Quirky circling around.

It is Quirky reminder time again, and we have gone round in circles for this challenge, any sort of circles will do - on the project, a circular project, clever circles - whatever you want to play with.!

I have slightly cheated in that I had the card made with the tissue box on it already, and blogged about it being work in progress a while back. Now it is finished, I have added the stamped sentiment and bugs, all die cut in circles. Then I doodled with a paper white pen, one corner got a little messed up, and was not correctable, but hey it will have to do!

Our sponsor is Crackerbox Palace, and the bugs and sentiment are here, and the tissue box here. Of course you can choose to have them as digi images for just $3 by contacting Crackerbox, or winning them! My tissue box was a digi image, and the rest are stamped this time.

I used Get Well Soon... and don't let anyone tell you soup will help, great sentiment I think. I put it in a circle too, and changed the colour to purple to match the card.

I also have another sentiment stamp, which says "hope you are back on your feet soon", I thought about using it inside, but it has vanished from its laminated sheet!

The bird and egg are Crackerbox Palace stamps, which you can get as digi images too. I though this would be a funny new baby card, the bird looks like it is wondering what came out of  it's rear, what could have happened, and there on the floor is the hatching egg it produced!

The sentiment is made from a Kars set, and I added gingham ribbon from Crafty Ribbons and two different ric racs. 

I'm working on another card, but you will have to wait, the stickles are drying and I have to go out for a while.

I have entered the following challenges:

Left of Centre - babies (Fri)

Have a hoot this Christmas and Noor Designs application

The beautiful owl image I used on this card is by Mo Manning, of Mo's Digital Pencil, and I bought it as part of a charity awareness event a while back to highlight digital image theft. I coloured the image using Promarkers and Graphit's pens, this time I tried a dotty shadow in shades of grey and blue/grey.

The image is die cut with Spellbinders Nestabilties dies.

The ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons, owl ribbon sentiments - perfect!

The Designer patterned paper is some that I got in a free goody bag with some beads I ordered, no idea who it is by, but I would love to get some more. This one small square is all I have - so if anyone knows who it is by please tell me.

I matted the paper onto the same dark teal coloured card as the scalloped lable under the image, and added a snowflake brad to each corner. Then I dropped a crystal gem into each eyelet hole and added more to the ice crystal ring and individual flakes. 

I used a Sharpie paper white pen to dot snow over the image too.

To make the snowflake frame I used a Joy Craft die called Ice Crystal Circle, which cuts and embosses this beautiful delicate wreath. I cut the circle carefully in half and arranged it over two corners of the die cut image so that you can't see the cuts, then I cut more snowflakes from another circle, and added them to the remaining corners, with a bigger snowflake cut with Ice Crystal die no. 3, both of these are available from the new Noor Designs shop in the UK, where you can find many Joy products as well as Dutch Doodbadoo, paper pads and the beautiful inspirational Noor magazine.

Noor Designs have a DT call out which ends tomorrow, and I would like to apply to be on the team. I have an active blog as you can see, I also have a Facebook page, and I belong to many media sites including Google plus, Pinterest and Flickr. I also belong to a number of forums, UK scrappers, UK Stampers, and several others. I also run the Quirky Crafts challenge blog.

There should be a visible watermark on my card (I thought I had cracked it) - right across the centre of the image, I am struggling to see it, but I will find a better program to watermark with.

The DT call is on the Noor Craft blog, where I am going to link up my card. 

I am also entering this card in:

Mo's Digital Challenge - Snow with a Mo's image.(Thurs)

Crafty Ribbons - Christmas animals (Thurs)

Winter Wonderland - dies and punches (Fri)

Graph'it markers - two colours (Fri)

Bunny Zoe's - snow (Fri?)

The Stamping Boutique - Sparkle (Fri)

Winter Wonderland - dies and punches (Fri)

Glitter n Sparkle - snow (Sun)

Sparkle Creations Christmas card challenges - anything goes (Sun)

Fussy and Fancy - Happy Holidays (11th Dec)

We Do Doobadoo - get festive (13th Dec)

Pan Pastels - colouring (Sun 14th Dec)

Happy Christmoose!

This fun moose image is from Meljen Designs, isn't he cute! I love the little bird decorating his horns. I coloured the image with Promarkers and a little Sharpie white Paint marker on the light bulbs.

I die cut him with a rectangle Spellbinders Nestabilities, and his scarf is outside the box. The papers were free with a magazine and are cut with Spellbinders 5"x 7" card creator dies.The ribbon was from Crafty Ribbons of course.

