Party Animal

Well that's it for another year, hope all of your festivities went smoothly?  No burnt turkeys, brussel sprouts like bullets or yorkshire puddings like frisbies!  Did Santa bring you everything on your list?

I'm sure that you're all ready to relax after a few hectic days so we've got a new challenge starting over at Fussy and Fancy today to help you get back into your crafting.  So why not stick the kettle on, take your cuppa to your craft space and pop and have a look at the DT's inspiration?

I bet everyone's like me and has loads of stamps lurking that have never been inked, well this is one of mine!  I bought it with all good intentions and then, yep, there it sat until now....

Materials used:

Stamp & sentiment - party animal

Coloured with promarkers

Glamour dust - crystal
Sentiment - Jane's script

Nestabilities - splendid circles
Distress ink - barn door
Ribbon - carnival collection

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

Passion for Promarkers - happy

Really Reasonable Ribbons - anything goes

Charisma Cardz - anything goes

Pixie Dust Studio - celebration

Divas By Design - anything goes

Paper Shelter - anything goes

Crafters Companion - winter friends

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone busy blogging!!

I hope that you have great celebrations planned or just a peaceful and healthy crafting time.

My thoughts go out to those that are less fortunate and also to those of you that are suffering from ill health.

Fingers crossed that you are all able to spend Christmas in your own homes and that you haven't been driven out by the floods.

Whatever you're doing and where ever in the world you are, please stay safe!

xx Happy crafting and glittery seasonal hugs xx

Winter Chloe

This is a virtual post today as it's a busy weekend for me!  It's my partner Marks 50th birthday and he has no idea what I've got in store for him (mwah ha ha ha).  I can't say too much yet just in case he reads this but hopefully he'll like everything and if I remember I'll take some photos to show you all!

As you may know I love getting all inky and making this card was no exception.  To make the background for this card, in true crafting style, I was using the ink left on my splodgemat from another project so I didn't waste any!  I brayered it onto my card working around each edge into the centre, spritzed it with water, placed some creased cling film on and left it to dry before removing the cling film to reveal the mottled effect.  After adding the tree branches I then stamped the snowflakes using versamark and brushed with silver mica powder and with a quick spray of hairspray they were there to stay.  A quick flurry of glamour dust for the snow on the branches and a chance to play with my fluffy stuff and voila......

This card is a reminder for the challenge currently running over at A Gem of A Challenge where the theme is "Lavender and Lace".  Can you tell I had fun making this?

This digi stamp doesn't come sitting on the bench but she begs to be sat on something doesn't she?  So I masked her up and, using one of my other stamps, made somewhere for her to sit in the snow.

Materials used:

Digi - winter Chloe

Coloured with promarkers

Glamour dust - crystal

Stamp - wrought iron chair

Stamp - tree

Stamp - snowflake flurry

Mica powder - pearls

Fluffy stuff

Background created using:

Adirondack ink - wild plum and denim

Krylon leafing pen - silver

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

Papertake weekly - snow white
Stamping Sensations - treemendous
Try It On Tuesday - let's get inky
The Stamp Man - in the bleak mid winter
Stampin For The Weekend - let it snow

xx Happy crafting and glittery seasonal hugs xx

What a cracker (plus tutorial)...

14 more sleeps to go, 14 more sleep 'til Santa.....

Have you made any Christmas decorations this year or have you just been concentrating on your cards?  Well here's an idea to either brighten up your Christmas table or your mantel piece.  I've even included a tutorial of how to make them so all of the hard work has been done for you, you've just got the fun bit of making and decorating them in your own style.  Why not email me a picture of your finished cracker (email in the side bar) and I'll add the photo to the bottom of this post?

Here's my cracker using a design which is less traditional, but still as much fun to make  You could always put a little gift inside before you tie the ribbons at each end or insert the cracker strips to create the band when you pull it open too!

