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 :)

Sunflower Smiles

I can't believe I have actually blogged 3 days in a row now after not blogging at all for a month! I missed of missed you all too much! :) lol

I actually got a card made yesterday that wasn't for any dt's, decided I would make one just for fun for a change. I didn't even follow any challenges. It's been so long since I have made a card just because I want to!

I'm not very keen on it mind you, but thought I would show it anyway, and I also found a card pic on my computer that has been there for about 6 weeks and never been blogged, so thought I would show that one today too.

Ok, so my first card is a happy sunflower one :) I found a printed image by Pink Cat Studio, that I must of printed out months ago but never coloured, so I coloured her up and made a simple card with it.

I thought this was a nice bright, fun image to use since we have been having such horrible wet weather in Scotland lately :) 

The paper I used is one from a pad that came with a magazine and I can't remember for the life of me who it's by. We have been getting some great paper pads free with the mags lately though, haven't we? I never buy magazines unless they have a nice free gift with them! lol It's normally cheaper to buy the mag than it is to buy the paper pad itself, so I figure that I'm getting a bargain and also have a mag to read if I'm bored lol.

The lace was a gift from my lovely blogging friend Ger and I threaded some green organza ribbon from my stash through it.

The flowers are ones I have had from when I designed for Janlynn.com/Stamps Happen, and they no longer sell them. I'm not a big sunflower fan, but thought these went well with the image.

The image is coloured with a mix of Copics and Promarkers and I actually used my Cricut to cut out the scalloped squares and also the leaves. Told you I would only use it for normal shapes lol.

I am having problems getting the correct pressure/speed etc though, so it's kind of put me off using it :( It's just a waste of good paper/card (which I have hardly any of as it is!) when it won't cut properly and tears the paper to bits! The girl I bought it from said that it was a new blade that was fitted in it, so I'm sure it's just me not being able to use it properly! lol. As I bought it second hand, it didn't come with any instructions, so I have had to do a bit of searching online to find out what pressure etc I need to set it at, but even after following all the recommendations on the Provocraft site, I still can't get it right! lol

My second card is Springy too :) I think I should of maybe used one of these cards for the By The Cute and Girly challenge instead of using one that isn't very springy lol.

I love this cute image from LOTV, but I'm not happy with the way I coloured it. I don't have this stamp, but I got some LOTV stamped images months back in a magazine (told you these mags come in handy! lol) and they are on really thin paper, so you can't really add much ink without it bleeding.

The papers I used on this one are K&Co, roses from my stash, the big flower I have no idea who make it because I bought them off a blogging friend (thanks again hunnie), and the embroidered leaves and butterfly were from Little Snippets, but unfortunately Ger has stopped selling her embroidered bits :( Such a shame because they are beautiful. Oh and the ribbon is also from Little Snippets.

That's it from me for today on the card front, but I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who left my comments these last few days. They really cheered me up and gave me the incentive I needed to keep blogging :) You are all fantastic and I appreciate every one of you coming to visit and taking the time to leave me comments :)

Digital Tuesday- Sketch

It feels like ages since I last posted. I was away for a week and befrore that I had major internet problems, so haven't been able to post for over a week.

This week it's Natascha's turn to choose the challenge at Digital Tuesday and she made a sketch for us to follow.

Our sponsor this week is Spesch Stamps who are giving away 3 digi stamps to the winnrer of this weeks challenge, and Tracey kindly let the dt choose an image to use.

I love the images at Spesch Stamps so of course I had to use one, and I chose one of the new images this time, called Lemonade Girl.

I went a bit bright with this one! Not my mormal kind of colours (I find myself saying that a lot lately though lol), but since she has lemons on her dress, there had to be some yellow in there, so I thought I would make it nice and bright and went for orange as well.

The base paper is Bo Bunny that I have had for ages and the butterfly one which I have also had for a long time is by Papermania.

