Aqua and white

I had been wanting to play along with the Ribbon Girl blog as soon as I saw the colour theme for the month of March: aqua and white. I love that colour combination, it reminds me of warm and sunny days. As usual, I found it hard to find time to play along until the last minute, though.

Materials used:

New scalloped square die from LifeStyle Crafts

Ribbon from the sale at Crafter's Companion

PP from Papermania

Leaf and flower die from Marianne Design
Core'dination cardstock for leaf and flower (flower is sanded)

Button die from Joy!Crafts

Sentiment stamp from Ladybug Crafts Ink

Broken china distress ink from Ranger

I would also like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Marianne's Design Divas - Spring into Spring
Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - #179 Shaped card
Totally Gorjuss - #125 Swirly Whirly!
Craft Your Passion - #103 Monochromatic
Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Spring is in the air

With temperatures of about 17/18 °C spring has really arrived here on Crete. All the more reason to create a spring card. The word art is a digital image that I downloaded as a freebie at Paulette's blog, Create with TLC. I had already printed out both a large version and this small one, so all I had to do was find some matching papers (First Edition, Birdsong collection). I had also punched out the flowers from scraps ages ago.

The inspiration for this card came from this week's sketch over at Tuesday Morning Sketches and the inspiration photo from the Paper Sundaes blog. 

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Tuesday Morning Sketches - Sketch #138 (see above)

Paper Sundaes - #112 Photo inspiration (see above)

Crafty Catz - #125 Spring is in the air

DYSU - #64 Plaid

PaperPlay - Spring colours

Cute Card Thursday - #209 Anything goes

Crafts and me - #76 Light airy spring colours

Tuesday Throwdown - #90 Spring cleaning (i.e. use your stash)

Simply Create Too - #9 It's spring?

Crafter's Companion - #22 Spring

Natural Noel

When I saw this gorgeous inpiration picture over at the Jingle Belles blog, I just knew I had to play along.

This seemed like a perfect opportunity to use a Chrissie embroidery stencil from Joy!crafts that I had received as a birthday present well over a year ago. So last weekend, I did all the embroidering. That is, after I had coloured some white cardstock with a Spectrum Noir pen, because I did not have any CS in the right colour, even though I was convinced I had some.

When I went looking for the PP I wanted to use, it finally dawned on me that I should have been looking for the few sheets of Bazzill CS that I bought last year. If you look closely, you will see that the card itself is a shade lighter than my topper. Anyway, the PP is BoBunny, the lace is Marianne Design and the sentiment is a peel-off.

Holly fairy

Just a quick post to show the Christmas card I made today with this adorable Holly Fairy from Beccy Muir's new digi shop, Beccy's Place. Each image comes in an coloured version and an outlined version. For this card I used the pre-coloured version.

The lay-out is based on this week's sketch over at Tuesday Morning Sketches:

Materials used:

Papers - Marianne Design

Holly Fairy Image - Beccy's Place

Holly image - Robyn's Fetish

Deckled edge oval - Spellbinder's nestability

I'd like to enter this card into the following sketches:

Tuesday Morning Sketches - Sketch #137 + monochromatic (hope the touches of red are ok)

CCAYR - Green, use 2 green PPs

ABC Christmas Challenge - E for evergreen

Winter Wonderland - Magical (fairy or angel)

Christmas Card Challenge - Shaped cards (theme always optional)
LCI - Anything goes

Sweet 'n Sassy - #45 Be inspired by green

Sweet Stampin' - Use lots of green

Fussy and Fancy - #58 Fairies

Simon Says Stamp - A bit o' green

More stickiness

The sticker sets I bought consist of several small stickers in varying colours, so it's very difficult to combine them on one card. After seeing the sketch at a fairly new challenge blog, 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown, I decided I could use two of the small white and gold stickers on two CAS cards using this sketch.

I used some post-it notes to mark off the area on the right, which I then swiped over with Old paper distress ink (Ranger's).  I applied a little ink around the edges of the card. I stamped the sentiment (My Sentiments Exactly!) with Frayed burlap distress ink. I affixed 3 pieces of Kars ribbon (several years old but never used until now) on the inked area and finished the card off with a small sticker from the set I bought at the DIY store.

Here's the sketch I used:

While I was rummaging through my stash, I also found a large sticker/embellishment. It had been stored for so long that the foam pads had started to crumble, so I had to replace them all. That's what you get from not using your stash, LOL. So as a spin-off from the two cards above, I also came up with the following card:

That's 3 more Christmas cards done! Woohoo!

