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Wednesday 29 October 2014

Use a Dragonfly - Anything but a card - Crafting with Dragonflies

Hi all,

It's that time again... a new challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies and this one is twofold... First of all, we'd love for you to make something that's not a card, and second, we'd love to see a dragonfly on your creation!

I decided to have a play with a little chest of drawers. (I really mean little, it's a 10cm, or thereabouts, cube!

I used LOTV paper, gorgeous purple paint and some shimmery dragonfly die-cuts.


I also raided my WOC flowers and Hobby House gem swirls, and even managed to find a teeny dragonfly charm in my stash...


And a close-up of the dragonfly. I opted for purple with a lovely shimmery paper underneath:



Your turn. Make, alter or otherwise create something to share with us, and don't forget the dragonfly! If you're stuck for ideas, my fellow Dragonflies have some gorgeous creations waiting for you!

I'd very much like to enter this into the current Party Time Tuesdays "Anything goes" challenge. (PTT187)

Have a fab day!

Sammy-x

Saturday 25 October 2014

Anything but a card - Sweet Stampin' DT

Hi all,

I know it's not my week, but how could I resist letting you all know about the "Anything but a card" theme over at Sweet Stampin' this week?

To get you all started off, here's some bookmarks in two different colour ways.


The dotty and harlequin background stamps are from Visible Image, the text background from The Artistic Stamper and the postcard, balloon and penny farthing stamps were magazine freebies. The colour has of course been done with distress inks, and the quotes I typed on my PC and printed out.

So, fancy making something that's not a card this week? If you do, don't forget to come share it with us!

Have a fantabulous weekend!

Sammy-x

Thursday 23 October 2014

Think Pink - The Crafting Cafe DT

Good morning all!

This is my second post today. If you're looking for my MilkCoffee post, please scroll down.

I'm back because it also happens to be the 23rd, which means it's my turn to post over at The Crafting Cafe! Our theme this month is the other biggie this month, Think Pink.

I got this utterly stunning image from our sponsor Aurora Wings to play with, and made this card:


She was soooo lovely to colour!
I teamed her up with the same pink Docraft papers I've used many times recently (yes, I am starting to run low!) and embellished with some shabby pink Frantage, pink pearls and some gorgeous baby pink ribbon secured with a pink brad. I didn't want to go overboard with the embellishments, as the image is so beautifully detailed, I didn't want to draw focus away from it.

Now, I'm hoping you'll all come play with us this month... There's still a week to enter, and let's face it we all (ok, almost all...) love to play with pink, no?

Have a fabby day everyone, and wish me luck, as it will be my first day volunteering at a local charity shop. I've been thinking about getting back into the world of work for a while, as I feel I'm doing so much better and feel up to it, and this seemed like a great way to ease myself back into it!
Also, getting an actual job in Leeds seems to be impossible if you don't want to spend your days cold calling people!

Have a great one!

Sammy-x

Halloween - MilkCoffee DT

Hi all,

It's time for another challenge over at MilkCoffee! And the theme is one of the two biggies this month ; Halloween.

Now unfortunately getting one's hands on Halloween crafting supplies here in the UK isn't quite as easy as I'd like it to be, but I didn't let that stop me!
I started with the utterly gorgeous Little Witch Charlotte, and then looked through my paper stash to see which papers I could make work in a Halloween setting. I saw the gorgeous deep blue in the "father knows best" pad from LOTV, and knew that was the one!
I used the leftover snippets from my father's day card, in fact, and made this:


This was actually my first attempt at colouring using the Promarker fine nibs, which I decided to try after watching some of Sam K's fab tutorials. I have to say I was very pleased with the result!

As you can probably tell, I also have a new favourite hair colour... It's actually my favourite in real life too! lol.

Now, we hope you'll come and play along this fortnight!

And I had so much fun at the playground last week, I shall be running off now to join the fun in again!

See you in a few hours with another card!

Sammy-x

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Tags!

