Experimenting...

I decided to try a little experimental colouring yesterday and this is the result. I struggle with darker colours and would really welcome any tips, hints or recommendations for colouring tutorials you guys can offer. Improving my colouring technique is currently top of my card making 'to do' list. I'm considering changing to Copics from Promarkers to see if I can achieve better results... Or is this just a poor work-woman blaming her tools???

I love this image from Stamping Bella, called Hayley the Hero, which I bought from my favourite online shop. I just can't get me enough Bellas at the moment!

 Have a happy Saturday, people!

Anything goes!

I've been on the count down to the school holidays all week and according to my calculations there's only one more day to go! I have so much crafting planned over the summer that I'm nearly as excited about breaking-up as the children.

Isn't this just the sweetest image from Stamping Bella? She's one of the Tiny Townies collection and is called Blossom Loves Balloons. Just for a change I picked my patterned paper before colouring my image. Note to self: do this more often as it's very sensible and gives a more pleasing end result!

I'm linking-up with the Seize the Birthday girls again as they have another 'Anything Goes' birthday themed challenge on offer. Once again the DT cards are fabulous as they are one talented group of ladies.

Just before I go I'll share this link to the amazing musical Barnum which I saw yesterday. We took our school choir members to the matinee performance at Birmingham Hippodrome and had a fabulous time. Brian Conley and Linzi Hateley were brilliant and the acrobatics, singing, costumes and stage craft were simply breathtaking. The children were spellbound and I felt so proud to be with them as their behaviour was impeccable. If you get the chance to see the show as it tours the UK please do so as it's one of the best I've ever seen.

Seeing Stars...

Hi everyone, we're now half-way through our current challenge over at Naughty Or Nice which is 'Seeing Stars'. To play along all you need to do is include a star or a bunch of stars on your project.

As you know from my previous post I missed the start of this challenge due to life throwing a few curve balls in my direction. However, I decided to finish my card which you can now see over on the NON blog. The Troublemakers have once again created some fabulous, fun inspiration to get you started. You'll also see two stunning cards from previous NON challenge winner LesLee Stone Rasmus who joins us as guest DT member for July. By a strange quirk of card making fate LesLee was my Card Chain Challenge sender for July so I'm doubly glad to see her appear as our guest this month.

I thought this Kraftin' Kimmie stamp (Marilyn) was just perfect for the current theme and decided to ramp-things-up and make my first shaker card!

I enjoyed the additional challenge and will definitely make further shaker cards. As always happens when creating something for the first time, I've learnt a few things to do differently on future projects. However, one thing I won't change is to use fun foam for one of the internal layers as I'm very pleased with the tidy look this gives the finished card. I covered Marilyn's dress and shoes with more Wink of Stella than you can shake a Wink of Stella Pen at and it twinkles beautifully. The sentiment comes with the Marilyn image and is one I fully endorse as someone who works in education.

And check out the gorgeous sequins! No prizes for guessing they come from Lucy's Sequin Shaker Selections which you can buy over at Simon Says Stamp or from Lucy's Folksy shop. I mixed sequins from Glacier and Caribbean Dream for this card. You get plenty of sequins and sparkly stuff in each bag and the choice of colours is lovely.

There's still plenty of time to play along with our star spangled challenge and we already have some great 'nice' cards linked-up but if you wanted to be a little naughty we would love to see what you can come up with!

Happy crafting!

House of Cards - July Challenge

Hi everyone, just take a look at my shiny new badge!

Yes, I'm proud to announce that I am now a House of Cards DT member. Sadly, I haven't covered myself in glory with my new role thus far as I missed the posting deadline for the July Challenge. This was due to a whole bunch of things happening during the last fortnight which I could have done without! Nearly loosing this little guy

has to be the worst but the attempted car-jacking wasn't great either. Thankfully Mynn and the team (and my adorable Naughty Or Nice buddies) have been very understanding. So, without further ado here I go with my latest crafting adventure...

The July Challenge for House of Cards is to create a card with a food theme and/or using the colours in this totally yummy inspiration picture. Strawberries and mango... a real taste of summer don't you agree?

I decided to break out my brand new Stamping Bella stamp and get colouring with Promarkers and pencils. I just can't get enough of these pretty stamps right now.

I'd planned to include a 'Happy birthday' or 'Seize the cake' but after trying a whole bunch of different sentiment stamps I finally opted to leave this card sentiment-free.

When I played along with the previous HOC Challenge I was blown away by the range of different styles and techniques on offer over at HOC HQ. This month is no different, so why not head on over and check out the creations of this oh, so talented crew!

June Card Chain Challenge

Hi everyone, this is a super-quick post to share the total gorgeousness that is the June Card Chain Challenge reveal.

I felt very pleased and privileged to be sending this little card to Queen of the Card Chain Challenge: Deborah. Deborah works so hard to pull together all of the fun and friendship that is the CCC, so it was good to say an extra special 'thank you' to her. This month I used Deborah's pretty colour palette to combine with the theme of friendship.

I also added this card for Deborah's daughter, Gigi. The lovely Gigi pirouetted her way to a broken leg a few weeks ago so I wanted to send her some get well wishes.

To see all the other cards in the chain go here... Its a truly FABULOUS reveal this month!