Favourite five (10? 11?) of 2014...

Hi all, back again with my favourite projects of 2014, but before I start, a picture of our new look bathroom!

It's not a great picture, but the room is so tiny it's hard to get a good look at it in a picture, and this angle means you get to see the wall colour, trim and floor all together :-) It's still a work in progress, but we're nearly there!

Now then, on to the

Once again Debby is hosting this super fun event, and of course I needed to play along!

However, I hit a snag... After compiling my favourites, I noticed that not a single one of them was a card! I guess I enjoy non-card stuff more right now. But, I wanted to pick cards too, so decided to do two top 5s here... One for cards and one for other stuff.

Here goes:

Top 5 cards

In 5th place:

A very recent make... What can I say, I just adore everything Tim Holtz, and I'm finally getting my hands on some goodies to play with. This is the result. I'm pleased :-)


In 4th place:

I had a lot of fun with this one... It was the brainchild of several inspiring challenges, and I even managed to work an entire bingo board into it! This ended up as my daughter's birthday card.


In 3rd place:

It has very much been a year for new techniques for me, and after following Sir Tim's Creative Chemistry 101, I just had to have a go at the emboss resist technique. This was the result. I was soooo pleased!


In 2nd place:

Another of those rare creations that came out exactly as imagined. I don't normally like working in black and white, but it just all came together beautifully here.


In 1st place:

In first place the card I made for LOTV's 10th birthday. I really enjoyed making this, and loved how it came out. One of my happiest moments this year was visiting the shop and finding it on display!

Ok, could I just sneak in a special mention here? Because I made a card and liked it so much, I did it again in another colour. I think I prefer the blue, but I do love them both!

Now then, well done for sticking with me so far, but I'm not done yet! On to my:

Top 5 non-cards

In 5th place:

Just my cup of tea... a steampunk box! Loved making this.

In 4th place:

A mini album made with some of my favourite LOTV papers. LOVE the colour combo. Am in the process of re-doing this in pink, but need to stock up on pink blooms first!

In 3rd place:

I love, love, LOVE how this came out. another new technique for me, and it ended up exactly how I wanted it.

In 2nd place:

I have to admit, this canvas inspired by November's VI challenge would have been in first place, if not for the sentimental value of the first. I LOVE this!

Finally, in 1st place:

The mini-album I made for my son's 1-to-1 teacher when he left primary school. It was easily the most sentimental item I have ever made and couldn't be anywhere other than first place! (If you haven't read the story before, the "1st place" line above is a link to the original blog post).

And there they are. Phew! Took some doing! lol.

Have a fantastic day!

Sammy-x

My Favourite Christmas cards of 2014

Good morning all. Well, I'm feeling much better right now, if you don't count light-headedness from the paint fumes! lol. Bathroom is coming along nicely... Though what was originally going to be a quick lick of paint on the walls has turned into walls, woodwork and a new floor! An afternoon's work is now about to start it's third day, but it's going to be soooo lovely when it's done. We've always been "muted" decorators, preferring soft or neutral colours, but this one is rather more eye-popping, and I LOVE it! Pacific ocean for the walls and Charcoal Grey for the woodwork (including the bath panel), offset by the white of the bathroom suite, tiles and radiator. The floor is also a charcoal kind of colour, and as soon as it's in, I'll take a picture! :-)

Now, on to today's post...

It's that time of year again! Debby has asked us to share our favourite Christmas cards of 2014.
I don't think I made many more than 5 this year (I got ill at the very worst time, so have had to disappoint a lot of people...), but I have dug out my favourites for you...

In 5th place

Lots of inky fun and a gorgeous Visible Image stamp. This came out exactly how I'd imagined it (which is unheard of!)


In 4th place

This one uses my absolute favourite Christmas papers of this year (from Dovecraft) and features my first attempt at completely colouring a background (with pens). I was sooooo happy with the result.

In 3rd place

I'm so pleased with how the colours came out with this one. The vintage feel is just my cup of tea, and I think this was my first real attempt at colouring with a lot of red!

In 2nd place

Well, I had to. It's purple! lol. And I kinda love the letter bead sentiment...

And finally in 1st place

I love the subtle muted colours of this one, and of course the adorable LOTV image and my favourite Christmas papers. In fact, I loved this card so much, I re-created it for a big Christmas card order I needed to fill (which is something I never do... I like to make different cards or I get bored, lol)

So there they are. My top 5 Christmas cards. I kinda love how they're all different colours (though maybe that's subconsciously part of why I chose them in the first place...) and I'm also quite pleased with the amount of different techniques I managed to try out too.

