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Thursday 30 June 2016

A Year in Crafting - June

Phew made it .......just. It's still June June right, even in Australia? So just in time for the next instalment in my journal of my crafty year. I hope I haven't bored you all too much so far!

First out I just need to say ....where on earth did June go?!
I mean one moment it was May and the next we're suddenly hurtling towards July full pelt....what's all that about?

So as you may have guessed by that, June has, in some ways, been a bit of a struggle for me. 
I'm had several times this month where I've just sat at my desk, staring at pretty papers and stamps and just not had a clue where I was going to start.  What do you do when this happens? Sometimes I look through Pinterest, but I must admit I was just scared to lose the time this month, Pinterest is like some kind of weird time dimensional black hole where I sit down for 20 minutes with a cuppa and then look up and 2-3 hours have passed.....

So what I did was I turned to my own past makes and looked through some older cards I'd made, thinking about how I'd do them differently now...because we all grow and progress and change. Crafting I find is quite fluid and changeable. As we learn new things our style often changes, even if that's subtly. I think that's a good thing as it helps prevent boredom and stagnation.

So what have I been making? 



 I seem to have made a fair amount of wedding and baby orientated stuff this month, even if some of it won't appear on my blog until July. I guess it's that time of year, lots of weddings and new arrivals. As well as cards I've been playing around with some mini albums,(also not on the blog yet),  and ..... I finally bought myself a Cinch. I've wanted one for the longest time, but I don't jump feet first into expensive pieces of kit, so I had to convince myself I would get the use out of one first lol.

Anyways, I treated myself to one  and it's lots of fun to play with so expect to see notebooks and things from me soon.

I've continued making lots of cards with no stamped or coloured images, as well as my usual stamped cards.  I'm still finding these a lot of fun to make and play around with.

I've also been playing with laser cut chipboard, these are so on trend currently. The Ribbon Girl has started stocking these now and oh my they're pretty, and so much fun. You can use them as they are, you can cut them up, you can ink them with ink pads, colour them with distress ink markers, emboss them with frantage or embossing powders, gesso them, paint them etc. and all these things give them a completely different look that makes them really versatile. They are a great alternative to die cuts when you're in a hurry, (or your partner has been on nights and you don't want to wake him with the sound of your die cutting machine!), but you can also mix them with die cuts for another look.

I'm really wanting to do a full on mixed media piece too, I just haven't had the time this month to work on it, but I'm been planning things out in my head.

Although things have been busy in my work and home life this month, I find that crafting wise I'm coasting, for me I find that DT's often give me a purpose to craft. What I mean by that is that I don't have a huge amount of cards to make in my personal life, I do sell them on any that I don't have a need for, but since I have a full time job and it's a hobby for me, much as i want to craft for the love of it, I find myself directionless sometimes without a 'reason' to craft. As much as it's nice to to constrict my creative flow with too many deadlines, sometimes it's easy to get in a rut too. So I've decided that the time is right to look for another DT spot. Just the one, I won't be rocking 6 or 7 again, but I've given it a lot of thought and I have room for one more which will stimulate my creativity without putting me under too much pressure.

So I'm looking for a good one and I just recently spotted something that really excites me, so more on that soon I hope.

That's about it for this month, I hope you've managed to stay awake throughout my meanderings.


Until next time, happy crafting! 




Tuesday 28 June 2016

Saturated Canary - Tilly


Evening! I'm dashing in with a quick post for Deep Ocean Challenge, we have a new theme for you to enter and it's

Colours of Summer

 I've had this Saturated Canary digi in my files for a while now (along with MANY others) and I thought it was about time she got coloured up and onto a project.

As usual I turned to my Distress Ink markers to colour her up, I really must crack out my Copics again soon, these days they are quite neglected and only seem to do gem colouring duty etc, and I won't mention the full set of Primacolor pencils that the OH bought me for my birthday and I've barely played with because of course I need the time to sit down practise using them!

I used this very pretty paper - Vintage Time from Craft and You, love the colours in this and I thought they were lovely summery colours to fit the theme.




