Crafty Cardmakers Challenge 36

Good Morning!!  We're having very special challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers for the next 4 weeks and its something a little bit different and a lot of fun!  We've also managed to persuade the sponsors or their representative to join in the fun :) We'd like to see your LATEST OR GREATEST creation so anything you like or a particular favourite AND here's the important bit, we'd also like to see your FIRST or the OLDEST one you have a photo of!  I can see you cringing and thinking oooooh nooooo mine's really baaaad!  Don't worry, we ALL started somewhere and I hope you can see from the samples that everybody was new once and with a bit of practice you can get better and you'll also see how much you've already got better by digging out your first efforts! The Rules: You can enter up to 3 times but each must contain a picture of one of your first designs and must be different techniques or items e.g. first card, first stamped card, first scrapbook page, first tag etc.  They must also be separate posts. You can enter your latest creations or your favourites previously published alongside your old design.  You can enter in as many other challenges as you wish but many challenges do not accept older creations so just be mindful of that. Please link back to Crafty Cardmakers  and mention them in your post. The challenge runs for 4 weeks from 13th Dec and closes at 9am GMT on Monday 10th January We are very proud to be sponsored by a number of very kind stores for this challenge with lots of winners for this one and the prizes on offer are...

£10 voucher from Joanna Sheen

£10 voucher from The Stampman

$10 voucher for Stitchy Bear Stamps

Pack of 5 promarkers from Letraset

£10 voucher for Crafts & Me

£10 worth of stamps of your choice from Stamping all day

So here are my embarassing efforts!

I thought I would take this challenge back to the FIRST card I made. At least the first one my lovely Mum decided was worthy of saving! Awwww I bet we have all done that I know I have some cringeworthy efforts stored away from my own Daughter. Anyhow this one I believe I was around 5! Good writing for a 5 year old, but I had started school at 4 and a half. Perhaps I was a child genius, lol, who knows. If you are still awake and want to see more of my early efforts scroll to the bottom of the post!

Now my first ‘official’ first card, or at least one of the first I made. This one was made in December 2005, and is basically a shaped card with shaped peel offs stuck on and a santa image with a small sentiment. I cannot believe I sent that to someone, lol

And my most recent card, which I would also like to enter into a few challenges. Apologies to any DT members who might have had to read this far to see how my card meets their criteria, but hey, it’s Christmas!

I have taken a digi image called Birthday Boy from Stitchy Bear Stamps (scroll up for details as they are one of our sponsors for this challenge), and coloured it with prisma pencils, with just a little promarkering for his skin.  I dusted stormy sky DI around the edge of the image. The papers are all Basic Grey from their Blush pad and the sentiment I made myself on the pc. I was gonna make it a christmas themed card with a ‘who gave Grandpa sprouts!!!’ sentiment, or ‘a Grandad is for life, not just for Christmas’ but I didn’t know if everyone would get the joke, so made a birthday card instead.  Buttons from my stash.

I am entering this into the following challenges

Order of the Opus Gluei – Anything Goes

Creative Card Crew – Anything Goes

Stamp Something – December Digi Day

Now for any of you who are still with me, the rest of my early masterpieces. You can just tell what a talented person I was going to turn out, can’t you (NOT!) I was 7 when I made this.

 

I believe I based my exceptionally witty prose on something that might have been in a card sent to me! Cos my Mum actually shrunk as she got older, lol

The next one is a birthday card made when I was 9, oh dear the excuse of age is rapidly disappearing – in fact, don’t know about you, but I actually thing the one I did when I was 7 was better, lol

and inside

Two Mother’s Day cards, showing exceptional flair, LMAO clearly in the first one I invented the cut away card as you can see the inside on the outside!

 

IN this final effort I was just again mistress of the prose as the inside reads

Dear Mother whom I dearly love

I wish I were a little dove

A sitting on your window sill

where all is still

My dearest fairest one of whom

I deeply love moon after moon

 

Oh dear, I have to confess that when I found these it made me cry, and not cos they are so awful but because my lovely Mum obviously treasured them as she kept them for the best part of 45 years!

And this last one is just because……..

