Sketchy Thursday's and Colour room

Hi all,

I have a LO to share today and pics of the lovely stash I bought at Alexandra Palace last weekend. :)

First up, the LO.
I really liked the look of this week's Sketchy Thursday's sketch, so had to have a go and use it. It's also been quite a while since I took part in a colour challenge, so thought I would this time. I really love colour challenges, and often look at the Colour Room's weekly palettes, so this week I decided to use their gorgeous current palette. The combination of the two challenges left me with this LO :)

Here's the sketch

And here's the colour palette

This sketch was such a great sketch to use, and I love that collection of colours, the deep red, white, pale yellow and pale brown looks great together :)

I hope you like the LO, here are a few close ups

 Seeing as the LO is all about my art, and the long summers spent drawing for my art GCSE (even on our family holidays!!) I decided to actually sketch a little on the LO. I have seen others do this, so thought I'd give it a go and quite like it. I have also stitched a grid behind the two focal areas with a sewing machine, and numbered it, to mimic the type of grid you draw in art when you are copying from a photo etc.

 This rose has been created following Sutty's most recent flower tutorial, I just had to try them :)

I have used lots of washi tape on this LO. I LOVE this stuff, it is absolutely super. On this LO I have used washi tape bought from John Lewis (the colours were such a great match) and also some of the new hambly screen print washi tape (bought at Ally Pally)

Edited to add : I have just had a lovely comment from Beth Moore telling me about The Kraft Journal challenges. I am so pleased she has introduced me to this challenge, I love Kraft so it's the perfect place for me :) I have linked up this LO to their current challenge, 'lavish layers' :)

So, now onto Ally Pally.

Mum and I had a great day, we really enjoyed it. It's a long time since we last went to the show, and it really made us realise how much our styles of crafting has changed. We were walking past stalls that once would have caught our attention for ages. 

Anyway, it was beautiful weather, so the walk up from the station was lovely. The building is so gorgeous.

Mum took this photo using her iPhone (love this app, I want an iPhone too now :)

We spent a good few hours at the show, and I spent most of the money I'd saved :) Here's what it was spent on

Do you see that moustache Hambly Screen Print? Yes...well I was extremely excited to see it there, so excited I bought 2 of them!! I have been looking for this for quite a while, I have photos that I've been waiting to scrap, just so I can use this once I had it. So pleased :D 

A lovely little collection of embellishments. I LOVE those little retro style appliances, I just had to have those. Also, do you see the scalloped calico ribbons? These are great, so versatile, I have used these in the LO above, spritzed with ink through a stencil :)

And lastly, this little collection of goodies :)

There were a great collection of stalls there, and I can't wait to get tucking into more of my new stash.

One of the highlights of the day for me though was helping out on the Scrap Revolution stall. I spent 2 hours helping out, restocking, working on the tills, and it was really good fun. It was also lovely to see my kit LO on display :) Speaking of which, the tutorial for the flower I created for the kit LO has been posted on the scrap revolution blog, so do take a look :)

Thanks for looking, sorry it has been such a picture heavy post, well done for surviving through it :)

Bye for now,

Hannah :)

P.S. Have you heard about the new UK scrap magazine, SCRAP365? It is amazing, I came across it a few days ago as some of the lovely people I follow are on the new fabby DT. Do check it out, I am so pleased to hear we will soon have a great UK scrap magazine, I've really missed not having a magazine since Scrapbook Inspirations stopped. I subscribed at Ally Pally, so can't wait for the first issue to arrive in November :)

No place like home

Hi everyone,

How are you all? I am now back at school, I went back last Monday. It doesn’t feel like I am properly back at school yet though as I have only just got my maths lessons timetabled (don’t get me started on this, I’m not happy, we’ve missed a whole week of maths lessons just because the school can’t sort out timetables!!). I’ve had so many days of frees and hardly any work to do, and to be completely honest I’ve got bored of them now, I want to be doing work. At least no homework has meant I’ve had a little time to craft, and enjoy seeing relatives this past weekend.

Anyway, I’m here today to share my project for this week’s TPV challenge. Here it is.

 Today's challenge is:

House/Home week!

Incorporate the word, an embellishment, or the overall theme on your paper project. 

Or, make a home decor project!

