Just Christmas and Birthday Cards - Week #4

These are my first cards as a DT member on "Just Christmas and Birthday Cards" :)

For this coming week - challenge #4 - my assignment was to do a birthday card, but I couldn't help it and did a Christmas one too.

Here's the Birthday card:

The lovely Bella is one of the stamp prints I received as a RAK from Melissa - Thank you! :)

I was in the mood for some bright colours and was also eager to use the "rainbow" paper I have from my dear friend Sue [I keep telling her she should start blogging, her parchment cards are to die for - she's such a master of that technique]. I only used a corner of the A4 sheet of paper and picked the pinky one. The rainbow goes diagonally on the sheet so unless I make a size A4 card :) I will never be able to show it all at once.

Sorry about the giftbox and the upper left flower, I coloured them with a pink metallic/glitter marker and it shows as white in the photo. :(

The sentiment(s) are clear stamps from Studio G and the dotted paper is a free download.
The flowers I've punched from the dotted paper and then added a punched circle and a sequin flower in the middle.

Now the Christmas Card - following the same sketch [which you'll get to see tomorrow when the new challenge is posted :D]

A very easy one - a bit of DP from Dovecraft, some silver and green cardstock, red handmade paper with silver prints, three ribbons, two brads, 4 gems and a peel-off sentiment. :)
The image is a Cuttlebug embossed 'village scene' (my friend got herself the CB a month ago and sent me a big bunch of cardstock embossed in various patterns - lucky me!) which I coloured a bit with watercolours and added glitter glue for the snow.

Thank you so much everybody for all the sweet and kind and encouraging comments. I feel so blessed to have your support.

Have a great week ahead!

Awesome Awards

More catching up from last week...

Two wonderful ladies have honoured me with an award each. :)

Donalda, a lady I admire a lot and love her creativity and cheerful view on things, has awarded me with:

It was such a huge surprise to see my name on her list and I am very grateful and totally thrilled.

THANK YOU so much, Donalda!

The rules of this award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on their blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you’ve nominated.

A few days ago I was sorry I couldn't give an(other) award to more than 6 people, because I love so many blogs out there and every two days I find a new one to love. :)

For now, I am sending this award to:

Janette

Alina

Dawn

Inger

Laura

Adele

Claire

Hope they will enjoy it as much as I did. :)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The second award I received from Linda - I love her work!
So funny.... I didn't even know she knows I exist in blog-land

But life is full of surprises and starting next week I'll be colleagues with her on "Just Christmas and Birthday Cards" - well, I guess she's sort of my boss now... [wink, wink]

THANK YOU very very much Linda!

The award is...

This award's rule says that it has to be passed on to 6 people.
I simply cannot pick anymore so I am passing on this award to
YOU, who are reading this right now. :)

Because the award speaks about Art and Creativity and Inspiration and Friends and Thank You's, it can easily apply, as far as I'm concerned, to anyone of you out there.

Please feel free to grab it and pass it on to your favourites.

I am always happy when
Friendship and Thank You!
can spread quicker than diseases.

Got myself a new job ... and 2 cards for JCABC

Phew! I thought this week will never end - I had to go to work today too. [we often work on weekends - no extra pay :( - so it's nothing special, but I was in a great mood (and a bit of a hurry) to make some cards and blog a little]
So unfortunately, I spent a lot of my Saturday in the office, at my first job.
Oh, haven't I told you? I've got myself a second job - the best I've ever had! :D



I was selected to be a DT member for Karin's new challenge blog "Just Christmas And Birthday Cards" [JCABC ? or just JCBC ;)]

I still feel like it's a gorgeous dream and I'll be soon awake finding out it wasn't for real. I mean... can you believe it? ME a member in a Design Team?! I only hope the contestants won't all run away seeing my examples - lol.

The DT has extraordinary creative and talented members (except for me, of course, but I'll try to learn as much as I can and do it quickly).

I am very very grateful to Karin and Linda for choosing me, it's such a happy moment I find no proper words to express it. THANK YOU!

