Challenge 12 - What's New?

I hope you all had a wonderful new year and have stuck to the resolutions hehe! With all this snow and ice around I think its given a little extra time for crafting!

Many many thanks for all your entries to challenge 11 favourites, so much variety but I think promarkers and copics are clearly a hit! Also thanks once again to Joanna Sheen for sponsoring us and to Vicky for being our special guest.

OK I'm back! We've counted 53 entries so thank you all very very much! Firstly onto the winner of the Joanna Sheen voucher who random.org says is....

Number 48 which is JODI!
Well Done Jodi, please email me your details so your Joanna Sheen prize can be sent to you, enjoy enjoy!
Now onto our Top 3 choices which were chosen by Mandy & Judie who are....

Mandy - A Sprinkling of Glitter

Suzy - Crafty Suzy

Lynn - Lynn Antill Crafting

Well Done ladies and please grab your Top 3 blinkie from the sidebar, fabulous creations!

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A little bit of a change to the design team too as sadly Rose has decided to stand down so we'll say a fond farewell and thanks for all her hard work to the blog. We'll miss you sweetie and good luck with all your future plans x

We're also changing the format of the challenges slightly in that the special guest designers will also give a short interview with their top tips to help you along which will be at the bottom of this post.

Also if there are any tutorials you would like to see please pop them in this thread here and I will work through them. You can also email in any questions if you're a bit shy to ask!

Righto onto Challenge 12 which this fortnight is sponsored by the one and only Stampman! I saw many of you taking part (and winning!) in the recent Stampman blog hop and what a lot of fun it was too!

The Stampman also have a £10 voucher to use in their shop and what a lot of goodies you'll find there such as starburst stains (If you havent noticed I use these in practically everything I make lol!) and some wonderful stamp plates by Tracey Coates and Kay Carley. They also stock DVD's, distress inks and some of the yummiest embossing powders you'll ever see and thats just the starters! Pop on over and check them out as there is so much stock to suit every craft taste!

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CHALLENGE 12 - WHAT'S NEW?
Our challenge this time is What's New?
Did santa bring any new goodies or did you buy something thats still in the wrapper (guilty!) or maybe you're learning a new technique? What's new to you?

Here's what's new to our ladies and many thanks for doing a brilliant job once again!

Joy

I used a green card from my stash, added a small square of red homemade (not by me I might add ) paper putting it on the card so that it is diamond shaped, then added a second cream piece ... both pieces were fixed using double sided tape, I then added some pale blue flock flowers onto the cream paper, a couple of butterflies, one at the top point of the red card & the other at the bottom point of it, and finally added some red flock flowers towards each corner and the word friends in the pattern.

Judie

Hi everyone, our challenge this fortnite was to use something from our Secret Santa or from "the Real Santa" aka "my hubbie" - well i am playing with distress inks, i got 5 and have been playing big time with them, I used 3 different colours inking up until i got the background colour just as i wanted - I have used a Gorguss Girl image donated to me via another swapping group - I dont own any Gorguss Girls myself. I made the flowers with paper that I had coloured in with promarkers and the word tag was coloured as well. Thanks for looking and for any comments ladies and gents - Judie xx

Julie

New to promarkers I was pleased with the way this card has turned out. They were a Christmas present and was a new technique for me to use. I started with a blank square card, and covered it with the backing paper, I recently purchased some new digi stamps of which this image is one, which I coloured with the promarkers, I matted the picture onto some miri card and mounted it onto the layers of backing paper. I stamped the greeting and added the flowers and gem in the corner covering with a little glitter.

Lisa

I've used a new stamp, Riley Moose enjoying some chocolates (can't remember what it's called!), coloured with promarkers. A friend gave me the paper so I'm not sure of the brand. The sentiment is a Penny Black stamp that I've cut out and edged with distress inks. Green Tara flowers with a button centre and some little pink pearls to finish.

Mandy

I have used my new Sizzix scalloped die to cut the base sheets of card and linked them all together using eyelets and jump rings.
The papers I used are mainly from a pack called Bloom & Grow from My Minds Eye. I found myself succumbing to this gorgeous pack of papers whilst shopping only yesterday!


