Someone was 50 Plus A Stamped Male Birthday Card

I made 2 cards this week. One for my cousin who was 50 last Sunday and one for my sister's boyfriend.

I used 2 stamps and the masking technique for this card. Annie sitting pretty and tree stump with bluebells are both designed by Lou and Karen and sold exclusively by Charmed Cards and Craft. Numbers are Basic Grey Two Scoops stickers

For this card, I used an image from Stampscapes Lakeside Cove unmounted stamp set. I stamped using dark blue ink and added rub-on letters for the sentiment.

Thanks for looking.

Take care, love and hugs, Sarah C xoxoxo

Go Mikey!!

Lou's digital downloads are always worth waiting for and the latest collection (MIKEY) is no exception. Have a look here and then hop over to Charmed to get yours. You can see cards made using them at Dottie's World.

The best things about them for me are that:
1) there's no waiting for them to arrive in the post
2) you can re-size them to your needs
3) you have a choice of choosing them with a white background or transparent
4) they don't cost much
5) they'll make teen boys and young men's cards so much easier to make

Have I convinced you to get them yet? I have? You won't regret it. Just in case you need any more convincing though, here's a picture of the pre-coloured ones you get along with the black & white images for you to colour as you wish.


Thanks for looking
Take care, love and hugs
Sarah C xoxoxo

Inspire Me!

I was at my youngest sister's yesterday waiting for a delivery for her and her husband-to-be and spent the morning happily colouring in some of Lou's amazing images that I'd printed onto watercolour paper. It's amazing the difference that the correct paper makes. I must get some more paper as I've run out of it now. Still, I have plenty of images to keep me going and some still need to be coloured. I've used one of those images for this weeks challenge on Dottie's World.

Juliet set the challenge on Sunday and gave us this photo saying:

"You can take whatever you like from the photograph: you could focus on the colours, use a cupcake on your work or make a cupcake shaped card - it's up to you. You must include one of the Charmed downloads on your project and please tell us how the photo inspired you in your make ... "

I took the colours and made a card using one of the new Holly and Madison downloads that I've watercoloured using watercolour paints. When I cut a large flower in half  it reminded me of the chocolate colured icing on the cakes. I was horrified when Mellie said she'd cut a flower ages ago, but now I know why. In doing so, we get to use the flower twice which is a great bonus!!

Thanks for looking.

Take care, love and hugs to  you all

Sarah C xoxo

Girls About Town

My ultra talented friend Lou has amazed me once again and left me speechless for more than one reason. She's the creator and designer of Dottie, George and their animal friends. These and the new collection are available for download exclusively on Charmed.

Well, a new collection has become available and it is so different from the rest. Called 'Girls About Town' you really do need to check it out. Being downloadable (as are all her images), unlike stamps you get it in as many sizes as you want and that your printer will allow. I have an A3 printer, so that's one very large image if I want! Hmmm............... maybe not, or maybe?????? You get girls in b&w plus coloured in and backgrounds and sentiments. A huge bundle for a small price.

There's 6 girls named in this bundle and I was gobsmacked when Lou contacted me today to say that the Sarah ones (yes, there's 2 of them!) were named after me. I just wish I looked that gorgeous with the long legs and such LOL A huge thank you to Lou for that honour and I hope I haven't put off potential customers with that information. Here I am in the pre-coloured format I look fantastic, even if I do say so myself :D Love ya heaps for this Lou.
Thanks for looking. Don't forget to head off and get your downloads now (after you've left me a comment so I know you've visited of course! LOL).

Take care,

Love and hugs

Fairies and Angels

I've made this card for the current Cute Card Thursday challenge which is to create a card using either fairies or angels.

I had this image already printed out so decided to use her rather than leave her in the drawer. She's Christmas Fairy Dottie by Lou and available from Charmed. I've watercoloured her using my brush markers, layered her onto cream card that I've coloured with a gold ink pad and used foam pads to attach her to the card. I've also added Christmas paper, ribbon and brads.

