Shabby chic - CraftyHands DT

Good morning everyone.

Time for another challenge over at CraftyHands, and this fortnight it's one of my favourites... Shabby Chic.

I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to have a play with one of my new LOTV paper pads (yes, as a matter of fact I do have all 6 of the new ones! Oops! lol), and also my newest addition to my LOTV stamp collection.

Naturally I had to add some lace and pearls, flowers (from WOC) and seam binding (from The Ribbon Girl)! I can't quite remember where the heart charm came from, as I went on a bit of a spree a while back and ordered a heap from several different places, and they all ended up in the same box!
There is actually a tag behind the image panel with a sentiment that reads "Remember that something incredibly wonderful is always possible", which was a Kaisercraft stamp. But like a numpty I forgot to take a picture of it, and I no longer have it to photograph! D'oh!

Now, my fellow teamies have got some gorgeous treats in store for you all, so I suggest you go take a peek and leave them some love. And if you fancy joining in, there's this lovely prize up for grabs:

Hope to see your entries soon!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

LOTV Ideas to Inspire - Bingo (Ribbon, pearls, flowers and ribbon, lace, charms)
Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge - Shabby Chic
I <3 Promarkers - Anything Goes (Image coloured with Promarkers as always)
Deep Ocean Challenge - For a Friend  (card is on it's way to a friend who needs a pick-me-up as I write this!)

Wishing you a craft-tastic day!

Sammy-x

Welcome Spring - MilkCoffee DT

Hello everyone.

It's time for another MilkCoffee challenge today! And the theme is Welcome Spring.

I don't know about you guys, but to me, spring means flowers and an end to cold, not this miserable weather we've been having this week! lol.

I used the gorgeous Fairy Tiffany for my card, and teamed her up with some First Edition paper.

As you can see, I was also extremely liberal with the Stickles! The flower ribbon (which I can promise you is now straight again, lol) was a find in a local haberdashery... Just love it!
And the light flowers have a turquoise colour Stickles on them, though they look rather darker in the picture!

Well then, we'd love it if you joined us with a Spring-themed project! And make sure you go take a looksee at what the rest of the DT have made.

I'd like to enter this into the following challenge:

STAMPlorations - Stamps and spring


Wishing you all the best of days,

Sammy-x

Trees/Wood - Rhedd and Rosie's DT

Good morning my bloggy friends!

Well, Blogger is still more hit than miss, but I have not been wasting the time I now seem to have on my hands! I signed up for Tim Holtz' Creative Chemistry 101, and am having SO MUCH FUN playing with inks and learning so many new techniques. Watch this space for some of the results!

But not today. Today is a new challenge over at Rhedd and Rosie's, and the theme is trees/wood. The full remit is on the challenge blog, but just to give you all a heads-up, this does not mean a token something made of wood will qualify! The focus has to be on wood, whether a tree stamp or die, or a wooden object of some kind...

I will be honest and say that initially this challenge stumped me. I was thinking trees, and just couldn't get anywhere with that. I ten tootled off to the Harrogate fair, and picked up so many wooden lovelies, I changed tack and suddenly it all fell into place :-)

So here's my altered wooden heart:

I covered it in core'dinations cardstock and sanded it, stamped with some Kaiserkraft texture stamps (which, I should add, I seem to have misplaced and have spent most of today hunting for to no avail... *grump*), and then embellished with some wooden bits and bobs from Cosmo Cricket, the edges of which were inked with vintage photo distress ink. A bit of string to hang it with, and voila!

Now, you know you want to go join in with this challenge. And you should also know that I will be extremely jealous of whomever wins, as this is what they will get:

Want!

Have a most fabulous of days!

Sammy-x

CAS - The Crafting Cafe DT

Good morning all!

Apologies for being MIA yet again... Blogger was behaving for a bit, but is now acting up worse than ever.

