A Gothic Hallowe'en

Another Halloween card to donate to Cards for Kids (Canada) (a charity that provides handmade cards to hospitalized kids). This time I decided to go very simple and kind of gothic, using a Martha Stewart acetate die cut (the chandelier) and a layered sentiment die cut.

Challenges

2 Sisters - black, white, 1 other colour

365 Cards - make your sentiment stand out

Craft Fancy - die cuts

Crafting When We Can - anything goes

Fab n Funky - bingo (I chose embellishments, ribbon, die cuts)

A Magical Halloween

Halloween doesn't have to be all spooky and scary - sometimes it's about magic and make-believe. This little cutie is part of Bugaboo's Harry Potter/wizard set and he's all set to make some candy disappear. The colouring is all done with Copics and the bats are rub-ons. The sentiment is computer-generated using a free Harry Potter font I found online.

This card will be donated to Cards for Kids (Canada) - a charity that donates handmade cards to local Children's Hospitals.

Challenges:

• Bloggers Challenge - Stars
• Bugaboo Wacky Wednesday - Sketch
• Colour Me Creative Copic Challenge - Fall or Halloween
• Crafty Emma - Make it magical or spooky
• C.R.A.F.T. - Children
• One Stop Craft - Food/drink (check out all that candy on the paper)

Trick or Treat Dragon

Today's card features one of my favourite dragons (from Dustin Pike's Doodle Dragon Studios) who is all dressed up for trick or treating. He's using his pillow case for maximum candy capacity and has a little bit of bling (see the clasp for the cape) to make sure everyone notices him as he wanders the streets. This card will be donated to Cards for Kids (Canada).

Challenges:

• Card Makin' Mamas - Go digi
• Colour Me Creative - Fall or Halloween
• C.R.A.F.T. - Children
• Creative Craft Challenge - Use a charm (the candy corn charm)
• Shopping Our Stash - Birds, bugs or beasts (no people)
• Sunday Sketch and Stamp - Sketch

Halloween

I'm getting ready to put my house up for sale which means I've had to pack away most of my crafting supplies. I'm feeling very deprived as I've put away everything but a few project boxes. To minimize what "needed" to be left out, I decided to focus my energies over the next couple of months on making Hallowe'en & Christmas cards to donate to the local Children's Hospital. I'm hoping to make at least 20 of each that can be given to Cards for Kids (Canada) and then distributed to hospitalized kids.

To start, I have 2 different Halloween cards to share - the first for a teenager and the second for a younger kid.

Bugaboo rocker:

The digi image is from Bugaboo (SKELB You Rock My World) and is coloured using Copic markers. The paper is from

Challenges:

• Card Makin' Mamas - go digi
• Cards for Men - "G" is for (guitar)
• Catch the Bug - anything goes
• Color Me Creative Copics Challenge - Fall or Halloween
• Creative Stamp Friends - for a man
• Less is More - CAS & metallic colours (gunmetal grey, silver metal button)
• Ribbon Carousel - all tied up (ribbon & floss)

Cutest bat in town:

The image is from The Stamping Bazaar (Marvin) and is coloured using Copic markers. The papers are from

• Creative Card Crew - anything goes
• Do You Stack Up? - friendly critters
• My Mum's Craft Shop - 1 (image), 2 (design papers), 3 (buttons)
• Papertake Weekly - sketch
• Partytime Tuesdays - anything goes
• Pile it On - "B" things (buttons, bat)

Sparkly felt and a strip of ribbon

Today's card is based on a card I saw in a recent issue of Paper Craft magazine. The focus of the article was on using felt for projects - this is something I haven't done before but I did have a bunch of felt available (in the kids' doodle drawers).

I chose a sparkly white felt and free hand-cut a dress shape. I wanted to keep it very simple so just added a thin strip of ribbon around the waist. The dress really sparkles but unfortunately that doesn't come through in the photo. The sentiment is computer-generated then cut out and layered.

I've decided to donate this card to Cards for Kids since I don't have many opportunities to give cards to young ladies. My kids are still quite young (and boys) so all the cards I make for them & their friends are of the goofy/childish variety. I'm thoroughly enjoying making cards for Cards for Kids though since I can use it as an excuse to make cards for all ages and types of kids. If you love to make cards, then check out the site and think about donating a few!

