Any shape but square.

It's time for a new challenge over on the Butterfly blog.
#86 Butterflies + A is for Any Shape and/or the colour of Quartz.

So any card shape that is not just a plain square and below is the definition of the colour Quartz.

Quartz colour definition:

 Quartz can be colourless, white, purple, pink, brown, black, also gray, green, orange, yellow , blue and red. Sometimes multi coloured or banded.

I have two cards today to show as my inspiration for you.

Card No 1 using the Joy fold shape and the colour of Blue quartz and Colourless quartz on the butterfly's wings.

 The front showing the folds of the card closed up and tied with a ribbon bow. The papers are all from Lili of the Valley's NitWit collections 'Pastel Dreams' Paper pad.The sentiment has been die cut twice and layered up using a die cut by Presscut from Crafts- Too. The flowers ribbon and hessian butterflies are from my stash. I used 'Splitcoaststampers' excellent tutorial for making the card shape up.

On the inside of the card I added an additional pocket and pull out  tag which can have an extra personal message added for the recipient. 

Entering this card into the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations #186 Anything goes.
TuesdayThrowdown #362 More than one fold.
Through The Craftroom Door # Anything goes.
Inspiration Destination #134  Anything goes.
Aud Sentiments #189 Use a two word sentiment.



Card No 2 uses a Brand new 'Rounded Strip Die Set 'from Tonic Studios and I have loosely taken the picture on the outside of the packet as inspiration for the card shape below. Again I have used Lili of the Valley's Nitwit collection paper pad. This one is called 'Snow Princess'. I have gone with the Quartz colour of Purple and Colourless quartz on the butterfly using  parchment  paper for the top layer and sparkle glue.  The sentiment is a die cut by Cheery Lynn Designs. The ribbon and sequins from my stash.

Hope I have given you some  ideas. The challenge is back to it's normal time frame of two weeks.



As the Tonic die cut is a NBUS I am entering this card into the following challenge:

which of course is run by my dear friend Darnell and ably helped/hindered by Hammy.

NBUS Challenge #12 ~ Day Three 

I'm Back.

I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things and blogging. Thankyou to everyone's comments on the loss of my Dad. They have been much appreciated along with all the lovely cards that I received. Fortunately I had painted the flower image on this card way back in August and only had to put the card together for my lovely, lovely friend's birthday (Miss Di) week before last. I know she liked it cos she said so!

The stamped image is a Woodware one called Anemone and is one of my favourite ones to paint. I have used my Marvey LePlumeII pens to scribble the colours onto an acetate stamp block and then pick up the colours one by one with a wet paint brush. I like painting this way as for me I can get better placing and blending and if I go wrong I can use water to pick the colour up which is something you can't do with pens straight to paper. I have also used a gold gel pen for edging the petals and stamens.  A dusting of light blue chalk finished the picture. The sentiment is a Britannia die cut from a snippet of the same backing card. The gold spots which I thought looked like nail heads  were from my stash.

Entering into the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop # 299/300 Use your snippets up. (white card for stamping image).

In The Shadow.

It's the second week of the Butterfly Challenge but I am extending it for a further 7days as it is Dad's Funeral next week and I am busy with last minute organisation for it. Therefore the challenge will close on Tuesday 26th September instead.

#85 Butterflies + S is for Silhouette and/or the colour Indigo

Here is some more inspiration for you. I don't know why my camera does this but when I took this photo yesterday it made the light box  (I was taking it in )look decidedly pink and the lovely blue insert with the butterfly on came out a washed out white. The photo today has come out ok.

I have used dark indigo cardstock to make the base card and used my Crafts-Too Rectangle dies Stitch hole PCD98 to remove the centre leaving a border all round. The butterfly stamp is by Visible Image  called rather appropriately 'Butterfly Inkcognito' and stamped using black ink onto pale blue cardstock. I then used the same die to cut a matching rectangle around the butterfly to fit back  into the  card front. The sentiment and the dots are black glitter stickers from my stash.

