Out of chaos came.....

Yesterday my friend Terri and I had a crafting session and as you can see we are not the tidiest of crafters. But, out of the chaos came these little beauties...

On the left is Terri's card and on the right is mine.

On the left is Terri's box and on the right is mine.

A closer look at my card.

My butterfly box.

The top of the box.

Challenges

Our Creative Corner - Sketch
The Creative Cottage (4) - Pretty In Pink
Papertake - Open Theme
Crafty Creations (61) - Anything Goes
Fab 'N' Funky (17) - Spring Is In The Air (colours)
Allsorts (45) - Rags to Riches

I said there would be more of these butterflies, they are so gorgeous and fun to play with. They are done with 'The Flight Of The Butterfly' stamp set and punch from SU. The flowers on the card are a digi download that was printed onto pearl card to give them a sheen. A punch was used to make the buckle out of mirri card and the greeting was stamped and heat embossed.

The boxes were originally brown cardboard which were first painted with acrylic paints and then decorated. The base of mine has gold organza ribbon around it with tiny stamped butterflies and paper roses on top. The lid is edged with lace and on the top is a large rose with glittered petals. I have added a glittered, stamped butterfly to the top of the rose and placed punched gold pearl leaves under it. We finished them off by putting a small Easter egg inside.

As you can see Terri did hers slightly different from mine. She placed pearls around the middle of the bottom of the box and only one flower. On top she had more flowers. Her card is also slightly different as well. It is nice that we each put our 'own stamp' on them, don't you think? We both had a great time making these!

Card Recipe

Stamps - Stampin Up/Papermania
Digi Flowers - Fred She Said
Pearls/Ribbon/Lace - Stash.

Thanks for looking.

Lorraine's BLOG CANDY!

Lorraine has this gorgeous stamp up for grabs! I don't really want to tell you about it as then I would stand a better chance of winning it, he!he! If you want to try and win it I suppose you had better pop over to Lorraine's blog. You had better hurry though as it ends on 7th April CET.

Doodle Bunnies

Challenges

Doodle Palace - Use Black
Digital Tuesday (52) - Scrap It
ABC - R is for Red
Stamp With Fun (52) - Sketch
One Stop Craft (73) - Feeling Fruity (strawberries)
Pollycrafts (37) - 4 Papers/3 Embellishments/2 Ribbon or Lace/1 Image

All the paper and card (apart from base card) used was from my scrap box. The image has been coloured with pencils as usual. The border was punched with a MS border punch and I used an SU punch for the flowers. I managed to find a piece of red ribbon in my ribbon scrapbox which was ideal, and just about long enough.

Card Recipe

Digi Stamp - Doodle Palace
Papers - Raspberry Road Scraps
Ribbon/Brads/Spacers - Stash

Thanks for looking.

BLOG CANDY & Challenge!

One of these beautiful handmade pendants could be YOURS! All you have to do is visit Katie's Blog and follow the rules to be in with a chance to win one. Katie is new to blogland so be sure to have a look at her lovely projects while you are there and maybe leave her some comments as well. Ends 7th April!

Challenges

M.A.W.T.T. (39) - Sketch
Katiescardsx Blog Candy - Cupcakes & Coffee

Following the lovely sketch I first covered the card with 'coffee' coloured paper. I then layered the image and greeting onto pink card to match the 'cupcake' and finished it with a couple of Easter eggs.

Card Recipe

Stickers - Do Crafts
Paper - Funky Fairys

Thanks for looking.

Edited to say that sadly Katie has cancelled her blog candy.

Easter Lamb

Challenges

The Sugar Bowl (32) - Sketch By You

The challenge this time is to pick a favourite Sugar Bowl Challenge sketch and make a card. I have picked sketch 20 from the library. The reason I picked this one is because it it not too complicated and gives you the space to add things if you wish to. I have coloured the image with pencils and the flowers are punched. I have tied a bit of raffia around the middle as it made me think of straw on a farm. I finished by stamping the greeting at the top.

Card Recipe

Stamps - Sugar Nellie/Magazine Freebie
Papers - Shabby Princess
Raffia - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Craft Club Cards

Yvonne's Card

Jean's Card

Sharon's Card

Last night at our craft club we did 'shoebox' cards. This is where three people design a card each for all of us to make, they then put everything required to make their card into a box (enough for everyone). Then we have a great time making them ending up with three cards each to take home and loads of inspiration. I was so busy yacking I clear forgot to find out who made the stamps. Anyway I hope you like seeing these fantastic cards that the girls came up with.

Thanks for looking.

