Clean and simple...

I saw some beautiful, clean and simple cards over at Stephanie's blog the other day. I loved her cards so much that I needed to have some myself! So I was naughty and stole her idea... I have changed a few things.... Instead of twine, that Stephanie used on her cards, I have used ribbon, and I've used different embossing folders, and different sentiments on every card. I just love how my cards turned out... and I hope that Stephanie isn't too mad at me, and will forgive me for stealing her idea... (she's just so brilliant at making clean and simple cards...)

Thanks for looking!

Sorry for the bad photos... I guess the light wasn't the best at the time of taking the photos...

I cased my 9 yr old daughter's card....

Last weekend we had two birthdays to make cards for. First, Maja was going to a birthday party on Saturday. She borrowed my stamp, Promarkers and Cuttlebug to make this card for her friend:
She was really pleased with her card, and I, too, liked her card so much that I cased it for the birtday card I was going to make for the birthday we were going to on Sunday.... This is what I came up with:

I have used a Pink Gem Designs digistamp, coloured with my Promarkers. I have also used an alphabet die that I borrowed from a friend to make the letters and the number.

...the inside...

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Thanks for looking. Hope you all have a great week end!

Cards made in 2011

Another post showing everything I've done since february... lol... maybe I should start blogging a bit more often again.... Well, this time I just want to blog all the cards I made this... ehm... last year.

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For Christmas I needed a few small things to give away, so I made these small post it note holders. They were really quick and fun to make.

Here you can see all the postit note holders I made....

This card was for my sister in law's birthday. She plays the guitar and she had just done a project with spiders at school... The left picture is the front of the card, and the right is a peek of the inside...

My niece was one in October.... this is the card I made for her.

This mermaid was for one of Maja's friend's birthday.

...and another mermaid for Susie's friend.

It's always hard to buy prensents for people that have everything... so for my mum's birthday I made her a set of five cards for different occasions. When I think about it, this was probably a stupid thing to do since she is one of the few people that buys cards from me on a regular basis.... The set consisted of:

A wedding card...

a new home card....

a happy birthday card...

another birthday card....

and a card with no sentiment...

they were all decorated on the inside as well...

I think she was pleased with the present, and I know that she has already given some of the cards away.

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The next two cards was for Maja's friends too...

And way back in january last year, I made this sliding pop up card for some friends of ours that had a baby girl.

Well.... this was kind of short and sweet... lol... I guess I should have added what stamps (companies) and materials I've used but I can't really be bothered listing all that for all these cards. And I think that would have made for a really boring post as well....

Christmas cards....

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my readers (if there's still anyone coming around). I know... I've been a really bad blogger the last few months... sorry...

I never got around to blog about the Christmas cards I made for Christmas.... so, better late than never, right? (Click on picture for larger view.)
These first three were coloured with watercolours. It's been ages since I played with my watercolours, and I had lots of fun. The stamps are by Panduro.

On the next three, I used my Promarkers to colour in. I also stamped some of the backgrounds (hearts, snowflakes and swirls).

I have used Promarkers on the left one here as well. Stamp is one of the twisted sisters by Sweet November stamps. The right one is made with different stamps, all by Panduro.

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Then I ran out of time, and had to make a batch of quick cards...

I used the same lay out as on my previous card, paper from the same set, and there's no colouring in on these ones, just stamping to make everything a bit quicker. I didn't have enough cards to send to all the people I wanted, so I guess I have to start earlier this year....
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Christmas was spent with my parents in Kristiansand. The girls really enjoyed being with them for a longer period of time. We even got to spend a couple of days more than intended as I got the flu and wouldn't even think about sitting in a car for over four hours to get home on the day we had planned... so hubby took all the presents with him in the car and drove home to go to work, and the girls and I stayed a while longer and flew back home.

I guess flying wasn't the best idea, really.... because when I got home, I got a really bad ear ache, and I have been almost deaf since new years eve.... I think my hearing is a bit better today, but can't say for sure since the house is all quiet....

Two cards

Monday again... I think Monday is becoming my favourite day of the week.... Maja at school, Susie at nursery, hubby at work, and me at home - alone! So I let housework be housework and dig out my papers and stamps instead! Today I finished this card:
Again, I have borrowed a stamp - one of the Gorjuss girls- from Renate. I have coloured her with Promarkers (Cocoa, Cinnamon, Dusky pink, Blush, Vanilla, Blossom, Ivory, Duck egg, Cool aqua, Red, Rose pink and Cool grey 2). Image panel is mounted on 3d foam. I have used Tilda papers and a MS punch. The edges is distressed by scraping a pair of scissors along the edge and I also added a bit of ink around the edges.

I had fun, the other day, crocheting some small cotton flowers. I have used one of them on this card. I put the bead from a decorative foam flower through the middle hole in the crocheted flower before gluing it to the card....

I'm entering this card into these challenges:

Sketch Saturday - Challenge #119 - a sketch

Stamptacular Sunday challenge - challenge 75 - Distress it!

Secret Crafter Saturday challenge - challenge 99- Clean and Simple

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I also have a second card to share with you today... woohooo! That's not like me, is it? Two cards in one post... hehe... I made this card last week while visiting my friend Randi. I know, I know... two cardmaking visits in one week! Lucky me! It's so much fun meeting up with friends to talk and make cards and share stamps and ideas.

