Coffee and Cream Birthday Card for Bev

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEV - have a fabulous day. Love ya lots.

Today is my daughter-in-law's birthday, she is one of my crafting buddies -well for shopping anyway. This is the card I made her.

Inspired by -
Papertake Weekly - Sketch
Simon Says Stamp - Coffee and Cream
Stamp Something - Flowers
Allsorts Challenge Blog - Make your own flowers
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - Birthday Card
A Spoonful of Sugar - Birthday Wishes
Tuesday Throwdown - 3D
Crafts and Me - Spread your wings
CES Challenges - Flowers and Flutterbys

The image of this card is a La Blanche stamp, Bev seemed to fall in love with these when we saw them at the Craft Show on Saturday. I used Clarity card and inked it using tea dye and antique linen DIs splattered with frayed burlap and water to give it the aged effect. I edged it with watered down walnut stain and also diresct to paper in the same colour, then with diamond stickles. I chose to use 3 DPs (sorry only know the name of one which is a Laura Ashley strip). All three were inked with walnut stain and I sewed the strips to the backing paper. The flowers I made using those papers and some others from my box of bits and I used a Crealies die and 2 punches for the petals which were soaked in paper, inked, dried, assembled and glittered. They really look quite shabby.

The butterflies are white downloaded images and I used my new walnut stain distress stain and dabbed it on the edges, then used antique linen, frayed burlap and water to paint in the rest of it. When they were dry I covered them with glossy accents and sprinled in some glitter.

I added some brown ribbon and made the sentiment using a new Anna Griffin stamp. The scalloped card is also new, bought on Saturday at Farnborough.

I think I have covered all the shades of coffee and cream. I really like the effect.

Have a fabulous week ahead and thanks for taking a look at my work.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Oh by the way, I got an honourable mention for my Altered Alice entry which is fabulous news. It was the one where I digitally changed the Mad Hatter and Rabbit and stood it alongside a dress form. I then used the image to make a card. Thankyou Lynne and the team, I really appreciate this. xoxox

Craft shopping day

So I said I was going to the Farnborough Craft show today and several people have left messages to tell me to show what I have bought.

But first I have to tell you that I met Heidi (an ex MAWTT team mate) for the first time, even though we have known each other for a year on-line we had never seen each other, so it was brilliant to be able to chat to her in the flesh, although she was busy demonstrating for Little Claire's. I also met Cate again who is a Stampin' Up demonstrator and it was fab to say a quick hello to her too.

So here's my new stash (and although it may not sound that much, it cost me a small fortune). Lots of MDF shapes and items for altering, particularly 2 book style ring binders with tabbed board pages, a smaller tabbed binder, door hangers and heart shapes, I think I will have lots of vinatgey fun with these. Now who would have guessed that I would buy Lili of the Valley stamps, not me, but I bought 4 of them. A La Blanche bird stamp, 2 stencils, a couple of distress inks, 3 TH distress stains, large scallop edged cards and envelopes, some Lakeland vintage style backing papers, some wooden buttons, 2 packs of Laura Ashley paper strips, some textured brads and some chipboard pieces.

Here are pics of some of the bits.

So I shall have fun playing with my new things and I can't wait to get one of the books done. I have no idea what I will put in it, but I am sure I will think of something.

Take care and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

The Stamp Man Challenge # 17 - Curls and Swirls

Firstly I am off to the Farnborough Craft Show tomorrow (Saturday), anyone else going?????

I have loved preparing for the challenge this fortnight at The Stamp Man and completed some of it while watching the fabulous TH on QVC during Tuesday afternoon. Hence some inspiration drawn from what he was doing

The centrepiece for this card was made using alcohol inks with a sentiment and a flourishes stamp. The next layer was a piece of patterned paper from my box,  I inked the edges, over stamped using a music stamp and then sprayed with cosmic shimmer and 2 of the edges paper pierced.

The background is another paper from my off cuts, clear embossed with swirls in 2 corners and inked over, then mounted on gold.

The ribbon was thread through a metal tag on which I used the altered metal technique as explained in the TH bible. Gold flourish die cuts gave this the third layer of swirls and curls and were also given the altered metal treatment which worked really well. The butterfly is downloaded and covered with glossy accents and glitter.

