Material Girl

All week I've been meaning to blog this one - it's another of the cards I've made with the latest Funky Hand download "Spring Has Sprung". 

  The designs and colours are so perfectly pretty for this time of year and I know that these papers are going to come in really useful in the future too - the sort of collection you come back to again and again.

They would also be absolutely brilliant for the current Get Funky challenge; "Spring Celebration"......

Here's a little collaged of what you get for the bargain price of £3.19

 

 Next stop is the new challenge from The Daring Cardmakers and this week it's Keilly's turn to do the honours:

Material Girl"

We want to see you using some fabric on your creations - not just a bit of ribbon or lace though - that would be too easy! 

You can add those too, of course, but we'd really like you to be a little more adventurous and try using some fabric as a background, or use it to make your embellishments from.

We have the most wonderful Design Team - it doesn't matter how tough the challenge seems (and being wonderful doesn't stop us moaning when they are tricky), so please visit the DCM BLOG and see the fab creations on show there this week!

I had a couple of goes with this challenge - Number 1 went in the bin so you won't be seeing that!  The idea was ok, but the execution was pants!  The idea was to make my card just as I usually do, but to substitute fabric for paper wherever possible.  What I didn't think through properly was how difficult it is to make nice straight, even edges with fabric, so it all ended up looking a bit of a dog's breakfast.

On to Plan B then!

Instead of the gingham fabric I'd unearthed from my (large) fabric stash I resorted to paper this time.  My material elements are the flower and the decorative border. 

Does iron-on Vilene go "off"?  The stuff I have is a good few years old and certainly didn't want to stick to the fabric so instead I used some Bondaweb to give the fabric more stability.  It's a beautiful lawn fabric that I've had stashed away for ages (too pretty to cut)

Using dies to cut the petals for the flowers was successful so I thought I'd see if a border die would also work on the fabric - it's a really quite intricate pattern and I was pretty pleased at how well it worked.

Materials:

Papers: MME 6x6 "Howdy Doody" pad from Miss Caroline collection

Fine lawn flowery fabric backed with Bondaweb

Paper flowers and pearl strings from Creative Treasures (I made the pearls into loops for a change)

Jewel brad for flower centre, stick on pale pink pearls

Tools:

Decorative border and corner element both from Spellbinders Moroccan Accents set

Spellbinders Labels 18

Tim Holtz Bigz Flowers die

Craft Robo to cut sentiment

I forgot to add dots to the letter i's so need to do that before I send this one off - it just doesn't look right to me without!

That's it for this time, thanks for visiting.  Hope your weekend is sunny and bright!

Crafty Templates Time

The new set of Crafty Templates have been out for about a week now and I'm late again in posting my DT makes for March.

Some days I feel as though I'm catching up with everything, and then it just all goes wrong again - but I am trying to get back into some sort of routine - just not what you'd call succeeding just yet hehe.  I'll get there eventually though

This month new teamies  Keilly. Trish and Jo have joined Leo and myself at Crafty Templates DT Central - they are fab designers and it's going to be fun to have more crafty teamies to work with. Each month Leo sends us most of the templates she's got ready for that month's set then leaves us to decide which to use and how to use them, so it's always fun to see which templates others choose to work with and what projects they come up with.

 Grassy Banner 

I love the cute  little tulips and they are perfect for Spring, so I've made an Easter card.  The banner comes blank on the template so you can add whatever greeting you want.  I cut the letters using my Craft Robo!   The banner stands away from the card in the middle and is only glued at the ends - it looks fine irl, but a bit  wonky on the photo!

Dig In Cupcake

 

I thought this was really cute - if this cake were real it would be HUGE wouldn't it?  

Kites in the Sky (and the front half of the Bunny)

I've combined two of the March templates to make this card.  The Bunny comes with a back view too and I had planned to make a shaped front-and-back card using him, but then I thought how sweet he'd look holding onto the string of the kite from the Kite and Clouds template

I've added some seam binding in a couple of shades and some small flowers to finish this one off.

Here's a reminder on how to find Crafty Templates and the Crafty Goodies Kits that Leo puts together each month:

Crafty Templates main site

Crafty Templates Blog

Thanks for popping by today, I hope you've enjoyed your visit and will leave a message to say you were here! :-)

Funky Hoppity Hop Hop Hop

Thank you for visiting my blog today, it's great to have you "springing" by!

