Apples & Pears

Happy Birthday at Sundays With Crissy

2012-02-07T17:00:00.002Z

Hello everyone - can you believe that it's February already?! Seems like only a week ago that we were stressing to finish Christmas cards in time to catch the post!

Anyhoo, on to my card today.....the theme this month at Sundays With Crissy is HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and I chose this lovely image by Crissy called Love You Sis because I've been wanting to use it for ages. It seems a perfect image to use on a card from one sister or friend to another. Using Paint.Net, I merged it with the fence image (Petals & Palings from Make It Crafty) and coloured it with Copics. The pinks are a little outside of my comfort zone, but I had to justify buying the RV63 and RV66 last year by actually using them at last! And as it turns out, I quite like these shades now as they're not as candy-pink as the lower-numbered Red Violets tend to be.

Images: Love You Sis, by Crissy Armstrong

Petals & Palings, by Make It Crafty

Colouring: Copics and Polychromos

DPs: Prima Annalee and Papermania

Metal corner: Wild Orchid Crafts

Computer-generated sentiment

Flowers, centres and doily from my stash

If you'd like to join us in the challenge this month, pop over to the challenge blog and upload your project. There prize for one lucky winner is some digis of your choice from the talented and super-lovely Crissy.

Thanks for dropping by today, I'll see you soon; in the meantime Happy Crafting!

Just to show I haven't been completely idle...

2012-02-02T05:12:00.003Z

Hello bloggers! I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone that has been leaving comments for me whilst I've been away, even though I couldn't visit or leave comments, it touched me that you'd still drop by, and kept me going while I was feeling so poorly. I'm still taking it easy, but glad to be colouring and crafting again. I am NOT glad to be suffering a messy work area once more, I did like having a nice clear dining table, he hee.

Anyway, following Chrissy's post recently where she was asking about what Kraft papers were light enough to go through a printer, I promised her I'd try my Kraft and tell her the results. Well, as I'd test-printed some images, I thought I'd at last get round to experiment with colouring on it. This was my first attempt, using the lovely Summer Dreams by Make It Crafty. I used Faber Castell Polychromos (I only have about 30 shades at the mo) without any blending with Sansodor, and I quite like my first go. I find some of the pencils nice and soft, some are very hard and scuffed the paper up on the hat ribbon. I might have a go with Prismas next, although I only have a handle of pencils. Hope you likey:

Here's a quick card I made using this image and some scraps of paper which happily matched the colours in the image. Not sure what I think of this one, but I'll definitely be colouring on Kraft again:

Will have a DT card to share in a few days....till then, happy crafting!

Can't leave comments

2012-01-12T14:37:00.000Z

Hi everyone, I've been trying since last night to leave comments on your blogs, but I haven't been able to leave any. For some reason, Blogger freezes on me each time I click the comment button. I notice there have been some changes while I've been away so maybe it's a glitch with the software. Just wanted you to know that I'm not ignoring my blogging buddies, and I'll continue to visit to look at your work even if I can't leave some love.

There is sooooo much to catch up on, you've been VERY busy, lol.

Beat The Mid-Winter Blues

2012-01-07T17:02:00.001Z

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year! I hope Christmas was good for you and that you're ready and raring to get crafting after the holidays. I've been doing a bit of gentle crafting myself and made this easel card for our challenge this month at Sundays With Crissy. The theme is Beat The Mid-Winter Blues, and it can be interpreted however you like - whether you want to make a summery card, a card in blues, or whatever the theme means to you. There's lots of inspiration throughout the month over on the main challenge blog.

As soon as I saw the theme I knew I wanted to use this image by Crissy - she's called Beach Baby Jayme and I just love her! So fabulous and she really makes me smile☺ She's coloured in Copics (the first time I've picked them up in weeks, it felt strange to be using them again), and I used the colourless blender to dab onto the green colouring to make her dappled froggy skin. The sentiment is by Digis With Attitude, although I don't know if it's available any longer, and I added some flowers and ribbon trims to finish it off. I hope you like it.

I'm getting round to visit everyone bit by bit, so I'll see you soon. Have a good weekend.

Happy Christmas

2011-12-24T23:15:00.000Z

Hello all, it's that most special day, Christmas Eve, and so I'd simply like to wish you all a very happy Christmas. I've loved getting to know my fellow bloggers this year, it's been such a pleasure.

I'm still not up to doing any crafting, but I can feel the spark of interest growing again, so hopefully it won't be too much longer before I'm back.

Till then, all the best from me.

Treasure Hunt Clue!

2011-12-24T23:12:00.000Z

Ignore me, bloggers, I'm just stopping to by to leave a little clue for someone special.....

Picture clue:

Hmmmm, so where's the next clue????

Anything Goes at Sundays With Crissy

2011-12-07T17:43:00.000Z

Hello everyone, no I haven't emigrated and left blogging for good, I'm just having a break until the New Year to get a bit stronger. But this is a card I made recently for this month's challenge at Sundays With Crissy, the theme being everyone's favourite: Anything Goes. How easy is that?

This sweet image is one of Crissy's that is available from Wags N Whiskers, called Zoe & Gemma's Snow Fun - don't you think it's cute? Coloured in copics as usual, and the backing paper is actually the cover of a brochure I received in the post....I liked the design so much I thought it would come in handy for a Christmas card.

A couple of felt snowflakes, a punched snowflake, gem brad, navy gingham ribbon and stamped sentiment were added to complete the card.

Hope you like the card and feel like coming along and joining us at Sundays With Crissy this month.

More apologies for not visiting any blogs, I'm just not up to all the reading and commenting right now, but I hope to be back reinvigorated in the New Year.

Till then, happy crafting!

Leap of Joy....non-traditional colours

2011-11-07T17:00:00.006Z

Hello everyone, I'm here with a couple of cards today, they form my DT project for this month at Sundays With Crissy. This time, we'd like to see a Christmas card in non-traditional colours, so any colour other than red or green. I've used a tiny bit of red and green in my colouring, but there wasn't really any other colour I can do berries and holly.

I chose to make a non-traditional blue, white & silver card and a pink, white & silver one, using Crissy's image Leap of Joy in both - being a digi I was able to print the gorgeous reindeer at 2 different sizes. Colouring was done with copics, and I over-coloured with pencils to modify the shades and also add a little texture to the reindeer, as the colouring was too smooth with just the copics. In both cases I cut the image out with a nestie shape using the 'outside the box' technique so that the hind feet overhang the nestie.

The blue card measures 15x15cm and is made using a piece of very shiny foiled Kanban cardstock in blue and silver, to which I added a square doily and a wide strip of blue and silver Christmas ribbon. Although it looks as if the background is uncoloured, it's actually a pale blue. A white poinsettia made with Marianne dies and a foiled 'With Love' sentiment finish it off.

Cardstock is really very shiny and reflective!

The pink card is a book-fold C6 size, and made using paper from the very first designer paper pack I ever bought (5 years ago and still going strong....it was a BIG Papermania pack!). The ribbon is a nice shiny silver one, and I made another white poinsettia to embellish. I finished it off with a Papermania sentiment, stamped in grey.

I bet those carefully shaped poinsettia petals will get flattened in the post!

I'd like to enter these 2 cards in these challenges:

2 Sisters Challenge - Ribbon

ABC DT Challenge - Christmas card challenge

Cardmakin Mamas - Cut it out (nestie shapes round the images, and poinsettia die cuts)

Crafty Ribbons - Bingo (punch/dies - flowers - ribbon)

Papertake Weekly - Anything goes

And I'd like to enter the blue card only in these challenges:

Crafty Purple Frog - Sparkle

Secret Crafter - Flowers ribbon lace

Truly Scrumptious - Bingo time (lace - flowers - ribbon)

I hope you like my cards. The SWC Design Team upload their projects every few days, so keep checking out the challenge blog to see more non-traditional Christmas colours. You have till the end of the month to enter and be in with a chance to win 5 of Crissy's images.

Happy crafting!

Beer mat gift box

2011-11-05T22:49:00.004Z

No, not a gift box for beer mats, silly! A box MADE using a couple of cardboard beer coasters that were headed for the recycling bin. Unused ones, I hasten to add, he hee.

I wanted to make a gift box just big enough to hold a few chocolates to give a very special person, and this is what I came up with. There was a tune going round my head at the time, a Billy Joel song called You're My Home, and there's a nice line in it which goes "Home is just another word for you" which seemed very appropriate for the person I was thinking of, so it became a sentiment on the box lid.

The lid and base are made from 2 beer mats which I covered both sides with brown dogtooth-checked paper, sanded a little around the edges. I made a small box from cream card using a box-maker and adhered one beer mat to the top of the lid and the other to the bottom of the base. This is what the beer mats looked like before they were repurposed:

To decorate, I first used a lacy doily on top of the paper-covered beer mat, then I took a square of paper and made a background by aging it around the edges, crinkling it up and running a distress ink pad over it to highlight the creases. Then I added an epoxy flower embellishment, some roses, a die-cut gingham heart and some pearls.

The ribbon wrapped around the box is a beautiful patterned white ribbon from my good blogging friend, Kevin.

Background is made from some pale pink backing paper which I aged and distressed a little, then I scrunched it up and wiped a distress ink pad over the flattened out paper to show up the creases.

I'm entering this is these challenges:
2 Sisters Challenge - Ribbon (round the sides of the box)
Bearly Mine - Anything but a card
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Lace it up
Cooking It Up With Katie - Anything but a card
Crafts & Me - Let the music move you
Crafty Cardmakers - pink, brown and cream
Crafty Emma's Store - Entertain us, song- or film-inspired
Lollipop Crafts - Anything goes
Secret Crafter - Flowers, ribbon, lace
Southern Girls - Can you hear the music?
Sugar Creek Hollow - Trash to Treasure vintage
Top Tip Tuesday - Make your own background
Truly Scrumptious - Bingo time (Gems-Flowers-Diecuts line, I used pearl gems, roses and a diecut heart)

Have a good weekend all.

Dream Valley #19 - Anything Goes

2011-10-30T21:12:00.001Z

This fortnight, the challenge at Dream Valley is an old favourite.....Anything Goes. Melly, our wonderful leader, will be offering a very lucky person a £10 voucher to use in either Crafty Emma's delish shop OR Saturated Canary's Digi's image Esty store - you choose!! How fab!!

My card is a new baby card using a photo, 2 designer papers (Crafters Companion pink gingham, and K&Co pink paper), ribbon & lace, an epoxy sticker, pearls and embossed vellum.

No, my copics haven't broken! hahaa. I just felt like a change and used a printed photo instead.

Check out the challenge blog for my clever teamies' fab projects. Happy crafting!

Colour some texture

2011-10-28T13:51:00.002+01:00

Hello bloggers, I hope everyone is well. I've had a bit of a change round on my blog and added a second sidebar so I could do some tidying up. The header etc is different too but it won't stay like this for long....I was messing about with backgrounds yesterday when something happened to my blog so that I could no longer open it (shock horror!) and it kept making my laptop freeze to even try and open my blog. So I didn't get a chance to change the background to something more crafty. I'm too scared to touch it now in case it won't open again!

