Wedding Day Wishes

It's the 15th of the month so we are due a new theme over at Sparkles Monthly Challenge and, as we are fully into the season for it, we'd like to see your Wedding Day cards.

I will admit to being frustrated by this.  I'd seen some really pretty ribbon in Home Bargains and bought it with this theme in mind.  I was so determined to use it I managed to do three cards for the subject.  You are only getting to see one.  The other two went straight in the bin!  I didn't even bother to take them apart to use the bits.  They didn't turn out at all well.  The third one I'm OK with.  It's not how I envisaged it and I'm not convinced it won't make the bin yet either.  

In the end I took the ribbon apart.  It was a chain of the little wingy things.  I pulled them off the thread and used them as embellishments and I think I prefer them this way.  The background is splattered with silver and pink and has been on my desk forever.

I obviously needed more inspiration for this theme so let's see what you've got.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Be Insprired - pretty please.

Morning all.  We have a brand new challenge over at Back to Basics and Beyond.  Unfortunately, our last challenge - for an explosive card - didn't attract many entrants.  We are hoping our Photo Inspiration Challenge will be more appealing.  Here's the photo:

Once I'd seen it my eye was drawn to the blue pattern on the sofa.  This is the element I've chosen for my inspiration.  You could be inspired by something totally different within the photograph.  

I chose the same colours and used my mosaic square die  to cut enough squares to form the diamond on my card.  I cut a fifth square just plain to mount my words.  I assembled the lot on a square of cream crepe paper and - as the sofa cushions have blue piping around the edge - I matted it onto another blue square.  I hope you can see where I was coming from with this.

Please pop over and see what inspired the other members of the DT and we'd love to see you be inspired to join.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

A Hundred Thank Yous

Just wanting to wish the Make My Monday Challenge a happy 100th Challenge this morning. And we also want to wish all our participants a huge Thank You.  So, to celebrate, we are wanting to see your Thank You cards.  Please join in the fun as we'd love to get 100 entries (or more) to celebrate.

My card is a very simple shaker card.  I cut the design on my Cricut and framed it.  What do you think.

I've discovered, amongst the cheap craft items aisle in the Range, some glittery craft sand.  It comes in various colours and it's fabulous for shaker cards.  I'm totally addicted to using it lately and I'm turning out shaker cards galore.

The ladies on the DT have created some gorgeous Thanks You cards so please nip over and join in the fun.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

I Hate that I Love this Card

Have you ever had one of those projects that you've hated all the way, but turns out better than you ever expected?  That's exactly what this card did to me.

When I saw this subject on The Alphabet Challenge I wasn't exactly filled with desire to complete the project.  H is for 'hats and handbags'.  I'm not really an accessories girl (the occasional scarf maybe).  And my stash doesn't really runneth over with such items either.  OK, off we go a searching for a suitable digi stamp.  I was actually quite amused when I spotted Scary Gloria over at Polkadoodles and immediately bought her.  Then I immediately regretted it!  Fur!  I'm useless at colouring fur.  Oh well, nothing ventured etc, etc.  So off I went.  Let's go with some girly colours, but let's not be obvious and go for pink.  Peach with a sort of pinky/red for the accessories.  YUK!  I hated it.  This wasn't going well.  However, if I learnt anything at all from Alyce at Kit and Clowder it is to carry on until you see the end result.  Funnily enough, I didn't mind the end result.  However, having chosen the colours without a thought about where I was going with this, I now had to find some backing papers to match.  My good old other half had bought me an expensive paper pad for Christmas (mad fool, I never by the expensive stuff).  It has some gorgeous papers in.  It also had some dire papers too - in just the right colour!  Get on with it women - it's not getting any better just staring at it all.  So off I went, slinging it all together with gay abandon. 

And here it is:

I'm not sure who will get it or on what occasion but, bizarrely, I'm quite please with it.

Anyway, I've rambled on far to long today.  Pop over to the blog and have a look at the DT inspiration.  I'd love to see what you create with the theme.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Party Time

Today I am lucky enough to be joining the Design Team on the Cardz4galz Challenge.  And to make it a double celebration this will be their 100th challenge.  Yipee!  My DT adventures started out on their 'brother' site - Cardz4guyz - so I feel a little like I've completed the set by joining up.

As it's a special 100th challenge we are looking for your celebration/party cards.  I dug out another really old stamp for this one.  I can't remember the stamp company but I remember going to a craft show years ago and buying several of their stamps.  This little fella is having his own personal party.  I hope he doesn't get too tipsy in there by himself.

I did go a little predictable with girly pink but I promise that I will get better as I get used to Galz instead of Guyz.

Please pop over and join in the celebrations.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Football Crazy

Morning all.  Are you ready for a new challenge at Cardz4guyz.  We want to see your Black and White creations please.  Should be easy right?  No colouring to do.  Keep it simple.  Erm...maybe!

My first thought, when coming across this challenge, was a whole set of male themed silhouette stamps I've had forever.  I don't know who made them or even where I got them from but they've been in my box since before I can remember.  There are various sporting silhouettes, a dog, sets of tools, etc.  There's got to be something I could use.  The problem was, without colour in the background they all looked like I hadn't made an effort.  Get card. Stamp image. Job done!  In the end I picked the simplest football stamp - just one football - and stamped it onto some die cut squares.  I arranged them onto another die cut and placed a banner over them.  

It's driving me a little bit crazy that, with all that scope for a card in the stamp set, I ended up with Football.  Argh, I can't stand the sport.  I can sit through pretty much anything else and I actively engage with Cricket and American Football.  Oh well, there  are plenty of fellas out there that love it so I suppose it will come in handy at some point.

Please pop over and join in the fun.  We all love to see what you come up with and the DT girls have been very creative with this one.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

An Explosive Wedding Card

Morning.  I do hope you are all up and ready for an explosive challenge over at Back to Basics and Beyond.  This was a new one on me.  It's an explosion card.  The outside looks totally normal but, when you open it, the inside explodes open.  You are going to need a tutorial for this, if you are anything like me.  I'm useless at them so here's good old You Tube to the rescue.  It never fails to amaze me what you can learn on that channel. Patrick learned to play guitar from watching it.  He rings me up to play songs down the phone to me.  I have a long list of songs I want him to learn but I'm not having much luck persuading him.

Anyway, I digress - as usual.  I recently attempted to tidy the old craft room so I have found loads of old stuff I had forgotten about.  I've got a box full of toppers that I'd cut out  and put to one side 'for later'.  Well, slightly later than later, I've gotten around to using some fuzzy moon wedding images.  I've popped them on the front of the card and used the same paper for my 'explosive' interior.  Rather than stamp the sentiment, I used a die cut and added some hearts randomly around the folds.  Not sure the die cut will stand the test of time but I thought I'd try it.

What do you think?

Sorry about the quality of the photos.  I couldn't really scan the inside of the card.  I'm hoping you get the idea, along with the urge to have a go yourself.  Please join the fun.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x