Wags n Whiskers a male birthday

It's time for another Wags N Whiskers challenge and this fortnight the theme is Masculine Birthdays.
I was dreading this challenge for a while because I don't like making male cards, but I got stuck in and made it, and actually the experience wasn't too bad! lol
I actually made this card about 5 weeks ago and forgot I had made it until I looked at the WnW dt group the other day to see what I had to make and saw my card in a folder lol.
I must admit, I'm really not pleased with this card at all and I wish now that I had made another one because it just doesn't do the cute image justice.

Sorry about the rubbish pics, this dreary days and my rubbish photography skills make for very poor pics!!
The image I have used is of course a Wags N Whiskers, and is called Go for Goal, he's such a cutie :)
I coloured him with Promarkers as usual.
The checked paper is from K&Co Hopscotch pad that I have had forever! and I found the football one in a pile that was given to me a while back by one of my blogging buddies, I think it is Forever Friends but I could be wrong. I thought it tied in nicely with the image.
Now I always get stuck when it comes to embellishments for male cards, so I kept it really simple.
I just stamped the sentiment (think it was from a hot off the press stamp set) and then cut the ends to make it into a banner and used some funky staples to attach it to my card, and added some ribbon in the same way.
I won a blog candy a few months back at Brenda's blog (floral fantasies) and in it was an EK Success Fastenater with a pile of staples for it in all different colours and patterens.
This was the first time I have used it, but I think it's great for male cards if you are like me and don't know what to add to them, but there is also loads of girly patterned ones too, so will have to use it a bit more often.
It was a bit of a pain to get the staple thing to go right through my ribbon and the card, but I got there eventually. Think next time I will try it on something not so thick and see how it goes.

 As always, there is a chance to win a WNW rubber stamp and you don't have to use WnW's images for the challenge, but if you do, you will be put into the draw to win a digi stamp too.

 Thanks so much for stopping by

A Little Bit of Love

As promised, I am back with the card I made for By The Cute and Girly challenge, where the theme is "Love Is All Around". As valentines day is now past, most people want want to be making valentines cards and gifts (unless you are super organised and want to be ready for next year! lol), but you can make anything you like, it doesn't have to be a valentines card.
I made my card a few day ago, so I was still in red and pink mode.

I followed the sketch over at Sketch and Stash and used this Pink Cat Studio image which I have had for goodness knows how long. I don't know if I have ever used this image before but I have had it for as long as I can remember, so it was about time I coloured  her up!
As ususal, I coloured with Promarkers.
I only used one sheet of designer paper, it was double sided so I just used both sides, but I got it from a lovely blogging friend and don't know who makes it, but it was perfect for this challenge.
The sentiment is also really old. It's a digital freebie that I got along with a pile of other ones, but I can't remember where from. If anyone knows, please tell me so I can give credit to the designer.
The sketch has a scalloped border underneath the strip, but I don't have any border punches now, so had to make my own (I would of never thought I would miss my border punches so much, but I really miss them and will have to get more soon!).
I just used a Stampin Up scalloped oval punch, cut out a few ovals then cut them all in half and stuck them to the back of my card.

 I hope you will take the time to join in with this months challenge. You can enter with any craft you like and there are some fab prizes to be won!

I won't be around tomorrow as I will have no internet access because there is work being done by the electricity people and we have been told that we will have no electricity for the whole day!
Not really what I need when we have 3 reptiles who need heat, and one of them needs UV light! This also means that I can't feed them until they have been heated up as they can't digest food without heat, so I will have 2 hungry leopard geckos and a baby bearded dragon tomorrow!! :(
Hopefully they get finished quickly and they don't get too cold while the electric is off! I will just have to make sure I have some hot water bottles on standby!!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Digital Tuesday- Use Your Scraps

It's time for another Digital Tuesday Challenge and this week it was my turn to choose the challenge.
Since I lost a lot of my craft stuff a few months back, I have been trying to use up my scraps, so that I can make the papers I have last a bit  longer lol, so I chose "use your scraps" as the challenge this week.
I have loads of scraps off of 12x12 papers and some of them are big enough to cover a whole 6x6 card, but they always get forgotten about, so for this card I had a good rummage about in my scrap box and was surprised at the amount of usable scraps that I actually have! (I know that every little scrap is usable in some way, like using them to punch out shapes etc, but I mean usable as in they are big enough to make card layers with).

Our sponsor this week is Spesch Stamps who very kindly let the design team chose an image each to work with again. I love the weeks that Tracey sponsors because she is always so generous and lets the design team chose an image and her images are fab! :)
This time I chose Lidia and I actually coloured her up twice because I enjoyed colouring her so much:) I have another card almost completed with her, so I will post that one another day, but for now, here's the one I did for Digital Tuesday.

