Tuesday, 27 November 2012

A Tiddly Inks Fairy

The new challenge over at Digital Tuesday today is "Girly". That has to be the most easy challenge ever for me because I always make girly cards :)
Our sponsor this week is the fabulous Tiddly Inks and there is a $10 gift certificate up for grabs!


I used this lovely image from Tiddly Inks which is called "Fairy Fae Catches a Star"
I coloured her with a mix of Copics ad Promarkers and added some stickles for Sparkle. I seriously need some new hair and skin colours! I know I have been saying this for weeks, but still don't have any! Can't wait till Christmas is over and done with some I can buy some new markers! lol
Some of the papers I have used are Raspberry Road but not sure about the pink one.
I added some ribbon and lace from my stash, some flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts, some gorgeous butterflies from Little Snippets (link in my sidebar) which I added some pearls to and a few pearls dotted in with the flowers.


I love this image, it's so pretty :) and I now have lots of Tiddly Inks images on my wishlist! lol

Had to show a close up of the butterflies because they are so pretty :) 
 and one of the flowers so you can see the sparkle, which is done with stickles of course.

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope to see some of you join in with this weeks girly challenge.
Oh I almost forgot, I was asked to make some card samples with some marbled papers for Hayley from Pots and Pancakes to show on Create and Craft and they were on the show yesterday :)
Thing is I can't show you any of them because.......I forgot to take pics before I posted them off!! LOL
But if you were watching the show yesterday, one of my cards was right at the front (you really couldn't miss it because it was bright red! lol)

Right I'm defo going now. Off to read my youngest Daughter a bedtime story :)







Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Christmas colour combo at Digital Tuesday

It's been a while since I last blogged. I really must get into the habit of blogging at least every couple of days again. I kind of lost interest in blogging and crafting for a bit....do ay of you get like that? Now and again I just can't be bothered with it all and think I will just give up crafting and blogging, but then I look at the lovely comments I get on here and it makes me want to keep at it :)
Over the last few days I have got right back into crafting and yesterday I made 4 cards for the next few challenges at Digital Tuesday, so hopefully I keep it up! :)

Speaking of Digital Tuesday, the new challenge was posted today and Anneke has chose a Christmas colour combo challenge. She wants to see our Christmas cards using blue, white and kraft.
Our sponsor this week is Spesch Stamps, so of course I had to use a Spesch Stamps image :)


 I really like the image which by the way is called "Kei with Cocoa", but I am not happy with how my card turned out. I think I should of used another layer of paper, probably because I am so used to using at least 2 different dp's on a card, but I now know that I don't own much blue papers that are suitable for Christmas carsds as I had such a hard job finding paper to use!
I finally found this snowflake paper in a Forever Friends pad which I got last year.
I used some cheesecloth, some ribbons from my stash, a wild orchid crafts rose on top of a flower that did have some stamen bits in the middle, but I ripped it apart and stuck the petals a little closer together so it wasn't as big as it previously was, then added some stardust stickles to both flowers.
I also added some little snowflakes and added gems in the centres, but looking at this picture I notice that one of them has fell off completely and another has moved from the middle of the snowflake.
That's what I get for taking a picture before the glue has a chance to dry!
The image was coloured with mostly Promarkers.
I do like the Copic nibs better than Promarkers, but lately I have been using my Pros a lot more as I hate that some of the Copic colours (especially dark ones) go all waxy and the colour starts to go streaky and you just can't blend with it :( Does anyone else have that problem?
Someone said to me that it's probably because I have layered too much ink and it starts to sit on top of the paper after a while, but that is not what is causing it, because it happens even when I haven't used any other layers. It only happens with some colours and it seems to be the dark E colours, which is why I have started using Promarkers to do hair because I am so fed up of all my images having shiny hair!

Well that's it from me today. I will be back probably tomorrow with a card for By The Cute ad Girly which I should of posted on the 15th, but I forgot!





Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Digital Tuesday- Thankfulness



It's been a while since I posted for Digital Tuesday! My camera is playing up and I just haven't been able to get pics of my cards, but all is well now (well kind of lol), so I have a card to share for this weeks challenge which was chosen by the lovely Amy, and the challenge is "Thankfulness"- make a thank you card or a thanksgiving card.
So since we don't have Thanksgiving here, I went with a thank you card.
Our sponsor this week is CaroLines Creative Stamps who is giving away £10 to spend in her store.
Caroline gave the design team a few of her digi kits to use for the challenge, but unfortunately I couldn't use any of them as I didn't have coloured ink in my printer so couldn't print any of the papers etc, so instead I used a digi image that I already had printed out.


The image is by Sureya from Deviantart. I love her images, they are so much fun to colour :)
I colored her with a mix of Copics and Promarkers. Really need to get some new skin coloured markers as I don't have any ink in the colours that I normally use for skin, so had to go with a different combo (E02 copic and Almond Promarker) as it's all I had.
The papers are First Edition, sentiment was a digi freebie that I got sooo long ago that I can't remember where from. Flowers from my stash (2 middle sized roses are Wild Orchid Crafts and no idea about the others). I didn't have a purple flower in the size I wanted, so I just coloured a white one with a Promarker. They have all been glittered of course :)
I used some purple tulle and some organza ribbon from my stash, but you can't really see the tulle in this pic. To finish I added a little charm bit to the middle of the bow.


Don't look too close at the colouring! It's hard to stay in the lines when most of your fingers are numb! lol
I love she does the hair on her images. This one doesn't have as much hair as some of her other images, but it was still lots of fun to colour. I really must get new brown markers for hair as well! lol

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will have time to check out the challenge over at Digital Tuesday and see what the rest of my fabby team have made.




Saturday, 3 November 2012

Pink Cute and Girly

I'm a bit late with my post for By The Cute and Girly 2 days ago, but I haven't been feeling very well these last few days :( Better late than never though!
The challenge theme this month is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (use stars on your project or be inspired by a nursery rhyme). 
We have 3 great sponsor again this month.


Simon Says Stamp

giving away a $20 gift voucher



giving away a £10 gift voucher



 Photobucket

 giving away 3 digital images of the winners choice.

Crafts and Me also gave the design team some image to play with, so of course I had to use on on my card because I love their images :)

I was planning on going down the Christmas route with stars like some of the design team have done, so I coloured up a Christmas image, but when I went to make my card with it, I somehow got a black mark right across the image! I think it came off my paper cutter as the previous day I had been cutting paper that had been made with marbling inks- serves me right for not cleaning it afterwards I suppose!
So that image went in the bin and I just couldn't be bothered going through and printing another one, so I coloured another image that I had already printed to use on another card and forgot about the Christmas theme and just went for stars instead.

I only have one pic today because my camera died on me after taking just one photo!



I promise my card is not all wonky like it looks here! As I was taking the photo, the card started to fall down and this is thats why the pic looks strange lol. I couldn't take another photo because my camera died, so had to make do with this one.
Anyway, just pretend that it's lovely and straight ;)

As I said the image is from Crafts and Me and is called "A Princess is born".
I love all the hair on this image :) I coloured with mainly Promarkers and used just a touch of Copics on the hair mixed with Promarkers. I also added a little bit of glitter, but you can't see it here.

I used an embossing folder that has tiny stars in the pattern (can't remember which make it is, sorry) and inked the embossed bits with distress ink and also glittered the embossing so it would stand out more :)
Not sure what make the patterned paper is either (I'm not doing very well here, am I? lol).
I also used a heart doily, most of which I covered up, some lace, star ribbon,  a pile of flowers, most of which are from Wild Orchid Crafts which of course I glittered, and I also added some little pink pearl hearts in with the flowers and to finish off my star theme, I used star shaped buttons which I threaded with some twine.

It feels strange not adding a close up pic of the image and only having one photo on my post, but hopefully I will be back to normal (whatever normal is?! lol) with my next card, which will probably be for Digital Tuesday in a few days as we are off out tomorrow to a firework display.
Lucky for us it's in our little village so not far to walk home in the cold :)

Hope you enjoy your weekend! :)

Lora x



Wednesday, 31 October 2012

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.

 Thanks so much for stopping by


Tuesday, 16 October 2012

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



Monday, 15 October 2012

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 :)