Craft Gene - Scrapology February challenge

This month the challenge on the Scrapology blog is P for patchwork and as always there is great sketch to use as part of the challenge.

I have had these papers from Cosmo Cricket (Material Girl) for eons and knew that I wanted to use them on a layout about my Gran and how I have inherited her Crafting gene - this seemed to be the perfect challenge to do that.

I pierced holes round all the edges of the octagons and squares and drew the stitching with a fine nibbed pen.  The octagons were cut with nestabilities.  The felt woolies by Basic Grey were perfect for embellishing the layout.

There is still a little bit of time to enter the challenge as it closes on 5th March.

February's Monthly Make

I am taking part in The Felt Fairy's Monthly Make and am trying each month to do something a bit different to cardmaking or scrapbooking.  So this month I made this lovely beaded memory wire bracelet with a kit that I got from Jillybeads

I really enjoyed making this bracelet and didn't find it too difficult even for my clumsy hands.  It was pretty quick to make so I am going to make some more ready for my two fundraisers later on in the year.

All the makes for February can be found here

Lace & Butterflies

This month's challenge over at Going Buggy is Lace & Butterflies.

This is the little card that I made yesterday

The lace stamp is by Kanban and the patterned paper is Papermania.  The butterflies are downloads from Swirlydoos which were printed, cut out and coated with distress stickles.  The sentiment if by Stampin' Up.

There is still time to enter the challenge as it closes on 7th March.

Nightmare on Victoria Road

The challenge this month at Sarah's Cards is to create a movie inspired layout.  I straight away knew that I wanted to use some of the photographs' from my nieces horror themed 21st birthday party.  When I found the photograph of one of my nephews dressed as Freddy Krueger, I knew what my title was going to be.

I wanted some of the title to look like it was dripping in blood, so I used a red nail polish to drip down the white thickers.

I then crossed out the elm street part of the title and added the stamped address of the venue of the party (Banana Frog 'Jeannie Shrimpton').  The background paper is American Crafts 'Nightfall'

Gullfoss - The Golden Falls

Last week's challenge on UKS was to use red & black as the colour theme, feature stamping on the layout and to also feature movement.  I chose these two photographs from our Icelandic cruise last year for the theme of movement.  Sadly the weather was horrendous for our visit - I braved an absolute downpour to walk to the first vantage point to get these photographs.  I let DH do the viewpoint that looked down onto the falls on his own and I stayed in the coach but it was raining even harder by then so he only managed to get a quick bit of video.  Still we want to revisit Iceland one day and have more time there so will hopefully see the falls again and see all the rainbows that form in the mists on a sunny day.

I used a Pagemaps sketch from January 2010 for inspiration.

The papers are Craft Creations and Stampin' Up and I used dotted swiss Bazill for my background cardstock.  The title was cut using a Sizzlet 12" alpha die - Naturally Serif.  The butterflies are a Hero Arts stamp - I have a set of three small butterfly stamps and they are my favourite butterfly stamps, I never bother putting them away at the moment!!

A close up of the journalling -

Pearls & Lace

I don't do this very often but the card challenges on my to do list have been mounting up so I have killed a few birds with one stone (sorry birds!!!) and made one card to cover three challenges.

It is Week 189 on Penny Black Saturday Challenge and the challenge this week is to use Pearls and Lace.

Over at Penny Black and more @ allsorts the challenge is to use a line from the colour bingo chart

And the 52 card challenge is to make a card using just one design of patterned paper.

I chose the Turquoise, Cream and Brown line from the bingo board -

I haven't a clue what brand the paper is as I bought it eons ago and it was a leftover from making an advent box.  The lace is from my ribbon stash and the turquoise pearls are from Sarah's Cards.  This little snowman stamp is from Penny Black and is a favourite of mine.

I coloured him with Promarkers and the mat was embossed with the Cuttlebug snow flurry folder.  It was a nice quick and easy card to make and as I stamped and coloured a load more of the snowmen, I hope to make a few more of these cards this weekend.

Sympathy cards

I was recently given an order to make 12 Sympathy cards and I must admit that I struggled with it a bit - after male cards, they are my least favourite cards to make and to come up with enough ideas to make 12 was not easy.

Anyway they are done now and here is a small selection of them -

 

Sentiment - Personal Impressions

Lighthouse stamp - Stamps Away and Kanban

Stamped swirl - Kanban

Teddy bear - Penny Black

EK Success Medium retro flower punch

Deckle edged Nestabilities

Large sentiments are computer generated and printed on SU Whisper White cardstock

The rest you can find in this blog post

February week 3 challenge on UKS

It is the turn of the Twilight Addicts social group to set this week's challenge on UK Scrappers.

Our criteria for the challenge was to use the sketch, use a group of photographs and to take inspiration from a favourite book.

This is the sketch -

And this is my take on the sketch using photographs from Christmas Day -

My favourite Christmas book is Dicken's A Christmas Carol so I used a quote from the book instead of journalling.

Paper - Webster's Pages 'Sweet Season'
Title - AC Thickers
Holly - Sizzlet holly garland cut up
Flowers - EK Success medium retro flower punch
Swirls - MFT die
Border - Martha Stewart punch
Pearls - Sarah's Cards

I am looking forward to lots of people joining in and seeing how they interpret the challenge

Christmas in January

Sorry to mention the C word but I do have to get started (albeit a slow start) on my Christmas cards this early if I am to make enough for my own needs plus extras to sell for charity.  I didn't really have much time for cardmaking last month so I grabbed some free papers and die cut images that I got eons ago with Creative Cardmaking magazine and made these with the addition of some stamped sentiments, stickles and punched snowflakes.