I have borrowed the Henry mouse stamp from my friend. Isn't he the cutest? He was coloured in (with Promarkers) while I was at my friends house, and I was too busy chatting away that I forgot to make a note of what colours I used... Papers from Nille, and again I have used some of my chrocheted flowers. I tried colouring one in with a Promarker, but I'm not sure about the effect.... Sentiment is made with a couple of different alphabet stamp sets and says "Hooray for you". Edges are distressed with scissors and I have also drawn a couple of lines round the papers with a pen.

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Thanks for looking & have a great week!

Halloween witches and some cute cards (not mine)

Just thought I'd start with sharing a picture of my ehm... scary.... witches. They were going to a halloween party for the first time, and had a great time. And I don't think we'll have to buy them sweeties for a while.... lol... they were both over the moon with all the sweets people were giving them... they got so much they couldn't eat it all.
Maja was so thrilled when I told her that I'd found a card challenge for children. The greeting farm blog had no less than three challenges for those under the age of 13 last week. Maja entered the Colour challenge with this wedding card.

She chose to use the couple from the caketopper set for this card, but she really wanted to use Alice from the Wonderland set too, so she entered the Bling challenge with a card with Alice on.

She did almost everything herself... the stamping, colouring, choosing the papers and layout. The only thing I helped her with was cutting the papers to the right size and punching the leaf border on the Alice card.

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Susie didn't want to miss out.... so I helped her stamp some images that she could colour in and gave her some pieces of paper. She did all the colouring and gluing by herself... she even punched the hearts out herself. She needed a bit help with getting the excess glitter off the card though... I think it turned out quite good for her very first card. She entered this in the Bling challenge.

Well, have to keep this short... I've left Susie downstairs watching a film... don't think it will be long until she notices I'm gone....

A couple of birthday cards

Here's another couple of cards I made recently. The little boy next door turned 4 a few weeks back, and my girls were invited to the party, so I wanted to make him a card. Boy, is it hard to make cards for boys!! I don't really have any boyish stamps.... only fairys, butterflies, cute girls, hearts etc etc... Then I found this star in my stamp box... It works, doesn't it??
The star is mounted on pop dots for a bit of dimension.

Then, less than a week later, his little sister turned 2. Of course I had to make her a card too. I just thought this little rabbit from The Greeting Farm was perfect for a wee girl.

Here I have mounted the name on pop dots. And I've distressed the circle behind the rabbit with some shadow ink from Hero Arts and stamped a swirl on top with the same ink.

Well... that'll have to do. I think I'll have an early night tonight... I'm having a bad cough and runny nose, so I guess lying down in bed with my book will make me feel better... I hope....

Friday Sketchers #68/ birthday card

Here's my entry for the Friday Sketchers challenge this week. It's been a while since I did any challenges, so this was good fun.
I also needed a birthday card for Maja's friend this afternoon, so it won't be staying with me for long...

The stamp is from the Wonderland set from The Greeting Farm, and patterned paper from Dovecraft. The green paper is pearlescent (even though you can't really tell from the photo) and is from my stash.

A forgotten treasure... or not...?

I was rummaging through some old boxes the other day, looking for something else when I came upon a big pile of cards that I had (almost) forgotten I'd made... These cards were made ages ago, we're talking years here (for some of them, not all)...
I couldn't put a picture of each of them in here, so I just made a collage (click on photo for larger view). I'm not sure all of them are nice enough to use, but I should be able to give away at least one or two of them... All the cards are stamped and coloured by me and a few of them have some dry embossing on them as well. What a treasure... or not...

I also just want to let you know about a great blog candy/giveaway... pop over here for a chance to win a lot of goodies... these gorjuss girls (below) being part of the prize....

Card toppers

I've been playing around with my stamps and new watercolour pencils again... Stamping, colouring and cutting... It's always handy to have a few card toppers lying around for when I want to make a card...

The watercolour paper I used this time wasn't as heavy/thick as the last time I was stamping and cutting (for these cards here...) and that made the cutting part much easier... I'm not sure which paper I prefer though... the heavier paper made it harder to cut out small details, but then again it made the cut outs more sturdy...I've used one of these cut outs for a card already... I'll show you that another day... (I don't want to show it before the receiver has got it...)

A frog and a butterfly

I've made a couple of birthday cards. I wanted to try out my new water colour pencils that I got for my birthday, so I stamped a few images on water colour paper, coloured them in and cut them out... and made them into a couple of cards. It's always nice to have a few spare cards lying about....

On this one I've used the Versa Mark ink for the shooting star background and for the flowers on the yellow stripe. I like the Versa Mark ink.... it gives such a subtle colour... and it always matches the colour you're stamping on. It kind of makes a water mark on your paper/cardstock.

Here you can see it a bit better. I also used a paper with some shimmer in it for the lilac circle.

And of course, the images are coloured in with water colour pencils and gone over with a wet paintbrush afterwards.
The froggy card is already in the mail on its way to someone... Here I've used a lilac Hero Arts shadow ink for the shooting star background.

Both the butterfly and the frog are mounted on pop dots... I like them too... gives the card a bit of dimension...