ATC's & Men

Some nice and easy Christmas ATCs for you today. The first one is a snowflake ATC using the mid winter music paper. And with 25% off at the moment too! I added a little bit of ribbon to the left hand corner. I cut out some snowflakes using some scraps that I had left from a HOTP Christmas paper. The "Noel" comes from the HOTP Cardmaker's word fragments. And to finnish off I added a bit of sparkle using some glamour dust.
The second one is using some HOTP Christmas 12 x 12 paper. I also added some Christmas transparencies across the stripes from the HOTP personal shopper - December monthly kit.
The kits are brill and with a whooping 50% off how can you resist? The little stars on top of the trees are from a Cardmaker's pack.
The third and final one is covered in paper from the 12x12 Bo Bunny Homespun range. I made a little tag with the same papers and added a little ribbon tag. The pocket is made with the reverse side of the Bo Bunny paper. Across the pocket I added some more transparencies. Along the right side I added a tag from the Bo Bunny cardstock stickers - Holiday range. The "celebrate" comes from the HOTP Cardmaker's word fragments.

My second piece is a "Thanks Dad" card. I find it so difficult to make male themed cards but with these charms it was easy! So I used a DL card for this one and cut out some circle apertures. I then covered the card with the American crafts double sided cardstock. I used the reverse side with the plain cardstock to make the frames and the vine shapes. I tied a small amount of ribbon to the tool charms and hung them in the apertures. Just to finnish off I added brads to the top right and bottom left of the card.

I hope you enjoyed these and I'll be back on Tuesday!

A couple of quickie cards!

Its that time of year - as Looby said yesterday - so busy for a lot of us! So here are a couple of quick cards I made using some stuff from my kit, plus some gorgeous Winter Swirl stamps available at the Crop Til You Drop Webshop. The stamps are so versatile - I have a few different sets of swirly type stamps, but as soon as I saw these stamps, I thought - gotta have em! The swirls are really elegant, and one has some gorgeous little snowflakes on. The pic of my Christmas card doesnt really do the stamps justice at all - you get a nice clear and crisp image - I decided to do something a little different using a resist technique on this first card. You can achieve similar results by randomly stamping onto a piece of card and embossing with clear powder (in fact you could use any colour, just bear in mind that whatever colour you use will be visible after you have inked over it!). Then ink over with your chosen final colour. This technique works particularly well with gloss card. I added the chipboard frame after painting it with red acrylic paint, then giving a quick coat of clear glue like these here, to give a shiny finish. Added a little red wire heart and some ribbon, matted and layered onto a red card and hey presto! Oh not forgetting the snowflake brads, snowflake border overlay and that gorgeous little glittery red heart - I hope our Guv will step in here to pop in where I can find that though because I have hunted high and low and cant find it! Check out our Guv's blog for some more fab ideas for the winter swirls too!

Next is this little card for my brother's birthday next week! For this I used the busy scrappers boys to men paper pack - and all the letter tiles and little star embellies that come with it. The only thing I used that wasnt in the pack was the little brad buddie present that you see to the right of the card, but I thought it went well with the colours of the card (after I inked it up with blue ink!) and added the little red bow!

So thats all folks - if you invest in anything over the Christmas crafty season though (apart from all the fab paper and other crafty bits on offer at the webshop!!) I would definitely get my hands on some of the winter swirls stamps (PS why not take advantage of this fab offer and subscribe to the stamps only kit?? There's a freebie in it for ya, check it out!!) - they're not just for Christmas you know - they're for life! Lol have fun creating!

Edited by the Guv to say: more than happy to jump in and solve the mystery of the missing red glittery heart! LOL. They are actually in this mixed pack of buttons & flatbacks. HTH

Quick and Simple!

This time of year is soooo hectic, that we need to make life a little easier on ourselves! So here's some really quick and easy projects for you.

For this first card I covered the card blank in this Bo Bunny Jack Frost paper and, I then matted a smaller piece onto cardstock from this pack and mounted on the card. I then die cut some snowflakes from the scrap paper and card and added an overlay greeting from the December 06 Personal Shopper kit


For this second card I covered the card blank with the reverse of this Bo Bunny Homespun holiday paper and then added a mat of this Bo Bunny paper. The ribbons are from the December 06 Personal Shopper kit, as is the sentiment in the centre of the Bazzill flower.