Supplies
Adirondak alcohol inks - gold, cranberry,  meadow and red pepper
TH stamps - Shabby French, Reindeer Flight
DIs - barn door, aged mahogany, walnut stain
Cosmic Shimmer - red firefly
TH Elegant Flourishes die
Perfect Pearls - heirloom gold
Rangers Archival Ink pad - black

Challenges which inspired me -
Studio L3 - Altered metal alcohol inks
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Stripes
Sketch and Stash - Sketch used  - old stash papers from my off cuts box, new stash - metal ribbon holder
Creative Inspirations - Distress
2 Sisters - Embossing

Happy Friday and thanks for stopping by.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

MAWTT Challenge 87 - Fashion

Happy MAWTT day everyone.

Just before we look at the challenge this week, I just have to share the fact that I am a Ginger Gem at Gingersnap Creations again for the second time this month. Woo Hoo, time to celebrate. xox

Our very talented Pami is hostess this week and she has chosen a fabulous theme, anything to do with FASHION. Now this I think will be very attractive to many people and we are really looking forward to seeing cards, mixed media, jewellery, sewing -  just whatever you fancy making to go with this challenge.

I made my piece earlier in the week and I was totally inspired by this tutorial over at Gingersnap Creations by Sharon Briss called Glittery Gel Medium. I haven't followed it totally step by step but I have used the rudiments of it to create a canvas with a number of layers. I have included some glitter too, but it is difficult to see in the pictures.

The backing is completely made up of stamped tissue paper, added in layers and then embellished with lace, braid, shabby flower, ribbon, roses, a pin with ribbon and beads, a bow and gems.

The tiny tag I made myself. The main image is a download from Miss Cutiepie. I used DIs, a Ranger archival pad and Color Box petal points with mod podge, multi medium, gesso, acrylic paint and glitter.

This Week Crafty Emma's Store is our sponsor. Pop over to the store to see what goodies she has on offer just now with great items just in, including New Fizzy Moon Stamps, Papers and Blooms, also The Whiff Of Joy March releases are available on Pre Order.

Emma is offering the winner a choice from from sets of charms.

Have a fab Thursday. I will be around later but we have the internment of Mum's ashes today and we have 12 doves to fly at the end of the little ceremony. I think that will be lovely and a real sign of peace.

Take care. Thanks for stopping to see me today.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -

Cheerful Stamp Pad - Anything but a card

Creative Inspirations - Distress

My Sheri Crafts - All about girls

Ooh La La Creations - Pink

Tuesday Throwdown - 3D

DYSU - Anything Goes

I am featured in Whimsical Musings Magazine

How excited I have been waiting for the new edition of the Whimsical Musings Magazine. It is a weekly on-line magazine for those who enjoy art, repurposing, and decorating. Every Monday, go see the latest ideas and meet inspiring guests.

This week the wonderful Cindy has featured my blog and my under the sea collage. I find it just amazing that she would choose my work to feature, I can't get over it. Do go over and see all the extremely talented artists and take a browse through their blogs to see such fabulous inspiration. The theme is seaside living and there are so many ideas and colours to look at.

Cindy has her own blog Whimsical Musings, which is also a delight and where she shares her own stunning work. She currently has some tags as give aways.

I hope you had a good weekend. I had a great time with friends in Walsall and yesterday we went out for lunch to The Woodman at Claverley. It is owned by my friend's son in law and his sister, but if you live in the Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Kidderminster, Bridgenorth area then I recommend you go for a meal, the food is wonderful, the decor and ambiance just perfect. Click on the name above and you will go to their web site. It will be necessary to book a table as they are very busy and on very popular nights they operate a waiting list, so don't be disappointed. Sarah I must have almost passed your house!!!!!

Welcome to Linda who has joined me on this creative journey. I have sent you a message Linda as I cannot see whether you have a blog or not. If you have it could be that your settings need changing to allow others to see it.

Take care everyone. Have a good week and  lovely half term. Thanks for stopping by and double thanks if you leave a comment, I so appreciate reading them all.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Cards in a Tin 1

Woo hoo, one of my projects is finished. As some of you know I have been making cards to fit a tin that I have now 'decorated' to become a pressie for a friend. We are going away this weekend to Walsall, Birmingham, to stay with a couple of our very good friends and this is going to be my 'Thank You' present.

