House Mouse & Friends centenary blog hop

This is our 100th  challenge at House Mouse & Friens Monday Challenge so guess what - WE'RE CELEBRATING!! 

We are having a'blog hop' and you want to see the fabulous prizes we have lined up for you from our more than generous sponsors - not only that many of our 'teamies' have individual prizes for you to collect along the way.

 Its being hosted by our super talented Teamie, *Lisa Cook* <http://bylisac.blogspot.com/>and she's chosen

Buttons, Bows & Bling!

 Sadly, this will also be Lisa's final challenge with our Team. She's moving

 on to new adventures and opportunities. Lisa <http://bylisac.blogspot.com/>has been a huge part of our little Mousie family and we will miss her and her gorgeous HM&F creations. Best of LUCK to you sweet Friend.

 

This adorable Hoppy stamp is called  Hoppy Birthday, and coloured in Copics, the papers used are Basic Grey's Sweet Threads.  The sentiment is from Lili of the Valley, the ribbon is from my stash and I made the buttons with a tiny heart die, glued about 5 together, and then punched the holes with a cropodile .
The corners are punched with a EK Success punch - lookie - not a flower in sight, believe it or not!!

You should have arrived here from

Gill

and from here you need to hop off and visit

Kat

and just look at this amazing list of prizes from these wonderful sponsors.

Sponsor #1
*The official House-Mouse Designs site;* 
(A $25.00 Electronic Gift Certificate to the official site's store) 

Sponsor # 2
Joanna Sheen* 
(10 packs of House-Mouse Decoupage)

Sponsor # 3
*Di's Digi Downloads* 
(Will have 2 winners for 3 Digi Downloads Each)

Sponsor # 4

*K n' K Designs*
( 4 Free Digi sets)

Sponsor # 5
*Pizzazz Aplenty* 
( A $10 embellishment gift package)

Sponsor # 6

* R K Stamps* 
(2 of the new House-Mouse Designs release stamps)

Sponsor # 7

*Emma @ Crafty Emma's Store*
( A £10.00 voucher to Crafty Emmas Store, excluding P&;P)

Sponsor # 8

Simon Says Stamp 

( a $15 Gift Card PRIZE to the wonderful Simon SaysStamp store )

Sponsor # 9* *

Bearly Mine Designs 

*Offering a £10 gift voucher*

 Don’t forget to leave me a comment and if you would like a chance to win this great $10 voucher to spend in Simon Says Stamp then please leave a link to your HM&F entry with Mr Linky before the challenge closes on Sunday, July 31st at 8:00 PM 

LOTV Seak peak & WOC Blog candy

Wild Orchid Crafts and Lili Of The Valley have teamed up to host a

'Christmas In July Party'.

Starting today Monday 18th July for a week long of Christmas creations made by the Wild Orchid Crafts Design Team, the Lili Of The Valley Design Team and a few Guest Designers.

These creations will be featured on the
Wild Orchid Crafts Blog
LOTV Ideas To Inspire Blog
and also daily on the featured Designers Blogs.

You won't want to miss this as you will see sneak peeks of the new Lili Of The Valley Christmas release and the new Christmas Goodies from Wild Orchid Crafts.

This is the outside of the envelope card where I've used the 'Baubles' image, I've closed the flap with a brad and a photograph hinge or  whatever you call them!!  The image is coloured in Copics and the baubles were given a coat of  glossy accents. I think I will re-photgraph these and contrary to the norm the camera has picked up too much of the glossy accents - 'Sod's law' at work (lol).

Here is the inside of the card, and I've used the new Lili Of The Valley Christmas image 'Oh Christmas Tree' - isn't it just sooo sweet!!! My papers are some left over from last year and I haven't a clue who they are by!! The  Magnolia Doohickey swirls are coated with Glamour dust - the pears clusters are sent to me by my adorable friend America.

The label is a Cuttlebug fancy tags and I have threaded through this a tag cut with a Go Create die to write on. I've used  Lili Of The Valley stamps for both the corners and the beautiful sentiment.

A close up of the sweet image

The beautiful Wild Orchid flowers

Hellebores, Cherry Blossoms, White Carnations, 25mm Wild Rose, White Stamens

Lili Of The Valley  peek:  "Christmas Baubles" and "Oh Christmas Tree"

I have two lots of Blog candy for you - the Lili of the Valley image I've used and the pack of Wild Orchid crafs Christmas flowrs. Leave a comment to be in with a chance to win - winners will be chosen 

on the 28th July.

