Challenge 14 - Digital Delights & a new newbie!

Wow again! We're still counting entries from challenge #13 Hearts & Romance so thank you all very very much for your entries! We'll be back later in the week after we've finished counting and commenting with our Top 3 and the winner of Joanna Sheen's voucher, thanks once again for all your amazing talent!
Thanks also to the totally amazing Chelsea for being our special guest designer. Chelsea has just got on the Magnolia down under design team so well done to her woo hoo!!

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CHALLENGE 14 - DIGITAL DELIGHTS

Our challenge this fortnight is to use digital elements, be that digital stamps, printed papers or sentiments on your design. So long as you use a computer generated bit thats fine!

I have a tutorial coming up very very soon on how to merge 2 images and also a basics one on resizing in word for people who have never used a digital stamp before. You'll find that here.

We are sponsored for this challenge by Dewdrop Craftz who have an online shop for digital and polymer stamp images. They like to be a little bit different so you'll find manga inspired images through to cute critters. One of my personal favourites is the butterfly swirl as I find her such a pleasure to colour in and practice my blending!
The prize Dewdrop Craftz is offering is the brand new digiz release designed by Tasha of the Sugar Be-Zus which you will find here The winner will receive the whole set of the new release Bees! Fantastic, thank you Nikki! Pop on over and have a peek at the great array of digiz available, there's something for every taste :)

Here's a sneak peek of one of these delightfully cute digital stamps. This one is Baby Snuggles (Go on say it..... Ahhhhhhhh!)

Please post your digital entries in the comments box below and link to your actual project. If you're unsure how to do this there are instructions here

Challenge 14 digital delights closes at 12 noon GMT on 22nd February.

May I also introduce you to our new Newbie Elly! Elly has been making cards for about 6 months but is very keen and not afraid to get stuck in and have a go :) Welcome to the team Elly! Here's a bit about her :)

Elly – I am 58 years young and live in Derby in the UK with husband Gary. We have 7 children between us. 5 are mine 2 are Gary’s. They have all left home now and are doing well for themselves.I have 4 and a bit grandchildren and I took early retirement from work (I worked in the legal profession) so now I have all day to myself to craft. I have always been a crafter of sorts and have in the past doneMachine Knitting which I taught at a college in the evenings. I have done crochet quilling and tatting and also bobbin lace which was so enjoyable. I have also done very fine cross stitch and beading and made some lovely framed wall pictures mainly of fairies and fantasy figures as I love that sort of thing. Six months ago I got interested in card making and the amount of gadgets/card stock and accessories I have collected is amazing !! lol I thought it was going to be a cheap hobby. I have never stopped spending and enjoying every minute of it heheheeee. I was very happy when I was asked to become a member ofCrafty Cardmakers Design Team and look forward to getting to know you all.

And onto the design team creations using digital elements. Thanks ladies you've done a cracking job!

Elly

I downloaded the digi stamp from Fred She Said Designs and layered together. Fixed the digi stamp to white card stock which I had previously scored twice and placed green cs between the score lines. Printed off a sentiment from Word and layered this onto mirri board and matching green cs. Added some gems !! Rounded my corners with a corner punch.

Jack

I used backing paper and images from Joanna Sheen's Jayne Netley Mayhew's Collection CD. I printed out the fishy backing paper and the toppers which I decoupaged. The buttons are from my stash, and I ran a gold border peel-off round the edge of the backing paper.

Joy

I used a green card then added the picture of the castle wall, with the drawbridge to the top left hand corner of the card leaving a small green margin at both the top & left hand side, and then added a picture of a dragon ... I coloured them both using watercolour pencils and stuck them on the card using double sided tape, next a coloured the little dragon which I put in the bottom right hand corner using foam pads.

Judie

I have chosen Betty Boop as my digi image, have had her a while, so thought this is the perfect time for her. I have coloured her in, using brush strokes, added glossy accents to her hair to make it puff out and added some ultra fine glitter to it to give it a shine. Rooted around in my jewellery offcuts tin and found this little heart and string of flowers. Used My punches to make a border instead of using ribbon.

