Bad Mother!

 Hi Everyone, It's my Son's birthday today and he hates being reminded he is getting older. However I have to keep reminding him and will, as long as he objects. 

I confess I am a Bad Mother.

I usually like to use a lion on his birthday card, as he is a true Leo of his star sign, he loves "Space", so an addition of the Leo star sign was added with gems. For my badness, I added his age, as I do most years! However this year I also added the time to the second! I had seen it on the web and who couldn't use it? Not me. 

I added a great paper which I felt was artistic and represented the heat of Africa. I had this majestic lion in my files, I think he has a kind and intelligent face, so I added it to my Cameo and cut it out in vinyl, I've added how tiny some of the pieces were, I had to remove to make the shape of the head, I even used a magnifying glass. I hope he won't be too angry with me (of course not LOL) He will raise his eyes up and say "Muuuum". I used a glitter pen to accentuate the age and the Leo. Quite a simple card, because he doesn't keep them around long, except one I framed HERE which he still has in his room here at home. 

paper - Gina K Designs digital Paper

Lion head - free vector files

age words - web

star sign - scrumptiously celestial constellations @ Pixelscrapper

font for age and Leo - Titania Shadow

I don't know why these items are so far apart, I can't get them closer no matter what I do - strange!

this shows the shine of the vinyl and the glitter pen

here are some of the pieces I needed a magnifying glass for, 

it's incredible how small the pieces are that the Cameo cuts.

Don't look at the wrinkly thumb, LOL

Tropical stencil

Hi Everyone, my post today was inspired by Sally I really liked what she did and as she had an easy tutorial, I thought I would try it. It worked like a dream, then on my last stamping I made a mistake. Do I do it all over again? nope, I added stamped and die cut flowers, to cover the fault. I really enjoyed doing this and will try and do it again sometime.

I didn't have a large leaf stencil, so I used a digital die leaf and cut it with my Cameo out of acetate. I've also cut a smaller leaves stencil, so I can use them again. I used the large leaf style stencil, to match a leaf stamp I have, which is in the set of tropical stamps, with the hibiscus flower stamp. The Aloha was a digital die cut I have used before.

stencil - Planeta Silhouette 

stamps - Magazine freebies Simply Cards and Papercraft # 205

Distress ink 

sparkle pen - Spectrum Noir

pink card - The Works

black card - The Range

these are the stencils I cut out of 140 micron acetate. 

(Ashamedly the leaf still has some ink on it.)

Here's a link

I've bought or had a few freebie stencils to cut out recently, 

all I have to do now is get them cut and use them.

Seeing as we have some heat, not as hot as some parts of the UK, but very nice heat for us, to make us feel a little tropical, I thought I would share some piccies of Sparrows enjoying the feeder and the water we have for them. There must be at least 25 who visit every 2ish hours in the garden to feed off the feeders. They are so quick and are eating us out of house and home LOL.

They are not edited, sorry, I just wanted to add them before I posted this.

They fly into and out of the Physocarpus "Diabolo" shrub, the perfect hideaway for them.

some decided to have a bath

and then some more decided to join them!

I hope you'll be OK in the thunderstorms and heavy rain promised this next week.

Creative Moments ATG

Krafty Chicks Stamp Act

Inspired by  Endless Summer - Tropical 

Luxury Handbag?

Hi Everyone, I have a card today made for our Niece in law. She loves handbags and recently treated herself to a luxurious designer handbag. Sigh! it's fabulous. 

Anyway, I decided to make her a handbag card and as I had a digital cut die that cut one out for me, I decided it had to be used.

I chose the shiny paper as it had rose gold in it and I had gold rose foil, so I foiled the additional shape and added it to the card, the foil moved a bit so I had a couple of blank spaces, but I don't think it detracts too much, I hope not. I went to get rose gold gems and found - none! Black to the rescue. I then added a die tag and sentiment and bow to the handle. I hope she likes it, I certainly do. LOL.

handbag - Shirley Young (an old file from here)

paper - Modern Deco, Papermania

foiling - WRMK foil pen & rose gold foil

gems - stash

sentiment die -  Tattered Lace

bow and tag - magazine freebies

Cut it Up Challenge

Simon Says My favourite Tool - is my Silhouette.

