Rollercoaster week

Sorry I've been MIA. Last week was one heck of a week! First of all there was an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand! Did I ever tell you that my brother and his family live in Christchurch? No? Well, he does.
Luckily for him (and us) he wasn't at work on Tuesday because he was off sick with gastroenteritis. My brother's work place is in downtown Christchurch and the earthquake destroyed his building trapping some  co-workers until they could be rescued. Two of his team are still missing! On the morning of the quake he was at the doctors with my sister-in-law and I am soooo glad that he got sick (so are they!) Atfer the doctors they had decided to go into town to the library to return a book, but my brother forgot to take the book with him so they decided to go to a their local library and check out the books there. This is where they were when the quake hit at 12.50 instead of the downtown library which got seriously damaged. Someone up there was looking out for them (twice) and I am really grateful! Our hearts go out to all those who lost loved ones!

Sadly, we had bad news this week anyway. On Thursday evening we got a phone call informing us that my husband's brother-in-law had just died of heart failure while playing sports, at only 53 years of age leaving four children ages 23-10 years old. This was so unexpected and we are still in shock!
The funeral will take place on Wednesday. I cannot grasp the feelings that they all must be having. It makes me even more grateful for what I have!
I've used all my condolence cards so have to make some more. I wanted something simple yet elegant and I thought about the lovely HA flower stamp that I bought last year (and haven't yet used) and started inking it up and this is what I came up with. I have two more to make.

Card recipe:
Papers: DCWV / HOTP
Stamps. Hero Arts Stencil Flower CG194 / Everyday Sayings CL342
Inks: Memento Tuxedxo Black / Copics: YG03 G82
Punches: Fiskars Lace Border
Ribbon: Knorr prandell
Flat back pearl and doily from my stash

Thanks for listening to my ramblings and wish you all a lovely Monday. Hug your loved one because you never know what is around the corner!

Hugs to you all,
Becca

Impressions

"Another altered journal!, I hear you say.
Well I bought two last week and as you know, I made one for my daughter's birthday which meant I had this one left over. So I decided to dress it up and give it to a friend who is moving away next month. She can either use it as a journal or a notebook - whatever she needs most. This is a totally new colour combo for me - brown, green and purple - I wasn't so sure at the begining but I think it's growing on me! LOL! You've got to challenge yourself, right?
I never know what to do with the sides - you know, the black bit on the left that you can't cover. What do you do to hide it? Any ideas? I guess buy the right coloured notebook to match your papers, right?
As I've used so many different products on this project I'll just put all the info in the card recipe below.

Card recipe:
Stamp: Magnolia Jam Tilda - 09 Yummy Tummy Collection
Papers: Déjà Views Plum and Apple 8x8 tablet / BasicGrey LilyKate (green floral) / Bazzill
Die cuts: Nestabilities large circle and large scallop / Fiskars scallop / Martha Stewart Vintage Doily
Spellbinder Impressabilites: Flowers
Ribbon: Knorr prandell
Flower: Bazzill  / Leaves: Cricut Storybook
Inks: Copic markers (face and body) / Distress Inks (dress, hair and socks and all edges)
Ribbons on the side: Michaels
Gem: stash
Sentiment: From the 8x8 tablet Déjà Views

I'm entering this into the following challenges:
SimonSaysStamp: Bingo (Punch/Diecuts, Embossing, Ribbon)
Magnolia Stamp Lovers: Sentiment
Just Magnolia: Sketch by Donalda
7Kids College Fund: Challenge yourself  (colour combo of brown, purple and green.....very new for me)

I hope to spend more time in my craft room next week - one project a week is just not enough. I have tons of ideas running around in my head and not as much time as I would like to make them happen.

Wishing you all a lovely Sunday and hope you can all recharge your batteries.

Hugs all,
Becca

Altered journal

Hello!

Well it's my daughter's 20th birthday today and I just wanted to share with you what I made for her.
She mentioned that she needed a new journal so I decided to buy a basic one and jazz it up a bit. The colours I chose reflect the colours found in her bedroom - red and orange. I'm happy to inform that she loved it! Phew......
As you probably guessed by now, I love Basic Grey papers, especially the 6x6 paper pads. I do have other papers but I always seem to gravitate towards BG. For this project I used papers from the Blush and Sugared collections and have decided to enter this into the BasicGrey Challenges

 

 

 

 

Here's a picture of the birthday girl taken last summer:

 Isn't she a cutie!