Anyway, we have a new challenge today at Make It Colourful, which is to COLOUR SOME TEXTURE. This could be anything you like: some grass, a woolly jumper, straw, fur......anything! If it's got some texture in there then you can enter. You can use any make of image in your colouring, doesn't have to be a Make It Crafty one, although there is an extra prize draw for MiC images.

I had been dying to colour this image by Crissy Armstrong, Turk In Boots. The tailfeathers I coloured in a deeply-grooved corrugated effect, and the pumpkin was coloured in long strokes of my copics to look like the many little ridges on the surface. And my final bit of texture is in the body of the turkey, which I coloured smoothly with copics then added little feathery pencil marks to look, well, feathery.

I kept the colours very autumnal, browns, golds and oranges with a little green, and picked up some violet from the backing paper to make a faint violet shadow around my turkey. The chippie leaves are coloured with the same greens from the hat band. Hope you like it.

Image: Turk in Boots by Crissy Armstrong

Colouring: copics and pencils

Chippie leaves: Butterfly Leaves by Make It Crafty

DPs: K&Co, Brenda Walton Brookfield

Spellbinders: Lacey circles and standard circles

Computer printed sentiment

Ribbons from my craft stash

Don't forget to check out the Make It Crafty gallery to see more inspiration for colouring a little texture.

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Charisma Cardz - Anything Goes
Crafty Boots - Autumn or Halloween
Crafty Creations - Leaves and fall palette
Digi Doodles - Anything Goes
Paper Crafting Journey - Use a digi
Partytime Tuesdays - Anything Goes
Shopping Our Stash - Halloween OR Autumn/Fall colours

Colouring snow for Make It Colourful: Ragged Angel and winter background

2011-10-19T17:35:00.004+01:00

Hi all, I did some colouring last week and have only just today made something with it. This is my DT project for Make It Colourful, where the challenge this fortnight is to COLOUR SNOW. This means not just adding glitter to look like the white stuff, but actually using your colouring to depict snow.

We are so lucky in that there are some new background snowy winter scene images now at Make It Crafty, and I've used 3 of them in my scene together with this fabulous image from Mo Manning. Now, I have to admit that Ragged Angel melts my heart, she's beautifully drawn and so adorable, and a poor little child out in the freezing snow - well, it can kinda move you to tears. So I had to colour the Angel in warm colours so that she could be warm inside despite the cold environment.

Colouring is in Copics as usual, and the way I've coloured the snow is to leave the majority of the paper white and uncoloured, and added some shadows and little areas of very pale blue (B0000) and a pale cool grey (C1 and some C3). It's a daytime scene, hence the lightsource from the right, but I decided the street lamp would be lit even though there's daylight, so it just casts a little warm light onto the snow on the lantern itself. The sky is coloured in a pale violet as if there is more snow in the sky - oh that poor little urchin!

Images merged with permission from Mo Manning

The finished colouring has been made up into a shadow box card so the image is sunk into the cardstock. The paper in the border is from Websters Pages, inked around the edges and matted onto green card. The sentiment is from Stempelglade, and some lace, a metal filligree corner, a poinsettia, punched snowflake and a couple of roses finish it all off.

I hope it is OK to say that I do like this scene that I merged and I'm really pleased with how the colouring went. Always room for improvement but I'm happy.

I made this card for Mo's Bronte & Bella's challenge which this week is Inspired by a Song. When I was planning this, I had the song "It may be winter outside (but in my heart it's spring)" going round my head because I didn't like the thought of our little Angel suffering the cold and kind of imagined that she'd have an inner warmth to keep her OK. Kind of like the old Ready Brek advert, for those of us old enough to remember, lol.

Images: Festive Lantern (from Festive Elements), Large Pine Tree,

and Winter Fence from Make It Crafty;

Ragged Angel from Mo Manning

Colouring: Copic markers

DP: Websters Pages

Metal corner: Wild Orchid Crafts

Martha Stewart snowflake punch

Prima poinsettia, lace, roses from my stash

Sentiment: Vintage Christmas from Stempelglade

I'd like to enter this in these challenges:

ABC Christmas Challenge - U for Unused Stash (all my images are brand new, and this is the first time I've used this sentiment stamp)

Bronte and Bella's Challenge - Inspired by a song ("It may be winter outside")

Aud Sentiment Challenge - Winter theme

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Lace it up

Fabulous Friday - Fancy trim

Flutterby Wednesday - Open challenge

Whoopsie Daisy - Free & easy

I hope you like my project today. It's gone very cold here in Brum and I'm sitting with a hot water bottle as I type this, lol. Keep warm everyone!

Blog hop winners

2011-10-14T11:00:00.004+01:00

Hi everyone - today is the day when we announce the winners of the Make It Crafty blog hop. A full list of winners can be found at Make It Colourful.

A big thank you to everyone that left a comment for my hop cards, I really wish I could send a gift to each and every one of you, but as Highlander says "There can be only one" so I am pleased to announce that the winner of my candy is.......(drum roll)

JANETTE of Little-Boscraftyplace!!!!!

Congratulations Janette and let me have your address so I can get something nice posted to you.

Congrats to all the other winners too and I hope everyone enjoyed the hop.

Thanks & Thanksgiving at Sundays With Crissy

2011-10-07T17:30:00.005+01:00

Hi everyone☺ I'm back with my DT project for Sundays With Crissy, where the theme this month is Thanks and Thanksgiving. I decided to make a clean and simple Thank You card using one of Crissy's latest images, the cute Sugar Pie Honey Bunch. She has released this image as a regular line art digi stamp but also as a pencil sketch stamp, which has some shading already added. If you like colouring the Simply Adorable images from Sugar Nellie, then this type of image will appeal to you. Check out the pencil sketch stamp HERE, it looks so lovely.

I used copics to colour the image, and added some pencil on top to add a bit of texture. The papers are offcuts left over from another card and the sentiment is stamped and punched out using 2 nesties, and I then made it into a kind of rosette by adding red ribbon.

Image: Sugar Pie Honey Bunch by Crissy Armstrong

Colouring: Copics and pencils

DPs: Papermania

Spellbinders Standard circles large and Lacey circles dies

Ribbons from stash

I printed the image out again in pale ink and had another go at colouring....this has quite a different look:

DPs: Stampin Up

Metal corner: Wild Orchid Crafts

I'd like to enter these cards in these challenges:
Crafts & Me - Use a digi
Crafty Cardmakers - Anything goes (2nd entry)
My Mum's Craft Shop - All creatures great and small
My Partner in Crafting Crime - Sweets & Treats
One Stop Craft Challenge - Just for Men
Southern Girls - Boys or Men
The Crafty Pad - One for the boys

Hope you like these, for more Thank You and Thanksgiving cards, visit the challenge blog throughout the month and see what new projects the DT have uploaded.

Enjoy your weekend!

Tilda in sheer clothing!

2011-10-04T13:00:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone. It's all change at Make It Colourful, with the weekly challenge now a bi-weekly one, and a new harder monthly challenge to push our colouring skills further!

First, the new monthly challenge. This one is just for fun and to improve skills, and will have a more difficult theme. The idea is to show the process rather than just the results, sharing our mistakes and what we've learned, and you can discuss the challenge and share tips and experience on the NEW message board over at the Make It Crafty gallery. The first monthly challenge is to colour A Spooky Night Sky, and you can read about it HERE.

Now to the regular challenge......it is now a bi-weekly challenge to give you more time to colour your project and has moved from Saturdays to Fridays. The DT will be uploading their projects throughout the fortnight, so keep checking the gallery for more inspiration. The current theme is Colouring Sheer Clothing, and you can find it HERE.

Both challenges will be posted on the Make It Colourful blog, and you'll find all cards for the challenges in the gallery.

A couple of reminders: there is another week to run for the Christmas/Zoe's birthday blog hop, with candy available on all the DT blogs, a freebie image up for grabs if you make a birthday card, and some tempting giveaways on Zoe's blog, as well as a chance to see the new Christmas images. Click HERE to read about and start the hop. The blog hop has been so much fun, and I want to say a very big thank you for all the fantastic comments left for my cards....that has meant so much!

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So, after all that I do actually have a card to show, it's one I made for the Sheer Clothing challenge. I've tried to colour a couple of sheer frills on Tilda's dress - you can still see the red dress through the sheer panels. I did this by colouring the bottom of the dress in copics, then used the same colours roughly on the upper parts of the dress leaving some white areas, then used white polychromo pencil on top of the whole sheer areas. the sleeves are also sheer - you can see her arms through the fabric. Well, this was my first attempt and definitely an experiment! I hope it passes muster. There are more sheer colourings from the DT on the gallery.

I used a couple of laser-cut chipboards which I coloured using copic markers, and the butterfly chipboard was also clear embossed before adding a few pearls. There are 2 layers of lace on the card to echo the 2 layers of sheer frills in the dress, and a red flower finishes the card off.

Image: Tilda with Sunflower, by Magnolia

Colouring: Copics and white polychromo pencil

Designer Papers: Oriental Spice, by Papermania

Chippies: Butterfly Leaves and Round Leaves, by Make It Crafty

Flowers, lace and pearls from my craft stash

I also made this as a birthday card for the lovely Zoe, without whom there would be no Make It Colourful or Make It Crafty, and who adds so much to the crafting world.

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I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Crafty Emma - Totally gorjuss/pretty girls (2nd entry)
Crafty Cardmakers - Anything goes
Simply Create - Older than 6 months (papers, image, lace and pearls are all well over that age! lol)
Stamping For The Weekend - What a cutie
Whoopsie Daisy - Lace & pearls

Hope you like the card. Have a good week everyone :)

Dream Valley #17 - Monochromatic

2011-10-02T12:00:00.007+01:00

Blogger seems to be having issues again! I decided to catch up with commenting today, but it seems only some comments are actually getting through. I'll keep trying, but sorry if you're one of the blogs I can't comment on. Hopefully, Mr Blogger will resolve this soon.

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Hello everyone, it's time for another challenge at Dream Valley Challenges, and the theme this month is Monochrome. So everything on the card needs to be of one colour, although if you're colouring a character you can still use skin tones of course.

Our sponsor this fortnight is One Stop Card Crafts, and a lucky winner will receive a £10 gift certificate for their store!

This is the card I made as my DT project....as you see I chose blue-green as my colour. I used my new Stempelglede stamp, which I finally treated myself to (available from Quixotic Paperie), and stamped it using Versafine black ink onto gloss paper. Then I fussy cut around the edge of the image to give it a deckle-edge (you can see that better in one of the close ups below), then inked around the edge using some Clearsnap fluid chalk ink in Prussian Blue. Papers were also inked with Prussian Blue and I added some hand-stitching.

I made the embellishments using some laser-cut chipboards from Make It Crafty - a flourish and 2 snowflakes layered up together (an idea I saw on Elaine's beautiful blog). The chipboards were coated in some Adirondack acrylic paint in Cloud Blue and I sprinkled some glamour dust into the paint as it was drying to give them lots of sparkle. A gem was placed in the centre of the snowflakes, and a Prima flower and a pearl spray were placed next to the flourish. Some blue-green organza ribbon and ric-rac finish it all off.

