Gold Swallowtail Butterfly

A new challenge has started at Crafty Boots Challenges, for the next two weeks we are asking you to share with us your gold and/or silver projects .

After all of the Christmas cards I have made this month it was very hard to think of a non-Christmas design.  In the end I looked for inspiration in my favourite Stampin' Up Swallowtail Butterfly stamp.  I really love working with this stamp, no matter how you use it, it always looks fabulous.  I had never tried it in a metallic colour before and I was delighted with the effect.

There is a lot of fine detail in this stamp so I decided to use gold ink rather than emboss it as I find that embossing can sometimes loose that detail.  The drawback of the gold ink is that it seems to take forever to dry and I ended up with it all over my fingers and fingerprints on my card.  Luckily, I manage to get rid of the fingerprints with a pencil eraser.

I stamped the image onto some linen effect card ad then layered it with gold mirri card.  The sentiment is a Stampin' Up stamp.  The champagne coloured flat backed gems are from Kanban Crafts.

The Crafty Boots Design Team has been busy making some very glitzy inspirational projects, please make sure you take a peek when you enter your projects in the challenge.

Good Luck.

Dionne

A Bunch of Poinsettias

I have the last of my monochrome poinsettia cards to show you today.  There just are not enough days in the week to post one colour a day and I should warn you that there are quite a few photographs in this post.

I have been experimenting with single coloured cards because the current theme at Crafty Boots Challenges is 'Monochrome'.

The poinsettia die is from Susan's Garden by Sizzix.  The card, ribbon and snowflake charm are all from my stash.

I mentioned the other day that I based these cards on a design I saw on Pinterest by Debby Yates.

There is still time to enter your monochrome project in the Crafty Boots challenge.

Dionne

White Christmas Card

I am back with another of my poinsettia cards.  I have a confession, I made quite a few of these flowers, so this will not be the last you see of these cards.

Today's card is all white, just layers of embossed white card and a Kanban sentiment to show off the white poinsettia.

Don't forget that there is still time to enter your monochrome project in the Crafty Boots challenge.

Dionne

Monochrome Poinsettia

What is going on with the weather?  It was beautiful here at the weekend but the last couple of days we have had some tremendous downpours and it has turned quite cold, especially in the evenings.  It is not surprizing that there are so many coughs and colds about.

I have two black and white cards to share with you today.  As you may know, I have been experimenting with single coloured cards because the current theme at Crafty Boots Challenges is 'Monochrome'.

This is my first attempt at making my own flowers and I suspect I may have picked one of the most difficult flowers to break myself in on, but I am quite pleased at the result (although I am not sure about colouring the central vein down the centre of the leaf, but that was in the instructions).  The poinsettia die is from Susan's Garden by Sizzix.

I based the design on a card I saw on Pinterest by Debby Yates, thank you Debby.

There is still time to enter your monochrome project in the Crafty Boots challenge.

Dionne

Pick 'n Mix

The theme of the current challenge at Craft Boots Challenges is 'Monochrome'.  You may think wow, there is no way I could make a something which only has the one colour, but actually, it is so. so easy.  Last week I shared with you a few single coloured Christmas cards and that got me thinking about Christmas cards .............  before I knew it I had made two dozen more Christmas cards, all very similar but no two the same.

My biggest problem turned out to be how to share 24 cards with you.  Initially I photographed them individually but then I realised that this would make one of the longest posts ever.  In the end I decided to photograph them in their colour themes.

You will see that, in keeping with the Crafty Boots challenge, each card has a single colour theme.  You will also notice that each is slightly different.

Many of the stamps come from my old stamp collection, which is around 25 years old.  The images were actually a lot bigger than I wanted, so I stamped them and then scanned them onto my computer, so that I could reduce them before printing them.  I them embossed a large pile of white card.  The sentiment stamps are all from Stampin' Up, as is most of the coloured card.

I am feeling a little smug as I have at last made a real start on my Christmas cards, just another 80 to go.

Don't forget to enter your monochrome projects into the Crafty Boots Challenge.

Dionne

Bethlehem Blues

The current Challenge at Crafty Boots Challenges is 'Monochome' and I have another Christmas card to share with you today.

I have some nice solid Christmas stamps which are perfect for monochrome cards.

