I is for Insects

 Morning all.  I had to pick a subject for the letter 'I'over at The Alphabet Challenge and the only thing I could think of at the time was 'insects'.  Well, it'll make for interesting projects to judge.  I just hope we don't get too many spiders - yuk!

My card is a little different from my normal style.  I picked up a couple of stamp sets that I absolutely had to have from Aall and Create. It must have been a fit of madness as their images make beautiful mixed media type work - which I've never mastered. My set had some lovely hexagon shapes which I thought would work well with some bee stamps from a magazine freebie.  

My plan was to use yellow and grey but it just looked mucky so I threw in some purple and I liked it better.  Look!  I even stenciled some texture paste on. That's as near to mixed media as I'm ever going to get.

Please pop over and join in the fun.  I'll even forgive you if you use spiders.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

To die for

 Morning all.  We would like to see you use 'dies or punches' on your Cardz4galz this time. I chose to use a die from The Works for my Christmas card.  Yes, I know Christmas in July was the last theme but I'm on a roll.

Once again I cut all the pieces from white card and coloured them to give them a bit of dimension.

The snowman's body was cut from some cardstock that has small sparkly bits in it so that's why he looks a bit gritty on the picture. I also need to find another pad of Christmas papers.  This one is taking a battering at the moment.  If you haven't noticed so far, keep your eye out.  You'll be fed up of seeing it soon enough.

Please pop over and join in the fun and thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Blue is the Colour

 Morning all.  My turn to choose today's theme over at  Cardz4guyz and, once again, I have no clue what I was thinking when I chose 'Shades of Blue'.  For my card I just used various ink shades to create a background for my silhouette image. 

The image was from a magazine freebie and I love how it turned out. I used a coupe of pieces of blue card to go behind the middle and, although you can't tell on this picture, the main panel is covered in sparkly dotted vellum.

Please pop over and join in the fun.  If you don't I won't have anything to comment on.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Can't see the wood for the trees

 Time for a new challenge over at Make My Monday, and I hope we get as many stunning entries as we did for my 'airbourne' challenge.  I was amazed by all the different and beautiful projects using my theme.  Today's new theme is 'Trees'.  Plenty of scope for this one.

I will admit that I coloured this image last year and it didn't get as far as a card front.  I love the Christmas images at The Lovely Studio and I will print pages of them to colour when I am in the mood.  That way, come silly season, I can make a few quick cards that look like I made an effort.

Please pop over and join in the fun.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

I'm H.A.P.P.Y.

 Morning all.  Time for a new letter over at The Alphabet Challenge.  We are at H, and H is for 'Happy'.  I reverted, once again, to the Cricut for my card.

I love black and gold together - I'm a New Orleans Saints fan and they play in black and gold.  I think they look so classy. The colours, not the Saints!  I'm really pleased with this one.

OK, there are lots of 'Happy' occasions for you to choose from so please pop over and join the fun.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Outdoor fun

 Morning all, again.  A new challenge starts today over at Sparkles Monthly Challenge.  'Outdoor fun' is our new theme so you can guarantee that it will start to rain.  I've mentioned before that, due to my wrists being in splits, I have been using my cricut more often.  I found a brilliant cut file of a guy with a barbecue.  It should have been easy to cut and assemble.  However, in my wisdom I chose to cut all the pieces in white and colour them.  So much for keeping it simple to save the pain.

I am pretty chuffed with how he came out though.  It was worth putting a little more effort in.  It's a sort of blessing in disguise really as, before my wrist problems, I would never have tried a cut file like this. I tend to use just words or backgrounds.  I might get a bit more value from my cricut access subscription now I can see what I'm capable of doing with these sorts of files.

Please pop over to the blog and show us your ideas of outdoor fun.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Christmas already!

 I have to admit the I never start my Christmas cards early enough.  Really, January wouldn't be early enough!  As today's new theme at Cardz4galz is 'Christmas in July' it does give me a hint to get on with them.  

