For A Friend's Birthday

I had a particular friend in mind when I made this card, we don't see each other very often but when we do this is how we usually spend our time together, drinking coffee and chatting. ( Sadly  we are both past the skimpy dresses and high heels though!!! he he. But we can dream! )
 All the stamps I've used here are in a set of clear stamps that were free with the Creative Stamper magazine. I stamped everything using black Memento ink onto snippets of white card. I also used some quite tiny snippets of patterned papers to paper piece the sunshade and the girls dresses, and then used Promarkers for the rest of the colouring. I cut the image with a Spellbinders Marrvelous Squares die and matted it onto another snippet of blue card cut with the larger die from the same set. The backing paper is from a LOTV pad and cut to fit the front of a 6" square base card. After sticking the picture in place I hand cut the stamped banner and fixed it with thin foam pads. I wrapped some blue seam binding around the folded edge of the card and tied a bow. The flowers are cut with a memory box die from some more matching snippets with yellow gems stuck in the centres, and the leaves I found already cut in a box of odd die cuts, I think it is probably a Joy Craft die.
I am sure that you have guessed that I will be taking this over to the Snippets Playground and see what all the other playmates have been making.

I have two new followers to say Hi to this week, so welcome to Hettie and Jaycee, thank you both for  following.
 Thank you as well to every one who spares the time to take a look at my work and for your comments which are greatly appreciated.

Birthday Bloom

This card is made using a set of stamps from Just Rite, and dies made by Spellbinders to co-ordinate with them. In fact I have two sets of stamps that go with these dies, one of them is Easter themed, and this one has several different flowers that  fit inside the frame, along with  a stamp for the frame itself, a few sentiments and the nice swirly stamp I have used here. When my friend was here last week she asked if I would cut a frame for her from a piece of patterned paper and decided it did not need to be stamped and it looked really nice on her card, so I thought I would have a go myself.
First I chose the flower and stamped it with Versafine Olympia Green ink on a snippet of white card and coloured it with Coloursoft pencils and blended with Sansodor and a paper stump. I used Brilliance Pearlescent Beige to shade around the edge. I chose a snippet of rose patterned paper from an LOTV pad, Country Lady, to cut the frame, and then deciding it needed a darker edge I drew around the outside of the die onto a co-ordinating paper from the same pad and cut it out by hand. I cut and folded a 6" square ivory base card and decided where I was going to place the framed flower, and then stamped the swirls in the corners with the green ink. The Birthday greeting is cut from the same DP as the frame edge using a Britania die. I cut it three times and stuck them together in a stack and coated with Glossy Accents as I have seen done on several blogs recently. It does add a nice bit of dimension. Lastly I added a few gems in the corners.
The snippets I used will get me through the gates to the Pixie's Snippets Playground again this week, and I am also entering the Stamping Sensations Challenge - Anything Goes.
I see I have another new follower, so welcome to Mags B thank you for joining .
Thank you for visiting and for your comments which are all really appreciated.

Summer Butterflies 2

   Yes I am back with another butterfly birthday card for the Butterfly Spot Challenge at Mrs. A's blog, where the theme is still Summer Butterflies. Now this card turned out to be a bit softer in colour and the flowers are very stylised ones but I hope it is still summery enough to qualify for the challenge.  There are certainly a lot of little brown and orange butterflies flitting around in our garden just now.
The stamps I used are Chocolate Baroque from a set called Fantastic Florals, stamped with Memento Elderberry ink, and coloured with Promarkers. I fussy cut around the image and fixed it to a panel of mauve pearl card that had been die cut with a Spellbinder Card Maker die. I threaded some pale blue seam binding through the slots in the die cut and tied a matching bow to sick at the centre. The pale blue backing paper is from an LOTV pad that came free with a craft magazine recently. I cut this to fit the front of my 5" x 7" base card using a deckle edge blade in my cutter.After sticking the layers together I stamped the greeting below the image panel.  I used a small snippet of white card and stamped the main butterfly twice and coloured with  Promarkers to match. I mixed a little liquid pearl with a spritz of water to make a pearly wash to brush over the butterflies to give the a slight sheen. ( I'm not sure how well this shows in the photo.) I used silicon glue to fix them in place so that the wings would stay slightly raised. I wanted to add a little glitter to the flower centres and picked out a pale lilac coloured Dovecraft stickles type glitter glue and was somewhat surprised when it dried looking decidedly green, although not quite as vividly so IRL as it does here. I think it must contain a kind of interference glitter and using it on a dark colour changed it's appearance.
The mauve card I used was a snippet as  well as the extra butterflies so I am tacking this over to Pixie's Snippet Playground to see if the other playmates are still enjoying the nice weather. We have been lucky here and missed most of the heavy rain. We had a fair downpour on Saturday morning but it cleared up enough for my husband to enjoy his usual game of outdoor bowls in the afternoon, and then it rained Monday evening and most of the night I think, but we don't mind how much it rains at night if it stays nice in the day.

I see I have a new follower so Hi to Jenny Lawrence of Cardsaurus, thank you for following and hope you come back soon.
Thanks to all come to visit and for your your kind and encouraging comments, I appreciate each one.

