Happy Christmas

I just want to wish everyone out there in Blogland a Very Happy Christmas, I hope santa brings you everything you`ve asked for and you all have the best Christmas.
And now we`ve survived the end of the world (according to the Mayan Calendar!) here`s to a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

Thanks for all your support and lovely comments for the past year, bye for now and I`ll see you all in 2013 xxxxxxx

Vintage Christmas

This is the card I have made for my Parents this year, it`s an image I`ve had for a while from a Creative Expressions - Create a Scene stamp set - Vintage Christmas.
My Parents like a traditional Christmas and they loved this card.
I`ve used Magnolia papers, Tim Holtz Tattered Poinsettia and Tattered Pinecone dies, Martha Stewart PAP Cherished set and icicle punches, Trimcraft Ribbon, flowers from WOC and Carnmeal Cottage, Marianne creatables tree and holly dies and memory box fence and bare tree dies.

I`ve coloured the image with distress inks and added snow writer, stickles diamond and glamour dust. The background trees are SU lovely as a tree set and were stamped by masking off the main image and overstamping with a dark green ink pad.

The fence was soooo fiddly to do as it is only a tiny die, so I had to glue several together and then add the snow writer and I used reverse tweezers to hold it in place at each end and stand it upright to dry! I think the effort was worth it though.

I`m sitting typing this with my feet up as I fell up the stairs a couple of days ago and have badly bruised my leg ! typical thing for me to do right before Christmas but hopefully it`ll be mended enough for me to walk about again soon! At least I got my Christmas shopping done before it happened!

Thanks for visiting, bye for now and happy crafting xxx

White on White

Over at Cupcake Challenge this time around it`s "it`ll be all white on the night" and here is what I came up with. I`m normally a colour girl and I very rarely make a card without a character stamp on it and lots of colour so this was a real change for me but I really enjoyed making it. I think you have to get out of your comfort zone now and then and strangely enough I found this easy, having no choice of colour to contemplate and not having to match up papers and embellishments.

I used Martha Stewart punch around the page set - Eyelet Lace. Tim Holtz -Tattered Poinsettia die, large circle and scallop circle nesties, Hobby house self adhesive pearls and the background was used by heat embossing with clear ink and a hollographic glitter embossing powder over a Hero Arts stamp - Leaf Flourish. I also used a bit of stickles diamond round the circle to add a bit of extra bling. The sentiment is from Inkylicious.

The biggest challenge for me with this card was photographing it ! it`s been overcast for most of the day so it wasn`t easy to photograph an all white card and make it stand out! but hopefully all the detail shows up okay on the screen.

I`m off now to get my scampi and chips that my family has just bought in for me so bye for now and happy crafting xx

Girlfriends

This is the last of the Art Impressions samples I have done for Sir Stampalot, love this image it is called "Girlfriends". I have coloured with distress inks and markers.
The shape is a Go Create die - 6" x 6" pointy frame, backing paper is Little Yellow Bicycle - Sea Urchin Spots and I`ve just added a few Mark Richards Crystal Stickers here and there to add a bit of bling to the background. Both sentiments come with the set as does a third which says "We`re still hot, only now it comes in flashes" Which I can soooo identify with! I cut the little speech bubble by hand.

It is a rainy, horribly dull day here in Lincolnshire today, what better weather than to stay indoors and craft! The only trouble is, I have a few finished cards ready to photograph for my blog and the light is too awful to shoot in. Hopefully it will brighten up later.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Power Napper

Another Sample for Sir Stampalot. This one is Power Napper from Art Impressions and it so reminds me of my Mum asleep in the chair while she`s on the computer! LOL, she won`t thank me for telling you all that bless her! I`ve coloured the image with distress inks and markers, flowers are Nellie Snellen punch and emboss set, hobby house pearl brads,
BoBunny Apple Cider Dot and Basic Grey Constellation papers and a bit of silky ribbon from my stash which came off a chocolate box!
All products (apart from the ribbon ) available from Sir Stampalot.

I`ve been non-stop making Christmas cards for the last few days now and I think I finally have them all done, I always make a few extra incase I forget anybody and if I don`t use them it gives me a head start on next years!