Hi all,

I've been having me some fun watching Sir Tim do his thing online, and having a play-along with distress inks and paints and all those scrummy things.

I ended up making these:



Soooo much fun. The colours are a little brighter than my usual, but I love them! And if you're wanting to stock up on your distress ink pads, they're currently on sale at Buckwell's Craft supplies!
They also stock the scrumptious brown satin ribbon I used on the top tag.

Also, there's still time to join in with the Buckwell's "Anything Goes" challenge this month, where you can win yourself some of those ribbons!

Hope you're all well  and enjoying your week!

Sammy-x

Saturday 18 October 2014

Halloween - Sweet Stampin' DT

GOOOOOD MORNING!

Oops, sorry, was that a little loud? Sorry, I can't help it... I'm so excited to be sharing this finally!
It's Halloween week over at Sweet Stampin', and I recently got my hands on my very first Tim Holtz stamp -finally! - and some alcohol inks.
Add these together and you have a very happy (and messy!) Sammy.

I took a plain boring MDF box, and turned it into this:


It's rare I am this pleased with something I've made, but seriously, I love, love, love it!

Now, if you feel like making a cuppa and pulling up a pew, I have a step by step here...


 First I started with the plain box and lid and gave them a coat of Gesso.


Next, I covered everything in some scrunched up tissue paper and covered all with mod podge.


After a second coat of mod podge, (and after waiting for that to dry, naturally!) I dabbed it all over with Teakwood and Ginger alcohol inks.


Here's a close-up of the inked texture. Believe me when I say it looks even better in person!


When that had dried, this was the result:


Doesn't it look fab?

Next, I stamped, inked and die-cut my skull blueprint stamp, layered it up and added it to the top of the box, along with some cogs and cheesecloth I've also inked lightly.
Oh, and I forgot to add: I also painted a layer of clear distress crackle paint over the skull. It doesn't really show up in the pictures, but gives it "that little bit extra" in person!







And there it is, one altered box. Which I love. In fact, as soon as I can get my hands on more boxes, I'll be making more! And maybe some more TH stamps too... Actually, no maybe about it!

Anyways, that's me. But my fellow Sweeties also have lots of lovely Halloween treats waiting for you, so go take a peek, and then come and join us! Just don't forget to stamp!

In the meantime, I'd love to go play over at Altered eclectics!
And I'd also like to join the "spooky" challenge at That's Crafty!
I shall also be trying my luck at the A Vintage Journey, Halloween - to die for challenge...

Have a terrific day!

Sammy-x

Friday 17 October 2014

More Pink!

Hi all,

Now I know I said I wouldn't be back until the morning with my Sweet Stampin' project, but it turns out I had a rather productive day, so have another card to share before then!

I'd been mulling over what to make for this month's Live & Love Crafts pink challenge, and added In the Pink's Spots and/or stripes into the mix. I also spotted The Ribbon Girl's Lovely lili challenge (just in time!), which is to add lace.
Add them all together and you get a shabby chic pink LOTV card. Or at least, you do if you're me! lol.

Here it is:


As you can see, I opted for stripes (I do love me some stripes, I do), although I guess if you really wanted to stretch the theme, the liquid pearls could be classed as spots, lol.

So there you go. Now I shall go and the next time you see me pop up here, will definitely be with my Sweet Stampin' post! ;-)

Sweet dreams!

Sammy-x

Nevermore...

I'm definitely on a roll! Yesterday I was scrolling through my blog feed when I hit upon the current challenge at Quoth the Raven, Nevermore, which is Tags.
For those that aren't familiar with this blog, it features challenges that are all related to Edgar Allen Poe.
So, a "Poe" tag? Well, it just so happened that the Inkadinkado stamp set I had ordered arrived yesterday, which featured a raven in a cage. perfect!

I decided  I'd like to use a grey/blue/brown kind of colour scheme, so got my distress inks out and had some fun.

