Boy's Toys!

Hi,

Now I'm back from my holiday, I've had to turn my attention to a card for my Nephew's birthday ... today!

This great card is called Boys Will Be Boys, and it is one of the 30 kits in the £5 Summer Grab Bag, still available from Paper Creator. It's a Pop Out Stepper Card and, despite this being the first time I've made a stepper card, was very easy to put together thanks to the instructions provided. The set also includes a backing paper and envelope.

Depth is added to the card with the use of decoupage layers ... and this time, I did remember to use sticky pads to raise the layers! LOL :o) !!!!! The stars are only raised by 1 layer, the sentiment tag "Boys Will Be Boys" is raised by 2 layers and the central image of skateboard and handcart is raised by 4 layers, although I've only used 2.

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

• Challenge 48 "Masculine Card" at Top Tip Tuesday
• Challenge #5 "Red and Blue" at Paper Creators Crafts

Hope you like it!

Wow!!! I'm a Blog Hop Winner

Last weekend I participated in the Stamp Fairy Blog Hop in celebration of Gerda's Birthday. All her DT Fairies had made cards for the celebrations, each with different themes. For those who left comments on the DTs' Blogs, and a birthday wish for Gerda, was the chance of winning the Digi Stamp that was used on that particular blog.

The lovely Karen chose me to win her stamp and you can find her stunning card here.

Thanks Karen - I can't wait to start playing with my new stamp, oh and my new speccies!

:o)

Out of disaster came ...

Well actually, this lovely card.

This card should have been the Patchwork Flower Pop Out Stepper Card from the Summer Grab Bag from those Crafty Gals over at Paper Creator. However, following a card/printer malfunction (I've discovered that my printer now doesn't like printing the final 5cm of 290gsm white card :o(, so I'm going to have to find another base card to print on) I had to change it to something else! However, all was not lost as I had printed the decoupage layers onto a very lightweight card, and the pop out part of the stepper card had printed OK as well.

I decided to use the central part of the stepper (the base of the flower) as a layer on my card and mounted this onto a square card base made from Blackcurrant card from Centura Pearl Darks pack from Crafter's Companion. This pack just has to be my absolute fave at the mo! :o) As you can see from the picture on the right, I then mounted 2 layers of decoupage petals on the top, and pulled these forward a bit to give some depth to the card.

The sentiment also came from the same Pop Out Stepper Card, and needed to be tweaked slightly in size so it would fit onto my card.

I would like to enter this card for the following challenge:

• Say It With Flowers at Paper Creator's Blog

A Floral Thank You Card

Hi,
This is the third card I made last week to say Thank You to my childrens' teachers!

If you have been reading my earlier posts, you'll know that a few weeks ago I bought a bumper pack of cards from Paper Creator. This card is Just Flowers 1 from the Summer Grab Bag. As you can see from the photo on the right, this is a pyramage kit, although I don't think I have done justice to the pyramage 'cos I forgot to use sticky pads to raise each level ... lol!

The base card is Regal Blue Centura Pearl from Crafter's Companion, which I cut and folded to a 6" square card (with the fold at the top) using my trusty Ultimate Pro. The pale blue layer and darker blue backing paper came with the kit and the main picture has a dark blue surround, although I cut this off. There are 4 layers of pyramage circles to build up the design.

I completed my card by using a floral Thank You stamp on the front of it.

I would like to enter this card for the following challenge (and I hope I'm not cheating in that I made the card last week, but didn't have time to do a blog post about it until now!):

• All About Flowers at Paper Creator's Crafts

Card Sketch Challenge card

Hi again ... post number 2 of the day! Told you I'd been busy this week - lol! :)

This is another card that I made to give to someone at school. My eldest probably has Autistic Spectrum Disorder (but we're not sure at what level as we're still awaiting an assessment - long story) and since she started at secondary school last September, she has been supported by a Pupil Support Officer, who has helped eldest greatly! This card came about because I had a DigiStamp which I was desperate to use, I wanted to try a different card shape/technique and then realised that I could put these together and use it for a Website Sketch Challenge!

