Mothersday Book card

We're making bookcards at the Bristol March Playday so I thought I'd better make a few otherwise I might look like a twit if things go horribly wrong on the day.

Thought I'd make one for Mothers Day using an old elusive images plate that I bought years ago as it's Mums favourite flower but have yet to really do anything with.

Everything came together quite nicely for the front cover, I had a single sheet left of an old (Brenda Walton or dcwv?) pad in just the right pastel shades to not detract from the daff. Stamped with versafine and watercoloured with quite fittingly daffodil yellow, pumkin pie, peach parfait, real red, cherry cobbler, certainly celery, pear pizazz and wild wasabi markers from SU. I've used daffodil yellow, peach parfait & certainly celery cardstock throughout.




Got the book page in the hit a brick wall about how I was going to decorate the inside cover.

I decided to make a tag/bookmark so folded some retired su papers and edged with a MS punch. Couple of nesties and I stamped the daffs from one of the other stamps on the EI plate and cut & curled them. Then spent ages online looking for a mothering sunday poem that wasnt slushy or sentimental. Couldnt find a thing so was totally stumped as I didnt want to colour in any more daffs.

It wasnt until I really looked at the front stamp I realised the writing wasnt the normal writing like scribble that we often see on stamps, it was the full version of William Wordsworths I wandered Lonely as a Cloud poem. Brainwave time lol.


I went online and found the poem, changed to bradley hand script and printed on to whisper white. Edged with daffodil delight and overstamped the sentiment with peach parfait.

xmas card number 2

I'm quite enjoying making 8*8 cards but think this one needs something more to fill up the corner.

Layout is from Friday Sketchers challenge and I've used SU papers, card, ribbon, sentiment and co-ordinating scalloped punch.

Evie is coloured with watercolour pencils and has a stickles fur collar & hem. Paper roses and personal impressions holly punch to finish.

Latest card and a couple of flowers

I've had great fun playing with ink & hubbies camera today.

I bottled it without the light and took this pic with my trusty (and cheap) camera under my rnib task lamp lol.

Layout is courtesy of friday sketch challenge blog and I've mixed up basic grey & dcwv papers, bazzill and co'redinations card stock.. Creeper crew image from the greetings farm watercoloured with pencils then a light wash with distress ink. Sentiment from Whimsy stamps and finally a Spellbinder pendant.



Blue satin bow from SU, cheapie gem flourish and my newest yummies.. the flowers.

The daisy from Joanna Sheen was white but I've attacked it with old paper distress ink. I left the rest of the flowers alone as they fitted my colour scheme quite nicely. Rosebuds are also from Joanna but the blue roses are from wildorchid.






Just a couple of pics taken of some of my new flowers from Joanna. Her website pics don't really do them justice so I played about with hubbies all singing camera so I could show them to my buddies. The first one is of the vintage beaded roses, if you look closely you'll seem some really tiny beads glued to the edge of the petals. In real life it looks just like a sugar crust.




These are just some of the daisies, I havent let loose with the distress ink tho lol.

Chalk

If you've arrived from a challenge blog link the title wont make sense until you read the next post and see the other card I made today.

Back to this one.. I had some of my buddies here for playday yesterday and we had a go at making double twisted easel cards. As usual our gobs went in to overdrive and no one finished before home time so I finished off today.

The theme on cupcake craft challenge is I heart u, so I thought what better for a double twisted easel than tilda blowing kisses to edwin.

Watercoloured with SU markers, dcwv papers, spellbinders fleur de lys pendant, scalloped circle and scalloped heart dies, MS border punch, LOTV sentiment and some heart shaped gems.

I like it but I've overdosed on sickly sweet and pastel....

and cheese

If you've arrived here from inlinkz at SketchNStash challenge blog the post title won't make sense but I'm going to add another post in a minute that will make things a bit clearer lol.

This anti valentine (or is it a well done for getting shot of the pig?) is made using one of my new tickled pink stamps. Poor old postie must have had a heck of a fright when I was waiting at the door ready to grab the envie as it came through the letter box this morning lol.

