What happened to Spring?

Last week we had warm, sunshiny weather that was like a summer's day.  Sunday it snowed and today there is a harsh frost and ice everywhere!   My card today is very spring-like, perhaps the weather will follow suit.

I used a lovely parrot tulip digi from Fred, She Said and coloured it with Copics, distress inking the background.  The DP is Basic Grey, I cut a chevron from the DP for a border.  The sentiment is from Craftwork Cads and I added lots of stitching for interest.
My card is for:
Sketch'n'Stash - sketch
Kaboodledoodle - spring flowers
Make my Monday - spring flowers
Stamp with Fun - pink & green
Totally Stampalicious - spring is in the air
Kenny K - bloom and grow

Cradfty Cardmakers- Challenge #60 - use beads on your project

The new challenge at Crafty Cardmakers is to use beads on your project.  We have two fab sponsors, The Stamp Man and Di's Digi Downloads, so there are some great prizes to be won.  I thought about showing some of the beading that I have made but decided to use beads on a card instead.  My rose is a Fred, She Said digi coloured with copics.  I added some Glossy Accents and dropped some crystal seed beads into it in the centre.  The rose is popped up with some Pinflair glue onto a couple of diecuts, the pearlised card has been dry embossed with Swiss Dots.  The DP is Basic Grey Out of Print and the sentiment is Stampin' Up.  To finish up I embossed a grid onto the background card and used Glossy Accents again to attach pink seed beads.

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

Red Robins in the Round

 

 This pair of robins from Fred She Said is a favourite traditional Christmas image for me.  Here it is coloured with Copics, edged with Distress Inks and added to Memory Box DP and a couple of scrolls from my Memory Box die.  This card is for the following challenges:

Sketch'n'Stash - sketch

Corrosive Challenge - with a flourish

Scrappy Frog - something that flies

One Stitch at a Time - Christmas

Little Claire's - Christmas

Bah! Humbug - diecuts

Crimbo Crackers - anything Christmas

Simon Says - anything goes

A wreath for Wednesday

 

Today's card is a fairly simple Christmas wreath, I wanted to keep things fairly plain to show off the gorgeous DP (Memory Box) as well as the stunning image.  Image is from Fred She Said and available as a digi or pre-coloured.  I chose to colour mine, adding Stickles to the berries, and perched a Christmas chickadee, pre-coloured this time on the wreath.  My birdie is less than 1" high, pre-coloured was definitely what I needed here!  The leaves are from a Martha Stewart punch, the sketch is from Papertake.  

Enjoy your Wednesday and remember, we're over half way through the week, not long to the weekend...

My card is for the following challenges:

Papertake - sketch

Partytime Tuesday - anything goes

Christmas Stampin all Year - sparkly

Christmas Inspirations - punches/diecuts (branch punch, scalloped and circle dies)

Flourishes - trees and leaves

Christmas Kitty

 Today I have a Christmas card to show you, using a new image Kitty & the Ornament from Fred She Said that is available pre-coloured or as a digi.  I chose to colour mine to match some soft, pastelly Memory Box DPs.  Kiity is coloured with Copics and Glossy Accents, I put lots of Glossy Accents on the bauble and dropped 3 tiny red gem stars on for even more sparkle.  The sentiment is on the Papermania ribbon which I turned wrong side out lower down the card.  The flower centres are eyelets that I set in to make them look like poinsettias - I hope!

My card is for the following challenges:
Sweet Sketch Wednesday - sketch
Stamptacular Sunday - anything goes
One Stitch at a Time - shape up (shaped card base)
I Did it - animals
Crafting Whenever- Christmas
Christmas Inspirations - die cuts or punches
Forever Friends - anything goes animals
My Time to Craft - punches and dies
ABC Christmas - unused stash - unused image, and eyelets, and the card blanks!

Happy Howl-oween!

There are so many Halloween Challenges around this week, I thought I'd better join in and picked this very cute and rather un-scary Halloween Rosey from Fred She Said, you can buy her here.  Rosey is also available pre-coloured but I chose to get my Copics out and do some colouring, then cut her out and gave her some dimension with Pinflair.    The DP is mostly Memory Box, I've sponged a background for Rosey and used Stamp Addicts Dotty stamps in the background.  Some brads and lots of stitching finished off my Halloween card, which is based on this week's Sketch Saturday.  Sentiment is computer generated.

My card is for :
Sketch Saturday - sketch
Charisma Cardz - in stitches
Simon Says - Halloween/goth
Shopping our Stash - Boo! spooky or orange/black
Cupcake Craft - Halloween
Fussy & Fancy - fall or Halloween
Scrapalicious - black, purple, orange
Paper Pretties - Halloween
The House that Stamps Built - fall/Halloween
Clear it Out Challenge - Halloween (DP and image both from last year!)
Everybody Art Challenge - Halloween

Pink Peony

 

I love using the pre-coloured Fred She Said images for decoupage and the Peony works so well, I printed the sheet out, cut out the 5 layers and added them to a Marianne Creatables die.  The sketch is Midnight Madness, the DP Basic Grey and I've added some brown pearls and a Craftwork Cards sentiment.

My card is for the following challenges:
Midnight Madness  - sketch
One Stitch at a Time - use a digi
Crafter's Companion - pink & green
The Emerald Faeries - punches & dies
My Sheri Crafts - think pink
Deep Ocean Challenge - happy birthday
Everybody Art Challenge - pink & brown
Paper Sundaes - lots of layers
Simon Says - anything goes - trying for 1,000 entries

This robin is an imposter!

Fred She Said has a lovely image of a pair of robins, sitting on some festive holly, so I'm not quite sure why I felt the need to disguise the chickadee as a robin, with the berries matching the red breast, it must be a contrary streak somewhere in me lol!  Here's a link to the winter bird series, so you can see both the robins and the chickadee, as well as a cardinal, all available as digis or pre-coloured.  I matched my undercover chickadee with Memory Box DP, a MS punch and some traditional red and green ribbons, sentiment is from Craftwork Cards.
Don't forget, you've one more day to do the Fred She Said Fabulous Fall Blog Hop, with great prizes, closes midnight tonight (Thursday).

My card is for the following challenges:
Papertake Weekly - sketch
Raise the Bar - things with wings
Critter Challenge - anything goes
Crafty Boots - things with wings
Paper Makeup Stamps - resize your digi
Simon Says - anything goes

Fred She Said Fabulous Fall Blog Hop!

 

Welcome to the Fabulous Fall Fred She Said Blog Hop!  You should have arrived at my blog from Darsie's fabulous blog, if not you might want to go back to the Fred She Said Blog  at the start, we have some fabulous projects to show you and one great prize of : 

£15 Gift Voucher to Bearly Mine Designs

 $10 Prize Package of yummy goodies chosen by Judy from Pizzazz APlenty

 $30 Gift Certificate to the Fred She Said Store

Instructions on how to enter are on the FSS Challenge Blog.
Entries close on Friday September 30th at midnight EDT and winners will be announced Saturday October 1st.                                  .

Now, on to my card...  My card is very clean and simple, I love the hollyhocks design that Fred brought out recently.  You may wonder about my sentiment, but my garden has been full of hollyhocks for several years now and I have never planted them:).  They obviously love the soil and thrive in it, so they are welcome to stay!   I have simply added two precoloured image, given dimension with Pinflair Glue, in front of some punched trellis which in turn sits on top of Coredinations card, distressed and inked.  There are some yellow Stickles in the centres of the flowers and that is it, one very effective card, thanks to the images. Thanks for looking at my card and now I'm sure you want to know the secret words, which are "Eyes And", before you leave me and visit the uber-talented  Michelle who is your next stop on the hop.

I'm also entering my card for a few challenges:
Shopping our Stash - no colouring allowed
Less is More - anything clean and simple
Wee Memories - no patterned paper

Hydrangea Bouquet

Our neighbours are getting married soon and I needed a card to say that we will be coming to the evening reception, I don't have a sentiment for this and I decided that "Thanks" would do fine and I can write on it that it's an acceptance Thank You:).  I made a step card that is something a little different for Tracey and Nev to keep, I embossed and Distress Inked cardstock, adding pearls and a bow (the bow is on the back section, doesn't show too well in the photo) and a beautiful Hydrangea image from Fred She Said which is popped up on Pinflair glue to give it dimension.  I found the blooms not as bad to colour as I thought, might really challenge myself with white ones another time:).

My card is for the following challenges:

Simon Says - make a multi fold

Stampin' for the Weekend - tickled pink

Shopping our Stash - vintage, distress, shabby chic

Magical Monday - shaped card

House of Gilli - embossing

Tuesday Throwdown - pearls

Everybody Art Challenge - flowers

Copic Creations - pretty in pink

Stamp Something - anything goes final challenge

I am here to live out loud!

