For My Valentine

Hello everyone, Happy Valentines Day and hope you've all had a good weekend. My Valentine has to be for my hubby Andrew, of course, and he's not a fan of anything fussy or frilly so I have to make something quite simple for him to truly like it.
I've gone for a striking colour combination of black, white and red.

I cut a heart shape out of white card and inked it with Fired Brick and Barn Door Distress inks. I then stamped on my current favourite flourish from the Viva Decor My Paper World clear stamp set (from The Craft Barn who are celebrating a birthday and have special offers on until 9am tomorrow) with Black Soot Distress ink.
I then stamped the flourish again in black on a white strip of card and put this on a mat of red. I added this to a long card blank I made and finished off with a greeting by Hero Arts stamped directly on the card. I then added 2 tiny red heart gems and the stamped heart which I stuck on with foam tape for some dimension.

My card is for the following challenges:
Cupcake Craft Challenge 129 - I "heart" You
For Fun Challenges - Hearts
Stampin' For The Weekend - Valentines Day
Stampin' Royalty - Hearts, Hearts and More Hearts
The Sunday Stampers - Love

Thanks for looking
Fliss x

Little Bird

Here's my second post which I think fits 3 challenges with different requirements which I'll list when I've shown you my creation.

I've gone a bit blue and green today (my previous one had these too) and made the backround with my Distress Ink Grunge Technique ( see side bar) which I'm loving as it's such a quick and easy way to make your own background paper. I used Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Crushed Olive and Peeled Paint Distress inks with the Inkadinkado Garden Delight clear stamp set.
I stamped the sweet little bird image from the Papermania Henbury Lane Collection PMA92061205 Bluebird in VersaFine Majestic Blue ink and mounted the panel on contrasting card.
I made the flower by punching out to sections from metal foil with a Woodware embossing punch and inked it with Olive Green Stazon ink and Palette Landscape to give it a green tinge. I added a little black round the edges for definition. I then shaped the petals to give a 3D effect.
I'm entering my card into the following challenges:
Cupcake Craft Challenges - Blue and Green
Craft Your Passion - Make Your Own Flowers
The Shabby Tea Room - A Little Bit Of Metal

Polka Doodles Challenge - Alter It!

Morning everyone, it's now time for this week's Polka Doodle challenge and the theme set by Ruth is Alter It! You can make whatever you like to recycle something and make it useful or decorative.
My DT project is made using a toiletries round box that I found lurking in my daughter's bin and decided was too good to put in the recycling bin. I've turned it into a gift/trinket box.
Here's the before:

And here it is, altered:

I've used the brand new Polka Doodles All Around & Everywhere CD which has the most gorgeous papers, embellishments and stampies plus some of those famous shaped elements.
Before covering the box, I rubbed Olive Green and Royal Purple StazOn ink around all the edges as they are slightly rounded and not easily covered. I then covered the box sides and lid with some of the beautiful white swirl papers in lilac and green.
I then made a large flower decoration for the top using some of the stacking flowers and used Nikky's fab scrunching technique (just screwing them up! lol) and then built them up to make a cabbage rose type flower.
I printed out the uncoloured butterfly digital stamp and coloured it with Promarkers. I then sponged on embossing ink and embossed the butterfly with crystal embossing powder for a sparkly look.
The other DT members have made some fabulous altered projects so don't forget to have a look. You have until 12 noon on Sunday 9 May to upload your creations and I'm looking forward to seeing them.
Finally, I'm entering my box in the following challenges:
A Spoon Full of Sugar - 3D something
Cupcake Craft Challenges - Don't Be Square!
Digital Tuesday Challenge - Anything But A Card
Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Make Your Own Flowers

AiFactory Challenge 31 - Mothers Day

Hello everyone, I'm back with the next challenge over at AiFactory after a very difficult couple of days. I somehow managed to scratch my left eye on Monday and didn't realise until the evening when I went to take out my contact lenses (I'm blind as a bat without lol) and found that half my left eye was bright red. The next morning you could see the scratch so I haven't been able to wear a contact lens in that eye and as you can imagine, it's made everything really difficult!!!
The challenge we have this week is to make a project with Mum in mind and the DT were given some really lovely images to work with:

 This is the one I was asked to make my project with and I also managed to sneak the one below in as well.

Here's the card I made with the images:

I made my own background paper for this using white opaque Stazon ink for the resist technique. The clear stamp set I used is Papermania PMA9071004 Floral. I stamped a solid flower at random with the white ink and let it dry. I sponged Dried Marigold and Spiced Marmalade Distress ink over the top and then stamped on an open flower with the darker orange ink.  I then stamped on another flower with Tea Dye Distress ink.
I printed out the Mothers Day image 4 times and coloured various elements to build up my decoupage image. I assembled the pieces with foam tape and double sided tape. I printed out the flower 4 times and coloured this in a similar way to build up my 3D flower.
I sponged blue ink around the edges of the main panel and stuck this on a mat of deeper turquoise. I assembled the card with a piece of doyley on one side and some buttons tied with thread.
I'm also entering my card in the following challenges:
One Stitch At A Time - Anything Goes
Cupcake Craft Challenge - Make Your Own Flower
The Pink Elephant Challenge - Nature
Pollycraft Challenges - Anything Goes
CRAFT Challenge - Buttons

Thanks for looking,
Fliss x

Moonlight and Romance

Here's my offering for today which is a card that fits quite a few challenges as there are rather a lot about with a love theme-not really a surprise with Valentine's Day at the weekend.

I've again gone for a shabby chic look as I really like making that sort of background paper at the moment. It's very satisfying screwing something up and knowing it will look fabulous when you've finished! I sprayed my piece of white card with water and scrunched it up. I opened it out, sprayed with more water and scrunched again then opened it out and rubbed red and pink inks on the creases. I then ironed it and stamped Clearly Inspired Stenciled Flowers MC3216 roses all over in VersaColor Rose Red ink. I tore the edges.
The image I used, together with the heart shaped music manuscript come courtesy of the lovely June at Art Freebies blog where she generously shares loads of gorgeous images to use in personal artwork.  The card also gave me the opportunity to use one of the beautiful heart shaped doilies I finally managed to find a couple of weeks ago after seeing these on several of my American blogging pals blogs and wanting them!
I finished off with an inked computer generated sentiment and some pearl trim.
Here's the Challenge List:
Cupcake Craft Challenges      Red and White
Delightful Sketches Challenge     Love
Digital Ink Co                         Valentines and Love
Fab 'n' Funky Challenges        Shabby Chic
Paper Play Challenges             Love
Simon Says                              Love
Stamp Something                     Love Somethings
Stampin' For The Weekend      Love Is In The Air
Tuesday Taggers                       Love Is All Around   ( to be eligible for the prize on this one you also need to show a link to the sponsor Craft Emporium and I had a look at the online shop which has some awesome things on there-click here to see for yourself.
Well, that's me done with the longest list yet!