Time for a Cuppa

Hello crafty friends, and here's my last "chasing my tail" post .... the "post fest" of the last 3 days sees me caught up with all my DT work, and I've started on the next bundle as some of these are printed out already!

Last week saw the start of our new challenge over at Feeling Sketchy but there's still plenty of time for you to play along. Our prize for you this time is a $10 Gift Certificate to any online store of your choice!

Here's the sketch we're playing with this time, as designed by Michelle:

And here's my card using this sketch as the base for my layout for a tea (or coffee lover) as the bottom pouch holds a coffee store gift card:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card Base - is Snow White Silver Centura Pearl which I have cut, scored and folded to make a 15cm square card base.
• Design Papers - are both by Marisa Lerin at Pixel Scrapper from a kit called England Papers Kit #2. The small flower print paper in the background is England Paper 04
• Pouches - are made from England Paper 03a which have been cut, scored and folded before having a part oval cut from the top using and have had a spotty green ribbon from my stash wrapped around them
• Teapot and Teacup elements - are dies from my Crafter's Companion 2016 Advent Calendar which have been cut out of Snow White Silver Centura Pearl before being adhered to my card. I even layered up 2 teacups to look like a stack!
• Sentiment - is by Lili of the Valley and comes from the Mixed Circular Sentiment Set. Sadly this set is no longer available as a clear stamp, but it is available as a digi set here. I have stamped the sentiment onto Snow White Silver Centura Pearl with Memento Ink before die cutting it with one of my Die'sire Essentials Circles dies. 

I hope I have inspired you to come over to Feeling Sketchy and join in with this sketch. If you need any further inspiration before you grab for your stash, please head over to the blog and check out the other wonderful creations by my talented teamies. We'll be back with our new sketch challenge on 1st March 2017.

I will be back a little later to play along with some challenges.

In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your day.

Hugs, Helen x

Life is a Cabaret

Good afternoon crafty friends, and I hope that you're not being blown away by Storm Doris if you're in the UK. I've only had to go out into the garden to re-cover the patio furniture twice, and managed to do the bins before it got really windy - just hope they don't blow over and send all our recycling rubbish off down the street 😆!

I'm running a few days late with this post, as Monday saw the start of our new challenge over at Incy Wincy Designs and our theme for you this fortnight is Leather and/or Lace.

We have 2 amazing sponsors lined up for you:

Firstly Elena and Kenny Kiernan, the team behind KennyK Stamps are offering our first lucky winner a prize of 3 digital stamps. Here's a bit about them, and everyone's a winner with their discount code and offer of a free digi stamp every month:

Stamp designer Elena Kiernan and illustrator hubby Kenny Kiernan bring a perfect storm of creative energy to the bold and fun digi stamps and clear stamp sets at this rockin’ shop, where it’s always 30% OFF your first purchase with code MYFIRSTPURCHASE. Their hundreds of fun-to-color designs include everything from kids’ to teenage girls with attitude, skateboard boys, steampunk, men, sports, superheroes, music… and for those who enjoy a little spice in their crafting, KennyK Stamps is the #1 Shop in the World for Sexy Stamps!  Rock Your Crafts with KennyK Stamps! 

Get a FREE DIGI STAMP every month by subscribing to their newsletter. It’s a no-brainer, sign up here to join!

Click to follow KennyK Stamps on Facebook and also join their awesome new Facebook Fan Group, “Club KennyK!”

Our second sponsor is the team at WOW Embossing Powder who are offering our second lucky prize winner 6 embossing powders and a travel case to store them in, and these will be shipped directly to our winner from WOW HQ! If you haven't tried WOW Embossing Powders, you'll love them ... and here's a bit more about them:

WOW! Embossing Powder has been established as a brand since May 2006 and

has grown dramatically since then. We are rapidly becoming very well-known and

respected within the craft industry. We pride ourselves on our fast and

friendly customer service, and personal touch each and every one of our

customers receives. We are the largest manufacturers of embossing powder in the

world, therefore are very pleased and proud to offer crafters what we believe

is the best product available at a great price

The DT have been given their choice of KennyK Stamps to showcase this time, so here's a sneak peak or the "Watershed Version" of my card - I will warn you, this is waaaaayyyyyy out of my comfort zone and not my usual style at all, so if you're easily offended I would suggest that you read no further!

This will be my card to Papa Mia who will be celebrating a certain Birthday next month! OK - so if you're reading on, I will take it that you're happy with seeing a picture of a scantily clad woman and I will not be held responsible! 😄

So here she is, in all her glory with a faux leather background, so easy to do and incredibly effective too!

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card Base - is piece of Ivory Centura Pearl which I have cut, scored and folded to make an 11.5 x 15.4 cm card
• Mat & Layer - is a piece of black cardstock sized to 11 x 14.9 cm
• Background - is an A6 piece of Kraft card and I followed this Faux Leather Tutorial by Sheena Douglass to make it look like this using glycerine, water, a spray bottle, a Sheena embossing folder called Distress Splatter, Distress Inks in Vintage Photo and Spiced Marmalade and a spray varnish, although I had to use my Spray and Sparkle Glitter Varnish so my faux leather background has a glittery finish to it!
  
• Image - is the lovely Cabaret by Kenny at KennyK Stamps. I drew a stool under her and then brought this bewitching one to life using my Spectrum Noir Markers before die cutting her using my second largest Sizzix Framelits Ovals die using an "Out of the Box" technique.
• Sentiment - is die cut from Ivory Centura Pearl which has been layered onto an additional die cut from black card to give a shadow. The Happy Birthday die was in my Crafter's Companion Advent Calendar 2016 and I used the "th" portion of this die to cut again from both the ivory and black card to go with the numbers. The "5" and "0" both come from the Diamond Press Whimsical Alphabet collection.

Please do head over to  Incy Wincy Designs and check out the other wonderful creations featuring Leather and/or Lace from my very talented teamies. Then come back and show us your creations. We'll be back with our next challenge on Monday 6th March 2017.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• February Challenge - Anything Goes with a KennyK Stamp at Club KennyK Facebook Page
• Challenge 39 - For a Man at Moving Along With The Times
• Challenge 282 - Boys are Back in Town at The Paper Shelter
• Let's Get Messy at Try It On Tuesday - I got very messy with the faux leather technique, rubbing a mix of glycerine and water into both sides of my Kraft card before scrunching it up and repeating. Once the card was nice and pliable, I embossed it and allowed it to dry. Then I rubbed my Distress Inks onto it, before smearing varnish over it to create the finished background!
• Challenge 142 - Use a Number (with a Stamp) at Addicted to Stamps
• Challenge #79 - Happy Birthday at Inky Chicks
• #119 - Male Colours at Through the Purple Haze
• Challenge #19 - Anything Goes at World Wide Open Design Team Challenge - Second Entry

Whatever you're doing for the rest of the day, have fun and stay safe!

Hugs, Helen x

Bunny and me

Good afternoon crafty friends and happy Thinking Day/Founder's Day to any friends who are current or former members of any Girl Guide Association or the Scout Association!

To those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, today would have been the birthdays of Lord Robert Baden-Powell (founder of the Scout and Guide movements) and his wife Olave who became the first World Chief Guide. Today is the day when Rainbows, Brownies, Guides, Senior Section members and all leaders are encouraged to participate in activities to learn more about their fellow Guides and Girl Scouts all over the world. Although I'm no longer in uniform, I have been very lucky to have been chosen to represent Girlguiding UK abroad 3 times and I have to say, there is something very, very special about singing Taps at the end of a campfire with 50 other members from many, many different countries, each young woman singing in her mother tongue but to the same tune. Just writing about it now, is making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! Once a Guide, always a Guide and it is something still special to me.

February sees us celebrating the first new release of 2017 over at All Dressed Up and this month, Wendy has brought us some wonderful images celebrating Love. Of course, Valentine's Day has been and gone for this year, but these delightful images would be a great addition to your stash:

Top left is Love Heart, top right is Some Bunny Loves Me, bottom left is Be My Valentine and bottom right is Little Birdie all available now over at the All Dressed Up Digital Stamps Etsy store.


I have been lucky enough to play with Some Bunny Loves Me, and here's my card:

I've made a K-card which, once made, looks like a variant of a swing card.

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - 2 pieces of A5 lightweight card onto which I've printed my papers which came from the January 2017 Download of the Month at Crafter's Companion and this collection is called Be Mine. The front portion of the card has been scored to make an A6 card base, and the middle portion of the card was scored in a concertina fold. I then used the heart embossing shape on my Ultimate Pro to emboss my K/swing portion, cut half of this out and brought it to the front of my card (if you click on the image closeup photo, you can just see the cut marks around the left edge of the white heart!).
  
• Image - is the utterly gorgeous Some Bunny Loves Me by Wendy at All Dressed Up Digital Stamps. I brought this cutie and her little rabbit friend to life using my Spectrum Noir Alcohol Marker Pens in the listed shades, before embossing round them using the same heart shaped template on my Ultimate Pro, cutting them out and fixing them to the swinging portion of my card.
• Skin - FS2, FS3, FS4, TN4, FS8 (Blush)
• Hair - TN3, EB3, EB8
• Bunny and Girl's Bunny Ears - GB8, GB9, GB10, PP3, PP5
• Top - IG1, IG2
• Skirt, Scarf, Hair and Shoe Bows - BT3, BT5, BT9
• Shoes and Belt - True Black
• Pull Along Cart - CR7, CR9, CR11
• Grounding - IG2

So, a really clean and simplish card from me this time; just letting the pretty papers and adorable image speak for themselves 😊

For more ideas using these beautiful images, please head over to the All Dressed Up Blog to check out the other gorgeous creations from my talented teamies and the first half of the Blog Dressy girls showcased these images here.

Don't forget that we've got our current Blog Challenge Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image running until 14th March 2017, and the All Dressed Up Facebook Group have their own challenge of Romance and/or Red - why not combine the two by using one of Wendy's newly released images?

I would like to enter this card into the following challenge:

• February 2017 Challenge - Anything Goes with bonus theme of Love/Friendship at Spectrum Noir Facebook Page
• Friday Challenge 72 - Any Kind of Hearts at Quick Quotes - there are hearts on my card front on the DP and also my aperture and image are heart shaped!
• Challenge #5 - Have a Heart at Daisy Chain Challenges
• February Challenge - All You Need Is Love at Dare2BArtzy
• February Challenge - Love is in the Air at Crafty Calendar Challenge
• Challenge #108 - Simply Love at The Cutie Pie Challenge
• Love/Romance Challenge at Whoopsi Daisy Challenge
• Challenge #124 - Love at Simply Create Too
• February Challenge - Love/Romance at Craftaholics R Us
• Challenge #56 - Love is in the Air at Paper Creator

Hope you have a great evening!

Hugs, Helen x

Say Cheese!

Good afternoon friends and hope you're well.

I still seem to be hopelessly behind with all my DT makes, so I apologise if this becomes a bit of a post-fest from me in your reading list! I'm gradually getting my crafty time back however, and a huge thank you to all my DT colleagues and team leaders for being so understanding over the last couple of months! It's half term next week here at Casa Mia, so I'm planning to get myself ahead with my makes and posts, and try to stay that way too 😉

It's new challenge time at All Dressed Up and, as usual, it's Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image. Wendy has plenty of gorgeous images available in the All Dressed Up Esty Store. Haven't got any All Dressed Up images (and why not?) Wendy has very generously provided some freebies here - please make sure you adhere to the terms of use if you're saving these though, to make sure they're available for other crafters to share!




And here's my card for your inspiration this month:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is Snow White Silver Centura Pearl which I have cut, scored and folded to make a 15cm square card base
• Mat - is Core'dinations Card in this lovely shade of pink from the Roy G. Biv pack.
  
