Saturday 10 January 2009

A real sale

I don't know how the craftsales are in the US, but here in Sweden they have always been pretty bleak. You can be happy if they have 20% off on some selected items. But this year it's more obvious that the economy is not the best because first: my local craftshop had 30% off on EVERYTHING (so I bought 11 promarkers and a whole bunch of brads that I will NOT just pet and look at, lol) Now she has 50% on all Christmasstuff and patterned papers for 5 sek each. I was going to see what she has left and also to exchange one of my promarkers :( I always check stuff I buy, but this I missed. One of the tips was dry, but since it was a light color I didn't see it. I haven't been feeling good though, so I haven't been there yet.

Anyhee, the point of this whole post is that today I got a newsletter from a shop called scrapaddicted that has 50% off on EVERYTHING in the shop! The best part is that I can shop through the net. No, actually the best part was that she also had promarkers and they were even more ridiculously cheap than the other ones. So I bought 10 more...
Good thing there are only 90 colors and about 30 of them are greys, lol. I bought some that were lower down on my wishlist since she didn't have the pinks and blues I wanted. So I'm still going to need those, lol.

I hope she will have everything I ordered. The sale started today and ends tomorrow evening. I didn't get that much, (only what I really needed ;)

I have been looking for some bling brads for quite a time and got some square ones the other day from another place that had 20% off. Now I ordered some more, but round ones. Don't think I'll ever run out of brads again, lol.

Phew, now I'm really pooped as my friend would say. I have decided to take it a bit easy with the challenges, because I've noticed that I'm joining too many. I'm one of those over-achievers and I don't want my crafting to turn into some kind of chase after perfection and "who-can-make-most-cards-and-join-most-challenges". I want to have time to do some jewelry, maybe finishing that bag I started in spring and alter something. I want to make a little keepsake of a doxie I was sitting last year. I took so many great pictures of her.

I hope you will stick around. I'm not ditching you or anything. I'm just thinking about limiting myself to maybe 3-4 challenges a week. I don't HAVE to be perfect (even though I would want to ;)

Pink gem designs release and candy

Pinkgem designs are releasing some new stamps in january. There are some new designs from the Mimi line, but also some funky animals. Later in january there will also be a selection of Max & Milly stamps available through pinkgem designs. Make sure to check their blog for more updates! Oh, and they have a candy too :)

Speaking of candy, Ewonne is having a candy to celebrate almost 20,000 visitors! Way to go Ewonne! A picture says more than a thousand words, so I'll let you see for yourselves what you can get if you're lucky:



I have also updated my blogcandypost. As I mentioned before I will make one candypost a month and when I find more candy during that month I will add it to the list. To make it easier for you I've made a link to the post where you can read all about the different candies. And to make it easier for myself too, since now I don't have to update the linklist (not that I ever did, but I felt bad about not doing that).

Oh, and don't miss the simonsaysstamp HUGE giveaway (I think it ends tomorrow, just found it)

Friday 9 January 2009

Friday sketchers sketch ;)

Friday sketchers had an interesting sketch this week. I don't think I've ever put a backgroundpaper diagonally before, so this was great practice.

I'm not so much into coloring at the moment, so I used a colored image from my box. The papers are from a cardstack I actually bought at my foodstore.

I don't know if it shows that well, but I used a rainbow inkpad to color in the edges of the tags. It looks really good.




Here's the sketch (taken from their blog):

Thursday 8 January 2009

Whimsy flower power

Denise had this wonderful flower power challenge that I loved to join. I too am sick of Christmas and it felt so fresh to use flowers again! And I also got the opportunity to use my new turtlestamp I won in her blogcandy a while ago.

This card is one of the brilliant ideas I had (that I mentioned a few posts down). It's in three parts and I wanted to make like two cards in one. I'm thinking about decorating the second part a bit more and maybe adding a text. I made the front a little narrower so a piece of the polkadot paper would show through. The closing I made with a ribbon and an eyelet. This is also a "technique" I'm taking credit for (just like the embossed part of the HM card), lol. Haven't seen it anywhere else.
The window is cut out with a circlecutter and the flowers are small primas with glitterglue in the middle. Hope you like it!

I've put up better photos of the house mouse and polkadot cards. Will do the same with this card when the sun comes out :)






Wednesday 7 January 2009

New somethings

This is the theme on the stampchallenges blog this week. The prize is a guest DT spot for two weeks and I just had to take a chance.

The challenge was to use something new; something you hadn't used before or just gotten (maybe under the tree). I actually went for it and used everything new. I didn't mean to, but it turned out that way. Even some of the colors I used on the image are from my new pens :)

The image is a stamp I got months ago, but never got around to use with the Christmascards and all. Together with the stamp I used pink/black polkadot papers I got while visiting Stockholm over Christmas. I also found another polkadot paper I'd never used that worked great together. I used my newbought fiskars circle templates to do the circles and cut them out by hand. I was thinking about leaving the card as it was, but it felt a little empty so I added some flowers. The black one is from a pack of white ones I got at a sale the other day. I inked it with black ink and used some black stickles (never used either). And the best part of all: I opened my "too-pretty-to-use-brads" and used one of them (the glossy darkred) With all these crazy polkadots I wanted to add a funny text and came up with this, since it almost looks like the horse is doing some dancing moves. The text is made with a clearalphabet that came with my qk sophisticate alphabet. It was like a collector's item box and included stamps, extra dies and scrolly stamps (I've been wanting to buy scrolly stamps forever and actually won a set in a candy, but when I looked through the box the other day I found them and got so happy! Maybe it's time to start using some of the things I have, lol) The worst part is that I actually don't think I have that many things that I don't use. Maybe I should rethink that statement...

