Friday Sketchers #58 - cool when it's hot!

Yesterday must have been the hottest day of the year so far, so when I saw the fabulous sketch over at this week's Friday Sketchers #58, what did I do ?? That's right ... I made a Christmas card! Not sure why ... the sketch just kinda struck me that way!

I used one or two new items from my stash ... I have had the cute hedgie for some time but not inked him up until now; and last week I bought a new MS embossed snowflake punch, as I figured if I got in early I could get one before the Christmas rush lol!

Recipe:
Main image: Penny Black "Fur collared", watercoloured and decorated with diamond Stickles;
Sentiment: Stamps Away;
Papers: BasicGrey "Wassail";
Supplies: flowers and star from Prima Christmas bubble; charm from Dolls Made Up; fancy edging punched with Martha Stewart "embossed snowflake" edge punch.

Hope you're enjoying the fab weather - take care in the heat!

PBSC #55 - Sketch! .... and some candy!!

Hello everyone, and welcome to week 55 of the Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Some of you may just about have noticed that I've not been around for the past couple of weeks ..... I had to take a little bloggy break due to the fact that my department at work was having a re-org and I have had to apply for my job. After a lot of sweat and heartache, preparation, interview & presentation, the result is finally known ... and I'm very relieved to say I still have a job. However some of my colleagues are less fortunate right now and have got to go through the whole rigmarole again to try to secure a different job ... so right now I'm rooting for them.

Anyhow, I'm now trying to put all the stress behind me and get back in the bloggy saddle .. so here we are with a new card..... and what better way to start than with this week's PBSC, which is a fab sketch by Nat??

I'm sure you will love this sketch as much as the DT did .... and to be sure they have produced some wonderful cards to inspire you, so do pop over to their blogs for a look. Don't forget, to enter the challenge all you have to do is produce any project using the sketch, so long as we can see at least one Penny Black stamp or sticker somewhere on it!

As always we have got a great prize this week ... Dick at PB Stamps is giving a 15% off voucher to one lucky winner.

Before I get down to my card, I should say that I was gutted to miss the challenge's first birthday party two weeks ago ... so I have decided to have a belated celebration of my own!! I am offering a

mini candy

to one lucky winner which will consist of this week's card along with a small package of goodies .. now the contents are a secret but I can tell you that they include similar colours to the card -

pink and green

yay!

All you have to do to enter my candy is the following:

1. Enter this week's PBSC in the normal way, leaving a comment on the challenge blog with a link to your work.

2. ADDITIONALLY, leave a comment on this post with a link to your work, to let me know you would like to enter my candy :-)

I will choose my favourite entry next Saturday and post the results on my blog.

So without further ado, here's this week's effort!

Recipe:

Main image: Penny Black "Bundle of Wishes", coloured with watercolour pencils and decorated with Papermania gemstones, cut out using labels nesties and matted onto pink cardstock;

Sentiment: Whiff of Joy "Everyday Greetings";

Papers: BasicGrey "Sultry";

Supplies: Papermania patterned ribbons; Prima hydrangeas; sparkly brads by Doodlebug & Making Memories; green leaves cut from pearlised cardstock using Leone Em "Ash Family" punch

Here's another view of the card, in a lame attempt to show the sparkly gems and brads a bit more clearly.

Hope you all have a great weekend; and I look forward to seeing all your creations this week and entries for my candy!

For my dad

It's now almost two weeks since I have made a card, and I'm sorry to say I have hardly done any blog-hopping at all, so I am sure to be missing out on a lot of fabulous creations! I'm still up to my eyeballs with my job application, presentation and interview preparation; but at least the deadline is now looming and by next Tuesday it will all be over (unless of course I am unsuccessful, in which case I will have to go through it all again for however many jobs in the organisation I choose to apply for until I get one.... but let's not dwell on that!!)

