Halloween Card

As the creepy time of year is almost upon us, and Polka Doodles have a spooky challenge this week, I thought I'd set to and get creating.  Their challenge is to create a card using either all or some of the images below or an element from their fabulous Sundae of Seasons CD.

Here is what I came up with:

The background and all the images were created in my graphics program and printed out onto glossy card.  The wee witch was coloured with Promarkers and cut out then layered onto the card.  I also added a touch of opaque white pen just to highlight some of the elements.

This is a close up of the witch so you can see the detail:

I had real fun creating this card!

Enjoy your weekend, bloggers and thank you for looking.

Beth. xxx

Blog Candy

To celebrate my newly acquired position on the Design Team at Crafty Cardmakers I thought I'd offer some blog candy.  I have 5, yes, 5 brand new and unused stamp sets to give away to 5 lucky winners!  All you have to do to be in with a chance to win is add your name using the linky below, place a post on your blog linking back to this blog candy post and leave me a comment.  To make it fair for everyone please follow the rules.  The blog candy offer opens at midnight on 21st October and closes at midnight on 5th November.  The winners will be drawn at random on 6th November, 2011.  The prize you win will also be chosen at random, so please do not specify which stamp set you want.

So, without further ado, here's what you could win:

Stamp set 1

Stamp set 2

Stamp set 3

Stamp set 4

Stamp set 5

Please also pay a visit to the Crafty Cardmakers blog as they are responsible for me giving away this candy!  You might also like to join in their current challenge.  You never know, you could win something there too :-)

Thank you for joining in and good luck everyone!

Beth. xxx

Birthday Card

I've been off work sick for a few days and suddenly remembered that I need a birthday card for a colleague on Monday.  I was going to use this card for something else, but decided to send it to her instead as I don't have the energy to make another one right now.  She isn't fond of fussy cards, which is just as well, as this one is quite simple and clean looking.

The card is made from papers I bought from Pink Petticoat with a simple greeting printed on my computer which I cut out using some of my nesties.  I then added a pink flower I found in my stash.

Hopefully she will like it.

Thank you for looking.

Beth. xxx

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 54 Cute with a dark twist

This is my first official post as a member of the Crafty Cardmakers design team, so fingers crossed it goes smoothly!  Our challenge this time is to create something which is cute, with a dark twist.  As it's coming up to Halloween I thought that would be a good way for me to go :-)

I chose to make a large 8" x 8" card.  The main characters are digital stamps from Polka Doodles "Sundae of Seasons" CD which I edited in my graphics program so I could print them out on top of the backing paper which I found as a freebie on the web somewhere.  I coloured the characters with promarkers and added some glitter to the spider's web, cat, sentiment and bat's wings for a little bit of bling.

I encourage you all to pay Crafty Cardmakers a visit and join in the fun.  There is a £10.00 voucher from the lovely Joanna Sheen for the winner!

Good luck everyone and have fun!

Beth. xxx

I have entered this card in the following challenges:

Digital Tuesday Challenge #133 - Happy Halloween

Simon Says - Halloween or Goth

Creative Stamp Friends Challenge #36 - Halloween

The Crazy Challenge #89 - Halloween

Dream Valley Challenges #18 - Halloween

My Lady

Good morning bloggers!  I hope you are all well on this beautifully sunny day?

There are a million things I should be doing right now, but I think I'm coming down with something so the energy levels are shot!  For that reason I thought I would showcase another of my recently done graphite drawings.  I found this particular one very, very difficult to do.  I don't like drawing people much and I find hands extremely hard, but with a lot of perseverance I finally managed to produce a drawing I am proud of.

If any of you artists out there can add any comments, hints & tips or constructive criticism, please feel free to do so.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Beth. xxx

My first sugarcraft creation!

On Saturday 1st October 2011 I attended my first ever sugarcraft class.  This is something I have wanted to try for ages, but the initial outlay for materials and equipment seemed rather steep for me to just try it out so I thought this would be a good way of seeing if a. I liked it and b. if I could actually do it!