This was the result:


I used my Visible Image harlequin background stamp, and an ink splat from Kaiserkraft. I stamped the birdcage twice, once directly onto the tag, and once on a separate piece of card so I could layer it up.
On the second one, I removed the stamped ring at the top and replaced it with a small brass ring instead.
Finally I die-cut the letters to spell "Nevermore" and added some ribbon.

Close-up of the ring:



And there it is. My Poe-inspired tag!

I just love that I'm finding so much inspiration out there at the moment. So many challenges are making my brain explode with ideas, but I don't have time to act on them all, so for now just have to go with the ones that shout loudest, lol.

That's it from me for today, but I'll be back in the morning with my Sweet Stampin' DT piece... I've been chomping at the bit to share this with you all, so can't wait!

Have a fantastic day!

Sammy-x

Thursday 16 October 2014

Hugs!

Hi all,

I decided yesterday to make another card based on a few challenges that had been stewing away in my head. (Honestly, it's far less painful than it sounds!)

My attention was first caught by the new challenge at the Cutie Pie challenge blog, which was to use the colour purple. Well, it just so happens to be my favourite colour, so this got me thinking.

So, I had my basic colour. Next, I needed a stamp to work with. And then I remembered I'd recently gotten my hands on what I consider to be one of the cutest stamps ever! This stamp featured Tilda and Edwin hugging, which then led me to the Marvellous Magnolia blog for inspiration, where the theme is "For a Friend". What better way to send a hug to a friend than with a lovely card?
And finally I made my way to the Time for Magnolia blog, where a lovely bingo board was waiting.

Thus armed with plenty of ideas, I sat down and made this:


These two are so sweet! They remind me so much of my kids. Yes, my kids hug! In fact, they are so unlike other siblings it can be scary... They never fight. Maybe a mild disagreement once in a blue moon, but mostly they get on brilliantly all the time. And they hug. Each other and me. All. The. Time.


And I have to admit I was rather pleased with myself, as I managed to include the entire bingo board! Full house!

There's also a tag which comes out, and has a lovely message waiting for the friend in question to discover.


And that's that!
I hope you all like it. I certainly enjoyed the challenge of  bringing it all together. (Note to self: Buy more magnolia stamps, for they be awesome and good to colour!)

Have a fantastic day!

Sammy-x

Wednesday 15 October 2014

Pink for breast cancer - Crafting with Dragonflies DT

Good morning folks.

I'm here with a special card today, because this fortnight at Crafting with Dragonflies we're doing our bit for a very special cause - breast cancer awareness.
So, with that in mind, we'd like to see your pink creations! Now I know this isn't a problem for most of you , and it certainly wasn't for me! (though apologies to Susan, who must be going cross-eyed from all the pink recently! lol)

Our sponsor, Sami stamps, gave us some lovely images to play with, and I immediately pounced on this one!


Doesn't get much pinker than that!! I was trying to go for a pink lycra feel for her clothes... I can just picture her as a dancer! I used the same Docrafts papers I've used several times recently, and the "believe" and ribbon stickers were sent to me last year by the lovely Jennifer.
A handful of pink gems and some pink sparkly ribbon finished it off.

And now it's your turn to show of your pink crafting skills and come join us this fortnight.

Have a fantabulous day!

Sammy-x

Monday 13 October 2014

Another "new" technique...

Hi all,

I'm here with another Christmas card, which features another first for me. You'll all know by now that I don't colour backgrounds. Maybe a little shading here or there, or a pale outline around the image, but never al full-on coloured background.

Until now. You see, this gorgeous LOTV stamp is obviously a night-time one, so leaving the background white seemed wrong. So I thought "In for a penny" and all that, and went to work with the midnight blue!


Now, before you think that I was super brave, I scanned and printed my coloured image, and did the background on there first to make sure it wasn't going to look horrible! lol.
I was pleased with the result, so did the same with the original and then paired it up with some Dovecraft papers
I was somewhat annoyed with the fact that the white opal liquid pearls are more silver than white, but at least I know now and can use something else next time!
I finished off with one of the new LOTV Christmas sentiment stamps and a lovely red satin ribbon from Buckwell Craft Supplies.