Anyhow, last night I just NEEDED a break, and in any case how I could possibly fail to make my dear dad a Father's Day card?? I decided from the start to ensure I incorporated this week's theme over at Stamp With Fun #11 which is dots - cos boy, have they got a fab prize on offer! (Penny Black - my favourites!) but I have also managed to tie the card in with the following challenges:

Cupcake Craft Challenge #44 - Father's Day

Cuttlebug Be Inspired #36 - Father's Day

Paper Blooms #12 - Men of Influence.

I used:

Main image: Penny Black "message from above" coloured with watercolour pencils, matted using nesties labels, with the edges inked with Brilliance "pearlescent ivy" ink.

Sentiments: Woodware "Tiny Greetings" (front); Whiff of Joy - from "Swirls" collection (inside);

Papers: BasicGrey "Boxer";

Supplies: punched edges made with MS "Scallop dot" punch; adhesive ribbon by DCWV.

Here's the inside.....

Now this card is safely in the post I guess I'd better get my nose back to the grindstone! hope to be back next week lol!

Taking a little step back .....

I'm not going to be around in blogland for the next couple of weeks, as my departmental re-organisation at work is coming to a head and I need to reapply for my job ... 6 candidates, 2 jobs (slightly better odds than the Apprentice, but there isn't £100K at the end of it lol!!) Due to the level of competition I'm going to be VERY BIZZZZY the next couple of weeks what with application form ... presentation preparation ... interview preparation .... background research etc .... all of course on top of being out of the house from 8.30am to 6.45pm anyway due to working full time! . My head's spinning already !



Anyhow ... sorry I probably won't be visiting any of my bloggy buds, nor commenting on the fabby entries into the PBSC for the next couple of weeks ... alas I will also be missing the PBSC first birthday ... but keep your eyes peeled cos I may have a li'l surprise when I get back into my blogging stride :-)

PBSC Week 52 - Blooming Gorgeous!!

Woo hoo it's Saturday again, so it's time for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge. We are now up to week 52 ... can you believe that this week completes our first year of challenges, and next week it is our birthday!! ..... but more of that later ...

Thanks as always to everyone who took the time to enter last week's challenge using Domi's fab sketch - there were some wonderful interpretations, and one lucky person should check the challenge blog later to find out that they have won last week's prize.

So .. onto this week's challege which is

Blooming Gorgeous!

Yep .. we would like to see lots of lovely flowers! Of course you can interpret this however you want, so long as we can see a Penny Black stamp or sticker somewhere on your creation! As ever the DT have all beena s busy as bees around a flower (sorry!) ... do check out their blogs because there is an absolute garden going on out there!!

As an incentive to get your creative juices flowing, we have got a fantastic prize this week by our new sponsor Fantastic Ribbons - a selection of 6 reels of ribbon, each containing 5 metres. Now I picked out these ribbons myself when I went to Port Sunlight, and I can tell you they are so gorgeous it's lucky they ever made it into the prize pot LOL!! Fantastic Ribbons has just launched a new online shop and I strongly recommend you visit ... they have LOTS of high quality ribbons and fantastic value prices .. what's not to like??

So here is my card, which I have to confess was a bit of rush job at the last possible minute - so please be kind!!


I embossed the beautiful floral panel onto iridescent pale pink cardstock using the Cuttlebug "Friends Forever" cut'n'emboss folder, and matted it onto pearlescent fuschia and lime green cardstock. The sentiment is Penny Black "... dreams ..." stamped in Brilliance pearlescent orchid ink and cut out using my deckle edge rectangle nesties. Paper is Bo Bunny with the bottom edge punched with my MS doily punch; flowers are from various sources including a birthday RAK from Helen; leaves were punched with my Leone Em Ash Branch punch; sparkly brads are by Doodlebug; spacers from The Hobby House, ribbon from my stash.

As I mentioned above...

next week is the PBSC birthday .... yes.. we will be ONE!! (awww!)

So save the date, because we are going to be having a big party!! There are going to be lots of lovely prizes plus some surprises - you won't want to miss it! Unfortunately I will be missing it due to personal commitments, but I will be really hoping the party week will go with a swing... given the fantastic efforts of the rest of the DT I'm sure it will!!

