Tuesday, 11 October 2022

Katie's 40th Birthday

 


At Kate Hadfield Designs there are so many fabulous sets it is really easy to get inspired to use them. There are digital stamps which you can colour, coloured versions you can scrapbook or make into digital layouts. Papers, patterned overlays and doodles galore. No matter what your skill level there are so many goodies to play with.


A lot of our friends have significant birthdays this year. Katie is mad about zebra print and loves cocktails so this card had to feature both.

I used the cocktail stamp from On The Beach Stamps set, printed to 10cm high. This was coloured with pencils to look like a tequila sunrise and I used a black Promarker to add stripes to the straw and umbrella. I fussy cut and mounted onto foam pads.


The card base is a sheet of pink A4. I then added a zebra print paper leaving a pink border. The fancy sentiment die is from Crafter's Companion. I used black card for the foreground and a pink mirror card for the shadow layer. This was difficult to photograph as you can see below. I never learn..... LOL

The numbers are from a cardstock sticker sheet by Reminisce. These have been in my stash for years and were a gift from South Africa


I also decorated the inside of the card by using the same zebra print paper. I used some scrap pink card for cut a sentiment panel using a die from Julie Hickey Designs. It is a great set of rectangular layers and frames which are so handy for matting and layering.


Over at Kate Hadfield Designs there is lots going on. Kate is really generous with her freebies which are readily available. If you sign up to the newsletter you get access to an extra subscriber area the Doodle Den where there are loads more freebies. There is a gallery full of projects by the Creative Team and customers and so much inspiration for crafters and teachers. I would highly recommend you pop over there and join in the fun.

Card Details -


Size - A5

Digital Image - On The Beach Stamps (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Colouring Medium - Arteza Expert Pencils & Black Promarker

Dies - Happy Birthday Sentiment (Crafter’s Companion), Rectangle Layers Frames & Banners (Julie Hickey Designs)

Designer Paper - Zebra Print

Embellishments - Zebra Print Alphabet Stickers (Reminisce)



I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)













Monday, 10 October 2022

Duckling March GDT

 


I was honoured to be chosen as a Top 3 entry for Challenge 36 at Star Stampz Challenge Blog and invited to be a Guest Designer for the new challenge that starts today. The theme is For a Baby or Parents Expecting.

I selected this cute image Duckling March to work with.  I thought it was perfect for parents adding to their existing brood of little chicks and typed my own sentiment to suit before printing out.

I coloured this image with Promarkers, fine liner pens and pencils. Initially I had intended to make it suitable for a baby boy or girl but as I was selecting papers it seemed to more suited to the girl papers I had so it kind of decided for itself.

The main paper is is from a baby girl pack I had must be around 15 years ago now. I really liked the soft colours and this dictated the green cards used to mat the image and patterned border strip. 

The pink baby girl paper is actually a holographic wrapping paper from Paperchase. The tone of pink changes as you tip the card in and out of the light so adds another element to it.

Finally the Baby Girl sentiment is a domed epoxy sticker. I think this and the border were from Let's Make Cards packs that I used to subscribe to.

As I write this I am stricken with Covid. I started to feel like I had a cold on Wednesday. By Thursday night I felt like it was more than that so took a test. It was a very faint line so did another one the following morning after having the most terrible nights sleep. Very high temperature and coughing which was making my throat constantly sore. It went strong pink line straight away. It has surprised me how in only a few days I feel so poorly. I have been lucky not to get it until now I guess..... Hopefully I will be fine after a few more days and feel less like a tired zombie.

Thankyou to Star Stampz for inviting me to be a Guest Designer and providing this lovely image to work with.

Card Details -


Size - 6” Square

Image - Duckling March (Star Stampz)

Colouring Medium - Promarkers, Fineliners (The Works), Expert Pencils (Arteza)

Designer Papers - Baby Girl Chit Chat (Cloud Nine Design), Wrapping Paper (Paperchase)

Embellishments - Epoxy Sticker



I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)


Wednesday, 5 October 2022

Santa Possum

 


It's time for another challenge over at The Paper Funday.
Our challenges are alway Anything Goes with an optional twist.
The twist this time is 'It's All About the Candy'


We are very fortunate to have 2 sponsors for each challenge this year which means we get to choose which artist we would like to work with. This is really great as it gives us double the choice. We are very lucky with the amazing sponsors that are lined up this year, many of which are old favourites and some that are new to me.

