Flowery notelets

No posts for days and then, like the No. 9 Bus, 3 come along all together, LOL. 

My Mother in Law asked for notelets for Christmas and after seeing the fabulous set made by Melly, I decided to have a go myself, albeit with something a bit simpler.  I have some lovely Hero Arts watercolour flower stamps and I coloured them with my Whispers Pens then stamped onto white card, adding the 'Just a Note . . . ' in black (free stamp from Crafty Individuals).  Each image was then mounted onto purple card and then onto a deckle edged white card blank.  I then made a folder to hold all 12 notelets.  I hope she likes them.

A World without Flowers

My Aunt has her birthday on 1st January so I made this card for her.  The background was made some time ago using Starburst Stains (Mountain Lavender Gold and Carpathian Bluebells).  I stamped the flowers (Hot Off The Press Botanicals) and the sentiment (Paper Makeup Stamps) in Jet Black Archival Ink. This was then mounted onto white and navy card.  Quite a simple card.

Christmas Serena

I have this lovely stamp by The Stampsmith called Serena (I got it from Crafts and Me).  I thought she would make a lovely Christmas card.  I took a cream card blank and stamped holly (Habico Clear Stamps) in Memories Sand.  Onto a strip of Parchment coloured paper I stamped the music (Crafty Individuals 194) in Encore Gold, ripped the paper and edged it with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink.  The image was matted and layered with gold and brown card and I also added Glamour Dust to the flowers (to give it that festive look).  The flower was punched and a Prima Flower Centre added plus a bit of organza ribbon to finish it off.

First and Last

We're having very special challenge at Crafty Cardmakers for the next 4 weeks and its something a little bit different and a lot of fun!  We've also managed to pursuade the sponsors or their representative to join in the fun :)

We'd like to see your LATEST OR GREATEST creation so anything you like or a particular favourite AND here's the important bit, we'd also like to see your FIRST or the OLDEST one you have a photo of!  I can see you cringing and thinking oooooh nooooo mine's really baaaad!  Don't worry, we ALL started somewhere and I hope you can see from the samples that everybody was new once and with a bit of practice you can get better and you'll also see how much you've already got better by digging out your first efforts!
The Rules:

You can enter up to 3 times but each must contain a picture of one of your first designs and must be different techniques or items e.g. first card, first stamped card, first scrapbook page, first tag etc.  They must also be separate posts.


You can enter your latest creations or your favourites previously published alongside your old design.  You can enter in as many other challenges as you wish but many challenges do not accept older creations so just be mindful of that.


Please link back to this blog and mention Crafty Cardmakers in your post.

The challenge runs for 4 weeks from 13th Dec and closes at 9am GMT on Monday 10th January


We are very proud to be sponsored by a number of very kind stores for this challenge with lots of winners for this one and the prizes on offer are...

£10 voucher from Joanna Sheen

£10 voucher from The Stampman

$10 voucher for Stitchy Bear Stamps

Pack of 5 promarkers from Letraset

£10 voucher for Crafts & Me

£10 worth of stamps of your choice from Stamping all day

Right then, now to show you my first and last!

This was one of the first cards I made back in November 2007.  I got the idea from a card  made with Cricut machine and just cut this out by hand as I don't own one.  As you can see even back then I was keen on White Cards.

And this is my latest card. It is a Christmas card for a friend who really inpires me.  The main stamp is by Stampsmith and I've kept to beige and browns.
I resisted making cards for ages but eventually was persuaded to start by my late and much missed Mum who made her own cards and suggested it might be a cheaper to make my own rather than buy Christmas cards! Oh Mum, what did you start, LOL. I quickly joined a group run by the fabulous Vix who encouraged me to explore rubber stamping. Now I feel I haven't made a proper card unless there is a bit of ink on it somewhere. I LOVE rubber stamps. As for style I seem to make both the cute type and arty (and everything else in between, but have to admit to being pretty useless with digital images apart from print. I have started to enter a few more challenges this year and had some success. I was particularly proud of having cards chosen by Play Date Cafe and Gingersnap recently. This is the only DT I am currently on but hopefully when I am more organised in the New Year I shall look into joining a couple more.