Birthday celebrations and Time for Tea

Good morning folks, happy Friday to you! I'm especially happy today as when I finish work I've got a week off! I've combined two of my DT projects to create this card. Over at Polkadoodles we're celebrating our 7th birtjhday so our theme is 'Birthday Celebrations' and over at Graph'It Colouring Challenge our sponsor is Polkadoodles and our theme is Time for Tea so I've made a birthday Tea card using lots of Polkadoodles goodies and of course my Graph'it markers. We've got some fab prizes to give away on both challenges and of course there are some birthday treats too so if you have time pop over for all the details.

 I've used a digital image called Winnie Sugar Sprinkles Springtime - Cake and chocolate with Miss Candy Cremepuff! - Printable Digital Stamp Download and coloured her with my Graph'It markers. The teapot template and the gorgeous papers and embellies are all from Lavender Tea and Magic Garden.

I paper pieced the teapot template with the pretty papers and added some of the precoloured embellies and  word art along with some ric rac braid and a little bow. I coloured the image with Graph'it markers and added a little glitter to the cake and then layered her up with 3d foam pads.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Bunny Zoe's: Layers

Crafting for all Seasons: make it girly

Crafts Galore Encore: Anything goes

Everybody Art Challenge: girls

Glitter and Sparkle: anything goes

Paper Shelter: make it digital

Simon Says Stamp: anything goes

Thanks so much for visiting today, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx

Craft Box DT Debut

Good morning, this mornings post is my DT debut project for the Craft Box! I'm still doing a happy dance to be part of such a fabulous team. If you have'n't heard of Craft Box, it's a wonderful monthly box of crafty goodies which arrives beautifully packaged with a personal note from Anna the lovely lady behind Craft Box. Each month the goodies are themed and this month's box has the theme of Timeless and it's full of beautiful crafty treats, you can find all about Craft Box here

I've made a card, a necklace and a little gift box using goodies from the May box and there is still loads left, I'll be sharing some more projects over the next few days. The necklace was made using elements from the Timeless box with a few finding The beads in this months selection were in a lovely little tin so I decided to alter it. I began with a coat of gesso and then applied some of the lovely tissue from the Craft Box with matte medium. The frame is also from the May box, gilded with silver gilding flakes and applied to another piece of the beautiful tissue with matte medium. Once it was dry I filled the aperture with resin and left it to dry. I added a bow, a little pearl and then used some of the pretty washi tape in the box to cover the lower part of the tin. The pearl feet were part of this months preorder gift! 

The card was made using more of the gorgeous tissue. The focal image is a stamp from Stampendous, coloured with distress inks/ I've added washi tape, a pretty little window embellie, flowers, one of the little frames gilded with silver flakes, feathers, mirror charm and a beautiful red piece of lace

As always each craft box is full of beautiful goodies and for my necklace I used some of the beads and one of the gorgeous cabochons. I used a glue on bail to turn the cabochon into a pendant. The chain is from this month's craft box as are the beads

Phew I told you you got lots of goodies in each Craft Box lol.

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Addicted to stamps: Lace. pearls and a stamp

Creative Fingers: Anything goes

Come and Get It: ribbon and charms

Deep Ocean: vintage/shabby chic

Hiding in my craft room: feminine

Really Reasonable Ribbon: Vintage with ribbon or trim

Thanks so much for visiting today, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx

Anything Creative/Mixed Media goes at We Love 2 Create

Good morning folks, how's your weekend going? It's a bit grey and miserable here but i've made a sunny little scene as my DT project for our 'Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes' Challenge over at We Love 2 Create! We've got some lovely crafty goodies for our lucky winner thanks to our generous sponsors Premium Craft Brands and you don't even have to use our products to play along!

