Bank Holiday Offerings

Hope everyone is enjoying the Bank Holiday in the UK despite the miserable weather ... I'm just pottering about wondering whether to brave going out this afternoon, but in the meantime I thought I would post a couple of cards I made on Saturday.

My first card was primarily inspired by Dawny's wonderful sketch for this week's Simon Says Challenge. I actually couldn't wait to get started as I have several deep border punches which would be ideal for this sketch. Here's what I came up with.

In the event I was feeling very flowery, so I used my Martha Stewart "wildflowers" PATP and made a card in restful tones of lilac ... I also managed to play with my gorgeous new Magnolia swirly butterfly; and I took the opportunity to incorporate one of my Marianne D Creatable dies as they really are my favourites, and it meant I could also enter the new Marianne's Design Divas challenge :-). I decided to slightly cut down diecuts from my swirly leaf die to make them suitable as a leafy frame for my large flower - I rather like the result and think I will use it this way again.

Recipe:

Main image: LotV fairy coloured with Promarkers and liberally dusted with glamour dust;

Sentiments: Penny Black transparent set "Party Critters";

Papers: Papermania Forever Friends "Springtime";

Supplies: large gardenia from Wild Orchid Crafts; Papermania gems;

Tools: Martha Stewart "wildflowers" PATP; Marianne D Creatables leaf flourish die; Magnolia doohickey "swirly butterfly" die.

Challenges:

Simon Says - Sketch by Dawny P

(rotated by 90 degrees to the right)

Flutterby Wednesday's #168 - Open Theme

Sparkles #19 - Punch It

Papertake Weekly - Dies To Die For (2nd entry)

Fab 'n' Funky #87 - Mono Madness

Marianne's Design Divas #1 - Anything Marianne D Goes!

Spoon Full of Sugar #162 - Happy Birthday (2nd entry)

For my second card ...this week Chrissie and Mandi over at Less is More are challenging us to combine any three of the previous challenges. I had a little time left over after making my previous card so decided to make a quick one ... and here it is.

I simply embossed the flowers onto pearlised white card and mounted onto pink and black pearlised matting, then added a die cute sentiment with a single gem heart on the "i" in "friend" plus two punched butterflies. This to fulfil the following three previous challenges:

Week 1- Pink, White & Black

Week 2 - Flowers &/or Trees

Week 15 - Embossing

Week 16 - Butterflies

Recipe:

Supplies: pink and black gems + heart gem from stash;

Tools: Cuttlebug Cut 'n' emboss folder; Martha Stewart small monarch butterfly punch.

Challenges:

Less Is More #30 - Take Three Challenges

I think that will be all for today .. enjoy the rest of your Bank Holiday.

Penny Black Saturday #148 – Happily Ever After

Good morning everyone … welcome to Easter weekend and another Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Hope you have been enjoying the fabulous weather we’ve been having … let’s hope it will last over the Easter weekend!!

Thanks as always to everyone who entered last week’s challenge – wonderful Easter cards, so hopefully you will now all be completely geared up to give your Easter greetings :-) Don’t forget to check the main challenge blog to see if you have won last week’s adorable prize.

This week we have all been overtaken (along with much of blogland, it seems) with Royal Wedding fever, so our challenge theme isn’t really such a big surprise ….

Happily Ever After

Now this phrase is usually taken to refer to weddings, but we realise that not all of you will necessarily have got PB wedding stamps, as they have only ever made a few (I know I don’t have any!). So we have decided to be kind, and this theme can encompass any other event to do with living happily ever after, such as engagements  and anniversaries.

This week’s prize is four rolls of yummy ribbon on the winner’s choice from Fantastic Ribbons.

Please remember that in order to be eligible for this week’s prize you should submit a new project which features a Penny Black image, large sentiment or stickeroo as its main focus.

The other ladies on the DT have produced some fabulous romantic cards – here’s mine for this week.

As i  mentioned I don’t have any PB wedding stamps although I do have several romantic hedgies, mice and cats; so I decided to make an anniversary card.

