House Mouse Fun

Where has the time gone recently?  I have been busy making samples for Joanna Sheen's new Triple House Mouse CD, which is adorable and sure to be a sell out, and due out at the beginning of May - so keep your eyes out!
But making the samples reminded me of some samples I made before for some House Mouse decoupage, which I thought I would show you.

This lovely image of the two mice caught up in a ball of wool just cried out for a 'wooly' embellishment, so I set out to make a couple of 'knitting needles' using two cocktail sticks, cut down to size, and stuck a pink bead to the top of each.  The sticks may need to be sanded slightly at the top to let the bead slide on easily.  I then rolled a length of wool into a ball and, when happy with the size, run a length of glue up the ball to hold the end in place and also to stop the ball unwinding.  Then just push the two needles in at an angle and you have your perfect embellishment!
 

On Your Special Day

Having recently got back from a trip to see my sister and her family in Spain over Easter and getting a bit of warm sunshine, and then seeing the sunshine this morning, I thought I would make a bit of a spring-like card.
The usual spring themes are daffodils but, looking out of my window this morning and seeing our Magnolia tree starting to break open its buds, inspired me to use the beautiful Tilda with Magnolia Branch stamp, together with the pretty Magnolia background stamp.

 As I am entering this card into the Bearly-Mine Challenge, I based the design on a sketch required for the challenge.  The smaller panel of background paper was taken from Crafters Companion Humphrey's Year CD.

 The images were coloured using Spectrum Noir pens.  Now I am off for a walk on the seafront and a late lunch to make the most of this springlike weather!

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

The Ribbon Girls - Add flowers
Marvelous Magnolia Challenge - Anything Goes
Crafters Companion - Flowers
Spectrum Noir - Spring
Bearly-Mine - Follow a sketch
Tilda's Town - F&F or U&E

Spring Has Sprung!

Well, in my card it has anyway!  Fed up of the gloomy cold weather I decided to make a nice bright card with the lovely Magnolia Cuddly Siblings stamp and background.

I cut out the image using the Spellbinder Wonky Squares die and layered it on to some orange card.  The butterflies were cut using the Marianne Topirary & Butterfly die and the swirl with the beautiful Memory Box Riviera Corner.

I hope this helps to brighten your day.  Something else which might is the lovely candy giveaway the Ribbon Girls are offering until the 30th March.  Pop over and take a look.

I have entered this card into the following challenges:

Tilda's Town - Think Spring

Time for Magnolia Challenge - Spring with main colours orange/yellow with image of Edwin and Tilda

Marvelous Magnolia - Dies

Where did Spring go?

It was supposed to be the first day of Spring the other day, only someone forgot to tell the weather man!  We have actually been very lucky on the Isle of Wight, with none of the white stuff, just plenty of wet stuff and cold with it.  So my card today is probably more seasonal and correct than it should be for this time of year!

For this I used the lovely House Mouse stamp 'Snuggle Up' from Joanna Sheen.  The image is so lovely I decided to keep it very simple and just use one of the Martha Stewart punches around the page stamps and layer it on to a base card of deep copper brown.  The image was coloured with Promarkers and highlighted with glitter.

I have entered this card into the following challenge:

Joanna Sheen - Come Rain or Shine

Underwater Birthday

For a long time now I have been meaning to try out the effect of using hair gel in a sealed plastic bag to give a squidgy, touchy feely effect to a card, and I thought this idea went well with an underwater theme. 

 So I gave it a go using the lovely Swimming Tilda stamp.  I coloured her in with my Promarkers and added a couple of 'seaweed' branches cut from green card with the Magnolia Leaf and Swirl die.

I put a small amount of gel in a bag (which I checked had no holes!!) and attached it to the underside of the frame I had made using the Spellbinders dies.  This was layered on top of an 8x8 card and embellished with the lovely Ahoy Tilda and Pair of Lighthouses Stamps from Magnolia.

I was really pleased with the result and have entered the card into the following challenges:

Tildas Town - Anything Goes
Bearly-Mine Challenges - Anything Goes

Bath Time

I have made this card today for my sons girlfriends birthday.  She's a great fan of the colour green and relaxing in a nice bath full of bubbles!

I used an 8x8 scalloped edge card blank because they added to the impression of bubbles, but the background papers I wanted to use came from a 6x6 pad from First Edition.  So I cut both papers into quarters and attached the first four into each corner of the green base layer.  The other quarters were attached each end to a strip of green card and attached in a cross shape to the first layer.

 The 'hole' in the middle was covered by the stamped image of Tilda with Bath Cap and Bath Tub.  I cut a frame from green card and randomly dotted 'pearls' around the edge with Cosmic Shimmer Cosmic Pearl PVA.  The image was coloured with promarkers and Spectrum Noir and the additional bathtime buttons are from Craft Time.

I have entered this card into the following challenges:

The Ribbon Girls - Green and White

Tilda's Town - Anything Goes

Joanna Sheen - Mums the Word
The Crafter's Cafe - Green and/or St Patrick's Day

A Vintage Birthday

I wanted to have a go at making a vintage looking birthday card for one of my husbands colleagues, as I've not really made one before, and I must admit, I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.

 I used the Magnolia Birthday Tilda stamp for the main image and coloured her in using Promarkers.  I then cut her out using the Spellbinders Nestabilities Floral Oval die.

The backing papers are from the Prima Botanical Collection papers.  The lace edging was in my stash and I threaded a length of what was thin white ribbon, but coloured it to match with Promarkers, through the holes in the lace.

The flowers are from Celebrate It and are from the Occasions fabric flowers collection.  I used Kort & Godt green pearls for the centres.  The swirl is cut using the Memory Box Elegant Scrollwork die.

I have entered this card into the following challenges:

Joanna Sheen - Mums the Word

Time for Magnolia - Happy Birthday

While on the subject of challenges, pop over to the Ribbons Girls blogspot and have a go at their flower giveaway, it's for a beautiful collection of flowers - good luck!