The Flower Challenge #40 - Shaped Cards

Wow, time is really flying and it’s time for our first challenge of the year over at The Flower Challenge and this month we want you to make shaped cards.

This month we are sponsored by the hugely talented  Alex Syberia  who is our guest designer and she’s giving our winner two of her gorgeous floral images from her Etsy shop. Alex gave the DT some of her stunning images to work with and so make sure you check them all out.

I used the beautiful Sketched Bouquet for my card. I have to confess that time ran away with me this month and so I didn’t have as much time as I would like to spend colouring in the flowers. My card is slightly larger than 7x7 so you can see how beautifully the image prints at a large size. I used my polychromos pencils to colour it in, a really therapeutic process. From there I grabbed a shaped card from my stash and used my circle dies to cut ot the image and some pink and green circles for it to sit on. I added some Shabby Shutters distress glitter to the centre of the flowers to finish. Hopefully, it proves that using the digi stamps you can make a beautiful card quickly - and if I’d thought smart, using a smaller sized image to colour would have made it even quicker! 

As usual, I can’t wait to see your gorgeous entries, check out our challenge rules to make sure you’re in with a chance of winning out fab prize this month. We’ll be back later in the month with some more inspiration for you. Happy crafting!

The Flower Challenge #38 Reminder - Use Spots or Stripes

It’s time for a reminder about our challenge over at The Flower Challenge and this time we want to see spots or stripes on your artwork. Once again we have a fantastic sponsor this month, Topflight stamps who are very generously giving our winner a $25 e-gift card.

I used my gelli plate again to create my reminder card. I used various layers of paperartsy paint applied with my brayer to start my background. Once dry I added a bit of distress oxide in picked raspberry and ripe persimmon through an all and create stencil. I then applied sparkle paste unevenly and randomly through a Heffy Doodle striped stencil. I mounted it on a 5x7 card when dry and doodled a border. I die cut a couple of blooms from Tim Holtz’s wildflower sets in black card and glued the, in place. To finish I added one of the phrases from Tim Holtz’s small talk collections. A really simple card. 

on’t forget to check out my teamies  amazing work on the challenge page, as well as our rules to make sure you’re eligible to win our fab prize this month  x

The Flower Challenge #38 - Use spots or stripes

Yep, November already! The nights are definitely drawing in now and the heating is on.
It’s time for our new challenge over at The Flower Challenge and this time we want to see spots or stripes on your artwork. Once again we have a fantastic sponsor this month, Topflight stamps who are very generously giving our winner a $25 e-gift card.

I decided to get out my gelli plate to create my card this month. I used various layers of paperartsy paint applied with my brayer and various Aall and Create stencils that had circles on them to create my background. I also made another background (okay so I made lots of really interesting backgrounds as I was having so much fun) and then used this to stamp multiple times one of the flowers from Aall and Create’s Doodled Blooms #140 stamp set in black ink. I then cut out the flowers and shaped them slightly. I also stamped a sentiment from the set on this piece and used may trimmer to cut it out. 

I took the background I’d made and as the stem on the flower was too short, drew in some stems with a black fineliner adding some stripes to them as I did so. I also doodled round the edge of the A5 background and added it to a 5x7 card base on 1mm deep foam tape. I then added the flowers onto the card (covering most of the dots on it in the background, doh!) and popped a black gem in the centre of each. I added the sentiment on foam tape to the card with a drop of postbox red tonic vintage nuvo drops. I added some more to the card (although I later regretted it as it looks like measles!) 

I’ll be back halfway through the month with a reminder card, don’t forget to check out my teamies  amazing work on the challenge page, as well as our rules to make sure you’re eligible to win our fab prize this month  x

The Flower Challenge #37 Reminder - CAS

It’s halfway through the month and so it’s  time for a reminder about our challenge over at The Flower Challenge 
This month our theme is CAS - clean and simple cards and so it tickled me that our sponsor this month is CAS-ual Fridays Stamps and they are giving our winner a fantastic prize of a $25 voucher for their gorgeous stamps. All the team including our fantastic guest designer, the very talented Tina Magnusson were given stamps by CAS-ual Fridays Stamps to use this month. Make sure you check out all their stunning work. I have to say the CAS-usual Fridays Stamps way package up their orders made receiving it very happy mail! 
I used their Peaceful Garden stamp set for my card. I stamped the 2 part flower in light and dark pink inks and then cut them out. I also stamped the 2 part leaf stamp from the set in 2 shades of green before cutting them all out. I added green ink to a circular gel press and then lifted some of the ink with the flower stamp before “stamping” it on my card blank. I doodled round it with a black pen. There are two lovely sentiments in the Peaceful Garden and I stamped one on my card. I added the leaf and flower to finish. Another really simple and quick (once I’d decided what to do!) card. 