I've used lots of the fabulous Stamp Soup stamps from Polkadoodles to stamp up my little scene, I love these stamps and can't stop playing with them at the minute lol. You can find them here. I stamped the scene, masking as I went a long although you don't need to do a lot of masking with these stamps and simply coloured it using my PanPastels, 

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Brown Sugar: Anything goes

Crafting with Friends: anything goes

Crafts Galore Encore: anything goes

Love 2 Scrap: Anything goes

Wonderful Wednesdays: anything goes

Thanks so much for visiting today, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx

PanPastel Ultramarine Blue	PanPastel Permanent Green	PanPastel - Sofft Knives and Covers	hansa yellow	Diarylide Yellow PanPastel
Bright Yellow Green Pan Pastel	Bright Yellow Green Shade	magenta	Magenta tint	Violet Pan Pastel
Permanent Red	Permanent Red Tint Pan Pastel	Turquoise Pan Pastel	Neutral Grey Pan Pastel

Flowering Baroque Heart from Chocolate Baroque

Good morning, Claire here with a card made using the beautiful new stamp Flowering Baroque Heart from Chocolate Baroque. This is such a pretty stamp, perfect for so many projects.

I stamped the heart with Versafine Smokey Grey on white card and then overstamped with one of the beautiful background stamps from Dusky Damask using the same inkpad. I stamped the heart four more times and coloured the flowers with coloured pencils. I cut the flowers out and decoupaged them in layers to give a 3d effect.

The sentiment is from 'Best Relative Ever' clear stamp set, stamped in black versafine ink. I layered this up on black card and then made a larger background. I stamped the same background stamp randomly on glossy card with versamark and then brushed over grey dye ink. It doesn't show up too well in the pic but it creates a lovely resist effect. 

To finish off I've added a bow and a button from my stash.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Card Mania: Flowers

Crafty Catz: Anything goes

Crafty Enjoyments: lots of flowers

Crafty Gals Corner: May flowers

Craft your passion: Anything goes

Noor Designs UK: Spring flowers

Simply Papercraft: anything goes

The Crafty Addicts: Anything goes/ add a sentiment

Thanks so much for visiting today

Claire xx

Birthday Celebrations at Polkadoodles and a Discount Code!

Happy 7th birthday Polka Doodles!!!

As this anniversary is normally called the "7 year itch", the Polka Doodles team have embraced the prickly feeling by scratching that itch and mixing/scratching up some new images ... get the pun? Corny we know but the team have had great fun. So to embrace the “itchy scratch” the Polka Doodles team have thrown caution to the wind and “scratched up” a different kind of birthday celebration. Today I'm sharing my project made with the images that I chose to mix up! I've used one of my favourite Polkadoodles images,she's called Cinders (of course lol) and I've merged her with one of the beautiful backgrounds from the Magic Garden collection.

Nikky wants to give everyone a birthday treat so keep visiting the DT's blogs as we're hiding some little treats!! Today I've got a discount code for you....

BIRTHDAY 25 = 25% discount on individual downloads only 

expires 21st May midnight GMT

The birthday celebrations will be running for 2 weeks and each day someone from the Polka Doodles team will be sharing their “mixed/scratched up” image. It’s been all hush hush and secret squirrel too as no one knows who has been busy creating what and when they will be revealing their image... so the Polka Doodles team get to join in the fun too. To add an extra layer of itchy fun, everyone has also been colouring up the new “scratched/mixed up” images, (still not knowing who designed them) and they will be sharing via their blogs and on FaceBook. We really have scratched things up ... new merged images, no one knows who created what and no one knows when they’ll be sharing them ...!

I've made a shadow box using my mixed up image, I coloured the image with Graph'It Markers and popped it in the back of an 8x8 canvas. The back of the canvas was coloured with Ultramarine blue PanPastel. I used a brick stencil and texture paste around the frame and the sides, once that was dry I coloured with more PanPastels

I added some die cut 'trellis', paper flowers, faux moss, ribbon and charms to finish off. 

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Artistic Inspirations: anything goes/die cuts

Country View Crafts: Stencil

Craft Rocket: flower power

Fab'n'Funky: no designer papers

Inky Impressions: Die cuts and flowers

Little Red Wagon: Blooming fun

Sisterhood of Crafters: No designer papers

Pop over to the Polkadoodles facebook page and check out which of my teamies created this gorgeous image, you never know you may find a discount code as a birthday pressie too. We're heading towards 3000 members in our facebook group and I have a feeling Nikky has something rather special up her sleeve to celebrate!!

