CD Challenge at THE CRAFTY PAD & A New Baby Card!

** Please scroll down for today's CARD! **

Hello peeps! I've got a couple of things to share with you today, so grab a coffee and pull up a chair!

Firstly, I want to tell you about the great mid-week competition over at THE CRAFTY PAD. We want you to alter a CD......... and if you join in, you will be in with a chance to win some fabulous prizes! Here's a sneak peek to whet your appetite!

Debbie Moore, Crafty Pad Designs, is offering the entire set of her brand new Fairies images and sentiments!

Jasmine's Cards are offering a CD full of fabulous floral images to use in your crafting!

And Letraset are giving away a set of Promarkers!

So, with all these goodies up for grabs you've got to give it a go, yes!? You have 2 weeks to get your entry in, there are a couple of wonderful examples created by 2 of our DT members over at CRAFTY PAD CHALLENGE BLOG.

And now for the New Baby card!

A friend and her husband are celbrating the safe arrival of their first son, Kai, who was born on Monday. She is a cardmaker, and so I wanted to make sure it was something special.....I hope she likes it!

I added details of their wee one's name and birth details to the stopper.

I used Baby Roger, a digi image by Helen Laurence, coloured him with Promarkers and cut him out with a labels nesty. The BPs are from a digi set I downloaded ages ago, before I started keeping track of their names/origins, but I've used it so many times! I matted and layered using various papers from the collection, inked and chalked the edges and finished off with some funky fibres, brads and ric-rac from my stash.

Apologies for the very wonky photos, it is actually a regular square (not that you'd tell from the pics!!!!)

I am going to enter my card into these challenges:

My Grafico - Anything Goes.

Creative Card Crew - For a Child.

Penny's Paper Crafty #50 - Recipe: 1 image (Roger) 2 embellies (brads and ric-rac fibres) 3 DPs (all from the same collection.)

Digital Tuesday #104 - For The Kids.

Make it Monday #30 - Anything Goes.

Paper Playtime #42 - Digi Monday/Anything Goes.

OSAAT #55 - Mother's Day OR Babies (I chose Babies!)

A Gem of a Challenge #17 - Anything but a Square.
Wee Memories #49 - Anything Goes. 

If you're still here, you deserve a biscuit to dunk into that cuppa you made earlier, or even better a fresh cuppa and a biscuit!!!! Thanks for stopping by!

'Bloom & Grow' at Michelle Perkett Studios

I have been trying to join in again with a challenge at Michelle Perkett Studios challenge blog for weeks, but haven't been able to for one reason or another...until this week that is! I was really disappointed not to be able to join last week's blue and brown challenge (I love that colour combo,) but this week's FLOWERS theme suits me just fine too!

Here's my card:

The image is called Mary, Mary, and you can find her in Michelle's etsy store. I have coloured her with Promarkers to match the orange and yellow DPs I have used from my stash. The layers are matted onto Bazzill card in co-ordinating colours. The striped ribbon and satin ribbon down the left are also from my stash. 

I decorated them with gems, and made my own flower embellishments using the spiral technique. I cut the leaves from Bazzill card and made the centres using some knotted green organza ribbon.

Other challenges I am entering my card into:

• The Stamping Boutique #3 - Handmade Flowers.
• Top Tip Tuesday #27 - Inspired by Nature.
• Creative Stamp Friends #21 - Spring.
• Kaboodle Doodles #60 - Spring Has Sprung.
• Paper Playtime #42 - Digi Monday/Anything Goes.
• 2 Sisters #32 - Make Your wn Embellishments.
• Stamp Something - Spring.
• Stampin' With The Dragon - Bring on Spring.
• Wee Memories #49 - Anything Goes.

Thanks for stopping by!

CHRISTMAS......? It is at FOR FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over at FOR FUN CHALLENGES this week, we are challenging you to create something CHRISTMAS! Be it a card, a gift, a scrapbook layout, it's up to you, as long as your project is a Christmassy one, we'd LOVE to see it!

