Hi

Happy Sunday! I hope you're having a wonderful weekend.

We have a new challenge at Magnolia Down Under Challenge. For our #23, this fortnight challenge is a good one and cute as a….BUTTONS….Yup we want to see buttons, big or small, many or one! As long as you have buttons on your card/project we’ll be happy.
And our sponsor this week is Scrapbook Boutique. Please hop over to MDUC and see the cards from the other DT gals and you can read the details of their individual card on their blogs. I hope you will come and join in the challenge--you have 2 whole weeks!!!

For this card, I have used the sketch #24 from Papertake Weekly Challenge.

And at Cupcake Card Challenges, the theme for their challenge #58 ... distressing techniques. Boy, did I do a lot of disressing on this one. The flowers alone... My arm was ready to fall off...LOL.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Stamp: Magnolia Strawberry Tilda.

DP: Doodlebug Design Plum Bloom, not sure about the dot-embossed cardstock--Bazill probably.

Tools: Stewart border punch, EK Success retro-flower punches (large and medium) .
Misc: Tim Holtz distress ink Dusty Concord.

Tilda Exploring for Hidden Treasures

Hello all!

I couldn’t wait to show you my latest project. I’m quite pleased with how this turned out.

First things first, I want to thank Kirsten Aune for her wonderful tutorial. If you want to make a similar project yourself, here’s the link to Kirsten’s tutorial on a box with 4 drawers.

This is for 4 challenges:

I wanted to make a card for Cute Card Thursday. The theme for their Challenge 78 is Hidden Treasure. "This week we want to see a hidden element/gift in your cards/projects." I was thinking of making just a card with hidden messages, when during my blog-hopping, I came across Kirsten's tutorial and thought this would be just perfect for the challenge instead.

The image I used here I named Tilda the Explorer or Indiana Tilda, hee hee. No, actually she is called Jungle Tilda from Magnolia.

Decorating the top of the box is an actual card that I’ve created using the wonderful sketch that the ever-so-talented Jacque has provided for the Friday Sketchers Challenge 70. I’ve attached a ribbon to the card, so that you can secure the openings to keep the card from flapping around.

The theme at Stamp Something Challenge is favorite colors or paper. My favorite designer paper isn’t just one single DP, but the Scrapbook Walls collection from Chatterbox (I think this has now been discontinued). They have marvelous soft-colour combos and co-ordinating papers. Chatterbox was quite prominent several years ago, but lately I haven’t seen too many of their papers on the store shelves. It's a good thing that during a clearance sale I stocked up and now still have a good selection of their papers in my stash. All the DP's used here are from that collection. This is what the inside of the card looks like:

To put a cherry on top of the ice cream, hee hee… Well, you know how I love hand-made flowers? Or if you don’t, well I simply luvvv… them. This is a new flower I learned how to make from the tutorial that Michele Roos has done for the Just Magnolia Monthly Challenges. The challenge there for the month of September is based on the tutorial, which can be found at the challenge blog here. I used my EK Success retro-flower punches for the flowers I created.

Back to the box, for the drawer handles, I used these wooden things they called button plugs. Found them at Michaels. You get 23 plugs for $1.99CAN (probably $1.50US). I just polished them a bit with beeswax so the wood doesn't look unfinished. And attached them with a spot of craft glue at the centre of each drawer.

That's it. Sorry for this more-lengthy-than-usual posting. Enjoy your day!

Stamps: Magnolia Jungle Tilda. DP's: Chatterbox Scrapbook Walls: Rec Bias Plaid, Saddle Plaid, Rodeo Paisley, Sky Rodeo Paisley.
Tools: EK Success retro flower punches (large and medium).
Misc: Kaiser Craft pearls (the blue ones), Martha Stewart half pearls, Lara's Crafts wooden button plug 1/4".

Merry Christmas

Happy Saturday!

I've made another Christmas card. Hopefully by early December, I would have made enough.

3 challenges for this card, LOL:

The first one is Sketch and Stash Challenge. This is the sketch for their Challenge 19.
My newest stash is this gorgeous DP from Bo Bunny. I think it's one of their new Christmas papers for this year. I was in my local scrapbook store, Scrapbook Warehouse, and the vibrant Christmasy colours caught my eyes, so of course I just had to have it. Also new to me is this Magnolia Tilda image, purchased from Diana at Magnolia-licious. This is the first time I have used this stamp.

