Thursday 13 November 2008

Meet George....the dinosaur!

I've had a busy day today. I was asked to make a card for a little boy who is going to be 5 soon and I've spent nearly all day making this card! I have no idea what his favourite characters are or anything so I thought I'd play the safe option and go for Dinosaurs! I did a search on the internet but all I came up with really were the Basic Grey Archaic dinosaurs. I then remembered seeing some cards and toppers made using them in a magazine, which I think Jo Kill did, so I dug out the magazine for some more inspiration.
Rather than go out and spend more money I decided that I would have a go at making my own paper pieced dinosaur. So I got out my trusty doodlebug cardstock and set about making a template. I've kind of copied the Basic Grey one, but have drawn it all freehand. I've inked all the edges, hopefully making it stand out a bit more. I have decided to call him George, don't know why really, he just looks like a George! I think I've fallen in love with him. I'm so pleased with how he's turned out.
I'm not so happy about the rest of the card though. The inspiration stopped at the dinosaur! I used a Shabby Princess paper for the background which is in tones of brown, green and orange. I cut out a few small pieces of card which I've inked and hopefully they look like rocks! I was a bit stuck when it came to the sentiment. I dont have many sentiments stamps and by the time i was ready for it, it was too late to print one off the computer, So I've just coloured some peel offs brown.
I hope you all like him!

Tuesday 11 November 2008

A little bit of Christmas!

I spent most of Sunday looking back through old issues of magazines looking for some inspiration for some christmas cards and was so frustrated as I just couldnt find what I was looking for! I didnt know at the time what I was looking for but I didnt find it! I did sit and cut out some snowflakes from one of the free templates that came with a magazine and also some holly leaves.
Here are a couple of the cards I've used my holly leaves and snowflakes on!
I was originally inspired to make this card when I saw the new stamp from Magnolia with the Silent night music background. As I already have a sheet music stamp I thought I'd save myself some money and have a go at using it! I've stamped it onto red doodlebug card in embossing ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. I then took the Guitar playing Edwin and attached him using foam pads. The sentiment is one I've made myself using paint shop pro and Ive cut it out using my nestabilities and then inked the edges. This is also stuck down with foam pads. The stripey paper is from the Papermania set A Wonderful Christmas Time. The spotty paper is a download which I've recoloured from blue to red spots. I am really pleased with this card. Its got to be one of my favourites! I hope you all like it too.
And onto my second creation. This is one I made yesterday and this is the card I was looking for on Sunday but couldnt find! It all started with a sheet of Vellum which I'd torn and decided to use it as a layer of snow. I've taken a sheet of Doodlebug Whimsical Winter Asterisks paper and cut out of it 3 different sized triangles. I have inked all the edges in navy blue ink and then I'ved gone round the edges and also the edge of the vellum with my glue pen and sprinkled Glamour Dust to give them a snowy effect. I have to say that there is glitter everywhere now. I'm sure I will be finding it for months to come! But I love the Glamour Dust. I really wanted something that gave this effect last year but I only had quite a bulky glitter. The snowflakes are stamped onto a pearlescent navy card in white ink and then embossed with clear powder. The snowflake stamp is from another one of my Dovecraft/Studio G 99p stamp sets. I have covered the large blue snowflake I spent ages cutting out, in glamour dust too and then stuck the sentiment, which is another one I have created in paint shop pro, in the centre and mounted it on foam pads. In all, I made about 6 of these last night.
This card was so difficult to photograph! I must have taken about 100 photos last night and yet all it needed to show it off was a little bit of sunshine!

Monday 10 November 2008

Forever Friends

I've been having a play with my new Forever Friends stamps. I really love them and have spent hours just sitting colouring lots of stamped images in! Here are a couple of cards I've made using them, which I decided to keep quite simple. I wish now that I'd have used my embossing folders on the horizontal strip! next time I will do!
I think this one is my favourite. I really love the lilac and I think the ribbon bow finish it off really well. The stamp is from a 99p set from Studio G (Dovecraft) called Daisy Sentiments. I have lots of these 99p stamp sets they are great!

I've also been asked to make a sympathy card for a man who was a keen motorcycle enthusiast and they wanted some kind of a bike on the card. I've not been asked to do one of these before so it was a bit of a challenge coming up with the idea! I wanted to keep it reasonably simple for fear of it looking too much like a mans birthday card.
I found the image on Google and I edited it in Paint Shop Pro to give it an aged newspaper effect and also a sketchy pencil drawn effect, which is not very clear to see from the picture. I worked from the colours of the image and found a nice sheet of metallic DCWV card in Champagne and combined that with the white card. I've embossed a strip of white card in the cuttlebug script embossing folder and then I've stamped a sentiment in a bronze ink which happens to co-ordinate perfectly. The sentiment stamp is from another set of the Studio G 99p stamps. I like this one!

An Award!

First of all I'd like to say Thanks to Denise for passing this award on to me! Thank You! The rules for passing this award on are
1. The winner may put this award on their blog
2. Put a link to the person who sent this award to you
3. Nominate 5 blogs
4. Put links to their blogs
5. Leave a message for your nominees

So here goes!
1. Kerry
2. Sarah
3. Kerry
4. Jo
5. Barbara

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Can anybody help me....please?

I've been told that I should begin to make a list of the bits and pieces that I'd like for christmas. I've seen a punch thats been used on a lot of other blogs and its a spiral notebook punch. I dont know if that's the official name for it but I've been looking everywhere for one and the only one I can find is a Stampin up! punch. I dont really know how Stampin Up works, I've heard the name a lot but dont know how you go about buying any of their products. Here is a piccy of what it looks like. Its so frustrating, I've been searching for ages but can't find anywhere to actually buy one! If anybody has any idea where I could get one from could you please let me know! Thanks.