LOTV challenge

Lili of the Valley challenge blog have a beautiful sketch for us this week, designed by the oh so talented Bev.

Here's my card...

I've used Fairies - on tiptoe and coloured her with promarkers to coordinate with the paper which is another craftsuprint download.
I used the same paper to make my flowers too, using a selection of punches then adding a flat-backed pearl to the centre of each flower to finish.

sweet stampin #50

WOW! we've reached week 50 at Sweet Stampin! YAY! *claps!*
and this week we have a sketch for you.
But before you get out your stamps and papers, can you please take a few minutes to read through Carrie's post on the blog as there are a few changes we'd like to tell you about, thanks :)

Here's my DT card...

The image is by Sugar Nellie, and is called 'snowflake', i've coloured this little beauty with promarkers and added a little glitter to the falling snowflakes too.
The patterned snowflake paper was free with a mag.
The sentiment is from a Dovecraft clear stamp set.
I'm really loving this contemporary christmas colour combo of purple, blue and peppermint green, it looks so fresh.

Hope you all enjoy your weekend, don't get eating too many sweeties when you go trick or treating tomorrow, send them to me instead! LOL! ;)

Be careful, but have fun! xx

Sketch Saturday #127

This weeks challenge over at Sketch Saturday is sponsored by the lovely Sandy from The Craft Barn, this weeks challenge winner will receive a truly fabulous prize too!... An exclusive Katzelkraft rubber stamps plate worth £12.99! Sandy really spoils us! ;)

Here is my DT card this week...

I got out Herb from Whiff of Joy for this card, colouring him with ProMarkers.
The patterned paper is a download from craftsUprint and the bashful blue piece has been stamped with a snowflake design using white ink.
The sentiment is by Catslife Press Rubber Stamps.
A really quick make :)
I'm steadily getting a stash of christmas cards made,
and you'll be seeing another one in a minute's time too ;)

Cookie Monster

This week, Sketch Saturday is sponsored by The Stamp Shoppe, who will be sending this weeks challenge winner a fabulous Chris'moose' Malkin stamp and 2 matching sentiment stamps! :)

Here's my card using this weeks sketch...

I used this fabulous image from Paper Makeup Stamps called 'Cookie Man', I coloured him with my ProMarkers, using Pine/Meadow Green/Buttercup for the monster, Poppy for the monsters spots and claws, and Cinnamon/Oatmeal for the cookie jar.
The red and brown papers are by SU (ski slope)
The sentiment is from a free set that came with a magazine, I love the fact that this card now says "Cookies... Always there when I need you!" LOL! :D
Talking of cookies, they are hand-drawn & coloured.

I'd like to enter this card into the current challenge over at Crafty Creations, which is to use the colours Red, Brown & Green.

Please go take a look at the amazing work by Sketch Saturdays Design Team, they are sure to inspire you! :)

No Sweet Stampin card from me this week as it's Team Fluffs turn, and wow! they have made some awesome projects for you this week, the theme is 'Anything but a card'

Thanks for stopping by today xx

My 'Bingo' card

Allsorts challenge blog are playing crafty bingo this week, and we get to choose which row we want to use to make our entry. I chose Brads, Buttons, Punch...

I used Provocraft papers 'Tags, Bags & Boxes' using my SU spiral punch on the graffiti piece, actually the buttons were also punched, with a small circle punch, pierced with 2 holes and threaded with twine.
The image is of course a hanglar, this little cutie is sitting on top of a SeeD's greeting. The football is an inchie stamp from Tanda Stamps. I was originally going to put a small train shaped button there but I couldn't find the button so opted for a football.

I'm also entering this card into the challenge at Cupcake, who have the theme Boys and their Toys.

For Jake

My son Jake will be 12 on November 27th, he's growing up SO fast!
Here's the card I have made for him...

I have used Tiddly Inks products to make this card, starting with Grunged Checkerboard paper which I have used behind Charles's Tulips, (which is minus the tulips!). I coloured the image with my promarkers.
The greeting is hand drawn by myself in a similar grunge design.
Is it just me, or do you think the Charles image has a bit of a David Tennant as Dr Who look about it? which isn't a bad thing actually because Jake loves Dr Who and D.T. is his favourite doctor :)

I'm entering this card into the following fab challenges...

Crafty Emma's - Male birthday card

Meljen's - Anything Goes

Craftalicious - Anything Goes

Thanks for looking xx

Pink Christmas

Pink isn't the first colour you'd think of for Christmas is it?
Yet that is an option for the challenge over at Passion for Promarkers this week, to make either a pink & white or a purple & white christmas card.
Here's mine...

