Woo Hoo an award

Not that I deserve it because I keep woefully neglecting my blog but I have received this lovely award from Ali over at Crafty Dragons. As a thank you for receiving this award I have to


1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name seven things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate seven Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
7. Leave comments on all seven blogs letting them know you nominated them.

Then I have to provide you with seven interesting facts about myself, never have I thought myself so boring when I was trying to come up with this, but here goes:

1. I have had TWO complete blood exchange transfusions, the second lot my Father reckoned was elephants' blood.

2. I had cocktails with Elvis Presley's secretary and one of his cousins and several of his entourage and discovered that my favourite ever Elvis song was also one of his favourites from his film years, or so his Secretary told me, (You're so Square) Baby I Don't Care from the movie Jailhouse Rock..... sigh! I also met one of his RCA record producers Joan Deary.

3. I may be tone deaf now, but in my youth I used to sing the highest notes solo in the choir.

4. My favourite colour is purple and my favourite film and book is The Colour Purple, the book of which is the only book to ever make me cry with it's powerful emotions

5. Having got fed up with never having a decent pc and not being able to afford repairs I taught myself to build my own and have made several since, including for friends. I also made the cupboard the pc sat on!

6. I had my head sawn off by a clown when I was 6 and have been terrified of them ever since.

7. I love colouring things and I am so glad I discovered card making because now I don't have to hijack little children's colouring books and glower at them if they go over the lines and make a mess.

and finally my seven awards go to:-

My first is Phree from Inkstain Survivor, what this lady does not know about inkpads is not worth knowing

My next is Fab from Craftingmad (paper crafting from a male point of view) who has made me look at meerkats in a whole new way

Third is Nikki from Bunny-Zoe's who took time out of her busy schedule to help me with an issue on the best paper/card to use OMS with. Thanks to her I am colouring away like a demon instead of giving up; not to mention that her blog is just amazing.

Fourth is Sandra of Sandra Dry Designs whose colouring just blows me away.

Fifth is Gill of Satincollies Card Adventures a fellow dog lover and Craft Telly poster

Sixth is Luvtocraft from CardKrafting4Fun who for some strange reason thinks she can't colour. Go check her out and judge for yourselves!

and Seventh but by no means last is Kate from Cato's Crafty Corner another gorgeous blog full of inspiration.

Please go check out their blogs and be as inspired as I am.

Lin

Purple is my passion

Thanks to the lovely Dragonlady I was directed to Our Creative Corner and their latest challenge, which was to use shades of purple. She was right, that theme is right up my alley and gave me an excuse to make yet another purple card, not that I needed one.

I have some lovely fantasy stamps that I have had for ages and not really used and the wizard just looked nice and regal to me and regal makes me think of purple.

I stamped him out and coloured him in with prismas and OMS. All different shades of purple, even his hair had blackcurrant in it......... after all the challenge was inspired by the poem which I grow old I shall wear purple, and he certainly looks old to me.

I had this funky hand paper, not sure from where, and it looked sort of mystical to go with the wizard and it was the perfect colours. I embroidered a nice swirly pattern to one side in some gorgeous purple sparkly thread, but sadly it was not standing out from the purple background enough for my liking so I carefully outlined the stitching with a Sakura micro pen. Wouldn't you know it, I only have one and its............ purple!!!!

I didn't have any purple buttons.. Why not? No idea, so I coloured three in with peel off pens and stitched them at the top of the swirl.

Matted and layered Mr. Wizard up with some nesties (what did we do before nesties) and popped him on. I didn't want to put too much on as I didn't want to obscure the background print of the hands.

TW

Safari sogood!

This is my card for the Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge 62. They had a sketch to follow and the first of the DT's cards set me thinking about animals. I didn't have any whimsical animals, but I remembered that a little while back I had filed away some paper and thought at the time it would be perfect for a jungle card. (Yes I am that organised, I file things in alphabetical order, or in the case of craft the paper is in colours, then patterns, etc. etc. In fact I spend hours organising and less time crafting, or so my DD jokes with me).