I didn't have a die to give me the curved shape from the sketch and I didn't really want a ripped edge on this card, so I just cut the curvy bit freehand.

The ribbon is some I got ages ago in a bargain pack that I bought for my kids in the local poundland shop. I never thought I would ever use it, but it came in handy for this card because the only other orange or yellow ribbon I have is Halloween ones. I added some lace from my stash on top of the ribbon, some Prima flowers and the yellow flowers on top are from Janlynn.com but unfortunately they have stopped selling them.

The pretty doily is from Poppy's Cabin (link in sidebar) and a few Prima pearls.

 Isn't this image fab? I didn't realise when I asked Tracey for this one that it comes with no eyes drawn in (just the eyelashes and you have to draw the pupils yourself) and I kinda panicked because I am terrible at drawing eyes, but I had fun colouring her and I don't think the eyes turned out to bad. 

I used a fine liner black Promarker for the pupil and left a tiny white bit for highlights then just coloured as normal with blue Promarkers.

I do need a lor more practice though, but that's just another excuse for me to buy more of these fabby images:)

Promarker colours used
Skin: Coral, Satin, Blush, Baby Pink (for cheeks)
Hair: Henna, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna
Yellows on dress and the lemon: Saffron, Tulip Yellow, Canary
Dress: Orange, Peach, Apricot
Shadows: Ice Grey 2 & 3 and blender

I hope you will join in with this weeks challenge.

Thanks for stopping by. I really do appreciate you visiting me, especially when I haven't been posting very much, and I love to read all the comments you leave (speaking of comments, there may just be some commenters/followers candy coming very soon:)

A colour combo for Charisma

It's my turn to choose the challenge over at Charisma cardz this week and I went for a colour combo of Pink and Green. One of my favourite colour combos but I haven't used it for a while.
As always there is some fabby prizes up for grabs, and for my card I used an image from one of this weeks sponsors, All That Scraps (cc designs).

 I used some new paper for the image which I got at Hobbycraft the other day because they didn't have the one that I normaly buy but I thought this one would be the same or very similar....how wrong was I??!!
I normaly buy the Personal Impressions smooth paper which I actually stumbled upon by accident and tried it with my Promarkers and it worked fine, no bleeding and easy to blend with, but this time I bought Premier Quality smooth white card by Crafts UK Limited which I thought would be around the same quality as it was the same price, but it's rubbish!! The ink bleeds, so I am not a happy bunny because I don't have any other card/paper just now for colouring on :(

Anyway enough of my moaning! I coloured as usual with Promarkers, but didn't do much blending or use many colours because I was wary of it bleeding.
The green strip of paper at the bottom is by Fancy Pants and the others are My Minds Eye, flowers are Prima's, Papermania little roses and the rose in the middle was from Janlynn.com but unfortunately they don't stock them anymore, which is a shame because they are  lovely.
Some ribbon from Hobbycraft which I coloured with a Promarker and the leaves are die cut with a Marianne die.

I followed the sketch from the Creatalicious challenge, but I had already coloured and cut my image before I found the sketch, so I used a rectangle for my image instead of a circle, apart from that, I followed the sketch to the letter...for a change! lol.

And last but not least, a close up of the image, which I am really not happy with the colouring on, but it's done now.

Promarker colours
skin: blush, ivory, baby pink for cheeks.
hair, cinnamon, raw sienna, burnt sienna
clothes: baby pink, cocktail pink, meadow green

If anyone has any suggestions of paper/card to use with Promarker, it would be much appreciated :) I'm in the UK so needs to be something I can get over here and preferably something that doesn't cost a fortune lol. I was using Bristol Board for a while but I looked at the price in Hobbycraft yesterday and they wanted nearly £16 for an A4 pad which I really can't afford to be paying at the moment just for paper. I did used to get it from another shop in town and it was much cheaper (and they did smaller sizes) but they have closed down, so I really need to find a brand that doesn't bleed with the markers and one that you can blend quite a bit on.