Chipboard flourish coated in acrylic paint and glamour dust

2 snowflakes coated in paint and glamour dust and layered up with a gemstone

Image: Vintage Christmas by Stempelglede

DPs: K&Co and Prima Annalee

Chipboard flourish and snowflakes: by Make It Crafty, available from Quixotic Paperie

Flower: Prima, Sugar Plum roses in Caribbean

Pearl spray: Wild Orchid Crafts

Other: Adirondack acrylic paint dabber, cloud blue; glamour dust;

Clearsnap Cats Eye fluid chalk in Prussian Blue; computer-printed sentiment

Doily, gem & ribbons from my craft stash

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:

Crafts & Me - Flowers
Crafty Emma's Store - Totally gorjusss/pretty girls

Crafty Purple Frog - Lots of layers

Delightful Challenges - Pearls & swirls

Glitter Geeks - Shabby chic

Kaboodle Doodles - Use a doily

Magical Mondays - Christmas in September (2nd entry)

Paper and Such Design - Recipe challenge (2nd entry) (I chose Ribbon / designer paper / 1 flower)

Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Top Tip Tuesday - 2 or more ribbons (ric rac ribbon placed on top of spotty organza ribbon)

And my tip for Top Tip Tuesday: when handstitching your card, paper prick the paper along the edge of a ruler first - not only does it make the stitches neat and evenly spaced but it is so much easier to sew through the paper.

For more monochromatic projects and ideas, check out the challenge blog and see what my teamies have come up with - I can tell you they've made some beauties!

Happy crafting!

Happy birthday Zoe! and the hop starts now!

2011-09-27T11:00:00.011+01:00

Hi all! Today I have a couple of cards to show you but first I want to say:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOE!!!

Yes, it's our Make It Colourful leader's special day today, and to celebrate we're having a blog hop!

The hop has a Christmas theme because today Zoe is releasing some fab images for the upcoming season of goodwill - but the best part is you get 15% off ALL the Christmas digis from now until Sunday, October 2nd. Click on this link HERE to see them all. Be warned, the coupon code is only for this week even thought the blog hop is for two weeks - so make sure to grab them at this sale price while you can!

Even better, everyone in this blog hop is giving away Blog Candy!! Whoohoo!! You'll have two weeks, until October 12th, to visit each member in the hop below and leave a comment; winners will be announced on Friday, October 14th on their individual blogs. Feel free to grab the blog hop badge above and display it on your sidebar to spread the word about Zoe's Birthday and Blog Hop!

But that's not all... we've got yet another surprise for you!! We contacted one of Zoe's artists (S.H.) who also wanted to participate and drew us this gorgeous party girl for the occasion. Thank you!!

This is "Party Girl Zoe" and isn't she cute! We wanted to make sure everyone was included in our celebration so we're giving away Party Girl Zoe as a freebie to everyone who wants to join in and spread some birthday cheer!! All you need to do is create a new project using a Make it Crafty image or chippies and upload it into the gallery HERE by October 12th. Then email Barbara, at ForgottenScraps@gmail.com with a link to your project to claim the freebie!

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So, you should have arrived here from the lovely Beccy. If you got here some other way or if you get lost, then go HERE to begin the hop.

I made 2 cards using a couple of little elf images that were really just too cute to ignore, fixing each up in MS Word so that they both printed at the same size. At the weekend in my online browsing I even found some jingle bells like the ones on their hats! You can see them nestled in the fairy lights garland and the poinsettias below. Many thanks to Crafters Cove for super super fast delivery.....ordered on Saturday night, appearing on my blog on Tuesday morning, how's that for service?

Zippy, the boy elf

Tinkles, the girl elf

Do you like the little jingle bells?

Images: Tinkles and Zippy by Make It Crafty

Colouring: Copic markers

DPs: Websters Pages

Sentiments: Craftwork Cards

Poinsettias & leaves from Prima
Jingle Bells from Crafters Cove
Other: Spellbinders Lacey Circles & Large Standard circles dies

Everything else from my craft stash

Your next and final stop on the hop is the incredible Barbara.

We hope you enjoy the hop and make sure you head on over to Zoe's personal blog and wish her a Happy Birthday! Grab the Christmas Blog Hop badge and display it on your sidebar to spread the word about Zoe's Birthday and Blog Hop! Until then, happy colouring!

A little edit: Amy has asked if Tinkles is supposed to have hands.....of course she is, but I somehow totally omitted to give her any, LOL, just one of several errors in colouring these 2 cuties (blush). Well, let's just say I've given her red gloves to wear (wink). Thanks Amy, I'll remember to give her hands next time I colour her, he hee. I tried to visit your blog to reply but your profile wasn't available, sorry.

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I'd like to enter both cards as my 2 entries in these challenges:
Anything Goes - Anything Goes
Crafty Ribbons - Anything Goes
Digi Makeover Challenge - Resize your digi
Paper Sundaes - Anything Goes
Partytime Tuesdays - Anything Goes

I'd like to enter the Zippy (boy elf) card only in these challenges:
Here Come The Boys - Bingo (Die cuts / Cute Image / Metal: circle die cuts, and metal jingle bells)
PanPastel UK Challenge - Anything Goes
Lollipop Crafts - Anything Goes
The Squirrel & The Fox - Anything Goes
Ooh La La Creations - Punches/Die cuts (my circles)

I'd like the enter the Tinkles (girl elf) card only in these challenges:
Paper And Such Design - Recipe challenge (ribbon / designer paper / flower)
Southern Girls - Anything Goes
Top Tip Tuesday (for tip see below) - 2 or more ribbons/lace/twine/fabric (I used 2 ribbons, a dark red on top of a wider gold one)
Magical Mondays - Christmas in September (I hope elves count as magical creatures)

And finally, my tip for Top Tip Tuesday is: if you know what elements you want to include on your card but you're struggling to come up with a layout, lay the pieces out on your card in different ways and take photos of each arrangement. Scrolling through the photos on your camera and comparing the layouts can help you decide which arrangement you like best. I do this all the time!

Thanks so much for visiting and for any comments you left - you really make my day!

A couple of announcements...

2011-09-23T21:34:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone, I don't have a card to share today...I haven't done any crafting for a week! But I do have a couple of things to let you know about.

First up, Make It Colourful are having a birthday blog hop! Well, it's Zoe's birthday on the 27th so we are having a Christmas blog hop to celebrate! Some new Make It Crafty Christmas digis will be getting their debut so if you fancy seeing what we've done with them then be sure to join in the hop.

And secondly, Crafty Cardmakers are having a Design Team Call right now, so if you'd like to join an ace team of girls (I work with some of them at Dream Valley and they are a terrific bunch of girls and I so enjoy working with them) at a great challenge blog then hop over here to find out the details.

Not sure when I'll have a card to show, bit low on energy and mojo right now. I've been colouring for the blog hop though so that's kept me out of mischief ;)

Happy crafting!

Dream Valley #16

2011-09-18T13:52:00.001+01:00

Morning all, today is a new challenge at Dream Valley, and this time the theme is Buttons. We're sponsored by Digis With Attitude this week, so a lucky winner will receive a prize of $10 Canadian dollars to spend on their images.

I thought I'd try something different this time and make a card with no colouring on for a change. Instead I used some chipboard shapes from Make It Crafty which I coloured using Copic markers and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder - a new technique for me! These 2 gorgeous chipboards, a mannequin and a cotton reel are from a set called Sew It Up, aren't they nice? I used papers from K&Co, which I aged and distresed then added some handstitching to fit in with the sewing/dressmaking idea, and completed the card with some lace from my lovely blogging friend, Kevin, a little seam binding, pearls, Prima flowers and lastly some buttons to follow this week's challenge. Hope you like it.

I'd like to enter this is these challenges:
4 Crafty Chicks - Embossing (heat embossing on the chipboard shapes)
Anything Goes Challenge - Vintage/shabby chic
CES Crafty Emma's Store - Embellish Me More (buttons, flowers, pearls, chipboard bobbin, lace, seam binding)
Crafty Ribbons - Anything goes
Creatalicious Challenges - Anything goes
Creative Inspirations - Anything goes
Cupcake Craft Room - Pink & green
Deep Ocean Challenges - Lace
Heart Song Inspirations - Glitter and/or chipboard (I used 2 chipboards)
Kaboodle Doodles - Chipboard
My Sheri Crafts - Sew Simple
One Stop Craft Challenge - Girlie
Wags & Whiskers - Lace

The challenge runs for 2 weeks so there's plenty of time to upload your buttons projects to the main challenge blog - check it out for lots more ideas with buttons from my clever teamies.

Happy crafting!

Get ready for Halloween!

2011-09-17T11:00:00.003+01:00

Hello everybody, I hope all are well. Welcome to my newest followers, I'm so happy to see you here.

We have a fun challenge starting at Make It Colourful today.....colour with Orange and Black. The Design Team have made some Halloween projects because there are some terrific new images at Make It Crafty, but you can of course make a project for any occasion you like. I've not really used my orange markers much so this was a good time for me to get to know them.

I used a brand new image, Spooky House, and kind of experimented with an orange sky. Well, I went a bit mad with those Yellow Reds, didnt I? he hee, but it was fun. Having a new image that I've never seen anyone colour before is a challenge but one I really enjoy, it's cool to see what you can make with it and then see how others use it. This week I also had a play around with the Mini Headless Horsemen which was another that was such fun to colour, isn't he great? I printed it off again slightly larger and used just the pumpkin head as an embellishment, added some lettering and a couple of bats, a bit of Atyou Spica glitter around the lettering (you can't really see on the photos) and it was finished. I don't do Halloween cards, so this will end up as a page in my art journal when I finally get around to making one.

Images: Spooky House and Mini Headless Horseman, both by Make It Crafty

Colouring Copic markers

DPs: DCWV All Dressed Up Matstack

I'd like to enter this in these challenges:
Charisma Cardz - Sky
Crazy 4 Challenges - Create something with a pumpkin on it
Creatalicious Challenges - Anything goes
Creative Inspirations - Anything goes
Cute Card Thursdays - Anything goes
Digi Doodles - Autumn colours
Digital Tuesday - Celebrate the season
Di's Digi Designs - Anything goes
Lexis Creations - Autumn
Sew Many Challenges - Halloween

So get out those orange and black pens, pencils, paints and inks and have some fun. If you'd like to join in with us, we are now using the NEW Make It Crafty gallery for the challenge - you just need to register and upload your photos directly to it, whether that be a completed project or simply your unfinished colouring - you don't even need to blog it first! Happy colouring :)

Make it Purple

2011-09-11T05:01:00.003+01:00

Hi all, I'm really late in getting this card made for the Make It Colourful challenge this weekend, I've been in bed with a bug for a couple of days. But better late than never, as they say.

The challenge this week is to colour with purple. Until recently I hardly ever used purple, now I'm quite getting to like it!

We are sponsored this week by Some Odd Girl, and I used one of Kristy's images, Roller Mae, on my card.