I am not sure how old I was here but my Sister and I left this out for ‘Santa’ one year

and our Dad replied

You can see where I get my artistic talent, and particularly my witty rhymes from now can’t you!!! ………………. LOL, LOL *voice dripping with sarcasm here*

So if I haven’t bored you all rigid by now, PLEASE pop on over and enter our huge Christmas/New Year Challenge at Crafty Cardmakers (rules above), and show us your first efforts. Heaps of prizes on offer ladies, so don’t be shy. I am going to enjoy visiting your blogs and seeing your amazing creations; and Crafty Cardmakers will be back in the New Year!

Happy Christmas everyone, and best wishes for 2011.

CCM Spotlight on Tags

This fortnight on Crafty Cardmakers we are spotlighting Tags. I actually intended to do the whole luggage tag thing, but after I had printed and coloured my image I realised it was the wrong direction to fit on a tag. I needed something tall and slim, not short and wide! Duh!!! I turned it into a gift tag instead.

Anyhow the image is from Prairie Fairy and is called Tryouts. Prairie Fairy are sponsoring us this week and are offering 5 of their gorgeous images to the winner. I am sure you will find something there you like. I know I did.

I love the fact there is a lion there. I’m guessing he is trying out for the part of Rudolph in the Christmas play as he has some faux antlers on his head! I didn’t know there were lions at the North Pole. However, I was amazed when my Sister came home with video footage of penguins in a colony on a beach in South Africa! So if Penguins can live in South Africa, why can’t lions live at the Pole?

I coloured them in with promarkers and then dusted some Stormy Sky and Broken Glass Distress Inks around the top of the image. The bottom I used snowtex and dusted over that with glamour dust, which gives the most gorgeous sparkle (sadly not showing up here, this winter light has a lot to answer for with photography) but without looking like glitter. I did also put some hills in but they have gotten lost in the photo somehow. I also put some snowtex on their heads so they look as if they have been in a snowball fight.

I matted the whole thing onto glitter card and then added an eyelet and some ribbons for the tag tie.

Why don’t you join in the fun. You can make any size or shape you like, attached to a card or separate, gift tags, tag books etc.

Woohooo I won!

I am such an idiot, I completely forgot to blog this. Chance to brag and it goes right out of my head!

Remember my jewellery I made with shrink plastic back in October? Well I entered it for the Crafty Computer Paper competition in the paper crafts section and I only went and won first prize! £100 to spend in their store.

Here is a link to the email with the other competition winners in it and a little reminder of what I did below.

This is a pic of me with the lovely bottle of champagne they sent me and a large Winner’s Voucher!

 

Gotcha! I’m way too shy to show myself!!!  …………………………………………………………………….    Okay, I admit it, I hate having photos taken of me so this is the best you will get!

But you can have this one of my Daughter instead. She will kill me for showing her in her baggy, but oh so warm, winter wooly ………

I spent most of yesterday going through their site choosing what I wanted to spend my prize on.

I have been feeling a bit under the weather for the last week or so which is why there is nothing new on here, but hopefully I should be back soon.

Sheena – Final Samples

Boy have I had a day of it! I woke up at 7 and popped in to check my email and my pc was dead. Dead as a DoDo! Gone, deceased, kicked the bucket, finito!

I first thought it had suffered a BSOD during the night and a quick flick on the reset button and it would fire back up, but it was history.

Arggghhhh all my pics were on it. I needed to access them for the final Sheena shots and also for my Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight tomorrow.

I disconnected it and dragged it out to the landing and using a new power cable plugged it in and fired it up and BANG! the fan fired and backfired in a milisecond and died.

Luckily I am a terrible hoarder and I had last year’s model still in a box in the cupboard so I dragged it out and disconnected the PSU and took it across to the now dead pc and plugged it into the Mobo and fired it up and bingo, the fan whirred into life. So praying that it was just the original PSU I swapped them over.

BINGO – a working PC!

However, I remembered now why the old one died. I think the PSU on that one was flakey and kept dropping power so often that eventually it fried the Mobo, so I can’t risk running it for too long without getting a new one. All I need just before the Christmas season having to shell out on PC parts.

Anyhow, whinge over. The last of my samples for Sheena.

BTW I realise that the card I posted on Friday actually crossed over the two stamp sets that Sheena had on C&C this morning! The bird was from one set and the sentiment from the other set of three. Oooops! Just goes to show though that what Sheena said was right, they can be mixed and matched and interchanged and still look good.

This is my second church card. I stamped this with Big N Juicy and then embossed it with the Wow holo sparkle embossing powder. The paper was a sheet of sort of skin tone pink that has been in my stash for years. It’s heavily embossed, but I didn’t like the colour so I just inked it over with the Big N Juicy pad to match the image.

