Crafty Catz Challenge - Ribbon Pleating

Good morning crafty folks, it's Friiiiiday!! and that means it's time for a new challenge at Crafty Catz (and also means last day of my working week and the weekend to look forward to).

This week our challenge is Ribbon Pleating, so we want to see ribbon pleating somewhere on your creation.  I got slightly carried away making my card and managed to cover one side of my pleated ribbon in flowers, luckily you can just see the other side lol.

We have a fab sponsor this week in Crafty Ribbons who are offering a great prize to our winner, so do pop along to Crafty Catz  and join in the fun.

Here's my DT card for the challenge.

I went with a shaped card today so my card is a little smaller than usual as I don't yet have an A4 die cutting machine and make do with my trusty Cuttlebug (a large machine is on my Christmas list btw of you're reading this Santa :D )

The papers (what you can see of them) are gorgeous ones from Pion Design, Vintage Garden collection. The dies used to cut the card and the first layer are from Go Kreate and the others are Stately Circles from Spellbinders. I've used some Aged Rose frantage on the cream  one.

The image is a Tilda rubber stamp called Tilda in Havana, she looks very decadent and vintage I thought.  I've coloured her in Copics and added a little glamour dust for sparkle.

Skin: E000, 00, 21, 11, R11, 20

Hair: E50, 51, 53, 57

Dress, shoes and cigarette holder: R81, 83, 85, 11, W0, 2, 5

Flowers are a mix from WOC and The Ribbon Girl and all the lace and ribbon and pearls are from The Ribbon Girl also.

A close up of the bow to try and show the subtle sparkle a bit better, this really is lovely ribbon.

I've decorated the inside quite simply, just using the coordinating papers from the collection.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Cutie Pie Challenge #51 Anything goes 

Paper Playtime #17 Use Pearls

Crafty Sentiments Make it Girly

Die Cuttin Divas #130 Just Because

7 Kids #81 ATG With a Twist of Alcohol Marker

Hanna & Friends #179 Bingo (everything but buttons)

Marvellous Magnolia #42 Add Metal (Frantage, Pin & Brad)

Addicted to Stamps Shabby/Vintage

MDUC Bingo (Pearls, Frantage, Flowers)

Divas by Design  Lovely Lace

Well that's it from me today, this post is scheduled as I'm at work, so hopefully it will do it's thing. Do check out the rest of the teams designs, they really are fab.   I'll pop by this evening when I get home to check out your entries. :) xx

Hopscotch Tilda in Yellow

A quick post from me.  I've been busy crafting today as the weather has been dismal and thought I'd make a card for a few challenges.

There's quite a few 'Back to School' Challenges around at the mo, but here's my dilemma...my children are grown up and finished with school, uni etc and they don't as yet have children of their own and I don't in fact know anyone of my friends that really has school age children or grandchildren.  So I've been kicking my heels a bit on this one as I didn't really want to be sitting on a card that I wouldn't be able to use/sell/giveaway lol.

After a lot of thought I came up with this card.  It has Tilda playing hopscotch which I used to love to do in the playground at school (probably showing my age there lol) and I found a lovely quote regarding education which I used but is ambiguous enough that it can be used for a general card, and I used a tab die cut...oh and the card is in yellow and beige because my school uniform was yellow and brown and we used to wear yellow dresses in the summer....which only say 'school' to me I guess but it's my interpretation :)

I was going to add a lovely yellow mini bulldog clip to the card to, but when I started putting it all together I discovered there really wasn't the room and it would just look tagged on. Anyway I'll stop waffling and get on with sharing the card lol.

I really love the way this turned out in the end.  I think the colours work well together and doesn't Tilda look sweet?

I used some Spring Basics DP papers from Maja, distressed with Tim's tool, DI in Walnut Stain and some white acrylic paint and then all layers were stiched by hand.

The quotation was typed out and printed off then cut into strips which I then gave a coating of Glossy Accents.

I've used several Dies, a Joy Craft butterfly border, Doo hicky Tag and La La land lacy border and tab. There's a little frantage in shabby white on the corners which is hidden mostly lol, and more on the yellow corrogated card behind the image.  I've also used a doily and some cheesecloth.

Love this image with her little pitails bouncing as she jumps.  I've used my Copics as usual to colour her up.

