Summer Colour

Good afternoon Crafty Friends!

I hope this post finds you and yours keeping well and safe. Here at Casa Mia we are coping well with the "Lockdown" situation that the UK has found itself in since 23rd March. I have been working 2 days a week in the office (with proper social distancing) and my remaining 2 workdays have been spent at my new desk, the dining table at home! We are also enjoying some great family time in our allocated exercise slot each day and have had fun exploring our village and spotting rainbows that residents have put up in their windows. 

With it being the 15th of the month, it's time for our new challenge at All Dressed Up Challenges . As usual, our challenge is Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image. Not got any All Dressed Up images? Wendy has plenty of gorgeous images available in the All Dressed Up Etsy Store and has also 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!

It was my Mother-in-Law's Birthday yesterday, so what better reason to colour up one of Wendy's gorgeous images. I had a bit of a challenge making this card, as Papa Mia is working from home and has set up his work zone in my craft space (a.k.a. our study). So I'm stuck as to what crafty bits I can actually get to, in order to create. So, I am not especially happy with the layout of this card but I am super pleased with the colouring.

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is a pre-made A5 card base in white card which I have embossed with a geometric circles embossing folder. I then swiped a pad dabbed with Vintage Photo Distress Ink over the embossing to give a bit more detail.
• 
  Image is the beautiful Hanging Basket by Wendy Burns, the artist behind All Dressed Up Digital Stamps. I have brought this image to life using my Copic Alcohol Markers and following one of my Kit and Clowder Monthly Bonus classes (the Vintage Bicycle Class from February 2019) before cutting the image out with my largest Sizzix Framelits Oval Die. Alyce (the art guru behind K&C) always says you can apply the techniques from the classes to any image, not just the one that the class is set on ... well, this just proves her point. And if you haven't tried any of Alyce's classes why not try now, whilst we are in these strange times - mention my name and Alyce will reduce the price of your class by $5AUS!

So, that's my very simple card for you today. However, if you head over to the All Dressed Up Challenges Blog you will be able to see the stunning inspiration from my very talented teamies. And don't forget to then come back an show us your creations - it's always Anything Goes with an All Dressed Image, for your chance to win some of Wendy's images. Our lucky winner is picked at random, and our Dressy Girls choose their Top 3.

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

• Challenge #180 - Use a Die at CAS on Friday
• Challenge #506 - Anything Goes with Optional Twist - Outdoors at Crafty Catz Challenge
• Challenge #160 - Use Flowers at Simply Create Too Challenge
• May Challenge 118 - Flowers at Moving Along With The Times
• May 2020 Challenge - Create a Custom Background, Do Not Use Designer Papers at A Place to Start
• May Challenge - Say It With Flowers at Stamping Sensations
• Challenge #27 - Flower Power at Digi Doodle Studios Challenge
• HLS May - Anything Goes with Dies Challenge at Happy Little Stampers
• Challenge 135 - Flowers at Crafty Friends Challenge

I hope that you and your families stay safe during these difficult times and, if your family has been unfortunate to suffer from Covid-19 then my thought are with you.

Crafty Hugs,

Helen x

Time to Relax

Hello crafty friends!

Wow, what a week it's been weather wise ... scorching sunshine one minute, torrential downpours the next, flash floods and then a glorious evening once again! I'm not sure our weather station has picked up the correct rainfall records as youngest Bambino and I were in the car travelling to gymnastics during a thunder storm with hail, rivers running across the roads and a flood at the bottom of one hill! Fortunately I got her to gym OK, and came home via a different route to avoid the flood!

Father's Day has kind of crept up on me this year, so I've only managed a really quick card for my Dad, inspired by the current sketch at Tuesday Morning Sketches:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is a premade A5 card in white
• Paper - is from Sara's Signature Range Just for Men and this clock face paper comes from the Urban Collection Paper Pad. My copy actually came from the CD-Rom which came with Crafter's Inspiration Magazine Issue 10. I love the distressed grungy look of this design!
  
• Film Strip - is from the Verity Rose collection on the Crafter's Inspiration Magazine Issue 10 CD-Rom. I cut off the top aperture (as it was a bit girlie!) but I reckon the pictures left work just fine on a male card, don't you?
• Sentiment - is from the Mixed Circular Sentiments Set by Lili of the Valley. This set is great value for money as you get 4 main circular sentiments which you can then mix and match with the 36 word strips to make the perfect sentiment! I have stamped my sentiment in Vintage Photo Distress Ink onto cream card, which I've then die cut using the second smallest Die'sire Essentials Circles die.
• Twine - is from my stash, which I've tied in a reef knot on the front of the card

I have been inspired by and would like to enter the following challenge:

• Challenge #356  at Tuesday Morning Sketches

I would also like to enter the following challenges:

• Challenge #203 - Father's Day at Brown Sugar
• June Challenge - Something Masculine at Craft for the Craic
• June Challenge - Male Project at Sasayaki Glitter Challenge
• Challenge #37 - Theme "Father's Day" at The Male Room

Hope you have a lovely evening!

Hugs, Helen x

A very Feminine Card

Good morning crafty friends and hope that this post finds you well - hugs winging their way to anyone who needs them.

It's new challenge time at Feeling Sketchy and we've got a lovely sketch for you this time, with plenty of possibilities. We've also got a lovely sponsor and it's Nikki from Polkadoodles who is offering our lucky winner from this challenge a prize pack!

So here's the sketch we'd like you to use as the inspiration for your project this time:

And here's my take on it:

As you can see, I've rotated the sketch by 90° and rather than using different Design Papers for the border, I've used an embossing folder.

My card recipe is as follows:

• Base card - is an A5 sized pre-made white card base
• Matting layer - is some Core'dinations Cardstock (the pack I've got isn't available any longer unfortunately) is a dusky pink.
• Top layer - is Centura Pearl Snow White Silver which I've de-bossed with my Embossalicisous Honeycomb Patchwork Border, which was one of the goodies with Crafter's Inspiration Magazine Issue 10
• Flower - is made using my Die'sire Classiques Delicate Flower die (now only available as part of a multi pack here) and the Dusky Pink Core'dinations and Centura Pearl Snow White Silver. Before layering these together, I inked through the die using Picked Raspberry Distress Ink and shaped the petals.
• Leaf Sprays - are made using leaf die in the Die'sire Classiques Delicate Flower set, and before I removed these from the die, I inked through using Silver VersaColor.
• Sentiment - is from my favourite sentiment set of the moment ... Swirly String Sentiment Set by Lili of the Valley which I've stamped directly onto the Centura Pearl in Picked Raspberry Distress Ink.

I hope I've inspired you to come over to Feeling Sketchy and join in with our sketch challenge - don't forget that you can rotate the sketch, change the element shapes etc. ... we just need to see that our sketch is the basis for your project!

Hope you have a great day!

Hugs, Helen