OSAAT #166 Anything Goes

There's a new challenge today at One Stitch At  A Time 

Anything Goes

Our sponsor this week is Stitchy Bear’s Digi Outlet and there is a fabulous prize of all the images used by the DT on Challenge #164 for the lucky winner who uses a Store image.

Please head on over to the NEW LOOK  & REBRANDED Stitchy Bear’s Digi Outlet to check out all the lovely digis on offer from our great designers. There are some freebies available and there is a selection of cut price Monthly Specials that change often, there really is so much to choose from thanks to our very talented designers. There is also a weekly free image with a purchase of over $3.

Also, to keep ahead of all the latest news you can sign up to the newsletter & become a follower at the

Stitchy Bear Store Blog

You must use a store image to win the main prizes and all other entries will be in a draw to win $3 to spend in the store

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This week my teamie Choccy chose this fabulous image to work with called Starry Dreamer from Alipeeps Art

I love the expression on the face, such serenity and calmness. I coloured her with promarkers and flexmarkers adding subtle makeup to her face and curls in her hair. I am very pleased my how she came out. I used a Zig glue pen on the stars and some fine gold glitter. The image has been matted onto some Kraft cardstock that has been recycled from an expanding concertina style A–Z file that I used to use for filing home documents. I have lots of pieces of this card now added to my stash J

The card is covered with a subtle coloured paper from the Boho Chic First Edition pad. The sentiment is a freebie from Elegant Word Art by Bethany and is mounted onto a scrap of gold card. Finally I added a gold fabric glitter butterfly sticker from Hobbycraft.

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 Please pop over to OSAAT to see the fab cards from my colleagues on the DT. I look forward to seeing your entries for this challenge

Materials Used in this Project are as follows:-

Card size – A6

Image – Starry Dreamer by Alipeeps Art

Paper – Boho Chic First Edition pad by Dovecraft

Sentiment – Digi Freebie from Elegant Wordart by Bethany

Tools – Letraset Promarkers & Flexmarkers,

Embellishments – Fabric Glitter butterfly sticker from Hobbycraft

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order):-

• Get Inky - #5 Glitter
• Paper Makeup Stamps Digi Makeover – #90 Anything Goes

Snowy Day

Birdie Brown is celebrating her 2^nd birthday and has two challenges this month to celebrate. This card has been made for the 2^nd challenge Anything Goes using a freebie from November called Snowy Day (which is still available, hop on over there to download this cutie)

I chose a sketch from The Critter Challenge for the layout and coloured the image with Promarkers and Flexmarkers adding some white gel pen to the snowflakes so they pop more.

The paper I have used is a wrapping paper from Paperchase which has silver metallic snowflakes on it. I thought I had used all this paper up but found a couple of small pieces left. It has been my most used ‘go to’ snowflake paper but it is a few years old now so don’t think I will be able to get any more

The sentiment is a freebie from Elegant Word Art by Bethany and I have cut it out using a Quickutz cookie cutter die and mounted on 3d foam, as is the image. The snowflakes are a Spellbinders to which I have added a couple of gemstones.

We have had so much snow in Birmingham last weekend and some of it still remains but I still never tire of Snowmen images and tis one is such a cutie, I can me using it again J

Materials Used in this card are as follows:-

Card Size – 6” x 4”

Images – Snowy Day by Birdie Brown

Sentiment – Freebie by WordArt by Bethany

Paper – Wrapping paper from Paperchase

Tools - Letraset Promarkers & Flexmarkers, Spellbinders die, Quickutz cookie cutter die, white gel pen, 3d foam

