Sun or Sea or Sand - CD Sunday

For this challenge, at CD Sunday, Wynn has chosen the theme of Sun or Sea or Sand. Wynn will be happy to see just one featured on your card or you could do all three as I've done LOL! The theme is well timed as here in South Wales we're having Summer! It's due to last until the middle of the week LOL!
I was flicking through Issue 165 of Quick Cards Made Easy and came across an article featuring very summery cards so decided to make one of the cards in the article. Of course I didn't have the exact products as they did so adapted the design to fit what I did have which resulted in my card looking very different to theirs!

I started with an 8 x 8 card blank and covered it in a reddish/brown card then a stripey backing paper. The Cd is a Funky Hand one called Craft The Year Away and the folder is August Holiday. Sadly Funky Hand doesn't trade anymore.
I then covered a smaller mat with the same red/brown card and another backing paper from the same Cd by Funky Hand. A circle was die cut from the middle of this layer so that the stripey layer underneath could be seen.
I then edged the circle with more of the red/brown card and put a circle of blue card in the middle of the 'hole'. The purpose of this channel was to allow the 'sun' to move around the circle but I just couldn't get it to work. And all my efforts damaged the edges of the 2 circles leaving glue residue behind. So I glued the sun and clouds over the worse bits!
In this next photo you can see the channel between the 2 circles and some of the glue smears.

I then built my little beach scene on the lower half of the circles. The waves and wavy paper were in a kit free with a craft magazine. The sand is light brown card that I put through a wood grain embossing folder. The umbrella, chairs, cocktails, sandcastle, bucket and spade are all from sets of dies cut from white card and coloured with Promarkers to match the backing papers. 

Despite the problems I had with the sun I still enjoyed making this card and love the vibrant colours. 

The challenge runs until Saturday 1st July at 1 pm. As usual don't forget you must use something from a craft Cd (not a digi download) and you must name that Cd in your blog post. If you don't the Design Team may leave comments on your blog post but you won't be eligible to win the prize on offer.

Items I've used:

Dies - Tonic Circle Layering Die Set, Tattered Lace Decorative Circles, Creative Expressions On the Beach and Underwater Accessories, Spellbinders Rainy Day.

Stamps - sentiment stamp free in Cardmaking and Paper Crafts magazine.

Promarkers (used to colour the die cut elements) - Mandarin, Buttercup, Antique Pink, Walnut, Canary and Pear Green. 

Shabby Chic - CD Sunday Challenge 4th June

I'm a week late blogging for the CD Sunday Challenge - I'm so sorry fellow teamies.
Meg has chosen Shabby Chic as her theme. I love to see shabby chic cards but have never tried to make one. This was my attempt:

I printed a backing paper onto the both sides of a piece of card using a paper from My Craft Studio - Inserts and Backgrounds Everyday CD. I then partially cut a die from the front using Tonic Topnote Trellis Base Die Set and folded half the front back on it's self. I then embellished the card using some pink jute roll from Poundland, lace and flowers from my stash. At this point I really liked this card but thought it wasn't very shabby chic so inked the edges and scuffed them with the blade of a scissors. That's when I decided this type of card wasn't for me.

I hope we have lots of entries for the challenge so I can learn how to do this style as I do like Shabby Chic cards. 

Say It With Flowers - CD Sunday

This time around it's my turn to pick the theme for the CD Sunday Challenge Blog. The design team try to come up with themes that will encourage more people to take part so I'm hoping my theme will inspire lots of you to make something (it doesn't have to be just cards) and enter the challenge. The theme I chose is 'Say It With Flowers' and I decided to make something other than a card and go over the top with the flowers!

I'm sure most people have come across one of these before - it's called a floating cup because it appears to be staying up on it's own. The secret? A bent fork LOL! Basically you glue the prong end of a fork to the saucer and then the handle end to the lip of the cup. If you go to YouTube you will find loads of tutorials showing how to do this.

First I bent the handle of the fork so it would curl into the edge of the cup and used a hot glue gun to stick them securely together. Once it was stuck I then glued the prongs of the fork to the saucer after bending them so they would fit flat on the saucer. I needed to support the weight of the cup until the glue had dried. At this point it was a little unbalanced so I rescued some small stones from the garden and glued then to the saucer. The stones and the fork handle were then covered in green paper so that if they showed through any gaps in the flowers it would look like foliage.

Next I printed papers from CD roms onto card and paper and set about die cutting lots of flowers. I've listed the Cds and dies used at the end of this post.

Once I'd made enough flowers I then glued them to the cup and saucer, overlapping some as they would if growing in real life. I then glued pearls, gems and stamens to the centres of the flowers and added some foliage. Looking through my stash of gems I found the small silver beads that were joined together. I wound it in and out of the flowers to make it look as if it was flowing through them.

People usually use a cup and saucer bought from a charity shop but I wanted a plain white set so that I could also decorate the outside of the cup with more flowers and not be dictated by the colours in the design of the cup. I bought these from the Range, I think they were about £4 - £5.

