Wednesday 25 December 2013

Pick of the year over at PFP

Merry Christmas once again!  By now we are having Christmas day here in Sweden and after a long and wonderful day the other day when I compleatly forgot to post my creation for PTW. I am now trying to get it up here.

You can pick any theme that has been around over the last year from Papertake Weekly and play along with us. I went for the challenge from August 20th, Flower Power. I am sure you will find someone that fits like a hand in a glove for you.

Actually I made this card late during the summer but never got around to post it. Since there is always very little time during this time of the year I found it a good idea to use it for this challenge.


I have use designer papers from Authentique and keep the design fairly plain. The couple who got this card on their wedding day is not the ones who loves clutter. However they love hard rock, black and white and silver. So I used some metal circles that reminds me of rivets. There is also an electric guitar charm and a hart charm in silver inbedded in the flower heart. There is also a silver mirror card used for each layer even if it doesn't show that well.

The inside of the card is also decorated and has a lovely pocket for some money but as I had put quite a few personal info there I will not show that.

Anyway, this is all from me for today as I will now go and lay down in my bed as I managed to get a cold in the middle of everything. A really bad one. I am sneezing and freezing all the time. My youngest has been sick for about a week with the same crap so I guess it wasn't that strange that I got it too as he has been sleeping next to me.

Have wonderful Christmas time and see you back soon again.

Love n hugs
Marie

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Hohoho! Merry Christmas!

It's the best day of the year and I have a card to show you once again. I also take this chance to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year! Well, I hope to be back here before the New Year's celebration but just in case of, you know.  It has been a fun, busy, easy and hard year in all posible ways. Soon it's time for the year 2014 and a lot of new things to be grateful for.

Two weeks ago did our final challenge of the year for Passion For Promarkes start and we have tons of fabby prizes up for grabs during this challenge. Take a look at the post over at PFP. You will be blown away with all the things you got a shot at. I remember last year did I won a great set of markers in a case and it has been smashing. Not only did I get the case, but it was also filled with markers from the limited edition of markers from last year. Have used them a lot.

Now to my card. This is an image from Magnolia that I coloured ages ago which was a really good thing as it's very little time at this point to spend with markers and papers. I've started to attend a administration class and I am so tired every day now even if I only have half days due to my illnesses. Enough about that, I am here and I feel pretty good at this moment so time to be grateful instead of complaining.


The card then, a new try. LoL A Tilda image from Magnolia coloured with my Letraset markers in red and grey. Love that combo. And while I was making this card I realized that it's a new version of my first PFP card ever. The same design, different image and colours and I have learned a thing or two about my dear old markers. LoL For this card I skipped the designer papers and used my embossing plates instead. Cut them down and framed with different coloured cardstock.

I have used a bunch of flowers from WOC and I am Roses. The sentiment charm is from Rox stamps. The wide lace is from the supermarket. I also used a few gemstones and pearls to give some more interest to my card. Well, I think that is it. I hope you come and join us over at PFP this time and the challenge runs to 7th of January 2014 and then we'll be back with some new fun for you in the new Year!

Here is our sponsors for this challenge.

Letraset are generously offering one lucky a winner a pack of their Autumn/Winter promarkers Ltd Edition set!
Letraset Logo

DigiStamp Boutique are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of a £10 voucher to spend in her store.
DigiStamp Boutique logo

Bugaboo stamps are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of 10 digis of their choice.
bugaboo badge

Polkadoodles is offering one lucky winner a prize of a copy of their Bonbon Belles Double CD collection.

polka doodles logo

Clearly Besotted Stamps is offering one lucky winner 1 stamp set of their choice.
clearly besotted stamps

Dies to Die For are offering one lucky winner a £10 voucher to spend in their online store.
Dies to Die For logo

Bearly Mine Designs are offering one lucky winner a £10 voucher to spend in their online store.
BMD Shop Badge
Merry Christmas!
Marie

Friday 20 December 2013

Commentwinner


Just a quick note to let you all know who won my commenting draw for our just finished Blog hop over at the Paper Shelter earlier this week. 

The lucky winner is  


(Trudy's Craft Corner)


Congratulations to you and thank you for your very sweet comment!

Please visit the Paper Shelter by clicking the link. There you will find out how to claim your winning. Have fun with it and I can't wait to see what you will do with it! Do join us for our Anything goes challenge. Can't go wrong there. Hope that a few more of you will join us there. We won't be leaving any comments on this challenge, we're having a holiday break. But the prize up for grabs is the same. 

Love n hugs
Marie

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Anything goes over at the Paper Shelter

Morning everyone and welcome back to my corner of the world. Today it's Wednesday again and we are back with our final challenge of the year for the Paper Shelter. We have made it really easy for you this time and have the theme of  "Anything goes". It's a maximum of three entries per crafter and you have to use a TPS image on one of your creations. Different from this challenge is that we will not do our usual commenting as we have given the teams a well deserved holiday break. It will be good for us all. And then we move on to my creation for this challenge.

For a change I don't have any card to show you, I have altered a tube that once contained a bottle of whiskey. Hate whiskey but love the tubes, especially when they are in this small size like this one. Tons of fun to fix it up.