I was hoping to do better this month but am now rapidly running out of month LOL!!  The good news is that in March I am off for a crafty weekend with some friends so will be taking a load of cardmaking stuff including Christmas stuff!!

Hot Pink and Butterflies

Week 6's challenge for the 52 cards challenge was to use Hot Pink, Butterflies and Paper on your card.  I decided to give my Penny Black hedgehogs a rest this week and instead called a sweet teddy into service.

Both the sentiment and teddy are by Penny Black.  The hearts were cut using Sizzix Framelits and the butterflies were punched using an EK Success punch and embellished with pink Liquid Pearls.  The corners are a mini EK Success punch.

The teddy was coloured using Promarkers and the gingham paper is from scraps bag, I think it is K&Co. 

Happy Valentines Day!!!!!!

This week's challenge at Penny Black Saturday Challenge is Love and Kisses - nicely timed for making my Valentine's card for Mr P.  I am not allowed to give him a shop bought card - I made that mistake a few years ago and he had the sulks all day LOL!!!!

I treated myself just after Christmas to another T for transparent set - this time The Touch of Love - as soon as I saw the image of the hedgie kissing a frog, I knew I wanted to do my Valentine's Card with it.

I used a gatefold card blank and covered the inside and outside with papers from Craft Creations.  The hearts were cut with Sizzix Framelits and the sentiments were computer generated.

Apologies for the picture heavy post - I hope he likes it but if he doesn't I have a large bar of fruit & nut chocolate to console him with LOL!!!

Win a complete set of Flexmarkers

How would you like to win a full set of Letraset Flexmarker?  Enfys has a wonderful prize of the full set on her blog Going Buggy - just hop on over there and see what you have to do to be in with a chance.

More Quick & Easy Thank You cards

I was a bit fed up with making cards once Christmas was out of the way but needed some thank you cards so whipped up these very quick cards by stamping directly onto the cards and colouring with Promarkers.

The stamped sentiments are Personal Impressions and Wild Rose Studio - I just added a little bit of Stickles to some of the flowers just to glitter them up a little.  All the critter images are from various Penny Black T for transparent sets.

Daytrippers

Last week's challenge on UKScrappers was to use a sketch, including the five panels in the middle of the sketch and the top/bottom details.  Also to add journalling and use new stash.

I used January's kit from Sarah's Cards - Pebbles 'Fresh Goods' and some photographs taken on a daytrip to Chatham Maritime Museum.

The bunting was carefully handcut from one of the patterned papers in the collection and the title was cut using a Sizzlet 12" alpha - Santa's workshop.  The ink splatters are watered down acrylic paint flicked over the page. 

Jump for Joy

Week 3 for 52 cards challenge  was to use flags, banners or bunting on your card.  I made another Birthday card for my stash using this joyful hedgehog from Penny Black.

I used all leftovers from kits - I think they are a mixture of Fancy Pants and Echo Park.  The bunting is a sticker also from my leftovers box.  The flowers were punched and embossed using the Nellie's Choice punches, the leaves are a Woodware grass punch.  The sentiment is by Woodware.

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!!!!

Today it is Dad's birthday and this is the little card I made for him.  The image is by Penny Black (no surprises there then!!!!) and is a Valentines stamp but I cut off the little trail of hearts that are attached to the back of the plane.

The papers used are Echo Park and the birthday sentiment is by Personal Impressions.  The card is a tri-fold aperture one that I pinched from my cross stitch box - I put the cloud paper inside the card and then suspended the flying hedgie by a strip of acetate so that he looks like he is flying.  I didn't cut the hole very well in the polka dot patterned paper so I hid that with a scalloped circle aperture cut with nestabilities.

This card fits perfectly with last week's 52 card challenge which was to use an aperture and I am also using it for this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge which is a Case-It challenge.  I have taken my inspiration from the lovely cloud paper that Debby has used for her card and the flying Penny Black image.

And this horrible scene greeted me yesterday morning -

So I was full of the grumps all day as I couldn't get to my monthly crop!!

Christmas - Anita's January Class

As always the January class by Anita aka The Inky Blossom was a Christmas themed one.  Sadly I can't link to Anita's original layout as it isn't on her blog.

It was a double page layout and we used Echo Park

It involved lots of handcutting, a bit of doodling and plenty of Stickles.

  

I used photographs from Christmas morning when we had our Bucks Fizz and opened our stockings. 

Butterfly Thinking of You

Nat's week 4 of the 52 card challenge was to use this lovely sketch

I have just been given an order to make some sympathy cards, plus I needed one to send as well so used the sketch as I was struggling with inspiration.

Supplies used 

Papermania paper pad
Martha Stewart doily lace punch
Kanban lace stamp
Kanban die cuts
Personal Impressions sentiment stamps
Stampin' Up oval punches
Butterflies downloaded from Swirlydoos - coated in Rock Crystal Stickles
Doilies from Sarah's Cards

This last card I did for this month's card challenge on Going Buggy which was to use grey, red and white