 Sorry about the poor pics, I had to take them last night because my camera needed charged during the day when I was planning on taking pics.
I went for a colour combo that I very rarely use these days, but I do love these colours. I am not sure about the striped paper, but the others are by Papermania. I wasn't sure about the darker one, but I matted the layers with dark purple paper (although it doesn't look purple in this pics!), so I think it works ok.

I coloured the cute image with Promarkers as ususal, used some flowers, lace, ribbon and a little butterfly from my stash and the pretty embroidered leaves are from Little Snippets Etsy Store, but unfortunately Geraldine has decided to stop selling her embroidered embellies :( It is a lot of work for her as they are all done of material which she has to then cut around and she feels it's not worth the effort anymore. It's such a shame because all of her "snippets" are gorgeous and add something special to your cards and other projects and they look even better in real life than they do in the pics. I know if you were to buy some, you would go back for more, because they are so pretty.
The shop is closed just now, but Ger is still planning on selling her crotchet bits and also hat pins and ribbons etc, so there will still be some lovely items there :)
I am just lucky to have been on her design team and still have a little stash of embroidered snippets that I can use up :)

Well that's it from me for today. I will be back tomorrow with my mid month dt post for By The Cute and Girly, where the theme this month is Love Is In The Air. The girls already posted some fab inspiration on  the challenge blog at the start of the month when the challenge began, but we have started doing an extra post in the middle of the month to show you some more projects made by the design team, so you have plenty inspiration.
There is some fab prizes up for grabs and you can enter as many times as you like as long as it is a different kind of item each time, like a card, a scrap layout, an altered item, a tag etc. So lots of chances to win and we have 3 sponsors, so that means 3 fab prizes up for grabs again this month, from Simon Says Stamp, Joanna Sheen and Bugaboo Stamps.
I know that by tomorrow Valentines day will be past, but you don't have to make a Valentines card/gift, it could be a card just to say I love you :) It doesn't need to be valentines day to tell someone you love them, right??
We all love our family, so how about a scrap page of the family? I'm sure you crafty peeps can think of lots more ideas too :)

Thanks for stopping by today and thank you for the lovely comments you have been leaving, I do read them all and it makes me really happy to know that people have taken the time to leave me a comment even when I am being a bad blogger and not doing regular posts:)
Happy Valentines Day!! Hope you all got something lovely and are being spoiled by your other half today :)

A bit of sugar...nellie

Today I decided that I was going to go through my rubber stamps and use some that I haven't used in a long time, mainly because I don't have any new stamps lol, but also because....what's the point in buying stamps if you are only going to use them once or twice?? So I inked up some old Sugar Nellie stamps and made a few cards.

First of all I made one following the sketch at the Sugar Bowl, but I forgot that the extra option was to paper piece, and I really wanted to do the extra option (I don't know why, but even though the challenges say that you don't have to do the extra option, I always have to....I just think if someones took the time to think up the extra challenge, then why not do it :)), so I made a second card and paper pieced the image lol.

I flipped the sketch so that my image would fit better. Used Hot Off The Press papers that I got free with a magazine, and used the same papers to paper piece the image and made the flowers. I coloured the skin and hair of the image with Promarkers and everything else is paper pieced, even the tiny bow on the dolls hair, the dolls shoes,  the little bits of her belt and the pocket and patch on her trousers......think I got a bit carried away!! lol I also used promarkers to darker some bits of the paper piecing.
The flowers were made by cutting out 3 rough circles, scrunching them all up, layering and then I made a rolled flower to go in the middle. Then I took a small piece of wire and twisted it, then to finish, I added a tiny sead bead on the end of the wire.
The butterfly is from Little Snippets Etsy store.

 I am entering the above card into the Sugar Bowl challenge, but thought I would show the first one I made as well.

 I followed the sketch as it is for this one. Used some scraps of paper and some flowers from my stash and a little dragonfly and butterfly from Little Snippets. Unfortunately Geraldine has decided to stop selling the embroidered embellies in her etsy store, but she will still be selling  her crotchet items and some other bits and bobs too.

As usual, I coloured the image with Promarkers.

I have another card to show that I made for Sketch and Stash, but I will show that tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by

Love Is In The Air

This months challenge theme over at By The Cute and Girly is "Love Is In The Air" and we have some wonderful sponsors as always :) As well as Simon Says Stamp and Joanna Sheen who sponsor us every month, we also have Bugaboo Stamps who very kindly gave the design team an image each to use for the challenge.
I made 2 cards for the first post this month and have made something else for our mid month post which will post on the challenge blog on the 15th, so today I am showing the 2 cards I made.

 First up is the one I made with a Bugaboo image. Sorry about the rubbish pic, for some reason my camera just doesn't like taking pics of anything orange or red and it always goes a bit blurry. It's probably just the photographer, not the camera but blaming my camera instead of me taking the blame sounds good lol.
I used a Valentines Critter and sentiment that comes with this image.
The papers are a bit of a mix and I have no idea who makes them, all I know is the the stripy one is the reverse of the one with the hearts.
I used some flowers from my stash (Prima's and some satin ones), some satin ribbon from Little Snippets and just cut the sentiment into a heart shape, freehand because I don't have a heart die or punch and inked the edges.