I'm just heading out the door to work now, thank goodness it's Friday!!

Have a lovely day and thanks for visiting today

Claire xx

Chocolate Baroque Colour Challenge

Evening all, here's my card for our colour challenge over at Chocolate Baroque Challenge. As always we've got a beautiful colour palette to inspire you and a fab prize for our lucky winner! We're all very excited as our lovely boss lady Lesley Wharton will be on the Craft Channel on Friday at 5pm with a fabulous mixed media show so don't forget to tune in!

I've made a quick card this time around, I stamped the butterfly (available as a single stamp here or as part of an A4 sheet 'Tangled Garden' here) with black versafine ink and then took some distress inks to coordinate with our colour palette and mixed them with a little water on my craft mat and splashed them on the card front with an old toothbrush. I used Peacock Feathers, Broken China, Peeled Paint and Picked Raspberry - a little artistic license as I was working from memory and thought it was pink not lilac lol.

I coloured the butterfly with my trusty old Sakura Stardust pens which give a gorgeous sparkle. I'm so chuffed these pens work as I've had them about 10 years and not used them for ages. The sentiment was also stamped with black versafine.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Crafting when we can: Clean and simple

Crafty Calendar: things with wings

Crafty Sentiments: something with wings

Through the craft room door: Anything goes

Try it on Tuesday: spots, dots and splashes

Thanks so much for popping by today, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx

Birthday Treats at Polkadoodles!!!!

Happy 7th birthday Polka Doodles!!!

As this anniversary is normally called the "7 year itch", the Polka Doodles team have embraced the prickly feeling by scratching that itch and mixing/scratching up some new images ... get the pun? Corny we know but the team have had great fun. So to embrace the “itchy scratch” the Polka Doodles team have thrown caution to the wind and “scratched up” a different kind of birthday celebration.

The birthday celebrations will be running for 2 weeks and each day someone from the Polka Doodles team will be sharing their “mixed/scratched up” image. It’s been all hush hush and secret squirrel too as no one knows who has been busy creating what and when they will be revealing their image... so the Polka Doodles team get to join in the fun too. To add an extra layer of itchy fun, everyone has also been colouring up the new “scratched/mixed up” images, (still not knowing who designed them) and they will be sharing via their blogs and on FaceBook.

We really have scratched things up ... new merged images, no one knows who created what and no one knows when they’ll be sharing them ...!

Please do take the opportunity to visit the Polka Doodles team and see their new digi images because you will find a discount code (or two) along your way that you can use in the Polka Doodles shop.

Today I'm sharing a card made with one of my teamies crafty mixture, I adore this image which is created using images from the fabulous Winnie Sugar Sprinkles Collection and an adorable dog from Work and Play!

This was a really quick card, I coloured the image using my Graph'It Markers, cut the shape and added a button and some twine. It was a very quick colouring job as I've had a really hectic weekend but I hope you like her!

Pop over to the Polkadoodles facebook page and check out which of my teamies created this gorgeous image, you never know you may find a discount code as a birthday pressie too. We're heading towards 3000 members in our facebook group and I have a feeling Nikky has something rather special up her sleeve to celebrate!!

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Aud Sentiments: anything goes plus a sentiment

Chocolate Coffee and Cards: just us girls

Crafty Gals Corner: dots and stripes

Dragonfly Dreams: summertime

Kitty Bee Designs: girly cards

Well it's time for work so i'd better go.

Thanks so much for visiting today, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx

A new challenge at Graph'It Colouring Challenge

Good morning, we're trying out some amazing combos over at Graph'it Colouring Challenge this week, We've got a fabulous prize from Little Miss Muffet for our lucky winner and also some Graph'it goodies from Cult pens up for grabs so pop on over to the challenge blog to find out all the details. 

I loved colouring this supercute image 'Celeste Amberglow Celebrate More' from our sponsor! I wasn't sure about this colour combo but once it was finished I was quite pleased with how it turned out, just goes to show its good to step out of your comfort zone. Here's the pic I used for inspiration

You can find a full list of the Graph'It markers I used over on the challenge blog. You can't see too well on the pics but I've added some bling with a Graph'it Silver Sparkle pen, I love these pens they are sooooo glittery.