Oh, and believe it or not I used 27!! Promarkers for this one (not counting the blender, lol). And I remember the days when I was impressed when I used 15!

Now I was hoping that since I used several snippets, Di would allow me to come and play at the Playground this week. I'd been meaning to for soooo long, so here it finally is, lol.
I'd also like to enter the Whimsy Stamps "Anything Goes" challenge this month.
And could I please enter this one into the LOTV "Anything goes" challenge too? Thanking you muchly.

Hope your Mondays are being kind to you all!

Sammy-x

Thursday 9 October 2014

Snowmen!

Hello again.

You know, I think I have rediscovered my love for this stuff... I was enjoying making cards before, but between pain, tiredness and complete lack of mojo, I'd not really been feeling it so much for most of this year. The past couple of weeks however, I've really been enjoying myself, and am having tons of fun experimenting with new (to me) products, techniques and ideas.

One of those new techniques came to my attention yesterday, when there was a tutorial by Mindy on the LOTV blog for colouring snowmen. I figured I'd give it a go, so set to colouring. I'm not 100% sure whether I succeeded - I think all I did was make them look mucky! - but it was fun to try anyway. Oh, and if anyone has a rough "translation guide" from Copics to Promarkers, please holler, lol.

So when I learned this morning that there's a "Your favourite fibre" challenge at As You Like It, and a Christmas challenge at C.R.A.F.T challenge, I thought I'd try and turn my snowmen into a card with those in mind.

And this was the result:


My favourite "fibre" has got to be Hessian/burlap or other similar materials. I just love the rough natural look, and the neutral brown colouring fits with practically anything!

The image and sentiment stamps are both LOTV,  and the paper is Dovecraft. There's some Hobby House pearls and ribbon from my stash to finish it off.

Now I'd also love to enter this into the colour challenge at Vintage Stamping Challenges (I chose green).
And then there's the challenge over at LOTV, which is "Anything Goes" this month.

Hope you're all having a great day!

Sammy-x

Layer it up - MilkCoffee DT

Hello folks!

A big thank you to everyone that joined us for the birthday celebrations at MilkCoffee these past couple of weeks. We all had lots of fun with the festivities, and hope you did too!

And today we have a new challenge for you all, and the theme is Layer it up.

I decided to use the very lovely Fairy Queen, and paired her up with several papers from the DCWV  Preppy Princess stack.


Of course the card called for buttons and bows and lots of liquid pearls too!
Also, I have decided that that is the colour I want my hair to be!

One card. LOTS of layers! And now it's your turn. Why not take a peek at my fellow teamies' gorgeous makes, and come and play with us this challenge. You know you want to! ;-)

Have an awesomesauce day!

Sammy-x

Tuesday 7 October 2014

Shabby garden...

Hi all,

Another unscheduled post from me today... I'm on a roll!

This card is what happens when I let a couple of different challenges float around in my brainpan and stew for a while... First of all there was the time/shabby chic challenge over at Unstampabelles. No stamping? EEK! A challenge indeed!
And then there was the current challenge at A Creative Romance, which is "In the Garden".

I left them to simmer for a couple of days while I was off buying up half of the harrogate fair, and when I finally sat down to work on them, this was the result:


So, back in time it is! In place of a stamped and coloured image, I used one of the portraits from the vintage flip book I picked up at The Works and I layered her on inked and distressed LOTV paper. The die-cut corner was done with my new Wild Rose Studio die, the flowers of course are WOC, and I added some shabby bark hearts from Live & Love Crafts. The rose trim is also from The Works, and the lace I dug out of my stash. I added some pearls to finish it off.

Et voila!

I'd also like to enter this into the "Anything Goes" challenge at Papertake weekly.

Hope you're having a great day!

Sammy-x

Monday 6 October 2014

Spooky tag!

