April showers bring May flowers

A good Thursday morning!

I've been working on this card for a couple of days! Finally done! Am using the sketch provide by Mumur for the Friday Sketchers Challenge # 49. I am using a standing tall Tilda image--it's long vertically--so I've turned the sketch on its side.

There's a lot of hmm...something there at the bottom that I have to put and all I could think of was flowers. But that was okay, because I was also thinking about a May card with lots and lots of flowers for the Magnolia-licious Yahoo Group. I spent hours, days it seemed, fiddling with the placement of the flowers. I found out it's not easy trying to cram so many flowers into one space and making it look somewhat presentable. I keep arranging them, walking away from it and coming back for another look, re-arranging them. Agghhh!!! Probably made the flowers to big. Ah well, too late now! That's the end result. Hmm... Does it look okay or just comme ci comme ca?

I had actually planned to use another Tilda image on this card. But yesterday Carole has picked the Tilda image with the Flower Garland in Hair for their CBCJ Old Magnolia Challenge. I had ordered this stamp, but didn't have it yet. And I kid you not...when I came home from work yesterday there was a package in my mail box and this stamp was in it!! I took that as a sign that I'm supposed to use this stamp instead and play along with their challenge--LOL. And she is so adorable here. I just luv this image--it's sure to become one of my favorites.

I really really tried to match the orange and blue to the designer paper and I thought I had it, but as you can see I'm still off there!

And this is what the inside of the card looks like.

Have a wonderful day!

Stamp: Magnolia #214 Flower Garland in Hair

Designer Paper: Daisy Bucket Designs Cool Dude Collection Mondo Matt

for you

Happy Wednesday everybody!

A new challenge blog for us Magnolia addicts, Just Magnolia--Happy Week Two! Their theme this week is a colour challenge, so no sketch to follow. Yes!!! as I've been meaning to do another buckle card. I first saw this card at Claudia's blog and love the style because it's different. If you wish to create one, you can go to her blog Pretty Pressings and she's posted the instructions and measurements to make your own card. Just type in "buckle card" in her 'search' box. I've made some alterations for my card however.

I love this combination of of pink and green. I started thinking of soft pink and pastel green, but found this Basic Grey paper instead with a brighter pink and sort of a lime green colours. (Although you can't really tell from the pictures. How come the cards in my pictures never look exactly like they do in real life? Agghh!! Must be my camera...or the lighting...or most likely it's just me!!! LOL)

I'm using this Heart Jumper Tilda. It was the very very first Tilda that I ever coloured. I was making a Valentine card and it was the only stamp I had with a heart in it at the time. It's still one of my favorites. Anyway, here's the pink and green card.

There's a strip of paper that fits into a slot like a belt, thus the name "buckle card"--I thought that was a very appropriate name.

And the inside of the card is decorated a bit also.

Have a very nice day!

Stamp: Magnolia #215 Heart Jumper Tilda

Designer Papers: Basic Grey Archangel, Momenta A Family Affair Relations, Making Memories (pink green white stripes--don't know the name)

hello! hello! hello!

Happy weekend! I hope you're having a good day.

Here's the next card to be added to my black and white plus ...collection.

I've created this card using this wonderful sketch provided by Marlene for the Stamp with Fun Challenge #3, however I've flipped the sketch over to its side.

I wanted to use green this time to add to black and white and I chose this shade of green to match the green on the Basic Grey designer paper that I wanted to use. However when the ink dries, it wasn't the same! Agghhh!!! Oh well, close enough--limited markers, no exact match.

And the inside of the card.

I kind of like using the same Tilda image for the insides. Sort of do a practice run in colouring the image first--this I use in the inside. And hopefully the 2nd one I colour will be better than the first and I can use that for the front of the card.

Enjoy your weekend!

Stamps: Magnolia #254 Cross Stitch Tilda, Autumn Leaves Stampology AL3180 Block Stamps 1, See-D's #50136 Say It Again

Papers: Basic Grey Boxer Hipster, Chatterbox Botanico Green Oak

Tools: Fiskars border punch (don't know the name)

Carrot Cupcake

Hello everyone! Another card and a yummy one I hope.

This week's theme at the Magnolia Down Under Challenge is: Cupcake. Since this isn't a colour challenge, I can do another card for my Black & White Plus ... Collection. (And you thought I had finished with it. Sorry, but no, and I also have a few more colours I want to try out later, so bear with me please ladies.)

