Thursday 15 June 2017

It's Holiday Time

Good afternoon crafty friends and hope this post finds you well!

We're now breathing a huge sigh of relief here at Casa Mia as eldest Bambino finished all of her 'A' level exams this afternoon ... it's a long wait now until results day in August to see if she attains enough UCAS points to accept her place at her chosen university. Please keep everything crossed for her! Between us, we've frantically been making cards for her 5 subject lecturers and also her 1 support lecturer.






It's new challenge day at All Dressed Up and, as usual, our theme is Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image Wendy has plenty of gorgeous images available in the All Dressed Up Etsy Store. Haven't got any All Dressed Up images? Wendy has very generously provided some freebies here - please send your friends over to ADU for the freebies though, to make sure they're available for other crafters to share!




With the summer holidays in mind, here's my inspiration for you:



Eldest chose this image for her Travel and Tourism lecturer, which I think is exceedingly appropriate πŸ˜€and I wanted to go for a vintage style - I'm thinking of an aged photograph here of a beauty enjoying the French Riviera, or maybe even Monaco ... what do you think?


My card recipe is as follows:
  • Card base - is a premade A5 card in white
  • Design Paper - is by Debbie at The Crafty Pad and is in the Chocolate Chip and Cream Delight Paper Pack
  • Photo Frame - is by Marisa at Pixel Scrapper and it's called Polaroid Frame - Grunge. This is a .png file which meant I could superimpose it over my image which makes my design look like it's a photo in a frame!
  • Image - is by Wendy at All Dressed Up. This beauty is called Sea View and she was one of last month's New Release images. I have used a Sepia Technique Class by Alyce at Kit and Clowder and I used my Spectrum Noir Pens in just 5 colours (TN1, TN2, TN4, TN7 and TN9) to bring this scene to life. 
  • Sentiment - is a magazine freebie, which I have stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black Ink before die cutting the sentiment using one of the label dies in my Die'sire Essentials - Just the Ticket set

I hope that I have inspired you to come over to All Dressed Up and play along with us this month. However, if you're in need of any further inspiration please do head over to the Challenge Blog and check out the other gorgeous creations by my oh-so-talented teamies and Katrina, who is our Guest Designer this month. YOU could be our Guest Designer in July - just enter our Anything Goes with an All Dressed Up Image challenge this month, and be sure to enter the initials GDT after your name! The closing date for this challenge is 14th July 2017.


Don't forget that the Facebook Dressies have their own challenge running until 30th June 2017 and the theme this month is Monochromatic. You can enter one project into both challenges for more chances to win some of Wendy's gorgeous images!


If I've inspired you to have a go at colouring in sepia tones but you don't know where to start, I can highly recommend the classes at Kit and Clowder ... although I think I need waaaay more practice 😁. If you decide to sign up to any of Alyce's classes, please be sure to mention my name and let her know that I sent you over - thank you πŸ˜‰!


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

That's it from me for today - whatever you're doing for the rest of the week, have fun!

Hugs, Helen x

Thursday 1 June 2017

A Cupcake for you

Good morning crafty friends and welcome to a new month - eeek! Here at Casa Mia we're in the middle of our half term holidays, a "staycation" as eldest bambino is continuing to revise hard for her "A" level exams in the next couple of weeks. 


It being the first of the month, it's new challenge time over at Feeling Sketchy and our blog has evolved a bit, due to personnel changes. Andreja has taken over as DT Co-ordinator and, for the moment, we may not always have a sponsor for our challenge. Never fear though, my teamies and I love visiting your blogs and commenting on your creations, and we will be awarding our 3 Top Picks for each challenge as chosen by the DT. So I do hope that you will continue to come over and play along with our sketches.


Talking of sketches (😁) here's the sketch for this challenge as designed by Jen:


And here's my take on it:


As you can see, I've kept the panel in the same orientation, but have extended the card base upwards.


My card recipe is as follows:
  • Card base - is a pre-made A5 card base in white
  • Design Paper - is from a Crafter's Companion Club Inspire Download from July 2009 called Sunflowers and Sunshine. I did my usual and coloured the image before choosing the papers (😜!) but fortunately for me, this sunshine-y yellow gridded paper fits the bill quite nicely!
  • Image - is Daisy CupCake (available from here) by Fred She Said Designs. They very kindly sponsored an earlier Feeling Sketchy Challenge and I wasn't able to share this image then - so I thought this luscious cupcake should still have an outing and decided to use it on this card. I have brought it to life using my Spectrum Noir System Markers in the listed colours (using a bonus technique class from Alyce at Kit and Clowder) before die cutting it using my largest Sizzix Framelits Ovals die
    • Daisy - IG1, IG2, IG3, GB1, GB5
    • Cake - TN3, TN7
    • Icing - GB1, GB5, GB7
    • Cupcake case and leaves - CG3, LG5, CG4, Spectrum Noir Pencil 001 (Original Issue in Essentials Tin)
  • Border - I think is from Hobbycraft in a mixed pack of cling stamps, which I stamped using Scattered Straw Distress Ink
  • Sentiment - is from my favourite stamp set, Swirly String Sentiments (now only available as a digi) by Lili of the Valley again stamped in Scattered Straw Distress Ink.
  • Pearls - from my stash

I hope I have inspired you to come over to Feeling Sketchy and join in with this fab sketch, but if you're in need of further inspiration please head over there to check out the gorgeous creations by my talented teamies. Then come back and show us your take on our sketch - don't forget you can flip it, change the shapes ... we just need to see that you've been inspired by our sketch! We'll be back with our next challenge on 15th June 2017.


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges (with a little help from the girls at Paper Playful):


Hope you have a great day.

Hugs, Helen x