Some Super Exciting News!!!

I've had some fantastic news today, first brought in by my lovely friend Val then Mr Postie himself! ;).


My project was short-listed in the first round of the Stamper of the Year 2012 competition - with PaperArtsy products. I didn't win the round but I am proud as punch nevertheless! 

To see my project in its full glory, turn to page 35 of the September issue of the Craft Stamper magazine!


Woo hoo!!!!

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Flying high with Steampunk birdie

I've finally had a moment to share this card :). A bit late for me as a Steampunk DT sample for our current Fashionable Stamping Challenge - but definitely not too late for you to join in!

For my background I used K&Co paper and I stamped some lovely clock gears (PaperArtsy) and grungy corners (Stempelglede).

The birdcage & birdie (Tim Holtz) were cut from metal and embossed with embossing folders. I also added a few metal embellishments and sequens to adorn them both.

For an added 'lush' I sprinkled a generous amounts of gold and copper embossing powders and enamels and using Mrs Stampendous's Encrusted Jewel technique, I set in it some lovely copper sequens and real watch gears.

Final touch - a grunge paper rose coloured with Rusty Hinge distress ink ;).

That's all from me for now. Stay tunned as I will be sharing something truly magical with you later this week...;-))

Big hugs




Challenges for this card:
So Artful Challenges - Steampunk 
Aud Sentiments #55 - Any sentiment
Deep Ocean Challenge #25 - Swirls
Die Cuttin Divas #67 - Anything goes

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Steamin' things up a bit with Encrusted Steampunk Jewels...

Re-edited: My card is the winner of Divas by Design challenge #34 - yaaaay!!! And I'm also one of the top picks at the Craft Room Embossing Challenge - yaaay!!!!


I've got to say - when I first saw Kenny K's digi stamps, I thought - hmm, quite quirky but interesting.


However when I saw their Steampunk Burlesque collection I immediately thought they were HOT, HOT, HOT!!!!


As it's my bro's birthday coming up, I wanted to make a card that was going to leave him speechless and with his jaw wide open lol ;-). I am sure he's definitely not expecting this!!!!

I opted for the pre-coloured version of the feisty Scarlett West babe. To give the card a 'vintage urban' edge I added a handful of clocks, cogs & gears (stamped or die cut) and lots of distress inking through masks.

But what I enjoyed the most was going wild with a new technique I absolutely fell in love with! Fran from Stampendous was recently demoing the Encrusted Jewel technique on thwe UK's Create & Craft TV. 


I must confess, I watched it glued to the telly, with my heart beating really fast as I knew, I just KNEW, I finally saw something I have been waiting for all my crafty life! A perfect combination of sparkle, embossing and texture - all in one!!! What's the secret? Well, you're going to have to find out from the Inventor herself - click here to watch Fran's tutorial.

My encrusted jewels are a generous handful of real cogs and gears (a recent present from my lovely hubby) mixed with gold and copper sequins. All was set in a blend of vintage gold embossing enamel and copper, glitter black and sea foam white embossing powders.


I had so much fun making this card and I actually feel quite sad having to part with it now... oh well - I hope the recipient is going to love it as much as I do :-))).


That's all for now Friends. I will catch up on visiting soon as I am still battling with my nasty cold.


If you haven't done so already, make sure to enter my 2nd Blogaversary candy - the candy will expire in less than a week so you'd better hurry! And if you have a really sweet tooth, check out my new Blog Candy Cauldron linky for some more fabulous giveaways! 


Big hugs





Challenges for this card:
The Artistic Stamper May - Spots and Strips
The Stamp Man challenge - Favourite technique
Papercraft Star #96 - Use a stamp
Craft Room Challenge - Emboss it
Allsorts Challenge Blog #154 - Card for a man or a boy
Craft Your Days Away #45 - All creatures great and small
Ooh La La Creations #104 - Make It Manly
Divas by Design #34 - One for the Boys
Crafty Cardmakers #67 - For the boys

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The Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show - London 14.04.2012 ;)

Woooow, what a day it was! 


I am still smiling and jumping with excitement after my trip yesterday to The Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace - aka Ally Pally ;).

I was very lucky to travel there in such great company of the super talented and super funny Ruby and her lovely daughter Natasha  ;).


The whole experience was just overwhelming, so many fabulous stalls with a vast amount of MUST HAVE goodies. I felt like a child in a candy shop, given a big trolley to fill it up with all the loveliness ;).

I loved the demos I saw at the Artistic Stamper, PaperArtsy and Creative Expressions stands with Hels Sheridan. 