Card recipe:

Papers: Basic Grey - blush & sugared

Stamp: Magnolia - Summer Tilda with bownot

Punches: Martha Stewart - Garden trellis & Vintage doily / Fiskars scallop

Flowers: Bazzill & Heidi Swapp

Die cuts: Nestabilities Labels #8

Inks: Tilda was coloured in with watercolour pencils / all edges distressed with walnut stain

Extras: Knorr prandell - Glitter glue 

Brad: Basi Grey cappella

Ribbons: Michaels

I hope you like my creation and thank you for stopping by!

Hugs,

Becca

Reindeer greetings

I can't believe how quickly Christmas is creeping up on me; I am sooo not prepared! I'll be busy the next few days with friends visiting from the US so that means even less time to make cards but I don't really care about that as I am so excited to see my friend and her daughter. You know when you meet people in your life and you just hit it off and then you don't see each other for years and when you do see each other again, you just carry on where you left off? Well that's how it is with Sherry - she's one of those "eternal" friends.

Anyway, on to my card. Christmas came early for me as the craft stuff I ordered came yesterday and I got to play with some of  my new Hero Arts stamps (plus Basic Grey paper pads, Magnolia and Lili of the Valley stamps, and some Nesties). Sherry is bringing the other stuff I ordered with her - so it'll be Christmas again tonight! :)
I've been dying to play with this reindeer when I saw it online and now it's mine! I think it's so classy.
I hope you like it.

Card supplies:
Card: Solid Box of Cards - DCWV (Chocolate Brown)
Design paper: Basic Grey Blush 
Paper: Bazzill Kraft 
Die cuts: Nestabilities Label #1, Classic scalloped cirlces large, Standard circles large
Ink: Distress Ink - barn door, antique linen, walnut stain / HA Shadow Ink - soft pool
Stamps: Fiskars Winter Wonderland (sentiment), Hero Arts Swirl Christmas (reindeer and snowflakes)
Ribbon: Knorr prandell
Rhinestones: Hero Arts


Have a lovely day!

Hugs,

Becca

Blue Christmas

I was blog-hopping (as one does) and saw a challenge on the 7 Kids College Fund blog  to make a Christmas card in non-traditional Christmas colours. This peaked my interest and away I went to look at my stash. I wanted to use my new Magnolia stamp - Tilda with gifts - and tried a few different colours before I came up with BLUE. I know blue is a winter colour but it's still not traditional as red and green.
So here she is:

Materials:
Stamp: Magnolia Tilda with gifts
Die cuts: Nestabilities Label #8 / Classic scallop circles large
Paper: Dovecraft 6x6 Winter Wonderland
Sentiment: Fiskars Winter Wonderland clear stamps
Ribbon: Knorr prandel sky blue
Inks and paints: Tilda - Copic markers / edges of card - walnut stain distress ink
Snowflake punch, paper doily and rhinestones

I think she is so cute. I'm so glad I bought this stamp, it's so versatile - wedding, birthday, Christmas - it goes for them all. I hope you enjoy my card and thanks for stopping by.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the US!

Hugs all,
Becca

p.s I am entering this into: 

Non-Traditional Christmas challenge  over at 7 Kids College Fund blog 
Let it snow! over at Simon Says Stamp challenge blog

Little princess

Believe it or not, I am a great-aunt! My first great niece was born when I was 33! Although I have to admit, I was an aunt when I was 7 (nearly 8) years old. This card was for great-neice #6, Amelia Jane who was born on halloween. Great-neice #5 Liliana Elizabeth was born four weeks earlier on October 2nd. I'll post her card next.

The background paper is digital and was made from the Hero Arts Polky Dot kit. The stripped paper is from Doodlebug and the silver glimmer cardstock is so old that I have no idea where I bought it! It was cut using the Fiskars Scallop Sentiment border punch. I used the Nestabilites large circles die and stamped the images (Hero Arts Adorable Baby Girl) onto white cardstock using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured them in with Distress Inks (spun sugar, victorian velvet).  All the images have glitter glue on them and the middle circle also have been spritzed with pearl Perfect Pearls.

Thanks for looking and have a lovely day.

