Show me the light...

Hello again! It seems I am keeping my promise to blog more in 2012!

Just a quickish post today to show you my project from this month's issue of Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine. As you may or may not know, I was asked to join the design team as a regular contributor for 2012 and after much discussion we now bring you a "hopefully interesting and useful" colouring tutorial each month. SCP is one of my favourite craft mags as I find it caters for absolutely everyone and is informative as well as bringing lots of good quality freebies and news you want to know.
So this issue I am concentrating on Directional Light within colouring and this is something I know a lot of people do struggle with. There's a really great technique in there which will get you working out your light and where it should be easy peasy stylee so if it's something you want to be better at then make sure you get a copy as it's out now.
This is my project...

I have to say I forgot all about posting this until I saw a reminder from someone about it and now I've refound the piccies I love the way the light is really soft on this image...

The image and the papers are of course from the much coveted Pretty Sweet CD (yes, yes, we will be making them into stamps as soon as we physically have the time to do so!)...this CD is sooo usable, I just reach for it time and time again, the papers really are to die for on here I think...

The flower is made from lots of hearts, creased down the centre and shaped and glued to a big blob of Pinflair glue. Some Marianne's dies of course and a little fringey fringe and that's it. The image was coloured with Flexmarkers, love the softness of it.

Right, well I'll be back Sunday with a very special post! x

Polkadoodles Challenge Wk4 - Looove!

Hi everyone! I've managed to join in the PD challenge this week - very last minute.com as usual but better late than never hey! We are giving away a £10 voucher to the winner of this challenge so get yourself over there and enter as many times as you can!  So as Valentine's is coming up the theme this week is to show some looove and hearts. Now, it's my Momma's birthday today so a big up massivo Happy Birthday Mum! I was a naughty tinker and kinda forgot to make a special card so I had a root about in my little stashbox to see if I had one that nice enough that was befitting my lovely mother. Indeed I did! Phewee! But as I was rooting about I had a great idea - I pulled out a card I'd made a few weeks back for something or other and decided to deconstruct it masterchef stylee and make it into something different. Ok, so it's not rocket science, but it meant I could make a card for today in 15 mins when I probably would have ended up not entering the challenge. So, cue card...

Now you can see this way back before Crimbo somewhere on this here blog, but to change it was not quite so easy as you think because of how certain elements are glued down originally.
First thing I did was twist it on it's side, originally the ribbon crossover was along the bottom. Next I had to pull off a load of die-cuts which didn't now work. I cut a heart from some paper and then distressed it up with some Ranger Crackle paint and grunged it a little. I took some new die-cuts from the adorable Marianne's and added them so they're twisting around the heart. I just happened to pickup a pile of printed stuff from the Pretty Sweet CD (the large gingham is from Magical Winter) and the girl was in it so I quickly cut her out and her feet are hiding a glue patch and then the bright pink dotty bit is actually some fabric which I'd made up into a ribbon length thanks to my new "Seambinder" gadget I bought off C&C for myself for Christmas (I made OH pay for it). Cut out some quick letters by hand from some scrap white paper and added a bow and a couple of  buttons and that was it! Considering it was all a recyled card I quite like it! Why not give it a go? Root out those cards that are ok but you would change things if you could - and change them! It's quite therapeutic really, I was quite smug afterwards! x

Taking stock...

Sometimes you just have to reflect a little, it always does you good to take stock. I was asked to take part in something a while back and totally forgot all about it until today. If you're a woman in business and have never heard of  the FEA  then you should check it out - inspiring real stories from inspiring real women. Grab a coffee and a choccie biccie and go have a good read.