Hearts of Plaid at Bubbly Scrumptious

There's a prize challenge at Bubbly Scrumptious and this photo collage above is the inpsiration for some craftiness.  I decided to do a digital layout.  It's a while since I've made one, but this inspiration was calling out for me to rescrap a favourite photo from the summer...

Brian and I celebrated 30 years of marriage this year and went back to the hotel where we had our wedding reception where my Mum took this photo of us.  The colours were perfect for  the challenge and I knew I had some awesome digi kits in these colours too!

Julie Marie - Bailey

Joyful Heat Designs - Alter Me & La Boheme

Tami Miller - Sisters at Heart

Font - Playbill

Double Helpings!

I'm just sneaking these two competition entries in under the wire!  Both are due for 31st March and I didn't want to blog the birthday card until today as it is my friend's birthday tomorrow and she does sometimes look at my blog.  However, I know she is out and about today and not near a computer, so it is safe to go ahead.

First is a tag I have created using Tando Creative Chipboard.  Tando run a monthly competition with lovely prizes, the rules are simple you have to make a piece just for the competition and include a piece of Tando chippie.

The tag came from a pair of jeans and has been lurking around my desk for some time waiting for the right project. It was painted with Ranger Acrylic daubers, gessoed and then,inspired by the Utube clip over on Bubbly Scrumptious, I embossed it in my Cuttlebug using the 'Friend' folder.  Swiped over the embossing with dark brown ink.

The Tando piece is the lovely branch of leaves, which again was painted with acrylics and then highlighted with Distress inks in Peeled Paint and Rusty Hinge (I have only got 6 Distress Ink Pads, so the same ones do appear regularly). Flowers are by Wild Orchid Crafts.
The little tag was made with an offcut from the Thrinchie I made yesterday with some bits of lace, ribbons and buttons from my stash.


Second item is my card for the Get Funky Challenge 'Girls Girls Girls'

 f,

The Funky Hand paper is from the Papercraft Factory CD in the Just Happy range.  Vintage images from Millie Motts and e-crafting.com, flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts.

Just in case you were wondering, my friend is not French, but her name is Avril and when I saw the image on the Millie Motts site, I knew I had to keep it to use for her next birthday, particularly as it featured shoes and handbags! As the text is in french on the advert I continued the theme with the Paris collage sheet and the french birthday greeting.

Whispers of Mothers Day

This is the card I made for my MIL for Mothers Day, my mum got the Aquamarine card I made for last week's Daring Card Makers Dare. I used the colours from the Bubbly Scrumptious prompt Whispers of Colour No. 3, "Chocolate, Pink, Green and Red". The red is a pinky red but I thought it was near enough.

Papers and chippie butterfly are K&Co Madeleine (yes, I still have a few bits left!)
Sketch is Becky Fleck/PageMaps March 2010 Card Maps

Vanilla Sugar Hanging Heart

The Vanilla Sugar challenge this month is Hanging Hearts - perfect for home decor or as a gift.
I made my hanging heart with two pipecleaners joined together and bent into shape (how appropriate lol!) The shell buttons came from a bag a friend had got which got wet and all the colour ran into the buttons so they have a slight turquoise tint and only one hole in each button. I finished it with a bit of ribbon and some Kars jewels to pick up the turquoise tones.

Coasters to Calendars

The Bubbly Scrumptious Challenge Blog, Vanilla Sugar, has Coasters as the theme for January. There were lots of interesting ideas by the Design Team but I really didn't need any more actual coasters, so I had a look at Splitcoaststampers resources to see what projects there were on there and found THIS little calendar.

My coasters are not the crafting chipboard kind, they are real coasters that I bought in the supermarket when they were on sale 6 for £1.00, so they are somewhat thicker than the ones used in the project. That meant that I couldn't cut them with either my Bind-it-all or my Crop-o-dile! So I made a binding from card in the same way I did with my Christmas Album.

The project instructions link you to a place to print out your calendar. I used the photo of me with my boys that was taken at Christmas, I love this picture.

All Papers are Websters Pages 'Postcards from Paris' from Bubbly Funk Shoppie.

When it came to a little embellishment, I thought I'd make this bunch of cherries using some faux flower stamens I got years ago from Lakeland and a couple of bits of leaves from a leaf/stem ribbon.

I have to say I am really pleased with this and it is going to sit on my desk at work.

Over to you...

On Bubbly Scrumptious blog, Kathy Black has come up with a little challenge in the form of a sketch. Regular blog readers will know that I am very fond of Kathy's sketches and as she was in a bit of a panic that no one would take part, I thought I'd better get on with it!

