By The Cute and Girly blog hop

This post in pinned to the top of my blog. Please scroll down for more recent posts.
You can see my second By The Cute and Girly post for October using another Whiff Of Joy image here 

It's By The Cute and Girly's 3rd Birthday today and we are celebrating with a birthday challenge and blog hop :)

My blog is the first on he list, so you are in the right place if you have just came to visit and didn't know about the hop :)

The design team have all been busy making something to celebrate our 3rd birthday and we would love for you to visit us all to see what we made.

The blog hop rules are very simple, all you have to do is visit each of the design team members blogs and leave a comment on each one, then finish up at our challenge blog and leave a comment there to let us know you have finished the hop. 

Your name will then be put in a draw to win one of the blog hop prizes.

If you also enter our challenge this month, you will also be put in the draw to win one of challenge prizes.

You have the whole month to enter and you can enter the challenge as much times as you like, as long as each entry is a different craft eg: 1 card, 1 scrap page, 1 altered item, 1 knitted item etc.

And as always, you can enter with any craft you like, from paper craft to baking and everything in between. If you made it yourself then you can enter is, it's as easy as that :)

The theme is "Birthdays" so it's a nice easy challenge and we have lots of prizes up for grabs from some great sponsors! Please check out the challenge blog to see all the prizes we have to give away!

Each design team member is featuring a different sponsor today, so you will see images or other products from a different sponsor being used on each of the dt blogs. We also have other sponsors on the challenge blog, so there really is lots of prizes to be won :)

The sponsor I am featuring is Whiff Of Joy

Katharina very kindly sent me a stamp to use for my card, and it is the same stamp which she is giving away as a prize :)

The stamp I used is called "Those Belong To Me". It is currently out of stock at the moment but you can enter the challenge this month for a chance to win it :)

I coloured it with Copics and cut it out with a Nellie Snellen die.

The papers are Prima, flowers are a mix of Wild Orchid Crafts and ones from Hobbycraft.

I used some cheesecloth (love this stuff!), ribbon, lace, a pearl ribbon slider and a metal corner all of which are either from my stash or gifts from my lovely dt members (thank you ladies, you know who you are xx)

I just hope that Katharina thinks I have done her lovely stamp justice as my hand is still numb so my colouring is not so good just now :(

And a close up of the cute image :)

The next stop is Celine's blog and I know she has a gorgeous card to show you.

Remember to leave a comment on this post and on all the other design team members blog hop post for a chance to win one of the prizes. Then leave a comment on the challenge blog post to let us know you are finished the hop and your name will go into the prize draw.

Here's a list of the blog hop order in case you loose your way.

Lora

Celine

Aideen

Tammy

Geraldine

Uta

Carol

Brigitte

Kate

 Thanks so much for stopping by

Warm and Fuzzy Christmas

The challenge over at Digital Tuesday this week is "Warm and Fuzzy" and our sponsor is Bugaboo Stamps, who are giving away 7 digi images to our winner.

I chose a Christmas image from Bugaboo to use for my card (hence the post name :)) and was planning on using some Christmas sentiment transfer things that you add flock on top of (sorry don't know what they are called lol). I know I have a few packs of them by DCWV but I couldn't find them anywhere (what's the bets that I find them today after making my card?! lol), so I had to change my plan and had no idea what to do for the warm and fuzzy theme....after all, I chose a Christmas image! Really if I had ay sense I would of chose a bear of something, but no I had to make it difficult for myself! So I had a look through my stash and came up with this :)

Sorry about the horrible pics, it's really dull here today. I sooo need to get some daylight lamps to take pics!

