Lyn wants us all to have some Quirky Animal Magic

 So animal magic it is, could be magical animals or just animals. My first card features Hedgehog Flower from one of our great sponsors, Bugaboo over at Quirky Crafts for the new challenge this fortnight.

I coloured him with Promarkers and die cut him and a scalloped panel with Spellbinders dies. I used Papermania Tatty Teddy paper (the blue) and DCWV cupcake paper, added some novelty buttons tied through with Tim Holtz paper string, and some polka dot chiffon ribbon which you can buy from Crafty Ribbons (as well as polka dot buttons). Happy Birthday is die cut using an IO die set that I use a lot.

I used the Papermania paper inside too, a slightly different design still pale blue.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly - things with wings (Tues)

Crafty Ribbons - Happy Birthday (Thurs 24)

Moving along with the times - cute creatures (Thurs)

Left of Centre - die cuts (Fri)

Allsorts - Buttons (Sat)

Pile it on - birthday (Sun/Wed)

Little Miss Muffet - anything goes (24th Sept)

Oh the trouble I had with this card - maybe I will tell you another day - if you want to know! It turned out OK in the end I think.

This image is Charmaine Flannery's We're All Mad Here, from another of our sponsors - Sweet Pea Stamps. She is pretty Quirky I think, do you like her beautiful green hair? She has a crazy cat on her lap (Cheshire cat maybe?), see the playing cards flying round? I coloured her with Promarkers and Graph'it Markers (the turquoise background), and added highlights with paperwhite Sharpie marker. The frame is die cut using two Spellbinders dies, Locking Loops and a rectangle to take out the centre before mounting it on another rectangle. All around the frame I used flat backed pearls in purple, then the first paper pack I picked up was perfect for the colour scheme, it is a Papermania pack of metallic spots and stripes, which dictated to me that I needed silver behind it. The purple brads are silver ones coloured with Promarker, I added lace and ribbon, and the Just for You is one of my brand new never before used dies by Tonic, and it cut very nicely with no problems at all.

I've entered the following challenges:

TTCRD - anything goes Sept 8 - 14

Tuesday Throwdown - anything goes

Crafty Gals - bingo ribbon, hand coloured digi, sentiment (either card fits) (Wed)

Glitter and Sparkle - 154 something beginning with G (green hair) (Sun)

Ribbon Girl - any image (Sun)

Crafting from the heart - #76 anything goes (Mon)

Creative Fingers - #92 anything goes (Fri?)

Coffee, chocolate and cards - fancy and feminine (Sept)

Delicious Doodles - Dark (Sept)

Unicorn Challenges - mythical and magical (30 Sept)

Finally we have one more sponsor, Robyn's Fetish who are giving third prize in the Quirky Crafts Challenge this fortnight. So hop on over to see more Animal Magic and to play along with us.

Home sweet Quirky home - a house at last!

 Finally a little house from the 3d Houses set from The Cutting Cafe. I am getting on better with the Zing than I ever did with the eCraft - hooray, time to celebrate perhaps! I know
 there is a lot to learn yet. The day it wouldn't cut the whole image out - the blade needed setting and tightening, must have worked loose but it took me ages to realise what the problem was.

I used the small house with fixed roof and not opening, I think the opening ones will be lovely little gift boxes and will make some of them I think.

I added some patterned paper cutting with the files in the set, and added mosaics for the front path with glitter grouting, and tiny Prima blooms and dots of Liquid Pearls to the garden. I thought lace round the box base would look nice this time.
Regina - the box base would be great as a drawer so it could hold a gift or additional gift or be for storage.

 Side view.

Back of my house, see the "gravel" path made with microbeads?

I know the ric rac is a bit wrong here, looks much worse now I see the photo.

I would have cut out some trees but while I was squeezing the Cosmic Shimmer glue bottle my thumb suddenly started to bleed profusely from a cut I hadn't really noticed, it is all over the bottle and the blooms bottle, luckily I noticed before I bled all over the house!

