Judes give away.

My friend Jude from Crafts International and Creative Inspirations is having this amazing give away on her blog. All you have to do is follow my link to find out how you can win all this lot.  You have until 31st to enter so what are you waiting for?

Mothers Day uk 3rd April.

Life as an ex-pat means I get totally confused by Mothers Day and Fathers Day dates as they are celebrated at completely different times around the world but Creative Inspirations latest challenge is to create a mothers day card so thankfully that gave me a huge hint.  The background was made using some stamps from My Stamp Box and Adirondack ink colours  and the topper was a freebie from Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine and they're from All Our Yesterdays. The colours are my mums favourites and the topper reminded me of holidays in Llandudno north Wales when I was young and watching the punch and judy shows there.

This time on Creative Inspirations the sponsor is Joanna Sheene who is a total megastar in my eyes and can be seen on Create and Craft tv from time to time.

 

Lots of colour.

When I saw the latest challenge set up with the Wednesday Stampers I was dying to join in even though to be honest my plate has been a bit full recently. Their challenge this week is Fabulously Colourful and I think this card fits the bill.
It's part of a show and tell over on the My Stamp Box blog site where we were asked to create backgrounds using their stamps. I decided to make a whimsical background instead of going for a pattern using the Funky Flowers stamps which are my favourites. I used Adirondack inks spritzed with a little water and the blue card was painted using watercolour paints. I just can't stop using these colours at the moment they seem to be a favourite too.

Over on the MSB web site there are lots of other projects showing backgrounds so go take a look.

Stamping on anything BUT paper.

Today on My Stamp Box I share a blog post with my Design Team member Cari.  We came together to show stamping on different surfaces other than paper.
In these four cards I've stamped on black polymer clay, denim, a button and ribbon and some shrink plastic. I have to say the shrink plastic is my favourite one. I tore out some rough squares and used Distress ink (tumbled glass) to colour it and stamped using a stazon.  After shrinking it has the look of sea glass.

It was a lovely idea to partner up with Cari as it gave us an opportunity to get to know each other a bit better.

My Stamp Box blog hop.

On friday April 1st, My Stamp Box will be having a celebration blog hop to welcome the new members of the Design team.
You'll be introduced to the new members with some inspirational welcome cards and be able to get to know them all individually.
So stand by for Friday April 1st - and that's no joke!!

A thoroughly miserable day made better!

Yesterday was an utterly utterly miserable day. I was meant to go to the Dortmund craft fair in Germany, one of the biggest in Europe with my best friend Lena, but I ended up going down with a 24 hour tummy bug and couldn't go!!!  Where's the justice in this world?  But thank you Lena for my present, it really made me happy.

Anyway, I was cheered up somewhat by one of my projects for Sarah Hurley Designs being made into a tutorial on her blog site. Here you can see it being modelled by my little helper.



This is a close up of the Mermaid detail on the pocket.

You can check it out for yourself  on Sarah Hurley's blog.

A cutie cup cake.

I'm writing my post in a bit of a hurry as I'm getting ready for a trip to Dortmund in Germany tomorrow to one of the biggest craft fairs in Europe. I'm so excited but not so happy about the 5am start but hey it's all worth it. 

It's a new challenge week on the Sarah Hurley challenge blog and the challenge this week is embossing. I've used one of Sarah's designs, this cute cupcake and paper pieced it onto an embossed background which I've given the sanding treatement to make the embossing come out more.

There's a prize donated by Handy Hippo this week if you want to join the challenge.

I'm off now to finish getting my stuff together. Woo hooo!!

My first Easel card.

In the midst of all the madness which is my life at the moment, I spent an evening making my first Easel card. I thought it would be really tricky but in fact it was quite easy to put together.

The reason for the experiment is for the Creative Inspirations new challenge this week which is to make an Easel card. I tell you, if you go over to the blog to take a look you'll be blown away by the amazing cards made by the other members of the team. Some of them are works of art in 3D. 

We're being sponsored by Simon Says and Bunny Zoe's this week so two great reasons to join in.

Wearing my art.

Today I have another post up on the blog of My Stamp Box. 

When I was sent my new stamps to play with, I just fell in love with the quirky Border Lines stamps as I love drawing this type of border on almost everything. About the same time I'd been fortunate enough to nab myself a large piece of canvas and knew it would be perfect for some kind of stitching project. I used the Border Lines stamps to create this house shape (how I did it is up on their blog) coloured it with some watercolours, added some sewing and bits and the words are typed on my typewriter which I found for €4 at a second hand store (thanks Lena for the new ribbon) and a brooch back was added to turn it into a wearable piece of art.

Flower card.

This card has been made using one of Sarah Hurley's backing papers printed onto a transparency sheet and layered over music manuscript. It's a shame you can't see it properly but it's not easy to get a good picture of a transparency without getting some glare or shine off it. The theme on her challenge blog this week is Flowers and this one was made from a piece of organza ribbon, cut into a circle and burned on the edges to make it curl up. 

New; Sarah Hurley Designs.

I'm so tired you wouldn't believe. For the last few weeks I seem to have been burning the candle at both ends as they say and now I'm really starting to feel it. I agreed to take on a massive massive job which in retrospect is too much physically for one woman and stressful to say the least.  All that on top of the childminding, school holidays, carnaval costume making and the DT work and my blog has been sadly neglected!! Anyway, rant over, hopefully by the end of the week the end will be in sight and life will go back to normal.

However, I did sneak an afternoon off (shame on me) on saturday as my good friend Lena and I launched a new monthly meeting group where we'll be holding workshops, crops and a jolly good time! Our first one was a great success with a good sized group of ladies and young girls who were so excited to be there. I can't wait for the next one in April, it should be so much fun.

Anyway, during the course of the last week I've also been offered a place on the Design Team of Sarah Hurley who creates some really cute digital images. This week she launches her latest images and she's very kindly sent them to all the designers to have a play around with.  Little 'Pirate Pete' as I've named him is just so cute and I probably didn't do him justice on the front of this card but once I get some more time I aim to work with him some more.

I'm off for a sleep now.