Tulip Trio

Challenges

Dutch Dare (74) - Spring Card With Fabric (Lace)
Secret Crafter (76) - Pink/Green/Flowers
Stamptacular (52) - Flower Power + Spring Colours
Cupcake Craft (84) - Spring or Easter + Chocolate
The Cuttlebug Spot - Pink/Green
Fred She said - Spring
Sketch & Stash (32) - Sketch (New Butterfly Punch)

What can I say, another easel card AND more butterflies from my new Stampin Up set Flight Of The Butterfly. I really love this set and am having fun using it so you expect a lot more butterflies... The tulips have been coloured with pencils and decoupaged. I layered them with Nesties and added lace around the edge. The greeting is a sticker and the larger butterflies have been embossed with a Cuttlebug folder (Swiss Dots) and inked with a distress ink pad.

Card Recipe

Digi Stamp - Fred She Said
Greeting Sticker - Daisy & Dandelion
Paper - Making Cards freebie
Butterfly Stamps/Punch - Stampin Up
Lace - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Butterflies & Bees

Challenges

Sunday Sketch & Stamp (24) - Sketch
Penny Black (94) - Butterflies & Bees

Although I followed the lovely sketch I did change the flower to a butterfly. The image has been coloured with pencils and somehow I managed to come up with peculiar colours on the flowers and butterflies. I also added some stamped bees to the image. The large butterfly has been stamped and punched out.

Card Recipe

Stamps - Penny Black/Stampin Up
Punch - Stampin Up
Papers/Buttons - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Two for the price of one!

Challenges

Truly Scrumptious (28) - Sketch
Stampin For The Weekend (35) - Easter
Stamp With Fun (51) - Easter
C.R.A.F.T. (43) - Easter
Paperplay (12) - Easter
Daring Cardmakers - How Egg-citing
Stamp Something - Doodle Something

Here is a couple of Easter cards I have done following the lovely sketch from Truly Scrumptious. The gorgeous little bunny stamp has been coloured with promarkers. The paper behind him has pastel coloured eggs on it which is quite subtle as these cards are for adults, not children. I have doodled the words 'Just For You' on each card with a black Sakura pen.

Card Recipe

Stamps - Magazine Freebie
Papers - Joni Gray
Flowers/Brads - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Post-It Note Holder

Challenges

Creative Inspiration (30) - Anything But A Card

This is a little gift I made for someone. Isn't this puppy just sooo adorable? I coloured him lightly with pencils and layered him using my Nesties. The sentiment is stamped and equally layered. The flowers and leaves are punched with brads in the centres. All tied together with a piece of ribbon.

You can't see it open as I 'scanned' it instead of taking a photo, sorry.

Card Recipe

Digi Stamp - Graphic Garden
Sentiment Stamp - Studio G
Paper - Monti's Pixel Playground
Brads/Ribbon - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Little Spring Fairy

Challenges

Cute Daisy May - Fairy, Fairy
Ooh La La (50) - 1 Button/1 Bow/Bling
Digital Tuesday (51) - Happy Spring
Charisma Cardz (12) - Spring Has Sprung
Colour Create (41) - Pastels (Easter 0r Spring)
The Rainbow Lady (96) - In My Garden I See..... (Fairies)
Delightful Sketches & Challenges - Sketch
Cute Card Thursday (105) - Dimensions

When I think of Spring, I think of all the beautiful colours and the different things 'springing to life' with the promise of things to come in the summer. The fairies in my garden will be sitting amongst the beautiful flowers with butterflies fluttering about them while they grant my fairy wishes........

Cor, blimey! Think I'll throw up now! I've gone all poetic and slushy!!!

OK! Back to my card! The digi stamp fairy has been coloured with pencils and Twinkling H2O's with a touch of glitter glue on her wings. The sentiment has been stamped with a Brilliance inkpad and hologram EP, likewise the punched butterflies. The flower border at the bottom is paper lace which I coloured with a Brilliance inkpad. I have added gems to the sentiment and a silver button and bow to the main image.

Card Recipe

Digi Stamp - Crafty Muse
Sentiment Stamp - Papermania
Paper - Monti's Pixel Playground
Button/Bow/Gems/Paper Lace - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Flutterbies

Challenges

One Stop Craft (72) - Let It Shine
Stamptacular (51) - Scene It
Simon Says - Easter or Spring + Glimmer
The Creative Cottage (3) - Sparkle
Fab 'N' Funky (16) - It's All In The Technique (Parchment Craft)

I was asked the other day to make a very pretty card that featured butterflies, and it had to be A4 size. After an initial panic about the size of it, this is what I came up with. (See Terri, I CAN do pretty!!!)