It was probably obvious that eventually I would choose orange as the additional color--black and orange go together, them being Halloween colours. (Is Halloween celebrated down under? Pumpkins, jack o' lanterns, ghosts and goblins, Ichabod Crane and all that stuff. Or is it strictly a North American thing?) I didn't have to improvise on this one as I do have a Tilda-holding-a-cupcake/muffin stamp--an obvious choice to me. Here's the card and I think I'll call it Carrot Cupcake card, or should that be Carrot Cake Cupcake card? LOL

And I did a bit more work for the inside of the card.

Woohoo...weekend coming up! Planning to sleep in tomorrow morning. Have wonderful weekend everyone!

Stamps: Magnolia #255 Tilda with Cowberry Muffin and #531 Shelf with Kitchen Towels, Stampendous TC51 Foliate Quad Cube, Inkadinkado clear stamp set 97628 Birthday Cupcake

Papers: Basic Grey ambrosia fresh-squeezed, making memories (note) worthy Delaney Ledger Circle, Hot off the Press Mixing Masculine Papers

Flowers in the Wind

Hello!

3 weeks into April and I finally, finally have a card done for Diana’s April sketch challenge at Magnolia-licious. Better late than never!

Here's Diana's sketch.

I’m using the Whirling Flower Tilda image here. It’s not a new Magnolia stamp, but it’s a new acquisition for me. Boy, I hesitated when I first saw the image stamped on paper. I said: whoa…wait a minute! hee hee. That one HUGE area of Tilda’s dress is a bit daunting to colour—easier for me to colour several small areas, one at a time. But I went ahead anyway--just another challenge, right?

I also wanted to try something new here for me in colouring. I was trying to imagine the light source coming from the east (or the right side) instead of the usual frontal exposure.

And the inside of the card looks like this:

Hope you like this card. Thanks for stopping by and checking it out.

Stamp: Magnolia #267 Whirling Flowers Tilda, Hero Arts F1843 Time to Enjoy.

DP's: Chatterbox Cottage Pixie Garden and Sky Bias Stripe

Tools: Martha Stewart Butterfly punch

Wine Anyone?

Hello. Hope your weekend was wonderful. Mine was busy, busy, busy.

I had actually started this card a couple of days ago, but too many other things were occupying my time that I have just manage to finish it. Too late to enter the card to the challenge blog that it was originally meant for, so found another one that will meet the theme. So this is for Cute Card Thursday, for their Challenge 56, their theme: "Floral Fantasy. Use any type of flower on your cards this week, how easy is that?"


This is actually a 2nd Tilda that I'm using for this card. The 1st one that I coloured was all in brown and pink (hee hee--that was the theme for the other challenge), but there were just too... too much of those 2 colours that I felt buried in them. So I changed Tilda's blouse and the flowers to white.

Stamp: Magnolia #242 Tilda with wine and basket

Designer Paper: Hot off the Press Jacie's Vintage Papers

A Study in Sepia

A Good Friday everyone! This card is for Kellie's Magnolia Down Under Challenge #7.

First thing though, *Blog Candy Alert*
Kellie's got her own blogsite and she's celebrating her 15000 hits. Wow!Click here to go to her blog. Better hurry though, it's closing real soon. Check it out!

The theme for this challenge is from Debbie, and it's: Sepia.
This card certainly turned out quite different from what I saw in my head. I didn't mean to make Tilda stand out so much. I wanted to make the Tilda image blend into the background, like in an old photograph. But I simply don't have the right-colour markers--nothing to match the colours from the designer papers. This was the closest shade of brown I could find.
So this will have to do, hee hee.


I have the least number of brown-tone markers in my collection. Must buy more!!!

Almost the weekend. Yippee!! Won't have much time for cards though. Annual Sun Run. Volunteering with my sister. It's raining now--hope the sun will come out for those runners. Have a wonderful weekend!


Stamp: Magnolia #236 Farmer Tilda
DP: Magenta Daisies, Hot Off the Press Mixing Masculine papers

Happy Thoughts

Happy Day everyone! You would think that having Easter Monday off from work, I would have more time to do crafty stuff, but no….. I keep thinking that today is yesterday--if that makes any sense to you. It feels like I’ve lost a day this week--LOL. Ah…well.

A wonderful sketch provided by Jacqueline this week at the Friday Sketchers Challenge blog. (I hope her computer is up and running again.)

I saw handbag in a store window. It was purple with black trim—looks quite fetching I thought. So I’ve chosen purple to add to the black and white for the next card for my B&W+…collection.
I wanted to do a Tilda with black hair. I’ve chosen a Tilda image with straight hair, as I thought this would be the easiest to do. As you can see, it’s not quite there yet. I have to use darker greys next time I think. It’s hard to judge—the colour lightens up when the ink from the markers dries.