Embellishments – miscellaneous gems

Techniques - Diecutting

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order):-

• 613 Avenue Create – #12 Anything Goes
• Birdie Brown – 2^nd Birthday Challenge 2
• Can You Digi It - #32 Pick A Season (Winter)
• CDAC Anything Goes – Any Handmade Craft
• Christmas at Sweet Stampin’ - #4 No Red or Green
• Christmas Cards All Year Round – Sparkle & bling
• Christmas Card Challenge - #17 CAS
• Crafty Hazelnut’s Christmas Challenge - #118 Based on a Christmas Song (Frosty The Snowman)
• Crafty Hazelnut’s Monthly Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes
• Creative Craft World BTCR – Anything Christmas Goes
• Creative Inspirations Paint – Anything Goes
• Critter Sketch Challenge – #157 Sketch for layout
• Inklings & Yarns - #9 Anything Goes
• Ladybug Crafts – Colour Blue
• Ladybug Crafts Ink TLT – Anything goes
• Party Time Tuesdays  – #113 Anything Goes
• Penny’s Challenge - #120 Anything But Square
• Simon Says Stamp – Anything Goes
• Stamps & Fun = Creativity - #144 Monochrome
• Through The Craftroom Door - Anything Goes
• Word Art Wednesday - #73  Anything Goes

OSAAT #86 Christmas

There's a new challenge today at One Stitch At  A Time and the theme is

CHRISTMAS

We have a fabulous prize this week of a $10 from Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps

Please head on over to the newly re-vamped Stitchy Bear Store to check out all the lovely digis on offer from our great designers. Also, to keep ahead of all the latest news you can become a follower at the new Stitchy Bear Store Blog

Stitchy is offering some great time sensitive offers so please make sure you are signed up to the newsletter to be the first to get the gossip!

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I love Christmas, especially trimming the tree and I adore this image Lite Brite from Stitchy Stamps. I have always loved how elegant and simple it is and I am so glad I had the chance to work with this one. I coloured the pot and stalk of the tree with Promarkers but the rest of it is pure glittery goodness. I always felt this card would be great with multiple colours of glitter for the lights. It was quite time consuming and VERY messy but I am delighted with how this has come out. I used a fine tipped pva glue and just played with lots of colours of glitter, working on one colour at a time. I added a decoupage layer for the star and 2 more layers for the pot and bow. I added lots of gold glitter to the star to make it twinkle even more J

Using the current Tuesday Morning Sketch I layered candy cane papers in red and white and the green striped paper is from the Smirk Christmas pad, I thought the card needed a bit more glitter LOL. The image was matted onto some scrap black card to provide a strong contrast to the papers and tie the black tops of the lights together. I added some gold ribbon from my stash and the digi sentiment was diecut with a Nestabilties label die and embossed

I love this card so much and think I may do some variations of it in different colours. I think a blue and silver one would look good……

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Please pop over to OSAAT to see the fab cards from my colleagues on the DT. I look forward to seeing your entries for this challenge

Materials Used in this card are as follows:-

Card Size – A5

Image – Lite Brite by Stitchy Stamps

Papers – Dovecraft Festive Treats & Smirk Christmas pack

Sentiment – Free Digi from Elegant Word Art by Bethany

Embellishments – ribbon and tonnes of glitter 

Tools – scissors, 3d foam, Fiskars hole punch, Nestabilities die

Techniques – Decoupage, punching,

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (in Alphabetical Order):-

• Alota Rubber Stamps #69 – Christmas
• Bah Humbug #43 – Die Cuts
• Card Makin’ Mamas #32 – Die Cuts
• Christmas Card Challenge #48 –Any Christmas Card
• Come and Get It Challenge – Anything Goes
• Cooking It Up With Katie #81 – A row of red ribbon
• Crafty Purple Frog #27 – Sparkle
• Creative Craft Challenge – Fancy Edges
• Crimbo Crackers #1 – Anything Goes
• Critter Sketch Challenge #88 – 3 Different Designer papers
• Digi Doodle Shop’s Best #80 – Anything Goes
• Dream Valley Challenge #19 – Anything Goes
• Fairytale Challenge #27 – Lights
• Going Grey With Scrap Creations – Do It With Digi
• Hiding In My Craftroom  #18 – Freestyle
• Inky Impressions IIC #30 – Anything Goes
• Lily Pad Cards - Texture
• Little Claire Designs #14 – Christmas
• Little Darlings #10 – Something that isn’t square
• Meljen’s Designs #82 – Christmas
• Paper Crafting Journey #22 – Use a digi
• Paper Pretties Wednesday #177 – Embellishments
• Partytime Tuesday #39 –Anything Goes
• Patches of Pink – Link Up Party
• Ribbon Girls Christmas Challenge – Any Christmas with a trim
• Scrapbook Sisters #58 – Anything Goes
• Sew Many Cards – 2 background papers
• Simon Says Stamp – Anything Goes
• Sweet Stampin’ Challenge – Anything Goes
• Totally Papercrafts #90 – Glitter
• Tuesday Morning Sketches #117 – Layout of Card
• Wags n Whiskers #66 – Black plus ribbon

