Diamonds are for...Golfers!

Morning all.  I was so pleased with the entries for my 'humorous' challenge over at Make My Monday.  It was so much fun to see how everyone interpreted my challenge.  If you would like to see who I have chosen as winners please pop over and have a look.  Whilst you are there you can check out the new challenge.  Sue has chosen 'Diamonds' as the theme for this fortnight.

I have to admit that I was unsure where to go with this so I popped Diamonds into my Cricut Design Space and found a border that reminded me so much of the Pringle design that Golfers wear a lot.  Well, once I'd seen it I couldn't get it out of my head.  I printed a little Pigwit Golfer that I've had for ages.  Unfortunately, Faith, the artist, passed away a couple of years ago so it is no longer available.  I have a bunch of her images and they always make me smile.  She was such a talented and generous person.  I do miss her images.  Anyway, I coloured him in the same colours that I'd chosen for the border and mounted the lot on a DL card that I had covered with stripey backing paper.  What do you think.

I'm quite pleased with the result.  I might try some other border designs.  They are very effective if you blow them up a bit and used them as a central feature.

Please pop over and check out the DT cards.  The ladies are hugely talented and I am sure you will be inspired.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

B is for Buildings

I'm just a bit excited to be posting this morning as the new subject over at The Alphabet Challenge is mine.  I get to pick the winners so let's see what you can do with the topic of 'Buildings'. I will admit that when the theme popped into my head I had no clue what I would create so it is still a challenge for me.  I had a good old rummage around in my stamps thinking that I must have something to fit the bill and found an old coastal town that may have been Papermania.  It certainly was from one of the Do Crafts lines.  I bought a couple of these stamps years ago and became a bit overwhelmed by the amount of colouring. I remember using it for the spotlight technique once leaving most of it uncoloured and just doing the lighthouse.  I was still a bit unsure but decided to get the watercolours out.  It could have gone either way at this point as I am no artist.  Even when I was doing it I couldn't leave it alone and kept adding more colour and then taking it off.  I really didn't like it.  Anyway, about teatime, I gave up and went off to the kitchen.  I nipped back the following morning and I found it had dried really well.  I'm a big fan of walking away and checking later.  Even with Alcohol inks I find I often like it better once it's dried.  Anyway, here it is.  What do you think?

I just layered it onto some similarly coloured backing paper and added some thread and a couple of gems.  I may try some more water colouring now I've got my eye in.

Please pop over and play.  It would be nice to have some cards to judge.  

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

It's All Fun and Games

Morning all.  It's time for some fun and games over at Cardz4guyz - quite literally!  Sian has chosen that very subject to inspire you.  You can chose any sport or game.  Now, traditionally, that means me getting my cricket stamps out but I decided to challenge myself a little. I'm not a gambler myself (err, does the odd game of bingo count)?  I did quite like this little digi from Twinkle Lane Designs though.  I thought it would be handy for male cards.  Then I tried to colour it!  I have to say that I was very tempted to bin it within the first ten minutes.  However, good old Alyce at Kit an Clowder is a great advocate of the 'keep going' school of colouring.  I very often find that walking away and coming back to it later makes such a difference to how I like an image.  When I went to bed last night I hated it.  It was flat and lifeless.  First thing this morning I came back to it and added some shading and decoupaged some bits.  I even added a bit of shimmer to some elements.  Then I coloured the background and stippled some ink over the blue.  I can't believe how much I like this whole thing now.  It's a pity the picture doesn't show up the shimmer.  It's so much nicer with a bit of sparkle.

What do you think?  Did perseverance pay off?

Why not pop over to the blog and join in the fun.  You can see the other DT cards too.  They are fab, I promise.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

1,2,3 Go!

New challenge time at Back to Basics and Beyond.  I have to admit I don't think I've ever made a One, Two, Three Card before.  The idea is that you use one of something, two of something else and three of another.  In this case we are asking for One Topper, Two Colours and Three Gems, pearls or jewels.  The colour combination was fairly easy as I love green and pink together and has some suitable scraps to use up.  One topper was a little more tricky.  In the end I chose a stamp that I'd had from a magazine back in the ice age.  As it happened, the bird had three little flowers on so I put my gems in the centre of each.  You will have to look carefully as they are tiny.