I created a little scene by first stamping swirls around one corner. I then printed off the flowers onto pearl card, cut & shaped them and glued them into position over the swirls. I then punched the butterflies out of some glittered hand made paper that I have just found, glued these on and attached pearls to their bodys. After stamping the sentiment at the top I turned my attention to the main butterflies. To make these I stamped and heat embossed them onto parchment paper. One is stamped white with white EP while the other is stamped in white with hologram EP. I then embossed them both with a ball tool. (This took me ages to do as I have a problem with the ligaments in my hands which means I cannot work the ball tool for longer than five minutes at a time before my hands are in too much pain, unfortunately this problem meant I had to give up doing bigger pieces which I loved to do). Never mind, at least I managed these. I added small pearls to their antennae and attached them with silicone glue.

I gave my customer the card this morning and she was thrilled to bits with it.

Card Recipe

Stamps - Creative Stamping/Stampendous/Debbi Moore
Flowers - Fred She Said Digi Freebie
Pearls - Stash

Thanks for looking.

A Bit Of A Change...

Challenges

Sketch & Stash (31) - Sketch (Flower Stamp/Paper)
Crafty Creations (59) - Spots & Dots
Fab 'N' Funky (15) - It's All New (Flower Stamp/Paper)

As you know I like making cards with cute images but today I fancied a change so here is a flower card. I borrowed a friends stamp for the image and coloured it using my pencils. I also found a booklet of freebie papers recently that came with a magazine and this gorgeous paper is one of them. I thought it went rather well with the rest of the colours. I think this one has turned out to be a nice, bright, cheerful card, don't you?

Card Recipe

Stamps - Dawn Bibby/Studio G
Paper - Magazine Freebie
Buttons - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Anniversary

Challenges

Forever Friends - Sketch
Papertake (37) - Lilac & Lemon
Cute Card Thursday (104) - Happy Anniversary

Here's a little anniversary card made with Forever Friends stickers. It's a long time since I made a card with these cute little bears that I thought I ought to give one an airing. The flowers were part of a challenge prize and I just added the buttons.

Card Recipe

Image/Stamp - Forever Friends/PSX
Paper - Monti's Pixel Playground
Buttons/Flowers - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Heart Milly

Challenges

A Gem Of A Challenge (2) - Sketch
Digital Tuesday (50) - St Patrick's Day/Lots Of Green
Colour Create (40) - Mint/Choc/Cream
Paperplay (11) - Good Luck/Thank You
Allsorts (44) - Spring Is In The Air
Our Creative Corner - Spring/Easter
Secret Crafter (75) - Spring Has Sprung

Here is my interpretation of the above challenges, I hope they are accepted. The paler colours of the challenge choices are the ones I didn't choose to incorporate, if that makes sense. As usual the computer has shown the GREEN cardstock as blue, I don't know why it always does this, is it colour blind??? Although I followed the great sketch I did change the circle to a heart on the main image and changed the circle to a flower on the text. Anyway I hope you like the card.

Card Recipe

Stamps - Pink Gem Digi Freebie/Hero Arts
Papers - Making Cards/Papermania/Daisy & Dandelion
Brads - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Spring Bunny

Challenges

Daring Cardmakers - A Host Of Golden Daffodils
Cupcake Craft (82) - Going Green
A Spoonful Of Sugar (95) - Easter
Simon Says - St Patricks Day/A Splash Of Green
The Creative Cottage (2) - Flowers

This week's challenge at Lili Of The Valley is another gorgeous sketch for you to follow and as you can see I have done another Easel Card, I just love these so much. The stamp I have used is another of the new LOTV Spring stamps called 'Spring Bunny'. I just love the way he is 'springing' over the daffodils, he definately looks full of the joys of Spring... I have very simply coloured the image with pencils to give it a light feel. After I stamped the flourishes I felt they were a little too dark so added some gems to try and brighten them up (should have used brown ink not black). The little daffodil flowers didn't show up very well against the paper so I coloured the tips of the petals with a marker pen.

Card Recipe

Stamps - LOTV/Stampin Up/Papermania/Inkidinkido
Papers - Joni Gray
Flowers/Gems - Stash

Thanks for looking.

LOTV Sneak Peek (April Release)

Challenges

Allsorts (43) - Pink/Black/White
Secret Crafter - Anything Goes
Cute Daisy May - Anything Goes

I thought you might like a sneak peek of a new stamp called 'Born To Shop' that Lili Of The Valley will be releasing in April. The Challenge Blog DT will be showcasing the new designs on their blogs over the next few weeks so make sure you visit them, the links are in my sidebar. If you like cute teddies then you are going to love these stamps, not to mention the cats and dogs as well...