The pink cardstock has been stamped with snowflakes using white ink. I then sponged around the edges to distress them using the same white ink. The white card base has been sponged/distressed with pink ink.
I used my eyelet border punch to make the pretty scalloped strop across the top which has also been sponged.
The image is of course by Whiff of Joy, and has been coloured with ProMarkers. Main colours used are caramel/buttercup for Henry, ice grey 5/warm grey 1 for his lady friend, and rose pink/blossom for the candy cane.
The bauble is simply 2 circles punched from pale pink card, one of them being sponged in a darker shade of pink, the other punched with my nellie snellen stamen punch and layered ontop of the sponged circle. Then I added a crystal gem to the centre and doodled with my glitter gel pen. The top of the bauble is just scraps of silver card. I added a pink organza bow to finish.
The sentiment is from a Dovecraft clear stamp set.

I'd like to also enter this card into the following challenges:

Whiff of Joy challenges, who want us to distress our entries, I distressed with ink.

Crafty Catz, who want us to make something inspired by a nursery rhyme or song, my sentiment chose the song 'have yourself a merry little christmas' from the musical Meet me in St. Louis

Totally Gorjuss, who are celebrating their first birthday (Happy birthday TG!), want us to use the colour pink this week.

Thanks for looking, enjoy the rest of your day xx

Red, Gold & Green.....

Time for another challenge over at Sweet Stampin, and this week we want you to get out your ribbons :)

Here's my card, and all the time I was making this card I had a particular song in my head, it wasn't a christmassy song though...

I've used SU more mustard cardstock for the base card, it matched my 'gold' ribbon perfectly so used the same colour for the stocking too.
The colours used for the other 2 stockings are ruby red and old olive/certainly celery.
I punched loads of leaves from Garden Green cardstock, sponged the edges slightly then layered them to resemble a tree branch or garland hung from the mantlepiece.
Then of course I had to add some bling to finish :)


The current Papertake Weekly challenge is called '3 of a kind', we are to use 3 of something, so my 3 christmas stockings fit the bill nicely :)

 Team Carrie have made the most beautiful cards this week, we have 3 new DT members too :)
Vicky, Lorraine & Claire
please stop by their blogs to leave them some love, their links are in my sidebar >>>


Oh yeah.... that song in my head... incase you were wondering, it was Karma Chameleon by Culture Club, hence the title of this post :)
Have a great weekend! xx

Sketch Saturday #125

Time for another Sketch Saturday challenge!

This week our sponsor is Digital Delights by Louby Loo, and you could win $10.00 to spend in their fab store :)

Here is my DT card...

I've used my fave ski slope papers from SU again, 

the image is of course a Hanglar and has been coloured with ProMarkers, the sentiment is from a free set I had in a craft mag.

My latest purchase this week was the Nellie Snellen stamen punch that I've used on top of the largest retro flowers, I've been admiring my friend Catherine's flowers and I just knew I needed the punch too.

Please pop over to the blog to see the sketch yourself and hopefully take part in the challenge too. You should check out the inspirational cards by my fellow teamies while you are there, they have produced the most beautiful cards again, and Terry has made a fabulous calendar page :)

Back in a minute... literally ;)

Candy Fluff!

My lovely Cyber Sister, Faye aka 'Fluff' is celebrating her first blogoversary on the 19th October with a 'sugar rush', she is offering some yummy candy to celebrate!
If you have never stopped by Faye's wonderful blog, where have you been?!
Once you visit I promise you'll be clicking the 'follower' button ;)

Once you have clicked that button to become a follower of stampin fluffnstuff, you are part of the way there to winning :)
Now add Fluff's logo to your blog, type up a post about the sugar rush, linking back to Faye and add your name to mr linky to be in with a chance of winning!....  good luck! xx

for a few more challenges

Hi everyone, I've made a couple more cards to enter a few challenges... This first card follows the sketch at Truly Scrumptious, which has the optional extra of making an easel card, and also the challenges over at Charisma Cardz who want to see more than one fold, and I {heart} Promarkers who want to see cupcakes!...

The brown cardstock is by SU, except for the piece of scrap cardstock that I punched the corner of with my scalloped circle punch so that it resembled a bite. The foil started as a smooth sheet of copper coloured paper but I scrunched it up then flattened it again to give it a bit of texture.
The stamped image is from SU's 'crazy for cupcakes' set, I coloured it in with promarkers, then cut away the candle that is normally on the image, sponged the top of the 'frosting' and replaced the candle with a strawberry that I handcut from scraps, adding a tiny green 'stalk' punched using a small daisy punch. I made another strawberry for the heart part of the greeting.
I wonder what Faye will think of this card eh? She loves choklit! :)

EXCITING UPDATE!: I have won a prize with Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine for submitting my chocolate card to their competition on their facebook page, WoooHoooooooooo! :)

EXCITING UPDATE #2: this card also made the TOP 3 with I {heart} Promarkers!  THANK YOU SO MUCH to their DT for choosing my card :)

Onto this card, which follows the beautiful sketch by Bev for this weeks challenge over at Lili of the Valley, and also the challenges over at Cute Card Thursday - they want to see bugs! and ABC challenges which is F for flowers...

