Ruby 2 Shoes

Play Date Cafe & A Fond Farewell

2012-01-26T05:00:00.005Z

Jax over at The Play Date Cafe gave some fab descriptive names for our colours this week… Plum, Pear & Mouldy Cheese! Now what kind of card does that conjure up?! Well I’ve been mulling this one over and I went from cute to elegant to cute to elegant and ended up this….

This card is a CASE of this gorgeous card by Kelly Rasmussen, HERE.

Much as I tried to get this card design out of my head I just couldn’t so had to just go with it. I hope I did it justice Kelly!!

Here is our sumptuous image for this week’s inspirational colours, love it!

This is a sad post for me today because two of my lovely teamies are moving on from The Play Date Cafe. We are saying ‘adieu’ to Michele and Andrea. I say adieu because it won’t be goodbye, we will stay in touch.

Elegance is what Andrea’s cards are all about, they are always beautiful and polished. Andrea is such a gentle and supportive person, truly caring and very calming in her nature. (I need lots of people around me like that lol) My favourite memory since knowing Andrea was when she was helping me create some wording for my business cards and she came up with the ‘gem of a card’ from Ruby 2 Shoes! I love that!! It’s great that my business cards have a bit of her stamp on them!

Michele’s style is fun and cute and I will never forget when she had not been on the team very long and she had been driving out in her car and heard the song, ‘Ruby, Ruby, Ruby’ by The Kaiser Chiefs. It prompted her to go in and buy me a copy of PaperCrafts Stamp It magazine and pop it in the post all the way to little ole me in the UK, a magazine I go back to time and time again! Thanks Michele! Michele’s fun personality is contagious and she has the ability to bring clarity to ideas/situations, a great person to have around!

I’m going to leave you with pictures of creations from my lovely teamies of my favourite projects that they’ve both done. I will miss you both, but let’s stay in touch in wonderful blogland.

Andrea

Michele

Don’t forget to pop by the main blog to see what prizes are up for grabs from our sponsor of the week…

Also you will want to pop round and visit all of the other girls to see what they have been up to and make sure to visit Andrea and Michele’s blogs in particular to wish them all the very best in their ongoing paper crafting adventures!!

InLinkz.com

Moxie Die Cutting & Paper Issues

2012-01-24T23:15:00.000Z

It’s me again! I’m back with a card that I made for one of the current Die Cutting Challenge in the Moxie Fab World which also happens to tie in nicely with the fun ‘All You Need Is Love’ challenge over at Paper Issues. I would encourage you to link up your cards/projects over there too, you will be blown away by some of the inspiring projects by the rest of the DT.

I was asked to make an Engagement card and wanted it to be elegant but in less traditional colours. There is a challenge over at Moxie World is to create a project using a die in an innovative way so I threaded some ribbon through the die, I hope it will qualify! I paired up some gorgeous patterned paper that I got over at The Stamp Attic with my new die from Memory Box sent over by the lovely Suzanne Dean at Color Me Creative, thank you Suzanne! The butterfly is layered although I’m not sure it shows that well in the photo, you may just be able to make out that the bottom butterfly is chocolate brown. The ZVA crystals were cut into two so that I could use them at the top and bottom of the card.
Hope you like it! I’m working on my accounts at the moment for my tax return due at the end of the month, so not much time to play but I will be back Thursday with another Play Date Cafe card. Until then, have fun!

InLinkz.com

Some Wintry Fun over at CMC!

2012-01-22T18:30:00.000Z

Happy Sunday everyone!

The fun has started over at Color Me Creative with our newest challenge that is all about wintry frost. I’m in a bit of a purple phase right now so coloured in a little snowy image using purple Copics and patterned papers.

I have to apologise because I cannot unfortunately find the name of the image for you, she was one of a few images that I won over a year ago in a challenge and despite looking I don’t seem to be able to find her. If anybody knows where she is from I’d love to give the appropriate credit so it would be great if you could leave me a comment pointing me in the right direction.

