A whole bunch of Daring Cardmakers cards!

I've not updated here in a while so I've got quite a few cards to add! 

I'll start with newest first and work down. This one is for this week's Daring Cardmakers,  http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.co.uk/ which is Jo's challenge to create a card with elastic bands. Jo's suggested using loom bands but I didn't have any of those to use so went around to see if I could scrounge together some regular elastic bands. I ended up with a couple of different widths, mainly the chunky red ones you get on the post. On Pinterest there are a few ideas for stamping with elastic bands and so I decided to use them that way rather than using it directly on a card. I fixed the bands around a clear block in various different patterns and tried it out first on scrap paper. One of the patterns looked like candles so that triggered the idea to just make them into candles. I inked each band on the block in different colour inks, (chalk inks worked the best) and then stamped on the card twice to make the line of 'candles'. The top flame part I used a home made eraser stamp, just carving a bit of an eraser into a flame shape and then stamping it. The greeting stamp is a Lawn Fawn called 'Grand Greetings'. 

This one is from the week before and Kathy's Beach hut dare. I've got a brand new Quirky Kit bundle to use and these are all beachy papers so I went right to those to create a simple beach hut design all made with my paper trimmer. This could easily be translated to a new home or Christmas card, (gingerbread houses?) too.

This one was the colour combo dare for August which you can see here was all blues and purples.

Going through all my scraps purple is not a colour that I could find a lot of. I did find a little bit of cardstock so decided to make kind of double layer greeting. It's just a word die cut, (Memory Box) then that was cut with a circle die, (Xcut) and then another circle of the same size in the turquoise cardstock was cut out. These were then layered together with foam pads. The background is all stamped with two different stamps I found out in mys clear stamp stash. They're from different sets but I mixed the lead and the flower/swirly bit together. I don't know what they are because they're not in the original packets.

This last one was from Lythan's dare which was to create a 'Kathy style' card, http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/creating-kathy-style.html

I went with a 'classic Kathy' flower. It's a die which is my first purchased Sizzix Bigz die, (Camellia). I did see a YouTube of someone using one in a Cuttlebug who made it look easy but it's not you need a bit of muscle power! I used the middle bit of the die to make a kind of pom pom flower and different combination of the sizes to create the other two. I love how Kathy write to 'just scrunch up the paper' to make the 'Kathy' flowers and when I did that mine just looked screwed up!

The background was stamped, clear embossed then watercoloured over the top with an extra swirly bit, (like Kathy's die cut swirls!) handpainted and cut out.

x Leo

Two cards & two ideas

Hi!

Last week on Daring Cardmakers the challenge set by Gez was all about doodling. Now to do half way decent doodling you need to start off with half way decent pens and right now I don't have any! For sure I need to invest in some new ones. I've got to that stage where the few I've got are dried out and scratchy on the paper. So looking around at what else I could doodle with I spotted some nail varnish on my desk. It's a kind of chartreuse green colour and I thought, what a good colour that would be for painting flowers and then, ta da. I though why not 'doodle' with the nail polish?

I started off with the flower glued down to the card and then just built up the doodling around it just dotting on the nail colour like you do with nail art. It ended up kind of like a doily design and a little bit folk arty:

This week the challenge was set by Miri to create a card with no scissors. What a challenge it was too! It's second nature just to reach for the scissors so I kept having to stop and think what I was doing. I ended up using stamps and created a mask with a torn off bit of washi tape to make a 'faux panel' for the greeting.

The diecuts are ready made acetate ones by Maya Road, (from the current Quirky Embellishments kit) that I've added some gold leaf to the backs of and then a MME badge embellishment with gold thread glued behind it. (both from a Quirky Kit too).

Don't forget to check out Daring Cardmakers every week there's a new challenge and they're perfect to keep your crafty head busy!

x Leo

More Daring Cardmakers Origami & Feathers

It was my turn to come up with the challenge over on Daring Cardmakers this week. I keep noticing Origami inspired designs in some of the newer paper craft lines and so I thought I'd pick out Origami as the inspiration/starting point for this weeks challenge. There are so many cool Origami projects online that translate well for embellishment making. 

