Oh Baby

Good Morning.  It's a bank holiday here in the UK so I have a free day to create. Yay! As it's a Monday we are due for a new challenge at Make My Monday.  Today's subject is 'for a baby'.  I've kept this very simple and used a really sweet digital stamp from Whimsey Stamps that I've used before.  It's so cute and can be used for boys or girls.  I decided to go for yellow and green as a colour theme so it can be used if I don't know what the baby's sex will be.

I created a background to my panel by sticking die cut clouds to my card before I cut it using a stitched square. I then matted it onto some green card from my stash.  And that is about it.  I didn't even add bling - yes, I know, but I didn't think it needed it.

Please pop over and have a go at our challenge.  The design team have some beautiful inspiration for you.

Thanks for reading.  

Love Dawn x

EmBOSSING it

Morning all.  It's a bit of a sad day over at The Alphabet Challenge as this one will be Silvi's last before stepping down from the Design Team.  She has chosen 'dry embossing' for the letter D.  I do love my embossing folders and could have had a field day with this but I chose to keep it simple.  As well as my full sized folders I also have some thin strip folders.  For my card I chose one and, once I'd embossed it, masked off the rest of the card and blended worn lipstick and squeezed lemonade distress ink over the pattern.  My original plan had been for a rectangular panel but my masking tore some of my card so I've cut it down to a square.  I blended a little bit more card and stamped some butterflies from Laurel Burch onto it.  I fussy cut them and gave them a coat of shimmer pen before adding them to my card.  Throw on a bit of bling et Voila.  Can you tell I've been learning French during lockdown, lol.  

It wasn't quite to my original plan but the embossed panel worked, which was the whole point to the card.  Please pop over and see what Silvi and the rest of the team have created.  It would be nice if you could join in the challenge and send her off with a blast.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

You Wear it Well

Good Morning.  I hope you are ready for a new challenge as I have a very different theme for you over at Cardz4galz.  I would love to have thought this up myself but I blatantly nicked the idea from Hannalie over at Desert Diva.  She make the most awe inspiring cards and - every now and again - she will choose and item of clothing from her wardrobe and she will use it as inspiration for a card.  I really loved the idea and so I chose 'Case your Wardrobe' as my theme.  Of course, then I had to pick something didn't I! In the end I chose this pretty summer dress in pink.  Please ignore the self conscious model.  I asked my husband to take a flattering photo and he said this would have to do.  That's Bertie from next door, by the way, hopefully awaiting more treats.

Here's a close up of the detail.

I liked the pattern and the little cut out detail but I wasn't too sure as to how I was going to create it.  I originally though I would die cut a leafy frond and use it on my card but whilst I was looking for my cutting plates I found a freebie stamp that I preferred instead.  I used three colours of Adirondack ink to repeatedly stamp the image.  I then cut a panel from pink card to add the little holed detail.

Here's how it turned out.

The pink is a little brighter than the material but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Please pop over and join in the fun.  I won't have anything to chose from if you don't.  The design team have created some really lovely cards.  I'm pleased really as, once I'd picked my theme, I wasn't sure how it would be received.  They've really stepped up.  Thanks ladies.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

A Bit Sketchy

Morning all.  Are you ready for a new challenge for the Guyz in your life.  This week at Cardz4guyz we have a sketch for you to follow.

Fairly simple don't you think.  I had several ideas in mind for this but I was colouring some images and trying to keep quiet (and not wake the sleeping husband) the other day and I came up with this for a plan.

OK, so I flipped the sketch but that's allowed and you can use any shape where the star is.  It just has endless potential.  I couldn't really remember who's image it was but I've had a trawl through my files and it's this one at Bugaboo.  The congratulations stamp on the circle die was an old - and by old I mean ancient - wood mounted one that I had to go searching in the depths of the cupboard for. I can't remember the last time I used a wood mounted stamp and I'm gobsmacked it worked so well.

Ok folks, your turn.  Let's see what you've got.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

In the pink

I was just viewing a few of my favourite blogs and came across a new challenge I'd not seen before.  The Creations in Pink Blog is not one I'd come across but, once I'd seen it, I figured it needed to be done.  Pink goes with so many other colours but the idea is that your card needs to be mostly pink.  Well, what's more pink than a flamingo? I recently bought a sweet digital stamp set from Whimsey Stamps called Ahoy Matey.  It was perfect.  There was a flamingo.  I'd even got him printed out.  Now, here was a potential problem.  Although I'd printed him out my printer needed some maintenance and he's come out more grey than black.  Oh well, I'd never tried no line colouring but I wasn't wasting a piece of cardstock so let's give it a go.  Well, talk about a happy accident.  I love how he turned out.  I'm definitely going to try no line colouring again. I've got to really I printed all the images from the set on the same piece of card.

I'm so chuffed with this.  I'm equally surprised that red and pink went so well together.  It was so nice to join in another challenge for fun and I'm so grateful to Shell over at The Camel's Hump for leading me astray on this one.  Bless you hun.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Get Real

Morning all.  We have a new challenge for you today over at Sparkles Monthly.  We would like you to use a real stamp.  As a great user of digital images I had to rack my brains over this one.  It's not that I don't have real stamps - I have far too many (is that even possible). I don't use them as often as I should.  Now, what to go for. In the end I went with Coffee with a Splash from Altenew.  I am a big fan of Altenew stamps and I shouldn't really need an excuse to use one of theirs. I made my mind up when I saw some papers I'd put together on my desk to use.  They were all brown tones and I thought they'd go well with the coffee stamp.

