Cute as a button giftbox

I've been feeling very bad for the last couple of days so this will be a quick post. I want to show you my first project for the pixiecottage. The theme was "buttons" and I thought I was quite clever.

The box is made from scratch, I'll make a tutorial when I feel better. Text is downloaded from dafont.com.

Needleholder and cookies

Hi and welcome back to my blog. Today I've been making my first project for the pixie cottage. I can't show it to you yet so I thought I'd show you one of the other things I've finished earlier.

It's a holder for needles or brooches. I really needed one since I've been keeping my needles in different places in old shoulderpads. This way I can keep them is style!

Don't you just love the fabrics?

And just to entice you more, here's what I baked yesterday and ate basically the whole day today. It's a new reciepy from a book I got at a sale at the supermarket. It's baked on one of those oventrays with a higher edge. I made half a portion as the trays are quite big. Didn't want to waste that much ingredients in case it was blah. It wasn't :D It's a bit chewy and sirapy. The chewy part is oatmeal which I really love in cookies. Wish I could invite you over!

Sweetpea celebration and candy

Justr a quick post letting you know about the big APRIL CELEBRATION AT SWEETPEA STAMPS!

Through out April sweetpea will be celebrating one year in business, call it their one year anniversary or one year birthday. Join us in our month long festivities. To start this off, those who are signed up as followers of  the sweetpea blog, this Saturday & Sunday, a follower will be randomly picked  by Lynette (the owner) from the list (so you must be signed up as a follower for your chance to win). The person will be winning a free 5 count grab bag. This will include images and texts. We will NOT notify you. You must check back on the blog on Saturday to see who the winner is. You have until Tuesday, April 13th, to comment on the comment section (where your name will be posted, then e-mail Lynette your address (if you fail to notify us by the deadline, she will draw another winner).Good Luck!
Comment HERE (link to the sweetpea blog post)


 You could also be in a draw to win the wonderful butterfly plate shown below (I don't even have ot and I love it loads) All you need to do is post your favorite sheet in the comment section on the sweetpea blog. A lucky winer will be drawn on Monday! We will not contact you, You must check back on Monday to see if you won (you have until Wednesday March 14th to claim your Prize)

I haven't been posting much this week due to a minor setback in my health. I have been crafting a bit on my sofa, some earrings and a crocheted piggie. I also have a tutorial for a reversible shopping totebag. I'll see if I can have it up for my tutorial thursday, so make sure to check back.

Tip tuesday

I'm hoping to have this on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. We'll see how much tips I have :D

Today I'd like to show you how I keep clean on my table. When I craft I always pull out everything that can match my project. Afterwards it looks like a disaster. I try to clean up most of it, but sometimes I miss a brad or flower. Instead of taking out all my bradsboxes or flowerjars yet again I put everything in one jar that I keep on my table. I sort it through every once in a while, but this way I can spend my time crafting instead of putting away every tiny thing.

Garden seafairy and flower tutorial

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Hope you had a great easter holiday. I've been sewing, crosstitching and making cards. Here is one of them.

This time I used "The serene night" - another wonderful stamp from sweetpea that I haven't showed you yet. The text is from sheet 7 plate 29 and the stamp from sheet 4 plate 24. I actually had this image coloured and matched with the Basic Grey papers. It was laying around and I needed to clean my space a bit so I thought it was time to get it finished. I also made two flowers from a giftwrap paper that happened to match perfectly!

I made this card with a couple of challenges in mind:

Basic Grey challenge - a wonderful sketch
Sweetpea stamps challenge - garden fairy
The secret crafter - how does your garden grow

Here's a detail of the embossed background with golden birds that I made:

Here's how I made the flower:
I used my blossom nesties, but you could use circles or cut shapes out by hand. I even embossed them to give them an extra edge, but io don't know if it really shows. Cut out 6-7 of them in silkpaper (the ones you have to giftwrap)

 After you've cut them out, poke them into your hand like shown on photo to scrunch them up.

Glue them side by side and work your way around until you're satisfied with the result. You might want to use a smaller shape to fill in the gaps in the middle.

 Use different shapes to make different sized flowers:

Oh, and if you'd like a chance to win some sweetpea stamps, Gina has some as candy on her blog. Ends april 11:th.

Have a great night!

