A bit of shabby chic birthday ;)

This will be a long post with lots of pics, so you might want to get yourself comfy first with a cuppa before reading ;)

It's the middle of the month (already! where did October go?!!), which means I have some stuff to show you that I made for the inspiration post over at By The Cute and Girly challenge.

It's our 3rd Birthday this month and we are celebrating with a special birthday challenge and blog hop! You can see my blog hop post at the top of my blog :)

We are all using a different sponsors images/products this month as we have a lot of sponsors with lots of prizes of course (15 prizes in fact!) to help celebrate our birthday, and my sponsor is  Whiff Of Joy.

The lovely Katharina sent me a stamp to use for the challenge, which I used for my card at the start of the month, but this time I decided to buy one of her digi stamps to use on my card (I was going to buy a rubber stamp to use, but I forgot about it until the other day and by then I was too late to order it in time for the inspiration post).

Anyway, I thought it would be nice to make something a bit special since it's my challenge blogs birthday:) So I decorated/altered a plain wooden jewelry box and made a card using the WOJ image.

First here's the card I made.

 I went a bit shabby chic with this one as I wanted it to kind of match my box (it doesn't really match but it's the same kind of style lol).

The image is called "Tea For Two" and I coloured it with Promarkers, then glittered and inked the edges with stardust stickles and antique linen distress ink.

I love these images and really have to get more!;)

The papers are Prima ones and I also used some old sheet music, and matted the image and base layer with blue coredinations cardstock.

I did the white paint thing and added some paint to almost everything lol, to give it a softer feel.

The flowers I made using Mariane Designs flower dies (a large and small flower die from the same set). I made some little rose style flowers for the top and just layered up some of the flowers for the bottom flower and added a flower from Wild Orchid Crafts in the center. Of course I glittered them :)

 The flourish/swirls are made using a Marianne Die and an MFT die.

Lace was bought in a little craft shop in Stonehaven, ticket sentiment was a digi freebie that I got ages ago buit can't remember where from, pearl string from my stash ad the cute little teapot charm is from Janlynn from the "Tea Time" charm pack. They have these fab steampunk sets of charms, and I love them! :)

There is so much to choose from and you can use them for so much different projetcs. I used a flat charm, but a lot of them in the range are 3d, and they are gorgeous! 

You can check out their steampunk range here.

Oh and we have some up for grabs along with loads of other goodies from Janlynn this month over at the challenge blog.

A close up of the cute image :)

Isn't that charm cute? :)

Ok, so that's the card and here's the box. Warning, there is quite a few pics!

I wanted to give this box an old shabby feel, so I painted it with sandstone acrylic paint, then a layer of crackle medium and finished off with a top coat of white acrylic paint so that the white cracked and little bits of the darker paint shows through.

You can't really see the cracked effect very well in these pics, but it looks better in real life.

I didn't use an image for a change! (I can tell you, that really was a challenge for me!! lol), but I wanted something in the center, so I used a Prima chipboard shape instead.

The lace on top is the same as I used in my card, and the flowers were made the same way too, except I added some white paint to them and added some tiny white rose buds.

The little heart was a plain wooden one and I painted it the same way as the rest of the box, and did the same with the die cut flourishes.

The pretty metal butterfly was gift from a friend, which I added some light blue pearls to, as was the metal corner.

Finally for the outside, I added some pretty beaded trim on the drawer, but the ribbon the beads are attached to is blue and it looked a bit out of place (because the blue was a bit too bright), so I added some pretty lace over the top.

And this is the inside :)

I kept the inside quite plain because if I added loads of embellies, it wouldn't close properly lol.

So I just added some Prima paper and a wooden heart.

This isn't a very good pic, but you can see that I lined the inside of the drawer with some more Prima paper.

And finally (I promise!! lol), some close up pics so you can see the detail a bit better.

I didn't want to add loads of pics, but there is so much little bits of detail on this project.

 You can see the glitter and paint on  the flowers a bit better in this pic. I used the same Prima papers to make the flowers ad some old sheet music.

So that's it for me for today (thank goodness! I hear you say lol)

Thanks so much for stopping by and any comments that you may leave.

I love reading my comments and appreciate you taking the time to leave me one :)

Another altered frame.

It's my turn to post again over at the Inky Impressions Inspiration blog. For the whole month of October, the design team are making anything but cards for the Inspirational blog, so I decided I would alter another photo frame.
It didn't really turn out how I had planned because it has ridges all around it which made it harder to cover with paper, but I got there in the end.
I have a mirror to do next,  but I want to paint it so will have to see if I can get some paint from somewhere because I don't have any.....in fact, come to think of it, I don't even have a paint brush anymore! lol

 I covered the whole frame with some Laura Ashley paper and used a whole lot of flowers from my stash.
Most of the flowers I used were given to me by friends so I don't know where to get them, but the large rose was from Hobbycraft and the little rose buds are from Crafty Emma's Store. The pretty pearl brads were also a gift.
I cut some flourishes with a Marianne Designs die, and added a couple of clear Inky Dinky Drops which you can find in all sorts of colours in the Inky Impressions store.

 This little cutie is called Lili's Prayer and as usual I coloured her with my promarkers and added some little bits of glitter, which you can't actually see here.

