Cute Kids

Hi Everyone

I'm having so much fun at the moment actually crafting rather than spending my time surfing the web. I usually only make about 2-3 cards a week for pleasure and the rest of the time I'm crafting I 'play' but this past week I've made over a dozen cards! But it's not just that I'm actually producing projects but I'm finding that my ideas are flowing fast and furious, normally I'm a slow crafter and making a card can take me 4-5 hours moving things around, changing my mind, trying to decide what style I want to achieve but now things suddenly seem to be changing - I only had a couple of hours the other morning and somehow managed to make three cards and I had no idea what I wanted to make when I sat down to craft, I was so amazed when I realised that I'd done them in such a short space of time.

Today I wanted to show you some cards that I made for the chance to be a part of the Club Anya Design Team, I would love to be a part of their team but with such strong competition out there I will be amazed if I'm lucky enough to be chosen, but you never know, as least I can say that I tried.

I have always loved the images that are created by The Greeting Farm and I was so pleased when I discovered on their website that they now sell a few digital stamps as well as their actual rubber stamps, so of course I had to buy some! For this card I used one of those digi images called 50's sweetheart, I think this image is just so cute and I think that it could be used for quite a few occasions even though they are sweethearts. Once again I coloured the image with my Copic ciao markers, I used papers from a Hot off the Press Cardmakers pad and I cut the pink paper with my fiskars shapecutter and heart template, then I punched out some small circles with an X-cut punch to make a scallop edge around the heart and finally I used some satin ribbon from my stash.

As promised I've added a close up of our sweethearts.

This card is again one of the digital images from The Greeting Farm that I recently discovered, her name is Pretty Head Lili and I think she is adorable, when I 'had' to buy the digi stamps from TGF Lili was the first one that I knew I had to have, like the sweethearts I really feel she could be used for a lot of things - my daughters already have their eyes on her for birthdays. I coloured her again with my Copics and chose to use designer papers from a Provocraft Rob 'n' Bob paper pack. I finished the project with metal hardware from Making Memories and grosgrain ribbon from the Dovecraft Smirk range.

Here is my close up of Lili.

For my final card I have again used another digital image from The Greeting Farm, I have to be honest that I don't make men's cards all that often, if I sit down to craft then I'm usually drawn to girly etc - I think having two daughters might have something to do with it. Saying all that I just knew I needed to have this little boy especially with Football being such a huge sport in the UK (or should I say Soccer, as it's called in the USA), his name is Soccer Ian and again he is just so cute (yes everything is cute in my craft world!). Once again I used my Copic markers to colour him and then used papers from the Clare Curd paper pack produced by Papermania/Do-crafts and card from the Sam collection from the Making Memories Kids range. To finish the card I used a football sticker from the Papermania range that I attached to a large brad produced by Hot off the Press and added some ribbon from my stash to the reverse of the brad, finally I wrapped some yarn Darice around the cardstock.

Here is my close up of little Ian.

When I decide to use digital stamped images then I print them out on my Kodak Easy share Printer and then I always heat set the image just in case, although I have not had a problem with the ink smudging when using my copics or pencils and sansador (gamsol) I have only recently bought this printer and have yet to try any digital stamps with watercolours or water based markers but when I do I will let you know if they work okay. While talking about digital stamps don't forget that the 1st Sewn Together Challenge ends on Monday 31st, which of couse means that there will be a new challenging starting on Tuesday 1st and you will be able to find details and see all the Design Teams cards on the Sew Many Cards blog, while there why not check out the Freebie friday image for this week and finally Angela has just produced a new Thanksgiving image which is now available to purchase on the Dployed Designs site.

Anyway that's it from me today, for everyone in the UK enjoy your Bank Holiday Monday.

Crafty hugs Donna xx