I took some of my delish papers from Maja Design and the Sofiero collection and covered the whole thing in a green delish paper.  Then there is the lovely rose papers in two versions. Those had to be used to, right? When that was all drying I coloured my image from the Paper Shelter in the same pink and green as used on the tube.
                                      The green dp on the top is more foggy green not that yellow as the picture says. 

When that all was done I went crazy with my pearl strings, lace and punches. I also got a few flowers on the top together with a ribbon that I attached to the lid, well through the lid to make it follow when opened instead of having to open two different parts it's now one. Love how the lid came out and I even got to use a hammer and nail to get it working. LoL


Well that was it. I hope you like what I have done and come and join us over at the Paper Shelter for the last challenge of the year. We will be back again with a new challenge 8th of January when my B-team will kick of the year with a bang.

Challenge prize badge

As usual we have our gift voucher up for grabs worth $30 if you play with any TPS product. Playing with another brand gives you the chance of adding three digis to your collection.

Love n hugs

Marie
Challenges for this creation
Make it Monday - Anything goes

Tuesday 17 December 2013

Last Christmas... card of the year

Hi all, hope you're doing fine? Here it's ok but a splitting headache once again. Tired as well, school is on even if it's a bit slow during the beginning. Let me tell you a secrete; they have not got everything to work properly yet. How good is that? I feel it like my days are ticking away. Have a limited bunch of them to do this administration class with. Guess I find a way to try to work the time back without overdoing anything. I am guessing that my blog will be running a bit slower again, during this time but some cards will be here and maybe some other creations as well. How knows?

We have a new challenge up for you over at Papertake Weekly today. And this weeks theme is Last Christmas... card of the year. Isn't that nice and lovely? I hope I don't have to make anymore of them as it feels now. I don't know how I will get the time to finish everything I need to finish before Christmas Eve.

Well, last week we celebrated Lucia here in Sweden and with two kids it means double celebrations. This card, well it was three of them that looked exactly the same is what I made late a night last week. I don't think that I ever have finished three cards that quickly. Well, they are not master pieces but it was better than nothing for the class teachers and their special education teacher. That was a story of it self with the SET as when I asked Willy who she was he said that he didn't know her. Asked another parent who said that her daughter had not seen her either. Let's say I asked around quite a bit and then realized that she is there but not all of the students is going there. After a week Willy realized that he had been there once since during the semester and that he was playing some kind of game there. I did a good compromise there and made a smaller gift, well bought a smaller gift for her as there is only a few students from each class using her services. I kind of wish that she could have shown her face on the parent's meeting or something, it would have been nice to see who she is. And once again I have lost track of what I am doing. LoL

Sorry bad picure again, working on that part still...

The card / cards... This time I started by putting the card design together first. I used some of the really lovely designer papers from Bildmålarna and their latest Christmas collection. And once again I used the fabby oval from spellbinders. Put the word for Merry Christmas in Swedish in it. And then coloured my images, all got the same lovely Lucia image from Magnolia, Sweden on it. As the gift was given during that celebration and I really wanted an excuse to use that image. LoL I for once used my distress inks and markers to colour with. I need to get some smoother looking aquarell colouring paper some time soon, but the art store in this town has strange opening hours. Maybe I should use their mail order services? Well, just a few pearls to decorate I was done.

Ok then, this is all from me for today. Do come and join us in our adventure of the last Christmas card of the year. It's always such pleasure to have a look and see what you all have been up to.

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card

Tuesday 10 December 2013

Christmas creatures

Hi and welcome back to my second post of today. This time it's my Papertake Weekly which is in focus. It has been really chilly around here for a few days and during the weekend the first snow of the season fell over us. I love it, but now it's starts to melt again. Wish it would stay, the days get a bit brighter that way.

So what is going over at Papertake weekly this week then? Well, we would really love to see all your Christmas creatures and that is a really fun theme to work with. I love it! Maybe because I love this fabby image from the PaperShelter. It's from last years Christmas collection and is called "Are you ready my friend?" The cutest one ever!


I have coloured my little friends with my Letraset marker family and paired them up with some designer papers from Dove Craft: Back to basic, Modern. Love the great colours in this pack. I did many layers and used a strip with text on it and punched a broders of Christmas trees for a bit of fun. Once again I used my "God Jul" die from Rox stamps. I found some "snow balls" in my stash and used those to build a snow lantern to fill the empty space under Mr Santa's hat. To add a little "fun" I used another findings in the never ending stash. It's some kind of chrystal ribbon. Well, here it gets to represent the snow and ice during the winter.

Well, I think this is it for today. As always I hope you come and join us over at Papertake Weekly. It's such fun challenge so you really should take part. :) Can't believe that half of my guest designing period is already over with this challenge. It goes way to qickly, I really enjoy the superfun challenges over here. Oh well, that's how it is, time passes by whether we like it or not.

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card

Morning everyone! Time for the last challenge of the year over at Passion for Promarkers. This is what is going on over at PFP blog and it won't come to an end until 7th of January. Since I am on the Team 1, my card won't be up until Christmas Eve. Can't wait for that day, my favourite one of the whole year. 

