The Stamp Man 3rd Annual Awards

The Stamp Man are running their 3rd annual awards for your favourite project that you've created in 2011, link here. I  thought that this would be an easy task as I haven't actually created that many projects that have" floated my boat" so to speak this year, but I really struggled :/ So much so infact that I might just have to join in with a couple of the other challenges going on that get you to choose your top 5!!!

I've settled upon this card as my favourite project of 2011 only because it contains all of my favourite elements and also allowed me to play with lots of products and techniques :D I'd love to know what if any of my projects this year have been your favourites?!

Just in case I don't get back on here before the new year, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish each and everyone of you a Happy, Healthy, Peaceful & fingers crossed Prosperous New Year.

Claire xx

Quick Get Well Card & Gift

Morning folks! I hope you had a lovely Christmas? I had a lovely time with my family and even managed to sneak a bit of crafting in on Christmas Day whilst everyone else was sleeping (see insomnia does have a few advantages!!!).

My Mother in Law had a major operation two days before Christmas and was due to be in over the Christmas period, so I wanted to give her a really nice cheer up pressie in addition to her Christmas present. Unfortunately, the hospital has a no flowers policy and as she's diabetic we couldn't take her in choccies (plus I thought she'd not really fancy anything like that anyway), so I decided that I'd have a go at making a tissue box cover with a matching card. It was a really quick and easy make and she was thrilled to receive it on Boxing Day when we popped in to see her.

I've attached a few pictures, but you'll have to excuse the quality of them. My camera is playing up and won't allow me to use certain functions and in addition I had to use artificial light :(

Tissue Box & Card

I made the tissue box cover using this tutorial. Once I'd cut and embossed all the panels it was a really quick and easy job to assemble it. The hardest part was deciding  wether to keep the embellishments minimal or go for total overload! I went for the middle ground and decided to embellish all four sides, but to be honest I think it would have been nicer with just the front embellished :/

The Tissue Box

I decided to make the card to match the box and so again it was just a case of chucking some embellishments on the pre-scored card - lazy of what?? The butterflies took the most time as they are stamped, heat embossed and then cut out by hand, before being glittered and Glossy Accented, luckily I already had a few left from an earlier project, so only had to do a couple more :D

The Card

Materials
White Card - The Papermill
Lilac Paper - Poundland
Purple Card - Poundland
Green Card - The Papermill
Butterfly Stamps - EJ Crafts
Sentiment - Computer Generated
Sizzix Bigz Daisy Die
Fern Leaf Die - Little Claire's
Card Candy
Sizzix Swirls Embossing Folder
Mica Paints - Oyster Stamps
Heat It Up Holographic Black Embossing Powder
Stardust Stickles
Glossy Accents
Card Candy - Craftwork Cards

 I'd like to enter this project into the following challenges:
City Crafter - Make the cut
Everybody Art - Anything goes
Top Tip Tuesday - Anything goes
Ohh La La Creations Challenge Blog - Anything but a card
Creative Inspirations Paint - Anything goes
Sparkles Forum - Anything but a Christmas card
The Crafty Pad - Anything but Christmas
Mark's Finest Papers - Anything goes
Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Anything goes

It's almost here!!!

So are you all ready for the big day? I think I am - just!! Everything is bought and wrapped, and I've just finished my last card which was for my ever patient hubby. This is my last post before Christmas, so I'd like to take this opportunity to wish each and everyone of you a very Happy Christmas and New Year.

This is the card I made for hubby last night - I think I may be resembling the snowman at the moment - lol!!!

Trying to show the bling :D

The snowman has been printed onto white cardstock and then coloured with Promarkers and a blender pen before being cut out and decoupaged. I created the Let it Snow paper on the computer and then ripped it into strips, inked the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then layered it up around the snowman. The sentiment was also computer generated. I doodled the hanging hearts, coloured them with Promarkers and then added dimension with Glossy Accents.

An attempt to show the dimension!!

Materials
Image  - Dilly Beans
Let it snow paper  - computer generated
Sentiment - computer generated
Stickles - Star Dust
Glossy Accents
Promarkers
Distress Ink
Letraset Fineliner

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Mark's Finest Papers - Anything goes
One Stop Craft Challenge - Winter wishes
Paper Cutz - Christmas hearts
Stampin' With The Dragon - Let it Snow

Edward Scissorhands Christmas Card

So  what card do you give a teenager that manages to show a total dis-interest in any traditional Christmas images? Edward Scissorhands of course!!! This is the card I made for DD this year and it was exceptionally well received (thank the lord!!) which means that I've actually managed to do something right for a change!!! Hooray!!! LOL

