Carol Singing Mice.

This is the image that I didn't use when I made the cards for the Christmas Card Club the other week. I knew I had a few challenges coming up so have saved till now. I do like making Joy Fold cards and these mice just lend themselves perfectly for that style of card.  The images are Carol Singing Mice by Paper Creator and come ready coloured. As I had printed off four images so as not to waste expensive  paper in the printer I managed to make up two cards.
The Backing card is dark evergreen cardstock and all the papers are by Basicgrey from their Serenade pack which toned in beautifully with the colours in the images.

 The Merry Christmas die cut on the front of this card is by Tonic Studios called Wave Merry Christmas. Ribbon and sequins from my stash.  There is a brilliant tutorial on Splitcoaststampers  site (also on You Tube) for making this style of card To be honest I have made so many of this style card now that I just do my own measurements. I tweak the inside by adding the tag and holder also the ribbons for ties.

 The sentiment die on the inside is by Ultimate Crafts  called Merry christmas Swirls.
Entering this card into the following challenges:
Scraps of Life By Scrappy Mo # July Rudolph day.
International Art and Soul #38 Christmas Traditions.
Die Cuttin Divas #379 Christmas in July.
Fab 'n' Funky #404 Christmas in July.
Dream Valley Challenges #183 Christmas in July.

For this second card I moved the images around and used a different arrangement of papers from the same pack as above.  I used white ribbon from my stash instead too.

 The die cuts used are the same as on the first card.

Entering this card into the following challenges:
Aud Sentiments #209 Christmas in July+ a sentiment.
C.R.A.F.T. Challenges #477 Christmas.
Fussy and Fancy #217 Christmas in July.
Cut It Up Challenges #153 Christmas in July.

Old Rose.

A lovely blogging friend left a comment on the latest Butterfly Challenge  #104 asking me if I knew
Old Rose. Well I most certainly do and here she is. So called because she only ever wears pink and even has her zimmer frame painted pink too.

Other than it is an Easel card/ papers are by NitWit and  image coloured with my promarkers I will let the card do the talking!

Entering into the following challenges:
Through The Craft Room Door # Anything goes.
Crafting By Designs # Anything goes.
Addicted To Stamps #302 Make your mark.
Crafty Creations #371 Anything goes.
Penny's Paper Crafty #39 Anything goes.
Jo's Scrap Shack #244 Anything goes.
Brown Sugar #280 Include two pattern papers.

As you can see I'm feeling much better as swelling in my ankles is down and I don't even need a zimmer frame now!!

Ps. Stamp is by Whimsy Stamps CWSD165

One Layer Only

I'm back with two more inspiration cards for the current #104 Butterfly Challenge.

My 1st Card uses Butterfly/Olive /One Layer

The corner stamp is from 'Fadoodles 2' and the rest are from a Clearly Besotted Stamp set 'Good Times'. I have stamped them in Olive Green distress ink directly onto a white base card.  Quite a CAS card for me.

2nd Card using all 7 elements on the Butterfly wheel:
 Butterfly/Old Rose/ Orange/ Olive/ Oval/ Over the Edge/ One Layer


Here I have made my chosen stamp ( 'Island Blooms'  from Creative Expressions by Sue Wilson) do most of the work for me as it contains a ready oval and the flowers are just over the edge of it so using 2 of the elements. I have coloured in Old Rose/Orange and Olive using a further 3 elements with my Graph'it markers. The corner sentiment is by Phill Martin from his 'Every Day' set and the butterfly (6th element)is a freebie from Paper Crafter Magazine from their Beautiful Butterflies stamp set. I have stamped  the images onto a white blank card base using a  Memento London Fog ink pad which makes the 7th element of using only one layer. The Island blooms stamp has been outlined after  colouring with a silver gel pen.

Entering this card into the following challenges
Your Next Stamp Challenge#94 I have used colour combo Pink/Green/Orange.
Artistic Inspirations #205 Anything goes.
City Crafter #422 Butterflies.
Scrapping For Fun  #120 Anything goes with flowers and butterflies.
Southern Girls # Flowers.
Little Miss Muffet #194 Anything goes.
Colour Crazy Challenge #30 Anything goes.

Hope I have given you inspiration to try the one layer element of the wheel. Challenge runs until next Tuesday 31st at 8pm.

Thankyou for all your kind comments on my latest mishap. The steroid cream has brought the inflammation down and reduced the swelling. I can now see my ankles again though any prolonged standing causes them to start getting puffy so trying to keep sitting down as much as possible. I think I'm going to have some bruising and skin is very tender. I don't know why my body reacts so much. I dread getting stung by a wasp or a bee. I ended up in hospital for a week from being bitten when my daughter was just 3 months old. The Doc was so pleased with himself that he had managed to dress her all by himself when he brought her in to visit me and couldn't understand why I was so upset that she was wearing yellow booties a pink dress and a blue cardigan.