'lovely hÄnglar only' GD card

Today is my second GD card for the 'lovely hÄnglar only' challenge, I've enjoyed my GD post with them and I'd like to say thank you very much for having me on board.

This week the challenge is EMBOSSING !!! 

Being my usual indecisive self I couldn't make my mind up which type of embossing I wanted to do = so I did both 'heat' and 'dry'. The panel behind the image and the one to the right are both dry embossed, the fish and the sentiment tag are both heat embossed. My adorable little mermaid and seaweed are both coloured with Copics, I cut a oval with 'nesties' out of the panel stamped with seaweed  and placed my image behind this first having cut her tail 'out of the box'. Her tail and the small fish are coated with glamour dust and the bubbles in the water finished with a drop of  Glossy Accents.
The little shells and seahorse at the bottom left I picked up locally and the blue 'chandalier' sprays are from  Wild Orchid crafts.

That's definitely all from me today but I shall see you tomorrow with a couple of exciting posts.

Copic Creations

Oh shame on me - this should have been posted on Friday, but wasn't due to a catastrophe which was soley down to my being pathetic and totally disorganised!!! I lost my computer specs in the middle of last week, carried on without them and by Friday afternoon ended up with a spitting headache and couldn't bear to look at the computer screen. I've found them now  and  need to pick up the pieces !!!

This is my DT card for Copic Creations and for this challenge we would like you to colour with pastel Copics.

We also have another FABULOUS sponsor this week!    We’re excited to welcome SPARKLE CREATIONS to our Copic Creations star-studded sponsor list!

My image is Broomstick Lucy and the Copics I used are

Hat, shoes and boots - V0000, 20, 25

Dress and scarf - G0000, 01~Y0000,E30

Hair - Y0000 ~ E40

Cat - YR0000, 02

I'll keep this one short as I now need to do my Guest Designer post for hAnglar stAanglar - see you soon!!

A little news and a LIM card

There will be some fun happenings with a joint venture between LOTV and Wild Orchid Crafts next week! Lots of prizes so keep your eyes peeled.

I've managed a LIM card this week, I've had a load of  DT work on and desperately needed a break and this was it. Sorry I've missed the last couple of challenges Chrissy and Mandi,  life has taken a manic turn yet again in more ways than one.

This is part of a 'Tea with Alice'   by Crafty Secrets - with legs like that I'm sure the Mad Hatter qualifies for this weeks LEGS theme. I've coloured him with every colour of Copic available - well not really but it feels and looks like it. The sentiment is part of the set as well.
Right I shall rush and get this published before I run out of time.

Thanks for stopping by and I shall see you later with my Copic Creations card

Simon Says....................Anything goes

Thank you all for your fabulous entries to our stitching challenge, You came up with some amazingly creative way of using stitching - both real and faux!!

Before moving on to this weeks challenge we would like to welcome Becca aka Becca's Crafty Corner to the team !! I am sure that you will all have visited Becca's blog but if not you are really in for a treat !! Great to have you with us Becca!!

The challenge at Simon Says Stamp this week is 'Anything Goes'  and the Design team are featuring Stamps Happen. I think you all know by now how much I love these stamps - their quality is second to none and the diversity of their range is amazing - they have something for everyone's taste!!

I chose  this Stamps Happen - Bluebird as my image this week - such fun to colour with my trusty Copics

The papers I used are from the fabulous Graphic 45 Le Cirque range, Simon Says Stamp have so many different Graphic 45 papers and they are all so fabulous - I want them all !!

This image didn't lend itself to much embellishing  and as that is the part of cardmaking that takes me forever it was a refreshing change to just add a couple of  Doohickey  die swirls and a few butterflies cut with a

Martha  Stewrt punch and embossed using the Cuttlebug Textile embossing folder 

Thanks to the lovely Heidi we have the usual Gift Voucher for $50  to her FANTASTIC Simon Says Stamp Superstore !! See the NEWEST stuff on the All New Just In Page For fabulous tutorials, inspiration and candy you should keep an eye on the Simon Says Stamp Blog too !!! :-)

Teddy Bo Tuesday !!

Teddy Bo Tuesday had come round again and Gayle has produced some real sweeties for you yet again

you can check them out at Teddy Bo shop.

There's a new challenge starting today at the Challenge Blog and Team A have come up with some amazing and stunning inspirational creations for you.