This Stampin' Up stamp is one of my favourites, it always leaves a lovely crisp image.  I stamped it in Night of Navy and mounted it on some dark blue glitter card.  I then layered it on some Night of Navy card and some embossed white card.  The sentiment stamp is also from Stampin' Up.  The ribbon and flat backed pearls are from my stash.

There is plenty of time for you to enter your monochrome projects into this Challenge.

Dionne

Monochrome Magic

A new challenge started this week at Crafty Boots Challenges.  The theme for this fortnight is 'Monochrome'.

I have got totally carried away with this challenge and I combined it with my need to really get on with my Christmas cards.  Today I have three cards to share with you but that is just the tip of the iceberg, wait and see what I have up my sleeve for next week!

All three of these cards feature two Snowflake Reindeer stamps from Kanban Crafts, I have had these stamps in my stash a very long time but this is the first time I have used them.  

I embossed some white card for the background and mounted the stamp on some glitter card.  The paper flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and the coloured card is from Stampin' Up.

My colleagues on the Design Team at Crafty Boots Challenges have excelled themselves, so make sure you pop by and check out their inspirational projects.

Dionne

Congratulations

After yesterdays marathon post, I thought that I would keep today's post short and sweet.

One of my favourite nieces recently announced her engagement to her long time partner.  This gave me the perfect opportunity to experiment with some of my newest dies.

The Champagne Glass die is from Marianne Designs Creatable Dies and the heart die is the Loveland Corner die from Memory Box  The blue pearlised paper, silver mirri and sentiment are all from my stash.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Dionne

Notelets

Back again!

This morning I shared with you a set a post cards I had made for the current Crafty Boots Sketch Challenge and I said that I would be back this afternoon to show you what happened to the postcards after I had taken the photographs.

In all, I made 16 postcards and it would have been so easy to have made a lot more.  All the time I was working on the postcards I kept thinking of other round objects I could have included.  I continued to tinker with some of the sentiments and I turned them all into notelets.

Before we go any further, I should warn you that this post contains a lot of photographs.  I have split the cards into sets for convenience.

This first set I have called coffee and a snack:

Next up we have the sun, the earth and the moon.

The next group are all the miscellaneous images and I really could have expended some of these into quite large groups of their own, for instance flowers are sports balls.

The final group is in many ways my favourite, fruit cocktails:

I hope these have given you a few ideas.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Dionne

Postcards

I just do not know where this week has gone, it really has flown by.  However, I have spent a lot of this week tinkering with my current project, but more of that later.

The current Crafty Boots Challenge is based on a sketch.  When I first saw the sketch I could not think how I would come up with  suitable project, but slowly I started to have ideas.  Last week I shared two twinchie canvasses and Monday a birthday card.  Last weekend I also made a series of postcards based on the sketch.

On Monday you saw 6 of the postcard designs I came up with, but I actually made quite a few more.  Here are the six which appeared on the Crafty Boots Challenges site.

The concept was pretty simple really - think of a round object, find a free image in the internet, print 2 or 3 copies of the image.  Cut some white card, cut some slightly larger pieces of coloured card.  Colour the white card with distress inks.  Cut the images out and decoupage them.  Add either two pieces of washie tape or ribbon, and/or sentiment.

 I mentioned that I made more of these cards, 10 more in fact, I just did not seem to be able to stop myself!  I have also tinkered with them all a little since then - so now I need to photograph them again.

If I have time I will post the rest of the cards this afternoon, but be warned it is going to be a VERY photo heavy post.


Dionne

Chrysanthemum

It is time for the mid challenge reminder at Crafty Boots Challenges, where the current challenge is a sketch challenge.

Last week I used the sketch as the basic layout for two twinchie canvasses.  Today I decided to use it for a card.

This glorious chrysanthemum was part of a paper by Tim Coffey, both it and the backing paper are from a K & Co paper stack. I mounted the paper on some gold miri and green card, I then decoupaged the chrysanthemum to the top of the sheet.  Because the chrysanthemum is domed I had to move the sentiment and ribbons over to one side.  Finally, I added a few flat backed pearls to the card.

Don't forget to enter your designs into this Crafty Boots Challenge.

Good luck.

Dionne