Whats up Doc.

What's Up Doc! Plenty at the moment. I got bitten on the legs (thankfully not tics) whilst out in the garden but my legs within hours flared up and I lost sight of my ankles. I have pills specifically(from the Dr's) for just such occasions so started on a course of those straight away and smothering legs with insect bite cream. These two combined generally keep bites under control but this lot ( 7 in all, probably because of the extreme heat we have been having) got straight into my blood stream. At one point during the weekend you could have fried an egg on my left leg it was so hot to touch! I now have a steroid cream  (from the Dr's) to put on which has already brought the redness and size of the bits down drastically. Have been trying to keep my legs up and no weight on them (and apart from feeling lousy with it all)  also out of my craft room.

Hence I'm late again for the Christmas Card Club's latest show of cards. The theme was set by Margaret who asked to see Christmas Choirs or Carol singers.

I knew I had used all of the appropriate old card fronts up in my stash so resorted to looking through my digis last night and came across this digi from Beccy's Place  which is pre coloured (thankgoodness) and called The Three Tenors!! 

I have gone with  funny style to make these cards so hope you will like my interperation Margaret.

On this first card they are singing Jingle Bells but not necessarily all in tune!

I have used white cardstock to make a base card up and then layered with dark red more white and red and then finally the digi image .The sentiment is a die cut  from Xcut which also comes with a small cat bell style die which I cut twice and adhered on the inside of the card which is also layered up.

On this next card they are lustily singing We wish You a Merry Christmas . Cats standing on a hot tin roof springs to mind!!
Again I have made a white base card up and adhered a dark red cardstock to it. I attached the digi to the lower part of the card. The top is a Tonic Studios Header Fold Die which I have cut in one piece (it comes as two dies)  from the dark red card and attached white card behind  and then glued to the top portion of the card.

I did find another digi image to use but it took me so long to make these two that I will save for anotheer time.
Appoligies for being late Margaret.

Over The Edge

Over the edge is exactly where I will be if anything else goes wrong! Dentist confirmed I have chipped a front tooth so need to have a composite filling to match rest of tooth plus a nice bill to go with it. Oh well, I like bread and water!!
The new butterfly challenge starts today and runs for the next 2 weeks.
#104 Spin The Butterfly Wheel with the Letter O

Here are my  inspiration cards for you.

1st Card using Butterfly/Old Rose/Over the Edge

I have used watercolour cardstock to make the base and to stamp the image onto. The stamp is an unknown make so I have either been given the stamp or it is a freebie from a magazine. The Old Rose is the pink backing cardstock,the butterfly sticker and the flower above the sentiment. I have coloured with my Marvy Le Plume II water colour pens by scribbling the colours onto an acrylic block and picking up with a water filled brush pen. Edged when dry with  a silver gel pen. The 'Over The Edge' element is the card design with the base front page cut short and the stamped image mounted to hang over the edge. Sentiment is a silver sticker from my stash along with the pink butterfly. Inside of card  has been decorated to match.

 Card closed and below card inside.

Entering into the following challenges:

Use Your Stuff #321 Birthday

Through The Craftroom Door # Anything goes.

Addicted To Stamps #301 Anything goes.

Penny's Paper Crafty #389 Anything goes.

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #86 Anything goes.

Fussy And Fancy #208 Green and pink

2nd Card using Butterfly/Orange/Oval

I have coloured the digi image  (a freebie from Beccy's Place  called 'Poppies' which you can download from her website) with my Graph'it Marker pens and a gold gel pen. I used orange cardstock to make the base card. I also used a Nellies Multi Frame MFD013 oval set and placed  the largest  over the image (once coloured) and used as a template to apply pearlescent chalk in orange behind the poppies thus creating the Oval Element of the card.

 Close up of the poppies with the oval. Sentiment and butterfly are gold stickers from my stash. Just realised I have used Olive for the stems and leaves which are also hanging over the edge of the oval!!

Entering this card into the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations #204 Anything goes.
Crafting By Designs # Anything goes.
Crafty Creations #370 Anything goes.
Little Miss Muffet #193 Anything goes.
Less Is More #375 Olive and Tangerine

Wired Up

This past week has been busy non stop every day from having the new second door being fitted, mammogram at hospital, boiler service, car service, hair appointment. (I did manage to meet up with a lovely blogging friend who is over from Canada at present.)  Next week so far I just have a dentist appointment to go to. Think I might have chipped a tooth though. Hopefully I can catch up on all your blogs.