 And finally I close up of the flower arrangement. You can just about see the Inky Dinky Drops beside the flourishes. I love that you can still see the patterned paper through them.

I am entering my frame into Top Tip Tuesday- use designer paper....and my tip is.....ummm, oh I know, if you make one of these, use adhesive that will give you time to move the paper about just incase you don't get it right the first time.
I used some double sided tape to start with (because it was all I had at the time) and I ended up ruining a sheet of dp because I stuck it down wrong! lol

Thanks for visiting me today :)

Lots of DT stuff and something a bit different for me.

It's the start of a new month and that means lots of challenges :)
I have a lot to show today, so I will warn you now that this will be a looooong post, so you might want to go get a cuppa and get yourself comfy first before you read on :)

First of all, the new challenge is up over at By The Cute and Girly, and this months challenge is to use red and one other colour of your choice.
As always we have some fab sponsors, Simon Says Stamp,  Joanna Sheen,  Little Snippets and also a new digi sponsor, Stamp Fairy, who also gave the design team some images to use for the challenge.
We also have 2 guest designers join us this month, and they are no other than the fabulous Bev and Rach!!
I was so happy when they both said they would guest design for me because I love their work and I know you all do too :)

I actually made 2 cards for the challenge but I will show one another day, and I also decorated/altered a wooden heart.

For my card, I used red and brown. I really struggled with this challenge, because I don't have much red papers that only have one other colour on them, but in the end, I went looking through my digi papers and found this stripey one, so that's where the brown came from. Although I would of never used brown and red together, after seeing this paper, it kinda grew on me and I even used red and brown for my other dt card.

The cute image is from The Stamp Fairy and I coloured her with Promarkers. I had never actually saw any of the Stamp Fairy's images before this but she has some really nice images.

I am not actualy sure who made the paper, but I think it could be Summer Driggs as it was a freebie and I have a lot of her stuff.

I used my fiskars border punch, some ribbon from Hobbycraft, a little rose from Janlynn.com and some punched swirls which were done with an All Night Media punch that I have had forever.

 

Here's a close up of the image. I am still not confident at colouring with red, but everyone has to learn right?


 Next here is the heart I decorated. This is something really different for  me and not at all like the normal cutsie style I do, and I must admit that I wasn't sure about this, but my teamies at BTC&G said that they liked it, so I decided I would be brave and show it to you all lol.

 \The heart is a wooden one that I got at Hobbycraft. I inked the whole heart with distress inks because the red was a bit too bright for my liking, then stamped a little flourish on the bottom with white ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. The stamp came as a freebie with a magazine and it had christmas baubles on it, but I just cut the baubles off and used the flourish on it's own.
The piece of paper I used was from a wedding kit that I got from my BTC&G teamie and friend Lisa a while back, I just ripped a bit and stuck it on lol.
Flowers are from Janlynn.com, lace from my stash and the little pearl heart ribbon sliders are from Ebay.
Oh and the "LOVE" letters were off a sheet of vellum quotes and I had the bright idea to just cut the letters out by hand...... I have to say that wasn't one of my best ideas because it was really fiddly lol, but I managed to cut them all out without cutting bits of them by mistake (which I normaly do!) and just stuck them on wit some glue.

I also have a dt card to show for Digital Tuesday, and the challenge there is also a colour combo..... shades of grey and one other accent colour.
I haven't used a digital image again this week, but I did use a digital sentiment, just incase I get any more emails shouting at me for not using a digi (honestly I got a really nasty email last week saying that I cheated).
So just to confirm the new challenge rules are that you don't have to use a digi image, as long as you use a digital element somewhere on your creation.

I had to make a card for the kids Papa who's birthday is today, so I took the plunge and made a male card.
The image of course is from the Greetings Farm and coloured again with Promarkers.
Papers are Basic Grey and some grey coredinations cardstock.
The sentiment is a digi freebie which I inked with distress inks, but I can't for the life of me remember where I got it. I do know that I got it as a set though and there is loads of fab ticket sentiments in it. If I remember where I got them, I wlll edit the post and add a link.
The stars are hand cut from some digi papers (this one I am 99% sure are by Summer Driggs) and covered them with glossy accents, waited for them to dry, then cracked the glossy accents by gently bending the stars.

And finally I have a little pizza box that my 7 year old Daughter Rhianna made for her DT work at Messy's Mini Missions. If you have never heard of this blog before, it's a monthly challenge blog for under 16's.

I found a tutorial for this mini pizza box on Splitcoast stampers and I did have to help with the measuring and scoring as I don't have a scorpal or any of those scooreboards so I knew she wouldn't be able to do that bit herself,  but after it was all scored out, she cut, stuck and decorated it all by herself :)
The flowers are mostly Prima's except the blue and white one which she apparently found in my flower box, so no idea where that came from , pearls from my stash,  ribbon from Hobbycraft and the sentiment, I have no idea because she just stamped it with one of my stamps and she had no idea which one she had used lol.

Sorry if I have bored you to death, but I did warn you that this would be a long post! lol
Remember to comment for another chance at my mini candy for this fortnight which is in this post here. Oh and please commet on the actual candy post too so I know that you want to be included :)

Thanks for stopping by