Doodle Christmas

Hello everyone!

How are you all doing? I hope you get to enjoy some lovely fall days. Have you already started your Christmas card production? Well, for today's card I have done just that. (I always feel like it is too early to make Christmas cards when it is still warm outside, but then I notice it is November already and panic sinks in...) Anyways, this is my card for the new theme "Doodle" over at the Challenge Up Your Life blog:

I started this card by stamping stars in two different sizes, making sure they would overlap in some areas. Next I watched this fabulous video (click here) to find out more about doodle-ing. I filled in most of the stars, leaving the overlapping bits blank though, because I felt my design was busy enough as it was.

Next I die cut the letters I needed and the word die "merry" twice - once in red and another tim from gold cardstock. All that was left now was to glue everything in place and to give the word "Christmas" a little shadow so that it would stand out more from the busy background. Have you ever tried doodle-ing? Maybe you would like to give it a go? I found it very relaxing and fun. If you do, please consider joining our challenge. You have until November 27th to link your project to our gallery. Good luck to you if you do! Happy crafting to all of you and have a wonderful day! Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Lots of stars" by Simon Says Stamp (discontinued it seems)
Dies: "Tall Alpha Die Set" by Altenew
          "Merry Scripts" by Mama Elephant

Hello (Reading Bunny)

Hello everyone ;o)

PINspirational Challenges has a new challenge starting today. Here you can see the new inspirational picture: 

For my card I punched out a circle from yellow cardstock and darkened the edges a little to give it more interest and placed that on a die cut scalloped circle. I wanted the white edge around my focal point, because I felt the patterned paper would have been a little too distracting otherwise. I stamped and coloured that sweet bunny reading its book and fussy cut it out. 

Next I cut down a pice of vellum and tore the edges a bit to make them more noticable and darker. I used letter dies to die cut the word hello twice and adhered it directly to the vellum. After adding a few enamel dots my card was done ;o) If you would like to join the fun, just click on the link here or click the inspirational picture to be directed to the challenge. I can't wait to see what you'll create! Have a wonderful week and happy crafting, yours Maike

Supplies:
Stamps: "Zoey - bunny reading" by Purple Onion Designs

Dies: "Tall Alpha Die Set" by Altenew
         "Scalloped Circle Die" by My Favourite Things (discontinued) 

Challenges:
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes"
Crafty Gals Corner "Fall Colours"
Stinkin Inkers "Shades of Fall"
Moving along the Times "Animals or Birds"
DL.Art "Fall Colours"
Crafty Animals "Include an animal"
Daring Cardmakers "Inspiration Picture"

Autumnal Congrats

Hello everyone,

this is my card for the September challenge at Challenge Up Your Life. The theme this time is "Autumn mood" and this is my take on it:

I love this little bear by Neat and Tangled and Simon Says Stamp - it is from a Stamptember stamp set. This cute scarf around his neck just speaks Autumn to me. 

The background was created with Distress Inks and then covered up with this fun die by Altenew. Those huge leaves just look amazin I think. I would love to see your take on the "Autumn Mood" theme! Have afabulous week, stay safe and happy crafting my friends! Hugs, Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Hello Pumpkin" by Simon Says Stamp and Neat and Tangled
Dies "Striped Leaves Cover Die" by Altenew

And here two more cards I made with the same stamp set:

Challenges:

Precious Baby

Hello my friends,

I have been super busy with the first few days at school this week - everything is different and strange and there is a lot of need for reflecting on how things went and adjusting to it for the next day. So I hope you will forgive that I am very, very late publishing the newest PINspirational Challenge inspiration card... This is the super cute inspiration picture:

I obviously went with the theme, but also thought I would like to use a grey card base and, as the baby clothes are kind of in the focus, I used a onesie as my focus element as well. But as you can see I felt that a baby card needed a bit more colour, so I decided to go with greens and blues as well. 

