ABC Challenge

At last I got challenge card made before the month ran out. This week on ABC Challenge was X is for...... well X lol!! As long as an X was placed on your card somewhere it counts, so here is my entry.....

I took an A5 glossy white card & using a Keepsake Romance board embossed a square on the right of the card. Using a knife I cut out the corners to create the diamond shape. Onto this I have decoupaged an image from Pollycraft's Stripes collection. On the left of the card I cut a rectangle of white glossy card & using my Swiss Dots folder cuttlebugged the card. I added an X of salmon coloured ribbon from my shop & added 2 mulberry flowers with a brad from my stash. The insert was a sheet of Sandylion paper called Rose Stitches.

For the inside of the card I used the base layer of the decoupage sheet from Pollycraft.

Recent Cards

I apologise now for this being a fairly long post. I will try & make the next one a lot shorter. I have had a mass of birthday cards over the last couple of weeks. I have done my best to try & use a range of techniques although there is still quite a bit of decoupage involved. The first card I have made is for a friend's son who is now 19. I made a DL card featuring a Speed Freak BMW.
The blue card was a pre-scored card in my stash & I used the twisted pyramid sheet that I downloaded from Scrapbooking Mad. I didn't use all the layers as I find they make the card too bulky for postage so normally stick to 4 or 5 layers. The red diamond strips are from an A4 sheet that I printed off from my cardmaking cd. The red dots are from a sheet of peel off numbers. I took the centres out of the top of the number 8s. This is a great way of using up all those bits that get left over. The Happy Birthday peel offs were coloured using an OHP pen.

I thought I would have a go at decorating the inside of the card as well.

The BMW strip was taken again from the sheet I downloaded, which I stuck to the side of a panel of the red diamond paper. The white panel is a piece that I had in my stash.

I now started saving all the bits & pieces that I cut from sheets as I am using a lot of these bits to decorate the insides of the cards.

The next card I made was for my best friend. The card is a plate card that I got from a site called http://www.heatherskraftycreations.com/.

Once I had printed off the sheets & made up the card I glittered the flower centres. I then cut out & scored the stand. The back of the card is also printed & cut out. This makes for a reasonably quick card .

I also made one of these plate cards for my Aunt. This time I did it in purple. Instead of doing a base layer & then another layer on top I decided to cut the flowers out with the swirls as well.

The next card I have got made was for another friend's birthday, but I was able to combine it with a sketch challenge on Craftycardscrappers.
I used a plain white card & covered it with a sheet of double sided scrapbooking card called Hope from the Sweet Branch Collection by Paper Crate. The image is of Wilbur that I bought from Pollycraft. I decoupaged Wilbur to give him a bit of depth. The Happy birthday is a present metal tag that I covered with a peel off. I threaded a ribbon through the tag & secured it with a large flower embellishment that I got from my local craft shop.

Again I thought I would carry the design through to the inside of the card.
I used the same card as for the outside of the card & added another image of Wilbur. I added 3 small gems to Wilbur's hat.

The next card I got made again was for a friend's birthday & I decided to get some much needed use from my Robo.

I purchased the template from www.craftrobomegastore.com . I added a decoupage picture again from Pollycraft, but I kept back the bottom layer to use on the insert of the card. I added some gems to the card from my stash. The insert of the card is a sheet of scrapbooking paper called Rose Stitches by Sandylion. To this added the bottom layer of the decoupage.
The next card again was made using a download from Pollycraft. This time I used Dexter the Dinosaur. This card was made for my nephew who adores Harry & his bucket of Dinosaurs.

I made a 6 x 6 card using some scrapbooking card from my stash. Onto this I placed some palm trees that I cut out on my robo using a template from UKScrappers. To finish it off I added Ethan & the number 6 from peel offs that I had in my stash.

The last of this batch of birthday cards I made was using a new stamp that I got from Sir Stampalot.
This was a fairly tricky card for me to make as I do like to make my cards symmetrical. I used a white A6 card & added the wording that I had downloaded from Mad About Cards. The rectangles of card in the centre of the card were all from my stash. The middle one again is from the sheet of Paper Crate. I coloured the stamp in using Whispers Dual Pens. Again I followed the theme through to the insert of my card.

Unfortunately this week I had to make a sympathy card for a member of my family. I decided on a decoupage image that I had in my stash that I use quite often for Sympathy cards. I layered it onto a piece of white card that I had cuttlebugged using Floral Fantasy. I placed a piece of cream ribbon across the card. The main piece of card is from my shop. I added a Thinking Of You peel off & 3 flatback pearls from my stash. The insert was taken from my cardmaking cd & I added a verse from a freebie from Crafts Beautiful. The butterflies are from Papermania.
I am hoping to increase my use of inserts on my cards as I am greatly inspired by Bev at All the things I love & Rach at Papercrafts By Rach. If you haven't done so already please take a look at their blogs as they are fantastic crafters xx

Rach's Fab Candy

Oh my goodness...... Check out this gorgeous blog candy over at Rach's xx What a way to start the new year..... But you will have to be quick, it closes at 9pm gmt on 10th January xx

Wow A Blog Award

Oh Wow!!! Thank you Sam at Cardstitching.Co.Uk for this great award she sent me today. Since meeting Sam online about 6 months ago we have become great friends & are finally hoping to meet up this month xx Its great to know so many new friends are out there just waiting to be found.

Here are the rules:

- Put the award on your blog

- Link the person you received your award from

- You can give the award to how many as you want

- Put links of those blogs on yours

- Leave a message on the blogs you have nominated

This is quite tricky with not being blog surfing for a few weeks but here we go..... I would like to nominate http://kazzascraftycorner.blogspot.com/

http://papercraftsbyrach.blogspot.com/

http://visualdesignsbychris.blogspot.com/

Sorry Its Been So Long

Firstly I would like to say a Happy New Year to you all xx I hope you are all coping with the weather at the moment xx I can't believe where the time has vanished to over the past 6 weeks but I hope I can keep on top of things a bit more.......

Anyhow down to business lol!!!!! Here is my first card of 2009 & I have to admit I am rather pleased with it.

The backing paper was taken from my fave cd as usual & the stitching was a pattern from Sam's shop cardstitching.co.uk. I added some pearl imitation beads to the centre of the flowers. These were also bought from Sam. The vellum down the centre is from Papermania & the image of the Bride & Groom is a Crafts Creation sheet available from my shop (click on Thread-bare in the links right). The half pearls in the corners of the card are from my stash. I have still to add the insert to the card but that will be done sometime this week xx