The final card was also covered in the reverse of this Bo Bunny paper and I then punched 3 circles with this Marvy punch on the right side of the same paper. I punched 3 smaller circles from the reverse of this Bo Bunny paper and added a HOTP Christmas brad to the centre of each. I put a strip of this paper down the middle and mounted the circles with foam tape. The sentiment is from the December 06 Personal Shopper kit.


And finally, the simplest project of all! I had this acetate pillow box hanging around at home, but you can find lots of templates on the internet to make your own. I simply wrapped round a strip of paper from the December 06 Personal Shopper kit, added an overlay greeting from the same kit and then wrapped with some ribbon - easy peasy!

Don't forget - there's still time to enter Challenge #18 - and you could win a fabby prize!

Gift bags & baubles

Hi it's me again. This time I made two little gift bags, ideal for little trinkets or sweets. I used the HOTP Busy Scrappers Solutions - Christmas pad for these. I cut the bags out of the papers and then added some Christmas transparencies from the December 06 HOTP monthly kit. The kit is in the Crop til you Drop webshop now with 50% off! The brads are also from the HOTP range. To finnish the bags off I attached some ribbon with a brad to the handle.

My second piece is a bauble to hang on your Christmas tree. I cut out scalloped circles with the gorgeous Bo Bunny Jack Frost shimmer papers. Then scored a triangle on each circle and then folded and glued them together. To be able to hang them I attached some ribbon and painted the tiny cotton reels with some gold paint. A great ornament that the kids could make too!!

Friendly felt and child-friendly projects!!

Hi Guys!! Check out the frame above! Its made from the stiffened friendly felt which holds its shape, and I've die-cut the swirls and flowers, hand-cut the leaves and stitched on the leaf detail by hand. The flower centres are brads. Its sooo easy to make, super as a gift idea, and all you need is 3 different colours of the felt...so i reckon you could make 4 for just over £1.50!!! That is what i call a bargain :D Mine is super bright...but the felt comes in all sorts of colours {check them out here} so you could easily adapt it to suit tastes/decor. I've even stitched a small loop on the back so it can be hung on the wall...

These little ornaments are also made from the felt, and are a super project to do with the kids on a soggy/bored/argumentative day! Simply cut your chosen shape out of the felt, and decorate with brads, more felt shapes, buttons, blooms or eyelets. Tie with a ribbon and hang on the tree/attach to school bags/bedknobs/totes/etc. The felt is so versatile, you can even use your cropodile on it!!

Next time I have more paper-based crafting to share...but for now...I just can't use anything else. Wonder if I can get a job as a felt-crafter anywhere?? ;-)

Challenge # 18 - Celebrations!

Welcome to our lastest challenge!
Shary has kindly agreed to post this up for me as it's my birthday tomorrow, so I'm out on the town tonight!!
And, coincidentally, my birthday has prompted the theme for this week's challenge - CELEBRATIONS!
So we want you to create a LO, card or whatever else you want on the theme of celebrations - so a nice big scope this week!

Don't forget to leave a comment, so we know you've completed your challenge and email it to sales@croptilyoudrop.co.uk for inclusion in our gallery. This week is your last chance to enter November's challenge competition - you may win a fabby prize!!

A couple of ideas to get you going:

For this LO I used the Bo Bunny Homespun holiday papers. The Christmas tree was cut from Friendly felt (this amazing stuff is pre-stiffened so it cuts like a dream!) I then added a friendly felt star and some Bo Bunny ribbons and some buttons. I painted these mini cotton reels with red acrylic paint and then wrote the letters on them to spell Christmas. I threaded them on to ribbon, set some eyelets into the tree and threaded them through.

This card was made using the HOTP Citrus Creative Pack and Instant card art and Ribbons. The parcel was cut from friendly felt.








Enjoy the challenge - can't wait to see what you come up with!

Looby x

Oh I wish it could be Christmas.....

Mind you if it was Christmas every day I would need a bigger book for all my journalling! This is my latest project with my kit. I was thinking of making an advent calendar with my Bo Bunny Advent paper, but Alix already made a fab one here, so I thought I would try and do something a bit different with mine. So I though - why not make a Christmas Journal and use the numbered squares to date the pages? So that's what I did!