I`m off now to go and track down some braid for a project I`ve been commissioned to do for a friend of mine, I can`t seem to find a good stockist of braid anywhere locally but there is a sewing/fabric shop in our local town so I`ll pop in there today to see what they have on offer !

Bye for now, thanks for lookin in xxx

This is a sample I`ve done for Sir Stampalot, the image is Art Impressions "Catching Z`s" This reminds me of fishing trips with my Dad when I was very young but it was Mum that usually fell asleep on the riverbank!
I`ve coloured with distress inks and markers, the backing papers are BoBunny Apple cider dot and Vicki B Loverly (reverse side) Doo Hicky grass die from Magnolia and a bit of medical gauze to add texture. The Z`s are cut from Wingo Zingo Sizzix extended cuts alphabet.

I`ve been up to my eyes in Christmas cards lately so it was lovely to make some ordinary cards for a change and I had fun with this one, the images of these "ai people" stamps have such humour, I`ve done a couple of others for Sir Stampalot too so I`ll post them soon.

Bye for now and happy crafting xxx

Christmas Wrappings

I think I got carried away making this card, I kind of threw everything at it and I think I over embellished and I had to stop myself adding things LOL!
I`m not sure if this Tilda is wrapping a present or unwrapping one but anyway .... I`ve coloured her with distress inks and distress markers. The papers are Magnolia as is the music background stamp. Dies used are Nesties Circle and Scallop circle, Cheery Lynn holly and SU scalloped scallop border.

The Flowers are from Wild Orchid crafts and I`ve just added a bit of Stickles-Diamond to them. The Sentiment is Molly Blooms.

I had a lovely surprise in the mail yesterday, a huge package arrived from Sir Stampalot with some lovely stamps, paper and ribbon for me to make some samples with for the shop, so I`m going to be busy over the weekend and I`ll post here what I come up with.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Getting ready for Christmas

Another Christmas card in the bag, I`m finding it slow going this year to get all my Christmas cards done, I seem to have been making them for ages but still only have a few finished, I just can`t get in the Christmas mood yet!

This is an old Magnolia Christmas stamp but it`s a lovely wintery one, I`ve coloured Tilda with distress inks and markers and added a bit of glamour dust for the sparkle on the snow.
The Background paper is Magnolia too as is the sentiment and I`ve used SU snowflakes stamped and embossed in white on burgundy paper, the die is memory box - frostyville border and the charm is from hobby house.

I`m going to get stuck in to some more Chrissy cards today as it`s the first day I`ve had to myself in a while so I plan to spend the rest of it crafting up a storm ..... well that`s the plan anyway !

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Aimi

I`d like to enter this into the LOTV challenge this week which is "Anything Goes"

Here is a card made with some of my new stamps from LOTV. I have used Aimi with Lantern and some of the accessory stamps from the Geisha companion set and the sentiment set which fits in the scroll.
I`ve coloured with distress inks and distress markers, the background paper is Magnolia Summer Memories collection - Lovely Butterfly, ribbon is seam binding from The Ribbon Girl.
I`ve also used Sizzix - Flowers and Branch die available from Sir Stampalot, Sizzix cut `n` emboss butterflies from SU, Paper Mania mini daisy punch and hero arts self adhesive pearls.

I`ve really enjoyed colouring these images from LOTV, they are so pretty, I love all things oriental, speaking of which I`ve just bought Gok Wan`s new cookery book and I`m off now to do some shopping and get some ingredients for a slap up home made chinese meal tonight! Oooooh my tummy is already rumbling at the thought LOL.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Pippi Longsocks (and froggie friend!)

I`d like to enter this card into this weeks Cupcake Craft Challenge which is "Two`s Company"

I`ve made this card for no other reason than I wanted to play with my new stamp, I saw this image on a friends blog recently and fell in love with it. She`s called Pippi longsocks and she`s from the Sugar Nellie range at Funky Kits.
I`ve used a friend sentiment as I have loads of crafty friends so I`m sure one of them will be the recipient of this in the near future!

I`ve coloured her with distress markers this time, they are a bit brighter than the inks and I`m just getting to grips with them, this is the first time I`ve coloured an entire image just with markers and I`m fairly happy with the results. I`ve added stickles - diamond to her wings, the papers are Bo Bunny double dot and the reverse side of the paper I used in my last posted card which I think is Bo Bunny also. The die cuts are Cheery Lynn mini fanciful flourish available at Sir Stampalot. The punch is SU scallop dot border and the sentiment is LOTV.

