Mo Manning's Mummu's Roses for Renee

I made this card for my MIL's birthday today - Happy Birthday Renee.  I love this image which is called Mummu's Roses from Mo's Digital Pencil and can be found here in Mo's store.

Now, my MIL doesn't look like this,  but she does love an American illustrator/crafter called Tasha Tudor, who isn't so well known over here in the UK but is much more widely known in the US.  Well, that's who Mummu reminds me, not necessarily even in looks but in her look of contentment with the simpler things in life!  Hopefully, my MIL will think that too!

I've made an 8x8 card and coloured with my Flex and Promarkers.  I've added some 'dew drops' to the roses and used loads of punches and dies from Fiskars, Marianne, Die-Namics, Memory Box and Stampin Up.  the papers are from K & CO.

By the way, I'm just going to give a shout our for Tracy at Dies to Die For!  I ordered a couple of new dies and my parcel arrived with loads of lovely die-cuts for me to try and a £1 voucher off my next order as my postage hadn't cost so much - how fabulous is that and what great service!! No relation just a very happy customer!!

Sketch N Stash- A sketch with a bit of girly and a bit of bling

Well, Monday is here again - just where did that weekend go?  I know part of mine was spent with our gorgeous great-nephew Sam, who was celebrating his first birthday - we had a lovely afternoon and he even played spin the bottle!!

This is my card for our new challenge at Sketch N Stash starting today.  We're using sketch no 4 from our back catalogue and if you like we have an optional theme of Girly and Blingy.

This fortnight's challenge is being sponsored by the wonderful Stamp Fairy and the team were also lucky enough to be given an image to play with, thank you Stamp Fairy!

The Stamp Fairy

I used one of the gorgeously cute Mimi with Teddy range which you can find here.  You will see that the sketch this week calls for two images and that 's the beauty of  using digi images, you can size them to suit, or even enlarge a part of the image to use, as I've done here.

The new items on my card are of course the image, and also the flower die which I bought at Sandown in January.  For the life of me I can't remember who the papers are by, so if you recognise them let me know!  The sentiment is from Lili of the Valley and the little bow border is from a Magnolia die.

Don't forget to check out the makes from my fabulous SNS teamies - they are gorgeous!!

Basic Grey Anything Goes

Yayy, Saturday at last, hence I'm a little late as I had a lie-in! 

We have a nice easy challenge for you at Basic Grey Challenges this fortnight - Anything Goes!!  As long as you use a Basic Grey product on you card, you have free rein!!  I haven't done any paper-piecing in a while and wanted to use these mannequin dies that have been in my stash a litle while!  (Large is Tim Holtz, and the small one is from PTI, along with the matching stamp).

The image stamp is from B Line and I've had it a long time and still love it.  I paperpieced it with Lucille papers, and then layered it up with Basic Grey Manilla Basics on a Sizzix die set.  The blue floral papers, are PB&J.

The netting is from Webster's Pages, and the the cotton reel which I've used for the sentiment is also on the Tim Holtz die.

The sentiment is also PTI and the rest of the bits and pieces from stash.

We're being sponsored as always by the fabulous Simon Says Stamp, who are again giving us a $25   dollar credit voucher to pass on to the lucky winner of this fortnight's challenge.

The girls on the BG team are amazing and have made some wonderful cards for the challenge so pop on over here and be inspired!
If you're going out today, wrap up warm, it's bitterly cold here, enjoy your day!

Mo's Monthly Blog Hop - Babies

Hi everyone, I just cannot believe that we're nearly at the end of February and it's already time for our Monthly Blog Hop at Mo's Dream Team where we have a great theme of Babies (fairy babies or otherwise!), as chosen by our queen of cutting, the fabby Debby Y.  The theme is rather apt for me as my great-niece Eevee was born this week (congratulations again, Clare and Paul). 

Anyhoo, back to the matter at hand, and hopefully you will have arrived here from Jane's blog and I've no doubt she had a bootiful baby card to share with you.  I'm also the end of the hop, so if you haven't been hopping and would like to, hop on back here to Debby's blog for the start.

I've chosen the with wings variety of baby, and used Baby Fairy Sipping from a fantastic set of three (with bonus embellie images too) that you can find here! My papers are from K and Co and I took my colour inspiration from those.  I've also followed the sketch from Sketch Saturday this week, so I'm entering into that challenge,

The fence is a Tim Holtz On the Edge Die, and I've added a little birdhouse die from Marianne Dies, complete with birdie! The little flowers on the fence are a new die from Poppy Stamps called Wildflower Patch!  I thought they'd be joined together but it actually cuts the flowers individually which is a bit faffy for me but I managed it!! 

I hope you've enjoyed hopping along and I hope you've left a comment on each of my teamies' blogs as you could win one of two $5 vouchers  to spend in Mo's Digital Store.

PFP Princes and Princesses

Hi there - glad to have got Monday out of the way, I am!  This is my card for  our new challenge at a Passion For Promarkers where we have a theme of Princes or Princesses with a Crown.  I've used this fabby Kraftin Kimmie image of Cinderella which has been in my stash for a while but I'm not sure if I ever used her before! Of course we have joined her rather early on in her fairy tale and she hasn't quite nabbed her handsome prince yet, so I've left her crown off but left it up in the corner ready for when she gets her man!  I actually cut the crown with a Spellbinders Heraldry die set that I have - it was the top half of the shield, and was the perfect crown!