"This week we are launching our very special Mega Christmas challenge which runs for a whole month and ends on January 7th 2014!  I’m sure you’ll agree that both design teams have worked extremely hard once again this year and they deserve a little break to catch up on their last minute gifts and cards.  However to make up for the lack of challenges we have some fantastic prizes up for grabs.

Our theme for the Mega Christmas challenge is a nice easy one “include a sentiment”.  You are welcome to make Christmas cards but as the challenge will still be running after the ‘BIG’ day you can of course make any type of creation as long as it includes a sentiment of some kind.  As time is precious for our DT at this time of year we are limiting the number of entries you can make to just 3 for this month long challenge.  Please remember to be eligible for our prizes you must use your promarkers, flex markers, tria markers, metallic or aqua markers.

So now for the exciting bit – the prizes!
Letraset are generously offering one lucky a winner a pack of their Autumn/Winter promarkers Ltd Edition set!

Letraset Logo
DigiStamp Boutique are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of a £10 voucher to spend in her store.

DigiStamp Boutique logo
Bugaboo stamps are generously offering one lucky winner a prize of 10 digis of their choice.
bugaboo badge
Polkadoodles is offering one lucky winner a prize of a copy of their Bonbon Belles Double CD collection.

polka doodles logo

Clearly Besotted Stamps is offering one lucky winner 1 stamp set of their choice.

clearly besotted stamps
Dies to Die For are offering one lucky winner a £10 voucher to spend in their online store.

Dies to Die For logo
Bearly Mine Designs are offering one lucky winner a £10 voucher to spend in their online store."

BMD Shop Badge

So something to look forward to. I used to love this challenge when I wasn't on the PFP team, and I still do. Only that I don't get a chance of winning this time, but you do, so do come on and play with us. It's so much fun and don't forgot to go and visit my teamies from the other team. Their creations is stunning as always!

Love n hugs
Marie


Monday 9 December 2013

Winter fun, again

Hello and welcome to a new week with MI. Snow storm yesterday, and today a bit grey. At least for now, we'll see how the rest of the day turns out. I am so tired and feel such lack of energy that I wonder what has happened? Hope this turns around soon and that it isn't another cold that is coming my way.

So this post of mine is also a good by post. This will be my last creation for the Crafty Card Makers as I have decided to step down. I want to send a big thank you to Lin for having me on her team for the last year or so. It has been fun and many of our set challenges has really been challenges, even for us in the team. A really big group of different kind of crafters. So thank you once again and I will do my best to finish this with a bang. Well that means that I hope that many of you will take part in this challenge as it isn't only my last one it's also my own challenge. So do come and join us in my theme of WINTERFUN! No Christmas or New Year, rather something you do during wintertime. Iceskating, skiing, sleedging, building snowmen etc.


For my card have I used the lovely Fantasy on Ice from the Paper Shelter who is also one of our sponsors for this challenge. I have coloured her with my Letraset Markers. My designer papers are from Panduro. I kept the design really simple with two layers of dps and a wide lace with a pink ribbon on it. A few metal corner together with some punched snow flakes (with MS punch), so big lovely pearls from Bunny Zoe and a pearl string from Rox Stamps I believe. I love how the pearls looks around the image and I love that dark grey almost dark lilac. It went so well with the dps.

We are sponsored by
THE PAPER SHELTER
with a $20 gift certificate for their fabulous store
 If you are looking for fun, cute and lovely digi stamps for your paper-crafting or web design projects, The Paper Shelter is your one-stop boutique! This growing catalog of high-quality digi stamps with many different kind of options offers a multitude of themes such as everyday items, holidays, special occasions, children, adorable characters and creatures. Stamps are available in standard black and white line art, as well as in pre-colored format. Images are wonderful for coloring and make perfect additions to greeting cards and scrapbook albums. In "The Paper Shelter" you'll also find great other resources for all crafts (or digital) projects, like Paper Packs, Printables, Accessory sheet, etc.

and 
SIR STAMPALOT
 with this fabulous prize:-
In the Snow Ski Tilda 

Sir Stampalot is a retail shop and online website that specialises in stamps, die cutting and paper-crafting goodies.  We try to offer exceptional delivery times on your orders as well as keeping our stock fresh, new and exciting!  Our dedicated team of card makers means we have a wonderful, inspirational online card gallery with many more cards still to upload!  Sir Stampalot ships internationally as well as domestic so why not check us out if you haven’t already – www.sirstampalot.co.uk.
Ok then, I am off to class now. So I see you all back tomorrow when a brand new post for the Papertake Weekly will start and a new challenge goes live over at Passion for Promarkers as well. You don't want to miss out on that one.

Love n hugs
Marie

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Bloghop time over at the Paper Shelter

It's that busy time of the year again and we who works with the Paper Shelter always look forward to this time of the year as it is our birthday! 8th of December is our big day! Hipp Hipp Hurray! This year we are celebrating our third birthday and would really love it if you would like to celebrate it with us. This will be a two week event and both our teams has joined together. 

Visar TPS_BlogHopBadge8Dec2013.jpg

The theme of our birthday blog hop is Special birthday. Well, I actually think that all birthdays are special but you can always specify it a bit more like "sweet 16", 20, 30 etc if you want to. I do hope that you come and join us for this challenge. Maybe a nice break from all those Christmas cards?

