Congratulations on going it alone Diana

What a lovely morning we have again. I am watching the news everyday to find out about this volcanic cloud above us. I feel for all those families and people who have had such a miserable end to their holidays and are still stuck abroad waiting to get home. Let's face it we all love to go away but we are usually ready to come home at the end of the break. I just hope they all see it as an adventure and can make the most of things. I am checking Air Egypt as we are due to fly next Monday, but that's still too far away to know what is happening.

I said yesterday that my friend and neighbour, Diana, is celebrating a year of working for herself. She decided to leave her job working in a school, to start a gardening business.

As with all things like this it is a risk and there are no certainties. But, CONGRATULATIONS DIANA, she has had a stupendous year and build her client base so that she now has a waiting list of people who would like her services. That is just brilliant.

So here is my little contribution to wishing her well for the next year to come and saying well done for all the hard work she has put in this year.

I will see you later for a cup of coffee and a drink to celebrate Di.

LOL Bxxx

Challenge List

Crafty Catz #28 - Use red, green and a punch

Creative Cottage #6 - Things with wings

Cure Card Thursday #108 - Touchy, feely

One Stop Craft #76 - Things with wings

Flutterby Wednesday #105 - Butterfly, fairy or angel

Pile It On #15 - Spring

Sentimental Sunday #1 - Blooming Gorgeous

Sentimental Sundays Blooming Gorgeous

It's Monday and the beginning of another week, the sun is shining although it's a little chilly in the shade. I am struggling with what seems to be a cough, cold and laryngitis at the moment so I have not been very creative over the weekend and spent more time blog hopping. I did go to a car boot yesterday looking for bits and pieces and bought some old music books to use in my art work.

Whilst looking at all the wonderful blogs out there I found a new challenge site called Sentimental Sundays by Ann Vento from Raindrop Echo Designs. I have not seen her work before but love her sentiments and also the idea of having a sentiment challenge coupled with a theme. This week it is 'Blooming Gorgeous' and the challenge is to use a sentiment with flowers and there is a freebie as well. That was me hooked and here is my entry.

I bought some little plain frames at Alexandra palace the other weekend and covered one in glitter. I found a stamp I have about flowers and stamped the sentiment onto a rose paper from a CD by Papercraft World. I used K&Co backing papers and edged them with TH old paper crackle paint and when it was dry I went over it with star dust stickles. I printed out a vintage rose and a vintage bird (this one I covered in crackle accents), the butterfly is a MS punch with printed outline and covered in shabby shutters disress stickles. The lace, flowers, beads, pin and heart are all from my stash.

I have a friend who is celebrating a successful year working for herself tomorrow, so I am now going to think about a card for her.

Thankyou for stopping by and taking a look. If you leave a comment I can stop by and look at what you are doing too. I just love to take a peek and get new ideas and inspiration from all you very lovely, creative people.

Take care. LOL Bxxx

Challenges

Sentimental Sundays challenge 1 - Blooming Gorgeous

Creative Belli - Die cut shapes

Stampavie 90 - Butterflies and stamp

Creative cottage 6 - Things with wings

Flutterby Wednesday 105 - butterfly, fairy or angel

Cute Card Thursday 108 - Touchy, feely

One Stop Craft Challenge 76 - Things with wings

Paper Sundaes 14 - No People

A Blessing in pink and grey (and prize)

Good morning Friday Followers, I hope life is good for you. This is such a strange year, we have had some really difficult things to deal with and at the moment it is Maddie who is constantly in my mind and I keep sending her my positive thoughts, love and strength. She is supporting her friend whose partner has cancer and has had to go into a hospice this week. What a good friend Maddie is and she has partly been the inspiration for my card. She really is a 'Blessing', as a friend, a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter and an aunty and I pray she stays strong for herself in the way she is strong for others. My thoughts and prayers are with all of them at the moment and the families of her friends.

I am really pleased with this card and I have enjoyed working with the colours, they were inspired by a fab photo over at Sketcy Colors. 

