Faking It ... again!!!!

Good afternoon my crafty friends, and I do hope that this post finds you well and (if you're in the UK) enjoying the beautiful Spring weather we've got! If you've not got sunshine, let me know and I'll package some up and post it to you :oP !!!!!!!!! The start of the new term wasn't bad on Monday - as today's been my day off, I headed to the gym this morning and managed a 4km run on the "trotmill" before stretching out in a yoga class.

If you were here on Monday, you'll remember that the DT at Incy Wincy Designs are on a mission to find your best suggestions for making our projects look like a million dollars but safe in the knowledge that we only spent pence creating them as our challenge for you this week is Faux Techniques! Now if you need a bit of inspiration, why don't you head over to SplitCoast Stampers and have a look at some of the amazing tutorials their designers have come up with? 

This is my second project for this challenge, and I found this fan-tas-tic tutorial by Dina at SplitCoast Stampers for making a background look like embossed vintage tin ... however, I can assure you that nothing more than an old cereal bar packet, kitchen foil, PVA glue, acrylic paint, a die and an embossing folder were used to make this. 

Obviously, this effort deserves some reward doesn't it, and this week we've got 2 kind sponsors. This time I'm showcasing an image by Megan of Dilly Beans as I shared a project featuring an image by Emma Canning of  Flat Friends Boutique on Monday - to see that post, click here.





So, without further ado, here is my vintage-y project.

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is a 9.9 cm square card from Kraft cardstock. I quite like making these smaller cards as they fit (opened out) into a regular DL sized envelope, and you can get 3 cards out of an A4 sheet.
• Background - is a 8.9 cm piece of cereal bar packet onto which I stuck a sheet of kitchen foil using PVA glue. I then used my rolling pin (as I don't have a brayer) to ensure that the foil was stuck down. But I think I might have used a wee bit too much glue as the glue "seeped" (OK, more like flowed) out of ALL the edges and went over the rolling pin, kitchen side, me .... I'm sure you get the idea :oD ! Unlike me, you might want to watch the tutorial video on the above link first, before you get stuck in!!!!!!!! Once dry, I die cut a square from the foil/packaging sandwich using my largest Die'sire Essentials Squares die and then painted this with a coat of Pearl White Acrylic Paint. Once dry I ran this through my Embossalicious Spring Meadow folder (I got mine from Crafter's Companion, but they don't appear to be stocking it any more). I added a final touch by wiping some Dark Brown Craf-T Chalk over my tile with a finger tip, just to give a more aged appearance.
  
• Image - is by Megan at Dilly Beans and is called Doodle Flower 3. I printed this up quite big (deliberately) and then tried to stick with a muted colour scheme by colouring it with my Spectrum Noir Pens in the colours listed, before fussy cutting it out and adhering it to the front of my "tin tile":
• Flower - PP1, PP3, PP5
• Leaves - DG2, DG3, DG4
• Outline - BT1
• Lace - is from my stash, and I think came from a local haberdashery store and I attached it to my card base so that the scalloped edge of the lace overhangs the side of the card.

I really like this card and am so pleased with the way this project turned out - think it could be one of those cards that goes in my box labelled "Never Give Away"!!!! Hope you like it too, and that I've inspired you to have a go at a Faux Technique yourself. Please check out the wonderful projects by my very clever teamies at Incy Wincy Designs and our challenge ends on Sunday 26th April 2015.

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

• Challenge #14 - Flowers at Aurora Wings
• April #70 - Use Flowers and/or Leaves at Fitztown Challenge
• Monthly Challenge #56 - Use Kraft Card at Little Claire's Designs
• Monthly Digi Stamp Challenge #4 - Flowers at Little Claire's Designs
• April Bingo Challenge at Catch the Bug Challenge - I'm claiming the left hand vertical line of Flower Theme (floral embossing folder and image), Scallop (on my lace) and 3 Layers ("tin tile", lace and image)
• Challenge #37 - Flowers at Paper Creator Crafts
• Challenge #113 - Ribbon and/or Lace at The Crafter's Cafe Challenge
• Challenge #256 - Lace at Fab 'n' Funky Challenges

That's it from me for today - hope you have a great evening!

Hugs, Helen x

So Cute!

Hello there blogging buddies - hope you're all having a wonderful St. Valentine's Day! 

Thank you to all of you who sent good wishes after my last post. After 2 meetings with school and a whole bundle of stuff for the year head to follow up, he had very strong words with the boy who was causing such distress to eldest bambino. I'm pleased to be able to say that matters have died down enough for us to have our happy and cheeky bambino back. I won't say they've stopped, as he still thought it was OK to have "a pop" at her yesterday ... grrrrrrrr!  I'm sure you'll understand that I've put a lot of time into preparing our case for these meetings, so crafting took a back seat for a week or so.

But my fingers have been itching to craft, and I'd like to share a little card that I whipped up today for youngest bambino to give to one of her best friends, who is having her 13th Birthday Party (dinner out) this evening. The only stipulation that I had to work to was that the card was purple ... think I managed that one then!!! :o)

I'm resisting the temptation to call this one stinkin' cute, but she is pretty gorgeous don't you think?

