Mother's Day/Special Lady and some Exciting News!

Morning everyone, hope your all well and enjoying the upturn in the weather!!   I sooo hope spring is finally on its way!

I've a card for you today and some news that I've been BURSTING to tell - I so hate keeping secrets, it nearly kills me lol!  I've been invited by the lovely ladies at Totally Papercrafts Challenge to join their design team - OMG, OMG, OMG!!!  These girls are so very talented and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to working with them!

Also joining the team are some well known faces in blogland;

Joey, Janneke and Elaine

The challenge this week at Totally Papercrafts, set by the lovely Lorraine, is

MOTHER'S DAY / SPECIAL LADY

 Paula at Pollycrafts is sponsoring and she will be giving away the brand new and totally gorgeous ''Sweet Dreams Springtime Retro'' set plus you will find another little surprise on the challenge blog for ALL our readers - HAPPY DAYS!!!

Here is my first DT card for the Challenge........

RECIPE

Image - Pollycraft (LilyBean Fairy)

Colouring Mediums - Copics and Promarkers

Papers - Basic Grey ( Origins)

Cardstock - Stash

Lettering - Basic Grey

Flowers - Prima

Yellow flower sticker - Basic Grey

Bumble Bee Brad - Basic Grey (Porcelain)

Spacer and Pearl Brad - Stash

Card Candy

Be sure to check out the cracking makes from all my teamies here and we'd love it if you could join in the fun with us too.

I'm going to enter this card into the following challenges:

Simon Says - Mother's Day/Girly
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Mothers Day/Flowers
Crafty Calendar - Flower Power
My Time to Craft - Just for Mum
Cute Card Thursday - Lucky Green

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I have some other exciting news I'm still sitting on cos and are "Secret" lol, but within the next few days I will hopefully have a few "sneak peaks" to tease you with lol!

Thanks for stopping by.  Take care and happy crafting!

Mel X

Three Cards, Eight Challenges

Morning, gosh my second post for the day, must be on a roll lol!  I made these cards yesterday in a spot of crafty therapy and relaxation and they fit numerous challenges.

This first one is for my mum's best friend, Brenda who turns 60 on Monday. They went to school together, went clubbing together and now, will be using their new bus passes together lol!.   This one's entered into

Simon Says - Vintage with flowers

These are new stamps, I don't have many Tilda Magnolia cos I think I'm one of few people who find them a bit freaky - where's their mouths lol!  However, I have loved every single card I've seen with this image and I've had my first ever attempt at the masking technique!  Wowzers it was easier than I thought!

Brenda doesn't like too much fuss on her cards and I didn't want to distress this.  I think the papers have a distressed look to them and anyway and the colours are quite vintage. The lace was originally sewn onto some shabby blue ribbon, which obviously wouldn't match so I unstitched some to use separately.  The photo corners where drawn once freehand to make a template on black cardstock.  I edged the burgunday paper with a lovely gold paint pen - which I've now lost somewhere on my craft table so can't tell you which one it is - sorry!! 

RECIPE

Stamps - Magnolia

Colouring Mediums- Copics, Promarkers and Inkessentials White Marker 

Papers - Basic Grey 

Lace - Stash

Circle Die Cut - Nesties

Flowers - Hobby House

Leaf Punch - Leone Em

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My second card is for my uncle Chris. He was in the Royal Air Force for years and did a couple of stints posted over in Holland - which his family LOVED!  This fits...

Cards & Things Challenge - Sketch

Quixotic Challenges - One for the Boys

Your Next Stamp Challenge - Spring Colours

RECIPE

Digi Image -Sugar Nellie (Funky Kits)

Cardstock - Stash

Papers - Basic Grey

Card Candy - Stash

Metal zig zag Brads - Stash (possibly Papermania)

Sentiment - done on laptop

Circle  Punch - XCut

Card Candy

I'm sure he'll love this image!

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My last card today is for Mother's Day.

Paper Cutz Challenge - Feminine with fairy and the colours pink, green, white and lavender/blue

Totally Gorjuss - It's For You Mum

Allsorts - Mother's Day

Magical Crafts Fortnightly Challenge - Something for Mum

Papercutz ideally want this to be a birthday card too (I missed that little detail!) but I hope they'll still be happy with this.  I LOVE papers with circles on and have loads of em on 12x12pages! As soon as I received this stamp I thought of this paper!!  I don't know what went on with this pic but in reality the colours in the random circle paper isn't as bleached!!  No matter what I do though I can't get a better pic than this!  I have again used the lace after removing it from the blue ribbon it was attached to.

RECIPE

Stamp - Lily of the Valley

Pink paper - stash

Patterned Paper - by Crafty Creations Ltd 

Die Cut - Nestabilities

Border Punch - Martha Stewart

Lace - Stash 

Flowers - Prima

Polka Dot Brad - stash

Sentiment - done on laptop

Circle Punch - XCut  

Phew, and that's all of them! I loved making these as have been wanting the opportunity to use these images.  It also gave me chance to practice with my copics and promarkers.

Thanks for stopping by.  Am off to gymnastics now with Emily then gonna help Pete decorating our bedroom - yes I've had to resort to cracking the whip with him now for him to get him to finish it lol!

