Christmas colour combo at Digital Tuesday

It's been a while since I last blogged. I really must get into the habit of blogging at least every couple of days again. I kind of lost interest in blogging and crafting for a bit....do ay of you get like that? Now and again I just can't be bothered with it all and think I will just give up crafting and blogging, but then I look at the lovely comments I get on here and it makes me want to keep at it :)

Over the last few days I have got right back into crafting and yesterday I made 4 cards for the next few challenges at Digital Tuesday, so hopefully I keep it up! :)

Speaking of Digital Tuesday, the new challenge was posted today and Anneke has chose a Christmas colour combo challenge. She wants to see our Christmas cards using blue, white and kraft.

Our sponsor this week is Spesch Stamps, so of course I had to use a Spesch Stamps image :)

 I really like the image which by the way is called "Kei with Cocoa", but I am not happy with how my card turned out. I think I should of used another layer of paper, probably because I am so used to using at least 2 different dp's on a card, but I now know that I don't own much blue papers that are suitable for Christmas carsds as I had such a hard job finding paper to use!

I finally found this snowflake paper in a Forever Friends pad which I got last year.

I used some cheesecloth, some ribbons from my stash, a wild orchid crafts rose on top of a flower that did have some stamen bits in the middle, but I ripped it apart and stuck the petals a little closer together so it wasn't as big as it previously was, then added some stardust stickles to both flowers.

I also added some little snowflakes and added gems in the centres, but looking at this picture I notice that one of them has fell off completely and another has moved from the middle of the snowflake.

That's what I get for taking a picture before the glue has a chance to dry!

The image was coloured with mostly Promarkers.

I do like the Copic nibs better than Promarkers, but lately I have been using my Pros a lot more as I hate that some of the Copic colours (especially dark ones) go all waxy and the colour starts to go streaky and you just can't blend with it :( Does anyone else have that problem?

Someone said to me that it's probably because I have layered too much ink and it starts to sit on top of the paper after a while, but that is not what is causing it, because it happens even when I haven't used any other layers. It only happens with some colours and it seems to be the dark E colours, which is why I have started using Promarkers to do hair because I am so fed up of all my images having shiny hair!

Well that's it from me today. I will be back probably tomorrow with a card for By The Cute ad Girly which I should of posted on the 15th, but I forgot!

Digital Tuesday Steampunk

The theme at Digital Tuesday this week was chosen by Maya (who always likes to give us a challenge!) and she chose Steampunk.

I must admit, I could of died when she told me the theme because I have never made a steampunk card and didn't have anything steampunky....or so I thought.

I do love the style though and after all the worrying, I had so much fun making this card :)

 Our sponsor this week is Spesch Stamps who is giving away 3 digital images of the winners choice, and as always Tracey let the design team choose an image to play with, so of course I had to use one because I love her images!

Sorry about the pants pic! My camera battery went dead on me after only taking three pics and this was the best of a bad bunch! lol I was just lucky to get a pic of the full card and a close up of the image as I normally take loads of the whole card first then choose the best one.

Anyway as I said, I used a Spesch Stamps image and it's called "Steampunk". Very apt for the challenge :)

I coloured her with promarkers and cut her out using a craft knife for the tiny bits.....not really a good idea with a numb hand but I managed lol.

I used some sheet music (which I inked around the edges with copper ink) for the mat as I didn't have the colour of card I wanted to use- must remember to get some!

The patterned paper is by Bo Bunny and I decided to be daring and heat emboss the edges lol. Not sure if I like it, but it was fun to do ;)

The clock is a free svg file that I found a while back and the "cogs" I found on the accent essentials cricut cartridge. I thought they looked a bit steampunky?

I heat embossed them all with bronze embossing powder.

Finally to finish off, I cut some flowers from the same papers using a Marianne Designs die (which actually embosses circles on them as well), scrunched them into a ball, inked them with antique photo distress ink and layered them together with a button and some string which was also coloured with distress ink because I only have white. Then added some die cut flourishes. The leafy one is a MFT die and the other is a Marianne Designs.

