Lexi’s Creations 101 Halloween

We’re fast approaching the end of the month and that means all those Hallowe’en creations are appearing and we at Lexi’s Creations have chosen that as our theme this time.

We are sponsored by the wonderful Joanna Sheen with a £10 voucher for her online store, which is stuffed full of oodles of goodies, and what’s even better, no postage over £9!

For my Hallowe’en project I decided to make a bag for my Daughter’s gorgeous Goddaughter the lovely LillyBee who is also my surrogate Granddaughter. I don’t think little Lilly is old enough to go trick or treating yet so she will be getting the little gift bag full of treats, some naughty (sweeties) and some nice (fruit).

A LOT of masking went on with this card. Firstly the So Spooky Tilda and the pumpkin, which I coloured in with my prismas as I had been having a clear out and my alcohol pens were all tucked away out of reach, and then I inked all around her. Have to say don’t get those prismas out often enough. I had forgotten how much I love colouring with them. So many colour mediums, so little time and only one pair of hands!

When I had finished I cut it out with a spellie die, but it looked sort of empty and I decided I needed something more behind her to balance the image so out came my Elusive Image Hallowe’en stamps and i masked Tilda off and stamped the tree it looks as if it’s in the background. By that time, unfortunately I had inked all round the Tilda/pumpkin image and there was no place for the moon. So I just stamped the moon a second time and cut it out and stuck it over the purple one that was already there. I was quite pleased how it turned out as I obviously had to do a degree of guesswork where Tilda’s hat was sitting over it!

The image was sitting in the centre of a large diecut originally, but there was just enough space around to get it all cut into a smaller size without chopping off any image.

The background paper was a plain black and white freebie from Bearly Mine Designs, thank you Donna! I printed it onto 160 gsm paper and inked over it to match the colours, I hope, used in the image.

The cute little besom has been in my stash for years. I think I got it at HobbyCraft!

The cats, spooky tree and pumpkin embellishments were stamped onto shrink plastic, and then coloured, cut and shrunk.

I hope Lilly will enjoy her gift.

I am entering this into the following:-

C is for Challenge – #8 Halloween

Crafty Boots – Halloween

Crafty Calendar – October Halloween

Creative Creations – #21 Halloween

Incy Wincy Designs – Halloween

Kitty Bee Designs – #10 Halloween

My Craft Spot – #115 3D Halloween

Parade Your Crafts – #6 Halloween

Paper Nest Dolls – #15 Halloween

Stamp and Create – October Fall or Halloween

 

Dream Valley 67 Buttons

The challenge over at Dream Valley today is Buttons. We are sponsored by Freckled Fawn with a fabulous $20 voucher for their store. 

For my card I followed a sketch from Crafting Life’s Pieces and an image from MayzArt called Looks Like Rain Xandra, although to my mind she looks more like she is keeping the sun off of herself with a parasol.

Because I am still not 100% straight in my craft space and because I have a set of Limited Edition Promarkers to amalgamate into my current set of pens I haven’t set my alcohol pens back up, so I coloured Xandra in with my prismacolor pencils and OMS. Her outfit is all shades of green and her hair is reds. The papers are from a paper pad by Raspberry Road that came free with Quick Cards Made Easy. I forgot to choose my paper before colouring so I was lucky that this set of papers went so well with the colours I had already used! There was one issue though, the basis of this pad is cream, it’s the underlying colour, and the white mat I had printed Xandra onto stood out like a sore thumb. I tried shading around it with DIs but it still didn’t look right so in the end I cut it out. Problem solved, lol I edged my card and background mat with Tattered Rose DI.

The diecuts are both cut from some lush red metallic paper, as are the three little buttons. One mistake with colouring first and gathering supplies later was that I didn’t have the right colour buttons, but luckily I do have some button dies, so I just made my own! Ribbon and roses are from my stash, as is the small bow.

I am entering this into the following:-

CLP – October Sketch (See sketch above)

Crafty Ribbons – #64 Anything Goes with Ribbon

Creative Fingers – #5 Anything Goes with Ribbon Twist

Designed to Color – #21 Use a Die

Digi Haven – Use Two Colours

Just For Fun – Buttons and Bows

Paper Creator’s Crafts – #15 Dies or Punches

Pattie’s Creations – #77 Ribbon

Sister Act Challenge – #22 Anything Goes

The Hobby House Challenge – #5 Roses

Lothian Crafts–2 A Sketch

For our challenge this month at Lothian Crafts we have a sketch for you to follow. As usual you can rotate the sketch if you like, as I have done. I moved it one turn to the right.

The prize on offer is a lovely Marianne Die of a tree

This is the sketch I followed

and here is the die on offer

For my card I used some lovely paper I have had from K&Co for a few years now, and chopped it down to 82 square. The image is a Crafters Companion SWALK stamp, coloured with promarkers. The black mat is a spellbinders die, but the rest of the diecuts are all from Marianne dies.

The large silver mat is called Marianne Square Frames LR0234, the snowflakes are from the Marianne Collectables Winter Village range COL1330 and the tree is one of my favourite tree dies LR0136. All of these are usually available, at a really good price from Lothian Crafts Online.

Vertical peel off has been in my stash for a very long time!

I am entering this into the following:-

Cards and More – #91 Sparkle and Bling

Christmas Card Challenges – #44 Anything Goes

Designed to Color – #21 Use A Die

Drunken Stampers – #143 Diecuts

Emerald Fairies – #48 Sparkle

Loves Rubber Stamps – #72 Anything Goes

Marianne Design Divas – Anything Goes

Passion for Promarkers – #218 Lots of Legs

Totally Gorjuss – Traditional Christmas Colours

Use it Tuesday – #64 Use Two Hoarded Items (paper and peel off)

CCM 101 Cute and Furry

Well here I am back again, and I bet you didn’t even miss me.

I have had a nightmare couple of weeks. First my pc died, and with it the internet. Thanks for one of my team at CCM we managed to get our 100th post online. Then I have been playing musical chairs with my craft stash. I think I am sorted now though, so onto our latest challenge at CCM Cute and Furry. Basically it’s how it sounds, if it’s cute and it’s furry we would love to see it in our challenge.

We are sponsored by Di’s Digistamps with a $10 gift voucher and The Stampman with a £10 voucher. Two fabulous prizes, either of which would be very welcome in my email box!

So my cute and furry creation comes from a Crafters Companion CDRom called Party Paws. Isn’t he just the cutest panda!

I printed the image directly onto watercolour card. It was a bit of a struggle as my printer didn’t really like the weight of the card, but with some not too gentle persuasion I managed to get it to go through.

The little footprints were stamped with versamark and chalked over and I did the same around the outer edge of the card.  Sentiment was created on my pc and printed at the same time as the image, and I added some soft pink card underneath the corner punch. The flower was printed twice and decoupaged with a black gem for the centre.

I am entering this into the following:-

Artistic Inspirations – #61 Anything Goes One Layer only

Blessings Ink Amusing Challenge – Anything Goes

Creative Craft Challenge – #20 Anything Goes

Hiding In My Craftroom – #117 Woman’s Birthday

Link Up for Pink – 3rd Annual Link Up for Pink challenge

Live and Love Crafts - #16 Use Pink

Paper Makeup Stamps – #108 Pretty In Pink

Red Carpet Studio – #54 Pretty In Pink

Shopping Our Stash – #121 Pink

Through the Craftroom Door – Anything Goes

PS It’s not my printing that’s blurred by the way, it’s my photography, and there was me thinking it was cos my glasses were in need of a good clean, but nope, cleaned them and it’s still blurred, sorry!

CCM 99 Christmas Snow and Ice

Our latest Challenge at Crafty Cardmakers is Christmas Snow and Ice, which I sadly suspect will be here all too soon. When Josephine came up with this idea back last year we never envisaged that the Winter would last almost into June, and I think she must have imagined how nice it would be to be thinking of the cooler weather again. Instead of which, I am dreading it as it doesn’t seem five minutes ago since it was here the last time.

Anyhow we are sponsored by both Di’s Digistamps with a $10 voucher for their store and by Hobby Art with two fabulous stamps, Archie and Pals and Bertie the Snowman. I am delighted to say that Jenny from Hobby Art is due back on our screens, courtesy of Create and Craft TV on Thursday at 2pm!

I printed the front of this card out last year!!! It was one of my emergency overspill cards, but I never got to use it. I would have just presented it as a plain card with no added decoration at the time, but I came across it when I was looking for papers and stamps for this challenge and realised it was perfect for the theme. The added embellishments are all from Craftwork Cards from their Ornaments pad, and I have glittered them and added dimensional snow with a snow writer pen, which I then also glittered. When I was looking for a photograph edge to display it I came across this fabulous edge that looks like icicles!

