Happy Birthday, Gnomie!

Hello everyone ;o)

I'd quickly like to share my card for this month' theme over at Challenge Up Your Life with you. The theme is "Under a hat":

I love the "Next Door Gnomes" by Hello Bluebird, so this was a perfect opportunity to break it out. I used polaroid fames to make it look like you were looking through openings to this magical world of little gnowmes when holding the card. Also I liked the white space underneath the opening as the place for my sentiment. For the background I used a card base in purple and a wonderful design paper by Lawn fawn to match the colour and mood. I hope you like the card and I also hope that you will join us in May at Challenge Up Your Life! Have a wonderful day and happy crafting, yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Next Door Gnomes" & "Party on The Farm" by Hello Bluebird Stamps

Dies: "Wonky Stitches Elle-Ments" by Avery Elle

         "Precious Polaroids" by My Favourite Things

Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes"

Seize the Birthday "Anything Birthday Goes"

Aud Sentiments Challenge "Use a Birthday Sentiment"

Have a BERRY sweet birthday (mouse and snail)

Hello everyone,

today I am back with a brand new card for Papercraft Challenges. This time the theme was "Fruits, Food and Vegetables" and this is what I made:

When I was making this card I looked outside the window and saw a rainy grey outside and really craved for some warmth and most of all sunshine and spring. I think you might feel it when you look at the finished project. It is so bright and quirky and so much more "in your face" than my cards usually are... Looking back I would definately have put vellum behind the designer paper and my cover and also switched the papers for the "berry" part of the sentiment. However I still like how it turned out, but thought I should let you know what I would change if I were to make it again. ;o)

To create the card I started by stamping and colouring in a whole bunch of strawberries, because I wasn't sure how many I would need in the end. (Now I have around 10 of them left, so you might see some tiny strawberries again in future projects...) Next I stamped and coloured the cute mouse and the sweet snail and die cut the letters and the front cover. The latter was cut twice: once from white cardstock and another time from the same red cardstock I used as my card base. I adhered them together after I had trimmed of a tiny bit of both one short and one long side from the red cardstock. This way you get the shadowed effect very easily. The assembling of the letters and the straberries took a bit of time, but when I was happy with the placement I stamped the rest of the sentiment and also adhered the two critters. I hope you like the card and even more so that you will play along with us at Papercraft Challenges this time! Have a lovely day and happy crafting my friends! Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Dotty" & "Garden Bugs" by Purple Onion Designs

              "" by Gummiapan

Dies: "Cool Cuts Cherry lowercase" by Create a Smile 

          "Circle Panel Die" by Your Next Stamp

Challenges:
Sweet Stampers "Lots of Layers"
Addicted to Stamps and More "Birthdays"
Unicorn Challenge "Include an Animal"
Make My Monday "Checks or Plaids" 

Dots and a fairy ;o)

Hello everyone ;o)

Welcome to my blog and today's post! I am so happy about this card because I love how fun it turned out (even though there were some hurdles to overcome when I made it) and the colours remind me of spring and flowers. We have had the first two sunny days over here and I really loved bathing in the sun and having the dinner on the balcony ;o) Yeah!!! But back to today's card. It was made as an inspiration for the newest challenge over at Challenge Up Your Life and here it is:

The theme is this wonderful moodboard:

The colours are gorgeous and it will probably not be the last card I made with it ;o) Dot backgrounds are always fun I find and so I started the card by stamping such a background using inks that came at least near to the colours from the inspiration pic. When I coloured the cute little fairy I used the colours as well, but left out the reddish pink tone, because I felt, that it overpowered the other two colours on the background a little. That way it helped balance it out.

I put some gold glitter glue on the fun banner piece  to tie it in with the whole "fairies and wishes" theme, hung it from a piece of baker's twine, stamped the sentiment and my card was done! I hope you like it and that you are going to join us for this month' challenge! Happy crafting, everyone ;o) Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Flynt" & "Everyday Marquee Sentiments" by Purple Onion Designs

Die: "All Prettied Up" by Mama Elephant

Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes"

Sending Birthday Sunshine & Rainbows.... (Bunny and chick)

Heya everyone ;o)))
Has spring arrived where you live already? It has over here and I am so grateful for it. I hear the birds sing in the morning and it is already light when I leave the house for work. So, when we were told our new Papercraft Challenge theme "Rainbows" and kindly given a bunny image from our sponsor Gerda Steiner Designs I immediatly knew what kind of carrd I wanted to create:

I'll admit it is a rather unusual birthday card, but I always felt that this bunny was giving the carrot to someone to make them happe, so I chose the sentiment "Sending birthday sunshine & rainbows" and added "... and Möhrchen" (which is carrot in German) on the inside. Plus I added a tiny little carrot there as well. I so hope it will make someone smile in the near future. 