I had actually coloured my image with blues and browns, but my son Liam said that it didn't go very well and it would look better in green, so I printed out another image and coloured it up and he was absolutely right :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Hope you ca join in with this weeks challenge and if you haven't already popped over to the By The Cute and Girly challenge blog, you might want to take a peek ;) Lots of prizes up for grabs for our 3rd birthday celebration! We have a blog hop running alongside the challenge for the whole month (my blog hop post is pinned to the top of my blog if you haven't already seen it) and we have prizes from some great sponsors including Simon Says Stamp, Lili Of The Valley, Whiff Of Joy, Joana Sheen, Kenny K, Pink Gem and much much more! In fact we have 15 prizes up for grabs this month!! and you can have lots of chances at winning them.

You will get an entry to the blog hop prize draw if you visit each dt's blog and leave a comment and you can enter the challenge as much times as you like throughout the month (as long as each entry is with a different craft) for multiple chances to win 1 (or more) of our challenge prizes!

I'm looking forward to visiting you all to see your entries! ;) xx

Digital Tuesday- Tag It

The new challenge is up at Digital Tuesday and this week the theme is "Tag It!"- make a tag card or use a tag on your card/creation and of course use a digital image or other digital element.

Our sponsor this week is the fab Spesch Stamps and Tracey as always offered the dt an image to play with, so of course I had to use one because I love the images at Spesch Stamps.

I was going to make a tag, but because I was using an image, I would of had to make the tag quite big and I don't really have any use for large tags (I've got it into my head that I should make things that I will actually use lol), so I went with a card.

This is actually the second card I made with the same image as I finished my other one last week sometime and forgot to take a pic and now I can't find the card! So last night I had to rustle up another card for the challenge. When I find the other one, I will show it as it's totally different to this one even though I used the same image.

 Can you believe I actually picked a boy image??!! lol, there is sooo much pretty girlies, but I wanted to do something a bit grungy and this image fitted perfectly.

The papers I have used are old Basic Grey ones that I have had for ages and I lightly sanded the edges and then inked them with antique linen distress ink and done the same with the red card I used to mat all the layers on. It doesn't really show up in this pic but it shows a bit more in real life.

The  music paper is from an old (and I mean old!! lol) sheet music book which I picked up the last time I was in Stonehaven a few weeks back. 

Barry is really good at spotting stuff I can use for cards and he spotted this pile of old music books in a charity shop (we went looking specifically for things like this.....well you can't find old stuff like this anywhere else can you? lol). There was loads of books but I only got 4 and was only £1 for the lot! If  had known they were so cheap, I would of bought the lot lol. Although I would never use that many, but I could of shared with crafty friends :)

Anyway, I sanded the music paper very lightly but wasn't getting the effect I wanted, so I just scrunched it up, inked it with the distress ink and hoped for the best lol.

For the tag part (which I almost forgot about so it was kinda an afterthought), I cut a luggage tag out on my Cricut (Fabulous Finds), inked the edges and used some tag string that came with Christmas tags (which I inked as it was really white) then stamped a sentiment (sorry can't remember which set I used) and stuck it on. I was going to stamp straight onto the tag but I used textured card and thought it might not stamp well, so went for the safe option.

Oh and the cute buttons were from my bloggy friend Ger (thanks again hun xxx)

 The image is coloured with Copics. I have ran out of my normal skin colours in both Copics and Promarkers, so I had to improvise and he looks he's had a bit too much sun!! lol

I used E11 and E50 which doesn't blend so well together lol, but it's the only skin like colours I have just now so it will have to do. I also added a bit of R20 for his cheeks.