We are sponsored this month by Colour of Love and Jan's Digi Stamps. Both of these are great designers who I have had the honour to work with their images in the past.



For this challenge I have chosen to work with this sweet little image Santa Possum from Colour of Love. The possum images I find very cute and this was a delight to colour. 



I used mainly Promarkers to colour adding pencil for the possum and also the background shading. As there was a spring of holly on the candy cane I decided to use traditional red & green colours adding gold for a complimentary colour.

The papers used are from 6" pads as the smaller patterns suited the size of the card better. I particularly wanted to use a striped paper to accentuate the candy can in the image.

I added lots of gems to the dots that are hand drawn on the image. Christmas cards are the perfect reason to add sparkle ☺ 

Finally I added a chipboard sentiment tag and found a scrap of bakers twine.

I hope you will join myself and our fabulous Team over at

Card Details -


Size - 6” x 6”

Digital Image - Santa Possum (Colour of Love)

Colouring Medium - Promarkers, Arteza Expert Pencils

Designer Papers - Origami Super Stack & Classic Christmas (The Works)

Embellishments - Self Adhesive Gems, Chipboard Tag, Baker’s Twine



I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)


Saturday, 1 October 2022

A Day On the Farm Digital Page

 


Over at Kate Hadfield Designs blog every month there is a digital scrapbook page template you can download completely free. I am very new to this but these templates make it so easy to create and I am having so much fun with them. Today is also Digital Scrapbooking Day so what better way to celebrate than creating my own page too!


This month the template is Big And Bold and it comes in different formats depending on which program you use to put them together.


I am on a Mac computer and use Affinity Designer to create my digital layouts. The best format for me is to build the page up using the PNG templates. Each page has the element on a different layer and you build it up using each numbered layer. This makes for quite a big file to work with but when you export it out it is like a normal image so quite a bit smaller. Previous to using these templates I never really understood how the layers worked in these sort of programs when watching the photo editing videos my hubby watches so it has really taught me so much.

On September the 28th it was my birthday and we visited Cotswold Farm Park which is the most amazing place to visit if like me you love animals. It specialises in the conservation of rare breeds of farm animals and is run by Adam Henson who is on various TV farming programmes especially Countryfile. My day was spent bottle feeding lambs and goats, stroking pigs, cows, goats, chickens and the softest bunny rabbit. I also got to feed animals grass pellets and let me tell you they KNOW the rustle of the paper bag and come running over to you straight away.


I started out with the base layer which was the green paper from Painted Pretties. I reduced the opacity so it made the paper a slightly lighter colour.


Then I started to build the elements of the page together. I used photos we had taken of Edna the sow and her little piglets. I absolutely adore piggies and could watch them for hours. There were several different breeds but these little piglets were so cute running around after Mom as they wanted feeding. She had just had a mud bath and wanted to chill out but the kiddies were having none of it. I'm not a parent myself but I guess this is something many of you will have experience of.......




On the 3 block sections I added some of the photos. I love the Highland Cow, he was one of 3 in that field but the only one who came over for pellets. He was very photogenic and a complete poser. The Doodle from Scotland the Brave kit was the perfect addition for this page. I visited Scotland a few years ago and naively thought I would see them everywhere. We only saw them in Fort William when we stayed on a farm for a few days. As you can see Kate's image is a perfect rendition of one.



For the chevron section I replaced this with bags of feed stacked on one another. I bought 4 bags and could easily have used many more. It was joyous to feed and interact with so many animals. The white goat above was a real character and a bit of a bully so I was careful to feed others away from him. 

