Inspired by Nature

The challenge this week for Make My Monday is to use nature as inspiration and I've chosen butterflies for my card.  There are some lovely ideas on their blog and also a very pretty card for mid week motivation so do take a look by following the link. Backing paper is from My Mind's Eye and the stamp is from Penny Black with the flower heads stamped twice and cut out for dimension.  The butterflies were also stamped and cut out.

Addicted to Stamps and More

The challenge this week at Addicted to Stamps and More is for a CAS (clean and simple) card with lots of white space and minimum embellishment and this is my second attempt at achieving a result without any unwanted 'splodges' or fingermarks!!  The stamp is from Penny Black coloured using Flexmarkers, Promarkers and a touch of Copic.  The sentiment is from a lovely  set of butterfly stamps by Clearly Besotted and yes I have resisted the temptation to load this card with butterflies - so far anyway...LOL !! However I couldn't resist stamping the image twice, cutting out the daisies and layering for some dimension.

Make My Monday Challenge

Over at Make my Monday we are on the last week of the 'June Events' themes and this time it is based around Wimbledon, strawberries and cream or associated colours of red. cream and green so a very wide choice.  I remembered I had this very nice Penny Black stamp with a cat enjoying a cream tea and strawberries with a couple of mouse friends so it was an obvious one to use.  Backing paper is from Papermania with a doodled line drawn to define the edges; image was coloured with Polychromos pencils and cut out using Nestabilities; a sentiment from a collection by Cuddly Buddly and a scrap of embossed green card (still using up bits).

Make My Monday week 51

This is the final week on the Make My Monday FLOWERS challenge and this week Suzi was asking for something in PINK, GREEN and WHITE.  I've used a Penny Black stamp onto some white card and coloured using Promarkers. Still going along with my personal challenge to use bits from my leftovers boxes I sorted out some suitable background paper, ran a piece of green card through an M-bossabilities folder,  cut a fancy corner using a Marianne die and punched out a computer-printed greeting.  Just to take the 'using everything' to extremes you can maybe guess where the three little pink squares on the top corner came from LOL!! but I didn't save the rest of the little bits.  As usual the Design Team came up with some lovely ideas for this challenge so do pop over and take a look and maybe have a go yourself.

Make My Monday Challenge 48

The weather yesterday was so horrid to start the day that as soon as I spotted a post from one of the DT at Make My Monday I decided making a card for the challenge would be my first job of the morning. There is a new theme this month of FLORAL and specifically LILY OF THE VALLEY (or other white flowers) this week.  I knew I didn't have a lily of the valley stamp and after trawling through several CDs to no avail I thought I would 'think outside the box' and made a card adding a selection of white flowers as embellishments. When the post appeared from MMM I saw that the flowers should be the main feature of the card and not just embellishments so it was brain back in gear to come up with something more suitable.
It was a case of 'if in doubt read the instructions' and I then used a resist technique with this Penny Black floral stamp by using Versamark and clear embossing on white card which was then sponged with Distress inks in brushed corduroy and wild honey.  Bakcground paper was from my stash and as the image is quite large all that was needed was some ribbon seam binding and a sentiment. The little punched border in white came about because I'd punched it specially to use the 'waste' tiny white flowers on my original card!!

Do take a look and see the lovely cards the Make My Monday DT have posted for inspiration this week

Forgotten Friday 4

Yes, I know I put FF 1 last week but wasn't sure how many of these Judith had put up last year and anyway it was the first one this year - my excuse anyway!!  My forgotten item this week comes from a sheet of Stickeroos by Penny Black which has been lingering in a storage box for quite a time.  I've combined this with some Artylicious background paper, punched paper and card, some cream lace and a punched corner made using two punches.  The butterfly was also on the sheet of stickers and I stuck it onto black card and cut out, adding some glitter and a few matching pearls to finish this card off. Nearly forgot - the greeting was stamped with an Elusivise Images stamp.

