Colour Create

Dena has hosted this week's challenge at Colour Create this week and chosen pink, orange and green with hearts as the optional extra.

The challenge this week is sponsored by Crafty Ribbons and they have put together this wonderful summer selection of ribbons as the prize this week

I had little choice of papers this week as most of my crafting stash was packed away waiting to be collected by the removal people who came three days earlier than originally arranged. Just to add to the chaos I had a gas leak and had to call in the emergency services who turned off my gas supply whilst they mended their end of the leak. They refused to turn it back on until I got a gas fitter in to mend the leak by my fire - another day lost!!
My computer was packed away and I am using a laptop that
will not do what I want it to. I am now crafting in an empty house on the floor (lol) but am determined to at least do my DT cards albeit with 

limited resources.
On to the card - I used Daisy and coloured her with Copics. The hearts are cut with a Spellbinders die and the flourishes with a QuicKutz one. The flower is a mixture of Petaloo and Prima, I haven't a clue what the papers are - what was left of them are on their way to Germany.
I don't really like this card and the photograph is pathetic (my daylight lamp has also gone and the weather is so pathetic it hasn't really been light today).

House Mouse #48 - A Sketch\

We have a sketch for you this week over at House Mouse.

I would just like to mention now to give you a heads up we will be taking our summer break during August so next weeks challenge will be open for the whole of August. We will then return as fresh as a daisy with more wonderful challenges on 31st August.

I'm only a day late with this but have had not time for blogging - busy finishing off packing waiting for the removal men to come and take my belongings on their journey to Germany (three days earlier than originally planned).

I used Bo Bunny papers and the image 'Olive a Party' which is coloured with Copic markers. The flower is cut with Woodware's Cherry punch, Leone Em stamen and branch punches. I embossed the white behind the image with Swiss dot folder.

Truly Scrumptious #12

This weeks challenge at TrulyScrumtious is a sketch which was designed by me - hope you like it and enjoy trying it out. We also want to see some beads on your cards this time. Remember, only cards that follow the sketch and the additional challenge are eligible for the prize draw.

We are delighted to welcome back Whimsy Stamps as our sponsor. Whimsy Stamps is a family owned art stamp company dedicated to providing crafters around the world with whimsical and fun rubber stamp designs. And now Whimsy Stamps has a new digital collection available! Hop across to their website to take a look at their fabulous stamps. Denise is kindly offering this newly released hippo stamp plus a digital wedding image as the prize for the winner of this challenge.

I decided to use one of my Gorjuss girls and Basic Grey's Porcelain papers. I stamped my Gorjuss girl twice, once on shrink plastic and coloured them with Copic markers. Ooh I do love shrinking images - it's such good fun. I had a few disasters trying this initially but I've cracked it now. No more heat gun - in the oven they go on gas M3 for a couple of minutes and out they come - perfect!! I cut the middle strip with EK Success zig-zag stitch border punch - then covered it up.........derrr..... although you can just see it peeping out. I placed one bead of Gorjuss's hair to cover up the skeleton and used beads on the pin and the charm. The flowers are some I picked up in my local craft shop (threw the packet out (idiot that I am) so I can't tell you who they are by). The sentiment is computer generated.

Materials
Papers - Basic Grey Porcelain
Image - Suzanne Woolcott Gorjuss girl
Medium Copic markers
Punches - EK Success Zig-zag stich : Leone Em branch
Flowers, ribbon, beads & pin from stash

Any spelling mistakes are down to Chester the cat helping me post this by walking across the keyboard and regular intervals.

Three Awards

Well I've had a rotten day, finalising my accounts before I leave the country (I'm self employed, or was). I always kept on top of my accounts until last year when I fell out with the taxman - he charged me Capital Gains Tax on half a house I gave to my daughter 'Deed of Gift'. Why should I pay capital gains tax when I haven't gained anything ???? Anyway from that point on I just threw all my receipts etc. into a Tesco's carrier bag so you can imagine what sorting out that lot was like - pheww - not finished but not far off. Enough whinging and onto the awards.