The second card which I took at the same time as the first one that came out wrong is perfect and was taken literally minutes apart . This really is a throw it together card. The blue strips where from the previous card. I had added them to a pile of strips of different colours that were still out on my desk and as I glanced at the pile an idea formed of using them up. The orange ones were on the top of the pile and looked so pleasing  with the blue that I just sat and had a play with arranging them around on a white card blank. The butterflies were cut from the discarded centre of the previous card using a Memory Box die 'Cascadia Butterfly Trio'.  Th sentiment is by Crafter's Companion Diesire and I cut it twice in snippets of the blue and orange card using orange on blue for the Best and blue on orange for the Wishes offsetting slightly to create the shadow.

Thankyou for all your well wishes for Sammy and Norm. As it has already  taken him six yrs to get this far there is no need to rush out and buy a hat just yet and anyway guess who would get roped into making the Wedding Dress!!!  I feel a headache coming on.

Norm's Little Surprise.

Norm came home from the Monkee Convention in a very thoughtful frame of mind and announced on Monday that he needed to go shopping asap on his own into town and as he would need to visit a lot of shops could be gone for a quite a while. No amount of coaxing could draw out the reason why but he was seen emptying his money box and putting it all in his pockets before leaving to catch the early morning bus.  We expected to see him come home laden with shopping bags but no he came sauntering up the garden path with nothing more than a very small packet tucked under his arm.

Whilst he was busy hanging up his coat I  had a quick peep inside the box.

 Oh Norm you haven't have you?

Oh yes he has!!

Here's the happy couple. It did take a monkey gathering though for Norm to realise what a gem he had under his very own roof. 

Eat your heart out Elizabeth Taylor!! It's Ginormous and sparkles like no other.

Sammy is on cloud nine.

Sew Pretty

This is the card I made Sis for her birthday. Sis loves sewing and knitting and I usually make her a card depicting one or the other. Last year was knitting so this year I had a look through my stash of freebie papers from magazines and selected some to make the card below.

The paper pattern  paper is 'Sew Pretty' by Aspire Crafts and also the Handmade sentiment. The women dressed is a Raspberry Road Design. The Tape measure paper is an unknown. I have glued them all to sheets of thin card before trimming down to size and  distressing around the edges using a TH. distress tool.
I have adhered to a blank scalloped edge card base and the sentiment is a Britannia word die cut. The scissors and cotton reel are mdf cut outs from Scrap Matts and the green thread from my stash.
As I have used snippets of  card from  cereal boxes to glue the papers onto I can hop over to Di's blog and enter the playground. I haven't played on the swings in such a long time. I'm not going near those pogo sticks or the pond.

Entering into the following challenges:
Pixie's Crafty Workshop #296 and 297.  Use up your snippets. (bits of cereal boxes).
Allsorts challenge #432. Use at least two DP's.

A quick game..

Day 3 of the convention. All to soon it was time to go our separate ways but not before they had a last game of cards .

 Then a quick run through of possible dates for the next convention (oh yes there will be one) and marking up of their diaries.

Poor Nigel was totally bereft at having to say goodbye to Sammy but she did have to gently say that she was already spoken for by Norm.

So until the next time..............................................

It's hugs from Sammy & Norm.

Lots of Talking.

Day 2 of the Convention saw them all reconvening  in the hotel lounge and after a hefty breakfast they all sat down for a natter and to watch the T.V.

Several coffee's later and they still hadn't moved. We had intended to hit the shops but before we knew it the time was 1.30pm and the decision was taken to just chill out on the very comfy sofas instead.

My two don't watch much T.V. and as Darrell, Monkey and Nigel seemed to be very cognizant with all the channels, they all settled down for an afternoons television. Just look at all their rapt expressions.Still it kept them quite!!

And so to bed. The only problem being it was Miss Di's bed they decided to kip down in for the night.

If you hear miss Di complaining about a bad back it's cos she had to sleep on the sofa!

Smitten!

Day 1 of the Monkee Convention.

So here they all are at the holiday Inn Express. Their first meet up in 6yrs and there was lots to talk about and of course the boys met Sammy!

Left to right we have Hank(with his rabbit), Marvin, Norm, Nigel (infront), Monkey, Darrell (behind)

and of course Sammy.

