CHRISTMAS IN PAPHOS, CYPRUS

Christmas Tags

Well this is the final challenge of 2013 for Crafting with Dragonflies.....doesn't time fly when you're having fun!!!

We were challenged to make a tag with a Christmas theme. You always need last minute tags so a very useful challenge for this time of year I'm sure you'll agree.

Our sponsors are:
                                                                          Sassy Studio

with a prize of 4 digis of the winners choice

QKR Stampede 

with a prize of 5 digis of the winners choice

How generous is that!!! I went with a lovely digi sentiment from QKR and made six tags....one is enough for the challenge tho........ and a box card to send them in as a gift.

I use white card stock and hand cut each one giving them a fancy 'bubble' shaped top. Then I ran them through the Cuttle Bug using the snowflake embossing folder. The images are from a sheet of 'stick on' topper .....flimsy but they have a lovely sheen. The greetings are from my stash. I always have a variety of greetings, of every shape, size and colour ,ready printed so they are always to hand. Red organza ribbon from my stash was added.

The 'box card' was made with the same white card and I added the snowflake embossed card to the two front panels. The same red organza ribbon was placed down each side to match. Then the digi from QKR qas added and adhered on one side panel. This was double mounted and I used an X Cut round corner punch to finish. The red star gems are from my stash.....I've had these for eons and were a gift from an online buddy so no idea where they are from. I got the idea for the box card from Valita's freshfold blog.

This is the You Tube link for the box card.

youtube....Valitas freshfolds blog

I hope you enjoy the challenge. Don't forget to pop over to crafting-with-dragonflies. to see the other fabulous tags my teamies have made. And don't forget to visit our generous sponsors Sassy Studio and QKR Stampede.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

 

Challenges

pumpkinspiceblog......tags (please visit blog to vote for my tags xx)

christmasblogchallenge.......embossing

 

Pin photo inspiration

I'm scheduling this post so fingers crossed it works.
Over at (pin)spirational there's a fab photo to inspire you.

Sponsors are

                                                                  prize is $15 voucher

prize is 7 digis

The sponsors kindly let us choose an image to play with. Thank you so much.

 I chose an image from Scribble and Scrap.......Vintage Steampunk Corset.

I went for a DL card this time for a change. I covered half of the card with button background paper from my stash, I coloured the corset digi with skin tone Spectrum Noir Markers FS2 and FS3. I found some vintage lace in my ribbon drawer and added to the top edge. I made the flower on the front from the same lace. I took a small piece and used running stiches along one edge and gathered it up then adhered it with hi tac red tape. This tape is wonderful and hasn't let me down yet when adding ribbon or beads.

The toppers and sentiment are from Debbie Moore Shabby Chic Haberdashery CD. I also added a bit of colour to the sewing machine. tape measure and scissors using the same marker pens. I edged them with the same marker pens too so it all co-ordinated.

This was really fun to make. You must hop over to (pin)spirational and see what the rest of my teamies have created. You won't be disappointed.

 pinspirationalchallenges

 

Challenges entered:

craftybloggersnetwork......Girly

yumifumihandmadecrafts......photo inspiration (see challenge blog)

 

Craft Room reveal

Over at Crafting with Dragonflies Hilde challenged us to reveal our craft space. So here goes for what it's worth.

 Not got a lot but I manage. You could say I'm lucky that I do have a separate craft room but guess what I rarely use it. Why? Well in the Summer it gets extremely hot. There's no Air Con and fans just blow crafty stuff all over the place. In the Winter it is freezing!! Can't wear gloves to craft now can we. So I prefer being at my desk in the main house with the PC and I nip in and out for tools and goodies as and when. Keeps me fit you could say. I do tidy everything away on the desk at the end of the day but it's a mess during the creative process.

Craft Room

The blue boxes have things like templates, punches, large flowers etc.

 The see through boxes have smaller flowers, wire, some ribbons, bows etc....all your small fiddley stuff. The jars hold buttons..... colour coded.

You can see two boxes of 'sayings'/small tags here too, flower soft and a cutter.

Tissue paper and ribbon bows and plastic wallets are in the drawers. The blue box holds my card stock and the white box fancy/glitter/mirri card. Circle cutter is on top.

On top of the spare freezer I have baskets with more jars of buttons and sequins. Small blue boxes as before.

