Smile!

Hello lovely people,

Is that some sunshine I see this morning?!  Maybe I will get some gardening time today and if not, another day in my crafty haven beckons!

Today we have a new challenge for you at As You Like It and our theme this time is...

YOUR FAVOURITE...
MARKERS, INKS OR PENCILS
...and don't forget to tell us why it's your favourite!

Our sponsor this time is Digi Stamp Boutique with a $10 voucher

My favourite colouring medium is Copic markers because of the detail and depth of contrast I can get in the shading...on a good day!

I am really enjoying experimenting with my Inktense pencils but I can't see them ever replacing my beloved Copics.

I am pleased to say that it felt like a good colouring day for me when I coloured this fabulous image; doesn't she look so happy and carefree?

I have to say that being outdoors and being active makes me happy and is a good escape from any problems or worries.

I hope you will pop over to As You Like It and check out the fabulously creative projects from the rest of the team :-)

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

Card recipe;

Image: Pedal power - Time for Tea Designs

DP: Dress Shoppe - available as digi papers from Nitwit Collections

Dies: Dainty dots border - MFT Die-namics (available from Dies to Die For)

Sentiment: Teenage girl sentiments - LOTV

Copic colours;
Skin: E000/00/21/11/04 & R20
Hair: E53/55/57
Eyes: E35/37 &B0000/000
Hat / leggings: BV23/25/29
Top: R30/21/22
Flowers: BV20/23
Leaves: YG93/95
Bicycle basket: E41/42/43
Boots / bicycle tyre: W3/5/7
Bike struts / pedals: W00/0/2
Ground: E40/41/42/43

A Summer card...and some amazing news...

Hello lovely people,

I had a most productive day yesterday so I think today I will treat myself to some crafting time :-)

I have a bright cheerful card to share with you today that I made whilst I was guest DT for The Ribbon Girl.

But oh look, what's this...?

Yep, Mary and Andrea asked me to join the DT :-)

I am totally over the moon as this has been a hugely iconic DT for me for many years and I am sooooo delighted and proud that I get to be a part of it!

While I have a little lie down to recover from the excitement, here's my card...

I always find myself colouring this image with a big smile on my face, although I have a suspicion I have only ever coloured her in pink - lol!

These absolutely stunning papers are just one of the paper collections now stocked by The Ribbon Girl and I love the gorgeous Summery colours :-)

I made a frame for the image using 2 circle dies and stacked up 2 white frames and 1 DP frame to give it some depth.

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

The Ribbon Girl products;
Galleria Paperieu 'As if in a dream' assorted 12" papers
16mm hot pink/white saddlestitch ribbon
Dragonfly charm small
Cherry blossom pink
Pink 10mm open roses
Tiny pale pink rosebuds
Tiny white rosebuds

Other products;

Image: Sally and her snail - Stamping Bella

Other flowers: from my stash

Dies: Large frilly frames #7 - Go Kreate, Circle stax - MFT Die-namics

Sentiment: Teenage girl sentiments - LOTV

Copic colours;
Skin: E000/00/21/11/04 & R20
Hair: E53/35/37
Clothing / shoes: R83/85/RV17 & BG53/57
Snail shell: W3/4/5/6/7
Snail body: W00/0/1/2
Flowers: YR30/23/Y35 & R81/83/85
Grass / leaves: YG21/23/17

Beer for Dad

Hello lovely people,

The sun is shining this morning and I am in a 'get things done' mood so I thought I'd just pop by really quickly to share the cards I made for Fathers' Day.

It's spot the difference for the second one...they are almost identical!

You might be able to see that I popped the wording up on foam pads for the second design.  Oh, I nearly forgot to say...I made the wording for this on my computer in the style of some popular word stickers that I have seen and I was really pleased with them.  So you may see me using these again!

 The beer bottle stamps are from a wonderful set by Card-io and I bought several other manly designs at the same time so just need to find time to play with them all!

Card recipe;

Image: Last orders Majestix stamp set - Card-io

Twine: Ivory button twine - The Ribbon Girl
Twine: Natural button twine - The Ribbon Girl

Fancy edge: Double dot - Martha Stewart

Ok, I'm off to (hopefully) have a productive day and I hope you all have a good day too :-)

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

LOTV Summer inspiration

Hello lovely people,

It will come as no surprise that I had a wonderful day with Sue and Annette yesterday; I feel very lucky to be able to meet up with like-minded and truly lovely crafty friends :-)

Today I have been crafting pretty much all day but that will all come to a standstill in a couple of hours as I head off to yet another beer festival!

