Wuv, Wuv, Wuv ....

.... as my son used to say when he couldn't pronounce his Ls!

Yes, it's that soppy time of year again!  My monthly craft meet was on Saturday and I spent a good few hours making a card for Paul.  Someone asked would he be appreciative of all the time I devoted to making his card?  I said "He'd better be!"  Here is the finished article:

There are oodles of Valentine challenges to enter this into: Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge ("It Must be Love"), Little Red Wagon ("Shades of Red"), Creative Inspirations ("Love is in the Air"), Cardz4Guyz ("Something beginning with L"), Moving along with the Times ("Love") and Brown Sugar ("Valentine").

The main focus of my card is the striped red heart in the centre.  I cut strips of different coloured and textured red cardstock, inked some with darker or brighter distress ink to give me an even bigger selection of colours, then lined them together carefully and stuck together behind a cut out heart shape.  I added black embossing round the edges of the card and the heart and stenciled some black on the left hand side.  The stripes look a bit pink in the light in this close up shot, but they are definitely red!!

Recipe:

Stencil: Tim Holtz "Bubble"

Paper: Basic Grey "Urban Prairie"

Other: Cardstock, black e.p.

Thanks for looking!

Blowing the dust ....

... off my blog after almost a year!  No idea why, just fell out of the habit (which, let's face it, was an infrequent habit at the best of times!!).  Anyway, I was just sorting my 2017 photos into files and decided to take the plunge back in, so here I am!

I've gone in a slightly different direction with my card-making over the past year .  I've been using much less patterned paper, have been stamping and making backgrounds and using a much more clean and graphic style.  Looking back over the cards I've made, I think my daughter's birthday card illustrates the "new look" quite well.  Here's what I did for her:

I'm entering the following challenges: Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge and Crafty Creations("Anything Goes"), Creative Inspirations ("Something New" - mine is the yellow ink) and Crafty Cardmakers ("Get Inky/Messy").  I made the background by inking a large acrylic block, spritzing with water and then stamping directly on the paper.  I made star stencils and cut out the stars and also made the white letters.  I used black backing cardstock so the negative images of the stars would pop.

Thanks for looking!