Materials used:

Digi - robin set

Coloured with promarkers
Glossy accents
Digi papers - coconut ice
Printed onto card
Sentiment - vintage Christmas sentiments
Distress Ink - victorian velvet
Ribbon - carnival collection
Pearls from my stash

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

I Love Promarkers - anything goes
Whimsy Stamps - anything festive
Joanna Sheen - with love at Christmas
Emerald Faeries - Christmas
Cupcake Craft - merry Christmas
Fashionista Challenge - winter
Hooked on Craft - Christmas
Love To Create - anything goes
Cutie Pies - cutie Christmas
Dream Valley - Christmas
One Stitch at a Time - more than one fold
Ribbon Girls - ho, ho, ho


If you'd like to make your own crackers I've included a tutorial below! As I said above I thought it would be nice to share a gallery of them, so if you'd like to show your finished cracker along with this tutorial please send me an email (email in the side bar) and I'll add it to the bottom of this post.

Right here we go...

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Materials needed:

1 x piece of A4 card (plain or decorated)
Hougie board (or similar with cm measurements)
Ruler & pencil
Craft knife (or scissors)
Cutting mat
Double sided tape (or glue)

1)  Take your A4 piece of card and place it right side down onto your Hougie board in a landscape orientation.  Working from the left hand side score down the narrow edge at 2cm, 5cm and 8cm.  Turn the card around and repeat at the other end (see diagram 1 below).  Alternatively measure the intervals with your ruler, mark lightly with a pencil and use a scoring tool

DIAGRAM 1 (click to enlarge)

2)  Do not fold your card at this time as it makes it easier to complete your other measurements (believe me it's tried and tested!)

3)  Leaving your card right side face down but this time in a portrait orientation on the Hougie board, you now need to work from the left hand side and score along the long edge at 6cm, 12cm and 18cm (see diagram 2 and 3 below)

DIAGRAM 2 (click to enlarge)

DIAGRAM 3 (click to enlarge)

4)  Do not fold your card at this time as it makes it easier to complete your other measurements (believe me it's tried and tested!)

5)  That's the work done with the Hougie board, now you need your pencil and ruler

6)  With your card in a landscape orientation, starting at the left hand side and working on the previously scored 5cm line along the narrow edge, you need to measure and mark intervals at 2.5cm, 3.5cm, 8.5cm, 9.5cm, 14.5cm, 15.5cm and 20.5cm starting your measurements from the top of your card.  Turn the card around and repeat at the opposite end (see diagram 4 below)

DIAGRAM 4 (click to enlarge)

7)  As per diagram 5 below, match up the intervals on the 5cm line with the sections where the horizontal and vertical 2cm and 8cm lines cross.  This is easier to understand by looking at the diagram than it is trying to explain to you.

8)  You should now have diamond shapes on your card which need to be cut out and discarded (see diagram 5 above)

DIAGRAM 5 (click to enlarge)

9)  You now need to fold your card to form the cracker shape (see diagram 6 below).

DIAGRAM 6 (click to enlarge)

10)  Place either double sided tape (if you're feeling confident) or wet glue ( if you want to be able to adjust it) along the narrow edge (see diagram 6 above).  Where the folds overlap to form the join the cut out pieces should match it you have followed the instructions carefully.

11)  All that's left to do now is to decorate your cracker

Here is another example of a cracker where I've used pearlescent card and a small holly berry stamp to create the card base and then used a contrasting paper to highlight.

I'd love to see your projects, who's going to be first in the gallery?

CHRISTMAS CRACKER PHOTO GALLERY

Please feel free to reference this tutorial, along with your project on your blog and any craft sites but PLEASE spare a thought for the time and effort that has gone into producing this and a link to this tutorial would be very much appreciated.

xx Happy crafting and season glittery hugs xx

Fairy Chloe

Welcome to December crafty friends and only 24 days left to do all of your present shopping and to finish off all of those Christmas projects too.  How many cards do you have to make?  Do you make them for everyone or only those close to you?  I usually make cards for Mark (my knight in shining armour) and my daughter, everyone else gets a shop bought card.  I know the card police will be after me but I just don't get the time to make one for everybody, I wish I did!