This is covered in glitter as I wanted a sparkly card and I have been experimenting in new shapes for embellishments. The flourish is one of my new TH dies and the frame is off of the Home Accents Cricut cartridge. I used the sewing machine again and also made the flower as in my last card and put it over another shape cut on the cricut and covered in glitter. The backing papers and butterfly were printed from a Papercraft World CD and the rose image was cut from a 12x12 scrapbook paper.

Have a lovely weekend and enjoy whatever you are doing.

LOL Bxxx


WOOHOO the postman has just been and I have got a lovely new stamp from WHIFF OF JOY called 'Willow with basket'. It is part of the prize from Lexi's Creations for my win with my Easter boxes, I have also received a digi stamp from Lexi called 'A trio of ballerinas'. Thankyou Lexi and everyone at LC, your generosity is much appreciated. I shall have great fun playing with my new stamps.


Challenge List
Rosie D's Challenge 68 - Blessings
Totally Gorjus Challenge 25 - Texture
Corrosive Challenges #59 - Texture
Sketchy colors #19 - Pink, grey and white
One stitch at a time - Torn, distressed or shabby
Sophisti-cats #29 - So distressing
Crafty Angels #30 - My favourite thing  -  which has to be 'sparkles'
Cuttlebug spot - Bling
Practical Scrappers - Glitter and bling
Daisy Doodles - Pink + 1 (I didn't think the white would count????)
Creative Belli - Diecuts
Creative Cottage Challenge 6 - Things with wings
Flutterby Wednesday 105 - Butterfly, angel or fairy
Cute Card Thursday #108 - Touchy, feely

Shabby Squares

Good day everyone. It's now a glorious late afternoon and evening and the sun is streaming into my craft room. We had a great day yesterday at Chessington and there were 23 of us altogether. A real family day out which the children (big and little) thoroughly enjoyed. Again we had glorious sunshine and blue skies all day which was wonderful.

On to my next creation. I was inspired mainly by two challenge blogs for this one, both Pollycraft, to use pink, brown and either green or yellow (as you can see I chose green) and the Shabby Tea Room which has a lovely photo of patchwork and the theme is squares. I was also inspired to try new things by watching some of the demonstrations at Alexandra Palace at the weekend. This is the result.

I started by making the frame and used a mix of PVA and water to make layers sandwiched by lime acrylic paint and heat blasted the top layer of paint to get this cracked, weatherboard effect. Then I dabbed the TH acrylic paint over the top in raspberry, heat blasted it again and then rubbed most of it off so that the cracks are filled with the pink colour. I made the layer underneath this by using all squares to make it look like a montage of patterns and colours.The layer beneath this I used the Spellbinders butterfly impressabilities on white card, edged it with DI vintage photo and sprayed it with coffee shop Glimmer Mist. Lastly I mounted it on white card edged with a MS punch and onto green card. The flower I made myself by cutting out about 7 different sized squares and folding them to cut petal shapes, then spraying them with tea rose Glimmer Mist, scrunching them up to get the shabby look and layering them up and securing them with a pearl brad. During this process I found that the colours in my box I use for spraying came through on the edges of the petals and gave it a real vintage look. This was a happy experiment that worked better than expected. My butterfly was one I printed off and cut out and then covered it with crackle accents, this has given it a nice effect. The button flower was another experiment using coloured string and sparkly thread and I added lace and a pin with beads on it. I finished off with a brown ribbon, a brown flourish and a pearl trail from the butterfly. With the vintage image in the centre I am quite pleased with the overall effect. Another shabby chic vintage card to add to the collection.