And also - it gave me another excuse to use some of this fab and very friendly felt again - this time for the covers of my book. I just did a rough drawing of the Christmas tree and cut it out, and then set eyelets into it, and tied a bit of ribbon around for tinsel - which I also added to the book rings that I held it together with. The ribbon is from the classic cardmakers ribbon pack from HOTP, and comes packed full of cool coordinating Christmas colours. I then pierced a couple of designs - the lime green border and the red shape in the corner and stitched into the felt. Added a star brad to the top!


As you can see here - I cut out the squares from the Bo Bunny paper (advent) and stuck them back to back on each page (also Bo Bunny Papers, I used Frost and Ornament - fab papers and double sided!!). The Advent papers also come with some really cute Christmas art on them - great for embellishing your projects - I'm going to use them to add to the completed pages. These papers have a 20% discount on them at the moment so its well worth popping over and having a good old shop (lots of other bargains and discounts to be found too ;o)!

I'm going to take a pic of my son each day leading up to Christmas day, and write a little bit about each day now he's starting to take more notice of it all.

Hope you like it - why not make your own Christmas Journal?

Oky doky guys I shall see you next Thursday when I post my next project - but don't forget - its challenge night tomorrow - and there's some fabby prizes up for grabs!! You'd be mad to miss it!!

Its a Gift!

Hello again guys! Hope you've all been busy crafting away..? I've been working on a couple of gifts this week...very handy at this time of year...I hope you like them!

Firstly, I've made another wall hanging {I don't seem to be able to stop making these atm!} but this time, I've made it as a Christmas card alternative to send to my relative in New Zealand {hence the tag on the bottom which says *love from England*}.

The base for this hanging is the left-overs of a sheet of Buck Naked Chipboard Shapes which I've covered with the gorgeous stripey HOTP Christmas paper from this amazing kit {now half-price!!!} I've used the matching ribbons, and some of the HOTP cardmakers' word fragments. The middle section is cut from the HOTP frosted acetate sheet which is in the kit...and its beautiful :) Finally, I've added a few buttons for added embellishment and a couple of slightly dodgy photos! he hee

Also, its been my cousin's 4th birthday this week...and so I've made him this card {he is bonkers for cars!!}

This is made from the HOTP Boys to Men Kit. I've also die cut letters from the Friendly Felt that we've all gone berserk for, and used one of the gorgeous charms from this selection. The ribbon on the tag is from the gorgeous Bo Bunny selections.

OK, that's all for now folks...hope you're all keeping warm and cosy...and checking out the specials in the webshop...there are some amazing bargains to be had!!

And have you entered this week's challenge yet? You have until Saturday...and as they say...you've got to be in it...to win it!!

Back to Christmas....

Here's a suspension style card that I've made for Christmas. I covered a blank card with some of the gorgeous Bo Bunny homespun - Frost. With the Bo Bunny homespun - stripe 12x12 card I accentuated the card by making the stripe down the side, the scallop frame and the background for the Noel. This cardstock really is gorgeous and there is 20% off all the Bo Bunny cardstock at the moment. For the scalloped spinner I used a Bo Bunny bauble sticker to co ordinate with the card. I also added an acetate bauble strip and the acetate Noel which is from a HOTP Christmas kit. To finish off I popped on the gold brads.

These two Bauble style cards are so easy to do and you can give them as cards but then they can be used as a decoration for a Christmas tree.
So all I did was find a bauble template on the internet and cut it out using some A4 card. More money saving as the Crop 'til you Drop webshop has 25% off all card too!!
Next I cut out some a strip from the Bo Bunny Jack Frost - Flakes and another strip from the Bo Bunny Homespun - Toile and adhered them to the centre of each bauble. Then two lengths of ribbon were added to each bauble and a loop of each ribbon to make the hanger. I used some brads to add decoration. And finally for the sentiments I used the HOTP cardmakers Christmas Fragments.

I really enjoyed working with the Bo Bunny range of 12x12 cardstock, it's gorgeous and don't forget you'll save money too as all the Bo Bunny cardstock has 20% off!!