I was thinking that I should start keeping a list like I used to of which Copics/Promarkers I have used for each image as I have had a few emails asking me for a list of colours, so if anyone would like me to start listing which markers I used, let me know and I will try to remember to keep a list..........although you should all know by now that my memory is not the best lol.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for all the lovely comments you leave :)

Ribbon and Buttons for Digital Tuesday

I'm a day late with my Digital Tuesday card because I was having a new bathroom put in yesterday and didn't get any time to blog, so here it is today instead.
The challenge this week at Digital Tuesday is ribbons and buttons, nice and easy huh?.....well you would think so, but I hardly ever use buttons and couldn't find my button bag! I don't have much buttons but what I do have is in a little zip lock bag (I know I am sooo classy!! lol) and I just couldn't find them anywhere!
I eventually came across a yellow button which must of fell out the bag at some point and was at the bottom of a box, but I wanted a pink or green button lol. It had to do, so a Copic came to the rescue and I finally got my card finished!

The papers I used are ones that I got from dt friends when I first moved house and had no stash at all (still don't have much but I can make a card out of what I have now. Thanks so much ladies! You were lifesavers!! xxx :)) so not sure who makes them but I wanted a nice fresh look for a change and these were perfect for that.
The sweet image is from Spesch Stamps who is our sponsor this week. This image is quite a new one by Jessica and is called Butterfly Girl. You can find her here.
I love all the sweet images at Spesch Stamps and use them a lot, but I have to admit that the ones by Jessica (and a few other artists) intimidate my slightly because you have to draw in the middle of the eyes yourself. I am rubbish at eyes, so I used to shy away from these kind of images, even though I loved the image itself, but I gave it a go and I don't think it has came out too bad. Just need lots more practice, which is a great excuse to buy more digis :)
As I said, the button was from my stash, as was the ribbon, the bakers twine is by American Crafts and all the flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The little tiny buds started out white, but I just coloured them with a marker the same colour as I used for the image shadow so that they would match.

 Just pretend you can't see the bits where the ink has bled at her hair lol. I ran out of my normal colouring paper, so had to use cheap stuff and the ink just went everywhere! I wanted to go to town on her hair and do a lot of shading, but was scared to add too much layers of ink because it would of bled everywhere, so I couldn't really do much with her.
Never mind, I will order some new paper tomorrow and can colour her up again when it arrives :)

I'm off to go clean a very dirty bath!! lol. It's absolutely filthy but I just couldn't be bothered doing it last night after the workers left because they had been here from 10.15am and didn't leave until after 8pm, so I just wanted a bit of peace without drilling and hammering after they left, so went and made a card instead of cleaning the bath lol.
Tell me, how can I brand new bath be so dirty anyway??!! It looks like a hippos mud bath right now!

Anyway, I will be back tomorrow hopefully with a card for my Dad's birthday. That's if I actually get it made today. How I am going to make a male card without any buttons?! It's my go to embellishment for male cards, only because I have no idea what else to use! lol
If anybody has any ideas what else I could use instead of buttons, please let me know! :) Oh, but not flowers as he's really not a flowery kind of person lol.

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading all the rubbish I write! I do appreciate it so much.

Oh and I am entering this card into the Fab 'n' Funky challenge which is buttons and bows.

Some dt cards

I haven't been able to get online long enough to get any blog posts done this week (problems with my internet connection), so I have a few dt cards to share.

The first is for Digital Tuesday, where the challenge was "Life Is Peachy" The sponsor was Spesch Stamps, and Tracey offered the design team their choice of image to use as usual :)

 I found this challenge quite hard because I couldn't find any peach coloured papers. I finally found these ones which were from a paper pad that I have had for ages, but it only had a few papers left in it and no front to it, so I have no idea who makes it.

The image is of course a Spesch Stamps digi called Ashley and is coloured mostly with Promarkers. I just used Copics for the skin and hair as I only have a few colours so far.

Some lace, flowers and a butterfly from my stash and job done.

