My Favourite Five Creations of 2013

 

I am joining in with Debby's top 5 creations for 2013 again this year. It always so much fun reminding ourselves of the years projects, and it is so good to look back at things we are proud of. Here are mine, although it has been a mammoth task to whittle it down to five! 

I have thoroughly enjoyed the creative side of 2013, and here are just a small selection of projects I have loved making and sharing.

First up is a seaside scene using a mixture of Inkylicious and Stampscapes stamps. My original post about it is here.

 Second is an altered box that I made for the Inkylicious Create and craft shows in May and June. I was tickled pink when the cup of chance got demoted and my box was used to put emails in instead!

My third card is this one, for which my wonderful daughter filmed and edited a 'how to' video on youtube which you can find here.

Fourth is my personal favourite from this year, and was the subject of my second you tube video. I just couldn't part with this one and I was delighted when I found a square frame to fit it in Tesco a couple of weeks ago!

This autumnal scene was a birthday card for my dear friend Lynne and is my fifth and final card. It started life on a smaller card here, but it didn't look right so I used a bigger card and came up with this instead! What a great year I have had and a big thank you to all those people who have helped me to achieve more than I would ever have dreamed of!
I hope you all have a wonderful New Year  and that 2014 brings plenty of opportunities to be creative and everything you could wish for. Big hugs to you all! Do pop over to Debby's blog and take a look at her wonderful top 5 too.
Thanks for looking!

Boxes and Hearts

 Here is the box I decorated for Inkylicious. I saw it in Dunelm Mill for £3.99 and immediately loved it. It has a small chalkboard behind the picture, which I had thought about painting onto, but the colour and texture of the wood made me think of the beach, so I added a beach scene, using the windswept stamp, on silk art card and some shells. I ummed and ahhed about whether to add anything else, but Meg said it was fine as it was so I left it. 

 Here is a close-up of the lid. the larger shells were collected from the Norfolk coast a few years ago, and have been in a bowl in my bathroom ever since. the tiny shells were bought on the east coast - a bag full for £1.00! I found some sand in a bucket in my garage which we had bought a couple of years ago when nowhere had any salt left in the snow. I managed to spill sand all over my craft space and had to spend Sunday clearing it all off as everything was crunching! Next time I will use sandpaper - much less messy! Magic hands used it as the cup of chance on the show, which made me laugh - hope no more sand escaped!

I also found a wooden heart in The Range for 99p. I gessoed it and then tried stamping on it but the images lost their definition with water based ink and I didn't have the shades I wanted in any other ink. I gessoed and started again. Next I tried stamping in acrylic paint and it worked brilliantly. I used docrafts pearlised acrylic in blues and purples, dusting just a bit of purple ink over too. The sentiment was stamped in Versamagic ink and comes from the 'Simply Said' stamp sheet. They tried to show this on Create and Craft, but the lights were way too strong, and the pearlised paint reflected them!Hope this photo in my porch on a dull day gives you a better idea!
Thanks for looking!

Food glorious food at Sir Stampalot

Hi There! It's the first of the month again and time for a new Stampalot challenge. Our theme for October is 'Food, glorious food!'. Well, you know me and baking, so I set to and made...

A cupcake box! How do you know a cup cake will fit in it?...

Look carefully...

And there it is!
Now, I'm afraid I got a bit carried away, cos I went on to make...

A cookie bag as well! The gorgeous papers that I used for both of these projects was a 6 x 6 pad from Kaiser Craft called the Devonshire collection. I also distressed all the edges with walnut stain distress ink. I used a variety of nesties and the Hero Arts leaf flourish, along with waltzing mouse stamps on the cookie bag. My rose was made using Brenda's tutorial and the leaves are a woodware punch.
After that I still didn't stop, but made just a couple of tiny additions...

The stamp is a Paula Pascual one from the filled with flowers set (£4.99 - an absolute bargain!) and the nestie is Blossom 3, stuck onto a cocktail stick.
And finally the prize...

What a lot of yummy goodies, eh?

Do pop over to the Challenge blog to see my fellow teamies fabulous creations for lots of lovely inspiration!
Thanks for looking!

June Challenge at Sir Stampalot

Good morning and welcome to this months challenge at Sir Stampalot. We have a photo for inspiration this month, and as you can see I've been very literal!

I stamped the 8 x 8 base card with Hero Arts Old French Writing and Penny Black corner piece in Fired Brick and Tea Dye distress ink. The main image has Hero Arts poppies, Sheena's daisies and Hero arts silhouette grass. It is all coloured with a variety of distress inks including crushed olive, peeled paint, fired brick, tumbled glass and wild honey. Apart from the daisies everything used is available from the fabulous Sir Stampalot shop.

My second project is a little box. The template is the 'cuppie love' template from Waltzing Mouse. I printed it on to white card then sponged and stamped. I used the Hero Arts grass and Sheena's poppies, which I painted with H2Os.

The poppy on the lid was made with shapeabilities flower creations 3 (also available from Sir Stampalot), which were sprayed with cherrylicious creative colour sprays (Crafty Notions) and secured at the centre with a brad. The leaves are a woodware punch.
Now, here is the prize for this month

Fabulous, isn't it? Do visit the Stampalot challenge blog to see the design teams variety of inspiration. You don't have to put poppies on your creation, you may just want to use the vibrant colours as your inspiration. Thanks for looking!

My secret project!

I can now blog a little project I've been working on for Lynne's birthday. Although it isn't her birthday until the weekend I have now given it to her, so you can see it too! Not particularly wonderful from this angle, but if I tell you that this is the lid of a box, and the box looks like this...
You are a bit more impressed now aren't you? I made the backgrounds with adirondack colour washes in lettuce, stream and eggplant. The fern stamp is from the wild meadow themeplate from Graphicus and is stamped in Versamagic turquoise gem. The butterfly is from the crafty Elements Butterflies sheet from Crafty Individuals, coloured with promarkers and then clear embossed. And now for the next bit... (drum roll please)... slide the lid off and Voilà!
It's a magic box! Not bad for my fist attempt, eh? The butterflies are on strips of acetate and coloured and stamped on both sides (and clear embossed). The punched flower and leaves are coloured on both sides too.
The full instructions to make a box like this can be found here and some breathtakingly beautiful examples can be found on Elaine's blog. Thanks for the inspiration, Elaine. I don't think mine will ever be as stunning as yours, but I'm very pleased with the results and your instructions were so easy to follow.
It's been a funny day today. I've been on a course that was a bit abstract at times and a bit hard to follow. If you want to be a 'leader' these days you need to know an awful lot of jargon. Oh dear! I'm beginning to sound like I'm ready to retire!!! I'm not really, but maybe I should join the Campaign for plain English!
BTW this is my 200th post!!!! I can't believe it! I am well and truly addicted. I am gathering some blog candy ready for my bloggerversary on 19th October, so keep dropping in!

6th challenge

I've been challenged by June to complete the 6th challenge which sounds like a lot of fun, so here is my entry. You open the 6th folder in your photos and use the 6th photo and tell it's story. Here is my photo.Now I can't tell you the story about it without showing you what I put inside, which is here.
It was the card I made for Steve on our 15th wedding anniversary. I thought I'd better put a bit more effort in as the 2 years before that had been very 'last minute'. It is our 20th this year... I guess it's time to start thinking! Now I need to nominate 6 people to have a go too. They are:

Lynne K at Creative Lynks

Sue at Sue the Iron

Papoosue at Random Blethers

Lisa at the Craft Garden

Meg at Meggie's Photography

and Lottie

Hope you are able to play along!