DT Announcement at Inspirational Card Sketches

I am thrilled to announce I have been asked to join the DT at Inspirational Card Sketches, I am honored to be part of such an amazing team led by the talented Dawn Batty.

The first weekly sketch will be posted on Tuesday 3rd February and I am sure you will all love it.

check out Here to read more about the challenges and to link to the fabulous work of my fellow design team members.

I will be back to post my first card on Tuesday 3rd and look forward to seeing your creations with Dawn's sketches.

Karen x

A Spoonful of Sugar - CAS (Clean and Simple) Card

I was in papercrafts in Elgin on Saturday and Karen (Mrs SugarNellie) and I were have a discussion about how elaborate most of the cards that we make for challenges are and that it would be good to see some simple cards. Karen had been reading a thread on SCS about CAS (clean and simple) cards. These cards feature no DP and in some cases have only a stamped image on the card and even no colouring on them.

I had decided that I would give this a go and would create a simple card for this week's A Spoonful of Sugar challenge which was to make a card for a new baby, mum to be, new mum or a pre-schooler. I am a bit short on baby stamps so have used this really cute Maggie with spring flowers from SugarNellie and I think this would be a great card for a little girl on her birthday.

Karen has now posted a challenge on the SugarNellie blog for Sugar Babes to try creating CAS cards. If you leave a link to your card on the blog you may well find that she will feature it on the SugarNellie blog.

I have used a Papermania embossed card and have stamped the image and sentiment straight onto the card and coloured the image with promarkers. The only embelishment I have used is a small white sheer bow that I have glued on the corner just to give the card some balance.

I am pleased with the finished card, but must admit that I probably took more time to think out what I was going to do with this card than I do when using layers and embelishments but I will do one of these every now and again.

Karen X

Inspirational Card Sketches DT call

The talented Dawn Batty is starting a new challenge blog.

Here is what she says about it:

I'm starting up Inspirational Card Sketches in order to share my inspiration with you.
First and farmost there will be no compensation at this time.
I'm looking for 6 designers who love creating cards.
Your term will be 4 months. Term is from Feb-May 2009
If you would love or like to be on a Card Sketch Design Team this call is for you.
Every Tuesday I will send you a card sketch one week in advance for you to work on. You however as a DT member will have to get your creations to me no later then Monday at 12:00pm (noon) Central Standard Time.
You will also get to embellish your cards however you want. My sketches are for your inspiration only. And to help others get ideas on how to use these sketches.

To start this call off I want you to make a card using this sketch below. Then I want you to
post it on your blog along with this call and leave me a direct link to your blog post in the comments section on the blog.

Here is the card that I have made as my entry for this challenge. I have used this cute little bear from CC Designs, papers are K & Company and flowers ribbon and other embelishments are from my stash, sentiment SU.

I got the Tags, Bags, Boxes and more cartridge for my cricut before Christmas but have not even had time to open the box, let alone have a play with it. Last night I managed to have a go with it and have made this little gift bag to go along with the card. I have followed the sketch used for the card, but due to the size and the embelishments I am not too sure that you can see all the elements on it. I am really pleased with how this little bag looks and am now off to see what else I can do with this cartridge.


This was a great sketch to follow - thanks Dawn for this. It could be used as a really simple card, but also gives the scope to use as many embelishments as you want.

I am sure that this challenge blog will be a great success and I wish Dawn good luck with it.

Karen x

P.S. sorry for the quality of these photos. I had tried taking some pictures of these last night but the light was so poor. I have taken these this morning and they really are not much better. I have now given my husband the task of sorting out some kind of area with lighting to take my pictures - he is a Press Photographer, so hopefully this is something he can sort out for me - I will keep you posted.

Roses on Paper Challenge

The very talented Anki very kindly left a comment on my blog a couple of days and also told me about a fairly new challenge blog called Roses on Paper Challenge Blog which she has done a wonderful sketch for this week.

I had an order for one of my new notebooks and have taken the opportunity to use Anki's fab sketch for making this.

Front

Back

Papers are Basic Grey Euphoria (does anyone know where to get Basic Grey 6x6 pads - everywhere that I have been looking appears to be sold out and my stock of these is just about finished!),card SU, image Whiff of Joy and blooms are some of the ones that my aunt kindly brought over from California with her when she visited last year - thanks again Alice. Charms and ribbon from my stash.

Really enjoyed this sketch and will be keeping an eye on this great new challenge blog.

Thanks for looking

Karen x

A Spoonful of Sugar with Friday's Sketch

After Tracy's demo at Papercrafts in Elgin on Saturday morning I called in past Tesco to pick up some emery boards as after seeing Tracy using them when covering chipboard I decided that I REALLY NEEDED some. Unfortunately Tesco had run out, but I did manage to pick up some of these CD posting boxes which were reduced to 25p each. After decorating the notebook earlier in the week I now decided that I need to alter anything and everything.