This would be a great little gift to give someone moving into their new home.

To join our challenge and win some great cutting files, or files full of printable digi images, or a mixture hop on over to Quirky Crafts with your home related projects now.

I have entered the following challenges:

Anything but a card - Celebrate (Sun)

Crafting from the heart #75 anything goes (Mon)

Creative Fingers - #90 anything goes

Simply Papercrafts - anything goes (Fri 11th Sept)

That Craft Place - anything mixed media (Sat 12th Sept)

Quirky embossing reminder.

Once upon a Sunday it was reminder time.....this cute digi is from Sweet Pea Stamps and is Lisa Victoria's Dragon Luck. The image is coloured with turquoise Graph'it Markers and ProMarkers, then die cut with Spellbinders. The Spellbinders label has some embossing round it and I added some pink lace.

The sentiment is die cut with my IO dies and has a gem dot to the "i". 

The background is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and the flowers are punched and embossed with Nellie Snellen punch and emboss sets and have ProMarker and micro-bead centres.

I found some narrow satin ribbon in the exact colour of the cardstock.

The challenge is also sponsored by Limited Runs and Robyn's Fetish and as usual our top 3 each get a prize.

So hop on over and play embossing with us at Quirky Crafts, or just come and see the great examples the team have made today!

This card has fluttered into the following challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown - texture (Tues)

Fab and Funky - things with wings (Wed)

Inspiration Destination - #47 anything goes (Wed)

Crafty Gals - anything goes (Thurs)

A Gem of a Challenge - for the girls (Sat)

ABC - P is for Pretty in pink (Sat) (10 challenge rule)

Creative Card Crew - lace (Tues 1st Sept)

Coffee Chocolate and cards - use a sentiment (Fri 4th Sept)

Creative Fingers - #90 anything goes (Fri some time in the future lol)

Glitter n Sparkle - Happy Birthday (Sun)

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)

The dance of life

Rubber Dance that is! I finally got to use some of the stamps from my wonderful prize from Bibi of Rubber Dance, I posted about them and the very arty envelope they arrived in a couple of weeks back.

So here is another tag to add to my stamp folders to identify which stamps are where, and this is a case of the last stamps to arrived get tagged nearly first, as you might remember I did complete one tag ages ago! I cut a second tag from Kraft after stamping and colouring the image, with Memento Ink and Prismacolor pencils - not the best combination but I didn't attempt to blend the pencil so the ink survived - Stazon next time. I stamped the couple and two words - "together" comes with this stamp, then added colour to fit the Rubber Dance challenge which is a colour challenge with optional theme of travel. You don't have to have Rubber Dance stamps to take part either.

This could be a couple on vacation or honeymoon, they look so happy!

I added some blue lace and mother of pearl heart buttons, I distressed the edges and inked with Distress ink in Mahogany.

This is the back of the tag, a montage of some of the other stamps I won.

I am entering the following 4 challenges:

Anything but a card - anything goes (4 challenge rule) End July?

Rubber Dance blog - see colour and theme above (July)

The Artistic Stamper - tags (July)

Craft Stamper - Take a stamp anything goes (July)

When I get old......

