Another Bear

I've used another of the Bingham Bear images to make this card.  Background is embossed using a Sue Wilson folder, image cut out with Sizzix (for Stampin' Up) starburst framelit die and some Spellbinder circles.  The lacy border was cut with Spellbinder border dies and the little stamped flowers are Petite Petals from Stampin' Up with punched centres.  Sentiment is a clear stamp which I curved on the block so that it would fit the Bitty Banner die cut.

A Bingham Bear

This card was made mainly from bits and pieces lying around on my working space - you know how it is you try out a die on an odd piece of card, cut a piece of backing paper, print an image or two and then don't actually make them into anything.  Today I decided to gather some of the bits together, match them up and make a quick card.  The image is from Bingham Bears by Serif, backing paper is from a Debbie Moore CD, corner die is a Spellbinder one, as is the plain kraft circle.  The bear was cut out using a Sizzix thin die (Stampin' Up) and the computer sentiment popped onto a smaller zig-zag circle and a punched label (also SU).  That's a few less odd bits and pieces cluttering up my space!!  I know it is officially spring now but today seems quite chilly to my way of thinking, nothing like as nice as last Sunday.

Halloween

The challenge this week at Make My Monday is HALLOWEEN and this will be my second project on this topic, which considering I don't really 'do' Halloween is good going.  This time I decided to take a look at what I have available within Craft Artist and luckily there were some suitable items for me to build up a spooky scene.

Reflections

This card is for the second challenge on The Male Room blog which started recently - they had such a lot of entries for their first one which was brilliant for them and hopefully they will do equally well this time around. This time the theme is REFLECTIONS and my image was produced using Craft Artist.  It started out as a black line drawing with a transparent background which meant I was able to colour it digitally (needed a steady hand with the mouse though) and then I composed it into a reflection picture with a sea background. The 'ships wheel' is a Sizzix die cut (cogs really) and the wave-like border is a Lea'bilities die.

Men Only!

There is a new challenge called The Male Room which launched today in which everything has to be male orientated - it seems male projects are the ones which people struggle with so it will be great to see lots of inspiration from the design team and of course the people who join in. For the first one they've eased us in gently with an 'anything goes' theme and for my card I've used a free stamp from Docrafts (Papermania) which has been stamped three times, embossed and layered for dimension.  I designed the background paper using various blend modes in Craft Artist so I didn't want to cover too much of it with lots of embellishments. I simply added a computer greeting with a couple of die cuts which I 'found' when tidying my work space.  I really enjoyed making the backing paper and was prompted to do this because Michelle has been on Create and Craft this week with Craft Artist pick of the week and seeing her demonstrations always fires me up to use the programme more. It is a shame really that there has to be so much 'waffle' in these shows rather than 'wall to wall' demonstrations but sadly that's the nature of shopping channel shows - after all they are there to sell!!

Summery Scene

The challenge at Make My Monday this week is to make a summer scene so I decided to have a go using Craft Artist - the card is made up in the usual way once the image was composed and printed.  Background paper is printed from a CD but I can't remember which one now because it was in my bits box!  Computer sentiment was punched out with Stampin'Up punches so a fairly simple card once the scene was set.

Anniversary Pandas

The card I'm sharing today was made using a Party Paws Digikit CD by Crafters Companion.  The layout was planned using Craft Artist and then the elements were separated out and printed so that the card could be made in the usual way - I quite like this way of using the graphics programme and combining it with more conventional card making techniques. The only thing which wasn't on the CD is the Spellbinders scalloped circle but I did print out a piece of card using a colour from the background so that it would match nicely.

I hope you all have a good weekend with some nice weather - today started off bright and sunny but definitely looking a bit dodgy now.

The Lost Twinchie

The twinchie which I thought I'd lost when Craft Artist shut itself down wasn't in fact lost after all.  When I opened up the programme this morning it asked me if I wanted it to try and recover the unsaved work - how great is that?  Here is my third twinchie - a steampunk sort of Halloween - I hope you will pop over to see what their Design Team have made for this fun challenge.

Twinchie Time

Time for a new challenge on Show is Your Twinchies blog and this time they are asking for some two inch square pieces of art with a Halloween theme. The first one was stamped using an owl on pumpkin stamp from a set of the new clear stamps by Chocolate Baroque.  Unfortunately I had to chop off the bottom of the pumpkin to make it the right size - thought that would be preferable to chopping the head off the owl!!  The second one was produced on the computer using Craft Artist software.  I did have a third one in the making on the computer but the programme crashed  and closed down so I lost it with no time to make it again at the moment.

Twinchie challenge week 2

The challenge this week on the Twinchie blog is SUMMER - what summer I say - it has been raining steadily here again although thankfully looking a bit brighter now.  Anyway back to the twinchie and for a bit of fun and because I seem to be having a muddled week somehow I had a very quick play in Craft Artist and produced a summer scene which I then shrunk down to the regulation 2" size.  With hindsight I think I should have started with a square of the correct size but sadly more time to play at the moment - some weeks are like that I find. All in all this wasn't terribly successful but at least I've managed one challenge so far this week.

Edited to add one which is a bit more colourful and I started with a 2" 'canvas' on the screen in Craft Artist - pure fantasy of course and very quickly cobbled together.

This one looks smaller but in fact prints out at exactly 2"

Hybrid Crafting

A bit of hybrid crafting  steampunk style today combining stamping and some digital dabblings using Craft Artist.- not much more to say about this really. The fellow on the bicycle is a stamp from Chocolate Baroque Teeny Tiny set and has been stamped onto a Tim Holtz large ticket shape with a bit more overstamping.

An Experiment

I did a bit of what is called hybrid crafting yesterday by producing a piece of background paper using the Craft Artist programme which has such wonderful capabilities if only one had the time to play for hours.  The good thing is that I could make the paper the exact size I needed so no scraps left over to hoard away.  I started with a blank page, added a graduated fill, used a stencil and some digital embellishments and I did add a few other bits and pieces which I decided I didn't like so deleted them and used the paper as it is. The sentiment was stamped - one of the ones from Artistic Expressions by Chocolate Baroque  I sponged the edges with Distress ink, added a piece of real lace and some flowers and that's it really.  I was going to pop the sentiment onto a die cut shape but it would have covered up the work I did with the stencil so settled on stamping direct onto the background.

Wheels

I've not actually made a card for almost two weeks so today I really made the effort and tried to get back into the swing before I forget how.  I've missed some challenges along the way too so apologies, I really will try to keep up from now on..  There is a new challenge on Make My Monday and this month it is all about Men and Boys with an extra theme this week of  WHEELS.  I printed some background papers from a steampunk CD, die cut a top note shape which was embossed using a Cuttlebug cogs folder and then used Marianne dies to cut out the lampost and the old car.  The greeting was stamped onto a punched label (Stampin Up) and two screw head brads were added to this.  I've just realised that the car dies have been sitting in their unopened packet for some months so this card should also qualify for Judith's Forgotten Friday challenge this week. The little 'splodge' showing on the car is not on the card - I did clean my scanner glass but obviously not as thoroughly as necessary.