Ice Skating Fun

Hello my dear crafty friends,

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the wintery and hopefully cozy time! Perfect time for crafting, don't you think? ;o) If so, you will be happy to know that our new theme at Papercraft Challenges is "Winter Wonderland". This is my take on the theme:

Have I ever told you that I despise having to mask images? I don't mind the work, but I don't seem to be able to find a properly working masking tape that doesn't rip my paper once I am done with all the stamping and inking. That is why I love background stamps such as the one I have used for my card. 

When my crafting mojo leaves me I find that I am able to find it again after colouring a few backgrouds and that way I do have quite a collection gathered by now. As for making this card there was "only" a lot of colouring involved but not a lot more than that. I felt that it was good enough as it was without any more embellishments. By the way: Do you guys have a good Copic colour combination for foxes? Mine became a bit too reddish for my taste, but I could do anything about it anymore once I had noticed. If you do, please could you let me know in the comments? I'd be most grateful ;o)

Hope you will join us in our gallery with your own "Winter Wonderland" ;o) Have a wonderful weekend and happy crafting to you all! And please take care! Hugs, Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "Henry (Bear)", "Grace (Fox)" & "Mountains large" by Purple Onion Designs

Winter Fun (Fox in the snow)

Happy New Year Everybody!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, a relaxing last couple of days in 2021 and a great start into the new year! I wish you all the best, time for all the things you'd like to do, a hard working muse and good health!!!

Now onto today's card-> I created it for the newest challenge "Winter Fun" at Challenge Up Your Life:

This cute fox in front of the still christmassy decorated house is an image (or better are two images) by Purple Onion Designs and I had a great time colouring them. Besides colouring I only added some sparkle to the lanterns and the wreath to the front of the door, but kept it simple otherwise. I felt there was a lot going on in the images already and wanted to let them shine.

Because I kept the outside rather plain I also decorated the inside of the card:

I hope you are going to join us with some "Winter Fun" projects and wish you happy crafting and lots of fun being creative ;o) Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "Rupert (Fox with snowballs)", "Wilson (Bear with snowball)", "Front Door"
               & "Door Decor #1" by Purple Onion Designs

Driving Home For Christmas (Old Betsy)

Hello everyone!
Today I would like to share a card with you that I have created as an inspiration for our newest challenge over at Papercraft Challenges. The theme is "Driving Home For Christmas". I hope you might have guessed it even without me saying so ;o) A car is rather unusual on cards of mine, but this image is just so super cute - I just love the happy bear in its truck!

All the stamps are from Purple Onion Designs which are all just adorable I think. Sometimes I hesitate to use them because they take a little bit of extra time to colour for me, but everytime I do use their images I just love how the cards turn out. For this card I started by airbrushing on a light blue (B91) and then took it from there. I didn't have a stamp saying "driving home for Christmas", so I thought with the presents in the back I'd let "Old Betsy" speak for "her"-self ;o) Old Betsy is what the stamp of the car and the bear is called ;o)

I hope you are having a wonderful time now and around Christmas and I wish you all the happiest of times with your loved ones and your family. Maybe you'll have the odd spare moment and if you do and you'd like to craft a little then, I'd love it if you would share a project with us in our gallery.

Stamps: "Old Betsy", "Toy Store Background", "Bakery Background" by
              Purple Onion Designs

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