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