Now, you'll be delighted to know we have a brand new sponsor this week, and you are going to LOVE his images, they are just so amazing! Rick St Dennis is offering up all 3 christmas images used by the DT this week, as well as AT LEAST 3 MORE fabulous images! You can visit Dennis' blog AND his etsy shop to see what I mean!

Here is a little info about the man himself.....

Designer of over 100 theatrical productions, Rick St Dennis (Donald McAfee) is also the author of 4 books on decorative painting and contributor to at least a dozen national magazines on crafts and art. He has taught design at the college level as well as seminars and classes across the USA and Canada. He is one of a handful of designers to have designed TWO productions of AIDA, Verdi's massive Egyptian opera spectacle. Currently living in the quiet beach communuity of Seal Beach, California he writes restaurant reviews and theatre reviews between assignments for web designs, logos and creating art for local shows. Rick has appeared on such TV shows as Home Matters with Susan Powell, Aileen's Crafts and others. He was Crafts editor for Country Folk Art Magazine and sells his artwork nationally through galleries and shows. Among numerous awards he won a presidential commendation in 1976 for his contributions to the bicentennial year including the design of the west coast premier of William Grant Still's opera BAYOU LEGEND. His drawings and paintings are in the collections of Diana Ross, Sandy Duncan, Sammy Davis Jr. and Jacqueline Onnasis amongst others.

And so, onto my card:

We were given a choice of 3 images to work with, and I simply couldn't choose which one to use, and so.........I used ALL 3 and created a horizontal waterfall card!

As you can see, Santa is at the front, and as you pull the tab on the right.........

............the dancing elf appears, closely followed by................

...............this adorable Angel and the greeting, which is attached to the pull-tab.

I used Nitwits 'Deer Friends' BPs, and also made a matching envie too.

The kiddies in our family are all fascinated by waterfall cards, so I tend to make quite a few! There are some great tutes on You Tube, click here to see one I found,) and once you've made your first one, and can see how it works, it really isn't as hard as you think, but it really IS effective!

There is some fabulous work on the challenge blog from some of the other DT girls, so please go and take a look, and we do hope to see you joining in with our challenge this week.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

• My Grafico - Anything Goes.
• Digital Tuesday #104 - For The Kids (my nieces and nephews LOVE waterfall cards!)
• Make it Monday #30 - Anything Goes.
• Paper Playtime #42 - Digi Monday/Anything Goes.
• A Gem of a Challenge #17 - Anything But a Square.
• Wee Memories #49 - Anything Goes.
• Secret Crafter #127 - Christmas in Spring!

The CRAFTY PAD has a NEW WEBSITE!!!

Oh its all soooooooo exciting! The Crafty Pad has a brand new store open, where you can buy and instantly download all of those fabulous digis created by the owner, the lovely Deborah Moore!

Not only that, but the challenge blog has also had a complete makeover, so when you pop over now, you'll see the brand new look, and the new header, which looks like this...

Don't forget, it's a MOTHER'S DAY challenge this week, so we hope to see LOADS of entries from you all!

AND (oh yes, there's more!) ...........make sure you visit again on Wednesday, when we'll have a brand new mid-week post: This week it's a COMPETITION, with some FAB prizes up for grabs!

Challenge #114 at THE CRAFTY PAD

Good Morning all!

I do hope you are enjoying your weekend, and that the sun is shining for you....? I also hope that you all remembered to put your clocks forward too? Not keen on losing an hour, but sooooo looking forward to the lighter evenings!

As I am sure you already know, it's Mother's Day next Sunday, and so, as I am sure you will all be making your cards this week, we have another perfect challenge for you over at THE CRAFTY PAD this week......

** MOTHER'S DAY **

Our very generous sponsor this week is CRAFTY SENTIMENTS and the winner will receive 3 digi images of their choice as their prize.

The DT all used one of Debbie's wonderful digis again this week, its called Gift for Mum, and can be found HERE. (scroll down the page.)

Ingredients:

• 6x6 white card blank.
• Kraft card.
• DPs - Nitwits collections (Crab Apple Too digi set) & a freebie from Tinker & Co.
• Gift for Mum image, coloured with Promarkers.
• Red organza ribbon.
• Paper flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts, coloured with chalks.
• Red heart flat-backed pearl gems.
• Digi circle sentiment (source unknown.)