The next one is the pub stamp again, but this time with the other sentiment, which was embossed again with the Wow powders, this time the clear fine. These sentiments are a beautiful delicate font and look really nice especially when they are embossed. Coloured with promarkers and matted onto craft and green cards.

The next one is the stream stamp. I love that you can just stamp these lovely large stamps and you can still see all the detail whether you colour them in or not. I stamped this one with Brilliance Galaxy Gold and embossed it with the gold powder. After I added some DI in shabby shutters (I think, lol) I roughed up the edge a bit and went around it with gold sparkle embossing power.

It’s not showing terribly well in the picture but the background has the ferns stamped in a range of different greens and with versamark to give that watermark look. I had previously stamped the ferns and embossed them with gold but was not happy with the way I had done it so rather than wasting it I used that to cut the scrolls out of which is why they have a gold embossed pattern on them. I made the flower myself using the spritz and scrunch method. This was from the same pearlised card as I used for the main card base. Have to say, if you want to do the spritz and scrunch method pick a card that is not coated like this because it was a difficult thing to scrunch and dried VERY stiff. Next time I shall use something a bit more malleable.

My final card is a second one of the bird. I have to say this was my favourite. I just love the bird and feel that you can make a quite large card with it, or like I have done here, a smaller square one. I stamped it out and coloured with promarkers and then trimmed it up with a nestie circle, and is has been overlaid onto a marianne doily mat.

I stamped the pine branch over and over in the corner of some prima card to make a background for my lovely gardenia flower, and a sentiment in the opposite one. The lace is from my stash.

I shall be back tomorrow with my other DT work with something for Crafty Cardmakers, so please check back then if you can.

Sneeky Peak Day 4

Just finished watching the X-Factor, and it’s way past time Wagner left!

Anyhow, here is my fourth peak at Sheena’s latest stamp sets.

This one is the church. I love that this stamp can be so versatile. Obviously when showcasing Sheena’s stamps we want to use as many of her own stamps as possible, but the uses for this stamp are endless. I can see it as a condolence card, a wedding card, an anniversary card, something for a child’s confirmation, christmas card, etc. etc. I’m sure you can come up with lots of ideas of your own.

I stamped this with versamark dazzle and then went over it with Pearl-ex mica powders to reveal the image. The mat was made with an MS punch and further matted onto a pretty mat I bought in a kit.

I love the sentiment here.  As some of you know I am a pagan so I don’t go to church in the traditional sense. That is not to say I do not have beliefs though and I actually find this sentiment to be a beautiful one.

This church looks a lot like the one where my Great Gran is buried, but then I believe that it’s a norman one and they are prevalent in England, so I guess that’s why.

This second picture shows how different the image looks when the light source is adjusted slightly as the green tones in the mica powder have come to the fore here.

Don’t forget to tune into Create and Craft tomorrow at 9am and 12 noon to catch Sheena herself and some fantastic demos with these lovely new stamps. As usual you can see another sample on Gill’s Blog, Vicky’s Blog and Sheena herself’s blog.

Till tomorrow folks

Sheena – Sneaky post three

Here we are already at day three of the sneaky peeks, and these have probably not even reached  Sheena’s Château yet…… all hail the internet.

I just love the birdie and couldn’t resist posting one of him finally.

Blue tits are one of the few british birds that don’t migrate for the Winter. I believe a few do, but most stay behind. People always think of the robin in winter with his lovely flashing red breast but the tit is such a delicate little birdie. He would make a great christmas card too I think.

Stamped and embossed with Sheena wow clear powder and coloured with promarkers. The ferns are stamped with Cottage Ivy Memento ink, as is the sentiment. I pounced around the edge of this one too. Am liking this pouncing as it gives a much softer look than using cutNdry foam with the inks.

I wanted to put a pine cone on here like Sheena did on one of her recent shows on Create and Craft, but wouldn’t you know, none around where I live at all!

When my Daughter was born and to the age of 5 we lived next to a little winding footpath which had pine trees either side of it. The smell was amazing as you walked through it. Anyhow one day she tells her Daddy she wants a pine cone, not just any old one, but ‘that one up there Daddy, the one on the end’ as she points a good 25 foot into the air. To my sheer terror he climbed the three and then crawled along the branch and then shook like mad to dislodge this pine cone…..  I couldn’t watch as I was convinced he would land dead at my feet long before the cone, but PLOP it dropped at our feet and my little girl squealed with delight. The sad thing is she probably threw it away a week or so later KIDS!

