Button Up!

Hello!  I'm stopping by to let you know that we have a new challenge starting today at Lovely hAnglar or Sweet Magnolia.  The theme this fortnight is Buttons, so be sure to include them on your hAnglar & StAnglar or Magnolia designs - don't do what I did, which is make the card, take a piccie and not realise that I'd left the button off until I was about to do my post!

After a quick adjustment, here's my DT card (complete with button!)

I stamped the hAnglar boy onto watercolour card and coloured him with Distress Inks.  The DP is Simple Stories and I simply added some twine and (eventually) a button from my stash to complete the design.

We're being sponsored by the Ribbon Girl this fortnight

Lifelong crafters Mother and Daughter, Mary and Andrea were tired of having to buy full rolls of ribbon and lace when they only needed one metre.  Because they love ribbons and all things pretty, they decided to open their own online shop in 2010 and make small quantities of beautiful products easily available to all crafters. Mary owns the shop and runs it on a day to day basis as well as keeping the website updated while Andrea looks after the social side,  The Ribbon Girl Blog and the Design Team. They specialise in supplying small (or large) quantities of ribbon, twine, gorgeous vintage style lace and seam binding ribbon, tiny pom-pom and ric-rac trim, all sorts of buttons, fancy pins, a multitude of charms, pearl and crystal flourishes, wool felt squares, seasonal and unusual embellishments, mulberry flowers, sticky tape and accessories to card makers, crafters, scrapbookers and cake decorators. They stock only the best quality products and only offer for sale goods that they would personally buy and use themselves.

 

 

Hope you can play along at LhoSM.  Do check out the inspiration cards my teamies have made - you'll find them all here.

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

 

Hugs,

 

Tracey xx

What's your favourite?

Good morning! Hope you've all got a lovely weekend lined up.  I'm here to let you know that a new challenge starts at Sweet Stampin' this morning and this week we'd like you to use your favourite stamp.

I always struggle to pick a favourite stamp; usually my favourite is my latest purchase so I don't have an all-time favourite.  I do, however, have go-to stamps and my choice for my DT card is one of them.

It's a Hero Arts stamp from a wood block set and it's ideal for when I need to make a quick card.  This card, however, was not quick.   In fact, I had seven kinds of trouble trying to get this card right.

I was inspired by this card which I saw on Pinterest and set about making the stripes on the tag match the stripes on the card.  Now I could have just stamped across both layers at the same time but the OCD part of me wanted to have the stripes on both layers (yes, even though the tag is stuck down with foam tape).

Several attempts at lining up later I managed to get the stripes the way I wanted them.  I used a Clearly Besotted stamp for the sentiment and found some orange twine to complete the tag.  All I had to do now was take a photo...

Several attempts at getting a decent piccie later I had to admit defeat in order to get this post scheduled.  Irl the colours (Picked Raspberry, Spiced Marmalade and Mustard Seed) look much brighter. Edited to add: Have now replaced the original photo with the one taken with a black background, which seems a bit sharper. 

Hope you can join us at Sweet Stampin' this week. Quixotic Paperie are sponsoring us so there's a £10 voucher up for grabs!

Have a great day!

Tracey xx

Krafty Kristmas Part 2

As promised, I'm back with my second card for the latest Christmas at Sweet Stampin' Challenge, which is asking for you to use kraft on your Christmas project.

I took my inspiration from a pink and kraft card I saw ages ago but I honestly can't remember where I found it.  If you recognise this inferior version of your card, please let me know so that I can credit you.  Lucy Abrams, who makes the most amazing cards, did a design with a fabulous stamped tree covered with pearls - you can find it here - but I opted for a slightly flatter look using Liquid Pearls.

 

The tree is a Penny Black stamp and again I've used one of my many Pebbles rub-ons for the sentiment.  The ribbon was the last bit in this colour (admits to a slight panic while I thought I might not have enough to make the bow!) and matches my Liquid Pearls exactly, although that's more by luck than judgement.

We've had another good day in the jungle, cutting back dead branches and pulling out nettles.  I'm now covered in nettle stings but at least they take away the attention from the veins in my legs!!!

If the forecast is right, we'll have one more good weather day tomorrow before the rain comes in, so hopefully I'll have one part of the garden cleared before I see you again.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Tracey xx

Krafty Kristmas

Forget that it's sunny outside and think Christmas... because it's time for a new challenge at Christmas at Sweet Stampin'. This is a monthly challenge, so you've got plenty of time to enter and this month we'd like to see kraft on your projects.

I love using kraft card, so much so that I managed to make 2 cards for my DT contribution! I'll show the first one today and post the second one tomorrow. 

This is very CAS and I kinda like it.  I used a very old stamp - one of the first I ever bought (Great Impressions) - and coloured it with Prisma pencils.  The image was cut out with a Lil' Inkers die and adhered to a plain kraft card.  The sentiment is a Pebbles rub-on, again something I've had for years.

I do hope you can join us at CaSS this month.  Do hop on over to check out the gorgeous inspiration cards that the CaSSettes have made.  We're being sponsored by Kathryn from StampArt Designs who is giving away 5 digis to our lucky winner.

Getting the odd Christmas card made while you take a break from working in the garden is proving very therapeutic for me.  We've had a really productive day in the jungle and another (hopefully) scheduled for tomorrow.  It was very nice to sit on the patio with a wee glass of wine looking out at what we'd achieved today.  I still regret the fact that before I went back to work full time we had an OK lawn/ flower garden and a very productive fruit and veg  garden, only for it all to go to pot because I didn't have the time to keep on top of it.  Donald is away for all but 4 weeks in the year and so much depends on the weather being half-way decent when he is home if we want to get anything done.

I'm going to have to buy a new potting shed as Donald managed to put his foot through the floor - twice!  It's so wet here during the winter and the shed has been up for 12 years or so, but it's a pain that we're going to have to dismantle it and start again.  However, we started out 14 years ago with an overgrown field full of rubbish so we know what we can achieve when we put our minds to it!  The Boy Wonder has been a complete star today and worked just as hard as his dad and I did.  Long may that last!

Will be back tomorrow with the other DT card.

Enjoy the sunshine!

Tracey xx

Summer Fun

It's the start of a new challenge at Lovely hAnglar or Sweet Magnolia and this fortnight our theme is Summer Fun.  We've got a super prize from Bunny Zoe's Crafts on offer, so let's see those summer Magnolia and hAnglar & StAnglar creations!

I opted for a fairly clean look for my DT card

The papers are Echo Park (I think) and have been matched as closely as I could to the Copics I used to colour the wee hAnglar boy and his picnic basket.  I added some Doodlebug Sprinkles as the only embellishment and there's plenty of room to add a sentiment later if I want to.

Hope you can join us over at LhoSM!

Hugs

Tracey xx

Perfect in Pink

Good morning everyone!  I'm doing the happy dance this morning because the school holidays have started and I've got 6 weeks of freedom, give or take the occasional day at work.  I've ordered some crafty goodies to keep me entertained in case the weather lets us down, although I'd like to make a start on taming the jungle that used to be our garden.

Anyway, must get down to business - I'm here this morning to tell you about our latest challenge at Sweet Stampin'.  This one is called Perfect in Pink because, unsurprisingly, we'd like to see lots of pink on your stamped creations.

Here's my DT card

I used a Martha Stewart PATP to create the scalloped border around my easel card.  The beautiful papers are from Maja Design's latest collection and I cut the pretty strip from along the base of the paper to use in place of ribbon.  Tilda has been coloured with Copics and is surrounded by little roses from WOC.  The Doohickey tag is deliberately blank as I don't know where this card is going yet!

I hope you can join us at Sweet Stampin' this week.  We've got a lovely prize from Wild Orchid Crafts to give away to our randomly chosen winner and you'll find some fab inspiration projects from the Team Abi Sweeties right here!

Enjoy your weekend!

Hugs

Tracey xx