If you've bounced over from Ruth's blog as part of your Funky Hand Blog Hop journey, then you probably know what it's all about already, but if not, then you can find out what is going on by visiting Anice at
Funky Hand Blog Hop Central HERE

The Blog Hop is all about introducing the fabulous new Funky Hand Download

Spring Has Sprung

It's full-to-bursting with lovely Spring themed papers and the prettiest pastel shades and is available from Sunday 25th March from the website HERE,
but by visiting the blogs on the Hop today, you'll get a sneaky preview of this pretty collection. 

A blog hop is just the PERFECT way to get a really good look of what's in the new download: by visiting the blogs of those Funky Gang members who are joining in with the hop you'll see lots of the colours, papers and sentiments that form this gorgeous download collection

So here's the Spring Has Sprung project I'm sharing today

All of the plains and patterns I've used for this card are from the new collection, the cute sentiment image is one of the sentiments you'll also get with your download and the word "Smile" is cut from another.
I cut the little daisies from one of the papers as they are so pretty I had to find a space for them!

If you're liking what you're seeing as you bounce from blog to blog you'll definitely be interested in the prize Anice is offering for joining in.

There's a free copy of the
Spring Has Sprung download 
up for grabs just for joining in with our blog hop. 

You'll need to travel around the blogs of all the Funky Gang who are taking part in the hop, leaving a comment on every single blog and collecting a letter from each. The hop begins and ends with Anice's BLOG - so if you're not already following all the links from blog to blog, then do head over to Anice's and begin your tour there! 

The letters you'll collect are an anagram and you'll need to solve that to be in with a chance of winning the prize. - but all the info you need is on Anice's blog so I'll stop wittering on and give you your next letter.... just don't forget to leave a comment here and on all the blogs you visit or you won't qualify for entry.
Our blog hop lasts from Saturday 24th March till 9am (UK time) Monday 26th March - you'll be able to add your blog comments and to leave your answer to the anagram right up till 9am (UK time) on Monday morning.

The letter I'm giving you is:

"A"

and your next stop on the Funky Blog Easter Bunny Style Hop is Lou's place

Hope you're having fun and liking what you see
Happy Hopping!

What's in the Box?

This week on the Daring Cardmakers Fran has given us a "proper" old challenge!  It's had a good few of us scratching our heads in "I haven't a clue what to do with this one" fashion.  If you head over and visit our BLOG though, I think you'll agree that our fab team rose admirably to the challenge and made some wonderfully creative projects which we hope will inspire you to put your thinking caps on too!

It goes like this:

A Box of Tricks
I (Fran) would like you to feature a box, or something box-shaped on your projects - it could be a 3D project, decorated box, box shaped embellishments...once you start thinking outside the box (!) you can come up with some fun ideas!

Now I'm sure there are loads of rubber stamps with boxes  of one kind or another, but obviously that's no good to me, so I spent most of the week thinking about types of boxes and how I could make at least one of them work on a card.  I think it was when a lovely package of new Memory Box dies arrived that the thought "Window Box" jumped into my head.

Just to make it harder for myself I thought it might be possible to make the window box part a 3D pop-out.  After faffing about a bit with card and a bone folder (and giving myself a horrible paper cut which brought tears to my eyes and sent me scuttling off to find the tape and wadding to staunch the blood) I came up with this one:

It's quite bulky but I've folded the "box" in such a way that it does actually fold (relatively) flat for posting.

Materials:

All papers MME from "Dolled Up" 6x6 pad (Miss Caroline collection)

Doily motif and tag are also cut from one of the papers

White lace

Turquoise, Pink and White pearls. pearl heart, decal sentiment

Tools:

EK Success border punch

Memory Box dies (Cherry Blossom, Petal Party
Tonic floral punch set  

You can see the box shape better on an angled view

And a close up of the flowers - I mixed up the various die cuts and punches

Yet again I've got behind with my blogging and need to spend some time catching up.

This week I've been busy with Crafty Templates and Funky Hand projects - all which I need to blog in the next few days.

This weekend sees the launch of a new Funky Hand collection and we're having a blog hop to celebrate - and to show off the papers that you get when you download the brand new collection.  They are sooooo pretty, so please pop by Anice's blog to see what's happening over the weekend and join in....I do believe there's going to be a prize on offer....

Right, time for lunch - Hubby's home-working today and once he's decided it's lunch time, then it's lunch time...