Baby's Keepsakes

Hello today I've done a project all to do with babies. No I'm not before you ask!! :-). Anyway my first piece of work to show you is a trifold baby card. I cut out three pieces of card in the shape of a tag. Not just a card but also a baby's birth record. I've used the lovely soft HOTP single 12x12 papers for a baby girl on all four sides. For the front cover I made the title with the gingham alphabet fabric stickers. I also added some lovely little pastel pink buttons. To finnish I looped the little angel and pink pram charms through some ribbon. For the first of the inside pages I use again a little umbrella charm with ribbon tied through a chipboard flower shape, which I inked up. I made it to look like a frame so that the baby's first photo could be put into it. The second page I stamped the sentiment with pink ink using the Girl - love is rubber stamp set. The pastel flower brads accentuate the sentiment. For the final page I cut out some little tag shapes and hand wrote name, date, time and weight on them and attached them with the flower brads.


My second piece is a Baby's 1st Albumn. I just found a template on the net for this. I traced the template onto two pieces of card for the front and back cover and then cut out the same onto a piece of "it's a girl" 12x12 paper. Oh which has 25% off at the moment!!
I then matted and layered some paper and added the Baby's 1st Albumn. I made the title with the Just Vellum - Alphanumerals. These are so versatile as you can make them any colour you want by chalking , painting or inking. I inked them with some pink ink. I used some little brads to the bottom of the vest and also to the neckline. For the inner pages, where you can add photos and journalling, I made a smaller size of the vest with assorted pastel papers . I punched two holes in top of each vest and threaded some ribbon through to hold it all together. Viola some lovely little keepsakes for a new Mum.

I'll be seeing you tomorrow with some more ideas, have a good day!!

More From Rebecca

We seem to be having some issues with rebecca's access to the blog, so I'm posting this on her behalf - the words and images are all hers tho':

A Good evening to you all! Well, the house opposite has already trimmed up for Christmas which has made me panic because I’ve still got all my cards to do, plus those decorations and presents I was going to make-oops! So, I’ve been playing with my brad buddies and more kit and have made two items ready for Christmas.
The first is a cute little Christmas Tree to put on my desk at work. I used a semi-circle of the green spotty paper, inked the edges, wrapped it into a cone and then secured with 3 blue brads. The trunk is made from a pencil covered with green gingham paper and the base is made using some card from the pizza box, covered with paper and ribbon.
My second Christmas item is a pyramid card with a Christmas tree on each side, decorated with liquid pearls, and finished off with silver pen.
My last item for today is a LO I’ve made for this weeks scraplift challenge. The photo is of a lake I visited in Sep 2005 in Maryland, USA. I’d gone on an International trip with Girlguiding South Yorkshire to Mexico, and on the way back we stayed with some USA Girl Scouts in Maryland and they took us here for a morning. It was really peaceful and beautiful, I just haven’t a clue where it is though!

NOTE FROM THE GUV: If you'd like to buy a kit, they are currently on sale at 50% off in the

webshop!

A 'busy scrappers' mini book and some Christmas bits n pieces!

Good evening guys!! Thought Id share with you some of my most recent crafty makes with my DT kit. First, a couple of cards I made with some of the lovely Christmas papers available over at the Crop Til You Drop webshop. The card on the left is made using papers from the personal shopper kit for Dec 06 (which are on special offer by the way!!) - love the paper on the bottom half of the card because it reminds me of those lovely and very cheesy Christmas jumpers that everyone should wear around this time of year!! The card on the right is made using Bo bunny papers , which are fab quality papers and have a lovely sheen to them - hence the shine on that card due to the flash on my camera! I tied some coordinating ribbon through a chipboard frame, and added this to the card. You could paint or ink this white but I embossed it with some white embossing powder. I stamped into a few layers of silver embossing powder to get the snowflake image you see inside the frame.

Next is this little mini book (click on the image for a better view). I made this using the busy scrappers boys to men papers and embellies. These papers are really fun to work with, and perfect for a little boy layout or book - this book is a pressie for my sons uncle. I kept with the star theme of some of the papers and stamped or cut out some of the cool little star images available in the pack. I used a bind it all to bind my book together but you could easily use book rings or ribbon. There are some lovely truck, rocket and sport images in this pack, and some really handy letters and numbers. All you have to do is cut them out and add to your projects!

