House Mouse's - are all blinged up!!

It's time for another challenge at House Mouse & Friends and this week we say goodbye to both Esme and Nancy - thank you both - it was great having you on board - and we welcome two new guest designers for June and they are Brenda & Kendra, please make them welcome and I hope you both enjoy your spot as GDT's

The challenge this time is  being hosted by the wonderful America and she'd LOVE to see you adorning your cards with jewels/jewelery trinkets, charms, beads, and, or any BLING that will make your projects Glamorous!!

We are sponsored by the lovely Heidi at Simon Says Stamp with a fabulous $15 spending spree AND a surprise package from our lovely teamie America too !!

Never one for half measures I went a little berserk on this challenge (nothing new - I know!!) It was my intention to make some jewelry to attach to my mice - but off I went into my own little world and just made jewelry - let's face it they would have to be giant mice for my endeavours!! At the end of a week playing I then realized I hadn't even made a card!!! I used this little chap as he was pretty quick to colour. He is part of one of the Joanna Sheen sets, Poppy I think it's called and he is coloured in Copics and the border cut with a MS round the page punch. I attached a seam binding bow, a pearl spacer, a finding and a little mousie charm.

These are results of my  jewelry making endeavors - one bag charm, one phone charm and a pair of earrings - as you see - giant mousies needed for these!!! The silver findings and charms etc were all sent to me by the adorable AMERICA and the beads are some I picked up in Israel when my daughter and I were 'into' making jewelry. The flowers were made with a Tim Holtz alterations flower die, inked with Tumbled glass distress ink and edged with a silver marker - I just wish they looked the right colour!!  This set will probably end up as part of my daughter's holiday jewelry.

Well I enjoyed my trip to the 'Schwimmbad' yesterday, not much swimming - the water was too cold (for me anyway) but spent a fair bit of time in both the whirlpool and jacuzzi in between sunbathing and  I hope you all had a good weekend.

Introducing Ebony !!

This is Ebony - she's one of the Emerald Faeries and I fell in love with the beautiful face and that wonderful, adorable expression. She is one of a family and I will certainly introducing more of them before very long.

I coloured her with Copics and her wings with Twinkling H2o's - they look stunning IRL but as always difficult to photograph - I did manage to capture some of the twinkling (below) sadly at the expense of the clarity of the rest or the photo.

The papers are from Basic Grey's Marrakech line and the larger swirls are cut with a Magnolia doohickey die, the smaller ones with a Marianne creatable. The flowers are Wild Orchid crafts, I've stickled the mushroom and cut the butterflies with Martha Stewart punches. I really don't do much bling (pearls yes, diamontes no) so I had to dig deep to find some amongst my stash for the butterfly bodies and the three along the bottom.

I'm entering this one into a few more challenges

Emerald Faeries  - bling

Fab & Funky - Whateva

Crafts & Me - Punch it

Flutterby Wednesday  - Open

St Luke's Charity Card challenge - Come fly with me

Right - must rush, I'm being shouted at for holding everyone up as they are waiting to take me swimming. Wouldn't mind but although I was born under Pisces I don't much like water, especially over my head - still I have to do as I'm told sometimes!!

Teddy Bea is floating !!

I've missed the last two Teddy Bo challenges - oops - sorry Bo !!!

The first one I made my card, posted it, linked it and then forgot to enter it - derrrr!!!

The second one had something about it that wasn't quite right - I couldn't work out what it was, nobody else could see anything wrong with it, but it wasn't right for me so it wouldn't do.

The challenge this time is a shaped cards.

This card started out octagonal - as you can see it changed slightly along the way and became a round easel card!! I'm not totally happy with this one either - I might just lift the image off and start again!!

Teddy Bea is coloured in Copics and I stamped around the image panel in various colours with peg stamps. The leaves and flowers are all cut with Crealies dies.

EDITED
I've lost the plot yet again - forget to enter the card into the challenge - done now, there are other challenges that I need to link.


Hope you all have a brilliant weekend and the weather is kind - it's good here so far, hopefully I can sort my beans and mange tout out, they're starting to run amok!!

Copic Creations............Distressing with Copics

It is our 2nd Anniversary today over at Copic Creations and we have an amazing amount of prizes from from our fabulous list of sponsors from the last year -  lots of goodies to be given away!  Visit the Copic Creations blog for more details regarding their 2-Year Blogoversary.  

 We’re privileged to have the talented WENDY RAMLAKHAN joining us at Copic Creations!!     Do take a little time to stop by her blog to welcome her aboard.   

When I'm shading  outwards, from the image I always use Copics, when I'm shading inwards from the edge of the image I use distress inks. Just to make life a little difficult I decided to showcase this fabulous script text from main sponsor today - Crafty Secrets and use my copics around the edges - just to make life a little more difficult I also decided I wanted to use the image on kraft cardstock!!!   Arrggghhhh!!!!    Kraft cardstock (at least the one I have) is extremely absorbent, not only does it use 'tons' of copic but also is very difficult to blend, I think it took longer to distress the edges than it does to colour an image, but a worthwhile experiment and I'm happy with the over all results and really enjoyed 'having a go'.

I used a Crealies die as a 'frame'  and used foam pads to lift it from the image, the blue frame is embossed with the Cuttlebug folder - Distressed stipes. I finished it with seam binding ribbon and a Tim Holtz button, which sadly insisted on being photographed more 'creamy' than it actually is.

Some of the team are offering up some blog candy as well.  I shall be offering some surprise candy and I will pick a random winner from the comments on this post.


I should have posted this yesterday but for various reason couldn't - I won't tell you because you'll only laugh at my misadventures!!!

Simon Says......................It's Father's Day !!!

This week at Simon Says Stamp we are asking to see your FATHER'S DAY creations and the design team are showcasing Tim Holtz. Well I find this pretty fatal as once I start 'playing' with Uncle Tim's goodies I just can't stop..................I just want to try everything - all his techniques, all his products and all else in life is ignored!!

Not only that it takes me at least a day to clear up after I've finished!!  I've ended up with three cards, plus one tag that I didn't stamp quite straight and one card where I stamped the sentiment upside down - tsh- IDIOT!!

I used stamps from the Garden Tapestry set and firstly stamped the bottom right hand corner with Tumbled Glass distress ink and then covered it with perfect pearls. I sprayed it with a mini-mister which sets the pearls and let the underlying ink show through. It has a beautiful sheen that sadly I couldn't manage to photograph. I inked the rest of the card and then over stamped with the rest of the set using Archival ink. I finished it with one of the TH ornate plates and a couple of metal brads from my stash.

Garden Tapestry  ~  Perfect Pearls  ~  Mini mister  ~  Archival Ink  ~  Blending Tool  ~  Ornate plates

With this one I stamped the sentiment onto Vintage shabby papers,  heat embossed it with the Distress embossing powder then stamped over with stamps from the Garden Tapestry set. The edges are inked with distressed ink and a bird  adornment added.

Vintage Shabby papers  ~  Garden Tapestry  ~  Distress embossing powder  ~  Blending Tool  ~  Adornments

I've used stamps from the Garden Tapestry set yet again, (what makes you thing I love these?) firstly I stamped the flourish with acrylic paint, dried it with a heat gun and then inked over it with distress inks. I wiped over with a mini-misted piece of kitchen roll and then stamped the floral border top and bottom and then the Garden tapestry stamps in the middle. I finished it by adding a philosophy tag and a couple of charms.

Garden Tapestry  ~  Floral border stamp  ~  Philosophy Tag  ~  Acrylic Paint dabber  ~Archival Ink

Blending Tool   ~  Mini Mister

For ease of reference I've listed the products used at the bottom of each creation.

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