Apparently, not only is Lythan addicted to paper but she's also addicted to the Bejewelled Blitz game on Facebook - where, I might add her score is pretty high!Actually I'll admit to sharing the paper addiction and also to getting quite close to having a little addiction to that particular game myself now, probably due to the Great Enabler Herself.Anyway, the upshot is that this week's dare over on The Daring Cardmakers is to "Bling up" your cards with lots of Bejewelled gems and sparkle. We all deserve a little bit of sparkle in our lives, don't we?
I was trying to figure out what to do for this challenge and browsing through the new goodies that had arrived from Charmed earlier this week when my eye was caught by one of the designs on the "cards" sheet of my lovely new "On a Whimsy" papers (Fancy Pants)Can you tell which one it was? Anyway, with this in mind, plus the notion of having another play with those fab little flowers from the Cosmo Cricket blog that I showed on here the other day here's the card I came up with
I used the plainer sides of the papers, except for the dotty one. Managed to find a way to use my new flower border punch (how come last week I had NO Martha Stewart punches and now I seem to have three?) in here too. Oh I dooooo love these little flowers, I did a bit of experimenting with sizes to make the scroll of flowers for this card. I think even the teeny ones are still too thick for most cards -you'd really need to use a box or one of those DVD mailing packets to send this through the mail. Then again, boxed cards look wonderful, don't they, and I think you could send a boxed card like this with a "fat" stamp on so it wouldn't cost any more than most of the bumpy cards we make....
The black gems are from Kaiser - I thought I'd mucked the whole thing up adding these but once I'd added the black Melissa Francis sentiment sticker (thanks to Jo for the tip about how good these are, mwah, mwha) and the 3 Bugs flower rub-ons the black bits seemed to balance out better.
Ribbon is from Ribbon Oasis and conveniently covers up a bad paper choice, phew!Coloured gems are 2 different sizes from the Anita's gem wheels.
There are lots of lovely sparkly creations on our BLOG this week, so please pop by to see them. Hopefully there'll be lots of links appearing soon on the comments thread saying where we can see lots more Bejewelled and Glitzy Dazzlers.
yuk! Not only rainy but a Monday too - and boy was it hard work waking up this morning. I think it might be an intravenous coffee day today.Lots to do but struggling to find the inclination to start on any of it, so writing a bit on the blog seems a good way to put it off for a little while longer,Is it just me, or is Blogland a very quiet place just now - maybe everyone is on their summer holidays - now is when I'm feeling a bit left out by having already had our "big" holiday back in January/February!Might just indulge myself and post a little reminder of our Cuban trip, hang on a minute.....
ahhh that's better!Right, now a bit of a catch upLast week's Rosie-dee challenge was part of their "Occasions" theme for July, with the subject of "Babies". I made my very first "twinchies" which are of course, 2x2" squares.I dug out one of my fave QK dies and made these:
Coincidentally, one of OH's cousins was expecting her new baby to arrive about the same time as this challenge was going on - so I got one of those "2 birds with one stone" moments when I made the squares into a new baby card 
My last task as their Guest designer was to make a Sympathy card - often the hardest cards of all to make. Usually we only make them when we need to send one, so it was a bit different to make one without that emotional thing going on.
I used one of the papers from Dream Street's Nancy collection for the backing paper, and also a sheet from the DCWV Luxury pad, on which I've used my new Fiskars border punch.There's some lovely cotton lace from Charmed Cards and Crafts, and some lovely peachy-pink ricrac along the lower edge, which may have come in an old Self-addressed kit. I dug out the box which is stuffed full of wired flowers and lurks, largely unused at the back of a cupboard to find this tiny mulberry rosebud.The Nesties oval looks a bit unfinished to me, but I'm too scared to add any doodling to it. Actually that's a fib because I did add some to the first version and it looked such a mess that I had to cut another oval to stick on the top!Well, that's me all out of waffle, so maybe I'll just have to go and do something from the "to-do" list..... If you read this, please leave a message, I'm feeling really lonely here in Blogspace and need to know I'm not the only one around! lolThanks for visiting
Another sunny start to the day here - but then yesterday started like that too - and then it was a case of sunshine and showers all day long. Fortunately, for once it started the showery bit before I'd put my washing out to dry - unlike one day last week when I ended up wetter than the washing had ever been while trying to rescue it from a torrential downpour.
Oh the joys of a British Summer!
Friday is, as usual, Daring Cardmakers Day and we have a lovely new dare to play with:
This week we have a dare called:
On The Edge
We'd love to see you making use of all sorts of border treatments; scallops, trims, pleats, or anything else which makes the edges of your papers and cards look special. You could use Border Punches, Die Cutters, Lace, Fancy Trims and that's just for starters - let your imagination live right on the edge this week - or maybe even go right over the edge!
If you head over to the DCM BLOG you can see how the Design Team interpreted the challenge and hopefully be inspired to have a go yourself. We'd love as many people as possible to join in - we love to see all the cards you make and its such a wonderful way to share and inspire.
As we'll be celebrating our 16th Wedding Anniversary card at the end of the month I thought I'd use this dare to make a card for hubby. It'll be a change to have it ready ahead of time, instead of doing the last minute panic thing!
I thought I'd add to the edges available to decorate by making a joyfold "card within a card" type thing. I've used a border punch to make the white panel, and my Craft Robo to do the other decorative edges.
I've got "Greetings Card Factory" and "Print Artist" graphics programs on my pc - I don't use them for actually making cards, but they do come in handy for all sorts of stuff - so I've been experimenting using making some Robo templates using GCF.
I used it to make the scalloped edge with the semi circle holes, the joined circles trim for the smaller card on the right side and also the scalloped frame for the pc generated message card.
Supplies: Papers: Doodlebug, Imaginisce, Bazzill red card, Spotty velvet paper, large red button, spotty ribbon (Ribbon Oasis), Anitas gem wheel, Maya Road Rub-ons (Bubbly Funk), Fiskars border punch
The "Hearts" edging trim is another Robo template, I thought I'd tell you how I made it in case you'd like to have a go, I used a preset shape in Paint Shop Pro, but I'm sure there'll be something similar in whatever photo/graphics programme you use.
Here's how to make it:
Use the same heart shape pasted several times, swivvling them round and overlapping them to make a long row.
Go to the Layers menu and click "Merge All"
On the Colours menu, use the "decrease number of colours" to use only 2 colours
Use the Fill tool to fill all the shapes with black
Save as a gif file.
I then use the "Back" button to go back through all the steps until I had the original heart shape remaining, I then copy/pasted a few of the hearts without having them touching each other, decreased the colours as before, filled each heart with black and saved this new version too.
In Craft Robo, open a new page and load both versions, resize them together to the size you need and cut. This way you have the row of joined up hearts, and more hearts of the same size to add on top of some of them for dimension - I used foam pads to add my extra hearts.
Let me know if you have a go with the tutorial - hopefully it makes sense, but it would be nice to know one way or the other!
Thanks for visiting today
I was waiting for the Postie yesterday as Tracy from Creative Treasures was sending me some flowers and other bits and bobs to play with. In the envelope that landed on the doormat were flowers, ribbons, buttons and other lovely treasures from her deliciously bright Hot and Spicy July Flower Kit.I wanted to play straight away and made a couple of cards so quickly that I shocked myself and had to go for a lie-down......
On the floor by the desk, waiting to be put away was a piece of hot pink card which was the perfect shade to go with the flowers - how lucky was that?The flowers and both the orange and the pink ribbon used here are from the July Flower Kit. Those teeny weeny miniscule brads are from my stash.My second card uses some papers from the BG Lemonade paper pad.The Ricrac, buttons and pins, aswell as the flowers are from Tracy's July kit - the little oval sentiment was also in my DT bag of goodies, as were the diecut flowers - not sure if they are in the actual July kit or just some delish extras that Tracy added!
I love that little oval sentiment - they come on a card sheet of several different birthday messages that just pop out ready to use. The lettering is lovely and a whole lot easier than using rub-ons!. I inked the edges of this one then set it on a Nesties small scalloped oval backing piece.Pins on cards bother me - probably because I get in a panic about pricked fingers and the like! But I do like to see them and every now and then I take my courage in both hands and use one. The Flower kit includes some lovely long pins this time - I put this one between the two card layers of the sentiment, added some tiny beads from my beady stash, and superglued them on, making sure that no sharp points could be felt.I still have loads of flowers left of course - Tracy's kits are very generously stuffed with them, and definitely worth exploring - they are a lovely thing to treat yourself to whether you need more flowers or not lolTo make it easy, you can visit Creative Treasures by clicking HERE
I'm not sure what's happened to the hot sunshine we were enjoying a few weeks ago - now we're back to sunshine and showers - with more of the showers than I'd like to see. The good thing is that there's less need to water the veggies out in the garden - the bad thing is that it means getting soaked when I go out to cut the latest batch of courgettes - which are growing so quickly and abundantly that we could probably supply Tescos just now.
Rummaging through the "ephemera" drawer to make my Vintage themed postcard for SCD at the weekend I found all manner of old stuff. A few years ago a friend who loves accumulating old stuff had a clear out and sent bags full of vintage stuff out to those who wanted some. In my bag there was paper, tickets, pictures, stamps, lace, buttons, beads and all sorts of stuff dating back through the decades. Most of it I can't bear to use, but I did use some scraps of manuscript and book pages on the postcard - it reminded me of a card I made a couple of years back, also using some of Puss's goodie bag.
To make the flower I glued some of the old book pages on thin card and added some distress inks. After cutting the petal shapes I added more inking. The background is made from more inked paper, plus some ribbon and lace.
Among the treasures Puss sent were some old playing cards. I used one to make this postcard for this week's SCD Turquoise and Chocolate challenge.
