World Card Making Day.

Apparently today is World Card Making Day or WCMD for those in the know…and I didn’t!! I had never heard of such a thing, but I suppose that with so many card makers out there it was bound to happen eventually! ;-)

In the spirit of the day I had hoped to make lots of cards, but I got caught up in the Whiff of Joy challenge that has driven me to distraction!! Would you believe that I spent all afternoon, on and off, on this. I never thought that card making could be so difficult!! (By the way, I have just realised that also fits the challenge fro the Little Paper Shop Blog quite neatly because the colours are definitely non-traditional, i.e. not green or red, so I hope that they will accept my entry!)

The main reasons for that is that this challenge was quite different to my usual card making style. The challenge meant that we had to use a particular layout with lots of layers and extra bits that I am not used to; and secondly, we had to use a Whiff of Joy stamp. Now…I had won Herb with Baby last year but not gotten round to using it because it wasn’t really my style.

Nevertheless, here it is! (do click to make bigger!)

As you can see – not my usual style at all so most definitely a challenge for me!! Do go and find out about the latest Whiff of Joy challenge cos you might just win something!! (and after all, it is WCMD!)

Christmas

I am just beginning to get cracking on my Christmas cards for this year. I do have a stack left over from last year, but I think that you can never have too many cards as I am sure that you will all no doubt agree!

Today I was playing around with this week’s sketch from the Card Positioning Sketch blog and I find that I am generally somewhat dissatisfied with my results.

I think that I have a lot to learn about what goes with what and what embellishments look good or how to just play round with what I have without getting overwhelmed by the choice!!

What I also find is that if I have played around with various combinations for too long then I end up not liking the final card because I was never quite happy with it at any point.

Oh well – no-one was ever an expert the first time around and I think that with hobbies like this it takes longer unless you have a knack for that kind of thing. At least I can have a lot of fun practicing; and I wonder whether the experts still occasionally make a card that they are not satisfied with.

Gah!

I've just realised that my blogger profile wasn't showing my blogs!!

That will teach me NOT to mess around with my settings in an attempt to be clever!!

So...I apologise to everyone that tried to track me back through my comments in the last week or two!!

Black and White….

….and one other colour is this week’s challenge from the Papertake Weekly blog. Having sorted out my colours the other week, I knew I didn’t have much in the way of black paper, but I didn’t realise just how little black paper I had!!

Nevertheless, I knew I had a black pen, possibly some black ribbon, and most definitely black stamping ink (no respectable stamper is without a black stamp pad!!). So I sat down at my desk, which after only a week or so of crafting needs tidying again, and thought about what to do.

The above photo is the result of a few minutes thought (do click to make bigger if you need to!) and I am very pleased with this as black and purple always goes well together. The roses are on white paper although it looks more creamy in this light and those two studs are white of course – are they called studs? Do they have a proper name – I don’t know!? EYELETS!!! Yes, I knew I knew that – had just forgotten ha ha!

Anyway – you see that black paper cut out using the biggest nestability? Well, it’s not. It’s white paper coloured black on the edge – I really must go and get some black paper – or even better some of that lovely polka dot paper.

Sketch Saturday

This time I thought that I would try the latest sketch to appear on Sketch Saturday. This time, to make one of the many Christmas cards I am going to need this year!

The sketch looks like this…..

And my card looks like this….

It is not as close a match as I would like in that the three embellishments are supposed to be below the scalloped top edge, but hey – I think that it is close enough!!

I am not entirely convinced by this card, I think that something is not quite right about it, but I cannot work out what that is! In any case, I am most definitely enjoying making more cards again – it is fun and I am having a great time exploring what little creativity I have – I can’t paint or draw or create anything else, so this suits me very nicely.

The only trouble with that is that the more I get creative, the more I spend on this hobby!! Still, sometimes I come across some good bargains – there is a shop in the high street that is phasing out their wooden stamps and selling them for half price!!! I bought several of them, including the image used above.

A little luck!

One of my younger friends is off to university soon to study law and so I thought that I would make a card to send her on her way!!