I love reading the comments that come with entering challenges, so I always look to see what other challenges I can enter with my cards. I have quite a list this time. There are some fabulous challenge blogs out there that give real great ideas. Thanks evereyone for providing such inspiration and support.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

LOL Bxxx

Challenge List

Pollycraft Challenge - Pink, brown and green or yellow

The Shabby Tea Room Week 5 - It's hip to be square

Totally Papercrafts Challenge 11 - Distressing

Our Creative Corner - Bows

Allsorts Challenge 47 - Petals and Pearls

Stamp, Scrap and Doodle week 35 - Birthdays

Totally Gorjuss Challenge 25 - Texture

Corrosive Challenges 59 - Texture

One stitch at a time - Torn, distressed or shabby

Sophisti-cat Challenge 29 - So distressing

The Cuttlebug Spot - Bling

Practical Scrappers - Glitter and bling  and blog hop

Tuesday Taggers - Happy Birthday

My Time to Craft Challenge 87 - Pretty Pearls

Creative Card Crew Challenge 48 - Birthday

Flutterby Wednesday # 105 - Butterfly

 

A trip to paris

Hi again
I thought I would post this tonight as I am out all day tomorrow with my family and with the extended family from Kent. We are all off to Chessington World of Adventures and we think there will be around 24 of us with all the big and little children!!!! I think we will be very tired tomorrow night.

Anyway. Here is my second card of the day. This was inspired by the S2G challenges where they invite you to join the S2G DT for a jaunt to the land of 'crossiants, cafes, & haute couture'. It is a blog hop and they would love for you to join them on an adventure to PARIS this week. The Twisted Thursday Challenge TWIST this week is to use the word "MERCI" on your card or project. So I have completed the blog hop and I am entering this card. The word 'merci' is there but just difficult to see in the light. (See below)

I have really gone to town on this one and it grew and grew. I downloaded some images to use and chose this as the central one, behind it is a postcard which has merci in the text but it got covered by the leaves. I have stamped several TH French theme stamps on the backing paper which was also a download and then distressed. There is texture on the card on both the yellow mount (I used a cuttlebug embossing folder of musical notes) and the paper that I sewed the lace to is also embossed. I made 2 of the flowers myself and embellished the butterfly. The backing paper and the flowers I made have been misted using glimmer mists. Here is the merci saying and the flower embellishment.
            I had great fun playing around with this one, but I have to say it isn't one of my favourites now it is finished. Never mind. We learn in lots of ways and I am happy to experiment.

"Man is not made for defeat".    -   Ernest Hemingway


See you again soon. Take care. LOL Bxxxx

Challenge List
S2G Challenges - April in Paris Blog Hop and Twisted Thursday #51
Creative Belli #88 - Colour Spray
Totally Papercrafts challenge 11 - Distressing
Totally Gorjuss challenge 25 - Texture
Corrosive challenges #59 - Texture
One Stitch at a Time - Torn, distressed or shabby
Sophisti-cat Challenge #29 - So distressing

Diesel Train

Happy Sunny Monday

I had a great day yesterday at Alexandra Palace having a mooch round and seeing what new goodies are available. I added to my dies, Promarkers, vintage images, TH goodies and general stash.

My card today has been made for the Spoonful of Sugar challenge - 'One for the Boys'.

I have used a cigarette card for the image, mounted it on brown and distressed and stickled the edges. I find it so hard to make men's cards, but I used papers both from the Papercraft World CD I used for the Sweet Pea card and from my scraps. I glittered the die cut photo clip and added die cut cog shapes to the border of plastic parcel tape. I used a MS border punch for the centre white layer and added a TH pin and made a sentiment embellishment for it. I stamped a clock face image and cut that out as an embellishment.

I hope all is well with you and yours this week.

Take care. LOL Bxxx

Challenge List
A Spoonful of Sugar challenge 98 - One for the boys
Totally Papercrafts challenge 11 - Distressing
One stitch at a time - Torn, distressed or shabby
Sophisti-cat challenge 29 - So distressing
The Pink Elephant challenge #62 - Recipe - 1 image, 2 dies & 3 embellishments
Cupcake craft challenges 86 - Childhood memories  My dad would often talk about the old trains.

Win Number 2

Wow, another win and this time for my Easter boxes over at Lexi's Creations. Thankyou girls it was great to enter your Easter theme and thankyou for my Blinkie.
LOL Bxxx

'B' Tag

Good evening one and all
I am really into the letter B at the moment and I wanted to create a tag, so what do I find??? Tag You're It! has 'On a bough', Tuesday Taggers requires - yes you've guessed it - a tag, and Something Completely Different's challenge is the letter 'B'. So I have bird, bough, butterflies and yes there's even a stamped bee (but it hasn't come out on the photograph).