Yes, I use Chrome, and I've tried logging on on several different machines, with the same issues. It's a problem with the account (or more accurately, the server my blog is hosted on), and all I'm getting from Blogger is "We're aware some people are experiencing problems. Please sod off and stop pestering us!"
Ok, maybe not in those exact words, but close enough, lol.

Anyways, at least it's still letting me post to my blog, which means I can share my The Crafting Cafe DT card with you today. The theme this month is CAS, and we're being sponsored by LEJ Designs!

I was given a lovely spring image to play with, and I came up with this:

I'm still trying to get over my fear of white space, but I think this helped. I fussy-cut the image after colouring it with my Promarkers, then stuck it on a piece of white card matted with some paper from Webster's Pages. I used some snippets from the same paper pad to make some fishtail accents and stamped a sentiment onto one of them.

Now I hope those of you that aren't scared of CAS will come and play this month!

See you all as soon as Blogger plays nice again!
Have a fab day,

Sammy-x

Doodles - Sweet Stampin' DT

Hello my dears,

I'm back again today with my Sweet Stampin' DT card, which this week is following the theme Doodles. Now, as you'll probably already know, I'm not a doodler. In fact, I can't even draw stickmen! I leave all that to my much more talented daughter.

However... After a few attempts, I managed to doodle some sightly deformed Daisies. I hope you're all proud of me! lol.

The papers are from the Dovecraft "tea party" pad, and the handbag/purse outline stamp is from Dimension Fourth. Some gingham ribbon and pink pearls finish it off. (Eek! I've just noticed there's a pearl missing in the top left corner! Oh noes!)

Right. When you're all done laughing at my attempt at doodling, I suggest you go check out the rest of the sweeties' contributions to the theme. And if you fancy it, we'd love it if you played along! There's a Hobby House goodie bag up for grabs!

Have an excellent weekend everyone!

Sammy-x

Babies Blog hop! - Crafting with Dragonflies

WE are having a BLOG HOP as well as a Challenge this fortnight!

This year our theme is - BABIES!

We have some wonderful sponsors who have generously donated lots of goodies for you and our wonderful Hilde also has a freebie to give to you to use for the challenge if you want to - go to the main blog for this.

Our Sponsors for this Blog Hop are listed below but the twist is that they are associated with each individual member of the Design Team's blogs, so you need to go to their blog and follow the instructions to be in a chance to win. There is a prize for the Challenge winner as well and our normal TOP THREE awards. You do not have to go in the BLOG HOP as well as the Challenge, but what else have you to do with your time? Of course you will enter both!! However, you do have to be a member of this blog to be eligible for the Challenge and Blog Hop prizes. 

OUR WONDERFUL SPONSORS

Sponsors: Digistamps4Joy Prize: 

$10 to spend in the store  - on Tania's blog

Sami Stamps Prize:

 

$12 to spend in the store  - Judith has this one

Flourish with a Bling Prize:

 

$15 dollar to spend in the store - you will find this one on Ina's blog

Handmade Harbour prize: 

six digis for the winner  - hiding away on CG's blog

Pickled Potpourri prize: 

 $7 to spend in the store  -  Hilde has charge of this

Meljens prize: four digis for the winner  

 

Sammy, Susan and Wynn are being sponsored by Meljen

Wynn and I are both offering a surprise prize of our own!

The way you can hop is by thinking of numbers! Go to each Design Team's blog, read the clues and THINK OF NUMBERS while you do this! Remember - our theme is BABIES, so what do Babies have related to NUMBERS?

There may be a small amount of poetry in there........but I am sure you will be able to work that all out! You collect a word or maybe a whole phrase from each blog along the hop and you need to make sure that

1. You leave a comment on a blog to be eligible for that blog's prize
2. You DON'T mention the word/phrase in your comment on that blog!

Leave a comment on the main blog as well as entering your own Baby themed project into the Challenge on the  Crafting with Dragonflies . Also follow the instructions on the main blog to finish off the hop from there. 

Happy Hopping Folks

Order of the HOP

Crafting with Dragonflies

Tania

Hilde

Wynn

Sammy   You are here!

