Lawnscaping Blog hop Sept 9th!

Hi there!

Just a quick notice to make sure you all come back on September 9th (U.S EST)...I'm so SO excited to be participating in the first ever Lawnscaping Challenges Blog Blog-hop!!

As you can see over on the right side of my blog---->> the theme is magical Holidays!! Any holiday will do :)

The hop runs from Friday, September 9th - Sunday, September 11th! Make sure to comment on all of the blogs because there are LOTS of prizes to be won! 

Anyhoo, hope you'll join me!! There are some fabulous people joining me, I'm so honoured to be a part of such an amazing group of crafters!

Take care and see you on the 9th.

Linda xx

Lawnscaping Challenge #16 One layer!

he--lloo?! 

You have all been super quiet this past few weeks!

Anyhoo, even if I'm talking to noone, I'll keep going lol!

Here I am with my very last minute Lawnscaping challenge card.

This week the challenge is ONE LAYER CARDS!! EEK!

 

I love the look of one layer cards, I'm just lousy at making them, but this week when I saw the challenge, I immediately knew what I wanted to do with my new Lawn Fawn set of Judy's Blooms stamps...I just needed to find time to do it!

So here it is.




Very easy, but a bit time consuming! Lots of stamping and masking!! Then copic colouring. And a TINY bit of Enamel accents in the centres :)  I left it 'sentiment-less' because I loved the bright look of the flowers so much I didn't want to detract from them.

anyhoo, I'm exhausted from packing boxes and being on the phone for hours trying to organise this big move across-country!

Talk to you soon, hope you like!

Linda xx

I want to hold your Hand

Oh yeah, I'll tell you something.....duh duh duh duh duuuuuuuuuh I think you'll understand...

*the song's totally stuck in your head now right?!*

Ok, here's layout number 6!!!  I even bought an album to put them in--very excited :)

I'd say sorry for the photo, but I've said it so much lately I'm sure you're all sick to death of it!

Anyhoo, all supplies were from my scraps of a Studio Calico kit (the one I've used uhhh, 3 times :) plus a Lawn Fawn stamp (the flower) and the hot pink thickers that are called Venus (perfect name huh?!).

This is for the half-page challenge on Shimelle's Scrap-all-weekend

I'm toooooooo tired to keep typing, but it's pretty self explanatory I think, though if you have questions or comments PLEASE let me know and I'll be happy to answer :)

Take care, I hope you liked this one! It's a fave picture of mine :)

Lots of hugs

Linda

Layout number 5 is alive!! ("Goin' to the chapel")

This is my second post for today, for the first, scroll down :)

Number 5 is alive!! ha! did any of you watch that movie? "Batteries Not Included." I went to see it when I was a kid with my dad. 

anyway, I digress:

Here is layout #5. The challenge for this one was to 'Chop-it-up'. You were supposed to cut up the one piece of paper and use it. I did a version of this and used all the scraps I had on my desk from all the pieces of paper I'd cut up making the previous 4 layouts! There are still more scraps, so I think I'll use them next :)

So here she is:

 First I spritzed my kraft cardstock with some new Glimmer Mist I just got today (that are probably discontinued lol), Iridescent Gold, then with Mr Huey's "Piglet" (the cutest pink).  You can see in the above photo how the Iridescent Gold is kind of clear, but with a smattering of gold flecks--UBER pretty. I might have to buy another 85 bottles of this one!

Next I found some strips of paper and cut them up a bit more, inked the edges (a-la-Shimelle), then I took my NEW Lawn Fawn Judy's Blooms stamps and stamped them over my gorgeous paper from My Minds Eye (Stella and Rose Collection--love love love). Cut the flowers out and adhered :)

Finally I added my photo (from my wedding day) and some little Vintage Whimsy Buttons from The Girls' Paperie (also in my SC kit) and voila!

hope you like this one! It's maybe one of my favourites.

talk to you again soon!

Linda xx
 

Shimelle's Online Scrapbooking Weekend "Feels Like Home"

Hey there ho there!!

Here is YET ANOTHER layout I made due to/thanks to the amazingly inspirational Shimelle and her weekend-o-scrapping challenge from last week.

 Sorry it's a bit of a grainy image, the iphone-to-laptop transfer seems to have messed it up a bit, but you get the picture.

The journalling (which is written around the border) says "It doesn't matter where we go. We can be on the other side of the world--or halfway--and as long as we're together, it will feel like home."

(all the photos are from Japan)

This whole thing was done using my Studio Calico kit from...maybe 2 months ago? Their add-on, but I have no idea which lol

The challenge for this one was to "Grid-it-up"...so I did. challenge accepted, challenge met. Or achieved...hmmm what's the right word there?!

Anyhoo, I'm still running with the song name/show name theme, and loving it. The layout that's coming next will leave the song in your head for days. ha!

Hope you like!

There's more to come yet :)

Take care and talk to you soon

L xxx

Shimelle's Online Scrapbooking Weekend--Splendour In the Grass

Hi again!

So I decided after my first layout (that I showed you all yesterday here) that I was going to add an extra challenge for myself, I'm going to ATTEMPT to use only song or movie titles for the titles of my layouts... I read somewhere a while back that there's a lady who scraps ONLY the song that's stuck in her head (that's the title she uses and the theme of the layout I mean). I love that idea but I would mostly have to scrap songs from children's shows lol. I'm not sure how many layouts I could create based on the Banana's in Pyjamas or Sesame Street songs haha!

So yes, that's my extra challenge for myself. Oh, and I'm using kraft paper on every layout too. (Preferably on the background).

Here is challenge #2 for Shimelle's Online Scrapbooking Weekend: 3 is the magic number.

This is what Shimelle wrote to explain the 'requirements' : 

Here’s your challenge: Create a project (layout, card, etc) that includes a group of three in the embellishment. It can be three kinds of flowers like I used, but that’s not a requirement – you could use three squares, three butterflies, three things that are red, three apples, three hedgehogs… whatever group of three takes your fancy!

and so without further ado, I give you my little version:

Don't worry, this layout isn't as depressing as the movie (not that I've seen it yet, always meant to). I just had the song Strangers in the Night (from South Pacific) in my head, but the words changed to Splendour in the Grass (again, in my head) lol, so I went with it. For a few hours I was convinced they were the real words haha.

Here is my group of 3. I just used the Tim Holtz Rosette for this, but cut one of the strips thinner than the others after I'd run it through the Big Shot (so it made a smaller rosette).

 I thought I'd give a go at "doing a Shimelle" and ran a little paint around the edges...I just wish I had a gorgeous little teacup to do my paint-mixing in. *note to self: must buy teacup*

It ended up more faded than I expected, but still good. I added a few 'flicks' too.

I'll let you in on a small secret: I loathed that woodgrain paper when I first saw it and thought 'what the heck am I going to use that for?!' but I like it on this layout. It suits. I kinda wish I had more so I could do a layout about when I was a kid (and that woodgrain linoleum-cupboard covering was in fashion. Gosh it was ugly!)

anyway, hope you like it!

Leave me some comment love and a fairy will grant you 3 wishes!! (One for each rosette of course) lol

Take care and I'll be back soon with layout #3.

Linda xxxoxo

Shimelle's Online Scrapbooking Weekend 'You've Got a Friend'

One of the challenges for Shimelle's weekend is to 'go retro' and scrap a photo that's old (or at least, not new), so I went digging through my parent's study cupboards to find old photos. I found plenty of big hair and crooked teeth (all fixed now thanks to Dr whatsisname at the orthodontists office!), bad BAD clothes and funny memories (best left in the cupboard I think!) but then I found some photos from my wedding.

anyway, one of the photos was of my girlfriend Sue and her (now) husband Matt. Their wedding was the day after ours. Yes, you read that right.  We had both already booked things and planned people etc, and we're good enough friends that it was never a question of missing either wedding, so I got married on Saturday, Sue got married on Sunday. That's friendship huh?!

So anyway, here's my layout:

The journalling reads: "When Sue told me her wedding was going to be the day after ours, there was no hesitation, we just said "oh well, looks like we've got a busy weekend that weekend!" So she & Matt came to our wedding the night before theirs and we went to theirs the day after ours.
A lot of people were/are shocked when I tell them, but to us it was simple.
We might not see each other much any more but I know I'll always have a friend in her"

All pretty self-explanatory I think!

I hope you like it:)

please let me know if there are any questions! I'd love to hear your comments too.

