Stampotique Designer's Challenge

Since tomorrow is craft day at school I would up off today instead of tomorrow so that gave me some fun crafty play time. I have been trying to catch up on my blog reading and came across the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog. Now I have had some of these stamps for a bit now because I liked them but have not gotten the chance to play with them yet so what better time than now! Here is the card I did for the challenge. The theme is Bling and you have to use a Stampotique stamp.

I know it is simple but I really wanted to play with sewing a bit and with all the snow we have been having lately I though the Snowman was fitting. I stamped the image on white card then sewed a sheer blue over top using black thread. Before finishing the stitching I added some medium silver glitter from Pink Paisley under the fabric then finished the stitch creating a fabric type shaker box. Once stitched I frayed the fabric edges for a bit of a distressed look and inked the card edges with Black Soot Distress ink. I then painted a chibboard snowflake from Chip off the olds Block blue and added Basic Grey gems and Stickles glitter glue. Finally I added some black soot Distress stickles on top of the fabic as the snowman eyes and buttons. I thought about adding some color to the image but chose not to so as to keep the chilly snowy feeling throughout just like the weather.

Here shown above is a close up of the chipboard snowflake and below is a closeup of the snowman. I like the way the Distress Stickles give depth to the eyes.

I will set off with this image of my view this morning from my craft room of the snow. We have been getting a bit more every evening then it begins to melt during the day only to freeze again at night. It is a pretty site though. So calming and peaceful. Hope everyone is staying warm. Have a wonderful day. Angela

It's begining to look alot like Christmas.....

Or at least with all the snow we are beginning to get it feels like Christmas and just think it isn't even December yet. We spent the day in York today and did have to brave a bit of snow and lots of cold but there is just something special about York when it is all decorated for Christmas and it starts to snow. Love it. Here are some pics to share.

Ok this may not make you think of Christmas but I loved the snow and ice on the spider webs.
The snow today in town with the Minster in the background. Notice the Christmas trees on the buildings.

Love the decorations throughout with the snow layered on top and the Store windows are always great at this time.

Look at these yummy treats.

Well I am going to run now to finish warming by the fire with a nice cup of Baily's and coffee while catching up on my blog reading. Maybe we will get lucky enough to have a snow day tomorrow and I can get a bit of extra crafty time in. fingers crossed. Hope you have a wonderful evening and if you are heading out in the snow tonight please be careful. Angela

New Tutorial ,give away and some of my work.

One of my favourite techniques is paper piecing. I love tearing and cutting it is so calming for me and a great way to de-stress. Here is one of my mulberry dogs I have done shown above. I decided to posted some of my paper peiceings on the other blog this weekend and had some requests for a simple bear tuorial . I have created one and it can be found here.

The tutorial will show you how to create a Simple Peek-a-boo bear show below



Now please keep in mind it is only on how to make a simple Peek-a-boo style bear but can be expanded upon using your own ideas. You can view more of my animal and other paper piecings by following this link or just scroll down the sidebar of my blog for a link. Below are some of the more detailed bears I have done on layouts.







I hope you enjoy the tutorial and as a little thank you to my followers, if you leave a comment letting me know how you like the tutorial. I will enter you in a drawing for a custom mulberry paper piecing of your choice. I will chose a winner from random draw next friday and create for them a custum piece of their choosing. Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful day. Angela

What to do on a cold and cloudy day off.....

Do some crafting of course. Today I spent the day up in my craft room playing with some new ideas and techniques. I finished my ATC's for the ATC 12 days of Chrsitmas swap over at ATC Swappers. We had to make 12 of the same cards with Christmas/holiday theme. After a few trials and error attempts I finally settled on this design.

I used a snowman stamp from a misc set I bought at the range last year. He is coloured using Pro markers. The background is glossy card with Gel-a-Tins Snowflake stamps in perfect medium with Broken China Distress ink over top causing a resist effect. The border is hand drawn.

The next set of ATC's I finished are for the December swap over at The Stamp Man ATC swap. Once again after playing around with multiple techniques and ideas I decided on these 3.

My first card above has a stamped background using Tim Holtz Holly stamp in Pine Distress ink on Olive Background. The next layer is again Tim Holtz Christmas music stamp on white paper distressed with Old paper and Walnut Distress ink. The edges are torn and roughed with a paper edger. the branch stamp is also a Tim Holtz stamp embossed with Midnight Emerald Obsidian. The ornaments are stamped from the Range unknown set I bought last year. They are embossed with fine gold the coloured with Pro markers and added Stickles.
My next ATC caused me to go through many iterations. I wanted a background on gloss with a snowflake resist and embossed snowflakes but it did not work out so I changed ideas and went with the deer. The background is inked with Broken China and Dusty Concord Distress ink. I then stamped the Deer from the free stamp set in crafts beautiful (designed by Kirsty Wiseman). I coloured it in with Pro markers then went over with perfect medium and embossed with Moonglow Angel Wings Gold embossing powder. the border is from Tim Holtz Snowflake stamps embossed with Angel Wings Gold again. I then wend over the edges with the distress inks again to darken the colour.

My third card also had a couple iterations before deciding on the final. The background is stamped with Tim Holtz Holly stamp and perfect medium with Olive Distress ink over top for a resist. I then stamped the Tim Holtz Music stamp on white papers and inked with old paper then tore and distressed the edges. The evergreen branches are from Aspects of Design Christmas 1 stamp set and embossed with Moonglow Embossing powder Midnight Emerald Obsidian. I added the bow to look like the branches are tied together.