In the meantime, I'm here to show off a little LOTV gorgeousness with the card I made for the LOTV 'Something for the weekend' feature.

There's a PDF with step by step instructions on how to make this card and you can find all the tutorials, including mine, here.

This is the first one of the new Seasons Girls that I have coloured and even though it is a beautiful intricate design, it's really easy to colour.

I also made my own faux button for this project and you can find the step by step for this in the PDF too.

It's not like I don't have enough buttons in my stash but this is the perfect way to make your button co-ordinate...and I'm a sucker for co-ordination!

Card recipe;

Image: Summer - LOTV

DP: Vintage romance and Vintage baby - Maja Design (available from Live and Love Crafts)

Flowers: Wild Orchid Crafts
Twine: Ivory button twine - The Ribbon Girl

Dies: Teal label tags - Magnolia Doohickeys, Mini Victoriana - Die-sire

Sentiment: from Happy bears set - LOTV

Copic colours;
Skin: E000/00/21/11/04 & R20
Hair: E51/53/35/59
All greens: BG90/93/96/99
All pinks: RV91/93/95

Thanks so much for popping by and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

Lots of lace

Hello lovely people,

It's all about the crafting today for me as I'm off for coffee, chat and cake with a couple of the lovely Pink Ladies today and am also working on a top secret project that I won't be able to show you for ages...shhhhh!

While I get colouring and chatting, it's time for a new challenge at In The Pink and our theme this time is...

LACE

Don't forget we want to see more pink than any other colour!

Our fabulous sponsor this time is Di's Digi Stamps with a prize of a $12 voucher

I am continuing my journey to try out new styles in my cardmaking and with the theme of the challenge being lace I thought it would be great to try my hand at a bit of shabby chic.

Ok, I know I often do shabby chic but I have never attempted a floral arrangement as the centrepiece, so here it is...

It's a great style for adding lots of pretties to the card and I found myself reaching for lots of gorgeous Ribbon Girl products so I have listed these further down in the post.

I also found another use for my lovely Chloe flower stem die!

I love to rip the DP and roll the edges as I think it looks so cute.

I even got double the lace on this card!

Products from The Ribbon Girl;
45mm Clarice ivory embroidered tulle lace
12mm Donna creamy ivory fine cotton lace
35mm pale pink trellis rose
15mm ivory aster flower
Natural button twine - The Ribbon Girl
Bronze birdcage charm (pot-bellied with bird)

Other products;

DP: Vintage Spring basics & Vintage romance - Maja Design (available from Live and Love Crafts)

Other flowers: Wild Orchid Crafts

Tag: Sentiment tags - LOTV

Dies: Chloe stem - Memory Box
Embossing enamel - Chunky white Frantage by Stampendous

If you haven't already done so then do pop over to In The Pink and check out the fabulous lacy creations from the rest of the Pink Ladies.

Thanks for visiting me today and I do hope you will leave me a comment to say 'Hi!' as I love to read them all.

Dreaming of Summer

Hello lovely people,

I have my family visiting today and am planning to have a pretty chilled out day just catching up and eating cake :-)

It's Creative Inspirations challenge time and this week we are playing Bingo, so you just need to choose any 3 items in a line (horizontal/vertical/diagonal) to include on your project.

We are sponsored this week by All Dressed Up with a prize of 2 digi images of the winner's choice

I have chosen the 'button/twine/white' line and just in case the white space around my image wasn't sufficient to count, I also added white dots around my image...which I think turned out really prettily so I must do this more often!

You know I like a bit of a hair challenge and this certainly fitted that category!

This image is 'Dreaming of Summer' hence the post title and I think we can all relate to this...roll on Summer please!