So I created a canvas based on our house. I have wanted to make this for ages. After taking the She Art course and seeing everyone’s beautiful house canvases, I’ve wanted to try one.  I have used a lot of paper on this project, as after all, it is the PAPER variety, and we want to see you creating projects that use mainly paper . The entire background is made by layering torn bits of patterned papers, then a bit of tissue paper, paint and mist has also been added.  I have tried to keep this canvas very patterned, bright and with a doodle feel. The house was created by layering basic shapes cut from patterned papers, then doodling and stamping lightly over the top. I hope you like it. Here are a few close ups.

This challenge is sponsored by Paper Lovelies.

They are giving the random winner this lovely prize

The prize includes: 
My Mind's Eye  "Lucky Me" 130 piece paper/accessories pack

15 sheets of 12x12 cardstock paper

115 mix & match accessory pieces, including die cuts, titles, chipboard elements, journaling cards, transparencies.

I do hope you decide to play along with this challenge, and if you do, head over here to link up your project, and be in with a chance of winning that great prize :)

Thanks for visiting here today,

Bye for now,

I can’t wait to go to Ally Pally on Saturday and shop. I hope I’ll see some of you there, read here for details :)

Hannah :)

Who's going to Alexandra Palace?

Hi all,

So, it's the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show next weekend at Alexandra Palace. Who's going?
It's a great show, I haven't been for a few years so am really looking forward to it. Craft shopping, what a great way to spend a Saturday :)

That's not the only thing I wanted to ask/tell you though. About a month ago I was in our local scrapbooking store, the brilliant Scrap Revolution, when the unthinkable happened. We began talking about our scrapbooking and blogs, as the Scrap Revolution designer Sue recognised me from here, and I was very thrilled and surprised to be asked to create a kit LO for the shop :D I was so blown away, and felt very honoured to be asked.

The Scrap Revolution create scrapbooking kits regularly, which are great value kits bursting with stash. So, I very gratefully accepted the offer and have created the following LO using the upcoming kit :)

The kit will be on sale at Ally Pally next weekend, and my LO will be on display :D It's all so exciting. I hope you like the LO, here are a few close ups.

The kit includes the vast majority of the craft stash used and instructions for creating this LO, with enough extra to create another scrapbook LO as well :D So, why not visit the Scrap Revolution stall at Alexandra Palace to browse their great supplies, see my LO and maybe even buy the kit. Or if you can't get to Ally Pally, definitely visit their website, the kit should be available via the website after the show :) If you do buy the kit, I'd love to see your version of my LO, or any others you create with the kit. :)

If you are coming to Ally Pally on the Saturday I may bump into you around the show, Mum and I are both going too. I'll also be helping on the scrap revolution stall between 12 and 2 on the Saturday which will be brilliant, so if you are there between those hours, please do make sure you come over to say hello, I'd love to meet you :)

Bye for now, thanks for visiting and reading my exciting news, maybe I'll see you there on Saturday :)

Hannah :)

Miss Smith's blog hop

Hello and welcome,

I am taking part in Miss Smith's giveaway blog hop today. If you are here from Louise's blog, then you are in the correct place. If not, head back to Miss Smith's blog to start off the hop.

A month ago, Kirsty (Miss Smith) posted her 200th post, and decided to celebrate with a fab giveaway with a twist. She had been experimenting with making her own embellishments, so decided she would make some to giveaway. We were then to use the embellishment on a project, and join in on this blog hop. So here I am, on the blog hop.

I mentioned the giveaway on my blog, which some of you will have read, so I was lucky enough to receive two of the embellishments. Here's my project, a layout using them both.

They're great little embellishments :) I based the colours of the page around the colours on the embellishments, which just so happened to be lovely shades of blue and green, colours I like using. This LO fell together very quickly compared to normal, which was surprising, but I am pleased with it.
Here are some close ups :)

Thanks Kirsty for the chance to join in on this great blog hop and giveaway.

Now hop over to Sonja's blog, to see how she has used her embellishment.

Thanks for following the hop and seeing our work.
Bye for now,

Playing with stickers

Wow, so our TPV blogaversary is finished. It was a great week, I hope you agree Have you seen who the winners were for all of the challenges, if not pop across here :) So now, TPV is onto it's second year of challenges, and today we are bringing you the first of those.

