Happy Birthday Rachel

I can safely post this card now as I've given it to the lovely Rachel from The Papeterie who is 19 tomorrow. Oh to be that age again!!
It was a great excuse to get colouring one of Krista's Saturated Canary images. I've bought loads of her gorgeous digi stamps but don't seem to have the time to do much crafting.

Image : Becki from Saturated Canary, coloured with promarkers (fine nibs for the details)
gingham paper was a present from the lovely Tina, grey cardstock is stampin' up, white cardstock and diamond white stamping card from The Papeterie, greeting is Inkadinkado, spellbinders oval and lacy oval dies, Hero Arts envelope pattern stamp with Angel Pink memento inkpad and seam binding from Angel Crafts.


I'd like to enter her into :
Saturated Canary - Dies or punches (dies, plus I used a corner rounder punch on the sentiment)
Sentimental Sundays - die cuts
Cute Card Thursday - Music & Dance (sentiment)


Thanks for looking
Debz
xx


p.s. I haven't forgotten to post the embarrassing birthday pic - wait til tomorrow :)

Steampunk v Sugar Nellie take 2

I'm starting to get a feel for this steampunk thing now, at least I think I am, thought I'd use the same image as yesterday but go a bit darker and grungier, what do you think?

Image: Journey, designed by Leanne Ellis for Sugar Nellie, coloured with promarkers
I have used "tobacco" card from The Papeterie and Very Vanilla card from Stampin' Up
I stamped Hero Arts CG222 Music Background stamp with versamark and clear embossed onto the largest panel. I embossed the other 2 panels with Clockworks and Swiss Dots cuttlebug embossing folders, then used the versamark inkpad over the whole panels and clear embossed.
The greeting is Tim Holtz - Odds & Ends stamp set


I'd like to enter her into...
Passion for Promarkers - for a teenager


Have been gallivanting again! off yesterday for a quick cuppy at Kath's to pick up some things for the crafty workshop day on the 28th May - sneaky peeks to follow :) or you can see some over on Kath's blog.
Then this morning I was over to see the lovely Charlotte and Rachel at The Papeterie for a yap and to stock up on foam tape and bling.
Oh and I just have to have a moan.... I ordered some bits and pieces from this company, free delivery if you ordered over a certain amount, which I did. They processed and despatched the order in a timely manner on the 3rd May and I got an email telling me it would be delivered on or before the 9th May. They advised it was being sent via HDNL (big groan) and gave me the tracking number. So I duly tracked the parcel, it arrived at the Aberdeen Depot at 8.39am on the 4th - so I thought great, I would either get it later that day or on Thursday the 5th - well that was certainly wishful thinking. So I phoned the helpline number and spoke to a very unhelpful female there who told me it wasn't due for delivery until the 9th so they would hold it at the depot until then, NO I could NOT go and collect it as they will only allow that to be arranged after they have attempted at least 1 delivery, NO she could NOT telephone the Aberdeen depot and ask them to deliver it on Friday the 6th as they had no telephone number for the regional depots (seriously??), but after quite a bit of persuasion she agreed to email them and request a delivery on Friday. But, no delivery on Friday - and of course a weekend delivery was totally out of the question.
On Monday morning I got a text from the supplier to tell me my parcel would be delivered between 12.58 and 15.58 - so I was quite confident yesterday that I would get my parcel haha
I phoned the helpline at 6pm and spoke to a lovely lassie called Abbie who told me that my parcel was indeed on the van and that they were running a little late, but it would most definitely be delivered today.
I then phoned the helpline at 9pm and spoke to Abbie again, she checked the system and just a minute before I called, the driver had logged onto the system and said that he had tried to deliver but no-one was there to receive the parcel.
Quite clearly, with 3 kids in bed and a man offshore I wasn't away out gallivanting just a minute previous to my call so it would appear the driver was lying.
So she apologised most profusely and emailed the manager at the local depot to request that the driver be spoken to as this was not acceptable and she promised that she would ensure my parcel would be delivered Tuesday (today)
An wonder of wonders... it arrived at 11.30 today - while I was out picking Faith up at nursery. And despite the fact that they absolutely must get a signature when they deliver the parcel from this supplier, they just left it in the shed lol
But at least I have it now :) and I fired off a stiff complaint about the courier to the supplier this morning.


Right, better get on - despite getting to the bottom of the linen bin yesterday, it's overflowing again. How does that happen? are there little laundry pixies running amok while I sleep?

Purple & Green

Have been trying to get time to enter The Sugar Bowl challenge for the last fortnight, I really couldn't pass up a challenge that included using Purple could I?


I've used the fab sketch from Maria Therese and also the optional theme of Purple & Green.

Image is the beautiful Faith digi from Sugar Nellie (no prizes for guessing why I bought this one), coloured with promarkers.
papers are all Stampin' Up, MS Doily Lace punch, Tim Holtz mini rosette die, Craftwork Cards greeting.


I'd like to enter her into 
The Sugar Bowl - sketch plus purple & green
I ♥ Promarkers - anything goes
Digital Tuesday - pretty punches
Stamp with Fun - birthday


Have you booked your place on our Girls just want to have fun crafty day on the 28th May? There are still a few places left, so don't hang around. You'll find all the details on the post below.

More catching up

Well, the lurgy is still hanging around like a bad smell here - I'd like to thank everyone who left get well wishes, I appreciate them.


I have managed to fit wee sneaky crafty moments over the last few days - so I took the opportunity to catch up some more with the Sunday's with Santa Facebook group - this first one is for the Week 12 - No Green challenge...

I have stamped the Penny Black - Fantasy stamp with Versamark then heat embossed with detail white, onto this lovely spice coloured linen card from The Papeterie. I used a shaped card blank and greeting from Craftwork Cards and used the MS Cherish punches to shape the spice card.


Now, I'm not sure if it's my bug addled brain that's the problem or if it's just old age but this card started out as being for Gayles choice of Week 13 - Vintage, but halfway through it became Week 11 Snow/snowflakes - so I'll just enter it for both, yes I know that's kind of cheating, but if I have time I'll do another for Snow/snowflakes. Now I have a very loose interpretation of vintage...

White card is all from The Papeterie, embossed with swiss dots cuttlebug folder and Tim Holtz Bricked texture fades folder. The PI church image was stamped with SU Crumb Cake inkpad, and I blended Pumice Distress Ink around the edges of all 3 panels. The snowflakes are MS punches, prima e line adhesive stones, and glamour dust on the church image.


I'd like to enter both these cards into Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Xmas in Spring

Sunday's with Santa - major catch-up

I've been lagging wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy behind with the Sunday's with Santa challenge on Facebook. Now if you don't know it's a wee "just for fun" challenge started by Pops, and the theory is if we make a christmas card every week for the challenge then we are going to have a half decent stack by christmas time and we're going to be a bit more organised than we usually are lol
The challenge is currently on week 12 - and the last week I entered was week 4 - so I have some major catching up to do. Now I could've made it a bit easier on myself by making a card fit more than one challenge - but I want to make as many christmas cards ahead of time as I can manage. So over the last couple of days I have done 5 out of the 8 I need to do to catch up, so are you ready??
here goes...
week 5 - Family Christmas
I struggled for ideas for this one until I remembered my mum had given me this PI stamp set...
I'd like to enter it into the Paper Play Challenges - Distressing

I embossed 2 pieces of white card with the cuttlebug snowflakes folder and covered the join with some trim (from Simply Create). Blended the edges with Pumice distress ink.


Week 6 - Easel Card
I'm not actually very happy with this one - it doesn't quite work, but hey, it's another xmas card made

cardstock from The Papeterie, papermania embossing folder, spellbinders fancy tags die and Hero Arts greeting


Week 7 - Anything Goes - I'll be coming back to this one!
Week 8 - Pink & Chocolate 
I'd like to enter her into the Winter Wonderland challenge which is - Oh Baubles 

Baubles from Sugar Nellie, coloured with promarkers, the brown paper is Stampin' Up, the pink paper is Tilda, brown core'dinations card - shaped with EK success border punch (and I used some of the waste on the pink panel) greeting is Craftwork Cards


Week 9 - Oh Christmas Tree
Not entirely happy with this one either - it worked far better in my head

Cuttlebug embossing folder and Whitewash core'dinations card, papermania capsule collection bow, Hero Arts greeting


Week 10 - Gingerbread
Now this one had me scratching my head - a few of the girls on the FB group had used the Gingerbread stamp from Sugar Nellie, and you know how I like to be a little bit different, so I had a lightbulb moment and decided to go with a gingerbread house...
I'd like to enter this one into the I ♥ ProMarkers challenge - Go Dotty

Hero Arts CL464 Sending Holiday Cheer clear set, coloured with promarkers and glamour dust, used memento ink pads in Desert Sand and Angel Pink for the trees and greeting from the same set.
swiss dots cuttlebug folder, cardstock (torn and embossed) from The Papeterie, and polar white Flowersoft. Craftwork Cards card blank


I still have to do week 11 (Snow/snowflakes) and week 12 (no green) as well as the anything goes on week 7 but I'm getting there. If you fancy joining in the fun, you'll find the group on Facebook, here.

Simple Skin Tutorial - White Skin

I've decided to update some of my tutorials and thought I'd start at the beginning and go back to basics. So this is a simple skin tutorial for white/caucasian skintones.

 I have stamped my image (Pillow Talk from Sugar Nellie) with Memento Ink onto Stampin' Up whisper white cardstock

The first colour that I use is Coral. I have visualised my light source coming from the top right hand corner and I have used the Coral promarker where I imagine the shadows or darkest areas would be. I have used short light strokes to lay the colour down.

The next colour I have used is Sunkissed Pink, again using light strokes I colour over the areas already coloured with Coral and outwards into the uncoloured areas of skin. By colouring over the dark shade - you are blending the 2 shades together. Repeat this until you are happy that you have no hard lines between the 2 shades.

The last colour I have used is Blush, I have coloured over the whole of the skin area - again by colouring over the darker shades you will blend the shades together, eliminating any hard lines giving a smooth seamless effect.

Paper Artsy meets Promarkers

If you've been paying attention (and even if you haven't I doubt you missed the fact) you'll know that my super crafty chum Kath had the class of a lifetime with Tim Holtz - her idol. And the naughty lady brought Anne and myself some goodies home with her, including this gorgeous stamp set from Paper Artsy. Now this arty, grungy stuff isn't normally my style at all - but I'm definitely enjoying doing something new. Now these aren't the colouring-in type of stamps, but my trusty promarkers were not going to be made redundant in a hurry, so this is what I came up with...

I used Arctic Blue, Sky Blue, Azure and French Navy promarkers to colour a panel of card, then stamped the butterfly image from the Petals Plate 6 from PaperArtsy with versamark on top of my coloured background and heat embossed in black.
The smooth kraft and black card is all SU, the corrugated card is from Simply Create, the letters are kaisercraft from Merly Impressions and I used the letrajet with an Azure promarker, and a That Special Touch mask from Angel Crafts to make the polka dots on the corrugated kraft. And I nearly forgot the very bold MS Scroll Heart deep edge punch.


I'd like to enter this card into...
Flutterby Wednesday - open
Papertake Weekly - anything goes

snow

Have you entered my candy? click here to enter before xmas eve


well the kids are off school again today - going by the announcement on the local council website, our head teacher is still optimistic that they'll open tomorrow though (can't see it myself) There is now a backlog of flights at the heliport so it's starting to look a bit dodgy for Graham getting home on the 23rd. And I'm not sure if Tesco are even going to attempt my delivery on the 23rd, if they don't well it'll be beans on toast or maybe just beans for xmas dinner


Here's some more things I haven't shared with you, these are another 2 of my entries for the Cardmaking and Papercraft mag's Cardmaker of the Year competition. This first one was for the LOTV category...

Image is of course from Lili of the Valley, coloured with promarkers

papers are craftwork cards and stampin' up, cardstock is core'dinations, ribbon, pins, button and greeting all from my stash

This was my entry to the Sizzix category...

butterfly was made by sticking various ribbons onto light card and using a Sizzix Bigz butterfly die to cut out.
the leaf/stem paper is Bo Bunny, the lattice paper is Wild Rose Studio, cardstock is core'dinations, string from stash and the greeting is Hero Arts.