I coloured my image with a central light source. (I found light sources quite a challenge when I first started colouring but I think I’m slowly getting it!!) The first thing to consider when colouring an image is where your light source is coming from. As my little girl is standing quite straight and not at an angle I decided that the light source would be central so I coloured her darker on either side, leaving it lighter in the middle, giving the appearance of light hitting the centre. Suzanne Dean’s Copic Colouring classes don’t just focus on colouring but also cover some of those tricky ‘arty’ type things such as shading, shadows, light sources which I find incredibly helpful. She teaches you things to look at and what to do to develop your eye into seeing how light falls.

I used C3, C1 and C0 for the snow and then outlined her in BG10. My friend gave me the gorgeous glitter to use which finished her off really well, well actually she gave me most of it.. the papers, the flower, the ribbon lol. Thanks Pauline, you’re a star!

I think one of my goals for this year is to spend more time just playing with my Copics, trying different techniques and seeing what happens with them. Being a bit of a perfectionist can be a challenge sometimes so it’s nice when I just permit myself to play! I hope you all do that from time to time too! Here are the details of the challenge..

NEW CHALLENGE #35 will run until February 3rd!
Your challenge this time is all about

** FROSTY, ICY, COLD PROJECTS**

In honor of the winter season we want to see your cold & frosty images! Use frosty colors to make everyone feel brrrrr....COLD!!!
Use Inspiration Pictures Below as well!

Pop on over to the main Color Me Creative blog to find out all of the challenge details but remember that you can also colour your image with ProMarkers or Coloured Pencils, not just Copics.

One lucky winner will win a fab prize from our Sponsor for this challenge, Lily of the Valley

Visit their store for a great selection of digi stamps perfect for copic/promarker/pencil colouring!!

Pop on over to my fellow teamies to see what delights they have for you..

I'm entering this card into the following challenges...

Cardmadfairy's Digi – Ribbons & Bows
Cardmaking Mamas – Use Something Old (my digi)
Delicious Doodles – Winter Wonderland

I look forward to seeing what you create. Have fun and most of all keep cosy!!

Clean and Simple Play Date Cafe fun

2012-01-19T05:00:00.010Z

Phew where is the time going? It can’t be Thursday already surely?!

Today over at The Play Date Cafe we have a neutrals colour palette for you. I made this simple little card for it, but I just had to add a splash of orange! Apologies for my picture, it's been really proving difficult to get decent pictures of late, the weather is so overcast.

I love patterns by Orla Kiely and for Christmas I got her book called Pattern, which is what inspired my card.

Using Blissful Botanicals by Lawn Fawn I stamped the stems and coloured them with my Copics. I often match up colours of a palette with my Copic pens, I can then use the pens to hold against the papers and get the colour match. I have used four colours on this card for the leaves, E87, E77 , W3, C3 and then YR09 and YR07 for the orange flower. The stamp is from PTI’s Daydreamer set.

We are being sponsored by Paper MakeUp Stamps this week so pop on over to the Play Date Cafe blog to get more information on the prize and also to see some fab inspiration from the DT girls.

I will leave you with the inspiration picture and look forward to seeing what you create with our colour palette this week!

I hope you have a wonderful Thursday!

Thank you for taking the time to pop by.

Paper Issues–All We Need Is Love

2012-01-18T15:17:00.000Z

Happy Hump Day!

Paper Issues have a new challenge running called ‘All We Need Is Love’. (btw am I the only one singing The Beatles’ song having just read that title?!!) I’ve made this card in the past as a congratulations card but thought I’d make it again and blog it this time because I think it would make a great Congratulations card to a newly engaged couple!

The images are Paper Smooches and the paper is by MME. I am so pleased that I ventured into the Copics world. Expensive hobby, yes, but sooo worth it. Colouring is just too much fun!! I love how you can play around with colours and make them match your papers. If you like to colour then pop on over to Color Me Creative and sign up for some Copic classes, a great way to get you using those pens!

