Something different

Here's a second post from me today as I've tried something a little different and wanted to share it:  stamping onto fabric.  I used the Stamp Addicts Engraved Flowers set again and wondered how well all the intricate detail would show up.  It worked perfectly and all the detail is there if you click on the picture.  I left it uncoloured and like the vintage look of brown ink, frayed edges and stitching.  It's stitched on to Kraft, matted onto brown and a couple of rows of scallops added as well as the ribbon.  What do you think?
I'm entering my card for:
CAS-ual Fridays - scallops
Sir Stampalot - monochrome
Simon Says - spots and/or stripes
Moving Along with the Times - spots and/or stripes
One Stop Craft - on the spot and ribbon
Cupcake Craft - something new (stamping on fabric)

Fred She Said Christmas Challenge

 Fred She Said is having a fun little Christmas Challenge! The theme is " Make a Christmas Tag OR Share a favorite Holiday Recipe " How do you enter? You have lots of choice here: you can make a Christmas Tag, a recipe card, or share a favorite Holiday recipe on your blog, linking to our challenge.  You don't have to use Fred She Said designs, but we love it when you do!
The PRIZE is a $25 GC to the Fred She Said Store.  There will be one winner chosen randomly.  Entries will be accepted until Friday DEC 30th midnight EST.  ... more details at the Fred She Said BLOG :) 

I used a lovely snowflake medallion from Fred She Said, which is pre-coloured, ideal for a quick and easy tag for a gift.  It really sparkles and shines; I gave it two coats or iridescent sparkle before I assembled the three layers and added Stickles and Perfect pearls to it.  You can find the snowflake here on the Fred She Said Blog - it is a freebie!

I also have a holiday recipe to share with you, which was given to me by a lady who took a quilting course with me.  I don't know where Barbara got the recipe from, but I do know it is delicious!

 

Lemon-frosted pistachio cake.

250g butter

250g caster sugar

3 eggs

100g shelled pistachio nuts (un salted)

100g ground almonds

1 orange

1 teaspoon rosewater 

60g plain flour

Crystallized rose petals and shelled pistachio nuts to decorate (optional)

Preheat the oven to 160 C Gas 3 and line the bottom of a non-stick 22cm/ 9 in. cake tin.

Cream the butter and sugar in food mixer until very light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating between additions

Blitz the pistachios to fine crumbs in food processor and then add them with the ground almonds, to the butter and sugar.

Finely grate zest and squeeze orange and then stir in with rosewater.

Lastly fold in flour with a large metal spoon.

Scoop mixture into lined baking tin and bake for fifty minutes, covering top lightly with foil for last 10 minutes.

Check the cake by inserting metal skewer into centre. It should come out fairly clean, without any wet mixture stuck to it. Leave to cool in the tin and then turn it out.

To make the icing

100g unrefined icing sugar.

 2 tblsp lemon juice.

Mix sugar and lemon juice till smooth. Pour over the cake and decorate with rose petals and pistachio nuts. Leave till icing is set.   

I'm entering my tag for a few challenges: 

Drunken Stampers - glittery holiday

Designed2Delight - tag you're it

Whimsical Wednesday - tags

Heart Song Inspirations - snowflakes and/or doilies

Cupcake Craft - look at the light (sparkly, shiny)

Everybody Art Challenge - blue & white

Digital Tuesday - winter wonderland

Shopping our Stash - tag it krafty

Do You Stack Up - winter photo inspiration

Try it on Tuesday - gift tags galore

Anything Goes - anything but a card

Craft Your Passion - tag you're it
Colour Create - blue, silver and white

It's all falling into place - I don't be-leaf it - no trees!

This evening, instead of trees, I have leaves to show you:).  By good fortune this card fits the challenges for several of my favourite blogs, where I try to play along as often as I can.  Midnight Madness has a fab prize of House Mouse stamps this week and since the lovely America is also part of House Mouse Monday she suggest combining the sketch with their Fall challenge.  This little chap is a Joanna Sheen stamp, never seen ink before and I think I've had him for about a year - shameful!  Cupcake Craft is where I won my first ever blog hop candy; I also one one of my first ever Top 3/5 awards from them so I love to join their challenges and this week they have leaves as their theme.  Add to that Anything Goes at Basic Grey and Simon Says and I cover almost all my favourite challenges in one here.
About the card:  coloured with Copics and Distress Inks.  DP is Basic Grey, border punch EK Success, leaf and button punches Woodware. Sentiment is Dimension Fourth, strip ribbon from Stampin' Up.
This has been the strangest autumn for weather, we had that lovely sunny hot Indian summer, now it's mild but damp and we have a second bumper crop of mushrooms in the field where we keep out horses - unheard of so late in the year!  Tonight I took my hat off and filled it with mushrooms in the absence of a clean container!
Challenges for my card:
Midnight Madness - sketch
House Mouse Mondays - Fall
Cupcake Crafts - take a leaf out of my book
Simon Says - anything goes
Basic Grey- anything goes
Creative Inspirations Paint - inspired by Fall
Quirky Crafters - autumn leaves
Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Fall colours
Craft Your Days Away - autumn
Pattie's Creations - Halloween or Autumn colours
Whimsical Wednesday - Fall cuties
Shopping our Stash - autumn colours
Crafty Creations - fall and leaves

Phindy's Place Challenge #78-Blue Christmas

Welcome to this week's Phindy's Place Challenge, this week our challenge is "Blue Christmas" - a colour challenge, we hope you will not be blue this Christmas!  I'm thrilled that Phindy has produced a winter version of her In the Field image and rushed to the shop to buy it for this challenge; isn't it gorgeous?  You can buy In the Winter Field here.  I coloured with Copics and went a bit mad with Sparkle & Shine iridescent spray, it has taken a day for it to really dry out!  I've had the DP for years, I think it's Dovecraft.  The scroll dies are Memory Box, I added some seam binding, dotty buttons and a beautiful blue lace braid that came from an embellie shop in Hay-on-Wye that I visited when we took older son back to uni.

My card is for the following challenges:

Cupcake Crafts - buttons & bows

Bunny Zoe - lace it up

Forever Friends - anything goes animals

Ooh La La - let it snow

Lollipop Crafts - no sentiment allowed

The Crafty Pad - monochromatic

Catch the Bug - animal antics

Little Claire's - Christmas

Crafty Ribbons - ribbon & lace

Southern Girls - stripes & polka dots (dotty buttons, stripy DP)

Black and White Bling

 It's ages since I played along at Mojo Monday, but I happened to see this week's sketch and really liked the look of it, so decided to think about combining it with Cupcake Craft's black and white Christmas challenge.  I bought these black, white and silver sheets of paper some years back, very early in my cardmaking and thought they would be great for this.  I just hope all the silver is allowed!  I stamped the Mini Snowy Village from Stamp Addicts and brushed a bit of Black Soot Distress Ink onto the sky.  Then I sprayed iridiscent glitter spray and left it to dry.  Following that I added some Viva white pearl to rooftops and snowdrifts.
It's interesting that the papers, the cardstock, the ribbon, the sentiment and the pearl pen are all slightly different whites though you have to look closely to realise.

I'd like to enter my card for the following challenges:
Mojo Monday - sketch
Cupcake Crafting - black & white Christmas
Kelley Kids - black and white
Simon Says - sparkle and bling
Little Claire - black and white
Sparkles Christmas - Christmas song - In the Bleak Midwinter, my favourite carol fits the stark colouring
The Ribbon Girl - Christmas
Paper Sundaes - lots of layers
Dream Valley - monochrome
Papertake - anything goes and Happy Birthday to them!

Finally please can I ask for your positive thoughts for Red-dog our much loved greyhound who is very ill with what is thought to be a spinal cord infection.  Here he is patiently wearing a paper crown:)

 

Tiffany Doodles Stitching Challenge

It's the 7th of the month and that means a new challenge at Tiffany Doodles.  This month the challenge is one of my favourite techniques:  it is stitching, real, faux, hand or machine.  There's a $10 voucher to Tiffany Doodles Store for the winner, so make sure you get an entry in!

I used the gorgeously opulent Succulent Flower for my card, printing it out 4 times (some of the prints were cropped so as not to waste ink and card), colouring with Copics, cutting and decoupaging.  The colouring could not be simpler, I used 3 shades of RV:  10, 23 and 34.  I had only a few scraps left of a Basic Grey pad called Green at Heart so I went slightly mad and patchworked a background for my image by glueing it onto a grid then stitching a zig-zag over the seams.  The sentiment is from Pink Petticoat, I added a couple of rhinestones beside it and a tiny one as a dewdrop on the flower.    More stitching, MS string punch used on the corners.  Hope you like my stitching card:).

I'm entering it for the following challenges:
Cupcake Craft - patchwork quilt
Stamp Something - digi
365 Cards - 6 different patterned papers - I counted and I did!
Card Cupids - stitching
One Stitch at a Time - use a digi

Day 2 of the building work saw the final digging out of the chalk under the sitting room floor, levelling off and adding of sand, then the damproof membrane.  Today it's loads and loads of concrete.  Here's the foreman inspecting progress:

Dog Days of Summer

 

There have been a couple of challenges around called Dog Days of Summer lately, I rather think I've missed the boat with most of them but when I saw this new image from Tracy at Fred She Said, called Emma & Rosie, available from the shop here, it cried out to be made in warm summery colours.  Emma's dress is paper pieced and the DP I've used is by Pink Paislee.  I've added some dew drops, stitching, Stickles and some Crealie die-cut scrolls.  Hope you like my card for the dog days of summer:).

My card is for the following challenges:

Incy Wincy - 3 embellishments (dew drops, Stickles, scrolls), 2 papers, 1 image

Cupcake Craft - sketch

Stamp Something - dog days of summer

Cupcake Craftroom - soft and sweet

Heart Song Inspirations - animal or pleated ribbon

The Pink Elephant - stitching

Stamping Scrapping Central - dog days of summer (card uses Stickles which is stocked by SSC)

Clearly Inspired - things with wings (butterflies)

Frosted Designs - animals

Raise the Bar - dog days of summer

Sew a Little Happiness

 

Phindy has a new range of simple but effective images called Two Seven Oh, which cost, you guessed it, $2.70 :).  As a quilter, with lots of friends who sew, I had to buy Spools, which fits all kinds of puns for a sentiment, this one is by Pink Petticoat.  I based my card on the simple sketch at Sketch'n'Stash this week, new stash is the image and old stash comes from my button box.  The DP is Sweet Threads from Basic Grey, to keep the theme going, I've stitched on my card, added buttons and used some lace coloured with Copic for the flower.  I used a running stitch to gather it into a flower.

My card is for the following challenges:

Sketch and Stash - sketch

Cupcake Crafts - sew made

Digital Tuesday - doilies

Going Grey with Scrap Creations - buttons or bows

Delightful Challenges - stitching real or faux

Our Daily Bread- seamstress

Sparkles Forum - one for the girls

SOS - Scrap Attack

This is a quick posting as I do want to get in an entry for Shopping Our Stash Challenge, it makes me feel a bit less guilty about all my stash:).  This week it's Scrap Attack or recycle.  I saw a gorgeous card by Julie, which I have partly CASED, with Julie's kind permission.  My scraps are those forlorn, cut into sheets from a Basic Grey 6x6 pad that I don't want to throw away because I love the DP but aren't good for much.  I stamped flags using Lindsay Mason stamps that I bought at the recent Craft Barn Extravaganza and then stamped them onto the tiny scraps, the sentiment is from the set too.  The paper pieced flags are highlighted with a blue marker and a white gel pen.  Although the papers are all from the same set, the scale is small and it is hard to see that they are related.  I prefers Julie's colour coordinated card and will try something similar another time.

My card is for:
Shopping Our Stash - scrap attack
Cupcake Crafts - single layer card
Kaboodledoodles - celebrations
2 Sisters - birthday - and Happy Blogaversary to them too!
Ellephantastic - birthday and another Happy Blogaversary!

PS Grrr...  DH thought they were pants.  I mean underpants rather than being rude about the card as such.  Definitely need to try another version...

Flowering Branch - new release from Tiffany Doodles

There's a great new release at TiffanyDoodles, including this branch which I've turned on end into a kind of fantasy tree.    I've added Viva Pearls to the blossoms, the DP is Memory Box and the ribbon is a twill from stash.  The butterfly is a punch with more Viva pearls.

My card is for the following challenges:
Truly Scrumptious - anything goes
Papertake - bloom and grow
StampsRUs - going digital
Cupcake Craft - in the garden
Little Red Wagon - use a tree in your project

A Duo of Decoupage

 I've not got much in the way of cards to show you this week, I have been so busy at work and at home too.  When I have had a quiet moment the good weather and the garden have called me!  I have finished up another couple of decoupage cards, both use Joanna Sheen's Faye Whittaker seaside designs.  The first one has a cloud DP from Joanna's House Mouse backing papers CD, with some card candy and a ribbon.  The second one has a Stampin' Up sentiment, a shell edged tape, and some ric rac on a My Minds Eye stripy card.

Challenges to enter my cards for:
A Spoonful of Sugar - let's celebrate! (1st card)
Crafty Cardmakers - red white and blue
Cupcake Crafts  - lots of layers
Incy Wincy Designs - bright and bold
Karen's Doodles - lots of layers

Spring Cherry Blossom

I've made my card for Mothering Sunday using Tiffany Doodles' new release,
Cherry Blossom, available in store from Friday 1 April.  I've followed the sketch from Pink Elephant.  Image is coloured with Copics, Stickles and edged with Distress Ink.  There are a couple of Dew Drops on the image, ribbon is recycled from a box of chocolates, text computer generated, DP is Basic Grey Porcelain and the white panel is Cuttlebugged with script.
I'm entering my card for the following challenges:
Pink Elephant - sketch
Amber's Crafts - April flowers
Scrapbook Sisters - Mother's Day
Cupake Crafts - flowers for Mum
Ooh la la - Mother's Day
Dream Valley Challenges - Mother's Day
Creative Inspirations - Mother's Day

House Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge - multi fold card

Here's my second card as a Guest  Designer for House Mouse Challenges, the challenge this week is to make a multi-fold card.  I decided to have a go at a spring card which was easier than I expected and I found this great fun to make, using Sandy Hulsart's great tutorial from Splitcoaststampers. I used My Mind's Eye cardstock which is very heavyweight and I made it slightly taller by adding a circle cut with a Marianne Creatable die and then embossed.  There are Glossy Accents and Stickles on the flowers and yes, I have used peel offs in the corners of the card, hardly anyone uses them these days but they fitted the space perfectly!  The mice are from a Joanna Sheen unmounted sheet, aren't they adorable!

I've really enjoyed the chance to be part of the HM Challenge Team, they are a very friendly bunch.  If you get the chance, be sure to hop on board:).

My card is also for the following challenges:

Incy Wincy Designs - Spring is in the air

Cupcake Crafts - anything but square

Card Cupid - shaped card

Paper Cutz - Spring 

Stacks of Strawberries

I have a couple of House Mouse cards to show you today, this is the first one, a Joanna Sheen decoupage.  I've teamed it with a freebie sentiment stamp that came with the DoCrafts magazine sometime last year which is great for all those fruit/veg images.   I've put it together using the very simple sketch at CPS, which works really well for a big complex image like this.  The DP says DaisyD's, I think it was in a bargain bin at a craft show.

My card is for the following challenges:

CPS - sketch

Scrap Creations - animal antics

Cupcake Craft - seeing red

Gingerloft - use red

Craft Your Days Away - photo inspiration

Fred She Said Valentine Blog Hop

Welcome to the Fred, She Said Valentine Blog Hop!  We've got two great prizes to be won:  one $25 certificate to the Fred, She Said Store and one $25 certificate to CropStop.  If you've arrived here from Danielle's blog then you've come to the right place.  If not, you're going to want to go back to Tracy-Lynn's blog and hop along from the start!  Tracy has come up with some gorgeous new ideas for Valentines Day, quite a few of them are great for all sorts of occasions, not just Valentines.  I hope you're enjoying the hop so far.

I've got a couple of projects to show you; the first is a clean & simple card made with a Cuttlebug folder that cuts and embosses a 5 x 7" card.  The DP inside the frame is from Bearly Mine Designs.  I've used the pre-coloured Hearts and Roses set of digis and added Distress Ink to the heart so that it shows up against the white card.  I decoupaged an extra layer of roses onto the heart and put one half under and half over the frame and added some Stickles to both.
The second project I've got to show you is close to my heart - because it contains chocolate! I made a treat holder from a great tutorial at Splitcoaststampers by Beate Johns, using the pre-coloured "Better than chocolate" set from Fred, She Said.  The main image has the text added to it and it's matted onto a Nestie and then attached to the band around the gift box, which has a border punched with my new MS punch.



Pull on the ribbon, without undoing it, and out comes the chocolate, which has the punch line on it.
 I layered 3 copies of the image to decoupage it, you can see the layers here:








 Thanks for looking at my projects, I need to give you your word to make the magic phrase so you can enter the draw - my word is life.  Now it's time for you to see what fabulous creations the talented Marlena has to show you.  You have until midnight on Friday, 4th February to complete the hop.
My card and/or my gift box are for the following challenges:
Delightful Challenges - have a heart
Meljen's Designs - create something with hearts
Paper Play - layer it up
Charisma Cardz - Valentine/love
A Spoonful of Sugar - Valentine
Cupcake Craft - food for thought
Craft Your Passion - use 2 patterned papers (chocolate treat box)

Happy New Year to everyone - and a Thank You card

 

Here's my last card to blog for 2010, a Thank You card.  I'd like to say something clever  about 2010 but I'm all out of clever sayings, so I will just remind you that our Challenge at Phindy's Place is now open to all-comers and the Thank You Challenge runs for two weeks, until 7 January.  Oh, and I'd also like to wish everyone a healthy, happy New Year!  I've stuck with a caramel and chocolate colourscheme for my card, do you think I've overindulged on the choccies over Christmas LOL?

The image is part of It's All Yours, a fun image from Phindy.  I've coloured it with Copics and mounted it onto a  gold pearlised circle that is stitched to a bronze pearlised square.  The DP is from a Bearly Mine CD called Designer Extreme Vol III and the sentiment is Craftwork Cards.  The circle and the DP are stitched on my sewing machine.  I should tell you that my hamster is far lower than I intended; I stamped Thank You onto the circle so that it was the centre of the card and all the stitching was shown off.  But the Versafine ink didn't set on the cardstock and when I stitched it the sentiment smudged under the sewing machine.  Grr!  Oh well, at least it was able to be rescued with a change of plan.

My card is for the following challenges:

Cute Card Thursday - Thank You

Papertake Weekly - be thankful

CD Sunday Challenge - in stitches

Cupcake Craft Challenge - Thank you

Woodware Challenge - anything goes

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Thank You

Phindy's Place Challenge #36 - Give Thanks With Scraps

Welcome to the latest Phindy's Place Challenge, it's Christmas Eve and I'm sure you're all rushed off your feet, but don't worry you have two weeks to enter our challenge, to give the DT a bit of well-earned time off!

We have made a few changes to the challenge, to shake things up a bit!  We have decided to open the challenge to all-comers and you will no longer need to use a Phindy's Place image to enter. However, what we love best of all is to see your projects that use Phindy's Place images! If you enter using a Phindy's Place image, you will get two entries to the draw to win a gift certificate. To do this, enter your project as usual to Inklinkz. Then, make a further entry (you won't be able to link to the same blog entry) and, this time, leave your name with "Phindy image" added.

The winner of the Challenge will be chosen by Random.org and will receive an $8 Gift Certificate to the Phindy's Place store. As it says above, entrants using a Phindy's Place image will get a second entry to the draw. The Pick of the Week wins a 20% off voucher for the Phindy's Place store. Don't forget that once a month we will choose an overall winner from the weekly winners and they will be offered a Guest position on the DT - and of course a free image from Phindy's Place to use for that week's challenge!

OK now on to the Challenge... This week we are making "Thank You" cards and projects, everyone needs Thank You cards after Christmas! There is an additional, optional challenge to use up your scraps. 

My project is a Thank You tag.  This has been a sad week for crafting in the UK, Graphicus, a big and much loved retailer and wholesaler has gone into liquidation.  I decided to print off some of the lovely tags on their Essence of Nature CD and based my Thank You on this.  The gold embossed sentiment is Elusive Images and my Flower Top Fairy Rose image, from Phindy's Place is printed twice: the second print is onto vellum and I've used the wings from this, lightly coloured and glued down to the fairy's body but left free of the tag above her.  I've added lots of Stickles to the fairy and the tag.  

You're probably wondering where the scraps are...  OK I got a bit carried away with my tag and realised I'd neglected the scrap part LOL!  So I went to my ribbon bag and pulled out some little lengths that weren't enough to make a bow for a card and threaded them through the scallops at the bottom.  Sorted!

My project is for the following challenges:

Simon Says - anything goes

Paper Sundaes - cut it out

Papertake Weekly -  anything goes

Cupcake Crafts - thank you

CDSunday - tag it

Stamp Something - with a tag or pocket

Paperplay Challenges - anything but a card

Winter Wonderland - Thank You

Phindy's Place Challenge #35 - All Creatures Great and Small

Good Morning and welcome to a new Phindy's Place Friday Challenge.  This week our theme is All Creatures Great and Small, which is a great excuse to use one of Phindy's many fabulous animal images.  I've chosen a stunning new image called Peace and Cheer and had fun blinging it up with Stickles and silver embossing powder in addition to the Copics I used to colour it, the background uses Distress Inks.

I've based my card on this week's Sunday Sketchers Challenge and I'm entering it for the following challenges:
Sunday Sketchers Challenge - sketch
Simon Says - silver, blue, white
Dutch Dare Challenges - Winter
Copic Creations - sparkle
Digital Tuesday - sparkling Christmas
Cupcake Craft Challenges - non traditional Christmas

Red robin and holly - totally traditional!

I managed to get hold of the discontinued Cuttlebug holly folder on Ebay and made a very traditional card with it.  The decoupage is a Joanna Sheen from the Times Gone By CD.  I haven't used the whole of it, there is a cottage and a winter scene behind the full decoupage sheet.  The embossed holly is on gold pearlescent cardstock, I've used Distress Ink sponged on the leaves and Stickles for the berries, there are Stickles on the decoupage leaves too.  Sentiment is Craftwork Cards, swirl stamp is Personal Impressions.
This card is for the following challenges:
CD Sunday - Christmas sparkle
Allsorts - last minute Christmas
Cupcake Craft Challenges - little red robin

Top Tip Tuesday - a Christmas Challenge

 

Hello and welcome to my Top Tip Tuesday Challenge posting.  This week we're making a few changes and you no longer have to post a tip to enter, you can simply join in with the theme for the week's challenge.  This week it's Christmas and I've made a traditional looking Christmas card with a cheerful pair of robins, from the gorgeous new Christmas images from Fred She Said who are one of this week's sponsors.   I've printed my image onto thick watercolour card and coloured it wth Aquamarkers and Marvy le Plume pens.  The DP is Basic Grey Jovial and I've added some Prima flowers with Stickles on them, a few punched leaves and a transparent ribbon bow.

 I'm entering my card for the following challenges:  

Sketch & Stash Challenge - sketch, the flowers and ribbon are neglected stash

Cute Card Thursday - transparent (ribbon)

One Stitch at a Time - Christmas