Sunlight and Snow

I had a happy afternoon on Saturday wandering around the stalls at the Happy Stampers North West craft fair at Port Sunlight.

By far my biggest splurge was with Jill on the Hobby House stall where I worked on a “needs and wants” basis – ie. I visited early to buy the things I “need” such as Neenah card and a whole variety of pearls, gems and charms ... and then I called back later for my “wants” in the form of some Whimsy ticket stamps, a couple of sweet Fizzy Moon stamps and two yummy paper pads!

I also managed to call by the Lili of the Valley stall where I had a nice little chat with the lovely Dawny P, and I was really good as I managed to come away from there with only two stamps in my basket (how did that happen lol??!!).

Finally I said hello to the lovely Jayne from Stamposaurus, who had given me very quick and personalised service when I NEEDED a new set of newly released Flexmarkers to arrive quickly before my holiday .. she had an excellent show offer on including a couple of free Ellie stamps, and when I mentioned  I must have been her first phone order on the day of release she very kiudly let me have one free Ellie stamp - fab!

However I couldn’t wait to start inking my LotV purchases (even though I realised when I got home that I was out of EZMount and had never thought to buy any at the fair – doh!).

Here’s the resulting card I made for this week’s LotV challenge – very pleased as this stamp is actually not too intricate and therefore reasonably quick to colour :-). I deliberately chose the papers to fit with the theme at Paper Sundaes of “favourite colour combo”. Mine is pink and green – admittedly I would normally use more pastel shades, but the concept is still there!

Stamps: LotV "Shine A Light" and "Christmas Sentiment Circles";

Media: Promarkers, Flexmarkers, glamour dust and a li’l bit of polar white Flowersoft forming snow on the ground;

Papers: Wild Rose Studio “Milton’s Christmas”;

Supplies: sparkly gems and large gem brad from The Hobby House; pearls and ribbon from my stash;

Tools: Martha Stewart “eyelet lace” punch; Marianne D “miniature poinsettas”.

Challenges:

Lili of the Valley #115 – Let It Snow

Wild Rose Studio – Festive Frolics (+ blog hop!)

Paper Sundaes #90 – Favourite Colour Combo (Pink & Green)

Jingle Belles – I’m Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

Marianne’s Design Divas #2 – Bloom & Grow (2nd entry)

Top Tip Tuesday #55 – Use DP’s & Make Your Own Flowers

Simon Says – Sparkle & Bling (3rd entry)

Pretty Little Ribbon (October) – Anything Goes

By The Cute & Girly (October) – Anything Goes (+ blog hop!)

Sketch & Stash #72

Well that's me done for today - off to catch up with some ironing now, but hope to colour some images later :-)

All Things Bright And Beautiful

I always try to enter the monthly By The Cute and Girly challenge if I can, as they have both brilliant challenge themes and also fab prizes :-), but this month has just flown by what with holidays and one thing and another. However I have been confined to barracks for the past couple of days due to this stinking cold, so I thought I would make a bright and beautiful card to cheer myself up!!  I found this cute stamped Forever Friends image lying around so decided to colour the flowers using some of my new funky bright tones of Flexmarkers (I always colour fur using Copics, but I'm looking out for what new Flexmarker shades appear later to see if I can get some fur colours from Letraset too!!).

Here's the result of my efforts, which is attempting to address the theme of "bright and beautiful" in 2 ways - "each little flower that opens" (from the hymn lyrics) and bright colours (which I always find a bit scary, but I made myself do it lol!).

I also decided to use one or two neglected bits & bobs from my stash ... the flowers that teddy is holding are daisies, so I dug out some flat flowers from my stash plus some metal spacers .... not been near them for quite a while!

Recipe:

Main image: Forever Friends, coloured with Copics and Flexmarkers;

Sentiment: Craftwork Cards;

Papers: Papermania "Forever Friends - Springtime";

Supplies: pearls and spacers from The Hobby House; ribbon and daisies from my stash;

Tools: large circle, large scalloped circle nestabilities; Martha Stewart "doily lace"edge punch; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch.

Challenges:

Sketch Saturday #174 - Sketch

Cute Card Thursday #184 - Animal Crackers!

Crafty Purple Frog - Lots of Layers

Deep Ocean #9 - Happy Birthday

Cupcake #161 - If You Go Down to the Woods Today ...

Sentimental Sundays #74 - Step Out of Your Comfort Zone (bright colours!)

