Annabelle's challenge is Circles!

I was doing some cleaning up - yes, still - and was sorting through the pile of magazines that had built up again.  I read them, then re-read them, then go through them and take any ideas or photo's of cards that I think I like and might like to copy, cut them out and put them in my project /inspiration books. I've got four now - great for when the mojo is a bit slow!

Anyway, I found some free paper in one that was bright and orange and had lots of circles.  It was a bit flimsy so I had to adhere it to some card to work with it.  I had been web-surfing and seen that Annabelle has a new challenge at her site, of lots of circle - soooo, I used my Li'lle Monster stamp and die, and the trusty Copics and coloured up the image, paper piecing his top on the way.  The orange card is SU out-of-date Only Orange and the green is the current Wild Wasabi, the bling is coloured to match with the Copics. The die is from SU and the embossed orange strip is a Tim Hotlz embossing folder. The sentiment is from the same set of free papers that the background came from. Oh, and I added some twine.

The freebie paper has a shine on it and in the winter sun it either was too dull or has a plume. I ended up with this shot as the best of a bad lot, sorry!

I will be entering this in Annabelle Stamps: #AC084 - Spots and Dots and anything Round

I made two cards yesterday afternoon whilst cleaning up.  Stop laughing! This one is using a Marianne Die for the basket, an embossing folder for the frame, and lots of Merci small flowers, plus some leaves die cut. The contrast card is SU Melon Mambo.  

 The second one is  using a Marianne embossing folder, and then the rest of the SU Melon Mambo, and a LOTV sentiment stamp, with some small pink pearls added.  I used up some Cosmo Cricket De Lovely paper to create the paper roses, and some scrap green to make the leaves.  I ruled a rectangle around the outside using my Score Board. There are pearls inside the roses.

I will enter this one in the following
Clearly I Stamp:  Circles -  the second one as it has a circle sentiment and roses
Cute Card Thursday:  Bling it Up - the first one with all the pink flowers!
Little Miss Muffet:  Pink, pink pink - the first one with all those pink flowers!
Just Inspirational: photo inspiration of a bunch of pink roses  - the second one with the roses!

Cleaning Up

Must be the weather - my hubby is busy cleaning up his workshop next door, and so I thought I should do something 'spring-cleaning like' so I dragged out the last two images I had coloured from the Annabelle Stamps set called Tomorrow's Dream.  I had been colouring  in the little girl with different mediums (see below), to see what they each looked like, and these last two are done with pencils - Prisma's and Watercolours.

Prisma Pencils - background is dotted in.  I didn't have a lot of colours to choose from here.

I made them up using scraps from the scrap basket, and a few odds and ends that were laying around. My red flower is ribbon, pulled together with thread, and the sentiment on the second is from a 12 x 12 book of papers  (as is the BP) from We R Memory Keepers. 

Watercolour Inktense Pencils and a water brush; I masked the girl to make up the background

That was my contribution to the Spring Cleaning today! 

Nothing too fancy. 

I will enter a few challenges:

Crafts and Me: Dare to Dream in autumn colours

Paper Shelter #78: Anything Goes (Cherish)

Coloured with Copic pens

Coloured with Distress inks and waterbrush

Ormolu Paisly Floral Tags

I had purchased several packets of these at some time in the last few years, thinking they would be useful. Added them to the stash and forgot about them! Found them the other day  - I had two packs of paisly and one of another pattern - and made a series of cards vaguely male from one of the paisly ones to add to the stock. They are blue, green, brown and orange and there are twelve in the pack 4 x 3 with all different images.  Always need a male card and they are not easy to make, I find. I have used two already!

Here they are. The top two are suitable for Unstampabelles Challenge (Flowers) running currently over on their blog.  You can click here for a look at the great inspiration from the team and then have a go yourself! They do not have any stamped images or sentiments. It can be a challenge to create this way and really makes me dig into my stash!