Thanks for visiting

Spring Greens

Don't you just love it that the day you have loads of internet-required tasks on your list is the day you wake up, switch on and find....."cannot open page as there is no service..."

I gave them a couple of hours after the "it'll be back by 2pm" they told us, and then rang to find out what was going on. Yes, the fault is fixed, you probably need to reboot the wotsit - do you know where it is?  hmmm, well I know it's on the ledge behind hubby's desk - but I also know that there's a mess of all sorts of gadgets, wires and cables behind there and to be perfectly honest that's as far as my knowledge goes.  Thank you to Nice Man at Virgin Media who kindly and patiently waited while I dragged massive desk away from the wall enough to squeeze behind, then as I described the various "stuff" - finally finding the right one to unplug so he could do the honours from his end. 

I guess they are used to dealing with such ineptitude!

Bad thing number 2 for yesterday was the discovery that the glass splash-backs arrived and didn't fit!  We know the templates fitted perfectly because we were called in to the kitchen by the guy who made them to see how it would look when the glass was in. The glass is exactly right against the templates he made, so how the blazes don't they fit?  Bemused.

Today the UK Rep for the manufacturers of the doors and drawer fronts has been to see for himself the problem with those!  Last time I did the Swiss a dis-service by saying they came from Switzerland - I apologise! - it's the Austrians who mucked up!  The whole lot are to be replaced, which is good, but means more delay.

Through it all our Kitchen designers have been absolutely fab and I can't fault the way they have dealt with it all - none of the problems have been down to them - all the work they have done is first rate and their attention to detail is brilliant - their handling of the project and determination to make sure it is all perfect in the end has kept us sane!

Tomorrow we have the plumbers here to fit the new water heating system.  I think it's called a "mega-flow" system and will hopefully mean that it won't take five minutes to get hot water from the various taps, and that the new taps in the kitchen will produce more than the dribble they do atm!

I can't quite believe we're getting towards the end of March already as we've been living in Building Work Limbo since a week into 2012.....it will be lovely when it's finished......

So yesterday's internet hiccup means I'm sharing my own challenge for Get Funky's Funky Fifteenth on the 16th and also my card for the new Daring Cardmakers Challenge too.

For Get Funky, I chose a "Spring Celebrations" theme; It could be something for Mothers' Day, or Easter, or it could simply be a celebration of Spring itself, and any sort of project goes - so if you want to make an Easter basket, or an Easter Bonnet, or a scrapbook page showing off the daffodils in your garden then it's all okay!  Just make sure you use at least one Funky Hand product on whatever you make.  It's amazing and not a little irritating when people don't read that one little rule!  It's especially annoying when they share such gorgeous creations, but rule themselves out of being chosen as our winner because they've not complied....such a shame!

I think my own Celebration of Spring project may end up as a little wall hanging, or maybe as a page in a mini book, rather than as the card it is atm!

Visit the Get Funky Blog to find out how to join in with us this month - and maybe win our prize of a free download of your choice.  There's also instructions on how to get hold of this month's Funky Freebie.  I've added more about how I made this card and instructions on how to make the paper frill

Materials:

Funky Hand CD Craft the Year Away - I've used papers from the Marching On and April Fool collections

Matching shades of Seam Binding to make a layered bow

Organza flower with pearl centre

Lemon Ice Stickles

It's actually one of the Spring Celebrations that Samm has chosen to base her "Lucky Green" challenge for the Daring Cardmakers around this week too

It's Samm here and this weeks' challenge is

'Lucky Green'

Yes, St Patrick's day is on its way, so I challenge you to make a card using the main colour as green and feature 'luck' somewhere on your card. It's one of those colours we hardly ever get to use so I hope it gets you all digging around in your crafty stash and creating frantically!

Looking through my Funky Hand downloads and CDs for the right stuff to use for the project above was very timely as the "Marching On" set I got the pale green background paper for the Get Funky card from is all about shades of green with a bit of deep turquoise/aqua in the mix.  Just the ticket and meant I didn't need to go searching through my stash - I could just "Print...and Go" hehe

 I'm not entirely happy with this and it might undergo a bit of a facelift before it actually gets used - I think it might be better on a white background for starters.

