I came home from work yesterday to be greeted with one of those little cards from the postie. So after dropping little one off at school this morning I went to the Post Office to pick up my parcel - which I'd already figured was my extra special candy from Hels over at the Sunday Stampers.
So I got home as fast as my little legs could carry me and opened the box and.....
WOW!!
Check this lot out. So many yummy little things to play with - including the smallest, cutest little canvas I've ever laid eyes on!! And a really gorgeous key stamp that I somehow managed to omit from the pic - but I plan on trying it out a few times once I'm done here!!
And now I have to find somewhere to put that beautiful shadowbox - somewhere I can see it from my desk to inspire me.
So a very big, heartfelt thank you to the wonderful Hels!
And if you haven't stumbled across her yet, check out her fabby blog HERE, filled with lovely projects, lots of tips and inspiration and home of the Sunday Stampers blog challenge.
Take care all, and happy crafting,
Charli xx
PS. Hels, I'm keeping that lovely pizzabox that you sent it all in too! lovely and sturdy storage there! Thank you xx
.... for me anyway!
The theme over at Tuesday Taggers this week (where I'm featured as a guest designer -YAY!) is to step out of your comfort zone.
Well my project may not seem that 'uncomfortable' to most, but I assure you I was petrified it would go wrong.
Now I've mentioned before about my colleague's birthday (the card for which can be found HERE) and as a gift for her I wanted to put together a little "pamper pack" - some nice bubblebath and stuff, and a scented candle. Well I came up with the idea to match the candle to the card to tie it all in together.
I'd seen the demo done before on Create&Craft and thought I'd give it a go - although I was really worried it would go wrong and wreck the candle that I wish I'd bought more just in case!
For those of you who haven't seen it before, all you need to do is stamp and colour the image onto white tissue paper, lay it on the candle where you want it, cover with greaseproof paper and use your heattool over the area until you see the colour change; but careful not to overheat it otherwise the wax melts too much! See my worries!!
Anyway, it turned out fine; the ribbon was added for decoration and to bring in the turquoise colour, but it also covers a bit of a ripple in the wax lol!
Then I just made a tag to match the card and put it all in a nice giftbag.
And here's a pic of the three items together, not bad if I say so myself lol.
I needed to make a card for my little cousin who turns 7 next week, and she's a real girlie-girl (like my daughter in that respect).
So I thought I'd use the Sketch and Stash sketch (using papers that are new to my stash as they were also part of my TT candy).
And again I went for the monotone challenge from Crafter's Companion, this time using their own Popcorn Bear stamp too. So this one is all pink (couldn't help the little bits of white) - the gems are also pink although they seem to look red in this pic. Popcorn has been coloured with two shades of pink watercolour pencils and his patches and blanket are paper-pieced.
This card will also be entered into the new Fab'n'Funky challenge, which is to incorporate fancy edges - not sure how easily they can be seen, but I used my scalloped edged scissors around the layers beneath the image and the sentiment and along the bottom edge of the patterned strip. I love all my fancy-edged scissors, but the scallop one is my fave at the moment (I'm sure I'll move on to a different one in a week or so lol; I'm so fickle - but then I have 10 pairs to choose from!)
And shock, horror! No Distress Inks on this one!!
That's all for today.
Take care and happy crafting,
Charli xx
For this card I followed the lovely sketch set by Sweet Pea Stampers, and as I used my witch for my last beermat, I decided to use my fairy (ching-chou kuik) this time.
I swear they won't always appear as blue-eyed brunettes(can't think why I do that lol), in fact I have stamped out a few of each image ready to be coloured - making each one different.
Anyway, back to the card. Over at the Crafter's Companion blog the challenge for this fortnight is monotone, hence all the blue; and I think this stamp looks even more gorgeous in mixed shades of blue.
Again, I coloured her with watercolour pencils, masked her off and covered the background in Weathered Wood DI and edged it with Faded Jeans DI.
The paper in the very background is from the Kate Knight stack; the bright cyan paper is from some candy I won from Tuesday Taggers a fortnight ago; and as always there is a bit of book page (think I'm getting slightly obsessed with using it!), coloured with Weathered Wood.
The blue heart is ready for a greeting, when I find a use for this card; and it was a bit of a personal challenge to myself to make a girlie blue card.
As a finishing touch, as the challenge that started over at Crafty Creations today is 'magical' I added silver glitter glue over her wings for a bit of fairy magic.
After going for a couple of drinks at our local for a friend's birthday, I came home to find that a handful of their uniquely shaped beermats had ended up in my pocket! A very odd occurance but hey, now they're here I may as well alter them.
So here is my project for the Darkness Inspiration challenge- Bewitched.
First I spent the better part of an hour trying to get the top layer off of the darned beermat (the others I have peel off easily; not so with this one - in fact there is still a little bit left under where the image is!)
I coloured the background Forest Moss DI (see! a new colour at last!) and then edged it in Faded Jeans. Then I took another torn out book page, coloured it with Weathered Wood (my other new DI) and stuck it down, trimming around the beermat and edging again with Faded Jeans.
Next I stamped out the Tim Holtz ticket block stamp, this time leaving it in tact rather than cutting them apart, to use as another background - tinting it with Weathered Wood (my new fave!) and then using a cottonbud to add Forest Moss around the edges of the tickets; again sticking it down then trimming it down.
The image is one of the gorgeous ching-chou kuik images, made by Sweet Pea stamps and bought from Crafts and Me. I coloured her with watercolour pencils then painstakingly cut out a mask from sticky notes and coloured the background with Weathered Wood, Faded Jeans and Forest Moss.
I used my brass stencils to do the wording with my brown Indian ink marker, using the same ink colours; added an eyelet and a strip of lace(ish) ribbon, some silver gems and finally a bit of silver glitter.
This piece is also being entered into the following challenges:
Crafts and Me - sparkle (the gems and glitter)
Crafty Pad - ribbon (the strip bowed at the top)
Fab'n'Funky - no designer paper
Crafty Creations - make your own backing paper (I did mine with a stamp, book page and planty of Distress Ink!)
and finally, Lexi's Creations - animals (her two adorable kittens)
Take care and happy crafting
Charli xx
I was asked by a friend to make a card for his great-niece's 18th birthday - something funky and girlie. Well I think this covers that.
First time I've done a handbag card actually. To get the shape I cut a piece of thick card to the height of the card itself and then made a template that I used on one side of the card, then flipped it over to do the other end - otherwise there is no way it would have turned out symetrical!!
The gorgeous paper came from a Kate Knight stack that came as a free gift with a craft magazine.
This card fits nicely into the C.R.A.F.T. challenge, which this week is shaped cards.
Check this lot out. So many yummy little things to play with - including the smallest, cutest little canvas I've ever laid eyes on!! And a really gorgeous key stamp that I somehow managed to omit from the pic - but I plan on trying it out a few times once I'm done here!!
