My Little Japanese Girl

Good evening crafty friends and hope you've been enjoying another lovely weekend.

It's New Release Inspiration Day from the second half of the blog team over at All Dressed Up and Wendy has designed 4 wonderful images which are going to be perfect for your Spring into Summer projects.

From bottom left going clockwise we have Play Day, Counting Sheep, Oriental Girl and Sassy who was only available as a freebie via the Kit and Clowder Facebook Group earlier this month.

I am using this oh-so-very-pretty Oriental Girl, and here's my card:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is black card which I have cut, scored and folded to make a Free Standing Pop Up Card following this tutorial from SplitcoastStampers
  
• Design Paper - comes from the Kimono Papercrafting CD-Rom
• Image - is Oriental Girl by the very talented Wendy Burns, the artist behind All Dressed Up Stamps. I have brought this gorgeous girl to life using a mixture of Copics and Spectrum Noir Marker Pens. I have used a couple of technique classes from Kit & Clowder to help with my colouring: Skin & Hair Class for the slightly darker skin tone than I normally colour and also a bonus Monochrome Class for the black/grey hair.

I've left this card sentiment free as she's currently destined for my "box" awaiting a recipient!

I do hope that you'll come over to All Dressed Up and maybe treat yourself to a digi or two! And don't forget to enter our challenges. The Blog Challenge is always Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image and on the Facebook Page, the April Challenge is Flora and /or Fauna. Hope you'll be able to join us!

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

• Challenge #4 - Anything Goes with option of Dimensional Projects at Crafter's Castle
• Anthing Goes with Patterned Paper at CraftyHazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge
• April Challenge - Anything but Square at Delicious Doodles
• Challenge #64 - Favouring the Feminine at Scribble Designs Challenges

Have a great week!

Hugs, Helen x

Happy 40th!

Good afternoon crafty friends - hope you have had a wonderful weekend!

It's been nice to see the sunshine here at Casa Mia, after the grey weather of the last couple of weeks ... let's hope it stays!

It's new challenge time at All Dressed Up Challenges and we're also introducing our new Dressy Girls following the recent DT Call - it wasn't an easy choice, but we hope that everyone will find inspiration from our new ladies who have made some fabulous creations! As usual, our challenge is Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image. Not got any All Dressed Up images? Wendy has plenty of gorgeous images available in the All Dressed Up Etsy Store and has also very generously provided some freebies here - please send your friends over to ADU for the freebies though, to make sure they're available for other crafters to share!


One of our friends celebrated her 40th Birthday last Sunday, and her husband threw a surprise party for her to which we were invited. This wonderful image was just perfect to mark her special day!

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is Centura Pearl Snow White Silver which I have cut, scored and folded to make a 15cm square card
• Mat - is a sheet of teal coloured Core'dinations Card which I cut to 14.5cm square
  
• Image - is Happy 40th by Wendy at All Dressed Up (which I have printed onto a 14cm square panel of Neenah Solar White Cardstock.) There are 3 digis in this great value set (the others are Happy 50th and Happy 60th) and not only are they great to help celebrate those big '0' birthdays but they would be fab for big anniversaries too! I can just see this in ruby colours for 40th or gold to celebrate a Golden Wedding Anniversary! Anyway, as my project is for a birthday, I have gone for different coloured flowers using my Spectrum Noir Marker Pens. As I have also followed the Elements of Nature Class by Alyce at Kit & Clowder to colour the Leaves, Rose, Poppies and Gerberas, and then used the Hydrangea tutorial for colouring the small purple flowers, I am unable to share my colour combinations with you. However, you will have to trust me when I say that you will not regret purchasing this class if you wish to improve your colouring ... 😃 The 4 butterflies were coloured using VB1, VB2 & VB3 with a tiny pearl on each for the head. The sentiment was embossed using a VersaMark Watermark Pen and silver embossing powder, although I think I would have been better embossing in smaller portions to get a more even finish.
• Frame - around the heart wreath, has been cut using my Die'sire Classiques Lace Corner dies. For the two upper portions, I cut around the wreath using a sharp craft knife so that these parts would sit on top of the die (like an "Out of the Box" Technique) and not be cut, and would then nestle back down into place once the die (and negative parts) was removed.

I hope I have inspired you to come over to All Dressed Up and play along with this challenge. If you're in need of further inspiration please head over to the blog and check out the other gorgeous creations by my Dressy Teamies and also help us to welcome our new Dressy Girls! Then come back and show us your Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image. Don't forget that for more chances to win some of Wendy's gorgeous images, our Facebook Dressy Teamies have their own challenge running until the end of February and their theme this month is Flora and / or Fauna.