There was no way I was going to use the actual playing card though, so I scanned it, then printed it out three times to use to make the background for this card. The swirl is a piece of a larger one that had broken, I used acrylics and inks to get the right colour, then added a tiny bit of turquoise Stickles before giving it a layer of GA. The flowers are Primas. the flower centre is made using turquoise beads dropped into Glossy Accents. The brad looked a bit boring so more Stickles and GA made it look more "at home"
I've been inspired by all the generous people out there who share their images for other crafters to use, so I thought I'd try to join in and share some of the things I have that might be useful to others. My first "share" is the playing card that you can download - I think this one is from the 1920/30s, but don't quote me!
If you click on the small image it should open a larger copy which you can download to your computer. If you do use it, please let me know, I'd love to hear how you made use of it.
I'll add some more Shares soon.
The Rosie-Dee challenge blog has "Babies" as the subject for this month's "Occasions" theme.
I've been looking at all the lovely "Twinchies" that are appearing on some of my fave blogs and itching to have a go. My DT spot gave me a great excuse to play with the 2 x 2" squares - especially as I knew I'd be needing a baby card and could use my twinchies to make it.
These are the twinchies I made, I'll put the finished card on here tomorrow.
Imaginisce papers, QK pram die, Robo-cut letters and tiles. various ribbons and brads from stash.
Gosh, this turned into a bit of an epic - hope you made it through to the end!
Thanks for looking :)
I was meaning to have a go at the Vintage Postcard challenge over on Something Completely Different and finally got round to it yesterday. OK, so the new challenge was already up by then, but I've never said I was a quick crafter, have I?Anyway, here's my postcard sized vintage effort
I had a happy few hours rummaging my "serendipity/ephemera" drawer (that's my posh term for the "might come in useful junk" drawer). Supplies: Distress Inks, Cuttlebug s textile empbossing folder, Photo is from the latest Bubbly Funk kit, the flower ribbon stuff is from an old BF kit. Old sheet music and written bits from the junk drawer, Beads for necklace, Primas, Part of a chipboard swirl left over from something else, Stickles, Glossy Accents, Krylon gold pen, large rhinestone beady thingI'm going to do the next postcard too - but don't hold your breath!Thanks for looking
Oh boy, was this a tough DCM week for me! Our lovely Tanya hasn't been well and decided to put back her go at dare-setting until she feels well enough to join in properly, so we needed a substitute dare fast. Fortunately Gail, our fab Guest designer this month came up with a couple of ideas for us and we decided to use one for this week's challenge.Away with the Fairies
Now, I must admit this one scared me rather a lot! I just don't "get" all the fairy stuff and fairies just don't feature on my crafty radar. I spent hours googling for some inspiration. Actually I had an idea that it would be a fab opportunity to have a go at some of those artsy collagey thingies that I sww around and often admire. But I spent so long googling to see if I could work out some idea of where to start that I totally ran out of actual crafting time oops!
There was one point when I was seriously thinking about making a Fairy Liquid bottle shaped card - yes, I was really getting desperate. 
So in the end what we have here is a bit of a mish-mash. The bathing belle who is the body of my fairy is a free download - I'd give credit if I could remember where I found her - I think it might have been from Gaby in Brazil, but I looked at soooo many sites I can't be sure! I made the wings template, pkus the picture frame with my Craft Robo and the flowers are made with punches. All the paper is Basic Grey's Two Scoops. I hand cut some of the swirly patterns from one of the papers as I didn't want to use just a patterned paper background for this one. The only other things I used here were some Stickles and a little bit of inking If you flutter on over to the Daring Cardmakers Blog, you'll see some wonderful Fairy themed cards, and I can't wait to see what all the Darers come up with this week, I'm sure there are going to be some Fairy Nice Cards to see! 
Thanks for visiting
I was trying to figure out what to do for this challenge and browsing through the new goodies that had arrived from Charmed earlier this week when my eye was caught by one of the designs on the "cards" sheet of my lovely new "On a Whimsy" papers (Fancy Pants)
I used the plainer sides of the papers, except for the dotty one. Managed to find a way to use my new flower border punch (how come last week I had NO Martha Stewart punches and now I seem to have three?) in here too. Oh I dooooo love these little flowers, I did a bit of experimenting with sizes to make the scroll of flowers for this card. I think even the teeny ones are still too thick for most cards -you'd really need to use a box or one of those DVD mailing packets to send this through the mail. 
The black gems are from Kaiser - I thought I'd mucked the whole thing up adding these but once I'd added the black Melissa Francis sentiment sticker (thanks to Jo for the tip about how good these are, mwah, mwha) and the 3 Bugs flower rub-ons the black bits seemed to balance out better.
Ribbon is from Ribbon Oasis and conveniently covers up a bad paper choice, phew!
There are lots of lovely sparkly creations on our BLOG this week, so please pop by to see them. Hopefully there'll be lots of links appearing soon on the comments thread saying where we can see lots more Bejewelled and Glitzy Dazzlers.