This card has glowed its way into the following challenges:

Christmas Card Challenges - Photo inspiration (Sun)

Creative Card Crew - Stripes (Tues)

TTCRD - anything goes (Dec 1st)

Crafty Ribbons - Christmas Animals (Thurs 4th Dec?)

Digi sketch challenge - die cuts and punches (Mon)

Thank Whoooo?

Do you like my rainbow owl? The owl image was free from Faery Ink, and was supposed to be entered into a challenge, which I missed due to being ill all last week. 

I thought I would make him up into a card anyway.  He is coloured with Promarkers, cut out with Spellbinders Curved Rectangles die and mounted on Kraft card. I created the sentiments in Serif Page Plus, and I found some rainbow fibers to add to the side, I also used a feather charm.

He has flown into the following challenges:

Allsorts - no DP (Sat)

Pink Gems - use Kraft and one other colour (hmmm might be too many colours here) (Sat 6th Dec)

Paula Holifield - CAS (Sun)

Open Minded Crafting Fun - Thankful (Dec 13th)

Stand Easy

This little gal will be delivered at the weekend to my neice who is in the Army Cadets. She recently was picked to go to Belgium to take part in the rememberance parade. So when I saw this Polkadoodles image Army Girl I knew it was perfect for her birthday.

I coloured the image with Promarkers, die cut her with a Spellbinders Curved Rectangle die and mounted her on Kraft card. I created the sentiments to match. The boot prints are a free stamp with Craft Stamp by Visible Image. The numbers are from a Pink Gem stamp set and are coloured with Prismacolor pencil, and th is from a Craftwork Cards typewriter alphabet stamp set.

This little gal is marching into the following challenges:

Polkadoodles - CAS (Fri 28th Nov)

Allsorts - no DP (Sat)

Paula Holifield - CAS (Sun)

TTCRD - anything goes (Dec 1st)

Pink Gems - Use Kraft (Sat Dec 6th)

WOYWW #286

Well here I am again, and maybe WOYWW should be re-purposed to stand for what [oy] won on my workdesk Wednesday (no - that doesn't really work). But on the middle of my workdesk, the space that I work in, is a prize from Pan Pastels, and I got a lovely stencil, a lovely soft colour Pan Pastel and an application sponge. I am really happy that I didn't get the same kit and colours as before.

Also you can see an owl which is a Faery Ink image and was supposed to be entered Faery Ink challenge, but because I was ill for so long I missed it. I am a lot better now, still bunged up and a little deaf and needing to sleep a lot, but so much better than last week. You might be able to see the hat on a Polkadoodles image that I have coloured for a birthday card too. 

I actually lost my voice on Thursday, it came back croaky on Friday, I couldn't get warm and felt really awful for days. 

So I didn't get round to replying to any comments left last week from Saturday onwards, and I apologise for that. I will try and get round this week, although I have had a warning about exceeding my data limits on broadband so I am trying to limit the time I am online, and therefore not turning the computer on until the evening (so by the time I do I will probably be last linking up today).

This is my crochet WIP, do you like the colours together? These are for presents, for my SIL and Niece, and I just hope they both like them.

So to go desk hopping on this wonderful Wednesday hop on over to Julia's place, The Stamping Ground and find out what's buzzing this week!

OK I couldn't wait, I turned on and booted up, I can turn it off again and get on with the day and come back later - right? Anyway sat here in my pjs still, about to drink my herbal brew then go get a shower before getting on with the day. Still feel like the aftermath of the virus is with me, I'm sure I sound croaky still, hard to tell when I am alone!

We are Quirky going round in circles!

 It's another Quirky challenge, and being Quirky we have gone Spring like in Winter. The sponsor is Crackerbox Palace and they provided us with some cute digi bird images to use, and the challenge set by Lyn is Circles, any projects with circles on them somewhere can be entered!
I've got the bird in rubber stamp format too, with some of his chums, I didn't have the branch or bird house before.
All images have been coloured with Promarkers and Graph'its pens, the turquoise is Graph'its.The sentiment (I had been thinking of welcome to your new home, but found this birthday one that was too perfect) is a Little Claire one from a sent of round greetings, and is stamped in teal Stazon.

This is my first ever rocker card, and I only have Grand Nestabilities in scalloped circles, so decided to use those. My first "mistake" was to make the scene so large, only because when I cut it out and added the scalloped layer it covers up my carefully coloured background which I made using the flowers from Crackerbox Palace and coloured with Promarkers, if I had realised I would only have coloured the visible bits! The next "mistake" I discovered was that the card won't stand up, it rocks - oh yes it's a rocker - so is this actually a mistake? Well if you look at the "horizon" crease in the background you can see the first photo has been taken to show the card straight, and there is no way it stands like that! This photo shows it standing, or it can rock the other way. Doesn't naturally rock so maybe scallops are a mistake lol! I creased it across the middle of the scallop, if I had creased in between scallops it might have stood up straight!