I have embellished the pages using chipboard numbers from Poundland which I coloured in black. The butterflies, scalloped circles and journalling tag on the last page are from a freebie pack of papers from a magazine as the colours all matched so well. The rest of the flowers and leaves were cut from the MME paper pack and have been mounted using 3D foam squares.I have covered the leaves with Rangers Glossy Accents and added a few buttons. A couple of glittered brads, a liberal sprinkling of Stickles glitter glue and as Gordon Ramsey says DONE!

Toria

RecipeCard:Stampin Up - Tempting Turquoise, Creamy CaramelThe other card was from Paper MillStamps: Magnolia - Tilda with CatPapermania - Doodles from Clare Curd's Signature RangeInk:Memento Tuxido BlackCopic Markers:Skin - E00, E21, R20, E04Hair - Y11, E43, E35, E33, E57Clothes - BG10, BG23, BG34, B93, YG03, YG00, G99, Y11, Y17Cat - E21, E35, E37, E47, E57, YR16, R20, R02Atyou Spica Pens:00 Clear08 TurquoiseFlowers:2 Large and 2 Slight smaller. I brought mine from the Flora Doodles Daisy Box Blends rangePlus 2 gems for the centres

Other:NotebookRibbonDiamond Glaze or similar
Method:
Notebook - I replace the cover with a new one create from Tempting Turquoise SU Card. Added a smaller piece of card at the bottom. Added strips of ribbon and then a the flower with a blue pearl in the centre. Tilda was coloured in with Copic's and then I added highlights with Spica Pens. I used Glaze on her shoes and the Cat nose. I added faux stitching using black pen.
Card - Tilda is decoupaged and coloured as for the note book. I cut a card blank from Tempting Turquoise. I cut a piece of Creamy Caramel card and added strips of the ribbon and then stick it to the card blank. I cut a circle from Tempting Turquoise using a Nestability Die and then a scalloped one from the paper mill card. Then I put this on the the card. I stuck Tilda to the circle. I again added faux stitching. For the inside I cut two squares from the paper mill card and then stamped flowers from the doodle stamp set and added spica to them. These I then stuck inside.

Vix

I have used a colouring page by Selina Fenech which is new to me and coloured with promarkers, using greys to make darker shadows and used a copic spica glitter pen for the wings then I've edged using a brilliance (peacock) inkpad and used my new sewing machine! Background papers are My Minds Eye and starburst stains which are also sewn on. The charm is blog candy I won a couple of weeks ago on Stampin for the weekend blog. I added a sticky gem coloured gold to the centre of the daisy for a bit of bling. The ribbon is also new from my secret santa :D


May I now have the pleasure of introducing our special guest for this challenge which is TRACEY COATES! Her name might be ever so familiar to many as she is the very talented designer for The Stampmans new range of stamps; Starburst Fairies, Butterfly Beauties and Classical Instruments and has appeared on Create & Craft doing live demos!
Tracey has sent us two lovely designs to show what a difference different colour schemes can make to the same design.

SPECIAL GUEST DESIGNER - TRACEY COATES

Questions we had for Tracey

1. How long have you been crafting and what kind of things do you make?

I have always been arty, I have even got a degree in it! I have been Card Making for about 6 years and a demonstrator for 4 years, but it has only been the last 2 years that I have been designing rubberstamps. I love making Altered books and often take my ideas to canvas. Made the odd sculpture too.


2. What are your favourite materials to work with?
I love Stamping, and I love using my chalks, but love paper most of all buying at least 2 of each, one to use and on to stroke!

3. What do you most love about your craft(s)?

Do you know it's the crafters themselves. No matter where you are you will always meet a friendly crafter willing to share their secrets and have a laugh and a chat.


4. What are your achievements and future plans?

I have been very fortunate to design some rubberstamps for The Stampman. As far as the future is concerned some more stamps are in the pipeline, more TV and some other very interesting developments that have to stay under wraps at the moment ( my lips are sealed!) Lets just say you might be hearing and see lots more from me in 2010!!!

5. Your top 3 tips

1. If you are into distressing, I find make up sponges good for applying ink and cheap too try your local pound shop.

2.Keep you tools clean, rulers,scissors, knives etc. I use lighter fuel on cotton wool it a bit smelly, but boy does it get rid of all the gunk and sticky stuff.

3.Put a strip of double sided down you card and then rub chalk all over the strip it turns into silky ribbon, blend different colours to match your card.

Thank You Tracey!