And it was really great to finally meet in person my dear blogging friends Shirley, Brenda and Joanna. Shirley and Brenda are also my DT Sisters from the Fashionable Stamping Challenges ;-). Here's a piccie of me with Brenda:

But I must admit, my highlight was definitely stand no 62 with the lovely Traplet Publications girls Michelle and Viv, featuring the Craft Stamper and Scrap365 magazines. With a little help from my friend Ruby, that's where I found out out that my project has been published in the May issue of Scrap365!!! I haven't had my copy delivered yet, nor did I know which issue it was going to be featured in so it was such a fantastic surprise for me!!!


Here I am with Michelle and Viv, proudly displaying the page with my project - for all Scrap365 fans - look out for page 32!

Despite my legs and feet hurting from all the walking and jumping (with joy) I did yesterday, I am still smiling ;). This has definitely been the day of the year 2012 for me so far!


I apologise for neglecting my visits to your lovely blogs but with all the goings on I haven't had a free moment lately. But I'll be visiting you very very soon!


Big weekend hugs


p.s. Check back on Tuesday as I have a sweet surprise prepared for my crafty friends!

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Fashionable dressmaking - FSC #10

Time for another Fashionable Stamping Challenge! And this time we are going to have a proper fashion reverie as this time we are challenging you with a Dressmaking theme! ;).

As always one talented winner will enjoy a fabulous prize from our lovely Marina from Cottage Crafts. 

You can interpret the theme whichever way you like ;). Corsets, dress forms, accessories, sewing... whatever your imagination tells you.... or you can try a little play with words like I did...:).

I have been really busy lately with Christmas related makes... as surprising as it may sound at this time of year lol ;). And I was desperately looking for some inspiration as I needed to make a wedding anniversary card for one VERY special couple ;). And if they are reading this, thank you so much for being such wonderful people, you guys are a perfect Mr & Mrs and you friendship means a world to us! xxx ;->.

I rummaged through my stamps collection and then suddenly the inspiration struck lol ;). I dug out all PaperArtsy stamps I have and my project is a bit of a "showcase" of my PaperArtsy collection ;). I used Clocks 5, Hot Picks HP1009 and Hot Picks HPXT02EZ. Can you see the woman's face hidden behind the flowers?

The dress forms were die cut from mountboard using TH die, covered with distressed inks and stamped with Timber Brown StazOn. I looove mountboard, it works beautifully with distress inks... Then the images were coloured with cosmic shimmer water colour paints. I just love, love, LOVE the subtle shimmer these paints give!

The ticket and clock stamps are by Crafty Individuals. And can you see the clock hands made from little scissors embellishments...? Aren't they cutest ever???? lol :). I've also used stamps from the Artistic Stamper, Stempelglede, Prima, docrafts and some small alpha stamps.

The papers are DCWV Mariposa collection. To embellish I added some Prima flowers, shabby resin frames, pins and buttons and machine stitching.

I hope you can join us for this challenge and I can't wait to see what you create! But don't forget, no digi stamps - traditional stamping only! And if you want to be totally WOOOOWed make sure to visit the challenge blog to see what my Fasionable Sisters have created. The DT samples are simply mind blowing!!!

Thank you for visiting and have a lovely Sunday!

Big hugs


Challenges for this card:
2 Sisters Challenge #68 - Die cut and/or punches
Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes
Catch The Bug 'Dec - Anything goes
Card Makin Mamas #34 - Sentiments
Sundays with Crissy #24 - Anything goes
Crafty Purple Frog Challenge - For someone special
Art Impressions Stamps #42 - Flowers
PaperCrafting Journey - Anything goes
Cooking it up With Katie #86 - Anything goes
The Paper Shelter #42 - Anything goes
Stamp With Fun #139 - Stitching (real or faux)
Stamps & Fun - Creativity #75 - Distressing
Sunday Stamper #183 - Love and/or Life

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Pursuit of Happiness...

I've recently come across this forum for crafty people Flying Unicorn.

It's full of inspiration and lots of lovely, lovely people ;) They run lots of challenges, too and you know how much I love challenges lol!

And with this is mind, I would like to enter the October challenge - Pursuit of happiness. The challenge is to create a project about what brings you happiness...

I didn't have to think long - in fact I didn't have to think at all! My wonderful hubby and being together make me the happiest girl in the world! Every moment, second, minute, hour...:)

Here's a scrapbook layout I made that illustrates exactly that. The photos are from our one day trip to Prague, one of the most beautiful and romantic cities I have ever seen.

The stamps I've used are Darkroom Door Prague Collection, Tim Holtz and PaperArtsy. There's lots of distress ink, clear embossing for a resist technique and masking.

