The Dragon Leaves Wealth & Prosperity in his Path

December 31st 2011

The new challenge at So Artful is "Dragon" or "New Year" and Carla has two great photo inspirations for you! I have chosen to make a "Dragon" themed card for this challenge - my FIRST challenge as a So Artful DT Member!!!! I hope you can join us by linking up with your creation this fortnight!

My card uses a metallic gold base card with some real Japanese paper glued to it (a relative of mine recently returned from having spent a year over there and I have the most amazing collection of Japanese papers/stickers/fibre/beads etc. to use on my creations!!!!). The "Asian Square - Sakura" Digital Design is from Chris at CS Designs and was perfect for my card - the image has been coloured with Copics and I sponged Gold Lumiere paint around the edge. I found the free dragon clipart here - it was just what I was looking for and I used a "Karate" Font to make the "Best Wishes" sentiment. To finish off I added a Japanese bead and some fibres to the spine.

Shades of Red & Black

December 31st 2011

I made this card up last night for the new Dilly Beans Colour Challenge - Red & Black!

I've used the 2 Hearts Girl Digi and coloured her with Copics before fussy cutting her out. I had the great heart background paper - perfect in reds & blacks and I've added som heart brads and a little plastic "sentiment" plaque.

A New Year

December 28th 2011
Isn't it scary - it's nearly 2012!!!!! So this week for our theme at Wicked Wednesday our theme is "New Year"! Megan from Dilly Beans is our sponsor this week so you have the opportunity to win this great image from her just by entering our challenge!!!

"Lollipop Partie Girlie" is the perfect image for this challenge - she's celebrating the new year! I've coloured her with Copic Markers and mounted her on silver card and embossed purple paper. The "Celebrate" wording I made using a free "scramble" font and it was printed on silver card and cut out.

I hope everyone has a wonderful new year!!

Merry Xmas!!

December 25th 2011
Merry Xmas to all my blogging friends - here in Australia it's Xmas Day!!! I'm sharing a card I made for the latest Dilly Beans Challenge today as I made it with a Xmas theme!!

This week's theme was to use 3 Dilly Beans stamps on your creation and as you can see I've used the little lollipop girl, the xmas trees and a great checkered frame. They have all been coloured in xmas colours and I've 'highlighted' parts of each image with Dimensional Magic.

I hope you all have a wonderful day!!

No Peeking!!

December 24th 2011

This little ATC has a "Steampunk" theme but I've coloured the CS Design "Steampunk Solitarie" Image in Xmas colors and used a Xmas Sentiment also from CS Designs so I can use it for today's Pink Saturday post and also to remind you all to enter our Wicked Wednesday Challenge this week!!

Christmas Wishes

December 23rd 2011

Another Festive themed challenge at The Octopode Factory Challenge Blog - Christmas.
For this card I've used "Rapunzel" and added a little santa hat and coloured her in traditional green/red. I've added dimensional magic to her hat, dress & hair ties.

The background is an embossing folder from Tim Holtz (one of my favourites!!) and I have embossed the whole background with polysparkle embsossing powder to give it a real shine!

Here's another picture I took with the flash to try to show the sparkly background:

Get Steampunked!

December 21st 2011
As you can see from the title our theme for this week's Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge is "Steampunk".

I've made 2 ATC's for today's post - the first uses a cute little Tiddly Inks image "Priscilla" and a fantastic background from Dezinworld - perfect for this theme and I just love the purple and green colours!!

My second ATC uses the same background and I've made a little "paper doll" from a great collage sheet from Art Tea Life - Sandy has a fantastic range of collage sheets in her Etsy store.

We would love to see what fantastic ATC's you can come up with for this challenge. And remember you have the chance to win the cute little Priscilla image!

A little birdie told me...

December 20th 2011

This card has been made for my last week as a Guest Designer at Paper Cupcakes "There's Magic in the Air" Challenge Blog. Nina has realeased a new freebie "Welcome Winter" image and I've used the little bird from that image on my card along with the great festive cupcake image!

We would love to see what you can create for this new challenge - remember to use a "bird" on your creation!

I'm sure I must have captured your Heart by now?????????

December 19th 2011

The new challenge this week at Take a Word is "Sepia" so I printed out a great collage sheet from Art Tea Life (great collage sheets avaialable here!!) in "sepia" colours and have made this cute little paper art doll. I added a little bit of "pink" to her as well and some old lace!! She's stuck up on my wall at my craft desk along with a few of my other favourite creations!

Here's a close up of my "doll" with a pink background:

Don't Blow a Gasket!!

December 17th 2011
I had a great time making this "special" Xmas card for some very good friends - isn't it a perfect "male" card??

The Mechanic image is from Dude Time Doodles - they have some great "male" images and this was just perfect for our "mechanic". I made the sentiment especially for this card and I've used the new Deconstructed Sketch to do the card layout.

I'm also linking this to Pink Saturday which has a "holiday" theme for the festive season. So HAPPY PINK SATURDAY everyone!!

A cut above the rest...

December 17th 2011
"Winter" is the theme of the new challenge at The Octopode Factory this week. I don't have a lot of "wintery" images but I did have this cute little snowman on one of Lily's Xmas Collage Sheets so I thought he was perfect for this challenge.

I used chalks to make the tag background then popped it through the printer to add the clipart snowflakes and the humourous"wording". I added real buttons to the snowman's eyes and a little pair of scissors with the fibres!