Take care and happy crafting

Mel X

A Two in One Challenge and DT CALL

Hi everyone, ooh had a blue screen on the 'puter whilst trying to post this!! Not good - only back from repair a fortnight ago!!  Pete just had a look at it and it had popped  up a screen saying it was recovering from an attack!!  How dramatic can one machine be lol!  Anyway, lets crack on before it throws a wobbler and shuts down!!

This card is for two challenges and I made it with my nephew in mind who's coming up to 16.

Simon Says - Punch It plus DT Call #2

Creative Card Crew - Punch It

I layered my nesties for this and cut a triangle from black cardstock, using one as a template for the other.  The black ribbon threaded through holes created using the film strip punch.  I didn't feel that the gems and the minature dickie bow detracted from the masculine nature of the card.  Hope Stevie thinks so too!

RECIPE

Image - Charmed Download

Papers - Basic Grey

Sentiment - Craftwork Cards

Film Strip Border Punch - Woodware

Circle Border Punch - Fiskars

Oval - Nesties

Cardstock and ribbon - Stash

Green Jewels and Mini Dickie Bow - Hobbycraft

Thanks for stopping by my little haven here in cyberspace!  Enjoy your weekend!

Mel X

More Shabby than Chic!

Good evening everyone and hope you all had a lovely weekend.  Are you braced for more of the white stuff thats due to hit us 'bout Wednesday?  Me neither, I'm soo looking forward to spring!  I've done this card tonight for the following challenges;

Simon Says - Shabby Chic plus DT Call

Creative Inspirations - Distressing

A Spoonful of Sugar - Lots of Layering

ABC Challenge - L is for Layering

I do enjoy shabby chic layouts though not done one for a while, but I do tend to lean a bit more towards the shabby lol!  I just couldn't resist a Sugar Nellie image for this one, a real favourite!

I did hand stitching around the card itself and the main backing paper. I had loadsa fun distressing them all with ink pads and erasers, before scrumpling them up and tearing most of them.  The stitching around the image is just my doodling, as is the flourish.  The tags are hand written.  The image and check dp are raised on foam mounts, the edges cut with trimmer.

I decided to try and be a bit more creative as she has a pen in her hand and used some script papers from K&Co to create a little embellie in the bottom corner.  I rolled one end and whipped some stitching over that too.  I'm really chuffed with the end result!

RECIPE

Stamp - Sugar Nellie

Colouring Mediums - chalks, copics and water colour pencils

Papers - K&Company

Flowers - Prima

Tag Punch - XCut

Flower Brad - Dovecraft

Polka Dot Brad - Basic Grey

RicRac - stash

Antique Pearls - stash

Paper Trimmer - CARL "Victorian" blade

Thankyou so much for stopping by my little haven in cyber space. Enjoy whats left of your evening and take care.  Happy crafting everyone.

Mel X

Three Snowflakes - Also Known As............................

How Many Digis Images Can You Fit on One Card? LOL!  Morning everyone, brrr it's a bit nippy!  I've been bursting to post this next card but had to wait for daylight to take the pics!  The neighbours now think I'm deranged as was in the back garden in my pj's trying to get it!!!  It's a very dull and grey day here and I needed natural light and no flash on the camera!!

We have a good size garden and my early New Years Resolution is to spend more time out there sorting it out now the children are a bit older - particularly as its the reason we bought the house in the first place!  I love my garden - in all seasons apart from the dull, grey and wet really!

Now, enough waffling/teasing and onto the card.  This card will be entered into these challenges;

Dottie's World - 3 Snowflakes

Crafty Creations - Traditional Christmas colours 

My Time to Craft - Yuletide Wishes

Creative Card Crew - Anything Goes (plus DT call)

Simon Says Challenge - Merry Christmas

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Free for All

I certainly had fun here, this is what I came up with.................... 

 

Even Pete likes this - too bad he's already got his card LOL!   I've been wanting to play with some of the background images from the Pixie Chicks downloads over at Charmed Cards and Crafts. I also wanted to see what I could do with some acetate!  I've used an 8x8 card for this and sized all the downloads to fit right.  The fence background was printed twice to allow me to cut and layer the signpost.  I coloured the images with copics and watercolour pencils - adding red berries to the climbing plant to add to the Christmas feel.  There is A LOT of layering on this and the acetate works perfectly to protect it all.  The snowflake stickers, (papermania I think) were added on top of this to add further dimension and at the bottom I added some white flower soft.

 Thisis the card underneath the acetate.  The sentiment is also a download from the Pixie Chicks range though I changed the colour of the text in photoshop for this project. 

White flower soft was added in parts and some areas was chosen to have a dusting of glamour dust to give a lovely frosty effect.  Glamour Dust was added to the wings of the pixies and parts of their clothing. 

Well thats is from me for today.  Will be packing away my stuff soon for Christmas and banishing it to the loft in order to free up the dining room.  So far keep finding more excuses to keep it down - like "just one more challenge"  LOL!  Take care everyone, I hope you like what you've seen and thankyou for looking!

Mel X