I used purples in different ways in my colouring....Roller Mae's jumper is coloured in blue violets, her scarf is coloured with violets, her socks are violets and blue violets, I used BV25 to add some of the shadows on the fence. The far end of the field was coloured with BV31 before I added the greens to try and make that part recede some - not sure if this was successful! The hills in the background are made of some blue violets, and I used blue violets and violets to make the sky too.

Images: Petals & Palings, Old Oak Tree, and 2 elements from the Urban Street Collection, all by Make It Crafty; Roller Mae by Some Odd Girl

Colouring: Copic markers

Lasercut chippies: Round Leaves by Make It Crafty

Metal corner: Wild Orchid Crafts

Flowers from my craft stash

Purples I used:

jumper: BV02,04,08; scarf: V04,06,09; socks: V04,06,09,BV02,04,08;
hills: BV20,23,25; sky: BV31,V0000,01.
Some BV31 added to grass at far end of field.

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Charisma Cardz - Inspired by a song....."Brand New Key" (the Rollerskating song) by Melanie
Crafty Boots - Anything goes
Creative Card Crew - anything goes
Di's Digi Designs - Anything goes
One Stitch At A Time - anything goes
Secret Crafter - Inspired by a song....."Brand New Key" (the Rollerskating song) by Melanie
Stamp Something - something to say goodbye, anything goes

I'm heading to bed now so goodnight all!

Happy crafting,

Friendship at Sundays With Crissy

2011-09-07T18:00:00.001+01:00

Hello everyone, I hope all are well. Today I'm showing 2 DT cards I made for Sundays With Crissy - the theme this month is a warm and fuzzy one of Friendship. I wouldn't usually make 2 cards but we were lucky enough to have some brand new images from Crissy this month, and after colouring one and loving it that much I had to stay sitting and colour the other one up as well! Which not only tells you how adorable I found them but also how easy they are to colour too.

The 2 images are called Birdie Friend and Frog Friend....aren't they sweet? I used Copics and a little pencil to colour them up, and for the cards I used papers that were kindly sent to me as pressies over the months so I can't tell you the makes except for the dark blue paper on the boy card which is Stampin Up. Sentiments were printed out in Word on my computer, and some lace, flowers, laser-cut chippies and gems were added to the Birdie card (along with some distressing of the paper), and buttons and twine finish off the Frog Friend card.

Image: Birdie Friend by Crissy Armstrong

Colouring: Copics

Lasercut Chippies by Make It Crafty: Butterfly Leaves

Flowers: Wild Orchid Crafts

Lace and gems from my craft stash

Other: Tim Holtz Distress Ink, Tattered Rose

Image: Frog Friend by Crissy Armstrong

Colouring: Copics

Buttons & Twine from my craft stash

Other: Nestabilities large standard circles and lacy circles

I'd like to enter the Birdie Friend card in these challenges:
2 Sisters - Friends
Anything Goes - Vintage/shabby chic
Aud Sentiments - card/sentiment for a girl
Cardmaking Mamas - Go digital
Creative Card Crew - Anything Goes
Kaboodle Doodles - Ric rac, fabric or lace
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Stamp Something - Digi day

I'd like to enter the Frog Friend card in these challenges:
2 Sisters - Friends
Allsorts - Green & blue
Challenge Up Your Life - Something for a man
Creative Card Crew - Anything Goes
Emerald Garden Faeries - Buttons
My Craft Spot - Friends are the best
Papertake Weekly - Anything goes
Stamp Something - digi day

If you'd like to enter this challenge, full instructions are on the main blog, which you can find HERE.

Happy crafting!

No black lines

2011-09-03T11:00:00.003+01:00

Morning all, I'm here with my latest project for Make It Colourful, which today has a very interesting new challenge. You may have spotted this new technique around blogland recently, Zoe has had all the girls in the MiC Facebook group trying it and there have been some gorgeously-coloured images as a result.

Well the technique is one that Zoe is calling No Lines - you stamp your image in very pale ink, or print your digi stamp at a reduced opacity, so that you are colouring inside very faint lines, not the heavy black outlines that we are all used to as stampers. Interesting, eh?

For my project I used a new freebie digi that Zoe made available to the Facebook group - her name is Pipi and she comes with long hair on either side of her head, but I gave her a quick trim, he he. Colouring is Copics as usual with a bit of pencil here and there, and for the dress I used my favourite copic pinks: R81, R83, R85 and R89.

Image: Pipi, a freebie from Make It Crafty

Colouring: Copic markers

Computer-generated sentiment

Magnolia Rose Leaf Doo Hickey die

Doily, DP, ribbons, flowers and gem brad from my craft stash

From this week, we will be using the NEW Make It Crafty gallery for the challenges - you really must check it out, you can join and upload your own projects as well as seeing all the makes from the Design Team.....loads of inspiration all in one place!

This is another image I tried using the No Lines technique....I stamped Tilda in Angel Pink memento ink and used Copics to colour her. I find it's necessary to concentrate much more when you don't have the thick black lines to help keep your ink under control, and you have to add the eyes back in using inks or pencils. My tip for this technique is to persevere even if you think you have messed up - it sort of comes together at some point, and if it doesn't then you've still had some practice.

Image: Magnolia Secretive Tilda

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Aud Sentiment Challenge - card/sentiment for a girl
By The Cute & Girly - All things bright and beautiful
Cardmadfairy's Digi Days - Add flowers
Cardmaking Mamas - Go digi
Copic Creations - Pretty in pink
Crafting For All Seasons - Bingo (I chose Ribbons-Glitter/Shine-Flowers....2 ribbons, shine in the form of a gem brad in the flower centre, and flowers in the embellies, image and paper)
Crafty Purple Frog - Birthdays
Delicious Doodles - New and Fresh (the image is new as is the 'No Lines' colouring technique)
Ellephantastic - Here come the girls
Stamp Something - Digi day
Top Tip Tuesday - Shabby chic (I chose the backing paper and colour scheme for this challenge as it looked very shabby chic to me)

So that's me, sorry I've not been in blogland much again, I'm afraid I'm struggling with the M.E. a lot more these days and have to ration the time and energy spent crafting and blogging/visiting blogs. But I'm still making it round to visit, just try and keep me away, he he.

Happy crafting!

A clean-freak in paradise!

2011-08-24T15:45:00.000+01:00

Hi all, I've found something else I can clean! I thought I'd show you some before and after photos of my copics. I've spent the last couple of days cleaning them up with some rubbing alcohol. It's only after seeing these photos that I realise just how mucky my poor markers were....the ink was literally congealed and sticky around the ends of the markers and in the lids.

BEFORE:

These weren't even the worst!

Caps like this had to be soaked to loosen some of the gunky ink

The ink on that Y28 in the foreground was actually hard!!

Oh, the shame! How could I do this to my beloved markers?

Well, these babies are workhorses, you know!

AFTER:

Shiny shiny markers; happy face :)

Please tell me I'm not the only shamefully grubby colourer!

It took me about 150-200 ml of alcohol , many cotton buds (Q Tips), 2 pairs of protective gloves, loads of paper towels, and a big fat fume-induced headache to clean about 200 markers, but now they are gleaming.

Happy cleaning!

Cici is Grounded!

2011-08-21T21:00:00.000+01:00

Happy Saturday everyone, I hope all are enjoying a pleasant weekend. Saturday morning can only mean one thing.....a new challenge at Make It Colourful! This week is a good one and a useful one too - we want you to add some ground to your image. It's a useful thing because it stops your image looking as though it's floating in the ether somewhere, and it's really easy to do.

Make It Crafty is sponsoring this challenge and there is a FABULOUS prize on offer for the winner....the Urban Street Elements Collection!!!! I'd be entering just for the chance to win that, I can tell you.

There are a number of ways of adding some ground for your image....pop over to the main challenge blog for some more ideas.

So this is my card....now you know I usually do lots of ground for my images, I'm not one to leave any white space uncoloured, he he. So I challenged myself to colour just enough ground for my image and no more. I chose this image from Make It Crafty again (I used her last week - sorry for the repeat but I really love colouring this stamp) and I quite like leaving a lot of white space around her.

How I did the ground: I added grass round her feet by using 3 shades of copic greens (G21, G24 and G94) and used little upward flicks of the markers to make the blades of grass. I practiced first and found it better to start with the lightest shade and then use the medium and lastly the darkest shades.

I used blue green shades for the dress and flower to fit the themes at Copic Creations and Crafts For Me (see below for the shades I used), but I like those colours anyway. I also changed the colours of the flowers from pale blues to blue greens to match the flower in Cici's hair. The little dragonfly is a lasercut chippie by Make It Crafty, kindly sent me by the gorgeous Zoe, and I used a fluid chalk ink pad to colour it red. A few blue-green gems add a bit of bling.

Image: Cici by Make It Crafty

Colouring: Copic markers (Blue greens are: dress-BG72,BG75. Flower-BG000,BG01,BG05,BG09 and BG10,BG13,BG15)

Lasercut chipboard dragonfly by Make It Crafty

DP: unknown (a gift)
Flowers, card candy, leaves, lace and gems from my craft stash

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I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Aud Sentiments - Anything Goes
Copic Creations - blue greens
Craft Us Crazy - Anything Goes
Crafts & Me - blues or blue greens
Creative Inspirations - use your favourite stamp
One Stop Craft Challenge - bold and bright
Papertake Weekly - bingo (Gems-FREE-lace; Blooms-FREE-lace)
Truly Scrumptious - lace it up
Whoopsi Daisy - anything goes

I hope you like it. For more ideas for grounding your image, check out my fellow teamies cards.

Have a lovely weekend, and happy crafting!

Dream Valley Challenge #14

2011-08-21T12:01:00.006+01:00

Good morning bloggers! There's a new challenge at Dream Valley today, and it's something a little 'zingy' for you.....a colour challenge:

LEMON, LIME AND ORANGE

Our sponsor this week is Stitchy Bear, and one lucky winner will receive a $10 voucher for their store!

The Design Team were given some images to play with, and this is what I made:

I used the Stitchy Bear image Fairy Moon, and some yellow and orange patterned papers, green fluid chalk for the edges, green ribbon and yellow flowers. I took the black from the colour photo above and used that in the sentiment and of course the silhouette image. Some liquid pearls finish off the card. I've never made a circular easel card before, and I don't usually use such bright colours, but it's nice to try something new.

Image: Fairy Moon by Stitchy Bear

DPs: DCWV, Pocket Full Of Posies papers
Nestabilities dies: Lacey Circles and Deckled-edged ovals

Sentiment: from computer, font is Noir-et-blanc

Pearls: Viva pearl pen

All flowers and ribbon from my craft stash.

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I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Aud Sentiments - anything goes
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - easel cards
Do You Stack Up - Thank you
Fresh Brewed Month Long Challenge - Hot theme (hot colours)
One Stop Craft Challenge - bold and bright
Papertake Weekly - bingo (Gems-Ribbon-Blooms; FREE-pearls-blooms; and Pearl-Ribbon-FREE)
Stamp Something - Thank You
Top Tip Tuesday - Thank you cards
Whoopsi Daisy - Anything goes

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You'll find more inspiration and some fab cards from my teamies over on the main challenge blog.