When I was having a go at following some of the online instructions I did find that the weight of paper you use makes a big difference, you need something in between a light to medium weight. I ended up finding regular printer paper the easiest to use so for my card I printed some text onto the paper first to make a background and then used the Origami heart instructions to make the heart shape embellishment. I wanted to make use of some of my Pinterest ideas again too and so I had a go at pencil eraser stamping and made a kind of faux confetti background. It's so simple to do, just a case of using a couple of erasers on the ends of pencils, daubed in the ink pad then stamped straight onto the card base. Dye based inks worked best after I had a little play so I used Memento and Impress ones.

The card I made for last weeks challenge was another Pinterest idea I had saved, making feathers from washi tape. All you do is stick a piece of twine or thread onto the sticky part of the tape then stick another piece of tape over the top so you sandwich the thread inside like the 'spine' of the feather then just cut it to shape and snip down the sides for the feathery effect. I guess if you didn't want them to dangle like I used them to make a mini dreamcatcher embellishment you could use some thin wire. If you have some off cuts of wired ribbon, the wire in something like that if you extract it out would be perfect.

 Don't forget to have a go at the Origami challenge this week! http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com
x Leo

It's Elementary

This week on Daring Cardmakers it's Nat's turn to come up with a dare and she's set us the challenge of creating a card using at least three elements from this image:

I started out by going through my supplies and pulling out lots of bits and pieces and then ended up driving myself potty trying to jam it all onto one card. In the end I pulled most of it off the card and here's what I ended up with:

The stripy paper I really love, it's one from the Fancy Pants As You Wish collection and I've used 2 sheets of it already, it's one of those goes with everything papers, (and I know it's a bit darker than the turquoise on the image but I'm still counting it as turquoise!) Obviousy there's also pink from the image, a hot pink and a lighter one. Rose images, cut out from a MME patterned paper and the wooden paper is a piece from a Studio Calico one called Napa Valley. Both those papers are on my desk already as they're in the new Quirky Kit Lite I've been playing with. There's some Prima leaf embellishment and more little paper flowers that I glued some pearls on to too. The little bow clip and the butterfly die cut are both Crate Paper from the Maggie Holmes line. The final bit was the greeting which I cut out of Cosmos Cricket paper and I've added the little button on top of the o. Hope that's enough of the elements! 

Have a dig around your supplies to see what you can find inspired by the image and share what you've made over on the Daring Cardmakers blog, http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.com

x Leo

Flags & Miniatures

This week on Daring Cardmakers Lythan has tasked us to make a card inspired by a national flag.
I had a think about it and Google image searched for national flags to get some inspiration and decided to go with the Canadian Flag as it stood out to me as being one of the most decorative with it's Maple Leaf design. I picked out the Maple leaf and cut some leaf shapes out from papers sticking with the red and white theme like the flag. One of the leaf shapes I covered with gold leaf and I picked out some red and gold accents to mix in. The little bag at the back has a envelope in it for money as I thought it would make a more unusual wedding card.

Here's the card I made for Daring Cardmakers last week. The theme was a colour board of red, green and grey. I had some new papers and goodies out on my desk from the new March/April Quirky Kits which were already red and grey tones so I picked out some of those and then ended up in my Christmas paper scraps box for the green. I went with poppies as the red/green colours made me think poppies but I ended up making them miniature because of the paper scraps sizes I think and so that led to the whole of the paper cut outs being miniature. I used another one of the large format card, (it's a 7x7 inch one) so it made a fun contrast in the end. It's made me want to try something like this on a scrapbook project too.

Don't forget to check out this week's Daring Cardmakers challenge to get some awesome inspiration as always, http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com

x Leo

Daring Cardmakers Docrafts Challenge - Dies

Hi!
This week the Daring Cardmakers challenge has been sponsored by Docrafts. Docrafts generously provided all the Daring Cardmakers with a set of dies from their comprehensive selection. I was sent a 'Carnival Numbers' die set. You can view the details on the Docrafts site here.
Here's the card I made with the dies:

I read on the packaging that the dies can cut 2mm foam and that triggered me to dig out my bits of craft foam from my supplies as a starting point. I dug out this really cool Darice glitter foam and cut out the numbers from it. I used my Cuttlebug with plates B and C and it cut out really well with a couple of rolls through. These large kraft card blanks you can get from Docrafts too, they're the Papermania ones. I had those already so used one as a base and then built a banner up from scraps of patterned paper and pieces of ribbon. I added some lilac bits of ribbon to finish the banner and make it nice and girly and then finished off with some little enamel dots and stick on gems.
Dig out your dies and have a go at the Daring Cardmakers challenge this week! http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.com
x Leo

