Happy New Year !!

To all my readers and friends, a very happy, fun filled handmade new year!!

Winter Birthday Card.

I decided to make a Winter Birthday card to enter in the DCD Christmas Club Challenge.

As usual, I looked through my stash, and found a beautiful image in my Snowman paper collection. So I decided to use it as the topper in my card.

After cutting out my image, I realized that I wanted the hug to be highlighted as the background wasn’t central to the emotion of love I wanted to convey in this card. So I used my distress inks, walnut stain, peeled paint and broken china to gently distress the edges, leaving the central area bright as compared to the edges, thus drawing in the focus.

I then used the IC card sketch to guide my way.

Here’s the finished card, I hope you like it!

I have entered this card into the following challenges;

1. DCD Christmas Club Challenge
2. IC card sketch

Till next time,

Spring and distressed looks.

I am absolutely loving my Tim holtz distress inks, they are absolutely versatile and give amazing distressed effects to even the simplest of cards.

Can you see the hidden rabbit? I love this topper, and I wanted the rabbit to look shy 🙂

Multi embossed grasses in black and silver, with a dash of peeled paint distress inks complete the look. I also misted the topper with Glimmer mists for a delicate shimmer.

Hope you like this card, A glimpse of the spring to come!!

I’ve entered this card in the following challenges.

1. Quirky crafts Spring garden challenge
2. Card Patterns Sketch Challenge

Till next time,

Chinese New Year Card

This year, the Chinese new year is on the 3rd of February.  I made this little card to celebrate and join in the festivities in the year of the rabbit.

I made this card using Tim Holtz distressing inks from Ranger – Broken China and Peeled Paint. Also used the resist embossing technique to draw to make the embossed images POP!

I took inspiration from oriental wall hangings such as the one below,

where multiple panels are hung together to reveal a story. This worked beautifully on this card, don’t ya think?

Finally added Text that says “Happy New Year” in Mandarin. The papers I used are Eastern Promise by Dovecraft.

Do let me know what you think. I’ve entered this card in the Cardmaking and Papercraft challenge.

Till next time,

Bentley Bear – Driving along card

Along with the February 2011 issue of Card making and Papercraft magazine, I got a lovely Bentley bear stamp set.

For some reason, I loved the following stamp. I just had to colour it in! 🙂

I used my Promarkers with some watercolour pencils for the shading and the puffs of smoke coming out of the car.

Layered it on Holographic card for a nice shiny effect and then stuck it onto my card for a beautiful, albeit simple design.

 
For some reason, I had the song by the Beatles – “Baby you can drive my car” in my head while I made this card 🙂

Hope you like it,
Till next time,

Crafty Promise: I’m Posting every week in 2011!

I’ve decided I want to blog more. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now. I will be posting on this blog at least once a week for all of 2011.

I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similiar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.

Signed,

Marie.

Tidying up my craft room

Hi all!

Well I’ve been a naughty girl, and haven’t been posting as much as I should. It’s this years resolution, but I’ve already broken it 😦

I have been up to even more mischief though, as I’ve been updating my stash to keep me busy the whole year!! Yay!!

First though, I decided the old carrot on a stick routine. I promised to let myself shop to my heart’s content if I tidied up my craft room (which is also my bedroom… ). My mums been after me for quite a while, and I was also heart broken to see that she’d attempted to clear it once, and crumpled my pretty papers in the process!! (the horror!!).

So this is what it looked like before:

Before the great tidy up of 2011 began

Here’s a few pictures of what it looks like now. I must add that my mum is satisfied with my effort 🙂

As you can see above, all my Pens and assorted tools go into wonderful transparent jars, that I’ve saved before they were thrown away to be recycled. In the foreground is a lovely drawer thingymajig that I got for around £2 at my local craft store. I also saved a big cardboard box which I lined with used felt to store all my papers vertically.

wonderful to store my knick knacks

I made this box, in a magazine holder style.

My tim holtz ink pads

So next time, I’m going to show you what I bought as an incentive for organising and keeping my craft room clean 🙂

Do tell me what you think!!

Art Nouveau Card

Hiya Peeps,

For today’s card, I tried to keep things simple and used an art nouveau theme to create a simple but luxury handmade card.

Travel, Explore and Discover

To make this card, I used

1. 13x13cms square cream cardstock.
2. The image stamp is from the Dover art nouveau cd’s printed onto Letraset bleed proof paper and coloured in with Promarkers.
3. Travel, Explore and Discover stamp from Crafty Individuals.
4. Gold printed Vellum from Papermania Signature collection.
5. Gold Mirri Board

To achieve a slightly faded vintage look, I tore a piece of paper and used it to cover 2/3rd of my card, after which I stamped my motifs using brown/copper ink pads.

I’m also loving the Dovecraft ready stick ribbons in their Christmas fancy and jolly happy Christmas collections.I’ve used the ribbon here from the Jolly Happy Christmas stick-on ribbon for a card that is far from christmassy.

I’ve entered this card in the following challenges:

• Passion for Promarkers Mega Christmas Challenge
• I ❤ Promarkers Anything Goes Challenge

Hope you like it!

Till next time,

My first Vintage Card

I’m starting to love the vintage card trend. Distressed Cards and the like are really gorgeous ways to create trendy cards.

I don’t have any specialist distressing or vintage tools, and so I used the best tool at my disposal – imagination! 🙂

Bit Cheeky, I know, But I am proud of the result. Me thinks it will make a lovely thank you card or even a more generic Best wishes card.

Vintage Looks

Cute Valentines

I may be a little ahead of myself here, but I couldn’t help myself when I saw this little image all stamped up and coloured in Promarkers, just waiting to be used as a topper. What usually happens is, I sit in front of the telly with my stamped images in black ink, my box of Promarkers and use the time in the ad breaks to colour my images. It really is a satisfying and relaxing way to watch telly!

Anyhow I kept it simple and added a paper carnation for effect. Hope you like it!

Love is not what we become, but what we already are.

I’ve entered this card into the Passion for Promarkers Mega Christmas challenge.

 

Till next time!