Polkadoodle Party Time!

Time for another Polkadoodle challenge and this week Tracie chose the theme Party Time, she wants to see your party related projects.
I think I got a bit carried away with the Party Time theme this week as I have made a cutlery holder, goodie bag (using an A5 envelope), a lollipop cover, wrappers for a chocolate bar and tube of sweets, a treat bag topper, a pin the tail on the elephant game, a tic, tac, toe game and a memory game (pairs).
I used a paper from the Sundae of Seasons CD Rom and lots of images from the new Paper Boutique III CD Rom.

Head on over to the Polka Doodles challenge blog to check out the rest of the Design Teams projects and then show us yours.
Also watch out for Nikky on Create and Craft on Saturday at 11am and 3pm, she'll have loads of goodies to show you and a couple of demo's too.

Teddy Bo Tuesday

Make sure you go and check out the Teddy Bo store, there's more fabulous new stamps and our second challenge is up today on the Teddy Bo challenge blog, but before I give you the details I would like to send big congrats to Lim who won our first ever challenge with her beautiful card and receives super candy from Wild Orchid Crafts, and Kathy, Wendy and Ellen our top three who are lucky enough to all get to pick a Teddy Bo or Bea image from the store, also a big thank you to everyone who entered the challenge, all the cards were brilliant, and picking a winner was a very hard job, but if you love the bears, then it's definitely worth having a go at the challenge, you might get to win yourself one.

The theme for this week's challenge is Seeing Double, your card or project must have two items that match on it, and we are being sponsored this week by McMahon Five Designs.com, the winner receives a $15 gift certificate, they have a great selection of  products, so it's a prize well worth having.

Here's what I made for this weeks challenge.

As you open it up, two little shutters slide apart to show the second image and a sentiment in the middle of the card.

This week instead of colouring Teddy Bo I made him sepia and just coloured his flowers, I think he looks fab, what do you think?

Digi papers came from the Clipart Fairy, self adhesive pearls and flowers ( I brushed them with watered down pva glue and dipped them in glamour dust, to give them lots of sparkle) from local craft shop and stash, heart pin from the Ribbon Girl and ribbon from stash. I also rubbed Color Box liquid chalk inkpad over the edges of everything.

Don't forget to check out the new images in store and enter this weeks challenge for a chance to win some fabulous prizes.

New Home Project

Well, another week has flown by and it's Polka Doodles Friday once again. The theme for this week's challenge is 'There's no place like home' and we want to see projects and cards suitable for a new/moving home gift.
I decided to decorate a bottle of wine, make a keyring and give a small card which will hold a gift card. I used products from the All around and Everywhere CD Rom - Magical Days collection.
The keyring was made with Shrink Plastic by enlarging the house stampie (in photoshop) to twice the size I wanted the finished design to be, adding the sentiment, then flipping the whole thing horizontally to give me a mirror image. I printed this out and traced over the design onto shrink plastic with a black Staedtler Lumocolor pen. I coloured the image with Sakura Stardust gel pens, cut out the shape I wanted, punched a hole for the keying to go through and then used my heat gun to shrink it.
The keyring is one of those trolley coin keyrings, (lots of places seem to give them away to advertise their company or products, and they are brilliant for altering, as the coin comes off easily). The house on the little card is layered to give it some dimension and the card has a little pouch inside to hold a gift card. It's the kind of gift I would like, (particularly the wine, mmmmm!).

 Pop over to the Polka Doodles challenge blog to see all the other Design Team inspiration. It would be lovely if you could join us in the challenge this week too.

More Teddy Bea!

When making the card for the Guest Designer spot mentioned in the previous post I was inspired to make another version of the pop up box featuring Teddy Bea. I have been dying to use this fairy image, she really looks like she is staring up at the stars, which gave me the idea to have some stars floating above her head, and when colouring her in (digitally) I just felt an overwhelming desire to put yellow spots on her boots!!!! this then became the underlying theme for the rest of the card. I decided purple card with yellow spots was needed, but didn't have any in my stash, so made my own (insert proud grin here LOL!), then decided that I also needed ribbon to match (more grinning!), so whipped some up and there you have it. The sentiment circle comes from the Colour Your Own decoupage sheet from Teddy Bo and Co, as does the fairy Bea image. I think she looks super cool with her spotty boots!

