Make It Stitchy

This week we have a special challenge at One Stitch at a Time.

 

It's called Make It Stitchy and it's rather different from our usual weekly challenges because this week, unlike our usual challenges where you can enter using any stamp/product, you must use a Stitchy Bear product to enter.

 

We have got some awesome prizes on offer, however, as this week our sponsor is non other than the  OSAAT DT - Stitchy's Angel's - ourselves and we have all contributed prizes for the lucky winner! Check out the OSAAT blog for details. :)

 

If you don't have a Stitchy Bear image/product to use for the challenge, then now is the perfect time to pick one up - not only is *everything* in store currently 35% off but there is also a weekly freebie dig stamp, which is yours when you spend just $3 in store. And don't forget, there's also a whole bunch of brand new digi stamps from me now in-store. :)

 

For my DT card for this epic challenge, I've worked with Ike's Art gorgeous Angel 2 image:

 

 

I coloured the image with my Promarkers and fussy cut it out and added some sparkle to her wings with some Stickles:

 

 

I decided to have a play with my Pan Pastels for the background - I blended 3 different colours onto white card for a kind of sunset effect and then pressed Versamark ink through a circle stencil (made by simply punching a circle out of a scrap of card) and heat embossed it using Stampendous Frantage embossing powders:

 

 

I stamped a sentiment in black ink using a Tim Holtz stamp and then stamped some flourishes around the edges of the panel and heat embossed with a sparkly gold embossing powder:

 

 

To finish things off, I matted the completed panel onto sparkly blue card, attached it to a white card blank and attached the cut-out image using foam tape.

 

The challenge runs for a week and don't forget, for this week only, you must use a Stitchy Bear product to enter and to be in with a chance of winning our bumper bundle of prizes.

 

Good luck - I can't wait to see what you create! :)

 

I'm going to enter this card into a couple of challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - Anything Goes

Fusion - Hypothesis 8 (used Lesley's Photo Inspiration Challenge)

Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes

Charisma Cardz - Here Comes Summer

Moving Along With The Times - Embossing

My Heart Pieces - Be Sentimental

Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes

Crafting For All Seasons - Think Pink

The Perfect Sentiment - Anything Goes

Anything Goes Challenge - Handmade Backgrounds

 

WOYWW 199

Am pleased to report that, so far, the tidyness of the desk has - mostly - continued. :)

 

 

(Admittedly, I did have a wee quick tidy around before taking this photo! :lol:)

 

The tray in front of the Cameo has gained quite a bit more content though, though a large part of it is my stack of printed-out digi stamps awaiting my colouring pleasure and also some paper remnants awaiting putting away properly.

 

The main crafting area of the desk contains the results of a quick bit of Tuesday night crafting:

 

 

There's a digi stamp (one of my own designs! :D) awaiting colouring, a sheet of gemstone stickers and an embossed piece of card that was a possible alternative background for the completed card.

 

 

I made this card for the "White Embossed Background" challenge at A Day For Daisies. I've done a couple of white on white/primarily white cards lately using embossing for detail and texture and it's such a lovely effect so I couldn't resist entering this challenge.

 

 

I actually coloured this gorgeous A Day For Daisies image (I just looove her hair and her big eyes and long neck!) a couple of months ago and it's been sitting around on my desk every since awaiting the right card project. And this is it. :) I cut a tentfold card blank and used a Tim Holtz embossing folder. I added ribbon and gemstones and fussy cut out the image and attached it with foam pads, letting it slightly overhang the edge of the card.

 

That's it for me this week. Check out Julia's Stamping Ground blog for the full list of WOYWW desks to visit. :)

 

He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not...

Sweet Pea Stamps are sponsoring the current challenge at Elisabeth Bell's World and the theme is Vintage Valentine.

