When is a boarding card not a boarding card......?

Hello blog friends

The answer to the question above is ......when its a bookmark!!

Its time for another challenge at My Time to Craft

This week's challenge sees the end of a holiday era for me as I get myself a bookmark  to take on me hollies.  I love to read but don't have a lot of time when I'm at home - its the choice between crafting or reading and as this blog shows I'm crafting.  But when I go on holiday I always take a pile of books and I read them everywhere.  If you see someone reading in a queue for a ride at a theme Park - That'll be me - I drive my husband mad because when I'm supposed to be reading the map in the car I'm reading and of course I read all the way there and back.  We've got an almost 12 hour flight to California this year so I've got plenty of time. 

....And that where the boarding card comes in - every year I say the same annoying thing (apparently!) - I go to put my book down when we're on the plane and say to my husband - Have you got something I can use for a bookmark and he gives me my boarding card.  You'll notice I say he gives me it.  He's a total holiday control freak and none of us are responsible enough to keep our own passports or tickets for anything - he hands them out and collects them back each time we need a ticket for anything - the whole family knows what he's like and to be honest we just let him get on with it lol.  When I say the whole family that has also included our parents when they came with us - everyone must conform!! You'll see us going through the turnstiles in the theme parks and he stands at the end and we don't get away until he collects the tickets back in from everyone and tucks them away safely - so that's why I have to get my boarding card back - because he keeps those too - I bet you're dying to come away on holiday with me sometime - 'cos he'll have your tickets too - be sure of it!!

Anyway this year I'm going to have my very own bookmark and not a boarding pass!!

The challenge this week at MTTC is 

Make a bookmark

Mine is totally a holiday bookmark

The only thing about a bookmark is it needs to be flat - and I don't suppose stick on gems would work - the'd probably end up stuck to the pages!  I've been promising myself the nautical die cuts from Mariannes for ages because I love all things nautical - being a seaside girl.  But I haven't got round to it so had to make do with stamps instead.  I think because I really wanted to put die cuts on I wasn't totally happy with this (spoilt brat that I am) but if you haven't got it you can't use it and it is on the lines of what I wanted and its practical - I think if you're going to make a bookmark you have to be able to use it lol.

Here's what I did...

All Stamps - Papermania Ahoy there set 

Paper is from Craftwork cards - quite old - sorry can't remember the name of it

Twine is also Papermania

The rest is just good old card

The best thing is I know my husband will be annoyed that I don't ask for my boarding card back - it might just spoil his holiday - ROTFL!!!!

Hopefully I'll be back to post before I go - have a great weekend everyone

Challenges I'm entering with this card 

Crazy 4 challenges -summer inspiration 

Basic grey -Fun in the sun

A gem of  a challenge - summertime

Card crafters circle- stripes

Eureka stamps - the great outdoors

Love to create - read all about it 

The shabby tearoom - colour inspiration - aqua/yellow/white

Hugs 

Judith xx

Delightful Challenges punches and Dies Challenge

Hello again

I have yet another Christmas project for you today - I'm well as truly Christmasfied (is that a word!) this week!!  This cute little girl is Caroling Penny from Digital delights and its my DT card for this week at Delightful Challenges.  There are some fabulous designs on the challenge blog, have a look over there I'm sure you'll be impressed

I just love little Penny - too cute! there are so many Digital Delight digis to choose from my problem in doing my DT cards is just too much bloomin' choice!  I decided to keep the card quite plain and simple.  Although there are several layers I managed to restrain myself with the embellies and just keep the focus on the image which I made fairly large.   I love colouring in red, I used to avoid it like the plague at one time but through practice I've developed a technique of breaking it into sections and creating folds and  that makes it far easier to deal with, also I wouldn't be without my white gel pen to cover up the mistakes lol.

This is what I did.....

Image - Caroling Penny from digital delights 

Sentiment - Christmas sentiment set from Digital Delights

Coloured with copics and prismacolor pencils

Skin E21,E00, E000  Clothes R39, R37,R35,G63,G61,G11,  boots E43,E41,E40 Shading C1,C3

Pencils - Tuscan red, Cool grey 70%, Light Umber

Papers - Silent night from Papermania (got these a couple of years ago - hope they're still around this year)

Kraft card - QVC

Die cuts all from Spellbinders

Ribbon - Carnmeal Cottage

Foam holly and berries - American Crafts

Tha'ts my last Christmas project for the week - had a whole Christmas overload this week 

Challenges I'm entering with this card 

Papercrafting journey - Anything goes

Have a great weekend everyone

Hugs 

Judith x 

Celebration time at Fab'n'Funky Challenges

Hello from me from sunny Florida!
I've scheduled this post which has hopefully appeared at the right time after my card making marathon to try to get 2 weeks worth of DT cards done before I went off for 2 weeks "vacation" in Florida and thats where I am now!  - still popping in and out of blogging - but no crafting and not a lot else to be honest - just love it!