I had a strip of my background card left so added it to the back. Should I have decorated the back more I wonder?

If you want to play the circle game hop on over to Quirky Crafts now! 

This card has rocked into the following challenges:

TTCRD - anything goes (Mon 24th Nov)

Allsorts challenge blog - no DP (Sat)

IDIC Robyn's Fetish - use a digi (Sun)

Crafty Little Fairies - not a square (Nov)

Creative Fingers - #57 anything goes (a Fri in the future)

Dear Santa.....

Not the best photo, I seem to have had a relapse, and had a terrible night with no sleep, slept all morning then woke with no voice, apart from which I have been a little deaf for two days. Went back to bed for a few hours, and slept in a chair all evening so I probably won't sleep tonight now.

I did manage to colour this sweet stamped image yesterday, and die cut it. I've kept it CAS, just adding some ribbon (from Crafty Ribbons) and die cutting it, this could be more because I am ill than anything else.

I took the photo on an easel on the desk, don't feel up to getting the photo studio out tonight.

The stamp is from Kraftin Kimmie Stamps, and the image is by Rachel Anne Miller called A Letter to Santa, and when I spent my recently won voucher I had to add this one to my order because I fell in love with it. I know we don't have this sort of mail box over here, but it is so cute!

Entering the Krafting Kimmie Wonderful Wednesday challenge (ends 26th Nov) and...

Open Minded Crafting Fun - #23 fowl, or birds (Sat 22nd)

Christmas Card Challenges - colour challenge (Sun)

Glitter n Sparkle - cute (Sun)

Winter Wonderland challenge blog - Let's get Sentimental (Fri)

TTCRD - anything goes (Nov 24th)

Divas by Design - let it snow (Wed 26th)

Polkadoodles - CAS (28th Nov)

Rubberdance - red, gold and green (7th Dec)

Creative Fingers - #56 anything goes (a Friday sometime)

Crafty Ribbons - #107 Animals at Christmas time and ribbon (Thurs)

Bunny Zoe's - snow (Fri?)

WOYWW #285

It's Wednesday, I should be in bed, and will be soon but I thought I would post this now. Can't link it up to the wonderful Julia Dunnit's blog - The Stamping Ground, where us nosy crafters from all over the world go stamping (or stomping) round each other's desks to see what is occurring!

I know I owe comments to late commenters from last week, and I am sorry about that. There is a reason - I have had the dreaded lurgy since Saturday and still don't feel at all well. I haven't done any of the planned crafting at all. I have been coughing, eating frozen fruit with yogurt to try and soothe my throat, honey lemon and ginger drinks (well lime to begin with because I ran out of lemons), pain killers, slept all day Sunday, then couldn't sleep Sunday night, and it still continues and seems to morph into something worse as it goes. I am pretty sure I caught it from my little grandson, he wasn't well and gave me such a lovely kiss one day the previous weekend when he was here!

I did some more crochet last week, but I can't show you that yet.

What is on my very cluttered desk, well I won again - this time I won some stamps from Crafty Individuals, I spotted a giveaway on their blog on Monday night, or was it early Tuesday morning when I couldn't sleep? Anyway they showed a couple of pretty projects, the last one was made with one main stamp and we were asked if we could identify three stamps or sets that were used to add other elements. There were in fact 4, but I just couldn't find the bunny - which turned out to be a hare. The winner was the first one to email the correct answer  - and that was me! So I won 4 lovely stamps, two are sets - how lucky am I after last week's voucher win too! I was thrilled to bits especially as I thought I was getting three not four! The Inkylicious water drops stamp behind is one I bought recently. I wanted water drops and this was a cheaper alternative than the rubber sets I have seen previously.

It's a Quirky Mythical reminder.

I'm late posting this because I have slept all day, I have a virus I think from my little grandson who stayed last weekend and had a cold, and gave me a lovely kiss goodbye! 

This is Tiny Bubbles from our wonderful sponsor Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps. I love her because she is a modern fairy with zendoodled wings and a punk cat - well it is a punk cat now! She is coloured with Promarkers, and Stickles glitter glue. I die cut her with Spellbinders dies, and kept to my favourite purple and lime green colour combination, and gave her a pink shadow, having seen this somewhere else and liking it.

I am still on a Christmas theme, so I found some freebie paper with stars on it, then stamped and die cut the sentiment with Marianne stamps and dies, and punched some more poinsettias with a Nellie Snellen punch and embossing set, and added some green microbeads to the centre for stamens.

