Tea anyone?

Hi everyone, are you glad it's Friday? Thanks for the lovely comments on my gift box.....yes I do handstitch any projects with sewing on them - I don't have a sewing machine so I've no option, but to tell the truth I enjoy doing it. It's relaxing and absorbing and really therapeutic.

I notice I have some new followers....thanks so much for visiting and following, I really appreciate it!

So on to my project today.....Ok, this isn't my usual sort of thing, but you have to have a play sometimes, don't you? And I was so inspired by the gorgeous teapot cards I saw from some of the DT at Top Tip Tuesday that I just wanted to have a go too. Check out their cards, they are much better than mine (I'm hoping you won't look too closely at mine, I am rubbish at cutting out with a knife. I have cunningly placed my watermark over the wonkiest areas ha ha.).

Most of this was cut out with scissors, but the handle had to be done with a knife....a big weak point of mine!

The template for making this card was made by Deneen and you can find it on the challenge blog.

I had been hoarding this paper by Laura Ashley for several years, but when I saw this project I knew I had to use it - it reminds me of the patterns on blue china. I don't have a craft room and lots of products, so I just used what I had to hand....so the ink round the edges isn't quite the right colour, and I don't have any label dies so had to use a pre-printed sentiment, but as I said I was only playing. I might make another one of these - after I practice cutting in a neat line with a craft knife of course!

These are the challenges I'm going to enter my little teapot in:
By The Cute & Curly - In The Kitchen
Craft Your Passion - Just Sentiments
Creative Inspirations - Anything Goes
Lollipop Crafts - Sentimentally Yours
Rainbow Lady's Challenge blog - House & Home
Top Tip Tuesday - Mothers Day/Craft Buddy

That's 2 consecutive projects without colouring! I have been doing some colouring this evening, so hopefully I'll have a card to show soon. Till then, happy crafting everyone.

Mothers Day Gift Box

Hello there, I hope everyone is well today. Thanks so much for the great comments left for my St Patrick's card, I just saw that I won a Top 3 at Inky Impressions with that card, which makes me doubly happy cos it was the first card I've put in a challenge for some months. I mentioned that I felt 'off my stroke' with my colouring on it because I felt I could have done it better. You know what it's like when things don't turn out quite as you'd expected! It wasn't a bad colouring, just wasn't what I'd pictured when I started out. But why do we have to get three quarters of the way through a colouring before we realise it isn't gonna work out as planned? I don't have enough energy to be a perfectionist anymore so I never scrap an image, he hee.

Anyway, as it was Mothers Day last Sunday, I made this little gift box - it's just big enough to hold 6 little wrapped chocolates.

It's a recycled project because I made it from one of those box blanks that chemist's use to put blister packs of tablets in - I just ripped off the label and decided to use it in crafting as it was in mint condition. Here is the 'before' photo with the papers that eventually were attached to all the sides:

I used some Papercellar paper and cut rectangles to fit on all 6 sides of the box. Then I aged them with distress inks in Tattered Rose and Weathered Wood, and handstitched around all the edges.

Only the top of the box is decorated....I used some rose ribbon in white, and I quite liked the lacy fabric that the ribbon was attached to so I didn't cut that off and instead let it overhang the edge of the top side. Then I took a rigid epoxy sticker bearing the word 'Mother' that I found lying forgotten in a box, and tried to age it a little. I didn't have any ink pads with the sort of ink that would dry on smooth surfaces, so I took a copic marker and used that instead to add a faint bit of ink around the edges. Then I used a darker copic marker to colour a silvery metal flower and added this in the centre. The flower had lost it's original gem centre, so glued a pearl bead in the flower centre. A Tim Holtz adage ticket saying 'Love', a sequin heart with some co-ordinating ribbon, some pearls from a spray and some liquid pearls finish it off.

It was an easier project in one way because there was no colouring involved (although I did still manage to use my Copics, he hee) but in another way it was harder as it took a great deal of time to handstitch all the papers and decide on a layout. I'm happy with it though and it's nice to spend time on special projects.  It was hard to photograph, so here's one final shot of the box:

The card that accompanied the box is my May project for Sundays With Crissy, so I can't show it to you yet (wink!).