Hope you haven't got a headache from the bright colours, he he.

Happy Crafting!

Make It Crafty and Whimsy Stamps meet on the street!

2011-08-14T11:00:00.015+01:00

Whimsy Stamps & Make it Crafty have come together to create a fun Urban Themed digi collection!

Ann Vento has whipped up her magic and designed an

incredible collection of funky wall sayings, city landscapes and of course a range of super cool street signs.

Check out the Sentiments collection HERE

Make it Crafty is trying something new offering all the different elements for you to build your own urban backdrop.

Check out the Urban Street Collection HERE

Then of course, what better characters to incorporate into such a scene than the fabulous KennyK rubber stamps available from Whimsy Stamps!

Our incredibly talented Design Teams have had a blast playing with all the different elements to bring you LOTS of inspiration!

We have broken it in to TWO HOPS
HOP A Starts Here & HOP B Starts HERE!

There will be a winner for EACH HOP and if you hop your way through BOTH, you’ll go in the draw for the GRAND PRIZE TOO!

HOP A & B Winners will each receive a $15 voucher from both Whimsy Stamps and Make it Crafty.

The GRAND WINNER will win our full Urban Digital Collection:
4 Digi Sentiment sets by Ann Vento & the Urban Elements Collection from Make it Crafty.

You are currently on HOP B and should have arrived from ANNIKA

I made 2 cards, the first uses Kenny K's Boogie Down, 4 images from the Make It Crafty Urban Street Collection,

and 2 of the new Whimsy sentiments:

Coloured with Copics; paper is Basic Grey 'Archaic'; black pleated ribbon and stars are from my craft stash

And my second card uses Kenny K's Victory Kid,

4 images from the Make It Crafty Urban Street Collection,

and 2 of the new Whimsy sentiments:

Coloured with Copics; paper is Basic Grey 'Archaic'; 7 different coloured eyelets are from my craft stash.

Your next stop on HOP B is MARILYN, but before you go make sure you leave a comment below!

You have until August 21^st 8PM Australian QLD time to make your way through the hops!

Be there... or be square! J

vvv

I'd like to enter the first card (Boogie Down) in these challenges:
Craft Us Crazy - Anything Goes
K B Cute Monday - Anything Goes With a Digi
Meljen Designs - use black
One Stitch At A Time - Anything goes
Sir Stampalot - Whatever You Fancy
Some Odd Girl - Complimentary colours (blue and orange in her clothing)

vvv

I'd like to enter the 2nd card (Victory Kid) in these challenges:
Cards For Men - Clean and Simple
Colour Create - Blue Green White Brown and Red
Craft Us Crazy - Anything Goes
Incy Wincy Designs - Something Old, Something New (my backing paper and eyelets are so old now, and the images are all brand new)
K B Cute Monday - Anything Goes with a Digi
Kaboodle Doodles - use Primary colours
One Stitch At A Time - Anything Goes
Paper Creators Craft - Red and blue
Sparkles Forum - One For The Boys

vvv

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You're Yummy!

2011-08-13T11:00:00.006+01:00

Good morning all, and firstly let me tell you that something exciting is happening tomorrow, so check back then to find out what (wink).

Well, it's a new challenge at Make It Colourful today and it's a bit of a stretch this week, but a rewarding one if you give it a go. This week we want you to Colour Something Wet. Now, that doesn't mean using gloss to make some shine, you have to use colouring to make something appear wet.

Our sponsor this week is none other than Mo Manning, and the lucky winner will receive their choice of 2 digi images from Mo's Digital Pencil.

I only had time to have one go at this, but here it is. I used a simple image because I was scared of making a mess of the water drop. So I chose this sweet digi image from Make It Crafty.....she's called Cici, and it's one of those images that really grows on once you colour it up. I decided to make a drop of juice running down the cherry from the bite. Do you think it looks convincing? Well, I feel I need more practice at this, but it's a nice way of bringing a little something of your own to the image. So you see you have to enter this challenge so I can get some tips for how to do a better job!

And I'm super chuffed to have been able to make a one-layer card at last because there is not one bit of backing paper, embellishment or stuck-on sentiment anywhere! It has been my ambition for some time to be able to enter the Less Is More Challenge.....look at all that white space....take it in girls cos you don't know when you'll see me being this restrained again, he he. (Actually, I secretly really enjoyed it and am hoping to do it again soon!)

If you're daunted at the thought of colouring a water droplet, here is how I made mine: as I started to colour the cherry, I used my palest colour to draw the outline of a droplet and coloured around it till the cherry was nearly finished. Then I filled in the body of the droplet using a paler shade than the cherry surrounding it, but left a thin white uncoloured line around the colouring inside the drop. I added a little shading to the inside of the water droplet on the opposite side from the light (which was coming from the right side), and a small dot of white gel on the side nearest the light. Then I added some shadow on the cherry to the left of the drop (away from the light), and lastly went over the white uncoloured outline of the drop with a pale pink. There might be other ways of doing droplets, but that is how I did mine.

Image: Cici by Make It Crafty

Colouring medium: Copic markers

Other: Nestabilities Lacy Circles die; rub-on sentiments

Gingham ribbon from stash

I'd like to enter this in these challenges:
Challenge Up Your Life - no patterned paper
Craft Us Crazy - Anything Goes
Crafty Sentiments - Dies and punches (card is made from 2 die-cut lacey circles stuck together)
Cute Card Thursday - Clean and Simple
Digi Doodle Shop Challenges - Shaped cards
Fresh Brewed - Clean and simple (less than 3 embellishments)
Hooked on Crafts - Sweet Treats
Incy Wincy Designs - Something old, something new (the ribbon is very old, the stamp is brand new and bought just for this project)
K B Cute Monday - Anything goes with a digi
Some Odd Girl - use complimentary colours (I used blue-violet and yellowy-orange)
Totally Gorjuss - Round and round

I will definitely use this gorgeous image again, she was a joy to colour. So, until tomorrow have a lovely Saturday everyone.

Happy Crafting!

A date for your diary....

2011-08-12T14:28:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone, just drawing your attention to a new blinkie on my sidebar. Put the date in your diary cos you won't believe the brilliant stuff being released that day. Honestly, you will want!

Carole x

Today's the day!

2011-08-07T18:00:00.009+01:00

Hi everyone, I have a bit of exciting news to share with you at last......I am one of the new DT members at Sundays With Crissy! I was so happy that Crissy asked me, not only because I had just discovered her images not long ago and loved using them, but because that challenge is one that I always looked up to see what the current theme was and loved entering it. I won her Artist Choice Award a couple of times too, so all in all this is great for me. I've had to keep a lid on it till now, but as today is my first DT post I can shout about it at last, he he.

This challenge is slightly different in that the Design Team showcase their cards throughout the month rather than all together when the challenge is announced. So if you drop in to Sundays With Crissy regularly, you'll see more cards uploaded every few days. I'll be posting early each month.

So the theme for this month's challenge is K.I.S.S. which stands for Keep It Simple Stamper. We'd like you to keep your card as simple as possible, something which is more of a challenge for some of us than others!

For my DT card, I used this fabulous image by Crissy Armstrong called Dance of Love. I pictured this very brightly coloured, so I chose a bright paper to go with it, and kept the design very simple.....just the image, a couple of nestie circles to frame it, a strip of black pleated ribbon with some green ribbon on top, and a couple of chipboard corners that I coloured with copic ink, with gem hearts mounted on them.

Image: Dance of Love, by Crissy Armstrong

Colouring: Copic markers

DP: Memory Box, Brioche

Lasercut chipboards corners by Make It Crafty

Other: Nestabilities Lacey Circles

Black pleated ribbon, green ribbon and pink gem hearts from stash

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Allsorts Challenge - Red as the main colour
Fabulous Friday - use colouring on your project
Sir Stampalot - Whatever you fancy
Sketch & Stash - My stash: brand new chipboard corners, and old old really old gem hearts found in a box in my craft box. Green ribbon is also an oddment that has been lurking unused for a long time.
Stamp Something - Use a digi

I hope you like my card - don't forget to visit the main challenge blog again throughout the month to see more inspiration from the Design Team.

Happy crafting!

Dream Valley #13 - Distressing

2011-08-07T12:00:00.008+01:00

Hi everyone, I'll be back later this evening with another post and the bit of news I hinted at yesterday (yes, 2 posts in a day!! very unlike me, he he) but in the meantime I'm here with a new DT card for Dream Valley Challenges, which this fortnight has the theme of Distressing.

We have 2 sponsors again this week: One Stop Card Crafts who are giving away a £10 gift certificate for their store, and Digi Doodles who are giving a $10 gift certificate for theirs, so 2 lucky winners will receive prizes.

So here's my card, and it's one that I made for my lovely blogging friend, Joan of Stamping With A Passion, who lives in Texas in the US. We met through blogging, and wanted to exchange cards so I made this specially for her. I've added some distressing in the form of inking round the edges of the papers, and I also used my Tim Holtz distressing tool to scuff up those same edges. A little handstitching further helps define the edges, and some embellishments from my stash complete the card. I hope you like it.

Image: Magnolia Tilda

Colouring: Copic markers

Papers: Prima Moulin Rouge

Flowers and pearls: Wild Orchid Crafts

Other: Magnolia Doo Hickey Rose Leaf die

Lace from stash

Computer-generated sentiments

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Ellephantastic - Add some layers
Emerald Faeries - Lace
Fabulous Friday - use colouring on your card
Just Magnolia & hAnglar - Anything Goes, optional glitter
Just Some Lines - Outdoors/Summer
Kaboodle Doodles - In The Garden
Little Darlings - Girly
Paper Creators Crafts - All About Flowers
Patties Creations - faux or real stitching

In the Pink!

2011-08-06T11:00:00.008+01:00

Good morning all, and please forgive me for not being around much in the last couple of weeks - a mixture of eyestrain and still more need for rest has kept me off the computer, although I have tried to still visit blogs but on a less frequent basis. I've also been busy making more cards than I usually would make - 2 this week so far! lol.

Anyway, being Saturday, there is a new challenge at Make It Colourful today, and you'll like this one.....COLOUR IN PINK. That's it, just use pink as one of the colours in your image. We'd like to see you feature pink though rather than just have a tiny bit somewhere in your colouring.

Our sponsor is Bunny Zoe's Crafts and Nicki is offering a £10 gift voucher to her store as a prize this week.

This is my card: the fairy image was a freebie from Digital Two For Tuesday, and I used it to make a scene using 2 Make It Crafty digi images: the Whimsical Mushroom, and the Tulip Garden which is a brand new release (links to the stamps are in the card recipe below). There's a whole bunch of new garden images available if you just want to add a simple background to your image, and I used this image twice behind the mushrooms and fairy. Colouring is in Copics as per usual and I took pinks from different colour families for my image today: my favourite copic pinks are actually in the Red family - R81, R83, R85 & R89 - and these are what I used on the dress. The wings are coloured mainly with the Red Violets RV000, RV02, RV10 with a little R83, and lastly I used some pinky Violets - V91 & V95 - on the mushroom to give it a slight pink tone. I also used my markers to colour up a couple of lasercut chipboards (also from Make It Crafty). I kept the layout very simple as it was a quick-ish card, and also to let the image stand out more. Hope you like it. And do drop by my fellow teamies blogs, I can tell you their designs are really beautiful.