I got this image from Sweet Pea Stamps as part of the Facebook progressive challenge that ends today. As soon as I saw her I thought of the poem about wearing purple and a red hat, and behaving disgracefully when you get old! The poem is by Jenny Joseph, and I left out two verses.
This sort of evolved, I was thinking mixed media and remembered the wooden triptych (well more than one) I had and thought perfect! I had a lot of trouble with the background, it was painted in Fresco Mud Brown, that was fine - then I decided to stencil cogs using Dylusions sprays in white and then coffee colour. Well it looked good when I removed the stencil for about 10 seconds - then the ink just bled and merged and lost definition. I tried again with paint dabbers, first Adirondiac then Distress Paint, but the same thing happened each time, so I gave up on that.
I coloured the image with Promarkers, and added some Cosmic Shimmer clear glue to her monocle (don't even ask about the problems I had doing that!). I added detail to the background with Dreamweaver embossing paste, the problem here is that they are very old. I have had them at least 10 years probably more and whereas the gold used to add numbers to the bottom of the right hand panel was unopened and still fine, the red I used for the hats was not, it was rubbery and stringy and didn't give me a smooth result. There was more of the gold above the image but I managed to squash some of it!
The image is partly framed with a die cut cog, cut with a Spellbinders die. I printed the poem on parchment and tore it out, inking the edges before adhering. A piece of lace seemed appropriate, maybe I should have found some purple - I didn't think of it until afterwards and don't know if I have any! The flowers and leaf were die cut with Spellbinders bitty blossom set, I picked the flower that looked most like a cog, cut it in silver holographic card and inked it to age it. The Tim Holtz life key is hiding a black fingerprint!
Finally I painted the whole thing over with sparkly Mod Podge, and the rubbed Treasure Gold round the edges.

This project has been entered into the following challenges:
TTCRD - anything goes 26th to 1st June
Artful Times - closing down party (June 3rd)
Digi Chooseday - pretty in purple (Tues)
I love Promarkers - anything but square (Wed)
Cute Card Thursday - cute
That's Crafty - The Numbers Up (8th June)
Left of Centre - upcycle/recycle (Fri)
Love to create (Pan Pastels) - mixed media #11
Inkspirational - purple (5th June?)
Anything but a card - high 5 (Sat)_

As pretty (in pink) as a Quirky picture!

This is a very Quirky card, my neice will love these Musical Hamsters, and Musical notes by Sentimental Susan, she has pet hamsters, plays in a band and loves pink (I hope she's not reading this). I coloured the hamsters with Graph'it markers and Pink Promarkers, added lace from my local market, Prima blooms and half pearls, and die cut Happy Birthday with IO dies. The rectangles are cut with Spellbinders dies.

This is the photo inspiration for our challenge set by Monica, and you just need to have pink, green, cream or white with lace or ribbon and flowers on your project.

Come and play with us at Quirky Crafts. You could win these musical hamsters, and more images provided by our sponsor Stitchy Bear, or some images of your choice.

This card has danced it's way into the following challenges:

The Stamping Boutique - layers (Fri)

Ribbon Girl - add flowers (7th Mar)

TTCRD - anything goes 3rd to 9th March

Creative Fingers = #69 Anything goes (Fri)

Die Cut Divas - Spring or children's cards (March)

Our Quirky best friends.

The challenge set by Myriam at Quirky Crafts this fortnight is about your pets, either real or imagined. You can have cats, dogs, unicorns or owls, or any other animal on your project as long as it is a pet!

I chose The Kitty Collector by Regan Kubecek from Sweet Pea Stamps, and she has taken me several hours to colour with Promarkers. Some crazy cat lady, isn't she great!

The papers are from a lovely stack by Me and My Big Ideas, and the swirly clips are HOTP. The brads are Papermania and the panels are cut out with Spellbinders Card maker dies in A2 and 5"x 7". I added some ribbon threaded lace too.

I'm late due to daily crisis calls from Mother in Law who came home on Wednesday - and I thought it would get easier! Ah well, give it time. I hope to get a good night's sleep tonight - really hope!

Please excuse the photo, we have visitors over and I couldn't set up the mini photo studio, and tomorrow we are going to a funeral.

We are so happy to have Sweet Pea Stamps sponsoring us for the first time, alongside our one of all time favourites Bugaboo and both have provided images to the team and prizes.

I hope to complete my Bugaboo project tomorrow night.

Hop on over to Quirky Crafts Challenge blog to see some more great examples and to play along and win prizes.

This card has purred into the following challenges:

Crafty Gal's Corner - #6 anything goes (Fri)

Crafting from the heart - anything goes #47 (Mon)

Creative Fingers - #67 anything goes (Fri?)

