Let Your Light Shine Through

Evening all,  I hope you  have all  had a  wonderful Christmas, I have found it all lovely but tiring.

As some   of you may know I have quite a  strict diet for health reasons and don't normally have sugar, yeast or chemicals.  I allowed myself just a few things that I wouldn't normally have over Christmas but it still seems to have been a little too much for my system as my head has been thumping for the last three days and I have been feeling very drained and dizzy so it's back to the diet for me. Oh well at least I don't mind it to much and if you can think outside the box it  is still possible to have yummy things.

I will try to get round your blogs and  leave comments soon and I will be a better blogger again  once new years is over and done with, in the mean time here is a card I have made for a few challenges.

The Challenges I would like to enter this card in to are;
Sketch Saturday - Week 186 - Sketch
Polka Doodles Challenge Blog - Week 50 - Through The Window
Cutie Pie Challenge Blog - # 7 - Use A Sentiment
I Love Promarkers Challenge Blog - Challenge 97 - Anything Goes
Stamping For The Weekend - Challenge 23 - Anything Goes
Scrapbook Sisters - Card Challenge 66 - Anything Goes
My Mum's Craft Shop - Challenge 37 - Anything Goes
That Craft Place - Challenge 2- Sweet Treats In Pastels

To  make this card, I used three different papers from the Joanna Sheen House Mouse backing papers, cut out my shapes, punched the corners with an EK Success corner punch and mounted on to black card. I  then glued on my three ribbons and stamped  out my greeting and my image, the greeting is from LOTV  and the image is  made  using the Country Companions stamps that came free with this months issue of Papercraft  Inspirations. I stamped  my character on to the card and  then made a mask using scrap paper to get  the  flower vines  behind him, I then coloured in  my image using  Promarkers  cut  out the  window frame  and  then stuck it  all in to place  using  three paper  flowers to finish.

Thank  you  for  reading  this  post, as  always  I  love  to hear your comments and I wish you all a happy crafty new year.

Lindsay xx

Merry Christmas

Hiya, no card for  today,  I just wanted to do a  quick post to wish everyone a very merry  Christmas  and a happy crafty new  year and  say thank you all so much for   all of  your wonderful comments.

Also whilst I am here  I thought I should share  the  news that the  new  design team has  been announced over  at the PanPastel Challenge Blog and I am very happy to say  that I am still a  member  of  the team and so is Linda and of course Kerry is  still our design team leader. We  also have some  fabulous  and  extremely  talented new members, Eileen, Gillian, Brenda, and  Claire and  the  PanPastel Challenges  will begin again on the  15th January 2012.

I hope you  all have a wonderful Christmas

Lindsay  xx

Challenge card

Evening all, here is card that I had been asked to make for a family member and thought I would enter in to a few challenges.

The challenges I would like to enter this card in to are;

Crafts and Me Challenge Blog - Challenge 66 - Anything Goes
The Crafty Pad Challenge Blog  - Challenge 152 - Anything But Christmas
The Sketchy Challenge Blog - Sketch 12 - Jane's Sketch
The Ribbon Girl Challenge Blog - Challenge 14 - Colour Challenge Black, Red and Cream

To be honest I wasn't overly pleased with this one, what do you think? I  am afraid I can't stop to do a how to today as I still have loads of present wrapping to do, as always I love to hear your comments.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all
Lindsay xx

Liebster Blog Award

Evening all, I hope you  are all  feeling far more organised than I am right now, I normal have everything done very early so that I avoid the last minute Christmas panic but this year it just hasn't quite gone to plan lol and the mountain of present wrapping I have to do does not seem to be getting any smaller. Oh well ... lol.

I thought I would take a quick break from wrapping and check my emails etc when I saw that I had  a comment from Vanessa (aka Southern Cricut Lady) telling me that she had chosen me for the Liebster Blog Award, still being a bit of a  newb to blogging this was the first time I had heard about this, on reading about it I found that its way for people to recognize upcoming bloggers and show them that you  value their posts.

Liebster is a German word for beloved or dearest and the Liebster Award is given to bloggers who have less than 200 followers but the awarded blog stands out as being valued and appreciated by the person ganting the award.

Liebster Blog Awards rules work like this;
To accept the award you must link back to the person who gave it and thank them for thinking of you.
You must post the award to your blog.
You must then in turn give the award to 5 bloggers (with less than 200 followers) that you appreciate and value.
You must leave a comment on the blogs of the five people you have chosen to let them know


I thought  that this is a  really lovely thing to do so  I have taken a little time  out  from pressie wrapping  to post  this.


