WOYWW - am I too late, LOL

Oh dear, the day has rushed by today. I have a new project at work and I am having to actually work again, rather than spend a fair proportion of the day doing errands, visiting blogs and crafting! What is the world coming to when you have to work for your salary.

I have remembered WOYWW again! Not too much going on today, I was making some general cards as I have a craft fair or two coming up and no stock, eek, and trying to use up some lovely Crate Paper papers I have. Hope you enjoyed your Wednesday. This actually the first WOYWW I have managed to make the proper link on!

Anything Goes Challenge #5 - vintage

Challenge number 5 already, I can't believe it. I have made a card this week, using Tim Holtz papers, ideology range items and various bits of haberdashery. Check out Craft Den website for the lovely range of ideology and Tim papers Lynne has in stock. The hessian, flowers, DI inks etc all from Craft Den. The stamp is one I found recently, the girls paperie range. It's very cute. I love dress dummies for some reason. I saw a really lovely ironwork one on holiday in a shop, draped in jewellery. It looked like an elaborate birdcage. I really wanted to bring it home, but I don't think we would have got it on the plane and Dan was less than impressed with it to be honest. men know nothing...



Now I really need to be taught how to use my little mini sewing machine. I can't even work out how to thread it to even make a start, so I hand stitched all the way round this card. I really need to learn how to thread the stupid machine as the handstitching took forever and I was a bit fed up by the end! The little idealogy memo pins say SEW but it's a bit hard to see as the glossy accents dried a little bit cloudy.

I hope you like and and please come and join us, the more the merrier!

Retirement card

I have made a 'retirement' card for my mum this weekend. She is not due to retire until next Spring, but the branch where she works is being closed on Wednesday so she is getting redundancy and retiring with it now. At least, that is the idea, but the list of things she would like to buy with the redundancy money is growing every day! I think she will like it! My sister, dad and me have together bought her a lovely cast iron chiminea and a set of garden lanterns as she really enjoys her garden and we wanted to mark the start of her days of leisure.

Anything Goes Challenge #4 - Cupcakes and bright colours

This week on Anything Goes, we have the theme 'Cupcakes' and the colours 'anything bright and jolly'!

Here is my entry, this week I have done a card. I wanted to show some ways to use the great Colour My World Templates, and nestabilities ranges, which Lynne has at the Craft Den.



I used some lucky paper from my stash, as I seem to be the only crafter in the UK who does not own a cupcake stamp. I covered an 8x8 card with brown paper and cut out a small solid scallop and then a scallop frame from coordinating papers, using the CMW templates. I then used the nesties to cut out a sentiment block and mat for the centre, and decorated with cut out cupcakes and added stickles and gems.

The paper is from stash, and the blank 8x8 card (lovely size, I have never seen them anywhere else), nesties, CMW templates, stickles and inks are all from Craft Den.

Anything Goes Challenge #3 - Sugar and Spice

Here is my entry for Anything Goes Challenge #3.

Hola from sunny Mallorca! My post has not been published, even though I set it to go on Tuesday,so I am being sad and sitting at an internet station in the hotel to send it! I am having a break from the sun.

This week the theme is 'Buttons and Bows' and the colour is 'Monochrome' so I have gone for shades of blue on my design, which this week is a tag.

I inked up a tag with DIs: Faded Jeans, Broken China and Tumbled Glass, then stamped the crackle background and the little girl CI stamp in faded jeans. Sorry I can't remember at all what the crackle stamp is.
I have added buttons and an organza ribbon bow and finished off with some small alphas and lace, both of which I tinted with broken china DI.

Everything but the buttons and the letters from Craft Den, of course!

Please take a moment to visit the challenge and have a go yourself!

My First Skinni and last night's LO

I have been seeing the lovely skinnies on the Something Completely Different challenge blog and have been inspired to have a go. This week the theme is cats. I love cats, I have two and they are my babies, so I was appalled to find I had absolutely nothing cat related in my stash!! I was sure I must have had loads!

Anyway I found a stamp about kitty feet and a paddy paw punch in the end, so I decided to use my two lovelies as the stars in lieu of any cat stamps. All I used were some paper scraps, not that it has made an enormous dint in the stash pile, lol.