Thanks for stopping by and please do leave any suggestions :)

Charisma and Inky Impressions DT cards

The new challenge is up over at Charisma Cardz and the challenge this week is "Boy Oh Boy".
If you have been a follower of my blog for a while, you will know that I don't like making male cards and I very rarely make them, but I kinda enjoyed making this one :) I like distressing so it's maybe the fact that I got to distress all the edges lol, but I'm not keen on the way it turned out.....it's just too plain for my liking lol.

 I coloured Edwin with my Promarkers as usual, papers are K&Co Hopscotch and I matted with navy blue coredinations...I just love how it distresses :)
I can't remember where I got the raffia ribbon stuff as I have had it for ages, and the only embellishment I used is a Making Memories badge brad which I just poked through a circle of coredinations.

Edwin's close up :)

 There is also a new challenge over at the Inky Impressions challenge blog and the challenge this fortnight is "Shine On". the lovely Vicki wants to see shiny bits on your cards this time, whether it's glossy accents, sparkly embellishments, glitter etc, as long as it looks shiny it will do :)

I think I maybe went a bit overboard with the shiny gems!!

I used the sweet Lili's present stamp this time which you can find in the Inky Impressions store, and of course she is coloured with Promarkers.
The papers are from the same pad but I can't for the life of me remember which pad it is! I used a square doily from Poppy's Cabin (click on the banner in my sidebar to get there) and just left the border showing, then I stuck on loads of red shiny gems. It's just as well they come in strips or else I would of been there forever sticking them on lol.
The flowers are ones from Janlynn.com and I have dipped them in dazzling diamonds glitter.

And finally Lili's close up. Sorry about the quality of the pics, I really must get my DT cards made well in advance so I don't need to take pics the night before when there's no light!!

 You have 2 weeks to get your entries in and there's a chance to win a goodie bag, so why not hop over amd enter the challenge and see the rest of the design teams cards :)

Thanks for stopping by today

By The Cute and Girly "Bling It on"

I am really late in posting my dt cards that I made for this month's By The Cute and Girly challenge, because I made them thinking that I could borrow my son's camcorder to take pics of them, but that plan went out the window because he couldn't find the usb cable to connect it to my computer!!.... so I had to wait till I bought a new camera before I could take some pics because they wouldn't scan as I put flowers on them.
 Anyway I have a new camera now and managed to get some pics, but they were taken at night, so they are not very good, but at least I can show them now!

The challenge this month is set by our newest DT member Tammy and it's "Bling It On".
We are sponsored this month by our regular monthly sponsors, Simon Says Stamp and Joanna Sheen and our own Geraldine is sponsoring again this month with a gift certifiacate to spend in her etsy store, Little Snippets.
We also have a new digital sponsor this month- My Grafico who are giving away one of their fab digi stamp sets and also 20% off an order in store. My Grafico also gave the design team one of  their digi sets to work with this month. It's a really girly one and was just perfect for the challenge :)
It's called Stick Fairies and the deisgner is Stockberry Studio and I used one of  the fairies on my first card.

As I said the image is from My Grafico and I colured her with Promarker and used loads of Stickles.

The butterfly paper is Papermania, and I used the other side of it for the scalloped border which I done with a Fiskars puch. The other paper is some I pinched from my Daughter Rhianna (I know I am terrible stealing from a 7 year old lol, but it's really pretty!) and is by Best Creation Inc.

Flowers which I also covered with stickles, are all from Janlynn.com, except the largest rose which is from Wild Orchid Crafts, and the ribbon/lacey stuff (actually I have no idea what it is lol) is from Hobbycraft, and the bead spray thing is from a local florist warehouse... I must get more of these because I think this is my last one and they are so pretty.

