Christmas joy with Penny Black and Popcorn

Well ... it's now officially less than one week to go to Christmas ... hope you're all calm, relaxed and in control (unlike me lol!!) I've got two cards to show you today ... mainly because I had to make 2 "special" cards for close relatives so I thought I would make them similar to save time ... one is my PBSC DT card, and the other I can use for a few challenges :-)

First up is my DT card for this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge #80. This week's theme is

Christmas charms

... so if you've still got the odd item left to make, now is your perfect opportunity before the big day. In fact this is the last PBSC challenge for 2009, so you have actually got a full two weeks to enter - the next challenge will be on Saturday January 2nd 2010!

As always we have got a fab prize on offer for you .... one lucky winner will win a £10 gift voucher from The Crafty Garden


AND....

.... as if that's not enough, they are also giving all PBSC readers a 10% discount for life - just use the code Penny Black at checkout!!

So why not pop over to the challenge blog to see the rest of the DT's wonderful creations (including our fab GDT member Liz), check whether you have won last week's prize, and then get crafting with charms (which are amongst my fave of all crafty things!!)

Here's my card for this week ...


Now then, I hear you say ..... I'm sure that's not a Penny Black image!! Ha! Indeed the cutie carolling bears are Popcorn ... I just had to use them to tie in with the darling Magnolia papers I had bought for my special cards including the "Silent night" hymn sheet paper .... however the sentiment IS by Penny Black ... so it's job done lol!! My spin on this is that I am "ringing the changes" to show how well PB fits with all other makes of stamps ... or I could just put my hand up and say it was the best I could manage!!

Here's an angle shot to show Popcorn's fluffy hat :-)


Recipe:
Main image: Popcorn the Bear, coloured with watercolour pencils and Marvey markers, and hat/snow decorated wtih polar white Flowersoft and glamour dust;
Sentiment: Penny Black "Merry Christmas" heat embossed in gold;
Papers: Magnolia "Under the Mistletoe" collection;
Supplies: flowers and leaves from Prima red Christmas bubble; pearl brad and gold spacer from the Hobby house; "joy" charm from my stash.

So it's a big

thankyou

to everyone who has joined us in the Penny Black Saturday Challenges this year .. hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy new Year ... look forward to seeing this week's creations, and joining you again for a new year of challenges starting January 2nd

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OK ... onto my second card which is the "version" I would like to enter into a few challenges. Most of the details are as per the card above, except that I have replaced the PB sentiment with some red ribbon from my stash and a sentiment by Craftwork Cards.



I would like to enter this for the following:

Simon Says - Merry Christmas
My Time To Craft #70 - Yuletide Wishes
Stamp Something - Holdiay Somethings

Crafty Calendar #3 - Winter sparkle
Creative Card Crew #41 - Anything Goes
Kaboodle #20 - Sparkling Winter

Hope you're all keeping safe and warm in this freezing weather and maange to get a bit of crafting done before Christmas ;-)

Last Christmas stocking ...

... at least for the time being lol!! I guess you're all getting rather over-familiar with this little fella by now!! Though having said that, who could possibly resist his cute little face ??

Whilst making my little batch of Chrimbo cuties I specifically followed the sketch over at this week's Friday Sketchers #82 for this one.

... and here's the result. I would also like to enter it into The Pink Elephant Challenge #45 - Winter/Christmas.

Recipe:
Main image - Penny Black "fur collared" (3763H) coloured with watercolour pencils, and decorated with polar white flowersoft and glamour dust;
Sentiment: Stamps Away;
Paper: from stash;
Supplies: Snowflake ribbon from Warrington market; flowers by Floradoodle;
Tools: scalloped rectangle nestabilities

I still have a few more Christmas cards to make, but that's definitely the end of the current production run lol!!

1 card - 12 challenges!

Well ... here's the cute little fella again ..... this time I have made a card using non-traditional colours, in line with the requirements of this week's Creative Inspirations Challenge #38. I have also used the colours from this week's Color throwdown #72, which were actually inspired by BasicGrey "Eskimo Kisses" papers, which I have used ...

... and that also puts it in the frame as my second entry for this week's Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #9, which is Alternative Christmas

I'm not sure whether this card really fits, but encouraged by the fact that some of the DT cards also include greens and browns, I would like to enter it for the current BasicGrey Challenge #10 - pink, cream and blue.

