What's going on? update

Having shown my workspace yesterday for Order of the Opus Gluei challenge 61 - you can see it here - I've now cleared up this morning and this is what it looks like now:





No crafting yet today - had to go to the GP surgery this morning and this afternoon we're off to Guy's for an appointment for John, but I expect there might be some crafting this evening, so the workspace won't be staying like this for long.

What's going on?

This is the question that's being asked for challenge 61 on Order of the Opus Gluei: 'This week is something totally different. We are challenging you to be brave and show us your craft work area "AS IS". No cleaning up allowed. We are talking about the surface on which you arrange things, cut things and glue them together. It takes some guts to post a picture of a messy area.
Now, get your camera, take the picture (no editing), and post the picture in the next 10 minutes.'

Well, as I often take part in Julia's WOYWW on Wednesdays, I'm no stranger to doing something like this. If you've not come across WOYWW, then do visit Julia's blog on Wednesday - have a nose and join in - I can tell you, it's addictive!

I haven't done any crafting today. We went to church this morning and this afternoon I've been lounging in the garden, reading.

So what you see here is how I left things after doing some crafting yesterday. Those of you who quite often see my workspace on WOYWW will know that I like to tidy up and put things away in between crafting sessions, so I'm often told that my area is far too tidy - I didn't put things away last night, so I'll leave you to decide.





PS - since I did this yesterday I've cleared up and you can see the update results here.

Yesteryear in pink and brown

This is for Mercy's sketch on Crazy4challenges 43:

and for SPCC 53:

The papers are Daisy Bucket and the image is a Kanban stamp, coloured with copics. The handmade paper flowers have been coloured with copics.


It's also for:

Creative stamp friends 1: 'pink and brown'
Ooh-la-la 56: 'flourishes and pearls'
Creative cottagre 16: 'pearls and swirls'
Creative craft: 'stamp it up'
Dollies elements: 'let your favourite ice cream flavour dictate your colour palate' - I love chocolate and strawberry ice cream
Rainbow lady 109: 'ice cream colours' - chocolate and strawberry
Freshly brewed 8: 'anything goes'
Fab n funky 29: 'sew n sew' - stitched ribbon
Simplicity 9: 'flourishes'
Tanda teaser 149: 'yesteryear'
Copic creations 30: 'other paper' - I coloured the handmade paper flowers (originally white) with copics
Stamp something: 'something vintage with flowers'
Challenge up your life 23: 'vintage'
One stop craft 86: 'colour combo: pink and brown'
Speedy the cat 9: '3+ flowers on your card'
Bunny Zoe 1: 'nice and girly'
Creative prompts for you CH21: 'read all about it' - inspired by a book - I've chosen 'The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald' - the roaring twenties:

Another quick card while watching Nadal

Well, poor Rafa Nadal hasn't had it easy in this match and one still wonders whether he will pull through an win it - time will tell.

I'm doing a bit of crafting, but keeping an eye on the game, so this is another easy card - just a print out of sheet music free from the internet for 'Hark the herald angels sing' and 'Christmas carollers', a charmed digi download.


It is for these challenges:

Incy wincy 47: 'music'
Dottie's world: 'no designer papers'
Digital Tuesday 64: 'Christmas in June'
My time to craft 96: 'Yuletide in June'

Dottie at school

Just a bit more crafting while keeping an eye on Nadal's match at Wimbledon.

This week on Dottie's world the challenge is to make a card with no designer papers. I chose a favourite Dottie digi 'Dottie at school' - the coloured version - and I stamped the background of the card with random letters/numbers - PM alphabet stamps coloured with copics.

Just scraps 13 is 'school's out' - anything to do with school, so I'm also linking for that.



It's also for Crafty Catz 38: 'let's go digital'

Teenage boy card

Unlike quite a few crafters I tend to like making masculine cards, but I think the hardest are for teenage lads. It's quite easy to find a fun image for a younger boy and plenty to choose from for the older man, but teenagers ....

I've used Tim Holtz idea-ology Lost and Found papers, cutting individual 2" squares and then piecing them together before stamping with the HOTP faux stitching stamp.

The added bits and pieces are from Jolees 'tech gadget' stickers and also Sandylion gym sticker.


I'm linking this card for:

Pile it on 24: 'stickers'
Die cut dreams: 'green & blue colour combo for a teenage boy'
Our creative corner: 'keep your cool colour challenge: blues & greens'
Fab n funky 29: 'sew n sew'
Sew many challenges 19: 'anything goes'
Creative craft: 'stamp it up'
Charisma cardz 25: 'for the boys'
Paper cutzz 47: 'circles, stars or squares'
Polka doodles week 25: 'boy's birthday'
Dancing in pajamas TCP115: 'photo inspiration' - squares and green/blue:

Look what I caught!

I decided to make a quick card in between sitting in the garden for a coffee and coming in to watch tennis (the stamped image was done last night, so it was a very quick card).

This card uses the sketch for challenge 11 on Craft your passion:

The stamp is Paper Nation fisherman, coloured with copics and the background paper is an old piece of English paper company (gradually using this up, but will be sad when it's gone).


It's also for:

Mixed Media Monday: 'something old' - the English paper company background paper
Lexi 16: 'something old' (see above)
Rosie D 73: 'something blue + option fish
Paper cutz 47: 'circles, stars or squares'
Gingersnap GC60 colour challenge: 'shades of blue'
Ann's creative nook 93: 'it's a man's world'
Charisma cardz 25: 'for the boys'
Dancing in pajamas TCP115: 'photo inspiration' (I used squares):

Berry Christmas

This is my last card for June's 25th club on BF forum - I've now done 10 for the month, which was my target.

This is another card using the very reflective mirror card that is so hard to photograph. The sentiment says 'with love at Christmas'.


This is also for:

Crafty creations 73: 'we want to see you shine' - lots of shine and glitter
My time to craft: 'Yuletide in June'
Paper Garden June: 'cool'
Christmas stampin all year long 53: 'non stamped card'

Ice and snow

Two more cards for BF forum 25th club and also for today's Daring cardmaker's 'ice and snow'.

These cards are 'less is more' - for the first one the mirror holly card doesn't need a lot added to it; I love the snowy berries on the second one - here again, there's no need to add much else.

I apologise for the quality of the photos - it is extremly difficult to get a picture of the first card because the background is so reflective that it's impossible to get a clear picture, but you can get the general idea.

The black card base is from the Majestic range from PDA card & craft.

Poinsettias for a Merry Christmas

This is another Christmas card for BF forum's 25th club for June - a very simple card with one piece of designer paper and the two poinsettias - anything else added would cover up the text too much, so I've deliberately left it simple.
.It's also for:

Aly's 20: 'flower power'
Practical scrappers: 'flower'
My time to craft: 'Yuletide in June'
Christmas stampin all year long 53: 'non stamped card'

Strawberries and cream at Christmas

This is another card for the BF 25th club for June and also for 'strawberries and cream' for challenge 96 on Cupcake. 'Strawberries and cream' is also this week's challenge on Winter wonderland.

I know it's summer now - and the weather seems to be agreeing atm, which is brilliant - and 'strawberries and cream' conjures up summer days, particularly with Wimbledon on atm. However, I decided to use the colours on a Christmas card (well, I needed to get up to date with the rest of mine for the 25th club). This was then matted on to some sparkly red card.

I stamped the Magenta Christmas tree with versamark and heat embossed with metallic red on to pearlised cream card. The background paper is BG eskimo kisses.

This is also for:

My time to craft: 'Yuletide in June'
Caardvarks June challenge: 'stamps and wet and/or dry embossing'
Created by hand: 'songs we sing' (O Christmas tree)/embossing'
Crafty Ann 17: 'embossing'
Speedy the cat 8: 'emboss'

Six months to Christmas

On BF forum there is a Christmas 25th challenge club - I said I would make 10 Christmas cards for this every month. Well, today being the 25th I had only made one card for the challenge - I've made up for it this afternoon and made 9 more.

The challenge for June, set by Tracey, 'is to use Christmas flora. So holly, mistletoe, ivy and of course Christmas trees.'

So here are the first four that I made today. The Magenta Christmas tree was stamped with versamark and heat embossed: firstly with white detail powder, secondly with silver detail, third and fourth with gold detail.

The last card was coloured with copics and mounted on to scrapperdashery 'holly and the ivy - without the ivy'.





These are also for:

My time to craft: 'Yuletide in June'
Caardvarks June challenge: 'stamps and wet and/or dry embossing'
Created by hand: 'songs we sing' (O Christmas tree)/embossing'
Crafty Ann 17: 'embossing'
Speedy the cat 8: 'emboss'

Clean & simply using up the scraps

This is for Clean & simple sketch 95:

It's also for today's colour inspiration challenge 129 on 411:

As soon as I saw what the colours were I knew I had to use the scraps that were still in front of me after making my Salt LO (which you can see here and below) and on this card. The paper is from Bo Bunny flutter range and I tore a mini version of the flower that I made for my Salt LO. The piece of scalloped card was stamped and edged with stazon cactus green using part of a Funstamps paisley stamp. For a change, I decided to leave the base card without any designer paper - it is a creamy ivory textured card.

This is also for:

Crazy 4 challenges 42: 'paper flowers'
Your next stamp 19: 'patterned/printed ribbon'
Alota 37: 'birthday'
Clearlyistamp 14: 'birthdays'

Tea for two

This week's skinni challenge on Something completely different is 'blue & white'- making a skinni which is 3" x 5".

I've used stamps from Joanna Sheen, stamped with stazon ultramarine, masking with post-it notes. I went round the edges lightly with the ink pad.

I'm also linking this for:

Pixie Dust 28: 'seeing 2' - use 2 or more images - the teapot, milk jug and cup and saucer are separate images, masked and stamped
One stitch at a time 18: 'seeing double' - the cup and saucer has been masked and stamped again
Order of the Opus Gluei 60: 'it's as easy as ABC' - anything but a card - this is a skinni

Salt: to obey is better than sacrifice

Where has the last fortnight gone to? It's Salt challenge day once again and this time it was Kim's turn to choose the topic - you can read what she wrote here and, of course, see all the delightful contributions from others in the team.

I believe that the heart of Christian obedience is love. Jesus said: 'If anyone loves me they will obey my teachings'. You can read more around this in John 14. I have to ask myself: 'Do I really love God? and want to obey His teachings?'

Jesus said: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' (Matthew 22:37-39)

To keep these two commandments is true obedience. But, of course, this is not in our own strength, it is by allowing the Holy Spirit to work within us, creating a desire to love God and show that love to others around us. Returning to John 14, Jesus said: ''If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth.'

For this LO I used Bo Bunny papers: flutter butter breeze, flutter butter stripe, flutter butter burst and flutter butter honey. I had great fun cutting and tearing into these papers and (thankfully) have some scraps left to use for something else.

The heart was cut on the cricut, using the heart template on Make the cut. I added a few Prima 'say it in studs' - rather sad now that there are no more left in the pack - but the good thing is that as this is a LO, I get to keep it!

If you click on the picture, you can get a closer view.

I'm linking this LO for:

Alphabet: 'H is for hearts'
Stampavie 100: 'heart'
Crazy 4 challenges 42: 'paper flowers'
Lots to do: 'use quotations'
Our daily bread 18: 'f.l.o.w.e.r.s.' - my 3 items: flower, circle shapes (the prima gems), swirls (on the papers)
Order of the Opus Gluei 60: 'it's as easy as ABC' - this is a 12 x 12 LO

Green & black (but not the chocolate!)

I couldn't resist the reference to chocolate because Green & Black is a manufacturer of yummy chocolate, particularly their dark chocolate varieties - mmmmm - pity that I'm on a diet!

This is for the sketch on Cute card Thursday 117:

I've just gone to Cute Card Thursday to link my card and found that I'm too late and can't leave a comment either - I still want to acknowledge the use of the sketch.

The background papers are from the Bo Bunny flutter range and the pieces across the card are BG offbeat. The flowers are a monochrome white/grey/silver decoupage.

This is also for:

Crazy amigo: 'black, white and green'
ABC: 'X for Xtra dimension' - the 3 flower decoupage
Practical scrappers: 'flowers'
Off the wall craftiness 12: 'inspiration photo' - 'mint, green, black and/or white':

WOYWW - gosh it's Wednesday again

I think everybody in crafting blogland knows by now that Wednesday means WOYWW on Julia's Stamping ground blog.

There's nothing much to show here today (those who know me well know that I tend to tidy up after a crafting day - usually not till the next morning, though - and then I start again to get everything all over the place.

So far today I've made one card, which is shown in the post below this one you can just see it among these as I look to my left:



and to my right there are some DCWV papers that have been out on my worktop now for about a week and I still haven't used any of them - I was going to use them for a 'summertime' card, but so far I've used other papers instead. It's a wonder these haven't been put back in the box yet. The pink and brown papers are offcuts from the digi ones I printed for an ice cream card I made the other day. The stamps on top of the box are now waiting to be used for a WIP that's only in progress in my head so far!


I thought I'd show you my pull out shelf where I keep my big box with all my scrap papers - you can see that when I push the shelf back in to close the cupboard I'm quite often careless with the papers that are sticking up and they tend to get a bit dog-eared. Why is it that, despite keeping one of my crafting resolutions this year to use up offcuts and scraps, that the box still looks as full as it was at the beginning of the year and now we are halfway through! I suppose it might have something to do with still cutting into new papers, although I do try and use up the scraps.


Since I did the above, I've been working on my SALT LO for tomorrow's challenge, so thought I would update and show some of the debris - I managed to cut or tear into four pieces of lovely Bo Bunny paper.

Another day at the seaside

I wish!! A day at the seaside would be lovely.

This card is for this week's CCEE sketch challenge:


Once again I've used Squigglefly 'sunny babies' image, this time reversed - again coloured with copics.

The background papers are English Paper Company all aboard, 3D stickers are Artoz.



This is also for:

Cutie Sunday 97: summer'
Quirky crafts 30: 'summer'
Daisy doodles: 'summertime'
Tellen's place: 'summertime'
Party time Tuesdays 4: 'red, white & blue'
Pile it on 24: 'stickers'
Bunny Zoe 1: 'nice and girly'
Freshly brewed 8: 'anything goes'

Paisley embossing

This card is for the sketch for Freshly Brewed 7:

I used BG green at heart papers and embossed the pearlised green tag with a cuttlebug embossing folder, adding floral brads to the tag and also to the centre of the flowers.


This is also for:

Going grey with Scrap-creations: anything goes
Cooking it up with Katie 19: 'use some green, add some embossing and include a little ribbon!
Crafty Ann 17: 'embossing'
Spoon full of sugar 109: 'good luck'
Cuttlebug spot: 'embossed tags'
Created by hand: 'songs we sing (Happy Birthday to you)/embossing'
Speedy the cat 8: 'emboss'
Everybody art 96: 'green, pink'
Tuesday throwdown 5: 'dry embossing'

Summer fun at the seaside

This card uses Diva coffee break sketch 181:

I used a digi that I bought from Squigglefly 'sunny babies', coloured with copics, as I wanted to enter this card for Squigglefly 54: 'yellow for summer'.

I used BG June bug and offbeat papers for Going grey challenge 15: 'kids cards'.

This is also for:

Pile it on 24: 'stickers' - the starfish, crab and birds are 3D stickers by Artoz
Wee memories 11: 'let's get sticky'
Cutie Sunday: 'summer'
Quirky cards 30: 'summer'
Daisy doodles: 'summertime' - the image is a digi
Little paper shop 73: 'bright and colourful - melon mambo, Bermuda bay and summer sun'
Tuesday throwdown 4: 'celebrate summer'
Pals paper arts 47: 'summer theme'
Simple doodles 20: 'fun in the sun'
Hand full of stamps 32: 'nothing like a little H2O' - I hope the sea will do!
Bunny Zoe 1: 'nice and girly'

Footie or tennis?

Wow! what an exciting opening match on Wimbledon's Centre Court, with Federer being taken to five sets by Falla, who had looked close to winning at the end of the 4th set.

Before the match started I thought it was all going to be one-sided because that's how it usually is when the No. 1 plays an unknown. So I thought I'd make a card while watching - I just managed to get it done before the tennis got more interesting and I had to settle in my armchair to see the rest of the match.

The other sport in the news atm, of course, is football, which doesn't really interest me much - if - and I think it's a very big IF - England were to get to the final then I might watch it, but apart from that I'm not bothered.

Back to the card - this was made for recipe 38 on Crafts 4 eternity, which asked us to follow this sketch, use a sport theme and add an arrow.


The spotted paper is unknown from my scraps box, the football images paper is fom PDA and the little strip on the right is BG ambrosia. The stamped image is Daisy & Dandelion 'Onion plays footie', coloured with copics.

To comply with the recipe I wanted to use an arrow, so decided to put three secured with brads - the only thing is that I could only find one pink, one orange and one beige chipboard arrow, so I coloured them with a black copic.

This is also for:

Crazy amigo: 'soccer'
Magical crafts 17: 'something for a male'
Stampin' royalty 24: 'masculine themed'
Raise the bar 23: 'what a special guy'
Creative craft: 'for the man in your life'
Creative inspirations 65: 'one for the boys'
One stop craft 85: 'one for the boys'
Corrosive 69: 'black and white with one colour' - a touch of pink on Onion's ears!
Sunday stamper 108: 'metal guru' - the Happy Birthday sentiment is metal (doesn't show very well here though)
Sundays with Crissy 6: 'monochromatic'
Ann's creative nook 93: 'it's a man's world'
Donna's den of crafts 1: 'Happy Birthday'
Clearly istamp 14: 'birthdays'
Alota rubber 37: 'birthday'
Crazy challenge: 'all things spotty'