This is my desk that I should work at but don't!! To the right are files with colour co ordinated scrap papers in.. Large hole punch, box of small embossing tools, circle cutter and small non stick mat. My stamps and inks are in the brown box and along top of desk. The heat gun and notebooks to alter are there too. On the left I've a box of jewellery making tools and findings and some beads that my daughter donated to me when she gave up jewellery making....thank you Debbie.

Top drawer of desk holds toppers and ATC's. 2nd drawer bright coloured ribbons. 3rd drawer pastel ribbon. Bottom drawer ready made tags and die cuts.

On another wall I have a shelf unit which has large purple boxes storing DP and one of these has Xmas stuff in it. You can see staplers here too and the tin behind contains sand and small sea shells.

Boxes with a wide variety of envelopes and boxes half made up. More Xmas stuff on top shelf.

This is where I have my paints and brushes stored and decoupage and more DP are in the blue boxes.

Messy space

This is my messy space. PC, printer, card, paper, CD's are here. Very untidy!!

I'm outside too in the Spring and Summer

My work area outside..... if it's not too windy.

And if I want a view of the pool I just move my craft stuff around to other side of table.

I have my craft group tool box in the boot of my car more or less permanently....then I'm always good to go each week to my craft group.

So that's it. Not a lot but then there's not a lot of craft goodies to buy here!!

Pop over to Crafting with Dragonflies  to see what my teamies have to show with their reveals.......way more than me. You'll be amazed....well I was!!

Christmas bauble

Getting everything ready for Christmas is always an exciting time especially when the children are small. Those days are long gone for me, as my children are all grown up and my grand children are living miles and miles away from here. Still I like to try to create a warm Christmas feel to our home even though we are miles away from family. So what better way than with this week's challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies.

 The design team were challenged to make a Christmas ornament to hang on the tree.

                                                         The sponsor is 'Bugaboo Stamps'

 

and the prize is 7 digis of the winners choice......how generous is that!!

 I was fortunate to receive in the post two MDF baubles from a cyber buddy, Pauline, to decorate. It arrived at the perfect time for this challenge.

This is my creation:

 

I covered the larger bauble with gold paper from my stash. The small one was covered in red card overlayed with white flocked mesh to give a snowy effect. Adding one on top of the other with foam pads created a 3D effect. The digi from Bugaboo was hung below.....thanks for the inspiration Hilde. I added red gems to the side. I threaded gold tinkly bells and red pearls on gold thread to hang from the bottom. This was finished off with red ribbon from my stash. I hung it from one of the cypress fir trees in my garden.....you may be able to spot the fir cones.

I also made a box to put it in as I am going to send this off to another cyber buddy in the UK.....you know who you are!!

 

 

I covered the box in spotty paper which I bought here in Cyprus. Now many of you know that craft shops here are limited so we find our goodies from strange sources. Recently Lidls Stores came to Cyprus and opened up not one but two stores here in Paphos. And sometimes they have...... craft paper and card stock!! Yeh how lucky are we!! This paper is one recent item purchased from there. It's a fab red and I wished I'd bought more.

For the large flower I cut the petals from florists ribbon with a Primo flower in the centre and gold perfect pearls for stamens. The two small flowers are also Primo. Another digi topper from Bugaboo was added to the box and I added a small amount of red to pick up the red of the bauble and the box.

 

 

Close up of the two digis from Bugaboo stamps.

Don't forget to check out our generous sponsor and pop over to http://crafting-with-dragonflies.blogspot. and see what the rest of the design team have made and be inspired to start getting ready for Christmas.

Thanksgiving

Well we're into the middle of November already......where has this year gone!!! It'll soon be Christmas but first of all there's a Thanksgiving celebration in the USA. Our inspirational photo this week is........

 

Isn't it colourful!!

 

The sponsors this week are

 

 

prize 5 digis

 

and

 

 

 

http://annescards4u.blogspot.co.uk/ 

prize 5 digis

 

I used the Harvest Basket digi from Eureka Stamps for my card.

 

 

The main card is pale green hammered card stock. I then added a layer of blue and a layer of white card stock. I coloured the image using a variety of pencils and copic markers. I added pale green and white ribbon around the border and gold corner peel off leaves. Finally adding the peel off greeting 'Thank You'.

Don't forget to check out our sponsors and visit http://pinspirationalchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ to see what the rest of the team have created.

