Wednesday 31 October 2018

Using a Sketch

Morning all.  Time for another challenge at Back to Basics and Beyond.  I feel right at home with this week's challenge as it's something I do a lot.  The challenge is to use a sketch.  We found this sketch on Pinterest.


If you don't use pinterest - personally I'm addict to the place and I have a massive board of sketches - then there are various sketch challenge blogs where you can find inspiration.  I used to keep a folder on my computer with sketches from sites and they are a fabulous resource when you are struggling to come up with an idea.  The design team and I would love to see how you interpret the above sketch so please join in the fun.

My card uses two cute gingerbread men from Digistamp Boutique.  I'm gutted that Sally Ann has stopped trading as she was one of my regular go to places for an image.  There are so many digital stamp sites closing and I do miss them.  Here is what I did with the sketch.


I recently bought a distressing tool and this is it's first outing and I'm very pleased with the results.  I hope you like my card and will be inspired to join us.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Saturday 27 October 2018

One for Emma T

Morning all.  I seem to be very prolific this week.  It'll never last.  You can blame this one on Emma T from Trenouths Crafty Creations.  She's a fantastic talent and one of my Design Team Colleagues and she's always ready to comment on other people's work.  Bless her, she left a lovely comment on my penguin card yesterday and mentioned that P is for Penguin is the current Alphabet Challenge.  I was too late with yesterday's card but I have about a dozen penguin images printed out and ready to colour so I didn't really have an excuse.  The image I used is from 2 Cut Ink.  Heidi has tonnes of Christmas penguin images.  Here's what I did with him.  He's got his fairy lights in a tangle.


As the image had fairy lights on it I cut some extra with a cricut file and kept to the blue and purple theme with a few snow flakes and sentiment.

I hope you like him.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Thursday 25 October 2018

Christmas is Coming

Morning all.  I should be getting ready for work but I'm procraftinating this morning.  I decided to join in the Christmas challenge over at Fab n Funky instead.  It's a good job I work flexi time.  I'd already coloured my cute penguin image - available from Bugaboo Stamps.  All I needed was some inspiration to put it together.  I used some ancient freebie papers that I had from a magazine donkey's years ago and just added some glittery snowflakes.  Another simples card.  All I needed was the inspiration to create it.  I won't mention just how long that image has been staring at me from my craft desk.  I hope you like what I've done with it.


Thanks for reading.  Love Dawn x

Tuesday 23 October 2018

Can't see the Wood for the Trees

Morning all. Time for another challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz.  Emma has chosen the theme of 'Into the Woods' - anything that can be found in the woods.  There is plenty of scope with this one and I had so many ideas for woodland critters it all started to get blurry in my head.  In the end I decided to keep it much more simple.  My blog title is something my family used to say when things got confusing and you couldn't see the obvious.  So I went with the obvious...trees!

I used a Cricut cutting file on some leafy background paper and added two leaf charms on some embroidery thread. Simples - well eventually it was.

I hope you like what I've done with it.


Pop over to the blog and have a look at the other DT cards.  We've got a fabulously talented bunch of ladies to provide inspiration and we'd love to see your take on the theme.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Wednesday 17 October 2018

Happy Bird day!

Morning all.  I'm really excited to share the news that I have been accepted onto another design team.  The Back to Basics and Beyond Challenge hopes to inspire readers, especially new crafters, to use techniques that we all had to learn once. The fabulous design team offer inspiration and there is often a link to a tutorial for those who have never tried something before.

The new challenge today is to use a Mask or a Stencil.  I have to admit that I have only recently started using stencils myself.  So, if you are new to the technique, I know how you feel.  Dawn's tip of the day - tape your card and your mask down.  My leaf stencil is by far my most useful one so far and, having inked it in a couple of green inks, I then die cut a circle out of it.  I used another circle behind and mounted my bird on the front.  The stamp is an ancient digi from Doodlepantry (I don't know if they still trade in the States but EU changes to VAT regulations meant that they stopped selling in Europe so I can't link to the site - sorry).  I added my sentiment and some sequins and gems and that was it.  Job done.


I hope you like what I did with my stencil.  Die cutting the circle allowed me to use one but still fit my 'style' of card making.

Please pop over and see what the DT ladies have created.  There cards are very diverse and will give you loads of inspiration.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Tuesday 9 October 2018

Triangle Tangle

Morning all.  It's that time again.  We have a new challenge over at Cardz4guyz.  This time we have to use Triangles.  I have to admit to being a little bit stumped for this one.  Triangles aren't a shape that usually inspires me.  However, I did find a card on the Cricut Design Space that had numerous triangle apertures so I thought I'd give it a go.  Me, being me, cut the card shape then chopped it up so that I just had a panel for my card.  I inked a background in peacock feathers distress ink and placed it behind my panel.  I think, if I did this again, I'd use a contrasting colour.  I'm amazed at how similar it is to my patterned card base.  Anyway, after that I added the happy birthday and thought I was done.  I kept looking at it and I wasn't sure about it.  I felt it just needed something.  I'd been using a new stamp set from Gerda Steiner Designs (I've linked it on the Dies to Die for site because that's where I had mine from) and I couldn't help adding the cute little mouse so I stamped him a few more times and popped him into my triangle apertures to add a little interest.  I'm much happier with it now.  I hope you like it too.


Pop over to the challenge blog and have a look at the fabulous creations from the talented design team ladies.  I'm sure they will inspire you to join in the fun.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x