Tilda with Maggie the Monkey at Totally Tilda

*If you're looking for my blog candy you will find it here*

Good morning everyone, I hope you're all having a super Sunday and a wonderful weekend.  I'm feeling much more relaxed today, last week was quite stressful as I had to prepare for a job interview.....for the job I've been doing for almost 2 years.  If that sounds a bit weird, I'll explain.  I came into the job as agency staff and they finally got the go ahead to advertise the job externally (agency staff can't apply for internal jobs), so then I had to apply for my job and attend an interview up against all the others (internal and external) that applied, it was a very strange situation, but I'm pleased to say that not only did I get the post, I was told afterwards that I aced the interview and was placed far ahead of the others based on my interview performance, so now I can relax and just wait for all the paperwork to go through and I'll be in permanent employment with a proper pension and benefits yay!

But back to the reason  I'm here today, which is to share my creation for Totally Tilda. We have a new challenge up on the blog today and one that I love, it's Tilda holding an Animal, Bird or Butterfly.

I had a birthday card to make for someone special, and unfortunately they will see this before they receive it, but I just couldn't get far enough ahead on my makes to allow for postage.  Also ideally the animal would have been a cat and not a monkey, but I didn't have a Tilda with a cat, so a monkey it has to be! I did manage to make the card in her favourite colours though! This is Tilda with Maggie the Monkey, isn't she just the cutest?

I used papers from the Shoreline Treasures collection by Pion, love the subtle muted colours of these, inked the edges in Walnut Stain distress ink and hand stitched as usual with Top Stitch thread. There's a tutorial on how I do this if you scroll down to my previous post. I also popped a little cheesecloth behind my layers to soften the look.

I coloured Tilda in Copics for this card, I went a little darker with the skin to give her a sunkissed look.

Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, R20, R11

Hair: E30, E31, E33, E35

Clothes: E51, E53 (and paper pieced) B91, B93 (hair bow)

Monkey: B000, B00, B12, B14, B91, B93, E50, E51, E53, R12

I added some cream lace, cream tulle, pale blue satin ribbon, narrow ivory satin ribbon,  narrow blue velvet ribbon and various WOC flowers. I added a few ivory pearls in 3 sizes. Up on the left hand side I used the Cherry Blossom Branch die from La-La Land Crafts.

The lovely embellishment on the bow is from the Handcrafted Card Company. The Mini Postage Stamp sentiment is from Whimsy as is the matching Mini Postage Die.

Finally I decorated the inside to complement the front, using matching paper and postcard from the same collection. The sentiment inside is from the Life Stuff Sentiments by Impression Obsession.

Do pop across to the challenge blog to see the rest of the team's makes, lots of different styles to choose from and all of them gorgeous.  Our sponsor this week is 

Simon Says Stamp and they're offering our winner a wonderful prize of

So do get your entries in, we can't wait to see your creations.

Well that's all from me for today, enjoy the rest of our weekend and I'll be back tomorrow with my scheduled GDT post for La-La Land Crafts. 

Happy crafting! : ) x x 

Tilda in Lace Pants for Totally Tilda

Good Morning and happy Sunday!  If you're in the UK I hope you're enjoying your bank holiday weekend too, though I hope you're having better weather than me, torrential rain and freezing cold yesterday, I had to resort to putting the heat on and there's only one week till June! Still, at least I did manage to get some crafting done.

I'm here today with my DT post for the new challenge over at Totally Tilda, and this time we want to see Black. White and one other Colour.  You can of course use normal skin tones as well, so really a pretty easy one this week.

I've had this gorgeous paper in my stash for a while just waiting for this challenge as I thought it was perfect. One of the pages from the pack has a lovely lace pattern, so I thought I'd colour up Tilda in Lace Pants from the newest Magnolia collection and paper piece her 'Pants', it always makes me giggle a little when I see trousers called pants, cos here in the UK pants are underwear, so lace pants to me would be something pretty from Aubade lol.

The paper pad I used  is Elegant from Authentique and I used quite an ornate die Palace Oval Frame from Memory Box to mount her on. All layers have been distress with Black Soot DI and hand stitched with top stitch thread.

I coloured her up with my copics, I'm sorry I don't have the exact colours noted, but they would have been the Ws and the BGs and my go to skin colours which you can find on any of my posts with Copic colouring.

Flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and The Ribbon Girl.  The bow is made from satin ribbon also from The Ribbon Girl and the beautiful cameo is from The Handcrafted Card Company. The gems were clear, I coloured them to match the paper/image with my Copics, I love that you can do this.

