May ATCs from ATC Swappers

I really enjoy the end of each month as I get to swap all the great ATCs. But this month took a little longer than usual as it was a double swap and I really had to concentrate on getting the swaps right as some people had made 4 and others 8. Well it all worked out in the end and all the envelopes are now stuffed full and ready to go. Thought I'd show you the ones I had:

Thanks to Sheffsue, Rebecca, She, Michelle, Hazel, Jane and Anesha for my swaps. I hope everyone enjoys the ones they get and maybe join in again this month. If you'd like to join in with the swap or simply look at all the other wonderful creations, then hop on over to ATC SWAPPERS and take a look around. I can't believe we are heading into our 6th swap now and the theme is going to be 'Call of the Wild' so it'll certainly be something to get your claws into!!!

No card but...

...a mega bundle arrived this morning. I wasn't expecting it until at least Monday Morning so it was a nice suprise. This is my first ever Stampin' Up order and I'd like to thank Sarah for her patience with me. As I don't own anything of the range, the first order was obviously going to be a big(ish) one. I decided to choose a few colours and work around them and stocked up on:

Bashful Blue Cardstock, Designer Papers and Ink

Old Olive Cardstock, Designer Papers and Ink

Chocolate Chip Cardstock, Designer Papers and Ink

Pumpkin Pie Cardstock

Pumpkin Pie Ribbon

More Mustard Ribbon

A small roller with the Forever Flowers stamp

Chocolate Chip Cartridge for the roller

Round Tab Punch

And from the Mini Catalogue:

Scandinavian Season stamps

Ski Slope Papers (these were free - Yipeeeeeee)

The only thing I need now is time to play (and storage!!!). Doubt that'll happen today but I can't wait to open the packages and play around. Now, what shall I order next??? lol

Christmas in May and some Koh-i-noor Practice

After yesterdays sun, today has been gloomy. So, I decided to get my Christmassy Elzybells out. Thought I'd better start thinking of some quick and simple designs ready to bulk out in time for the season. Just went aheah with some simple matting and layering. Nothing major but thought I'd show you anyway. I think the small eskimo one may become the ones for school this year, what do you think?


Here's a close up of the cute little Eskimo. Matched my Promarker to the backing card and added Ice White stickles to his fur and Waterfall stickles on the ground. It's only a small 10cm by 10cm card but very cute. Sentiment made up from Elzybells Everyday Greetings set (a must have if I do say so myself as you can create so many different sentiments)

And here's a close up of the Carolers. These obviously take longer to colour than the Eskimo. This is a fairly large card for me and I've been wanting to make a large one with these characters as I always seem to stick to smaller square ones. Simply folded a piece of red A4 card, matted on some black and then the white piece with image on top of that. Added some dooles to frame them a bit more as it looked a little bare. Once again. Elzybells sentiment from Everyday Greetings.

In case any of you are interested, I've also had a bit more koh-i-noor practice. Have coloured the teddies in again but this time with less sky.

And my newest stamp also had the koh-i-noor treatment. He was simply stamped onto a DL card and coloured but thought I'd show the zoomed in version as there's nothing else on the card yet!

Koh-I-Noor Pencils

The service at Elzybells is amazing. Wasn't expecting my parcel to arrive until after the bank Holiday and yet it arrived this morning. What did I order? I hear you ask. Well, I ordered the new Koh-i-noor pencils with the Sansodor and blending stubs (and some teddy stamps, the one below and the football teddy). I've been wanting some for ages but was unable to find them without ordering them abroad for an extortionate price so how pleased was I when Elzybells started stocking them! It was with Elizabeth that I saw them fisrt of all.

So here's my first attempt at blending with koh-i-noors and solvent. It isn't any good and a lot more practice is needed to get anything close to something I'll be happy with. Will also need to play around with the card stock too.

There's nothing special with the card as it was just a play around. Simply stamped coloured (well, attempted to colour) and added a sentiment and doodle border

Hadn't noticed until I put up the pics here that I've missed one of the ladybirds. Will fix that now lol!!!

Also went on to the Elzybells Blog to thank Elizabeth for the service and what did I see - my tea-bag card on display. There was only supposed to be one prize for this challenge but the rules were bent and so now I have a voucher to spend so will have to get more supplies. Can't wait.

OK, that's enough chit chat, I'm off to practice some more.

Elzybells Challenge 20 - More Than 1 Fold

I know I haven't updated in a while but I've been away on a residential. Took children climbing and abseiling - in fact it was my first time doing abseiling as a leader. I enjoyed sitting on the edge of a crag just dangling over the edge. All went well and a good time was had.

Anyway, onto the card. I got thinking about folds as that was the theme of the Elzybells challenge and thought how long it's been since I did any teabag folding - mainly because I didn't have any of the papers. So I got thinking and thought about using a stamp to create my own papers and this was the result:

It took ages to make as I had to fold each one, then unfold it to be able to stamp in the right place and then re-fold each one. Really pleased with the result but will definetly only make another one for a special occasion due to the time it took to make.