The glitter got a bit out of control due to a blocked nozzle, it was outputting just glue and no glitter at first.

For those followers who entered my blog candy giveaway - I redrew a winner at the beginning of the month (after waiting over a month for the first "winner" to contact me), and I will delete the second drawn winner in the next couple of days and redraw for the third time! So you better check if you entered or you might miss out.

I hope you will hop over to the Quirky blog and see the beautiful examples the rest of the team have made.

This card has twinkled its way into the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly - Two or four legs (Tues)

Addicted to Stamps - anything goes (Wed)

Die Cut Divas - Holiday (Nov)

Glitter and Sparkle - cute (Sun)

Fussy and Fancy - #127 two of a kind - pair of wings, pair of poinsettias (Fri 28th)

ABC - x for xtra special (end Nov?)

Creative Fingers - #56 anything goes (Fri but which Fri?)

WOYWW #284

 I've missed a couple of weeks, but it is Wednesday and I hear the call to show and tell at The Stamping Ground, where crafters from all over the world show off their work desks, or work, or something else entirely sometimes!

I've been crocheting madly, the WIP above is a finished Scarfati from a Moogly pattern, and one of two hand/wrist warmers, and a bit of the second. The scarfati caught my attention, you can make it from very little chunky yarn, it is apparently Italian in origin, and you wear one (like a necklace maybe) or two, or even three together, either long, knotted or looped over twice. It doesn't take long to make and I am thinking presents! I need to get more chunky yarn now.

Here is a bit of my work desk, and on it is some Happy Post which arrived today, I won a £20 voucher from That's Crafty for entering the challenge on their challenge blog, very nice and thank you "Mr Random" and Laura at That's Crafty. I decided to buy a Brusho starter set, I wanted to try it because I keep seeing amazing things done with it - I just need to work it out now. I also bought a clouds mask and a Tando printer tray clock kit, had to put £3ish towards it, but postage was free over £20 so it was better to get it along with the order.

 I don't know if I am going to carry on with this one, it is another Scrafati, or supposed to be but this time I used two strands of DK I have had under my desk for years. Many many years ago I fell in love with this yarn and bought some and a pattern and got my Mum to knit me a sweater. That sweater was worn over and over, but every time it was washed it stretched a little until it was like a tunic or dress, and I had to roll the sleeves up! Despite that when I saw a pack of it in a charity shop I snapped it up, and I was using the knitting machine at the time and had it in mind I could make a woven fabric with this on the machine, so it wouldn't stretch! Never happened, and here I am after struggling to use it, wondering what I ever saw in it! I might try a "normal" pattern with one strand to see if it improves!

One of the reasons I didn't post in the past two weeks was that MIL had a mini stroke the day after the last WOYWW where I posted. I have posted something about that previously so won't bore you with details. She is home now and practically back to normal. Before it happened I had bought this yarn to make a cuffed shawl for her. She gets so cold and has problems turning on her fire sometimes despite having a huge knob fitted to it, and she has problems getting her arms into sleeves - so when I saw this pattern it seemed perfect. I made it with shorter "sleeves" because she is short, so I can't model it, so Aunt Sally (well all that is left of her) is doing that job. I managed to find a big button that was the right size and goes with the cream, not fancy but it will do. I might add a crocheted flower brooch to it, haven't decided yet. 

They look lovely in the photos, on any size or body shape, and I was hoping to make myself one in a different colour mix yarn, maybe even the hooded version. It might come in handy when the weather gets really cold.

It is supposed to hang down in a point at the front and back, and you can see the cuffs here, no button in this photo. I found it was curling so blocked it - or rather over blocked it, but I don't think MIL will notice the flattened bits - and it still curls!

We've gone Quirky mythical - ladies!

Kemly set the Quirky challenge this time and it is Mythical Ladies. Our generous sponsor is Stitchy Bear Digital stamps who are providing all three prizes, and provided the team with images to showcase too.

I used Yddris Yddris by Alipeeps, and coloured her with Promarkers. I didn't know what I was going to do with her until she was coloured and fussy cut, in fact her hair is decoupaged because I coloured her skin green and then decided it wasn't right but I didn't want to start the hair over again. I have tried to give her shiny purple hair using several shades of purple and light grey for the highlights, does it work or not really?

