CCM #57 Heat Embossing

Over at Crafty Cardmakers our challenge to you this time is to use heat embossing on your creation. As our hostess Josephine described it ‘Any technique using heat embossing - stamping or ultra-thick embossing powder or something else I haven't thought of!

We have a fabulous prize on offer from The Stamp Man of some Starburst Stains Pots - Holiday Wreath  I am also extending the Design Team call for another fortnight as last time’s challenge was a little bit more specialised and I wanted to give everyone a chance to enter even if recycling had not been there ‘thing’ Please pop by the blog if you are interested, and, of course, to enter the challenge.

So onto my card. I printed out a couple of sheets from the Artylicious Seasons’ Greetings CD in two different sizes and on the smaller one I stamped the gorgeous Baroque Christmas Tree from IndigoBlu, and embossed it with white detail powder. I wonder if anyone makes a truly WHITE powder as this one, in my opinion is more cream than white, especially when compared to the white mat I have under the first layer of paper.

I added a few little presents diecuts that have been in my stash since Adam was a lad! Guilty as charged MeLud, I purchase stuff and hoard it! The oh so lush snowflakes are cut from glitter card with a Memory Box die. I am fast falling in love with these dies, and I bought mine from a seller on Ebay US so got an excellent deal on them.

I’m sitting here nursing a bad back, everyone say Ahhhhh!, which happened when I had to rescue my little Poppikins from a huge brute of a dog that was chasing her down across the park. My back just went pop. About ten minutes later I was chatting to an elderly lady, bemoaning my lot when the monster dog reappeared. She was like Supergran. She bent down and scooped Poppy into the safety of her arms and then starting yelling at Dogzilla and swatting at him ‘go away you brute, leave her alone’. Big up Supergran, thanks for rescuing us because at that stage there was NO WAY I could bend over to grab my dog.

Right back to the business at hand.

I am entering this into the following:-

4 Crafty Chicks - #65 Snowflakes

Addicted To Stamps - #18 Christmas Card

Cardmadfairy’s Digi Days - #22 Winter Wonderland

Charisma Cardz - #46 Snowflakes

Fashionable Stamping - #9 I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

Fun with Shapes and More – #97 Cold as Ice

Our Creative Corner – Oh Christmas Tree

Paper Sundaes - #97 Winter Wonderland

Scrapbook Sisters - #61 Christmas Time

Stampotique Designers Challenge - #43 Non Traditional Christmas

Stamptacular - #140 Anything Christmas

Lexi’s Creations #54 One For the Lads

This time on Lexi’s Creations we want to see your creations for the males in your life.

We are very lucky again this time to have two sponsors,
the wonderful Fairy Dust Crafts ....
Giving one lucky winner the choice of 5 digi images from her store.

Our other fabulous sponsor is designer Marina Neira owner of The Stamping Bazaar....

Giving one lucky winner the choice of one digi image.

We are holding a DT call on the blog so please drop by if you are interested in joining our team.

My card will be heading off to my great Nephew, so I hope he doesn’t think it’s too cute, lol. I have used Lexi’s own image called Sammie Snowman and coloured him with my promarkers. The paper is from K & Co and I used glamour dust for the snowman’s body and the snow beneath him and stickles for his hat trim and bobble as they are dimensional and a slightly different shade.

I am entering this into the following challenges:-

Crafty Catz - #110 Snowmen

Crazy4Challenges – #115 Some sort of snow

Fairytale Challenge Blog - #29 Christmas

Gingerloft – #30 Christmas and Winter

Here Come The Boys - #16 For the Man/Men in Your Life

Mark’s Finest Papers – #83 Make It Masculine

Pattie's Creations - #34 Christmas

Phindy’s Place – #83 A Sprinkling of Snow

Simply Create Too - #1 All About Christmas

The Poodles Parlour – Christmas

Dream Valley #21 Sparkle

Our challenge at Dream Valley is for you to sparkle! We have a prize on offer of a couple of stamps from Lili of the Valley.

For my card I started with a stamped image on acetate. So sorry no idea what the stamp is called as I unmounted it and forgot to label it! I glittered onto the wrong side of the acetate as this protects the final card from shedding glitter, which is one of my pet hates.

The card is a bracket edge and I ran it through my BS with a texture plate for the embossing. I did run a very pale lilac inkpad over the raised areas, but it’s not really showing up here. I also cut two Marianne shapes, one in glitter card and one in white and layered them onto the centre of the embossed card front with the glitter panel on top. I made a sentiment on my pc and added a couple of flourish die cuts to the back of it.