I hope you are going to join us any am looking forward to seeing your lovely projects. Happy crafting and take care, yours Maike

Supplies: tba

Make A Splash - Shark

Hello everyone ;o)

I am back with yet another card today. This time it is the inspiration card for PINspirational Challenges. This is the picture that inspired me to my card and will hopefully get your creative juices flowing as well ;o):

The first thing I noticed about this picture were the beautiful colours. I loved the white, blue and red together and I also took the fact that it was made at the beach or sea into consideration. The first thing I did was to create some waves to go behind the image of the shark which I had coloured with Copics. 

Next I die cut the super cool letters and the frame. For the letters I made sure to have "Stick It" behind the paper before die cutting it. Thin letters always make it hard for me to glue them down without making a mess, so "Stick It" saves me everytime. Everytime I think to use it beforehand that is ;o) Before stamping the first part of my sentiment I put all the individual elements on the card to make sure I had good placement. Then I adhered everything down, added the transparent water drops and also added the speech bubble. Now my card was done and I do hope you like it and that our "theme picture" inspires you to make something wonderful. If so, please share it over at PINspirational Challenges! Happy crafting and please stay safe everyone ;o))) Yours Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "Peek-A-Boo Summer Pals" by Avery Elle

Dies: "Wonky Scalloped Square Frames" by Avery Elle

          "Tall Alpha Die Set" by Altenew

Challenges:
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Summer Fun"
Dragonfly Challenges "Make it Masculine"

Aud Sentiments Challenge "Anything Goes + Sentiment"

Cute Card Thursday Challenge "Masculine"

Have a happy birthday (elephant)

Heya everyone,

just a quick post today because I am late as it is and the last days have been soooo busy - so I hope you'll forgive me if I don't elaborate too much ;o) This is my inspiration card for the newest Papercraft Challenges challenge ;o) The theme is "Spring" and we are kindly sponsored by Gerda Steiner Designs:

I printed the digi stamp on Copic paper as a watermark so that I could only barely see the outlines, because I wanted to go with a light, no-line style for the "Spring" theme. After I had coloured everything in and had added a nice grassy hill and blue sky to the image I die cut the scene with a rounded rectangle die.

I chose a yellow paper for my background to draw the eye towards the birdie even more and also added the lovely tall letters by Altenew which I had die cut from a rainbow patterned paper. I hope you are going to join us at Papercraft Challenges with a "Spring" related project! Please stay safe and have a wonderful weekend everyone! Happy crafting, yours Maike

Supplies: tba

Happy Happy Happy Felix

Einen wunderschönen Samstag

wünsche ich euch ;o) Ich weiß nicht, wie es euch geht, aber ich bin total bereit für den Frühling, schöne Blumen, wärmere Temperaturen und wieder mehr Farben um mich herum. ;o) Die aktuelle "Anhänger / Tags" Challenge bei Challenge Up Your Life habe ich direkt einmal genutzt und viele, leuchtende Farben benutzt:

Have a wonderful Saturday everyone ;o)

I don't know about you, but I am totally ready for spring, flowers, warmer temperatures and more colour around me again;o) The currents "Tags" challenge at Challenge Up Your Life gave me the perfect opportunity to use loads of bright, beautiful colours:

Zuerst habe ich die Tags ausgestanzt und mit Distress Inks in den Farben Candied Apple, Fossilized Amber, Twisted Citron mit einem ganz klein bisschen Mowed Lawn am Boden, Salty Ocean und Wilted Violet den unteren Teil eingefärbt. Die kleinen Pinguine habe ich anschließend coloriert und auf die Tags geklebt.

I started with die cutting the tags and colouring them with Distress Inks in Candied Apple, Fossilized Amber, Twisted Citron with just a tiny bit of Mowed Lawn at the bottom, Salty Ocean und Wilted Violet. Next I coloured the little penguins and glued them directly to the tags.