Hope you like it! Have fun!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a CAS card for tomorrow’s new Play Date Cafe challenge.

Lawnscaping–Winter Wonderland

2012-01-16T17:00:00.016Z

Today I’m back to share another project as guest designer over at Lawnscaping Challenges.

The theme this time is Winter Wonderland. I chose to cover a small notebook with pencil and make a mini card to match. I don’t use purples that often so thought this would make a nice change.

I decided I wanted to create my own patterned paper. I buy a lot of patterned paper but thought it was time to have a play at creating my own, so I dug out some distress inks and two sets of wintry stamps, Frosties & Critters in the Snow.

I firstly coloured some plain white cardstock using a mix of Seedless Preserves and Tumbled Glass and my sponge applicator tool. Once this was done I simply stamped the snowflakes on using Seedless Preserves as my ink. This is the completed piece of patterned paper that I used for the notepad.

For the blue border I ran my Tumbled Glass inkpad across white cardstock and die cut it with my PTI border die.

The darker purple strip was created by using Versamark ink with white embossing powder and then I just ran my Dusty Concord distress inkpad across it as shown above.
For the notebook I turned the book onto the coloured patterned cardstock as shown below and using pencil I marked a line around the edges and cut away the excess.

I used a corner chomper to round the corners to match the curved corners of the pad. I then added another piece to the top and the back to cover it. When doing this remember to check where the elastic will sit once the book is closed, I nearly put my blue border down too low! You also need to allow a little bit of extra room at the top so that when you open the pad it isn’t too tight.

Finally I stamped out two little penguins and coloured them in with my Copics. I was playing around with the 'bridging' technique that I learnt over on my Color Me Creative classes where you blend two colours together that are a few shades apart. It takes some practice but it's a great way to get more colours out of your collection. I thought about doing traditional coloured penguins but I decided I would have purple ones instead with blue tummies, why not lol

I hope you liked my little project. The wonderful Lawn Fawn are our sponsors this week.

Have you seen any of the Lawn Fawn sneak peeks on the Lawn Fawn blog? Ooh la la, I think I spy a shoe in there!! (bottom right) I hope it is because that would work for my Ruby 2 Shoes wouldn’t it?!! I could add shoes to everything lol

Pop over to the main blog to see more information on the prize and don’t forget to visit the other DT members’ blogs too;

Laurel Beard - www.laurelbeard.wordpress.com
Melania Deasy - http://melaniadeasy.blogspot.com/
Lynnette Kauffman - http://nettersnotables.blogspot.com/
Tamara Laan - http://tamaartjescrapt.blogspot.com/
Ayana Posadas - http://ayanaposadas.typepad.com/
Christy Reuling - http://christygetscrafty.blogspot.com/
Britta Swiderski - http://brittaswiderski.com/
Vera Yates - http://lingshappyplace.blogspot.com/

I’ve REALLY enjoyed my time as Guest Designer, no doubt you will see me playing along in the challenges again soon too. Thank you Lawnscaping for asking me to guest design with you and for being so welcoming.

Tiffany Doodles Blog Hop

2012-01-13T04:59:00.011Z

* Edited to update broken links *

Thank you for joining us at Tiffany Doodles for our first blog hop of 2012! We're so glad you're here! It's ALSO the second anniversary of Tiffany Doodles!

You're going to find lots of inspiration along the way, from several talented ladies. Be sure to leave each of them a comment by Sunday the 15th for your chance to win something of your choice! That's 19 chances to win! All winners will be announced on the Tiffany Doodles blog Wednesday January 18th.

If you've arrived from Smitha Kattie's blog then you're in the right place! If this is your first stop, please go back to Jessica Griffin's blog so you don't miss anything!

