Thank you fairy much

I'm so happy that the time for making Christmascards is over. I love Christmas, but I've been making a card a day for two weeks now and I'm exhausted, lol.
For today's card I'd like to show you a thank you card I made - the theme for this week's papertake weekly challenge. I'm sure you have people to thank after the Christmas season and that you will join us this week. The great thing about thank-you cards is that there is no theme you have to follow - everything is allowed.

I have used one of ching chou kuik's latest images called purple hearts from sweetpea stamps. She is coloured with promarkers and shimmery drychalks for hair and background. I used a Martha Stewart butterfly punch on the background paper, then cut out a rectangle on the top of the card's fold. I was so proud of myself for coming up with this idea. Don't think I've seen it anywhere else before, so remember where you saw it first ;)

I added some extra sparkle around the image and on some of the butterflies with a sakura clear gelly roll. I love the shimmer it gives. The text is handwritten and I'm very happy with it (especially concidering I wrote it 4am)

I just love the airy spring-like feel of this card. Can't wait to make more! Woohoo, spring is here (well, almost)


The challenges for this one are:

Christmas blog - thank you
I love promarkers - anything goes
In a sweetpea dream - anything goes
Magical monday - thank you
papertake weekly - thank you
Passion for promarkers - anything goes
Simon says stamp - anything goes
sketch saturday - sketch
Sweetpea stampers - anything goes

Merry Christmas my blogfriends

I want to thank you and wish you all a continued wonderful Christmas. I'm very thankful for all of you who come by and visit, leave comments and become followers. I can't believe I have 187 followers to this date and I haven't even forced the last 80 of you, lol.

I have big plans for my blog next year - going on 3 years now. I'll get a candy together when I reach 200 followers so keep on signing up. I'm also planning to have more tutorials, some sewing ones where I will need a testaudience. AND I will finally like to launch my new blog "crafters guide".

No cards today, but I want to show you a pair of earrings I made for myself. Who said a grey Christmas isn't beautiful? I really like that the earrings look like exclusive ornaments.

Hope you're having a fabulous time and will stop by soon again.

PS. If you're tired of all the Christmasfood and would like a caloriefree candy, then Samantha has a surprise candy for you. Just show her something you made for Christmas that's not a card and link a pic up to her blog.

A couple's Merry Christmas

Here is my second to last Christmascard of the year. I made it especially for my friend and his wife. The image is a Rachelle Ann Miller from Stampavie and papers are from last year's Basic Grey collection called Wassail. I didn't have much time to work on this card so I decided to focus on the image and colouring. I chose the papers first and then my promarkers to match. The border is made with a Martha Stewart punch. I bought my first ones and got them in the mail the other day. It's funny because this was the one I thought I would use the least. I got a bunch of other cute ones with flowers, bunnies and cupcakes, but this was the only "neutral" one. Now that I've used it I like it a lot just because it's so versatile. I actually think it's perfect for Christmas as it almost looks like a mistletoe.

I used these challenges for this card:

ABC - keep it simple
Crafts and me  - anything goes
Create 4 fun - sketch (that I turned upside down)
Promarker challenge - anything goes
Rainbow lady's - your fav past challenge (I chose #131, vintage delight)
Sarah Hurley - last minute Christmas cheer
Simon says stamp and show - yesteryear
Stampavie and more - red

Secret sweetpea bloghop

This post will stay on top until december 20:th. Please scroll down for newer posts.

Today in Sweden we are celebrating Lucia and as it happens, as a secret Christmas gift to Lynette, (owner of Sweet Pea Stamps) the design team are throwing this blog hop! We are so glad you have decided to join in the fun - today you will find many beautiful creations made by the Sweet Pea Stamps design team.
As our gift to you, our wonderful followers, visitors and Sweet Pea Stamps customers, one lucky person will win the ching chou kuik Fantasy Art collection Red Riding Hood sheet of stamps (Plate #65). Just leave comments along the way.

Thank you so much Lynette for choosing me for your designteam. I've been on from the start and have watched sweetpea grow over this past year. I feel so lucky as Lyntte is a wonderful and understanding person. She let me stay on the team when I was very sick and couldn't live up to my commitments. I really believe that staying on the team kept me sane. I was my anchor and I'll be eternally greatful to you for that Lynette. Big hugs to you and I look forward to making even more wonderful projects in the next year if you'll have me.

Each comment you leave will earn you an entry - so the more comments the better the chances! The drawing will take place on 12/20/2010.  Below you will find the list of stops - if you joined us somewhere along the way don't worry as it is a circular hop. Thanks again and Happy Holidays!

