Fairy Princess

Just wanted to share this card with you that I've made for my niece's birthday next week. I just love this step style card and the idea of creating a scene. There is a real mix match use of clear stamps too. The main image is Sprinkles with Teddy from Pink Gem Designs, the castle, carriage and tree are from Imaginisce-fairest of them all collection. The bird and the clouds are from Mindy's Zoo set by Autumn Leaves. Foam alphas are from Papermania. All of the images have simply been coloured in by normal colouring pencils with a touch of crystal stickles on each. I really enjoyed making this one, even though it's taken me ages :) Sorry for the image quality, it's really dark in here at the moment. It's gone all overcast and miserable out there today. Kids are out, housework done, so more crafting me thinks...

What colour are you? AAM challenge

A fab challenge was up at the All About Me challenge site. The question was, "What colour are you?". As soon as I saw the title of the challenge on the blogroll on my dashboard I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted my layout to look. Then when I clicked on the webpage I saw that the incredibly talented DT member, Brittny, had had the same idea as me! Well, you know what they say about great minds and all that :) And if thats not all, the blog hop thats happening right now is to lift a DT members work for this challenge. So here we have it. I am GREEN! the journalling reads: Not the envious green. The green of rolling hills, of the leaves on the tree, of the grass in the lea. I am peridot green by birth, Emerald green by nature. Green are my eyes, green is my colour crayon. Green is the colour of my heaven. This is only challenge #2, so plenty more to come. Want to scrap "All about me"?? Go show them some love!

Winter gift box wonderland

This weeks challenge on Winter Wonderland is to make a gift box, gift bag or your own wrapping paper. I'd already made a start on this gift box so it's like it was meant to be, lol. I've made a mini pizza box that is filled with 5 mini christmas cards. I found the tutorial for the pizza box on the Splitcoast stampers website and just loved the look of it. At first I thought it would make a sweet little gift box, then thought it would be even better to fill it with handmade cards to give away for christmas to those who still love to send tradional mail (i:e my Grandma! Can you guess what She will be getting every Christmas and Birthday now?! LOL)) The box was really easy to do. You just take a piece of 6" x 11" card, at the short side score at 1" and 5", then along the long side score at 1",5" 6" and 10". You make cuts along the long side at the small square creases, then just fold the whole thing together to create the box, sticking down the flaps as you fold. It really is super easy. Like this challenge? Its up til Sunday 4th October. :0)

All about Eve # 51

This weeks movie inspiration for Cinema Saturday is All about Eve. A beautiful classic with one of my favourite leading ladies, Bette Davis. The added requirement is Bling! I used the idea of a designer dress as inspiration, where there may be a huge bow with a brooch or a pin and of course, feathers! (I just can't seem to stop using feathers at the moment):). I got given this buckle this weekend, so it came right in handy!! The "fabulous" sentiment was handwritten in white Sakura Gelly Roll pen. There was loads of inspiration to be had with this movie. Why not take a look?!

Colour create and a cute card thursday

Here are a couple of cards I made last night. This first one is for Colour Create. A gorgeous colour combo this fortnight of Hot Pink, Dusky Pink and Chocolate Ice. Yummy! I kept this card quite simple, using a sketch from Card Patterns. This card was also great to use up some scraps of paper I had just laying around. The BG Porcelain bird cage paper worked perfect for this challenge. The next card is for Cute Card Thursday and another gorgeous colour combo! Black and Yellow this time. Not colours I would normally use but I really like it! I've used this girl stamp before (BG Gamma Limited Edition stamps) but in pink, blue and green colours,and she looks very sweet. Using her with these colours just shouted Halloween to me, I think she looks a little freaky LOL. So I think I will have to change that sentiment! Hope you are having a great weekend!