More Daring Cardmakers Cards

Just catching up with my last few Daring Cardmakers Cards.
This week it's a colour challenge. Check out all the details on the Daring Cardmakers Blog, http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com
Here's the colour selection for March:

And here's the card I made for this week's challenge:

I started with how I always do with these colour challenges and raided my box of paper cut offs. The only one I had with that dark peachy/orange colour was this floral one which I think is Sassafras but not sure because it was an off cut. It also had the green and blue colours in there too. I've picked out the dark teal colour with the little bit of Crate Paper paper at the top of the card and with the ribbon near the bottom. The little strip of paper at the bottom is a Basic Grey one both from past Quirky Kits which I've sorted through recently and added to my off cuts box so I can remember those!

This is the card I made for last week's challenge which was to make words the main bit of the card and use words that meant something to you. I used a Gandhi quote I liked, 'In a gentle way you can shake the world'. To me it means just one little thing can make a big difference, like how a little drop of rain can make a seed grow and that could grow into a huge big tree that goes on to make a whole big forest. Ohh I'm getting all philosophical now! I just had to spell check that that's how philosophical I am usually. :)

x Leo

Old but not forgotten

This week for Daring Cardmakers I had to dig out some old supplies to use on a card. I initially thought I'd go with tools as I tend to clear out older paper I'm not using. That's not to say I don't have any though! I bet there isn't a crafter out there who hasn't got a few dodgy bits and pieces lurking in the back of the cupboard. Come on admit it, you bought one of those somethings that was 'such a bargain' or 'looked like a must have on the TV shopping channel demo' that's long since lost (or never really had) it's appeal. :)

Anyway getting back on track I was thinking on how to approach this challenge and I first went digging for old tools but then thought about old scrapbook papers. When I do clear out supplies I'm often loath to get rid of full sheets of scrapbook papers and there's a few that have missed the cul quite a few times so I decided to dig those out and see what I could come up with.

Funnily enough they're nearly all black and white. I think this is because when I am crafting I use colour to pick out supplies and black and white never falls into that. Most of these say 2007 on them so I guess that's how old they are. The Urban Lily company I don't even think are around any more. Most of these are actually paper too, if you can remember when scrapbook papers actually used to be paper weight! I'm glad they're not any more though I do prefer a cardstock weight. Also on my desk at the moment are some of my newest supplies from kits so I ended up mixing in some of those cut off bits so I've ended up with a mix up of oldest and newest.

Here's the first card I made. I used the very old Urban Lily paper and added a little bit of new Basic Grey paper, the flower pattern is almost the same so I think it worked. I liked it just peeking out from the top too, like it's carried on growing. I think the fact the pattern on the Urban Lily paper was so 'established' already it's always been difficult to think what to do with it, it's not one of those full patterned sheets you can just grab and chop up and layer.

I also added some butterflies punched out from mirror card and matched that to some newer Lawn Fawn silver twine. It's quite funny just how many 'older' things you can match up with newer.

Another one made with another mix up of old and new:

This next one I've included because we were chatting among Daring Cardmakers about how long it takes to make a card or if you make a card and give up on it and start another one. I was saying about if I've used something painty or inky and it's not worked or I don't know what to do with it I'll ditch it. Well I've got this card this week that I started and then just couldn't work out how to finish. I tried using some old handmade paper and the black and white scrapbook paper, decorative edged scissors and a paper ribbler. I liked the texture on the paper, (the ribbler made it like a paper lantern texture) but I wanted more colour so I added some spray inks but now it's just like this and I just don't know where to go with it from here.

x Leo

A Pop of Neon - Daring Cardmakers

First up sorry for not updating my blog in a while it's been neglected this year so far but I'm onboard to try and stay up to date for a bit. 

