Sugar Bowl Challenge

Evening all, well here is my entry for this weeks extra challenge over at Sugar Bowl. The challenge is to make a card for men. Well we all know how difficult they are in normal life and making a card for them is even more so.
Let's take my OH for instance, one minute its fishing, next golfing then back to fishing and don't get me started on their fascination with anything new and shiny, boys and their toys hey!!

Well this card is for a man who although may be grey around the hair, he is still very young at heart and this was exactly what my brother-in-law is and as it was his birthday recently I made this for him.

Image: Magnolia

Papers: Heidi Grace

Flowers: Prima

Just came back from a walk up the road where the local hall had their drums out and of course me being me had a wee go with a fife tune with them. Can't believe that tomorrow is the 1st of May and only 7 weeks until the kids are of school, would somebody please tell me where that school year has gone to? Kelsey finished her 1st year in the academy and Joe finishing P1, flip I am getting OLD.

Spoonfull of Sugar Challenge

Morning all, well I have had 1 of the best days crafting in a long time, don't know what it is but don't care as I'm really having some FUN!!!
This weeks challenge over at SSC is to use the colours blue & green, well luckily for me I had already coloured in this little Gorjuss girl in those colours earlier on this week.
This whole card, except for the base, has been created using new products that I purchased over the past couple of weeks and I think that's why I've had such fun with it. Now I have heard and read about people commenting on how brilliant Mr Tim Holtz is, so at the recent craft show I actually invested in one of his distress ink pads. Truth be told, I'm still learning on how best to use these inks, but I'm enjoying the mess, brings out the kid in me :-)

Well this is my finished entry, and I must admit I really do like it, its different from my norm so please let me know what you think.

Images: Gorjuss girls set 2

Flowers: Papermania doodles collection

Papers: Funky Daze CD (love it)

Inks: Tim Holtz Distress Ink Walnut Satin

Buttons & ric rac from stock

Copics: As per picture below

Now if any of you know of any good tutorials on how to get the best out of the distress inks, please leave a comment and I will go a wandering. Bye for now, going to M&S today with Mum as they have a sale on and I need some new "Summer" clothes for work. Catch up with you later hopefully, Karen xoxo

The Secret Crafter

Well I didn't think I would be this quick, but here is my entry for this weeks Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge number 29. The challenge this week is to make a "shape" card. Now I made this card for Kelsey's birthday and decided to enter into this challenge. Not only is this a challenge entry but it is also a DT call so I'm putting my name in the hat and see what happens.

The image is a PB coloured in using water colour pencils, the papers are from DCWV and I used my cricut expression to cut out Kelsey's name. Her name and the wings have been painted with cosmic shimmer and give a lovely shimmer highlight when the light his them. Hope you like my card and wish me good luck for the DT call.

Daisy & Dandelion Challenge

Hi all, well I managed to get this card finished for the Daisy & Dandelion challenge blog. We had to work of a sketch and I have adapted mine slightly to suit a birthday card for my brother in law. He loves his dogs so this cute image of Daisy was ideal for him. She was coloured in using the cool greys from copic and just her pads of her paws highlighted. Mounted onto a circle cut out and punched using a Fiskars circle punch. The purple card background I used my cuttlebug embossing board to give it a bit of dimension. Ribbon down the side and I split the text stamps so that it would fit along the bottom.

Here is the finished card, sorry my picture isn't to straight I think I must have had my sleeping specs on at the time.
Hope you enjoy my card and might get back later tonight with some more images of my new Gorjuss girls, Joe has fell in love with one of them.............. I wonder if you would be able to guess which one.

A Sad Day

As I was driving to work this morning I heard on the news that a man had been shot dead in Templepatrick, little did I know that the man murdered was someone who I had worked with. It's a complete shock to me as to why someone would want to kill Geoff. He was a larger than life character and was very helpful and understanding with my personal circumstances when I worked with him. My thoughts and prayers go to his wife, 4 sons and the family circle.

Spoonfull Of Sugar Challenge

Evening all, here is my entry for this weeks Spoonfull Of Sugar Challenge. It's based on a sketch and I really enjoyed playing with it.


Now if you don't recognise the image its because its one of the new images from the new Gorjuss Set Number 2 which I pre-ordered from Funkykits and arrived just in time for my birthday.

Image: Gorjuss Set No2

Papers: American Crafts

Embelishments: DCWV

Hope you enjoy!!!

PS: 4 seasons in 1 day?? Well yes on all 4 today here just take a look at the snow that was in my backgarden around 3 pm this afternoon, then followed by thunder and lightening!!!