Skin: E11, 21, 00, 000, R20

Hair: E40, 41, 43, 47

Dress Y23, 02, 00, 000 (not an ideal group of yellows for blending but that's what I have so far in my collection)

Shoes and trim: E41, 43, 47

I've decorated the inside to complement the outside as usual. I added a bow in sparkle ribbon to match the ribbon on the front, since there was no room for a bow on the outside lol.

The flowers used are from The Ribbon Girl as are the ribbon and pins and the seam binding on the heart tag, which pulls out to display a small sentiment.

The lace which you can just see under the flowers (most of it got covered up doh!) is from stash, I think I rescued it from an old dress before it was recycled.

I finished off with some pearls and some liquid pearls.

I hope you've enjoyed my card as much as I enjoyed making it.  I'd like to enter it for the following challenges:

Stamp and Create with Magnolia - Back to School

Cute Card Thursday  - Back to School

Marvellous Magnolia - #41 Lots of Lovely Layers

You, Me & Magnolia  - Anything Goes

Fussy & Fancy - #96 Back to School

Magnolia Down Under - #211 Tic Tac Toe (Pearls, Frantage, Flowers or Pearls, Dies, Lace)

Die Cuttin Divas - #129 Back to School

Paper Playtime - Use Pearls

Well it's quite late now so I'm off around blog land for a bit to visit and comment before bed :) xx

Saturated Canary Spritz Criss Cross

I hope everyone in the UK is having a good Bank Holiday weekend so far, shame about the weather, but that seems to be tradition for a holiday weekend lol, I hope all non UK peeps are having a great weekend too, hopefully with better weather than us!

My scheduled post for Crafty Catz went off ok yesterday and all the team members have been just wondrful, popping by my blog and leaving me wonderful and encouraging messages, they're soooo supportive so big hugs to all my DT crew there and a huge thanks :) xx  Do stop by the blog here and give them some love and join in the fun too if you want, we have some great prizes to be won in our latest challenge.

I have a card to share today, I'm gradually working my way through my Christmas cards, slowly but surely...but mostly slowly hehe, with luck I'll be done by December.

I decided to make another Criss Cross card, using some of my  Whimsy Winter Blues pack I'm nearing the end of.

Unfortunately the light was horrible when taking these photos, so since I don't have lamps I've had to resort to flash in some.  

The image is a Saturated Canary digi by Krista Smith called Spritz, isn't he absolutely adorable?  Love those knees and the little round belly lol.  I had a lot of fun colouring him in with my Copics.

Skin : E000, 00, 21, 11, R20

Hair, Wings and Shorts : BG 57, 23, 10, 0000, B12

Boots, Hat and Candy Cane: E43, 41, 57, R27, 24, 22, W2, 0, BG0000, 10, 23

I glittered up his wings with plenty of Glamour Dust and gave the Candy Cane a coating of Glossy Accents, but the gloss doesn't really show up in the photos.

This is a view of the inserts that are inside the card, you can see a bit of the reverse of the card behind them.

The larger insert has plenty of space for a message to be written and I also made a gift card tag, so the card really can be a present.  The stamp on that is from a set of 6 by Hero Arts I got from Sir Stampalot recently, I thought they'd be really good for all sorts of Christmas stuff as they're nice and small.

Here's a cose up of my flowers, I glittered them with Glamour Dust to make them look like they were frosty, i used Stickles on the large snowflake die behind the image for a similar effect.

All the ribbon, flowers and that gorgeous lace are from The Ribbon Girl.

I'm going to enter this card for the following challenges:

Fashionista - #19 Christmas

Papertake Weekly - Flower Power

Cutie Pie Challenge - #51 Anything Goes

Crafts & Me - #139 Anything Goes

Sweet Stamp - #131 Anything Goes

I do hope you enjoyed my share for today, despite the poor quality of the pictures. It's still cold and miserable out there so you may see another from me tomorrow and that still leaves me time to work on my next DT card!

Have fun with the rest of your day, whatever the weather :) xx

New Challenge at Crafty Catz

Good morning folks, it's finally Friday (and yay a long weekend as it's Bank Holiday Monday in the UK:)) and I'm here with the latest challenge from Crafty Catz. The theme this week is Stitching, with the added option of Material.


