Just Inspirational....

This weeks challenge at Just Inspirational...... is Christmas, this weeks challenge is sponsered by Delicious Doodles....I coloured the image in with sakura pens and added lots of stickles for yummy bling, the papers are Eskimo Kisses from basic Grey and the sentiment is from Cuddly Buddly, the image is of course from Delicious Doodles.

Challenges

One Stop crafts....snowflakes.

Totally gorjuss....Christmas.

Pile it on ......Cute and charming.

Crafty Pad....sparkle.

Creative Inspirations......Christmas.

Charisma......Christmas

have a good day

hugs

Blue Moon.......

Morning peeps I was asked to be a visiting artist for Gingersnap creations challenge blog for the month of October......looking forward to working with some great inspirational ladies, Ali then threw in a curved ball as they say and asked me to do the Blue Moon challenge.....this is when they have 5 Wednesdays in a month and because it only happens once in a while they call it the Blue Moon challenge.
This weeks challenge is to do something based on quilting patterns and there is a link if you require ispiration as well as templates for the quilting block patterns, now me being a numpty thought ohhhh that would look great in metal........this turned out to be a bigger project than I first imagined and it did have it a few probs. but I'm not one to give up ...lol so I continued well into Sunday night to finish it. I used gold and chocolate metal, and put some of the pieces through embossing folders, I used alchohol inks to add colour or to take colour off as the case may be.......see I'm still persivering with those inks.

Challenges

Tuesday Taggers......here comes autumn.

The stamp man .....altered.

WOYWW

Another Wednesday and another WOYWW........pop over to Julias and thats where we're all hanging out, this week you can spy my new wire heart baskets which were a pressie to me from......me, my son brought me the wire dress form for my birthday because I've wanted one for ages, I have a confession to make as I took piccie late Tuesday night. I've decided that I  need to organise my desk again you know when something isn't quite right well thats me at the moment and I can't quite put my finger on it, the card I'm working on is my DT card for the Just Inspirational challenge on this Thursday. I've just seen an advert on the TV whilst typing this advertising that if you walk in Reebok trainers you get a better shaped bum....well thats what it said on the telly.....reminder to oneself need new trainers lol, hope you all have a great day although the weather forecast is for rain all day.........

Thanks for taking a peek,

will be back later to check out all the other wonderful workdesks.

And the winner is.....

Todays my B'day and also the draw of my blog anniversary candy so without further ado the winner is.......Meggymay, The draw was done by my son using a random generator in his head.......lol I just asked him to pick a number and Yvonnes number came up....so if you send me your addy Yvonne I'll get the stamps in the post to you.Have a great day everyone although its raining here I intend to eat cakes and choccies all day long......

Take 3.....

Well I've finally finished my project for Compendium of curiosities.....phew!!! Mr. T Holtz makes it look so easy, well he is the master of inkyness. I suppose had I had the pearl instead of using every shade but for the base coat the task may have been easier. This weeks challenge is Agate Grunge.....Hmmm after 2 attempts my final try was the frame for the image and rather than just use 1 of the samples I thought I'd use them all, hence a multi coloured project with added bling.

Challenges

Compendium of Curiosities......Alchohol ink Agate Grunge.

Simon Says Stamp and Show.......grungeboard

Thanks for taking a peek

Its Wednesday...........

Happy WOYWW .....your're just a click away from an around the world desk hop starting at Julias pad, the sun is shining or it will be later cos the weather man said so and they are never wrong.......its lovely seeing all the trees start to turn to their Autumn colours, although they're still quite green at the moment. Yesterday was grandson day...... and he's come down with a cold so he's even cuter at the moment with his squeeky voice, the only thing is we will have all gone down with a cold by the end of the week. My grandson is into Chuggington and his favourite character is 'action chugger' so yesterday afternoon we wer digging in the garden......I was trying to do some weeding, Ethan had a trowel and was digging in the gravel throwing it over his shoulder shouting "action chugger" at the top of his squeeky voice....he had fun and although I didn't get a great deal of weeding done I had fun as well........
Todays desk is a working progress for this weeks challenge at CC, alchohol inking on grunge to produce an agate finish.........not quite got it yet, Mr Holtz makes it looks real easy in his book, the gold is really over powering on mine so I may just do it again and then probably again, as I've already had 2 goes already.

