A simple thank you

I've been busy making some home decorations for Christmas which I'll photograph and upload at another time when they're finished. But it's a little on the repetitive nature. So to give myself a bit of creative relief, I made this card. I cleared away all the black and gold paint and rummaged through my box of miscellany and found this blue thank you sticker. I used this as the starting point for choice of colours and bish, bash, bosh, a card was born. Now its back to getting black paint and glue everywhere lol.

Two more challenges

Time for some scrapbooking challenges methinks. I know, I'm fair getting through them this week. It's those dark evenings that motivate me. I spend much more time in my craft room at this time of year.

Another hybrid too. This one combines Twisted Sketches and Colour Q. The original sketch was a 12x12 design so I've had to tweak it to fit an A4 LO. Yup, this is my first ever A4 design. I've been gravitating over to the American Letter size this year and decided that I ought to anglicise it. It's easier and more economic to buy A4 ring binders and page protectors, so it makes much more sense.

The trick with altering the sketch to suit what is a different layout altogether, is not to make it look squashed and cramped in one direction and sparse in the other. Not always easy but this one was manageable. The colours from Colour Q were a little more tricky. Thankfully Adobe Indesign comes into its own at this point. I could play about with all the colours, deciding what went where and believe me I went through plenty of combos before relaxing and settling on this one.

The photos were hidden away in my 'To Be Sorted' folder and I'd completely forgotten all about them. I'm shocked and delighted. It was rare for me to let someone photograph me back then. I'm not so keen now but I relent better these days.

I'm being stretched again & I like it

I've said it before and so have others but when you throw yourself into playing along with challenges, especially the colour combo ones, it opens you up to creating something you normally wouldn't. I may not always love the colour choices but I love the challenge of having to use them.

This card is a hybrid of two challenges. Monday Mojo & Colour Throwdown, both excellent challenge sites. The throwdown's choice of orange, purple and green are a bit sickly for my preference but they do work well together. They are a triadic scheme which always gives you a colourful, brash pallette especially in the brighter hues. Red, yellow & blue are the same. Work well together but it's too vibrant a scheme for my liking.

Anyhoo, I gave it a go and here's the result. All made from my scraps file. I'm almost beginning to forget the last time I hacked away into a 12x12 sheet. Not good as I have just taken delivery of a Basic Grey bundle containing 70 sheets. And it only cost £15!!! Can you believe it? And they're nice papers too. Out of the whole pack there's only four I'm not keen on. Not a bad percentage. Now I just need to use them.

Adding a spot of warmth

I have been checking out the Play Date Cafe's challenge today. Superb colour combination. Three analogous, harmonious greens and then a complimentary contrast of orange. Three cool colours and one warm. So I kept the bluey greens as the main body of colour and accented with their contrasting opposing orange.

Oh yes and I used up another from the circles stamp set (see previous post). I mislaid one, so I still have one more stamp to use up.

Right, time to sneak this onto the PDC blog before Anne notices. Shhhh!

Uncovering Hidden Art

I have no problem using sketches to create my LOs although I am fussy over which ones I like. I prefer them to have the elements to be straight, not at an angle and with a nod towards Graphic Design. So I had no problem employing Lianne's competition sketch for Sarahscards blog.

My first thought was, what photograph shall I scrap? Well, last year my father & I scanned thousands of old transparencies into digital format and none of them have been used. In fact, most of them still require sorting into categories. I browsed through them idly, clicking one folder open and then the next, when suddenly I saw this photograph of two drunk guys lighting up. As the title of this post suggests, this was hidden art. I could imagine seeing this framed in a gallery as a retrospective of a famous photographer, who specialises in candid shots of real life.

Actually, it was taken at a party held by a friend of my parents, many moons ago, when they were in their early twenties. I emailed the photo to my father who filled in the details as to who they were etc.

To make life easier, in assembling it, all the papers and embellishments in this LO are Basic Greys Periphery range.

Play Date Cafe 5

I didn't beat Anne this week lol. She's just too good!!!! However, you must check out the Play Date Cafe's colours this week. They are truly elegant. Blue, silver, violet and white. Again I've gone for a card and created it with a simple, bold design. And yes, I've used another in my swirly circles stamp set. Only one left to use before I can say they've each had at least one passing acquaintance with an ink pad.

Oh yes, & thank you to the Play Date Crew for selecting my card in challenge number four as one of the Fab4. It is very sweet and kind of you. Once again, thank you to everyone who left such wonderful comments on my blog. Reading each one is like taking a sip from a cup of hot cocoa. Warm, sweet and perks me up.

Trying hard not to be a Xmas Card

I've combined two challenges for this little card. The sketch has come from the ever inspirational Monday Mojo. The second was one of my two favourite colour combination sites, the Colour Throwdown.

