Waste Not Wednesdays wk21

It's week 21 of my little Waste Not Wednesdays challenge, here to get you using all that neglected and unused stash... we've all got lots of that, haven't we?  I've made 2 cards, which also fit this week's challenge at Less is More which is 'not a square' - Chrissie and Mandi would like to see shaped cards.

These flowers are one of the oldest things in my stash - from a pack of die cut flowers that I bought before I owned a die cutter.  There's a die by Stampin' Up that looks exactly the same though, so maybe I'll treat myself to that now I've actually used these ;o)  The gem brad (which is the same colour as the little gems, although it looks darker in the photo) was also an early purchase, I've probably had them for 3 or 4 years.  The sentiment is Stampin' Up, butterflies cut with Kars punches and gems from my stash.  The shaped card was cut with the new framelits dies from Stampin' Up, and this time I've got it to stand up by cutting a little straight edge at the bottom of the back piece - see pic below... thanks for the suggestion Catherine!

And then I made a similar card using black flowers from the same pack, a red gem brad and pearls.  The cardstock for both cards is white hammered card from Papermill Direct.  I'm not overly thrilled with these cards, they're not quite working for me - not sure why though!

Do you remember my moaning last year when I let myself be pressured into having Dex's surfer dude blond hair cut shorter?  We let it grow again, but recently he's been asking for it to be cut short, so I took him today and he asked for it 'as short as Morgan's'... well Morgan's is very short... she got the clippers out and I nearly cried lol!  It's going to take some getting used to - he looks very grown up all of a sudden, but he's thrilled with it so that's the most important thing I suppose.  I'll add a photo tomorrow if he'll let me take one.

Hope you all have a lovely evening :o)

Spring sale at The Stamp Basket!

**2nd post for today - please scroll down for my Passion For Promarkers DT card**

Just a quick one to let you know about the fab Spring Sale at The Stamp Basket - loads of lovely goodies with a whopping 25% off... Pop over to The Stamp Basket blog here to see more details!

Have a lovely evening :o)

Passion For Promarkers - inspiration photo

This week at Passion For Promarkers we have an Olympics themed inspiration photo for you... you can use the rings themselves, a sporty theme or just use the colours (as I've done).  We're sponsored by Joanna Sheen who is offering one lucky winner a £10 voucher for her online store.

This card is for my auntie's hubby (the auntie who's more of a friend/ sister as she's only 3yrs older than me!) who is a bit of a BBQ king... he just got back from nearly 7 months in Afghanistan yesterday, we're all glad he's back safe.  He missed out on Christmas so it's great that he's back in time for his birthday :o)

I've used one of the very cute Chester images from Pollycraft - I've got loads of Pollycraft images and it's so sad to see that they're closing... hope Paula will decide to reopen one day!  I've coloured Chester with promarkers and flexmarkers.  The papers are some old Doodlebug ones, with black core'dinations.  Green baker's twine and card candy from my stash, the sentiment is Stampin' Up.

I'm entering my card for the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp - Father's Day or special male
• Forever Friends - one for the boys
• Fashionista Challenge - simply summer
• Chocolate, coffee & cards - for the boys
• Here Come The Boys - anything goes
• Crafty Catz - for a man

I'm also linking this up for the Linky Party at Pollycraft, which is running until the shop closes on 8th June.

Well as usual I'm behind with all your lovely blogs, so I'm going to spend the afternoon trying to catch up... have a fab day whatever you're up to :o)

Bella with flowers - The Stamp Basket DT

It's my day to post on The Stamp Basket blog today, and here's my little creation...

Can't add all the product links at the moment because there's a fault coming up on the shop site when I try to do it, so I'll edit this later...

I've used the very cute Bella with Flowers from Wild Rose Studio and some gorgeous Prima 'meadowlark' papers.  I coloured Bella with promarkers and flexmarkers and added some Viva pearl dots around her.  The tags are LOTV stamps, little pink blossoms are from Wild Orchid Crafts and the twine is from my stash.

I'm entering my card for the following challenges:

• Totally Papercrafts - animals
• Cooking it up with Katie - brads, twine & stamped image
• Sentimental Sundays - pocketful of posies

Apologies if I didn't manage to visit you this weekend - I seemed to spend most of it dozing!  It's the heat and the hayfever tablets, they just knock me out... so I won't be taking any during the week, I'll just have to put up with the wheezing, sneezing, headaches and sore eyes instead - at least I'll be awake lol!  

Oh, and for those who asked about my new watermark - sorry I haven't let you know before, the lovely Janet at Pink Gem Designs made it for me, and you can order yours here.  Have a lovely evening, I'll be trying to catch up with you all :o)

A little sky & cloud tutorial...

**2nd post for today - please scroll down for my Pink Gem DT card**

I've been asked many times for colouring tutorials and I have always resisted, simply because there are so many out there already doing a fantastic job and I didn't think there was really a need for me to add to that.  However... lots of people ask me how I colour my sky backgrounds, and what I tend to do is refer them to this tutorial that got me started - I adapted it first for promarkers and then for flexmarkers, and my sky now ends up looking quite different to the one in the tutorial... it's still a great one to watch though!

