Fluttering by!

I'm really busy at the moment, but just nipping in for a quick post. I rather liked the sketch for the May challenge at The Craft's Meow, so I thought I'd use it for a birthday card for a friend.

This is the sketch. 

 

And here's my card.

I used Craftwork Cards background paper and small butterfly stamp, K & Co paper for the semicircles on the right, Hero Arts/Sizzix Framelits (stamps and dies) for the two larger butterflies, and a Craft's Meow frame and sentiment cut with a Nestie die, as were the semicircles.

I'm entering this card in the Craft's Meow May Sketch Challenge (my first ever entry in their challenges, but hopefully not my last!)

Yellow

The theme this week at Less Is More is Yellow. It isn't a colour I'd normally think of using, so to make a card with yellow as the predominant colour was a bit outside my comfort zone. But it's supposed to be a challenge, isn't it?! So here's my card.

Very simple, just sponged Versamagic ink in two shades of yellow down one side of a Nestie shape, overstamped it with an Inkylicious stamp in a darker shade of yellow (which shows up better IRL than it does in the photo) and a sentiment (Katzelcraft), with a ribbon at the side to finish it off. Not entirely sure that I like it, but at least the colour has brightened up a miserable, wet day! 

Medals and Monarchs

Our Birthday Challenge and Blog Hop at Stampalot were a great success, and thanks to all those who took part so enthusiastically. But now it's May, and time for a new Stampalot Challenge. This month we're thinking about both the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, so we want you to come up with projects on the theme of

Medals and Monarchs

This will give you many options: you can go very patriotic, or use lots of 'diamonds' on your work or take the opportunity to celebrate your own country's involvement in the Olympics using your traditional colours.

I had no stamps in my stash which would suit the theme and I didn't want to spend money on something I would use only once, so I was delighted to find that the May issue of Crafts Beautiful magazine had a free gift of a collage stamp and papers which would fit the bill perfectly. This is what I did with them.

I decided to make a rocker card, which I covered with the papers. The main image at the top is the stamp. The bunting was made by cutting out the pennants from one of the papers, ditto the Queen's head.

The "E2R" banner is a Waltzing Mouse stamp cut out by hand, with a crown from one of the free papers, and peel-offs for the lettering.

The Olympic topper is a Nestie shape, and the rings were made from Craftwork Cards' Candi, with holes punched out of the middle, then coloured with Promarkers. A few suitably coloured pearls and jewels provided the finishing touches to the card.

I didn't start with a clear idea of how the end product would look. I kind of made it all up as I went along, and it turned out gloriously over the top, but I quite like it! I think this is going to be a popular theme, and there's plenty of inspiration from my lovely teamies on the Challenge Blog, so do go on over and check it out. Oh, and there's a rather special prize too!

I'm looking forward to seeing all your creations in celebration of this year's great events.

Winners!

The winners of our Stampalot Challenge Birthday Celebrations have been announced! To see them all, go over to the Challenge Blog, where Brenda has all the details.

And I am delighted to announce that the Blog Hop winner for my blog is

Lynda

Congratulations, Lynda, hope you enjoy your prize! Just send Brenda an email (her address is on the Challenge Blog, here, and she'll post it off to you.

Many thanks to everyone who took part for making our birthday celebrations such a success, and we hope to see you again each month at Stampalot Challenge.

Stampalot Birthday Blog Hop

If you've come along to join the Stampalot Birthday Blog Hop, please click here, or scroll down for new posts.

Blog Candy winners!

It's time to draw the winners for my blog candy! For the main prize, Mr. Random Generator chose

True Random Number Generator
Min: 1
Max: 9

Result:  2

which is mamapez5 (Kate)

And for the second prize it is

True Random Number Generator
Min: 1
Max: 9

Result:  4

which is Nuschinka

So congratulations, Kate and Nuschinka! If you'll email me your snail mail addresses (link to my email is on my profile), I'll get your prizes off to you asap.

Thank you to all my blog friends, longstanding and new, for your support, which is much appreciated.

Blog Candy!

A warm Hello and Welcome to all my new blogging friends. I promised that when my total number of followers reached 100, I would give away some blog candy, and so here it is! No complicated rules, all you need to do to be in with a chance of winning it is to be a follower and leave me a comment to say you'd like to be included in the draw. If you'd also like to link to it on your own blog, that would be great, but not compulsory.

In the parcel will be a selection of unmounted stamps by Crafty Individuals, an Enveloper Pro for making your own envelopes, a Basic Grey 6"x6" paper pad (now retired, so you can't buy one in the shops!) an A5 notebook to alter, a mini book to decorate, 8 sheets of peel-off stickers, 12 chipboard tags, various sizes, and a pack of ribbons & fibres. Plus maybe a surprise or two!

I also have a few more Crafty Individuals stamps which I will give away as a second prize, with maybe a couple of extras. I'll post to anywhere in the world. The draw will be random, and you have until midday on Saturday April 28th BST to leave me a comment. Good luck everyone!



The Tree

It took me a while, but I have managed to make my photo of The Tree (see this post) into a digistamp! I had no idea of the best way to do it, so I fiddled around with it in my editing programme (which isn't P****shop) until I got a good silhouette, and then erased the background from around it, which took ages! I'm sure there must be a better, and quicker way! Any advice much appreciated for future efforts! Anyway, I was happy with the end result. This is the photo I used.

And here's the card made with the digistamp. (Computer generated sentiment, cut out with a Nestie, background coloured with Memento inks using ink dusters.)

And here they are together in the same picture!

Lovely blogging friends!

During our Stampalot Birthday Blog Hop (go here if you'd like to join in - there's still time) I've gained some lovely new followers. Just wanted to say welcome to them all. Also, I've just realised that my total number of followers is now 99! If I reach 100,  I'll post some blog candy........

Less is More Week 62

Well, it's been quite some time since I last made something for the Less is More Challenge. Nine months, believe it or not! Just before the move up to Scotland. Since then, other things have had to come first, but at last I have time to enter again. The topic this week is "Three shades of green".

I immediately thought of paint samples, and found the perfect one. I stamped over it with one of my favourite Chocolate Baroque images, and added a greeting (Personal Impressions). Quick and easy, clean and simple, right? Wrong! Three cards went in the bin before I got one right! The problem was that the paint sample card was non absorbent, and very difficult to stamp on to without the stamp slipping. I tried various different stamps and inks until I got a combination that worked. In the end I used Archival ink. Anyway, here it is.

It's very green up here just now! After a few weeks with very little rain, we've had quite a lot over the past few days. The sheep in the field next door are certainly enjoying the fresh new grass.

And yesterday there was a beautiful rainbow.

Finally, specially for Sally, a photo of The Tree, at sunset. This tree is quite a landmark hereabouts, and Sally and Megan were really taken with it when they came up to stay last week. We all agreed it should be made into a stamp!