The papers are Tim Holtz and K&Co. I also sqeezed in a train ticket from the trip ;)).

I hope you have a wonderful week and just a quick reminder that you still have time to join in with our Fashionable Anything but a card challenge!

Big hugs

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Focus on the sentiment - Sentimental Sundays #65

Re-edited: Yeeepie!!!!! My wall hanging has been chosen as a Top 4 in the Sir Stampalot challenge!!!! Hurray!!!

I know you haven't heard much from me recently...

Just going through some turbulences and stuff, hoping things will get sorted soon... Fingers crossed they will and you will be able to see more of me here ;).

Time will tell... ;-)

Today at Sentimental Sundays we'd like you to focus on the sentiment ;). We have two fabulous sponsors: Raindrop Echo Designs and Heart Song Designs.

The theme and the sentiment of this project somehow fitted with the way I feel at the moment. Sometimes there is no point worrying in advance, thinking of a plan B etc... Time will tell how things will turn out and no doubt there will always be a twist that will alter your plan B... ;)

I've altered an old, unloved frame I recently found in a charity shop.

I first applied a layer of gesso and then a layer of parchment colour acrylic paint. Then the frame was generously sprayed with Aqua Lagoon, Silver and Lilac Night cosmic shimmer mists. I love the metallic shimmer and look the fame has - it was very difficlut to photograph it, especially in these colours but I hope you get the feeling lol ;).

Then I stamped a selection of images from PaperArtsy, T!m Holtz and Craft Stamper onto tissue paper, heat embossed in white and applied to the frame.

 The panels inside the frame were stamped with a flourish stamp, embossed using Creative Expression Time embossing folder and coloured with various Distress Inks (faded jeans, broken china, worn lipstick, milled lavender, dusty concord).

To embellish the frames I die cut some gorgeous shapes from my brand spankin' new T!m Holtz dies from the grunge paper and from corrugated cardboard. Then I coloured the shapes with distress inks.

As I love recycling, or re-purposing as it is now very fashionably described, the dress form skirt is made from a baby wipe I used to wipe off the excess ink from spraying the frames ;)

And I love the floating effect of the clock hands attached to the fame glass with some 3d foam pads ;)).

Well, I hope you will join us for this week's challenge and have a lovely weekend! Don't forget to check the wonderful creations from the rest of the DT and thank you for all your sweet comments!



The challenges for this project:
The Stamp Man #27 - Anything by T!m!
L3 Grungy Monday #16 - Grungeboard Extravaganza
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Embossing
Sir Stampalot July - Anything goes
GC #110 Spicy Supply Challenge - Gears, Cogs and Watch bits

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Inky Fingers at Sentimental Sundays #63

This week at Sentimental Sundays we are getting inkly messy! It's all about unconventional stamping materials or techniques...;) If you'd like to join in with the fun and win four individual sentiment sets from fabulous Raindrop Echo & Whimsy Stamps collection, or grab this week's lovely freebie, just create a project with an unusual stamping feature and don't forget to include a sentiment!

This is quite an unusual project for me on so many levels lol ;). I don't normally do tags... Somehow working on a smaller scale seems much more difficult and just frightens me...;P

Lately however there's been so much going on, not in a good way, that it seriously affected my MOJO. Not saying that mojo went AWOL. It's just been sitting locked in a cupboard... I can hear the banging noises and shouting "let me out!", but I just can't find the key!!!! I just couldn't face making a card or anything bigger than that, hence the tag lol ;D.

I was inspired by the colour scheme from the Crafty Individuals blog: cream, brown and pink and this is my interpretation :). Not sure if it shows well on the picture, but the background has a crackle effect made with acrylic paints. I love this effect although I am still trying to crack my technique...!. Then I stamped some "coffee rings" using a paint dabber lid. The images were coloured using a combination of water colour pencils and brush markers.

The ladies were accented with Stickles. The stamps I used are my fave at the moment Crafty Individuals (ladies and sentiment), Stempelglede grungy flourish, PaperArtsy measuring tape and Prima bird cage, all stamped with Timber Brown StazOn. The flower was made from organza fabrics cut using Tattered Florals die.

Hope you can join us this week and don't forget to check the challenge blog for other DT unconventional stamping inspiration!

Have a lovely sentimental Sunday!