CG

Judith

Ina
Susan

Crafting with Dragonflies 

Now then... Now that all the technical stuff is out of the way, I shall share some pictures, a story or two and, oh yes, a card with you!

First of all, I'd like to introduce you all to my daughter, Kayleigh. Not as she is now, all teenage-y and whatnot, but as she was when we first brought her home:

Adorable, wasn't she? And oh so very tiny! It was hard to imagine, nine months before, that this tiny little person would instantly become the centre of my life. but that she did!

Now, you may wonder how she came by her name? And if you'd guessed she was named after the song, believe it or not, you would be right! I fist heard Kayleigh by Marillion when I was 15 years old, and immediately decided that if I ever had a daughter, she would be called Kayleigh. It was, and still is, the most beautiful name I'd ever heard. As luck would have it, her dad turned out to be a big Marillion fan, so there was no battle over a name.

We saved the battles for our second child...

Meet Sean as a baby. And rather than the centre of my life shifting from one to another, it simply expanded to accommodate this adorable young man:

Now, had Sean been a girl, the name would again have been a simple matter. He would have been Caitlin. But as my due day grew near, we still hadn't settled on even a short list for boys names... I had my heart set on Kieran, but hubby was having none of it, and even though we'd had almost nine months to figure it out, we got to a couple of days before the birth with nada! Every time one of us came up with a name, the other would veto, and vice versa.

Then we happened to be watching The Fellowship of the Ring one evening, and hubby joked "What about Frodo?"

I recall throwing something at him, and telling him all LOTR names were out of the question. (I had a friend in high school who had the misfortune to be called Gandalf. He got teased mercilessly back then, I can only imagine how much more difficult his life became after the films came out!). 

I then thought for a moment and added "And cast names are also out... Orlando? Viggo? I think not!"

But then hubby said "What about Sean?"

Well, he had me there. I freely admit to having a weakness for Irish names (and Sean Bean! lol), and it immediately went on the list. We ended up adding a few more names over the next couple of days, but as soon as I held him for the first time, hubby and I looked at each other and said "Sean" at the same time. sometimes names just fit.

So, that's my little story (hope you kept your eyes peeled for the "magic" words!), and now finally, I can share my card!

I used the Meljens image "baby shower". 

I dug around in my stash for some baby-related goodies, and decided to not go with traditional blues or pinks, but instead with a more gender-neutral colour scheme.

So, that's it from me for today. If you managed to make it through to the end, I think you deserve a medal! However, I don't have any of those, but if you leave me a comment below, you will be in the running to win a little surprise something. And don't forget to visit the rest of the dragonflies too, as there's plenty of other chances to win, and stories and lovely makes to see!

Have a fantastic day!

Sammy-x

Back from GNPE!

Well, I just arrived back from Harrogate, and putall my shinies onto the kitchen table to take a peek at everything...

I think I left some stuff for other people, but I'm not 100% sure about that! lol.
I also just about cleared out the MDF man!

Loads of MDF and Chipboard stuff for altering, a few dies, bling and flowers. And some Whimsy stamps (including Kenny K) for £1.50 each!
Of course there is paper aplenty (couldn't quite resist visiting the lotv stand, even though I'd told myself to wait for the open day!
I've also LOADS of card to be getting on with, and have some ultra thick embossing enamel to have a play with too.
I did really want to get some spray inks too, to have a go with, but couldn't find any!

The place was packed! It was in a smaller hall this time, which meant things were somewhat cramped for all concerned, and my poor toes are glad we're home now and they won't be trodden on anymore, lol.

So many new pretties to play with, I don't know where to start!

Oh, and when I logged in this morning, I saw I have over 10k pageviews! Yay!

Hope your day is an awesome one!

Sammy-x

Buttons & Bows - CraftyHands DT

And a very good morning to you all!

Some of you may have noticed Blogger co-operated somewhat for me yesterday (and who said complaining will get you nowhere? lol), and I've started playing catch-up. It's a slow process though, so please bear with me...

Today, there is a new challenge over at CraftyHands, and the theme is Buttons & Bows.

Now, some of you may recall my contemplating what to do with my LOTV sentiment and background stamps. I've lots of the A6 folders for the image stamps, but the A5s were feeling left out! Well, after weeks of searching, I finally managed to locate me some A5 ringbinders in Rymans!

I may or may not have bought myself a few of them... ;-)

So, I ordered some of the A5 clear sleeves from LOTV, and in the meantime set to decorating myself a binder. I chose one of the brilliant statement stamps to use on the front, and teamed it up with some LOTV paper from the Antebellum pad, matted on pink card.

Some pink ric rac and a gingham ribbon bow, black pearls (minus Jack Sparrow, I'm sorry to say) and a plethora of pink and black buttons and hey presto... One purty binder for my A5 stamp sets!

Naturally, I decorated the spine and back too.

And the stamps look so happy in their new home! I put a sheet of white paper in with each of the stamp sets, to make it easier to flick through and read them.

(I may well have a play with the inside cover some time too... There's not enough colour there if you ask me! lol.)

The rest of the CraftyHands team have prepared some delicious goodies for your perusal, so I strongly suggest you go take a look! And if you fancy joining in, there's a fabulous paper pad & ribbons up for grabs for the winner!

Because let's face it... We all loooove paper, no?


Oh and on another note... anyone else going to the Harrogate fair tomorrow?  I can't wait!! :-D

Have a fantabulous day one and all.

Sammy-x

Flowers - Milk Coffee DT

Hello my lovelies!

Thanks for all the lovely comments everyone. And in response to some regarding the issues I'm having with Blogger:
I've had the occasional "empty" blog feed since I started by blog last summer, but a refresh usually fixed it. Recently it has started getting worse though... First needing half a dozen refreshes, and now it seems no amount will help when it decides it doesn't want to co-operate, which seems to be most of the time. I'm also having real problems with trying to load Mr Linkies that have pictures (text-based ones seem to work ok), which is causing untold problems commenting on challenge entries, or entering them myself. It's incredibly frustrating, and I've put in a query to Blogger to see if they have any solutions. Fingers crossed!

But on to happier things (luckily posting to blogs I have admin rights to works about 90% of the time!).

There's a new challenge over at MilkCoffee, and this fortnight we want to see Flowers. Well, that's hardly going to pose much of a problem for you all now, is it?

It certainly didn't for me, though I did make something a little different from my usual...

I used the lovely Lisbeth Loves Sunflower, and teamed her up with some Jillibean soup papers. I paper-pieced her clothes and headband, then picked some embellishments to match... The vellum oval is something relatively new to me. I tried with a regular piece of card first, but I found it "hid" too much of the card, then hit on the idea of using vellum instead, which I think worked far better.
I'm also not very used to using so many different colours at once, but I have to say I rather enjoyed that aspect! And I located some card candi I thought worked well... I keep forgetting I own a rather large supply of the stuff, and really should remember to use it more often!


Well, I'm certainly looking forward to seeing your entries (because enter you will, yes?) - provided blogger will play nice and actually show them to me! - and here's hoping I'll be able to catch up with you all soon!

I'd like to enter the following challenges:

Craft Mojo - spring flowers
Papertake Weekly - Bingo (gems, die cuts, flowers - amongst others!)

May your day be truly excellent.

Sammy-x

Aged/Distressed - Rhedd & Rosie's DT

Good morning all!

You know, if I see "You aren't following any blogs" one more time when I try to access my blog feed, I'll probably scream! Please bear with me, I'm sure it'll get sorted, but if things don't improve soon, I'll be asking you all to email me direct links to your blogs instead!

Now, onto more fun stuff. Namely the new challenge over at Rhedd & Rosie's! Our new theme is the brilliant Aged/Distressed, which is rather an awful lot of fun if you ask me!

I'm rather partial to a bit of distressing really...