 

 

 

 

Things with Wings and add a stickpin

Good morning people. I'm scheduling this post again so fingers crossed!!

The design team at Crafting with Dragonflies were given the challenge of creating a card based on the theme 'Things with Wings' with the added twist, to add a stickpin.

The sponsors are crafts and me and the prize will be 3 digis of the winners choice.


 Some us opted to go sponsor free with this one. As you can see I went sponsor free and chose the obvious......... 'butterfly'.

The butterfly is made with peel offs on top of acetate. (Thanks to my online buddy, Irene, for giving me this idea.) The image has two layers thus creating a decoupage effect. The 'tail' sweeping down behind is simple but effective, using a swirl of hi tac glue and tiny gems randomly sprinkled over it. I also added matching gems to the antennae. The matching pinsticks were part of a prize I won recently at the 'Allsorts' blog hop. I added a white bow to hold it in place and a matching pink topper from my stash.

Don't forget to check out our sponsor 'Crafts and Me' and pop over to crafting-with-dragonflies to see what the rest of the design team created. You won't be disappointed!!

Challenges:
pinkgemchallengeblog.....Gems Gems Gems
jwscrapshack......Things with Wings
inthepinkchallenge......Ribbons/Bows....and pink

Hello baby!

Good morning fellow crafters. I'm scheduling this post so fingers crossed it works.

This is the inspiring piccie this week from (pin)spirational challenges.

What a cutie!!

Sponsors are

 Creative Bug Digitals and the prize is 15 digis

 

                                                  Bugaboo Stamps with a prize of 7 digis.

I used Sugar and Spice sentiment from Bugaboo stamps.

I used pink card for the base and rounded the corners with my corner punch. Then added pink dotty card stock from my stash. I put 3D buds/pop dots under the knitting topper which was made by my online buddy Angie at owl-lady-crafting. Pop over and check out her blog, you won't be disappointed, as her cards are inspiring. I found a cute rabbit and tag in my stash and added those with 3d dots and finished off with pink grograin ribbon down the side.

Don't forget to pop over to (pin)\isnspiration challenges and see the fab creations the rest of my teamies have made.

http://pinspirationalchallenges.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Challenges:

twistedtuesdaychallenges.......use pop dots/twist polka dots

cutiepiechallenge........#57Little Cuties

lawnscaping......The sentiment feature #69

 

 

Stripey....one for the boys

The CD Sunday challenge this week, Stripey, shouted out 'One for the Boys' to me. I looked through my CD's and decided to go with my old favourite 'Pyramid Krazy'. I kept the card fairly simple and used various shades of blue. The image and tags are from the CD and the sentiments from my stash.

 

I've added a bit of bling too. I know boys don't really do bling but I found these blue star gems tucked away in the bottom of a box and they matched perfectly. Well after all Sons are stars aren't they.........well mine is anyway. So this card is ready to wing it's way across the miles to my Son.

 

Challenges :

cdsundaychallenge......Stripey

natalieandamy......For the boys

                                            365cards.......Masculine with Blue as main colour
                                                     lexiscreations.......Birthday Celebrations
                                                          cutedaisymay........Monochromatic
                                                          craftysentiments.........For the guys
                                                               creativecraft..........Words
                                                        lejdesigns.........Monochromatic #78
                                                          tuesdaythrowdown.......Tag It #172
                                             kathyswafflesketchfile........Bits and Pieces Sketch

Make your own Flower Embellishments

Over at Crafting with Dragonflies we've been challenged to make our own flowers. This was great fun and the design team have lots of inspiring creations for you. The prize will be provided our sponsors

Prize 2 images

My craft group have recently purchased a Tonic Punch and Stamp set so I thought I'd have a little play with that. Well couldn't resist really.

 

For the challenge I created the Gardenias.

 

You need 5 petals and a sepal and a stamen which I embossed to make it curl. The petals 'sat on top of the flat sepal, overlapping each other. Then the curled stamen was added. No inking or stamping needed with this.

 

The card was made into a 'pocket' and I added the flowers to the open top. One large and two small and some punched out leaves. I edged it with CB border die cuts.  There were some tiny waste flowers from this die and I added those and my liquid pearls went in the centres of all the flowers. I tied a double ribbon around the pocket and added a double bow. Two further small bows were added to finish off.

 

I made the large bow with the double ribbon then added a smaller bow on top with a glue dot.

