New crafty stash and Daydreamabella

Hi ladies! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and received lots of lovely crafty stash to play with in the new year. First of all, here's a card I made this afternoon for:

Mojo Monday (theme: sketch)

My Time to Craft (theme: Anything goes)

The image is Daydreamabella. I coloured her with Lyra pencils and added some glitter highlights. Do please click on the image and you can see my shading better. I'm getting a bit frustrated with my photo-taking as I don't think they capture my cards very well. My hubbie is a good photographer and he took this one for me but I still don't think it's bright enough. Hubbie says I need a stronger light- wish I knew this a few weeks ago, I could've put it on my Christmas list!!! ha ha. Anyhoo, the papers are by Dream Street and I've used some embellies from my new stash.

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Stamping Bella); Lyra pencils; Papers (Dream Street); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Ribbon (Poppicrafts & recycled); Charm (The Works); Flowers (Poppicrafts & Lakeland); Flower jewel (Ebay)

So here is my little stash I got for Chrimbo. I'm SO looking forward to using the Fun in the Sun paper stack. The papers are so pretty and cheerful and the best thing is I got it for $9 when I was on hols in Florida!! How cheap is that?!! I always buy bits in the US, bring them home and then family members give them to me for birthday and Christmas!

Here are the lovely stamps I got.

And lastly my hubbie (never to do things by halves!) got me all these gorgeous coloured cotton reels to use with my new mini sewing machine.

I'm looking forward to catching up with all your blogs after the Christmas break and can't wait to see any new stash you got! x

Rubber Romance!

Hello all! Hope you're all excited about the Strictly final! I am hoping Ricky will win. Chris is sweet but he really is about half as good as Ricky so I'm hoping talent rather than "character" will win out tonight. We've had loads of snow here in Essex. I was meant to test drive a new car today- that went out the window!!

Anyway on to my first post which is a sketch over at Friday Sketchers. I really enjoyed doing this sketch and found it quite challenging but really good fun. I used this Rubber Romance image which I coloured with Lyra pencils. Have you noticed my new shading technique? I've decided to experiment with more bold shading, I really like it- how about you? The teacup, spoon and both sentiments were from a Hanna stamps set which I thought combined really well with this image. I also used my new pearls which I'm totally lovin! They make such a great alternative to hot fix crystals which are really delicate.

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Rubber Romance & Hanna Stamps); Lyra pencils; Nesties; Papers (Basic Grey); Pearls (Ebay)

And finally the last of my Christmas cards- yay!! First up is a Pink Petticoat one. I coloured with watercolour pencils added some glitter highlights and some doodling. The papers are by Artic Frog and sentiment is Lili of the Valley.

Crafty stash used: Image (Pink Petticoat); Watercolour pencils; Papers (Artic Frog); Assorted cardstock; Flower (Poppicrafts); Snowflake (The Works); Gold Stickles; Brad (Woodware); Sentiment (LOTV)

These cute penguins (no idea who by!) I coloured with copics. I used my Martha Stewart punch to create a border. The sentiment is by See D's and I used my nesties to create an interesting tag shape.

Crafty stash: Stamps (? & See D's); Copics; Papers (Polar Bear Press); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Ribbon (Poppicrafts); Punch (Martha Stewart)

And finally this cute Penny Black sheep I coloured with copics. I added some doodling and cut out with nesties. Papers are Artic Frog again and DCWV.

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Penny Black); Copics; Papers (DCWV; Artic Frog); Assorted cardstock; Flower (Poppicrafts); Snowflake (The Works); Brad (Woodware); Sentiment (LOTV)

This will probably be my last post before Christmas so I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Thanks so much for all your support and comments throughout the year. Do please continue to visit me as I will be having a blog makeover in the new year and will be giving away some candy to celebrate!

Forever Friends, Penny Black, Elzybells and more.....

Hi everyone! Hope you're all OK. We've got snow at the moment here in Essex, I can't believe it! I am a very happy bunny today as my husband is home (now sleeping off his jetlag) after his week long trip to LA where he won a Best Studio Award at the Video Games Awards. It was a star-studded night and was on TV last night. I'm so proud of him as he's worked so hard in setting up his company and to get this award is amazing. They also won 3 other awards at the Inside Gaming Awards for his game Batman: Arkham Asylum- you may have seen it advertised. Anyway, enough rambling. I made this card for my hubbie to say congratulations. I'm so glad he's home, I hate it when he's away!

