Monday 26 January 2015

Christmas Loved Up

Hi again everybody,

I have made the second Christmas card of the year tonight, as well as another ATC collection.

Here is the Christmas card:
I used a square white base card. The digital snowman and angel image is from a CDRom in my collection (I cannot remember exactly hat it was). The topper image is a digital stamp from aliciabel. A ribbon and buttons were added to embellish the card.
abc christmas B is for Bows
aud sentiments #123 Anything Goes
hanna and friends #214 Snowmen
addicted to stamps #96 Winter
abc-challenge B for Buttons and Bows
completely Christmas #47 For a child
crafty hazelnut 213 Joy to the World
avenue613 #108 Create your own (digital image, sentiment, embossing (stippling on base card), buttons and ribbon)

And here is the ATC collection:
Both of these ATC's used Honey and Hugs backing paper on pre-cut business cards (from freecycle!) with a topper from a free gift with a Crafters Companion magazine. The toppers overlapped the top of the ATC and the kissing bunnies was slightly higher so I added some buttons and a sentiment also.
Inspired by:
modsquad and polkadoodle CASE a card (link below - the image stands above the patterned paper -these also CASED a card from a magazine)
card concept #27 Love (CAS)
art impressions 151 Java Love (heart colours)
Craft your passion Anything Goes


Thank you all for looking!!
Hugz Tinz

Wednesday 21 January 2015

Love Parchmentcraft

Hi guys,

I have made two cards this evening. The first is a One Layer Card with a love theme. As the base card used is purple I used purple and yellow to stamp the hearts and sentiment to the bottom of the card front as these colours are opposite each other on the colour wheel. To finish the card I rounded all the corners.
This card is being entered for the following challenges:
OLS #12 Attractive Opposites (colours, light/dark, plain/stylised)
aud sentiments #123 Anything Goes
The Card Concept #27 Love  (CAS)
Craft Your Passion 245 Anything Goes

The second uses the Parchment craft technique for the main image. I used a stencil free gift with Papercraft Essentials back in summer for the main parchment design. This was layered onto a dark floral paper to make the butterfly really pop. Green floral card was used as a base layer with two separate strips from the Papermania Botanicals range, one a floral design and one a butterfly design. Alphabet washi tape was wrapped around this panel before it was attached to the base card, and the butterfly panel layered on top. A paper flower finishes the card.
This card is being entered into the following challenges:
SOS #185 Not your normal paper (the dark floral and botanical strips)
MMM Twentieth Century Style
CCM #130 Something Old (Parchment and dark floral paper)/ Something New (Flower and washi tape)
Creative Card Crew 79 Shabby Chic
Simply Create Too #77 For a female/Mother's Day
crafting by designs Anything Goes
Country View #23 Use Something New to you (flower embelishment/washi tape)
vs sweet ideas #30 Something New

Audio Book Review
Undead and Unwelcome by MaryJanice Davidson
The vampire king and queen have gone to return a body to the werewolf pack and are having to walk on eggshells to ensure a war does not ensue. They also find out that the vampire queen’s half-brother has an unnatural ability. Meanwhile, at home her half-sister is causing chaos due to her lineage to the devil (her mother).
The blurb on the back of this ne should be ignored as it puts you completely out of perspective and the book has nearly finished whilst you are still waiting for the ‘main event’ to happen. The main event in this book is the two separate colonies – one werewolf and one vampire. Sinclair and Betsy have to ensure that they can explain the death of one of the pack members well enough to the werewolves to prevent a war – especially as the werewolves are a close-knit family and vampires are not, so a war would be very one-sided. At home Laura, the sister, is harassed by devil-worshippers and so finds a way to make use of them – but not how Sinclair and Betsy would appreciate.

This is VERY Americanised and over-the-top, however this does make it humorous. There are ot really any suspense filled areas, but it is a light read (only five CD’s long). It gives you a brief background before the story starts, but this leaves many questions. It seems that there may be a prequel that needs to be read also. It is not a typical vampire and werewolf story, being a lighter read than most, and also turning many ideas on their heads. This is a good book if you like the less serious stories, however if you like your vampire stories to be full of suspense, then it is probably best to avoid this one.

Friday 16 January 2015

Winter Sports ATC collection

Hi guys,

Here is my new ATC collection, based around winter sports. The challenge for this collection was to use newsprint on the cards.

