For a special person... be well soon

The adorable Deborah has not been well.  She has been suffering back problems and has been restricted in her movement and ability to sit at a computer or her craft table for long.... This wonderful woman is always thinking of others.... organising challenges for us to take part in as well as many other wonderful things so a few of us decided she needed "pay-back" and we sent her some cards to say we were thinking of her and wishing her well for improvement in her back issues.

I did this card -

It is CASE'd from an English Magazine called Cardmaking and Papercraft. I adapted their card to the stamps and nestibilities I had. I stamped the white background with the Flowers and Dots background in Key Lime chalk ink. I used the same stamp with Stazon on acetate and then cut out the bigger butterfly. I stamped the Inkadinkado flourish on to white card and layered it onto the green. Add lots of clear gems for some added bling and also added gems to the smaller green butterfly and stuck it on top of the acetate . I used the Dahlia nestibility to make the flower with words on it. Added some faux stitching and all done.

Deborah has now told me she has received this card so I can share it.  I hope all the cards made Deborah feel better knowing we all care!  I wish her a speedy recovery from this issue ( having been there - know how painful this can be)

Hope you weekend is going well - I've got a couple of cards to share tomorrow.... been waiting between rain showers to photo.

Embellish challenge... butterflies and colours

I have been seeing some lovely cards in Black, Green and Kraft so thought I'd check out why... Embellish Magazine are have a challenge with these colours:

I had a couple of tries before I finally had something I liked ( for some reason my first attempt kept smudging).

I started by stamping the old French writing ( Hero Arts) onto the kraft and layering onto black.  Next I took a smaller piece of kraft and stamped the Flourish ( Inkadinkado).  The butterfly is a Spellbinders die cut - cut from a piece of acetate that had the Dots and Flowers ( Hero Arts) stamped on it.  I painted the back with Lettuce Alcohol ink and covered it with white paint.  I placed it on the card so the Flourish gives an impression of the butterfly trail.  I added some Crystalline Kindyglitz which turned green on the card...  all in all I liked this card.  It is similar to one I did for a special person that I will post next week when I am sure she has received it.

Also tonight I can show you the lovely card I received from Isha in Switzerland as part of Deborah's Card Chain Challenge ( which reminds me June's challenge is ready to be signed up for here)

Isn't it lovely - Thanks to Isha.  Do pop over and have a look at her blog... lovely cards.

Have a great rest of the week everyone... almost the weekend.  I'm off to blog hop and catch up with what everyone else has been up to.

May's card chain challenge,

As many of you know, I have taken part in Deborah's Card Chain challenge from the beginning.  This month her challenge was to use these colours

or this sketch  or the theme of Friendship, Mothers Day or Memorial Day.

My recipient was Deborah March who lives in Nova Scotia.  Now I had to look up the map to see where that was!!!!!  Deborah has a great blog here.  She is one extremely talented card maker who has been recognised all over the place.  She has the most amazing tutorial on her blog for making flowers.  Go see this.

Anyway I sent off a card based on the sketch and another card with a book mark as part of it.

I had made some purple alcohol ink background and I cut a circle in half for the pieces.  The quote is from a set of by Inkadinkado kids quotes. 

For the book-mark card, I started by adding a strip of silver duct tape on the white card and embossing it with a CB border.  I added some colour to the buds with Copic pens. I then cut it to fit onto the side of a card.  I used a perforating cutter to mark down where it is torn off.  The rest of the card was decorated with a panel - made by stamping the HA cling Flourish in silver ink onto a black card wrapping some silver thread around it and mounting on silver card stock then onto the purple. The birds were made by stamping twice onto the purple card and then when I cut them out, turned one over. 

As usual I had fun making these cards and love sending them off.  I can't wait to see what I get in the post... hopefully not too long away.

Thanks for looking today, wishing you all a great day.

