Very Quirky embossing and sugar skulls.

This beauty is Helena Reis's Dia de los Muertos from Sweet Pea Stamps, I think she is gorgeous! I used a Sizzix Tim Holtz cracked glass embossing folder with Coordinations paper sanded to reveal black. The Life is a Beautiful Ride paper is from a My Minds Eye chalkboard stack and it is matted onto a red sparkly square of card, and the paper behind is Papermania as far as I remember.

I coloured the digi with Promarkers, her hair is blue and it looks much darker in real life, I might have to darken it down.

I added black lace and some skull and crossbones ribbon to the bottom, and two gem flowers.

All of this is mounted on an 8" x 8" scalloped card blank by Cardcraft. 

Hop on over to Quirky Crafts to see more like this.

She has crept into the following challenges:

Crafty Gals - any holiday day of the dead (Wed)

Cute card Thursday - anything goes

Addicted to Stamps - Make your mark (Wed/Fri)

Our Creative Corner - Mexican Moods (Sept 4th)

Awards:

I made top 3

Ikes' World - #44 F is for fashion (Tues)

Quirky crafts all white alright!

Monica set us a very challenging challenge over at the Quirky blog today, and it is All White. Everything on your project has to be white with the exception of any image you use. 

Our sponsors are the wonderful Stitchy Bear Digital Outlet, who provided the team with images and will provide our top three with prizes.

I used Cartoon Elephant leaning on a large pencil by Ken Benner, It is cute and funny and I wanted to stamp Happy under the pencil, which I hope I can get away with as it looks like part of the image (I hope).

I used Spellbinders labels number 1, one of my favourites which I have in plain, scalloped, fancy and grand varieties.

I coloured the image with Promarkers and some silver pen for the pencil metal bit. the elephant is fussy cut and decoupaged on top of another one (I hate fussy cutting, but you will read why in a minute.....). The panels behind are: scalloped, embossed with an Embossalicous banners embossing folder (which was NBUS until today), plain pearlescent, embossed with a Crafts Too Tied Together embossing folder in two parts (would have been a similar but bigger folder - see below), all then mounted on a scalloped 8" x 8" card blank. I added white brads, a gem to make his teeth sparkle and a gem star. The stamp is from a set by Marianne, and the word Birthday is the die from the same set which I used to cut out glitter card. The star border is also a Marianne die and has ribbon threaded through it, I had to cut two of them to fit and trim them a little at the ends. I used stars punched out by the die from the border to add round the edges. Finally Liquid Pearls in Opal White were added to the biggest embossed panel.

So what went wrong this time you might ask?

First of all after spending an hour or more colouring the image I reached for the stamp pad to stamp "Happy" then dropped it not once but twice onto the image. Luckily it only ruined the part where the pencil had doodled, so I had to either start over (this time stamping "Happy" before starting to colour like sensible people do), or fussy cut the image and decoupage it over a quickly coloured second one, I did the latter.

Second thing to go wrong was the second embossed panel, the first one was no problem, the second folder the eBosser took exception to and jammed it half way in. I tried the rubber mallet procedure but could not budge it. I went to bed and in the morning asked Hubby to help me. He couldn't shift it either, we took turns, he got a lump hammer instead of the rubber mallet, he got more bits of wood. We tried both ends, we took it outside onto a little wall so it was firmer, with cushions strategically placed for it to drop onto. Nothing, so we used half a bottle of washing up liquid trying to lubricate it. Later after stopping for lunch I had another go on my own and ended up with a large bruise from the rubber mallet on the base of my thumb! So I had to give up, get out the other die cutter and cut another panel and emboss it. So now I have a totally jammed ebosser with an A4 embossing folder jammed in it - any ideas (maybe bin it)?

Could it go any more wrong? Yes it could, if you add Liquid Pearls to your work, then forget and a) press down a corner that is sticking up, b) the whole card falls face down on your brand new home stitched hot pink mini photo studio background!

The moral of that story is wait for it to dry first!

