SWAP BLOG

Julie has got a brilliant blog on the go - Swap Blog! If you have any crafty items you've outgrown or have no use for, go along to Julie's blog and see what's up for grabs. I have these stamps I've no use for if anyone would like to swap!

INCHING ARTISTS CHALLENGE

This week's Inchy Challenge is the Zodiac - at first I thought this might be quite easy but I actually found it tricky. I did manage to find a rubber stamps, thanks to Cherry Pie Art Stamps, which had some zodiac signs on it though.

NEW CHALLENGE SITE TO ME

I love challenge sites because they give me the inspiration I need to go and be creative! Otherwise I mooch about sitting in front of a messy table no knowing what to do! I nearly wrote 'Empty Table' but that would just be lying! Here's one I found called My Time to Craft and their challenge this week is wings.

Here's a card I did using Cherry Pie Art stamps and some bling!

Rudolph Day

I've been doing some of my Christmas cards towards Rudolph Day - Storm can't poke me know! LOL!

MOTHER'S DAY CARD - USING BABY WIPE TECHNIQUE

I've done a couple of Mother's Day cards today - they are for the grandmothers. Granny cards are difficult to get in England - I didn't realise it was more of a Welsh word, so I always make Granny cards.

This one has used the baby wipe technique on the flower pots and the flower stamp. Here are the instructions if you're not familiar with this technique:

Get yourself a baby wipe and lay it on a paper plate or some other protection.

Add some liquid inks (I used re-inkers from my SU inks) - Start with the darkest ink first and fill in the gaps with lighter inks until you get the colouring you like.

The colours come out a lot paler than they show on the wipe!

Then add your stamp - a large solid stamp would be good - I only had the small plant pot but it has worked on the other stamp too.

Its a good idea to check your colouring on a scrap piece of paper first before

putting on to your cardstock.

Finish your card as you wish.

If you try this technique - come and post your entries here with a link back to me - I'd love to come and see your creations!

Arty Girlz Go GREEN

Arty Girlz are going green on their challenge this week. Well, green is one of my favourite colours and you couldn't do a green card without thinking of St Patrick's Day - well I couldn't anyway. LOL! The stamp is a Tara Brooch made by Scottishborderstampers based in Houston!

PAPERTAKE CHALLENGE

The challenge over at Papertake this week has been sponsored by Sally from Bootiful Stampz! See Below!!! That was a pure coincidence! The Challenge at Papertake is Spring in your step and seeing as its sponsored by Sally - I thought I'd use her bunny stamp again!

BOOTIFUL STAMPZ - EASTER CHALLENGE

Sally at Bootiful Stampz has set us an Easter Challenge - and she isn't even stipulating that you use one of her lovely new rubber stamps. I embossed the background with white emboss and painted over it with watercolour inks. The background stamps are Stampin Up but the bunny in the pot is Bootiful Stampz!

4 x 4 CHALLENGE

The challenge over at 4x4 this week is doorways. This was an image taken from an old calendar I had last year - I knew they'd come in handy for something!

INCHING ARTISTS

Inching Artists set the theme of Holes for this week - what a challenge that was - I came up with the idea of a Mouse Hole!!!

NATURE

I bought this rubber stamp from a cyber friend on aunty's forum as I love rubber stamps that can be coloured in. I used Derwent Intense Ink watercolours. The stamps is by Stamps Happen Inc.

I'M SO EXCITED

After three months without a computer, or scanner, or printer or craft room - I'm back up and running again after the fire. There'll be no stopping me now!!!!

My other love of stamps, after Stampin Up, is Cherry Pie Art Stamps and here's a little card I did using the Tree and the Moon stamp. I love this tree stamp - its just so versatile. The background was done using sponged watercolours!

DARING CARDMAKERS

Darding Cardmakers have a Stampin Up challenge set this week - so if you have any SU stamps why not have a go - there are some prizes up for grabs!!! Mine is on my other blog here

WOW - I've been given an Award by Laura for being "artsy" - how cool is that!

