52 Weeks of Crafting

In just a few days now we are heading off for Tuscany to celebrate my brother-in-law's wedding. They are a fun couple and I wanted their card to be more light hearted than the usual cards I make for weddings. 

Is there anything more personal than someone's wedding? I love to make personalised cards for my friends and love to add details when I get briefed to make something for someone else.

Today's post shows 3 different cards that I hoped would capture different personalities.

The headline card is from a wedding we attended this past weekend. The couple got married at the very grand St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London and they had an art deco theme of black, white and gold to go with the grand interior. I chose paper that I thought matched the theme and then colored and fussy cut this awesome KennyK wedding image to match their hair and skin tones. There are touches of liquid pearl in her tiara and earring but it was hard to capture in the photo. The banner is a Simon Says Stamp die and it's actually only half of the banner - it doubles up normally - but I thought this gave it a good balance.

As you know, my buddy Mrs G is in town for work this week (and she works with me so it's more fun than it sounds!) and I wanted to do something a bit fun and different to give her a special thank you for her thoughtful Christmas presents.

I love this KennyK stamp, it was one of my first steam punk items and I just decided to revisit her. She's colored with Spectrum Noir colored pencils and I cut her out using a Sizzix nesting oval die. The die slipped slightly as I rolled her out so she's not quite center. No matter: I used this funky gothic border stamp down the side to add some texture. It doesn't quite work does it? Never mind, fills the space, makes it less noticeable!

I colored her in greens and greys and used the Chronology set for my backing paper. I didn't add a sentiment as I'll write her the message inside and I know she loves the KennyK images so she'll be happy with the card.

The only challenge I'm entering is the KennyK Challenge - keeping it simple this year!

My colleague has a very distinctive 40s style and for her birthday it just had to be KennyK.

I thought it would work well in their Anything Goes with a Twist of a color challenge. The blues, yellow and red candy work with their scheme well.

I chose the What If stamp and colored it with blues, yellow and orange using ProMarkers. Her hair is black and grey, like my colleague's, but just like my colleague it's a distinctive streak which makes it far more interesting.

I used an origami sheet from Tiger for the background and the lovely reversed out greeting is from Claire's collection. I decided to go for a scrappy, haphazard greeting instead of a straight one. Why not!

I love how simple it is and can't wait to give it to her.

I was asked to make a wedding card for a colleague's wedding for all of us to sign and I was delighted. This guy is great, and his fiancee is a very cool chick, they have a funky retro style and I'm a big fan of them both.

I used this KennyK image as it's so easy to personalize and am entering their Anything Goes challenge. He has jet black hair and a turned up coif while she has ombre orange hair. Yes orange. Not ginger, not trying to be red. Orange. Love it. They are both covered in tattoos and I thought this image allowed opportunities to make it all about them. I also got to use it for my 30 day coloring challenge.

I did a bit of facebook stalking and talking to colleagues to also do some stalking to get a good photo of the bride's left arm. I managed to get a few that showed a star, with a bit of a dashed line and then the top of a heart that leads to a half sleeve with roses and diamonds and some other very cool retro images.

Their wedding scheme is creme and pink and this Neopolitan Recollections pack was perfect - the little greeting is from there as well.

I kept it simple with some candies and a little bit of glitter on the earring and flowers. I think it will work really well and I'm excited to give it to him at his going away party later this week.

My colleague loves the pin-up stamps from Kenny K and asked if I could do one for her friend. Specifically, she said "Can you get the sexiest one and make it green and edgy and the opposite of me?" (She's synonymous with pink and butterflies).

Ok!

So I used Biker Betty from Kenny K and looked for some inspiration, and found it at Freshly Made Sketches this week. This was their sketch:

You can't really see it with the paper pattern but green paper is cut on a diagonal across the page!

I used Femme Fatale paper from Recollections for the green tiger paper to give it texture. I colored the image in greens and greys and black using ProMarkers. The flowers were added for extra texture and the little black tag is perfect for the greeting.

My colleague asked for a specific greeting - which of course I didn't have- so I just wrote it on in silver pen and added some little green bling for accent.

 I had fun making it, short and simple and hope the recipient likes it!

Next week is my husband's 30th birthday and I have a tradition of using KennyK stamps so I wanted to keep that up with a special twist for this monumental birthday and enter in KennyK challenge 186 with a twist of new beginnings. Entering your 30s is a new beginning if you ask me!

I decided to go for the Fourth of July digi from KennyK as I'm American (he's English) and thought I'd go full red white and blue for the whole card. It was also partially inspired by the beautiful stencilled background from my friend Claire who gave that to me as sample of her work for me to repurpose. Isn't it great!? It uses Chelsea blue and as that's my husband's favourite colour (and football team) I thought it was perfect to use as a background.

The image is coloured with ProMarkers and then blinded up with Stickles glitter glue (red on the hat and bikini bottoms, clear on the bikini top). There are big blue stars on her hat and a big red star in the corner.

Finally I topped it with a big blingy 30 in the middle and left the sentiment off. He knows it is his birthday after all!

We tease my colleague a lot because her boyfriend sends her flowers and chocolates to the office - we're terrible people right?!

The last batch came in this big pink ribbon and she was so impressed by it days went by before she opened them because she didn't to cut the ribbon. I told her that if she gave me some of the chocolates I'd make her a thank you card with the ribbon - win/win!