My little bears haven't been up to much this week - still recovering from their holidays I think.
Bea is relaxing and dipping her toes in the cool water.
The papers are from Donna  at Bearly Mine.  The leaves are cut with Crealie dies and the flowers are Wild Orchid. I've used a sentiment from Lili of the Valley and the sweet Bea is  coloured with the usual Copics.

Copics used
Bea - YR 0000, E30, E40, 41, 43,  45, 49
Clothes  B0000, B01, B02. B97
The Dock Y0000, E70. 71, 74, 79
Water  B0000, B01, C00, C1

It's taken me over an hour to upload this card - talk about 'fight the good fight'  - I wish blogger would go on holiday for a while and let us blog in peace. I see the Error 503 notice is back in action, not only that when I get this I can't get out and have to close the page and re-open, I write a comment - press publish and what do I get - Error 503 and have to start all over. I've tried Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome, all to no avail!!

Things don't seem to be as bad in the mornings so I think the trick is to get up in the middle of the night whilst blogger is still sleeping!!

 Right grousing over hope you're all having a great week

A quick tutorial

A few people have made comments and/or asked questions about my colouring of metal corners with nail polish so I thought I would do a quick tutorial

The corners before, the gold ones I think are a little tinny, the silver are better but still look a little 'cheap'

You can use any acrylic paint, I have both adirondak paint dabbers and the tubes you get at the local craft shop or DIY.

 These are the ordinary nail polishes I use, the white is plain and the pink has a metallic finish.

These are the corners with just one coat each -
The top is acrylic paint
The middle is white nail polish
The bottom one is a metallic nail polish

These  corners here have had two coats each - the top one with acrylic paint, the lower one with white nail polish.

I've tried to show the sheen you get on the one painted with Nail polish but didn't manage to photograph it very well.

The top corner here was painted  with one coat of white nail polish and then some irridescent polish, the other two were given one coat each of a metallic nail polish.

This is the irridescent one where I hoped to show you the sparkle but again not photographing well.








I find nail polish gives a better covering which is more durable than acrylic paint - it doesn't scuff , scratch and flake or wear away  so easily.  I wouldn't use it for everything, certainly if I wanted to colour and distress metal corners etc. I would go for Uncle Tim goodies. It is though a very quick and easy and effective way or treating metal embellishments you wish to re-colour.

I hope some of you find this quick tutorial useful and decide to give it a try.

Basic Grey is tied up with ribbons and doilies

Our new challenge at Basic Grey this week is

Doilies and Ribbons

I love Stamps Happen  they have such an amazing variety of stamps, sweet, whimsical, quirky, you name it - they have it!!! This delightful image is called  Collecting Seashells, she is coloured with Prisma pencils on kraft cardstock. I've used paper from the Wisteria collection and the ribbon is seam binding. The flowers are Wild Orchid crafts and the butterflies are from my stash, the rear one is coloured with Copics and the front one with white nail polish. I attached a couple of small tags (cut with a Go Create die) and attached with silver chain to which I added some seashells. The pearls are made with a Waco pearl marker.

As always, the wonderful Heidi at  Simon Says Stamp is offering one lucky winner a fab $25 shopping spree in the Simon Says Superstore, just think of the goodies you could treat yourself to with that !!

I frequently get emails asking me how I do or achieve something so I thought I'd leave little hints and tips whenever I can.

Today's tip
Having been asked how I achieve even sized 'home made' pearls .
When using liquid pearls, or pearl markers  squeeze them onto some heavy duty acetate or something similar.
When dry you can lift off the neat and evenly sized ones and attached them to your project with a tiny drop of glue - I use Ranger glossy accents .

Snookie and Boo are here!!

Good morning everyone, I thought I'd just take a quick break and show this card that I've been in the process of creating for approximately a week now. It's Paypal and my Credit card comany that have stolen my time between them this week. I won't go into details, - I might burst into tears, suffice to say all is now sorted and normal service is resumed!!

I made this with the Emerald Faeries challenge in mind, sadly I missed the last one and I love these little faeries so much,  they are so cute!! I still haven't quite managed to get away from the Lemon and Lavender colour scheme - but nearly there.  Boo and Snookie are coloured in Copics and my papers are by Crafty Individuals. I've stamped around the edges of the image with peg stamps using colour box inks.
The swirls are cut with a Magnolia doohickey die, the grass with a crealies die and the sentiment with a cuttlebug tags die. I added some lace to the top left corner and three small roses which don't show up - I really must spy out some bulbs for my light box - I found them once but lost them again!!

