The Flower Challenge #44 Reminder - Monochrome

Yep, halfway through the month and it’s time to remind you about our current challenge over at The Flower Challenge and this month we want to see your monochrome floral creations. Make sure you check out my teamies and our amazing guest design team member’s fantastic works.

I used a lovely new Stamp from Studiolight’s Grunge 5 collection for my card. I created a few backgrounds using my gel plate, two Louise Withers Studiolight collection stencils and distress crayons in a few shades of blue. I trimmed down one of the backgrounds to for on a DL card with a black mat behind it and stamped in black. I also stamped it onto a darker background piece and cut out the flowers. I added them to the panel with heavy body gel to add dimension and a touch of glitter for the centres. Simples! I can’t wait to see your creations, reminder the main image needs to be floral, check out all our rules on the blog. Happy crafting x

The Flower Challenge #44 - Monochrome

I know I say this every month, but where is the time going? I can’t believe it’ll be the longest day next month now, it’s certainly getting warmer outside. I hope that you’ve all got access to some outside space to enjoy it, especially if you’re currently under lockdown as we are in the UK.
Thankfully, most of my favourite craft shops are still open via mail order, although my bank account would look healthier if they weren’t!

If you are spending more time at home then why not join us this month at The Flower Challenge

This month we would like to see a 'Monochrome' look on your cards.This means either 'black and white' or varying tones of one colour. We are allowing a white card base & touches of white also, so you could have a white card base with say shades of purple stamped flowers or dies on as an example.

I dug an sadly unused stamp out of my stash for this card. It’s a lovely large stamp by Stamps by Me and was a member’s free gift with Create and Craft, must may still be available from Stamps by Me. I stamped it in black Versafine and then painted it in Distress Oxides - Blueprint Sketch, Broken China and Salty Ocean. Once dry I stencilled then through Aall & Create’s Lotsa dotz stencil around the image. I added a some white lines with a white gel pen and splattered on some white paint and some of the leftover blue ink. I trimmed it down to fit on a 5x7 card and drew in a border. I added a sentiment from Art from Marlene’s sticker pad, which I cut in half so it fitted better and added everything to the card base with foam tape. To finish I added a little glitter to the centre of the flowers. Simples! 

The Flower Challenge #43 Reminder - Spring/Autumn

I’m popping by quickly with a reminder that there’s still time to join in our latest challenge over at The Flower Challenge 

It would be great if you could add our cue card above when entering our challenge.

Of course most of all....have fun! 

So this month we would like to see some reference to 'Spring or Autumn' on your cards. As we are a global Design Team and so many of our entries are world wide too it's most likely either Spring or Autumn where you are atm. 
So you could choose Spring or Autumn flowers or just go with Spring or Autumn colours for example. Just make sure to use flowers as always of course...and remember they have to be the MAIN image too! We are being sponsored this month by the amazing Bugaboo Stamps with a $12 gift code for our winner , (approx 4 digital stamps). Such beautiful and fun digital stamps to be found there, do pay them a visit if you haven't already! All the design team have been given some of their stamps to use on their cards also.

The DT were lucky to be given some digi stamps by our sponsor to use for this challenge. I used the same image as my original card, but only used one of the 4 squares, the spring tulip. I enlarged it before printing it off and then colouring it with my copics. I then fussy cut it and glued it to a 6x6 card. I doodled on the flower with a white gel pen and drew in a frame with my black copic pen and added a few dots. To finish I added a sentiment from an Art by Marlene sticker sheets booklet.  A very different style of card, but hopefully a bright cheery one!

The Flower Challenge #43 Autumn/Spring

Happy April! This is going to be a very strange month and Easter isn’t it? I hope you’re all keeping safe and well wherever you are. Are you like me working from home? All our face to face clinics have been changed to telephone consultations which is um interesting as you really appreciate how much we rely on body language to communicate!
Working in the NHS, I’m just waiting for confirmation that our Easter bank holidays are being cancelled and I’m assuming that we’ll be redeployed into more frontline services as the situation escalates. Of course, I’m happy to do whatever I can, whether that’s using my Occupational Therapy skills or cleaning wards to keep them running.
Don’t tell them, but I’m even missing my colleagues (a tiny bit). My new co-workers are good for a hug, but they never offer to make me a brew! Beans bunny has been acting as my body double on video calls and I’ve discovered that Pickle bunny snores. Think the squeak when you clean glass sound!
Working from home also means that my commuting time has reduced dramatically giving me more time to craft. I always knew that I was hoarding craft supplies for a reason. The  I think in about 3 months I might need some more glue, but that’s about it! Then again I might have ordered some more  stamps recently....
So, if like me at the moment you have a little more crafting time, why not join in our new challenge over at The Flower Challenge 

It would be great if you could add our cue card above when entering our challenge.
Of course most of all....have fun! 

So this month we would like to see some reference to 'Spring or Autumn' on your cards. As we are a global Design Team and so many of our entries are world wide too it's most likely either Spring or Autumn where you are atm. 

So you could choose Spring or Autumn flowers or just go with Spring or Autumn colours for example. Just make sure to use flowers as always of course...and remember they have to be the MAIN image too! We are being sponsored this month by the amazing Bugaboo Stamps with a $12 gift code for our winner , (approx 4 digital stamps). Such beautiful and fun digital stamps to be found there, do pay them a visit if you haven't already! All the design team have been given some of their stamps to use on their cards also.