Each and everyone of us in the teams has once digi of your choice to give away. But to have a chance of winning it, you need to leave us all some love and on the challenge blog as well. You know you could be the lucky one who wins one of those high quality digital stamps that Veronica and Pedro work so hard to produce for all our joy. So if you have joined me from Sheryl's blog you are  right on track. If not, go back to the Paper Shelter blog and find your way back. 

As usual we have our gift voucher up for grabs as well for those of you who plays along for this two week challenge and hop. You really don't want to miss out on this one, do you? I am the last person on the blog hoping list, so all you have to do now is go back to the Paper Shelter blog which is the last stop.  Don't forget to leave some love there as well. And no, you don't have to play along in our challenge to have a chance of winning one of the digis from our team members. 


So a short note about my card then. My image called Angel is coloured with my Letraset Markers. She is paired up with some designer papers from Maja Design, Vintage Summer collection. A bunch of details with pearls, flowers, charm, swirls, gesso, metal corners and die cuts ad interest to the card I hope. 

Hope you have enjoyed the hop. I know it's many to visit but at least you have two weeks to do it. A big thank you to all of you who continue to make the Paper Shelter grow and develope from year to year. We would be nothing with out you all. Also a big thank you to Veronica and Pedro who keeps coming up with sweet, lovely images for us to work with. You totally rock!

If you're missing any information here, you find it all on our challenge blog.

PS: As a little bonus, take a look at what our new team member has done as she didn't want to miss out on our celebrations: Anne. Please do leave her some love as well. Her card is a smashing CAS card.

Love n hugs
Marie, proud Dt-leader of the Paper Shelter's B-team

Challenges for this card

Tuesday 3 December 2013

Anything goes with option CAS

I am back again! LoL This time as a guest designer for Papertake Weekly. Another favourite challenge of mine that I have the honor to design for at the moment. This weeks theme is really simple and fits you all I think. It's the first challenge of the month and that means "Anything goes" with an option if you like to and this time it's to make a Clean and Simple card.

I did or at least tried to do one last week for my CCM card and this is my second try with that style. It's actually quite fun to make these cards and I get to spend more time with my markers and don't have to deal with that much dp's. It's at least as hard to make a good looking CAS card as a card filled with details and stuff everywhere. The this that makes the difference is that you can't hide any misstakes with the CAS cards. LoL

Sorry about the photo once again. Winter in Sweden means no daylight and I don't have a very good camera. Maybe the weather allows me to retake the photo. 

The lovely image from Sassy Sherryl's is coloured with my Letraset markers and this was one of those digis I just needed to have. It's adorable and I love snowmen images of all kind. They are so sweet looking. :) I have even been spending time with my boys making some with a Panduro kit. All made up with pipe cleaners,  wink bullets and fabric. Tons of fun and frustrations as they doesn't look like the ones on the box as the youngest said. He thought he be some kind of master of this but it's really hard especially when you never have done it before. They will be living in our gingerbread house this Christmas.

I coloured the image up on some Neenah card and cut it into size. I made a few panels with a die from Memory Box that I love. It's called pearl lace. I tied a bow and took some ribbon around it all and then added a few pearls for interest. Maybe I should have added a sentiment too but I couldn't find a fitting one so without it is for now.

I do hope you will come and join us for this simple challenge over at Papertake Weekly, and maybe even give the CAS style a try. It's hard and really fun!

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card
Doodle pantry - Any digital image
Ladybug crafts - Winter / Christmas
One crazy stamper - Winter /  Holiday
CAS on Sunday - Winter (if it's not CAS enough, just remove from the challenge)
Crafting when we can - Winter

Sketch time over at Passion for Promarkers

Morning everyone! Time for a new little Christmas creation from me to you. Still in tons of pain after the weekend, but it could be worse, so I am grateful for that in spirit of my posting the other week. Last week was really hard both with my health and some sad good byes as well. It's time for some changes in my life and next week I'll be some kind of student again. The employment office has bought some classes and I managed to find my way into one of those, the administration ones. Have been working with it before, but It was about 7 years ago so I thought I would upgrade and get it all on paper. I am so nervous about it that I hardly know how to handle it. I think I start with one day at time, if that doesn't work, I go for one hour at time. But I am really grateful that I have gotten this chance. You will soon know how it all goes as this is my relaxing place. :)

This is the first of two posts from me today and I start with my Promarker dt-card as that challenge goes live first. This week we have a fabby sketch made by Loopy Lou is a joy  to follow and you all know how much I love a good sketch. I just need to think about what I love most about card making, the colouring and then I take a few designer papers and put it together after how the sketch looks. Suits me perfect! So of course my wonderful image from BildmÃ¥larna is coloured with my Letraset Markers.


I dug my way through all the designer papers that is piled up in my craft room and found an old bunch of papers from Dovecraft going all in blue and brown/beige. Lovely papers most of them actually. Wonder how I could have forgotten all about those?  Maybe because there is thousands of them hiding in the craft room. LoL Time to do something about that, maybe take some time and make a few lo's and then some more cards, and dear Santa, could I please have at least 12 more hours per day? I would be so grateful for that gift!

