Birthday Scuba Diving

 International Art & Soul, a challenge which has been put together to incorporate any type of craft, paper, wood, flowers, recycling, glass - the world is your oyster :).  Come on over an join us with you artwork :)

Challenge #19
NOT SQUARE OR RECTANGLE

For many years my youngest daughter has been a rugby player amongst other sports but after many injuries she decided to stop playing, she now manages the team instead.  Giving up rugby she had to replace the many hours of training and playing with some new sports hobbies, one is downhill biking and the other is scuba diving.  I asked her the other day what sort of things she would like as themes for cards now she was growing up (she is 35 lol) and the answer was biking and scuba diving - I should have guessed but I so hoped she would say, lace, flowers, pearls etc. hahahaha.  My brain had a brain freeze with her choices and so I decided to start with a circular easel card and the theme scuba diving and let the card evolve as it went along as the more I planned it the more stuck I became.  Have to say, I am rather pleased with the outcome and I know she is going to love this one.  There is a little bit of sentimentality going on, the yellow shell bead is over 50 years old, it was from a shell bead set my Grandpa gave me when I was a wee girl, treasures so often found in old bead boxes :) :) :).  The bead at the end of the bead drop is a hand made one I brought back from Kenya where my daughter was born.

Challenges entered:-

• C.R.A.F.T. W,5E #437 Shaped Card (not square or rectangle)
• Craft Rocket Challenges M 1st Thurs #42 Birthday Or Pretty Pinks
• Cute Card Thursday W,C5 #499 Circles
• Seize The Birthday 2W  Birthday Anything Goes (W1 of 2)
• Inky Chicks 3W, 3E, cards & altered items - #89 - Anything But Square (week 2)
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Leaves Abound

IKEsWORLD

Challenge 99
Anything Goes With an optional twist Autumn

Welcome back to the IKEsWORLD challenges :)  do pop on over to IKEsWORLD to join in the challenge, it is always so much fun and  Ike produces the most amazing stamps, everything from off the wall to cute and fluffy :) :) :)

Another challenge I was a bit stuck with as I never feel comfortable working with these colours, I am a blue and purple gal hahaha.  I know so many folks love Autumn but for me it means the onset of winter with super short days and long long nights, lots of rain and wind and altogether a totally rubbish time of year weather wise so it is something I certainly don't celebrate.  I do have a good friend who loves Autumn so this card is winding its way to the USA to adorn her mantlepiece :).  Ike very kindly drew me a bunch of leaves to work with which I used both to create the collage background paper and also printed tons of leaves in a reduced size and fussy cut them to make the pile of leave which have fallen off the tree.  The background paper was designed in Photoshop and printed out with no colour, I then used my Distress Oxides to add the colour.

Rather like the outcome and throughly enjoyed all the fussy cutting of the leaves, maybe I am an oddball but I do find fussy cutting rather relaxing, maybe it is because I can have a lethal weapon (my super sharp scissors) in my hand and can snip away at my non feeling paper to relieve the pent up annoyance with society hahahaha and at least this is a legal way to relieve my frustrations hehehehe.

Ingredients:-

• image - Leaves by IKEsART
• colouring medium - Distress Oxides and Promarkers
• other items - Sheena Douglas 6dies

I am entering this project into the following challenges:-

• Crafty Sentiment Designs W, 1E, SIO - Halloween / Fall
• Deep Ocean Challenge 2W - #165 - Colors of Autumn (week 2)
• Always Fun Challenges - W, E3, Top 3 awarded - #27 LOTS OF LAYERS
• Ooh La La Creations - 2W, SIO - #239 DIE CUTS  (Week 1)
• Dare 2B Artzy Challenges - M, 1st Sunday, E3 - (October) Fall Colors
• Dragonfly Dreams - M, Winner + Top Picks – (October) Fully Loaded / "Busy" Cards
• Glitter n Sparkle - W, F - #260 Fall/Autumn
• Allsorts  W,3E - #436 - Trees and Leaves
• Brown Sugar – W, E2 - No. 271 - Orange, Brown and Green
• Pattie's Creations - M, 2E, SIO, include an image –  October No. 139 - Shades of Autumn
• That's Crafty! Challenge Blog - 2W, E3, Prize only for UK residents, Top 3 open to all -  Forever Autumn  (W2 of 2)
• The Crafty Addicts M, 3E, #41 - Anything Goes Autumn Colors

green rose

 International Art & Soul, a challenge which has been put together to incorporate any type of craft, paper, wood, flowers, recycling, glass - the world is your oyster :).  Come on over an join us with you artwork :)

Challenge #18
MONOCHROMATIC

Something a little different for a change.  So often when I do monochromatic I head for a beautiful digi to colour and indulge in hours of colouring with only a few shades of one colour, I find that totally therapeutic lol.  Don't ask why I deviated this time, I have no idea but here you go a card with just stamping and die cutting.  At least this one will fit in an envelope and travel through the post safely, that makes a change for me :)

Challenges entered:-

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Jay is 8

IKEsWORLD

Challenge 98
Anything Goes With an optional twist Food, Sci fi.

