Flower Cavalier

This image from Digital Two For Tuesday is just perfect for a little thank you card - a cavalier offering his flowers

The paper is BasicGrey cut with nestabilities into a little card and various ovals. The edges of the paper are distressed with ink, the stamp sentiment is from Elzybells. I coloured the image with Koh-i-noors. Petra.

Colour Challenge

This week's colour challenge at the Play Date Cafe is white/black/striking blue-turquoise/retro-redI love the colour combination. My card is not quite retro but represents a slightly older more vintagey era

The fantastic image is from The Graphics Fairy. I slightly altered the image by altering the backgorund colour and the colour of the 'evening wrap'. Then for the first time ever I managed to print the image onto thicker handmade paper which removes the sharpness from the image and gives it more of a soft and subtle feel. Petra.

CAS Notecard Set

A clean and simple A6 notecard set with lined envelopes - an idea I found at Gingersnap Creations and which was very appealing. This is the first set of hopefully many more, the sets will be sold at a little charity event for the 'Craft for Life' campaign to support Cancer Research UK
I love these bird images from the Graphics Fairy. They are so vibrant in their colours and the birds on the graphics seem to be so alive. I printed them onto textured card - the same card as used for the A6 card.
The images are layered onto plain black and Kraft card. The sentiment stamps are from Elzybells and stamped with Heine ink.
The envelopes are lined with paper I had in my stash for a very long time and never quite knew what to do with it (LOL). Petra.

Digital Frogs and Pointy Stars

Each week 'Digital Two For Tuesday' posts two digi stamp images. The from the last challenge images (flowers and frogs) are from an old children's book. The one which 'tickled' me most was the one with the little dancing frogs. Although I am not a frog person (lol), I think they are rather sweet

Supplies:
plain white A6 card
paper - BaiscGrey, plain white card
stamps - digi stamps 'Digital Two For Tuesday', Elzybells
ink - Heine
colouring - Koh-i-noors with OMS, Copics, Sakura
ribbons - from my stash

I started with the initial digital frog image thinking it would be nice to emphasize a bit more the frogs by cutting out a second 'frog' layer. But once I had started to cut, I couldn't stop myself (lol). The moon circle turned into a sentiment circle and I also added some shiny and pointy stamped stars to the scene which fitted nicely with the Daring Crdmakers challenge of 'What's the Point'. Petra.

Spring Butterflies

I love Spring when nature awakes and shows its colourful dress, and I love butterflies dancing in the wind and visiting the many flowers which will hopefully appear soon :-)

Supplies:
plain qhite square card
paper - leftover wrapping paper, Marieke Vermeulen, plain red card, Mind's Eye
nestabilities
stamps - Elzybells
ink - Heine
ribbon/button - from my stash
blings - Kanban

I alsways try to use as much scrap paper as possible. This time I found some leftover wrapping paper with flowers which was just perfect for my purpose; it did not only have the right colour combination, the paper is also slightly textured.
The card is for the SophistiCat and Docrafts challenge. Petra.

Brown and Turquoise ...

... and a Hole in One - the combination of Sketchy Colors and Daring Cardmakers,
(Sorry for the not so good quality of the photos. Unfortunately the turquoise turned more into blue on the photos :-( ), Petra.

Supplies:
papers - chocolate brown card from Elzybells, plain cream paper
nestabilities square and square scallops, Quickutz circle
stamps - Studio g
ink - Elzybells
ribbon - from my stash
bling/flowers - Artemio

A little Birdie told me .....

.... my dad has birthday very soon

I created the card layout to a sketch from Cupcake Craft Challenges

The image is a wonderful bird image from the Graphics Fairy. I love the muted colours which fit so well with the layered K&Company papers. The lacey ribbon was a very nice surprise from Pattie, I found the buttons in my grandma's button box. Petra.