Each of these cards uses foil embossing which I have had for a while but never got round to using (both the foil kit and the embossing stencil), and has a calendar style sentiment.
This collection is being entered for the following challenges;
CASology 129 NBUS (Never Been Used Stash)
papertake weekly It's all new (technique and unused stash)
simon says stamp wenesday It's a guy thing
creative corner Sports Fun
Deep Ocean #95 Winter Dreams
audsentiments #123 Anything Goes
quirky crafts #1 CAS
live and love crafts #31 Winter sports

ATC #1 - Skiing

This card is on a blue base with the newsprint making the slope for the skier to sit upon, and the sentiment made with peel-off letters

ATC #2 - Ice-Skating

This card uses a green base with the ice-skater pirouetting on an ice puddle made of newspaper, with the sentiment pieced together with newsprint.

ATC #3 - Ice Hockey

Using a Kraft base card with an angled top, the ice hockey player was cut as a square rather than close-cut as the others were, allowing me to add a newsprint puc to the image. Rub-on letters were used on newspaper to create the sentiment.

Thank you for looking

Tinz

Thursday 15 January 2015

Colourful Critters

Hi everybody and welcome back to my blog.
I thought I would post my first finished Cross Stitch of the year. These two little owls were free with Cross Stitcher magazine in summer last year and were great fun to stitch. They also took only just over half the time to stitch given in the mag!
These little guys want to meet people at:
and

Here is also an update of my fish project - now at just over 70 hours!


Audio Book
Pastures Nouveaux by Wendy Holden
Two couples move from London to the country – as is becoming fashionable. One couple is poor and comprises a journalist, who originally does not want to move to the country, but is willing once it becomes evident that this is the route to securing a newspaper column, and an illustrator who finds it difficult to relax in London. The second couple are rich – a banker, who dislikes the countryside as he grew up there and finds London caters much better to his social requirements, and a failed actress, who believes her big break is just around the corner and loves spending his money. Neither couple find what they expect in the countryside.

This story is humorous and cringe-worthy in places. The couples lives become very complicated and interweaved with the village residents, and events throw both couples together with an explosive result. A very good book for long commutes, especially as it is 12 CDs long.

Thank you for taking the time to look.
Hugz Tinz

Sunday 11 January 2015

Christmas Robins

Hi everybody,

Here is my first Christmas card for 2015:



So I took a pale orange base card and layered first a patterned paper that came free with a magazine, and then some wrapping paper that I loved and saved! I stamped the image using my new papermania stamp, onto white card using pretty colour blue ink. I coloured the image using promarkers and then die-cut a lace edging using my new Marianne designs die. This was layered over the wrapping paper. To finish a wooden snowflake and a sentiment were added to opposite corners and two die-cut branches (with another new Marianne creatables die - this time one I won from a magazine just before Christmas) from the wrapping paper again.

This is being entered into the following challenges:
Simon says wednesday challenge - Something new (dies and stamp)
cute card thursday 355 What's new?
suzy bee #62 Fun in the snow
Winter Wonderland - Things with wings (robins)
Completely Christmas #45 Christmas foliage (trees)
crafty hazelnuts christmas challenge 211 inspired by Christmas music (let it snow/oh Christmas tree/Robin Redbreast (kids song))
artistic inspirations #123 a twist of NEW
scrapbook stamp society #57 Anything Goes
artimpressions 150 What's new?
alphabet challenge - X for X-periment (with wrapping paper and dies)
Jingle Belles - No time like the presents (wrapping paper)
polkadoodles Tic-Tac-Toe (sentiment, image, die-cut)
crafting by designs - Anything Goes
craftycalendar - What's new?
Country View #23 Use something new to you
cardmania #64 Make it sparkle - glitter and foil wrapping paper)
vs sweet ideas #30 Something new


Thank you for looking at my blog
Hugz Tinz

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Baby tri-fold to the Hangman

Home late tonight so still not managed to take the last tree down!! Will not have time tomorrow, so looks like it will be a job for the weekend. I can pretend it is Christmas for a little longer then lol.

My crafty creation this time is a new baby tri-fold angled card. This did not work out very well, and I am not sure about the colours, but I wanted it to be bright rather than pastels and to be unisex.
A bright red base was made into a tri-fold card, with an angled centre strip. A pastel green patterned paper was used along the accent areas. On the front area a new pram die-cut was stuck over the top of the patterned paper and a green heart die added, to overlap the fold. 'A new member of the family' sentiment was added to the card. To the top accent strip a congratulations peel-off was used, with a baby bottle, and a teddy topper was added to the bottom. On the far side panel a border punch was used to make an edging strip and a baby peel-off was added to this. Finally a 'cute' topper was added down the side.

This card was made for the following challenges:
MIM New Beginnings
crafty catz - #260 Anything Goes
catch the bug Anything Goes
creative card crew For a child
card mania #64 Make it sparkle (mirri card, gems and peel offs)
creative moments 59 New beginnings
glitternsparkle Anything Goes
love to create #148 Anything Goes
simon says monday challenge Make new friends (pram die) but keep the old (patterned paper, peel-offs)
SOS Happy NEW year


Audio book
Naked to the Hangman by Andrew Taylor
This book is based around a detective from Lydmouth, in the UK. Just as DI Thornhill’s ex-comrade from his time in Palestine reappears on the scene with a warning for him, he is forced into taking some annual leave. When this man is found dead, Thornhill briefly comes under suspicion, due to his need to know what is happening on the case. He cannot come forward with his information as he would incriminate himself in a Palestinian crime. Gradually, through brief chapters, the reader finds out what happened in Palestine, and why Thornhill is under threat of death.
However, as all this is occurring there is also an upcoming charity dance and something is going on with Miss Buckholt, who shares a house with the dance teacher, who is acting very strange. To complicate matters more, a young girl who is new to the area is also a source of trouble, though not intentionally. Both of these people can be placed at the scene of the crime, but the police have to find out what they were doing and who the mystery dead man is, without Thornhills help.

A very good suspense book. Well written and well read, with a very interesting ending.

Thank you for looking
Hugz Tinz

Thursday 1 January 2015

Spring Action



Welcome to 2015!!! A new year and new hopes (and obviously new possessions after christmas lol). I hope you all had a fantastic festive period. We had both sets of family down and it was extremely enjoyable. Too much food and lots of fun and games - no technology needed for our Christmas day hehehe. We also have three little eggs in our red-rump nest box, with mummy being a very good sitter.

Anyway, I have been playing today, but not with anything I got for Christmas. I made a Spring Bunny ATC collection:
All the cards in this collection are based around Sketch #50 from Sketch and Stash and use a bunny digital image from Hoppy Wishes which were coloured using promarkers.

They are also being entered into the following challenges:
Card Mania #63 Anything Goes
alphabet challenge W for Whiskers
abc-challenge - A for Anything Goes
Passion for Promarkers BINGO - Ribbon, Free (digi stamp) and Blooms
Papertake Weekly Pick a Fav (2 or 4 legs)
i love promarkers #250 Anything Goes
simon says stamp wednesday Anything Goes
cute card thursday Anything Goes
Stamping Boutique Spring Inspired

ATC #1

This uses a pale green base card, with hoppy wishes pink patterned paper layered over. The rabbit was die-cut and layered onto the panel, with a ribbon strip printed onto the bottom of the die-cut. A bow was added to the ribbon and a paper flower and sentiment finished this ATC.
ATC #2
This ATC has a textured yellow paper layered onto white card as the base. The rabbit image was die-cut using Nellie's flower circle die-cut and layered onto the panel. Green twine was wrapped around the yellow paper before attaching to the base. The sentiment was also printed from Hoppy Wishes, and a wooden flower finishes the card.

ATC #3
Th rabbit image was layered onto a floral patterned paper also from Hoppy Wishes, then onto a green floral paper from my scraps stash and finally onto a Kraft card base. A ribbon bow and printed sentiment finished the ATC.

ATC #4
For this final ATC the rabbit image was layered onto a Polka Doodles patterned paper with a green floral ribbon wrapped around the bottom. This was layered straight onto a purple base card. A polka doodles printed sentiment and two fabric flowers finish this ATC.

Audio Book Review
Illegal Action by Stella Rimington

This story is based around the anti-terrorism unit. It looks at spying within the country, rather than outright terrorism, though so it is an unusual story. The unit gets word that there is an ‘illegal’ (a foreigner who pretends to be from another country, other than their home country, in order to provide information for their country) from Russia and that there is something about to happen. The main character is asked to go undercover in the household of a millionaire, originally from Russia, as it is suspected that this is who the operation is going to be against. She is threatened and tries to remove herself from the position, but no-body believes she is truly in danger, including herself. This story has many twists and is full of suspense. There is an unseen twist at the end, but unfortunately the criminal is not caught. Another good book for long car journey’s.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. I would love to see you on my facebook groups:


Hugz Tinz