I coloured this beautiful Rosie Posy stamp by LOTV with promarkers. The papers are from Dovecraft's 'Back to Basics' range.
The daisies were made with 3 punches and a woodware punch for the leaves, I used the same leaf punch to punch out the wings of the butterflies, their little bodies are handcut and their heads were made using the large 3/16 side of my cropadile. As you can see the greeting is handwritten.

Tilda in Paris

This is one of my favourite stamps from Magnolia. It's so pretty don't you think?

I stamped Tilda with memento ink then coloured her with ProMarkers to follow the theme set by Colour Create, which is Pink, Green & Cream. There is an optional extra of 'frosted' too, I added a little glitter to the flowers if that counts? but as it's an optional extra anyway I guess I can still submit this card to their challenge :)

This week, Stamptacular Sunday have asked us to use buttons, flowers and the word 'Friend' or 'Friendship' on our work.
Well my sentiment (from SU's best yet stamp set) has the word 'friends' so i'm hoping that will count! what's an 's' between friendS eh? ;)
Incase you are wondering about the 'buttons' element of this card, take a look at the centre of the flowers... there's tiny pink buttons glued there :)

Crafty Catz want us to use only Magnolia/Tilda images this week, and over at Just Magnolia, where we also have to use a Magnolia image, the theme is 2x2, so they want to see 2 of something, I have 2 flower embellishments.

The dotty paper is from Nitwit and was free in a magazine.

Bentley Bear

This adorable little bear was a freebie stamp in C&P mag. It is one of a set of clear stamps that are just the right size for small cards or gift tags.
So I made a gift tag to join in with this weeks challenges at
Crafty Emma's and Fairy Fun Friday...

I stamped and coloured Bentley with promarkers (caramel touches, then loads of buttercup over the top so there is just a slight shading where I put the caramel)
then used foam adhesive to 3D his paws holding the merry christmas sign.
The paper is by nitwit and is another freebie from a mag (simply cards and papercraft)
The ribbons and teeny foam stars are from my stash.
Hmmmm, looking at it now, I might change the red ribbon to a piece of the gold ribbon so it matches.

tfl xx

Woohoooooo!

with THIS CARD. Thank you so much to the cupcake DT who chose me to be in their top 5 this week!

Autumn Maggie

I was looking through some of my older stamps today, and decided I wanted to make a card using 'Maggie in Dotty Scarf' from Sugar Nellie...

I decided to go to The Sugar Bowl and check out the current challenge, it's a sketch by Tiets this week with lots of layers :)
There is an added theme of Autumn too if we want to use it.

Obviously Autumn is a popular theme at this time of year, so I checked out what other challenges had the same theme...


Crafty Sentiments current challenge has the theme 'Autumn Colours'

Charisma Cardz are asking us to use Autumn Colours this week too,

as are Lili of the Valley, i'll leave a link in their comments but not with mr linky as I haven't used a LOTV image.

Crafty Calendar Challenge are celebrating their first birthday and have set this months theme of 'Autumn Birthdays'
It's my first time entering a challenge with them as I have only just found their blog.


Stamp Something have asked us to use punches this week, I have used my small oak leaf punch by woodware

Secret Crafter want us to do some distressing,

and last but certainly not least, Totally Gorjuss want us to make a Non-Square card this week.

so that's 8 challenges with one card, not bad eh?

For Emma

This weeks challenge over at sweet stampin is called 'Diamonds are a girls best friend', we want to see some bling on your work this week please.
Technically speaking, this week wasn't my turn to make a card, it was Team Fluff's turn, but this card has been made for my friend, and sweet stampin creator, Emma, who has sadly left the team this week :(
Gonna miss you Emma xx

Quite a simple card to make, using SU bella bleu papers, close to cocoa cardstock, SU sentiment from the trendy trees set and crystal gems all on a cream card base.
The main design is a faux pinwheel design I found on youtube, sorry I didn't save the link, I was too eager to get started once I watched the video but it's bound to be found easily on the site.