Sweet Pea Stamps
Alexandra Lundgren
Angela Sowell
Christine Riley
Connie Piotter
Holley Barnhart
Jennifer Willis
Katarina Maserak (you are here)
Kym Kreates
Randi Wall
Traci Porter

Now for my project. I have made a card and a matching flower to put on a gift. The stamp is called poinsetta fairy from plate 60, drawn by ching chou kuik. I really love the "airy" feeling of this stamp - wind in her hair, flowers all around - such a sweet Christmas image. I immidiately thoought of this stamp together with the papers when I came across them in my stash. All three of them (even the striped stripe) is from imaginisce. The line ins called snowy jo and I got them last year at a sale. It's like they are made for this image.

The fairy is coloured with my promarkers and cut out using a nestie shape. I cut along the lines of two of the flowers in the patterned paper making an insert for the image. I didn't want to overwhealm the beautiful fairy or the green patterned paper so I left the layout simple using a sketch from cardpatterns. I love how the card has a Christmas-feel to it even though it is full of flowers. The flower theme is perfect for this week's theme at sewmanychallenges and cute card thursday.Who said flowers aren't for Christmas?

The flower:
Although it doesn't show I used three stamps from plate 17 for the flower. I cut out a couple of circles using my scalloped nestabilities from copying paper. I then stamped in different distressinks and moistened the paper with a minimister. After that I scrunched them up, opened them and dried a little with a heatingtool. While still being a bit moist I put a brad through the middle and arranged them as shown with the smallest circle in the middle. Finally the flower is set to dry completely and as a final step I added some distress ink and stickles on the edges. The leaves are cut out by hand. The flower measures about 3" (7,5cm)

Hope you're enjoying yourself and all the wonderful creations made by the very talented sweetpeas. Make sure to leave a comment for your chance to win a whole sheet of free stamps. And as always, make sure to stop by the sweetpea blog. There is always a great deal going on and tons of inspiration. Why not wish for a giftcard for Christmas? Right now there's a great offer:

Buy $25 gift card get $30

Buy $50 gift card get $65

Buy $75 get $100

And finally Lynette is looking for a new design team member. If you love sweetpea stamps and would like to be a part of our team, contact Lynette at sweetpeastampsDT@gmail.com and she will get back to you with the requirements.

Thanks for stopping by and have fun hopping.

Sparkly swirly Christmas shopping

Second post for today - I'm trying to finish all the Christmascards I have started. Still have a couple of coloured images that are matched with different patterned papers.

This card is a delight in bright shades and glitter. I wanted the main paper to stand out and for the card to sparkle. I used glitterglue and sakura clear gelly roll to add shine to the "fur", trees and swirls. The image I used is from llili of the valley - a candy I won earlier this year - coloured with promarkers. I also added the swirls to the image's edges. Otherwise I think the card is quite simple and speaks for itself.

Challenges used:

Cute card thursday - one for the kids
Lili of the valley - sketch
Promarker - anything goes
Stamptacular sunday - TREEmendous
Totally gorjuss - for someone special

Swirly snowman

Today I have a little different card for you. Blue isn't really one of my fav colours to work with, but I really wanted to join in some challenges so I made it anyway. And it isn't really a challenge if you're just using what you're comfortable with, right?

The image I have used is from a Darcie D's set. I love how the snowman blows an air of snow. Actually there is a butterfly at the end of the whirl, but I cut it off since I wanted it to look like he's blowing a big snowflake. I coloured him a little with two blue promarkers and with white twinkling h2os. The swirl and snowflake from the patterned paper is coloured with a sakura clear gelly roll pen. The leafy background paper is vellum and it's only attached in the corners. I added the crystals to cover up the glue splotches shining through.

Challenges I've used:


All sorts - anything goes
Paper sundaes - cut it out
Promarker - anything goes
Simon says stamp - blue, white and silver
Sketchy colors - blue, white, silver and sketch

Deck the halls

Another Christmascard in the works. This time I have used a very sweet image from Penny Black. I haven't used them in a very long time so I thought they deserved some ink :)

I have coloured the most with promarkers and used oilpencils and alcohol for the "fur". The papers are a great mix of all sorts of papers I had in my stash. I have used my nesties, qk holly leaves and distress ink.

Challenges for this card are:


ABC Chistmas - any of the old challenges ( I chose H holly + sketch from 7:th april)
Fun with shapes and more - scalloped
Penny Black - the holly and the ivy
Stampin' for the weekend - Christmas

Winter wishes for a happy birthday

The other day I got an e-mail invitation to be a guest designer at the papertake weekly challenge blog. I was very honored and will participate in four challenges. This is my first one and the theme this week is Christmas birthdays. I hope you will join us too.

