Something new

I love to try new crafts and have been meaning to try feltmaking for some time, my sister Gillian had been doing a bit recently and she inspired me to have a go at needle felting while I was staying with her for a couple of days last month. Since then a great opportunity to attend a feltmaking workshop arose through my work at the library, so I went along on Friday and had a fun time trying out wet felting for the first time and spent the day making this bag. The organisers of the workshop are hoping to start holding regular workshops locally so I may well be doing a bit more of this, although I have to say, it was quite hard work - I came home exhausted and it sure didn't do my Tennis Elbow any good!! Thanks to all involved in a fab day.

Out of my comfort zone

Today's new Creative Inspirations challenge has taken me right out of my comfort zone - I hardly ever make any cards that are not square or at least rectangular but the challenge chosen by our lovely Dawn, who is stepping down from the DT, is - Anything but square or rectangle!

I thought about this until I almost ran out of time but finally came up with a cupcake shape to base the card on. I used Distress Inks to colour and stamp on the cupcake case and used coloured card edged with Distress Ink for the icing. The little mouse is a digi stamp which I bought & printed out before my lovely husband accidently deleted all my digi stamps so I'm afraid I don't have any details on where it came from (if anyone can help, I'd be delighted to add the credit to my post). The image was coloured with Promarkers, the sentiment is Stampin Up.

Our sponsor this week is Fantastic Ribbons who are giving away a huge bag of assorted buttons to our lucky challenge winner.

I am also entering my card for the following challenges:
Polka Doodles - Shaped Card
Dare U 2 Digi - Shaped Card
Bee Crafty - Anything goes
Stamp Something - Something Cute
Paper Romance - Furry Friends

A little bit of fantasy

I fancied getting my fingers inky today so decided to make a card for the I love Promarkers challenge Myth & Magic. I wanted to do a watery background so I chose a Michelle Perkett digi stamp to use as my image. I used distress inks, and a water & Blonde Moments Pearl Pigment powder mix (which I spritzed all over the background and over the image after colouring it with Promarkers) finally I sprayed on some Jade spray ink from Art from the Heart - you should see my fingers now!!

Anyway here is the result, I hope you like it :o)



I'm entering my card in these challenges:
I love Promarkers - Myth & magic
Charisma - Inspired by a song
("The Mermaid's Song", is a melancholy Gaelic song of lost love between a mermaid and a mortal youth.)
Cute Card Thursday - Material girl (fabric flowers)
Fab n Funky - living in a material world (ditto)
Digi Doodle - Write me a message

Crafty Creations challenge

Today's card is my DT card for Crafty Cardmakers. This week's challenge is White Plus One - use white with only one other colour. As you can see I have used blue as my Plus One, I actually coloured my Tilda image with something other than Promarkers!!! I know - shock, horror! I used my watercolour pencils and coloured most of the image with two shades of blue. I used a very pale flesh colour and a tiny bit of black for the hair, but it's 99% blue - honest!

This is also suitable for the challenges at:
The Pink Elephant - Mostly white
Sentimental Sundays - Clean & simple
Lexi's Creations - Emboss it
Die Cuts R Us - Anything goes

Hurry, hurry, hurry!

Ok, in a big rush this morning as I have my niece and her friend coming to stay the night after their fun filled month in Edinburgh at the Festival, they are going home tomorrow but need beds for their last night up north. So I have beds to make up, a card to make for tomorrow's Crafty Creations challenge, washing to hang out, hoovering etc, etc all before work at 12.30.

So I just have time to post this card which I made on Sunday for a variety of challenges (see below). The image is one of my own, available from Stitchy Bear Stamps, Cardmadfairy's Creations or Card Making Downloads. She has been coloured as usual with Promarkers, I've got too lazy to try other methods of colouring recently, I can feel my Prismacolour pencils crying out to me from the drawer they are hidden in but I always seem to be in too much of a rush to get them out! The papers are K&Co and the flowers are some lovely felt one I got on Ebay.


Challenges:
Cupcake - Let's get digital
Sew Many Challenges - Happy Birthday
Meljens - Happy Birthday
Stamp Magic - Ribbons & pearls
Craftalicious - Purple & green
Stampin for the Weekend - Anything Goes
Digi Doodle - So distressing

Another lovely day

Again it's sunny and warm here - not what the BBC said at all! Before I go out and do something out in the sun I just wanted to share a card I've made this morning.

I was inspired by a fabulous card by Jodi I saw during a blog hop the other day - you can see it here, and I followed the sketch at I Did It Creations challenge. The image is a Leanne Ellis one from Funky Kits and she has been coloured green and blue to fit the challenge at Cupcake Crafts.
The backing papers are Stampin Up and the ribbon is from my stash, the charm - well I couldn't decide whether it was supposed to be a flower or a starfish so have just decided to call it a flower for this project lol

The card is also for the challenges at Cute Card Thursday - dieing for a punch, I Love Promarkers - charming and for the Thinking of you theme at Daring Cardmakers who also are highlighting The Ribbon Girl (who has some gorgeous ribbon in her online shop) and Post Pals. If you are not already aware of Post Pals click the link and read all about it. I haven't chosen who I am going to send the card to yet but that's next on my to do list.

Hope the sun is shining wherever you are today :o)

It's a beautiful, sunny day here in southeast Scotland and I'm going to go out and spend a little while tidying up the garden - after a few showery days the weeds have sprung up all over the place!

First of all though I have my second Crafty Creations DT card to share, this week's challenge is a recipe - 3 papers, 2 ribbons (or trims) and a charm. My image is another digi stamp from this week's sponsor Mo Manning - this one is called 'Late' - I was planning to make a 'sorry I forgot your birthday' card but I thought the White Rabbit was looking so sorry for himself that he would suit a 'get well soon' type of card just as much and my b-i-l Roy is in hospital with pneumonia at the moment and needs some cheering up.