A close up of the image and flowers so you can see the sparkle a bit better :)

I have no idea about the papers on this one, the blue one is from a 12x12 sheet that was already cut into and no name left on it, and the other 3 are from a paper pad that I have had a while but put it away and I can't remember who makes it.... had a quick look but I can't find it...sorry.
The image is from Dewdrop Craftz and is coloured with Promarkers and I smothered it in stickles lol.
Flowers are a mix from my stash.. white roses are fro Janlynn.com, pink one I think is a Prima and the other is one I made ages ago from some scraps of digi papers, I think they could be by Summer Driggs and are punched with the SU! 5 petal punch and a Dovecraft punch and I used a tiny spacer in teh centre. I covered the flowers in stickles and added some pearl heart that I got in the works.

You can see the stickles on her a bit better here, but it really sparkles in real life, think I went a bit overboard on the stickles with these 2 cards lol.

I hope you will join in with this months challenge. It's a great chance to get your glitter and other blingy stuff out :) and of course you could win one of the 4 fab prizes!!

I haven't forgotten about my followers giveaway....... things have been a bit hectic here the last few days, but I promise I will announce the winner soon along with a new giveaway! :)

Thanks for stopping by

Lora xx

Finally some blog candy!!

 This post is pinned to the top, please scroll down for more recent posts.

I finally have some candy to share!! Sorry I have taken forever to put this up but because my camera was broken, I couldn't get a pic of the goodies!
It was my 2nd blogaversary at the end of last month, so this is just so sweet stuff to celebrate 2 years of blogging :)
Some of the companies that I design for have been very generous and have gave me some goodies to give away, so a huge thank you to my dt "bosses" lol, you are all fab!! :)

Like most giveaways, there are a few rules, but I don't expect you to work your bum off just to get a chance to win lol :)


If you would like to become a follower (if you are not already of course), that would be fantastic, but only if you want to, it is not necessary to be entered into the draw.

The only "rule" is please copy my candy pic below (the first one) and put it in your sidebar with a link to let everyone know about my giveaway and then leave me a comment. 
I was going to use a Linky thing again this time, but I much prefer to read comments and the link gadgets are not very reliable!

ETA: If you don't have a blog, you can still enter, just let a friend know about my candy instead :)

Remember to check back to see if you have won as unless you leave an email address, I will have no way of contacting you.

 Oh and anyone can enter, and I will ship worldwide :)

Right so now that's all out of the way, here's what's up for grabs!!

There will be 2 prizes, 1 is "material" items and the other is digital.

So the first prize is from Janlynn.com, and I was told that there would be approx $50 worth of stuff, but I counted it up and there is about $80 (maybe more) worth of goodies here!!

So what's it the pic?? I know it's a really pants pic because I had to use a friends camera so here's a  list of what's all there. I have also added pics of the stamps and embelishments seperately below so you can see them a little better.

Wood Mounted Stamps Happen Red Throated Hummingbird Stamp (huge stamp!)
Wood Mounted Stamps Happen There's a Season Stamp (another big one)
Wood Mounted Stamps Happen Season's Greetings Stamp (never seen a greeting/sentiment stamp so big!!)
Wood Mounted Stamps Happen Bring Coffee Stamp (another big one)
Wood Mounted Stamps Happen Thank You Sentiment Stamp
Pack of Metal flower embelishments
Pack of purple flowers
Box of pink roses
Box of yellow roses
Box of red roses
Box of white roses
Green metallic 6 strand floss
Copper metallic 6 stand floss
Black metallic 6 strand floss
And I forgot to get a pic of this, but there is also a tote bag featuring one of the stamps happen designs which says "Put your big girl panties on and deal with it!" lol. You can see this bag and most of the other products above excluding the flowers and metal embelishments if you click on the links :)

So it really is a craft goodie bag full of craftyness :)

Now the other prize is a mix of digital "stuff".

 A $10 CAD Gift Certificate to spend at the Fred She Said Store!!

A £10 digi voucher to spend on digital images at Dewdrop Craftz!!

And 3 Digital Images of your choice from Digital Stamp Oasis!!

