GD at Shopping Our Stash - Fantastic Beasts

This month I have the honour of being Guest Designer for Shopping Our Stash , and the challenge this week is to feature a 'fantastic beast'.

The background was made with Brushos and I distressed the edges. The clock dial was cut with a Tim Holtz die and I coloured it with gold gilding wax. The unicorn was a picture I  traced  on the Silhouette and cut out of pearlised white card. The sentiment is a Docrafts stamp.

I hope you'll come and join in at Shopping Our Stash.

I'd like to enter:
Tuesday Throwdown - fave medium (Cosmic Shimmer gilding polish on clock )
Cas-ual Fridays  gold
Challenge up your life DIY background

Inkspirational Challenges - Flutter

Our challenge at Inkspirational  is to be inspired by the word flutter.

I went for bunting/flags fluttering in the breeze.  I cut the bunting on the Silhouette and stamped it with my new stamps from Concord and 9th. I made a shaker card and stamped the back panel with a sentiment by My Favorite Things (also new for Christmas!). I added some pink liquid pearls.

This time, our wonderful Guest Designer is Gina , and I hope you'll come over to Inkspirational and see what she and the rest of the DT have made, and enter your own project.

I'd like to enter:
Double D  mood board - peachy pink flowers
Dream Valley  new
Deep Ocean  new
Craft Rocket  new

Canada

I've never been to Canada,but my daughter and grandchildren visited there last year. So when I saw the 'Oh Canada' challenge at Use Your Stuff , I thought it'd be a good opportunity to scrap one of their holiday snaps.

I used a combination of papers from My Mind's Eye and plain cardstock. I designed and cut the title and the maple leaf on the Silhouette Cameo (actually the partial cutting on the leaf was a bit of an accident but I like it). I used lots of grey, to enter the challenge at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge  and buttons for Lasting Memories.

Happy Birthday Ros

Happy Birthday to Ros  my dear team-mate at City Crafter Challenge Blog . I hope she's received this card in the post.

With Ros in mind I used elements I think Ros likes (eg trees, soft background) and in doing so inadvertently made a card that is quite influenced by her own style, I think!

The tree and birds are a Clarity stencil that comes with the cut out bits to use as a mask. I used the tree mask as a stamp and stamped it in Versamark and then embossed it with white pearl ep. Then I placed the matching stencil over it and did the birds, using my new Nuvo mousse. The sentiment is a magazine freebie stamp.

I actually made this before Christmas and when I came to send it, I couldn't find it anywhere! I searched for days until I gave up and decided to make a replacement. I was just drying the background with a heat gun when it came to me in a blinding flash.... I'd put the original card under a pile of books to flatten it out! So, now I have a spare background to use for something else.

Ros ...I hope you have a great day.

I'd like to enter:
Aud Sentiments  ag with sentiment
Happy Little Stampers Watercolour  I used a stencil plus  water and distress inks for the background.
Dragonfly Journeys  birthday
Seize the Birthday  ag

City Crafter Challenge Blog - Blue Monday

This week at City Crafter, Stella wants us to create a project to cheer someone up.

Here I used scraps of patterned paper, for the background, and for the flags.The sentiments are by Avery Elle.

Our special Guest Star for Janary is Danielle , and I hope you will come over to City Crafter and see what she and the rest of the DT have made, and enter your own creation.

I'd like to enter:

Unicorn Challenge January Blues 

Crafty Addicts monochromatic 

QKR Stampede warm thoughts 

Crafters Cafe monochromatic 

Guest Designer at Shopping Our Stash - Stickle me Elmo

I'm delighted to reveal that for the rest of January, I will be the Guest Designer at Shopping Our Stash !

The first challenge theme is 'Stickle me Elmo'- use Stickles (or similar glitter glue). This was a great challenge for me as , although I use white/clear types of Stickles often, my coloured Stickles needed a lot of poking with a pin to unclog them.

I stamped this well-loved old snowman stamp (Funstamps) and coloured it with my new polychromos pencils (a present) . I added clear Stickles to the snow and gold and green Sticles to the scarf and hat. The sentiments are by Avery Elle.  I punched some snowflakes and added Stickles to them.

I hope you too will unclog your Stickles and join in the challenge.

I'd like to enter:
Tuesday Throwdown snowflakes
Sparkles Christmas  lots of glitter
Addicted to Stamps snowman
Christmas Cards All year Round add snowflakes
Daisy Chain  add some sparkle

So, Did I Conquer Paper Mountain ?

before 

after

Just over a year ago I posted a photo of my Paper Mountain  and said that my challenge for 2016 was to reduce the pile of patterned paper pads from 33cm (13 in)  to a maximum of  27cm  (10.5 in) . 

I intended to do this by making mini-books etc ( mmmm didn't happen!) and using them in cards - which I did, but I made so many cas and olc's this year....! 

So did I achieve my goal? No! I measured the pile this morning and it measured:

28.5 cm (10.2 in) 

Yes! That's 1.5 cm short of my target! This is my first fail on the craft challenges I have set myself . 

If you'd like to see my annual projects for previous years:

2015 - Empty Box Project here  and here  where I emptied a box of unused stamps.

2014- Festive 48 here and here   where I made a Christmas card every week.) 

So the positive is ...I have barely added to my paper mountain (at least for mini pads) all year ..

I've reduced the pile by 4.5 cm .

And I have more than enough lovely patterned paper to keep me going for many years to come. 

A Brilliant Day

Well, I managed to get the Christmas decorations down yesterday...only a day late! When the decs come down I always think how plain my home looks!

Anyway, here's a card that I made to play along with a few challenges. I used the sketch from Seven Hill's Crafts  as my starting point. To enter the 'cats or dogs' challenge at Allsorts , I stamped the dog (W plus 9) , which is from a new set I received for Christmas. ( So I'll enter Little Red Wagon's  something new challenge). The kite from the same set fits in with Cards 4 Guyz and Moving Along with the Times .  The splatter is a stamp by Creative Expressions and the sentiment was made up of stamps from Avery Elle, Heidi Swapp and Waffle Flower.

City Crafter Challenge Blog - Hello 2017

It's the first challenge of the year at City Crafter, and Kirsty wants us to use the word 'hello' on our projects. I used a phone stamp by Sweet Dixie  and stamped it three times.  'Just Called to Say' is from the same set, and the 'hello' is Personal Impressions (I think!) .

Our special Guest Star for Janary is Danielle , and I hope you will come over to City Crafter and see what she and the rest of the DT have made, and enter your own creation.

I'd like to enter:

Get Creative  anything goes

Allsorts something new- stamp set 

Naughty or Nice  new

New Year, Old Ideas

I know it's supposed to be New Year, New You; but here I've used old stash ( the stamp is by October Afternoon, sentiment by Docrafts) and  an old, favourite technique (paper-piecing).

The only thing new is the (strange?) layout of the card. In fact, the yellow cardstock was originally going to be the base card but then I stuck the stamped panel on upside down! So, I had to cut it up and stick it onto another card base, which I thought I'd do in an offset way. New Year, same clumsy old me!

I'd like to enter:
Stampin Royalty  spots and stripes
Penny Black at Allsorts  anything goes
Crafty Friends  anything goes