A Colour Challenge at CASual Fridays!!

Good Morning everyone...

Last weeks challenge made a stunning looking gallery with some amazing colour combinations against your black base cards and this week we have three colours for you to play with in this weeks CASual Fridays challenge...

You can make any card or project you want as long as these three colours are the main focus.

This weeks generous sponsor is Stop&Scrap, they have an amazing online store stuffed full of yummy stash... go check it out :0)

Well no matter how much I tried to think otherwise, I saw these colours as perfect for a guys card so I went with a geometric design...

.... these little rectangles are the waste from the Dienamics film strip die and this is just one cool way I wanted to use them because I just love the tiled effect...... do you see a grey blue dot in the white intersections ???  You're eyes are playing tricks on you of course!!!

To keep it suitable for a guy I kept the embellishments to a minimum and no bows either... guys cards are the perfect time to make a CAS card :0)

I hope you have fun with this colour combo and I look forward to seeing how you use them.... don't forget to visit the rest of the Girl Fridays to and see how the colours inspired them too :0)

Thanks for looking 

Jenny x

Teacher Thank You Gifts

Good morning again..... well my blog posts are just like buses... nothing for days and then three come along in quick succession !!!.... and still I'm trying to find time to catch up with you!!

The school term ended yesterday so Thursday night I was beavering away in the craftroom making covered jotter pads for James's three class staff.... yep I know it's last minute, that's pretty much how life's been this week!!!

They started life as a shopping list jotter pad measuring 7x21cm and with some thick card and patterned paper I've covered them and added a loop for a pen too...

I have a photograph tutorial over at Make the Day Special blog if you would like to know how they came together.
The papers are a mixture of Lawn Fawn Brightside Collection, October Afternoon and Fancy Pants... the bold patterns and fun colours do all the talking so I kept the embellishments to a single button which is involved in the fastening mechanism :0)

James has a regular taxi driver that takes him and delivers him from school, he's got to know James so well and that makes a huge difference to his school day having a familiar face every morning and afternoon so we gave him a bottle of wine as a thank you gift and this is the tag I made to hang on the bottle.
I've used MFT dies and stamps to make all the elements for this wine tag :0)

I wondered whether it looks good to give him a bottle of wine to carry around in the car until he gets home...!! Can't help thinking it wouldn't look good to other passengers!!...Lol

 It's lovely to have Hannah back home again, James gave her a huge hug :0) She had a great time with the young children at the school in Poland and soaked up a bit of culture in the freetime they had too but she really missed her comfy bed and home cooking the most... aww bless :0)

Well I gather the warm sunshine is going to finally make an appearance so I hope you make the most of it and have a great weekend :0)

Thanks for looking today
Jenny x

A Little Black Minnie!!!

The challenges here at CASual Fridays are always great fun and... er.... well...... challenging!, and this week is no exception :0)

We are asking you to use the colour BLACK as your card base colour....

We are sponsored by Lil' inker Designs this week and the lucky winner will receive a gift card to spend in their online store...have you seen the yummy stamps and dies you could own???

I just had to try the gorgeous bow die for my card and as soon as I started to lay some fun patterned papers down on the black card this familiar character came to mind :0)

I do not own the Disney Cricut cartridge and I just love the challenge of making my own design so I started with two nestie circles for the outline which is an aperture in the front panel.
To make her face I cut the same size circle in dirty pink/flesh tone Bazzill and used oval dies to draw around to get the shape right before trimming with a craft knife. Her eyes and nose are made using various dies and punches.... her mouth,tongue and eyelashes are cut freehand with a craft knife :0)
The bow is just perfect for her with the tails left off....... much easier than tying a real one in ribbon :0)

As always, don't forget to hop over to the blog and check out the rest of the Girl Fridays cards and then join us in the players gallery...... see you there :0)

Thanks for looking

Jenny x

New Digis from Deasy Designs!!!

Hello Everyone.....

I'm in the end stages of shaking off a rotten head cold, I don't suffer from illness very often... I think that goes with having kids and being exposed to all sorts!!!... but when I do go down with something, oh boy do I suffer :0(

I was feeling more human just in time to make a card with Melania Deasy's newest Digi Stamps, I only had the energy and time to make one and it fits in nicely with Less is More this week which is to use three of anything on a one layer card ....

I always think it's more of a challenge using digi stamps on a one layer card and my techno guru isn't back from her trip yet so I fiddled around in Photoshop to create this image and even added a sentiment in word and somehow it all worked out!!!

