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,

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,

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!

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,

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

Passion for Promarkers - Mega Christmas Challenge 2020...

Good morning crafty friends! This week sees the start of our month long Mega Christmas challenge over at Passion for Promarkers, with an amazing list of sponsor prizes up for grabs and a super simple challenge theme of 'Add a Sentiment'...

Your creation doesn't have to be festive, but if that's what floats your crafty boat, then go for it! As long as you include a sentiment somewhere on your project and use your Letraset/Winsor & Newton mediums, then you could be in with a chance of winning one of these fabulous prizes!...

Dies to Die For are offering 1 lucky winner a £20.00 gift voucher

Uniko Stamps are offering 1 lucky winner 1 stamp set (must be in stock)

Di's Digi Stamps are offering 1 lucky winner a $6.00 gift voucher

Dr Digi's House of Stamps are offering 1 lucky winner 2 digi images

Leann’s World 101 are offering 1 lucky winner 2 digi images

Crafty Sentiments Designs are offering 1 lucky winner 3 digi images

Colour of Love digis are offering 1 lucky winner 3 digi images

All Dressed Up stamps are offering 1 lucky winner 2 digi images

Bugaboo Stamps are offering 1 lucky winner a $12.00 voucher

Cowling & Wilcox are offering 1 lucky winner a 12 pack of Promarkers (Manga set)

Wow! I'm sure you’ll agree our sponsors have been super generous once again this year!

Both design teams will be sharing some inspiration with you but as it such a long challenge we will be posting the inspiration from Team 1 today over on the Passion for Promarkers blog and then in two week’s time we will be posting inspiration from Team 2.

I have to admit that I really struggled with this card! What started out as a simple embossed card, turned into a marathon card with everything chucked at it bar the kitchen sink!?! There's coloured embossing, fussy cut flowers, die cut holly and berries, plus a tag, snowflakes and stamped sentiment...after three hours, I admitted defeat...mainly because I didn't have another three hours to play around!  I'm sure some of you will love it, but for me, it was very much an uphill struggle!

I would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and do hope that you can find the time over the festive period to play along with our Mega challenge...

I hope to be back at some point with another crafty make or two, but can't guarantee it the way things are at the moment! I would just like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who visits my little corner of Blogland and hope that the New Year brings more time to create and share with you.

Take care and crafty hugs,

 

Passion for Promarkers - Glitter & Sparkle...

Good morning, crafty friends! Another Tuesday appears and it's time for a brand new challenge over at Passion for Promarkers! The lovely Julie is in the hostess chair and she has given us a topical theme of Glitter & Sparkle...Julie would like you to include something sparkly or glittery on your creations this week i.e. glitter paper/card, stickles, sequins, gems and with the festive card making season in full swing I’m sure this will prove to be a super easy challenge this week!  We can’t resist some glitter and sparkle on our creations at this time of year can we?

We're being sponsored by The Paper Shelter who are offering one lucky winner 3 digi images of their choice from their online store...

The DT all got an image to play with this week and Julie picked out the ever so sweet 'Fairy Christmas Eve'... 

As this super cute image is so detailed, I decided to keep my card clean and simple! I printed the image in PS, after adding the night before Christmas verse and decoupaged the head and stocking of that little sleeping fairy.

I added some Tim Holtz Festive branches and a die cut paper bow, before adding glitter to the fairy trim, wings and candle and the pine branches and snow. There seemed to be a lot of empty space in the bottom right corner, but I needed something simple, so added some die cut snowflakes for texture more than anything.

As you can probably tell from my well spaced posts, things are still rather busy in our household and priorities have to be made to try and build our new business. I am working two jobs, completing card orders, DT cards and workshops, plus trying to keep on top of the housework and feeding the family! As you can imagine, my days are pretty full and I certainly sleep well at the end of it!

I hope that you can join in with our fun challenge this week and look forward to seeing all of your wonderful creations! Thanks for stopping by and I hope tobe back soon!

Crafty hugs,