Scrap Whispers challenge #74 - strips

No, not that kind of strips - get your minds out of the gutter!

We're talking about the scraps here. Those edges of paper that you get left over from pretty much every LO. This is about using them up so that they still look pretty, functional and creative. Also strips of ribbon and lines of stamping: in fact anything linear. That's a good challenge, right?

That has to be the most unflattering photo I ever took of myself, but it isn't a bad idea to record that kind of thing. Maybe one day I'll look back and think "hmm... pretty good for her age...." Who knows?! I recall that I'd just washed my hair, and I'm all hot and shiny with no make-up, but I honestly can't remember why I took it now! I've used scraps, a Martha Stewart border punch and three American Crafts brads for this page. That's all. And the black background paper came from inside a pack of page protectors. Now that's SCRAP booking - my frugal Grandma would be proud of me. Hehee.

Our DT is a little depleted this week with Nilsa with the flu and Leah with her new baby, but the show goes on. So head over to Scrap Whispers and post your "strips" page to be in with a chance of winning a great prize!

Scrap Whispers Challenge #73 - longest day

This week at Scrap Whispers, the challenge is to scrap "the longest day". Here's what Georgina has to say:

"This week we challenge you to create a layout about a really long day - perhaps one you never wanted to end because you were having so much fun, perhaps a day that couldn't end soon enough. Maybe create a "day in the life" layout about all the things you cram into one day. We look forward to seeing how creative you get with this challenge."

Here's my longest day for a while - our wedding day! I can't believe it's over 11 years ago now. This picture of my DH makes me melt inside!

I used one sheet of Bella! paper, carefully cutting around the flowers so that they framed the photo. I used Smooch ink in "molasses" to pick out the veins of the leaves and flowers. The lettering is by Making Memories, and the hidden journalling was computer printed, matted, eyeletted using my Cropadile, and the ribbons were in a beautiful box of goodies given to me by Glad from church - thank you Glad!

Cute and girly?

A quick, late night card, inspired by the 2 hours and 57 minutes left on the Creative Card Crew challenge for cute and girly! And with only 1 and a half hours left, here's the quick post to match.

This is also for Basic Grey's pearls challenge (I've used the Lemonade collection here) and this sketch from Friday Sketchers:

And my card:

She is Willow with her basket again, coloured with my rapidly fading Copics, glittered up with Stickles Diamond, on ribbon and lace from my stash and pearl beads from Spotlight. I had to mix every one of these colours to fit the colours on the papers, but I'm pretty pleased with how they've worked out.

And now to bed!

Scrap Whispers Blog Hop

It's the monthly Scrap Whispers Blog Hop! If you've come here from there, then perfect. If not, pop back and leave your comment, then follow the links.

This month the lovely Kelly has produced the prettiest, cutest little project I've seen for a long time, and I tell you, I had SUCH a good time making this as a gift for my friend in the UK. I sent her a cryptic e-mail asking her for some photos all from the same event, then I chopped them about, paired them with My Mind's Eye papers and added pink, punched flowers and lots of glitter. It was so pretty that I didn't want to part with it, but I did put it in the post. I got the e-mail only yesterday telling me that it had arrived and how thrilled she was, and there were LOTS of capital letters and exclamation marks so I think she was pleased. :-)

Isn't that the most adorable little thing? So, all you have to do is to pop on over to Scrap Whispers for the tutorial and link up your version there, then follow the links and "hop" through the DT's blogs, leaving a comment on each. Your next port of call is at Kelly's blog.

Have fun!

Poor Henry

This challenge is another interesting one from our LSS, the Craft Stand in Malaga. As I've mentioned before, they make up identical $5 competition packs containing card-stock, patterned paper, some ribbon or fibre and an embellishment of some kind. You have a month to make that month's subject: either a card, LO or other item, using at least 80% of the kit. Then you leave your creation(s) at the store, and the customers vote for which they like the best. At the end of the month, the winner gets a $20 voucher to spend at the store, and their work displayed on the wall. I think that's a great idea, and a proper challenge for me, to enter something for merit rather than random selection for a change.

So of course I've gone all out for this! I fell in love with this adorable stamp when I saw it on the Whiff of Joy on-line store. I mean, doesn't he look pitiful? Don't you just want to gather him up and give him a big cuddle? He was perfect to showcase these completely un-girlie papers in the kit. I've only used about half of my pretties on this card, so watch out for more cards!

I wish I knew who makes all the papers and ribbon. I must find out. The chipboard corner is Twiddleybitz. I do know the challenges I'm entering them into though, in addition to the Craft Stand of course. Cute Card Thursday want us to use leaves/trees, and A Spoonfull (not my misspelling!) of Sugar have given us this prettiest sketch, which, of course, I've flipped!

to produce this:

Poor little Henry!

Scrap Whispers new game

Sign-ups have been extended to August 14th.

If you want to get involved, either leave a comment here, or e-mail Georgina at gh26@sky.com with your name and e-mail address.
For more information, click on the link in my side bar over here
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We have a new Proboards message board, and the Scrap Whispers blog site is looking better than ever. Go on! You know you want to!

Still got the blues for you

Yeah I know, I don't have to sing a song for these challenges, but I've been working in BLUE all morning and that tune keeps going round in my head - I love it!

The challenges for this card are actually House Mouse with a vintage theme, the summertime blues for Simon Says (so I ought to be singing that really), and this sketch from Sketch Saturday which again I rotated clockwise. I always seem to chose an image which is the other way round from the sketch - I'm just contrary, hehee.