Today we are asking you to .....

USE STICKERS

Flat stickers, 3D stickers, cardstock, chipboard, sentiment ..

if it's a STICKER it's fair game!

Here is my card.

This week, we are sponsored by the fabulous company SRM.

We were all very surprised when we heard that SRM had been incredibly generous and supplied our entire DT with stickers to use. Thanks so much to them for their generosity. So as our token of our appreciation, the majority of our DT have created projects this week, using the supplied stickers, and not just the correct team for this week.

They were brilliant to use, the stickers are really lovely. I often steer well clear of stickers as I've come across some very poor ones before, but I had heard that SRM were very good so gave them a try. I can say I was very suitably impressed :) It very conveniently happened that the circle sentiment sticker fitted exactly onto one of the Stampin up punches, which is superb. I have cut the felt flowers using multiple dies, then hand drawn stems and used washi tape strips as a base for them.

So, use stickers, pop over to the TPV blog and enter your project. If you do, you will be entered into the random prize draw, which this week is a prize package from SRM. I really don't think you'll be disappointed.

Thanks for popping by,
Bye for now,
:)

And the winner is...

Hi everyone,

Today it is time to announce the winner of my blog hop candy. Thank you to all of you who joined in and left a link to your favourite project, it was great to look at them and I have commented on them all :)

So without further ado, who did the random number generator choose....

Number 39, which is....

KellyG

KellyG wrote - 

Wow, you are so talented! Love your card, awesome work! I love this layout of my son at the ice cream shop, he loves ice cream!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37569765@N03/5874022963/
We share some common favorites! Thanks for the chance to win!

and here is a link to her lovely favourite project.

Congrats Kelly, this collection of stash will soon be yours :)

Thank you to all who joined in. Kelly, if you leave me a comment with your email address in I shall contact you shortly. I am moderating my comments, so will not publish the comment with your email address in.

I really enjoyed the TPV blog hop and birthday celebrations, and I hope you did too. It has been a great week. Pop over to the TPV blog to see the spotlighted entries and winners from the celebration challenges.

Bye for now, thanks again for joining in. :)

What's your favourite embellishments? -TPV-

Today at TPV, it's the final one of our 5 special challenges to celebrate our 1st Birthday.

If you are here for the blog hop, you'll find it here

So, today the challenge is to use your favourite embellishments.
We all have embellishments that we grab time and time again and appear on all of our LO's, and at TPV, we'd like to see them.

I found this quite a challenge at first, as I have so many favourites. So I settled on this...

Yes, I LOVE that background paper from Crate paper, but that isn't the 'favourite' that I've used on here.
My favourite embellishments are handmade ones :)

All of the flowers and buttons on this LO are handmade :) I had brilliant fun making these. I think one of the reasons handmade embellishments are my favourite is because they are sooo fun to make, can be tailored to suit your project, and they are great fun to use :) This was the first time I had experimented with making my own buttons from Fimo, and it was really good fun. There are so many different designs and things you can do.


Here are tutorials for the flowers:


Large purple/blue book print flower -
This was made using this tutorial, which is really great. I have used book paper, and then coloured each layer with watercolours as it gives it a gorgeous mottled colour effect, and because of the water, the petals become easy to shape and then dry crisp. It is amazing how water can allow you to create such form from paper. When it dries, it dries crisp and keeps it's form. I now wet most flowers I make.


Large white flower -
I think I made this using roughly the same technique and tutorial as above, which is here. The main difference with this flower is that I haven't coloured it and have used mulberry/handmade paper. I have then misted the layers with water and shaped them by scrunching the petals and using a cocktail stick. The paper absorbs water very well and really does keep it's shape :)


The teal ribbon flower -
This has been made exactly the same as most ribbon flowers are made. I'm sure you know how to, but if you don't, I shall give you the basics. You start with a circle of card, then stick the ribbon to the centre. As you wrap the ribbon around into a circle, twist it as you go , making a coil of ribbon. Cut off the remainder of the ribbon once you have reached the edge of the card base, and glue it down.