This week it's been my turn to set the Daring Cardmakers dare again and I've set the challenge of using a little 'pop of neon' colour on a card. I also sent out some little bundles of Quirky Kit goodies for the design team to use so do check out the fab cards the design team came up with over on the DCMers blog as there's such a wide range of inspiration to pick out from, http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com

Here's the card I came up with:

I started off layering up some patterned paper pieces together on the front of the card mixing in a little bit of Bazzill Electric Yellow cardstock which is amazingly neon, it's like those neon post it notes yellow! The top embellishment is a Kesi'Art sticker and then the bottom embellishment is made from wire with twine wrapped around it. I printed out the greeting on graph print paper to put inside the wire heart shape.

I took a little photo of the embellishment as I made it. It's just wire which was in my jewellery making stash that I bent into a folk arty heart shape then wrapped the neon pink twine around it and tied the ends together then added some Glossy Accents to seal up the knot. If you were really clever with wire you could make words this way too or other little embellishment shapes. I picked a heart to match the Teresa Collins heart print paper I used.

Don't forget to have a go at this week's Daring Cardmakers Challenge, If you make a card and link it up before next Friday you can win a kit of Quirky Kit goodies too!

x Leo

Going for Gold

It's my turn to set the dare this week over on http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.com and I've come up with the challenge to use just gold and white.
I wanted the gold to really shine so that's why I've added in the bit about just using white to accompany it. It's be way too easy to just add a bit of gold to any card. ;)
I think it really makes for a striking card too and it's something you can use for so many different occasions.
I got to thinking that when I was making my card. I was going to make a Christmas card but  ended up not putting any message on the card because I stopped and really liked it as it was and thought it could be a good card to save as a 'stand in' for lots of different occasions.

 

The embossing folder I've used for the background is the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots one then I've wrapped some gold metallic sewing thread around that before fixing it down. The little frame is a Melissa Frances resin embellishment that I've covered with faux gold leaf so it's really bling! The heart is a wood veneer shape just covered with gold glitter.

Really simple to look at but I did get v messy making it, gold leaf and glitter is just fun that way.

 

Hope you can join in with this weeks dare too. Pop on over to http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.com to see the awesome design team cards and leave your link so we can come and see your card.

Let's Weave!

Ack, sorry I've not been updating this month. I'm so far behind with everything I need/want to do crafting wise! There just aren't enough daylight hours any more and it's a case of snatching an hour or two of light when I can. I'll try and do a little round up post after this one with how I've done my last few Daring Cardmakers projects.

Today it's all about weaving over on Daring Cardmakers. Here how I've done my weaving...

First I cut out thin strips of patterned paper and then stacked them up next to each other. I fixed the edges of the paper strips with pieces of washi tape. You need a tape that comes off so make sure it's a low tack one not a super sticky tape.

 

Next peel the whole piece off your workspace and peel away carefully every other strip of paper so you end up with lines of paper with equal gaps. Stick it back down to your work surface.

 

Take some more paper strips cut to the same size as well as the ones you peeled away previously and weave the paper strips through one another. Start with over under then alternate to under over until you've got to the other end. While it's still all one piece peel it off your work space and add glue to the back then glue it to your card and then carefully peel away the tape. Trim down all the edges to finish it off.

Here's my finished card:

Everything I've used to make my card is from October Afternoon.

Pop on over to Daring Cardmakers to have a go at your own weaving and see what the rest of the design team have come up with! http://daringcardmkaers.blogspot.com

x Leo

 

 

Spooky Birthdays & Daring Cardmakers Blog Hop

We're still celebrating the Daring Cardmakers Birthday and this week we have lots of treats to share!

First off the challenge for this week is 'Spooky Birthdays' sponsored by Tando Creative and Imagine That. Your challenge is to create a birthday card with a spooky Halloween theme or if you make Halloween cards you can make a Halloween card instead. I went with the birthday theme and created a spooky birthday card. Muwaha ha ha ha...

Turns out it ended up way difficult to photograph but I guess you can kinda make out the skeleton is dangly in the aperture bit. The spider hanging from the web moves a bit too for extra spookiness!
All the Halloween shapes are chipboard shapes by Tando Creative. The papers are Crate Paper 'Party Day' and the glitter houndstooth is cardstock from American Crafts I used to create the base card. I actually had to cut it up to run it through the Cuttlebug, (it's a 5x7 size card) then stitch it back together again but it did work out that way in the end. The die cuts are Nestabilities pinked circles. I wanted it to look like bite marks or maybe like it was broken through? Most of the chipboard shapes I coloured with permanent black marker then added over some glossy accents and fine black glitter. The skull was covered in silver ink then crystal glitter, skeleton in white ink and a bit of crystal glitter and the pumpkin got embossing powder in a couple of thick layers of white to give it a creepy pumpkin texture then coloured over with a Promarker.

