Quirky reminder, It's raining cats and dogs!

I just realised I posted the reminder on Quirky and forgot to put it on my blog, so here I am! For my first card I used Cat on a Window and Kitty Cat Birthday from our sponsor Crackerbox Palace.

I love the Kitty Cat birthday sentiment and I hope my Mum will too, she has a Siamese cat but used to have a blue grey Persian - both rescues. The Mum stamp is a Papermania one and I stamped and heat embossed it.

There is a lot of detail in the Cat on a Window image which I coloured with ProMarkers, there is lots of depth as a result. The red polka-dot ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons, fish bones charm from stash. I die cut the sentiment and scalloped frame with Spellbinders rectangle dies.

Challenges entered with the kitty cat card:

Love to Scrap - #75 The Big Bow theory (Mon)

Passion for Promarkers - bingo, embossing, image, die cuts (Tues)

Tuesday Throwdown - #289 Use your die cuts

Crafty Gals - die cuts (Wed)

Fab n Funky - #300 Girly and Pretty (Wed)

Simon Says - Let's do the Polka (Wed)

Cute Card Thursday - hand made embellishments 

Crafts Galore - April anything goes

Show us your pussies - Furrything goes (April)

For my second card I used Dog Sidney and Dog-gone Special.

I love this cute puppy dog image in his too big collar! I kept it simple and masculine, and added some  of my favourite ribbon by Crafty Ribbons. Again he is coloured with Promarkers and both the image and sentiment are die cut with Spellbinders dies.

Challenges entered with Dog-gone card:

Passion for Promarkers - bingo, ribbon, image, sentiment (Tues)

Crafting with Dragonflies - Masculine (Sat week)

Creative Fingers - #107 anything goes (Fri)

The Ribbon Girl - April any image (April 30th)

Quirky raining cats and dogs!

It's challenge time at Quirky Crafts.First of all the challenge is sponsored by the Quirky and funny Crackerbox Palace who are generously giving all three prizes. The theme set by Marg is Quirky Raining Cats and Dogs, and all you need to do is show us your projects with cats, dogs or  cats and dogs on them!

My card is one from 2013, because I have been ill in bed all week with a nasty virus, and I'm still not well but the show must go on! I used the rubber stamp of Peeking Cat to make my card (you could win the digi), and Papermania papers, and some ribbon to look like a parcel opening. I used Papermania and Imagination sentiment stamps and die cut the panels with Spellbinders dies.

As for Quirky, we changed to monthly challenges this year to take the pressure off, I recruited a new team and most of them have had health problems forcing them to leave - or in one case not even get started!
Because of my own circumstances, caring for my hubby is taking up a lot of time and emotional strength, and running Quirky takes a lot of time. O.K. it is less than when it was fortnightly, but for each challenge this year I have ended up having to write the challenge, or take over the challenge, and what I really needed was a strong team who could get on with it after an initial bedding in period, write their own posts and get on with making projects for each challenge and reminder. I am willing to teach, coach, help people until they get to the stage that they are confident to get on with it unaided.

Unfortunately and very sadly, our latest addition to the team Kelly Patricia injured her wrist and never got started, she hoped to join us properly this month but on medical advice has now had to give up crafting, blogging and facebook which is devastating for her. I wish her all the best.

This leaves us with an active team of 4 including me (and I am busy with the admin as already mentioned), and we really need two more team mates at least, or lots of one to two month guests.

I have put out several DT calls during the March challenge, on our Facebook page and anywhere I can but there has been no response, I know a lot of teams also have DT calls on and I think that is why nobody has even enquired about joining the Quirky team so far - but I hope we will get someone now, even if they only want to guest for a month, which means two projects minimum using the free digis from our sponsors which you get to keep and use afterwards.

So if anyone does want to have a go at guesting, for a month or two, just to try it out I am happy to do that, and who knows - many 2 month guests have gone on to join the team in the past!

May is going to be a very special month because we have three new and exciting sponsors, tempted yet?

Hop over to the Quirky blog and contact me via email, or the contact form if you are interested.

I am not entering any challenges because 2013 is serious back posting!

Gone Quirky fishin' instead of just plain wishin'...

