The dark side of flowers

Here I am again, with a bit of a twist on a floral birthday card. I wanted a slightly darker theme (plus this was one of the challenge themes)whilst using a pretty feminine design.So I took a lilac flower motif, traced it onto red paper and cut it out using a craft knife (not a quick job!) and added a little metal 'handmade' brad to the top right. This was mounted onto a dark grey patterned paper, and then onto a card blank covered with red paper. A 3D birthday sticker was added to the bottom of the flower.

Anything Goes - Simon Says Wed
CAS - Card Mania
On the darker side - Delicious Doodles #88
Use metal - 613 Avenue Create; Glitter n Sparkle
Natures Glory - Country View #15

And also my recent update of my fish tank cross stitch. It is now at 54.5hours.

Hugz Tinz

Floral ATC collection

I have finally got a new laptop and can post pictures again yippee.

So here is my recent ATC collection that I have made. They are a Spring Bloom collection. I used a base ATC card, some patterned papers that I received with an ATC, ribbon, stickers and a corner rounding punch.

The patterned paper was cut into a strip that was adhered to the base card. The second paper was then cut to fit a particular sticker, and the corners rounded. This was then adhered slightly over the first paper.

For the two white card bases a complimentary ribbon was placed along the seam where the two papers overlapped. A floral sticker was then adhered to the central paper using foam pads, to allow overlapping of the ribbon, and fleur was added to the top using alphabet stickers.

For the red card base the corners were rounded. A sentiment sticker was placed on the bottom paper, and a Pepper and Friends sticker, after being placed on white card and cut around, adhered to the central paper using foam pads.

I am entering the collection into the following challenges:
Anything Goes - Divas by design
Colour Combo - C.R.A.F.T
Girly Creations - A creative Romance
Flower Power - paulaholifieldcrafts
Inspiration photo - Fussy and Fancy

Thank you for looking

Tinz

Wobbly shaped Christmas card

Hi everyone,

I will be adding challenges for this card to enter as I remember them. My computer did a standard windows update earlier today and now no longer wishes to function!!!  Slightly annoying - especially as I made the wobble for a particular challenge and I cannot remember whose it was! Nor do I know all the addresses as they are stored in my computers memory!!
Anyway here is the card:

Challenges to enter:  Completely Christmas - anything goes
Crafty hazelnut - let it shine (gold and glittery embossing powders and shiny peel-offs)
Winter Wonderland - holly and/or ivy (only holly on this one though)
CRAFT - Christmas
Stamping Boutique - Use a wobble


Thank you for looking
Tinz

Charity Bunting and BS part 1

...but first I have a book review (and this time I read the book rather than listened to it lol). This was Destiny's Star by Elizabeth Vaughan. I saw this on the library shelf and it looked interesting, plus was small enough to fit in my bag to take to work. It was only after I started reading it that I realised that it was book 3 in a series, however it turned out that it was fine to read this book as a stand-alone. I liked it and was interested in what had happened earlier and so have reserved the first two books from the library too. This is a fantasy novel based around a female mercenary come queens guard and a story teller who has wild magic within him. It would seem that he gained the wild magic in a previous book unwillingly and so is unable to contain it properly. They end up in the Plains (kind of a desert) with a tribe, which is where the magic comes from, and they have to try and stay alive whilst being hunted by people who believe they need to die to return the magic to the land, whilst along the way falling in love. Although a fantasy it does relate to the real world in the way the people act etc, and I found it kept you wondering until they very end. A good read if you like fantasy books that are not too unrealistic (and also if you like full on fantasy).

Right now onto the important bits. The Charity bunting was a free kit from Cross Stitch Crazy magazine last year. And here is the pic - finished at 3.75hours. I am entering it into the anything but a card challenge from simplycreatetoo and Anything goes from crafting by designs

 

And here is the update on the kitty - now up at 8 hours and coming along nicely:

Finally, I have started a birth sampler for my friend who is having her second baby. I decided on a popcorn design this time and here is the first completed character - Biscuit the Dog.

Thank you for looking

Hugz Tinz

Clock watching

As the weather has been atrocious here today I have not done any work down on the allotment, however I have made a couple of crafting bits, and am hoping to finish stitching my mouse soft toy later.

So I have made a card using a textured card blank. A leaf square was die-cut from silver mirror-card and attached to the top right.
I used some Anita's sticky ribbon in purple flowers and papermania self-adhesive flower strips from the lincoln linen range and stuck them to plain cream card, which was attached to the base card.
Room with a View by Helz Cuppleditch (The London Line) was stamped onto artists paper and coloured with promarkers: MorningMist, Daffodil bloom, Summer sun, Tequila sunrise, Tropical orchid, Pink lobster, Tawny owl, Grey squirrel, Icicle, Eggnog,Winter berry, Blush, Peach, Amethyst and a couple of the cool greys.
The image was then matted onto silver mirror card and attached to the left of the card (following the sketch). Finally a tag was die-cut from pink card and a button added to the end, buttons were added to the centre of the flowers (all from the papermania capsule collection range). Two purple pearls were then added to the bottom of the two leaves that can be seen.

Here it is:

This will be entered into the following challenges:
Shoppingourstash - inspiration photo (I have used buttons and a clock image).
ilovepromarkers #218 Metallic - using the mirror card

Cute Card Thursday #320 Paw pals ( no paws in view but they are cats).
Sketchy Colours #210 Sketch
Creative Moments #42 Bingo - I chose More than 2 layers, pearls and Tag (which will eventually have a sentiment added to it).
ArtImpressions #135 - Cute as a button
addicted to stamps #82 - Inspired by a song ~ 'Final countdown'
Crafting by designs Anything Goes challenge

I also made a voucher holder for Christmas using a green card blank and Anita's sticky ribbon, with a button and some elasticated thread for fastening.

Here this is:

I wish to enter this into the Papertakeweekly no patterned paper challenge; Completely Christmas #11 Anything Goes; CraftyHazelnuts Christmas #176 Let it shine (shiny ribbon); Simplycreatetoo Anything but a card challenge;

Thank you for looking.

Hugz Tinz

A little bit of Romance

I have another book review for you.
I have just finished listening to Vince and Joy by Lisa Jewell.

I have never read, or listen to, any of her books before as this is not usually the type of book that I would pick to read based on the blurb on the back. The story is the tale of two people, Vince and Joy, that meet and fall in love, but then lose touch with each other and find that each time they meet life is in the way. The story is told kind-of-like flash backs, although there is the perspective from both Vince and Joy, even though it is Vince doing the telling. Although the ending is pretty predictable, the getting there is very amusing and gripping. There are laugh out load moments and times when you want to shake the lead characters. However, there is some quite strong swearing throughout the book and so if you are averse to bad language then this is probably not a book for you!

Now onto the craft side of things. I have updates on both of my WIP cross stitches. I have completed another one, but need to put it together before I take the photograph.
So firstly I have the angelic kitty who is now at 7 and a half hours:

Secondly there is my Fish Tank which is now at 50 and a half hours:

Thank you for looking.

Hugz Tinz

Spring Bugs

Hello again,

What a lovely bank holiday weekend we had - must be a first!! Unfortunately I did not get much done down on the allotment due to having the in-laws visiting but I did get a couple of hours help digging part of the new allotment - I can accept that lol. I will try and remember to get a pic of the new allotment to share - there is a lovely large, but overgrown, pond at the bottom so I am hoping for plenty of wildlife to watch.

I made my net trio of ATC's yesterday - and as usual I am entering them for various craft challenges. The main theme for these cards was bugs, and the technique was to use gel pens and embossing powder - which I have never tried before. I also decided to give the CAS technique a go, but I am not sure I have quite got it right yet - let me know what you think!

So here are the ATC's.

The first one involved a blue card blank onto which a rose sticker was placed in the bottom left. Then two little bumblebees were stamped to either side, wings being coloured with green gel pen, and a butterfly to the right, using pink and blue gel pens and embossing powders to create a dimensional effect.

To be entered into: Simply Less is Moore (3 colours) - having used blue, pink and green; Papertake weekly - no patterned paper; abc challenge - K is for keep it simple (one layer) and one layer simplicity - #5 Flowers






For these bugs I placed a simple patterned paper over a card base and stuck a felt flower and diamante butterfly to the right-hand corners. I stamped a bumblebee and a butterfly onto white cardstock, coloured them using gel pens and then used the wet gel ink to add embossing powders (one colour at a time of course). These were then cut out carefully and attached to the card base with 3d foam pads.

To be entered into: One crazy Stamper - Anything Goes with embellishment (dimante butterfly and felt flower); addicted to stamps - things with wings; CCM - #115 It's a bugs life; card mania #46 - Emboss it; ink on my fingers week 306 - walk of life; 613 Avenue Create - anything goes with bling (bling being the embossing powder and the diamante butterfly); catch the bug - anything goes; suzybee - anything goes; delightful sketches - add dimension (embossing); Simon Says Monday Challenge - Five (patterned paper, embellishments, stamps, embossing powder and gel pens)

For the final ATC I used a patterned card that I received with some ATC's. I took a pale pink paper and stamped a bumblebee twice and coloured with the gel pens, using iridescent embossing powder on the wings before cutting out into mini squares. The butterfly was stamped onto cream cardstock, coloured with gel pens and blue, pink, gold and red embossing powders used. This was then cut into a diamond and attached to the centre of the ATC with the bees above and below.

To be entered into Country View #15 Natures Glory; Allsorts - butterflies and polkadoodle - something old (stamps), something new (patterned card)






Ooh I nearly forgot - another plus to having the in-laws here is that I now have a hanging basket planted, which will hopefully look fantastic once it fills out (although the plants already nearly fill the basket).

Hugz Tinz

Lickle birthday

Here is my card that I made yesterday using a cross stitch that I finished a little while ago. The cross stitch was a free gift with Cross Stitch Crazy magazine a few years ago, but I only just got around to stitching it - lots of other kits to do also lol.

So here is the card that I made:

I used a white card blank and cut a piece of blue gingham patterned paper, that cam free with a magazine, so a slightly smaller square. I wrapped this paper with glitter pink ribbon, blue 'happy birthday' ribbon and a gold ribbon and then stuck it to the card blank. A scalloped circle was die-cut out of some floral 'Kate Knight' designer paper and attached to the centre of the card. A floral type die was used to cut the excess fabric from around the cross stitch, which was then attached to the circle. Three jewels were added to the top left in place of one of the points of the floral circle.

I wish to enter this card for the following challenges:
#87 Anything goes with ribbon - Crafty Ribbons
Anything Goes - Crafting by designs; Simonsays Wednesday
Sketch - #217 plus tictactoe (I went for Stitching - the teddy cross stitch; Designer paper - Kate Knight; and Jewel)
#82 Add some ribbon - gliiternsparkle
#155 Faithful Friends - Ooh-la-la
#76 Stitching true or false - DeepOcean
#105 Birthday - aud sentiments
#60 Stack 'em up - simplycreatetoo

Thank you for looking.

Tina