Happy midsummer's day my friends

Today I would like to take the opportunity to show you a card made for a friend using my latest DT loot from sweetpea. This is the first time I've chosen to get some stamps drawn by Elaine Cox. This one is called little seahorses mermaid. I really love the cute little seahorses and the fresh zesty colours of the patterned papers.

I also want to wish you a happy midsummer's day that we celebrate here in Sweden today. Hoipe to see you back here soon again. I'm really trying to update so you have something fun to see.

The card is made to fit the theme "friendship" this week at Simon says stamp.

Magical wishes

I'm back again for the second time this week - shocking, I know :) I've been feeling a little better and really felt like playing around with paper again. Woohoo. I'm way behind on my sweetpea DT commitment so I wanted to play with as many sweetpea images as I could. Hopefully I'll finish more cards as I've gotten new stamps from the Elaine Cox' collection. Can't wait to colour them! I even managed to squeeze in a small album I made, so I'm up and about like I haven't been for so long.

But first my magical card. The image I've used is called time flies. The colours I used were from one of the challenges at JPhobby's cyber crop that ends on thursday. JPhobby is one of my local scrap shops. The colourcombo was orange, blue and brown. I found these papers that were so spot on, don't you think? I really wanted to make the card over-the-top as I sometimes feel like I don't decorate enough. I love those dekadent cards with enormous amounts of embellishments and layers. So whenever I felt like stopping myself I ignored that impulse and inked, tore and layered some more.

I worked quite a while on this card and loved every second of it. As usual I coloured the image with promarkers, cut out with a circle nestability and layered on a bigger circle of orange bling cardstock. I added stickles glitter in colours "waterfall" and "stardust" on her and on the middle of the cut-out butterfly. The blue cardbase is stamped with a butterfly stamp with versamark ink and then embossed with a lightblue embossingpowder with some glitter in it. On top of that I added a piece of orange patterned paper with glitterembossed parts. I tore the top and bottom to make it a bit more vibrant. On top of that are two pieces of paper. They are actually cut as one strip from a 12x12" paper and then cut in two. I used a cornerpunch on them and after that I cut out a scalloped circle with my nesties which I embossed with a cuttlebug embossing folder. Finally I stamped the text "mystical wishes" that can be found on Elaine Cox' sheet 5 plate 46 in a blue ink and embossed with glittery powder. I then layered it on a tiny piece of orange bling cardstock and attached to the right hand side of the card. And there you have it :)

Beside the colourchallenge I used a sketch from cute card thursday and the theme "cute as a bug" from stamptacular sunday challenge.

First Christmascard of the year

One of my local scrapshops are having a crop at their forum. There are a bunch of different challenges and it all ends thursday 24:th. I haven't felt this inspired for a long time and started on different projects. Papers, stamps and promarkers are flying everywhere. I just hope I'll be able to find it all later :D

So the first challenge I finished was a Christmas one: not use Christmas stamps (textstamps were ok) or papers. I foound this adorable qk die I bought a while back and never used. I dryembossed the snowflake background and cut out "skates" from another cuttlebug embossing folder. I  inked the text with silver making the lowered text white. I got the brilliant idea of drawing little skates on the raindeer and silverembossing them to make them stand out. I also embossed the edges silver powder. It was a little difficult making the skates even because of the raised and lowered snowflakes, so it looks a little messy. But if I make it a bit neater I think this would be a great card to make a batch of and give away as a present.

Isn't he just adorable sliding around?

Happy weddingday Swedish crownprincess Victoria and Daniel!

Today at 3.30 pm the Swedish crownprincess Victoria married her Daniel Westling in Stockholm. I planned to go there to celebrate with thousand and thousands of people, but unfortunately due to my healthissues I had to stay at home :( I'm so disappointed and this will have to be the last thing I'm giving up. I've had it with missing out on life.

I'm trying to make the best of it and have been watching the whole ceremony on tv. Soon there will be the dinner with the weddingwaltz and weddingcake that I'm very curious about.

As a tribute to the newlyweds I made this card with this week's theme at pixiecottage that was "patriotic".