And here is my second card that I made for the challenge.

 I used Hanglar images for this one and some DCWV papers. I had already coloured and cut out the little girl, and then decided that I wanted something for her to sit on, so I just cut out the other image and stuck her on top with foam pads instead of masking and stamping like I normally would.
I used a heart doily and got a bit carried away with colouring bits of it! I thought it might look nice if I went around the edges with a Promarker in the same colour as I used for my image, and got a bit carried away and coloured around some other bits too lol.
I used some Prima flowers from my stash (which I forgot I had because I never ever use the small ones), a little rose, some paper flowers (which are layered with Primas on the bottom flower), some gems, a pearl brad and a Tim Holtz adage ticket.

 Unfortunately I didn't have enough Promarkers in this colours to shade properly but I think she doesn't look too bad! Just pretend she is beautifully coloured! lol

Thank for stopping by and I hope you will pop over and check out the challenge blog to see what the other girls have been up to.

Digital Tuesday- Red, Black and White

The challenge over at Digital Tuesday is a colour combo of red, black and white. I never use this combo so I had no idea what I was going to do, but Digital Delights is our sponsor this week and gave us some images to use which fitted in perfectly with the colour combo, so I  just coloured it in and went from there.
I think I will have to start using combos that I never usually use as I quite enjoyed making this card and I like that it is a bit different to my normal girly coloured cards.

I don't have much red Promarkers so couldn't really blend the red in this image, but it is a rather cute image, don't you think? It actually is supposed to have text above the image, but I wanted to cut the image out and it looked a bit silly with the text when it was cut out, so I just cut it off.

I popped the image up with foam pads, done a bit of embossing with a cuttlebug hearts folder onto shimmery red card. Not sure who makes the papers as they were a gift which came in really handy as I never have this colours of papers in my stash.

I used some ribbon from my stash and made some flowers by just sewing a length or ribbon and then pulling it tight to create a circle, then layered a black paper flower in between and sewed it all together with a button on top.

 I must make more of my own flowers as my flower stash is rapidly disappearing!! It also means that you can have flowers in any colour you want to match your card/project :)

Oh before I forget, the new design team members were announced today over on the digital tuesday blog and I decided that we would also have some guest designers too :) I'm looking forward to getting to know all the new ladies and seeing what fab creations they made for the challenges!

Thanks for stopping by and for leaving such lovely comments. Every comment gets read and it makes a huge difference to know that people are stopping by to see what I am up to :))

Digital Tuesday- New Beginnings

It's time for a new Digital Tuesday challenge and the theme this week is "new beginnings".
Our sponsor this week is Bugaboo Stamps who kindly gave the dt an image to work with for the challenge.

I'm not sure who makes the paper that I used on this card, it's a pad I have had for ages and the front cover is no longer on it (I think the pad split in half at some point and I can't find the other half lol)

The sweet image is from Bugaboo Stamps and is called Fancy sunbonnet bride and I coloured it with Promarkers and used a bit of stickles but I am really not happy with the colouring :( The ink was bleeding everywhere when I coloured this one!

I'm not sure if it is because I am using different ink in my printer (my cyan ink is a compatible and the rest are genuine epson as I ran out of cyan a while ago and just bought a cheap compatible to try but it doesn't print as well as the genuine epson ink does), or if it is just because the image has quite thick and dark lines, but whatever the cause I am not happy with the ink running everywhere.

I don't think it's the paper I used as I printed this on the paper that I normally use (Neenah) and never have any trouble with it bleeding, and I have tried the hairspray trick, heat setting and leaving it a few days before colouring but still didn't make any difference.

Anyway apart from the image, I used some coredinations cardstock and embossed it with the hearts cuttlebug embossing folder and then sanded it to reveal some of the core. I also embossed the "congratulations" using a new embossing folder that I got as a Christmas pressie, and again sanded it to make the embossing pop.

For embellishments, I just used a few flowers and some ribbon from my stash and some silver skeleton leaves, which is something I never use, but I kinda like it......I think lol.

 

I wasn't going to show a close up of the image because my colouring is terrible!! but the image is cute so I figured she deserved a close up shot lol.

I hope you will find the time to join us at Digital Tuesday this week.
I made a wedding card, but as the theme is new beginnings, you could do a new baby (not literally...I wouldn't think you could produce a real baby in a week! lol, but a baby card), new house, wedding, engagement, new job etc. There is so many ways you could go with this weeks challenge, so I'm sure you could fit in a few other challenges with this one, and the prize from Bugaboo is 7 digital images!!

Thanks for stopping by today xx