Imagine and wish

Happy easter everyone. Hope you're having a great holiday. I've been crafting a lot although I've been quite tired from all medication I'm taking. I've been shifting from sewing a bag (almost done) to cards and a cross stitch while I'm watching whole seasons of a show from the very beginning. Very nice :)

I've been trying to catch up and make some more projects using my sweet pea stamps (that haven't seen ink yet poor things) This one is called Moonlight whispering. I really like the stamps so I try to leave the layout quite simple.

Speaking of sweetpea stamps there are a bunch of things going on during april that you won't want to miss. This is because sweetpea will be one year at the end of april. Hooray!

First, everyone that will be signing up as a follower during this saturday and sunday will be in a chance to win a free 5 count grab bag. You have to sign up as a follower on the sweetpea blog and check back to see if you've won. See the post HERE for all the info.

Second, as a part of the celebration YOU can vote for which image you would like to see as a stamp. Go HERE to find the links.

Third: Elaine Cox's newest Alice stamps are out and they are on sale through april 3:rd. These images are so wonderful. HERE you can see the whole sheet and you can order them HERE.
There is also a wonderful new sheet just in time for mother's day. You can see them HERE and order them HERE. These are on sale through april 5:th.

And finally, I hope you haven't missed that there are monthly challenges going on on the blog? This month the rules are:

April Customer Card Challenge:1. Using ONLY Sweet Pea Stamps,
2. Create an ATC (2.5" x 3.5") Card.
3. Use Purple and Pink.
4. Include an 'Odd' Embellishment.
Upload and add the link to your blog here during the week of April 11-17.



For this card I used a sketch and a bunch of challenges:

Crafts and me - fairies or wings. Use a sweetpea image for a second chance.
Lili of the valley - blue and silver (the frame is mirror silver, hard to photograph though)
Papertake weekly  - open theme
Simon says stamp - it's so distressing (I distressed the edges of the image and the background paper has a distressed look)
Sketch and stash - sketch
Stampin for the weekend - ribbons and bows

And at last a little tip for you: It's a little candy that Lorraine has to offer for all supporters of her blog. This time she has this adorable stamp as her candy:

Hop over to her blog to sign up. You have until Wed 7th April 9am CET to enter.

Ok, I think that was it for now. I'm off to crosstitch some more. I'm planning to use it for a sewingproject so it will be a while before I can show it to you, but I'm so excited about it. I'm also planning on making my own designed bag and a tutorial if all goes well. Keep your fingers crossed.

Hugs

Bookmark cart tutorial

I've been asked by Katharina - the owner of  Whiff of joy to make a tutorial for my bookmark cart that I made for the Whiff of joy challenge blog. She wanted me to make it for the Woj tutorial blog. I just posted it there so you can go and take a look, I'm so honoured she asked!  Forgive me if I'm over-explaining things. I know I prefer tutorials with too many rather than too few pics.

You can see on the photo above what it looks like when it's done. It's not hard to do at all and you can embellish it however you'd like depending on the occasion and person you're giving it to. And best of all, it costs you almost nothing and makes you dig out all of your favourite stamps.


















Beside a couple of scraps of paper and whichever stamps, colouring medium, embellies and punches/nesties you have you will need:

* a couple of grillsticks (I used 6)
* doublesided tape (and/or glue)
* a sponge - those you use for cleaning will do or if you have oasis for dries plants or anything porous you can come up with
* ruler
* white or matching ribbon

Use what you have rather than buying new things for every new project you see.

You can start by choosing your images and colouring them. Here I have used Alison Acton's party animals and coloured them with oilpencils and a kind of alcohol rubber to smear them out. Decide on what shape you want them to be so you don't unnecessarily colour in the whole image (like I did with the kangaroo at top right). Cut out the images and cut out two bigger pieces of cardstock per image - one to have behind the image and one for the backside. They should be the same size. We want the back to be just as nice as the front. I used cream bling to have behind the images and brown stripey patterned for the backside. Attach the images to the cream bling.

Now cut your ribbon into about 25cm (10") pieces. Here's a tip: I only buy white ribbons and then colour them in with my promarkers to match exactly. I think it's a brilliant idea because it not only saves you money, but you will also always have the right colour! Here I have coloured with "caramel". Note that the colour usually gets a little darker, so you might need to use a lighter colour, not the same you used for your image.
Now make a little loop/bend on one end of the ribbon and glue together. This will be the top. Put the ribbon between the two cut-outs and glue together. Do that with all the images and set aside to dry.