This one took a bit of coming together as I couldn’t work out what to use as a background – I started off using all pink paper but quickly discovered that there is such a thing as too much pink!!

The green paper works very well and I embossed the plain paper with my newly purchased swiss dots cuttlebug folder. I also remembered that someone 0n one of the many blogs I follow said that stamping is not just for paper, so I tried to stamp the ribbon and while it looks ok, I don’t think that grosgrain ribbon is the best ribbon for stamping!

Mojo Monday

Ok, so it’s Tuesday, but the Mojo Monday blog post goes up on Monday and we have all week to make a card that fits the Mojo sketch.

Anyhoo – this week’s sketch looks like this….

And my card looks like this…..

The making of the card was both easier and more difficult that I expected!! I know, I know, that’s a funny thing to say, but I bet that many of you out there have had the same experience. Anyway, the tea set (it could be coffee, but I prefer tea!) stamp was my first choice, particularly as I hadn’t used it yet, so it was a good opportunity.

Colouring it in was the next job, but dammit, I really really need Copics!!! ;-) Putting it all together was the hard bit, I just couldn’t decide what colours or patterns to use, but eventually I settled on the picture that you see above. Only……it was never meant to have that little half flower on the side. I need to practice sticking ribbon to paper as it went funny and ended up being a bit short, so I needed something to cover my mistake!! (I wonder just how many embellishments are mistake hiders!! ;-) )

Anyway, the result is what I think must be my most embellished card ever and I like it!

Challenges

I am sure that I have mentioned challenges before on this blog….just that I haven’t taken part in many of them yet. Which quite likely explains my sheer lack of inspiration as there is nothing like a challenge and a bit of pressure to get the brain cells firing!!

Anyway, this little face must surely be one of the most recognised teddy bears in the world (aside from old Winnie the Pooh that is!), yes, it’s Paddington Bear.

And the reason that I have chosen this stamp for this card is because there is a challenge called Beary Nice going on on the One Stop Craft Challenge blog. As it happened I had stamped and coloured in old Paddington the other day but put him aside as it wasn’t really appropriate for the card that I had in mind, so he was all ready to go!!

The layout is a very specific one too! The layout comes from the Card Positioning Systems blog (yes – two challenges in one!!). The second photograph is not all that brilliant as the lighting is all wrong, but I think that the card would be good for a third birthday – seeing as there are three candles!!

Finally – a question for you – just what am I supposed to do with this stamp!!

I found in the bargain bin of the local Range and just giggled at the sentiment which is why I bought it. However – I don’t think that it really fits any occasion other than Halloween and we don’t tend to do Halloween cards in this country. But I just had to have this stamp – now I am looking for ideas!! (without insulting anybody of course ha ha!)

Cupcakes!!

I do hope that Katie over at My Paper Haven doesn’t mind that I have quite utterly and shamelessly CASE’d her cupcake cards!!

I needed something fairly simple to make (as I need six of them for gifts!) but ever so pretty and something that I knew that I would like and so would everybody else!!

Here is the complete collection – all six cards.

But this one is my favourite I think…

With this one following a close second!

Purple

I got asked the other day (twice in fact) what my favourite colour was and the instant response was purple!!

When I was messing around the other day trying to make a card for my uncle, I also made this one (purple of course!). The pattern of nine squares of flowers is from a stamp that I’d used at a card making workshop and have had rattling around in my box. Fortunately I’d made two copies for what ever reason I had at the time, cos this meant that I could colour in two of the squares and stick them on top.

I’d also used a couple of bronze-y brads on the popped out squares in order to jazz the card up a bit! The stamped images were then stuck in a square of textured purple paper and then finished off with a sparkly “Happy Birthday” and two pre-made embellishments that I got in my spring value box from Arty Miss.

All in all, a card that I am very pleased with. By the way, if you fancy wearing your comment finger to the bone – hop along to the JustRite Stampers blog where they have a blog hop going on with some amazing cards and projects. AND, if you manage to leave a comment on the right blog you might get yourself some blog candy!! (it’s a mystery blog candy you see – no one knows which blog will be chosen to select the candy winner from!!)