Thanks for looking

Take care
Love and hugs

Fold Card

I saw some different cards on Adele's blog earlier and they are stunning. Pop over and have a look at hers and the tutorial

~~~~~~~~~~ Not so fast ~~~~~~~~~~

AFTER you've looked at mine of course!!!

Here's my first attempt at one. It won't be my last and I need to make a couple of adjustments next time like - measure more careful to get the folds exactly right. Oh well, I did say it was my first attempt! Image is the pre-coloured Ellie Elephant by Lou and available exclusively from Charmed.

Thanks for looking. Now I'll let you go to Adele's, then Charmed to get your downloads.

Take care.

Love and hugs

More Cards and Challenges

This must be a record for me. Usually if I've made this amoaunt of cards in a week, it's because I'm crafting for someone else or because I'm in a rush to get some done. This time it's because I've decided to join in with some card challenges and make some cards 'just because'. I've spent the last few months concentrating on scrapbooking and have made about 80 lay-outs since the middle of March this year. Card making took a back seat and now I've got re-newed interest in them.

Both images are pre-coloured from the fantastic and amazing animal magic download bundle available by Lou and available exclusively from Charmed. To see more, visit Dottie's World.

First card is using Donald Donkey and made for the Sketch Saturday 1st November challenge. They had an added challenge of using Autumn colurs too. I've used yellow, brown, rust, bronze and gold. The yellow is actually a little lighter, but no matter what I did, I could not get it to look any better. Even using an editing programme didn't help much. The ribbons are gold satin.

I'm just a little late with this next challenge, but I loved the look of the sketch and wanted to make a card using it. The sketch is from Papertake Weekly and is the 13th October challenge. Told you I was a little late didn't I? I have some new vellum glue and put too much on the left corner, so the vellum wrinkled. Because of this, I decided that I could cover it with the sentiment and that itself flipped the sketch over. Simple to change and problem solved.

The multi-toned blue organza ribbon is gorgeous and was in the blog candy I got a while ago from the lovely Emma. I also used red organza, brads and a rub-on sentiment. The image is 'Home Tweet Home'.

Thanks for looking

Love and hugs

Little Birdie

A little birdie told me there were more downloadable images by Lou and available from Charmed. So I had to go and take a peak and wow, they were amazing. Pop over to Dotties World for a look at more cards and images than I have to offer you here. I have made one card with these images so far and used the pre-coloured image titled 'little birdie'.


I have put a vellum envelope inside so that some money can be added. The tag is there so that the envelope will still have something in it once the money's been spent.

I used Stazon to stamp the image onto the vellum and back of the tag.

These are great to work with. Little Birdie is printed on photo paper and 3D'd onto brown paper. The card is covered with PP from Poundland.

Thanks for looking.

Love and hugs

Gardener George and a Magnetic Peg

It's my friends DHs birthday today so, I made a card for him using one of the George at Work downloads by Lou and available from Charmed.

I coloured him in using Paint.net and printed him onto photo paper. I also printed extra boots and wheelbarrow bucket. I stuck strips of PP onto blue card and layered a piece of blue dotty paper on top, then stuck George down. I 3D'd the extra boots and wheelbarrow and added dirt and plants with a brush marker. As a final touch, I added a co-ordinating chipboard shape and a birthday greeting peel-off that I'd coloured blue using a permanent pen.



I also made my friend's DH one of my magnetic pegs. I cut chipboard to size and covered both sides of it inking all the edges with brown versacolor ink. I glued the peg inside the hole I'd made and decorated it using co-ordinating chipboard shapes and a blue button. These are so handy for being a different way to give money as the peg hold it nicely.

Birthday Dottie

My friend's birthday was the perfect excuse (not that I needed one) to use the Birthday Dottie download created by Lou and available in the Fun Time Set from Charmed Cards and Crafts.

To make this card, I:

