Spotlight on Tags!

Its that time of year where we gaze in wonder as Sir T!m's 12 tags of Christmas so we're having a spotlight on Tags for the next 2 weeks!  They can be any size or shape you like, attached to a card or separate, gift tags, tag books etc, have fun!

We're sponsored once again by the excellent PRAIRIE FAIRY who are offering the winner 5 digi stamps of their choice from the wide range on offer. 

Hello! I am Roberta from Prairie Fairy Designs. I am a digital stamp company featuring artwork not only created by me but also my two kids, ages 9 and 12. They are featured on the site as the Fairy Princess and the Prairie Prince. I have been an artist for as long as I can remember and have always loved to create. Two years ago my sister-in-law invited me to a rubber stamp party. I laughed and said "Maybe I will buy something if I can use it to stamp on canvases.". Needless to say, I was hooked! Two years later, a lot of learning about computers, and a few setbacks with web stuff (I am so not tech savvy!) I finally accomplished my goal. We have been around since the spring and still growing. If you have any questions about going digital, check out the site and the Prairie Fairy blog for more information, tips and tutorials. So head on over to Prairie Fairy Designs and check it out!

Thanks once again Prairie Fairy!

Lets see what the girls have created using images by Prairie Fairy :)

Dee

Here is my tag using the Holly Fairy from Praire Fairy Designs. I think she looks like my dear sweet daughter and I had to use her on my circle tag. There's lots of room to write a special message for your loved ones. The image is colored with Copic markers and I did a neat background effect.

Corry

Tags are not something I normally do, but think I will def start doing more since they take no time at all!! And they are useful little things. I used our sponsors images (Prairie Fairy Designs). On the left we have Sweets for Santa & on the right we have Tree Fairy. I used my friends Cricut to cut the tag shapes (now I want a Cricut! lol) & also stole her gromets to set the tone of the tags. All of my hardware is from my SU Hodge Podge set & the papers are mix & match CTMH. The bouquet of flowers are WOC. A little bit of stitching, a little bit of punching & sponging & VOILA!

Jenni

I used Prairie Fairy's Mistletoe Kisses for my tag and coloured the image with Promarkers, for the furry borders on her coat & pompom I used some puffy snow product (which unfortunately is in a completely unmarked bottle so I have no idea what it's called or where it came from!!) and added some glitter whilst still wet. I added glossy accents to her glasses and to the holly on the greeting. I used a Nellie Snellen die to cut the oval, edged it with ink and added a narrow ribbon to finish. The tag itself I cut from a piece of white cardstock and inked the edges with Distress inks, spritzed with a gold pearl pigment mixed with water then stamped holly leaves right around the border. I added a little piece of Stampin Up patterned paper edged with a Martha Stewart border punch and finished off with three small brads. Finally added an eylet and some ribbon to complete the tag.



Mandy

My tag is made using a digi stamp from Prairie Fairy Designs called Decorating The Tree.

The image is coloured with Promarkers with Sakura clear glitter pen added to the baubles and parcel ribbon, Gold Stickles on the star and Star Dust on the fur trim. I cut the image layer and the gold mat with a Nellie Snellen die. I added a similar corner to the snowflake paper and matted all these layers onto the base paper which has been edged with a metallic gold pen.

The papers are DCWV and the ribbons and eyelet are from my stash.

Lin

My tag is made from a digi stamp from Prairie Fairy Designs called Try Outs! Quite what a lion is doing in the snow I have no idea; but I think it's really cute that they are wearing pretend antlers, and I guess they are 'trying out' for the position of rudolph! I coloured the animals in with promarkers and the sky with Stormy Sky and Tumbled Glass DIs. I made some hills with Old Paper DI, but they are not showing up too well, and then used Snowtex to make a textured snow bottom. I dabbed some on the animals heads and antlers as if they were sitting in a snow storm and added Glamour dust to all the snowtexed areas. Cut out with a nestie and matted onto blue glitter card, I added an eyelet and some ribbon to finish it off.

As always you have 2 weeks to enter this challenge so get your thinking caps on and have fun!

Winners Catch Up

Thank You all so very muchly for your lovely entries to our challenges and your continued support of us.  We hope you enjoy the challenges as we can be a bit challenging sometimes!

Without further ado here is the Winners Catch up for our Spotlight on Digital Plus, Challenge 33 Stitching and Spotlight on Dry Embossing.  I am still waiting for the winner of Challenge 32 to come forward so if she doesn't byWednesday I will have to redraw sorry!

Okies....

We have 2 prizes for the Spotlight on Digital Plus and the first winner drawn by Random.org is...

10 - Julie  Well Done Julie, please contact me to claim your prize of 5 digi stamps from Stitchy Bear Stamps!

Our 2nd winner for this spotlight is...

25 - Annette  Well Done Annette, you have won 3 digi images of your choice from the Eiglas range of Digi Stamps!