If you've seen any video of the couple you will see that they are so happy and inlove with eachother. Especially the princess - she's glowing llike I've never seen anyone. I'm wishing them a long life of hapiness together.

Hipp hipp hooray!!!!

Father's day

This week's theme at the pixie cottage was father's day and I was lucky enough to get some new stamps just in time for the challenge. One of them was this beautiful nest stamp that I matched with some new papers I'd bought recently.

I coloured the image with my promarkers and distressed it a bit with distress ink. I also distressed the edges of the outer card. The text is stamped with versamark and alphabet stamps and goldembossed. The butterflies are cut out from another patterned paper. Oh, and I added dimentional glaze on the eggs. I also spread out some goldembossing powder on the image to add specks and a more ged look.

Sweetpea sale and new designer

Don't miss the overstock SALE that is going on at sweetpea stamps for a limited time (I think it end sunday 13:th, but I'm not sure). Full sets are $14.50 and single stamps are only $3! There are a lot of the newer releases so something for everyone. Among others you can get serene night - the stamp I used for the card below.

 I also want to take the opportunity to let you know about a new fabulos designer that's on board for sweetpea stamps.Here's a sneak peak of her style:

Never ever shop at Treehouse stamps!

This is important. Please read for your own safety if you plan to shop over the net.

Now I'm not a person who bad-mouths, but this time I have to let you know what happened to me so the same thing won't happen to you.

The company this is about is called Treehouse stamps. They seem like a nice family owned company with babypictures and updates. They also have their own design team and a blog. Prices are great and the international shipping is only $6.50. Wow, right?

NOT!

I'm slightly embarresed to say that I have shopped there twice. The first time it took over a month before my items were even shipped. I thought that was just bad luck, maybe they forgot or my order got lost. With a newborn in the house I assumed these things could happen. I e-mailed several times asking if they had shipped my order yet and so on. I tried leaving comments on their blog thinking that maybe my e-mails didn't get to them. My comments never got published as they moderate them before posting. I almost gave up, but decided to leave one last comment on their blog. I wrote saying that I will post on my blog and every place possible warning people not to shop with them. Just a few hours later I recieved an automatic e-mail saying that my order has been shipped. No other messages, apologies, no nothing.

A few months passed and since I recieve their newsletter (which I can't unsubscribe from, might I add) I couldn't resist another sale they had. There were lots of whiff of joy stamps for about $4, but what really made me want to order was 6x6" Basic Grey pads for $3.25! I think I ordered every one they had, 11 different ones, 3 woj , 2 greeting farm and one imaginisce stamp.

I made the order at the end of march. After a couple of weeks I tried to contact them over and over again, through the blog, mail and everything possible (except actually calling as I didn't want to waste more money on them) I made sure to open a dispute with paypal before 45 days had gone. THEN all of a sudden I get a response from them saying that this was the first time they had gotten any messages from me. But the fact that I had placed an order and they hadn't shipped it totally slipped their mind? They also claimed the items were shipped already.

It took exactly one week for the items to get here, which is what it takes for US mail. This probably means that they saw the dispute and sent out my stuff and then claimed they "already sent it out". I asked when they had sent it, but they ignored me once again, just saying that they will add tracking information as soon as they can get their Stamps.com application to work. Apperantly it was currently offline. That never happened.  I was annoyed and thought it was over...until I got the package. The package consisted of 5 stamps - no paperpads as they were "out of stock" according to the ordernote.

How the hell can they claim they already sent out the package knowing it was incomplete?! Why not mention it? If I had known I would have to pay full shipping for 5 stamps I never would've ordered them. For that price I could've supported any of my fav shops that are slightly more expensive.

Still no apologies or anything just a note (still through paypal as this was the only place I could get in contact with them) saying: "I need to send you a refund, but this dispute has to be closed before I can do so. Some of the items were no longer available! Thank you! :)" NOW they tell me the items were no longer available. Yes, I kind of figured it out when I opened the package!

