Blog Candy Winner!

Every good thing has to end some time and Make It Crafty blog hop is now officially over.

I know, sad...

But on a positive note it's time to announce the winner of my little candy.
So, who is the owner of those goodies??

The Hat has spoken and it's GEA from Gea's Hobbyblogg!

Congratulations, Gea and please contact me with your address so I can send you the sweet stuff! :)

On the subject of Zoe's birthday again...

...and with huge apologies for being late - I meant to be late just one day but fell asleep last night and never got to the 'puter.
Here's Zoe All Excited, probably because it's her birthday! Or was her birthday. Or she is excited because it was her birthday two days ago.
That doesn't make sense and now my head hurts :D

Oh, and I had a lovely plan for a sentiment too, that's before I discovered that my inkjet was parched dry.All-in-all it's the usual uber-organized me.

The background paper and pink matting paper are from Basic Grey, made the flowers myself and pleated loads of sheer ribbon to trim the image.

Don't forget Make It Crafty blog hop is still going strong and check out my candy too!! :)

Challenges:
Penny's Paper-Crafty - 2W - #63 anything goes
Stampin' Royalty - 3C -  #91 keep it simple

Celebrate the Occasion - 1E - Any Occasion- Must Use Ribbon
Deep Ocean Challenge - 2W - Happy Birthday
Going Grey With Scrap-Creations - 2E - It's A Girl Thing
Crafters`s Cafe Progressive Challenge - Happy Birthday PLUS "Terrible Twos"


Hugs

Happy Birthday, Zoe - Make It Crafty hop and CANDY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZOE!!!!

To commemorate this joyous occasion, we're so excited to bring you a Birthday Blog Hop disguised as a Christmas Blog Hop!! We wanted to celebrate Zoe's Birthday in style so there are lots of inspiration, prizes, freebies and even a gallery album for you to express your own birthday greetings. ;D This is one hop you don't want to miss and it only goes from now until October 12th!

The general theme for this hop is Christmas and what fun would a hop be without some new images?! Zoe has released some fabulous new holiday themed images and they are a must on anyone's holiday list - but the best part is you get 15% off ALL the Christmas digis from now until Sunday, October 2nd.  Click on this link HERE to see them all.) Be warned, the coupon code is only for this week even thought the blog hop is for two weeks - so make sure to grab them at this sale price while you can!

Before we get to the hop, there's more details and a surprise in order... Everyone in this blog hop is giving away Blog Candy!!  Whoohoo!! You'll have two weeks, until October 12th, to visit each member in the hop below and winners will be announced on Friday, October 14th on their individual blogs.  Feel free to grab the badge below and display it on your sidebar to spread the word about Zoe's Birthday and Blog Hop!

I'd ask if you're ready for some inspiration yet, but wait... we've got yet another surprise for you!! We contacted one of Zoe's artists (S.H.) who also wanted to participate and drew us this gorgeous party girl for the occasion. Thank you!!

This is "Party Girl Zoe" and isn't she ca-ute! We wanted to make sure everyone was included in our celebration so we're giving away Part Girl Zoe as a freebie to everyone who wants to join in and spread some birthday cheer!! All you need to do is create a new project using a Make it Crafty image or chippies and upload it into the gallery HERE by October 12th. Then email Barbara at ForgottenScraps@gmail.com with a link to your project to claim her!

You should have arrived here from Angela's blog - if not, I would suggest you jump straight to Make It Colourful blog and start the hop from the beginning. Believe me, you don't want to miss a thing!

Aren't the new images just freakin' AWESOME!!! There is a lot of variety in new release but I chose to practice with these cute manga adorables - Angel and Cherub together. They are also available separately but I couldn't possibly bear to keep them apart.

I am still learning how to colour that style of an image and having great fun with it! I did go a bit overboard with angels robe and shading around her eyes and as a result she looks slightly grubby and suffering with sleep deprivation. Just like me, really.

I also used some cute snowflakes and flourishes from Make It Crafty chipboard range, just dabbed them with white pigment ink.

The papers are from Prima new North County Christmas pad, which is delightfully vintage and different. The sentiment is a digi by Raindrop Echo Designs.

 And now to the candy - I have all this lot to give away to one lucky commenter!  Just pop your name onto the linky list!

 Now it's time to hop on - your next stop is Delphine's amazing blog!
 


