Christmas in July

Welcome everyone to a scorcher of a day. I have just sat outside to have some lunch and the sun is very intense. If I go out again I must remember to put some sun screen on.

I didn't think I would be able to think about Christmas at this time of the year but I was looking at Linda's blog - A crafting journey and was inspired to make something completely different again, but in her TH style. I loved her little hanging she posted on Monday and decided I really fancied doing some 'grunge'.

Alot of my Christmas bits and pieces are in the loft, and I think I will have to get them out, but here is what I had fun making with what I have in my supplies.

The stamps are TH Letter to Santa collection and the text is from Serendipity Stamps. I used antique linen, fired brick, peeled paint and vintage photo DIs. The tree is a die cut from Lisa Bearnson and I popped out the circles, glittered them and stuck them back in. The tree was coloured using the peeled paint and then I embossed it with clear embossing powder. I used green and red stickles for the holly and berries round Santa's hat and added the ribbons at the bottom. Thanks Linda for the inspiration.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Luv B xoxox

Challenges I would like to enter

Crafty Cardmakers - Inky Fingers

Creative Card Crew - Die-cuts

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - Christmas in July

Creative Cottage - No cards allowed

Corrosive Challenge - Christmas Time

One Stop Craft - Distressing

Meljen's Designs - Circles

One powerful hour - Stamp It

Fussy and Fancy - Christmas in July

MAWTT DT card -

Good morning everyone

I am working today so this is a scheduled post, but I will be back later to check all is well.

The sketch challenge at MAWTT this week has been designed by Hazel and we were given a digi stamp and some backing papers to use by the very talented Stitchy from Stitchy Bear Stamps, who is our sponsor this week. If you haven't visited the shop yet, go along and take a peek, there is a whole range of goreous goodies you can buy. Stitchy, if you read this, the sentiment is for you. Very apt don't you think??

This is my creation using Stitchy Stamps Butterfly Love and papers from Crafty Chaos, which I thoroughly enjoyed making. (Check them all out at Stitchy Bear Stamps - link above).  I mounted the three matting pieces on yellow paper, distressed them using faded jeans DI and edged them with the star dust stickles. The gorgeous image was coloured using promarkers (see list of colours below) and I have covered the wings with frosted lace stickles. Around the outside edge I used the faded jeans again and waterfall stickles - you know how I love to glitter things up. The green patterened backing paper was distressed and then edged with the waterfall stickles. The flower was made using prima petal layers and I have added my usual butterfly covered in glossy accents. Some little yellow flowers with a pin and beads tied with a ribbon have balanced out the design.

Promarkers
dress - tulip yellow, yellow, canary and oatmeal
hair - cinnamon, caramel, tan and satin
skin - pastel pink, dusky pink, blush and ivory
wings - pear green, denim blue, powder blue
others - forest green, peach, azure, duck egg, burnt orange

Have a great day and I hope to see your creations on the MAWTT challenge blog.

Take care. Luv B xoxox

Challenges I would like to enter
Crafty Catz - Distressing
Prairie fairy - Anything goes
If the shoe fits - Spread your wings
One stop craft - Distressing
Bee Crafty - 3D
Pile It On - favourite things   Using glitter or Stickles to look sparkly
Sentimental Sundays - Celebrations   I envisage this card being used for anything that celebrates someone doing something different ie walk for charity, opening a new shop, etc
Magical Crafts - Flower Power
Crafty Cardmakers - Inky Fingers
Your next stamp - Flower power
I love Promarkers - Distressing
Flutterby Wednesday - Open but with a butterfly, fairy or angel on it

Altered photo frame

Hi Everyone

I thought I would show you another photo frame I have altered. This time it is more of a shabby Chic style.

It really tells it's own story, but the thing I am most pleased with is the lovely red grungepaper flower. I used the TH tattered floral die and added some glitter to the edges and love the result.

The die cut used at the top is from the Llewelyn Bowen Renaissance collection and as you can see I have also added a pin and beads and some little hearts, one with a green heart charm hanging from it.

Of course I have added a butterfly from my downloaded collection and spread glossy accents over it.

I hope your week is going well.

Take care. Luv Brenda xxxx

Challenges I would like to enter

Flutterby Wednesday - Open but with a butterfly, fairy or angel added.

ABC Challenge - You and Me   This is Ken and I on holiday in Egypt earlier in the year. Lovely memories.

