A Piece of Me

new stamps & blog candy

2010-01-29T06:10:00.000-08:00

Our neighbour's girl is having a birthday party on Sunday that I need to make a card for, so I ordered the Anya ballerina and mermaid yesterday and they've arrived already! Now I just need to stop time for a while so I can get caught up and creating! I'm hoping she'll like the ballerina as she's just started dance classes.

Anyway, blog candy is always fun, and Sarah-Jane is giving away some lovely candy over on her site, so go and take a peak if you can. She also has an ace milk carton tutorial on there, which is nice and simple to make and looks so effective.

TGF CHA relay day 3

2010-01-27T13:24:00.000-08:00

Well here is my entry for what turned out to be the final day of the CHA relay. It was a whole lot of fun, but also sounded like it was a huge logistical nightmare for everyone at TGF with the gallery collapsing under the weight of people eager to post their pics! Anyway, I've had a great time but I'm also slightly relieved as I really should be busy preparing cards for next week, but anyway, I hope you like my final entry using Toby Cub. I don't normally go for critters and wasn't wowed with Toby but now he/she's coloured up I love him and can see me making this card again!

I've grabbed Prince Ian whilst he's free on the board and hope to make a card up with him next week.

Colours: Copics

Paper: Fancy Pants Celebrate & Abbey Road by My Minds Eye

Sketch:

Challenge:

I'll come back later with the final details but Davina is about to go into the house and despite not normally being a BB fan, I seem to have got sucked in this time!

The Greeting Farm digi challenge Day 2

2010-01-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

Hurray, hurray! It may have taken me an hour and a half to get the photo to load up but I've finally done it with minutes to spare! I've picked up the image just after work, attempted to start my dad's computer - mouse not working, that's ok will use mum's computer ... why won't it recognise my camera to upload the photo?! Will keep slogging away in the hope I'll figure it out before midnight arrives!

Notice anything unusual about the card?! The card should be showcasing the new Charlotte digi stamp but alas she's not been sent to me and the deadline is 12pm UK time. As I'm working till 10pm tonight I decided the only way I've got any chance of getting this one done is if I make the card up now and hope that Charlotte is waiting in my in-tray when I come back from work. But then I'm at my parents' and not at home so I'll need to attempt to upload the picture onto my Dad's computer! Fingers crossed that it all works out!

I also have to give thanks to Erin whose blog pointed me in the direction of the ESS challenge sketch.

Sketch: ESS Challenge #67

Challenge: Anyone for Anya heart 4 heart's sake challenge

Cardstock: Bazzil Bling

Paper: Love Elsie music range (I forget the exact name)

The Greeting Farm CHA relay

2010-01-25T14:40:00.000-08:00

This has to be the quickest card that I've ever made (and it probably shows!). I just found out about the relay two hours before it closed! The challenge is to make a card with the free digital image of the cute MerIan and to upload it before midnight tonight UK time. Then there will be a new digital image and challenge each day whilst CHA is on. I very much doubt I'll be able to get them all done but I'll do my best! Typically, in my rush I failed to notice the pink ink splodge on my desk so I need to re-do Ian tomorrow, at which point I'll cover his tail in glaze and stickles! The card is based on this week's Friday Sketchers.

!

Stamp with Us challenge

2010-01-23T13:51:00.000-08:00

It's challenge time over on Stamp With Us and this week it's a sketch challenge. I've used the pretty Garden Whimsy set from Stampin' Up! and some fun Love Elsie paper that I've had in my stash for ages and not made anything with it! I also managed to use quite a few bits of cardstock from my remnants pile which was an added bonus!

Stamps: Stampin' Up! Garden Whimsy and Fun & Fast Notes (sentiment)

Paper: Love Elsie

Cardstock: SU! Summer Sun & Pumpkin Pie - the rest was from my scrap pile

I'm afraid that I took the photo tonight in order to get it up before the next challenge started, and the lighting is very poor. Hopefully, I'll manage to upload a better photo on Monday.

A tidy up is needed!

2010-01-20T02:02:00.000-08:00

The photo of my card is missing from the last post as it was night time and the lighting was no good. So I finally remembered that I needed to take a photo of it and now I can't find it! Where on earth it's gone I have no idea! My craft room is obviously in need of a serious tidy up!

First Card of 2010!

2010-01-06T03:19:00.000-08:00

Hurray! The card turned up - I obviously need to tidy away my paper far more often!

