Penny Black Saturday #166 - Sketch!

Yippee! not only is it a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, but it's time for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge. So plenty of time to get down to some crafting and submit your entries this week :-)  Yikes my scheduled post failed again this week so it's a good job I logged on again this morning!!

Thanks very much to everyone who entered last week's Shabby Chic challenge - fabulous entries everyone!

This week we have a brilliant sketch for you by our wonderful teamie Nat.

We are also offering a brilliant prize as always - this week it is 4 rolls of ribbon of the winner's choice from our regular sponsor Fantastic Ribbons

Yummy!

All the ladies on the DT have really rocked the sketch, and I really enjoyed working with it. Here is what I produced.

Recipe:

Main image: Penny Black transparent set "Christmas Critters" coloured with Promarkers and Copics;

Sentiment: LotV Christmas sentiment circles;

Papers: Dovecraft "Jolly Holiday" collection;

Supplies: poinsettas and gold leaf from Prima Christmas Bubble; pearls from The Hobby House; sparkly ribbon from my stash;

Tools: large and small circle nestabilities; Marianne D Creatables flourish die.

As I am entering this for a "glitter" challenge, here is a (not very good) closeup of the glitter on the poinsetta and glittery ribbon ...

Challenges:

Papertake Weekly - Dies To Die For

Stampavie and More #150 - Christmas In Summer

Christmas Card Challenge #38 - Glitter

Penny Black At Allsorts (August) - Free & Easy (3rd & final entry)

Totally Gorjuss #95 - As You Like It

Have a great weekend whatever you've got planned, and I look forward to seeing your 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.

Creative Card Crew #51 - Pink & Green

Thanks very much to everyone who rocked Emma's sketch last time on the Creative Card Crew - there were some fabulous entries! One lucky winner has landed a $20 spending spree with Simon Says Stamp ... so don't forget to pop over to the main challenge blog and see if it is you!
It's my turn to set the challenge this fortnight, and I have chosen one of my favourite colour combos -

pink & green

We have another fab prize this time to help get your creative juices flowing .... our regular sponsor

has donated these scrummy packs of flowers.

The rest of the DT have made some gorgeous samples for this challenge so I do hope you will visit them. Also Janna has made her card in response to a very special request for terminally ill lady and hopes other people might join in. Unfortunately I had made my card as a birthday card before I read about this but it's a very worthwhile cause - do check it out and hope you can participate.

Here's my card ... at the time I set the challenge I had absolutely LOADS of pink & green papers .. but I'm not sure now where they have all gone to lol!! And as I was off work sick most of last week I couldn't go out hunting and gathering. In a way though it turned out to be a good thing, as it made me look at what I've actually got with fresh eyes, and I pulled out some really old paper but was actually pretty pleased with the final result.

The one thing that did strike me was that it would be hard to find a more apt image for a pink and green theme than this cute froggie lol! And I love the way he looks so joyful - always makes me smile :-)

I used the sketch from this week's Friday Sketchers #103,

and would also like to enter this card for

Crafty Creations #68 - Encouragement / celebration
Stamp with Stampavie #95 - Flower Power
Charisma #20 - 3D (3rd and final entry)
Spoon Full of Sugar #105 - Celebrations!

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Jump for Joy" (3702J), watercoloured and the daisy decoupaged;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards;
Papers: pink/green check from Paper Pzazz, green diamond paper free with "Making Cards" magazine about 2 years ago!
Supplies: spacers, pearl brads and pearls all from The Hobby House; flowers from my stash;
Tools: "Labels Four" nestabilities; Martha Stewart "garden trellis" edge punch.

So looking forward tos eeing all your pink & green creations!

Creative Card Crew #44 - Valentine

Hello everyone, and welcome to another Creative Card Crew Challenge- my second as part of the DT. Wow what an amazing set of entries this past fortnight - there were a whole lot of punches flying and it was all in a good way :-). Don't forget to visit the challenge blog to see whether you have won last week's prize.

This week we have a challenge for you in keeping with the time of year ... yes, it's

Valentine

So it's time to get lovey-dovey, and see if you can be the lucky randomly picked winner of this week's fab prize which has been donated by

and is this adorable stamp.

So without further ado, here's my card.

I always struggle with Valentine's as my husband doesn't like the colour red, and I can hardly make him a card with pink hearts on it, can I lol!!??!! I already knew I was going to use this darling image which was an RAK from my fab friend Squirrel, and as I cast around amongst my papers I suddenly spotted this BG "Porcelain" sheet and decided to go for green with red accents ... like the green tree with li'l red hearts growing on it ...aww! I kept the card reasonably unfussy as it is for a man.