Summer traditions

From when I was a kid, my parents always made sure we had a summer holiday. They have always worked so hard and deserved to have at least one a year. We always used to go to Spain. All over though, never to the same place twice. I always really enjoyed those holidays with my family. When my baby sister was born, we holidayed in the UK for a while but as soon as she was old enough we went straight back to going away to Spain. Until my Dad wanted to branch out and go to Turkey one year, then that was it. No more Spain (until I got a job there for 5 years!) This layout was made for Butterfly Crafts "Summer Traditions" challenge. Whats your summer tradition? Do you go to a special place, or spend more time outside in the parks or at the pool? Do you have a family gathering? Why not have a go on this challenge? It's open til the 30th September. Oh and if you are looking for a DT spot, Butterfly Crafts are looking for winter Design Team members. Go and check it out!

Pretty Woman

One of my favourite films ever is the inspiration for this weeks challenge on Cinema Saturday creative challenge. For this one I decided to go for pink and black, with diamonds, pearls, feathers and a glam style. While I was putting this together I kept singing "Wild women do" by Natalie Cole for the soundtrack, and thats where the basque came into it. The extra requirement for this challenge was paper piecing. I paper pieced the lacy top of the basque and coloured it in with pink Sakura Gelly Roll pen, to give it a little bit of shimmer. Thanks for looking.

Hot Chocolate

The challenge over at Winter Wonderland is "Hot Chocolate" this week. When I think of Hot Chocolate I think of 2 things. Warm and snug on a cold winter's day and "It started with a kiss". Seeing as this is a christmas card challenge I stuck with the warm and snug side of things instead of going for the song option. Now, knitting with cocktail sticks is possibly one of the most fiddly things I have ever done in the name of papercraft! It took ages just to get this little bit!! So I decided to stay with a knitted scarf in the making. I added a bead to each end to make the cocktail sticks look like knitting needles, added some lace and buttons to my new MME christmas paper and the warm wishes sentiment from studio G stamps. x Sing with me "I believe in miracles.... where you from?... " :) LOL

Penny Black and Basic Grey

I've managed to get a couple of challenges done today while The Boy has his afternoon nap. First up, its time for another Basic Grey Challenge. This time its all about embossing. I love heat embossing, watching the way the powder turns solid after a little bit of "sun" from the heat gun

I haven't done any heat embossing for an age so decided to do it for this challenge. I used Wassail Basic Grey papers. The Merry & Bright sentiment is from Autumn Leaves, heat embossed in gold, with some added feathers, lacy ribbon and pearls. Which takes me nicely to the Penny Black challenge where its all about pearls and Lace. I just love working with Lace, it adds such a soft dimension to cards and layouts. Sticking with the christmas theme, I used this adorable stamp of Carol singing Mice. I thought the MME Signature christmas papers worked really well with the image and the tan coloured lace. The feather and the pearls just give it a softer and warmer touch I think.

Thanks for looking. No sign of The Boy waking up yet so I might try and get another in...... x

A couple of Layouts

Hi! Hope you have/are enjoying your weekend!! I just wanted to share a couple of my recent layouts. This one is for DD's album. I love this photo of her. Its so natural and so just has the twinkliest eyes. Full of mischief and laughter. I think she was around 9 months old in this pic. This next one is of The Boy (hence the title). I havent scrapped many photos of him yet (shamefully only 4 pages!), but I have tons of photos to work through!! I am a bit 'scared' i suppose, because I am so used to doing girly layouts. I think I am finally getting my scrapping mojo back after doing so many cards. Have a great week ahead! x

WOW!

I came across this blog and I am amazed and inspired by the beauty of Ingvild's work! It is incredible, the vintage shabbiness of it. Ingvild is also giving away an amazing RAK for reaching 200,000 hits of her blog! isn't it just out of this world?! Hop on over to her blog and leave her some love.

Magical christmas

I started making my christmas cards a couple of months ago, and already I am starting to run out of ideas, so this week I decided to join in the challenge at Winter Wonderland. The challenge was to create something in a vintage style. And so here is what I came up with. I always love the Vintage look but never actually manage to master it. I used my new My Minds Eye Signature Christmas papers, some damask patterned vellum (Anita's),Father Christmas stamp and the sentimant stamp from Papermania, an oddment of lace, gold thread, a feather and some pearls. I had loads of fun with this challenge and it really has spurred me on!

