Collbaoration Challenge

Every so often, the Creators at Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet put together a collaboration pack - we're given a theme and we each create a brand new digi stamp in that theme and these are put together into an awesome collaboration pack which is then available as a special offer in the Stitchy Bear Digit Outlet, free with any purchase of $10 or more. These images and papers are all brand new and not available in the store yet.
 

 

And you - yes, you! - could get your hands on the whole lot absolutely free, simply by entering this week's challenge at One Stitch at a Time! :)

 

The OSAAT Design Team have all been given one of the new collaboration pack digi stamps to work with and I got to create with this fabulous fall/autumn/thanksgiving image:

 

 

Isn't he adorable?

 

I coloured him with Promarkers and a white gel pen:

 

 

And I added some Stickles to the moon so give it a delicate shimmer and shine:

 

 

I fussy cut him out and teamed him with yummy autumn-themed papers from Bo Bunny and a pretty doily:

 

 

And to finish I added some flowers and die-cut leaves:

 

 

To be in with a chance of winning our main prize - the entire collaboration pack of digi stamps and papers above - you need to use a Stitchy Bear product to enter this week's challenge. You can still enter without a Stitchy Bear product and be entered into the draw to win a $3 gift voucher to the Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet.

 

The theme of the challenge is Holidays - any holiday you like - and the challenge runs for one week.

 

So get creating! :)

 

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

Brown Sugar - Anything Goes

Craftitude - Anything Goes

Creative Fingers - Anything Goes

Cut It Up - Thanksgiving

Daring Cardmakers - The Other Occasions and Reasons

Digi Haven - Fall

Kitty Bee Designs Aloha Friday Challenges - Fall Colours

QKR Stampede - Anything Goes/Harvest

Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes

Stampin' For The Weekend - Autumn/Fall Colours

Wags 'n Whiskers - Fall Colours

Charisma Cardz - Anything Goes

 

Scrapbooking frenzy!

Last weekend I left the kids with my hubby and sloped off to Birmingham for the 3rd annual Green Buttons scrapbooking retreat. Once a year a bunch of lovely ladies from the UKScrappers website meet up for 2 days of crafting, chatting, drinking and snacking... not necessarily in that order! It's huge amounts of fun and we have a laugh and get creative and shares techniques and ideas and get inspired by everyone else's creativity.

 

I had a great time and I not only learned to crochet a flower (a fairly mis-shapen one but a flower nonetheless - pretty good for someone who had previously only managed to crochet a basic chain stitch) - thank you SOOO much to the very patient Ruth for teaching me! - but I also managed to create a card and a grand total of eight scrapbook pages. That's pretty awesome for me as I am not a particularly fast scrapper.

 

I started my papercrafting journey as a scrapbooker but these days I seem to find less and less time for it - am always too busy making cards and DT projects... plus my craft desk is such a mess there isn't really enough space to get a 12x12" page on there to work on! :lol: So it was great to spend some time getting back into scrapbooking.

 

Here's my collection of creations from the weekend: :)

 

 

The lovely Jo did a great "class" for us on ways to use washi tape and I loved her idea of covering cardstock with strips of washi tape, punching a shape out of it and layering onto coloured cardstock. I then also came across this little metal flower embellishment which fitted just nicely into the punched-out shape. :)

 

This was a lovely photo I took of DD1 last month and I teamed it with coloured cardstock and some stamping. The cardstock, flower stamps (and coordinating punch), alpha dies, alpha stamps and chevron border punch are all by Stampin' Up!

 

 

I love this photo of DD2 dancing. It's technically not a good photo as the light was behind her and she came out in silhouette but I still love it. :) I decided to do a doodley scrapbook page... inspired by a great book I have, Doodling for Papercrafters by Madelynn Cheung. I cut out flowers from various K&Co papers and layered them onto the page and them doodled all around them and the photo. I also drew around Thickers and filled the letters in with doodles before cutting them out and attaching them as my title.

 

This page was done for the sketch challenge provided by Mary. Everyone made a page inspired by the sketch - it's always interesting to see how different, yet similar, they all turn out. I used some scrummy Bo Bunny papers, some paint, some gold embossing and some die-cut leaves for this page of DH at Caerlaverlock Castle.