And I'm just going to say that I'd like to enter the Lili of the Valley challenge of 4 seasons (with summer, obviously) but they've recently changed their rules so that you can only enter if you've used their stamps or die-cuts. I have used one of their sentiments inside - it's worth a try, but I don't blame them if that doesn't count. I did buy a sentiment pack and one other stamp from them, but I couldn't find anything else that got me excited, so I'll probably end up taking them off my list of challenge blogs to follow. This is a shame because their challenges are inspiring and I enjoy the blog, but there it is. A bit of customer feedback there!

So here we are. This adorable stamp is House Mouse of course, coloured with Copics. The blue paper is from Rebecca Sower, and the patterned paper is Crafty Secrets Heart-warming Vintage collection. I punched the doily shape with my Carla Crafts Macaron punch. How cute is that!

Blue and brown

Another easel card today I'm afraid, but this week I have a legitimate reason, because Charisma Cardz wants easel cards for their challenge - excellent! Colour Create challenge us to duck egg blue, ivory and one other colour from this beautiful photo:

Friday Sketchers have given us this sketch which I've rotated clockwise:

And this is my interpretation, for my cousin's husband:

The bird and the ribbon on the Twiddleybitz present look greenish in this photo, but they are actually gold. The papers are Kaisercraft and the stamp is Tim Holtz again - because this is another male card. I have exactly two stamps suitable for men. That's not enough, is it? Maybe I need to go shopping. :-)

Scrap Whispers Challenge #71 - animals

We're having one final challenge before the next Scrap Whispers game starts on August 14th now, to give a few more people the chance to register. This one is just for fun, but it's such an easy one, you might as well take part anyway!

It's "animals" - everyone will have some photos just begging to be scrapped. Living in a rented house we haven't got any pets, but we went to Caversham Wildlife park a couple of weeks ago, and we both fell head-over-heels in love with this adorable little kangaroo which followed us around wanting cuddles. The others wanted food, but this one knew we didn't have any food, and still nuzzled up to us. Her coat was soft and she was gentle and loving and AW! Hearts = melted! Here is DH wondering how he can fit her into his camera bag. ;-)

Here we have a DCWV Citrus background with a strip of My Mind's Eye, a pack of EK Success Australia stickers, Thickers lettering, brad and ribbon from my stash, and my trusty Kaisercraft journalling block. Simple. I'd love to see what you can do - link me up to your animal creations?

I want to ride my bicycle

I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like...

And having got that Queen song stuck firmly in my head for the rest of the day, I can lay the blame on this week's challenge from Simon Says Stamp, which is "Sing it Baby!" Our card needs to be inspired by a song. Cute Card Thursday's brand new challenge is an open theme, so no problems there.

DH's god-son's birthday is next week, and he is one of those boys who is into anything as long as it's physical, outside and preferably involves getting as mucky as possible. Rugby, tennis, martial arts, he's done them all. I sent his brother an easel card two weeks ago for his birthday, so I have to be fair and do another one now, don't I? (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

I combined it with this sketch from Truly Scrumptious which I mangled a little to fit the image, but it's still recognisable:

to make this:

The image is from edupics.com, coloured with Copics, the sentiment is from Lili of the Valley. The brads and rik-rak are from my stash, and the papers are Anna Griffin (grass) and Karen Foster (pebbles).

Thank you to the kind people who asked after my scissors-related injuries, they're much better now! I've stopped leaving little blood stains all over everything, although before I started working on the card, I cleaned the adhesive goop off my scissor blades (carefully - of course!) and the alcohol in the wipe did make my eyes water for a while. Think that'll teach me? Nope, I don't think it will either!

Blog Candy

Ooh look at this candy! Isn't she generous? The winner will be announced on August 17th, but there are over 800 entries already. I'm still going for it!

Purple attack

On Sunday I found out that it is Mary's birthday this week. Mary works in the church office and is a real character. She loves purple just as much as I do, and what with me doing church work now as well, poor Reverend Bruce is going to be surrounded before long.

DH and I were in Bunnings, the Perth DIY superstore yesterday, buying plants to replace the dead ones in our garden. I know that's not our job as they were dead when we moved in, but we wanted to get something that to enjoy while we're here which represents us, and to leave our mark on this lovely house. While we were choosing, I spotted a display of purple pots with purple pansies just calling out to be given to Mary, with a purple card, from the church office.

I got five challenges entered with these!

Cute Card Thursday wants text used on our cards, Simon Says Stamps is "going dotty" with the addition of Prima flowers, Stampin' for the Weekend is providing a recipe of 3 patterned papers, 2 flowers, 1 ribbon, and a gem or charm, and Whiff of Joy is going "fuzzy". Finally Creative Card Crew has given this sketch:

I rotated it clockwise and elongated it to fit... yup, ANOTHER easel card. I just love how this has turned out. Delicious!

I got battle wounds from this one. I cut the felt for the flower using my Cuttlebug, then tried to stick my scissors through it to put a brad through. Yeah, those really sharp scissors. I can understand the slice through my finger, but I still have no idea how I managed to cut my thumb too! Had to make the dinner with a glove on....

Anyway, the papers are Bo Bunny polka dots and two unidentified papers I got from Spotlight and Art Friend in Singapore. The flowers are Prima and felt, the brads are American Crafts and the gem is from my stash. The sentiments are from Lili of the Valley - there's another one inside. The ribbon was a gift from Georgina (thanks sweetie!) and the image is Willow with her basket of flowers from Whiff of Joy, coloured, of course, with Copics. This is the first time she's had black hair. I think it suits her! Add a dash of Stickles diamond, and she's done.