I`ve got a soft spot for froggies and I loved this little fella leaning on her shoe!
I had a hard time with this bow, I only had a scrap of this ribbon left but it matched the colours so perfectly I wanted to use it so I pieced the two pieces at the sides to look like it runs all the way along and I had to piece the bow together from several different bits, thank God for my hot glue gun that`s all I can say, I spent longer faffing around with the bow than I did making the whole card !! The things we do for our craft !!

I`m off now for a cuppa, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Angelica

I made this for a friends birthday recently, it`s one of my new Sugarnellie stamps from funky kits. She`s called Angelica, I`ve coloured her with distress inks and markers and added a bit of glamour dust to her wings (a girl`s gotta have a bit of glamour!).
Couldn`t tell you what the backing paper is, it`s another one I`ve had forever lurking at the back of my craft desk somewhere! maybe BoBunny but couldn`t say for sure!
Also magnolia paper, Cheery Lynn die, Hobby House flowers, Border punch sentiment and butterflies die all SU. Pom Pom trim from stash,(again found lurking!)
I`ve been having a sort out of my craft desk again! it`s amazing what you come accross when you have a tidy !

Thanks for looking in, bye for now xx

Snow Friends

Another Christmas card, I`m slowly getting them all made. I`m not too happy with this card, I should have coloured the tree trunk in more and I didn`t like the background paper once I`d used it, too busy, what do you all think? It may grow on me yet !!

I have coloured the image with distress inks and distress markers and added a bit of glamour dust to sparkle up the snow. The tree is a Marianne creatables die as is the fence. The holly leaves are MS punch and the embosssed border is cuttlebug. The little tag with the red ribbon pulls out for a sentiment. The background paper is an old Magnolia scrap I had left in my stash from a few years ago!

The little copper tags are from Sir Stampalot. Senti-Metals-Whimsical Winter-SM102C.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

"Polar" Bears

I`m back with another Christmas card made, I don`t normally start my Christmas cards this early but I couldn`t resist these new LOTV stamps, they are such fun to colour.
This is coloured with distress inks and distress markers with a bit of Stickles - Diamond to highlight the snow and hat fur here and there.

The background paper is Magnolia, Martha Stewart icicle border punch, Ash Branch punch and woodware mini snowflake punch, ribbon and metal snowflake from stash.

Thanks for lookin in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Calamity Jane !

Just had to have a play with my newest stamp, isn`t she cute, couldn`t resist her!!

She`s a Nellie Snellen - Revolver Babe from the young rebels collection. I almost bought her at Stamperama last year but ran out of pennies so when I saw her in a local craft shop I couldn`t resist bringing her home with me this time.

I`ve coloured with distress inks and distress markers, nestie oval and scallop oval, the paper is Kanban, memory box tree die and woodware mini leaf punches. The background paper is Magnolia mini world - "something old" and the little horse is a cuttlebug die I`ve had forever !! Molly blooms stitch border stamp and sign post. the "hinges" are just the ends cut off a Tim Holtz sign post die cut and embossed to give a bit of texture.

Thanks for looking in, bye for now xxx

Fireside Friends

Now it`s autumn, I thought I`d better make a start on my Christmas cards, here is the first of the many I need to make.

I`ve used one of the new LOTV images which I just adore, coloured with distress inks and markers and I`ve added a bit of glossy accents to the clock face and puppies nose and a bit of stickles diamond to the stocking tops and flames.

The tartan card is from Kanban. Also used Tim Hotz Tattered Pine cone die, Martha Stewart holly punch, Go Kreate die for the card shape, Marianne Creatables Pine tree die.

The flowers (helibores I think they are) from WOC and the ribbon and berries are from my stash, The sentiment is SU, (I have LOTV sentiments on my wish list when pennies will allow)
The label is a Nesties die.

I`d like to enter this in this weeks LOTV challenge which is "Anything but a Square"

I will give this card to one of my friends who is a non crafter, she loves to receive my cards, but last time I gave her an easel I went round her house afterwards to find it propped up on her mantel in a very odd fashion as she didn`t know how to display it!! If you`ve come accross this problem then the link below is a solution.
I found these on a web page that you print out and stick to the back of your easels to help the uninitiated !!