I have to award 5 more bloggers - only 5 - that's going to be tricky - here are my 5

Julie

Rosie

Ros

Toni

Jackie

Male Card

Arty Girlz http://www.artygirlz.blogspot.com/ challenge this week is to add some stamping to your work - well, that's a given for me! I thought I'd do a male card this time as lots of people have difficulty in finding stamps suitable for men. I love this one and it is so versatile. Stampin Up by the way! LOL!!!

KANGAROOS!!!!

My good cyber friend Theresa in Australia is running a competition on her blog to do with Kangaroos - this is what she says:

G'day there everyone. I have decided to have some fun on my blog. I have decided to run a challenge for you. Here is what I would like you to do.
I would like you to create a poem, card, scrapbook page, altered art of any type, recipe or anything that you chose BUT, your artwork must be about kangaroos. Your entry can be comical or serious or somewhere in between. I don't mind what you come up with as long as it contains the word kangaroo if it is a written entry or a picture of a kangaroo if it is a artwork entry. I adore kangaroos and I can't wait to see what you can come up with. You may only enter this challenge once and the winner will be chosen by me and my husband (he doesn't know it yet) on the 29 of February 2008. The winner will recieve this cute little kangaroo magnetic photo frame shown below. Please upload your work of art to your blog and please leave a comment here with a link to your entry. I hope you all enjoy this challenge. Hugs. Theresa
http://misshoneydownunder.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-can-you-do-with-kangaroo-challenge.html


Here's my entry - its a poem - I'm not renowned for my poetry and you'll see why when you read it! LOL! I think poem is too strong a word really.

I can remember as a child,
the way you sometimes do,
that one of my favourites tv programmes
was Skippy the bush Kangaroo

I loved the way he used to chatter
to let the humans know
that someone was in danger
and Skippy knew where to go

He wasn't a dog and couldn't bark
nor could he wag his tail
but never fear, Skippy was here
and he would never fail

Every danger was always the same
you could always tell
that Skippy was trying to tell the humans
"STRUTH, SOMEONE'S FALLEN DOWN THE WELL!!!!"""

YEAH I'VE DONE CANVASES!!!!

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to have a go at canvases. Over at aunty's forum http://www.auntysforum.com/ we have team challenges. I am team leader of my team Fi's Fab Five!! This month's challenge was set by Julie's team and they wanted to see paint on our projects. So it spurred me on to have a go at canvases and these two were my first attempts.

The first one has been painted with Twinkling H20's but they don't show up very well on here but it makes the canvas lovely and sparkly. The stamps are Stampin Up Touch of Nature and the wording at the bottom says " One Touch of Nature makes the whole world Kin!"

The second one has been painted with SU watercolour inks for the background - the moon and the large tree stamps are Cherry Pie - the other trees are Stampin Up.

Apologies for the quality of the photos, but there is a tale to tell. As you may know, my comp etc is all still not up and running yet and I couldn't ask DH to scan these at work, but my good cyber friend Donna from aunty's offered to upload them for me if I sent them via my phone to her phone. So considering they are phone pictures, they are not too bad. My photo software is also not working so I couldn't crop them but hopefully they show up well enough. Thanks Donna!

15 MINUTES OF FAME!!!!

Wasn't it Andy Warhol who said we each get our 15 minutes of fame? Mine dropped on my door this morning and I am over the moon.

I've been published!!!!!! I received a fabulous copy of an American Publication called Artful Blogging - I had no idea this publication even existed but back in October I remember being approached by them for one of my ATC's to be included in their article about the very fabulous challenge site Think Monday, Think ATC. http://tmta.wordpress.com/ I never heard anymore and didn't think anything further on it - but this morning the book arrived and there is my ATC, within the article, together with my name and blog address.

I am honoured to be part of this publication - there are so many fabulous bloggers chosen and I shall be very busy following up all of the artists they have featured. I have never considered myself to be an artist nor particularly creative, apart from my singing, it is my brother who has all the artistic talent in my family, and I feel really humbled to have a piece of my work shown among all these fabulous artists.

I must thank the Think Monday,Think ATC team for had they not shown my ATC it may not have come to the attention of the editor of the mag.

