Confirmation card

EDIT: I was really thrilled to win a top three spot for this card, with Stamping Sisters in Christ, which is one of my favourite sites.  Well done Beth, for choosing the colour-scheme and layout!























This was made for a close friend of my grand-daughter, who was confirmed yesterday.  She chose the colours herself and the layout, and I followed the instructions!

She chose the First Edition papers "Hideaway", which are very heavily glittered, and Papermania capsule collection lemon ribbon and bow.  What a joy it is to see all the Spring flowers just coming out, so it was only natural for her to pick out the Hobbycraft silk daffodils and WOC small daffodils and roses which I glitzed up with Glimmer Mist.

The beautiful cream lace is also from WOC.   There is also some stardust Stickles around the edges of the image and horizontal strips.  I do love my glitter glue!! The image was downloaded from Magic Moonlight, who have some beautiful vintage images.



The silver cross was die cut with a two Sizzix dies, which I've found very useful over the years for Easter, sympathy, First Communion, Baptism etc, and I hope to find the new Sizzix crosses when I go up to the NEC show on Thursday.  I layered one over the other to give a bit of dimension, and created the sentiment on my pc.  The ferny leaves are my favourite MS punch on cream pearl paper which I coloured with my copic markers.  I used copics on some of the flowers and all the edges too, just to tie in the colours.  Not that I'm OCD (well not much!) but I do like everything to match up nicely.

I also made Beth's friend a pretty pearl and crystal bracelet with a lovely rhinestone cross charm bought at a a recent bead exhibition, which she was very pleased with.  I usually remember to take photos of the cards and forget about the jewellery pictures, so once again there's no photo, which was a bit silly!

I'm planning to enter the following challenges with this card:
http://crafterscafeblogchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - ribbon and lace
http://panpasteluk.blogspot.co.uk/ - add a flower
http://stampinsistersinchrist.blogspot.co.uk/ - new season
http://craftuscrazy.blogspot.co.uk/ - religious/Easter or something sweet
http://craftingforallseasons.blogspot.co.uk/ - green and yellow
http://divasbydesignchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - citrus colours

Thanks so much for coming to visit my blog.  It's a real pleasure for me to come and see your blogs and admire what you've all been doing, so please leave me a comment so that I know where to visit in return.

xx Jill

birthday card for Tracy

A birthday card for our dear daughter-in-law to be, Tracy.  It is a cUp decoupage print (designer Sandie Burchell).  This was very simple to do, with reasonably easy cutting, and was layered with shallow foam pads, so that it didn't stick up too high.  This is a style I'm currently favouring, with more layers, but less height (1mm pads).  It's mounted onto core'dinations background card and glittered with stardust glitter glue.

Just a short post today, as I'm up to my eyes in Easter cards, and a confirmation card and bracelet.  Not to mention the 12 Georgian petticoats for the show in a few weeks - no rest for the wicked!  Off to see Top Hat tonight at Woking, with Tom Chambers and Summer Strallan, as one of our ex-pupils is dancing in the male chorus.  It goes to the West End in May, and everyone who's seen it says it's brilliant, so really looking forward to this.

Thanks very much for visiting my blog.  I really appreciate all the comments you leave, and hope to visit your blogs too in the next couple of days.

xx Jill

Thank you card "La Sylphide"

This was made as a thank you card for the adjudicator of our recent Royal Berkshire Dance Festival.  She was an excellent judge, giving really clear helpful advice to the students, and creating a really positive atmosphere, which was great.  

The image is a digi doodle from Scrapbook Stamp Society and is called "La Sylphide" by Mitzi Sato-Wiuff, which I chose as it is quite an authentic version of a ballerina.  I coloured the image, most of the flowers, the leaves and the sentiment with copic markers in a Springtime palette of colours.  I used a copic shadow around the image in R00 to indicate the warmth of stage lighting, but I think another time, I would chose a different colour, maybe in the C or T family of grey colours.  It was tricky to choose something appropriate because even the green has a warmth to it (YGs).

It took quite a while to colour, as it was quite difficult to match up the colours of the bps, even with a large selection of copic colours. I did some tip-to-tip blending , and some feathering on the dress and wings (which, thanks to classes with Wendy at Stamps and Memories, I can now do!) so I'm beginning to feel more at home with some of the more ambitious techniques.

The yummy papers are Prima from the Romantique pad, which I chose for their Spring-like feel, and I can tell you I really didn't want to cut these little beauties up!  The papers on the bar across the base are also from the same pad, and the plain core'dinations card is a sort of salmon pink.  The flowers are mainly Prima, with a few verbena flowers from Hobbycraft, and roses and small flowers from WOC, where I also bought the ivory lace.  There's a bit of Stardust glitter glue on her dress and wings, and around the oval, with Glimmer Mist on the flowers, and a few tiny crystal gems here and there.  Can't remember where the sentiment stamp comes from, but the die-cuts are Nesties and the leaf punch is from Martha Stewart.

I've decided to enter quite a few challenges with this card, as it's been some time since I've done any of these, due to my poor health.  It's come out as quite a selection though, as the card fits with both "wings" and Green or Spring colours, and thanks to Feline Playful - there's a long list of these!

They are: 

http://craftsandmechallenges.blogspot.com -  things with wings

http://digistamps4joy.blogspot.com  - mainly green

http://flutterbywednesdays.blogspot.com  - things with wings + Spring

http://mymumscraftshopchallenges.blogspot.com - Spring colours

http://www.whimsical-designs.com - Going green

http://deepoceanchallengeblog.blogspot.com - Spring

http://totallystampalicious.blogspot.com - Spring is in the Air

http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.com - Spread Your Wings

http://ceschallenges.blogspot.com - Flower Frenzy

http://cardmakinmamas.blogspot.com - Let's see some Green

http://ccmonthlychallenge.blogspot.com - Spring

http://cupcakecraftroom.blogspot.com - Spring Bouquet

http://sparklesforumchallenges.blogspot.com - Things with Wings

Such a long post from me today, with plenty of pictures - how nice to have a sunny day to take these!  Thank you so much for coming to visit my blog, and for any comments you would like to leave.  I'm still visiting the blogs of those who left comments on my last project, and it's lovely to see what wonderful crafting is being done by everyone.  Best wishes to you all!

xx Jill

Connor's 12th birthday

Our gorgeous grandson, Connor was 12 this week, which is unbelievable.  He's as tall as I am and loving his new secondary school.  Like most boys of his age, he can recount most of the facts about the Harry Potter books and films.  He can give you reams and reams of the most extraordinary memorised facts about all the characters and creatures to a highly boring degree!

This card is from another craftsUprint decoupage design by Valerie Dawes called "Wizard School", and so was a very obvious choice for his card.  It is an easel design with two extra slots for the owl and bookcase, and needed a couple of hours cutting out, and colouring the edges with copic markers to avoid the white marks.  I was able to put it into an A4 envelope, but had to show him how to set it up.  It also needed a couple of pieces of dst behind, to make the decoupage stand up in the slots, which also had to be explained.  This might not make it suitable to send off by post without detailed instructions, but is fine if it's going to be handed over in person.  It looks great once it's made though, and caused several exclamations of "wow": so very many thanks to the cUp designer.

Thank you for visiting my blog: I really appreciate all the lovely comments you leave.  It certainly helps knowing that someone is reading about my cards!  I hope to come and visit your blogs too.

xx Jill