Challenges:

• Card Makin' Mamas - birthday
• Creative Belli - felt or fabric
• Fairy Knoll - birthday
• Fashionista Friday - birthday
• For Fun Challenges - birthday
• One Stop Craft - birthday
• 
  Stampin With The Dragon - birthday

A bunch of birthday balloons

Every challenge I check out these days is all about Valentine's Day, love, hearts, etc, etc. Well, I had to give in and do a lovey-dovey card but I refuse to make a Valentine's Day card this year (I'm anti-romance right now) so I turned this into a sweet birthday card that I plan to include in the next batch of cards going to Cards for Kids.

I usually use digi stamps but this Stamping Bella rubber stamp caught my eye a while ago. I love the delicacy of the figure and the swishyness (is that a word?) of the dress. After colouring, I added some Stickles to the dress & shoes to give a bit of glitter. I tried to make the scalloped hearts look as if they were part of the balloon cluster so I added a layer of Glossy Accents to both the balloons and the die cut hearts.

Challenges:

Thanks to Feline Playful for providing lists of challenges - I've found a couple of new challenges to follow and participate in. Yippee!

C.R.A.F.T. - use a die cut (I used nestabilities scalloped hearts)

Crafty Cardmakers - hearts

Crazy Challenge - lots of love

Creative Cowgirls - love is in the air

I Did it Creations - love is in the air

Paper Crafting Journey - love is in the air

Paper Playtime - use cupid or hearts

Polkadoodle - with hearts

Simon Says Stamp - love is in the air

Stamp with Fun - love

Can I brighten your day?

On the weekend I picked up a crafting magazine and inside was a pack of paper which ... well, to say it is bright is probably understating it. Never one to shirk a challenge, I decided to see if I could make a couple of cards with this extremely cheerful paper. I believe I succeeded. And although neither of these are my style, they should do quite nicely for Cards for Kids (my project to provide hand-made cards for hospitalized children).

I used a wonderful vintage-looking image of a kitten that I found through CDAC. This image was offered free by Robyn's Fetish for use in CDAC's second colour challenge. Don't you just adore how sweet and feminine the cat looks? I used last week's sketch from Midnight Madness for the layout and then added a single embellishment - the flowered branch - made using a Sizzix diecut.

This card uses another image that I've had forever (and in fact, has been coloured for close to a year). "Fairy Cake Tilly" is a freebie (that you can still get!) from Digital Doodling. I kept this card very simple as well because the design paper is just so darned bright.

I may not use much more of the free paper pack, but at least I met my personal challenge and used a couple of sheets of it!

Challenges: 

• Crafty Catz - flowers
• Crafty Emma - bold & bright
• Fairy Knoll - flowers
• Just Us Girls - make your own flowers
• Pile It On - punch it
• Sisterhood of Crafters - anything goes
• Stamp Fairy - homemade flowers
• Top Tip Tuesday - girlie
• Tuesday Taggers - feel the love

Blog Hop winner and birthday cards for kids

Before I show you today's cards, I need to announce the winner of the recent Ezee Pzee Blog Hop. We had a total of 33 entries so I put the number into the randomizer and the winner is:

Michelle

Michelle, please send your information to engravit@albertacom.com so we can get your prize out to you. Congratulations!!!
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I have 2 cards to share today. Both use images from Bugaboo as well as Basic Grey papers. These are very fun & bright birthday cards that I will be donating to Cards for Kids. If you haven't heard about Cards for Kids yet, this is a project to collect hand-made birthday and special occasion cards that can be given to hospitalized children. It's a great excuse to craft and a great use for all the cards that we (meaning us crafters) make. I encourage you all to think about donating a card or two!

Challenges:
Allsorts - for a boy/man
Do You Stack Up? - patterns
Fairy Fun Fridays - birthdays
Paper Play - layer it up
Creative Belli - beginning with "P" (I've used lots of "p"atterned paper
I Did it Creations - card for a child
Stamp Something - cute somethings

A trio of birthday or love cards

If you are looking for the Ezee Pzee blog hop (and a chance to win some excellent blog candy) then keep scrolling down or click here.

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I had a super productive couple of evenings spurred on by an absolutely incredible sale at Bugaboo. Ending TODAY (Jan 22) Bugaboo has all their stamps on for 60% off. I went quite crazy and bought myself a whole bunch of new images including the three I have used here.

I kept all three of these cards simple so that the images would really stand out (and even if I do say so myself, I think my colouring is extra good on these!). I'm going to donate all of these cards to Cards for Kids so I wanted them to be usable for all types of occasions although they are each quite clearly most suitable for Valentine's Day or a bithday.