Creative Cottage - No cards allowed

Creative Belli - Alter it

Creative Card Crew - Die cuts

My time to craft - Angelic - I have an angel on the die cut

Pile it on - Favourite things  -  butterflies yeh

Magical Crafts - Flower Power

The Prairie Fairy - Anything goes

If the shoe fits - Wings

Ellephantastic cards and crafts - Its up to you

OSAAT card for a new baby and new mother

Hi Everyone

Woooo how exciting my first DT card for One Stitch At A Time Challenge Blog (OSAAT). It's been amazing making new friends on the team and seeing so much inspiration gathered all in one place. If you haven't yet been to visit the OSAAT blog and take part in the challenges, have a look, I am sure you will find plenty to interest you. They are having a 30% SALE in the shop at the moment. The link is on my side bar.
The sponsor this week is Hobbyhabitat which is a great shop with brilliant prices - http://uk.ebid.net/perl/main.cgi?mo=user-store&title=hobbyhabitat&start=375
If you buy something from them please say you got the link from the OSAAT challenge site.

This lovely image is a digi stamp called 'Baby on the Moon' and is from Sew Many Cards. The challenge was to use one of Angela's images with the theme 'lace and ribbons/bows', and this is the result.

I have coloured my image using Promarkers, distressed the edges with TH Distress Ink - Vintage Photo and mounted it on a blue background which I made by painting a light blue acrylic paint onto some card, drying it off and then going over it with an Adirondack Denim dye pad. I spritzed it with water and blotted it off to give a mottled effect for the sky. I then stamped with a small star stamp from Lavina stamps using Versamark and Judi Kins sticky stuff embossing powder. I then sprinkled glitter over it to get a sparkly sky effect. The frame I made using Spellbinders dyes and covered it with glitter, edged it with Aged Mahogany and mounted the image over the top.

The pink DP is from my box of bits and edged with both Aged Mahogany and Vintage Photo DI and then with Star Dust Stickles. Some music paper, also edged with Vintage Photo, has been added with some lace. I cut a scalloped tag using Ellison thick cuts and edged with Aged Mahogany and Vintage Photo. The sentiment is from Melissa Frances.

I hope you like the end product, I am pleased with the overall effect and just need a new baby girl to be born so I can pass it on.

Promarkers used
cloud - powder blue, pastel blue, ice grey 2
moon - canary, tulip yellow, buttercup
baby - magenta, pink carnation, blossom and the patches are soft green
star - yellow with sakura glitter pen over it
skin - dusky pink, blush, ivory

I hope you are having a great weekend.

Luv Bxxxx


Challenges I would like to enter
Bunny Zoe Crafts - nice and girly  -  for a new baby girl
Shelly's Images - anything goes with a celebration
One Stop Craft - Distressing
Bee Crafty - 3D (My frame, sentiment is on foam pads)
Lexi's Creations - layers, 3D
Totally Papercrafts - One for the girlies
Crafty Catz - Distressing
Prairie Fairy - Anything goes
Alphabet Challenge - J is for Jewels
Stampavie and more - Sparkling
Crafts and Me - Birthdays
Cooking it up with Katie - Sparkle an altered die cut
Everybody Art - Birthday

Blog Candy Winner

Hi Everyone

It's been a lovely, sunny week in Swanage, just a shame it's damp and cloudy today. Mum and I have been very lucky and got down to the beach hut nearly every day, I even took her paddling yesterday.
I have enjoyed having my first blog candy and it's been a great blog hop at MAWTT. The winning person who will receive the Daisy and Dandelion goodies was chosen by my Mum and so without further ado it is - dah dah dah dah  ..................................................................

JOYCE  of Gram's treasures - congratulations Joyce over in Canada. Thankyou for taking part and if you email me your address I will get the candy in the post to you as soon as possible next week.

I haven't been able to post any cards or projects this week being away in Swanage with Mum, BUT I brought a couple of small tubs of crafting bits with me and I have made 6 cards in the evenings, so look out for them appearing over the next few weeks in between DT challenge cards.

I tell you it's amazing how inventive and creative you can be when you have limited stash, for instance I didn't bring my heat resistant mat with me that I use to distress edges with TH distress inks - instead I used a cellophane magazine bag and it was just the job. I had also found some gorgeous little pink and cream ribbon roses in a local craft shop the day before I left home and I packed them in the tub to bring with me. I have used them a couple of times - but the card I finished today needed slightly different colours to what I had got - so I painted these cute roses with white acrylic paint and added cosmic shimmer glitter glue and they are just brilliant - talk about altering your embellishments. You're just gonna have to wait to see them.

I will be back with my first DT card for OSAAT on Sunday, so I will see you then.

In the meantime enjoy the end of the week and have a good weekend.

Luv Bxxxx

Award

I have received this award from a super lady who has given me so much support while I have been getting used to and learning how to do things as a Design Team member for both 'Moving Along With The Times' and 'One Stitch At A Time'. She shares both teams with me and creates some amazing things.