I didnt realise it but she's a bit of a tall girl is Lilith, this is a 5*7 card!! Think I'm going to have to buy some 8*8 card blanks for her. The layout is from a sketch on this weeks SketchNStash challenge blog and I've used rockstar papers. I used watercolour pencils to colour, added SU very vanilla grosgrain ribbon and choc chip cardstock. Few pearls and a sentiment from flippin women (I think)

Playday invitation

I've been hosting playdays at my house in Bristol for my docraft buddies for quite a while now. The sunday playdays has outgrown my kitchen table so I'm planning the next playday for Sun March 13th, 10 til 4ish but will be holding it at a local community centre.

It's all very very informal and we're going to have a good laugh making the book card that's a dozen or so posts down. It's nothing to do with SU and there wont be anyone there trying to sell any stash, just some mates all crafting together.

There's plenty of room there and I know I'm not alone in saying that it would be great to see some new faces joining us. Costwise we're all chipping in £3 each for the room hire but if there's a lot of new faces it should work out a bit less.

Stashwise you'll only need basic cardmaking kit, cutting mat, scissors/trimmer, dst & glue, card etc and whatever embellies you want to use. You might also want to bring some spare stamping card as several of us tend to bring plenty of stamps...

For those travelling distance it's just a couple of minutes drive from a premier travel inn that if anyone wanted to stay over or drive down the day before it works out at about £60 for a twin bedded room.

If anyone wants any info my email addy is playingwithpaper@googlemail.com

valentine cake card

My buddies came over to play on Tuesday and Angie showed us all how to make a cake easel card. Can't say as it's my favourite card to make but then I've got no littlies to give it to.

Well valentines day is less than a week away so the blog challenges are full of hearts and love themes this week so I decided to use a new WOJ stamp. She's coloured with a mix of SU markers and watercolour pencils. Havent got the foggiest who's papers they are as I pinched them from Tracy lol.

Some heart paper lace, real lace hoards of round and heart gems that I've had knocking about the playroom for ages a round nestie, several paper roses and my own flourishes cut with scal to finish.

I'm entering it in to Saturday Challenge, Valentine
cutecardthursdays, hearts and flowers
and stamptacularsundaychallenge, hearts gone wild

Sketch Saturday

Todays card is using a layout from Sketch Saturday and my new whiff of joy stamp.

As with my wedding card I've used Lap Of Luxury papers from StampinUp. Water coloured with coordinating pretty in pink, regal rose & concord crush markers and various yellow & browns for the hair & birds.

Tabs are made from 1/2" strips of concord crush card and punched with the scallop trim corner punch. A couple of small gems and a paper doily I've had floating around the playroom for years. Not quite as fussy as the cards I've made lately but I'm quite liking it.

Wedding card

It's been a looooong time since I got my cutting & embossing stencils out but I felt like playing with a knife today... Maybe my subconscious is trying to say something about hubby lol.

Anyways this weeks friday sketchers has a fab sketch that fitted my needs perfectly as I could use one of my old Marianne Designs stencils to emboss then cut the pattern into the corners. Well that was the plan then I realised I was going to have to freehand cut the central panel out as well. Lots of cutwork.. yummy I love my knife just as much as I do rubber.

Once the outer frame was embossed and cut I mounted it on some concord crush cardstock and cut away the central area.

Mounted on to Lap of Luxury papers with a wedding Tilda & Edwin. They've been water coloured with SU markers in pretty in pink, basic grey, concord crush, more mustard, so saffron, chocolate chip & cajun craze. Tildas crown is coloured with a silver tiara pen and I've added diamond stickles to her veil. Tilda and Edwin have been cut out and mounted on cream pearl card with has been run through a heart embossing folder. Plenty of paper roses, a few gems, a ribbon bow to finish.

More me

After this mornings bright and so not me colours I fancied going back to my favourite combo.. blue & browns together with a nice simple layout from Sketch Saturday.