Julie

Digi image challenge, I was so looking forward to this challenge as I love my pro markers at the moment. Thought I would try to do something different to what I normally do and my magazine came with an article on waterfall cards, thought I would give it a go. I am quite please with the way it turned out even though it is my 2nd attempt. It is one of those techniques once you have done one it is easy to do another.

Lisa

I've used a large 8 x 8 card blank. The dig stamp is from Karen's Doodles, coloured with promarkers and cut out with nestie circles.. Papers are Imaginisce (green) and Bo Bunny (pink & green spots), with coredinations cardstock. Sentiment is computer generated, added fabric flowers, silver bead caps, large green half pearls and pink raffia lace from stash. Used the Bo Bunny paper on the inside, cut with a Martha Stewart doily lace trim punch.

Mandy

I used an image from Pink Petticoat and printed it out 3 times so I could decoupage certain parts of it. I have coloured it in using my Promarkers and added Stickles glitter glue to highlight certain parts. I have added bling to the flower centres to add a bit of sparkle.
The layout of the card is sketch #69 from Eat Sleep Stamp. The patterned papers are from Doodlebug and Ki Memories and the sentiment is a magazine freebie.
For the insert I have combined 2 freebie digi images and put the sentiment inside the heart frame. There are loads and loads of free digi images available around the net and I hope you will have a go yourself. I use a program called Xara but most images can very simply be printed from Word so you don't need to buy an expensive program to have a play with them.

Toria

Vicky

Our challenge this week is Digital Delight's, I thought this free image by Selina Fenech would be great to practice my copic's, I am no expert with copic's,and sometimes do a bad job with them. My moto lately is if you don't try how do you know if you can do a good job...these pen's take practice and time,there is a lot of help on the net and in blogland to learn how to use them, lately I have really enjoyed seeing people use them in a water colour effect, my attemptshow's how I used several different shades, hopefully with more practice I will improve and feel more confident.

Vix

For this challenge I have used a number of images by Dewdrop Craftz. They are Summer Flower Girl, the dragonflies and snails and the fox and chick are from the Animals/Bugs mega pack set.

I used Paint shop pro to create layers and resized the animals and bugs and have added the fox both in front and behind the girl and put the chick in her hand (Its a little bit complicated to explain so I've wrote a photo tutorial which is coming very soon!)

It was coloured with promarkers. I actually coloured her in another colour then found I had no stash to match *doh* Something you really have to retrain your brain to do is to find stash first THEN colour lol! The sky is done with cut n dry foam and brilliance sky blue swiped from side to side, press down harder in some areas for the streaky bits.

All papers are courtesy of my SU Rep Helen who was having a clearout and she also gave me the fiskars scallop punch. The twine is some raffia ribbon I cut down and some I sharked from DD1 who got some flowers from her OH and I kept the twine as I thought it would be useful (smile)

We have no special guest designer for you this time, we do however have 2 tutorials on using digital stamps coming right up!

The first one on resizing your image is HERE

Digital Stamps - Resizing in Word

If you've just bought your first digital stamp or are thinking about it this tutorial will show how to resize your image using microsoft word.

STEP 1 - Open up word and create a new blank document. Click on INSERT -> PICTURE as shown below then select INSERT PICTURE FROM FILE

STEP 2 - Locate your digital stamp on your PC and click OK. Your image will appear in your word document. It will usually be very large (as shown below) as digital stamps generally are for high quality.


STEP 3 - RIGHT CLICK your mouse and select SIZE. This will bring a pop up box up where you can edit your image to your requirements.

STEP 4 - Use the arows next to the height and width or type in what size you would like. You only need to do either the height OR width as it resizes for you automatically (Lock aspect ratio should be checked)

STEP 5 - You're done! Simply print it out or add more images to the page so you dont use a whole sheet on one image.

The beauty of these stamps is that you can make them small to fit ATC's or large to fit a scrapbook. Have fun!