Anyway, less of my woes and onto today's card which is a reminder for the current challenge running over at A Gem of a Challenge.  The host for this challenge is Debbie and she's chosen paper piecing as her first challenge.  Now this isn't a technique I use very often, but I had great fun making this card and got completely covered in glittery too!

I love using digi stamps as they can be resized to suit your project and elements can be moved within the image as well or even removed.  Santa and his reindeers were at the top of the postcard but would have been hidden by this lovely fairy so I moved it to the bottom instead.  Hope you like the card I created for my DT submission, but please pop over to the challenge blog for more inspiration from my teamies too.

 Materials used:

Digi - fairy Chloe

Coloured with promarkers

Sprinkled with glamour dust - crystal

Glossy accents

Digi - Santa postcard

Distress ink - bundled sage

Paper - Miton & Co - Xmas pack

Stamp - Santa is coming

Stamp - calendars

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

I Love Promarkers - anything goes

Passion for Promarkers - distressing

Whimsy Stamps - traditional Xmas colours

Creative Inspriations - traditional Xmas colours

Crimbo Crackers - anything goes

Paper Crafting Journey - case a DT card (Linda GDT)

Divas By Design - glitter & sparkle

Paper Shelter - Christmas

Creative Card Crew - anything goes

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Christmas Owl Tree

Yeah it's Friday again and I've got a long weekend this week.  I was off yesterday and I'm not going back to work until Tuesday!  I'm not really rubbing it in but I so need a rest and to start my Christmas shopping too...

I know I've been quiet over the last 2 weeks but I've been working on my Clarity samples for this weekends shows on Create and Craft.  Who's going to be watching?  I'm normally glued to the box on Clarity weekends and I try and fit a bit of craft in between the shows, oh and a bit of housework as well - yuck!

Anyway onto today's post.  We have a new challenge over at Fussy and Fancy and the theme of our new challenge is:

Well it just had to be a Christmas theme didn't it?  We've got to help you to get through that list of cards and presents you've got to get made haven't we?  If you want some inspiration why not pop over to the challenge blog to see what the Fussy and Fancy girls have made.

Here's my card for the challenge, I know it's not my usual style but I thought I would try a CAS card for a change using one of my new stamps from the NEC.  I also had to try my new embossing glitters from WOW and they certainly are WOW although trying to photograph the sparkly tree and avoid the glare on the glossy accents was almost impossible.

Materials used:

Stamp - Christmas owl tree

Coloured with promarkers

Glossy accents

WOW embossing glitter - glamour green

Stamp - snowflake flurry

Distress ink - bundled sage

Sentiment - Christmas bauble set

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

I Love Promarkers - anything goes
Passion for Promarkers - distressing
Whimsy Stamps - traditional Xmas colours
Creative Inspirations - traditional Xmas colours - TOP 3
Little Claire's - Christmas - TOP 3
Divas By Design - glitter & sparkle
Paper Shelter - Christmas
Corrosive Challenge - anything goes
Dream Valley - non traditional Xmas



xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Cartwheel Jodie

Welcome to the weekend and fingers crossed nothing's going to get in the way of me crafting all weekend!  Life's pretty hectic at the moment so my crafting is having to take a bit of a back seat,  so after having my nails done yesterday, finishing the housework, no one to visit and nothing in the diary, I shall be in the my craft room from dawn until dusk - yeah!!!!!!  I'm hoping to have a bit more of a play with the goodies that I bought at the NEC last weekend too, so watch this space for them...

Anyway here's a reminder for the challenge currently running over at A Gem of A Challenge.  It was my turn to pick the theme again and I chose "Ribbon and Lace" which I thought would be easy, but I started with the background for my card (a purchase from the NEC) and then realised that I hadn't included those two elements - doh!  I ended up making a flower out of lace and adding a ribbon bow behind it - sorted.

Please pop over to see what my talented teamies have made for this challenge and below you'll see what I made too:

Materials used:

Digi - Cartwheel Jodie

Coloured with promarkers

Mask - script

Distress ink - spun sugar

Stamp - haberdashery set

Die - snowflake corner

Frantage - aged ivory

Ribbon

Lace and button from my stash

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

Papertake Weekly - flower power

In The Pink - punches and/or dies

Paper Crafting Journey - anything goes

Sassy Studio Designs - no patterned paper

Divas By Design - anything goes

Penny's Paper Crafty - anything goes

Pink Elephant - punches/dies

Dream Valley - anything goes

xx Happy crafting ad glittery hugs xx

Hobbycraft show - NEC

Well what a day I had yesterday at the NEC, I don't think that I stopped smiling all day!  Had a fantastic day out with my crafty pal Hazel and also met loads of other crafting buddies from around the country.  It's so nice to put faces to names of the people that you know through their blogs and facebook pages. I also had a chance for hugs with the fantastic Maria Simms and Barbara Gray and to catch a glimpse of Joanna Sheen and Sara Davies!  WOW what a day....

In between all of the chatter and hugs and catch up I also managed to do a bit of spending and even had to take a trip out to the car to deposit my goodies as my rucksack was a bit heavy - oops!  Here's a couple of piccies of my purchases:

Now I've got to tidy up my craft room and find new homes for all of this lot, so I may be gone for some time.  If you don't see me for a little while please send a search party - tee hee.

Hope everyone that's visited the NEC this year has had a fab time and it'd be great to see your stashl.  Why not add your link in my comments for me to pop and have a look?

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Winter Philip

Good morning crafters and welcome to an icy morning, winter has well and truly arrived!

I'm getting excited now as there's only another week to go until the NEC and as I've only ever been to one smaller show before I'm viewing this as a real Aladdins cave and of course a chance to spend the left over money from my birthday too.  I shall be going on the Saturday so if you see me walking around please stop me and say hi it would be lovely to meet some of you in person (my picture is at the top of the side bar on the right if you want to know what I look like) because I'm not going to walk around all day with a red rose between my teeth - lol!

I look forward to seeing pictures of what everyone bought and hopefully I can fit all of mine into one photo, tee hee.

Today I've got a reminder that the current challenge running over at A Gem of A Challenge is "Polka Dots/Spots" and it's my turn to host this challenge.  I think this one is really easy isn't it?  Everyone loves their  spots and dots don't they?  Why not come and join in the fun, you could be in with the chance of winning 4 fab digi designs from Pink Gem Designs!  Why not pop over to see what my fab teamies have created for inspiration, but here's my card to get you started:

Materials used:

Digi - Winter Philip

Coloured with promarkers

Flowersoft - polar white

Glossy accents

Nestability - scalloped oval

Distress ink - weathered wood

My Minds Eye papers: Lime Twist - Happy Go Lucky

Die - snowflake corner

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

I Love Promarkers - cute

Creative Inspirations - let's celebrate

By The Cute and Girly - stars

Card and Scrap - Xmas

Live & Love Crafts - Xmas

Divas By Design - Xmas

Fab 'n' Funky - dies/punches

Outlawz - circles

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Winner of my Celebration Candy

Thank you to everyone for my birthday wishes.  I had so many people come to visit me I had to bake another cake!  Hope you all enjoyed it?

I know you are all eager to find out who the lucky winner of the Saturated Canary voucher is so after Mr Random.org took off his apron from washing up all those cake plates and hoovered up all the crumbs you lot had dropped I put him to work again and he picked:

#2 Sue (bearhouse)

Congratulations Sue!

Please contact me at sazzlecraft@hotmail.co.uk

Thank you to everyone else for entering and helping me to celebrate, apologies there wasn't enough candy for you all, but I need to save my pennies for the NEC in November.  Is anyone else going on the Saturday?

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Celebration Candy

This post will remain at the top of my blog whilst the Celebration Candy is running.

For all other posts please scroll down.

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Good morning crafters and welcome to another week.

Today's a kinda special day for me as it's my birthday (Monday 8th October), not a biggy but still a celebration of my life.  Would you like a piece of my birthday cake?