It's all very exciting because it's my very post as a design team member for Crafty Catz. 
Actually it's my very first time as DT member ever!!  So I'm very excited and nervous at the same time. The team at Crafty Catz are such a great bunch, so friendly and helpful and I don't want to let them down...and just to add to my stress level I'm at work, so this is a scheduled post...my very first scheduled post, so I hope everything works as it should lol.

Anyhoo, enough of my drivel and on with the challenge.  

We have two fabulous sponsors this week, 
Kenny K and Marianne Designs.
  

If you choose to take up the extra option of material along with the stitching, you'll be entered into both prize draws,  but do please remember to note which material you've used in your projects.  If you just choose the stitching option you'll be added to the second draw only. 
They really are great prizes so pop over to Crafty Catz and check it out.

Kenny K very kindly provided some wonderful images for us to use for this challenge, but I actually had this fab image of his called Captain Locke, sitting in my digi downloads folder that I bought an age ago and have been dying to use so this was perfect for me.

Here's what I made.

I used kraft cardstock as my base and the DP is Far and Away from Teresa Collins, I was going to go for something a bit more Steampunk, but didn't have quite what I needed, oh well there's always next time and I really like the way this turned out in the end. 

I've used real stitching around the outer edge of the card and around the circle framing the image and my material is cheesecloth, which just softens the card some and makes it look a little more vintage.  I inked up all the layers with DI in Antique Linen.

Isn't this Kenny K image lush?  I really enjoyed colouring up this bombshell with my Copics, though I must admit she took me ages to do.

Colours used were:

Skin & Lips: E11, 21, 00, 000, R20, 11, 14, 24.

Hair: E50, 51, 53, 55

Clothes and accessories: E40, 41, 43, 57, 25, 29, R22, 24, 27, Y23, 28, W0, 2, 3, 5, 7

I masked her off and stamped a bit of a background with post marks and a postcard stamp in Antique Linen Distress Ink and finished off with a little Liquid Pearls in Platinum.

I decorated the inside as usual to complement the front, using that postcard stamp in full to create a space to write a message.

The lovely ribbon is from from The Ribbon Girl and I accented the red from her outfit with the thin ribbon, the heart pins and the poppy.  I don't usually put flowers on cards for men, but since she's dressed in a military manner and poppies are a flower with strong military associations I thought it worked using just the one.

Dies are La La Lands, Spellbinders and a Magnolia Doohicky Tag.
*This card has now been sold*

So that wraps up my first ever DT card, I hope you liked it and do please pop over to Crafty Catz to check out the rest of the DTs fabulous designs and try your hand at this challenge, we look forward to seeing your wonderful creations and there are 2 fantastic prizes and some Top 3 Badges to be won.

Right now I'm sitting in work nervously wondering if Mr Blogger has been kind and this post has appeared on schedule lol.

I'll pop by this evening and check once I'm home from work and take a look and check out the early bird entries. 

I'm entering this card in the following challenges, but I won't be able to actually add my linky till I get home from work.

Wild Orchid Crafts #83 Anything Goes
A Creative Romance - Masking
BunnyZoe's Crafts - Bingo (Tag, Pearls, Charm)


Have fun crafting!! :) xx

Saturated Canary Patches in Red

A very quick post from me today, it's been a very busy work day for me today and I have tons to get done this evening, but I managed to finish up this card that I started last night.  The light was definitely going by the time I took these pics, so they're not the best.  

I fancied having a go at the colour challenge at The Ribbon Girl this week which is Red.  I bought a sheet of double sided 12 x 12 paper from MME in the sale at Dies to Die for quite a while back, and I really wanted to use it on something as it also had a really nice sentiment on it.

However when I made the card up the image and the sentiment were just too big to fit on the front together, and while I toyed with the idea of putting the sentiment on the inside, I really wanted to make it part of the main design of the card.  So I cut the sentiment into sections, rolled them around a pokey tool to shape and then brushed them with Glossy Accents to give them stability and make them shine.

Papers were all distressed with a Tim Holtz tool and Walnut Stain DI with a little brush of red stickles on the edges of the DP.  I used some scraps of old First Edition papers to complement the MME one.   I used the red stickles on the wings too for sparkle, but I'm not keen on the effect tbh, I prefer my good old Glamour Dust lol.

