A very pink Fairy card

As you just might suspect, I adore pink - especially what I'd call the 'bluer' shades such as a pale crisp pink without even a tinge of peach,  and of course fuchsia:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock - tent fold

- fuchsia pink backing card

- image from LOTV's 'Fairies' Art Pad - pre-coloured, die cut using Nesties Labels Eighteen and then popped onto my usual 'traced and hand cut' slightly larger border of more fuchsia pink. Added a tickle of Ice Stickles 'Cherry Ice' to the wings 'cos fairies have sparkly wings - at least all the ones I've ever met have

- backing paper from a favourite paper pad by Prima called 'Firefly' - I angled the image so as not to obscure the flowers :)

- a bow made using pure silk fuchsia ribbon, topped with an' ivory flower shape flat back 12mm pearl' - both from Wild Orchid Crafts

- self adhesive pearls top and bottom

This card reminds me of one of our little grand daughters - who would like to be a ballerina when she grows up, unless she can be a fairy or Barbie!

I'd like to enter this card into the current challenge over at Simon Says Stamp - where the current them is 'Things with wings'.

Anyone been having trouble uploading photos by the way? I've had trouble all week with slowness but yesterday Blogger refused to even get off its rear end and so much as try :(

After some searching on the internet I discovered it's a current 'known problem' - which Blogger are taking their time sorting out. The crux of it is that both Firefox and IE (Internet Explorer) can be affected - so if you're suffering, do as I did and try Google Chrome.

Bingo, Chrome works perfectly. I much prefer Firefox, it's more secure for a start which might be part of the issue, but until it's resolved (and many Bloggers are screaming for Blogger to extract a digit and sort it out) I'm happy to keep hopping to and fro - using Chrome when writing a post and Firefox otherwise. At least it's better than gawping at the upload drop-down box which just seems to sit there leering and doing sweet nothing!! 

Friday once again - sheesh three weeks until my school reunion and I have to make 240 or so magnetic bookmarks by then. I know, I know, I'll never learn to keep my big mouth shut :)

Di
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Pixie's Crafty Snippets - Week 56

As always, my own snippets card first:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock

- Penny Black Stickeroo from the ''It's a Boy' sheet

- snippets of blue SU 'Marina Mist' card plus another paler one which might be 'Baja Breeze'

- a lace corner below the image, stamped using the Joanna Sheen 'Live Each Moment' set onto a snippet of white card  SU's 'Baja Breeze' then trimmed wiv little scissors

- sentiment is from the SU 'Petite Pairs' set, stamped using 'Marina Mist', punched with a SU circle punch and mounted onto a scalloped circle

- two 7" snippets of blue gingham ribbon - tying the bow was fun and very fiddly with such a short piece I can tell you!

- a selection of Wild Orchid flowers. The wire twists are just snipped from the flower stems and curled round a poky tool - the frondy leaves were punched. The punch hates card so I just coloured some paper using a Pro Marker before punching them out

- pearls from the 'gem box'

- plaster for the finger I burnt using the glue gun came from the First Aid box - just checking you're still reading :)

OK, so the flowers are truly taxing for me to use - this will be confirmed further down this post. Bev Rochester need have no fear of competition from this quarter for sure!

And now, the Playground - well, what a busy week. In between the excitement of Darnell's wedding anniversary, plus the snow here in the UK - we also had some wonderfully heartening news from our Bernie, so keep those prayers and positive thoughts going girls.

We had 41 lovely makes brought to the Playground this week - and these are the ones that especially caught my eye:

Both the above were posted by Victoria - what a fabulous butterfly canvas and such a great use of snippets!  Along with others, I almost had an accident laughing at Jeff the dog :)

Viv linked the above card - absolutely gorgeous - and the doily had almost been thrown out 'cos one edge was crumpled! Swift bit of chopping and what a lovely card resulted!

And a little Playmate tiptoed into the Playground this week - please welcome Debbie back, I know some of you already have been over to say 'Hello'. Debbie, bless her, suffers from a lack of confidence in her gorgeous work so I was delighted to see her coming to play again and to show the above fabulous tag book/card, please do hop over - and while you're there take a peek at the beautiful icing flowers she makes - one very talented lady!