Materials
Image - Simply Betty
Snowflake Dies - Marianne Creatables
Promarkers
Glossy Accents
Sentiment - Computer generated font which has had a swirly line added to it by hand
Stickles - Stardust
White card - The Papermill

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Dream Valley Challenges - Christmas
Gingerloft  - Christmas
One Stitch At A Time - Anything goes
Hotshot Crafts - Promarkers
The Cheerful Stamp Pad - Merry Christmas
Crafty Boots - Christmas
Crafty Cardmakers - Use it three times
Hooked on Cratfs - Christmas
Lexi's Creations - Untraditional Christmas
Bearly Mine Challenges - Anything goes
Creative Craft Challenges - White on White
Top Tip Tuesday - Christmas

A Squash n Squeeze! Trying to get Christmas All Wrapped Up!!!

Me again! Just wanted to pop on to show you a fab little Squash Book that I made recently at a workshop hosted by the lovely Jo Capper - Sandon. Jo had designed her book for the Crafty Individuals Challenge "All Wrapped Up". The workshop was great fun (as always) and this time I managed to come home with a project that was 90% completed!! I was determined that this one would be finished unlike the small stack of UFO's from Jo's previous  workshops that I've attended (I spend far too much time faffing (oh and possibly talking) which is why I rarely finish on time). You can check out another of the books made at the workshop by Siobhan here.

Anyway, this little book got popped onto the UFO pile and may well have still been sat there if it hadn't been for DH asking me to complete it and make a few more as small gifts for our Christmas guests. Now I'm not going to say that this book was easy for me, cos it wasn't!! Jo gave us some gorgeous papers to use and as soon as I saw them and the Three Kings stamps from Crafty Individuals. I knew that I wanted to build a scene. The papers lent themselves beautifully to landscapes and there were certain elements that I knew would be perfect for what I had in mind! Sadly this was my undoing!! LOL It meant that I didn't plan properly and then I got fixated on those elements and just couldn't move on :(

So here we are a few weeks down the line and I've had time to re-focus and move on and the project is complete :D

I've had to use  stamps other than those by Crafty Individuals as I don't own those stamps and am to skint to buy them atm, and I've also had to doodle some elements, but all in all I'm not to unhappy with the end result. I'm also pleased to have actually finished a project!! This is picture heavy so be warned!!

All Wrapped Up!

Unwrapped!

Fully Open

Close up of the Front Panel

Close Up of the Central Panel

Close Up of the Final Panel

Back of the Book

OK I hope you like my little book, I'm off to make a few more to put on my tree for my Christmas guests!!

I'd like to enter this book into the following challenges

Dream Valley Challenges - Christmas

Gingerloft - Christmas/Winter

Sparkles Forum - Anything but a Christmas Card

Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Make a project that has a Christian image or sentiment, that reflects the true meaning of Christmas.

The Squirrel & The Fox - Christmas

Bunny Zoe's - Fancy Folds

Craft Your Passion - Things with wings

Crafty Boots - Christmas

Hooked on Crafts - Christmas

Dilly Beans Challenge - Snow Family

This is a super quick post from me and I'm hoping I'm still in time to enter the challenge. Dilly Beans gave us this super cute freebie to play with and as soon I saw it I knew that I wanted to use it on a card for my Mum & Dad. So, this is what I've done with it - I hope you like it!

Front view

Side view

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Dilly Beans Designers and Friday Challenge - Snow Family

Birdcage Christmas Decoration

OK I'm back again with another Crafty Ribbons Favourite Top 5 project. This time it's a tree decoration using one of my favourite Sizzix dies - Tim Holtz's Bird Cage.

I cut the birdcage using chipboard, sprayed it with bronze cosmic shimmer spray and then daubed it lightly with gold acrylic paint which gives it a slightly shabby finish. The ribbon was glued into place then a backing of black card was mounted onto the reverse of the cage. The bird was cut from some music script paper that was in my stash and I inked the edges with Distress Inks. To finish I added a Poinsettia Sticker, a jump ring and some narrow gold ribbon.

Materials
Happy Christmas Ribbon - Crafty Ribbons
Chipboard from stash
Cosmic Shimmer Spray - Bronze
Acrylic Paint - Gold
Distress Ink - Walnut Stain
Papers from stash
Poinsettia Sticker - from stash
Tools - Tim Holtz Birdcage Die, Sizzix Big Shot

I'd like to enter this ornament into the following challenges:
Samuel Taylors - Anything goes, prize: Kaisercraft mini albums and Jillibean Soup 6x6 paperstack
Crafts & Me - Christmas
Sparkles Forum - Anything but a Christmas card

Clean & Simple Snowflake Card

I was lucky enough to be selected to take part in the Crafty Ribbons Top 5 Ribbons Challenge. Over the next couple of days, I'll be showing you the projects that I made for them.