 

The word Vintage pretty much makes me think of two things - Tim Holtz and Basic Grey. So I used both on this project! :)

 

I'm pretty much hooked on anything Tim Holtz, especially Distress Inks/Stains etc, and I just loooooooove Basic Grey so much... I've been in love with their gorgeous papers, and coordinating embellies etc, pretty much since I started scrapbooking. I love the vintage, distressed look to them and how they can manage to give just about every style you can think of - modern, floral, abstract etc - an aged, distressed feel. I have a quite ridiculous amount of their paper collections, partly cos they're just so darn pretty that I find it hard to make myself actually use them! :lol:

 

But for this challenge, I took the plunge and made myself actually cut into some of my delicious Basic Grey papers:

 

 

I used papers from the Lemonade collection and one of the gorgeous new Elisabeth Bell mermaid stamp from Sweet Pea Stamps - this image is called Tide. I coloured her with my Promarkers and inked the edges of the image with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

 

 

I inked the edges of my papers too and distressed the edges of the smaller panel before matting them together and adding a piece of lace. I placed the coloured image at an angle on the card and added some pretty flowers and hat pins and created a pearly border using a Perlen Pen.

 

 

To finish, I hand-wrote a sentiment of sorts in an arch over the image and hand-wrote the main sentiment onto a banner die-cut with Tim Holtz's Tattered Banners die, which I attached with foam pads.

 

 

And that's my Vintage Valentine... just goes to show you that Vintage doesn't have to mean shades of sepia/brown! :)

 

It's back! And better than ever!

That's right... after a bit of a hiatus and a redesign over the summer, the Sweet Pea Stampers challenge blog is BACK, with a brand new challenge *and* a brand new redesigned blog.

The challenges are monthly and you can enter using Sweet Pea Stamps images or not - although obviously we'd love to see your Sweet Pea Stamps creations. :) There are prizes on offer, with the chance to win yourself some gorgeous Sweet Pea Stamps, and there will also be the "Designer's Choice" award, with the Design Team voting for and choosing their favourite projects each month.

The first challenge is an easy one - Anything Goes.

Here's my card for the Anything Goes challenge:

I used this gorgeous image from Karen Middleton, called Summer. I've had this stamp for a while and been dying to have a play with it. I ummed and aahed for a while about what colour to do her hair and then decided to go completely off the wall and colour it an unusual colour - and went with green. :)

The image is coloured with Promarkers and I made the background by colouring a piece of card with Distress Inks, water and Perfect Pearls. I used some textured gold card for matting and used the same card to cut flowers using Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals die (and embossed them with a Tim Holtz Texture Fadez embossing folder). The greeting was stamped with StazOn onto seam binding ribbon that I'd coloured with Distress Inks. I finished things off with green chiffon ribbon, butterflies cut with my Beautiful Wings embosslit from Stampin' Up!, gems and a resin flower.

To celebrate the relaunch of the Sweet Pea Stampers challenge blog, I'm going to offer a bit of a mini giveaway here. If you'd like to have a play with some of the gorgeous Sweet Pea Stamps images, just comment on this blog entry - I will pick 5 commenters at random and send you an assortment of stamped Sweet Pea images (stamped with Adirondack ink onto good quality card - Adirondack ink works well for colouring with Promarkers, if you prefer to use a different colouring medium and would like your images stamped in a different ink, just say so in your comment) for you to create with... on the proviso that you use one of them to create something for this month's Sweet Pea Stampers challenge. :)

So what are you waiting for? Leave me a comment to be in with a chance of winning some images to play with... and don't forget, you can still enter the challenge without using Sweet Pea Stamps images.

I'm entering this card into a couple of challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - Green and Yellow

Dutch Dare Card Challenges - Sugar and Spice
Forever Friends - Ribbon
Paper Crafting Journey - My Sentiment Exactly
Shelly's Images - Anything Goes
Simply Create - Anything Goes

Happy Birthday Marie-Ann

My niece turns 21 this month. Unfortunately we can't make it to the "do" as small children and evening events over 2 hours drive away are not a good combination. So we're heading down to the wilds of Lincolnshire this afternoon to say hello and drop off a card and gift.

 

And this is the card I've made for her:

 

 

This pretty image is an A Day for Daisies digi stamp and I coloured her with Promarkers and inked the edges with Distress Inks. I used an old book page (from The Iliad, if anyone's interested! :D) for the background and coloured it with Distress Inks and Perfect Pearls (it has a lovely shimmer in real life). I used Tim Holtz Idea-ology numbers, coloured with alcohol ink, and added a die cut flourish (from a Memory Box die) and some flowers and a stamped greeting to finish.

 

I think this came out really bright and pretty but without being too little girly. I hope. :)

 

I'm entering this card into a couple of challenges:

A Day For Daises - School supplies

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Read All About It

Feeling Blue?

I am... but in a good way! :D

Creative Craft World are celebrating their sixth birthday with a rainbow-tastic DT blog hop! Each day a member of the Design Team will be sharing a stunning colour-themed project on their blog, there's some prizes along the way, and if you follow the entire blog hop, leave a comment on every DT blog and then comment on the blog hop post at the Creative Craft World challenge blog, you will be entered into a draw to win a fabulous prize - the gold at the end of the rainbow! :)

So what are you waiting for? Get hopping! :D

We've already enjoyed Susi's Red project, Sarah's Orange project, Michelle's Yellow project and you've hopefully come here from visiting Trish's Green project. If you've missed any of the previous projects, make sure you go and check them out now! :)

Today I will be sharing my Blue creation and from here you need to carry on to Sue's blog where tomorrow she will be sharing her Indigo project.

For my project I decided to combine one of my favourite crafting pastimes - ATCs - with my long-held desire to make/decorate a printer's tray. And this was the result:

I've long lusted after the 7 Gypsies ATC printer's trays but somehow never quite gotten around to splashing the cash to get one... so I thought.. why not make my own? :)

I started off with two sheets of plain white mountboard and on the first sheet I used a pencil and ruler to mark out a grid for the tray. ATCs are always 3½" by 2½" so I measured out the "boxes" on my tray to slightly larger than that 3⁹/₁₆" by 2⁹/₁₆" with a ¼" gap between each box and a slightly larger (⁷/₃₂") border around the edges.

I then took my metal ruler and a craft knife and cut out the boxes, leaving myself a 9-aperture frame.

Tip: If you want a "deeper" tray, at this stage you could repeat this part and make a second frame section and then layer them on top of each other when assembling the tray.

I then took the second piece of mountboard and drew around the outside of my frame and cut a piece of mountboard to fit behind the frame.

And now for the fun part... decorating! :)

I started by spraying both the frame and the background section with a selection of spray inks, some with mica, some not (I used Dylusions and Cosmic Shimmer sprays). Tip: I also used a paint brush dipped into a spray ink bottle to add ink to the insides of the apertures and also around the outside edges of the frame, where the spray inks had not given a complete coverage, so as not to have any white patches showing through.

I allowed the inks to dry and then used a spatula to scrape some glass bead texture gel here and there onto the frame section.

Once the texture gel had dried, I used my fingertip to rub some Inka Gold onto the texture gel areas and here and there randomly onto the frame.

Then it was simply a matter of attaching the frame to the background. I wanted a good, firm hold so I used red high tack tape.

And that was the tray finished.

To make the ATCs, I cut a piece of card 7½" by 10½" (so big enough to cut into 9 ATCs) and used Tim Holtz's Marbled Stains technique (using Distress Stains in Picket Fence, Broken China, Faded Jeans and Wild Honey) to colour it. I then cut the coloured card into my 9 ATCs and background stamped them with a variety of Tim Holtz stamps in Broken China Distress Ink, before stamping a focal image on each card using black Archival Ink. To finish, I added Glossy Accents to accentuate the word LIFE on the cental ATC.

Et voila! I attached my ATCs into the tray using Tombow glue which I allowed to dry fully, making it repositionable. So if I wanted to, I could remove these ATCs from the tray and put different ones in. But, to be honest, I don't think I'll ever want to! ;)

I'm going to enter this project into a few challenges:
Anything But A Card - Anything Goes
Gingerloft Challenge - Birds of a Feather
Great Impressions - Sentimental Journey
The Crafty Pad - Anything But Square
2 Sisters - Primary Colours
Inspire Me Fridays - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you're enjoying the blog hop and that you found my little printer's tray tutorial useful. Don't forget to visit and comment on all the other projects in the in the hop to be in with a chance of winning the gold at the end of the rainbow!

I am also be offering a little prize as part of the blog hop - all you need to do is comment and be or become a follower of my blog. I will select one commenter at random to win a mystery box of blue goodies culled from my crafty stash! :D

And now... let's finish with a song! Who else remembers this? :)

Paint and glitter

Is there anything more fun? :)

I wanted to have a play with paint because of the fun "Paint It Up" challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show this week. But I also desperately wanted to have a play with my new summer colours Distress Inks... ever since I saw them used in this project by Sarah Engels-Greer, I just *loved* the colours and decided I had to have them! And they arrived this week. :)

So this is what I made:

Aren't the colours just lush?

I cut a piece of card and used Tim Holtz's Wrinkle Free Distress Technique (from the fab Chemistry 101 online class I did earlier this year) to make the background and then stamped some abstract foliage around the bottom using Jo Capper-Sandon's Splatter Long stamp from Stampotique and then stamped and embossed the sentiment (another Stampotique stamp).

I also used the Distess Inks to paint in the stamped dragonfly and added a layer of magenta Stickles over the top before cutting it out.

I added paint into the mix by dabbing little "flowers" of Paper Artsy Fresco paint across the foliage, adding dots of more Stickles on top.

I used the same paint to paint a larger piece of card and then stamped the edges using a Tim Holtz foilage stamp, and added some more Stickles. Both pieces of card were then matted onto black card.

To finish off, I added a piece of ribbon, mounted the whole piece onto a card blank and added a couple of metal pen nibs which I'd painted with Vintaj Patinas (curse you, Craft Stamper magazine, you keep making me buy new stash! :lol:). Et voila!

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Paint It Up

Stampotique Designers Challenge - Sketch

Inky Impressions - Ribbon

The Stamp Man - Metals

Crafting with Friends

I love having company when I craft. There's something so fab about being able to chat to like-minded folks and to create together and share ideas and inspiration. It's something I rarely get to do, mainly due to having no childcare! I've been on one scrapbooking retreat (the UKS Green Buttons retreat) and am looking forward to going again this year but it's also nice occasionally to just have a friend over for a few hours.

And that's what I did last Wednesday evening... my friend Laura came over and we spent the evening in my craft room having a play with Dylusions ink sprays and stencils and stamping. I dug out a couple of canvas boards and we had a lovely time decorating them.

This was what I made:

As well as the Dylusions sprays and various stencils, I used some Tim Holtz, Stampotique and Stampin' Up! stamps on the background and used Dylusions and Wendy Vecchi stamps (coloured with my summer colours Promarkers) for the images and a Stampotique stamp for the sentiment.

I had such a nice evening and really hope to do it again some time soon! :)

I'm going to enter this into the "What Do You Say?" challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show too.

Scrap Map!

The new monthly scrap map challenge goes live today at the Creative Craft World challenge blog.

It's easy-peasy to enter - just create a page using the sketch provided as inspiration - and you could win yourself one of Creative Craft World's fabulous kits... and a Design Team spot to boot! :)

Here's my page inspired by this month's sketch:

I wanted to use this scrummy acetate overlay from Fancy Pants and I kept the page simple so as not to overpower it. I added some stamping with a Tim Holtz stamp and sepia Archival ink and added some butteflies and flowers stamped in white Staz-On onto acetate (leftovers from a recent make). The title is a die-cut from K&Co. :)

Hop on over to the CCW blog to see the sketch that inspired this LO and maybe have a go yourself! :)

Happy Birthday, Paul!

Tomorrow, my brother-in-law hits the big 4-0!

He's coming up for a visit at the weekend but in the meantime I thought I'd send him a card to arrive on the big day.

So I made him this:

I went all Tim Holtz/grungy/steampunky with kraft resist cardstock, Distress Stains, steampunk/vintage stamps and metal numbers coloured with alcohol inks.

I hope BIL will appreciate the subtle placement of elements that leaves the word "Antiques" from one of the background stamps nicely visible on the card. ;)

I'm entering this card into the "What Do You Say?" challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show.

Curse you, Tim Holtz! ;)

I've had to go to my local craft shop twice in two days, thanks to you! :lol:

I bet they're loving the Creative Chemistry 101 course as much as I am, though for different reasons! :D

First I had to go buy some light-coloured Adirondack inks to complete one of the techniques from Wednesday's class, cos although I had Adirondack inks (as listed on the class supply list), I only had em in black and brown. And then I had to go back again today to get some Cut n Dry felt to do one of the techniques from Thursday's class! Thank goodness they had what I needed in stock cos I'm an impatient gal and it sets my teeth on edge when I can't complete everything from each class. ;)

So, now that I've managed to complete the missing techniques, here's a round-up of my technique tags so far:

Aren't they looking fabulous? :) I've already repurposed a big ole book ring to store all my tags - it's going to be a fabulous resource to have hanging in my craft room when the course is over.