Did you notice that even the pink flower has some dots embossed to it?! Talk about totally spacing out with dots, lol.




Here's how the card looked without the flowers. I think it looks better with them, or what do you think?

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Stamps on sale and whipper snapper

Just wanted to let you know that nonsequitur stamps are having a 30% sale until january 18:th if you're interested.

By the way, did you know that whippersnapper are selling their stamps unmounted aswell? I didn't know that, but found out the other day while visiting their webpage. I'd love to have some of their designs, but I'm hesitant because the shipping is high and I've heard bad things about how they run their business. I'm trying not to support companies that want to control the market too much and besides, they are not an angel company. We'll see if I'll be able to hold on to my principles or if I'll fall for the cute images, lol.

I'm struggling with my cardmaking at the moment because I'm being so tired. I think I'm getting a massive cold :( But I have some cards on the move and hopefully I'll load one of them up later tonight.

I'll try to get back to you about the candy at the end of the week.

Candy winners...

Yes, you read it right. I've decided to have a second prize in my blogcandy, since I got over 50 entries. Woohoo!
Unfortunately I have been feeling really tired today and have not had the energy to do anything, so you will have to wait a couple of more days for the announcement.
I just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you :)

Night night, see you soon.

Monday 5 January 2009

House mouse challenge - embossing

I'm in a period now where I don't like coloring so much, I just want to put the cards together. Impatience is also a factor during these times and strangely enough the same time when cards are most likely to mess with me and not get done (hmmm, can it have something to do with the impatience and my indecisive nature, I wonder...lol) Good thing I have a little box with already colored images (too bad some of them are older and don't live up to my standards these days ;)
Usually when I'm in this period I come up with great ideas for cards. The other night I couldn't get to sleep because one brilliant idea hit me after another. I had to run up and write them down in my ideabook (and make little models of the cards). I'm almost done with a card that used one of the ideas. It's for a challenge due in a few days, so I'll show it to you during the week. Uh-oh, now I got your hopes up, hopefully you won't get disappointed. It seemed brilliant at the time...YES! I'm deciding it IS a fabulous idea and the card is too!

Ok, time to stop rambling. Here's my card.

The theme was embossing (any kind) and I wanted to use both dry and heat embossing (since I felt only CB embossing folders would be cheating). I made my own background paper by using a big floral stamp with versamark and white embossing powder. I came up with this idea a couple of years ago. Don't think I've seen it anywhere else, so I'm taking credit for it.
Then I colored it in with my shimmery chalks in pastel shades. The smaller pink cardstock is CB embossed and used with the "wrong" side up, so the pattern is lowered instead of raised. I used a jewelry part with a plain silver brad to give it a bit more "umph". I love this HM image. It was the first one I got I think.




I hope you understand that I'm not really as obnoxious as I "sound". I have a hard time believing in myself and any talents I might have, so when I make something well or get a brilliant idea I try not to shoot myself down, but dare to brag about it and enjoy it!

:)

My blog candy ends soon

THE CANDY IS NOW CLOSED

Just a reminder for those of you that haven't joined my candy yet. Click on the image to the right to read all about it. I've decided to keep it open for a couple of extra days and if the comments exceed a certain number I will add a second prize...

I just added a couple of photos of some of the things I'll be sending.

Sunday 4 January 2009

Flower power

I'm so "good" with planning my challenges that I always make them in the wrong order because I mix up the dates, lol. I'm almost finished with a card that is due on the 7:th, but I forgot the one for tomorrow, sigh. And I have a deadline for monday + a DT call I need to apply to. Instead I make cards waaay into the future (or a couple of days at least, but for me it's waaay into the future :D

Here's my card for the high hopes blog - a challenge called flower power. I wasn't sure if you actually have to use flowers or if this qualifies. I really hope it does because I'd love to win the stamp they are offering. I guess I could've glued on a flower somewhere, but I didn't think it would look good. Funny thing is that I actually started out with black/pink polkadot papers that match the sewn "ribbon" and took away everything except the ribbon part (it's not really a ribbon, but a striped patterned paper) I wanted to make the fold more interesting, but by doing that I had to rethink the "ribbon" part. I managed to save the idea I had from the start. Should've just gone with a simple fold instead of making it hard for myself, lol.

Ok, so it's so past my bedtime it's not even funny anymore. Enjoy! I think this card will be one of the ones I send in for the DT call. I'm very happy with how it turned out.






Just the other day I managed to get over 10 followers (I have 11 now) Woohoo! I'm so happy about that. I'm actually a huge fan of one of them, so I feel humbled that she's following my little blog too.

More happy news: I found out today that I won another candy! More stamps coming my way...I wonder what the postman thinks, lol.

And finally: I have over 50 entries for my candy! Now I need to step on it and do some of the paper-things I planned to do. I have added some pics of a couple of the stuff I'll be sending. Hopefully they will make you drool instead of getting disappointed ;)