The tin was one I bought for 25p in Wilkinsons and was in the Christmas leftovers bargain section last month. Originally it was full of eye shadows.

I have used alcohol inks and added paper and these little embellishments. The TH die cut heart and the crown has been heat embossed with white embossing powder, The winged heart - (another by Invoke) -  was stamped with Adirondack stream, some glitter pen added and then double embossed with clear embossing powder. The butterflies are both MS punches.

This fits challenges -
A Spoonful of Sugar - Anything but a card.
Whoopsi Daisy - Free and Easy
Simon Says Stamp - Make your own embellies

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Take care.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Crown Necklace

Ok you know me, always looking for something new to experiment with, and here it is. I had this idea after seeing that the theme at Gingersnap Creations Random Redhead challenge is 'Crowns', and as I had bought some crown charms at Sandown craft show a few weeks ago I wanted to have a go at this.........

I have found it very difficult to photograph in the dull light we have today, but I have included several shots so that you can see it at different angles.

I have simply used ribbon, beads, ribbon flowers, gems and jump rings.

Other challenge this fits is -

Digi Doodles Shop Best - Anything goes

Have a fab Friday. Thanks for stopping by.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

MAWTT Challenge 86 - Not a card, but for a little girl

Why do I make my life more difficult than it has to be sometimes? I set the challenge this week over at MAWTT and decided we would do something different to a card, but I lost total inspiration. We chose some digis from Robyn's Fetish who are sponsoring us this week and this is what I came up with.

Two projects, mainly because I have 2 small grandaughters and didn't feel I could make something for one and not the other. So here is a little notebook - come colouring book for the 2 1/2 year old and a little altered box for the 4 1/2 year old.

I think it's pretty easy to see supplies and techniques on these, but do email me if you have a question or leave one in the comments below.

Can you guess what's in the box?

There's a teaser picture for you, but I am sure you will make it out. It just fits perfectly with the image and the girls will enjoy eating them. Oooh another big clue there.

I hope your week is going well and have got some crafty things planned for the weekend. Ken and I are going to see friends and have some fun at their karaoke gathering on Saturday night. I also need my eyes tested and new glasses so that's on the agenda for Saturday too.

Take care.


luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Challenges to have fun with -
CRAFT challenge - Not a card
Stampinsanity - ABC (Anything But a Card)
Spoonful of Sugar - Anything but a card
The Crafty Pad - Hearts
2 Sisters - Hearts

Time on my Hands - CoC #32

Hi Everyone, we have been having sunny spells today, which is really refreshing again.

Today I am showing a tag I have made to join the CoC challenge 32 at Linda's fab blog, Studio L3. This week it is an inking and masking technique which can be found on P.59 of Tim's book. I learnt one very important lesson from playing with making my own mask and that is to be aware of the ghost or shadow around the image if you haven't cut the mask close enough to the line, in fact I would say cut just inside the line. I will next time. The wings were stamped on acetate and glitter added to the back, I also used glitter pens on the clothes.

Other challenge blogs I used for inspiration were Simon Says Stamp and Show - A Tag and Just for Fun - Time Flies (I used the wings and clocks but in a different way and used a different sentiment - hope that's ok girls?)

DIs -  tea dye, crushed olive, weathered wood, walnut stain

Stamp - Prom Queen - Stampotique

Stamp for background - Studio 490 - Wendy Vecchi

Wings - stamp - Scrolls Work

sentiment - my own

embellishments - downloads

Enjoy the rest of Wednesday and thanks for taking a look at my tag.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Other challenges to have fun with -

Paper Wings - Distressed

Totally Stampalicious - Bling

Incy Wincy - Colour me wonderful (I used distress inks, markers and glitter pens for the clothes and chalk for the face)

Simon Says Stamp - make your own embellishments (all made by downloading, stamping, cutting, adding glitter or glossy accents etc)

Crafts and Me - Time to spread your wings

Giveaway Winner

Thank you to everyone who left me a comment on my blogaversary giveaway post, 68 in total which is AMAZING. I have used Random Org to choose the winner and it is comment 44 -

and that is....................


you..........................................................................................................................................................

