Magical Christmas (Christmas card with dragons)

Hello everyone ;o)

Today I would love to share my card for this month`"Magical Christmas" challenge at Challenge Up your Life!

I love these cute dragons by Lawn Fawn and I really like that are not the typical image for a Christmas card. Many friends of mine like the fatasy genre for books or movies so this would be a perfect card for them, don't you think. 

The background was quickly prepared thanks to the wonderful "Over the Mountain Border" stamp and a mask I had created. I used Distress Inks in Tumbled Glass and Shaded Lilac to create the chilly looking sky and coloured the trees and mountain tops with Copic. Last I stamped the sentiment and also added the cute dragons to complete the card. A little shimmer was added for that little bit extra for Christmas and my card was done.

I hope you are going to join us for the last challenge of 2021. Hope to see you around! Have a wonderful time until then and happy crafting, 

                                       yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Over the Mountain Border" & "Winter Dragon" & "Little Dragon"
               by Lawn Fawn

Happy Flipping Birthday (penguins)

Hello everyone,
I hope you are all happy and doing well. For some reason time always flies around this time of year, so I have to admit it flew by a little and I completely forgot to post this card for Papercraft Challenges. My apologies for those of you who wanted to take a closer look!!!

The card was made for the "Color on Kraft" challenge and I love the effect just of this stencil on the darker paper. It looks great I think:

I used Distress Oxide Inks in three different shades of pink and red and just added those lovely penguins to the front above and below the sentiment.

I hope you still got time to play along with our challenge this month! Our generous sponsor is Gerda Steiner Designs and you might just be the lucky winner and get a gift certificate to their store. Who knows? ;o) Have a lovely day and happy crafting my friends!

                                                    Yours Maike

Supplies:
tba

Interactive card - camera and hedgehog

Hello everyone,

I am here with an interactive card today as inspiration for the newest challenge at Challenge Up Your Life: 

I have used the "Magic Iris Camera Add On" to create this card for a lovely person who loves photography and all things outdoor. 

There are many videos out there explaining how to assemble this wonderful die so I won't bore you with it, but I really like the decorated fronts for this "Camera Add On" and thought I would share some tipps and tricks in this regard. The grassy hill in the opening area of the camera gave me a hard time at first. I wanted everything to line up perfectly, but didn't want to glue anything in the circular opening area, if you know what I mean. So I figured a way out in the end: I decided to die cut the grassy part and then use the camera die to die cut it again, so it would match completely - stitches and all. That left me with a tiny piece of grass. So I glued some thin white paper behind the scrap piece of grass that was large enough that it could be adhered beneath the rest of the grassy front. That way the iris could still open and close. 

I hope you are going to join us with an interactice project of your own. They are always so much fun, don't you think so, too? Have a wonderful day and happy crafting everyone ;o))) Yours Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "Happy Hedgehogs" by My Favorite Things
Dies: "Magic Iris" & "Magic Iris Camera Add On" & "Small Stitched Leaves"
          by Lawn Fawn

Happy Birthday from the penguins

Hello everyone ;o)

Today I am back with a new card for Papercraft Challenges. This time we want to see the sentiment as the focus piece of your card. I chose to use this huge die from Honey Bee Stamps and love the result:

I started by creating this fun background in pink, red and a very pale pink as well and placed the birthday sentiment on top right in the center. 

Because of all the die cut pieces I feel like the card has a lot of dimension without being bulky though. After adhering the sentiment I placed the two cute penguins around it and stuck the "Happy"-piece to one of the penguin's wings, so that it looks like it is holding it while flying by holding a balloon. 

I decorated the inside as well and added some star sequins to the front and my card was done. I really love the look of this huge sentiment on the front. I hope I could inspire you to create a card with the sentiment as your focus as well and hope you are going to share it with us in our gallery! Have a fabulous day and happy crafting ;o) Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Valentine Penguins" by Gerda Steiner Designs

Dies: "Birthday Honey Cuts" by Honey Bee Stamps

         "Sweet Stacks Rectangles Honey Cuts" by Honey Bee Stamps

Herzlichen GLÜCK-wunsch

Hello my dear crafty friends,

I don't know about you, but life has gotten way more hectic over the last two months in my little corner of the world. That is why you haven't seen a lot of new cards lately and I am afraid more than two or so a month won't be managable for me right now. However I do hope you still come by every now and then. Today's card is for the "Fortune, Good Luck, Mushrooms" challenge over at Challenge Up Your Life. In German the theme of the challenge is simply called "Glückspilz", which is the name of a person who has a lot of good luck and "Pilz" is the word for mushroom, so that is why you will see a giant mushroom on my card:

With the wonderful stamp set "Always bring a smile" by MFT I created this little scene. My idea was that it is the foxes birthday and the turtle is about to bring a flower as a gift. The sentiment "Herzlichen Glückwunsch" means congratulations and is used to wish someone a happy brithday over here. 