For the background I chose a patterned paper featuring some cute clouds and added two grassy hills die cut from some green paper. I added the cute chick tucked behind  the first layer and I just love this surprised look. I bet the chick is very happy to have cracked the egg early enough to attend the birthday party ;o) Both images, as well as the rainbow were coloured with Copic markers. The sentiment was stamped on in black ink and then I heat embossed over it with clear embossing powder to give it a more shiny and raised finish. I hope you like this card and if you love the images and just find them half as cute as I do I recommend you play along this time and maybe you could be the lucky winner of a $15 gift certificate to Gerade Steiner Designs. Have a wonderful time and happy crafting, yours Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "Easter Bunnies" by Gerda Steiner Designs
Dies: "Rainbow Whimsy Die" by My Favourite Things
          "Meadow Borders" by Lawn Fawn

Challenges:
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "A Bit O' Green"
Animal Friend's Challenge "Hasen / Bunnies"
Send a Smile 4 Kids "Anything Goes 4 Kids"
Sweet Stampers Challenge "Easter or Spring"

For A Loved One (Giraffe with heart)

Heya my dear crafty friends!

Today I would like to share my make for the newest challenge over at Papercraft Challenges with you. The theme is "For a loved one" and I love this cute giraffe by our kind sponsor Bugaboo:

I created a background using a stencil and a light pink Distress Ink and die cut the heart frame to help focus the eyes a bit. The giraffe was coloured with Copic markers and I coloured its hooves and the snout (?) twice so I could create something more 3D:

You can see it a bit better in this picture above. I only added two strips of paper to somehow center the image even more and stamped the greeting a bit below from where I wanted the image to be. I hope you are going to create something "For a loved one" and share it with us in our gallery! Remember you can win a lovely prize from our sponsor as well as making someone you love happy ;o))) Isn't that a win-win? Have a wonderful week everyone and happy crafting, yours Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "Giraffe Heart" by Bugaboo

              "tba" by Neat and Tangled

Dies: "Heart Frame" by Avery Elle

Stencil: "Polka Hearts" by Create A Smile

Liebe Grüße (Bear greetings)

Hello everyone :o)

It is Febuary already - well it has been for a day, but don't tell anyone, because I am a little late posting this card... I have created it for the "Hearts" challenge over at Challenge Up your Life. I am not a whole lot into Valentine's cards because my loved ones never throw those cards away I give to them - which is lovely and shows appreciation and all that, but they tend to pile up in our home, so I usually give other things for Valentines like a cake or some flowers or hugs ;o) However, I love hearts on cards, so even this is a perfect theme for Valentine's cards I created a "Hello" card and love how it turned out. I hoipe you do, too:

To get a bit of a shadow effect I die cut the hearts beackground die twice, once from white and the second time from dark red cardstock and glued the slightly offset together as you can see in the picture. Next i cut a wonky circle and two speech bubbles from the same red cardstick. I heat embossed my sentiment on the speech bubbles and afterwards added the faux stitching line with a white gel pen.

Next I die cut some copic friendly paper with the bear die, added some colouring and or shading to the individual pieces and assembled the bear back together again. The way I do this is to take the biggest die and colouring around it with a pencil. Next I will cut it out not on the line but rather a quarter inch inside of the line to give myself a piece of paper to glue all the individual pieces to. That way I can cover the big peiece with adhesive and don't have to worry about putting a tiny bit of glue on each and every piece. I adhered the bear to the wonky circle using foam tape on the top and regular tape towards the bottom to give it that angle to really make it look at you and also added the speech bubbles. I hope you are going to join us at Challenge Up Your Life. With the updated rules you can now post three projects to our challenge, sharing even more of your talent with us ;o) Have a wonderful day everyone and happy crafting ;o)
Yours Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "tba

Dies: "Cool Cuts Speech Bubbles" by Create a Smile

         "Big Picture Book Bear" by Simon Says Stamp

         "Fluttering Hearts Cover Plate" by Honey Bee Stamps

Merry Christmas (Skydiving Santa)

Hello everyone,

let me start today's post with saying "After Christmas is Before Christmas" and I do hope you'll agree. It seems that every year there are less cards in my stash than I would actually like to send, so again I vowed to keep creating Christmas cards all year long. And so here is another one I made and would like to share with you:

I created a slider card for the newest theme "Heat Or Dry Embossing" over at Papercraft Challenges with this super cute skydiving Santa by our kind sponsor Dr. Digis. You could win 2 digis from their online store if your entry numbers wins! Isn't that fun? For my card I started by heat embossing the text backround on to a piece of white cardstock and added the clouds through a stencil after it was cooled down completely.

Next I added the sentiment towards the bottom of the card and figured out how long the slider "tunnel" could be for Santa not to fly too high or land on or over the sentiment. I added a piece of foam tape to the back (around where his head is) and stuck this piece through the "tunnel" I had cut into the embossed paper. From behind I added a coin, so it would have enough weight to move. Have you started on a new Christmas card stash already?

I hope you are going to join us at Papercraft Challenges and I wish you and your loved ones all the best and as always happy crafting, yours Maike ;o)

Supplies:

Stamps: "Skydive Santa" by Dr. Digis

              "Christmas Background" by My Favourite Things

Dies: "Merry Christmas" by My Favourite Things (unfortunately discontinued it seems)