Another Christmas Card!

Here's another Christmas Card using my handmade backgrounds.  This one is using another Gelli Print from my print session the other day which was using the Triangle Plaid Stencil from TCW and stamps from the Unity Tags Glorious Tags Stamp Set along with some left over Vintage Santa Collage Images (I think they were from Crafty Individuals) I have from previous years.

I am loving the versatility and variety in this new Stamp Set from Unity, it is filled with wonderful seasonal and patterned backgrounds and great sentiments such as the baubles, spots and sentiment I've used on this card.

I paper pieced my baubles using another one of my Gelli Prints and added a touch of red Kindy Glitz to them and some clear rhinestones to center of the smaller ones.  Some lines and dashes with a white Gel Pen just give this all a bit more life.

Sketchabilities #96

Happy Monday Everyone!  Over the past few days I have been playing around with a scrapbook page for the latest challenge over at Sketchabilities.  I don't think I have played along with a scrap sketch challenge for about two years so it is kind of nice to have some starting inspiration and to break out the colors and supplies just for fun.

Since my childhood I have always loved chasing rainbows and I think it is symbolic of what life is all about too - you never know what is possible to achieve unless you try.

This year has definitely been a year for rainbows, probably because we have had frequent rain, and these photos were one of the first double rainbows I have seen and one of the brightest.   We chased this one on our way to pick up Alex from his tutor for about 30 kilometers, all the while hoping the end (and perhaps that pot of gold) was just around the next bend.

The papers are from the Uncharted Waters Paper Collection from Giltz 

whilst all my stamping is using various stamps from my Unity KOTM Collections.

  My colored background is a mix of my Flat Fabio Mists from Lindy's Stamp Gang and my Gelatos.

It is one of only a few where I have seen the full arch and both ends touching the ground in the surrounding countryside.   Here are two photos from where our journey started showing the full arch.

So put yourself out there I say, embrace possibility and go chase yourself a rainbow!

Mixed Media - Fusion - Play

Hi Everyone, Happy Saturday!  In the wee cold hours of this morning I woke in pain following a Bowen Treatment yesterday, so I sneaked into my craft room not to wake anyone and decided to just have a play with whatever happened to be on or near my desk.

I had the latest Fusion Card Challenge in mind and given I was planning on playing with some of my Unity KOTM Stamps decided I would link up also with their Friday Friends With Flair.

Starting with a piece of white cardstock I misted this with my Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio's Spray - Carribean Blue and then taking my Gelato's put some stripes across the lower section in colors to tie in with the inspiration photo and sketch of the Fusion Challenge.  Using a Wet Paint Brush I water-washed over my stripes.

I stamped and paper pieced the hot air balloons, whilst my cloud was stamped on white and cut out and my sentiment was stamped directly on to the background and then colored in with an Inktense Watercolor Pencil.    All of these stamps are from the Unity May 2012 KOTM.

I then rounded the corners with a punch and defined my Gelato stripes with some faux stitching like doodles.

Playing with the bright colors certainly warmed me a little too and the beautiful sunshine we experienced here today certainly would have been perfect for anyone brave enough to take a ride in a hot air balloon.

It is on my list of things to one day do. How about you?

31 Day Card Challenge - Days 4 - 8

Hi Everyone!  Because of everything going on both here on my blog and elsewhere over the weekend I didn't post my cards for days 4 - 7  so as promised I am back now to share with you the cards I have made over the past few days playing along with the 31 Day Card Challenge.

Day 5 - Color Aqua

I only had one piece of Aqua paper in my stash so this is what I came up with playing along also with the latest Sketch Challenge at Sketches by Carly.

The Butterflies Stamp is from the Dream Big Itty Bitty Stamp by Unity.  I have stamped in Tempting Turquoise Ink and used a similar color in my Gelato Pens to ink/smooch around the edges.

Day 6 - Technique - Paper Piecing

For this Card I am also playing along with the latest Color Combination Challenge of Tangerine Tango and Old Olive from Dynamic Duos and the Sketchbook Saturday Sketch.

For this card I am using up some of my old Stampin' Up! Papers in the two required colors.  The Pear Stamp and Sentiment are both from one of my Unity Stamp Company KOTM's.  A polka dot flower and some gem stones to finish.

Day 7 - Technique - Embossing

For this Card I started with Sketch #69 from the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge and decided to have a bit more of a play with my new Gelatos.

I clear embossed my butterfly and colored over it with a selection of Gelatos.  These same Gelatos were then used to create the dry embossed watercolor look background which my cut out butterfly was mounted to.  I mounted this on my card following the sketch and adding some rhinestones and dew drops to finish.