Here's the card that I made .....

My card is also fairly frosty/sparkly what with the Cuttlebug glitter card ice crystal, glitter card snowflakes, glamour dust on the fur collar and sparkly lace, so I would also like to enter it into the following challenges:

Simon Says - Let it Snow
Incy Wincy #21 - Snowflakes
Fun with Shapes and More #33 - Snowflakes
Secret Crafter #62 - Snow
Kraftin' Kimmie #10 - Sparkle, Baby!
Frosted Designs - Happy Holidays
Our Creative Corner - The Holidays are Here!!

... and last but not least, Totally Gorjuss #9 is free and easy - ie an open theme. As I don't own any GG stamps, I guess this is my best chance to enter lol!

Woo hoo! That makes 12 challenges altogether .. not bad for 1 little hedgie :-) Here's a close up to show his sparkly fluffy collar and the sparkly snowflake.

Edited: just found another challenge that was open when I posted this card :-) So I would like to enter it for Kaboodle #20 - Sparkling Winter. Hope challenge #13 will be lucky for me :-)


Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "fur collared" (3763H) coloured with watercolour pencils and decorated with polar white Flowersoft and glamour dust, and the edges distressed with "tattered rose" distress ink;
Sentiment; Craftwork Cards "Oh! My Words";
Paper: BasicGrey "Eskimo Kisses";
Supplies: BasicGrey "opaline"pink & cream pearls; large blue pearl brad by The Paper Company Studio; small pearl brads from The Hobby House; spacers and white sprkly lace from my stash;
Tools: Cuttlebug "ice crystal" die; Martha Stewart "Arctic Snowflake" punch.

Rightee... I sneaked off from doing the housework for a quick "tea break" to make this post .... err .... that was almost an hour and a half ago!! So i guess I'd better get back to it ..... hope you're all enjoying your weekend!

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 :-)

Penny Black Saturday Challenge #79 - Red & Gold

Good morning everyone, and welcome once more to the Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Here we are at week #79 already .... the weeks are flying by as Christmas approaches. I should start by saying sorry I have been such a naughty blogger the past 1-2 weeks - like most of us I have found there is just sooo much to do and so little time at this time of year ... but I hope to get back on track, certanly once Christmas is over. In the meantime, like all the DT I really appreciate all the support of everyone who enters the challenges :-)

This week we have the perfect theme for those of you who (like me!) are still struggling to complete a few last minute Christmas cards, although it's not necessary to make a Chrimbo card is you don't want. This week we would like to see cards using the colours

Red and Gold

As always the DT has made some stunning examples - hope you'll go to the challenge blog and check them out (including this month's fab guest DT member, Liz), and while you're there do check to see if you have won last week's prize.

Again this week we have another fab prize - a $20 online shop voucher for our regualr sponsor 1-2-3 Stitch.


Here's my card. Having used my new slapstick stamp last week for a very "girly" theme, I thought I would ring the changes with her this week and show her in these more traditional colours. I'm actually pretty pleased with the result :-)

I would also like to enter this card for the fab Quixotic Paperie challenge #6 - seeing stars - this card is sucha perfect firt for the theme that the opportunity was too good to waste :-)

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black slapstick "Winter Swing" - coloured with waterclour pencils, and the stars decoratd with offcut stars from my ribbon;
Sentiment: Stamps Away;
Supplies: metallic stars paper and stars ribbon from my stash;
Tools: Fiskars Fingerguard Trimmer with "deckle" blade ( a wonderful prize I won from Wendy at The Secret Crafter); Cuttlebug "Christmas Stars" embossing folder.

Hope you have a fab weekend and manage to get some quality crafting time amongst the Christmas mayhem!!

Kellie's yummy candy

I absolutely adore these personalised stamps, and the maker, Kellie, is offering one lucky winner a choice of one of the above 3 stamps personalised to your own liking. gorgeous ... and well worth a visit. Kellie's candy is open on her Magnolia Down Under blog until December 19th.

At last ... a non-Christmas card :-)

It's my dearest schoolfriend's birthday tomorrow, so despite having been somewhat run off my feet this past two weeks i thought I'd better sit down and make a bit of an effort ... and here's the result. The light here is really terrible today, so the pictures are pretty awful but alas i think this is as good as they're going to get .... roll on spring!!

