Coffee Kiki

The sentiment on this card says "I'm thankful for my morning coffee.....and those around me should be thankful too!"  This rings true for me: I have developed an intolerance to caffeine, and can only have one cup a day -  first thing in the morning - woe betide anyone who gets between me and it!!

I've used the sketch from Eat Sleep Stamp for their sketch challenge #109, I have used two panels in the middle of the card instead of the oval on the sketch, hope that's okay.  The image is Coffee Kiki La Rue a CC Designs stamp from All That Scraps, coloured with Copic and Bic markers.   As Stamp Something has "thankful somethings" as its' theme for this week, guess where else Kiki is going?  I love the little birds on the paper behind Kiki, there's something "early morning" about them! They were just an incidental part of the paper, but it goes to show that appropriate imagery is everywhere.  

The  card is off white, with a blue square on it, the patterned paper is from the Utopia collection by Kaisercraft.  I've had the floral piece for a while and actually bought the stripy piece for another project without realising it matched, I love it when the colour matching has been done for you -  especially when you didn't do it on purpose, ;-)  The plain blue mat is from DCWV self-adhesive mat stack and the purple is from DCWV Latte collection.  Pearlised blue/green brads finish the sentiment panel off.

I used a small strip of the Utopia paper inside the card, mounted on a strip of the blue paper punched with Fiskars Apron Lace border punch.  I like to add a bit of decoration to the inside of my cards, it helps to give them a finished look.

While I am going to enter this card in  a few challenges, my motivation for making it was simply that I've had the stamp for ages and just got a hankering to get it coloured up and out there.
I can think of loads of coffee/tea references I can use this image with, and she was such a joy to play with, I'm sure Kiki and me will be joining forces again very soon - as long as I've had my coffee for the day that is, :-)

Happy 26th Chris

Today is my lovely son Christopher's 26th birthday: he is now the age I was when I had him!  No, can't be, he's still my baby!!!  Happy Birthday darling, and many, many more.  I made this card and gift card/money holder set for his birthday:

I love making "stuff" for Chris, he understands the work involved in producing something handmade  (he's seen the evidence in my craft room often enough, the "cleaning up" time alone is more than you spend buying a gift!)

On the gift card holder (which this year will hold cash, his favourite) I have used "Sitting Trevor" and the wheelbarrow  from the Sugarplums Take a Seat collection.  All the stamps used on this project were bought from All That Scraps and this set is going in their challenge for this week "make a gift card holder".  It will also go into caardvarks challenge for this week which has the same theme and in  A Spoonful of Sugar's challenge for this week  "Anything Goes".

The card is cream cardstock, I used the sketch from Sketch and Stash, #49 to be precise, for their challenge for this fortnight.  

I followed it really closely, which was easy as it was such a good sketch to work with.  The new "stash" is the "Kiki with Puppy" digi stamp I used on the  card, in conjunction with "Balloon Trevor" who I've used before (on my acetate card, here)
 The group on the card represent my husband, myself and our lovely Rocky, the Jack Russell.  You may notice my husband has greying hair, while mine is a vibrant Reddish Brown - at least that's what it's called on the box! I coloured Rocky to look as like himself as possible, fortunately for me, the patch on the stamp coincides with a patch he has in the same spot - the ONLY patch he has on his whole body!  One of the good things about digital stamps is that you can resize them, and as my husband is exactly a foot taller than me I could make our relative heights more realistic.  Not completely realistic, you understand as he would have been off the top of the card!
The papers are all from the Kaisercraft 6"x6" collection "Le Chateau".  I love them, they're what I describe (to myself, admittedly) as Elegant Masculine.  I mainly used  offcuts for the gift card holder, which I love to do as I can't bring myself to throw them out and I already have a zillion in the folders I keep such stuff in.  I used the template I made which is available on my "Templates, Tutorials and other Freebies" page here. I decorated the back with patterned paper and the inside with plain paper so I can write on it.

Just thought I'd add this photo of Rocky taken at the park (his favourite place) which is why he is smiling, :-)
It was nice to be able to get into my studio (so called because of it's function as the room I use to produce and teach decorative art) and create something - we are so busy with work at the moment it is hard to get time to do anything not work related, the joys of self employment in a seasonal industry!!

There are lots of other things going on too, especially with Chris - changing jobs, moving house - all those high-stress things that cause loving mums to worry too!  Timing being everything, it would have been nice if all the activity could have come at the not-the-silly-season, that's just not the way life works though, is it?  Anyway, as my other son would say, "It's all good". Until next time, happy crafting, Dee

Naughty or Nice?!

Well, a bit of both really, don't you think??

