Last week I made a b’day card for my hubby (he loved it) but in the process messed up a couple of times so I decided to find a way to use up the bad parts. First I rescued the inked part that I had accidentally die cut some images from and now had holes in it. That became the sky along with a partial die cut copper piece that I used as the sun. I added these to some cream paper and then added the stamped and die cut pieces that were not used on the previous card as shown here. I used a Copic pen to ground the kangaroos and tree. Then I stamped the sentiment and added some embossed lines to the base card after I glued the image panel to the kraft CS. I’m happy at how this turned out and have managed to use most of the messed up pieces in the process. It fits the Krafty Chicks challenge I think so I’ve entered it there.

Inkspirational has hearts as its challenge theme this week and I had some scraps on my desk that I wanted to use so ended up with this card. All the circles and tiny hearts are left over from other projects but the piglet image is from Divinity Designs and the word Love is from MFT. The image was coloured with a combination of Copics and pencils and was die cut twice to make it slightly dimensional before adding to the card front. The sentiment was cut from scrap CS and PP. My original idea was to use the PP which had hearts stamped all over it, but it didn’t look right so I cut the solid red piece and glued the two together slightly offset. I much preferred the end result doing it this way. I added the red pearls and called it finished.

It is my hubby’s birthday on Saturday and as I hadn’t yet used my Hero Arts kit from last year I decided to go with an Aussie theme for him. He is originally from Australia and my nickname for him is Kangaroo so somehow this seemed perfect. It is a CASE of one of Jen McGuire’s cards but I struggled with it a little so it sure isn’t perfect.

Firstly I created the background piece using the kit stencil and Distress Oxides. This fit into the Sisterhood of Crafters challenge. Following Jen’s tutorial I tried to create the rest as shown but I messed up several times and in the end I just added an extra die cut behind each silhouette to give it a bit more strength. I also used a small bird stamp from an Inspired by Stamping set as I don’t have any from Hero Arts as yet. I used a Sakura gelly roll pen on the clouds because I can’t find my Wink of Stella pen anywhere. I’ve lost a roll of purple tape as well but I’m sure they’ll come to light when I begin to pack up my craft room for the move. And on the sun I used a Shimmer Stix dauber for the shine with a tad more of the glitter pen around the edge. The kangaroo silhouettes fit into the challenge at Allsorts so I’m able to enter it into 2 challenges. A bonus when this happens. I’ve saved the messed up bits and they will appear on another card eventually as I usually find a way to redeem badly stamped or inked efforts. It isn’t a card that stands up so I used a small ornament to hold it for the photo and will probably use the same thing to display it for him after he opens it.

Having seen a few of these shaped cards that rock recently, I really wanted to try one for myself. As our surrogate daughter has recently moved into her first detached house a new home card seemed to be a good way to start. The 3-2-1 challenge recipe requires embellishments, pp and stamped or digital images. The challenge at Krafty Chicks is an any occasion so I figured my effort would work in both challenges although when I began the card it wasn’t with any challenges in mind. To begin the card I first die cut the largest circle had and folded it in half to create the bottom portion of the card. I cut another circle out of a toile pp but realize from the photo that it doesn’t really show anymore due to the other elements I’ve added, but if you look closely you can see the edges of it. I die cut two circle frames using two dies together and also 2 more circles of the same size out of white CS. My idea was to create a garden but the card evolved slightly differently as I went along. Using my new MFT stamps and dies, I stamped onto some textured scrap CS using the boot planter and the gnome stamps. Using mostly pencils I coloured these images then die cut them. I added sparkle to the flowers using Sakura gelly roll pens. Then on the circle using another MFT stamp set from Christmas I stamped the house with trees and coloured this with pencils. I added some clouds from the same set and some birds from an Inspired by stamping set. I also used some gold glitter at the windows. I adhered the frame to this piece and set it aside for a few minutes. Looking through my stash of embellishments I found the white fence and I cut it almost in half so I could extend it slightly beyond the edge of the base card. I then added 2 die cut grass pieces at the fence base. After this I added the image circle between the 2 grass pieces. Because the back of the card now looked a bit messy I took the 2nd circle and glued it to hide the split in the fence and tidied it up. To make it fit properly a I added some foam in between. Then I added the two die cut images as you can see. The middle part needed something so I took a flower stamp from a GKD set and fussy cut the image out after colouring it with Sakura glaze pens. Then I used 2 sentiment stamps from a Happy Mail set I have but I don’t know the brand name. Before I had a blog I never thought I would need brand names of my stuff and threw a lot of packaging away. These days I wish I hadn’t done this. I stamped both onto black CS using white ink and fussy cut the Congrats before adhering them to the card front. There is quite a bit of sparkle on the card which the photograph simply doesn’t pick up.

