Hobbycutz #40 Girly, but no Pink

I was thrilled to find out a month or so back that I had been accepted onto the Hobbycutz Design Team! My first creation for them is Girly, but no Pink! Well mine definitely doesn’t have any pink.

We are sponsored by Whimsy Stamps.

I created my tag for a friend who is having a really hard time at the moment, and I hoped the bright colours would bring some sunshine into her life.

I stamped a prima doll stamp onto one of the Prima Tag pad tags, and coloured her flesh and hair with copics. Then I stamped her again onto paper and made a mask. Have to say that a paper mask isn’t much use when you are spraying inks so I have got myself some masking film for next time.

I masked her off and sprayed dylusions randomly around her. The splodges are my attempt at sponging some silk paints through various stencils, but I was a little heavy handed.  There is also a pic below showing those stencilled bits up a bit better because the light has caught the mica in the silks a bit better in that photo, and you can actually see some definite shape to them in real life!

I paper pieced her clothes with Bo Bunny papers, and the ribbon on her dress and her hair band are real ribbon. I also stitched some tiny blue beads onto her headband and waistband. I outlined her with white pigment ink and added some metal flowers and brads, and some ribbon for the top of the tag to finish things off. Finally I used a rub on for the sentiment, and edged that with a fine black micro pen as it was a little lost on the bright background.

I love these prima dolls, and I think they could easily become an obsession. Perhaps people wouldn’t mind getting doll tags instead of birthday cards!

I am entering her into the following:-

Altered Eclectics – Mar: Anything Goes
Amusing Challenge – Sponging
Anything but a Card – Mini Challenge Use Two or More Stencils
Brown Sugar – #86 Anything Goes
CMC Copic Challenge – #89 Show some Skin
Crafts Galore Encore – Mar: Use A Stamp or Digi Anywhere on your project
Desert Island Crafters – #73 I used 2,3, and 4
Quick Quotes – #37 Tag You’re It
Robyn’s Fetish – #204 Anything But a Card
That’s Crafty Challenges – #2 Inky Antics (dylusions)

Dream Valley #78 Mothering Sunday

It’s Mother’s Day next Sunday in the UK and to celebrate we would like to see your Mother’s Day cards over at Dream Valley for the next two weeks.

We are sponsored by Kenny K with three fabulous digis as the prize.

I had this gorgeous image from Paper Shelter and as soon as I saw it I was thinking about awards and when this Mother’s Day challenge came up I thought it was perfect. My papers are from Bo Bunny and the corner is a Cheery Lynn die, the mat a Spellbinders one. I cut them from white card and coloured them to match her dress. Sentiment was created on my pc, and the flowers are from my stash. She has been coloured with copics.

I am entering her into the following:-

A Gem of a Challenge – #115 Mother’s Day
Daring Cardmakers – Do Die-licious Use Dies
Emerald Fairies – #53 Girly ‘Pretty in Pink’
Hiding In My Craft Room – #142 Let’s Get Digital
My Time to Craft – #240 Mother’s Day
Natalie and Amy – #18 Flowers
OSAAT – #205 For a Woman in Your Life
That Craft Place – Flowers and/or Mother’s Day
The Cupboard Trilogy – #20 Mothers
The Paper Shelter – More than 5 Flowers

CCM 112 Paper Pricking/Piercing

Over at Crafty Cardmakers we have a new challenge today, Paper Pricking or Piercing. You can prick/pierce and leave it as just a pricked pattern, or stitch it. We would prefer NOT to see machine stitched creations as these are not really what we are after.

I have used a Mix N Match stencil to prick around my image from our Sponsor, Crafty Sentiments Designs, it is called Little Friends. I then stitched it with some variegated metallic thread. I have coloured it with copics, and am not overly happy with the hair, but as I had stitched all those stitches I was disinclined to fiddle with it too much in case I completely ruined it!

The mats are two different sparkly type papers from my stash. A nice flat card that will go easily, and cheaply in the mail! The butterflys are cut from shimmer papers with Magnolia Doohickey dies.