Talk to you soon

Linda xx

Shimelle's Online Scrapbooking Weekend

Hello there!!

I've been busy busy busy this past week or two, I've made several little bits and pieces, but today I'm going to start showing you the layouts I've been making for Shimelle Laine's Online Scrapbooking Weekend.  She's issued 13 challenges/prompts to get you going all to be completed by Sunday (I think they're all Sunday anyway! lol)

If you don't know who Shimelle is, go to her site immediately and get to know her! She's the sweetest little thing ever (I mean that in a totally good way), she's an American living in London (and loves it) and she scrapbooks like no other. I'm very deeply in love lol.  Make sure you get over the fact that she's wordy (like someone else we all know *whistles and looks around*), in fact, that nearly made me dismiss her blog altogether, but I'm so glad I had another look.

She has made SUCH a difference to my scrapbooking (and my mindset) I don't even know where to begin. Check out her free monthly class at Two Peas in a Bucket here too.

Anyway, enough of me gushing.

The first challenge I participated in was the Starting Point Challenge: 

This was the starting point 'sketch'.

I was immediately drawn to that big green rectangle as I'd just printed out a photo (literally minutes before I saw Shimelle's challenge) and wanted to use it.

So here is what I made:

I had the title in my head for hours beforehand (the song I mean--now try to get it out of your head lol!), and it just worked so perfectly I had to use it.

Here's a closeup of my little cloud. I thought it would be kind of amusingly ironic to punch a cloud out of cloud paper. I even chuckled to myself as I did it. (am I the only one who thinks this way?! haha)

 As you can see I didn't use much dimension but it didn't seem to need it. The grey-white patterned paper is kind of embossed and the strips/clouds and brown inking around the edge of everything (another Shimelle trick) make it so you don't need to physically add dimension. There's enough already.

Hope you like it!!

There will be more to follow soon (I've already made 3 layouts, there are definitely more inside me waiting to pour out!)

*Hugs*

Linda xx

Jay Gee's Nook Challenge #10

Hi again!

I'm here today to share with you my card for Jay Gee's Nook Challenge #10!!

Joy has certainly offered up a gorgeous feast for the purple-loving eyes this week!  Check out the colour palette she's served up this week:

W.O.W Purple Mania right?! But how beautiful are those images?! Gah. must learn to crochet...and sew...and make bags...must buy boots....you get the drift lol

SO here is my uber-purple card:

My original thought was to put something in the centre circle but when it came time to, it just wasn't happening, so I went with a quiet sentiment in the corner.

Several manufacturers were involved in the making of this card (but not harmed haha!):

*A LOT of this card is Papertrey Ink: Thank you Sentiment, Ric-rac die (in the white), the circle and scalloped circle in the centre, the Mat stack 3 die, White Snow Ink.

*After that it's Hero Arts: La Letter stamp (on centre circle and in the background in white ink), Lacey Doiley stamp (in purple) and the purple inks...chalk and shadow. Pink note card.

*The twine is from Cutetape.com and the little rose is 'hand' made with a mould from Mould Muse on etsy.  The doily in the background is on vellum paper, the die is from My Favourite Things.

This card took a lot of steps and a long time (especially with my kids interrupting me every time I got on a roll! lol) so I wont bother you with the details, I'm sure you can figure it out, but I will just say 3 things: 

#1. I LOVE that rose, must make more immediately.

#2. Mat Stack 3--I *heart* you baby. we are going to have a long romance I can see already :)

#3. The purple glitter on the doily?! love it. Like doilies need to be cuter, but adding glitter just seemed to make it come to life!

OK!
That's me done :)

Hope you liked!

I'll be back soon with more

*hugs*

Linda xx

Lawnscapings Challenge #15 Card:

Hello!

I'm back with just a quick one today, a card I made for the Lawnscapings Challenge for this week.

Just quickly though, I want to thank everyone for your lovely comments about my win (still smiling about that!), just to be chosen for the Lawnscaping prize was enough, but to have so many wonderful comments made here on my little piece of blog-land really was the icing on the cake. So thank you:)

Anyhow, onto the card!

Here is the Lawnscaping logo thinga-ma-jig

 Distressing!!! Woohoo!!