She very much reminds me of Lord of the Rings, and I knew I wanted to frame her somehow, this embossing stencil that was free with a magazine looked promising. So after embossing some Coordinations and standing it, I cut out the centre to make my frame. The snowflake cardstock behind the image was also free with possibly the same magazine. My card needed a little more, and the poinsettias seemed just right, made using my Nellie Snellen poinsettia punch and embossing sets (I still don't seem to have the middle size, must remember to try and buy them), and layers of embossed poinsettia leaves in the same dark metallic purple that I used for the card base, with some teal layers to tie in with the background. Microbeads came to mind for the stamens, and I found a pack I remembered having and - wow I found teal which was perfect! This was in a set called Art Accentz Jumbo Embellishment Palletz by Provo Craft, which included pots of microbeads, seed beads and glitter. Once I got the pot open, over a small tidy tray, I could hear the beads pinging everywhere! Trying to get them back in the pot afterwards (the ones I caught in the tray of course, I am not hunting the desk and floor for microbeads!), proved tricky because somehow they seemed to expand. So I ended up re-organising some other stuff to get them into a locking organiser and I will use a little spoon with them in future.

Finally the sentiment is stamped with a Marianne clear stamp set and die cut with a Marianne Anja Label die (LR0421 Anja Lables and CS0862 Clear stamps.)

Hop on over to Quirky Crafts Challenge Blog to see some other gorgeous mythical ladies and to join in.

My mythical lady has been entered into the following challenges:

Through the craft room door - anything goes (Nov 4th to 10th)

Paper Take Weekly - anything goes (Tues 11th)

Christmas Card Challenges - faith based or anything Christmas (Sun)

One Stitch at a Time - #223 distressing (Sun)

Pile it on - add some sparkle (Sun)

Creative Card Crew - Christmas Joy  (Tues 18th)

Cards Galore - anything goes (Nov)

That Craft Place - anything goes (Nov)

Where is Santa Claus?

I made this card with the Marianne challenge in mind, and the challenge is black and white, or favourite colour combination.

I die cut the sleigh and reindeer, and village scene and adhered them to a panel of glitter card cut with a Spellbinders card creator die. I added Liquid Pearl reins and snow, with glitter on top for the snow.

I die cut the star borders and used some of the stars from that in the sky.

I stamped the sentiment onto a banner and heat embossed it with sparkly embossing powder, and finally I added some stickles glue to the star border.

I have used the following Marianne products:

LR0178 Sleigh

LR0178 Reindeer

LR0173 Village 2

LR0134 Christmas Star border

LR0421 Anja Lables

CS0862 Clear stamps

This card trotted into the following challenges:

We Do Doobadoo - enhance your die cuts (Sat)

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas challenge 201 - sparkle (Sat)

Christmas Card Challenges - no embellishments (Sun)

Glitter n Sparkle - anything but square (Sun)

Crafty Card Makers - cut it out (Mon)

Pile it on #44 - Feeling chilly (Wed)

Bunny Zoe's - animals (10th Nov)

Marianne Design Diva's - black and white (Nov 13th?)

Cards Galore - anything goes (Nov)

Die Cut Divas - holiday (Nov)

Blog candy redrawn winner.

The previously drawn winner of my blog candy didn't contact me, and it is over a month ago so I have redrawn the winner.

The winner is number 3 Gayle. Congratulations Gayle, please contact me by 17th November with your address.  

Singing a Quirky song - yes it's a reminder to come and play Quirky Charades

With a little help from my friends by John Lennon of course, and the quote comes with Pierre and Ernest, among other sentiments, from Paper Pretties and when I spotted it I knew I had to do it! We have two sponsors and three prizes, so come and play!

I coloured the image with Promarkers, die cut it with a Spellbinders label and the orange mat is cut with 5"x 7" card creator dies, the quote is cut with a Spellbinders nesting book die, the treble clef (musical note) is a Marianne die, and Thanks is from a new set by IO (Impression Obsession) which I bought as a bargain from Crafts U Love in their weekly bargain corner, I often find that the thing I would have bought was out of stock, but not this time.

I added some Tim Holtz paper string in black and white and orange and white (there is a definite orange and black theme going on here) and can you see the guitar charm tied to the twine?

Anyway hop on over to Quirky Crafts to play Charades or just to see the rest of the team playing!

This card has cycled into the following challenges:

Vintage Stamping - colour challenge (Mon) withdrawn due to no stamping,sorry I forgot when I entered this one, please discard.

Allsorts - Masculine (Sat)

My Time to Craft - charmed I'm sure (Sat)

Crafty Cardmakers - cut it out (Sun)

Bunny Zoe's - animals (10th Nov)

That's Crafty - hot and spicy (13th Nov?)

Wags and Whiskers - Let's be thankful (13 Nov)

Cards Galore - anything goes (Nov)

Crafty Boots - music (Nov)