It's for the Forever Friends Challenge and Creative Card Crew who've both got the challenge "Anything Goes". The papers are all by Basic Grey. I love this set as the colours are so vibrant. The image was coloured in with watercolour pencils and the champagne has gold Stickles added to it. If you click on the picture you can get a better view of the shading in more detail. I then cut out with nesties and mounted on card. The sentiment was a free rub-on from a magazine. I then used a zig zag punch to create the edge and added some of my new faux pearls which I'm liking alot!

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Forever Friends); Papers (Basic Grey); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Rub-on (free); Pearls (Ebay); Punch (Martha Stewart); Gold Stickles

My second challenge is for Penny Black Friends and is my Christmas card for my hubbie. The theme is "Red and Gold". I won this cute image in the Penny Black Christmas blog hop the other week. I won an amazing set of images, ribbons and embellies from the lovely Tracie so I thought I'd celebrate by using them straight away. I coloured this cutie image with copics and cut out with nesties. The paper is I think by DCWV. I gold embossed these Hero Art's hearts and finished off with a gold ribbon and rub on.

Crafty stash used: Image (Penny Black); Stamp (Hero Arts); Copics; Paper (DCWV); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Ribbon (Recycled); Gold embossing powder; Rub on (K&Co)

Here's a little close up of their cutie mousie faces!

Finally here is an Elzybells card I've made for the Secret Crafter Challenge who's theme is "Snow" . It's for my sis for Christmas. I love this image so much! I coloured her in with copics and have paper pieced her woolly jumper and the presents under the tree. The papers are by DCWV Christmas stack. I added Opal Liquid Pearls to the snowflakes and to create snow in the window frame. I cut out some Christmas trees which were on a matching piece of paper and added a punched snowflake. The sentiment is a Lili of the Valley one.

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Elzybells); Copics; Papers (DCWV); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Punches (Woodware); Opal Liquid Pearls; Sentiment (LOTV); Ribbon (recycled)

And finally another little close up so you can see the snow and paper piecing a little better. I think she looks very thoughtful, I wonder if she's waiting for Santa to come!

Thanks for dropping by! x

Happy Birthday to me!

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a good week and weekend. Did you see the X Factor? My prediction of the finalists came true. Now I'm going to take a guess at the winner, or a sort of guess... I think it will be either Joe or Olly. I've heard that Joe will be singing with George Michael, Olly with Robbie and Stacey with Michael Buble. Don't know if this is true or not but I LOVE George and Michael (ha ha) so I'm SO looking forward to the final!!

So it was my birthday at the weekend and of course I got lots of lovely crafting stash to enjoy. Here it all is! Firstly I got a mini sewing machine off Ebay really cheap. I can't sew to save my life but thought a bit of sewing would add a certain je ne sais quoi to my cards so I thought I'd give it a go- watch this space!!

So my first lot of goodies to show you is this lot of flowers and gorgeous butterfly embellies. I got these from the US. Aren't they beautiful?

Then I got this gorgeous lot of bling! This includes pearls, "say it in crystals" , "say it in studs" and flower centres. Again this was all from the US. I also added some more pencils to my Lyra collection- I got these mail order from Atlantis Art Materials in London.

Some stamps.... including 2 Autumn Leaves (Stampology) sets- Fine & Dandy and Doodley Frames , a little cheeky Changito Monkey, Inkadinkado Sketchy Flourishes and a Prima stamp.

And finally a load of paper and card which I got in the US (noticing a theme here) when I was in Florida. That whole lot of paper and card cost something ridiculous like a fiver! It was about a quarter of the price it is here! I also got a couple of Sizzix Bigz dies which I'm SO looking forward to using.

I can't wait to get started on using all my new stash plus I have stamps from the Summer I haven't even used yet. I'm going to finish my Christmas cards this week (card posts later in the week) and then hopefully from next week get started on using my gorgeous stash!!

Do let me know what's on your wish list for Christmas this year, I'd love to find out what crafty stash everyone is longing for!! xxx