And finally, a little something I made using my new best crafty product - friendly felt. Now this is just a little project - a little photo frame I made. It would be perfect to keep in your bag or to give as a little gift - the felt is really durable and tough, and it is perfect for stitching. I have a mini book on the go with some of this felt - it is perfect for the covers of my book as it is stiff - hence the name friendly felt! It is a fab way to incorporate felt (which is so popular at the mo!)into your crafting projects.
Hey - did you see the challenge uploaded last night by Roo? Fab scraplift challenge - and dont forget - all entries will be eligible for this months DT challenge prize, judged by the design team! We have had some fab entries to our previous challenges and have so enjoyed seeing everyones interpretations - why dont you join in? Come on, you know you want to!!

See you soon guys, and happy crafting!

Lots & lots of lovely felt

In our DT kit this time we has some fab pieces of felt. It is so easy to work with as it is "friendly felt" which means it has been stiffened. Much easier to cut out and no fuzzy bits when you try to put the glue on. For my first project I made a little Christmas felt album. I cut out Father Christmas shapes and then stuck it all onto the cover of the album. I used some little HOTP Christmas brads and as a title I used the Christmas tags. All the frames were made with the felt and I velcroed them onto the backing so you could slip the photos underneath. The snow effect on the red page was done by using glamour dust sprinkled over pva glue. For the purple page I cut out a little window and used Christmas liquid beads to frame it. Just to add a bit of decoration I sewed around each of the pages. Makes a great keepsake of Christmas for grandparents.

My next project is a textured card. I covered the base of the card with a square of the friendly felt and inked the edges. I then cut out some images with the felt. I stitched around the bird to give it some detail and added a gem for his eye. For the flower I punched out two holes in the middle to make a button effect and then added a strip of felt to look like thread. To finnish off I stuck on some more gems along the bottom right of the card.

This felt is really great to work with and I enjoyed using it. And what a bonus! It's on special at the moment at only 53p a sheet , so you make a saving of 40% off!!! Bargain!!!

Getting ready for *christmas!*

I'm guessing you've all noticed that the holiday season is fast approaching *yay* so today I've got a variety of projects to help you prepare for all the festivities!!

First of all is this very cute felt angel. The shop is currently full of Friendly Felt in a huge array of colours and at a huge discount...only 53P per sheet! This stuff is amazing. You can punch it with your cropodile (or regular eyelet and hammer malarkey), you can cut it beautifully with scissors, it die cuts like a dream (makes stunning titles!), you can stamp on it, you can sew with it (use a darning needle) and i've even punched basic shapes with regular punches (be careful tho!)

Ok, back to the angel, she is made from friendly felt (face, dress, wings), her legs are made from mini cotton reels (painted red and white) and beads threaded onto wire...so she is fully pose-able!! The Guv has just stocked up on the most gorgeous bead selections if you fancy having a go at something similar...check these out!

Her hair and her dress are adorned with ribbon from the Classic Pack.


Obviously when you are getting ready for Christmas...you need an Advent Calendar to countdown the days...so that is what I've made here!

This is made very simply from 1 sheet of Bo Bunny cardstock. Its from their Homespun Holidays collection, which is divine and I'm going to be using alot this Christmas! I've simply cut open 3 sides of each door, backed the whole thing with a sheet of plain card and added a decorative brad (stocking and candy), charm or peel-off behind each door! (Remember peel-offs are part of the huge clearance and you can get them atm at £1 for 10 sheets!!!) Then I've added a panel of cream cardstock and diecut letters out of the friendly felt to form the Christmas banner and tied it with ribbon.

Ok so now we have an angel, an Advent calendar...and we need some cards to send out. Christmas cards have to be fast, right? And these are! I've used the Bookshelf cardstock for a non-traditional palette, the matching ribbons and added greetings from the Cardmakers' Fragments which add a lovely dimensional finish. Because its me...I've also added a little bit of glitter too! :)

I hope I haven't overwhelmed you...and you manage to make some things this week that help you to get ready for the coming season! I so love Christmas :)

More Chrimbo cards!

Yep -surprise, surprise - more Christmas cards!

The first card was made with the GORGEOUS new Bo Bunny Jack Frost papers (they have a lovely shimmer that doesn't show up the in the photo). The cardstock sticker is also from the Bo Bunny range and the chipboard heart is out of the Cosmo Cricket buck naked buttons pack. I painted it with red acrylic paint, then tied on some Bo Bunny and American Crafts ribbons.