The colours this week are cream, chocolate, dark red & olive. The temptation, given that both red & green are in it, is to make a festive card with these two hues dominating. I thought I'd try letting the neutrals be the foundation instead, accented with the two earthy colour tones. And yes, I've used another stamp from the collection in the previous post, so that's one more notched up. The sketch itself was good for helping me step out of my current style a little. It's made up of several layered components, so you are coerced into adding paper over paper and embellishing. I think its still got a little of my essence and style in there too. Just addicted to making these fan flowers from my scraps. They are perfect for using up the long thin strips I chop off the ends of 12x12 paper.

Just using 'em

Not had much mojo or time to make any crafts recently. So in an order to kick myself up the creative butt, I dug out these stamps which I bought sometime last year. When I saw them, I envisaged them getting lots of use and you know what? They've hardly, if never, seen an ink pad. So I thought I'd rectify the oversight and make up a batch of cards which finally made good use of them. I have only managed two so far and I will make it my motivation to carry on producing more cards until each stamp has been inked up and utilised.

Have I Beaten Anne?

The very talented and lovely Anne has each week produced a stunning project for the Play Date Cafe challenges in record time and her entry is always in before mine. However, today I'm hoping I can post my entry before she does and turn the tide haha.

The colours for this weeks challenge are beautiful and subtle. Soft muted tones of brown, yellow and green. They remind me of choc mint ice cream and toffee.

So with my clean and simple eye, I die cut three butterflies and embossed each with a different cuttlebug design. I mounted onto cream card, then attached a punched border (Martha Stewart loops) in the coffee colour. To hide the join, I attached a dark brown ribbon. All these were matted onto the green card and finally onto the cream coloured card itself.

Thank you to everyone who has left kind comments on here in the last few weeks. I read them all and they really perk me up. I do go to each and everyone's blog and look at your beautiful creations. In fact, I spend so much time looking and drooling over your blogs, I don't leave myself a lot of time to comment back. My sincere apologies and when I find a spare afternoon, I hope I can reply in kind. In the meantime, please just know how grateful I am to all who've taken the time to comment. Hugs to you all.

Playing Catch Up

Thank goodness for creativity! It's meditational, fun and calming. It allows the mind to focus. It's been just the tonic. Still haven't gotten around to clearing up my art room though this weekend. Well there's always the next.

So when I have been playing in my messy room, it's been making crafts for challenges. Play Date Cafe again! I love the colours that have come up so far. This time around was black, red and white. My first thought was, uh! not very original. But thinking on, the colours were influenced by a teenager and when I was that very same age, I decorated my bedroom in black, white and red. So, in fact they were an appropriate if not classic scheme. And hey, who needs originality all the time? Sometimes, going back to the classics and playing with them again is a good exercise.

So anyhow, I made not one, but two cards for this challenge. I decided to play at keeping the black dominant and switching around to white. Okay I could have tried a third with red dominating but shucks, I'm lazy haha. I also tried for minimalism too. Playing around with how basic I could get away with and still have a good looking card. The downside is that this discipline doesn't exactly use up a lot of stash. My scraps pile has hardly had a dent made in it this week.

Licking those challenges

Saturday, Nick & I saw the most fascinating sculptures at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It was the last gorgeous day of the year and we made the most of it. I'll be making a LO of our day out so will post the photos then. All I'll say for now is if it's within reach, you must make a trip out there. You won't be disappointed.

Sunday was a wet, windy and miserable day. Perfect for hibernation in my craft room. Decided to use the opportunity to lick some of the challenges that have come my way whilst blog hopping this week. This is Mum incorporates the Twisted Sketch and Colour Throwdown challenges. When I think of home, is a UKScrappers challenge for the cybercrop. And this time around the overall theme is Wizard of Oz. I know, perfect for friends of Dorothy. In the allocation of teams, I find myself a Tin Man. We have been asked to create a LO on what makes us think of home. Well, for me, it's a big snuggly sofa to layabout on. Give me a duvet and a sofa and I could ask for no more.

The text on the other LO is blurred - it's not rude (like you may have come to expect from me haha). It's just that it's cathartic journaling about recent events. The colours all work well together and are fortunately colour's I associate with Mum.

Better go off and design that sculpture LO now hadn't I? haha.

Birthday Card for Alison

My lovely friend Alison has a spooky birthday but does she tire of all the Halloween references? Absolutely not! She has a wonderful spirit always planning, looking ofr and joining in and creating fun and adventure. There isn't much of an age gap between us but boy she makes me feel old with her youthful energy haha (then again a fusty octgenarian would make me look old!).

And this is the card I made for her special day - all fresh light greens, yellows and blues. Hope you had a fab day hun :)