I kept the card pretty CAS, just stamping a sentiment, adding some faux stitching around the edges and matting the image on some coordinating cardstock. 

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Cards in Envy: Girls

Incy Wincy: Clean and simple

Less is More: pastel colours

Sisterhood of Crafters: no designer papers

Where the HeART is: one layer/anything goes

Thanks so much for visiting today,

Claire xx

Free Download at Chocolate Baroque

Good morning folks, I meant to post this yesterday but I forgot lol. Another hectic week at work has scrambled my brains but better late than never I suppose. We've got lots of inspiration for our challenge over at Chocolate Baroque Challenge plus another gorgeous free download from the talented Lesley Wharton! We're also very excited as Lesley is going to be doing regular hows on the Craft Channel!!

This month's free download is a real beauty, Lesley creates such gorgeous papers I always feel its a shame to cover them up so I've stamped a scene over this one so you can still see the pretty paper in the background. I've used stamps from Chocolate Baroque's Landscape Edges and the Design a Tree multi buy for this one. I began by stamping the clouds and background trees with versamark and then applied PanPastels over the top to create a delicate background. Next I stamped the trees and gave them lots of lovely foliage using Memento I'nks. I decoupaged some of the elements from the beautiful freebie paper, distressed everything with Gatherd Twigs distress ink and added a sentiment from Words of Inspiriation to finish off. You can find the free download here.
I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Crafting from the Heart: Anything goes
Crafty Friends: in the garden
Inspiration Destination: anything goes
Stamping Sensations: Anything goes
Sunday Stamps: creating a scene plus sketch
The Crafty Addicts: Anything goes plus a sentiment


Thanks so much for visiting today, hope to see you again soon
Claire xx

Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes at We Love 2 Create

Good morning, it's looking like a lovely sunny day so I think I may leave my craft room for a few hours to enjoy a long walk in the park with Barney my black lab. Before we go on our adventure, I'd like to share a project made for our new 'Anything Creative/Mixed Media Goes' challenge over at We Love 2 Create. As always those lovely folks at Premium Craft Brands have a fab prize for our lucky winner and Top 3 honours will be up for grabs too.

I've used all sorts of bits and bobs from my stash, including a gorgeous resin frame from Craft Box, adding lace, die cuts, metal embellies etc to my canvas. Everything got a generous coat of gesso and once that was dry I applied another coat but this time dusted over PanPastels while the gesso was wet, using a brush to mix the pans and blend the colours. Once that was dry I added a little gold PanPastel and highlighted some areas with gilding flakes. The image is a stamp by Indigo Blu, stamped on tissue using a mix of Versafine smokey grey ink and flitter glu. I gilded the image and applied with matte medium,, adding a little colour with Graph'it markers.

To finish off I've added some splashes of Pebeo fantasy paint in gold.

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Altered Eclectics: Anything goes

A Place to Start: upcycle

Craft Your Passion: anything goes]

Indigo Blu: Spring is in the air

Inspiration Destination: anything goes

Love to Scrap: Girly

Rhedd's Creative Spirit: Anything goes

Through the Purple Haze: anything goes

If you've got a minute pop over to the challenge blog, as always my teamies have lots of inspiration for you. Thanks so much for visiting today

Hope to see you again soon

Claire xx

Pan Pastel - Magenta

Bright Yellow Green Pan Pastel

Diarylide Yellow PanPastel

PanPastel Light Gold Metallic

Pan Pastel, White (fine) Pearlescent

Blots and Splashes at Fashionable Stamping Challenges

Hello crafty friends, it's time for a new challenge over at Fashionable Stamping Challenges and this month our theme is 'Blots and Splashes' so it's a great excuse to have some messy fun. As always our lucky winner will receive a generous prize from our lovely sponsor Flonzcraft so I hope you're going to play along. Don't forget though we do need to see stamping as the focal point of your project, no digis are allowed!

