Just For You

Tis the season for amour and I love making valentine cards because I am a really soppy and romantic person.

This card is made from a lovely freebie paper pack that came from the latest issue of Simply Cards & Papercraft. It's all tweety birds and love hearts and in bright funky colours so suits me down to the ground.

I used the latest sketch at Inspirational Card Sketches for the layout. The backing paper is a red on red swirly design. The wavy heart strip was cut from another piece of the paper. The white card was embossed using the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder. I edged it with a black inkpad and distressed the edges with scissors. This is a technique that I have seen many people do but haven't had a go at myself. I like the fluffy edges it gave to the piece and can see me doing this again.

The central image is also from the free papers. I stuck it onto card to make it stronger so I could mount it on 3D foam. The little hearts are some great dimensional stickers I got from Paperchase on Saturday. I got oodles of really funky hearts for a £1. Last but not least the sentiment was added from the same paper pack.

I have incorporated the following challenges into this card :-

• Inspirational Card Sketches #49 - Layout of Card
• 365 Cards Day 280 - Put red & white stripes somewhere on your card (heart embellishment)
• Creative Card Crew #42 - Distressing
• Corrosive Challenge #46 - Distressing
• Creative Inspirations #43 - Use something New received in the New Year
• Flourishes - Feel the Love
• Get Creative With Ann GCA #73 - Love Is In The Air
• ABC Challenge - L is for Layering

Hello

Hello and welcome to a very bright card. I don't normally 'do' green but I am really starting to like using it, even brighter lime greens like this one. Very strange indeed for me.

I've got loads of papers and scraps freebies from magazines and I would like to try and use more in my cards this year. My little craft room is heaving with stuff so other than tools like dies and embossing folders I want try and limit how many papers I buy this year as I really do have an awful lot. I'm sure I'm not going to be the only crafter that says that though.... LOL

Card was made primarily with the Day 307 challenge from 365 Cards where you were to use 5 items 5 times. There are 5 individual papers, 5 chipboard letters, 5 brads, 5 Prima blossoms and 5 bling rhinestones. I used a black inkpad to distress the edge of the squares, the yellow mat and the edge of the card.

I used a Fiskars punch to create a 'ribbon' from paper and then layered a strip of green paper on top before fixing the flower/brad/bling combo in place.

Anyhoo, this card satisfies the following challenges:-

• 365 Cards Day 307 - Five for Friday (use 5 items, 5 times)
• Colour Create #35 - Lemon & Lime plus optional Spring or Summer Flowers
• Crazy 4 Challenges #18 - Polka Dots
• One Stop Craft Challenge #61 - Something beginning with B (blossoms, bling and bright)
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #48 - Colour Combo of Black, yellow plus another colour of your choice (green)
• Pile It On #30 - Crystal Clear (bling)
• Sophisticats #16 - Fancy Borders or Punched Edges
• Creative Card Crew #42 - Distressing
• Helen's Crafting Friends Forum Challenge

365 Day 101, MTTC, Flourishes, CCC & Pile It On

This card was made using a digi stamp from Sweet & Sassy. Isn't the caterpillar cute ?

I printed the full image twice and decoupaged the mushroom heads. I also printed out a larger version of the small mushroom and the caterpillar so I could use them as elements on the card. The images are cloured in using Marvy le Plume pens.

The papers used are from HOTP Creative Cardmakers Pack in Earthtones. The brad originally had white spots but I recoloured those using a permanent marker so they looked the same as the mushroom. I really like how the shapes are quite simple and cartoony as it makes the design quite bold.

I have incorporated 5 challenges into this card, details are as follows:-

365 Cards Day 101 - make a card featuring a vegetable of some sort

My Time To Craft #65 - Sketch from Becky for the layout of the card

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge - use designer paper on your card (HOTP)

Creative Card Crew #14 - Use a paper with a repeating geometric pattern

Pile It On - Non Stamped sentiment plus one other challenge

365, GCA, Creative Card Crew, DCM & Created By Hand

This card is so bright and sunny echoing the weather we have been having in Birmingham up until the last few days.

The main sun image is a free colouring book page by a childrens artist called Elizabeth O. Dulemba. There are some fab designs on there which would be useful to many cardmakers. I love the piggy, he's sooo cute :) and there is a great elephant on there too.

When I saw this sun I thought it would look great layered in different colours and I think it has worked really well. I printed it 4 times and cut the relevent layers out of each colour. All the sun papers are from HOTP. The textured card base is DCWV and the spotty paper is The English Paper Company. I was trying to add a sentiment but it just didn't look balanced so I decided to leave it off.

The sun has been given a bit of a makeover with blue eyes, green eyeshadow, rosy red cheeks and a bit of red lippy. She's looking good !

This card fulfils 5 challenges, details as follows:-

365 Cards Day 100 - Make a card using the bright colours of red, orange, yello, green & blue

Get Creative With Ann # 44 - Theme of summertime or beach

Creative Card Crew # 13 - Make a card for a child. as this card is in primary colours I felt it would be bright and happy for a child. Also it is a childrens colouring book page.

Daring Card Makers - Weather themed card

Created By Hand - Create art using circles of any kind - the centre of the sun and the spotty paper.

Card-A-Licious, Charisma Cardz, Creative Card Crew & 365 Cards

The challenge over at Card-A-Licious this week is to make a card using stitching, a flower and a star. I used a computer program to make my star templates and cut it from stardream cardstock so it sparkles really nice. The patterned paper is from Dovecraft. I added faux stitching with a white gel pen, one day I will get my sewing machine out to stitch with......

The challenge at Charisma Cardz this week is to use at least one star, well I've used a base card, paper, a glitter star and even the word spelt out in alpha beads so I think I'm safe on this card. Creative Card Crew has a challenge this week for a shaped card so I have entered this in for their challenge too.

This card will also allow me to tick off one of the older challenges on 365 Cards. The challenge on Day 27 was to use at least 3 different textures on your card. I've got glitter cardstock, Prima flowers, Paperchase gems, Papermania cork letters and alphabet beads so I've got plenty of texture on this card.

And, more amazing than anything else, I've made a shaped card that still stands up !!