Anyway back to business its challenge day again over at Fab'n'Funky Challenges and today our challenge is

Celebrations

hosted by our lovely Wendy.

and sponsored by the fabulous

Joanna Sheen

The challenge is that your card must be celebrating something- how easy is that!!.  I have chosen a card to celebrate the birth of a baby girl.

Our challenge today is sponsored by the wonderful Joanna Sheen who are offering a prize of £10 to spend in store

This is what I did

Image  - Lili of the Valley

Coloured with Copics and Prismacolor pencils

Papers - Forever Friends New arrival

Buttons - Papermania

Flower Punch - Paper Mania

Ribbon - Carnmeal cottage

Pearls = from my stash

Charm - recycled from a Christmas card!

Hope the British weather is holding up while I'm away and more to the point I hope its still sunny or at least sort of summer when I get back

Challenges I'm entering with this card

thehybridchick. - use pink

craftyourpassionchallenges - for a baby

Love to create challenge - add a sentiment

hcraftysentiments.blogspot.com/- anything goes

Simon says - anything goes
Perfect Sentiment - anything goes - must have stamped sentiment
stampavie and more - for a girl
Truly scrumptious - pretty in pink

See you later

Hugs

Judith x

A little distressing

Good morning blog friends

Don't worry I'm not here to tell you a sad story to get distressed over - but we do need some distressing over at Creative Craft Challenges this week!!

We have the wonderful Lili of the Valley sponsoring this weeks challenge

 and so we want to see your projects on the theme 

Distressing

I had such problems making this card, had chosen the card paper and ribbon - even coloured the image but I just couldn't put it together for the life of me - and it certainly didn't start life as an easel card!
I messed on with it all day on and off - took the dog out for a walk, did some work, came back to it and eventually stuck it together and photographed it - but it still didn't look right -when I looked at it I had forgotten to do the shading with my prismas to give it a more distressed/vintage look, by then I was blending the black prisma pencils onto the mostly finished card - I'm amazed that it didn't end up in the bin!! As if that wasn't bad enough when I came to try to photograph it the second time I ended up chasing it round the garden!!  I like to take my photos outside if I can - but didn't think it was quite as windy as it was....

So these terrible photos were taken in my conservatory and I
 couldn't do any better so gave up and this is the best I got!

I decided to pick out the green, pink, blue and peach in the papers - more colours than I would normally use together and carried it through with the embellies so this card is not really me at all - I'm usually a two or three colour girl at the most.  The only thing i can say is it does actually work and looks better in real life than in these photos!!

This is what I did.....

Image - Lili of the Valley - Party girl
Coloured with copics and prismaclour pencils
Papers - First edition - spring feast
Sentiment Lili of the valley
Ribbon - Sam Pooles creative studios
Butterfly punches  Martha Stewart and papermania
Roses - dienamics dies with a pink dew drop inside
Green pearls - kaisercraft
Distress ink - Tim Holtz - tea die
Die cut circles - spellbinders
Die cut flower border and corner (used as leafy sprig) - Memory box

Challenges I am entering with this card

Crafty cardmakers - birthday with balloons
Ooh la la creations - ribbon or twine
Love to create challenge- Bingo - Ribbon /punches/flowers
Lilis little fairies - use your favourite craft tool (Grand Calibre die cutting machine)
Delightful challenges - Distressing
Willow Sketchie challenge  -handmade flowers

Well that about the end of my distressing tale!

See you all tomorrow

Hugs Judith xx

Simple layered flowers and that inky fairy again!

Hi there

I have another card today with that gorgeous fairy on a clothes pin image from Inky impressions.  I've also posted this on the Inky Impressions inspirations blog with my tutorial for making these easy peasy flowers.

I love mulberry paper flowers on cards but I always think making your own flowers is that little bit more special and gives a totally coordinated look and there are so many ways you can do it.  You don't even need a die cutting machine, all you need is one flower punch and you can make a variety of flowers.

For these flowers I've used the medium retro flower punch from EK success but you can use the same technique for any punch.  I've also used card for my flowers but you can do the same with papers of different weights and you'll get different looks - just experiment its fun!

Anyway this is what I did

Here's a selection of punches adhesives and embellies that you could use to make flowers with punches

I punched three flowers with the punch and curled them slightly with the blade of some scissors

then stuck them together with wet glue, layering each one between the petals of the one below -I use collall all purpose but any good strong glue will do.  I used three layers 

The centres of the flowers on the card I made are card candy from craftwork cards that I stuck on with foam pads, but you can get different looks just by changing the centre as you can see here. I used a small papermania punch to make a paper centre and have used gems and flatback pearls - these are from inky impressions and available at the Inky Impressions Store here.

To embellish your card you can simply group the flowers together on your card or just use one as a focal point.  Or use them as I have done by using a die cut or punched swirl underneath, this one is elegant scroll work from memory box.  Punched or die cut leaves are also great.

the inside

Hope you like my card and enjoyed my take on making simple flowers

I'm entering this card in the following challenges

Crafty Ribbons - flowers
Little Miss Muffet challenge - Flowers
Shellys images- Use something that makes you happy - making flowers makes me happy!
Bearly Mine challenges- Fairies
LEJ designs challenge blog - things with wings
Sundays with Crissy - Things with wings
Card makin Mammas - flowers
hugs

Judith xx

Its Christmas!!!!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Well we're all freezing , we've had snow and hailstones so I think its right  ....it must be Christmas!!   So come on over and join us at  Moving Along with the Times.

Its never to early to make a start on the Christmas Cards so thats what we would like to see from everyone for this weeks challenge.

We are sponsored by Bugaboo who kindly gave us some of their images to play with.



The Prize is a whopping 7 Images from their store (WOW Thats $21 Dollars worth!!!)

Here is my Christmas creation!

This is a gift box / easel card combined (yes yet another easel card!)  I made some of these last Christmas.  It has a little drawer where you can put a small gift such as jewellery or some sweets or chocolates.  you could use the same idea for  allsorts of other occasions. 

the tag under the easel

It makes an ordinary card just a little bit special and so easy to make - just a box with an easel on top and a tag in a pocket at the back of the easel fold.   I'll try to get a tutorial together some time.

I really think it will do you all good to rattle out a Christmas card for our challenge this week here's some good reasons why!

• Its one less to do at Christmas
• It'll give you some good cheer
• Its cold enough to pretend its Christmas
• You're bound to have loads of Christmas stash - get it used so you can buy more later in the year!!

Go on over to the MAWTT  blog for lots of inspiration from our DT and check out those bugaboo digis

This is what I did ....

(sorry not much detail here as it came out of my Christmas stash box in the drawer under the bed!!)

Image - Digi from Bugaboo digis

Punched borders - EK Success
buttons - Papermania

All other materials - from my Christmas stash

I've entered this card to the following challenges

Crimbo crackers- Festive Food (hope this hot chocolate/marshmallow drink counts!)
Paperplay Challenges - Animal Antics

Crafting for all seasons - anything but a card
Little red wagon - Pockets
Paper makeup cards - Pocket card

Have a great day and enjoy your Christmas crafting!

Hugs 

Judith xx

Did you know copics would do this?

Hi again blog friends

Just got in from work and thought I'd upload the card that I made last night - it was a last minute request for a friend of a friend and it kept me away from the laptop for most of last night.

After I used the Whiff of joy stamp for my last card I thought I would make another one from the same series.  Yes I'm  ashamed to say I bought the spring secret stamp kit last year and haven't used a single one!! - how can that be, its not like I don't like them - they're lovely, theres not one I don't like but there they were in the draewer on the A4 size sheet uncut, uninked and unloved until this week.

The one I have chosen is called Dare to dream.  I was making a 50th birthday card so thought I'd go for a grown up look - but pink!  As I was colouring the dress it just wasn't going right at all I had the shadows all wrong and it just seemed to be getting darker and darker.  I was using R85,R83 and R32 which can be a bit of a nightmare sometimes to get right anyway.  Don't know why I did it but decided to go over the areas that were still reasonably light with RV000 to try to blend it out a bit.  I was amazed when it started to act like the 0 colourless blender and take the colour out, but sort of added a paler pink as it was going - I had no idea it would do that, maybe everyone else knows this already but just thought I would pass it on as it presumably it works with the 000 in other shades and it definately rescued my colouring - I was trying so hard to get the blend right I thought I'd have a hole in the page and definatly no white where I wanted it.  Anyway I think it turned out quite well in the end, by the time I used the tuscan red prismacolour pencil it was probably a shade darker than I'd first wanted but toned perfectly with the paper.  It actually looks even better in real life.

a close up of the detail

What I did...

I made card with Kraft card and the backing card is a dark burgundy I think i got from paper mill
Stamp - Whiff of joy - Dare to dream
Disress ink - Tim Holz Aged mahogany
Papers - K and Co
Die cut flower and leaves- spellbinders - I think build a rose with a papermania brad to hold together
The border in the centre of the card - spellbinders edgeabilities classic triple scallop
Pearls - Kaisercraft
Tag and 50 - cut with sizzix dies

Anyway its gone now - my friend was delighted with it and I learned something so thats a result

I'm entering the following challenges

Card Makin Mammas - a birthday card
PaperPlay challenges - something old, something new - the stamp is new - papers old
Incy Wincy designs - Sketch

Well thats me for now

Hugs

Judith x

Easter is coming!