ALL of your makes were gorgeous as always girls!

OK, so the little draw for the Paperarsy  PaperArtsy stamp.

I have to admit I squeaked when I saw whose name popped up this week - it's not her first win, but I do know the prize will be well loved, used a lot and was very much wanted. It was drawn fair and square using the Random number generator (Len hasn't found time to help me with Linux Gimp yet to show the results, he was shovelling snow when I typed this) so I do hope you'll all be pleased for:

Sam aka Hettie

Right, back to those flowers! Kath, of 'Plain and Simple', and I both have quite similar thoughts about crafting - ha, but not always about my recipes on Friday Feast though, eh Kath?! :)

We both struggle with adding flowers to cards - especially the admittedly fabulous Wild Orchid ones, and Kath has 'thrown in the towel'. A mahoosive box of flowers arrived from her the week before last to offer as a lovely giveaway - and I added some of my own as well as I've also thrown in my face cloth, whilst retaining some opened packets, and hate to see goodies just languishing :)

There are 14 packets in this little haul now - ranging from large, medium, small and tiny roses through to cherry blossoms, calla lilies and even some Christmas roses and white poinsettias.

So, if you want to join in the Playground fun and frolics and be in with a chance of winning this little 'florist shop' - the Playground is open all of this coming week but it will close on Saturday 26th January at noon, UK time and Mr Linky is below as usual. Just enter a snippets make into the Playground this week and I'll do a draw after the Playground closes next Saturday. But, I am asking for a snippets make please, maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you DON'T want to be entered 'cos once again I do realise that not all of you are into adding these sorts of flowers to your 'makes'. You can of course enter as many snippets makes as you like but only a maximum of three goes will be counted.

I'll post to anywhere in the World BTW - it's open to all of you lovely Playmates.

I'd like to enter my own snippets card into the following challenges:

Penny Black Saturday January Challenge which is 'January Blues'

Allsorts Challenge - Week 190 - 'Flower Power'

Hope you all have a lovely week!

Di
x

WOYWW 129

OK - so who stole this last week huh?! And also, who turned off the sun down here and dumped a load of mist and gloom in its place?

I just hopped into my craft room, flicked on the light and this is the current state of affairs in there:

As I left it yesterday afternoon to go on a round trip to a garden centre, a printers (it's my old school newsletter time again) and the Post Office - after carefully checking in the mirror for any streaks of glitter on my face!

On top of the pink netbook at the back are papers ready to make up another Christmas card as well as some stamps on the glass cutting mat that I'd just been trimming ready to use.................hmm, a couple of 'ready' words here!

But, I have been busy honestly - making some poinsettias a bit more pretty (as if I really have that much time to spare!). I posted a while back about using Twinklets to 'bling up' large poinsettias from Wild Orchid Crafts - following Bev Rochester's great tutorial. The results are super although the flowers are quite big ones so on Sunday I dug out some of the smaller WOC poinsettias - approximately 1" across. A few pictures coming:

The flowers before I went into 'attack mode' - see how orange the 'red' ones are?

The yellow centres have been snipped out and the wire loops removed then the centres have been opened up with a poky tool. No need to separate the layers though. Anita's glaze ready in a glass tot pot - safer than trying to work with a tall bottle of the stuff! Yup, I have spilt a pool of the stuff across my desk before now :(

Holding the flower on a poky tool (I use an old one), paint glaze all over the white parts of the flower - missing the green leaves out

 

The poinsettia after being dunked into sparkly stuff from an unmarked pot - much finer than Twinklets which are little glass crystals really but not as fine or costly as Glamour Dust. And I think it's time to change that nail polish :(

And the end result - the drying white poinsettias dunked in clear sparklies, red ones dunked in red sparklies (changing that orange to a rich red) and a couple of red ones dunked in clear sparklies as a try - they came out looking a bit pink which could be useful. And the finishing touch - some Papermania gold and silver sparkly brads through the centres. The packs also had jewelled brads in - topaz and clear which I mixed and matched. So now I have a little box of poinsettias ready to use on more Christmas cards - saves time as you go along :)

To see what everyone else has been up to (no doubt a lot more useful time spent than mine!) and what's going on wherever they craft - hop over to Julia's here for your WOYWW snoop!

