Penny Black Saturday #111 - Christmas in July

Hi there, and welcome to this weekend's Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Thanks so much to everyone who entered last week's "anything but a card" challenge ... I didn't manage to join in, but I have been visiting and commenting - some gorgeous creations!

Well school is now out and the summer holidays are here .... so what could be a more fitting challenge than this week's theme? Yep! it's

Christmas in July

What better time to get stuck in to those Christmas makes?? .... we may think summer is just getting into gear, but it will be November before we know it !

And to get you into the mood we as usual have a selection of fab prizes ...

First we have two stamps from our regular sponsor, Julia at Stampers' Supermarket

"Lofty"

and "Paisley Swirls"

... and from another regular sponsor, Clair at Valentine's

we have a roll of yummy grosgrain ribbon.
Hope you will pop over to see the rest of the DT's fab festive makes ... here's mine.


Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Wishes for kisses" (1505H) - an RAK sent to me by my lovely friend Helen (think I must buy this stamp!) - coloured with Promarkers and decorated wtih glamour dust;
Sentiment: Penny Black "Joy.Hope" (3898F);
Papers: Magnolia 2009 Christmas collection;
Supplies: ribbon and pearls from stash;
Tools: Flower combo cut using Marianne D Christmas Creatables - Poinsettas, edged with (lots of) glamour dust; Martha Stewart "scallop dot" edge punch; Cuttlebug "snowflakes" embossing folder.

Here's a closeup of my new Marianne D flower die - I'm really pleased with it and hope to use it a lot on this year's Christmas cards.

As usual I managed to tie my DT card in to a few challenges ....

I used the fab sketch for this week's Simon Says challenge

and would also like to enter this card for Paper Sundaes #27 - Make Your Own Flowers
(I assembled mine from a die cuts set - hope this counts!)

Have a great weekend and look forward to seeing your Christmas cards :-)

Penny Black Saturday #108

Hello again - welcome to the weekend and to another Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Thanks to everyone who joined in last week - fab paper patches fom you all!! Don't forget to check out whether you have won the prize :-)

First - some exciting news. We shared a couple of weeks ago that we are now being sponsored by

... and this week for the first time we are offering some prizes they have donated. Many of you will have seen the exciting new Mimi and Betsy Bluebell range, and this week we have got not one but THREE prizes from the range for lucky randomly drawn winners - aren't these the cutest?

Betsy Bluebell



Easy Rider



Sweet thing


Not only that .... but we have also got another fab prize from another of our regular sponsors - the lovely Julia at Stampers' Supermarket


... which is a Penny Black stamp of the winner's choice.

Wow!! I wish I could enter lol!!

So what do you need to do to be in with a chance of winning one of these adorable prizes??

This week we are celebrating American Independence Day (4th July) with our American friends, so we would like to see your creations using the colours

red, white and blue

Don't forget the challenge rule that you must use a Penny Black image, large sentiment or sticker as the focus of your project to be eligible to win a prize - and please no backlinking ... you are welcome to combine our challenge with others, but only new work please!

Do check out the rest of the DT's creations as they have truly been waving their star spangled banners of talent !! Here's my red, white and blue creation....

This wasn't very easy for me as the truth is I hate the colour red, and i could only think of one blue paper in my stash that might sit well with red. However I soon got into the swing of it .. who could possibly resist red roses lol?? I can never resist inking up this cute hedgie and I do love popping a little paper rose on her hat. I also used another of the yummy ribbon samples supplied to the DT by Fantastic Ribbons.

I also had a slight drama as I originally intended punching 3 strips of red, white and blue card using my doily lace punch ... but for some reason it wouldn't punch cardstock suddenly - OMG!! It would punch through paper, but when I tried with card it just wasn't haviong any! That's a problem for another day, but in the meantime I improvised by punching with my valentine lace punch instead, and in the end I was actually quite pleased with the effect - a happy accident you might say lol!

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Tiny Wishes" tranparent set, coloured with Promarkers;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards;
Papers: Craft Creations;
Supplies: flowers from Hobbycraft and Wild Orchid Crafts; dotty ribbon from Fantastic Ribbons;

Tools: large classic scalloped rectangle nestabilities; martha Stewart "Valentine Lace" edge punch; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch.

