Back to basics winners

The 2 lucky ladies are

Alex from Docrafts, and Larraine via email. If you can pm me your addies and whether you already have polychromo pencils or not please.

Thanks for playing.

Back to basics cards by email

The challenge is now finished, sadly the response here hasnt been as great as it was on the DC forum.

When hubby gets up I'll be asking him to pull a name from the hat and will announce the winners late this morning. Good luck everyone and thanks for playing.

These 2 are from Larraine and I'm really pleased to see a parchment craft card. Parch is how I started cardmaking some 14 years ago and still remains my favourite. Sadly I don't seem to have the time to devote to it often :o(

Jackie E, made this beauty.

This is one from Elke, gorgeous stamped card.

Sketch saturday challenge 44

Finally my mojo seems to be back working on all cylinders thanks to a new stamp and inspiration from Crafty Caz on UKS.

This one is for sketch saturday and I've used my first anya stamp from Funky Kits. Stamped on Bristol board with memento ink, ivory promarker skin. Various combos of rv000, rv02 & bv00 and c3, c5 & c1.

Pink card stamped with a bubble border from HOTP and a few pink gems added. Black stitched band from DCWV All Dressed Up.

Nestie and the back 2 layers of the flower were cut with scal and the cricut, the top 2 are clip punches. Leon Em punch for the leaves.

Friday Sketchers 45

Thanks to the lovely ladies at Funky Kits my new Gorjuss girls arrived just in time for this weeks Friday Sketchers challenge.

Nanas Nursery boys background paper and a couple of pieces from my scrap box. Not sure which they are but I know I've used them somewhere on here before. Nesties, embossed with ivy & birds bug folder.

Stamped on bristol board with memento ink. Promarkers, ivory, blush & cocoa. Copics, g00, bv 02 for tights and bv00 for dress.

Charisma Cards Challenge

This weeks challenge at Charisma Cardz is Favourite Things.

This is using my favourite technique, dry embossing with one of my favourite Marianne Design stencils then areas cutaway and underlayered with 2 shades of cream pearl card.

I pinched tildas tulip from the card below which I wasnt happy with.

Coloured with damium orange, dark cadmium orange, dark chrome yellow and light cadmium red f&c watercolour pencils. Paper by Brenda Pinnick. A few minature gems and a satin bow.

This is the one I didnt like. Background was made for a challenge on Docrafts using adirondack inks swirled onto linen card, over stamped with a craftwork cards flourish stamp in red stazon.

My mojo is on the blink

For the last few days it seems as the my mojo is still about but it's not working right and I havent really been happy with anything I've made.

This one is for the Truly Scrumptious challenge. Their sketch is lovely yet I've managed to make a real dogs dinner of it :o(

DCWV nanas nursery papers again (I love them lol), sage bazzil, pink ribbon and a paper doily that I've cut into.

Tingla is coloured with rv02, r02, r22, c03 copics with meadow green and spice promarkers on bristol board with some stickles on her wings. Papermania red pearls to finish.

Sketch saturday challenge 43

I've taken huge liberties with this weeks Sketch Saturday challenge and I'm none too sure about the finished result.

Papers are from DCWV nanas nursery, boys paper and I've cut them with scal & the cricut.

Tilda is coloured with leaf & juniper green with cadmium orange & deep cobalt green stockings. Hair is burnt umber & walnut. Ribbon wrapped over a square of orange card to create a frame with a few pearls added.

Charisma Cards Challenge

This one's using a sketch from this weeks Charisma Cardz Challenge. Bit orange for my taste but sis will love it.

Tilda is coloured with rose carmine & light green with dark naples ochre, burnt ochre and van dyke brown hair. The flowers are cadmium orange, dark cadmium orange and dark chrome yellow f&c watercolour pencils.

DCWV nanas nursery, girls, paper with nothing more than a cuttlebug border folder, some ribbon & 3 gem butterflies.

Only just made it

in time for this weeks Sketch Saturday.

Nanas nursery, girl, papers with some green paper from a mini deco book. Crafts Too, grass border punch, my own nested shape cut with scal & the cricut.

Tilda is coloured with rose carmine and leaf green with dark naples ochre, brown ochre & van dyke brown hair. The tulips are dark chrome yellow, cadmium orange & dark cadmium orange, juniper green leaves. Forever flowers blossoms & a pb sentiment.

why I dont use freebie papers

This is for friday sketchers and will be stripped down and recycled within a few hours. A classic example of why I don't use magazine papers. Sketch is fab, love the flower and tilda is sweet but this freebie paper just hasnt taken the bookbinding or stick glue very well and looks dirty.

Tilda is coloured with light magenta, violet, burnt umber, walnut, phtalo blue with middle purple pink and juniper for the tulips. Forever flowers blossom and Leone Em leaf sprays. The nested shape is my own and cut with scal & the cricut.

Back to basics for Friday Sketchers

Here's my back to basics card using a sketch from Friday Sketchers challenge.

Roses paper is the back of a white linen scrap. Bright yellow adirondack ink brushed on with a large soft stencil brush, roses (rose madder) & bees (damson plum) from the stamp club stamped in Nick Bantock inks. Then the same rose madder applied with a water brush to the rose petals. I deliberately used a water based adirondack for the base colour so the pink & yellow would merge together. The marbly background for Tilda is made

with the same inks as before but stippled & swirled on to more scrap linen card.

3 crocheted flowers (tassle silk on a 2.5mm hook) with haberdashery trim gem centres.

Tilda on water colour paper, rose carmine for her dress, alizarin crimson roses, naples ochre yellow with brunt umber for her hair and earth green yellowish boots using f&c pencils.
A hero arts swirl in a lilac fresco chalk ink pad in 2 corners and a pink organza bow.

