Happy New Year!

Hi everyone and here we are on new years eve so I'd like to wish you all a very happy new year!
I have a hopeful bird on my card today which is for the ABC Challenge of 'Underneath' which I've interpreted with my scoring being underneath the image panel!! I've stamped with black versafine and then used a blue glitter gel pen on a few of the flowers and swirls. On the card blank I scored some lines on my scoreboard for some texture, matted the image on black card, added the sentiment, a blue gem and the doodlebug blue and black check ribbon. Whatever you're doing tonight I hope you have a great time and see you in the new year!

Materials:
Paper: White and black card
Stamps: Inkadinkado Birds Galore, Woodware sentiment set
Ink: Versafine Black Onyx
Embellishments: Blue and Black check Doodlebug Ribbon, blue Doodlebug gem, Sakura blue glitter gel pen, score board and scoring tool, dimension tape for image panel

Back soon,
Chris

OCC Clear Thinking

Hi everyone, I hope you've had a great Christmas, lots of lovely presents and fun. My card today is for Our Creative Corner where the challenge this week is to add something clear to your project. My clear elements are clear gems and clear glossy accents all over the window in the image panel and on the butterfly which doesn't show up at all in the photograph! The digital images are printed out, allowed to dry for a good while, water coloured with distress inks and the girl on the seat is cut out and attached over the background image. There's lots of stickles dotted around and on the flowers in the paper at the top of the card.

Materials
Image: Girls about town digital download by Louise Brigden from Charmed Cards and Crafts
Colouring: Watercoloured with Distress Inks in black soot, peeled paint, shabby shutters, broken china, scattered straw, frayed burlap, vintage photo, fired brick, dried marigold, spiced marmalade, yellow. Edges and sentiment sponged with black soot and scattered straw.
Paper: K&Co Hydranga pad, white card for base
Embellishments: clear crystal gems, green organza ribbon, glossy accents, stickles

TFL. Back soon,
Chris

Eek, I've been ELFED! Merry Christmas everyone.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Christmas Stocking

A card today for Cute Card Thursday where the challenge this week is punches. I've used a cute download by Paula at Pollycraft which is coloured with distress inks, edge distressed and touched all around with black ink. I used a small hole punch to punch the circles around the nestability cut scalloped circle and this is also sponged with ink as is the background paper.

Materials
Image: Christmas stocking by Pollycraft.
Colouring: Ranger Distress inks in Black soot, broken china, fired brick, peeled paint, weathered wood and frayed burlap, sparkle gel pen, sponges for colouring edges, fine and medium brushes
Paper: Red Bazzil, My minds eye, Shabby Princess
Embellishment: Red gems, hole punch, dimension tape for image panel, edge distresser

TFL, Back soon,
Chris

Lovely award from Sandra, thank you!

Hi everyone, I was lucky enough to receive this great award from Sandra who's blog I absolutely love! Thanks San! If you haven't visited Sandra's blog before you're in for a real treat.

"The rules are to give it to five others, who shall give it to five others.. You shall link the one you got it from, and also the ones you give it to:) And let them know. And there is more... You have to write down five things you are addicted to...."

Here are my addictions which wasn't too difficult as there are so many:-

1. Art and craft (of course)

2. Chocolate (any kind will do but fave is Belgian)
3. Coffee
4. Desserts (if they have chocolate in them, even better)
5. All kinds of magazines (can't resist them)

Mmm, I think we mainly have a food theme going on here, unsurprisingly!

I'd like to pass this on to five lovely ladies who have wonderful blogs and always make me smile. Michele, Tara, Carolyn, Donna and Madge.

Snow friends

Hi everyone, here's a card for the Cupcake Challenge and the theme this week is 'inspiration from home' I chose the sparkly white twigs in my vase as the starting point for the card and used the extremely cute snow people download image from Sally-Anne at Grab-a-doodle-do, I also made a tag with the Santa image from the same set but forgot to put it in the photograph, a bit of a spooky photo when I look at it after upload, it's all sparkly and pretty IRL!!!

Image from Christmas set by Grab-a-doodle-do
Paper: Silver grey pearlescent card, pale grey bazzil card
Colouring: Promarkers, sparkle gel pen, silver glitter, black fineliner, black soot distress ink
Embellishments: glitter, distressing tool, sparkle gel pen, red gem, silver metallic ribbon

TFL. Back soon,
Chris

A Christmas poem for all crafters!