I created the backing paper by stamping the same sundae image using watermark ink so that it all ties in. All the images are from Elzybells including the sentiment.

Elzybells Challenge 20 - More Than 1 Fold

Here's my entry for the Elzybells Challenge which was to create a card with more than 1 Fold. Well I think this will qualify as the card base has 2 folds but the 'lace' adds a whole load of other folds too! Have used my trusty sheep once again - don't think these have ever let me down. The text is also Elzybells. The corners of the left hand panel has been pierced which is something I've seen but I haven't done before. I'm sure this technique will be used again.

Sorry about the blurred pic though - will have another try at taking a pic.

Camera has been replaced so here goes...

...Yes indeed, my camera problem has been solved (for now at least) and I've had a replacement one. So, here are a couple of quick and easy projects I've been working on.

Had a play around again with Microsoft Publisher with some Cuddly Buddly downloads and managed to create these simple swinging cards simply by creating a four columned table and filling each cell with backing papers. Both the card and image are printed out on an A4 page which means there's not much waste at all. The great thing is that I now have a template and can simply change the papers and images to suit whatever I need. Think the Cosy Dayz may be next for this treatment as it is my all time favourite set especially at Christmas time (so I may start early this year lol).

This pic shows the card in one piece so to speak. I simply cut around half the frame (the part with a different backing) and then decoupaged the cow on top.

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The second is a really simple pillow box I made with my Sizzix Die and some Elzybells stamps - less if definetly more with these I think as I love the simplicity of them and think it's quite striking.

No Show

I have a couple of things I want to show here but my camera has decided to be unco-operative. It'll only take blurred pics. This is the second time this has happened with this make of camera and so updates will have to wait until I've sorted it out. Sorry! :(

Passion for ProMarkers Blog Challenge

If you are a regular to my blog you'll know that I really enjoy using my Promarkers and have built up a large collection by now. When visiting Wendy's blog I noticed a post about a new Challenge Blog run by Gina and Denise dedicated to Promarkers. They even have some Candy to get going. They are also looking for a DT to help out. Gina explains the challenge better than I possibly could so in her words:

"As you know I love my promarkers and use them on practically every card I make, so I won't come as any surprise to hear that along with my fellow devotee Denise (The Crafty Den) we have set up a "Passion for ProMarkers" challenge blog. The challenge will run weekly on a Tuesday and consist of being set 2 or 3 specific colours of promarkers that you must use that particular week.Now it's all very new and at the moment we are looking for 4 other promarker lovers to join our DT, so if you're interested just pop over to the Passion for ProMarkers blog and take a look (there are only a few rules). The closing date for applications is 18th May and our first challenge begins on 26th May. We would love it if you could come over and join the challenge. Please can you spread the word around as it would be great to start with a bang!"

More ATCs

This time for my swap over at ATC SWAPPERS. We have two themes this month due to a tie in a poll. The first is 'Black and Blue'. I went for this great fairy tale themed Elzybells stamp. The borders are black and blue. I've glazed the swords but this hasn't come out well in the pics. Also used stickles for the first time in ages.

The second colour scheme is Purple and Cream. I've used some Pink Petticoat images this time and matched the flower colours to the borders. Stickles used again, this time the ICE one to make some white wings.

How organised is this - have also made the thank you ATCs for the swappers (each swapper gets a bonus ATC from me this month). I've made them the same as last time but altered the colours. By the end, some people may have a complete collection of them lol!!!

12 have been made so far - if more join in then I'll have to get busy.

If there's anyone interested in swapping ATCs and wants to join in then contact me on

atcswappers@hotmail.co.uk

and I'll send on the relevant info about getting started. It's a small friendly swap with no rules on what to use or what to do. The philosophy behind the swap is JUST FOR FUN and that is what it has been, a lot of fun.

ATCs

This morning I made some ATCs for Rebecca's ATC Swap. This months theme was 'One for the Boys' and so I had to participate.

There was a poll over on ATC Swappers to decide upon a colour schemes for the May Swap. One of the choices available (but didn't end up as the chosen one) was Blue and Green and so I decided I'd use this as a starting point. I've used the same colour scheme for both sets.

The first is using the Elzybells footballer and I've used the colour scheme for the kit. I've reversed the colours to create 2 variants of the deesign.

The second ones use the boy in the car stamp, also from Elzybells. Again I've switched the colours over to create variants however there are slight differences this time so as to create 4 unique ones.

It's been a productive morning as I've also made the ATCs for this months ATC Swappers Colour Challenge but I'll wait for another day to post them. Just need to get organised now and get the info on the backs and I'll be ready to go.

Elzybells Challenge 19 - Rachel's Sketch

Here's the sketch that is the Challenge over at the Elzybells Blog right now. It's one of Rachels's. Head on over to have a look at the deisgn team's work - they are amazing.


Well here's my effort at it. I've used the sheep and chicks again and also my new Nesties - it's their first outing lol!!! The backing paper are free downloads from Shabby Princess.