A Challenge and an Appeal

My card today is a dual purpose card and uses the cute Young Vermillion. The challenge this week at CAS-ual Fridays is a CAS card using a bird and I also wanted to make some cards for a charity appeal so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone so to speak. As you will know by now I am a huge fan of Vicky (aka Crafting Clare) and when I visited her blog yesterday she had written about an appeal by Jo Street (view Jo's blog here) - this is what Vicky wrote;

I always like to feel that our crafting can help others. I was reading this post by Jo Street of Dinky Daisy Designs yesterday - she has been devastated by the plight of a little girl at a playgroup her son attends. Jo wants to do something to help so she's holding a sale of cards to raise money for Candlelighters, the organisation which will be caring for the little girl and supporting her stricken family. It seems to me that it's easy to make two cards if you're making one and I think lots of us could spare some from our stash, so do pop over to Jo's blog and offer your services.

I completely echo Vicky's last statement so if you can spare a card or two please get in touch with Jo and let's help her raise a lot of money to help this very worthwhile cause.

Now onto the card - I stamped the bird onto a piece of Naturals Ivory cardstock in Early Espresso and blended the colour with a blender pen then I embossed the bottom section of the cardstock with the Stripes Embossing Folder and tied round some Linen Thread before matting onto a piece of Cherry Cobbler cardstock and fixing to a white card blank. I made a frame from Cherry Cobbler cardstock using the Framelits dies and positioned this over the bird using silicone glue to raise the frame up a little. The sentiment was punched with the Word Window punch and matted onto a Modern Label.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and the sunshine (while it lasts!) x

Young Vermillion

These cards were made with the a la carte stamp 'Young Vemillion' stamped in Soft Suede. For the one on the left I took a piece of DSP from the Neutrals Paper Stack and embossed a frame using a folder from the Designer Frames Embossing set, this was then matted onto Soft Suede cardstock, and some Soft Suede Taffeta ribbon tied around before fixing onto a card blank made with Natural Ivory cardstock. The Young Vermillion, which had been stamped onto Very Vanilla, was cut out to fit in the frame and a sentiment from a retired set stamped on the right.
The other card was made using the same colours with Linen Thread added to the Very Vanilla panel and the sentiment punched with the Modern label punch.

One Layer Birds

Less is More

One Layer

'BIRDS'

A really quick card today for the Less is More challenge as I should be doing housework and more sorting of my craft room and NOT crafting! However, despite telling myself I wasn't even going to look to see what the challenge was until much later I couldn't resist and then, of course, I just had to go and make my card. Oh ladies you really do have a lot to answer for :0)

This week Chrissie & Mandi have set the challenge of a one layer card using birds and there has to be lots of white space which really isn't a problem for me as I have always loved the simplicity of this style of card (even before I discovered the LIM site!) 

I started with a plain white, square card blank and stamped the Young Vermillion in Early Espresso on the right hand side of the card then, using my Stamp-a-ma-Jig, I stamped the second one so the branches joined. I lightly coloured in the birds with a blender pen and added just a touch of Certainly Celery to both the birds and the branch. Again using the Stamp-a-ma-Jig I positioned the sentiment from Vintage Vogue in Early Espresso so it looked almost like an extension of the branch and finished the card with a Real Red heart which is a stamp from Create a Cupcake (a brand new stamp set in the Spring Mini).

I ventured out into my extremely cold conservatory to take the photos and, through the window, I could see two sparrows sitting on a very frosty Magnolia tree in exactly the same position as on my card (minus the heart of course!!) but as soon as I lifted my camera to take a shot of them they flew off - typical. 

Have a lovely weekend and keep warm - it seems like winter may have finally arrived.

Just One Word

Well Christmas is over for another year and I, for one, am glad to be doing some crafting which doesn't involve reds, greens and glitter! 

The challenge this week at Less is More is 'Just One Word' and I have chosen to use part of a retired stamp to say hello. I finally got my stamp Young Vermillion' mounted (I've had him for a few weeks now and not got round to using him!) and stamped him in Early Espresso and then used a blender pen with Crumb Cake, Early Espresso and So Saffron to colour in. I added the sentiment and some Linen Thread and rounded two opposite corners before mounting onto Crumb Cake cardstock and then onto a white card blank - job done!

The Young Vermillion stamp is an A la Carte single stamp, available from the Stampin'Up! 2011-12 catalogue at only £6.95. On the right I have shown you it stamped in Crumb Cake so you can see there is a lot of scope to turn him into a number of different birds, unfortunately I am not too well up on bird species other than the common varieties but he is still beautiful simply stamped in just one colour.