First Altered Beermat

I have sat here since the end of the Easter holidays with a nice pile of circular beermats in front of me, waiting (and waiting, and waiting) to be altered.

Finally I got around to having a little play with one. I was relieved that the top layer of paper (the bit with the advertising on) peeled away neatly, leaving me with a blank canvas.

I have been drooling over all of Hels' beermats over at Ink on My Fingers, so it seemed only fitting that I would enter my first attempt into the Sunday Stamper's big special challenge to celebrate 100 weeks. The theme was FREE, under the song title of Free as a Bird (so I added a little bird to mine). Take a look as there is some SERIOUS candy to be won!!


This was nice and simple to do. I covered the base with Antique Linen DI, a bit of torn book page coloured with Worn Lipstick DI, a distressed paper flower and stamped elements all coloured with the same DIs plus a hint of Tea Dye DI too.


I loved making the masks for the various colours on the Cute Companion and completely love the tickets; they are one of Tim Holtz's stamps and come all joined together in a block but I very patiently cut them all down and went to work with the DIs!


The finishing touch was a gold eyelet and a strip of old-looking lacy stuff (from a bag of lace from the charity shop) which has allowed me to hang it on my notice board.

Will need to do more beermats now! (well I do have 29 left in my pile!!)


Take care and happy crafting

Charli xx

Quickie to Finish

This was just a quickie Spring card I made using paper from a pad of paper that came with a craft mag, probably a year or so ago; and its been sat amongst my stash untouched.

But this week's theme over at Fab 'n' Funky is "Get it all out!" -meaning you need to dig out some old/forgotten/unused stash (be it stamps, papers, embellishments, pretty much anything) - inspired by their success last week with the neglected stamp challenge (the stamp I dug out last week is still being used now - check the card in the last post!)

One of the patterns from this stack was weird looking, just blobs of colour on a white background, and I didn't like it at all; so I took my flower punches and got one flower from each splodge, and I really like the result!

Will try to get more projects underway soon - just a bit hard getting back into routine after those two weeks off!

Take care and happy crafting,
Charli xx

Terracotta and Turquoise

Over at the Play Date Cafe this week the colour scheme is clay(terracotta), turquoise and cream with a hint of silver/grey.

So with that in mind I made this card for a colleague's 50th birthday.

I chose a cream base card to keep it simple; Tea Dye DI is a very terracotta-ish colour when applied to white card so that is used on the layers, numbers, brushed across the paper flower and on the topper (using the masking technique to colour the roses darker). A strip of turquoise-blue mirricard was put through the ribbler (or whatever you want to call it) and lightly sanded to bring out the silver from underneath the colour. Some torn turquoise mulberry paper and a bit of old book page finish it off nicely.

This card also fits into the Crafty Creations challenge of distressing, as well as the Distress Ink, tearing and sanding, I also distressed the edges of the card layers with the blade of my scissors and made a fab distressed paper flower as per the instructions HERE (except I used a 2p coin and scallopped edged scissors instead of a punch). Well worth a look if you haven't seen it already!

St George the Dragon

This is my entry (cutting it fine I know, but I have no idea where the days are going) for the Tuesday Taggers theme of Dragons - in honour of St George's Day.

I had planned to get this project finished and posted by then, but as St George's Day is also my daughter's birthday I just didn't have the time.

Anyway, whilst searching the net for a cute little dragon to use (no idea why, but I wanted a cute cartoony dragon) I found this little guy by Dustin Pike and thought it would be somewhat ironic to colour his shield and standard with the St George's cross and make the dragon INTO St George.


This card is also my entry into Lexi's Creations Recipe challenge (3 papers, 2 embellishments and 1 image).


My embellishments are actually a ringpull from a drinks can (on the paper strip) and the shield, which were cut from the same can and embossed by hand; and these should qualify for this weeks challenge over at the Crafty Pad; to recycle something.

Last One For Today!

All these projects that I uploaded today were the hard work of yesterday - a very pleasing day spent crafting!!

The last one for now is a very girlie card - if you have aversions to pink I suggest you look away now!

This is the birthday card for my beautiful daughter who turns 7 on Friday who is obsessed with all things pink -and has a fondness for fairies too!

The fairies are from the lovely Dovecraft paper stack and the central panel on the top part of the easel is a shaker with lots of irridescent sequins in it!

The flowers are from some old artificial blooms that I picked apart from an old Easter bonnet that I had made my little one. And the large fancy brad that hold up the back panel is from that fab Papermania Make Your Own Brad Kit and is decorated with another little fairy and a shiny number 7.

The top panel is also based on a sketch issued as a challenge on the Trimcraft forum (a lovely place filled with talented, helpful crafters - check it out if you haven't already, just click HERE; its free to sign up.)

