Perfect Sentiments Critter challenge

I made this cute little critter card for the Perfect Sentiments Challenge that is happening at the moment.  Their current challenge is:  Create a card with a sentiment for Christmas; include a critter somewhere on your card. We are looking for animals, bugs, mice, etc. Not humans. You can have a human on your card but, there must be evidence of a critter somewhere. For example: A little girl holding a puppy would work fine. Don't forget to include your sentiment on the front!

What a great challenge!  I am trying to build up a stash of Christmas cards this year so this was a great challenge for me.  I have admired this cute little penguin from the Create a Critter cartridge for a while now, but haven't had the chance to make him.  Isn't he adorable!

I was also chuffed to find out that my Happy Birthday to Moo card was chosen in the 'top 3' in the Perfect Sentiments challenge a couple of weeks ago.  Thanks! Our friend who received the card had a giggle when he opened it, but it was the children who thought it was hilarious!  Got to love a good pun!

The layout of this card was inspired by a card (or a sketch, I can't remember) that I saw on Pinterest.  I am busy trying to find the link now and will update this blog post when (or if) I find it.  Always so much inspiration on Pinterest!
Found it!  The link to the card that I copied is here.   Here is a direct link to her blog,  Stampin Shauna.   She has lots of beautiful cards with gorgeous stamping on them.  Definitely worth a visit to her blog if you are looking for some inspiration.  Thanks for inspiring me Shauna!

Papers:  Kaisercraft
Sentiment:  Kaisercraft
Penguin:  Create a critter cartridge

Thanks for looking!

New baby cards

My cousin is expecting a baby any moment now so I got busy and made her this pink baby card (I don't know why but I am convinced she is having another girl!)  Then I figured I better make a blue one as well, usually I guess incorrectly.

I love embossing on cards and these squares were quick and easy to emboss.  I inked over them in white ink just to make them stand out a little bit more.  I rarely make cards in pastel colours, I much prefer bright colours, but I enjoyed the change and think they look very 'babyish' and appropriate for a newborn.

I followed a sketch from the Clean and Simple blog,  I've never been to their challenge website before, so I hope that my cards are considered 'clean and simple'!  I guess it refers to not having too many embellishments or lumpy bumpy things?  Anyway, I really liked the sketch, so I rotated it and used it for these cards.  I thought I may as well enter their challenge and hopefully the cards fit the bill!  This is the sketch:

The monkey is from the Create a critter cricut cartridge.
The rose is a rolled rose MFT die.
The little rocking horse dies were purchased from my LSS.
Baby stamps are 'Amy R Designs' stamps.

Thanks for looking!

Poodle birthday card

Just a little birthday card that I made using the Create a Critter cricut cartridge.  I embossed the white paper using a damask embossing folder-I really like how it turned out, it makes the poodle look a bit posh I think!

The sentiment and the oval shape have pop dots on them for a bit of dimension.  Pretty simple card really!
Thanks for looking!

Owl fever!

So it's no secret that I love the cute little owl on Create a critter.  And since I needed to make a couple of birthday cards for girlfriends, I thought I'd cut out a few owls at once.  I love cutting them out with patterned paper - they are just so cute!  So here are a few more of my owl cards...

This third owl card was inspired by something I saw on pinterest.  I was trying to make the owl look like he was sitting in the hole of his tree...maybe I should have added a little branch for him.  I love making a few copies of the same card and just changing the papers a bit - it's good to add to your stash of cards and it's easier if you can do it in bulk.

Thanks for looking!

Owl birthday card

I made this card for my girlfriend's birthday in a couple of days.  Super simple.  I really love this owl image from Create a Critter, I use it a lot for birthday cards and thank you cards.  (See my next post for a few more similar cards).

I am entering this in the current Paper Playtime challenge - use polka dots and a sentiment.

I chose red paper with white polka dots for the owl and cute multi-coloured polka dot paper for the background.  I stitched a red border around the patterned paper just to finish it off.  Seems like I can't finish a card anymore unless I've stitched a border around it!  The sentiment is a CC Designs sentiment which I am using all the time at the moment...love this set of stamps.

Thanks for looking!

I feel the love project

These two cards were made for the 'I feel the love project'.  This month's recipient is Olivia, a brave 9 year old girl who recently lost her mother to cancer. At only 8 years old Olivia founded Kids Involved in Cancer Research (KICR) with a fierce drive to raise awareness and money for colon and lung cancer research.  A pretty incredible effort!  Anyway, if you are a card maker and would like to send a card to Olivia, then you can go here to Madison's blog, 'Funky Cards' to find out all the details.  Madison is the founder of the 'I feel the love project' and each month she has a different person featured on her blog.  A most worthy cause.

I chose bright, cheerful colours for my card and used my cuttlebug to make the backgrounds a bit more interesting.  I am into 'sunshine' at the moment too, and have noticed the sun is appearing on a lot of my cards!  Must be because it is bright and cheerful!  Hopefully Olivia will like her cards.

Thanks for looking!

Quick and easy cards

I've been lacking a bit of inspiration in the card making department lately.  The creativity is not flowing and my enthusiasm is lacking at the moment.  So I decided to go through my stash and have a bit of a much needed clean up of my supplies.  Boy was I surprised how much paper I have!  I thought I was never going to get it all organised!  I actually really enjoyed looking through all my papers and thinking things like, "Oh yeah, I forgot that I bought that paper" and "Wow, I wonder why I ever bought that paper!"

So it has inspired me to start using my stash and I am going to try and stop buying new papers and embellishments because, well, I just don't need to!  One of my more annoying purchases was a pack of ten cards.  I bought them because they were extra long (210mm) but would still fit in an ordinary envelope and not cost any extra to post.  When I opened the packet I found out that they weren't cards, they were just long strips of card.  So annoyed.  I was going to put them in my boys craft box when I thought that maybe I could still use them.  I folded them to make 4 inch square cards (just trimmed the excess off) and made these super quick cards using scraps from my stash.

All I did was cut squares of scrap patterned paper slightly smaller than 4x4 inches and randomly sew around edges in a contrasting coloured cotton.  I then used pop dots to adhere the images (from Create a critter) which I already had made and sitting in my stash waiting to be used.  Some of the smaller images meant that I had room to stamp a sentiment underneath.  And there you go.  It took no time at all.  Quick and easy and handy to have for birthdays.

Excuse the photos, the lighting was not good and I had two little boys hovering over me and watching and creating shadows on the cards!

Thanks for looking!

Friendship card

The challenge at Paper Playtime this week is to make a friendship card with a sentiment.  The timing was perfect for me as I have a beautiful friend going through a tough time at the moment and I know she will appreciate a handmade card.  I like the little sentiment I used - I love a good pun!

I used the Create a Critter cartridge for the little bear image and the scallop on the bottom of the card is a MFT die.  The pink felt flower is also a MFT die.  Papers, stickers and 'thinking of you stamp are all Kaisercraft.  Lace and ribbon are from my stash. 

I used this weeks Card Patterns sketch for the layout of the card. 






The card is an easel card, so the sketch was used for the top part of the card.  Hopefully this still counts!

Thanks for looking!

Dragonfly card

Don't you just love this cute little 'wink face'!  It is my favourite Peachy Keen face.  It's from the Everyday Faces set and I use them all the time. 

Please excuse the dreadful lighting in these photos - it's almost dark here and I only have a couple of hours to go before the Paper Playtime challenge ends...so I found the room with the most light (our ensuite), turned on all the lights, tried to get my shadow out of the photo and then clicked and hoped for the best!

This little card was made for two challenges:

Paper Playtime:  For challenge #7 use any type of DIE CUT and/or DIE CUTTING machine and make a BUG CARD!  I chose to use the dragonfly from the Create a critter cartridge.  I hope that dragonflies are considered bugs!  I did have a look at the other entries and there were lots of bees, snails and dragonflies so I think I'm right! 

Peachy Keen Stamps:  Anything goes challenge - must use Peachy Keen stamps.  I used my peachy face for the dragonfly - you know those faces can be added to just about anything!  I first bought them to use exclusively with my Paper Doll Dressup and Everyday Paper doll cartridges, but now I'm enjoying using them for all sorts of things such as faces for flowers, suns, critters...the list is endless!  I've seen them used on cakes, couches, carrots, strawberries...they make the images come to life and look so cute.

I used the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge to cut out the card base in dark blue and also to cut out the green scallop frame.  This cartridge continues to surprise me.  I got it for free when I bought my cricut expression and to be honest, I had a quick flip through the booklet and wasn't overly impressed or excited by many of the images.  But there are a few little surprises in there and I am so glad that I had another look at it and found the card bases and frames - I think I'll be using these a lot more now.

I cut the card at 4 inches and the scalloped frame at 3 1/4 inches.  The dragonfly was 2 3/4 inches.  Patterned papers are from a Jillibean Soup collection - I think it's called Owl Soup.  I wanted the sentiment to say, "Fluttering by to say hi" but given my space restrictions, I settled for the much shorter "hello" sentiment.

Thanks for looking!

Some cards I've been working on...

I needed a couple of baby cards the other day so I made these two.  Quite simple but I still like them.  The little monkey is from Create a Critter (of course!).  I really like the textured cardstock that I used for the card base.  A little bit of stitching and inking around the squares and that was pretty much it! 

These little hippo cards were made using the Birthday Bash cartridge - there are so many options on this cartridge, I really need to sit down and read through the booklet.  I really like the sentiment, 'Hip Hippo Hooray' - I love a good pun!  If I make any more of these then I think I would use a neutral colour for the base of the card, maybe kraft or brown to make the hippo stand out a bit more.  But I do like the look of the hippo cut out in patterned paper.  Pretty cute, but best of all, very quick and very easy to make.

Thanks for looking!

Ladybug birthday card

I made this little ladybug card for the latest BBTB2 challenge - use a bumblebee or a ladybug from any cartridge on your project.  As you all know, I LOVE my Create a Critter cartridge, so I was more than happy to have another excuse to use it again.  The ladybug on my card is from the Create a Critter cartridge and was cut at 3 inches.  The flowers on my card are a die from MFT that I used in my cuttlebug.

