Make and Take

I've just got back from a fantastic workshop with Hels and what a great day we had at The Stamp Attic playing with Ten Seconds Studio metal. Just had to get this up as I want to enter it into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge which is metal   -  well that's just perfect isn't it???

I just had enough light to get a photo, but had to do it outside. Wall hanging made of 7 gypsies board and metal added after we had used moulds and alcohol inks. The flower is also metal on card, as is the heart.

Thanks for a wonderful day Hels - loved it.

Must dash, dinner is about to be served.

Take care. B xxxxx

Other challenges to have fun with -

The ABC Challenge - Flowers

Paper Cutz - Anything Goes

Our Creative Corner - 3+ embellishments

Stamptacular Sunday - NOT a card

Corrosive Challenge - No white paper

Compendium of Curiosities week 17

Good morning - yes it's morning and I need to get to bed cos I am off early to go to The Stamp Attic later and a workshop with Hels. But I just had to get this post up very quickly so that I can enter the CCC at Studio L3 which this week is fragment charms.

Please go to P. 64 of Tim's book to see what they are and how to use them. It's the first time I have had a go with them and they can create the most adorable embellishments for a whole variety of works of art.

Mine is a Nestabilities frame, a grungepaper deer, DIs, embossing powders and stamps, then some Crafty Bitz embellishments and of course my fragment charms. I managed to make it this evening and was determined to get it done. I've worked all week and had to work all day today, except for an hour in the garden doing some autumn clearing. The family came round for dinner this evening, so there hasn't been much time to play, but here it is.

Apologies for the photo, but I have had to lay this down even though it's going to be hung on one of my doors at Christmas, and the light is awful. Hopefully I'll get a better one in the light if I get home in time later on.

My sincere apologies to blog buddies. I just haven't got round to seeing anyone this week and I'm behind with my DT commenting too. I hope to catch up soon, but it could take me 5 or 6 weeks to be back in the blogging world properly. Please stay with me, I promise I will get there.

I hope your weekend is going well. Have a great Sunday.

Luv B xxxx

MAWTT challenge 68 - Halloween

Wey it's my turn to host the challenge again at MAWTT and this week I have chosen Halloween as we are being sponsored by Sarah Hurley and she gave us some papers and images to play with. Pop over to our challenge blog and you can read more about Sarah and get the link to her site.

I have used Sarah's papers and a scrap from my box. I have used glimmer mists and DIs on the backing paper and added stickles as well. The little spiders web is from a packet of Halloween confetti.

I hope you are having a great Thursday and looking forward to the weekend.

I am off on Sunday to The Stamp Attic in Wantage to do another workshop with Hels Sheridan. If the last one is anything to go by, we'll have a great time.

See you soon.

Luv B xxxx


Challenges to have fun with -
Fussy and Fancy - Halloween
Everybody Art - Halloween
Crafts and Me - Halloween
Creative Cottage - Halloween
Stampin' Royalty - Halloween
Freshly Brewed - Purple and Black
Inktegrity - Halloween
Glitterbabe's - Halloween and sparkle

Pear Tree Designs last challenge - Autumn

This is my last card as GD for The Pear Tree Designs challenge blog.  I have been asked to stay on as a proper team member and normally I would love the chance to be able to design for another team, but at the moment my day job will be taking up most of my time up until December and I don't think it would be fair to say yes and then not be able to give it my all and put myself under pressure. I am sorry I won't be with you girls - but I will still follow what you are doing and enter the challenges when I can. Thankyou for the opportunity of being with you.

So the theme this week is autumn and I managed to get my card to fit in with both the challenge and the blog name - I used a pear which I downloaded and covered with crackle accents. I used nesties for the scalloped circle to back it on and DI rusty hinge and vintage photo. The wishes card is from 7 gypsies and the autumn backing paper was downloaded as well. The green dotty paper is from Summertime Designs and I changed the colour in PSE. The ribbon is from my stash.

Challenges that this card will fit are -
Charisma Cards - autumn colours
Digi Doodles Shop Best - Orange
Tellens Place - 2 patterned papers
Town Scrappers - Distressing
Secret crafter saturday challenge - Distressing
Kaboodle Doodles - Colours of Fall
Really Reasonable Ribbon - Fall

Snow had fallen

Hey - had you realised it's the 10-10-10 today? The 10th day of the 10th month of the 10th year in the new millenium. (Actually if we are splitting hairs it's the 11th year - but that doesn't show in the date does it??)