I used some red foil paper that I saved from a box of chocolates (I love repurposing) to matte the image and create the band along the bottom of the card. I also used a square of the foil and embossed it with a Cuttlebug folder. I went back & forth on whether I should touch-up the embossing where white from the back of the paper came through but I decided to leave it as is to match the worn look of the boy's coat & boots.

This next card is definitely for a birthday. I used two embossing folders (notebook from Tim Holtz, "Happy Birthday" from Cuttlebug) to create the background. I used the sketch from Cards & Things.

This is my favourite of of the cards - I'm quite pleased with how tasty the cupcake ended up looking. Kind of a light chocolate with caramel! The sketch for this card is from Moving Along with the Times.

Challenges:

All Sorts - for a boy/male

Challenge Up Your Life - clean & simple

Copic Creations - use something new (the digis)

Moving Along with the Times - SKETCH

Simon Says Stamps - BINGO (I chose die cut, embossing, ribbon

Sisterhood of Crafters - birthdays

Stampin' Royalty - anything with wings

My Time to Craft - spots & dots

Cards & Things - SKETCH

Aly's Sunday Challenge - things with wings

Pink makes everyone look pretty

I've got a stash of digi images that I've coloured (and in some cases even matted) but never used. So I'm making a concerted effort to make use of them rather than colour new. In some cases, such as this one, I can't imagine why I haven't used the image earlier.

This sweet little hedgehog from Phindy's Place is so adorable in all her finery that even the flies buzzing around her head seem to be lovely. I thought this image would be perfect for a little girl and so I made the card with an assortment of Basic Grey papers (from "Lemonade" set) that are just super feminine. I added a touch of glitter to the flies and a few coloured pearls in the bottom corner.

I'll be donating this card to Cards for Kids as either a "birthday" or "just because you're special" card. If you aren't familiar with Cards for Kids (and it is a brand-new initiative so you probably aren't), we are collecting hand-made greeting cards that can be given to hospitalized children who are unlucky enough to be in hospital over their birthday or other special day. I really encourage you to check out the site and if donate a card or two!

Challenges:
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - anything goes
Quirky Crafts - in the springtime garden (the hedgehog you find in your garden may not be wearing a pink & green dress but mine is - lol)
2 Sisters - flowers (this paper is overflowing with flowers)
Our Creative Corner - dress up the sketch (I added an embossed frame, another layer of matting plus some coloured pearls)

3 monkeys & a cupcake

I had a super productive evening last night and completed a total of 4 cards for Cards for Kids (which provides hand-made cards to Children's Hospitals for distribution to hospitalized kids on their birthdays and other holidays). 

These cards were pretty quick to put together as the images were already coloured and I used card sketches from a couple of challenge sites for the designs. All that was left was the selection of papers (Basic Grey, of course) and embellishments (buttons). All of these papers came from the Basic Grey "Wander" collection. All of the images are from Bugaboo.


Challenges:
Sisterhood of Crafters - birthday
The Crazy Challenge - animals
Crafty Pad - birthday
Pile it On - cute kids (card #4)
Basic Grey - dots & spots (cards #2, 3)
Catch the Bug - anything goes
Crafty Emma - all creatures great & small
One Stop Craft - card for a child
Crafty Catz - food or drink (card #4 is a cupcake)
Sew Many Cards - flags (pirate flag in cards #1, 3)
Stamp Something - use a digi
Fuzzy Wuzzy - anything goes (with an animal)
Charisma Cardz - birthdays
Delightful Challenges - buttons
Corrosive Challenge - sketch (cards #2, 3)

Friday Sketchers - sketch (cards #1, 4)

Cards for kids

I've recently decided to start collecting and then donating handmade cards to the B.C. Children's Hospital. I'm calling the project "Cards for Kids" and am working to get the first batch of cards to the hospital by the first week of February. These cards will be given to the nurses and staff at the hospital to give to sick kids at appropriate times (like birthdays and holidays).

This card is the first that I've made specifically for "Cards for Kids" and I'm quite pleased with it. I think it will be just great for a boy's birthday.

The image is from Tiddly Inks and I think it's just perfect for a boy's birthday. I raided the kids' craft stash for the paper (it's from a Crayola pack) and used alphabet stickers for the sentiment. The ribbon started out white but was coloured using Copics to match the boy's shirt.

Challenges:
Crafty Pad - happy birthday
One Stop Craft Challenge - for a child
Stamp Something - use a digi
Charisma Cardz - birthdays & celebrations
Paper Play - clean & simple