More cards...

I've been playing about making cards again... just enjoying trying out new ideas. :)

I bought some goodies during Debbie Moore's recent birthday discount, one of which was a sheet of oriental images and I immediately wanted to try one of them on a card:

I used a sheet of paper from an oriental paper pack and stitched around the edges with black thread then stamped oriental script in the corner and embossed with black embossing powder. I added a dotty stripe using black Enamel Accents and painted chipboard flowers black before attaching them. I matted the oriental image onto black card and attached with foam pads.

I've also been really enjoying playing with my Sweet Pea stamps and my ProMarkers lately so decided to make another card using this gorgeous Ching Chou Kuik image:

I was really pleased with how this image came out and the delicate colours and so I decided to keep the card really simple so as not to overpower the image. I splattered the card with Cosmic Shimmers chalk ink, tore the edges of the stamped image and added lots of pretty flowers in coordinating colours.

And finally this is just a fun little card that I made purely because I just *had* to play with this cute kitty cat die that I bought today! :)

I had a quick play cutting out the pieces from different papers/cards and assembling the cat and loved it. I wanted to make a quick cute card so I just doodled a background and used some rub-on alphas for the greeting. :)

As you may have noticed, I seem to have a bit of a thing for square cards at the moment... so much so that I've been out today to buy some square card blanks (it was during this shopping trip that the cat die jumped into my shopping basket! ;D) so that I can stop chopping the bottoms off my C5 card blanks! :lol:

Apologies...

..to my fellow WOYWWers and the bloggers on my reading list...

...I have been trying desperately to comment on your blogs, but flipping Blogger won't let me!! Despite the fact that I am signed in, whenever I go to someone else's blog, the page opens and I'm not logged in on that page and when I try to comment and choose my Google profile, it takes me back to the Google login page and when I log in it redirects me to the page I was trying to comment on.... and I'm not logged in again! And repeat. And repeat. Ad infinitum.

Grrrrr.

So I'm sorry. I can't comment but rest assured I am reading! And fuming! *sigh*

Passion for ProMarkers - Week 101

In my random blopping around the internet, I have recently stumbled across the Passion for ProMarkers challenge blog. And what a lot of fun it looks to be! So much so that I've been tempted to have a go. I've been slowly building up my collection of ProMarkers and I've bought quite a few yummy new stamps lately that I've yet to play with and that are perfect for colouring in...

So here's my entry for Week 101 of the Passion for ProMarkers challenge - the theme is "All the 2s" and on this card I've used 2 patterned papers, 2 flowers, 2 blingy gemstone stickers and two main colours (yellow and green):

I really enjoyed making this card. I love SweetPea stamps and this was a lovely design to colour in and it went perfectly with this scrummy piece of yellow floral paper I've been wanting to use for a while. :) I also had a play and added a bit of interest and dimension by restamping the wings onto acetate (and colouring in again with ProMarkers) and attaching over the wings on the coloured image.

I'm really pleased with this card and am looking forward to playing with more of my new stamps (especially the SweetPea ones) and my ProMarkers. :)

WOYWW - 25 May 2011

It's Wednesday again and time to share what's on your workdesk!

Not much going on on mine today:

I did a bunch of crafting last week including some last minute frantic work to meet some deadlines at the weekend so have taken a few days off from crafting to chill out! So all that's on my desk atm is the debris of the recent crafting spree... and all those new paints etc which I need to find somewhere to put away.

Thanks for stopping by my desk. Short and sweet again from me this week as I have a toddler trying to climb on my lap as I type!

GBSBII - A whole bunch of LOs... and more!

So the weekend before last was the GBSBII - Green Buttons Scrapping Bonanza II - over at UKS. For those not familiar with the teams/house system on UKS, all point-collecting teams are allocated to one of four "houses" and my team (Crop Circle) is in the Green Buttons house. Last autumn, in an attempt to inspire, enthuse and motivate the Green Buttons members, we held the first scrapping bonanza - a weekend of classes and challenges put together by members of the Green Buttons house, kind of like a mini cyber crop. It was a huge success and lots of fun - so much so that it was decided to hold another one!

The classes and challenges were uploaded over the course of the weekend, starting from Friday evening, through to Sunday evening, and people had until the end of this last weekend to complete and upload their LOs (people can of course do the classes etc any time they like but to count for the GBSBII (and be in with the chance of winning some little prizes!) they had to be uploaded by the deadline).

It's been really fun and I was able to join in with a few of the classes/challenges - though not as many as I'd have liked. And this time around I also set a class myself! So I thought I'd share with you the fruits of my GBSBII labour...

First up is the class that I set, a sewing-themed decorated canvas class (btw if anyone is interested in how I made this, I will put up the class instructions in a separate post);

Sew Special

The first LO I did for GBSBII was for a live speed scrap challenge that took place on the Friday evening - the challenge creator (Thriftycrafter) posted instructions every 10 minutes and the challenge was to follow those instructions, within the time given, to create a LO. It was great fun! So much so that the Green Buttons are planning to now host a monthly live speed scrap. :) Here is the LO I created during the live speed scrap:

A Walk in the April Sunshine

The papers are Basic Grey Obscure and I used  a Martha Stewart Edge Punch, some 3D flower stickers I've had lying round for ages and Making Memories chipboard and rub-on alphas.