I got lost again, didn't I? Back to my card. I used a few Doo Hickey dies for leaves and firs. The last ones is made out of corrugated paper and then covered with gesso. Before it dried I sprinkled it with some glitter of unknown brand. Looks very wintery and cold. The stunning charm is from Rox Stamps here in Sweden and it says "Merry Christmas". Flowers are from WOC and the pearls is from Bunny Zoe's.

WOJ
Our sponsor this week is Whiff of Joy who is offering one lucky winner one stamp. A really lovely prize to be won once again. Lucky you who have a chance of winning it!

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card
Created with love - Christmas
Lexi's creations - Christmas (2nd entry)
Stamp and create - Anything goes
2 Creative Chicks - Christmas / Winter 

Saturday 30 November 2013

A Bildmålarna card

Hi there and hope you have a great weekend. Really tired today and tons of pain as it has been a busy day. A party for Willy and his friend has taken place today and 20 kids makes lots of noises. I am so pleased it is all over now.

This little card of mine has been laying around for a while and I have not gotten to it to photograph it until now. Well, I hardly got a photo from it at all today either buy it is the last chance to enter the dt call of Bildmålarna today at midnight and as I used their sketch I thought I give it a try.

Sorry about the crappy photo, take in ordinary lamp light, I'll retake the photo tomorrow (Sunday).


New photo but ain't sure it's any better...

The images masked together is coloured with my Letraset markers and I have used a few Bildmålarna designer papers as well. To match it all up I've used some flowers from WOC, pearl string from ROX stamps, pearls from Bunny Zoe and some butterflies made with a MS punch.

Ok, very short today, but I am so tired and my back is killing me so a big warm fire and maybe a good movie is what I will spend my evening with, and maybe one or two painkillers. :)

Love n hugs
Marie

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Sketch time!

Hi and welcome back to my little corner. Colds going around in the house again so everything is very slow here. This time it's me and Philip, the youngest. I'm also starting to wonder if my crafting cat has got it as well. He is both coughing and sneezing. LoL Just kidding, well he is doing all that but he has spend a few hours chasing a poor youngster cat that came for a visit yesterday, and they was tumbling around under our porch. And my crafting cat Tage is actually allergic to dust and some plants even if they are almost frozen by now. But it looks really funny when both me, Philip and Tage is sneezing at the same time.

It's time for a new challenge over at Papertake weekly again. And we have now come to the end of November and that means it's time for a new sketch. So much fun! I love a good sketch and I kind of go to the little library of sketches over at Papertake Weekly when I don't have any inspiration or clue of what to do. I take a look there and always find something I can use to get my creativity going. So take a look at the new fabby sketch and put it to use, or do like I, use the sketch library found on the extra sketch page. For my card I have used the new sketch with number #85 I think. Love it!


Ok, when everybody is busy making Christmas cards I have to make plenty of boy's birthday cards. This week is no exception. One of my nephews had his birthday the other day and his passion is sports, dogs and being outside. However, they can't have any dog in their house as he is terrible allergic to them. They had to give up their rottweiler Jetz, but he is living the good days over at my parents place now. My nephew can at least see him during the summer when they can spend more time outside together. So this card is especially made for him and I even got the perfect image for it from the PaperShelter. It's called My cute Rottweiler and that is probably not what you would call a rottweiler in the first sight, but they are an amazing breed when taken care of the right way. Friendly, big teddy bears that loves their family.

My image is coloured up using my Letraset family markers and it matches, well at least some of the dp's from My Minds Eye that I used. They are from the pad called Fine and Dandy, True blue. Love all of those pads and almost always ending up using them for my boy's cards. I used some alpha stickers to spell out the name of my nephew and put a big "4" in the star as it is how old he is now. And I couldn't make a doggy card with out using one of my fabby bone charms. Some orange twine is also used together with some card candy to give some extra little details to my creation. The colours look a bit bright on the card but IRL if wasn't as bad. LoL

So come on and play with us over at Papertake Weekly this week and show what you can do. Plenty of great inspiration from the team is to be seen there.

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card
Cards for men - Anything goes
IncyWincy Challenges - For the men in your life (a young one, but still a little man)
Love to scrap - Boyz Rules (second entry)
Make it Monday - Anything goes

Monday 25 November 2013

Clean and Simple it is

Hello and welcome to my little corner of the world this lovely Monday. Hope you had a great start of your week and that the rest of it will continue at the same path. It's challenge time over at Crafty Card Makers again. I bet you have been wondering what you will come up with for this weeks challenge I bet. Well, I better tell you then. Clean and Simple it is. CAS cards are our thing the coming two weeks. Cards with lots of white space and very little decorations. I believe this is the first time I have manage to make something that can actually count as clean and simple. Much harder to make a good looking CAS card than you ever think. I dare you to try it! LoL

So my card feature an image from my beloved The Paper Shelter. Love those image from the botton of my heart, truly. Anyway, back to the card. My dear Father Christmas is coloured with my Letraset family and I am so pleased with how the red came out this time. Especially on the chimney. Wonder what colours I used? LoL 

Back to business and my card. It's coloured on some kind of Copic paper I think. I am still trying to find the perfect replacement for the wonderful heavyweight paper that Letraset used to sell. I love it because it's not shiny and it has a bit of a surface on it that isn't so glossy. Glossy kills the colours as they mutate in my way of seeing it. They are not as bright as they normal are. I shut up now and keep talking about the card instead, sorry! For my sentiment did I use a stamp from YouDo and blinged it up a little. Couldn't just leave it like that, could I ? Thought so. I did cut a snowflake from the wonderful collection from Joy crafts. Superb looking flake isn't it? I added a blingstone to the centre of that to. When all that was done I couldn't help myself so I used my scoringboard from Martha S, you know and made a line all the way around the card to add a little extra to it. I added a dark red backing panel as well to keep the card together with the other red parts. I like it but I feel it's something missing, but I can't think of what it can be. 

