My Mind's Eye gorgeousness

My take on the sketch over at Creative Scrappers this week is full of an array of My Mind's Eye gorgeousness. Here I have to say a HUGE thanks to Amber and the customer service team over at MME for their 'wow I'm speechless' generosity. I had a problem with a product I bought a while back that I only recently opened and they sent me some of the new release goodies to compensate. It is all delicious. Truly. Full of beautiful embellishments and lots of beautiful blinging glitter. It's really hard to tell from the layout photo so I have included a close up shot so you can see that background cardstock. And the die cuts. All glittered. It's seriously stunning in real life.

Anyhow, this is the sketch. Please, please, please check out what the rest of the team did with this sketch. I think it's pretty well the best all round reveal I've seen anywhere for a long while.

And my page (I flipped the sketch and substituted the star with a heart)

Credits:
Pretty well everything My Mind's Eye
with a few extra brads, buttons and a bit of string
The digital frame I used for the photos is from Owl Tree Studio.

And look at all the glitter and beautiful dimensional embellishments.

Inspiration at It's a Creative World

I have been lucky enough to be asked to guest design over at the wonderful inspiration blog It's a Creative World over the Summer period. If you aren't familiar with the site, the talented ladies provide all sorts of home making and crafty inspiration, from baking to sewing, embroidery, altered art, gardening and more!

My second post went live yesterday, all about creating with digital collage stamps.

My first post looked at using premade digital templates to print out shaped photo collages.

Hmmm. There seems to be a theme here doesn't there? Bit strange for someone like me who considers themselves a technophobe. Well, if I can figure these things out then, rest assured, anyone can!

Digi Scrapping frenzy

Working on my digi skills, figuring out how to make quick pages, templates, clipping masks and so on. Have had lots of fun playing :)

I took part in the portfolio challenges over at Sweet Shoppe Designs in July, some of my creations are below:

All are made with products from Sweet Shoppe Design (various) and Owl Tree Studio (Life's a Beach freebie).

Also finished my pages for the A Trip Down Memory Lane August gallery which will be going live in a week or so. Lovely, bright papers from Echo Park - great fun to work with!

More yumminess

From Hero Arts on the horizon

">

Sigh and drool. And CHA Summer won't be long either. I need a job and/or a sugar daddy. Unfortunately have neither.

Anyhow, just a quick share of a card featuring HA stamps (including the fabby and fun digi owl) which I did for a Two Peas challenge a while ago


I spritzed the cloud background stamp with Radiant Rain and then swiped some distress ink over to take away from the glaring white. The owl was slightly recoloured and embossed with clear embossing powder. As I had printed onto glossy photo paper, the embossing bubbled, but I really like the extra texture this gives. The branch is the HA woodgrain stamp and the sentiment (stamped onto a Maya Road sheer journaling spot) is also HA. I added some brass rings to create glasses for him too. A real wise old bird! (the owl, not me that is!).

And now ... digital delights

I'm a dreadful procrastinator. Always have been. With life stuff as well as scrapping. Those last minute 'nerves' always seem to get me fired up though.

It was Mia's 9th birthday last week. She had been so excited (even more so because she was getting some long awaited bunnies for her birthday).

We had a lovely little party planned, just my two girls and four of Mia's friends. Off bowling followed by McDonalds, ice-cream, jelly and cake at home followed by a treasure hunt in the garden.

The year Mia was born it was Easter weekend on her birth day, so even though the dates for Easter do change year to year, we usually celebrate with an Easter themed party for Mia. It's great to just buy an Easter egg for the party 'bags'. And, of course, the egg hunt always goes down a treat!

Anyhow, back to the procrastinating ... as ever I had left it to the last minute to get things ready. To speed the process up a bit, I decided to 'do digi' and, to honour the arrival of Mia's own little Easter Bunnies, I trawled the net and found a wonderful digital kit called Honey Bunny by Dani Mogstad at Sweet Shoppe Designs. I used this super cute kit to design and decorate the party/treasure hunt bags, prize tickets and cake boxes.

The cake boxes were made from a variety of patterned papers and cut using a great design, made bigger to fit the bigger wodge of chocolatey birthday cake, from a free template by Marie H over at UK Scrappers (if you have a need for GSD files and you aren't already registered with the Craft Robo template section over at UK Scrappers, it is well worth the effort as there are some fabulously talented people who share their goodies and knowledge there).



Some of the prizes didn't fit into the eggs, so I made tickets to fold and put in them instead. And Mia won a large Easter egg at the Easter fair a couple of weeks ago. Since she doesn't eat chocolate, she offered it up as a special prize at her party. She had a tub of Pringles in lieu :)



And finally, a picture of Mia blowing out the candles on her birthday cake (based on the one I made last year which she specially requested again this year).


For years I have cheated and bought novelty chocolate shapes from Thorntons to decorate the birthday cakes and also they will ice the little plaques with your own message too. Easy peasy! And that chocolate cake recipe is just wonderful. Also easy peasy. And easy peasy to make gluten free too!

Stamping delights

Managed a quick (okay, not so quick, no crafting I do is quick) card today before spending the day out and about with Mum (garden centre, coffee shop, Sainsbury's, the excitement of my life is overwhelming).


This card features Hero Arts stamps:
Dots and flowers background stamped and embossed in white, distressed with Vintage Photo distress ink.
Antique brocade cling stamped with distress ink and butterflies punched out.
Panel background created with distress inks (broken china, peeled paint, shabby shutters).

Botanical Tulip digital download (Hero Arts at Two Peas in a Bucket) coloured with markers and triple embossed with UTEE.
Sentiment from the Thoughtful Messages clear design set, mounted on oval punchies (Stampin' Up).
And, of course, the faithful Fiskars Apron Lace punch.

At the garden centre I bought a new Sizzix embossing folders set - I had only been admiring that large embossed background on a card in an online gallery this morning before going out!

At Sainsbury's my mum bought me some yellow tulips (just one of THE perfect spring flowers) and a fruity/creamy/meringue from the bakery section (well she bought herself two fruit tartlets and they had a buy two get third free offer on the cake counter hence my good fortune). It's sat hidden in a box in the fridge ready for when I get the munchies later on tonight.

Have just cooked chicken nuggets (homemade you know!) chips, peas and sweetcorns for the kids (including two visiting additions) and after my cuppa I will be back into the kitchen again - chicken/lemon/rocket risotto for me and DH tonight.