The Cats Whiskers

Hello lovely peeps

 It's the first Saturday of the month so it's time for a new challenge at Crafty Calendar. The theme this time is 'Halloween' and our sponsor is the fabulous All Dressed Up

For my inspiration card I have used the girl from Boo I Can See You. I coloured her in with Graph'It markers 9502, 9505, 9507, 9509, 3430, 3470, 3480,  4115, 4155, 4180

I've layered her up on papers from My Minds Eye, die cut some letters using a Quickutz alphabet and added a pawprint stamp (Hobby Art). I thought it needed a little something else though, so I added some 'whiskers' that I cut from black craft wire :D

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Open-Minded Challenges #9 halloween/dress up
Retarte  #86 - Anything Goes twist halloween
Crafty Girls Creations  #26 Anything Goes
All Dressed Up  Anything Goes (Always)
Creative Craft Cottages Challenges #72 Anything goes
Little Miss Muffet Challenges  #147 - Anything Goes (always)
 Crafty Creations #325 Halloween
Love to Craft #3 Anything Goes
Ching-chou Kuik Digital Stamps halloween
Doodle Pantry  #22 Anything Digital Goes
Classic Design Team Challenge #7 Anything goes 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

White Poinsettias for Polkadoodles

Hello lovely peeps

It's time for a new 'Anything Goes' challenge at Polkadoodles, with the optional theme of Christmas.
I was lucky enough to receive the gorgeous new Christmas stamps and co-ordinating CD which Nikky launched last Friday on Create and Craft, so I have used these for my inspiration card.

I was a bit stumped again this week on how to I was going to physically make my card. I wanted to combine a stamped poinsettia with one of the background papers from the CD, but I knew my hand/elbow wouldn't be up to cutting out the flowers for layering on top. Luckily, Pebeo drawing gum came to the rescue (more on that in a minute).

To start off, I dragged the turquoise snowflake paper into CraftArtist and sized it to 6"x6". I then brought in one of the lovely sentiments and converted it from black to white before splitting it into two halves and positioning it over the paper. I printed the project in black and white onto copy paper to make sure it was the right size for my card.

I laid the copy paper over the top of some watercolour card and drew some lines around where the blocks of text were, leaving slight indentations on the watercolour card underneath. Now that I knew where my poinsettias could go, I started stamping.

The set doesn't include a poinsettia flower, but you get three different leaf/petal shapes to 'build' your own. I used the largest leaf/petal first, stamping it onto the watercolour card with Dove Grey Stazon. Since the petals needed to overlap I needed to mask some of them off, and this is where the Pebeo Drawing Gum comes in.

After I had stamped each petal I painted the gum over the top and waited a few minutes for it to dry before doing the next one. Although this was quite time consuming it did give my elbow some much needed rest periods*.  Obviously, if your hands are up to it, it is a lot quicker to cut out masks from sticky notes.

* I am under strict instructions from my physiotherapist not to overdo it. Spoilsport ;D

 Once I'd finished building the flowers, I printed my backing paper and sentiment over the top of the watercolour card (I used 160gsm because my thicker watercolour card will not go through my printer).

Dab off any remaining printer ink from the masked flowers and then rub off the drawing gum.

I added some definition to my poinsettias by painting them with Spectrum Aqua markers
(Jasmine, Moss and Black)

I cut this down and glued it onto a 6"x6" card blank, and added a bit of sparkle with a Wink of Stella pen.

The centres are polystrene balls from my old beanbag which I glued on with Cosmic Shimmer.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
That's Crafty! Challenge Blog Christmas in September
Winter Wonderland two Dies and or Add some Sparkle
Addicted to Stamps and More #212 Make your mark
Inspiration Destination  #104 Always Anything Goes
Crafting from the Heart #128 Anything Goes
World Wide Open Design Team Challenge 14 Anything Goes 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Penguin Scene for Polkadoodles

Hello lovely peeps

Did you catch the new Polkadoodles launch on Create and Craft yesterday of Christmas Stamp Soup? There were some gob-smackingly beautiful makes from Nikky and my teamies. You can catch up with the shows here (2pm)  and here (7pm)

The inspiration card I made was (of course) quirky. The idea behind stamp soup is that you combine a few of the stamps to make your own images, so for instance this set has lots of components to make gorgeous snowflakes. One of the stamps is a snowy window ledge/doorstep/postbox top, but when I was turning it around trying to work out what it was, the first thing that popped into my head was 'penguin'.

So, I stamped up some 'penguins' onto Sheena's Stamping Card, dabbed some Black Memento ink and Fawn Spectrum Aqua Marker onto my craft mat and painted them in with a wet brush.

For the card base I added the paler blue 'Not So Plain Jane' paper from the co-ordinating CD then added some Shabby Blue Frantage embossing powder onto a piece of the darker blue for the sea.

Next I brightened the beige version of the paper in a graphics program and cut out an 'ice-shelf', cliff and igloo.

I added Pumice Stone Distress Ink to the edges and painted in a door and shadow with Black Memento ink on a paintbrush.

I stuck on the penguins with Collall Glue Gel and added a sentiment from the CD along with a couple of die-cut snowflakes.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas #299 Cute/AG
C.R.A.F.T. #381 Christmas
That's Crafty! Challenge Blog Christmas in September
Paper Creator's Crafts #52 Christmas
Crafting By Designs (monthly) September Anything Goes
The 12 Months of Christmas Link Up #21 AG Optional Theme The nature of Christmas
 Live & Love Crafts Challenge #51 Photo Inspiration 


Thanks for stopping by today,

Katrina x

Seaside canvas for Polkadoodles

Hello lovely peeps and welcome to my new follower.

It's challenge reminder time at Polkadoodles today where the theme as always is 'Anything Goes' and the Design Team theme is 'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside' (hands up if you're singing along now).

I didn't have anything prepared in advance for this challenge because
a)  I ran out of time before my elbow op, and
b) I was expecting my arm to be back to normal by now

Unfortunately my current crafting abilities consist of painting (a little bit at a time), drawing wobbly lines, dodgy stamping and a tiny bit of cutting. Since the only PD products I had to fit the seaside theme were digi stamps, I was a bit stumped at first on how I was going to produce something. Luckily I hit on the idea of printing the digi stamp images onto tissue paper which I could transfer onto canvas board.

First I painted the sky and sea onto a 5"x5" canvas with acrylic paints

Next I opened CraftArtist and dragged in the beach hut digi from the Summertime collection and the fence/ shoreline digi from Winnie Starfish and Sandcastles - I then resized and arranged them to fit into a 5"x5" square outline.

For printing I taped some tissue paper onto a piece of card - you need to tape down all four sides.

I slapped a load of mod podge on the canvas and put the tissue paper over the top (printed side down).

After glueing down the edges of the tissue paper with more mod podge I started colouring in the image with acrylic paints and a small paintbrush.

I covered over the windows with several layers of white because they were too fiddly for me to paint.

 For the finishing touch I typed the first line of the song into CraftArtist using Tempus Sans ITC font and printed it onto white card . I cut up the words and drew around them with a black fineliner pen before attaching them with pinflair glue gel.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Creatalicious Challenges #99 - Anything Goes with optional pick a song (Oh I do like to be beside the seaside)
Let's Color Saturday Linky Party #12 Anything goes with something colored
Addicted to Stamps and More #211 Anything Goes
 Fab 'n' Funky #318 Go outside
Crafting By Designs September Anything Goes 
Country View Crafts' Challenge Travel
Inspiration Destination  #103 Always Anything Goes

 Crafty Creations #324 For the Home (this is going in our hallway)

Please pop on over to Polkadoodles to see the makes from my fabulous teamies. There are also two Polkadoodles shows on Create and Craft today at 2pm and 7pm (BST), where Nikky will be showing you some gorgeous new stamps.

You can watch Create and Craft on
Sky 674
Freeview 23
Virgin 748
Freesat 813

Thanks for stopping by today,

Katrina x

Back to School

Hello lovely peeps

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

The theme this time is 'Back to School' and our sponsor is

For my inspiration card I have used School Boy

I decided to have an apple shape as my card base and luckily found an apple digi in a Craft Artist kit (Halloween).  I enlarged it to just under 6" in size and then turned it into an outline* so I could use it as a template. I copied & pasted it then flipped the copy and overlapped it with the original to make the card base.  To get the stem and leaf outlines I took copies of the original apple into Cut Out Studio and erased everything but the parts I wanted. I turned these into outlines* before adding to my 'Design Sheet'.

*To turn an image into an outline, change the colour of the object to white, the line colour to black and make sure the 'Colour using HSL' button is deactivated. Finally, on the 'Line' tab, set the width to 0.5 pt. 

I added the School Boy digi into the Photos section and dragged him on, then added a sentiment using the Text Tool  - this font is called Darlin BTN

I printed the sheet onto some smooth 250gsm white cardstock and cut everything out, then folded the shaped card base in half. To make my character easier to cut out I printed him onto some 120gsm Super Smooth paper and also increased the brightness so he came out as grey instead of black.

