The Stampman challenge #2

This past fortnight has flown hasn't it! Its onto challenge 2 already at The Stampman challenge blog, we're totally thrilled with the response to our opening challenge so thank you muchly!!

The challenge this time is to use 2 colours on your design and there is a £10 voucher up for grabs for the winner.

For this challenge I have used Aspects of Design No.56 Funky Flowers, Starburst Stains Ramblin' rose pink & Hydrangea blue from the Victorian Bouquet set, Razzleberry Plum embossing powder & Broken China distress ink.

I've stamped and embossed the flower onto a hydrangea blue background and bleached out the blue from the petals then recoloured them pink, cut out using nesties labels 11 and edged with brilliance black ink. Panel strips are starburst stains and I've used divine swirls embossing folder and daisies. Background is handmade (see bottom of post) and the flower is made with paper dyed with starburst stains, I've torn 3 blue and 3 pink circles, spritzed and put a poky tool through them. Next scrunch them up tight on the poky tool and heat set. Gently open and replace the poky tool with a brad to secure. My flower centre is pink clay which I flattened in the cuttlebug and punched out, shaped and added a gem brad. You can add ink to the edges of the flowers before you scrunch but I'd been working on this on and off for 10 hours so forgot lol!

There's some extra photos at the bottom showing how I did the background and flowers :)

Hope you can come and see the rest of the teams creations on the challenge blog!

Ooh and my craft stamper just arrived and it has the eyes from my banner as the freebie, you also see projects by Jill, Michelle and other members of the team :D

Sketch Saturday - Sketch
Incy Wincy - Sketch

Craftalicious - Make your own flowers

Paperplay - Anything goes

Bleached out and watercoloured flowers

Scrunched paper flower with a clay flower centre. Can you see that pink holographic paper?? How delish is that lol! I was playing with it in the stampman shop on saturday as under halogen lights its ooooh so sparkly! (Big kid alert!!)

EXTRAS!!

Spray a piece of white or pale pink card with ramblin rose pink starburst stains - I sprayed in 3 lines.

Stamp one of the large flower heads from the funky flowers set and emboss with razzleberry plum. Fill the gaps with one of the swirls from the stamp plate using broken china distress inks.

Stamp and emboss one of the large flowers from the set then use a mixture of bleach and water (I use a thick bleach one part to 4 parts water) and gently paint out the flower centres. I find if you use pure bleach it can make the paper wrinkly and damage it. Let the bleach activate and redo as required.

Repaint the flowers, I used ramblin rose pink starburst stains but you can use lots of mediums like promarkers, twinkin h2o's and watercolour pencils etc. Add a gem to the centre and a little bow and cut out with a nesties or trim :)

Pink Dragons

Good Morning!! Nearly bedtime for me so am posting this on before I do! I bought this stamp at Crafts & Me a few weeks ago, its by Lisa Victoria and is called Dragon Luck. So far I've coloured it in blue so now its pink and I'll try a two colour one next. I like to experiment a bit when I get a new stamp to see what various colourways look like and its always nice to play :)
Its coloured with promarkers and I've used a quickie glue pen wth some glamour dust on the wings and flower, cut out with nesties labels 11 and edged with distress ink.

Hope you all have a lovely day tomorrow and fngers crossed for some sunshine brrrr!

Entering into..

Sweet Pea stampers - Anything goes

WOYWW

Gosh is it Wednesday already!! Must be time for another WOYWW! I actually started at 7am this morning as I got an early night so always wake up early, kids were still snoozing! I actually finished this card in progress at about 5pm! That was inbetween looking after the monsters, a trip out for lunch, stopped by the pet store for one of those magnetic algae scrubber things, nipped into QVC outlet, no Sir Tim returns today but they did have 3 cinch machines in which I had a nosy at. I dont need one as I have a BIA and its precious! I went in QVC every week for 3 months to get that!

