Madcap Manor

Afternoon, all! I apologise that I'm a day late with my post for The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge. I had a rather long dental appointment yesterday, and when I got home I spent some time sleeping off the anaesthetic, and, I'm sorry to say, forgot my post! However, here is my card! One of my New Year's Resolutions is to go back into my stash and use older items as well as snippets of papers. Here is the result: The elaborate Merry Christmas die, from Sara Davies' Signature Collection for Crafter's Companion, was a magazine freebie and unfortunately is not available on the CC website. I used a snippet of gold card to cut it out and glued it onto a snippet of white pearlised card. The background paper is also from the snippets drawer. I added Nuvo Drops in red and white to give some festive bling. Do join in our Challenge, it's such a great feeling to see a pile of Christmas cards mount up, knowing you won't have a mad rush to get them all done in ...

Hello, my dearios! We have a lovely Challenge for you at My Time to Craft which is Inspired by Disney. That is INSPIRED BY... since Disney's images are all copyright, of course, and they come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who uses their images without permission. So you could be inspired to use Mermaids, or Princesses, or a Chinese theme, or pick a fairy tale and put your own spin on it - just don't use any actual Disney images! And let us know what inspired you, too! I have a beautiful digi from Sassy Studios (which sadly no longer seems to be trading) called Snow Queen Portrait, which reminds me of 'Frozen.' For my winter birthday card, which is 5" x 7" for a change, I used shades of blue and white. The papers are from my stash, and long out of print. I layered them on blue and silver mats. I added White Blizzard Nuvo Drops to the centres of the snowflakes, and also to the Queen's hair, but they don't really show in the photo. The s...

Yes, it's already time for the second Challenge of 2020 at Dream Valley! Our new theme is Spots and/or Dots and our sponsor is the fabulous Crafty Sentiments. I have made a birthday card for a little boy, using the adorable Gaffi. Well, he's a giraffe, so definitely has spots! The papers are from an old Echo Park pad called 'Petticoats and Pinstripes' which is sadly out of print. The gold-embossed sentiment is from Lawn Fawn's Scripty Sayings. I added Nuvo Drops to embellish, not sequins, because the little boy this is intended for would probably pick off sequins and try to eat them!! Go and see my teamies' lovely work, and check out our sponsor's gorgeous images! Thanks for looking, and have a great week! love Mags B x

It's never too soon to make Christmas cards! And to prove it we have our first challenge for 2020 at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge where as usual it's Anything Christmas Goes. I used the Radiant Ornament Layering Die Set from Birch Press Designs for my focal point. I used up snippets of coloured card stock and made the middle layer and the hanger from silver mirri card. I made 24 to this design in 'assembly line' fashion, while watching tv. It was very relaxing. The sentiment was an old one from Penny Black, I like how it's laid out to resemble a Christmas Tree, and I used co-ordinating ink to match the coloured card. Pop over to the challenge blog to see my teamies' gorgeous Christmas creations! Thanks for looking, and have a great week! love Mags B x

Hello! Happy Friday! Christmas now seems a long time ago, doesn't it? However we have a new Challenge at My Time to Craft which will bring back some of the excitement of Christmas Day - New Stash! It's a chance to show off any lovely new inks, stamps, dies, paints etc that you received. My lovely daughter bought me the gorgeous Peony stamp and die set by Reverse Confetti. Instead of colouring the images I stamped them onto snippets of patterned paper and added a little shading with my Prismacolor pencils. The background has been dry embossed with an old Spellbinders folder, it scarcely shows in the photo but irl it adds a subtle background. The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn's Simply Sentiments stamp set. I added shimmer with a Spectrum Noir pan and finished with dots of various Nuvo Drops. After several days of cleaning and tidying it was great to get back into ye olde crafte hovel to create! Thanks for looking, and have a great weekend! love Mags B x

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Ours was much busier than expected, I got a message from my Dear Daughter on December 20th: DD: Mum, can the three of us come and stay with you for Christmas? Me: Yes, of course! DD: That's good, I've already booked our flight from Dublin on Sunday! So we did a lot of unexpected food and presents shopping and had a good time with the Grandson and his parents. Now all is returning to normal, and we are bringing you the first Dream Valley challenge of 2020. The theme is Anything New. Our sponsor is the wonderful Bugaboo Stamps. I have used their delightful AKV House image, I love its quirky look! The striped paper is from American Crafts Dear Lizzy Stay Colorful pad, and I matched the Copics I used to the paper. The sentiment is an old one from LOTV. I also used some Plum Pudding Nuvo Crystal Drops in the bottom corner. Do join in with the Challenge - it can be anything New: New Job, New Baby, New Home ...