I coloured the character, stem and leaf in with Graph'It markers to co-ordinate with an alphabet paper from my stash (I think it's by Die Cuts With a View).

To do the background I printed the sheet again onto the back of  a green K&Co paper. I cut out the apple shape and glued it onto the base card along with the leaf and stem.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
Glitter n Sparkle #203 back to school

Brown Sugar #214 back to school
Melonheadz Friends Challenge  School
The Crazy Challenge #230 School
Make My Monday - back to school
Going Grey With Scrap-Creations back to school
4 Crafty Chicks  #314 fussy cutting
Addicted to Stamps #130 Not a Square 
Crafting Musketeers #41 Back to School

Please pop on over to Crafty Calendar to see the fabulous samples from my teamies.

Thanks for stopping by,

Katrina x

Gingerbread House for Leonie

Hello lovely peeps

Did you catch the launch show on Hochanda last night with Leonie's fabulous new glitter brush pens and stamps? It was great to see what all my teamies made.  I'm back this morning while the second live hour is on to show you the second of the two samples that I managed to make before my elbow op.

The gingerbread man has to be my favourite stamp in the set, so I decided to make him a house to live in (we made something similar at our local craft club last year).

Start by drawing the shape onto an A4 piece of Kraft card

and cut it out with scissors

Score the side panels and fold them over.

 Next I cut the spare bits with some X-cut punches (scallop and leafy lace)

Go over all the pieces with Vintage Photo Distress Ink

Now dot cosmic shimmer glue (or any strong wet adhesive) around the borders

and stick on polystyrene balls (I recovered these from an old bean bag)
 

I made the 'candi' by painting different colour pens onto watercolour paper

and punching them out with a tiny circle punch before shaping them with a ball tool.

I decorated the inside of the house with some patterned paper and a sentiment strip from Leonie's last stamp launch (they go perfectly with the new goodies).

  I coloured the gingerbread man in with the glitter pens (Copper and Berry Red), straight onto watercolour card. I glued him inside the house and decorated the front with doors/windows/trees etc. The snowy windows were done with a Versamark pen and white embossing powder and the heart was cut with one of Leonie's heart dies from the mixed media collection.

The gingerbread man was looking a bit lonely in the house all on his own, so I made him a gingerbread wife - I inked him up again but masked off the bow tie to get a plain gingerbread man. To make it look like a gingerbread lady I stamped just the bow tie and put it on the head to turn it into a hair bow.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
  Crafting By Designs get ready for christmas
Crimbo Crackers #114 Anything Goes
Hiding in my Craft Room #265 any holiday
Sparkles Forum Christmas #67 Shaped card
The 12 Months of Christmas Link Up #20 Optional Theme Christmas Confectionery
Creative Inspirations #256 Christmas in August
Noor! Designs UK #21 Christmas
Addicted to Stamps #130 Not a Square
 

There are more of Leonie's shows on at 12pm, 4pm and 7pm today, I hope you can catch one.

You can watch Hochanda live online, Sky channel 663, Freeview 39 (6am - 9pm) or Freesat 817.

 
Thanks for stopping by today, I really appreciate any comments you leave.

Katrina x

Sparkly Trees for Leonie

Hello lovely peeps

Yay! It's new launch time - Leonie is on Hochanda TV with gorgeous new glitter brush pens and some more Christmas stamps to colour in with them.

I managed to get two samples done before my elbow op, and this is the first one. I've used the fabulous fairy and the build-a-tree stamps with the glitter pens.

First I stamped several of the tree parts onto watercolour card and painted them with Berry, Pine and Holly Leaf glitter pens before cutting them out.

The fairy is stamped straight onto a square of Sheena's Stamping Card as this will take a bit of water. I coloured her in with the same pens and mixed Lilac and Copper with water for the skin.

For the greeting I 'inked' up individual sections of the ABC background stamp from Leonie's previous launch with a black Spectrum Aqua marker.

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:-
  Crafting By Designs get ready for christmas
ABC Christmas Challenge Q is for Quick Layout
Crimbo Crackers #114 Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Challenge #20 Anything Goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas #296 use a sentiment
Hiding in my Craft Room #265 any holiday
Sweet Stampin  No designer paper

My teamies have some gorgeous samples to show you too. I have links to their blogs on my sidebar --->

 Leonie will be back on Hochanda tomorrow (Monday 29th August) at 9am, 12pm, 4pm and 7pm.

You can watch Hochanda live online, Sky channel 663, Freeview 39 (6am - 9pm) or Freesat 817.

I hope you'll pop back again tomorrow when I'll have another sample to show you,

Katrina x