Sponsors for this challenge is 
DI'S DIGISTAMPS 
with a $10 GIFT VOUCHER


 winner will recive a £10 voucher for their store, 
you can spend this online, or if you're lucky enough to see them at a show!  

Well I think this is enought from me for today. So I see you when I can. Busy trying to get my life in order with out fighting the system. Guess if it shows that it's election year here in Sweden? Eventhing is getting upgraded and change just so they can say that we don't have many home with longterm illnesses or are unemployed etc. I am one out of many, many more how is so tired fighting all this and noone understand how it is to live with crappy illnesses that doesn't kill you but make worth less whatever you try to do when it comes to working, getting the union working for you. It's such a joke, not even my worst enemy would deserve this.

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card
Eureka Challenges - Santa is on his way
Lexis creations - Christmas
Shabby Tea room - Christmas is coming (hope that the craft card counts as brown...)  

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Christmas is coming

Morning everyone, running a bit later here today. Yesterday didn't turn out how I had it planed so late again with this post. Really sorry about that. Well, I am here now and I do hope that things will settle soon. For the moment I am having big problems with my concentration and to keep it going. It's just one of those things that comes together with not feeling totally well. I'm having a bit of a slight relapse with my fibromyalgia. I have not learned to pinpoint and recognize them yet to be able to stop them in time. Well, each time I hope it will get a little easier. At least I am not in that much pain.

Well this week over at the Paper Shelter we have a new, fun and easy challenge for you. We have the theme of Christmas is coming and by the look of my card is gone too. :) I am so in love with this image. The Santa looks perfect and I wonder who all the gifts that he is sleeping on was for? Is there someone who has been naughty instead of nice this year? LoL


Anyway, I used my Letraset markers to colour him and then paired the lovely image up with some designer papers from Maja Design. I believe that pad is from last year and I have kind of been holding on to it. The papers are all stunning and it's hard to cut into them just because of it. I have been spending "some" time looking through all my stuff and I think I have enough designer papers to last me a lifetime. I really need to sort everything out and give some of it way. The kids at school can use it and have some fun. The more crafters the better I think. Young and old. I might even take some of it up to the childrens ward at the hospital. They might need something to cheer them up. I have to think about that and try to get my craft room sorted somehow.

Ok, here I go again losing control over my writing. LoL Back to the card. I followed the sketch from CLP, their last one. I am so sorry to see that challenge go as it is really some fabby inspiration from that team. Always the most amazing creations and stunning colouring. I flipped the sketch to suit my image a bit better. Added some pearl string from ROX stamp and the fabby "God Jul" die is from them as well. Did some diecutting and got a few Christmas trees from my Magnolia die. A little cluster of flowers, and some pearls in the corner. Flower soft as trim on Dear old Mr Santas hat and jacket.

Challenge prize badge
As always we have our fabby gift voucher up for grabs if you play with our lovely TPS brand. Playing with another brad gives you the chance of winning three digis of your choice. Pretty nice that too, isn't it? And do pop by our challenge blog, my team has done some smashing cards and I you'll find plenty of inspiration over there.

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card
Crafty Calender Challenges - Anything christmas
Totally Gorjuss - 3 Patterned papers
CLP - Last sketch
Creative Card Crew - Pearls

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Giving thanks or thank you

Good afternoon and welcome back for my second post of the day. I am so pleased to be one of the guest designer for Papertake Weekly, you have no idea just how much I enjoy being a part of this challenge blog for this period. To follow our "giving thanks or thank you" theme this week, I AM the most grateful for this chance. So a big thank you for having me. :)

My olderst brother always says you should start everyday with felling grateful. First for yourself and who you are, then you spend some time feeling grateful for those close to you like family and very close friends. Then you end that moment with feeling grateful for your "outer circle of friends and acquaintances" that comes your way like the cashier at the grocery store for example. Doing this every day will give you a chance of feeling and knowing that you have a pretty good life after all. It should also give some awareness of what you can do to improve as a person and how you feel about others. I did those exercises each and every day for a few months last spring and that was a time of feeling high of life. Magical experience, but after a while I started to feel that I know all of this and in just a few weeks lost the feeling of it all. I don't do this every day now either, but I do from time to time and it's such good way of looking at life. It only takes about 15 minutes per day, and for me it was a bit of energy boost to know that life is good. Give it a try, gratefulness is something the world really needs today.