OSAAT Challenge #56

Over at OSAAT we have a new challenge for you which is to make Something 3D

We have 2 Sponsors this week which means we will have 2 random prize winners.

One Random Winner will receive 5 Promarkers from our Wonderful Sponsor

One Random Winner will receive a Gift Voucher

In the Newsletter this week we have Barbara Jensen in the spotlight. She has some wonderful sassy images in the store and they have 25% off the normal prices. If you don't already subscribe I would suggest that you sign up as there are some fabulous images given away as freebies and you will always be kept up to date with the latest image news.

While you are there don't forget that for the Month of April we have a store collab with the theme of Mother's Day & Babies which is free with a $10 purchase.

For my project this week I was able to use a brand new design from Stitchy called Little Friends. I wanted to make something a bit different and decided it would be a great design to use to make a box to hold a small gift or trinkets.

I drew around my largest Nestabilities frame and cut around this leaving a border to make the box slightly bigger. I had printed out 2 copies of the digi so I could decoupage the heads on the Wolf, Rabbit and Mouse to add more dimension. I coloured them in with Promarkers and took great care to add shading. I did toy with the idea of adding some embellishments but felt it would have detracted from the image so left it alone (unusual for me!)

Using the top section I layered this onto a strong card for the lid and made a base the same size. I then used my scoring board to make a box which was 1" thick and stuck the top and bottom onto the Nestie die cuts. I added a piece of a dark gold textured ribbon to this section to add some decoration and provide a bit of relief from all the white!

On the inside I used a free Word art sentiment from Elegant Wordart by Bethany. I felt it was particularly appropriate for our little bunch of animals that have made their own family. I intend to give this box with a gift to a very good friend of ours who is also not a relative, but family that I have chosen for myself.

I really enjoyed visiting the blogs last week and seeing the most gorgeous of creations. I hope you will join in with our challenge this week and look forward to passing on some love.

In the meantime, it is Mother's Day today in the UK and I wish all the Mother's out there a fabulous day. My Mother in Law loved her Rub A Dub Dub card which was my DT sample from last week :)

I would like to enter this box into the following challenges :-

• Alys Sunday Sketch #39 - Bunnies
• Catch The Bug - Anything goes
• CCEE Stampers #1113 - Can't use Buckles, buttons, bows or brads
• Crafty Purple Frog - Anything Except a square card
• Fairy Knoll #44 - Whatever
• Just Add Ink #62 - Box or Bag
• Paper Garden Projects - Anything With a Digi
• Stamp Something - Anything Goes with a Digi

AIF073 Under The Weather

We have a new challenge for you today at AI Factory and this week we have an Under The Weather theme where you should make a Get Well Soon card.

We're showcasing a fabulous clipart set called Little Doctor which is available from the AI Store here.

It is amazing how many individual images you get. No less than 12!! Really really good value and there is something for everyone.

Now before I tell you more about my card I need to apologise that the colours on my image are different to the clipart. You know when no matter what you do to fix it your printed colours don't come out right, well unfortunately that happened to me. I think it still works really well but maybe now quite how the designer pictured it LOL

I like to make unusual shaped cards and as soon as I saw the set I knew I wanted to make an ambulance card. I printed the image out to an A5 size and used a sheet of white A4 card for the base. I thought it would be fun to have the doctor peering out of the window so added him to the inside of the card with a Get Well Message which is a fabulous freebie from Elegant Wordart By Bethany. Last but not least I have added spokes to the wheels with some black Paperchase gems in the centre.

