Indian Summer for LOTV Design Collective

Hello peeps, hope you are well. 

We got our Indian Summer at last - it's been lovely and sunny here for the last four days. Yay!

This cutie is called 'Smoke Signal' from Lili of the Valley and I coloured her in with my Graph'It markers.

Skin: 4110, 4115 and 4145

Hair: 3210, 3245 and 3250

Feather/Rug: 9100 and 7160

Dress: 3125,3110, 1270 and 1230

For the background I have used papers from the 'Promises-Solids' (sky), 'Father Knows Best' (rocks and foreground) and 'Antebellum' (desert floor)  8x8 paper pads by Lili of the Valley.

To get the shape of the rocks I traced around the 'Monument' Mask from ClarityStamp.

I have also used 'Sentiments to Fit Scroll' by LOTV, stamped onto clouds cut with Joy Crafts dies.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-

Sweet Stampin - Use a non white base

613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes w/optional colour sapphire

Hiding In My Craft Room - #218 Any Holiday (Thanksgiving)

Crafter's Cafe - Create a sky scene

Thank you for stopping by,

Katrina x

Autumn Owl for Pink Gem Designs

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new followers.

Well, days don't get much better than this. I've been watching some Formula 1 action over breakfast, I'm meeting my wonderful Mum and Sister at Exeter craft show AND today is my first outing as a Guest Designer for Pink Gem Designs.

Thank you so much for inviting me peeps :)
 Our challenge for the next fortnight at A Gem of a Challenge is Autumn and this is my 'inspiration' card.

and inside

I've used the digistamp Ollie on Branch from Pink Gem Designs, which they very generously gave me. You get the design as a JPEG and a PNG, in both the black/white AND coloured versions.

I brought the coloured PNG version into Craft Artist and used a background from the Aviary English Garden digikit (stretched and recoloured). I made a copy of Ollie and then flipped and shrank him a bit. I wanted the small one to sit on top of the bigger one so I removed the branch part of the image with the Erase Tool, then it was just a case of manoeuvring him into position. I then copied them both and flipped them to get the pair on the right hand side. The sentiment was done with the 'Adolpho' font.

For the front of the card I die cut a circle in some Basic Grey paper and then dry embossed it using the Wood Grain folder from We R Memory Keepers. Because my paper was A5 and the folder is only 6x6" I had to run it through twice - I've used raffia to hide the join.

The leaves were cut from various papers in my stash using a Cuttlebug die and attached with silicon glue.

Please pop over to A Gem of a Challenge to see more inspiration from the very talented team.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Pile It On  #87 Colour Combination  
Fan-Tastic Tuesday #104 anything goes with a twist ... colour me autumn
Tuesday Throwdown  #263 Colour challenge
Creative Inspirations - Something sweet
Fab'n'Funky challenge #274 Cute Critters and/or Christmas
Little Red Wagon - Happy Fall Y'All
Addicted to Stamps - Autumn
Deep Ocean #113 Autumn
Clear It Out - Autumn - use leaves/foliage
Little Claire's - Autumn

Thanks for popping by,
Katrina x

And now for something completely different ...

Hello peeps, hope you are well.

 .

A bit of a departure from my usual style today - I thought I'd have a go at a 'mixed media' card. 

For the background I started off with a paper from the 'Buff' paper pad by Prima/Julie Nutting. 

I went around the edges with Vintage Photo, Victorian Velvet and Shabby Shutters Distress Inks and then I dabbed some more ink through the 'Bubble' stencil by Clarity Stamp to create the dots.
Once it was dry, I stamped and embossed the floral stamp (from the 'Nature I' set by Indigo Blu) with Versamark & white embossing powder.

In the top right corner I spread some texture paste through the 'Butterfly Tree' stencil by Clarity Stamp (I'd masked off the tree part) and then sprinkled on fine white glitter. After leaving it overnight to dry I then splattered on a little bit of watered down paint around the edges of the card. 

To make the trio of toppers I cut squares of paper from the 'Butterfly' paper pad by Prima/Jodie Lee and edged them with DI before matting them onto some mesh. The butterflies (Papermania) are stamped and embossed onto acetate with Versamark/white embossing powder, then cut out. I folded the wings over and put PVA glue on the 'body' part to attach them to the paper squares.

The Happy Birthday (Stamps Away) was done with brown Stazon because it's stamped over the top of glossy embossing powder.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Sweet Stampin - Emboss it
Allsorts Challenge Blog  - Sparkle
Little Red Wagon - Try Something New (first time doing paint splats, also new paper pads)
We Love 2 Create - #19 Anything Mixed Media/Creative/Inky Goes
In The Pink - For a Friend
 Polka Doodles -Shabby Chic
Crafty Friends - #14 Starting with B
Scrap & Craft Inspiration - Butterflies
613 Avenue Create - Anything Goes
Hiding In My Craft Room - #217 Freestyle
Crafting From The Heart - #78 Anything Goes
Craft your passion - #280 Anything Goes
Creative Craft Cottage -#48 Anything Goes
Crafty Girls Creations - #4 Anything Goes
Crafts Galore - Anything Goes!
Crafting by designs - Anything Goes in September

Before I go, I wanted to share some fab news with you. 

I have been invited to appear as a Guest Designer for the next two challenges over at A Gem of a Challenge. I feel very honoured that they have chosen me (not to mention thrilled to bits). My first outing will be this Saturday 26th Sept, so watch this space!