Images: Fairy, a freebie from Digital Two For Tuesday

Whimsical Mushroom from Make It Crafty

Tulip Garden from Make It Crafty

Colouring: Copic markers - pinks used: R81 R83 R85 R89 RV000 RV02 RV10 V91 V95

Flower Leaf Swirls lasercut chipboards from Make It Crafty

Flower: Prima

Other: Martha Stewart doily punch, Stickles glitter, and ribbon from stash

I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
Clearly Inspired - Things with Wings
Copic Creations - Landscape Design
Crafts & Me - Anything goes
Fabulous Friday - use colouring on your card
Kaboodle Doodles - In the Garden
Kelley Kids - Anything Goes
Little Darlings - Girly
Poodles Parlour - Round and round the garden
Stamp Something - Use a digi

It's been so long since my last blog post that I had to think how to do all the links and add the photos! It won't be so long till my next post....I'll be back tomorrow with another card and a bit of exciting news.

Happy crafting!

Here Comes The Sun

2011-07-25T11:00:00.000+01:00

Good Morning bloggers! It’s Saturday, and time for another new challenge at Make It Colourful. This week’s fun theme is to Colour Your Embellishments. Being able to change the colour of your decorations gives you more versatility with your embellies, plus you can get a more co-ordinated look with your project.

This is my DT card: the image is done with Copics and I used some of the shades used in the image to colour my embellies, but you could always use another medium to add or change the colours. These are the embellishments that I coloured or changed colour:

Chipboard corners – coloured with YG67

Chipboard ribbon slider – coloured with Y15 and YR04

Sequin flowers – coloured with Y15 and Y17, and covered over with Copic Spica pen

Flower gems stuck on the chipboard corners – added YG63 to change their colour from bright yellow to a nice yellow-green

Mats under the image, yellow square DP and sentiment – white card edged with YG63 and YG67

Mats under the image, papers and sentiment coloured in YG63 and YG67

Chipboard corner coloured with YG67, and bright yellow flower gem toned down with some YG63

Chipboard ribbon slider coloured with Y15 and YR04, then coloured over with Copic Spica. and white flower sequins coloured with Y15 and Y17 (2 in each shade)

Card Recipe:

Images: Summer Dreams by Make It Crafty

Meadow Background by Crissy Armstrong

Colouring: Copics

DPs: Tim Coffey, K&Company: Daisy and Daffodil pads

Swirly Corners laser-cut chipboard by Make It Crafty

Fancy Ribbon Slider laser-cut chipboard by Make It Crafty

Flowers: Prima and Papermania

Ribbon, gems, sequin flowers from my stash

Computer-generated sentiment

　
I'd like to enter this in these challenges:
Bling It On - Anything Goes
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Fun In The Sun
Copic Creations - Pastel Colours
Crafts & Me - Add A Flower
Divas By Design - Pastels
GuyLou's Inimitability - Recipe (1 ribbon, 2 papers, 3 or more bling - mine is 2 flower gems and 5 sticky gems in flower centres)
Lollipop Crafts - Anything Goes

　
Hope you like my card; for more inspiration about colouring your embellishments, check out my teamies’ cards on the main challenge blog.

Have a good weekend!
　

Dream Valley Challenge #12

2011-07-24T12:00:00.001+01:00

Good Morning everyone, I hope everyone is well today. It's a new challenge at Dream Valley this weekend, and the theme is SURPRISE - we want you to incorporate a surprise into your project such as a hidden thing, a flap or a pop up. You can choose one of these surprises or a different one, it's up to you.

We are sponsored this week by Digis With Attitude, and a lucky winner will receive a gift voucher for their store.

This is my DT card for this week, and I've used one of Digis With Attitude's images, called Goth Tween. She is coloured with Copics, and I also used my copics to colour some embellishments to match the colours in the image - the metal corner is coloured black, the ribbon is coloured blue-violet, the paper flowers are coloured yellow-green and blue-violet, as are the large half-pearls in the flower centres. I added a cross charm to match Goth Tween's earring - it came from my lovely crafting friend Joan, all the way from the US. I added a sentiment from Digis With Attitude (I cut off part of it and just kept the one word) to finish it off.

Image: Goth Tween by Digis With Attitude; Sentiment also by DWA

Colouring: Copic markers BV00,02,04,08, N2,4,6,8, YG06,63, E000,00,21,11, R81,83

DP: Moulin Rouge by Prima

Metal corner: Wild Orchid Crafts

Now for the surprise bit....it looks like a card, but when you open it up it's actually a wallet and contains some stamped images, so in fact it's a little gift.

Hope you like my project....don't forget to check out my teamies' cards to get some more ideas, they have made some fab surprises.

Have a good weekend and see you all soon.

Tilda with pink hair, and a DT call entry

2011-07-16T11:00:00.006+01:00

Morning bloggers, and how is everyone today? I must apologise for being so behind with my blog visiting and commenting - I needed to rest and have some time off, so now it's a case of catching up on everything. I'm getting there and I'll be round for a visit very soon.....promise!

So, another Saturday means another challenge at Make It Colourful, and this week we have a goodie......colour hair but not the usual colours of black, brown, red or blonde. Any other colour you like though! We are sponsored this week by Quixotic Paperie, who are UK stockists of Make It Crafty products amongst other crafty delights, and a very lucky person can win a £10 gift voucher for their store.

This is my DT card, and it's turned out way fussier and frillier than I had intended. The scene is a mix of rubber and digi images - you might recall seeing this Chaise from Make it Crafty in my last card on Thursday and I can promise you I'll be bringing it out a lot because it's my New Favourite Stamp. And I've wanted to use this little boy from Crissy Armstrong, called 'Can I Kiss You?' for a while now - it seemed perfect to have him on this gorgeous seat - and who better to pair him up with than Tilda? I decided to give her bright pink hair as per the challenge, using copics RV23, RV25, RV29, and R39.

The decorative swirly corners are laser-cut chipboard by Make It Crafty, which I got from Quixotic. I used a Krylon gold pen to coat them with a little gold paint and added a couple of pearls to them. Some green ribbon, a double flower, some leaves, a heart pin and an adage ticket finish it off.

More of the colouring on the Chaise

Images: Make It Crafty's Chaise; Crissy Armstrong's Can I Kiss You, available from Whimsy Stamps; Magnolia Tilda

Colouring: Copic markers (hair colour is RV23, RV25, RV29 and R39)

Designer paper: Kaisercraft - Peppermint

Lasercut chipboard corners by Make It Crafty, available from Quixotic Paperie

Tim Holtz adage ticket

Krylon gold pen

Pearls, flowers, leaves, heart pin and ribbon from stash.

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Click here for details

Sundays With Crissy is having a DT call at the moment and it's on for the whole of July so there are still a couple of weeks left if you want to join in. I'd like to enter this card for the call.

I'm entering this card in these challenges:

Bling It On - Anything Goes

Creative Craft Challenges - Pretty Blossoms

Do You Stack Up? - Sew: faux or real

Lollipop Crafts - Anything Goes

Sir Stampalot - Anything Goes

Sundays With Crissy - DT Call

Mix & Match with Tiddly Inks & Make it Crafty

2011-07-14T05:00:00.072+01:00

Morning all, I hope everyone is well.

It’s an exciting day because finally time to release the big Mix n’ Match collection from Tiddly Inks and Make it Crafty!

Together they have been craftily plotting behind the scenes for months (making us drool in anticipation) to bring out a fabulous collection of Steampunk creations with a Victorian theme. You’ll find little steampunk houses, bits and bobs background scenes, flying contraptions, gorgeous characters and a fine selection of digital papers.

We could send you on a little hop, but they are getting a bit boring... so they knocked their heads together and thought up a game to play instead!

‘I SPY’ with my little eye...

... hmmm what do you spy??
Well to find out, head on over to where it all begins!!

CLICK HERE to find out more and play the game.

PLUS 15% OFF NEW RELEASE IMAGES FOR A WEEK

Start Mix n’ Matching with Tiddly Inks and Make it Crafty straight away as you grab the super bargain of 15% OFF.

Just enter the coupon code MIXNMATCH at checkout.

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So, this is my card using a couple of the new release images: I merged Tiddly Inks 'Owlette' with 'Chaise' from Make It Crafty - I just couldn't resist that little owl and so wanted to try my hand at colouring the polished wood and plush fabric of the Chaise. I hope I did them justice. I added ribbon,flowers, black pearls, a metal corner and a leafy diecut to finish.

Images: Chaise by Make It Crafty; Owlette by Tiddly Inks

Colouring: Copic markers

Designer Paper: Paper Cellar's Victorian Burgundy

Metal corner: Wild Orchid Crafts

Everything else from stash

I'm entering this in these challenges:
Allsorts - Free and easy July
Bling It On - Anything Goes
Creative Craft Challenges - Pretty Blossoms
Deep Ocean Challenges - Cards
Digi Days - Include an animal
Digis With Attitude! Challenges # 32 - Anything Goes
Lollipop Crafts - Anything Goes
The Paper Shelter - For the birds
The Poodles Parlour - Bird's Eye View

I hope you like the new images as much as I do, and that you'll come along for a bit of fun with the I-Spy game too. Happy crafting!

Guest Designer - Michelle Perkett Studios

2011-07-07T08:18:00.011+01:00

Hello crafters, I hope you are enjoying the fine summer weather and are managing to keep your bits of paper from flying around your craft space in the breeze from the desk fan (like I am finding, he he).

I was very happy to be asked to be a Guest Designer at Michelle Perkett Studios this week. I've only made one MPS card so far, it was from an image that I tracked down when I saw it on a blog somewhere. Anyway, I liked the first image so much I had to say Yes. The theme this week is Anything But A Card, which is something of a challenge for someone who only really makes cards! But I put my new box-maker to work and made this gift box.

The image I used is a relatively new release, she's called Peace Angel, and very easy to colour. I aged and handstitched some paper to decorate the box, and simply added some flowers, liquid pearls and a computer-made sentiment. My tip for this image is to roll something cylindrical lengthways over figure to round the skirt and adhere to the box using silicon gel so that it has some dimension and also makes her look like she is floating in the air like a real angel. Also, use a ball tool along the spine of the wings to give them some shape and curl. I hope you like it.

Image: Peace Angel from Michelle Perkett

Paper: Brioche by Memory Box

Colouring: Copic markers

Flowers: Kaishercraft, Prima and Wild Orchid Crafts

I'm entering this in these challenges:

Allsorts Challenge - Free and easy July

By The Cute and Girly - Things With Wings

C.R.A.F.T. - Boxes

Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes

Digis With Attitude! Challenges #32 - Anything Goes

Flutterby Wednesday - Open Challenge

Hooked On Crafts - Show Us Your Flowers

Lollipop Crafts - Anything Goes

Paper Sundaes - Stitching

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

Spoonful of Sugar - Sewing

Stamp Something - Use a Digi

Truly Scrumptious - Things With Wings

Enjoy the rest of the week; I'll be back at the weekend with another project. Till then, see you on your blogs.