Today I ventured into my craft room and I miss it you know! Its my own little corner, a bit like OH has the garage to escape to and escape he does! As you know I'm a hob crafter which means I stand, my knees really give me gip and I'm missing my little den so.... I'm going to clean it and put things away and make it useable! Theres space in there for a little table for the kids if they want to have a dabble so *maybe* next week it will be live from the den :D


I keep seeing all your organised craft rooms with things neatly hanging up! Mine's organised in a fashion, well I know where everything is lol!


Tell you who's got a den and a half - Jill from The Stampman :D I got to play with all her demo stuff and that was a LOT of stuff!! I'm like a kid in a candy shop in there! Blatantly nicked pic from Stampman blog lol!

So what was on my work hob today? Messy week for me yay! We have starburst stains, moonglow embossing powder. I keep my favourite EP's in a pencl case, the rest are in a drawer in my craft room. The box on the right holds my favourite inkpads so its memento, versamark, versafine, brilliance black and several distress inks although today I'm playing with broken china yaaaaaayyyyy!! Ive actually bought the reinker 3 times and have never owned the inkpad as everytime I've remembered to buy it its been sold out so I got that at the weekend. The SWAK glimmer mist I'm not too thrilled with, I was comparing it to a pink starburst stains and the SS is still my first love :) Bottle of bleach, Kay Carley's funky flowers stamp set I also got at weekend and my noisy heat gun. I *really* want one of those quiet hair dryer type ones but can't justify it until this one packs in.

You'll see the finished card on Friday which took 10 hours to complete lol!

Crafty Cardmakers #26 Joy's Recipe

I'm back from my little jaunt up to Skipton to go play at The Stampman and I've been surrounded by yummy scrummy moonglow products all weekend ooooh lucky me!! Really enjoyed myself and was lovely hooking up with Jill, Ian, Janet, Michelle and Jill B. I was demoing with one of Kay Carleys stamp sheets (Funky Flowers) and couldnt resist it anymore as they make the most beautiful little cards so watch this space lol!
Also if you haven't entered already then The Stampman challenge is still open with an Anything goes theme!


Crafty Cardmakers is back with another challenge and this time our teamie Joy has chosen us a recipe which is

1. Use stickers or punches
2. Use the colour orange or yellow
3. Include and animal or fish

We're also sponsored by Gurlee Girl stamps who are offering a $20 voucher for her store! Thank You Chelsea!

Here's my take! I've used an image by Pollycraft coloured with promarkers and coloured the hearts on the dress with an orange sakura stardust pen. The ribbon has been dyed wth a yellow promarker and the faux stitching is a sakura souffle pen. I used a martha stewart punch (my one and only one!) and sprayed the whole card with diamond dazzles glimmer mist.

Entering into...

Dare U 2 digi stamp - Stitching

Create for Fun - Flowers

Bunny Zoes - summer

Stampavie - Anything goes

Some quickies before I go ooop norf!

Been making these this week before I go off on my jolly jaunt to The Stampman's demo weekend and my first time away overnight from the kids! Ethans only been away from me once because I was in hossie having Molly and Molly has never been away from me overnight and rarely in the day so I'm wondering how OH is going to cope lol!

Probably easiest to put them all on one post so here we go!



First up is a gorgeous pair of dragons by stitchy bear stamps called Rupert's Wedding. How cute are they! I've coloured with promarkers and added detauls to the flowers with sakura stardust and souffle pens. DP's are printouts from designer extremes 3 cd, flowers are wild orchid coloured with promarkers and I've sprayed the card with iridescent gold glimmer mist.

Entering into...

OSAAT - Digital
Papertake - Cutie Patootie

This one is a digi by Dewdrop Craftz and is my most popular wedding stamp. Again coloured with promarkers, the dress I've added glue with a pen and glamour dust. Papers are K&Co, flowers wild orchid coloured with brilliance ink. I've finished with a few sprays of pearl glimmer mist.

Entering into...