Whiff Of Joy Challenge

Hi all, apologies for taking so long to upload this card, I've been extremely busy this weekend and didn't actually get finished working until 3.30am this morning, so I'm a bit tired.

This is my weeks entrance to this weeks WOJ challenge and we had to follow a sketch which I found really interesting. I coloured this image in ages ago and unfortunately didn't take a picture of the copics that I used sorry :-(
The background is one that I created using some cosmic shimmer watercolours and mixed them up a bit. Papers used were from DCWV and the rest of the card stock was from my stash. Flowers and ribbon again from my collection. Hopefully fingers crossed I might get back tomorrow with another card for a challenge this week. Karen xoxo

Sugar Bowl Challenge

Evening all, well here is my entry for this weeks Sugar Bowl challenge which was based on a fabulous sketch. I really enjoyed this sketch and I hope you can see this with my finished card.

Isn't she the cutest little Miss you've ever seen, now I was never a girlie girl, but my daughter when she was younger use to love going into my makeup bag and putting my most expensive mascara on, and she did a good job of it considering she was only 4. Think my shadowing is much better on this image :-)

Image: Dress Up Maggie

Coloured in: copics in above picture

Papers: American Crafts Tea Party

Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug Tiny Bubbles

Charm from Totally Beads

Hope you can see it in the picture is says "Made with Love", bought these at the craft show on Saturday from http://www.totallybeads.co.uk/ will definitely be buying some more.

Hope you enjoy my card, please leave a comment and I'll come and visit your blog xoxo

Friday Sketcher Challenge & Copic Creation

Well good evening all, here is a more mature man that I have been working on today. Also I have followed the sketch for this weeks challenge over on the Friday sketchers blog and going to enter his "Blue" jeans into this weeks copics creation.

I have used this image a few times and have always went for the T-Bird style (and for those of you who don't know who the T-Birds are, think of John Travolta in Grease), but this time I wanted to use him as a more mature T-bird hence the grey hair, think I might actually use this style for Father's Day in June, oh Mum please don't tell me Dad.

I think I am getting better as the shading, it has taken me quite a few goes and I would say that I'm far from perfect at it, but to be honest with you I am having a ball trying to get it right. It's taking me back to my childhood when Santa use to bring my brothers and me some colouring books and new pencils and after we had our diner Mum would be the one sitting doing all the colouring in.

When I had cut out my image, I mounted him onto an oval shaped card, to give more definition to the oval I used some of the flocked circles and mounted them around the oval, just to make it look a bit more interesting.



Image: Magnolia

Colours: Copics in picture above

Papers: Heidi Grace Baby Boy collection

Flowers & Brads from stash

Well I hope you enjoyed my card, please leave a comment and I will pop over to your blog and return the favour, thanks for now, Karen xoxoxo

Katharina's WOJ Summer Candy

To Celebrate the launch of the pre-orders for the new summer stamp kit
Katharina is generously giving away a wonderful blog candy to two lucky stampers..
(yes i did say two lucky stampers)
what have you got to do..??
hotfoot it over to
**Katharina’s blog**
and read over there what she wants you to do to be in with the chance to win one of these fantastic sets.
pre-orders for the Kit are open until May 4th. It includes 6 brand new, never before seen, main character stamps, 5 accessory stamps, designed by Elisabeth Bell and 4 text stamps, designed by Katharina (in English).

Whiff Of Joy Challenge

Over at the WOJ challenge this week the challenge set was to use Black, White and only 1 other colour. My colour of choice was RED as its so vibrant against the black and white.

I'm sorry that the picture quality isn't the best, but I'm taking it under false light as I cannot believe where this week has gone. Here is a close up of the image that I used.

Apologies as I don't know the name of the image, it's not on the paperwork that came with the image :-( If you know, please let me know :-)

Anyway she was coloured in using my copics and using a white pilot pen, I highlighted the stitching and some of her hair and yes this is really how grey I am under all my colour, but alas no more because as its my birthday this Thursday I am going to accept my age and hair colour gracefully from now on, well that's my feeling as of now, could change in a few weeks when more greys and wrinkles start to appear.

Hope you all had a nice weekend, Mum, Kelsey and I went to the Stitch & Craft show in Belfast on Saturday and yes we did spend more than we had hoped. While at the show I found the 1st official outlet in Northern Ireland to supply the Whiff Of Joy images, you can now imagine how excited I am that at last someone here has realised how wonderful these stamps are. THANK YOU xoxoxo

Pennyblack Challenge - A Gift

Hi everyone, over at the PBSC they challenge this week is to make a gift, and I have been trying to use the technique for a long time, so I made myself a candle. Well not really the candle just decorated it :-)

I downloaded all the instructions from a google search and to be honest with you it was easier than what I thought. The trickiest bit for me was cutting out the image from the tissue and not cutting to close to the image.
Once the image had melted into the candle, I stamped up some more flowers for a base around the main image. I thought the candle needed a bit of a bling bling factor, so I added small sequin flowers into the candle using pins (back to my old sowing days).


