A Birthday card for a very special friend which is also my last DT project for Snazzy's

 Hello and welcome lovely visitors,

As I was fresh from the fabulous weekend of Anna Dabrowska workshop at Snazzy's so had a head full of 'Finn' style techniques, I wanted to make a birthday card for Elaine who spent part of that weekend with me, that included at least a nod towards Anna's style.  I also wanted to make a 2nd project for my final week on the Snazzy's DT so decided to combine the two.  So, instead of my usual sneak peek of a DT project I am going to show more photographs on here but if you want a bit more detail on the how to, please hop over to the Snazzy's DT blog.

Whilst I really liked the chalk effect designs on one side of the papers, most of them cried out for scrapbooking but the reverse sides are the ones I really fell in love with so these are what I used for both my DT projects this month and they were perfect for Elaine's card.  There was also a perfect sentiment on one of the stickers so it just had to be, lol!

I chose to co-ordinate all the embellishments rather than alter the colours with sprays as you usually see in Anna's beautiful work but I did want the dimension.

I loved playing with all these bits and pieces but I still can't stop 'over thinking' as Anna puts it, lol!  It takes me an age of moving things around until the balance pleases my eye ;D!

Until next time.............

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

PaperArtsy Blog Challenge - Joanne Wardle Inspiration (2)

Morning again,

Wow, this has to be a first for me, two posts within an hour, lol!

This is my second card taking inspiration from Joanne over on the PaperArtsy blog.  Once again I have shamelessly copied Joanne, even keeping the same name on the card because it is my son's name and he would have loved a card like this when in his teens.  Come to think of it he'd probably still like it, lol!  Anyway, you can get all the how to details from Joanne's post on the PA blog and also, once again, I have had to use stamps from my own stash. 

and a little close up

That's it for today folks.  I might manage to have a go at Joanne's bonus project from yesterday's post this evening but if not I'll try at the weekend.  I have got a post scheduled for Thursday with my final Snazzy's DT project but in actual fact I will be up in Harrogate from tomorrow night childminding this cheeky little chap for a couple of days.

 

my 20 month old grandson, Charlie!

Isn't he adorable but I have a feeling I will be somewhat lacking in energy when I come home Friday evening, lol!

Have a good day everyone and see you again soon.

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

PaperArtsy Challenge - Joanne Wardle Inspiration

Morning All,

This week over on the fab PaperArtsy Blog, Joanne Wardle is inspiring us with her well known clean and simple style of crafting.  I love this style but often find it very difficult to pull off successfully as it means your stamping, positioning, etc., has to be spot on so something that looks deceptively easy to do isn't at all.

Now unfortunately for me, Joanne has been showcasing PaperArtsy's smashing Halloween stamps of which I don't have a single one which is a pity because I absolutely love their selection.  Having looked at them carefully now I think I might have indulge in a couple of sets.  They're bound to come in handy for my grandchildren's future parties ;D!  For now I've had to improvise with stamps from my stash.

Anyway, this is my card taking inspiration from Joanne's first project this week.

and a close up so hopefully you can see the sparkle around the gravestone and bird

I'm off to link up to the PaperArtsy blog and I'll be back with my second card very shortly.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Snazzy's DT project #1 for September

Good Morning lovely visitors.  I hope this is the start of a good week for you all.

Today starts the final week of my creations for the wonderful Snazzy's DT as I've reluctantly decided to step down from the Design Team.  It's a decision I've been wrestling with for a few months now as family commitments have eaten into my crafting time more and more.  As many of my blogging friends know my  Mum is suffering from Alzheimers and is gradually needing more and more of my attention and for some strange reason my OH would like us to spend more time together now he has retired, lol!  However, the main reason is I have a craftroom full of gorgeous stash and no time to actually 'play' so I have decided my crafting time now is going to be for me to ink up some of those many unused stamps and alter some of those still bare alterables (of which I have loads, lol)!

I shall miss the wonderful Snazzy's crew to some extent but with the wonders of the internet and social networks like Twitter and Facebook not to mention blogs, I am sure we will keep tabs on one another, ;D.

Anyway, here is a peak at my penultimate Snazzy's project and if you would like to see the whole, please hop across to the Snazzy's DT blog.

I'll be back on Thursday with my final design for the DT and hope you can stop by again then.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

I'm Feeling a Little Bit Blue ........

........ not really!

Good Morning lovely visitors and thanks for dropping by.

Just a nod to the weather ..... I hope if you're here in Blighty you are not  being battered too badly by gales and lashing rain.  Here in Notts it is grey and windy but not much rain so far.  It's not looking promising though :-(!

Anyway, something strange happened in my craftroom last night ............ I made something for a challenge, lol!  I think this will be only my 4th ever challenge entry, whoohoo!!!  I was rummaging through my stamp collections yesterday and came across an Indigo Blu set called Music Hall that had not seen a smidge of ink since I bought them and I remembered that the current Dragon's Dream Tag It On Challenge theme is blue, music and tissue/tissue tape so I decided to have a go.