I am also entering this card into the Stamp Man October Butterflies, Birds and Bees Challenge.

Day 8 - Technique - Spotlight

This is one technique I haven't tried before, I have seen it around, so it was fun to try this one.  I have used one of the ladies from the Darkroom Door Stamp Set Just My Style and colored the spotlight in with my Tria Markers.  I have used an Echo Park Paper and SU Cardstock and Ribbon.

I will be back tomorrow with Day 9 and 10's Cards, until then happy stamping!

Magical Monday - One for the Boys

A big warm hello and thank you to all my wonderful blogging friends for all the lovely comments you have left for me these past few weeks!  I really appreciate them and I also love visiting your blogs and seeing what you have all been up to.  Sadly that's about all that is bright and warm here today.  Its another wet and cold day here!  The rain has eased a little but has been replaced by a strong and very cold wind.

Its a great day to be rugged up indoors, creating with a hot chocolate and the radio on.  So that is what I have planned for this morning, however I do have to brave it and go out a bit later.

For our Magical Monday's Challenge this fortnight Nina has a wonderful freebie for you to use if you want to play along with our Male Inspired Challenge which was chosen by Ildiko this week.  Its the same image all the DT have used for their cards today.

It's called 'Mustache Cupcake' and you can download it by following the links from the TIMITA Challenge Blog.

Red, White and Black seem to be my go to colors this past week, perhaps because I have been creating male themed cards but then again I love this color combo.  For my card today I have used some of the Bo Bunny 6 x 6 Enchanted Collection Papers.  I have paper pieced my cupcake as well as using another paper from this collection for my background.  I added some red ribbon and backed my sentiment with a pop of red to match the glossy cherry on top of the cupcake which I have colored with my Red Tria Marker and coated with Glossy Accents.  I also used a couple of funky brads to match my background for the center of the bow.

I know you are just going to love all the other wonderful mustache cupcake creations from the DT this week, as much as I do, so be sure to pop over the TIMITA blog and see them for yourself.  Whilst there you can  get all the challenge details too!  I do hope you will play along and I can't wait to see what you create! 

Up, Up and Away - Sending Wishes Your Way

Three of the cutest hot air balloon stamps arrived earlier this week as part of the Unity May KOTM.  I just had to play with them, I have been doing lots of digi stuff for DT Projects of late so getting inky fingers and paper piecing was just on the cards today.

We have had cyclonic conditions up the entire East Coast this week, and snow was falling in the ranges just west of here.  It's rare for this to happen but when it does it means its freezing here!  So being rugged up, indoors out of the wind was called for as was some bright summery colors to warm my heart if nothing else.

My starting inspiration was the Card Sketch #20 at Frosted Designs.  I have twisted and expanded this a little.  My cardstock So Saffron and Pacific Point are from Stampin' Up, whilst my Papers are from the Echo Park Summer Days Collection.  As previously mentioned the hot air balloons are from the Unity May KOTM, as is the sentiment and the cute clouds.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-

Frosted Designs - Card Sketch #20
Quirky Crafts - #12 Up Up & Away (The Sky's the Limit)
Paper Take Weekly - Anything Goes
Try it On Tuesdays - Anything Goes
The Pink Elephant - TPE151 Vibrant Colors

Unscripted Sketches #152

Well as you probably know by now I love Sketch Challenges, and on browsing through some craft links the other day I came across the Unscripted Sketches Site, so I thought I would play along with one of their challenges.

I had been working on putting together some items for an ATC swap and found that I was loving the combination of colours I was using, so just had to use them for this card too!  I have kept it pretty simple.  The raindrop background, umbrella and sentiment are all stamps from the February 2012 Unity KOTM.  I paper pieced the umbrella, and coloured in the raindrops with a combination of blues and some Crystallina Kindy Glitz.  I have changed the sketch turning it from horizontal to vertical and added my sentiment to the middle of the image background.  My ribbed card base is from a card pack I purchased from Time to Create, the pink paper is from Echo Park, the blue and pink dew drops are from The Robin's Nest and the ribbon and flower are from my stash assortment I have purchased over the years.

Because the Unscripted Sketch is posted every Saturday I am thinking I will definitely be able to find time to play along with their challenges again and I am looking forward to it!  

I hope no matter what the season you are in right now that your life is full of blessings and light and stamping!

Flashback Friday's Challenge 21

You might remember last month I discovered a wonderful challenge blog that showcased your first card using particular elements/techniques.  Well I thought this concept was kind of cool, so I decided to play along again with their latest challenge.  The site is called Flashback Fridays.

