Blue and Brown Father's Day Sugar Nellie Knight

Here is the design of this year's Father's Day cards that I've made for my dad and hubby's dad. I decided to go with the Sugar Nellie Knight image.

The image was stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black dye ink and coloured using Copic sketch markers:

• Armour: C0, C1, C3, C4, C6
• Sword: C2, C4, C6
• Skin: E00, E13, E21, E51
• Shield: W1, W3, W5, W7, B32, B34, B37, B39, E31, E33, E35
• Feather: B32, B34, B37, B39
• Shadow: W1, W3, W5

Somehow I actually managed to get the armour and shield to look quite metallic and shiny!!

The corners were rounded using the large XCut corner rounder punch and matted onto bronze shimmer paper and navy card.

A panel of the Jute paper from the Basic Grey Granola paper pad was matted onto the navy card, punched with the XCut Diamonds border punch.

I wanted to add an element of texture but also keep it masculine, so four holes were punched using the Cropodile Big Bite and the Stampin' Up Mat Pack template and small dark blue Papermania eyelets were added. The holes were then threaded with a double strand of tan hemp cord from Hobbycraft.

The card was assembled and the 'Happy Father's Day' sentiment, from Elzybells, was stamped in the corner using Versafine Majestic Blue archival pigment ink.

Here are the challenges I am entering this card into:

• Creative Inspirations - Father's Day/Card For Dad
• Dream Valley Challenges - #9 - Father's Day
• Kenny K's Krafty Girlz - #49 - My Favourite Colour
• Sentimental Sundays - #59 - Father's Day or Masculine Card
• Sparkles Forum - #13 - Father's Day
• Stampin' Sisters In Christ - #93 - Father's Day
• Stamptacular Sunday - #115 - Dads or Grads
• Crafty Emma - #40 - Saturday Night At The Movies (First Knight)
• Crazy 4 Challenges - #91 - Masculine
• Little Claire's - #9 - Cards For Men
• Mark's Finest Papers - #59 - Father's Day
• One Stop Craft - #135 - Father's Day
• Secret Crafter - #138 - Male Card
• Stamp, Scrap and Doodle - Father's Day
• Alphabet Challenge - F for Father's Day
• Delicious Doodles - #29 - Father's Day
• Digi's With Attitude - #30 - Father's Day
• Fairy Knoll - #54 - Father's Day
• Fussy and Fancy - Card For A Male
• Inspire Me Fridays - #10 - Anything Goes
• Mami Doodles - #28 - Card For A Boy Or Man
• Pattie's Creations - #23 - Wedding Or Father's Day
• Sew Many Cards - #56 - Father's Day
• Simply Create - #45 - All About You Dad
• Stamp Man - #24 - Boys and Men
• Stamp Something - Something Punched
• Wags 'n' Whiskers - #56 - One For The Boys
• C.R.A.F.T. - #106 - Father's Day
• Craft Us Crazy - #10 - Father's Day &/or Masculine Colours/Theme
• Delightful Challenges - Father's Day
• Paper Play - #23 - Father's Day/Man's Card
• Shelly's Images - Anything Goes
• Some Odd Girl - Manly Challenge
• Stamp Insanity - #62 - Father's Day
• Amber's Crafts and Stuff - #13 - Special Man
• Crafting For All Seasons - #2 - Father's Day
• Crafts and Me - #38 - Stamp Something
• House That Stamps Built - #68 - Father's Day and Texture
• My Mum's Craft Shop - #9 - Punch It
• Sisterhood Of Crafters - Celebrating Dad/Man In Your Life
• The Paper Variety - #37 - For The Guys
• Craft Room Challenge - #1 - Anything Goes
• Deep Ocean - #1 - Anything Goes
• Flourishes - #121- Father's Day
• The Stamping Boutique - #8 - Men Only
• Bows and Berries - #7 - Masculine
• Cupcake Craft - #146 - Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy
• Daisy Doodles - #35 - Father's Day
• Incy Wincy - #98 - Father's Day/Masculine
• Make It Monday - #41 - Anything Goes
• Make It Monday With Kraft Outlet - Father's Day
• Ooh La La - #82 - Father's Day/Special Man

Celtic Knot Father's Day

Here are the cards I made this year as the two Father's Day cards for my dad and my father-in-law.

As always, I made two similar but different cards. They both use the same papers but different Celtic knot stamps to distinguish themselves from one another.

I am entering these cards into the following challenges this week:

• Simon Says - Father's Day/Male Cards
• The Crafty Pad - Male Cards

The square Celtic knot image, from a boxed set of Celtic stamps I bought a few years back at a gift shop in Avebury by the stone circles, was stamped onto olive green card using Versacolor Black pigment ink and heat embossed with Heat It Up! copper embossing powder. The images were then cut out using standard square Nesties and matted onto larger squares of russet coloured paper.