Have a wonderful day!

PS. 2 postings today. If you’re reading this one first, keep scrolling down for the how-to on the flowers (but only if you’re interested).

Stamps: Magnolia #278 Ice/Ballet Princess from the Pink Collection, Inkadinkado clear stamp set 97634 Dot Flourishes, MSE My Sentiments Exactly M101 thinking of you
DP's: DCWV Blk & Wht splats, Mustard Moon (grey plaid)

DIY Flowers

Hello.

This is just a short posting on a couple of do-it-yourself flowers that I've used on my cards--or rather, just as short as I can make it. I've had a couple of request to show how I make my flowers.

I was making these flowers for the card that I'll be posting next and I've taken pictures as I go along. (I decided on a separate posting for the card or else just the one posting will be way, way, way too long.)

Flower #1


You need 3 different sizes of daisy punches.

Make 3 punched daisies of each size.





Shade each petal--the tip and a bit to the sides. Because of the smallness of the petals, I use an eye-makeup applicator.

For each of the sizes, arrange the 3 daisies one on top of another, a dab of glue in between, to make a multi-layered flower. Pierce a whole in the middle with a piercing tool--this is optional, but it will make it easier later on. Curl the edges of the flower. You can use the piercing tool for this also.

You now have 3 flowers. Put a dab of glue on the larger two. Stack the flowers together (large, medium, small in that order). Use the piercing tool to centre the flowers. This is where it makes it easier to do that.

Choose your flower centre: a brad, a half-pearl, a rhinestone, a button or whatever pleases you.
I chose the half-pearl.

And voila!


Flower #2

You need 3 different sizes of daisy punches. Make 2 punched daisies of each size. The petals of these ones are wider than the ones for flower #1.






Shade the edges of each petals, again the tips and a bit to the sides.

With a small scissor, make slashes in each petal.

Yes, every single petal. Sorry, this is the most time-consuming part.








For each size, glue one flower on top of the other. Just a small dab of glue now!







Curl the edges. I use the piercing tool to do this. Also pierce a hole in the centre of each flower--optional, for centering purposes, unless you're planning to use a brad for a flower centre, then it's mandatory.





Glue the 3 flowers together--largest at the bottom, smallest on top (not that you can't figure that out for yourself, hee hee).








Choose a flower centre.

And again, voila! Cool, huh?



Hope this helps and inspire you to be creative.

Blossom

I'm still on my black and white kick. This is another card for my B&W+... collection and I've chosen pink to add to the black and white. I actually had a different shade of pink in mind for this card, a sort of softer more pastel pink, but somehow ended up with this sort of fushia colour.

This is a lovely sketch that Mina has provide at the Truly Scrumptious blog. The theme for their Challenge 4 is Flower Power. Yes!!! I simply love to use flowers.


As you can see I've used the Tilda-with-sunflower image. Yes, there is a sunflower hiding under that daisy-like flower that Tilda is holding, but I can't have a pink sunflower now, can I? Or maybe I can, artistic licence and all that, hee hee. Nuh, I think this looks better.


I made a flower that's just big enough to cover the sunflower and attached that to the sunflower with the brad that I use as a flower centre. The card has a more 3-D look now.

I wasn't too sure about adding the flowers at the corners, but the challenge says to "go crazy with those flower embellishments!!", so that's what I did--LOL. Besides it seemed a shame not to use the flowers after I spend all that time creating them--I like too make my own flowers. It did look pretty okay to me without the flowers though.

And this is what the inside of the card looks like.

Have a good Easter Monday!

Stamps: Magnolia #284 Tilda With Sunflower, Hot Off the Press acrylic stamps Botanicals, Inkadinkado Clear Stamps 97623 Garden Delight, Imaginisce Twitterpated Collection Blossom DP: Colorbok 55057 Paper Pack

Create Joy

A Happy Easter Sunday!

I thought I would just do a quick card for Cute Card Thursday challenge, but it took longer than I thought it would. Their Challenge 55 is a colour challenge, to use Pink and Brown!

I was trying to keep this simple and neat. And I wanted to use up some DP's left over from making previous cards. Don't you have too many of these, just little bits of paper? What to do with them!!!

Another butterfly card--I love butterflies.

To give it a 3-dimensional look, you know how to do this. Stamp on a separate piece of paper, cut out and then mount the 2nd image on top of the 1st image with foam tape.