The DT were lucky to be given some digi stamps by our sponsor to use for this challenge. I continued to play with acetate for my card, printing the image in draft mode on the acetate. I then used sharpie pens to colour it in. I very simply mounted it on Hunkydory mirridazzle card and added a black frame around it. In hindsight, it would have looked better with a gloss black frame, but hey ho!

I can’t wait to see what you come up with this month. Stay safe x

The Flower Challenge #42 Reminder - Anything Goes (As long as it’s flowers!)

So, how are we all in these uncertain times? Hoping you all have loo roll! Honestly, this panic buying is driving me mad! Thankfully, it’s just me here so if needs be I can be creative - I’ve probably got enough dodgy patterned paper to keep me in toilet paper for a year! Might not risk blocking the loo with it though... If we’re all being encouraged to stay indoors it’s a good excuse to craft and we know that being creative helps us cope with stress and worry. I’m therefore making the somewhat dubious claim, that joining in with our challenge is good for your health! Seriously though, just a a reminder of our current Challenge over at The Flower Challenge and this one is an easy one, anything goes. Remember though, we are a flower challenge, so your main image needs to be floral and you need to have created the flowers in some way, in other words, shop bought flowers don’t count!
Make sure you check out our rules to be in with a chance of winning as this month, we have a fantastic prize for the winner. Our talented teammate Rachel Vass has her own Etsy shop selling her fantastic digi stamps and is offering our winner two digi stamps of their choice from her shop. Rachel has also given us all some of her digi stamps to play with this month, so make sure you check them all out.
I chose to use her gorgeous “Ruffled Peony” for my reminder card. Once again I laser printed onto acetate and used alcohol inks to colour the image. I used an old paintbrush to drag the ink down the stem. To colour in the leaves and flower I added the ink directly to the acetate and used my finger tip to move it about. That did mean I ended up with an orange finger and a green finger for work the next day, but as my clinic rooms don’t have sinks, the alcohol gel before and after every patient soon took care of that!
To make my card I added some matt pale gold mirri behind it and then cut a frame out of black card with my rectangle dies and glued onto a 7x5 card to finish. Another very quick and simple card.

The Flower Challenge #42 - Anything Goes!

I know I say it every month, but seriously, where is the time going?! I can’t believe it’s March already, but have to admit I’m enjoying the longer days and seeing the early spring flowers peeking out. Speaking of flowers, it’s time for our new Challenge over at The Flower Challenge and this one is an easy one, anything goes. Just remember though, we are a flower challenge, so your main image needs to be floral and you need to have created the flowers in some way, in other words, shop bought flowers don’t count!
Make sure you check out our rules to be in with a chance of winning, as this month, we have a fantastic prize for the winner. Our talented teammate Rachel Vass has her own Etsy shop selling her fantastic digi stamps and is offering our winner two digi stamps of their choice from her shop. Rachel has also given us all some of her digi stamps to play with this month, so make sure you check them all out.
I chose to use her gorgeous “Peony Background” for my card this month. Now, we won’t go into details but I had a minor disaster with my original card after spending a happy afternoon colouring it. Time was short and so I came up with a quick card to show that you don’t always need to spend ages colouring!
I resized the image to fit on a 6” square card. Using my laser printer I printed it onto acetate. I then got out my yellow, purple and blue alcohol inks, added a dash to a felt pad blending tool and dabbed away. I wasn’t overly careful about keeping within the lines as I liked the loose look and carried on until I was happy with the result. I used a tape pen to secure the acetate edges on some Hunkydory Mirridazzle card. I then die cut a black frame to hide the adhesive and again used my tape pen/roller thingy to secure it over the acetate and to attach it to the card base. I die cut the sentiment (sorry it’s long escaped from its packaging so no idea of the make) in black and mirridazzle card and used a tiny bit of glue to add them to the card, overlaying them slightly.
I had great fun making this card (after I’d stopped crying about the other one (don’t leave a cap off a black pen and then drop it on your work!) and love Rachel’s designs. I can’t wait to see what you come up with this month and we’ll be back on 15th with some more inspiration for you.

The Flower Challenge #41 - Add Leaves Reminder

Well, I hope you had a fantastic Valentine’s Day if it’s something you celebrate, personally, I think it’s a good excuse to eat more chocolate! It’s time for a reminder about your challenge at The Flower Challenge #41 and this month we want you to add leaves! We have another fab guest designer this month so make sure you check out the fantastic inspiration from her and the rest of the design team.
Please make sure you check out our rules before you enter - flowers must be the main image and must be handmade, whether that’s stamped, digi stamped and hand coloured or die cut.
I continued with my Altenew favourites for my reminder card this month.  I had some leftover stamped flower and leaves from the Beautiful Heart Stamp set from my first card and so I arranged a mass of these along with some more flowers and leaves from the Beautiful Day set. I die cut the MFT sentiment and glued it in place and doodled a border. It doesn’t show up well on my (very badly) photographed card, but I added some glamour dust glitter to the centre of the flowers. To finish I added some more orange enamel dots. Simples!
As ever I love looking at all your entries, so please don’t be shy, join in!