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black “You’re a Treasure” (1589F) coloured with Promarkers and roses dusted with glamour dust;
Sentiments: LotV circle sentiments and Woodware sentiments;
Papers: Pink Petticoat “Vintage Rose”;
Supplies: large and small roses and lace from Sweet Lilac (Crafts4U2Do); middle size rose from Wild orchid Crafts; Papermania pink crystal heart; velvet and organza ribbon from my stash;
Tools: Magnolia doohickey “vintage tag”; Martha Stewart “Valentine lace” edge punch; Leone Em “Ash branch” leaf punch; Spellbinders “decorative photo corners” die.

Challenges:
Spoon Full of Sugar #148 – Let’s Celebrate!
Crafts and Me #31 – Pink and Sweet
Creative Inspirations #108 – Animals / Pets
Cupcake #138 – Lots of Layers
I ♥ Promarkers #62 – Anything Goes
Top Tip Tuesday #30 – Open Theme
Create4Fun (April) – Sketch

Hope you have a great weekend and look forward to seeing your creations!

Duckling and daffs

I decided I needed to get a wriggle on if I were to get a reasonable amount of Easter cards ready in time now that the season is looming up on us, and I felt inspired by the couple of sunny days we've had plus the lighter nights since the clocks went forward last weekend.

I absolutely love this Penny Black duck - I've had him a long time but he still always makes me smile, and of course think of spring.

Recipe: Main image: Penny Black "Duckling" (3347H), coloured with Promarkers; Sentiment: Penny Black; Papers: Papermania "Forever Friends - Springtime" (I've actually bought two packs of this paper, I love it so much!!) Supplies: pearls from the Hobby House; ribbon and small silk daffs from my stash; Tools: Martha Stewart "woodland bough" edge punch (just seen); "Decorative corners" Shapeabilities.

Challenges:

I followed this week's sketch for Sketch Saturday #149

Dutch Dare #107 - Spring Has Sprung

Simon Says - Spring Colours / Easter

I ♥ ProMarkers #60 - Easter

Everybody-Art-Challenge #136 - Easter

Stamp With Fun #105 - Easter

Ooh-La-La #77 - Happy Easter

The Pink Elephant #97 - Easter

Dream Valley #4 - Things With Wings

Crafts and Me #29 - Glitter

Spoon Full of Sugar #146 - At Least Two Different Textures

(glitter card and silk flowers)

My Partner in Crafting Crime #24 - Layer it Up

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

The Crazy Challenge #61 - Just Add Flowers

Still keeping the posts short as blogger is still runing all my text together unless I put all my div separators in manually. I'm looking to maybe install Windows Live Writer soon, in which case I will be able to get back to my chatty self :-)

Starry, starry night

I have never gone much on distress inks, probably because I have spent the past year building up my marker pen collection, and I didn't want to get embroiled in yet another money pit obsession. However the advent of the "Less Is More" style has sparked my interest in distressed and shaded backgrounds, and I was further inspired when I saw Debby's wonderful distress backgrounds with resist and stamped images using the fabulous Unity wildflower stamps here (I am as we speak eagerly waiting for a set to arrive from America!)

Anyhow, I pulled out the very limited collection of distress inks I own (grand total of 7!) and decided to have a go at a "nightime sky" background as a precursor to some silhouette stamping with my beautiful but neglected Lavinia stamps (again, the only ones I own).

This exercise, in conjunction with some very kind tips and comments I received from Debby and Lisa, taught me that I needed several things:

a) a non-stick craft mat (bought one today :-) )

b) some more distress inks (likewise ... bought 4 new ones today ;-) )

c) a blending tool - haven't managed to get my hands on one yet, but in the meantime I have bought some cut'n'dry foam to keep me going.

Here's a card I made BEFORE buying my new bits & pieces ... watch this space for my experiments in the near future with my new stash!!

I actually made his card for this week's Less Is More Challenge - masculine - and then I felt foolish when I looked on the blog and saw no one else had used a flower!! I think my mind was full of the drama of silhouette flowers against the masculine colours of a night sky ... though I can see the overall effect isn't necessarily masculine in the sense of giving the card to a man. However it's done now, so I might as well blog it and move on lol!!