I'd like to enter this card into A spoonfull of sugar challenge, this week the theme is 'Sparkle & Shine'

Thanks for looking :)

Anniversary card

This is the card I gave to my husband for our wedding anniversary on Thursday.
We married 7th October 2000, 5 years to the day that we met in 1995 :)

I have used this weeks sketch for Sketch Saturday, making a tall card instead of a square one.
The image of 2 love birds was from a freebie stamp set I had with a craft mag.
I stamped and coloured it twice to 'pop' the birds out a little.
As you can tell, I wrote the sentiments by hand.
The checked paper is by SU (bashful blue)
I made the other patterned paper myself (text design) back in Feb 2008.
The problem now being... I made them on an old computer that has since crashed, and at a lower resolution too, so when I found them on a back up disc, and tried to print them out they are coming out much smaller than originally designed because I now use a higher res for designing.. This means that you can fit 4 on one A4 sheet instead of just the one.

UPDATE: They can be found HERE if you're interested.

I also made the personalised patterned paper for this card, it's hard to see, but it has my parents wedding date included in the design.
Anyway, hubby loved the card, he's a great supporter of my cardmaking (thankfully!)
Please stop by Sketch Saturday to see the sketch and the awesome creations made by the talented design team and our GD for this month, Kathy.

And why not have a go at the sketch yourself?
You could be this weeks winner of a $25 shopping spree courtesy of  Simon Says Stamp! :)

Thanks for stopping by, have a fab weekend xx

Spooktacular!

Simon Says Stamp challenge has the theme of Halloween this week, which is great because I wanted to do a personal ATC swap with a friend of mine :)

For this ATC I have used a fab free image by Elizabeth Dulemba, it's simply called 'ghost with pumpkins' and is on her free colouring page tuesdays page of her site.
There's loads of fab images for all occasions to choose from.

I printed out the image 3 times so that I could layer it up.
I've used ProMarkers to colour in the images.
The 2 pumpkins both had the same base colour of 'orange' but one of them was coloured on top with 'gold' the other with 'oatmeal'
The base of the ATC is 2 pieces of black cardstock, one is a little smaller than the other, I used 'ice grey 5' ProMarker on some beige lace ribbon (closest thing I had to resemble a web in some way) and wrapped it around the smaller piece of cardstock before attaching it to the larger piece.
The sentiment is hand written.

The spider was hand cut from black cardstock, starting with 4 small strips for the legs, trimming the ends at an angle, then cutting an egg shaped piece for the body and a circle for the head, gluing them all together then adding the googly eyes to finish.

Not a brilliant close-up pic, sorry...

I'd also like to enter this into this weeks challenge over at Polka Doodles, which is make your own embellishments (my spider), the same theme also being the challenge over at Cute Card Thursday too, for CCT I had to check that it was ok to make something other than a card, and it is! :)

finally, Meljen's Thursday challenge have asked us to create something Halloweeny!


For those that don't know, an ATC is an Artist Trading Card, they measure 2.5" x 3.5" (6.4cm x 8.9cm) and are miniature pieces of art that are then swapped, but NEVER sold.
You make either one unique ATC for a personal swap, or make several depending on however many people are involved in the swap all of the same theme so each person gets 1 of a limited edition of you artwork.
On the back of each ATC is info about the swap and the person who made it...

TITLE: name you give your ATC or name of swap if set within a group, in this case a single ATC named 'You're SPOOKTACULAR"
DATE: when the ATC was made, or date of group swap closing date
CARD: 1 of 1 for a personal swap or 1 of 10, 2 of 10, 3 of 10 etc for example when in a bigger swap
GROUP: either "personal" or "blogger", "PCP", "forum" etc
ARTIST: Your name and signature (if you want to sign it) you can also add contact details or website, blog addy etc

Feel free to copy and save the ATC info back shown above to your own pc so you can print as many out as you need if you want to give ATC's a go yourself.

Hot choklit....Mmmmmmmmmmm!

This weeks challenge over at Cupcake is 'Happy Hour' - something to do with drinks,
When Faye mentioned tipsy hot choklit (Mmmmmmm!) I immediately thought of my 'Willow with hot chocolate' stamp from Whiff of Joy...

I coloured the image with ProMarkers, so that I could enter this weeks challenge over at Passion for Promarkers, which is 'recycled'. As you can see I have recycled a couple of pieces from a pair of jeans that were too small for my son.
The paper is by Stampin Up, my fave 'ski slope' collection.
The pretty edge around the oval was made by punching the smallest flower from my boho blossoms punch several times and gluing them around the oval on the underside.
I'd also like to enter the challenge over at Wild Orchid Challenge, their theme is called 'stitch it up' - to use real or faux stitching. I opted for the latter by paper pricking around the card and dragging a navy marker through the holes.
Easy peasy!

