Spoonful of Sukkersött: 'making my day'

Just a quick post today. This is a folder card I made last night, which is the challenge over on Sukkersött this week. This is the first time I've joined in, only because there just isn't enough time in the week to do all the challenges I would like to! Also, I have used 3 different ribbons which is the challenge over on spoonful of sugar this week.



Materials:

• Images: Hanglar girl stamp, sentiment from an Inkadinkado set which comes with circular frames
• Folder/papers: Instructions for folder card from tutorial over on Sukkersott which I have adapted ever so slightly. Paper is PM I think
• Others: ribbons, flowers and brads from stash

On the subject of making my day, I've just had the most wonderful post today - my Whiff of Joy DT packet arrived - whooohooo!!! Wait till you've seen them all ladies (9 of them in total!!), they are just all sooo scrumptious. You need to start stalking the other DT's blog as I know quite a few of us have got them (links on my sidebar, near the top) and I'm sure they'll all whip something up very soon. I would too if I didn't have to work tonight! :( Hopefully will have something to show you soon. Until then, have a rubba-tastic weekend!

Tilda& Co - 'hands' : station platform . . .

It's been a while since I've joined in with the Tilda Challenges and I have been neglecting my faceless cuties for a while. When I saw this week's challenge was 'hands' and then saw how some of the DT used clocks, I instantly had a station platform scene in my head which I wanted to do with my 2 new traveller tilda & edwin. I just think they are so 'olde worlde' looking (apart from the trainer/sneakers obviously!) that I wanted to watercolour them to give them a softer look. Here it is:

Materials:

• Images: all Magnolia stamps except the clock (from an old clear set I've never used but didn't want to get rid of - good job really!). Traveller Tilda, Edwin and the suitcases from their latest release. The bench, steel fence and brick wall from older collections
• Colouring: all watercoloured with distress inks and a touch of gold shimmer paint on the suitcase and handbag handles. Background all stamped directly onto paper using masking technique although I had to hand draw bits of the wall to finish it off. All stamped with 'Smokey grey' Versafine inkpad as I wanted more faded look.
• Papers: tore a piece of DP which had passport stamps all over it. Tickets are digital download version of the Autumn leaves 'ticketed' stamps which I got here (they do loads of gorgeous paper downloads too)
• Others: diamond glaze over clock face, ribbon, flowers, brads from stash. Used Heidi Swapp distresser round edges of image.

Here's a close up of Tilda & Edwin and the clock to show how they are raised on 3d foam pads, Edwin's is slightly thicker so stands out more.

I was going to stamp a little sentiment in top left bit of sky but decided to leave it off until I use it and then decide then.

Must also show you this lovely looking award I got off Rach :

Rules for the JAVABLU AWARD:
1. The winner can put the logo on their blog.

2. Link the person you received your award from.

3. Nominate at least 5 other blogs.

4.Before listing the nominees give a brief reason why you chose them

5. Put links of those blogs on yours.

6. Leave a message on the blogs you have nominated

Thanks Rach! I would like to give this award to everyone on my blogroll and all the DT teams I'm on, for the reasons given on the award itself - you all inspire me with your creativity and art and have all become great blogging friends and for that, I thank you! I will try and remember to mention it when I next visit you all over the coming week, but if you see this first, please feel free to take it!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Hugs,

Fri Sketchers: Naughty or Nice? & WoJ news

Fab sketch by Carole this week over on Fri sketchers. Lovely simple one which I love.

Have whipped up quick christmas card with another Whiff of Joy stamp. I love this Charlie one as the doggy is just so comical and it doesn't have to be used for christmas, even though I have!
I've not ticked the box of whether naughty or nice until I know who the recipient is!

Materials:

• Images: 'Charlie with dog' Whiff of Joy stamp. 'naughty or nice' tag from Inkadinkado clear set ( 'christmas tag wishes')
• Colouring: Promarkers and a bit of stickles. Kept it simple and have just cut out and raised image on 3d foam for a bit of dimension
• Papers: Pink Petticoat christmas download (found sheets I printed from last year!)

Talking of Whiff of Joy have you seen the latest news over on Katharina's blog? It's the long awaited release date for the range of stamps by Elisabeth Bell. The date to put in your diaries is 3rd Sep, as I just know there will be a stampede for these beauties. For details visit Katharina's blog or the webshop.

Can't wait to get my DT packet and there may even be some candy in there ;), so stay tuned! Ooo, it's just soooo exciting, must try and calm down now before hubby comes home and thinks I've gone mad :)

Also, before I go, must mention this award I got off the lovely Diane!

Thanks lovey, really appreciate it :) I've already passed this award on (here, if you're interested) so won't do it again if that's alright with you.

On the 7th day of Christmas . .