Graph'it markers - spring or green (27th Feb)

Pretty Woman, walking down the street.....it's Quirky Charades

Here's my second attempt at playing Quirky Charades, this time my card is about a book and a song, Pretty Woman. Once again I was singing this song all the way through making my card!

I used Molly from Limited Runs, isn't she gorgeous!

I decided I wanted the film strip somewhere and it ruined her to have it over her, so I decided to put the street scene, using a Hero Arts stamp, behind her in the film - she is walking the streets after all!

I found the perfect papers in my 8"x8" DCWV Rockstar stack (discontinued), and I had looked at the smaller stack first, but it wasn't big enough. I was amazed to find that the larger stack had more foiled papers and more designs, and I hadn't noticed this beauty before and I am so glad I managed to find someone selling it. The pink seemed perfect for my theme, and I added the strip of stars which I also liked. Molly is coloured with Promarkers and Graph'it markers, I coloured her hair and did the shadow with Graph'its and the rest with Promarkers. The street scene is also coloured with a combination of the two. Molly was die cut with a Spellbinders die, the film strip is a Sizzix originals die. I added some black lace which seemed appropriate too.

I haven't added a sentiment yet.

Hop on over to Quirky crafts to play Charades and see what else the team has done!

My pretty woman is walking into the following challenges:

Die cutting Divas - Think Pink (Tues)

Ike's World - think pink - just for fun (Tues)

TTCRD - anything goes (Tues)

ABC - V for vibrant (Wed)

Chocolate coffee and cards - for the boys (well she was in the film lol) (Fri)

Vintage Stamping - colour challenge - red coat (Oct)

Pile it on - #43 create a scene (Sun)

Crafty Cardmakers - cut it out (Sun)

Crafty Boots - music (Monday 10th Nov)

Creative Fingers - #54 Anything goes (??)

Autumn in Paris.

Julie is my Son Richard's Girlfriend, and I wanted to make a card that tied in with her main present from him, a trip to Paris - lucky girl! I didn't have as much time as I wanted to make this, so it is done in a hurry and maybe not as good as I wanted it to be. The reason for this was that on Thursday my mother in law had a mini stroke, and luckily a concerned relative rang us, and we spent a few hours over at her house finding out what happened, calling the doctor, waiting for the doctor etc. Then we dashed home for a quick and very late lunch while the doctor consulted the practice doctors, before she rang us to say she needed to go to the RUH in Bath for a CT scan.

So we set back off to collect her, after feeding the poor confused dogs, and take her down arriving at 4:30. At 9pm she had undergone examinations, blood tests, ECG, BP checks and was being wheeled off for a chest xray, and still hadn't had the CT scan, and we went home exhausted. 

Yesterday wasn't much better, we spent the morning updating concerned friends and family, getting the shopping that we weren't able to do Thursday done, and after lunch we had to go to MIL's house and find her some clothes and toiletrys, and  a nightdress, and her medication - she was there with nothing at all. Then we went back to the hospital and sat with her for a couple of hours before dashing home for the plumber, and to cook dinner.

Then I made this card very quickly so that Richard could take it with him, and Julie's present is Euros for their trip, I really should have made the card to fit the Euros but when I realised I had started this and was too tired and short of time to change it.

I used a Stampendous Luggage Lables background stamp which has a Paris stamp at the top, stamped with Distress ink in Dusty Concord. I wrapped a piece of black lace round this and adhered it to a blue and white striped card blank, then added butterfly corners (Filigree corners, La La Land die which I won), and an Eiffel tower die cut from silver glitter card with a My Favorite Things Dienamics die. I popped a couple of  mother of pearl heart buttons on, then die cut some Mini Wavy Pennants, also with a Dienamics die, in white and stamped Happy Birthday on them to fly from the top of the tower.

I think I will be safe to post this - I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Happy Birthday Julie!