I've made a wall hanging for my DT project using lots of recycled elements. I used some old corrugated card for the first layer, stripped the top layer off and then applied white gesso. Once that was dry I diluted some acrylic paints (gold, teal and green) with water and splashed them on with an old toothbrush. I added some bigger splashes along the top and tilted the card to let the paint run. 

I repeated this on the next layer which was made with an offcut of white card, scraps of designer paper (Prima Believe) and old dictionary pages.

I stamped 'Kate' one of Julie Nuttings fabulous Prima Doll stamps on white card and on some dictionary pages which I coloured with Graph'It Markers. I paper pieced her dress using another scrap of Prima paper, adding some shading with my GI markers. I layered Kate up on 3d foam pads and added some faux moss around her feet.

I made the flowers from die cut paper flowers, adding seed beads to the centres. 

To finish off I've added lace, ribbon, raffia, buttons, twine,  a teeny weeny peg and a pretty brad. The sentiment is from Chocolate Baroque, stamped on kraft card.

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and more: make your mark

CRAFT: paper piecing

Crafty Catz: Girls only

Creative Corner: ladies night

Creative Knockouts: tic tac toe

 (my line is stamp, sentiment, ribbon)

Hannah and Friends: flowers

Simply Create Too: Ladies only

Thanks so much for visiting today

Claire xx

Chocolate Baroque on the Craft Channel

Good morning folks, a quick post to let you know that the lovely and very talented Lesley Wharton will be on The Craft Channel at 11am today with some gorgeous Chocolate Baroque stamps and Brushos too!  I'm just rushing off to do a little shopping so I'm back in time to watch, I love Brushos but I'm definitely a beginner with them so I'm looking forward to some tips from our Lesley!

This is one of my samples for the show. I had a play mixing Brusho's with white gesso for the background and used one of the fab wooden blanks from Chocolate Baroque. I slapped on loads of white gesso, misted with water and then lightly sprinkled on some crimson Brusho. I was really cool watching the brusho crystals reacting with the water and gesso. Once it was dry I added a little crackle medium and some more white gesso .

The tree stamp is one of my favourites, it's from the Glade A6 set or you can get a full A4 set of lots of gorgeous trees too . I love these stamps as they come with lots of different leaves, flowers etc so you can create you own tree and of course using different colours enables you to change the seasons. 

I stamped the tree on white tissue with versamark and embossed with Gold EP and applied it to the background with matte medium. I chose not to use any of the leaves but added dots of glue, glitter and mica flakes to my tree. The sentiment is another old favourite, from Chocolate Baroque, Words of Inspiration.

I'm entering this project in the following challenges:

Crafting with friends: Anything goes

Creative Fingers: Anything goes

Simply Papercraft: Anything goes

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Home decor

Southern Girls: texture

Well I'd better scoot off as the cupboards are bare and I don't want to miss the show!

Thanks so much for visiting today

Claire xx

Steampunk Fish from Chocolate Baroque

Good morning folks, well it feels like Spring is finally here at last! Blue sky and sunshine always makes me feel so much better. I'm sharing a mixed media project made using Steampunk Funky Fish from Chocolate Baroque. The DT are showcasing some of their old favourite stamps and have lots of inspiration to share so it's well worth a visit to the Chocolate Baroque Blog.  I'm a huge fan of steampunk and had the idea of creating a porthole effect looking out onto the fish swimming in the ocean.

To create my sea for the centre of the port hole I inked my brayer up with turquoise dye in and rolled it over crumpled paper before brayering some white glossy cardstock to give the dappled effect of light shining through water. I stamped the images on white glossy card with versamark and embossed with a sparkly gold embossing powder and coloured with distress markers. I cut the fish out and glued them to the sea and set them aside to dry while I made the background and the porthole.

The background was made using some silver self adhesive tape from a local DIY shop, I've no idea what it's used for but apparently plumbers use it. I had a better use in mind though and set to snipping random shapes to create the 'faux riveted metal' technique. I haven't used this technique for ages as it does take a while but it's great fun! 