I'm really happy the way it turned out and even my OH commented on how good it looked. Apologies for picture quality its been very overcast here today and not much light :-(

Image: PB Bee Costume

Colours : Various copics (sorry deleted the picture)

Flowers: PB Fresh New Day

& flower sequins

Wings: Cosmic Shimmer, Golden Shine

Lorraine's 24 hour candy post!!!!!

Hurry.... Hurry.... Hurry.....
You now have 24 hours to enter Lorraine's surprise candy giveaway...
No clue as to what it will be
Rules are simple

1. Leave a comment on her posting...

2. Put a link on your blog... mind to tell them it is a quickie

3. Make sure you enter before midnight tonight... (GMT)

Are you still reading?????

Click HERE to take you straight over!!!!

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE

Copic Sketch Markers for SALE

Hi all, as you know my beloved OH bought me the 2 collection of sketch markers for my upcoming birthday.
Unfortunately some of these were doubles and I have listed the doubles for sale on ebay here!
So go on over and take a look, believe me you won't want to miss this bargin of the century.
Karen

I'm a GRAND PRIZE winner!!!

Yesterday while I was doing some blog hoping, I came across this stroll for Rubbernecker Stamps. This was the first time in 10 years that the company has released new stamps, and guess what I WON the COMPLETE COLLECTION. Can't believe it, sitting here still in shock and the OH thinks I've done something silly to myself - stupid man what would he know LOL. So here are pictures of the complete collection and I can't wait to get using these but I don't know where to start ........................

Should I start with the wildflowers or the tea and coffee??? oh decisions decisions. Well I couldn't ask for a better start to the weekend, surely it can only get better, after all we did have hail here earlier.

Karen

Sweet & Sassy

Well as some of you may know the Masters started last night on TV at 9pm and my OH has taken control of the Sky from that time, so kids were in their own rooms last night for 9 and I actually was given some piece to make a card.
I came across a challenge over at the Whiff Of Joy Challenge, and decided to use my Sweet & Sassy rubber stamp and follow the sketch.
The papers used were cut down to 7cm x 10cm, used a shape from my cricut to cut out the center panel. Now I would not be the best at sowing, so I decided to give this some fake stitching, think it turned out really well. Mounted my image up, used some chipboard flowers and petals, some leather effect ribbon and a wooden heart sentiment.
I am really proud of myself they way she turned out, and hopefully you will see from this last picture that I have been practicing really hard on my shadowing and skin colour tones.

Image: Sweet & Sassy by Elizabeth Bell

Colours: Copic sketch markers

(E00, E31, E33, E51, C1, W1, YG03, YG13,

V12, V15, RV21, B00, B01, Y13, YR02,

YR04, R20 & R29 sorry forgot to take pic)

Papers: K&Company Classic K Bailey

and bright rainbow as background

Cricut shape: Accent Essentials cartridge

Chipboard shapes from a kit I got of QVC

Leather Ribbon: bought from Dunelm

Wooden heart was given to me

Well what do you think? Going to send this image into the copic challenge as I definitely feel happier with this image than the one I submitted a few days ago.

Thanks for stopping by, Karen xoxox

2 challenges in 1

Well here is what I've managed to make today, and I've actually completed 2 challenges into 1 card.
The first challenge was set from a sketch for Friday Sketchers Blog, now I know I haven't followed the sketch exactly, but I think my interpretation is good, fingers crossed.
The second challenge was for A Spoonfull Of Sugar, in which you had to create a card with an age on it.

I made this card by cutting out a 7cm square aperture from the centre, stuck on some acetate and created a shaker card using some stars, sequences and beads that I had. Next I glittered the number 3 and stuck it onto the backing paper of the shaker.
The image was coloured and cut out and stuck together with a fine piece of acetate to give the impression that the angel is flying. Coloured in the stars on the background and hey presto card finished .......... wish it was that quick to make :-0
Might get back tonight with some more cards, but I need to get the tea sorted first.

Images: Star Angel from Butterfly Kisses

Backing Paper: Tutti Frutti from Craft House

(this was in some candy that I won from Kath, thanks honey)

Colours used: various Copics & Sakura stardust

Inks: Versafine smokey grey

Everything else was from my stash.