Go have a look at what she is doing at 'My Crafty Life'

Thanks for being there Clare, I hope you are enjoying the weekend.

Take care.

Luv Bxxxxxx

Update 28/6/10

I believe I should pass this on to 10 talented bloggers so here goes -

Georgie - who is creating some most beautiful cards and deserves this award for the talent she is growing and the encouragement she gives me.

Lisa Jane - who belongs to many challenge blogs and always has time to leave such lovely comments (and I don't know how you do it Lisa)

Chris - who just 'found' me and gives me so much encouragement for being 'different' and creates beautiful things.

Juls - who has so much mojo and can create a 101 wedding cards that are all so different without taking her eyes away from Wimbledon.

Annette - who inspires me with her amazing talent of creating such different pieces of art.

Zoe - who constantly keeps me going with ideas and sweet comments.

Hazel - who I have not known long but is so supportive as a fellow member of the MAWTT challenge blog and always has time to give me advice.

Liz - at OSATT challenge blog who has taken on a new team and given so much time to helping us to settle in and understand the workings of being a new DT member.

Gemm - also a new member of OSAAT with me and who makes such lovely cards with a variety of styles.

Linda - who doesn't know me at all but I love going to her blog for TH style inspiration - she never fails me.

Queen Bee

Good morning everyone, another bright and beautiful day here.

I made my card and wrote my blog last night hence the references to it, but I needed more light to take my photograph, so I had to wait till today to finish everything off.

With the title of my blog to do with bees as well as butterflies I have found it difficult to incorporate bees as part of my signature, but I was so excited tonight when another experiment led to me learning something new.

The Dutch Dare Challenge Blog has a challenge called 'Bee Happy' and immediately I was very attracted to it and the Creative Inspiration colour theme of turquoise, gold and cream.   I love the Graphics Fairy blog which provides free vintage clip art to use in your art work and there is some amazing stuff to be had. I went across to look for a beehive as I have already downloaded some bees and yeh I found a fabulous one.

 I knew I wanted to create a hive with bees around it and I started experimenting, using Photoshop Elements, but I didn't know how to place objects on top of one another and anyway the beehive was a picture not a shape. After playing around for a while I had got bees around the hive but at a distance. In my desire to find out more I played with tabs and menus and found the magic extractor and this enabled me to 'cut out' the beehive, so I wasn't going to give up here and I carried on. I managed to cut out a bee and overlapped several of them on the hive. I had also found a gold crown which I wanted to incorporate and thought I could change my sentiment to 'You are Queen bee'. But I didn't have a paper that I could use with it and decided to use one from the computer. Originally I was going to print the paper off and then put it back in the printer to print the beehive over it, but that was going to cause problems in lining it up where I needed it. After more perseverance I was able to add the paper to my creation, take it to the back and line it up, then print the whole thing out together.

So tonight I have learned how to make my own digital collage, and I am so pleased with what I have created.

I hope you enjoy it too.

Luv Brenda xxx

Other challenges I would like to enter are -
Daisy Doodles Creative Challenges - Summertime      Bees always make me think of the summer
Mixed Media Monday -  something old
Lexi's Creations  -  something old
Stamptacular  -  cute as a bug   (but no baby on mine)
Quirky Crafts  -  Summer

Happy First Birthday - 'Moving Along With The Times' - Celebrating with a Blog Hop and anything but a card.

Happy birthday to MAWTT, happy birthday to MAWTT - woo hoo.

It's our first birthday and to celebrate we are having a BLOG HOP for you to enjoy. If you have arrived from the MAWTT challenge site to participate in the competition then you have arrived at the right place. If you haven't then please go back to check the rules and I'll hopefully see you again soon.

Firstly have a look at my creation for the challenge this week. We were asked to produce something that is not a card, has a Gorjuss Girl on it and that has a birthday theme. One of my grandaughters has a birthday coming up at the beginning of July (and she is a gorgeous girl) so I thought I would alter a photo frame, add the Gorjuss image to it and put in a photo of her taken recently when we went to Seaton.

The frame is one of those very inexpensive white 6x4 frames from Ikea. I thought I would go very bright and girly for this one. The paper came from my stack that I have in my craft room and I really must keep them organised so that I know where they are from. I chose some ribbon which came from a set from QVC a long time ago. The bow I made from seam binding and added a little pink pin and green flower charm. I used pink wings, a pink heart and a pink star with a turquoise MS punched butterfly covered in star dust stickles in the bottom right hand corner. .... and of course I stamped and coloured the pretty Gorjuss Girl image and added to it. Three pink gems just gave it the finishing touch.