The second card uses the same papers, cardstock stickers and ribbons from Bo Bunny and my favourite stamp from A Muse - the baby penguin! The scalloped squares were punched out using the mega and giga Marvy Punches.

The third card was made entirely from the HOTP Personal Shopper kit Dec 06 (which are on offer at the moment at an unbelievable half price!!)

That's all for now folks - check out this week's challenge for your chance to win a yummy prize!!

It's RAK time again!!

Just a little post as I don't want to steal Rebecca's thunder! We are just on the verge of 100 entries to our weekly challenge - so I'm gonna celebrate with a little RAK for the 100th entry. All you have to do is e-mail your entry in for this week's challenge - & add your comment on the challenge post, so everyone knows you have done it! I'll send a little RAK to the person who e-mails the 100th entry! Cool huh?

Hello again!!

Hi All,

Beverley has asked me to guest again today, so here I am! After a busy weekend away with my Guides, I'm beginning to feel a bit more awake this afternoon, but apologise now for any spelling errors and nonsense-23 excitable Guides is not conducive to sleep! I've been busy with my brad buddies and more kit-and there's still loads left! The first LO I've created is of my Dads flight in a 1942 Tiger Moth. I used the friends portion of the kit, because the greens and blues went well with the photos, making use of the brads and ribbons as embellishments. My second layout also uses the friends section and shows my labrador Hazel, in her second favourite position in the house-asleep on the settee (her favourite position is her head over her food bowl!!). She thinks she owns the settee, and only relinquishes it with a fight! My last creation for today is a mini book made with the ice-cream portion of the kit. It is a maze book, with extra hidden tags. I've made it for my friend and left the pages unfinished so she can fill it in with all the comical things my 20 month old God-daughter says.

Right, I am off to try and catch up on all the housework and possibly have a sneaky nap too!!!

Byeeeee

Rebecca

XX

Challenge # 16

Ok ladies it's that time of the week again.... Challenge time! And everyone can take part in this challenge because you can make anything you choose, be it a layout, card, ATC absolutely anything. So the challenge is.....

"Buttons, Bows & Brads".

All you have to do is include at least one of each on each piece of work.

For my two examples I've created a layout and a card.

Here's my layout. I've used the gorgeous Vintage Sarapapers for this. I distressed them by rubbing sandpaper around the edges and sponging over with some inks. With the main photo ( I'm the one on the tricycle with my brother and sister), I made a frame with some torn paper and folded up two sides and attached them with some brads . I also distressed the brads in the same way. I adhered some ribbon to the frame and made it into a bow to make it look as if it was hung. The "1967" are numbers from a HOTP round alphabet and numbers sheet and then distressed with ink. Then the buttons were added and finally I tied a little bow to the egg timer charm.

My second piece is a Triangle Tri Fold card. For this I used the American Crafts, Bookshelf range of papers, they are ideal for this as they are a double sided cardstock. The buttons are actually brads but look really good and save you time as you don't have to glue or sew them on. To tie the card together I used some more ribbon and tied it into a bow.

So why not give the challenge a go you could win a prize! All you have to do is email your entry to sales@croptilyoudrop.co.uk and leave a comment on this post saying that you have entered. Your design will be shown on the challenge gallery here and at the end of the month the Design Team will pick a winner. Even though the Design Team enter, rest assured they are not allowed to win!!! Shame :-(. I hope you will enter I'd love to see what you all create!

Have fun!! :-)

Altered Cigar Tin

Hello folks! Its my turn to share today! So I thought Id show you what Ive been up to with these vintage SaraPapers! I have had my eye on this cigar tin for a while - it was crying out to be transformed into something so I thought I would use it to put some of my Ma's 50th birthday pictures in for her. This is an old tin I had lying around the house, but the Crop Til You Drop Webshop has these fabby CD tins - perfect for storing crafty stuff inside - or creating an accordian tin with!

As you can see - I have covered the front with the papers, and added one of the tags from the Sarapapers pad. Used the papers to decorate the inside, and as we now say on the I love Hot Off The Press Forum, Bobs your cousins Dad! Ooh nearly forgot - added a bloom like these ones here!!

I have used some of the cute card charms to decorate a couple of the pages - I love these - they were perfect for these pictures! I used the little champagne glass for one page, and the style charm for the limo pic of my mum.