I will leave this open until 10pm (GMT) on 14th of December and will announce the winners on  the 15th. Please remember to check back to see if you have won! :)

Good luck and thanks for stopping by!

A lot of DT stuff!

As the title says, I have a lot of DT stuff to show today. The new challenge is up today over at By The Cute and Girly and the theme this month is Indian Summer.
You can interpret that however you like and the dt girls have some great samples to show you over at the challenge blog for inspiration.
For my first make I chose to just use the colours and made a card.

 The image is one I got in a rak so I am not actualy sure who makes the stamp. It is embossed with black ep and I coloured it with Promarkers.
The papers are Craftwork Cards and were freebies in a magazine!
The ribbon is from my stash and the sunflower is from Janlynn.com. Unfortunately thir embelishments are all discontinued but they a still have all the great stamps and loads of goodies for those who love needlework along with lots more for your crafting addiction!

My next project is a little pillow box, well actualy it's not quite so little, it is actually quite big.

I went with the colours again for this and used a piece of paper that I got from one of my dt's girls at BTC&G (thanks hun xx).
The image I have used is from Whimsy Stamps who are one of our sponsors this month and very kindly gave the design team some of their images to play with. This one is called Maya blowing bubbles and I think she is so cute. I coloured her with Promarkers and this is the first time I have ever attempted to colour darker skin so I'm not sure how well I did but I think it looks ok?
Then I finished it off with another sunflower from Janlynn and some gems from my stash.

My next DT project is for  the Digital Tuesday challenge where the challenge is to make a gift set.
I should of posted this yesterday, but I thought that the colours I have used tied in with the theme at By The Cute and Girly so thought I would post it all together today.

I managed to combine 3 DT projects in one here! The image is from Dewdrop Craftz and I coloured again with Promarkers. There are quite a few of these bees over at Dewrop Craftz and they are all as cute as each other but I had this one printed and already coloured so thought I would make use of it.
The papers are Heidi Grace, I used my Fiskars border punch on the strip in the middle which is the paper that is on the reverse of the sheet I used for the rest of the card.
The flowers I made using the Paper Roses and Leaves Template set from Fred She Said.
I reduced the size of the flower to 3 different sizes, then printed them out onto normal white copy paper then coloured them with a Promarker, scrunched them up then opened them and cut down each petal then layered them and added a sticky back gem to the middle.
Have I told you before that I l;ove this flower set?? Ok yes I know I say that every time I use it lol, but it really is my favourite flower set from FSS because there is so much you can do with it.

A close up of the top of the box just so you can see the pwretty flowers :)
I used the same paper on the box and the leaves are from the same FSS set, again printed on white copy paper and coloured with a Promarker.

Right that's me done for now, 4 DT's in one post, I really am doing well at multi tasking!! lol
I hope you will join in with the BTC&G challenge this month. As always we have some fab prizes up for grabs and 2 guest dt spots too.
And if you have time this week I would love to see your entries at Digital Tuesday too. Why not combine the two and have a chance to win in both challenges? :)

Thanks for stopping by

Dewdrop Craftz DT card

I have finally got round to postng a card that I made with one of the fab Dewdrop Craftz images, which I made about a week ago!
I love their manage style images although I did find this one a little bit hard to colour but that's because my colouring is pants anyway lol.

I followed the sketch over at the Yahoo Stamp patch group and for a change I followed the sketch to the letter, well except from adding some flowers, but that's just typical of me because I don't think I could make a card without using flowers!

The papers are from a freebie pad I got in a magazine but I can't remember right now who makes it.
The images is of course from Dewdrop Craftz and is by the designer CupuDOTexe, this one is called Rori 4 and I coloured it with Promarkers.
If you love this kind of images, you will love all the other mangas at Dewdrops, they have a fab selection and if you are anything like I was, you won't just want one or two, you will want them all, so I must state here that I am in no way responsible for you having no money after your visit! lol

The last card I did with one of these images was purple as well.......hmmm no idea why because it's not a colour I normaly use but I just seem to go for purple every time I colour one of these.
Anyway I used some purple binding stuff which Barry found for me and I wasn't sure I would use it on anything but here it is. It looks a bit darker here than irl but that's just my rubbish photography skills and the fact that I took this pic late at night!