I added loads of Doodles from On The Farm to depict animals that I had seen on my day out. There was loads to see and do and so much for the little ones to enjoy. The biggest kid there of course was me

At Kate Hadfield Designs there are so many fabulous sets it is really easy to get inspired to use them. There are digital stamps which you can colour, coloured versions you can scrapbook or make into digital layouts. Papers, patterned overlays and doodles galore. No matter what your skill level there are so many goodies to play with.


Kate is really generous with her freebies which are readily available. If you sign up to the newsletter you get access to an extra subscriber area the Doodle Den where there are loads more freebies. There is a gallery full of projects by the Creative Team and customers and so much inspiration for crafters and teachers. I would highly recommend you pop over there and join in the fun.


Digital Page Details -


Scrapbook Template - Big and Bold (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Digital Paper - Painted Pretties (Kate Hadfield Designs)

Digital Images - Scotland The Brave Doodles & On The Farm Doodles (Kate Hadfield Designs)


I would like to enter this project into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)


Boo Ghost Halloween Treat Bag

 


It is the start of a new month and we have a new image to play with for 


Our New Blog Home is now up and running and all the challenges are being hosted from there. There is a challenge for each day of the week and we have ones that last for a month at a time. Lots of prizes on offer with individual ones for the specific challenges and sitewide ones for each calendar month.

Come on over and join in the fun at The Outlawz


This month at the Progressive Freebie Challenge we have been given this great digital set 


You get quite a few images with this so you can make a male or female with spider or without and a sentiment plus a separate banner. It is very versatile and will be useful for so many projects.

I have made a treat bag with some sweeties in it. Years ago I got a card making box from QVC and it had some gift bags in it which have never been used before. They are quite long so I cut it down a bit and added some folded over black card.

The ghost with banner was printed 8cm wide and 13cm tall. This has been coloured with Promarkers on the banner plus a grey shade around the ghost.

The card I use in my laser printer for alcohol marker colouring on is quite thin so I laid the image onto some much thicker card and then cut through the layers. This makes it substantial enough to support itself. It was simply stuck on with some strong double sided tape.

The Progressive Freebie challenge is a great opportunity to use images from different artists who you may not have used before. It helps to take you out of your comfort zone and introduce you to different styles and I would highly recommend you take part.

Head on over to The Outlawz Progressive Freebie Challenge where you can see all the details of how to request this image if you would like to play along.

Project Details -

Digital Image - I'm Here For The Boos IMG 540  (Oddball Art Co)

Colouring Medium - Promarkers



I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)










Thursday, 15 September 2022

Penguin Huddle


Over at The 12 Months of Christmas Link Up it is the midway point of our challenge. That means it is the turn of the Merry Maidens to share some more fabulous Christmas cards.



The challenge theme is any Any Christmas Card or other December holiday with an optional twist of Fur, Fins or Feathers. The lucky winner's prize is any 2 Winter or Christmas paper packs from Decosse's Dynamite Doodles



If you link up 2 or more cards to our challenge you will get a free digital paper sent to you that our intrepid leader Lisa of Decosse's Dynamite Doodles has designed. 

My card this month features this cute grouping of penguins. This is a digital stamp called Huddle from Sheepski Designs.  This was sized to suit the paper I used from Nature of Christmas which is a great background for an outdoor snowy scene like this.



I coloured the image with Promarkers and fine liner pens. This was then fussy cut (lots of tiny details so this was a bit fiddly). I added to the card and then popped lots of glitter glue and fake fluffy snow to create the snowdrift. I added some pompoms to the hats and earmuffs. I didn't tiny green ones so I coloured 2 white ones with a Promarker. I wasn't sure if it would work very well and I am really pleased with the result.

I added the sentiment which has been recycled from a card I have previously received. As a finishing touch I added some silver peel off snowflakes in the sky.

I do hope you will take part in our challenge and look forward to seeing your creations.

Card Details -


Size - 6” x 6”

Digital Image - Huddle (Sheepski Designs)

Colouring Medium - Promarkers & fine liner pens

Digital Paper - Nature of Christmas (Decosse’s Dynamite Doodles)

Embellishments - Pompoms, glitter glue, fake snow, peel off stickers



I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order)