5 mm Clear S/A Gems
2 mm Clear S/A Gems

I'm selling this card in my Etsy shop, you can get there by clicking the icon below.

ETSY

I do hope you can join in with our challenge, there's a lovely prize to be won from our sponsor



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Monday Candy Winner number 3

Morning!
I'm a little late, this was supposed to go live last night, but I typed it up and saved it and rushed off to make dinner thinking I'd hit publish but oooops...

Time for the winner of my 3rd Monday Candy - Candibean -Hold Tight.

As previously my OH was my random number generator lol, picking a number between 1 and 20. 
He chose 9 and that is........


Congrats Lorraine. please contact me at linda.levoir@gmail.com with your snail mail and I'll get it posted out to you. You have 1 week to claim your prize.


Thank you to everyone who entered and don't forget you till have another week to enter my 4th Monday stamp giveaway.

Next week I'll be changing things up a little as I will be offering a selection of goodies as a 500 follower candy as I only have 11 followers to go to reach that milestone!

Good luck :)



Monday 27 June 2016

Monday Blog Candy - number 3

*This is a pinned post until 27/6/16. Please scroll down for live posts*

Well Monday has rolled around again and i have a new stamp to give away.

This time it's a Candibean stamp called Hold Tight.

This is a brand new never been inked stamp.


If you would like the chance to win this stamp, you just need to be or become a follower and to leave me a comment below. 

If you would like to help me reach my 500 follower goal by sharing this post, I would be very grateful. but it isn't necessary to do so to be eligible to win the stamp.

I'll draw the winner of week 2's stamp tonight when I get home from work.

Have a great Monday!


Thursday 23 June 2016

Viola


Hi everyone. I have another vintage style card to share with you today. this one is made with papers from the Pion Design, Linnaeus Botanical Journal Collection.

I inked and distressed my papers before layering them and adding lots of lovely embellishments from The Ribbon Girl

I inked the chipboard frame and then cut and pieced it behind my resin frame, love that they are so versatile like this.


The resin frame is actually painted with gesso and then rubbed with a little distress ink added with the tip of my finger, just to age it slightly.

Monday 20 June 2016

Monday Blog Candy Winner - Week 2


Evening all!

A quick post from me tonight to announce the 2nd winner of my weekly blog Candy 'Ducky'.

As before I have used my partner as my random number generator to choose a number between 1 and 20 and he chose 13

That's you Sanja

please email me your snail mail to linda.levoir@gmail.com and I'll get it sent out to you in the post.

As usual if the prize has not been drawn after a week I will do a re-draw.

Congrats Sanja and good luck to everyone entering this week's stamp giveaway.

Hugs


Sunday 19 June 2016

Lee Holland - Teddy Best Friends

Morning! Hopefully you're all having a chilled out weekend, mine was sorely needed after a busy and somewhat challenging week lol.

Today I'm here with my inspiration post for The Ribbon Girl for the new challenge over on the blog.

 As usual it's anything goes so you can use any colour you like and use any image on your project - and it doesn't even have to be a card!! it can be any craft project - card, bag, tag, 3-D project, anything just as long as you include an image!    We are delighted to welcome Kat Waskett as our Guest this month! 

For my project today I used some of the pretty new papers available at The Ribbon Girl (links can be found at the end of my post), along with a Lee Holland image from Whimsy Stamps called 
Teddy Best Friends. Isn't he just adorable?


I coloured him with my distress ink markers to coordinate with the pretty papers and I also coloured the chipboard sentiment and butterfly with my distress ink markers too.


I added some Wink of Stella to both the butterfly and the sentiment, you can see it best in the pic above.


I used the following products from The Ribbon Girl


I do hope you can join in with us.
There will be 3 winners and we'll share your projects on the blog when we announce the winners:

First prize:  £10 voucher for LOTV
Second prize:  £10 voucher for The Ribbon Girl
Third prize:  from Marianne Designs


That's all from me today, I've popped this card in my Etsy shop, just click the icon below to go there.


ETSY

Don't forget you still have till tomorrow to enter my giveaway here.

See you soon! 