This afternoons card combines SU markers in pacific point, baja breeze, marina mist & not quite navy with daffodil delight, crumb cake and early espresso. I've used a mix of retired and current SU papers to match Miss Anya. Add in matching satin ribbon and a the scallop trim border punch from SU, some paper flowes, photo holder thingies and a couple of teeny tiny nail art gems. I'm reasonably happy with it but think I might add something to the top & bottom right corners.

On a roll

Despite having hubby home and *needing* (wanting) constant attention I've been on a roll the last couple of days. Mind you it could be because of sick of having him home and have barricaded myself in the playroom lol.

This one is quite an old Tilda that's been rather neglected. I've coloured her with 6 red & orange polychromos, medium flesh and about 3 browns. Cherry cobbler cardstock & retired SU papers (I'm on a stash diet so trying to use up my older papers) A few paper roses and punch leaves. The nested shape is my own design and cut with scal.

The layout is from this weeks Sketch n Stash blog and I've teamed it with A Spoon Full of Sugar blogs challenge of pink, red & orange. Not colours I normally use but I enjoyed making this one.

Truly scrumptious

Day of 1sts today for me, this is my first ever Hanglar card. I've had the image stamped on wc paper for well over a year but havent had the nerve to colour her lol.

Layout from this weeks Truly Scrumptious challenge blog although I've taken a liberty by adding a bow behind the brad. watercoloured hanglar image with regal rose, crumb cake, early expresso, choc chip & rose red SU markers, retired SU papers, atd brad, prima & wildorchid flowers, woodware punch leaves, my own flourishes cut with scal.

1st Xmas card of the year

I loathe Christmas as soon as Boxing Day is over but by Feb I've generally got over it lol.

My first xmas card of the year is using a lovely layout from Friday Sketchers

Tilda & Edwin are water coloured using cherry cobbler, old olive, nearly navy, basic grey and various brown & yellow shades of StampinUp markers.

To make life extremely easy I teamed the image with Jolly Holiday papers & the matching old olive & cherry cobbler card stock SU ribbon & sentiment and some flowers from WildOrchid. The smaller roses were cream but I rolled them in the cherry cobbler inkpad then spritzed with water. Small amount of stardust stickles on Tildas coat and I've just realised I missed a bit of edwins top.. oops good job I water coloured and it's easy enough to go back and add some more colour.

New Kenny K image

Todays card is one of those that just fell in together without an awful lot of hmming and hahing about colours & papers. Not often I get that happen lol.

The layout is from Sketch Saturday and lent itself beautifully to my new KennyK stamp. I used c1, y21, e53, b93,95 97, rv000 & 95 copics and ivory & blush promarkers to colour her.

Papers are from SU and happen to be my favourite set of all time, Elegant Soiree. I've not got hubbies camera set up right to see the colours properly but I've combined them with Night of Navy & Soft Suede cardstock. SU sentiment and coordinating punch. Wildorchid roses with SU bird & branch punch. And the nesties are my own design with scal.

As much as I'd planned on being a better blogger this year it's going to be difficult for the next couple of months as my selfish idiot of a husband has broke his leg skiing and my time is going to be taken up driving him around so he can at least work to fund my rubber addiction ;o)

Birthday card

A bit different colourwise for me today. This one is for my friends soon to be 11yo daughter so I went for brighter colours than I normally use.

Layout is from Friday Sketchers and I've used retired papers & card from SU and the gorgeous Ketto image is coloured with the matching watercolour wonder crayons in retired colours to match the papers. Tempting turquoise, pink pixie, summer sun and only orange. Pretty in Pink ribbon is still a current item though.

Blast from the past

When I saw this Fashionette Lil Lolita 80s Sookie stamp I just had to get her. Leg warmers, ra-ra skirts and big hair.. oh yes that's definitely my era.. bopping about to Human League & Culture Club at discos that strictly speaking I shouldnt have been in ;o)

For her first inking I've gone with a sketch from Dutch Dare challenge blog, a colour scheme (pink, green & brown) from Truly Scrumptious and 1,2,3 recipe from Cute Card Thursday, 3 flowers, 2 papers & one ticket.

