Stashbox Stamps, plus Purple, Blue and Aqua

Just getting ready to settle down and watch the Royal wedding, but before I do it's time for Stashbox Stamp week at Polkadoodles. Every four weeks we make cards or projects combining any rubber stamps we have with Polkadoodle products. Enfys has set the challenge this week and as well as your stashbox stamps she wants to see projects that contain any shade of

Purple, Blue and Aqua

but the twist is - your project must contain all three colours

This week I have used one of my favourite ( I only have about 3 LOL!) rubber stamps, it's from Inkadinkado and I'm not sure it's even available any more, I have had if for years but it still makes me giggle! The image was stamped with chipped sapphire TH distress ink onto white card, then mounted onto aqua and purple card. The papers are all from the Wonderland CD. I used a Martha Stewart border punch for one of the layers and used the little left over punched out petal shapes to make the three little flowers. I rounded some of the corners and rubbed a brown fluid chalk ink pad around the edges of the papers and card.The ribbon was white and coloured with promarkers in lilac, cool aqua and pastel blue, a couple of gems from stash finished off the design.

I printed a sheet of each design of paper, so decided to use the left over pieces to decorate the back and inside of the card. I left the message panel blank as I thought you could use this card for many different occasions.

Head on over to the Polkadoodle challenge blog and check out the fabulous inspiration from my teamies, and also watch out for Nikky on Create and Craft, you can catch her at 7pm on Sunday and 9am and 3pm on Monday.

Please Bear with Me for the last time!

Phew! finally, my last card for today, again using the Harri Bears - Hats Off digi stamp set available exclusively from the Clipart Fairy, which has a cute teddy digi stamp and three little hats, birthday, baby and Christmas. In the previous two posts I have used both the birthday hat and the baby hat so the only one left now is... you've guessed it - Christmas. It seems total madness to be writing about a Christmas card, when the sun is beating down and the thermometer on my patio is telling me the temperature is 30 degrees C (we are south facing with a high wall one side and a high hedge the other, so the patio is a real sun trap) but I wanted to try and do something with each of the hats, so Christmas it is!

This is supposed to be closed to give the full frontal effect, but couldn't quite get it to stay together.

This time around I have used a freebie Christmas paper set called chalky red papers, I'm not sure if it is still available - and a small piece of paper from the Red, blue, green, checks and stripes, Christmas backing papers set for her bow and little tag which I cut using a sizzix die.
I wanted to make it look like teddy was sitting on top of a big Christmas present. so wrapped gold ribbon around the front before adding the tag and teddy. Some parts of the teddy image and hat have been layered to make her more dimensional.
I made the arched frame for the back of the card in Photoshop, adding computer generated text for the Merry Christmas wording. The white outlines of the arch and the letters are all covered in glamour dust as is the white band of teddy's hat. I have also picked out some of the snowflakes, from the paper that covers the front of card, with glamour dust to add extra sparkle.

Teddy and hat close up details

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges;

Happileigh Scrappin - Christmas
Moving along with the times - anything goes

Please Bear with me #2

Hi, here I am again with card number two using the new Harri Bear - Hats Off, digi stamp set which is exclusive to The Clipart Fairy. As I said in my previous post the set comes with a Teddy and three little hats, birthday, baby and Christmas, this time around I am using the baby hat and the Interactive b is for Girl set. When my daughter Stacy, who is three months pregnant, saw the card this morning she told me I had to save it until we knew whether her baby was a boy or girl (will be finiding out in a couple of weeks), because if she has a girl she wants it. What she doesn't know yet, is that just after she left, an old friend telephoned and told me she had just become a Grandma and could I do her a baby girl card ASAP., suffice to say I added the wording and baby's name (Neive) to this card, and she has already been to collect it. I will have to make Stacy another if hers is a girl LOL!

side view to show layers

Close up view of hat

I tied yellow ribbon from stash around the letter b and hung a little pink dummy which came from Mei Flower from it. The scalloped circle was cut with my nesties and big shot machine and once again there is oodles of glamour dust to make it sparkle.

My next and final post for today will be using the Christmas hat!

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges;

Bearly Mine - beautiful babies

Partytime Tuesday - anything goes

Craft your Passion - show us your layers

Pennys Paper Crafty Challenge - Welcome Home
Sparkles Forum - anything goes

Please Bear with me!

Excuse the bad pun, but this is going to be the first of three posts today using a gorgeous little digi stamp set from the Clipart Fairy. The set comes with the little bear digi stamp and three hats, a baby hat, a birthday hat and a Christmas hat all ready for you to colour to match your card.

My first card today will be using the Birthday hat and the Interactive Circle Girl Kit.

I coloured the bear digitally in photoshop, and used one of the papers from the set to paper piece her hat. Again in photoshop I changed the circle frame to an oval and printed it out several times. I cut the centre section from two of the ovals and added the bear to one of them. I then made them up into an easel card. The bear was printed a couple of times and I layered up her legs and hat. The large flower is part of the design on one of the backing papers in the set, I cut out three different sizes then shaped and layered it up, and although it doesn't show very well in the photos, there is lots of glamour dust on this card, a single flatback pearl in the centre of the flower is the only embellishment I have added.

Birthday hat. 

Next time I will be using the baby hat.

I will be entering this card into the following challenges;

Simon says stamps - anything goes

Going Grey with Scrap creations - flowers

Make it Monday - Anything goes

Ellephantastic - Anything but square or rectangle

Our Creative corner - easel cards

Crafty Catz - childrens card

Crafty Anns challenge- Fancy Folds

Do it with digis - I can see clearly - Bear is sitting in an aperture

Happy Teddy Bo Tuesday

Hope you all had a lovely Easter, we were lucky enough to have gorgeous hot, sunny weather, which is very unusual for a Bank Holiday LOL!

I have used one of the new Teddy Bo images and made two stepper cards, exactly the same except one is for a Liverpool supporter and the other for an Everton supporter. I used the Teddy Bo footballer digi, coloured in Photoshop, the team badge backing papers I made myself a couple of years ago, and I'm not sure where the large football image came from. I love steppers, but I'm not too keen on tent type cards as they tend to splay open instead of staying upright so if I make one I always add a concertina gusset to the inside to stop the card from opening too far, and add the message panel onto the back.

The Teddy Bo and Co store has been closed for a few days over the Easter Holiday, but is now open again with  a two day sale. If you purchase three full price items you get one free, this also includes all the new graphics being released today.

You still have until midnight Sunday 1st May to enter our Tag It challenge, so head over to the store, grab yourself a bargain and show us what you've got.

I am going to enter my cards into the following challenges:

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - One for the Boys
Cards for Men - must be masculine - Circles
Stamp-n-doodle - Masculine
The Cheerful Stamp pad - there is a man in my life
Creative Inspirations - use a digi
Stampin with the dragon - sports, sports and more sports
Meljens Designs - masculine

Easter Eggs Faberge Style

Hi everyone, wanted to wish you all a very happy Easter and thought I would take the opportunity to show you some of my eggs.
In another life I used to make Faberge Style decorated eggs, I even taught night school classes at a local school for a couple of years.  We tended to use mainly goose eggs, but I have also used ostrich, rhea, duck, pigeon and finch eggs. The eggs were always ones that hadn't been fertilised so would never have turned into babies.
The egg above was a double yolker goose egg, these were bigger than normal but the shell was thinner so harder to work with. I used a Dremel drill to cut the opening into the shell, we also had lots of different drill bits for different cuts, the filigree pattern down the side was cut using a flying saucer bit!! After cutting we used a pearl paint that was made for painting pottery and applied several coats (at least six) to get a smooth finish and help strengthen the shell. The inside of the egg was usually coated with a mix of tacky glue and fine glitter, again to help strengthen the shell. The eggs were decorated with lots of ribbons, cords and Swarovski crystals, (so were not cheap to make). The figure inside was also painted by hand, so there was a lot of work involved to make just one egg. The figure in this egg is holding a flower above her head and in the centre of the flower is a little bulb, the wires run through the figure, out through the blow hole in the bottom of the egg, through the stand into the base where the switch and batteries are hidden, so it actually lights up.

Here are a couple of side views of the egg above.

The next egg is a goose egg music box, it is cut in half and hinged at the back, inside the bottom half is the workings of the music box. It is decorated with a technique called paper tole, we used waterslide transfers, coated them a number of times with something called Royal Egg Sheen to make them stiffer and then using several layers cut, shaped and layered them onto the shell, finishing off with more coats of egg sheen. Once finished they look like porcelain flowers.

The final egg for today is a swan, made from two goose eggs, a whole one for the body, the wings being cut out of the second one. The swan neck is made of plaster and is attached to the body using epoxy glue, the whole thing is painted with pearl paint and decorated with Swarovski flat back crystals. The wings are attached with hinges so that you can have them open and closed, gold jap cord is glued around the cut edges and then flat back crystals are applied between the cord.

These are just a few of many eggs that I have in a large cabinet, one day  I may show you some more (hmmm is that a promise or a threat! LOL!)

There are many places out there that sell the crystals, cords, ribbon, jewellery findings, I used to get a lot of my stuff from Eggstravaganza, check it out if you would like to see some more examples of how you can decorate an egg.

Not sure if these are going to count, but thought I would enter them in a few challenges anyway.

Craft Your Days Away - Easter
Shannons Sentiments - Anything but a card
Totally Gorjuss - Bling it On
Delicious Doodles - Anything Goes
Inspire Me Fridays - Anything Goes

Wedding table centrepiece.

Unusual for me, but my second post of the day. As any of you who regularly visit my blog know I am doing the stationery for two of my daughters friends weddings, and one of them recently asked if I could think of something for the centre of the tables that would take a battery operated tealight and this is what I came up with.

The square tubes are made from a sheet of acetate, I then printed a couple of different shades of lilac onto a sheet of Safmat ( a printable, clear, self adhesive film). I used a Martha stewart punch to make a border for around the bottom and punched out some flowers with X-cut punches which I dotted randomly around the tube. A narrow border of the darkest colour finished the top edge.  White ribbon from stash and lilac vintage seam binding from the Ribbon Girl were added to the bottom to hide the tea light. The battery operated tealights came four in a pack for a pound from my local Poundworld.

It was very difficult to get a decent photo, but hopefully you get the idea.

Unlit

Anyway suffice to say her friend loved them and I now have to make twenty for the big day.

I have been out this afternoon to one of those places where you put your feet into a fish tank and the fish suck away at your feet. It was my Mothers day present from my eldest daughter. I was a bit wary but it was thoroughly enjoyable, a bit tickly at first, but quite relaxing and my feet felt fabulously clean and soft afterwards, would definitely recommend it if you are thinking about it but not quite sure.

I am going to enter my centrepiece into the following challenges:

Less-is-More - Acetate

Lexi's Creations - Anything but a card.

Top Tip Tuesday - Open Challenge.

Critter Challenge Blog - 2 different punches or dies

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Flowers

Paper Weaving

This week the Polkadoodles challenge has been sent my Tracie, and she wants us to use

three different patterned papers

I used a strip of each of three patterned papers from the Wonderland CD and also a strip of plain paper and then did something I haven't done for quite a long time - paper weaving. I was really pleased with the way it turned out. I thought it looked like a little patchwork blanket. I printed the baby boy stampie from the Sundae of Seasons CD matted him up using a Go Kreate die, and also used a Marianne Creatables die for the corners. I added a few flatback pearls from stash to finish it off.

I used one of the papers and the same stampie for the inside of the card.

I have entered this card in the following challenges:

Shelleys Images - Show us what you've got

A Spoonfull of Sugar - Let's celebrate

Going Grey with Scrap Creations - Digital image

Ladybug Craft Ink TLT - Anything goes

Sweet Stamps - Some sort of frame on your card

In the Summertime, when the Weather's high...

OK, OK, not quite summertime, but we have certainly been having some fine, summer-like weather here in Liverpool over the last couple of days. When I saw the Teddy Bea image that I have used on this weeks card I just thought to myself, she sooo looks like she is enjoying a lovely sunny day and with the sun streaming in through my patio window as I coloured her in I knew exactly how she felt.

It's time for another challenge over on the Teddy Bo challenge blog and this time our theme is...

Tag It!

so show us your cards or projects that contain a tag/tags, the lucky winner gets to choose 10 digi stamps from the Teddy Bo store, definitely a prize worth having!

For my card I used - Teddy Bea in the meadow - one of this weeks new releases, I coloured her in photoshop as usual, printed the full image twice (one a mirror image for the inside) and also just the flowers, again twice, then did lots of cutting out. The flowers are all shaped and layered. The papers are Claire's Swirls paper, (my very talented teamie Claire doodled the design, and then I turned it into papers in various colours and textures). I have used the papers for the card, the tag and paper piecing of Bea's dress and hat scarf.  The ribbon is Anita's Sticky ribbon. I sprinkled yellow glitter in the centre of the flowers and a touch of glossy accents on the little buzzy bee. The butterflies where punched out of pink pearl card which had been embossed with the Swiss Dots embossing folder first.

Closed

open

inside

Close up to show Claire's Swirls papers

Close up of layered flowers

Back of card with space for message.

Don't forget to check out the store for this weeks new releases

and make sure you enter the challenge for a chance to win your choice of 10 fabulous Teddy Bo images.

Just wondered how many of you (especially over a certain age LOL!) have got the Mungo Jerry song I used for the title stuck in your heads, I know it has been going round and round in mine while I have been writing this post.

Altogether now:

In the summertime when the weather is high, you can stretch right up and touch the sky!

Challenges entered:

Incy Wincy Designs - Bright and Bold

Make It Monday - Anything goes

Nettie G's Digital Gems - Use your favourite digi

Squigglefly - How do YOU like to use your digi's

Card Mad Fairy's digi days challenge - recipe 1 digi, 2 patterned papers, 3 embellishments

Daring Cardmakers Blogspot - Spring Fling

Digi's with Attitude - Spring has Sprung

Totally PaperCrafts - Spring time

Creative Card Fronts

I have been having a play with the Clipart Fairy Creative Card Fronts CD, the CD contains lots of ready to print card fronts, some blank card fronts, that just have the frill on so that you can add your own graphics and wording, and also some interactive bits, papers, frills, wordart, ribbon sliders, and some graphics so that you can design your own. There is a whole range of subjects on the disc, birthday, sorry, thanks, baby boy, baby girl, mum, dad, girl, boy, wedding, get well, sympathy and Christmas.

I have made three girly cards,  the first one is a ready to print Harlequin frill card front, which I printed out several times so that I could layer up the bunting and the fairy, the only extras were some vintage seam binding from the Ribbon Girl and lots of glamour dust.

I used some of the matching papers from the disc to make the insert.

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges:

Flutterby Wednesday - Soft pastels

Freshly Brewed - Cute and Sweet

Simon says Stamp - card for a child

Little Miss Muffet - Glitter and shine

For my second card, I rotated one of the friends and flowers card fronts to a landscape position, used wordart from the disc, and the girl graphic and decoupage which came with this kit here. I used a nestie to cut around the girl and then mounted up the decoupage pieces. I also printed a second layer of the flowers then shaped and layered the larger ones. I glamour dusted the frill edges and the embossed part of the oval, which I also inked around the edge. Pearls and ribbon are from stash.

I used blank card fronts for the insert, added the flower graphic from the disc to one side and a computer generated verse to the other.

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges:

Make it Monday - Anything goes

Stamp N doodle - Girly

Craft us Crazy - Thinking of you

My third card is probably my favourite of the three for a few reasons, next month I will be 50 and hoping that someone still thinks I am still fabulous hehe! purple is one of my favourite colours, it's got lots of glitter and bling and I love easel cards, so, it looks like I have made myself my perfect birthday card LOL!

This time I used interactive papers, frills, and a ribbon slider from the Purple Plum Girls card fronts and designed my own card. I made up the front using a striped frill at the top and bottom, and a small strip of purple paper down each side, then added my own wording. I printed a second set of striped frills slightly longer than the card front so that I could curve them and make them stand out from the card, I folded back and stuck down a small strip at each end to hold them into place. The purple plum flapper can be found here, again I printed her out several times and layered up her dress, she is attached to the curved frills.I made the numbers using one of the papers from the disc. I added a feather and rhinestones to the flappers headband, made a necklace and earrings using flat back pearls, used a pearl brad in the centre of the flower, and white ribbon through the slider, all from stash. Lashings of purple glitter and glamour dust makes it very, very sparkly.

The Fairy has tutorials for some different ways of using this disc here if you would like to check them out.

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges:

Digital Tuesday - female image on card

Paper Take Weekly - Dimension

Sweet Stamps - for the ladies

Tuesday Throwdown - Sparkle and Bling

Aud Sentiments - Anything Goes

Do you stack up - Scallops

Digi Doodle Shop Best - Stripes

My Partner in Crafting Crime - Layer it up

Tying the Knot at Polkadoodles

The theme for the challenge over on the Polkadoodles blog this week is

Tie the Knot

we would love to see your cards and projects for a wedding.

So that means that today we have the third (and last) of my wedding  projects for this week, with 3 projects and a stack of wedding invitations done I am just about all weddinged (is there such a word LOL!) out
.
For this card I used purple, pearl and white linen card from the paper mill, the pearl card was printed with one of the backing papers from the Love and Cherish CD and then embossed with the D'vine swirls embossing folder. The cake, from the same CD was printed out 3 times, coloured, glittered and layered up in tiers. I made the swirly decorations that are popping out of the top with beading wire and heart shaped rhinestones, which along with the flat backed pearls came from my stash. The purple organza ribbon I scrounged from my friend Karen as I didn't have the right colour, thanks Karen!

Don't forget to check out all the gorgeous creations my teamies have come up with on the Polkadoodles challenge blog!

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges:

Creative Craft World - Weddings/anniversaries

Scrapbook Sisters #31 - Wedding/Anniversary

Pixie Dust Studio - Say it out Loud (include a sentiment)