Teddy Bo is famous!

What a surprise one of my fellow design team members got when she opened her latest issue of Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine to find that the Teddy Bo Challenge website had been picked as one of their favourite blogs. Well you can image the excitement at Teddy Bo HQ, lots of squealing and happy dancing! Teddy Bo is taking over the world, one furry hug at a time!

Well it's another Teddy Bo Tuesday and that can only mean one thing, Gayle has some fab new images up in the store, there is even one of Bo and Bea celebrating the Royal Wedding! make sure you go along and check them out, here are a couple of my favourites from this weeks selection.

Still on the wedding theme, although not "that" wedding LOL! I have made a Keepsake plate for some friends of my daughter who are getting married later this year (same ones I am making the wedding stationery for). I have used the pre-coloured Wedding Car digi, some little hearts I made in photoshop and a pretty font called Adorable which I downloaded for free from DaFont. The image, wording and hearts were printed onto Safmat, (a clear self adhesive film), cut out leaving a small edge,  peeled from the backing paper and stuck onto a 10 inch plate (easy peasy) which cost me 60p in Ikea. Once nestled in tissue paper and boxed it should look fab.

Don't forget there is still time to enter the Teddy Bo challenge, Buttons and Bows, you have until Sunday midnight to get your entries in!

Here comes the bride!

First lot of wedding invitations finally finished woohoo! so I can finally settle down to some sort of normality for a couple of weeks before I start the next lot. Anyway, today I thought I would show you what will be the first of three wedding projects that I will be sharing with you throughout the following week. I have had this card made for some time now, but had forgotten to post it.

The Here Comes the Bride image is a digi stamp from Karen's Doodles, coloured in Photoshop, the pink paper is from the pink silk ribbons set from The Clipart Fairy, I made the heart and rectangle frame from the same paper. I inked around the edges of the card, papers and flower with a pink fluid chalk ink pad. The flower was made using circles of crepe paper, scrunched up around a brad through the centre. The fern was made using a punch given to me by my friend Karen a long time ago. Pearl hearts, flat backed pearls and white ribbon are from stash, and as usual a very liberal sprinkling of glamour dust finishes it off.

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges:

Karens Doodles - fancy and feminine

Card Makin' Mamas - embellish it!

Charisma Cardz - Wedding/anniversary

Crafty Sentiments - Glitter

Crafts and Me - Glitter

Going Grey with Scrap Creations - pick 3 - ribbon, flowers, pearls

The Stamping Boutique - Handmade flowers

Polkadoodles Sketch Challenge

This week's Polkadoodles challenge is a sketch, now to be honest I am not a great lover of sketches, I find them very constraining, I like to go with the flow, but I have to say I took one look at the sketch and the design was there in my head, so way to go Dee, great sketch.

I flipped the sketch 90 degrees clockwise then used the New Polkadoodles CD, Double Sprinkles of Kraft, Nikky has collaborated with Sharon Armstrong on this one and they have come up with a fab CD full of gorgeous images and papers. It's very popular with the other DT members too, check out the Polkadoodles blog, for some great examples of what is available on the disc.
I flipped the sketch 90 degrees clockwise, all papers and images came from the Double Sprinkles CD. The little scene is made up of various stampies, I coloured in the black and white wellies stampie, and layered it up to give a 3D effect. I used the Kraft alphabet to spell out the word retirement. Although my card looks just like the sketch when closed, I have cut the front narrower than the back, so the right hand edge of the bottom (stripey) mat is actually part of the insert.

Closed showing full sketch

open showing front is cut narrower than back

Part of sketch design is used for the insert

Close up of image

Don't forget to check out the Polkadoodle challenge blog to see what else the Design team have come up with for this weeks challenge.

I am going to enter this card into the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly - anything goes & something new (CD)
Card Cupids - Dots and/or Stripes
I Did It Creations - anything goes
Craft Your Days Away - spots and stripes

Oh no, Teddy Bo!

Well it's that time again, Teddy Bo Challenge Tuesday has rolled around once more, is it just me or is time really flying by?
Our challenge this week is to Punch It!, no ladies, that doesn't mean the hubby, the dog or the bad mannered shop assisstant in the supermarket LOL! Get out your punches and show us your projects containing a Teddy Bo image and some punched embellishments, simple as that, can't wait to see what you all come up with. The lucky winner this week gets to choose the Teddy Bo Ten, yes 10 images from the Teddy Bo store, is that a great prize or what?

I had to hunt out my punches and dust them down it's been so long since I actually used them, more into die-cutting these days.

Teddy Bo is looking a tad embarrased, he's obviously been over indulging a lot recently.

Teddy Bo was coloured in Photoshop as usual, I printed him out several times and layered him up to give a 3D effect. All papers used came from The Clipart Fairy, his jumper was from this set here and the backing papers on the octagons and card were from the Urban Roundabout papers 2 set. The chocolates were punched out of fun foam using my X-cut punches, square, oval, circle and heart, they were then drizzled with Tulip 3D fabric paint, (which I've had for years) for decoration, the hearts were sprinkled with flower soft to represent crushed nuts. I made a little box for them to sit in. Ribbon is from stash. I made a couple more chocs in photoshop for the insert.

Make sure you pop over to the Teddy Bo store and check out all the new images, you can start planning which ones you'll choose if you are lucky enough to win this fortnights challenge LOL!.
Here are a couple of my favourites.

I am entering Teddy Bo into the following challenges:

Craft your passion - anything goes

Cupcake Craft Challenge - comedy rocks

Crafty Cardmakers Spotlight Challenge - Decoupage

My Partner in Crafting Crime - Layer it up

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day to all you wonderful mums and grandma's out there, hope you have a good one.

Just quickly wanted to show you this card I made using one of FairyD's fabulous new fairy images,
her (Fairydoodler) images now not only feature at http://www.aimeeasher.com/ and http://www.mcmahonfivedesigns.com/ but she has also opened a 'FairyD store' at http://www.teddybo.com/ so all her digi's can be found in one place.
I love faires, and just couldn't resist having a play when I saw this one (still trying to get wedding invitations done, and still easily distracted LOL!).
I've been meaning to post this since Thursday but have only just managed to get around to it today.

As usual she was coloured in photoshop, I also made all the papers, moon and stars myself, the vintage seam binding and star pins (covered in tacky glue and dipped in gold glamour dust, I also glued a couple of bugle beads to the pointy end as I am always worried about someone getting hurt on the point) are from The Ribbon Girl, rhinestones from stash, all the large stars are outlined with gold glamour dust and the fairy's dress and wings are liberally sprinkled with crystal glamour dust.

This card is suitable for the following challenges :

Pixie Dust Studios - fluttering wings
Crafty Purple Frog - anything but square
Charisma Cardz - bling and sparkles
Stamp Something - April's digi day- use a digi
Fairy Knoll - whatever!
Digi's with Attitude - anything goes
Card Makin' Mamas - embellish it
Bling it on - use digi image and bling
Ellephantastic - anything but square or rectangle
Catch the Bug - anything goes

No Printed Papers

That's the challenge over on the Polkadoodle blog this week, show us your card or project but do not use any printed backing papers, you can make your own but no ready made ones.

I made my own paper in photoshop by using a stampie from the Sundae of Seasons CD and dotting it randomly around the paper, I added some wording which I shaped and again randomly placed around the flowers and some little dots to fill the gaps. I used this paper on the bottom section of my card, the top section is embossed using the Crafts Too daisies folder and my big shot machine. I added glamour dust to the embossed part of the design, printed out a large version of the flower twice, shaped the petals and layered one on top of the other, I threaded a silver grey ribbon through the 'buttonholes' on the flower and tied in a bow. I also made a border from the same flowers for the card insert.

Check out the Polkadoodles challenge blog and see what the rest of the design team made of the challenge.

I will be entering this card into the following challenges

Digital Delights - Flowers

Do you stack up - Clear, lt pink, mauve

Ambers Crafts and Stuff - Flowers

.....and the three bears!

Just a quick reminder that you still have until Sunday midnight to enter the latest Teddy Bo challenge,

Buttons and Bows,

with a chance of winning a great prize of a £10 voucher to Bunny Zoe's store and a couple of images from the Teddy Bo store.

This week I have made three cards using some of the images from last Tuesday's new releases, Christening Bea, Christening Bo and Communion Bea. Also found some lovely crosses at Clipart Fairy which are just perfect for these cards, papers used for all three cards are also from the Clipart Fairy.

  Christening Bea digi, paper from Button It Pink interactive set here, pink cross here, Marianne dies for circle and corners, pearls and ribbons from stash, and lots and lots of glamour dust, which isn't showing up too well in the photos.

Christening Bo digi, background paper is a freebie from here, blue cross here, ribbon and pearls (teddy Bo's buttons) from stash, used nesties for circles and plenty of glamour dust.

Holy Communion Bea, pink cross as before, spotty paper from here, insert paper from here, ribbons, flowers and pearls from stash, Bea's shoes have been painted with pearly watercolour paint and I used Tulip pearl fabric paint on her headress, and lots and lots of glamour dust.

I am going to enter my cards into the following challenges, for most of the challenges any one of the cards would be suitable, but for the odd ones that ask for something specific to just one of my cards I will list the appropriate card next to the challenge.

Craft Your Passion - use a bear
House of Gilli - Ribbon and Pearls
Paper Playtime - Anything Goes
One Stitch at a time - Mothers day or Babies
Pink Gem - anything but square - Holy communion card
Delightful Challenges - Pastels and ribbon
Dutch dare - Celebration
Paper Romance - baby themed easel card - Christening Bo