I've used f&c ad watercolour pencils in grass green, chromium green opaque, rose carmine, fushia, permanent carmine, indianthrene blue, walnut, burnt umber, medium flesh, and dark naples ochre. Retired stampin up papers, always artichoke, pretty in pink & crumb cake cs. Wild orchid flowers, the small roses are really white but I rolled the edges in artichoke ink before dunking them in water. Whimsy sentiment stamp and a few brads.

The nested shape is one of my own designs and cut with scal on the cricut.

Another kimmie card

I'm loving these Kimmie images and this one was made for the Spoon Full Of Sugar challenge to make a card in green & blue and Papertake Weeklys challenge to use pearls & ribbons.

Kimmie is coloured with albrecht drurer water colour pencils in juniper, cobalt turquoise, earth green yellowish, chromium green opaque, indianthrene blue, terracotta, walnut brown, cream, gold & medium skintone. To get more depth to the hair I've added walnut distress ink.

Papers are from a retired SU set and I've added a double ribbon bow using variagated green and a narrower pale blue ribbons. A couple of diy hatpins (needles with 2 pearls glued to them) and a few flatback pearls. I'll be adding a sentiment to the bottom left corner as and when I need to use her.

New stamps

I love my postie when he brings parcels and todays contained 2 Kraftin Kimmie stamps I ordered Sun evening.

Not sure who I'll ever use this Kimmie for but I fell in love with the expression on her face.

I used this weeks sketch from Friday Sketchers and this weeks theme on Cute Card Thursday, monochrome. Thought it might be fun to see if I could use just one colour range of copics then decided to justify her look by using rv10, 12, 14 & 16 with y21 & e37 for her hair, ivory & blush promarkers for skin. C1 adds just a hint of a shadow which I took into the base of the nestie. Sentiment came with the stamp and suits the image perfectly.

Papers are from DCWV rockstar pad and a new eastern Dovecraft pack. Prima flowers, crocheted lace and some cheapie gem flourishes to finish.

Sketch & Stash challenge

This is the result from one of the images I coloured today and I was so chuffed with her I decided to use her with the new sketch from Sketch & Stash Challenge blog.

Quite surprisingly this isnt coloured with promarkers of copics, it's water coloured! The hair and dress were first coloured with water colour pencils before adding some depth with distress inks. Delft blue with concord distress ink and burnt umber & walnut with walnut distress ink. The bow and apron are coloured with leaf & apple green pencils.

Paper is Posh Posies from Daisybucket, whitewash co'ordination card put through a bug folder and sanded back with a piece of crocheted lace behind. Rish razelberry cs cut with a scallop nestie and white paper airbrushed (my first try with my new airbrush, woohoo but it's not as easy as it looks on youtube lol) with copic yg11. Leone Em leaf punch and new flowers from wildorchid.

I've got to say I've had a really great day practising water colouring today with my mate Angie. We had a few different types of watercolour paper, distress inks, my SU markers and watercolour crayons and some Albrecht Drurer water colour pencils. I've mentioned a few posts ago about the difference between card and paper but today we trialed watercolour papers. Even knowing how different card and paper react I was really surprised at the differences between the papers. First off we tried the watercolour paper being promoted by Sheena Douglas for Crafters Companion. I'll hold my hands up and admit to always being suspicious of Crafters Companion products as I've never been happy with anything they've put their name to. The watercolour paper didnt change my opinion of them. Fair enough it was reasonably cheap and took a versafine stamped image ok but it was awful to blend with. 2nd paper trialled was a pad of smooth watercolour paper from WHSmiths, much nicer to work with but although easier to blend it was next to impossible to blend away lines after the paint had dried. Not something I've been used to as my bockingford always let me blend away any bloom lines.

Finally I let Angie loose with my Langton grain satine. The image wasnt even totally dry before we were putting on coats and hopping in the car to visit the local art supply shop so she could buy a pad (or 2) lol.