I used these adorable Mini Rudolphs from The Lovely Studio on a simple layout using some scraps of Christmas backing paper.  These guys are so easy to colour.  I just print sheets of them and colour them anywhere.  These three were left over from some I coloured last year.

Now I'm in the mood for some Christmas cards I need you to join in so I can nick your ideas.  Please pop over and have a go.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

The Key to Sucess (I wish I knew)

 Morning all.  We have a brand new challenge over at Cardz4guyz this morning and we are looking for 'keys' on your projects please.  The key to this card for me was to keep it very simple.  I already had the background squares made up on a card front so I just needed to cut the key and the sentiment to add to the front.

Sometimes keeping a card very simple, like this, means that I can rest my hands and maybe do something a little more complex, like colouring, without so much pain.  On a good point, I did get to see a doctor today and she did a test to confirm the Carpel Tunnel diagnosis and she's referring me for further tests and an injection - which should reduce the inflammation and release the trapped nerve.  I'd keep my fingers crossed but it's liable to be painful.  

Thank you for reading and continuing to comment on my much simpler makes.

Love Dawn x

Airbourne

 Morning all.  It's my turn to choose the topic for Make My Monday and I would like to see 'Anything Airbourne'.  The DT members choose their themes well in advance so that we can all be ready for the day.  It's sometimes a lovely surprise to find it's my choice and I can never remember what I was thinking when I chose.  Probably something along the lines of 'what can I think of that I've not picked before'.

Whatever it was that I was thinking about is now lost in the mists of time.  Instead I went for very clean and simple as my wrists were giving me jip!  

I already had the pink backing paper cut from another project.  I just edged it and added the butterflies.  I think it needs a sentiment but I like to keep some things plain for emergencies.  I do feel that this was a bit of a cop out as I should have made more effort as it was my theme.  Sorry.  I promise my next efforts will have some effort put in.

Please pop over and join my challenge.  I love to see all your inspiration.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Green and Gold for Luck

 Morning all.  My blog posts are coming thick and fast this week.  I promise, I will let you off over the weekend.  Over at The Alphabet Challenge we are up to the letter G. Meg has chosen the colour combo 'Green and Gold'.  As I mentioned yesterday, my Cricut machine is getting a hammering lately due to pain in my wrists and arms.  It turned into a bit of a blessing really as I would never have attempted anything quite so intricate as this.

The pattern is a Cricut one and has about seven layers.  I'm really impressed with how it turned out.  It's so big I had to put it on an 8x8 card base.  I love the green and gold combination and a friend has just given me a lovely green and gold mug with my initial on.  I'd love to see how you used the colours in your projects.  Please pop over and join in the Challenge.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

SnowflakeS

 I'm back again this morning with another new challenge card.  This time we want to see more than one snowflake on your projects over at Sparkles Christmas Challenge.  Now, as I have splints on my wrists at the moment I have found that I am making more use of my Cricut to create my DT cards. I had tried, last year, to cut an intricate snowflake design on my machine but I obviously had the settings wrong and it just etched the design on my card instead of cutting. However, I loved how it looked so I thought I would give it a go on some silver mirror card.  

Best laid plans and all that.  It cut the pattern beautifully!  Oh well.  Stick some glitter card behind it, ram a few smaller snowflakes on the front and add a sentiment.  There you go.  One snowflakes card.

Please pop over and join in the fun.  I'm always looking for inspiration for Christmas cards. 

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Getting Inky

 Morning all.  we have a fun new challenge this morning over at Cardz4galz. Shell would like us all to 'Get Inky' on your projects.  This is a bit out of my comfort zone as I don't like to get my hands dirty.  I do, however, like to stencil. Before I started with that I used some distress inks and water to paint a subtle background.  I then used the same colours and a stencil from Funky Fossil.

I finished it off with a butterfly stamp by Laurel Burch.  I added a greeting ans some gems and that was it. I very rarely create my own backgrounds so it would be good to see your inky ideas.  Please pop over and join in.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x