I am entering this into the following:-

Bearly Mine Challenges - #101 Digi Days

Creative Creations - #18 Early Christmas makes

Cutie Pie Challenge - #52 Cute Christmas in September

Holly Jolly Christmas - Monochromatic

Inky Impressions - #123 Animals

Sparkle N Sprinkle - SNSSC23 Anything Goes with Glitter, Embossing Powder or Flocking

Sweet Stampin’ Christmas - #9 Winter Animals

The Glory of Christmas - #15 Anything Goes

Totally Gorjuss - #199 Texture

Whimsical Designs - Something Old, Something New {The printed out card front (old), the embellishments (new)}

Lexi’s Creations 98 Anything But a Card

Our challenge at Lexi’s Creations this time around is Anything but a card, and we are sponsored by Fairy Dust Crafts with 5 digital designs.

I had a few ideas in mind for this challenge, but I have been so busy these last few weeks that my brain wouldn’t get past the idea stage. Then I was lucky enough to get a gift from a friend of a Debbie Moore Bookazine. That’s a magazine with a cdrom attached……. where do they come up with these names! Anyhow one of the projects in the magazine was a Jewellery Wrap.

I used some DCWV from their Luxury Stacks in both the 12” for the main wrap part and their 8” for the boxes inside. I glued two different sheets of the Luxury card back to back onto a sheet of 300 gsm card, as I figured it needed some strength. I think if I had been using simply paper that would have been a good idea, but as the DCWV is already quite thick it made it buckle slightly with all the glue, and I think it would have had enough strength just glued to itself.

This is what it looked like half way through making it.

For the little boxes I glued the DCWV to some toning soft gold card, as having glued and scored the main wrap I had already realised that I didn’t need an extra sheet of thick card sandwiched between the two layers.

This is it closed, with it’s lid on, and you can see what I mean about the buckling in the main card. If I make one again I would definitely either use paper over card, or miss out the central layer of card. It’s not skew whiff by the way, that’s my photography or I didn’t have the lid on straight when I took the photo.

Funnily enough I was discussing with a friend earlier yesterday how many peel offs we both have accumulated over the years and how we really only use word ones nowadays, but there were some holographic and glittery peel offs in my mountainous stash that were perfect to give the corners of the wrap and the boxes some definition.

I am entering this into the following:-

Artistic Inspirations - #57 Anything Goes

Challenges 4 Everybody - #28 Anything Goes

Craft Room Challenge - Something New (the technique/idea)

Created With Love - #55 Anything Goes

Creative Craft Challenges2 - Not a Square ( I realise the little boxes are square but the whole thing is not).

Kraftyhands Challenge - Anything Goes

Tammy’s Scrappin’ Corner - #78 Anything Goes

The House That Stamps Built - DCC828 No Squares Allowed ( I realise the little boxes are square but the whole thing is not)

Unstampabelles - #27 Using Scraps and/or old Stash…. had the DCWV papers and peel offs since Adam was a lad!

Use It Tuesday - #62 Trends (peel offs, who doesn’t have stacks of peel offs because you just have to have them, and then never use them!)

New Design Team - Lothian Crafts

I was lucky enough to be chosen to be on Lothian Crafts’ new Design Team. It’s a special celebration as Lothian Crafts Online is 7 years old this month. To celebrate they are offering 15% off all orders over £50, and as their prices are already some of the best around that’s a good deal! If you are lucky enough to win the monthly challenge you could also win £10 to spend in the shop too!

To be in with a chance of winning that tenner you need to enter the monthly challenge, which this month is a nice easy one, Anything Goes. You must use dies on your project though.

For my card I used some of the dies that Lothian Crafts sell, along with a couple of others and a LOTV stamp. The stamp is called Snow Family and I coloured it with my prismacolor pencils and OMS.

The papers are from Joy Crafts and the dies I used were the Marianne dies, Anja’s Squares which I used to cut the scalloped edged mat and the scallop loopy edge. I also used Marianne Christmas Tree (the back one) and the tree from the Marianne Collectables Christmas set. The other dies are from Joy Crafts from their Christmas range.

I am entering this into the following:-

Addicted to Stamps - #63 Anything Goes

Christmas Card Challenges - #40 Something New (my Joy paper pad and dies)

Delightful Challenges - Make the Cut

Fashionista - #19 Christmas

Glitter n Sparkle - #48 Anything Goes

Happy Campers - #21 Use a Stamp

Lacy Sunshine - #16 Dies and/or Punches

Pumpkin Spice - #35 Anything Goes

Sister Act Card Challenge - #22 Anything Goes

The Glory of Christmas - #15 Anything Goes