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

• April Challenge - Butterflies at I'm a Crafter's Companion Facebook Group
• #387 - Creative Corners at Tuesday Throwdown
• Challenge #137 - Use Die Cuts at Simply Create Too
• #201 - Happy Birthday Aud Sentiments at Aud Sentiments
• Challenge #47 - Flowers at Craft Rocket Challenges
• Vibrant Colours at Seize the Birthday
• Challenge #287 - Make Your Mark at Addicted to Stamps and More
• Challenge #334 - Flowers at The Paper Shelter
• Challenge #423 - Dies at Everybody Art Challenge

Well, it's back to work for me tomorrow after the Easter break - I hope you have a great week!

Hugs, Helen x

Happy Easter!

Good morning crafty friends and a belated Happy Easter to you and yours! If you're in the UK, I hope you're enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend.


It's new challenge time over at Incy Wincy Designs and we're celebrating the fact that Spring is springing (can't say it's exactly sprung!) in the Northern Hemisphere as our topic for you to follow this time is Nature and it's Beauty.


We have two amazing sponsors for you this time.

The first is Naz and her team from Sasayaki Glitter who are offering our first lucky winner 2 Digital Images from her store. And if you head over to the Facebook Group Naz is offering a free image (for 24 hours only starting on 1st April 2018) for the April Progressive Challenge which would be perfect to enter in our challenge!

The second is Alyce from Kit and Clowder who are offering 3 lucky winners a $10AUS vouchers towards a class at Kit and Clowder!! Go and check out the website, where there are even a couple of FREE classes for you to try. The paid for "technique" classes come with individual feedback via the classroom and the Facebook Group has 1000's of members willing to help you  - as well as Alyce (the mastermind behind Kit and Clowder). If you haven't seen Kit and Clowder before, then pop on over ... but be sure to tell them that Incy Wincy Designs and I sent you 😊

Naz has been kind enough to supply the DT with some images to use, but my card features one of the images from the Kit and Clowder Elements of Nature Class, which was perfect for turning into an Easter card:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is Kraft card which I have cut, scored and folded to make a 5¼ inch square card.
• Design Paper - comes from a kit called Owl Always Love Spring from the now sadly closed
  
  Summertime Designs. I have digitally overlaid 3 brown cords from the same kit over the green dotty paper to co-ordinate with the kraft card.
• Image - is this gorgeous Daffodil which is one of the exercises in the Kit and Clowder Elements of Nature Class. I have brought this flower to life using my Spectrum Noir Markers in the class colours using the class instruction book (there is also a video to colour along with too!) before die cutting it using one of the dies in my Die'sire Nouveau Stamping Frame set.
• Sentiment - is from a set called Special Occasion Stamps which was a magazine freebie some time ago. I have stamped this onto a banner shape I cut from an oddment of Kraft card using Gathered Twigs Distress Ink

I hope I have inspired you to  join our Nature and it's Beauty challenge at Incy Wincy Designs, but if you are in need of further inspiration, please head over to the blog and see the other gorgeous creations from my very talented teamies. Then come back and show us your projects!

And if I've inspired you to sign up to a class at Kit and Clowder then do please mention my name in the Referral Box, as you will get a rebate of $5AUS on your new class purchase 😁 and that can't be bad!!!!!!

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

• Week #507 - Pick any sketch from 215 to 506 at Sketch Saturday - I've used Sketch #322 from way back in 2014 as the inspiration for my card
• Challenge #200 - Easter or Spring Sentiment at Aud Sentiments
• Challenge #332 - Use a Digital Image at The Paper Shelter
• Challenge #129 - Easter at CAS on Friday
• Do Something Digi Challenge at Daring Cardmakers - I have digitally layered the 3 cords over my DP which is digitally resized. My image is also a digi.
• KBD Aloha Friday Challenge #115 - Spring at Kitty Bee Designs
• Spring Flowers Challenge at Di's Digi Designs Challenge
• Wild Card Week Challenge #434 - CAS at Just Us Girls
• Challenge #276 - Spring or Easter at Brown Sugar Challenge
• Challenge #387 - Easter at Fab 'n' Funky Challenges

That's it from me today - once again I wish you and yours a very Happy and Joyous Easter!

Crafty hugs,

Helen x