Recipe:
Main image: various stamps from the Lavinia "dandelions" set;
Sentiment: Penny Black;
Background: "Dusty Concord" and "Faded Jeans" distress inks;
Supplies: Papermania "sparkly trims" black frayed ribbon; pearls from The Hobby House;

Challenges:
Less Is More #7 - Masculine
PaperPlay #12 - Distressing
Spoon Full Of Sugar #144 - Ribbon + Pearls/Rhinestones + Flowers
CES #28 - Inspired By A Song

Crafts & Me #27 - Anything Goes
Scrapbook Sisters #28 - Anything Goes

That's all for now. Hope to have chance to play with my new toys and get my fingers inky later ;-)

Let Them Eat Cake!

Happy Friday everyone! I've been working such long hours recently that I have more than made up enough time for a flexi day from work ... so today I am having a rare day of r&r and playtime!! I decided to make a card using the adorable LotV "Rosie with Cake" - another stamp I'm ashamed to say I've had since last autumn and not inked up before ... all the stamps I bought back then had to wait until after the Christmas rush!! Anyhow, I decided to go ultra girly today, and here is the result. Recipe: Main image: LotV "Rosie with Cake" coloured wtih Promarkers and Copics; Sentiment: LotV Sentiment Circles; Papers: Pink Petticoat "Vintage Rose"; Supplies: all flowers from Wild orchid Crafts; pearls from Wild orchid Crafts & The Hobby House; pink raffia lace from my stash; Tools: nestabilities small circles, lacy circles and "Labels One"; martha Stewart "Valentine lace" edge punch. Challenges: I followed the sketch for this week's Wild Orchid Challenge #17 Cupcake Challenge #130 - Cake 'n' Ice Cream One Stop Craft Challenge #119 - Birthday Card - With Cake LotV #85 - Circles Ooh-La-La #74 - Pink, Pink and More Pink Stamp Something - Something With Flowers Spoon Full of Sugar #140 - Birthday Wishes Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #106 - Birthday Card Crafty Ann's #35 - Birthday Card Incy Wincy # 81 - Use Punches or Dies Crazy4Challenges #75 - Use Dies Just off now for the afternoon cardmaking session :-) Oh I wish every Friday could be like this!!

Penny Black Saturday #124 - Spooky Nights!

Hello and welcome to another week of the Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Thanks so much to everyone who joined in last week with Debby's fabby sketch - there were some beautiful interpretations ... and don't forget to check the challenge blog to see if you are a randomly drawn prize-winner.

Before we get onto this week's challenge a little bit of news .. we have a new teamie so would like to give Jenny a great big welcome. Her cards are awesome so you are in for a real treat!

This week we are getting into the spirit of the dark autumnal nights when witches and ghosties creep abroad ... so we have a Hallowe'en theme for you.

Spooky Nights

... and we have a fantastic prize this week from Fantastic Ribbons of four rolls of ribbon of the winner's choice - as always the winner will be drawn randomly. Don't forget to be eligible for the prize you need to use a Penny Black image, large sentiment or stickeroo as the main focus of your project.

The rest of the DT have been scaring themselves (and each other!) silly with their fab spooky creations - here's mine.

I decided to take the theme "spooky nights" rather literally, and created a pearlescent white moon in a purple sky by inking a cut out mask with Brilliance ink; and as I am so short of Hallowe'en supplies I created some bats using downloaded clipart.



Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Witchy Mouse" (2253K) cloured with Promarkers and Copics;
Sentiment: Penny Black "halloween web" (3902K);
Papers: Bo Bunny;
Supplies: pearls from The Hobby House; lace and spider's web corner peeloff from my stash;
Tools: large classic circles and lacy circles nestabilities.

Naturally there are quite a lot of similarly themed challenges out there right now, so I would like to enter a few ....