Card recipe;

Image: Dreaming of Summer - All Dressed Up

DP: Yours truly - Pebbles

Twine: Ivory button twine - The Ribbon Girl

Sentiment: mini stamp set - Kaisercraft
Button: from stash
White dots: Gloss white crystal drops - Nuvo drops by Tonic Studios

Copic colours;
Skin: E000/00/21/11/04
Hair: E53/57/59
Dress: R21/32/35
Butterflies: R81/83 & BG53/57
Leaves: G24/28

The DT have made some wonderful samples to inspire you so pop over to Creative Inspirations to take a look :-)

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

Shabby chic with The Ribbon Girl

Hello lovely people,

This is a great weekend!

Reason #1 - I had a fab time with friends at a small beer festival yesterday; I do love to sample some real ales :-)

Reason #2 - I am soooooo very excited to announce that I am guesting on the DT this month at The Ribbon Girl!!

I get a guest badge and everything :-)

 I'll have a few projects to show you over the next couple of weeks and first up is my card for the new 'Any Image' challenge.

The Ribbon Girl now stock some utterly gorgeous DPs alongside the amazing selection of ribbon, lace and embellishments.  I have used some Lemoncraft papers, which are really pretty and they inspired the shabby chic style of my card.

I thought a spot of Inktense colouring was called for with to tie in with the lovely soft, vintage feel of the papers.

Thank you to a very special crafting buddy who gave me this stamp; it's one I had my eye on for a while and I totally adore it :-)

I've used a few goodies from The Ribbon Girl on here (listed below), all chosen to work with the shabby chic style.

The little stars were plain wooden ones before I coated them with white acrylic paint, crackle glaze and inked the edges.  It's not often I alter bits and bobs like this but I was rather chuffed with how these turned out :-)

The Ribbon Girl products;

House of roses 6x6 paper pad - Lemoncraft
Cosmos daisy flower, white
Aster, ivory

18mm cream zig zag cotton lace
Ivory button twine
Wooden star buttons

Other products;

Image: Tiny Townie Penelope has a pencil - Stamping Bella

Tag: Sentiment tags - LOTV
Other flowers: Wild Orchid Crafts
Embossing enamel: Stampendous Fran-tage, shabby white - from Live & Love Crafts

Inktense colours;
Skin: 1800 Baked Earth, 520 Carmine Pink, 1740 Saddle Brown
Hair: 1900 Willow, 1730 Oak, 2010 Sepia Ink
Dress / bow: 1600 Leaf green
Pencil: 530 Crimson, 600 Shiraz & 1900 Willow & 2100 Charcoal grey & 310 Mid Vermillion

That's 4 days of blogging in a row so thanks to you all for leaving me such lovely comments :-)

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

Heart die challenge - part 3

Hello lovely people,

During our 6 week trip to America, I was often asked what I was missing the most from the UK and my reply was 'curry!'

Specifically the curry from our local restaurant as it is soooo good, and last night we had a takeaway with some friends, and it has never tasted better :-)

But I know you are all desperate to know if I completed my heart die challenge, so...
...yes I did!

If you don't know what I'm talking about then see my last 2 posts.

I was delighted to find that an unused paper pad that had been hanging around for a while was absolutely perfect for the modern feel that I wanted for this card.

I kept the background layers neutral because I liked the idea of just having little pops of colour from the die cut flowers.

This time I printed a sentiment onto the central heart and I really love this scripty font but unfortunately for you if you like it, it was a digi from the Pink Petticoat store which is now closed :-(

Card recipe;

Dies: Affections square base set & someone special insert die - Tonic Studios, Fancy blossoms - Memory Box

DP: Southern Weddings - Project Life by Becky Higgins for American Crafts

Sentiment: computer generated
Pearls: from stash

That challenge went surprisingly well so maybe I'll have to do it again with a different product!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend whatever you are up to.  It's off to a beer festival for me :-)

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

Heart die challenge - part 2

Hello lovely people,

If you saw my post yesterday you will know that I set myself a little challenge to make 3 different cards with my new heart dies.

FYI: I have set myself these type of challenges before...and so far, only ever made it to 1 or 2 cards before giving up!

I kept this one pretty CAS as I think simple layering with coloured card really shows off the design of the dies nicely.

I cut the larger heart into white card and layered lilac card behind it and then layered the smaller heart onto lilac and popped it on top using foam pads.

All it needed to finish was some co-ordinating satin ribbon, a single pearl and, of course, some stitching!