Hi blog friends

I was determined to get a card made today - I've had a busy week at work and at home and just couldn't catch up with myself at all.  I don't think I've recovered from staying up til one in the morning watching Tim Holtz on QVC.  I ordered the new distress pens and they arrived today - ooh big excitement!! haven't had a proper play yet (they're supposed to be my birthday pressie and that's not for a fortnight - but I'm sure I can have a little lend for a while!!)  I treat myself to some other goodies as well - all in aid of the birthday but I think that excuse might have just run out - not that I can complain, my hubby never comments on my ever growing stash and the mysterious parcels that turn up - I think he thinks it keeps me quiet, so a small price to pay!!

I'm still on the Saturated Canary thing but today is very pretty pretty for a change.  I thought I'd get a couple of Easter cards made, not that I send a lot of them but I really like the stamp so thats reason enough for me. 

A close up of the detail

What I did...

Stamp - Saturated Canary "Murray"
Paper - Dovecraft Back to Basics
Flowers - Wild Orchid
Card and Ribbons from my stash
Buttons - Papermania
Punch (borders on card) - Martha Stewart
Sentiment - Craftwork cards

I coloured her with copics and prismacolor pencils.

I hope you like it -let me know what you think, I love to read your lovely comments Thanks for looking.

I'm entering this card for the following challenges

My time to craft - anything goes
My Mums craftshop - Buttons and bows
MAWTT- lots of layers
Paper Pretties - use punch or die cuts
Allsorts challenge blog - Anything goes
Crafts and me Challenge blog - Shades of spring

Hugs

Judith x

Trixie the circus girl

Hi there

Had such a busy weekend that I just haven't had a chance to do any crafting - or at least finish any!

I got some of the new Saturated Canary digi stamps last week and couldn't wait to play - these little girls are all so pretty, they deserve to be totally dressed up and I certainly gave this one the treatment!

a close up of the detail

This is what I used

Stamp - Saturated Canary Trixie, circus girl
Papers -SEI Coture collection 6x6
Coloured with - Copics and prismacolor pencils
Sentiment - Craftwork cards
Flowers - Wildorchid crafts
Ribbon and pearl swirls - bought from Sam Pooles Creative Studios
Pearl brad - Whiff of Joy
Die cut - Spellbinders
Leaves - Papermania midi punch

I tried to give her a "strawberry blonde" look which I think worked well, I used copics E50,E51 and E53 as the basis of the colour but it was the shading with the prismacolour pencil pc1034 colour "goldenrod" and sansodor  that really did the trick I think.  I love experimenting with the prismacolors.  I got a lovely big box at Michaels craft shop when I visited  Florida last year and was there for the Black Friday sales, the whole box of 48 was only about £15!! - why can't we get bargains like that here in England?  But having the lovely selection of colours on top of the ones I already had has made me much more adventurous and its lovely to experiment with all sorts of colours I probably wouldn't have thought of buying.  I used a selection of the copic colours I had used to colour her to do a spotty background around her and I was pleased with that effect too.  I decided to restrain myself and hold of with more pearls and my favourite butterflies  -even I have to admit that there is such a thing as too much!!

Thats me for today - but could be back with more Saturated Canary tomorrow - if the day goes to plan.

I'm entering this card for the following challenges

Fab 'n' funky Challenges - try something new (experimented with new colours and a new digistamp)  Creative Belli Blog - recipe - 1 ribbon/2 designer papers/3 colours and 4pearls
Totallypapercrafts challenge - Ribbons and bows
Card Makin Mamas - Happy birthday
My Mums craft shop challenge - Pearls and swirls
Paper Creations Ink  -Show us your style using your favourite technique  - colouring/blending
Saturday Challenge - Bingo - swirls/flowers/pearls
Sunday sketch and stamp - sketch #94

Hugs

Judith x

For a man - keep it simple!

Hi again

Just a quick post today.

I was asked to make a card for a man - with the instruction -  nothing at all fancy or frilly - definately no bows! -keep it simple (well he is a man!)

This is what I used:

Craftwork card 8 inch and half a six inch covered and mounted in the centre

Papers - Papermania pastels colossal paperpad

Craftwork card candy in a toning blue colour

Stamp -Lili of the valley - Cheers bear 

Coloured with  promarkers and prismacolor pencils

Nose and glass highlighted with glossy accents

Faux stitches around card and numbers with a fine marker pen

Numbers - cut with Cricut Cindy Loo cartridge

Happy birthday(inside card) - cut and layered with Cricut Simply Charmed cartridge

I hope this simple man likes his simple 30th birthday card!!

I'm entering this card for the following challenges

Creative card crew - Masculine
kaboodle doodle challenge - Where the boys are (boys or masculine)
Truly Scrumptious - All creatures great and small (bear )

Paperplay Challenge - critters

Hugs

Judith