Seize The Birthday #258

Today is the 4th Thursday of the month so time for a new challenge over at Seize the Birthday where I am delighted to be the surprise party guest for March and April.

Today the optional topping is things in a garden.

I always love flowers so they are my things in a garden.

I saw this technique demonstrated by Sandy MacIver last month and I just had to give it a go with my favourite embossing folder. I just love the look, but it is a process that needs a little patience.

You start with a piece of white watercolour paper that you randomly cover in watercolour. Once it is dry you ink the flat side of a 3d embossing folder and emboss the panel. This adds some ink to the embossed image that helps add detail and texture. After that you fill the background with black ink using a black marker. I used a combination of a fine liner pen and a fine point marker because my gaps were quite small - it took a while!

Once it is all black you use versamark swiped gently over the top and heat emboss it is gold. I don't think the pictures really do it justice, it is much brighter in real life. I finished the card off with a happy birthday die cut from shiny gold card and a black card shadow.

I enjoyed doing this so much that I made 3 more. What do you think?

Card 2

Card 3

Card 4

I am also sharing card 1 at:

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge  - Anything goes

Cardz4galz #195 - spring flowers

Time Out Challenges #234 - inspired by words

Supplies:

Cardstock: White water colour card; black card base; black paper

Ink: Dr Ph Martin's concentrated water colour

Embossing Folders: Spellbinders flower frenzy E3D-048; Sizzix 3-D textured impressions 664527; Darice paisley

Dies: Tonic Studios word dies

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

We Love Stamping March Reminder

Today is the 18th so time for a reminder for the current challenge over at We Love Stamping. The challenge where you can showcase your stamps and your skill at using them.

This month our theme is:

**Spring is in the air **

Does this look familiar?

I think it should as it is my favourite turnabout stamp again. I tend to reach for this stamp when I need a birthday card and am struggling for inspiration. It is tried and tested and never fails me. It can look very different in different colour ways too.  See other examples here, here, and here.

I think the colours this time sum up spring for me. I have cut the panel out with a hemstitch circle die and mounted it onto a circle of embossed gold card. The background is another of my Catherine Pooler re-inkers on glossy cardstock.

And just to prove that this stamp is a winner for me, I have recently made another one. It seems that this layout is also one of my favourites. I looked back over the last few weeks on my blog and I found 3 others. Time for a change perhaps.

This one is for my sister in law who will be 70 tomorrow (19th March).

Don't forget there is always a prize to be won and this month the prizes are from Penny Black. Why don't you head over to the challenge blog to check it out? The prize winner is selected randomly and in addition the DT will choose one entry to join us as a guest designer for a future challenge.

I hope I have inspired you to join us this month, all you have to do is follow the prompt and ensure stamping is the main focus on your card. The challenge will close at noon on Wednesday the 29th March

I am looking forward to seeing you in the gallery.

I am sharing card 1 at:

Die cut Divas March Challenge - Anything goes

Happy Little Stampers Anything goes with Dies - March Challenge

I am sharing card 2 at:

Inkspirational Chalenge 285 - Numbers

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

Surprise Party Guest

Today I am thrilled to be the surprise party guest over at Seize The Birthday and what a surprise it was to receive the invite, thank you Nancy. If I am honest parties are not generally my thing, if I go you will probably find me skulking around in the corner somewhere, trying to think of an excuse to leave early. However, virtual parties that involve making cards is another thing altogether, so here I am with the first of 4 cards that you will see over the next 4 challenges.

The topping today is a card for a child.

This is actually quite hard for me, as I find cards for children really difficult and therefore don't make too many. However it was my grandsons 10th Birthday last week, so however hard I find it, I still have to make cards for my grandchildren. His one true passion at the moment is football and his local team is Tottenham Hotspur. So I made him this card:

As I am not a fan of football at all, I had to look up Tottenham Hotspur to find the colours for their kit, only to find that they must have the simplest colours out there. Plain white with black stripes at the neck and cuffs. At least that's easy, I thought! 

I found an svg file for a football shirt and cut it on my scan and cut. I stacked it 3 times and then added the black lines with a fineliner pen. Of course, the writing on the shirt should be black too, but I felt I needed to add a little bit of bling.  I tried to foil the text with my scan and cut, but after 2 attempts that weren't perfect, I gave up and cut them from shiny gold cardstock. Foiling is great when it works first time, but so frustrating when it doesn't!

The footballs were printed and then fussy cut and I matted the white onto black and then again onto a black cardbase, just to echo the stripes on the kit. His birthday was last week and I am pleased to report that he liked it, not that he would say anything else of course!

I do hope you will find time to join us this time at Seize The Birthday #257 and if cards for  child aren't your thing there is always the anything goes option.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

A little bit of stitching

Today I have a couple of stitched cards to share with you. I am always commenting that I love to see real stitching on cards, but very rarely do it myself. Today I am changing that by sharing these two stitched cards. This die was a Christmas present so I am pleased to say that I got on and used it pretty quickly.