I chose to work with this lovely ‘Umbrella Hearts’ image and thought it would work well with some paper piecing. I printed the image out on three different papers as shown below and then cut them out by hand, adhering each of the patterned paper elements to the white printed image.

The assembled image was then corner punched and mounted onto the card base as shown and I added Glossy Accents to the hearts for some dimension and shine. To finish I simply added some twine to the handle and stamped the sentiment.

(Click on the image below to be taken directly to the store)

I hope you're feeling inspired! Before you hop over to Dani Beckman's blog, remember to leave a comment for your chance to win! Tiffany is giving away the entire January release and all you have to do is create a card or project using a Tiffany Doodles image, blog about it, and add your name to in linkz tool which can be found on Tiffany's blog. On January 18th the DT will pick one person to win the entire January release!

Thanks for hopping along with us, we look forward to seeing your creations!

I hope you have a great weekend, I’ve got a mini shopping trip and some card making planned. Should be fun!

Gorgeous Colours Over At The Play Date Cafe!

2012-01-12T05:00:00.001Z

Yay, it’s nearly the weekend! I’m really ready for it, it’s been a full on week so far, but in a good way.

It’s time for some luxurious colours at The Play Date Cafe this week, think rich, deep and exotic. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them (as Sav would say!)

Here is my interpretation of these beauties.. (sorry my photo of the card is a bit wonky, it is straight in real life..honest)

I’ve been doing a lot of cutesie lately so thought I would mix it up with a bit of elegance and this Skipping Stones butterfly came to mind. Have I told you that this is one of my favourite images to colour? (umm yes Ruby, toooo many times lol).. Well just in case I haven’t I will tell you now.. this IS one of my favourite things to colour!
I needed to get over my CAS single layer card from the other day and add some layers so this is layered up and up this time!

Here’s my step by step..

Mat card base with purple patterned paper
Mat again with a smaller piece of gold patterned paper
Die cut patterned paper with Button Boutique tag dies so that the bird cage pattern shows on the left, ink edges with distress ink
Tie twine around the label before attaching to card with pop dots
Die cut doiley in plum, attach directly to label
Stamp, colour and cut out butterfly, attach to card base using pop dots
Add gems to butterfly
Stamp sentiment, ink edges and attach to card to finish

Here is the gorgeous inspiration picture, the suggested colours are Burgundy-Gold-Plum.

We are being sponsored by Simon Says Stamp this week, so don’t forget to pop on over to the main blog to find out what the prize is and grab yourself a chair and a cuppa to peruse over all of the other DT projects for this week, they are all so inspiring.

Before I go though I thought I’d share my creative goals for 2012. My friend Lisa Arana of dahlhouse designs created this lovely little graphic for me. She matched my blog colours so well, didn’t she? I LOVE it! Thank you Lisa, you’re a sweetie. She does the most amazing cards and creates watermarks too, you should pop by for a visit.

I’m hoping this will keep me focused in the right direction. It’s very easy to get distracted in this blogging world with so much inspiration everywhere you look!

Well I’d better go, it looks like I have a lot to get on with!

Ciao for now.

InLinkz.com

Help…I need therapy!

2012-01-09T22:52:00.000Z

I’m addicted to mini cards!

Today’s little card is using a sketch from a fun new online course.I’m always playing around at trying to do CAS (clean and simple) cards but my creative head wants to layer, so when I saw this class I knew I had to sign up.

This card uses a sketch by Kristina Werner and involves a masking technique.

I masked the card and stamped my Hero Arts woodgrain stamp onto the pink cardstock with a red ink. I then added a white dotted line around the inside edge. I stamped and embossed the Paper Smooches sentiment in white. The Martha Stewart butterflies were cut out of pink cardstock that I’d added red ink too. Because the cardstock is slightly textured it didn’t pick up in all of the areas which gave a great textured look. To finish I added some small black pearls.

I'm adding this one into the Wee Memories challenge too, I just cannot get enough of these mini cards!

Have fun!

