BF March inchies and ATCs

Yesterday, both the BF ATC swaps and the inchies swaps arrived and they are wonderful - thanks to the ladies who took part and those who hosted the swaps.

The theme for the inchies was 'spring':

and for the ATCs we were given a sketch to work from:

Salt: Gethsemane

It was Pauline's turn to choose the topic for today's Salt challenge - you can read what she wrote here.

When I pepared my LO, I hadn't seen Pauline's and only discovered when I uploaded to Salt that we had both used the same picture of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane - I got the picture from here. It's interesting too to read the reflections of Linda who used the picture on her blog.

I based my LO on the worship song 'the Servant King' by Graham Kendrick:

From heaven you came
Helpless babe
Entered our world
Your glory veiled
Not to be served
But to serve
And give Your life
That we might live

This is our God
The Servant King
He calls us now
To follow Him
To bring our lives
As a daily offering
Of worship to
The Servant King

There in the garden
Of tears
My heavy load
He chose to bear
His heart with sorrow
Was torn
'Yet not My will
But Yours,' He said

Come see His hands
And His feet
The scars that speak
Of sacrifice
Hands that flung stars
Into space
To cruel nails
Surrendered

So let us learn
How to serve
And in our lives
Enthrone Him
Each other's needs
To prefer
For it is Christ
We're serving

For me, this song sums up the surrendering of Jesus to His Father's will and also reminds me of the earlier time on the same evening as he prayed in the garden, when he washed the disciples feet. As we approach Good Friday tomorrow, let's remember the tremendous sacrifice made by Jesus, the Servant King.

I used BG periphery papers and elements for my LO and thickers chipboard letters.

Easter easel card

Yes, I'm still making Easter cards! (Only one more to do after this, I think - otherwise it will be too late anyway!)

This card is for the sketch on Moving along with the times 39:

It's an easel card, so the front has been done using the sketch.

It's also for:

Stampotique designers 4: 'hippity hoppity Easter's on it's way!' - I used the lovely Stampotique 'grow' stamp
Gingersnap G48 random redhead challenge: 'growth'
Prairie fairy week 12: 'easel card'
Stampin' for the weekend 35: 'Easter'
Town scrapper: 'Easter'
Ann's creative nook 82: 'Easter'
Corrosive 57: 'Easte/spring'
Magical crafts 11: 'spring/Easter theme'
Stamp dreams 24: 'Easter'
Going grey (Scrap-creations) 3: 'Easter' - I used BG lemonade papers
Moxie Tuesday trigger 'hippity hoppity Easter's on its way' (inspiration picture with bright colours)
Papertake weekly: 'open'
Cuttlebug be inspired 76: 'Easter' - the strip across the bottom was made with a Cuttlebug embossing border
Simon says: 'Easter or spring and some glimmer' - the centres of the Craftime flowers and the ribbon
Dutch dare 74: 'spring card with fabric' - the ribbon
C.R.A.F.T. 43: 'Easter'
Hanna and friends 37: 'Happy Easter'
One powerful hour: 'Easter'
Paperplay week 12: 'Easter'
ECP 9: 'Easter'
Fussy & fancy 7: 'Easter'
No time to stamp? 132: 'Easter'
Paper cutz 34: 'Easter' - no bunnies or chicks (not one in sight!)
Crafty angels 28: Easter
Stamptacular 52: 'flower power!'
Everybody art 84: 'spring'
Wednesday stamper: 'spring'
Charisma cardz 12: 'spring has sprung'
Susie's sassy 11: 'Sally's spring garden'
Secret crafter Saturday 76: 'pink, green & flowers' (some of the pink is within the base underneath the stand up piece - will be the area to write on
Cupcake inspiration 52 (Hope stamps eternal)
Quirky crafts 24: 'flowers'
Squigglefly 42: 'flower power'
Paper popsicles: 'ribbon'
Stampin' royalty 12: 'get glitter happy'
Paper garden projects 4: 'embossing' - the cuttlebug border embossing folder used along the bottom of the base of the card
Raise the bar 11: 'April fool' - show us a style you don't normally do - this stamp is not my usual style, but I love it and will be buying more Stampotique stamps (in fact I have another on order)

Another lovely prize

I've received another lovely prize.

This My Acryllix set of stamps 'true friends' was sent to me for winning challenge 9 on Prairie Fairy Fridays with this card.

I'm so looking forward to using these lovely stamps.

A springtime birthday card

This card is for the sketch for challenge 53 on Creative Inspirations:

It's also for:

Corrosive 57: 'spring theme' - with a daffodil the card is for a spring birthday
Going grey (Scrap-creations) 3: 'spring' - I've used BG papers - lime rickey and marrakech
Colour challenge TCP102 on Dancing in Pajamas:

I used one of my favourite daffodil stamps again, this time leaving out the rectangular frame - coloured with copics (printed on yellow paper).

Look what I caught!

This card is for the Papertake 37 sketch:



It's also for:

Cards and things colour challenge 25:

My time to craft 84: 'make it manly'
Cute Daisy May: 'for the boys!' (although I'm not sure you'd call this image 'cute'!)
Penny's: 'another birthday challenge'
Pile it on 12: 'animal-riffic!' (well, a fish is an animal ...)
Crafty Ann 11: 'make something for someone special' - birthday card for a special man
Simple doodles 14: 'add some layers'
Sunflowers and dragonflies 35: 'they say it's your birthday'
Etsy inspired 81: 'Ponder and stitch' - inspired for the colours by this item

Papers are 'stars and stripes' collection by Nancy Watt (free with Making cards magazine) and the stamp is Paper Nation fisherman, coloured with copics.

Butterfly or fairy?

This card is for Mercy sketch 66:

I've used a beautiful digi image called 'butterfly swirl' designed by Karen for Dewdrop Craftz - I won it and have already used it before and know it's a digi that I'll want to use again and again.

I used pink, black and white for the Monday challenge on Apron strings (ooops - just discovered this was last week - oh well!)

And I'm just scraping in at the last minute (again!) for 'fairy, fairy' on Cute Daisy May - I know that this image is called a butterfly, but I hope she qualifies too as a fairy!

It's also for Tuesday trigger 'butterfly dreams' on Moxie fab world and another for Crazy amigo 'butterflies'. I'm linking too for Created by hand 'my heart dances' and Die cut dreams 41: 'black, white and one other colour'.

What a silly I am - I used ribbon that has a black and pink pattern on a white background, but now most of it is covered by the image and bow - d'oh!

It's your day ...

so relax and enjoy it!

This card is for the sketch on Crafts 4 eternity receipe 25, which also calls for the use of notepaper and a butterfly:

As the main colours are pink and green, the card is also for Totally papercrafts 9. And the butterflies are suitable for this week's Crazy amigo and also another for Flutter by Wednesday 102, which this week is an open challenge, as long as it includes a butterfly, fairy or angel.

The background paper is English paper company, the handbag is Dena designs and the piece of notepaper is Dream street hugs and kisses - as it was notepaper I braved using handwriting for the Monday challenge on Apron strings.

I am here for you ... anytime

This card is for sketch 84 on Cutie Sunday:

and also for Easy breezy Kewl colour challenge 18:

It was an opportunity to use one of the new stamps that arrived this morning, part of the Hero arts cuckoo set - the sentiment is from that set too. I particularly used this because this week's Sunday stamper (just getting in at the last minute again!) challenge 96 is 'any time at all' - I love the sentiment 'I am here for you - anytime' - although I have to admit that the ex-teacher in me finds it difficult using a sentiment that starts with 'i' instead of 'I'.

Easter card production line

Mum phoned this morning and asked if she could please have 12 Easter cards. I counted up how many I'd made so far, which was the grand sum of 8 - and we need more than that for ourselves. (Incidentally, if she'd asked for Christmas cards it would have been much easier - lol! - I've already made over 50).

So I spent time this morning stamping and colouring with copics - the stamps I used are all foam ones bought from QVC - they give a surprisingly good, clear impression. I needed to keep everything quite simple if I was going to get enough cards made - I managed to do 16 in all, including 3 non-stamped cards. I made good use of some of the aperture cards that a crafting friend kindly sent to me recently.

I thought of doing a few separate blog posts, but instead I'm going to stick to this one post, which will inevitably be a long one, but it will save any repeating.

There are still lots of challenges around atm that cover Easter and spring, so these are some that I'm linking all the cards shown:

Stampin' for the weekend 35
Our creative corner
Paper garden projects 3
Ann's creative nook 82
Magical crafts 11
Incy wincy 35
Stamp with fun 51
Everybody art 83
Jacksonbelle Tuesday 98
Cutie stampers 47
Frosted designs
Allsorts 44
Crazy 4 challenges 29
Lots to do 11
Secret crafter Saturday 75
Sweet stampin' 18
Wednesday stamper
Charisma cardz 12
C.R.A.F.T. 43
Hanna and friends 37
One powerful hour
Paperplay week 12

The following four batches of cards are suitable for Stampin' sisters in Christ 31: 'clean and simple', Lucy's 7: 'clean and simple' and There she goes 47: 'simplicity'.

So first, I'll show cards with a lily stamp:

The second one is good for Color throwdown 85: 'baja breeze, garden green, certainly celery' and also for the inspiration photo given for Little red wagon challenge 21 and the inspiration given for cupcake challenge 51 on Hope stamps eternal.

The next three cards use a stamped image of irises:


These particularly show feather blending with copics, which is one of my favourite techniques and is therefore being linked for Copic creations 24 and also Fab n funky 16: it's all in the technique'. The colours used are good for Sophisticat 27: 'recipe: mint green, lilac + other colour + flowers'.

Then, for the next four cards I used a large stamp in a couple of different ways, firstly just with memento rich cocoa stamping and secondly with the same stamping lightly coloured in places with copics.

These cards, particularly the first two, are suitable for Fiskarettes Monday challenge: chocolate/brown, Quixotic 18: 'monochromatic' and Susie's sassy 11: 'Sally's spring garden'.


The next card is similar to one I showed yesterday - using the same stamp, but this time cutting round it and using a large aperture card - this uses the colours called for in Stampin' B 51: 'purple, green and yellow', although I admit that the purple is minimal, but I love that little crocus. There are also little chicks on this card which I think qualify as 'furry friends' for Pile it on 11.

Lastly, I made three cards that didn't involve stamping. I used a PDA 'chicks' paper for two of them and a striped one for the other one. All the glitzy stickers were from Poundland, which are right for:

Pollycraft 36: 'sparkly things'
Creative cottage 3: 'sparkle'
Stampin' royalty 12: 'get glitter happy'
One stop craft 72: 'let it shine!'

They also have dimension for Cute card Thursday 105.


This one has a shaker on it for 365 cards day 20: 'let's make some noise' and also are pastel colours for Colour create 41, with the option of Easter/spring.

If you've got to the end here you must be as tired as I am now!

Some more prizes

I am so fortunate to win a couple more prizes.

I received two lovely stamps today for winning Birthday challenge 1 on Paper garden projects. You can see the mummu stamp here and the 'soaking up the joy' stamp here, both by Mo Manning. What a lovely prize -thank you.

I also received this gorgeous card from Melissa Craig who gave it to the name drawn (mine!) for challenge 34 on Tuesday morning sketches - what a delightful card - thank you, Melissa.

Nearly forgot WOYWW

Wednesdays come round so quickly and I nearly forgot that today is WOYWW. I don't know whether I'll get round to looking at others today - I'm trying to ignore the fact that my back is playing up big time, but I need to respect it and limit the time I spend on here.

Anyway, today I've made a card, some inchies (which have gone into the post, so you can't see them here - in a post below) and tootled around with a few other bits and pieces. You'll see a pile of cards that I've made over the last couple of weeks - they need inserts put in and then bagging and labelling, but, as it's something I don't like doing, I think they'll go back in the cupboard for another day (or two or more!). So, nothing exciting to see.

CBC prize

In the recent CBC birthday challenges I was a runner up and received a package of goodies today from Carolyn - ribbon, Maya Road gem flowers, brads, flowers, Buttons galore words and diamonte. Thanks to Sue for running the challenges and to Carolyn for the prize - much appreciated.

BF March inchies swap: spring

Why do I leave things to the last minute? I even made an Easter card this morning (post below) when I ought to have been getting on with my inchies for the BF swap to get them in the post, hoping that RM will excel themselves and delivery first class tomorrow.

Anyway, once I started them I enjoyed doing them, but they look a bit 'rough and ready' (one of my nan's favourite sayings!).

I used a little flower and butterfly stamp that almost fitted on an inch - it's an unknown stamp that I've had for ages - and I stamped on to some card that was packaging with some PM products a long time ago.

For a change, I used Sakura metallic and glitter pens to colour (not a copic in sight!). So, here are my six inchies that have just gone in the post:

and here is one of the inchies with Gez's universal measure:

I'm linking for:

Stampin' royalty 12: 'get glitter happy' (the glitter pens unfortunately don't show up too well here)
Simon says: 'Easter or spring and some glimmer'
Inky impressions 32: 'recycle it' - the background card as shown above
Creative inspirations 30: 'anything but a card'
Pals paper arts 35: 'anything but a card'
Flutter by Wednesday 102: 'open - I used a butterfly'

Easter cross aperture card

Not surprisingly, there are lots of challenges around atm to do with Easter and spring.

Having bought a Peronsal Impressions Easter stamp by Graham Pilkington yesterday, I was itching to use it.

The other day, a kind crafting friend sent me a lot of aperture cards, so I've used one for this card - the stamped image fitted in the aperture perfectly.

So these are the Easter/spring challenges covered:

Susie's sassy 10
Stampin' for the weekend 35
Our creative corner
Paper garen projects 3
Ann's creative nook 82
Magical crafts 11
Incy wincy 35
Stamp with fun 51
Everybody art 83
Jacksonbelle Tuesday 98
Twisted Thursday 48
Cutie stampers 47
Frosted designs
Allsorts 44
Crazy 4 challenges 29
Lots to do 11
Secret crafter Saturday 75
Sweet stampin' 18
Wednesday stamper
CCEE inspiration (the eggs)

As there are a couple of little chicks on here, this is also for Daring cardmakers 'tweetie pie' and Crafty creations 60: 'babies' can include the little chick just hatched from the egg; and I think the chicks would count as furry friends for Pile it on 11.