Die Kartenbasis war mir nur in weiß ein wenig zu langweilig, also habe ich mit einer Schablone in ganz dezentem Hellgrau ein Muster aufgetupft und freihand einen Rahmen um die Karte gezogen. Für den Kartenspruch habe ich das "Happy, Happy, Happy..." auf das blaue Tag gestempelt und den Gruß unter den Anhängern zu Ende geführt. Damit war meine Karte fertig und ich würde mich freuen, wenn ihr jetzt auch eure Tag-Stanzen herauskramen und daraus eine Karte, ein Layout oder sonst nicht was basteln würdet ;o) Habt ein tolles Wochenende und vielen Dank fürs Vorbauschauen auf meinem Blog! Happy crafting wünscht euch eure Maike ;o)

The card base looked a bit plain just in white, so I decided to add a subtle pattern to it using "Fog" Ink by Simon Says and a Stencil by Tim Holtz. I also added a frame around the card by hand. For my sentiment I had decided to start it on the blue tag and let it continue below the row of tags. That was my card done and I would be so happy if I could inspire you to get out your tag dies or stamps as well and create a project and link it to our gallery ;o) Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for visiting my blog! Happy crafting, yours Maike ;o)

Material / supplies:
Stempel / stamps: "Felix Minis 2" von Kulricke
                              "Mini Messages" von Mama Elephant
                              "Birthday Greetings" von Altenew
Stanze / die: "Traditional Tag Stax" von My Favorite Things
Stencil: "Bubble" von Tim Holtz / Stampers Anonymous

Challenges:
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes"
Moving Along With The Times "Rainbows"
Addicted To Stamps and More "Anything Goes"

Deep Ocean Challenge "Cute and Cuddly"
Shopping Our Stash "Stashed Stencils"
Sweet Stampers "Things with Wings"
Always Happy Birthday "Anything Birthday Goes"

Ganz liebe Grüße

Guten Morgen ihr Lieben!
Heute gibt es mal wieder 2 verschiedene Karten von mir und hier ist schon die erste - meine Inspiration für die neue PINspirational Challenge:

Heya my dear crafty friends!

Today I am going to share two cards with you, so let's dive right in with number one - my inspiration card for the newest PINspirational challenge:

Vom Inspirationsbild habe ich die Farben der Blumen übernommen, der Hintergrund zeigt die wichtigsten Gebäude aus Paris und auch den Kartenspruch habe ich auf die Stadt der Liebe hin ausgesucht - daher die ganz lieben Grüße ;o)

I got the inspiration for the flowers from the inspiration picture, the background shows the most important buildings of Paris and because it is the "City of Love" I chose a sentiment that had the word "liebe" ("love") in it.

Zu gewinnen gibt es dieses Mal Digis von unseren Sponsoren Bugaboo und Julia Spiri, also würde ich mich freuen, wenn ihr uns eure Werke auf dem PINspirational Blog zeigt und drücke euch ganz fest die Daumen!

Our kind sponsors Bugaboo and Julia Spiri have great prizes for you again and you could be the lucky winner. So I hope you are going to play along with us over at the PINspirational blog. Good luck ;o)

Material / supplies:

Stempel / stamps: "Doodle Blooms" von Altenew
                              "Immer schön Lächeln" von Klartext / Dani Peuss

                              "Watercolor Stripes" von My Favorite Things

                              "Cityscapes" von Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection

 Stanzen / dies: "All Prettied Up" von Mama Elephant

                          "Classic Tag 1" von Neat & Tangled

Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything goes"

AAA Cards "Tags"

Cards in Envy "Stripes"

One Stitch at a Time "Anything goes with flowers"

Crafting from the Heart "Anything goes"

Grüner Drache / Green Dragon

Hallöchen ihr Lieben!

Wie geht es euch? Ist bei euch das Wetter auch so furchtbar chaotisch oder habt ihr zumindest ein bisschen Sonnenschein abbekommen dieses Frühjahr?

Nun zu meiner heutigen Karte: Ich wollte unbedingt noch bei der April Challenge des Copic Marker Deutschland Blogs mitmachen und habe es nun nach etwa 2 Wochen geschafft. Das Thema lautet "Grün" und ich kann scheinbar keine grünen Karten *grins. Ich hab ein bisschen geschummelt, aber ich hoffe, dass das trotzdem zählt. 

Heya my dear crafty friends!

How are you doing? Is the weather as chaotic as it is over here where I live or do you get some spring-appropriate hours of sunshine? I hope you need sun glasses rather than umbrellas wherever you are ;o)

But now on to today's card: I wanted to participate in the current Copic Marker Deutschland challenge, but it took me the longest time to come up with a concept that would (mostly) fit the theme, which is "green". For some reasons I cannot make entirely green cards, I had to cheat a teensy tiny bit. Hope it still counts.

Es gibt nicht viel, was ich euch über die Karte erzählen könnte, also werde ich auch nicht mit zu vielen Details langweilen. Aber ich wollte euch mitteilen, wie sehr ich diese Stanze für das Faux-Stitching im Hintergrund liebe und außerdem, dass ich die Sterne aus einer Farb-Musterkarte aus dem Baumarkt ausgestanzt habe, die ich bei mir noch rumfliegen hatte. Das Grün passte toll zu dem Drachen und die beiden anderen Farben sind einfach perfekt als Akzente.

There is not a whole lot to tell about how I made this card, so I won't bore you with too many details. However I would like to tell you that I love the die for the background stitching detail and also that I die cut the stars from a colour sample card from a hardware store that I had laying around. The green matched my dragon so well and the other two colours were just perfect as accent colours.

Habt noch einen schönen Abend und viel Spaß beim Basteln ;o) Bis übermorgen!

Happy crafting and a wonderful evening everyone ;o) See you the day after tomorrow for a new card ;o)

Material / supplies:

Stempel / stamps: "Hot Stuff" von Clearly Besotted (dragon)

                              "Birthday Greetings" von Altenew (retired)

                              "Lots of Stars" von Simon Says Stamp

Stanzen / dies: "Stitched Strip" & "Peek-a-Boo Wonky Windows" von My Favorite Things

Challenges:

CMD Challenge "Grün / Green"

Simon Says Stamp "Anything Goes"

Cards in Envy "Another Year Older"

Time Out Challenges "Celebrations with twist of fussy cutting"

Seize the Birthday "Anything Goes"

Cute Card Thursday "No patterned Papers"

Winter birthday card / Winterliche Geburtstagskarte

Hallo ihr Lieben!

Bei den Crafty Cardmakers & More sind ab heute winterliche Geburtstagskarten gefragt. Sofort habe ich an die süßen Eisbären von MFT gedacht und diese Karte gebastelt:

Hello my dear crafty friends!

The Crafty Cardmakers & More blog asks for winter brithday cards for the next two weeks. I immediately thought of the cute polar bears from MFT and made this card:

Für meinen Hintergrund habe ich den Rahmen aus Aquarellpapier ausgestanzt und ihn mit den Gansai Tambi Wasserfarben gemalt. Insgesamt sind es drei Lagen Farbe geworden, weil es mir vorher zu durchsichtig war. Ihr seht, an Wasserfarbhintergründen, die dann auch so aussehen, muss ich noch ein bisschen arbeiten ;o) Auf ein Clipboard geklebt, damit es sich nicht zu sehr verformt,  habe ich das Papier an der Luft trocknen lassen.

After I had die cut the frame from some watercolour paper I played with my Gansai Tambi watercolours and created a wintery night sky for the bear and set it aside to try. While it was drying I had it glued to a board, so that it wouldn't warp too much. 

