Pretty in Pink

... or perhaps this post should read "Pretty Pink"!

I'm sooooooo sorry - I'd scheduled this post, but naughty Blogger hasn't posted it! "Hanging head in shame here cos it means this post is late :o( Hope this post finds you well. Yesterday was my first day back at work after the Easter break and boy, what a day it was. I came down from my holiday cloud with a bump yesterday morning!

This is my last post as a Guest Designer for Delicious Doodles :o( - very sad face being worn here! The month of April has flown by, and I would like to thank Teri and her Design Teams for having me this month - I have had a blast!!!!!! I hope that the Guest Designers for May have as much fun creating with Teri's images as I have had!


If you read last week's post at Delicious Doodles, you'll know that we're raising Breast Cancer Awareness and this week we'd love to see your creations that are Pink and Girly!


Teri again opened the doors to the Delicious Doodles Shop and allowed me to choose some digis to show you this week, so here goes with my second "pink" card (although I'm not sure it's 100% girly!):

This will be another card for the box of cards I'm making as a raffle prize for the Shades Charity Ball that my friend Karen is organising in October - the proceeds from this will go to MacMillan Cancer Support.

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is Centura Pearl in Snow White Silver which I have cut, scored and folded to make a 16cm square card. 
• Design Papers - are both part of the April "Blog Train" at Pixel Scrapper Digital Scrapbooking. The pink leaves paper is by Whispy Willow Lane, and the white paper with the floral and flourish border is by Designs by Magnolia. As usual, I resized the papers to my requirements using my word processing package, and digitally put a faux mat and layer around them in a rich pink colour.
  
• Image - is by Teri at Delicious Doodles and it is the utterly gorgeous Celtic Fairy and I have brought her to life using my Spectrum Noir Pens in the following colours (click on the pic to supersize it, and check out the sparkly pink hair and wings!):
• Hair - BP2, BP3, BP4, BP5, White Glitter
• Skin - FS2, FS3, PP3, BP2
• Jewellery - Silver Gel Pen
• Dress - BP1, Colourless Blender
• Wings - BP1, Silver Gel Pen, White Glitter
• Outline - BT1
• Sentiment - is by Teri at Delicious Doodles and it is the heart from the Awareness Ribbon Set. The ribbon set is a freebie (thanks to Teri's generosity), so why not treat yourself to another digi as well .... 2 for the price of 1! I imported the heart into my word processing package three times, and lined up a text box over each heart to write the sentiment. I then coloured these using my Spectrum Noir Pens in colours BP1, BP5, BP7 and Colourless Blender, trying to get an ombre effect!
• Ribbon - is recycled from, I think, a toiletries package. It's been lurking around for a while, and I think this is the perfect project for it!
• Buttons - are from  a "grab bag" of mixed bright buttons I picked up at Hobbycraft a few months ago.

I hope you'll come over to the Delicious Doodles Challenge Blog and enjoy the wonderful Pink and Girly creations from Teri's talented Design Team and my fellow guests. Don't forget to then come back and show us your creations - you don't need to use a Delicious Doodles image to enter the challenge but if you do, you get a second entry in the draw to win 5 of Teri's images AND your work may be Spotlighted on the challenge blog! This challenge will end on Thursday 1st May 2014 at 6pm BST (UK time!) 

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

• Bingo at Catch the Bug - I've chosen the far middle vertical line of Hot Pink, Players Choice (Glitter and Button) and Recycled Item (Pink Ribbon was part of the wrapping on some toiletries)
• Challenge #208 - Square Cards at Robyn's Fetish
• White + 1 at Papertake Weekly
• Monday Challenge #134 - Shake it On! at My Craft Spot
• Sparkle! at Crafty Boots Challenge
• Favourite Item to Recycle and Why at As You Like It - Oh ladies! I am sooooo with Annette .... ribbons are my favourite item to recycle. You get them in all types (satin, grosgrain, sheer, printed) on various purchases and gifts. The one in this project came from a gift pack of toiletries, but I also save them from clothes, presents (as part of the gift wrap) and even from an enamel jug of flowers (the flowers have died, the jug now holds some fake blooms, and the ribbon's in my stash!!!!)

That's it from me today - hope you all have a great weekend!

Hugs, Helen x

Flower Power!

Good morning friends and I'd like to wish you all a Happy Easter weekend. The weather here on the south coast has been fabulous all week- hope you've enjoyed some sunshine too. It may be Good Friday, but as long as the weather stays fine "himself" will be repainting "T' Shed" so the girls and I are off out - they'll swim and I'll hit the treadmill!

This is my third post during my sojourn as a GDT for Delicious Doodles, and again it's time for a new challenge. After some topical challenges, this one will encourage your feminine side, as well as raising awareness for Breast Cancer. So, we'd like to see your creations that are Pink! 

Teri again opened the doors to the Delicious Doodles Shop so that I could help myself to another gorgeous designs. If you're a regular reader, you may be pleased to know that Mr Mojo is still recovering from last week's creation (I'll let you know next week how well it was received by my M-i-L!) so this week's card is back to a more normal style :o)

Regular readers may recall that last year I designed a piece of artwork for Karen, a friend and colleague was organising a Grand Ball entitled 50 Shades of Pink - you can find the post here. Karen is holding another Grand Ball this autumn and I'll make her a box of handmade cards that she can use as a raffle prize ... this is the first card!

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is Centura Pearl in Fresh Pink (from the Pastels multipack at Crafter's Companion) which I have cut, scored and folded to make a 15cm square card. I then embossed the front of the card using my Embossalicious "Floral Stitch" embossing folder. I carefully masked round each raised embossed square (part of the design is "de-bossed") using Post-It notes, and then swept a Versa Color Ink Cube in Silver across the raised "stitches". I'm not sure I've got this swiping quite right,  as there are some traces of silver ink in the squares. Still, when you look at it from the side, it makes the embossing pop!
  
• Images - are both by Teri at Delicious Doodles and they are Floral Elegance - Wild Rose and the butterfly from the Awareness Ribbon Set. The ribbon set is a freebie (thanks to Teri's generosity), so why not treat yourself to another digi as well .... 2 for the price of 1! I printed 2 copies of them both and decoupaged some of the flowers, and also lifted the second butterfly's wings to give more depth to the images. I brought these gorgeous images to life using my Spectrum Noir Pens in the following colours:

• Roses - CT4, PP3, PP4, PP5
• Foliage - CG1, CG2, CG3
• Butterfly - PP1, PP2, PP3, GB8, GB10, Silver Gel Pen
• Outline - BT1
• Sentiment - is by my generous blogging buddy Annette and this is one of her freebies. If you head over there to take a look, please let her know that you came via my blog! I recoloured this using my word processing programme to a shade of green to tone in with the foliage.

I hope you'll come over to the Delicious Doodles Challenge Blog and enjoy the wonderful Pink creations from Teri's talented Design Team and my fellow guests. Don't forget to then come back and show us your creations - you don't need to use a Delicious Doodles image to enter the challenge but if you do, you get a second entry in the draw to win 5 of Teri's images AND your work may be Spotlighted on the challenge blog! This challenge will end on Thursday 24th April 2014 at 6pm BST (UK time!)

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

• Challenge #212 - Flower Power at Fab 'n' Funky Challenges
• Challenge #202 - Embossing (Wet or Dry) at Sentimental Sundays
• Challenge 173 - Use Ice Cream Colours at Penny's Paper Crafty  My favourite ice cream flavours (preferably made by our local ice cream manufacturer!): Pistachio, Strawberry and, not shown here, Ginger, and Toffee Crunch. 
• April Facebook Challenge - Floral at Crafter's Companion Third Entry

I hope that you all have a blessed and joyous Easter and that the Easter Bunny is kind to you and yours!

Hugs, Helen x

Easter Blessings

Good morning friends - hope you are well! I can't believe that we're already half-way through the school Easter holidays :o( I've been having fun with my girls, and fitting in some crafting time too :o) I have scheduled this post, so I hope all goes well - had major internet connection issues yesterday afternoon ... grrrrrrr!!!!!

This is my second post as a GDT for Delicious Doodles, and it's time for a new challenge this morning. This one is nice and easy - with the Easter weekend looming, we'd like to help you get prepared and see your Easter creations!

Teri has once again allowed me a free run in her shop so that I can showcase her awesome designs ... Mr Mojo has been on an overactive spurt (again! And without consulting me ... again!!!!) and decided that he (OK, we) would like to produce a diorama card! Teri very kindly allowed me to pick 2 of her digis which I put together with another which I already have safely stashed on my hard drive, and this is the result:

My card recipe is as follows:

Top Layer:

• Card base - is Centura Pearl in Ivory which I have cut to 23cm x 18.5cm. Along the 23cm edge,I have scored 5cm in from each end which I then folded to make a flap. In the centre of the middle panel I used the largest arch shape on my Crafter's Companion Ultimate Pro to emboss the shape, which I then cut out to reveal an arch shaped aperture.
• Sentiment - is by Paulette at Create with TLC and this one was part of April 2012 club. I have die cut this using my fourth largest Framelits Oval Die.

Middle Layer

• Card base - is Centura Pearl in Ivory which I have cut to 18cm x 18.5cm. The flaps on this layer are 2.5cm in from each end along the 18cm edge. Again I used my Crafter's Companion Ultimate Pro and this time embossed the smallest arch shape in the centre of the middle panel which I cut out to reveal a smaller arch shape.
  
• Images - are both by Teri at Delicious Doodles and they are Daffodils and Crocus, of which I printed 2 copies (one which I flipped in my word processing package) before bringing them to life using my Spectrum Noir Pens in the following colours - the shading details on Teri's images makes it really easy to know where to use a darker colour!:
• Daffodils - GB3, GB4, GB5, JG3, JG4, BT1
• Crocuses - HB1, HB2, Colourless Blender, GB3, JG1, JG2, BT1

Base Layer

• Card base - is Neenah Solar White onto which I've directly printed my image, after a little bit of twiddling in my word processing package to get the placement right so that the image appears through the windows of the card! 
• Image - is, of course, by Teri at Delicious Doodles and this one is called Gothic Church Window. This image is so reminiscent of the windows at my own church, that I have tried to recreate them here using my Spectrum Noir Pens in TN1 and TN2 to try to recreate the warmth of the stone. The sky through the window is BT1.