This card was made some time ago and I never posted it thinking it might work for a challenge one day. As Double D is looking for flowers in containers and with the upcoming move and the packing etc. finding time to craft is a bit challenging so rather than stress I decided to upload this one. The wonky frame is cut from some paper that came from a box and I peeled it off to use for crafting. It’s textured and looks like wood which is why I liked it. The PP is from StampinUp gifted to me by a close friend and the flowers and mason jar are GKD. I added a hint of colour to the jar for water and the flowers and leaves were both fussy cut and die cut. I also added some clear beads that look like water droplets. When I first made it, I wasn’t sure I liked it that much, but as sometimes happens a card grows on me and this one is like that.

This card is a CASE of something Angie did recently. Thanks for the inspiration Angie, I love your original card and couldn’t resist using it as jump off point for my own. I used several stamp sets to create this card. As the challenge is about snow I remembered I had an older set from GKD that was designed for frames and it had a curved snowflake stamp. I used this to create the circle of snowflakes in tumbled glass ink. From another older set from GKD I took the smaller tree stamp and after stamping off the forest moss on a piece of scrap I stamped the trees into the background. Then I took one of my new Divinity Designs stamp sets and used one of the birds to stamp onto a scrap piece of CS which I then coloured with a combo of Sakura Glaze pens and some Inktense pencils. Using the matching die I cut him along with two blanks so I could glue them together for some definition. He was glued to the card front against the trees. From the same stamp set I took the snowbird word, stamped in white on the black and heat embossed in more white. From another Divinity Design set I took the final sentiment and stamped directly on card front using Hickory smoke ink. I used one sequin snowflake to cover up a stamping booboo. All in all I’m happy with how this card turned out.

One of my stamping buddy’s asked for a condolence card for someone in deep distress and this is what I came up with. I had written something inside when I realized I hadn’t taken photos which normally I wouldn’t post and I’m sorry about that. In fact I didn’t intend to post the card at all, but I realized that it fit the Modsquad challenge and decided to add it there as a 2nd entry.

I had seen a version of this card quite some time ago and thought I would love to try making one. As with many things it sometimes takes me a long time to actually get around to doing it. Basically I followed the YouTube video posted HERE and it is mainly a CASE of that card. I had to improvise a bit as I don’t have many punches so to create my slit opening I used a LawnFawn slider die and a knife to tidy it up a bit. I also used a dragonfly die from PaperRose which was slightly bigger than the one used in the video. Paper is from StampinUp and sentiments are from Joy Clair. I had a couple of flower die cuts in a tray and added these to the front panel. They are from GKD – stamped, heat embossed and die cut. The inside sentiment is actually 2 stamps and the word trust actually was a two word stamp. I didn’t want to cut it so to make it work, I first stamped God, placed a post it note over that and carefully stamped the other stamp keeping my fingers crossed I had the right placement. It worked and I am happy with the result. I shall probably make more of these cards at some point as I like the effect.

Yesterday after finishing the butterfly card – I laid out all the small circles I had on my desk to see how I might use them. Some came from the center of the Mandala cards and the one with the butterfly was from yesterdays card. I left them there and then this morning started looking at challenge blogs to see what was coming up. When I came upon the As you See It challenge I thought maybe it had been put there with me in mind. I gathered up a card front, scored and folded it ready and then began. Clock is ticking but I’ve already got an idea in mind so it was a matter of placement and gluing. The hardest part was choosing a sentiment and I went with one of the scripty greetings by GKD. I messed up the stamping and almost freaked as now I’m down to the wire with time. In the nick of time I managed to go over the poorly stamped words with a Sakura Glaze pen that was used to add the body of the butterfly. Had just enough time to add the bling. Not a perfect card but at least a finished one in the time allotment.

This card is a CASE from something found on Pinterest and is actually quite similar to it but with different papers and stamps. I cut the outer ring from a toile pp that I keep forgetting to use and initially thought I could do the butterflies from the same paper but they looked awful. The inner ring was cut, stamped with a StampinUp leaf and spattered with distress oxide sprays before cutting the inner circle out of it. This was then popped up with foam tape. The butterflies were stamped and fussy cut, but I also spattered them a little bit too. I added the tiny seed pearls and used a stamp from CTMH for the sentiment. The second butterfly should have maybe been a bit smaller, but I still like how it turned out and it fits the ModSquad challenge, which was my goal.

This little Penny Black mouse was intended for the front of the previous card post, but he was too small and got lost on that busy background. I pulled him off and substituted the flowers for that card and here he is being used on the anniversary of Double D’s blog. I first stamped cup cakes in spun sugar pink all over the white layer which was then mounted onto the foam sparkly background. I thought the glitter piece would look like the fancy sprinkles some cakes get. The sentiment is from a GKD incentive set and I fussy cut both the sentiment and the mouse before popping them up on foam tape. Mounted it all onto the Dusty Rose GKD card front. I decided to leave it as is rather than add bling, but I did use some Sakura Glaze pens on the cake and on the mouse to make the colours pop. I chuckled at the comment on the Double D blog about who doesn’t like cup cakes because I actually hate them. I intensely dislike the sugary icing or frosting and never eat them. I get fat on other stuff – lol.

I decided to add this card as another entry into the Global Design colour challenge as the image was coloured using the challenge colours.