Do you like the new pink background by the way? I bought an oddment of material, it has been cut and pinned for ages and finally I got the machine out and stitched it, not in my craft room where there is no room to work, but in the dining room! I wanted to make it a bit wider than I did, miscalculated the amount needed for hems, although it is the same width as the white, blue and grey panels that came with the studio.

This card has twinkled it's way into the following:

Tuesday Throwdown - bingo, stamp, enamel dots, die cut

Inspiration Destination - anything goes (Wed)

A Gem of a Challenge - Birthday (Sat)

Sketch Saturday - #370 

That Craft Place - words (Sun)

Little Miss Muffet - anything goes (Tues week)

The Ribbon Girl - Ivory (July)

Fab n Funky - no patterned paper (Aug 11th)

Won or top 3:

Allsorts - #320 add a banner or flag 

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum is the name of this Ching Chou Kuik image which I have used as part of another progressive challenge on facebook. 

I coloured her with Promarkers and Graph'it markers (the turquoise), and added gems to her bracelet and hair ornament, and gem stars in the sky. The driftwood she is resting on was stamped, after masking the image, with a Visible Image stamp. I die cut the image with a Spellbinders die then added real shells, hessian, mother of pearl buttons and some blooms, and a little Stickles glitter glue to the centres of the Prima blooms to match the bigger bloom that already had glitter. Finally I added some micro beads to her tail and the driftwood.

This card has drifted into the following challenges:

Graph'it markers - pearls and bling (Fri 5th June)

Pink Gems- flowers (Sat 6th)

Pile it on - focus on your colouring (Sun/Wed)

Do you have a guardian angel, maybe a Quirky one?

Two cards for the Quirky Crafts reminder today. My first has a Sweet Pea image by Molly Harrison called Orchid of the Night , it is so beautiful. I spent several hours colouring it with Promarkers and drawing (doodling) in the veins on the wings, then going over them with silver Prismacolor pencil, and the stamens. Then I die cut the image and mounted it on silver mirri card. Only then did I spot a huge streak of purple (well huge for the tiny face) on her face just above the chin!!!! I tried the ivory I had used to blend it away but she ended up with a very rosy face. In the end I used white pencil on top and hope it looks ok now.

The card blank is folded from sparkly glittery purple card, I added fibres and two star charms to the fibres. The sparkle sentiment was a freebie from Sweet Pea Stamps, and Birthday Wishes is cut with an IO set. I added gems for the dots this time.

My second card uses Strength Fairy from Bugaboo, and this sums up what I have been going through lately. It would be good as a canvas to put on the wall too, or a door hanger. I had a lot of trouble with ink bleed on this one, and her tummy had ended up looking bruised sadly. She is coloured with Promarkers, die cut with Spellbinders dies. The tag is also a Spellbinders die. I added a bow eyelet and fibres. The paper is DCWV cup cake stack.

To see more fabulous examples and to play along with us - hop on over to Quirky Crafts Challenge blog.

These two angels have flown into the following challenges:

TTCRD - anything goes May 12-18 (Mon)

Tuesday Throwdown - add a doodle (veins on wings)

I love Promarkers - flowers (Wed)

The Paper Shelter - charming (Wed)

Little Miss Muffet - many layers (Thurs)

Creative Fingers - #80 anything goes (Fri)

Polkadoodles - things with wings (Fri)

Allsorts - No squares allowed (Sat)

Sentimental Sundays - cute or funny sentiment (hope the sparkle one is cute)

Pile it on - not cute (Sun/Wed)

One Sweet Challenge - things with wings (30th May)

ABC challenges - J is for Jewels (31st May)

Top 3/4/5 or won:

Blue and Purple challenge at:

with the Sweet Pea angel.

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)

Another angel.

Here is version 2 of the angel card using the Creative Expressions angel die with the Creative Expressions lattice bow die, and Spellbinders Edgeabilities. I added some pearls and gems, and a length of ribbon. This time I have rounded the corners and used the heart accessory for the angel to hold.