NEIL

at Neelz Expressionz

Well done Neil. I have started to parcel the bits up, so if you email me your snail addy I can get it off to you.
My email address is on the side bar.

Thankyou to everyone for taking part, I am overwhelmed at the interest there has been and the fabulous things that people have had to say. It is really lovely to connect with so many wonderful crafters all over the world.

Just to let you know it's my birthday in March, so I might be able to find a few more crafty things for that, so keep watching.

If you read my last post - Maddie is home safely and it was a good job I checked the flight details before I left home as she came into Gatwick not Heathrow. The only problem was I got stuck in the traffic on the M3,  which was closed Northbound due to a horrific multi-vehicle accident. So delays meant I was an hour late picking her up, but we are both home and safe and that's all that matters. My prayers are for the poor people involved in that accident. We came back southbound on the M3 and it still looked a horrible mess with yellow lights everywhere including a crane trying to clear up the vehicles and debris. I do hope there were no fatalities.

Take care of yourselves - have a great Valentine's evening.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Changes in form and dress forms - a children's story.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

I hope you have the most wonderful day today whatever you are doing and receive lots of lurve from your beloveds. Ken had to go off to work early this morning but he left me a card and has sent me a text - ahhhhh.

So onto blogging business I have been wanting to enter the Altered Alice challenge since it started but haven't had the inspiration until yesterday and I decided to partner it with June's challenge at Dezinaworld where the theme is children's story, book, nursery rhyme or song. So Alice fits for both - yey.

I have used 3 main images and altered them to produce my changes and I have included a dress form too.

The first two images are from Digital 2 for Tuesday and the last one from the Graphic Fairy. I have used PE to put elements together to change and merge the images so that there has been a metamorphosis to this.

The image was printed and coloured with promarkers, inked and splattered, sakura glitter pen used to highlight areas then the whole thing embossed with clear embossing powder. The piece it is mounted on is from a Kath Kidston note book sprayed with glimmer mists, inked and stamped in fired brick DI. The backing has been made from text and music papers, stamps and tissue tape, painted with gesso and some vintage photo ink added. The bottom left hand corner was stamped and clear embossed and inked over with fired brick and the top right hand corner stamped with antique linen and walnut stain. The queen of hearts in the metal frame was cut from a playing card, flowers made by me and the turquoise heart is an invoke stamp and covered with 2 layers of clear embossing powder. The butterfly is one of my downloaded ones and other bits from my die cuts box.

Having moaned about the weather yesterday, we have woken up to a beautiful bright blue sky and sunshine today and although the cats have now gone out, this was Tinder just basking in the sun on the landing this morning.

I am going off to Heathrow airport in a little while to pick up Maddie, she has been away for just over a week to India, working at the Bangalore airshow, so I will be really pleased to see her and I know she is shattered and will be pleased to get home and in her own bed. When I spoke to her last night she had been up 23 hours, poor thing and that was before her 2 flights to get her home.

My blog candy is now closed and I will be doing the draw later this afternoon once I have got Maddie home.

Take care and lots of love from me on this special day. Thanks for reading and hello to some more new followers.
luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Shabby Sunday

Happy Sunday everyone

Just a quick post from me today with a quick card I made last night to join in with the Sketch Saturday layout, Dutch Dare - to use red, pink and white, Paper Pretties - to use valentine colours and to use some new papers I bought this week in the Shabby Chic style.

First though I want to say a big welcome to all my new followers who have joined me recently, I am so surprised and honoured that so many of you are following my creative journey and have left me such wonderful comments. I hope I can live up to your expectations and I hope to get round to visiting you too soon.

I am also playing with backgrounds for my photos but I am not sure this one works too well. All the papers on this card are from Tilda Papercraft classic paper stack and I added some lace, white gems, glitter and vintage photo DI. This is probably more vintage shabby than shabby chic and I haven't put a sentiment on yet as I am not sure what I will use it for.

I am so glad I got in the garden yesterday because today it is really wet and miserable outside. I hope it is better wherever you are.

Enjoy the rest of your day whatever you might be doing and thanks for taking the time to visit me.

luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox