11:th anniversary!

It's snowing! At least here on my blog. Have you seen the cool snow I've added? I think it gives a festive feeling to the blog. When the petals fall off from that pink tree in the spring it looks like it's snowing in pink. Horrible news about that tree: someone decided to cut it down! I can't believe it. That tree is one of my fav during spring. It only blooms for a couple of weeks and you need to be fast not to miss it. But now someone has decided to cut it down to make room for some concrete pavement I guess. I'm so mad! Here's a LO I made with a photo showing how it "snows", isn't it beautiful?

Moving on to today's card. Yesterday me and my sweetie celebrated our 11:th anniversary together. We didn't do anything special, just had dinner at home (since I don't dare eating out with my stomach) and went to the movies which we both love to do. I can't believe it's been 11 years!

I made a card for my darling using a bunch of challenges:
Papertake weekly - a great sketch and an opportunity to be a guest designer.
Crafty calendar - winter sparkle. Winter-themed cards and projects, with the added option of sparkle and bling.
The pink elephant - Color me wonderful. Use your fav colouring medium.
Sophisticat - snowflakes and sparkle.
Gingersnap creations - winter wonderland.
Cuttlebug challenge - glitter and bling.
Just magnolia too - make a card for someone special. Doesn't get more special than this :)
Quixotic paperie - use charms.
And finally Simon say stamp also had charms as their theme. The charm I added has a writing on the back that says: made for an angel.

The image is from Magnolia and coloured with promarkers. I coloured them to represent me and my sweetie with haircolour and the colour of our clothes. I added glitter to the girl's coat. I love glitter so that worked great and the boy got blue sweater which is my love's fav colour. I used the wonderful papers from SEI that haveboth glitter and a "reversed" metallic embossing (the metal is etched into the paper rather than raised) I made the snowflake decoration using a tutorial from Bev. Thank you Bev.

Hope you've enjoyed my card. See you soon.

Promarkers: ivory, pastel yellow, blossom, pastel blue, ice grey 1, henna, burnt sienna, burnt umber, blender
Other: Glitterglue stickles stardust, cuttlebug snowflake folder, spellbinder's snowflake die, snowflake punch, fibers.
Papers: SEI, Lovebirds

December blogcandy

Hi everyone and welcome to another month of yummy candy. You know I've been doing these canylists for a year now, hope you like it. I have won a bunch of goodies during this time. Have you?

Here's the new list. I'll be adding more whenever I find some more candies, so check back often. Maybe you can even give me a tip or two about new goodies?

Scrapmurmur is offering four Whiff of joy stamps to get us in the festive mood. Ends 3:rd.

Jacque is celebrating that she has been invited to join the Just Magnolia Design Team. Her candy consists of Magnolias among other things. Also ends 3:rd.

Sheena is celebrating her blogoversary with her first candy. Ends on her birthday - december 3:rd.

Linda is having candy to show how much she apreciates us. Her candy also ends 3:rd.

Kim is offering a well loved Whiff of joy candy with one of my fav characters - Charlotte. Ends 4:th.

Lisa is celebrating 5,000 hits with her first blogcandy. It ends 4:th at 10 pm and winner will be drawn on the 5:th.

Debbie is having a candy to celebrate the opening of the new blog site to sell The Crafty Pad stamps from. Here's what you can win. Last day to enter is 4:th and winner will be chosen on the 6:th.


Chris has been blogging for 2 years and to celebrate she's having a secret candy. There will be some great stuff in it, but exactly what is a surprise :) Winner will be drawn on the 8:th.

Denise has a great holiday candy. There will be four winners! Ends 10:th.

Victoria wants you to say how many Magnolia santa Tildas you can find in her shop to be in a draw to win some candy. Ends 13:th.

Crystal is celebrating 25,ooo hits with a huge candy. Candy ends on her weddinganniversary, at Midnight Eastern time 9:th. Winner will be announced no later than on the 12:th.

Promarker blog
are giving away a starter kit of promarkers. If you want to try this medium then make sure to enter before 15:th.

Motivet are having a candy again. You can win their whole new release of 12 stamps. Join before 15:th.

Lorraine has a candy that's been sponsored by Simon says stamp. It runs every week, but this one runs for 2 weeks. All you need to do is enter the simon says stamp challenge. Candy ends 16:th.

Kristine has celebrated her birthday on dec 22:nd and she's giving away a candy to one lucky winner. Candy ends 27th.

Jayne is celebrating her 40:th birthday on dec 27:th and is giving away a great candy. Ends 27:th and the winner will be drawn on the 31:st.

Debby is giving away two stamps drawn by the very talented Mo Manning. She will draw the winner on january 2:nd.

Kristy is giving away a box full of primas, stamps and other stuff to celebrate the new DT members at the Dollies. Ends jauary 4:th.

Die cuts r us are giving away a brand NEW QuicKutz Epic Six Die Cutting System and a grab bag of QuicKutz dies!!! What we need to do is make sure that blog reaches 500 followers before new year. They have over 100 followers now so it's not so much left. One among those 500 will then win that tool.

12 tags of Christmas - day 1

I'm so happy that Tim Holtz' 12 tags of Chrismas has started. Have you seen it yet? I thought it would start on december 13:th so I'm happy it's on now.

Yesterday after my Christmasshopping (where I found all gifts and tons of new beautiful fabrics) I gave it a go on tag for day 1. I had two ideas and actually finished both of them. Here are the results:

I just love the birdset of clearstamps I got a while back. I bought it from a blogger I was following. She advertised on her blog that she wanted to sell the set and I jumped right on it. I was surprised that noone had contacted her. The set is stunning and the price was great too.
I used peeled paint and vintage photo for this one.

This other tag uses a fairy stamp from PSX (remember that fab company?)
The text has crackle medium on it. Colours used: broken china and tattered rose. The swirl is made using a qk die.

Wishful tag

Christmas is just around the corner. It's december 1:st and I'm celebrating with a little Christmas tag. I'm off Christmasshopping soon today, but I wanted to show you the quick tag I made. Took me 30 minutes tops. The image is from plate 22 from sweetpea stamps.





The tag is quite simple really, just stamped the image once, added another bamboo stamp on top. Then I coloured the image with promarkers, added a gold bead on the flower and filled it with crackling lacquer. I stamped the word "wish" in fired brick distress ink and added red glitter glue on top. Finally I inked the edges with peeled paint. And voilá, a finished tag in 30 minutes tops.
Tag measures about 4-1/2 x 2".

I'm entering the special promarker challenge with this tag. It's a challenge that goes on from today (dec 1:st) until january 5:th. You need to make anything but a card with a Christmas theme. There are some great prizes to win so I'm in ;)

Wishing you hugs and kisses

Here is another project I made yesterday. This time a card with a romance/sweet theme for roses on paper using one of my fav Tildas from Magnolia. I also made the card a Christmas one since there are so many challenges out there with a Christmas theme this week. I thought I'd be fresh and see how many I could fit the card into :)

Christmas theme:
papertake weekly
everybody art
charisma cardz
Magnolia down under
2 red bananas
Paper make-up
Flourishes

Red and green colourcombo:
Corrosive challenges by Janet
365 cards
Tellen's place
colourcreate

Other ones:
Paper cutz - anything goes
sketch saturday. - I turned the sketch 90 degrees.

Phew, that was quite some challenges :)

Tip of the day:
I have bought a holder for scrapbookpapers with a couple of compartments where I keep papers and cardstock that are matched together. Sometimes I just feel like colouring so I take out those papers and colour the image so it matches the papers. I then store the image and papers together. Whenever I feel like making cards, but don't have the energy to colour images I take out this holder and look through it to see what I have "half done". It's like having a cardkit ready to go. The only thing is to remember that I have it, lol. I actually almost forgot it. Good thing I didn't since it's Christmas papers and a winter image. On the other hand I just got it so maybe I just need to get used to using it.



Colour: promarkers
Border: spellbinders
Papers: sandylion and daisyd
Text: free download from dafont.com
Stamp: Magnolia

Winter love

I made this adorable ATC especially with this week's theme at the Simon says stamp challenge blog. The theme was "winter love" and this stamp directly came to mind. I've been a little tired of making regular cards so I wanted to try something different. I'm determined to succeed with my distress inks and yesterday I gave it another try. I think even Tim Holtz himself would've been proud or what do you say?
Simon says stamp is also sponsoring a candy if you join this week's challenge. The candy can be found at Chris' blog.

Do I dare to mention that I made this stunning colour combo by mistake?! I was distressing the edge with vintage photo when I accidently turned my sponge somehow and added the red from it. I use make-up sponges for now (just ordered the felt and tool). I use one sponge for 2 colours. I kept thinking: "what would Tim do?" and just kept on going adding colours. In the end I was blown away. You have to excuse my modesty, but I haven't managed with anything distressed yet and this one turned out beautifully - even better than I had imagined.

The vintage look is this week's theme at the promarker challenge blog.
Sophisticat had "ATC" as their challenge.
The pixie cottage wanted you to use stitching.

I used my nestability to cut out a hole in copy paper and made one shape in post-it paper to create a mask. I used the copypaper to cover the ATC and stamped the image in the hole. Then I covered the image with the mask and stamped a music note image over the right side and embossed with clear powder. Afterwards I sewed a zig zag seam to the right and added the different inks around the whole piece. I made a snowflake from 3 different die-cuts that I inked in different colours. I then glued it together and added a flat-backed pearl. I used an alphabet to write "love" on the right hand side. I coloured the image and added the specially made snowflake. Finally I added some glitter on the flake and text.

Distresses: Vintage photo, fired brick and broken China
Promarkers: ivory, saffron, cinnamon, cool aqua, berry red and orange
Stamp: Sarah Kay

A brand new challenge blog for gypsy lovers

Ok, I have to admit. I didn't even know what a gypsy was when I visited the cuttlebug spot today. "There is a new challenge blog for gypsylovers". Uh-uh I thought to myself. Good for them. There is always so many new gadgets out there. Curious as I am I found out what it was and realize it's an extra gadget to use with your cricut. I wanted that machine before my qk squeeze (aren't they in a museum by now?) and my cutiebug. I'm curious to find out more about it and to see what everyone does with it. There are already some great projects on the new challenge blog called the gypsy spot.

To celebrate the launch custom crops has kindly donated one to be given away as candy! Wow! Make sure you enter before december 1:st when the winner will be chosen.