Challenge #38: Dragonfly!

Challenge #38 over at Crafting with Dragonflies this time is to create anything BUT a card, and incorporate in it a Dragonfly! By now you might have worked out that Hilde, our fearless leader, LOVES Dragonflies - so much so that she is offering a digi image on the blog for those who may not have one in their own stash!

This is not Hildes, but is from a freebie stamp set from a magazine - and is by Indigo Blue! All the images in my project are from this set today. My dragonfly has also been stamped with Momento Tuxedo Black twice, one fussy cut out and layered over the top, and then painted with a lovely sparkly silver from Wink of Stella!

I also used ribbon from the stash; a piece of Rich Razzleberry card from SU and some glitter!

Great sentiment eh!

Love the weedy garden patch - looks like mine! I used a Spellbinders Edge to cut the fancy design, and as I had put Jac paper behind after cutting it out,  to make securing it easier, I used the sticky service to layer up some lovely purple glitter - it looks fabulous in the light!

Can you guess what my project is? Clue: it is not a card

I have some lovely small white lunch sacks bought at the $2 shop one day - perfect to be decorated up for a gift bag!

That's it!

Time for you to go and visit the rest of the girls at Crafting with Dragonflies and to make something other than a card for your gift stash - you can make or repurpose a box, decorate an item.........your call! As long as it is not a card. 

I will enter this in the following challenge:

Unstampabelles: Final week for October

Hello Peeps!

Over on my Challenge blog Unstampabelles, we are approaching the end of the current challenge.

..TIME 

 and the twist is shabby chic!

October is being Sponsored 

by

Flourish with a Bling

who are currently having a

HUGE $2 FLOWER SALE 

for the month of OCTOBER!

I am currently knee deep in Christmas cards, trying to make as many as possible, partly to make up for the time I was inactive with my hand.  I still have a swollen, stiff, weak left hand, but it is gradually getting better and I figure crafting is doing it good!

My card therefore for DT inspiration this week is a Christmas card - shabby chic style!

Again I used a Kaiser pack of emphemera - St. Nicholas - and lots of TH distress inks!

This sentiment card mentions 'time' so that became the anchor for the rest of the card and basically I just build around it.

My background card is SU Mossy Green (distressed edges) and some pieces of 'vintage style' papers from my stash. They are torn and distressed too. Some lace and old style ribbon, and a pine cone sticker, plus the date.

St Nicholas, of course

After I took the photo's outside I decided to add some glitter to the tree, but it's raining out there now so this photo was taken inside and isn't as good, but it gives you the idea of the glitter!

You get the idea! I have added this card to the growing pile completed - I am going for easy this year so am using up a lot of the freebie stuff that is arriving with each magazine - papers, die cuts and stuff. Some of them are quite pretty! here are some examples!

An embossing folder - smeared around lots of ink and tried to paper piece the centre

Cardboard chip, stars and paper are freebies

Deer stencil and papers with sentiment sticker

I will enter my shabby chic card in the following challenges:

Midway for Challenge#40 at Unstampabelles!

The Challenge #40 at Unstampabelles this month is to create something that reflects TIME in some way............

........and the TWIST is to make it shabby chic!

This is my take on it all - remembering I was most-of-one-hand down when I made this!

I attacked a pack of bits from Kaiser and used it as the basis to create a TIME themed card.

The butterfly has been coloured with Wink of Stella pink and is sparkly!

Everything (mostly) got an edging with TH Antique Linen ink - the leaf got some gold glitter as well, while the key got some bling! 

All to do with TIME!

A die cut gold doily, an old torn doily, a rescued circle from a present given to me, a film strip, some gorgeous old gold seam binding ribbon, a phrase strip, another butterfly (gold touch this time), some cards defining words, and a sentiment piece coloured up to match.

All on top of an embossed, coloured and polished piece of card (technique to colour is called polished stone); layered onto a piece of gold mirror card and then onto a black commercial card blank. The mirror card looks green 'cause I was photographing it outside and it picked up the greenery around and reflected it back. Shabby chic time!

It all makes sense to me - hope you can follow the logic as well.

It looks great irl!!

Please go over to Unstampabelles and see what else the DT has created for your inspiration - a truly wonderful collection of work - and then have a go yourself!

I will enter this in the following challenges:

Craft Hoarders Anonymous: Layer it - and my hoarded stuff is the Kaiser pack (had it for nearly 12 months) and the embossed sheet - had it for over a year. 

Crafty Cardmakers: Sentiment to be prominent.

Love to Create: autumnal colours

Simon Monday Challenge: Anything Goes

Southern Girls challenge: Getting wordy

Challenge #37 for Dragonflies

Crafting with Dragonflies

is having a challenge to fit with 

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Make a PINK card

(Notice this is a CARD challenge)

This challenge is being sponsored by 

Sami Stamps

and they have provided us with several lovely suitable images. I chose this one.

The butterfly of Hope is fluttering along carrying a pink ribbon.

I added the National Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation ribbon that arrived at the same time as the images in my snail mail - it fits!

The sentiment is from MFT's stamp set  Choose Hope. 

A Stampin' Up inspiration moment

One of the advantages of not crafting a lot for a while is that I have had time to blog hop and look at things. A downside of that is I find myself looking at something and saying "I want that!" and spending money on on-line shopping!

However, this instance is an upside - I got to look at lots of inspiration and so have been able to come up a couple of cards for my SU friends.