Daisy doodles - wedding

Lastly same image by dewdrop craftz, papers are from designer extremes vol 3, coloured with promarkers and added gold leafing with a glue pen. The bride and groom are indian so I've done a darker skn tone. I'm uite liking red weddings, I usually do blue and pink so I loved the change of scene :D Finished with sprays of diamond dazzles glimmer mist.

Entering into...

Whoopsie Daisy - Vibrant colours

WOYWW & Kona Kid Krafters

WOYWW this week - Oooh I'm busy busy this week! I've got loads of stuff to do and 3 orders in so thats 2 done at the back, I'm doing a DT card for monday which is also a RAK for a girl off a forum. She wants to thank someone who's been kind to her and I liked that the thought was there so I'm making her a couple of RAKs she can give. One is a pollycraft bear (shhh you havent seen it already lol!) I'm normally quite last minute.com with DT cards but I'm off up to Skipton for the weekend to go and play at The Stampmans demo weekend. If you're up that way pop on in and heckle me mwhaha!

What else on my hob desk - oh BTW to those concerned last week that one of the hob rings appeared to be on, its ALWAYS switched off at the wall. Force of habit, I have 2 toddlers with little fingers who like to turn things and 11 years experience of risk assessment lol!

I have my usual promarkers in various shades of orange and brown and I'd not long opened my mail and have a lovely card off my teamie Jack with some lavinia stamps in (FANKOO xxx) also arrived today from Cuddly Buddly were DIAMOND DAZZLES glimmer mist YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!! I have been after this for over 2 months. The place I originally ordered from dont seem to be able to get it and finally offered an alternative a couple of weeks back which I gave but havent heard anything from them since :/
I spotted it in stock at cuddly buddly over the weekend and it arrived today along with SWAK which s a lovely hot pink colour :D
Not much else on desk today except some wild orchid flowers and some little white ones I'd just dyed yellow with a promarker.

This is Molly and she is my icklest baby. Molly is very mischievous and VERY VERY messy! She was 2 last month and a couple of weeks ago I bought her some winnie the pooh pots to paint. All was going well until I left the table to make a drink and came back to her like this!! She is always up to nonsense, you cannot turn your back on her! Last week she 'washed' the stairs with quarter of a bottle of fairy liquid - my vax was NOT happy! Then it was the glamour dust poured over the duvet - you get the picture...

Anyway there is a challenge blog specifically for kids called Kona Kid Krafters and their challenge is "Bling it Up" so Miss Mookins got to work today on her creation below :) She used some gems, pasta I've dyed with starburst stains so its sparkly, glitter glue and crayons lol! I liked that she knew to use a green crayon which you cant see much but she did it. This was zero help from me, I was gabbing on phone to Jill from Stampman whilst Mols created.

So if you're looking for something to amuse the kds over the summer check out Kona Kid Krafters blog :D

Sketch challenge at Crafts & Me

Its challenge time again at Crafts & Me and this fortnight Trish has drawn us a sketch to follow. For this one I chose one of the new awesome stamps by Hannah Lynn, I love her stamps they are so bold! This one is KRISTA and you can get her here at crafts and me. I love playing with colours on this kind of stamp so I had a rummage through my papers to see what appealed and a couple of sheets I'd printed off from the Designer extremes 3 cd spoke to me lol! They are in the raspberry section on the cd. I've coloured the image with promarkers using pale pink, hot pink, maroon and burgundy (and my trusty blender!) I've added bling with a sakura stardust pen and sprayed the image with iridescent gold glimmer mist which is actually showing up on the picture for a change! I've also added glaze to the eyes and lips.
Cute little sentiment stamps are by Stampin all day - won a £10 voucher a couple of weeks ago from there so went shopping the other day :D
Image is edged with worn lipstick distress ink.

I'd also like to enter this into..

Passion for Promarkers - Distressing
Pollycraft - Birthdays
Totally papercrafts - Recipe
Charisma - Pink
Creative Craft - Holidays

Crafty Cardmakers spotlight challenge

Crafty Cardmakers blog is now weekly wth one week being the regular challenge followed the next week by a Spotlight challenge where we will spotlight a particular style of card, technique or product. Both challenges run for a fortnight and the team doing the spotlight also follow the current challenge although you dont have to.