There were a few more projects I worked on but I cannot post them just yet. All in due timing. Now to finishing my prep for the Family craft night class I am teaching tomorrow at the school. We are making Baubles. I will post a pic of the completed class tomorrow. For now I will bid you good night. thanks for visiting and have a great evening. Angela

The Stamp Man challenge # 9 Christmas.

Over at the Stamp Mans Challenge blog the theme this fortnight is Christmas. I decided to play around with some of the new stamps Belle and I got (and some old too) and made this ATC for the challenge. For the background I used Tumbled Glass Distress ink then stamped Aspects of Design "Snowy Christmas" Roudolph words in Black Soot Distress ink then wiped with a baby wipe to soften them. For the border I used "Christmas 1" branch using Forest Moss and Shabby Shutters Distress inks with Smooch red ink for the berry accents. The deer is a clear stamp from Basic Grey. I inked the deer using Momento Rich Cocoa ink. I then went over it with clear embossing ink and Moon Glow Angel Wings gold embossing powder. the gem is from Basic Grey. Now I am off to do a bit more....Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping in! Angela

Stamp Man November ATC swap

I cannot believe it is November already. Where has the year gone? This months ATC Swap theme over at The Stamp Man is "Take a Letter" . I chose to actually use a letter. I used inspiration from my Tim Holtz 12 tags from last year and chose the letter "P" for Peace. Here are my ATC's:


For the background I used Dusty Concord and Chipped Saphire Distress Inks along with some masking with my stamped image and some Heidi Swapp Snowflake masks on glossy card. The Angel stamp is from Stampin Up and the Peace stamped word is from Close to My Heart while the Letter "P" is from Technique Tuesday. I coloured the Angel using Old Paper , Mustard Seed, Tumbled Glass and Spun Sugar Distress inks. The dress is then flocked using Fun Flock from Stampendeous. The wings are embossed with Angel Wings Moon Glow Embossing powder. The card is then edged in Black Soot Distress ink. Simple but I like the softness of it. thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day. Angela

Anything goes challenge 23

Well I am finally recovering from a nasty bug going around at school and the sun is starting to shine so I think it is a good day. I had my first driving lesson here in England(Yes I have to retake all my tests to get a liscense here even though I have been driving for over 20 some years in the states with my current liscense) It went well but there is alot to remember. I take my first part of the test in another week. Anyway, Over at Anything Goes the theme this week was "B" so how could I resist. I put this together for the challenge.
The papers are Prima, Tim holtz and a flocked paper from the Craft Den. I also used Prima flowers, Magic Mesh, some spare ribbon scraps and stamps from Technique Tuesday, Stampendous and Close to my heart. The bird is also Prima and the gems are Basic Grey. For the letter "B" I used a big CB letter and embossed it with Midnight Saphire Obsidian Moon Glow powder. And of course the pic is of my little Cheeky Monkey "Belle". Hope you have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by. Angela

Where has the time gone.....and a bit of a contest.

We are finally recovering from a hectic Holiday week. After returning from Scotland Belle had her first Halloween party with a friend of hers from South Africa. Her friend has never celebrated Halloween so together her Mom and I threw a party for some of their friends. There was some fun snacks .....

Watermelon brains, Apple mouths, Chibatta salted bones, Finger dips(he he this was my fav, the fingers are made from left over Chibatta dough), Sausage thumbs, Cheese fingers, Blood worm punch(Gummy worms), Orange Jack o lantern fruit cups, Mummy Pizza and more... I got alot of the recipies and ideas from the internet.

There was plenty of activities from crafts, treat making and of course carving the Jack o Lanterns. Although not all of them were crazy about scooping the seeds out of the pumpkin.

And of course The girls had to make some Halloween Crackers....

And the house had to be totally decorated....I really do dust....I do!

and of course once again we had to make her costume....This year she was a snow fairy princess which at the last minute she tried to change to a vampire....After I bought all the fabric and sewed half the dress...uhg...I stuck to my gund and made here go with the original choice. 10pm the night before Halloween is not the time to change your mind. This dress has lots of beading and snowflake details. We made the crown too.

So after the party and all I was looking through my pictures of Halloweens past and wondering where has all the time gone. It seems like just yesterday we were having her first halloween and now she is having parties and with boys no less. ....As I was looking through the pictures I got to thinking how about a little contest. All you have to do is look at the pictures below and place them in order of age. Then email me your answers to scrapbookcafe2@yahoo.com and I will send out a little something to anyone who gets it correct.
Here she is dressed as Belle in the blue dress. And of course a funky girly witch. this was another last minute idea.
Snow white. A good friend of mine Zandra helped me to make this dress. Since I did not know how to use a sewing machine she sewed the maching parts for me from a pattern. then I added the details. I have since taken a class for sewing and absolutely love it.
I made little Minnie Mouses boots and hands from felt and the head part from a black hat ears.

Little Snow white.....This costume was bought and then we found out whe had a sensitivity to fabrics and all future costumes had to be made or specially lined.
Pochahontas.....I still could not sew with a machine here so I wound up glueing and stapling the costume to make it fit.
Flower Fairy - Lots of glue and some hand sewing here.

I have named all the pictures so you can just use that label and put them in order. (even gave a few hints along the way) I will leave this open until next week for anyone interested in giving it a go. Any winners wil be announced on October 10. Good luck and thanks for following me. Now I am off to make some invitation samples and then to school. Have a wonderful week. Angela