Thought it might take longer to make seeing as I was having to make the papers but in truth I saved time as I wasnt hmming & hahhing over which papers would work together.

If you've come here from a link please check out the main page to see the challenge I have running.

Colour charts

I spent a bit of money at the NEC yesterday buying my first copic ciaos, oops lol and decided I wanted a colour chart so here we go.

Admittedly I havent played with them yet other than to mark off the colours I have but I'm happy enough with the quality of the ciaos. Maybe when I have to buy sketch to get the colour I want I might change my mind but seeing as I have so many artist grade pencils I can't really justify the extra cost.

First pic is for Ciaos then I made another for the more expensive sketch pens.

And lastly one for promarkers. These were the first I bought and although I liked them enough to want to get copics (wanted more lighter shades than seem available for promarkers) I think I prefer the copics. Promarkers have more of a hard old fashioned felt tip style nib whereas the ciaos have a springy brush nib. As to actual results I can't see there's any difference and will mix & match as needed.

Copic pen blog candy alert

Charmed Cards have an amzing set of copics up for grabs as blog candy. But you can't enter cuz I want 'em, ok you can enter really ;o) lol.

Back to basics Challenge.

I've been making cards for over 13 years now and since the start there's been massive changes in techniques & styles but the biggest change is the variety of stash. Thankfully gone are the days when asking for a punch would get you a black eye, a 3dable bit of wrapping paper was really exciting and you had to eat mint areos to get some green foil. With the advent of the tv shopping channels cardmaking started to become more accessable with more & more kits being produced. Often now we see forums filled with complaints or questions about whether preprinted, precut, just stick together is true card craft.

Blogland is slightly different with many tending to be scrapbook style charachter stamping, vintage or Tim Holtz' whacky art yet we still see magazines filled with stick together projects and little of real techniques, so I decided to see who'd be up for a back to basics challenge on the Docrafts forum. Several people think it's going to be fun going back to basics so I'm going to spend the weekend ironing out the details via a trip to the NEC and will post the challenge here and there on Monday with some nice goodies up for grabs. Be warned though... no preprinted craft papers or diecutters will be allowed!!!!!!!!!

Whiff Of Joy Challenge 21

Sadly I didn't have time to last weeks Lavender & lace challenge on Whiff Of Joy challenge blog, so to make up for it I've done this weeks sketch in lavender.

I used a mixture of mauve, violet & delft blue with juniper green and naples yellow with burn umber f& c watercolour pencils for her hair. Stamped on watercolour paper, trimmed then mounted on Bristol board.

Papers are from the Clare Curd range for docrafts and the green floral paper a really really old sheet from Karen Neuburger, Paper Adventures. Flowers drawn in psp and cut on the cricut before being given a thick coat of glamour dust, punched leaves and a couple of gems from a haberdashery shop.

Circles to oval

This is with the same Joy stencil that I made the poppy card with a few days ago. This time on the back of the cream card I marked a line in each corner at 45 degrees then used that as a placement guide for the circular stencil. Once embossed, cut & embroidered with a rayon madeira thread I matted on some gold mirri (sorry red tshirt is reflecting in the photo) and used scal & the cricut to cut a proportioned oval on the same gold & cream card. Just a simple 3d from Marianne Design with a space left for a sentiment.

More samples

It's been a very hectic week here. Hubby turned 50 and we had a 50s themed party for him. Seemed a good idea when we arranged it then we looked at the cost of buying proper jive net underskirts... £42 each. Ok for just 1 but I have 2 daughters that wanted them as well. I ended up making all 3 as well as the overskirts, the stuff of nightmares and something I'll never ever ever do again!! Fantastic night was had by most, thanks to the amazing DJ, Mr Leon Oddsocks who was using original vinyl and had most peeps bopping away. Thankfully hubby set the camera up badly so there's no incriminating evidence.

Thankfully it's all over now and I've had a couple of days to play with some Joy stencils for Art Of Craft.

This one is with some mottled paper from a Papercraft 4 You pad. Sadly it's my last sheet :o( but I've made sooo many cards with it. The fushia is from a Marianne Design paper and I've added pink pearls to match the pink gutterman thread.










Same paper and another Marianne 3d but I've used the stencil to create a shaped card instead of a border. Shh, dont tell anyone but that's because I didn't measure while making the 2nd corner and it isn't quite square so I couldnt use it as a frame lol.

The same stencil but this is the other side and I used it to create borders. The stamps are a Clare Curd clear set by Docrafts. Always handy to have some blokeish stamps in the house. I've stamped with versafine, heat set then coloured with promarkers. The red glove is in hubbies honour, doesnt matter what colour he's wearing his golf glove always clashes ;o)

Paper is from DCWV, Nanas Nursery, boys. I rarely if ever make baby/toddler cards but fell in love with the colours.

Finally a very simple but took ages to sew frame. Another of Marianne Designs 3ds with papers from Nanas Nursery, girls. I used the cricut & scal to cut the mat, added some gems, a ribbon and a few peel off corners.

Tilda bookmark

Dang I let daughter in law have my bags of odd wool and I know there was some hairy lilac, blue and pink that would have been perfect for this. Must nab some back when I see her ;o)

Designed in psp, cut with scal. Background made with nick bantock inks & a stencil brush. Craftwork cards flourish stamp in plum versamark. Tilda coloured on bristol board with indianthrene blue, delft blue and violet f&c watercolour pencils. Stickles and loads of gems that I wouldn't normally put on but the card it will go on is for a girlie who loves her bling.

Here's the template I made in PSP, feel free to use it but please share the link with your friends instead of the jpg. If anyone wants the svg file just email me.