The first two are from Hanna - my fabulous Norwegian friend. The second one is also from the lovely Sonia.
The third and final award is from my matey Christine three fabulous crafters - just go check for yourselves.

Circle of Friends Award

I shall be a good girl and pass them one straight away this time - to
Ann
Danielle
Eileen
Georgia
Gina
Joey
June
Laura
Lorraine
Moni
Riet
Sue
Tara

I would like to give one or all of these awards to all my blogging friends who regularly visit and leave fab comments but I would be here forever. You all know who you are, please, please help yourselves to one or all of the awards - I would especially like you to have the 'Circle of Friends' one.

House Mouse DT card

White on white is the lovely Carolyn's choice for this week's House Mouse challenge.

I see a sense of humour at play here - it's the exact opposite of last week. This week you must colour your image but don't dare colour anything else, nothing at all, everything must be white.
You will notice a little yellow on the tips of my flowers, there naturally and I just couldn't get rid of it, nearly resorted to bleach but stopped myself. White Stazon didn't work - if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them.
If you need inspiration, check out the other DT's creations, you'll be wowed.

Another challenge where I had to put my thinking cap on to decide how I was going to tackle this. I decided to go for texture and dimension. I ran a piece of card through my bug using the Spots & Dots folder and edged it with the EK Succes punch Parisian edger
and attached it to the card using foam strips (this worked really well, little bit of practise and I should be able to perfect this technique). I coloured the image (Cosy Shoe) with Copic markers mounted that onto corners cut with the Provocraft Vintage corner dies and again used foam strips to attach it to the card. The leaves are cut with a Woodware punch and the large flower is Petaloo and the small one from the Hobby House.

Recipe
Card - Plain white cs - the Papermill shop
Image - Stampabilites House Mouse - Cosy Shoe
Medium - Copic markers
Punches & dies EKSuccess Parisian edger, Woodware leaf & Cbug Vintage corner
Embellishments - Petaloo & the Hobby House and ribbon from stash

Stampacular Challenges

Stampacular have two fabulous challenges today. The first a Bonus Fun challenge, the second the regular Sunday challenge called Shapetacular. The card I have made will hopefully fit both challenges if this is acceptable, if not they will haave to throw me out of one.

I have use square nesties for my basic shape (one blue, one green) and set them at angles to one another. I cut the backs seperately and fastened them together with eyelets and ribbons. I used Tatiana Ketto as my image (they are small stamps and fit the card size better) and coloured her with Copics and glittered her hair and the center of the flower with stickles. The multi coloured flower is one I received from my mate Georgia and the others from my stash and leaves cut with the Leone Em punch. The charm is from the Hobby House and the sentiment Inkadinkado.

These are the steps I followed to pick up the ingredients with which to build the card.
1 Nicky Blue - basic cardstock
2 Janneke Oval - Image stamped onto oval
3 Paula Matting - Image onto blue, onto patterned ,
onto green cs onto blue cs
4 Joanne Stamped Image
5 Line Add two colours - Green & Yellow
6 Jilly Ribbon - Ties at the side
7 Liza Flowers
8 Dee Charm Attached to the flowers
9 Kristin Sparkle Centre flower and Tatiana's hair
10 Priscilla Sentiment

Hanna's Lottery

My Norwegian friend Hanna is having a small lottery - the prize - one of her cards.
Hanna is 13 years old and makes the most amazingly beautiful cards - below are just a couple of her recent creations.

Personally I would absolutely adore to have one of Hanna's cards in my collection. Take a little time to visit Hanna - you will be amazed at her work.

Copic Creations 8 - Botanicals

EDITED
This is my second attempt at colouring 'botanicals for Copic Creations. They're pretty much like "Chalk and Cheese". This is one of Chris's digi images and I decided to keep the whole card very simple and let the beautiful image speak for itself. The paper is downloaded from The Sweet Shoppe I added pearls from Basic Grey, a butterfly charm from the Hobby House and ribbon from stash. When I look at this card it reminds me of my lovely friend Larissa's style, which is fabulously clean, simple and stunning!! Thanks for the inspiration Larissa.

This is for Copic Creations challenge which is botanicals - I don't like it!! I think I'll have to try again. There is something not right - the layout, the colours - don't know.
The orange is stamped with Basic Grey flourish stamp in Memento Rich cocoa ink, the paler green is covered with a vellum run through the 'bug' with the Stylized Flower folder and the corners cut with an EK Success punch. The rose was coloured with Copics (of course) and I had meant to write down the colours but forgot.
I've just re-photographed it and like it better now. I have a pretty good daylight lamp but I still don't think the colours come out 'true' - must leave photographing cards until daylight.
I'm still going to do another one, I keep forgetting I have some of the lovely Chris's digi images in my computer so I'm going to use one of those.

Disaster and an Award.

I spent the whole of yesterday cleaning my house so it would be all fresh clean and sparkling for the viewers I have coming this morning. I was shattered when I'd finished so thought I'd curl up and do some blogging - that's when disaster struck - my mouse died!!
I went into panic mode as I thought initially my whole computer had gone to the great resting place of computers in the sky. Finally managed to trace the problem to the mouse, so the first job on my list once my viewers had left was to get myself a new one.

Now onto the award. This from the fabulously Sue who not only shows fantastic cards and amazing photographs but is so funny - a visit to her blog is guaranteed to put a smile on my face - go see for yourself. Thanks sweetie - really appreciate this.

Now the hard bit - I always find passing awards on so difficult - I want to give it to everyone, but it takes so long I shall restrict it to 10. Here goes -

Chrissie
Christine
Di
Hanna
Jan
Karen
Moni
Sandie
Theneon
Vanessa

Right - that's taken me ages, now I'm off to make a card, my mojo's calling me - will be back later.

Colour Create - DT card

The colours this week at Colour Create are blue and white with the optional extra being Vintage.

We would also like to welcome Jan from Scrappy Jan designs to our team. Hi hun - glad to have you with us!!

Another first is we are now having sponsorship and this week we start with:-

and the prize is $25 gift voucher for this amazing store.

************************
After my mother died we found a box of photographs and this one was amongst them. I had never it before, haven't a clue what the occasion was but from date and address on the back it was taken in Blackpool, the year before she married my father and whilst she still lived at home with her parent/s.
I know so very little about my mother's family, neither she nor her sisters would ever talk about it. I have a suspicion there's a skeleton in the cupboard somewhere. I do wish I knew what it was I quite like the idea of having skeleton in the family cupboard!!
I have tried to trace them through various genealogy records - nothing !!

I scanned the photograph into my computer, tinted it blue and printed
it onto photographic paper. The photograph is somewhat blurred, due
I think to the glossy photographic paper I used, should have used matt
I think.
The corners are some I've had 'for ever' the were a horrible shiny silver - I coloured them with copics, decided they were too blue and sanded them with my Basic Grey distressing kit to get a vintage feel to them. The bp is Kay&Co - again scanned into the computer and tinted blue, the leaf flourish BossKut and everything else is from my stash.

Sketch Saturday

Oh dear - Blue again for Sketch Saturday
I think this must be one of my all time favourite Tildas, but I always seem to colour her in blue. I think I shall go away now and do her pink, or try a vibrant colour such as orange.
Tilda as a butterfly is coloured with Copic Markers, The cardstock is from the Papermill and the papers downloaded fromthe Sweet Shoppe. I threaded the ribbon through the Retro punched flower (instructions on the Stamparctic blog) I did this on my last Truly Scrumptious DT card and loved the look of it but I don't like it here I think the ribbon is too 'solid' so I am going to change it.

Materials
Image - Magnolia - Tilda as a butterfly
Colouring Medium - Copic markers
Papers - download from The Sweet Shoppe
Punches - Leone Em & EK Success
Sentiment - Computer generated
Lace & flowers from stash

Magnolia Down Under

Edited
I found everything had gone back to normal when I posted - phew - that gives me some breathing space to make alterations!!

****************************
OOooh errrr!!! what's happening?
My header, and sidebar colours have disappeared. I have been plucking up courage to change my blog and make it fresher and lighter but have this horrible dread of losing everything, but it seems like someone has made my mind up for me, or is this temporary?
Yesterday everything froze altogether and I couldn't do anything I couldn't even close down.

Right, enough of that on to the card.
This is for a forum friend and I used the sketch at Magnolia Down Under , two of the papers are downloads, the other one from HOTP. I used Tilda with cat and coloured her with Copic markers. The borders are cut with the EK Success Fleur-de-lys punch, the border around Tilda stamped with Stempelglede grunge flourish stamps and the leaves cut with the Leone Em ash branch punch. I computer generated the sentiment.

Materials
Stamps - Magnolia with cat & Stempelglede grunge collection
Colouring medium - Copic markers
Papers - downloads & HOTP
Punches - EK Success & Leone Em
Flower - The Hobby House
Sentiment - computer generated
Ribbon from stash

Friday Sketchers

I coloured this image last week and decided to use it for the sketch over at Friday Sketchers then forgot to post it until now. I used the monkey from the Tilda animal collection (isn't he so cute) and coloured him with Copics. The cs is Prisma and the the spotted dp is some I had given from my friend Mel. The leaves are from the Hobby House.

Cardstock - Prisma
Image Magnolia
Colouring medium - Copic markers
Punch - Woodware corner punch
Leaves - the Hobby House

House Mouse #46 No Colouring!!!

No Colouring allowed at House Mouse & Friends this week.

As we all know colouring these lovely images can take quite some time so this week you are not allowed to colour them in. You may of course use other ideas to add colour if you wish by using different colour inks on your stamp or stamping on coloured card etc.

Check out what our lovely DT have come up with to help inspire you. Don't forget to check out their blogs for more details!!


I used 'A Carrott between Friends' image and stamped it with Memento Rich cocoa ink. I cut the image out with Nesties curved rectangles and mounted it on the Labels 2. The brown cardstock is bazzill and the papers Basic Grey Lime Rickey. The white is embossed with the tiny bubbles folder and the label cut with the Ribbon Tag die. The brads are from my stash and you will notice the middle one, top and bottom are slightly different. I had four of each type, not six - typical!!! The sentiment is computer generated and the ribbons from stash.

Win a $1000 at the Cuttlebug Spot

The Cuttlebug Spot are having a contest - "The Journey to 1,000"! They are trying to reach 1,000 followers by the end of July and need our help. To enter all you have to do is go to their site, sign up as follower and complete a few easy steps and you could win a $1,000 gift certificate from Custom Crops.

Stampacular Sunday Challenge

I decided to have a day off today. A play day - so I've done some commenting ......... not caught up, don't think I ever will :-( .... written a pile of emails and actually enjoyed making a card without feeling guilty and I should be doing something else.

Stampacular have a fabulous sketch for us this week. I've been playing with my new EK Success scalloped scallop punch as you can see!! I used Agnes Ketto, coloured her with copic markers and glittered her over- skirt and wings. I added Papermania adhesive shimmering dots to her skirt edge and the borders and a combination of flowers and leaves. The sentiment is Inkadinkado.

This is one terrible photograph and I'm going to see if I can now get a better one.

Image - Stamping Bella's Agnes Ketto
Medium - Copic markers
Cardstock - Bazzill
Papers - HOTP Icy Rainbow
Punch - EK Success Scallped scallop
Sentiment - Inkadinkdo
Gems - Papermania Adhesive shimmering dots
Flowers and leaves from stash

Just Magnolia - Mina's sketch

A fabulous sketch by Mina at this weeks Just Magnolia.
I chose Tilda as a butterfly and coloured her with Copic markers. The card is Prisma and the paper is Blueberry Hill by Papermania. The sentiment is by Inkadinkado, Leone Em branch punch the leaves and the rest is from my stash.

This was so therapeutic after building boxes for the last couple of days. The removal people delivered a variety of boxes and a tape gun. I've discovered I'm not very good at box building and I've visions of when they are picked up the bottoms will fall out so I've packed the bottoms with clothes, fragile things in the middle and clothes or towels at the top. That way when the bottom falls out the fragile things should have a soft landing. Fingers crossed yet again!!

Look what I got!!!

The girls from work took me out for a meal to celebrate my leaving and presented me with this beautiful bouquet. They and my customers decided not to buy me anything I would have to pack and take with me so they gave me a pile of euros to buy myself something when I eventually hit Germany - how thoughtful is that? It was all quite emotional really, it began to hit me I'm leaving my friends here for good, although they are talking about arranging a coach to come and see me when the Christmas markets are on - not all at once - please!!

The butterfly will probably end up on a card at some point in time - lol.

Now I'm going to make a card, withdrawal symptoms are setting in again.

Truly Scumptious Challenge #11

This weeks challenge at Truly Scrumptious is another sketch by the fabulous Sharon and the this week theme is to use only black, white plus one other colour (excluding skin & hair).

We are thrilled to welcome back the Cutting Cafe as our sponsor this week. The Cutting Cafe offers a wide variety of Printable Stamps and Templates; no more waiting on the mailman and no more trying to find space for rubber/clear stamps. The winner of this challenge will win 3 sets of their choice, and believe me there is a fabulous choice!!

I chose mushroom brown/beige as my third colour and the beautiful Maribel as my image. She needs to be stamped on shiny cardstock with archival ink. I decided to experiment and try lightly colouring the edges with Copic markers but think it would have been better using distress inks. i cut her out with nesties and then inked the edges with the Stempelglede grunge stamps which I also used to create the border down the left hand side which sadly hardly shows. The flowers are cut with the EK Success retro flower punch and ribbon threaded throught the larger one which is a technique shown on the fabulous Stamparctic blog. I finished the card with leaves cut with the Leone Em ash branch punch, ribbon and lace from my stash.

Papers : Prism cardstock, papers downloaded from Digital Scrapbook Art
Stamps : Stempelgede - Maribel & grunge set
Colouring mediums : Memento ink & Copic markers
Punches: EK Success Retro flower & Leone Em Ash Branch
Rest from stash

Now I'm off to clean my house - you wouldn't believe the mess one person can create just making one card!! I have viewers coming to look at the house so it's 'skates on'
Have a brilliant day and don't forget to keep your fingers crossed for me in hope that my viewers like my house and want to buy.

House Mouse #45 - Seasons

Season's are the theme for this week's House Mouse Challenge .
I definitely was NOT going to do Christmas, so what did I do - CHRISTMAS!!! Talk about being indecisive.

I have to rush off now to a course I'm on so will post the details when I return.
I think I might buy some plain red ribbon whilst I'm out - don't like the checkered one much.

One for Friday Sketcher's

I just had to make a card today - I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms, so I chose to go with this great sketch by Claudia at Friday Sketchers. I set off this morning trying to do some commenting but my stupid computer is downloading all my comments to my desktop again, so now I don't know who has a comment and who hasn't ??????

I used papers downloaded from 'designs by Krista' and the Sarah Kay image 'Spring is Back' and coloured her with Copc markers. The leaf flourishes are BossKut and the flowers cut with the Woodware Cherry blossom punches and the edges inked with copics. Rather than use ordiinary pearls I opted to use silver/grey liquid pearls - they don't like this hot weather - they took forever to set and didn't form the neat little circles they normally do, but too late was the cry, they are there and there they will stay. Ribbon is from stash.

Now I'm going to shut everything down, restart it all and hope I can do leave some comments that don't end up on my desktop.

Just Magnolia & Copic Creations

Copic Creations this week is 'hair', whilst Just Magnolia is charms.