The whole scene was coloured with Copic markers and when everything was completely dry I added the sentiment. The word "Glück" is stamped in "Lime Green" ink by MFT and then covered with a clear embossing powder. 

Wonder what the foy will think about that sweet gesture ;o) I hope you like the card and I wish you the happiest of days and happy crafting of course! Maybe you like to create something that fits our theme?! It would be wonderful to see your creation in our gallery! Yours Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "SY Always Bring A Smile" by My Favourite Things 

              "Glückwunsch" von Create A Smile

Dies: "All Prettied Up" by Mama Elephant

I would like to share my card here:

Herzlichen Glückwunsch - Wedding card

Heya everyone ;o)

I hope you are all doing well and that maybe life has returned to a somewhat-normal for you. I am so happy you found your way to my blog and would like to share this simple wedding card with you. It was made for the newest challenge over at Papercraft Challenges, so if you have any weddings coming up we would love it if you could share your creation with us in our gallery:

I chose to go with a square card base, because for some reason that is my preferred format for a wedding card. No idea why, but let's roll with it for now ;o) I die the heart frame and the heart from some pearl cardstock which gives just a tiny bit of shine when you tilt it in the light. I glued both to a die cut banner cut from vellum and added the sentiment with stickers and another die cut. By the way for all the intricate die cut pieces like the frame and the word I always use "Stick it" on the back to make life easier for myself and also so that it is completely adhered and won't lift in odd places. I adhered the banner on the decorated card front and my card was almost done.

Because it was rather plain on the outside, I decorated the inside a little bit as well. It is all stamped, but makes it a proper wedding card as the outside could be a birthday card as well. I would love it if you would join us in this month challenge and am looking forward to seeing you again soon - somewhere in Blogland ;o) Have a fantastic day and happy crafting! Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Hochzeit Glückwunsch" by Klartext Stempel
Dies: "Heart Frame" by Avery Elle
         "Traditional Tag STAX" by My Favorite Things

         "Cool Cuts - Kleine Worte" by Create a Smile Stamps

Challenges:
Alphabet Challenge "E is for easy simple card"
Lil Red Wagon "Make it CAS"
Happy Little Stampers: Anything Goes with Dies

I sea it`s your special day - dimensional underwater card

Hello everyone ;o)
As cardmakers most of us - I'd daresay - we all love cards that are different from the cards you can buy in the store, right? For me it is cards with a lot of dimension like the one I am sharing with you today. I created it as a birthday card for a dear friend who loves diving, but the inspiration came from this month' inspiration "Under Water" over at Challenge Up Your Life. I wanted the feeling of the card to be a little like diving deep in the sea. What do you think? Did I nail it?

I created the box card by preparing two strips of paper and scoring them each 2 times. The deeper you want the box to be, the smaller the front piece needs to be in order to fit into a standard envelope. I wanted to cut this window with a die so I added a half inch to each side as a frame and defined the depth of the box accordingly. Then I added in some layers of water in a sense ;o) I needed those to add some fish that I glued to a piece of clear plastic in order to make it look like they are actually swimming. I also added the whale (because my friend likes whales very much) and also made the scene look more alive using some coral die cuts. I had cut these from a paper I had covered in nuvo shimmer paste. I love how they change colour just a little bit when you tilt them in the light. 

I also glued down a jellyfish which you can only see when you move the card as an extra surprise ;o) Also it added a pop of colour which I thought had been missing otherwise. The sentiment is a combination of letter stickers and a heat embossed piece. I wanted the "special day" part to stand out the most so I stamped on black cardstock with Versamark ink and heat embossed it. It was such a fun project to make and I love that it totally works as decoration, too. I hope you are going to join us this month at Challenge Up Your Life. We would love to see your projects, layouts and cards in our gallery! Have a fabulous week and happy crafting, everyone ;o) Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "tba" (I cannot find the stamp set so I can't tell you the name.... Sorry - I will continue to search ;o))

Dies: "Build a scene - Underwater" by Taylored Expressions

Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes"

Addicted to Stamps and More "Make your mark"