Easter Lilies

Good afternoon friends! Hope you are well.

I apologise for the lack of posts from me over the last couple of weeks. I've been completely whacked sideways by another ear infection and this one was/is a whopper! I've just completed my second course of antibiotics in 2 weeks, on steroid ear drops and have conjunctivitis to boot! At least the facial swelling has gone down - last week I seriously resembled a chipmunk :o) !!!!!!!! 

As a result of this, my DT commitments have slid, so I'm now trying to play "catch up".

The first challenge I'd like to show you my project for is the Shades of Green challenge over at Incy Wincy Designs.

We've got 2 amazing sponsors for you this week:

Our first sponsor is Laurie and her team from Doodle Pantry who are offering this week's first lucky prize winner a $10 Gift Certificate if you live outside the European Union OR if you are an EU resident, then the prize is 3 single priced products from the store (anything that isn't labelled as a "bundle").

 Doodle Pantry takes pride in creating a diverse selection of doodling styles, like realistic or whimsical, and all of which are family and kid friendly illustrations.  We hope you enjoy our wide variety of styles for every family occasion!

Our second sponsors are Elena and Kenny Kiernan from KennyK Stamps who are offering this

week's second lucky prize winner 3 digital images of the winner's choice. Even if you're not lucky enough to win this prize, everyone can benefit from the fab discounts they're offering our Incy Wincy fans - read on to find out more ...

Rock Your Crafts with KennyK Stamps!
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’stamps to teenage girls with attitude , skateboard boys, goth and steampunk  styles,mens, sports,superheroes,music… and for those who enjoy a little spice in their crafting, KennyK Stamps is the #1 Shop in the World for SexyStamps!

More great deals from KennyK Stamps; include a Digital Card Kit license: for craft sheet designers on Craftsuprint and similar websites, and a FREE DIGI STAMP  every month to their newsletter subscribers. It’s a no-brainer, sign up here to join!

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

Bonus For our Followers at Incy Wincy 

We want to offer ALL of your followers a 50% discount on their TWO favorite digis! Please include Full name of Digi and Link to their site and on the 2nd week you'll get a code for 50% off those digi. Have fun Picking your faves

I've chosen to work with a gorgeous set called Lily Collection Color Plus from Doodle Pantry (thank you Laurie for allowing me to work with this beautiful set), and here are my Easter cards:

My card recipes are as follows:

Easter Lily Card

• Card base - premade A6 base in white card
• Paper - is called Paper 1 and it comes from the Lily Collection Color Plus set
• Image - is the precoloured Easter Lily in white (it also comes in orange and as an outline if you prefer to do your own colouring) and I have merged the Easter Lily wording with the image before printing it out. The doily die is the now retired Die'sire Ornamental Flower Frame. After I had die cut the frame, I ran it back through my Big Short and embossed it, before swiping some Mowed Lawn Distress Ink over the embossed areas to highlight them
• Sentiment - is a magazine freebie cling stamp, which I stamped in Mowed Lawn Distress Ink before die cutting with a Die'sire Essentials Oval die. I popped 3 clear gems under the sentiment just to add a bit of sparkle.

Calla Lily Card

• Card base - premade A6 base in white card
• Paper - is called Paper 2 and it comes from the Lily Collection Color Plus set. I've distressed the edges of the paper using Shabby Shutters Distress Ink.
  
• Image - is the precoloured, double bloomed Calla Lily in white (it also comes in single blooms and in pink and orange colourways, as well as an outline image for those who would like to colour it themselves)  and I have merged the Calla Lily wording with the image before printing it out. The frame die is the Die'sire Nouveau Frame Die and I swiped some Shabby Shutters Distress Ink around the edges
• Sentiment - is the same magazine freebie cling stamp, which I stamped in black ink before die cutting with a Die'sire Essentials Rectangles Die die and gave this a hint of Shabby Shutters Distress Ink around the edges.
• Ribbon - is from my stash and is a satin edged organza ribbon in white
• Pearls - are from my stash and I coloured these using my DG3 Spectrum Noir Pen to tie them in with my project

Unfortunately, our Shades of Green Challenge has finished, but if you're at a loose end this afternoon perhaps I can tempt you to come over to Incy Wincy Designs have a peek at the stunning creations by my teamies ... hopefully you won't turn green with envy though! In the meantime, we'll be back tomorrow with our new challenge - luckily this project was completed a number of weeks ago in time for my niece's birthday so my next post is all good to go ;o)!

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

• March Challenge - Show us some Green at Delicious Doodles Challenge
• Aloha Friday Challenge #67 - Easter at Kitty Bee Designs
• Game #60: Easter at AAA Cards
• Challenge #308 - Square or Rectangle Cards at Robyn's Fetish Challenge
• Challenge #165 - Easter at A Gem of a Challenge
• Week 335 - Easter at Allsorts Challenge
• Challenge #53 - Easter at Crafting with Dragonflies
• Challenge #317 - Flowers at My Time To Craft
• Easter at Sweet Stampin' Challenge

... and I would like to enter my Calla Lily card only into the following challenge:

• March Bingo Challenge at Catch the Bug Challenge - I am claiming the middle column of  Green, Bling (hoping that pearls count as bling?) and Ribbon

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Hugs, Helen x

Christmas Cactus

Hi folks! Hope you're all well!

It's Monday again, and that means it's time for a new challenge over at Incy Wincy Designs and this week we're playing Tic Tac Toe. Here's the board which our teamie Karen has created especially for this challenge:

We're being sponsored this week by the lovely Laurie at Doodle Pantry and she's offering a super prize pack to this week's random winner!

Doodle Pantry takes pride in creating a diverse selection of doodling styles, like realistic or whimsical, and all of which are family and kid friendly illustrations.  We hope you enjoy our wide variety of styles for every family occasion!


Laurie also very kindly gave each DT member their choice of image from the store to showcase for this challenge, so here's my card featuring one of Laurie's pretty Christmas images and sentiments:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is a premade A5 card blank in white
• Paper - is Kraft cardstock into which I've die cut an aperture in the centre with my second
  
  largest Die'sire Essentials Scalloped Ovals die.
• Image - is the Purple Christmas Cactus without greenery from the set Christmas Cactus at Doodle Pantry. I've kept this card really simple, and just fussy cut the cactus.
• Sentiment - is one from the Christmas Cactus set too.
• Twine - from my stash

I'm in the process of making a set of these cards using 4 different sentiments from the Christmas Cactus set and as the collection also includes papers, the cactus in 3 colourways (with and without greenery) plus line art so you can colour your own Christmas Cactus this set really is great value for money!

I hope you'll come over to Incy Wincy Designs and see the other wonderful creations by my clever teamies. Then don't forget to come back and play Tic Tac Toe with us - this challenge ends on Sunday 29th November 2015. 

Don't forget that we're still holding a DT call - all the details are on this post and if you fancy joining us, please just drop us an email to let us know that you're interested!!!!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to post this now as we've been having very unstable and highly intermittent internet access for the last 3 days now ... so infuriating, but Papa Mia's on the case if it wobbles again this evening!

Hope you have a great week!

Hugs, Helen x

Sheep Dreams!

Well, howdy folks ... hope you are well today!

It's been a rather busy week here at Casa Mia, and this will probably be my last post of the week, and apologies for this one being overdue too!

In my Monday post, I let you know about the new challenge at Incy Wincy Designs - well the challenge of Old MacDonald Had a Farm is still active, and I'm finally able to share my DT make with you. Just to recap, we're looking for your creations which feature animals and/or objects you would find on a farm!

We're being sponsored this week by the lovely Laurie from Doodle Pantry who is kindly offering this week's prize winner a great prize package. Laurie also kindly offered each member of the DT their choice of image to use for this challenge.

Regular readers will know that some of my creations come with a "back story" and this project is no exception. 14 years ago, we first started camping in southern Brittany with Bambino (now eldest Bambino!) and we used one of the companies who have a tent permanently pitched on a site so all you have to do is "move in". All went well with this holiday, the campsite was full of either very young families or grannies and grandpas, however persuading Bambino to sleep in the evenings when it was light and she could hear people moving around, eating outside etc. was proving slightly difficult. We had a cassette with us which we used to play in the car which was called (if memory serves me correctly) Lavender Lamb on Blossom Farm and there was a different song about each of the animals on the farm (I can only remember Dillon Donkey, but there were quite a few other animals too) as well as songs about the fun the animals had on the farm. Well we played this tape to death I think, because Bambino would only fall asleep with this tape playing in the background - thank goodness for auto-reverse tape players! Anyway, as soon as I saw this image I knew exactly what I was creating ... even though there are no babies in sight at Casa Mia!

