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

Forever Autumn

Morning everyone on a wet and blustery day. Definitely weather for ducks at the moment!
I have a very warm Autumn shaded card to share with you as the colours are a real favourite of mine being an Autumn girl by birth.

The leafy background paper was made using my slight variation on Sir Tim's Blended Batique technique which you can find in his fabulous Compendium of Curiosities and the only thing I added is some colour to the leaves before the final step. I used Distress inks (what else!) in Scattered Straw, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door and Fired Brick for those glorious Autumn shades.
I then stamped the same leaf (Personal impressions) several times on parchment paper and embossed them with Ranger Antiquities Rust powder. I sponged on Adirondack inks in Terracotta, Cranberry and Red Pepper. I cut them out and because I used parchment paper (Southfield Stationers) they curled up nicely like fallen leaves.
To make the card, I used one of the beautiful images from the Dezinaworld Autumn collection which has lots of gorgeous autumn shaded images and backgrounds.
I'm entering this in the following challenges:
Dezinaworld Spot Challenge for the week - Autumn or Fall
Stampin' For The Weekend - Autumn Inspiration
Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Anything Goes

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!

Songbird

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend.  Before anything else, I want to say a big welcome and thanks to all my new recently joined followers. It's lovely to see you all.
I have a card here which I think fits 3 different challenges:
Papertake Weekly  with a theme of red or green must not be seen
Saturday Spotlight with a theme of music
Stampin for the Weekend with a colour theme of blue and brown

Ingredients Used:
Crafty Individuals Stamp CI-224
Magenta Cling Set CSET15
Clearly Inspired Stenciled Flowers MCS216
Music Background Stamp
VersaFine Vintage Sepia Ink
VersaColor Smoke Blue, Sky Blue and Lilac Inks
Neocolor 11 Watercolour Crayons in blue shades
Cream Card
The background paper for this card was made using my watercolour crayon technique and the blue crayons. Please click on the side label if you'd like full instructions on how to make this paper. I stamped the roses on in smoke blue, then sepia. This gives a lovely antique looking paper.
I stamped the bird design twice and inked one with the VersaColor inks. I cut just the bird from the second and stuck this on top of the coloured bird panel.
I stamped the music background in sepia and tore the edges. I then stamped the square floral design from the Magenta set in sepia down a long strip of cream card. I stamped the music text in sepia and cut out by hand the piece I wanted to use. I assembled the card as shown in the photo.