Glitter here, glitter there......

.....glitter everywhere!

Whoops, had a glitter accident, it seemed like a good idea to sprinkle a little glitter on my frame to stick to stray glue as some lines were a little wider than others, then it looked nice on my image so I decided to get the Art Institute glue out, which took some unblocking but once it was done the glue (long neglected) was perfectly good. I was using a pot of Nirvana glitter which is a lovely blend of blue and gold, and it was going well until I thought to add pearls and before I had the lid on properly, in my haste to finish my card, I turned towards the boxes with the pearls and whoops, dropped the glitter pot. It is safe to say that there is glitter everywhere, I had a whole tub of it, I only managed to recover about half! I used my little dustpan and brush, then my specially purchased glitter vacuum, and then had to get a tea strainer to get the bits out. Shaun vacuumed me, I vacuumed the rug! The rug is covered in bits, it should be vacuumed but I don't want to lose any treasure, I need a big sieve! I drop gems, pearls, tiny stamps from sets, lids for things, all sorts, and there are bits of die cuts, ribbons, all sorts!

I decided to colour this gorgeous Fairy Fae by Delicious Doodles from Stitchy Bear Digital stamps in blue and yellow, and I have a couple of challenges in mind to enter, I hope I am not too late! Blue hair, I hope it worked! I used my Atyou Spica pens on the butterflies and her eyes and lips, then added the glitter to the butterflies and some to her hair. Unfortunately in the photo the glitter doesn't look glittery, it looks like grit and it is much better in real life!
All die cuts are cut with Spellbinder dies, the butterflies are some of the very early dies and got glittered too. As mentioned, flat back pearls were added, and some ribbon from Crafty Ribbons with some glittery cord that was free with a magazine, and a bead. The sentiment is a Debbi Moore stamp, the butterflies are from an unbranded set, I had several attempts at stamping and heat embossing and despite an antistatic bag, I ended up with stray powder that set, even though I heated from below.

This is my reminder project for the Quirky Crafts challenge, I have really enjoyed using these gals, and have taken a lot of time attempting to get them right. So hop on over to join in the Quirky Challenge which is Eyes Wide Open, and all you need is eyes (wide open) on your project, and you could win Fairy Fae and more images!

I have entered the following challenges:

Feeling Crafty - Butterflies (January)
Graph'It Marker challenge - Yellow and blue springtime colours  (Fridays)
Allsorts challenge - Use ribbons but not bows.
One Stitch at a Time - New beginnings
Papertake Weekly - anything goes/New beginnings (Tues)

The Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - V

I only found out about this challenge at The Craft Barn blog yesterday and I have had a lot of fun with it! The challenge is to alter an old dictionary, a redundant one or a charity shop buy. You can also make tags or journal pages without a dictionary but you have to stick to the same thing right the way through this. Now I just hope my book stays in one piece or I will have to add it to pages and make a new book. 

The letter is V, and this is an old French dictionary of no great value as you can see, so I didn't hesitate (much) as I love books and it is hard to vandalise them. So I picked out my first word which is Valiant, meaning brave or courageous (courageux actually), gallant, robuste or hale and hearty or penniless according to the dictionary. I thought of my Rubbadubbadoo knight immediately and after painting the page with white gesso I got stamping. Oh before I started I outlined the word and meaning and then heat embossed them with clear EP, to protect it from the gesso, not sure it was a good idea! I stamped the castle in Memento grey, the knight in Brilliance black and heat embossed with black EP, and the seal with gold Brilliance and copper EP. I found it was not too easy stamping directly onto the book, I need to put a mouse mat or something under the page I think. I stamped the word brave also with Rubbadubbadoo stamps, and stamped an arrow and heat embossed that from an Autumn Leaves set I got in a sale and have never used, all the arrows are from the same set and the You Are Here sentiment. I die cut the V using Sizzix Shadowbox in copper metal sheet and a script paper. I decided the page looked too bare so I stamped the fluer de lis which I got free from Crafty Individuals with some other freebies when I purchased the music stamps. I decided to paint the by now curling edges of the page with Tim Holtz crackle paint in antique photo, this was an unopened pot I bought from someone and it was like thick mud - not sure if that is how it is supposed to be, it was difficult to paint!. Still not happy I sprayed the page with bronze Glimmer mist, this was my first Miranda type mistake - the green fleur de lis's started to run! So sort of happy I had done all I could and after drying the page with my heat gun I started on the word Vacance, holidays, vacation, take a holiday, go on holiday, which was on the other page. I painted the page first with gesso and heat dried it (I was running out of time by now) then painted the sea, beach and sky with acrylics, adding gold glitter to the beach paint. I used a Debbi Moore stamp set to stamp Summer and the shells on the beach, and a recent bargain Warren stamp from Happy Everything set by Craftwork Cards (isn't he the cutest?) onto white card and coloured it with Promarkers and Trias, and cut him out. I also stamped the sun and sheep cloud from a Hero Arts clear set called Sky's the limit. and that is it. Oh my other Miranda moment? I managed to knock the blue paint loaded brush onto my Valiant page and in attempting to clean off blue paint I managed to spread yellow on it too, scream!