Let's do the cart. I have drawn the pattern on white paper so it's easier for you to see. You can of course do this closer to the edge to save paper.I used cardstock which is perfect. You can also use heavier double sided patterned paper. Just remember to use a bit heavier paper. You can use this pattern and adjust it to any size.
First draw a square around the sponge. Mine measured 9x6cm 3 3/4x21/2).

 Then you need to add the height of the sponge. Mine was 3cm (1 1/4). Add a 3cm line on all sides of the square.

Almost there. This is a rookie mistake. You can't cut it out like this because you won't have anything to adhere to. This would be ok it you would tape the corners, but it doesn't look as nice. That's why you need to add flaps for glue:

Now cut the whole piece out and fold on the lines. I use an embossing tool and a ruler to make crisp folds. See now why you need the flaps? You will put the glue on the back of the flaps (not on the side where the text is)

And ta-daa, the box is done.

Now you need some decorative paper to wrap around the sponge. Mine was too short, but it's ok as long as it's wide enough. Here you can just tape with whatever you have since this side will go on the bottom. You can also put double-sided tape here so the sponge sticks to the bottom of the box. Put the sponge into the box.

Now for the fun part: decorating! Here are some details of my cart. You can make it anything you like. I'm all for using what you have. If you don't have circle nesties, cut them out by hand or make some other shape. Why not egg-shaped for an easter cart? Let your imagination fun wild.

I made wheels with my nesties and added liquid pearls to the middle. I attached little tags that could hold the recipient's name or left as is. I also made a little "handle" from a strip of bling cardstock.

The front of the cart got a cute text that worked wonderfully with the challenge's "coffe and cream" theme:

The final step is to take your dried bookmarks and attach them to the grillsticks. First though you can poke holes into the sponge. It's easier to do it now before the bookmarks are attached to the sticks. I inked mine a bit, but it didn't turn out that good. You could paint them if you want. I attached doublesided tape about 2,5cm (1") on top and bottom of the stick. Just remember that a bit of the bottom will go into the sponge, so check where you need to put the tape. Attach the image of the bookmark on top of the grillstick and wrap the ribbon around, attaching it at the bottom. Put in the grillsticks in the pre-poked holes in your cart and...

YOU'RE DONE!

Hope you liked my tutorial and that it inspired you to give it a try. Please link to your work if you do. I'd love to see what you came up with.

If you want to show off things you've made I found this blog today where you can do that. It's a link party and will be held every wednesday. There might be a giveaway too...Go HERE to read all about it and see other people's creations.

/Katarina

April blogcandy

Lexi 1

Pops  1

Emma  2

Madeleine  is celebrating some changes on her blog and her upcoming birthday. Candy ends 3:rd.

Arine is hosting a candy to celebrate her move to blogger. Her candy ends 4:th.

Jodi has some magnolia candy. Ends 5:th australian time.

Elaine is celebrating 100 followers with a cute dandelion candy. Ends 5:th 6pm GMT.

Cheryl  6:th 8pm GMT

Bev  has a wonderful candy to celebrate her upcoming 40:th birthday. Happy birthday Bev! Ends 8pm 7:th.

Maddy wants to thank all her readers that leave nice comments and make her giggle. Ends 7:th.

Angie has some easter candy for us. Ends 6:th.

Jessica  10:th.

Joycelyn 11

Rach 24

Jacque  is celebrating her first blogoversary with a huge candy. Ends 27:th.

Sarah 28:th

Katrina  28:th.

Debs  is celebrating her first blogoversary with a sugarfree candy. Ends 30:th.

Carlyann  is celebrating 100,000 hits with a huge candy. For every 100 comments she will add another winner. Ends 30:th.

 Kate is having a magical Tilda candy on her blog. Ends 30:th.

Motivet 30:th.

Di 30:th.

In2stamps  30:th.

Janiel is celebrating her first blogoversary with a huge candy. Ends may 1:st.

Lena Marie may 1

Claudia  is giving away a whole sheet of new Whiff of joy stamps. You can enter once daily and winner will be chosen in not too long.