• Embossed layer - is a further square of Snow White Silver Centura Pearl which I have embossed using my Embossalicious Birthday Text folder
• Image - is Smile It's Your Birthday by Wendy at All Dressed Up Digital Stamps. I've brought this arty girl to life using my Spectrum Noir Alcohol Markers in the listed shades before fussy cutting her out. I've used another Kit and Clowder lesson from the Skin and Hair Class to create streaked hair. If you're an eagle eyed member of the K&C Facebook page, you will have seen this cutie shielded by a post-it not as I entered her into the "Streaked Hair Challenge" last week - here she is now revealed in her full beauty!
• Skin - FS2, FS3, FS4, TN4,  FS8 (Blush)
• Hair - BT3, BT5, JG6, TN3, EB3, EB8, Silver Gel Pen
• Top - IG1, IG2, IG3
• Jacket and Shoes - PP3, PP5, PP6
• Trousers - TB2, TB3
• Camera - IG5, IG7, IG9, Clear Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen, Silver Gel Pen
• Sentiment - is part of the Smile It's Your Birthday image, which I've inserted behind a film strip frame, from a kit at Pixel Scrapper by Sheila Reid called The Best is Yet to Come. A couple of sparkly gems finished this off.

I hope I've inspired you to play along with this challenge but if you're in need of further inspiration, please do head over to the Challenge Blog and check out the other wonderful creations by my ever-so-talented teamies. Then come back and show us your creations. Don't forget that the Facebook Dressy Girls have their monthly challenge too and the theme is Romance and/or Red.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Challenge #4 - Add a Sentiment at Sweet Stampers Challenge
• Challenge #182 - Add Some Texture at Crafty Cardmakers
• Challenge #71 - One for the Girls at Crafting With Dragonflies
• W2CB #38 - Celebrations at Words 2 Craft By
• Challenge #19 - Anything Goes at World Wide Open Design Team Challenge

In the meantime, have a lovely evening.

Hugs, Helen x

Masculine Valentine

Howdy my crafting buddies! Long time no speak! Hope you are all well and a warm welcome to Adaline, who is my newest follower - hope you enjoy my creations!

Well, despite my hopes on my last post with my new job-share joining the team at school, things didn't quite work out as planned and the lady left after just 2 weeks 😞 Since then however, things have moved on apace and another lady has been appointed, so I now have a "new new" job-share and she started yesterday. Early days yet, but I'm hopeful that this one will stay as she seems to have picked up our ways very quickly whilst I've been training her. Please keep your fingers crossed because I badly need my crafty-time back. 😉

It's new challenge time over at Feeling Sketchy and our prize for you this time is a $10 Gift Certificate to any online store of your choice!

Here's the sketch we're playing with this time, as designed by Michelle:

and here's my card using this sketch as the base for my layout:

I've gone for a monochrome, masculine look for this card limiting my colour palette to black and silver - Valentine's card for Papa Mia sorted 😉!!!!!

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is Centura Pearl Snow White Silver card which I have cut, scored and folded to make a DL sized card base
• Inset card - is a piece of matt black card from my stash which I cut to 20cm x 7.8cm
• Hearts - are from a Leonie Pujol stamp set which is free with Crafter's Inspiration Magazine Issue 13. I've stamped these entwined hearts using my VersaColour Silver Ink Pad, using a stamping mask on the left hand side of the card to make the hearts look layered.
• Banners - are cut from scraps of black and Centura Pearl Snow White Silver using my layered banner die which was in my Crafter's Companion Advent Calendar 2016. I ran the banners through my Big Shot using my Darice Script Background embossing folder before swiping a little silver ink over the black ones to make them stand out a little more.
• Sentiment - is from the Swirly String Sentiments Stamp Set (only available now as a Digital Stamp Set) by Lili of the Valley which I stamped using VersaColour Silver Ink.

I hope that I have inspired you to come along and join in at Feeling Sketchy this time. However, if you're in need of any further inspiration, please do head over to the blog and check out the other wonderful creations by my clever teamies. Then come back and share your creations with us. We'll be back with our next challenge on 15th February 2017.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Challenge #172 - Masculine Projects with a sentiment at Aud Sentiments
• Challenge #181 - Love, Love, Love at Crafty Cardmakers
• Challenge #148 - All about Love at Dream Valley Challenges
• Challenge #186 - Hearts and/or Flowers at A Gem of a Challenge
• Challenge #73 - Valentines Card at Crafting with Dragonflies
• All About Love Challenge at Di's Digi Designs Challenge
• Challenge #328 - Love Notes at Tuesday Throwdown

Hope you have a great day!

Hugs, Helen x