Sail Away With Me

At the One Stitch at A Time challenge blog our theme this week for Challenge 117 is for 'The Man in Your Life'.   Our sponsor this week is

who are offering a smashing prize of three Promarkers to the chosen winner who uses a Stitchy Bear Digital Stamp in their design.  Please put the hash sign # after your name when linking your design to the challenge blog.

If you chose to use a non Stitchy Bear digital stamp in your design you will be entered into a runner-up draw for a $3coupon to use at Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps store.

 When selecting the image to use this week I chose this beautiful cameo by Floppy Latte Designs of a sailing boat and it can be found right here.  As I live very close to the river I see many sailing boats along our stretch of the coast and it reminded me of the Thames barges seen recently in the fantastic Jubilee River Pageant.  I was struggling to find the right sentiment for my image and I was watching a tribute to the late Robin Gibb and I wasn't aware that he and his brothers wrote 'Islands in the Stream' sung by Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers. These are some words from that song that I thought fitted perfectly with the image and as a tiny tribute to Robin Gibb.

I've simply used a black card base and mounted the image on to some sea green card from my stash.  I used a Spellbinders Edgeabilities die on a couple of strips of sea green card and added a couple of cardboard hearts.  The image and the sentiment have been dusted over with a blue distress ink to take away the starkness of the white card.

I would like to enter the following:

Creative Inspirations Challenge #116 ~ A Card for a Male 

Sentimental Sundays Challenge #106 ~ For a Special Guy

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge #158 ~ Male Card

Digi Doodle Shop's Challenge #111 ~ Male Card 

Dream Valley Challenge #34 ~ For that Special Guy

Scrappy Frogs Challenge Blog ~ Celebrate Men 

The Crafty Pad #174 ~ Let's Hear It For The Boys 

Creative Card Crew #12 ~ Song Inspired

LEJ Designs #7 ~ Male Projects 

Make It Monday #93 ~ Anything Goes

A year has come round so quick

It's my handsome grandson's birthday this month and he's fourteen, where have those years gone??? He's off white water rafting and visiting museums in Quebec and Ottowa and is very soon to have his first prom, squeee! I can't wait for those pics!!! But the best bit is that I shall get to see him in July when the family fly over. Yippee!

Fourteen? Phew!! I hadn't got a clue what to make for him so I'm sure he won't mind some steampunk and grunge.

The stamped images are from a fab set of clear stamps from Inkadinkado called steampunk  and I've added some die cut cogs from Spellbinders, the ticket stamp and die cut are both by  Whimsy  and the little sentiment is from my stash. I paper pieced the hot air balloon too. What doesn't show up very well are the tiny watch parts I've added to the corner stamp.  Not very good light at 7.30am that day, if anyone finds the sun, please send some down to Essex.

I would love to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Secret Crafter ~Saturday Challenge #188  ~ Anything Goes

ATC's with Attitude Challenge #15  Anything Goes/Fathers Day

Fat Pages and Cards with Attitude # 15 ~ Anything Goes/Fathers Day

Fairytale Challenge Blog - Challenge 41 ~ Boys & Men

Joyful Stamper; Inspire Me Fridays # 61 ~ Anything Goes

Patties Creations Design Challenge #45 ~ Fathers Day or a Card for a Guy 

The Poodles Parlour ~ Fathers Day / Male Card

OSAAT Challenge #115 Red White and Blue

It's the Royal Jubilee next weekend and it's a lovely long weekend with us having an extra day off on Tuesday to celebrate this amazing occasion.  Not since Queen Victoria have we had a monarch who has reigned so long.  Over on the OSAAT challenge blog our theme this week is Red White and Blue and our sponsor this week with a brilliant prize of £10 GBP is Joanna Sheen.  Pop on over to her website for a yummy taster of what you could be spending your prize money on.

For a chance to win this prize you must use a StitchyBear digital image on your project.  If you to join in the challenge with a non StitchyBear image, you will  be entered into the runner up draw of $3 USD to spend in the online store here, check out the gorgeous images, there's always something you'll love.

For my card I chose this sweet image about friendship, it's by Digiblessings and it's called Daisies and Tea and you can find it right here

I've coloured it with Copics and Promarkers and used an ink blending brush to soften the edges of the image and the card itself.  Just a couple of Bitty Blossoms by Spellbinders to finish.

My Friend's Wedding today

We are off very shortly to celebrate a special wedding of a good friend. Here's the card I made for her. Jan has chosen a turquoise outfit so I made the card to match.

I decorated the inside and found a lovely message as I think this sums everything up in their lives.

Using My Favourite.

The challenge this week over at the OSAAT challenge blog is to 'Use Your Favourite' and our smashing sponsor for this weeks challenge is Creative Craft World with a prize of three Promarkers.

To win this brilliant prize you will need to use one of the hundreds of gorgeous images in the Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps store. If you use a non Stitchy Bear image you will be entered into a draw for a prize of a $3 gift coupon to spend in the store. Using a non Stitchy Bear image you may enter the challenge three times only.

 Why not pop along and check out the designs and be ready for our Stitchy Bear only Challenge in June, exciting stuff!

For my card I used Steampunk Fairy by Delicious Doodles.  I've flip her to face the other way and left her very plain except for some Diamond Sparkles so that she is looking into a mirror and seeing herself looking fabulous. The original image was shades of grey but I've given her a sepia tone  appearance. She only has to Make a Wish!

The background paper is from My Craft Studio's 'Tinkering with Steampunk' and the image of the girl in the mirror came from a CD I bought on Ebay.  I cut the frame with the help from a couple of Spellbinders dies and had great fun using some Debbie Moore's Metal Magic over it.  I covered some Spellbinders Sprockets with the Metal Magic too.  The stamped sentiment is from a stamp set by Katy Sue Designs called Wishes and Vines.

My favourite, well... definitely playing with the Metal Magic and using the Spellbinders dies, after all, I can't cut butter straight!

I would like to enter the following challenges:-

Bugaboo Stamps ~ Things with Wings

Crafty Calender Challenge ~ Things with Wings

CES Challenge Blog ~ Anything Goes

ATCs & Cards with Attitude ~ Anything Goes

Fat Pages & Cards with Attitude ~ Anything Goes

Fairy tale challengeblog ~ Anything with Wings 

Glitter Geeks Week 19 ~ Wings & things

Joyful Stamper Inspire me Fridays ~ Anything Goes

A Pink One

It's funny how you come across some really lovely people on the internet and I've met a few very special people on the MSE forum. It's was Margaret's birthday a few days ago and I completely forgot being so completely wrapped up in other things.  This is the card I made for her her.

A May Birthday Card

It was one of my great-nieces's birthday at the weekend (Me, a great-aunt!!! Heavens, it sounds old!) and this is her fairy card.  A lovely fairy image from LOTV, Memory Box die and some flowers and pearls from stash.

Happy Birthday, Maisie.

Another April Birthday Card.

A card made for one of our lovely chapter members. Thank you, Janet, for your card too, it does mean a lot to me.  A couple of Spellbinders mats, a beautiful topper from Hunkydory  (free with a magazine) a beautiful Memory Box die cut and some lovely lace from one of life's special people, aka Karen. Check her blog out 'cos it's beautiful.

Scrabble Card

I was asked to make a scrabble card by a lovely friend. After searching for letter tiles and cutting out separate tiles by hand I decided to look to see if I could find something else. Just by sheer chance I came across a scrabble font (light bulb moment here!).  I designed the greeting as requested in a graphics program and printed it out straight onto cream card. With a lick of an ivory Promarker, a few layers of clear glaze, ribbon, card candy and a couple of flourishes it was done.