The gold decorative pieces were cut with a Spellbinders accent die and then embossed with 2 coats of old gold embossing powder.

The image is Patches from Krista Smith at Saturated Canary, I chose her because I thought she'd go really well with the paper, well that and she's gorgeous so not much excuse needed lol I think she has a slightly circus look on this card with the banners and colour scheme, but maybe that's just me.

She's coloured in Copics as usual.

The inside has been decorated in keeping with the front.

A side view of the layers.  I was going to add some lovely red flowers to the card, but by the time I had the image and banners on, there just wasn't room without covering stuff up, so I left them off.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

The Ribbon Girl - August Colour Challenge - Red

Saturated Canary - Winged Things

Stampin' for the Weekend - Butterflies

Craftin' Boutique - Anything Goes

Sketch N Stash - #119

Well that's it from me for this evening, it's getting darker earlier now which always seems to make the evenings seem shorter...still it's a long weekend to look forward to with the Bank Holiday and I found out today  that I still have 2 days holiday allowance to be taken before the 10th September so win!! :)

Enjoy your evening folks, I'll be back here later this week :) xx

Gucci Tilda

Afternoon folks, hasn't it turned out to be a wonderful day? The weather is brill, my migraine is pretty much gone now so I'm feeling very happy and to ice the cake I made the top 5 in the Magnolia Only Challenge with my recent Black & White card here .

I have a card to share today, it should have been finished yesterday, but I was very slow with the head and stomach as they were and didn't quite finish it.  But that was remedied this morning and I'm able to share it with you now :)

This is a new stamp I got only recently and this is the first time she's been inked up.  Alphabet Challenge are doing N this week for newest stamp so that worked for this one and Time for Magnolia are doing Sun, Sea and Beach and I combined that with CLP's Sketch and Addicted to Stamp's Shabby/Vintage gave me the inspiration I needed (and believe me with my head I needed inspiration yesterday lol) for this card. For the colour and feel of the card I took some inspiration from the MDUC from the sky the flowers, table and pots.

This is what I came up with.

I used kraft cardstock as my base and some of the lovely Maja spring basics collection along with a piece of Magnolia Vintage Blue Ink roses.  All the papers are distressed with Tim's tool and some Walnut Stain DI, and they've all been stictched by hand.

The ribbon and that gorgeous lace are both from The Ribbon Girl. Flowers here are mostly from The Ribbon Girl except the blue roses and daisies which are from Wild Orchid Crafts.  I normally brush my flowers with white acrylic paint when I'm going for the vintage/shabby look, but I didn't feel that would look right with all the cream and beige here, so I had an experiment and brushed them with some liquid pearls in Platinum, which looked fab, but sadly doesn't show up in this pic, though you can see the effect much better in the 'arty' close up a few pics below.

The stamp used is Gucci Tilda from the newest Sea Breeze collection.  I've coloured her in Copics (no surprise there lol) . Not overly pleased with the hair, I find this wavy style the hardest to do, straight and curly is fine but this style tends to baff me a bit heh.

Hair : E41, 43, 55, 57, 29

Skin: E000, 00, 11, 21, R20, 11

Trousers: B000, 12, 14

Shirt: W0, 2

Bag and contents: E41, 43, 29, 25, B000, 12, W0

Sand, Sea and Sky: E41, 43, 55, B000, BG0000, B12

The starfish is a little button from my stash with the back cut off and brushed with some liquid pearls in Platinum.

I used one of my Spellbinders nestie circles to cut her out and mounted her on some blue cardstock cut with another Spellbinders die, Stately Circles.

I decorated the inside fairly simply to complement the front.

Here you can see the liquid pearls on the flowers a bit more.  The effect is subtle, but it does show up more than this off camera.  I brushed the metal corner I used with liquid pearls also and finished off the whole with some decorative pearls.

I hope you like my share for today, I'm adding this card to the following challenges:

Time for Magnolia - Sun Sea & Beach

CLP - #61 Sketch 

Alphabet Challenge - N, Newest Stamp

Addicted to Stamps - Shabby/Vintage

Magnolia Down under - #210 Inspirational Picture

Lovely hAnglar or Sweet Magnolia -#76 Punches or Dies

Creative Corner Challenges - Anything Goes

That's it from me for now, I'm off to go tidy up my crafting corner and see if I can whip something up for The Ribbon Girls colour challenge which is red this time.