I printed onto Linen cardstock because I fancied trying to use Prisma pencils on the texture... I quite like the effect, the sky is SU Bashful Blue applied with a brush... love that shade for skies :0)

I love the little cafe table and chairs which comes from the new Frame it set that Melania is launching this week... here are the two sets

If you pop over to the Deasy Designs blog you can see more ideas on how to use these new digis and I'm pretty sure there's a giveaway going on too :0)
These two sets work well together and I'm definitely going to be using some more of the images soon :0)

We are rather excited today as Hannah is coming home tonight.... seems like she has been away more than 2 weeks, we have only had limited contact and we've missed her loads... although I suspect James is looking forward to a suitcase full of dirty washing to get started on!!!

James's room is ready for him to move back into but we still have to find a new carpet and furniture, so not quite finished and no photos as yet :0)

It seems like I'm forever apologising for not keeping up with your crafty makes recently but I am going to catch up... honest.....who slipped life into 5th gear eh???
School finishes on Friday but whether that makes a difference or not is anyone's guess!!!

Thanks for looking today :0)

Jenny x

Sunset Strip

Good Morning...... these Fridays keep whizzing by and so do our summer months and still, we're waiting for the sunshine to return!!....... that must have been on my mind when I made this week's card for the CASual Fridays challenge :0)

This week we want to see your strips of card or patterned paper on your projects and our sponsor is Freckled Fawn, an online store that specialises in gorgeous Washi Tapes,  this weeks lucky winner will win a $25 gift card to use in the store :0)


Sunset strip pretty much sums my card up really and in case you're wondering, I had the card idea before I thought of the title :0)
I wanted to use these silver birch trees in silhouette so the sunset idea was born....

For more inspiring ideas, please hop over to the blog here, to see what the rest of the Girl Fridays have to show you :0)

I'm also entering this card into the new CASology challenge this week :0)

Thanks for stopping by

Jenny x

Dies : Savvy Stamps Die - Birch tree

The Gold Cup and a Winner!!

Hello everyone....

...I've stolen myself away from the decorating to share the card I made last night for Less is More, this week is a colour theme and I have to say I'm surprised each week when Chrissie and Mandi come up with a new colour...almost 18mths in and not one has been repeated yet!!!

So is the turn of  'GOLD' this week.... I'm not much of a metallic kind of girl but.... with the weekends sporting events and the Olympic games just round the corner I dug out this old Cutttlebug emboss and cut die to make a card that could be used for quite a few different occasions......

I'm hoping all that gold will make up for the red,white and blue ribbons.... it looked kind of bare without them and those colours cover quite a few different countries too... just as well after the weekends events :0)

The bkgd panel is embossed with a star pattern so the sentiment was gold embossed on a torn vellum strip and look no stray powder either!!.... my old embossing powder pillow just wasn't cutting the mustard so I bought one of the EK Success powder tools (see below) and it does the job brilliantly and it's refillable ...another bonus is that it smells lovely too :0)

Right the other thing I have to do this week is let you know the winner of last weeks blog candy, thank you for all your sweet comments you guys are the best....79 is pretty amazing :0)  

With trial and error I managed to copy and crop the number generator so I could paste it here... Hannah will be impressed with me for working that out !!!

.....comment 20 was Denise... Congrats!!! and with my new found knowledge of cropping print screens, I thought I'd add the comment too :0)

just email me your snail mail address Denise and I'll get the goodies in the post to you :0)

Well that's about it folks...I'm trying hard to keep up with you all this week but the room makeover is the priority before Hannah comes home again.... I'll post some pics when we're all done :0)

Thanks for stopping by

Jenny x

CASually Text Me!!

Happy Friday Everyone...

...it was great fun to look at all your creative ways to use two 

circles on your cards last week, I noted some great ideas and designs :0)

So what do we have in store for you this week at CASual Fridays???

This weeks challenge is to use text on your cards or projects and our  

sponsor is the fabby Simon Says Stamp who have kindly offered a $25 voucher

to this weeks winner and don't forget this weeks winner will guest with us in August too :0)

I've gone with the theme of newsprint as my text 

for a modern 'Congrats' style of card...

The base card is black but I've lightened the photo so you can see 

the newsprint bkgd stamped in Versamark...I love the tone on tone effect it gives.

I used a combination of dies and computer to make the sentiment and the 

newsprint bkgd is my trusty large  Hero Arts stamp.

We have Erum joining us this week as a guest designer after winning 

our June bling challenge so please hop over to the blog to check out her 

card along with the Girl Fridays inspiration too and then go and get texty with us :0)

Thanks for looking

Jenny x

The Early Bird.....