So our first spotlight is EASELS and the girls have really excelled themselves with a myriad of designs and ideas :D



For this challenge I've taken the colours as inspiration and used starburst stains in Edelweiss moss green, glory of the seas gold and azure sea asters to make the backgrounds which have been cuttlebug embossed (Jules Jewells folder) The flowers from wild orchid crafts were white and I've sprayed them with starburst stains to match and added clear sticky heart gems.


I made a gatefold card and mounted that on my easel base and the stopper is a recycled clock from a travel clock which I've attached by cutting a hole in the base and slotting it through so you can change the batteries!


Stamp is from the butterfly beauties set (Aspects of design) from The Stampman





You may notice I mess with clocks sometimes well "Time is associated with the sign of Capricorn, and things that have to do with the measuring of time.....as clocks, calendars,and timers." so there ya go!





Entering this into:





Sir Stampalot - Lazy hazy days of summer
By the cute & girly - Warm summer days
Allsorts - Summer days
Polka Doodles - Stamp away

Its Here!!! The Stampman challenge blg is now OPEN!

Woo Hoo!! We're finally open and the theme is ANYTHING GOES chosen by me as

I want to see your array of styles, colours, anythng you like. You'll find us HERE so pop over and show us ya stuff! There are a few pointers to the challenge listed below...

• 
  You can make any creation of your choice so long as it meets the challenge set.
• You may enter more than once if your projects are entirely different i.e 1 card, 1 tag, 1 atc etc
• You can combine with other challenges
• Please link to your project not your entire blog
• You can use any products so long as you follow the challenge
• Have fun fun fun!!!

Here's what I made. I've used Aspects of Design Starburst Fairies which is stamped and embossed with moonglow midnight teal embossing powder. The fairies were not embossed to give an mpresson of them being further away. The background is made with adirondack inks in cool peri, pool, sailboat blue and pitch black by using a brayer to put the cool peri all over the card then using a corner of a piece of kitchen roll to gently swipe the darker colours in from one edge giving a graduated effect. The card its mounted on is actually holographic silver though it looks white in the pic.

Hope you pop over to the blog and join in!

Would like to enter this into:

Flutterby Wednesday - 3 or more layers
Craftalicious - Birthdays

I'm back again!

Two cutie cards next to each other - I think my fishies are turning me soft! This one is for a local order and I've used Whimsy Stamps "Cuddle Cloud Baby" by MelJen. Isn't it sooooo cute!
I've coloured with promarkers and have added glamour dust to the nappy and edge of the cloud, the strands holding the hearts I've used the glue pen again and silver tonertex foil and the hearts I've also used 3d gloss. Image is edged with chalk ink and its all sprayed lightly with iridescent gold glimmer mist - this card is super super sparkly!

Would like to enter into:

Whimsy Stamps - Sketch
C.R.A.F.T - Babies/children
Pollycraft - Bold & Bright
Allsorts - Hearts

WOYWW

I've never entered WOYWW before lol! I think only Jill and Sarah have had the pleasure of seeing my desk which in fact is my cooker hob. I do have a desk and a craft room but they're not currently practical as

1. I cant hear the kids at night if I'm in there

2. If the kids go in it (If I'm doing anything in there) then they quickly destroy everything

3. I can't see what they're up to if I've amused them with something and want a quick daytime dabble

4. Its cold


My youngest Molly is unbelievably naughty, she does it in such a cute way she's forgiven quickly though! Yesterday I thought I'd spend some time editting the pics from 90 cards for my nan so nipped online to do that. I'm rarely on laptop in the day as she goes mad, jumps on me, pulls the keys off my keyboard or does something really naughty whilst my back is turned and yesterday was no exception. Whilst I spent half an hour editting the pictures she got into the bathroom (which I always leave closed but obviously somebody forgot!) helped herself to some fairy liquid and decided she'd clean the stairs with a quarter of a bottle! Do you know how much foam a quarter bottle of fairy makes!!! My vax was foaming at the mouth aaaaargh!!!