Materials:

All papers: Funky Hand CD Craft the Year Away - "Marching On" collection

Good Luck banner and the 3 leaf clover motif are created from images also found on the  Craft the Year Away CD

Green ruffled edge ribbon from Creative Treasures (there's a special offer on Prima flowers atm )

Ice Stickles

Tools:

Craft Robo to cut the banner, letters and shamrock shapes

I hope you'll head over to our BLOG as the cards look stunning again this week. 

Thanks for looking today and for putting up with my waffle at the start - sometimes you just have to have a good old rant don't you? - but I do seem to be on a bit of a ranting roll lately!  I will try to make my next post rant-free :)

Have a great weekend

Tantalising Tessellations

Another Friday and another challenge from the Daring Cardmakers - but before I get on to the card I've made for that, I'm going to have myself a little rant.....

What do you reckon to the new Captcha word verification widget on Blogger?  I've seen the same thing in other places too - Facebook have it for some posts for instance.  Up till now I've been happy enough to leave comments and fill in the word verification if required, even though some of the fonts were quite difficult to read on occasion.  But now, these new ones are just impossible to read - I swear the one I was asked to read earlier this morning was more like an ink blot than any letters I've ever seen.  I gave up and tried another...and another before I finally got something that actually resembled letters I might have a stab at typing correctly. 

I know I've been rubbish at blog-hopping lately, but it is something I like to do, and I love to catch up on what my friends are up to via their blogs - and \I like to leave a message to say I've popped by.  But thanks to these atrocious Captcha WVs I've decided that on blogs which still have them, I'll only leave a comment if I can figure out the WV at first try - life really is too short for clicking and clicking just trying to make sense of these infuriating things.

I don't have WV on here but I do have comment moderation switched on - there are a lot of Assorted Twits out there and I don't want them posting here - but I do want to hear from my blog-mates, and this way although comments aren't there till I click publish, at least you won't get eye-strain from trying to leave me a message.

Please - if you're reading this and still have the WV switched on, think about changing your settings

 - it's not difficult to do and if you don't know how, just let me know and I'll try to help.

Right - rant over, and back to some Daring Cardmakers crafting

 This week it's Leo here to bring you your next dare.......

'Tessellation'

I'd like you to create a card featuring a tessellating pattern. You c
an probably remember doing tessellation in maths class at school right? Basically all you're doing is making a pretty pattern with shapes that fit together perfectly on all sides, like tiling. It's up to you how you interpret the dare so it could be a pattern on a paper already made or even a pattern you make yourself

Well....I thought, and thought and thought about this challenge without a glimmer of an idea for what to do!  Finally I remembered the Tumbling Blocks design you see a lot on patchwork quilts and thought it would be perfect for a New Baby card.

I had to do a bit of research on the diamond shape used to make the blocks - maths is not my strong point, to say the least!  

Quite quickly I discovered that just any old diamond shape doesn't work hehe.  It has to be made from 2 equilateral triangles joined together - then the next problem - how to make one to cut on my Craft Robo.  I tried in Robo itself and then in Paintshop Pro and couldn't work it out - thought I might have to wait for the Resident Expert to do it for me when he got home.  But then I did a bit of googling around the patchwork quilt sites and found a template I could use.

The joins aren't perfect, I admit, but you can't have it all!

Materials:

All Papers MME Fine and Dandy "True Blue" 6x6 pad

Yellow Seam Binding, White lace

Tiny silver teddy bear charm

large spotty button, Stickles glitter glue

Tools:

Craft Robo for cutting diamonds, plain circle and letters

Spellbinders Lacy Scalloped Circles, Spellbinders plain Circle to cut the "head hole" (I'm sure there's a proper word...), Inks for edging

 As usual the team have come up with some fab ideas for using tessellating designs on their cards, so please go and check them out HERE.  Don't forget our new FB page too - it would be great if you'd pop along and join us there too.

On the Building front it's been a quiet week - as in nothing has happened!  It's all got to the point where it's a lot of little things need to be done - we are waiting for the glass for the kitchen splash-backs to get here - apparently it's made and should be here in the middle of next week.  As should the internal fittings we've chosen so far for the drawers, and also the closing mechanism for the glass doors on the  top wall cupboards.  And then there's the drawer fronts and doors that need replacing as the Swiss aren't actually as perfect in their manufacturing processes as we've all been led to believe.....

We need blinds and maybe some pictures for the cloakroom which is pretty much finished.

The new "broom cupboard" still needs shelves and hooks for hanging stuff on.

