A stylish duo

Made for a special birthday of one of my close friends. This stylish duo is from a Graphic 45 page of lovely ladies. Eleven more images to use! I layered them on dark brown Bazill punched with Martha Stewart's bubble bath corner and border punch set. SU red background edged with brown chalk ink; Bo Bunny brad; ribbon and sentiment sticker from my stash.

Submitted to the following challenges:

Creative Stamp Friends #12 Vintage

Papertake Weekly Autumn skies

Stamp, Scrap and Doodle Saturdays No flowers

Pals Paper Arts #69 Ribbon or fabric

Digi Doodle Shop's Best #34 Anything goes

Purple Christmas trees

I love using Christmas trees on my cards so of course I had to have these Hero Arts trees when I saw them at my local shop. The trees are stamped in various inks and clear embossed. I made this card during a crafternoon at a friend's house and I thought it needed some extra texture. As I didn't have my Cuttlebug with me, I dry embossed diagonal lines on the pink card using my bone folder and ruler (very low tech!). SU striped paper; brads from my stash.

Submitted to the following challenges:

Whoopsi Daisy It's Christmas

Stamp and Create #7 Tis the season

2 Sisters Challenge #13 Christmas

Shelly's Images Anything goes with Christmas

There's Magic in the Air (Paper Cupcakes) Non-traditional colours Christmas

Crafty Ann's #27 Christmas card using non-traditional colours

Wee Memories #31 Dust off that patterned paper

Crafty Cardmakers Dry embossing

For Fun Challenges Dry embossing

Autumn pheasant

I recently bought some new autumn themed stamps and paper from Stampin' Up and this is the result of my first go at using them. It's a very simple card and I kept thinking to myself it's not quite finished but I think the Kaisercraft green gems gave it some balance. Ribbon from my stash.

Submitted to the following challenges:

Creative Inspirations #84 Brown, sage and cream

Crafty Creations Challenge #91 Halloween or perhaps autumn

Fab 'n' Funky Challenges #46 Keeping it clean and simple

Top Tip Tuesday #7 Anything goes

Digi Doodle Shop's Best #31 Anything goes

Vintage style - Oh what a hat!

This very stylish vintage lady (by Paper Pleasure Plus) was one of my very early stamp purchases when I first started making cards in 2005. She's part of a set of stylish ladies and somehow I've never managed to use her before. The feather stamp is part of a recent Stampendous UM set purchase and I think they're a great match. The lady and the centre of the single feather are heat embossed for extra oomph. Stampin Up striped paper; pink braid from my stash.

Submitted for the following challenges:

Ooh La La Creations #61 Elegant Ladies

Stampin' for the Weekend #46 Shabby or Vintage

Creative Belli Challenge #99 Old Stamps

Elephant for the birthday boy: a challenge card

One more card from my Kansas visit. I had so much fun sharing Linda's craft room. So many goodies! I had a friend's son in mind when I made this. Digital elephant image is designed by Bugaboo and coloured with Prismas; Nestabilities scalloped ovals dotted with Stickles; EK Success Swiss Cheese border punch; ribbon, paper and star from Linda's stash.

Submitted for the following challenges:

Sew Many Challenges #24 Happy Birthday

Papertake Weekly Challenge Just the One (1 patterned paper, 1 punch, 1 ribbon, 1 star)

Bee Crafty Anything Goes (using a digi image)

365 Cards Day 180 Keep it Simple (1 stamped image, 1 piece of patterned paper, 1 piece of ribbon)

Cupcake Craft Challenges #106 Let's get Digital (digi image)

Daisy Doodles Creative Challenges #16 Anything Goes (using a digi image)

Birdie just for you: a challenge card

Another of my Kansas trip creations. Both stamps are SU with image coloured with Prismacolours; Nestabilities tags; K&Co paper; ribbon and yarn from Linda's stash.

Submitted for the following challenge:

Sunday Sketch and Stamp: sketch #34

Summer Butterfly: a challenge card

I'm visiting my friend Linda in Kansas and this is from our first crafting session. The butterfly stamp is SU; ATD spotted paper; yellow, purple and green recycled paint samples used for backgrounds and Quickcutz flourishes; misc bling. Everything is from Linda's supplies.


