BBTB2 - Leaf cut

This week, the challenge over on BBTB2 was to use the leaf cut from the Life is a beach cartridge. The flowers were the shift flower from George, layered up and with a gemstone in the centre. I didn't have a clear idea where I was going with this cut at all, until I saw my pal Kath's gorgeous flowerpot for Get Funky, and it reminded me of how much I love making these little cards.

The papers are all by C Gibson, for a tutorial on making flowerpot cards go to Splitcoast Stampers/resources

I always put a little folded piece of cardstock on the back of these cards, to act as a little stand. It means they will stand on their own, otherwise you have to prop them up.

Here is the insert, I made it a get well card. Lots of hospitals don't allow flowers on the wards now, so I think a little handcrafted pot of blooms would cheer up the patient. Be sure to go over to BBTB2 to see what the other designers came up with, and as this is an open challenge, you can join in with any leaf cut, from any cartridge.
No time for my daily ramblings today, I have errands to run, people to see, busy busy busy.
See you tomorrow

Sunflowers for Daring Cardmakers

Those girls over at Daring Cardmakers certainly know how to set a dare - I love doing their challenges because they almost always make me think outside the box. This week the dare is "Sunflowers"

Plain and simple? Yes, except that after I had dug out some yummy Lime Rickey papers by basic grey, and was set to go, I realised that I had lent my 'walk in my garden' Cricut cartridge to my niece. That has a lovely sunflower on it. So I dug out my life's a beach cartridge and there was ...............a SUN. So what could be better, a sunflower made from the sun. I cut a whole sheet then layered them with silicone glue.....

cut some circles from 'george' for the centre, and sprinkled with dew drops by Robin's Nest

The letter stickers are Alphaminis by papermania
Hope everyone has a great weekend

Mermaid and Octopus

These cute ovals are the work of Sam the artist on Lily Boo's printable images. They were such fun to colour. The border punch is Martha Stewart, and the sentiment was a home-made rub on. (look under labels on my sidebar for instructions on making rub ons) I printed the octopus image twice and then cut him out and popped him over the main image for a bit of dimension. Both images were coloured with Copic markers.

This little mermaid is another image from the same download of printable stamps. The waves and starfish on the bottom were cut using the Cricut cartridge Life's a Beach. The sentiment was another home-made rub on. I used glossy accents a lot on this one to give it a watery feel.

Hello Sailor - for DCM, and Wedding Card

On the Cricut message board we have a UK crafters chatty thread, and this wedding card is for a challenge we set ourselves this week. The heart is from the Wedding solutions cartridge, the shaped label is a nesting die by go-kreate, and the papers are by Making Memories.

The Daring Cardmakers dare this week is Boys and their Toys, so this is mine. I cut the anchor at 4" from my new Life's a Beach cartridge, the hello stamp is a wood mounted studio G from the dollar bin, and the sailor letters are Making memories glittery alphabet. I doodled a little chain border. The blue hopsack pattern paper is by Funky Hand

I am quite proud of the way I managed to make my knot of red twine look like some amazingly complicated nautical knot. The truth of the matter is that when I have been sailing, people keep throwing ropes at me yelling incomprehensible stuff like 'tie the warp around the cleat' - WHAAT, why can't they just say 'wrap this rope around the round thingie over there', then I would jump to it, and quickly and nimbly do the job instead of standing there pathetically with a rope in my hand looking helpless. Mike and I have decided that in the interests of marital harmony it is better, much much better, if he goes sailing alone, and I stay home to play with paper.
I am messing around with my blog settings, so you may see a lot of different backgrounds until I find the one I am happy with :)

Life's a beach.........

So I have this new cartridge that I couldn't wait to try out. I made this card for one of Mike's sailing buddies. The card is 5 1/2" square. I added layers, then shaded them in a little with my copic markers. The anchor was cut at 2 1/2" and I hand doodled the chain. I stuck some navy corrugated card behind the aperture.

I can't tell you how much trouble this simple little card gave me. Everything went wrong, including dropping a black ink pad on the almost completed card. The inside sentiment reads....it's time for a gin and tonic. I know it should be 'make margaritas' but hey, I'm a Brit, we don't do margaritas, we do G & T

We were going to go and renew our driving licences today, but there is a real thunderstorm going on out there, so we are keeping to the house. We took our Florida driving test five years ago, although you can drive on a UK licence here, but when we bought our car the insurance required a US licence, so we have to go an renew it every time we come over. They cut up our old licence, take a new photo and we do an eye test. Because we are 'non-resident aliens' we can't go to any old test centre, we have to drive about 25 miles to a special place where they know what a British passport is. So they give us a piece of paper, the new licences come in the mail, usually the day before we leave for home, then we come back and they cut it up and the whole cycle starts all over again. It has become part of the routine of being here, we have found a great little diner for lunch and we know all the staff at the test centre by name. We may get an invite to their staff Christmas party this year :)

Easter Blessings - Magnolia and Wildcard

Two Tilda cards for you today. The first one is a stamped image I got in a swap with DawnyP, the sentiment is by great impressions, and I do know that there isn't an Easter Bunny to be seen, but this card is for little children and it was the only Easter sentiment stamp I have. The image was coloured with copic markers, and the papers are just scraps really from my box labelled 'I've been hanging around forever, please use me'. You can tell by the fancy stitching that I am back in Florida with my beloved sewing machine. I can thread it in about 30 seconds, unlike my little Janome mini at home which takes me about an hour of squinting and trying to push one of those needle threaders through the eye, let alone get the cotton through. The dots are some plastic type dotty things that I found hanging around in a drawer. One of these days I will set myself a challenge to use up every one of these bits and bobs I have cluttering up the place.

This is the oval cut from Wildcard. I cut it again in shadow in a darker lilac, to add a contrast to the inside of the card. Tilda is coloured with copic markers, and the sentiment was a home made rub on done on the computer.