Image used - Catch me Mummy Designed by Tasha Brown for Dewdrop Craftz

Challenge 13 - Hearts & Romance and our new teamie!

Wow wow wow! Thank you for all your entries for our last challenge What's New? Seems like we all had a visit from santa or have (many!) things we've never opened before as we had a record number of entries - 101!

Also a huge thank you to the delightful Tracey Coates for beong our special guest. I'm sure we'll be seeing lots more of Tracey and her designs this year and I can't wait to see what she's got up her sleeve!

Thank You also to The Stampman for sponsoring our last challenge and I hope some of you managed to catch Jill on C&C last week!

The winner of The Stampman voucher is.....

BEVERLEY - GOTT HEART ART

And the winners of the Top 3 blinkie in no particular order are...

Caroline - Stampings & Inklings

Desire - Doing Life

Marianne - Marianne's Craftroom

Well done ladies! Please grab your Top 3 blinkie from the sidebar :)

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CHALLENGE 13 - HEARTS & ROMANCE

Our challenge for you is Hearts & Romance. It doesnt have to be Valentines, it could be a thinking of you, with love etc Nice and easy this one! There is a heart shaped easel card tutorial here if you fancy having a go at that, its simples, promise!

We're sponsored once again by the ever delightful Joanna Sheen who is currently across the pond at the CHA. Can't wait to see what new goodies she brings back! What's new at Joanna Sheens?

"We have a new, beautiful CD called "In Other Words". The illustrations have all been done by Lois Miles and together with a bit of JS Magic there are amazing backing papers and toppers, word cards and stationery sets - everything to make some really fun projects.

There's a video in our video section showing you what's inside the CD and some beautiful samples in a separate video too. This is one of those CDs that you will turn to time and time again for something a bit different and oh so pretty!


We also have fantastic new Country Life rubber stamps - a new format with a very long thin sheet so lots of value and some wonderful scenic stamps! There is a samples video for those too!"



Just a quick reminder - Please follow the challenge and rules. We can only accept up to 3 entries per challenge to make it fair to newer crafters or those who are a bit slower at crafting. Any entries in excess of 3 will be deleted and it does take time checking them all and I know some of you are ever so keen but I have to draw the line somewhere to make it fair to all.

Please leave a link to your entry in the comments box below Chelsea's questions and answers below. This challenge closes at 12pm GMT on Monday 8th February.


We are joined today with a new teamie who some of you might be familiar with :)
Let me introduce you to our latest design team member - Vicky from Kip's Cards! Vicky has kindly agreed to join our merry bunch and we're thrilled to have her! I'll let her start the ball rolling with some examples to inspire you!
Welcome to the team Vicky!

Vicky
First of all can I just thank Vix and the team for asking me to join...I am really excited though a bit nervous, but here goes...This week's challenge is " Heart's and Romance " so I decided to make an Engagement/Anniversary card.I have kept it pretty simple...I think these occassion card's look very elegant in a white theme and not over embelished.I used a decoupage sheet from craft creation's, after cutting and assembling with silicone I sprayed the image with a gloss varnish.Nestie's, Martha Stewart punch, ribbon and a Jewel flourish to finish...oh and a bit of antique linen distressing ink that I added sparkle to with ultrafine glitter.

Jack

I had a plain cream card blank and I matted dark brown card on to this. I then mounted a piece of background paper I had made myself by sponging distress inks onto copier paper (antique linen, weathered wood and vintage photo). I then crumpled the paper up, opened it out and swiped lightly over the top with vintage photo distress ink. It gives a lovely marbled look. The main image is from the Elusive Images set Paris Postcard which was stamped in Distress Ink onto parchment coloured paper with Vintage Photo. I tore the edges and then rubbed them with Weathered Wood, then rolled one corner. This image was mounted onto dark brown card with a piece from a french novel underneath. The Paris ticket and Ooh la la! also came fro Elusive Images, again stamped with Vintage Photo and dabbed with weathered wood. The ribbon was once white but, again (lol), coloured with Vintage Photo. The flower was made by stamping flowers in two sizes in Vintage Photo (stamps by Artistic Stamper - Flower Power) onto to paper from the Paper Cellar (Victorian Classics Pad), dabbing with weathered wood and antique linen, curling the edges and sticking them together