Anyway, onto my card. I have coloured the image with MLP and Sakura pens (not very well as I am useless with wet stuff, think I'd better stick to the pencils). I found this gorgeous paper on a freebie site a long time ago and I'm afraid I can't remember where from. I came across the little shoes and handbag embellishments in one of my boxes and thought they went very well with the card. Recently, I keep finding things in the depths of my craft room that I had forgotten I had, maybe it's time I had a good clearout!!!

Card Recipe

Stamps - LOTV/See D's
Shoes & Handbag Embellishments - Magazine Freebie
Paper/Gems/Ribbon - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Dotty Daisies

Challenges

Stampin For The Weekend - Monochromatic
One Stop Craft (71) - Spots & Dots
Creative Card crew (46) - Going Dotty
Pollycrafts (36) - Sparkly Things

This is a little card for a new crafting friend who was kind enough to give me a little crafty gift.

I stamped the image onto white card and again onto the spotty paper. I then cut the petals out of the spotty image and glued them onto the other image. After layering the image I added coloured the flower centres and added glitter glue. A couple of gems added to the stalk finished it off. Next I covered the base card with pale yellow paper adding a contrast border to the side. I then stamped some daisies onto the spotty paper, cut out, layered and added to the border, finishing the centres to match the main image. The greeting has also been stamped and layered.

Card Recipe

Stamps - Little Claire/All Night Media
Papers - Papermania
Gems - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Acrobat

Challenges

Stamp With fun (49) - Spring
Our Creative Corner - Yellow/Pink/Green/Brown
Penny Black (92) - Spring Colours

Please excuse the wonky picture, I was tired when I scanned it. This is such a cute stamp that I got a little while ago and only just got around to inking it up. Shame on me... I have coloured him with my pencils as usual and layered him using nesties. The greeting has been heat embossed and layered as well.

Card recipe

Stamps - Penny Black/Papermania
Papers - Shabby Princess
Flowers/Brads - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Summer At The Beach

Challenges

Doodle Palace - Summer/Beach + 3 Design Papers
C.R.A.F.T. (41) - Citrus

A very quick card made from scraps of paper that I had hanging around waiting for me to do something with. All the swimsuits were cut using templates and decorated with peel-offs, stickers and glitter glue. The 'towel' has been cut with fancy scissors and I have added a bucket & spade sticker to finish off.

Thanks for looking.

Thinking Of You

Challenges

Charisma Cardz (10) - Beautiful Butterflies
Paperplay (10) - Seeing double

I hope this will be accepted for the Paperplay challenge although I have an extra butterfly on it - must have settled there when I wasn't looking. I made this card from the very first kit I bought from the TV, can't remember which show it was so I won't mention any of them. The image and the butterflies are vellum and I have used a MS punch to punch the borders.

Thanks for looking.

Chinese New Year

Challenges

The Creative Cottage (1) - New
Cute Card Thursday (103) - Celebrations

This is the card I made for my son and daughter-in-law recently to celebrate Chinese New Year. As you can see it is very simple in design using traditional colours. This year it is the year of the tiger and I have made sure there was a small tiger on the card. All the images are from the internet and the paper is a freebie from Making Cards magazine.

Thanks for looking.

BMW

Challenges

Allsorts (42) - Just For Men
Creative Inspiration (29) - Male Card

I was asked to make a card for a BMW fan and this is what I came up with. I decided to do an 'M' folded card as I had not done one for a while. As I needed a picture of a BMW I asked my son if he could send me a picture of his car which I then printed off four times and decoupaged. I have used a photo of a road in the New Forset for the background and finished it off with a computer generated greeting and the BMW logo. I even managed to find some paper in the BMW colours from Mommy's Scraps. Happily, the recepient was very pleased with it.

Thanks for looking.

LOTV New Release Stamps

NEW RELEASE STAMPS
AVAILABLE NOW!

The new Lili Of The Valley stamps are now available at the online shop HERE! The four cute kittens and two girl stamps are selling fast so hurry along to the website to secure yours. The stamps are only £3.75 each which is great value for money and they stamp beautifully every time you use them. Scroll down to see the sneak peeks I have done and check out the LOTV design team's blogs (links in sidebar on right) as well as the challenge blog for more sneak peeks of these fantastic stamps.

Mother's Day Set

Card

Post-It Note Holder & Gift Card

Challenges

M.A.W.T.T. (36) - Sketch + One For The Girls
Cute Daisy May - Mother's Day
Cupcake Craft (81) - Flower Power

This is a little something I have made for my sister for Mother's Day, I hope she likes it.