Please stop by our new challenge blog and check out my mates - they all rock!
We will have a monthly prize (for the moment) and the draw will be made from those of you who played at least twice a month.
We are working hard to make it a weekly prize in the near future and if you happen to know somebody who might be interested in sponsoring our challenge with a small something we will provide a permanent link for them and you on the challenge site and on each of the DT members' personal blogs.
There is 10 of us so I'd say that's quite a nice advertisement. :)

Well, now that I've been 'promoted', this week's challenge - #3 - is my last one as a contestant. As usual, I am never able to craft over the week so I'm always posting my entries in the last day/hour.

Here's Linda's lovely sketch for Week #3:


And here are my cards...

Birthday card


Christmas card

The background papers are from Dovecraft, the B-day card's other paper is a free download from Shabby Princess and the image is a Magnolia stamp print I received as a gift from a dear friend. I coloured it with regular markers (fineliners).
The white embossed cs on the X-mas card is also a gift from a dear friend :) and so is the ribbon and the stars.
For the trees I used light green cardstock, inked with darker green over peel-offs [when you take the peel-offs off :D it leaves a "print" - I love this technique and I'll be using it more] then stamped with a flourish stamp from SU and heat embossed in Snowflake tinsel embossing powder. And then cut by hand in a free/tree shape :). Too much work for such a tiny element isn't it? But I really loved putting it all together.

Flowers, other ribbons, gems (thanks, Mel for the better term!) and peel-offs are from stash - see, I learn a new crafting word every day

for stopping by.

May you all have a fantabulous weekend!

Cardstock only ... and a bit of ribbon...

Dutch Dare Challenge #19 says to us: "Cardstock only".

I had a hard time deciding if it means absolutely no other material/embellishment or it's only about not using DP. I probably should have asked :D.

My card is cardstock only... plus some ribbon and some small embellishments. Hope it qualifies ;)


Stamps: Flourishes are from TAC, flower(s) from SU and sentiment from Whiff of Joy - Heat embossed with silver embossing powder.
Cardstock, ribbon, ribbon embellishment: Romanian :) - the white CS is silver-y in real life.
The butterfly (peel-off) and the blue rhinestones were lying around.
[By the way... How do you call those? I know them as rhinestones because that's what is written on their package]

I have to say I am really pleased with the end result - and this is a statement I make very very rarely.

Thank you for visiting!

Birthday cake, a CRAZY card and some snowflakes...

I have just finished my two cards for this week's "Just Christmas and Birthday Cards" Challenge.

We had one of Karin's sketches to follow and here it is:

First I made the Christmas card, a very simple one with a few punched snowflakes and some shiny stars and a very red ribbon. :)
The dp is from Dovecraft and the image is a Magnolia stamp print (a gift from Karin) cut out and layered with foam dots.

Now the next card - the birthday one - is the crazy one :D
One of my co-workers has her birthday on Wednesday and she knows I'll be making a card for her so she asked me to ~ I quote ~ "put everything you can on it".

So I did this "salad" trying to follow the sketch on a different format.

The background paper is gift wrapping paper and I love it 'cos it has many shades of green on it (and a lot of brightly coloured flowers which I tried to hide). For the pink strip in the middle I stamped WoJ's "Melinda's Heart" and heat embossed it with clear powder then I made a 'border' [not very visible] by cutting half circles with a small punch.
I also punched some flowers from the heat embossed piece I made and used them together with bigger paper flowers.

The piece of cake is a clear stamp from Imaginisce - Thanks, Karin! :)
I stamped it three times in two different colours, punched them out as circles, coloured them with glitter markers and layered them with foam dots. The 'base' underneath the cakes is made from a strip of cream cardstock punched with a scalloped circle and backed with another stripe of green cs.
The "Happy Birthday" is gold peel-offs.

Well, I admit I could've still added some more stuff on the card but I thought it's best to stop here. :D

Thank you for visiting and apologies for bad quality photos.

Have a great new week ahead!

This gorgeous guy is mine! :)

I can't believe how incredibly lucky I was yesterday. I have won a beautiful stamp from Toodles and Binks in a blog competition.