Firstly  I would like  to say a huge thank you Vanessa (aka Southern Cricut Lady) as  I thought  it was really  touching that she chose  me and she wrote  such  a lovely  little piece about me  and my blog  in her post  and I am very  flattered  and grateful that she thought of  me for this.


Ok so the people that I have chosen to give the award to are,


Nicola who's blog is Pink Craft Delight, Nicola  is such a lovely bubbly person and she always  has a  huge variety of interesting makes on her  blog. Nicola also does  a  monthly step by step project  which is always beautifully explained  and  packed  full  of brilliant idea's.


Catherine  who's blog  is Le  Coin De  Catherine , Catherine's blog  is  always packed  with beautiful makes, whether  it  be card's  or  recipe  books  or  pretty gift boxes her designs are  always  stunning.


Wendy  who's blog is Flowergirl Cards, Wendy  has  fantastic attention to detail on her  cards and her cards or always so sweet and perfectly decorated and her beautiful makes are very inspiring.


Linda, who's blog is Lindyloo, Linda and I have  been DT buddies for a few months now and Linda is such a kind, thoughtful and friendly person and I  think that it show's through the cards she makes as she clearly puts so much thought, care and attention in to every card.


Helen,  who's blog is Carry On Crafting  Helen is lovely lady  who I met through twitter and she has a fantastic way of making her card designs come to life, her designs are always so fresh and interesting.


Once again before I go a big thank you to Vanessa.


Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all


Lindsay xx

My Last Christmas Make For This Year

Hiya, Just  a quick post tonight as I have got to go do some wrapping up but just thought I would post my final Christmas make  of the year.

I have made this tag for the following challenges;
I Love  Promarkers Challenge Blog  - Challenge 96 - Blue and White
Oldie  But  A Goodie  Challenge Blog  - Christmas  Animals
Mariannes Design Diva's Challenge  Blog  - Challenge 6  -  It's Christmas
HotShot Crafts -  Challenge  1 - Must  Use Promarkers
Penny Black Saturday Challenge - Week 182  - Make A Tag
Glitter Geeks Challenge Blog  - Week 28  - Anything Goes

To make my tag  I began by using a Marianne  Designs frame die, I then used PanPastels to highlight the  embossed frame  and  a quickie glue pen and glitter to highlight the  raised areas a bit more. I then placed my flourishes and mini snowflakes (cut out using  Marianne Designs  dies)  and  stuck them  down  along with my white flowers. I  then  added  my ribbon to the top.

For my image I used  a Penny  Black wood  mounted stamp and coloured it in with Promarkers I  then cut it  out with scissors  and used a quickie  glue pen and glitter to highlight the  image.

Thank you  for reading this post as  always I love to hear your comments.

Lindsay xx

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Evening all I hope you are all well and  safe, I have had a bit of a weird day today............... I woke up to a phone call at 6.15am this morning (never a good sign lol). It was my other half on the  phone in a  real state because he had  come off his motorbike on his way  home from work (he works night shift),  so big panic straight away. He just kept saying about his bike whilst I was desperately trying to make  sure he was  actually ok (lol typical man), all things considered he was very lucky and we got both him and  the bike home in  one piece  (although  the bike not until much later in the day). The roads  this morning  were absolutely  treacherous like sheets of ice and difficult driving for a  car let alone  a bike (we did see another bike  left on the roundabout as well, obviously  my other half was not the only one who had to give up on the idea of getting home on two wheels and we have heard from some other people  who had trouble controlling their cars too) anyway sorry for rambling but if you do have to be  out and about please be careful.

So all in all a very stressfull start to the  day which threw me  off for the rest of the day and I didn't  seem to get much done, however I  am still in a really good mood as I had some really  great  news this  afternoon (which unfortunately I cannot share  at the moment).

So on to my card, I recently bought some new stamps from LOTV and I  had just been dying to use this  one cos it's so cute, it's another white on white one (which I have really gotten in to lately).