Daisies

This card uses a Penny Black stamp coloured with Copics, cut out and mounted onto a Cuttlebug daisies embossed panel.  Background paper is from Papermania., some ribbon and a die cut buckle have been added and a computer sentiment.

Stickers

My friend Anne has been using some Penny Black stickers on her cards recently and this reminded me that I had a sheet of them lurking somewhere in my stash. The background paper is from My Minds eye with oddments from my box, I added some gems and punched butterflies which were glittered with Glamour dust.

Floral Card

I bought this Penny Black letters and flowers stamp a while ago and realised it had been sitting around unused - maybe a sign that I have too many stamps?  I used Adirondack dye ink and cut out with a Nestabilities die, inking the edges with the same ink which was also sponged onto the Tim Holtz 'on the edge' die; background paper is by Artylicious; ribbon and sentiment from Stampin Up.

Temptation!!

Two of my craft friends (you know who you are) often tempt me into spending money on craft goodies - I'm easily led and I recently succumbed to Penny Black stamps and Cuttlebug dies.  The image has been coloured using Polychromos pencils, cut out with nestability die.  Background paper is from My Minds eye with scraps from by bit box.  The flower was made using one of the new sets of Cuttlebug quilled flower dies (there are three sets at present) and it was really difficult to made a choice but so far I've only bought one set which is the daisy but I really like the chrysanthemum too.

F is For ...

Here are two ATCs ready to send off for the alphabet swap this time. Frog image is from Penny Black and the Retro flower from Elusive Images.

Birthday Celebrations

The Penny Black Challenge team are celebrating their first birthday this week and the challenge was to make a celebration card of some kind. I love these frog (toad actually) stamps and thought they looked in celebratory mood. There are lots of goodies on offer too so do have a look.

An Aperture Card

The first challenge on The Next Level is to make an aperture card but with the compulsory element of your own hand-made faux Prima lollipop flowers. There is a tutorial on there for these flowers which were fun to make. I decided to go for an off-centre aperture which I cut using Nestabilities and I also framed this aperture. The background paper was added to the card before cutting to avoid any lining up problems.

Penny Black Challenge 51

This week's challenge on Penny Black is another sketch to follow and I've used one of the cute toad stamps and some Flora Doodles.

Dragonflies

I was making this card for the Allsorts 'no stamped image' challenge until I realised that I had in fact used stamps in making the background so didn't think it would qualify. The main image is a Cuttlebug embossing folder and the dragonflies are giltter peel-offs stuck onto coloured card and cut out. The greeeting was computer generated and punched out with Stampin Up punches.

Buttons Galore

Penny Black Saturday challenge 50 is Buttons Galore and I remembered I had some button paper somewhere in my stash so that would be a start if I could unearth it!! Luckily it came to light so I used it as a background to a stamped flower image and used a Cuttlebug border embossing folder to make a button strip so although there are no actual buttons on the card, I hope there are enough to meet the challenge.

A Recipe

The Penny Black Saturday challenge this week is to make a card using a recipe - take 3 flowers, 2 papers and 1 charm or brad. I have stamped the image onto one of the papers and used the other as a background (both papers by Artylicious) I then added three flowers and a charm with ribbon and some embossing.

Letters and Numbers

Cute Card Thursday challenge 60 this week is to make a card using letters and numbers and I have made a birthday card for an eight year old including both. The image is from Penny Black, coloured with Copic pens. The letters are a Cuttlebug embossing folder and for the numbers on the background have used a stamp by Paper Artsy and direct to paper technique with chalk inks.

Penny Black challenge 48

The Penny Black challenge this week is to make a card in black and white with just one other colour and I decided to opt for green as my other colour.

Penny Black challenge

The Penny Black challenge this week is to make card using a Penny Black stamp and to include three shapes on the card (not including background). The Penny Black flowers have been coloured with Sakura glitter pens.