Ahhhhh !!!

I've just been contacted by Ali from the Gingersnap Creations blog to be a visiting guest artist in October.....OMG is this scary or what, I'm thrilled to bits to be asked though, so I'd better get crafting, actually its a good excuse to buy some extra goodies ....just in case. Which is what I did earlier cos Jennie from The Artistic Stamper is giving us 10% discount this weekend naughty or what ?
Have a great bank holiday weekend
hugs

Compendium of Curiosities....

Evening peeps ......will it never stop raining, its pouring it down again here again, and it feels like winter rather than late Summer lets hope we get a nice September, fingers crossed, I made this tag following the challenge over at Lindas, this week it'is Blended Batik.....never done this before or come to think of it I had never heard of it so I started this tag late Monday evening after getting back from the class I did at LB Crafts, hence the added metal arch....now there is a story as to why I had some metal left over as after cutting out the piece I needed for the arch it disappeared.....could I find it.... no, Lynne had a look, emptied out the rubbish bag, looked on the floor......and after we had given up looking and I did it again...there it was under my handbag how it got there is beyond me. Oh well I got to do it again and add it my tag I added a metallic embellishment which I coloured the centre with alchohol inks.....as I've said before I struggle with removing the colour from the metal that is raised, I end up taking off more colour than needed.....so I did this with a cotton wool bud, so much easier even if its not quite how I should do it. The flower was stamped with the caligraphy stamp that I used for the background tag.......I sneeked downstairs to use the iron (see technique in book) I felt guilty as my hubby had done the ironing whilst I was at class that day...what a sweetie.

Challenges

Compendium of Curiosities.......Page 36 Blended Batik.

Sunday Stampers.....Flowers.

Simon Says stamp and show.......Tim Holtz inspired.

WOYWW

wow another Wednesday has rolled around again so its woyww ........yay, actually today its more Who is at my Workdesk Wednesday....... see below to see what I mean. I'm amazed at how many of you dear fellow crafters out there shop at Ikea ......seen quite a few workspaces with the same shelves.....mind you they do sell great storage ideas, I'm struggling with storing ribbon though....so if any of you have any ideas I'd really appreciate some thoughts, I've brought a metal thinghy with metal hearts which I think are for holding photos so I've adapted it to hold my ribbon and finished tags.....it'll have to do for the time being until I can come up with something else.

Who is On My Workdesk Wednesday

........my grandson has taken to having a little play in my craft room

if hes not emptying the drawers hes climbing on my chair and

swivels around on it......great game.

I know Tim Holtz calls this distressing but my grandson calls it dabbing

and when he sees my inks out he says "dabber nana".

Please note messy desk in background......see I can make a mess.....lol

as you can see hes got the technique.....'Dabber' down to a fine art now

look of concentration.......

Have a great day everyone

hugs from Daniele x

Shattered....

Morning....and so far the sky is blue unlike yesterday as it hammered it down, I had a class at LB Crafts yeserday with the very talented Lynn, we were making a Printers tray and each panel had lots of different techniques.......I was shattered at the end, you don't realise how intense the classes are until you stop....its a good job Lynn keeps us going in tea and biscuits to keep our energy levels up. We used metal, alchohol inks, I struggle with these as I usually take off some of the background as well rather than all the raised parts....I need to pracitice as I love the finished effect, we also used ferro and terra....and added lots of Tim Holtz bits n' bobs. A great day was had by all.

have a great day everyone

hugs from Daniele x

Off to get my grandson so no time for taking it easy ....lol

Lets Ink it Up.....

Another great inky challenge......this is the first challenge over at Lets Ink it up......now this is slightly confusing as Sundays challenge was posted yesterday as it was Sunday  in Sydney Australia  but I'm sticking with Sunday in England so I'm posting my entry today....Sunday, told you it was confusing. My friend Annette is on the Design Team and her entry is a lovely tag, the challenge is anything goes with the inclusion of the colour yellow. For my project I thought I'd try extra hard just for Annette so she'll think I'm a girlie swot......lol, I decided to alter a frame.....only a £1 from poundland and its wood which is even better, I stamped all of the images onto tissue paper, then stuck this down using Claudine Helmuths medium matte gel. Distressed the top with inks in tea dye, old paper and scattered straw. The image is from Crafty Individuals and I stamped and embossed a border around the image. The flower is a stitchels design by Hels and sold at The Artisitic Stamper, and the challendge at Sunday Stamper is ......flowers, the rose has been blinged with distress stickles.

Challenges

One Stop Crafts.....not a card.

Moving along with the Times........glitter.

gingersnap creations.....3 dimensional....box,bag, frame etc.

Little Red Wagon....altered item.

simon says.....make a gift.

thanks for taking a peek.

and leaving a comment.

P.S. I don't need any viagra so please do not bother leaving a message anonyomous......lol

sorry someone has left a message trying to sell me viagra. ......personally I'm trying to give it up

as it leaves me feeling a little stiff all over......roflol

hugs from Daniele x

Compendium of curiosities

Today is stocktake day at work..... that means this afternoon we'll be counting all the chocolates in the shop, how bad is that ? it makes you hungry just thinking about it....yum yum!
This project is a late entry for me.....I've been working on this for the best part of the week, just needed to add the distress stickles, which is the challenge this week over at Lindas L3 Studios this week. I chose fabric for this project inking the backround first, its easier if you spritz the fabric with water first, the colour inks I have a used are victorian velevet, tea dye and brushed corduroy and then I used a caligraphy stamp from The Artistic Stamper for the background, the paris stamp and postcard stamp is from Viva, the Eiffel tower stamp is from Paper Artsy....this, I added Brushed corduroy distress stickles  to give a metallic finish to the tower. The image of the lady is from Crafty Individuals and I used distress crackle paint in rock candy on the top of it, the dream ticket was distressed and and then added rock candy stickles on top, distressing the edges. The flower is from Prima but I used distress ink and glimmer mist on it to get a more aged look.

Challenges

Compendium of Curiosities.....distress stivkles.

Papercutz.....anything goes.

Stampin for the weekend......anything goes.

Polka Doodles.....vintage.

fab n' Funky...flower power.

Tag Tuesday.....not on paper.

Pink Elephant....ribbons and sparkles.

More Paper than shoes...a trip to Paris.

Shabby tearoom.....photo inspiration colours pinks,cream roses.

One stop craft.......not a card

Have a good weekend and thanks for taking a peek

hugs x

Delish tags

Evening peeps I've just discovered some delish tags that are a freebie download over at Dezinaworld, I've just printed them on eggshell card which I got from Cuddly Buddly and I'm thrilled to bits with them I'm just about to cut them out whilst watching the final of celebrity masterchef, check out the website here.

off to cut them out now

hugs x

New Look....

Yay my son has been updating my blog for me as I was feelin' a little dated, me as well as the layout of my blog......lol, I'm going through a vintage period so he's designed my blog to reflect that theme, check out the header thats hes made for me, he painted the running chocolate.....yum yum, just needs a strawberry to dip into it, hmmm, I knew getting a degree in computer game programming would come in useful, he's fallen in love with 3d digital art so he spends all day creating....hopefully one day he'll get a job and get paid for being creative. I'll show you some of his art another day, its quite amazing well I would say that I'm his mum.

Today is day 3 and 4 of the days of Christmas by Barbara Ann, all of the images are available as stamps, digi downloads and decoupage and can be brought from Cuddly Buddly so there is something for everyone, stamps are as little as £3.99 and the papers are £2.50, again I used distress inks to colour in the images and the feathers are glimmer misted in gold and donated by my nesting wood pigeons not quite French hens buts it the closest I could find without going on a trip to France and I don't think Kim would have paid my expenses.......

On the third day of christmas I true love gave to me...................three french hens.

On the fourth day of christmas my true love gave to me ......four calling birds.

Challenges

Colour Create.......duck egg blue, Ivory and one other colour(green), see first card.

Rainbow lady.....paint it.

Spoon full of sugar.....Christmas in July

Have a great day...looks like its going to rain all day today.

Thanks for taking a peek and leaving a comment.

hugs x

Just Inspirational

Evening fellow crafty bloggers..........todays challenge at Just Inspirational is anything to do with hobbies, activities or entertainment we also have a sponser this week..... Lothian Crafts. My dt card is a Cuddly Buddly digi Image, so apt as my son is glued to his laptop or computer so I went with the entertainment theme or is the hobby theme hmmm...., the image was coloured in with distress inks and the papers are a digi download. Should have coloured the hair blue to match my sons

hugs x

My true love gave to me......

Morning, I'm a little bleary eyed this morning as we went to the cinema last night to see the Sorcerers Apprentice....it hasn't had any major advertising locally and the cinema was quite empty but its a really great family film.......10 out of 10 from me.
Todays couple of cards are from the new release of Christmas cards from Cuddly Buddly  and are designed by the talented Barbara Ann Williams, it was a great challenge doing these card for Kim as they are a little different in style to the usual cuteness, but the images lend themselves to be more creative. I layered and distressed the background plate adding gold embossing powder to parts of it, then the finishing emellishment are feathers which I glimmer misted in gold, now the feathers were kindly donated from a pair of wood pidgeons that I have had nesting in the garden for a few years now......they're real obliging birds so they got extra bread crumbs. Both images have been coloured in using distress inks with added red bling for the accents. Papers are all downloads and there are 4 packs to choose from....the colours are muted with deep vintage colours

day one....partridge in a pear tree

day 2........ turtle doves

two more days to follow tomorrow

thanks for taking a peek,

and I greatly appreciate your comment so a big thank you from me

hugs x

WOYWW

Week 3 of WOYWW...... well it is for me, (week 63 at Julias) many thanks to all the kind comments that I recieved from so many talented crafters last week, I must admit its kind of addicted visiting all of your amazing work spaces, I tried to get round alot of your desks and I'm sorry if I missed the odd one.I'm glad you liked the containers that had previously contained yummy things and now contained stashy things. I was gutted though no more trifles this week so no additional containers on my desk, however I was naughty and ordered some more bits and pieces ......well I have got some spare space on my shelves.

naughty but nice.......

Have to put the clock in my room to remind me to stop crafting and go and get ready for work, I'm working on a tag which I'm doing on fabric at the moment, so I'm posting this in between drying time

.

Have a great day everyone looking forward to visiting your desks this evening,

off to work now ......well I do get to sell chocolate all day so its not all  that bad

yum yum....

Thanks for taking a peek and I really appreciate you going out of your

way to leave a comment.

Hugs

Wendy Vecchi style.....

I have to confess I don't own any Wendy Vecchi stamps so when I saw the challenge at Simon Says stamp and show this week was in the style of Weny Vecchi I thought .....hmmm this could be a bit difficult, I like her quirky little houses so I decided to use those as my inspiration.

Distress inks used are Pumice, weathered wood, Dusty Concord, Bundled sage and stormy sky, the stamps for the background and the roof are from B Line, and the flowers and leaf stamps are from The Artisitic Stamper. The centres of the flowers I distressed with black acrylic paintas is  the window frame which I made using german scrap and the image is from Crafty Individuals, I used distress crackle paint on top of the image to represent the glass in the window.

Challenges

Simon Says stamp and show......in the style of Wendy Vecchi.

Pollycraft....stitching real or faux

Creatalicious.......vintage.

thanks for taking a peek

have a good day

hugs x

Sun Flowers.....by

Evening peeps I couldn't believe it when I went on Hels crafty Stamper challenge blog this morning and saw that she had the challenge......jars/bottles, even more weird was she had used the same stamp and similar techniques for crackle glazing and colouring the water, even the cap I'd cut off and placed in the same place....psyhcic or what......and no I didn't copy her, I actually won a £15 spend at The Artistic Stamper after Hels pulled my name out of the hat last week. When I saw a challenge at Gingersnap creations a couple of weeks ago .......in the style of a Famous painter, I knew I wanted to do Van Goghs Sunflowers, so being as the stamps I won arrived yesterday I got to making this tag last night, The image is stamped on aceate and then coloured with alchohol ink (pool) on the reverse, on the front I used crackle paint...rock candy.

The flowers were made using a freebie stamp from the Craft Stamper magazine a few months back, I inked the card first with a combo of Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade and Scattered Straw and then stamped on the top and used 3 layers of stamping to create the flower when assembled I smooched some frayed burlap in the centres and sprinkled some gold embossing powder on.

 The stems are made from wooden stirrers that Mac Donalds kindly donated ....lol, they're great for stems as you can cut the wood with scissors to shape.I raised the edges of the bottle to give it the dimension of a rounded bottle, just left extra acetate at the sides and folded them under and stuck one side down then repeated the other side but brought the side in more to create the raised rounded shape. The background of the tag is coloured with same Distress inks and the text stamp another one from The Artistic stamper is called Calligraphy Mat 13 its a great size for doing backgrounds.

Challenges

Sunday Stamper......bottles/jars

Totally Gorjuss......aqua/water or the colour aqua.

Polka Doodles......stamp onto acteate or Vellum.

gingersnap creations......famous paintings or painters

Tuesday Taggers......sunshine, flowers were actually made out of a sun stamp.

Thank you for leaving a comment

much appreciated

hugs x

And finally......

morning fellow crafty bloggers today post is the last for my Christmas DT cards for Kim at Cuddly Buddly.....this is my favourite cos its pink....lol, so I saved it till last. Next week sees the release of Barbaras Dt cards called the 12 days of christmas so I'll post them when she has released the stamps later on in the week. The image was painted with h2o's and Sakura pens. Have kept the card simple with no embellishments as I wanted to see the delish papers......quilted holly and frosted lace are the paper downloads again from Cuddly Buddly. Have entered this in The Crafty Padchallenge as the theme is glitz and glitter

have a great day

I'm off to clean up after my grandson now as I had him over night,

he's raided my craft room, he keeps saying "dabber" and then gets my distress inks and sponges out and starts dabbing them everywhere ....hence "Dabber" I guess. All I know is he makes a mess.

Bless.

Thank you for your kind comments

they are very much appreciated

hugs x

and yet another.....

Todays post is ......Day three of my Christmas DT Cards for Cuddly Buddly, this stamp is  called nativity, the snowflake is from Marianne dies and blinged with stickles, the image is coloured using Distress inks

challenges

Papertake.......something old (ribbon), something new (stamp), something blue ( papers)

Creative Beli......paint and old stash (ribbon).

have a great weekend

hugs from Daniele

Another Christmas card....

Evening peeps here is another DT card that I did for Cuddly Buddly all of the christmas images are now available as stamps, digi images and decoupage sheets , the papers are again quilted holly priced at £2.50 the papers are delish. Hope you've  all had a mishap day being as its Friday 13th......I'm off to the Netherlands for a week soon for a holiday, my son wants to go to Movie world in Germany and I'm hoping to go craft shopping in Holland and Germany so if anyone out there knows of some great shops to visit can you let me know please, When we go to Italy there are no shops that I have ever come across and I've looked believe you me.

Challenges

Alphabet challenge......P for Punches

Praire fairy.....photo inspiration, greens , brown and gold

hugs from Daniele

Christmas stamp release...

Morning I'm quite excited as today see the launch of the new Christmas stamps from Cuddly Buddly....we had all been given some of the new stamps to make up into cards but we don't know what the other designs are that we have all been busy working on, so there is an anticipation in the air to see what we all came up with.....Kim is such a tease, by the way there is still time to enter into the challenge this month so hop over there and join Linda with her fun challenges, there is £5 spend for the winner. The papers used are also downloadable from CB and are called Quilted Holly,they are suibtle shades of lilacs and greens and to be honest can be used for other occasssions. the snowflake is from one of the Marianne dies which I added stardust stickles to for added bling, each of the letter tiles were embossed in holographic and individually cut and mounted for a raised effect, the image has been coloured with sakura pens and Distress inks....my new fave colouring medium.

Challenges

Stampavie.....christmas in July.

Everybody art.....check it out.

Creative card crew....cute and girly.

By the cute and girly....Animal antics.

have a great day

hugs from Daniele

WOYWW

 This week at woyww I thought I'd share with you all the edible containers I've collected that are on my desk storing my stash........Recycling is what I'm doing( thats my excuse for eating more) but I did enjoy eating the contents, the shortbread tin now holds my bottles of glimmer mist, I adore shortbread but I only ever treat myself to it at Christmas, the bean tin (must get round to altering that) holds my Sakura pens and the container with stickles in originally contained a Summer fruits trifle which just happens to be on offer at the moment hence I've got a couple of these containers ....yum yum, they are so handy, so I may need another container/trifle again this week....lol.

happy wednesday off to check out some other desks now

hugs from Daniele x

Compendium of Curiosities

Another Monday and another compendium of curiosities challenge over at Lindas fabby blog L3 Studios this week its Distress Crackle on page 42...... calamity I didn't have any crackle paint as I have never used it before so had to make a mad dash to the nearest shop and buy some and of course you end up buying extra stash as well and I was trying to be so good this month.....oh well I'll try and be good next month...lol. I think I used too much paint as it cracked rather than crackled if that makes sense on the frame.
I used Dusty concord and broken china for the colours of the tag, I've used an assortment of stamps from Crafty Individuals, Artsy, Viva and Crafty secrets. Image from Crafty Individuals.

Challenges

Studio L3......compendium of curiosities page 42.

Sunday Stamper.....Music.

Tag Tuesday....crowns.

Gingersnap creations.....paint

Delighful sketches......distressing.

Fab n' Funky........fave colour

Simon says stamp and show.....things with wings

Not sure which challenge....

morning fellow bloggers, I've managed to finish the last 3 Dt cards for Kim at Cuddly Buddly crafts ready for the new Christmas release coming soon, stamps and papers are lovely, so in the meantime my son wanted his hair colouring again as it had faded out......not done this before but I can watercolour paint so it can't be that hard........and the results are

cool or what I think it looks better than when the hairdresser did it,

now what challenge should I enter it in .....?

Off to a barbecue this afternoon, my nephew is 19 tomorrow now he posted the deets on his facebook page but forgot to mention it to mum and dad so when I saw my sister yesterday I asked what time she wanted us to come round......well you can guess the rest, they hadn't got a clue what I was going on about, she made a mad  dash to the shop this morning for meat etc........that kids for you.

hugd from Daniele

Fashion mode tag

morning...well it is whilst I'm writing this but it'll probably be evening when I post it ......drat having to go to work in between, I've used a tempalte for this tag that is over at Tag Tuesday as the challenge this week is to use it, I covered it with the left over paper from the previous day, added distressed inked flowers and pearls blinged with stickles and added an image from Crafty Individuals which I then rubbed stickles rock candy onto for some more bling, the lace I gathered up before I attached it......think I'll get round to adding this tag to a card at a later date......if you want the download of the vintage paper I'm using see previous post.....have fun.

wanted it to look like a dress so added beads at the neck.

Challenges

Tag Tuesday.....use template.

Sir Stampalot.....bring on the Bling.

Raise the bar......theme pearly whites....paper/pearls.

Lots to do.....ribbons/lace.

this is the title page of the newspaper......fancy or what!! will do as a download later

have a good weekend

hugs