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card Base - is a 27cm x 9cm piece of Centura Pearl - Snow White, scored and folded to make (when fully closed) a 9x9cm diamond fold card.
  
• Design Papers - are from the Sugar and Spice Papercraft CD-Rom Collection by Crafter's Companion. 
• Image - this gorgeous girl is called #552 - Penny Framed, although I've fussy cut her rather than leaving her in the frame, hence why one of her hair buns is a strange shape ;o) She has been created by Megan Suarez at Dilly Beans Stamps. I brought Penny to life courtesy of my Spectrum Noir Pens in the following colours:
• Face - FS2, FS3, FS6, LV1, BT4, BT5
• Hair - TN2, TN3, TN4, TN5, TN7, TN8, OR1
• Top - LV1, LV2, LV3
• Heart - LV2, LV3
• Outline - BT2
• Sentiment - is by Paulette at Create with TLC. Because I had re-sized and cropped the papers in my word processing programme, I was able to superimpose the sentiment onto the right piece of DP and also to recolour it to purple, so it tied in with the main colour of the card.
• 3D Paper Bow - is also from the Sugar and Spice Papercraft CD-Rom Collection and again, I took this into my word processing package to resize it to suit my card. 

I was struggling to know what colours to put together, and I remembered that this was covered by Leann in the Crafter's Inspiration Issue 4 magazine. Using the colour wheel, I worked out that I could have purple, blue/green and orange together, so I chose purple and turquoise papers, and then the card an orange highlight with the bow. I'm also pretty pleased with how her hair turned out too. Youngest bambino was exceedingly chuffed with my efforts.

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

• Challenge #248 - Always Anything Goes at Craft Your Passion Challenges
• Challenge #131 - Anything Goes! at Addicted to Stamps and More
• Challenge 25 - Anything Goes at artbymiran challenge
• Hearts at The Stamping Boutique Challenge - there's one heart hanging from her hair and also my DP has candy hearts on it ... hope this counts!
• Hearts and/or Arrows at Seize the Birthday
• Challenge 67 - Anything Goes with a Twist ... add a bow at Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge

We're just starting our half term (hooray!), and as we've got quite a few birthdays coming up I will be trying to craft every day. Whatever you're up to for the rest of this weekend, I hope you have a nice time.

Hugs, Helen x

F is for ...

.... flowers, and quite a few of them!

Good morning my crafty friends and welcome to another challenge at Incy Wincy Designs.  This week we want to see   Something beginning with F..... (but that doesn't end in the word "off" please!)

Our sponsor this week is the lovely Megan from Dilly Beans Digi Stamps. Make sure you head over to her blog and check out her awesome digis! She also has "Collage Sheets" where she's made a themed coloured digi sheet, and there's a Dilly Beans Challenge Blog too! Megan is offering this week's lucky winner 3 digital images from the store. She also kindly allowed the DT girls their choice of image (thanks Megan!), and with so many totally gorgeous digis there, it was really hard to choose just one.

Then I stumbled across this simple digi (which screamed "Choose Me!" at me) and here is my really clean & simple inspiration for you this week:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Base Card - is plain white heavyweight card (from my stash and I'm afraid the wrapper has long since disappeared, so I can't tell where it came from - sorry!), which I have cut, scored and folded to make a DL sized card
• Image - is #344 - Daisy Squares by Megan from Dilly Beans Digi Stamps and it really lends itself to a CAS style of card. I think this image will be so versatile, not just for Birthday cards but also for Thinking of You, Get Well and Sympathy cards. I have brought these flowers to life using my Versamark Pen and Craf-T chalks (which I applied and blended using a cotton bud, and re-blended using the Versamark Pen to get a soft pastel image) and one Spectrum Noir Pen in the following colours:


• Top Left Flower - Ruddy Red, Orange, Yellow Orange
• Top Right Flower - Orange, Yellow Orange, Yellow
• Bottom Left Flower - Magenta, Pink, Flesh
• Bottom Right Flower - Violet, Orchid, Magenta
• Sky - Spectrum Noir Pen in TB1
• Background - Dark Green
• Sentiment - is a cover freebie cling stamp from Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine. It came from a set of "Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" stamps. I inked it up using a Papermania Capsule Collection Pigment Ink Pad in Red Hot, and once I had stamped it on the card I coated the sentiment in Holographic Embossing Powder before heating it. Check out that gorgeous sparkle in this photo below!

It's not very often that a card comes together exactly how I imagined it would, but this one did!

Do head over to the Incy Wincy Designs blog, and make sure that my teamies and this month's Guest Designer Jackie have things beginning with the letter F. Then come back and show us your projects - you've got until Sunday 17th March 2013 to link your creations up.

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

• March Challenge - Anything Goes at Chalk 'n' Stock

Hope you have great week!

Hugs, Helen x