.....makes a card, it would seem :0)

At 4.30 this morning to be precise!!!

I was up early to say goodbye to Hannah when she went off to 

the airport so instead of going back to bed and not wanting to wake James

at that early hour,..... his teachers wouldn't thank me!!,

I watched the sun rise from my craft-room window 

whilst I made a card for Less is More this week :0)

It's a lucky dip week and we are to use the blog

 header as our inspiration for our cards

I'm not one for flourishes and so I went with the 

colours and a very, very loose version of the layout!!

..... okay let's just make that the colours then!!!

I love these fun retro cameras from There She Goes, in fact I made a 

pink version of this card for Hannah's birthday yesterday,

 I had an idea that it would work for LIM if I 

changed the colours and that's why it only took a short 

time to make  this morning!! The filmstrips are dienamics dies and 

they are so cute... the most exciting part are the little rounded 

corner rectangles that you are left with,

 I'm thinking of ideas how to use them already :0)

The LIM header colours also just fit nicely in with 

the Dynamic Duos challenge 

this week too, my choice being black :0)

Do you remember I said I would have a little giveaway to celebrate my birthday 

on the longest day?.....Well I have finally got round to getting it together and photographing it....

...... so I thought this should be the post to offer it on :0)

I'll use the random.org thingy sometime next week to pick someone from the comments on this 

post, you don't have to be a follower and I'll send it to any of the four corners of the earth!!

If you don't have a blog please leave an email address too.

Good luck and thanks for stopping by :0)

Jenny x

Introducing Deasy Designs Stamps

Hello ... I'm so pleased you've stopped by again this morning because I have some exciting news :0)

As you know I have been helping Melania Deasy launch her venture into the world of Digi stamps recently, along with other talented crafty friends but today sees the launch of her New Venture into clear stamps with... Deasy Designs

Melania has teamed up with Laurel Beard to bring these new stamps to the crafting market and what better way to start a launch party than with three new stamp sets and I've used two of them to make a couple of cards to show you... 

The first set is called Our Heros and is so sweet... look at all those great images, perfect for cards to send out to our Heros overseas :0)

This second set is called Floral Fusion and has a great mix of pretty flowers and 

sentiments...ideal to colour or paper piece :0)

The third set is Aero Boy which you may have seen in digi form

 but is now available as clear stamps.

I'm not the only one to have a play with the new designs... hop over to the new blog and store to see more cards made from these cute stamp sets and I should also mention that three stamp sets are being given away as part of the launch party too, so you best get hopping and take a look :0)

Thanks for stopping by

Jenny x

Teenage Kicks!!

Morning Everyone....

... we have a new challenge for you at St Luke's Charity Card Challenge and its a tricky one this month!!! 

Teenage Kicks is the name of the game and yep, you guessed it.... we want to see your cards for those inbetweeners..... those too cool to be kids and definitely too hip to be adults :0)

I've made two cards this month .. .no prizes for guessing they are for a boy and a girl!! I've gone with the surf chick genre for the girls card... having been trawling this style of shop with Hannah this week I feel more than qualified to know what's in season at the moment!!
I was quite chuffed  to use this Echo Park paper for the T-shirt as it's one that wouldn't have been used any other way because of the border pattern... ideal for a T-shirt though :0)

To line the die up with the piece of the pattern I wanted, I simply cut a t-shirt from copier paper and used the aperture as a window guide and then popped the die into the space before securing with washi tape to stop it moving whilst cutting.

My second card is for a lad who loves computer games....

..... just in case you're wondering, the textured white card came like that and I've had it ages in my stash but this is my last sheet I've cut into *sigh* I just love the tiny pattern. The die and stamps are from  a Dienamics set but the HB2U is computer generated along with the sentiment inside....

Please join us this month and show us your crafting skills for teenagers cards, numbers were low last month and we'd really love you to take part and spread the word...we have a £10 gift voucher for the Ribbon Girl up for grabs to the winning entry this month

...and please donate any spare cards you can to be sold in aid of the hospice, the address to send them too is on the blog here along with the rest of the design teams cards for inspiration :0)

Thanks for your visit :0)
Jenny x


Supplies
Dies: Girly Graphic Tee and Masculine Graphic Tee die/stamp set, Cheron Stripes, Mix and Match banners - all Dienamics dies
Paper: Echo Park 'Paradise Found'
Stamps: Canvas Stripe -Hero Arts