Sketchy Free For All…

 

 

 

Evening all, quick post tonight as there’s a new challenge this week over at Papertake Weekly and as it’s the last one of the month it’s a Sketch

I chose to use the new layout but it’s a ‘Sketchie Free For All’ so you can choose any of the sketches from the back catalogue (make sure you add the number of the sketch you’ve used on your entry so we know it’s one of ours)

There is a sketches page at the top of the challenge blog to make it easier and there are lots to choose from
Hopefully this will save you having to go back through the archives to find one that you like

 

 

 

Here’s my card, I stuck pretty closely to the sketch and used an image from the Lili of the Valley ‘True Love’ art pad

The papers are Country Lady and the sentiment is from Vintage Sentiments Occasions

 

 

 

The border punch is Tonic, my punches are much neglected in favour of dies and there are some lovely ones so I must use them more often

 

Hope you like it, pop over to the Papertake blog to see full details for the challenge and as always there is some fab inspiration from our DT

 

Thanks for stopping by, I’m hoping to catch up on all your blogs this weekend x

 

 

Ohhh So Cute!

 

 

 

Evening everybody, thanks for stopping by

This week’s challenge at Papertake Weekly is a nice one… and it’s one that everyone should find very easy…

 

Ohhh So Cute!

 

we all love our cuteness don’t we!

 

I used this gorgeous Jenny bear image from the James and Jenny art pad, I love every page in this useful pad

 

  

 

 

The papers are from Shabby Shack and a greeting from the Scroll Sentiment set, all of course Lili of the Valley

 

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There’s a prize as always and this week we’re sponsored by my lovely friends Mary and Andrea from the Ribbon Girl

Make sure you have a peek at all the fab inspiration from the DT and full details for entry are all on the blog

 

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Thank you so much for all your lovely comments, I do enjoy reading them and will be catching up with all your blogs this weekend

Enjoy the rest of your evening, I’m just watching the Chelsea flower show, I’ve always wanted to go and not managed it yet. Lisa and Laila went on Monday and said it was amazing so I think next year I will make an effort to visit!

 

 

Colour challenge…

 

 

 

Morning all, hope you’re all enjoying the weekend…

I’m back again because it’s time for the new Ribbon Girl colour challenge, and this month it’s Lilac/Purples

I enjoy these challenges because it gives me an excuse to go mad with the gorgeous ribbons and embellishments, for this one I used an image from the new ‘Beautiful Blooms’ art pad and some papers from the Promises solids pad which matched nicely

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry about the pictures, the first one was in bright sunlight so there are shadows and the second one was taken on my camera at too low resolution  …but I think you can see ok!

I made a cute matching envelope also from the papers and the sentiment is from the Greetings Postmarks set

 

Here’s all the deliciousness I used from the Ribbon Girl store;

Topstitch thread

Lilac velvet lace

Tulle

Stickles

Liquid pearls

Flatback pearls

Mauve rose lavender seam binding

Bright purple organza

Button twine

Watering can charm

 

 

Do go and have a peek at all the gorgeous inspiration from the design team on the blog, you can find all the details and rules for the challenge on there …and there is a fabulous prize up for grabs as always

 

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That’s it from me, BBQ today so I need to get to Marks and Spencer early before the shelves are emptied!!

Have a great day all

 

 

Pretty Pastels…

 

 

Good morning everyone, it’s a beautiful day and the weather man said it’s going to be hotter than Ibiza here in Yorkshire! I’m going to forget crafting for the weekend and get sat in the garden, got to make the most of it I think!

 

Our theme is Pretty Pastels this week at Papertake Weekly

Lots of scope there, I know you all love using pretty girlie colours on your cards

I made a very quick card using one of the new LOTV art pads, these were launched last Saturday and this pad is great if you don’t do cute – it’s called Garden Delights

 

 

 

I used;

Spellbinders circle and lacey circle dies

Crealies flower die

Joy/Noor leaf die

Handwritten Phrases

Bonnets and Bowties papers

 

This is the second purple and green card I’ve done lately, colours I’ve taken from the image, and I quite like it!

 

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Quick post from me, I’m going to put my washing out and take Manny for a wee then it’s a relaxing day for me!