 First up is this clean and simple snowflake card. It was a really quick and easy make and I will be doubtless be making a few more of these!

The embossed and glittered background was made using an embossing folder and Stickles. The sentiment is computer generated. I've added a bit of ribbon and that's it done! See told you it was easy.

Materials
White Cardstock - The Papermill
Snowflake Embossing Folder - Sizzix
Stickles - Starburst
Ribbon - Crafty Ribbons
Sentiment - LD Glorious

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Card Making Mamas - Christmas
Frosted Designs - Ribbons
Fussy & Fancy Friday's - Mono & Sparkle
Glitter Geeks - Anything goes
Marks Finest Papers - Make a Christmas Card
One Stop Craft - Christmas Sparkle

Sweet Pea Charm Bracelet

Haa ha! You didn't expect to see me back again today did you? Well here I am like the proverbial bad penny bringing you details of this weeks challenge over at Sweet Pea Stampers. The challenge this week is to Make A Gift.

As I'm really pushed for time at the moment, I decided that I'd do something really quick and easy, the only thing was I really wanted some beautifully coloured Ching-Chou-Kuik images to use for the charms. However, as each image can take a good couple of hours to colour, there was no way that stamping and colouring images was an option. Luckily for me I won the last challenge over at The Crafty Purple Frog and my prize was any five decoupage or pyramage sheets of my choice, so thanks Amy I hope you like what I've done with your sheets!

For those of you who have followed my blog for any length of time, you may recall that last Christmas I used one of these images to make a really speedy decorated candle? Well I've used the images in the same way for this bracelet except I've put them on shrink plastic.

In order to get the main part of the decoupage sheet image, I used Gimp to select the required image and then pasted it into a word processing document (I'm sure there are far easier ways of doing this, but I was in a hurry and need to things to work for me like yesterday!!). I then resized the image and used a mask to lighten the colours. The image was then printed onto inkjet printable shrink plastic, allowed to dry for a few minutes and then cut out. Once I'd punched any required holes, I shrank the plastic down with my heat gun.

The backs and sides of the charms looked really ugly, so I decided to use embossing powder to cover them. Once that had been done, I covered the front with Glossy Accents, allowed it to dry and then coated the back and sides, before adding a further coat to the front.

Finally, the charms and beads were attached to a bracelet that I picked up in Claire's Accessories sale for 50p.

Materials
Images - The Crafty Purple Frog
Inkjet Shrink Plastic - Crafty Computer Paper
Heat It Up Silver Embossing Powder
Versamark
Heat Gun
Jewellery findings/beads

I'd like to enter this bracelet into the following challenges:
Top Tip Tuesday - A gift
Ooh La La Creations - Anything but a card
Just Some Lines - Handmade Gifts

My Final Polka Doodles GDT Card. Looking For Santa!!

Good morning folks. Apologies for my absence over the past couple of weeks, but real life has got in the way of crafting and blogging! As the title of this post suggests, this is my last GDT card for Polka Doodles :( so I'd like to take the time to thank Nikki and the rest of the team for having me. It's been fun :D

The challenge this week is Through The Window, so we want to see your aperture cards. I totally loved this challenge cos it meant that I got to use one my new dies and some un-inked stamps (shhhh don't tell, but I treated myself to some new stash).  :D

I die cut the window and then mounted it onto an inked scene before placing it onto the stepper card. I've used Cory from the Pretty Tuff CD by Polka Doodles and altered it by hand to suit my scene. I've used Promarkers to colour in and have added some Flower Soft to the brim of the hat and the bobble.

Materials
Pretty Tuff CD - Polka Doodles
Tree Stamp - Hero Arts
Santa & Sleigh Stamp - Hobby Art
Memory Box Window Die
Tim Holtz Distress Inks - Broken China, Black Soot, Scattered Straw
Sentiment -Craftwork Cards
Silver Snowflake Cord - Lidl
White Card - The Paper Mill
Papers - PaperCellar
Signlo - white gel pen

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
The Crafty Purple Frog - It's cold outside
Paper Play - Christmas
Sarah Hurley Challenges - Colouring
Crafts and Me - Christmas
Bunny Zoe's - Fancy Folds

Winner of the My Memories Software Giveaway

I'm so sorry that I'm late in posting the winner of the giveaway, but things have been really hectic here and I've simply not had the time to do anything! :(

Anyway, there were only 3 valid entries to the giveaway and I'd love to have been able to give each of you copy but there sadly was only available! So, as there can only be one winner I decided to let the Random Generator choose a winner, and that lucky person is..............................

