Halloween Treat

Hi Everybody,

I am back from holiday and working already.

Today I have a quick and easy project ideal as a Halloween Treat … or to make Chocolate Buttons look spookilicious. I shall make a few more, just in case … 🙂

I also intend to enter this treat at the Out of a Hat Creations Challenge which is about Halloween.

When I first saw the theme of the challenge I thought ‘what am I going to do, I haven’t got anything Halloween’. Thank God I was on holiday and far away from any craft shops … 🙂 … all over sudden I started to think outside the ‘stamp-set’ box and realised that I had some bug stamps which included a spider, several cat stamps, a wonky castle … oh, I could also draw a spider’s web … just saved myself some money 😀

Here it is:

I made the bag from orange paper to fit a small chocolate buttons’ pack, all the measurements were based around that. The bag has 3 scorelines down the side where the cat is sitting.

Here’s what I used: Cat and Bugs stamps from Lavinia Stamps; Grunge Corner from Lily Of the Valley; Castle Stamp came with the Craft Stamper Magazine a while ago; ribbon from Stampin’UP!; black fine liner, orange paper and black card from my stash.

Back soon … until then …

Happy Crafting!!! 🙂

Oriental Patchwork

Hi Everyone!

I was delighted when I saw this week’s challenge theme at ‘Out of a Hat Creations’. It is Oriental Influences!!! Hooray, because I got just the card for that … and this brings me to what I have been up to. Well I mentioned that I made lots of cards for a competition I was entering, the closing date of which was today. It is called National Cardmaker of the Year 2012 and run by Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine. Hopefully I get somewhere and if not it was great fun getting all the cards ready. Overall I entered 7 categories (Tonic Studios, Woodware, Penny Black, Dovecraft, Stampin’UP!, Sizzix and Wild Rose Studio).

Now the card I am going to share with you is one I entered for the Woodware category and here it is:

It’s again a card that made itself, it just developed as I went along and out came the rich pink, purple and golden colours. The patchwork elephant stamp and the daisy punches are from Woodware. I stamped the elephant on watercolour paper and used watercolour pencils for colouring in. I then blended the colours together with a wetish brush, taking care that they wouldn’t bleed into each other. The sentiment is one I made up on the computer, the floral die is by Marianne designs and the one I used for the golden ‘mesh’ is the Memory Box Tessatina Border Die, the latter of which you can get from Handy Hippo.  The Sizzix Framelits dies are from Stampin’UP!. Everything else came from my own stash.

I am off now for a well deserved holiday. It’s only a short one, but I won’t be blogging now for a week.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Happy Crafting!!! 🙂

… one would think it was dark when I took the picture, far from it, it was taken during full daylight … just very overcast … sorry!

Recycling Challenge

Hi Everybody!

Just a quick post today. Over at ‘Out of a Hat Creations’ the challenge ending tonight is about recycling, making a project out of bit we normally tend to put in the bin.

Well when I went to check our bin … you guess it … it just had been emptied. 🙂

… so off I went for a cuppa to a well-known High Street Franchise 🙂 🙂 🙂 … and this is what I made:

Do you recognize, where I went????

This card is literally hot of the press. I made it late yesterday knowing that I had a busy day at work today. I have also been busy making cards, but more about this later on this week.

Until then.

Happy Crafting!!! 🙂

Black & White Elegance

Hi Everybody,

I did promise you some more ideas for today. This one is for Sue, and it uses the Wishing Tree stamp by Lavinia.

Actually the reflection off the glass table makes it look even more magical. As you can see the tree is embossed with silver sparkly embossing powder. I just added a few stars which are also embossed and some gems plus my favourite wonky line …

Well I thought I’d also share with you the cards from my Black & White Christmas Cards Class. I know it is early, I just couldn’t resist it after making the Box in a Box plus matching card the other week.

Talking about classes, I posted all the dates and classes up until the end of the year, so please have a look on the Stamping Classes Page.

Back to the Black & White theme, well not entirely as I added silver and grey. Here they are:

Hope you like them. Off to check out the recycling bin to see what I can make for the current challenge on Out of a Hat Creations.

Until then …

Happy Crafting!!! 🙂

More Hidden Panels

First of all a BIG Thank You for all the lovely comments on my last blog. I must also apologise for being so quiet of late. My mind was just not on crafting … more like making things. I had a huge sort out of stamps and other crafting related bits with most of it being sold through eBay. Whilst it is a good way of finding a new home for pre-loved stamps, it also involves a lot of work … taking pictures, finding out about postage, responding to questions … to mention just a few.

I am back in ‘crafting mode’ now. The sort out most certainly got my creative juices flowing. Watch this space!!! 🙂

My favourite of late has been the hidden panel card, so here is another one to enter in this weeks challenge at ‘Out of a Hat Creations’. Sorry girls I didn’t get round to finishing my mouse-trap project the other week, maybe next time. Will have to check out everyone’s projects and see what you came up with. Back to the project … this card uses clever cutting and assembling to create a concertina card with an inner hidden panel. Over the last few month I got much better at sponging since my friend Sue mentioned that it is very easy to do using dry baby wipes. It is fab and has become my favourite technique. Thanks Sue!!!

Again I kept the outside of the card relatively plain. I used a stamping wheel to create the pattern on the outside panels (Watercolour Vine, retired Stampin’UP!). This is actually a good way of creating your own patterned paper and quick too. For the inside of the hidden panel I used the Nature’s Nest and Simply Soft Stamp sets from Stampin’UP!.

Hope you like it.

Back with more tomorrow.

Happy Crafting!!! 🙂