Right onto the extra treat this week, we're having a Daring Cardmakers Blog Hop to pass around some more parcels of gifts kindly donated by our wonderful sponsors! Here's the info from the Daring Cardmakers blog.......

Birthday Blog Hop

To round off our Anniversary Celebration Month we'd love you to join in with a bit of a blog hop.  This is a chance for everyone - even if you don't join in with the challenge - to win one of our birthday "presents"!  

We have some fab prizes to share from 

Crimson Cloud

"Crimsoncloud.co.uk is owned by Linda and Melanie, and is a mother/daughter venture - a way to indulge their joint passion of cardmaking and papercrafting.  Linda, based in South Africa, is the designer - developing their exclusive range of clear acrylic stamps sets which reflect their styles of card making. 

Melanie is based in Brighton, Sussex and runs the web based shop - only selling products that they have tried, tested and love using. New products are regularly being tested and added to the range. 

Crimson Cloud have plenty of card samples to give you inspiration - you can check out the gallery on the Crimson Cloud website, follow their boards on Pinterest, click onto their Facebook page or simply follow their blog on www.blog.crimsoncloud.co.uk. New posts and samples are added at least once a week."

and this is the prize from Crimson Cloud - this gorgeous Christmas stamp set:

Charmed Cards and Craft 

(£10 shopping voucher plus three digi bundles of your choice - a non UK winner must take the whole prize in digi downloads) 

Funky Hand

(3 vouchers worth £15 each)

 

Back to me for this bit! You need to comment on the Daring Cardmakers design team posts on their blogs, (on the one for this weeks challenge) then hop back over to the Daring Cardmakers Blog to add a final comment once you've done. The more you comment the more chances of winning a prize you get! The links to each designers blog is above their card in the challenge post for this week so click on those and get commenting. I've also popped a list here for you if you've ended up here from another Daring Cardmakers blog ;-)

Guest Designers:

Lou Daubney

Julie Kirk

 

The usual suspects:

Nat

Sharon

Svenja

Miri

Kathy

Lythan

Beckie

 

Have fun a hopping!

x Leo

Daring Cardmakers Birthday Celebrations - Docrafts sponsored dare

Hi!

All this month over on Daring Cardmakers we're celebrating the 7th birthday of the blog. There are prizes up for grabs and we've got some fab sponsors sharing their products too so you get to have a nosy at some of the great cardmaking products out there as well as the design team showing you some ideas on how to use them. As it's a party we've also got some guest designers popping up so keep a peek on the blog all through October and make sure you get involved because you've got the added incentive of prizes too!

This first weeks dare has been sponsored by Docrafts and they kindly provided the design team with some of their Border Punch punches to use. I was sent out the Ribbon Bow Border Punch and the Poinsettia Border Punch. Both you can get from Docrafts direct and from Docrafts stockists of which there are plenty so it should be easy to find one local to you. I know my local garden centre and The Range stock all the Docrafts products so they're really easy to get a hold of and the punches are a great investment buy at just a fiver!

I had a good play with the punches and I did have a little go at seeing what I could punch out with them. I even tried out punching Washi tape. I stuck the tape to a clear card bag first, (something that you can peel the tape off of afterwards) then punched along the tape. It worked quite well although I did need to make sure there were no sticky bits getting stuck inside so if you do have a go at this make sure you do the same so your punch isn't getting jammed with sticky bits. Makes for a bit of a different look to the tape. I'd use this on scrapbooking projects too.

 

Getting back to the challenge this week, as it's the birthday celebration we're making all the challenges birthday themed and the challenge this week is to be inspired by the rainbow birthday cakes and make a birthday themed card. Here's what I came up with for the birthday card using the Docrafts Ribbon Bow Border Punch:

 

I created the bunting from scraps of cardstock and measured the length of the bow cut out to get the pieces the right size so I could punch a ribbon out of the top of each piece. I then punched out holes in the top corners of each piece and strung each together using bakers twine. I used 3D foam pads to adhere the bunting to the card blank to give it the feeling of movement. The finishing touch was just adding the stamped greeting across the top. I wanted to keep it simple and just let the rainbow colours show off and the detail of the bow punch to be the focus so it didn't need any extra embellishing.

