My first Twinchie and Guest Designer

Good afternoon

It is so good to be back and into my art and blogging again, but I must say Ken and I have had the most wonderful holiday in Egypt. What a stunning country, steeped in so much history and a mix of different cultures that make it fascinating to see. We have cruised part of the Nile and seen so many sights, the Valley of the Kings with Tutankhamun's grave, many temples at Luxor, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Aswan, plus a flight to Abel Simbel and another flight to Cairo where we visited the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Citadel and Muhaamed Ali's Mosque, Cairo Museum and a bazaar.

 Every day was packed with tours and we had great guides who explained the history of the country and the places we saw. Yes we had to haggle prices when we were out, yes we were plagued with people trying to sell us their wares, but it is part of the way of life there. All in all I would recommend this as a place to visit and particularly the Mena House Oberoi Hotel in Cairo which is probably the best hotel in Egypt and has pyramid view rooms. (See the view from ours above). Just an amazing experience. We loved it.

However back to the real world. I am very excited to be Guest Designer very soon for 'One Stitch At A Time' and I am in the middle of a project which should be included for the 16th May, so keep your eyes peeled for that one. I won with my 'Trip to Paris' piece and am so pleased to be included - just to say that it's different again to what I have been doing.

Well last night, having done some prep for my project I wanted to do 'something completely different' to get my hand back in, and found that the challenge at 'Something Completely Different' is to make a Twinchie with the theme of butterflies. Very soon it will be their first birthday so it's worth taking a look to see what is going on. Happy Birthday girls.

I've never made a Twinchie before but of course butterflies always grab my attention. Thinking about what base I would use for it, I remembered I had some Stampbord which I haven't used for ages and luckily there was a 2 inch piece in the bag. 

I have used alcohol inks and blender for the background and stamped a Martha Stewart butterfly using Adirondak Stream and coloured in the wings with Promarkers. I stamped some gold swirls round the edges and then heat embossed it twice to give it a sheen and protect the image. I then used the TH distressed powders to do the edges. It seems to be a trademark for me to use printed butterflies so I added one to the corner to add some dimension. Not a brilliant piece of art but it was good to experiment again.

Thanks for looking. I shall now go and see what some of my friends have been doing while I have been away.

Take care and enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Love and hugs.    Brenda xxxx

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