Madcap Manor

Evening, all! I hope you are all having a good weekend. The evenings are getting noticeably longer now, and Spring is on its way! Though on sunny days the sun shining through the windows shows me that they really need a good clean! Are you planning your holibobs yet? Because our new Challenge at My Time to Craft! is Travel. So that means boats, aeroplanes, cars, motorbikes - you get the idea. I have this very, very old wood-mounted stamp, I've had it for years. It's not the easiest to stamp, being big and also full of tiny details. I tried embossing in white and painting a wash of watercolour over it, and it just did not work. Then I tried Versafine Onyx Black, which is so good for fine detail, but it was too stark. Sepia Versafine was just dull. Finally I went for Mama Elephant's Stargazer pigment ink. Success! It was annoying that my previous ideas didn't work, but all that practice in stamping meant the final image came out really well!!! I added a

Mothering Sunday will be here soon, and my heart goes out to all of those whose mothers are no longer with us. Seeing all the cards in shop windows can be very painful. So I'm glad to say that our next Challenge at CRAFT Challenge is Mother's Day OR Female . I went with a generic card for a lady. The cute image is Watering Can Flowers and is a digi from Pickled Potpourri. I coloured and fussy-cut the flowers and added Wink of Stella on the petals and gold stickles in the centres, then fussy-cut the image. I used a circle die to cut out the watering can image and added the flowers on top using foam pads. The mat is cut with another spellbinders die from a snippet of purple card. The papers are from the Indie Chic series by Basic Grey, this is 'Saffron' and it seems to be out of print. I have so many older paper pads! The ribbon and the crystal dragonflies are from Hobbycraft, and the gold-embossed sentiment is from a stamp set by Penny Black called Gratitu

Hello, my dearios! Happy Monday! Our new challenge at Dream Valley is to use Metal on your creation. By the way, make sure you hop over to the Challenge blog, we have a new and very pretty background! Our sponsor for this challenge is Star Stampz - do go and have a look at the adorable digi images there! I used My Sweet Rose on my card, she is so cute! The papers are from the Saffron paper pad by Basic Grey, which seems to be out of print. That's one of the disadvantages of using up old papers, often they are no longer available. The flowers are various paper flowers from my stash, and they all have gold-coloured brads as centre-pieces. In the top right corner is a filigree metal embellishment that came from Whiff of Joy. The ribbon is from Hobbycraft and the rose on the knot is by Webster's Pages, it was a magazine freebie a long time ago. The ivy leaves are also from stash and very old! The doily behind the image is cut with a die by Apple Blossom dies f

Good morning! We have our regular Christmas theme at CRAFT Challenge. The cute image is Hootie Christmas Carol from Crafty Sentiments The paper was loose in my scraps drawer. The gold-embossed sentiment is from a very old Hero Arts Christmas sentiment. The stars in the corners are from Paperchase. Our lovely sponsor this week is Crafty Sentiments Thanks for looking! love Mags B x

Good morning! Happy Saturday, I hope you're having a great weekend! Our new Challenge at My Time to Craft! and the theme is Anything but a Card! You can create anything at all, in any medium, EXCEPT a card! I have some lovely small candles by Yankee Candles, which smell delicious! I also have the Spellbinders' Bracket edge square box which fits the candles exactly! The die is JUST small enough to go through a Cuttlebug, though I used my Grand Calibur. After cutting, you emboss to add the fold lines and simply glue the tabs together. There's a separate die for the base and the lid. It looks as though it's discontinued, so be quick if you want to get your mitts on one! I used paper from American Craft' 'Yes Please!' 12 x 12 pad which is double-sided. Sadly, those papers are now unavailable. The cardstock is nice and firm, but not too stiff to crease. I used another Spellbinders die, from an old motifs set, to make a little doily to go on t

My lovely pal Marlene (The Boss at Dream Valley ) is starting a new Christmas blog called The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. What a great name! There is a DT call, here are the details: As a DT member at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge your commitment would be to make a project every other week - though you can join in every week if you would like to. We take holiday breaks in the busy summer and Christmas periods so you don't need to worry about meeting tight deadlines at these times. I would like to have crafters of all styles and abilities on our team - so you do not need to be an experienced crafter or DT member as there is always someone around to help out on our DT blog on blogger where we can chat and keep up to date with our challenges, the most important thing is that you are reliable and join in with our team - so a blogger account is required The other requirement is that you comment every week on your allocated numbers - and it's always nice to vi

Good morning! Thursday means a new CRAFT Challenge and this week our theme is Recycling I have done quite a lot of recycling on my card! The fun image is Roosting Chicken by QKR Stampede. Poor love, she looks rather miserable! I admit, I tried to colour her TWICE in 'realistic' colours - browns and creams - but it didn't work. Then I suddenly realised that she was feeling 'blue' and the new colouring worked a treat! Of course this had to be a 'get well' card, and I hope it will cheer up the lady I will send it to! The abstract background is RECYCLED from the box that enclosed a very nice Rioja wine that we had for my hubby's birthday last Friday. It went very well with steak and mushrooms! The red ribbon is RECYCLED from a box of chox that we were given for Christmas, and the holographic blue hearts were die-cut from card RECYCLED from a gift bag. I hope that's enough recycling for the Challenge lol! Our lovely sponsors: Di's D

Hi, guys! We have a really original Challenge at Dream Valley this fortnight: Vintage with Music. That can mean adding music patterned paper to your vintage creation, or using a music-related image. Have a look at the inspiration from my lovely teamies to get an idea. Now, vintage and shabby chic are two genres I find are a definite challenge!! I spent a lot of time perusing Pinterest! I'm really pleased with this! It's not as elaborate as some of the wonderful cards I saw on Pinterest! The lovely image is from the Roses Collection by Digistamp Boutique. The papers are from my stash. I used a Sue Wilson die to cut the borders from ivory cardstock and distressed them with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The crochet lace is from stash, and there is a string of pearl trim from The Ribbon Girl down the middle. The 'Thank you' chipboard sentiment is by Scrapiniec also from The Ribbon Girl. We have two excellent sponsors: Digistamp Boutique Crafty Ribbon

Good morning! I hope you're all looking forward to a great weekend! While you're waiting, have a look at our new Challenge at CRAFT Challenge which is this lovely picture for you to take inspiration from: This goldfinch sitting on a thistle is so pretty! From the picture I took the colours red, yellow and brown; the thistle; and that a flock of goldfinches is called a 'charm'! The elegant image is Marseilles Chapeau by Rick St Dennis MFA - sadly she is out of print, but he has other similar, gorgeous images! I coloured her with Promarkers. I added Wink of Stella to the feathers in her chapeau, and pearl drops to her jewellery. The papers are snippets from my scraps drawer. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, and have been glittered. The kraft die-cuts are made with a Memory Box Chloe Stem. The ribbon and the bird charm are also from stash. The sentiment is from Altenew's Label Love. We have two fab sponsors this week: Crafty Ribbons Ri