Make It Colourful: Colouring Reflections on Water

2011-07-02T11:00:00.004+01:00

Morning all, and today is a new weekly challenge at Make It Colourful. I have my DT project to show you, but first I'd like to let you know about an exciting upcoming image release later this month. Now, when I say exciting, I'm not just trying to hype it up, I really do find this exciting....Make It Crafty and Tiddly Inks have got together and produced some new images on the Steampunk theme, with some great character and building images. I have to say I've never been interested in Steampunk, but when I got my hot little hands on these images, I printed them off straight away and started colouring. I'm not usually that quick, he he. Anyway, you can read all about it HERE.

So, our theme this week is Colouring Water Reflections, and this is the card I made. I've used Crissy Armstrong's Great Day To Fish image before, but this time I merged it with another digi image, Make It Crafty's The Beach, after erasing the foreground, so that the pier comes from the island into the sea. The image is so big that there wasn't much room for embellishments, so I simply embossed and sanded a sheet of yellow coredinations whitewash cardstock, made some rope from yellow yarn and threaded that through some punched holes, added a 'Gone Fishing!' sign, and also a little palm tree charm that came all the way from the US from my lovely friend Joan, from Stamping With a Passion:

Isn't the palm tree cute?

Images: The Beach, by Make It Crafty;
Great Day To Fish, by Crissy Armstrong, available from Whimsy Stamps

Colouring: Copic markers

Don't forget, we still have the month-long challenge going on till the end of July, you can find that HERE.

I'm entering this is these challenges:
Allsorts Challenge - Free and easy
Crafters Companion - One For The Boys
Fresh Brewed (month-long challenge) - It's a Guy Thing
Lollipop Crafts - Anything Goes
Pollycraft - Make a splash - water-themed
Stamp Something - Use a Digi
Sundays With Crissy - DT call

Have a good week and Happy Crafting everyone!

Special month-long challenge at Make It Colourful

2011-06-30T11:00:00.000+01:00

Hi all, hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. I have a new Make It Colourful DT project to show you, but first I want to let you know about a month-long celebration challenge we are having in association with Quixotic Paperie, where there are 5 times as many chances to win than usual, plus details of random prizes, mega candy giveaway, and a really tempting discount available for the next few days only. Read on for info about these, and my DT project follows that....I've left some sneaky peaks along the way to introduce you to a few characters that made it onto my project.

Make it Crafty is turning ONE!!

Woohooo – The celebrations have begun at Make it Crafty!!!

It's a double celebration because Make It Crafty is now a year old, and Quixotic Paperie, who were the first company to take on the Make It Crafty stamps, laser embellies and blending card, are having their second anniversary during June.

So to mark the events, there will be a special challenge throughout June using Make It Crafty products - the challenge is divided into 5 categories so there are 5 prizes up for grabs! There's also random winners throughout the whole month - the numbers have been pre-selected and as soon as an entry is added that matches that number they WIN! (Winners will be announced soon after entry on the sidebar of Make it Colourful.)

To get inspired, hop on over to the Make it Colourful challenge blog where you will see the amazing creations the fabulous DT’s from MiC and QP have created for this event. PLUS find out all the details on how you can play along.

PLUS there’s MORE!!

Quixotic Paperie have a little something for you too - make sure you pop on over to HERE to enter your name for a chance at MORE Make it Crafty Goodies.

PLUS THERE’S MORE!!!

Zoe, the owner of Make it Crafty has a super duper HUGE Candy give away – choc-a-block FULL of Make it Crafty goodies!! AND I have heard a whisper that she is planning on having random giveaways on her blog throughout the month of July! All you need to do is leave her some love here as she’ll randomly be choosing people who have commented on her posts throughout the last year.

PLUS THERE’S EVEN MORE!!!

You’ll also receive a set of steak knives when you... hahaa ONLY Joking BUT... for THREE DAYS ONLY you’ll be able to get 40% off Make it Crafty Digi Stamps when you enter the coupon code: CELEBRATE

(Ends June 28^th)

So I do hope you will celebrate with us this month and get into the Make it Crafty spirit of FUN!!

I can tell you, if I wasn't on the Design Team, I'd be entering this for sure! LOL. Now as I said the challenge is divided into 5 categories:

1. Merge as many images as you can

2. The most creative combination of images

3. Rubber stamps only

4. Chipboard Only (no image)

5. Colour using the MiC Logo colours – blue/mustard/yellow and brown

As you can see, whether you like working with rubber, digis, chipboard embellies or colour challenges, there is a category for everyone, so if you feel like joining in and don't have any Make It Crafty products yet, use that 40% discount and come along and play.

I've made my DT project for the first category, and I managed to merge 7 digi images to make this wall-hanging as a gift for one of my little nieces who'll be 7 next month:

Using Paint.Net to merge the images, I started with the Hilly Lane background, then in layers I added 2 Old Oak Trees, 2 Petals and Palings (the fencing), the Mushroom House, and then 3 characters: Vixie, the little fairy blowing a kiss to Notti, who is falling off his mushroom in shock, all watched over by Fluttering Sapphire Fairy, who isn't fluttering here as I've stationed her behind the fencing. Yes, it's a challenge to colour up a complex scene like this, but if you take each item at a time it's much easier, and it was really fun to make this. It's coloured as usual in Copics, and I'd printed it off way too big to fit on a card, which is why it's a wall hanging - mounted on sturdy card and with only a little embellishment. Here is a shot of the colouring only - you can click to enlarge it:

Merging digis is actually quite easy with Paint.Net (which is a free programme you can download from the WWW, just Google for it - it's not the same as Paint which comes with your computer though) and you don't need to merge this many to enter, just try a couple.....go on, you'll be addicted to it in no time!

I'd like to enter this into these challenges:
2 Sisters - Fairies
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Fairies
Pixie Cottage - Outdoor Fun

Hope you like my wall-hanging, and don't forget if you like any of these images you'll need to be quick to get them at that discounted price.

Phew that must be my longest ever blog post!

Happy crafting!

Dream Valley #10 - Ribbons

2011-06-26T12:00:00.002+01:00

Hi everyone and happy Sunday to you all! We have a new challenge for you at Dream Valley Challenges today, and you'll love the theme cos it involves a crafter's staple item.....USE RIBBONS! Who doesn't like to use a bit of ribbon on their projects, it's simply an essential! lol. Our sponsor is Crafty Ribbons, so a lucky randomly-picked winner will receive a prize from them.

My card this week is a very simple one and fairly quick to make because I didn't colour this fabulous image, but I am really pleased with the result. I used a Crafty Purple Frog download that I won last week - it's actually a decoupage sheet but I just used the base image. I cut a circle from the image, stuck that onto a scalloped circle Nestie, fixed another Nestie to it for the back of the card, and wound ribbon through all the holes round the edge. I tied the ends in a bow, added some flowers and glitter and voila! a very simple idea but I hope you will like it.

This is a printed image.....I DIDN'T COLOUR IT, wish I could colour like this!

Image: Night Glimmer (Decoupage sheet) from Crafty Purple Frog

Spellbinders Nestabilities Lacey Circles diecuts

Ribbon, flowers and glitter from my stash

I'm entering this in these challenges:
C.E.S. Challenges - Anything but square
Spoonful of Sugar - Ribbons & Bows
Whoopsie Daisy - pile on the flowers

That's me for today, enjoy your weekend and I'll see you when I pop into your blogs during the week. Bye for now!

Make It Colourful #23 - Colour Cast

2011-06-18T11:05:00.006+01:00

Hello everyone, hope you're enjoying your weekend.

It's Saturday, which means another challenge at Make It Colourful, and this week the theme is Colour Cast. We are sponsored this time by the fab Whimsy Stamps.

What is Colour Cast?
Now, I have to admit, I didn't know what this meant, but it's to do with the temperature of the light on a subject - some lighting is warm, like incandescent lightbulbs, candles or a sunny day, and some lighting is cool, like fluorescent bulbs, TV/computer screen glows or early-morning light.

Reflect the colour of light or background or elements onto your main subject/s.

So, I've done 2 projects for this challenge, using the same image and the same colours, but one I've coloured with a warm tinge and the other with a cooler look. I've used exactly the same markers for each, just added a warmer or cooler colour as well.

The card shows Tilda in warm lighting and I've made the frame around her a gold colour; and the little picture frame has Tilda in cool lighting with a silver frame. Both projects are basically the same: a Tilda image and Make It Crafty digi frame, the card has aged and distressed and hand-stitched papers, with computer-generated sentiments and a little lace, a couple of vellum/pearl flowers and a heart pin to finish it off, and the photo frame simply has some decoupaged flowers added.

Tilda with a warm tint on the left, same image and colouring but with a cool tint on the right

A card

A little photo frame

Images: Ornate Floral Frame, digi image from Make It Crafty
Tilda With Balloon, rubber stamp from Magnolia
Colouring: Copic markers
Designer papers: Anna Griffin
Lace, flowers and heart pin from my stash

If you head on over to the main challenge blog, you'll see some more projects from the talented design team, and tomorrow it's Hints & Tips day with some ideas to help with the challenge.

I'm entering these in the following challenges:
C.R.A.F.T. - Include stitching
Charisma Cards - Pink & Green
The Crafty Pad - Just because you can...
Going Grey/Scrap Creations - Anything Goes
Shabby Tea Room - Pink, green, neutrals and flowers
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Distressed/torn edges
Southern Girls - Anything Goes
Top Tip Tuesday - Open Challenge
Whoopsi Daisy - free and easy

Hope you like my little offerings today, have a good weekend everyone :)

Reflect the colour of light or background or elements onto your main subject/s.

Make It Colourful #22 - my first DT card

2011-06-14T11:05:00.000+01:00

Hi bloggers, crafters, colourers and visitors, today is a new challenge at Make It Colourful, and it's a special one for me as it's my first time as member of the Design Team. Yes, for those that missed yesterday's post, I'm on the Z-List (that's Zoe's List, way better than the A-List, he he). The challenge this time is to:

COLOUR WITH BLUES

You can use other colours in your colouring, but blues need to be featured somewhere.

We are sponsored by Tiddly Inks, and one lucky person will win a prize from them. If you use a Make It Crafty image in your project you will be entered into a second draw and have another chance of winning a prize of 2 more Make It Crafty images. Nice, eh?

Some of the Design Team have used Tiddly Inks images, and all of us have used Make It Crafty images. If you pop over to the main blog you'll see their stunning creations, and full challenge rules are there too. Sunday is 'hints and tips' day, so you might find something useful to you about using blues in your colouring.

Here is my tip for colouring with blues: blue-green shades are great for water; a bit of dark blue brings in some shadows, and is also good to help give the look of deeper water further away from the coastline.