And to top it all she rubbed her eyes so I had to wash it out of her eyes too and she was NOT impressed with that!

I digress lol! Yes my desk today...

Bit of a mix bag today as I didnt tidy away from last night (naughty!) so have aspects of design starburst fairies set, brayers, peel off corners from yesterdays, the gesso and the large letter M which I'm doing for The Stampman, my entire collection of blue promarkers as I was in a blue mood but not sure which shade so I got them all out to see which ones I'm drawn to, some 3d gloss which I used on the eyes and wings of the dragon (Lisa Victoria stamp) my glamour dust which is now no more after Molly got hold of it this afternoon and decorated the duvet with it, pearl glimmer mist and my blackberry :)

I also got some new additions at home! I won the goldfish (Nuzzle) at the front at a fair a couple of weeks ago and promptly went to a local aquatic specialist nearby and asked what he needed for him and a friend. Came home with 2 bowls and 3 more fish, 2 are shubunkins aka poor mans Koi. Anyway after much reading I discovered a bowl isnt suitable for one let alone 2 goldfish which is what I was advised so ended up upgrading them to a tank. As the tank has lights I spotted the goldfish (Scratch) I bought from the aquatic centre had white spot so went out and got treatment for it but it didnt make it :( So now we just have Nuzzle & no scratch and Ethan called the shubs Hide & Seek as they were very shy when we first got them. Nuzzle is showing signs of it too, yesterday he had some faint white spots on his tail and is showing signs of stress with the lowered fins but they're all being treated with malachite green and aquarium salt. I hope he makes it as I'd be gutted to lose my fairground fish! He seems much happier this evening thankfully :)

I can spend ages watchng them, very relaxing and they're all very nosy!

The Butterfly Keeper

Good evening! Hope those of you who ordered from Crafts and Me yesterday got your stamps today! Mine arrived in the post this morning and I ummed and ahhhed for a couple of hours deciding which one to use first lol! I was most definately in a brights mood which is very unlike me, I'm more ethereal and goffik dark kinda style but having rummaged through my paper stash I kept being drawn to pink and orange - most definately not my usual colour choice but mind was convinced thats what it wanted so go with the flow :)

Ths image is one of the brand new range by Hannah Lynn only available at Crafts & Me which you'll find here and is called The Butterfly Keeper. Its my first time colouring her as she was saying colour meeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I've coloured with promarkers and added highlights with orange and pink sakura stardust pens. The orb I blended out, glittered the butterflies then sealed them inside wth 3d gloss. When completely dry I've added touches with a white sakura souffle pen.
Papers are DCWV (loud arent they lol!) whch I've distressed with scissors and also added wild honey distress ink to the base layer. Sentiment is by Stamping all day also distressed with wild honey. Butterfly I got in a swap ages ago and is made of feathers!

Hope you love the new images as much as I do, oooh faces and eyes to colour :D:D:D

I'd like to enter this into...

I Love Promarkers - Distressing
One Stop Craft - Distressing
Crafty Catz - Distressing
Prairie Fairy - Anything goes
Flutterby Wednesday - Open week (2nd entry)

Crafts & Me challenge #8 - Pink, black & white

Wow an exciting day over at Crafts & Me! Teresa has launched her own range of stamps today with the release of two artists work in rubba! They are Molly Harrison and Hannah Lynn. There are four from each artist currently available and more will be comng at a later date so in the meantime pop over to Crafts & Me to see these exclusive designs HERE!

The DT have had some of these stamps for a week now and boy have we been itching to let them loose lol!! So here's my first which is Hiding by Molly Harrison.


The challenge at Crafts and Me this fortnight is Pink, Black and White. The DT girls have all used their new stamps so hope you can join us on the challenge blog and have a peek too!