I found this brilliant poem on mycardz blog who found it on someone elses............. who doesn't know where it came from originally................ which is a shame................ but I think it's hilarious. It will ring true with quite a few of us to say the least!

Twas the night before Christmas,
I’m glued to the tree.
I’m wondering what Santa
brought just for me.
Could it be cardstock
or chipboard or lace?
Or a Cricut, I said,
with a smile on my face.
And that’s when I heard him,
“Hi Santa, ” I said
“You know….good little girls
Should be in their beds.”
“I know I should Santa,
And now I’ve got caught.
But I was just so excited
To see what you brought.”
“Well, let’s take a look
In this room where you work.
He shook his head quickly,
And left with a jerk.
I heard him exclaim
As he put it in gear.
“You’ve got enough crap,
I’ll see you next year!”


Back soon Chris :)

House Mouse and friends Challenge 18

From the House Mouse and friends blog:

"Today i have heard of the passing of one of our HM challenge participants. All of the team including myself wanted to do a tribute or something in honour of Joanne. As Carolyn has said on her blog.........'Heaven has gained the sweetest and most loving of Angels. She spread love not only through her cards, but through her beautiful blog posts and the comments she left behind. I will miss her greatly!!!'. Our thoughts and prayers are with Joanne's family and friends at this sad time. xxx
This weeks challenge is in memory of Joanne and we hope as many of you as possible will be able to join in.
Our challenge this week is :~ A Sketch and a kind thought!!

With this sketch you can flip it, shrink it, rotate it, twist it etc but you MUST be able to see the original sketch in your work.

The kind thought..........The Johnson family has requested the following on Joannes blog...........Joanne spread much joy through her card making. If you would like to do something in memory of her, we are sure she would like you to send a card to someone in need.
Please make your card based on the sketch and send it to someone in need. The DT had already made there cards before we heard this sad news therefore we will all be joining in and sending a card to someone in need."

I was very sorry indeed to read about Joanne and although I didn't know her, I noticed that she was always the first one to congratulate every winner of the challenges and always had something very lovely to say. My heart and thoughts go out to her family at this time.

For my card this week in the guest DT spot I've flipped the sketch round to suit the shape of the Dragon flying stamp that I've used. I used quite a lot of glitter on the flowers, some on the dragonfly wings and also shimmery H20 paint but it isn't showing up much in the photograph.

Stamps: House Mouse, Imaginisce sentiment
Paper: SEI, Coredinations, pale blue and green pearlescent card.
Colouring: Promarkers, H20s, clear sparkle gel pen, black marker, Versafine blue lagoon
Embellishments: Stickles, gem (for flower centre), pale blue fibre, Stickles, edge distresser, blacker marker for doodling.

Back soon,
Chris

BasicGrey Challenge 15 'Going Green'

Hi everyone, here's my DT card for the BasicGrey Challenge this week.

"For this weeks challenge we would like to see you use some recycling on your creations, eg, cardboard, parts cut from another card, material from old clothes, postage stamps, it can be anything you like, the list is endless, also its not essential that the recycled item has to be old and used, you could simply use the inside of a business envelope for example as i know they can have some lovely patterns that can be used as backing papers etc, so have fun and of course not forgetting to use at least one item from basicgrey somewhere on your creation

This week will be the last challenge until the new year, so it gives you that little bit of extra time to get your creations done, so be sure to join us again on the 3rd of January when we will be setting the first challenge for 2009"

My recycled item is the gold bell and ribbon which I saved from a Lindt chocolate Santa. With a bit of luck Santa will bring me another one this year, the chocolate is yummy!

I hope you can join in this week, the creations from the other DT members are absolutely wonderful and another reason to take a look.

Materials:
Paper BasicGrey Figgy Pudding, black and red card
Image Magnolia Skaters
Colouring Two Aqua brushes (but with no water in the reservoir) fine and medium.
Ranger Distress Inks, Fired Brick, Faded Jeans, Tea Dye, Scattered Straw, Black Soot, Weathered Wood, Peeled Paint, Broken China. Promarkers for skin, blush and pastel pink.
Embellishments Scissors for distressed edges, Diamond Stickles, Gold Liquid Pearls, recycled gold bell and ribbon.

Hope you have a great weekend. TFL.

