Card Makin' Mamas - Use up your Scraps challenge

Morning all & it's Friday again, I really don't know where this weeks gone, actually I really don't know where the whole months gone! - Time always flies, but this month of May has just come & gone so quickly, where does the time go?!!!

Anyhow the challenge this fortnight was to 'use up your scraps' & we've kindly been sponsered by Bugaboo, which if you've not heard of is a stamp company specialising in digis, but theres also some rubber available too. I have to say I am a rubber girl (does that sound a little dogey in a rude sense, or is that just me?!! haha)

So I choose to work with there very beautiful flower swing. I also invested in 2 others the 'flower can' & the 'fancy umberella 1'. I've really enjoyed working with them & I LOVE all 3! The value is amazing too, they should have been 3 dollars each (which most single images are) but when I checked out I got them both half price! - So each image worked out at just over a pound each - BARGAIN! - The images are e-mailed to you instantly (which is such a great perk of digi stamps) & you get one normal image, then one with a transparent background, so you could build scenes on a photo editing or publishing program really easily, which not all digis do & its a real benefit making them really workable & easy to use. Theres so many to choose from & I'm sure soem of you will be familiar with some fo the fab cvharacters they do, which the rest of the DT have used click here to check them out & enter your creation. But I wanted to show a bit of a different style which may not be your first thought on how to use them, so I wanted to show just how versatile they are, the different kinds of style they can creat & how well they work with stamps you allready have. Click here to check them out..

Image is 'Sitting Angel Tilda from the 2010 christmas collection, which I thought was in keeping with a use up your scraps challengs, as it shows how you can use your stamps out of season. This image in particular is amaingly versatile & I chose it cause I love the way her hands are, perfect for 'holding' the umberella which I knew I really wanted to use. Image has been coloured with Copics, then highlighted with 'Sweet Pea' flower soft, which I just can't get enough of at the moment - I LOVE that soft shabby efect it gives & your not limeted to using it on your stamps. Notice I've added some around the edges & corners, which helps blend & co-ordinate the images with the background...

COPICS:

I'vve also used Viva declor pearl pen in salmon to create some faux swirl flourishes

Now you may be wandering - how did I 'use my scraps?!!' well....I confession time I didn't use scraps of paper - the pad is DCWV nanas nursary stach & is actually new. My Sizzix machine has just broken, my Dads taken it apart & the aliminium frame has snapped (I think its me forcing dies through it trying to cut card thats to thick for that type of die...naughty me - lessoned learned!) Anyhow I ALWAYS use some kind of dies on my work, so am really feeling not having it. I did check through all my scraps & have loads cause never throw anything away, but all the ideas I had for each collection involved needing my die-cutter, you have to be quite inventive sometimes using scraps & I just didn't feel I could be without my beloved Sizzix & wouldn't have been happy with the standard of work - which ultimately I decided was more important!

Soooo plan B - I decided to get inventive with the challenge instead & come up with this little idea, which I thought was still very much in the spirit of using scraps & generally being frugal. Don't know about anyone else, but now I'm using loads of digis for all my DT work, I've loads & loads of A4 smooth white card (suibtable for Copics) with different images on, but always have loads of 'wasted' space on the sheet. So I used an editing program & positioned the image in the right place to be printed in some of the spaces, therefore using up the otherwise wasted space on the paper & with the expensive prices of speciaslist paper nowadays, every bit counts! - So little tip there for you, I hate wasting anything so thought it was a great idea! - Big up blog challenges too - I love it when you learn or create something you wouldn't have done otherwise because of these types of challenges & that is why there sooooo good to take part in. So we'd love you to come & join in - what will you learn/ create?

I'd like to enter into the following challenges: