Phindy's Place Challenge #76 - Anything Goes Using a Phindy's Place image

Welcome to this week's Phindy's Place Challenge.  As this is the first Friday of the month, this is an Anything Goes image - however you MUST use a Phindy's Place image, which is no hardship given that fabulous images that Phindy draws:).  I've added to my Christmas card pile with Christmas Kitten, which is perfect for our cat loving friends.  Image coloured with Copics, Glossy Accents, Distress Inks.  DP is Basic Grey Jovial, flower and sentiment from Craftwork Cards and leaf punch is Martha Stewart.
My card is for the following challenges:
Sweet Sketch Wednesday - sketch
One Stitch at a Time - use a digi
Crafty Boots - zoo or animal
Papertake - anything goes and Happy Birthday to them!
Crazy Amigos - animals
My Mum's Craft Shop - all creatures great and small
Crafts and Me - use a digi
Paper Crafting Journey - dies and/or punches - leaf punch, scallop die for sentiment
Delightful Challenges - make it dimensional - layered flower
Forever Friends - use a sentiment with your animal

Time to kick back and relax...

Don't know if you missed me (or my blogging at least!) but I'm back from a lovely week away on the Isle of Skye with DH and older son.  We were extremely lucky to have good weather for virtually all our stay on the island and it is a magical place in good weather.  I don't return to work for another week and I am planning lots of things to do this week, including some crafting, but also a bit of relaxing.  My nearest craft shop, Stamp Attic, now has a coffee shop (a bit like this one lol) just a few yards away and I am planning a coffee and shopping trip soon...

Image is called Sit and Stay Cafe and it's a Phindy's Place design, coloured with Copics, Distress Ink and Glossy Accents.  I used this week's sketch from Midnight Madness, turned it on its side and made it into an easel card.  Sentiment is from Elusive Images, DP is Basic Grey and the flowers are tiny white flowers coloured with Copics.  More cards from me tomorrow I hope:)
My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness - sketch
Paper Playthings - summer
Creative Stamp - summer
Dream Valley Challenges - summer
Craft your days away - fancy folds (easel)
Just some lines - easel
Fussy & Fancy - summer
Fairy fun Fridays - on holiday
Delightful Challenges - fancy folded cards
Simon Says - anything goes 

Karma Camelli-on

When we lived in Surrey the soil was perfect for Camellias, now we have chalk and they are something that we only grow in pots.  So here's a Camellia that doesn't need acid soil, from a new digi release by Tiffany Doodles, you can buy it here.  I've coloured with Copics, added some baker's twine, a Craftwork Cards sentiment, some dry embossing and a die cut scroll, the DP is Prima. 

My card is for the following challenges:

Creative Card Crew - May flowers

Penny's Challenges - anything goes

Frosted Designs - ribbon or twine - and a Happy Birthday to Melissa and Lori!

4 Crafty Chicks -spring has sprung

Delightful Challenges - flowers

Wishing you lots of everything wonderful...

With all these lovely extra days off I've had a chance to get busy crafting and here's a second card for today, using an image from The Stamping Boutique that I was lucky enough to win recently.  I've used a layout from Sketch & Stash and my neglected stash is the Papermania sticky borders of fabric flowers, also the blue gem flowers, think they were from Hobbycraft when I first began making cards.    The image is coloured with Copics, some Stickles on her wings and edged with Distress Inks.  The sentiment is Hero Arts, the border punch is Martha Stewart and the Coredinations card has been dry embossed and then distressed. 

My card is for the following challenges:
 Sketch'n'Stash - free choice sketch
Cute Card Thursday - use a sketch
Stamp Something - with wings
Fashionista Friday - things with wings
4 Crafty Chicks - distressing
Delightful Challenges - distressing
Everybody Art Challenge - fairies
The Stamping Boutique - winged things
Magical Mondays - monchromatic

Wish you were here?

