Sing Happy Birthday

It was my son's partner's birthday last month. I wanted to make her a card that was a bit personal and as she is a singer I thought this stamp set from Visisble Image fitted the bill perfectly.

I found a pretty gelliplate background that I had made some time previously and stamped directly on it. I enhanced the colour on the dress with Copics Some black glitter strips round the edge finished it off. I'm pleased to say she loved it!

 

Challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and more.

NBUS

Blue Birthday!

Earlier this month it was my youngest son's birthday. How can my baby possibly be 40!! Obviously I had to make a card which marked the occasion, much to his disgust!

After much thought for a suitable theme for him, which resulted in nothing, and hours spent on Pinterest,  I ended up with balloons and blue glitter paper. This week Allsorts challenge has chosen the perfect theme for it.  The balloons and number were all cut from snippets. I don't think I've actually got any complete sheets of glitter paper any more.

Challenges:

Allsorts Challenge Blog

Snippets Playground

Birthday Salute!

Recently it was Roy's birthday and as he is still very miltary minded , even though he has been out of the army getting on for forty years, I thought that Cpl Clegg from Dr Digi was very appropriate.

 I coloured him with pencils and added some gold paint for the buttons and end of the pace stick, and glossy accents for the boots. The background paper is a 6x6 sheet from my stash, which I thought made a nice frame, matted onto a piece of Sahara Sand card.

 

Challenges:

Addicted to Stamps & More

Rugby Birthday

It is my youngest grandson's birthday next month and his current passion is rugby. Of course despite the huge amount of stash I've got I could only find one very small silhouette stamp. I did do a web search for a digital stamp but could only find old men or very cute little boys playing. Neither were suitable fpr a 14 going on 18 year old!

Fortunately Craft Artist came to the rescue with some rugby balls.The writing, background  and balls were all created digitally with extra ballsfor the decoupage. My very small stamp went in the middle. Matted it onto blue mirri card then a white card blank.

 

Challenges:

 

Time Out Challenge - Birthday

Unicorn Birthday

Today I have for you two of the 'same but different' cards. Roy;s great niece is obsessed with unicorns, so I went looking for unicorn stamps and found these sweet ones from Lawn Fawn. I decided to make two cards while I had them out as the little girl next door is 4 later this month.

 

I used some lightish blue card from the snippets box and stencilled some darker blue "clouds"as a background. The unicorns, fairies cake and clouds were all stamped on snippets of white card and fussy cut before being arranged. Some glitter stars added to one and the fairies' wings were also glittered.

 

Challenges:

Snippets Playground

Happy Little Stampers Birthday Challenge

NBUS

Pinwheel Tower Card

Earlier in the year I received a pinwheel tower card and have been meaning to have a go at making one ever since. It's only taken me eight months to get round to it!

It was surprisingly easy. The hardest part was deciding how to decorate it. It was for a special blog friend's birthday,  who I am fairly certain is very fond of purple.

 

In the end I found this pretty paper in a 6 x 6 paper pad and used my new very pretty stamp form Aall and Create that Sarn enabled!

 

Challenges:

NBUS

X Box Fan!

Both my grandsons are big X Box fans! So what better than to make an appropriate card for the eldest.  I used an image from Mo's Digital Pencil which I had printed out some time ago, which was fortunate as my computer now says it can't read the image!

Challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and More

 Happy Little Stampers Birthday

Less Is More _ Photo Inspiration

It's a long, long time since I last entered the Less Is More challenge. The photo board inspiration caught my eye this week, so decided to have a play.

Somewhere in blogland I had seen this technique of swiping mini ink pads across the card, but I have no idea where it was, but thought I'd try it out. I usd Scattered Straw, Dried Marigold and Squeezed Lemonade ( I was going to call it Lemon Drizzle- you can tell what I'm thinking about!) distress inks. The stamp is from Visible Image and I added some coloured pencil to the petals to enhance them a bit.

 

Challenges:

Less is More 

Time Out

Happy Little Stampers

Military Birthday Card

I’m afraid I’ve been MIA for a while. The reason? I’m doing an online drawing course and it’s taking up a lot of my time, so card making has taken a bit of a back seat.

A friend of Roy’s recently had his 87th birthday so I made him a suitable card. He’s ex military and also collects model soldiers as Roy does. 

I was really pleased that I was able to make use of the stamp I’d bought for Roy’s birthday card as I thought it might only get used once. The badge and sentiment were computer generated.

Challenges:

Seize the birthday

Last of the April Birthday Cards

I made this card for my step-daughter's partner. He is very keen on football so this image from Dr Digi was perfect for him.

I found a scrap of paper that looked like brickwork to have as a backdrop for him, and mounted it onto a scrap of red card. The image was coloured with Copics. I used red and blue because I like them together and I wasn't  sure what team he supported anyway! He seemed to be happy with it- although the cheque taat was inside it might have helped!

Challenges:

Digi Design Challenge 

Crafty Calendar

Wallace and Gromit

Here's the next of my April birthday cards. This time it's for my youngest son. I usually try to do one that relates to his interests - at the moment it is only mountain biking and I've totally run out of ideas. I've been making them for about the last four or five years!

I think it's time he finds a new hobby! Anyway I resorted to using some Wallace and Gromit papers and toppers from my stash, I think they came with a magazine some time ago.