Isn't this butterfly gorgeous?  They're handmade by a lady called Kay Fatula and come all the way from the US.  You can find them in her Etsy shop here, she's lovely, do drop by her Facebook page too and give that a like if you're on FB.

Finally I decorated the inside to complement the front (or and for those people who told me I spelled complement incorrectly and it should be compliment,  compliment is when you express admiration or praise, complement is when something enhances or improves the overall effect. If you're interested in grammar....and yes I can be a grammar nazi lol.....you can check it out in the Oxford Dictionaries blog here. I love language it can be so interesting....but also so confusing he he)
I'm entering the following challenges:

Magnolia Mania - #91 Paper Piecing
Addicted to Stamps #83 Bingo (lace, metal (the cameo setting), flowers

This card is for sale in my Etsy shop .

I hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday (and bank holiday weekend if you're in the UK) I'll be back on Monday with my post for La-La Land Crafts and in the meantime go check out the rest of the team's creations, here they're flippin' gorgeous!

Bye for now! : ) x x 

Midway Reminder for masking at Totally Tilda

Good morning to all my lovely followers and visitors.  I hope you are all having a fantastic weekend.

I'm here with my midway reminder for Totally Tilda.  As I've been quite busy this week, I decided to go with a simple masking this time.  I've masked Tilda with Lovely Lace Shoes,  against a Whimsy Postcard Stamp.

I adore these papers, they're Pion Flower frames and you can get them in a 12'' x 12'' sheet or as a sheet of 4 different 6'' x 6'' designs.  They're just totally yummy.  I used a mix of a 12 x 12 and 6  x 6.  The colour is one of my favourites.

Isn't Tilda so cute with the writing on her shoes?  I just love this stamp, she's been sitting unused since I got her so I'm glad I found the opportunity to ink her up.  I coloured her with Copics, one of my new year's resolutions was to learn to use different colouring mediums, and if you saw my post yesterday you'll know that I actually ticked colouring in Distress Inks off that list, so expect to see a card from me in the future coloured with them.

 I've had this metal letter charm for ages now, it came free with a magazine I bought over a year ago to while away the time on a long journey,  but it always seemed too big to use as a charm. I think it looks good here, tucked away in the flowers and goes well with the postcard and the Tim Holtz pen nib I used up in the top right corner.

I decided to accent my card with a little yellow, just to make it 'pop', using some yellow seam binding and some yellow carnations and buttons. I also coloured up some pearls with my copics to match the paper and yellow embellishments. For the inside of the card I used a piece of the 6 x 6 designs with the floral frame on.  This works perfectly to give a place to write a message.

I do hope you like my card today, don't forget to pop over and give the rest of the girls some love, they've made some pretty awesome creations, and if you haven't already done so, join in the fun with us,  All you need is to mask a Tilda on your card, if you don't have a background stamp you can use a texture stamp or even mask her with another Tilda, or Edwin etc. 

Our Prize from  Bunny-Zoe crafts.com 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, I'm off to make a card for Tuesday, see you then! :) xx

Everyday Magic at Dies to Die for.

Good morning everyone! Hope you're off to a good start for your Tuesday. I'm here with my regular inspiration post for Dies to Die for.

I thought I'd get head start on the old Valentine's cards as it's now only a month away.  Warning, this post is very photo heavy.

I have to admit I'm totally in love with this paper pad from MME, all of the designs are just divine, I like every single one, which is quite unusual for a pad, there's normally at least one you're not keen on isn't there?  It's double sided so lots of choice and they all co-ordinate so well with each other the only difficulty is in choosing which ones....well that and actually cutting into them *twitch*.

As usual I've put links to the items in the shop at the end of my post.

I've inked my papers with DI in Antique Linen and hand sewn all my layers with top stitching in various co-coordinating colours.  I like to use top stitch thread from Gutterman, it's really nice to sew with and it's thick too so you don't have to double it up to get it to show up nicely, I find I do have to with ordinary thread.

The stamp I used is by Tiddly Inks, love this image so much,  it's very versatile I think, as you can use it for so many different occasions depending on what paper you use it with and how you colour it.  Isn't she just gorgeous? This stamp set comes with 2 fab sentiments, but for this card I made my own.  I really like these mini ticket stamp sets from Whimsy, you can make pretty much any kind of message with them, they're so much fun.