I would also like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Paper Sundaes #3 - Valentine
Lexi's Creations #6 - Valentine
Double Dutch #36 - Be My Valentine

Challenge Up Your Life #13 - Valentine with Hearts
Stampavie & More #79 - Love/Valentine

Magical Crafts #7 - Valentine
Sophisticats #20 - Love
Corrosive Challenges #49 - All You Need is Love
Creative Belli #83 - Hearts
Caardvarks - Red Hearts
Cupckake # 76 - 4 legged and furry. Now I know that hedgies are renowned for being a bit prickly, but I bet their tummies are furry lol!!
BasicGrey #12 - Animals (2nd entry - wow have they got a fab prize on offer this time :-) )

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle #25 - Open theme

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "T.L.C." (3924K)(RAK from Squirrel), coloured with watercolour pencils and Gelly Roll red sparkle pen;
Sentiment: computer generated using "Gina" font;
Paper: BasicGrey "Porcelain" (green); My Mind's Eye (red);
Supplies: Papermania silver heart gems;
Tools: Martha Stewart "lace scallop heart" punch; Fiskars paper trimmer "deckle" blade.

Look forward to seeing your romantic creations, and don't forget to check out the lovingly created cards form the rest of the DT.

A Time for Celebration!

Well here we are, almost at the end of 2009 already ... where on earth has the year gone to??

In anticipation of the New Year's party I'm hoping to get to on (weather permitting!) I have made a New Year celebration card for the hostess.

I followed the excellent sketch at this week's Create4Fun Challenge #52, which I rotated 90 degrees to the left. I tried for once to be a bit imaginative and get a bit of artistic licence going (!?!). It's the first time I have cut out a figure and placed her over a background shape .... I know people do this a lot with Tildas but I don't have any of those .. thought I'd try it with Annie, and I'm pretty pleased with the result :-) I also went in for a bit of criss-crossing with some cord ... hope this is close enough to the original sketch!

This card was also made with quite a few other challenges in mind:

Cupcake #71 - A Time for Celebration

Everybody-Art-Challenge #71,
Stamp with Fun #39,
Stamp with Stampavie #75,
and
Lili of the Valley #43
all have the theme this week of
Happy New Year

Simon Says Stamp - Party!
(well, it's for a New Year Party, and I have to say Annie looks like she's started already lol!!)

Daring Cardmakers - New Beginnings
Our Creative Corner - Celebrate Food or Drink
One Stop Craft Challenge #60 - recycled
(my silver star holographic card is recycled from an Asda tissue box!!)

My Time to Craft #72 - Anything Goes
Creative Card Crew #41 - Anything Goes (3rd entry!)

Blimey! I've just counted up and that's 12 ... just about my best effort yet lol!! I actually also made this for 2 more challenges but alas due to poor lighting conditions today for taking phots plus going out for the day .. I've missed them - never mind!!

I love easel cards but am finding them very difficult to photograph (and the miserable daylight conditions don't help lol) ... so here are a couple more closeup shots - first of the "front" of the card ....

... and also the "base" part of the easel.

Recipe:
Main image: Sugar Nellie "Fizz", coloured with watercolour pencils;
Papers: free with issue 10 of Creative Cardmaking magazine;
Supplies: silver gems and stars, silver cord all by Papermania; silver/white ribbon from my stash; recycled silver holographic card from Asda tissue box!;
Tools: large classic circles and large classic scalloped circles nestabilities; numbers cut using Cuttlebug "Hippie Chick" alphabet dies.

I'd just love to wish everyone who visits my blog, end everyone who I visit a

Happy New Year!

Take care, have fun, and here's to more fab blogging and crafting in 2010 ! :-)

Cute hedgie does the Christmas combo!

I have been on holiday from work this past week, but due to the schedule of jobs I'd set for myself, yesterday afternoon was the first time I managed to sit down for a good crafty session. I stamped out a few of this adorable PB image "fur collared" and made a few cards for various challenges, so you will be seeing more of this cute little fella over the next couple of days ....

Here's my first card:

I have followed the sketch for this week's Corrosive Challenges #41


This card also fits a number of other Christmas challenges, namely

My Time to Craft #69 - Christmas Foliage
Everybody-Art-Challenge #69 - green & red
Stamp with Stampavie #73 - red & green
Charisma #49 - green & red plus white or silver
The Pink Elephant #44 - Your favourite Christmas colour combo. Well mine is generally whatever I happen to be doing right now ... and at the moment green & red seems to be right up there lol!


Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "fur collared" (3763H) coloured with watercolour pencils, and decorated with polar white flowersoft and glamour dust;
Sentiment; Stampendous;
Paper: Reminisce "Snowflake Spots";
Supplies: Flowers by Floradoodles; gems from my stash;
Tools: scalloped rectangle nestabilities; Cuttelbug "Snowflakes" embossing folder.

Here's my second card. I have deliberately made this card for just the one challenge as they don't allow us to combine - it is for this week's Stamptacular Challenge #36 which is Let it shine. I have got sparkle on the fluffy fur, holographic silver card on my matting, shiny silver snowflakes on the ribbon, and sparkkly gems in the flowers.

