Pearls

Nice easy challenge this week on Everybody Art Challenge we're looking for Pearls and if you follow my blog regularly you will know I use pearls a lot.

The image is of course Sarah Kay and the papers are Echo Park not sure what set, I've lost the front cover, after this card just have enough of one more card.

My favourite border die from MFT Crochet Die and I've used the Harrington Vine from Simon Says Stamps with some tiny punched flowers. Sentiment another favourite from LOTV. 

I've used the pearls on my flowers and on the background papers and the card is finished with some lace and  contrasting ribbon.

Do hope you can join us this week and don't forget to check out the team.

Mother to be

Before Mo drew the gorgeous Baby Shower image I had a card in reserve, another Mo's image called Mother to Be 1. This time I paper pieced the clothes on the image which I think are Echo Park but I will pass on which ones.
The umbrellas I think are Memory Box and the scallop border is also Memory Box called Pearl lace.
The sentiment is Stampin up and isn't has wishy washy  as it looks but the camera has to misbehave somewhere.
Might have gone a bit OTT on the pearls but I did try to remove some but when they weren't coming off that cleanly I decided to leave well alone.
Well the loft didn't get sorted Hubby went out with BIL in the afternoon so I finished another Granny Square Crochet blanket much to my DD delight.
As for my sewing machine, I can sew in a reasonable straight line, liking the needle threader once I had worked out how and I can fill a bobbin etc. Now I need to have a look out for some green material I brought to make a table cloth for the garden table, of course its in a safe place!

Lets eat Cake

Of course there's something I'm not happy with, I'm my worst critic after all but has much as I love the new image from LOTV . I coloured with pencils and sometimes I forget to colour round the nose and it loses it sharpness, if I remember I go over with a clean paper stump with Sansador on to remove the residue but obviously this time I forgot. I will look it out of my card bag and possibly retake it with the camera after I clean his nose.

But it's still a great Unisex image although putting red punched flowers isn't going to work for a fella. I've a sneaking feeling the sketch is Sketch Birthdays but I didn't realise they do one week female and the next male. Also I don't think I copied the sketch that well but I do love this layout its a bit of a change.

Well plans for yesterday was put aside when I got a phone call asking if I wanted to go to The Craft Barn, well I wasn't going to say no.

The Craft Barn as moved from Lingfield to Priory Farm near Redhill this would be fine if SatNav didn't take us round the scenic route and using a map on the way back didn't help either. But the shop it self is in a beautiful unit with a Farm Shop and Plant shop with a nice coffee shop.

I've decided today with Hubby home who plans to empty the loft to sort it out (that means he gets all down and I sort it out) there won't be much crafting today but I do hope I get to play on the sewing machine at least.

Hoppy Day

It took me a moment to work out whose sketch I used but its Sketch and Stash and since today is Saturday the image is Penny Black. He's called Hoppy Day even though I have him as a wood mounted stamp Penny Black make him in a Slapstick stamp.
I have to admit the grasses in the buck gave me a bit of a headache and I used Accent Beads for the bullrushes. It's an absolute pain but I can't find that colour or even Accent Beads anywhere but have discovered Micro Beads for nails so I've order some off e-bay to discover whether they will work.
I think the papers are My Minds Eye but don't hold me to that.
I decided it needed faux stitching, always find when I start doing this I have to faux stitch everything in sight.
Finished off with the Lavish branch from Memory box and some punched flowers, the sentiment is LOTV which I don't seem to be able to stop using.
I plan today to finish of the scrapbooking I started last week at the crop, but I've got Hubby to get the Sewing Machine out of it box so after 6 months I'm going to have a play lets hope she gets a nice name.

Fabulous Friday

Well it would be till I got up and it raining, what a beautiful day yesterday, you could almost forget that we were all freezing at the begining of the month.

This weeks Sketch Saturday sketch is probably more suited to a CAS card unless you have the brightest paper you can find. Mine paper is Doodlbug not know for their subtle colours but I do love them.

The cute image is called Fabulous from Mo Manning did have bit of issue with my white pen and the dots on her glasses but if I fiddled with them I would then have a mess and I had to use a bit of glossy accents for her glasses.

The flowers are EK Success punches,  apologies for my rough embossing of the large flower it was the last job and my hands were telling they didn't want to play no more and didn't quite have the strength to continue and of course the camera makes it look worst than it is.

Mojo Monday

I saw the sketch on Mojo Monday and thought of how Lin my team-mate on Simon Says Stamps made this card. I had those stamps and thought it would work brilliantly with sketch.

So using some inkpads I stamps away have clear stamps means I can see what I've stamped so I stamp not touching what I've already done. It helps if you have more than one acrylic block.

So the Stamps are Flower Friend but I wasn't keen on the little sold flower to stamp in the middle of the yellow outline so I had The All Occassion Banner set out and it had the little dot stamp with love inside, I wasn't sure it would work and it could all end in the bin but I thought it looked cute. The sentiment is Simon Says Stamp it was an experiement if I could use other stamps and this is LOTV sentiment and has you can see it worked treat with the Simon Says Stamps Tilted Banner die set.

The embossed stripes are using a Scoring Board, mine is using 1/2 cm not sure if that works out in inches.

Blue or White

I was going to have a go at casing the card that Chrissie did for Less is More but after seeing Susan's card using my absolutely favourite Hero Arts stamp how could I possibly do better or even has good. So I went for casing Jen's card instead. 

Although I've missed out the fish tail banner but I reckon I could get away with it. So I used the Stampin Up Just Thinking, love this stamp cos I can cut out the centre and add whatever sentiment that will fit.

I also use an old one to draw round using a marker pen on contrast card so I can make a mat for it. Also I love to use sticky fixers to lift it slightly off the sentiment.

By using a different sentiment I had quite a bit of space above it so a very handy butterfly to finish.

The top one is in Bashful Blue and Crumb Cake but the one below.

Is using Crumb Cake and embossed with white, edged with Bashful Blue and I used Soft Suede inkpad for the sentiment because I believe it shows up better than Crumb Cake. You can just see that I've used Bashful Blue for the butterfly but the camera doesn't quite show it.
So which one do you prefer, I admit the white was my favourite but the blue is growing on me.

Anything Goes

Time for new challenge on Simon Says Stamp Challenge 

 and this week its

Anything Goes
The team is also using Impression Obsession products but thats not a requirement for the challenge just the DT chance to show what amazing products Simon Says Stamps have in their store.

So onto my card, I very cheekily used the Friday Sketch Challenge it was perfect to show off the fabulous Impression Obsession Border Duo 2 die with added compulsory pearls.

The papers are Bo Bunny Isabella and the sweet couple are Sarah Kay Laura and Henri. Since the image is quite large and I've used quite a bit for my border I used the very useful Harrington Vine from Simon Says Stamps just added some roses to make it look pretty. 

The finishing touch with the perfect sentiment I used the All Occasion stamp and die set, I know this is out of stock but Simon Say Stamps are waiting for some more to arrive.

Now you know the drill to win the chance of this fabulous prize you have to enter the challenge with a new card no backlinking and you need to enter your post using the linky thing on the challenge blog. Also you need to link to the challenge in your post or you won't be eligible for the prize.

Casing

Now you know that I put all my cards on my blog even the ones in hindsight should have gone back to the drawing board, well thats going to have to include this one in that catergory.
I case the layout of the card from Jen quite a while ago of course since then she posted loads of cards and I can't find it now.
My error is the green dotty paper which is far too OTT otherwise it would have worked. I love the Falling hearts from Simon Says Stamps on the fishtail banner and the Blooming Violets from Memory Box, finished with a cute High Hopes Bunny peeking out of the circle.
Oh well it tied things over till 2pm for the new Simon Says Stamps Challenge, see you then.