The second challenge is from Passion for Promarkers. The challenge for Week 17 is any colours & polka dots.

The third challenge is from Papertake Weekly Challenge. Their theme is Faking it. I've added some faux stitching and fake lace (using a border punch) on my card.

I don't know if you can see that there are stars in the design of the paper. You can probably tell better from the piece of paper in the inside of the card. I've cut out similar looking stars out of cardstock and put gold glitters on them. The stars are in place of the flower on the sketch.

The sentiment I've moved to the top because I've moved the paper lace lower as not to cover up the trees, so that left more room at the top rather than at the bottom for the sentitment.

The inside of the card looks like this.

Red isn't an easy colour for me to do, but I think I'm improving, hee hee, just my own opinion. And yes, the Tilda in the inside has a slightly darker red dress. That's because I wasn't happy with the initial blending of colours, so kept fooling around with my markers and kept adding layers of ink until it got to be like this.

Have a wonderful weekend everybody!

Stamps: Magnolia Tilda with Braids, Hero Arts Wishing Peace and Joy.
DP's: Bo Bunny 12@ Tis the Season Deck the Halls, polka dot paper from me&my BIG book value pack paper pad.
Tools: Martha Stewart border punch. Embelishments: Making Memories metal Merry Christmas, Kaiser Craft pearls.

2-CD Case

Hello!

This was/is a very nice project to do. A 2-CD case. I have a practical use for this.

I have actually started this project for the Stamp with Fun challenge, but it took me longer to finish, so I am too late for it. It's a good thing that I have a couple other challenges for it, LOL.

For the front of my CD case, I have followed the sketch that was provided for this week challenge at Friday Sketchers Challenge Blog.

The colour scheme is from Cute Card Thursday Challenge. "Challenge 77 – Strawberry Mint Julep!... We want to see your beautiful creations using the colours pink & green."

I have finally found those gorgeous DP’s from Basic Grey, their Lemonade collection. I've been drooling over these papers when I see them on other people's cards. I found them in my local DeSerres art store (and woohoo they’ve got a 20% sale this month on scrapbooking paper). Funny how I couldn’t find them at our Michaels stores here. The one I used here is called Saltwater Taffy. I've matched this paper with another Basic Grey DP that I already have in my stash called Eva Courtier.

The CD's to be stored in this case are to be filled with summer pictures, so I've chosen images from the Magnolia Lazy Summer Days collection: Beach Tilda, Bathing Ring and Tilda with Ice Cream.

Have a wonderful day!

Other stamps: Great Impressions trio of flowers, Inkadinkadoo Remember When.
Tools: Marvy Uchida scallop circle punch, Coluzzle circle template
Embelishments: Reflections pearl stickers .

Mini Post Office

Hello! Happy weekend!

Challenge #22 at Magnolia Down Under Challenge is ...anything but a card. Our sponsor for this challenge is Just Scrap and Stamp and Tania, owner and founder, has provided a fabulous prize to be won. Check out the prize at the MDUC blog and also check out the wonderful projects by the other DT gals. You can find the details of their projects on their individual blogs and I hope you will also leave a comment.

I've combined this challenge with the one at Magnolia-licious Highlites. The DT September Sketch Project!! is to create a Mini Accordion File Folder.

Here is my 'anything but' ...

I'm calling this my Mini Post Office, as I'm now using it keep all my postal stamps organized. I'm not too crazy about that designer paper I used, but I thought it was very appropriate for this project. It's not that pretty, sort of blah.....LOL. Oh well, it's only for myself.

There are six compartments that I can use. For sending my cards, Canada Post has basically 3 postal rates: for mailing within Canada, to the States and to everywhere else.
I've labelled the pockets:
- Domestic
- U.S.A.
- International
- Miscellaneous (for 1 or 2 cent stamps for those rate increases that Canada Post seems to introduce every year )
- Airmail (for Airmail stickers)
- Do Not Bend (labels that I like to slap on the front and back of my envelopes--my little note to the postal personnel, LOL)

There's a tutorial for this from Valerie Stangle. Click here to see. Valerie uses a strip of cardstock bent over to fit into a slot to close her file folder. I've replaced this with ribbons as I find that cardstocks are not meant to be bent. After repeated use, the cardstock strip does not look very nice anymore.