So I made this:

The dress-form stamp was a magazine freebie, and I stamped it onto some Prima paper (mounted on distressed very pale pink card - looks white in the picture!). I then re-stamped it onto card, and coloured and fussy-cut the corset, then added it with foam pads to give some extra dimension. Finally, I covered it in crackle varnish, like thus:

Some Vintage Photo distress ink was needed on the edges of the paper, naturally, and I dug out some lace and buttons to embellish.
The sentiment is from LOTV, and was stamped straight onto the paper with brown ink rather than black, to add to the aged look.

Et voila!

Your turn! Go take a gander at the other, gorgeous entries, then come and bring us some distressed or aged projects of your own!

I look forward to seeing you there!

Sammy-x

Inspired by a book, song or film - Sweet Stampin' DT

Hello everyone!

It's Saturday, which of course means a new challenge over at Sweet Stampin' and this week Team Fi get to play with the super fun theme of Inspired by a book, song or film.

For me the choice was an easy one... I recently won some images from Sassy Studios, and one of the ones I chose was the perfect digi for a birthday card for a friend of mine, whose birthday is next week!

This is what I made for him, and I'd say my inspiration should be rather obvious!

Of course it's the film "Captain America", which my friend is a huge fan of. Being a typical red-blooded male, females in figure-hugging costumes and stockings are also much appreciated, so I completely expect this card to be well received!

The papers are from Craftwork Cards and I did some more embossing as a way to include stars. (I put off trying embossing for ages, then half my cards suddenly use the technique!)

The sentiment was computer generated. Fun fact, the gentleman in question is actually known to myself and others in our circle as "colonel" (In fact, I think in all the years that I've known him, I've never actually called him by his actual name! He's always "colonel" or "sir"...)
I'm sure that he won't mind being demoted to "Captain" temporarily, lol.

So there you go, one card inspired by a film. There's some brilliant cards by my fellow sweeties waiting to be admired over on the Sweet Stampin' blog, so I suggest you go take a peek and see if you can guess what's inspired by what!

I'm soooo looking forward to seeing the entries this week!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Paper Crafting Journey - Make it Manly
Crafty Little Fairies - Song or Film title
Graph'It - Male Colours
Hobby Cutz - Celebration card


Have a most fantabulous weekend!

Sammy-x

Guest DT - Crafting by Designs

And hello again my dears!  I know, two posts in only a few hours, and I'm not even awake! lol.

I am very excited to be able to share with you that I have been asked to be a guest designer over at Crafting By Designs for the March challenge. Naturally I jumped at the chance to join in and create something for this challenge, which features everyone's favourite theme... anything goes!

It gave me an opportunity to play with a stamp I'd recently acquired (though it had been on my wish-list for quite some time!), which is the La-La Land Crafts Top Hat Steampunk Marci.
And to make it that little bit more special, I decided to make an easel card, as I've not made one in many months!

The paper is Kanban (I am sooooo in love with that pad. I'm kinda hoarding it though, as I'm unlikely to be able to find more!) matted with gold Miri card, to match the gold embossed designs in the paper.

Some metal brads seemed the right thing to frame the sentiment...

Some copper coloured ribbon and gold pearls to finish it off...

I really, really enjoyed making this card, and colouring this stamp with my Promarkers. I've come to the conclusion that the LLLC stamps really are a pleasure to colour!

So that's my GDT card for Crafting By Designs. I hope some of you are feeling inspired to play along with the March challenge!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Sweetpea stampers - Easel card


Remember to be fabulous!

Sammy-x

Shaped cards - Crafting with dragonflies DT

Hello my dears,

Just swinging by to share this fortnight's Crafting with Dragonflies DT post with you all, and the theme is Shaped cards.

Now, my first set of Grand Nestibilities should be on its way, but in the meantime, I managed to find a pack of shaped cards, so figured I'd grab them and use them (I normally make my own card blanks... Don't see the point in wasting money on something so easy to make!).

Now, we are sponsored this challenge by the wonderful MilkCoffee and by All Dressed Up and they gave us some gorgeous digis to play with.

