Winter Time Cards

Did I ever have fun making these! All the stamps I used are digitals from the Lili of the Valley Shop

For the snowman trio I used patterned papers from my stash, an assortment of dies, ribbon and stamps from various sources. I pulled out whatever would work with the images. All the colouring is done with coloured pencils.

For the next 3 cards I used the same approach, pulling out whatever I thought would work with the images. The back grounds were made using the embossing folder technique where one uses wax paper in the embossing folder and then iron card stock over the wax paper. This leaves you with a beautiful resist pattern to ink blend over. I used dye inks for blending.

I also added bits of cheesecloth on these and a few hand stitches to the one with the stocking. The colours used are right up my street and the entire process was most enjoyable. The images are so precious...

You'll find :-

The single snowman is HERE

The Rabbits in the Stocking is HERE

The Girl and Robin you can find HERE


Get them from :-  Lili of the Valley Shop

Spring Time Birthday

There is something very charming about a birthday in spring. Maybe because mine is when everything is very grey and very foggy, still...there is something about new flowers and birds singing that seems to make it a suitable time for a birthday.

I decided to use a Lili Of The Valley digital stamp for my 'spring feel' card. The one used for this card is called 'Spring'

I separated the frame from the image and also erased the leaves that come down from the top of the frame in the original image (see HERE) because I wanted to add a little dimension by including die cut and punched flowers. I copied the butterflies from the 'Summer' digi image (HERE) and added those around the figure.

The frame is popped up on foam tape for dimension and it also gave me a place to attach the banner greeting (best wishes)

A tiny bit of glitter on the butterfly wings and the headband finishes off the image coloured with Derwent water colour pencils and colour pencils. I also added tiny floral sequince and half pearls to the punched flowers at the top.

The easel card format allowed for the rest of the greeting to be displayed as well.

That pretty cool font used for the greetings is a free personal use font, called 'Pea Anna Banana'

I hope the card travels safely across the oceans...

Birthday Girl

Something about this little girl reminds me of myself when I was little. Only of course that little dress would have been the worse for wear were it on me...sitting still and staying out of trees was not my strong point.

I got the image at Lili of The Valley. At the time it was a give-away on their Facebook page. I cannot locate it on the website though, so maybe it is no longer available, but there is still loads of others to choose from (and at this posting all are on sale)

I coloured the image using coloured pencils, using colours to match the designer paper (from an old Provocraft pad)

I die cut a little doily for the sentiment and popped it up with a bit of foam tape to give the easel something to kick against.The die is from an Art-C set Doilies and Lace, that I picked up from my local Michaels

And finally a bit of glitter in a few places to make this festive for my little friend on her birthday.

Looking at the close-up I see that it would be good to just retrace those lines on the facial features a bit, so they will be solid black once more, and the card is ready to go in the mail!

Thank You Thank You !

I get so excited when I pull a parcel out of the mail box. Especially if it is a surprise from a friend! ( I mean getting something you ordered is very nice too, but you know what I mean, right?)

Just before Christmas I got such a fab surprise in my mail box and decided to send my friend a 'proper' thank you.

While I was making one...I figured I'd make an extra. Besides I had such a hard time deciding on just one set of colours!

I used the (free) 'Awwww Thanks!' digital stamp from Tiddly Inks. It is such a cute image, and just right for my friend, who loves flowers!

The idea of the split papers/back ground came from Therese over at 'Lost In Paper' I thought her Penny Black Cat just adorable.

For my cards I changed it up just a bit, but kept the basic idea. I also printed the strip of repeated 'thank you' words onto the card bases. The thank you banners and images were all printed at the same time. For the 'bluish' image I traced over the lines again with black pen. I decided to leave the other image in the printed 'grey' lines. In the end I like both versions equally. That does NOT help me to know what to do next time though...to trace or not to trace. Sigh...

The images were coloured with water colour pencils and I cut the hair to make 'clumps' which I can manipulate just a little to add dimension. The girls as well as the bottom embossed panels are popped up with foam tape. Adding the sentiment banner with a stapler also allowed me to curve it to add interest.

I'm entering these cards into the current "Thank You" challenge (#174) over at Tiddly Inks. Come on over, take a look and join in!

Choose a Different Colour!

If only that was all there is to it right? But often that works wonders and is mostly worth the try! (I'm referring to the sentiment on the inside of this card)

 I used a digital stamp/image by Tiddly Inks (love that name!) called 'Annie's Art' for my card. (it is still free at the time of posting this...)

What I like about digi images is the ability to re-size at will, to suit a project. I think that is a big plus. I also like to colour with coloured pencils, so it works just fine with my ink jet printer. For this image though, I was going to do 'no line' colouring, but then did not like how it turned out, so I outlined with black anyway. Most of the colouring here was done using Inktense pencils.

And the inside of the card - with the sentiment I referred to at the beginning.

The sentiment is by Inkadinkado and is called  Friendly Advice. These make me smile...I got mine at my local Michaels store.

Here is another look at the Tiddly Inks image. The black pen was more juicy that I realized....oooops! But then again, it isn't nearly as obvious in real life, unless you take a magnifying glass to it!

I'm entering this card into Challenge #167 over at the Tiddly Inks Blog. The challenge is to feature 'kraft'. Easy for me, I love kraft card stock!