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

And the winner is ..............

Happy Sunday Everyone

I have been to see my sister today and had to travel back in all that rain, oh my goodness the spray was awful on the M1 and there were delays on the M25 (as usual) because of the road works. But heyho I am back now.

So onto my blog candy - I have looked through all the suggestions for what I had done differently on my 'To Do List' card. Surprisingly there were only 10 guesses - but then that means there was more of a chance for those who did have a go. Anyway ................................

What did I do that was different and new for me? Well as you know I love using my distress inks and had recently been on a workshop with Hels Sheridan to explore ways of using them, but one thing I had never done with them until I made that card was  ...............................

PAINT WITH THEM

All my colouring up of images had been with promarkers.

So who is the lucky person who guessed this - and yes there was one!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO HAZEL

Hazel said   -     "MMm struggling to see what it is. Could it be the colouring medium you have used inkpads instead of pens??????"

So well done Hazel, a box of goodies will be wending it's way to you soon and I am adding a few other bits and pieces. I hope you have fun playing with them.

See you all again in a while as I have another post I need to do to get a challenge in before tomorrow.

Luv B xxxxx

Blog Award

I want to say a big thankyou to my team-mate Hazel at MAWTT for giving me this great blog award. I have only been blogging since January and I can't believe how many blogging friends I have made. It's lovely to know there are like minded people who appreciate what you do. Thanks Hazel and I would return it back and send it to all my MAWTT team mates but since you all have it I will send it on to other friends.

Now  have to tell you seven things about myself.
1. I hate ironing.
2. I love Christmas.
3. I celebrated my 36th weddng anniversary this year. (I was a child bride.....)
4. My family, and particularly my grand-daughters, are the love of my life.
5. I work in Oxfordshire (but I don't live there).
6. Crafting has become my number one pastime since I gave up full time work.
7. I have 2 cats, both brothers. The black one is called Cimmie (starting with a 's' sound) and the dark brown is called Tinder.



Seven lovely bloggers I am sending this on to are -

Cheryl - Cheryl's creative cards and ATCs
Dawn - Dawnie's Den
Choccy - It's not Terry's It's Mine
Kathy - Purple Princess Diaries
Sarah - Sarah Wright Designs
Zoe - This Little Place
Joyce - Gram's Treasures
See you all soon. Luv B xxxxx

MAWTT challenge 66 - 'Fairies and Fantasy'

Well this is a completely new style for me, I have played with fairies (I'm often away with the fairies - if you know what I mean), but I have never dabbled with fantasy. I shall have to keep this card for Ken cos it's his favourite genre of reading material and television watching, that mixed with sci-fi.

This week we are sponsored by Stitchy Bear Stamps and you can find so many digital images and papers over at the Stitchy Bear and I Did It Creations Crafting Boutique.

I chose to use one of my friend Stitchy's stamps called Dark Angel. She is just gorgeous and because of her name and the way she looks I chose to keep her on the dark side, but used some bright yellow, mauve, green and turquoise to lift it all. I really enjoyed experimenting with another new style.

I have used Photoshop Elements again to colour in the image and printed it onto photo paper to get a more glossy effect. I used a sketch from Sweet Pea Stamps - I visited their blog to get a feel for how to approach this style. It's certainly different and for the first time I have used black soot for distress edging. I will welcome your comments, please give me the critical friend views, the good and the areas to develop, so that I can look to improve on what I am doing.

Please go over to the MAWTT challenge blog to see what my team mates have been crearing for this fabulous challenge.

Have a good end to the week, I shall be coming home tonight with Mum after we have been out for a meal.

Take care. Luv Brenda xxxxx

Celebrate - second GDT card for PTD

Welcome Everyone

It's Monday morning and my second guest designer card for Pear Tree Designs. This week the challenge is Celebration and they are being sponsored by Robyn's Fetish. Robyn is a creator of great digital images and can be found here at Stitchy Stamps and I Did It Creations Crafting Boutique.

As you read this I will be in Swanage with Mum - this post is scheduled but I will have my laptop with me and have access the internet, so I shall be able to keep up with my friends and followers blogs too.

I have made a card to celebrate friendship which could be used for an anniversary.

I seem to really be into easel cards at the moment, and thoroughly enjoyed making this one. I used a sentiment from Raindrop Echoes as the main focal point, but you can see it is a flap and underneath is this -

It is 'Cake' by Robyn's Fetish and I have used it as a digital image, colouring it in Photoshop Elements and adding the sentiment to it before printing it out on paper from the Shabby Princess. I used Nestabilities to cut out the mounts and used pumice stone DI on the edges.

This is the full card leaning back and you can see the space for writing your own words in it. A border using a MS punch has created the 'block' for the easel to stand against and a ribbon and some flowers (edged with DIs and stickles) finish it off. The papers are all from the shabby princess and I also used the victorian velvet DI.

I hope you like the shabby chic look of this one.

Luv B xxx