I'm back with some Christmascards

Looking through my blog I've noticed how long ago it's been since I posted anything. No wonder I can hear crickets every time I open my blog :D It's not like I haven't made anything, just haven't felt like blogging about it.

Yesterday I started on a few Christmascards. I wasn't planning on making any this year as I was making decorations and cards for a wedding at the beginning of december. But I took out a few images, matched some promarkers with the papers I wanted to use and BAM!

All I can say is: the papercrafting bug is back. Can I hear a YEY!?

So yesterday I managed to make four cards. Usually I don't like to repeat myself, but since everyone will only get one card, no one has to know that the others got similar ones, am I right? Still, even if I used the same paperline and colors I still used different images because let's face it, how fun is it to color the exact same image? I get bored after two, haha.
I was quite pleased with how fast my coloring skills came back. The cards are quite simple, but I invested the time in nice coloring instead.

For these two cards I have used images from Magnolia.
The papers I got years ago in a crafting magazine.
I have used promarkers to color the images, my lovely cuttlebug for the shapes and some random flowers and embellishments for decorations.

I'm entering some challenges too. Jeez, it's been a while. I wonder if anyone remembers me? :D

I also noticed I need to update my challenge bloglist. You're gone a year or so from blogland and POOF - half of the challenge blogs are gone. What challenge blogs do you enter? Please leave a message and I'll update my list (which you can see to the right)

Bunny Zoe's - Sparkle
Creatalicious challenges  Something old (papers, images) and something new (glitterpaper)
Cute card thursday  - Glitter
I love promarkers  - Anything goes
Pile it on challenge - Anything Christmas/winter
Promarker challenge  - Let's celebrate
Sketch saturday - (the sitting Magnolia card)

Happy new year 2011

This is my second week as a guest designer for the I love promarkers challenge blog. Our theme this week is to use punches. You can add diecuts, but you have to use at least one punch. The punch I used for this card is  a border punch. You can see a detail of it above just below Tilda's feet.
I have been playing with a lot of new stash for this card: a new magnolia stamp, new punch, new papers and even a new nestabilitie.

I have coloured the image with my promarkers. The hair is coloured with honeycomb, sunflower and tulip yellow. I used to colour with the lightest first, but now I do hair the other way around: I started with honeycomb on the places which were the deepest and should've been darkest: just little specs here and there. I then used the darkest yellow over the orange and a bit around and finally with the lightest around the edges of the last colour, making sure to leave some white specs. I'm very pleased with her hair although the dress could've been better.

The sentiment is handwritten and on the first try! I really like those round and oval sentiments, but don't have any stamps like that so I improvised. Besides - my handwriting is quite nice, so I gave it a try. The trick is to be happy with it, which I was this time :)

Challenges for this card:

ABC challenge - sketch and lace

Basic Grey - dots or spots (I used papers from the june bug collection)

Dutch dare card - new beginnings

I love promarkers - punches (I used a MS punch for the yellow panel)

Just magnolia - anything goes with optional extra buttons

Moving along with the times - out with the old, in with the new (my old stash is the lace, ribbon and buttons and of course my promarkers)

Paper sundaes - circles

Pile it on - cute children

Rainbow lady's - it's all new to me

Simon says stamp - new beginnings

Supplies:

colour: promarkers: ivory and blush for skin, honeycomb, sunflower and tulip yellow for hair, lipstick red, poppy, salmon pink, and antique pink for wings, cornflower, midnight blue and slate for dress.
papers: basic grey; june bug
tools: Martha Stewart punch, doliy hearts and nestabilities

LOVEly recycling

Just after Christmas I got a mail from Karen - the owner of the I love promarkers blog asking me to be a guestdesigner for january. As I really love my promarkers I had to accept.

The first challenge was a little tricky for me, but I hope you will join us anyway. The theme for this week is to recycle something. The thing I have recycled is the big olive green flower. It came in a pack of 6 with a clip on the backside. It was meant to be used as a hairpin or to decorate your house. I only used 2 or 3 of them and the rest has been laying around. Not anything I use in my crafting, but too pretty to throw away. So when I got this challenge i started with the rose and patterned papers and worked my way from there. At the beginning I thought the rose was overwhelming the card, but I'm starting to warm up to it. i really need to get better at making my cards cluttered :) This is a good start I think.