The next LO I did was for a great sketch challenge from Mary Buttons:

So Cute

I loved this sketch and it made a lovely LO. Papers, journalling spot, buttons, alphabet and element stickers were all Basic Grey Sugared and the rub-on flourish with bling was also Basic Grey. The flowers are by Prima. 

Another LO that I did for GBSBII was for  JimJam's Ready... Steady... Scrap! challenge. In this challenge, JimJams made a load of cards listing different colours, techniques and embellishments and for everyone who wanted to take part she picked one colour, one technique and two embellishments. I got orange, distressing, chipboard and glitter:

Aimee's First Haircut

I used a great page kit pack  by We R Memory Keepers that I got recently from TK Maxx for the grand total of £2!! I painted naked chipboard letters and shapes in colours to match the papers and that covered the chipboard requirement. The glitter requirement is covered by the little glittery brads that came as part of the page kit. I actually completed this LO and was photographing it when I realised I had forgotten about the distressing requirement! :lol: So I made and added a couple of distress-edged lollipop flowers. :)

The final LO I did for GBSBII was a double LO for agirlcalledbob's gorgeous sketch class. She used wedding photos in her example LO and I did the same for mine as the sketch seemed to really suit these photos:

Our Special Day

I kept the colour scheme very simple with white card, with a bit of embossing for added interest, and a few pieces of dusky pink paper. The flowers are by Prima and the heart charm is one I've had in my stash for about 5 years! :lol:

I've saved the best for last... the final class that I had a go at during GBSBII was Smelly's incredible faux configuration box house. Would you believe this is made from a canvas?! :)

This was such an amazingly clever idea! It used the back of a canvas to create a faux configuration box. I had a great time glueing, painting and decorating it and then deciding how to fill the little boxes. I used Once Upon a Time papers from DCWV that I've had sitting around for ages but not really known what to do with (they were almost too pretty to use! :lol:) and I went with the whole fairy theme in my decoration of the little cubbyholes... I made a wand from a gold-painted piece of cocktail stick and two star stickers and I filled a little glass bottle with glass glitter "fairy dust" :)

I had a great time doing these classes and challenges and there's plenty more that I didn't get chance to do before the deadline. Roll on GBSBIII! :D

Art Journal Page

Yesterday was a sad anniversary for me. It's been weighing on my mind for weeks as we got closer to the day... so yesterday I decided to journal it.

I guess this is pretty much the essence of art journalling. :/

WOYWW - 18 May 2011

Morning all (just about)!

I'm a bit late to the WOYWW party this week as it's been a busy morning - got the kids up and dressed and fed and then we were straight out the door to take them to baby clinic to get the munchkin weighed. She's now over a stone! No wonder mummy's arms ache...

Anyhoo... down to business. Wednesday is the day when the crafters of the world share with each other what's on their workdesks and this is what's on mine:

The usual chaos (there is a crafting space somewhere under there, I promise! :D), this time including my art journal, a few in-progress ATCs, various in-progress experiments, and some new stamps, pens and paints that arrived yesterday.

Thanks for stopping by.. hope you enjoyed my peek at my chaotic craft room and have a good WOYWW! :)

WOYWW - 11 May 2011

Welcome to another Wednesday.

A short but sweet post from me today as I really must go to bed as DD2 will be waking up for a bottle in approx. 5 hours!!

So here's what's on my desk:

The usual chaos of bits and bobs from ongoing projects, together with half-completed/in-progress projects/experiments, all rapidly encroaching on my ever-shrinking workspace! A major tidy is definitely in order.... but first I just need to finish off a project... or two.... ;)

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabby WOYWW!

Slightly addicted!

Oh wow, I am so hooked on making mini milk cartons! :lol:

Remember how I said (just yesterday?!) that I had a gazillion ideas for how to decorate these boxes... well, I've been trying a few out (and have plenty more whirling around in my head!)...

For this first one I tried something different and used the off-cut from die-cutting the butterflies from my first carton as a stencil and spritzed through it using a couple of drops of Stampin' Up! ink (from the refills) mixed with water in a spritzer bottle (I've been experimenting lately with using SU inks in this way).

For the next one I had the awesome idea of combining the milk carton die with this yummy embossing folder (also from SU's latest mini catalogue). I think it gave a fantastic effect (this idea in particular would be awesome for elegant wedding favour boxes). :)

I really liked the embossed design just left simple in white but I also thought it might look nice coloured in... so I used chalks to colour in the embossed designs.

Of course, the natural next progression in using the embossing folder was to use colour-core cardstock (in this case Whitewash Core'dinations) and sand the embossed areas.

And then I had the idea to use the bird's egg stamps from SU's Nature Walk set of stamps to make a little border around the bottom of a carton... and that led to this design, made using various stamps from the Nature Walk set.

These are so quick to make and so effective and I'm just addicted! :lol: I really need to stop making milk cartons and get on with some of my other projects! :lol:

How cute is this?!

I loved the look of Stampin' Up!'s new milk carton Sizzix die as soon as I saw it in the new mini catalogue and I just knew I had to have it! ;)

My order arrived this week and I couldn't resist having a play straight away:

I love these little milk cartons so much! I have about a million ideas for how to decorate/alter them. With this first play I decorated it very simply - I cut the milk carton from cream shimmer card and used the butterflies Embosslit (also from Stampin' Up!'s new mini catalogue) to cut embossed butterflies from the same card and attached them to the carton. Doesn't it look lovely?

I think these little cartons are so versatile. Great for gifts and imagine how fab they would be for e.g. really cute and unusual wedding favour boxes!