To enter this week's challenge visit the AI Factory Challenge Blog where you will see the full rules and details. If you play along with us and upload your image you could win this week's image.

You are not required to use an AI Factory image to enter, but there are loads of great freebies available here in the freebies section of the store. You will need to link up your entry before midnight EST on Wednesday March 30th. If you use an online gallery Such as AiF, PCP or SCS then please tag your entry with the challenge code AIF073 so we can see all your cards in one place. Whilst you are at our challenge site please take a look at the rest of the DT's wonderful creations.

I look forward to seeing your entries in our challenge and Good Luck !

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges

• Aud's Sentiments #24 - Get Well Cards
• Crafts & Me #27 - Anything Goes
• Crafty Pad #113 - Use a Digi
• Crazy Challenge #59 - No Square cards
• Creative Card Crew - No Rubber Stamps
• Creative Inspirations #104 - No Square Cards
• Fun With Shapes & More #79 - Card without Designer Paper
• Gem of a Challenge #17 - No Square Cards
• Gingersnap Creations #93 - Get To Work
• Scrapbook Sisters #28 - Anything Goes
• Sugar Creek Hollow - Anything Goes

Let It Snow

Well blooming hell, the sentiment on this card is apt at the moment isn't it? We have had loads of snow in the UK and poor old Scotland especially has been very badly hit. It has been really funny seeing my buddies on Facebook uploading some gorgeous photos of snow and icicles and someone said 'oh is it snowing, I'll just check Facebook'. I thought that was great as even when the weather were saying an area would be clear of snow, you could rely on your mates telling you otherwise. These last few days we have had freezing fog and the last of the snow we have had is lingering but everything is completely white with frost. Looks like everything has had a sprinkle of Glamour Dust and looks quite beautiful. Trouble is it is also combined with very, very low temperatures LOL

This card has been made using the wordart made by Bethany at Elegant Word Art. She is so blooming talented and so very generous with her freebies. I luvs Bethany soo much and follow her blog every day, laugh with her and even cry with her.

Anyhoo, I printed the Wordart quite big and matted it onto dark blue shimmer card to match the base of the card. The patterned paper is a Bo Bunny one that came free with a magazine. The silver holographic snowflakes are from Ebay and have a large Paperchase blue gem on them. The clear irridescent snowflakes are from a christmas garland decoration that I took apart to use for cards and have a spot of Stickles silver glitter glue in the centre and on the letter i. I have also added stardust Stickles to pick out lots of the stars in the 'snow' word.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

• AI Factory #59 - Winter Theme
• Paper Issues - Holiday Hook Up
• Studio 313 #4 - Sparkle & Bling
• Sundays With Crissy - Winter is here
• Lexi's Creations #28 - Blue & Silver
• Lollipop Crafts #19 - Welcome Winter
• Simon Says - Holiday greeting
• Spoonful of Sugar #133 - Christmas Card
• Digital Tuesday #88 - Baby Its Cold Outside
• Papertake Weekly #52 - Red & Green Not Be Seen
• Artistic Stamper - Christmas
• Crafts & Me - Snowflakes
• Creative Cottage #28 - Non traditional Christmas
• Inky Impressions - Christmas
• My Graphico #77 - Christmas
• Stampavie & More #119 - Snow
• Cute card Thursday #114 - The Blues
• Digi Doodle #36 - Let It Snow
• Stamp n' Doodle - Anything goes Winter
• Card Makin' Mamas #11 - Anything Goes
• Delicious Doodles #3 - Use a Digi
• Frosted Designs - Glitter
• Sew Many Cards #34 - Snowflakes
• Stamp Man #11 - 3 Colours
• Wags n Whiskers #42 - Snowflakes
• Challenge Up Your Life #33 - Christmas
• Wee Memories #34 - Let It Snow Song Inspiration
• Crafty Ho's - Holiday Card
• Creative Cowgirls #2 - Anything Goes
• Creative Inspirations Paint - Inspired by Snowglobes (Snow)
• One Stitch At A Time #42 - Old Stash/New Stash (new digi & paper, old everything else)
• Opus Gluei #82 - Glitter
• Paper Players #27 - Christmas
• Stamptacular Sunday #88 - Blue Christmas (hope digi stamp is allowed?)