I would like to enter these cards into the following challenges:

52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown - Sketch # 3 (first two cards)

Jingle Belles - Stuck on you (part 3)

ABC Christmas challenge - D for Distress it

Papertake Weekly - Anything goes

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Paperplay - Something old, something new
(old: ribbons, sticker/embellishment;
new: small stickers on first cards, sentiment stamp)

Catch the Bug - Anything goes

Stuck on you 2

The Jingle Belles really had me going through my stash this week, so here's my second card using stickers and rub-ons.

The papers and sticker are from the BasicGrey Eskimo Kisses collection. Because I wanted to add a little dimension, I stuck the sticker flower on a piece of cardstock, cut it out and affixed it to my card with foam pads. I glazed the top flower with a Sakura glaze roller and stuck some red Kars gems on the red circles in heart of the flower. The sentiment is an old MD rub-on (from the same set as the one on my previous card).

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Jingle Belles - Stuck on you

CCAYR - Green + use 2 different green PPs

CHNC - #62 Seeing red (a little or a lot)

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Paper Sundaes - #110 Green or good luck

Stuck on you...

I have another card to share with you today. This fortnight's prompt over at Jingle Belles is to use stickers on your Christmas cards. They did a similar challenge last year, at which point I didn't have any stickers, so when I saw several sticker sheets at the local DIY shop during the holiday season, I just knew I had to buy them, LOL.

Materials used:

Papers - Papermania, Home for Christmas collection

Scalloped circle - Nestabilitie

Sentiment - MD rub-on from an old set (never used until now)

Sticker tree - from a local DIY store

Green cardstock and ribbon - from my stash

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Jingle Belles - Stuck on you

CCAYR - GREEN + 2 different green PPs

Christmas Card Challenges - #13 Music (theme always optional)

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Paperplay - #9 Sth. new, sth. old (new sticker, everything else old)

Crafty Catz - #122 Punches/dies

CHNC - #62 Seeing red (use a little or a lot of red)

Butterflies

This week, I had to make a birthday card for a friend who loves nature, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use the Fairy Tale Butterflies digital freebie that I downloaded last month over at Create with TLC.

I created a square in Word and used one of the colour filling options (bit map pattern called "Briefpapier" in Dutch, so it's probably called sth. like "Writing paper" in English) to create the basis for my background. I placed the green butterfly on top and sent it to the printer. I printed the same butterfly again and cut it out, so I could mask my first green butterfly before stamping the background florals/swirls with a Viva decor cling stamp and Antique linen distress ink (Ranger's). I then cut out my square to size and rubbed the edges with more Antique linen and some Dried marigold. I printed the orange butterfly and attached it with a few foam pads for dimension. The sentiment is from a sentiment set from Ladybugs Crafts Ink. I cut it out with a Spellbinders tag die and applied some distress ink. The CS, gems and ribbon are from my stash.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Aud Sentiments - #49 Happy Birthday

Do You Stack Up - #61 Things with wings

Ooh La La - Photo inspiration (orange and green)

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Charisma Cardz - #8 Masking (+ optional: use 3 stamps)

Allsorts - #144 Spread your wings

OSAAT - #102 Use digi + Spring

Paperplay - #9 Sth. new, sth. old (new digi, old everything else)

White on White plus Bling

This week's prompt over at the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge blog is White on White, with minimal colouring. Just perfect for another Christmas/winter card.

I used the following sketch for the layout of my card.

Top Tip Tuesday Tips:

1.

Some time ago, I read a tip about adding some glue to the ends of a piece of ribbon.

This is also very useful for lace. The lace I used tends to unravel when you cut it. After cutting it, I dipped the ends into a small container of bookbinder's glue. It's invisible and works like a charm.

2.

Bookbinder's glue is also very useful for making boxes or if you want to want your card layers to keep stuck for a long time. Photo glue (rubber cement) tends to come loose after some time. With bookbinder's glue you have a liitle time to adjust the paper (depending on the thickness of the paper) and you get a smooth result.

Materials used:

Most of the material comes from my stash, except the embossing folder,

which is a Sizzix embossing folder that I recently bought.

Image - Cuddly Buddly

Colouring - Spectrum Noirs

Big snowflake - Silhouette design

Small snowflake and lace - Marianne Design

Ribbon, pearl string and gems - from my stash

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Secret Crafter Saturday - #174 White on White

Winter Wonderland - Glitter and bling

Sketch N Stash - Sketch #82

Allsorts - #143 It's your choice

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

CHNC - #61 Use a ribbon and/or charm

Top Tip Tuesday - #71 Stitches

Crafts and Me - #73 Pretty in lace

Paperplay - #9 Something old, something new

Catch the Bug - Hearts, pearls and lace

Sentimental Sundays - #91 Lace and pearls