Traditional Christmas colours at Creative Inspirations

Good morning all! I hope you are well and feeling rested! I'm looking forward to a nice day today - not too much rushing around to do and I might evenn get some crafting done - Lol!!!! Yesterday was lovely - I was fortunate enough to see both my girls in their school play twice. I took my mum in the morning and went with Shaun in the evening. Here's a quick pic of Penny that my friend put on facebook - not downloaded my camera pics yet!!! She played the innkeeper along with the little boy Finley - and they were singing 'put the full signs out, pull the vacant signs in - to the tune of the hokey cokey!!! Brilliant!

Over at Creative Inspirations this week's challenge is Traditional Christmas Colours Only! Yes this means that we now ONLY want to see Red, Green & Gold! Oops - my card may have a few extras - but its dominantly red and green!

This week's prize is from STAMP FAIRY and is a $10 GIFT CERTIFICATE!

"Stamp Fairy officially launched on November 5th 2010. Gerda Burghardt, artist and owner, creates cute and whimsical digital images for the young and old, inspired by her life, love and 4 cute cats. You will find adorable teddies bears, young boys and girls, fuzzy little bunnies and whimsical critters. Please visit the store and browse Stamp Fairy’s wonderful images. We hope Stamp Fairy’s images inspire YOUR creativity."

Stamp Fairy are also currently having a SALE so do pop on over and grab yourself a treat!

Here's my card using one of the Mimi images from the Stamp Fairy.

I've coloured her with promarkers and added glitter - then cut with a spellbinders die and distressed the edges whilst still in the die. The background card came from a pack from Crafters Companion and the flowers are partly from WOC and some older flat ones that came from an old ribbon and blooms kit club I used to belong to. The ribbon is a very old piece of stash and I think it came from QVC and is a DCWV sticky ribbon.

I'd like to enter the following challenges:

LEJ:lejdesignschallengeblog Festive fun
Oldie but a goodieoldiebutagoodiechallenge: Winter - the ribbon is my oldie
PFPpromarkerchallenge: Include a sentiment
Lexi'slexiscreations: Snow
Incy Wincyincywincydesigns: Let it snow
CYPCcraftyourpassionchallenges: Let it snow


Hope you all have a great Wednesday and thanks for dropping by today! Hope to see you again soon!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Crafty Sentiments: Christmas challenge

Good morning all! How are you today? I hope you are well! This is a scheduled post as I will be fetching my mum to see the Christmas Play at school as this goes live! I hope Mr Blogger is playing nicely!. Thanks for all of your lovely comments on Penny's card - you're very kind and I appreciate the time it takes you to do that!

Before I tell you about todays challenge at Crafty sentiments I want to share something very exciting with you about their newest venture:



How cool is that? Love it and can't wait to see it.

Today there's a new challenge starting over at Crafty Sentiments - the theme for this challenge is Christmas!!!! Woo Hoo! If you use a crafty sentiments image then remember to add a #3 next to your name so that we don't miss it. That will give you three shots at the draw - and the prize this week is another fabulous die - so give it a go. Full details are here.

I used an image from the main set of Christmas releases this year called Me-and My-Teddy. Such a cutey pie! Love this one!

The card is from Craftwork cards and I have mounted some cardstock from Crafters companion onto it. The stamped image has been coloured with promarkers then cut with a spellbinders die and distressed with DI with the die still attached. The tree charm came from a show a while ago and the flowers are WOC.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Cutie pies:cutiepiechallenge For a special friend
IDICrobynsfetishchallengeblog: Bow
OSAATonestitchatatime: Red
CHNC:craftyhazelnutschristmaschallenge For someone special
CHNC extracraftyhazelnutschristmaschallenge2: December AG
stampin' for the weekendstampinfortheweekend: use some red
Charismacharismacardz: All distressed

Thats all for today! Hope you have a great Tuesday and thanks for dropping by. My workshop went well yesterday with my ladies - they were well chuffed with the image transfer to the candle technique - I took a photo on my mobile but it doesn't seem to be loading up to facebook - don't know why! Sorry x

Big Hugs all!

Rachel xx

Penny's card!