Front of Box


To cover this box I have followed the great sketch my Murmur over on Friday sketchers and this project also fits in with the challenge at Spoonful of Sugar which is paper piecing. I have paper pieced the chair with some doodlebug flocked paper. I must admit that this project probably took a lot longer than I had intended it to as I decided to completely cover the whole box as well as decorating the front and the back, but I am really pleased with it and now have another 4 to do!

Back of Box


Blank Box


Chair stamp by Whiff of Joy, Magnolia image, papers Urban Prairie by Basic Grey and Doodlebug, flowers by prima, flourishes are Quickutz, embelishments from my stash.

Karen x

Sugar Bowl Challenge #2 - Three!

I bought a few of these little notebooks last year, from Asda I think, with the intention of decorating them as Christmas Presents for some of my neighbours over in Spain, but needless to say they are all still sitting in my craft room. I never got a chance to enter the first Sugar Bowl challenge due to being on holiday and I really wanted to use he wonderful sketch that Tiets provided for this weeks challenge but I just was not able to stick to the 3 rule on the DP, so I will just have to save that sketch up for another week.

As this is my first attempt at covering the from cover with cardstock and being able to punch all the holes in the correct places in order to fit it back onto the spiral I am really pleased with the finished project and will be having a go at this again. I think that this one will probably be claimed by my grandaughter Sophie.

Front of Notebook

Back of Notebook


I have used SU cardstock, 3 different sheets of Deja Views Little Ones DP and my 3 embelishments are flowers, gems and ribbon, Image is Sweet 'n Sassy from the Elizabeth Bell range at Sugar Nellie.

Have a great weekend. I am off to see a demo at the Papercrafts Boutique in Elgin tomorrow - the lovely Tracy from Funkykits is having a Bo Bunny demo - not exactly sure what she is making, but I am told that the Bo Bunny papers are to die for.

Karen x

How exciting is this?

I discovered when I got home from holiday that I have had one of my cards published in a magazine - how exciting is that? It does not have my name on it, but I know it is mine and as it is the first time I have ever had one published I am just so excited and have been carrying the magazine around with me all week and showing it to anyone and everyone!.

The magazine in question is te February edition of Craft Stamper which is in the shops at the moment. On page 31 there is a Sugar Nellie competion to win a set of six of their Soft Centres stamps and on the page there is my card featuring Porridge the Pig which I made for Sugar Nellie during my stint as Guest DT member. My blogging buddy Gayle created the other 2 cards in the feature and I know that she is just as excited.




The closing date for the competition is 20th March, so if you have not already got a copy you still have time to enter this fab competition.

Sugar Nellie have some great new ranges from new designers on the go at the moment, the Leanne Ellis ones have already been released and the long awaited Gorjuss Girls will be available to pre-order very soon I believe so keep an eye out here for information on these.

Karen x

Oh to be back in the sunshine

It is really freezing here today and I have just been emailing some of my photos from Dubai to my aunt in California so I thought I would just share a couple of sunny pictures with you. Roll on summer!!






I really hate having my picture taken, but the last two are ones that my sister took that are half decent. In the one at the pool, I am the one on the sunbed wrapped in a towel and I think I was sound asleep at the time!!


Karen x

1st Card this Year and no stamping on it!

Well I have returned from my extended Holiday to Dubai and Spain and I am so happy to be back at work again!! (I don't think so). I have been so busy at work and catching up with things at home that I can't understand when I had the time to craft before I went away.

While I was away Claire that worked for me when I was at Barclays and her partner John had a baby boy - Aaron. He was born on New Year's Eve so he was a bit early as he was not due until last weekend. They are both doing well and I can't wait to see him. I sat down last night to make a card for them but really do not have any suitable stamps for baby boys - plenty for little girls but no boys. It was only when I was checking out some of the challenge sites that I found that Stamp Something had a challenge to make a card without using amy stamps. I had bought a few sheets of images to cut out from Panduro ages ago and have never got round to using them so I managed to make a card with some of these bits and pieces along with some wording cut on the cricut. I am really pleased with the finished card and it certainly made a change from stamping.

I had decorated the back and also the inside of the card, but unfortnuately the pic of the inside has not come out very well and I have already sent te card off. Here is the front and the back.



Today is the first real chance that I have had to catch up with my blog and the world of bloggers and I have received some lovely awards while I have been away. To the ladies concerned I just wanted to let you know that I have not deliberatly ignored you it is just that I had not realised until yesterday that you had all been so kind as to send these to me.

I will try to post a message with these awards later this afternoon or evening along with some other exciting news.

It's great to be back to my blogging world - just need the craft time now.