Here is what she said: "This week I thought I'd try something a bit different and lay down a little challenge. Pretty much every day the Team here on BS share something they've made using the various kits and other fab stuff you can buy from Bubbly Funk.
This week though, I'd like to see more of what the people who read this blog are making! So I've come up with a sketch design which I hope you'll find interesting and inspiring to use in whatever way you fancy - it could be for a card, a scrap LO or maybe for the front of a book or top of a box - anything goes - I just want a chance to see the things you make!"

My card uses Webster's pages and an image from Art Freebies, the ribbon is some wired Christmas ribbon that I've had for about 3 years! Oh and a little bit of glossy accents on the cherries.

On the 13th Day of Christmas...

Of course, I know that it's not the 13th day of Christmas as the countdown doesn't start till Christmas! However, it kind of starts today at our house as, every year we have my DH's cousins over before Christmas for a lunch of cold ham and turkey, salads and roast potatoes followed by lots of lovely dessert. Today was the day and it co-incides nicely with this week's challenge over on Bubbly Scrumptious Challenge Blog which The Food of Christmas.

I've created an LO showing my dining table before everyone arrived and some pictures of some of the food we ate, with apologies to my veggie friends.

Papers - La Cucina
Snowflake Elements - Ellie Lash, Winter Wonderland
Template - By Sine

Once upon a time...

... a very poor woodcutter lived in a tiny cottage in the forest with his two children, Hansel and Gretel.

When I saw that the weekly challenge on Bubbly Scrumptious was 'Fairytale' I knew that the time had come to open the Maya Road 'house' that I had won in another BS challenge and turn it into a Gingerbread House for Hansel and Gretel!

I painted the cottage with acrylic paint to get a 'gingerbread' finish. I had almost finished the cottage last night but hadn't put any decoration either side of this window. I'm so glad I left it because I found these little Gingerbread people when I was putting my Christmas decorations up, they were right at the bottom of the box and I remember that my Mum had used them on her Christmas cake one year and gave these two to me. They were just the perfect finishing touch.
I had to make my own candy canes and they are probably the thing I am least satisfied with, however, they are recognisable as candy canes.
Here is the opposite side of the cottage. I am most pleased with the roof which is simply made with punched circles of different coloured brown card. The 'snow' is made with the 'velvet' pen I bought last year at NEC, you use your heat gun and it puffs up.
The little hearts came with the cottage set and the charms were in my stash, I remember I bought them for the Recipe card swap we did on Bubbly Funk and I did the gingerbread man recipe.

Finally, the lid lifts off and there is a little book which you can make up and put inside. Of course, you could fill it with yummy treats!

Holidays in Hand and a Bubbly Scrumptious Bauble!

I signed up for Jessica Sprague's free class Holidays in Hand which aims to "refocus you on what matters most to you in your holiday celebrations as you go through them this year, and also to help you create an album for recording your stories of holidays past."

I haven't got very far, what with being away in Newcastle and then in London, but I did manage to print off the prompts last week and when I saw the lovely Christmas Pledge Bauble wall hanging that Ruth made on Bubbly Scrumptious I knew I had found the perfect display for my prompts!

Papers are Colourful Christmas and the ribbon is Christmas wrapping ribbon from Tesco last year.

Lest we forget.

The Bubbly Scrumptious weekly challenge this week is 'Remembrance'. I decided to do a digi LO to remember my DH's uncle John who died in 1945, right at the end of WWII. He was a flight engineer in the RAF and left a wife and young son.

Kits: Remembrance of Times Past - Digital Craft Cottage
Babs Dreaming - Digiscrap Girls
Never say Goodbye - Mistica Designs
Time Lines & Generations - Roxi for Digital Craft Cottage

A thing of beauty...

I am sooooo pleased with this photograph! It's a lovely sunny day here today, so I grabbed my camera and the telephoto lens with the intention of getting some pics for the Digital Craft Cottage 'Snap -It' challenge. For November the Snap-It challenge is to take photos of animals or other creatures, I couldn't believe it when I saw this beauty flitting about on the brambles.

I was so excited when I realised that I could also use this LO for the Bubbly Scrumptious monthly challenge 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever'.

Texture Overlay: Shauna Burke Smith (Pineapple Plantation Designs)
Font: LD Infusion
Staple: sorry just can't find this one at all!

Ghoulies & Ghosties & Long legged Beasties

Yes, that's the theme for this week's Bubbly Scrumptious Challenge. I was just waiting for an excuse to use this gorgeous image from 'Last Door Down the Hall', I love how the girl is a bit of a temptress, and what about that owl on her head lol! Anyway there is a bat and a cat for the beastie bit, so I stretched the criteria a bit so I could use this image.

The background papers were one's I bought for the Bubbly Funk Twinchie swap, fab glittery papers and I made a little black and orange pin to put through the ribbon.

Howzat!

Here is this week's Bubbly Scrumptious Weekly Challenge:

This week we are getting lively hahahahaha!!!! The theme is...

PHYSICAL CULTURE!

