Creative Inspirations number 58

This image is just wonderful. I was sent some digital images from The Stamping Boutique to work with for the Creative Inspirations challenge and this one really stood out to me. She just looks so naughty. She's called Emo Princess Penelope and her frog and I'm sure I'll use her alot more.

I coloured her with watercolour pencils and layered her onto a background of text page coloured with distress inks. A bit of stitching in black of course and she's perfect. Love her.

The prizes for this challenge have been supplied by The Stamping Boutique and Letraset.

 

Easter birdie house



I do love Easter, more than Christmas I think - it's probably all that chocolate!! 

Anyway, with the great weather and dinner with friends, it promises to be a wonderful weekend.

This Easter weekend the My Stamp Box blog has a showcase of Easter projects all with a pastel theme to them. I have to admit that pastels are not usually my thing, being a colourful gal, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised at how un-baby-like this colour pallet can look. 

For my project I decided to make this little birdhouse using a template by Papertreyink. I printed it out onto watercolour paper so I could paint it with watercolour paints, then stamped using the Border Lines stamp set from My Stamp Box. A bit of doodling and some choccy eggs and it was good to go.

On the MSB web site there are lots of wonderful DT projects to see all from very talented ladies.

A card for Sarah Hurley.

The sun is shining still and I've been a busy bee painting out in the garden this week.  At least I could wear my shorts and get some colour on my lily white legs before I let them loose on the public at large! This Easter weekend I might even put some seeds in the garden as last weekend I dug through some good old horse manure - lovely.
Back inside it's time for another challenge on Sarah Hurley's blog and this time Camilla has set the challenge by creating a sketch to follow. I'm not normally a sketch type of girl but I thought I'd give this one a go and turned it into a card layout instead. I used the cute daisy paper from Sarah Hurley as it feels really fresh and spring-like.

You can find the sketch on the challenge blog and entries from the other members of the DT.

Catching up with journal pages.

My art journals have been sadly neglected over the past few months and as today I had some free time to create, I did a couple of pages.  The top one is a prompt set by Lena to use 'food' as inspiration.  As all I seem to think about at the moment is cake (and Laura's 2 minute microwave cake at that) I used this as my starting point. The cake image is a download from Sarah Hurley and printed out onto patterned paper saves all that time colouring and means I can get on with more important things like typing the recipe on my typewriter.
The bottom page was a prompt chosen by me entitled 'Spring has Sprung' and of course that means lots of colour and my favourite green.

Altered book

The spring projects are a flowin'.

The next workshop for the Mosaik Scrappers in May will be an altered book and this is the one I'll be using to demonstrate how it's done.

I wasn't sure how I was going to end up decorating it but I found the little eggs in the local supermarket and after giving them a little spritz with some black paint the rest of the page sort of evolved around them.

I'm going to enter this for the Wednesday Stampers prompt this week which is Rabbits and Eggs chosen by Linda even though I've only used two tiny stamps on it which are the music notes.

 

Easter egg cozies.

I've just spent two whole days frustrated beyond belief as my USB ports on my computer stopped working. I've been working with some photo's for a commission book project in photoshop using my finger on the little touch pad and it's been driving me crazy!!  Every time I touched in the wrong place it either deleted something or moved my photo about - I took twice as long to do anything even simple things like crop took an age - aaahhh THEN to rub salt into the wound, hubby comes to take a look and plugs the mouse back in only for the d...n thing to work again!!!!  I needed a cup of tea after that.

Anyway with mouse funcion fully restored here I am posting my Easter project for the new challenge at Creative Inspirations - anything Easter by Cheryl.

These little egg cozies are made from toilet roll tubes and were part of the workshop my friend Lena and I gave last weekend to the ladies at the Mosaik Scrappers in Keispelt.  

The sponsors for this challenge are

 



Countdown to Easter

Now school is out for Easter I can think about the projects I have planned for the next two weeks. Not all of them craft based I have to add - a bit of painting and gardening here and there but certainly one or two cards and some decorations.

This is the first card for Easter made to fit the theme on Sarah Hurley's challenge blog. The whimsical feel was built around one of her background papers, bunting made from scraps and a cute edge punch from Martha Stewart (I love these).

  





Faux batik background.

The sun is shining and the sky is blue - spring has sprung - woo hoo!!

My blogging has become a little thin lately due to the workload I have on here but I have projects lined up to be blogged about on my desk so expect some rather colourful pictures to come.

Today it's my turn to post a tutorial on the My Stamp Box web site and I've chosen one of my favourite techniques which is faux batik.  It is so clever and leaves people not in the know how on earth you did it. 

For the full tutorial you'll have to go to the MSB web site but I'm showing the card and tags here.  I made about 12 tags in all for a swap on the Mini Books web site and I think the recipients were fairly impressed.

Anyway have a good day, and I'm going to try and squeeze some garden time in today somewhere.

  

My Stamp Box New DT welcome blog hop.

It's a WELCOME BLOG HOP today at myStampBOX, and we are thrilled to introduce our new designers to you. If you stumbled upon our blog hop today, be sure to start back at the myStampBOX blog  so you don’t miss any of the action!

Come visit all of our returning design members' blogs, and you will be introduced to our new team members one by one. Make sure to leave a comment on each participating blog and a final comment once you return to our home page. Leave your comments by 6 PM EST on Sunday April 3rd for a chance to win free stamps. On the way enjoy our welcoming cards made with our fun myStampBOX stamps.

But first we would like to thank all the wonderful and talented designers that are leaving our team. A BIG thank you goes out to:

Stephanie Ackerman
Maryfrances Fabbri
Cari Locken
Eva Pizzaro
Kristen Swain
Melissa Wright

Thank you for your hard work over the last 6 months. You’ll always be a part of the myStampBOX family. Best wishes from all of us in your next crafty adventures!

Now… let’s find out more about who will be joining the myStampBOX design team. Follow the blog hop and visit each of our returning designer blogs. Each team member will be introducing a new member of our team. At each stop, please leave a comment. When the blog hop is complete, return to the myStampBOX blog and leave one final comment to have a chance to win a myStampBOX stamp set of your very own!


mSB Blog
Agata Pfister
Jaine Drake  - Thats me!
Jill Hildebrand
Jolene Johnston 
Allison Cope (coordinator)

We hope you enjoy our little welcoming blog hop! Don’t forget to leave a comment on each one of the design team blogs and the mSB blog for your chance to win!

Here's a little card just to say Hello.

Good luck and happy hopping!

Now I'd like to introduce you to a very talented lady who will be joining our team and that's Sue Sykes.

Sue Sykes has been behind a camera for more than 25 years, working professionally since 1998, providing unique wedding, portrait and candid photographs for clients.

While she began the hobby of scrapbooking in 2000, as a complement to her photography career, it soon became a rival passion! She began stamping in 2002 and has been hooked from the moment she picked up a heat gun! She has been published in Memory Makers, Scrapbook Trends and Canadian Scrapbooker magazines, including a cover layout.

Sue has been a member of the Canadian Scrapbooker team since its’ inception and also currently designs for WeScrap (www.wescrap.com) and Sketchabilities (www.sketchabilities.blogspot.com) She is excited to be a part of the talented myStamp Box team and is looking forward to working with everyone!

Sue lives in Southwestern Ontario with her best friend and husband of 13 years, Gary, and their eleven year old son, Connor, and 6 year old daughter, Aili (rhymes with Riley!). When she finds a rare moment to herself, Sue likes to take photos, scrapbook and read!

Now…. Check out our next new design team member and a fun card at Jill Hildebrands blog http://www.fromthefarm-jill.blogspot.com/