This is my card using an All Dressed Up digi, called "Little Angel":

I used some paper from a Spellbinders Mixed media pad and inked the edges with Walnut Stain ink. The flowers are from WOC and some other embellishments from Live & Love Crafts. The wings are of course covered in Stardust Stickles, as is the flower garland in her hair.
The lace was from my stash, and I chose that particular one, as I thought the pattern resembled angel wings.
The sentiment came from a magazine freebie set.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Wild orchid Crafts - Wings and things
Stampin' for the weekend - Sparkle and shine
Papertake Weekly - Anything goes
The ABC Challenge - G is for Girls
Sparkles Monthly - ribbon/Lace, hearts and pearls (2nd entry)


And of course I could not resist making a card with a MilkCoffee image too. This particular image was a freebie on their blog some time ago...

I think the papers I used here are Melissa Frances... The heart die is from Memory Box and the large gemstones from My Mum's Craft Shop.
The ballerina charm was a pound shop find!

As you've probably been able to tell, I've found a new favourite hair colour... The "dirty ash blonde" look is far more realistic, I find, than the more yellowy blonde, and more co-operative with Promarkers than browns are.

Anyways, that's my contributions to the theme, now it's your turn - after you've seen what the other Dragonflies have been up to, of course!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafts Galore encore - Use a stamp or digi


Be excellent to each other!

Sammy-x

Oh hello there!

Good morning my dears!

Oops, I may or may not have ended up at LOTV again yesterday, and this time hubby and son came along too. I'm pretty sure hubby is planning to stage an intervention one of these days, lol.

I did however get some of the new paper pads, and a stamp set I have plans for... Watch this space!

I'm here just for fun today, no DT work to show off this time. I do however have a card to share, which features a digi stamp I won recently. The stamp is called "Girl Friday" and is from Art By Miran. She is such a cutie, no?

I teamed her up with some papers from a pad of randoms I picked yp at the Harrogate fair a year ago... They just seemed to work really well with the image!

I edged the image panel with tattered rose ink, then added some ribbon, liquid pearls and Stickles for a touch of sparkle, and I added a few pearls (coloured green with my Promarker!) and a magazine freebie sentiment to finish it off. Oh, and glossy accents on the shoes, of course!

I so loved colouring this image! I have a few more, so may well be making some more such cards in the near future...

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

A Creative Romance - Bingo (pearls, glitter, bow)

Bearly Mine - One for the girls

Craft-Dee Bowz - anything goes with a handmade bow

The Ribbon Girl - Birthday

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Sammy-x

March challenge - Rhedd's Creative Spirit DT

Good morning blogland!

Is it just me, or did February fly by rather too quickly? There were some gorgeous entries over at Rhedd's Creative Spirit, and all in all I think we can call the first challenge a success!

This month we have a brand new challenge, and the theme as always is anything goes, provided of course it is altered art (please, no cards!).

For my DT project I did something a little different...

I've been admiring all these beautiful journals I've seen in the land of blog, some art journals, some for jotting down random thoughts, and others that double as a planner. So I thought, hey... Let's grab a nice journal, and alter it!

So that's exactly what I did...

I used some gorgeous DCWV paper that my mum got me for Christmas. I have a real weakness for bookprint papers, and there are several in the pad, but this one was my favourite. I also cut some other elements from the pad to act as frames/mats for the "sentiment" (Grace Taylor letter stickers) and the image, which was a rub-on. I used a few Kaisercraft sentiments and finally finished it off with some flowers (WOC and Papermania blooms)

Spine:

And the back:

The notebook itself was gorgeous to begin with... It's A5 with a (faux) leather cover, and has a couple of pockets in the back that will be great for keeping things like stickers and such in.

The prize this month is this gorgeous money box:

So what are you waiting for? Go take a look at the stunning makes by the rest of the DT, then go and create! I can't wait to see what entries we will have this month!

Have an excellent day!

Sammy-x