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CHALLENGE 33 WINNERS

The winners of Challenge 33 Stitching faux or Real are...

101 - Vicky  Well Done Vicky, you have won a £10 voucher for Joanna Sheen's online shop!!

Our Top 5 choices for the stitching challenge are...

70 - Moshie

110 - Cabio

84 - Susan's Crafty Chaos

40 - Carol H

2 - Shirl Freeman

Well Done Ladies, please grab your well deserved Top 5 blinkie above!

The winner of our spotlight on Dry Embossing is...

6 - Janice  Well Done Janice, please contact me to claim your 5 digis from PRAIRIE FAIRY!

A huge well done to you all and Thank You to our fantastic sponsors!  My email link is in the sidebar on the left :)

Challenge 35 - White & Splash

Good Afternoon from a chilly UK!  How are all the Christmas cards coming along and are you starting to panic yet as its nearly December!  Thank You for your beautiful entries for the card & matching gift challenge, so inspiring! 

Our new challenge will also help out with the christmas card stash and it is to use WHITE & A SPLASH.  That means the card and embellishent are predomnately white with just a splash of colour(s)  The team have done an amazing job of this one so please leave them some loves :)

We are sponsored once again by our regular sponsor JOANNA SHEEN who is offering a £10 voucher to her excellent online store.  Check out her latest products including the stunning Enchanted Dreams CD and Enchanted Forest rubber stamps (Oooh fairies!  I know whats on my xmas list!)  Please do pop over and check out her shop as there s something for everyone!

Onto what the girls have made for this challenge, well done ladies they're gorgeous!

Jack

Inspired by a blog called Simplicity (and the fact that I haven't started my Christmas Cards yet!!!) I decided to go for CAS with my cards this year. I used stamps from Elusive Images and stamped them with Brilliance Pearlescent Purple, adding a little bit of matting and layering and, of course, bling to my star.

Melly

I knew that apart from making something Christmassy a box would be perfect for this Challenge! So I decided to make a wee Silver Wedding Anniversary box! I used plain white card for the base and loads of silver tones for the layers! All the embellishments are handmade, with added printer verses and lots and lots of glitter and wee flowers.

Josephine

Whenever I'm limited for colours, my mind turns towards punches, die cuts and embossing. I started by using the Craft Tonic border punch system with both scallop and a snowflake punches. Then, I embossed the white card with a Papermania snowflake embossing folder in my Wizard before matting the result onto my 'splash' colour. I added die cuts from Spellbinder's Lattice Medallion, Labels Three and the large snowflakes. I also cut some small snowflakes using a Cuttlebug die. I hand-wrote the sentiment and matted it on a further bit of the 'splash', glittered and layered the snowflakes and finished with some sparkly brads.

Fiona

For my card I have used a Kanban stamp for both the image and the sentiment. I have watercoloured the poppys.I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the background (swiss dots folder) Then I used lots of layers of red card and white pearl card. I finished it with an organza bow on the side, I have added stickles to the ends of the ribbon to stop it fraying and add a little bit of sparkle :o)



Kat

A very simple card from me. I used two Cuttlebug embossing folders instead of DP. Thank goodness for LOTV cute squares - no need to colour. I cut one out with a circle nestie and added lots of glitter. I also glittered round the edges of the background and the image. The large snowflake is made with a Martha Stewart punch and the little ones a punch I've had for years, all glittered too.

Mandy

For this challenge of white with a splash of colour I have used a very pale blue. This is a large card at 8" square and the starting point was the word 'snow' which is a Christmas tree decoration from ASDA. It is very textured and had flat white sequins which you could hardly see so have been covered up with bling :) The blue card has a punched border and a strip of metallic trim ribbon. The snowflakes are from Craftime and the card is finished off with loads of Card Candy.

Sarah W

Wintertime is a really easy time to do white with a splash cards don't you think?  This is a card I have made for my mother-in-law whose favourite colour is lilac, so that is the splash I have used.  I stamped acetate with Funstamps - Let it Snow stamp using white stazon then cut it with my deckled rectangle nestie, then cut a slightly larger one with lilac paper and stuck it on with a touch of tacky glue.  A lovely piece of purple ribbon from stock backed the topper and then I decorated with some die-cut corners and punched snowflakes.  Simple, but very effective I think!

Please note we have a new linky as froggy is starting to charge so please click the link below to enter on the new linky tool.  If for any reason it's missing please leave your entry details in the comments field.  Thanks for playing and good luck!

Spotlight on Containers & Fancy Envelopes

Woweeee thank you so much for your fantastic entries to the spotlight on dry embossing, what beautiful work and fantastic ideas!  We'll be doing a winners catch up post late this week.  Please also check the previous winners catch up as a couple have yet to be claimed!