. . my true love gave to me . . . (I can hear you all humming it trying to remember :), I always get confused what goes where after '5 gold rings' LOL). . it's 7 swans a swimming.

No I've not gone mad (not totally!) but this week's CCT theme is 'in the water' and I decided to use 1 of the stamps from my PB '12 days of Christmas' clear set. This was after I was piped to my first choice of stamp by another DT (you know who you are ;/), who have all come up with fab ideas for 'in the water' and you will need to check out but not before you've read to the end o.k?

It's not an obvious or traditional christmas card but I think they make great fun cards and can be whipped up really quickly.

Not much to this card really, I wanted to incorporate the 12 days song so typed it up in powerpoint into a circle and printed straight onto A4 card which I turned into my cardbase.

Then image was just coloured (what little there!) with distress inks and cosmic shimmer (click on photo for close up) and cut and layered onto dp with my circle nesties. Sponged the edge of the circle and the card base with some red chalk to soften the edges. The '7 swans a swimming' come with the set and all the sentiments are seperate to the image which I think is brilliant as it makes them usable all year round.

That's all for now. You can pop on over to CCT now and see the other cards and the fab watery themed candy on offer this week.

(Hope you get the song out of your head . . all together now . .'5 golden rings', 4 calling birds, 3 french hens, 2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree!!!!) ;D

PTW 'stitch in time'

PTW this week is to use stiches, real or faux. I was halfway through making another Christmas card (really in the mood for them at the moment, must be the lack of sunshine) and had put it to one side as I couldn't decide on layout when this theme came up and gave me the direction I needed. I've put faux stitches around all the edges and also added some real stiches with a crochet flower (this one was made by my sister - the tension on it is far too neat and consistent to be mine! She was a sweetheart and sent me loads of examples when she sent me some patterns a few months ago.)

Materials:

• Images: 'winter charlotte with cat' Whiff of Joy stamp
• Colouring: promarkers and clear stardust pen over hat trim and cat's bell
• Papers: PM 'naughty or nice' christmas pack.
• Others: scrap pink card embossed with christmas bauble cuttlebug folder, fiskars threading border punch, SU ribbon slot punch, sizzix snowflake die, silver snowflake peel off stickers, crochet flower, ribbon, metal spacer and brad from stash

For those wondering where my ATCs have gone to, it's because there was 1 theme for the whole of Aug and I showed them all a couple of weeks ago but new theme will be up next week so check back then - it's scary how fast this month has gone, but then again, maybe not for those that have had the kids at home all this time ;), not long to go now before your little darlings are back at school!

Have been spending too much time internet window shopping (hence no card yesterday!) and have noticed lots of new christmas ranges coming out from all the various stamp companies - Ughhh, it's getting sooo hard to decide which ones to get, then just when I'm trying to prioritise I see that Penny black are retiring some of their older Christmas stamps and some are ones I've wanted but thought could wait but now I'm thinking I best get them before they dissappear and go for silly prices on ebay! Right, must pry myself away from the PC and go make some cards to justify getting more stash, LOL!

Have a good day.

PTW: Charlie & snowman

PTW challenge was a lovely sketch by Katharina, so it was only right that I used another of my Charlie stamps from Whiff of Joy, even if I am a bit late!

Materials:

• Images: 'Charlie building snowman' from 'Charlotte & Charlie' christmas range of stamps available from Whiff of Joy only. The cute snowman sentiment is from Elzybells . Flourishes round the edges of the image are from Inkadinkado xmas swirl set
• Colouring: watercoloured with Tim Holtz distress inks and cosmic shimmer paints
• Papers: Dovecraft 'winter wonderland' pack
• Others: ribbon & brads from stash. Fiskars threading water border punch and heidi swapp distresser tool used.

Tried to take close up to show shimmery-ness (I know no such word, just made it up!) of snowman but it's impossible to capture it!

Heavenly Tilda - 'peace on earth'

Oh, where does the time go? Was supposed to enter this for the Tilda & Co challenge, 'cold as ice' but missed the deadline, hence the splash of colour with the red flower (needed it to hide some adhesive I accidently got onto the acetate - grr don't you hate it when that happens?!)

Finally used one of my new Tildas, this one's 'heavenly Tilda' and the dove is Magnolia too. This Tilda is BIG, doesn't look too dainty when you stick her next to the others LOL. Been dying to use my Inkadinkado christmas flourish stamps on acetate, finally got the chance to use it for this card. Tilda (coloured with distress inks & cosmic shimmer paints) really shimmers IRL but it's o hard to capture on photo. Here's a photo of the card closed . .
Have another late card to post (for PTW) but it's well past my bedtime now, so will save that for tomorrow and will try and do some blog visits too, assuming DH doesn't get too underfoot ;p!