Corrosive #133 - Punches &/or Dies

Ooh-La-La #89 - Punches / Dies

Wee Memories #69 - Patterned Paper

By The Cute & Girly (September) - All Things Bright & Beautiful

Simon Says - Anything Goes

Southern Girls #28 - Anything Goes

Sweet Stampin' - Anything Goes

Lollipop #50 - Anything Goes

Anything Goes #50 - Anything Goes

Creatalicious #26 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

That's all for now ... back tomorrow with a new Penny Black Saturday Challenge ;-)

Penny Black Saturday #162 - Penny Black-Ground

Yippee, Saturday's here, and time for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge. I'm hoping that things are finally settling down for me after the distractions of the past few weeks, and I'm raring to go with a card for this week's theme. Thanks to everyone who entered last week's challenge - don't forget to check the main challenge blog to see if you have won.

This week our theme is

Penny Black-ground

... which is a not very subtle pun lol, to ask you to use your PB stamps for your background as well as your main image. There are lots of options for this and the DT have come up with some brilliant examples.

Our prize this week is a guest DT spot on the PBSC for September - woo hoo!!

So if you would like to join our happy band during that time, you know what you have to do ... just ensure you submit a new piece of work for the challenge, uisng a PB image, large sentiment or stickeroo as its main focus, and also following the theme.

This is what I did for this week.

I decided to go for a shabby chic look so that I could do a bit of background stamping onto a distressed background. First I cut a deckle edged square of paper, and distressed it with Tim Holtz distress inks in "Antique Linen" and "Vintage Photo". Then I stamped my main flower image (Penny  Black "Quite Dandy" (3623K)) off-centre using "Peeled Paint" and "Tumbled Glass". I stamped a few background lines in "Vintage Photo" using a stamp from the transparent set "Salutations", and overstamped with tiny dragonflies from the same set. 

My sentiment is PB "friends matter" (4073F), stamped in a blend of "Tumbled Glass" and "Faded Jeans". I finished my background stamping with some random dotty areas using Penny Black "fantasy" (3880K). Finally I assembled the card by tying some loopy trim from my stash, decorating with die-cut sparkly butterflies and pearls from my stash, and mounting onto crackle distress gold card.

I actually managed to use FIVE separate PB stamps on this card - think that's pretty good going lol!

Challenges:

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

PaperPlay #30 - In the Garden

By The Cute & Girly (July) - Things With Wings

Crafty Cardmakers #50 - Flutterbies

Cupcake #152 - Shabby Sparkle

Hope you will join us this week - have a great weekend!

Me To You

Good morning everyone – hope you’re enjoying the bank holiday.

Here is another card I made on Saturday using my new Tatty Teddy stamps.

It struck me straight away that these stamps are very good for “white space” crafting as that is the style of the Tatty Teddyc ards you would buy in shops; and as luck would have it this week’s Passion for Promarkers Challenge is “white on white” – how opportune! I also decided to emboss my white cardstock (which is actually VERY pearlescent, though the pic doesn’t show it very well) with spots and stripes – I used my Cuttlebug “Swiss Dots” folder for the top half of the card, and used my Martha Stewart score board to score the strips on the bottom half. So that was another two challenges done – PTW “spots and stripes” and Simon Says - “emboss it”.

Recipe:
Main image: Papermania “Me To You”, coloured with Promarkers; edges of image distressed with Tim Holtz distressing tool and blue pigment ink;
Sentiment: Penny Black transparent set “Bubbly”;
Papers: none – white pearlescent cardstock embossed and scored, and edges distressed as above;
Supplies: pearls and ribbon from my stash;
Tools: large classic oval nestabilities; Tim Holtz distressing tool.

Challenges:
Passion For Promarkers #96 – White On White
Simon Says – Emboss it!
Creative Craft - Embossing
Papertake Weekly – Spots N Stripes
Craft your Passion #54 – Use Dots
Paper Sundaes #66 – Sundae Bar (I used pearls and die cuts)
Totally Stampalicious - Food
Stamp With Stampavie #138 – Birthday
By The Cute and Girly (April) – Cute and Girly

Thanks for looking :-)

Creative Card Crew #54 - Die Cuts

Hello and welcome to another Creative Card Crew Challenge. The past fortnight has whizzed by - hope you have all been enjoying the summery weather. It was fabulous seeing all your easel cards last fortnight - what an artistic lot you are :-) Don't forget to check the main challenge blog to see if you won the prize.

So on to this fortnight's challenge, which is

Die Cuts

Yep - we would like to see you use one or more die cuts on your creation. And to get you in the mood, we have a fab prize from our sponsor


which as a $20 voucher to spend in the online store - lovely!! :-)

Just in case any of you aren't familiar with Simon Says Stamp yet (where have you been?? lol!!) here's a little about the company ...

In business since 2002, Simon Says Stamp is striving to offer you the best selection of Rubber Stamps, Altered Art, Scrapbooking, Artist Trading Cards, and Paper Crafting Supplies in the world. We stock over 100,000 items in our warehouses so that we can offer you quick service and one stop shopping at a great price! Happy customers are the heart of our business. We work hard to find and deliver to you the latest in stamping and paper crafting supplies! Attending classes, workshops, and sales meetings around the world, our goal is to keep our product offerings fresh and current. Make us your one stop easy shop - and we'll deliver right to your door! Simon Says Stamp has over 100,000 items in stock. They have all of the latest releases from Magnolia, Whiff of Joy, Tim Holtz, Spellbinders, Copic and so much more! With free shipping for all International orders over $200 and USA Orders over $70, it’s a great time to shop with Simon Says Stamp.

The other ladies on the DT have made some fabulous samples - do go check them out! Here's my die cut card.



Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "day-dreams" (3947K), coloured with Promarkers and edged with Colorbox Queue inks;
Sentiment: Penny Black transparent set "Flowers and Wishes";
Papers: Papermania "Summer Bloom";
Supplies: flowers by Wild Orchid Crafts and Petaloo; Doodlebug sparkly brads; flower spacers from the Hobby House; Papermania sparkly gems; pink velvet ribbon from my stash;
Tools: "Labels four" nestabilities; Marianne D Creatables "Swirl leaf" die-cut; martha Stewart "monarch butterfly" punch.



I specifically made this card to fit with a number of other challenges:

Penny Black at Allsorts #1 - A Burst of Summer Colour

(I deliberately chose these fab new Papermania papers to add the required zing, and then chose a summery floral Penny Black stamp to fulfil the challenge requirements).
Dutch Dare #81 - photo inspiration

(this also inspired the choice of floral image and brightly coloured papers).

By the Cute & Girly (July) - Warm Summer Days
I ♥ ProMarkers #21 - Stripes
Pile it On #26 - My Favourite Things
(that would be Penny Black stamps, flowers, butterflies and the colour pink!)

Last but not least I followed this week's Sketch Saturday #110 sketch.

Looking forward to seeing all your creations !

Creative Card Crew #52 - Thankyou

Hello again, and welcome to another Creative Card Crew challenge. Thanks to everyone who joined in my pink & green challenge over the past 2 weeks - sorry I wasn't able to get round everyone's entries as life's been a bit hectic ... but I'm sure they were all fabulous as usual! And don't forget to check the main challenge blog to see if you are the lucky winner of the challenge prize.

So onto this fortnight's fabulous challenge which has been set by Victoria, and is

Thankyou

And thankyou to Victoria herself, who is sponsoring this week's yummy prize with Stampin' Up products.

The rest of the DT have created some fabulous samples so I hope you will check them out ... here's mine.

Recipe:
Main image: WOJ "Melinda woth Bouquet" coloured with Promarkers, edges sponged with Colorbox Queue ink, and wings decorated with diamond Stickles;
Sentiment: WOJ;
Papers: Papermania "Rose Garden";
Supplies: roses and rosebuds from Wild Orchid Crafts decorated with diamond Stickles; lace was an RAK from Ruby; ribbon and pearls from my stash;
Tools: "Labels One" nestabilities.

Here's a closeup of my colouring and Melinda's sparkly wings.

... and here are my new yummy Wild Orchid Crafts large curly wild roses and dinky rosebuds ... the middle size rose was a birthday gift from Sue.

I used the brilliant sketch from this week's Whiff of Joy Challenge #80 ....

... and would also like to enter this card for a few other challenges:

Die Cut Dreams #52 - Angels
Charisma #22 - Flowers (2nd entry)
Spoon Full of Sugar #107 - Floral Delight
Paper Play #22 - Flowers & Sparkle
Pollycraft #47 - Ribbon & bling
Cupcake #94 - Dazzle Us
Colour Create #46 - Baby Pink & Pastel Blue
Corrosive #67 - Die Cuts
By the Cute & Girly June Challenge - something old, new, borrowed, blue

.... well that would be

old - my WOJ stamp
new - yummy Wild Orchid Crafts roses and rosebuds
borrowed - layout from this week's WOJ Challenge sketch, and the idea of cutting the wings outside the nestie shape (seen on several crafty blogs)
blue - colours of Melinda's headband and jeans.

Look forward to seeing all your creations.