New beginnings

Good morning, peeps! Yes, that's the title of our challenge this week over at Digi Doodle Shop's Best and this is my card for the challenge:


This wonderful image is called 'Sleeping Infant' and can be bought here at the Digi Doodle Shop store and don't forget that all images are reduced by 50% for December, so grab a bargain while you can!
I have three young friends who are all pregnant at the moment so I think the odds are in favour that at least one will be a cute little baby girl just like this one!
I followed the sketch over on Sketch Saturday this week, so I'll be entering this card for that challenge too.
The DPs are from the Prima 'Jack and Jill' pad, which was given to me as a birthday prezzie by my good friend, Alison, mwah, mwah, hun! I must say that I think that Prima have come up with some fabulous papers recently and you may have noticed that they're making fairly regular appearances lately on my cards!
I coloured the image with Copics (numbers later) and the cute greeting is from Pink Petticoat and this set has been a fabulous investment!
The flowers are, of course, from Wild Orchid Crafts and the leaves were punched with a McGill punch.
I do hope you'll join us for the challenge this week and do stay warm and safe - we have such cold, horrible weather here in the UK at the mo .
Copics:
Pillow: B000, B00, B12
Sleeping suit and hat: R00, R11, R20, R22
Leaves and ribbon: YG11, YG03
Skin: E000, E00, E21, R11, R20
and I used Prismas for the shadow.

GDT on An Oldie but a Goodie Challenge

Good morning, peeps! I hope you're all full of festive spirit and storming into the Christmas season. Please do me a favour, if you find any - festive spirit that is, please send some my way because I'm struggling to find some this year for some unknown reason!
Anyhoo, let's get on to a card that's not Christmassy at all. For the month of December, I'm GDT member over at An Oldie but a Goodie Challenge Blog....woo hoo! How good is that?!!...and here's my first card in that role.

The title of the challenge is 'You're a star' and we have to have a star on our project so, just to be on the safe side, I've got 3 on mine!
Tilda is coloured with Copics (numbers at the end of this post) and Prismas and I think she's having something of a 'Harry Potter moment' because there's plenty of magic sparkle around in the form of diamonds from my jewelery box ...well...from my stash, anyway and Glamour Dust added to her star wand. Just for a bit of extra interest, I turned her purple shoes into patent ones with the addition of some Glossy Accents.
The Nestie shape is distressed with Antique Linen Distress Ink and the doily behind Tilda is cut with a Marianne D die and blinged up with some pearls from the Hobby House, which is where the star charm came from as well. The butterflies were punched with a Martha Stewart punch and the leaves were made with a McGill punch. The gorge paper is from the Prima 'Fairy Flora' pad and the flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The lace is cut with a Magnolia Doo Hickey die and the velvet ribbon is from my stash.
Copics:
Skin: E000, E00, E21, R11, R20
Hair: E50, E51, E53, E55
Dress: RV10, RV34, RV000 and Promarker Pink Carnation
Shoes: V17, V15, V12, V000
Star: YG03, YG11, YG25
I do hope you'll come and join us for this challenge and I'll see you again soon with a different one.

An unusual Christmas present

Good morning, peeps!
I'm not sure whether this parcel is in the process of being wrapped or unwrapped but someone's certainly in for a surprise at Christmas! Anyway this gorgeous image is for sale here at Digi Doodle Shop and it was great fun to colour with my Copics and pencils. No doubt you'll all be surprised to hear that I kept a note of the colours I used on this project and they're at the foot of this post!
This card is for Challenge #37 at Digi Doodle Shop's Best, which this week is to put animals on your project. Hop over there now and see what my talented teamies have produced for this challenge and we all hope you'll join in the fun.
The papers are from K & Co and the 'Noel' embellishment at the bottom is one of the die cuts from the pad,which is a Brenda Walton design. I simply distressed the die cut with Antique Linen Distress Ink and doodled some faux stitching around it with a black pen. The Nestie shape that the image is on is also distressed with the same ink. The gorgeous wide red organza ribbon is from Wild Orchid Crafts and the jewel brad and bead spacer are from The Hobby House. The green jewelled star looks most peculiar in this photo but it's a trick of the light - IRL it's the perfect green for the papers.
Copics used:
Mouse: W1, W3, W5, R11, R20
Box: E31, E33, E35
Paper inside: Y000, Y00, Y11 then I put E50 over the top to make the colour creamier
Paper outside: E50, E51, E53, G24, YG67, G29, R24
Ribbon: YG11, YG03, YG25, R22, R24, R27
Pillow: BG000, BG11, BG34
In virtually all parts of the image I used various coloured pencils blended with Sansodor.
Keep warm, peeps and I'll see you again soon!

The Perfect Tree

Good morning, peeps!
The challenge over at Digi Doodle Shop's Best this week is 'Let it Snow' and we have to show snow somewhere on our project. Well I think I went a bit overboard, don't you?!! But it's entirely appropriate to the weather outside because we certainly have plenty of this white stuff!
The title of this post is also the name of the image and you can buy it from the Digi Doodle Shop here. I think this image is just lovely with the little boy looking very adult carrying his axe and almost dragging his rather reluctant looking sister off to complete the task of finding the perfect Christmas tree. I really enjoyed the colouring, which I did with Copics and various coloured pencils blended with Sansodor. I added Polar White Flower Soft to the fur trim on their clothes and Glossy Accents to the little girl's wellies and the boy's axe blade. The 'snow' is twinkling with DecoArt Glamour Dust - I love the subtle shimmer this stuff gives!
The large snowflake (top left) is created from acetate cut with a Cuttlebug die, then Glossy Accents applied around the edges and the whole thing dipped in Twinklets Diamond Dust that I got from The Hobby House. It's out of stock at the moment but I'm sure that Gill will be getting more in soon. I do love this effect but I always find it difficult to cut the shape from the acetate and end up doing fine surgery with my scalpel to extract the full shape! On top of the acetate snowflake is a second one cut from vellum with a Marianne D die and I applied Quickie Glue to it and used the Glamour Dust again. I gave the same treatment to the small snowflakes and the pine branches. The gem brad and the buttons are from my stash. The doily behind that large snowflake is cut from a Docrafts 'Penelope and Percy' DP with a Marianne D die. The other papers are from a K & Co pad. All the distressing was done with an Adirondack Aqua ink pad.

