Daisy Fairy

Its time for a new challenge at Southern Girls.  We have two wonderful sponsors, Little Claire and Ching-Chou Kuik.

The image I used is from Ching-Choe Kuik and is called Garden Daisy Fairy.  She is such a sweetie.  I coloured her in pencil and printed an extra daisy which I popped up at the bottom.  The sentiment "Dreams are Magical" and the paper is from Lili of the Valley.  Finished off with White seam binding (all the other colours I tried just overpowered the image and I wanted her to be the focus).  Lastly a few Enchanted Garden sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

The theme is twine, tape or ribbon.  Pretty easy right.  Hope you will pop on over and take a look at the rest of the design team's lovely creations and be inspired to join in.

See you over at Southern Girls.

Karen xo

Celebrate with Southern Girls

The theme for our new challenge at Southern Girls is "Celebration".

I guess the obvious celebrations coming up for many are Halloween and Christmas.  Here in New Zealand we don't really celebrate Halloween.  Although I do have a basket of sweets at the front door, we might get 2 maybe 3 lots of trick or treaters, if we are lucky.  I know its a big thing in the States and the confectionery companies did try and bring it in here a few years back but it just never took off.

Off course there are many other celebrations including Christmas, birthdays, a new baby, anniversaries, graduations and my choice, celebrating a new home.

I used an image from one of our lovely sponsors, Art by Miran called "cute window illustration".  I coloured the window frame and shutters in grey, cut out the window glass and backed it with a small square of paper. Then hand cut some little pots to sit on the window sill and popped a flower into each.  I added foam tape to the window with a double layer to the shutters for extra dimension.  The sentiment is a combination of die cut and computer generated.  Sequins add a little sparkle to the otherwise plain background.

Now pop on over and check out the other DT creations 

and celebrate with Southern Girls.  

Look forward to seeing your entries.

Sequin Overload....

Yes I do admit I may just have lost the plot when it comes to sequins, but I do love them.  They are such happy, shiny little things.

Ok its officially Day 3 of the 30 Day Colouring Challenge,  three for three, feeling pretty good.  I am away for a few days, taking the kids to Rotorua.  When I say kids I mean my two and six of their friends, that would be eight, 15 year olds.  Some people say I am crazy (hey I think that's a song) but I am making memories for us all and I know that we will have a great time.  I did it last year and it was just great.  I have stamped some images and have my colouring pencils packed ready to go to keep the momentum going, hoping of course I get a little bit of free time.

Anyway yesterday I watercolored some card with the intention of doing something completely different but I didn't like it as a background.  In the middle of the night I made this card in my mind with circles. Didn't really like the circles so they ended up cut to bits too.  So here we have take three, a watercolour garden.  The background paper has made such pretty flowers.

The watercolour inspiration comes from the latest Challenge at Sparkle and Shine.  I just love how they encourage you to use sequins.  The ones I have used are from Pretty Pink Posh, Summer Mix.

Have a lovely weekend and thanks for popping in.

Karen xo

You're Purrrfect

Actually its the 3rd of October here so my day 3 for the 30 Day Colouring Challenge hosted by the super talented Kathy from The Daily Marker.  Its quite handy really being a day ahead as I already have my day 3 colouring done and ready to post.

I coloured this little image with the latest challenge at Paper Smooches in mind.  I hadn't intended going black and white but that is where I ended up.  The stamps I used including the sentiment and paw print are from the Chubby Chums Set.  Yesterday I posted a card using some little cuties that peep over things which is how I came about the kitty popping out of the die cut note paper, just playing around a bit really.  I gold foiled the paw prints just for fun.

You should pop on over to the Paper Smooches site as their October release has some very lovely things, my favourite is the ugly christmas sweater, which I wish came as a single stamp.  We don't do white elephants or cookie exchanges down here so its hard to justify buying a set for one stamp.  (that's what I'm telling myself anyway). Definitely an opportunity for an ugly sweater set I'm thinking.

www.papersmoochesstamps.com

Forest Friends

The latest challenge theme at The Card Concept is Forest Friends, inspired by a very cute image.  When I saw this it gave me the perfect excuse to use a stamp set from Create a smile Stamps that I haven't used before....don't really know why as its super cute.

The style I have used is Clean and Layered (I think) I coloured the little critters with no line and popped up the bear and part of the mole.  The sentiment is from the same stamp set.  I then added a strip of paper that resembles a tree truck and a die cut tied line and a few sequins.  Think I will be using this stamp set a bit more now.

Cathy from the Daily Marker has also just started a new 30 Day Colouring Challenge, you should go and see what she did with a Starbucks cup.  I am going to try to colour every day...yikes did I actually say that...well it is a challenge!!!  

Hope to see you back again soon.

Karen xo

Calendar Fairy

Today I am sharing another Lili of theValley Calendar Fairy.  This one is July.  I really don't know which one is my favourite as they are just all so lovely (not that I have them all, unfortunately).

I decided to go purple with this one as its not a colour I use often, but I do like purple hues.  You can't really see from the photo but her wings are all shimmery as is the middle layer of her dress.  I also added some little white flowers to her dress.

I had a couple of stamp attempts that I wasn't happy with so I cut some of the flowers out and popped them onto her bouquet and used some of the others along the top.  You know I have this little sequin obsession at the moment.... so added some sequin flowers as a finishing touch.

Green Ombre

I discovered a new challenge blog called Sparkle and Shine Challenge.  A challenge blog for sequin lovers, given this is my new go to embellishment I decided I would make a card to enter.

Green is not one of my go to colours and the theme for this challenge was green inspired.  Oh my goodness this card has been sitting in pieces on my desk all week.  I knew where I wanted to go with this but it just wasn't going to plan.

I was out pruning in the garden when all of a sudden I had an idea...I had already played around making an ombre effect with strips of green card-stock, but my greens just weren't blending how I wanted.  Who said ombre had to be plain colours why not patterned paper??? ..... That was my lightbulb moment.  

I raced inside and pushed aside the green card-stock and pulled out 6 green patterned papers cut them into strips and made the background.  Fortunately I had the flowers and frame precut as when double checking the blog I realised I had 59 minutes to pull this together and photograph and blog it....no pressure....yikes!!  SO by the skin of my teeth and being the last entry for the challenge here is my card.

Now I can finish pruning.

Thanks for popping in!!

Karen