The Flower Challenge #37 - CAS

It’s October and it’s definitely getting autumnal, the nights are drawing in (and I’ve had to give in and put the heating on to keep the bunnies warm!), but it does mean that it’s time for our next challenge over at The Flower Challenge 
This month our theme is CAS - clean and simple cards and so it tickled me that our sponsor this month is CAS-ual Fridays Stamps and they are giving our winner a fantastic prize of a $25 voucher for their gorgeous stamps. All the team including our fantastic guest designer, the very talented Tina Magnusson were given stamps by CAS-ual Fridays Stamps to use this month. Make sure you check out their stunning work. I have to say the way they package up their orders made it very happy mail too! 
I chose to use their Peaceful Garden stamp set for my card. I stamped the 2 part flower in light and dark pink inks and then cut them out. I also stamped the 2 part leaf stamp from the set in 2 shades of green before cutting them all out. I added some white gel pen to the leaves and doodled a border with a black fine liner on a 6x6 card in. There are two lovely sentiments in the Peaceful Garden as you’ll see on my reminder card. I decided that these stamps work so well with other items in my stash, that I used a sentiment from PaperArtsy Zinski Art set 8 on my card. I tglued the leaves in place and added the flowers over the  top leaf on foam tape to give some dimension. A really simple, but I hope you agree, effective card. I’ll be back with a reminder card in a couple of weeks time. Happy Crafting! 

The Flower Challenge #36 Reminder “Anything Goes”

It’s time for a reminder about our current challenge over at The Flower Challenge. This month it’s super easy to join in as our theme is “Anything Goes”. If you do play along this month (and have followed our challenge rules you’ll be eligible for a fantastic prize.
This month we have not one, but two prizes of a $25 gift card up for grabs from our fantastic sponsor
My Favorite Things . They also very generously offered all our DT a gift card so that we could buy some stamps to play with. I made a really simple but effective (at least I think it is!) card using the MFT Brushstroke Blooms stamp set. I stamped the elements using distress oxide inks in mowed lawn, worn lipstick and squeezed lemonade. Before I stamped the images I gave them a light spritz of water to give a slightly more water coloured look. Once dry I fussy cut them out.
I die cut the largest Tattered Lace Shabby Offset Square in white and glued it to a 6x6 card, and then arranged the flowers and leaves with 3D gel. I added a touch of Shabby Shutters distress glitter to the centre of the flowers.
I blended some worn lipstick distress oxide ink onto white card so I had the perfect colour match and then cut out the sentiment with a Card Deco Essentiaks die. Simples!

The Flower Challenge #36 Anything Goes

I know I always say it, but seriously, where is the time going?! It’ll be the C word before we know it!
Anyway, the good thing about the start of a new month is that we have a new challenge over at The Flower Challenge. This month it’s super easy to join in as our theme is “Anything Goes”. If you do play along this month (and have followed our challenge rules you’ll be eligible for a fantastic prize.
This month we have not one, but two prizes of a $25 gift card up for grabs from our fantastic sponsor
My Favorite Things . They also very generously offered all our DT a gift card so that we could buy some stamps to play with. I have to confess that I always thought of My Favourite Things as producing really sweet character stamps. I hadn’t realised what fantastic floral stamps they have too!
I used their gorgeous Painted Prints layering stamp set for my card.
I started off by stamping the flowers in their three stages with Catherine Pooler inks in two shades of purple and then added the centre using Dusty Concord distress ink. For the foliage I used the stamps that actually form a sprig of flowers but by stamping the base layer in cracked pistachio distress oxide and then adding the two final layers in mowed lawn distress oxide it created a sprig of leaves instead. Once dry I cut them out. I used the same two inks and added twisted citroen oxide ink to create the tag background. I smooshed the pads in my craft mat, spritzed it withwater and then dragged the tag through it. I dried it with my heat tool and repeated until I was happy with it. When fully dry I doodled a border round it and also drew one on my 5x7 card blank. I unravelled some of the thick twine that I had lurking on the kitchen window sill from doing the garden, wrapped it loosely round my fingers to form a loop and glued it onto the tag. I also threaded some through the tag. I glued my cut out flowers onto it and then die cut the sentiment and glued it in place. I assembled the card by adding the tag to the card with foam tape.