Tuesday 27 April 2010

Digital Tuesday and FSS DT projects

I forgot to post my dt project for the Fred She Said challenge yesterday.....oops, oh well better late than never.
The challenge this month is to make a 3d project for a loved one.
I needed to make something that was quick and easy because I had it in my head the it was a card I had to make and I left it till the last minute (nothing new there then lol), so I had a look through the templates I have on my computer already and found one for a little box. I got this template ages ago but I am sure it was from mirkwood.com, but I could be completely wrong lol.


I printed the template straight onto my designer paper which is from Stampin Up! as it is a nice thick paper so the box is sturdy enough without having to use cardstock then cover it, which saved me loads of time :)
The flowers I used are the one you get in the  "Emma with sign" set. You do get 3 different sizes of flowers in the set but I just used one of the flowers and scaled it to the 2 sizes I wanted.
I saved time again with the flowers by printing them straight onto designer paper (again some from Stampin Up!), so I didn't have to colour them. Don't you just love digi's! :)
I then sprayed them with some glimmer mist for some sparkle, cut them out shaped them a bit and layered one on top of the other and used a spacer and pearl from my stash for the centre.
The top of this box doesn't close on it's own so I punched a hole at each side of the box and threaded some ribbon through and tied it in a bow to keep the box closed.

You can see the pattern on the flower a bit better here as it is a very light paper.


You have a whole month to join in with the challenge and the prize this month is another $2o gift certificate to spend in the FSS store!

Now my next project is for Digital Tuesday where I am the hostess this week and my challenge is to make anything but a card. So 2 posts for design teams today and no cards!!
Our sponsor this week is Some Odd Girl, and Kristy the owner also gave the design team an image to play with.

I saw a bag like this but when I went to make it I coulsn't remember where I saw it (nothing changes does it lol), so as I knew what it should look like, I managed to make it on my own, but yesterday I came across the blog I had saw it on in the first place and I have now saved the template so I can make one again sometime and can just print out the template instead of having to measure :)
I saw it on Maria Bell's blog and she has loads of other templates and tutorials. I just wish I had came accross her blog sooner because it would of saved me so much time. Never mind I know where it is now :)
I cut the bag from blue shimmery cardstock then covered the front and back with some dp (sorry don't know who makes it), and cut a strip of the dp for a handle.
The image is the one I chose from Some Odd Girl and she is coloured with Promarkers. Isn't she a cutie?
I made this bag on the day I got my Promarkers so this is one of my first attempts at colouring with them, but I think I did ok. It's such a lovely image to colour :)


I didn't want to swamp the image with embelishments so I only added some lace around the bottom for her to stand on and a few little Prima flowers with tiny flower gems in the middle.

I really enjoyed making this one and I am quite pleased with how it turned out but I think it's time to make a card now lol.

Thanks for visiting, and as always I really appreciate your comments :)


Hugs



Saturday 24 April 2010

A challenge card and your opinions needed.

Just as my title says, I need your opinion on something but first I will show you the card I made for the Sunday Sketch and Stamp challenge who are celebrating their birthday and you can choose any of their previous sketches to follow. I chose sketch 15 and pretty much followed it to the letter except I didn't put any text on. I don't like to add sentiments until I know what they are being used for, that way they don't sit in a box until the appropriate occasion comes, and I always have a card on hand for almost any occasion if I need one on a hurry :)

 My base paper is Stampin Up but I don't know about purple spotty mat because I have had that paper forever, or the other two (they are more I got from a friend).
The ribbon is from my local craft shop, flowers are Tabby Crafts and Hobbycraft, pearl sprays are from my local haberdashery and the pin is from Wild Orchid Crafts.
Oh and the circles for the image and mat were handcut because I have left my dies at the school, so they are a bit wonky, ok a lot wonky! lol

Now this is what I want your opinions on. Please be really honest with me and tell me what you think of the image.
Here's a better pic

 My colouring probably doesn't do it much justice lol, but would any of you use this or ones like it on your cards? You can tell me the honest truth and you won't hurt my feeling because I never drew it lol.
Someone I know drew it and we would love for you to let us know what you think of it.
The image I used is the original sketch and hasn't been enhanced or touched up on the computer in any way etc.
I just wanted to see what you thought about it first before I ask him to draw any more or not.
So if you could leave me a comment and tell me if you like it or not and if you would use it on your cards/projetcs. Or anything else you want to say about it :)

Right I'm off to bed I think because it is 1.30am and I am super tired! lol

Thursday 22 April 2010

One for Just Magnolia

My second post tonight!! wow it takes me all week to post once then I do 2 in a night lol.
I was looking at some of the challenges and just realised that I didn't post my card that I made the other day for Just Magnolia so thought I'd  better hurry up and get it posted!