As usual I did my best to take inspiration from a few challenges. I used the fab sketch from this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge #80, which I thought really suited the fairly large stamp I had in mind.


I also made it with the following challenges in mind:

Stamp Something - Glitzy Somethings. I have coloured my flowers with Twinkling H20's and decorated liberally with glamour dust; and have also used iridescent pink and holographic silver cardstock - it's such a pity the light is so poor that the photo doesn't really show it up very well lol!
Charisma Cardz #48 - Dreaming of Summertime. Summer makes me think of flowers, so hopefully the DT will agree!
Cute Card Thursday #89 - Swirly Girly. Well ... I mean ... how girly is this pink & silver & sparkly card hmmm? rofl!!
Everybody-Art-Challenge #68 - Stitching.
Pile It On #27 - Tinsel Town ... yes I know that sound like it should be a Christmas card ... but it actually says use glitter .... and i have sure done that lol!
Etsy Inspired #65 - So Stinkin' Sweet -I discovered this blog when i visited Pile It On ... this week's theme is to make a creation inspired by one of their soaps. So I have chosen "Pink Sugar Type" which you can see here - they describe it as "a girly girl's soap for sure".

Here's a very poor attempt to show the glitz and sparkle ...

And the inside ...

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Fantasy", heat embossed in detail silver and then coloured wtih Twinkling H20's and decorated wtih glamour dust;
Sentiments: penny Black (inside and out);
Papers: Crafty Creations (I think!);
Supplies: brads and spacers from The Hobby house; silver lace from Bunny Zoe's Crafts; prima flowers; pink iridescent card, silver holographic card, dragonfly brads and pearls from my stash;
Tools: Martha Stewart "doily lace" edge punch; Leone Em "Ash Branch" punch.

Just off to do some jobs around the house now .. hope you're enjoying the start of your week.

CAS Snowflakes

Three weeks ago I designed a card for the PBSC #75 which was a fairly clean and simple card, centred on a sentiment and making use of my snowflake diecuts. For once I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, so I decided to make a few more similar but in different colours.

Here's one where I used two different Cuttlebug "snowflakes" folders, and where I went for a blue/green tartan theme.

I would like to enter this for the following challenges:
Kaboodle #19 - Snowflakes
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #44 - CAS (clean and simple) card

Recipe:
Sentiment: Penny Black "Joy-Hope" (3898F);
Supplies: pearlescent "ice gold" white card from Edwin Allen; green and blue pearlescent card from stash; pearl brads and large spacer from The Hobby House; tartan ribbon from my stash;
Tools: Shapeabilities "Make A Flake 2"; Martha Stewart "Arctic Snowflake" punch and "embossed snowflakes edge punch; Cuttlebug two different "Snowflakes" embossing folders.

I'm hoping to get most of my Chrimbo cards written thsi week .. then we'll see how many last minute panic makes I need (does this sound familiar to anyone ?? lol!!)

Thanks for looking!

Penny Black Challenge #78 - oops! a technical hitch!

Sorry for the late post this morning, but having made my card on Thursday night I took it out with me yesterday to photograph but forgot my camera ...oops!

Sorry got to keep this short this morning as I have to go out, so I'll get straight to business lol!

This week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge is

Christmas for the Girls

In honour of this I bought this darling PB slapstick stamp and used some girly BG "Eskimo kisses" paper to make my first ever easel card ... v difficult to get the right angle in the poor light to photograph it lol!.

As usual we have a fab prize - this week it is a £10 voucher form our regular sponsor Valentine's To find out more about the challenge and this week's fab creations from the DT, please go to the challenge blog. Not forgetting that we have got a fab new guest DT memeber for December - Liz from Buttons for brains.

Anyhow - here's my easel card.



I didn't exactly make it easy for myself, as I wanted my easel card to form a proper square when closed, but to have the pearlised edging card which is punched to stand "proud" and thus show the holes when standing. The measurements for this took a little bit of head-getting-around ... but I think I got there in the end lol!


Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black slapstick stamp "Winter Swing" colorued with watercolour pencils;
Sentiment: Penny Black "Joy - Hope" (3898F);
Papers: BasicGrey "Eskimo Kisses";
Supplies: sparkly brads by Doodlebug; spacers from The Hobby House;
Tools: Martha Stewart "Alpine Snowflake" punch and "embossed snowflakes" edge punch; Shapeabilities "Make a Flake 2".

Hope you're having a great weekend whatever you're doing.

Hats on for a green and red Christmas!

I'm back again with the second card from my craft session. I really do adore this Forever Friends teddy stamp - it is just soooo dinky and cute, and when I saw that this week's Saturday Spotlight Challenge (SSHP09) is Hats On!, it was the perfect opportunity to ink up the little fella!

I also followed the sketch from Creative inspirations #22

... and picked the colours red and green for this week's Corrosive Challenges #40, Cupcake Craft Challenge #68 and Incy Wincy #20.

Finally, Kraftin' Kimmie's Challenge #8 is Touchy-Feely ... asking us this week to use textures. I liberally sprinkled around my fave product of the moment - polar white Flowersoft mixed with glamour dust. Hopefully the following pic highlights the texture and dimension it adds to the card :-)


Recipe:
Main image: Forever Friends, coloured with watercolour pencils and Marvey "old English red" marker, and decorated wtih polar white Flowersoft and glamourdust;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards "Oh! My Words!";
Papers: BasicGrey "Eskimo Kisses";
Supplies: Flowers form Prima "Christmas bubble"; pearl brads and gold spacers from The Hobby House; Papermania gems; pearls and ribbon from my stash;
Tools: small circles, large circles and large scalloped circle nestabilities.

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 Saturday Blog Hop DT Candy Winner

Hello everyone - wow! what a fabulous response to last week's PBSC Winter Wonderland Blog Hop! Thanks so much to everyone who entered and who also left kind comments on my blog and entered for my candy. I truly enjoyed visiting them all and felt really inspired!

They were all gorgeous, but after a lot of deliberation I narrowed it down to 3 that I thought were not only beautiful but also really "different" and therefore memorable .. and as luck would have it (seeing as I'm late!) my fellow teamies picked out 2 of the 3 so that made my decision simple :-) [cos we like to spread the love around lol!]

So my DT candy winner is

Samantha

Really stunning card hunny!

As you will all no doubt notice there is no PBSC Challenge #77 card from me .... had a few probbos during the week and don't know where the week went to!! But I hope to have a card-making sesh this afternoon and to have one or two things to share later from that, and I'll be back in the saddle with another PBSC DT card next week. Meanwhile, do hop over to the other DT members' blogs to see their fab creations for this week, and don't forget to check the challenge blog to see if you've won any of last week's brilliant prizes.

Enjoy the weekend and happy crafting!

Teddy and robin (2)

Just a very quick post from me this evening ... here's another card I made on Saturday but haven't really had chance to post until now. it's another outing for my new darling Gillian Roberts stamp.

For this one I followed the sketch at this week's Lili of the Valley Challenge #41 - I thought I may have missed the moment with it, but thankfully I've discovered it is on for 2 weeks - phew!

I would also like to enter it for the following challenges:

Pollycraft Monday Challenge #29 - Wonderful Christmas Time
Everybody-Art-Challenge #67 - Christmas
Papertake Weekly - Christmas Crackers
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #43 - Christmas
Simon Says - Winter Love. Maybe I'm imagining it, but I think the teddy is looking very lovingly at the robin bearing the dinky gift!!
Cuttlebug "be inspired" #59 - Glitter
Fun with Shapes & More #30 - Gifts as an imprint ... I think this means a pic of a gift somewhere on the card ...and can you see what the little robin is holding??
Incy Wincy #19 - Anything Goes

Here's a closeup to try to prove there is actually some glitter on there .. not very successfully I fear lol!

Recipe:
Main image: Gillian Roberts "Bear & Robin" coloured with watercolour pencils and decorated with polar white Flowersoft & glamour dust;
Sentiment: Craftwork Cards "Oh! My Words";
Papers: Kaisercraft;
Supplies: pearls and red ribbon from my stash;
Tools: Cuttlebug "snowflakes" folder embossed onto white glitter card; Martha Stewart "Arctic Snowflake" punch used on white glitter card.