Cathy's 21st

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. I was sorting out some folders on my computer and realised that I have lots of cards that I haven't shown. I'm very bad at remembering to blog my makes. So today I have a card that I made for my youngest daughter's 21st birthday back in May.

I started with an 8"x 8" (21 cm x 21 cm) card blank and used papers from Prima's Epiphany pad. I hand cut the numbers from linen card and edged with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. 

I used a mixture of wooden and ceramic birds and covered them in black embossing powder. I then sprinkled them with gold Frantage. I fussy cut some bird cages from the Prima paper.

I heat embossed the metal feathers and a metal corner with white powder, pink powder and gold Frantage.

I made all the roses and dusted them with a mix of white and gold embossing powder. The butterflies are from the papers and coloured with pink DI.

I finished the card with three handmade stick pins. I added a lot of symbolism to this card to make it especially personal for my daughter and she was delighted with it.

I hope you all have a lovely week.

I've entered this card in the following challenges:

http://craftyfriendschallengeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/challenge-41-and-challenge-40-winners.html x

http://brownsugarchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/challenge-217-anything-goes.html x

http://inspirationdestinationchallengeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/ag-no-104.html x

http://lilpatchofcraftyfriends.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/challenge-42.html x

http://classicdesignteamchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/1st-september-2016-classic-design-team.html x

http://yourscrapbookplace.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/time-for-another-september-contest-with.html Top Three

In House Birthday 2016

Another weekend is nearly here. I hope you have something nice planned. I shall be going to the craft show at Ally Pally on Saturday. Lots of fun with friends and crafty spending. A perfect way to spend the weekend.

I have lots of cards that I have made over the summer that I haven't shown you yet. Today is a card that I made for the wonderful craft shop where I teach mixed media. In House Crafts in Milford Haven. They recently celebrated their fifth birthday.

I used an image I've had for years and lots of mixed media techniques. The blue/green layers were created with sprays. For the peach layer I used a homemade coloured texture paste through a TH flourish stencil onto an acrylic painted background.

The image is from Sassy Studios and I coloured her with Copics before matting on to Kraft card. I then sprinkled on some Frantage.

The clock is a Marianne die. I coloured the card with DIs and added some sprays and gold Frantage. The hands have been gilded.

The birdcage die is from Spellbinders and was gilded after cutting and then randomly dabbed with paint. I made the flowers from painted card and dipped them, and the bead centres, in Frantage.

The sentiments were computer generated. Lastly, I coloured seam binding ribbon, tied a floppy bow and added a resin flower.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend. I'm really looking forward to mine.

I've entered this card in the following challenges:
http://classicdesignteamchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/1st-september-2016-classic-design-team.html x
http://scrapbookstampsocietychallengeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/challenge-100-anything-goes.html DT winner and GDT
https://colourcrazychallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/week-22-anything-goes-oddball-craft.html
http://craftingwithanattitude.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/challenge-19_1.html x
http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/29-birthday-cake.html x

Docrafts Demos September 2016

Happy weekend everyone. I will be demonstrating at The Range in Carmarthen today for Docrafts. I shall be in store from 10 am until 4 pm. If you are in the area please pop in, I'd love to see you.

This time round I'll be demonstrating with the Create Christmas range, the X-cut Christmas dies and some of the new X-cut mini dies. It seems a bit early for Christmas cards to me but I know many crafters like to craft all year for the biggest event of the year.

The X-cut Christmas dies combine well with glitter card for quick makes. These dies are versatile enough to make Christmas decorations too.

These new mini X-cut dies are fabulous and perfect for Christmas cards. They are so inexpensive to buy and many of them come with little extras like snowflakes and stars.

The Create Christmas range has everything from chipboard words and shapes, peel-offs, stamps, stickers and 'chenille stems' (pipe cleaners). All fabulous for making any style of Christmas cards.

I have uploaded more of my samples to my Docrafts Gallery, just click on the link in the sidebar to be taken there.

These new products and more should be arriving in stores now and there are some gorgeous new Christmas collections that you really should check out.