The DT have made some seriously wonderful cards this week, so make sure you take a look when you head on over to enter your card this week.....there are shaped easels, spring cards, twisted easels, a coupl;e of classic shapes, a gift set and a wonderful surprise which I won't spoil for you, by our lovely Barbara!

I would like my card to be considered for the following challenges:

• Allsorts wk96- For a Special Lady.
• Craft Your days Away #16 - For Mum/a Special Lady.
• ECP Challenges #34 - For Mum.
• Stampin' For The Weekend #6 - For Mum/Mother's Day.
• Digi Doodle Shop's Best #52 - Ribbons & Bows.
• Crafts & Me #27 - Anything Goes.
• Simon Says Stamp! - Mother's Day/Girly.
• Papertake Weekly - It's a Mum Thing (or just be Girly.)
•  My Grafico - Anything Goes.

Thanks for popping in!

Who Doesn't Love Flowers?

Good Morning,

Today sees a brand new challenge over at FOR FUN, and this week's theme is..........................

  **FLOWERS**

We have a fab sponsor again this week....

Digi Doodle Shop's Best

One lucky winner will receive A $10 voucher to spend in the Digi Doodle Shop!

The DT were given some of their gorgeous floral digis to use, and I chose Pansies.

Such a lovely image to work with, I used my Promarkers to colour, and added a dot of Stickles to the flower centres, then cut and layered it using mt nesties. The papers are from Scrapbookingmad, the ribbons & gems are from my stash. I made a sentiment on the computer as I thought the image was perfect for a thinking of you card.

I followed this sketch for Dutch Dare Card Challenges 

I would also like to enter my card for the following challenges:

• Meljen's Designs #50 - Use DOTS
• I Did it Creations #47 - Welcome Spring.
• My Grafico monthly challenge - Anything Goes.
• Kenny K #37 - 2 ribbons, 3 papers, 1 image. 

Use a Digi Challenge

Gooooooooooooooood Morning lovelies, welcome to my little corner of blogland this fine Sunday!

Today's challenge at THE CRAFTY PAD is going to be VERY popular, I just know it! All we are asking this week, is that you all

** USE A DIGI  **

Yes, it really is that easy! We want to see your digi images this week, and I for one can't wait to see the wonderful array of cards you all come up with! Now, this is just a personal ask from lil' ole me, and NOT a requirement of the challenge, but it would be GREAT if you could put a link to where you got your digi from....that way, when we love what we see, we too can go shopping!!!!!! Lol!!!!

Our sponsor this week is Joanna Sheen, and she is offering one lucky winner a £10 voucher to spend in her shop.

Everyone on the DT this week used one of Debbie's delightful 'window' digis, which you can find in the TCP shop.

Such a girly, adorable image, I wanted to use some spring colours, so I chose papers from a kit I bought from Scrapbookingmad called green daisy flowerpot (unfortunately this is no longer available.) The image was coloured with Promarkers and mounted using foam pads.

I matted and layered the DPs onto yellow card, and added some grosgrain ribbon and a bow to the left hand side. I also added some pins from Wild Orchid Crafts.

The paper flower at the bottom was handmade....my first attempt using the rolled spiral technique, and I was quite pleased with the result! I added gold Stickles to the centre, and cut the leaf from the same card as the matting/layering.

I added a few blooms to the top left (again from WOC,) and a ticket senti distressed with ink to complete. I thought the senti was perfect, as the little girl looks as if she's gazing out of the window daydreaming (maybe of her prince charming, or the hope of warmer Spring weather to come.....who knows!!!)

The DT made some beautiful cards this week, well let's be honest, they come up trumps every week! Don't forget to take a look when you are there to enter your card, and visit their blogs to see how they made their creations too.

I am entering my card into he following challenges:

• Stamping with the Dragon - Bring on Spring.
• Wags n Whiskers #50 - Spring.
• Crafty Purple Frog - Going Green.
• Delightful Challenges - Show us some Green.
• Digi Doodle Shop #51 - Anything Goes.
• DYSU #11 - Add a Bow.
• Pixie Dust Studio #66 - Go Green.
• Some Odd Girl - Think Spring.
• Southern Girls - Use Flowers.
• Creative Cottage #35 - Spring has Sprung!
• Creative Card Crew - Green.
• Karen's Doodles #54 - Spring.

Thanks for looking, and please leave a comment if you have time, I love to know what you think of what I've made (good or bad!!!)

Simple Mariposa

For my sister's wedding invitations we wanted quick, simple yet classy.....I hope you like what I came up with, and think it covers the requirements?!!

These are 5" square and although you can't see from the photo, the colour of the butterfly (made using my Craft Tonic punch,) is a deep plum, the same colour as the bridesmaids dresses. I printed onto hammered paper and mounted onto a panel of the deep plum card. There are 2 butterflies, one stuck down to the card, the other secured in the centre only, then the wings are raised for a 3D effect. 2 flat-backed pearls for the centre to finish.

I used the same font (French Script MT) for the inserts, printed again on hammered paper.

So, clean, simple but does what it needs to, and they were more than happy with them!

Thanks so much for popping in, please leave a comment if you feel you want to.

50% OFF Mega-Sale!!!!!!!!!!!

No, it's not a typo, its for real!

The wonderful Debbie Lauder over at CRAFTY STASH is having a
50% off everything sale!
She also has a huge number of fab freebies on there too, so what are you waiting for?! Get yourself over there and fill your baskets!

But she doesn't stop there.....oh no! She is also asking as many people as possible to enter the monthly competition over at Cardmaking Downloads in a bid to raise money for Comic Relief.

Debbie has pledged to donate £2 for every entry! You need to use a download from CMD to enter, but it won't even cost you a penny as there are loads of freebies available there too! Everyone who enters will receive a freebie download created by Sammy Murphy just for entering the competition!!! AND.......there are 3 more prizes up for grabs in the form of gift certificates too! We want to beat the current record of 36 entries....can you help us achieve that?

Go on .........you know you want to! Come and help Debbie raise money for this deserving cause by doing what you love to do.....making a card!!!

New Blog Awards

I have been very remiss in not posting my 2 latest blog awards, and sending thanks to those who sent them, so I must apologise and put things right!

This one is from my fabby friend Dawn, bestest blogging buddy.....(BBB d'you think it could catch on?!) Thank you so much Dawn, it certainly has been quite a ride!

This 2nd award was passed to me by both Pauline, a fellow DT memeber and friend, and also Dawn again! So many thanks to you both for thinking of me, I am humbled.

Here are the rules of accepting:

BFB award:

Pass it on to 7 more bloggers.

Versatile Blogger:

The story goes that this blog award has the purpose of bringing to light bloggers who are creative, make wonderful creations, but have less than 300 followers. And the rules ask that you...

1. Thank the person who sent you this blog. done
2. List 7 things about yourself (seven? really? But not 7 new ones? Phew!)
3. Send this to 15 bloggers.

So here goes:

• Leesa (the navy wife) you simply MUST go and see her amazing work on her blog!
• Debbie (Owner and fab boss at The Crafty Pad.)
• Catherine another fab blog and Bugaboo DT member.
• Pauline one of the SuperWomen I know, who always sees the bright side of life (I know you already have the versatile blogger award, so please accept the BFB award.)
• Suz another SuperWoman (she's got the cape!) and forum buddy.
• Helen a wonderfully whacky blog, with great ideas and great makes!
• Joey I admire her wonderful work, and visiting her blog is always inspirational!

There we are, two awards for the price of one ladies!

And of course, I still have another 8 people to give the Versatile blog award to!

• Meera fellow DT at for Fun!
• Patricia fellow DT at For Fun!
• Maggie fellow DT at The Crafty Pad.
• Paula from Pollycraft.....super-talented lady!
• Lyn from Spyder's Corner....such a fab blog!
• Helen owner of For Fun challenges blog.
• Rebecca a new member of my ATC swap group....great blog!
• Claire another blogging friend with some great makes to share.

