Colour Challenge 2017

Flame is the challenge colour this month over at Mystik Nat.  It's orange veering a little towards red, not normally a natural choice for me, but I did enjoy doing these.

It's the same Chocolate Baroque stamp as I used for the Valentine card, but in two different shades of orange.  The first one is stamped and matted onto a light brown cardstock and the second onto cream, both mats were embossed with a swiss dot folder.  The sentiment is done with a SU stamp and punch.

Engagement card ... no pressure...

Last week, DH and I were exchanging emails at work and he said how much he liked the Valentine card I made him.  So, talking of cards, he said, K has got engaged, do we have an engagement card in the box???
Well.  Of all the cards there are in the box, what is the one thing I do not have..... :-)
I now have several such cards Pinned!  But in the end, the idea came to me at work the following day, so I had to do a quick sketch in my planner to make sure I didn't forget it before getting home LOL.  Never have I clock-watched so assiduously and I was out of the door like a rocket!!  When DH got home and saw me working, he knew he was doing dinner ..... :-)

Photographing mirri is always a nightmare, in the end I had to lie the card flat which has foreshortened the view a little, but every other way I tried was just a mess of reflections!
Another outing for the Tonic Celtic layering die set using mirri, white and a lilac Swiss Dot cardstock.  The sentiment is from SU and is stamped/embossed in silver, then die-cut with a pierced banner die.  The hearts are the same die, from Robert Addams, one cut with the mesh inner piece and one without.
I am very pleased with this one, once I had the idea, it came together very quickly.  I would like to know if these shaped card blanks are available anywhere now though - I can't remember how long ago I bought them, or even what brand they are, but they are perfect for big circular designs like this.  I probably ought to experiment with some dies to see if I can get a similar effect myself, any suggestions welcome :-)

Buy it - Try it: Gleam not Glitter

As everyone knows, I Don't Do Glitter :-)  But I don't mind a bit of gleam from time to time, so when we were talking at the retreat and discussing the Wink of Stella brush pens, I took the plunge and bought one from the lovely Katie of Cre8tive Online who was there with her shop.
I had previously stamped and coloured an image, so decided to try out my new pen.

Unfortunately it doesn't really show well in the photo, but I assure you it is very gleamy LOL.  The frame and the larger flower stamps are from Stamps by Chloe, coloured in various shades of blue, I applied the Stella just to the main flowers, not the teeny ones.
The circles are done with Tonic Celtic layering die set, the outer ring was cut separately out of white (because I couldn't find a Bazzill match!) and coloured with the same blue pen as the flowers, which works really well and I'll do that again :-)
So, what can I 'stella' next?

Christmas Jumper layout

Lately I seem to have done a lot of  'making', but not so much blogging!  Here is a layout done at the retreat I went to in January. 
We had a Christmas Jumper day at work, for charity.  I opted for a penguin tee shirt .... with glitter!!! .... all in a good cause :-)

The papers are from Maja design and I die-cut the title and snowflakes.  Hard to see in the photo, but the alpha is a stitched one from Die-namics, I thought it was appropriate LOL.  The larger snowflake is from Joanna Sheen, but I can't remember what the smaller one is, I've had it a while.

Valentine Card

This is the card I made for DH :-)

The stamp is from Chocolate Baroque, after colouring I die-cut the image with Nesties labels 36.  I had coloured a few images and had experimented with three different dies, this one fits the best :-)  I embossed some cardstock in Sandstone from Craft Creations and adhered to a card blank in the same colour, for a nice tone-on-tone effect.  The image is also stamped on the same cardstock.  The sentiment tag is a SU punch and the sentiment is also SU.

 

 

 

 

 

Mandala Monday ......er ...... Tuesday

I didn't get these finished in time to photograph and post yesterday - but I am joining in Sy's Mandala Monday, albeit belatedly :-)
I was originally just going to mount these mandalas - made last year to test the stamp set but never used further - onto a square card blank, but somehow it didn't look right.  So I went in a completely different direction and now I am happy :-)

The copper mandala is done with gilding flakes (very difficult to photograph!) and the silver is heat embossed using a Stampin Up powder, which is quite a matt silver. 
I used the Celtic Dreams layering die set from Tonic Studios to make the mats and also to cut the circular card base.  This is made with two separate circles, the back circle is horizontally scored about an inch down from the top edge, the area above the score line is then attached to the card front with red tape.  Fold along the score line and the card stands up!  The sentiment tag is an MFT stitched banner die.
For the easel card, I scored and folded the front of a card blank to form the easel part, then hand-cut and invert-corner rounded the sentiment stopper panel.  The sentiment itself is die-cut (Robert Addams).
It was craft weekend plus I have a couple of days off work, so managed to make 14 cards over the Sat-Sun-Mon, I am well chuffed :-)