Have a great day......off to work now, if it's as hot as they say it will be today

we should be fairly busy with ice cream and we're selling our christmas chocs

as well......

hugs from Daniele

don't forget to check out my blog anniversary candy.

Alchohol inks...argh

Well for the past couple of days I've been playing with alchohol inks.....I really struggle with this medium but I'm determined to master them, so after my class on saturday I started with this project when I got home....when I started this I had no idea what I was doing, I punched out several flower shapes from the Tattered flower die from Tim Holtz with acetate and dabbed away with a few shades, then for some reason I thought I'd put some metal through a textured fade folder, again from TH and then decided to paint the metal with various shades of ink......what a fiddle (used a Q Tip), so I went to bed having had enough for the night. I find it frustrating when things don't go right so instead of slinging it in the bin a good nights sleep  usually does the trick. Next morning with new determination I continued colouring in the panel.....at this point it was too bright so I rubbed in black acrylic paint to make it more aged looking. The acetate coloured petals didn't show up so I layered them inbetween flowers cut from print inked with Dusty Concord and Victorian velvet. The background canvas again has been inked with alchohol inks with gold added to get some bling.  I blame Linda from L3 studios for all this as she made a card for the Drunken stampers blog and she had me laughing about boozed up monkeys helping her make it.....the challenge by the way is dry emboss and paint.

Challenges

Drunken stampers.....dry emboss and paint.

Have a great day

hugs x

Another Christmas Bear...

Morning peeps, hopefully the Sun is shining where you are, I so need to get outside and sort my poor neglected garden out before winter sets in, but then I get side tracked.....you know what I mean, you sit down with your craft bits n' bobs and before you know it 2 hours+ has gone by and the housework is still waiting to be done, so I'm doing an early post today in the hope that I do get outside and do some weeding......urgh, why are they the only things that grow at a rate of knots, as soon as you've pulled one out another takes it place, anyway back to toadys card.....its a DT card for Cuddly Buddly, I'm a sucker for these cutie bears, the papers are Quilted Holly and as you can see I've kept to the holly theme going by using a Martha Stewart punch and some gold rub ons, the snowfalkes I made using the Marianne dies....cut through thin acetate and then add clear glue and sprinkle glamour dust on the top, when thats dried I added gold stickles to add more colour to the snowflake.

I stiched around the edges and then added diamond stickles ontop of the stitching

rubbed diamond stickles to the background of the image.

topped off the snowflakes with a diamante flower trim

Challenges

just cute bears.....use punches.

Sketch and stash.....sketch (oldest stash are the rubons).

tuesday taggers....Diamonds are forever.

Moving along with the times.....Christmas.

Alphabet challenge...U for unused stash (gold rub ons had them since I first started).

Stamp Something Friday....Digi day, papers and images are both digi downloads from Cuddly Buddly.

Allsorts....3 punches.

Secret cratfer...anything goes.

Have a great day....I'm off to potter about in my garden ....lol

Wall hanging...

Today I've spent a lovely day at LB Crafts, painting and crafting, using Tim Holtz tattered floral dies, metal and alchohol inks.....I'm starting to feel more confident with them now. This is quite a large wall hanging using acrylic paints to paint and blend the background. Photographs don't do it justice.

Have a great weekend

hugs x

Winner

I've just come back from our Christmas roadshow......now what do a load of chocoholic managers do at their Christams roadshow, well.....eat chocolates and ohh and ahhh over all the new goodies that are coming out for Christmas and the new year, and next year is our centenary so we are having a whole year of celebrating....yum yum.
When I got home there was an email congratulating on my win for a colouring comp. that I enetered ages ago to win the complete set of aquamarkers by Letraset, so I checked out Polka Doodles challenge site and yes I'd won the competition.....so I'm totally blown away as its an awesome prize.

