GlitterAngel Art

DCM - Going Geek

It’s Lythan’s turn to set the challenge this week over at The Daring Cardmakers and this is what she’s chosen:

   I (Lythan) have a son who is 18 this week and he is a real Geek - loves computers, computer games, physics, obscure comics (mostly online), Big Bang Theory and did I mention computers? So I thought I would throw out a real challenge and see what we could come up with in terms of making cards that celebrate Geek- dom. So the dare is....

Going Geek

and as an extra reward this week there is a random prize draw

for a set of Imagine That alphabet stamps

Pop over to The Daring Cardmakers Blog for full details of the prize and what you need to do to qualify to enter the draw.

 

Here’s my card for the challenge.  I went a bit old skool geek for this one, as I’m really not very good an incorporating computer style stuff into my cards (no excuse really since my brother designs computer games *blush*).  Anyway, I remembered I had this lovely vintage style space theme paper, and I got the template for the specs from Papercrafts Magazine.  The greeting is another freebie, this time from Pumpkins and Posies (you should check out their blog, they have some gorgeous free mini-kits).  I suppose it also qualifies on another geek level in that everything I’ve used is all digi – all the papers are digital, and the specs and greeting.  I did use my Promarkers to colour the specs though :)

 

52 week challenge, week 20

Nat’s challenge this week for her 52 week challenge is the theme of Rainbows.

Pop over to her blog to see the gorgeous inspiration pics she’s chosen to give us all inspiration.  One photo in particular got me thinking – this gorgeous cake:

Source: pinterest

By coincidence, I did actually need to make a wedding card for one of the ladies from my Bromsgrove cardmaking class, and as she’s avoided a traditional theme for her invites, I thought it would be a great idea to make her wedding card to fit this theme.  I’d love a cake like this, it’s so beautiful.  Here’s my card:

And as an extra little personalised detail, I added some tags with their intitials, and more little pearls and hearts:

Thanks for a great challenge Nat, I’ve really enjoyed this one!

DCM – Tag You’re It!

It’s Gez’s turn to set the challenge this week and she’s chosen

Tag You're It!

She’d like to see a tag on your cards: large tags, small tags, focal point or embellishment - It's completely up to you how you chose to incorporate a tag into your design.
To celebrate her first Dare and also to celebrate the opening of our own Zuzana's wonderful new online store:

We are thrilled to offer a prize from this wonderfully tempting source of gorgeous goodies this week. At Tea House Bridge, you'll discover some really unusual and beautiful embellishments, including lace, resin items and most especially buttons! 

Here's what could be yours if you win

So pop over to the Daring Cardmakers blog for all the details.

Here’s my card – the gorgeous resin flower and buttons are from Tea House Bridge:

Shabby Tea Room – week #110, Beautiful Roses

It’s been lovely having a day to myself, and I’ve forced myself not to look at my work iphone to check for emails, and I’ve been far more productive than I usually am.  I really mustn’t let myself be so easily distracted!

I got my design team stuff done in time to take part in this weeks Shabby Tea Room challenge. 

The challenge was to use aqua, pink and neutrals, with this photo for inspiration:

Luckily I bought some nice aqua roses yesterday at Ally Pally!  The lovely bird stamp that I’ve embossed with white powder is from Paperchase, there’s a larger version of the same image in the set too.  So pretty.

Busy, busy

Gosh, it’s been a hectic couple of weekends.  I’ve been up in the Midlands and we’ve been having a massive de-clutter of the house as we’ve decided that with me being in London we don’t need such a big house, so we’re going to downsize.  It was a bit mad for Andy to be all on his own most of the time in such a big house, and just keeping on top of the cleaning was a huge job for him.  I’m quite shocked really at how much stuff we have as the house never seemed cluttered, yet we’ve filled my 4x4 several times over with stuff for the dump, and stuff to sell/give to charity.  Thankfully it’s all done now, and we’re looking forward to getting our new place all nice (and I’m looking forward to shopping for new house things, but don’t tell Andy that!)

I was lucky enough to get back down to London yesterday in time to whizz to the Big Stamping and Scrapbooking show at Alexandra Palace.  I only had an hour to shop before the end, but that was long enough to get quite a few of the things off my list.  I got a couple of Spellbinder die sets, some distress ink, Paperartsy fresco paints, chipboard shapes, lots of card blanks and some lovely paper roses.  Amazingly I didn’t buy any stamps.  There were lots of lovely dies (especially the Memory Box sets), but as I’ve just ordered a few sets from My Favorite Things, I didn’t get any more than the two Spellbinders sets. 