Our spotlight for the next 2 weeks is on Containers and Fancy envelopes.  Basically something you put something into so if you're thinking of entering our card and gift challenge which still runs for another week and you make a container for your gift or box for your card too then enter into both!

Any kind of box, container, wallet, jazzy envelope etc counts so long as you put something in it.

We're sponsored by Crafts & Me for this challnege which is an online store selling a huge variety of stamps and cardmaking accessories.  Crafts & Me have their own range of stamps including those by artists Sara Burrier, Molly Harrison and Hannah Lynn with more to come plus a wide stock of other stamp brands by Sweet Pea, Whiff of Joy, Lilac Lemon and tons more, take a peek as you won't be disappointed!
They are offering the winner one of Sara Burriers delightful designs "Day of Joy" - Thank You Teresa!

Onto what the girls have come up with for this challenge!

 Lin

This is a boxed card I made for a work colleague of my Daughter to give to her Mother. Unfortunately the box itself is made of floral patterned silver mirri and therefore it was a nightmare trying to take a pic of it. I made the box using one of those mulitboards with a side for boxes. It is just a shade under A4 in size as obviously I needed to make the box from an A4 sheet. I decorated around the edge of the acetate with silver peel offs, which I coloured purple to match, and some lovely acetate stickers which I had in my stash. I tried to take a pic of it on it's own but it seemed to glare even more as it has an acetate inner to the box lid. The card itself is stitched both on the vase and on the background of the card.

Lisa 

I've used a downloaded template from The Cutting Cafe to make a little stack of boxes.  I printed the templates directly onto the spotty cardstock, cut them out and made up the boxes.  The lids are trimmed with wide satin ribbon, spotty ribbon wrapped around the 3 boxes to keep them together.  Finished off with a big snowflake cut using a Cuttlebug die, covered in glamour dust with a red dew drop centre.



Vix

For this challenge I followed a tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers for a peek-a-boo box HERE but adapted it so its a little bit bigger (2.5"x2.5")  I've printed papers by Bearly Mine Designs to the exact size needed and added to the box and used part of a digi stamp by CC Designs called Nora edged with a glue pen and silver glitter.  As I've put pearls on the lid it pops up so I've slotted a brad through to keep it closed :)

Sarah W

I love making boxes and other containers to put things in!  For this one I used a template I downloaded from a place that does templates for use with Microsoft Word, but bizarrely they had a section of downloadable box templates.  I cut the template using a plain piece of card from stock, scored it and then added some shimmery silver material which is like a cross between a fabric and a paper.  I used a piece of card which I had stained ages ago with starburst stains then never used, so I stamped it up with some snowflakes, embossed them with white powder and cut them to size so they were a little smaller than the triangular flaps on the top.  I then punched holes and used some matching eyelets and held it all together with some pale blue ribbon, ended with some snowflakes punched from the offcuts.  Inside 4 iceblue tealights.

CHALLENGE 34 - CARD & MATCHING GIFT

Good Afternoon!  I hope after the recent gales and rain the weather is looking a bit better :)  Christmas is fast approaching, well  its coming at breakneck speed so to help you prepare our new challenge will be one you can tick off the to do list.

Firstly though a huge thank you for playing in our stitching challenge, you're a creative bunch, I wish I could use my machine better!  The winners will be announced in the catch up post in about a week.

We also have a new teamie - WELCOME/WELKOM SARAH! Sarah is quite a newbie cardmaker, she likes dabbling with messy things and colouring in! Sarah's also quite new around blogger and has been entering challenges along the way so a warm welcome to her!  We also have a guest desgner join us - Hope Jacare (Claire) so welcome also!

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CHALLENGE 34 - CARD & MATCHING GIFT

Our new challenge is to make a card with a matching gift, the gift can be absolutely anything handmade so long as it matches the card, not just xmas either!

Don't forget we always have 2 challenges open and our spotlight on Dry Embossing is still open for another week with a fab prize from Prairie Fairy on offer so if you use dry embossing you can enter both, remember to add both links though.

We're sponsored once again by The Stampman which is bursting with yummy goodies including a huge selection of Tim Holtz and ranger items, Hero Arts, Stampendous and their own brand Aspects of Design. The Stampman are offering a £10 voucher for their shop as a candy prize so thank you Jill & Ian :)

Lets have a look at what the girls have come up with and hope you can join us too!

SARAH

Here’s a card and matching tealight luminaire I have made. Red is my favourite colour for bits and bobs around the house so what better time of year to indulge myself. I used some papers which I downloaded as freebies a while ago to decorate my foldy card and a lovely decoupage fairy I bought offline. The flowers on the card and the luminaire are white Color Me Crazy flowers bought from Hobbycraft and coloured with promarkers to match the paper which is done with Starburst stains Holiday Wreath colours. The butterflies on the sides of the luminare are punched using a Sizzix paddle punch and then a piece of amber coloured floral vellum backed to it on each side so that when the battery operated luminare tealight is switched on it glows and flickers.