Stay safe and warm everyone

Simply Create DT - Glitz Scarlett 2

Back again with some more Simply Create DT creations, as I said before, these papers and things are way out of my comfort zone - but I have loved the challenge of working with things I wouldn't normally have worked with.


So here's an arty pic that I made from a blank frame (also available at Simply Create)

 I sanded the frame lightly to give it a key, then sprayed it (think theres 3 coats) with pewter mica spray - I did the same with the wooden crown shape. I then cut panels of Scarlett Stripe and Scarlett Wallpaper papers to fit inside the frame, then cut the Paper Layer advert at an angle to fit. The kit included some arrows cut from textured black card and some buttons which I arranged around the advert. My favourite Tim Holtz rosette die got yet another airing, and I used Scarlett Stripe paper to make the rosette and added a button and thread from the kit. I also punched a couple of EK Success swirls from the Scarlett Map paper. And finally added 3 adhesive gems to the crown

 Next up I thought I'd make a Bon Voyage card as I thought the Scarlett Map paper was just perfect for this purpose. I overstamped the paper with the Postcard background stamp (it's Glitz designs too) in brown versafine ink. The sentiment is Personal Impressions and I used one of the new Stampin Up border punches on the black textured card.

and yes, we're snowed in, all the schools in Aberdeenshire are closed today - I'm hoping that's not them off now for xmas.

Stay safe and warm folks xx

Crafty Cardmakers

Hi there, 
well I've been asked to take part in something very special - I was asked to represent Letraset who are one of the sponsors for this super fun challenge. I must admit it did cross my mind not to join in - because one of the things I had to do was dig out a photo to show of one of my first cards - argh!!
so, before I go doing that and scaring you, here's some more about the challenge and prizes ...


Good Afternoon!!  We're having a very special challenge here at Crafty Cardmakers for the next 4 weeks and it's something a little bit different and a lot of fun!  We've also managed to persuade the sponsors or their representative to join in the fun :)
We'd like to see your LATEST OR GREATEST creation so anything you like or a particular favourite AND here's the important bit, we'd also like to see your FIRST or the OLDEST one you have a photo of!  I can see you cringing and thinking oooooh nooooo mine's really baaaad!  Don't worry, we ALL started somewhere and I hope you can see from the samples that everybody was new once and with a bit of practice you can get better and you'll also see how much you've already got better by digging out your first efforts!
The Rules:
You can enter up to 3 times but each must contain a picture of one of your first designs and must be different techniques or items e.g. first card, first stamped card, first scrapbook page, first tag etc.  They must also be separate posts.

You can enter your latest creations or your favourites previously published alongside your old design.  You can enter in as many other challenges as you wish but many challenges do not accept older creations so just be mindful of that.

Please link back to the Crafty Cardmakers blog and mention Crafty Cardmakers in your post.
The challenge runs for 4 weeks from 13th Dec and closes at 9am GMT on Monday 10th January


We are very proud to be sponsored by a number of very kind stores for this challenge with lots of winners for this one and the prizes on offer are...

£10 voucher from Joanna Sheen

£10 voucher from The Stampman

$10 voucher for Stitchy Bear Stamps

Pack of 5 promarkers from Letraset

£10 voucher for Crafts & Me

£10 worth of stamps of your choice from Stamping all day

So here goes, this is one of my first ever cards back in January 2006, I started off with some peel-offs, card blanks and mulberry paper...now please don't laugh...

So moving swiftly on... the second part of the challenge is to post your latest or greatest card or creation so I've gone with my latest, it was the birthday card I made for my mum from Graham and myself. I had to use the stamp that got me hooked on stamping and of course my beloved promarkers from Letraset. 

Image: Daisy from Sugar Nellie (unfortunately no longer in production) coloured with promarkers
papers are Cosmo Cricket - Earth Story, card is core'dinations, MS valentine lace border punch, twill ribbon from SU, glitter dots from Papermania

So, are you brave enough to reveal your earliest card or creation? go on, I dare you - it can't be any worse than mine :)


I'd also like to enter the Daisy card into the following challenges...


The Sugar Bowl - sketch
Passion for Promarkers - anything goes