The papers are all from a gorgeous Basic Grey collection called 'Kissing Booth' - love those papers.

I used sketch #162 from Card Patterns for the layout of my card - I rotated it 90 degrees.


Thanks for looking!

My first spinner card!

My very first spinner card - how exciting!  In fact, I was quite ridiculously excited when I finished it and found out that it actually worked!!  My heart was pounding and I was immensely proud of myself!  I won't lie, yes the card might look super simple, but it did take me a while to figure out.  I followed a great set of instructions from Splitcoaststampers, however, they used American coins so I found out that there is a bit of a difference in size between our Australian 5 cent piece and their coin that they use.  Anyway, after a bit of extra cutting and fiddling I figured it out...and now I can't stop playing with the card!  I will probably wreck the card by spinning it too much before I give it to someone for their birthday!

Here are some little pics to demonstrate how the little bird spins around from one end to the other end of the card (and quite surprisingly, he spins rather fast and twirls around a lot!)

Oh the possibilities!!  I am excitedly thinking of all sorts of creatures and things that could spin and twirl on cards.  I can feel that my next few blog posts may be a bit 'spinner-card-heavy'!  (....thinking astronauts twirling in space; cars racing along a road; train tooting along a train track; butterflies and bees....)

Anyway, I made this card to enter into a couple of challenges.  I have never entered these challenges before but they look great so I thought I would have a go.

Die Cuttin Divas - Challenge #61 Garden Theme.  Nothing quite says garden like birds and flowers!  I cut the twirling bird and his birdhouse from the Create a Critter cartridge.  The little bird is only 1.5 inches.
Paper Playtime - Challenge #76 Birthday card with sentiment.

What a lot of fun this card was to make!  I love making new types of cards and I think they would make excellent cards for little kids - quite a novelty!

On another rather exciting note, I have been published for the very first time!  The latest Australian Scrapbooking Memories magazine went on sale yesterday (Vol 14 no7) and one of my double page layouts was in their 'digital gallery' on page 51.  What a buzz!

Thanks for looking!

Peachy Keen Stamps Friendship Challenge

I made this card especially for the Peachy Keen stamps challenge this week. 

 

THE CHALLENGE:

We want you card-makers to show us your SKILLZ! This week, create a card using theme provided: FRIENDSHIP!

Your card can include any stamps but remember you can only earn "Top Peach" if you use your Peachy Keen Stamps!

I used my Peachy Keen Everyday Face Assortment stamps for the faces - I just love this stamp set - they are so cute!  They give so much more character to the images when they have a cute face.

I used my cuttlebug for the first time on this card (yay!), it is a very new purchase and I am very excited to own one.  I used the swiss dots embossing folder on the sand.  Love it - I just have to resist the urge to give everything swiss dots!

The crab, fish, cloud and sun are all from Create a Critter.  I love that little crab - he is just so cute!

Don't you just love him!
A little bit of sewing around the edge of the card, a little bit of faux stitching around the critters and the card is done. Just need to give it to my crab-ulous friend!

Thanks for looking!

Birthday Sundaes Challenge - Happy 'Bearthday'

I had to laugh when I saw the Birthday Sundaes challenge for this week:

Create a birthday card using the following picture as inspiration - it must include a HEART and a birthday sentiment on your card front!

The card I made last week for the easel challenge would have fit this inspiration photo challenge perfectly.  And I also made another cupcake birthday card just a couple of weeks ago that would have been perfect as well!  Anyway, as I am a bit 'cupcaked' out, I decided to make the focus on the heart and use a cupcake as just a minor little embellishment on my card.

And here is my card.  I think this will go to a little friend who is turning 6 years old in a few weeks.

Thanks for looking!

Quick birthday card

Here's a super simple birthday card for a girlfriend who is celebrating her birthday next week.  I have been wanting to use this lace for a while now and thought it matched these papers nicely.

Don't groan when you see that I have used that owl from Create a Critter once again!  I just love him.  I made a few of them in bulk to use whenever I needed them, so unfortunately, you will probably be seeing him again sometime soon!

Thanks for looking!

Have a Hoot

 

I made this card for my girlfriend's daughter who will be turning six years old next month.  She loves owls and girly colours so I think this card should work!  I love pink and aqua together.  I covered the dark pink part of the owl with dimensional magic just to give him a bit of a shine.

I am entering this card in the Birthday Sundaes Challenge.  They have just posted their first challenge for the year - just create a NEW birthday card and remember to include a birthday sentiment/wording on your card front!  Hopefully 'Have a hoot' counts as birthday wording!

I'm so glad the Birthday Sundaes challenges are back again.  Birthday cards are my favourite to make and I like the different challenges they come up with.  Looking forward to seeing what other challenges they will post throughout the year.

Papers:  My Minds Eye

Owl:  Create a Critter cartridge

Scalloped circle:  Birthday Bash cartridge

Letter stickers: Kaisercraft

Thanks for looking!