Monochrome Monday

Inspired by the current Play Date Cafe Challenge:
As I was not quite sure how to go about this challenge I started to experiment with Gimp and images from the Graphics Fairy. Karen's blog is a true treasure trove and I cannot thank Karen enough for the work she is doing in providing and sharing with us new graphics every day!
My starting point were two images: a bluetinted postcard of a girl and a Halloween Printable which I layered - without altering the colours. The next steps were to find the 'accessories': a crown and a sentiment and a little heart
The colour of the original crown is gold and if you look a bit closer you can still see some golden spots. The heart is part of a winged Valentine heart which I separated from the wings, resized and re-coloured.
The new graphic fits perfectly onto a little canvas which I found in one of my boxes.
Petra.

Going Girly

Still working on a commission for birthday cards the current theme for Cupcake Craft Challenges fitted nicely: Going Girly

Supplies:
plain white square card
paper - K&Company, plain lilac card
stamp - Stretch N' Bubbles, Studio g
ink - VersaVolor
blings - Kanban, Papermania
ribbon - from my stash
foam pads

The stamp from Alison is really sweet. After printing the image when it came to choosing the papers, well, I had the choice between leaving the image on white paper and colouring the imgae or cut out the image, leave it almost white and set it onto a coloured background. I thought it might make a nice change not to colour the image but just to embellish it a little bit.
Petra.

January Birthstone

The Daring Cardmakers started a monthly birthstone challenge whereby the first Dare of each month throughout 2010 will be to make cards featuring the birthstone of this month. The birthstone for January is the Garnet

I love the idea of running a challenge throughout the year. And the more I thought about it the more intrigued I felt by the idea of collecting all the birthstone cards and collate them at the end of the year, make them into a little booklet or something. Here is my first card(s)

I created two individual cards, one with the birthstone poem and a second with the embellishments. The patterend paper is by DCWV 'Once upon a time'. I found the images on The Graphics Fairy website. I did some fuzzy cutting to be able to use them together. The edges of the shapes and the images are distressed with VersaColor. Petra.

Cake Commission

The last days I had only very little time to do any crafting because I had a commission for a novelty cake from one of my friends. And from the baking until the cake is fully decorated it normally takes between 3 and 4 days (well, these are evenings really).
This cake is for a celebration at work.

Vanilla Sponge with raspberry jam and Vanilla buttercream filling
topped with marzipan and fondant

And now I am off to to clean the kitchen to get ready for the next batch of cakes for the weekend. Have a nice evening, Petra.

ECP sketch challenge

A brilliant sketch for a simple and easy card - just what I needed

Supplies:
A6 white card
papers - BasicGrey
image - The Graphics Fairy
ink - VersaColor
ribbon - from my ribbon box
blings - Kanban

I was looking for an un-fuzzy design quick and easy to make but using a really cute image. That's why the sketch came in handy. I chose a bird image from The Graphics Fairy. I know it is more for the Christmas Holiday season but it is still January, it is still snowy and the little birdies are just sooooo cute (LOL), Petra.

NB This card is now also for the SophistiCat challenge #17.

Silver and Gold - Black and White .....

.... The Play Date Cafe challenge. Oh dear, this took me way out of my comfort zone, I normally don't use silver and gold very often only maybe some glitter as accents

Supplies:

textured square white card
papers - plain white and black paper, patterend paper (cannot remember where I got it from)
stamp - Elzybells, Stampington Company
ink - Artemio, Elzybells
blings - Artemio

I love the little town stamp. I used it before with patterend paper but it looks just as good on just white card. A lot of fuzzy cutting was involved to layer the houses to get some depth.
When stamping the sentiments, I realized that the ink would not cover the embossed areas on the paper which gave a lovely effect - not intentionally, though (lol).
Petra.

Lady in Pink

When looking for a pink graphics, I came across this beautiful Lady
At first I was only intrigued by the colour of the image but after printing the image in a quite big format and then experimenting with various cut outs, her eyes became the focal point turning a beautiful Lady into more of a mystery

and this is how I used it for my card. The colour combination of the card is based on a Sketchy Colors challenge: yellow, pink and a little bit of bronze. It just seems to fit so perfectly.

This Lady is definitely worth a little bit more of exploration.
Petra.