I don't have the facilities to make a video - actually our camera does take video but I'm not sure how successful that would be, might try that another day.  So this is just a very quick, simple picture tutorial to give you an idea of how I colour sky... (please excuse my messy pad underneath - I always work with a sketch pad under my images).  The image I'm using is Denny with Watering Can, which is Janet's current freebie at Pink Gem Designs - go and get him while you can :o)

Firstly, the colours I use are Glacier Blue, Cloud Blue, Blue Grey 2 Flexmarkers and the Promarker Blender pen.  But you can easily adapt it if you're using promarkers, just choose a light and slightly darker blue and one of the lighter greys.

Start with Glacier Blue (or any light blue) and just add some wobbly lines/ shapes - try not to think about it too much, you want it to be fairly random!  It'll be quite different each time you do it.

You can see that towards the bottom I add lots of smaller streaks, rather than big areas of blue.

Then go in with Cloud Blue (or whatever darker blue you're using) and add some random scribble over the top of your lighter blue.

Now add the Blue Grey 2 (or any light grey) to give your clouds a bit of definition.

Go over the whole thing with the wide nib of your blender pen - it takes a few minutes to settle down to the right colour so give it a little while.  If you look at this card I posted on my blog earlier, you can see how it all looks when you've coloured in the rest of the image.

Always colour your sky before the rest of the image - there's nothing worse than blending your sky into areas you've already spent ages colouring!  I would also trim this a little, and then use Antique Linen distress ink around the edges to soften the look.

I hope this helps some of you - oh, also the card I'm using for this one is Elegance Satin from Joanna Sheen, just in case you were wondering (no connection, etc)!

A Gem of a Challenge - photo inspiration

This week at A Gem of a Challenge it's the lovely Gemma's turn to host again, and she's given us a photo to use for inspiration... those of you who are regulars to my blog will know I struggle with these just a bit lol!  I'd also like to say congrats and welcome to our new Pink Gem teamies who have been announced on the blog today - so pleased for you all, and looking forward to 'working' with you :o)

Here's the inspiration photo...

And here's what I made...

I've used one of the adorable new Jodie images - this is Cartwheel Jodie, isn't she fab?  I coloured her with promarkers and flexmarkers and cut her out using my new favourite Stampin' Up framelits dies - the yellow mat was made by drawing around the die and then cutting it out, as I find with most of these fancy shapes the jump between sizes is too big for matting, for me anyway!  A bit of inky edging hides any little cutting imperfections ;o)

The card base is the front piece of a Craftwork Cards 'on the edge elegant' card blank, scored and folded in half.  The papers are from a Papermania pad, and I hand stitched the main piece with some yellow Bazzill thread.  The sentiment is LOTV, butterfly was punched using a Kars punch and the spotty flowers were punched using an x-cut punch.  Pearls and card candy from my stash and the yellow flower is Prima - meadowlark.

I'm entering my card for the challenge at I Love Promarkers, which is to use die cuts.

I don't feel quite so irritable about the heat today, but that's probably because I've not really needed to do too much in it so far... hubby wants to drag me to the park later and he's doing the man thing - talking about BBQs lol!  He's taken Dex to his mum's this morning, and as we don't actually own a BBQ I'm half expecting him to come home with one... my hubby, lovely as he is, is WAY too accident prone to be in charge of a BBQ!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend, whatever you're up to :o)

Less is More - baby or child

Ugh... did I mention I don't do hot weather?  I'm at the wilted mush stage, and I'm past trying not to moan about it... poor hubby lol!  I visited a friend this morning, we had a little walk with the kids (Dex doesn't go to nursery on Thurs & Fri) and then I popped to the shop for a few bits, and that was me finished.... apart from picking Morgan up from school I've not managed anything else, not been in the craft room at all.  It's supposed to be like this right through the weekend too... sob!

Luckily I made these cards yesterday, for this week's challenge at Less is More which is 'for a baby or child'...

They were both going to be the same originally but the boy card was one of those that sort of makes itself and this is just how it ended up!  These little padded hearts were one of the first things I ever bought when I started card making, and I've never really used them.  I decided to stitch some little buttons on them, which I think does make them look a bit better, and then made my very simple boy card with some kraft card, blue core'dinations from my scraps and a LOTV sentiment, stamped in Memento rich cocoa.  I also sponged a bit of antique linen distress ink on the kraft card.

And here's my girl card...

I made this one following the sketch at Clean & Simple, using another of the little padded hearts.  The paper is a digi one from Raspberry Rd, printed onto linen card.  The paper panel is popped up on foam pads on a mat of white linen that you can't really see properly in the photo.  Sentiment is from LOTV, stamped in Memento pear tart.

I'm also entering my cards for the 'new baby' challenge at Fussy & Fancy.

Hope all those of you who love the sun have had a lovely day today!  I'm off to carry on with my wilting...