Thursday, 28 January 2021

A bit of crafty time...

 

I picked up this Sizzix flower die a couple of years ago in the sale (it was a bargain!) but have never really known what to do with it...
 
Roll forward a couple of years and a change in crafting style and I thoroughly enjoyed inking and layering it up to create this pretty, almost stencil style, corsage! After making it up in my favourite colour tones (pink, of course!...although it is more of a coral pink?!) I decided to try it in muted tones for a sympathy type card...
 
 
 Hope you're all keeping well and enjoying a bit of crafty time, like me?! Although it's back to the grindstone and cooking tea before going to work now...and on my Birthday too!
 
Hugs,


Tuesday, 19 January 2021

Passion for Markers - Anything Goes...

 Good afternoon, dear crafty friends! I'm a little late as I forgot to write my blog post last night and was working this morning...but as they say, better late than never?!...

We have a brand new challenge starting today over at Passion for Markers (don't forget that you can enter using any type of marker and any type of creation!) and a super simple challenge theme of 'Anything Goes'...

We're being sponsored by Bugaboo Stamps who are offering one lucky winner a $12.00 voucher to their online store...

We were lucky enough to get an image to play with and I picked out the ever so sweet Birthday Elephant and went with my preferred CAS style of card...


I coloured the elephant up using my Pro/Flexmarkers and then fussy cut him out, leaving a white border. I inked a piece of white cardstock with Broken China Distress Oxide around where the image would sit, wrapped a couple of layers of string around and then popped my elephant on using foam pads. I stamped a Happy Birthday sentiment and added some sprinkles before attaching to a 6x6 inch card base in a green swirl pattern - this type of card will be a great way for me to use up some of the patterned card that is too heavy for mat and layering...

I do hope that you can play along with our easy peasy challenge theme this week and look forward to seeing all of your wonderful creations! Right, off to stencil some more tulips...but if anyone asks, I'm doing the ironing?! Ha, ha!

Crafty hugs,



Monday, 18 January 2021

SCP213 Tulips...

 After a conversation with the lovely Anna from workshop about using the tulip dies (that came free with this month's Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine) to make a stencil, I decided to have a go and have to say, am really pleased with the result!...


 A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to win a Sizzix bundle from Hochanda and in it was a pack of stencil film...I cut out the different tulip dies and cut the leaves 3 times, so that I could mask off the different parts using Scotch tape and stencil each part individually...

I inked up the flowers using Tattered Rose, Abandoned Coral and Festive Berries for the pink version and Squeezed Lemonade, Wild Honey and Ripe Persimmon for the yellow/orange one and then cut them out leaving a small border.

I cut a piece of white cardstock 14.3 x 10cm and using Christina Griffiths' Fancy Flourish stencil, added a colour fade to the right hand corner in a coordinating ink. I then used a script stamp to add a bit of extra detail before matting onto a darker colour, 14.8 x 10.5cm. I used the HAPPY part of the Happy Mother's Day stamp that came with the magazine and the Birthday die cut, which I think is a Memory Box one called Decor Happy Birthday.

I attached the tulips with glue on the stems and foam pads under the flower heads and finished with a crystal dot for the 'i' and 3 pearls before matting onto a polka dot panel 16.5 x 12cm. I cut my 5" x 7" card blank down by half a centimetre widthways, so that my borders were equal...



I do like how they both turned out, but of course my favourite has to be the pink and aqua colour combo, as it's probably my favourite combination to use.

I think I'll definitely be making some more stencils and spending an hour or two inking up some tulip flowers to create some more of these simple cards...

Thanks for dropping by!



Tuesday, 5 January 2021

Passion for Markers - Birthdays challenge...

 Good morning, crafty buddies and a Happy New Year to you all!

We have some amazing changes over at Passion for Promarkers, with a new name, logos and the opportunity to play along with our challenges using any markers you like...

From today, our new name will be Passion for Markers and our challenges will be open to any marker mediums, be it, Promarkers, Copics, Zig, Karin, Spectrum Noir, etc... as long as your creation includes a hand coloured element using the markers of your choice, then we want you to play along!

I get to kick off the proceedings with a super easy challenge theme of 'Birthdays' (I have lots in January!) and we're being sponsored by one of my favourite illustrators, the uber talented Lee Holland who is offering one lucky winner a choice of 2 digital images from his online store...

We were lucky enough to get an image to play with and I picked out the ever so sweet 'Boy's Birthday'...


Having 2 boys (and a husband!), I was always on the look out for images to use on boys' cards and this little man is just perfect for those inbetween birthdays, when they've outgrown cutesie but aren't yet teenagers!

I raided my scrap drawers for the papers (I am determined to make a dent in them this year!) and kept the design quite simple with geometric lines and not too many embellishments! I coloured up the little boy with my Pro/Flexmarkers -

Colour List 
Skin - Almond, Blush, Dusky Pink, Sunkissed Pink
Trousers - Denim Blue, Cornflower, Cadet Blue
T Shirt - Pebble Blue, Blender, Red
Balloon - Sunset, Red, Poppy, Burgundy
Present - Cool Aqua, Duck Egg, Surf Blue, Petrol

I do hope that you will continue to support our challenges as you have in past years and look forward to welcoming new entrants and seeing all of your wonderful creations! 

Crafty hugs,



Friday, 1 January 2021

Some exciting changes for the New Year!...

Good morning crafty friends, and a very Happy New Year to you!  We hope that 2021 brings us all a better and brighter year and things can start to get back to some sort of ‘normal’.  Crafting kept us sane in 2020 and I’m sure it will continue to give us hope and stability again this year.

We are interrupting you this morning with some exciting news regarding the Passion for Promarkers challenge blog.  We have decided from the first challenge on 5th January 2021 we will be opening our challenges to ALL types of markers.  We of course still love our Promarkers but we have to move with the times and we know lots of crafters love their Copics, Spectrum Noirs, Zig markers, Karin markers and lots more so whatever type of marker you use you will be welcome at our challenges from January 2021. 

To make our challenge more visible we are going to update and refresh our name to ‘Passion for Markers’ and will have a new blog header and badges which I was happy to design...We can’t wait for you to see them.  Nothing else will change, the challenges will still be every Tuesday morning at 9am, the design team will continue to make amazing creations to inspire you each week, our generous sponsors are still supporting our challenges with their fantastic prizes and we will remain a friendly, happy part of blogland to brighten your world each week. 

We hope you will continue to support our challenges as you did in 2020.  We want to spread the word of the changes to our challenge so we would love it if you pop over to Facebook and share this post.  As a thank you we will be putting all the names of everyone who shares the post into a hat and the lucky winner will win a £10 voucher to whichever craft store they wish (or if you prefer a 10€ or $10 to a craft store in Europe/US).  You must share the original post on the Passion for Promarkers Facebook page (this will change to Passion for Markers very soon). 

Don’t forget you still have a few more days to enter our Mega Christmas challenge with a chance to win one of the awesome prizes we have up for grabs so please use the linky here (only 3 entries per person please and ONLY PROMARKERS allowed for this last challenge).

Stay safe and here’s to a brand new year at PFM!

Crafty hugs from,

Lisa and all the Passion for Markers team