 

Meet Nolan with Bullfrog, a new image from Fred She Said, you can buy him here , Tracey has included a coloured version too for those cards when you're in a hurry:).  I coloured him with Copics and added him to DP, stitching a border around it.  The sentiment is from Create with TLC, DP is Basic Grey Marjolaine.  I added some twine and some card candy, not too many embellies for a boy card:).

My card is for the following challenges:

Sketch Saturday -sketch

Totally Gorjuss - it's a man thing

Some Odd Girl - stitching

Prairie Fairy - snips and snails and puppy dog tails

Poodle Parlour - animal antics

For Fun - children at play

Crazy Amigos - sewing

Crafting when you can - anything goes

One Stitch at a Time - anything goes

Pile it On - layers

Di's digi delights - anything goes

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

Tulip Bouquet - FSS Digi of the Week

 Fred She Said has a regular digi of the week offer, and this week it is the turn of Tulip Bouquet which is available as a digi and pre-coloured.  Both versions are 40% off, you can buy them here. 
I've coloured up an image with the jug popped and layered, and added K&K DP, lace, pearls and MS borders to give a vintage look.
My card is for the following challenges:
Top Tip Tuesday - make it girlie
Paper Creators - say it with flowers
One Stop Craft - vintage

 

Fred She Said Favourites Blog Hop

Good Morning and welcome to a new Fred She Said Blog Hop!  This month we are hopping with the theme of Favourites.  You should have come to me from the lovely Michelle's blog, if not you're going to want to go back to the start, at the Fred She Said BLOG.  First of all, here's the info about the hop:

Fred She Said Favorites HOP - HOW TO ENTER
To ENTER, please leave a comment on each BLOG HOP POST.  There will be ONE winner.  A random hop post will be chosen and then a comment on that post will be chosen randomly to win.  BLOG HOP closes  Friday, JULY 29 midnight EDT so please leave your comments by then ;)  Commenting on ALL the hop stops is not necessary to WIN... BUT it definitely increases your chances of winning ;)  and spreads some LOVE!  Please make sure you leave your name in your comment!  NOTE: some DT members moderate their comments for evil spam so please be patient if you don't see your comment right away.

THE PRIZE:
£15 Gift Voucher to Bearly Mine Designs
$15 Prize Package of yummy goodies chosen by Judy from Pizzazz APlenty
$30 Gift Certificate to the Fred She Said Store

The WINNER will be announced Saturday morning July 30th on the Fred She Said Blog AND the FSS Challenge Blog. 
Now you have the info, I'd like to tell you a little about my favourite!  I looked through my FSS digis and I looked through the shop and I was completely unable to choose my favourite image, there are so many that I love!  So I've picked one of my favourite things, in one of my favourite images - yes - that would be chocolate lol!  The sentiments that come with the image are just perfect aren't they?  Better than Chocolate is a Valentine's Day set, but I think chocolate is for all year round, not just Valentine's Day:).

I've printed it off a few times and decoupaged it, the base layer has been cut with a Nestie, dry embossed with Swiss Dots and then inked with Distress Ink.  The chocolates have some Glossy Accents to give them a shine and there is a touch of Stickles on the rose on top of the box.  I hope you can see all the layers in the detail piccie below. The DP is Prima, I have only added a bow as the image is so beautiful it doesn't need lots of extra embellies.
Thanks for looking at my card, your next stop along the Hop is with  "Fred" herself, our talented Tracey at the CHALLENGE BLOG.

I've found a few challenges to enter my card in:
Pixie Cottage - fun with food
Creative Craft Challenges - 3D it
KB Cute Monday - use a digistamp

White space isn't always white...

 When I saw this week's CPS sketch I knew it was made for a clean and simple card using one of the new Fred She Said Doodledallion flowers.  I know C&S has lots of white space by definition but I reckon sometimes that space can be coloured as long as it's not been fussed about with:).  So here is my purple & gold version of white space!  DP has stitched borders on Basic Grey Wisteria and Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather, image is coloured with Copics and layered.

My card is for the following challenges:
CPS - sketch
Basic Grey - stitching
Digital Tuesday - flower power
Crafts and Me - birthday
Creative Stamp Friends - dots

Here comes the sun - or does it?

I've picked bright summer colours for today's card and I'm hoping the weather will follow suit, at the moment the sun is shining but it's raining too.  This card uses some lovely new Flower Doodledallions from Fred She Said, which have a choice of sentiments for the centres as well as a blank.  I've followed quite an unusual sketch from Truly Scrumptious which uses eyelets.  Now I always shy away from eyelets when I can, so this was a great sketch to make me reach for the eyelts and the hammer, which also fits this weeks Shopping Our Stash, where the challenge is to use neglected tools of the trade.

My flower is coloured with Copics and lots of Glossy Accents.  The DPs are Stampin' Up, Artylicious and Basic Grey, I've used a MS bubbles punch, gems and lots of stitching.  Oh, the ribbon is coloured with Copics too.  Hope the sun shines wherever you are today.

My card is for the following challenges:
Shopping Our Stash - tools of the trade
Truly Scrumptious - sketch
Papertake Weekly - here comes the sun
CRAFT - stitching
Annabelle's Stamps - yellow, orange, turquoise

Summer Hummer

 Whatever happened to summer?  We went away at the weekend and there was heavy rain and hail!  To compensate I've been making some summery cards, here's the first.  I've used some bright Basic Grey DP teamed with a pre-coloured Humming Bird image from Fred She Said, these are lovely to colour but the the pre-coloured make very quick cards.  I printed it twice and cut out and popped the bird and flower centre up on Pinflair Glue, to give lots of dimension.  Sentiment is an Elusive Images stamp, the offeset panel is embossed and inked.
My card is for the following challenges:
 Simon Says - let's play bingo(3 down flowers, brads, sentiment)
Charisma Cards - pink and green
Papercrafting Journey - our feathered friends
Creative Inspiration Paint - bright colours
One Stitch at a Time - things with wings
Sweet Stampin' - things with wings
Delicious Doodles - things that flutter
Polka Doodles - all of a flutter
Simply Create - fly with us
Stamp Something - with pretty papers

Aqualegia/columbine/granny's bonnets - pretty whatever you call it!

This is a simple card made with the pre-coloured digis from Fred She Said, I was making this to add to my Blog Hop posting last week but didn't get it finished in time.  The Blog Hop is still running until Friday night, if you've not already hopped do come and join in the fun, we've great prizes to win, the fun starts with "Fred" herself, here.  Image was printed twice, one cut with a nestie and the flower cut out from the other and attached with lots of Pinflair glue to give it dimension.  It's mounted onto Coredinations card with the edges distressed, I've sanded the embossing on the Coredinations background.  Both mats are stitched, the sentiment is from  Stampin Up.

My card is for the following challenges:

Stamp with Fun - in the garden
Crafty Emma - embossing
Wag'n'Whiskers - stitching
Paper Play - blossoms and blooms

Fred She Said May Blog Hop

Good Morning and welcome to the Fred She Said May Blog Hop!  You should have arrived here from Vickie's blog, if not you need to hop back to Tracey-Lynn's blog to start at the very beginning 'cause we've got some fantabulous Fred cards to show you, not to mention a HUGE prize.  One lucky winner will receive a Grand Prize of: a £15 gift voucher from Bearly Mine Designs ,a prize package worth $15.00 from Pizzazz APlenty , 3 digital downloads from CustomCreations from Carolivy  AND a $30 Gift Certificate to the  FSS Store!!!  Whew that's some prize!  To win, all you need to do is collect a word to make a sentence from each blog that you visit, when you get to the end of the hop you'll be able to enter your sentence.  Hop closes 3rd June at midnight.

I've coloured one of the new releases from Fred to show you today:  this is a cute hummingbird with petunias, you can buy this image in the store here.  You can also buy a realistic hummingbird and pre-coloured versions of both images.  There are a lot of images coloured in on Kraft paper at the moment and I wanted to give this a try so I got out some Koh-I-Noor pencils that I bought a couple of years back.  I'm quite pleased with the blending that I got from my pencils; when I tried before I could not get results I was happy with, however I think getting to grips with Copics and blending them has helped a lot:).  Dotty DP is from Bearly Mine, one of our sponsors, the stripe is by My Mind's Eye, sentiment is from Whiff of Joy and the string lace and ribbon are from stash.

Your next stop along the Blog Hop is with the really talented Robin and before you leave you need to know my word:  it is arrive.  Hope you enjoyed your visit!

My card is also for the following challenges:

Sweet Sketch Wednesday - sketch

Bearly Mine - diecuts and lace

Jac-Inks Papercrafts - warm colours

Sweet Stampin' - in the garden

Creative Craft World - 3 or more flowers
Spoonful of Sugar - things with wings