The challenges:
Crafty Boots - 2W, SIO - (2nd week) Wings
My Mum's Craft Shop - #24 Boys and Girls
Top Tip Tuesday - 3E -2 Or More, Ribbon, Twine, Lace, Fabric
Aly's Sunday Challenge - 1E, 2W - (temporarily monthly) Bows 
Kenny K Krafty Girlz - 1E, SIO - Christmas Card
2 Sisters - #58 Gingham or Plaid
Marks Finest Papers -#74  Things with Wings
Raise The Bar - things with wings 
Hanna And Friends - #112 Anything Goes
Paper Sundaes - #88 Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations - Let's Celebrate
Magical Mondays - 2W, mystical/fantasy image - (2nd week) Christmas in September
My Craft Spot - 1E - Ribbon
Paper Creations Ink - 2W - (2nd week) Buttons or Bows

Hugs to all!

White mist

Last Saturday's challenge at Make It Colourful was (and still is) creating white mist. I really wanted to play but was colouring very last minute and top of this bit a lot more than I could chew - I decided to do a no-black-lines version of ZOE ALL EXCITED. Which was a bit of a madness, considering how detailed the image was and how small I printed it out.

It took me about triple the usual time to colour that image and I'm slow to start with!! Never mind the fact that I botched it up anyway. And now that I'm looking at her again I notice that I didn't finish off her eyes - properly - *headdesk*

I tried to publish it yesterday but Blogger was NOT playing ball and wouldn't let me into my posting area at all.

I used Maritime Abode from Steampunk release behind her, printed out as light as possible. Background was created with BV20/23/25. I then lifted out some lighter areas with colourless blender and went at it with white pigment ink to enhance the "mistiness". One of the main reasons for that exercise was to show that you don't always have to use your background stamp as detailed images, rather like silhouettes. It gives a cool feel of distance.

I haven't got a chance to make a card with that image yet but  I will this week, just wanted to show you the results of my playtime and maybe encourage you to create some white mist too! Would love to see your results!! See you at Make It Colourful!! :)

Oh, and stay tuned for Make It Crafty Christmas release hop tomorrow - you're gonna be wiped off your feel with the amount of pure talent out team sports!!

Hugs

Whimsy - A Smokin' September Release Is HERE!!

Welcome to Whimsy Stamps September rubber stamp and die RELEASE DAY!

Whimsy Stamps have released 15 fabulous new rubber stamps and one wonderful new Shapeology die today.   These new goodies are available to buy right now from the Whimsy Stamps store along with all your Whimsy favourites.

From today until September 20th, the Whimsy DT and Whimsy Special Guests will be showcasing these fabulous new stamps and shapeology die with a daily mini blog hop. Each mini blog hop has a new release prize hidden somewhere along the way and you will have 24hrs to enter each prize draw by ensuring you leave a comment on every blog listed for that day.

To be entered into today's mini blog hop prize draw, be sure to leave a comment on ALL of the DT's posts listed below by 11.00am EST tomorrow morning. All winners will be announced here on the Whimsy Inspirations blog after 12noon on September 21st.

To take a peek at today's fabulous new release creations by the Design Team, please click on the links below...

Ann Vento
Annika Ryan (me-me-meee-eeee!!!)
Debbie Eastman
Ellie Stover
Erin Bailey
Mariska van der Veer {Special Guest}
Stephanne Maraver

Here is a full list of the wonderful new rubber stamps and die released today:

3 Crissy Armstrong rubber stamps
Football Bart ~ Ock Toe Bur Fairy ~ Pum Kinnie Fairy




4 Kenny K rubber stamps
Golfer ~ Scarlett West ~ Teen Idol ~ Wasn't Me




4 Meljen's Designs rubber stamps
Acorn Mouse ~ Cat O Lantern ~ Fall Wreath ~ Little Bunny Witch




4 Raindrop Echo Designs rubber stamp sets
Autumn Letter Seals ~ Lavish Flourishes ~ Steampunk Travels ~ The Fun Life Ticket Sentiments




Raindrop Echo Designs Shapeology die

Whimsy Stamps is also offering a fabulous 10% discount on all new release stamps to all our wonderful Whimsy customers! There is no need to enter any code when checking out as the 10% discount has already been applied. (Please note that this special discount is valid for one week only and until stocks last, and expires at midnight EST on Wednesday 21 September 2011.)

And now to my card. The stamps I used were: Lavish Flourishes (stamped on twill tape), Ock Toe Bur Fairy (the main image) , The Fun Life Tickets(stamped with Stazon on acetate).

I stamped the image with London Fog Memento ink and coloured with various coloured pencils.

The paper are from Basic Grey Pyrus pad and the laser cut chipboard from Make It Crafty.

Don't forget to visit today's DT and leave a comment on their blog posts to be entered into the draw to win a new release stamp, then pop by tomorrow for the next list of showcase posts!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy our new release!

Steamin' hot-hot-hot

Hi my friends! Long time, no see - I know. Been trying to juggle full-time work and the not-so-lethal-but-incredibly-draining plague that has bestowed it's not-so-gracious attentions upon me. And my son.

So, before it gets really cold and damp I would like to show you a really warm and summery card. It was first published in Whimsy Magazine along with loads of inspiration and tips from the rest of Whimsy DT so click on this link and get yourself a nice cup of coffee. You'll be there for a while!

I used Bathing Beauty from Whimsy Stamps and combined it with The Beach digi stamp from Make It Crafty. I stamped Good Life Tickets on acetate in white and black Stazon, cut them out and layered slightly askew so it looks like white letters have a shadow. More readable that way. I also used bits from Vintage Bottle Labels Background behind the image.

The image was coloured with a combination of different things: Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and Caran 'Dache Swisscolour Water Soluble Pencils (30-tin). I used soft pastels to do the sky - don't know the brand as I got the box from discount store, works totally fine for my needs. I laid down the yellow first, rubbed with paper towel and then added orange, violet and red, blending them all with paper towel again.for a last thing I added some white on horizon, to indicate the sharp last light of setting sun.

I used Faber-Castell and Caran D'Ache pencils for the girl because they allow more detail and obscure the outlines less.

There is also a lot of Make It Crafty chipboard on this card - Butterfly Leaves, Filigree Borders, Swirly Corners, Mix n Match centres.

The papers are from Basic Grey Hello Luscious pad. I guess it is very much my sort of a card because it gave me chance to get happily mucky with all sorts of paints and sprays. Because it was originally for the magazine I actually have a list, you can giggle if you want to thinking of all that going on one card!
Winsor and Newton acrylic paints in White, Yellow Ochre, Permanent Sap Green and Gold
Tattered Angels glimmer Mists in Cinnamon, Coffee and Gold

It was a real fun card to make and I hope it was a fun card to look at too!!

Challenges I'm entering  
Gingerloft -  (1st week) Create a Sky 
I Did It Creations - Girly Girls 
Kenny K Krafty Girlz  Vintage/Grunge 
One Stitch At A Time - Use a Digi

Opus Gluei - (2nd week) Roses or Rosettes
Stamptacular Sunday - Must use a stamp - Anything Goes (It's my first time doing a sunset that way)
Cupcake Inspirations - Photo Inspiration*
Drunken Stampers - Fruity Summer Day Cocktails
Ellephantastic - September Here come the girls    
Sweet Stampin -  Anything but Birthday
Cardmadfairy's Digi Days Challenge - add flowers  
Kelley Kid's -  hot Summer/bright colors 
Flutterby Wednesdays -  #169 celebrate

Big hugs!

Here's an old biddy trying to be cool!!! :)

I have two bits of news for you. First - I hit a respectable 40 years today! I am officially old enough to forget about diets and pronounce my ample padding a normal order of things and just get on with it.

I wish.

Secondly - Whimsy Stamps & Make it Crafty have come together to create a fun Urban Themed digi collection!

Ann Vento has whipped up her magic and designed an incredible collection of
funky wall sayings, city landscapes and of course a range of super cool street signs.

Check out the Sentiments collection HERE

Make it Crafty is trying something new offering all the different elements for you to build your own urban backdrop.

Check out the Urban Street Collection HERE

Then of course, what better characters to incorporate into such a scene than the fabulous KennyK rubber stamps available from Whimsy Stamps!

Our incredibly talented Design Teams have had a blast playing with all the different elements to bring you LOTS of inspiration!

We have broken it in to TWO HOPS
HOP A Starts Here & HOP B Starts HERE at my blog!

There will be a winner for EACH HOP and if you hop your way through BOTH, you’ll go in the draw for the GRAND PRIZE TOO!

HOP A & B Winners will each receive a $15 voucher from both Whimsy Stamps and Make it Crafty

GRAND WINNER will win our full Urban Digital Collection
4 Digi Sentiment sets by Ann Vento & the Urban Elements Collection from Make it Crafty

You are currently on HOP B and should have arrived to the very beginning, you lucky duck - just keep hopping along to enjoy wonderful masterpieces of amazingly talented crafters.

I combined Hot Weave Kenny K stamp with different urban background elements from Make It Crafty. I also used a sentiment from City Talk digital sentiment set by Raindrop Echo Designs. Then I printed barbed wire from the same set in full scale on pearlescent paper and heat embossed in silver. Afterwards I went at it with different ink pads and silver leafing pen.

I have also used a new Bottle Cap sentiments rubber stamp set by Whimsy with a matching bottle cap die. It looks cooler irl - because of the shine the sentiment doesn't show very well on photo :(

The image is mainly coloured with Copics - there are some little shading areas addes with Caran D'Ache Swisscolour pencils.

Once I had decided on silver colour theme I just started piling on all the silvery stuff I got my hands on, lol. Those corners are actually silver foily stickers, I splodged them with BG72/75/79 and added some silver brads. Noth half bad!

Your next stop on HOP B is CAROLE, but before you go make sure you leave a comment below!

You have until August 21^st 8PM Australian QLD time to make your way through the hops!

Be there... or be square!

Challenges:
Challenge Up Your Life - 2W, 1E -  #50 No patterned paper
Colour Me Creative Copic's Challenge -3E, 2W - must use copic's - #24 Colour your embellishments and must be Friendship themed
Charisma Cardz - 3E, C10 – Distressing
Crafty Sentiments - 1E, SIO - Punches and Die Cuts 
Do You Stack Up? - 3E - Emboss it
Ruby's Rainbow - 2W, JFF - #9 Gems
A Spoonful Of Sugar - 1E - #162 Happy Birthday
Paper Take Weekly - Grow Your Own- use hand made or altered flowers  (my flowers are made from jewellery findings, brads and glass effect gel)
Sweet Stamps - 1E, C10, SIO - Bling It Up 
The Burtonesque Dolls - 2W, JFF - 2nd week - The Lighter side of Burton



Thanks for popping by!

Pink glow - or at least attempt at it

I haven't played with Make It Colourful team for a while and FINALLY got my act together. Of course it had to be a week for COLOUR SOMETHING IN PINK.

Well. If you have been here before you already know that I don't really DO pink. At least not well. But since it is all about challenging myself - out came the Copics and I started experimenting.

I combined Annabelle and Clockwork House in MS word toning the background image down quite a bit.

Objective was to try and get a luminous soft glow of colours using the white of the paper for highlights. There was a LOT of layering and blending involved and if I didn't use Make It Colour marker blending card, it would have been a terrible bleeding mess. I am usually pretty heavy-handed with colour so it was very tricky for me to colour like this.

I was trying to achieve that cool pinkish manga skin colour with some warmth in shadow areas so I came up (after a lot of scrapping) with V0000, RV11, E11/53 and colurless blender combo. The hair is done with BV0000/000/12/15, C5/3, blue tones B21/60/0000/23, C4 and pink RV0000/10/21/23/25. All the combos rely heavily on use of colourless blender. Clockwork house uses BV20-ties only, also with a lot of colourless blender.

I made pins with pearls and findings mainly from Quixotic Paperie, some bits were just floating in my stash. Ornate corners are a lasercut chipboard by Make It Crafty.

The flourishes are a die form Whimsy Stamps. The flowers are a result of some fabric, Nestie scalloped circles and a glue gun. :)

Challenges:

Amber's Crafts and Stuff - 1E - Sparkle & shine

Crafts and Me - #46 anything goes

Paper Shelter Challenge - 3E, SIO - #25 flowers

Digital Tuesday - include a digital element - Doilies

Paper Take Weekly - Anything goes with optional metal 

Crafters Companion -  Glitter and Glitz 

Cupcake Craftroom - 3E, posted on the 1st - Soft and Sweet 

Emerald Faerie Garden - 2W, 3E, SIO, posted on the 1st & 15th - Challenge #2: Lace

iCopic Challenge - 2E, must use Copics - Skin Tones

Victorine Originals - 2W, SIO - Bling

Bird is the Word - 1E, every 2W (lasts 1 month) -  dream

Opus Gluei - JFF, 2W -  no sentiment allowed 

Sparkles Forum - 2W - one for the girls



Thanks a million for popping by!
Hugs

Whimsy July Release Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to the Whimsy Stamps July rubber release BLOG HOP!

The Whimsy July rubber release happened last week on July 13th, but today we are hosting our blog hop to showcase the 9 fabulous new rubber stamps and 2 new Shapeology metal dies now available at Whimsy Stamps! These new goodies are available to buy from the Whimsy Stamps store along with all your Whimsy favorites. We also have our wonderful special guests joining us for this hop - Deb Routledge, Elaine Hughes, Niki Estes and Zoe McGrath.