This means that anything sporty, health related or exercise is required...luckily we don't mean you must run a marathon or jump up & down in your living room haha...well you can if you want to!

We are not a very sporty family, so I was a bit 'stumped' (groan) as to what to come up with for this challenge. Fortunately, I had some sprorts stamped images from an image swap, so I coloured this with my copics and made this simple card.

Papers: My Mind's Eye - Colorful Christmas
Stamp: Hero Arts, Personal Impressions.

There must be an angel...

I'm telling you, I was not sounding like an angel when I made this card for the Bubbly Scrumptious monthly challenge. It gave me no end of trouble, wouldn't stick, stuck on squint. However, I got there in the end, I used a sketch prepared by Kaz of Slightly Wonky Crafts for last week's Bubbly Funk mini-crop. Image is from Last Door down the Hall, music paper is K&Co Madeleine and there is some Ranger Distress ink in Aged Paper.

Sunset Silhouette - Three in one!

This digital layout covers three challenges:
Bubbly Scrumptious weekly challenge this week is for a silhouette
Digtial Craft Cottage, Sketch 44 challenge
Digital Craft Cottage, Mix it October Challenge

The Mix it Challenge is really fun, using your date of birth you choose different elements to include in your layout. I got Animal, 2 words, a tag and something flowered.

I have a real mix of kits in this LO too: Lisa Bowman's Time Passages provided the flowered cream paper, most of the rest of the papers and elements are from the Scraporchard September Mega including designs from Ellie Lash, Anrik Filbert and Pineapple Plantation Designs.

Bubbly Scrumptious Monthly Challenge - Houses

As well as the weekly challenge on Bubbly Scrumptious crafty blog, there is a monthly challenge with prizes! This month the challenge was Houses.
I had various ideas, including trying to make up a chipboard house that I bought ages ago, but he instructions were not good so I thought I would do my own. I used an box that contained tea bags the kind that come in their own little packets, so there wasn't a pile of tea dust in the box.

I looked for inspiration in the Somerset Studio magazine I'd bought ages ago and found this vintage theatre programme image in one of their freebie pages of images and backgrounds. They are on good quality card so easy to use. That gave me the idea of making my 'house' a theatre and a chance to use my Dimension Fourth Comedy and Tragedy Mask stamps.

I also used some of those vintage stamps I got in the charity grab bag and the lovely new stamp, also from Dimension Fourth that I got from Karen for my birthday (thanks Karen, I love it). I used the tissue paper technique from Craft Stamper again.

Music stamp is also Dimension Fourth.

Papers are Basic Grey Sublime and there is quite a lot of gesso on there and a bit of Red Velvet Glimmer mists too. Yes, I did throw everything at it lol!

Bubbly Scrumptious Weekly Challenge - Vintage

I thought I'd do something slightly different for this week's Bubbly Scrumptious challenge. There have been a lot of vintage challenges and I've done quite a few cards, so I thought I'd make something from my vintage textile stash! This little heart is made from the whitework border on an old cotton underskirt, there are several layers of this embroidery so you may see it again! The pearl necklace is not vintage but the bracelet is gold and pearls and belonged to my grandmother, I wore it on my wedding day.

Bubbly Scrumptious Weekly Challenge - Vehicles

I was just soooo pleased when I checked out this week's Bubbly Scrumptious challenge because I made this card last week for another challenge but when I read it again, I realised it wasn't going to fit the criteria after all! I knew that something would come up soon that was just right for this card but I didn't expect it to be so soon :D

The background has been distress inked over some Tim Holtz stencilly things, printed papers are digital downloads from Funky Hand, vintage accounts paper is from Stampington and the vintage image is from Art Freebies. The 'One Way' stamp is from Paper Artsy and the key came from a freebie stamp on Craft Stamper. The wooden car was a present from one of my boys, don't remember which, to his dad.

Bubbly Scrumptious - Spotty & Dotty Challenge

Here is my take on the Spotty/Dotty Challenge over on Bubbly Scrumptious Blog. I used some of the last pieces of 'Hippie Chick' papers and grunged them up a bit. Just as well as I made a bit of a grungy mess of the stamping! The card is based on Sketch 9 on Kathy's Waffle Sketch File

Merry and Bright - Bubbly Scrumptious Challenge

Here is my entry for the Bubbly Scrumptious Weekly Challenge.

DRY EMBOSSING

Whether you use a lightbox or a 'machine' for this you can make some really lovely patterns & there is so much you can do with the embossed card/paper.

I am beginning to think I need to start making some Christmas cards so as I have the snowflake embossing folder for my Cuttlebug, I decided to use this for the challenge. The card owes a lot to Kaz at Slightly Wonky Crafts in style, the papers were left over from last year and are by Dream Street, the stamped image was one I got in a stamped image swap, so I can't give you any details, I'm afraid.