Wishing you a day that sparkles!

Hello, the sun is shining here and it is, actually, quite a sparkly day, with the light bouncing off the pond and waterfall, (oh, and even more frogspawn - previous post LOL!).
Meg is away in respite this weekend, and much as I love her, it is so lovely to have some free time and a couple of full nights sleep (mainly why she has respite, as she can't turn herself over in bed, so not only up in the night to toilet her but also to turn her whenever she's uncomfortable, the constant disturbed nights catch up with you eventually!). Went out for a meal friday night (local pub) with Eric's sister and her hubby and off out for another meal tonight with my friend and her hubby, making the most of it before Meg comes home tomorrow and I start my diet, yet again! LOL!.

Anyway here is a card I have put together with goodies from the Clipart Fairy, I used the pink stripe alpha from here, (I have layered some of the letters up), the green plaid paper from this set, the pink dotty papers for base and lollipop flowers from this set and the fairy from here. Lots of glamour dust, including some gold, a couple of rhinestones from stash and some card candy used for stoppers, bought at the last Sincerely Yours papercraft show at Leigh.

 Card closed.

Card open, fairy dangling on acetate.

View from side, it's sort of a reversed easel card.

Fairy - all sparkly with glamour dust.

Close up of lollipop flowers

Coincidentally, the Sincerely Yours craft show is once again at Leigh sports village, Lancashire next Sunday 13th March, you may even get to see the Fairy there! If you haven't been to a Sincerely Yours show yet look out for one in your area, I think Norfolk and Edinburgh are coming up in the next couple of weeks, they have a great selection of papercrafting retailers, nothing else, unlike the big national shows that have knitting, sewing, etc., as well!

**Edited to add** there is a fab freebie paper at the Clipart Fairy.

Here are the challenges I will be entering my card into:

Crafty sentiments - Birthday

Desert Island Crafts - 3 choices  -handmade flower, 2 or more patterned papers, birthday theme

Papertake weekly - anything goes

Shelley's Images/TTT challenge - layers

Card Mad fairy's digi days - Glitz and Glamour

Little Claire's designs - Flowers

Crafty Purple frog - Things with wings

Papercrafting Journey - Things with wings.
Stamp something - digi day
Bling it on - Anything goes

Flower Power

It was my turn to set the challenge theme over on the Polkadoodles blog this week, and as I have had lots of frogs fornicating in my pond and filling it up with frogspawn over the last week or so LOL!, I thought that Spring must be on it's way and to me that means flowers, so my theme is Flower Power, I have asked for cards or projects containing at least 3 handmade flowers, this means punched, printed, cut, layered, shaped, anything at all as long as they are not shop bought.

I used the Ditsy Daisy template from the fabulous Paper Boutique Vol III for my card, one thing this template is not short of is flowers, they were all cut and layered onto the card, including the inside, the sentiment is from the same cd and the only other thing I added is a sprinkling of glamour dust.

 Don't forget to head over to the Polkadoodles challenge blog and check out the other DT cards, there are some gorgeous handmade flowers to hopefully inspire you.

I'm going to  enter this card into the Top Tip Tuesday challenge - Favourites- I have used two of my favourite things, digital images (ultimate favourite) and layering, if you check back through my blog you will notice that a lot of my cards contain layers, I just love the dimension it gives.

Dancing in the Rain

Teddy Bo tuesday has come round again, I am amazed at how quickly the weeks are flying by, I feel like I have only just done last weeks post and here I am doing the next. Go check out the fab new images in store, my favourite is the knitted pram, there are more baby images, a cute easter one and a couple of fantastic scenes for building up your picture.
Mad, mad busy here and wasn't sure I would be able to get a card done this week, but managed to throw one together tonight, which is why the photo's are a bit rubbish, they were taken at 11.30pm, so obviously no daylight or natural light.
Anyway here is my offering for this week, because it was a quickie I used the ready coloured Bo and Bea, I added the umbrella from the little extras set, all papers are from the Clipart Fairy, I paper pieced the umbrella with one of the background papers, cut out the frames with my Go Kreate dies, inked around the edges with Tim Holtz distress inks and added some flowers ( the large rose is from Wild Orchid Crafts), a bow, pearls and a beaded spray thingy?! from stash. I made the sentiment in photoshop. Hope you like it!

There are still a few days left to enter this fortnights Duck Egg Blue and Chocolate Teddy Bo Challenge and the prize this week is a fantastic 10 (yes ten) images from the store.

I'm going to enter my card in the following challenges:

Crazy 4 Challenges - Flowers

Lexi's Creations - Flowers

Simply Create - Flowers

Creative Cottage - Fabulous Flowers

Sugar Creek Hollow - Inside Out

Wild Orchid Crafts - Anything Goes

Freebie Men In Mind Alpha

Clipart Fairy is offering a freebie alpha called Men In Mind over on her blog, there will be five letters each day until you have a full uppercase, and lowercase alpha and all the numbers. So far the first 10 lowercase letters are up. She also has a matching paper set in her store.

This card uses a few of the letters, the golfer from the Golf Mad kit (you can also buy him as a digi stamp) and a grey paper (used on the bottom front and inside of the card) from the Urban Roundabout papers 2.