Cook up a Card Recipe challenge

I had an email from the lovely Monika to tell me about Cook up a Card where she is on the design team. The monthly challenge is based on a recipe - May's is 3 leaves, 2 flowers and 1 bird.

This is what I came up with.... Using my new Stampin' Up! set Vintage Vogue. I stamped the brown card round the edge with the vines ( doesn't count for the leaves!!!) and then put the 3 leaves, 2 flowers on the white inner piece with the bird in the corner. That's from an Inkadinkado set. Sentiment by Hero Arts - Anytime Messages.  I had to take the photo on the kitchen window sill as the wintery rainy weather came back yesterday and today.  Not much fun - especially as I seem to have got a cough!!!!  Came home early and had a 2 hour sleep this afternoon - woken feeling only slightly better.... hopefully it won't develop into anything nasty.

Thanks for visiting and once again, a big thank you for all the wonderful comments... really makes my day.

Take care

Paper Play wedding challenge.... and a nice sunny day

The last few days have been very wet and much cooler but today is just lovely so I managed to get out and photograph some of the cards I've made over the past few days...
Last night I saw on Deirdre's blog that  Paper play challenge this week is about weddings... I had this lovely paper from a pad by Cre8tive that fitted the colours for The Play Date Cafe challenge as well... so this is what I came up with.

To get the yellow in, I added the PP to a yellow card base. 

This morning I decided that although the weather has improved, it is still starting to get cooler and that means Soup!!!  So I put on a big pot of veggie soup.  And popped some bread mix in the breadmaker.... Now it was a mixture I haven't used before and I did put the amount for a small loaf in but.......

didn't expect it to be this small~~~~~   however it did taste rather nice... A multigrain bread.  and here is the soup

and this is the view from the kitchen windows....

I have a corner window in the kitchen so get a lovely view out to the garden and trees around us.   Bit gleary due to the sun shining in at lunch time.

Hope your Saturday is as lovely as mine is.

Thanks for visiting.

Play Date Cafe Challenge #30

While I was visiting my favourite blogs this week, I saw the lovely colour challenge on The Play Date Cafe's  this week.

Such lovely colours...

I was driving home from work thinking about making a card for the challenge - okay I thought, pink background,  yellow cage, green bird.... Hold it...haven't I done that already?... so checked when I got home and yes I had!!!!   Thought it was a great idea!!!!  Silly me~

For the details check out this post from the last weekend

Weekend has officially started for me.  My son and his girlfriend are cooking Nacho's for dinner.... tomorrow evening we are off to the movies to see "Robin Hood" and then on Sunday off to visit the daughter... she had two wisdom teeth out this week so feeling a bit sore... will go cheer her up!!

Hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.

Everyone needs Chocolate

Today I found out one of my colleagues down in Timaru ( in the South Island) is pregnant... so she needs this card...

It is an all digital card. The background paper is from this set by Betsy Tuma.  It is a free set from 2peas.  The image and sentiment from this set from Bugaboo.
I printed out the stamp and sentiment and coloured with inks and pencils and a watercolour brush.  The lovely layers are from some I got over a year ago from Monika.  I still have a few left to use.  I was pleased this all came together very quickly so I'll be sending it off tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by.  May your week continue to be good.

More inspiration from Nancy and Michelle,

Now I have found out that Nancy's card that inspired me was actually inspired by this one from Michelle.... I can say thanks to both of them for the wonderful design.  I thought of all my stamps that would work well with this design ... the Silhouette Bells came to mind.  I started by stamping them in black on some PP by Kaisercraft - but decided I didn't like that and re-did them in a green pigment ink on white card.

I put the PP on the white base after I masked and stamped the Old French writing.  I added a strip of black an mounted the three squares and added the sentiment.

I then played around with the first pieces I stamped  and came up with this....

It is a tall skinny card... but I am really pleased with the outcome.

I have also been working on something special - but can't reveal it all.... so here is a sneak peak.....

Hope you are all having a great start to the week.... Take care and thanks for visiting