Crafty Calendar #19

Hello everyone - back with my second post of the day, and this time it is to welcome you to the April challenge for Crafty Calendar. First of all apologies that I haven't managed to get all my commenting done for the past month as I have had quite a lot going on one way and another ... but i'll definitely try harder for April!!

This month it is Liz's turn to choose the challenge theme, and she has chosen

April Showers Bring Forth May Flowers

You can interpret this however you like so long as you submit a new piece of work and have a link from your blog to the Crafty Calendar Challenge.

We have a great prize on offer this month, which is from our sponsor Sentiments 4 You

... and it's a $10 voucher to spend in their online store - nice!

They very kindly provided some digi sentiments for the DT to play with - you can see them on my card and on several of the other DT ladies' gorgeous efforts.

Anyway, here is my card for this month's challenge - I focussed on the "flowers" rather than the "showers", and this image suggested itself to me straight away - not only is it very spring-like but also this particular flower got its shower from a watering can :-).

Recipe:

Main image: Sugar Nellie "Flowers" coloured with Promarkers;

Sentiment: Digi by Sentiments 4 You;

Paper: Papermania "Forever Friends - Springtime";

Supplies: cherry blossoms and pearls from Wild Orchid Crafts;

Tools: Martha Stewart "garden trellis" deep edge punch and "small monarch butterfly" punch; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch.

Challenges:

Sugar Bowl #56 - Sketch

Top Tip Tuesday #27 - Nature Inspired

Crafts and Me #28 - Use Yellow

Kaboodle #60 - Spring Has Sprung

Stamp Something - April Digi Day (digi sentiment)

Double Dutch #65 - Old, New, Borrowed & Blue

(stamp / paper pad / digi stamp supplied by Sentiments 4 You) / flowers)

Crafty Ann's #37 - Inspired by an Elvis Song

(It's a Wonderful World)

Hope you can join in this month's Crafty Calendar Challenge - have a great weekend!

Creative Card Crew #55 - Sketch

Good morning, and welcome to another Creative Card Crew Challenge. Many thanks to everyone who joined in last time's die cuts challenge - there were some amazing entries. Don't forget to visit the main challenge blog to see if you have won the prize. Sorry I didn't get round to comment on everyone's that I should as life has been very hectic - will try harder this fortnight lol!

On then this to this fortnight's challenge which has been set by Sandie - and it's this fabulous sketch. Hope you will all have as much fun working with it as I did.

This time we are sponsored by another regular sponsor -

For details of this week's prize and all the rest of the fab DT sample cards, please do visit the main challenge blog.

Now then, I'm really not quite sure where the past fortnight has gone to ... work has been very hectic with long hours, and somehow the time has flown by with hardly a craft session in sight. Here's my best attempt at the sketch though .. hope you like it.


Recipe:
Main image: Sugar Nellie "Pickin' Apples", coloured with Promarkers;
Sentiment: Penny Black "Teddy and Company" transparent set;
Papers: Papermania "Rose Garden" and a teeny bit of MME "Quite Contrary" for the small green strips;
Supplies: flowers by Wild orchid Crafts; pearls from The Hobby House;
Tools: Fiskars cutter "Victorian" blade; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch.


I deliberately chose my image so that I could enter this week's Simon Says challenge - Let's Get Fruity; and I would also like to enter it for the following:

By the Cute & Girly (July) - Warm Summer Days
Bunny Zoe's Challenge #2 - Summer Days
Allsorts #61 - Summer Days

Crafty Calendar #10 - Summer

Wild Orchid Crafts #1 - Say It with Flowers
Crafty Cardmakers #25 - Photo inspiration - I took the shades of aqua and green

Stampavie & More #102 - Anything Goes
The Town Scrapper - Anything Goes
(Town Scrappers have gone to town this week as they are taking a holiday until Labour Day)

Have a great week, and look forward to seeing your creations :-)

Sugar Bowl #27 - Kathy's sketch

A last minute entry from me for this fortnight's Sugar Bowl #27 - following Kathy's fab sketch and also incorporating the "added extra" of distressing.
I rotated the sketch by 90 degrees to the right, and incorporated distressing by using my new-ish X-Cut distressing tool ... wouldn't go so far as to say I've really got the hang of it but all my paper edges are definitely looking a bit battered - apart from the ones that are looking smudged with chalk ink, that is!!


Recipe:
Main image: Sugar Nellie GG "Just a Girl", coloured with watercolour pencils and edges sponged with Versamagic chalk ink;
Sentiment: Whiff of Joy;
Papers: BasicGrey "Wisteria", with all edges distressed;
Supplies: curly petal rose from Hobbycraft (edged wtih Stickles); pearls and dragonfly brad from my stash;
Tools: "Labels 4" nestabilities; Leone Em "Ash Family" leaf punch.

Hoping to have a crafty sesh this evening so maybe I'll be back with another card tomorrow :-)

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 ! :-)

Christmas Sugar

Seeing as I'm on holiday from work this week I managed to sit down for a daytime craft sesh yesterday ... yippee!!

One of my makes was this card for Sugar Bowl Challenge #25 - Lilian's sketch ... with the request to "please include" your favourite colour.