Hi all,

First of all, we're looking for new Sweeties to join our - slightly nutty - team over at Sweet Stampin'. If you like stamping and think you're nutty (or genius) enough to fit in, why not go take a peek at the DT call here.

Now then, after the trip to Harrogate for the GNPE yesterday, it obviously wasn't going to take long before I had a play with some of my new shinies... So I decided to start with one of my new Visible Image stamp sets and make a spooky tag!

The set in question was Orin Destiny, and I used the dragon stamp, rather than the character one. Dragons can be spooky, no?
I started by inking my tag in three colours - Fired Brick, Rusty Hinge and Wild Honey, then using Walnut Stain around the edges.

I then used a Visible Image harlequin background stamp I already had in my stash with Vintage Photo ink and added some more layers with some cobweb and flame stencils in Brushed Corduroy and Fired Brick.
I stamped the Dragon in Memento black ink.


I added a corner, computer generated text (yes, of course that's a Hobbit reference!) and a skull from the MDF man and had some fun with some Aged Gold Frantage.
The seam binding is from the Ribbon Girl, and I stained it with the same colours I used for the tag. I also stamped the harlequin pattern onto it.

Close-up of the Frantaged dragon, and a better look at the flames in the background.


If you've seen (or read) the Hobbit, you'll probably see the reference to Smaug breaking free of his golden prison there too :-)

A closer look at the skull:

I first inked it with Fired Brick, then tapped the black inkpad on it a couple of times, which gave it a lovely, subtle mottled effect. I coloured the area behind the skull with gold leaf pen before sticking it down, and I finally added a little Frantage to finish it off.



And there is it, One spooky tag. I had a lot of fun making this, and I have to say I'm very impressed with the Visible Image stamps!
I was originally going to use this for a DT project in a couple of weeks, but I'm so happy with it I can't be patient that long, so am posting it straight away. hope you all like it as much as I do.

I'm thinking I should enter it into the Visible Image challenge this month, where they're looking for spooky creations.

Have a fantabulous Monday everyone.

Sammy-x

Sunday 5 October 2014

Harrogate haul...

My darling daughter and I had rather a great time at the GNPE in Harrogate today, and we came home with rather an impressive array of goodies. LOTS of dies, stencils and stamps, my first few alcohol inks and of course the obligatory "two bags full" from the MDF man :-)


And we also enjoyed a browse through the Visible Image stand, where we saw the very talented Sam Kingdon's work in person (and may or may not have purchased a stamp or three, lol).

And best of all..?

I actually had quite a bit of money left over! Some of which I've already spent on goodies from Amazon (is it an "oops" if it was already cash earmarked for crafty goodness?).
I was slightly disappointed at the lack of certain stalls I was hoping to see, and it seems no-one wants to sell spray inks or anything Tim Holtz that isn't distress ink pads and the odd stencil *sulk*, but other than that, I am most pleased and get to tick quite a few things off my shopping list!

Hope you all have had a fantastic weekend too.

Sammy-x

Saturday 4 October 2014

Autumn - Sweet Stampin' DT

Good morning all,

It's Autumn over at Sweet Stampin' this week!

I'd finally managed to get my hands on a Prima doll recently, and was itching to use it. I also really wanted to use a lovely Paris background that I've had in my stash for ages. Now technically, neither of those really scream "autumn", but seeing as how the Paris stamp had trees, I had the idea of colouring them in autumn colours, and hey presto!

This was the result:


As the image itself is so busy, I decided the rest of the card should be quite CAS, so some simple matting and layering and a big silky red bow with only one DP.
The card looks a little brighter than it does in real life, and there seems to be almost no colour on the buildings! One of these days I'll find the perfect way to take these pictures, lol.

Now I'm sure you'll all want to visit the rest of the Sweeties, and then come join in yourselves, as there's a £10 Bunny Zoe voucher to be won!

Have a great weekend, and if you happen to be going to the Harrogate fair on Sunday, keep your eyes peeled for a pink and black plaid hat (my daughter!) and come say howdy!