Easel display stickers

hope you find this usefull, thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xxx

Rose Garden Tilda

I`d like to enter this into the Tilda`s Town Challenge, this time it is " Late Summer Fun" which is apt for us as we are experiencing a very late summer here in England and it is Very hot today.

I`ve been having a play with my new Tilda stamp, just had to ink her up and colour her as soon as I bought her from Sir Stampalot this week. She`s so sweet I couldn`t resist.
I`ve coloured with distress inks and used the Magnolia Summer Memories rose garden papers to compliment her.

The fence is a Marianne Creatables die which I`ve cut again and used the little fence panels to stand out with 3D foam. I`ve inked the edges with distress ink antique linen to give a bit of definition.

The little butterflies are Magnolia - Dot Butterflies, also inked with distress inks and I`ve cut the front wings out again and used collal 3D glue for dimension.

I made the large flowers using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die, just cut several petals out, inked and curved them and added a few glittered stamens to the centre. The paper for these is Pink Swirly BoBunny double dot.

Products also used :- Cheery Lynn - fanciful flourish die, Magnolia leaves, Woodware mini flower punch, Hobby house pearls, WOC rose buds.

Like I said at the top we are in the middle of a mini heat wave here in England, and boy is it hot, so I`m off now to cool down in front of the biggest fan I can find in the house LOL !! , thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Beary Merry Christmas

I made this card as a sample for Sir Stampalot using the Magnolia bear, I thought he looked a bit more like a polar bear so coloured him accordingly. The trees and circle sentiment are also Magnolia stamps as are the backing papers and the post card is Molly Blooms also available at Sir Stampalot.

I`ve coloured with distress inks and added a bit of stickles diamond for sparkle on the trees (although I`m not sure it shows up well in the photo). The foliage punch I know is called ash branch but cannot remember the make but it is available from Sir Stampalot too and it is one of the most versatile punches and the most used probably that I own!

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Tea light Christmas

I thought this would be a good gift idea combined with a Christmas card, the little box attatched to the card left just holds 6 Yankee Candle tea lights but you can adapt it to fit anything you wanted. The ones I`ve used are Mulled Wine and they smell gorgeous, it`s a shame we haven`t got smell-o-vision so you can smell how lovely they are!!

I wanted my card to be a 5" square as I wanted to be able to make the card and box out of A4 size cardstock so I made my measurements for the box to be 5" high and the width of the tea lights which is about 4cm. I thought it would be quirky to have the card open the opposite way for a change but the box could easily be attatched to the right if you don`t like this idea.
I`ve coloured the LOTV image with distress inks and added glossy accents to the lampshade glass and glamour dust glitter to highlight the snow and fur areas on the clothing.

I just had a scrap of acetate left from last Christmas with the snowflakes on and it was just enough to put in the window of the box, (here`s to not throwing out your scraps!!)

The flowers are from Wild Orchid crafts and the berries are from last years Christmas crackers!! the sentiment is also LOTV and I just suspended the sentiment on a bit of bakers twine.

I`d like to enter this into this weeks LOTV challenge which is "Christmas in July". It may as well be christmas here in England as the weather sure feels like winter, at the moment it is torrential rain and thunder and lightning so it wasn`t difficult to do a Christmas card in the "summer" LOl !
While it`s such horrid weather I may as well get on with some more crafting, thanks for looking in, bye for now xx

A Good Read

I made this card for a friends birthday, she is an avid reader and this new Editor Tilda stamp is just perfect for her.
I`ve coloured with distress inks and added glossy accents to her glasses for the lenses.

The background papers are Teresa Collins, other products used are Magnolia DooHickey Doily die, Hero arts lace, Tim Holtz ideology Adage Tickets and the large flower is handmade from the Tim Holtz tattered pine cone die which is my latest acquisition and I cannot stop using it, it makes the prettiest flowers!

I don`t usually decorate the inside of my cards but I was inspired in the workshop I did recently with Claudia Rosa who always decorates the inside of her cards, so I thought I`d have a go with this one. I`m going to tuck a waterstones book gift voucher under the string on the left for my friends birthday.

The sentiment is on the little tag that pulls out from behind the back layer.

