Magnolia-licious Highlites meets Magnolia Down Under

Magnolia-licious Highlites have a must-do blog hop  and a challenge called "home sweet home".  They want us to make a home decor project.  I made-over this for my Mother who favours dusky pink and greens, using K&Co papers and a combination of Promarkers and Copics to colour my images.

Now my Mum can be a little forgetful and so having a holder full of papers in her lounge to enable her to write things down seemed like the perfect time to use this sentiment by TPC Studios with some little Magnolia roses. I hope she appreciates the tongue-in-cheek humour.

I adore this little Tilda all snug in her scarf, hat and gloves but I didn't want my gift to be something that Mum could use only in the winter months.   

 So I am also entering my home decor project into the challenge at Magnolia Down Under who have provocatively chosen the theme of "summer" (I've got snow!) and the other side of my cube contains this little sweetie, eating an icecream.

        

Sweet Stampin Candy Winner

Hello.  Sweet Stampin had a birthday blog hop last week.  Entrants needed to make a card using our fab sketch in order to be eligible for prizes and candy.  
Best matey, Julie, popped in for coffee yesterday morning on her way to do some Christmas shopping and I asked her to pick the winning ticket from a bowl of eligible entrants' names. The winner of my candy, seen above, is:

Fiona at Fi's Cards and Crafts. It looks as though you were a winner all round!  Well done!
Thanks to all of you who played along with our challenge and hop and thank you to everyone who left me a lovely comment!

Passion for Promarkers with just a Whiff of Joy!

Good evening peeps.  Passion for Promarkers have a fab blog hop this week and want us to use some "old and new" things on our creations.  My image which is coloured entirely with Promarkers actually fits both of those categories because it is one I have had for quite a long time - a fabulous freebie from Whiff of Joy of Henry Spider Mouse - but I have never used it before and therefore it's new too!  My Fiskars sentiment is very new as is the little bit of DCWV Argyle paper whilst the red and blue flowered Sizzix paper is so old it is almost antediluvian!
I am combining my challenge with the one over at Whiff of Joy who have a really fab sketch.   In addition to Henry Spider Mouse, who has added dimension around his forefoot, hand and whiskers, I have pinched some cupcakes normally held by Henry on a different WOJ stamp.  I coloured just the cupcakes on the stamp with my Promarkers missing out Henry and his arm and just printed it twice before colouring it and adding a bit of Stickles sprinkles on top. His spider web catching the cupcakes is made from a bit of a bag which contained halloween candy.  I knew it would come in useful! 

This card is for my brother in law hence the more masculine colour combo and lack of flowers and bows but the sketch is still very much in evidence.  I'm sorry about the picture quality.  These winter days leave so little daylight for decent photography!
Before I go - I have to tell you that we have a blog hop and a DT call over at Sweet Stampin so why not join in!

Kraftin Kimmie's Funky Fibres

The elder of my two nieces got married in October.  She and her husband are both very active in the Scouting world and are very outdoorsy.   They had a lovely church ceremony and then held their reception in a circus big top erected by the groom over several days beforehand.  He is a specialist sound and lighting engineer and produced an absolutely amazing laser light and music show after the dinner speeches. It was a fabulous day and evening.  Here are the ushers, best men (there were two of them) and the bride and groom in a somewhat unconventional pose!  They didn't arrive in these land rovers by the way - there were proper wedding cars!

The male supporters were wearing either magenta or teal cravats and the bridesmaid's dresses were identical to each other but one was teal and one magenta.
This is the wedding card I made for the happy couple. It was actually best matey, Julie's, idea to use these fab Kraftin Kimmie characters and they were just perfect for the occasion.  (post script: the images are Chester and Snow White)

I stamped my Impression Obsession large swirl background stamp with Versamark and embossed it with Wow embossing powder in magenta.  I then restamped it and embossed a heartshaped piece of card stock with Wow teal empossing powder.  My sentiment, also embossed, is part of
a larger stamp by Papermania.  The "Love" tag is one I had in my stash and the flowers are Prima. The bride and the groom have been coloured in a Copic and Promarker combo and cut out.  This week Kraftin Kimmie, who have a blog hop, want us to use "funky fabric" on our cards. I made a veil with some tulle for for the bride which is draped behind her and over her face. Here is a close up:

Charisma Cardz In Sympathy

Sadly one of my neighbours lost his mother recently and this is the card I made for the family. 