And the inside of my card:

Stamps: Inkadinkado Clear Stamps 97623 Garden Delight and 97626 Patterned Bugs, Hero Arts LL017 Wavy Wishes and LL169 From the Heart, Stampendous E191 Smile Word

Designer Papers: Chatterbox Rosey Nook Blossoms and Peppermint Stripe

Congrats - Baby

Happy Good Friday!

This card is for the Magnolia Down Under Challenge, their #6 challenge is set by Kristy's theme: A Baby is Born. Boy, this one was a real challenge to do. I had a mental block there for a while. That's why I'm so late with this entry. I think I now have a brain sprain--LOL. I have no baby Alvin or Tingla in my stamp collection, so no obvious Magnolia stamp to use here. I decided to use Tilda Standing with Hair Bow for no particular reason except that I haven't use this before, so might as well be now. To make this card a baby card, I had to use other stamps that have a baby theme to them--don't have too many of them either.

Re colour, this was going to be the 2nd card for my B&W plus... colletion, so I had one colour to choose. Instead of the obvious pink for a girl or blue for a boy, I went with yellow for either or. Hope you like this card.


I have this punch for a baby suit (don't know what you call it). Bought it a long time ago at a clearance sale and at the time I had no idea of when I was going to have a use for it. Isn't it just the cutest thing?

Have a Happy Easter everyone and a wonderful weekend too!

Stamps: Magnolia #209 Tilda Standing with Hair Bow, Autumn Leaves AL3180 Block Stamps 1, Studio G clear stamps
DP: Chatterbox Eclectique Sunny
Punches: Martha Stewart border punches, EK Success (baby clothes)

Red Jumper Tilda

Happy Thursday!

This was made with the Friday Sketchers challenge blog in mind.

I’ve been toying with the idea of a black-and-white-card collection. A card using just those 2 colours—do they really call them colours or something else?--can actually look quite striking. But what I was thinking was restricting myself to using black and white (and shades of gray) and one other colour. This is unless a challenge asks for specific colours. I’ll label this my 'Black and white plus... collection'. I'm planning to do several cards--I'll probably be sick of B&W by then--LOL.

This one is going to be the first one using the colour of what else....red.

This is the very lovely sketch that was provided by Heidi for the Friday Sketchers challenge.

Tilda’s sweater is white, but instead of just leaving it as is from the white of the paper, I’ve taken my light grey marker to add shadows and then used my glue stick pen to go over the entire sweater, dumped some transparent micro-fine glitter and shook off the access glitter. So now the sweater has a shimmery-white look to it. Oh the same with the heart in the centre of Tulda's jumper.

PS. Oh okay, I lied. Hair colour can be any colour, okay? I’m still experimenting with colouring black hair. Haven’t done a creditable job yet. I guess I can’t really use the black marker or I’ll drown out the lines from the stamp image, but I don’t want to make Tilda looking like she’s got grey hair, hee hee.

Stamp: Magnolia #215 Heart Jumper Tilda, Hot Off the Press acrylic stamps Botanicals

DP's: DCWV Blk & Wht splats, Making Memories Scroll Dark Deep Read Heritage Collection, Mustard Moon (grey plaid)

It's a Beautiful Day

Hello!

A new challenge blog just launched Monday, Stamping with fun. They have a wonderful price of Magnolia stamps. I'm just starting out, so I can use more stamps (who can't? LOL). However, they’ll be choosing a winner on Tuesday. So, for a chance to win, you have to submit your entry by then. I'm posting this just after midnight, Tuesday morning. (Am I crazy or what--but really once you get started you don't want to stop until you're finished.). I couldn’t wait to rush home from work yesterday and start working on a card. I didn’t have much time. My mind was distracted all day whilte at work. Not concentrating at all on work, but was thinking of what stamps to use, what dp’s do I have, what embellishments to put on…etc.

So here's the end result:

This marvelous sketch provided for their first challenge.

I worked on the inside of the card too.

Stamps: Magnolia #244 Flower Jeans Sitting Tilda, Hot Off the Press acrylic stamps Botanicals, Inkadinkado 98173 It's a Beautiful Day, the tiny butterfly hovering over the flowers from Inkadinkado clear stamp set 98771 Butterflies & Birds, the 2 butterflies in circles from Inkadinkado 6335 Butterflies, Hero Arts F1843 Time to Enjoy

DP's: Chatterbox Rosey Flowering Vine, White Poppies and Loft Bias Plaid

PS. Made top 3 of Kellie's Magnolia Down Under last week's challenge. Yipee! Must contact Kellie. Hmm...not sure what a blinkie is.

Sunflower

Happy Sunday to all! Hope your weekend is/was wonderful.

