Pretty Flamingo

This week's challenge at Passion for Promarkers is to be inspired by a song title.  As soon as I saw the challenge I knew exactly which stamp  I would use for this.  Why?  Because every time I open my From the Heart Stamps folder I see this image and start singing this song.  I had a lovely time colouring the image (something I'm not getting to do too much of due to the cricket season) and I'm really pleased with the result.  It's coloured with Tria Markers and I just kept the background to black and white with a hint of pink to help it stand out.  The background is velum stitched onto the same pink paper as the circle and I just added the gems to finish it off.  I hope you like it.

and here's the song that inspired it

Any excuse to watch Paul Jones!

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Wild Thing!

I don't normally double up on challenge cards but as I was making this card for Squirrel's Random Challenge I realised it would also fit nicely in with this month's Naughty or Nice Challenge.  I hope nobody minds.  Squirrel's Challenge was entitled 'Wild Things' and the Naughty or Nice Challenge was to 'Man Up'.

The image I've used was one I had on my wish list when Meljen's stopped selling digistamps.  I love the image but have to admit it has it's limitations for the type of cards I normally have in my box.  I do wish I had a few blokey charms as I think it could do with something but my stash is very girly I'm afraid.  Here's the card, I  hope you like it.

I did forget to take a picture of the insert which does fit it more into the 'naughty' category.

I just says 'You can Blame it on the Mid Life Crisis'.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Lots of layers - honestly!

Well, I'm back.  I have a nice new (old) laptop to play with so I expect my card making productivity to go down to next to nothing again.  Before it does I intend to enter this week's challenge at the Sweet Stampin Challenge Blog. I have to say, when I saw the challenge was lots of layers, I instantly went to my Sketches board on Pinterest.  I have hundreds of pins saved for just such an event at this.  However, I got distracted by a stamp on the desk and decided to play.  I've been trying to clean my desk up (don't ask, it isn't going well) but there is stuff everywhere.  I can't remember when I used this stamp last but I found it so I'm going with it. It was only after colouring it and making it up into a card that I realised I had used 'lots of layers' just not in the way I had originally envisioned.  There are four layers on the card base and I layered my image too.  This has to be the most CAS layered card I've ever made.  I hope you like it.  I do.

Thanks for reading.  It's good to be back.

Love Dawn x

AWOL

Just to let you all know that I have not dropped off the edge of the planet.  My computer has died - grrr.  I've just pinched my son's for a few minutes. I'm getting filthy looks as I type.  New machine is on the way so normal service will be resumed shortly, God willing.

I'm still following blogs on Bloglovin (I've just followed you Vi - thanks for following me).  It's frustrating as I can see all your lovely work but it won't let me comment.

Hopefully, see you soon.

Love Dawn x

'This week we are setting you a real challenge'

The title of today's post is a direct quote from this week's challenge at the Sweet Stampin Challenge blog.  How prophetic that turned out to be!  I lost my marbles completely and did something I've never ever done before.  I created a card which relied totally on my colouring skills.  I've always used something else - designer paper, embossing folders, die cuts etc.  I've never ever just coloured.

The challenge this week was 'Terrible Teens'.  I had a suitable Kenny K image already printed so I was ready to go.  However, I couldn't decide what to do with him.  He needed a cool background, not some pretty paper so I nipped over to Make it Crafty  and bought a brick wall background stamp.  That, I decided, was way to plain to be cool so off I trotted to Little Miss Muffet Stamps for some suitable graffiti to adorn the boring wall.  In the end I had three different stamps from three different companies but they came together brilliantly.  Just my dodgy colouring to worry about in the end.  Here is my card:

I daren't ask my terrible teen what he thinks.  I think it turned out OK.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Too much life...not enough craft

Well, all my plans this week went out the window very early on.  I had lots of ideas and challenges I wanted to attempt but it wasn't to be.  I literally had about an hour yesterday to do one card so I have decided it should be for the From the Heart Sketch Challenge as it is the one I do most regularly.  Unfortunately, I didn't read the 'twist' and just grabbed an image I'd already printed so it isn't enlarged or cropped - unless you count the fact that I had printed it larger than I normally would so I had to make an A5 card!  I did take a bit of a liberty with the inner panel on the sketch by placing it more in the middle.  I had to do it this way as my Birdbrain was stood in the middle.  At the time of posting the image I used was a freebie - thank you Faith.

Here's my card:

and here is the sketch:

I suppose I did cheat a bit as it's not really a panel it's a frame.  I do like how it turned out though.

I hope you like it.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Cheers!

I don't know if you noticed but From the Heart stamps have a whole new set of Pigwit stamps in the shop this month.  I'm totally besotted with them.  They are so cute.  Anyway, as I purchased a couple (well, maybe more than a couple) last week it was kind of inevitable that I used one for this week's sketch challenge.  Here he is:

and here's the sketch:

I hadn't originally intended to use a hand written sentiment on the card.  However, I seriously messed up the stamped one - hence the panel.

I hope you like it.  I'm really pleased with how he turned out.  Hey, that's two cards I'm pleased with in two days.  I'm on a roll!

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x