Helen had bought them all matching tee shirts for the occasion which they all just had to put on straight away and then decided to go down into the hotel lounge for a photo shoot .
Back row is Hank & Norm, middle row Monkey, Sammy, Nigel & Darrell  and in the front Marvin looking very noculant .

But look who's totally smitten with Sammy. Those doleful eyes say it all!  Stay tuned for more fun.

Silhouettes

It is time for another challenge over on the butterfly blog.

#85 Butterflies + S is for Silhouette  and/or the colour Indigo

I have two cards today for my inspiration for you.

The first uses a digi silhouette image by Pink Petticoat called 'Dandeline Wisps'. They did close down but have since reopened under the name The Lovely Studio. I'm pleased about that as they have some lovely images and gorgeous paper designs. Lighting is not good for showing up the true colours. The indigo is looking more black than in real life. The die cut frame is by Crafts-Too from their Lattice Frame PCD33. The small butterflies are a tonic Studios punch. All adhered onto a white card base made from cardstock. The sentiment is a Britannia die, cut twice and glued together and then added to front of frame.

My second card uses a Silhouette design from a CD-Rom & book by Dover Electronic Clip Art.

Design no 108. I have printed out onto thin  pink card stock and again the colours are much better in real life. The butterflies have been stamped on separately using a stamp From Clearly Besotted 'Elegant butterflies' and Memento Tuxedo black ink pad. Edges have been cut using a fancy edge punch and the sentiment is again a Britannia word die  but only cut once this time. The whole panel has been raised up with 3D foam pads onto an indigo blue card base made from cardstock.

I hope you will come and play along. The challenge is back to its fortnightly run now that the school holidays are over.

Entering into the following challenges:

Card Players

Whilst waiting for their lift on Friday Norm decided to have a quick game of  cards. He is a dab hand at poker so I set the  card table up for them and left them to it.

 Sammy is fairly confident she has a good hand and has put most of her money on it.

Was that wise though Sammy? 

Norm is such a good Poker player and keeps such a dead pan expression but is he bluffing ?

Apparently not!! The odds of getting this hand (Royal Flush) is 649,739 to 1  !!!!!!!

Me thinks they had best stick to playing Solitaire or Patience this Weekend or some of the boys will either be going home shirtless or Norm will have a pile of I.O.U's stuffed in his shirt pocket.

Poppies for Rememberance

I made this card to send to my sister. Dad loved all flowers and had poppies in his garden too so I thought this image was quite appropriate to remember him by.

The digi image is by  Justinklined and called Poppy Cluster. I have painted using my Marvey LePlumeII water colour pens by scribbling the colours onto a perspex block and picking the paint up with a wet paint brush and then blending in with additional water. Finished off with a gold gel pen.
Die cuts used are  Crafts - Too Square die scalloped edge and SU's Large modern Label. Striped card is  recycled from The Doc's custard tart box  and the sentiment is a gold sticker from my stash.

Norm Update.

Norm is off on his travels. He is meeting up with some of his mates for a monkee convention at a Holiday Inn Express which could be near you!!!  Of course Miss Di and I have been roped in as chaperones for the weekend and Sammy has managed to wrangle her way onto the the trip as well. So along  with Norm and Sammy, Hank and Marvin (who live with Miss Di)  we are being joined with  Helen of Mum's Monekey and her troop, namely Monkey, Darrell and Nigel. Seven Monkeys altogether doesn't bare thinking about and I do hope the Holiday Inn know what they are letting themselves in for.  Iv'e packed the asprin and smelling salts!!

Here's Sammy and Norm waiting to be picked up by Hank and Marvin in Miss Di's car. Of course Sammy insisted on having a new hat especially for the occasion  and could she also have two hat pins as well  in case the weather is a bit windy.  Guess who had to make the hat!!
Stay tuned for updates of their exploits.

FaDoodles Candy Winner

Here is the winner of the FaDoodles candy.

(23) Ionabunny

Congratulations  Gail. Please get in touch via the email on my side bar so I can post your prize off to you.