Next I peeled off the backing from the silver tape and stuck the shapes at random on some white card until it was covered (except for the area where the porthole was going to be positioned). To create the texture of the rivets you can use various different tools to create different effects, I used a ballpoint pen, an embossing tool, an old credit card and and a prpelling pencil. I created dots and lines along the borders of the pieces of tape. Once I was happy with the texture I coloured the silver tape with alcohol inks using shades of brown, yellow and orange. Next I applied some verdigris embossing powder. I gave some die cut cogs the same treatment and attached them to the background, adding some metal embellishments from my stash.

I made the porthole by die cutting some greyboard and painting with a mixture of gold and copper acylic paints. I added some 'screws' with tiny circles of card and a fastener from my stash.

To finish off I've added some more embellishments coloured with paint and some copper ribbon to hang the project up.

613 Avenue Create: Anything goes, twist beach/nautical

Altered Eclectics: Anything goes

Critters and creatures: always anything goes with a critter/creature

Fab'n'Funky: 3 or more layers

Little Red Wagon: anything but a card

Rhedd's Creative Spirit: anything goes

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: home decor

Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes

Thanks for visiting today,

Claire xx

Things with wings at Polkadoodles

Good morning folks, we've got a new challenge over at Polkadoodles and this time around our theme is Things with Wings. As always my teamies have got lots of inspiration for you and we've got a fab prize up for grabs so pop on over to the challenge blog and find out all the details.

I've had lots of stamping fun creating this card using some of the fab new Stamp Soup stamps! I just love toadstools and I couldn't resist making a fairy too. The staircase and backing papers are from the CD collection 'Magic Garden', the stamps are mostly from the Magic Garden stamp set with a couple from Little Kingdom. These new goodies sold like hot cakes on C&C but you can preorder yours here and here! Be warned though, these stamps are totally addictive!

I began by stamping all the toadstools and the fairy and colouring them with distress inks before cutting them out. The fairy  was made by stamping one of the  toadstool stalks for the body, the wings are flower petals and her legs are leaves. Her head, hat and feet are just little shaped stamps and her hair is one of the lovely swirls. Because  they are clear stamps they are really easy to use.

 I printed out the backing paper and the staircase. I stencilled the brick background around the stairs using more distress inks and added some grass with a paintbrush.

I layered the toadstools and fairy up and then popped my little scene on the backing paper. I've added lace, ribbon and pearls to finish off. 

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Addicted to Stamps and more: make your mark

Artistic Inspirations: Anything goes

Dragonfly Dreams: Summertime

Lemon Shortbread: Anything goes

Little Miss Muffet: Anything goes

Penny Black and more: Anything goes with stamping

Simon Says Stamp: Stencil it

Sweet Stamps: Anything goes

Through the Purple Haze: anything goes

Thanks so much for popping by, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx

Anything goes at Eclectic Ellapu

Good morning folks, how's your weekend going? It's been really cold here but at least it hasn't snowed (yet lol), I cant' believe I've had to get my warm winter coat back out when a few weeks ago I was walking Barney without a coat at all. I think someone has broken Spring as I'm sure its not meant to be this cold. It's time for our new challenge over  at Eclectic Ellapu. We've got some very talented new teamies and our theme this month is a nice easy one .... its Anything Goes!

For my project I've made a card using the gorgeous new Stamp Soup stamps from Polkadoodles, I've had soooooo much fun with these stamps I just can't stop using them lol. This card was made using distress inks for the background, over stamped with some of the Stamp Soup elements in contrasting colours. The focal image was made using more Stamp Soup stamps, I used one of the quirky little hearts for flower petals, stamping in versamark and embossing with white embossing powder to create a resist. Again I've coloured with distress inks and added lots of splashes and splatters. The sentiment is also from Stamp Soup.

I've added ribbon and lace to finish the card off.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Creative Card Crew: embossing

Creative Fingers: Anything goes

Cute Card Thursday: no patterned papers

Inspiration Destination: anything goes

Little Miss Muffet: anything goes

Simon Says Stamp: anything goes

Tuesday Throwdown: Anything goes

Thanks so much for visiting today, hope to see you again soon

Claire xx