 I'm still singing gone fishing, and if you want to hear that song by Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby and a modern one on the first challenge post by Chris Rea hop over to Quirky now.

The team have been having fun with the great fishing images provided by Crackerbox Palace, and the really good news is that they are all 20% off until August 17th in honour of the challenge.

Alternatively you can enter our challenge and hope to win some of the images.

I used Smiley fish with the funny worm, along with the Drop me a Line sentiment and put them all in the Crackerbox Palace jar. The line the worm is on goes from the "i" in sentiment. I coloured the images with Promarkers and the "water" with Graph'it Markers. I've added real shells and some microbeads to the bottom of the jar and some ribbons that I got a long time ago from Crafty Ribbons. I used my wave blade on the rotary trimmer to cut a wavy edge which reveals the blue card insert when closed.

Don't you think of Finding Nemo when you look at this?

 Crackerbox Palace.

To play along hop on over to Quirky now, and you really should see the fantastic examples by the rest of the team too!

This card has swum into the following challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown - sketch

Simon Says Stamp - tie it up (Wed)

Addicted to stamps - #156 anything goes (Wed)

Simply Papercraft - #10 anything goes (Fri)

Left of Centre - #90 inspired by a film - finding Nemo (Fri)

Allsorts - #232 inspired by Summer (orange) (Sat)

Ribbon Girls - anything goes with an image (Sun)

The Craft Barn - pens (Sun)

Creative Fingers - #89 anything goes (Fri 21st)

Gone fishing - that's Quirky!

My turn to set the challenge at Quirky Crafts and it is called Gone Fishing. You just have to include something fish or fishing related on your project, even a fish in a bowl.

Our sponsor is Crackerbox Palace and they provided all the images I have used and the sentiment, and to see more images and witty sentiments hop over to the Quirky blog now.

I coloured the image with ProMarkers and the sea is painted with diluted Brusho crystals, you only need a tiny bit to make a lot, I painted a sheet of watercolour paper to use it up and I still have some left!

I die cut the image and panels with Spellbinders dies and added some real twine to the fishing line, and some little fish charms (or are they beads?). The paper is by DCWV.

I hope you will come and play Gone Fishing with us over at Quirky Crafts, any project is acceptable and we allow a little backdating because nothing is more frustrating than seeing a challenge and knowing you posted the perfect card for it yesterday! 

This card swam into the following challenges:

Love to Scrap - #58 anything goes (Mon)

Passion for Promarkers - Jolly Holidays (Tues)

I love Promarkers - 3 or more layers (Wed)

Inspiration Destination - #44 anything goes (Wed)

Little Miss Muffet - hot Summer nights (Thurs)

Cute Card Thursday - citrus 

Pile it on - Sequins or beads (Sun/Wed 13th)

Glitter and Sparkle - anything goes (Sun)

Simply Papercrafts - anything goes (Aug 14th)

ABC - O is for open (Aug 15th)

Crafting by Design - anything goes (Aug)

Our Creative Corner - Mexico Moods (Sept 4)

Pink and blue and blooming Quirky!

 It's reminder time already, as we are using a photo with pink and blue I printed Sea Breeze from our sponsor Crackerbox Palace in pink on blue cardstock. The daisy was also printed on the blue card and coloured with Koh-i-Noor pencils, then I folded a piece of blue striped cardstock to mount it on. A very quick card, the longest part was cutting out the flowers.

This bunny is so cute, I wanted him to be carrying the plant pot with the daisy in it, again all of these are printed on blue cardstock then colour added with Koh-i-Noor pencils. I cut the images out and assembled them on a panel covered in Papermania Tatty Teddy papers and some polka dot ribbon from Crafty Ribbons. I haven't added  a sentiment to either card, I might later, or may leave them as they are for any occasion.

To remind you, the challenge at Quirky Crafts is to use lots of flowers, the colours in the photo above, or both.