Joy

I used a pale green card and then in the centre of it added a square of silver textured paper and added a circle of bronze coloured paper and arranged 4 different coloured hearts so that the points at the bottom of each of them was on the circle and the top of the hearts were in each corner of the square paper, next I added two small strips of double sided tape to the circle and added the top layer of heart shaped pieces so that they are in line with the first layer, next I added four larger heart shapes to each corner of the card & finished it with a "With Love" sentiment & a circle of silver glitter glue to the centre of my Heart Flower.

Judie

Hi guys, this weeks challenge is hearts & flowers, now as everyone knows im not to good with the colour Pink and Red, so i have gone the opposite way "BLACK" - I have tried to create a classy card - I used a white card with black and silver hearts backing papers, distressed the edges with black soot. Made my on sentiment as it means more to me, done with black card and silver pen, added some silver corner pieces that i have been harbouring for far to long !!! I used a couple of red flowers and made some black leaves and added some keys attached with a red brad. Hope you like it, thanks for looking xx

Julie

I have made a simple card for this challenge, with simply matting papers and using stickers. I think it just shows that a simple technique still makes a nice card.

Lisa


Mandy

I used sketch # 150 from CPS for the layout and was initially inspired to incorporate the packaging from some Papermania spotty buttons that I had bought to make a shaker card.
The heart paper is an old HOTP one. The red paper and letters are from a freebie paper pack from a magazine. The Forever Friends bear is a sticker and the flowers are various Primas layered together with a silver beadcap and a spotty brad on a Sizzix diecut corner.

Vix

Mine is a heart shaped easel card which I did freehand. Part the way through I thought hmmm I could write a tutorial on this so thats what I've done HERE! The image is from My sentiments exactly and I've had it a loooong time. Its stamped and embossed on distress ink background (tutorial for that is here) To make the colours more vibrant I rubbed essential oil over the ink (so it smells nice too!) Image is coloured with promarkers and papers are DCWV and HOTP. The writing in the heart is done with Moonshadow Ink and a fountain pen :)

Now let me have the pleasure of introducing our special guest for you for this challenge who is Chelsea from Crafting Life's Pieces.

Chelsea first came to my attention when she entered our challenge 9 with some jaw dropping work. I had a good look round her amazing blog and saw she was uniquely talented, she doesn't make cards, she makes masterpieces, each one a work of art. I asked her there and then if she'd like to special guest for us. Pop over to her blog, you wont be disappointed!

Chelsea also has her own range of stamps - Gurlee Girl which she has used one of them on her design for us. Thank you Chelsea!

SPECIAL GUEST DESIGNER - CHELSEA - CRAFTING LIFE'S PIECES

Our questions for Chelsea....


1. How long have you been crafting and what kind of things do you make?

I have been crafting since my high school days. I enjoy making cards and scrapbook pages.

2. What are your favourite materials to work with?

I have a couple of those! First would have to be papers, flowers, lace, and charms. Other favorites includes paper punches, chalk ink, ribbons, and my sewing machine.

3. What do you most love about your craft(s)?

I love the fact that I'm able to bring my ideas on to paper. It's one thing to see it in your head, but it's another when the completed project in front of you.

4. What are your achievements and future plans?

My biggest achievement was launching my Gurlee Girl stamp line back in July 2009. I look forward to adding more cute images to my collection and expanding my online shop.

5. Your top 3 tips

1 - store your ink pads and pens with the tip down

2 - add chalk to the back of the sticker where you don't want it to stick...did you get that one? :)

3 - to keep your scissors sharp, cut through a piece of foil

EMAIL ENTRIES

By Carol G (25th Jan @ 20:43 - Entry No.4)