Challenges for this project:
Stampin' for the Weekend #12 - Wings & things
Simon Says Stamp & Show - Show a flourish
City Crafter Challenge Blog #64 - Birds of a Feather
Crafty Individuals July - Pink, cream and brown
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturdays - Cream, brown + 1 other colour
Aud Sentiments #32 - Sentiment with at least 2 words
Crafts & Me Challenges #42 - Favourites
Divas by Design #5 - Dies cuts/punches
Truly Scrumptious #60 - Things with wings
Creative Craft Challenges - Pretty blossoms
The Cheerful Stamp Pad #21 - Favourite Background
Make My Monday #5 - Vintage
Pile it on challenge #28 - Favourite technique

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Father's Day at Sentimental Sundays #59

Re-edited: Wooo hoo!!! My card has been chosen top 3 at One Stop Craft Challenge #135 and top 5 at the Stamp Man Challenge #24 ;))))

Today at Sentimental Sundays we are celebrating Father's Day ;)). This is a card I made for my F-I-L...

I tried to make a grid sort of card... I've seen them before, always wondered how to make it... Still not sure what the secret is, so I just chopped a piece of card, sponged and stamped with distress inks and then put the pieces together... The stamps I used are Tim Holtz, Crafty Individuals, the Stamp Man (Aspects of Design), PaperArtsy...

The flower was made using Tattered Florals die. The brown card was dry and hot embossed (inspired by the project I saw in July issue of the Craft Stamper) to look leather like. Finally, I added a twine, a few embellies et voilà!

We have two sponsors this week: Mel Jen's Designs and Raindrop Echo Designs. 

Hope you can join us for this challenge and make sure to hop over to the challenge blog to see all the beautiful inspiration and the fabulous Raindrop Echo sentiments!

Happy Sunday everyone! Thank you for visiting and your lovely comments ;).









Challenges for this card:
The Stamp Man #24 - Boys & Men
Stamp Something - Something punched
Alphabet Challenge - F for Father's Day
Crafty Individuals - June challenge with a heart

Hand Stamped Sentiments #70 - Father's Day

Grungy Monday #10 - Distress Ink

The Artistic Stamper June - Monochrome plus one

Crazy 4 Challenges #91 - Maskuline

Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge #59 - Father's Day

One Stop Craft Challenge #135 - Father's Day
Secret Crafter Challenge #138 - Maskuline
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturdays - Father's Day

Delicious Doodles #29 - Father's Day

Simply Create #45 - All about Dad
CRAFT #106 - Father's Day

Paper Play #23 - Father's Day
Dream Valley Challenge #9 - Father's Day
Creative Inspirations Challenge #61 - Father's Day
Stamptacular Sunday Challenge #115 - Dads or Grads

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Day Full of Crafties, lots of new stash and teenage giggles...

No words will ever explain what a fantastic day it was yesterday!

It started with a fabulous workshop with Lin and Leandra from PaperArtsy. Look at this gorgeous project we made!

And I was also extremely lucky to win a bag of ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS crafty goodies! I still can't believe my luck, ideally I would love to have the next week off to craft and craft and craft....! ;)

I was sitting next to Kim Costello. I am a big fan of hers, she regularly designs for the Craft Stamper and you can see her amazing work here. We met originally during one of the workshops with Sarah Anderson at the Stamp Attic ;).

Then this long awaited moment finally arrived!!!! ..... Drum roll, please....

Ta dah...!!!

Blimey...honestly...wooow.... ha ha.....blushing...phew! Now, that was the most embarassing moment in my entire life! Well, I've never before met a celebrity, who I really liked ;) I've been in a close proximity of some famous politicians but let's be honest, that's not really something to get excited about, is it??? lol ;)

I must have made a complete fool of myself... When I asked for a piccie and an autograph (yes, I did that, too!) I tried to act normally and perhaps throw in a funny, light-hearted comment... You know, to show that meeting a "celeb" is my daily bread! In the end it must have just looked like teenage giggles... Gosh, what an embarassment! ha ha ha!

We were altering a configuration box...

Here's the completed project...

All those fantastic embellishments for the box were part of the generous workshop kit! How great is that?????

I even managed to incorporate the workshop badges, one with my name and the other with my lunch option lol ;)

And can you see this coolest ever candle light behind the vintage photo?

At the end of the workshop Tim was presented with a fab album/book of inchies created by all these humble crafters that took part in the PaperArtsy event. I didn't know about the inchies (that will teach me to read all relevant messages in the future!). So I contributed to the book with a little altered card, which I just happened to have on me that day! lol ;)

I actually made this for the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge #33 (metal altered with alcohol inks) so it was only right to attach it to the keep sake album for Tim ;)))...lol 

Well, I'd better be going... time to do some crafting!



Hope you have a fabulous weekend!
 

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