That's it from me right now. I've been trying to visit your blogs this morning, but if I haven't gotten round to you yet, please bear with me... I still have chaos in my bathroom to deal with!

Have a most excellent day!

Sammy-x

Anything Goes - Sweet Stampin' DT

Good morning my dears,

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that Santa brought you more crafty goodies than he did me (which is none, lol). I'm sure the old fella is going senile ;-)

Anyways, we have a new challenge for you over at Sweet Stampin', and the theme is Anything Goes. A nice easy one for you all while you're recovering from the Christmas madness! Maybe you want to have a play with some new crafty stash, in which case, why not come and share it with us? (Providing you use a stamp somewhere, of course...)

I took the opportunity to use some of the Tim Holtz stamps I picked up at Art From the Heart when I went there for the workshops. Loooooove these stamps so much! I decided to go for a chalkboard look, and heat-embossed the design onto black card with white embossing powder.

Everything except the corners is TH. The corners were originally bright silver, but I coloured them gold with a leafing pen, then distressed them a little with black ink.

Et voilà!

Your turn folks!

In other news, I am just about back on my feet again, so will likely come and visit you all again from Sunday... Today we're supposed to be decorating the bathroom, so I'll see you all tomorrow if we get done! lol.

Have an excellent weekend!

Sammy-x

Anything Christmas - Last challenge at MilkCoffee

Hello all,

It's with great regret that I have to be a bearer of sad tidings... MilkCoffee are closing their challenge blog at the end of this challenge, two weeks from today.
It wasn't an easy decision to make, but Nana and Esme are both very busy and simply can't keep up with everything. It's not all bad news though, as their Etsy shop will remain open, so you'll still be able to buy their gorgeous digis!

For my card I decided to use the first Christmas digi of theirs I got to play with last year, Charlotte and Candy Cane. I went with a pink and turquoise colour scheme last year, so decided on something a little richer this time.

The papers and sentiment are both LOTV.

So there it is, my contribution to the final challenge. For now... You never know... The girls may decide to re-open the blog in the future. I for one certainly hope so!

So I hope you'll all come along and give this amazing challenge a great send off. And if you use a MilkCoffee image, even better!

Have a fabulous day!

Sammy-x

Oh Christmas Tree - Sweet Stampin' DT

Good morning folks!

Another Saturday. Not too many of those left this year! But at least I get to squeeze in another Christmas card, this time for the great Oh Christmas Tree theme over at Sweet Stampin'.

I used one of my favourite trees for this. One of the lovely LOTV festive foliage ones. I used this several times last year, and couldn't resist inking it up again now!

I teamed it up with my favourite Christmas papers this year, from Dovecraft. They're such lovely traditional colours and have a great vintage touch to them too.

Hope you can join us this week. All you need is a Christmas tree (and some form of stamping, of course!).

And fingers crossed that by the time you all read this, I'm feeling well enough to be on my way to Harrogate for a couple of workshops at Art From The Heart.... I've really been looking forward to those.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone.

Sammy-x

Unstampabelles Guest DT

Morning all!

Slotting in an extra post here, as Susan recently asked me if I would do a guest spot over at Unstampabelles.  Now, I'm always up for a challenge, and not stamping is definitely a challenge, so I agreed.
And then Susan gave me the brief for the challenge...

Summer fun - twist: to make a Southern Hemisphere Christmas card

Eek! Remember, no stamps allowed. So I "ummed and ahhhed" for a while, before getting an idea. Sir Tim and his distress inks to the rescue once again!

I laid down some inks to look like a beach scene, then added a die-cut tree, decorated with Stickles and liquid pearls.
I did a wee internet search to come up with suitable ideas for sentiments, and found the brilliant "Let it snow! ...Elsewhere" quote, which I thought was perfect (and probably wishful thinking, lol), so I typed it up in word and printed it out, then added it to my card (after inking).
And there you have it! A summery Christmas card without stamps.

So, if you feel up to the challenge, why not play along this month? There's an awesome prize up for grabs from sponsor Bizzy Becs

That's it from me this morning. Hope you're all well, and I hope to come visit all your blogs soon!

Sammy-x

Christmas in non traditional colours - MilkCoffee DT

Morning all!

Apologies for my absence... Not feeling at all well, so computer time is just about non-existent right now...

But I managed to set up this post for the new challenge at MilkCoffee this fortnight! The theme is Christmas in non traditional colours, and I decided to go with purple, and this really fab new digi:

That's it from me, short but sweet today... Back to bed I go... I do hope you'll all play along with the challenge though!

Have an awesome day!

