The Love Bus

This is my second post of the day - please scroll down to see my earlier post

Good evening crafty friends and I'm back with another post!

I'm GDT with the Dressy Girls over on the All Dressed Up Facebook page and tonight sees the launch of the new Challenge - our theme for you this month is Square Cardz with an All Dressed Up Image.

We're heading off to a family wedding tomorrow - the bride was one of my bridesmaids when Papa Mia and I got married many moons ago and is also one of his cousins, so this is the very special card I made for the happy couple using one of Wendy's gorgeous wedding images and trying to follow the wedding colours of blush and rose gold:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is Centura Pearl Snow White with Hint of Gold which I have cut, scored and folded to make a 15cm square card base. I have also scored 5 vertical lines at ½cm intervals on the folded side of the card
  
• Image - is the beautiful Just Married by Wendy at All Dressed Up Digital Stamps. I have brought this lovely camper van to life using my Spectrum Noir Colouring System Marker Pens in the listed colours before die cutting it using my largest Sizzix Ovals die. I then tool distressed the edge of the oval just to add a little bit more detail
• Love Birds - IG1, IG2, IG3, CR6, DR5, DR7
• Suitcases - CR2, PP3, PP5, CR6, DR5, DR7, EB1, EB2
• Bunting - CR6, DR5, DR7
• Windows - IG3, IG1
• Bodywork - IG1, IG2, IG3, CR2, PP3, PP5, CR6, DR5, DR7, Clear Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen and 2 pearls
• Tyres - IG4, IG6, IG9
• Grounding - EB1, EB2,
• Outline - BT1
• Embellishments - of pearls and ribbon were from my stash and I used the bow-maker on my Ultimate Pro to tie that lovely big bow.

I hope that you've inspired you to come over to the All Dressed Up Facebook page and play along with our Square Cardz with an All Dressed Up Image. Haven't got any All Dressed Up images? Wendy has very generously provided some freebies here - please send your friends over to ADU for the freebies though, to make sure they're available for other crafters to share! Don't forget that our blog challenge of Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image is also running at the moment - why not enter your card into both challenges so that you're in with a chance of winning more images? 

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• For Someone Special Challenge at Crafty Sentiments Challenge
• Challenge #162 - Use a Stamp or Digi Image at Dream Valley Challenges
• M is for Make Your Mark at The Alphabet Challenge Blog
• Use a Digital Image at Little C's Aloha Friday Challenge
• Challenge #171 - Anything Goes with Ribbon at Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge

That's it from me for this evening ... now I must shoot off and ensure we've got everything ready for travelling to the wedding tomorrow!

Have a great weekend!

Hugs, Helen x

It's a good year for the Roses

Good morning crafty friends!

Can you believe it's September already? Is it me, or is there just a slight autumnal nip in the air creeping in first thing in the morning? Here at Casa Mia, we're winding down to the end of the summer holidays: today is the last day of my long hols as I'm back to school on Monday, youngest Bambino returns on Wednesday but eldest Bambino has another couple of weeks at home before we drop her off at her new Uni in the middle of the month.

It being the 1st of the month brings a new challenge over at Feeling Sketchy and for this fortnight our sponsor is the lovely Tracey and team from Fred She Said Digital Designs. Tracey is offering our lucky winner a US$10 Gift Card to their store. Tracey also very kindly gave each DT member their choice of image to use for this challenge.

So, here is the sketch we're playing with this time:

And here is my take on it, using an image from Fred She Said Digital Designs Store:

I have flipped the sketch to suit the rose spray and leaves and added more swirly bits for good measure ... and then realised once I had photographed my card that I had forgotten to add a scatter of something across the top of it ... doh 😝!!!!! Never mind 😁!

My card recipe is as follows:

• Base card - is Centura Pearl Snow White Silver which I have cut, scored and folded to make a 15cm square card base
• Background layer - is a 14cm square piece of black cardstock
  
• Image - is Rose Spray from the gorgeous Hearts and Roses Digi Set which not only includes this image but also Hearts and Roses (where the spray is inside a heart shape), 3 different sentiments and 2 printing sheets with multiple copies of the images to maximise the use of your cardstock. I have brought this image to life using my Spectrum Noir Colouring System Markers and followed the Roses Tutorial in the Kit and Clowder Elements of Nature Class before fussy cutting it and sticking it to the background layer. This is the first time I've coloured roses using this tutorial and I'm pretty pleased at how they've turned out - they almost have a velvet-like sheen to them!
• Flourishes - have been die cut from Centura Pearl Snow White Silver using one of my Die'sire Leaf Swirls dies. I then cut the swirl into 3 pieces (not that you would guess looking at it would you?) before tucking these behind the image.
• Sentiment - was stamped directly onto the black cardstock with Silver VersaColour Ink using one of the cover freebie stamps from the January 2017 issue of Cardmaking and Papercraft.

I hope that I have inspired you to come along and join us with this sketch, but if you are in need of any further inspiration please head over to Feeling Sketchy and take a look at the gorgeous creations by my very talented teamies! Then come back and show us your version of our sketch - don't forget that you can always flip or rotate the sketch, amend the shapes of elements ... as usual we just need to see that you have been inspired by our sketch! We'll be back with our new challenge on 15th September 2017.

I will be back a little later to link up to some challenges.

In the meantime have a lovely day!

Hugs, Helen x