Sweet Stampin' - Punches and Dies

The title might sound like the synopsis of a Rocky film, but it's actually the theme of our new challenge over at Sweet Stampin'!

We had a great week looking at all the lovely entries in our mega birthday prize giveaway so don't forget to hop over to Sweet Stampin' tomorrow to see if you are one of the lucky winners.

We are sponsored this week by Pollycraft and the DT (Team Abi) were each given an image to use. I had this handsome chap:

I coloured the image with Copics and cut him out with a square Nestie. The shaped mats are cut using Go Kreate dies and the grass is a Magnolia Doohickey. 

I used digi papers from NitWits this time as I wanted something a bit more modern to go with the image.  I added some buttons from my stash and threaded some Basic Grey fibres through them.

The sentiment is from a Craftwork Cards pack that I've had for ages and the ribbon was off a box of chocolates!

Hoping that the weather improves and that we don't get the terrible gales that are forecast.  They often mean no power and that really is miserable, especially at the weekend!

Hugs

Tracey x

Just Magnolia Ribbons Challenge

Thought I'd post this while I'm waiting for the spaghetti to come to the boil!  Plus it will keep me from eating all the parmesan while I wait for dinner to be ready!! Not long in from work but I've got meetings after school every night this week so I was determined to get this posted tonight!

I finished this card over the weekend and thought it would be nice to enter it in Just Magnolia's latest challenge, which is Ribbons.  Just my sort of thing!

This is one of my new Tilda's and I love her.  I think I might just have mentioned once or twice how much I like this latest collection.  Anyway, she's been coloured with Copics and sprinkled with Glamour Dust. I cut her out with a Nestie and then put some Antique Linen DI around the edge.  I used the same ink around the DP too.  The paper is Magnolia and is very, very pretty I think.

I used a Doohickey lace die along a piece of pale grey Bazzill and edged it with more Antique Linen ink. I added a K & Co rub on sentiment and some gorgeous ribbon from the Ribbon Girl.  Flowers and stems are from Wild Orchid Crafts and I'm really pleased with these.  I didn't have quite the right white (I'm a bit fussy, I know) so I sprayed ivory roses with Silver Glimmer Mist.  They had a really good soaking but I really like the effect - it's not a solid silver but more of a soft, slightly sparkly grey.

Still struggling with the lack of light for my photos but I think I'm going to invest in a light tent.  Thank you everyone for your suggestions!

Time to eat, then University Challenge (sorry, I'm an addict!!) and then school work.

Have a lovely evening

Tracey xx

Sweet Stampin's Birthday Bonanza!

Good morning!  I'm having a Blogger nightmare at the moment as none of my posts will ... post! Scheduled posts are the worst so I'm having to go in and post them manually.  And this morning my extra special Sweet Stampin' post didn't post ... when I opened it up everything was all jumbled up and each time I moved the pictures and text to where they should be I got error messages and the thing refused to save!  So I'm starting again and hopefully will be able to tell you all about the fabulous things happening over at Sweet Stampin'!

It's a special day over at Sweet Stampin' Towers as it's our 2nd birthday!  And we're celebrating in style. We're still having our Spotlight winner as normal, but instead of just one, we're having loads of randomly drawn prize winners!  And check out the prizes on offer:

Crafty Sentiments -

one lucky winner will receive a £10 voucher to spend in their store.

My Creative Classroom -

My Creative Classroom. One lucky winner will receive a free seat to a class of their choice.
Prairie Fairy



one lucky winner will receive a $10 gift certificate to spend in their store.

Saturated Canary -

one lucky winner will receive 2 digis from their store.

The Craft Room -
one lucky winner will receive a £10 gift voucher to spend in their store.

Tiddly Inks -
one lucky winner will receive a $10 gift certificate to spend in their store.

 

 

Because of my Blogger problems I'm going to do this post in 2 halves, as so far no error messages!

 

See you in a minute!

 

Tracey xx

 

Sweet Stampin' - Gingham

Happy Saturday everyone!  This is a scheduled post as I'm on a course today but I wanted to let you know about the new challenge which starts this morning over at Sweet Stampin'.

This week we'd like to see gingham on your creations, please.  I think most of us like gingham and even if you don't have any gingham DP in your stash, there are plenty available to download - Pink Petticoat has a great colour collection.

Anyway, here's my card.  I tried something new and I'm not entirely sure how successful I've been.  I've had a go at colouring on Kraft with my much neglected Prisma pencils.  I enjoyed doing the hair and stocking, but struggled with the skin. I just couldn't get the colour quite right, so if you have any advice, please let me know!

The image is one of my (many) new Magnolia Christmas stamps.  I know I've gone overboard with these, but I think it's my all-time favourite Maggie collection.  The holly is also a Magnolia stamp which has been coloured with pencils and cut out. I put some Glossy Accents on the berries to make them shine!   I gave the Tilda image a good dose of Glamour Dust on the fur trim of her stocking and used a MS PATP punch around the entire Kraft square. 

The sentiment is another Maggie  which I stamped onto Kraft card and cut out with a circle punch.  I distressed this a bit with some Walnut Stain ink.  The lovely paper is from the SEI paper pad; I wish there was more paper like this in it, as some of the designs I know I will never use, but so far I haven't managed to find a 12"x12" version of this paper.  The cotton lace is my last piece of this and I wish I could remember where I got it!

So, a fairly simple card but although I'm not completely happy with my colouring I do like the colour scheme.  In fact, I've bought Christmas decorations in this style although they won't be going up until the week we finish school.  But that will be here before we know it ...

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

Hugs

Tracey xx

A Christmas Maggie

Time to show off another of my new Magnolia stamps.  I thought I'd shown quite a bit of restraint initially as I limited myself to just buying a couple of the new collection.  Then I cracked and bought a couple more.  And then today I had an email to say that some of the new stamps are on offer at the Glitter Pot.  Well, I had to go and have a look, didn't I (it would be rude not to) ... and a couple more just fell into my shopping cart.  So it must have been meant to be.

Anyway, I had fun making this. 

I coloured Tilda with Copics as usual and did her hearts, string, ribbons and trim on her dress with Glamour Dust. I put a bit of Antique Linen around the edge of the Nestie die cut and popped the lot on top of a Cheery Lynn Doily die cut (these are fab and cut beautifully). Before I stuck the doily etc to the card I stamped the Magnolia holly swirl in brown ink, then went over this with a clear glue pen before adding some more Glamour Dust.

I put a row of heavy cotton lace across a piece of MME Christmas paper and before fixing the image/doily combo to the page with some sticky fixers I lined up my stamped holly swirl.

The gardenia is from Wild Orchid crafts and this is sitting on a Sizzix holly leaf die cut.  I sprayed the dark red gardenia with some gold Glimmer Mist and coloured some white WOC pearls with a dark red Copic pen to look like holly berries. I put a gold double ended stamen from WOC under the flower to finish it off and add a bit more bling.

And last of all, a little peak inside.  It's quite plain, just contrasting MME paper and more lace plus a K&Co rub on greeting on the jotting spot.

I struggled a bit with the lack of light when taking the photos - don't know about you but it's been dark here all day.  Does anyone use one of those light tent thingys? Are they any good?

I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

Just Magnolia - Anything Goes plus optional lace and pearls
Magnolia Stamp Lovers - Christmas

Hugs

Tracey

More Black!!!

What was I saying about challenges and black earlier?  Well, there's one that actually suits my new Tilda stamp and it's over at Magnolia Stamp Lovers!  Fortunately for me the challenge is to use black and no other colour is specified, although I was a bit worried that there wasn't enough black on my card.  Having seen the fabulous DT cards though, I was reassured that black and white/grey would be OK.

 I coloured this adorable Tilda (I'm so in love with this latest collection!) with my Copics and added half a ton of Glamour Dust to her hat and scarf.  I masked the main image and stamped the trees over the top; I stamped an extra tree, cut it out and layered it over parts of the background for a bit of depth.  A good dollop of Stickles on the trees gave them a bit of sparkle.  The sky looked a bit empty so I used some Kaisercraft rub on stars to fill the space.

The silver DP is from the latest SEI pad and over this I layered a square of Pink Petticoat little stars paper.  I then embossed a piece of black Coredinations card with the Cuttlebus Swiss Dots folder, roughed up the edges and added this as another layer.  Then I wrapped a length of M&S black sparkly ribbon around all the DP layers, although to be honest now you can hardly see it. 

I put a large snowflake (I won these as part of a candy a while ago and I'm eeking out my last few!) behind the image and a smaller snowflake on top.  In the opposite corner is a Craftwork Cards message circle.

The picket fence, cut in black, is a Doohickey die cut.  I covered it in Polar White flowersoft and hope it looks like snow!  Actually if I had the time I should have just left the card outside overnight - it's been freezing here all day and this afternoon I had to defrost the car for the first time since last winter.

Now please can I go back to my flowery and girlie comfort zone? 

Have a lovely evening.

Tracey xx

Lovely hAnglar Only Black and ...

As usual I'm running late, but I wanted to do something for the Lovely hAnglar Only challenge as apparently they are taking a creative break after this.  Don't know how long they will be away for, but I do hope they come back!

The theme for the challenge is Black and either purple, green or orange.  Not my favourite combination, any of them, but I had some lovely roses from Wild Orchid Crafts so that dictated my choice of colour.

Apologies in advance for the horrendous picture - I found the black background rather difficult to photograph, I'm afraid. 

I used DP from the Authentique Halloween pad and cut a Magnolia Doohickey doily which sadly you can hardly see!  There is also some black grosgrain ribbon underneath the doily!  The little hAnglar girl was coloured with Copics and cut out with a Nestie before getting a going-over with some Frayed Burlap ink.  The roses and pearls are from Wild Orchid Crafts.

I'm not too happy with the finished result, but there we go.  There's a lot of black about in challenges at the moment, don't you think?  I like black and white but struggle with black and a colour! 

Hope to be back later if I can get my latest card finished in time!

Hugs,

Tracey x

New Challenge at Sweet Stampin'!

There's a new challenge at Sweet Stampin' - something to really get you thinking!  This week we have a photo inspiration challenge and for those of you who maybe feel this isn't your thing, just look at the colours in the inspiration piccie!

Fi is donating the prize this week for the randomly chosen winner.  As she has friends in high places she's giving away a couple of SUGAR NELLIE stamps!  Now that's a prize I wouldn't mind winning myself!

Hugs,

Tracey xx