Vellum Butterfly

I don't often make A6 cards but these cut and emboss folders from Papermania are that size so I decided to go along that route with this one.  The card used is Chocolate Box Core-dinations card which I have sanded back to show the core colour and backed it with paper printed fron an Artylicious CD (although not much of it is actually showing).  I had printed a sheet of vellum using the same design and cut the Marianne butterfly from both layers together because sometimes vellum is a bit flimsy if cut on its own with some dies and I felt that putting the two toning layers on would give some dimension to the butterfly.

Forgotten Friday 11

My card for Judith's Forgotten Friday challenge this week uses a mixture of newish stash and forgotten bits. I was sorting through my ever growing collection of embossing folders and realised that the one used here was one of my real favourites when I had it first and it hasn't actually seen the light of day for absolutely ages.  I embossed a strip of white card and then inked over with blue Adirondack ink to emphasise the embossing. The background paper is from a pad I've also had for a very long time and I'm really trying to use up what I have instead of keep on buying new papers (difficult though when there are such lovely ones around).  The stamp is from Papermania Pampered pets range coloured with pencils and the flower is made up from various 'bits' from my collection of flowers - the greeting was in a little pad of paper which came free with the Creativity magazine.

Less is More week 8

The challenge this week over at Less is More is to follow a sketch which is a great way of composing a card and it is surprising how many different interpretations there can be from the same starting point.  I took a cream DL card and added a punched strip using a Martha Stewart punch - this had a darker strip of card behind to show through the design.  A cameo was cut using Quickcutz dies and this in turn was mounted onto a shape cut with a Marianne die.  The addition of a simple stamped greeting completes this clean and simple card and it was interesting to use a tall card as somehow the 'white space' seems more with these proportions.

Bah Humbug Challenge 12

The challenge for week 12 at Bah Humbug is trees - you can't have Christmas without a tree or two can you? For this card I turned to a couple of my Polkadoodles CDs with the background paper coming from Jingle Jangle Christmas and the trees and wording from Sundae of Seasons. The tree image was printed three times so that I could cut some of them out to decoupage.

Mohair Easter Bunny

Yesterday I attended a lovely workshop to make a small mohair Easter bunny.  I managed to get him almost finished before it was time to pack up and go home and this morning my first priority (after breakfast of course) was to get him completed so here he is.  He stands (or sits actually) around four inches tall so the stitching was quite fiddly in places especially attaching his head but I reckon the finished result is worth the effort and these workshops are always great fun with coffee, plenty of chat, something interesting to make and a salad lunch if required - what more could one ask for..  I'm now looking forward to the next workshop in a few week's time which is book binding and we are aiming to make a book complete with slip cover so that will require different skills.

Forgotten Friday 10

The stamps used for this Forgotten Friday challenge were a really lucky find for me last week at the charity shop in our village so I guess they must have lain neglected by someone else before finding their way there.  They are from a sheet of unmounted by The Stamp Man which I don't think have been used because they were only very roughly cut out and not mounted on cling foam.  The background paper was printed on pearl paper from Artylicious Seasons Greetings CD which is not just for Christmas as there are some great designs which can be used all year round.  The block of text was one of the stamps from the set and the image with the butterfly was stamped onto card which had been coloured with alcohol inks - the butterfly was stamped on the same card but  in green and embossed with silver pearl and was layered slightly offset to give a shadowed effect.  A few swirls were added around the edges of the background.

Funky Hand Monthly challenge

The March challenge at Funky Hand is 'Zing into Spring' and I've made a simple 'thankyou' card using a template from the Craft the Year Away CD with a fresh green background paper from the March collection. This card is following the current trend for cards with less decoration and the circles were printed directly onto white card and the words stamped onto toning card which was then cut using a Spellbinders die.  The design team put ideas on the blog  throughout the month and it is worth looking regularly to see what they come up with using the great Funky Hand products.