Have fun! :) xx

New Things

Just a quickie from me today, I'm suffering my first migraine for almost a year and whilst it's certainly not the worst I've ever had, it's slowing me down lol.

I've won a couple of challenges this week, a nice voucher from winning at Tilda's Town and a lovely top 3 Badge from the Alphabet Challenge, so I'm a very happy crafter atm :)

I may have a card to share later or tomorrow but for now I thought I'd just show something I've been experimenting with today.

Firstly I have to say this is very very basic lol, I just wanted to try my hand at something different from a card and I'd seen a few altered candles and felt I'd like to give it a try.

This is what I ended up with on my first try, it's not decorated (and won't be lol, this is just my first 'draft' if you will) and like a complete spanner I didn't check the size of my candle and thought I had something a bit taller lol.

So she only just ....and I mean JUST, fitted on the candle.  This was all about the new to me, I freaked at the thought of trying to colour on tissue paper lol, so I printed out a digi on some very thin marker paper.

Well...first the stupid thing got stuck in the printer and I had to end up taping it to a thicker bit of paper to go through....1st hurdle tackled and conquered.

When I sat down to colour....oh my...colouring on the special marker paper if completely different to colouring on Copic or Neenah card....the ink stays wet for ages and blending...well it seems to me that it either mixes completely or you end up with much less of a gradual variation then normal, I did not get it at all, more practice is definitely needed...or maybe I was using the wrong side of the paper...I will have to experiment and find out.  Anyway I managed to get her done even if she isn't up to my usual standards, it's an experiment right?

Ok so image coloured and cut out, candle, greaseproof paper and heat gun at the ready..this is where I discovered my candle wasn't as tall as I'd thought, and several 'not for public hearing' words were muttered (it's ok I have no young children and I'm on my own today so no damage done lol).

Holding the greaseproof paper tight around the image and candle proved a little problematic at times, but only because I was a numpty and the image was large so was touching top and bottom.  Other than that the technique of actually getting the image on the candle didn't seem that hard and was quite fun.

I didn't decorate any further with ribbon, lace or flowers, as I was just trying the technique and anyway there was no room on my too small candle :P

To sum up?  I tried something new, I had fun, I know where I need to ractice and what mistakes to avoid next time, so watch this space, I may have have a fancy decorative candle to show you some time in the future, but I thought you might be interested in seeing that projects don't normally end up perfect from the first try.  

Don't be afraid to try your hand at something new or different, you're bound to make mistakes the first time, but that's how we learn, you'll most likely have fun and hey....who knows where it may lead you.

Have fun!  :) xx

Tilda in Black & White

With my visitors safely back in London, I had the chance to have a look around at some of the challenges out there at the moment.  I really liked the sound of the Magnolia Down Under challenge for this week which is Black & White.  I recently made a wedding card in grey/silver and white and loved the way it turned out, and Creative Inspirations are also doing a Monochrome challenge, so this challenge appealed to me a lot....but....this time I thought I'd go the whole hog and colour the image completely in b&w including skin and hair.  

The image I chose (it had to be a Magnolia stamp since it was a Magnolia challenge) was Tilda Binding Flowers.  I do love the Tilda & Edwin rubber stamps, they always have such cute images and always stamp clean & clear.

I use Momento ink in Tuxedo black as I'm personally not a huge fan of the 'no lines' method.

She's coloured as I usually do in Copics, here are the colours I used:

W7, 5, 3, 2, 0

After colouring her up I added some sparkle with Glamour Dust. I really like the way the final coloured image looked, and for once I could colour up the image ahead and not worry about choosing the paper till after.

Simply Magolia are running a 'Sketchy challenge atm, so I decided to use that as some inspiration for making up my card, keeping to the B&W theme.

This is what i came up with.  I think the finished card has a lovely vintage feel about it.