365 Cards Day 107, Papertake Weekly, Sketches by Tamara, Paper Blooms & Paperplay

This card has been made primarily for the 365 girly challenge for today but I have also incorporated 4 other challenges into it. They are as follows:-

• 365 Cards Day 107 - Make a girly card and include the word 'girl' on it
• Papertake Weekly - Shoe Time
• Sketches by Tamara - SCRAPBOOK LAYOUT sketch #100
• Paperplay #21 - Use your materials in an unexpected way
• Paperblooms #11 - Use at least 3 blooms

I received a feedblitz email this morning with the scrapbook layout sketch from Tamara and thought it would be great as a card and then I had another email from Elegant Word Art and Bethany had produced 2 girlfriend themed files to fit in with a freebie Blog Hop that Scrap Orchard have where there is a full kit to collect from various members blogs. I thought it was perfect for the 365 card and it all spawned from there.

The majority of the materials are from a Paper Cellar 8 x 8" scrapbook kit which is pinks, purples handbags and shoes..... the use of a scrapbook kit and the scrapbook layout I thought would fit in with the Paperplay challenge (at a pinch!)

I have added some extra bling courtesy of Paperchase and some paper flowers which were a freebie from a magazine. The sqaure on the background are tile shapes from a Papermania caddy.

Forever Friends, Stampin Chic & 365 Challenges

The Day 59 over at 365 Cards and the challenge is to make a card with a specific sentiment on it - I Miss You. Well lo and behold, what should happen to pop up in my in box today but an email from Bethany Harty at Elegant Word Art and the freebie she is giving away today is for that exact wording. Serendipity or what ? If you have never visited Bethany's blog, you seriously NEED to !! She is just so blooming clever and produces some fabby word arts. I {heart} Bethany Harty....and she got me wanting to read the Twilight books which I am currently on the second one New Moon.

Anyhoo, the wordart I printed onto white card and used as the main backing of my card. The cardblank is Papermania and really nice quality. I incorporated this week's challenge at Forever Friends which is a sketch and to top it all off I used the colour challenge of Turquoise and Yellow over at Clare Curd's blog Stampin' Chic. I am the queen of combining challenges !!! LOL

The backing papers are from Clare's Papermania pad 'The Big One' and I coloured in the white dots yellow with a Marvy le Plume pen and also used it for topical colouring in the floral paper. Quite pleased with how they turned out, they certainly don't look like I've been colouring in for ages, I was a bit worried they would TBH. I stamped the flowers using the matching doodle stamps from the range and highlighted the centres with assorted gems.

The Forever Friends image is a rubber stamp. I have coloured the bear and the vase with watercolour pencils and the flowers are metallic Sakura pens with a little bit of Glamour Dust in the flower centres. I don't think I am very good at watercolouring, can't seem to do it right like so many talented people do but I am quite pleased with this one. I did some when I went camping at Easter and tried to practice getting the shading right. It's hard as I only have a pack of 10 pencils, I would love to have one of those lovely tins with loads of colours to choose from as I am no good at mixing them. 

Pennies are tight though and that will have to be on my wish list for when I get a job. Having been made redundant twice in the last 6 months the money we had saved up is dwindling. Paul can't get any work in IT and my Blood Pressure is sky high at the moment and the drugs don't seem to be helping to get it down. Crafting is my sanctuary at the moment and my blog is my contact with the outside world (except for hospital visits to Paul's Grandad).

I can't begin to thank you all enough for leaving comments for me and I appreciate each and every one for the validation I receive for my projects.