Brilliant News!

This week I had some great news. I have been accepted on the design team at One Stop Craft Challenge. This is so exciting and I can't wait to get going with the challenges and working with all the other team members. This is a new experience for me so wish me luck and check out the challenge site.

For todays card I've used the Winnie/ Walter owl stamp and coloured with a selection of ProMarkers and FlexMarkers to tie-in with the background papers from My Minds Eye - Snowed In paper pack.




Behind the main matt and layered image I've decorated with a layer of silk ribbon and them red felt ribbon then a matt of matching red cardstock.

I had a go at making a concertina flower from my lace edged Spellbinder die, (which I know want to do lots more of) held together with a circle of red card and decorated with a silver button with a jewel in the centre.

Below is the sketch we were challenged with.

My Brilliant Weekend!

I have had just the most fantastic weekend ever, with plenty of time to devote to my challenge cards.

There have been some great titles this week and have been able to put to good use my new toys from the NEC.

Suprisingly after such a marathon crafting session, I did actually tidy everything up and am all clear to start all the projects that I have waiting in the wings

Here are all the cards and challenges I've done this weekend, I hope you like them and perhaps get a little inspiration for you own makes.

Little Boy Blue

I am very pleased with how this card came out, especially the colouring of the boy in ProMarkers. You try and try these different techniques and they don't seem to work and then all of a sudden something goes right and you think to yourself, at last I'm getting there, it looks good. Even my husband thought it had been printed. So I am one happy bunny and will have to do another one to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

Every thing has been printed from the Polka Doodles Pretty Tuff and mounted onto Kraft card.

I've entered him into the One Stop Craft Challenge - Blue

Shaped Christmas Card

I must admit I don't think that I have ever made a shaped card like this before. They always seemed a bit fiddly and my cutting out is not that great, especially to cut two layers with the same pattern. Nikky has made it easy though with her designs, she really does think about us who are useless with scissors (it makes it alot quicker as well).

One thing that I did do and it's probably and old tip, but I sanded the edges and inked them, that seemed to cover any rough bits and I was more pleased with the finish of the card.



I used the Reindeer, holly and robin from the Sudae of Seasons CD from Polka Doodles, some backing paper from another of her CD's and a sentiment. He has got some sparkle to his antlers and the robins tail, but it doesn't really show up on the photo.




I have entered this card into the Polka Doodles weekly challenge - Shaped Christmas.

When is a card not a card..................

Well I think it is when it's a gift box as well.



This started out to be a simple cream box with an easel card on top, but I couldn't stop embellishing it more and more, I only stopped when I couldn't get anything else on it.

I made it to take my favourite choccies, so now I have somewhere to hide them away from everyone else in the house.

This project ( and it did turn into a bit of a project) into the Papertake Weekly Challenge.

Pure Indulgence!

This weekend while crafting I have been watching the wonderful Sue Wilson with the Spellbinders dies

This is my little homage to Sue, although it is no way to her standard but great to have a go just the same.




Background papers and yummy puds and cakes are from the Polka Doodles Sundae of Seasons CD and I have glazed all the strawberries and chocolate sauce on the ice cream sundae.

This card has been entered into the Raise the Bar Challenge - Time To Feast.

U for Under the Sea

U should be for unique as these challenges always are, especially this week. I was really stumped. I look through all my stash and just could not find anything that would work for this theme.

I had to go to the internet and find an image or something that would suit and found this gorgeous little turtle digi stamp and for the life of me I can't remember where it was and didn't save it on the computer either.

This image was coloured in using good old ProMarkers and a white fine line gel pen. The background was made from die cuts, coloured and then a little bit of sparkle.






This card has been entered int0 the Alphabet Challenge - U for Under the Sea.

Willow Sketchie Challenge

Doing these sketchie challenges are really helping me look at the layouts of my cards more and how to use several patterned papers together.

For this card I've used my willow stamp that was a prize on a previous challenge. They are such good quality stamps to use and I love this sweet little owl.




Willow Sketch



My card

Lace, pearls and swirls

I have had great fun making this card. Nice to make a really girly card with ribbons and pearl and loads of pearls at that.

This is an A5 card using backing paper and little girl printed from the Pretty Sweet CD from Polka Doodles. I've used a range of different dies for this card including Spellbinders Lace and Marrianne Designs swirls and round border.

I have entered this card into the Polka Doodles weekly Challenge - Swirls and Pearls, and also the One Stop Craft Challenge - Ribbons and Lace and wish me luck as I am going to enter the design team call also.

This Weeks Challenge Cards

With all that crafty stuff from the NEC I thought I would used as much as I could for this weeks blog challenges.



This card was made using the 6 x 6" frilly square card blank and covered with one of the papers from the Wild Blossom 12 x 12" designer paper pack, then stamped in black ink with a leaf stamp already in my stash.

Using the X-cut nesting shapes I cut out of white a matt and layered it with a contrasting pink paper from the same pack, then for the Polka Doodles Meeshelle stamp I cut her out using the Spellbinders labels die and coloured the image using ProMarkers and the fabby new fine nibs.

Extra pieces were used from dies already in my box and flowers cut out of scraps of the paper used in this design.

I have entered this card into the Polka Doodles Challenge - Shaped Card.

Now for my next card:





All the papers and the cute baby Rudolph are from the Polka Doodles Sundae of Seasons Cd-rom and they went so well with the stack of brown card I managed to get. I love the lace Spellbinders border die in this set and wanted to use it on this card, but the star is the Rudolph, he is so cute.

I've entered this card into several challenges:

Raise The Bar - No Embellishments.
One Stop Craft Challenge - 3 is the magic number.
Papertake Weekly Challenge - First Christmas.

NEC November 2011

This was a great family day out with Me and Hubby, our Son and his Fiance and Hubbys' Mum. We usually go on a week day so a first for a Saturday and boy it was packed. We didn't have much time to stop and talk to people there, but I am glad that we got to meet Nikky from Polka Doodles and have a little chat.

Here are a few photos of my goodies.



First stop Polka Doodles and grabbing the items that I had not got so far.

Card stock was a must and managed to keep it to a minimum this year. At last I got the fine nibs for the ProMarkers and they are wonderful, they were the first thing I tried when I got back home.



Of coarse I needed more dies' you can never have enough of them, but the rest were not on my list, but can't refuse a bargain.




I took a punt on this little lot, its was all done up in a bag for five pounds. I was so surprised when I got home and there were two punches in the bag, one a large corner rounder which I had been looking for, for ages and then a EK Success corner punch. What a find.

I am a happy little bunny now and can't wait to go a try out the rest of my stash.

This Weeks Willow Sketchie Challenge

This weeks sketch from Willow Designs Sketchie Challenge, designed by Shell.

Here's what I came up with. It's quite plain but I adore this stamp, he is so very cute. He usually carries a bunch of flowers, I cut those away so that he could be catching falling stars.

This card has also been entered into the Polka Doodles Weekly Challenge - Mystical and Magical and the One Stop Craft Challenge - No Sentiments.

Getting Back Into The Challenges

It has been quite a while since I have entered some of these challenges, but now that things have settled down a bit here I can devoted more time to them. The mojo hasn't been working too well just lately so here goes with the first attempt:



I've used the Papertake Weekly Challenge of a sketch and applied it to two other challenges.
Raise The Bar - Sew What! and The Alphabet Challenge - T for Tea Time.





I've used papers from a christmas themed pad, but these were the two that coordinated the best with the chipboard shapes the best. All the pieces have been highlighted with brown ink and faux stitching.