I found a couple of challenges to enter:

That Craft Place - girls but no pink (Sun)

Vintage Stamping - used purple (3rd Nov)

Let's Quirky Frame it.

It is my challenge this time, and I want to see frames, in the image, round the image, made frames - any type of frame will do.

 I always make cards back to front, that is I normally colour the image first then decide what to do with it, and I decided to make an arch card in black card using a Spellbinders die, I added the image, lace and mother of pearl buttons.
The image is coloured with Promarkers and Spica pens, and is called Lucy Loo Mirror Mirror from The East Wind, she is pretty special, and is emerging from a mirror frame.

I have entered the following challenges:
Daring Card Makers - out of this world (Fri)
Creative Card Crew - black cardstock (21st Oct)

Crafty Boots - Autumn/Halloween (26th Oct)
One Sweet Challenge - Halloween (Oct)
Cards Galore - something scary (Oct)
Paula Holifield - Boo! (Oct)

This is a pretty simple card because I ran out of time on Friday as I was getting ready for my holiday, see the previous post for all I had to do!

This card uses an image complete with a frame, called Make it Snappy  - Hay There from Bugaboo, one of our two wonderful sponsors at Quirky Crafts this time.

So hop on over and see what the rest of the team have done, and join in.

I have entered this card in the following challenges:

Little Miss Muffet - anything goes (Oct)

Crafty Little Fairies - one DPP (Oct)

Bunny Zoes - Animals (Oct - 10th Nov)

It's still about Quirky Time!

It is reminder time for the Quirky Challenge, and this is my challenge book. It is not finished, I ran out of time, so I will add more photos later as I complete bits of it, in fact I could probably carry on decorating it for weeks! The idea is that I have pocket pages, and into the pockets I put slips with details of all the challenges I want to enter. 

I used Time background from our sponsor The Cutting Cafe, coloured with Prismacolor pencils, inked with Distress inks and edged with Treasure Gold. I found a few sheets of chipboard alphabets and decided to use those to spell Challenge, first colouring them with Krylon pen, then Treasure Gold. Real lace on the hinge side. The book is punched using my Bind it All, I had to watch the video tutorials again before I started using it and as you will see I wasn't totally successful in getting all the pages punched the same, and had to redo the back cover!

I got my Sizzix Tim Holts dies out to cut some metal gears and a weathered clock, and this would be so much further on IF the Ebosser had cut the metal instead of embossing mostly, cutting a little, and generally ruining my metal sheets. So out came the Trusty Big Shot which instantly cut them like they were butter, so another disapppointment about the eBosser, but gold stars to the Big Shot!

I tied on a few ribbons from Crafty Ribbons, more to be added later!

 I made 5 pocket pages, one for weekly, or fortnightly challenges to do, one for monthly challenges to do....

one each for weekly and monthly challenges completed, and one that is spare for now!

I hope to add some more photos later when I complete more, and I will show you the slips I am going to use in the pockets. I am so happy I finally did this even if it is a bit Quirky and not perfect!

Easter egg hunt

 This image is called Aurora Easter Egg Hunt from The East Wind by Unky. I coloured her with Promakers yesterday afternoon including a shadow around her in pastel blue, the colouring took a few hours, the rabbit is decoupaged because a tiny part of his foot got cut off,  then I added some glitter glue, and then I began to design a card around her. Die cut her with Spellbinders Labels 8, and an ornate rectangle in purple. (I had a few challenges in mind here), I made a gatefold card in yellow using my Scor Pal, the metric version, I creased at 7*, turned the card over and scored at the same place again, I used DCWV papers, Easter eggs at the top and stripes at the bottom. This is a very small pad of paper (with only two of each of the papers left) and I needed two pieces to cover the length of the purple panels, so I covered the join with lime green lace, I love purple and lime green together! I added some bunny brads to 4 outside corners, attached some purple polka dot ribbon to the back and one side of the card, then attached the die cut centre panel. I added a bow in the same ribbon and some lime green pearls.