So first I found a velvety flower....found loads of these but only 1 red one and none other colours that would go with my card- typical! lol, and I didn't really think it was enough to just use one flower since it's not really obvious that it's my "warm and fuzzy" element, so I went looking again and just when I was about to give up, I found this cute pom pom trim :)

I had to cut off a couple of the pom poms at the end so that I could stick the card front to my base without there being huge lumps on either side where I had stuck the trim at the back of the paper, so since I had these little pom poms left over, I used one for the hat on the image :)

I had actually glittered that part of the image, but I think the little pom pom looks cute ;) lol

The papers I used I think are Raspberry Road? I got the paper pad free with a magazine last week, but I've put it away now and forgot to check who made it first. I'm sure it's Raspberry Road though....it seems like their kind of style? 

Not sure if I like the papers, but I'm trying to use up what I have before buying anymore papers....you know how the craft budget thing is a few months before Christmas (or in my case all the time!! lol).

I went a bit mad with the white paint around the edges of the paper lol, and then didn't like the look of it but didn't have time to make another card, so I added some stickles around the edges which made it look a bit better:)

The image is called "Ava Christmas- Candy Cane" and was coloured with Copics and I added glitter to her hat and the white bits of the candy cane. I just noticed that I got white paint on her shoes! Oh well she must of been walking in the snow before sitting on her candy cane ;) lol

The larger snowflakes are cut with Marianne dies (both from the same set) and the little snowflakes were done with a Woodware punch, then I just added a little star in the middle which I found in my stash and of course glittered them. Oh and the little white flower is from Wild Orchid Crafts.

 The other girls have done a fab job as usual and you can check out all their cards over at Digital Tuesday. 

And I'm sorry to mention this again, but you should really go check out the challenge and blog hop at my other challenge blog By The Cute and Girly :) 

I know I keep mentioning it, but we really do have a lot of prizes up for grabs and to be honest, this month I kinda wish that I wasn't on the design team so I could have a chance at winning some of those prizes!! haha

We have prizes from Simon Says Stamp, Whiff Of Joy, Lili Of The Valley, Joanna Sheen, Kenny K, Pink Gem and loads more! Oh and a big box of goodies from Janlynn.com, with some of the fab steampunk charms included that I used on the card that I posted yesterday :)

All you have to do for a chance to win is join in with our Birthday themed challenge (you can make absolutely anything you want, from a card to a cake! as long as it fits the birthday theme) and/or do our blog hop:)

We have a bunch of prizes for the challenge and then another lot of prizes for the blog hop, so why not do both for a chance to win from both lots of prizes. Or even better, do the blog hop and enter the challenge multiple times for even more chances to win! ;)

you can enter the challenge as may times as you like, but each entry must be using a different craft (1 card, 1 scrapbook page, 1 altered item, 1 baked item etc).

Ok, this post is getting way too long, so I'm off to snuggle up and watch some tv because it's freezing here!

Thanks so much for stopping by

A bit of shabby chic birthday ;)

This will be a long post with lots of pics, so you might want to get yourself comfy first with a cuppa before reading ;)

It's the middle of the month (already! where did October go?!!), which means I have some stuff to show you that I made for the inspiration post over at By The Cute and Girly challenge.

It's our 3rd Birthday this month and we are celebrating with a special birthday challenge and blog hop! You can see my blog hop post at the top of my blog :)

We are all using a different sponsors images/products this month as we have a lot of sponsors with lots of prizes of course (15 prizes in fact!) to help celebrate our birthday, and my sponsor is  Whiff Of Joy.

The lovely Katharina sent me a stamp to use for the challenge, which I used for my card at the start of the month, but this time I decided to buy one of her digi stamps to use on my card (I was going to buy a rubber stamp to use, but I forgot about it until the other day and by then I was too late to order it in time for the inspiration post).

Anyway, I thought it would be nice to make something a bit special since it's my challenge blogs birthday:) So I decorated/altered a plain wooden jewelry box and made a card using the WOJ image.

First here's the card I made.

 I went a bit shabby chic with this one as I wanted it to kind of match my box (it doesn't really match but it's the same kind of style lol).

The image is called "Tea For Two" and I coloured it with Promarkers, then glittered and inked the edges with stardust stickles and antique linen distress ink.