Small purple flower -
This has also been made using roughly the same principle as the first two, with this tutorial. I have created 2 layers like these with book paper, and then one with some coloured card. I have misted them, and shaped them, then let them dry. I have then rubbed an ink pad over them to bring out some of the creases and definition.

I hope you like the LO, I was really pleased with it, I really like that colour combination, I should use it more :)

So, pop over to TPV here and share your projects with us, and make sure you use those favourite embellishments, they deserve that attention!

The lovely prize on offer for this challenge is..

This is the "Sophia" kit from CTMH and is filled with patterned papers, cardstock, buttons, twine and a clear stamp set! Isn't it lovely. I am straight away drawn to those buttons, which are another of my favourite embellishments. :)


Here are a few close ups of my LO :)

Bye for now,


P.S. Thanks to those of you that commented on my last post and gave suggestions as to what to do with the spelling mistake. I have taken your advice and tried replacing the 'e' with a heart :)

Rescued? Does it look ok?
Thanks so much :)

Favourite photos at TPV

Welcome to another of our challenges at TPV to celebrate our 1st Birthday.

So far, our first challenge on Wednesday was to use stamps on your project. Any form of stamps, we'd like to see you using them. This challenge is sponsored by the brilliant 'My Favorite Things', with the random winner being given a $25 voucher to the store. See here for more details.

Our fun blog hop is running until Monday, so please do head over to TPV here and start the hop. You'll see all of the DT's work and may also pick up some blog candy along the way :) 

Our second challenge began yesterday, and this time we are asking you 'Who is our favourite paper crafts company?' We are inviting you to use your favourite company to create a paper project and link it to TPV, to be in with the chance of winning a lovely prize. Seeing as they are your favourite company, we'd like 70% + of your project to be made with there products. See here for more details and what the tempting prize is for this challenge.

Spotlighted entries for all challenges will be revealed on Monday, then all challenges will close at Tuesday noon EST (5pm GMT). Winners will be announced later that Tuesday. The blog hop closes on Monday, with winners of blog candy being revealed on the Tuesday, so do pop back to see :)

Now, today, we bring you the third challenge.

Today we want to see your favourite photos.

You all have those photos that you just love, maybe because they are technically perfect, because they hold a precious memory, or are of someone you love. Whatever the reason, we want to see your favourite photo displayed pride of place on a paper project.

Here is my LO, including my favourite photo :)

Yes, I've noticed I've spent truly wrong!!! I can't believe it, the letters are now stuck fast and cannot be removed without ruining it!! What do I do? Any ideas?

This photo is of my brother. I took this photo and am very proud of it. Not only do I love it because his eyes (how gorgeous they are, I'm so jealous of his eyes!!) are in sharp focus, but also because he looks so much like him. I know that probably sounds weird, but sometimes you just capture a candid shot that shows someone as you see them, they are truly them in the photo. This is one of those, he looks so relaxed and in his own world, I love it.

I have used a lot of stitching and doodling on this LO, plus tried to keep the colours masculine. I have hand cut the scallops.

Here are a few close ups

I hope you like it.

I can't wait to see your favourite photos. Make your paper project, link it up to TPV here and you may be in with a chance of winning this prize :)

Echo Park: Apothecary Emporium

So, I shall see you and your work over there. 

Remember, you can also hop along on the blog hop, show us what you can do with stamps and use your favourite company to help us celebrate our birthday :)

Bye for now :)

The day we've been waiting for...

...has arrived!!!
It's the 7th September, which means it's
TPV's blogaversary!!!

Welcome, this will be an amazing week full of brilliant challenges, and of course, brilliant prizes. My fellow DT members have some incredible projects tucked up their sleeves, and as some of you may have already found, some cool giveaways too :)

So, this week, it is all about our 'favourite things'. One of our favourite things at TPV are challenges, so we're bringing you five, one each day. Another is our fabby prizes, so once again we're bringing you five, one each day, to reward you for your brilliant work and participation.

Are we ready, then let the celebrations begin!! :D

We are kicking off the celebrations with a fun blog hop and for our first challenge we bring you a brilliant sponsor .... My Favorite Things !! :)

If you have come here from Kylie's blog, then you are in the correct place :) If you haven't, then head over to the TPV blog, where the fun begins :) Be sure to hop to all 12 designers blogs to be inspired by their creations, plus many of us have blog candy for you :)

Our first challenge this week is to ...
create a paper project using stamps - clear stamps, rubber stamps, image stamps, or sentiment stamps, any form of stamp
My Favorite Things is generously giving a random challenge winner a $25 gift voucher to their store!!