 

 

This is a page I did using this fab little photo of DD2. I used blue-coloured patterned papers with kraft cardstock (always a great colour combo) and did a lot of stamping on this page... stamping with some Versamark ink under the main photo section and also stamping and heat embossing around the image. I also used another of the fab washi tape ideas we learned at the retreat - sticking washi tape to vellum or tracing paper and die-cutting rosettes with it.

 

 

This page was for a "lucky dip" challenge, where we had to pick at random a selection from each of 4 boxes - one giving the theme of the page, one a tool we had to use, one a technique we had to use and one a design element we had to use, and one . My lucky dips were: Create a layout about a holiday or fun day out (theme parks, beaches etc); Use a scallop circle or scallop oval punch; Include some stamping; Include a symbol (&, @, arrow etc). I used watercolour paint to make the background for these beach photos.

 

 

This was my mystery kit page. At the retreat we each put together a mystery kit containing cardstock and matching papers and embellishments etc and they are all handed in and swapped back out so that we each get a kit full of surprise goodies. The kit I got had wonderful bright colours that were perfect for these photos of my daughters. I also used washi tape again on this page, using it to cover the stylised chipboard flower embellishments.

 

 

This was a fairly quick and simple page using a black and white photograph. I stamped grungy stamps under where my photo was going to go and then spread white gesso through a stencil (that I made using my Stampin' Up! chevron border punch) and left it to dry overnight. I finished things off very simply with a die-cut border and some washi tape flags.

 

 

My final page is not quite finished yet. I still need to add a title and some journaling. I used washi tape again to add borders to the page and layered DVCW Mariposa papers and also added a pretty die-cut.

All in all, it was a great weekend and lovely to see everyone again and I've come home with some really lovely pages. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Pixie

This week I've been creating with one of the new digi stamps from one of my favourite Sweet Pea Stamps artists - Ching Chou Kuik.

 

 

For this card I've used the Pumpkin Pixie digi stamp. I love the halloween theme to this image... and the cute little cats! :) I coloured the image with my Promarkers in warm shades of orange and green and added a little shading around the figure using Prismacolor pencils:

 

 

I also added a touch of Spiced Marmalade Distress Stickles to the accents in her hair:

 

 

I came across this fabulous bat frame in the Silhouette store recently and thought it was just perfect for this card. I cut it out from black cardstock and teamed it with some luscious autumn-coloured papers from the new Autumn Song collection from Bo Bunny.

 

 

To finish I added some layered flowers and dotted some flourishes using black Enamel Accents.

 

 

This stamp is available in red rubber or digi format from the Sweet Pea Stamps store.

 

 

Amazing Autumn

I do love this time of year. I don't know if it's because I was born in the autumn but there's something about the crisp blue autumn skies and the weather starting to turn, that is somehow invigorating. And the colours of autumn are just beautiful....

 

So I have thoroughly enjoyed making my project for this week's Autumn theme at One Stitch at a Time:

 

 

I was working with a beautiful set of Butterflies digi stamps by Sentimental Susan and I coloured them with my Promarkers in autumnal colours before carefully cutting them out:

 

 

I used a DL card and some absolutely gorgeous paper from Bo Bunny's new Autumn Song collection and added some autumn foliage cut with a Memory Box die that I bought recently. I printed a sentiment on my computer and cut it out using a decorative oval die, inking the edges before attaching.

 

 

To finish I added my coloured butterflies, attaching some with foam pads for a touch of dimension.

 

As ever, you don't need to use a Stitchy Bear product to enter the challenge (though obviously we'd love to see your Stitchy Bear creations :D) but if you do you'll be entered into the random draw to win our main prize this week. Non-Stitchy Bear entries will have a chance to win a $3 gift voucher to the Stitchy Bear store.

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

2 Sisters - Anything Goes
Allsorts - How Does Your Garden Grow
Colour Me Creative Challenge - Fall Colours
Drunken Stampers - Die Cuts
A Creative Romance - Fairytale or Winged Creations
Craftitude - Anything Goes/Harvest
Crafts 4 Eternity Recipe Challenge - Anything Goes
Creative Corner - The Great Outdoors
Digitally Sweet - Anything Goes
Graph'it Colour Challenge - Colours of Autumn
Jellypark Challenges - The Sentiment Is The Key
Simply Create Too - Fall/Autumn
Sister Act Card Challenge - Anything Goes

 

Mermaids

I do love Mermaids... there's something so beautiful and serene about them... even if the ones of legend have a darker side! ;)

 

A lot of the artists at Sweet Pea Stamps create amazing fantasy-themed images so naturally there is a wonderful selection of mermaids to chose from and this week I am working with Elaine Cox's beautiful Mermaid 2 stamp.

 

 

Isn't she gorgeous? I love the soft expression on her face, the way her hair falls in ripples and spreads out across the water. :)

 

 

I used the red rubber version of this stamp (though you can also buy it in digi form) and stamped it with Adirondack ink and then coloured it with a mixture of Promarkers and Prismacolor pencils (I coloured the mermaid herself with the markers and the background with pencils). I also added dots of Stickles onto the pearls in the mermaids hair and the bubbles in the water.

 

 

I love how the vibrant colours look on this image so for my card I decided to carry through those intense colours... so I forced myself to take the plunge and cut into some of the stunningly delicious Bo Bunny papers that I have been hoarding avaricously (am I the only one who does this - who keeps papers and is afraid to cut into them because once I use them they're gone?! :lol:).

 

I used brightly coloured cardstock for my card base and cut a filigree oval frame and a pretty filigree corner from white cardstock. I covered my card base with gorgeous double-sided Bo Bunny paper and turned a corner over to expose the second colour, tucking the die-cut corner behind it.

 

 

I layered some lace and ribbon across the bottom of the card and attached the image, layered onto the die-cut oval frame, using foam tape.

 

 

To decorate, I added layered fabric flowers (I made these using artificial flowers from Ikea which I disassembled and then used various petals from them to layer up my own flowers :)) with FIMO flower centres (made by me using FIMO and push molds).

 

 

I also added some pearl-beaded stems behind the flowers and finished things off with a FIMO star and some white pearlised gems.

 

 

I love how the colours turned out on this card... it feels all fresh and summery. :)

I'm going to enter this card into a couple of challenges:
Passion for Promarkers - All That Glitters
Hobby House Challenge - Anything Goes
Freshly Brewed Designs - Mermaids, Fairies, Fantasy

 

Butterfly... flutter by...

Butterflies!

 

That's the theme of this week's challenge at Passion for Promarkers and naturally I just couldn't resist cos I looooove em! Butterflies are one papercrafting motif that I will never tire of - I'd put em on everything given half a chance! :D

 

This challenge was also the perfect opportunity for me to try out one of my brand new digi stamp designs - Butterfly Profile - which has just been added to the (newly revamped!) Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet store:

 

 

I coloured the image with my Promarkers:

 

 

I wanted my card to have intense, vibrant colours to match with this image so I took the plunge and finally made myself use some of the gorgeous Bo Bunny Ambrosia collection which I've been hoarding avariciously for probably at least a year (filed under "Too Pretty To Use")! :D

 

I looooove these papers and matching embellies!

 

I matted the paper and my coloured image onto deep turqouise cardstock and added a pretty cluster of flowers, with a button centre, and a sentiment (stamped and die-cut with my Itty Bitty Banners set from Stampin' Up! - love this versatile set for making instant sentiment banners!):

 

 

I added a few more flowers:

 

 

And then pretty much went kerrr-aaazy with the butterflies! :D

 

 

I used my Beautiful Wings embosslit die from Stampin' Up! and cut butterflies from three different colours of card. I use this die sooo much and it's perfect for dinky little butterflies to scatter across a creation. :)

 

I finished things off with a few gemstones.

 

 

And that's my butterfly-themed card. D'you think it's got enough butterflies to qualify for the theme? Be honest now? ;D :lol:

I'm also entering this card into the following challenges:
Artistic Inspirations - Fantasy
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Girly
Creative Creations - The Letter B
Crafty Boots - Flowers
Pause, Dream, Enjoy - Anything Goes
WhoopsiDaisy - Use a Digi
Challenges 4 Everybody - Anything Goes
Kenny K's Krafty Krew - Anything Goes
No Matter Which Challenges - Anything Goes