Have a great weekend!

Dandelion does the combo .. for my dad!

Here's my card for my dad's birthday, which is next Monday. In the usual way I thought I'd try to get some inspiration from a few challenges ... like so many of us, I do find men's cards the most difficult to do and don't have very many images to suit ...luckily this darling image of Dandelion that was an RAK from the lovely Marcea came to the rescue. I'd like to enter this for the following challenges ...

1. Sketch Saturday #53 ... which is a fabulous sketch. I've had to change it slightly as most of my images don't fit on the teeny tiny shape that is a nestie oval ... so I used a kinda wavy rectangle nestie linstead and hope that is ok lol! (by the way ... Happy birthday to SS!!)
2. Creative Inspirations # 10 - card for a male
3. Simon Says ... Animals
4. One Stop Craft Challenge #31 - Let's Hear it For the Boys
5. Charisma Cardz #21 - Going Dotty

Here's the inside ....


... and here's what I used...

Main image: Dandelion - coloured with watercolour pencils.
Sentiments: Penny Black (front), Hero Arts (inside); letters for "Dad" free with Creative Cardmaking issue 3
Papers: Penny Black "Black & Gold" and cream/black dotted paper free with Creative Cardmaking issue 3.
Supplies: ribbon - Anita's; brads from my stash.

Hope dear dad is going to like it!

Penny Black Challenge #51 - Sketch by Domi

Hello everyone .. the weekend's here again (yippee!!), so it's time for another Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Thanks for all your gorgeous creations with buttons last week ... don't forget to check out the challenge blog to see who won Tracie's cute baaa lamb stamp!

This week we have a real treat for you, with a fab sketch by Domi. This was brilliant to work with, and the rest of the DT have come up with some amazing samples to inspire you .. hope you will check out their blogs. And to give you a little further incentive, we have another great prize this week ... Dick at PB Stamps is offering a 15% discount voucher to one lucky winner. Here is my card .... whilst out shopping one lunchtime I called into my local craft shop Edwin Allen (like you do) and spotted they had got some BasicGrey "Wisteria" paper pads into stock .. now I had really fancied one but not picked one up yet. Having let it fall into my shopping basket I just had to have a play, so everything else on the card stemmed from that lol!


Here's another view to show (not very successfully!) the sparkle on the flowers.


Recipe:
Main image: PB "Fanfare", heat embossed with detail white powder and then decorated with glamour dust and cut out using oval nesties - I edged the oval with brilliance white pearlescent ink.
Sentiment: Hero Arts.
Paper: BasicGrey "Wisteria".
Supplies: raffia lace from Hobbycraft; flowers by Prima, Papermania and from my stash; brads by Papermania (pearl) and Doodlebug (frosted); spacers from The Hobby House.

Hope you all have a great weekend (let's hope that summer is really here at last!)

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!!

Zeddy teddy does the combo

Here is a baby card I have made for the birth of my dear friend Sharon's grandson, who was born after a very traumatic time for her family last week ... sending all my love and best wishes...hopefully the card has arrived so I am safe to post!



I'd like to enter this card into a few challenges:

1. My start point was to use my favourite stamped image, which is the theme for this week's Creative Inspirations Challenge #9. I have lots of stamped images I really love but i think this one is without doubt my favourite .. he is even slumbering in my blog header lol! He also a very versatile teddy ... I have never used him for a baby card before but have seen him on other baby cards .. and he is so cute!
2. A Spoon Full of Sugar #52 - celebration! (Happy first birthday to SFoS too!)
3. Secret Crafter Challenge #33 - new beginnings
4. The Pink Elephant #15 - monograms and letters
5. Colour Create #16 - sky blue, tan & ecru -now I must hold my hand up and say it's mostly a happy accident that my card fits this challenge. Obviously we have blue for a boy + tan for a teddy; and as luck would have it I didn't think it neded much more colour ... I just did the flowers in pale blue and a kind of creamy colour. OK I hear you say, there is green in the leaves ... but nature is what it is, right?