I've been having my Greeting farm Anya stamp for months now and never gotton around to using it. When I found out the theme of the challenge this stamp was directly what I thought of. I wanted to give the card a frosty feel (any excuse to use glitter which was perfect for this week's theme at the alphabetchallenge) and started looking through my Christmas papers stash. I couldn't believe it when I came across this set I've gotten together with an english magazine. It had a winter birthday theme. So perfect! It was a joy to colout as I love bold colours. I was actually almost out of both the fushia and blue paper so I had to improvise. I used whichever scraps I had and tried different solutions. So the layout is purely accidental. I scrambled with what I had :)

The image is coloured with promarkers and I stamped some snowflakes on the right side with distress inks. The glitter is stickles glitterglue. Pretty basic, but a great result for a birthday card.

Reindeer greetings

Wow, I'm really on a roll here. I don't think I've made this many cards for at least a year if not more. One or two a day? Whoa, lol. Maybe I'll get it all done on time without getting totally sick. Keep your fingers crossed...

I have used one of the reindeers from stämpelgården again. I really like this stamp. Because he is mostly covered you can match the colours on him to any patterned paper you might have. I sometimes find it hard to colourmatch when there are animals because they often need to be brown and that ruins the whole impression.

Most of the papers I have used are from imaginisce although I used some small pieces from other companies too. I used a sketch, but removed one of the panels as it got way too cluttered for my taste. I think many of the papers are too covered, so I'm not sure how I feel about this card. I must say I was much happier with it when I finished it. Right now it seems a little bit iffy to me. Maybe it's just because I want to send a superwonderful card to my cousin and knock his socks off, lol.

The challenges I've used are:

Cooking it up with katie - red, layers and Christmas
My time to craft - reindeer greetings
Peartree designs - Christmas
Pink elephant - winter wonderland
Promarker  - anything goes
Sketch saturday - sketch (I turned it upside down)
Stamptacular - winter scene
Stamp with fun - X-mas

French horn Christmas wishes

I'm stuggling on to get all my Christmascads ready on time and make my first card as guest designer for papertake weekly and getting the secret bloghop ready for tomorrow....I'm sure you have more things to do, but this is quite enough for me especially since I'm also fighting a cold on top of everything else.

Today's card is one I'm especially proud of. I made it for a friend that plays the french horn in a symphony orchestra. We just recently started talking again after finding eachother on facebook after 10 years. I've had this little charm for years and when I decided to send my friend a Christmascard I knew I had to include the charm.

Finding the right stamp wasn't that hard as I remembered some of the house-mouse stamps had instruments in them. I thought this one was perfect!

The image is coloured using my promarkers and because I'm not used to using dark colours I nearly gave up colouring it. I actually started on a new one using a different colouring medium, but got so BORED having to colour the same image twice, lol. So I got back and worked some more on the original one. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Not my best work, but still something I can be proud of. Except the image that took ages to colour I had huuuge issues with the bow (or the other way around ;) I think it took me an hour to get it right, because I also wanted to include the charm in some nice way. I started with a wider bow, but it got too big and tieing it around the green one was too bulky - it was a nightmare as I was so close to finishing the card. In the end this is how I made it and I think it looks so good. Just don't ask me how much glue I used or how many pieces the bow is made of, lol.

The papers I have used are all from Basic Grey's Wisteria line. The gold music panel is a stamp that I embossed with gold powder. The edges are inked with a gold pen. And that's it :)


I used a couple of challenges while making this card:

All sorts - last minute Christmas
Creative card crew - anything goes
Creative inspirations - anything Christmas
Friday sketchers - sketch
I love promarkers - Christmas carol/song
Simon says stamp and show - A holiday greeting

Let it snow...

Two post is one day? That hasn't happened in...ever I think ;)

This was one of the first cards I started colouring, but it didn't want to get finished. I had the papers, but couldn't really put it together until today. I really like the colourcombo although it's not something I usually use. Kind of the point - to challenge yourself and I really did here. I think it's a great card for a guy so I will be sending it to one of my male friends that lives in Germany (good timing as cards to Europe needs to be sent sunday at the latest, yey!)

The stamp is one of the older ones from Whiff of joy called Charlie building snowman. I'm superpleased with the colouring on this one. I kept adding and adding until I almost ruined it. The last thing I did was to add that darkbrown shade around Charlie and right side of the snowman. After adding it to the pants I realised I had to add it on the jacket and sleeves, and...good thing I didn't manage to ruin it totally.