I have entered the following challenges:

Crafty Gals - vintage (Wed)

Polkadoodles - #16 pretty in pink

Little Miss Muffet - anything goes (Thurs)

Creative Fingers - #76 anything goes (Fri)

Allsorts - quick and easy (Sat)

Pile it on - April Showers bring May flowers (Sun/Wed)

Fussy and Fancy - Springtime flowers (30th April)

Quirky is blooming all over

Kemly set us the challenge to use the photo inspiration below for colours, add lots of flowers or both colours and lots of flowers. It is a very delicate photo with pinks, blues, white and green, and gold, and I incorporated some of those into my card. Our sponsor this time is Crackerbox Palace and the fishing image - fishing boy (could be a girl also I think), flowers and chicks are all from their web site. 

Winners of the challenge can choose any of the stamps to be supplied in digi format.

I coloured the fishing image with Promarkers, and printed the frame of flowers and chicks onto kraft card and coloured those with Koh-I-Noor Progresso woodless pencils then cut an aperture and cut the frame (it's a bit crooked I'm afraid - design feature?) with Spellbinders dies then adhered it with sticky foam to the image. I added satin polka dot ribbon from Crafty Ribbons and some novelty buttons I bought from our local market and used more of the sticky foam roll to adhere the panel to a pink card blank. I thought a bow would look nice (no really I covered a mark on the card with it lol), and I looked for a small tag die and spotted the Sizzix goldfish bowl die which had a fish the exact size I wanted, perfect with the image too. I wrote on it with white gel pen, it says "gon' fishin'".

Come and play Quirky with us.

My fishing child has splashed its way into the following challenges:

TTCRD - anything goes (Mon 13th April)

Papertake Weekly - anything goes (Tues)

I love Promarkers - #264 Ink it up (Wed)

Simon Says - April flowers or spring showers (Wed)

Creative Fingers - #75 anything goes (Fri)

Left of Centre - spots or stripes (Fri)

A Gem of a Challenge - Spring is in the air (Saturday)

Crafty Cardmakers - wings (Mon)

Ribbon Girl - any image and ribbon (Sun)

Pile it on - fancy frames/beautiful borders (Sun/Wed)

Graph'it Markers - flower power (24th April end)

WON!!!

Allsorts - bingo (ribbon, flowers, die cuts) (Saturday)

Fussy and Fancy - #136 Buttons and Bows (Fri)

Reminder to Quirky Shake it up.

This week I made the Mitten Shaker card from The Cutting Cafe, and decided that it would be best mounted on a larger card because it didn't stand up alone, I am much happier with my efforts this week. I decorated the mitten border with snowflakes from Fun with Frosty the Snowman, and the background with Christmas Banners colored. I added micro beads and sequins once more.

This is an 8"x8" card, and I used Bo Bunny and My Mind's Eye papers that were as close to the colour scheme as I could get them, with the grey provided by the dull silver card and stitching.

I got the machine out as you can see and stitched round all pieces, the mitten is in a pocket.

Christmas ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons, and looks a bit crooked, I think the pocket must be a little crooked!

I added some snowy buttons and jingle bells, and the mitten cuff is flocked with Polar White Flower Soft.

Side view of the card.

Inside the card.

Here is the mitten removed from the pocket ready to hang on the tree. I wanted the card to look nice still.

 Close ups of the mitten.

 Inside the mitten I used the offcut from the middle of the mitten outline. Waste not, want not....

Here is the mitten hanging up by the ribbon, but not on my tree which isn't up yet.

Why don't you hop on over to Quirky Crafts Challenge blog to see what the talented team have done, and to play along.

You have until Saturday 20th Dec midday to enter.

I have entered the following challenges:

Christmas Cards Challenge - Christmas (Thurs)
Cute Card Thursdays - bells or bows
Daring Card Makers - Shake it off (Thurs)
Glitter and Sparkle - glitter and sparkle (Sun)
Coffee, chocolate and cards - Christmas (Fri 27th)
Fussy and Fancy - snowflakes and ribbon (Jan 8th)
Crafty Card Makers - Christmas (Jan 12)
Creative Fingers - #60 anything goes

Snowing round in circles.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas - just like the ones we used to have.....

My last card for the Quirky Crafts reminder for the Quirky going round in circles challenge.

I won the gorgeous Winter Cottage stamp from Crackerbox Palace a couple of years ago, and thought I would use it because I need more Christmas cards! Can you see the little snowman with his ear muffs and scarf?