I hope that everyone had a fab festive season and that Father Christmas delivered lots of lovely crafty gifts! I received a set of Copics, lots of MS punches and some cute Rock the Farm stamps - now I just need the time to play with them all!

I loved the colour combo on the Copic Colour Challenge website, unfortunatley I forgot to upload my entry last night in time for the deadline! This was the lovely colour combo that they asked us to use. I only have BV02 so I had to use other colours that were as close as I could get to the original ones.

This is my first card this year and it meets the following challenges:

Copic Colour Challenge #45

Stamp Something asked us to use something new. The stamps were a Christmas present and the paper is some that I bought just before Christmas with the Rock the Farm stamps in mind.

Sketch Saturday provided the lovely sketch that I based my card on. It would be interesting to know what size people make their cards. Mine was 5.75 square and I didn't have enough room for all of the elements.

Anyone for Anya said that anything goes!

Phew, I've only ever attempted one challenge per card before so I'm quite pleased that the first week in January challenges are quite loose and I've managed to squeeze a few in!

Blog Candy

2009-12-23T09:01:00.000-08:00

Not mine to give away unfortunately, but if you hop over to JayJay's blog she is giving away some extra special Winter blog candy for Christmas.
JayJaysblogCandyGiveaway/

Whilst you are there take a peak at her wonderful cards, so inspiring!

Almost the big day ...

2009-12-23T04:05:00.000-08:00

...and I'm still making cards! Typically, I've yet to make my parent's card which means I'll have to hand it over to them on the day itself. I think I'm going to carry on making Christmas cards until January, just whilst all the inspiration is still around. And anything that gives me a head start on next year is an added bonus!

Here are a couple of cards that I did manage to mail out in time! I love using sketches at this time of year, it makes the creative process a lot quicker for me, which is useful as I'm one of life's procrastinators! The first card uses one of this years So Jolly Magnolia stamps. I love this little girl waiting for a kiss under the mistletoe. I showed DH this card hoping for some kind of 'that's nice' and was rewarded with an umpphh! To which, I asked 'Don't you like it?' and he replied with 'It's just another one of your cards using that weird mouthless troll girl'!!! Is he mad? How can possibly compare Tilda to a troll?

I didn't have the right colour flowers so I've used three pearl gems in the left-hand corner instead. You can just about make them out in the photo!

Paper: Basic Grey Wassail

Colours: Copics and Promarkers

Punches: I used my Fiskers punch for the borders, cut a circle with my Martha Stewart circle cutter and used nestabilities for the scalloped circle.

Sketch: Sketch Saturday #82

The card below is using another sketch but I completed this one a while ago and I'm not sure whose sketch it was, sorry. Apologies also for not cropping the photo. I hadn't realised it was so bad until I uploaded it. The stamp is a cute Sugar Nellie one.

A Whiff of Joy Challenge #55

2009-11-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

I've only just come across this great challenge website and here is my first entry. For challenge #55 we had to use the colours orange, brown and ivory - and of course a Whiff of Joy stamp! I just love this little girl and I really enjoyed the colour combo, although there is less brown than I originally intended! I've coloured her in with my promarkers, using Primrose to lightly outline the wings and give her a shadow. I've then added glitter to her wings with Hero Arts Prisma Glitter. I've used the sketch from the previous challenge for my card, as it was such a lovely design. Thanks guys for providing such a fun challenge, I really enjoyed this one.

Papers: October Afternoon Weathervane range
Tools: pinching shears, Cuttlebug label die & Martha Stewart Autumn branch punch
Colour: Promarkers
Glitter: Hero Arts Prisma Glitter
Sketch: AWoJ sketch challenge #54
Flowers: Paperware hot oranges

So little time

2009-11-13T08:41:00.000-08:00

November seems to be a month of meetings for me! I'm obviously on far too many committees. I finally managed to get to my first allotment committee last night. They're trying to get a pressure group going so we can persuade the parish council to find some land for us to have allotments. I tried growing vegs this year with limited success, but it would be nice to actually grow some out of the ground rather than a pot!

In between meetings, I've finally managed to complete a card for a good friend who lives in Canada. Apologies for not cropping it neatly but I was in a rush to get it up, and couldn't be bothered to go into Elements first. I do love these Basic Grey eerie papers. They have such great autumnal colours. I didn't really make the most of them in time for Halloween, but there is always next year!

