New challenge blog

Have you heard about this new challenge blog? It's called the next level and will launch on june 1:st. But it's more than just a challenge blog. Here's what they have to say about themselves:

The Next Level is the exciting new concept of Dawn (All Pink Girl) and Ann (Madgesty - Love to Create) probably better known as blog name Madge. Our aim in designing this new informative style of blog is not only to produce really creative Weekly Challenges that are not tied to any specific brand, but also to explore new avenues, ideas and techniques with a completely fresh approach.

The Next Level will not only be a fun and informative place to hang out for card crafters and scrapbookers of all levels, but it is hoped that it will also become a valuable source of information, hints and tips, tutorials, downloads and much more. We want to cover the craft of traditional card making but also add in a touch of digital, not too much to scare anyone away, but enough to explore the magical world out there at your fingertips for anyone wanting to venture.

To celebrate the new blog they are offering a great candy, or what do you think?


To go directly to the candypost click HERE.

See you there!

Candy card - being a grandma

Alex aka eisbären is having a great blogcandy with a twist. You need to either make a card following her sketch or write a joke/anecdote that will make her laugh out loud. Since I'm not good at telling jokes (can never remember them) I thought I'd make a card. Here's the sketch she made:


I've been wanting to make a card for a friend of mine that became a granny not too long ago. This sketch was perfect for the image I had in mind. I wanted to use a stamp that makes you think of children. I think my friend can be the girl and the new baby is the doll :) The baby is a girl so maybe it will show my friend how her granddaughter will play with dolls in a not too distant future.

I used some great patterned papers I just recieved from scrapaddicted. I got really disappointed with the order though since she was out of the stampscrubber pad I wanted. I made the order because of that and in the end the cost of the cardstock was the same as if I had bought it in my local store. So no luck there but I did manage to get some really cute buttonbrads that I have used on fabric for my stuffed animal clothes. You can see one of them on the flower. The flocked blue brad is also from that order. I ordered a secret decoration set and they were among there.
I like the way the word "celebrate" is in focus. It was totally by accident, lol. I like these papers with texts because it gives me a quick way of adding text and adds more interest to the card.


Stamp is from Sarah Kay. The text is written on the computer and then cut out with my oval nestie. Promarkers used to colour the image:
apple and lime
cool aqua
pastel yellow
ivory (dollface)
saffron (girlface)
carmine

I also used some of my old fashionsketching pantone pens. The pink I used is very similar to promarker's "blossom".
Around the image I used ice grey 1.

Oh and for the first time ever I used my sewing machine to sew in paper. How fun was that! But I sew from the wrong side so when the needle poked through the paper it raised it a bit. Think it looks much better than it does on the other side (not that you can see, but it's too flat) Now I just have to hope that my friend doesn't decide to look around here before the card reaches her. I'm so used to e-mails and things going so fast I can't believe it will take a week before she gets it. And that's when I have sent it! I still have it here and I'm always sooo slowpokey to send stuff off.


Today I went to my local store JP hobby since they had 25% off in the whole store. My little cousin is graduating from high-school next week and I want to make a nice card for him. Well, actually I want it to be a mindblowing card, lol. It will be a challenge since blue/yellow/white might be quite hard especially since I'm no fan of blues ;) So I looked around the shop and got myself some really nice things:
*A magnolia stamp I've been wanting since february - the cupid Tilda from the Valentine collection
*Pearl decorations
*papers for the grad. card - blues and distressed look is not really my thing, but I thought it would be great for a guy.
*matching blue flowers for the card
*maya road suitcase chipboard album - this time I HAVE to make something with it.
*tiny buttons for my sewing stuff
*rickrack ribbon for sewing aswell

What do you think of my loot?

hÄnglar sale

I've gotten a couple of request from people around the world about the hÄnglar stamps. I have a couple to sell, but I don't know what would be the best and most fair way of selling them. Previously I have sold the ones I don't want on Tradera which is a Swedish equivalent to e-bay. The only problem with this is that I didn't accept international bids because I had so many problems every time with people bidding and not paying. The thing is that I don't just want to sell them, but I want to offer them for those of you who have no way of getting them otherwise.

