There's a Bear on the Line

We have a new challenge starting today at Di's Digis Challenge Blog, the theme is All About Animals.  My Animals are of the stuffed variety, I've made a card to welcome a baby girl - I realized I didn't have a single "girl" card on hand when my son asked for one recently, so I've made one.

When my eldest son was born (33 years ago!!) my Father in Law gave him a panda.  He was a very "difficult" man, so this personal gift was of particular significance, the fact that my son loved it was such a bonus.  He loved it so much that when it needed washing (as it got dragged around everywhere it was a regular occurrence) he would sit under the line gazing at it waiting for it to dry - lucky we live in Australia and it usually didn't take too long!  So when Di drew this image, called Washday, I just knew I had to have it, you can get it here. 
I've used some Copics but mainly Prismacolor pencils to colour, the cloudy background was done using a home made stencil and Kaisercraft ink. 

I used a Memory Box Corner Bow Die (cut up) as "ends" for the clothesline adding a tiny punched flower in glittery white with a Copic-coloured pearl in the centre.  The sentiment is computer generated, Aud Sentiments wants to see a sentiment other than birthday so I'm entering there, Little Red Wagon has Girl Power for their challenge so I'm entering there and Fab'n'funky Challenges has For the Kids so in there too.
I cut two rectangles out of the card base and (finally! I've had it for ages) used one of my new dies, Spellbinders Fancy Lattice to cut panels to fit into them.  I added strips of pearls around the edges, Totally Gorjuss wants to see Pearls, so I'm in.  You can see through to the pink cardstock I used on the inside of the card, to which I added a white jotting panel trimmed with more bits of Memory Box Corner Bow.

That's about it for my CAS card, I have been soooo busy, achieving little to show for it I might add, so I didn't have a lot of time to make this card, but I'm really happy with it. My Mums Craft Shop has a CAS challenge so I'm entering there.  Top Tip Tuesday, Simon Says Challenge, Art by Miran, Brown Sugar Challenge, Sister Act, Stempelsonne, Cute Card Thursday, Crafty Girls Challenge, Simon Says Challenge, Simply Create Too, Simon Says Challenge and Crafty Calendar ALL have Anything Goes challenges so I'm entering them as well.
Pop over to Di's Digis Challenge Blog and check out the rest of the team's inspiration = awesome!  I hope you get a chance to enter the challenge too, it's a fun theme and there's a great prize from Love Bug Creations - and don't forget that if you use one of Di's fab images you go into an extra draw for an additional prize... win win!! 
That's it from a very wet Perth (we have had the wettest August day in a decade, 50mm or two inches! It's not that cold just WET and we did have enough sunshine to sit at the beach for lunch so not all bad) Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna

Guest DT at Little Miss Muffet

A few weeks ago one of my cards (this one if you're interested!) got "Spotlighted" at Little Miss Muffet Challenges; the lovely Faye contacted me and asked if I would like to have a Guest spot on their DT.... would I????? Errr, YESSSS PLEEEAASE!!  So here's my offering for their challenge starting today, the theme is Blue and Green

Now, I was always taught "Blue and Green should never be seen, without a colour in between", well I'm thinking... bunkum!  Here I have those two colours up close and personal and she's looking prett-tty swish :-)  Of course having a lovely little image like Katie (one of the gorgeous Polka Dot Pals, available here) did help, quite a bit :-) Little Red Wagon has Girl Power for their challenge, Fab'n'funky Challenges has For the Kids while Send a Smile for Kids has Anything Goes For Kids so I'm enterng those... oh, an Crafty Little Fairies has Cute and Cuddly so I'm entering there too :-) 
I used Copics from the Blue, Blue/Green and Green families and some Prismacolor pencils, which I especially like the look of on the linen textured paper I used for the image. I made an easel card, they are my favourite fold after all :-) Though I do have a few "favourite folds", lol

Papertake Weekly have their regular "Sketchie Free For All" challenge, yay!!, Sketch #51 really lent itself to the idea I wanted to use of having the image "sticking up" over the edge of the fold (instead of covering the whole front with a square. It looks pretty much as I was hoping it would.
The papers are all from (ANCIENT) Die Cuts With A View Mat Stacks, Far East and All Glittered Up (I think) They're very glittery IRL.  I cut a circle of the blue and green then cut a frame with black cardstock from my stash, using Lifestyle Crafts circle dies - a great set for this sort of job as there are 20+ in the set so you can make very narrow frames easily, here I've used about 3 sizes apart so you can get MUCH narrower frames than this.  

I managed to get some glue on the black when I was sticking the silver cord (bought for egg decorating 11 years ago!) around the edge so I added some Gloss squiggles to disguise it, I'm really happy with the result; it helps tie the frame in with the pattern on the DP
I merged Katie with one of the stools from LMM's Tea Party Table and Chairs Combo pack, especially easy to do with Little Miss Muffet digis as they're in .png background (meaning they already have a clear background perfect for layering) Sadly I can't find the combo pack on the website any more, but Katie is still easy to merge with any background.  I had put her originally on some digital paper, but I managed to drop a Copic on it so I had to fussy cut her and mount her on foam dots on the DP circle.   The sentiment is from Create With TLC, I think it was a freebie... Paulette is very generous with her sentiments so it's highly likely :-)  I added a couple of star stickers, again from ancient stash.

The silver lace was a gift from one of my Mum and Dad's Malaysian holidays, the rhinestone button isn't - a button that is - it's a slider with a glittery cachou thingy stuck inside, which was silver, I coloured it with a Copic to make it green (I have some green ones but  they're too Christmas Green, if you know what I mean)  I added a couple of tiny silver "pearls", what is a pearl that's not pearly called??
Top Tip Tuesday, Tuesday Throwdown, Crafty Calendar, Simon Says Challenge, Crafty Girls Challenge and Cute Card Thursday all have Anything Goes Challenges running so I'm entering there.
Anyway that's (finally!) it for today's card.  I'd like to thank Faye again for the opportunity to be a part of their fabulous DT - make sure you check out the challenge blog so you can see just what I mean by "fabulous".  I hope you get a chance to enter the challenge too, fly in the face of those Blue and Green should never be seen-ers, lol. 

I'm off to get dinner ready, Thursday is a super busy day for me, we have the kids over for dinner and quite often (like tonight) my parents as well; my DIL brings the twins over about 4 o'clock and life as we know it ceases from that moment, lol. 
They're growing up so fast, we put a little sandbox in for them last week (just a planter filled with white sand and some toys, but they love it) so now we have mayhem inside and out, lol. I thought I'd share this pic of Grandad watching "them" in my laundry last week, Emily got his attention while Nathan (in the background) got into the cupboard and took the lid off the disinfectant!!!  I swear they're in cahoots!  Time to put locks on methinks.  I do my shopping on Thursdays too, so enough from me!
I'll be back on Saturday with my regular DT card for Di's Digis.  Until then Happy Crafting, Donna

"Hammy" Birthday to Tam

The card I'm sharing today was made for one of my son Chris's friends for her 30th... as it's her birthday again in about six weeks I thought I should get this one out of my drafts!  Tam loves pigs so the image choice was simple :-)

 I decided on this little piggy (pun intended, lol) from the sadly now defunct Pollycraft - I actually have a few pig images as my hubby loves them too and I l tend to grab them when I find them :-)  I coloured the image with Copics and Prismacolor pencils.  The Crazy Challenge has Cute Little Animals while (somewhat coincidentally) Crazy 4 Challenges wants to see Animals (though not bears or bunnies) for their challenge so I'm entering there.  Cupcake Inspirations  has Party Time and  Great Impressions has a Birthday Bash, so in there too.
Tam has made all the right noises over the years re the cards I have made, and I know she likes easels so that was what I went with here.
The paper is from Kaisercraft's Save the Date pad, those banners and pinwheels are lovely and glittery IRL, impossible to capture on camera though, grrr, as is the gloss finish on the circles on the base.  I'll be entering Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge.  I used one of the precut borders and made a stopper for the front of the card to sit against, adding a wooden "30" that I painted and glitter embossed.  The sentiment came with the image and the mat for that is another of the Nesties.  I cut out one of the pinwheels and added it to the corner of the sentiment with a brad from my stash.
I cut the mat for the image with Nestablities Lacey Squares, the image panel itself is just a rectangle with the edges trimmed with a corner rounder.  The patterned paper triangles are matted on cardstock from my stash which are mounted on foam dots to give some dimension.

I used metal letters from my stash, they are so old I simply can't remember where I got them from, I threaded them onto twine (stash again!) and then cut little slits next to the piggy's trotters and threaded the twine "under" them so it looks more realistically like the pig is holding the string, 'coz clearly "REALISTICALLY" that's what the pig would be doing, lol.  Crafty Creations wants to see our Stash, tada! and Clear It Out wants to see our Favourite Colour Combo, I love all colour, especially fresh juicy colour like this!

I added another Lacey Squares Nestie mat for the jotting panel, which I cut and embossed with a Crafts Too Square die and added another of the cut out pinwheels.  The "growing old..." sentiment came in the Save the Date pad.
Well that's it for Tam's (last) birthday card, I hope to share this year's a lot sooner, lol.  
Fab'n'funky Challenges and Send a Smile for Kids have Anything Goes for kids challenges, this card isn't technically for "a kid" but Tam is a kid to me and it's definitely kid-oriented so I'm entering there, I'll understand if it's not allowed though :-) Top Tip Tuesday , Tuesday Throwdown, Through the Craftroom Door, Crafty Girls Challenge, Little Miss Muffet,  Stamping Sensations and Crafty Calendar all have Anything Goes challenges - I should be alright there, so I'm entering them :-)
I will be back on Thursday with a card I've made as a Guest Designer for Little Miss Muffet, which I am most excited about, I hope you can pop over and check that out.  Until then, Happy Crafting, Donna

Grab a Pencil: It's Time For Di's Digis Back To School Challenge

Yup, it's time for a new challenge at Di's Digis Challenge blog... we have a "Back To School" theme.  I decided to make something "useful" as my project, so I grabbed one of the pencil tins I got in a sale (2 for $1) some time back and decorate that. 

As it will probably get shoved in and out of a bag or shelf countless times I thought it best to keep the layers and embellishments to a minimum; that's when I came up with the idea (not really that original!) of printing all the elements on one layer, so that's what I have done... with the exception of the twine of course.  

I used Microsoft Word; I made a rectangle by cropping a sheet of digital paper from Nitwit's Live n Learn 2 collection, then I added an oval, filling it with one of Word's inbuilt textures (cork)  adding the bevel edge and dropped shadow (using Format Shape, just in case you're not familiar with the process)  I then added the fabulously cute image, Back To School Bunny -available here for only $2. I had already removed the white background from the image and saved it as a .png - I do this with all my images so that they layer well.    Crafty Little Fairies wants to see Cute and Cuddly, I'm in, and Pile It On wants Primary Colours, I've got the red yellow and blue as my main colours so I'm in there too.   

Next I added "Pencils" using Wordart and printed the whole thing out, voila! I coloured the image with Copics, with a bit of Prismacolor pencil shading, and added gloss to the pencil and to the Wordart - I added a really thick layer to make the letters stand out, it looks much more even in real life, and surprisingly effective.  All that was left to do was add a bit of twine from my stash. Crafts 4 Eternity wants to see Something Old, the tin is at least a year old and the twine is more like three - hopefully old enough! 
Here's my pencil tin doing what pencil tins do :-))

I think it fits the sketch from Seize the Sketch so I'm entering there, and Whimsy Inspirations Challenge has a Back to School challenge so I'm entering there too.
Through the Craftroom Door, Crafty Girls Challenge, Crafty Calendar, Stamping Sensations and Little Miss Muffet all have Anything Goes challenges running so I'm entering them as well.
That's it for today's project, a very simple little thing it was too - but still I had fun making it.  Check out the rest of the team's inspiration, awesome as always.  I hope you get a chance to enter the challenge too, we have a great prize from the Frantic Stamper and as always, if you use one of Di's fab images you go into an extra draw with a prize of it's own.
Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna 

Welcome Card for Kaitlin

Well I finally decided to drag one of the cards out of my Drafts... it's not the oldest one mind you, even though it was to welcome my nephew and his partner's little girl Kaitlin -  in DECEMBER!!

Baby's mum Sarah really doesn't like "frou frou" so I made it pretty CAS. My Mums Craft Shop has a CAS challenge this time around, so I'm entering there. 
The digi image is one of the Sweet November Sleeping Baby Fairies (available here), actually the one I used on this card I made from my Mum and Dad for the twins' arrival, so cute. I coloured with some Copics but mainly Prismacolor pencils.  The Paper Shelter wants us to Go Digital (never a problem for me) so I'm in, while Little Miss Muffet has Baby Baby, so in there too.  Digi Sketch Challenge has Fairies as their theme - this is a baby fairy so I'm entering- and I'm pretty close to the sketch too, especially when you factor in the little name tag I added at the bottom of the image panel, bonus!
I had just got the fabulous Nestabilites A2 Borders dies and couldn't wait to get using them.  I thought I'd cut the edge of the front for interest, of course I hadn't used them before at that point and didn't realize how fiddly it would be lining all the edges up on the four layers, using different dies for the scalloped and non-scalloped edge!  I used scraps from my stash - the pink has a pattern on it, but I have no idea where it's from, and I embossed the white with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots folder.  Hiding in my Craft Room has a Scrap Saturday challenge and both Little Red Wagon and Gem of a Challenge have Embossing challenges so I'm entering them.
Then, just 'cause I thought I'd had enough... I did it all again on the inside - a couple less layers though!  I cut the image panel with Nestabilities Standard Circles and the mat with Nestabilities Scalloped Circles.  I ran a string of pearls from my stash around the edge of the uppermost panel and some individual pearls, also from my stash around the scalloped circle.  The tag (printed in tiny font on my computer and cut by hand) was attached with very fine gold thread.  Through the Craftroom Door, Bearly Mine Challenges, Stamping Sensations, Crafty Calendar, Crafty Girls Challenge, Delightful Challenges, Crafts 4 Eternity and Papertake Weekly all have Anything Goes challenges running so I'm entering them too.

Well that's it for my "Kaitlin Card", I'm glad I got it blogged - I'll have to be getting on to her birthday card soon, lol. I did use these dies again (in much the same layering fashion, I learned nothing from this experience I - am something of a slow learner, lol) to make a stationery set; it's in my drafts, I'll drag that out soon too, it is a fiddly job, but I do like the effect.
I hope to get to do some blog visiting in the next few days, I have been spending plenty of time on the lappy in the evening, trying to hone my digital scrapbooking skills - not sure how successful I've been to be honest, so it'll be nice to get back to seeing what you've all been up to :-)  Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna

Di's Digis Lace and Pearls

I can't believe another two weeks have gone by... despite my best efforts I haven't been able to get any more cards out of my drafts, but gone by it has so it's time for a new challenge at Di's Digis Challenge Blog; the theme this time is Lace and Pearls, here's my card.

The image I used is called Penny's Special Day. available from Di's Digi Stamps of course. which I coloured with Copics.  The card is made with Kraft and the papers are from Kaisercraft's Devonshire Tea pad.  I cut the image panel using Nestabilities Standard Ovals die as a guide, the mat was cut with Nestabilities Floral Ovals, it's cut from Kraft embossed with Ranger Superfine Gold Embossing powder.  The chipboard corners are from Make It Crafty... unfortunately Zoe doesn't stock them anymore... fortunately for ME I stocked up before that happened, lol.  I embossed them with the gold EP too, but did have a bit of trouble getting it to stick.
The lace around the edge is from my stash... I mean seriously from my stash, i worked out it's at least twenty years old!!  The pearls are from my stash too, not quite as old as the lace, but close and the large pearl/rhinestone embellie is from my stash - but it's only a few months old. I bought it the same time as the gold "pearls" :-)  The sentiment is a Kaisercraft stamp, and it looks crooked in the photo but not in real life, go figure.

The inside of the card was finished using more of the Kaisercraft paper, some orange coloured card - you guessed it from my stash - and a chipboard butterfly in place of the pearl embellie, this one was from Make It Crafty too, and is also discontinued.
I think the little string of pearls looks like a butterfly trail, call me romantic, lol.
Well that's it for today, I've scheduled this post as we've come "Down South" again for a long weekend, this time we've brought my Mum and Dad with us - they're in their mid eighties now and the drive is too much for them to make on their own.  As they usually doggy-sit it means I've had to leave my little Rocky at home alone - well only for the afternoon; son Chris is going to ours after work and he'll stay there, or take Rocky with him when he goes socializing.  Still it was hard to leave him, he is a spoiled boy and isn't used to being on his own - well, the next door neighbour is going to call in sometime during the afternoon, no doubt with a bone for him as she loves him to bits, and son Matt is calling in about 4 on his way home so he will only be doing two hour stretches alone!
BTW I'm entering my card is the following challenges:

Cutie Pie Challenge	Love and Marriage
Cute Card Thursday	Vintage
My Time to Craft	Use Kraft
The Crazy Challenge	Die Cuts and Punches
As You Like It	Favourite Papers and Why (because I particularly love how coordinated the papers in each collection are)
Pile It On	Embossing (heat in this case)
Delightful Challenges	Bling it On
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge	Use Patterned Paper
Through the Craftroom Door	Anything Goes
Bearly Mine Challenges	Anything Goes
Hobbycutz	Anything Goes
That Craft Place	Anything Goes
Crafty Girls Challenge	Anything Goes
The Paper Shelter	Anything Goes
Divas by Design	Anything Goes
Simon Says Challenge	Anything Goes

I hope you get a chance to Check out the rest of the team's inspiration, and a chance to enter the challenge too, I know you love your Lace ad Pearls so you'll find it easy :-) There's a great prize from Marker Pop, and don't forget if you use one of Di's fab images you go in the draw for an extra prize too.
Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna