Aug Workshop and Making it With Meslyn DT Challenge

sorry for not blogging or posting for a while things have been a bit up and down and busy lately, and now its back to normal for a while.

please click on the dark coloured words to link to places to find the images
I have a good few cards to share with you, and these are from yesterday's workshop, one of which I also used to set the theme for Making it with Meslyn DT challenge, which runs until the end of August.

the first card we made in the workshop and was also for the challenge and is an easel card, using Whiff of Joy Cool Oakley stamp - ideal for teens / young men, depending on what papers and embellishments you teem it up with.
-here is the card:


and some close ups of the inside which isn't too dark so you can still write a message and the front view showing the closed shape. I made this one easy to put together with no measuring and cutting by simply using a square card blank, which top half was scored in half horizontally for the easel shape, and then adding a square topper.

the embossing is done with partial embossing on the topper and more embossing on the brown card using the new Sizzix Tim Holtz brick effect embossing folders. I used antique linen, brick red and corduroy brown distress inks as well, on the white topper and on the paper.
The papers are from Bearly Mine Designs Grunge Days, which you can find here, and I have used them on another girls card as well this time.

the second card is also a Whiff of Joy Themed one and the stamp is called Dancing Party Willow, using the bearly mine Grunge Days Papers again.

the swirly flourishes are from Spellbiners Flourish Accents set and were cut in green and white and we distressed the edges of the paper with scissors / craft blades and did some faux stitching with a pricking tool and a marker.
here is a close up so you can see the colouring with twinkling h2o's and also the flower which we made by cutting nestie circles in the grunge days lilac coloured papers, scrunching them up then cutting in the petal shapes and gluing together before adding a white splat / snowflake shape centre and a bit of card candy to finish... and oh.. stickles too!


the next few cards were a choice of sentiment and colour, and are using one of my favourite Penny Black stamps called dream a dream from 2006, and the idea was to use the same shapes, papers and toppers and see what different combinations of layouts or card patterns we could come up with!
(if you want to find penny black stamps, a huge range can be found here at PB Stamps)
these cards have been coloured in twinkling H2O's

OR the odourless mineral spirits/pencil crayon technique

and I have added close-ups so you can see the difference between the two.
the centres of some of the flowers have been done with liquid pearls and the sentiment stamps are from stampin up (some of them)


We also made a soft, ultra cute card using Di's Digi Downloads image Chasing Butterflies which i just fell in love with when I saw it!

I used the Xcut butterfly punch (you know the pink and black one!) and cut out the butterflies and then a normal score board to do the embossed lines on the background.

this image was also coloured using the pencil crayon / sansodor technique

this post is turning out to be a long one, hope you like all the pictures, and here are the last two cards!

another Digi Image this time, precoloured and ready to cut (or you can buy it in black and white to colour yourself), is from Fred She Said and is called Emma Blowing Bubbles
here is some detail so you can see the punching and embossing and just two layers of the image... a nice way to decoupage that looks a little more interesting that just adding the image to the card.
the embossing was done with the cuttlebug bubbles and branches folders and the punching with Martha Stewart Grass and picket fence punches, I added a little wooden ladybug as the grass and the green was crying out for a little red bug!

last but not least is good old paddington bear - i think we all love him and he will never really go out of fashion, so I decided to do a tag shape card and used natural twine and nestie circles cut out in brown card to made the round bits where the string goes through.

the tag shape is made but cutting the top off a DL shaped card and the sides at an angle so very easy to do!

the middle piece of cream card, onto which I mounted the cut out and coloured paddington (twinkling h2o's), has been punched using a notch punch and makes it look like a suitcase so that worked very well!
PS I only threaded the string through the front side of the card so you can still open it

on that note this is the end of a very long post and I hope you enjoyed browsing - if you want to know where to source any of the items I used, in case I haven't added links in places, just leave me a comment or email me.