Compendium of Curiosities....

Woke up this morning after tusslling with what I was going to do for this week challenge at Compendium of Curiosities........this weeks challenge is masking, so I decided to play with some stamps from Maya road which I'd brought recently, I stamped a couple of them and cut them out to use as a masks....used Di's in Spiced marmalade, shabby Shutters, and Brushed Corduroy for the leaves and then when I was going to work I found the large leaf which I embossed in gold. when I got back from work, after it had dried out........really pleased with the effect......added a gold metal spiral for the stalk. the butterfly image is from Crafty Individuals and the sentiment is from Paper Artsy.

Challenges

Compendium of Curiosities.......masking.

Flutter by......buttons with a butterfly.

Beli-challenge........things begining with B.

ABC challenge.....D is for distressing.

Creative Inspirations.....a tag.

Creative Cardcrew......autumn or fall.

spoon full of sugar.......autumn colours.

pollycraft....autumn colours.

Lots to do......distressed tag.

Allsorts ....colours of autumn.

thanks for taking a peek

your comments are greatly appreciated

hugs x

Just Inspirational

This week at Just Inspirational we have a christmas theme.....ahhh I hear you all cry, its only September, actually its only 14 weeks to go and knowing how fast the weeks are flying it'll be here before you know it......I'm sure time gets quicker the older you are, or is because we pack soooo much into our busy lives?. My card for this weeks challenge is a Digi stamp from Cuddly Buddly as is the paper.....The papers are lovely .......'Quilted Holly' and have green and pink colourways.I've used the usual pens, DI's and H2os for colouring, the layout I kept simple, just adding a burgundy bow, the punch is from Martha Stewart.Talking of Christmas, this week at work we've put the early christams bays in and we are now selling Advent Calendars....ahh, mind you we are also selling the cherries in liqueur.....yum yum. If you've never tried them you are missing out as they are delicious......

have a great day

the sun is shining at the moment

lets hope it lasts after all that rain.......

Hugs from Daniele x

WOYWW

Wow another week and another Wednesday over at Julias pad The Stamping Ground...... WOYWW well this week there is some blog candy on offer (see previous post). I'm working on a couple of DT cards for Kim at Cuddly Buddly, I've still not got around to do anything with a tag I made featuring fabric and sewing bits n' pieces so its still sitting there waiting for further inspiration. Check out the card that my grandson made ....with a little help, (dared't let him use glue yet) but he did do the dabbing as he calls it on the background and picked and placed the gem stones where I stuck them down.....tea and biccies are a must for crafting. Off now to visit your desks as I'm so loving being nosy and takin' a peek to see what everyone else is up to.

Who's been sleeping in my bed........

yep you guessed it my Grandsosn Ethan, mind you I'd fallen asleep next to him earlier.....its tiring work being a Nana......lol

have a happy WOYWW

hugs from Daniele

Blog Candy

I cant believe its just been over a year of The Musings of a Chocoholic,  joining in all those fab challenges out there, and become part of the Cuddly Buddly design team. I'm sure we all have our favourites, I'm loving all the inky ones at the moment. Last November I went to a class doing metal work and used viva paints  since then I've been totally hooked. so I've finally got round to posting my Blog anniversary candy.....hopefully there is something for everyone, Artsycraft stamp and 2 Sugar Nellie stamps ......what do you have to do to win, just leave a comment and spread the word, it would be nice if you was a follower but no pressure. The winner will be announced on 27th September.....my b'day.

Just Realised....

Its been 1 year since I started blogging actually it was last Friday and I've only just realised ......numpty or what fancy missing your own blog anniversary, so to celebrate I'm going to put up some blog candy for all my followers to enter, so watch this space for more deets, I'd better go and get ready for work as no one will be getting any chocolate today and we can't have that...can we.
hugs x

Over the Rainbow....

Todays card is for my Mum, its her birthday this week, I've  entered it into the Artistic Stampers monthly challenge as the theme this month is ......rainbows, I've not gone for the traditional colours, but have done shades to represent a rainbow effect, the metal pieces have been done with a Kabuko mold and I've used alchohol inks to get the rainbow colour effects.....looks like oil on water, the lady was stamped on silver metal with stazon on and then I removed the background colours from the watch face and pooled it with glossy accents, the background was distressed with various shades and over stamped with a Harlequin stamp, I sprinkled the background with silver distressing powder.....just a bit more bling. All the stamps used are from The Artistic stamper.....the background plates are lovely and big, so they cover a large area.

Challenges.

Artistic Stamper.......Rainbows

Totally Gorjuss.....flowers.

The Stamp man......Distress.

One Stop.....fashion throughout the years.

Crafty Pad.....rainbow.

paper Sundaes......minimum of 3 embellishments (Metal lace, flowers, silver ribbon and diamantes)

Pocket full of posies....floral fantasy.

Celebration....

Jennie from The Artistic Stamper....not the block is celebrating her 3rd year of blogging and is celbrating by offering £100 of goodies check out her blog here for all the deets.....generous or what!!!, The draw is on September 27th which just happens to be my birthday....this is not a plug by the way ....lol. All you have to do to be with a chance to win is visit her blog become a follower and leave a comment ....there is up to 5 chances to being entered into the draw......Happy Bloggy Birthday Jennie.

Just Inspirational

This week at Just inspirational we were given some digi stamps from Meljens Designs to play with, the theme this week is babies I chose the cute bunny taking a bath which I coloured with distress inks, twinkling h20's with a smidge of sakura pens, the bubbles were highlighted using glamour dust and the papers are from K&Ko.

Challenges

ABC Challenge.......C is for Charm.

Truly Scrumptious.......sketch and the option is to include a knot (tied on ribbon).

A Spoon full of Sugar......Anima

Stamp something Friday.....something cute.

Thanks for taking a peek

your comments are greatly appreciated

thank you.

hugs from Daniele x

Simon Says......

This week the two challenge sites have joined forces to have a blog hop with candy strewn along the way....the challenge is called holiday fun so it can either be Christmas, thanks giving, Easter etc, you get the idea, so my entry is a Christmas card using masking for the background that I made using the set of Marianne snowflake dyes and then distressed with stormy Sky, the atc stamp is from Tim Holtz as if you didn't know that, to add a little colour to the card I used red and green embossing powder from Cosmic Shimmer to highlight parts of the design, the snowflakes were made by using the dye cuts on thin acetate (don't use thick as it won't cut) and then used clear glue and glamour mist .....you still get the appearance of semi-transparent, I then added a diamante to the centres just in case there wasn't enough bling.....lol, the background of the card was distressed with black soot and silver embossing.

Challenges

Simon Says.........holday fun

Charisma.....something new or not done before (punching out acetate and covering it).

Compendium of Curiosities

Well another week and its another challenge over at Lindas place....this week its grunge flowers instructions are on page 65, but I'm sworn to secrecy as to how you do them....lol. I did use Italian print to cover them first so that it tied in with my theme.....Venice, I'm in the process of making a mini album but what takes a couple of days for most people takes me well so far over 6 months, granted I don't work on it that much usually when a challenge is for a tag that I can fit in with it. The square images are from Crafty Individuals and have been stamped in sepia and gold and tea dye embossing powder added to parts of the images. The background was glimmer misted over a regal mask from Tattered Angels. The lace is from my shopping expedition in Holland....oh well once I've used my trims up I have another excuse to go back. The stamps I used for the corneers are from Viva.....amazing set of stamps for just £3.50 from Bubbly Funk.

Challenges

Everybody Art....make your own flowers.

Compendium of Curiosities.....Page 65, Grunge flowers.

Paper Sundaes......mixed mediums.

Pile it On......layers.

fab n' funky.....add material/lace.

Creative beli.....use old stamps (all 4 images are one of the first stamps I brought).

Creative inspirations....lace and sparkles (embossing in gold and glimmer misted background).

Crafty creations.....transportation (Gondola).

Gingersnap creations.....ancient ages (images are kind of old world I guess)

hugs from Daniele

your comments are greatly appreciated

many thanks

x

WOYWW

Sorry i couldn't visit any of your woyww desks last week but where we were staying in Holland they didn't have internet......which is a first for me, next time I'll take my own laptop and find wifi, on the plus side I did find some good shops but I think the market at Eindhoven was great because I've never seen so many stalls selling trims before and luckily they spoke English so I got to buy lots of braids and lace, on my workdesk today I'm half way through a project for this weeks Compendium of curiosities......but I've come to abit of a standstill, sometimes I can't work out what I want to do next so knowing me I'll wake up in the middle of the night with an idea......I think it'll be a page for my mini album about Venice that I've been working on for ages....hmmm!!

my lovely trims from the Eindhoven market.

some of the goodies I brought from Holland

this is one of the rooms at the Memory Museum at Heezch

they had so much card stock I didn't know where to start,

upstairs they have show cases with finished projects, and a museum as well as a vintage craft room with even more goodies to chose from

Have a happy woyww day

and I'm looking forward to visiting your craft desks

hugs from Daniele x

Chocoholic in Brugge

Morning fellow crafty bloggers thought I'd share a couple of pics from our recent trip to Belgium and Holland......we stayed the first night in Brugge, unfortunately after a pleasant afternoon it colouded over and threw it down but it didn't stop us visiting most of the chocolate shops.......gosh there are a lot there and each one is different as well as hitting the shops and getting rather full on choccie samples we visited the chocolate museum.....guess what we got more delish choccies to try, well it was a busmans holiday as they say...lol,The museum is well worth a visit as it tells the story of chocolate and has some lovely artifacts as well as a shop.

Giant egg at the beginning of the museum

........unfortunately no licking .

mock up of an old shop showing original moulds for chocolates

chocolate figurines at the museum

a car in the shape of a carrot made from chocolate

check out the interior of the shop....yum yum

Naughty but nice

have a great day

hugs x

late entry...

Talk about entering a challenge by the skin of your teeth.......before I went on holiday to Holland Linda had kindly gave me the next challenge to do before going so that I could enter my fave challenge, I made the tag and then didn't realize that I couldn't access my pics from another computer and apart from that there were no computers at the site so I had to wait till we got to Amsterdam to log in to discover I couldn't post anyway......next holls I'm taking my own laptop so I don't miss my fave challenges again.
The tag for this weeks entry at compendium of curiosities was Chipped Enamel but being as I miss a previous cahllenge earlier on in the summer ....Shabby Chic I decided to do do that as well on the tag...great effect, I used black and gold and the tea dye emboosing powder for the chipped enamel effect, the flower was glimmer misted to pick out the pink in the background of the image which is from Crafty Individuals.

Challenges

Simon says stamp and show.....layers 

Sir Stampalot....distress

Stampin for the weekend......shabby of vintage (did both).

Lets Ink it up.....tag with a vintage feel.

Sunday Stamper.....Use everything, fave stash....mine is flowers and glimmer mist and vintage.

have a great evening

hugs from Daniele x

WOYWW

Hiya fellow woyww's today I do not have have a piccie of any work in progress on my desk as I'm on my holls in Holland, so I thought I'd share a picture of some of my finished projects that I have done at some classes, the shadow box which has a Venetian theme was done last year with Jean Hardy from Crafty Individuals...so loved this class as she let us rummage through loads of bits n' pieces and it was the first time I had used Viva paints, the mirror was done with the talented Lin at LB Crafts a few months back, can you see the reflection in the mirror .......that was done with Linda Elbourne last year,the mini shadow box was for a christams challenge, and the frame was completed for a challenge and was a working progress on my desk a couple of weeks ago.....Just thought I'd let you know I've quite a few shops here in Holland including a scrapbook museum andn shop in Heezch......2 floors of fabbie goodies as well as loyts of ideas and finished pieces.....spent too much, ah well never mind.

sorry for the late posting but have struggled to find internet places

hugs from Holland xx