Madcap Manor

 Good morning! To brighten your Monday we have a new challenge at  Dream Valley  which is Lots of Layers.   We are sponsored by  Polkadoodles  and the Design Team received some of their adorable images to work with. I have used  Balloon Days  which is so cute! This is a 5 x 7 card because I wanted lots of space for my layers of papers.  They all come from an old paper pad by Papermania, and the colours are so bright and cheerful.  I used  Sway peel-offs  by Love from Lizi to edge the long vertical strip.  The flowers came from The Range, and I added buttons to the centres.  The sentiment banner is an old stamp from Paper Smooches.  Finally I covered the balloon with Glossy Accents. Check out my teamies' creations using Polkadoodles images, get out your favourite papers and join the fun! Thanks for looking and take care! love Mags B x.

 Good morning! It's a really autumnal day here in S-E Hertfordshire: misty, moisty, and the trees on the housing estate are showing off their beautiful leaves.  I love this time of year! Anyway, enough waffle, because we have a new challenge at  Dream Valley.   Our theme is Anything Goes  and it's Just For Fun. I fell in love with Papermania's  Modern Deco  paper pad and when I got it home, after admiring the gorgeous geometric patterns and the gold foiling, suddenly wondered - now, how shall I use this? Well, I came up with one idea - it's a birthday card for my son.  See what you think. Black, white and gold aren't colours I would normally use together.  The airship image is a very old red rubber cling stamp from  Whimsy Stamps , I stamped it repeatedly in black pigment ink - thank goodness for a Misti, which makes it so easy! I cut gold and patterned papers and the image with Lawn Fawn's  Stitched Rectangle stackables  to gi...

 Hello! We have a new challenge for you at  Dream Valley  which is to use dies or punches - or both! Our sponsor is the fabulous  Polkadoodles . I have used  Octavia Frosted Winter . I used an ancient Spellbinders dieset for the circle mat and the strip of paper lace.  The flowers and leaves and the sentiment came from an old set by  Love from Lizi , and I added one of her peel-offs over the join between the lace and the paper.  The gold gems are from my stash. Check out my teamies' lovely creations and have a go! Thanks for looking and take care. love Mags B x

 Good morning! Happy Monday! I am actually feeling quite happy today because my horrible cold (not Covid, thank goodness!) which I have had since Thursday, is finally getting better.  I have almost stopped sneezing! And it's time for a new Challenge at  Dream Valley , our theme is Favourite Colours. I went with Blue and Yellow (and a bit of green.)  I used cheap'n'cheerful acrylic paints, watered down a little, and scrunched-up clingfilm (saran wrap) to dab colours onto a piece of card.  There's a fuller explanation in  this video  by Sasha Reade. There is so much sparkle and shine on this card, but I just couldn't get a decent photo.  I spritzed the background with a mica spray, then once it had dried I stamped the flower in Memento Ink and coloured the little blooms with yellow centres and blue flowers, using Copics.  The leaves were coloured in a green-blue.  Then I put the panel back in my Misti and re-stamped using Versamark and emb...

  Hi there! We have a new Challenge at My Time to Craft and our theme is Around the House. Think kitchens, living rooms, conservatories, bookshelves, flowers in a vase, furniture, a fireplace, reading a book, playing a computer game or Scrabble...   As an ex-Public Librarian who lives in a house with bookshelves everywhere, I went with reading and books!   My first card uses a Lili of the Valley coloured image called Story Time.   Such a cute scene! The background paper is a scrap from a Nitwit Collections set. I see that now they are producing paper pads in collaboration with Crafter's Companion, as well as their own digi bundles.   My second card uses a stamp set by Simon Says Stamp called 'To Thine Own Shelf' which is sadly unavailable. I used various brightly-coloured dye inks to stamp a very graphic design. I'm very good at smudging designs like this, being too impatient to let the ink dry properly, but this time I did it all right...

Good morning, all! Welcome to a new Challenge at My Time to craft! Our theme is Animals. I have been digging through my older stamps and came across two adorable images by Penny Black.  The frogs are perfect for a friend who volunteers at a Community Farm where they have a lot of frogs in their pond.  The second is for a couple who have just announced their engagement and who love Birdwatching.   I found some paper in my stash that looks like water splashes which seemed just right for the image! The sentiment is gold-embossed and is from a stamp set by Altenew full of 'Happy Birthdays' in different fonts and sizes.  I underlined the sentiment with a couplw of shiny green peel-offs by Love from Lizi. For the background of the geese I wanted a paper with some bright orange and found this one by Basic Grey many years ago.  The sentiment is cut with an old die by Clearly Besotted.  I used a Scallop Corner Chomper on the top corners and brushed Peeled P...

 Evening, all! We have a new challenge at My Time to Craft which is Embossing. Any kind of embossing - heat embossing, using an embossing folder or embossing paste - check out the fab examples on the Challenge Blog to see what we mean! I made 2 cards.  The first uses an old Cuttlebug embossing folder: The papers are from my stash.  I used a One Sheet Wonder sketch by Jess Crafts, and a flower using an old Memory Box die. The second card is heat embossed in gold on black cardstock: I used a background stamp by Simon Says Stamp and the die-cut sentiment is by Pinkfresh Studios.  I'm sorry about the glare, it was a grey day when I took the picture and the camera-flash reflected off the gold. Thanks for looking and take care! love Mags B x

 I have had this 'Patchwork Boat' stamp by Woodware for many years, and I thought I'd use it for my Olde Manne's birthday card.  Making cards for him is very difficult because he does not do Cute in any way at all! Fortunately the paper-piecing was judged to be acceptable! I used 6 papers from an old paper pad, stamped the image on each one and fussy-cut the 'patches.'  I re-stamped the image on some white card, glued down the patches and then cut the image out.  Then, because I had all those extras left over, I made 5 more to give to the Toddler Group at my Church. The background is made with an old background stamp from Hero Arts and Peacock Feathers Distress ink.  The border is made from blue holographic card from Tonic and I added the embossed greeting to 'ground' everything.  Finally I added 3 drops of Nuvo Drops for a tiny bit of bling! He likes it! Thanks for looking and take care! love Mags B x