Sunday, 13 July 2014

Things that Glow

Happy weekend folks!

Just a super quick card for the Casology challenge:







The idea for this one came to me at about 3am this morning....no wonder I was having trouble sleeping.  I started thinking about 'cat's eyes' in the centre of roads and then I thought of a pair of creepy eyes glowing in the dark.  It's not the best execution or photo I'm afraid - I wish I'd had more time to think about how to incorporate the eyes into a better card but I like the idea. I used the Cameo to cut them and added a couple of drops of dimensional magic to make them glow more. The Halloween die cut is also from Cameo Silhouette and the 'happy' is from a set by PTI.

Thanks for looking,

Claire x




Thursday, 10 July 2014

The Cutting Edge/Virginia's View/Paper Smooches Sparks

G'day bloggers!

How's your Thursday going?

I've kind of been against the clock for this next card. I've had my eye on the new Cutting Edge Challenge for a few days and suddenly realised that Mr Linky closes in about 2 hours. So here's the gorgeous inspiration pic and my card, together with the inspiration pic for the Virginia's View die cut challenge:







I absolutely love the Cutting Edge inspiration card and was very tempted to copy it completely but I guess that's just not the idea of a challenge is it? So I sprayed some watercolour paper with some mists and ink, added a light dusting of black glimmer mist  and cut some flowers using a Paper Smooches flower die. The background die is a file from Waltzingmouse, the flourish is a Silhouette cut and it's all been put on a Nestie classic rectangle.  I'm really enjoying seeing what people are doing for this challenge as I don't make use of my Cameo anywhere near as much as I should. There's some amazing projects out there.

Over at Paper Smooches Sparks  there's an Anything goes challenge so since I've used their stand alone flowers dies I'm entering my card over there too.  You can find the die I used here at the Paper Smooches shop:





Anyway, thanks for popping by and taking a peek!

Claire x




Tuesday, 8 July 2014

Colour Q #249

Hello again!

Another day, another card - this time for our latest challenge over at Colour Q.  There were some absolute stunners linked up last week with the red, white, blue and kraft combo. This week you may need your sunglasses with this bright and cheerful palette:







Being in a floral kind of mood, I reached for Stampin' Up's Flower Shop set - I thought the print style flower would look good with the bright hues.   The chevron stamp is from a little set by American Crafts - believe it or not I picked this up on my recent trip to Singapore in a bookshop for the bargain price of 7 bucks.  Who goes to Singapore to buy stamps? Well, me as a matter of fact - I couldn't afford anything else!

Make sure you get your project linked up by next Monday and check out the gorgeous stuff that the rest of the DT have produced!

Thanks for saying hi,

Claire x







Monday, 7 July 2014

Watercolour Delights

G'day folks!

I've been playing around with watercolour pencils for the AAA Card Challenge - make a card using watercolour techniques.  Since I've used the lovely Summery colours over at Curtain Call I'm going to link up my card over there too - it is a birthday card, despite not actually saying 'happy birthday' - you can still send love and hugs on someone's special day can't you?









I used Mama Elephant's Sweet Havana set for this one. I die cut the flowers from watercolour paper  and used a mixture of inks and watercolour pencils to stamp and colour them. I edged the frame with a pencil, then softened it with some water.  There's a great tutorial by Nichol Magourik on how to achieve the watercolour effect using distress inks on the Mama Elephant blog - you can find it here if you want some good tips!

Happy stamping!

Claire x


Sunday, 6 July 2014

Love Floats

Hello again,

I've got a clean and simple card today for a couple of challenges - Casology and Addicted to CAS:





There's a cute little balloon in Mama Elephant's new 'Around we Go' set and I started the card with the intention of having that silhouetted in front of the floating moon. It didn't really have the required effect though - the balloon was just too tiny. Looking at the carousel I thought I could maybe do a night scene - I guess when they're not being used, the seats kind of float in the air. Or am I taking this float thing too far?

It needed a bit of brightening up with some twine and enamel dots - empty fairgrounds can look very creepy in the dark can't they? Since I sponged the sky I'm also entering it into Addicted to CAS.

Thanks for popping by - have a great weekend!

Claire x




Wednesday, 2 July 2014

Summer Love

G'day folks,

Just a quickie for the latest CAS-ual Friday challenge - and it was done even more quickly as I used the sketch from Case This Sketch:




The theme for CAS-ual Fridays is to use hearts in Summer colours.  Thought I'd get on the watercolour bandwagon (six months too late as usual) and partially stamped a background using W Plus 9's Defining Words. I die cut a heart and coloured this in using watercolour pencils, then stuck it back down with dimensional tape. Took about 10 minutes....don't you just love that!

Have a great day!

Claire x



Tuesday, 1 July 2014

Bright and Breezy - Colour Q #248/The Card Concept

Hello blogging friends!

Tuesday has rolled around once again so it's time for another Colour Q challenge and this one's perfect for those of you who will be celebrating July 4th later in the week:










I do wish there was a point in me making Independence Day cards - I see so many wonderful stamp sets specifically for this holiday but they'd be entirely wasted on me unfortunately.  So instead I'm celebrating the birth of a third baby for a couple of friends of mine with Mama Elephant's Nursery Deco set. The teddy's been stamped on some beautiful suede-like paper I've had lurking for years in my stash...not quite Sahara Sand but close enough.

I totally forgot but realised 24 hours after posting that I'd also made this for the current Card Concept challenge which is to make a baby card. Oops - mother brain strikes again.  I guess it's a combo of clean and simple and clean and layered...are you allowed to pick two different styles?!

If you're celebrating over in the old US of A this week, have a fabulous holiday - hope you get the time to join in with the challenge!

Thanks for popping over,

Claire x