They were showing their new(est) reindeer stamp and asked people to guess his name, giving out a few clues. I didn't guess the exact name but was very very close and Kay was such a lady. She awarded me the prize, so very soon I will have awesome Joel in my hands.

Just have a look at him and admit he's gorgeous :) Please notice his irresistible eyes.


Adele, who's one of Toodles and Binks DT members - together with "our" :) Fran and a few other great crafters, has already used the stamp and you can admire her creation HERE.

I am so excited to have won!
Thank you for passing by and listening to my happy blabber.

Hugs to you all,
Mada

Blowing Autumn Coloured Kisses

This week's theme for the Whiff of Joy Challenge is Autumn Colours.

I was *that* close to using Willow (with her hot chocolate) again, but 3 weeks in a row seemed a tad too much - lol.
So I picked Melinda blowing kisses. She might not be the perfect "autumn" image but I think it worked. After all, we can blow kisses any time, the more the merrier :)

Here is my card for WoJ Challenge #4:


No, the poor angel is not drunk - I cut the oval wrongly and she looks like she's not steady on her feet. I was too tired to start stamping and colouring and cutting a new one so I went with it as it were, hoping you will forgive me for "crooking" a lovely Guardian Angel. :)

So...

The stamps (Melinda and sentiment) are from Whiff of Joy, papers are a free download from Shabby Princess, cardstock, ribbons, peel-offs and embellishments from around the house.

Thank you for looking and good luck with the challenge!

A great award from Karin

Thank you my friend!

Karin has kindly honoured me with this new award today.

The rules for this award are very simple:
Post the award on your blog
Pass it along to 6 (six) of your blogging friends
[and leave them a note on their blogs so they know they've been chosen :)]

It was difficult for me to pick only six and I regret I cannot pass it on to 60 (at least).

I am passing this award to:

-- Mel - her creativity is endless and so is her generosity in sharing it with us all

-- Chris - she's one of my crafting heroes :) and the stamps she designed are all awesome

-- Ruby and Britt - two very promising crafters in the budding

-- Jana - so talented and creative and a great tutorial maker

-- Valita - a wizard from Oz :) She's a Cuttlebug "addict" (and we thank her for this) and the master of punches... among many other talents

-- Curt -- this gentleman's creations are fantastic, he's an inventive and very talented crafter and photographer

Have a great day everyone!

Karin's new challenge - Christmas and Birthday Cards

A week ago, Karin opened up a new blog "Just Christmas and Birthday Cards" where she'll be posting a new sketch/layout every Monday.

We can take part in the challenge by using her sketch for making a Birthday OR Christmas card OR both. :)

There will be a monthly prize and the winner will be drawn from those who enter the challenge for more than twice each month. Not too difficult, isn't it? :)

The first sketch is this:

... but as I didn't have my glasses on when I looked at it , I saw it like this:


............................

and made this card ....


I had this cute stamp print from Karin herself (and I think it's a "Lily" by Rachelle Anne Miller) so what better use for it than to put it on a card for Karin's first challenge.

I am hoping that my card is respecting the layout (somewhat) and it's not posted too late :(

Thank you for looking and don't forget to check out the new challenge blog ;)

Willow and her chocolate ... again :) [WoJ Challenge #3]

This week's requirement for Whiff of Joy Challenge #3 is to follow Heather's sketch - this one:

It's a great layout but it gave me a bit of a headache :) My creativity is not at its brightest right now (or ever, to be perfectly honest - lol) and I noticed I am having difficulties with clever layouts - those that involve more than 2 DP rectangles and an embellishment :)

But as I am a living witness of WoJ Challenges being born I decided to never missed it and always try my best.

Here's my best for this challenge:

As usual, the papers are printed at home from free downloads available on the Internet. The ones I used are from Faith Sisters.