Two Colours

Its time for another challenge on Everybody Art Challenge and we looking for two colours, I've used Pink and Green and pretending that white is neutral and doesn't count!
The image is another Sassy Cheryl that she had on sale before she moved completely to her new shop website.
The papers are LOTV from Nitwits and the Floral Oval from Spellbinders which has to be on the best buy list. The flowers are a couple of EK success punches and the leaves are from CC Designs.
Ususal suspects to finish Lace, ribbon, pearls and a lot of glamour dust on her wings.
I've just realised that the sketch is for the latest The Sketchy challenge.
Do hope you can join us and don't forget to pop over to the challenge blog to check out the fab creations from the team.
You may not have noticed but I've added a For Sale page with some stamps and I plan to add more as soon as I photo and resize them to save my gallery space.

Crying Babies

I love this adorable Crying Babies and I know Mo made the set to be used together. So I had another go at merging. Please don't ask me how I do it because I'm still not sure how I make it happen.
Perhaps they could have been a bit smaller but at this stage I was just happy that they were sitting together.
I pretty sure the papers are Echo Park but I'm not sure which set I want to say True Friends but don't hold me to that.
The daisies are MFT using the papers and a bit of lace of ribbon to finish, the sentiment was made on the PC.
Well I had a brilliant day on Saturday just wish I didn't suffer the day after so much and it seems to roll into today.

Check out this post if you love using Mo' images.

For Mason

First of all I better warn you this could be a long post with quite a few pics so bear with me. My card for Mason has a TeddyBo giraffe on since my niece is mad about zoo animals especially giraffes. I had with a pink hat waiting just in case.
The clouds and gingham paper were already in my stash and I used the Memory Box clouds die but I ran them through with the Swiss Dots embossing folder.
Of course the oval is Floral Ovals from Spellbinders and my trellis is from MFT die which I cut out twice but I also took a craft knife to Kraft one to take out the trellis and then fit it over the white one. Little white flowers is a tiny flower punch with some blue gems to finish.

The secret project a Cross-stitch Afghan, my Sister wanted to make the sampler with Mason's name and she convinced me I needed to make a Afghan. I've always wanted a go but I like working in a smaller count and wasn't sure how to work out size for the pattern for each square.
So when I found the Stoney Brook pattern for Afghan that had zoo animals well I had to didn't I.
My problem if you follow my blog reguarly you would have already read my problem the time scale. There was 13 squares and each one took me two weeks to complete and thats if I had a good week. It also took over 2 weeks to do the fringing stitch in every hole all the way round.
I think officially I had about 20 weeks to complete.
I also didn't like the finish using two strands you could see the white underneath so I used three strands my poor Hubby was always having to take me a shop to buy more cotton or I was ringing my Sister to pop to her local shop.

 2 Elephants

2 Giraffes

4 Palm Trees and 2 Lions

1 Monkey

2 Rhinos

I also had another problem I didn't like the multi coloured Zebra, to me a Zebra is black and white, so he wasn't used but I needed to use something else so I moved the giraffe down and had to scan the Rhino so I could turn him to look the other way. Of course when you printed it out the symbols were facing the wrong way.
I was so relieved when the fringe came to stop at my fringing stitching was a bit worried there, I also personalised it with Mason's name. In the Cross-stitch booklet there was matching sampler too which my Sister completed.

Here's me with my Great Nephew bear in mind this is the only time I will admit to being a Great Aunty.

Cheesecake Wish

Not sure how close to real life the colours are but I think my camera is playing tricks again the papers are much nicer in reality.
So today being Saturday I have a Penny Black card using Cheesecake Wish and I've also used Sweet Sketch Wednesday. Its been a while since I've used one or been within the time, especially like this one although one of the square has its corner cut out so the Mouse image sits flat.
The daisies are MFT die since my punch has gone to Craft Heaven and the leaves are Cheery Lynn which comes like a border with several on the trick is to try not to use them all so you can have some in reserve but I fail that idea each time.
Hopefully Mr Blogger will love me and schedule this while I go at silly O'Clock to my Sis ready for the trip to MJ All Day Crop.

