Stitched Leaves

Hello lovely peeps, I do hope you are well.

First, sincere apologies for my absence. I started a new job in June with many more hours than I was doing previously and I was rather optimistic about the amount of time and energy I'd have left for crafting and blogging.

I was up at the crack of dawn this morning (ok, so it was only six o'clock but it's Sunday so it felt like the crack of dawn :D ) so I've just time for a quick post before I head off to work.

I still have quite a few Craftascope makes left to share with you, this is one of my favourites using the Retro/Floral collections.

Food chain

Hello lovely peeps

A really quick card to share today, using a pre-coloured image and sentiment from the Born To Shop - Blokes CD from Daisytrail.

Mountain Adventure

Hello lovely peeps

For today's card I've used one of the faces on the ATC Antics stamp set from Craftsacope and a sentiment from the Such a Card set.

Howdy Nick

Hello lovely peeps

If you've not seen the news on my Facebook or Instagram pages, I am delighted to say that I was invited by the lovely Nick Roberts to be on the Design Team for Craftascope.  Nick is on Hochanda TV today at 10am and 3pm to demonstrate his fabulous new stamps, stencils and dies, as well as bringing back his first collection

With Love from Ellie

Hello lovely peeps



Another card with the fabulous new Large Birthday Sentiments from Lili of the Valley, this time stamped in black Memento and Festive Berries Distress Ink.

Glued to his screen

Hello lovely peeps

Another commissioned card to show you today, for my friend's Grandson who is always glued to his phone/tablet. I've used the rubber version of Oliver Texting from Lili of the Valley, which you can still get as a digi here.

Things with wings

Hello lovely peeps

It's the first Saturday of the month so it's time for a new challenge at Crafty Calendar.

Giraffe Blocks

Hello lovely peeps

We are having a mid-month challenge reminder at Crafty Calendar Challenge today, featuring our second sponsor 

For my second 'Anything Goes' card I have used Giraffe Blocks, which comes as a trio.

First I pulled it into CraftArtist, shrank it a little and then pasted lots of copies to make a background, offsetting each new row by one block.

When I had enough to cover a 6" x 6" area I selected all the tiled images, clicked on 'Group' and then cropped it to make it 6 x 6 blocks in size. I also made it transparent to fade it into the background.

For the topper I pulled in another copy of the image, enlarged it and used the scissor tool to cut away just the first image of the three. I wanted a matching box to put my sentiment in so I copied and pasted the large image and removed the giraffe with the eraser tool, leaving just the box outline.

I shrank the second box down and added some text with Troutkings BTN font before moving the sentiment and the large giraffe down to the bottom half of the page.

Now, you might be able to tell from the first screenshot that I tried to make the background image orange but all I got was a slightly browny-black. What I wanted in the menu bar was the 'Colour using HSL' button but it was hiding - I think this is because of the manipulation I did earlier.

If you're having this problem too, this is how I sorted it.

1. Select the image you want to colour and select Tools->Convert to Picture from the menu
(just click OK when the dialog box comes up)

2. Click on the colour you want from the palette in the top right and the 'Colour using HSL' button should appear. Click on the button to deactivate it and your image will change to the colour you selected :o)

Now that my background was sorted I just needed to print the whole page off and cut out the different elements. The giraffe was coloured in with Promarkers
Spice, Apricot, Saffron
Graph'Its 3270 & 3250, Caramel
Sandstone & Blender for the edges

and then I glued everything on to a 6"x6" card, adding a few buttons as embellishments.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
A Gem of a Challenge #18 Animals
The Crazy Challenge #252 animals
Crafty Animals  #4 Anything Goes
Love to Scrap  #99 Anything Goes
Dream Factory #46 Zoomania
Sheepski Designs #4 Square cards

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Feature a Creature at LOTV

Hello lovely peeps

There's a new challenge on the Lili of the Valley Facebook page - Feature a Creature.

To be in with a chance of winning one of three Lili of the Valley vouchers, all you need to do is create something to fit our theme using a LOTV image and then post it on the Facebook event page before 21st July 2017. There's plenty of gorgeous animals to choose from -  bunnies, bears, cats, dogs, mice, squirrels, birds and more.

For my inspiration card I've used Odd Dog Mug of Tea (still available as a digi, although I have used the rubber stamp version).

First I stamped him onto watercolour card with Black Archival Ink and then coloured him in with Tim Holtz Distress Markers - Tea Dye, Victorian Velvet and Vintage Photo. The sentiment is from the Teenage Boy Sentiments stamp set.

The papers I've used are from a 6"x6" Santoro Willow paper pad and I've added sinamay mesh and a few buttons from my stash to finish the card off.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
 Lil Patch of Crafty Friends  #61 Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations #278 Dots and/or stripes
Alphabet Challenge H for Hearts
One Crazy Stamper  Anything Goes
Through the Purple Haze #128 Spots and/or stripes
Crafty Animals  #4 Anything Goes 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Verdigris Love for Leonie Pujol

Hello lovely peeps, and a very warm welcome to my new followers.

I have one more sample using Leonie's Mixed Media dies to show you before the launch of her new dies tomorrow evening on Hochanda.

Did you want another sneaky peek? What am I saying, of course you do, lol.

This one is using the 'All the Love' die, which I cut from sturdy white card. I covered a 6"x6" card blank with a K&Co paper and used the die again to cut an aperture. I dabbed tiny dots of cosmic shimmer glue around the edge of the white die-cut to hold it in place.

The inside of the card was lined with a yellow First Edition paper and I stapled co-ordinating ribbons in the top right hand corner of the card front - I used buttons to cover the staples.

For the topper I poured some Verdigris embossing powder onto a heat-proof craft sheet and heated it from underneath with a heat gun until it had melted into a puddle. I inked up one of the sentiments from a previous stamp set (Off She Flew) with black ink and stamped into the puddle, leaving it there until it had set.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Crafty Friends Challenge #37 Favourite Embellishment (buttons)
That's Crafty! Challenge Blog Zesty Zing
613 Avenue Create  #188 Anything Goes
As You Like It Challenge Favourite papers  (& why) - My favourite papers are by K&Co, the colours and patterns are gorgeous. As I only have one or two sheets of each they don't get an outing very often because I don't want to use them up :D  My second favourites are Trimcraft/First Edition - they are lovely quality and you get a great mix of double sided/textured/foiled etc. Also you get three of each design in a pad so I don't have to be so frugal with them. 

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back tomorrow at 8pm

Katrina x