Thursday 16 June 2016

A Breath of Summer


Afternoon all, I'm runing so late this week...what a week it's been, but being the kind of week it's been, I don't have the time to tell you about it!

Anyway, we have a new theme over at Deep Ocean Challenge Blog and it's

Metal or Wood.

I must admit that I've cheesed this one slightly. because I've actually used chipboard and not wood, but it looks like wood so shhhhh.



I had a play with gesso, stencils, embossing paste and all sorts on this card, it was such fun.


One of Kay Fatuala's beautiful butterflies was the perfect finishing touch for this card.


We're sponsored by 


and I've used lots of their wonderful embellishments on my card.

The Ribbon Girl products used

Craft & You Vintage Time 6 x 6 Paper Pad
Cherry Blossom White
Sweetheart Blossom Pale Lemon
10 mm Ivory Open Roses
Lily Flower Small White
Starburst Stamen White
Vintage Seam Binding Siam Pink
Park Avenue Round Chipboard

This card will be for sale in my Etsy shop later today, just click the link below to take you there

ETSY

Well that's all from me, I do hope you'll enter a card in the challenge, and while you're here, don't forget to sign up for my stamp giveaway. Just click on the featured post.

See you soon!

Monday 13 June 2016

Monday Blog Candy - Winner Week 1


I'm running sooooo late, but just popping in to announce the winner of  my Monday Blog Candy from last week.
Kimono Marci with Umbrella (w/ Sentiments) Rubber Stamp

I asked my partner to pick a number from 1 - 17 and he chose 8 ....


Please send me an email to linda.levoir@gmail.com with your snail mail, and I will get the stamp sent to you in the post.

You have one week to claim it, if by that time it is still unclaimed, I'll draw another winner.

Thanks for playing!


Monday Blog Candy Week 2

Hi everyone. I hope you all had a good weekend. I spent a lot of mine crafting as the OH was working nights

I'll be posting last week's winner this evening when I get in from work, so look out for that.

So this week I have a stamp from LDRS - Saturated Canary called Ducky. Brand new and in the original packaging.



If you would like to own this stamp, please leave a comment below. You do need to be a follower or become one. You don't need to do anything else, though I would, of course,  be very grateful if you shared the news with others.

I'll draw a winner next Monday when I post next week's stamp, and post the winner that evening.

Good luck! 



Monday Blog Candy!

*This is a pinned post, please scroll down for more recent posts*

Morning!

I've been trying to have a bit of a sort out of my crafty stuff recently and I found a lot of stamps that have never seen ink, where I have doubles or have the digi version, and some that have been inked up just once for a DT post and then packed away again. As I'm approaching my 3 year Blogversary on the 29th June, I thought it would be a good idea to give these away.

Then I thought of all of you lovelies who follow my blog, many of whom leave me lovely comments which I often don't have time to return the love (I do always visit, even if I don't comment), if I could afford to give up work, I would dedicate an hour or two each day to visiting blogs and leaving comments, but sadly work and travel to and from work takes up a huge chunk of my time, it doesn't leave a lot of time for crafting, blogging, sharing on Facebook, commenting on FB and blogs as well as time spent with family and friends and finally squeezing some time in to spend with my poor very patient and mostly understanding partner lol! One big lot of blog candy only benefits one lucky follower.....so what if instead of one BIG lot of candy I split it up?

So that's what I decided to do. Throughout June and July I'm going to be giving away a stamp every week, and because we all tend to get the Monday morning blues, I thought I'd do this every Monday.

This is just for blog followers, I'll do something separate for my Facebook and YouTube followers at another time, but this is to celebrate my Blogversary of 3 years, so it's open to followers of my Blog only.

To enter just be or become a follower of my blog (this needs to be via blogger as I can't track followers on Blogloving etc, you can follow that way too, but you need to be a blogger or google follower to count for entry), and leave me a comment below the post. I'll draw a winner the following Monday evening after I post the new stamp I'm giving away.

You don't have to do anything else, but if you could share the post or put a button on your sidebar I would be very grateful.