I knew the grain satine was good so I didnt learn anything new about card/paper today but I did find out that distress inks seem to react with the albrecht drurer pencils and leave a depth of colour more reminiscent of copics than watercolours. I'm sure I'll be using the 2 together a lot more in the future.

sickly sweet

Going back a few cards one of my buddies commented that it wasnt like me to do sweet so for Saturdays Challenges theme of With Love I decided to go sickly sweet lol.

For the layout I've used this weeks sketch from Sketch Saturday

Papers from a freebie set of My Minds Eye and DCWV butterfly stack. Baja breeze and cherry cobbler SU cardstock

Whiff of Joy image watercoloured with distress & SU inks and a dash of diamond stickles. Nestie hearts, a few cheap pearls & ribbon.

Can't say as I'm that chuffed with the final card but my youngest loves the candyfloss type colours.

Book card

After seeing a fabby card in Kozmiks fabby docrafts gallery I decided that it would make a really great project for March playday and could double up as a valentines card for hubby.

I sort of followed a tutorial on Tinas blog but accidentally used the discard pieces rather than the right ones so the book ended up being smaller than it should. That will teach me not to craft late at night when I'm tired but I was just itching to get started lol.

Surprisingly I found it easier to make the inner than I did to decide on how I wanted to decorate it. Papers were easy as I just love using Elegant Soiree from SU and I'd already decided to use the sketch from Friday Sketchers and Saturday Challenges theme of tons of texture.


I water coloured the Magnolia swan using tea dye distress ink on Langton hp water colour paper before adding a small amount of diamond stickles to the feathers. The beak is coloured with scattered straw and dried marigold.

Prima flowers, leone em punched leaves, crocheted lace and a sentiment from papermania. Baza breeze card half embossed with a cuttlebug folder.














The inside is a mixture of the leone emand woodcraft punched leaves, and flowers from wildorchidcrafts. More crocheted lace around the inner box woven with some gold edged cream ribbon. The sentiment was printed before being distressed withold paper. It's from a Clarity stamp but unfortunately the stamp was the wrong size for the oval.


The blue & brown section does open up to reveal my message to hubby and a couple more swans but I'll keep that just between us.

what a difference card makes

This week saw another thread on docrafts forum about stamping & colouring ability or more to the point lack of. So having a pad of my new smooth wc paper (I used to use hubbys bockingford but it's a bit too textured for highly detailed stamps) at hand I thought it might be interesting to show the difference between a really good quality watercolour paper and a really good quality white cardstock.

In the interest of fairness I used the same image, same brush & coloured each image simultaneously. TH distress inks in tumbled glass, walnut stain, tattered rose, victorian velvet & milled lavender. I'll freely admit I'm not that great when it comes to where shadows and highlights belong and I'm just about average at colouring in so if anyone's thinking I can colour better than that I'd probably agree with you lol.


This one is using Annamarie designs 300gsm white card. Pricewise it isnt bad, about £10 for 100 sheets although I got mine on a bogof at a show last year. I use it for most of my base cards and tags. It's my preferred card when using distress inks with blending foam as it really takes ink well.

Watercolouring with it was a different story though. As the brush hit the paper the majority of the paint stuck in one tiny dot and it was incredibly difficult to blend the colour outwards. You can really see this around the arm area where in real life it's quite blotchy. The cheeks were next to impossible to blend in and if you look closely you can see where the card has started to bobble. It does suit how I colour hair (tiny flicks of the brush) but in the main the only way I could blend was to use quite a watered down wash then add in layers of darker colour while still wet. That's not easy if you want to add detail to small areas though.


This is using Langton hot pressed extra smooth graine satine watercolour paper by Daler & Rowney bought from a local artists supply shop. It wasnt cheap, about £7 for 12 sheets of 10*7

Blending with it was a dream and the colour flowed out with the brush. Admittedly I wasnt colouring for long but I was able to go back in and blend over dried areas. This was really noticeable around the cheek area, under normal circumstances I'd have dropped in the velvet while the rose was still wet and blending would have occured pretty much without any help.



