Sugar Bowl Sweetie

Hi All,

I am beside myself with excitement to let you all know that I have the huge honor of being asked to join the Sugar Bowl Sweetie design team.

The Lovely Gayle announced it on the Sugar Nellie Blog on Tuesday .... and I have been going round with a constant smile since! I have been on holiday this week, so that has been the cherry on top of a most lovely week!! It is also the reason that I have had a slight delay in shouting this news from the rooftops!!

Hugs to All
Juls

Loving my box of bits!!!

Hello All,

Last night I got to take advantage of those 1500 die cuts ... the 4 days work it took finally seemed worth it! In blogland I love looking at all these cards that are piled up with embellishments and dies, however I normally manage to cut a couple of flowers, but I cant be bothered to cut more, however having a box of 1500 bits to rummage through, meant I could go mad ..... but I think you may be seeing hearts circles and flowers on everything now!!

I have used a SN Leanne Ellis image, the background was coloured with pan pastels, and the circles highlighted with prisma pencils. The girl was coloured with my copics .... and everything has been covered with glitter, using stickles!!

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

The Sugar Bowl - Anything Goes
Crafty Calander - blooms and blossoms
Cute and Girly - Flowers
Kaboodle - For the Ladies
Simon Says - Happy mail
ABC - Make it sparkle
Charisma Cards - Shaped Cards
As you Like it - Favorite die or punch
Sister Act - Anything Goes
Totally Papercrafts - shaped cards
Fussy and Fancy - Anything Goes
Stamping for the weekend - Dies and Punches
Allsorts - add some sparkle
Our Creative Corner - Anything Goes
Dream Valley - No squares allowed
Pixies Snippit Playground

Thanks for looking
Hugs Juls

Quickly Sketched Face

Hello All,

Well, I cant quite believe I am posting this .... I feel really exposed & a little embarrassed at the results, l really do need a lot of work and practice when it comes to sketching faces, portraits were always my nemesis when I took art at school. I have been avoiding the page that has you drawing faces in my doodle art book, so it was time to give it a try.

I quickly sketched this in about 10 min, when I was just going to bed last night. The eyes do look a little freaky, try as I might I cant get 2 to look the same ... hence why I tried to sketch it on graph paper to see if that helped.

My original plan, was I would use the sketch as a base and paint over it, however I decided to tape it into my journal with Washi tape as it is and hopefully in a few years I will be able to look back at it and see how far I have come.

Thanks for looking
Hugs to All
Juls

The War on Scraps!!

Hi All

Warning ... This is a picture heavy post! As most of you know January of this year, I began " Mission Impossible" .... to use up all my scraps, I have been faithfully crafting from my bag of scraps ( a large bag for life, from Tesco ) ... If I have afforded myself the luxury of cutting into a nice fresh piece of paper, then I have made sure that I have used up every last little bit, so I did not add to the scrap pile. However after months and months, I realized that I could craft for a hundred years and the scraps would never be gone!! I would never be able to move onto the Mahoosive pile of DP's that also need tackled, so I have to admit that I have resorted to some underhand dealings!!

I have asked some of my friends if their children would would appreciate and use a collection of patterned paper, so I have gone through my scraps, found usable pieces and squared them off, I found a few unloved peel offs and stickers, and stamped some images, and created these gift bags:

Even though if I had crafted for a month of Sundays I would never have been able to use all of those papers up ... I was still left with this:

I decided to do some die cutting, and thought I would create a little box of die cut shapes so they are to hand to use as embellishments at any time, In my head this would maybe take an hour or so to do, my scraps would disappear, and then I would do some crafting ....

5 days later, I had to stop at 1500 die cuts as my little box was full:

 Look what I did to my poor big shot:

P.S I didn't count all the punched flowers, decided life was to short for that!!

As the die cutting did not successfully conquer the scraps, I had to think again!! I have done art journal pages in the past, I decided to make an entire art Journal, using some old business cards and covering them with DP :

I think I will get some large jump rings for it, but for the moment I have tied it together with some fibers, from my stash:

Here are a couple of my Fav pages from the Journal, I wont show them all ... think there have already been far too many pictures in this post .... these are the raw product, they are yet to be covered with Gesso, paint and all things inky:

Lessons Learned:

I have descovered that even papers I dont like, when cut into lovey shapes, actually look really cute ... so I need to learn to see things differently. Also with the pages, I was putting papers on that I really had didnt like, the picture behind, I thought that orange paper was cheap looking and hideous, however by just keeping going and adding other things its turned into one of my fav pages ... so it will be good to challange myself to make things with some of my unloved stash and see what I can do with it !!

I have put in so much work, I know that I HAVE to have created a dent in my scraps, however it is not yet visable to the naked eye!! My loft floor is still full of scraps so I will see what I can come up with next time I venture up there.

This is my entry to Pixies Snippit Playground

Thanks for putting up with me and my waffle!!
Hugs Juls

Digital Vintage Violet

Hi All,

I was hoping to have a lovely selection of cards to share with you today, as I had planned some crafting time yesterday ... however none got done, I started attacking my scraps instead ... I will post some photos at a later date! However my loft is still covered in paper, and by poor big shot is having a well deserved rest, as I was die cutting for Britain yesterday!!

Anyhoo ... onto this card, This is another Serif Creation!! So it is all Flat, apart from the little flowers which have been decoupaged, and I coloured the image (one of my Fav's) with my copics.

This is my entry for:

Saturated Canary - Bright and Beautiful
Pennys Challenge - Anything Goes
Simon Says - Anything Goes
Sister Act - Anything Goes

As Always Thanks for looking
Hugs Juls

Spring Time in Paris

Hello All,

Well we have had a busy week, been building a shed, all ready to move the contents of our garage into it so we can knock down the garage if and when our planning comes through for our extension. Not had much time for crafting this week, so this card is from my last escape into the loft.

Still on My Scrap mission, so this is yet another card that has come from my scrap bag .... I even found a scrap that I had sprayed with Mica powder, and stitched, which blended in beautifully with the card I was making. most handy!!!!

This card has a bit of everything on it ... the background card has been stamped with a papermania stamp, and I added a little colour using my whisper pens. I totally fell in love with the new "Paris in Spring" stamp from "Stampendous" .... so it fell into my basket whilst watching C&C the other week, I have stamped it out on the blue paper, and paper pieced the flowers. I have collaged various papers from my mahoosive scrap collection. The image is a topper from the "dovecraft - lets party"range .... finally I added some frantage .. ( My latest obsession!!) and a few embellies, and this is the finished result.

This is my entry for:

Kaboodle - Spring
My Time to Craft - Stitching
Pennys Papercraft - Anything Goes
Simon Says - Anything Goes
Totally Gorjuss - Embossing ( I have gone for the heat embossing option, with my beloved frantage!!)
Pixies Snippit Challenge

As Always thanks for looking
Hugs Juls

Garden Treaure

Hello All,

I got to play in the loft again!! Whoop Whoop!!

Once again I am attacking the scrap pile ... I honestly think I will be doing that for the rest of my life. I have been so good and have been diligently working away at them for months, and as yet there is no visible dent!

I coloured up this fabulous Saturated Canary image, and I have used copics and prisma's .... I also played with my new favorite toy, a couple of franntage sets that fell in my basket the other day! Everything has been distressed with "Aged Mahogany - distress ink"  I have added a few bits of washi tape too, and then rubbed some gesso on various places.

This is my entry for:

Saturated Canary - Anything Goes
My Time to Craft - Stitching
Pennys Paper Craft - Use a sentiment
Stamping for the Weekend - Friendship
One Stop Craft - Not square
Allsorts - passion for flowers
Sister Act - Anything Goes


Thanks for looking
Hugs Juls