Challenges for this card:

I love promarkers - recycle something
Just magnolia - anything goes
Magnolia-licious highlightes - 4 flowers, 3 patterned papers, 2 magnolia images and 1 ribbon
Sketch and stash - sketch

Think Christmas in pink

Edit 8/10:
I could not leave the card it was yesterday. It was too much blue and looked unfinished. I didn't get the challenges I wanted and you know how much I love challenges. I really didn't like the card, but I didn't have the time or energy to fight with it any longer ;) I left it overnight so it could think how badly it behaved and maybe be good today. I wasn't that lucky, but at least it improved and I got all the challenges I wanted into it and I'm still quite proud of the colouring. So here's the new card:

The challenges I'm entering are:

Alice in wonderland - text in a nonsense way
Allsorts - holiday
Bunny Zoe's - sketch
(Diecut dreams Christmas club - glitter, ribbons and gems) I missed the dedline though
Drunken stampers - think pink
I love promarkers - think pink
Magnolia stamp lovers - lace (The edge is lace, but a tiny piece of lace fabric shows just beneath the circle)
Stamp and create - Breastcancer/pink
The cuttlebug spot - pink and the theme strength, love, hope, faith
(Totally Tilda - glitter and sparkle (I think I missed the deadline on this one too)


Phew, that's it. Now I'm off to clean that huge mess I made picking out everything I had. Or maybe I'll do that later...Back before the end of the weekend with a sweetpea card. Thanks for stopping by (and leaving me some love, please?)

I've been working all day on my pink magnolia card and it's being very naughty to me. I'm struggling to finish it. I wanted it to be all in pink, but it was too much so I had to break it off with some other colour. But now I see there is too much blue. Hmm, I'll see if I can solve it somehow.

I made it with a couple of challenges in mind. First:

Just magnolia - anything goes

Magnolia love

Hi and welcome back to my blog. I'm so happy about the nice comments you leave me.
With this card I think I'm going to break my personal record of how many challenges I enter. I usually think it's better to make a card for a couple of challenges, but sometimes it's fun to see how many you can combine. I coul've even added more stuff to join in more, but I thought the card was done like this.

I've used my wonderful new Magnolia I got this friday. I'm not an impulse-shopper, but when I saw this stamp I just had to have it! I love the details. She is such a delight to colour. I'm adding some images of her in my candy so don't forget to enter! She's called ladybug Tilda, but I think she suits perfectly for Valentine's. I also picked up the beautiful paper that has hearts on it (doesn't show that well here).
I  masked her with a scrolly heart from Penny Black. The text is computergenerated and the heart and keyhole are a qk die.

Ok, so on to the challenges I'm entering with this card:

ABC - new stash
By the cute and girly - love
Challenge up your life  - Valentine's incl.hearts
Charisma cardz  - I love you
C.R.A.F.T - Valentine's or love
Crafty calendar - love and friendship
Crazy for challenges - be my Valentine
Creative card crew - Valentine's
Cute card thursday - spots and dots
Double dutch  - be my Valentine
Fussy and fancy  - hearts
Lili of the valley  - valentine's
Magnolia stamp lovers  - buttons or bows or both
Paper play challenges  - love notes
Penny's paper  - Valentine's/love
Pile it on - to the one you love
Raise the bar  - heart to heart
Roses on paper - a sketch
Simon says stamp - photo inspiration, a red rose
Stamp somethings  - love somethings
Stampin for the weekend  - love is in the air
Stamptacular - love is in the air
Stamp with fun - hearts
Tanda stamps  - for a loved one
The pink elephant  - mushy gushy Valentine

Phew, now I just need hop over to all the blogs and sign up :D

Promarkers: ivory, blush, primrose, pastel yellow, pastel pink, pale pink, cocktail pink, antique pink, cardinal red, burgundy.
Papers: making memories
Others: qk die, cuttlebug embossing folder

Loves me

 Hi everyone and welcome back to my little place in blogland. I've been having so much fun today. I started on two cards and managed to finish one of them - this one. I made it for this week's challenge at just magnolia. They had a wonderful sketch that I wanted to try. I made a Valentine's card to fit the theme at caardvarks (red and hearts) crafty card makers (hearts and romance) I also used a lot of different punches to be able to join creative card crew.