Recipe:

Image: Penny Black "Sweet Slumber" coloured with watercolour pencils and flowers decorated with Stickles.

Paper: Forever Friends Christmas stack (!)

Supplies: Raffia lace from Hobbycraft threaded wtih two shades of blue ribbon from my stash; letters cut using Cuttlebug "Hippy Chick" alphavelt from ecru pearlescent card; flowers by Floradoodles; charm from Dolls Made Up.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend!

PBSC #50 - Buttons galore!

Good morning everyone - hope you'll be able to make the most of the long Bank Holiday weekend (at least if you're here in the UK) by joining in with this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Thanks to everyone who entered last week's recipe challenge - you were all really cooking with gas!! - and don't forget to check who won last week's fab cute teddy stamp!

This week the challenge is buttons galore - yes we would like to see you all use buttons on your creations, as well, of course, as a Penny Black image or sticker.

As always we have another fab prize on offer this week - an adorable cutie PB sheep stamp donated by our own lovely Tracie. Well you've got to be in it to win it, so what are you waiting for?

For the second week on the trot I have been inspired by a vintage PB image sent to me by my lovely fellow teamie Debbie. This week it is this cute little girl doing some sewing and trailing buttons behind her ... what could be more appropriate?

Although I adored this image when I received it I couldn't quite imagine what occasion I would use it for .... but this week I needed to make a Get Well card for my crafty friend Sue who has been seriously unwell, and to whom I wanted to send loads of loving wishes. Suddenly the image came together with some threaded buttons and a computer-generated sentiment (which I rarely do) to hope she is soon "on the mend" :-) I also found some papers that look like vintage needlepoint and vintage style lace, and then it was just a case of putting it all together.

Recipe:
Image: Penny Black birthday RAK from Debbie (sorry again I don't know what it is called) - coloured with watercolour pencils, cut out using nesties and edged with distress ink in "antique linen";
Papers: Cosmo Cricket, all edged with "antique linen" distress ink and faux stitching;
Supplies: flowers punched with EK Success "whale of a punch" retro flower, and X-Cut medium flower; spacer from The Hobby House; pearl brad by Papermania; charm from Dolls Made Up; lace from Cathy; buttons and thread from my stash.

Look forward to seeing all your creations this week.... enjoy the weekend!

Yummy!

Whilst blog hopping earlier I was looking at my great friend Samantha's blog when I noticed that she had found a new challenge .... I hopped straight over there and found good news and bad news on the new Allsorts Challenge Blog. The good news was that I really loved the challenge and there is a fab prize this week (Penny Black stamps .. my favourites !! :-) ) .. but the bad news was that the challenge ends tonight ...yikes!

So I got stuck in to Allsorts Challenge #1 - sweets. I found two sources of inspiration for this .... my cute PB stamp "Sweet Slumber", plus the fact that the postie brought me my latest order of charms from Dolls Made Up today, which included some incredibly cute choc bar charms!! So off I went ....



I coloured my image using a mixture of watercolour pencils (mouse & chocs) and Twinkling H2O's ( the chocolate box) - I even managed to incorporate sweetie H2O colours of "cherry sorbet" and "jade mint" lol! The image was cut using my label nesties, and mounted on a slightly larger layer cut from the fab new Core'dinations "whitewash" cardstock which I embossed with my Cuttlebug "Perfect Paisley" folder and then sanded to reveal the pink core. I threaded some Hobbycraft raffia lace with narrow pink & green ribbons from my stash, and also used a little bit of lace peeking out from behind the "whitewash" cardstock given to me by my friend Cathy. Flowers are a mixture of Cuddly Buddly, birthday prezzies (from Kaz) and my stash; pearl brads are by Papermania and spacers from The Hobby House. The sentiment is also by Penny Black, decorated with a couple of tiny Papermania heart gems. Paper is by Flair Designs.
Here is another angle, which gives a bit better idea of how shimmery the chocolate box is.
I have also managed to fulfil a few other challenges with this card:

