Colorful Options Color of the Month “Pastels”

Hello and welcome back to another fun challenge at Colorful Options

This month, we challenge you to use a pastel color. Please remember that you
may incorporate any neutrals or metallics that you need in your design and that your design does not need to be monochromatic. If pastels are not to your liking, join us with a rainbow-inspired craft instead.

For our challenge, I made two cards using some new dies from Poppy Stamps from their Nordic Flowers series I acquired on a recent trip to the UK. The first card features the Nordic Majestic Bloom die-coloured with Distress Oxide inks and placed inside a lovely scalloped oval frame by Catherine Pooler also a new purchase(yes Darnell I will once again be playing along ).

The second card features this pretty Nordic Crown Flower die again coloured with Distress oxides. This time I’ve used this lovely Spellbinders Infinity punch and pierce die plate as a background and not cut it all the way through so it gives an embossed effect.

We do hope you will join us at Colorful Options it’s always great to see your amazing cards and it’s a great source of inspiration to me personally. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Design team’s amazing creations.

I’m also linking up to

NBUS challenge#61 as my dies are all brand spanking new.

Die-cut Divas Who are asking us to make a spring card

CAS on Friday #challenge 280 Who are asking us to use dies only

Wishing you all a wonderful happy, healthy, crafty week.

Take care

Marie

Out of a Hat Creations ” Use some Craft Stash “

For those of you who celebrated Easter at the weekend I trust you are all back on your diets !! Here in Greece we celebrate at the weekend and am hoping the horrible weather improves. Easter is a time of huge celebration here with families returning to their villages , connecting with old friends and the traditional roasting of  lamb on the spit its my favourite time of year  ( if the weather is nice ) .

There is another new challenge blog on the block Out of a Hat Creations was formed by four blogging friends after a challenge that they participated in every week closed. I was also a regular contributor to the site although in the last few months I had been a bit lackadaisical ! The idea behind their blog is that the four team members, Chrissie, Florence, Sandra and Janet each put ideas for themes in ” the hat ” and each week one is chosen by random. This weeks theme is to use up some of your craft stash.

Now before you see my card I just want to point out that although it looks incredibly simple it has taken me four whole days to complete !! Yes four !!!

The heart is made from fused plastic beads, the beads are tiny and are placed onto a small plastic base with little tiny pegs that protrude. You place the beads on top in the desired shape and the using a heat-resistant paper iron the top and the plastic fuses together. Ok so far so good !  Not if you are me , the slightest movement of the base dislodges the beads and you have to start all over again or in my case, again and again and ……………….After many many attempts I finally got to the ironing stage but alas the wire from the iron touched the base and they went flying all over the place ! Bailey and Rosy thought this was a great game trying to eat the plastic perishers , I am very sure they are not approved by the canine association ! So out came the Hoover and I started all over again. Near to tears I eventually yesterday evening after twelve hours of work at my shop  shakily added the last bead….. and success !!! which is why the card base is so simple I just didn’t have the will to do anything else except for a bit of embossing !!

This is a picture of the offending jar of beads which is from  a well-known Swedish super store and is supposedly for children !! Now I know why it has been sitting on the top of the wardrobe for over a year and its gone right back up there !!

Do pop over to Out of a Hat Creations and support these lovely and talented ladies .

Would also like to link this to Use It Tuesdays who are also asking for us to use something from our stash think this fits the bill !!

One more thing, a few of you have been unable to leave comments not being able to find where to leave them. With Blogger we are used to seeing the comment form at the bottom of the page but of course the blog theme I chose with WP doesn’t have that facility., trust me ! If you take a peep at the top of the post on the right hand side you will see a little bubble,  click on that,  or the post title and the form will come up.

Wishing you all a wonderful week

Take care

Marie