Thanks for stopping bye and I shall be back tomorrow with my Basic Grey DT card,

Simon Says...................a Stitch in Time

We had some fabulous entries to our  Lemon and Lavender challenge at the Simon Says Stamp challenge - I don't know about you but I love the colour combination so much I had to stop myself from using it if fear of boring you all to death!!

This week we are joined by our Special Guest in the Spotlight NADINE , please give her a warm welcome.

 This week our challenge is "A Stitch in Time" so we would love to see stitching on your projects this week.

 This is another one that didn't photograph well, the colours and papers seemed to just merge together!!

I used the pretty Wish Granted Tilda, coloured her in Copics and then cut her out and stood her against a Round Nestabilities circle, I cut another circle using two of the dies and set it off centre. Against these I added some MFT Stacking stars to echo the shape of her wand. The beautiful papers are Graphic 45 Once upon a Springtime - they are luscious, I love both the quality and the designs. I couldn't find my Tim Holtz corners anywhere,  (I've been tidying up and moving things around again - not a good idea)but I did find these which I've had for at least 2 years and some of them I had already coated with Tim Holtz adirondack paint dabbler so I used Copics to colour them green to match the papers and then scuffed them up a little.

I stamped some extra stars around Tilda with a tiny stamp I have and coated them with the obligatory Stardust Stickles.  I used Spellbinders Fancy tags to cut a sentiment panel for the easel part of the card.

I cut my leaves with  a Magnolia Leaf die, my flowers are Prima Athena flowers and some old Prima ones that were too large so I scrunched them up to use as centers for some others.

A close up the the stitching - I have this fancy stitch on my machine which I have used only once before and won't be using again until I go out and purchase a few miles of thread.

As always, you can win this INCREDIBLE prize and a huge thank you to Heidi and the team at Simon Says Stamp for providing an amazing prize week after week!

It's Teddy Bo Tuesday

It's Teddy 'Bo Tuesday' and I have two cards to show - WHY ??? 

Because I should have been using one of today's new Teddy Bo/Bea,s but silly me didn't engage brain before leaping into action - I know - AGAIN!!!

Teddy Bea is coloured in Copics, the flowers and leaves are a mixture from my stash. The butterfly is cut using a Magnolia doohickey die, and I threaded the 'Stamps Away' tag onto some beads from my stash.

This is the first one - I had a story running through my mind. 

 Bo and Bea met and fell in love - post HERE,  then decided on a holiday together so off they went on Bo's  Yamaha motor cycle HERE. They had a wonderful holiday, surfing and sunbathing - HERE

So to continue the story -

Sadly when they returned Teddy Bea was taken ill, it was feared it could be some tropical disease but fortunately it was just a very nasty cold. Now she is fully recovered and ready to celebrate her birthday.

Teddy Bea is coloured in Copics and cut out using nestability dies. The papers are from Donna at Bearly Mine, the leaves cut with a Crealies die and the flowers a mixture from my stash.

I was going to put all the pictures in but it would have made too long a post so I have just added links for those of you who haven't seen the previous ones and are curious.

Here are today's fabulous releases, pop over to the Teddy Bo shop to see these and all the other fabulous images. Now which one shall I do next ??

House Mouse & Friends wish you a Happy 4th July

A very Happy 4th July to all my American friends but very special wishes to our lovely, adorable House Mouse & Friends leader America whose birthday it is today.

Have a wonderful,magical day sweetie - love you loads xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This week we are happy to welcome our July Guest Designers Gill and Kat, look forward to working with you both.

This week we welcome back our wonderful SPONSOR; SIMON SAY STAMP

This week, we are happy to welcome back our FABULOUS SPONSOR, Simon Says Stamp!!! SSS will be offering one lucky YOU a $15 Gift Card to the wonderful Simon Says Stamp store! 

Right, onto my card,  it was my turn to choose the theme this week so as the lovely Christine chose 'Here comes Summer' for the last challenge so I thought we would have 'Make a Splash' this time - in other words a typical British summer theme!!!

I chose this image, called 'Tin Can Shower' and coloured it with the usual Copics. I decided to keep a fairly CAS look as I couldn't decide which embellishments would suit the image. The border is punched with a Martha Stewart punch, the corners and hearts with cuttlebug dies.

I used Diamond stickles on the water and if you are eagle eyed you might just be able to see it in the above photograph.

Hope you all have a great day and a great week