* printed Dottie out, coloured her in using my new watercolour pencils, cut her out and stuck her onto some red paper before cutting round her again.

* used 2 contrasting patterned papers for the background and stuck Dottie on top using foam pads. My friend likes peel-offs so I coloured a birthday greeting with permanent pens to make it red and added this to the card.

* tried a technique I had seen on Create and Craft using acetate to create a dome. It worked (yippee, meant I didn't have to re-do the card) and I used ribbon down either side of it adding yellow eyeletts on the four corners. (You can see the curve of the dome in these next 2 photos.)

I made a box for it to help protect the acetate, but forgot to photograph that before sealing the jiffy bag I put it in (it's being posted). I just hope she likes it.

George

I'm so pleased for Lou and Dottie. Dottie's boyfriend George made an appearance tonight over on Charmed. If you love Dottie, you're sure to love sporty George. They are both available to buy as GIF or JPeg downloads. George is fantastic to help put the fun element into men's cards which a lot of us struggle with. I intend getting him to keep Dottie company, do you?

Lou's 3C's Challenge

As if Lou hasn't been busy enough, it was her turn to set the challenge for April on Charmed. No prizes for guessing that she thought of Dottie. She's even given forum members a FREE and EXCLUSIVE Dottie to use if we wish. I made my card using the curvy card template that Lou designed too.

This is what Lou said:
To celebrate the launch of Dottie I challenge you to make a ‘Dottie’ card (Dottie the character, not polka dots LOL). Don’t panic if you don’t have any Dottie’s because I’ve drawn a free, exclusive Charmed Dottie, only available to forum members who take part in this challenge, you can use her as much as you like after that but only if you take part in the fun! (you can leave out the sentiment if you wish)

Okay so here are the points· For making a Dottie card........ 30 points· For adding Scalloping....... 10 points· For Dry embossing...... 5 points· For using buttons..... 5 points ~~ 50 points in total

This is what I did:
I managed to cut the card in one piece rather than the usual two plus hinges. This eliminated the need to cover the hinges after assembly.

To decorate the card, I cut a piece of red pearlised card and scalloped the edges. Dry embossed curves and doodled using a black pen. I also dry embossed "Hello" to the right of Dottie who was coloured using brush markers, cut out and stuck to the red card. Pink buttons were added to her hair. I stapled ribbon and ric-rac to the top of the card and stuck a piece of orange ric-rac to the bottom.

The staples showed on the inside, so I cut some card, folded it to create a place to write a note and stuck it to hide them. I held the flap with a striped paperclip.

I'm pleased and proud to say that it's full marks to me. Thank you so much Lou for a great challenge and for the two great bases to start with. I only put them all together with my little extras.

The First, Twice In One Day

Well, not only was I the first to buy one (or two!) of Lou's Dottie downloads from Charmed, but I've also been the first to link a card to her blog made using one of the many images we get in each set. I am so chuffed. I'm one of 4 winners of some surprise blog candy. Thank you Lou and Karen so much. I can't remember the last time I won anything.

If you don't know who Dottie is, I suggest you go and check her out here. She's adorable.

Thank you to everyone who's already commented on the card I've made this evening and for all your comments on my other work. It really does mean a lot to me.

xxxx

phrase at the top of this post is from elegantwordart2

Salon Dottie

Lou's friend Dottie has gone live and can come and live in your house. She's fantastic and I've snapped some of her images up already. I was the first - yippee!!!!!!!!!!! You can buy downloads from charmed.

Here's a card I made from the funtime set. I've made it for my sister's birthday tomorrow. I did make her a card, but I can't find it.

I used purple leather card, papers from Readicut, brush markers, pink ribbon and black gems (used on the 2 corners, as the buttons on the dryer and as her eyes.)

Love these images so much Lou. Thank you for designing them and for Karen for making them available as downloads. Hope you enjoyed your champagne tonight xxx