I just noticed that I went over the lines a bit with her hair. I think I really need to get a new pair of reading glasses and actually wear them!! lol

The other card I have to share is another one for Digital Tuesday where the challenge this week is to use your favourite colour. The sponsor is Robyn's Fetish and I used one of their images called Babette Bunny.

Of course I had to use pink! I bet that was no surprise to any of my regular visitors!! lol
I coloured this one with a mix of of Promarkers and Copics as well.
The paper is by Papermania, ribbon from my stash, flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts and a butterfly made by Geraldine.

I will be back tomorrow with my dt projects for the new monthly challenge over at By The Cute and Girly. I really enjoyed making my cards for Aprils challenge. It's a really great theme and so  much you can do with it, so remember to check back tomorrow to see what the theme is!

Thanks so much for stopping by, especially since I have been really rubbish at blogging lately!
I am planning a little giveaway for my followers in the next few weeks so stay tuned for that and I will also have a random giveaway for one person who leaves a comment over the next few weeks, just to say thank you for coming to visit my blog and all the lovely comments you leave me :)
So the more comments you leave, the more chances you will have to win a prize :) I'm not sure what the prize will be yet, but I will go shopping for a few bits this week and will try my best to get some lovely goodies to share with you :)

By The Cute and Girly- In the Kitchen

The new challenge is up at By The Cute and Girly today and this month it was Geraldine's turn to choose a theme. She chose "In The Kitchen" and at first I wasn't sure what I was going to do for this theme, but once I thought about it, I realised that there is loads of scope to be really crafty with this theme.
I just made 2 cards for the first post of the month, but I think for the 2nd dt post in the middle of the month, I will make some cakes or something with my kids and I had another idea of what I could make (well alter actually) so I will see how that goes and if it works, I will post some pics lol.

Anyway, onto the cards I made for the challenge. You can do anything kitchen, food or drink related, and as one of our sponsors is the fab Spesch Stamps, I used their Lemon Girl image and made a card with it :)

 As I said the image is from Spesch Stamps and is coloured with Promarkers and the sentiment is one of Meljen's freebies that I got ages ago and remembered about it when I was colouring the girl. I thought it went perfect with this image :)
The papers are by Hot Off The Press, flowers are all Primas except the little blue one which I found in my stash, and the gems, butterfly and lace is also from my stash.

I wish there was more light in my house! All my photos seem so blurry lately. I just can't get a decent pic now matter what time of the day I take it or what room I take it in. Think I need to invest in a light tent and some lamps!!

The other card I made is using a Stichy Stamps image that I have had for goodness knows how long!
I was having a look through my digi images and came across it and thought it would be perfect for the challenge, so I coloured it up with Promarkers and made this card.

I kept this one really simple and let the paper do the work :) The designer paper is from an old Basic Grey pad, sorry can't remember what the collection is called, I have had it for ages and only have a few loose sheets left.
I added some ribbon and raffia and tied them together in a bow, and also threaded some of the raffia through a button from my stash and job done.
I love these papers, they are so pretty, I really need to find some more of them!

 That's it from me for today. I hope you will check out the challenge! As always we have some great prizes from our sponsors- Simon Says Stamp, Joanna Sheen and Spesch Stamps and remember you can enter with any craft, from papercrafts to baking and anything in between!

Oh and just a reminder that my giveaway is still running, which you can find in this post here.
You have until Tuesday night to enter for a chance to win a copy of the My Memories digital scrapbook software worth $40.
All you have to do is pop over to the My Memories store and then leave me a comment letting me know which one of their boy kits you like best :) and if you are one of my followers already, there's no need to do anything else. Unless you want to spread the word by doing a post on your blog or putting the details of my giveaway in your blog sidebar, and if you do that, you will be in with a chance of winning a crafty prize from me :)
And for anyone who wants to buy the software, I have a code which you can use to get $10 off the price of the software and also $10 free to spend in the My Memories store :)
The code you need is STMMMS44022