Welcome to two new followers - Edith and Sarah. It's lovely to see you both here. I will be popping over to see you too soon.

We (the family - Ben, Bev, Becca, Maddie, Ken, myself and Maddie's friend Carol) went up to London to for Maddie's celebration outing for her birthday (which was lat month). We went to see ......

............. and had a fantastic day. We decided to go up early as we had matinee tickets and we wandered round Covent Garden - it was just lovely looking at all the stalls and standing watching the street entertainers. I would love to do it more often, but Ken isn't keen on going into town. The show itself was fabulous. The only known actor for us was Ray Quinn (XFactor fame) but the cast and the set were excellent and really made you feel you were in the 1960's. I remember crying at the end of the film and guess what - softie that I am - I knew what was coming but I still had tears in my eyes. Anyway a great day was had by all.

Right back to the purpose of this post. I am getting a few Christmas cards made now, still not many but at least it's a start. This one was inspired by the challenge at Play date Cafe with Christmas colours but the twist is to use melon rather than red. Love the photo inspiration.

This card uses a TH stamp which I stamped in Whispers archival ink. I used Whispers again for the edge and then went over it in DIs, splattered it with water to get the blots and then stamped some TH snowflakes and embossed them in white. The border punch is MS and the backing paper came from a Christmas pad called deco designs. Stickles have been used on the edges of the image and backing paper.

Challenges I am entering this for -
Play Date Cafe - Colour Combo
Incy Wincy - Sparkly - glitter
Oooh la La - Nothing floral
A spoonful of sugar - Sparkle and shine
AIFactory challenge - Emboss
Nordsalten - Hobbyklubb - Christmas Card
Alphabet challenge - x for xmas
Stamp Something - Punches / dies

I hope you are having a lovely weekend. The sun is out here and I can see some gorgeous 'red' trees from my window - autumn is really with us now. Saying that, look out for my post tomorrow.

Thankyou for stopping by to see me and thankyou, to you all, for leaving me encouraging comments. I love reading them and coming by to visit you too.

Take care. Luv B xxxx

MAWTT challenge 67 - Anything but a card

Wow another MAWTT challenge and this time we are challenging you to make something other than a card. I love these challenges and I am building up a stash of bits to alter, and today I chose to alter a notebook. The theme has been chosen by the lovely Heidi.

This week we are being sponsored by Robyn's fetish who are kindly offering FIVE Digi images as the prize. Here is some information about our sponsor :     Robyns Fetish Things

"Hi I’m Robyn. I love to do Paper Crafting. I am a paper crafts addict. I need to go to the smoke filled meeting rooms. LOL
I sell my Digital Stamps I create and Digital Papers for Crafting. All products are 300 dpi for quality printing.
I live in Indiana with my Hubby and 12 Fur Babies. Two of them Great Big St. Bernard Clowns. I also have a Cockatoo named Annie. 2 outside cats, 3 inside cats, two more dogs and two conjures.. Call me Noah! LOL
My drug of choice is Scrapbooking but I love love Card Making and Altered Art. We have a wonderful forum for all Paper Crafting Addicts, please come and join us there for great challenges and prizes."
http://ididitcreations.com/
 

I chose to use a very simple flower digi called Flowers n Hearts whichcan be found here.
 
I imported it into Photoshop Elements to resize it and copy it several times. I printed it onto green paper to cover the note book and then onto mauve and green patterned papers. I cut out the flowers and hearts and then stuck them on. I used distressing techniques and added a TH sentiment and used some TH stamps. The black spine is just some DIY duck tape.

Hope your week is going well.

Take care. Luv B xxxx

Vintage Halloween

I have not made Halloween cards before, but I really wanted to have a go at one. I decided to look for challenges that interested me first.

Simon Says Stamp and Show have a theme of numbers this week,
Here are my numbers -

The Shabby Tea Room is vintage halloween and Town Scrapper is halloween - well you can see the black cat and the raven.
Lots To Do is Vintage - I think this looks pretty vintage in style even at this stage.
 Ink On My Fingers is to use string - yes that's there as well -
and I found a great sketch by Cindy Haffner at Flourishes.