This is one of the occasions where my camera has taken a better pic than real life as it's hiding quite a lot of the blotches on the card tilda. Both images side by side which makes it a bit easier to see the difference. The difference of depth of colour is quite striking, the langton is more of an milk white than the pure white of the annamarie. Not sure if that's why there's a difference or not but the annamarie one is quite flat and dull looking around the hair.









I hope if anyone's got to the end of this post that it's going to leave them realising that just buying expensive pens, pencils & markers isnt the only way to get better colouring.. it's changing the paper or card you're colouring on. I'm sat here wishing I'd found the langton paper some 14 years ago when I decided hubbys "cheap" Derwent watercolour pencils were "rubbish" and disliked stamping for another 12 years before spending a fortune on copics, albrecht drurer pencils & polychromos and pinching hubbies bockingford wc paper.

Practising colouring again

This time I've been practising colouring with distress inks. Huge enormous thanks to Alex for recommending Daler & Rowneys Langton smooth watercolour paper. Fabby stuff.

I went with a sketch from Truly Scrumptious and their theme of Thinking of Summer. Cute Card Thursday has a challenge to only used old papers. The blue paper is from Paper Salon which I've had for yonks and over stamped with SU Baroque Motifs in Early Espresso. Hard to see with the overstamping but I punched the edge with my SU scallop trim edge punch.

Tilda is coloured with tattered rose, victorian velvet, faded jeans, bundled sage, brushed corduroy, pumice stone and scattered straw.

Sketch and stash 52

This one is for sketch and stash challenge 52.

I sort of cheated a bit as I wanted to practise my colouring so felt this old sugar nellie stamp would be perfect but I did use some new Old Olive cardstock and some very old k&co papers.

Quite happy with the main image but not so sure that I used the right colours for the cat.

Blame my friend Alex for the long list of copic numbers used, she was showing us blending 3 shades together yesterday so I had a go lol

Promarker ivory & blush for skin.

Copics
bv00, 02, 04, o8, b93, 95, 97, o2, 05, bg01, 05, 10, 15, 23, 35
yg00, 03, 91, 95, y00
e31, 33, 35, 43, 53, 57 w3, 5

Oriental cards

First card today is from a sketch on Truly Scrumptious and I've taken the theme from Cute Card Thursday & Papertake Weekly challenge blogs which happens to be ThankYou.


Tilda has been coloured with copics (eek sorry forgot to make a note of which numbers) before being mounted on dovecraft paper. Red & gold background papers are from a docraft set. PB sentiment on white paper sponged with pear pizazz ink. The green background card was shadow stamped with a docrafts oriental flower stamp. Finished off with a mizuhiki knot.


If you're wondering why I've suddenly got a few oriental cards on my blog it isnt because I've suddenly bought new stash more that today was playday and one of my bestest buds Angie luuuurves oriental style so that was the theme for today.

Sort of killed 2 birds with 1 stone as it was my youngests birthday a few days ago and instead of a party/trip to the pictures/meal out she chose for me to cook a Chinese feast. Last one of those I did was for my 21st birthday and it's taken me 22 years to forget just how much prep work is involved!! Anyways back to the card... a fair few years ago one of my all time craft heros Janet Wilson wrote a beautiful book on teabag folding which had a pagoda card that I fell in love with. I decided to recreate the template from memory (sorry if it isnt as nice as the one I remember Janet, Imust get in the loft to find my old craft books) and created a scal pattern. I cut one each for all of my buddies for today but made this card for Tyrias b'day. I went totally ott with silk flowers and added a sentiment in the form of a scroll.


Christmas nearly mojod me out and after a lot of thought (and panic) and many many visits to various galleries and blogs I finally found a quick 2nd project for today at MelStampz The templates are quite a way back and you might find it easier to search for takeout box at scs.

This was the quickie mock up I made late last night. Nowt but a bit of silver pearl card, a few beads, dovecraft papers and a small length of wire. Mine might not be the prettiest of samples but I hope the girls enjoyed making Mels teapot.