 Kym from Kym's Crafty Cards. 

If you can contact me hun, I'll let you know the details of how to claim your prize

I'm hoping normal blogging service will resume next week! Apologies to everyone who's visited expecting to see something new.

Have a great weekend

Claire x

Who'd Like A FREE Copy Of My Memories Suite Scrapbook Software?

Morning Folks. I was recently contacted by those lovely people over at My Memories to trial some of their software and to host a giveaway of said software on my blog. So if you fancy getting your hands on a copy, simply pop your name into Mr Linky and leave me comment telling me which is your favourite My Memories Digital Pack and I'll draw the lucky winner on 3/12/2011. Make sure you check back to see if you're the winner, you will have five days to claim your prize. If it is not claimed within five days then I will draw another winner.

If you're not lucky enough to win, but still want to get your hands on a copy of the software, then simply follow this link and copy and paste this code STMMMS17073 to receive a $10 discount and $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store.

I had a little play with the software (and when I say little I mean little, a maximum of twenty minutes) and have to say I was really impressed with it. It's really simple to use, has loads of really fab effects and best of all there are loads of freebie kits for you play with. Also, I love the fact that it doesn't restrict you to just making scrapbook pages. I found it brilliant for making my own word art sentiments to use on cards. I'm sure that once I've had the time to explore the software fully that I will find a million and one uses for it! Anyway, here's a quick layout that I did:

Good luck.

Claire x

Another Exploding Box - Polka Doodles GDT Card - A Secret Element

Good morning to you all. It's my second GDT post for Polka Doodles. The challenge this week is a Secret Element.

I decided that I'd use this challenge as an excuse to make DS's Christmas card. So, as he's been fascinated by the exploding boxes I've made recently, I thought it was the perfect excuse to make him one. Unfortunately my photos really don't this justice - it is full of texture and sparkle none of which my camera managed to pick up :(

Any how, here's my offering for the week...

This box is larger than the ones I have been making as I needed to increase the height to get the tree in the box! The box has been constructed from Kraft card and then decorated with papers and images from the new Polka Doodles CD Pretty Tuff. I have to say that had I had more time this week then I would have used a few more of the images from the CD as there is a fab train set and truck which would've looked really good 3D'd. I'll definitely be using this CD to make a lot of my male cards as there are so many images and papers to choose from that I don't think I'll ever be stuck for inspiration!

I decided that as the card was for a child that it would be good, if the surprise wasn't just the box falling apart to reveal a Christmas Tree and parcels, but that it was quite tactile too. So I dug out a kit are from a We R Memory Keepers which I've had in my stash for ages, and used flocked sentiments. Unfortunately, it just doesn't show them in all their glory in my pictures :o( .

My pictures also don't show all of the glimmer and sparkle on the tree which was created making duplicated images of a hand drawn tree. The edge of the tree branches have been stickled prior to attaching the glass lights and the sparkly shrink plastic star. I created the parcels using the same cube template that I drew up for the exploding box I made a few weeks back and have used hanging thread as the ribbon.

The boy has been coloured with Promarkers and then decoupaged to within an inch of his life - again I can't seem to capture this with my photos! :(

The frame to rear of the tree contains a computer generated Santa's checklist which simply says  Santa's List, Zak, Good/ Bad, of course I've ticked good - even though this week that isn't necessarily the case!! grrr less said about that the better though!!!.

Here's the box when it's closed. Even if I say so myself, I love my bow :D I made it using my new mini Bowdabra which I think I could be in love with :D, so be warned bows will be appearing on an object near you!!

Well that's it from me this week - I've not had the best of weeks thus far and am now soooo far behind with my Christmas plans that I doubt I'll be ready for the big day!! So unless things change I'll catch you next week at some point!

Enjoy your weekend

Claire x

Materials
Pretty Tuff CD - Polkadoodles
Kraft cardstock - Papermania
Ribbon - from stash
Light bulbs - from stash
Star & Holly Buttons - from stash
Wooden  Frames - We R Memory Keepers
Flocked Sentiments - We R Memory Keepers
Shrink Plastic
Gold Embossing Powder
Clear Star Sakura Pen
Promarkers

Tools
Fiskars - Star Squeeze Punch
Fiskars - Tag Squeeze Punch
Bowdabra - Crafty Ribbons
Heat Gun

I'd like to enter the following challenges:
C.R.A.F.T - Christmas Present
Charisma Cards - Spots
Crafty Purple Frog - For someone special
Crafty Ribbons - Make a tag
Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes
Whimsy Stamps Inspiration Challenges - Anything but a card
The Crafty Bloggers Network - Other than a card 3D