The spotty ribbon is from some I won over at the fabulous Kath's blog a while ago and I used a Fiskars punch for the scalloped strip underneath.
The flowers and fibres are all from Janlynn, but unfortunately they are discontinued, but you can find all sorts of other loveliness over there and great customer service too :)
The sentiment and frame thing it's stamped in are from a Stampendous clear stamp set (Ribbon Sliders) and I have a set for sale here on my blog exactly the same.
I used the ribbon slider stamp just with the sentiment on it's own, but it also goes nicely used with ribbon or the ribbon stamps that come in the set.

That's it from me for now. I will be back tomorrow for Digital Tuesday.
Hope you are all having a fab Monday even though it's the worst day of the week!! and thanks so much for stopping by.

Lora x

Digital Tuesday challenge

I can't believe it is Tuesday already, where did the weekend go!!?
My youngest Daughter Chiara started school on Thursday and I really thought I would have problems getting her to stay there because she is so shy, but actually she wasn't too bad. On Thursday she went in and sat down with her friends and was fine, then on Friday I did have to go sit with her for a few minutes because she was crying and didn't want me to leave, but she was ok when I left and she really enjoyed herself.
I thought we might have some tears yesterday after her being off for the weekend but she was no trouble at all, just went straight in and sat down with her little friends :)
She is only in for half days till the 6th of septmeber and then she will be in all day and have lunch at school but I am dreading that because she is so shy that she won't eat in front of anyone, so I have no idea how she is going to cope with a whole hall full of other kids eating but her big sister (who is only a year and a half older than her) will be there to look after her so I'm sure she will be fine :)
Rhianna has been great and has been waiting for her at playtime so she can look after her, bless her lol, so I'm sure I have nothing to worry about but she is my baby so I am going to worry anyway lol.

Right onto the card, the challenge at Digital Tuesday this week is "Cool It" (use images with water) and our sponsor is Deedee's Digis who very kindly offered the design team some of her images to use for the challenge.

Sorry about the rubbish pic, I took it late last night when there was no light (again!!).
The image I have used is from Deedee's Digis and is called "Surf's Up", there is also some sentiments that come with the image but I wasn't sure what I would use this card for so I didn't use one.
I coloured the surfer dude with my Promarkers. The green paper is Papermania but I am not sure about the spotty one. The rafia ribbon stuff is some I got from a craft shop in Montrose a while back and the metal embellishments are from Janlynn.com. These are unfortunately discontinued, but of course they still have all their fab stamps over there along with loads of other crafty bits.

I was asked the other day by one of my followers who also follows my challenge blog By The Cute and Girly if I knew anywhere that sold stamps and cardmaking items as well as a good selection of needlework items as like a lot of crafters, she likes to do more than just one kind of crafts one of which is x stitch and the one (and only) place that came to mind was Janlynn. They have a huge selection of rubber stamps (of course the fab Stamps Happen stamps) to satisfy our stamping addiction and also a huge range of needlework items so you can do all your crafty shopping in one place and the customer service is fab too. What more could you want? :)

Right I better get cracking with some cards since I am a bit behind on my DT work with having to spend most of my days this last week at the girls school!
 Oh before I forget, I still have some stamps for sale below, with free postage in the UK, but I will also ship anywhere else.
Thanks for stopping by :)