Copic Challenge No 1

Well as you know my OH bought me lots of copic sketch markers recently and to my surprise copic have now launched a new blog. As well as having challenges on this blog, they are also providing hints and tips on how to get the most out of your copics, well this has been a great help for me.

There first challenge was to show of your colour techniques for faces. Below are my entries and they are far from as to the high standard as the design team, a BIG THANK YOU to Suzanne who has some amazing videos on you tube, I've been glued for hours watching her.

I worked really hard on trying to get the lighting on her face right and to show the shading properly, can you guess what side the light is coming from? Well it's suppose to be from the right, if you guess correctly then I must have done something good :-)

These were the pens that I used and my inspiration of colour was from the background paper in the picture, I really like the way there are so many different colours available within the same family.

And this is the finished article, doesn't she look pretty, and yes it is raining outside at the moment, hasn't really stopped here as past few days, of work tomorrow and Thursday as the OH needs to work and kids are of for the summer holidays, so you never know might get some more challenges made.

Hope to see you soon, Karen

Image: Rachelle Anne Miller, Lily & Milo

Colour pens: copic sketch

Papers: DCWV Summer collection

Embossed plate: Cuttlebug D'vine Swirl (inked before embossing)

Ribbon: From stash

Gems: Papermania collection

Flowers: Prima

Chicks or Rabbits?

Couldn't decide which animal represented Easter more? The chicks as they are nice and fluffy and produce the ever in demand eggs, or the Easter Bunny the person who delivers the eggs? Which came first I wonder!

Anyway as I couldn't decided I used both on this card, these images are from the PB Fresh New Day collection which my Mum bought at our recent SECC trip. Coloured in using my new copics and layered onto some DCWV spring paper.

I love the way that the chicks are looking at Mr Wabbit as if they are ganging up on him and his expression is like "Whatever!!" they are soooo cute.

This card is going to be sent to a very good friend of mine and I have based the colour of the wabbit on her little Mr, can you guess who it is?

The Good, the bad and the .......

...... well this is going to be a long post so go get yourself a cup of tea, light up a smoke (if you want) and take a pew. Sorry it's been a while since my last post, its been absolutely chaos here and maybe this wee post might explain a few of the reasons.
Firstly The Good news, as you know Mother's day has just went past, Easter is next week and my birthday (35th oh cringe) is the week after. My darling OH asked me what I would like and as you know I bought some copic sketch markers recently and said "a couple more of these babies would be cool :-)" Needless to say he must have heard me wrong as he bought me a couple of SETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! couldn't believe it, didn't correct him mind you, but look at these new babies, I've been playing oops sorry perfecting my artist skills (sounds better) with these cuties over the past weeks when I've had the time, yes my "normal" work is still as mad as ever, who said that I would only be busy at the beginning of the year?! They are the sketch markers and now I'm thinking to myself "should I invest in an airbrush system?" Don't know how that would go down with OH, maybe if I bought it and said nothing about it would he even notice?



Now the bad news, well it's not really bad just depressing to me as the dust is doing my head in, yes the builders are still here and these are a few pictures to let you know the progress. I have no roof on my house, there is a big massive hole in my landing where my new master bedroom door will be and I'm freezing.

This is my new en suite, doesn't look like much from the picture but I'm sure that when the roof goes on and it's all plastered, fitted and cleaned it's going to look the business.

This is the kids new play room, it was originally our garage but as we built a double garage to the other side of our house last year, it was a sin to waste the space, plus it should mean that the kids stay out of the living room with all their Wii's, DS consoles and Xbox (oops that's mine and yes I do have the drum kit and guitar to go with it, rock on me lol !!!)

Finally the Ugly, well it's the weather of course, all this work is being done and the heaven's have opened so not only do I have to chase around behind the builders with the hoover, but now it the mop and bucket as well, there is water coming in everywhere and I've been praying really hard for it to stop. Hopefully as it's been a really good weekend here we might have some sunshine
for the builders to get the roof on and finish up but hey look at these poor chappies working in the rain trying to put my master bedroom window in isn't that dedication for you or is it the fact that not only am I standing holding the camera but I've also got a massive cane that if they try to slack of that I won't be afraid to use it, well it did take them 5 months to find my house .........................

Oh don't tell me you thought I was talking about my builders being "the ugly" ................... oh how rude ;-)

Oh how I wish all this work was finished, everything is everywhere, it's really doing my head in, can find nothing, everything is getting threw into my craft/computer room and I'm expected to work in this, no chance.

Hope to get a challenge finished tonight and posted on here tomorrow well the OH is working nights this weekend, the youngest is in bed and Kelsey, well she's sitting watching some silly movie on TV laughing her head off, well it is the Easter holidays for them anyway.

Love always, Karen xoxoxo