Ei

.....great minds think alike, it would appear, for both myself and our Guest Designer, the lovely Hope Jacare (Claire), have independantly made a journal/notebook and card, albeit in very different styles!

Mine is a Christmas themed book made with my BIA.

The inner leaves are also denim blue and interleaved with glassine, so it could be used =for photos as well as journalling.

The face-paper is Papermania Winter Wonderland and the mirri board and pearl card overlays cut with my Nesties.

Josephine

My sister has a 'big' birthday coming up, and, and I decided to make a keepsake gift for her. The box is from Hobbycraft, and I stained it with Moonglow Moonshadow Ink in Ethereal Emerald before adding the photos and then varnishing. I dipped some flowers in the same ink solution, and when they were dry, I sprayed them with Crafter's Companion Spray and Shine before attaching them to the box. The card mirrors the shape of the box, and I used my plain and eyelet circle nesties to cut the photos and mounts. I've added an extra layer to the photo to keep it fairly anonymous for online purposes.

Melly

I decided i wanted to make something a wee bit different for the challenge this week, so after having a good wee look through the net I came across this wee Stationary box! I made the actually box from 12x12 card from my stash and all the the other elements are made from the Prima papers. I've made wee cards to match plus note cards and tags for the wee kit! I'll be making a few of these for Christmas gifts this year!
Check out my wee blog for more pics.

Corry

The image on the card is from Prairie Fairy Designs called "The Urge". Enough said!! haha. I used a different image on my little 'peek-a-boo' gift box, but you'll have to pop over to my blog to see it (& the gift inside).

I used a half a doilie & 2 half scallops to add some layers....and many, many pop dots later.....here you have it.....a perfect birthday gift set!

Fiona

For my card and candle I have used some Forever Friends decoupage and a transfer.For the candle I added lots of little gems all around the candle and stickles to the wings. I've used FF paper for the card and a Martha Stewart border punch.Also I have used my new MS Snowflake punch :o) I love it! Lots of stickles used all round here but its hard to see in the pic( I had a nightmare taking this picture, nothing wanted to co-operate lol)

Jenni

 

I made my little notebook as the gift, first cutting plain chipboard for covers and then cartridge paper for the inside pages, I then covered the chipboard with a neutral patterned paper and used distress inks sponged around the edges. I then coloured a piece of white cardstock with distress ink and stamped the script as a background. The bird, flourish and word stamps are all from PaperArtsy Hot Pick 1005 and they were stamped also with distress inks. I then bound it together with my Bind it All.

 

For the card I used the same patterned paper again inked around the edges and used a Stampin up punch to give it the notebook style edge, this time I used a PaperArtsy die to cut the bird shape and then stamped the image. The sentiment is from Stampin Up.

Mandy

OOh, I really enjoyed this challenge. I started with the clock which was made from a chipboard shape and clock bits bought from Hobbycrafts at the NEC. I saw the 12 scallops and could see clock numbers in flowers and it went from there. Papermania Woodland Folk papers, lots of flowers and bling and some gorgeous embroidered leaves ribbon picked up on my travels completes my lovely gift & matching card.

Kat

I found a tutorial for this little box on Splitcoast Stampers. I used some lovely glittery DP from Dovecraft, one of my favourite Penny Black stamps a Martha Stewart snowflake punch and lots of lovely glitter and some jewels.

Guest Designer - Hope Jacare (Claire)

I was thrilled to be invited by Ei as Guest DT this week. I am Claire aka Hope Jacare and papercrafts are very much a part of my life. Originally I come from a textile background with a B.A. hons in Design from The Glasgow School of Art. I worked within the feltmaking, fashion and Knitwear industry before opening my own gift shop/Gallery "Scoskie" in Largs, Scotland. Since then I have had 3 children - Jacob, Caleb and Hope and no longer have my shop. I have a pretty hectic life that squeezes in as much cardmaking, drawing and papercrafting as I can. Last year after a lot of encouragement in Blogland I started selling my doodles and I love seeing projects that others make with them it gives me a huge sense of pride.

My only tip to card makers is to work in a clean enviroment...there is nothing worse than a beautiful card with a big dirty fingerprint on it. Lol.

I love/live to colour or paper piece and I tend to cut out my coloured images to create a less formal composition. Although with my project this week I have kept my image as printed and inked the edges (another favourite technique) I love the world of digital as it allows us so much freedom to create projects in a vast range of sizes and combinations

I wish I had more time to blog hop as there is such a wealth of talented creative people out there and I love going looking at new blogs, it opens your mind up to so many different possibilities...and lets face it we all do it because we love to create!

Over to you!  Please link to the froggy link below, if for any reason its missing refresh your page or come back and try again x