Return of the Karate Kid

Hopefully you've all had a lovely weekend complete with glorious sunshine. I've had a packed weekend with little time for crafting, but did manage to get this card together.

DS had a Karate grading this morning and I'm pleased to say that he managed to get his yellow belt. I only knew he was being graded on Tuesday and went into a bit of panic as to what I was going to do with regards to a card as I didn't want to use the same image as last time (despite DH helpfully suggesting that I use the same card and just replace the belt!!!). The lovely Sarah (aka Rainmac) solved my problem and posted me the gorgeous stamped image I have used - (Thank you so much). I also have to say a huge thanks to Peppop who sent me a fabulous digi image, which I intend to use next time.

Anyway, here's the card:

 Side View

Materials:

White cardstock for base card - The Papermill
Background Papers - freebie from the internet
Black card - Tesco go Create (DD's stash)
Image - Sugar Nellie, coloured with Promarkers and attached to the card with black foam dots
Sentiment - printed from the computer
Card Candy - Craftwork Cards
Promarkers - Ruby for inking the edges

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge
Sew Many Cards
Meljen's Designs
Cards for Men

Nestabilities Easel Card

I got my new Nestabilites this week from Oyster Stamps and very impressed I am too! I also got a copy of Craft Stamper Magazine - so, put the two together and what do you get? A gorgeous shaped easel card that's what!

I've been meaning to make a shaped easel card for sometime (I spotted a tutorial on Crafty Cardmakers a while ago, but just hadn't got round to making one) so when I read an article in the magazine which used Nesties to create the cards, I just knew that I had to make one!

I'm amazed at how quick and easy the card bases were to make. The only problem is I now NEED to buy some more Nesties - LOL!

As the shape of the cardbase is so pretty I've decided to try and keep the design quite simple, I hope it's worked!

Front View

Side View

Side View

Materials:

Black Card - The Papermill

Black Velvet Adhesive Paper - Papermainia

Bigshot & Large Scalloped Circle Nestabilites

Butterflies - Stamped with Versamark, heat embossed and then painted with pearlescent watercolour paints, mounted with black foam dots

Gold swirl trails  - Shneider Gold Paintmarker

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers 

MSE - Wings

One Stop Craft Challenge 

Cute Card Thursday

ABC Challenge

Flutterby Wednesdays

Simple Doodles

The Crazy Challenge

Stampavie & More


Meljen's Designs

Pile It On

Archaic Dinosaur Easel Card Using The Masking Technique

Over at Crafty Cardmakers they have set a Challenge Challenge! Basically you have to challenge yourself to try out a new technique. Obviously being a relative newbie this left me loads of scope! I decided that I'd like to try out the stamped masking technique for this card, so armed with an explanation of how to do it and my trusty 2 way glue pen, I set about making my "masterpiece" - LOL!

I also ended up using another new technique, paper tearing! Although not sure if this actually counts as who hasn't torn paper at some point? Anyway, it's the first time I've used it on a card.

I'm quite pleased with my first attempt at masking and will definately use this technique in the future. However as you will notice my stamping was far from perfect on this card. The reasons for this are outlined below in my tips, and before anyone says anything - I know a bad tradesman always blames his tools not his technique ;0)

So, here are my tips for anyone thinking of trying this out:

1. Choose your stamps carefully - a design with solid lines would've proved a lot simpler. Also don't use stamps that haven't been used before. This set of stamps had their first outing and the ink "puddled" on them leading to an uneven print. However, I think I can just about get away with it on this card.

2. Make sure you don't have a house full of small boys playing manhunt in and around your desk - it leads to the desk being jogged when your completing the final stamp, see the stem on the right - grrrr!!!

3. When you've finished, put the mask on a piece of acetate and bag it up with your stamps for future use (hopefully it will store well).

Well here it is:

Materials:
Card Base - cut and scored using card from The Papermill. The edges have been inked and blended using Tim Holtz Brown Corduroy Distress Ink

Images - Basic Grey Archiac Set, stamped with Versafine - Vintage Sepia and Colorbox Fluid Chalk

Paper - from a selection at The Papermill

Sentiments - font Dinosaur Jnr from Dafont, printed directly onto the torn paper using a masking technique

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers - challenge yourself

Moving Along With The Times - easel card

Pile It On - easel card

Pollycraft - anything goes

Last Minute Easter Card

I nearly got caught out at the weekend when my SIL rang and said "We'll be round this evening with the kids eggs and your card!" Errrr what card? I silently asked (my SIL has never in the 20 odd years I've known her, sent us an Easter card). I thought about being honest and saying that as we've never exchanged cards at Easter that I hadn't actually got her a card, but I wasn't brave enough, so I promptly set to work on making one! I decided to use tried and trusted images and colours to speed things up.

Here's my rushed card:

Materials:

Card base - white cardstock from The Papermill, scored on the Martha Stewart Scoreboard

Tulips from here, coloured with Promarkers, decoupaged and then coated with 3D glitter

Tag - stamped with Whispers ink, coloured with Promarkers and coated with 3D glitter

Ribbon - from stash coloured with Promarkers

Papers - MME

Card Candy - Craftwork Cards

Organza Flowers

I went to buy some flowers the other day and was truly horrified at the price! Being a relative newbie to papercrafting I naively thought that they'd be a couple of pounds - how wrong was I? The unpriced pack I'd picked up were in excess of £4 - yikes! So I decided that I'd try and make some! Fortunately I didn't have to look very hard, as SJ at Little Musing had a fab tutorial to make some look-a-likee Prima flowers and then I found this tutorial.

The organza cost me £1.25 a metre and the large beads I have used were very kindly given to me by Jennie (The Wife from MSE) and the smaller seed beads were in a huge pack from Poundland.

I have made the flowers in different sizes and have also combined the two methods to create a slightly different bloom. I'm going to try colouring white organza ones with my Promarkers. Additionally, I have purchased some pearl bracelets from Primark for £1 and got somewhere in the region of 150 beads, I will also try colouring these.

Anyway, here are my attempts:

An Anniversary Card

It's my 16th Wedding Anniversary today and I made this card for DH using this sketch from Inspirational Card Sketches:

Ingredients:

Black Card Base - made using card from stash

Black/Grey/White Background Paper - Jak Heath

Silver Background Paper - Papermill

Image/Sentiment - produced on the computer using Wordle

Card Candy - Craftwork Cards

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Inspirational Card Sketches

It's all green - Easter card

I made this card for my Mum and Dad for Easter. I decided that I'd make another spring card:

From the side:

Recipe:

Card base - white card from stash

Papers - K&Co Dorset Blocks

Frame - Nellie Snellen Multi-frames die MDF002, coloured with Promarkers

Card Candy - Craftwork Cards, coloured with Promarkers

Flowers - from some blog candy that I won from the lovely Louisa over at Teabag & Sons (Est 2000)

Sentiment - printed from computer onto Letraset Safamat, tag punched using Fiskars Large Tag Squeeze Punch

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers