Waiting for the Storm to pass ....

Good morning my crafty friends - hope this post finds you well. I've got two new followers to welcome today on our madcap crafty journey round my craft room - welcome to Jackie and also to Aussie Annie! Hope you ladies enjoy the fun!!!!!! :o)

Can you believe that we're nearly half-way through January already! How are you doing with any New Year's Resolutions that you made? I find it really tricky to keep them, so normally don't bother (tee hee!) however, I have got a few crafty goals tucked up my sleeve for this year: to use more of my stash before getting new things and to improve my colouring skills. There I've said them out loud haven't I? Oh well, that means I've got to stick to them haven't I :o)

It being the 15th of the month, means it's new challenge time over at Feeling Sketchy and, as usual, Michelle has come up with a wonderful sketch which is perfect for those of us who like CAS cards, but can be heavily embellished if you like more decorated layouts.

We've got a fab sponsor lined up again this time, but it's a bittersweet moment ... we're being sponsored by Deedee of Deedee's Digis, but sadly Deedee closed her online store at the end of 2015. However, she is honouring her sponsorship and she has given us 2 image, paper and sentiment sets for our lucky winner, Bugs & Blooms and Rainy Day - a quick preview of these is below.

So here's the sketch for you ...

... and here's my card for you using the Rainy Day set by Deedee at Deedee's Digis:

This card is quite appropriate for those in the UK who have been suffering with floods (including the village where my late grandmother lived); the rain has eased for now, and colder but brighter weather is on it's way.

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card base - is a pre-made A6 card base in white.
• Papers - are both from the Rainy Day set. The base layer is called "Dots" and I've used "Clouds" for the sentiment banner.
• Images - all come from the Rainy Day set. I've used 2 of the Coloured Rain Cloud and superimposed one on top of the other, and then I've also used Duck in Boots in the purple and green colourway. I digitally created this picture in my word processing package and then cut round them by hand, leaving parts of the clouds, umbrella and puddle out of the frame, before mounting it onto the paper.
• Sentiment - is one of 5 which come with the set. I have digitally layered this onto the "Clouds" paper, and then hand cut this into a fishtail banner which I've mounted onto my card. Using a craft knife, I hand cut round the lower portion of the duck's puddle so the sentiment banner runs underneath it.

I hope I've inspired you to come over to Feeling Sketchy and play along with our new sketch - as usual, you can twist or flip our sketch but we still need to be able to see that it's our sketch you're following! If you need any further inspiration, check out the other fabby creations by my wonderful teamies and then don't forget to come back and show us your creations! This challenge will end on 31st January 2016.

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

• Week 180 - Cue word "Open" at CASology - I've drawn inspiration from the open umbrella!

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Hugs, Helen x

Deck the Halls!

Good morning crafty friends ... can you believe it's December already!!!!! Youngest Bambino was very excited to be able to open her advent calendar this morning .... it's been sat on the mantlepiece for a week now (you can tell she's a teen can't you!).

It's been quite a busy time at Casa Mia. Saturday saw the Christmas Fayre at our church and I took along some of my cards. I sold about 6 (the same as last year) but had taken quite a few more. I think people came along for coffee/mulled wine and a mince pie, bought a raffle ticket or two and then disappeared as I didn't see many people going out with bags and even the cake stall had to reduce their goodies to half price! Not sure whether it's worth the effort of doing it next year .... will have to ponder. Last night saw eldest Bambino and her fledging band taking to the stage at a venue in town. It was organised by her college and was a showcase for the bands that all the BTEC level 3 music students have formed. Each group took to the stage and performed a 20 minute set of 4 numbers. Most of the audience was fellow students and press-ganged parents but the show was great. Unfortunately, I think my age was showing this morning as my legs were aching first thing from having been stood around for 4 hours last night! I filmed Bambino's group and showed it to Papa Mia when we got in - to be honest, we're totally amazed at how good she and her bandmates were, especially as they've been together for less than 3 months!  Anyway, enough waffle from Casa Mia ;o)

It's new challenge time at Feeling Sketchy and we're being sponsored this time by Deedee and the team at Deedee's Digis and here's a word or two from Deedee about her images:

Deedee's Digis offers wholesome digital "stamps" and printable digital papers that are the original creations of Deedee Anderson. All of our sets include both outline and pre-colored images, in both JPG and PNG formats. Our products are offered in high 300dpi resolution so that they are fully resizable to meet your crafting needs. We are a Christ-centered company, and you will find that many of our sets include KJV Scripture verses, in addition to encouraging sentiments of all sorts. We feel very blessed to be part of such a talented community of paper crafters, and thank you for allowing us to sponsor this challenge!

Our prize for this challenge is a $15.00 gift code to the store :)

You may or may not be aware that Deedee's Digis will be closing it's doors on 31st December 2015. As a result of this, all the digis in the store (apart from the sale items) have whopping 75% off their prices!!! And if you need any inspiration for using Deedee's pretty digis, check out the Deedee's Digis "blog" where the DT are regularly posting.

So, back to our challenge and here's your inspiration sketch, as drawn by Michelle:

And here's my inspiration for you using this sketch (rotated clockwise by 90º) and a digi set from Deedee's Digis:

Now, I have to confess to having cheated a bit this time as when I was creating for this challenge all my craft stuff was (and still is!) in the boot of my car as a result of Saturday's Fayre!!!!!! So, I have digitally created a card topper, which I will print out and attach to a DL sized card base.

I used the beautiful Ornamental (Icy) set (which has the baubles both coloured and as line art, 4 sentiments and 2 papers) by Deedee at Deedee's Digis to make this creation using my word processing package. 

• I started out with a rectangular shape which was correctly sized for my topper and then inserted each of the 5 pre-coloured digis from the set into my "picture". I resized them and rearranged them until I was satisfied with the layout. 
• I then inserted one of the papers from the set into my "picture" and cropped this until it was the right size and then moved this into place. 
• I brought some of the images into the foreground and then added a shadow to each image. 
• Finally, I inserted a narrow line from the top of the bauble hooks up to the paper to make it look like the baubles are hanging from a decorative strip. 
• My last task was to put a colour border around my rectangle to tone in with the teal green colour of the paper.

I hope I've inspired you to have a go with our sketch and make either a card or a layout for this challenge. If you're in need of any further inspiration, please go over to the Feeling Sketchy blog and check out the other wonderful creations from my clever teamies! We'll be back with our final challenge of the year on 15th December 2015.

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

• Challenge #35 - Christmas - non-traditional colours at Scribbles Design Challenge
• Use a Digi at Melonheadz Friends

Hope you have a great week!

Hugs, Helen x