Stamp With Fun #81 - Hallowe'en
Really reasonable Ribbon #10 - Hallowe'en

Crazy4Challenges #60 - Hallowe'en

Creative Inspirations #45 - Hallowe'en or Fall
Baby Bud #1 - Hallowe'en or Fall

Creative Inspirations #83 - Spooky!
CRAFT #73 - Spooky...
Spoon Full of Sugar #126 - Boo!
Ooh-La-La #65 - Scary Stuff
Dutch Dare #89 - Hallowe'en, or Purple, Black, Orange and Green
Kaboodle Doodles - Let's Go Batty!
My Time To Craft #111 - Hallowe'en - Ghosties, Ghoulies & Long Legged Beasties
Raise The Bar #41 - Orange, Black & Purple
Top Tip Tuesday #7 - Anything Goes

My "top tip" for Top Tip Tuesday is to dowload clipart or templates for simple block-coloured shapes, resize them on your computer and then just print and cut out. this is especially appropriate for silhouette shapes (such as bats), and is both time and money saving for shapes you won't use very often.

Hope you can join in with the PBSC this week, and I promise to come out from hiding behind the sofa to look at your spooky creations ;-)

Penny Black Saturday #123 - Sketch!

Welcome to this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge - the past week has just flown by! Thanks to everyone who entered last week's 2 or more images challenge - there were some fab imaginative ways of putting different images together :-)

We know that you love your sketches, so this week we have a fab one for you by Debby - it's her first ever sketch, so we're all really excited. In fact I got so excited that I have now started drawing one or two myself, but I really need a bit of advice on or two elements of putting them together lol!. So watch this space .....

Of course as usual we also have a fab prize to whet your appetite - this week it is a yummy stamp donated by our generous teamie Carole.
... and it is this gorgeous cutie "Christmas Dreams"

And another treat for all you PB lovers (nothing to do with this challenge) .... don't miss the fab

Penny Black BLOG CANDY

that is being given away by the very talented PB designer Kathy Racoosin - pop over to her fab blog before November 8th to enter for this fab selection of stamps. I can't wait to enter - I would really love these :-)

Anyhoo ... back to the challenge. . The other members of the DT have certainly rocked this week's sketch - here's my effort.


Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Holly Jolly!" (1869J), coloured with Promarkers;
Sentiment; Craftwork Cards;
Papers: Papermania "Silent Night" - I distressed all the edges (fairly cautiously!) with my brand new Tim Holtz distressing tool, and then inked with TH "antique linen" distress ink;
Supplies: raffia lace from Hobbycraft; pearls from The Hobby House (coloured with my Promarkers!); holly leaves from Prima Christmas bubble; ribbons from my stash;

Here is a close up to show my ever-so-slightly fluffy and inked edges, and my faux holly.


Of course my card fits a few challenges ...

A Spoon Full of Sugar #125 - Winter Wonderland
Papertake Weekly - Three of a Kind (3 papers and 3 holly berries)
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday # 88 - Ink & Edge

Have a great weekend and look forward to seeing your entries

Hugs,

Contemporary Christmas

Good evening everyone - just a quick post from me tonight.

At the beginning of the week I got so involved with using my new LotV Christmas stamps with my new vibrant and funky (and very unlike me) Bo Bunny paper, that I inadvertently got a ahead of myself and made a card for last week's LotV Challenge that would have been perfect for this week lol!

So for this week's LotV Challenge #66 which is non-traditional Christmas , I just had to make another one with the same paper ... but thistime I returned to James the Bear for my image.

This has to be a short post because it is a last minute entry using the sketch at this week's Create4Fun #38, which closes tonight.


I would also like to enter this card for

Papertake Weekly - Animal magic
Teddy Stampers #20 - Bear Acrostic

(B is for Bear/Bo Bunny/Bauble; E is for embossed edge punch/embellishment; A is for alcohol markers; R is for ribbon)

Pollycraft #62 - Cute & Cuddly
Delightful Challenge - Make it Sparkle

Little Red Wagon #47 - Glitter

Just Cute Bears #35 - Punch it
Spoon Full of Sugar #122 - Anything Goes

Recipe:
Main image: LotV "James the BEar with Tinsel" coloured with Copics and Promarkers, and tinsel decorated wtih lime green Stickles;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards;
Papers: Bo Bunny;
Supplies: pearls from The Hobby house;
Tools: Martha Stewart "Embossed Snowflake" edge punch and "Arctic Snowflake" punch; Shapeabilties "Make A Flake 2".