Here are the last two inspiration cards to show you for the current Butterfly Challenge which closes
on Tuesday.

First card using Butterfly/Wheat/Wire.

Fairly simple card using up some snippets on my desk. I have used very fine gold wire for the antenna on the butterfly and the colour wheat is the squares that I have used behind the letters. These were out cuts from a die I had used previously, though for the life of me can't remember which one it was! Letters and edging  are gold stickers from my stash. 

Second card uses all seven elements of the challenge wheel.

Butterfly/Wisteria/Wine/ Wheat /Window/Washi tape/Wire

 Again I was using up a left over on my desk which was the die cut frame. I edged it with washi tape and then made a card base up using more of the wheat coloured cardstock.  The butterfly (using all 3 colours) was suspended with thin silver wires  which were attached across the opening in a web shape and captured between the two circles holding the butterfly in place.  Shows up perfectly IRL but couldn't catch very well on camera.  The die cut frame from the card base was edged with more of the washi tape and adhered inside the card so that when closed it fitted back  into the aperture. The sentiment is from a stamp set by Imagination Crafts.

Entering into the following challenge:
Pixies Crafty Workshop #330 Use up your snippets.

Nearly all White!

It was time again for the girls in the Christmas Club to show our latest makes. I had my card made and then couldn't upload the photo of it until now.  Christine chose the theme of White on White or with just a smidgen of colour which is what I chose to do.
I found a christmas card front in my used box which was just right so here it is.

I used grey textured card stock to make the base card and cut a window from the front of the card with my Crafts-Too Rectangle Stitched die cut. I trimmed the card front down to fit and added the red bow. Cut matching silver card stock for inside of card to neaten. Very simple card which does look beter IRL.
I don't know what the problem has been but it started with a power cut last week which resulted in our near neighbour having a trench dug right across his front lawn and he now has a row of cones across it. The trench  is now back filled in but is still about six inches lower than the rest of the garden either side so hope that isn't the job considered done! Last night there was digging and drilling going on till the early hours of the morning in another part of the close behind our back garden. We dread seeing any GPO or Electric vans in our area as it generally means something is broken and more will be broken trying to fix the original fault. Certainly not been able to post any pictures to my blog for a few days.
Monday saw the second new front  door being fitted. I now have panels on the door but we still had a problem in that the door was delivered with 5 blank keys!!!  I can't even begin to work out the logic behind that one. We had asked for extra keys to be included in the price but didn't expect all of them to be blanks so a trip was needed by the installers to go and get the keys cut and then make sure they all worked. I do have to say that the installers have been brilliant and made a really good job of fitting the doors. The supplier of the doors needs a lesson though in before and after sales!

Explosion Box.

I'm entering the following into Pixies Crafty Workshop #329 as I have used loads of snippets up.

I had a commission for a 70th Birthday card for a friends Aunt. The brief was that the Aunt was a keen gardener and loves flowers, all colours. I mulled it over for a bit and finally came up with an Explosion Box.  I had made one years ago and watched a video again just to remind myself of the measurements needed.
This is rather a picture heavy post, but I didn't take any pictures of work in progress so this is just the finished box. My friend was delighted with it and wouldn't stop hugging me when I gave it to her and couldn't wait to give it to her Aunt.
It was a nice sunny day so I took the photos outside and I will let them do all the talking.

and finally the centre piece.

Window of Flowers

It is a new challenge over at the Butterfly Blog.
#103 Spin The butterfly Wheel with the Letter W. 

I have two cards as  inspiration to show you.

First card uses the colour Wisteria in the flowers and the frame and I have created a Window  with acetate over the image.

The digi image is by SLS lines called 'Dahlias 1' which I have painted using my Marvy LePlume II watercolour pens. The window was created by die cutting 6 frames using my Crafts-Too Rectangle dies Stitch hole and layering up. I inserted a sheet of acetate behind the first die cut and placed the trimmed down image behind the last frame and then finally  adhered to the card front. Wooden butterfly and the silver sticker sentiment were from my stash.

Second card uses the colour Wine and Washi Tape along with a butterfly of course.

I find making this type of card is easier when not actually required at the time  as you are then emotionally detached.  I have used a punch to die cut two butterflies from wine coloured felt and then layered up with a gold pearl. The gold sticker sentiment and the gold sticker bars were from my stash. The Washi Tape is simply adhered to a strip of the same backing card as the base card and then raised on 3D pads. The pattern on the tape is delicate butterflies along with Chaffinch and  Bluetits which I thought looked serene and peachful.

The challenge runs for 2 weeks and ends on July 17th so hope you will come and play. I will show some more cards next week with the other options on the wheel.