I finished the inside with more of the K & Co paper and I used the scrap paper that was left over from cutting out the doily to create a frame on some card for a jotting panel - it seemed a shame to waste it! The photograph here looks very 'blue'...the light created from all the snow outside is really distorting the colours of the pictures and it looks much better IRL!
I do hope you'll be able to join us for the challenge this week and I'll see you again soon.
Bye for now!

Mo's Dream Team entry

Good afternoon, peeps! Well with all the snow outside, I thought I'd make something Spring-like. This image from Mo Manning is called 'Savannah on Easter' and, considering we haven't even celebrated Christmas yet, I think I'm a bit early, don't you? Anyhoo, you can buy her in Mo's shop here. I just think she's gorgeous bending down to see the little chicks and showing all her bloomers!
Of course the first problem was that I chose to make an easel card (or at least a bit of a variation on one!) and that gave me the probelm of how to get a decent photograph! As if the snow storm outside wasn't making it dark enough in the first place! So I'm sorry for the quality of the pictures but they're likely to remain poor until we get some decent sunshine again (she writes as even MORE snow falls!).
Back to the card, I've used some wonderful Websters Pages DPs and I just love that gorgeous guipure lace from Wild Orchid Crafts, which is where all the flowers came from, too. The sentiment panel was cut with Nestabilites Fancy Tags and the tag inside for the sender's greeting was shaped with my EK Success Diamond Lace punch.

The distressing on this tag and on the main image was done with Rusty Hinge Distress Ink. The ribbon was from my stash. Here's another piccie to see if that enables you to see the card any better - by the way, I got the inspiration for this shape of card from a post on the Lili of the Valley Blog a while back:

and here's one of just the little cutie herself.

She was coloured with my Copics and various coloured pencils, mainly Prismas, blended with Sansodor.
I do hope she makes you all forget the snow - I'll see you tomorrow with a snowy one!
Bye for now!

Tea Light Card

Good morning, peeps and a very chilly one it is too!
I've been wanting to make one of these cards for some time and I've also wanted to use this image for some time so it feels like two accomplishments in one! I think this is a lovely way to send a card combined with a little gift and it doesn't have to contain tea lights, a similar construction could hold sweets or any number of different small gifts. Hmmm....I'll work on that one - watch this space!
The photgraphs here don't seem to do it justice, which is very disappointing because it looks so much better IRL.
I got the instructions for this card from the StampARTic site and it's a really easy card to make. The trick is to use a Nestabilitie shape for the box window that will hold in all the candles and that allows you to extract them all easily. The ribbon bow stops them falling out - ideally, it would have been a wider ribbon but I simply didn't have anything suitable and if you could see the amount of ribbon I'm looking at here, that's hard to believe!
The Mo Manning image is called 'Prince Edward Island' and she's coloured with Copics and various coloured pencils blended with Sansodor. I'm sorry I haven't been giving you colour numbers lately but I get so absorbed with the colouring, just grabbing what I need that eventually my desk becomes covered with pens and pencils and I have to have a clear up to be able to carry on working - noting down colour numbers just gets lost in the general chaos! The image is framed with my Nestabilities Classic Frame and I stencilled through the die with Brilliance Pearlescent Sky Blue, which has also been used around all the edges. The pearls are from The Hobby House here and the flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. I punched the leaves with my Leonie Em Maidenhair Fern punch. The papers are digital ones downloaded from Nitwits and I think I shall be using more of these. You can see some of the coordinating ones inside the card:

I think I may add a sentiment to the pocket that holds the tag (cut with a Sizzix die) but it's really a question of finding the right one.
I hope you like this one peeps and that you decide to have a go yourself - it really is an easy project - promise!
Keep warm!

She's all dressed up again!

Good morning, peeps and I hope you're not all frozen in this wintery weather! This little girl certainly ought to be judging by the way she's (not) dressed!
The challenge over at Digi Doodle Shop's Best this week is 'Red and Green.....any kind of project as long as it has these colours' - well I certainly took that literally, didn't I!?
As soon as I saw the title of this challenge my mind went to a card I made some time back (you can see it here) where I had used those colours on the image. Well, since then her twin sister has been drawn so I knew I had to use her for my card! You can buy her and her sister here.
She is coloured with my Copics and various coloured pencils blended with Sansodor and I put glossy accents on the shoes and bag. The DPs are from Papermania, Kars, Nitwit, Dream Street Papers and Kaiser - yes really, that many different brands! The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, of course and the leaves were punched with my McGill punch. This is how I've finished the inside:

The edge of the pocket and the tag are finished with my Fiskars 'Threading Water' punch.
The sentiment is from the Pink Petticoat Curly Girly Sentiments and they can be bought here. I must say that I'm finding this set so useful, there really is something for every occasion.
Well, I seem to have wittered on interminably about this - if you're still with me, thank you and thank you for looking today. I do hope you'll join us for this challenge. I'm also entering this card for:
The Crafty Pad Challenge 98 'Red and Green'
Friday Sketchers Sketch 129