This first photo shows the shine on the acetate on my shaker card. I saw something on shaker cards in a recent magazine article, and one method was to cut out 6 frames and glue them together, then you don't need foam. I thought I would try it. The size of the image dictacted that I use the Grand Nestabilities scalloped circles for this.

The stamped image was first coloured with Promakers and Stickles Ice Diamond glitter glue, then cut with a scalloped circle die.

You can probably see that I haven't managed to line up the 6 frames perfectly. I added acetate which was also cut with the scalloped circle die, to the top of the glued frames then added the Papermania paper cut to a frame on top.

Then the frame is turned onto its face and sequins, glitter and beads added. Then the image is glued onto the frame and seals the material in.

I made a card base to add to the back, then punched a hole through the top of the frame to thread some glitter "ribbon" through so that it can be hung on the tree or a wall if required, and kept for years maybe.

The sentiment is die cut with Xcut dies, they are quite large words.

This is how it hangs.

Inside the card, I used the middle part cut from the paper frame to add to the card, the blank side (well blank for now) is for writing on although it might not be necessary as I could have written on the back and not made a card. This way it can stand like a card, or be hung, and the back part could be cut off for future use.

This is the shaken up effect. Pretty I think.

Now all I need is a big enough envelope - or maybe I will make a box as it is quite thick.

I'm going to shake my way into a few challenges:

Stamping Sensations - Simply Christmas

I love Promarkers - #247 Frosty the Snowman (Wed)

Simon Says - anything goes (Wed)

Addicted to Stamps - Holiday (Wed/Fri)

Bunny Zoe's - snow (Fri?)

Winter Wonderland - dies and punches (Fri)

Sparkle Creations Christmas Cards - anything goes

My time to craft - snowmen (Sat)

Pile it on - Sprinkle it (Wed)

Glitter n Sparkle - 113 Use some Snow (Sun)

Vintage Stamping - #27 A Christmas song, White Christmas (Mon)

ABC Challenges - Y is for Yuletide (Mon)

Cards Galore - anything goes (Mon)

Creative Fingers - #58 anything goes (Fri??)

Bearly Mine - Christmas Ornament, anything but a card (mine can be) (Dec, last ever challenge).

Country View Challenges - nostalgic Christmas (Dec)

The Artistic Stamper - anything goes (Dec)

Die Cut Diva's - snow (Dec)

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)

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)

Red Red Wine, Quirky style.

Monica and I came up with this challenge, based on the brand new images supplied by our sponsor - Crackerbox Palace.
 I thought I would make a bottle shaped card, so I printed two bottles side by side, flipping one of them so they matched. I coloured them with with Promarkers.
I wanted a real shine so I printed them again on acetate. I spent ages trying to colour the acetate with green alcohol ink, then with some of my ancient glass paints, and finally with Promarkers. I couldn't get a smooth all over colour effect so I gave up on that, and left it clear. I printed the bottles again on parchment to cut out the lables for the bottle which had the words and grapes image also from our sponsor. The acetate went on top of the coloured image and the parchment lable was cut out to go on top. I added some foil which was in the recycling and came from my favourite chocolate, so I have a nice chocolatey scented wine bottle haha. After sticking the foil to the front bottle I cut a tag and stamped it with a Debbi Moore stamp. I was trying to avoid the pink look, and in real life the bottle looks much darker, I think the acetate under the lights made it lighter!

 The card needed lining inside to hide the markers from the other side, so I printed the two bottles again on parchment, this time I added the two funny sentiments from our sponsor, including the funny tick list!

 The back of the bottle, and I used the wine glass here, the glossy accents I used (because I didn't have a printed acetate glass the right size) are not yet dry, so again I will take another photo and replace this one.

This is a photo taken against the black outside of the photo studio in an attempt to capture the colours better!

So the challenge - well we want anything wine related, or wine colours, should be easy enough! Hop on over to Quirky Crafts to see more examples and join in.

Also don't forget I have blog candy for you, extended to 30th September. See the post pinned to the top of my blog to enter.

I have entered the following challenges:
Tuesday Throwdown - anything goes

Cute card Thursday - anything goes
Divas by Design - Happy Birthday (Wed)
Graphit Markers - transparent effects (5th Sept)