I also had a nice set of jungle animals and plumped for the elephant for the centrepiece as he looked the best one to fit in a circle, apart from the Zebra, and there isn't any colouring in a zebra.

Obviously a bunch of flowers would have looked silly alongside the elephant so I plumped for more jungle animals made with shrink plastic.

A little while back I was going to get rid of these stamps, but I can see a future for them. They should make nice cards for men, instead of the usual beer, scantily clad ladies and motorbikes.

The elephants were coloured in with Derwent pastel chalk pencils, and the same for the shrink plastic animals. Certainly makes a change from my colour of choice, purple. After all whoever saw an elephant with a purple hairdo. In fact are there any animals that are naturally purple in colour?

TW

Friday Sketchers Challenge

This is my entry for the Friday Sketchers' Challenge no 62. They have great sketches every week to inspire you. The colours are a bit clashy on this card, but somehow it appeals to me. Modest I know, lol !

Most of the cardstock comes from K&Co's Urban Rhapsody, except the largest of the label mats which is something from my stash I inked to match. In fact I inked quite a bit around the edges, including the flowers, to get the colour I was after.

The two lovely ladies are a Wild Rose stamp, and the flowers are from my stash, as is the smidge of ribbon.

I coloured the girls in with lyra aquacolours. I had to cut them out as I had an accident around the inside of their necks which I just couldn't correct. I still have not found an ideal card for stamping and painting with watercolours, and occasionally I get a sort of pilling on the card, which is what happened around the inside of their necks here. I was furious because I had mostly finished at that point, so I thought what the heck, use it anyway. I think they look better with the contrast colour showing behind and between them anyway. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I find hair difficult to do at the best of times but with watercolours it seems so much more difficult.

TW

Hellooooooo is there anybody there?

I know I didn't post for a while as the ME had gotten on top of me again, but I seem to be posting to a black hole right now. If you are reading this, please leave me a comment so I know I am not alone.

Here is my entry for the Colour Create Challenge 23. The theme is blue and white with an optional extra of vintage. Vintage didn't speak to me so I just went for the colours.

This is the other Hope and Grace stamp, from The Greeting Farm. These are little cuties. My Daughter came past whilst I was colouring and said 'you love those big heads don't you Mum!'. She is coloured with prismas and sansodor, the stamp that is, not my Daughter, she is just coloured with love.

The papers are from my stash, not sure whose they are as they were just loose sheets. The flower was a combination of chipboard coloured with glimmer mists, a K&Co paper flower and a paper rose in the middle. The butterfly is a stitching peel off on some tiny print paper. The girl is matted onto two blossom mats, and there are two different ribbons/fibres from my stash.

I found this quite difficult keeping to just the two colours, kept wanting to add some more colour in, and also matching it all was more of a challenge with just two colours as well.

TW

Hope and Grace

I made this card for the Mojo Monday Challenge #96.

The papers are Basic Grey Wisteria. Just love those colours. It's that purple thing again. The stamp is from The Greeting Farm Hope and Grace. Not sure if she is Hope or Grace.




I coloured her in with prismas and OMS and matted her onto core'dinations cardstock cut using my nesties scalloped and inverted circles. I wish they would make them a bit larger. They never seem to be quite big enough to get a decent sized mat behind the image! The ribbon is some strange yarn I bought a while back....... I'm guessing it was the colours that attracted me.


TW

Same day ........ another card

Thought I would share a card I made for a forum member over at Craft Telly which hopefully meets the challenge at Charmed Cards Blog. There is some delicious candy on offer of copic markers and what girl could resist trying to win some of those.

So here she is, a gorgeous stylish lady coloured in with prismas and OMS, from the 'Girls About Town' range of digital stamps. The fact that she is coloured in similar colours to the original artwork is purely coincidence, as any shade of purple is my favourite colour. In fact I have to pull myself away from all the lovely lilacs and mauves or they would be on every image I colour in. The patterned paper is DCWV perfect posies, the lilac mat is core'dinations embossed with the bug and the handbag charm was from my stash.






This is the first ever digital image that I used and apart from the obvious, such as unable to emboss, it gave me just as good a result as traditional stamp and ink and I enjoyed using it.


TW