Sketch & Stash 51

I don't normally do new year resolutions but this year I'm going to try to be a better blogger.

This one is for Sketch & Stash challenge 51 which let's us chose which of the previous 50 sketches we follow.

I've chosen to use sketch 44 as this suited my new tilda stamp and let me practise tying mizuhiki knots.

Blogger is once again playing silly sods and has decided to rotate the card, grrrrrrrrrrr.

Tilda is coloured with promarker ivory & blush for the skin, copics r32, 37, v12, 15, g00, 02, 28 and c 5, 7. I've used very old washi paper with gold and red pearl card. Black paper with gold oriental script, red organza ribbon. Craft concept bark embossing folder and some metallic green mizuhiki cords. The ovals and signboard shape were cut with scal & cricut.

12 Tags of Christmas, day 12

I'm gutted that today is the last day of Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas, will have to start on last years 12 tags tomorrow otherwise I might not want to get out of bed.


As with previous tags I've had to heavily improvise. I drew the bauble in psp and cut with scal. Triple embossed with some really old red twinkle ep. Twisted wire handle and old olive taffeta ribbon.

SU dsp, heavily distressed and inked with old paper, vintage photo and walnut stain. Same colours applied to an Anitas calender page.

Tims tag used a couple of small pinecones, I braved a wander to the local shopping centre via the park but couldnt find any, not even on a cheap ornament. I ended up breaking a piece of prickly hawthorny type something or other (can't you tell I'm not a gardener lol) and rubbed in some stickles.

FAO Mary

Mary you didnt leave an email for me to get back to you :o(

I use a cricut expressions soley with SureCutsALot. It's stupidly easy to use, just a few clicks and you can be cutting any jpg, svg, font & dingbat as well as shadow, black out, blackout shadow and weld them.

If I'm using a manual diecutter I use a wizard, with hindsight I'd have bought a bigshot as the wizard isnt the easiest of machines to use with chunky dies. For the little I use it it does me though.

12 tags of Christmas, day 11

Can't believe that it's the last but 1 tag. I've thoroughly enjoyed Tims 12 tags challenge and am dreading getting up on Monday knowing that there's nowt to do bar try to find my missing mojo.

As with all of the previous tags I've had to heavily improvise.

Stormy sky, aged wood, faded jeans, crushed olive, forest moss, shabby shutters, chipped saphire, dusty concord & walnut stain inks.

Tree and bookplate cut with scal & cricut. Both triple embossed. White puffy wow powder added to tree, silver & pepper to bookplate.

Hero arts (?) snowflake flourish ep'd in clear on SU designer paper, SU linen thread and scrap of retired paper under fragment. SU old olive taffeta ribbon distressed with inks then heated to crinkle.

Butterfly kisses sentiment. Old necklace sacrificied to hide that I'd put the tree too high up the tag lol.

12 tags of Christmas, day 10

Todays tag was really quick and easy to make although a total pig to photo.

stormy sky, faded jeans, walnut stain & pumice stone distress inks.

Butterfly kisses sentiment, black SU ep, acetate, cuttlebug folder,

scal'd snowman, snowcap paint dauber, some pearls & fixings, ribbon shrivelled with heat gun.

Only 2 days left, going to be awful getting out of bed not having that anticipation for when the new tag is posted at 8am. Looking on the positive though.. at least I'll be getting dressed while it's still am and the brekkie dishes might be put in the dishwasher before the lunch plates lol.

12 tags of Christmas day 9

I absolutely adored day 9s tag from Tim Holtz. If anything, elegant is the look I prefer and his tag fit the bill for me.

My attempt not so good lol but I still like it.

Warm honey, walnut stain & brushed corduroy distress inks. I prolly over dosed with Perfect gold perfect medium but at least it's really glittery!!

SU map ds paper & scallop edge punch for rosette. Dim4th music background, brass charm which I added foil to the centre and heavily embossed with a large ball tool. Misc brass flowers pinched from cheap brads, glass rainbow drops. Letters cut with scal (boister black font) covered with SU glaze. Tinsel pinched from daughters OTT xmassy decorate room, had to give it a drastic haircut tho lol.

It does need some doodahs on the ribbon but I'm too tight to buy Tims let alone use them. So seeing as hubby wants me to get some large crystal pendants (for the blind pulls in the front room) I have a really good excuse to pop in to a local bead shop where a few pearls, end caps & pins might just fall off the shelves into my basket. Time to go get dressed then dash off to the bead shop ;o)

12 tags Challenge day 8

I'm only uploading todays tag because it would be a shame to miss out one of a series.

Paper masks just don't work well enough for this challenge, I'll get the proper masks and will redo at some point.

12 tags, day 7

I loathe and detest artificial poinsettias of all descriptions that my heart sank when I saw todays tag.

Surprisingly I enjoyed making it though, think making the faux wood tag had more to do with it than the flower lol.

Photoed at a funny angle to catch the glitter and shine. Fiskars woodgrain texture plate, prima poinsettias, diamond stickles, clear ep, HOTP text border stamp.

SU taffeta ribbon distressed with a burning cigarette. Bead from a cheap kiddies set.

Aged mahogany, fired brick, crushed olive, walnut stain, frayed burlap, vintage photo distress inks. Versafine black.

Flourishes and letters cut with scal & cricut.

12 tags challenge Day 6

Tim Holtz 12 tags of Christmas.

It's the end of the first half today and I should rename myself bodgingpaper lol.

Weathered wood, tumbled glass, forest moss, frayed burlap & walnut stain distress inks.

Reindeer, googled clip art, cut with scal & cricut. Stained crumb cake, painted with mix of pintura blue paint & white frost SU shimmer paint. Embossed with snowflake bug folder, sanded back & tinted with frayed burlap. My long suffering floral decoration is missing yet more twigs as they got sacrificed for the antlers. *polo" shape hand cut and triple embossed with a dodgy old glitter ep.

Trees, my own drawn version of TH embossing folder, cut with scal & cricut.

PTI flourish, retired SU splatter stamp daubed with Champagne shimmer paint.

SU satin ribbon, trimmed at sides and fluffed up with metal owl charm.

The remains from yesterdays SU music note wheel, stamped in black versafine, roughly pleated.

Gawd knows what sentiment stamp that is I've lost the plot lol. Was double stamped with SU real red & cherry cobbler ink.

Tims tags day 4 and 5

Day 5

Wasnt too keen when I saw Tims blog this morning. Nowt much but a bit of distress ink and utee but have to say I enjoyed making this one more than all the others.

Barn door, fired brick, aged mahogany, walnut stain, forest moss, pine needles, pumice stone & frayed burlap inks. Label and numbers cut with scal & cricut on white card. Numbers uteed with clear then a pepper, really heated with the heat gun to create a white ripple through the pepper.

SU music note wheel, katzelkraft holly flourish, Uk craft mag freebie santa & sentiment stamps. Green sparkles glitter glue and white flowersoft. Really shocked as that's twice I've used flowersoft this week... I hate the bloomin stuff as a rule!!



This is day 4s tag and it was a huuuuge challenge as I the only things Tim used that I have are the inks.

I used a victorian image in psp, fiddled with the colour, saturation and added a mask before printing onto 160gsm mondi laser printer paper. Distressed edges with broken china, faded jeans & dusty concord. I have now found that the mondi doesnt really like distress ink and I'll have to chose in future between printing an image on mondi or stamping something on to my favourite annamarie 300gsm white card.

Single gems and shimmer dots were applied freehand and a ticket using a sentiment held on with a mini paperclip from SU.


After several failed experiments I finally managed a faux facet by alchie inking some shrink plastic (pool and purple twilight) then stamping my partridge in a pear tree with white Brilliance ink, heated til shrunk then added lots of utee.

This is my favourite to look at but I hated having to use the computer to make backing paper. I'm def more of a get inky crafter than a pc one.