 

As an extra challenge this week you can also make a Christmas card using similar ideas/style to your first card. Here's what I came up with:

Again I've kept it simple to make the punch outs the focus. I used the Poinsettia border punch to punch out the edge of the card as it makes a lovely decorative edge. I think you could use this for any lace looking edge too. The banner was made cutting out squares of paper then punching the bows from the edges and stringing them together as in the first card but with this one I glued down the first and last pieces of bunting first then arranged the others around it so the middle piece is at the top.

Don't forget to check out this weeks challenge and have a go, www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com
You can win some of these fab border punches from Docrafts and also a £10 voucher from Ribbon Girl!

x Leo

Sweet Things - Daring Cardmakers

This week on Daring Cardmakers Zuz has set the challenge to create a card using the theme of 'Sweet Things' so a card with something sweet related, cake, ice cream etc. There's also this lovely image to take inspiration from:

Here's the card I made for this week's challenge:

 

I started off gathering together papers taking inspiration for the patterns and colours from the image. The Lace paper is a My Minds Eye one appropriately from the 'Sweetest Thing' collection. The other pink bit is a fabric and the rose pattern was one I made from a print out onto tracing paper. I didn't have any cupcake or sweet images to use that weren't 'cutesy' which didn't suit the papers so I went online to hunt one out and found a set on etsy from VintageTimes39. I printed the cake image directly onto the background paper then layered the other paper pieces on top and stitched them down with the sewing machine. The greeting was stamped and embossed with chocolate scented embossing powder to add to the whole sweet theme.

Pop onto http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.com to see all the amazing DT creations and don't forget to leave a link if you have a go at this weeks challenge.

x Leo

Paint Effects

Pop on over to Daring Cardmakers this week to have a go at my dare, making a card featuring a 'Paint Effect'. There's loads of inspiration out there at the mo using painting techniques in paper crafts and the DCM design team have done a fantastic job coming up with loads of unique ideas using paint on cards so head on over to DCM HQ to check them out.
Here's my go:

I used a really simple technique using a stamped image that was stamped using a clear ink, (versa mark) then embossed with clear embossing powder, (I also added a little bit of glitter to it). Then the image was painted over with watercolour paint then dabbed with a little kitchen roll to reveal the stamped image. I kept my paint brush dry to get the look of the brush marked edges I wanted. I did try it without the embossing as the Versa Mark is supposed to be used like a watermark ink too but it wasn't as defined as using the embossing powder with it too, so if you're having a go I'd defo do it with embossing powder unless you wanted a really subtle effect.

I was also doing ombre paint effects for last weeks challenge, check out this post on the Quirky Kits blog here if you're looking for more paint effect ideas.
Have fun!
x Leo

Itty Bitty Jar

This week over on Daring card makers Beckie has set the dare to create a card using 5 or more items from our bits jars. You must have somewhere that you stash away little bits odd bits and pieces you use for crafting. I call mine my 'Junk Jar'. It's a sweetie jar that I have on my desk that gets filled with odds and ends, charms, stickers, die cuts, vintage bits and pieces, little bits of paper that I think at the time are worth saving, you know the kind of thing. Here's my junk jar contents I had to work with:

I started to sort some of the bits and pieces out into colour tones that worked together and tried to link them together in a theme. This is what I ended up sifting out:

And here's the card I came up with:

 

The papers I added are a mix up of Cosmo Cricket and Amy Tangerine. Head on over to Daring Card makers to see what other creations the design team came up with using their own junk jars and have a go yourself to see what you can come up with. :)
x Leo

Make it yourself!

This week on Daring Cardmakers the challenge is to create your own from scratch embellishment on your card. Here's the card I came up with:

Kathy has set this weeks dare and has asked us to post up a bit of a tutorial on how we've made our cards too so here's how I made mine.
First start out with a scrap of white card and a stack of patterned tapes. Stick the tape pieces on a ruler to measure them out. I started with the largest piece cutting it to 5cm then cut each subsequent piece 1cm smaller.