I think it's rather unfair to decide who to sell it to (it seems like a lottery and some just don't have luck) So I thought an auction would be better, but that way they would only go to the ones with a lot of moolah to spend :)

I have not come up with any good solution for this yet. If you have any suggestions of how to make it fair let me know. Post here or send me an e-mail.

Motivet stamps

Motivet is a stampcompany that is run by swedish Stephanie Barbary that currently lives in Canada. "Motivet" is the swedish word for "the motif". They have just released this line of stamps in april and I'm in loooove. I adore cute animals and they can't get much cuter than this, or what do you think?



Until may 31:st you have a chance of winning the seven new stamps shown above. All you need to do is put a link to their post, post the pic on your blog and write a comment on their blogpost. For exact info check out
this post.

Next sewing project

Thought I'd show you what I'm up to next. A couple of years ago (or maybe it was many years ago, can't remember, lol) I found a pic in "Crafts beautiful" that showed a beautiful quilted bag. It was a bookreview about handmade quilted bags. I found this issue the other day and wrote up the title of the book. I searched in my library and they had it! My library is the best! We even have a bunch of english craftmags.

Remember some of the great fabrics I bought together with my rotary cutter, mat and ruler? I decided to make a bag out of them for a summery bag. I needed 36 10x14cm squares and wasn't sure how to approach it. First I just cut out approximately that square and measured afterwards. It was soooo tiresome since each square took forever. I started planning instead and decided on 4 squares in 9 different fabrics. After deciding that I made it a bit easier and made a long piece that was 14cm high and started cutting at 10cm. The only problem was that I forgot I needed 4 pieces and made just 3 of each fabric. Sigh. I think I had made over half when I noticed that.

Surprisingly enough I didn't get too frustrated. I thought it was a bit annoying and I wanted to start sewing, but it wasn't too bad. Earlier I think I would've put the tools away and hidden the sewingmachine :)

Here is the result of a few hours I think it took me to cut them out.




The thing I get a bit worried about is that the edges fray a bit. I've used cottonfabric and I was wondering about the fraying, but the lady in the sewing store said it was made for quilting? I thought quiltfabrics didn't fray at all?
I tried to sew the edges exactly with the same seamallowence, but it was hard. These don't matter much because they won't be aligned the way that they need the points to be crisp. But if I want to make something with exact squares I think I might be disappointed. I really need everything to be exact. If something wouldn't align perfectly I would toss it which would not let me learn by trial and error. Hmmm, maybe this isn't a hobby for me after all, lol.
I'm having a blast though seeing how all the squares come together into one piece. I've put together the front of the bag, now I just need the back. Don't know when I will be able to finish it though since I need a lining and I haven't one in the colour I want (don't want to make a third bag with green lining, lol. I'll tell you about it some other time)

Here's how the first part looks:

New promarker blog and a spoon full of sugar b-day

EDIT: This card is only for the "a spoon full of sugar challenge blog". I will make a new one for the promarker blog since the entry for them can't be combined with any other challenges.

Do you know there is a new challenge blog for promarker lovers? I found it the other day and I'm really happy I did. There is a blog for copiclovers and I have been wanting to join in. But since I only have promarkers I couldn't :( It never occured to me to look for a promarker blog, lol.

I'm still sewing but I have a couple of half done cards on my table and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finish some of them. This one have been waiting to be finished forever. I used the promarker blog's "no theme" and I also decided to join in on a spoon full of sugar's challenge. They are celebrating their first birthday so the theme was "celebrations". I decided on a b-day card since those are the ones I use the most. While working with the card I came up with the corny "happy bird-day" that I thought was very suitable. So this is what I come up with when I don't have a sketch to follow:




I used my new hÄngel from the latest kit and my brand new nestie. I embossed the scalloped nestie with an embossingfolder from cuttlebug making sure I have at least a bird visible. I then dabbed some distress ink on the raised parts. On the pink panel I used some new birdstamps I bought recently and stamped them with distress ink. The text is computer generated, the hÄngel coloured with apple, sky blue and pastel pink. Did you notice the black brad I put in the birdhouse to make it pop?