As for the 7 things about me, hmmmmmmmm, let's see, I'll try and choose things I've not mentioned before...

1. It's 1.45pm and I sooo want to curl up and sleep on my sofa right now!
2. I had buttered hot-cross-bun-loaf for lunch!
3. As a child, I used to love sitting in the car when we got home and switched the engine off and listening to the sound of the rain on the roof.
4. I am looking forward to doing some voluntary work with special needs pre-school children when my youngest goes to school in September.
5. I've recently discovered CSI on TV and am really getting into it!
6. I HATE salad!
7. Now this one is going to shock you; more of a confession really.......I own a craft-robo that I've had over a year, and have never even taken it out of its box!!! (Shock! Horror! Shame on me!!!)

Do hope you'll come back and visit me again soon. ;)

Shrink Plastic Tutorial

Good Evening my lovelies,

just a quick heads up to let you all know that the lovely Maggie from TCP has created a fabby tutorial on shrink plastic with lots of great examples of how to use it over at The Crafty Pad challenge blog. This is the first of our new feature, the mid-week posts, where all sorts of things to grab your interest will be posted from now on. We also have some of our lovely Debbie's latest releases being showcased too, so pop over and take a look.

And finally.................don't forget our challenge this week is BUTTONS.....there's still plenty of time to join in.

Have a great evening, and remember...............it's nearly the weekend!!!!

We're Going GREEN at FOR FUN!

Yes folks, it seems that we're not the only ones out there in blogland to have the idea to go GREEN this week in honour of St. Patrick's Day!! Every other challenge out there seems to have this theme, so there's NO EXCUSE for you not to join in, and combine it with some of the other challenges out there too!

So, just to be clear, our challenge at FOR FUN theme this week is

 MONOCHROMATIC GREEN OR ST PATRICK'S DAY.

We also have a fabby sponsor this week

 Meljen's Designs 

I just LOVE her work, and you MUST pop over and look around....there are loads of freebies you can snag, and I bet you fall in love with her work too!

So, here's my card.....I went for monochromatic green.

I used a cute image from Meljens and coloured with Promarkers.

I used a variety of BPs from my stash, all green of course! I am a huge easel card fan, so I'm afraid its another easel card!! I created the sentiment on the computer, and liberally inked up the edges of the card and parts of the card too!

A ribbon and some gems complete the main panel of the card.

On the base I decided to leave a blank panel, which will be used to write the greeting and also the 'to' & 'from' part.



So that it didn't look too bare I added a flower/button/ribbon detail to one corner.

With all those green challenges out there, it would be rude of me not to join in with some of them (lol) sooooo.....I would like to enter:

• High Hopes #104 - Go Green.
• Critter Sketch #56 - Monochromatic Green.
• Incy Wincy Designs #85 - For The Boys.
• Ooh La La Creations #75 - It's A Man Thing.
• Card Cupids - Green.
• ECP Challenges #33 - Green.
• Cardmakin' Mamas #16 - Something Green.
• Delicious Doodles #16 - Use Green.
• Pattie's Creations #17 - Go Green.
• Simply Create #39 - Monochromatic.
• AiFactory #71- Luck of the Irish (green.)
• Charisma Cards #10 - Easel Cards.
• Paper Play wk10 - Shades of Green.
• Meljen's Designs - Green.
• Moving Along With The Times #89 - For a Male.

If you're still reading, then a big 'thank you' for sticking around!! One final request.....please pop over to admire the DT's creations at the FOR FUN blog and leave some love.......Oh yes, just one more exciting piece of news.... we are also looking for Guest Designers to join our team for a spell of creativity! We would love you to apply for a week or two with our creative team and challenges. All you need to do is to create a card, scrap page, gift box etc to go with our challenge for the week. NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED! If we have a sponsor that week, you will also receive the sponsors image(s) to work with. Want to apply? Just leave a note for Meera, our GDT co-ordinator, in the 'comments' box and she'll be in contact with you...

Happy Crafting!