The papers are Magnolia with a bit of DCWV Blackberry stack. All the papers have been distressed with a Tim Holtz tool and some white acrylic paint, plus some DI in Black Soot and stickles in Silver on the edges.  I added some sticting to a few of the layers.  The frame is Spelbinders Stately Circles, I got this die only recently, from Sir Stampalot, really pleased as I've been waiting for it as it seemed to be out of stock everywhere! I backed the image with a little cheesecloth to soften the card a little.  The brad up in the corner was originally clear, I coloured it with my copics and then brushed it with some sliver stickles, I really like the finished effect. I added a little shabby white frantage to the bare corners with a little crushed glass glitter mixed in.

The flowers are from WOC, I've given them the usual white acrylic paint treatment and a tiny bit of stickles.  I added some lace from The Ribbon Girl, everything else is from stash.

I decorated the inside of the card to complement the outside, and that's my card finished.  I hope you like it, do leave me a comment if you do, I love to see that you've dropped by.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Magnolia Down Under -#209 Black and White

Simply Magnolia - Sketchy

Magnolia-licious - Lacy Lace

Magnolia Mania - Bingo (Pearls, Stitching, Brads)

Marvelous Magnolia - Anything Goes

Inky Chicks - Lovely Lace

Creative Inspirations - Monochrome

Rather a lot of challange entries, think that's a record for me lol.

I'm enjoying my little holiday and getting some extra time to craft :) I've already sorted my image and papers for my first DT card for Crafty Catz (so excited and nervous about the first one lol) and will make that card this week though obviously you won't get to see that here until the challenge goes live on 23rd August, so watch this space hehe.  I hope you enjoy your evening, crafting or otherwise, have fun!  :) xx

A Special Birthday

In case you're wondering where I've been the last few days, it was (my daughter) Marie-Clair's birthday on Sunday and she came up from London with her boyfriend  Stephen to spend a few days with us, so I had no time to blog other than a quick visit or 2 and certainly no cards were made.  

We spent a wonderful few days, yesterday we went to Harewood house because they have a penguin enclosure there and she has loved penguins ever since she was a small child (she wanted to go in and swim with them at London Zoo when she was 2 lol). The weather was wonderful and I have the say the house and gardens were very pretty. 

The penguins have been at Harewood for 24 years this August, and since that's how old Marie-Clair was on her birthday we thought that was quite cool.

Anyhoo, as you know from previous posts, I made her a birthday card but couldn't post it before as she keeps an eye on my blog lol.  But Marie-Clair loved the card and now that she's seen it and taken it home with her I have the chance to share it with you here.

The papers are Maja, Crea Diem, this is my absolute fav collection at the mo, sooo pretty, though there is a little piece of Maja Spring Basics on the inside too.  I really love the pink with the grey.

The image is by Krista Smith, it's a Saturated Canary Digi, Nevaeh.  I think this must be my favourite image by her, it's very beautiful, but then I love them all.

She's coloured in Copics:

Hair E50, 51, 53, 25

Dress,tights and shoes: R81, 83, 85, W1, 2, 3, 5, 7

I added a little Glamour Dust to her petticoat for sparkle.

I decorated the inside of the card to match the front.  All papers have been distressed with a Tim Holtz tool, stitched and the edges inked with Black Soot DI.  I inked the edges of the die cuts too.

Lots of layers to this card, the Dies used are from La La Land Crafts for the doily and lace edges and the tabs, the oval is a Spellbinders nestie and the butterflies are from Memory Box. The heart tag that slips in behind the image is a Doo Hicky one from Magnolia. The lacy die cuts all had a light brushing of white acrylic and the top layer had a swathe of frantage in Aged Rose.  All the flowers were from WOC or the Ribbon Girl, they've been liberally daubed with white acrylic paint as has the metal butterfly on the inside of the card.

 The tag was stamped with a butterfly stamp and I used a couple of small butterfly stamps the edge the oval, I can't remember who they're from, I've had them a long while. The pink pearl trim and the twine is from The Ribbon Girl again and the charm is one I picked up randomly on my travels. The pearls were once again coloured with my Copics to match the card.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly - Occasion-ally

Cute Card Thursday - Die-ing to Punch

Copic Marker Euope - #20 Favourite Colours

Bunnyzoe Crafts - Bingo (Diecuts, Sparkle, Stitching)

Crafty Sentiments - Dies & Punches

7 Kids College Fund - #80 Anything Goes with a touch of Vintage

I now have the next 4 days to myself before I go back to work, so lots of time to craft :) xx