I have used papers from Dovecraft and Papermania along with a couple of Prima flowers and a Daisy Bucket sentiment. Other trimmings are from my stash.

Other challenges entered:
Polkadoodles - Vintage style
Creatalicious - Vintage
Paper Cutz - Anything goes
Stampin for the Weekend - Anything goes
Pink Elephant - Sketch

Creative Inspirations - Christmas in August

My card today is my DT card for the Creative Inpirations challenge, this fortnight's theme set by Jude is Christmas in August and I have chosen the gorgeous Mo Manning image Bronte and Bella Ice Skating - I just love this one! I coloured it using Promarkers and Sakura Gelly Roll pens. I used some of last year's scraps of backing paper from Southfield Stationers and DCWV and used Stickles for added sparkle. The ribbon is from my stash and the stamped snowflakes are Stampin Up.

The sponsor for this challenge is the fantastic -



Challenges entered:
Spoonfull of Sugar - Christmas in August
Passion for Promarker - Winter Blue
Artful Inkables - Bling it on Baby
Creative Card Crew - Sparkle & Shine
Digital Tuesday - Use your scraps
Creative Cottage Cottage - Christmas
and last but by no means least I followed the fab sketch on Mo Manning's Facebook challenge

Excitement here today, it's Evan's 15th birthday and we're expecting my sis Gillian and her husband Steve to arrive a bit later, we are all going to gather at my daughter Lynsey's flat for some takeaway food and then going to a Fringe show which my niece Rachael is appearing in. Plans were almost brought to a halt when we discovered that Rachael had ended last night in hospital (high temperature caused a bit of a collapse at the theater venue and last night's performance was cancelled) but she is feeling much better now and the show will go on! She doesn't know yet that her Mum & Dad are coming tonight - she thinks they are still in Hampshire so we're hoping it will be a lovely surprise for her.


Anyway, between tidying and changing beds I have managed to fit in a quick challenge card, I followed the sketch at Cute Card Thursday. My image is a Miss Anya which I had already coloured and was waiting for an opportunity to use, I chose this image after I putting the basics of the card together because I thought her hair worked perfectly with the Stampin Up backing papers!
I used a couple of Nellie Snellen dies to cut out my flowers which I spritzed with Blonde Moments pearl pigments, I crumpled them up and then dried them with my heat tool. They are held together with brads which I coloured copper with embossing powder. The leaf die is from Little Claire.

This is good for the challenges at:
Aud Sentiments - Anything goes
Charisma - Die cuts
Fab n Funky - Flower Power
Sentimental Sunday - Ribbon or lace
and
Ooh La La - Spots & dots

Today's card is my first DT card for Crafty Creations whose theme this week is butterflies. The image I have used is a digi stamps called Burt the Owl from Pollycraft, I coloured him with Promarkers and used a blender pen to give him a feathered effect. The backing papers are Funky Vintage from Dovecraft, the flowers are Prima and Stampin Up and the butterfly is a peel off - (the only peel offs I ever use) coloured with a Promarker to match the colour scheme and stuck on acetate. The sentiment is also from Stampin Up.
Hope you like my first offering for Crafty Creations now why not go and see what the rest of the talented team have come up with and join in with the challenge.

Also entering this in the challenges at:
Craft your Passion - Anything goes

Everybody Art challenge - In the garden

Daring Cardmakers - Tree-mendous (hoping a branch counts!)

Delightful challenges - Animals & insects with spots & Stripes

Teenage Kicks

Today's card is for my youngest son Evan who will be 15 next week - 15!!! I can't believe he's that age already how did that happen? He has been learning to play guitar recently and is actually very good at it - only problem is that he likes to practice around 10pm with the amp turned up high enough for half the street to hear him - we have had to force him to wear headphones so that the only one to be disturbed by the noise is himself lol

I used the themes for a few different challenges for this one and they're all listed at the bottom of the post. The image is of course, Edwin by Magnolia and the guitar was stamped separately and stuck in front of Edwin with foam pads. Both images were coloured with Promarkers and I used Glossy Accents on the guitar to make it nice & shiny. The backing papers were from a K&Co Rock Star stack and the sentiment was Studio G.

Pear Tree Designs - Male
Passion for Promarkers - Music
Secret Crafter - It's a man's world
Lothian Crafts - For a man
Paper Romance - Teen thing
Simon Says - Sing it baby (Teenage Kicks - Undertones) Doh - too late for this one!!
Magnolia Stamplovers - Use Edwin
Stamptacular Sunday - Snips & snails & puppy dog tails

Back at last & with some great news

I've been absent from my blog for a week or so - been off to Hampshire and Essex visiting family - so have a bit of catching up to do.

Firstly I have my Creative Inspirations DT card to share and this week's challenge is to recycle an element for your card, in my case I have made flowers from an old book that I rescued from a box of children's books heading for the charity shop.



I punched several 5 petal flower shapes for each flower, cutting off petals from each layer until I only had 2 left on flower. I inked the petals and spritzed them with glimmer mist then scrunched them up before drying them with my heat gun and gluing the layers together. I finished them off with a small punched circle and a tiny brad. The really sweet image is from one of this week's sponsors Meljen's Designs, I have used Papermania backing papers and the sketch is from Friday Sketchers.

Also entering the challenges at:
Cute Card Thursday - Whateva
Meljen's - Clean & Simple
I Did It - Cute, Cute, Cute

My good news is that I have been asked to join the Design Team at Crafty Creations and of course I'm delighted and looking forward to joining the girls there and to my first Wednesday challenge with them!

I have also just added some new stylised flowers to my digi stamp blog and am heading off to my craft desk now to ink them up and make some samples. These are the new designs - what do you think?