Thanks so much for stopping by
 

Digital Tuesday- Use Your Scraps

It's time for another Digital Tuesday Challenge and this week it was my turn to choose the challenge.
Since I lost a lot of my craft stuff a few months back, I have been trying to use up my scraps, so that I can make the papers I have last a bit  longer lol, so I chose "use your scraps" as the challenge this week.
I have loads of scraps off of 12x12 papers and some of them are big enough to cover a whole 6x6 card, but they always get forgotten about, so for this card I had a good rummage about in my scrap box and was surprised at the amount of usable scraps that I actually have! (I know that every little scrap is usable in some way, like using them to punch out shapes etc, but I mean usable as in they are big enough to make card layers with).

Our sponsor this week is Spesch Stamps who very kindly let the design team chose an image each to work with again. I love the weeks that Tracey sponsors because she is always so generous and lets the design team chose an image and her images are fab! :)
This time I chose Lidia and I actually coloured her up twice because I enjoyed colouring her so much:) I have another card almost completed with her, so I will post that one another day, but for now, here's the one I did for Digital Tuesday.

 Sorry about the poor pics, I had to take them last night because my camera needed charged during the day when I was planning on taking pics.
I went for a colour combo that I very rarely use these days, but I do love these colours. I am not sure about the striped paper, but the others are by Papermania. I wasn't sure about the darker one, but I matted the layers with dark purple paper (although it doesn't look purple in this pics!), so I think it works ok.

I coloured the cute image with Promarkers as ususal, used some flowers, lace, ribbon and a little butterfly from my stash and the pretty embroidered leaves are from Little Snippets Etsy Store, but unfortunately Geraldine has decided to stop selling her embroidered embellies :( It is a lot of work for her as they are all done of material which she has to then cut around and she feels it's not worth the effort anymore. It's such a shame because all of her "snippets" are gorgeous and add something special to your cards and other projects and they look even better in real life than they do in the pics. I know if you were to buy some, you would go back for more, because they are so pretty.
The shop is closed just now, but Ger is still planning on selling her crotchet bits and also hat pins and ribbons etc, so there will still be some lovely items there :)
I am just lucky to have been on her design team and still have a little stash of embroidered snippets that I can use up :)

Well that's it from me for today. I will be back tomorrow with my mid month dt post for By The Cute and Girly, where the theme this month is Love Is In The Air. The girls already posted some fab inspiration on  the challenge blog at the start of the month when the challenge began, but we have started doing an extra post in the middle of the month to show you some more projects made by the design team, so you have plenty inspiration.
There is some fab prizes up for grabs and you can enter as many times as you like as long as it is a different kind of item each time, like a card, a scrap layout, an altered item, a tag etc. So lots of chances to win and we have 3 sponsors, so that means 3 fab prizes up for grabs again this month, from Simon Says Stamp, Joanna Sheen and Bugaboo Stamps.
I know that by tomorrow Valentines day will be past, but you don't have to make a Valentines card/gift, it could be a card just to say I love you :) It doesn't need to be valentines day to tell someone you love them, right??
We all love our family, so how about a scrap page of the family? I'm sure you crafty peeps can think of lots more ideas too :)

Thanks for stopping by today and thank you for the lovely comments you have been leaving, I do read them all and it makes me really happy to know that people have taken the time to leave me a comment even when I am being a bad blogger and not doing regular posts:)
Happy Valentines Day!! Hope you all got something lovely and are being spoiled by your other half today :)

Wags N Whiskers DT, a forgotten card and I need some crafty advice!

I was just intending posting my Wags N Whiskers card for this fortnights challenge which is Valentines/Love, but while I was looking for the pics, I also found I card that I made and never posted which was made for Digital Tuesday. Not sure why it was never posted on my blog, but thought I may as well post it today anyway.

So first up is my Wags N Whiskers dt card. I was getting a bit tired of making Valentines cards since all of the dt's I am on have had Valentines as a theme and I made them all over a couple of days, so I decided just to make a "love you" card for this one.