I started off by printing the "Lilac Sparkle" backing paper onto 290gsm white card, which I then cut and folded into a 4" square gatefold design, using my Ultimate Pro from Crafter's Companion. To make the central layered shape, I used my Ultimate Pro with the additional embossing board "Springtime Sweets and Cupcake Treats" which has a 'nest' of 6 circular designs. I realised that 2 of these would fit my small card perfectly, so set about resizing the Mannequin digital stamp to fit the smaller circle that I'd chosen and printed this onto 100gsm white paper using a light coloured backing paper from the set "Purple Heaven". I used a darker solid colour from the same backing paper set for the wavy octagonal shape. Once these shapes were embossed, I cut them out and matted and layered them together. These were mounted onto the card using double sided sticky tape.

I didn't want to make the rest of the card too fussy, so I just used a small floral stamp for the corners of the card, and mounted a small bit of "Bling" in the centre of each large flower.

The printables (DigiStamp and Backing Papers) were all downloads from Card Making Downloads. The floral stamp and "Bling" came from Hobbycraft. The card and paper came from my stash. The card sketch stipulated that a ribbon should go horizontally across the middle of the card. However, I must confess to completely forgetting to put a ribbon across my card, and it has now gone to it's recipient! However, I do think it may have made the card too "busy" anyway as it is only a small card!

I would like to enter this card for the Monthly Challenge at Card Making World.

Hope you like it!

It's now 7/9/2011 and I've just found out that this card was one of the runner up entries for the Monthly Challenge I entered - whoop whoop whoop!!!! :0) So I've done the very proud thing and made myself a 'button' for my side-bar.

Male Thank You Card

Hi,

I've been very busy this week (really!) and have made 4 Thank You cards for my childrens' teachers. I wanted to put this one on my blog first as it is an entry for blog challenge:

As I'm so new to card making, I jumped at the chance of purchasing a super-duper bumper pack of cards from Paper Creator (Summer Grab Bag) which costs only £5 for 30 cards! This card is Number 4 in the range called "Bumper Dad's Boot Pyramid Kit" and is just perfect for a male Form Tutor, who is also a Design and Technology teacher ;)!

The base card is chocolate brown from the A4 Centura Pearl Darks pack (from Crafter's Companion) and I folded it to an A5 tent fold card. The papers I printed onto my 100 gsm white paper and then I matted and layered these onto the card. I only used one layer of the pyramage, just to make the boot & tools stand out. The sentiment was one of 24 that came with the kit. This was printed this onto 160gsm white card and mounted onto the card using sticky pads.

I'm really pleased with this card (as my techniques and design skills are improving!), and so was the teacher! I would like to enter this card for the following blog challenge:

• Challenge 14 - One for the Boys at Crafter's Companion

I hope you like it.

Entry for a Blog Competition

Hi,

I realise I've been quiet for a couple of weeks but I've been otherwise occupied by the children's Sports Days and also seeing Take That at Wembley Stadium last week! Anyway, I have been making a few cards during this time, and also sourcing new things for my stash.

On Sunday, our neighbours invited us to a BBQ they were holding to celebrate her parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary. A gift I could source right away (a nice bottle of wine from our cupboard!) but not a card. So I got out my trusty Crafter's Companion Ultimate Pro and this is the result:

I used a pre-made card base in cream, and then layered a pale pink Flower Fairies paper (a download from Crafter's Companion) on the top. I used one of the envelope embossing shapes on my Ultimate Pro to add some detail to each corner of the paper. I then took some black card from my stash and cut this to a 6cm by 9 cm rectangle, and embossed a line just in from the edge of the card. The '50' was made using the font 'Broadway' in my normal word processing package and increasing its size until it would touch the embossed lines on the black card. I printed this out onto some gold paper I had in my stash, cut the shapes out and layered these onto the black card. I mounted this onto the main card using foam sticky pads. I made the 'Happy Anniversary' tag by cropping a sheet of sentiments tags (a download from Card Making Downloads) so that the one I wanted was left, and then resized this to suit my card. This was printed onto cream coloured 160gsm card and cut out. I rested this tag onto the gold paper, and cut an increased border on the paper so you can see the gold colour behind the cream, and then hung both these tags onto some olive green double satin ribbon from my stash. I used the same ribbon to make a bow and mounted this on top of the tag ribbon.

I would like to enter this card for the following Blog Challenge:
Challenge #2 - Special Occasion at Paper Creator's Crafts (http://papercreatorscrafts.blogspot.com/2011/07/challenge-2-special-occasion.html)

Hope you like it!