This little creation saw me experimenting with alcohol inks again to create the background and I added some gold perfect pearls to the mix. I used mustard seed DI to go round the edges and then used a brown stazon to stamp some branches and leaves. I have added the bough which has alcohol inks added to it and a TH stamped bird using fired brick and edged in spiced marmalade. Two small butterflies were stamped using teal stazon and I added the small flower shaped button and a butterfly printed from my collection and glazed with glossy accents. I found a letter 'B' gold bead and attached it using gold thread and finished off with some fibres from my stash.

Did you see the free papers on my post yesterday?

AND is anyone going to ALLY Pally on Sunday. I hope to be going with Bev to see what is around.

Take care and enjoy the rest of your evening and weekend.

LOL Bxxx

Challenge List
Stamp, Scrap and Doodle Week 34  - Wings
Tag You're It! - On a bough
One stitch at a time - Anything goes 
Tuesday Taggers - Give us a Tag  Sponsored by Georgina
Stampavie and More Challenge 89 - Use some green
Totally Papercrafts Challenge 11 - Distressing
Something Completely Different - The letter B

Blog visit and chance for blog candy.

Hi Everyone
Here is a link to a great blog and a chance to win some blog candy.
http://cardsbylinda.blogspot.com/
Linda is a DT member for Stamp, Scrap and Doodle Saturday and creates beautiful things.
Go take a look for yourself, I am sure you will love what you see.
LOL Bxxx

Sweet Pea and free design papers

Hi Everyone

Wow, what a busy but pleasant day. Ken and I had to go up to London today to get new passports. Would you believe that we sent them off nearly 2 weeks ago to have visas put in for our trip to Egypt in a couple of weeks time, only when they came back to us - in a registered envelope - one side of the envelope had been cut away leaving the passports exposed to one and all. Well, you can imagine, (Overactive imagination? Maybe!!) after all the media hype about passports being stolen and used for very unpleasant things, and with all the worry of stolen identity, we decided to 1. Let the post office know and they have passed the information to their investigation department. 2. Let the police know, they gave us a crime number and we will wait and see whether anyone contacts us about it. 3. Let the passport office know and they could only suggest we get a new one because by contacting them we could now get stopped at immigration. And that's it - no-one seemed worried about the situation, just us!!!!! Anyway it's done now so we are just looking forward to our break.

I want to say a BIG THANKYOU to Debbie at The Shabby Tea Room for a most gorgeous present that I received today. It was a prize that I won following the 'Launch Party' of the challenge blog and she has sent me a soooo sweet calendar with a magnet on the back that I now have displayed in my craftroom. Each month has a new page to put in and the designs and colouring of each month are lovely. Thanks again Debbie, it's lovely.

Well on to my next card creation. I didn't have any specific challenges in mind for this one, but I wanted to continue my theme of shabby chic that I am loving at the moment. Because I couldn't find papers that I wanted to use I got out my Papercraft World CDs. I use Photoshop Elements as a graphics package and I can manipulate the colours, so I lightened some of the papers to get a soft look before printing them off. I also printed out a butterfly/moth.

I have a few of the old cigarette cards and though I would make some smaller cards using these, so I chose this Sweet Pea image. I chose two papers and put together for the main mount and punched a border using one of my MS edge punches. I also wanted to make my little flowers to go on it and did them in white and then used the Tattered Angels Rose Tea glimmer mist on them. The butterfly has 3 layers to it and I used glossy accents to make it look shiny. I used a net doyley, folded into quarters, behind the image at the top. The backing paper is another from the CD, and I used DIs to pull it all together and used the sewing machine again. This is a very dimensional card and is quite neat.

Now as a treat for you I have been given permission from the Designer of the CD to let you have a copy of the two main papers and the butterfly that I used in this card. They have come from  a CD called Creative Dimensions, Definitely For The Ladies, published by Papercraft World - http://www.papercraftworld.com/ . Each and every CD contains original and exclusive artwork that you will not find anywhere else.