I love these images and really have to get more!;)

The papers are Prima ones and I also used some old sheet music, and matted the image and base layer with blue coredinations cardstock.

I did the white paint thing and added some paint to almost everything lol, to give it a softer feel.

The flowers I made using Mariane Designs flower dies (a large and small flower die from the same set). I made some little rose style flowers for the top and just layered up some of the flowers for the bottom flower and added a flower from Wild Orchid Crafts in the center. Of course I glittered them :)

 The flourish/swirls are made using a Marianne Die and an MFT die.

Lace was bought in a little craft shop in Stonehaven, ticket sentiment was a digi freebie that I got ages ago buit can't remember where from, pearl string from my stash ad the cute little teapot charm is from Janlynn from the "Tea Time" charm pack. They have these fab steampunk sets of charms, and I love them! :)

There is so much to choose from and you can use them for so much different projetcs. I used a flat charm, but a lot of them in the range are 3d, and they are gorgeous! 

You can check out their steampunk range here.

Oh and we have some up for grabs along with loads of other goodies from Janlynn this month over at the challenge blog.

A close up of the cute image :)

Isn't that charm cute? :)

Ok, so that's the card and here's the box. Warning, there is quite a few pics!

I wanted to give this box an old shabby feel, so I painted it with sandstone acrylic paint, then a layer of crackle medium and finished off with a top coat of white acrylic paint so that the white cracked and little bits of the darker paint shows through.

You can't really see the cracked effect very well in these pics, but it looks better in real life.

I didn't use an image for a change! (I can tell you, that really was a challenge for me!! lol), but I wanted something in the center, so I used a Prima chipboard shape instead.

The lace on top is the same as I used in my card, and the flowers were made the same way too, except I added some white paint to them and added some tiny white rose buds.

The little heart was a plain wooden one and I painted it the same way as the rest of the box, and did the same with the die cut flourishes.

The pretty metal butterfly was gift from a friend, which I added some light blue pearls to, as was the metal corner.

Finally for the outside, I added some pretty beaded trim on the drawer, but the ribbon the beads are attached to is blue and it looked a bit out of place (because the blue was a bit too bright), so I added some pretty lace over the top.

And this is the inside :)

I kept the inside quite plain because if I added loads of embellies, it wouldn't close properly lol.

So I just added some Prima paper and a wooden heart.

This isn't a very good pic, but you can see that I lined the inside of the drawer with some more Prima paper.

And finally (I promise!! lol), some close up pics so you can see the detail a bit better.

I didn't want to add loads of pics, but there is so much little bits of detail on this project.

 You can see the glitter and paint on  the flowers a bit better in this pic. I used the same Prima papers to make the flowers ad some old sheet music.

So that's it for me for today (thank goodness! I hear you say lol)

Thanks so much for stopping by and any comments that you may leave.

I love reading my comments and appreciate you taking the time to leave me one :)

Digital Tuesday Steampunk

The theme at Digital Tuesday this week was chosen by Maya (who always likes to give us a challenge!) and she chose Steampunk.

I must admit, I could of died when she told me the theme because I have never made a steampunk card and didn't have anything steampunky....or so I thought.

I do love the style though and after all the worrying, I had so much fun making this card :)

 Our sponsor this week is Spesch Stamps who is giving away 3 digital images of the winners choice, and as always Tracey let the design team choose an image to play with, so of course I had to use one because I love her images!

Sorry about the pants pic! My camera battery went dead on me after only taking three pics and this was the best of a bad bunch! lol I was just lucky to get a pic of the full card and a close up of the image as I normally take loads of the whole card first then choose the best one.

Anyway as I said, I used a Spesch Stamps image and it's called "Steampunk". Very apt for the challenge :)

I coloured her with promarkers and cut her out using a craft knife for the tiny bits.....not really a good idea with a numb hand but I managed lol.

I used some sheet music (which I inked around the edges with copper ink) for the mat as I didn't have the colour of card I wanted to use- must remember to get some!