Enjoy your weekend!

Stamps: Magnolia Tilda with Letter, Hero Arts Love Letters Postal Stamp.

DP: Gartner Studio Bon Voyage-Postage Stamps Collection.

A Happy Birthday Card

Happy Friday. Yipee!

I made this card for a couple of challenges and also for my Mom whose birthday is coming up in a week and a half, so this is the earliest I've ever had a card ready for her birthday. Usually I'm scrambling to the last minutes to get it done.

I've used the sketch that was provided at the Create4fun Challenge for their week 36.

And at Stamp Something Challenge Blog, this week's challenge is to create something with your favorite embelishments. My favorite embelishments I guess would be flowers that I've made myself. And since they've come out with those half pearls in a rainbow of colours, those have become my favorite embelishments too.

I've chosen a DP with bright summery colours since this Magnolia image is from the Lazy Summer Days collections. I think this Tilda image is called Loves Me.

I've basically followed the sketch, except for the placement of the Happy Birthday sentiment. I moved that to the top left-hand corner because I made a boo boo with my distressing. You know how it is, when instead of a nice light shading you get a blob of ink? Don't you just hate that? I used the sentiment to cover it up. LOL.

Have a wonderful weekend everybody!

Stamps: Magnolia Loves Me, Great Canadian Stamp 'Happy Birthday', Great Impressions 'Have a Beautiful Day'.

DP: from me&my BIG idea value pack paper pad Fashion District

Tools: EK Success flower punch, Martha Stewart twig punch, Provo Craft decorative scissor, Colluzle circle template.

Misc.: Kaiser Craft pearls.

Lazy Summer Days

Hello.

I finally, finally have another card to show you.

I made this card for 2 challenges.

The first one is Truly Scrumptious Challenge Blog. The theme for their Challenge 15 is Indian Summer. Yeah, I'm not ready to let go of summer yet. There is also this wonderful sketch to follow provided by Michele.

The second challenge is from Stampin' for the weekend. A colour challenge with the colours of orange, teal and pink. An odd choice of colours, I thought, but I actually managed to find a DP with these colours from my me & my BIG ideas value pack paper pad called Fashion District.

For a chance to use 2 of the images from the Magnolia Lazy Summer Days collection, which I just recently acquired, I chose a different Tilda image for the inside of my card.

Have a wonderful day!

Stamps: All from Magnolia Lazy Summer Days collection, Berry Tilda, Tilda with Ice Cream, Strawberry Ice Cream Cone and Lazy Summer Days sentiment.

Mary Tapping

Hello everyone. I hope you're having a wonderful weekend.

Well, it has been a very non-productive week for me during these past weekdays. Too busy at the office. Too much work, too little time. Have been working late everyday. Getting home too late and too tired and just had time to get some sleep and head back out to work the next day. Yeah, that's why I've been MIA. Okay, that's enough moaning and groaning from me. LOL.

I started working on this yesterday and finally put the finishing touches on the card this morning. This is my very first card ever with a digital-stamp image. I've been seeing Mo Manning's images on cards all over the place and I just love them. I now have several of her wonderful images, but decided to try my hand first on colouring this 'Mary Tapping'. Mo's images can be obtained at her blog, Mo's Digital Pencil too!

I chose this Mary Tapping image as I needed a girl image for the challenge at Passion for Promarkers. The theme for their challenge 15 is girly and glittery.

For this card I have used the sketch from Friday Sketchers Challenge blog, that was provided by Heidi for their challenge 68.

At the A Spoon Full of Sugar challenge blog, the theme for their challenge 67 is distressing.

Since this was my first digital image, I thought I'd started small and practiced colouring on a smaller version of Mary Tapping before moving to a larger image. It didn't turned out too bad I thought, so I used that image for the inside of my card.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Stamps: Great Impressions Beautiful and Special Day, Inkadinkado Have a Great Birthday.

DP's: Chatterbox Scrapbook Walls Canopy Floral and Poolhouse Stripe.

Misc.: Kaiser Craft Pearls