If you are new to this and are unsure how to download these, first left click on the image to bring it up in a new window, then left click on this image to enlarge it, then right click and save the image to your computer. That way you save it in it's highest resolution.

I hope you enjoy using these, have fun and please let me see anything you make using these papers or the butterfly/moth. (my email address is on the sidebar - send me a link to your blog if you publish something).

Take care, happy crafting. LOL Bxxxx

Challenge List

Stamp, scrap and doodle week 34 - Wings

Cupcake Craft Challenge 85 - Make your own flowers

My Time To Craft Challenge 86 - On the Spot

Quixotic Challenge #20 - Joys of Spring

Embrace the White

I love the photo inspiration and challenge at The Shabby Tea Room this week - 'Embrace the White'. It's a style I have wanted to experiment with for a while and here is my creation.

I chose to work with a beautiful Spring Green colour and a lovely leaf design already printed on some paper and I based my other embellishments and papers around it. 

Using the TH distressing tool I roughed the edges and added Stardust stickles (the photo doesn't show this very well). I made the flower using a tutorial from Swirlydoos and added a gorgeous white button with a sparkly centre. The sentiment is printed using the Justrite custom design cardmaking kit and I mounted it on green which was cut using the Nestabilities scalloped circles dies. I edged both with a sakura glitter pen. The border across the page was made using a MS edge punch and I passed it through a ribbler which corrugated the paper; the same paper and effect was used for the flower and was used for the backing paper behind the green mount. I finished with a pin, ribbon and beads.

You can see that I have used a zig-zag fold to make up the card and I have decorated the inside as this card will be for a special occasion.

I am very pleased with the final result and I think it fits the Shabby Tea Room challenge perfectly.

Challenge List

The Shabby Tea Room week 4 - Embrace the White

Incy Wincy Designs - Fancy Folds

Creative Cottage - Buttons and Bows

Our Creative Corner - Buttons

Cupcake Craft Challenge 85 - Make your own flowers

The Pink Elephant Challenge 61 - Nature

S2G challenges #50 - Anything goes

STOP PRESS

For those of you who are interested and like to print your own backing papers I will be giving away some FREE papers tomorrow evening. Come back and see how I have used them in a card design and if you like them you will be able to download them for yourself.

I am off to London for the day tomorrow so I will hit the PC when I return. Have a good evening.

LOL Bxxx

Practical Scrappers winner

Oh boy, I really can't believe I am a winner at Practical Scrappers with the birthday card I made for my sister, which was a project using rub-ons. Thanks to everyone for your encouragement, I am loving what I am doing and it is very special to be recognised in this way. I am just waiting for my Blinkie and it will be displayed with pride.

http://www.practicalscrappers.com/2010/04/rubons-challege-winners.html

Take care, I am posting another shabby chic card later today.
Love and hugs. Bxxx

Clean card - Spotlight

Hi again

This is post number 2 for today to link with the tag and again to fit in with the Treehouse Challenge to use the spotlight technique.
Having made a distressed tag first of all, I then wanted to make a clean card to see the differences in the way it looks.

I used a Personal Impressioms stamp and used the Nestabilities small and large labels to cut out the spotlight piece and the mount. I painted the section using DIs and added some extra shine by using the sakura glitter pens. I mounted it on some course netting material from my fabric box and added a ribbon and some buttons.

Of course it has created something completely different and much fresher looking with NO distressing to be seen!!!

Enjoy. LOL Bxx

Challenge List

Treehouse Thursday Challenge 43 - The Spotlight Technique

Sassy Designs - Spring Garden

Dutch dare Card Challenge - Spring with fabric

Our Creative Corner - Break out the buttons
Secret Crafter challenge 77 - How does your garden grow
The Pink Elephant - Nature
Pollycraft Monday challenge - Anything goes

For Fun challenges - Anything goes
Crafty Creations - Anything goes
Just Add Ink - Anything goes

Messy tag - Spotlight

Hi All
I have two posts today which originated from the same idea. I wanted to try the spotlight technique from The Treehouse and thought I would do a distressed design using a tag.