In the meantime I think I shall play along at the Allsorts challenge blog, where they also have an autumn theme!

Sammy-x

Wednesday 1 October 2014

October challenge - Rhedd's Creative Spirit DT

And hello again for the third time today! For my Buckwells Crafty Challenge and Crafting with Dragonflies posts, please scroll down.

So, it's October, and as we all know October's main "holiday" is Halloween. So this month, the team at Rhedd's Creative Spirit have all prepared some Halloween themed projects for your inspiration, but the challenge itself is still Anything altered art goes, so you can enter a Halloween project or something else, we love to see them all!

For mine, I managed to get my hands on a Tim Holtz configurations box (one of the really big ones, at 16" wide!) and decorated it in Halloween style.

I started by painting everything black and then "wallpapering" with G45 Steampunk Spells paper. Most of the elements are either from G45, or spiders and such I picked up in a pound shop! The little book is made up of G45 spell cards and opens and closes, and you can flick through the pages.

Poison and blood! (actually blue fairy washing up liquid in the one, and handwash with red food colouring in the other... It's beautifully thick like congealed blood, lol)


Hobbies collide! Long before I took up crafting, I used to paint Games Workshop miniatures. I myself preferred the Orcs and Goblins and Lord of the Rings armies, but I remember hubby had dabbled with the undead one for a little while. So I dug around and managed to find some skulls left over from his skeletons, and added them here and there throughout the boxes.


This was oh so much fun to do, though I did end up running out of Halloween stuff in the end! I had a few other things I wanted to add, but due to the ridiculously long wait for it to be delivered (over a month!) I ran out of time. The plan was to have working lights and allsorts... I may well add them in at some point anyway.

Now then, time for you to go check out what spooky wonders the rest of the team have made. You won't be disappointed!
And look what's on offer for this month's winner:


Off you go!

And have a fantastic day.

I'd love to enter this creation into the current all crafts challenge!

Sammy-x

Anything Goes - Buckwells Crafty Challenge DT

Good morning everyone!

This is my second post today, please scroll down for my Crafting with Dragonflies DT post.

Well, here it is... The brand new first ever challenge at Buckwells Crafty Challenge! And the theme is one you'll all have no problems with... Anything Goes!

I myself made two cards for this first challenge. First of all, a shabby chic affair using some of the gorgeous beige 25mm organza ribbon and Bisque liquid pearls available in the shop:


And next up is a new baby stamp for which I used 15mm pink satin ribbon.


Yes, I seem to be having a bit of a "pink" time at the moment, lol.

I do hope you'll all come join in, as there's a brilliant prize waiting for the winner!


You could win your self some gorgeous Organza and Satin Ribbon from Buckwell Craft Supplies Shop..



 Ribbons can be found HERE


and check out all the other crafty goodies that are in the Shop. As it's the first Challenge over at the Shop, from 8am Friday the 3rd October through to Midnight Sunday 5th October it's going to be FREE DELIVERY..

See you all in an hour with my next post!

Sammy-x

Anything Goes - Crafting with Dragonflies DT

Hello all!

It's that time again... A new challenge over at Crafting with Dragonflies. And the theme is the easiest of all... Anything Goes!

For my project I used an image from one of our sponsors, the Dollar Graphics Depot, and made a door hanger.


I fussy cut the image after colouring it with my Promarkers, and attached it to the hanger, which I'd covered with some paper from Grace Taylor first. I added a die-cut branch, then sealed everything with a couple of coats of modge podge.
Finally, some buttons and twine to finish it off, and it's ready to go on someone's door!

Initially I was going to add a name to it, but both my kids have long since outgrown this kind of thing, and I wasn't sure who else to make it for, so left it nameless in the end!

Now I hope you'll all come see what my fellow Dragonflies have been up to, before you come and enter the challenge yourself!

Have a fantastic day, and I'll see you all in a few hours with my next post (two of three today!).

Sammy-x