Back tomorrow with a new Penny Black Saturday Challenge :-) ...here's a sneaky peek!

Penny Black #109 and Donkey Smiles for Michelle

Morning everyone - here we are again for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Many thanks to everyone who joined in last week's colour theme challenge - you all really got into the swing of celebrating 4th July with our American friends. Don't forget to check whether you have won any of the four fabby prizes that were on offer last week.

Talking of American friends ... before I go any further I would like to mention that I have made this week's card for Michelle aka Donkey Smiles - many of you may know she suffered a terrible accident just recently. Michelle left me some really lovely and encouraging comment when I first started blogging, and although with the explosion of blogs that has happened over the past 2 years we have kinda lost touch, I was really sorry to hear about what has happened. A Spoon Full of Sugar blog is currently hosting a card drive to flood her with best wishes from around the crafty world so I didn't hesitate to join in and I hope you will too. So this is sending love and hugs to Michelle and hoping she will make a good recovery and be feeling a whole lot better soon.

Anyhoo ... onto this week's challenge at Penny Black Saturday ... and we have a wonderful sketch for you from our teamie Beth.

Once again we also have some fantastic prizes ... this week we have one from our fab new sponsor
which is this adorable stamp "Mimi and Friend"

... and on top of that we also have a $20 store voucher from another billiant regular sponsor


So why wait?? I suggest you get straight to it!

The other DT members have worked some magic with Beth's sketch .. here is my interpretation. I really wanted to use this image which necessitated that the oval be a bit tipsy - but I think my li'l mouse is still quite sober lol!

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Cheesecake Wish" (1652J) coloured with Promarkers and Copics, edged with Colorbox Queue ink, and decorated with Star Dust Stickles;
Sentiment: Hero Arts;
Papers: My Mind's Eye "Quite Contrary" (free with this month's Cardmaking 7 papercraft magazine);
Supplies: large sparkly flower by Prima ( I won this from Jane's fortnightly SSS flower candy - thanks! :-) ); pearls, ribbon and lace from my stash;
Tools: large classic ovals and large classic scalloped ovals nestabilities; Marianne D Creatables swirls from ribbon die set; Martha Stewart "doily lace" edge punch.

Challenges:

Spoon Full of Sugar - Sending Donkey Smiles ( card drive for Michelle)

Penny Black at Allsorts #1 - A Burst of Summer Colour (2nd entry)

Have a great weekend, and can't wait to see your interpretations of the sketch !

Edited to add:

Sylvia from Minnesota was kind enough to compliment my colouring of my mouse, and to ask which Promarkers I used. Unfortunately Sylvia doesn't have her own blog nor an email address on her profile, so i can't answer personally. But here's the info in case you happen to visit again :-)

Although I have recently started collecting Promarkers for non-waterbased colouring, I have struggled to find the right shades for colouring fur. I have taken advice from various other crafty friends and was also influenced by a wonderful LotV colouring tutorial ... and I concluded I needed to introduce a few Copic Ciaos. I went out to buy on the basis of the LotV tutorial, but of course the local stockist didn't have all in stock so I started ot improvise.

The shades I have for colouring fur are (going from lightest to darkest) E51, E53, E31, E43. On the mouse in this post I definitely used the first three of these, and maybe a little of the E43. My method was to start with the palest colour , and then work outwards applying each darker shade, and then back inwards colouring over what I'd done working back towards the lightest colour. I finished off with blending the palest into the white card with my Promarker blender pen. For the blush in the cheeks I think I used Promarkers "Baby Pink" blended into "Ivory", and for the ears a bit of Copic RV10. I'm still at early days with practising colouring with pens so it was lovely to be asked :-)