It also seems as though my 200 followers passed me by recently and I got my 40,000th hit yesterday too.  So as a way of saying thank you to everyone that supports me I'd like to bring you some candy.  How does that sound?

I thought long and hard what my candy should be and then it suddenly hit me.  Everyone (or nearly everyone) loves Saturated Canary digi images don't they?  So I've got a £20 gift voucher ($30) for the lucky winner to spend in Krista's gorgeous store.  Why not take a sneek peak at them here just in case you're the lucky winner or maybe you've not come across them before!  Here's the voucher that could be yours :-)

The usual rules apply:

1)  You have to be a follower to enter my candy.  New followers are always welcome, but no candy hunters please!
2)  Display my candy in the side bar of your blog with a link back to mine
3)  Leave your details with Mr Linky and a comment to let me know which are your favourite Saturated Canary images too
4)  Closing date is Saturday 27th October and the winner will be announced on Sunday 28th October

Good luck!!



xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Devilina Jodie

Welcome to the weekend crafters....

This week has gone like a flash for me as it's only been a 3 day working week, unfortunately it was cut short by a funeral on Thursday which was a sad occasion but a good send off none the less and of course I don't work Fridays so I get an extra long weekend - yeah!

Anyway less of me and more of the crafting, my get away from it all....

I'm here with a reminder that the current challenge theme running over at A Gem of a Challenge is 'flowers'. How simple could this challenge be as we all love our flowers don't we?  Although you all know I don't like to make it easy for myself do I?  I decided to use one of Janet's new digi's from her Halloween collection and add my flowers in the form of buttons and by using a flower stamp onto film and fibre.

I hope this gives you some different ideas as it's not the normal 'cute' card, apart from the image of course!  If you want 'cute' you ought to see what 'The Pinks' did last week as well as 'The Gems' along with me this week, check them out here.  Also if you're interested we've got a DT call running with this challenge so if you'd like to join us please pop over and check out the details.

Materials used:

Digi - Devilina Jodie

Coloured with promarkers

Clarity Card

Adirondack Ink - Sunset Orange & Pitch Black

Speedball Brayer

Splodgemat

Splodge A Mask - Stenskape - City View

Mask - Mini Chicken Wire Reversed

Stamp - Tree

Stamp - Birds in Flight

Film & Fibre kit

Stamp - Garden Set

Stamp - Letterbox Set

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

I Love Promarkers - anything goes

Papertake Weekly - fright night

Emerald Faeries - anything goes

Creatalicious - halloween - TOP 5

Digi Galore - halloween

Live & Love Crafts - halloween

Sassy Studio Designs - halloween

Crafting for all Seasons - spooky

Divas By Design - spooky

Fab 'n' Funky - colour challenge

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx

Jodie with Baubles

The countdown to Christmas has begun with only 78 crafting days to go.  The shops have started to stock their shelves and I even saw Santa and a snowman walking through the city centre the other lunch time "ho, ho, ho'ing".  I think it's bit early for that don't you, they'll lose their voices by the time the big day gets here!

Anyway back to my card and I've decided to go for an aperture card as I haven't done one of these for ages and I found a stack of Christmas vellums that I wanted to use too.  It was simple to make and I think it sets off this gorgeous image from Pink Gem Designs beautifully.  Why not pop over and have a look at all of their designs?  Just think of all those special Christmas cards you've got to make!

You may have noticed that there isn't a sentiment on my card but I will be adding a personalised one before sending it, maybe by just adding a tag to the present.

Materials used:

Digi - Jodie with baubles

Coloured with promarkers

Accented with glossy accents
Nestability - scallop oval small
Printed vellum
Krylon gold leaf pen
Card candi - Carnaby Street

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

Penny's Paper Crafty - die cuts
Deep Ocean - more than 2 colours
Crafty Bloggers Network - anything goes

Crafty Boots - world cardmaking day
Created With Love - christmas
Cutie Pie - use a digi - WINNER
Catch The Bug - anything goes

xx Happy crafting and glittery hugs xx