Paper: Basic Grey Eerie

Colours: A mixture of Copics and Promarkers

Stamp: one of the Wild Sprouts from The Greeting Farm (I love this stamp)

Jewels:

Design: I've used a sketch from an old blog challenge.

NEC - treats galore

2009-11-09T08:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I've just about recovered from all the flying elbows and tripping over wheelie trolleys at the NEC on Saturday. I've not been before but caught a lift with a friend who was visiting the cake fair that was on at the same time. I'm glad we got there early as come lunchtime it was every woman and man for themselves. I had to give up on the idea of visiting some of the stands I wanted to to go back to as there was just no chance of getting anywhere near the stalls.

I picked up some lovely treats, not least a gorgeous Magnolia Christmas 2009 stamp - wish I'd come back with more of them! Hopefully, I'll get down to the serious business of crafting tonight and will have something to show you. In the meantime though, I've been doing a bit of blog-hopping and catching up with all of my favourite blogs. There are some truely inspiring ladies out there! And over on Jacque's website, not only does she have a stunning Christmas card (and with a new stamp design, no less) but also she is giving away some gorgeous blog candy, so make sure you take a peak. I'm still not sure on how to add in links and pictures so I'll just crudely past the link for you below.

JacquesMagnoliablogspot

Copics V Promarkers

2009-10-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

It's funny how fast trends move on. Not that long ago it seemed that everyone was going mad for Prismacolor pencils, then it was promarkers and now it's copic ciaos. I bought some promarkers a while back but wasn't really getting on with them due to the lack of colours that I owned. I've since extended my collection (amazing how easy it is to let things fall into online shopping baskets!) and I've also bought a few copics. Here are the main differences between copics and promarkers that I've noticed.

Copics:
Style: definately beat the promarkers hands down on looks!
Colours: 143 colours. Orginally, they had more colours than promarkers and the added benefit of being able to top up with the more expensive copic markers if you were missing a colour. The pens are grouped according to colour family which makes it easier to locate the next colour up or down for shading.
Design: the fact that the lids of the copics show the colour rather than the barrel of the pen make it a lot easier to pick out the pen you want if you use tubs or pots for storage, rather than buying the penholders.
Ease of use: this is very much down to personal preference. Copics have a brush nib and a broad nib.
Extras: you can buy new nibs and refill the copics apparently, although they are not advertised as such.
Price: normally the most expensive of the two.
Challenge website: http://copicscolourchallenge.blogspot.com/

Promarkers:
Style: rather dated and not particularly attractive!
Colours: promarkers have extended their range and now have 148 colours.
Design: the fact that the barrel is coloured rather than the lid can make locating the right pen difficult depending on your storage method. Also the colour on the barrel is often not true and they can look similar to one another e.g. pastel yellow and ivory look the same in poor light.
Ease of use: promarkers have a bullet nib and a broad nib.
Extras: promarkers can be used with their airbrush system, which is not possible with the copics. The official Letraset website has 10% off selected colours each month.
Price: normally the cheaper of the two, retailing at around £1.99.
Challenge website: http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.com/

Verdict: although the ciao certainly seems to have the streetcred edge at the moment, so far I've not found anything to justify the extra price other than they look prettier & are easier to organise. However, if you are planning on going for the whole collection that the easy identifiable lids on the ciaos might be the better option. I personally prefer the bullet nib on the promarker. Before making your decision check on your local stockists. Our local art shop stocks promarkers which is obviously a huge plus for me as I can stock up on single pens as and when I need them. Either way, the two challenge websites are great fun to follow and often have technique tips as well. If any of this has been of use to you, please leave me a comment below. Thanks.

Update 9th Oct: Ekk, I've just found another art shop in town the stocks the ciaos. I'm spoilt for choice now!

Passion for Promarkers Challenge

2009-10-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

This is my first attempt at the Passion for Promarkers weekly challenge having only just discovered the website. I probably wouldn't have put these colours together but they look fab and work perfectly with some paper I'd had hanging around for ages.

We had to use Apricot and Cool Aqua promarkers and incorporate flowers somewhere. The colours are actually brighter IRL but didn't quite come out on my camera. The little tag says 'enjoy'. Thank you for looking.

I used:
Stamp: Surfer Ian from The Greeting Farm
Colours: Promarkers in Cool Aqua, Apricot and skin tones.
Paper: by Artic Frog

World Cardmaking Day

2009-10-04T14:31:00.000-07:00

I work Fri and Sun evenings so I've not had much time to get crafting for World Cardmaking Day this week, but I did manage to squeeze in four cards.