Back soon,
Chris

Snowflake

Hi everyone, a card today for Stamp Something with a challenge of 'snow somethings', ABC with a challenge of 'T is for three's', Dutch Dare where the challenge is 'scalloped edges', Sketch Saturday where there's a really great sketch by Mariska and Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge with a challenge of 'embossing - dry or heat'. I think I'm only just in the nick of time for two of these, there aren't enough hours in the day at the moment, I know we're all pretty much the same. I've used the lovely Whiff of Joy Charlotte and Reindeer image which is water coloured with distress inks and there's a tiny bit of a teal marker in there too. I've cut out the image and the scalloped square of teal bazzil with nestabilities and mounted on foam tape over a scalloped and CB embossed panel for the centre part of the sketch. I have modified the shape of my card and the elements but the original sketch is still there. The background paper is Bo Bunny and the three snowflakes are cut from ivory bazzil bling with a sizzix die and covered in Cosmic Shimmer glitter jewels inspired by Rach who did some a week or so ago and I loved the idea. Rach's blog is in my sidebar if you'd like to look at her gorgeous creation, she has a link to a tutorial on how to make them. I didn't do the sponging around the edges but used the wet glue and then lightly pressed them into the jewels as per the tutorial. I had to use a different product too. Added some doodling with a marker for stitching, the snowflake sentiment in blue versafine ink and some jewel gems to finish. Hope everyone's Christmas preps are going well, I've barely started and must get on with it while there's still things left to buy!!! TFL.

Back soon,
Chris

Stocking full of love

Hi everyone and here's my card for House Mouse and friends where this week the challenge is 'Let it snow'. It's also my DT card as guest designer for the next two weeks which is a really lovely opportunity, I'm so happy to have been chosen for this as House Mouse stamps were amongst the first stamps I bought when I started. The image I've used is 'stocking full of love' and is marker coloured, dotted with a white gel pen and glittered with Cosmic Shimmer glitter jewels which unfortunately haven't shown up in the photograph. Image is matted on blue and then white card and mounted on dimension tape. Background paper is from a Dovecraft christmas pack matted on blue card, the centre horizontal panel is layered with more of this and lifted up on dimension tape with the blue and white ribbons tied around it. Added a vertical CB embossed white card panel, stamped sentiment and gems to finish. TFL.

Back soon,
Chris

Basic Grey Challenge 14 'So charming'

Hi everyone, here's my card for the Basic Grey Challenge and my first card as a member of the Design Team. I was thrilled to find out that I'd been chosen as I know how many amazingly talented crafters out there had also entered and how difficult it was for Martine to choose which is why she ended up with five instead of three! I'm very much looking forward to the weekly challenges and working with the incredibly talented members of the team who are all lovely and fun. I also look forward to seeing the creations of everyone who joins in with the challenges every week and finding some new blogs to stalk!

"For this weeks challenge we would like to see some charms on your creations, you can have as many as you like, and of course not forgetting to use at least 1 item from BasicGrey somewhere on your creations and for your wonderful efforts, one lucky person will win this fabby prize which has been kindly sponsored by CraftyKrafts."

There's a lovely prizes to be won too!

I've used BG Ambrosia papers and a native American image by Rubbernecker stamps. The image is marker coloured, cut out and layered over the paper which has been embossed with the branches CB embossing folder then sponged with black distress ink. I cut another piece of Ambrosia paper and layered these onto the blue card blank after distressing the edges and sponging. To continue the native American Indian theme I made a little dream catcher embellishment from a circle of the blue card cut with nestabilities. The web effect is made by knotting embroidery cotton and looping it around in layers until you get to the centre. I added beads, doodling, feathers and a little flower charm then mounted it on dimension tape as I did with the image. The sentiment is a Doodlebug rub on and I've added doodling around that and the card base and stickles to the image. TFL.

Back soon,
Chris

Hearts

Hi everyone and hope you've all had a good week. I've made a card for Cute Card Thursday where this week the challenge is 'hearts'. I'm hoping this will also be ok for Friday Sketchers which is the sketch I followed but had to modify a bit at the bottom as I had a disaster with ink all over my ribbon band, the extra hearts cover it up nicely! The cute Wilbur puppy image is a download from Pollycraft and is marker coloured, matted on red bazzil card and mounted on dimension tape. The hearts are cut with a nestability die and I embossed the larger one with a the winter village CB embossing folder then added the doodlebug candy dots. Put some rub on hearts on the smaller heart and filled them in with red stickles. Stamped the sentiment on to another nestie heart and made another heart with stickles. The gingham background paper is cut to fit the sketch I followed and layered over the brown cardstock base, I did some doodling and added the ribbon and bow. TFL.

Back soon,
Chris