The Whimsy Stamps DT have been showcasing these fabulous stamps for the past 6 days, so if you missed them be sure to hop on over to the Whimsy Inspirations Blog for some more inspiration!

Here is a full list of the wonderful July release rubber stamps and dies:

5 stamps from Kenny K
Boogie Down ~ Holla Back Girl ~ Hot Weave ~ Spy Chick ~ Victory Kid

4 stamps/sets from Raindrop Echo Designs
A Touch of Elegance ~ Adventure Mini Postage Stamps ~ Vintage Bottle Labels ~ Vintage Transportation

2 dies/sets from Raindrop Echo Designs
Dress Form Die (coordinates with ‘A Touch of Elegance’ stamp set) ~ Elegant Flourishes

If you would like to hop along with us today, please CLICK HERE to return to the beginning of the hop at Lori’s blog.  The hop starts today (Wednesday July 20th at noon EST) and ends on Wednesday July 27th at noon EST.

For this hop we have 6 different prize draws! We have one grand prize draw where one lucky hopper will win a selection of new release stamps for hopping along with us. We also have 5 mini candy stops throughout the hop where you can enter to win a new release stamp!

For my card I chose Spy Chick by Kenny K and a sentiment from Vintage Transportation set.

I also used new Elegant Flourishes Dies set - cut them out from the designer paper and rubbed on some metallic rub-ons with my finger.

The image is coloured with Copic markers and some accents added with Sakura white gel pen and gold Stardust pen.

The papers are from Crate Paper School Spirit pad - I know the the card doesn't have anything to do with school but the colours and patterns were exactly what I wanted :)

The cogwheel and filigree jewels are laser cut chipboard by Make It Crafty. I used metallic rub-ons on jewels/medallions and copper leafing pen on the cogwheel.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today. The next stop on the hop is the super talented Iris's Blog. Be sure to pop over and see what she has for you today. And then remember to leave comments and enter for your chance to win the prizes on offer along the hop too! 

Challenges:
Shopping Our Stash - C10 - #9 Technique not used for a while  (distressing with leafing pen)
Try It On Tuesday  -  Steampunk
Tuesday Throwdown - #58 Something Metallic
Happileigh Scrappin - SIO - Make your own embellishment
 Make My Monday - Vintage shabby chic, torn or crumpled 
Gingerloft - 2W - 2nd week - Make it Sparkle
Lollipop Crafts - July challenge - Anything goes
Ellephantastic - M, 1E - July: Celebrations 

Thank you so much for hopping with us today and we hope you enjoy all of the DT creations!

Mix & Match with Tiddly Inks & Make it Crafty

It’s finally time to release the big Mix n’ Match collection from Tiddly Inks and Make it Crafty!

Together they have been craftily plotting behind the scenes for months (making us drool in anticipation) to bring you a fabulous collection of Steampunk creations with a Victorian theme! You’ll find little steampunk houses, bits and bobs background scenes, flying contraptions, gorgeous characters and the finest selection of digital papers!

We could send you on a little hop, but they are getting a bit boring... so we knocked our heads together and thought up a game to play instead!

‘I SPY’ with my little eye...

... hmmm what do you spy??
Well to find out, head on over to where it all begins!!

CLICK HERE

PLUS 15% OFF NEW RELEASE IMAGES FOR A WEEK!!

Start Mix n’ Matching with Tiddly Inks and Make it Crafty straight away as you grab the super bargain of 15% OFF!!

Just enter the coupon code MIXNMATCH at checkout!

I mixed-and-matched this elegant Owlette from Tiddly Inks with a glorious Steampunk Treehouse from Make It Crafty.

As you can see I've been messing with watercolours again. I reduced the opacity of the background house quite a bit in Gimp to prevent it from competing with the foreground too much - and then used too bright tones for colouring it...duh! - lesson learned!

It was a pretty big image I coloured - about five and half inches square or a bit more. I was determined to add some clutter though to go with overall steampunk/ornate Victorian feel.

I used different bits of Make It Crafty lasercut chipboard and heat embossed it with three different embossing powders. I totally fell in love with these dragonflies!! To give them lil' heads and bodies I snapped off backs from some metal brads and attached these with glue gel.

Thank you so much for popping in and happy mixing-and-matching to you! :)
Hugs