I used one of my new magnolia stamps and my brand new pad from Basic Grey called sugared that I got today. I ordered it in late november and still hadn't heart anything from the company last week. I had mailed them several times to different mails, their blog and so on with no reply. I felt quite disappointed getting tricked like that so I thought I'd give it one last try to contact them. I wrote and said that if they didn't get back to me I would be forced to post on my blog and any forum not to buy from them. 2 HOURS later I get a mail saying my package had shipped, lol. And today I got it with a little bonus even. So my tip of the day is to threaten with bad publicity. Gets any company going since they know what internet can do for/to them. I'm usually very understanding about these things, but didn't like the fact that they didn't even get back to me explaining anything. Nobody stiffs me, lol. Here are the goodies I got - the Woj sheep was my first buy, but it came last so can't wait to ink him up :)

 

 

 

Promarkers: ivory, blush, carmel, walnut, burnt sienna, honeycomb, baby pink, cocktail pink, burgundy
Stamps: Magnolia, sweet pea stamps
Paper: Basic Grey "sugared"
Other: corner punch, qk hearts, borderabilities frame, flowers, bling, pink shimmerz

Be mine

Today I'm inviting you to take a look at a card and some blogcandy I won. I made the card for a lot of challenges.
I really want a lighttent and found an instruction on how to build your own which I've been wanting to try forever now. The most expensive part of that though is the lightbulb that gives daylight. The bulb itself costs around $30! Yikes, but now I know what to wish for for my birthday. If you know anywhere cheaper I can get it on the net, let me know. I think it makes such a difference with good photos and it would be great to be able to photograph at any hour of the day.

Here are the challenges I'm entering with this card:
Magnolia stamp lovers - sketch
A spoon full of sugar - anything you like
Magnolia down under - Valentines
Magnolia-licious highlights - pretty in pink
ABC challenge - masking
Stamp with Sarah Kay - Love/Valentine's
Die cuts r us - ribbon

I had a couple of other in mind while doing this card, but I missed the deadline.
I used two magnolia stamps - the girl and the branch. I actually won the branch stamp in a candy and thought I'd try masking this time. I really like the paper and tried to use the decorations by applying glitter, bling and dimensional glaze to make them stand out more. I used little letterstickers to spell "be mine" and two different ribbons to make the lines. I also used a decorative punch I bought the other day. Thought the card looked to plain otherwise. It still looks like its missing something, but at least it's a little better now.

And finally - here's the lovely first prize candy I won from Jo. She has designed the asiainspired stamps herself for stamp attack. I really liked the other stamps aswell and the big scrolly one is fab! Can't wait to start using them. She also sent a keychain she made and a beautiful box. Thanks a lot for the goodies Jo!

Promarkers: blush, oatmeal, baby pink, salmon pink, cocktail pink, cerise, ice grey1,3,4, cool grey5, blender.

Happy Thanksgiving

Here is a card that took forever to make. I had decided to use a sketch from sketch saturday. Since Tilda was quite big I had a hard time fitting the text and embellishments. Phew, took a while, but here it is. I'm quite happy how it turned out. I used some of my new "toys" - the swirly vine, primas, scrolly frame and nesties. The papers are from Wild asparagus and Basic Grey. And of course the image is coloured with my faithful promarkers. I wrote the text by hand with marsh green. Think it might've been prettier with a computer generated taxt, but I didn't have the energy to fuss with that. Don't think I have that bad of a handwriting, lol.

This card is also made with a couple of other challenges in mind:
Simon says stamp had "shabby chic" and Magnolia down under had an interesting challenge: "stamp with another use". This means that you use a stamp from say a Christmas line and use it in a birthday card. I used an easter stamp and made it into a Thanksgiving one. Thought it was quite brilliant. At least I think the stamp is from an easter line. I don't know really since it's hard to find the info. In worst case this was a Thanksgiving stamp and I should've made an easter card from it :)

Wishing you a nice weekend.

Merry Christmas

Here is a card for all of my readers and faithful followers, wishing you a wonderful Christmas! Thank you all so much for visiting and I look forward to seeing you here next year.

Here in Sweden we celebrated Christmas yesterday. Today we're just ejoying time together. I have gotten a wonderful kitchenmachine that will help me bake more easily. Wish I could invite you all for a cup of tea and cinnamon-bun. :)

Happy Lucia

Tomorrow morning we're celebrating Lucia here in Sweden, but it all really starts tonight when we sit up all night. Here's what the Swedish consulate says about this tradition:

The Swedish Lucia celebration is an annual festival of medieval origin, observed on the 13th of December. On this day, the darkness is brightened by Saint Lucia, a creature of goodness and light who opens the door to the Christmas season.

Named after a Sicilian saint, the Swedish Lucia does not have much in common with her namesake. She is celebrated in a variety of ways, but the most common is the Lucia procession consisting of a group of young girls and boys singing traditional Lucia songs.