I will be demonstrating in Carmarthen today but you can check on the Docrafts website to see if there is a demonstration local to you.  

Enjoy your weekend.

Creative Artiste #18 September 2016

The first Friday of the month means it's the start of a new challenge at Creative Artiste We are a challenge blog for everyone who likes to mix their media. So, as long as you like to use various mediums on your creations we'd love to see you enter the challenge. This is a month long challenge so you have time to create projects and enter up to three times. A full list of the rules is on the challenge blog.

A big Thank You to everyone who entered Challenge #17 in August. Your projects were fabulous and the winner has been announced on the blog.

We are sponsored this month by
Scrapmatts & Papertole Australia

And our theme is, as always,
"Anything Mixed Media Goes"
The DT were generously sent some products from our sponsor earlier in the year to play with. This is what I made with some of mine.

I started by painting a plain white wooden photo frame with shades of turquoise acrylic paint. I used a Bubbles 01 laser cut chipboard piece and cut it to fit around the outside of the frame.

I painted the bubbles to colour coordinate with the frame then added blobs of white acrylic and sprinkled with Shabby White Frantage. Once heated it gives a fabulous bubbly effect on the bubbles. I positioned the chipboard pieces around the frame.

The centre piece was created by stamping the Katzelkraft seahorse and heat embossing in white. I then used green and blue sprays to colour the card. I used Leonie's In a Spin die for the circles. I spray coloured them and placed around the seahorse before trimming the panel to fit in the centre.

I finished the project by adding shells to the frame.

Now please visit the Creative Artiste Challenge Blog to see the wonderful projects created by my talented team mates. Remember to have fun and enter your "Anything Mixed Media Goes" creations in the challenge.

We are having a DT call this month for crafters who love their mixed media. Details of requirements and how to apply are on the challenge blog.

I've entered this project into the following challenges:
http://alteredeclectics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/septembers-challenge.html
http://rheddscreativespirit.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/septembers-challenge.html x
http://welove2create.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/challenge-18-anything-creativemixed.html x
http://notjustcardschallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/35-august-challenge.html x

Crafts Galore Encore September 2016

I hope you've all had a lovely summer. I've been a very bad blogger lately. I do apologise for not visiting your blogs very often but I decided to put family first this summer and spend some quality time with my gorgeous grandchildren and other family members.
Now it's back to business, and the first order of the day is the new challenge on the Crafts Galore Encore Challenge Blog. 

Thank you to everyone who joined in with the August challenge. The winners are on the challenge blog's 'winner's page'. This is a month long challenge and you can enter up to three times. A full list of rules are on the challenge blog.

Our theme this month is everyone's favourite
"Anything Goes"
and our wonderful sponsor is
Beccy's Place

Beccy is offering one of her digi sets for the lucky winner.

Only some of the team were lucky enough to receive an image from Beccy to work with this time so I had free rein for my project and this is what I made.

I wanted a sea themed piece so I used mixed media card, linen card for layering and a wooden box frame.

I started by creating texture onto a 7"x 7" (18 x 18 cm) piece of mixed media card with stockinette and texture paste. Whilst it was still wet I added wooden beads, seed beads, micro beads and real shells. Once that was all dry I used acrylic paints in shades of blue to colour the whole piece of card. I dry brushed on some silver paint to create highlights.

I added die-cut birds to the sky while the paint was still wet and dabbed on white acrylic paint with my fingers until I was happy with the cloudy sky and tumbling waves effects.

I painted the wooden frame with a couple of coats of blue acrylic on the inside and white around the outside and front edges. I mounted the seascape onto white linen card and secured the finished piece inside the frame.

Now please visit the  Crafts Galore Encore challenge blog to see the wonderful projects and cards created by the rest of the talented team and to enter your Anything Goes creations.
I've entered this project into the following challenges:
http://alteredeclectics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/septembers-challenge.html
http://rheddscreativespirit.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/septembers-challenge.html x
http://welove2create.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/challenge-18-anything-creativemixed.html x
http://thatscraftychallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/all-square-challenge.html x