The challenges I've used for this card are:

ABC challenge - J is for jewels
Everybody art - sketch
Papertake weekly - red and green can not be seen
Simon says stamp - Christmas, but NO red or green
Whiff of joy - no red or green

Merry kissmas

For the last couple of days I've been making (or at least trying to) Christmascards like crazy. I need 20 cards and had about 2,5. Some are supposed to be sent today, some sunday and most of them thursday at the latest. Where did the time go?! As I hate to make the same card twice, or a batch of cards - yuck! - I'm in a bit of a pickle. I'm trying to be smart about it though, colouring several images to match the same line of patterned paper. That way I only have to find the matching promarkers once and colour several images at once. Now I just need time to put them together...Having a secret bloghop on monday and accepting a GDT spot isn't helping, lol.

This card was so much fun to make, using one of my newest Kraftin' Kimmie stamp called Raychel. I don't have any Christmas-themed ones so I had to improvise. With the right sentiment, papers and embellishments you can do anything. If you would like to get your own Raychel (or any other crafting item) stop by stamp and create. It's one of my fav internet shops, especially for stamps. Lacey - the owner always has a product spotlight which means that itemss in that category are 25% off. Sometimes she has a whole line of stamps in the category, sometimes a theme ("food" for instance). The prices are already low and the service is superb!

I have used a patterned paper from keisercraft as the background. With a paper like this I didn't feel like I needed many embellishments. Raychel is coloured with promarkers and I stamped different snowflake stamps around her with distress ink (weathered wood and old paper). The sentiment is printed out from the computer. I think the font is called kings and queens and can be found at dafont.com. And as all my Christmascards this year I'm making them look like postcards both to save the environment and my economy. Here's the backside:

The challenges I've used for this card are:

7 kids challenge blog - winter wonderland
A spon full of sugar - Christmas card
Daring cardmakers - snow much fun
Kraftin' Kimmies - let it snow
Promarker challenge - anything goes
Secret crafter - Christmas
Sketch and stash - sketch

No peaking!

Today I want to show you a hilarious stamp from stämpelgården. I've been wanting it for years, but since it's a Christmasstamp I was too cheap to buy one. Always got stamps that were more versatile and for the whole year. But this year when the shop had their annual anniversary sale I just had to pick it up. Isn't it the cutest and funniest thing you've seen?! I didn't know what sentiment to add on the tag, but while searching my stash I came across this one from SeeD's - isn't it just PERFECT?

I'm very proud of this card. It took a quite a while to "ripen". I'm so proud of the colouring that is made with promarkers and I love the snowflake decorations that I made using different dies and punches. The colours give the card a modern feel and I think it's perfect as a male card. The little snowflakes around the reindeer are stamped with distress ink and it's one of those things I've only done once or twice.

I also want to show you the backside of the card. We use up a lot of paper which is neither enviromental nor economical. It also costs more to send, so my Christmascards for this year will look like post cards. To make them look better, not just like I have cut off a vital part I decided to decorate the back a little. I had a perfect textstamp which I embossed and stamped some snowflakes and distressed the edges.

I apologize for the poor quality of my photos lately. My camera is still broken (not showing anything in the display) so I have to photograph in the dark only to see how they turned out in the computer. I am wishing for a new camera under the Christmastree though...

The challenges I've used for this card are:


Dutch dare - Christmas
Paper romance - winter theme
Pile it on - it's all in the wrapping (thought it was funny, although not sure it qualifies)
Promarker challenge - old & new (I used a new stamp and old papers)
Simon says stamp - sketch
Totally papercrafts - X-mas punches
Wags n whiskers - snowflakes

Believe - a sympathy card

Recently a blogfriend of mine lost her mother and I made this card for her. There is nothing really that can be said in a time like this. Sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words.

The image I have used is called shining on from sweetpea stamps. It's one of the few stamps that are only sold as a single stamp. I knew I had to have it when I first saw it when sweetpea donated money to Haiti when selling it. I think it's quite appropriate to use for a sympathy card.

I started colouring the image with my promarkers in muted colours: skintone and greys. The image got a bit too boring so I used a hint of pink on the wings and butterflies. I'm quite happy with how I managed to make it look like the light from the candle shines on her face.

I used a white twinkling h2o to add that shimmer to the wings and a black sparkle gelly pen on the leaves in her hair and as an "eyeliner". I found the little chain with freshwater pearls and the key laying around in my to-do jewelry pile. I started making an earring out of it and didn't like it. I added the charm "believe" (which it took a while of persistent searching to find). The charm is attached to two hydrangea flowers with a brad. The papers and piece of ribbon is something I've had in my stash for years, but never used. I love the elegant and muted feeling of this card. It doesn't have to be a sympathy card. You could use it as a little different Christmas card too.

I used a sketch from papertake weekly because of its simplicity which I thought was perfect for this type of card. Other challenges I've used:

Flutterby wednesday - your favs.
Moving along with the times - for someone special
Paperplay challenges - monochromatic