I used Distress Stains to start off my background and then moved on to Distress Inks through several stencils/masks followed by stamping with Archival and Distress Inks, all of it in various shades of blue.   I stamped the main image onto white card, cut it out with a die and then blended Adirondack and Distress Inks over the poster image to create a spotlight effect and added the pearl drop and charm before attaching it to my tag with 3D pads.  Of course, there is some Tissue Tape on there, albeit reluctantly 'cos I don't get on with that stuff at all well. ...... takes me ages to get the darned stuff to realise it is not going to be allowed to peel off of it'ts own accord! 

I stamped the quote from the same stamp set, cut each word out separately and added them to the tag before finally adding the ribbons.

Tomorrow I'll be back with my first project of the week for Snazzy's DT so hope you can drop by again.  Till then ................

Hugs
Lesley   Xx

My Finnabair weekend Canvas

Good Morning All and welcome.

Today I'm going to show you the canvas I created at the Finnabair weekend at Snazzy's in Swindon.  As I said in my last post this was the project I found hardest to do and I'm still not totally happy with it but I think that's mainly to do with the pink colour I used in the bottom left corner ........... it's still  too pink, lol!  I'm not sure what possessed me really as that particular shade of pink is about my least favourite colour but there you go, sometimes it's good to try something out of your usual sphere.

The photo I used is of my beautiful daughter Jenna, and I just love the cheeky look in her eyes!  Again, in fairness to Anna I'm not giving any 'how to' instructions, just a few photos.

This next one shows the amount of dimension in those embellishments.

Hope you like!

See you again soon.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx

Doing Finnabair stylee ........... moi? .............can't be!

Hi Everyone and thanks for dropping by today.

This time last week I was coming to the end of my first day of workshops with a fabulous young lady, Anna Dabrowska (a.k.a Finnabair), hosted by Snazzy's in Swindon.

Here's Anna at the start of our weekend.

Oooh, what a fantastic weekend it was!  Firstly, as I mentioned in my previous post I got to spend some precious time with a special friend, Elaine, who I hadn't seen for over a year and I also got to meet my Snazzy's DT buddies Astrid and Nicky/Minxy for the first time as well as our lovely DT co-ordinator Gillian, who I've met at shows a few times before.  It was so nice to spend time with them in a social atmosphere after the classes too.  I also met, face to face, several lovely ladies I 'speak' to regularly in the crafty blogging world plus some new ones too.  How easily the lovely ripples of friendship spread in this creative craft filled world especially with the help of the internet enabling us all to keep in touch.

Today I'm going to show you my first effort, Anna style!  I honestly never thought I'd be able to achieve something anywhere near resembling Anna's gorgeous work and obviously, it's nowhere near her standard (she has a fabulous talent on her side, lol) but for a first attempt I am amazed.  It's all down to Anna's skills as a teacher as well as an artist though and in fairness to her I am not going to give any details on how it was done.  The best thing is to go to one of her workshops and I enjoyed them so much last weekend I'm doing another one at the end of November here, aren't I lucky ;D.

Anyway, now on to photos of my first project which is a 12 x 12 layout, created around a photo of my son and his lovely partner.

This was about a third of the way through.

And this is the finished layout.

A few close ups to finish off.

Later in the week I'll show you my second project which I have to say I found the hardest to do so was very pleased to end up with something I'm not ashamed to show on here, lol!

Until next time

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

PaperArtsy #3up Birthday Challenge

Hi lovely visitors,

I'm a few days late posting my challenge piece for the #3up sters PaperArtsy Birthday Challenge because I was away last weekend at two wonderful days of learning and getting very inky and messy with the fabulous
Finnabair (Ania Diabrowka). The workshops were hosted by Snazzy's and I got to spend time with my lovely friend Elaine as well as some twitter friends old and new and my design team colleague.  I'm still catching my breath so haven't had time to photograph my projects but will blog them as soon as I can.  In the meantime I'm going to show  you my PA challenge piece.

August saw the 10th birthday of the fab company known as PaperArtsy and there has been lots of lovely treats and fantastic design inspiration over on their blog all throughout August rounded off this week with some fantastic creations from a group of intrepid crafters who love the PA stamps and other products and who set themselves up by volunteering for Leandra's #3up sters, lol!

I forgot to take a proper photo of what arrived in the envelope Leandra sent me to work with so this is what I had left when I'd finished, ;D.

I have to confess these are not my style of stamps at all and really had me scratching my head but after much deliberation this is what I came up with......

I altered a wooden icon frame, creating a little scene to place in the aperture part.  I won't give details on how I did it as they are here on  the PaperArtsy blog if you wish to see more details.  It's  well worth popping over to see what the  others taking part created.  There are some fab designs spread over the whole PaperArtsy range of stamps and you need to go right back to last Saturday's post to see the first ones who kicked off the challenge using stamps from Ink and the Dog range.

and a final close up .......

That's  all for now folks.  Till next time .......

Hugs
Lesley  Xx