Keith's Card

I couldn't not use Gardener Gus from Dr Digi again although I've reduce him to a size suitable to my normal size cards.
Recently its been my BIL birthday and he hate gardening in fact if he could turn his garden into concrete he would be happy but I've done a bit of his family tree and one his Great+ Grandfather was a Head Gardener so I like to rub that fact in every now again.
 So Gus is absolutely perfect for my card and I used the sketch from Sketch and Stash although I used just one colour and added the fence and grass across the card.
Now I think we all hate Mens cards because we never know what to add but I used the tree and the brance die from Memory box. I resisted flowers cos I could've have used for gardening card but felt that was pushing my luck.

Chicken Little

One layer, a film and no idea that was my feeling for the Less is More challenge in the end I decided on Chicken Little, I know this is a film cos my DD has been trying to convince me we watch it when we were looking for something to watch on TV.
So I stamped some grass with a old HobbyArt stamp, the chick is Penny Black and the clouds which I wish I just used a die to cut the out are from Woodware. I used yellow funflock for the chicks fluffy body.
So I've gone from Queen of Clean on Freshly Made Sketches to OMG why did I do that.
Don't worry I've another card for today I'll post it later.

New Release Blog Hop

The Dream team and the Challenge team for Mo’s Digital Pencil have joined forces to bring you a spectacular Blog Hop with 6 brand new images being released today.

Not only that but we have a hidden discount code in flowers on some of the blogs so make sure you start at the very beginning of the Blog Hop and jot them down in order and you will get a whopping 25% discount when you apply the code to the shop but this finishes on the 20th April.

Don't you just love April and as soon as I saw her in my inbox (everyone was sent an image to use) I just knew I had to paper piece her watering can. The Doodlbug papers were perfect for doing this.

I also decided to use the Floral Oval from Spellbinders and using the green papers from the pack I was able to use the CC Design flowers in different colours to match the watering can.

I was tempted to paper piece, the boots and the hat but thought that would be just too much.

This is a preview of all 6 of the new images

The blog hop order is as follows and as well as collecting the flower codes you can also win the chance of a $5 gift voucher for Mo’s shop, we have 4 to give away as spot prizes from the comments left on our blogs so remember to leave some love in the way of a comment on each blog you hop to.

Pat, Alice, Anja, Kerttu, Cathy, Debby, Elaine, Gretha, Debbie L, Heidy, Franz, Jane, Iulia, Julie, Kat, Mina, Kim, Tine, Pops, Tracy, Jak

If you're keeping up you should of arrived from Cathy after leaving a comment and checking out my flower hop over to Elaine.

CityScapes

Time for new challenge on Simon Says Stamp Challenge 

 and this week its

Travel/Cityscapes

Love this challenge, any reason to use the Memory Box Cityscape Nightline but I had to used a cute image too. My first thought was to do it black and white with a red umbrella but my colouring in black simply isn't good enough.

Next thought was brown but in the end I went with the brown and mustard colours because I wanted to use the Carta Bella Beautiful pack.

My little cutie is from Greeting Farm set called Rain, Snow, Shine, to embellished I've used MFT corners but I drew round the die to make a mat behind them. Also I used the Memory Box Leafy Branch with some punched flowers. Finally you need a sentiment so I've used Simon Say Stamps Always on Edge set but I just use the stamps and made a fish tail banner with a square punch.

Now you know the drill to win the chance of this fabulous prize you have to enter the challenge with a new card no backlinking and you need to enter your post using the linky thing on the challenge blog. Also you need to link to the challenge in your post or you won't be eligible for the prize.