I am entering this into the following:-

CMD Challenge – #7 Spring
Fun with Shapes – #156 Spring
Great Impressions – Mar: Spring Celebrations
Ladybug Crafts – Mar: Spring Is Here
My Sheri Crafts – #129 Celebrate Spring
Oddball Art Stamps – #1 Use a Digi
OSAAT – #204 Use a Digi
Paper Creator Crafts – #21 Spring is in The Air
Stamplorations – Mar: Stamps and Spring
The East Wind – #3 Spring

Lexi’s Creations #112 Punches and Dies

Our challenge at Lexi’s Creations today is Punches and Dies. So we want to see your projects using these items. I went a bit to town on mine, and used both punches and dies.

We are sponsored by

I diecut the filigree pattern out of a sheet of Bo Bunny paper with a Tonic verso die. This has been matted onto a sheet of card which I used a MS PATP punch set on. The butterflies are Tonic layered butterflies.

My image is from D’arcy’s Diaries, Sisters, and was coloured with copics.

I am entering this into the following:-

Corrosive Challenges – #195 Go Green
Crafty Sentiments Challenge – Lots of Green
Cut It Up – #40 Green for St. Patrick’s Day or Spring + diecut
Cute Card Thursday – #312 Girls, Girls, Girls
Digi Haven – 3 Different Shades of Green
Hobby Book Designer – #1 Make it Girly
Inky Impressions – #150 Go Green
Oddball Art Stamps – #1 Use a Digi
One Sweet Challenge – Mar: Scream for Green
OSAAT – #204 Use a Digi

ABC H Hair

Our challenge at ABC is H for Hair. We are sponsored by Tilda’s Town with a voucher for their store. They ship worldwide with no shipping charges anywhere!!!

Anyhow I have used one of the Magnolias called Tilda Catching Stars from the Prince and Princesses collection.

As this challenge is all about Hair, I thought I would make her hair stand out, but I might have gone a little too bright with it! She sticks out like a sore thumb now. I did edge all my distressed papers, and all the flowers with Rusty Hinge DI, which was a very similar shade to her hair, but her hair still seems to be the dominant colour on the card, lol

The star wand, crown and stars are all coloured with a gold pigment inkpen. Sadly I smudged it on the original so I had to cut her out and as the stars were too small to cut out I just drew some new ones behind her on the paper. As you can see, I can’t even draw a small star accurately!

The papers and flowers are all from the Craftwork Cards Paper Floristry collection, the flowers are from the collection’s diecut pad, and the papers and leaves are from the papers in that collection. I used Sue Wilson’s faux quilled flower leaves die for the leaves. The sentiment is from the Craftwork Cards Correspondence diecut embellishments.

I am entering this into the following:-

Bearly Mine Challenges – Mar: One for the Girls
Crafts Galore Encore – Use a Stamp or Digi anywhere on your project
Challenges and Candies – #29 Flowers
Charisma Cardz – #6 Birthday Girls
Designs By Lisa Somerville Bloggers Challenge – Happy Birthday
Emergency Crafters – Mar: Flowers
Fussy and Fancy – #109 Happy Birthday
Natalie and Amy’s Challenge – #18 Flowers
Scrapping4Fun – #12 Flowers
Sunflowerfield Designs – Mar: Birthdays or Flowers
Tilda’s Town – #96 Spring Is In the Air

Dream Valley 77 Big Birthdays

We want to see your Big Birthdays celebrated in your projects this time around. So that’s the important milestones in our lives, 18, 21, 50 etc. We are sponsored by Robyn’s Fetish Digital Stamps and More with a choice of three of their lovely digital stamps.

My big birthday is for my BIL who will be 75 later this year. At first I was going to do down the route of somehow depicting the year of his birth on the card, but when I worked out that was the year the second world war started I didn’t think it would make a good design! Instead I have gone for one of my favourite old codgers, Gus.

I coloured him with my copics to match the Basic Grey Curio papers I used for the background, which I distressed a little and also added faux stitching to. The buttons and numbers are from my stash.

I also altered Gus’s Jumper from G to J so it has my BIL’s initial on it.