Today started quite dull here, but it's absolutely beautiful now, blue sky too! :)
Today is my 10th wedding anniversary, unfortunately we have a sick son at home (stomach bug/cold) so we haven't been out anywhere today, but it's been really lovely to just spend time together at home.
Hubby went to the shops this morning and bought 2 yummy sirloin steaks, so I cooked us steak, herby boiled potatoes, fried onions & mushrooms in a stilton cheese sauce with blackcurrant cheesecake for pudding.... YUM!

Henry Mouse

Henry Mouse is my favourite WoJ character, he's so adorable and a dream to colour.
For this card I used ProMarkers, adding a little glitter pen to the blades of his ice skates. I cut around him so that I could have him pop out the card a little with foam pads.
The patterned paper is from SU's ski slope DSP range, love it!
The sentiment is from SU's 'best yet' stamp set, punched out with my scalloped oval punch.As you can see from the glare back off the flash, the stars were punched from glittered cardstock. I need a daylight lamp or a lightbox so that I can take better photos, I hate using the flash.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges...

Stamptacular - Layer it on! (at least 5 layers)

Sketchy Colors - Sketch

Pollycraft - Anything Goes

Secret Crafter - Easel Cards

thanks for stopping by :)

sweet stampin #46

This weeks challenge for Sweet Stampin is called 'punch it out'
We want to see you use either punched shapes or die cuts on your cards please.
Here's my card...

My punch outs/die cuts are the 4 corner pieces and the holly & berries.
The image is of course by Magnolia and i've coloured it with ProMarkers.
I added some dazzling diamonds to the piece behind the image. The tag is hand written.
The checked paper is from a pad i've had for a few years now, the collection is called 'windswept' and is by Provocraft.

I'd like to enter this card in to the challenge at Just Magnolia - Anything Goes (but must use a Magnolia image)


and why not!... this can be my 3rd & final entry for this weeks Charisma Cardz challenge :)


There's some beautiful cards for you to see by my fab sweet stampin teamies, please go check out their blogs,
their links are in my sidebar >>>

Have a fab weekend! xx

Paula's DT week!

The lovely Paula has designed this weeks sketch for us over at Sketch Saturday, and this week you could win a whopping 10 images of your choice from Pollycraft and a pack of ProMarkers to colour them in with woohoooooo!!!

Paula very generously gave the DT some images to use on their cards,
Thank you Paula! xx

here is my card...




The image I chose is called Luna Bitterfrost - Frosty by Pollycraft, and I've coloured this image with my SU markers.
The sentiment is part of a SU stamp from the 'best yet' stamp set.
As you can see, I used my snowflake embossing folder on the purple piece of cardstock, and as the cardstock was bigger than the folder, I had to turn the card to emboss both sides & where the 2 sides join has been covered by the blue cardstock! ;)

I know you're itching to get started on this weeks challenge, but if you need any inspiration please go visit my fellow teamies, their links are over there >>>

Thank you, back in a minute with my sweet stampin card :)

Hmmmm, not keen!

It took a while to make this, and involved a lot of measuring, scoring & cutting, and now that it's done I'm not too keen on it.

glare off the flash! grrr, this is the best pic of the front I could get, sorry...

The image is a stamp I bought off ebay a couple of years ago, I stamped it twice, coloured both with promarkers, then cut out the cat and pot on one of them so that I could 3D them onto the other. I added pearls and a tiny gold star for the trees decorations.
The hanging greeting is from a Dovecraft clear stamp set.


here's another, moving around the card...

and a pic of the other greeting inside (stamped using a different Dovecraft clear stamp set), pic shows the folding too...

I might not be too keen on this card myself, but someone may like it, so i'll enter it into the challenges anyway ;)

We're allowed 3 entries each week with Charisma Cardz so this is my 2nd (the first being my stack of gifts christmas card)
I think Charisma will be inundated with entries this week as the theme is 'christmas crafting' so I'm guessing most will have 3 crimbo cards/projects they can enter!

I'd also like to enter it into the challenge at Polka Doodles, the challenge being to use a fancy or interesting fold on our cards.

ok, that's me done, off to bed now. Nite Nite! xx

Sugar bowl challenge

Yep, I've made another card for a challenge :)
I've used this sweet Daisy image from Sugar Nellie for this card and coloured her with ProMarkers, I think by now you are getting an idea of the colours I have eh? lol

The patterned paper is from my MME 'quite contrary' pad.
The sentiment is from a See-D's stamp set.

I'd like to enter this card to the challenge at The Sugar Bowl - Make a birthday card using the sketch provided by Lilian.