Love this Tiddly Inks stamp, she's so pretty and elegant, I've coloured her with my usual Copics, colours are listed below

Skin: E11, E00, E000, E0000, R20, R00

Hair: E40, E41, E43. E44

Clothes: R32, R35, R37, R56

I love these enamel dots I used on her wings and elsewhere, they match the colours of the DP exactly and although the pic in the shop doesn't really show it clearly, 3 of the colours (the 3 I've used here) are shimmery with a touch of sparkle, lovely! I covered her wings with Stickles too and used liquid pearls around the frame which is cut using Spellbinders nestibilities. Flowers are a combination of WOC and TRG and the Ribbon is from TRG. 

I really like this little embellishment I made using the smaller heart nesties and scraps of my DP. I finished it off with an enamel dot and some liquid peards and I added some crackle paint to the top one and have even managed to catch the effect on camera for you, yay!

I've decorated the inside of my card as usual to co-ordinate with the front.

This card is for sale in my Etsy shop now.

You may have noticed that I'm only 1 away from having 100 followers now....amazing!  Since it's my birthday in less than 4 weeks now, I'll wait till then and have a bit of a giveaway to celebrate both.

Well that's it from me today, thanks for visiting,  I hope you like it and have a super crafty day

Linda : ) xx

I'm entering the following challenges:

613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes

BunnyZoe Crafts - Stitching

Copic Marker Europe - Valentine

Crafts & Me - Use a Heart

Divas by Design - Use Ribbon

Fashionista - Anything Goes

Pile it On -  Holidays/Celebrations

NEW* My Mind's Eye - Lost & Found Record It - Heirloom 6 x 6 Pad	Tiddly Inks - Everyday Magic	NEW* My Mind's Eye - Enamel Dots - Lost & Found Record It 'Heirloom'	Neenah Cardstock	Collall All Purpose Glue - 50ml
Dovecraft Hi-Bond Double Sided 6mm Tape	Stickles Glitter Glue - Crystal	La-La Land - Heart Border	Double Dot - Bashful - 12 x 12	Love Mini Tickets
Mini Ticket Die	Memento Ink Pad - Tuxedo Black	Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad - Antique Linen	Liquid Pearls - Platinum Pearl

InLinkz.com

Saturated Canary Nevaeh at Dies to Die for

Good morning to all my lovely followers old and new, I seem to have gained a few more over the Christmas hols and it gives me such a lovely warm feeling knowing my work is appreciated, so big hugs to all of you : )

Rightyho then, on to my share for today, which is scheduled since I'm back at work this week ...BOO!...but have the day off tomorrow for New Years Day...YAY!.

I'm here with my Inspiration post for Dies to Die for and originally when I started this it was going to be a Thank You card, as I'm sure that lots of us have some of those to send out to say thank you for lovely Christmas gifts, but it ended up looking so spring like I thought I'd make it non specific as it could as easily be used as a Mother's Day or Easter card as a Thank You card.

I really love the way this one turned out so I do hope you like it, I've added links to items used at the end of the post.

These papers by Maja Design are just so gorgeous I had a hard time using them lol

I've used my absolute favourite Saturated Canary stamp, isn't she pretty? I've coloured her in Copics as usual.

Skin: E11, 00, 000, 0000, R20

Dress, tights and shoes: RV95, 93, 91, G85, 82, 00, BV00, 02, 04

Hair: E50, 53, 37, 35, 21

Flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts.

The narrow white lace is from The Ribbon Girl.

The inside is decorated with the same papers to complement the front, with plenty of space to write a message.

I do hope that you have a lovely New Years Eve, I'm hoping that next year will be a little kinder to me and mine than this one has been as 2013 has been a little hard on us for some things, particularly my Dad's health so hopefully it's onwards and upwards for this year coming.

Take care and I'll see you all in 2014  : ) xx

Saturated Canary - Nevaeh	Magnolia Doohickey Die - Leaf and Swirl	Spellbinders - Nestabilities - Labels Four SM	Prima Say It In Crystals - Embellishments - All Pink	Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad - Walnut Stain
Sheer/Looped Trim Ribbon - Pink	Collall All Purpose Glue - 50ml	Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page Border Punch Set - Vintage Doily	Bazzill Self Adhesive Jewels - Clear	Maja Design - Sofiero - Enjoying the Lovely Fragrance
Maja Design - Sofiero - The Magnificent Flowerstreet	Bazzill Cardstock - Mauve Ice - 12 x 12	Love Mini Tickets	Everyday Sayings Notables 4	Maja Design - Sofiero - Strolling Down The Rose Path

InLinkz.com