I coloured this image a while ago when I first got my Polychromos pencils and it was sitting on the top of my coloured image box so thought it was about time I used her.
I really like this image, there's just something about her that makes it a bit different from the rest of the Tilda's. I don't know what it is though........... anyway I like her so I used her :)

 The pic looks a bit washed out here cmpared to what it is like irl but it is night time so I can't complain that much, at least my camera is working again!
The paper is by Papermania, it was a double sided 12x12 and I used both sides. Ribbon is SU!, roses are from Wild Orchid Crafts and the little yellow ones are some I found in my stash and I have no idea where I bough them.... think they might have been from a huge lot of flowers I got ages ago off Ebay.
The pretty butterfly is one that one of my dt ladies (Geraldine) at By The Cute and Girly sent me for my birthday. They are so pretty that I didn't want to use them lol and told her that I would keep them for special cards, but Geraldine told me that I should just use them because there is no sense in keeping things for "best" because we might be dead and gone before the time for using our best comes.
And it kind of got me thinking about all the other stuff I hoard to use on special cards or don't use because I only have one of those left etc. I hope there is still a good few years left in me yet though lol, but you know what I mean. 
So anyway I used one and I am going to be brave and use some of the papers I have kept for ages because I didn't want to cut them or the embelishments that cost me that little bit more and I only have a few of left etc. I may cry while I am using them but I will do it lol.


I have some dt stuff to do tonight because I forgot about my project for the FSS challenge which is on the 25th so I'd better get something made while I have some spare time.

A good old Sugar Nellie

I made a card today with an old Sugar Nellie stamp just for fun then was on the Sugar Nellie blog and noticed that Karen/Zoe wants to see some of the older stamps being used. That was just perfect timing :)
I know a lot of people like to use new stamps and I do too but I also like to use my old ones as I don't see the point in buying a stamp if I am only going to use it once and never ink it up again, and I don't have the money to buy new stamps all the time so I have to use old stamps.

I must admit I do like all the new Sugar Nellie stamps and a lot of new ones from other companies but why does everyone, especially bloggers feel like they have got to have the newest stamps and hardly ever use the older ones that they obviously like or else they wouldn't of bought them in the first place?
I think if I like a stamp and it is 20 years old, why not use it? The people who receive most of my cards are not into stamping or cardmaking anyway so they would have no idea if the stamp was old or new.

Anyway now that I have got that off my chest lol, here's the card I made.


I used the sketch from Cute Card Thursday but I left out the sentiment because I don't know what I will use this card for yet.
 The stripey paper is Heidi Grace and the other one is another of the papers I got in a rak.
Ribbon is from my local haberdashery, flowers are all from Wild Orchid Crafts and the leaves are also from a rak.
The image is coloured with Promarkers.

Now I have looked out all my Sugar Nellie stamps (most of which are old ones), so I am away to have a play with some of them :)
Hope you are all having a fab day today!



Tuesday 20 April 2010

Digital Tuesday DT card

This week at Digital Tuesday it's Ellie's turn to host and she chose the challenge theme "April Showers or April Flowers".
We have another fab sponsor this week, Di's Downloads and Di is giving away 4 of her digital images to one lucky winner. She also let the design team chose an image to play with.

I came across Di's digi's a while back and I fell in love with her cute characters the minute I set eyes on them (if you have been following my blog for a while you may remember the first time I used one of her cute images and I said then that I was in love with her images) and if you haven't checked out her images before, you have just got to go check them out. I spent ages deciding which image to choose for this challenge but finally I picked a cute little mouse, who I did intend colouring grey but I wanted to use my new promarkers and I don't have grey yet, so she turned into a brown mouse lol.