Firstly, I made all these using the paper pad Trim the Tree, and inks Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Mossy Meadow and Pistachio. The first card used the stamp set Wonderous Wreath, and its companion die  set,  and the second one was made with  Festival of Trees  with it's accompanying punch. Unless stated, all materials were from SU, including the gold glitter card used here.

Now my wreath stamping and die cutting is appalling - I didn't line anything up at all and suffered the consequence. The acetate strip is from the stamp set itself - waste not!

Just measuring up and removing a piece of the white commercial blank card from the front, and putting the piece of acetate behind gives you a window card. I though of putting some wording behind the window but decided not to in the end. You could add bling to the wreath also if you wanted.

I will probably put a white folded insert inside to disguise the sentiment but haven't got that far yet. i promise to line things up next time!

I will enter this in the following:

Inspiration Destination: Anything Goes

The second on is a gift pack - a card and 4 tags. I created a pocket at the front and made 4 tags to fit inside this, and followed the style of these on the outside of the card. I was pleased with the effect.

The snowflake is also SU - diecut on white card and then embossed with gold. Could have just cut them out of sparkly card but this looks rich and subtle. These trees are not embossed but that would improve the overall impression. They are lifted up - the circle is from a SU Starburst die and I have inked the edges of both this and the sentiment. 

Should have embossed the sentiment.....

 Once the tags are removed.

Four tags using the Tag top punch and SU satin ribbon.

Embossed dots and swags

The back of each tag has a place to write names off giver and receiver.

Both projects were inspired from Pinterest.

I will enter this in the following:

Alphabet Challenge: R for round and rectangles

Card Making Mama's: Mini cards and tags - entering the tags

Hand Operation

Many thanks for all the queries re my hand and it's healing. Here is an update. Stop here if you are squeemish.

Just to explain the hand thing

This is what I wear all day and night until next Tuesday hopefully - yes, that is a G and T in the background!

Unwrapped, the scar is healing nicely,and the swelling is mostly gone - thumb can only more the top joint now, although I can swing it from side to side (in and out) but not right into the hand yet.

Bruising still coming out and the swelling is going down - the two small 'cuts' are where they split the tendon and use half of it to tie the thumb back into the hand. 

Right hand was done 2 years ago and I have now got about 90 - 95% full use.  Hoping for 95%+ with the left. My right hand is missing an index finger as the result of a childhood accident and when I had the original op, I assumed it was a result of that - the thumb was overworked, etc.....but it turns out to be arthritis and just getting old. Bugger! So, crafting is both a joy and a therapy for me to keep the hands supple!

Challenge#40 for Unstampabelles

Hi Peeps! Hope it is not too much of whatever at your place and that you managed to craft up a storm for World Card Making Day at the weekend! We have just has several bouts of windy weather and the orchards got blown down several times!

I made this card much earlier than the weekend but then found myself altered it a bit to make it more Shabby Chic at the weekend! You will find out why later...

My Brother David is older than me - always will be! 

I just couldn't pass this sentiment up when I saw it - pinched it and typed it up and printed it off!

Happy Birthday big  Bro!

This is me - yes, it is! Really! OK, maybe not........I'm not quite that old anyway!

Never looked that innocent either! It is a Meg's Garden image.

I made this for Unstampabelles October challenge

The theme is TIME

The TWIST is Shabby Chic!

The Sponsor for this is 

 Flourish with a Bling

I have used a flourish on this card and some of the pink pearls....

If you want details on this just ask; card is from SU, background feather DP is from a freebie set 

Why not pop across to Unstampabelles and see the other DT inspiration and then have a go yourself!

I will enter this in the following:

613 Avenue Create: anything Goes

Opus Gluei: Time

That Craft Place: shabby chic

Southern Girls Challenge: shabby chic/girls

Challenge #36 is Anything Goes at Crafting with Dragonflies

Thank goodness for that - when I was doing all my catch-up cards etc, before the hand op I didn't quite get this far, and was hoping that I would be up to making something at the time.  Post op is going well but I am not yet capable of making something too sophisticated, which meant my plan for this challenge at CRAFTING WITH DRAGONFLIES had to be scrapped!

The sponsor for this challenge is the stamp company 

Dollar Graphics

Now, as the sponsor provided some lovely graphics for us to use, and there were a heap of jungle theme animals, I had decided to make a carousel! I printed out some of the images onto XPress blending card and as one of the only things I could do early on was colour in, that is what I did.  I used Prisma and Derwent pencils and Zest.

Then I had to cut them out! I was going to do reverse images and colour them too, but I got to the end of the first set and decided that was going to be it! So, carousel idea confined to a back burner - step card now became the plan!

After making the side step card from SU card, I decided to use the SU stamp set Label Love and punch out the sentiment with the matching punch. That was interesting too - got it open and card positioned but took several big breaths and focus to punch it and then closing and locking the punch was another whole story! When eventually that was complete, I coloured this with some TH Wild Honey  ink. 

The DP is also from SU - by now I was running on empty, and went for the easy options.

I added the enamel dots but it still lacked something, so I grabbed the kiddy glitz and went a bit mad.

On the back it says  Love from all the gang!

Its very sparkly

So, that's my contribution to this challenge - hope that by next time I am a bit more handy!

I will enter this in the following challenges:
Through the Craftroom Door: anything goes
Crafting from the Heart: anything goes
The Crafty Bloggers: anything goes