Izzy Wizzy Let's Get Busy

Hello lovely peeps, I hope you are well.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, I've had my head down doing DT work for February and March.

I need to send off a card tomorrow to my cousin's daughter so I headed off to my my cache of finished cards and I was a bit disturbed to find it almost empty :o

A quick card was needed, and thankfully I found this stamped image that I had already coloured so I just had to add some nice papers etc.

 The digi stamp is called Magical Woodland from All Dressed Up and is coloured in with a mix of Promarkers (hair/dress/stalk) and Graph-Its (skin/toadstool).

The papers are from Nitwit Collections and the sentiment is from the 'Pretty Grungy - Good Times'  stamp set (retired) by Lili of the Valley. The rather snazzy alphabet dies are from Provocraft and were produced several years ago. I've been keeping my eye out for a set for ages and was thrilled to win them on an auction site.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
 The Ribbon Girls January Any Image
All Dressed Up #65 Anything Goes (Always)  
 Crafting By Designs Pink, pretty and girlie 
I love Promarkers #327 Anything Goes
Fussy and Fancy #179 Angels/Fairies or Winter
Simon Says Stamp (Mon)  Spread your wings
Passion For Promarkers Challenge  #379 feminine fancy 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Double Pleated Card

Hello lovely peeps

 It was Kristi's turn to bring an idea to our craft club last Thursday and we did double pleated cards. Once you get your head around them they are quite straightforward to make and I think they look very elegant.

Mine was made with double-sided papers from the A4 'Butterfly' pad by Prima and a loop of dotty organza ribbon. The circle sentiment was a magazine freebie stamp from Lili of the Valley.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Crafty Ribbons Facebook challenge
Fab 'n' Funky #334 Must use Ribbon
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper  Anything goes with Patterned Paper
Noor! Designs UK #26 Anything Goes
Crafty Creations #333 Anything Goes (always) 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Pudding Placecards

Hello lovely peeps, and a very warm welcome to my two new followers :o)

 I'm just popping in to show you the placecards I made for work's Christmas do in December. There were 34 of them to make in just over a week, so I did most of the work in CraftArtist.

I started off with a square of material from the Fairytales Autumn digikit which looked like raisins - I adjusted the colour from orange to brown. For the icing I added a square of material from the CocoaLatte digikit and 'cut' the squiggles freehand with the scissor tool. Sorry, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I got the holly image from.

I added shadows to the icing and holly to make them look 3D and then temporarily added a circle frame around each pud so I could add the names in the correct places.

The names were added using text on a curve with TwizotHmk font.

Before printing I removed the frames so it didn't matter if my die-cutting was slightly off :D

All that was left to do was cutting the placecard bases and puddings with a circle die and adding a dot of red Cosmic Shimmer for the holly berry.

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

Eclectic Ellapu - Christmas

ABC Christmas Challenge A for Anything Goes

Love to Craft #6 Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Glamorous Gardening for LOTV

Hello lovely peeps

Just popping in with my inspiration card for this month's challenge at the Lili of the Valley Facebook page. The theme for this month is an easy one 

'Anything Goes'

There are 3 prizes on offer and the winners will be drawn at random from all the entries;

1st - £20 LOTV voucher, 2nd - £15 LOTV voucher, 3rd - £10 LOTV voucher

All you have to do is make something with a LOTV image and post a photo of it here on the challenge page.  You have until 7pm on Sunday 15th January.

So, onto my card. 

To make the patterned card I tried a new technique I saw on Hochanda, using Distress Crayons over an embossed background. I don't have any Distress Crayons but I had some Koh-I-Noor Wax Aquarell crayons that I found in a charity shop in the summer (this is their first outing).

I embossed some Sheena stamping card with the Ranunculus embossing folder by Darice and then roughly scribbled on the reverse/debossed side with the Aquarell pencils (51/57/27). I  rubbed over the scribbles with a wet finger to blend.

I was quite pleased with how it turned out, but at first I wasn't sure how I was going to use it :D
 As I wanted my finished card to have a gardening theme I eventually decided to make it a flower shape.

