With love

 As many of you will know, making  a card is not always for a happy occasion, however whilst creating a sympathy card, I love thinking about the person and memories I have of them which always gives me some joy.

I made this card for a childhood friend who's father has passed away recently.

I am completely in love with Sue Wilson's Austrian collection and this  coordinating stamp from Creative Expressions is just perfect for what I had in mind.

I run a piece of black card through my Grand Calibur using the Checkerboard embossing folder from Sue Wilson's Pinpoint range and matted this onto my 5x5 Centura pearl card blank.

The image is the Dandelion Meadow stamp from Creative Expressions . It works perfectly with the larger oval die from the Insbruck set which is part of the Sue Wilson's Austrian die collection.

The sentiment is part of my stash and was probably a freebie from one of the Card magazines.

I made the bow using the smaller of Sue Wilson's mosaic bow dies from the Finishing Touches collection. A couple of black gems finished this off nicely.

By using a different colour scheme, this can be easily adapted for a slightly happier occasion.

I would like to enter this into  Allsorts no design paper allowed challenge

Lots of crafty love

Sonja
xx

Favourite Things

Favourite things is this weeks challenge over on the  Allsorts Challenge Blog and this card is just perfect for it.
I have used all my favourites here - stamping, embossing and colouring in  whilst enjoying  another favourite of mine - a steaming cup of coffee.

I started by creating a 5 x 5 inch square card blank from white Centura Pearl card.

I embossed a smaller white piece of card with the Swiss Dot Darice embossing folder. I inked the embossed card with Victorian Velvet and Antique Linen Distress inks.

I cut a black piece of card using the largest of my Spellbinder Label 4 die and stamped the sentiment from the Justrite Coffee Cup stamp set in clear embossing ink. I heat embossed this with Papermania's Sea Foam white embossing powder.  I did the same with the swirl.

I stamped the coffee cup from the same Justrite stamp set in black ink and heat embossed this with clear powder. Before fussy cutting the image, I coloured it using Oatmeal,Denim Blue, Pear Green and Cardinal Red Promarkers. 

I layered it all up and fixed the image with foam tape before finishing it off with a blue gem ( can't have a card without bling)

Really pleased with the end result, I have been wanting these Justrite  stamps ever since I saw Sue Wilson using them a few months ago and finally treated myself to them last week.

Hope you enjoy this too

Sonja

Xx

Queen for the Day

As today is the 60th anniversary of the Queen's Coronation, I thought it was quite fitting to showcase the card I made using the wonderful and patriotic  Papermania Portobello Road kit. The card is for a German friend of mine who loves all things London, so I couldn't have found a more perfect set of stamps.

I started by embossing a piece of white card with the Papermania  Portobello Road Union Jack Tribossing folder, which I then inked with some Antique Linen distress ink.

I stamped the London Bus, Taxi, postbox, phone box in black on white card and used clear powder to heat emboss the outlines, I coloured the images using Cardinal Red, cool Grey & black Promarkers. Before cutting them I inked any white spaces with the antique linen distress ink.
I stamped Big Ben and inked this with gold ink and again cut it out.
All stamps are from the Portobello Road set.
I arranged all cut out pieces on the left side of the embossed Union Jack and stuck them down using my trusted tape pen.
I stamped one of the birthday sentiments (also from the Portobello Road set) in black, heat embossed with clear powder and fixed it to the top of the card adding a sparkling gem to the top of the crown.

I was looking through my stash and came across the "queen for the day" stamp which was a freebie in " Quick Cards Made Easy"magazine last year. I coloured the "queen" in red using Promarkers, inked the back ground with Antique Linen and added some gems to the crown before adding it to the panel.

I previously stuck the blue dotty paper from the Portobello kit to a card blank and stuck my Union Jack panel on top.
I finished the card with a Union Jack bow and added another gem to the middle.

I am pretty pleased with the result and hope my friend likes it !

Have a fab day everyone

Sonja
xx