Sammy-x

Use the colour red - Buckwells Crafty Challenge DT

Good morning everyone!

Just the one post from me this morning, as Rhedd's Creative Spirit is taking a break for Christmas.

But I do have a new challenge at Buckwells Crafty Challenge to share with you, and the theme is Use the colour red.
All the DT used the same image from sponsor Lia Stampz, and all used the colour red, yet they're all so different! I suggest you go take a peek!

This is what I did with mine:

I used the Lia Stampz image "Christmas Snowmen" and Buckwell Craft Supplies 15 & 10mm red satin ribbon. 

And while I'm on the subject... From today until the 15th, Buckwells is having a Christmas sale, with 10% off everything if you enter the code XMAS14 at the checkout.

Have a fabulous day folks!

Sammy-x

Let it snow - Sweet Stampin' DT - Also, my first venture into art abandonment!

Good morning everyone,

Well, yesterday was a new experience for me... I participated in "Flood the Streets with Art" - a global art abandonment event. It was my first time abandoning anything, and I opted to drop 3 tags at different locations around Leeds.
I got the sweetest email from a lady that had found one a few hours later, which was awesome, and I'm so happy it made her smile!
It was a really rewarding experience, and I'll probably end up abandoning art more frequently now I've worked up the courage to do it once! lol.

Anyways, on to today's DT project, and I'm back on my regular Sweet Stampin' week now, as team Fi have prepared lots of pretties for you with the theme Let it snow.

This is what I made for you all:

The stamp, papers and sentiment are all LOTV. I LOVE those papers (from the Snow Princess pad), and the colours make me happy!
I hope you'll all come and play along. Think of it as an opportunity to get some Christmas crafting done. (especially useful for those of you who, like me, are woefully behind!)

And before I go, a quick snap of my tags all packaged up before I let them loose on the world...

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!

Sammy-x

Bits and bobs

Hi all,

I thought I'd do another round-up of stuff I've been up to recently but haven't had a chance to blog about...

First of all, there's a couple of Christmas decorations I made for the charity shop I volunteer in:

A close-up to try and show more of the texture...

And one of the Christmas cards I made for the recent order of 12... I managed to get them all done, and the lady who ordered them was most pleased.
This one was different from the rest (which were mostly traditional in reds and greens), but I really love how it came out! The Visible Image stamp looks just as I'd imagined it, crossing in front of the moon!

And I don't think I blogged these ATCs yet either... :-)

Yes, I made a series of 12!! The theme was "seasons", and I was so inspired, I didn't want to stop, lol. I only sent 4 off for the swap though.


Now, if any of you happen to be looking to top up your supplies, may I suggest taking a peek over at Buckwell craft supplies? There's a sale on right now, with 10% off all stamps and flowers!

Now, I should probably get a wiggle on and make some Christmas cards of my own, as I am woefully behind!

Have a fantabulous day everyone!

Sammy-x

Not a Card - Crafting Cafe DT

Good morning all,

Me again, this time stopping by to share my project for this month's challenge inspiration at The Crafting Cafe. The theme is Not a Card, which I'm sure you'll all know by now is one that I love!

As St Andrew's day is just around the corner, that gave me an idea of what theme I wanted to play with, and I chose a lovely Celtic frame design from our sponsor Delicious Doodles to work with.

I started off with a set of 4 mini canvases (7cm each), painted two and papered the other two with tartan paper.
I printed off the frames and stamped a thistle into one of them (a gorgeous wooden stamp from Hobbycraft that my mum got me last year) and the sentiment "Alba an Aigh" into the other, which is Gaelic for "Scotland the Brave".

Some flowers and satin ribbon make lovely decorations, and of course plenty of pearls, all in shades of green and purple. Finally I mounted them all onto a plank of wood I'd also painted purple and added some natural twine as final accents and also secured to the back so it will hang.

And there it is, very purple (my favourite colour) and ready to be sent to my mum :-)

I hope you'll all come and play along... There's still a week to go.

Have a fab day!

Sammy-x

Happy birthday to Sweet Stampin'!

Good morning folks,

Yes, I know I'm butting in when it's not my week again, but Sweet Stampin' is celebrating it's 5th birthday, and I naturally had to come and celebrate too! The theme is, understandably, birthdays.

It just so happens that yesterday was my baby bear's birthday. (Baby bear being our nick-name for our son, who has been completely obsessed with bears since he was 4 years old...)
I'd had an idea for his birthday card since before his last birthday, but as I didn't have a colour printer at the time, I couldn't carry it out. I could now however!

