A Christmas Card! Yes this early must be a first for me!

I'm never ever this organised but when I was given this gorgeous image from Delicious Doodles to use for this week's Wings and Bling Challenge at Through the Purple Haze Challenges I couldn't resist. 

A Robin's Christmas is such a beautiful image that 

I kept it clean and simple just adding a little colour and glitter.

It's a bit difficult to see in the photo but I added glitter to the edges of the snow on the trees and walls and the road. I added Flower Soft Polar White to the ridges of the roofs and Glossy Accents to the baubles and star on the tree.

I mounted the image on red card and a background of dotted Bazzill card. 

The Merry Christmas sentiment was a freebie stamp in a recent magazine. I stamped it with Versamark and embossed with Rich Gold Super Fine WoW Embossing powder.

Use your Favourite Colours - Delicious Doodles

This week's challenge at Through the Purple Haze is to use your favourite colour. This was a bit difficult for me as I have so many favourite colours. I like all sorts of bright, intense colours like red, fuchsia pink, purple, royal blue, emerald green, teal etc etc etc, but as I had to choose one I went for Red.

I had the beautiful Quiet Contemplation  from Delicious Doodles to play with. She's so beautiful that I wanted to do her justice and kept the focus of the card on her.

I mounted her on gold card and used dark red card backed with gold as the card base.

I coloured her with my Promarkers.

For her skin I my normal Coral, Sunkissed Pink and Blush, but then used Saffron and Vanilla over the top to give her a less pink and more oriental skin tone. I used Pastel Pink for her cheeks

Hair - Ice Grey 3, 4 & 5 & Black

Robe - Red, Berry Red, Cardinal Red, Burgundy

Sash and Jewellery - Pilot Super Gel Gold Pen

Flowers - Berry Red & Blender

Parasol - Henna handle, Vanilla, Satin & Ivory canopy

I cut the Chinese Characters on my Cougar. 

They mean

Peace

Tranquility

Strength

We'd love to see what you create with your favourite colours so pop over to Through the Purple Haze Challenges and join in. There are some great prizes to be won from 

Real or Faux Stitching - explorations of my new sewing machine

The challenge at Digi Galore this fortnight is to use Real or Faux Stitching. It came at the right time for me as I've been saving like mad and have ordered a new sewing machine. I'm loving the quilting course that I'm doing so decided to pool all my birthday and Christmas money and buy a nice machine. It arrived yesterday so I had a chance to play for this project.

Our wonderful sponsor is Delicious Doodles  and I contacted Teri to check my idea fell within her terms of use as I wanted to make something in fabric rather than card. She said it was fine so off I went. I coloured Angelique with Snowflake with my promarkers, then scanned it in and printed it on T-Shirt Transfer paper for Dark Fabrics. I left plenty of space around the sides and cut the edges using the Memory Box Frosty Snowflake die to add to the snowflake theme. I then applied the transfer paper to navy fabric following the instructions.

I embellished the design using lines of fancy stitches. As you can see I need a bit more practice staying straight, but for the first time of using the machine I think I did ok. It's an amazing machine & I'm really looking forward to getting to grips with it.

Looking forward to seeing your real or faux stitching projects at Digi Galore 

Delicious Doodles at Stitchy Bear - Endless Love

Yep - you've guessed it - it's challenge time over at Through the Purple Haze Challenges and this week it's a nice easy theme - Anything Goes - so come on over an join in. It's also the team Head to Head where you get to vote for your favourite DT Member's project and they win a small prize. I was amazed and honoured to be voted the winner last time with my Skeleton Tealight lantern. Thank you everyone who voted for me.

This week I had the beautiful Endless Love from Delicious Doodles at Stitchy Bear to play with and I decided to use Craft Artist 2 to create this scene.

I love the effect of Digi Crafting - you'd never believe that frame was a digital element rather than an actual frame would you? The Frame is from the Angie Hinksman 'This Christmas' Digikit and the paper is from the Vintaj 'Fading India' Digikit

The sentiment is a freebie from Gingers House. I changed the colour to white and then added some sparkle and dimension using the Sakura Stardust pen #700 and the Sakura Clear Glaze pen #800 (even at this angle it's hard to see that that frame isn't real isn't it!)

Endless Love was a delight to colour. It almost feels a little like cheating as a lot of the shading is already in the image so it takes a love of the guess work out of it. I love colouring dragons & have come up with my own favourite colour combination:

- Dragon - 

 Duck Egg, Turquoise, Marine, True Blue

Claws on Wings - Pastel Yellow,

Teeth - Ivory

Eye - Berry Red & Orange

- Fairy -

Skin - Coral, Sunkissed Pink, Blush with Pastel Pink Cheeks

Lips - Antique Pink

Hair - Tulip Yellow, Sunflower, Gold, Raw Sienna

Dress - left white as the shading on the digi looked so beautiful

Heart - Berry Red

Wings - Crystal Sparkles

Background - Powder Blue

I hope you like it - I'd love to hear your thoughts and see your entries into Anything Goes at Through the Purple Haze 

Thank you to our sponsor Stitchy Bear Stamps