Something a little bit different!!

December 16th 2011
Our Art With No Boundaries "Christmas Sentiment" Challenge is still running so make sure you link up your Xmas creations!!

For your inspiration this week I've made 2 "non traditional xmas image" cards - LOL I've used traditional green & red colours but have had some fun with 2 of my favourite CS Designs images - Solitaire Mummyified & Solitaire Steampunk!! And the sentiments  "December 25th" & "No Peeking" are also from Chris' new sentiment collections.

Here's a few more pictures of each card:

All the images have been coloured with Copic Markers and I've used some great new xmas patterned papers I bought over the weekend!!

Hope you like them and can appreciate what I was trying to achieve with these cards!!

A Twisted Xmas?

December 15th 2011

What a fun challenge at the Dilly Beans Challenge Blog!!

I've used the Zombie Christmas Elf to make this fun & bright coloured xmas card. The background is one of Tim Holtz's Embossing Folders and I've "ringed" the "25" for Xmas!! I made the sentiment myself using a Dilly Beans border and I do hope you all have a "Wonderfully Gruesome Xmas!!!!!"

Bugaboo Twelve Days of Xmas - Day 5

December 15th 2011

Well I've missed a few days and I don't think I will get any more done by the due date but here's my Day 5 card for the Bugaboo Challenge which required the use of "gold".

I've used a metallic gold card as the base as well as some gold on the card and the holly punched leaves. I've paper pieced the Bugaboo image so she has a metallic gold dress and boots!!! I've added white liquid applique to her dress to give that "fluffy/textured" look and pieced everything together using the current Mojo Monday Sketch!

Christmas is Coming!!

December 14th 2011
Our new challenge at the Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge Blog this week is of course "Christmas or Winter Holiday"!!! And this week's sponsor is Just Some Lines - remember you have the chance to win an image from Just Some Lines if you link your Christmas ATC to our challenge!

I've used a gorgeous Christmas Fairy image from Just Some Lines to create my ATC - she's been coloured with Copic Markers and I added white liquid applique to her hat rim to make it look "fluffy"!!! I rubber stamped a "Merry Christmas" sentiment all over the background in different coloured ink and added a little stick pin embellishment to finish it off!

We would love to see your Chrismtas ATC's - no excuse for not joining in at this time of the year as I'm sure you all have Xmas images sitting around!!!

Paper Cupcakes Winter Fun with BLING!

December 12th 2011

A great challenge for this week at the Paper Cupcakes Challenge Blog - There's Magic in the Air! This is my second week as Guest Designer for the month of December.

I've used made this card in a similar colour scheme and style to the last ones I made. I've used a cute reindeer image and another of Nina's Xmas tickets. I've added lots of little sparkly gems to add some great bling to this card and some great complimentary fibres!

Bugaboo Twelve Days of Xmas - Day 1

December 11th 2011

Bugaboo are having a 12 Days of Xmas Challenge and as I hadn't used any of my Bugaboo images for awhile I decided to see how many days I could get done!!! LOL I don't think I will have time to get all 12 done but I'll try to make a few!!

The first day required a "tree" so I've used the "DeDe Present" digi stamp as she's dressed in a tree costume! I used the current sketch from the Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge.

Feeling Sentimental

December 8th 2011

Another great Xmas Challenge at Art With No Boundaries this week - Sentimental Christmas Winter!!
Chris from CS Designs has released some great "sentiment collections" so the Design Team have been having some fun with these great designs.

I've made a simple card using the "Merry Christmas" sentiment and Priscilla. The sentiment has been printed directly onto a metallic red card and then I have fussy cut Priscilla and adhered her to the side. I added some "bling" just to finish it all off!

We would love to see what you can do with a Christmas Sentiment so be sure to link up to our blog so we can visit and get some inspiration!!

I've also linked thisd up to Vicki's new challenge at The Cheerful Stamp Pad which has a theme of a Christmas Greeting!

Dilly Beans Stripes!

December 8th 2011

Megan from Dilly Beans Stamps has a great new challenge blog and the current theme is "Stripes" so here's my card using one of the Dilly Beans stamps "Framed Rosie":

I made the "striped" background paper using my chalks which I haven't had out for absolutely ages!!! The images are coloured with Copic Markers and I have used Dimensional Magic on the flowers in Rosie's hair and the three single flowers.

Winter Fun at Wicked Wednesday!

December 7th 2011

A great Winter Fun Challenge at our Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge Blog this week. And this week we are kindly sponsored by Saturated Canary so you have the chance to win this gorgeous "Maddie" image which the DT were given to use!!

I've used a Tim Holtz Embossing Folder to make the background and Maddie has been coloured with Copics and cut out and adhered to the front of the ATC.

We would love to see your ATC creations so make sure you link up at our blog!

Guest Designer at Paper Cupcakes Challenge Blog this Month!

December 5th 2011

This month I'm a Guest Designer for Paper Cupcakes so I've been having some fun with Nina's images!
The first challenge of the month is a Sketch Challenge which you can find at the Challenge Blog.

I've made a set of 3 Christmas Cards using this sketch and 2 great "Reindeer" images from Paper Cupcakes.
I wanted to achieve a more rustic/vintage type look so I've used vintage style patterned paper, craft coloured paper and green, red and black card and some mesh type ribbon and other embellishments. I've also used some fantastic "Bingo Card" background images from Nina and some great sentiment tickets. I'm really happy with the effect of these cards.