Morning lovelies! Well its Monday again - Where does the time go? I know I've said it before but I wish it would just slow down a tiny bit! Either that or give us a few more hours each day in which to get everything done!

Its going to be a busy week this week - we had jujitsu grading yesterday - both girls passed - my pictures don't seen to have gone to facebook so I can't show them on here until I manage to sort that out! Oh technology - give me strength! Today i have my ladies at coffee pot - we're doing matching cards and candles this week using the snowy cottage stamp from stampendous - I'll hopefully remember to take my camera to show you what the ladies achieve! Tomorrow is the day of the school nativity - I'm taking my mum to the morning showing and husband shaun to the evening one! Thursday is the day of the christmas fair at brownies where I'm having a stall selling my wares! And then friday is supposed to be the PTA christmas craft evening - but I suspect that will be cancelled - given the lack of interest! Roll on Saturday - but not too fast - lol!!!!

Today I was supposed to be showing you something else - but Penny's card got made first so here it is!

The image is from Digistamp boutique and the papers are from trimcraft. Athough its a bit loud - I just know Penny will love all the penguins on it - she does love them!!!

Thats all for today - hope you have a great Monday! Thanks for dropping by and for any comments you choose to leave.

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Craft a scene week 2: Winter scene with the option of a trishutter

Good afternoon all! Back again with my second post today - this time its for Craft-a-scene. The challenge this month is to make a card depicting a winter scene - and there is the option of turning it into a trishutter. My card for this post has been tri-shuttered again - I quite enjoy doing them!

The stamps I have used are all old sheena douglass ones from her days at Creative Inspirations. Although the snowflakes are more recent that I used on the borders - they too are from the wonderful sheena. The stag was stamped first with versa and I used brass regular wow powders and heat embossed then coloured with promarkers - I wish I had just line embossed the image now I look at it as the facial details have been lost in the technique - another one for the learning curve. Then I masked and added the trees, in versa again and added a dark green embossing powder this time. I used a versa pen and added some spakling snow to the snow and then did the sky with DI. The snowflakes and sentiment were done with versa and white sparkle glitter embossing powder from WOW. I made the trishutter shape using my hougie board.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Calender Challengescraftycalendarchallenge: Cold and frosty
AGOACpinkgemchallengeblog: AG
Alicraftali-craft: Christmas
Winter wonderlandchristmasblogchallenge: Embossing
C.R.A.F.Ttrimmiescraftchallenge : Christmas
PCJpaper-craftingjourney: Christmas

Hope you have a great rest of your weekend! Thanks for dropping by and hope to see you again soon!

Big Hugs

Rachel xx

Pan pastels Challenge: Paper

Good Morning Lovelies! How are you? Well I hope! If not hope you feel better soon! We're all good. We managed to see santa yesterday - not quite the magical experience I was hoping for - but the girls were happy and thats all that matters. The girls are excited today- they're at a jujitsu grading this morning - Lucy is going for green belt and Penny for orange belt. Fingers crossed it all goes well.

I'm here to show you what I did for the pan pastel (premium brands) challenge this week.  This week is all about paper/card - you need to ONLY use paper/card substrate in your project. This means EVERYTHING must be paper/card, ie even embellies! Now when I looked at this I thought immediately that a card would be the easiest route to take - but I didn't want to do that - I fancied trying my hand at one of those paper trees I'd seen around blogland so here's the result of my labours:

This was made using three sheets of A3 white card. I coloured two with pan pastels - (purple and green), set with crafters companion sparkle and shine silver - then cut into strips and stamped with a snowflake stamp in versamark - and heat set with sparkling silver WOW powders. The third sheet of card I rolled into a cone. Then I set about assembling my tree by cutting each paper strip into three and folding loosely and attaching to the cone with brads. Finally I cut a star in silver mirri and attached to the top of the tree.

I'd like to enter this tree into the following challenges:

Crafty Calender Challengescraftycalendarchallenge: Cold and frosty
AGOACpinkgemchallengeblog: AG
Alicraftali-craft: Christmas
TPCtotallypapercrafts: Anything Christmassy but a card
Winter wonderlandchristmasblogchallenge: Embossing
C.R.A.F.Ttrimmiescraftchallenge : Christmas
PCJpaper-craftingjourney: Christmas

I'll be back again later with a another trishutter card for Craft a scene - thanks for dropping in now and hope to see you again soon!