I saw the sketch over at Friday Sketchers and I just had to have a go with it.
The papers are more I got from Debs except the little creamy piece under the image which is Papermania (I have a story about this paper which I will tell in a min).
I curled the corner of  my image and tied it with some ribbon and used a Mcgill decorative corner punch to punch the corner of my image mat so you can see it under the curled up bit. You can't really see it very well here but it looks quite pretty irl.
The brown flower is one I made, the pink one underneath is a Prima and  I added an organza rose from Hobbycraft in the middle and used some leaves that I got from Debs (I promise I do have some stuff that I actually bought myself lol) and some pearl sprays from my local florist warehouse. I was down to my last bunch of these but now I have some more |I can use when they run out because she also sent me a few of those :)

A close up of the flower so you can see the organza flower a bit better :)

 I bought these flowers when the Hobbycraft here first opened a few months back because they looked so pretty when they were in bunches but when I got them home and seperated them I wasn't so keen on them because they don't sit very well on their own, but I think they look quite pretty with other flowers.

Thanks for stopping by today.





Monday 19 April 2010

Box for stamped images

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days but it's not that I haven't been crafting, I have done quite a few DT projects but I can't show them yet.
I got some images the other day from Debbie who is on my DT at By The Cute and Girly (thanks Debs xx) and I wanted to make a box of some sort to put them in along with any others I may get in the future, so I went blog hopping and found a few boxes and folders but they were either really complicated (no pics lol) or done with a scor pal which I don't have, then I finally found something that would be perfect but when I tried to find it later when I sat down to make it, I couldn't find the tutorial!!! typical lol.
I knew what it looked like but just didn't know the measurements so I had a play around and finally figured out how to make it :) I still want to get some velcro or magnets to keep the lid closed but here is is for now.




 It's quite a nice size and holds a good lot of images. It has 8 or 9 little sections inside so you could have a section for each stamp company or different holidays etc.
I used SU! kraft cardstock and decorated it with some paper that I also got from Debs. (sorry don't know who makes it)
My ds tape ran out in the middle of making this so I had to finish ot with glue and now that it has all dried it looks ok but it was still wet when I took these pics and the paper looks all bumpy.

I just did an accordian fold on each of the side panels and stuck some cardstock inside each fold to make the sections inside.
Here's what the side looks like.


 I thought this would be difficult but the base was really quite easy after I discovered that I would need to join 2 pieces of card together to make it long enough.
I did the sides first and put in the pieces of card to make the "pockets" inside then wraped the card around that to see how long I would need it and where to score.


The image I have used is called "Tess" and is one of Stef's (Glitterbabe) digital images that she gave me for my birthday :)
I ordered a set of 10 Promarkers with some of my birthday money just to give them a try as I am missing my Copics sooooo much but I just can't afford to buy a load of them right now so I thought O would give the Promarkers a go since they are cheaper and this is my first attempt.
I have to admit that I don't like them as much as my Copics,  but maybe with a bit more practice I might get better with them and like them just as much.
I have been playing around making my own flowers again:) A few people have asked me how I made these last time so if I have time I will give a quick explanation next time if I remember.

Thanks for visiting




Thursday 15 April 2010

Fred She Said April Blog Hop

Welcome to our FOURTH "FRED SHE SAID" blog hop!!! If you just happened to drop by my blog and you are not aware of this wonderful event taking place, please go back to the "FRED SHE SAID" blog here  and start your hop!

Please, we would love it if you commented on our posts.

Along the way, please leave a comment on the blogs, follow the instructions at the end of the blog hop, at the Challenge blog, to make your entry and your name will go in for a draw for a $20 Gift Certificate for the Fred She Said Store!

Here is my "Fred She Said" creation:


 I used the new old truck set which should be in store today. This one comes uncoloured and there is also pre- coloured versions. I used the un coloured one and paper pieced the truck then coloured the rest with polychromos pencils and oms.
The papers are Stampin Up and Basic Grey and the sheet music is from an old music book.
I am terrible at male cards and really didn't know what  to add for embelishments so I ended up raiding my button box and just used some random buttons.

Here's a close up of the truck and my camera is finally working properly again, yay!! I even took this pic inside this morning when there was hardly any light and I didn't use any lamps either!



Here is a list of the blog hoppers in case you lose your way:
~JUDY 
~LORA you are here :)

This blog hop will run from today, April 15th until April 22nd . On the 22nd, the winner will be announced on the "Fred She Said" blog 

Thank-you for taking the time to play along.  Now, to continue the blog hop, please visita Sonya
When you are finished hopping, why not check out the Fred She Said Store! 






Wednesday 14 April 2010

More Birthday cards

I don't have no cards to show today yet that I have made but the postie just came and delivered 2 birthday cards that 2 of the girls from the By The Cute and Girly design team sent me :) So of course I have to show them!
Again my photos are terrible! I really think there is something wrong with my camera because I can normaly take ok pics indoors even without lights but I just can't get a decent pic no matter what I do.
I will have to go outside today and give it a go outside but for now these pics will have to do.

 This one is from Debby. The cute frog image is done in 3d but my rubbish pic doesn't show it, so you will just have to take me word for it that it is even more pretty in real life :)

And my other card is from Hanna who also sent me a Bildmalarna stamp!


 Again this card looks even better in real life and Anya is all shimmery. And look at the fab stamp I am so lucky to have such a great design team that I can call my friends :)

Thank you girls, I love both cards and the stamp and you will see me using the stamp on a card soon :)
I have been told that another of my sweet blogging friends has sent me a card, so as soon as I receive it I will show that one too :)

I want to say a huge thank you to all my friends in blog land for making my Birthday special.
I did promise a few people that I would tell them what I got for my birthday so here's a list of what I got, but I have told you aleady most of what I got as I didn't get anything from any of my family (except Barry and my kids) so everything I got is from blogging friends! :)
My MIL does have a pressie for me but I will have to wait for that.

So here's what I got:

some beautiful cards from my bloggy friends:) and cards from Barry (my partner) and my kiddies.
a big box of Milk Tray choccies from Barry and the kids and Barry is giving me some pennies to spend on crafty stuff today.
a CC designs stamps from Lorraine which I showed yesterday
a Bildmalarnas stamp from Hanna (shown above)
some lovely Lindor choccies from Lisa in a fab box
2 digi stamps from Stef (Glitterbabe)
a digi stamp from Diane of Di's Digital Downloads
a pile of digi stamps from Stitchy

Big thanks to all you girls, you are all fabulous!

Hugs





Tuesday 13 April 2010

Digital Tuesday DT , a challenge and my birthday cards

This is going to be a long post because I have quite a few cards to show!
First is my Digital Tuesday DT card. Amy is the host this week and she wants to see paper piecing.
Our sponsor is My Grafico who are giving the winner a digi set of their choice and 30% off in store.
They also very kindly gave the design team their "Birthday Girl" set designed by Chi Chi Memories to use for  this weeks challenge.
My camera is really playing up just now and every photo I take seems to be really washed out, but hopefully you can see the cards well enough.
Here's the card I made for the challenge.

 I followed the sketch at Sketch and Stash for this but I didn't use the circle for my image as I had already cut her out before I went and found the sketch, and I only used 1 flower instead of 3 because there wasn't enough room, so I don't know if I can actually enter this into the challenge but I will give it a go anyway.
The brown paper I used is Stampin Up and the others are Paper Cellar. I paper pieced the girls dress, socks and hat and coloured the rest of her and the cupcake with my polychromos pencils and oms. I also added a bit of glitter in the cup cake and the girls hat but you can't see that here.
The lace and pearls are from my stash and I made the flower using 2 flowers embossed with a glitter girls embossing board and cut them out, cut down the petals and curled them then sprayed with glimmer mist and layer them on top of each other and added an organza flower from Hobbycraft.

Here's a close up of the flower where you can see the organza one better.

My next card is for the Truly Scrumptious challenge which is a sketch and the optional extra of "Fly Away".

The colours on this card are nothing like they are in real life and I just can't get a decent photo but here it is anyway. I used a digi image from Stitchy Stamps. If you haven't checked out these digi's you have got to go have a look, they are fab!
The papers are a mix of Basic Grey, K&Co and SU! and I traced over the flourishes on the green and blue strip of dp with a quicky glue pen and added some glitter. You can't see it very well here but it looks really pretty irl. The sweet image is coloured with Polychromos pencils and oms and I also added glitter on her wings.
The tiny butterfly's were done with an old £1 punch that I have had forever and have no idea ho makes it, and the corner on the image mat was punched with a Mcgill corner punch on some scrap dp and I just cut around it so I could stick it onto the corner of my image.

Now that's the cards that I made done, but it's my birthday today and I got some beautiful cards from some blogging friends so I just have to show you them :)

The first one is from Lisa who is on my design team at By The Cute and Girly. She also sent me some lovely chocolates in a special box but I can't show that just yet.
So here's the card for now.