My Door Hanger recipe is as follows:

• Base Card - made from Centura Pearl in Snow White, which is made from one panel of A4 tri-fold. I found the centre of my panel, judged how high I wanted my door handle 'hole' to be and then used a die from the Die'sire Essentials Circles to make an opening
• Papers - are from a kit by Janet Scott at Pixel Scrapper Digital Scrapbooking called Tiny, but Mighty Solid Papers. I have used the Dark Pink Fabric and Light Green Fabric Papers and digitally sized and layered these before adding the sentiment 
  
• Image - is by Laurie at Doodle Pantry and is called Sheep Dreams. In this gorgeous set you get 2 versions of the lamb and also 3 different sentiments. I have brought my lamb to life using my Spectrum Noir Pens in the following colours before cutting it out:
• Lamb - PP1, PP3, PP5, PP6
• Grass - CG1, CG2, CG3
• Sentiment - is computer generated using the word art facility in my word processing package and I digitally layered this over the papers before printing

Please come on over to Incy Wincy Designs and see the lovely farm creations made by talented team mates. Then come back and show us your creations which feature things you would find on Old MacDonald's Farm - this challenge ends on Sunday 13th June.

Hope you have a fab day!

Hugs, Helen x

Spring has Sprung!

This is my second post of the day - please scroll down to see my first post

Ooops - got rather carried away with life yesterday, and I forgot to post my inspiration for the new challenge at  Incy Wincy Designs. Really sorry girls! Everyone's back to work and school now, and I've got my days off back to myself, sooooo normal service should be resumed!

The challenge topic for this week is Spring is in the Air! Well it certainly is here on the south coast of the UK. We've got wall to wall sunshine today, although a breeze is rather keeping the temperatures down. Our garden is filling out a bit now with the Aqualeigas, Broom, Clematis and Dicentra all in flower.

We've got 2 fabulous sponsors this week ... and you won't want to miss these prizes!

Firstly, Laurie from Doodle Pantry is offering our first lucky prize winner 3 digital images from her store. Here's a little bit from her:

Hello, my name is Laurie.   I'm just a regular Joe crafter.  While trying to find digital images that met my own crafting needs, I decided to draw some of my own, as I had so many unique ideas that I just couldn’t locate elsewhere. I truly enjoy what I do and enjoy sharing the creativity that God has given me in the hopes it will inspire others to create too.  I have a variety of doodling styles and I like to keep a diverse selection at hand.
I hope you enjoy creating to your hearts content with some of my doodles.   I sincerely hope something here inspires you to go create something special that then puts a smile on another's face. ~Laurie

Secondly, Heather from Heather Ellis is offering our second lucky prize winner 3 digital images from her store.

Both Laurie and Heather kindly gave the DT some images to work with this week. Now I love Heather's cutesey images, but as time was of the essence last week (regular readers will know that I spent most of last week being chauffeur and packed lunch chef, as we had our half term holidays and were out nearly every single day!) I'm afraid I cheated a bit and made the following project:

My project recipe is as follows:

• Candle - small unscented block candle in white from Ikea
• Image - pre-coloured flowers from the Spring Song Birdies Color Plus Kit by Laurie at Doodle Pantry. I printd the image out onto white tissue paper and left it to dry. Then, I carefully cut around the image and then placed it onto the candle holding it in place with a piece of Greaseproof Paper. I then used my heat gun (since I treated myself to this, I've got past the stage of needing to use my hairdryer now!) to heat this 'sandwich' up and make the image melt into the candle … just be very careful that you don’t burn yourself at the same time. There is a great tutorial on SplitCoast Stampers with a video showing you how to do this!

Here's a close up of part of the image:

These candles are so quick and easy to make, and look fabulous! With the end of the academic year approaching in the UK, I think these candles would make great, and quite inexpensive) gifts for teachers or classroom helpers.

Linda is our new Guest Designer with us for the month of June, so please head over to Incy Wincy Designs  and see what she and the rest of my teamies have created to show that Spring is in the Air! Whilst you're hopping around blogland, why not visit the Doodle Pantry Blog where some of their DT are showcasing their Spring projects, as well as featuring some of ours too! Don't forget to come back and show us your Spring creations - if you use a Doodle Pantry image, you can join in with their current challenge as well. The Incy Wincy Designs challenge will close on Sunday  9th June 2013.

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

• Anything Goes at Crafter's Digital Art Center
• Challenge #1 - Anything Goes at Crafty Friends Challenge

Hope you have a great day - enjoy the sunshine if you've got it!

Hugs, Helen x