Recipe:
Main image - as before;
Sentiment: Stamps Away;
Paper: from stash;
Supplies: Snowflake ribbon from Warrington market; flowers by Floradoodle;
Tools: scalloped rectangle nestabilities.

Back tomorrow with a couple more of these cuties :-)

Blimey! ... and a funky Rudolph

Blimey - I didn't make a card for a whole ten days until last night .... where has the last week and a half gone to lol?? I'm surprised I didn't have to go to the Priory for counselling to recover from my withdrawal symptoms!

Anyhow, I managed a little sesh last night and made two cards from scratch plus completed another two which had been hanging around the house for a while. Here's the first one, which I have nicknamed "Funky Rudolph" !


I followed the fab sketch for this week's Friday Sketchers #80 - suitably encouraged by the Magnolia-licious prize they have on offer this week :-)

I also chose my Christmas theme and contemporary colours for the following challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers #9 - Alternative Christmas
A Spoon Full of Sugar #80 - Non-traditional Christmas colours
Charisma Cardz #47 - Anything Christmas
Creative Card Crew #39 - Christmas
Stamp With Fun #35 - Christmas
Stamp with Stampavie #72 - Christmas

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "slapstick" stamp "Fancy Antler", coloured with watercolour pencils;
Sentiment: Penny Black "a wish...." (3502F), stamped with Versacolour chalk ink;
Paper: BasicGrey "Eskimo Kisses";
Supplies: pearls gems, and pink/brown dotty ribbon (just seen) from my stash;
Tools: Martha Stewart "embossed snowflakes" edge punch; Cuttlebug "snowlakes #2" die.

Off to have a cup of tea now and catch up with some telly - hope to be back tomorrow with another card :-)

Penny Black Challenge #72 - and an 11-into-1 combo

Yippee! It's the weekend ... so it's time for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge! Thanks to everyone who entered last week's challenge using Nat's fab sketch ... sorry I didn't manage to get round to look at everyone's entries, but I'll try my best this week :-) Don't forget to check out the blog to see who won last week's fab prize!

Now hold onto your (witches') hats ... this week we have a very scary challenge for you, which is

Hallowe'en

Yes ... we want to see all your spooktacular creations with lots of scary spiders ... ghosties and all things spooky! As always the only rule is that you use at least one Penny Black image or
sentiment.

I'll 'fess up straight away that this was a totally scary challenge for me , for a number of reasons - not least of all the fact that I had NO Hallowe'en images, NO sentiments, NO suitable papers ... ribbons ... charms ... embellishments ... EEK! You start to get the idea lol?? Add to this the facts that I'm terrified of spiders, ghosties and ghoulies freak me out, and I hate the colour orange ... and it wasn't looking too good! Luckily my fab PBSC teamie Domi came to the rescue with some cute rather than scary Hallowe'en images and sentiments, and I managed to download my first ever paper (a free one!) so I was at least able to cobble something together .... and although I don't normally use peel offs much nowadays I thought the spiders webs were a cheap and convenient way to hit the spot!

As usual we have got a gorgeous prize for you .. it is this fabulous PB stamp "Cozy" donated by our very own Carole - thanks hun, it's wonderful! :-)

So here's my card ..... spookily it was very sunny when Itook this picture which is totally inappropriate for a Hallowe'en card I know ... strange how the sun never seems to come out when I want a bright picture lol! The rest of the DT has also woven lots of Hallowe'en magic, so don't forget to peek through your fingers at their scary offerings!

As this is almost certainly going to be my one and only Hallowe'en card this year, I'd like to also enter it into a few challenges .....

Corrosive Challenges #34 - Spooky Times

Pile It On #19 - Ready for Hallowe'en

Kaboodle Doodles - It's a spooky challenge

Cupcake Crafts #62 -Things that Go Bump in the Night

Stamp with Fun #29 - Hallowe'en

Creative Inspirations #32 - Hallowe'en

My Time to Craft #82 - Hallowe'en Colours

Everybody-Art-Challenge #62 - Hallowe'en

Stampavie & More #66 - Hallowe'en

Stamp Something - Hallowe'en Somethings

Stampin' for the Weekend #21 - A Haunting Good Time

(11 - a new personal best lol!!)

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Pup-o-lantern" (2538J), coloured with watercolour pencils and the pumpkin decoupaged;
Sentiment: Penny Black "Trick or Treat" (1906E);
Papers: "Super-Spooks" - free download by Marie Stones from Free Digital Scrapbooking
Supplies: Black & orange sparkly brads by Doodlebug; black dotty ribbon and spider's web peel offs from my stash;
Tools: Martha Stewart "Scallop dot" edge punch.

Looking forward to seeing all your spooky creations ..... sleep well, and don't have nightmares ha ha!