Card recipe;

Dies: Heart vines base affections die set & Someone special affections insert die - Tonic Studios

Ribbon: 7mm orchid satin Berisford ribbon - The Ribbon Girl

Tune in tomorrow to find out if I managed to make that third card!

I'm off now to get on with my household chores because sadly, the ironing, kitchen cleaning and hoovering are not going to do themselves :-(

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

Floral romance

Hello lovely people,

I can't say I have been entirely as productive as I would like this week and my crafting mojo seems to be a little hit and miss right now.

I actually think I have too many ideas floating round in my head and can't quite decide what to do with myself!

A challenge can sometimes be a good way to get the mojo going and making something for the new challenge at As You Like It did get me focused, with our theme of...

YOUR FAVOURITE...
DIE
...and don't forget to tell us why it's your favourite!

Our sponsor this time is Bunny Zoe's Crafts with a £10 voucher

I have to admit that my favourite die changes quite often depending on my mood but this is my current favourite because I got it really cheap after having my eye on it for ages.

This die is the largest from a set of heart dies and I think it looks gorgeous framing the sentiment.

Some pretty flowers and lace complete the romantic look and I have tucked in a few die cut heart stems too.

Card recipe;

Sentiment: Statements, congratulations (Discontinued) - LOTV 

DP: discontinued paper pad - Always and Forever, available as digi from Nitwit Collections

Flowers: Wild Orchid Crafts
Lace: Chantilly cotton lace (Jane) - Crafty Ribbons

Dies: Heart vines base, affections die set - Tonic Studios, Heart stems - Impression Obsession

While I had these dies out I challenged myself to make a few more cards with them so watch out for those over the next couple of days!

I hope you will pop over to As You Like It and check out the fabulously creative projects from the rest of the team :-)

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

Vintage racer

Hello lovely people,

Here we go again...a brand new week ahead and as usual I am full of plans to 'get things done.'  We'll see how well that went at the end of the week ;-)

I have another LOTV card to share with you today and the fab new images are really encouraging me to make more male designs.

I'm sure this image will appeal to vintage car fans...and colouring fans too!

Card recipe;

Image: Vintage racer - LOTV

DP: North Pole - Dovecraft

Twine: Ivory button twine - The Ribbon Girl

Sentiment: Happy circular sentiments - LOTV

Dies: Notebook edge die - Clearly Besotted

Copic colours;
Car body: R27/46/39/89/W7
Wheels: W5/7/9
Other grey bits: W3/5/7
Grill: W00/0/2/3
Headlights: YR30/31
Trees: YG61/63/67
Grass: G40/YG61/63
Road: E41/42/43/44
Sun: Y23/35/YR23/24
Sky: B0000/000/blender

I wish you all a fab and productive week!

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,

LOTV June card challenge

Hello lovely people,

The weekend is here!!

Yes, I know I'm still on a career break but I'm just excited on behalf of all you hard-working peeps out there!

And of course, I get to spend time with Dr. Hubby, so that's fab, although we don't really have plans for the weekend.

If you don't have plans then you could always join in with our LOTV June card challenge, which has the theme 'SPORTS.'

 You can find all the details on the Facebook page, including the 5 amazing prizes on offer and it runs until Weds 15th June so you still have time to join in the fun :-)

Here's what I came up with for my inspiration card for the challenge;

This is one of the Little Folk images, which are a little smaller than the regular images, so are super quick to colour but still a good enough size to make a great focal point for your design.

I bought a HUGE set of washi tape whilst in America; I had no idea what I wanted it for but I just couldn't resist the pretty colours - sound familiar?!

So for this card I tried using it to add detail to the top and bottom of the image and I like it :-)

Card recipe;

Image: Little folk - sporty girls - LOTV

DP: Summer crush - Maja Design (available from Live and Love Crafts)

Flowers and stamens: Wild Orchid Crafts

Sentiment: from stash (Kaisercraft mini stamp set)
Washi tape: Recollections (bought in USA)

Copic colours;
Skin: E000/00/21/11/04 & R20
Hair: E53/57/59
Sun visor / shorts / shoes: R21/32/35
Shirt: B52/BG72/75
Golf club: W00/1/3
Grass: G20/21/46

I hope you all have a fab weekend whatever you are up to :-)

Thanks for visiting and I really appreciate any comments that you leave,