Hugs, Becca

My birthday boy

I can hardly believe that my second child is 18 today! Where on earth did the time go? That's two of our four children who are now "adults", which I guess offically makes me old.....lol!
I wanted to make a fun card for Aaron and decided to use the cute stripped paper from Basic Grey's sugar rush collection with the cupcakes stamp from Hero Arts. I felt they went well together and Aaron was really happy with his card, especially what was inside of it -  5 driving lessons vouchers. Now that he is 18 he can learn to drive and driving lessons here in Switzerland cost an arm and a leg - approx. SFR 90-100 which with current exchange rates make $100 or £65 per hour. You usually need around 20 lessons before you are ready to take your test, so you can work out how much it costs to learn to drive! Thank goodness he is only 18 once and thank goodness he is earning so he can pay for the rest of the lessons himself! ;)

Anyway, here is the card I made for him. I'm afraid the photos are a little blurred but you get the idea.

Materials:
Background papers: Basic Grey Sugar Rush
Stamps: HA CG151 Happy Birthday Cupcakes
Distress Inks: shabby shutters, peeled paint. barn door, wild honey, broken china, walnut stain
Copic markers: YG03, R29
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Nestabilities: Standard circles large S4-114, Classic scalloped circles large S4-124, Labels #8 S5-019
Punch: Fiskars scallop sentiment
Ranger Glossy Accents
Dimension dots

Tonight he is going to watch the new Harry Potter movie with his best friend.......the rest of us are jealous!

I wish you all a lovely weekend and want to say thanks for stopping by.

Hugs,
Becca

Sarah Kay Birthday

The kids went back to school on Monday and life is returning (once again) to some kind of normality. I found a few spare hours this morning and made this birthday card. I've been itching to make some cards for weeks and just never found the time but now....
For the card I used Basic Grey's Lily Kate for the background papers and Bazzill for the cardstock.The sentiment is from Hero Arts "Hearftfelt Messages" stamp set. The image was coloured in with distress inks and the frames cut using some Nestabilities on my Cuttlebug. The punch is a Fiskars Lace Border punch and the flowers were punched and then layered on top of one another.

  

 It's good to be crafting again! :)

Hugs all,

Becca

p.s I'm entering this in this weeks Simon Says Challege "PUNCH EM"

Home again!

My family and I are back home again after our 3 1/2 week trip to England and Wales. We had a great time visiting family and being tourists for a while. We packed a lot into our trip and felt a little like gypsies - on the road every three days - and are glad to be able to unpack our things again and put them in closets. While I was away I got to play with a few things that my sister and neice brought over from the US for me - 6x6 paper pads from Basic Grey and 8 packs of Nesties to go with my new Cuttlebug. I also bought 6 new Distress Inks. I wanted to make a card for my neice's 20th birthday and came up with this using my new Sugar Rush pad from Basic Grey:

To be honest with you I can't even name the butterfly punches or ribbon I used as they were my sisters. But I do know that the border punch is Fiskar's Lace punch as I have the same one :) The sentiment is from Melissa Frances Simply Said stamp set and has been stamped onto paper cut out with a Nestabilities Classic Ovals Large die and placed onto the grey paper that has been cut with a Classic Scallopped Oval Large die.

It's good to be home as I can now play with all my new goodies :)

Hugs,
Becca

Digital papers

I thought it was time to go through some of the digikits that were on my hard drive that I'd downloaded for free from twopeasinabucket.com and make a card with one of the kits. I decided to use the papers from boho chic by Brandy Buffington and went to "play". I especially like the softness of the background paper that I used, it almost looks washed out. Enjoy!

Click here to go to the free kit:

Supplies:    

Boho Chic by Brandy Buffington

Copic markers

Ranger Distress Inks 

Papermania Sentiments stamps

Sarah Kay "Gardens need many helpers"

Fiskars Sentiment Scallop punch

Flowers from Folia

Ribbon from local craft store

Dimensional foam

That's all my craftiness for this week. The weekend is busy with graduations so I hope you have a lovely weekend and I'll see you next week.

Thanks for visiting with me.

Hugs,
Rebecca

My friend

This is a bit blurred, sorry! I usually take a photo of my cards but decided to try scanning, which I won't be trying again! ;)
I wanted to try a card that didn't have an image on it. I wanted to let my friend know that I really appreciate our friendship and that she means a lot to me and I wanted to do it in a non girly-girly way. I hope I succeeded!

I used K&Company Classic K McKenna papers and used the threading water Fiskars punch on the darker one. I white embossed using the Hero Arts Brocade stamp and coloured in using shabby shutter distress ink. The heart is from Heidi Swapp and was stamped with warm red ColorBox chalk ink. The sentiment is from Hero Arts "Anytime Messages" stamp set and the ribbon was from my stash.