As I knew I’d be exhausted after all that, I booked today off work, so I’m having a lovely morning getting up to date with my Design Team work, and hopefully I’ll get caught up on my blog visiting today too.  Here are a few cards that I made last week, but didn’t get time to blog:

 

I love this little girl from Scrapbook Stamp Society.  You can’t tell too well from the pic, but I’ve added some glamour dust to the fish so they are nice and sparkly.  The lovely embossed background was created by inking up my embossing folder with Colorbox Chalk ink in Blush Rose before running it through my Big Shot.  I love this colour.

DCM - Wishi Washi

It’s Jo’s turn to set the challenge this week over at The Daring Cardmakers, and she’s chosen ‘Wishi Washi’.  She wants us to use Washi Tape on our cards this week.

Well, I had all intentions of buying some tape – I even saw some in Liberty’s a few weeks ago that I thought I’d pop back and get, but somehow I just didn’t and ended up with a bit of a dilema about how to make a card without any!  Luckily Jo had some ideas for how to make your own by printing onto tracing paper.  Whilst rummaging in my stash for tracing paper, I came across some vellum that had a gold music note print, and I decided to have a go with that instead of printing something.  It worked really well, and is definitely something I’d use again – it’s nice to be able to see the patterned paper underneath shining through.

It’s a shame it doesn’t show well in this pic – but the little frame around the text is actually embossed in a lovely pearly green powder called Sea Mist Pearl.  It looks much nicer than the murky brown in this pic!

Shabby Tea Room – Sparkly and Bright

This week’s challenge at the Shabby Tea Room is ‘Sparkly and Bright’.  Using this photo as inspiration, to create a card with white/cream, silver and a splash of pink.

I used a digi stamp from Scrapbook Stamp Society, coloured with Promarkers.  I stamped the background directly onto the card with Sterling Silver embossing powder, then added some Papertrey die cut borders and a chipboard flourish which I coated with some more silver embossing powder for real sparkle.

Hearts and Flowers

The latest challenge over at the Scrapbook Stamp Society Challenge blog is ‘Hearts and Flowers’.  I decided to use this lovely digi stamp called ‘my hearts just for you’.  You can buy it here.   I wanted to go for a subtle colour scheme rather than the obvious pinks and reds, and I decided to use my new ‘stitches’ stamp set from Papertrey to create a nice background on kraft card.  The little heart border is also from Papertrey – my fab friend Chris sent me a few die cuts last week, and I coloured this one in the same pink as the hearts she’s holding. 

Fly Away Hearts

Well I’m starting to get ready for Valentine’s Day.  I haven’t quite decided what to do for Andy’s card, but he absolutely loved the Papertrey border card I did recently (because it’s all straight lines and he’s even more OCD than me!), so I might do something similar in reds for him.  In the meantime, I’ve got  some gorgeous images from Scrapbook Stamp Society to play with, some of which are just perfect for Valentine’s Day:

 

Isn’t this a gorgeous image?  It’s called Fly Away Hearts.  I coloured the image with Promarkers, then I created the heart background with some white core card and a Sizzix texture plate.  I sanded the card to highlight the hearts.  The lovely ‘Smooches’ stamp is from Papertrey, and I finished off the card with some pretty pearls and bakers twine.

Vintage space theme

I was asked to make a 40th birthday card this week for a guy that likes rugby and space.  Hmm a tricky one.  After much googling of vintage rugby posters to no avail, my fab DCM teamie Zuzana found me some fantastic vintage space printables which were just perfect!

I printed off some Pink Petticoat papers from the vintage star range, and matched the blue to the one on the space paper.  I love these vintage star papers, they’re very like some of the Cath Kidston patterns I love and just ideal for this masculine vintage feel.  I cut the numbers out with a Fiskars template then added some glossy accents to make them nice and glossy.  I covered a chipboard button in the same paper then added a little tiny tag stamped in broken china.

Let’s hope he likes it!

I’ve been playing with some fabulous new images from Scrapbook Stamp Society so I’ll be back later to share some of those.

It’s been a lovely sunny but cold weekend in London, and we’ve had the best time.  Yesterday we popped to the National Gallery for a wander (and to look at the same pictures that we always do!)  My favourite is a Stubbs painting of a horse called Whistlejacket, and Andy loves to look at a set of two paintings by Edouard Vuillard.   We both also love looking at the impressionist section – I never bore of looking at those fabulous Monet’s and Van Gough’s Sunflowers.  It amazes me to stand in front of such famous and well known paintings.  It’s funny, when I first met Andy he said he hated art galleries – now I usually have to drag him out or we’d be there forever – I’ve definitely converted him!  After the gallery we went for a stroll past Downing Street and Big Ben, across the river and past the London Eye before hopping on the tube home.  Last night we went for a Thai meal at a local restaurant.  A perfect Saturday!  And now I’m having a relaxing Sunday, just crafting.  I’m so lucky :)