 Glue a star paper punch out on the top of the 'tree' and add another piece of tape for the trunk. Cut out the embellishment trimming it close to the edges in a rectangle shape and then trim the bottom edge with pinking scissors to make a 'tag' shape.
Cut out the backing paper piece for your card then stitch the tag embellishment to it across the top. Fold the tag around a pen, (or something else rounded) to give it some dimension.

Finish with the stamped greeting across the bottom of the card.

Head on over to Daring Cardmakers to see what the rest of the DT have come up with and how they've made their embellishments, http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com
x Leo

Daring Cardmakers - Plant a tree!

Here's my Daring Cardmakers card for this week:

 

The theme this week is trees and Zuzana has as asked us to include a tree on our cards. My tree is a stamp from a stamp set of leaves and trees I've had for a long time. In fact I think it was one of my first crafty purchases so it was a very long time ago! It's a lovely wooden stamp set though and I don't really buy wood block stamps anymore so it's good to get them out every now and then and remember how lovely they are to use. The paper layers on my card are made up of my most recent crafty purchase so I guess it makes a nice balance! I've been busy using up left over bits and pieces over the last month so I treated myself to a little something new and bought two of the new Basic grey snippet pads. I've not bought any basic grey for a long time but some of their latest collections caught my eye. I picked up the Hipster and Mint Julep ones and they're great for layering and the 4x6 size makes them perfect for cardmaking too. So, well recommended :) I'm still using up patterned paper scraps but mixing in a bit of something new once in a while really helps to give me a fresh eye with them. Pop on over to daringcardmakers.blogspot.com to have a go at this weeks challenge!

x Leo

 

Couple more Daring Cardmakers Cards

I forgot to upload my card from last weeks Daring Cardmakers so here that one is first:

This one was a recipe dare and had to include:
An Aperture of some kind
Something beginning with the letter P
A Die-cut or Punchie
The colour Blue

I used lots of left over bits and pieces from the Jan/Feb Quirky Kit, the paper, the Polaroid frame the Thickers letter stickers and the bird paper which was a notelet I cut to fit the frame all came from that kit. For the something beginning with the letter P I used my new paper tape I got from Paperchase and watercolour paint that I made an ombre paint effect with on the yellow strip of card. I wasn't sure if the Polaroid diecut would also count as the aperture so I also punched out a star from the front of the card. It just looks white on the photo but that is the inside of the card. :)

On to this weeks dare and as it's the first week of a new month it's a Colour Combo challenge. The colours for this month are pink, gold and mint:

 

And here's what I came up with:

 

 

I took inspiration from the images as well as the colour combination for my card and picked out chevron and woodgrain patterns and flowers. Most of this again I made up using paper scraps from stuff I've been working on already. The gold thread is from this months' Quirky Kit as is the woodgrain paper scrap and the peg and white flower. The chevron paper and grid paper is from the Jan/Feb kit and the 'You Rock' paper bit is an Echo Park paper that was from the December kit. You can defo tell I've been using up all my leftovers this past few weeks! ;-D The flowers are Prima ones I think they were in my junk jar on my desk.

Head on over to Daring Cardmakers and have a go at this weeks challenge and see the design teams awesome creations! http://www.daringcardmakers.blogspot.com

x Leo

P.S if you want to grab a Quirky Kit subscription I've just put the new places in the store you can check out the details here, http://www.craftytemplates.co.uk/quirkykitssubscription.html
I've just been unpacking some of the new goodies that just arrived and they're mega yum!

Childs Play

Our dare on Daring Cardmakers this week has been set by Sharon who has us making cards for children from little ones to older teens.

I thought about the stuff kids would like on a card so went with wacky angles, lots of texture like the furry number 8 and the packet of sparkles and there's more sparkle with the gems and sequins dots then I added the cartoony horse, that's an old Tilda stamp. I did try to have a go at an effect and used Promarkers to try to make some watercolour effect letters using white Thickers and layers of the same colour pen. I've been trying to think up different watercolour and ombre techniques for scrapbooking this last couple of weeks so it's defo something I'll be playing more with anyway.

Pop on over to Daring Cardmakers to have a go at this weeks dare! http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/childs-play.html