I started with stamping a Kanban bear and colouring him, then adding a "birthday hugs" sentiment. My son is very fond of hugs, to my ever lasting joy!

The paper is Grace Taylor.
When that was done, I printed out photographs of 8 of his favourite teddies (ok, so one is a snowman, but snowman has been his best friend since he was 1 year old!). I made up a little booklet with the pictures, and each one has a different word to spell out a birthday greeting.
I also added some bunting die-cuts here and there.

It can display nicely too, though taking pictures is pretty awkward, lol.

I'm pleased to say he was over the moon with his card, and the look of joy on his face as he flicked through the pages was the best thing in the world to see!

So, do you fancy making a birthday card (don't forget to use a rubber or digi stamp!) and helping us celebrate? But first, go see what my fellow Sweeties have been up to, and bid welcome to our fabulous new Sweeties too!

Have a fab weekend everyone!

Sammy-x

Lots of embellishments - MilkCoffee DT

Morning all!

So sorry I've not really been around this past week... I volunteered for a couple of extra shifts at the charity shop, and have had errands to run, orders to fill and my son's birthday to prepare for! Not used to being quite so busy, lol.

Anyways, it's new challenge time at MilkCoffee, and the theme this fortnight is to use Lots of Embellishments. easy peasy for those of us that love to keep adding bits, but possibly quite a challenge for you CAS creators!

I decided to use Luna for this theme, as her 18th century get-up seemed perfect for a shabby kind of creation with lots of flowers and pretties.
Like so:

I couldn't resist adding one of the shabby bark hearts from Live & Love Crafts. I LOVE them so much and am on my third lot of them already, lol.
Again the papers are from the Docrafts Wild Rose capsule collection pack... I'm nearly out now, lol.
Flowers are WOC, the bling heart I believe from The Ribbon Girl (?) and I haven't the faintest idea where I got the ribbon bows, lol. Lace, pearls and a Frantaged corner die-cut finish off the embellishments.

I hope you'll all come and play along!

Have a brilliant day!

Sammy-x

To die for - Sweet Stampin' DT

Good morning boys and girls and assorted others...

There's a new challenge over at Sweet Stampin' today, and the theme is To die for. Yup, simply use one or more dies on your card to qualify for entry. Simples!

I used two different types of dies on my card. Stars and Snowflakes. I just got an order in for a dozen Christmas cards, so I'm multi-tasking! lol.

Of course, with the weather as dismal as it is here (midday looks no different from midnight it seems...), photography is tricky, but the stars are die cut from silver mirri card, and the snowflakes from white glitter card. The stars on the image were coloured with shiny silver pen, and there's stickles on their wings and headbands... All in all, a lot of sparkle and shine! The snow is done with snowtex.
The image, paper and sentiment are all LOTV.

Now I'm hoping you'll come and play along, and take a peek at what my fellow Sweeties have created for you.
And speaking of fellow Sweeties... Keep your eyes peeled over the next couple of weeks as our fabulous new teamies will be joining us. I suspect there will be some lovely treats in store from them!

Have an excellent weekend everyone!

Sammy-x

Anything goes with option of goodbye - Crafting with Dragonflies DT

Hi all,

A bitter sweet post today...

A little over a year ago, still fresh to blogland and with only a month or so of stamping under my belt, I thought I'd take a chance and apply for a position on a design team. This was a first for me, and I was a little nervous to say the least, and if I'm honest didn't really believe I would be accepted.
So imagine my surprise when a little while later I received a lovely email from Hilde at Crafting with Dragonflies, inviting me to the team!
I was so excited, and in those first couple of weeks I learned so very much! Being on a team brings a whole new side to crafting, and it's one that can be very rewarding, in many ways. In those early days it really helped me become more confident, which led to a few more applications and fabulous DTs to play along with.

So, why the reminiscing? Well, unfortunately, life has a way of upsetting things, and Hilde has made the difficult decision to close Crafting with Dragonflies. The new challenge that starts today will be our last. :-(

The theme is Anything Goes, but there's an option to make a Goodbye/farewell card if you like.

I Went from "goodbye" to "travel" and eventually ended up at "journey" (which can be interpreted both literally or as a more spiritual concept, if you will), which was the main thought behind the card and matching tag I made (both again using the emboss resist technique).

The butterfly on the card is a digi from our sponsor Pickled Potpourri, and the embossed background stamp is from LOTV. When I'd finished it, I sprayed the entire thing with glimmer mist, which you can sort-of make out of the close-up below.

And the matching tag: Another embossed LOTV background stamp, and this time the focal stamp is part of a Papermania urban stamp.