I used a Sailing Boat image from Passion for Stamps, coloured it with Copics and Promarkers and decoupaged the hull and the sails.  Most of my time was spent trying to line up the text which is word processed so that it followed the lines of the boat and working out the size of the boat and the size of the font so that the card wouldn't be too big.  I had to print the digi-image separate to the text; loading the paper back in to the printer in between.  The background paper is K&Co.  

I love this sentiment to describe "passing" by Bishop Brent.  I have put the last few lines on the inside of the card, together with a tiny picture of the boat and have included the full text below:

A ship sails

and I stand watching

till she fades on the horizon and

someone at my side says

“She is gone”.

Gone where?

Gone from my sight, that is all;

she is just as large as when I saw her.

The diminished size and

total loss of sight is in me,

not in her.

And just at the moment

when someone at my side says

“She is gone”…

there are others

who are watching her coming

and take up the glad shout

“There she comes”

… and that is dying.

Charisma Cardz has a challenge this week for "sympathy/sorry" and I thought this would be just right for it.

A veritable bouquet of Lili of the Valley

I have been making little posies of Lili of the Valley from pre-coloured images purchased at the NEC.  See my last three posts.  Having finished my last 5 cards, I now find myself with a veritable bouquet.

Lili of the Valley have a blog hop this week and an "Anything Goes" theme.   I have been promoting this pack of pre-coloured image for the last five days and I have been entering my previous cards in various challenges.  This most recent set is the one I am entering into the blog hop challenge.  I think it's my favourite of the images although I love all of them and I am very happy with all of my cards.

Because the LOTV pre-coloured images are printed on really good quality light card, it enabled me to colour a Copic halo around the little girl's candle flame and then I added some stickles to the flame itself.   This is mirrored in my die cut of the candle at the top of the page.  My Cricut was behaving itself when I cut these candles and although they are very small and rather fiddly, I was delighted with how they turned out.     
Smaller still are the holly leaves which are the result of some punchings taken from a Christmas corner punch and even smaller are the berries which, believe it or not, are the punchings from a little dotty border punch, glued on to the holly.  I took a picture of the candle with my little (pinky) finger nail in it to show just how small the berries are. They are about the size of a standard pin head.   Of course creating these toppers somewhat lengthened the time it took to make the cards but even so, I can't recommend these pre-coloured images highly enough.   Last year I made 25 Christmas cards in total and laboured over every last one of them.  This year I have already made 20 in just four days!

The backing papers are by DCWV.  I used the Swiss Dots cuttlebug embossing folder for the snow background.   My sentiment is Papermania I think and the candy is Craft Works.  A little extra Stickles on her coat fur and the ground beneath her feet complete the picture.
The DT over at Lili of the Valley have produced the most magnificent cards using a newly released stamp set and each DT member is giving away one of the new stamps in the hop.  There is a grand prize too of some new absolutely gorgeous sentiment stamps so do visit their blog.

A Spoon Full of Sugary Lili of the Valley; posy number 3

I love these Lili of the Valley pre-coloured images which come in squares.  They have a blog hop this week but I'm not entering these cards there, I have another set coming.    I cut this image as an oval with my nestie and backed them with some DCWV paper and some pearlescent card.  I added a cut-down Fiskars sentiment and three MS punched snowflakes - "snow/snowflakes" is the theme at this week's Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge.

I had soooo much trouble with my snowflakes.  I have several cuts in my Cricut cartridges but I just couldn't get a good one.  The paper was too thin (use a different one), the card stock was to thick (use a different one), I changed the blade and the mat, tried different cuts and nothing worked so then I opted to use an MS snowflake punch with acetate but I kept losing the punches on the carpet and I couldn't glitter them up and they were too thin and arrrrhhhhhhhh!