The sketch was designed by the very talented Rozzy (check out her blog to see some of her fab work.)

Well thats all for now, hopefully I'll be back in a day or two with some more new stuff (especially as I have a nice stack of circular beer mats to alter! Lucky me!!)

Take care and happy crafting,
Charli xx

And Another One

Next up is a card I made for a good friend of my husband's (luckily he doesn't look at my blog as his birthday isn't until 21st!)

It's my first proper 'distressed' card and I'm really pleased with it as it certainly seems quite masculine, which I usually find quite difficult (I can do girlie and non-gender-specific, but proper blokey cards are a challenge for me).

It uses paper from a fab masculine stack I found made by Paper Cellar. And the base is a white card, coloured with Antique Linen DI (of course!) and edged with Tea Dye DI, as are all the panels. The cake was a gold peel-off coloured with a brown permanent marker and coloured with DI (I promise I will get more colours soon!)

I really like the layout and it's my take on the great C.R.A.F.T. challenge sketch (all I did to it was add the rectangular layer and the greeting)

Also the theme over at Tuesday Taggers this week has been birthday cake/balloons.

A Pair of Challenge Cards

The challenge over at Fab n Funky is to use a neglected stamp. So I dug out my gorgeous champagne and roses stamp that I bought a while (alright, a couple of years ago) for my wedding scrapbook project and has sat untouched for much too long (especially considering that the scrapbook isn't finished.... oooops!)

Anyway, that stamp is featured in both of these cards; the first of which is also eligible for the challenges at Play Date Cafe -black and white with a splash of orange (and I admit this was hard for me as I'm really not a fan of orange!)
and at Crafty Creations who have a 'limited edition' challenge (1 designer paper, 1 image/stamp and 1 embellishment -I went with the ribbon bow).

The next card uses a fab sketch from Sketch and Stash.

And also the colour scheme of pink, brown and yellow from Crafts and Me
(Although I have no idea if its a requirement to use an image bought from them or not as it doesn't specify)


Personally I like this one without the bows, but three embellishments placed around there were on the sketch.

Something Darker

This fortnight is the first time I have entered the fab dark/spooky challenge over at Darkness Inspiration.

The theme this time around is 'On the Graveyard'.

As yet I have no dark themed images or stamps so I kinda had to 'wing it'. (Sorry about the poor quality of the image - very tricky to photograph so much acetate!)

I chose to make an ATC. I started by covering a blank of white card with Antique Linen DI; then punched a circle from the sticky part of a sticky-note (be warned- it doesn't stick well when the inks still damp!) and placed it down for the moon. Then I coloured over it all with Faded Jeans DI; some Tea Dye DI for a cloudy look, black grass stamped across the bottom and some birds drawn on complete the base.

The tombstone was cut (freehand) from a drinks can and embossed with R.I.P. then coloured over with black Staz-On using a cottonbud and added some stamped grass. I shaped it slightly and raised it on foam pads.

On some acetate I stamped more grass across the bottom, a couple of drawn on birds and then the 'dark angel' type silohuette (cannot spell that word lol!) which was hand drawn and coloured with a black permanent marker.

A Couple of Queens

Here are my entries into the Small World of Inchies challenge, which is Royal Ladies.

The inchie is simply covered in a piece of aged text, the Queen cut from a stamp, a small stamp that vaguely resembles a crown and the word 'Queen' cut from a magazine.

The twinchie was a first for me... well two firsts actually. It was first ever twinchie, but also my first collage piece.


The background has multiple layers; I used Distress Ink (Antique Linen) and then stamped the flourishes randomly onto the base. Then covered it with some inked, crumpled tissue paper and stamped more flourishes. One more layer of inked and creased up tissue paper (with Tea Dye Distress Ink around the edges) and more flourishes around the edge.

The queen was cut from an old playing card -her hair, eyes and lips were coloured with markers. The crown was cut from a book page and inked (same DIs there!).


The hand (which due to blurry pic is hard to see) was cut from a magazine and to make the flower that the queen of clubs holds I used the fab Papermania Make Your Own Brad kit. I used the smallest sized punch and cut out the club from the playing card, attached it to one of the gorgeous brads and added the clear dome sticker over the top.

I'm really pleased with how they turned out and appologise for the poor quality image - I had to take it using my phone's camera.


Looking forward to a full days crafting tomorrow so hopefully I will be back with more project photos then.


Take care and happy crafting,

Charli xx

Altered Tag

Here is my latest project.

The tag came from a pair of jeans from a very cheap but popular clothes shop here in the UK. I loved the organza ribbon overlay and the rainbow print background.

First off, its quite flimsy so I backed it with card to give it some strength. I stamped my 'Happiness' stamp (from previous project) over the 'Denim Co' with black ink.

A piece of white tissue paper was coloured with Antique Linen Distress Ink, crumpled and lightly brushed with Tea Dye to emphasise the creases. This was layered over the base to tone down the rainbow, which is still faintly visible.

I used Antique Linen again to tone down the white ribbon (after placing a scrap of paper underneath to protect the rest of the tag) and took my permenant brown marker and  drew the tree onto the organza. Using black ink I stamped the bird (from one of the Cute Companions plates) twice onto the ribbon and twice onto the tag beneath.

The finishing touch was to write the word 'FLY' using the same marker, this time on the ribbon and the tag under it.

This is my entry into the Tag You're It challenge: "On a Bough".

Off to work on another project now....

Take care,

Charli xx

Third and Final

I really have been a busy little bee today, but I think all this variety after so long of making nothing but cards has refreshed my creative muse.

This time around I was inspired by the challenge over at Lexi's Creations which is to alter something.

I have a few of these little tins - from when my hubby tried to quit nicotine by smoking cigars instead of cigarettes - but I thought these little tins were adorable so I kept a handful.

This particular one holds paperclips, ring pulls and such.

I covered it with torn pieces of a book page (a book I have nodesire to read again that was bought as a holiday read from Poundland! I also stained it the old-fashioned way with actual tea!) and plenty of PVA glue, which has the added bonus of a glossy finish. The tree I drew with a lovely brown Indian ink brushtip marker that I have had for years.

The "magpies" are actually a little bird stamp that's more akin to a blackbird but with the beak made longer and more rounded and the tail made much longer - and also the colours - I think they may just about pass for magpies; they're stamped onto aged inchies.

The numbers in the rhyme and the inchies also qualify for the Small World of Inchies challenge with the theme 'Numbers'.

Thats all from me for now. Hopefully I will be back in a day or two with some more new creations.

I shall also blog-hop around to view the other entries to the challenges I've entered.

Take care and happy crafting!

Charli xx

Second Challenge Entry

And here is project number two:

For challenges:
Tuesday Taggers: Give Us a Tag -with a prize on offer from the fabulously talented Georgina
Crafty Creations: paper piecing

Its a tri-fold ATC sized tag. My first play with Distress Inks that arrived today (Antique Linen and Worn Lipstick) and stamped with 'Happiness' and a flourish from a Papermania clear stamp set.

The cute character has been stamped onto three different papers from my fave My Mind's Eye stack, chopped up and paper-pieced back together whilst mixing and matching the papers.


The character himself is from a little set of clear stamps that were a free gift with Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine a few months back, but can I remember the little guy's name?! If anyone knows can they please let me know??


Again I am really happy with the outcome and can see myself playing with Distress Inks alot more in the not-too-distant future!

First Attempt at a Blog Challenge

Well, after weeks of admiring lots of other people's entries to various challenges, and preparing myself by following the blogs of my favourite ones, I have finally made my first attempts. That's right, attempts - with an 's'!

Here is the first one:

(Also my first ever easel card - how behind the times am I?!)

This is my entry to the Fab'n'Funky Challenge: neopolitan icecream (brown, pink and white)

and also the C.R.A.F.T. challenge of using buttons.

I'm really happy with how this card turned out and may well have to use this colour combo again.

Happy Easter!

Hope you are all having a very Happy Easter and not making yourselves sick with too much chocolate! And a HUGE thank you to the lovely ladies who are following me and who have left comments. I'm sorry I've taken so long to post something new, but I honestly don't know what happened to the last week - it feels like the world was on fast forward!

The project I'm showing today is a little book that I made for a dear friend and (now ex-) colleague of mine, when she left us for a new job.

The design is based on that of a mazebook, but I wanted something slightly bigger - the pages measure 4inch square. I cut four 8inch squares from A4 sheets of card, scored them into four and cut along one line from the edge to the middle, folding them to make pages and sticking them back to back to make a whole book.

I cut the covers slightly larger and as I didn't have any mountboard I cut them from the sturdy backing from a paper pad, and covered them with paper, adding the ribbon and attaching them to the book.

To keep a theme throughout I chose the same two colours (blue and purple) and stamped a series of Cute Companions characters (all girlie ones as we are all females that work together), colouring them with watercolour pencils - all stamped onto the off-cuts from the A4 card from the pages.

The idea behind making a little book was to make it a special something that she could keep, and also I like the idea of each person having a nice neat area on which to write their message, rather than squeezing them in between each others.

 So I went into work armed with small squares of coloured and patterned paper for the messages (much more discreet too!) and assembled the book at home.

I'm really pleased with the results - as were the other ladies - and most importantly the receipient LOVED it!!

(Although I shan't bore you with photos of all the pages, you get the idea!)

Thanks for looking.

Take care,

Charli xx