Fri Sketchers #15: Precious moments - congrats

Another fantastic sketch over on Fri sketchers. this one was great for big stamps so had to colour in this lil beauty I've had a while: Materials:

• Image: part of a pack of 6 foam stamps from QVC UK. (It has sold out now and isn't showing on their website anymore in case anyone was wondering, sorry!)
• Colouring: Promarkers and a little sakura stardust pen on the flower, butterfly and the girls' bows
• Papers: PM 'secret garden' pack
• Others: crochet flower by moi, ribbons, brad & charms from stash.

My sister who never passed her English the first time round back in the days of CSEs & O levels (so you can work out how long ago THAT was lol) passed her English GCSE today, whoohoo. I couldn't believe it as we are always laughing at how shocking her english grammar/spelling is at times -just goes to show it's never too late! So this card is for her as she loves precious moments too. Our 16yr old nephew slightly eclipsed her though with his 6A*, 6A & 1B :) Hope all you with 16yr olds got the results you wanted/expected.

CCT#24: 'cutie'

CCT theme this week is Bright colours which is just as well as we're sure not getting any bright sunshine. You need to check out the fab 'spiral whispers' stamps on offer this week too, if you take part (shame I can't be in the draw :/ )

Anyway, here's my card which I'm not very happy with but ran out of time. I think it's because I tried to rush it and I shouldn't have coloured all the sky in but you know when you start something and then it's too late to stop! I do love the elzybell girl though and hopefully I should have some of the christmas ones soon (you know I have a weakness for cute stamps LOL). I think they suit more simple clean layouts which is something I need to work on, especially when all my latest cards have been lots of layers and embellies it's hard to get out of that mindset.

Materials:

• Images: 'girl on swing' Elzybells stamp 'cutie xoxo' are 99p stamps from PM I think
• Colouring: promarkers
• Papers: from scrap pile but think it's originally from DCWV blossoms & butterflies stack
• Others: petite scallop nestabilities, SU word window punch, green pearlescent cardblank, flowers & brads from stash
  

Sarah Kay wkly: Charming crochet?!

Managed to take part in a Sarah Kay challenge this week (I keep running out of time!) and luckily this weeks theme was to use charms which made it easier as I didn't have to tax my lil brian to get my bits to fit a sketch! As I've mentioned I've been making more crochet flowers and experimenting with different thickness of yarn as I've been struggling to find nice thiness cotton crochet yarn in pretty colours (any suggestion anyone?). I have very thin in some pastel colours but I wanted more colours in a slightly thicker gauge but what I got is a tad too thick and gave me a whopper of a flower! However I wanted to use it so based my card round it as it matched the bit of scrap DP I had left over from the other day. Sarah Kay stamp (yeah, I've used them all now :) ) coloured with promarkers, papers are Cosmo cricket 'Honey Pie', charms and metal embellies from candy I won off Camilla (must find some more, love them!), flourishes are an Inkadinkado clear stamp set.


Did you see the 200m men's final yesterday? A-mazing!

Spoonful of sugar: WOJ charlotte decorating tree

A quick card tonight as I spent far too long glued to my pc this afternoon (and also been naughty and bought some Elzybells christmas stamps).

Here's another card for spoonful of sugar, which this week is a sketch challenge and I'm early for a change (if you knew me you'd know that's VERY unlike me!) LOL . Also you can use any brand of stamp for their challenges now so I had to ink up another of my fab Charlotte & Charlie stamps from Whiff of Joy.

Materials:

• Images: 'Charlotte decorating tree' from Whiff of Joy (see side of blog for link) 'merry christmas' from PM clear stamp set
• Colouring: Promarkers and stickles. Just realised I've forgotten to add some white gelpen highlights - oops
• Papers: DCWV christmas stack from last year. However was in Papermill yesterday and they had the matching cardstock and tag stickers (which I have used for this card base and the sentiment) at ridiculously reduced prices so it would have been silly not to get it LOL
• Others: ribbon, brads & holly embelly form stash

Right, off to watch the Olympic highlights - GB are doing so well, highly unusual for us LOL.

Spoonful sugar: secret message

Hello! Hope you've all had a lovely weekend even if we are having a non-existent summer! It's been raining on and off here and have you noticed it's turning dark earlier - how depressing!

Anyway, I've only made the one card tonight as I made the mistake of re-arranging bits on my desk and don't you find that once you start everything kinda explodes and I had a tough time trying to find homes for everything again! Didn't make any over the weekend as I've been watching the Olympics and also making more crochet flowers as I've got the hang of them now (turned out my earlier efforts weren't actually correct as I got some of the stitches wrong but don't think you can tell lol).