So I may have messed this up totally but I had a good time doing it!

Kraftin Kimmie sketch and whooop whoop news

This is my first Kimmie to see ink, and I am really pleased with it except I am useless at colouring hair so I need to study some tutorials on that! This is Priscilla, I think she is great. I coloured her with Promarkers and die cut her with Nestabilities, cutting out the pop out part first, not sure I have that quite right and it isn't the method I normally use but is much easier! Papers are from the Rockstar stack by DCWV, blooms are Prima and the largest size was from Lakeland when they sold craft stuff, brads are Dovecraft. The birthday sentiment is Debbi Moore, the other one came with Priscilla. The ribbon is gold edged taffeta from Crafty Ribbons.

Here is the sketch.

Oh - nearly forgot the Whooop whoop news! I went to find this sketch on the Kraftin Kimmie blog and found I had won the October blog hop, YAY, WOWSER, MEEEEEE! You might be able to tell I am just a tad excited about the prospect of more rubbah from Kraftin Kimmie Stamps!

As well as Kraftin Kimmie's sketch challenge I have entered the following:

Cute Card Thursday - something scary. Priscilla is ready scary books!

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster?

My turn to set the Quirky Crafts Challenge, and I chose Quirky Monsters. Our two sponsors both have some great monster images.

This card is made with a Bugaboo "Pretty Please" monster and sentiment on the front, she clearly wants some cake! Monster coloured with Promarkers and Trias and cut out with a Nestabilities label die, freebie paper from a magazine stitched to the card front, cake ribbon from Crafty Ribbons and birthday sentiment and cake stamps from a Debbi Moore set.

Inside the card I you can see my sad monster is now in a temper so she didn't get her way! You are looking at "temperamental "monster from Bugaboo which I coloured with Promarkers. Freebie papers as before, and all nicely corner rounded as you can see!

Our other sponsor is Doodle Dragon Studios and Dustin Pike provided us with his very latest monster set.

 I used some of the great monsters from Dustin's brand new set available from Doodle Dragon Studios now. I made a tri-fold card and hand cut the hills, and used some freebie paper on those, and some DCWV sky paper. I printed the monsters I used in varying sizes for perspective as I had that song in my head (see post title), and stamped happy birthday with the same Debbi Moore set. I wrote on the monster sign, and all monsters are coloured with Promarkers.

So hop on over to Quirky Crafts Challenge blog to see some more great examples and join the fun, you never know you could win one of the two great prizes on offer!

I have entered the following challenges:

The Crafty Pad - inspired by a song (had to do it) ends Saturday 29th Sept

Allsorts - inspired by a song also ends Friday 28th I think.

ABC - X for xing, crossing cards, well my mountains sort of cross ends Sunday 30th Sept.

Cute Card Thursday - a different shape, mountain shape? Ends Wednesday 26th Sept.

Joanna Sheen challenge blog - So sweet - top card, ends 27th Sept.

Little Miss Muffet - anything but square, ends Weds 4th Oct I think.

Moving along with the times - girly, girly pink and prim and proper girly ends Wed 26th Sept. 

Well that is a lot of challenges for me!

A Man's World

I made this card a while back, but didn't get to finish it due to the flu. I finally finished and photographed it.

 As soon as we made this type of card for a challenge I thought of this English Paper Company paper which was perfect for this. Front of card - busy man, gardening, BBQ, DIY. Sentiments are by Debbi Moore (the square Happy Birthday) from an A4 clear stamp set of Birthday sentiments. The seed packet stamp is from a small set by Personal Impressions, all small garden type stamps.

I tried to get the inside paper more focused and this is the best I could manage.

Inside the card - man sleeping, so tired after all his efforts, does it remind you of anyone? It certainly rings true here!

I have entered this card in the following challenges:
Joanna Sheen - It's a Man's World (of course) April challenge.