I cut out Willow after colouring with watercolour pencils and glitter markers (not very visible in the scanned image) and layered her with foam dots on a piece of embossed cardstock. Inked all the papers with Ancient Page - Chocolate [ to match with the Willow stamp :) ]
Used a peel-off stripe over the ribbon and rhinestones for corners and flowers' centres. A tiny punched heart to enhance the sentiment (clear stamp from Studio G mini set) - and that's about all.

The card stops at the cream/yellow border :) The rest is the cardstock I used when scanning.

Thank you for dropping by and taking a look.

Christmas experiments - Dutch Dare #18

The ladies at Dutch Dare - Card Challenges were very sweet and easy on us for Challenge #18 - all they asked was for us to make a Christmas card. I seized the opportunity and did an 'experiment' I was meaning to try for some time - heat embossing on tracing paper.

** I don't have any vellum but plenty of tracing paper around - did I ever mention that my job consists of making technical drawings? LOL. Well, nowadays I work on the computer but still have tracing paper from when I was young(er) ;) **

My card is the simplest I could make, mostly because I was trying to 'experiment' another thing too - elaborating a pattern/template to allow me to make many quick Christmas card. Using various DPs and small embellishments you can have a lot of 'different' cards in quite a short time [there's always an emergency when Christmas is at its closest :-D ]

The stamp I used, as everybody knows by now :), is Charlotte Angel from WoJ. I chose it because it has very good outline and an angel is a perfect image for Christmas.

This is my Christmas card for Dutch Dare Challenge #18


Thank you for looking and Good Luck with the challenge everyone!

Generous Ladies and great blog candies

Hurry up, hurry up! Only 2 days left to grab your chance.

It's Nikki's birthday today and she's offering some fiery dragons ;) as her birthday blog candy.

The stamps she's giving away are from High Hopes Rubber Stamps and are lovelier than lovely :)

Happy Birthday Nikki and thank you!

====================

If you want a chance to win an adorable Whiff of Joy stamp, go over to Donalda's and check out her offer.

She'll draw the lucky winner on Oct. 18th, so you have enough time till October 17th to enroll. :)

Good luck everybody and thank you Donalda!

An "Elephant" of love...

For this weeks Dutch Dare - Challenge # 17 the theme is "Wild Animals". Well, the wildest I've known is my black mutt but he wouldn't let me use him on a card :)

I have no animal stamps (yet) except for a teeny-tiny frog and it really doesn't look too wild.
So I had to go with one of the cliparts from Cuddly Buddly's "Elephant Walk" set - a massive and scary elephant which I coloured with markers.

This is my card for the challenge:


The lovely DP, chipboard frame and delicate ribbon come from a lovely lady and a dear friend who is celebrating her birthday today - Happy Birthday KARIN! :)

The flowers were made with Wings & Flowers - Embellishment making software from the Little Big Tree company. The demo version is free for all and I had a fun time playing around with it.

The sentiment inside the frame is computer made + pink holographic peel-offs.

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And here is another HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This time for Jana, a wonderful person, a soon-to-be new Mommy and a very creative crafter.

I have just found out it's her birthday too. Check out her blog for a special Birthday Blog Candy

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Thanks for checking me up :)

I sincerely apologize for being mostly AWOL and not commenting much on your blogs [I barely have time to craft for 2-3 hours over the weekend], but taking care of my Mum, my job and the housework all by myself is quite a handful. I am constantly taking little steps towards a more civilized behaviour.

Stitching for a hot chocolate :)

Hoping that I'm not too late, here is my stitched card for the Whiff of Joy Challenge #2.

It's the first time I stitched on a card so Thank You Ladies for forcing me to try something new! :)


The stitching/piercing pattern is from Tracey Miller (Fred She Said), the papers and the tag for sentiment are free downloads from Scrap Girls and Faith Sisters, the embossed grey strip is from my friend Sue (she sent me a big bunch of embossed cardstock - Yay!).
Then there's Willow :), a Studio G clear sentiment and a few paper flowers from Crafts U Love [you might want to have a look at their flowers offer ;)]

Thank you for looking and may you all have the best of weeks.

(P.S. Sorry for another bad scan but it will be a while before I can do something about my camera.)