The stamp is from Hero Arts and called Skyland Bookmark. I stamped two of the images and used the Nestabilities Labels Four to cut part of it out. I coloured it using both Promarkers and DIs round the edges and then covered it with tattered rose distress stickles. The tag was distressed with DIs and I used a variety of stamps for the background, I also experimented with the TH distress embossing powders. I finished off by using the holly stickles round the edge.

There's a fab challenge at Tuesday Taggers this week, sponsored by Georgina. Have a look at her blog for some great inspiration.
Have a good week. LOL Bxx

Challenge List

The Treehouse - Spotlight Challenge

Tuesday Taggers - Give us a tag

Pollycraft Monday challenge - Anything goes

Allsorts challenge - No DPs
Simon Says Stamp - It's so distressing
Crafty Creations - Anything goes

For Fun Challenges - Anything goes

Shabby Chic meets Grunge

Happy Easter Monday.

I seem to have 2 loves at the moment in the design and style elements of my work, both the Tim Holtz style of grunge and distressing AND the lighter shabby chic with vintage feel. I found a blog some time ago that I keep going back to, it is like a magnet and attracts me to go and see more of the designers work. It is called Iralamija and is well worth your time in visiting it. Bety uses gorgeous colours with vintage images and lacy designs; ribbons, buttons, bows and glitter are all included. This week she has a really cute image incorporated into a fab little card that is irresistable, so (with her permission), I set about making a card of my own using the layout she had created.

The challenge at Stamp Something is Pink Somethings so I chose scraps of paper that fitted in with the theme and which also linked to the Digital Tuesday challenge of using scraps. I chose the image from a set from Debbi Moore, it's a fun picture, and with grand-daughters I can see them dressing up and being like this. I also decided to use my brand new TH alterations scrollwork edge and ink distressed it with tattered rose, aged mahogany and frayed burlap. I ink distressed a small scrap of pink card, rough edged it using the TH distressing tool and addedd cosmic shimmer aqua twinkle as the mount for the image. Then outcame my sewing machine, this is the first time I have used it with papers. The tension wasn't quite right, but it's come out ok. I used a couple of paper petals and ink distressed the bottom one with the tattered rose and found a button, some ribbon and seam binding for the embellishment. The phrase is a rub-on.

I really quite like the effect and thanks to Bety for her inspiration, I just love your delicate work.

Here are the new additions to my stash - there are a few more still to come. But it's exciting to play with new things isn't it?  I have two weeks without any school visits so I will have more time to use them and see what I can create.

Enjoy the rest of the day.

LOL Bxx

Challenge List

Stamp Something - Pink Somethings

Our Creative Corner - Break out the Buttons

Creative Card Crew - Vintage / Aged

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Open challenge

Simon says Stamp - It's so distressing

Crafty Creations - Anything goes

For Fun Challenges - Anything goes

The Creative Cottage challenge 4 - Pretty Pink
Pollycraft - Anything goes
Quixotic challenges - Case It

Pics from yesterday's Easter Egg Hunt for Becca, Ella and Maddison.

Sister book

I hope you have been having a lovely Easter Sunday and that the Easter bunny has visited.

Some of you know that I have a sister who lives about 60 miles away from me and was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis many years ago. As time has gone on it has progressively got worse to the point that Chrissie's joints are very swollen and painful. This has affected her mobility and the use of her hands. She is a crafter and a designer but finds it very difficult to do very much now. You can imagine how I felt when she presented me with this lovely book this week. I had to show it to you.

As you can see it is a book that she has made and put together herself. I love it.

The pages unfold and depict how skillfully she has put it together with limited use of her hands, but her creative mind shines through.

Chris loves using frames in her work and you can see how she incorporates them into this style. Distressing is not something she has been used to, but saying that she still knows how to use it to good effect.

I shall treasure this book and I shall use it for inspiration, there are several things in it that I haven't thought of using or doing.

Thankyou Chrissie, I am touched by the sentiments and I shall always look at it with love and pride.

LOL Bxxx