The Library Challenge

A little while back I was delighted to have Marina from My Perfect Life and The Library Challenge guesting as the elf over at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge. I was completely bowled over when she asked me to reciprocate and be her Visiting Librarian over at The Library Challenge!

I love the whole concept of The Library Challenge; there are just so many fabulously inspiring book covers out there! As I am a real life librarian (I work in a primary school) I spend a lot of my time looking at and talking about book covers. Marina's challenge combines my two great passions.

Isn't this cover a beauty? The book itself is a very lovely story which has been made into some gorgeous films. If my memory serves me, the first version of the film was shot in black and white with the garden scenes being shot in glorious technicolour!

For my card I've picked up on the colours and also those gorgeous swirly flowers that straight away reminded me of the larger stamps in the Altenew Simple Flowers set.

I've really enjoyed being Marina's visiting librarian and can't wait to see what appears in the gallery over at The Library Challenge inspired by this cover!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge # 20 - It's a Gift!

We're another week closer to Christmas, but you guys don't care - you've got a fabulous stock of cards because you've been playing at The Christmas Kickstart Challenge! Yeh? Yeh!

It's new challenge time and let's welcome our elf for this fortnight - it's the lovely Sherri T from Sherri's Flip-Floppin' Blog!

Our theme is all about presents and those pretty packages that Santa brings:

Challenge #20 - It's a Gift!

Here's my first make for this challenge (tricky as heck to photograph). I just love this Hero Arts background stamp - so quick and easy.

Card #2 uses the same background but changes things around a little with a MFT die cut.

Again, this card was a nightmare to photograph as the light is reflecting off the embossing in a really weird manner.

As always, Rudolph has dropped by with  another Random Raffle and he's picked a delightful little gift of a prize!

One randomly drawn lucky entrant will receive this gorgeous little W Plus 9 set!

Hope you can join Sherri and myself for this fun challenge.

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers #144 - G is for Gross

I have to say that I'm a little surprised at Edna's housekeeping skills as another brilliant graphic ushers in another fun challenge over at The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers.

While I really enjoyed putting this card together using one of my favourite Katzelkraft images I don't think he's nearly gross enough for this challenge. If you're looking for seriously grossosity you really do need to check out my sistahs creations - we're talking BIG on the eeewww for this challenge!

The Christmas Kickstart Challenge #19 - Scandinavian Holiday

So, I'm sat at work today when I glance at the clock and think Challenge #19 should be posted now - then I realise that I haven't posted my cards or infact anything on my personal blog! Ooooops, epic fail!

They do say better late than never, so let's just jump right in. There's a new challenge and a new elf; I'm thrilled to be joined by the lovely Michele from I card Everyone.

I'm a huge fan of Michele's fabulous cards and knew I wanted her to be the elf for this challenge as I thought she'd have a ball with the theme... turns out I was totally right! If you do nothing else today you simply must head over and see Michele's stunning inspiration cards for this challenge.

Our Challenge for this fortnight is:

Scandinavian Holiday

My cards

I barely need an excuse to go for a red and white colour combo on a Christmas card.

It turns out that these gorgeous little images look good in multi-colours too!

Once I'd started I couldn't stop playing so here are three further cards for the challenge.

If you like these cute images from Hero Arts you'll be sad to hear that the set is long since discontinued. However, Rudolph has contacts and is giving away a Scandinavian Holiday set as his Randon Raffle Prize for this challenge! Go Rudolph, what a guy!

 

Please come and join Michele and I to play in our Scandinavian Holiday Challenge.

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge #143 - L is for Liquor

So many drinks, so little time!

It's all about drinkies for the next fortnight over at The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - so no change there then!

Yes, we want to see your liquor-related creations for this one. The sisters have fully embraced this challenge and created some fabulous inspirations cards (perhaps it's because we are soooo passionate about this subject). Our reigning queen (Good Queen Julie) has completed a fabulous trio of drink themed inspiration to get your creative wheeels turning so please head over and take a look!

I needed a masculine birthday card, so thought I'd go for black and white with a pop of colour. The background is the gorgeous MFT Wavy Colouring Book Background and the whisky glass is from Newton's Nook.

Hope you can come and join us for this fun challenge.

I'm also going to link this one to the current challenge at CASology because I hope the recipient gets a laugh outta this card... either that or I'm in big trouble.

CASology - LOL

When I spotted that the theme for the new CASology Challenge was LOL I knew I had to play along!

I think this card is more 'little chuckle' than 'laugh out loud', but I hope you like the combo of this sweet MFT pup, googly eyes and silly sentiment!

Thanks to the guys at CASology for a fun challenge and some great inspiration cards.

The Card Chain Challenge - August Reveal

I cannot believe it's a whole month since the last CCC Reveal - where did the Summer go?

For this challenge we had gorgeous colours and a fun sketch to play with.

Our themes were water, balloons and friendship plus foil and twine. I went big with the fabulous, fun colours and a rough interpretation of the sketch.

Here's the card I sent to Jane in the UK.

I finally caved and purchased the adorable Jane's Doodles Girlfriend set - I'm not meant to be rich!
I love the characters and the sweet sentiments in this set and know I'll be using it again and again.

My sender for this month was the lovely Chris in IL, USA. I just love the card she sent!

The Card Chain Challenge September sign-up is still underway for a few more days, so why not come and join our chain of fun, creativity and friendship.

Meddling with Mandalas Pt3

A few weeks ago I blogged about Carrie who has decorated her car in tribute to our mutal friend, Simon, and is fundraising in his memory. Carrie has now finished the car and is front page news in her local community magazine!

How about that for artistic endeavour! Carrie set herself an challenging fundraising total, and is now over half-way there. I'm so proud of her. In an attempt to help her with the project I decided to make and sell some cards with all proceeds going into her fundraising account.

I was wondering what colours to use for my next card when I spotted the current challenge at Addicted to CAS for PINK and PURPLE, which has to be one of my favourite colour combos ever.

So I got inky and sparkly with this little number using a MFT mandala stencil.

If you need any inspiration, please take a look at DT cards for this challenge as they are all gorgeous.
I've made quite a few cards now so will try a few local venues in the hope that they'll sell them for me.

It's back to school tomorrow so I better try and get my brain out of cardmaking gear and into work mode... It's going to be sooooooooo tricky!