I`d like to enter this card into the Just Magnolia challenge. This time around the theme is "Anything goes with the option of handmade flowers"

Thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Wee Suzi

I made this card for no other reason than I wanted to use the new Wee stamp my friend Louise gave me for my birthday. I`ve coloured with distress inks and used Magnolia mini papers for the backgrounds. The sentiments are SU and the little tags are Memory box dies.

The large flowers were made using the Tim Holtz - Tattered Pine Cone die which makes lovely little pine cones but even better tea roses, I love making my own flowers.

The little butterfly is actually made from some net flowers I found in my stash which I`ve had forever. I just bent the petals and removed the stamens and added a couple of pink tipped stamens to create the little butterfly nestled in the flowers.

I`ve added a little bit of stickles - diamond to the flowers and glossy accents to the ladybird but I`m not sure it shows in the picture very well. It`s a bit overcast here and the photos don`t come out great in this light !!

I`ve been crafting up a storm in the last few days, now I`ve got my mojo back I`m making the most of it while it lasts!!
If you like what I do then please leave me a comment, I love to get feed back from fellow crafters, thanks for looking in, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Workshop with Claudia

This is the card I made at the fantastic workshop we had with Claudia at Sir Stampalot on Sunday. I had a fantastic day with all the girls, lots of fun and it was great to finally meet Claudia in person. I`ve been an admirer of her work for a number of years and I hope I`ve done her card justice.

I don`t use copics so I`ve coloured my image with Distress inks and tried to match Claudia`s colour scheme as closely as possible. You can see Claudia`s Beautiful original on her fabulous blog "Pretty Pressings" (on my side bar).

This is the first piece of serious crafting I have done in ages, as my mojo up and went AWOL on me. But, thanks to Claudia and Janice and Andy at Sir Stampalot and all my lovely inspirational crafting friends, I have found it again, given it a reprimand and it`s firmly back at base camp!! ( I can`t guarantee it won`t desert me again but I`ll try not to let it !)

I have never put so many layers on a card before, it makes me truly realize just how much work Claudia must put into all her cards. We didn`t have time to finish the card in the class so I finished mine at home and it took me ages ! Claudia really is a very talented lady and such a lovely person too, I thoroughly enjoyed her class and hope she comes over again to do some more for us in the future.

Janice has given me some stamps to do some samples for the shop so that will give me something else to get my teeth into and hopefully keep my mojo fully occupied!! and I`ve got some lovley new stamps to play with, one which was a birthday prezzie from my friend Louise so I`ll be busy for a while yet.
Thanks for looking in and sorry for my bad blogging of late, bye for now and happy crafting xx

Turned to Stone

I haven`t been doing much crafting lately as I have been busy having a go at a bit of altering and restoration on this mini jewellery armoire that my brother bought me years ago when I was a teenager...
I was having a sort out and came across this and was about to throw it out as it had one glass door panel missing ( which broke a number of years ago ) and the wood was all scratched up and damaged. As I said I`ve had it a loooooong time ! so it didn`t owe me anything!

This was the result



It took a lot of sanding down then I had to prime it and then quite a few coats of Rustoleum bleached stone textured paint.(Available from DIY stores) It`s a fantastic product which when finished gives a natural textured stone finish. You have to be patient when working with it, it takes a while to dry and you need to leave it overnight before recoating. I got through one and a bit tins for this project.



I backed a sheet of DCWV paper - Once upon a time, with card to strengthen it and cut it to size for the door panels.I used a thick cardstock to line the interior. There was already a sunken in circle in the middle of the drawer fronts so I added the antique brads from SU, I just pulled the backs off with a pliers before hot gluing them in place and voila ! I am really happy with the results.



Originally I was going to just paint it, take the doors off and drawers out and used it to store my distress inks on my craft desk as I bought the Rustoleum to use on some old shaped glass bottles that I had. Now I have no idea what to use it for but it`s too nice to stick inks in and it has pride of place now on my sideboard ! I just have to decide now what to use it for !

I should get back to some crafting now, I`ve still got samples to make for Kay Rutter, two birhtday cards and a Fathers day card to make ! the house is upside down at the moment too as we are having a stone kitchen floor laid and decorating too ! I`ll be glad when it`s all back to normal !
Thanks for looking in, bye for now xx