————

So, on to my DT card....I used Paint.net to merge 2 Make It Crafty digi images: the girl is one image, and the background of the beach, ocean and island is another one. I moved the sea shell and star fish to another position in the scene, and coloured it all up to show a sunny day. I think the finished result has the look of a postcard or a holiday photo, what do you think? I used one set of blues for the dress and ribbon, a brighter blue for the sky, and the water is made from blue-greens (scroll down to the card recipe to find out the exact shades I used). Instead of designer papers, I used coredinations cardstock with a white coating, which I embossed and sanded - I felt the whitewashed weathered look would suit the carefree beach vibe. Some flowers, a little ribbon and a sentiment ticket complete the card. Hope you like it.

Card Recipe:

Images: Summer Dreams, and The Beach, by Make It Crafty

Colouring: Copic markers - Sky: B00

Dress & Hat Ribbon: B000-B32-B34-B37-B39

Water: BG000-BG72-BG75-B97

Prima flowers and Tim Holtz adage ticket

Coredinations whitewashed cardstock and flower ribbon from stash

I'm entering this is these challenges:
Aud Sentiment Challenge - Summertime
Bling It On - Embossing (my background is embossed and sanded)
C.E.S. Challenges - Inspired by a movie ("The Beach")
Deep Ocean Challenge - anything goes
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Paper Pretties - Summer
Shabby Tea Room - Embossing
Spoonful of Sugar - Here Comes Summer
Sundays With Chrissy - Here Comes The Sun
Totally Gorjuss - Flower Power
Totally Papercrafts - Summer
Whoopsie Daisy - Free and Easy

Thanks for looking and for any comments you might like to leave. Have a good weekend everyone.

Dream Valley #9 - Fathers' Day

2011-06-12T12:05:00.011+01:00

Hello bloggers! Happy Sunday to you all. We have a new challenge at Dream Valley this weekend, and the theme is very timely as it's Fathers Day. Time to get your thinking caps on and get some male cards made.

We have 2 sponsors again: One Stop Card Crafts, and Karen's Doodles.

Here is my card, one of the very few male cards I make, he he. I used a Karen's Doodles image called Time To Relax - don't you think it's perfect to use on a Fathers Day card? I coloured with Copics, as per, and made an embellishment from a flattened Stella bottle top (other beers are available LOL). A bit of twine and a few eyelets are the only other embellishment. Hope you like it, and don't forget to check out my fellow DT's projects on the main challenge blog, they're a clever bunch and always have some great makes to show.

Image: Karen's Doodles - Time To Relax

Colouring: Copic markers

All papers and embellies from stash

I'm entering this in these challenges:
Aud Sentiment Challenge - Summertime
C.R.A.F.T. - Fathers Day
Creative Inspirations - card for Dad/man in your life
Fab N Funky Challenge - Magnificent Men
Fresh Brewed month-long challenge - It's a guy thing
Lollipop Crafts - Inspired by a song ("Lazy Sunday Afternoon")
One Stop Craft Challenge - Fathers Day
Secret Crafter - a male card
Sundays With Crissy - Here Comes The Sun
The Paper Variety - for the guys

Happy Crafting!

Someone pinch me!!

2011-06-10T11:07:00.000+01:00

Hi all, just wanted to share some brilliant news with you.....the amazing Zoe has asked me if I'd like to join her team at Make It Colourful!!! You bet I would! I've loved the Make It Colourful challenge ever since I found it and have tried to enter most weeks as I knew it would be a good way to improve my colouring skills, so to be on her Design Team is a bit of a dream.

Look! I've got a spanking new badge on my sidebar as well LOL.

Zoe has her DT complete a little interview questionnaire too, and gets us to show a childhood photo. Aaaargh, it's bigger than I thought it would be!!! lol. You can find it here.

I've been busy making my first DT card, getting to grips with all the new stuff to take on board, plus having a little tremble in case I suddenly lose my mojo, so I've not been able to be flitting around blogland as much this week. Hopefully I'll be able to visit all my regulars now.

A little about Make It Colourful....it's a colouring challenge and is a great place for anyone that loves to colour. Like all challenges, it aims to take you a little outside of your comfort zone and maybe try something new, so it's for all levels, all mediums and all sorts of projects. There's hints and tips on there too, so you may learn something new just by flitting along for a browse.

The next challenge begins tomorrow, so I'll be back with my DT card then. Here's a sneaky little peak for you:

I just want to say thank you to everyone for the fantastic and encouraging comments you've left for my colouring and cards over the last few months, it's really given me the confidence to try my hand at more colouring.

Happy crafting!

PS - got a proper signature now....how cool is that? Not sure if it's an apple or a pear tree, though!

Not been around much...

2011-06-09T13:44:00.000+01:00

Hi all, just a quickie to say sorry that I haven't been around much in the last week, so I haven't visited as many blogs as I'd like to have done - my apologies if you haven't seen any comments from me on all your cards.

Check back tomorrow when I may just have some exciting news to explain my absence (big wink!)

Happy crafting!

Lilly the Fairy of Enchantment

2011-06-03T16:01:00.002+01:00

Hi fellow bloggers and visitors, we have some lovely weather in Brum right now, hope you have a little sun wherever you are.

Today's card I've made for 2 specific challenges: at Make It Colourful, we're asked to colour using yellow and purple, and as you can see I used yellow for the sun and purple for the dress and wings; and at Michelle Perkitt Studio there is a Bingo challenge, and I've actually got 2 bingo lines on my card: Scallops, Ribbon, Flowers, and the second line is Pearls, Ribbon, Diecuts.

I coloured up Lilly The Fairy Of Enchantment by Michelle Perkitt using Copic markers and a little bit of pencil colouring. A glitter pen was used to lightly trace the swirls on her wings, but this was difficult to photograph. She was layerd up with silver mirri and blue cardstocks, mounted on pale blue and white printed cardstock, matted again onto silver mirri and purple cardstocks, all mounted onto a scalloped card blank. The fairy looked vaguely Art Nouveau to me, so I used a couple of leafy diecuts that a friend sent to me, coloured them black to look like silhouettes, and arranged them in a curved shape to go along with the Art Nouvea feel and placed a couple of flowers over the join. I also used an Art Nouvea font to make the sentiment. Some pleated ribbon beneath the sentiment and some pearls in the corners were the finishing touches.

You can just see some of the glittery tracing on the top left wing

Image: Lilly the Fairy of Enchantment, by Michelle Perkitt

Colouring: Copic markers - Sun YR07-YR23-Y17-Y15-Y11. Dress BV08-BV04-BV02-BV00-BV0000. Wings BV02-BV00-BV31-BV0000 + prisma pencils. Sky B39-B37-B34-B32.

Diecut leaves and flowers: gift from friend but I think they are Marianne designs

Computer-generated sentiment, font is Art Nouvea Caps from Dafont.com

Ribbon and pearls from stash.

This is for the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge - Things With Wings
Charisma Cardz - Something that flies
Crafty Purple Frog - Things of Beauty
Fab N Funky Challenge - What eva
Flutterby Wednesday - Open challenge

Make It Colourful - Colour with yellow and purple
Michelle Perkitt Studio - Bingo (Scallops-Ribbon-Flowers and Pearls-Ribbon-Diecuts)
Ooh La La Creations - Happy Birthday
Top Tip Tuesday - Wrap it up with ribbon

Dream Valley Challenge #8 - Stamp Something

2011-06-01T21:19:00.000+01:00

Hi all, this post was meant to go out on Sunday, but silly me saved it as a draft instead of scheduling it (rolls eyes).

Here we are with another challenge at Dream Valley, and this time the theme is to Stamp Something, so get those rubber and clear stamps out and show us what you can make. No digi stamps, please, hand stamped creations only.

We have 2 sponsors this time: Papermaze and Funky Kits, and the fab prizes on offer this fortnight are £10 to spend at Papermaze, and a stamp from Funky Kits.....nice, eh?

This is what I made as my DT project: I'd had some Tim Holtz stamps for over a year and they had yet to be inked up (shame on me!) so this seemed the ideal time to get them out and play with them. I made some sentiment tags to use on future cards by aging some postal tags with distress inks and just stamping on top with black archival ink. Simples!

Don't forget to check out my teamies creations too, they are really gorgeous.

We are also having a DT call, so if you fancy joining in the fun, pop over to the main challenge blog, where you'll find details.

Have a good week everyone, and happy crafting!

Carole x

Colouring challenge

2011-05-28T00:27:00.015+01:00

Hi all, this is just me getting a challenge entry in by the skin of my teeth! (again!!). I thought I had an extra day to do this, but for some reason it's Friday and not Thursday, so I had to get a wriggle on and work into the night to colour and make this card.

Make It Colourful asked us to colour a water scene this week. I was the lucky winner last week of some Crissy Armstrong images, and I chose this one so that I could enter the MiC challenge, and phew was it a challenge! I would need to do this again as there are many things wrong, I completely messed up the beaver's face for one thing, but it's so late now and I'm so tired that I was picking up the wrong colours and making things worse, he he. Anyway, I made the water using BG000, BG72, BG75 and a bit of B97 for the deepest shadows. For the reflections on the water, I used the same colours as in the main image, with some BG000 and BG72 mixed in as well. I've changed the photos from the ones taken last night to these that I took in daylight today.

Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight challenge this week wanted us to challenge ourselves with something new, so I wanted to try colouring the water reflection. This was really quite difficult and took a long time to work out. I'd found Marianne Walker's tutorial on it so understood in principle how to go about it, but the fact that the moose's legs meet the water much closer to the viewer's eye than the pier support posts do complicated things for me.

For the card, I decided not to use patterned papers and to instead make my own backing by scrunching and sanding some coredinations cardstock. This is a technique I've wanted to try for so long but never had the right project till now, and I felt the weathered look would fit with the fishing theme and suit a man's card. I made the sentiment in WordArt, attached to it a button and some twine that I also won this week, added a few eyelets and it was done. It's for a birthday during the summer, and I think the scene is just right for that time of year.

Anyway.....here it is:

Crumpled and sanded cardstock

Image: Great Day To Fish, from Crissy Armstrong

Colouring: Copic markers

Sentiment: created in WordArt, font is Courier New

Materials: Cordindations cardstock, bakers twine from Ribbongirl, button & eyelets from stash

I'm entering this in these challenges:
2 Sisters - Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments - Sentiment/card for a male
Cards for Men - No paper (I used cardstock I distressed myself)
Charisma Cards - Boy Oh Boy
Crafty Cardmakers - Spotlight on Challenge yourself (colouring a reflection in water)
Fresh Brewed (month-long challenge) - Beach or Summer (I've gone for the summer option)
Kaboodle Doodles - Distress/rip/tear/crumple (I crumpled and distressed the cardstock)
Make It Colourful - Colour a water scene
Moving Along With The Times - Holidays
My Partner in Crafting Crime - Twine, jute or string
One Stop Craft Challenge - Buttons & Bows
Paper Pretties - create a birthday card
Penny's Challenges - Here Comes Summer
Totally Gorjuss - String's The Thing
Truly Scrumptious - Anything Goes
Whoopsi Daisy - Birthday challenge

Hope you are all snoring away in the UK as it's past good crafter's bedtimes. I'm away for my beauty sleep as soon as I've done this.

Carole x