By The Cute And Girly- Winter Wonderland

Good morning, hope you have all had a fab weekend. It's the first of the month and we have a new challenge for you over at By The Cute & Girly. It's my turn to host and I picked "Winter Wonderland" as the theme. I want to see all your Winter and Christmas makes this month :)
The DT have loads of beautiful projects for you to see over on the challenge blog, but just scroll down past mine because I have the worse pics on there ever! I borrowed a camera from a friend because mine wasn't playing ball and it took worse pics than my own one. My first box is ok because I took that with my own camera but the rest is really blurry so just pretend you didn't see them lol. I do have to show you some of those terrible pics on here though so I'm afraid I have to subject you to some naff photography for a few mins lol.
We have some great prizes this month, there is 3 prizes which the DT will pick winner for and one overall prize which will be drawn at random, so everyone has a chance to win :)
Simon Says is sponsoring us with a $25 voucher & free p&P, Joanna Sheen is giving a £10 voucher, Nitwitts has a great set to give away and Janlynn is giving at $20 voucher and a craft goodie bag for the overall winner!! I wish I wasn't on the DT so I could enter lol.

Speaking of Janlynn, that's what my DT project today is all about. Most of my regular visitors will know that I do some cards and projects for Janlynn but if you didn't know , you do now :) This company as well as owning Stamps Happen Stamps, has the most fabulous flowers and other embelishments and loads more card making and scrapbooking stuff as well, they even have needle craft and crafts for kids, I fully recommend that you should pay them a visit. They have a lot of stuff on sale just now including my favourite, their gorgeous roses and poinsettias and other flowers, they were $3 each per pack and are reduced to 0.99 just now!! So get yourself over there and grab a bargain.
Ok so onto my DT project. except for the naff pics, I have a chest to show you. I bough a plain chipboard chest from the craft shop , took off the pearl bead handles to paint, Chiara lost them so I had to find new ones and decorated it for Winter with some Janlynn stamps and some paper.
Now I have to confess that I haven't took a pic of the front straight on and the reason for that is, I had it all looking pretty and Chiara came in with muddy hands and picked it up! I managed to just wipe it off the painted bits but it is all over bits of the paper on the drawers so I will have to try take the paper off and recover it! On the front I have used Basic Grey blue and light green paper to cover the fronts of the drawers and used some sparkly silver beads for the handles. I will take more pics when I re do the front. I will also take more pics later today of the side and top and swap these ones because you really can't see any of the detail here.

On the sides (both are the same), I used 2 of my craft stamps from Janlynn's Holiday range. The first is the Penguin Santa isn't he just the cutest penguin? which I stamped with Stazon and coloured very carefully with Copics so the ink didn't run. I normally use Memento with my Copics but I wanted to use Stazon because I was stamping on top of a painted surface and it was a bit slippy. Oh I should probably say that I first painted the whole box with white acrylic paint. I also used a pearl pen on his hat for the fur and bauble and painted on some pearl paint under him for snow. I was going to use white glitter but thought if it was being handled the glitter would be everywhere. I then stamped all over the side with the Christmas Snowflakes stamp with some blue Versamagic Chalk ink. I even stamped over the penguin and pearl paint (once dried of course) then just wiped off the bits I didn't want. Another reason for using Stazon and the pearl pen instead of glitter or anything else. So much quicker than masking :)

I know you can't see this but I will tell you anyway lol, I stamped over the top of the box with the Christmas Snowflakes using the same blue ink and added stickles to the middle of the snowflakes (just pretend you can see that bit) and when it was all dry, I added a pretty white feather, some flowers and 2 white fabric leaves. There is also some punched ones made with the McGill branch punch but you can't see that either lol. Maybe I should of just waited until I took more pics before I showed this! Oh well it's done now.

Sorry about the huge post but I really wanted to tell you about the Janlynn sale and their new holiday stamps. I know you have seen me use a few of their new Christmas Stamps but they have loads more that I have not shown and the stamps are top quality wood mounted stamps which are a dream to stamp.

Remember Janlynn are sponsoring us again this month so if you want your hands on some of these Holiday stamps or anything else in their store, get on over there and enter with any craft you like. The winner of the Janlynn prize is for the overall winner picked at random, so you have a chance of winning no matter what craft you enter :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lora x