Summer Butterfly

I have missed entering Mrs. A's Butterfly Challenge  the last couple of times and was determined get one done for the latest challenge which started yesterday, where the theme is Summertime Butterflies.
All of the stamps used here are Chocolate Baroque apart from the tiny birthday greeting which is from Stamp Tapestry. I stamped the Harebell Butterfly with Archival black ink and coloured it with ColourSoft pencils using Sansodor and a paper stump to blend the colours. I stamped the butterfly again and the smaller one on a snippet of white card and coloured them the same way before fussy cutting. I used some bright blue and dark orange card to make a double mount before adding the cut out butterflies. I used silicon glue for the larger one to lift the wings slightly. My base card is a white 5" x 7" and I used a stamp from the CB Harlequin Fragments set and stamped it twice with Tumbled Glass DI, and the small sentiment stamp which says, This joy you feel is life, stamped with Memento London Fog randomly in the spaces. I then fixed the image panel on top and added the happy birthday also with the London Fog ink.
I used a couple of little snippets here so I am hopping over to Pixies Playground to show the other playmates too.
Thank you for taking a look, I really appreciate the comments you leave.

Rudolph Day Again

 Yes once again  the 25th is here which means Rudolph Day at Stamping For Pleasure, where we are required to make two christmas cards. I am a bit late today although it is still the 25th., just, and the challenge is actually open until the end of the month. So here are my two cards both quite different but both using the same Chocolate Baroque stamp.
For the first one I stamped with
Memento Rich Cocoa ink and added a little colour to the holly with Promarkers. I cut it into a circle with a Spellbinders nestie and used an old Brilliance Galaxy Gold teardrop inkpad to shade around the edge. I then cut a brown mat using a scalloped nestie. I used a 5"x 7"white card blank and shaded the edges with the gold inkpad, and added a strip of patterned LOTV paper down the centre. The image is fixed with some thin foam tape.  The ivy leaves are cut with a Johanna Sheen die and I found the poinsettia die cuts in my die cut bits box, I think they must have come from my sister, Kate, as I don't own the die. To finish the card I stamped the greeting at which is another CB stamp and added some Diamond Stickles to the leaves and flower.
For the second one I stamped the owl image onto dark blue card with Versamark ink and embossed with WOW white sparkle embossing powder. I trimmed it and rounded the corners and then edged it with Versamark and the same EP, and then mounted it onto silver holographic card. I used a DL card blank for this one and covered the front with some light blue christmas paper which I think is an Artylicious one but I'm not certain. I stuck the image towards the top and added some snowflakes cut from the silver card using a Marianne die. I wrapped some white organza ribbon across and stamped the greeting below it with Versafine Majestic blue ink.I finished off with a bow and some pale blue gems.
Thank you for taking a look and for all your kind comments which I really appreciate.

Pastel Birthday

Here is a card that I made for my friends birthday last week. This is a quite an old stamp bought when Chocolate Baroque was known as Elusive Images. It is one of my favourites, although not used very often as if stamped with black or brown ink it is quite hard to colour, having a lot of lines and shading. One solution of course and one that I have used in the past is to make a coloured background and then stamp over it, however this time I decided to try it with Pan Pastels. I started by stamping the image onto a snippet of white card using a Versamark ink pad and then I added the pastels in shades of green,turquoise and yellow. The purple on the flowers was applied with a pointy Sofft tool. I thought this worked quite well as the colours look darker on the inked outlines and blended softly together in the background. when I was happy with the colour I trimmed the two straight sides and tore around the design on the other two adding a bit more colour to the torn edge.Next I found an offcut of lilac pearl card, another snippet, that was just big enough to make a mount and leave enough to cut the leafy swirl with a Johanna Sheen die. I used a 5" x 7" white card blank with the fold to the top and wrapped some olive organza ribbon across it topped with some lilac satin ribbon. I fixed the image panel over the ribbon and stamped the Chocolate Baroque greeting below it with Brilliance Pearlescent Ivy ink and placed the leafy swirl above it. To finish I added a bow  using both ribbons.
I am taking this over to Pixies Playground as I used up some snippets.
Thank you for visiting here and for your comments, I really appreciate them all.

Something A Bit different

Today instead of a card to show you I have this set of ATCs. I make several of these every month for various swaps but I never seem to  get round to showing them here. However this week I happened to notice that the challenge theme at Crafting With Dragonflies this time is to make a set of 3 ATCs, and as I had just completed these for a regular swap I thought I would enter them in the challenge as well. The theme for the swap is Down at the Beach and as this Crafty Individuals stamp resembles the the rows of beach huts at our local beach it seemed the perfect choice. The sentiment and the postmark are both part of the same set of stamps. I particularly like the postmark as it says Bournemouth on it, which is also appropriate as that is my local beach. To begin with I coloured the top half of each little card  with blue Pan Pastels, and then tore some strips of shell patterned paper from the edges of  a Crafty Individuals seaside pad to stick along  the bottom. The beach huts were stamped with black Memento ink onto a snippet of white card, coloured with Promarkers and the fussy cut out. I used a swirly shell stamp over the printed paper and embossed it with some clear EP with gold sparkle in it but unfortunately it doesn't show up very well but does add a subtle sandy shimmer. I stuck the huts overlapping the paper and setting them at slightly different angles, and finished with the overhead stamping.
My ATCs are almost always made with snippets of card, their small size makes them perfect for using up smaller offcuts. So as these base cards, as well the beach huts were made from snippets I will be entering them at Pixies Playground as well.
Thank you for visiting today and for the comments you leave which are really appreciated.