What do you think?  I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

Please nip over and give it a try.  It's a really fun challenge and the DT ladies are really talented.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Sorry Mamma, it had to be done.

The new challenge over at Make my Monday is very appropriate for April Fool's Day.  It's my turn to choose the subject and the winners (so please enter or I'll have  nothing to pick) and I came up with 'Something Humorous'.  

I did think long and hard before deciding to post this for my card as I wasn't sure that you'd understand why I created it or why it is so funny to me.  Anyway, here is my explanation.

Last year we lost my Grandma, Mamma B.   We where blessed to have had her for so many years and she was 101 when the Lord chose to take her home.  She was such an influence on me and my family and I was lucky enough to share the care with my sisters for the last few years of her life.  She had an amazing sense of humour and was definitely a bit of a one.  Believe it or not we finally got to meet her 'boyfriend' at her funeral and he was lovely.  She used to hold his hand at lunch club!  Anyway, as you get older you tend to have less control over some of your bodily functions and one of the things that I remember is how she would be walking along on her frame and she would just fart!  Well, when you are 101 farting is as funny as when you were 6.  She would fart and then burst out laughing which would only make matters worse and she'd fart some more.  You just had to laugh, it was so funny how it amused her.  She was taken ill last Easter and shortly afterwards I saw this stamp set at Whimsey Stamps.  Well, it had to be done.

Mamma passed away 8 weeks after becoming ill and I miss her every day.  This may seem like a really odd tribute but anyone that ever knew her would know that she would have loved it.  

Here's the real deal on her 100th birthday with me and my sisters. Awesome is not a big enough word to describe her.

It's been a long post and I hope you understand why I posted it.  Please join in with your humorous cards as a laugh is never out of place or unwelcome.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Messing about with stamps

Morning all.  I'm way out of my comfort zone with the new challenge at Cardz4guyz.  The theme is 'Let's get messy' which is really not me at all.  Yes, of course my craft room is a tip and my desk is somewhere under a pile of miscellaneous rubbish but I hate to get my hands dirty.  When my sisters were busy making mud pies I would probably have had my nose in a book.  Don't like anything yukky!  Which gave me a bit of a problem for this challenge.  What was I going to create?  Inspiration came from my other half, although in an annoying kind of way.  He is totally addicted to coffee.  It's his one and only vice.  He's got a coffee ninja in the kitchen and I am forever mopping up splashes of the stuff.  So I went looking for a coffee splash stamp.  I eventually found this one from Altenew.  I was leaving it a bit late but Tara at Seven Hills Crafts is fabulous and I received it within 24 hours.  So I inked up a square with antique linen distress ink and then stamped it, rather ironically, in tea dye distress ink.  Here is my very messy card.

I did splash a little brown watercolour paint on just to get in the spirit of the challenge but I was very careful where I splashed it.  Now I'm off to wash my hands!

Please nip over and join in the fun.  

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x

Fuchsia Fun

I was recently asked to make a card for a friends daughter-in-law and, as I used an image from Sheepski Designs, I uploaded it to their Facebook Challenge.  I didn't blog it at the time.  It was just one of those things.  Imagine my surprise when, not only did I win, I was asked to be a guest designer for this month's challenge. Andrea kindly offered me a free digi of my choice (as well as my winning image) to create my card.  I chose this gorgeous Fuchsia and I had so much fun colouring it.  It turned out wonderfully.  Anyway, the challenge was to use layers so I did.  Here it is.

I coloured it with my spectrum noirs but added some finer detail with inktense pencils.  I'm so pleased  with the results.  If you'd like to join in the fun pop over and join the Sheepski Designs Facebook Page.  

If you are curious to see the card I won with here it is.

Thanks for reading.

Love Dawn x