Enough talk, here's the card. It's for spoonful of sugar challenge which ends in about 30mins so I best get my skates on! The theme was 'a secret message' so I thought I'd make anniversary card for hubby seeing as it's our anniversary this Friday (8yrs).

The hearts swing down to reveal the secret message:
H&S images (thanks Nikki!) coloured with promarkers, cut out and raised on 3d foam. DP is cosmo cricket 'honey pie', some red glitter card and a sizzix heart die used. Added some stardust glitter pen over the spots and also faux stitching around the edges and that was it. It was refreshing to make a card that wasn't square for a change!

Hopefully he'll like it as he likes most of my cute cards, it's the 'arty' ones that I don't get much reactions too!

PB Sat #9: fly away

Real quick post today as off to work in a minute (literally!). Made birthday card for hubby's bro (who works for Cathay airline) using the PB sketch challenge this week. Have coloured using distress inks and H2os for a change, stamp is an old PB called 'fly away' . Now I must too! have a fab day.

Fri Sketcher #14: Christmas Honey

This week's Fri sketcher's sketch whilst brilliant was also a tough one for me, but got there in the end. I've turned the sketch around and instead of ribbon have used garden twine and a few more flowers to make my first christmas card with my Honey & Pip Sugar Nellie stamps by the fabby Elisabeth Bell Materials:

• Images: 'Christmas Honey' Sugar Nellie stamp from the Honey & Pip range by Elisabeth Bell from Funky Kits. christmas seal stamp from a Papermania clear set
• Colouring: Promarkers, stickles, stardust pen around flowers and various inkpads for distressing edges
• Papers: DCWV christmas stack (last years)
• Others: flowers cut from Cuttlebug die (I've been thinking about getting the EK success retro flower punch but didn't realise I had these dies which seem to do a similar job - really must use what I have more!) Fiskars threading water border punch, brads, garden twine and anything else I've missed from stash!
  

The card is shorter at the front and the scallop edge is actually inside where I have utilised the trimmed off scraps. The 2 photos below show what I mean better:

CCT23: soft furnishings

Theme this week over on CCT is soft furnishings so we want to see things like ribbon, lace, velvet, fabrics, stitching etc anything you might find on soft furnishings round the house. This is to tie in with the stamps that are on offer as candy this week (see CCT for details). The colours are much softer and muted in real life but my photo skills aren't very good!

I gave crocheting another go the other night when I had a break from making cards. Tried another pattern this time and was quite pleased with the result seeing as I am complete novice at it. So thought that would make a good starting point for my card as it fitted with the theme. Then I found a fabric brad, some dp which was faux knitted fabric, some pink velvet paper and added some ribbon and faux stitching for good measure.

Materials:

• Images: 'Reflective' Sugar Nellie stamp, Sweet Art Ebony range from Funky Kits. Tickets are digital download (from here and are the same as the stamp set by Autumn leaves just cheaper and you can resize/recolour them!) Flourishes are Inkadinkado clear set
• Colouring: Promarkers, white gel pen and bit of stickles/H20s for shimmer
• Papers: DP is K &Co, pink velvet paper from stash
• Others: pinking scissors, Heidi swapp distresser, silver gelpen for faux stitching round edges. crochet flower by me, everything else (metal spacers, ribbon etc) from stash

Tilda & Friends ATC: Spring, Autumn & Winter

As promised, here are the remaining 3 of my season ATCs all in one go rather then spreading them out for the rest of August. I started with Summer last week, so here are the other 3, spring, autumn & winter:

and here they all are, including last week's summer, side by side to make one long scene (click on photo to get larger view):

It is one continuous scene but I have used different shades of colours to reflect the changing seasons.

All stamps are Magnolia and have been stamped straight onto the ATC apart from the birdy, flower heads, butterfly & bat which have been stamped seperately and stuck on with 3d foam for raised effect and to create a bit of interest. All have been coloured with promarkers, glaze pens for shine and stickles for sparkle. Here is another photo to show the shine on the pumpkin which couldn't capture in the first photo (plus this is my fave one - the bat looks so goofy, didn't help that I messed up his fangs and had to give him white gel pen veneers & then it all went a bit 'pete tong'!!)

Really must try to play with my magnolia stamps more I think. Have been neglecting them of late and I have just seen the new school and heavenly stamps and would love some of those too!

Award time

Received this fabulous award off Bernie and Gill. Thank you so much ladies!

The rules of the award are:
1. The winner can put the logo on her blog
2.Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you’ve nominated

I'm gonna have to get back to you on this one - it's gonna be hard to whittle it down to 7!

No cards today either, I'm feeling my mojo is on the wane at the mo, as I only coloured in the rest of my ATCs last night (just need to photo them and will post tomorrow) and couldn't muster anything else up. So I think I will give it a rest today and see if that will do the trick.