Such a boy

I just wanted to share this layout of the Boy. While on holiday we saw this marooned Jellyfish and the Boy just tried his hardest to get it. Everytime I moved him away to try and get a photo of it, he just sped back faster. So I got this photo and managed to get him out the way just in time! He would have grabbed it and probably would have even tried to eat it! He really is such a boy!

Digi Scraplift

Digital scrapping is not something that I have been overly interested in doing. Only because I have always had a big obsession with paper since I was a little girl, so to be able to scrap with the most delicious colours and patterns I just can't do it any other way! But this week, the challenge for Scrapwhipers is to do a Digital Scraplift. At first I read it wrong and my heart sank, but then I realised that I could do it in the tradional way and so I got straight on it. I went straight to Scrapjazz to check out the digi galleries and there is some amazing work in there!! It was really hard to choose who's layout to lift. In the end I chose this one by Kenna. I just really liked the sketch on this one, the scallops, circles and more so the placement of the photo. I decided to stay with the sketch but change the colours. I took this photo of my footprint while on a beach in France. I just loved the way it looks like it is raised up instead of sunken into the sand. I tried to keep as many elements of the original layout as I could. Overall I am pretty happy, and I will defo be looking at digital layouts for future inspiration!

In the Candy Shoppe

There is a brand new challenge site called Candy Shoppe Designs. This site really pushes you to the limits of your comfort zone, which I am really loving right now. The challenge 101 is all about stripping. Not the clothing kind, but paper (of course :) ) Use strips of paper, with the added challenges of using a colour palette of Pink, Blue, Cream and Purple, to use something gold and there was a great sketch to follow too if you so wished. So here is my LO. Ok, so I did strip in this photo but it was all in the name of a charity calendar. I really was out of comfort zone doing it, but hey, it helped some needy paople, so I am really proud of the calendar we made. I followed the sketch, used a little bit of gold thread to attach my chipboard button and used the colour palette. That last bit I found really hard for some reason. And of course I used some strips of blue paper at the bottom of the page, with a strip of pink flock on each piece. And also some little strips by the circle. Today is the last day to enter this fabulous challenge but there is another coming up and more to keep you going too inbetween main challenges. Go into the Candy Shoppe.

Favourite Song

What is your favourite song? Can you pick just one? I can't! Butterfly Crafts are asking for your favourite song and I have been thinking about this for 2 weeks. As soon as I think of one I think yeah but this makes me dance too, or this makes me singalong etc... So being a Beatles fan and living in the home of The Fab Four I took some pics when I was at the annual Matthew Street festival and knew they just had to go into a layout. Even so I still couldn't pick my favourite one Beatles track, so I opted for a top 10 instead. I couldn't find the right backing paper for what I wanted to do so I printed some song lyrics from the internet and inked them up in bright colours, then randomly put them over the cardstock. I used some scraps of Rock Star papers from DCWV and I stamped out the song titles using Studio G individual alpha stamps. I've never been into the Beatles story exhibition but I have done the Magical Mystery Tour which was fabulous and at the end we all went into the Cavern (which is really small!!!) and there was a Beatles tribute act on. It was brilliant. I've got Hey Jude stuck in my head now... LOL

WOJ - Teal and Orange

I must admit when I first saw this colour combo I wasn't convinced. It's not one I would normally think of choosing but thats why its called a challenge, right? So I jumped in and here is what I came up with. And I have got to say I just love these colours together. I am sure I will be using these colours again, and I'm thinking christmas cards. Go on over to the Whiff of Joy Challenge site and check it out.

Basic Grey Inspiration challenge

So the next Basic Grey Challenge is up and this time its all about taking inspiration from a photo. A bedroom with soft green, blue, white and lemon colours. Even though it was a bedroom in the photo it made me think of a Tea Room. (?) So for this card the basic grey requirement part is the stamped image of the Teapot and cups from the Gamma Collection. x

Whispering

Scrapwhispers is back after a 2 week break and the the sign up's are complete so now we have been put into teams and are ready for action with the Big Lift. In the meantime the first challenge for the new round is to use the colour combo of Pink, Brown and Cream. Love, Love, Love this colour combo!! And so here is my card.