This first card was made for my younger daughters birthday in January. I really liked the idea of showcasing the lovely silky thread on black and am pleased with how it turned out. I followed Jennifer McGuires advice and stitched with 4 strands of thread. It worked well but it was really quite challenging to keep it controlled, especially the silver metallic thread you can see on the small flowers round the edge. That stuff has a mind of its own. I made a stencil with some scrap card to decorate the insert.

Mounting the panel was also a bit of a challenge because the back of the panel is quite lumpy from all the thread and the panel edges are quite thin. Anyway, I managed to prop it up on some thin black foam strips, which worked pretty well in the end. It is backed onto some dark silvery glitter paper. The shine was lovely in real life.

I finished it off with a simple happy birthday sentiment heat embossed in silver. I much prefer the look using 4 strands, but it uses such a lot of thread. I had intended to use the turquoise thread on the outside 'leaves' as well, but I didn't have enough so had to used the gold. I think it worked well, so I was pleased about that in the end.

My second card, that I made first, only uses 2 strands of thread and I think you can see the difference quite clearly. I still like it though. This time I coloured my background with Catherine Pooler ink in wintergreen, such a lovely colour. I really like how her inks are good for colouring large areas, but I have learnt that you really do need the re-inkers as well because the foam pads can lose their juiciness quite quickly.

Anyway, I hope you like my stitched cards. I enjoyed making them.

I am sharing this at:

Card 1

The flower challenge #78 - Die cuts or Stencils. Die cut on the card front and stencil made from same die for the insert. I think the patterns are stylised flowers, hope you do too.

Inkspirational Challeng #284 - Stitching real or faux

Just us girls week 669 - colour week

Card 2

NBUS#48 - card 2 was the first time I used this die

A Place to Start March - Anything Goes

Supplies:

Dies: Spellbinders stitched petal frame

Floss: Card 1 Madeira silk embroidery floss, DMC silver metallic thread

Card 2 DMC embroidery floss

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

We Love Stamping March Challenge

Today is the first Sunday of the month so time for a new challenge over at We Love Stamping. The challenge where you can showcase your stamps and your skill at using them.

This month our theme is:

** Spring is in the air **

I must say, that even though it has been really very cold here recently, we have lots of daffodils coming into flower. They always cheer me up and are such a welcome sight that marks the end of winter and the start of spring. Wonderful, my mood lifts.

This is a new stamp set that I bought with a voucher that I got for Christmas. It is two step so you can stamp it in 2 different colours. I thought this lovely peachy colour has a spring like feel to it.

It is a very simple design, I cut the stamping with a plain circle die and added a couple of flowers that came with the coordinating die set.

The stamping was a tiny bit blotchy in places, but I think that was because my stamp was new. It gives a little texture to the overall effect so I didn't mind. I used perfect pearls for the flower centres and then managed to squash them before they were dry! It's a warts and all card today. There was a time when I would have re-done it, but not anymore. Life is too short.

Don't forget there is always a prize to be won and this month the prizes are from Penny Black. Why don't you head over to the challenge blog to check it out? The prize winner is selected randomly and in addition the DT will choose one entry to join us as a guest designer for a future challenge.

I hope I have inspired you to join us this month, all you have to do is follow the prompt and ensure stamping is the main focus on your card. The challenge will close at noon (UK time) on Wednesday 29th March

I am looking forward to seeing you in the gallery.

I am also sharing this at:

NBUS #48 - The hello wishes stamp is NBUS

Lost coast portal to creativity #162 - Spring has sprung

Supplies:

Cardstock: Hunkydory adorable scorable coated card

Ink: Catherine Pooler bellini and garden party

Stamps: Concord & 9th Hello wishes stamp set and matching dies

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it. 

February Card Chain Challenge Reveal

Today is 2nd of the month so time for the Card Chain Challenge big reveal. This month 34 card makers took part and I sent my card to Greta in Oregon.  I am pleased to say that it took it's time, but arrived on 28th Feb - phew!

I used the layout, the theme option of hearts and the product option of burlap.

I recently had a play with my alcohol inks on yupo paper and thought this red piece would work for this card. I also used it to inlay the tiny die cut pieces into the heart leaf and to cut the 2 small hearts in the bottom right hand corner.

The tiny heart cover plate was edged with an alcohol marker and mounted onto a pink card base.

Greta has recently undergone some surgery so I wanted to send her plenty of love, hoping it will aid her recovery. I am pleased to hear that you continue to recover well Greta.

I was very lucky to receive this gorgeous card from Joanne  in California:

This little heart pops up when you open the card. It makes the whole thing even more special. Thanks Joanne.

If you would like to take part in the next card chain challenge, you have until 6th to sign up here

Supplies:

Ink: Alcohol ink and mixatives

Dies: Heart leaf, Concord & 9th; tags, The Works; heart cover plate, Sunny Studio

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog today, I really appreciate it.