Watercooler Wednesday ATG Feminine Twist

Our Birthday TMR #141

Hi Everyone it's our 7th birthday and our challenge for this month is 

Yep! you've guessed it - Birthday 

Jane our fab Admin lady has added this to the challenge.

We're thrilled to be able to offer two awesome prizes to help get this party started. 

Sarah from Funky Fossil has very generously offered a £25.00 credit to her store for the first randomly drawn winner. 

And I'm offering a £15.00 credit to Funky Fossil's store for the second randomly drawn winner.

Two chances to win, how awesome is that?!! All you need to do is create a masculine birthday card and link it up to our gallery to be in with a chance to win.

A nice easy challenge for everyone, we all have a man in our lives whose birthday is in the next few months? I made this for our next door neighbour who is lawn mad, he also enjoys a chuckle, so I hope he enjoys this. He better had, I used the last piece of this particular paper with only pieces left of the pad boo hoo. It was for a good cause though!

card design - Silhouette Design Store ID #291996 Jamie Lane Designs

I made it bigger following this video Mixed Up Craft

paper - Craft Sensations

lawn - Dovecraft card

mirror card - The Range

sparkle pen - Spectrum Noir

Allsorts Challenge men mow lawns - yep!

C.R.A.F.T Challenge mowing the lawn is leisure - right?

'Orsey #4

Hi Everyone, well this is my final pony/horse card to show you, I have so enjoyed them and their cuteness. I had made and cut a stencil out of card, you'll find it here. I layered twice from the cut 300gsm card and used it as an embossing folder. 

As you can see I have debossed and embossed, I wish I could say it was deliberate! I had an idea to just add the embossing to the inside edge of the card, but it debossed, so I thought I would turn the cut card stencil the other way and emboss, adding red strips, hides the join! I also added some of those horseshoes that were cut to make the stencil and embossing folder.  I'm pretty happy the way it turned out.

image - Ice Cream Pony - Hetty Clare

coloured - Distress inks

embossing folder - my own

red card - Crafters Companion  

sentiment - the web

Here are the 4 again, all made including the cut stencil

Double Trouble Paper Crafting

Christmas Robin 2 CCC

Hi Everyone, I have 2 DT cards today this the second 

2 Crafty Critter Crazies

41st challenge

Our sponsor for this challenge is the wonderful 

Sheepski Designs

I decided to use this image as we have a resident Robin in the garden. I printed it out on watercolour card, one with a border and one without.  I started watercolouring and after the first image, I ended up printing another 5 and doing the 6 in no time, I was so pleased with the result, I left it as a CAS card, I was impatient to get it made into a card straight away to see the finished article. I also added 3D glaze to the berries and the robin's eye.

watercolour card - Windsor & Newton

inks - Distress inks

sentiments - Crafters Companion and Card Making Magic mag freebies, 

gold mirror card - stash

banner paper - First Edition

Nuvo Crystal Glaze

The A5 size cards have an added banner and a different sentiment and the smaller square centre was printed onto white card and splattered with black ink, with the same check paper added as background.

The Double Trouble Challenge

has a challenge that we are partnering, it's

"Dog Days of Summer"

"Embossing - hot or dry" 

using a dog or other favorite animal.

Well as my Robin is a joy when he pops up at the food feeder, I guess he is my favourite animal. So here is my card with dry embossing on the background papers, I know it's not a Summer card, but our Robin is around a lot now.

 AND! after seeing the glitter glue result on this card I added it to the others also.

Robin - Sheepski Designs

coloured with Distress inks

papers - Janiscrap Designs

embossing folders - Crafters Companion 

glitter glue - Stickles

die - Tonic

Double Trouble Paper Crafting Challenge

Moose be August

Hi Everyone, my first post for today and it's for the
 New challenge at QKR and it's my DT card

http://qkrstampede.blogspot.com/

We will select two winners each week 1 using QKR Stampede

 or Eureka Stamps image and 1 using any image!

We have changed our challenge to the 1st of every month for the Summer,
 on a trial basis but, it's still Anything Goes.

Anything Goes every 1st of the month

My card today is VERY simple, I saw the image and didn't think with the character face it needed anything but a sentiment!  I hope you think so too. 

image - Peeking Moose

coloured - Distress inks

fussy cut with layered antler and image 3D'd

googly eyes - stash

teeth - Nuvo Crystal Glaze

sentiment - computer generated, and fussy cut.