  I got some new Jenny Mayes Hobbyart stamps at the NEC and here's the first card I made with them.  They are slightly bigger than the Scene-It sets and they are on unmounted rubber, not clear.  I found them a bit more of a challenge to use, I think I was trying to combine too many at once!  I masked the deckchairs and stamped the boats out once and used them again for a partial image and added the gulls.  I watercoloured my scene using Aquamarkers and made it up using the sketch at Midnight Madness.  I like the way the corners give it the look of a photo in an old album.  DP is flairdesigns.inc.

My card is for the following challenges:

Midnight Madness - sketch

Delightful Challenges - sun, sea and sand

Challenge Up Your Life - masking

My Time To Craft - nautical

Less is More

Like so many people, I love C&S cards but find them hard to do.  I admire other people's cards but view mine as a bit of the "emperor's new clothers" syndrome - don't they look like 5 minutes of quick work? Isn't it cheating not to spend hours colouring, shading, punching, matting, embellishing to within an inch of the card's life?  OK this is something I need to work at:), I've been playing along with some of the OLW Challenges and now my friend Chrissie has set up Less is More with her friend Mandi.  First challenge is pink and black, not a favourite colour combi for me, I hope I'll be forgiven the touch of yellowy ink behind the butterfly!

I've boxes and bags of stamped out images, some mine, some traded with friends and when I looked through them last night trying to find some general inspiration, I found 2 or 3 of this stamp, just plain black on white.  I'm pretty sure it's a Hero Arts stamp, it may belong to my friend Anne, who lives in the village, but in truth I can't remember.  I've used my ink duster brushes and Worn Lipstick Distress Ink, sneaking in a touch of Wild Honey.  Matted onto black and just added a tiny punched butterfly where I thought about bling or a ribbon.

My card is for the following challenges:
Delightful Sketches - come fly with me
Digi Doodles Best - nature
Pile it On - bright & breezy
Less Is More - pink, black & white
Totally Papercrafts - clean & simple

Phindy's Place Challenge #41 - Embossing

 It's Friday, thank goodness, nearly the weekend and time for another Phindy's Place Challenge.  This week we welcome 3 new Design Team members, their work is just gorgeous, do have a look and leave them some love.  This week we have a very simple theme:  embossing.  You can dry or heat emboss, or even do both as I did!  I used Pretty Blooms, a lovely digi that has me hoping for spring:)

I saw an interesting new tutorial on Splitcoaststampers this week, called Pressed Flowers.  Anne Haralda shows how dry embossing flower embellishments can press them into a project, they lose their 3D element and look like pressed flowers.  This is a new look to me and also means the card doesn't end up needing extra postage on it!  The DP was quite thin and I liked the almost distressed look I got on it when it was embossed, not sure how well it shows in the photos...

The card is based on this week's Sketch Saturday layout, rotated around a bit.  I've paper pieced her top from the DP I used for the little border, which is Basic Grey Marjolaine.  Her hat and scarf are popped up on gel glue and there is Glossy Accents on the scarf and the watering can, as well as Stickles on the flowers, butterflies and rain and of course she is coloured with Copics.  The gold embossed sentiment is from Stampin' Up and I edged the die cut with PVA glue and embossed the edge too.  MS punch is String Lace and the Nestie is a Labels die.

My card is for the following challenges:
Sketch Saturday - sketch
CCEE Stampers - punches
Delightful Sketches - come fly with me (butterflies)
Southern Girls - dry embossing
For Fun  - spring or winter
Anything Goes - butterflies
Papertake Weekly - anything goes + flowers
Totally Papercrafts - friendship - perfect sentiment for this one!
Pile it On - punch it
BasicGrey - flower power
Copic Challenges - we're cool!

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)

Top Tip Tuesday Challenge - Use a sentiment

Good morning and welcome to this week's Top Tip Tuesday Challenge!  Over on the main blog we have a fab tutorial on making a WordArt book from the talented Carol and the challenge is to use a sentiment on your project, or of course play along using Carol's tutorial.
I've made an easel card with no less than 4 sentiments on it!  Yes, I'm still playing with the Fred She Said empty pocket shruggers set, you can buy them here.  This set just makes me smile every time I reach for it.  I've coloured with Copics and used Distress Inks for the background, the DP is Basic Grey Sugar Rush, ribbon is from stash and I used Card Candy on a ribbon raised on foam tape to prop up my easel. Oh, there are red and orange Stickles on the exploding cake!  A birthday just isn't a birthday without an exploding cake...