Mini Card for Wee Memories Challenge

2012-01-08T20:50:00.004Z

Hi there

Today I have a another card to share with you for the Wee Memories Challenge. The challenge is to create a mini card. This one is my favourite size of 3 x 3. I needed to make a Congrats card so paired the little ‘Flower Fusion’ set from Papertrey Ink with my postage stamp Nesties die.

I often need to make Congrats cards so I’m always on the look out for new ideas, they need to be small stamps as I tend to like sending mini cards, they just seem a nicer way of sending my message somehow.

Hope you’re all having a lovely weekend, thanks for popping by!

InLinkz.com

A bit of hot pink

2012-01-07T23:25:00.000Z

Today I have a bit of hot pink to share with you. For our latest Color Me Creative challenge we are using hot pink, black and white as our colour story.

OUR SPONSOR FOR THIS CHALLENGE IS

GUYLOU'S INIMITABILITY DIGI STORE

The DT girls were all given some images to use (Thank you GuyLou’s for sponsoring us!) I got this elegant lady all dressed up, hopefully with somewhere lovely to go!

Can I just say that pink Copics are REALLY tough to blend, I used RV17, RV13, RV11. I do have RV14 which would have helped but do you think I could find it when I needed it, na! So plan B … work harder blending lol. To blend pinks Suzanne (Dean) teaches in her Color Me Creative classes that you need to use a bridging technique where you take a lighter Copic to a darker one to get the colour that you need. Sounds easy, huh? Nope, it’s not!!! I’m sure with practice this technique gets easier, but phew this card was hard work!

After colouring the image I needed to do a bit of a cover up! You see I have a really bad habit of doodling around the edges of my images when I’m colouring. In this case as I was doing my bridging technique I was scribbling around the edge to clean my pen off and then had some serious covering up to do! Enter the black flourishes (Sizzix ‘Vine’) and flowers (Sizzix Flower 3d). I love how mistakes in card making can become happy accidents! The sentiment is by PTI, ‘Communique Curves’. The Nestabilities are Labels 23. Other Copics I used were C9, C7, C5 and C3 for the hair/shoes and E11, E00 for the skin.

One of my New Year resolutions is to work harder on my Copic colouring. I’m signed up for all of Suzanne’s classes so need to get cracking with learning some new techniques. She also does DVD’s now so I will be ordering those and then I can replay to my heart’s content.
The rest of the DT girls have used various images using the gorgeous retro colours so pop by and visit them, see links below, and also say hello to our Guest Designer, Wendy Keenan of Lolly Dolly Crafts and leave her some love too.

Your challenge this time is all about

** RETRO FUN--Hot Pink/Blacks/Whites**

Show some retro fun by using a hot pink-black-white combo! Pull out your fave image & give it some funky sass!
We want to see you use YOUR COPICS, COPIC REFILLS OR COPIC AIRBRUSH SYSTEM (Or ProMarkers if you have them)
Use Inspiration Pictures Below as well!

-Image MUST be colored with Copics or ProMarkers or Colored Pencils!
You have until Jan. 19th at 8:00 pm EST to enter. For information on prizes etc visit the main Color Me Creative blog.

I’m entering this card into the following challenges..

Card Crafter’s Circle – ‘Make it Colourful’
Crafty Ann’s – ‘Let’s Think Hot’ (my hot pink)
Sassy Studio Designs – ‘Use Something New’ (my new Authentique 6 x 6 paper pad for the background paper)

Oh yes and before I go I did promise a little simple thank you card in my last post. I was in the fortunate position to receive lots of lovely Christmas presents but unfortunately didn’t have the luxury of time to make very detailed thank you cards so I came up with this simple design using Lawn Fawn’s Judy’s Blooms.

Sorry for the picture, my lighting was really poor. This is a mini 3 x 3 card, a simple stamp, colour and send card which is great when you’re pushed for time.

I’ll be back tomorrow with another mini card, for now have a good day/evening!