Adventures at Anna's

I'm spending the weekend with one of my favourite friends and doing what I love best, eating, drinking, gluing and sticking.  I arrived last night and have been having a blast ever since.  This morning I made a card for breast cancer,  I challenged myself to use no patterned paper, I'm not sure why I thought that would be fun, but hey!  The card was also inspired by challenges at:

CRAFT challenge - monochrome

PaperCutz - Breast cancer awareness

  

Supplies used:

Card - Papertrey ink

Die cuts - Slice Think Pink and basic elelments

Embossing folder - cuttlebug

Ribbon - Papertey ink

Then we popped out for a bit, lunch at Ruskin Mill, which is always yummy and wholesome.  Today it was broccoli and cheese pancakes.

After some retail therapy and a quick visit to see Nick, Anna's boyfriend we made it home just in time to set up our downstairs crafting space before we settled in for a night of Strictly Come Dancing, X-factor and Pierce Morgan.  I think this a my perfect craft space with an obligatory glass of Prosecco!

  

Our challenge tonight was to make cards for the Hucklow Christmas fayre.  As well as being a  great place for our scrapbooking weekends they also do some great work up there - Send a Child to Hucklow, so we thought we'd like to support them.  We found some very (and I mean very) old Create & Craft kits and just put them together.  It's quite satisfying to make over 80 cards between the of us.  Here's one set:

Right I'm off to bed now to get that extra hours sleep!
xxx

Going for Gold

I loved doing these projects for Cardmaking and Papercraft.  I think it could be my favourite commission yet.  The brief was to make Christmas gifts using the technique of gold leafing.  I've not really used gold leaf before but I'm now a complete convert.  It's super easy to use and gives a luxurious effect.

I always get a buzz when my projects make the front cover of a magazine.

Here's the notebook and matching bookmark which would make a great Christmas gift and as such I'm entering it into the challenge at:

Moxie Fab World - Holiday Gifting

 The step by step was on the frame.  This one I'm entering into the challenge at:

Moxie Fab World - home decor

To finish off the set I made a matching greeting card.  This one I'm entering into the challenge at:

The Shabby Tea Room - pearls and pastels

The Crafty Pad - Christmas sparkle

Moxie Fab World - Jolly Holiday Greetings

Supplies used:

Frame - IKEA

Patterned paper - Prima

Die cuts - Slice Mistletoe and Vintage Findings

Gold leaf

Easy metal size primer

Quickie glue pen

Pink paint

For a detailed "how to", you'll need to get your crafty little hands on issue 84 of Cardmaking & Papercrafting

xxx

Adorables Sneak Peek - Day 3

For my sneak peek today I'm using the stamp plate Sharing.  These two girls remind me of my sister and I when we were younger.  All the backing papers are from the Adorables CD.  Our designer today over at the Crafter's Companion News, Views & Inspiration Blog is the lovely and very talented Wendy.  Pop over to see the gorgeous card she's made and also there's links to the other DT blogs so you can see more sneak peeks.

The card was inspired by challenges at:

2 sketches 4 you - Laura's sketch #60

My Time to Craft - Jewelled

 For this card the additional bits and bobs are:

Holly Leaves - Slice - Fa La La design card

Copic Ciaos used were:

Face: E00, E21, RV10

Hair: E33, E35, Y21, YR31

Wreath: G000, YG63, YG67

Dress: R11, R20, R32

Pinny: RV00, C1

Green dress: YG11, YG62

Shadow: C1, C3

I only had clear gems so I coloured them with a red Copic marker to make my holly berries.

I have one more project to share to with you today and that's a bookmark I made to go with the little card I made at the weekend.  This was inspired by challenges at:

Cupcake Crafts - books and stories

The Pink Elephant - Back to school

Tuesday Taggers - Books
Creative Inspirations - anything except square or rectangle
Papercraft Star - photo inspiration - the colours - thanks to girls from Papercraft Star for letting me about this challenge.

Apologies for the poor picture, I had a nightmare trying to get a decent shot of this one.

The supplies for this one mainly come from Papertrey Ink:

Stamps - all booked up

Ink - aqua mist and dark chocolate

Paper - library ledger

Die - bookmark die

Card - kraft

Buttons-  aqua mist

Flowers are Prima

Leave a comment this week and there's candy to be won.  Thanks for popping by.

xxx

Adorables Sneak Peek - Day 2

I'm excited to bring you another sneak peek of the Adorables by Jayne Nestorenko.  Today I've used stamps from the Playing set.  I wanted to show that the images can be used as individual elements as well as making scenes.  See what Bev has done over at the Crafter's Companion News, Views & Inspiration Blog if you want to see the stamp with the scenic elements.  The patterned papers are all from the Adorables CD.

I also made a mask so I could add some Spray & Sparkle Iridescent to the fur on her coat.  I'll try and pop a step-by-step up next week to share how I do this.

For this card the additional bits and bobs are from Crafter's Companion.

Punch: Martha Stewart double loops around the page punch

Die cuts: Making Memories slice - cartridges, Noteworthy and Mistletoe

Copic Ciaos used were:

Face - E00, E21, RV10

Hair - Y21, YR31

Coat - YG00, YG03

Fur - RV000, RV02

Boots - E33, E35, E37

I'm entering this card into the challenge at:

Caardvarks - sketch challenge

Whilst I had my crafting stuff out I decided to play with some felt and made this card inspired by challenges at:

Cute Card Thursday - material girl

Clean & Simple - Sketch #106

I'm surprised I managed to keep all that white space on the card!

Bits & bobs used on this card:

Stamps: PTI - daily designs, handwritten

Card: PTI - white, raspberry fizz, chocolate brown

Paper: PTI - 2009 bitty dot basics

Felt - hobbycraft

Buttons & twine - PTI

Flower Dies - cuttlebug

A little more excitement in my life, I've won a prize over at Tuesday Taggers - thanks girls :)

Thanks for popping by and don't forget to leave a comment on any or all of the days of my sneak peeks. The more days you visit the more chance you'll have of winning the prize which is a choice of 3 SWALK stamps, the co-ordinating CD and of course some Collal 3D glue gel because once you've tried it you can't craft without it!

xxx

Oh Bullocks!

A first I thought it was Groundhog Day as today started the same as yesterday with a bacon buttie and coffee in bed - not that I'm complaining.  Then I decided it was time to do my homework before anything else.  Not that my homework is a bad thing as it's another magazine article and all I can tell you is that I'm covered in gold leaf!

Today's adventure (other than gold leaf) was a 4 mile walk up at Broadbottom.  I'm loving discovering my local area on foot there's so much to see.  Today I found the dye vats, that were once used to bleach and dye cloth.  How cool is it to find some thing from 1800 on a local walk.

Me on my merry way.

Not so cool was finding some cows blocking the footpath!  As you can see from the photos I did manage to get past them after we had a little chat!

Blocking the path

The cow and I having a chat about them being in the way.

Where the little cow on the left is, is the stile I'd just come over!  Thank you cows.

So back home and a little crafting to relax after my adventure.  I made a few bits including this frame full of flowers.  This was inspired by the Tuesday Trigger at  Moxie Fab World.  I have to admit when I first saw this trigger it intimidated me slightly but intrigued me too and I felt the need to be challenged by it and I was and love what I eventually came out with.

Here's the trigger

Here's my frame full of flowers.  The whole thing is made with plain card and just 2 flower rubberstamps from a set by Paperartsy, plus one box frame and a white rub-on.  Don't you just love it when a plan comes together.

Apologies for the quality of the photo but as the flowers are behind glass it was a tough one to get a picture of.

Next up is a card made with bits left over from my gold leafing projects and my lovely little Slice machine and was inspired by challenges at:

Allsorts Challenge - July Love - not a huge heart but 5 little hearts all wrapped up in love

Twisted Sketches - Sketch 15 with a twist of frames - I turned the sketch 90 degrees and framed my images in gold.
Colour Create - baby pink, peach and black - I know added a bit of gold but the other colours were my base.

Another fabulous weekend.  I love my life.

xxx