On her head, the girl or woman playing the part of Lucia wears a wreath of lingonberry sprigs with holders for real candles (battery-powered ones are sometimes a safer option) to give the effect of a halo. She also has a white, full-length gown with a red ribbon around her waist. Her female attendants (tärnor) wear similar gowns and the "star boys" (stjärngossar) wear white pointed hats decorated with stars. Lucia processions are held in various places, ranging from kindergartens and schools to churches and the Swedish Parliament.

Lucia can be perceived as a symbol of the good forces in life and a symbol of light in the dark winter. She usually appears early in the morning, bringing coffee and saffron-flavored buns (lussekatter) traditionally eaten around Christmas time in Sweden.

Me and my fiancée have a tradition we've been doing for a couple of years. Our movie theatre arranges a Lucia movie night. They show three films that haven't been shown yet. Nobody knows what will be shown and that's kind of the thrill. It all starts at midnight and we watch the movies through the night. In between the films we get pizza and sandwiches to eat and in the morning we get "lussekatter". It all ends around 6-7 in the morning. We started doing this a couple of years ago and we've been doing it ever since. Every year we've been seeing how more and more people attend. This year we weren't even able to get any tickets - they sold out in a couple of hours - so we're doing our own version: we rented three movies instead. We took one we both wanted and one "secret" each. He doesn't know what I chose and I don't know what he chose. This way we get our own way of secret movies. We've bought lussekatter in a nearby bakery and will order pizza. With me being sick it actually turned out for the best. I don't know if I would be able to sit in a movietheatre for so many hours.


Moving on to today's card. I got this image of Tilda as Lucia from a friend and made this especially for my fiancées niece in mind. I used a lot of bling to be in the Magnolia down under challange that had "bedazzled" as their theme. I used pink shimmerz on the pink flowers and on the edges around the image. The gown is coloured slightly with light grey promarker to add shadow and then with white twinkling h2o. Leaves are punched from bazzil bling and I added some bling to the edge and center of flower.
I also used a sketch from friday sketchers. It was simple and clean which was perfect to make the papers stand out.
And of course as this is a Christmas card I'm entering it on thejust Magnolia challenge blog.
There is also a monochromatic challenge at a spoon full of sugar. Not sure if they will accept this card, but thought I'd give it a try. I think it's monochromatic with different shades of red.

A better view of all the shimmer and bling.

11:th anniversary!

It's snowing! At least here on my blog. Have you seen the cool snow I've added? I think it gives a festive feeling to the blog. When the petals fall off from that pink tree in the spring it looks like it's snowing in pink. Horrible news about that tree: someone decided to cut it down! I can't believe it. That tree is one of my fav during spring. It only blooms for a couple of weeks and you need to be fast not to miss it. But now someone has decided to cut it down to make room for some concrete pavement I guess. I'm so mad! Here's a LO I made with a photo showing how it "snows", isn't it beautiful?

Moving on to today's card. Yesterday me and my sweetie celebrated our 11:th anniversary together. We didn't do anything special, just had dinner at home (since I don't dare eating out with my stomach) and went to the movies which we both love to do. I can't believe it's been 11 years!

I made a card for my darling using a bunch of challenges:
Papertake weekly - a great sketch and an opportunity to be a guest designer.
Crafty calendar - winter sparkle. Winter-themed cards and projects, with the added option of sparkle and bling.
The pink elephant - Color me wonderful. Use your fav colouring medium.
Sophisticat - snowflakes and sparkle.
Gingersnap creations - winter wonderland.
Cuttlebug challenge - glitter and bling.
Just magnolia too - make a card for someone special. Doesn't get more special than this :)
Quixotic paperie - use charms.
And finally Simon say stamp also had charms as their theme. The charm I added has a writing on the back that says: made for an angel.

The image is from Magnolia and coloured with promarkers. I coloured them to represent me and my sweetie with haircolour and the colour of our clothes. I added glitter to the girl's coat. I love glitter so that worked great and the boy got blue sweater which is my love's fav colour. I used the wonderful papers from SEI that haveboth glitter and a "reversed" metallic embossing (the metal is etched into the paper rather than raised) I made the snowflake decoration using a tutorial from Bev. Thank you Bev.

Hope you've enjoyed my card. See you soon.

Promarkers: ivory, pastel yellow, blossom, pastel blue, ice grey 1, henna, burnt sienna, burnt umber, blender
Other: Glitterglue stickles stardust, cuttlebug snowflake folder, spellbinder's snowflake die, snowflake punch, fibers.
Papers: SEI, Lovebirds

Wishing you hugs and kisses

Here is another project I made yesterday. This time a card with a romance/sweet theme for roses on paper using one of my fav Tildas from Magnolia. I also made the card a Christmas one since there are so many challenges out there with a Christmas theme this week. I thought I'd be fresh and see how many I could fit the card into :)

Christmas theme:
papertake weekly
everybody art
charisma cardz
Magnolia down under
2 red bananas
Paper make-up
Flourishes

Red and green colourcombo:
Corrosive challenges by Janet
365 cards
Tellen's place
colourcreate

Other ones:
Paper cutz - anything goes
sketch saturday. - I turned the sketch 90 degrees.

Phew, that was quite some challenges :)

Tip of the day:
I have bought a holder for scrapbookpapers with a couple of compartments where I keep papers and cardstock that are matched together. Sometimes I just feel like colouring so I take out those papers and colour the image so it matches the papers. I then store the image and papers together. Whenever I feel like making cards, but don't have the energy to colour images I take out this holder and look through it to see what I have "half done". It's like having a cardkit ready to go. The only thing is to remember that I have it, lol. I actually almost forgot it. Good thing I didn't since it's Christmas papers and a winter image. On the other hand I just got it so maybe I just need to get used to using it.



Colour: promarkers
Border: spellbinders
Papers: sandylion and daisyd
Text: free download from dafont.com
Stamp: Magnolia

Roses on paper guest DT call

Roses on paper are having a guest DT call for their new line of Belles and Whistles stamps (drawn by the talented Elisabeth Bell)
There are three positions up for grabs for the term of November through December, open to crafters worldwide!

What you need to do is either make a card for the current challenge or upload an old project you've made for one of the challenges after june 15:th.

I was hesitating between a couple of cards. "Feeling peachy", a little love and this one. I finally decided on this one since I think it's an innovative way to use a square sketch. And it was my first try on stitching too. I'm also proud of the colouring and the style of the card. And even if I have developed since I made the card I still think it's one of my better ones.

This one was challenge 15 - using stitching. But to be honest I missed that it was supposed to be a gatefold card, so I don't know if I can apply with this one. If I can't because it doesn't qualify for the challenge then I'm applying with my "Feeling peachy" card. It was the last challenge - number 22 and we needed to use brown, orange and green in our card.


I used the stitching on the back part of the card. I zig-zaged around the dotty paper and used a straight seam on the left part of the brown CB embossed cardstock. I also zig-zaged together the textpart with the brown embossed part. I used a white thread which I then distressed and coloured red with inkpads. I also used my distresspad (vintage photo from Tim Holtz) on the raised parts of the embossed cardstock. I think it makes the details stand out even more.

I used my nesties for the circles and promarkers for colouring. I used:
ruby, cinnamon, cocoa, saffron, ivory and ice grey1. The text is goldembossed.

I'm very happy with the flower cluster. I did the gold text embossing on the big red brad all by myself :) I forgot to add some leaves around there. I've bought a bunch of qk leaf dies and think it will look great with them. But for now, this is what it looks like :)

You can always click the photos to get a bigger view.

Feeling "peachy"

I bought this stamp (together with some of her friends and other necessary items)last friday when I "helped" Stämpelgården to celebrate their third anniversary. I coloured the image straight away, but haven't had time to finish the card. It fits a lot of autumnchallenges, but it's mainly for the justmagnolia challenge blog - following their sketch.

Other challenges that I have joined with this card are:

stampin for the weekend - colours brown orange and leafy green.
stampchallenges - brown
roses on paper - orange, brown, green and following a sketch from another challenge.
By the cute and girly - autumn glory.
The pink elephant - fall.
Crafty cardmakers - ribbon and fibers.
Crafty calendar - autumn.

I also made the the secret crafter saturday challenge, but forgot to upload the card. Grrrrr.

I'm practicing to get as many challenges as I can in one card. There is a new challenge where you have to do that. Unfortunately her theme is "pink", otherwise I might have a good shot at it. She is really good though. I think the last time I looked she has a card incorporating 17 challenges!!!



Promarkers: ivory, warm grey, cinnamon, burnt sienna, henna, umber, pastel yellow, pumpkin, berry red, cool aqua and marsh green.
Papers: Basic Grey and wild asparagus
Stamp: Magnolia