2. Sketch & Stash #10 - I have followed the sketch, and used the following new items of stash - choc bar charm, flower spacer, pink flowers, core'dinations "whitewash" cardstock. ( Details of where all these are from above)
3. Charisma Cardz #20 - Flowers, Lace & Pearls
4. Dutch Dare Challenge #49 - bling-bling/glitter : can you see those tiny heart gems lol??
5. Stamptacular Sunday #7 - pink, green and brown
I have now realised that I was in such a hurry to finish this before the end of the sweetie challenge that I have forgotten my little greeting on the choc bar tag .. never mind, I can sort that out later, along with the (currently blank) inside!!
I'll be back tomorrow with my Penny Black Saturday Challenge DT card :-)

A little cutie!

This week's Creative Card Crew Challenge #11 is shape it - ie. make an unusual shaped card. This is rather outside my comfort zone and not something I do very often, but I fancied a change (and I must confess I could also fancy the fab prize of 2 WOJ stamps that is on offer this week :-) )

I have previously made a circle card using my X-Cut Shapecutter system, and have read about people making small circular cards with their nesties ... so it struck me that I could follow the same principle with my new Peony nesties. As well as creating an unusual shaped card, the peony shape also has the beauty of standing up easily without "rolling".

The card itself is very simple, not least of all because it is so dinky in size that there is not a lot of space to play with! I stamped the PB image "A tender hug" then watercoloured it and decorated it with a few Papermania gemstones. I then cut both the image and a piece of patterned paper using my nested peonies, and inked all the edges with blue Colorbox Q pigment ink. I finished off the card very simply with a couple of diecut butterflies and a heart which matched my paper - (all were free in issue 1 of Creative Cardmaking magazine), and just found enough room for a Cuttlebug diecut greeting.

The inside of the card is very small, but I managed to use up another co-ordinating diecut from the magazine which I thought fitted quite nicely!

I have also found another new challenge blog called Fun with Shapes and More, which requires the use of something cut with either a punch or diecutting system ... and this week Challenge #3 is flowers .... so I hope that a hedgie holding flowers sitting on floral paper and a diecut peony will cover that lol!

Finally, I just spotted that this week's Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge #32 is butterflies and hearts - ideally using the CB butterflies and hearts cut'n' mboss combo die, but otherwise any dies you have to hand. Well I did cut my sentiment using a Cuttlebug cut'n'emboss die and the card does have diecut butterflies and flowers ... so I hope it qualifies !

Hello Friend!

I love taking part in the monthly Docrafts friendship swap, and this month there is an additional twist as we have a sketch to follow, courtesy of my fellow Penny Black lover and bloggy buddy Carol. The optional element of the swap is to follow the sketch AND use some of the colours on it (different shades of the colour are acceptable!!) I used paler pink, yellow and green.

Here is the card I have made for Jackie. I would also like to enter it for the following challenges:

Whiff of Joy Challenge #30, which is Friendship - my main image isn't WOJ but I have used WOJ swirls and sentiment.

Secret Crafter #32, which is Glitter.

I used:

Main image: Daisy & Dandelion "Marshmallow" coloured with watercolour pencils, and the daisy decorated with diamond Stickles , image edged with Colorbox Q ink and stamped with WOJ swirls;

Sentiments: WOJ (front) - I believe this came as an "extra" with the Everyday Sentiments set - can anyone confirm this??; Great Impressions (inside);

Papers: BasicGrey "Two Scoops";

Supplies: image and sentiment cut to shape using new "Peony" nesties; flowers by Papermania & Prima; large spacer from The Hobby House; Doodlebug "sugar coated" sparkly brad; feathers were a birthday RAK from Kaz; pearls from my stash.

Here's the inside ....

Hope Jackie will like this as much as I loved the beautiful card she sent me :-)