I got there in the end although my silver snowflake looks blue in these rather unsatisfactory photos.  I stickled the lilac snowflake and added some gems (from Quixotic Paperie) to all of the centres.  A ribbon and a handmade bow (using my Bow Easy - also from Elaine at Quixotic) and a bit of stickles on the furry bits of the image and voila - 5 more cards in the bag!

A One Stop second posy of Lili of the Valley

Hello peeps. I've made another little posy of Lili of the Valley cards using the gorgeous pre-coloured images I picked up at the NEC.  LOTV have an open theme and a blog hop this week with some fabulous prizes! 
This isn't the card I am entering into the LOTV challenge because I actually made 20 cards, 5 each of the 4 designs and so I have another set to enter at LOTV. I am, however, entering this into the One Stop Craft Challenge Blog who want to see "embossing" on our cards.  I used the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder at the top of my card.   A sizzix die architectural corner swirly thing is on the left and my sentiment is Stampin Up.  Some ribbon from stash and three little gems just finish it off.   Background paper is DCWV. 

I cut a nestie shape from the originally square pre-coloured image, coloured the star and added some Stickles.   They were such a joy to make. 

A posy of Lili of the Valley for Cardvaarks

The great thing about best friends is that they know what you need even when you yourself don't know it!   Best matey Julie drove me to the NEC on Friday.   I don't do fast roads and she is always so fabulous when it comes to getting me to craft fairs!   Just one of her many special gifts!  We met some fabulous blog buddies; all of whom are ubertalented and just plain lovely... Jacqui (she's the Cat's Whiskers!); Mina, Dena, Andie and Jane.   It was great to meet you, ladies!
Anyway, as I was saying, the great thing about best friends...   We were at the LOTV stand admiring Jacqui's colour work which is to die for when Julie pointed out that LOTV were selling some pre-coloured images and suggested we should get some.  I thought it would be cheating to use them but Julie pointed out that probably half the people we send cards to don't know that we coloured the images ourselves and although I continued to be reticent, she convinced me to buy them.    She clearly knew that I needed them even though I didn't know it myself and I have had such fun using them.  There are five each of four designs and they are absolutely adorable.   Here are my first five using one of the designs:

 I never start my Christmas cards early enough and having made five quite quickly I have definitely got the bug to make more.
I cropped the originally-square image with a nestie and used some new DCWV papers for the backing, some plain card for matting and a bit of spotty ribbon from stash.  I used my new Marianne Pontsettia die (also purchased at the NEC) although I had to use a separate punch for the flower centre because I can't get my paper out of the Marianne die's centre (any thoughts?).  A couple of tiny sentiments stamped and then punched with my tag punch and some Diamond Stickles on the little girls ruff and cuff and voila!

 I am entering my card into Caardvarks who want us to use "holiday dies" and Lili of the Valley of course - their theme is "one for the girls".  
The pictures were taken at dusk so I apologise for the quality!

Sweet Stampin with Anya, anyone?

We have this "sweet" photo inspiration this week at

Sweet Stampin

so I opted to use a sweet Anya image which also entitles me to enter the sketch challenge at Anyone for Anya.  I also tried to use the frosting colours of coral, turquoise, green, yellow and white, colouring my image with a Promarker/Copic combo.

Papers are by K&Co and my buttons are from stash.   I'm not sure of the origin of the "Happy Birthday" but the floral background to my sentiment are by Stampin Up.

Our sponsors for the month of November are Blackleaf Studios and we are additionally sponsored by Pollycraft this week so do join us for some Sweet Stampin fun!

Basic Grey

It's been a very long time since I entered a challenge at Basic Grey; too long!  They have such lovely papers - all of the ones I have used here are BG.  This week they had a fab sketch too which was just perfect for this birthday card using a divine little Stampin Bella image coloured in my usual Copic/Promarker combo with a bit of added Spica pen to provide sparkle to her dress.

Flowers are probably Prima although I can't be sure.  The "Friend to Friend" sentiment is Stampin Up and the other sentiments including the adorable little birthday tag in the flower came from a tiny set I purchased recently on my travels.