Have fun - and as Brucie could say 'Keeeeeeeeeeeep crafting'. The big man in the red suit is probably planning his routes into his Sat. Nav already!

Di
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Playing with new stamps

During the mini clear-up yesterday morning of the devastation in my craft room (today's big word out of the way - and I doubt if I can beat Annie's favourite of carbaminohaemoglobin!!) - I put a few things together ready for use in the near future. I'm a little 'divil' for buying new stamps and not using them for ages, but at least they do stay in my 'new stuff to use' basket as a reminder.

A new Hero Arts stamps set ended up side by side with some gorgeous organza roses which the lovely Dee had sent to me - the roses have been lying on my desk for a few days just being stroked, they're so pretty, on a strip of net backing and the edges twinkled with just a subtle touch of sparkle. Side by side.......and bingo, inspiration struck and this is what I made:

I made two notelets, just changing the 'typed' message. Sometimes, when the inkpads, rocker blocks (yay, thank you soooo much for the encouragement to buy those Sarn, I love them!), background papers etc. are out, it makes more sense to me to make a couple of cards the same or just a little bit different. Especially when the two typed messages were crying out to be used - there's a third one in the set too so plenty of variation.

Dee actually sent me a card some while back with a typewriter on and it brought back more memories than one should admit as I learned to type on one not unlike this little beauty. Hands up those who recall typing to music, and the thrill of whizzing the carriage back to the beginning of the next line :) I was lucky and managed to fill a couple of spare lessons each week with typing classes in my final year at school and it was one of the best choices I ever made. Little suspecting that my career would be in IT and that keyboard skills would be such an advantage, I just joined the class to hear the 'ping' of the carriage return really :)) I'm sooooo shallow!!

I used:

- 5" x 7" cream card stock

- a K & Company Mat pad (the reverse of each sheet of card is plain so great to mix and match 

- Stamps from a Hero Arts clings set called  'My Type'

- toning satin ribbon from stash

- organza rose trim from Dee (which I think came from Wild Orchid Crafts)

That's today offering folks!

Di
x

A different style of card ...and for me a first

It's a tent card and instructions on how to make one have been posted by Dena - thanks so much!

A slightly sideways view:

And a closer view of the flowers:

I loved making this card , it's so Summery and cheerful it makes me smile despite the rain we currently have here. I used the following - the image is Magnolia's 'Tilda Holding Egg Basket' (hey-up Sarn!!) which I coloured whilst on holiday and then just added some Anita's Glaze to the eggs and Tilda's cute little boots. The gorgeous stash from Dee arrived just in time to prompt this card - thanks again sweetie! The papers came from my stash (a QVC Summer Collection which included the sentiment as well). The raffia, white flowers and the butterfly came from Dee - at least the raffia and the white flowers came from Wild Orchid Crafts, as did the other flowers which were waiting patiently in my stash to be used. I opened up and flattened some of the green raffia to make the 'leaves' and Tilda is hanging from a little piece of chain and jump rings, also from my stash. I cut the aperture using a Nestie - am sure you can get inverted scallops and now I know why......... I really, really need some for more cards like this :)

I'm entering this for the following challenges:

Wild Orchid Challenge 27 - a tent card

Creative Craft Challenges - Pretty Blossoms

The Crafty Pad - particular style of card (tent)

The bit that I wasn't too sure how to tackle was sticking the white card with the red flowers 'fully and all over' on to the card stock before cutting the die. Hey, ho - I truly don't know what's in my cupboard 'cos I found a spray can of 3M Craft Mount and it worked great. I'll be using more of this - despite much rolling of eyes due to the fumes :) Mental note, whilst it gives you a high it probably isn't good to use in an enclosed space.... ran round the walls five times before I got too dizzy to count :))

Di
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