I would like to enter this  card  in to the  following challenges;
Totally Gorgeous Blogspot  - Challenge  111 - For SomeoneSpecial
Crafty Boots  Challenge Blog - Christmas
Stamping For The Weekend - Challenge 22 - Christmas
Sarah  Hurley Challenge Blog - Challenge 56 - Colouring
Sweet Stamping Challenge Blog - Sparkle  and Bling
Diva's By  Design Challenge Blog - Challenge 17  - Merry Christmas

This is very  glittery in real  life I just  couldn't seem to capture it in the photo's I have coloured the image  with watercolour  pencils and have  used  white  glitter on the igloo and  the  embossed area on the stopper  and the little  hearts that  are in the center of the snowflakes. The  snowflakes  and the frame  are  vellum cut out  using  Spellbinders  dies and  I dry  embossed the  snowflakes on to the white card. No walk through today as I don't think  my  brain can take it lol.

Thank you for reading this post, as always I love to hear your comments and please stay safe in the nasty weather.

Lindsay xx

Lili's Little Fairies

Hiya just a quick post to let you all know about Lili's Little Fairies,  as you may already know the Lili Of The Valley thursday challenge is no more and has  now changed to Lili's Little Faries in  celebration  they have lots of lovely candy  on offer, the candy runs until the 4th of Jan 2012 and the new  challenges start from 5th of Jan 2012 so why not pop over there  and check  it out.

Lindsay  xx

Butterfly Mobile

Evening everyone, Firstly sorry I have been a little slack on blogging the last few days, things  are  beginning to  get hectic now that  Christmas is getting closer and the busyness  of this time of year always takes it's toll on my health, I  will be doing some commenting this evening and over the next couple of days though and will try to catch up with you all.

Today I  have made another Christmas present, this one is for my cousins little girl Ella who love's butterflies and has her bedroom full of them so I have  made her  a butterfly mobile  to go with her bedding.

To  make the  mobile I had a piece curved clear acrylic in my box of things  I have salvaged from broken  household items, I  burnt  holes in  it using my  Pyrography  heat tool and threaded embroidery silks through the  holes tying  them at the end.

I then took some synthetic material flowers and leaves and stuck  them to the top of the clear acrylic being careful to  ensure  that the loop to hang it  from  was not covered. I  then used some foam roses on  wires to trail  from the  acrylic using glue and leaves to secure and hide the ends to the underside of the the acrylic.

  
Next I used my Ultimate pro and envelebox board  from Crafters Companion to emboss my butterfly shapes on to white card and cut them out.

Next I  coloured the  embossed lines of the butterflies in pink and drew in the flower pattern on them using colour pencils. I then  pricked holes around  the edges of the two larger butterflies and stitched the edges with pink thread.

Finally I stuck my butterflies in to place, sticking them back to  back over the strings.

Thank you for reading this post, as always I love to hear any comments that you  have.

Lindsay xx

Christmas Gift made using PanPastel

Afternoon peeps,  here is a little  snippet of what I have been up to today

This is a key box I have done for my Aunties Christmas present, I picked up the key box cheap at a boot sale  in quite a messy state, it had been stained very very dark and the person who did it had managed to stain the fittings and the glass too (how nice of them! lol). So I got it home took it apart cleaned it and then sanded it, I didn't bother to be to particular about the sanding I wanted it to be smooth.

Next I took some silver acrylic paint and sponged on a thin coat and then sprinkled with purple and white PanPastels and sponged them in to the paint. When I had covered the whole thing left it to dry, which to be  honest didn't take nearly as long as the time it took me to clean myself up lol (I was covered in paint and PanPastels lol I love anything that's a bit messy) So when I had finished sorting myself out it was dry when I got back.

I then stamped my tree images using stamps from Crafty  Individuals and Black Archival Ink and finally  I sprayed  with satin  varnish  and put it all back together again.

I would like  to enter this  in to The Crafty Bloggers Network Challenge 7 - Christmas Gift

Thank you for  reading  this post, as always I love  to hear any  comments  that you have. Don't  forget to join in with this weeks PanPastel Challenge  Blog  theme  of "Gift Tags".

Lindsay xx

Candy Winner!

Hello everyone just a quick post for now to let you  know who the lucky winner of my candy is ..............

We wrote down all the names and put them in to my other half's hat for him to draw one out and the lucky was.................

Pat  - My Work In Progress is Pat's lovely blog, I have left Pat a comment asking her to email me her address so that I  can pop her goodies in the post, hopefully she might have them just in  time for Christmas.

I will be back soon with a post of today's make, no card today, I have been making Christmas prezzies instead!

Thanks to  everyone who entered my candy and became followers, I am thinking I might do a new candy in Jan or Feb next year to  try and brighten up that dull time of year that gets everyone down!