I'm entering my card for the following challenges:
Pile it on - anything goes
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - anything goes
Totally Papercrafts - birthday
Fairy Fun Fridays - Happy Birthday
Sew Many Challenges - birthday
Craft Your Days Away - anything goes
Basic Grey - dots and spots
Stamp Insanity - let it all hang out!
Delightful Challenges - easel card
Paperplay Challenges - cutie patootie

Phindy's Place Challenge #37 - Distressing

  

Welcome to Friday and welcome to this week's Phindy's Place Challenge.  Last week was the first time we opened up the challenge to all-comers and boy did we get a response - nearly 150 entries!  This week the challenge is Distressing.  You can use Distress Inks, distress paper edges, tear paper, interpret it your way, I can't wait to see your entries!   I used one of my all-time favourite images, Spring Breeze, a useful one for Mother's Day, new baby, all sorts of occasions really.

I've coloured with Copics and edged with Dusty Concord Distress Ink.  The DP is Basic Grey Wisteria and I've distressed the edges, then inked them.  There is stitching around 2 of the papers.  I used my new Martha Stewart punch that DH bought me for Christmas to mat the image.  There are tiny Papermania buttons on the corners of the image and eyelets in the plain card, which is also inked.  The flowers are made from a Little Claire die and the leaves are punched.  I added a nice big bow and decided that there was so much going on that the sentiment can go inside the card!  One more thing that you probably can't see is that the card has the fold at the LH side.  I noticed that quite a few of the landscape layout commercial Christmas cards that we received had the fold to the left, not at the top, and they stayed upright much better.  So I cut this from A3 cardstock.

I'm entering the following challenges with my card:  

Polka Doodles - sketch and self coloured image

Delightful Challenges - buttons

Digi Doodle Shop - buttons

Dutch Dare - new beginnings

Moving Along with the Times - old stash, new stash (new MS punch, old DP, eyelets, buttons)

Stamp Insanity - use metal (eyelets)

Stampin B's - something old, something new

Simon Says - new beginnings (new baby, Spring)

Secret Crafter - buttons & bows
Creative Card Crew - new beginnings
Paper Crafting Journal - lets get digital
Crafting Your Passion - anything goes
Corrosive Challenges - purple & yellow
Crafty Ho's - babies
Ellephantastic - new beginnings
One Stop Craft - new beginnings
Do It With Digis - new beginnings

A Papertake Puppy Pile

Here's another card from my weekend of Phindy's Place cardmaking, this is a new image called Puppy Pile., which made the perfect Christmas card for my Mum.  I carried on using up my Basic Grey Jovial pad and based my card on Dawn's great sketch at Papertake Weekly.  I've printed and coloured the image twice to decoupage the puppies . The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards and the border is made with a Martha Stewart punch given to me by my blogging friend Val.

 

My card is for the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly - sketch

Delightful Sketches - new beginnings - what could be more delightful than new puppies?

Creative Cottage - untraditional Christmas

Poppy Days

 

Here's a reminder of summertime on a cold winter day, we have a light dusting of snow outside.  Both the scene and the poppy are Sheena Douglass stamps and she has made some lovely cards by leaving the scene sepia and giving the poppies vivid colours.  I used Aquamarkers and I did colour the background but kept it soft and subdued.  The frame is Nellie Snellen, background DP My Mind's Eye, sentiment from Craftwork Cards and I've used a little of my precious red velvet ric-rac.
I'm entering the following challegens with my card:
 Card Positioning Systems - sketch
Digi Doodle Shop's Best - red and green
Delightful Challenges - flower power
Paper Playtime - thank you