I used one of the 'Homespun Heart' dies by X-Cut as a template for the petals, drawn in pencil on the uncoloured side and cut out with scissors.

For the 'flower centre' I stamped `Glamourous Gardening` from LOTV onto watercolour card with Black Versafine. I then coloured it with Spectrum Aqua markers
Skin: Peach
Hair, plant pot, basket: Boulder
Hat: Fawn
Dress: Orchid mixed with a little Teal
Leaves: Leaf Green
Pearls: Slate

and used one of the Large Circle dies from X-Cut to cut the image into part of a circle. I also used the same die on a folded piece of card to make my card base. You just need to have part of the die hanging out over the crease in the card to keep part of the fold.

To make sure my finished card would fit in a standard envelope I taped a 5x7" envelope to my craft mat to use as a guide. To help position the petals I drew in where the centre of the circle would be and placed a larger circle die around the outside.

I attached each petal to the base card with a little Collall All-Purpose glue - this gave me plenty of time to wiggle them into place before the glue dried.

A couple of 'Florist Friend' die-cuts add some texture to the card. The greeting is from the Handwritten Phrases stamp set, which I curved as I put it on the acrylic block. I inked it up by using the brush end of the Leaf Green Spectrum Aqua marker.

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

Creative Inspirations #266 Fabulous flowers

Dream Valley Challenges # 147 Something New (new technique)

Deep Ocean Challenge #146 Anything New (new technique)

Creative Moments #109 Anything Goes w/optional twist Something New (new technique)

 Crafty Catz #352: Anything Goes optional twist add ribbon
Inky Chicks #77 Anything Goes 

Penny Black and More Anything Goes

Country View Crafts' Challenge Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Something New for Crafty Calendar

Hello lovely peeps

It's the first Saturday of the month, which means it is time for a new challenge at Crafty Calendar.
The theme this month is 'Something New', and there are two sponsors

Lawn Fawn


Bugaboo Stamps

My 'Something New' is one of the new release stamps from Bugaboo called Bug Cat 6.

I love this stamp, it reminds me of our cat Millie. She was our 'Something New' in January 2010 when we adopted her from the local RSPCA branch. After she's eaten (or sometimes for no apparent reason) she runs around the house like a complete loon, with eyes like saucers.

The stamp has 6 panels, but I've split them up and made a little concertina book. I printed the image onto 3 different papers (2 Tail Wags patterned papers from Nitwit and plain white) then paper pieced each panel.

The sentiment is from the Wilfred and Wally set by Hobby Art. I inked up the words individually and stamped straight onto the printed panels.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
 Show us Your Pussies-Cat Only Challenge #14 Furry-thing Goes
Allsorts #397 Cats or Dogs
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper  Anything goes with Patterned Paper
Creative Knockouts #175 Anything Goes
Crafting By Designs (monthly) January Anything Goes
Classic Design Team Challenge #10 Anything Goes 
Catch The Bug   Anything goes

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Pebble-icious

Hello lovely peeps.
I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas and New Year break.

 I've got a quick and easy card to start the new year off with.

I found this lovely pebble card by Aspire Crafts/Kanban at the Taunton craft show in November and I couldn't wait to use it. Of course, even though I bought 4 sheets of it I'm finding it hard to part with, so I've only used a small strip of it :D

There was some taupe card in my stash that co-ordinates well with the pebbles so I layered both strips of card onto a white 5"x7" card blank before wrapping some brown twine around it.

 I stamped the lapwing from the Quirky Birds set by Crafty Individuals onto a sticky note to make a mask and then stamped a small group of them onto my card using Black Memento ink. They looked a bit like they were floating in mid air so I drew in lots of small pebbles with a black fine-liner pen.

The greeting is from the Teenage Boy sentiment set by Lili of the Valley

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
 The Male Room #51 Anything Goes
Mod Squad Challenge - Anything but Christmas

Simon Says Stamp (Wed) New Something (pebble card)

Crafty Gals Corner #104 Something New (pebble card)
 Little Red Wagon #375 Something New (pebble card)
My Time to Craft #337 Something new  (pebble card)

House of Cards January Challenge: Add a Building and/or Colors

Stamplorations CAS silver or grey 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x