This week's challenge at Cute Card Thursday is Citrus Colours!--"We want to see your fabulous bright creations this week using the colours hot pink, lime, lemon and orange! (You are allowed to use some or all of the colours!)"

Hmm...not sure about the hot pink, but I can work with the other 3 colours I thought. And yipee...I got to use a new Tilda stamp--not new to Magnolia, but new to me. She is so adorable!!

I went searching through my stash of dp's and found a paper with stripes of lime and orange on it. Couldn't find one that has the shade of yellow I wanted, so I made my own. I used a flower stamp and Adirondack acrylic paint dabber (colour sunshine yellow) and randomly stamp images on white stock paper.

The inside of my card is simply decorated with the 2 side bars.

This turned out well, I think. Hope you think so too. Bye for now.

Stamps: Magnolia #284 Tilda With Sunflower, Stampendous Agapanthus Bloom, Great Impressions H164 (sunflowers)

DP: Scenie Route Paper North Shore

Sending You Happy Thoughts

Happy Saturday! Hope you're having a wonderful weekend.

For this card, I've stepped away from my Magnolia stamps and any colouring with markers. Strictly doing stamping, embossing and using my punches (like what I was doing before falling into what I call my Tilda addiction--LOL). I have to make use of my other stamps!!!

This weeks challenge at Papertake Weekly Challenge is a recipe challenge!To be included on your card are:
1 - circle
2 - ribbons
3 - stamps/images

Here's the card I created
As you can see the theme of my card is butterfly. The designer paper I used is double-sided and has butterflies on the other side.

I've turned over the top left corner of the paper to show the butterfly pattern. Hope you can see that. I used copper embossing powder for the stamped image at the corner.



The butterfly in the circle is embossed in white embossing powder. On a separate card stock, I made a 2nd similar butterfly and cut it out. I placed the 2nd butterfly over the 1st with foam tape to give it a 3-dimensional look. The scalloped edge of the circle was outlined with a glue stick pen and then dipped in micro glitter.

I took a picture of the inside of my card this time.




Stamps: Basic Grey bitsy stamp set butterfly, MSE My Sentiments Exactly M101 thinking of you
DP: KI Memories Bloom Dandelions

Happy Easter #2

Happy Friday.

I am one lucky girl. I got an e-mail from Bec at Bizzy Becs. My name was one of two that she drew for her Male Card Challenge. Woohoo! So she is sending me a prize pack. Thanks very much, Bec. I'm feeling a bit guilty that she has to send it half-way around the world (not by much though). Wouldn't it be great if she can just say "beam it up, Scotty!" LOL.

This next card is for Magnolia Down Under Challenge #5. This week's theme is Easter. This one was a challenge as I don't have a Tilda stamp from the Magnolia's Easter collection. Had to improvise. Decided to use the giggling Tilda that I used the last time (to match the grin on my face--hee, hee). I have a pageful of giggling Tilda images now--LOL. I have been trying to arrange my postings so you don't see the same image twice in a row. Only have a limited number of Magnolia stamps. (I have ordered more, including some from the new Butterfly Collection. Ooooh, they are so cute, I can't wait!)

I have no egg-shape template, so had to draw and cut out the Easter egg by hand. Hmmm...the egg looks a bit pointy at the top, but honest, that's the shape of the egg I actually got out of the fridge to draw from--LOL. I already made an Easter card with a Tilda sitting on an egg. This time I have Tilda sitting at a hole in the egg, like in a Faberge egg.

I made this more 3-dimensional than usual, by first putting the egg on foam tape and then again the Tilda image on double foam tape.

On an aside subject of my colouring. Kristy has asked me what I use to do my colouring. I used markers. But not Copic markers which seems to be the preferable markers used by everyone. I use a combination of Pantone Tria markers (by Letraset) and Touch markers (by ShinHan). I had started my marker collection before Copic markers were widely sold locally or that I was even aware they even existed. Our local art store was having a huge clearance sale on these--they were practically giving them away. The price was under $2 each at the time. Simply couldn't pass up on the bargain. The companies that make them were introducing their new versions of markers and discontinuing the ones I bought--so clearance time! My markers are also alcohol-ink based used by illustrators and manga artists, and I think they’re suppose to work the same way as the Copic markers in terms of colour blending. I can’t attest to that as I’ve never used Copics. I don’t know if they work as well as the Copic markers, probably not—you know what they: you get what you pay for. But they also say: you don’t miss what you’ve never had. So, I make do with what I have. Okay, okay, that’s probably TMI--LOL.

Stamp: Magnolia #285 Giggling Tilda

DP's: Chatterbox Sky Lilac and Sky Bias Stripe