A panel of the green mesh paper from the Papermania Hampstead paper pack was matted onto the russet paper and large copper eyelets were set in the corners. A strip of the russet geometric paper, also from the Hampstead paper pack, was punched using the Fiskars Rope border punch along both edges and matted onto the green panel.

Double lengths of green hemp cord were threaded through the eyelets and the stamped images were adhered centrally to the panel.

The sentiment was stamped using the 'Happy Father's Day' stamp by Personal Impressions from the Craft Stamper magazine and the black pigment ink and copper heat embossed. The individual words were cut from the image and matted onto the green card and russet paper. Holes were punched either end of each word panel and the green hemp cord threaded through. Each word was adhered to the front of the card below the Celtic knot panels.

The second card was constructed in exactly the same way but a circular dragon Celtic knot stamp was used for the focal images.

DIY Marshmallow Fathers Day - Alex K's Blog Candy Challenge - CLOSED

Why is it when you really want to get down to some cardmaking there's always something getting in your way!

I wanted to get my entry for Alex's blog candy challenge out of the way about a fortnight ago, but what with one thing and another it didn't happen. Then, on Monday I said to myself I'd get it made on Tuesday, so of course I spent all day in bed with a migraine. I haven't had one for a long time, and this was a particularly nasty one. Not only that, but my eyesight seems to be getting worse just lately, so I'm going to have to dig my glasses out more often.


The blog candy up for grabs is amazing!!!!

Here is what the lucky recipient will receive from the very generous Alex:

- A set of Nestabilities - large plain Octagons
- A packet of designer Gromlets from We Are Memory Keepers
- 5 pink glittery cards with envelopes
- A pack of flower shapes
- A 2"x12" Papermania Oriental Spice Border pack
- 24 A4 sheets from the new Papermania Signature ranges Blueberry Hill and Regency (12 each)
- 20 6"x6" sheets of Core'dinations Whitewash cardstock
- 1 Autumn Leaves Butterfly stamp
- 4 reels of American Crafts Ribbon
- Bottle of Silver Metallic 3D paint
- A wallet with Hanglar images

Anyway, I finally managed to get the card made yesterday. The sketch that Alex produced for the challenge looked particularly 'girlie' with the flowers on it, but I decided to adapt it to a masculine card, mainly because I had to make my Father's Day cards earlier than normal as my father-in-law is going on holiday at the start of June so I've got to get it to him before he leaves.


Anyway, I hope you don't think I've taken too many liberties with the sketch!!!

I started by stamping the Marshmallow DIY image from the Marshmallow Does DIY stamp set from Daisy and Dandelion using the Versafine Onyx Black archival pigment ink and watercoloured it using the ColorBox Amber Clay and Chestnut Roan fluid chalk inks.



The 'Warning' tag image was also stamped using the Onyx Black ink and watercoloured with the Amber Clay ink and a small length of Anita's tan leather sticky ribbon was threaded through the tag. The toolbox image was also stamped and coloured as for the other images.


The edges of the Marshmallow image panel, as well as all the other panels, were coloured using the Amber Clay and Chestnut Roan fluid chalk inks, and matted onto beige textured cardstock.


Two matching papers from the Daisy and Dandelion Picnic Patch paper pad were matted onto another piece of the beige card and a length of the tan leather sticky ribbon was adhered onto a strip of the beige card and then attached across the join of the patterned papers.


The Circle Journalling image from the Studio G Mini Journalling Blocks stamp set was stamped onto white card using the Onyx Black ink and the 'Best Wishes' sentiment from the Papermania Clare Curd Sentiments set was stamped within it. This was then watercoloured using the Amber Clay ink. Silver embroidery thread was tied through a hole made through the top of the circle and threaded under the leather ribbon and through to the back of the panel. A mini silver brad was pushed through the hole in the panel to make it look like the brad was holding the sentiment in place.


The 'Warning' tag and toolbox images were then adhered over the edges of the Marshmallow image panel.

I decorated the inside of the card with a strip of the striped paper as used on the front of the card and stamped the sentiment using a 'Happy Father's Day' stamp from Inca.



I also made a 'Handmade By' medallion for the reverse of the card.

Watercolouring with the fluid chalk inks is a bit of trial and error. You need to add quite a lot of water so you don't get too thick a colour as they can obliterate the stamped lines, as you can see below on the second Father's Day card I made.

This was made almost the same as the challenge card, but on this one I added the 'Warning' tag to the Marshmallow image panel and added the word 'DAD' down the right-hand side.

This was done by stamping the letters from the Papermania Fun Letters stamp set onto both the striped paper and the beige texture cardstock.

The patterned letters were stamped using the Onyx Black ink and cut out close to the outline and the cardstock letters were stamped using both the Amber Clay and Chestnut Roan chalk inks and layered up.

The screwhead image from the Marshmallow Does DIY stamp set was then stamped onto the letters and traced over with an orange Sakura metallic gel pen.