I glazed his glasses. Oddly he does look a little like my BIL, but if you had to live with my Sister you would look glum too! Only joking…….. love her really.

I am entering Gus into the following:-

Anyone for Anya – Masculine or Grungy (mine is a little of both)
Craft for the Craic – Mar: Something Green
Craftitude – #60 Add a Little Green
Crafts Galore Encore – Use a Stamp or Digi anywhere on your project
Flat Friends Challenge – #18 Cards for Men
Fussy and Fancy – #109 Birthdays
Open Minded Crafting – #5 Use Something Green
Opus Gluei – #178 A is for Aphrodite (or apple, or arachnid or ANCIENT!!)
Scrap It Girl Challenge – Mar: Birthdays
Sentimental Sundays – #197 Cards for a Boy/Man

CCM 111 Anything But a Card Winter and/or Slap It On

We have a brand new type of challenge for you at Crafty Cardmakers this time around and it will run for a whole month. We are delving into the world of Mixed Media! We would like to see your NON card creations along a Winter theme, or if you don’t want to do Winter as we realise it’s a little late in the year, in the UK anyhow, you could go for the alternative which we are calling Slap it On, but basically that’s an anything goes type of challenge.

I went with Winter, and kind of wished I hadn’t when I realised how limited with colour I was for my chosen design. I mean who has green snowflakes! This is what I ended up with

and this is how it started

So I began with this old photo frame which I purchased from my local refuse recycling centre, which luck would have it, is within walking distance of my home, or the Tip to you! I think I paid 50p for this and another almost identical picture.

I thought they were both wooden frames, but after pulling this one apart and getting down to the basics it appears that they were very cleverly moulded plastic to look like wood!

Having gessoed the gold finish I then set about applying diecuts to the frame. I didn’t have any chipboard snowflakes or indeed anything suitable for Winter, so I set about making my own. I die cut each of the white things you can see four times for each one, and then glued them on top of each other to make a very thick diecut. I wanted the finished product to have real dimension because I was going to paint over it.

Next I applied some texture paste with a spatula to give the effect of snow. I also took the opportunity to fill the gap with a few brass charms.

I forgot to photograph the next stage, but I painted it all with a very pale blue acrylic paint, which I had mixed with Titanium White to be even paler, but unfortunately it was still too blue, so I let that dry and went over with another layer of plain white.

You can see hints of the blue here! I gave it a final coat of white acrylic and then sprinkled glamour dust over the wet acrylic paint. Sadly the light isn’t picking up the finished sparkle at all well. I don’t know if it’s because I am photographing basically white, but it’s very sparkly like moonlight or sunlight on snow, and isn’t showing up here at all well

The photographs are almost thirty years old, and are of my Daughter and her Dad and I having fun in her first Winter in the snow. We didn’t have a sledge so her Dad tied some string to a tea tray and we slid her around the garden on that. Between us we built the world’s most misshapen and tallest snowman.

Just as I finished it, I leaned forward on the craft desk to reach down my ruler to measure the aperture for the photograps before I printed them, and C-R-A-C-K…. I snapped the glass, which I had very carefully taken out of the frame at the start, clean in half!

This last photograph didn’t make the frame as it’s quite badly blurred, but shows my Daughter perched on top of it!

It’s taller than her Dad and he was six foot! Such a shame that when she was small there weren’t the all singing, all dancing digital cameras of today, or we might have managed to get some shots that would have still looked good today, instead of these washed out ones. But doing this project brought back all those memories.

Anyhow I am entering this into the following:-

All Crafts Challenge – Feb/Mar: Anything but a Card
Altered Eclectics – Mar: Anything Goes
Card and Scrap – #71 Use Dies
Crafting From the Heart – #8 Anything Goes Use Dies or Punches
Crafts4 Eternity – #165 Texture
Kitty Bee Designs – Aloha Friday Challenge – #18 Monochrome (obviously the frame, not the photographs are monochromatic!
Rhedd’s Creative Spirit – Mar: Anything Goes
Scrappy Hands – #7 Mixed Media
Scribbles Designs – #14 Frame It
The Cheerful Stamp Pad – #81 Anything Goes