Big Hugs

Rachel x

back to summer!

Good morning lovelies! I hope you are well and happy! I'm feeling good but starting to feel a little tired - there's so much to do for Christmas isn't there - and so much extra happening too! Still onwards I plod! My daughters inform me there are only 18 sleeps until Christmas! They have a countdown going! Fabulous! We're off to try and find Santa Claus somewhere today - not sure where yet - I'd like to go to the usual Clapham Caves but Lucy seems to think the walk is just too far! Lol!!!!

I have a layout to share with you today - the challenge this month over at WOW powders is family - well I couldn't think of too much else to do that wasn't a layout - I did say I was tired!!! Anyway - here it is!

All of the photographs are from last years holiday to Cornwall - I'm way behind with my scrapbooking!!! I'm not even sure I got my photographs printed from this year! How awful is that!!!  All of the stamps are from Sheena Douglass - I used versamark and black Opaque wow powders and hear set. The writing has been done with a versa pen in the same way. The paper is some coordinations paper - the stamps/embossing didn't work as clearly on this textured paper but I really liked the effect - looks kinda shabby to me and I thought I would keep it that way!

I'd like to enter this LO into the family challenge over at wowembossingpowderWOW powders.

Thanks for joining me today - and for any comments you choose to leave. I hope you survived the storms and have got through the aftermath! Big Hugs from me!

Rachel xx

DT call for Imagination Crafts

Hello there? How are you? Hope you survived the storms yesterday brought? It was awful here - terrible winds and rain that was intermittent - we lost all of our planted bulbs at school - well I have to go and check them out this morning! Hopefully I can salvage something. The worst thing I saw was at lunchtime - I was trying to get back along the coastal road to Morecambe to take my mum and her shopping home - when we reached the sea we had to turn back - the sea was coming over the wall and flooding the road - it looked very scary - some people pressed on - bit it wasn't for me! I turned tail and took the long dry route home!

Anyway - its another day and hopefully not quite as wild.

So have you seen the imagination-craftschallenges design-team-call? I'm re-applying and here's the piece I've made.

Its a 8 inch by 10inch canvas - the background has been gessoed and stamped with a script stamp then I added jade sparkle medium from Imagination Crafts using a snowflake stencil from Imagination crafts. I applied number masks to a tag then brayered the sparkle medium over the top then removed the number masks. The flowers have been cut by tattered florals die and the leaves by the tattered leaves die. The reindeer are cut using another TH die.

To apply for the DT call you need to do the following:

1.  You must have an active blog and Facebook account.

2.  Make 2 projects a month, one will be for when the challenges goes live and the second will be posted halfway through the challenge for inspiration.  Our challenges are monthly.

3.  Comment on entries to the challenges, we will be assigning numbers for you to comment on.
4. Once a month on the 15th (the inspiration post) a design team member will make a picture tutorial of how they have made their inspirational post.  This will be done on a rota.
5. Make samples for the TV.

6.  The period of being a member is 9 months and will start 1st February 2014 to  31st October 2014

7.  Promote Imagination Crafts on your Blog

In return you will receive the following:

1. Receive products to use in the challenges

2. A discount off any Imagination Crafts products you buy on the website.

3. Your samples will be posted on the Imaginations Gallery.
4. Samples will be shown on Television.

If you are interested, Linda would like you to make a sample/s using Imagination products, photograph the sample (about 2 good photographs from different angles) and email them to Linda along with a small paragraph about yourself and a link to your blog.  Please put as the subject header in your email Imagination Crafts DT Call.  

The closing date for submissions is Monday 23rd December 2013 at 12 noon.

The successful candidates will be informed by email on Friday 27th December 2014.

So I hope you're all going to have a go? I couldn't recommend this DT more highly - its been brilliant to work on this team and I hope to be able to continue - but if its not to be then thats life!!! Hoping it is to be though!

I'd also like to enter my piece for the sunday-stamper-week-285-number-of-beast

Big Hugs to you all - and I hope I've given you food for thought!

Rachel xx