The pew is here, but the cupboarding for coats and shoes etc. hasn't been built around it yet.

Once that's done we're getting new carpets for the whole hall/inner hall/stairs and landing areas - at that point everything will look so much better!  I'm getting a bit tired of living in this Building Work Limbo, to be honest.

Jeepers, I do go on, don't I?  If you got through to the end, well done - and thank you - it was lovely that you made the effort!

We're supposed to be having some good weather this weekend - I hope the sun shines on you wherever you are.

Thanks for visiting

A Whole Load of Balloons

Over on Get Funky! today - the challenge blog for the fabulous Funky Hand  -
 it's my turn to share my project for Allison's high flying challenge. 
You can find out all about this month's challenge on Allison's introductory post on the blog, but basically it's all about things that fly. 
Any sort of project is allowable BUT to join in with the challenges at Get Funky you must use at least ONE Funky Hand product on your creation - there's plenty to choose from: papers, stamps, digital images and template designs to name a few - click HERE to visit the Funky Hand website and see all the great stuff you can get your mitts on!

 You can even join in if you don't own any Funky Hand stash (yet!) by using the Funky Freebie that Anice makes especially to fit in with each month's challenge

Find this month's Funky Freebie  paper by clicking the link or going to the website www.funkyhand.com and looking in the downloads section.

 Materials:

Funky Freebie  paper

All other papers from Happy, Happy Birthday CD

Black card

You can read more of how I made the card by visiting the Get Funky BLOG

I still had some paper left over after I'd finished this card, so I made another one, this time using the Coloured Balloons (it's also available as a line drawing for you to colour in) digital image which is also from the Happy, Happy Birthday CD

I've used the new March sketch from The Sketch File Blog for the layout

 Materials:

Funky Freebie  paper

All other papers and Image from Happy, Happy Birthday CD

Sentiment was added below the image using the Workspace then

printed out in one go

Black and white Bakers Twine

Right, I suppose I should get back to finishing my grocery order or there'll be nothing left to eat by tomorrow......hmmm maybe that would be a good excuse to go out for dinner, though....

Thanks for visiting, hope you have a great day today

Colour Combo Week

On the Daring Cardmakers blog the 2012 theme for the first Friday of each month is a Colour Combo Challenge - we're taking turns to set the colours and it's my turn this month.

Browsing around the net for inspiration I found lots of fab ideas, but in the end settled on a gorgeous photo featuring  shades of

Caramel. Pale Lemon, Duck-egg Blue and a hint of Gold

the cool colours seemed perfect for Spring - well I'm hoping the warmer, brighter days we've been having means that Spring isn't too far around the corner!

Here's my card

 Materials:

14cm square brown card blank

Papers; I've used papers from my scraps box, so not sure what they are!

Aqua, lemon, white ribbons and the paper and organza blooms are all from various sources

Flower centre is a button covered with Glossy Accents, with Czech glass beads and tiny gold beads embedded in it

Dew Drops for extra bling, pc generated sentiment 

Tools:

EK Success Moroccan Lace border punch

Spellbinders plain circle plus Floral Tags and Accents

The Aqua ribbon I've used for this card is actually some from the big reels I bought to make a ribbon cushion to match the colour scheme of Izzy's parents' wedding, so it's nice to be able to use it on this card - even if they probably won't even notice!

This is the photo that inspired me to choose these colours

The DCM blog looks soooo pretty today with all these colour-themed cards there are lots of different styles and ways to use the colours, but it all works so well - please pop across and have a look - and we'd love for you to join in with us too. 

Earlier this week I added a couple of new projects to the Sketch File blog.  One of them is a gorgeous chippie artwork from Carol who makes the most  inspiring variety of wonderful things - definitely worth a visit to her BLOG!

The other project is a card from yours truly - I've been trying to get a little bit organised by making this one to send to MIL for Mother's Day

Materials:

Smooth white 14cm sq card blank

Papers: MME 6x6 "Fiddlesticks" pad from Miss Caroline collection

Prima flat blooms from stash

Coiled flowers made with scraps of same papers

Off-white seam-binding and small cream wired flower from Creative Treasures

Half-Rosette made with two layers of same papers

pc generated sentiment 

Tools:

February LO from the Sketch File

EK Success Moroccan Lace border punch (can you tell it's me favourite, hehe)

Memory Box Rosette Die

That's it for today, I hope you like what you see and will visit again soon