Each Challenge they have a Guest Designer who sets picks the Challenge.  This time the Guest Designer is is Jen W and you can visit her blog Jenerally Speaking here.  Jen has chosen for us all to revisit our first Paper Pieced Card.

I have to say I didn't have to think to hard on this one as I can remember it well.  It was for a Challenge over at Party Time Tuesdays last year which was to make a St Patricks Day Easel Card following their monthly card sketch as well.  So it's quite fitting that this fits the challenge criteria over at Flashback Fridays given St Patricks Day is just around the corner.  You will find the original post here.

The adorable image was from Baby Bud Designs and the Shamrock Paper was a freebie digi download.

I included an Irish Blessing on the Card which reads.  

For each petal on the shamrock

This brings a wish your way

Good Health, Good Luck and Happiness 

For Today and Every Day

I think this card was one of my very first easel cards too!

Be sure to pop over to Flashback Fridays and see all the wonderful and inspiring entries. 

Hello Kitty ATC Swap

Here's another couple of ATC's I have made for a swap over on 'ATC's for All' forum.  This one is a Hello Kitty Swap.  The Hello Kitty Character is a japanese cartoon cat that's a huge craze all around the world at the moment. 

I actually had to draw for this one.........and believe me when you see some of the fantastic hand drawn ATC's in the AFA Gallery you will see my drawing skills leave a lot to be desired.

Hello Kitty - Beauty Queen

Hello Kitty - Halloween Fancy Dress

Hello Kitty - Underwater Swim

I have used a combination of my hand drawn Hello Kitty's with various stamped, watercolour and collage backgrounds and a bit of paper piecing too!

PTT#33 Ribbon Trim & Fibre Oh My

This weeks challenge over at Party Time Tuesdays is brought to you by our very own Jen Scull! She went with Ribbon, Trim & Fiber....Oh My!!!

I have two cards to share this week the first one is using a Digi Dress Image from Tiffany Doodles Digital Stamps and the second card is using a Softly Spoken Embellishment and Ribbon from Circle B Enterprises.

For this first card I have paper pieced the dress and added some gold fibres to the waist sash.  Using a Marvy Metallic Gold Pen I have added some colour to the outline of the dress and and background.  I have layered this onto the image which I printed on gloss card which has also been randomly sponged with black ink.  Black Ribbon has been added down one side of the white gloss card and all of this has been layered onto a piece of Gold Handmade Fibre/Paper which I recycled from a flower arrangement.  The looking good sentiment is from Unity and has been stamped on gloss card, punched out using a circle punch, layered on a larger circle of black cardstock



This card is simply the beautiful friendship embellishment from Circle B centered onto my card base with two strips of ribbon placed either side.

Be sure to check out the rest of the DT's examples and a big thanks to Jen for a Great Challenge!

Our sponsors this week are:

Jen's Digi's

http://www.jensdigistamps.com/

Tiffany Doodles

and Circle B Enterprises

http://www.circlebenterprises.com/ 

So, lets see it...pull out that ribbon, show us what you can do with fiber!  Wrap it up and lay it on!  For further details about our sponsors, and this week's challenge or to simply link up your entry visit the Party Time Tuesdays Blog.

A Very Sweet Birthday Wish

I have a card for a much brighter occasion today than yesterdays post, a Birthday!  It uses the very sweet Flower Cupcake with a Butterfly Image from Paper Cupcakes.  I just had to use bright colours and you can't not use Yellow when wanting a Cheery Bright and Happy Card now can you?

Digi Image: Flower Cupcake with a Butterfly from Paper Cupcakes

Stamps: Sentiment from Unity June KOTM, Small Butterfly from Stampin' Up!

Paper: Sweet Fairy Collection by Prima Marketing, Lifes Good by Echo Park

Cardstock: by Stampin' Up! Colours/Ink: Tria Markers used on both Butterflies, Sentiment Stamped with SU Basic Black

Other: Spellbinders Scallop Circle Die, Leaves from 2 Step Bird Punch by SU, Daffodil Delight Taffeta Ribbon by SU,

Button, Paper Flowers, Twine, and Rhinestones all from my Stash.

There are lots of layers in this card today (although you may not be able to see them in the photo) as I have chosen to play along with the There is Magic In The Air - Let's Layer Challenge. The cake alone has four not including the flower on top. Overall not counting the base card I have at least six. I was quite happy with how the paper pieced and layered cupcake turned out on this card.

A sweet image, A sweet Sentiment and there you have it a Very Sweet Birthday Card.

I am also entering this card in the

All Sorts Challenge Blog - Week 113 Free and Easy Challenge
Anything Goes Challenge Blog - #46 Pick of the Bunch Flowers

Thanks so much for stopping by.