Love Is by Mo Manning

How cute are these two! The image is Love Is by Mo Manning and is currently available on Mo's Patreon Page. Mo is currently setting up a fabulous NEW shop though - there are some gorgeous new images there - do yourself a favour and go check it out HERE!

A Special Anniversary Card

Today I have a very special 60th anniversary shutter card for you. I love the reminiscing of past and present and how the couple still love each other, even after 60 years.

Now I'm not sure why I did this to myself but I saw a tutorial yesterday on YouTube for this style of card and headed off into a rabbit hole to try it myself, and I got it done with only 90minutes to spare before my posting time!!!!

It's a fun card but PRACTICE putting together the mechanism BEFORE you start cutting up your images, I'm SO GLAD I decided to do this as I may not have had a card to showcase today otherwise!!!

The images I have used are by Mo Manning and have both been cropped. The bridal couple is Wedding Couple B and the elderly couple are Jack & Ginger.

In the video below you can see the mechanism in action.

Duke Done Differently

As with many crafters I enjoy all sorts of different crafts. One I enjoy is quilting and recently I saw a fun technique called collage quilting where fabric scraps are your colouring medium. I then went in search of a few YouTube tutorials on the techniques and thought it would be fun to try. My next issue was finding an image to use. Of course being on Mo Manning's Dream Team made me wonder if a digi mage could be used. Like with anything out of the ordinary it's always good to check with the artist if your technique is an acceptable use of their artwork. I was delighted when Mo agreed to my request and I decided to use the gorgeous Duke, partly because he reminds me of my dog 😉

I printed him off at just over 12" tall, transferred the lines to a piece of fabric and got to work. The plan was to use up scraps from my fabric stash and that's why he ended up blue - but I'm so happy with it and learnt a lot along the way. The fusible I had hiding in my craftroom was quite old and didn't always stay ironed down so I ended up using a decorative stich along the edges of the fabric pieces, not the way a true collage quilt is made but I was happy with the result anyway. I added wadding and a backing, did some more quilting to sandwich the 3 layers together and finished off my piece with binding. I now have a cute soft wall hanging ready to go up.

Here's a little idea of the steps the process took me. 

My sincere thanks to Mo for letting me use her artwork this way.

Ilana by Mo Manning

Today I'm bringing you a card using Mo's gorgeous Ilana image. There's just something so wonderful in the way Mo poses her images and I love the sweet cheekiness of this adorable girl.

Using striped DPs is always fun as you can orientate the stripes in different directions to really enhance them as a design element.

Spring Awakening by Mo Manning

Today I'm bringing you a fabulous Mo Manning image called Spring Awakening which is available free from Mo's Patreon. 

Here in Australia it's the Winter Solstice today, which means we're halfway through Winter and hanging out for Spring to come, so I'm living vicariously a little here 😀

King for the Day by Mo Manning

Recently I have been doing some men's card by request. Today I'm bringing you this one using an image called King for the Day What bloke doesn't love a good lounger and being in charge of the remote.

I used some papers that created a lounge room backdrop and added a masculine sentiment to finish him off. 

Fishing by Mo Manning

Here's another requested card for an man, my brief was anything "boating" related. This time I've used Mo's Fishing image. This is another image that has been around for some time but is still a fabulous choice when making a card for a man. 

I find men's cards need to be a little simpler in design but the sponged sunset background and scalloped frame seem to work well. 

The Engineer by Mo Manning

Recently I had a request to make a few men's cards, in particular with trains or sailing. Well I couldn't go past using Mo's The Engineer for one of these cards. The image is an older one of Mo's but he's still a fabulous choice.

A couple of die cuts and colouring to create the "tunnel" and I had a perfect backdrop for him 

Little Princess in Lilac and Lemon

This gorgeous image is called Little Princess and is by Mo Manning. I ended up using a soft colour palette of Lilac and Lemon for her as she's just so sweet, and I couldn't see her in bold colours. Perhaps I was influenced by the fabulous costumes of The Queen in the Bridgerton series...perhaps ;)

Baby Fairies by Mo Manning

Today I'm bringing you a card with one of Mo's sweet Baby Fairy images. This cutie is one of 3 in the set and, although I love all 3, I think this one is my favourite!

It's a tad hard to see but the teal background is embossed with a beautiful floral swirl which ties in so well the theme and adds so much extra texture IRL.

Late by Mo Manning

What the perfect image for a belated birthday card! This is Late by Mo Manning. He would work well with Mo's Alice in Wonderland images as he's perfect for the White Rabbit, which is what inspired my fun colour palette.

Janny Texting by Mo Manning

This week I've used the fabulous image Janny Texting by Mo Manning. After colouring her up I decided to re-colour her and video the process. Mo's DT has started doing live colourings on Facebook, but I haven't felt comfortable doing one of those - hence the video instead.  

This is the image I coloured up in the video. I did her fairly quickly and probably spent more time on the original image making sure the blending was perfect, but I'm still happy with how she turned out! I popped her onto a second card using the same layout as the first.

For anyone interested - here is the link to the colouring video....and please excuse any glitches, I'm pretty new to all this! And next time perhaps I'll record in landscape mode rather than portrait 😏

Mona by Mo Manning

This sweet little image is called Mona by Mo Manning. I love colouring black hair and using bright blue as a highlight. And how well does the stark black work with the pink and lime green?! Such a fabulous image to play with.

I repeated the spotty theme with the stamped background using a set by Altenew, and an embossed spotty panel. The black rhinestones finish off the theme.

Gabrielle by Mo Manning

I love using Mo's gorgeous young women to play with adding "sparkle" I've always loved glittery things. This time I'm using Mo's Gabrielle. 

I had started this image earlier but the spots from the
white Posca paint pen I used were bigger than I wanted and then dropped a huge blog of paint right on her bodice. I tried to clean it up but wasn't too happy with it so tore it up. In my I always prefer to re-start rather than "fix". The colours on this picture aren't true as I took the photo under artificial light.

I did end up taping her together and gave fixing her a quick go - to see if I could - but I was always going to re-colour. As you can see the paint pen I used second time around was much finer and gave me a much nicer look. I also decided to go with the softer look of white trims.

Gillie by Mo Manning

This gorgeous image is called Gillie and she's one of my many, many favourites from Mo. I just love her sweet face, but it's that fabulous fly away hair that really makes me smile. I think she it makes her look a little more magical by giving that amazing hair colourful streaks.

 

Carolina by Mo Manning

We're in the middle of Summer here in Australia and I was inspired to use this gorgeous image because our veggie patches are providing is with some lovely fresh produce at the moment. This is Carolina and I have to say she "grows" much better carrots than we've ever been able to manage 😂