Have a fab day whatever you’re doing, I hope it’s sunny where you are too

 

 

 

Bumblebee Fairy…

 

 

Hey everyone, did you have a good weekend?

I was really looking forward to chatting with some of my lovely blogging buddies on Saturday but I barely even got chance to say hello to most of you. We we SO unbelievably busy that we hardly drew breath from 10 until 4. I think everyone had a good day (despite having to queue for what seemed like 3 days to pay  …we were so sorry about that!) and we had some great feedback about the new products

 

It’s time for another Lovely Lili challenge at the Ribbon Girl and this month it’s an easy one…

'ADD PEARLS'.

You must include a LOTV stamped image or an image from an art pad, a LOTV sentiment or LOTV paper on your card or project and as always there are 2 fabulous prizes up for grabs

 

My card for the challenge is using one of the older Lili Valley fairies, she’s called Bumblebee Fairy

 

 

 

 

 

 

I coloured her with distress inks and then stamped another skirt and layered it with a piece of organza ribbon to give her a little lacey underskirt, it looks quite cute!

The papers are from LOTV, from the pretty Always and Forever pad and I used one of the handy Sentiment tags

 

The dies are Memory Box (puffy clouds) and Doohickey (border and heart tag) and a Dutch Doobadoo butterfly

 

The rest of the gorgeousness on my card is from the Ribbon Girl;

red seam binding, tulle, organza, flat back pearls, pearl string, stickles, cosmos daisies, tiny pink rosebuds, pink open rose, blossom flowers

 

Make sure you go to the blog for a peek at the fab inspiration from the design team, and you can find all the details for the challenge on there too

 

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Hope you like my card, thanks for looking and taking the time to comment, I do love to read them all

 

 

 

 

PS. Rachel I’m so sorry I haven’t sent your candy yet, I had such a hectic week and it’s still sat here – I will post it tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birthday Fairy Hop…

 

 

Morning all, as always thanks for stopping by!

Time for another Lili of the Valley blog hop and today we’re celebrating the launch of the sweet Birthday Fairies

There are 10 adorable stamps in the set and they will be available to buy on the website from 10am on Saturday 10^th May along with some new art pads and also something different for us, some exciting new papercrafting kits

The shop in Leeds is open that day for the Birthday celebrations, there will be lots going on and we have design team members from all over the world coming along to meet you and do some demonstrating

There will be some special offers and we’re all very excited about it, it should be a really great day

Don’t worry if you can’t get to the shop because there will be some online fun too, we will let you have details nearer the time but Lucy will be on Facebook throughout the day bringing you chat, news and pictures from the shop

You know what to do, just ‘hop’ from one blog to another following the links, hopefully we can give you lots of ideas and inspiration for using these cute new images

There are hidden goodies along the hop so do be sure to visit and comment on every blog

It will be announced on the Ideas to Inspire blog on Saturday morning which were the ‘lucky’ blogs. The winners will be drawn at random from all the comments that were left on those blogs

We have 2 full sets of the new stamps to give away, 2 lucky winners will each get all 10 new designs

Here's a list of all the blogs taking part, and remember that you will need to visit them all and leave a comment on each one to have the best chance of winning;

 

Ideas To Inspire

Anne (you’re here)

Becky

Dawny

Dena

Elise

Fleur

Gretha

Jen

Kathy

Lou

Mary J

Mindy

Pops

 

Here’s what I made, and I used this lil’ cutie called Fluttering....

 

 

 

I used Wild Rose Studios papers for a change, nice bright colours

 

 

 

The butterfly is one I had in my stash, it came all the way from Holland last year and now you can buy them in our shop, it’s the fab Dutch Doobadoo range

The border is a Tattered Lace die, my first one actually as the designs are usually a bit fancy for my taste. I liked the look of this but when it came i was disappointed as it was smaller than I expected – there are 3 used on here side by side but it is a nice shape

The oval is the other Tonic set that I was telling you about yesterday, these are good value for money and I think I’m going to get the circles and squares and sell my Spellbinders

 

Hope you like my card, from here you need to go to Becky's blog…....    and if you get lost you can start again at the beginning and pick the links up from there

Finally, don’t forget to stop by the Ideas to Inspire blog on Saturday morning when you can find out who the lucky winners were of the prizes before the stamps go on sale

 

Enjoy the hop everyone, good luck!

 

 

Anything Goes…

 

 

Morning crafters, back to work today after a lovely long weekend. We didn’t go anywhere, don’t usually on bank holidays as everywhere gets so busy

Keith was working on his bike so I pottered in the garden a bit and managed to fit some crafting in. We jet washed the conservatory yesterday, It’s a horrible job but it makes such a difference when it’s all sparkling white again and the grime from the Winter has gone!

I love to go for walks when the weather is nice and I especially like it when it’s windy but I daren’t go far at the moment until I get my hip sorted out. I had my MRI scan last week, that was not a good experience at all, I have a terrible fear of being trapped and as soon as they slid me into that tunnel I had a panic attack because my arms were wedged in. She put some huge headphones on me which felt like my head was in a vice and that made matters worse, I was crying and carrying on like a big girls blouse but I couldn’t shake the awful panic. I did manage to calm down, one of them stood at the bottom touching my feet and one behind me, I tipped my head back and looked at her and the open space in the room behind me which helped a bit. I was in there for 40 minutes, the banging noise was like something out of the dark ages and I really had to talk to myself the whole way through and either look behind me or close my eyes, it’s not an experience I want to repeat in a hurry! I have to go back to see the consultant on the 12th for the results so hopefully he’ll have some answers for me, I will let you know

 

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Onto this week’s Papertake Weekly challenge and as it’s the first one of the month we have our usual Anything Goes theme

…there is an optional extra to not use any patterned papers – oooh tricky!! - but remember this is only an option and if you don’t want to use this theme then you don’t have to

I used the new solid papers from Lili of the Valley …not patterned as such although they do have a bit of texture. These gorgeous purple and aqua shades are from the Promises pad, they coordinate with the Promises patterned collection or can be used just as effectively on their own

 

 

 

 

I don’t usually blog cards that I make for friends, but it’s so rare that I use anything other than Lili of the Valley I thought I’d share this…

I have quite a few of these Uptown Girl stamps from Stamping Bella, I really like them but rarely use them. This is Lolly and her Brolly and you get the sentiment included too

I coloured her with Distress Inks, I’ve been practising and am liking the results you get, a much softer effect that Promarkers or Copics ….although, I am excited to see the new Inktense pencils that Dena will be demoing at the weekend, don’t miss that if you’re coming along to the LOTV birthday event

I bought the Tonic nesting dies from Create and Craft when they had free postage and I have to say they are much better value than the Spellbinders. You get a great size range, 14 dies alternating a basic shape and tiny scallop for about the same money, these are the rectangles

You can’t really see well on the picture but I roughed up the edges and put some distress stickles around

I also used my DooHickey fence die, EK Success corner punch and then just finished with some seam binding and a button

 

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Hope you like my card today, thanks as always for stopping by lovely ladies

…and make sure you pop back tomorrow on the LOTV birthday fairy blog hop

 

Have a great day all

 

 

Sketchie Free For All…

 

 

 

Hey everyone, it’s the weekend again already and I don’t know where the last week went, can you believe it’s May already

The weather is fab today, let’s hope it continues for a while

 

There’s a new Sketch this week at Papertake Weekly, I chose to use the new layout but as it’s a ‘Sketchie Free For All’ you can choose any of the sketches from the back catalogue and just add the number of the sketch you’ve used on your entry

There is a sketches page at the top of the challenge blog to make it easier and there are lots to choose from.
Hopefully this will save you having to go back through the archives to find one that you like :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This isn’t a colour combination I would normally use but I took the colours from the image which is out of the English Charm art pad (these toppers are so useful for a quick card) and I quite liked the green and purple for a change

The papers are from Promises 

I used one of my favourite crafty products on the flowers, distress stickles

The lovely broiderie anglaise and velvet ribbons are from the Ribbon Girl

 

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Have a look at the challenge, there is a fab prize up for grabs and always and some lovely inspiration from the DT

 

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Last week I promised I’d have some candy, I numbered the comments and the drew a winner which was you…

Rachel

Congratulations, email me with your address Rachel

I really do appreciate all the feedback, a huge thank you to everyone who takes the time to leave me a comment

 

 

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Have a great weekend everyone