Simple monochrome card

Hiya Everyone!

I've been very busy re-jigging my craft room and making better use of the space I have this week. I have put my new promarker storage unit after I finally finshed it into my craft room as I finished it off downstairs watching TV and it stayed there till I could be bother moving it Lol!

This card is the first card I've made especially for blog challenges this year. I have used this fabulous bird digi stamp which is a freebie download from pink petticoat which can be found here. I cut a square of white card which I cut roughly in half and used my swiss dots embossing folder to emboss the bottom half. I stuck both halves onto a slightly larger light pink square. I then took some pink ribbon and tied it to the side of the card. I printed out my image onto rymans card which I then mounted onto the same pink card. I coloured in the flowers, hearts and beak with my rose pink promarker and used my diamond stickles glitterglue on the wing of the bird and around the edge of the white card. I mounted this with foam pads to the left of the bow. I then added 3 pink adhesive gems to the top left corner to finish it off.

It is a lot plainer than I would normally make but I made it specifically for a number of challenges that I'd been eyeing up in the last few days.

I am entering it into the following challenges:-

Paper play - Clean and simple
Reasonable ribbon - Something new (Image - I've had it a while but never used it before)
Stamp something - Digi image
Stampin' bees - Old and new (Image is new(ish) - everything else I've had for ages)
Speedy the cats friends - Embossing
Alys sun challenge - Things with wings
Crafty Ho's - Monochrome
Sentimental sunday - Anything with wings
ECP - Old stash (Image is new(ish) - everything else I've had for ages)
Fun at fairy knoll - All that glitters
If the shoe fits - Ribbons and bows
Crazy 4 challenges - Photo inspiration (Pink and sparkly)
Our creative corner - Photo inspiration (Birds/snow/winter/berries etc)
Secret crafter - Texture (embossing/ribbon/glitter)
Cupcake craft challenge - Something new (Image - I've had it a while but never used it before)
Incy wincy designs - Go dotty (swiss dots embossing folder)
Lexi's creations - Say it with love
Ooh la la craft blog - Bling it on
Pollycraft monday challenge - New things (Image - I've never used it before)
The crazy challenge - Animals
Whoopsi daisy challenge - No designer papers
Tuesday throwdown - embossing
Catch the bug - embossing
Rainbow lady's challenge - It's all new to me (Image - never used before)
Delicious doodles - New (Image - never used before)
CES challenge blog - All creatures great and small
Fab 'n' funky challenges - Anything goes
Craft your days away - Anything goes


Thanks for looking!!!

Paula. x

Tim Holtz Distress inks colourchart

Hiya Everyone!

I have been busy making DT cards but unfortunately cannot post them yet as they need to be displayed in Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine first. I will be in Februarys issue which should be out at the end of January sometime.

As I am writing this I am in the middle of a blog challenge card but probably won't get chance to post it till tomorrow so I thought I would re-post the Tim Holtz distress inks colourchart that I did a while back in case some of you missed it and for my new followers :D. I coloured in a blank Tim Holtz colourchart a while ago when I bought all 36 reinkers and laminated it so I had a good record of all the shades which I've found really useful. The chart shows the "neat" ink colour painted directly so it gives a good representation of the shades.

If any of you would like to take a copy of this A4 sheet feel free. A print off obviously won't be as good as the real thing but might be useful if you're trying to work out what shades to buy if you are buying them a few at a time. It will certainly be better than some of the charts that you can find on-line. I bought them all as I sold some unwanted stuff on ebay and was going to buy all 24 then they bought out a new 12 set so I ended up buying all 36. I'm very impatient Lol!

If you would rather make your own colourchart a blank copy of the colourchart can be found here.

I hope you will find this useful - Thanks for looking!!!

Paula. x

My new Promarker storage + FREEBIE!!!

Hiya Everyone!

I have finally finished my promarker storage rack that I made with an IKEA DVD rack. This isn't my idea so I can't take the credit - I think it was originally devised by Camilla from Norway. Her cards are fabulous (she designs for Magnolia) so check out her blog here. The DVD rack cost £7.99 and was kindly sent to me by a fellow Docrafter called Karen before christmas as I was pregnant and wasn't able to get to IKEA myself. It takes 14 blank DVD cases (Poundland) and will house all your promarkers neatly and in order. I also bought some small round stickers from Rymans that I coloured in and stuck to the flat end of the pen. I used the official promarkers colourchart and spent hours on word making little boxes to fit along the spines of the DVDs so they listed the colour and had a small box to colour in underneath which I printed on the Rymans white coated card.

As a freebie if any of you want to make one of these for yourself I would gladly e-mail you the word document so you can just print it off to save you doing all the messing about that I did getting it to look right!

Thanks for looking!!!

Paula. x

ALL Papermill shops are CLOSING!!!!!!!

Hiya everyone!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I just thought I'd let you know that ALL the Papermill shops are closing. As far as I know the only one staying open is the main warehouse in Kendal which is going to stay open for mainly on-line business only. Some stores are closing as soon as the 15th January so all staff are being made redundant which some have only just found out about which completely sucks. I had a feeling that is was going this way when they stopped doing the hammercard in the boxes,odd shops started shutting and the stock levels were poor. I am gutted as it was not far from me and it was great for basic cardstock. I'm paying a visit with the MIL on sunday to get a few boxes as I think the Fleetwood one at Freeport shuts on the 22nd January. Luckily, I bought a value box of hammercard on-line from Papermill direct after they stopped doing it in the normal boxes so I've got loads of that. It's a good time to stock up now before your local shop closes.

Paula. x

1st Prize for Cardmaker of the year competition - La Pashe category

Hiya Everyone,

I just thought I'd share a piccy of the prize I received from La Pashe for coming 1st in their category in the Cardmaker of the year competition. I actually received the prize just before christmas but things have been so hectic that I've only just had chance to have a good look through it. There are framing cards, 6 flippin' stamp sets and loads and loads of various decoupage sheets. It isn't my usual style but they make great cards for older people.

For piccies and info on the winning card that I made with a remember when decoupage sheet see here.

Thanks for looking!!!

Paula. x

Top 5 Cards!!!

Hiya Everyone!

I hope you've all had a great start to the new year so far! I thought I would share with you my top 5 cards of 2010!

(In no particular order)

1 - My first card is the card I made for the COTY competition for the Pink Petticoat category. I came 1st with this card and have won £200 worth of stuff which I think was delivered a few days ago when I was out so I am now waiting till after the bank holiday so I can go and collect it from the post office - it's been ages! For more piccies and info see here.

2 - This card I also made for the COTY competition but for the La Pashe category. It is completely different to anything I have made before and it took me 2 whole days to make it but I was so pleased with how it turned out considering I just made it up as I went along! For more piccies and info see here.

3 - I made this card for my first stint on the Joanna Sheen design team. I had to make 4 cards (2 decoupage and 2 stamped) and this particular one was shown on create and craft tv - I was so chuffed! For more piccies and info please see here.

4 - I made this card for the papercellar category for the COTY competition although I didn't win anything with it but I do like it. For more piccies and info see here.

5 - This card was one of the first cards I made in order to enter some of my first blog challenges. For more piccies and info see here.

Thanks for looking!!!

Paula. x

Crafters Companion January Challenge card!!!

Happy New Year!!!

I am scheduling this post as I am having friends and family over for seeing in the New Year and have no idea when I'll get chance to post this otherwise. 

Today I have my January challenge card for the Crafters Companion monthly challenge to share with you.  I have used the Popcorns pals CD rom for both the decoupage image and the matching papers. 

Thanks for looking!

Paula. x