Congratulations to Pat.

Lindsay xx

Blog Candy Draw For My Followers

Hooray! I  have reached my 50  followers, a lot  quicker  than expected too so thanks to everyone for  spreading  the word, the  candy will close at midnight on Sunday 11th  Dec and  the  winner  will be  drawn and posted  on here on  Monday  the  12th Dec.  Thanks  xx

This is a sticky post and will stay at the top until my candy winner is picked please scroll down for newer posts

Afternoon all, I hope you are all well, I am posting my very first ever blog candy giveaway! My candy  will run until 1 week after I hit 50 followers.

My candy includes;
20 sheets of various 12" x 12" patterned papers
A bottle of Dylon easy bastik
A pair of Fiskars quick clip classic scissors
Dovecraft Tea House acrylic stamps
Papermania Stamp Duos Fairy Christmas acrylic stamps
I have also thrown in 4 sets of acrylic stamps that came free with  magazines and have never been used, these include fairies of the season, time for tea, a spring set and a thank you set
An X-cut stitch and craft designer border (metal stencil) - Celtic
A pack of Stick it cool melt glue sticks
3 miniature paper punches, square, pumpkin and boot shapes
A Making memories sticker pack - blueberry and lagoon
A pack of simply creative handmade 3D stickers
A pack of Creative Hands cool foam puzzle alphabet stickers
A set of Cuttlebug miniatures - 1 miniature postage stamp  die and 4 miniature postage stamp  embossing folders
1 tube of tulip metallics dimensional fabric paint
15 bags of sequins including some leaves,  snowflakes, letters and numbers and some holographic as well as regular ones in different shapes, sizes and colours
Some black satin ribbon  (not shown in photograph)
And some cream satin ribbon (not shown in photograph)

Ok so here are my rules to enter my candy;
You must be or become a follower here on blogger through google friend connect
You must post my candy picture and  a link back to my blog in your sidebar to spread the word
And you must leave a comment on this post  (I am a little bit scared of mr linky and my other half seems quite keen to draw the name out of a hat)

No candy only blogs please and please only become a follower if you intend to stay a follower.

I will post worldwide.

Also as my candy is a way for me to say thank you to the people who have been so lovely and supportive since I started blogging anyone who was/ is a follower of my original wordpress blog that comes to follow me and join in with my candy over here on blogger will get entered to the draw twice and anyone who regularly leaves me comments either on here or on wordpress will be entered twice if they become a follower here and join in with my candy draw.

The name will be drawn 1 week after I hit the 50 followers mark.

Finally a big thank you to everyone who has been so lovely with their comments and made me feel welcome in the world of blogging.

Hugs and love
Lindsay xx

PanPastel Challenge Blog - Challenge 12 - Gift Tags

Morning everybody, its time  for this  weeks new challenge over at the PanPastel Challenge Blog this  weeks theme is  Gift Tags and the  prize is  a fantastic  taster  kit of PanPastels  and soft tools from our  sponsor  Your Creativity Store (colours may vary).

Here's what I came up with for  this theme;

To make the first tag I simply stamped my image on to white card using Perfect Medium, I then coloured it using brown PanPastel, and used a gold metallic marker to fill in the space around the  image and  cut around  the outside edge with scissors. Next I used a screw punch to put a whole in my tag and using tartan ribbon, plastic holly leaves and miniature pine  cones I embellished my tag and used the ends of the ribbon to make a loop.

To make the second tag I cut out my shape using Spellbinders Nestabilities, I punched my hole in the top of  my tag using a screw punch and then I  began stamping, to get the effect I wanted for this tag I took a piece of scrap paper and tore it in  to 3 pieces to use as a mask. I used the straight edges of the paper to mask off everything except the triangle areas I wanted to stamp, then stamped using perfect medium and added colour using PanPastels and sofft tools. I repeated this process over and over using the  different colours, always ensuring that everywhere except the area I  was currently  working on was covered with the papers.

I then stuck a piece of black and silver ribbon across the center of the tag and used more of the same ribbon to make the loop. Finally I added a reindeer embellishment  that had been part of a set of cheap Christmas decorations that I thought would work nicely as embellishments.

Thank you for reading this post and I do hope you will come along to the PanPastel Challenge Blog and join in the fun,  also don't forget that Your Creativity Store currently has a Christmas sale price and free p&p on PanPastels.

As always I love to  hear any  comments you have.

Lindsay xx