My First DT card - Its a Girl

Hi there everyone,

yep the title says it all. I was delighted (translation excited jumping up and down accompanied by squeals of joy) to recieve an email from the lovely Makeesha to ask me to be the first guest design team member for her weekly challenges. I will be on the DT for the month of June so I will look forward to saying hello each week and hopefully hearing from you all as well!

Now I have discovered that I find colour challenges the hardest to work with - imagine how daunting it was to start off my tenure with a colour challenge. This is the colour combo that Makeesha picked this week.

I did do a fair bit of fiddling and in the end made two cards. But the one I have decided to select as my DT card is right below.

A family friend is expecting a baby in the next few weeks - so my start point was a baby card, given the involvement of Pink Passion - one for a girl. Overall its actually a fairly simple card. My main colour decision to was when possible to space the Celery between the Pink Passion and Pumpkin. I found it gave better contrast for both of them. So starting with a Pink Passion layer, I added a Celery one on top then a Whisper White that was stamped with Polka Dots to match the dotty Pumpkin DSP at the bottom. The main element is the Pink Passion elephant, dressed up with a Celery brad for its eye, glittery Pumpkin ear and a Pumpkin felt Fusion flower. To dress up the Celery ribbon below I also added a row of Pumpkin felt fusion flowers with alternating pink and Celery brads. In the process I discovered that Tombow and Crystal effects just did not want to stick the flowers down but some glue dots and sticky strip later I got that problem solved. Lots of scallops, some piercing and "Its a girl' for the flower stalk and it was all done. The inside was also just finished off simply.

Ok having seen my official card here is the second one I made for the colour challenge.

My starting point for this one was to use the most recent (at the time) Mojo Monday sketch and also to use the same layering as I did for the first. The points to note here are that I used the stripy Background sampler stamp to make the Pink Passion strips on the bottom, then using markers added in Pumpkin and Celery stripes. I got the colour effect on the largest flower, by colouring the centre with a Pumkpin marker and the edge with a Pink Passion one, then used a blender pen to pull the Pumkpin out into the Pink, I did go over after with an aquapainter and a little ink from the ink pads lids to deepen the colour. The top flower was simply rock and rolled and Dazzling Diamonds was added to the Celery flower. The opened up pink brads was accidental really, I opened one up flat just so I could see if the Pink brads were right for the card - size wise and looked and went - hmmm Ok I might keep it this way.

I want to finish today by saying a big thank you to very good friend (and now upline) Sam who kindly lent me Polka Dot, Background Sampler and Petals Pizzazz.

You can check out the brilliant creations from the other DT members here.

Karen

Amy

Renee

Cindy

Kirsty

"Its a Girl"
Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Wild About You, So Many Sayings, Polka Dot
CardStock: Pink Passion, Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White
Ink: Pink Passion, Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories: Scallop Edge punch, Wide and narrow Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon, Pumpkin Pie felt Fusion flowers, 2-way Glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds, Certainly Cerlery brads, Pink Bo Bunny brads, Mat pack and piercing tool, Glue Dots, Sticky Strip, Double sided tape, SNAIL adhesive, Dimensionals

"Thank You"
Recipe: All SU unless otherwise noted
Stamps: Petals Pizzazz, Background Sampler, Simple Wishes (retired hostess set)
CardStock: Pink Passion, Certainly Celery, and Whisper White
Ink: Pink Passion, Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie
Accessories: Certainly Celery DSP, Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes folder, Ice Rhinestone brad, large pink Bo Bunny brads, wide Certainly Celery grosgrain ribbon, 2-way Glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds, Dimensionals, Double sided tape, SNAIL adhesive, blender pen

Thank you card for winning a blog competition

Hi there,

I was lucky enough a few weeks ago to win a blog competition set by talented Aussie Linda Higgins. The aim was to guess the stamps sets used in this post. Needless to say I was delighted and very excited to find out that I had won and I waited eagerly for my prize pack to arrive from Linda. As soon as a saw something large and white sticking out of my letter box I was off up the driveway in a flash :) and its a long one! She was very generous, including stacks of lovely SU ribbon, metal edge tags, some chipboard, DSP samples and standard wheel - By the Sea which was lovely surprise. You can see it all below.

To thank Linda I made her a card, which I posted off earlier this week. The design isn't mine but one I CASEd from a very talented UK blogger - Jenny- whose blog I discovered at Christmas. Her card struck me at the time as one of the best I'd seen that used the 2009 Sale-a-bration sets. So with a few little changes here's my version for Linda.



As you can see the card is square - 12 cm x12 cm, I used Regal Rose as the base layer and then stamped that with the Paisley background in Regal Rose. The central feature, a garland of flowers (alternating Rose Red and Regal Rose with half pearl centres) surrounds the sentiment and is mounted on firstly a white cuttlebuged circle, then Rose Red scalloped circle. Both cut for me by another talented blogger and good friend, Sam, using her circle nestabilities - thanks Sam. The circle mattes are up on dimensionals as are the Regal Rose flowers. Then finally there is horizontal matte of Rose Red cuttlebuged with a Frill border pattern that is laid over a white scalloped layer - whewwww. Took a bit of work but I liked how it turned out - so thank you Jenny for the lovely design to follow. Glad you like it Linda !

Oh and I finished off the inside to match as well.



Finally here's a side shot so you can see how the various layers are up on dimensionals.





Recipe:
Stamps:Paisley, Polka Dot Punches, Simple Wishes
Card stock: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Whisper White
Ink: Regal Rose, Rose Red
Accessories: Circle nestabilites, Swiss dots and Frills border cuttlebug folders, Dimensionals, Scallop border punch, 1 3/8 circle punch, 1 1/4 circle punch, Kaiser half pearls