My CJ has come home

There was lots of post this morning (some that I'm not allowed to have until Friday) and among it was my CJ from the group on CBC forum. Thank you, ladies, for such a lovely response to my CJ theme 'Where I grew up' - so enjoyable to get to know you all a bit better in this way.

The front cover:

Welcome and rules:

My pages:

Steph's pages:

Carole's pages:

Nick's pages:

Barbara's pages:

Net's pages:

Sign in:


This is another precious CJ book to add to my collection - thank you to everyone involved.

BF July ATC swap received

These are the lovely ATCs I received for the July 'girly' swap on BF forum - thank you, girls, and Ali for hosting:

Purple Merry Christmas

This is fold Artful Inkables Think Ink 26: 'make a non-standard card (gatefold) and you must use colour purple; and it's another fancy fold for Pixie Cottage 31.


It's also for:

Pile it on 32: 'get into shape - ore thann 5 cut out shapes - the four squares on the front and the sentiment inside
Sundays with Crissy 8: 'your favourite time of year'
Crafty Ann 21: 'Christmas in August' - please see my post here about Ann's challenge blog moving
Christmas cards all year round: 'snowflakes'
Fab n funky 35: 'simply colour-riffic - use your favourite colour' - I love purple

Forest friends

This card is for Pam's sketch on There she goes 67:

Background papers are BG figgy and the embossed strip down the side and the decoupaged image are from the recent QVC kit.


This is also for:

Cutie Sunday 105: '3D'
Crazy challenge: 'forest friends/back to nature'
Sundays with Crissy 8: 'your favourite time of year'
Ann's creative nook 100: 'Christmas in August'
Crafty Ann 21: 'Christmas in August' - please see my post here about Ann's challenge blog moving
Christmas cards all year round: 'snowflakes'
Crafty creations 80: 'winged things'
Creative craft: 'animal antics'
Raise the bar 31: 'ABC - animal, brown and clean & simple'
Everybody art 103: 'check it out'
All that scraps: 'die cuts'

To a special couple

This is for Critter sketch 26:

I've used the colours given for Craft your passion 18: 'red, green and black'.

Papers are Craft creatons Christmas red mixed stripes and the sentiment, which has an embossed border, is from the QVC kit.


It's also for:

Sundays with Crissy 8: 'your favourite time of year'
Ann's creative nook 100: 'Christmas in August'
Crafty Ann 21: 'Christmas in August' - please see my post here about Ann's challenge blog moving

Chocolate and cream three-fold card

Another card from the recently acquired kit, this time using a base gloss cream card. I've backed the toppers with V&A linen paper, as well as lining the centre inside.

It was challenge 83 on the Crafty Pad that spurred me on to make this card, asking us to use 'chocolate and cream' - a lovely combination, but one not seen too often on Christmas cards. It also uses colours given in the inspiration photo on Prairie fairy for challenge 32:

I decided to make it a three-fold card for challenge 77 on Rosie-D and Pixie Cottage 31: 'a fancy fold'.

As there are camels on the front, it also fits Raise the bar 31: 'ABC - animal, brown and clean & simple'.





This is also for:

Sundays with Crissy 7: 'Christmas in July'
Ann's creative nook 100: 'Christmas in August'
Crafty Ann 21: 'Christmas in August' - please see my post here about Ann's challenge blog moving
Crafty catz 45: 'animals'

Four quick Christmas cards

Four quick Christmas cards - just cutting and sticking involved - using some of the recent QVC kit. They aren't paricularly my 'cup of tea', but I need to make a lot ready for selling for Tearfund and BMS at church, so some 'quick to make' ones like this help to swell the stocks - and this type of card will also sell quite well.

It was this week's Sparkle creations Christmas challenge 36: 'deep red, black and cream/vanilla' that prompted me to choose the elements. The backgrounds are from another kit, with the addition of some Anita's glitterations snowflakes here and there.

The cards are much more 'blingy' irl - just right for Character cafe 28: 'bright sparkle card'.





They are also for:

Sundays with Crissy 7: 'Christmas in July'
Ann's creative nook 100: 'Christmas in August'
Christmas cards all year round: 'snowflakes'
Crafty Ann 21: 'Christmas in August' - please see my post here about Ann's challenge blog moving
ABC Christmas: 'Q is for quick an easy'
Bunny Zoe 3: 'vintage'

Oriental pink

This card uses Mercy's sketch 68:

I've used the colours for 411 colour inspiration 136:

The background paper is a download I found on the internet. The wide strip down the righthand side is BG sultry and the backing behind the cherry blossom image, which has been very lightly coloured with copics, is BG euphoria. The strip with the prima pearls on the left is BG lily kate. The oriental character stamp means 'dream'. I lightly 'pinked' the edges of the cherry blossom image with copic sugared almond pink and fingered some lavender stickles on to the corners - it doesn't show up here, but is glittery irl.

Just realised how dark the picture is, so this is another version and a closer shot which shows the stickles glitter a bit better:



This is also for:

One stop craft 93: 'oriental delights'
Basic Grey 26: 'pearls'
Cooking it up with Katie 24: 'make a flowery pink square' - flowers, a square, dash or two of pink
Paper romance 11: 'pink & bling'
Pixie dust studio 35: 'pretty in pink'
Digi doodle 20: 'flowers'
Speedy the cat (Mark's finest papers) 16: 'think flowers'
Stamp and create 4: 'flowers'

Gorjuss snowman

This is for Totally Gorjuss 42 sketch (another 'scraping in at the last minute' challenge:

I've used some of a Gorjuss Christmas decoupage/pyramage set, using some of the matching papers, the striped one cut from a nestie. The dark blue snowflakes paper on the right is patchwork pals.


This is also for:

Sundays with Crissy 7: 'Christmas in July'
Ann's creative nook 100: 'Christmas in August'
Stampavie 104: 'Christmas in summer'
Christmas cards all year round: 'snowflakes'
Christmas stampin' all year long 60: 'using 2 or more different designer papers'
Crafty Ann 21: 'Christmas in August' - please see my post here about Ann's challenge blog moving
Die cut dreams 29: 'snowmen'
If the shoe fits fashionista Friday 43: 'die cuts'
Crafty creations 80: 'winged things'
In style time to be inspired: 'inspiration picture' - I used the colours:

Just look at this!

This lovely package arrived this morning:

It's jam packed with cards, ribbons and lots of bags of beautiful embellishments.

This was the prize for the 'Christmas in July' challenge on 2 sisters - you can read about it here.

Thank you, Stacy, for a wonderful crafty package.

Crafty Ann is moving

You can usually find Crafty Ann's challenge blog here, but it's moving and will be here in future. Ann's current challengeis 21: Christmas in August, so, as a fan of making Christmas cards throughout the year, I'll be back sometime with something for that.

Why not go over to Ann's new blog now to be in with a chance to win some digis - all the details are here.

August birthstone: peridot

Here I am once agains scraping in at the last minute with this week's Daring cardmaker's challenge, which this time is 'August birthstone: peridot'. As it's my birthstone, it would have been rude of me not to have done this challenge, so, better late than never.

I remembered that I had some lime greeny swirly netting somewhere ... but could I find it? But in the process of looking for it I went through a box of handmade papers that haven't been touched for ages and ages - there's stacks of mulberry paper in there too - yes, it used to be fairly popular with cardmaking some lightyears ago!

In the end I decided to use various handmade papers to make a card based on Kathy's July sketch - you'll find it here on Kathy's waffle sketch file. Kathy is one of the DCM team.
The base card is actually lemon, so that the 'snowy' light green voile stuck over it has a bit more depth of colour. I ran this through the xyron, which decided to play up and crease the material - by this stage I accepted that I'd go along with a few creases, which, hopefully, add to the handmade paper look. A small piece of corrugated card was added to give a bit of lift and texture.


The stamp is part of a Whispers ivy set - stamped with stazon cactus green and watercoloured with shabby shutters distress ink.

Have a cool yule

This card is for this week's sketch 45 on Do not waste your Thursdays:

I used a blue base card and added torn hammered white card and then added stickles crystal ice to the torn edges. The speech bubble was created in Publisher and printed and a few Anita's glitteration snowflakes were added here and there.

The penguin is an image received free for the I did it creations challenge 16: 'cute, cute, cute'.


This is also for:

Sundays with Crissy 7: 'Christmas in July'
Ann's creative nook 100: 'Christmas in August'
Stampavie 104: 'Christmas in summer'
Moving along with the times 58: 'Christmas'
Christmas cards all year round: 'snowflakes'
Craft your days away 1: 'favourite things' - making Christmas cards - if you scroll down my blog you'll see that I make a lot - love doing them
ABC Christmas: 'Q is for quick and easy'
Meljen's 19: 'clean and simple'
Raise the bar 30: 'pearly whites'
Oh Alice chapter 25: 'white rabbit, white gloves, white wonderland'
Paper jewels 6: 'monochromatic'
Delightful: 'distressing' - torn edges
Alota 40: 'distress'
Creative craft: 'animal antics'
Some odd girl style challenge 5: 'so punny'
Creative Friday 23: 'things with wings' - not sure technically whether penguins have wings or flippers (I've googled and got mixed answers!)
Crafty creations 80: 'winged things'
Penny's 35: 'anything goes'
Bee crafty 35: 'all about the image'
Sentimental Sundays 15: 'anything goes'

Rose torso

This month's theme on Something completely different is 'torsos' and this week's theme is 'a bit of bling'.

I've never made a torso before - I'm glad that a template was given on SCD, thank you.

Having printed the torso template I stamped the Hampton art rose background stamp, masking the neckline, and heat embossed with moonglow red/teal powder. I added the gemstones around the neck of the dress for the 'bit of bling' and coloured the neck with copic R00.

This is also for:

Digi doodle 19: 'use your favourite stamp' - I have so many stamps, so many of them favourites - this is certainly one of them - so versatile
Stamp dreams 43: 'lyrics: kiss from a rose'
Tanda teaser 152: 'rosa sine spina'
Stamp and create 4: 'flowers'
Penny's 35: 'anything goes'
Fiskarettes Monday challenge: 'embossing'
Our creative corner: 'it's embossable'
Paper jewels 6: 'monochromatic'
Drunken stampers 28: 'masking'

Paper pretties prize

I've received this lovely stamp from Paper Pretties, calleed 'wade E bug' for winning their Wednesday 28 July challenge.

Thank you so much, Paper Pretties.

Time for another tidy up

It's Wednesday again, which means WOYWW 62 on Julia's blog.

I can't believe that most of the stuff on my work surface is to do with the baubles embossed Christmas card I made last night. I did quite a bit of experimenting with embossing, sanding, inking etc - the finished card is in the post below - but now I see it in daylight I don't think I even like it, so I might do some more experimenting. One of the things I tried was embossing straight on to the front of an A6 card, but I obviously was more tired that I realised because I ended up with debossing instead of embossing. Oh well, you can't make an omelette without cracking eggs.

In the first photo you can see the Paper Pretties stamp that I won in a recent challenge - I'll blog about that next.



So, it's time for a tidy up ... and then I can start all over again!

Apologies to those who show their workspaces on WOYWW - I just don't get round to leaving comments because there are now so many blogs to visit. However, I am very grateful for all those who leave comments for me - I really am.

Oh, and some of you were wondering whether I'm taking on the 300 Christmas cards commission - yes, I am - the initial card needs preparing on computer, including a photo which I've already altered successfully - and then printing, so no actual 'crafting' involved.

Simply dry and wet embossing for Christmas

For the theme for August 25th club on BF forum, Joanne gave us this inspiration picture:

So I thought it was about time that I got started on the August cards - the days of the month are slipping away fast already. I used my newly acquired PM baubles embossing folder run through my cuttlebug. I used some copper pearlescent card for the embossing and then slightly sanded it in places and swiped a brillance galaxy gold ink pad over the whole surface. I then covered it with clear embossing powder and heated. Sadly, you can't get the proper look of it on here and it's too dull to take a photo without flash. The use of the embossing powder over the whole surface obviously has added a sheen to it, which has a subtle gold look over the copper.

I then mounted this on to old gold pearlescent card.

This is also for:

Fiskarettes Monday challenge: 'embossing' - dry and wet embossing
Wild flower Wednesday 26: 'embossing' - dry and wet embossing
Our creative corner: 'it's embossable' - dry and wet embossing
Sundays with Crissy 7: 'Christmas in July' (yes, I know it's August now, but the challenge continues)
'Tellen's place: 'Christmas in July'
Ann's creative nook 100: 'Christmas in August'
Moving along with the times 58: 'Christmas'
Meljen's 19: 'clean and simple'
Totally stampalicious: 'single layer' - no stamping involved, but I did use ink pad and EP
No time to stamp 151: 'one layer cards'
Paper jewels 6: 'monochromatic'
Delightful: 'distressing'
Alota 40: 'distress'

Cake plant happy birthday

This is for the sketch on Stampotique 12:

I've used the colours for Off the wall 19, which has this inspiration picture:

I've used BG porcelain papers and some sticky ribbon that's been in my box quite a while. The stamp, coloured with copics, is Stampotique Janet Klein 'cake plant'. The smaller flowers were white, coloured with copic to match the iced cake.

Please excuse the wonkiness of the scan - light is too poor to get a photo.

This is also for:

Party time Tuesdays 11: 'anything goes' - I know it's not very clear, but the stamp does have 'happy birthday' on it
Your next stamp 22: 'birthdays'
Frosted designs: 'celebrate life' - birthday
Lots to do week 31: 'ribbons and lace' - these ribbons have a lace effect
Craft your days away 1: 'favourite things' - stamping and colouring with copics