I'm entering this box in these challenges:

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Shabby Chic/Vintage

Craft Your Passion - Just Sentiments

Creative Inspirations - Anything Goes

Glitter Geeks - Mothers Day

Lollipop Crafts - Sentimentally Yours

Moving Along With The Times - Special Lady

Papertake Weekly - Bingo (Gems - Free - Lace)

Sentimental Sundays - Metal (the flower in the middle)

Squirrel & Fox - Love

Top Tip Tuesday - Mothers Day

Till next time, keep smiling!

Make it Crafty is recruiting...

Hi all, no card to show today, but I wanted to let anyone that is interested know that our beloved leader at Make It Crafty (Zoe) is having a DT call, woo hoo!

This is not for the Design Team at the colouring challenge, Make It Colourful, but for the store, so you don't have to be a top colourist or copic whizz - it's for anyone that uses and loves Make It Crafty products and would like to help promote the rubber stamps, chippies and 3D kits. I can tell you this would be a great DT to be on, not least because Zoe is a lovely lady and a fantastic boss, plus the products are absolutely fantabulous!

You can read about the DT call HERE.

Will be back in a couple of days with a project......here's a sneaky peaky:

Bye for now!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Hi all, and Happy St Patrick's Day to you! I never mark this day usually or make any cards but I had to make this card, not for a DT project, but just because I wanted to use this new image. It's by Crissy Armstrong and it's called Young Leprechaun. I thought he was really cute and wanted to have a go at colouring him. I'm a bit off my stroke with colouring but I'm trying to keep my hand in, lol.

I merged him with a couple of background digi stamps from Make It Crafty: the Rainbow Dandelion and Petals & Palings (which is one of my all-time fave images).

I used copics as usual, and an off-cut of some Papermania paper. The leafy die cut was a gift from my friend Jean, the bow was made from some fabric from my friend Elaine, and the fabric-covered brad was in some candy I won from the wonderful Kevin. I downloaded a celtic-looking font from Dafont.com to make the sentiment, and just added a few gold sequins to complete it. I tried to include some gold in the image and embellies because the Irish flag colours are green, white and gold/orange.

I haven't entered any challenges for absolutely ages, so I'm gonna put this in a few:

Cardmadfairy's Digi Days - Add a sentiment

Fab N Funky Challenges - Luck of the Irish

Inky Impressions - You're my pot of gold....use gold and bling (gold flower sequins)

Just Inspirational Challenges - Photo inspiration (I chose the St patrick photo)

Just Some Lines - Spring Cleaning - at least 2 items over 6 months old (actually everything on my card is over 6 months old, the paper is a couple of years old and I've had the sequins for years! lol)

Kaboodle Doodles - Show us some green

Rainbow Lady's Challenge - St Patrick's Day

Sassy Cheryl's Challenges - Wearin' of the green

Simon Says Stamp - A bit o' green

Sweet Stamping - Use lots of green

Wags N Whiskers - Luck of the Irish

Have a great weekend all, and happy crafting!

Animals at Sundays With Crissy

Hello all, I have my DT project for Sundays With Crissy to show today. This month the theme is Animals, so get out your animal images and join in!

Crissy has the cutest little fawn image, called Newborn Joon, and I thought I'd give it a go. I was a bit nervous because I do find animals more difficult to do, but this one was actually much easier than I thought once I got going. It's coloured in copics, and I used the E10's family as they gave a lovely red-brown set of shades which was perfect for a little baby red deer. In keeping with my kinda-new-years-resolution to use some of those neglected unloved shades, I chose a previously unused red violet (RV29, teamed with some reds) for the neck ribbon and bow. 

The card is very Clean and Simple, just some nice paper, a die cut circle and a little ribbon. The paper is Prima Annalee, die cuts are Spellbinders Lacey circles, Nestabilities Standard circles, and the ribbon was recycled from a chocolate box.

Going for the Clean and Simple look

If you fancy playing along, you have till 31 March (noon US time) to upload. Hope you come and join us this month. Happy crafting!

Happy Birthday at Sundays With Crissy

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...

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!