 

Challenges:

Seize the Birthday

Roy's birthday

The beginning of April brings a number of family birthdays, all fairly close together. The first one is Roy's. As many of you will know he is a keen collector of model soldiers, so when I came across this stamp from Picture This last year I had to buy it, and had been waiting to ink it ever since.

I coloured him with a mix of Copics and Promarkers then fussy cut him out. The background is made up of snippets of scrapbooking paper. I thought the stripy one looked a bit regimental! The sentiment strip is computer generated as I added his old Regimental cap badge to either side. I'm pleases to say it was very well received.

Challenges:

NBUS 

Snippets Playgound

Happy Little Stampers Birthday Challenge

Butterfly Birthday

I was delighted to see that I was a top pick in last month's Butterfly Challenge. So of course I had to make a card for this month.

Here is what is required.

 

 

I didn't go for the shape this month though, just the diecut, three of the colours and of course the butterfly.

 

I stamped the butterfly on a snippet of white, and after three attempts got the three part stamping to line up. Now I know when I bought this stamp set I also bought the two sets of dies that went with it. I found one set, but not the one containing the butterfly outline. I have absolutely no idea where it can be. so had to fussy cut it instead. I then brushed the same inks over another scrap of white card but they came out quite pale. I placed the Christmas Bubbles die (unbranded) over the inked card leaving a small border, then inked over the holes to strengthen the colours. I added the butterfly at the "waist" of the die. The butterfly is from SU Watercolor Wings, the sentiment from Clarity Stamps.

 

Challenges:

 

Butterfly Challenge

Freshly Made Sketches

NBUS - Bubbles die

Snippets Playground

Mountain Biking Bear!

My youngest son is a very keen mountain biker but I am finding it difficult to come up with ideas for his birthday cards. This is the one I made for him using some photos he had taken on a biking holiday in Whistler.  He had a great time there and was delighted to have seen a bear on one of his rides.

So with a bit of manipulation of his photographs and the help of Craft Artist I came up with this one! The cyclist behind the bear is my son.

Birthday Bouquet

My stash of birthday cards has got a bit depleted so thought it was time to do something about it. This stamp from Penny Black has been sitting on my desk for months now, so I finally inked it up.

 

I coloured it with Zig watercolor pens and a water brush. The white background looked a bit stark and unfinished so I brushed on some distress inks - Old Paper and Spun Sugar, mounted it onto Mint Macaron card and added a sentiment strip.

 

Challenges:

Colour Throwdown - mustard, pink and green

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour - AG

Happy Little Stampers Birthday

NBUS

Cardz4Galz

Butterflies for Less is More

It's a long time since I played at Less is More, but I has a spare hour or two so decided that I would join in with their current challenge of butterflies. I also needed a female birthday card!

 

I searched through my dies for some butterfly ones - I think these are some very old ones from Spellbinders and also rummeged in the snippets drawer and found a piece of brusho'd paper that had been much of a success. I cut the two embossed butterflies out and glued them flat straight onto the card blank. Then I had just enough left to cut out the openwork top layer of both and attached them by just glueing the body down. The hemp card blank is another old item from my stash which came from Card Creations before it changed hands, sadly I don't think they stock them any longer.

 

Challenges:

Less is More - Butterflies

Allsorts - Butterflies

Moving Along With The Times - Anything goes

Happy Little Stampers Watercolour Challenge - Anything Goes

Jamie’s Card

April's a busy month for making male birthday cards for me. Three in nine days!  This one is for my stepdaughter’s boyfriend. 

I created the image on Craft Artist then cut it out with a stitched rectangle die and mounted it onto a yellow mat .

Challenges entered: Fab ‘n’Funky - masculine

Anyone for coffee?

Roy's birthday is coming up soon and I was feeling a bit stuck for ideas for his card. I was sure I had bought a stamp sometime ago especially for it, but there was nothing sitting on my desk that looked remotely suitable, so thought I must have dreamt buying it. The trouble was I couldn't even remember what the image was! So Plan B got put into action.  Coffee!

The stamp set is from Altenew . I used a piece of gingham paper to represent a tablecloth, although that well known chain of coffee shops that he frequents for his flat white certainly doesn't have any!

Typically as soon as I had finished this card and was clearing away I found the stamp I had bought. Oh well it will come in handy for next year - if I remember I've got it.

 

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - Food and /or Drink

Birthday Wings!

It's the middle of the month so time for a new challenge at Perfectly CAS, and this month it is "Wings".

 

 Now I'm fairly sure that the popular choices will be butterflies, dragonflies,birds and bees. I decided to be different!

No NBUS here either as the plane is a very old SU stamp and the sentiment an old one from Clarity. I stamped the plane first then lined up the sentiment to look as though it was coming from the exhaust,. I stamped it in blue and red (very patriotic), reminiscent of the Red Arrows! It looked a bit naked so I masked off the rest of the card and carefully applied a very pale blue Copic - intentionally patchy _ for the sky.

Don't forget to use just one third of your card to join us. Lots more ideas on the challenge blog!

Perfectly Cas

It's time for aa new challenge at Perfectly Cas and this month we have a reallly easy theme for you - Birthday!

 

 

I decided to use the middle third of the card and stamped a row of cactus plants around the sentiment. I used the Misti, which meant I could stamp all the images at once.The stamp is an HLS one.

 

I added two score lines above and below the images to add a bit of definition, then coloured them with Polychromos pencils.

I look forward to seeing all your cas cards and if you need more inspiration pop over to the challenge blog.