Young At Heart

Good morning everyone!

Well I hope you all have found the benefit of the 'extra' hour? Not sure I have yet, the time change does affect my medication and it takes a while for everything to settle down again.

Today there's a new challenge launched over at Crafty Boots - the theme this time is Young At Heart.

My DT card is an easel card that I've made for my friend's son, Ioan, who'll be 2 on Nov 5th.

The images are taken from the MCS Young at heart CD-ROM, I used the fab scissors tool to create my own decoupage of this fun toy shelf. I used the text feature to add the words in the banner. All set on the beautiful blue centura pearl card-stock. And as per usual (well for me) I added some card candi (Card candi is available to buy from The Crafty Boots online shop).  You can't see it on the picture but I also used Wink of Stella pens to add some sparkle to the toys as well as some glossy accents to bring out different features.

Hope you like my efforts for this challenge & I look forward to seeing your entries!

Take care Zo x

While I listen....

to the radio I thought I'd better post something!

It's Saturday so you know what that means in my house...football. My beloved Bristol Rovers are away at Burton Albion today, I would've loved to have visited the Pirelli Stadium, but it just isn't always possible to do what we want, is it? So I've got Radio Bristol on ready to listen to the match commentary.  Keith Brookman, editor of the Rovers programme, and therefore my editor when I write my articles, commentates alongside someone from the radio so it's always fun to listen in and I often tell Keith what I think of his commentary!

While I enjoy going to matches I do love these type of Saturdays at home, radio on, crafting away.  Today I need to plan a few cards I've been asked to make.  I enjoy the whole preparation side of card making, it doesn't just happen sometimes and I spend ages going through images and styles trying to decide what to use. Other times I just know straight away what to use.

This week I've been planning and preparing my own 'special' Christmas cards.  These are the 2 I've made for my nieces.

I've used the new SWALK winter stamps combined with papers I already had. I bought the buttons from my local shop, I saw them and just had to have them!

This year I opted for traditional colours for the girls, but I hope I've managed to create a fresh young feel to them with my paper choices and design.

Thanks for looking, enjoy the weekend.
Take care Zo x

Autumn Crafty Boots challenge

Morning! (Well there's a little bit of it left as I type)

Today I want to share with you my DT card for the new Crafty Boots challenge which can be found here;

craftybootschallenges.blogspot.com/2011/10/autumn-or-halloween.html

As you can see the theme is Autumn, and everything that goes with it.  My card is a celebration of these wonderful months.

The toppers are from Debbi Moore, and the leaves are from Sheena Douglas's paint fusion, which I coloured with Promarkers. I used Henna, Terracotta, Spice, Ruby, Poppy, Moss, Olive Green, Marsh Green and Pear Green to achieve the blends of colour on the leaves.  They took a while but am so pleased with the effect I created. I also used Core-dinations card which I embossed and spilt into the three panels. This ruby ribbon was a bargain from my local craft shop as it was sold for a £1 a roll, I think there is about 20 metres on it!  The card base is 8 x 8 and is made from snow white Centura Pearl card.

Hope you like my card and would love to see your creations entered into our challenge. Take care Zo x

Digital Drawing!

Morning!

The sun is shining here in Somerset, but it's feeling a bit chilly.  This week I thought I'd share with you a couple of things.

I've always been interested in art (my dad's an artist) and have always been able to pick up a pencil when in the right frame of mind and create.  Recently, as my CD collection for crafting has grown, and having watched such talented crafter's, like Nikky Hall etc, on tv, I decided to get myself a graphic's tablet. I want to have a go at designing for myself (and maybe one day for you all!).  Not having a vast amount of money to spend and not being sure if I'd get on with said tool, I opted for a cheap version. But have to say the £25 Trust version I've bought is fab, easy to use and does the job for now. So here's my first attempt at drawing digitally.

Don't ask why I drew this character or why I drew him with such big spiky hair, he just happened! I really enjoyed messing about with the technology & software. Discovering how to do everything for the first time was great fun, spent the evening oohhhing and aaahhing, and clapping hands as I worked it out!

Let me know what you think of my character/drawing, am interested to see what people make of him!

I will be working on more drawings that's for sure, and I have an idea for a potential CD/stamps! Watch this space.

Right I also want to share with you two cards that I was asked to make by a family friend.

First is a feminine Mum card,

The second is a golfing card.

Hope you all have a fab day and a lovely weekend. Will be back at the beginning of the week to share my next DT card.

Take care and thanks for popping by.
Zo x

Happy 13th Birthday

Well today is my son's 13th birthday. How time flies!

So my card to share with you today had to be his birthday card.  I'm scheduling this post as I know I'll have lots to do today what with family visiting etc, so fingers crossed it worked properly!

Right, my card is A4 in size, special birthday, large card expected I know, and is made using Tim Holtz products, apart from the pigeon, which is an image from Men-y happy returns MCS cd-rom.

The reason I chose a pigeon is that Keagan and my dad race pigeons, and they race them from all over England as well as France and Belgium which is why I chose the world paper, and positioned it to show Europe. They use clocks to record times, but of course, this clock had to show the 1 & 3 for 13! I chose the hope & soar tickets because they always hope their pigeons come home after soaring across the skies. lol
Lastly you may ask why I put Boo on there, it's not Halloween yet I hear you say, well it's Keagan's nickname. Family & friends have called him Boo since he was little and it's stuck. So I had to include it.

Thanks for popping by, am looking forward to reading what you think of this special card. Take care Zo x

Crafty Boots - Animal/Zoo challenge

Morning everyone.

Well it's another sunny morning here in Somerset. Today I want to share with you my DT card for our challenge over at Crafty Boots.

When I saw the theme for the new challenge I just knew I had to make this fab giraffe card. It's a Wobbler card made from the Kanban Wobblers kit. These cards are so easy to put together and yet they look amazing and are great fun to play with too!

Please join us over at Craftybootschallenges.blogspot.com for our latest challenge that launched today. Dig out those animals and have some fun!

Right I'm now going to do something I've not done before, I'm going to try to schedule a post for Thursday!  It's my son's 13th birthday so want to show you the card I've made for him. So I'd love it if you could pop back and see if I've managed to post it properly! lol
Take care Zo x