Lots of Challenges Today

This first card is for the Die Cut Dreams Sympathy challenge this week. All the parts, apart from the sentiment, come from a pack I bought from QVC ages ago.  I bought it mainly because I thought the cards themselves were very pretty, soft colours and delicate edges.

The flower stickers came with the pack.  They add a little dimension, but they fold flat for posting.  they are stuck only in the centre and you can bend and roll the various elements to make them stand up.  They have an element of memory in them so they do stand up a little when they are released from the card.

As usual, the sentiments I had were the wrong colour, so I used a silver peel off, and the brown and yellow Dufex pens to colour them to a more coppery colour to tone with the flowers.

This card is for the Stampalot monochromatic challenge.  As in the card above, the peel offs were coloured to tone in with the card.

The photos are family ones of my one set of grandparents.  If you look hard, you can see that they were taken in the same place.  They were obviously showing off new bicycles.  The originals were black and white, but I changed them to sepia shades which made them clearer.

I printed them on watercolour card, and then aged it with Old Paper Distress ink, before mounting it on dark brown card.  The whole thing was then matted onto a plain cream card from my oddments box, which I also aged a little with the same ink, then added the coloured peel offs.

I have a lot of old family photos which I do like to use in my crafting.  These are just two of them.

 Card number three is for the 52 (Christmas) Card Throwdown, which was for a card with Christmas flowers in some form.  I am also entering it into Sandra' new challenge for Rudolph Day .

The artwork and the shaped card comes from a My Craft Studio design, I think from Nancy Watt, but I may be wrong there.  It is another card with dimension, but can lie fairly flat for posting, and even comes with its own matching envelope.  It is one piece of card for the base, printed from the computer, then decorated with the decoupage elements.

As is usual for me, I did not use all the elements, but I did add a few red gems to give a bit of Christmas bling.

This is a real bits and pieces card, so following along those lines, I am entering it into Di's Snippits Playground for this week, and into Sandra's Rudolph Day.  However, as it uses a die cut from my Silhouette, it also fits into the Less is More Challenge for Cut it Out
for this week.

The central cut out design is part of a much larger set to make a cut out card by LCM Griffiths.  Having cut it out, I decided that it was far too complicated for me to put together in its entirety, so I have been using each element as a separate item.  I matted it onto a small scrap of dark blue card, before putting it on to the base card.  That in itself is a real Use it Up item, going back to my first start in card making.  I bought far too many card blanks to do my son's wedding stationery, and still have a box full of the cards and the envelopes to match, and nearly a ream of matching cream paper for the inserts.

My final card for today (phew, I hear you say) is a slightly tongue in cheek entry for  the Allsorts Needles and Pins.  You will not see any needles and pins themselves in this card.  However, without this building and others like it, you would have no needles and pins.  The central photo is of the Forge Mill in Redditch, which is now the National Needle Museum.  It is one of the surviving needle making mills, powered by water from the pound you can see in the picture.  Having fallen into dereliction, my husband's uncle formed a group of enthusiasts to bring it back to life.  Sadly, he died before the Queen came to open it officially as a museum.

The small photo inset in the corner is of our daughter's wedding, which was held at the Mill, continuing the family connection with needles.  As you can see, it was a wedding with a difference.  My husband's family have been involved in the needle making trade for several generations in the area.  It does seem dreadful that all the needles are now made abroad and just a few are packed in Redditch and Studley, all that talent lost to our country.  Thirty years ago, Redditch needles were sent all over the world, but not now.

I have now to assure you that none of the materials used in these cards were bought for the job.  So I am keeping up with my pledge to Use It Up in 2012.

I am now off to link up to all these various challenges.  I have had fun this week, even though I did not finish all I wanted to do.  See you all later, I hope.  Have a good week.