The first one is for the Passion for Promarkers challenge this week.

Up next is the card I made for the UKS Happy Daze card for World Cardmaking day. The challenge asked us to use brown, turquoise and circles. The stamp is Ferdie Fox by Sugar Nellie and I've coloured it in with my Prisma Pencils.

Next is a card that I made for my friend's daugther's 2nd Birthday. Again, I've used promarkers to colour it. The stamp is an adorable Gorjuss Girl stamp from Sugar Nellie stamps. I love the Gorjuss Girls and I hear that they will be releasing more stamps in October. I hope so as these girls are so cute.

Our close friends, Amber and Chris, celebrated their second anniversay earlier this week and this is the card that I made for them. The patterned paper is from Basic Grey and flowers are by Prima. The wedding cake does suggest a wedding rather than an anniversay but it was all I had that would work at the time! I hope they like it anyway. It's always difficult sending homemade cards as you never know whether they like it as much as you do.

2009-10-01T14:46:00.001-07:00

Well I've not posted for over a year so lets see how I do this time. Mind you, sometimes it does seem rather pointless posting when no one is actually following. So I guess, I need to get creating some cards and layouts again. I feel like I haven't scrapped in a dangerously long time.

I've found a really useful site on how to use promarkers so that's got me excited about my stamps again. Especially, now that I've got some gorgeous Anya and Miss Anya stamps, which work so well with promarkers.

So, watch this space as they say!

2008-09-14T06:36:00.000-07:00

One thing I love about getting back into card making is following everyone's blogs. In fact, I probably spend more time blog reading than I do creating! Another new thing to me is blog candie. And if you pop over to the talented Bunny-Zoe's website you'll see that she is giving away some yummy candy to celebrate reaching 20,000 hits!
http://bunny-zoes.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-candy-20000-hits.html

The competition is open until Wednesday 17th Sept, so make sure you pay her blog a visit.

We've just come back from spending a rather lovely, and surprisingly sunny, day at Shuttleworth Old Warden Park where they were holding a steam rally. Mind you , the enjoyment was rather dampened by the fact that it cost £24 to get in which left us battling to find lunch for four people for £6! There were lots of glorious steam tractors, engines, vintage cars and motorbikes which kept the boys amused. There was also an old fashioned fair which would have been lovely if we had the money to enjoy it.

My second day of working in the corner shop starts in just under two hours and already I'm mourning the loss of creating time and also wondering how well my poor legs are going to cope with standing up for 6 hours! This going back to work has been a bit of a shock to the system!

2008-09-04T01:55:00.001-07:00

Just a few more cards that I've been working on recently. The blue Sugar Nellie card is the first one that I made and although it's ok I think I may need to go back to it as it seems to be lacking any finishing touches. I'm really pleased with how the cupcake card turned out. I got the inspiration from a card that Sir Stampalot had displayed at the recent Stamperama show in Stevenage. The stamps are by Hero Art, the textured cardstock is from Love Elsie. I've raised the cupcakes so that they stand out a bit more and I've coloured them in with my prisma pencils.

The next new addiction!

2008-09-03T02:56:00.000-07:00

Firstly a huge arrgghhh that it's September already! How did that happen? Where did summer go? Did it even start? On the plus side it does mean that Robert went back to school today and we'll hopefully get back into a routine. I may even sneak in a bit of me time in the morning whilst Finlay is asleep to spend some time with my new addiction. I've decided that I must have an addictive personality as soon as something grabs my attention, that's it, I must have it until the next addiction takes hold.

My current addiction is card making and stamping. I've never been one for artsy stamping - although I've admired it I don't think I have the patience or skill, but I love all the Magnolia and Funky Kits stamps - I just can't get enough of them. At the moment I'm colouring with Prisma pencils but I've just found a local stockist for artist pens (proplanners?) so I'm going to give them a whirl when I get a minute. Hopefully, they'll be easy to travel with.

Here is my first attempt at a card challenge. It's a http://fridaysketchersblog.blogspot.com/ challenge and I just love the ideas that they come up with. Here's my effort. The stamp is from Funky Kits.

Resolutions

2008-02-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

I know it's a bit late to be making resolutions but I've decided to give them a shot this year, although calling them goals seems much less daunting! And to make sure that I do stick to them I'm going to dedicate a layout to them which will be my first layout in my 2008 album (one layout per month).

As one of my goals this year is to scrap more I'm going to try and set myself challenges every couple of weeks to spark off that creativity, so if you'd like to join me please do. I'd love to see what you come up with. My first challenge then (if you've not already done it) is to scrap a layout for your 2008 goals/resolutions. I'll hopefully be posting my completed layout at the end of next week.

In the meantime, here is a layout that I completed earlier this week that I'm really pleased with. I'm not so good at layering and tend to stick to the simple style so I was really pleased that I kept pushing this one and didn't think it was complete after just one night (another one of my goals is to try and stop procrastinating and actually complete my layouts in less time!).

The photo in the layout below was taken last year when we went up to Cumbria for my husband's Gran's funeral and decided to visit one of her favourite spots, Talkin Tarn. It's a beautiful place, so peaceful and a great place to sit back and just reflect and remember her.

My youngest has just had his second tooth come through now. He seems to be growing so fast. Already he's nine months and I've only managed to complete one layout for his album. I'm off to a crop on Sunday so along with my goals layout, I intend to make sure that I finish at least one page for his album. It's true when they say that you take loads of photos of your eldest and not so many of the following children. I still have lots of baby photos of Robert to scrap as well as the growing pile for Finlay! At this rate I'll still be scrapping Finlay's birth photos after he's turned one (which is fast approaching!).

2007-12-19T15:24:00.001-08:00

Shame on me! Apologies for not blogging for quite some time but somehow or other I forgot how to get back in! The countdown to Christmas is almost drawing to an end. I can't quite believe that there are only six days to go. It seems that I start preparing for Christmas in September when the first ads come out and then before I know it I've run out of time and I'm frantically writing my Christmas cards - most of which will have missed the last posting date.

I've finally sucumbed to a die-cutting machine and I'm eagerly awaiting my goodies from Ellison - superb sale. Hopefully, they'll arrive in time for the big day so that I can test them with my cuttlebug that Santa's giving me. I already have tons of ideas to put into practice.

Thanks to mojoholder I've finally got my mojo back and have completed a layout from one of their fab sketches. Tomorrow's challenge is to print some photos out for the growing pile of half-completed layouts that I have here. Plus there are the Christmas gifts that I decided to make this year - seemed like a good idea at the time but now I'm not so sure!

And it's that time of year again - Cadbury's creme eggs are back on the shelves. I can't wait to pick my first one up. That and the relaunch of Wispas means that I'm back in chocolate heaven, which is no good for the diet that I've yet to start!

Another long day

2007-07-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

I don't know who was more excited about the big brown box that arrived today, me or Robert. It's great being able to open a box full of treats and getting ohs and ahs from someone other than myself! Although to be fair, the contents really weren't that exciting, just my new Making Memories trimmer and free tote bag. Pretty cool though for a freebie plus I bought lots of pretty rhinestone brads. I can't wait to put them to good use.

I thought you might want to take a peak at the tin I made for a UKS swap. I just hope the recipient likes pink! It's only simple but it's all I have time for at the moment. I'm really enjoying decorating tins at the moment and have plans to make some more tin journals as gifts for some of my overseas pals. I hosted a tin journal swap earlier this month and was wowed by all the beautiful tins that were sent in. I would have kept them all if I could!

The start

2007-07-25T14:16:00.000-07:00

Well, here's my first entry in cyber space. Just about figuring out how to work this thing but please bear with me whilst my brain kicks in. After two children it's kinda working a little slower than it used to!

I was eagerly awaiting the delivery of my making memories trimmer today and free tote bag but alas nothing arrived. Don't you just hate it when you hang around all day waiting for something only to realise that you're going to have to do it all again the next day! The worst part is that even when it does arrive I'll have to wait until the little ones are in bed before I can have a play. Hubby's work late tomorrow so at least I can play for hours guilt free. I might even get some of my backlog of scrapping done! I also owe a ton of letters that I really ought to get out ASAP.

I'm eagerly looking forward to the UKS summer cyber crop so I'll probably spend a most of this week sorting through my papers in an attempt to persuade myself that I really don't need to buy any of the class kits. I'm sure my resolve will weaken once they go live though.

Well I'd better sign off here and go and finish the little tin I'm decorating and filling with lots of little goodies for a swap.