I just wanted to get it overwith, get my refund and never ever look at that place again, so I pressed the "close dispute" button. But as soon as I did that I regretted it, thinking why do they need it to be closed? Let them make the refund first, then I can close it. So I pressed the stop button, but evidently the info had gone already as I got a message from paypal saying it was closed. I tried to re-open it, but I couldn't do that because they said that I already had a case like that with that number and it was closed (why I can't re-open it again is beyond me. But according to paypal if you've closed it, you can't take it back, so learn from my mistake) I e-mailed paypal explaining the situation and asking them to help me. Their answer was that I should give them a call. I don't want to do that as it's not so cheap calling abroad and I really don't want to waste any more money on this stupid company.Last thing I did was leaving a comment on their blog saying that I won't be treated like crap and that I'm still waiting for my refund. You would think that they MAYBE could find my order, or note or mail or anything and refund it with an apology, but noooo. My comment didn't get publish. I wonder if anyone read it?

The money they should repay me is around $37+part of the shipping at least! I don't know how things work in the US, but in Sweden many companies look after their customers. Just last week I ordered some beads where the colour wasn't as described on a homepage and the owner offered to send me new ones in a different colour free of charge. I'm not saying that I need to get stuff for free, but this is actually my money that they have. Money I could've spent on two spellbinders, a bunch of stamps or a whole lot of fabrics or beads. Since I'm not working and have no steady income, this is important to me. I can't waste money here and there like it was nothing. Everything I buy I think through several times, try to shop at sales or where it's the cheapest and so on to make the most of it.

This saying "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" has never been more true. Now I really know the meaning of it.

And to top it off I can't unsubscirbe from their newsletter, so a couple of times a week I'm reminded and pissed off (pardon my language) every time I look through my mail.

So, please, please, please learn from me. During several years of internet shopping, this was the first that I've been tricked like this. I've even bought several times from e-bay without problem. I like shopping over the net and will continue doing so, just never, ever over at treehouse stamps. You shouldn't either if you want to support me and the way I've been treated. They seem to think thay can do anything they want because I'm abroad. When I get more strength I think I'll give them a call. Just out of principle. But it will have to wait as I'm still struggling with my health and this is at the bottom of my to-do list.

I'm also working on a blog where I will give tips on places to shop, links to tutorials and so on. I will  make a list where I have shopped and gotten great service. I'll also have places that are blacklisted and this will definately be on top! The blog is called crafter's guide and I have already put up some challenge links. I will put up everything that I can't fit on this blog, so it should be more extensive. You can go take a look and follow if you want, but as I said before, due to health issues I'm not on the net much and when I am I'm trying to fullfill my DT commitments.

If anyone has any suggestions to what I should do with this whole mess without it costing me, please let me know.

Pixie 3-D baby card

Don't think I've showed you this card - it was for a challange at the pixie cottage. The theme was 3D. I cut out several parts and used foam tape. You can see the hand, the head and the ribbon all stand out in different levels.

Thank you

to YOU, all my blogfriends. It means so much to me that you comment and think about me. I'm thinking about you too, trying to schedule posts and craft as much as I can. I'm behind on sending out candies, I'm sorry about that. It really has slipped down to the bottom of my "to do" list. I'm trying so hard to fulfill my designteam commitments. I actually made a project for sweetpea stamps that's going to knock your socks off.

I'm also planning to strt quilting. I got some amazing fabrics that I just can't stay away from. So hopefully I'll be more active. I'm aiming for at least one or two posts a week. Hopefully I'll be able to :)

Hugs and I'll see you around

Here's a sneak peak:

A little needle holder

It's interesting sometimes how people that are so crafty and can make anything still don't make anything for themselves.

I gave away my needleholder for Julia's 50:th birthday if you remember this red one and haven't had the energy to make an advanced like that. (And to be honest I can't find the pattern in all my mess) I noticed that I REALLY needed somthing fast as I had needles laying on the edge of my table with the wastebasket underneath (and I'm sure you can figure out know what smart idea that was!) So I whipped up a little one in felt.

I cut out little hearts with a cookie cutter heart and my cuttlebug. Then sewed on in the middle. I also attached flaps on the inside and a snap closing (or whatever you call it)

Tadaa! Took maybe an hour and it will give my needles a place to be before I sew another one. And who knows, when I have a new one I might give this one away :)