 This is the first card I've made using Kenny K's "Mrs Claus" digi image.  My husband and sons all loved it, so it won't be the last. I think the fact that the guys in my life liked this card makes it eligible to be entered in Pixie Dust Studio's challenge for this week "all about the men/boys in your life", so in it goes.
Obviously I've used a Kenny K image, so I will be entering their challenge for this week with the theme "sparkle and spots": Mrs Claus' fur edging has JudiKins Iridescent Sparkle embossed on it (I added texture paste for a bit of extra depth first), and the spots are on the black mat and the rhinestone "snow" - so even the spots on this card sparkle, lol.
I used the sketch from Eat Sleep Stamp for this week's challenge (#108), what a great sketch it was to work with!  I used red cardstock for the card and paper from Kaisercrafts "Shaken not Stirred" 6"x6" collection, cutting the pattern for the border from one sheet and using a different sheet for the background. I love the James Bond reference and I've thought of a few sentiments to use next time I combine this image with this paper, you'll have to come back and see what you think!!
I stamped the sentiment on one of the tags that came in the paper collection with a Paper Xtra stamp and Stazon ink.  I embossed the red semicircles with JudyKins Ruby Twinkle to give them a bit of a lift.  
The image is raised on foam dots, as is the sentiment.  The rhinestone on the garter is red, in place of the holly berries.  
The other challenges I'm putting this card in are: Stamp Something "use something digi" (always the easy for me as 95% of my stamps are digis!), Cute Card Thursday "Anything Goes" (surely the easiest for Everybody!) and Totally Gorjuss "Traditional Christmas Colours" (now I grant you, black isn't really a traditional Christmas colour, but the red is and I have green - I DO, her choker and the holly on her garter!! See it, get you magnifying glass out, lol) so it's going in!!
Hope your liking Mrs Claus, you should pop over to Kenny K's and have a look at some of the great kinda-grown-up images they have on offer.  I used one, "Movie Star" recently -here, and the recipient really liked her card!
Once again, thanks for visiting, see you next time, Dee

Black Diamonds and Pearls

Black Diamond is the name of the Swarowski crystals on this card, which I made for my son and daughter-in-law's very first wedding anniversary last week.  The Bride's attendants wore black lace and pearls on the Big Day, the Bride wore this lovely shade of Chantilly cream.

I decided to make an easel card.  I used cream coloured embossed card for the front panel, I punched the top and bottom with Martha Stewart's Garden Trellis Deep Border Punch.  The body of the card I made with textured cream card.
I glued the Black Diamond crystals, which are AB coated meaning they sparkle with all different colours, on alternate rows on the trellis on the front of the card, the rows in between had pearls glued on them.I attached a band of trellis to the edge of the bottom of the card to use as the prop for the easel, I glued crystals on one row of this trellis too. 

I cut a mat from gold mirror board using my Labels 4 Nestabilities, and one from cream for the sentiment which I stamped with "Happy Anniversary" from the Everyday Sentiments collection and Stazon ink. A few crystals and pearls on the face of the card completed the decoration.  The crystals are really very bling-y so I didn't want to clutter the card with too much trim.  

The gold mirror board edges just helped neaten the border between the body of the card and the trellis. 
The text inside the card was a rub on from Kaisers "You and Me" sheet . I used some gold border stickers to edge the panel it was on, primarily because I had applied it crookedly and that seemed to be the best way to make it appear straighter!!!

It is a pity the photos don't show up the bling: my youngest son, who is a photographer assures me it is very difficult to photograph because it relies on movement to sparkle - and as I'm not about to VIDEO my cards, you'll just have to try and get the idea from these photos:-) The one taken with the card reflected in my (somewhat scratched) breakfast table seems to show the bling off at least a bit.  
I've decided to enter this card in a few challenges: 
One Stop Craft Challenge has the theme "Embossing", this card has embossed paper and of course the nesties, Lexis Creations has an "Anything Goes" theme this time around, Crazy 4 Challenges #62 wants a square card.
Craft Your Passion#31 has "Double Anything" as it's theme, this card doubles A LOT: two borders, two rows of crystals per edge, two rows of pearls - all the double-ups you'd expect in a symmetrical card really! And last, but certainly by no means least, All Things Unity #18 has a Monochromatic theme this week; and this card is certainly monochromatic!
Hope you like my darling son and daughter-in-laws card as much as I enjoyed creating it, see you next time, Dee

First Anniversary Already!

I can't believe it is my son and daughter-in-law's wedding anniversary already, the time has just FLOWN!

 

This card is one that I helped my Mum make for them, she chose the image because the rose is the same colour as the roses Elaine had in her bouquet, which means they are the same colour as the flowers I made for the wedding cake, a post of which I have never done: that will be rectified very soon! 
This card is another one in the DL format, like the Christmas card I did recently: I said I'd be making more, and it is a nice change to follow through with something!  

The background paper is a soft pink pearl, you can see the shimmer (sort of) in the close up photo.  I embossed it with the "Textile" folder from Cuttlebug as it has a similar pattern to the black paper, which is left over from their wedding invitations and bonbonniere boxes, nice to refer to the wedding in their anniversary card (mum's idea, not mine!).
I applied the sentiment sticker on to pink paper, then cut and embossed it with my oval Nestabilities, matted it on the black paper cut with a Nestabilities Scalloped Oval then stuck that straight to the card.  It's unlike me to not use foam dots, but I wanted the butterfly (cut from scraps using my NEW and lovely butterfly punch from Martha Stewart) to stand out, so the rest of the card needed to be "flatter".  The body of the butterfly is a string of crystals, I cut the top one close to the edge of the next crystal so the the string was left to look like antenna - just in case you thought I just did a cr**py job of cutting, lol!
I think I'll enter this card in the Flutter By Wednesdays challenge for this week, it has an "open" theme and of course it has a butterfly on it!  I had a trawl around but couldn't really find any other challenges it would suit - never mind there are always more cards in the cosmos just waiting to be created!
I have made a card for Matt & Elaine's anniversary also, which I will upload to the computer later and will "do" a post on then; time is tight as work is mad at the moment- we are in the "silly season" for swimming pools, now until Christmas.  Have a good one, Dee