I like to try to use Lawn Fawn stamps only for the Lawnscaping challenges and whenever I've used distress inks before (with LF stamps), it's ended up looking really dreary and dull (NOT Lawn Fawn cuteness and whimsy!)

So I thought I'd go a different route and use the Distress Inks as watercolour paints. You've all seen me use this technique before and I"m sure many other people have used it on their blogs too. It's a really lovely way to colour in pretty soft tones--Distress Inks are so  versatile, you just have to love them even if that antique/brassy/old feeling that DI's often create aren't your cup of tea.

So here she is:

 My sister is very close to having her 2nd baby (woohoo!) so I've had baby-on-the-brain lately. I have made a girly version of this image too, but I'll share that another time (that card is being difficult and wont come together for me lol).

Very easy to do: Stamp the image in Archival ink, 'stamp' the ink pad onto your craft mat (so there is a square of ink on the mat) and then spritz the ink with water. Then use a small paint brush to paint the image.  Obviously, dependent on how much water you spray, the stronger or weaker the colour will be. For the blue (Tumbled Glass) and green (Shabby Shutters) of the baby carriage, I wanted darker, so I only sprayed 1-2 sprays on each square of ink.  For the yellow background around the carriage (which is Mustard Seed), I sprayed it at least 5-6 times, so it's very soft and pretty.

A closer image so you can see how the texture of the watercolour paper looks (lovely).

The background (yellow) cardstock is also watercoloured paper (I used Mustard Seed and a little Shabby Shutters)  but this time instead of painting it on, I just pressed a little ink onto my craft mat, sprayed it with water, then laid the cardstock onto the paint/water mix (on my craft mat) and pushed the cardstock around so the coloured water ('paint') would cover the whole piece.

I then edged that piece with a little Vintage Photo in the 'traditional' way (using a foam inking tool).

For the stars and hearts in the background, I just stamped them using the ink straight from the ink pads, so they would stand out against the more muted/washed out version that was on the background.

Lastly I just mounted all the bits and pieces together, added some gorgeous twine (that I just got in the mail *hurray for happy mail!*) and some gemstones and that was it!


I did make another card for the Distressing Challenge, but I'm not going to enter it, it's just not wow enough for my tastes, but here it is if you want a look:

Sorry for the TERRIBLE photo. I was exhausted at the time and I couldn't for the life of me get the lighting right. At least that twine looks so good it's almost edible! lol.


OK that's it for me today, I'll be back tomorrow with my card for the Jay Gee's Nook challenge!

Take care and speak to you soon :)

*hugs*

Linda xx

CAS-ual Friday Challenge CFC #13 The Long and Short of it. {Card #2}

Hi again!

This card actually combines both the CAS-ual Friday CHallenge and  the Play Date Cafe colour Challenge 'palette' too!  (told you I loved those colours too much to stop using them! lol)

To remind you, here are the colours:

 

And here are the rules for the CAS Challenge:

CFC13-The Long and Short of it:  Create a 4 x 9 card and 
keep it Clean And Simple!
The idea is to embrace the (white) space.  Its a big canvas & you must resist the urge to fill it.

 

So here is my VERY Clean and simple card:

Sorry for the lighting in the above photo, it's been impossible lately!

 What little girl doesn't want a glittery bike?! (Thank you Distress Stickles!)

 Here is the bike in all it's girly-glory. love.

Can I tell y'all a secret?! I can't actually ride a bike. I mean I know what to do (duh) and I've tried to learn, but I'm essentially a 3 year old in bike-riding years. I never really learned how to, so now, I can't. Yup, I'm 31 and can't ride a bike. When I lived in Japan, this was a source of MUCH amusement to my students (who ALLLL rode bikes--even adults). So there, you know my shame lol!

But! If I did ride a bike, I'd want it to look just like this one. sparkly, pinky-gold. Just gorgeous.

It's ALL Lawn Fawn goodness on that card!

Well, that's it for me (for now!) Hope to be back very soon with more :)


Take care and thanks for looking-again!

Linda xx

CAS-ual Friday Challenge CFC #13 The Long and Short of it.

Hello!

This will be the first of two posts today (and possibly more will come after that!)

I'm entering into the CAS challenge this week which is themed;  The Long and Short of it.