Oh dear I am rambling again. Can you tell I don’t get out much?

Pop along to Sheena, Vick and Gill’s blogs to see their offerings for today, and don’t forget to check back tomorrow.

Sneaky peeky Number 2 a la Sheena

Here is my second post for the stamps to be aired on Sunday 22nd at 9am and 12am.

I notice no one has yet posted any flower cards so I thought I would get in first with this one.

I made an easel with the Marianne die and the Crafters Companion snow white Centura pearl card. I also have some matching paper, which I stamped the image onto and coloured in with promarkers. I love snowdrops, they give a hint of warm days to come and cheer up even the most miserable winter day. The sentiment comes from the same stamp sheet and is so appropriate for these flowers. The butterflies are resin ones I have had in my stash since Adam was a lad.  The little flower was a charm and boy was it hard work snapping the bail off of it!

I am entering this into a few challenges.

Creative Inspirations Challenge Blog – Anything Christmassy/Winter

The Shabby Tea Room – What are you thankful for – I am thankful that the winter does not last forever as I hate the cold and the dark nights depress me, snowdrops epitomise this beautifully for me.

Creative Card Crew – Let’s give Thanks – For the same reason as above

Delightful Challenges – Baby It’s Cold Outside

By the way, here are a series of ‘tidy shots’ cos I just couldn’t go to bed last night leaving my craft room looking so awful, and I have in the past accidentally thrown something away because the mess pile became so large that something useful got gathered up with the rubbish and dumped. Indeed last night I spent a jolly hour playing ‘hunt the Big Shot textures embossing mat’, which had snuck itself under a set of drawers….. hmmm I think that the invible (her way of saying it, not a typo) man of my Daughter’s youth could be back.

She always said it was the Invible Man, and I used to quote this poem to her

When I was walking down the stair

I saw a man who wasn’t there,

He wasn’t there again today,

Oh how I wish he’d go away!

Grrr can anyone tell me how to make Windows Live Writer NOT put line breaks between carriage returns!

Right I am off to play sort the hotfix gems. I must be mad 3 x 1440 to be sorted into separate colours ……. wish me luck!

Sheena Sneaky Peek Number 1

So here I am a day and a dollar late as usual.

Following up from last week. Ems is covered in bruises poor love, but is back at work. The Police never got back to her so we are both thinking that these so and sos are likely to be getting away with it! Beggers belief, but there you go.

To the business in hand ….

Sneaky peek number 1.

This is a pub! No never!!!! Well I might have made such a bad job of it, you would be thinking it was the Co-op! I thought this was so ironic bearing in mind recent events. However, I love this stamp and it will certainly be suitable for all sorts of things but especially for the men in our lives.

I stamped this onto watercolour card with black soot DI and dragged some of the ink out to colour it.

I pounced (gotta love that term) around the outside with pumice stone DI, using a shaving brush, errrr I mean an ink duster! Seriously folks, a shaving brush works just as well and the pound shop is the place to be looking for them. I also pounced the background paper because the pattern was too white, so I pumice stoned that as well to tone in with the image.

The image is mounted onto lush glitter card and a the whole thing was layered onto black card. I added a few gardenias, which I also pounced and a sentiment…….. I just love the sentiment!

I have to apologise for the picture here, but these Winter nights come around so quickly I ran out of light for photographing my samples and even though I have an excellent daylight lamp it still is never as good as natural light and produces a bit of glare. I had the devil’s own job getting this one to not be blurred.

So don’t forget (although I am sure you have already been there) to check out Sheena’s blog,  Vicky’s blog and our brand new teamie Gill’s blog. We should all be showing a card a day until Sunday when we will get the pleasure of seeing the lovely Sheena on Create and Craft TV. I do hope she remembers to take her hat!!!!!

I have a fasting blood test in the morning and I am already starving. ‘Tis psychological, tell someone that they are not allowed to eat after 8pm and all of a sudden that’s all they can think about. After I get back I shall be posting another pic and sharing some news which I have been keeping to myself for a week now. Mostly cos I haven’t had the time to do a post on it, lol.

Just before I go, here is what my craft room looked like half way through this afternoon, so you can guess what my first task will be tomorrow can’t you! Yep, putting my feet up with a cuppa and a bickie, oh dear food again.