I made a black skinni out of some shiny handmade paper, covered it with some 7gypsies and a spotty paper scrap and also punched and cut some circles of the same papers to mount the protraits onto. I cut the kitty feet part out of the stamp and inked the edges and punched some cat paws from the red reverse of the scraps of 7gypsies. The paws were a faff to stick so I only did 3! I have highlighted them in glossy accents, you can see it;s still drying in the photo.



Hope you like my first skinni, and my cats of course, Poppy and George (in his thinner days, lol)

Here as well is the LO we did last night at Craft Den. Really, really lovely idea with the floral vine stamps, which all of us had missed in the sale and we all snapped up last night! I have added some more details when I got home and also stamped some of the leaves onto the blue double dot paper and cut them out to form bouquets. The stamps are highlighted with white pen and stickles. We made some really easy and effective paper roses, which I am delighted with and will be using again. Not sure if this one will fit in the album now as the roses are quite thick! I have finished off with a title cut with the new T!m Holtz sizzix alphabet, which I can't remember the name of now. Paper are all Bo Bunny.

Two Posts, Two Tags

I forgot to post these on my last post, sorry for two posts in one day! I'll have a SB page later as well, lol!

I have been playing with different techniques and styles on tags. They are a perfect size to play with and to try out different things.

The first tag I have blended, Spiced Marmalade, Fired brick and Mustard Seed DI inks and then stamped the crackle background and the CI girl in stazon timber brown. I have used the word love, from another CI stamp kit and the clock from a B-Line clocks collage stamp set. I have added crackle accents to the clock and glossy accents to the word and 2 petaloo flowers. I love this little girl image. She is from Craft Den. I also have my eye there on a lovely stamp with 2 little boys dressed as cowboys. They look 50's/60's and the stamp is very cute.



The second tag I have blended with Peeled paint, broken china and mustard seed DIs. I have then stamped the B-Line clock collage stamp, again with stazon timber brown and highlighted the big clock in glossy accents and added some metal buttons I got in a tinful I bought at a carboot recently. My sister, Liz, was with me, you could tell she was less than impressed at the purchase, well now she can see I have used some, lol!! The sentiment, I printed on the PC and coloured and stamped with the crackle background again. Around the edge I have used a pilot gold marker. I saw that Pat had used one like it recently and I have just bought a gold and a silver one.



Hope you like K x

Craft Den June ATC Challenge - Shoes

Here is my offering for the Craft Den June ATC challenge - the theme is shoes.

I have to admit I was a bit flumoxed at this one! I have made a very simple ATC, with some shocking pink die cut shoes and 'Killer Heels' title. I must need more stamps ;-) as I had nothing shoe related at all, which is obviously a huge gap in my stash!! I caught this image with my flash, which I usually turn off, but it actually shows the glossy texture of the backing paper and the shoes better than the photo with no flash.

Anything Goes - Challenge #2

Here is my design for the second challenge on the Anything Goes challenge blog.

This week the theme is 'Pearls and Lace' and the colours are 'pink and cream'

I have done another scrapbook layout as it's my first love, and I don't do enough scrapbooking outside of the Craft Den classes so it's a good opportunity to fit some more in and to justify it - 'it's my design team work' ,lol!

I have made a LO of my lovely Emma, sitting in her 'Bumbo'. It's a kind of baby seat that you can plonk them in from about 6 months and it supports them and more importantly... they can't go anywhere, lol!





Recipe:
Bo Bunny double dot cardstock
K & Co Madelaine papers
Colour my World scalloped edge template
Martha Stewart scallop dot punch
Piece of vintage lace
pearly buttons
Viva cream pearl pen
Zva pink pearl bling swirl
cream corrugated card
pink embroidery thread

I used the template and the MS punch to create the bottom pink border from the Madelaine range of papers and overlaid the wide lace border. I got this from an antique shop, but Lynne sells quite a lot of similar wide laces at Craft Den. I cut out flowers from another piece of the madelaine range and overlaid them with pinflair glue to create some height and added stickles and pearly baby buttons to the centre. I finished it off with another lovely Zva pearl bling swirl, a corrugated tag and some handstitching around the page border. Everything is edged with versa magic 'jumbo java'. Everything from Craft Den, except the buttons and thread from stash.

I hope you like it and please join in the fun at Anything Goes!

