Five challenges in one

Today I managed to incorporate five different challenges into one card.

The first challenge (I have about an hour until the deadline, yikes) is Carols sketch fun where there was this sketch:

Second challenge is cute card thursday and they wanted you to use eyelets. It was quite a while since I used them, so it was a great challenge. I added two eyelets in the left corners for the ribbon to go through (although I didn't know it at the time ;)

Third challenge: colour create. The theme was blue and white with an optional vintage feel.

Stamp with fun wanted you to use pearls (I used both halfpearls in the corner and actually pearly bling - sneaky, sneaky)

Final challenge is roses on paper where you have to use a specific company brand - I used Sarah Kay. Their challenge was to use hearts. I used them both in the border and on the heartlock.

Stamp from Sarah Kay coloured with tombows, dies from quickutz. Borderpunch from fiskars.

New release blog candy from the doodlefactory

Starving artistamps - home of the doodlefactory - are releasing new stamps. To celebrate, and help spread the word, they are offering a big candy. You can win FOUR sets of stamps! The winner will be drawn tuesday evening, so that only gives you today and tomorrow to enter. If you're into these whacky cuties, don't miss out.


Image taken from the starving artistamps blog linked above.

Getting ready for the bloghop

I hope you'll join too on Whiff of joy's bloghop. I thought it would start now, but I was off with an hour. Can't wait! :D

Whiff of joy candy

Today I thought I'd tell you about the new release from Whiff of joy. Elisabeth Bell has designed a new fall collection and you can pre-order your kit until august 7:th.
Here is a little sneak peak:



Katharina (the owner of Whiff of joy) has a candy on her blog to celebrate the release. Oh, and there will be a parteyyy on saturday, so I'll see you there :)

My cousin's graduation card - Magnolia's Edwin

I thought I'd show you the card I made for my cousin's graduation.

I worked hard and long on this card and if you remember I had a hard time picking out the papers and embellies. Nothing seemed to match until I found some things from my old stash (the text paper for instance) to go with the new things I'd bought. I wanted the card to be "graduation-like" which usually means blue/yellow (like the Swedish flag) and a lot of white. I didn't want to overdecorate it with girly stuff like flowers, but since flowers are a big part of graduation (the students get bouquets and other things hung around their necks) I wanted to incorporate some at least. I used a piece of sheer ribbon with the big flower and a yellow bling brad.



I used Edwin (the boy's name) from Magnolia's graduation collection. It was such a great timing since I had no idea what image I would've used otherwise. I used white bling cardstock and a bunch of layers, the blue embossed cardstock is a cuttlebug embossing folder which I absolutely love!


I really wanted to make the card special so he knew it was just made for him, so I used rub-ons to spell out his name and to put the date on the little tags in the corner. Edwin is mounted on a silver mirror card and coloured with promarkers. You will not believe what I managed to do at 3am the day before I was leaving for the graduation:
I was so happy with the outcome of the card and that I had made it on time. I just wanted to add some silver dots on his shoes to make it look like those eyelets you have to thread the laces through. I open up my silver pen and....BLOB. It left a huuuge blob on his whole shoe! I tried to pick it up but it soaked through the paper leaving it all icky. It was beyond repair, so I had to start over and colouring him agian. So this is the second Edwin (actually I coloured a couple before just to see how it would look, but that's a different story) I'm just glad I didn't blob in the middle of the card. I didn't have any extra materials so I wouldn't have been able to make another one exactly the same. It was sooo aggravating. I was done with EVERYTHING, just thought I'd "spruce up" the shoes a bit. Phew, good thing the panel came of too, so I could mount on a new one. I was so close to disaster, lol


The inside of the card - I wanted to write something inspirational besides the usual "congrats". I found this sentiment in Magnolia's graduation line. I found a similar alphabet to the rub-ons and printed the sentiment from the computer.


Anyhee, I'm joining this week's challenge on magnolia licious highlites with this card. They are also having an Edwin based bloghop if you want to check it out.

Friday sketchers and promarker challenge

Yey! I've been sewing today. I'm trying to finish a quilted bag I started ages ago. I had the front done and needed to sew the scraps together for the backside. I did that yesterday and today I did the lining and put the bag together. Now the only thing remaining is to fix the sides of the inner and outer fabric. It seems a bit complicated because I have to sew so close in to the other seam that is already made, but not so close I run over it. Yuck! I hate doing these things, but hopefully I won't put it off for too long. I have a bag from last year that is waiting to be "handled" (it needs handles) LOL, so I know it can be a while...

Ok, on to the card. I used the sketch from the friday sketchers blog and a colour combo of gold/ruby and gems/jewels from the promarker challenge blog.

I used a stamp from franticstamper and a background stamp from PSX. I wanted this card to be a bit different than my usual ones. I got the black ribbon on a sale today (wasted waaay too much money) and the little heart gems I bought years ago.

Cuttlebug, whiff of joy and Simon says stamp challenges

Ok, so it's not so late yet (just 7.30pm) so maybe I'll have time to sew some today. Yey!
I made a card today using some challenges from the blogs listed in the title.

The cuttlebug challenge blog had a sketch, Whiff of joy had paperpieRcing and I took a colourcombo from Simon says stamp that was summer fruits/summer fruit colours. I'm starting to like that challenge blog a lot!

I used my new nesties and an image I got from a friend. It's from Whiff of joy called kneeling Willow.




I like the way the card is simple yet elegant. I don't think it needed more. The papers are so summery it looks like she's sitting in a meadow and just picked a flower from the patterned paper :) I hope they qualify as summery fruit colours, but I think they will. I think of a fruitsalad when I see the patterned paper. All those strawberries, kiwi, watermelon...Think I'll get myself some strawberries now, lol. I made holes in the corners of the image and also in the corners of the patterned paper. That was my "paperpiercing". The sketch speaks for itself. I didn't add anything, I just let it be the way it was. Hope you like my card :)

Sketch saturday, Simon says stamp and stampchallenges

Phew, this card took all day long and I'm tiiiired... I'm having so much fun crafting again. I can't believe how much I missed it! And even though I'm doing it soooo slowly I'm glad I can do it at all. Makes you think that you might not be able to do it tomorrow. Carpe Diem people, lol. I thought I'd have time to sew after I was done with this, but it's already 1am so I think I will have to put it up for tomorrow. AGAIN

I made the card mainly for Simon says stamp challenge that had "paperpiecing" this week. As you might see I used the yellow paper for her bathingsuit and hat. I just stamped on the paper at random, but managed to get the pink flower exactly in the middle. How great is that. The green paper with yellow dots I used for the purse and blanket. I also coloured some of the pieces with my promarkers to add depth, like the bag for instance. I used my brand new nesties that I actually got in the mail today. Yey! I embossed the square too, but cut that part away so I could add the white bling cardstock and have an edge. Does that make sense? I'm getting sleepy :)

I followed this great sketch from sketch saturday and a colourcombo of green/yellow/pink from the stamp challenges blog.

Hope you like it. I'm actually very proud of this one. I even have a ribbon and I hate working with ribbons :D




The quote says: "He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left." Not sure when to use this card, but I'm trying to think outside of the box and be creative.

Penny Black and stamp with fun

Another card for today - I'm on a roll, lol. I've been having some health issues with my stomach and this is the first night in weeks that I can craft. Usually I'm in too much pain and only have energy to lay and watch the boob toob (the telly). Let's hope this is a sign that I'm getting better...

I have combined the sketch from stamp with fun with the Penny Black challenge that have "swirls" as their theme this week.




I'm really pleased with this card too. It gave me quite a challenge at first because it was so hard working with just these two colours. I tried to add other colours, but it just didn't work. In the end I think I got it. The embossed part is bling cardstock, the green patterned paper is from the Basic Grey pad "lime rickey" that I won in a blogcandy. The swirls are from qk sophisticate alphabet set. Text written on the computer. It says: "Tomorrow is a blank page just waiting to be filled with your dreams". I think it goes pretty well with the dreaming bunny.

Magnolia challenges

Finally a card I'm very happy with! I worked on it during most of the day, but it was so much fun. I'm especially pleased with the shape of the card. I used four challenges:

justmagnolia3 had "distress" as their theme this week.

justmagnolia had a great sketch.

stampin for the weekend had "strawberries dipped in chocolate" as their colour combo.

roses on paper wanted you to use some kind of stitching on your 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 I think 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. I'm also thinking about adding some kind of backing to the card, maybe glueing it to a folded piece of 15x15cm cardstock. I saw a technique like that ages ago that I really wanted to try and I might spruce this card up some more. But for now, there you have it!

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