I hope you'll come over to the Delicious Doodles Challenge Blog and enjoy the gorgeous Easter inspiration from the Design Team and my fellow guests. Don't forget to then come back and show us your creations - you don't need to use a Delicious Doodles image to enter the challenge but if you do, you get a second entry in the draw to win 5 of Teri's images AND your work may be Spotlighted on the challenge blog! This challenge will end on Thursday 17th April 2014 at 6pm BST (UK time!)

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

• Challenge #206 - Easter at Robyn's Fetish Challenge Blog
• Challenge #64 - Easter at Card Mania Challenges
• Easter at Crafty Boots Challenges
• CWLC 79 - Easter at Created With Love Challenges
• Challenge 79 - Easter at Dream Valley Challenges
• Monday Challenge #132 - Happy Easter! at My Craft Spot
• April Challenge - Spring Flowers at Stamp and Create
• April Challenge - Easter or Spring at Sunflowerfield Designs
• Easter at Sweet Stampin'
• April Facebook Challenge - Floral at Crafter's Companion Second Entry

I'm off to firstly give Mr Mojo a good slap (!) and then I think I need a lie down in a darkened room with a mug of tea!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Hugs, Helen x

The bringer of Spring

I know that grammatically speaking the above sentence probably isn't correct, and I really hope that no English teachers are reading this, let alone my former English teacher! However when you see today's card, you'll understand why!

Before I get to my card, here is the exciting news I promised you earlier in the week. Regular readers may recall that in February I applied to join the Delicious Doodles Design Team. Unfortunately I wasn't successful, but Teri very kindly offered me a month-long sojourn as a Guest Designer with the team and this is my first week with them!!!!! The ladies who were GDT in March did such an fantastic job with their projects featuring Teri's images - I hope that I manage to inspire you just as much!


This week's challenge is All Seasons in One Day so your project can be anything featuring a season i.e. spring, summer, autumn or winter.


Teri allowed me a free run in her shop to choose one of her awesome designs to showcase for you, so here is my Spring card:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is Centura Pearl in Snow White Silver which I cut to measure 21cm x 13cm, and then scored (along the 21cm edge) at 4cm, 6.5cm, 14.5cm and 17cm to give a "triptych" style of fold. I'm case-ing this card by Glenda, with whom I'm on a design team, although I've changed the dimensions of the folds slightly to give a larger front panel - on Glenda's card, all the panels are the same width.
• Design Paper - comes from the Crafter's Companion "Toread" Papercrafting CD-Rom. This gorgeous graduated design is from the Co-ordinating Papers section (design 4, colourway 4) - aren't the shades dreamy ..... ! Here's another photo, this time before I folded the card so you can see the full colour effects:

• Image - is, of course, by Teri at Delicious Doodles and she is called Snowdrop Fairy. When the snowdrops peek through the cold soil and nod their little heads in the breeze, I know that Spring is on the way, no matter what the weather is doing! I brought this very attentive Fairy and her well cared
  
  for "brood" to life using my Spectrum Noir Pens in the following colours:
• Snowdrops - CG3, CG4, Colourless Blender, IG1, GB5, DG2, DG3
• Fairy - CG3, CG4, Colourless Blender, GB3, GB4, GB5
• Sentiments - are both by Paulette at Create with TLC, regular readers will no doubt know she is my "go-to mistress" of sentiments! The "Nature" sentiment on the left side of the card was part of the February 2014 Nature Blog Hop held by Paulette and her Design Team. The "Beautiful Day" banner was, I think, a blog freebie in June of last year.
• Pearls - from my stash

That's my favourite season in a card! I hope you'll come over to the Delicious Doodles Challenge Blog and spend, metaphorically speaking, a year with the Design Team and fellow guests as we enjoy All Seasons in One Day. Don't forget to then come back and show us your creations - you don't need to use a Delicious Doodles image to enter the challenge but if you, you get a second entry in the draw to win 5 of Teri's images AND your work may be Spotlighted on the challenge blog! This challenge will end on Thursday 10th April 2014 at 6pm BST (UK time!)

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

• Sketch with Jenny at CD Sunday - the band of hyacinth colour graduation is instead of having an embellishment running across the middle of my DP. I hope you like my "take" on Jenny's sketch! 
• Week 13 - Flower Power at Digi Choosday
• Welcome Spring! at Milk Coffee
• In the Garden at Come and Get It Challenge
• Challenge 207 - Shaped Cards or Anything But Square at Craft Your Passion
• Challenge #89 - Add Wings at Digistamps 4 Joy
• April Facebook Challenge - Floral at Crafter's Companion

Hope you have a great weekend! Catch you next week!

Hugs, Helen x