Red, White and Blue

So this weekend here in the UK we have an extra long bank holiday as its the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - that means for me a whole four days off work - yay!!

Today I created a birthday card for a friend in the red, white and blue colours seeing as they seem to be everywhere at the moment due to the celebrations:

Ok so apologies for the photos but I had to take them with the camera on my phone.

I coloured a white card blank using antique linen and vintage photo distress ink and also another piece of card in the same way.  I stamped the Juliet image from Indigoblu in red and mounted her onto a piece of black card.  I used the vintage photo distress ink to stamp with the ends of her hair onto the card blank.  I then coloured two sections of card using chipped sapphire distress ink, I stamped the sentiment from the Waltzing Mouse Say It Loud stamp set onto one section and matted it with black card.  The other blue section I punched along the sides with the xcut leafy lace punch then stamped the Indiogoblu Juliet stamp hair ends along it in black ink.

I made a flower by putting a running stitch along a piece of lace and pulling it tight, I then added the button and bakers twine to the centre.  I pleated some of the lace also the run along the front of the card.  Finally I added some pearls to two of the corners.

I would like to enter my card in the following challenges:

The Artistic Stamper - A red,white and blue challenge over on the artistic stamper challenge blog with Jennie and the gang to celebrate the jubilee

Craft Room Challenge - Birthday challenge - the craft room challenge blog are celebrating their 1st birthday and have a birthday blog hop going on with lots of blog candy to be won!

Ink on my fingers - Hels is also celebrating the jubilee this week with a red, white and blue challenge

The Ribbon Girl Blog - Use ribbon or lace on a project as part of their brand new monthly card challenge

Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge Blog - Sketch challenge 100 - its the 100th sketch challenge over at Waltzing Mouse and the more people who join in the more prizes there will be! Also a chance to win a guest designer spot too!

Thanks for stopping by, love Claire x

Less Is More - Week 70

This week over on the less is more blog it's the colour challenge week - this time the colour choice is red, white and blue due to the jubilee celebrations this weekend in the UK.

This is the card I created today to join in the challenge:

The central red rose image is from the papermania confetti collection and the blue border is a faux stitch stamp also from papermania.

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, love Claire x

Balloon Challenge

So I found myself a lovely new blog to follow yesterday: Crafty Cardmakers, they have some really beautiful cards on there, full of inspiration.

The challenge over there this week is to create a birthday card with a balloon on it - more details of the challenge can be found here.

Here is the card I made to join in the challenge:

The balloon stamp is from hero arts (I think it's called flying airships?), I covered up the sentiment that was along the bottom of the stamp with a post it note.  I then stamped the image again onto some papermania red gingham paper and cut out the balloon and stuck that on.

The background paper was trimmed to size, it is also from papermania, and I used the waltzing mouse say it loud stamps to create the sentiment in the bottom corner. 

Some red twine wrapped and knotted was added and the balloon was stuck on with foam pads.

I hope you have a nice day, I'm off outside to the garden to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts!

Claire x

Alcohol Inks

So I decided to try something brand new to me this week - alcohol inks.  I know tons of people are very familiar with them and use them all the time but I've never had any so after a bit of an impulse buy I've been having a little bit of a play with them.  Some of the backgrounds I created with them looked a little muddy and some looked ok, so here is a card I created using one of the backgrounds I think looks alright.

The stamp i  used is by paperbag studios - which has a circle on it so I can enter Hels circle challenge this week over at Ink On My Fingers

I stamped the image, cut it out, then used my leafy lace xcut punch on some pink and black papers to create a border and layered it all up.  I then had some clear buttons so I coloured one with the remains of the alcohol ink on my blending tool and secured it to the card with some twine.

Quite a 'clean' looking card I think but not too bad for my first exploration into alcohol inks!

 See you again soon, Claire x



Sunday Afternoon

I've been left to my own devices this afternoon as the husband is off playing golf so i've had a lovely time playing with bits and bobs in the peace and quiet!

The challenge over at The Ribbon Girl blog this time is to create a pink and cream themed item, I love pink and cream together, I think they go so well to create a vintage style look. 

I made the card below using a Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous stamp inked with worn lipstick distress ink, i used antique linen distress ink on the background, cut it out and distressed the edges with my scissors.  I tore a piece of typeface paper by papermania and coloured it using the antique linen and worn lipstick too.  I couldn't find any ribbon in my stash that co-ordinated properly with my card so I coloured a piece of pale pink ribbon using the worn lipstick inkpad and then used my heatgun to dry the ribbon and crinkle it up a bit to look more aged.  I then punched some holes for the ribbon to go through using the tonic border system.  I pierced the typeface paper and used a white pen to create a stitched look, I wanted to try this technique after seeing it over on The Craft Barn blog this week, I think it turned out quite well.  I then decided the whole card needed a bit of a lift so I used a glue stick around the edges of the card and of my stamped image and some gold embossing powder to create a more vintage looking frame.  I've added a bit of a close up photo to show the faux stiching and gold embossed edge a bit more clearly.

I hope you like it, I'm a bit behind with my blogging this week so hopefully I'll be back shortly to share a couple of other cards I've made.

See you soon, Claire x

Another Yellow Card

Ok so I wasn't really happy with how the yellow cat card turned out for some reason, so I decided to have another go at a different yellow card as part of the Less Is More challenge this week to create a card around the theme yellow:

I created this using the mustard seed distress ink again. I created the left hand border using a small flourish stamp by Artemio and masking tape. The bird stamp is a Tim Holtz one from Stampers Anonymous. I liked this card more as I feel it is a bit more balanced and has a cleaner look to it.

Anyhow I think that is all for now!!

Claire x

Less Is More - Yellow

It's been quite a while since my last post but in my defence I've been busy getting married!! So now that's all over and done with I'm hoping to have more free time to craft and keep this up to date.

So firstly I have created two cards this week to enter into the Less Is More challenge which this week has the theme: Yellow.

Here is my first entry:

I created the border on the right hand side of the card by rubbing some mustard seed distress ink through some sequin waste.  I then used the same inkpad to add the yellow box in the centre of the card, stamped the cat silhouette and the butterflys which are from inkylicious. I added a box around the square of yellow ink using a fine black pen.

 

Anyhow I think that is all for now!!

Claire x