She has flown into the following challenges:

Moving along with the times - white only Christmas (Thurs)

ABC Christmas - U is for Uncoloured (Wed)

Angelic

I bought this beautiful Creative Expressions angel die in a 40% off sale, well it would have been rude not to!

This is a white on white card or more accurately ivory pearlescent, I cut the wavy edge of the panel with Spellbinders dies, and the letters with Sizzix Bounce. I used the dove, harp and star which come with the angel, There is also a gift die which I didn't use. I added three flat back pearls, some clear gems and some silk ribbon, the bow was made with the Bowdabra. I dotted the drop out pieces from the die cuts rund the angel.

This is the first card with no stamping for a long time, and I am pleased with it.

Now it is October I need to draw my blog candy winner out, I will do that soon!

Cards Galore - Trick or Treat, something scary or something sweet (Oct)

She has flown into the following challenges:

Simon Says - Anything goes (Wed)

Cute Card Thursdays - punches and dies 

My Time to Craft - white on white Christmas (Sat)

A Gem of a Challenge - CAS (Sat)

Christmas Card Challenges - #44 anything goes (Sat)

Incy Wincy Designs - something old (the Sizzlits and Spellbinders) something new (the angel) (Mon)

TTCRD - anything goes (Oct 6th)

Die Cutting Divas - anything goes (Tues)

Crafting at the Weekend - anything goes (Oct)

WOW (or white on white).

This is the card I would have entered in the Just Rite challenge, if only I had finished it a few minutes before the challenge closed last night!

Baubles are stamped with Just Rite Deck the Halls stamps and die cut with Spellbinders Heirloom ornaments. I used three different types of white card, did it work?

I die cut the frame with Resplendent rectangles, and I used an edge die and infill for the panel. The poinsettia die is Spellbinders, my newest die. The snowflakes are Spellbinders too. The branches are from Deck the Halls and I hand cut them. All stamped images are stamped in clear ink and embossed with White Pearls Stampendous embossing powder. I used a couple of different white ribbons from Crafty Ribbons, and finally added some flat back pearls and gems. There is at least one challenge I can enter, when I find it again.

I have entered the following challenges:

Allsorts challenge blog - white Christmas (Saturdays)

Coffee Chocolate and cards - monochromatic (does white count?)

Crafty Ribbons challenge - anything goes with ribbon (Thursdays)

Creative Card Crew - Pearls (Tuesdays)

Stamping Sensations - Christmas (Nov challenge)

Hot hot hot!

 Here is another page for The Craft Barn Alpha challenge, T for Temperature which is the same in French and English. I had to do this one given the unusual heatwave we have been experiencing here in the UK! I coloured the page yellow and used Tim Holtz stencil letters which are supposed to stick to your paper but wouldn't stick to gesso! So I held them on and dabbed Fired Brick Distress Ink round them. I doodled some bits, stamped some Hero Arts images, and an Elzybells girl with temperature, and some other stamps of Kokopelli and sun faces. I added some swirly bits with a Visible Image grunge stamp.

This is my new Woodware stamp, I wanted this one for ages and got it in the craft shop that is in the motorbike shop the other side of Trowbridge, near Lidls. I bought the Card Candi there too, and I knew I had this matching card stock, perfect. The butterfly was a free die with a magazine and I added gems and flat backed pearls to finish the flower.

I have entered the following challenges:

Crafty Card Makers - 1-2-3 1 Image, 2 papers and 3 embellishments. (19th August)
Crafty Ribbons - Use one or more circles - stamp has circles and the background (sorry peeps I thought I had linked, maybe I didn't save)

Finally I found out I owned another Itty Bitty stamp, and so I made this CAS card, inked the edges with Distress Ink in two shades then spritzed it with water. When it was dry I stamped and heat embossed the image and Hero Arts greeting in gold then coloured the flowers with Stickles.