As you know things have been a bit down for me lately - this really put me back on top!!!

This was my featured ATC as shown at the top!

Bootiful Stampz

Sally who runs Auntys forum and her own online craft shop has branched out into making her own bunny stamps - they are so cute - she now has her own blog so why not go along and check out these cute stamps.

As soon as I get mine I'll be showing some projects on here!

http://bootifulstampz.blogspot.com/

Arty Girlz Animal Challenge

Arty Girlz are using Animals as their theme this week - I'm hoping birds can be included too. This is an Easter card I did some time ago using the Faux Postage style.

CMU - Challenge Blog

Today is the first day for the new Card Makers United Challenge blog - why don't you all pop on over and submit a card for the first ever challenge. Mine is in there - I did a shaker card -my first ever!

http://challenge-cmutd.blogspot.com/

Twinkling H20's

I've been having a play with my new Twinkling H2O's and as promised here are a few examples. The butterfly really lends itself I think to these lovely shimmery colours. It doesn't show up so much on the computer but its really shimmery in real life.

The Trees one is a lot more subtle, which is what I wanted for this wintery scene.

I need to play a bit more with them.

I found the best way to use them was with an aqua brush, the butterfly was inked onto the stamped image, the tree one was actually put onto the rubber!

New Challenge Blog

I have set up a new Challenge Blog - but will be for Stampin Up only. It is an alphabet challenge site and the idea is to submit a piece of work made with a stamp set beginning with the letter of the alphabet that we are on.

I will be starting the ball rolling with A over the weekend, once DH has been able to scan my card for me.

Hope all you SU addicts will join in! You'll find it here - http://sualphachallenge.blogspot.com/

Twinkling H20's

I've been playing about with my Twinkling H2O's today - I love the subtle effect they give - though I'm not sure if that really comes over on the internet. I can't upload what I've done yet though as I have to give them to DH to scan them at work for me.

So I'll carry on playing then...... LOL!

Robins are my favourite birds

Robins are my absolute favourite birds, not only because of their association with Christmas, and I love all things Christmassy. I wish I'd had this set from SU before Christmas because this little fellow would definitely be on my Christmas cards. Still - I can make some now in advance and also fulfil my goals on Storms Christmas blog!

I love the sentiment on this too - Happy Everything! I have a friend who has a wall plaque which has this on it and it has little embellishments on it to cover all seasons, Christmas, Easter, Valentines, Halloween. I'm going to send this card to my mum who also loves robins and who needs cheering up at the moment. She always asks me what's the significance of buttons on my cards and I tell her there's no significance, its just an embellishment but she keeps on asking. Maybe I'll take the button off this one before I send it or she'll be asking me again - she's 84 now and getting slightly forgetful! LOL!

FRENCH FLAIR - BLOG CANDY AT THE CARD GROTTO

I love this large stamp from SU - French Flair - I've added a Seeing Spots detail too. All papers and inks SU.

Its been good to be crafting again and back in the land of blog. I'm going to enter this Thank You card into Michelle's blog candy comp. I hope her mum likes it! LOL! http://cardgrotto.blogspot.com/2008/01/blog-candy.html

YIPPEE - A CARD!!!

DH went back to work this week after the Christmas and was able to scan some cards for me that I've managed to do this week. Here is an example of a simple card using one of the new sets from Stampin Up - this is a hostess set and I can see myself using this set a lot. I've cut out a few of the poppies and decoupaged them.





This simple card was inspired by my good friend minimilk on Aunty's forum http://www.auntysforum.com/ from a lovely card she sent me. Thanks for the inspiration Sian!

I notice Samm is running some blog candy on her site for a birthday card so I'm going to enter this. Its good to be entering the challenges again. http://samm-l.blogspot.com/

The girls at Arty Girlz have set the challenge of RED for this week - so I can enter this.

BLOG CANDY

THERE IS SOME BLOG CANDY UP FOR GRABS OVER ON MY STAMPIN UP BLOG.

WWW.FIONASTAMPINUP.BLOGSPOT.COM