I laid out the card design in my graphics software, and also tweaked the colour of the golfers shirt to make him a better match for the letters, printed it, and then put the card through again and printed the plain grey paper on the reverse. I folded the card down the right hand edge of the letters then cut around bottom, top and left hand side while the card was still folded. I then opened up the card and cut around the front design only on the right hand side, leaving the edge straight on the back section. I printed the front design again, cut around it and attached to the front with foam pads, I also cut a plain section to match the back and attached this with foam pads, (it makes the card more stable).

The golfer and the letter A were also printed again and both attached with foam pads, I inked around the edges with a brown ink pad and added three buttons and some string from stash.

I am going to enter this card in the following challenges:

A Spoon Full of Sugar - Birthday

Whoopsi daisy challenge - Someone special

Tuesday Throwdown  - 3D - Pop it up

I Did It Creations - Anything Goes

Party Time Tuesday - Anything Goes

ECP Challenges - Something for the Boys 



Polkadoodle stashbox stamp challenge

The challenge over on the Polkadoodles blog this week is

Stashbox stamps plus extras

you can use any stamp but you also have to use 2 different ribbons and a charm

For this card I used elements from Sundae of Seasons (fairy garden and toadstool) and papers from Candy Doodles-plain candies, Paper Boutique III-dotty paper, and a stampie from Sugar Birdies for the sentiment. The fairy image is a Charmed Delectable Enchanted Pixie stamp, a RAK from Ruth (thanks Ruth), coloured with Promarkers and Sakura stardust pens.The wide pink ribbon is from Jennys'craft shop in Widnes, the narrow ribbon is from stash and coloured with promarkers (it was white) and the two little dragonfly charms on the sentiment, I've had for so long, I don't remember where they came from.

If you are looking for more inspiration go over to the Polkadoodle blog and check out the other DT members creations.

I am going to enter this card in the following challenge:

Do you stack up - Anything goes

Gonna get Married?

Not me no!, happily married for 22 years and counting, it's the name of one of the Clipart Fairy's new kits, and when I saw it I just couldn't resist, I fell in love with the fun image.

It's a great kit, and excellent value at only 65p for five papers, the bride and groom image, a wedding cake, and 2 word arts. Here's what I did with it.

This is how it looks when it's closed.

Here it is opened up....

...and from a different angle.

The flowers, pearls and pearl hearts are all from my stash, everything else from the Gonna Get Married-Lilac kit.

I've found a couple of challenges that this is suitable for:

Guylou's Inimitability - Anything Goes

Little Claire's Designs - Anything Goes

Stamp Something - Funky - (bride and groom image)

ResQ - Something that makes you happy - (wedding)
Party Time Tuesday - Anything Goes
Paper Romance Challenges-Anything Goes
Creative Craft World - Square card

There is also a fab freebie on the Clipart Fairy's blog, I made this very quick card with it.

There are two parts to the freebie, the plain pink nestin and the patterned nestin with the baby image and wordart on, I printed the plain nestin onto one half of a sheet of A4 white linen card, scored and folded it and then cut around both pieces whilst still folded so the back and front shapes matched. I printed out the patterned layer twice, added one to the main card with foam pads, then cut out the baby and the wordart from the second and again added to the card with foam pads, I then added a little bow with vintage seam binding from the Ribbon Girl with a little flower from my stash in the middle and lots of glamour dust of course!

You can put the parts together any way you like, the Clipart Fairy has made an easel card with it over on her blog, check it out while you are picking up the freebie.

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges.

The Pixie Cottage - Something Cute (baby)

The Crazy Challenge - Baby Love

Teddy Bo Tuesday and new challenge

It's the start of another challenge on the Teddy Bo Challenge Blog this week and the theme this time around is

DUCK EGG BLUE AND BROWN

Your card or project must contain these colours and of course a Teddy Bo and Co image, and this week the prize will be some Teddy Bo and Co digi's. I hope that you can join us, as myself and the rest of the design team always look forward to seeing your fabulous creations.

Don't forget to go over to the Teddy Bo store and check out all the fantastic new images.

This week I have used Shopping Daze to make a 21st birthday card for my friends daughter, Bea was coloured in photoshop and her boots, dress and bags paper pieced. All papers used are from Clipart Fairy's Dollie Mixtures papers 1 and the book-a-easel pages are from Dollie Mixtures Mega book-a-easel pages, ribbon and pearls are from stash, and there is a generous sprinkling of glamour dust too.

I can't get the photos to show the dimensional look of the book-a-easel, so take my word for it that it looks much better in real life, wish the same could be said for me LOL!

This is the card flat-ish and ready for posting.

open

From the side

Bea close up

I made a little pop-up of the bags to hold the easel card open. I'm really proud of these bags as I drew them myself, and racked my brains to think of appropriate store names.

Pop on over the the Teddy Bo Challenge Blog and check out the wonderful creations from the rest of my teamies.

I'm going to enter this card into the following challenges:

One stitch at a time - No square cards

Fairy Knoll - Birthday or thank you card

Digi doodle - Anything goes

Paper crafting journey - Anything goes

Shelley's Images - Show us what you've got

Guylou's Inimitability - Anything goes

Totally papercrafts - Do it with digi

Tellens Place - Birthday

Stampin with the dragon - Birthday

If the shoe fits - Birthday

Card Makin Mamas - Happy Birthday