This card has been entered in the following challenges:

Unity Stamps show and tell on Facebook - Itty Bitty a day, this is the last day, and I only had two Itty Bittys.

More Quirky Rainbow Bright

This is my second example card for the Quirky Crafts Challenge "Rainbow Bright" using Artsy Flower from Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps. I coloured the image with Trias and Promarkers, die cut with Nestabilities and added some gems for a bit of sparkle. The sentiment is an Elzybells stamp, with Brilliance ink in Peacock, which is blue and green but that doesn't show so well. I heat embossed the sentiment then rounded the corners with the Paper Gator and added some baker's twine.

I have entered this card in the following challenges:

Cute Card Thurdays - Diamonds are forever

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Well - I had an email from Crafters Companion which showed me three new stamps by Sheena Douglas, and wham - love at first sight!

Here is one of them, who could resist?

Stamped with Memento in Cocoa, coloured with Promarkers, edges inked with Cats Eye chalk ink pad, die cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities. The embossed tree is a Crafts Too embossing folder, ribbon is from Crafty Ribbons, and the sentiment is a Stampabilities stamp. Finally I added some Bling Bling gems to the cow's crown.

Challenges entered:
Sir Stampalot April Challenge: Happy Birthday (and birthday blog hop)

Special Lady

It's Quirky Challenge time again and this time the challenge is to make a card for a special lady, and to include circles, gems or pearls and flowers.

 The sponsor is The Cutting Cafe, and I used sets Its All About Mom and A Spring Day. There are so many images and sentiments in each large set, they are very good value and you can also buy cutting files for electronic die cutting machines.

I decided to use my cut and dry foam (had to hunt for it) and Distress inks, which I am pleased with however they made the printer ink smudge a little. I cut an aperture in a square card blank using Spellbinders Nestabilities small circles, mounted the word block inside the card, then cut out flowers to decorate the front. There is a Sizzlet die cut flourish too, that corner needed something else. The sentiment has bubble stickers over the printed flowers. I used Promarkers on the small flowers and the striped middle of the flower inside.

This is the inside:

I could have made some more flowers to cover the back of the ones you can see the back of, or coloured both sides, I didn't think of it at the time (I might be able to rectify that), I was up against the deadline. I had hoped to also have made at least one more card that I started a week ago, however I have been quite ill with a nasty virus that kept getting worse so I ended up in bed for a few days. At least I have lost a bit of weight!

Anyway do please hop on over to Quirky to see some more great examples and join in if you want to win a great prize of some of these great digi sets. 

It's Very Puzzling....

and I don't mean the torrential rain and Autumnal conditions here in the U.K. "Summer"!

What I am talking about is the new Quirky Challenge set by me over at Quirky Crafts Challenge blog. I want you to use jigsaw pieces, in any way you like, either real ones (charity shops are great for getting puzzles for very little) or die cut puzzles or pieces or inchie puzzles. Hop on over to the blog to see some great examples.

I have had this giant piece for a long time, Deanne (Quirky Boots) sent the DT one each when she was still around, and I haven't ever got round to altering it. So this was the ideal opportunity. I managed to find it which was a good start, then had to decide what to do with it. I knew I was using the Tree of Circles image from our sponsor The Stamping Boutique. This is what I did:

1. Sanded the shiny picture side of the piece with fine sandpaper.

2. Painted it with white Gesso (you could go right to step 3) and allowed it to dry.

3. Painted over the Gesso with white acrylic with a touch of blue blended in and again allowed it to dry, this was too pale so....

4. I used two different blue alcohol inks and some pearl blender and applied that using a felt pad and applicator handle, also applied plenty to my fingers in the process.

5. While the Gesso and Acrylic paint was drying I coloured the image using my Koh-I- Noor Progresso woodless coloured pencils for the first time, mainly because they leapt off the shelf and hit the floor when I reached for the Trias, and this was quite an intricate image to colour and I find it easier with pencils. These pencils are blendable with Sansador and can be used with Prisma Color pencils too. I think they are very vibrant which I what I wanted. I went over the colours with some paper blending stumps and Sansador, I had trouble finding my stumps and had to open a new pack.