I found some freebie papers that almost matched the stripes on the front, and made panels of purple paper then striped paper for the inside. The sentiment is heat embossed in purple and is a Papermania die, another fancy rectangle behind the sentiment finished it off.

I think Aurora Easter Egg hunt is only available as a freebie at present if you sign up to the newsletter at The East Wind challenge blog.

I have entered the following challenges:

The East Wind - Use a sentiment (April 10th)

Graph'it Markers - shadows (April 18th)

Allsorts - no flowers (Sat)

Bearly Mine - Spring (April)

Cards Galore - favourite colours (Tues)

Crafty Ribbons - anything goes with ribbon (Wed)

Creative Card Crew - Spring (Tues 22nd)

Feeling Crafty - anything for a child (April)

Incy Wincy - 321, 3 different papers (and 3 x 2 pearls), 2 pieces of ribbon (and 2 of lace), 1 digi (and 1 sentiment) (Mon)

Moving along with the times - sweet treats (Thurs)

One Sweet Challenge - ringing in spring (April)

Papertake Weekly - Spring has sprung (Tues)

Passion for Promarkers - so sentimental (Tues)

Pink Gems - Ribbon and Lace (Sat) 

Coffee Chocolate and Cards - Stripes - (April)

Ali Crafts - Spring (May 2nd)

You Did It!

A different congratulation card, maybe this would appeal to a goth teenager! The background and winged heart stamps are by Unity Stamps and the sentiment is by Hero Arts, the winged heart is my brand new Itty Bitty I recieved with my other stamps, and is coloured with Promarkers. I started off with a brightly coloured image then changed my mind for this first card, which sort of evolved from an idea I had. I added real lace and some gems and flat backed black pearls. The sentiment is heat embossed. The card blank is stamped with the winged heart as is the matching kraft paper insert. Die cut with Spellbinders.

I have entered the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenges - use your new stash (Fridays)

Love and Lace

I made this card for the Hero Arts Love and Lace challenge, it ends I hope today (are the USA behind or ahead of us?). I stamped the large image in white ink and embossed it onto black card, coloured it with Prismacolor pencils which I haven't picked up for a long time so it was a joy to use them. One of the wonderful things about these pastel pencils is that they colour over any other colour card. I wrote Love Grows with a white pencil and went over some of the lines to make them whiter and added a bit of chalk mess to make it look more chalkboard like. I stamped the craft blank along the bottom with a heart bloom stamp, I will check the name, and the top of the background is stamped with a dots flourish stamp from a clear set, all stamps are Hero Arts. The background is also coloured with Prismacolor pencils. I mounted the main image on a panel of green, and added a border in red punched with a MS punch, and after adding some black lace this was adhered to the card blank. A few of the hearts punched out of the border are scattered around.

Challenges entered:

Hero Arts as I mentioned above - Love and Lace

Cute Card Thursday - Something old - my Prismacolor pencils

Hero Hearts

I decided to take the same approach to Valentine's day as I did to Christmas, which was to get everything out related to the occasion, stamps, embellishments, ribbons, embossing folders, the only thing I didn't get out was all the dies. So I have been trawling through all of my stamps in search of love! I haven't gone through all of them I am sure. I am on Hero Arts right now, and this is a Hero Arts cling background stamp I have had for a year or so but not used before. I decided to stamp on Kraft card with black Memento ink, and this one was not meant to be used because it isn't perfect. (If you look closely you will see there are too many swirly bits one side, I tried to get two on a page and the stamp is just too wide for that). I was trying two colours, using Tria pens, to see if I like it better than just red, and I decided it was too pretty not to use to make a card. The sentiment is also Hero Arts stamped and embossed in gold, again this didn't come out perfectly. I added a piece of black grosgrain ribbon then die cut hearts using my new Dienamics die, and some freebie paper I think from Card Making magazine. I bought some black lace on the market yesterday which I think really looks nice. Is there anything else I can add? Maybe, lets see what the next version looks like!