I heat embossed it onto my circle and put it all together using a layout I'd seen on Pinterest. Yes, I did add some bling - just for a change! Anyway, over to you.  I'm off for a cup of tea (my other half is the coffee drinker in our house).

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Tone on Tone

Morning all.  Time for me to chose another challenge theme.  This time it's for Make my Monday and I've chosen 'Tone on Tone background'.  Now, I've chosen to layer white on white for my card but you can used different coloured tones.  I bought a really lovely die set from the Works quite a while ago and I used one of them to create an engagement card. I was so pleased with it I decided to recreate it here on a wedding card.

Please excuse the shadow in the top corner.  That's the problem with scanning cards with a bit of dimension.  This is the best I could get it.  I added a few white hearts on this one to fill in some of the gaps and I'm so pleased with the result.  In do like to create backgrounds with dies.  Anyway, pop over and see what the design team have come up with.  I really impressed by how different they've interpreted my theme.  Please have a go at this challenge.  I'm keen to see how you use my theme.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Check this out

Morning all.  It's a bank holiday today in the UK and also time for a new challenge at The Alphabet Challenge.  We are at the letter C and that stands for 'checks'.  Please pop over and see what the design team have created. I'm so impressed with their creations. I feel that I've taken the simple option by going with checked backing papers.  I was looking for some other papers that I'm sure I've got but couldn't find. During the search, I found these papers instead.  Because they had paw prints on I decided to use a die set that I've not used before.  I cut all the pieces in white and coloured them in and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  

It's not anything like my original plan but, until I can find the missing backing paper, it will have to do.  Once I find the other stuff I'll have forgotten what I'd planned to do with it.

Please pop over and join in the fun.  We'd love to 'check' out your projects.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Birthday Girl

Morning all.  As it's Thursday we are ready for a new challenge at Cardz4galz.  Sue has chosen the easy peasy theme of Birthdays.  Now who doesn't need more birthday cards in their box.  I always do.  I have tonnes of 'generic' cards that would do but sometimes you need one to say 'happy birthday'.  As it happens I was in need of a specific birthday card as one of the ladies in the office downstairs had her 40th coming up. Yes, we are still working but we have only two in the office at one time so we can practice social distancing.  Now this lady is so easy to make for as she loves her little westie dog.  As long as I had a westie on it I knew it would be a hit.  So here it is.

Once I'd chosen my pretty papers  and coloured my image - it's an old one from digistamp boutique who are no longer trading - I just needed to stick it together.  I cut the 40 with my cricut.  The floral paper is inlayed into the green frame which is hard to see on the photo. It looked a bit plain so I added some little butterflies. They are layered in the green with some scraps of vellum and I added the usual bling.   I finished it off with the happy birthday die and it was done.

Now it's your turn.  I'm always in need of inspiration for birthday cards so let's see what you've got.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Vaguely Vintage

Morning all.  Thanks for all the lovely entries on my Cardz4guyz challenge.  It's always lovely to see how others interpret your theme.  Today we have a new Guyz challenge and Heidi has definitely challenged me with this one - Vintage.  Vintage is way outside my comfort zone - although vintage for a guy is easier than vintage for a girl in my opinion.  It's a good job I've been tidying my craft room so I knew I'd got a little booklet of masculine images with some vintage stuff in.  I knew I'd got it but I wasn't sure where I'd put it.  This tidying lark isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Anyway, when I did manage to spot it, I found some vintage looking musical instrument tags that appealed.

I didn't like them as tags so I cut them down a bit and distressed the edges.  I inked and distressed a little bit of background paper and used the same ink (vintage photo distress ink) to colour a cream card blank. I swiped my ink pad over some craft cardstock which gave a lovely textured look to it and used it to cut some musical dies.  I added the obligatory bling - 'cause I can't help myself - and that's it.  Considering I'm not a fan of this style I'm really chuffed with this.  I've got a couple more tags left so I'm doing another for my Church box of cards.

Over to you.  I could do with some inspiration.  Let's see your vintage projects please.  

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Just for fun

Now here's an oddity.  Me joining in a challenge for fun rather than it being a design team project.  I follow loads of challenge blogs and I sometimes even make a card to fit.  I don't always get chance to do the blog post bit though.  To be fair Sparkles Christmas Challenge is a monthly challenge so you do get plenty of time.  I just forget.  Anyway, it popped up on my Bloglovin feed this morning so I decided to dive straight in.  They want to see ribbon, lace or twine.  I have to admit to having a bit of a ribbon problem.  The problem being that I've so much it gets knotted up in the box I keep it in.  Anyway, rather than fight the big knot monster, I found some ancient sticky ribbon on a sheet.  

I embossed a piece of white card with some snowflakes and used the ribbon and some gold border peel offs to created stripes in the other corner.  I matted that onto some green card and stuck a green panel in the middle.  I'd already coloured this sweet image from The Paper Shelter and it had been sitting in a box waiting to be used.  Anyway, now I've finished it I'm off to tidy my ribbon box - she lied!

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x