So back to the competition for the Birthday Blog Hop. This is gonna be real easy you know, especially if you have looked at my blog and there is candy to win at every stop. So once you have participated here pop along to the next stop and visit Clare Thread-bare and see what she has to offer at My Crafty Life.

Beside the individual candy offered at every stop there will also be one lucky winner who will win some lovely goodies on the main blog.

Ok here we go. To be in with a chance of winning this gorgeous candy -

1. You need to have entered the challenge this week and followed the design spec. We will be strict with this to make it fair on everyone.

2. Leave me a comment  and re-arrange these words to make a lovely sentiment that can be used on your cards.

about the but dance rain not for pass to the is waiting to learning in life storm

3. When you have that sentiment email it to me at

brenda_brown25@hotmail.com

DO NOT add the saying to your comment or everyone will copy you. Entries must be in by Midnight Wednesday 30th June.

4. I will draw a winner from the hat on Thursday 1st July and post the winner on my blog on Friday 2nd July.

If you like some of what you see on my blog then I would be happy if you choose to become a follower but it is not essential to be in with a chance of winning candy.

Good luck with winning the Dandelion  goes fishing decoupage set, embossed transfers and stamp set.

Have fun.

Luv Brenda xxx

Challenge List
Alphabet challenge - H is for hearts
Totally Gorjuss - Sugar and Spice
Drunken Stampers - Colour and bling
Sketchy Colours - Green, blue and pink
Paper Sundaes - Pretty as a princess
The Crazy Challenge - All things spotty
Crafty Creations - shine
For Fun Challenges - use a pin
Stampavie - Heart
Crafts and Me - Birthdays
ABC Challenge - X is for Xtra-dimension
Digi Doodle Shop - Anything goes

Blog Candy and MAWTT Birthday Blog Hop

Hello friendly crafting friends.

I thought I would show you what is up for grabs on my blog from this Thursday 24th June to Wednesday 30th June. There is a Daisy and Dandelion 'Gone Fishing' decoupage set and papers, a packet of matching rub-ons and some matching stamps. I will be running a little competition, nothing too difficult, and the draw for the winner will be on Thursday 1st July.

You will need to come back on Thursday to see what is happening for the MAWTT Birthday Blog Hop and to have your chance of entering for a lovely prize on the main blog too. Also all the design team members will be giving away candy, so there are lots of chances of winning something. I so hope you can come and take part and also see my second entry for the Design Team.

Here is a peep at what I have made. Something completely different again. 

I hope you are enjoying our second summer. Long may it last. Apparently it is going to be even hotter tomorrow in the south woo hoo. (Trouble is I am working all day boo hoo).

Anyway take care, remember to use your sunscreen.

Luv Brenda xxx

Winged heart

Good evening crafty people.

I have been wanting to use these little gold paper wings for a long time and either I hadn't seen how I could use them on a project or I had forgotten about them, so having found them I decided to have a go at using them in a design. I used a layout from another card I had seen and put my own twist on it.

The music paper I use comes from some old clarinet and piano music books that I found at a carboot sale, and I just love using them. Mixed with some pink backing paper and stripe paper I think it looks really good on this card. The frame is another I made myself using the Spellbinders rectangles. You know when you have done something 'wrong' and then experimented to change it? Well this is what happened here. I covered the frame in my usual glitter I like to use and then realised I had planned to use a different colour and had forgotten that as I was beavering away. So I got out my Cosmic Shimmer iridescent mica pigment powders and rubbed golden plum all over it. Eh voila, a sparkly and shimmery frame in a pink rather than a sparkly aurora borealis glitter. Not bad eh???

I used a Rubber Stampede text stamp on the stripy pink paper at the top and gold embossed the crown from the TH Shabby French collection. The heart was cut using the Cricut and glittered, the butterfly is a MS punch and the birdcage is a free image I downloaded from the internet, both have been covered in Glossy Accents. I also used Cosmic Shimmer aqua twinkles around the edge of the frame and pink backing paper. Finally a pink ribbon to set it off.

I hope you like this little creation, another experiment with the Shabby Chic style.

Have a great week, mine is hectic!!!

Luv Brenda xxx

Challenge List

Paperplay #24 - Something old  - those wings that have been hanging around for ages

Charisma Cardz #24 - All about bling  - heart, frame and crown glittered or gold embossed

Crafty Ann's #17 - Embossing  -  the crown was gold embossed

Alphabet Challenge - H is for hearts
Lexi's Creations #16 - Something old
Cute and girly - Something old
Incy Wincy Designs #47 - Music