I coloured the image with promarkers, the background was made with graduating pale blue out to black with a blender pen then I've painted over with stickles to make it starry. The moon I coloured over the wings (as they're transparent!) then blended the yellow out before adding glamour dust with a glue pen.

Papers are papermania (I think!) and flowers are wild orchid, the lttle rosebuds I coloured black with a promarker and gave the whole card a blast or several of pearl glimmer mist.

I'd like to enter this into...

Pile it On - Favourite things (Fairies & sparkly fings, need I say more!)

Flutterby Wednesday - Open week

Pocket Full of posies - One for the girls

One stitch at a time - Lace, ribbons & bows (black bow on top right flowers)

Totally Papercrafts - One for the girlies

Magical Crafts - Flower Power

If the shoe fits - Wings

Thought I'd also give you a peek of the fab new stamp by Hannah Lynn called Krista. I'm sooo lookng forward to working with these images, dont they just say "COLOUR ME!!" Have a peek at Hannahs awesome artwork site too and see how beautiful her colours are :D

New Challenge Blog at THE STAMPMAN

YAY!!! The Stampman have opened their very own challenge blog to go and play at! The team are raring to go and hope you can come over and grab our blinkie to help spread the word! Our first challenge will start on Friday 16th July so I hope to see you all there but in the meantime pop over and become a follower :D

The Stampman ATC Swap Blog - OPEN!

And the theme is WINGS!

The Stampman have launched a brand new ATC swap blog you'll find HERE

You can post your entries on the blog and then send them in to physically swap them with other players - how fab! The details of how to enter can be found on the blog so pop over for a looksie! You never know you might even get one of the DT cards back from your swap! I'd like them all but cannae have em!

For this swap I have made a landscape gatefold ATC. I love portrait gatefolds so this is a first for me! I've stamped onto Claudine Hellmuth sticky back canvas and coloured the ATC using starburst stains. I coloured the centre of the heart with rambling rose pink starburst stains then used a paintbrush and bleach to remove colour leaving just a band over on the right. The front and inside panels are also starburst stains and I used a cuttlebug folder (divine swirls) and the tiniest labels 4 nestabilities for the little button on the front.

The stamps are all from the Aspects of Design Artistic Elements sheet.

All materials are available at The Stampman.

I'd lke to enter this into...

Gingersnap Creations (Chestnut theme) - Wings (3rd entry, everything I make seems to have wings lol!)

The Glitterbabes Challenge - Sparkly! Starburst Stains are very sparkly :D

Red Hearts Nearly

I've never quite gone the whole hog with Red Hearts colouring her every other way except the original. I nearly did it this time but the lady this is for has long blonde hair and blue eyes so I coloured to match :D She's also a bit "Goffik" and the image quite suits that so this is my Goffik easel post it in red, black and silver.

Image is Red Hearts by Sweet Pea available at Crafts and Me in the UK here. I coloured with Promarkers and used the blender pen a lot on the wings. Must resist putting on glitter - Its for a Goff! I've added a lot of little detail to this - the mirror is silver foil I put on with a glue pen, let dry and add a sheet of the fol over the top. I also did the same technique on the bodice and bracelet. Ive used a sakura clear glaze pen on the eyes, lips and tiny hearts for a glossy look.

Papers are unknown, I think one may be dcwv and the other (red) Brenda Pinnick. The centre panel I couldnt find anything that complimented the other two so decided to make my own using one of Tracey Coates stamps here and embossed with silver super sparkle embossing powder. That was one of the first EP's I ever bought so must be 7 years old! Big red flowers are from Hobbycraft and the tiny rosebuds from Wild Orchid but were white so I promarkered them black :)

Would like to enter into...

Sketch Saturday - Sketch
Sweet Pea Stampers - Earth, Wind & Fire (Fire)
I Love Promarkers - Stripes
Gingersnap - Chestnut Theme - Wings
Gingersnap - Random Redhead theme - Fairies