I knew straight away I wanted to use Veronica Vamp - the image is perfect for this girl and I knew it'd work in her favorite color pink. Sadly it meant not being able to do the extra twist on the KennyK Anything Goes Challenge of black and white but that's ok!

I liked the look of Freshly Made Sketches this week and I rotated the sketch on it's side to get the shape right for the stamp image.


The image is colored with ProMarkers and I kept it really simple with bling and the spotted ribbon as that big bow is pretty in your face!

I think my colleague is going to love it - another fun double challenge entry.

This week we have a fun challenge at Moving Along with the Times an Autumn Leaves theme.

I am trying out all kinds of fun new kit on this card because I had a bumber haul recently from Craft Superstore. On top of that I purchased Farmer's Daughter from Kenny K and something about her look just made me think I could make it work with this theme.

I started with a background patterened with Inkadoo leaf stamps in autumnal colors of yellow, orange, red and browny-gold. I love a bit of a DIY pattern and these stamps were in the sale so I just went for it!

Next I colored the KennyK Farmer's Daughter image using ProMarkers and diecut her out in a circle. I added the gold scalloped diecut behind her and decided she would be fun as a "blue ribbon" sort of shape so I looked for a banner to make the bottom of the shape. I thought red would tie in well with the colors and as I just bought a new embossing folder in a basket weave pattern it was a great opportunity to try it out.

Finally I added the greeting which is from a cling stamp set that I think might be Fiskars? Not entirely sure! Some touches of bling and some buttons to give it a thoroughly country feel and I'm a happy bunny!

Can't wait to see what you have done with the theme!

A friend of mine is the epitome of the hot copy - in real life she is beautiful, funny and a very clever detective in the Metropolitan Police. I have been eyeing up the Hot Fuzz stamp from Kenny K for a while and decided to get it so I could make a card for my friend. Sometimes you just have to indulge!

I colored the image using ProMarkers and added the "Hey girl!" greeing - a wooden stamp that I've not used before. Perfect first outing I think.

I kept it very simple - with a fine chevron a paper, bit of Recollections spotted ribbon and a candi I called it a day. I think it is defiintely going to be a fun surprise for my friend.

A friend of mine just got a great promotion as the brand director of a lad's magazine - how fun is that?! To celebrate her new role I wanted to create a sexy card that captured the fun spirit of the job. So where else to turn but KennyK? :)

I started with Harley Ryder and colored in red and grey using ProMarkers. I die cut her out in a petal and inked up the edges to give some texture. The paper is from My Mind's Eye and I chose a cut that had some texture and detail, which I enhanced with Fiskar's greeting stamps and bling. I added the flowers and red bling to make it a bit more feminine. Overally it's been more fun than my usual 'congratulations' cards!

This week Shell is hosting us at Moving Along with the Times and we have a Somone Special at Christmas challenge. Please indicate that this card is for someone special on the card, either in the sentiment or greeting - and that's it!

For my take, I wanted to feature this fun Kenny K holiday image. The Kenny K team are having a Christmas twist this week so I'm entering their challenge as well. I colored her using ProMarkers and then die cut the circle so I could get the layered effect that I wanted.

The baking papers are from a christmas stack and a glitter card stack from Michael's. I have always loved the argyle print but struggled to use it - I think it works here with the other elements, if a bit busy.

I wanted to make this more like a package so I added the tag and double wrapped it with some chunky string- I had this vision in my head to get all of these layered stacked up and I'm really pleased with the outcome.

Final touches were to glitter the fur trim on the santa hat and add a sparkly candy to the corner.

Can't wait to see what special somone is getting your Christmas creations week!

It's my friend Harry's birthday today and I forgot to bring him a card today! Gutted!

So to make it up to him I made a card using Huge Hero from Kenny K. If you don't already know I'm obsessed with Kenny K then you can get into the craze yourself as this stamp is currently on sale - it was all I could do not to buy everything in the sale myself!

The image is colored with ProMarkers and then I cut it out. I love this brick-embossed white photo paper which Claire gave me and I think it looks great with this image. The star paper is from a Dovecrafts monotone pack I picked up a while ago.

The greeting is an inside joke - my friend is a copywriter and I'm always asking him for little favours like blog writing for client blogs I manage and so I thought I'd make a joke. And yes - I decided to use my awful handwriting instead of proper writing or stamps or a printed message - more personal that way.

I'm entering it into the KennyK blog Anything Goes challenge as well. Hopefully he'll like it and it'll make up for my tardiness on forgetting it today!

As it's the first of October, there's a trend to get all jazzed about Halloween amongst us crafters and I decided to dive head first in with a sexy take on the spooky holiday. No pumpkins here, just a bit of fun from Kenny K!

Their black and orange challenge 181 (I'm hoping I'm lucky as that's the number of this post as well!) was perfect for Veronica Vamp, a stamp I bought just this week.

The colors are a perfect match for this week's Color Throwdown Challenge:



I colored the image using ProMarkers and die cut her out in the petal shape with an inked edge to add a bit of darkness to the bright white paper. I layered that over a black paper doiley, which went over a textured black and white houndstooth card stock.

The orange chevron ribbon is actually fabric ribbon but it worked so well here. I added some black and white thread and a black and white stitched bow - once I start using ribbon I can't stop! The brown flag has a hand-written sentiment - I struggled to know what to put there so I just came up with something!

I thought I would also enter it into The Pink Elephant's Anything Goes Challenge this week.

Happy first day of a Halloween-themed month to everyone!