Castles in the Sand

I made this card for a challenge then forgot to post it! Fortunately for me some of the other challenges are still going!

The image is another one which I just love by Stampin Up - really wish I could get hold of these whimsical sets at a reasonable price - but the p and p is real extortionate and makes the cost of the stamps ridiculously expensive. Never mind..... at least I got to make some cards with the stamped images I did whilst at the craft meet.

This image of the little boy playing in the sand just evokes so many memories of rare holidays playing on the beach when I was a little girl and my Dad building sandcastles for me and allowing me to 'bury' him in the sand. Armed with my bucket we'd go fishing for crabs and collecting shells - even if the sun refused to come out we'd go onto the beach cos that's what you did when you were on your holidays at the seaside!

I coloured with watercolours and promarkers and since taking the pic I've added a wee bit of sparkle onto the starfish. Papers are by Basic Grey and DCWV and I used a Martha Stewart punch, then added a bit of 'rope' and 3 eyelet 'portholes' to finish the card.

Several challenges -

Cards 4 Men - Long Summer Days

Crafty Emma's Challenge Blog - Anything Goes

Corrosive Challenge - One for the Guys

Dutch Dare - Vintage Summer

Charisma Cardz - Inspired by a Song (and mine is Castles in the Sand by The Philosopher Kings - go here to listen!)

One of my first stamps!

This poor stamp has been tucked away for a very long time..... I bought it when I first decided I would start stamping..- bought it, looked at it and until today it's never seen any ink! It's called Floral Collage and is made by 'Stamps Happen'.

I coloured the image with promarkers (even the background 'cos like a fool I'd stamped it onto bright white card.....lol). After tearing the edges I used a mixture of Antique Linen distress ink and Dove Grey stazon around the torn sides and then mounted it onto card that I think Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen had a hand in designing. (Do you remember him - he painted walls and ceilings the most dreadful colours and used MDF everywhere!)

The paler background paper is by Artylicious.

I re stamped the dragonfly and coloured it then highlighted with glossy accents before 3d'ing it. (Please click on the picture to view it full size to give honest opinions about my colouring in and shading!)

Button (which is a sumptuous sludgy green and doesn't show up very well on the pic) and flower from my stash.

Now for the challenges -

Tuesday Taggers - Bugs. This week's challenge here is sponsored by The Craft Barn - go visit!

Passion for Promarkers - 2 images (which I did with my dragonfly layering!)

Corrosive Challenges - Spring

Papertake Weekly - Open theme

Charisma Cards - Spring

Forever Autumn

Lots to Do has the theme of Nature this week.

I think Autumn is a lovely time of the year. I love to see the leaves changing colours, there are some many different hues

(Mind you, I just wish they would stay on the trees as I'm not so keen in having to get out the rake to scoop all the dropped leaves up from the lawns!)

This unmounted stamp is just a single tree, so I needed to stamp a couple of times in varying shades to try and get some appearance of depth, and I added the buttons in different colours again to try and reflect the shades of the leaves I can see at the moment in my garden.

It is unseasonly cold here at the moment, some snow flurries all over the country but hopefully this won't last.

Autumn should be clear blue skies and cold windy days - it shouldn't be grey skies and snow!