I love colouring hair, my copic hair colouring is not brilliant so this gives me the opportunity to practise. The DT girls have used some fantastic Manga/Anime images - I fell in love with Manga images when I first started playing Final Fantasy on my Playstation. I have a book of drawings I have done but they are packed away, I searched through a couple of boxes but couldn't find them. I did find one on a piece of paper I might try and convert to a line drawing that I can scan and print out. This is the part I find difficult. I frequently used charms on my cards so no problem there.

I used one of my favourite Magnolia image - Angel of the Year 2008 and coloured her with Copics - of course. Her jeans look blue in the photo but are actually grey. I used Basic Grey Ambrosia papers and addded a butterfly charm from the Hobby House.

Materials
Cardstock - Papermill Shop
DP - Basic Grey
Stamps - Magnolia, Basic Grey
Medium - Copic Markers
Flowers & Ribbon from stash

Colour Create & Just Magnolia Tutorial Challenge

We have big changes at Colour Create this week.

Firstly, I’m absolutely devastated to tell you that my matey Tara has found it necessary to step down from running the challenge. It was her baby, she had or original idea and worked enormously hard to pull it together and make it the success it has become. She was my mate even before bloggy land and I shall miss her and her wonderful creative talent terribly.

Sadly there are more changes on the DT. We are losing 2 more uber talented members on top of the loss of Juliet that was announced last week.The fab Tab has decided to take this opportunity to step down and this week will also be the lovely Katy’s last week with us.
I understand you all have your reasons and need time for your own lives, but that doesn't stop me being so sad (sniffle, sniffle).


Now the good news….the challenge lives on! The rest of the DT expressed a strong wish that Colour Create should carry on; isn’t that great? So a willing volunteer was agreed between us, and from now on Sharon be taking over the reins.

And the Final Change

The challenge will be run once a fortnight instead of weekly. I think we all have busy lives and during the summer months gardens, beautiful weather (fingers crossed), holidays, especially school holidays all take their toll.
This will give you more time (which we all need) to produce your wonderful creations.

Now at last - on the this fortnights challenge - here are your colours (summery to match the weather)

This week's added option is to decorate the inside of your card, also the envelope - aren't you glad you've got a fortnight ??

*********************

I chose to create a birthday card for my grandaughter Hannah. (Another birthday spent away from her as my move to Germany is not going as smoothly or rapidly as I would have liked).
This is my second attempt as I spilt Glossy accents ove the first and I couldn't bear to do the same card again so I now have a decorated envelope that matches - nothing !!!
I used Copic markers and distress inks to colour the images. The bp is a download which I stamped in yellow with a Laura Ashley flower from the Love Song collection and finally used the Basic Grey grunge stamp around the edges.

The front and the envelope

The inside

The inside of the envelope

Materials
Papers - download from The Sweet Shoppe
Stamps - Magnolia's Tilda from the new Animal collection, Laura Ashley & Basic Grey
Punches - Woodware Cherry blossom & Leone Em leaf branch
Dies - Spellbinders Curved Rectangles
Medium - Copic markers and Ranger distress re-inkers
Charm - The Hobby House
Rest from stash

I've decided to enter this card into the Magnolia tutorial challenge which is distressing and there's certainly plenty of that in here.

No Card, just a big old moan!!

I have just about reached screaming point.
Today was my first day not working so I thought RIGHT - I'm not going to do any packing or sorting I'm going to have a blogging day and do a lot of catching up. HAH!!! - Mr Blogger obviously thought different. Everything was so slow and kept freezing, crashing and eventually ground to a complete halt. I couldn't even get back on line for ages. Back to sorting and packing I went. Now exhausted and ready for bed Mr. Blogger has let me get back on line. Perhaps I should remove Googel as my home page!
My grandson, who has been living with me for the past 9 months has just got a place of
his own so I am helping him to move as well as trying to move myself, then to cap it all
my brother 'phoned to say he is coming up for a few days. There's goes my catching up
until next week.
Have you ever felt like standing in the middle of the road and shouting
"Why me - this is MY life - leave me alone" that's just about how I feel at the moment,
so off to bed I shall go hoping a good nights sleep will create a different frame of mind
in the morning.