The patterned paper is by Bo Bunny and I decided to be daring and heat emboss the edges lol. Not sure if I like it, but it was fun to do ;)

The clock is a free svg file that I found a while back and the "cogs" I found on the accent essentials cricut cartridge. I thought they looked a bit steampunky?

I heat embossed them all with bronze embossing powder.

Finally to finish off, I cut some flowers from the same papers using a Marianne Designs die (which actually embosses circles on them as well), scrunched them into a ball, inked them with antique photo distress ink and layered them together with a button and some string which was also coloured with distress ink because I only have white. Then added some die cut flourishes. The leafy one is a MFT die and the other is a Marianne Designs.

I had actually coloured my image with blues and browns, but my son Liam said that it didn't go very well and it would look better in green, so I printed out another image and coloured it up and he was absolutely right :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Hope you ca join in with this weeks challenge and if you haven't already popped over to the By The Cute and Girly challenge blog, you might want to take a peek ;) Lots of prizes up for grabs for our 3rd birthday celebration! We have a blog hop running alongside the challenge for the whole month (my blog hop post is pinned to the top of my blog if you haven't already seen it) and we have prizes from some great sponsors including Simon Says Stamp, Lili Of The Valley, Whiff Of Joy, Joana Sheen, Kenny K, Pink Gem and much much more! In fact we have 15 prizes up for grabs this month!! and you can have lots of chances at winning them.

You will get an entry to the blog hop prize draw if you visit each dt's blog and leave a comment and you can enter the challenge as much times as you like throughout the month (as long as each entry is with a different craft) for multiple chances to win 1 (or more) of our challenge prizes!

I'm looking forward to visiting you all to see your entries! ;) xx

Digital Tuesday "Text Me"

This week at Digital Tuesday the challenge is "Text Me"- add some text on your creation.

Our sponsor this week is Crafty Sentiments  who are giving away 3 digital images of the winners choice.

The design team also got a choice of images to play with, and I was going to use a cute Halloween one like some of the other dt did, but I don't give Halloween cards, so although I love making them, there's really no point because it would just end up in the bin! So I used a cute little snowman instead and made my first Christmas card of the year!

 I printed the image onto iridescent cryogen white card and coloured with Copics, and also added some star dust stickles to  the tree and on his hat.

I first used Cryogen a few months back and loved the shimmer it gave to images, so I ordered some last week, but the lady sent me the iridescent one instead of the one I ordered and I really don't like it!

It does have a nice shimmer, but it's not so good to colour on. You have to work real quick because the ink dries fast and then it's so hard to blend.

So I won't even be buying that card again! lol

The bottom paper I used is by Raspberry Road and the other two are Websters Pages.

You ca't really see here, but the green paper has text all over it.

The bigger snowflakes are cut with Marianne Dies and the small ones were done with a punch (I think it's by Dovecraft but I will have to double check).

I also added some stickles to the snowflakes and added some dewdrops from Inky Impressions and some die cut christmas trees which I found in my stash, which I also added some stickles too.

And a close up of the cute but horribly coloured image. Oh, I also added stickles on the snow :)

So that's my card for Digital Tuesday and I hope you will join in with this weeks challenge.

If you haven't already checked out the By The Cute and Girly challenge, you have got to pop over and see the new challenge! We are celebrating our 3rd birthday with a birthday challenge and blog hop and we have 15 prizes up for grabs this month!!

You can enter the challenge and the hop for a chance to win ay of the prizes, or you can just enter one of them for a chance to win some of the prizes (we have 7 or 8 prizes for the challenge and the same for the hop), but if I were you, I would enter the challenge and do the hop because we have some really great prizes!

We have prizes from Simon Says Stamp, Joanna Sheen, Lili Of The Valley, Whiff Of Joy, Saturated Canary, Janlynn/Stamps Happen and so much more!!

If you missed my blog hop post, you can see it at the top of my blog (it is pinned there until the end of the month).

Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you joining in with one or both of the challenges :)

Lora x