Ok, maybe I have gone to far with this part of thankfulness, but I actually believe that there is too little of that merchandise in this world. The tiny little word Thanks and a little smile can change someones dull, grey and lousy day. Give it a try, just for today, smile to someone that you don't know, hold the door open for someone when you're entering a store and say hello. It's just so simple and it will take you far much longer and higher than you ever thought. Just try it, ok? Well that's my kind of thanks giving. We don't celebrate it here in Sweden, so why not make a new version of it? I know I will and with that doing it will take me where I wanna be...


Ok then, time for why you are here. My card for the challenge over at the Paper Take Weekly. Theme giving thanks or thank you. After what I wrote above here you will never in a million year believe how much trouble I had with this challenge. I saw cards going in orange and brown with strange fruits or what ever it is in those baskes, and I thought oh no, I can't do that. And I couldn't. LoL But thankfully ( :) ) the theme said thank you as well. Got a tiny bit easier then. But still hard, so thinking cap on and suddenly a bit of shabby chic thoughts showed up in my little brain. Marie, you got about a ton of papers from Panduro that you nerver use, take the chance to use some of them and make a thank you card without and coloured image, just you and the designer papers. And that is very I landed with this card. And I plan to make some more of those as I think they can be useful from time to time.

Anyway, I used some spellbinder dies, some MFT dies and an alphabetic one from Tim Holtz. Can live without those can you? Then dived right through my pile of Panduro papers that I thought I needed for a long time. They are nice and good quality and all that but I find them hard to work with and making good looking cards with, so I am grateful I got it together this time. I used an really old sketch from CLP that is sadly closing down after this challenge. I love the inspriation you get from that team, it makes me a bit more brave in my creating. Anyway I added a "curtain" at the top and put a bow on it. It doesn't show that well on this photo but the high top part is laying flat and the wavy edge is raised on foamdots. The spellbinder panel is also raised on foarm dots but now as hight. Gives the card a little depth. I used two different papers from this old Tilda pad and it's all done in shabby chic style. I could had added some whitewash paint on as well but for today it's ok. Some roses from WOC, ribbon from Panduro and pearls from Bunny zoe makes my creation whole.

If any of you actually read all of this from me today, I am the most impressed and not to forget I am really GRATEFUL you did. Hope I have atarted a thought somewhere within you, which can help you to grow as a person, maybe not today or tomorrow, but the day after that, who knows?

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card
Bunny Zoe - Vintage / shabby Chic (I do hope that this counts as shabby Chic)
Craft-Dee BowZ - Anything with hand tied bow
Created with love - Anything goes paper craft
Lexi's Creations - Thanks or thanks giving



Check it out!

Morning everyone and welcome to my first post of the day. I am starting the challenge week of with two cards for Passion for Promarkers new theme Check it out! We want to see some check- plaids- or gingham on your creation this week. It shouldn't be any trouble. There is plenty of them out there in the crafting world.

As most of you know who follow me regulary I have two boys that is nuts for football / soccer and even if we are in the middle of November by now there is soccer friends having their birthdays so today I show off two more soccer cards. God it's getting hard to get any kind of variation on them now. I've lost track of how many I have done this year.

Anyway, I thought that some check designer papers would be a nice change to all the dps with soccer balls and shoes and what ever it has been and for some reason the checks goes well with all sporty images. LoL Of course my images is coloured with my Letraset Markers Family and since the cards are for boys I kept the embellishments low.
The first card is showing of an image from our sponsor this week, The digi boutique. It's from a set of four called Fun time Dan. And you have the chance of winning a gift voucher worth £10. Such lovely prize to look forward to. A real joy to colour and I kind of gave him a look of Bayern München team clothes but I didn't the whole player go red so, a bit modified. :) Designer papers are from YouDo and Magnolia. Good to use up some old stuff to. I really need to do that otherwise my boys has to start sharing room and that wouldn't be fun for them. :) I used a bunch of die cuts for my cards like the photo corners and the little rectangle made with spellbinder to tell the age of the friend that is getting this card.


The second card is made in the colours of our local team, well almost. They have black and yellow in their team clothes. From the beginning they had yellow shirts and black shorts, now they are totally back with yellow details. So once again I did some modification to the clothing as I didn't want to go totally black either, and I didn't want a dark card so grey scale colouring it was. I love that technic. It's great fun to work with only greys and I should be done more but for some reason it feels a bit dull when it comes to making birthday cards. LoL For the decorations here have I used a few soccer buttons that I cut down so they are flat and I also used some alpha pearls to write out the name of the friend. A big nice "7" from a sheet of alphas is also giving some detail to the card.


Ok this was the first post of the day, stay tune as later on in the afternoon I have my new card for the Papertake weekly up as well and then it's something totally different from all my sporty cards. 