So the stamp I'm giving away today is a brand new never been out of the packet  La-La Land Crafts stamp called

Kimono Marci with Umbrella


Kimono Marci with Umbrella (w/ Sentiments) Rubber Stamp


So if you would like to win this stamp just leave me a comment below and I'll draw a winner next Monday.

Good luck! 





Friday 10 June 2016

Whimsy Stamps June Release Day 3 - Summer Buttercup

Wheeee!! It's Friday!!

It's the final day of the new June Release from Whimsy Stamps.

My goodness it's been a busy week at work, and the heat.....well by the time I've made the journey home I feel like a deflated  tyre, so I haven't gotten any crafting done this week. Luckily I finished my contributions to the June Release last weekend.

Anyway, this is Summer Buttercup from Whimsy's Little Cottage Cuties collection by Elisabeth Bell.

She's such a little sweetie with her adorable bunny, that I just had to make a pretty card to do her  justice.

I used some of my favourite Maja Design Papers from the Coffee in the Arbour collection and coloured her with my Distress Ink markers to match.





I used lots of goodies from The Ribbon Girl and you can also buy the 6 x 6 version of these papers there too.

Don't forget to pop across to the blog to see the rest of the gorgeous makes from my Teamies. You can enter your name for the chance to win a $25 voucher from the store too!

This card is for sale in my Etsy store, click on the icon below to got there.

ETSY

That's all from me today, but I'll see you again here soon.



Wednesday 8 June 2016

Whimsy Stamps June Release 2016 - Meredith the Mermaid

Hello! I'm so excited to be bringing you a little something from Day 1 of Whimsy Stamps new rubber release for June!

There are so many lovely new images to choose from, but today I'm kicking off with
Mermaid Meredith,
isn't she just gorgeous?!

I went for some bright colours for this one and you see those lovely papers and enamel dots? Well they are part of the new release.

You can find all the new products here.
I coloured her with my distress ink markers to match the fab papers, giving her 2 tone hair and tail.

The cute sea themed embellishments are actually charms, I just cut the loop off carefully with a pair of heavy duty wire cutters.








A close up pic to show the sparkle (wink of stella) on the tail, it's much more sparkly in real life!

The charms, ribbons, cheesecloth and aqua roses are all available from The Ribbon Girl.

I hope you like my inspiration today, don't forget to visit the blog and leave my teamies some love!

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

7 Kids College Fund #153
Addicted to Stamps #197
The Paper Shelter #252

This card is for sale in my Etsy store, just click on the icon below.


ETSY


See you next time!


Saturday 4 June 2016

Emma

Hello lovelies!  I hope you're all doing well.  I'm back from holiday now, but I think my mojo must still be in holiday mode, I'm finding it hard to apply myself to the things I should be doing.
 I've got several makes in various stages of completion lol. So to try and get myself back in the mood I thought I'd revisit an older stamp in my collection that's fun and quick to colour. Would you believe that the whole card took me less than 3 hours from start to finish? That's super quick for me!

I really need to start working my way through my stamps and digis as there are some that I've yet to ink up and some that deserve a re-visit, now if I could just find a large bottle of time!

Anyhoo, enough waffling and on with the card!

The image I used is Emma from Saturated Canary and I coloured her with my distress inks.  


Vintage Photo, Ground Expresso, Gathered Twigs (just for the eyes), Spun Sugar, Worn Lipstick and Cracked Pistachio.


I coloured the oval diamante to match with one of my Copics, see they're still useful even if I don't colour with them much now.


The paper is from the Field of Lilies 12 x 12 paper stack from Galeria Papieru, it's so fresh and pretty.


A little close up shot just to show the subtle sparkle on her dress.

I used the following Ribbon Girl products

5 mm Clear Crystals

I'm entering the following challenges:

Alphabet Challenge - G is for Girlie
Crafting with Friends #22
Crafting with an Attitude #16
Crafty Girls Creations #20
Little Miss Muffet Challenges #139
StarStampz - Hand Coloured Image

This card is for sale in my Etsy shop. Just click on the icon below to go to the shop.

ETSY


That's all from me, enjoy the rest of your day!