And there they are. My last creations for Crafting with Dragonflies.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Hilde for taking a chance on a newbie and inviting me to such a lovely crafty group. My thoughts will be with you Hilde! x
And to all my fellow Dragonflies, past and present, you girls rock! Don't be strangers.

And to everyone else I say, what are you waiting for? Go give this challenge the fabulous send-off it deserves and play along this fortnight. We're all there waiting for you!

Health and happiness to you all.

Sammy-x

Christmas tag

Hi all,

There's a Christmas tag swap going on in a group I'm in on Facebook, and I decided to get mine done while taking a break from Dt work...

The other day, I got pointed in the direction of Loll (thanks Darnell!) who is hosting a Christmas tag challenge on her blog this month. These's been gorgeous inspiration to be found there every day for a week, and more still to come, so I suggest you go check it out!

Anyways, on to my tag...

I'm very much in love with the emboss resist technique at the moment, so it features on my tag, using a LOTV background stamp.

After embossing, I inked the background with distress inks in lovely shades of green and red (with a hint of pumice stone too, and some scattered straw for warmth...).

The Santa is a QKR digi, which I coloured with Promarkers, and the tree border is from Crafts Too. I'd inked a piece of cardstock with two shades of green before cutting, and inked the edges with vintage photo after, then added a snowy look with a light dusting of Snowtex.

I added some Hessian ribbon, a little handmade parcel and some holly - with glossy accents on the berries - and finished off with a couple of jingle bells tied up with string and a little piece of tartan ribbon.
Oh, and a Tim Holtz Chitchat sticker in the bottom corner!

So there it is. my first Christmas tag this year, but probably not my last!

Hope you've all had a great weekend. I'll be back to doing the rounds again tomorrow morning!

Sammy-x

Use a hand coloured image - MilkCoffee DT

Hi all,

First of all, Just thought I'd let you all know I've set up a FB page... It's still under construction, but I figured it was about time, as it's a lot easier to send people there than here if they're trying to commission something.
If anyone fancies stopping by, I'll be very happy to see you :-)

It's time for another challenge at MilkCoffee, and it's one that people either love or hate... We're simply asking you to use a hand coloured image on your project. So no pre-made toppers or pre-coloured digis please!

I decided to use another Tiffany image for mine. This time, she is dressed up as Alice, and judging by the fact that she has hold of the watch, I'd say she's already gone down the rabbit hole!

Apologies for the terrible lighting in the photo. It's been so dull and miserable here that try as I might, I couldn't get a decent colour to anything (even trying to fix it with software after... believe me when I say this is sooo much better than what it started off as, lol).

I figured that with the watch in her hand, this would be the perfect image for a belated birthday card, so I created the sentiment on my computer and printed it out. The papers are LOTV.
Believe it or not, but that gem in the bottom corner is supposed to be the same blue as the others!

Now it's your turn.  We'd love to see your colouring skills!

Have a fantastic day!

Sammy-x

Altered canvas

Hi all,

I'm having sooooo much fun with the whole mixed media thing at the moment, and when I saw yesterday that the new challenge over at Visible Image was to use your favourite VI stamp, I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

Now, to be completely fair, I can't say I have a real favourite yet, as it's not been long since I discovered them, so my collection is still somewhat meagre, but my most-used is easily the Grunge Harlequin stamp. It's just so perfect for mixed media and distressy kind of projects and though I only bought it this summer, it has already become my most used stamp of all that I own!
But VI have so many gorgeous stamps, and the order I'd placed arrived yesterday too, which meant I also got to use the gorgeous Butterfly INKognito on my canvas.

Speaking of which, I guess I'd better stop waffling and show it to you? lol.

I had a lot of fun making this, though I can definitely tell you that more colours of archival ink are now somewhere at the top of my "must have" list, as try as I might, I couldn't get any other type of ink to cooperate, so both the butterfly and the harlequin elements ended up being stamped in black (the only one I have at the moment!)
Still, I'm so pleased with the finished piece! it's only A6 size, so I may be attaching it to the front of my Visible Image stamps mini ring binder...

The metal sentiment strip is from Making Memories, and has been sitting in my stash for nearly two years! I was always reluctant to use it and wanted to save it for a special project. And this is it!

Unfortunately the fact that I sprayed the entire thing with my glimmer mist refuses to show up in the pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it shimmers beautifully in person, lol.

I'd also love to enter the following challenges:

Altered Eclectics - November challenge
Polkadoodles - Recycle it (the corrugated card was from a cardboard box)
All craft challenge - October/November

Hope you're all having a fabulous weekend. I know I am.

Sammy-x