Flat for posting

Side view

Stars floating on acetate

I am going to enter Teddy Bea into the following challenges:

Pile it On - Anything Goes

Prairie Fairy Fridays - Birthday

Totally Papercrafts - Happy Birthday

The Sisterhood of Crafters - Birthday

Incy Wincy Designs - Bears, bears, bears.

Guest Designer Spot

Today I have a guest designer spot on Penny's Paper - Crafty Challenge blog. I was lucky enough to be picked to be the featured artist last month and, from now on, the featured artist is being given the opportunity to be a guest designer the following month.
The challenge today is Anything Goes and is being sponsored by Whimsy Stamps, I used the Loving Ewe stamp by Meljen, coloured digitally in photoshop and papers from the Clipart Fairy to make a pop up box. The sentiment was a freebie from Meljen and the arch of hearts was made using a Wizard,- hearts of love die (don't think you can get this any longer), flower and gems are from stash, then because I loved the image so much, and also to show the versatility of digi stamps, I made a second card. This time I enlarged the image to make an A5 card, scored and folded it, then cut around both layers at once, printed the image out a couple more times and layered up the design. I was really pleased with the way they both turned out. Hope you like them.

The whole thing folds flat for posting.

And the second card -

The quality of the image is just as good at the larger size as the smaller, and you can't do this with rubber stamps!

I am going to enter the pop up box card in the following challenges:

Papercrafting Journey - Let's get digital
Marks Finest papers - Hearts
Phindy's place - Valentine or for a loved one
Lexi's creations - Say it with Love
Delicious Doodles- use 3 colours - Red, White, Black
Secret Crafter Saturday challenge - With Love
Southern Girls - Totally Loved Up

and finally  Meljens Designs - Round or square, hope the box counts as it is square when popped up, with a semi-circle (circle!?!?!?!) of hearts

It's Teddy Bo Tuesday!

Well folks, another Teddy Bo Tuesday, I can't believe how quickly this last week has gone.
Head on over to the Teddy Bo store and take a look at all the new digi's, they are totally fabulous! Bo and Bea are getting all romantic in the run up to valentines day, so if you are in the mood for a little romance, go see what they are up to.
There is only four days left to enter the first Teddy Bo challenge, and we have lots of beautiful entries already, if you haven't entered yet, why not! LOL! seriously though, if you make a card using a Teddy Bo image, make sure you enter, after all you've got to be in it to win it!

Here is my card for this week, made using one of the new images, Bo and Bea dancing, don't they look sweet.
I made a little gazebo for them, with candlelight and everything, so they can do lots of smoochy dancing, maybe even a Rum-bear (Rumba, get it!). The gazebo is a shadow box card, which folds flat for posting.
Bo and Bea were coloured in photoshop and their clothes are paper pieced using papers from the Clipart Fairy. Bea has matching boots, and both the dress and boots are extra sparkly, (Bea was up all night sewing every sparkle on by hand, she told me so herself), and Bo looks very handsome in his stripey tails. Candlesticks came from the Bathroom Accessory pack. The roof was made with papers again from the Clipart Fairy, punched with a Martha Stewart border punch and layered in alternate colours.

I'm going to enter this card in the Free for All challenge at Pear Tree Designs.

Come back tomorrow for another Teddy Bea card, one of my favourites so far!

Wendy's Workshop

I've had a madly busy weekend, mostly cardmaking but also having to catch up with things at home too. On saturday I attended Wendy's (the Clipart Fairy) second workshop. In six hours we made six cards, a box for one of the cards and a wall hanging. It was a very busy, but enjoyable day and a big thank you to Wendy for getting it all together, also a quick hi to Donna and Sue, hope you managed to pop along and have a quick shufti at the blog. Anyway without further ado here is what we produced.

Brilliant cards, and all the sets are available at the Clipart Fairy store and if you pop on over to her blog there is lots of pictures from the workshop, thanks to Harri, Wendy's daughter who was photographer for the day.

Hope you can come back tomorrow for Teddy Bo Tuesday, with Teddy Bo news and another card to show you, and then on Wednesday I am guest designer over on Penny's Paper-crafty challenge blog, so there will be more cards to look at including yet another Teddy Bo card, which I absolutely love to bits, and can't wait for you to see!

Bye for now!

PolkaDoodle Sketch and Colour challenge.

This week on the PolkaDoodles challenge blog, Nikky has given us a sketch and the colours red, white and blue for our challenge. I rotated the sketch 180 degrees for my card.

I used the robot from Nikky's brand new Paper Boutique 3 CD Rom, printed him out twice and layered him onto a red oval, cut with nesties. I used the Cuttlebug Clockworks embossing folding (perfect for robots) and inked over the embossed design with Tim Holts Distress Ink-Stormy Sky.

The oval was then glued to a strip of blue card, which was decorated with washers and nuts, and attached to the background with a brad so that it swivels up to reveal a hidden message.

Another nut glued near the bottom of the left hand side of the oval stops the oval from flopping down.

My thoughts are that you could easily adapt this design by changing colours and papers then adding a picture of the recipient under the oval instead and putting the wording "Look who's (age)" on the swivelling strip. The stopper at the bottom could be any embellishment with a little depth to it, flower, bead etc. What do you think?

Teddy Bo Tuesday

Today is the launch of the Teddy Bo store and challenge blog, Woohoo! and I am lucky enough to have been invited to be a member of the design team. Pop over to the new store and have a look at the very cute Bo bear and his girlfriend Bea, you will just fall in love with them, and, there's a buy 3 get one free launch party offer, so what are you waiting for, get yours now!

The Teddy Bo challenge blog is holding it's very first challenge, it's an 'Anything Goes' challenge, so head on over there, have a nosy about, catch up with all the news and have a go at the challenge, we would love to see your entries
.
I have made two projects for this weeks challenge using - Can You See Me - Bea - Colour and Bunny Bo Bea.

Can You See Me - Bea - Colour

 I took the image into Photoshop and enlarged her to A5 size, using a digi paper from the Clipart Fairy for her base, then printed her out on A4 card. I also printed the reverse of the card with the same paper. I folded the card in half and cut around the image so that the back and front were the same shape. I printed several more copies of Bea and layered her up so she is 3D, (can't really see the full effect from the photo's). I made the birthday bunting in photoshop, cut out each piece and glued them to a piece of string, which I then arranged in Bea's hands. I added glamour dust to the letters and glossy accents to her nose and there you have it.

I am going to enter this card into the challenge over at Do it With Digi's, the challenge is called New Beginnings, and although this isn't a new home, baby, job card (I've looked at it from a different angle), it is my first DT card for the Teddy Bo design team, does that count as a new beginning, as it is the beginning of DT duties, works for me LOL!
I am also going to enter it in the Rainbow Lady's Challenge, "It's All New to Me" for the same reason.
My card is also perfect for the January Digi Day challenge at Stamp Something, as my card is made up of both a digi image and digi papers, not much on it that isn't digi!

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For my second project I made a box in a bag from a tutorial found here. I thought it would make a lovely easter gift filled with chocolate eggs, yummy! The digi papers again came from the Clipart Fairy, (I love her papers), and I used the Bunny Bo Bea digi stamp.

I coloured the stamp digitally using Photoshop, and paper pieced her dress (again digitally) with another Clipart Fairy paper, then used a Marianne Creatables die for the fancy oval and swirl, nesties for the plain ovals, a Magnolia DooHickey die called Doily Flowers for the (yes you've guessed it LOL!) flower, and a Martha Stewart punch for the border. I added glamour dust to the edges of the plain ovals and the swirl, chalked the edges of the flower, then added a paper rose to the centre and flat back pearls to the fancy oval. It was finished off with lemon organza ribbon for the bow. Bea looks soooo cute in her bunny ears and fairy wings, don't ya think!

Don't forget to drop by the store and grab yourself a Bo bargain!

Polkadoodles Challenge and News!

Well it's time for another PolkaDoodle challenge, and this week the theme is 'A wish for the New Year'. I used not so plain plains in Villa from the Not For Girls CD Rom and then randomly stamped over it with the dandelion stamp from the Garden Neighbours Stamp Set, brilliant stamps, and very hard to get hold of as they sell out everytime they are shown on Create and Craft, if you want them put your name down on the wait list at PolkaDoodles. I also stamped randomly on white card as a contrast, and glittered all the dandelions on the Villa card. I made up a little poem, (puts me in mind of that little ditty, I was a poet but I didn't know it,  but in my case it should read, I'm not a poet, and yes I know it, hehehe!), and sentiment especially for the card.
The card is a normal square card and opens in the usual way, but has the slider on the front. I also used silver card, ribbon and diamonte flower embellishment from stash, and a Martha Stewart punch.

Card Front

First part of poem is on the tag that you pull up, second part is under the sliding section.

Side view shows the slider pulled all the way back.

Poem reads - Today I blew a dandelion ,

                      and made a wish for you,

                      A wish for luck and happiness

                      in everything you do.

                      A wish that you'd have hope,

                      and strength if times are tough,

                      but the greatest thing I wished for you,

                      was lots and lots of love!

Hope you can join us for the challenge this week, it's lovely to visit all your blogs and see your creations. 

Now for the exciting news, Nikky is launching a Fabulous new CD on Create and Craft tomorrow, the show is on at 12pm so make sure you catch it. The CD is full of scrummilicious goodies to get your creativity flowing, you're gonna want it! so make sure you watch.

Fairydoodler Challenge and catch up!

I've been MIA for about a week, has anyone missed me... no..., thought not!, I've been madly making sample cards for the launch of Nikky's new Paper Boutique CD Rom, which will be on Create and Craft on Saturday at 12pm, make sure you tune in and have a nosy, it's brilliant!
Unfortunately this has meant that I've been too busy to blog, and I've had some things I've been dying to tell you too, so time to catch up.  Firstly I won last weeks Fairydoodler challenge WooHoo!, how brilliant is that, I got to pick one of her kits as my prize and I chose Eleganza Light, I am hoping to have a card made with it in the next day or so, all the bits are printed just needs putting together, I also purchased the Eleganza kits in every other colour, the Wedding box and Baby bear, as they were all just too gorgeous not to.
I also won the Merry Christmas challenge on Penny's Paper-Crafty challenge blog and won 5 digi's from Fairy Dust Crafts and will be a Guest DT member for their next challenge.
All samples are now finished, posted and received by Nikky, so I can get back to normal, so here is my entry for this weeks Fairydoodler challenge.

The image is the freebie from FairyD coloured with my new Aquamarkers (haven't quite got to grips with these yet, especially the skin, my couple look like they've been frolicking in the sunshine without any sun lotion on LOL!, but I can only get better, can't I?), the blue and lemon card and the hearts are printed from digi papers from the Clipart fairy, I used a Marianne Creatables corner 1 cut and emboss die to cut and emboss four corners, I glittered the embossed sections with glamour dust and glued them onto the lemon card in a square shape, I then cut around both the inside and outside of the shape and attached to the blue card which has a circle opening cut into it using a nestie.
The flat back pearls and pretty lace are from a local craft shop.

The sentiment is on the inside of the card, and shows through the opening behind the couple, it is part of a poem by P B Shelley called Love's Philosophy and says,

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

and the moonbeams kiss the sea ~

what are all these kissings worth

If thou kiss not me?

Below is a close up of the verse.

 See you soon!