Challenges:
Simon Says - Check it out!
Creative Inspirations #37 - Paper Piecing
Spoon Full of Sugar #110 - Animal Crackers
Magical Crafts #18 - Flower Power
Corrosive #70 - Lots of Flowers
Paper Sundaes #24 - Birthday Card
Crafts & Me #7 - Birthdays
Everybody-Art-Challenge #97 - Birthday
Stamp with Fun #65 - Birthday
Stamp Something - Colours of your Flag (Union Jack - red, white & blue!)
Raise the Bar #25 - Colours of your Flag


Have a great weekend and looking forward to seeing all your wonderful creations !

Anya with flower basket

I had an image coloured in of Anya with flower basket from when I had been practising with my new Promarkers, so I thought I would use it to make a summery card ... looking out of the window at the weather yesterday that was unfortunately a triumph of hope over experience lol!! Still, I hope and believe the weather is supposed to be getting better towards the end of the week - will probably wait until everyone has gone back to work - typical!

This image was sent to me ages ago by the lovely Marcea and although it was on lovely card I wasn't sure what it was inked with ... so I just had a practice and hoped for the best - hardly any colour bleed so I was quite pleased :-) However I have now also got some of this image stamped for me by Uma which are defo using Memento on some very smooth card, so it will be interesting to compare results.

I followed the sketch over at Sketch Saturday #105, (happy birthday Sketch Saturday :-) !!)



and would also like to enter this card for

Everybody-Art-Challenge #93 - Summer
Stamp with Stampavie #97 - Summer
Cupcake #93 - Summer Delights
The Pink Elephant #69 - Gotta wear shades! (bright, fun colours)
Magical Crafts #16 - Metal madness

Recipe:
Main image: Anya with flower basket, coloured with Promarkers;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards;
Papers: My Mind's Eye "Quite Contrary", with BasicGrey plain paper;
Supplies: flowers by Petaloo; spacers from The Hobby House; Doodlebug sparkly brads; ribbon and charm from my stash;
Tools: large classic ovals and large classic scalloped ovals nestabilities; martha Stewart "woodland bough" edge punch.

Penny Black Challenge #96 - buttons galore!

Hello there and welcome to week 96 of the Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Thanks to everyone who entered last week's challenge - sorry I wasn't about as I had a week off to concentrate on some jobs around the house over Easter, but hopefully I'm now back in the saddle.

This week we have another great challenge theme for you .... we would like to see

buttons galore!

Yes ... we would like to see buttons on your project - don't forget that the only other rule is that you must use a Penny Black image or sentiment prominently on your project.

As always we have a grat prize for you - our regular sponsor

is offering one lucky randomly drawn winner a $20 voucher to spend in their online shop - lovely!!

Talking of lovely, the DT has been busy as always creating some gorgeous samples - hope you'll check them out. Here's my effort ....

I really do adore this cute hedgie from the "Tiny Wishes" set, and think she goes perfectly with the yummy new Papermania "Rose Garden" papers. I decided to challenge myself so that I could enter a few other challenges with this card, so I made my own paper flower following this tutorial on YouTube .... now I have to say I found the whole thing pretty tricky as the papers are quite stiff and therefore didn't want to crumple daintily, but I think I got there in the end!!

As a result of all this endeavour I'd like to enter this card for the following challenges:

Cupcake #85 - make your own flowers
Crafty Cardmakers #18 - A Challenging Challenge
(mine was the flower lol!!)
Allsorts #47 - Petals and Pearls
Cute Card Thursday #107 - Mono Mania!
... my card is almost exclusively pink, apart from the "natural" elements such as skin, fur and leaves :-)
Meljen's Designs #2 - Let's See Some Girly Colours
Stamptacular Sunday #53 - Sugar & Spice & everything nice
Daring Cardmakers - If the Shoe Fits (don't you just love those cute oversize trainers?? lol!)
Inky Impressions #33 - charm it!
C.R.A.F.T.#45 - buttons
Totally Gorjuss #25 - Texture
Magical Crafts #12 - Animal antics
Simple Doodles #15 - Inspire others

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Tiny Wishes" transparent set, coloured with watercolour eoncils and decorated on rose with Stickles;
Sentiment & papers: Papermania "Rose Garden" pad;
Supplies: large pearl brad, large spacer and pearl gems all from The Hobby House; "Made with love" heart charm from Bunny Zoe's Crafts; lace was an RAK from Ruby :-); pink ribbon and buttons from my stash;
Tools: "labels 3" nestabilities; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch.

Hope you can join us this week - look forward to seeing your creations.