The sentiment is a die cut from Sizzix, and I have used SU card for them all, and in some there is old (as in out-of-stock) SU DP. Ribbons are from my stash. The white card in this top one is a piece from the stash basket and the green spotty DP is recycled packaging.

This one uses the negative of the die cut and three piece of Annabelle Stamps bling. The spotty paper is  still recycled packaging. There is a bit of sparkling orange paper under that sentiment too - looks better IRL.

SU ribbon, card and DP used here.

A small birdcage charm and Annabelle Stamps sentiment added to this one. The base card is a commercial white, the recycled packaging gets another run and so does the SU card and ribbon, and DP.

This one used a bit of tape on the top of the flowerpot (made from the recycled packaging) and the embossed edge is from SU, while the wooden bird has been coloured with various Distressed stains.  Again, the sentiment is from Annabelle Stamps. The strip of herringbone paper is a scrap from the pile on the desk! The DP is from SU as is the card.

And here are the five, showing that they all used the Ormolu paisly floral tags - took me about 2 hours to put them all together. All different sizes and shapes too - so cannot box them!

Barley Sugars and Acetate

Challenge #52 - BARLEY SUGAR AND ACETATE

The latest Challenge from the Lollipop Ladies is based around those sweets known as Barley Sugars. I can remember being in the car for a long trip and there always being a packet of these available in case someone got car-sick. We all got sick just to get a sweetie!  They are wrapped in see-through wrappers and so our additional challenge is to use acetate!

Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight
and our sponsor this fortnight is: Mad for Markers*

(thanks to Sammi).

A choice of 3 of her digi stamps.
So cool :-)

* Prize will only be offered if 7 or more entries partake in the challenge.

Remember to link up your entries to be in for the chance at the prize and Guest DT spots...

Acetate is something I am frightened of - and apparently with good reason.  I don't know if I am using the correct stuff but I have read on the web about embossing onto this and so I duly stamped and sprinkled and applied the heat gun, but while the image was embossed the acetate just crinkled up and buckled. So, I sor t of fussy cut out my flowers, used copics on the back side to colour them up (I was always going to do that anyway, use the Copics) and then stuck a piece of white card behind and used a brad to secure them to the card front.

My background papers are from freebies with two different magazines - the ladies come from Cardmaking and Papercraft - Raspberry Road Designs (beautiful) and the strip from Craft Beautiful  - Sizzix Jubilee Designs. 

I have layered my DP onto some SU Chocolate card and also some out of date SU More Mustard card - I used this to make my base card also. The sentiment is stamped with Momento Ink Close to Cocoa and is from Verve - Just My Type. 

I will enter this in the following challenges:

Card Making Mamas:  Try something new (stamping on acetate)

Craft Punked: Flowers

Fussy and Fancy Friday: orange, lime and citrus

Crop Stop: Flowers, dots and bling

Jack's Masterpiece

I received a letter in the snail mail today from my Grandson Jack, who is nearly 7.  He had made me a birthday card before my birthday but it was lost in his bedroom until after the day, and only sent this week.  He had made it himself, to his own design and it is a pop-up card.  It is a duck.  Here it is:

Note the eye - there is another on the back page!

The beak (and some more eyes) and his message

You can just see how he made it - when shut the beak folds down and lays just outside the edge of the card; by moving the card edges in and out the duck can talk to you.

I think he is very clever - and I am sure you all do too! Thank you Jack, I love it!

I am entering it in several challenges on his behalf:

CCEE#1232 Stampers: a shaped card (this is a duck)

Craft Your Passion Kids Challenges: an animal (a duck is an animal)

I'm Late, I'm Late............

And I am so sorry! I have had an interesting week! Broken tooth (expensive), broken cooktop, Dr's appointments, internet throwing wobblies, a birthday and Blogger playing up.  Perhaps it has all ended now! Pleeeeeese......

Anyway, it is time to put up and shut-up! Here is the next Unstampabelles Challenge!

Challenge #14 is all about Paper Flowers.