 

 

 

This 'card' folds back at the bottom to make it free standing. The idea was from one of my crafters, thank you Terri. I think she got the template from a magazine but which one, I'm sorry I do not know....maybe someone recognises it then I can give it credit.

 

Now you must pop over to :

crafting-with-dragonflies.

 

Good luck and have fun creating your own flowers. I know I did.!!!

 

Challenges:

craftingwhenwecanchallenges #56....make your own flowers

movingalongwiththetimes......shape up

inthepinkchallenge......use pink and white

pinkgemchallengeblog..........more than one fold

papercreatorscrafts.......pink or blue

cheerylynndesigns............borders and edgers

craftycreationschallenges......#246 Make it yourself

                                                 craft-deebowz......make your own bow

(PIN)spirational......Fantasy

Another sunny day here in Cyprus. I hope the UK have survived the storms and not too much damage has been done. I hate the wind and the rain!!

This week at (Pin)spirational the piccie is very inspiring. This will really get your imagination going into overdrive!!

Isn't it a super image. An enormous open book with lots of fantasy creatures and objects flying about. I love it!!
                                                           The sponsors are Sassy Studio.

Prize 4 digis

Sassy Studios have given the design team some fab images to play with. Don't forget to check them out. 

I used Dorothy (Honey) from the Wizard of Oz.

I double mounted sky blue card on to silver mirri card. The image was coloured with a variety of pencils and pens and I added a some red sparkle to her shoes. The 'yellow brick road' is made from jig saw pieces that I had in my stash. I quilled the balloons in yellow, red and blue to co-ordinate plus tiny matching ribbons and gold cord. Pearls were added to the centre of each balloon.

 I felt that the balloons were pulling Dorothy along so I went with the tag line  'Flying by to say....' and put it, and 'Happy Birthday' on banners that I made from scrap white card. Silver Rangers stickles was smeared across the banners and jigsaw pieces to give them a bit of sparkle.

Don't forget to pop over to (pin)spirational challenges and see what the rest of the design team have created.

Have fun!!

 

Challenges:

sunshinemail......For the girls

eclecticellapu.....Inspired by a film....Wizard of Oz

pileitonchallenge........Embellishment Crazy

hobbycutzchallenges.....BINGO. pearls,Free,Ribbon

corrosivechallenges....TIC TAC TOE...Bling,Digi,Layers

creativefingerschallenge.......inspired by a Movie 'The Wizard of Oz'

lawnscaping......#68 inspired by a pinterest pic

Travels Abroad

Good morning fellow crafters. It's Sunday again and time for another challenge at CD Sunday. This week's theme has been chosen by Christine. This is my final week as Guest designer for this fab  group.

 So here goes with my take on 'Travels Abroad'.

Now my favourite place in the whole world is Paris, well after Cyprus of course, so I played around with that in mind and what CD to use and how to use it. I had a large topper/diecut in my stash of a sparkley Eiffel Tower so that had to go on somewhere. My Grand daughter has just come back from Paris and she described the Eiffel Tower as sparkley at night....she's right....it's so beautiful lit up.

 Thinking of 'travel' well lots of things came to mind.....transport, beach scenes, city scapes, maps etc. Then I had a 'light bulb' moment and thought....luggage. What did I have in my thousands of images.......I kid you not!! So without too much of a search I found some templates of luggage. Where they were from I do not know but thank you whoever you may be. They were perfect. Now for the CD........well good old Debbi Moores' CD Shabby Chic Collection came up trumps again and I found an ancient map in the transport section. Instead of using it as a background paper I made the luggage from it.

 

I had great fun adding all the embellishments. The luggage is faux stitched and  I made little tags and added the wording, Bon Voyage from my stash and Au Revoir was hand written, and fasten them on with string around the handles. Plus a couple of blue organza flowers finished them off.....girly but you could easily make them for a guy. The sentiment/letter I found on google and can't find the note I made as to who wrote it. Very very sorry as it's a beautiful letter written from one friend to another who was going off on a journey. I printed it out on pink girlie paper and added a bow that matched the flowers. Faux stitched around the letter too, just to tie it in to the whole scene.

 

Hope you can see that I've had fun with this letting my imagination run 'wild'. Thank you Christine for your choice of theme this week. And thank you CD Sunday for letting me loose on your challenge blog. I've had a great time.

