FUSION Birthday Celebrations

Seriously had so much fun with this FUSION birthday challenge card! Taking inspiration from both this super cute inspiration photo and super versatile sketch combined. Paired this gorgeous Purple Onion owl paper pieced with woodgrain and watercolour paper, with this cool script and sentiment from Lil Inkers. Background paper was created buy first wetting some watercolour paper then spritzing with Tattered Angels Chalkboard Glimmermist in Peacock, as is the owls hat and sentiments.

Hop on over to the FUSION blog and join in the birthday celebrations! Super sized inspiration from our fabulous Design Team and their special guests!

Becca Cruger - Betty J. - Carol Mayne - Jeanne Jachna - Karren Johnson

Linda Callahan - Michelle Leone - Michelle Lupton

Hope you can join in the fun this fortnight @ FUSION.

Can't wait to see what you create!

Also playing along at Seize the Birthday, Anything Goes!

Fun @ Fusion...

Couldn't help but pull out this gorgeous Purple Onion Designs snowman to play along with the FUSION challenge this fortnight. Paired inspiration from this super cool sketch with the bright and fun inspiration from this gorgeous FUSION inspiration photo, along with the pop of orange!

Paper pieced the snowman, paired with silver die cut Lil Inkers Stitched Circle and Snowflake, together with this gorgeous Winnie & Walter die cut sentiment, paired with Neat & Tangled stamped sentiment and sparkle paper background.

Love to see how you are inspired by FUSION photo, sketch or both!

Hope you get a chance to play along!

Hop on over to FUSION to see some more super inspiration from

 our amazing Design Team too:

Becca Cruger - Betty J. - Carol Mayne - Jeanne Jachna - Karren Johnson

Linda Callahan - Michelle Leone - Michelle Lupton - Michelle Williams

Also playing along with
Winnie & Walter Taheera's Gossip Column - Precious Metals
Muse Christmas Visions

 

Shaking up World Card Day...

I managed to spend the whole of yesterday cropping @ Paper Blossoms, with my crafty friends, and did not realise until today that I had spent the whole of World Card Day making cards!

Based on this simple Freshly Made Sketch, I thought I would join in the fun @ City Crafter Challenge #Selfie with this super cute #Selfie of Purple Onion Designs Snowman, turned into a snowflake shaker card using Simon Says Stamp Merry Christmas photo frame and WPlus9 snowflake, both diecut from a sheet of silver contact adhesive layered onto white cardstock.

Hope you are having / had a fabulous World Card Day too!!!

Freshly Made Sketch
City Crafter Challenge #Selfie
Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes

 

 

Flower Power Easter...

Can you tell it's Easter soon!!!  I thought this Purple Onion Designs Faith the Chicken was a perfect go-to for a flower filled Easter card, and perfect for this fortnights Catered Crop Flower Power Recipe Swap.  Playing along with Day 1 Challenge from Pattered Play Class too - a bit slow off the mark this week! Papers are a mix of Crate Paper, Kaisercraft and MME, with a cute Paper Smooches sentiment.

Also joining in the fun at:
Simon Says Stamp Easter / Spring Challenge
The Pink Elephant Easter Challenge
Shopping Our Stash Easter or Spring Challenge

Hope you're heading towards a joyous Easter too...

Where Flowers Bloom...

I kept on musing after my first attempt at Deanna's gorgeous MUSE card.  Between that and this weeks CASology Circle cue card, this is where I ended up.  I was inspired by the floral reds and greens of Deanna's gorgeous Muse card, together with the freehand frame.  I tried to recreate my poppies from this card, but as the base layer was not fully dried before I applied the Dimensional Magic, they are more homogenous than I was aiming for, but still perfectly suited to this gorgeous freehand Purple Onion Designs sentiment.

Deanna Jean's gorgeous MUSE card

Playing along with Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes too.

Flowers that Never Fade...

Deanna Jean's' MUSE card

Have you seen this weeks gorgeous MUSE card from Deanna.  This week my interpretation was very literal - inspired by everything from the gorgeous flowers, the lovely layers, plenty of white space, pops of colour, right down to the pearls and squiggly framed outline.  I added some embossing, and a negative die-cut frame to highlight my We R Memory Keeper blooms and fab sentiment from Purple Onion Designs, stamped in Hero Arts Navy.

Playing along with this weeks Retro Sketches Anniversary Sketch and Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes.

Happy Bird-day...

Loved the folk art style of this weeks Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger Happy Birthday to You, celebrating Cath's Mums special day. Loved the colours, the flowers inside the little birds wing, the wood grained background panel & freestyle letters - I achieved mine by reverse stamping my letters onto the back of the patterned papers using Elsie Flannigan letters for the smaller alphas and Autumn Leaves for the larger letters, then fussy cutting them and filling inside  the "a"s with patterned papers. Papers are a mix of Echo Park, October Afternoon and Crate Paper, with this cute chicken stamp from Purple Onion Designs.

Tuesday Trigger - Happy Birthday to You

Joining in this week at CAS-ual Fridays Love Letters, There She Goes Wood Grain and 

Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenges too.

You give my heart wings...

When I thought about being brave and putting my name forward for the 10 Minute Craft Dash Design Team Call, I realised that even though I have participated a number of times, more often than not I had stretched the 10 minute deadline.  So I thought I'd get in some more practice, and luckily this one came in at 9 minutes 25 seconds, although it almost missed out on the buttons as they kept wanting to stick to each other rather than the card LOL!

I do love my "Ginghnam Style" chicken from Purple Onion stamps, and as I am in the midst of clearing up my crafting space, he was handy, so it was an easy choice.  I thought I'd make a real feature of his heart wing, perfect for this weeks The Paper Players Love is in the Air Challenge, together with some fabulous inspiration from the gorgeous colours and chevrons from this weeks Stampin' Royalty photo and Jen's versatile Freshly Made Sketch, I was ready to create.

Some tips for a quicker card:  As I knew I was going to be pressed for time, and my L'il Inkers photo frame die cut was fresh from Santa, I thought I'd run it through my Cuttlebug with some plain cardstock first for a test run.  Very impressed with the fact that in one roll it came out clean and the cut frame fell out, without me having to wrestle with it at all - and the bonus was I now had a template to work out my framing of the stamp, and to practice writing my sentiment! 

If you use papers with a a straight line pattern, it's much easier and quicker to cut and adhere in straight lines too :)

Just a general tip for using chevron paper, if you want the pattern to look like arrows pointing upward, rather than down, as I did, then just make sure the arrows on both side edges of your card are pointing upward - it works!

 

 

Only a couple more days to go!

Ginghnam Style...

I just LOVE this little bird from Purple Onion Design, and the whole time I was making this 10 Minute Craft Dash card the song going through my head was "Ginghnam Style" LOL!  I did all my stamping at once - once on the white cardstock, and once on each of the three gingham papers.  Amazingly my gingham stripes matched up almost perfectly for the wings and body - more luck than calculation!  The easiest way to paper piece in a hurry is to cut out the larger piece with a straight line running along the birds back, then just paste the wing on top - I used a glue pen too as I find this quickest for sticking fiddly pieces in a rush :)  As usual to save time I used my go-to Retro Sketch, so I didn't have to think too hard about what I was doing!  To match up my gingham lines on the base shapes it was quicker to cut them by hand, then cut the corners using my Fiskars corner rounder.  Papers are from Lily Bee Designs, with a gingham ribbon from my stash, and I cut out a circle from the light blue gingham to create my perfectly matched brad.  If I included making the brad in my 10 minutes I went over time by about 2 minutes 19 seconds, but I think it was worth it!!!

This made me smile...