I am never sure which picture to blog, one looks too dark the other always looks too bright, wish I could get it somewhere in the middle, lol

For the inside, because of the cut away edge it was difficult to put an insert so I made a plate for the greeting to go on, to match one of the mats on the front of the card, and with the same font as the sentiment on the front.

I am entering this into the following challenges:-

Alphabet Challenge Blog – V for Very Vibrant

Crafty Purple Frog – For Someone Special

Fab’nFunky #100 Happy Birthday

More Than Favors Wacky Wednesday –  #60 Birthday

Papercraft Star - #72 Anything Goes

Papercrafting Journey – Anything Goes

Sweet Stampin’ Challenge – Punches & Dies

The Hybrid Chick Card Caravan Challenge - #7 Glitter

The Outlawz Twisted Thursday – Anything Goes

Totally Gorjuss - #108 Sparkle

Free Card Template - Santa's Sleigh

Get a free "Santa's Magical Sleigh" card making template from Card Carousel.
Just visit www.cardcarousel.co.uk/free/sleigh.html

Fantastic Blog Candy at The Craft Barn

The Craft Barn have the most amazing Blog Candy on offer! Who wouldn't want to win all the lush goodies in this photo

To be in with a chance of winning click here and follow the instructions.

ABC D is for Dazzle

At ABC today we want you to Dazzle us! We want to see lots of sparkly and blingy projects.

We are sponsored by Bugaboo Stamps and they have a fabulous prize of

My design incorporates a gorgeous Lili Of The Valley stamp called Fishing Buddies, which I coloured with promarkerts. And that has been stuck to a mat which I ran through the BS with a snow embossing folder.

I clean forgot to add some glitter to the actual image before I stuck it down inside the aperture I created using the MemoryBox Frostyville Border die – isn’t it just lush! The die that is. I trimmed out top and bottom of a six inch square of white glitter card and then just trimmed up the edges to form a snowy aperture. I should have started with a larger piece of card, but I was constrained by the internal opening of the BS, but if you have a Grand Calibur I would recommend starting with card 6.5 to 7” wide. I then stuck it over acetate and created a shake card with foam tape. The shaker is filled with Shaved Ice mica flakes. The little tree and purple snowflake are from my stash.

These dies are a bit fiddly to pull out as they are so thin that they don’t want to part company easily from the waste, but oh so worth the effort of a bit of poking with a pokey tool.

I’m entering this into the following challenges:-

Christmas Stampin’ All Year Long – Never Seen Ink

Crafty Hazlenut’s Christmas Challenge - #46 Whatever Lights Your Candle

Crimbo Crackers - #2 Make It Sparkle

Delightful Challenges - Snowflakes

Floweret Stamplar - #8 Christmas

Inky Impressions - #32 Glitter It Up

Mami Doodles - #37 Christmas

Samuel Taylors – Christmas

Sweet Stamps Challenge - #41 Non Traditional Christimas Colours

Wags N Whispers - #67 Christmas Themed

Whoopsi Daisy Challenge – The Colours of Winter

 

CCM #56 Recycle

Over at Crafty Cardmakers this week we want to see you use something recycled on your projects. That could, for example, be a pringles container you turn into a pen pot, the inside of a parcel tape roll to make a jewellery box. Alternatively just something on the project that is recycled, ie corrugated cardboard for background, bits of sweet box ribbon, shiny foil etc.

We are once again sponsored by with a £10 voucher for her online store, and as Joanna doesn’t charge postage in the UK that’s even better value for money.

I have gone slightly mental, or should that be metal, with mine. Firstly the image, the gorgeous new Friends Forever from Lili of The Valley,  was stamped onto the back of a box of cereal and coloured with cosmic shimmer micas mixed to a paint with water.

                                           

The borders, swirls and flower were all made from recycled coke cans. I should issue a word of warning here, be VERY careful when you are handling them as I ended up with a sliver of metal in my thumb which took ages to fish out.

After I had trimmed down the cans I added alcohol inks and left them to dry then I cut out two swirls with a Die-Namics die and two borders using an EK Success punch.

                               

The flower was a combo of S!r T!m of Hotlz' Tattered Florals Die and a small punch for the centre of the flower, plus a brad. It got a little messy on the edge of my image because I attempted to stick the flourishes down with glue gel, which didn't work. In the end I went for Stick and Stay, but I think that a better method might be to anchor the swirls with a flower or something to hide a glue dot.

 

With the borders, I cut them long enough to fold under the backing paper and then stuck the whole thing down onto the green card. The paper is from the new Basic Grey Picadilly pad.

