Last CR84FN

I am saddened to hear that Mona is hosting her last CR84FN challenge. This challenge has a special place on my blog as I got Terrific Top Three for a card I submitted last year in CR84FN49 and it prompted me to start a blog. Now, 10 months later, I have submitted over 100 cards last year in challenges and publication calls. So, I've made a special effort to get a card submitted in time. I decided to use Sweet Sunday Sketch 176 with the colours for the CR84FN70 challenge, along with my newest stamps. I'm also submitting this card to Moxie Fab World's Make a Background challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Herocontest on Splitcoast.
I've just heard on Twitter that USPS will be increasing their international rates by 60% and it will take effect late February. This is not good news and it will mean that it will take us longer to get the newly released stamps! So I'm not too happy and will be placing some orders soon to beat the increase!

Ingredients:

Cardstock - Neenah Solar White and Dessert Storm

Stamps - PTI Lovely Layers, Hero Arts Tweed Background, SSS Sentiment

Ink - Hero Arts Mid Tone Inks - Pool, Wet Cement and Butter Bar, Tim Holtz Broken China

Dies - SSS Banner, MFT Dienamics Flags STAX

Others - Twine and brad

Sweet Christmas Sketch

My 99th blog post and 16th Christmas card - nearly there! I'm reserving my 100th post for the Hero Arts 24 hour scramble this weekend. Come and join in the fun - a 90 minute scramble every 2 hours for 24 hours! I will be hosting one at 7:30pm AEST (2:30am CST) this Saturday. Anyway onto my card. I haven't done a Sweet Sunday sketch for quite a while now and I quite liked this one, so I decided to submit a card. The stamp was part part of a freebie when ordering stamps or dies from MFT last month, I've had fun with some of these sentiments. I've stamped the sentiment on red paper with Versamark and clear embossed it before coating the paper with Viva Precious Metal. I'd also used this technique on another card done recently. The Snowflake was die cut from silver card and plain card with JAC paper on top. The crystal glitter was then sprinkled on top and burnished onto the snowflakes - I love this technique and have done all my snowflakes and edges this way! The background paper was embellished with stickles, silver gel pen and red rhinestones. Here's my card with the sketch below it:

Ingredients:

Cardstock - Neenah Solar White, Silver metallic

Paper - Basic Grey Aspen Frost

Stamp - MFT Christmas Sentiments

Ink - Versamark

EP - Clear and Clear Crystals

Die - MFT DieNamics Fishtail STAX, MFT Snowflakes

Others - Viva Precious Metal, Stickles, Silver Gel pen, Kaisercraft rhinestones, Rhinestone brad

Sweet Birthday

Back again with another card using the Sweet Sunday Sketch 157 and the colours of the Hero Arts May challenge - Pool, Green, Yellow, Orange and Chocolate. I also wanted to try using sentiments as a background for the current Topsy Turvy challenge for A Blog Named Hero.

I kept the background plain as I wanted the main stamping to be the hero of the card. I white embossed a series of sentiments and then overstamped with all the colours of the the HA May challenge. I initially tried to do velveteen stamping, but the effect was not as good. At the end I was quite happy with the result! It is so good to challenge myself and go out of my comfort zone!!

Challenges:
Sweet Sunday Sketch 157
Hero Arts May Colours Challenge
A Blog Named Hero - Topsy Turvy
Simon Says Stamp - Happy Birthday
Ingredients:
Card - Via Vellum Kraft, white card for stamping
Paper - Basic Grey Picadilly and Life of the Party
Stamps - HA CL272 All Occasion Messages, CL519 Many Dots
Inks - Versamark Watermark, HA Cup O'Joe, Pool, Butter Bar, Green Hills, TH Gathered Twigs
Others - HA Hero Hues Dots, White embossing powder

Easter weekend cards

Ah, so nice to have a nice long weekend at Easter. Even though we had a pretty busy weekend catching up with family and friends, I managed to squeeze in some time to make some cards. I came across a very interesting blog page about Runway inspired cards and was keen to participate in the current challenge.
I used a white card as a background and a cream coloured card as a mat (although my photo may not show up the colours correctly). The paper is from Kaisercraft Sweet Nothings and it is so pretty I wanted to show off as much as I could without detracting from it. A vellum butterfly embossed in white and a sheer white ribbon with roses finished off the card nicely. There was no room for a sentiment as I can use this for a birthday or wedding card. I am also entering this card into 'A Blog Named Hero' first challenge using my favouring HA butterfly stamp from Antique Flowers and Butterflies set. Voila!

The inspiration for the card comes from this runway photo:

The second card I had time to make today was inspired by Sweet Sunday Sketch 156:

I used Bo Bunny Gabrielle collection to piece together this card. I also used another one of my favourite HA dogwood stamp, a card I made with this stamp has been submitted for publishing in the Australian Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft magazine. I also used my new Martha Stewart acquisition from the Paperific Expo in both cards and topped off with some gems from Hero Hues. This card will be submitted in A Blog Name Hero - favourite HA stamp challenge and the Sweet Sunday Sketch 156 challenge. Again, I did not add a sentiment as the whole card seems too busy for one. This will be added inside the card. I am also entering both cards into the Simon Says Stamp - My Favourite Tool challenge, which is of course the good old Sizzix Big Shot, used for both cards.