Its beginning to look a lot like christmas............

I'm starting to feel a bit Christmassy now, I have received two Christmas cards today and everywhere I look there are now Christmas lights.......however, hubby won't let me put the tree up until after my birthday, yes I'm one of those unfortunate people that has a birthday close to the festive season (11th December if you're interested) it has its disadvantages.....joint birthday/Christmas presents, going out for a meal to celebrate my birthday and having crackers on the table, could be worst though I think I arrived earlier than expected... anyway enough wittering on, you don't want to listen to me, you want to see some cards.....

Sheena stamp, distress inks and acetate

More Sheena stamps with distress ink and H2O background

Caught in crystal background

 This one was done by making a heart mask and stamping all around with various snowflake stamps, took a while but I like the effect

All the following have been done using Imagination Crafts stencils:

Gelli plate background using the same stencil

That's all for now, hope you like them. Hubby off to play darts......you know what that means.....I can craft till late into the night without feeling guilty!

Thanks for looking

Donna x

Whats on Your Workdesk? Wednesday #234

Good morning, its Wednesday again already. I had promised myself that I would post in-between WOYWW's but with everything else going on I didn't get chance. Anyway, today here is my desk

As you can see I've had a tidy up and a bit of a move around. I was going to buy a glass cutting mat until I remembered I had a very large glass chopping board, so I've started using that and its brill for cutting. Also on my desk is some funky foam - great as a cheap substitute for mounting foam, and I get through loads of that! Also in the background is my floor polish for creating backgrounds (caught in crystal technique copied from Sheena Douglass, a lot cheaper than using Glossy Accents) and right in the middle of my new cutting mat is my "prize" from Hels Sheridan from on Create and Craft, here is a close up

Lovely isn't it. I've got loads of cards to show you as I've been frantically making them for some recent local craft fairs, here are just a few of them

One of my caught in crystal backgrounds for a friends birthday

Stamping up stamp borrowed from little sis, stamped on acetate and coloured behind with a gold leafing pen

Distress ink and twinkling H2O background with Indigo Blu stamps



Background and "snow" are Sheena stamps, the deer is from Stamps Away

More Sheena stamps......

Caught in crystal background with Sheena snowflakes

Graphicus stamps with distress inks backgrounds

Hope you like them, and for a final photo - Jess with her cousin Storm who came to visit at the weekend

This was after they had worn each other out and just before their new "aunty" Molly arrived, haven't got a picture of her as she just didn't stop still the whole time she was here...

Thanks for looking, off to Julias blog to look at all the other desks. More cards to show again soon

Bye

Donna x

 

 

 

Whats on Your Workdesk #233

Another week already, I was going to make sure I posted in-between WOYWWs but had a really busy weekend with a houseful of people and dogs, and doing it all again this weekend as well!

Bit of a weird picture of my desk today:

looks a bit strange, but the book has all my new backgrounds in it, and the Cuttlebug is weighing them all down to flatten  them, they look like this

Its the "caught in crystal" technique, they look at bit of a mess, but when trimmed down make gorgeous background for my cards. Here is one of the finished cards

The image is actually a stencil that I have used versamark and white embossing powder through.

Short post this week, hope you like it. Off to look at everyone else's desks over on Julias blog.

Have a good week

Donna x

Whats on Your Workdesk? Wednesday #231

Good morning WOYWW's. Its been a busy week here at crafty towers. I'm frantically making cards for an upcoming craft fair, so many ideas, so little time... I use the term "frantically" a bit loosely as it takes a while for me to make just one card, and regular followers know that if I don't like what I've made it goes in the bin! After all... its only a bit of card...

Anyway, for this weeks desk you can see lots of coloured card ready for making my moms birthday card, all the coloured bits are made using distress inks and water. I like to do this so everything matches but has subtle gradients of colour.

The plastic box in the top right has all my backgrounds in ready to make into cards. After using my meltpot, acetate, embossing powders and stamps I produced this:

The black and white embossing is actually on two separate layers of acetate so it has a bit of a 3D look about it. Here is a close up of the flowers

Short and sweet this week as everything is so "frantic". I'm off to Julias blog now to check out all the other desks.

Have a great week, I will as I'm off to the Hobbycraft show at the NEC on Saturday with one of my crafty sisters.

Donna x





What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday #229

Morning, still on my "crafty block" at the moment, so not a lot to show you this morning, just a few bits "in progress", the tree scene I created on Saturday during the "crafty day" with sisters, mom and friends, I wasn't very happy with the first attempt as I had a bit of a void whilst stamping the trees, although there were lots of suggestions on how to save it, I eventually gave up and tried again. I'll perhaps make it up into a card later.

The flowery pieces are from a stencil. I was just having a bit of a play with these, the one on the black card is gilded the middle one (close up below) is a gelli print and then I've also embossed on acetate using the stencil as well

Love this gelli print (although the picture isn't the best), I'm going to make a card up by adding the acetate piece over the top...we'll see how it turns out

Off to Julias blog to go and look at everyone else's desk.

Have a good week

Donna x

Rain, rain go away...