The next one is from Debbie who is another one of my dt girlies at BTC&G. She has a much better pic of this on her blog.


This one is from the one and only Glitterbabe (Stef).


And last but by no means is one I got from my lovely friend Lorraine (Coldwaters) who also sent me a stamp!!


My photo's do not do any of these beautiful cards justice but I just had to show you them :)
Thank you so much girls, you are all the best!!




Friday 2 April 2010

By The Cute and Girly and Fred She Said DT cards

The new challenge is up over at By The Cute and Girly (well actually it was up yesterday but I couldn't get my cards uploaded so I am a day late!) and the girls have done an amazing job!
There is so much inspiration over there, you just gotta check it out!
It's my turn to host this month and I chose the theme of Fairytales (surprised? didn't think so lol)
We have some fab sponsors again this month and as always, you can enter the challenge as much times as you like as long as each entry is a different craft. Someone asked me the other day if a card and an ATC would be classed as a different crafts as they are both papercrafts, so I thought I would answer that question on here. In short yes we class them as different crafts, although they are both papercrafts, they are different to each other, you could also enter a card and a layout and an ATC if you like because they are all different. Really we just don't want people entering 4 or 5 cards because there are people who enter our challenge who do x stitch or knitting etc and it's not really fair to them if we let others have multiple card entries as their craft takes a lot longer to make KWIM?

Anyway now that I have explained that, I will get on with my cards. As I said the DT done an amazing job, but me......well that's a different story lol. I left everything till the last minute and had t6o rush to get my makes finished on time (no surprise there either!) and when I did get them done, my camera decided it didn't want to work properly so I have rubbish pics too lol.
My pics are really blurry but hopefully you can just about make everything out.
But here they are anyway, hopefully I can get a better pic of these later.

I went with the Little Mermaid for this one (obviously lol) and I did this for Chiara's birthday which is this Wednesday coming.
The image is Emma The Mermaid from Fred She Said and it is an old one but I love it and so does Chiara so hopefully she will like the card.
The papers are We R Memory Keepers, lace is from my stash and ribbon is Bo Bunny, I just threaded the ribbon through the holes in the lace. The number 5 was a download from somewhere ages ago but I have no idea where and I stuck a string of pearls round it, which you can't see very well here but you may be able to see it a bit better below.


 Oh and everything is coloured with Polychromos pencils and oms.

My next card is a little different to what I normaly do but I thought the shape would fit this months theme.  (Sorry but this one is a really bad pic!)


 I used my very old Glitter Girls Bookatrix embossing board which hasn't seen the light of day for goodness knows how long! I was trying to think of something quick I could do but something that was a little different than a normal card and I thought a book shaped card would be good since you read Fairytales and then I remembered I had the board.
I used some white card and stamped around it with little flourishes using a tiny Studio G stamp, then done the next layer in a light puple and the next with some pink dp that was a freebie from a a magazine.
The bookmark which can come off the card and be used was done with the same card and stamp and I added some purple stickles around the edge to make it sparkly :) I also inked all the edges except the pink layer with the same purple ink I used to stamp with.
The wording is done with some rub ons but I can't remember who makes them and I will also add Chiara's name to the bookmark once I find bigger letters.
The image is a Sugar Nellie and I am afraid she has lost her wand! I cut her out and the wand fell off because it was so thin and by the time I went to stick it on, I had lost her star lol. She is coloured with my pencils again and I used some white glitter on her wings and the stars on her shoes. And finally the flowers are handmade. I used a flower shape from the same embossing board and I have no idea why I never thought of using it before because it works great. Anyway I embossed 4 of them, cut them out, stamped  the same swirls all over and sprayed with glimmer mist, then I cut down each petal and kind of rolled each petal side one way and the other side the opposite way (I have no idea if I am making sense here! lol) then used my embossing tool in the middle to make them curl up a little and layer two on top of each other and finished them off with a little flower from my stash and a large pearl.

I did take pics of the pages seprately so you might be able to see it better but they are not very good either so that was probably pointless lol. But here they are anyway.


Oh the lace is from my stash and is the same kind I used on my other card but this one is sparkly :)


Right I promise I am finished now!
Why not go and check out the other girls projects and enter while you are there :)

Also just a reminder that you still have loads of time left to enter the Fred She Said challenge which is Spring with pastel colours.

Thanks for stopping by to visit little ole me, I really do appreciate it :)

Hugs