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

Itsy Bitsy Spider

As you know, the theme of the current challenge at Crafty Boots Challenges is this sketch:-

There are one or two additional rules for this challenge:

• you can rotate the sketch and you can re size the elements if you wish,
• do not move the elements around too much, the original sketch layout should still be recognisable,
• you can use any materials you like to make anything you like, for example, a card, a box top, a gift bag, a scrapbook page, an ATC, an inchie, etc,
• just as long as the original sketch design is obvious in whatever you make.

Earlier this week I shared the first of two twinchies which I had made for this challenge, here is the other.

I painted my canvass with some yellow acrylic paint, I them lightly brushed gold acrylic paint through the still wet yellow paint.

Once the paint was dry I used a black Wink of Stella pen to draw my spiders web, unfortunately you cannot see from the photograph but the web gently twinkles in the light, making it look like it is covered in dew.  The spider charm is from my stash as are the flat backed gems.  I printed the words on my computer.  Between the two of us, the reason they words are blue is that I have run out of black ink!

Don't forget to pop over to the Crafty Boots Challenges page and enter your projects based on this simple sketch.

Dionne