I used several Cds from Creative Crafting World - Perfect Essential Companions Disc 1 and 2, Perfect Papercrafting Companions Disc 1 and 2 and Perfect Floral Companions Disc 1. I also used a Serif digikit called Frou Frou Elegance and some Sharon Duncan and Kanban Cds but didn't make a note of the names.

There's a long list of dies I used!

Sue Wilson Camellia - Open Petals, Complete Petals and Faux Quilled Blooms.

Tonic Dies - Apple Blossom, Magnolia Flora, Gerbera Daisy, Sweet Melia, Woodland Aster and Sunburst Gazania.

Crafter's Companion dies - In Bloom, Pretty Petals, Leafy Flourish, Die'sire Itsy Bitsy Bloom, Die'sire Blossom - Fleurs and Die'sire Petal.

An X-Cut flower die, one by Memory Box and 3 that were free in craft magazines.

The theme runs until Saturday 3rd June at 1 pm. Don't forget to use something from a craft Cd - just one small flower or butterfly or sentiment counts! And remember to name the Cd you've used in your blog post. I'll pick my 3 favourite entries and the winner will receive a prize from me - Good Luck!

I'm also entering this into:

Crafty Calendar Challenge - Flowers. 

Crafty Gals Corner - Add Flowers. I made the Design team's Top Three!

Country View Challenges - Flower Power

Anything Asian - CD Sunday

Pop over to the CD Sunday blog to see if you were the lucky winner of our birthday prize!
This week the theme was chosen by Jane and she wants 'Anything Asian'. I decided to include the Giant Panda on my card which was very simply made.
I took a backing paper from Joanna Sheen's Oriental dreams Cd rom and opened it in My Craft Studio. The colour was slightly too yellow for what I wanted so I altered it to be greener - I like this colour a lot more. I glued the backing paper to an 8 by 8 card and put 3 drops of Tonic Nuvo drops in 2 of the opposite corners. I embossed a plain piece of dark green card with an embossing folder, the edges look like foliage while the middle isn't embossed.

The embossing folder came with a set of stamps and were free with Papercraft Essentials magazine. I stamped the 2 pandas onto white card and cut them out - the string on the balloon was tricky! I added a little colour to the female's hair bow and the balloon the male was carrying. I also used Glossy Accents on the balloon. The panda's were then glued to the embossed layer. Quite a quick, simple card so I decided to knit a little panda!

I'm afraid he/she turned out a little scary! I'm not the best knitter and the pattern was a bit unclear in places. Panda's don't have white around they're eyes but it would have looked really odd with 2 black patches and a black bead so I cut a circle of white felt before adding the bead. 

The challenge runs until Saturday 20th May at 1 pm. Don't forget to include an element from a craft Cd rom and to name the Cd in your blog post.

Sketch - CD Sunday

We had a great response to the CD Sunday theme for our 7th birthday - don't forget to pop over and check if you've won the great prize that was up for grabs. It was Pauline's choice of theme and her Top Three will be announced in 2 weeks time (7th May). Sadly it was Pauline's last theme as she will be withdrawing from the Design Team. She will be greatly missed. I loved her cards, always so well put together with colours that complimented each other. Good luck for the future Pauline.

This time Carol has chosen the theme and she wants you to follow her sketch:

Don't forget that as well as following the sketch you must include something from a craft Cd, no matter how small. It could be the sentiment, a flower or the main image. You must also tell us in your blog post which Cd you've used.

For my DT entry I decided to 'think outside the box' - I made a shadow box frame!

The backing paper is my item from a Cd and I used Sharon Duncan's Embossibilities Curls and Swirls. Sadly no longer available as Sharon has closed her web site.

The frame is made using a Tonic Studio die set - Shadowbox Creation Die Set. It's designed to make a box that is half the width of mine but I needed a square one to fit the sketch. So I die cut 2, chopped off the shorter sides and glued the remaining 4 long sides together.

For the flowers I used a Die'sire quilling flower die - they were a nightmare to make. They looked nothing like the photo on the packaging so I had to come up with a way around it. I chopped the die cut strips into small sections and glued 2 - 3 petals on at a time, very time consuming. I then 'hid' the ugly middles by gluing on a flat backed pearl. That's one die that won't get used very often.

The 'leaves' are cut using a Tattered Lace die from their magazine (number 28) called Lush Swirls. There were small flowers among the swirls but I hid them under my 3d flowers. It was hubby's suggestion to leave the greenery unglued from the base (other than under the flowers) and he was right. I think it adds more dimension with them curling up slightly from under the flowers.

The sentiment at the top left is a Tonic Studio stamp - Everyday Stamps which I then die cut using a Scalloped Circle die from Tonic. I then layered it onto a Scalloped Square (from Tonic) which isn't part of Carol's sketch but I'm sure she'll let me get away with it LOL!

For the flower at the bottom right I used a lace flower from Create and Craft. It originally had a large sparkly gem in the middle which didn't look right so I cut it off and glued a pearl in the centre. Again I added a scalloped square mat that wasn't part of the original sketch design.

Don't forget that the challenge closes on Saturday 6th May at 1 pm and that you must include something from a craft Cd rom.