  

Umbrella weather

Hello peeps, hope you are well.

Sorry I've been a bit quiet for the last 10 days. I've been concentrating on making cards for a magazine competition that finishes this week, as well as helping hubby clear out the back bedroom (see below).

Today's card was made with one of the beautiful toppers in the Cute Cottage Garden Art Pad by Lili of the Valley. I chose this one to go with the umbrella weather we had yesterday afternoon in Glastonbury (thankfully I was indoors most of the time!)

 

The background is from LOTV's Country Lady 8x8 paper pad, and the buttons & ribbon are from my stash.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-

Allsorts Challenge Blog  - Buttons

The Ribbon Girl - Everything goes with an Image

Creative Knockouts-  Clean and Simple

Crafts 4 Eternity - Vintage

The Shabby Tea Room - Picture This

ABC Challenge - R is for Recipe (Pink, Flowers, Buttons)

 Lil Patch of Crafty Friends - #17 Anything Goes

 So, the back bedroom has a lovely new carpet and now we're deciding on paint colours. Yes, I know we should have painted it first, but it took so long to clear the room out that we ran out of time. I was up until 1 o'clock the night before the carpet fitters came painting the skirting board!

 

Since it's the room that gets the most light I've decided to take hubby up on his offer of moving my craft room in here. I'm allowed to choose new storage as well so I'm very excited. 

Mind you, I'm not entirely sure all my stuff will fit in here :D

If you have any nifty storage suggestions please leave me a comment x

Tumble Dried Snow

Hello peeps :D

I've always been a big recycler and this has inevitably spilled out into my crafting. Before I throw anything away I always try and think of a crafty use for it (although this does lead to storage problems!)

Every time I tumble dry my clothes I think what a nice texture the tumble-drier sheets have, so I've finally got around to recycling one - I've used it here as snow. 

I tore it in half, which made it lovely and wispy, and then wrapped the ends around a square of card to hide the adhesive (I used tape).  I layered up my topper onto grey and red card and slotted it in between the two 'snow' layers. I've added little white pom-poms to represent a pile of snowballs and embellished with a few snowflakes and gems.

The sentiment is made using the Christmas Wishes stamp set by Lili of the Valley. 

The image is from the Furry Christmas Art Pad but is also available as a stamp - and you can currently get either of them for HALF-PRICE on the LOTV site. Whoop whoop!

Challenges:-

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes + Option of Recycling

 Allsorts Challenge Blog  - Lots of layers

Pile It On - Fur

Brown Sugar - Use something recycled

Fan-Tastic Tuesday - Anything Goes/Make it Cute

A gem of a challenge - Do You Wanna Build a SNOW MAN?

Creative Card Crew - Christmas

Moving along with times - Cute animal

Creative Fingers - Anything Goes

Clear It Out - Anything Goes
Left of Center Creative Challenges - 93. Use Mainly Red

 Thanks for stopping by and please leave me a comment if you can, I love to read them.
Katrina x

Little Birdie for Crafty Calendar Challenge

Hello peeps.

 Today's an exciting day - this is my first post as a 'Calendar Girl' ;D
No, I haven't been posing for photos with strategically placed teacakes: I have joined the lovely Design Team at Crafty Calendar Challenge (thank you ladies for the warm welcome)

This month's challenge is Anything Goes and is sponsored by

 

Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps And More, a division of I Did It Creations, was created and is owned by Robyn Weinrib. Robyn offers a wonderful variety of digital stamps and digital papers, designed to meet the needs of all digital paper crafting addicts for every occasion.

So, for my DT inspiration card I have used the digistamp 'a little birdie told me'. 

I was struggling a bit with colouring him in so I decided to paper piece him instead.
He's printed onto plain white card and then several different Lili of the Valley papers (mostly Country Lady, the tree trunk is from Timeless Victorian). After cutting out all the different parts of the image and glueing them onto the white version I matted & layered onto another patterned paper and a 7"x7" card.
The sentiment was stamped with an Inkydoodles stamp and the ribbon and buttons are from my stash.

Crafty hugs,
Katrina x

Work, Rest and Play

Hello lovely peeps.

Here's my first Lili Of The Valley Design Collective card for September.
I think this would be suitable for a man's birthday, or a 'First day at school' card for a young boy.

The main images are Odd Dog - Handwritten, Odd Dog - Sleepy Book and Odd Dog - Balloon, all coloured in with Graph'It markers

The papers are from Father Knows Best and Always and Forever - Solids

 8"x8" paper pads, also Lili of the Valley.

Panel 1

The wording is printed from my computer using the 'Impact Label' font (downloaded from dafont.com).

 I've also doodled borders around each topper with a black fine liner pen.

Panel 2

 

The embellishments were created with the same stamps but first I masked off parts of the image before inking. I filled in any missing bits with a fine liner pen.

Panel 3

The bone embellishments on this one are from Odd Dog - Sweet Dreams and I've covered up the heart balloon with a Sizzix Bigz balloon die-cut

Challenges:-

Sweet Stampin - School Days
Simon Says Stamp - Trio of colours
Cardz4guys - Let's Colour
Crafty Sentiments Designs - School
Creative Inspirations - Warm colours
Fab'n'Funky challenge - Doodle a frame or sentiment
Dream Valley - Back to school
Deep Ocean - For the Boys
Sparkles Monthly Challenges - More Than One Fold

Please leave me a comment if you can, I appreciate every single one.
Thank you for stopping by,

Katrina x