So to combine them all, I created this -

The image is a freebie I found by googling halloween , the date is a Pink Paislee Impressions stamp, the bats I downloaded and cut out, the blue paper is from the TH Lost and Found stack and the others were downloaded. The black border is a MS punch and I ran it through the TH Cracked embossing folder. I used star dust stickles round the edge of the image and distress stickles on the date, which was coloured in using my promarkers.

Other challenges to have fun with -

If the shoe fits - Orange

Sweet Stampin - Punches

The Crafty Pad - Spooky

{Cupcake Inspirations} - Halloween

Paper Sundaes - Something from your stash

Stamptacular - Five layers

Incy Wincy Designs - Sparkly glitter

Creative Belli - Numbers

Simon Says Stamp - Halloween

By the cute and girly - Spooky

Digi Doodle Shop - Orange

I did It Creations - Spooky

Meljen's Designs - Halloween

Treehouse - Spooky colours

Male card

Last week, while away with Mum, I used the evening time to make some cards. I have no male birthday cards in my collection and decided to take some images of vintage motor cars with me that I had downloaded. This is one of the cards I made. I stamped the clockface and the sentiment is from flower soft. I also used TH tissue tape and ribbon. The backing paper is another printed from a download. I must write where from when I print them off.

This is perfect for the challenge at My Time To Craft Challenge  - Motor Madness, Creative Inspirations - Birthday and Allsorts challenge - Travel/holiday.

The sun is streaming through my window today, and it looks as though we are going to have a fabulous sunset this evening.

I must jump in the shower as I am off out to dinner tonight.

Have a good evening. Luv B xxxxx

Pear Tree Designs Challenge 20

Monday, Monday .....

.... and I have to go to work today, so this is a scheduled post.

I hope you are all well at the beginning of the first full week in October - how many days till Christmas?

This is my third week as guest designer for Pear Tree Designs. I hope you have been able to go over and have a look at their challenge blog and take part in these challenges.

The challenge theme today is 'Good Luck' and while I was away last week I made a few cards and this is one of them. 

I remember seeing a card with a four leaf clover on it made with hearts and thought this would be a great idea to use. The hearts are cut using a provo craft die and as you an see I used DIs and stickles on them. I didn't have any letter diecuts with me so I actually drew 'luck' by hand and cut them out and used rub-on letters for 'good'. I used a TH 'on the edge' scallop die and papers from my box of bits.

Challenges to have fun with -

Lots to do - Vintage
Paper Sundaes - Something from your stash
Oh La La - Nothing Floral

Have a great day and thankyou for stopping by to see what I have been doing. If you have left me a comment, thankyou, I love looking to see who has popped in.

Luv B xxx

Compendium of Curiosities week 16

Hi there  everyone - how has your weekend been? Have you had the torrential rain that seems to have swept the whole of the UK? If you are somewhere else in the world I hope the weather has been treating you better than it has us at the moment.

Well I had to miss week 15 of the Compendium of Curiosities challenge as I was away with Mum, but I certainly got stuck in this weekend to produce something for week 16. Oh my, how quickly the weeks go by. So pop over to see the lovely Linda at her blog, Studio L3, to see what the challenge has been about and this time it lasts for 2 weeks so you will still have time to enter. Don't forget these are all based on the fabulous book by Tim Holtz.

This week it is to create something using the wrinkle free distress technique on page 33. The instructions are so easy to follow and this is a great little technique and one I experimented with on Hels workshop last month.

I followed the technique to make this tag and the colours I used are Barn Door, Mustard Seed, Crushed Olive, Vintage Photo, Forest Moss and Chipped Sapphire. The trees, snowflakes and birds are all TH stamps and the snowman is a Melissa Frances sticker.

The trees have been embossed with a glitter effect embossing powder. I sanded the snowflakes and edge of the tag to distress and fade them and added white pen to them, the trees and the grass.

Challenges to have fun with -

Studio L3 - Wrinkle-free distress

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Distressed and sanded

Daring Cardmakers - Christmas

Lots to do - Vintage 

Monday tomorrow - so have a good week.

Take care, luv B xxxx