Submitted for the following challenges:

Flutter By Wednesday #117 butterfly, fairy or angel

Crafty Creations #80 winged things

Incy Wincy Designs #54 A bug's life

Little Red Wagon #41 summer theme

Practical Scrappers summer theme

The Pink Elephant #79 summer fun

Creative Inspirations recycle element

Butterfly amongst the flowers

This card started off with me wanting to use a Hero Arts flowers set and playing with metallic rubons (haven't used them in a while). The colouring has a lovely sheen which doesn't show up in the scan. Crafty Bitz butterfly; Fiskars border punch; Franchville purple paper; green paper and gold cord from my stash. I used this as a birthday card for a fried who has beautiful, butterfly-attracting garden.

Happy Mother's Day to my mum

Here's the card I made for my mum for Mother's Day. The tiles, swirls and small text are Inkadinkadoo stamps and the 'Happy' is from Paper Xtra; SU paper; brad and ribbon from my stash. I stamped the sentiment in pale pink and clear embossed it it didn't stand out enough so I tried running a white gel pen over the embossing and then did a second embossed layer - I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Fire-breathing dragon

I bought the most wonderful set of Elusive Images dragon stamps and made this for a friend's birthday. Can't wait to use the other two dragons and they come with some great sentiments too. Dragon is embossed in bronze; patterned papers are SU; decorative edge scissors; eyelets from my stash.

Cat in a hat (with a matching scarf of course!)

I've been making birthday cards for a friend's two nieces for several years and I always have fun coming up with ideas for them. My friend loves hats and is an amateur millliner so I thought this would be a perfect image for a card from her. Isn't the Pink Cat Studio stamp just the cutest?! Kitty cat is coloured using Versacubes and a SU blender pen; sentiment uses two Studio G sets; Basic Grey Euphoria paper over blue mulberry paper; Kindyglitz; ribbons from my stash.

Dazzle and style dress

I was watching "27 Dresses" with a friend whilst I made this. Hmmm... wonder where I got the inspiration. ;-) Stamps are all from a Hero Arts set; SU papers and card; Kaisercraft pearls; ribbon from my stash.

Flowery Congratulations

One of my friends has just gotten a promotion and this is her congrats card. I have to give credit to Katie (Pretty-n-Ink) for the design as I made it a SU class that she held earlier this month. All materials are SU (flower is Pick a Petal stamp set) except for the Grace Taylor sentiment.

Butterfly-watching cats

A birthday card for a cat loving friend. I made this not long after I went to a faux silk technique class. I thought this gorgeous Coronado Island stamp would work well with it. Renoir sentiment sticker; ribbon from my stash. You can't really tell from the pic but the white cardstock has a fine rib texture that adds a bit of interest to an otherwise plain white background.

iPod for the birthday boy

A friend asked me to make birthday cards for her two kids. This one's for her son's 15th birthday. Main and background images from the web and I've digitally added the sentiment and added diamond glaze to the screen; Stampendous musical note stamped with Versamark; treble clef charm on a wooden star, brads on corrugated card and cord all from my stash.

Shoes for the birthday girl

One of my friends asked me to make birthday cards for her two kids. This one's for her daughter's 12th birthday. Stamping Bella coloured with Tombows; my favourite Inkadinkadoo birthday stamp; DCWV patterned paper; ribbon and clip from my stash.

Celebrating with a gift

This is one of those exasperating cards where my first idea just didn't work out and I wasn't sure how to fix it. I started off with the pink papers and sentiment which came as a freebie from a UK magazine. Everything I did with it originally was just too pink. A few days later I sat down with it again and added lots of colour - that sure made a difference! I love the green paper with the rainbow dots and think it gave this card the oomph that it needed. The gift box is cut from a border strip and topped with a flower brad. I've used two ribbons - the pink stripe is folded inside a silver edged white organza. I'm so glad it's finally finished!

Born to shop

I recently bought a great set of stamps and just had to try them out. You can't really tell from the pic, but the stamps are embossed with black sparkle powder and look much more blingy (is 'blingy' a word?) in real life. Grace Taylor lady and sentiment stamps; DCWV Glitter Stack paper; ribbon, ric-rac and brad from my stash.

Masculine card for a friend's birthday

With a male friend's birthday coming up, would you believe I didn't have a single masculine card in my stash! (not that there's much of anything in there at the moment) This is what I came up with. Kaisercraft jumbo brad; Sullivans Paper Xtra sentiment stamp; blue card done in Cuttlebug Forest Branches embossing folder and inked with Versamark; Basic Grey Boxer paper; various colours of Bazzill and other cardstock; brown twill from my stash.