Super Sketchy Sunday - Day 153

Don't often play along with sketches but it's a friend's birthday in a couple of weeks and as she spent it in Paris last year I thought I'd remind her of that fact this year!

So here are my two cards for the Super Sketchy Sunday - Day 153 - over at 365 Cards today.

I had a couple of go's at the sketch, the first one in pink and chocolate - tres chic - but was not too happy with the result and then I sort of remade it in green and orange which are a favourite colour combo of hers - hope she likes it!

{and now that I've loaded both photos I'm sort of liking the pink and brown one better now!}

First attempt::

 Second attempt:

Sweet Baby - Day 152

Hi there, have been having a particularly good run in the crafting department, posting quite a lot lately!  Made this card for 365 Cards Challenge Day 152 which asked for baby cards.  I've had this strip of colourful giraffes on my desk for years (yes, I mean years!) and it just happened to be top of the pile when the challenge came through so off the pile and onto a card it went!  (Still have the other half of the strip left LOL!)

One for the boys!

This card is sort of related to the Owl tag I made the other day, as in I left the emobssing folder out on the desk and it inspired me to continue creating!  This card was made first and it took me a while to stop fiddling with it, I was playing around with different coloured versions of the vehicle (the orange and brown one is still on my desk somewhere) but in the end decided that would have been just too bright for this particular card so went with the more subdued green and brown version of the old car.  As I tried to picture the colour wheel with blues and green, the opposite came up as orange hence the orange 'pops' on it in the form or a curly thingy and the stars, without them it just looked so drab...  Anyway, now to write in it and send it off to my dad 'just because'.  Mum says he loves looking at them and reading the messages so let's hope the postal service does their bit and gets it there soon, I think mum is still waiting for her Mothers' Day card - so frustrating!

Once again have used some recycled materials in the form of a beautiful old calendar, the full picture was of Mt Cook/Aoraki - so here's to you Sir Ed Hillary on your 60th anniversary of reaching the summit of Mt Everest (I understand you used to practice climbing Mt Cook LOL!)  So, a card appropriate on so many levels FOR THE BOYS!!

Entering in the latest Creative Corner Challenge which is "for the boys"

A tale of one owl and two flowers...

It's been quite a while since I made a card and last night around midnight I decided to start having a tidy up of my craft desk and of course I got side tracked..... and here is the result!

All of the componenets of this card where on the desk, the only 'new' element is the glitter centres I punched out for the flowers, and I quite like how it came out.

I'm entering in for the Creative Corner challenge which asked for Flowers or Mother's Day theme, and seeing as there are two flowers on this card I reckon it qualifies!

Ah, and I had three dear friends over for afternoon tea yesterday and we had yummy food and I put together a couple of teeny tiny flower posies for the occassion, in a couple of old salt and pepper shakers, I'm usually very reluctant to cut flowers but the occassion called for it in my opinion :>

A Rainbow of Circles!

I made this card a wee while ago when I was experimenting with inlaid embossing, it is a great way of using up teeny tiny bits of paper and it was really fun to make.  It's like a rainbow of bubbles, all floating away!

Would love to enter this card into the Creative Corner challenge called "I can see Rainbows" - which basically asked for any interpretation of rainbows, in this case it's not the shape but the colours (even though some are missing from the spectrum)

For my mum

Hi again, I've been away from the crafting table for some time, if only I could re-direct my Facebook energy into crafting I'd get sooo much done!

Anyway, I went to tidy my craft table as we are having guests next weekend for Leo's 6th birthday and of course I got inspired right there and then - isn't that always the case (anything to put off the tidying up for a while longer LOL).  [Actually I'm lying -  I did also make the invites for his party a couple of days ago, he wanted Angry Bird invites so I made some Bomb Birds with punch art and they turned out quite cute]

Anyway, back to my card.  I made it with mum in mind, for no particular occassion, it's not her birthday, and it's a bit too early for Mothers' Day, so I just wanted to tell her how much she has always amazed me with her patience and cheerfulness in the face of adversity and just wanted to send her a card to tell her how much I love her!  She and I had a chat a few months ago about how little we express our 'love' feelings for each other so now when we call we always sign off with "love you mum/Francie!"  Never to late to start loosing the stiff upper lip and getting a bit lovey dovey with your mum I reckon :>

I've done a bit to recycle as well, the white card is the reverse side from a certificate (usual thing, printed the wrong text on a certificate at work and it seemed such a shame to just bin it so it comes home with me and get's up-cycled), the orange flowery border came from one of the very first papercraft kits I purchased many years ago and the hearts had been stamped on another piece of card and were just sitting around so I cut them out and glittered them up a little - can't have too much bling in my opinion!

I'm entering this in the Creative Corner Challenge - I see them have almost 150 entries already, what a rip-roaring success that has become!  The theme for the challenge was "Anything goes" so here is goes.

Christmas Card Challenge

Yep, I know it is a bit early - even for me - to be making Christmas cards but nothing like a blog challenge to get you all inspired :>

Over at Keryn's Card there is a weekly NZ challenge to make a Christmas card inspired by one that she creates and this week it is a quilted top note card.  Seeing as I've never actually made one of these 'quilted' cards I thought I'd just do a very similar one to the one Keryn made.  I managed to find three pieces of Christmas paper in my stash and as I don't have a square punch I cut them into 1-inch pieces.  I also felt I needed a bit more variety so made up my own 'pretty paper' with some vanilla cardstock and Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler ink.

In hindsight I shouldn't have run it through with the embossing folder as it opened up the 'seams' a little, but nothing a bit of ribbon won't cover!

I am also entering this card in a couple of other challenges:
365 Cards which asked for a colour combo of green, dark red and dark purple (which I have not used - sorry!)
Charisma Cardz Challenges - Anything goes.

Remember to click on a photo if you want a closeup view.

And after I finished the card the kids and I went out for a walk, enjoying the lovely weather we had today!

Well, survived my first week back at work full-time in almost 6 years so rewarded myself with a little crafting time!

There are a couple of challenge blogs that I currently take part in {sporadically..} and one of them had a colour combo as their theme and the other one had the word "liquid" - and am sure they don't mean pour yourself a glass of wine before you get crafty!

So for Creative Corner Challenges it was "brown and pink" which was the easy part, for 365 Card Challenge I decided to use an ink and marble technique that I learnt a few weeks ago at Keryn's - I really liked the effect it produces, great for male cards I feel, but with the right colours it worked well for my sister-in-law's birthday card.

The flower was die-cut with a Tim Holtz Bigz folder {Tattered Florals from memory) and finished simply with a rhinestone as it's centre, and a little butterfly adds a little balance hovering over the greeting.  I really really wanted to add a dash of green but restrained myself just in time LOL!

Pumpkins definitely on the menu for this Recipe Challenge!

365 Cards - Day 241 challenge.

I like to re-cycle things for my cards whenever I can and it is appropriate - as you can see I cut the background shape from an old card back - it embossed really well and the card is kind of glossy so that's nice, and the logo in the middle was covered by my punch art - why don't you give it a go?  (The card fronts were sent to kindergarten for the children to do artwork with them as well.)

No room for a sentiment on the first card, but I did manage to incorporate on in the second card.

I don't have any stamps or papers with Halloween images so I had to make my own pumpkins with punches.

So here is the Recipe

4x4" Card

2 Patterned Papers

Ribbon

Glitter

Halloween or Fall Theme

Sentiment of your choice