Welcome back to the IKEsWORLD challenges :)  do pop on over to IKEsWORLD to join in the challenge, it is always so much fun and  Ike produces the most amazing stamps, everything from off the wall to cute and fluffy :) :) :)

My grandson is growing up fast and will be 8 on his next birthday.  He is football crazy so I asked Ike to draw me a football birthday cake for this challenge which I have coloured in his club football colours - fingers crossed he likes this rather grown up card :) :) :) and a huge thank you Ike for doing this for me :).

Ingredients:-

• image - Football Cake
• colouring medium - polychromos pencils
• other items - sticky back felt, Crafters Companion hexagon die, birthday stamp and letters

I am entering this project into the following challenges:-

• Use Your Stuff - W,  #281 OLD AND NEW - Old sticky back felt, new hexagon craft die
• Dragonfly Journeys - 2W, E5 - Hexagons (W2 of 2)
• Glitter n Sparkle - W, F - #258 Happy Birthday
• Sisterhood of the Snarky Stampers 2W, C10 L is for Lost and Found (W2 of 2) - The green sticky back felt is another item I bought ages ago and put away which was found when I was packing my craft room for my move back to the UK
• Crafty Catz - W, 3E – No. 385 - Birthday
• Just Add Ink – W, - No.376 - Just Add Texture

Cropped Pansy

With a wonderful couple of days at home and no major items that need dealing with I can indulge in craft room time with no guilt hahaha.

The current challenge over at Aurora Wings is 'Crop It', a fun and interesting challenge that makes you think a bit more than you would expect.  I started with a totally different idea and after 4 hours of colouring etc. I ruined the work when die cutting it grrrrrrr, only place for that was the bin and a good hour or two of sulking before I went back to try again with a different image, so unplanned other than the area of the image I wanted to use :) :)

This is the area of the image 'Pansy' showing the section I cropped to use.

The image was coloured with Polychromos and the background Pan Pastels.  A bit of clear embossing in the opposite corner to the coloured image added texture and an area of interest that did not distract from the image.  The sentiment is from Crafters Companion.

Challenges entered :-

• Aurora Wings - Crop It
• Allsorts  W,3E - Things with Wings
• Scrap and Craft Inspiration M, 1st Saturday - Autumnal Colours
• Just Add Ink – W, - No.376 - Just Add Texture
• That's Crafty! Challenge Blog - 2W, E3, Prize only for UK residents, Top 3 open to all -  Fly Away (W2 of 2)
• Paper Play Sketches - W, #51 - Color Inspiration*

Dufex and Angelina Fibre

Lost and found, yep I seem to have a lot of that going on at the moment.  For the past few years I have had two craft rooms (well 1 main one in Saudi and one with basic supplies here in the UK).  Now hubby has retired and we have returned to soggy England my two craft rooms are united and have become 1.  I am still finding things I bought ages ago and tucked away here in the UK ready for our return hahaha.

One of the items found was a box with Dufex decoupage sheets in so one of the sheets saw the light of day for this card.  The other item which was in Saudi with me for many years but not used as it was to precious, I had tucked it away and then forgot about it until I packed up my craft room lol was Hot Fix Angelina Fibre where you pulled the fibres into the shape you wanted and then ironed.  I decided to cover the whole card in 2 shades of Angelina Fibre, a dark blue and a copper.  They were so shiny in the packets but when I ironed them they seemed to take on a matt look.  Think this was my fault as I did not have any parchment paper to iron the strands between so used some other non-stick cooking stuff and I suspect it had a wax finish to it.  Oh well live and learn.  With the scraps of the fibre that were left over after trimming the card blank, instead of throwing away I added them as a backing layer behind the decoupaged image.  The Christmas Wishes sentiment is from Tim Holtz dies and this was cut 4 time with each layer mounted one of top of the other to make them really stand out and give an almost chipboard feel.

Challenges entered :-

• Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - Lost and Found ( Dufex decoupage sheet and Angelina Hot Fix Fibre) 
• Allsorts  W,3E - Things with Wings
• The Merry Christmas Challenge - W, Christmas Only, #35 - Anything Goes Christmas
• Aud Sentiments Challenge 2W,E5  #189 Use A Two Word Sentiment (W1 of 2)
• The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge - 2W, C15, E3 - #15 - Anything Christmas Goes (Week 1)

Belly Button

 International Art & Soul, a challenge which has been put together to incorporate any type of craft, paper, wood, flowers, recycling, glass - the world is your oyster :).  Come on over an join us with you artwork :)

Challenge #17
A SPECIAL DAY

A fun card from me this time using digi called BUGABOO - stella belly button.  My eldest daughter needed a birthday card from a friend and this friend had decided the other day to go out without a bra on!!!!!!!  A lot of giggles between my daughter and this friend and a comment about a belly button also came up.  How could I use any other image for her birthday card, this one was just so perfect hahahaha.

Challenges entered:-

• Bugaboo Crafty Challenge #9 
• Jo's Scrap Shack - W, 3E  - No.206 - Anything Goes with Bugaboo