Danach habe ich diesen süßen Bären mit Distress Inks coloriert und ihn dann per Hand ausgeschnitten. Nun musste ich nur noch meinen Spruch stempeln und embossen und den Eisbären mit Abstandshaltern auf die Karte kleben. Ich hatte das Gefühl, dass ich dem "Winter" in winterlicher Geburtstagskarte noch etwas mehr Aufmerksamkeit widmen sollte und habe daher "Have a cool day" (wörtlich übersetzt: Hab einen kühlen Tag) und noch eine Tasse mit Herzchen darüber auf die Innenseite der Karte gestempelt. Normalerweise bleibt der innere Bereich der Karte bei mir immer frei, damit man genug Platz zum Schreiben hat, aber dieses Mal hat es die Karte erst so richtig rund gemacht. Um noch ein wenig Glitter ins Spiel zu bringen habe ich ganz zum Schluss die Eisscholle noch mit "Clear Rock Stickles" überzogen.

Next I coloured in this cutie with some Distress Inks and fuzzy cut it out afterwards. Now all I had to do was to stamp and emboss my sentiment on black cardstock, put some foam tape behind the bear and glue it on. I felt, that I needed to stretch the winter part in winter birthday a bit more so I stamped "Have a cool day"  and another cup on the inside of my card. I don't often do that, but sometimes it helps pulling everything together. As a last finishing touch I added "Clear Rock Stickles" to the ice.

Ich hoffe, ihr habt auch Lust bekommen ein winterliches Geburtstagskärtchen zu basteln und zeigt es uns auf dem Crafty Cardmakers & More Blog! 

I hope you got inspired to make a winter birthday card and that you will share your creation with us over at the Crafty Cardmakers & More Challenge blog.

Material / supplies:

Stempel / stamps: "Cool Day" von My Favorite Things

                           "Birthday Greetings" von Altenew

Stanzen / dies: "Sunshine Layers Die" von WPlus9

Colouring: Background:Gansai Tambi Watercolours
                 Polar bear: Distress Inks (Seedless Preserves, Dusty Concord, Salty Ocean & Black Soot)

Geburtstagsjunge / Birthday boy with cupcake

Hallo ihr Lieben!

Für die "The Daily Marker Challenge" von Kathy Rac habe ich in der letzten Zeit viel coloriert und möchte die Bilder nun nach und nach zu Karten verarbeiten ;o) Hier sehr ihr "Eli" vonn C.C. Designs auf einer sehr klar gehaltenen Karte, die man gut auch einem männlichen Wesen schenken kann:

Hello my dear crafty friends!

I have been colouring lots and lots of images for "The Daily Marker Challenge" by Kathy Rac and am now about to turn those coloured images into cards. Here you can see "Eli" from C.C.Designs. I kept the card relatively simply so that it qualifies as a male card:

Nachdem ich Eli coloriert hatte, habe ich ihn mit einer Flaggen-Stanze von MFT ausgestanzt. Von da an hat es Ewigkeiten gedauert, bis ich herausgefunden habe, was ich nun damit tun wollte. Letztendlich habe ich mich für den Look entschieden, den ihr hier seht: Das gemusterte Papier ist von Carta Bella, die Sterne sind ausgestanzt und coloriert, so dass sie zu Elis T-Shirt passen und einen Geburtstagsgruß. Mir gefällt besonders gut, dass dieses Design das ausgemalte Bild wirklich zum Star der Show macht.

Once I had coloured Eli I cut him out using a flag die by MFT. From there on it took me hours to figure out what I wanted to do with it. Finally I decided on the look you see here: Some patterned paper from Carty Bella, die cut and coloured stars to match Eli's T-Shirt and a birthday sentiment. I love that this design makes the coloured image the star of the show.

Material / supplies:

Stempel / stamps: "Birthday Eli" von C.C. Designs

                           "Birthday Greetings" Altenew

Stanzen / dies: "Fishtail Flag STAX" von My Favorite Things

                      "Stitched Rectangles" & "Mini Stars" von Simon Says Stamp

Challenges:

Marker POP Challenge #79 "Anything goes" (Coloured with Copics)

Creative Card Crew "Masculine"

Going Grey With Scrap Creations Challenge "Birthday"

Patterned Paper Challenge "Anything goes"

Shopping Our Stash "Birthday"

Bunny Zoe's Craft "Teens and Tweens" 

Whoopsi Daisy Challenge "Hand Coloured Image"