I'm going to enter this in the Simon Says Stamp "You gotta have friends" challenge. (yes, I know, I seem to have been bitten by the "challenge" bug! :) )

Oh before I forget, I wanted to mention that Jessica Sprague is giving a free online class which you can find here:

Thanks for looking.

Hugs,
Becca

Color Inspiration #4

I had so much fun doing Kristina Werner's previous colour challenge, I thought I'd have another go!

These colours were a lot harder for me but I managed none the less :)

I had to dig deep into my stash to find papers that would match the colours but finally found some HOTP background papers from their Artsy Collage pad that fit! The Sarah Kay "Spring is Back" image was coloured in with copic marker and distress ink, and layered on white and pale blue Bazzill papers. The frame was cut out with the Cricut Storybook cartridge and the flowers from Hero Arts were coloured in with copic markers. The sentiment is from Melissa Frances "Simply Said" stamp set, and the bottom paper has been punched with the Fiskars Lace Border punch.

Phew!

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy my card.

Hugs,
Becca

Hello

Every month Kristina Werner gives a class over at twopeasinabucket.com called "A Year In Cards" and I really enjoy watching her tutorials. This month's theme was "Hello" cards, so I decided to have a go at making a hello card using colours that I wouldn't usually use. 

The cardstock is Bazzill Basics and the blue background card has been embossed with the Divine Swirl embossing folder. I used my last piece from the HOTP Vintage papers (shame they don't make it anymore) and used the colours in it to make the rest of the card. The alphabet stickers are from Basic Grey Blush collection and the red card has been punched with a Fiskars Sentiment Scallop punch. The green ribbon was from my stash.

So this is me saying "hello" to you!

Have a lovely day.

Hugs,
Becca

Sweetness without the calories!

Everyday I'm using something new from my haul from Simon Says Stamps and today I'm using the "Happy Birthday Cupcakes" stamp from Hero Arts. I didn't know whether I should buy the large cupcake stamp or the two smaller ones but decided to get the smaller ones as the pack also included a cute sentiment stamp .

The background paper is from the pack that I've been using the most this week - Déjà Views "Fresh Print Apple". Once I'd stamped and coloured in the cupcake with Copic markers, I decided I wanted to use a paper from the Basic Grey Blush collection (the one with the flowers) but realised quickly that I didn't have anything that coordinated with it. What to do? After about 5 minutes I decided to create something myself. I ran a piece of white cardstock through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots embossing folder and then used Distress Inks victorian velvet and tea dye to get the colours and look I wanted.
The scalloped square was cut using the Cricut Storybook cartridge and the sentiment is from Papermania's "Sentiments" Clear Stamps set . Both have been distress inked with victorian velvet .
The top of the cupcake and the sentiment have both been given some dimension with pop dots.

I hope you enjoy and thanks for looking!

Hugs,
Becca

p.s tomorrow I'm going to try and do something with this

Colour combo alternatives

Today I made three cards using the colour combo from Kristina Werner's Color Inspiration and Jordan decided which of the three I should enter. I think he chose well. Here are the other two I created:

The papers are from Déjà Views Fresh Print Apple collection, the butterflies are from Hero Arts and are coloured in with copic markers. The bee stickers are from Penny Black, the ribbon from Offray and the pearls from Artoz.

The background paper is from DCWV "The Old World Stack" and the bottom papers are from Basic Grey Lily Kate collection and have been punched with a Fiskars scallop punch. The buttons are from Doodlebug Design and the ribbon is from Michaels. The stamp is from Hero Arts  "Little girl with heart" and has been coloured in with Copic markers and chalk ink and distressed with Distress Inks from Ranger. The butterfly is also from Hero Arts.

I still haven't figured out to colour hair properly - I think I'll have to go and look at a tutorial on youtube! :)

Thanks for looking and leave a comment if you like.

Hugs,
Becca

Spring time

The weather here has finally decided to play nice and it motivated me to make this sweet Sarah Kay card in lovely spring colours. I hope this means the nice weather is here to stay!

I coloured her in with watercolours and distressed all the edges with distress inks. I mounted her onto a frame from the Storybook cricut cartridge (still waiting for my Nesties to arrive) and put glitter glue around the edges and then placed her on pink background paper embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder.The scalloped edge was cut using a Fiskars punch.The papers are from K&Co Classic K McKenna and  Basic Grey Lily Kate, and the flowers are from Rayher.

Thanks for looking.

Hugs,
Becca