My fave colour - at least when it comes to cardmaking - has to be

pink

Dunno why really ... it's not a colour I wear overmuch or have in abundance around the house... but I do like it on cards :-). And this week over at the Sugar Bowl there is plenty of reason to get inspired as they have a totally fabulous prize on offer of 12 - yes, 12! - SN stamps .. now I only own a very small number at the moment so I'm hoping that on the 12th day of Christmas my present will be 12 SN stamps a-dropping through my letter box lol!

Anyhow, I thought I would give it a little bit of a different twist today, so I teamed it with black to give a slightly less girly-whirly feel.

Recipe:
Main image: Sugar Nellie "Daisy", coloured with warecoloru pencils and decorated with li'l pearls.
Sentiment: Penny Black transparent set "Salutations", inked with Brilliance "Starlight black" ink;
Papers: Bo Bunny "Alissa Kissable" and "Unforgettable";
Supplies: Pink flowers by Prima; pearl brads and large spacer from The Hobby House; dragonfly brad by Dovecraft; raffia lace from Hobbycraft; small black gems by Hero Arts (thanks Domi); small pearls from my stash;
Tools: Nestabilities - large classic circles, large classic scalloped circles, labels three; large black flower punched using EK Success extra large flower punch & small black flower using X-Cut flower punch.

... and here's a quick peek at the inside ... Please excuse the photo quality but the light levels are really shocking here today - totally dull and miserable weather!


Hope you are all enjoying the Christmas break, whatever you're doing.

How many "Snowflakes" make 11 challenges?

Answer ..... just the one lol!!

I really do love "Snowflake" by Sugar Nellie - I know she isn't one of the latest stamps but she is so pretty ... hadn't inked her up for a little while so I thought I would use her for this week's Sketch Saturday sketch #77.

Now when I first saw the sketch I was a bit flummoxed by the large circles on it .... couldn't quite picture any of my flowers or snowflake dies filling those spots on the card - inspiration just wasn't coming to me. But after rootling around in my Christmas papers, I found a Bo Bunny one with large and small snowflakes in circles ..... and hey! they fitted my nestie circles so I could cut them out perfectly :-) (I actually tried cutting out the paper circles by hand at first, but we'll draw a veil over that lol!) And as luck would have it the colours co-ordinated with another piece of Christmas tree paper (I think it is by MME but am open to correction on that) ... so off I went!

Here's the result ....

I also did my best to make this card tie in to the following challenges, making 11 altogether - yippee!

Secret Crafter #58 - Seasons ... now it is clearly snowing on my card, so at least if you're in the UK you can interpret that as any season of the year lol!!
Crafty Calendar Challenge #2 - Weather. Oops! I forgot the pearls (not like me! ... I LURVE pearls) so it's a good job they're optional lol!
Charisma Cardz #45 - Merry & Bright. As I'm quite a pastel kind of girl I think this card is quite bright anyway, but the sentiment was specifically chosen to tie in with this challenge :-)
Hand Full of Stamps #5 - Getting Ready for the Holidays
Cute Card Thursday #86 - Glitter Me Silly! Well I don't need asking twice when it comes to sprinkling the glamour dust liberally around!! Hope the poor light conditions can pick it out on the snowflakes and "Snowflake's" cosy muffler!
Creative Inspirations #36 - Sparkle!
Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #8 - Clear as Day. I used sticky back clear gems on the centres of my snowflakes ... a cop out, I know!
Frosted Designs - Bling It On.
Dutch Dare #64 - Felt like it - I have used Papermania white felt ric rac ribbon across the top of the card.
Kraftin' Kimmie Challenge #6 - Lotsa Circles - hope this is self explanatory!

Here's a pic to try to show the sparkle a bit more clearly - not easy given the prevailing weather conditions and shockingly poor light levels even in the middle of the day!

Recipe:
Main image: Sugar Nellie "Snowflake" coloured wtih watercolour pencils and white gel pen, and decorated with glamour dust and polar white Flowersoft (bit difficult to see ... I used a different glue from the norm and not much of the Flowersoft stuck!!);
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards "Oh! My Words";
Papers: MME (trees) and Bo Bunny (circles and pink matting);
Supplies: white felt ric rac by Papermania; snowflake brads by Dovecraft;
Tools: small and large circle and scalloped circle nestabilities.

Thanks for looking :-)

Christmas Snowflake in the Sugar Bowl

This fortnight's challenge over at the Sugar Bowl is this fabulous sketch by Tiets, with the added element of Christmas ... the perfect opportunity to crack on with the Chrimbo cards!!

I only have 3 SN Christmas stamps, and I have to admit that "Snowflake" is my favourite - she just looks so cute and cosy! I also took the opportunity to use some new Christmas paper I got at Port Sunlight on Saturday ... it is by Kaisercraft and I bought it from Stamps & Memories. Unfortunately I only bought one pack of 4 12" * 12" sheets - I wish I'd got more now!!

I did my best to follow the sketch but I was struggling with the large circle so used my largest "labels 1" nestie and tipped it on its side ... call it artistic licence lol!

