Little Boy Blue

We have a new challenge starting today over at Here Come The Boys; the theme is "Little Boy Blue" - we want to see cards (for a male, don't forget) that are Monochrome Blue - so you can use as many shades of Blue as you like - and we'll even let you add flesh, hair or, like me, fur colours ;)

This is in fact the first card I photographed using my portable light studio, it looks a little "flat", but hopefully I'll get more adept and my cards will look more as they do in real life. 

This photo shows the dimension a little better.

I've used the gorgeous Baby Bear Scales from Di's Digi Stamps, so sweet and such a dream to colour with crisp lines and precise detail.  I've coloured with Copics, with a few Prismacolor pencil shadows.  I actually enjoyed keeping this card monochrome, which I didn't think I would! Totally Papercrafts has Monochromatic as their challenge theme so I'm entering there and Without Words wants us to focus on Blues so I'm entering there too.   The papers I've used are digis - the Baby Boy pack from The Stamp Fairy, the blue card is from my stash.

The image and mats are cut using Nestabilities Standard Circles and Scalloped Circles, the flourish is the Corner Bow die from Memory Box... I got it and some of it's stable mates from my lovely Mum for my Birthday; it cuts beautifully!  The scalloped border is cut using Fiskars Apron Lace punch. The little duck is (or was until I cut the shank off it!) a button from my stash.  Sweet Stampin' has Buttons and Bows and Polka Dots as their challenge theme, I've got them all, so I'm in!
I've followed the sketch from Friday Sketch Challenge, I've changed the rectangles to circles and used the flourish in place of the green element on the sketch... it's probably the most interpretive I've ever been with a sketch, but I think it's still clear that my card was based on it, so I'm hoping it's okay :-"
I used the same sketch for the inside of my card, that button is from my stash too.

That Craft Place has For a Child as their challenge theme, Cards for Men has Anything Goes as does Ready Teddy Go and Stamping Sensations Special Occasions Other Than Birthdays so I'm entering those too. 

That's it for today's card, pretty clean and simple really :)
Hope you can join in the challenge this time around, if you haven't gone Monochrome before give it a go... you might just love it like I did!  There's a great prize on offer of a selection of charms.  Pop on over to the blog and check out the rest of the Design Team's inspiration... even though we've all used blue, it's amazing the variety of projects that we've come up with!
My youngest son Chris is a photographer, he took some photos of his brother's (my eldest son's) new family aka "the twins" who are three weeks old now - I thought I'd share a couple of my favourites, here and over at Show Me Thursday

Nathan thought he'd take a bite out of Daddy's nose

Kruza watching over Emily

I have some other beautiful photos to share... I'll get them resized and proudly display them next time.  Until then, Happy Crafting, Donna