Christmas Camper

I was having a look round the Polkadoodles website a few days ago when I spotted a brilliant digi stamp of a Christmas Campervan. It's basically a vw camper with a Christmas tree on top. It's great. It was only something daft like £2 so I ordered it and being a digi, it arrived instantly. This is the first card I've made using it and I absolutely love it!

I started by printing the digi image twice onto a normal sheet of copier paper. I then decided which pieces I wanted to paper piece and used low tack tape to attach my chosen papers onto the print out. I then put the paper (with patterned paper on top) back into the printer and printed again so that the design was on the patterned paper. I did this for the tree, the body of the camper & the windows. I cut out the pieces and laid them onto a plain version printed on thin card.

I used my Promarkers to colour the parts of the design that were not to be paper pieced and then used small amounts of glue to attach the paper pieces. I carefully trimmed out the design leaving a small white border.

I then chose a 12x12 DCWV patterned paper that graduates from dark to light- I think it's perfect as the bottom looks like snow for the camper to sit on. I cut it down to mat onto the 8x8 card base and attached with double sided tape. I then used a double layer of foam pads to attach the camper van. The finishing touches were to add the 3 die-cut snowflakes (with a single layer of 3d foam) to the card, embellishing them with large gems. I then added the peel off message and then used Stickles glitter glue to highlight the fairy lights on the tree.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-
Polkadoodles 'anything goes' 2/2
Digi Choosday 'anything goes' 30/1
Crafting for all Seasons 'for the girls' 3/2

Inspired by Pinterest

Over the Summer, I may not have been doing much crafting but I have discovered the fabulous world of Pinterest. I've spent hours finding all manner of both school and crafting ideas that I'm hoping to use soon. This card is inspired by one of the first ideas I saw using a page from a book and some tippex. I tried printing a digi image straight onto the book page which worked well but when I wanted to blank out the skin colours, I didn't really have anything that would work so I've kind of cheated to make my card below...

I bought a cheap copy of Twilight from a car boot (30p) as I knew I could use it when I finally get the Visible Image 'Edward' & 'Isabella' stamps (hopefully when I go to the NEC in November), but it came in handy for this card too. I said that I'd cheated slightly and that's because I printed my digi stamp onto plain card and onto a page from the book and then I paper pieced the skirt rather than working directly onto the book page. After I had coloured my image (using promarkers & spectrum noirs), I carefully cut around it and then drew around the image on another page from the book. I then used the tippex to highlight the edge so that my image would stand out when I stuck it on top. This meant that I didn't have to be too careful with the tippex as my image would cover any mess I made. I used a ruler to create a neat torn edge on the book page and then mounted this onto some dark red glitter card and then mounted that onto a dark red base card made from an A4 sheet. I finished the card by making some paper roses from 3 circles cut from 2 other pages of the book, cutting and spiral and then twisting it around my pokey tool. I secured each flower with some glue and added a dark red gem to the centre. I then dipped each flower into some glue and then dark red glitter to give them a glittery edge.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-

Catch the Bug 'anything goes'

Papertake Weekly 'anything goes'

Totally Gorjuss 'anything goes'

and

The Paper Shelter 'DT Call' (to see other examples of my colouring, click on either the 'digi stamps' or 'colouring' labels)

Sk8er Boy

Here's another new card I've made using one of my favourite rubber stamps- Skater Ian. It was a bargain I got from the Sincerely Yours show at Lincoln last year which I hope bodes well for next week when I'll be visiting again!

I took a 6x6 'Black Magic' Coredinations paper, trimmed it to size & embossed it with a checkerboard pattern. I then distressed it to reveal the bluey grey base. I then used a chevron stencil and silver stencil paint to add an extra texture to the card. I then added some new washi tape to the corner of the card and mounted it onto a white 6x6 card base. I stamped the skater image onto white card and coloured it using promarkers and spectrum noirs. I then re-inked the hat and stamped it onto a small scrap of an old Basic Grey paper and paper pieced it onto my topper. I mounted the stamped image onto the card using 3d foam to add depth.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-
Crafty Cardmakers 'embossing, distressing & paper piecing'
Papertake Weekly 'sound of music' (inspired by the song 'Sk8ter Boi' by Avril Lavigne)
Daring Cardmakers 'stencil it'
Basic Grey 'song inspired' (sk8ter boi)

Dolly Mixtures

The Craftwork Cards stand is always one of my favourites at the NEC as there is always new Card Candi to be had! This year I ended up buying some lovely floral patterned and spotty ones in various colour combos- I'm sure they'll be appearing on some cards on here soon enough. This year I also picked up a bargain set of their new 'Dolly Mixtures' range. It included a 6x6 paper & die-cut pack, dis-cut tickets, 10 lady toppers and a pack of fancy edge 6x6 cards- all for £10. I chose the 'Coleen' papers but the 'Amy' toppers in my set. I've used the topper and elements from the 6x6 pad to make this card.

I started with the topper, which I coloured using a mix of Spectrum Noirs & Promarkers. The dress is paper pieced using a paper from the 6x6 pad and embellished with a matching colour of Card Candi from my stash. I also used Glossy Accents to add shine to the martini glass. When the glossy accents was dry, I mounted the topper onto some silver mirror card and then onto a spotty paper from the 6x6 paper pad. I mounted this onto the bottom corner of the card base. The paper ribbons and hearts both came from the 6x6 pad, as did the flags that I have used to create the bunting at the top of the card. I attached the flags with 3d foam and then used my black promarker to draw on the string. I then used black peel-off letters to spell out 'Happy Birthday'.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:-

Polkadoodles 'paper piecing'

Craftwork Cards 'dolly mixtures'

Bugaboo Digi Stamps- 'Love Owls'

This is the first card I have created for the Card Makin Mamas Design Team. The theme was LOVE and my lovely (!) main image came from Bugaboo Digi Stamps website. This is the first time I have used an image from their website but I can see that I'll be going back there again. They had lots of brilliant designs to choose from.

I am also entering this card into the Basic Grey 'Love is in the Air' Challenge.

The idea for this card started as soon as I saw the digi-stamp. I knew that I wanted to do paper piecing with it although this was something I had never done with a digi stamp before. I was hoping to be able to change my printer settings so that I could print the image straight onto a 6x6 paper and then cut out the different pieces I wanted, unfortunately this wasn't going to work. In the end, I printed the image onto plain white paper and then attached my base, cloud design, paper over the top of the printed image and then put it through the printer again. I repeated this process for the other elements I needed, carefully cutting the papers roughly to size before putting them over the part of the image I wanted. As it was my first go at this technique, I printed each piece seperately but now I know that it works, next time I will fit on as many parts as I can in one go.

The background cloud design came from a 6x6 DCWV paper pack that I've had for ages. I printed the owls onto 2 different shades of textured brown paper from the Papermania 'Bird Song' collection with Basic Grey 'Sugared' paper for the girly owl & Sissix 'Pastel Little Sizzles' for the boy one. The heart was printed onto some more DCWV 6x6 paper which is the same paper I used for the card background. I coloured the leaves, small bird & flower with my promarkers.

I rounded the corners on my main topper & backing paper before mounting it onto a 6x6 scalloped edge card blank.