Recipe:
Main image: Sugar Nellie "Snowflake", watercoloured and decorated with glamour dust & a little doodling;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards "Oh! My Words" (from The Glitter Pot);
Papers: Kaisercraft, from Stamps & Memories;
Supplies: pink, white and aqua glitter card from Edwin Allen; pearls, sparkly gems and sparkly lace from my stash;
Tools: "mega deckled rectangle", "large deckled rectangle" and "labels 1" Nestabilities; Cuttlebug "Snowflakes #2" die.

This card is actually very sparkly so I have tried to capture it on the obligatory angle shot .. not very successfully alas!


The Christmas card pile is starting to grow a bit now .... but there's still a long way to go!!

A Brown Paper Bag Full of Sugar

I'm part of a group of crafty friends, where each month one member of the group sends everyone else some supplies, with an instruction to make a project using what we receive. This month our mission was set by Cathy, who asked us to decorate a brown paper bag. Now I had never done this before although I did receive a totally fabulous one as an image wallet from the lovely Marcea, so I couldn't wait to get started. I really enjoyed doing it, and hope to make more in future.

Now I hope you'll humour me over the number of photos in this post, but I really was quite chuffed by how it turned out. It was a big project which took me quite a few hours all bank holiday afternoon and much of the evening, and it has 4 sides fully decorated, which is rather more than I usually manage.... So on that basis I would like to split it into two for challenge purposes - I hope the challenge blogs think that's fair...

I'd like to enter the OUTSIDE (front) for the Sugar Bowl Challenge #18 - Kathy's sketch + buttons ...

and as a totally separate issue I'd like to enter the INSIDE into the Spoon Full of Sugar challenge # 67 - distressing, Everybody-Art-Challenge #55 - brown & blue, and Dutch Dare #25 - Back In Time: I would like to tie it in to Challenges #8 "Pimp Some Packaging" and/or #11 - "not a card".

So .... here's the front .....


Seeing as the paper bag was brown, I decided to go for an overall vintage look and feel. I stamped Sugar Nellie "Basket of Happiness", coloured her with watercolour pencils and decorated her hat with tiny pearls. The shape was cut using large deckled rectangle nesties, and I distressed the edges with Antique Linen & Walnut distress inks. I cut all the edges of my K&Co papers with deckle edge scissors and then layered them onto dark blue pearlised card, which gave a bit of sturdiness when stuck on to the paper bag.

I also used crocheted ribbon from Quixotic Paperie, Prima flowers, blue, cream and tan tea roses from Hobbycraft, a cute bonnet charm from Dolls Made Up, and pearls, ribbon, dragonfly brad & button from my stash. the dark blue swirl was cut using Shapeabilities "doodles".

And here's the back ....


I also partly followed the Sugar Bowl sketch for the back of the bag. The papers and techniques were similar to above, and the sentiment stamp is from Great Impressions.

Here's the inside ...

On the inside, I used more of the same papers. On the left I used the lighter paper (no rigid card) tucked under the bottom of the paper bag, which I secured to form a "pocket". I then used the dark paper matted into blue pearlescent card to give a bit of structure and shape to the pocket, and slightly tucked my sentiment inside. The sentiment is Penny Black "... dreams..." (2711F) and the flowers are Penny Black "Aspire" (3381K), stamped in champagne gold ink. Nestie shapes, distressing and other decorations are as before.

.. and a closeup of the sentiment - I really love this stamp but the opportunity to use it doesn't seem to arise that often.


Here's another view of the front and back when the wallet is laid flat .....



.... and the inside when the wallet is standing up ....


Lastly, here's a view of the wallet with the opening - just ready to pop some images into!


I daresay it will be quite some time before I manage to sit down to a mammoth project like this again ... but i really loved doing it and really think it is a fab idea for an image wallet - so thanks Cathy for the inspiration.

Snowflake in the Sugar Bowl

This fortnight over at the Sugar Bowl, Challenge #11 is a fabulous sketch by Kathy. As soon as I saw it, the unusually drawn flowers made me think of poinsettas, and from there it was only a short leap of the imagination to pull out my current favourite SN stamp "Snowflake" and start making a Christmas card. As I am currently VERY behind on the "one Christmas card a week" vow this was an ideal opportunity!

I coloured "Snowflake" with watercolour pencils and sprinkled (liberally!) with glamour dust, and then matted her using my deckle rectangle nesties, which I edged with pearlescent ivy Brilliance ink. The sentiment is from a Woodware clear set, stamped onto card cut using my labels nesties. The green paper is by Daisy Bucket, but I have no clue what the red striped paper is as it was a scrap. White snowflake felt ribbon and silver gems are by Papermania, poinsettas and leaves are from the Prima Christmas Bubble. Finally the white swirl was cut from white glitter card using my swirls shapeabilities.

Here is a closer view which shows up the sparkle a bit better :-)

Now I must finish with a plea for mercy ... I copied down the sketch and realise I copied it down slightly incorrectly .. but I spent ages on the card and did it in good faith so I hope you'll be kind!

Hope you're all coping with being back at work after the bank holiday ... only 3 months to August bank hol, and then we'll all be thinking about Christmas cards lol!!