I used the WnW "He Loves Me" stamp and coloured with Promarkers. I used the rubber stamp version but if you like digi's, you can also get any of the Wags 'n Whiskers stamps in digi form too.

The papers are DCWV (I think!) and I used some paper doilies, lace and ribbon from my stash, and a pretty rose bud from Little Snippets (link in my sidebar). The sentiment is from a stamp set I got ages ago as free gift with a magazine.

 I am having trouble cutting ribbon just now as I left all my good scissors in my old house!, so I am having to use a cheap pair that are really rubbish at cutting ribbon, or anything else for that matter! and the ends of all my bows look terrible! I have ordered a pair of scissors along with my Tesco food shop so hopefully they will be a bit better and do me until I can get in town and get a decent pair!

My other card as I said is one I made for Digital Tuesday. I can't even remember what the challenge was!, but the sponsor was Spesch Stamps and I have used one of their lovely digi images on my card.

 

The papers are all scraps, I am not sure where the base one came from but the others are Dovecraft.
For the flowers, I used a SU! 5 petal punch and also a woodware punch for the smaller flowers and added a tiny pearl in the centre.
Oh and I just remembered that the challenge was "punch it out" lol, which is why I used punches for the flowers. I also used a punched border, some lace from my stash and some leaves cut with a Marianne Designs die and the flourishes which were cut with a MFT die.

 A close up of the sweet image, and that's it from me.

Actually before I sign off, I wanted to ask all you lovely crafters for some advice :)
I desperately need a new paper cutter or guillotine but have no idea which one to get! At the moment I have a horrible cheap one which I bought just to tide me over until I could afford something better after my old one broke. It is the worst cutter in the world!!! It rips some papers and when it does actually cut I have to tidy up the edges with scissors because the blade is not sharp enough to give a crisp cut (although it has always been like that since I bought it), and I can never get a straight cut with it!
To make things worse, the plastic guard thing which holds the paper in place moves around when it should stay still, so I never know what the paper will end up looking like after I cut it!! lol
So, my question is, what cutter or guillotine do you recommend??
I don't have a huge amount of money to spend on one, so it has to be a reasonable price, and I'm not bothered about it having different blades (like the ones you get with wavy cutters etc), just something that cuts straight and crisp that won't break the bank:)
Any advise would be very much appreciated.

Thanks so much for stopping by and for all your lovely comments :) I have been trying my best to get around everyones blogs, but blogger isn't cooperating and doesn't want to load up some blogs for me, but I will keep trying!

Digital Tuesday - Celebrate The Season

It's time for another Digital Tuesday challenge and the challenge is "Celebrate The Season" (any season).
Our sponsor this week is the fab Spesch Stamps and Tracey let the DT choose an image if they wanted to use one for the challenge, so of course I did because her images are fab!

I must warn you that there is 4 pics of this one card. I just kept snapping away last night lol.
I followed the a sketch from Sketch N Stash (number 55). This week you can choose any sketch from their previous sketches, and this time I have got my challenge entry in on time (I messed up last week lol)
Here's the one I used. And my new stash is the image, striped paper and mesh ribbon.

The snowflake paper is by Dovecraft, but not sure about the striped one.
I coloured the cute Spesch Stamps digi with my usual Promarkers and added a little bit of Dazzling Diamonds glitter on the girls fur trim.

The fab mesh ribbon stuff was a bargain find in a little craft shop in Montrose (Crafty Catz I think it's called but I could be wrong). They were selling it for about 40p per metre.....much cheaper than other places around here!, and is it's pink, I just had to buy some :)

 I threaded the ribbon through a pearl heart ribbon slider and also added a few pearl sprays.

 The mega sparkly snowflake is cut from an old Sizzix die from mountboard and then covered with lashings of Twinklets. I love this stuff, it's so sparkly.


That's it from me for today. I should be back tomorrow with a card of some sort if I get my bum in gear and get some pics taken!

Thanks for stopping by