 

Challenges:

Challenges and candie.....#19 'I'm writing you a letter'

papercreatorscrafts.......#16 pink or blue

pileitonchallenge........Embellishment Crazy

hobbycutzchallenges....BINGO...sparkle,pink,ribbon

'Fox and Friends'

Good morning from sunny and very windy Cyprus. I hope you're all having a great weekend and have managed to fit in some crafting.
We're harvesting almonds here at the moment. The trees are laden this year. Sadly the olives haven't faired too well and I don't think there'll be enough to take down to the oil press. So no extra virgin olive oil for us this year. No idea why but everyones' trees have suffered the same. We had a windy Spring and the blossom may have been blown away too early.

This week over at CD Sunday, where I'm still guest designer this month.....and thoroughly enjoying it, the theme is 'Fox and Friends' chosen by Sue. Lots of inspiration from my teamies so pop over and take a peak.

I used a CD I won in a challenge  'Forest Friends' Collection 1 from Cupcake Crafting. I went for something different from a card and decided to do a bookmark and matching envelope. With Christmas just around the corner a few bookmarks as stocking fillers will be perfect.

Everything is there for you on the CD. So all I had to do was put it together, punch a hole and tie a matching ribbon and beads and VOILA!!

So thinking caps on crafters and go down to the 'forest' to find your Fox and Friends images. Don't forget to visit CD Sunday for more inspiration and don't forget you've got to use something from a CD, even a scrap of DP with be OK, and you'll be in with a chance of winning a scrummie prize.

Have fun!!


                                                                         Challenges:

                                                     craftycatzweekly......a gift to remember #203
                                                 craftyribbons........anything goes with ribbon #66
                                                    everybody-art-challenge........ribbon #249
                                                     shoppingourstash........oldest ribbon # 123
                                              sparklingblackrose-craftmylife........anything but a card
                                                                    bunnyzoescrafts.........ribbon

Crafting with Dragonflies.....

........Yeh!!! That's what I'm doing. I am soooo excited to have been asked to join this friendly and talented team of crafters.

 Why is it that you find crafters are such friendly folk? What is it about crafting that brings out the best in folk? I design for two other challenge blogs and they are so friendly too. Maybe the whole world should take up crafting then we'd really have a peaceful world. Mmmm......Off the soapbox Wynn and back to the crafting :)

The inspiration this week at Crafting with Dragonflies is to create something with trees and nature in mind. I decided to 'build' a tree!! Using the technique of Tbag folding.

I mounted it on gold mirri card which is a wee bit too shiny for the camera. Red flat backed pearls were added and a gold strip of stars across the top with a red bow....that looks brown in the piccie. A tartan strip across the bottom with a shiny red flower and a gold brad finished it off. Another one added to the miniscule pile of Xmas cards but it is getting bigger......well a bit!!

Now you must pop over to crafting-with-dragonflies and see what the rest of the fab crafters have come up with for this challenge.
Don't forget to visit the rest of my teamies blogs too....... you won't be disappointed they are bound to inspire you. So go on have fun!!

                                                                           Challenges:
                                                                  useyourstuff..........Bling
                                                                  mimchallenge.....texture
                                                     cardcrafterscircle.....use three embellishments

Anything Goes

This week at (pin)spirational challenges it's Anything Goes!!
Two great digi sponsors this week Fresh Brewed and My Heart Pieces.

with a prize of

3 digis

 

 

 

You'll find lots of inspiration in this week's piccie at (pin)spirational

 

 

I've chosen to use blue monotone for my creation.......except the tree trunk :) I coloured the digi 'Wonky Xmas Tree' from Fresh Brewed with a variety of colouring pencils, oil pastel to add sheen and pens for the shading.

 

 

The two circular greetings were from my stash and I coloured them pale blue and mounted them on dark blue circles. Pale blue flat backed pearls were added and a piece of pale blue lace and a blue rhinestone on the pot to finish it off.

 

I'm sure you'll have lots of ideas of your own but I went with the Blue colour. Pop over to (pin) spirational to see the fab creations the rest of the design team have come up with. Why not visit their blogs too and see what other creative ideas you might pick up.

Have fun!!!

 

Challenges:

 papermakeupstamps........clean and simple ....must use a digi

tsgclearstamps..........Christmas

cutedaisymay........spots and dots

card crafters circle.....use 3 embellishments

tivefingerschallengeblog..........shades of one colour