What a miserable Sunday afternoon, the weather may be rubbish but at least I have an excuse to stop indoors and make cards, however, I'm not really I the mood today, but I do have some cards to show you that I made last week, so all is not lost...

This is one of the messy backgrounds I made a while ago, with IndigoBlu poppy stamp embossed over the top in gold on acetate and coloured from behind with promarkers.

This one uses a similar background, a Sheena stamp embossed on acetate, but this time I have cut out double sided sticky stuff, added to the back of the acetate and then added gilding flakes, bit fiddly, but worked out OK.

These ones are inked and stamped and use a few masking techniques.

Its still raining, and I'm still not in the mood for making cards. Maybe I "craft overloaded" yesterday as I had my sisters, mom, and friends around for a craft day, mom also bought the latest member of the family with her, little Molly, here she is with my dog Jess.

Now Jess is only a small dog, but she looks huge compared to Molly! But Molly wasn't worried about the size of Jess and was quite happy to jump all over her, and Jess was very tolerant of her, although she was quite annoyed when Molly went for a nap and wouldn't play with her anymore.

Thanks for looking

Bye for now

Donna x

A crafty weekend

Had a great day on Saturday, attended a local craft fair (or is it fayre?) to sell a few of my cards, it was a bit of a last minute thing as I had enquired about it ages ago but they were full up, anyway after a phone call earlier in the week informing me of a cancellation and a lot of frantic card making - well not really frantic, but a few late nights, I managed to make enough cards to fill a stall

Didn't sell a huge amount but had a nice day and met some nice people, including a lovely lady called Judy who was also selling cards (totally different style to mine though) we had a good old natter and compared notes on local craft shops and craft telly!

Some of these cards you may have seen on earlier blog posts, here's a close up of some of those that you haven't:

Background from a Gelli print and acetate with IndigoBlu stamp embossed on top

Background made with distress inks and stamped, acetate over the top and embossed in white

More Gelli plate background with acetate

Gelli plate background made using a stencil, then used the same stencil on acetate with versamark and embossing powder

Loving this technique at the moment (make fancy backgrounds and add image onto acetate), didn't think the stencil would work with versamark and embossing, but it did, now the possibilities are endless....

The only problem is... not easy to take pictures of acetate. They look better "in the flesh", honest...

Spent Sunday making more cards (on a roll at the moment), was watching the grand prix at the same time, but gave up after Hamilton was out (watching the GP, not card making), and that Vettel bloke won, again.... I'll show those cards at a later date.

Thanks for looking

Donna x

Going Oriental

Finally they have arrived! What am I talking about? My Sheena "A little bit oriental" stamps! So of course I had to have a "play" with them as soon as I could. This is what I made:

All three cards have been made the same way, they have a messy distress ink and twinkling H2O background (sorry but piccies done at night and you can't really see the sparkly backgrounds), stamps stamped onto acetate and embossed, the fish were also painted from behind in acrylic. Love this style at the moment so there may be more.

Bye for now

Donna x

Never mind, there's always next time...

I mentioned on my blog a while ago that I had entered some projects for a Design Team call (the butterfly that keeps appearing on my desk in WOYWW is a left over from one of the projects). Well I got an email,.....its wasn't good news......I didn't make it in :( 

I'm a bit disappointed but to be honest although I won't mention the company I may have been a bit ambitious for my first design team. I need to aim a bit smaller. Anyway, the good news is I can now share my designs with you guys.....

The first piece had to be based on AUTUMN. This is my entry:

and a closer look:

This has been done with acetate, alcohol inks and gilding, the outer "frame" has been made using perfect pearls.

My other entries didn't have to have a theme, apart from they should contain stamping (oops, is that a bit of a giveaway?)

This entry was very simple but took a while, as it involved a lot of masking:

Next I had a go at a tag, and although I used stamps, instead of using just ink I stamped with acrylic paint in the background. The flower is metal and was stamped in Stazon and cut out, the heart was painted in acrylic, embossed in clear a few times and then stamped into while still hot.

and a bit of a closer look:

And for my final piece I had a go at a canvas:

so now you know where the butterfly came from.............

Thanks for looking

Donna x

 

 







Don't panic!

Had a bit of a panic earlier, couldn't get on 'net, it (meaning the laptop) kept telling me that that I wasn't connected to a network, disaster I thought, whatever should I do?? Well what I eventually did was do what every IT person at all the companies I have ever worked at always asks "have you tried switching it off and rebooting?" (which is really annoying!) and success, I am back connected to the world wide web! Anyway, now the drama is over, here is a card for you. I made this a week ago but couldn't show you as the recipient would have seen it, as I know she reads this blog (yes you Weeze!)

This is almost a one layer card - the purple card was stamped using a Creative Expressions heart all over in versamark, the panel was masked off and gilded and then the big heart was stamped half over the panel and half over the purple card in versamark again and embossed using some of the two tone Stampendous Frantage embossing powder. Here is a closer look at the heart

Now I know this card is purple (again) but it is the recipients favourite colour too, so I think its allowed.

That's all for now.

Donna x