Using a Sugar Nellie "Gift for you" image, a Basic Grey "Celebrate" sentiment, Basic Grey sultry paper and MME Wild Asparagus paper, some embroidery thread and a little touch of doodlebug flock, here you have it. Here's a close up of the image so you can see the pink flock dots on her skirt. I added the roses as a last minute thing and I have to be honest that I didnt have any real plan for this card, it just kind of fell together!

Although the sign up's have been done and teams are named there will be new challenges set every sunday, so why not try it out! Go on you know you want to!! :)

For my new baby Nephew

Here is a card to celebrate the birth of my Nephew who was born in the early hours of yesterday morning! He was called Zach for about 5 minutes but now he is currently unnamed (I know what that is like, it took me 5 weeks to name the Boy!) I cant wait to go and meet him but I have to wait for half term! I know that it will fly by though. For this card I used a pre embossed Baby card from DCWV, American crafts papers, and Autumn leaves stamps. x

Back to School

Cute Card Thursday are celebrating Back to School. I have 2 nieces along with my DD going to big school so I made them all little backpack boxes filled with sweets as a treat for after their big days. I know my last post was all about the backpack box, but I am addicted to making them now, so beware if you are a teacher or going anywhere near a school, you may just get one!! LOL

Backpack Box

Every now and again I get together with my neighbour and we have a little craft session and make some cards or some scrapbooking . But last night we decided to try something completely different. I found this tutorial for a backpack box and we both thought it looked adorable and definately worth a go. Here is what we came up with! (Well, this is my one, but Pat's is exactly the same. ) In the tutorial it says to use 2 pieces of 8.5 x 11" coordinating cardstock, but we put the template onto a piece of 12x12 and got the 2 boxes out of that. Because we used plain cardstock we decided to stamp onto it with Versamark ink, leaving a lovely barely there watermark effect. It also says at the end that to close the flaps you should use magnetic clasps (or I suppose velcro would work) but seeing as it was a last minute creation and neither of us had these I just popped a brad in for now, just so I was able to take the photos of it looking proper. So now I am sure you know what I am thinking. Gift's for teachers at christmas time! How different and perfect. Maybe filled with a homemade memo notepad and little pencils? or homemade Gingerbread bites/ chocolates/ coconut ice....... ?! When I first read the tutorial I thought it would be really difficult but it was pretty easy and quick to assemble. I love how it turned out. If you give it a go let me know, I would love to see what you make!!

Creative Twist

I have come across a new challenge blog called Creative Twist. They are on challenge #4 and it is all about "Book Inspiration". For this challenge I decided on a card based on my favourite classic, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I read this years ago and have recently rediscovered it as I am working my way back through the classic novels. This book just has everything! Passion, pain, birth, death, marriage, love, hatred, betrayal.... You can just feel the force of Heathcliff and Cathy's eternal love. (I have to admit, I do cry at the end of the book too) And so here is my take on Wuthering Heights in greeting card form.

I found that Basic Grey Ambrosia collection were perfect for this gothic love story, and so I used the plain dark colour to represent the Yorkshire moors where it is all set, and the red pattern for the passionate sky. The tree is from Imaginise fairytale collection. Here is a better close up of the tree. I added some stickles to the red flowers and then the "Eternally Yours" sentiment which was stamped out using Studio G tiny alphas.

Go check out Creative Twist. There are new challenges posted every monday. The past challenges look like they were heaps of fun too.

Enjoy the rest of your day.... while I just keep singing the chorus of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. (I've a feeling I may be stuck with that in my head for a while! LOL)

xx

Would you just look at all this delicious candy!! It is on offer from Squiggle stamps who are celebrating the release of their new blog and design team. Pop on over, leave a message with a link to your blog, linking back to Squiggle Stamps to be entered into the draw. Also any orders put in too will also be entered into the prize draw! Good luck!