I have used some of the gorgeous American Crafts Ribbons, and also - my fave embellishment at the minute - the HOTP Big Brads and Rub ons. The rub ons are perfect for these brads, but you could even customise them yourself with permanent pens - I did both!

Ok doky guys, thats it from me til next week - dont forget to check back here tomorrow @ 6pm, when its Shary's turn to set the challenge!! Hope you'll come along and join us, as there are some fab prizes up for grabs!! Check out this post here to see what our other fab crafters have won!

And the winner is ...

Lucy Patrick
with a split of votes between her challenge #13 & challenge #12 layouts! Honestly, this was such a close run thing with several entrants in the running for the prize! So if you didn't win this time, we hope you'll be playing along in November too.
As Lucy has entered mostly layouts, we thought she'd like a Personal Shopper Kit as her prize - you can see it here.
Lucy, please e-mail us your full address, your prize is ready to go. Congratulations from us all!!

And while we are on the subject of winners, Sue Jackson from Dartford is the winner of our Octoberfest In Store Free Prize Draw! I guess she'll be popping in soon to pick up her prize - an A Muse Goody Bag containing around £20 of stamping goodies!

Congratulations to you both!!

My Hero

I've done two layouts that feature my lovely husband. He is the best husband, father, friend the lot. He is just wonderful. In the first layout I've used lots of photos of him at various stages (and hairstyles, LOL) in his life. The toddler photo was given to us by his mum. She is 91 and now living in a care home. When she was sorting out her stuff this was one of many photographs she had. Not only that, she had kept the little suit he is wearing in the photograph!

I used a 12 x 12 sheet of Vintage Sarapaper as the base. It's pink and I wondered if it would be a bit of a disaster for a 'male' page but I think its works! I matted all the photos onto dark card then onto blocks of beige card. These were all scraps I had. I love being able to use up those bits and pieces that are too big to throw away but you wonder if you will ever use them! I put a strip of American Crafts Ribbon down the right hand side and basically added lots of embellies out of my kit. For the 'rock star' photo I cut an arrow out of scrap card and embossed the word rock onto it and added a gold star on the arrow head. I put a Great Big Brad with a Rub On sentiment on the corner of the photo. On the 'DIY' photo I put a silver metal button. I also managed to use a few of the Metal Flower embellies that I really like under the 'work' photo and the 'dad' photo. In the bottom left corner I added some American Crafts Ribbon to one of the Metal Charms that reads 'life is measured by moments', a lovely sentiment. I used a Helix Stencil to write the word 'soul mate' above the lower right hand photo. Above that I punched out lots and lots of hearts and used silicone to layer them up. I used one of my own alphabet rubber stamps to stamp the other words. Apart from that its a couple of flowers, brads and buttons all out of my kit.


The next layout is of our wedding day in 1979! It seems like yesterday!LOL Again I used 12 x 12 sheet of Vintage Sarapaper and also a Hot Off The Press Wedding Overlay. To begin I cut a 1cm strip of HOTP Glimmer Paper to use as faux ribbon. I cut a tag using the HOTP Tag Template. I love all these templates and use them a lot. I stamped the 'something old' sentiment onto it and added a brad and some organza ribbon. I made a flower using the HOTP Fold it Flips Template, put a Great Big Brad on it and used silicone glue to attach it to the ribbon. I used a 'husband and wife' ribbon from the HOTP Ribbon Fragments book. I'm not sure if this is on the webstore at present but if you ask Beverley I'm sure she will get one for you. I rubber stamped the names onto lilac card using an alphabet set of my own. As usual I've had it for so long I can't remember where I got it from! I cut the letters out with a Deckle Edged Scissors and matted them onto strips of HOTP 8 x 8 brown cardstock. The tag on the right hand side is made from Susans' Pockets and Tags Template from HOTP. This tag is really fun because when its folded there is a little apature that you can put a photo or anything you like in! I added another Ribbon Fragment at the bottom and some silk flowers from the HOTP Earths Pallette embellishment kit. Finally I punched out hearts from scraps of the Vintage Sarapapers and some red card and added them to look like confetti.

I'm off to take at look at Beverleys' blog now. Popped over on the way here and saw she has some gorgeous Daisy D stuff at the moment. All quite beautiful!! Great for Christmas makes. I always get loads of ideas there, she makes lovely stuff. Not just saying that go and have a look yourself if you don't believe me LOL!!