The dots area mixture of glitter and translucent Tulip Pearl Drops, the papers are K&Co, and the flowers are  from stash.  I managed to find a little shoe charm in my stash to go with the shoe theme, and the sentiment came with the stamp!

Our sponsor this week is the fabulous Digi Stamp Boutique who are offering a very generous 6 digi images to the lucky winner!

Don't forget to check out the rest of the gorgeous makes by my teamies at PFP here and enjoy your Tuesday!!

Janey's Digi Designs Icelandic Poppy

I think this fabulous Icelandic Poppy digi  is becoming a firm favourite with Jane's Digi Designs DT!  It has to be my favourite to date and you can find it here in Jane's online store.

I've used it to make one of those dreaded sympathy  cards that are sadly a necessity from time to time, and works perfectly for that occasion.  Mind you the DT girls have made a whole array of wonderful cards for other occasions too which you can see on the shop blog here. Mine is  coloured with Pro and Flexmarkers and very simply framed in some white and black card stock and then I've added a Memory Box Poppy Die and added in some little bugle beads to to the centre of the layered flower part just for a bit of detail. How CAS is that for me!

I found that I have very few suitable sentiments for this type of occasion so have just had to include some in my Stampin Up order!!

Thanks for looking!

Sketch N Stash New Challenge

This is my card for our new challenge at Sketch N Stash following the sketch below with an optional theme of Love.

 

I've used the gorgeous Full Heart from Mo Digital Pencil for my card which you can find here. She also comes with a fab love related quote but I couldn't fit it into my card. Isn't she a sweetie though!

I've used a variety of new dies here including the mini vintage bird cage from Memory Box along with the Tessatina border ( not very new but not used before!)  The butterflies are cut and stamped with Stampin Up goodies and I think the sentiment is PTI but for the life of me I can't think who the papers are by!

Our sponsors for this challenge are the awesome Lili of theValley with a brill £10 voucher going to the lucky winner.

My SNS teamies have made some awesome cards which you can check out here.

Always good to get Monday out of the way - hope yours goes quickly!!

Basic Grey Challenges - Your Favourite

Hi there - I'm back with a card for our new Challenge at Basic Grey Challenges where we want to see

Your Favourite - it could be the stamp, dies, papers (as long as they're Basic Grey of course), just let us know what it is.  I have a list as long as my arm, but I think at the moment, right at the top are Die Cuts and I've used a few new ones on my card - the hearts and Crest border are Memory Box, the flower is a Sweet William die from Cheery Lynn and the Corner is a new one from Die-namics.  The Fleur De Lys  frame die is one that has been in my stash for a while! 

My Basic Grey papers are always a firm favourite and here  I've used a mix of Konnichiwa and What's Up  6x6 papers. Of course, the cute image is a Saturated Canary digi image, (love these too!).

 Oh and another favourite item I like to use are goodies by PTI which is my sentiment.

Don't forget that we have our regular sponsor with us, Simon Says Stamp,  with a fabulous $25 voucher going to one lucky entry in to our challenge.

My fabby teamies at Basic Grey have made some gorgeous cards for the challenge so take a peek here.

Simon Says Stamp Challenge has a theme of  Have A Heart so I'm going to enter my card into their challenge.

I'm off out to a Stampin Up party this morning at best matey's Lesley, and I think we'll have a crafting session after!  Enjoy your day!

Elf Queen

Did you see the article in Craft Stamper Magazine (and it was on the front cover!) this month by Chris Dark (her blog is Sketching Stamper) about using your die cuts in a slightly different way? Chris has just joined the editorial team at Crafting Stamper - I'm thrilled as I love her style and colouring!! Well, I was totally inspired and thought I'd give it a go.  It involved painting and colouring with acrylics and I might have known Chris would make it look too easy - I've seen her colouring images with distress inks and copics in real life, and she sure is clever at that stuff!  And she's lovely too! 

So, I didn't quite follow her tutorial but as I say, I was inspired.  

I started by colouring my watercolour card background (having textured the edges as Chris suggested with a metalwork wheel) with DecoArt Glorious Gold slightly watered down.  I then prepainted my Bella Bouquet Memory Box die with Acrylics and added that with the Spellbinder frame.  My image is the gorgeous Elf Queen from Mo's Digital Pencil which I  coloured with my Pro and Flex Markers. I've decided to keep her as the Elf Queen for my card but she makes an equally fab Bride image.

Once I'd stuck everything down,  I then added some depth and highlights with a mix of Treasure Gold Olive Bronze and Onyx  metallic rubs. 

I added a bow of vintage seam binding and a metal flower - the centre is a vintage sequinned flower from my stash.

Although not exactly following Chris's tutorial in the mag (my colouring skills just aren't up to it!) I do rather like how this has turned out - I wanted to achieve a mediaeval feel which I hope I did. I will definitely add colour to more die cuts in future rather than just cutting them out of coloured or patterned paper.