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for card 1

Challenges for card 2
Love to scrap Challenge blog - Boyz Rules
Challenges for everybody - Anything goes

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Snow and ice

Hello and g'day to you all. It's Tuesday and I have a brand new creation for you to look at. It happens that I was lucky enough to get picked as a guest designer for Papertake Weekly, so I will be spending my Tuesdays blogging cards for that wonderful challenge blog that I have been following since I started my own blog. There was three of them I always took part in: Passion for Promarkers, Papertake Weekly and Just Magnolia when that was around. At this point I am a member of the PFP team and now I get to guestdesign for the Papertake Weekly challenge blog. I am really happy, humble and happy again for this chance. And I feel so blessed and thankful for this chance.  Thank you ever so much for bringing me on to the team for the coming three months. I hope to make you all pround and myself  not least. I feel it will be a change making cards for the same challenge every week, but I also feel the joy it will bring and hopefully it will help me get some better routines to my days, instead of just sitting in the sofa sorting out all the photos for the kids. LoL

So this weeks theme is very fitting for this period of time and it is snow and ice - blue and cold. Nice theme isn't it? So luckly for me I had an image coloured up in the fitting colours and just needed to get it down to card which was a lot harder than I had planed for. Lol However, one of the best things with the Papertake Weekly challenges is their little library of sketches they have on an extra page. I really love that. I go there all the time when I have no inspiration to get a kick start and I did so this time as well. I started off with sketch #73, took away an element and got the card done. Unfortunatly the weather has been horrible this weekend so it was not easy to get a good photo of this card. Anyway I have done it and I so happy I could find the time to fit it in as I have been away for a few days. Got back a day early as Willy started to feel better with his cold.

Mats will be home later on tonight from Istanbul and it will be good to be two adults in the house again. But don't tell anyone, It has been great being alone even if it was over at my parents house. Kind of like the old days, I loved that. Times like this gives me flashbacks to when I was young living at home with mum and my brothers. And when I had it, I took my bike and rode it up to my grannys apartment and stayed there for a few days. Best time of my life! She was my best friends and I will miss her forever, even if I know she is with me every single day. ;)

Maybe I should say something about my card as well. A bit of lack of time and I still ended up with this little creation of mine. Two Magnolia images merged together for a little winterscenery and coloured it with my Letraset family. Then I used some of the really stunning and high quality designer papers from BildmÃ¥larna. I love the colours of those papers. I also used some silver colored corrugated paper as backing for my image. Some adorable snowflakes from Joy Crafts bought at Moa Pysell. For my little flower cluster did I also make a little backing page with some snowflakes and then added the lily lookalike flowers. Added a few pearl stars in to that and topped it of with a snowflake silver charm and some silver sprays to that. Edwin and Jasper has also gotten a few pearl stars to keep them company. Gemstones in blue comes from Bo Bunny and I had them for ages. The time will come for everything, doesn't it?

Ok, I probably should shut up by now so I better do that. But I see you soon again. Lots of crafting will be going on here the coming weeks busy, busy as I will soon start school again I hope. They just seem to be able to find a place for us to be. And this is a big ecducational company that has these kind of troubles. Just amazing. For a full control of the challenge, theme and the rules of the blog, why don't you drop by and have a look for yourself.

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card
Hobby Cutz - Winter wonderland / glitter and sparkle (winter wonderland here)
Stamping Sensations - Christmas
2 Sisters - Christmas Sparkle
Sweet Stampin' - Christmas is coming
A creative romance - Winter blues
Tildas Town - Christmas
C is for Challenge - winter is coming
Dutch Magnolia Lovers - Lights to make it cosy
Fashionista Challenge - Christmas bling

Monday 11 November 2013

A little different paper piecing

Good after noon everyone! Hope you had a great start of the week and are ready for our new challenge over at Crafty Card Makers. The theme of the week(s) is PAPER PIECING. Fun to do from time to time, however this time I gave it all a little twist. :)

You who follow me regular knows that I have been spending a lot of time this year making soccer / football cards and I am affraid I am not done with that theme yet. However after making five or six of those cards I needed a change from what I was doing. After all there are only a limited supply of sporty soccer paper to find. I had a "new" sweater prepared for this guy in a lovely blue striped version. The my olders come a long and says : - He can't look that way, that is not a real team sweater. So time to rethink what I was doing and I look through my dies and put them in some order. During that time I found of Joanna Sheens new patchwork dies, and guess what came to mind?


Yep that's right. One of the dies is perfect for making soccer balls! Took a while to cut all the pieces but if the theme is paper piecing, then you take one for the team how to speak. So I made a ball used another die to cut it into a round shape and then cut some stripes of grass to give Mr Soccer player some ground to put his feet on. I also coloured the sweater in a nice red colour, there is plenty of read teams out there, Bayern München for example and a favourite player of my kids is Ribéry. Even got the number right even if the shorts isn't a total match. It would have been to much red. LoL My little guy is coloured with my Letraset family and I got to try a new way of paper piecing even if it's not the first way you might think of. But as I have covered the whole base of my card, I hope that it still will count as paper piecing. After all it's all about building a pattern with the help of papers.

We are sponsored this time as well and this time we have some smashing prizes up for grabs. Take a look at this and for more information, go to the Crafty Card Makers blog. 

 

Ok then. This is all from me for today. It has been a few long days with my partner Mats away. He has spend a few days in Istanbul, Turkey with his job and will be back later on tonight. Thank goodness that me and the boys could spend a few days at my mum's place. It was good for us all. :)

Love n hugs
Marie

Challenges for this card
Make it Monday - Always anthing goes
Challenges 4 everybody - Anything goes
Scribble & Scrap blog - Anything goes
Brown Sugar - Anything goes