The images has been coloured with my pencils. The flowers are stamped and also coloured with pencils. The greeting on the card is a freebie that I have coloured with chalks and another one is on the inside of the Gift Card. The hearts have been cuttlebugged. Once I added the pearls I finished the card off with a vellum butterfly as I felt it needed something in that corner.

Card Recipe

Stamps - The Greeting Farm
Greeting - Cute Daisy May Freebie
Papers - Papermania
Pearls/Butterfly - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Bride

Challenges

Whiff Of Joy (68) - Sketch
Ooh La La (49) - Anything Goes

Well, this was going to be a gatefold card. Having cut and folded the card, cut the backing card and punched the borders, when I placed the image over the top you couldn't see the punched borders for toffees!!! So, I had to start all over again. Never mind, the original card will just have to have another image put on it sometime.

I was dying to play with these new stamps I found at the Make It show at Farnborough last week, I have wanted them for a long time and nearly missed them as I spotted them five minutes before leaving the show, talk about lucky! I also got some cosmic shimmers from the fabulous Glitter Girls who were kind enough to show me how to use them. I have used these to colour the dress and some glitter glue on the veil. The rest of the image has been coloured with my pencils. The cardstock is all pearl card except the bits that were stamped on. I finished the card off with a few flowers, punched leaves and a few pearly bits and pieces. Hope you like it.

Card Recipe

Stamps - Whiff Of Joy/Stampin Up
Cardstock - Craft Creations
Flowers/Pearls - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Heart Milly

Challenges

A Gem Of A Challenge (1) - Sketch + Pink & Gems
Simon Says - Mothers Day/Girly
C.R.A.F.T. (40) - Mothers Day/Flowers
Stamp Something - Something Girly

Please excuse the picture. I have been having a problem with my printer and have spent the past hour and a half trying to get the damn thing to work properly. I can tell you there was a lot of blue air around here. If it thinks it's going to give up the ghost it had better think again...

I followed the great sketch from Pink Gems first challenge and used some of my favourite papers from Papermania. The gorgeous image has been coloured with MLP pens (makes a change from pencils) and the flowers are punched with a MS punch.

Card Recipe

Stamps - Pink Gem/LOTV
Papers - Papermania
Gems - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Teabag Fan

Challenges

The Rainbow Lady (93) - Create A Fan

This is a card I made a while ago but have never shown. I made it while showing a friend how to fold teabag papers. As you can see the design has been kept fairly plain so that the fan is the focal point. Everything I used was from my friend's stash so I don't know who makes the papers etc. The tassel, however, is from the Laurence Llewellyn Bowen range.

Thanks for looking.

LOTV DT CARD

Challenges

Stamp Something - Design Paper/Buttons/Ribbon
One Stop Crafts (69) - Optimistically Pink
Creative Card Crew (46) - Celebrations
Crafty Creations (57) - All One Colour
Delightful Sketches & Challenges - Kids

This week our challenge for you is to make an Easel Card. These are really easy to make and as you might have noticed, I LOVE THEM!

The stamped image I have used is from the new LOTV Spring stamps and this one is called 'Baby Girl', isn't she so sweet? I coloured her with pencils and layered her using my Nesties. I covered the base card with white card and gingham paper and tied a piece of ribbon around the main piece. I then 'iced' some heart shaped buttons (see below) and added some roses. On the lower part I stamped and layered a sentiment and placed it in the centre using foam pads. I added two more 'iced' buttons and a bow to finish off.

How to 'ice' buttons:-

Using tweezers, press your button into a Versamark inkpad. Next, dip the button into 'hologram' embossing powder. Remove and heat with a heat gun until powder has melted. While the embossing powder is hot quickly dip the button back into the embossing powder and heat again, repeat once more. When done, leave to cool before attaching to card. This adds a lovely sparkle to your buttons. It also works on flowers but you must not overheat them.

Card Recipe

Stamps - LOTV/Stampin Up
Roses - Hobbycraft
Buttons/Ribbons - Stash

Thanks for looking.

Pebble

Challenges

Friday Sketchers (91) - Sketch

This is a card I was commissioned to do and I thought the Friday Sketchers sketch was a great one to use for it. I think it worked well. The stamp and papers I have used are all from Lili Of The Valley. I have coloured the image with pencils and glitter glue. The flowers and leaves are punched using various punches. Hope you like it as much as I do.

Card Recipe

Stamp/Papers - Lili Of The Valley
Shell Buttons/Pearls - Stash

Thanks for looking.