!

I'm entering the blog candy giveaway over at  The DigiStamp Boutique. They're giving away a £10 voucher to spend on their super cute digis and also a £30 voucher for Crafty Emma's Store.

Thanks guys, I hope I win!

I won!!!!

I've won my first challenge!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited and can't wait to choose my prize, 5 digistamps from the fabulous Pink Cat Studio. I'm so pleased that it was my fairy sparkle card that won because it's a card I'm really proud of.

Just wanted to share my good news :)