You may recall that this particular Saturday was unseasonably hot.  As a consequence of that the sugar paste was drying out far too quickly which made it very difficult to manipulate successfully.  I felt sorry for our tutor as she was really struggling to get round us all before all our paste was drying.  However, before the day was over I managed to create this:

For a first attempt I am very proud of my Christmas rose and mistletoe.  Unfortunately the holly berries have cracked and keep dropping off!  I really enjoyed making this decoration and would love to have another go when the weather is cooler.

Thank you for looking.

Beth. xxx

Graphite Drawing of a Chaffinch

By way of a diversification from my cardmaking projects I thought I might showcase one or two of my graphite drawings.  I've wanted to be able to draw since I was small, but never really got to grips with it, however I decided to have another try in recent years.  Most of what I draw I copy from images in books or from the internet using techniques I've picked up from books and online.  This particular drawing is one of my favourites as I love chaffinches.  We often have them feeding in our garden and they are such pretty birds.  This particular image I copied from a drawing I found on the web somewhere.

I hope you like my drawing and I will post more of them soon.

Thank you for looking.

Beth. xxx

Exciting News!

I am so excited that I'm fit to bursting point!  I have been lucky enough to be chosen to be a member of the Crafty Cardmakers Design Team.  I am so honoured to be one of the gang and just hope that I can rise up to the challenge.

Thank you to Lin and all of the DT for giving me this chance.  I'm so looking forward to it.

Beth. xxx

Design Team Call at Crafty Cardmakers

There has been so much trauma in my life lately (with a chance that there could be more to come), that I had decided I couldn't possibly put myself forward for the Design Team at Crafty Cardmakers as it wouldn't be fair on either me or them if I suddenly had to drop out.  However, thinking it over, it may just be the distraction that I am looking for, if I am fortunate enough to be chosen.  If I'm not, then I may embark on a new crafty journey. I took a class today on making sugar flowers which I enjoyed enormously, despite the awful heat making all the sugar paste dry out too quickly, and I did manage to produce something which didn't resemble the dog's dinner!

Anyway, back to the DT call.  I don't really have a 'style' of card making (at least I don't think so), but I do enjoy trying new things.  My cards range from the quite elaborate and highly embellished to the very clean and simple look.

The first part of my showcase is a new card I made for a colleague at work whose wife has recently had a baby boy.  The image is a digistamp from Pink Petticoat which I coloured with Promarkers, and the papers and embellishments were from my stash.

My second card has been stamped using a Kanban clear stamp which I watercoloured using pencils mounted onto background paper from my stash and a few simple gems added to the sentiment.  It was actually sent to a friend of mine over at Craft Telly Forum as a birthday swap card.

My next card is one that I am personally very proud of.  I used the delightful Noel stamp from the lovely Barbara Gray's Clarity Stamp range.  The backing paper is from a Polka Doodles CD and the flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts.

The next card is again a digistamp coloured with Promarkers which I made recently for another birthday swap card at Craft Telly Forum.  The colours are quite different from my usual choices and I actually rather like them.

Next I want to show you a card I made totally from a Polka Doodles CD apart from the rose, which I created myself.  I adore making my own flowers and was particularly thrilled with the way this one turned out.

Finally I would like to show you my interpretation of a clean and simple card.  This is a type of card that I do find quite difficult to create.  I think it's instinctive for me to cover every bit of white space over with something (stamping, paper, glitter etc.) but you simply cannot do that and achieve the CAS look.  Anyway, this is another card I made for yet another birthday swap at Craft Telly Forum (we've had a lot of birthdays recently LOL) and I hope it shows how elegant and nice a CAS card can look.

Well, that's me done.  I'd like to thank Lin, at Crafty Cardmakers for the chance to join their Design Team, the other entrants for being brave and showing off their beautiful work and Blogger for behaving itself during this very long post!

Good luck to everyone who has entered.  Each and every one of you deserves to be a member of the Design Team.

Thank you all for looking.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Beth. xxx