Class SB layouts

I got so carried away with the new Anything Goes challenge blog and getting organised with father's day and anniversary card making, I have forgotten to post last week's Craft Den class SB page. Here it is, with the LO from last night's class as well. I had a really lovely time as usual, I never want to leave, and nearly didn't last night. We were all still sitting there at 5 to 9 until we realised what time it was! These light nights really are lovely!

The page last week was a choice of Blonde Moments papers. I chose the green/yellow/orange ones to use with a picture of Emma (who else?) on a hobby horse in Granny and Grandpa's garden last summer. Note the dummy is still in last year! We have managed to get it down to bedtime only, need to lose it soon, any ideas welcome! The design was one of Chanelle's and I just love the huge flower spray idea. I have added some lovely epoxy letters for the title at home and some lovely Zva bling and some citrusey buttons. I think the buttons were going round class, but I missed them so have added my own. Everything except the letters from Craft Den.



This week, Lynne has designed a really lovely page using the 7Gypsies Victoria range of papers. I have had these already once in 12 x 12 and decorated a circular greyboard book, seen in a previous post, and also in the 8 x 8 book to make cards. They are very elegant. For this layout, we cut out, distressed and inked the central portion to create a frame and used either coordinating blue or pink paper underneath. I chose the blue as it went well with the wellies that Emma is wearing in these photos. I found a CD the other week and discovered these photos on it. I have no idea at all now why she was wearing wellies with her sleepsuit, lol! How lucky we are nowadays to have digital cameras to capture all these lovely moments.
The swirls are a sizzix die and we embossed with ranger distressed embossing powder. I have never used this before and it gives a lovely sandpaper effect. I feel another collection of stash coming on lol! All the punches are Martha Stewart. The lovely concertina butterfly we have used before. It's a very simple template and really effective. Everything from Craft Den, of course!





Right, off to do some work and pack for the weekend. Hope everyone has a good one!

Anniversary card

This friday is my 6th wedding anniversary. Where has the time gone so fast, it seems like yesterday (and 2 dress sizes) ago, LOL!

Dan and I are going for a lovely Spa break in Cheshire, dinner, lunch, bed and breakfast, 2 spa treatments each and use of the pool, sauna etc all day. Can't wait.
I have been rushing to get a card made for Dan as I also have the AG challenge to do this week as well and I only have today and tomorrow to get it done as we are going away Friday, oops, it may be an ATC, lol.

Here is my card for Dan. He never visits my blog and anyway I told him not to as I posted his daddy's day card yesterday, so I am safe! Excuse the telephone in the background!

Two posts in one day!!

Two posts in one day, you can tell I am a bit bored at work today and still a little bit in bank holiday mode, lol!

I have been organised and made my father's day cards already, as it falls on the day after we land from our hols, so I am organised!!

One for Emma's Daddy.....luckily Dan never looks at my blog. He gets shown the originals and makes the appropriate noises, lol!




And one for my Daddy....who wouldn't know what a blog is! I took an idea from a recent craft magazine for this one as men's cards are sooo hard to do. Cutesy from Emma to her daddy are fine, but adult men's cards.... I think this one has come out OK though. I have done some die cutting and embossing and sanding on craft foil, for the star badges, it doesn't look very shiny on these photos.

Brand new challenge blog!!!!

I am delighted to show you my first DT design for the exciting, brand new challenge blog 'Anything Goes', launched today by Lynne at 'Craft Den'. It's called anything goes, because, well, anything goes! your entries can be a scrapbook layout, an ATC, a card, a piece of altered art, a tag, well anything really!

This first week the theme is 'Wings' and the colours 'Yellow', 'Blue', and 'Brown'.

Visit the blog here and join in the fun! We are really looking forward to your entries!

I have made a SB layout of a trip we made to the butterfly house in Warwick in the years BE (Before Emma, lol). The papers are Basic Grey 'Origins' which I love and have used lots, and the really luxury Artsy-Licious foiled and flocked papers. I used my MS monarch and classic butterfly punches and added some detail with die cut branches and letters. I also added some bling of course! I also used Versa Magic, Jumbo Java chalk ink for all my edges.










All papers, punches, scalloped template and ink from Craft Den. Die cuts and bling from stash.