Autumn colours

I have been off work for the past week so I've much more time than usual to read various blogs, including some new challenge blogs which have been established during my extended break from crafting. The theme of the moment definitely seems to be 'autumn/fall colours' and this morning I decided to truly challenge myself by 1) being super organised and making my Nan's birthday card, even though her birthday is not until 7 Nov! and 2) use autumnal colours. This colour scheme is so far out of my comfort zone that I had to have a real hunt through my stash to find some suitable paper and embellishments - to be honest I had forgotten even buying the paper leaves and I think I won the flowers in some blog candy!

I have painted the image with watercolour pencils and shaded around the image with chalks. I originally stamped the Happy Birthday on to a circle but it looked too big so I chopped it down. I have again used chalks to colour this and edged the panel with the same ink pad I stamped the sentiment in. I originally planned to cut the 'special nan' from brown cardstock but I decided the black looked better. You can click on the image to view it at a larger size (I have not yet got to grips with how blogger auto-scales images).

I would like to submit this card to the following challenges:
ABC Challenge - F is for Flowers
Allsorts - Let's Play Bingo (I have used the diagonal line to get Brads, Flowers and Ribbon)
Penny Black Allsorts - Colours of Autumn

Time to get back to my Halloween projects now!

Scary Creatures

The current challenge over on Cupcake Craft Challenges is to make a card/project with a scary creature, so I have made this card with an image I got in a stamped image swap quite a long time ago - I think it might be by Whipper Snapper? This is another 5x7" card and I have painted the image with Twinkling H20s.
Thanks for stopping by! :)

Happy Birthday Nicola :)

Today is my lovely friend Nicola's birthday and this is the card I made for her. I chose this sentiment to go with the image rather than the more typical 'happy birthday' as we don't get to see each other very often and I wanted to know that I still value our friendship.
This is a 5x7" card so I've been able to add a few more details than I usually go for, although you don't want to know how long I spent deliberating over that ribbon!. The image has been painted with watercolour pencils and I heat embossed the sentiment with turquoise sparkle EP (got to get some glitter in somewhere!). I'm not sure how well it shows in the photo but I have distressed the edges of two of the layers for added texture.
As I have used 2 Penny Black stamps for this card I would like to submit it for the current challenge over on Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

Cute Card Thursday - What's Buggin' You!

The new challenge over on Cute Card Thursday is to create a card/project that includes a bug, butterfly, bee etc. I made this birthday card for a friend and there is a cute little ladybird on the watering can ;)  The image has been coloured with watercolour pencils and I have added a tiny bit of stickles to the drop of water.
I chose this layout as I am on a mission to use up some of my vast collection of offcuts of patterned paper!  I also made a second version of this card using a softer colour scheme:

Papertake Weekly - 3 of a Kind

The current challenge over on Papertake Weekly is to create a card that features 3 of something, so I have made this card using one of my favourite Christmas stamps: Silly Angel by Hero Arts. I think this must have been one of the first Christmas stamps I ever bought and I still come back to it every year :) I have painted the angels with Twinkling H20s and added lots of glitter to the wings.