The pic below shows just how shimmery the cosmic shimmer micas are. I angled it into the light as the other pics make the painting look a little flat.

I’m really annoyed at the gluey mess left on the side of the image, so if you want to incorporate metal into your design, I recommend some test gluing first so you don’t end up spoiling your design like I did.

 

 

I am entering this into the following:-

Blog-A-Doodle – Sparkle And Shine

Challenge Up Your Life - #56 Friendship – The stamp is called Friends Forever

Crimbo Crackers - #2 Make It Sparkle

Cuddly Buddly - #20 Two Little Characters

Divas By Design – #14 Use Metal

Flutterby Wednesday - #179 Friendship

If The Shoe Fits - #96 Try Something New (I have never used recycled aluminum before)

More Than Favours - #58 Buttons, Bling or Brads

My Partner In Crafting Crime - #35 Use A Freebie/Recycle – Apart from the paper and actual image, everything on my card is recycled

Party Time Tuesday #41 Bling It On

Ruby’s Rainbow - #16 Something With Wings

 

 

Lexi’s Creations #53 No Straight Edges

Today at Lexi’s Creations we would like to see your projects with NO straight edges.

We are sponsored by Letraset who have a five pack of promarkers up for grabs.

I made a card base by cutting out two Marianne decorative circles, the second one of which I folded in half and glued in place to form an upside down V so the card could stand. I have edged both it and the inner circle – also a Marianne die – with DI in Dried Marigold.

The image is Georgina Giraffe from Lexi at Fairy Dust Crafts, and I coloured her in with prismas and OMS. The flourishes are from Die Namics, my new favourite ones! The little charm I had in my stash. You can’t see too well here but I coloured the charm with a combination of orange and brown promarkers as it was too silver for the soft oranges of the card.

I’m entering this into the following challenges:-

Cardmad Fairy’s Digi Days - #21 Texture

Crafty Catz - #108 Use A Digital Image

Crafty Purple Frog - #28 Use Orange

Dutch Dare Challenge - #138 Punch Time

Forever Friends – November: Something Old, Something New (Old Marianne die for base card, new Marianne die for inner circle and Die-namics flourish die)

Little Claire - #15 Shaped Cards

Meljen’s Designs - #84 Orange

Paper Sundaes - #95 Digital Image

Dream Valley #20 Stitching

I know I shouldn’t complain about the unseasonal weather we are having, after all, who wants to pay the Electricity and Gas companies a fortune heating freezing cold houses, but it is having a strange affect on the wildlife. I was walking Poppy late last week and stood chatting on the park to a friend. When I got home I thought my legs felt itchy, and sure enough some nasty little nipping creature has snuck out of the grass and bitten me. One bite is now so bad I can’t actually walk without severe pain! I normally only have to avoid hanging around grass in the Summer! Anyhow enough of my moaning …..

Our challenge at Dream Valley this time is for you to incorporate stitching into your design. That can be faux or real, machine or hand and you can, of course, enter anything you like, not just a card, as long as it has stitching on it.

Our prize is a £10 voucher for 

The team have created some fabulous items so pop along to Dream Valley and check them out.

For my card I used a Joycraft stencil with you can both prick and emboss. You can just about see the embossing around the edges of the butterfly’s wonderful trail, or maybe he has a long fluttery tail – I’m not quite sure which it is. Anyhow I pricked it and then stitched it with a lovely variegated thread and used a couple of purple gems to make his body and head. It is matted onto some lush purple crinkly paper, and that in turn is matted onto some cardstock I have had for years. It’s a half fold card as you can see in the next picture, and on the bottom right hand side I added a gorgeous dufex decoupaged lady, with a feather to give some extra interest to her hat.

I haven’t gone in for lots of embellishments as I think the beautiful stitching and lovely decoupage make enough of a statement on their own.

I am entering this into the following:-

2 Sisters Challenge Blog - #65 Anything Goes

Anything Goes Challenge – #53 Stitches Real or Faux (mine are real)

Crafts and Me - #60 Birthdays

Creative Belli Blog - #130 Paper Piercing (obvioulsy I had to pierce the holes before I stitched them!)

Deep Ocean Challenge - #12 Vintage (my decoupaged image)

I Brake For Challenges - #13 White Out (the butterfly is stitched on mauve and green mottled cardstock and the background card is lilac)

Paper Crafting Journey - #23 Embossing

Ruby’s Rainbow - #16 Things With Wings

Stamp-N-Doodle – Time To Sparkle and Shine

The Hybrid Chick – Card Caravan #6 Birthdays