6. When the acrylic paint was dry I found a pretty stamp to stamp the background with Stazon ink. The stamp I used is by Inkadinkado and is a wood mounted corner flourish stamp with a couple of birds on it, I don't know the name of the image.

7. Got out the old Krylon gold pen and went round the edges.

8. Cut out a large and smaller image, and worked out where to place them then I used Decopatch to stick them to the piece and to go over the whole thing to seal it, that stuff dries very quickly compared to the Gesso and acrylic, which was good for me! 

9. I felt it needed more, I added a Kan Ban metal tag, using a gem brad, and then some matching Papermania  adhesive gems to the trees.

10. Still needed more, so the pack of mother of pearl buttons I found in my hand were threaded through with green wire and added.

11. Finally I went over the edges of the image where they met the edge of the piece with Krylon gold pen, and I punched a hole in the top and added a loop of ribbon to hang the finished piece, and that's all there is too it!

I might see if I can get a better photo, looks a bit out of focus one side, or maybe the Decopatch was still a little wet! This was so much fun, and I am really pleased with the result so I will have to go hunt for more big jigsaws at the charity (thrift) shops, unless I can cut them out on the eCraft.

This is a little late being posted, we were out for the day yesterday at my Son and Daughter-in-Law's house, taking my Mother-in-Law to see it for the first time, and we had a lovely lunch out and a busy day with lots of travelling, I was too tired to blog last night.

Hop on over to Quirky Crafts and have a go, you could win some lovely Summer Holiday ribbons or some digi's from our two lovely sponsors: Crafty Ribbons and The Stamping Boutique.

Now I have spotted a few challenges I can enter, so here goes:

Paperplay - Things with Wings, there are birds in the image and background

Paperkutz - The Skies the Limit

Cute Card Thursday - Going round in circles

Lollipop Crafts - Anything goes

Stamping for the Weekend - Wings and Things

My Time to Craft - Bird Watcher (not sure if non cards are allowed though)

Crafty Ribbons challenge card

At last I have finished my Crafty Ribbons Challenge card and I can post it off tomorrow, better late than never. I am also going to use it as my DT card for Quirky Crafts Forum challenge 20 which again is sponsored by The Crafty Pad and the challenge is bears. I have also recently found a challenge blog called Just Cute Bears Challenge, so I am entering it there too. These grossgrain Valentine's ribbons from Crafty Ribbons are lovely, really modern, I love grossgrain, Crafty Ribbons gave me these for the challenge, but I had to have some umbrella ones they have just got in too, and I added muddy paws and cupcake ribbons too.

I made the shape by running some card through the Xyron 510 both sides, then I stuck the ribbon on and die cut it with the Big Shot and Sizzix scalloped circle, Nesties weren't up to the job, I think the grossgrain ribbon is too thick, I couldn't even hole punch it with the Cropadile Big Bite and had to hide the damage that caused.

The bear is stamped with a really cute stamp available from The Crafty Pad and designed by Debbie Moore. Sentiment stamped with a Hero Arts Cling stamp.

A few more cards

Yes I am still making cards, haven't finished yet. I cased the bauble card from Wickedly Wonderful Creations Blog. When I saw the card there I had already cut and embossed my baubles, and had a couple of card blanks I cut last year, but it was the greenery that caught my eye and I have that punch, so borrowed the idea.

 

 All card blanks cut with Sizzix Bigz XL dies, the tree apeture with Movers and Shapers. The bauble is a Cuttlebug die and folder combo, the shape behind is a Spellbinders Nestabilities large label die, greenery is punched with a Martha Stewart punch, shapes are embossed with holly using a Cuttlebug folder. Finally the tree card has a greeting stamped with Just Rite stamps from the Merry Little Christmas set. Gems were added to all cards and ribbons to the bauble cards and I used Papermania 3d glue dots.

Hope you like.