So we would love to see your creations with an addition of Paper Flowers.  Remember NO STAMPS (Rubber or Digital).

Our wonderful sponsor this month is Blue Edge Crafts who have donated this terrific prize pack of flowers in many forms from their online store.  Be sure to visit here and see all the other goodies they have to offer.

Included in the prize are paper tole sheets, stickers, ribbon roses and butterflies, a Spellbinders Tulips Pendant die and not shown will be a special pack of our new flower paper. 

Wow! What a wonderful prize!

I have been been struggling with this for some time, and had the idea that I wanted to create my flowers using the SU Score board and folding, but thinking ain't making! Eventually I made some flowers, and then used the free papers included in one of the more recent Creative Cardmaking magazine.  I also used their image and frame, but created my sentiment using the computer.

I layered up some SU card (mostly out of date ones) and the DP is as above. As I said I cut out the images and I used some Dimentional Magic from an ancient bottle to cover the front of the image.  I ended up with lots of air bubbles, and was in the process of bursting these with a pin when friends arrived with a bottle of wine and a present.  When I returned to the desk it had dried and curled. When I straightened it, it cracked, so I cracked it a bit more and rubbed it over with Distress Ink - Black Soot to give it the look of antique/old/broken photo frame.  I used Distress Ink Antique Linen around the edges of the frame to take the too white look away as well.  

My flower was first a strip of paper, and edged with a Martha Stewart punch if it is the bigger one. I then used the Score Board to score regular creases along this, and folded it as shown, using Sticky Strip along the edge to hold it together before turning it inside out and squashing it enough to get it to sit and put a small circle of card either side to hold the flower. I added some felt flowers and bling to the centre of the flowers as well.  Behind the smaller one is a piece of ribbon. 

The woman remind me of Phyrne Fisher from Kerry Greenwood's fun books set in the twenties in Australia, predominantly in Melbourne. The ABC has made a wonderful series of 6 of her stories and I have since read them and many more - lots of good fun!  As I said at the beginning, I printed the sentiment off the computer, finding a font that matched the times.  I have sprayed it all with shimmer, but it was bloody freezing outside this afternoon when I was taking photo's and no sunlight to pick up the glimmer. Take my word for it that it is there!

Blogger having issues - back when its fixed!

Strawberries and Cream

Makes you think of Wimbleton, really, rather than the Olympics! (Go Layton!) However, if I want strawberries now I have to get imported ones or frozen ones, so I go without but I can get the lollies called Strawberry and Cream, and they are almost as delicious if not as good for you!

Challenge #51 - Strawberry + Cream

This fortnight at the Lollipop Ladies

we have some of Gin's all time favourite lollies...

 Strawberry + Cream!

With the additional challenge of Layers.

Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight

and our sponsor this fortnight is: Annabelle Stamps *

$10 Voucher (thanks to Andrea).

Please link up your entries in the sidebar :-)  The more entries we get, the better we like it! 

* Prize will only be offered if 7 or more entries partake in the challenge.

My contribution to this challenge is below:

The photo was taken at night under lamplight so the colours are strange!  It is SU Blushing Bride and some spare cream paper from the stash.  A white commercial blank and some embossing folders  The cupcake and sentiment comes from Verve. The strawberries are metal ones, from Leisure Arts Collection, sprayed with Copic pens (using the airbrush system).  Some paper piecing for the icing on the cake and some bling also coloured with Copics. 

A close up of the little strawberries.  I will tell you a funny story! I got these several years ago and found them recently.  I thought I would have a go at spraying them and did so - they looked great! Then I realised that I had sprayed them IN THEIR PACKAGING!! How dumb is that! Of course, I had to spray them again once I had wrangled them out of the packaging! 

The card was inspired by this - my eldest granddaughter's birthday gift to me - made by her own sweet hand! Had to show you!

I will enter this in the following challenges:


Pause, Dream Enjoy:  cupcakes
Stampin' with the Dragon: Summer Colours
Paper-Crafting Journey: Anything Goes