And, as it's an aperture card, it's good for Tanda teaser 138 'artful apertures'.

The colours are right for Rosie-dee 67: 'green, yellow and white'. The image was coloured with copics, with some colour blending - for Copic creations 24: 'favourite technique'.

Day 15 on 365 cards was an 'ad inspired', with a picture of eggs - there's an egg hatched on here, so I'm linking for that too.

Printed flowers

I love colour challenges and also sketch ones, so this is a combination of the two, using the colour combo this week for the Color dare 60:

and the sketch for Diva coffee break designs 169:

I took inspiration from the cushions in the picture given for Divine diva inspiration 24:

The card is also for:

Glue, scissors, paper 17: 'spring is in the air' - use hand made flowers
Quirky crafts 24: 'flowers'
Practical scrappers: 'use something you've had for a year or more' - although the stamps were bought today, the papers are certainly more than a year old and haven't been used before
Hand full of stamps 20: 'remove the dust' - the BG papers I used
There she goes 47: 'simplicity'
Lucy's cards 7: 'clean and simple'
Creative cottage 2: 'flowers'
Fab n funky 15: 'use something new' - the Hero arts printed flowers stamps
Paperplay week 11: 'thank you' - part of the text on the printed flowers
Pixie dust studio 14: 'the power of 3' - I used each of the printed flower stamps 3 times
The treehouse 41: 'thank you theme'
365 cards day 17: 'twinchies' - it has one on the card

The papers are a mixture of BG blush (the background flowery paper) and obscure, printed some printed flowers on to some of the papers, using a couple of my new Hero arts stamps (one of my purchases this morning at Hobbycraft). Among the text on the flowers is 'thank you'.

Hobbycraft visit

John had to go to a meeting to do with his bowls club this morning, so he had a car there and got the driver to take me on to Hobbycraft at Crayford and then they came back to pick me up.

I only managed to pick up a few bits and pieces - lol!

Diggin' on doilies

The other day we went with friends to a nearby village for a lovely lunch - we are very grateful to them for taking us - we enjoying good food and good company and afterwards even did a spot of shopping in one or two of the little shops. I bought a pack of red and white spotted doilies because I liked the look of them and thought I might be able to creative something with them. Then I remembered that I'd seen a challenge that had something to do with doilies - Moxie fab world: 'diggin' on doilies & lace'.

In fact, I couldn't find the challenge until I looked again this evening, otherwise I would have also done something with lace - that will have to keep now till another challenge.

I loosely used the sketch given for Don't waste your Thursdays 25:

It's also for:

Crafty creations 59: 'spots and dots'
Creative card crew 46: 'going dotty'
One stop craft 72: 'let it shine!' - the card and the black gems

I'm deliberately showing the effect of the flash photograph on the black card because it gives an idea of the metallic sheen, which catches the light as you move the card.

BF March ATCs

This is the sketch we were given for the March ATC swap on Bubbly Funk forum:

I really enjoyed doing these - I made seven of them.

The top and bottom based pieces started off as pink paper and was stamped with a couple of Anna Griffin background stamps - I particularly like the bottom one that really looks like patterned paper when stamped - the darker colour is the ink - I used Brilliance pearlescent crimson.

The side pieces on the right were cut with nestie dies - papers are Anna Griffin - 'dream' was computer generated, with the addition of ribbons and a button.

A tough challenge

Well, challenges are meant to be ... well ... challenging, so I decided I shouldn't duck out of a couple just because they asked us to use fabric. I thought of 'cheating' a little and using some ready made felt embellishments, but I thought that wasn't really the way to go.

So I got out my fabric box and found some pieces of furnishing samples - lovely plush-feeling material that I thought would be OK for the grass/ground. The stems of the flowers are some that I've had for ages, wondering what to do with them.

The challenge on Embellish Magazine is also a colour one, as well as fabric, asking us to use red, kraft, blue and green. I know that the cloudy sky paper is only pale blue, but it is blue, so I hope that counts.

The other challenge is for the Monday one on Fiskarettes.

This is also for:

week 11 on Prairie fairy, choosing the 'red and green' option
365 cards day 9: 'song inspired: what a wonderful world'
Another for No time to stamp? 131: 'CAS texture' - add texture but still keep it clean and simple
Stamping sisters for Christ 31: 'clean and simple'
Poppy seed 2: light moss is my chosen element
Moxie Tuesday trigger: 'texture + colour = fun! - inspired by this picture (particularly the colours of the cushion and the texture of the fabric:

I know this isn't the best card I've ever made, but sometimes it's good to step outside our comfort zone and do something that little bit different.

After that, I need a cup of tea and then find an easier challenge!