How cool, you'll have to play along as that prize just cannot be missed. Check out their store to see all of their fabulous supplies.

You have until Tuesday noon (EST) to enter your project here for a chance to win that spectacular prize.



My Favorite Things generosity is sooo large, that they provided the entire DT with stamps to use on our projects!! I know, so generous :) So here we go, my stamping project.

I have created a card using their 'Meet me at the Cafe' digital stamp. I love their 'Who's that girl?' range of stamps, they're so beautiful to work with.
So, how have I made it.
Well, I've printed the digital image onto white cardstock, then masked the edges of the image and stippled blue ink faintly onto the image, to provide a realistic sky. I have then printed the image many times onto lots of different pieces of coloured card and paper. Having carefully cut each layer out, I have then decoupaged the image, giving each woman a unique outfit. As you can see in this close-up, the layers are stuck directly on top of each other, but still have a lovely dimension to them.

If you've never tried working with digital images before, then I would recommend you try it, they are very versatile and saves the storage space of rubber stamps.

I have then finished the card by matting and layering it onto an A6 card base, and adding a vellum strip with the sentiment on.

I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed making it :)

Now, I have something else to share with you. Something quite exciting. It is, of course, my giveaway :) I have loved my time so far with TPV, it is such a brilliant challenge blog, with such a friendly community, so I have this giveaway to celebrate it's birthday.

Seeing as the Blogaversary has a 'favourite thing' theme, I have compiled a collection of a few of my favourite things, to give to one of you.

So, to be in with a chance to win this collection of stash, answer my question with a link in your comment. It is not a condition of the giveaway that you have to become a follower of my blog, but if you'd like to, I'd be delighted. The giveaway closes at midday Monday 12th EST (5pm GMT) and I shall draw a random winner and announce it here on Tuesday 13th September.

You do not need to enter a project at TPV to be in with a chance of winning the blog candy, the giveaway is just a bit of fun. However, I do hope you decide to join in, remember, that $25 voucher for My Favorite Things could be yours if you play along :)

Don't forget that we will be hosting other challenges with more brilliant prizes until Sunday at TPV, inspiring you to use your favourite things :)

There is also a giveaway on the TPV facebook page so don't miss out on that. Come and join in the excitement and fun :)

Now, after a very long post (sorry) I shall pass you over to Nicole's blog to see what beautiful project she has created with MFT stamps :)

Thanks for visiting,

Can anyone help?

Hi everyone,
I hope you're having a great weekend.
Today I need your help. I was searching through blogs and commenting the other day, when I came across a photo of some flowers. They had been handmade, but looked like these prima ones.

Sorry I've changed the picture as I have remembered it was these they were as copy of

Now, whilst these look as though they may be quite straight forward to make, a tutorial would be very helpful.
I cannot remember who's blog I was visiting when I found these handmade flowers. The blog page gave a link to the tutorial they had learnt how to make them from.
If you know which blog had the image on, or where I will find the tutorial, then please let me know :) It may not have been a very recent post, as I was enjoying looking back at a few people's blogs :)
I have searched all of the places I can think of to try and find it, I am either missing it or not looking in all of the places.
Sorry if it was your blog that I found them on, I was busy at the time when I saw them so didn't click to find out more, but now I wish I had as I'd love to find the tutorial :)
Thanks for your help :)

Only 3 days to go until the TPV Blogaversary!!!
I am really excited about it, and I hope many of you will join in where you can. I have made some projects for it that I am extremely pleased with, so do pop back each day to see my posts and hopefully play along :)

It's going to be BRILLIANT!!! :D

Also, have many of you tried the new blogger interface? I LOVE it, it's so nice and easy to use. Now, when you are writing these posts, you are not restricted to seeing only a tiny amount of writing and have a much larger viewing box :) It's great :) We have also updated our Internet to Google chrome so the new blogger interface is happy, and so are we, the format and speed of Google chrome is brilliant :)

Ok, right, that's it from me today.
Bye for now :)