Basically CAS-ual Fridays is a blog that's all about the CAS card (CAS=Clean and Simple). This is NOT an easy style for me. I have a tendency to overfill my cards (especially on embellishments), so I thought it would be a great challenge for me (pardon the pun lol!)

 Here are the "terms and conditions" for this week:

CFC13-The Long and Short of it:  Create a 4 x 9 card and 
keep it Clean And Simple!
The idea is to embrace the (white) space.  Its a big canvas & you must resist the urge to fill it.

Yowza...I tell you what, I started out well enough, did my thing, inked some stuff, copic-markered some other stuff, cut some things out...then I adhered that part to the card and I sat and stared and stared and stared at aaaaaaaaaaaaall that white space.

So here it is:

That little "miss you" sentiment at the end is a rub-on I got recently in a cheap 'lucky-dip' type of craft bag. I have NO idea of the manufacturer--sorry! I never use rub-ons, but I thought I'd give it a try as last week's CAS challenge was to use a rub-on or sticker.

Here's a closeup of the little miss;

Just stamped her out, paper-pieced the dress and t-shirt (yes, they're 2 different pieces of paper...well 5 actually! The t-shirt was 3 separate parts!)The stamp is from My Favourite Things.

Then I coloured the rest of her in and using a Nestabilities Circle die, cut the whole image out. I then left the circle die on the cardstock (adhered a tiny bit of masking tape to the back to it wouldn't move) and used Antique Linen distress ink over the outside of the image.  I love how this allows there to be a finishing touch of colour (which REALLY makes the coloured girl stand out more) but by leaving the circle die on, it still gives you a nice clean rim or border of white.

I then popped her up on dimensional adhesive and did my best to walk away without adding anything else! lol

I hope you like it!

I'll be back really soon with another card.

Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Take care *hugs*

Linda xx

The Play Date Cafe Challenge

Hi!

As I mentioned recently, I've decided to participate in as many challenges as I can, to try to bring out some more skills/challenge myself to use colours or styles that I might not normally.

I found a gorgeous blog called The Play Date Cafe. They are currently running a colour challenge using the following palette:

Se Magnifique!! (If you speak French, please ignore that haha!)
How amazingly beautiful are these colours?! (Technically: Petal Pink, Coral and Antique Gold.)

SO! Without further ado, here is a card I've made for the 'The Play Date Cafe' challenge #92.

 Isn't that little doggy adorable?! He's a PTI stamp I got in a recent HAUL. (I spoiled myself one last time before home loan repayments began lol!)

The sentiment and pink-stamped Mat Stack 3 are also from PTI.

The background was stamped wtih HA La Letter woodblock stamp and heat embossed in white. I then used Distress Inks Antique Linen, Tattered Rose and Victorian Velvet (and edged just a little with Walnut Stain as always lol). I love how the white heat embossed text resists the other coloured inks. *sigh*

 Here you can see the resist. I love how the colour layers just blended seamlessly (if I do say so myself! lol)

I coloured the little pup in with copics and added a felt flower (used a My Favourite Things flower die).

I hope you like it!! I'm very happy with the result.

I loved the colours so much that I couldn't stop at just one thing, so here is my second submission:

sorry for the poor photo, I couldn't get the bookmark to stand upright!

My mother in law reads almost constantly so I thought this might make a nice gift for her.  

I cut the cardstock to size then distress inked over the whole thing. I started with Antique Linen, then added Tattered Rose and just a tiny bit of Victorian Velvet, to achieve the Antique Gold look (required for the colour challenge). I edged with a hint of Walnut Stain.

I then stamped over the whole thing with the Hero Arts La Letter stamp (again!) but this time using Victorian Velvet distress ink.

I used the HA stamp with Walnut Stain distress ink, then I heat embossed using Ranger Distress Embossing Powder in a really bright pink (sorry it's late, the names are escaping me right now!)

 

I then went around the edges and in the 'gaps' with some white gel pen to bring the flower image out more, the effect is quite surprising. It's so effective.

I topped and 'bottomed' the bookmark with some gorgeous lace ribbon a friend sent me as a RAK (thanks Joy!) and added some gemstones to the centre of the larger flowers and .

Well there you have it! I did my best to get the colours accurate.

I'll be back soon with some more cards I've made for the CAS challenge blog :)

Hope you enjoyed!

lots of hugs---


Linda xxx