There's still time ...

to take part in our monthly challenge & win a fabby prize! You have until the end of the month!

just a quickie from me {alix}

Hello crafters!

Life has been a bit hectic for me {and the family} lately, so I've not been around much...but as I have half an hour to myself now...I thought I'd spend it with you! :)


This is my latest project, a repurposed box {which used to contain cotton buds...how did crafters ever cope without these little beauties???}. I've embellished it with pp's, ribbon and a couple of cute charms, so its now a girlie gift box.

The papers I've used are from the lovely Siesta collection, very pretty and perfect for girlie projects. I've die cut a flower {using the Big Shot} from the same papers, and tied a thin ribbon all the way around, suspending one of the lovely heart charms, and tied a bow with a sheer ribbon from which I've suspended another charm, this one reads *glamour girl*. There are lots of gorgeous charms available in the webshop...here, and remember to stop by the Pound Stop for some bargain ribbon selections too!

Ok, that's me for today, but I hope to be back soon...and until then...*happy crafting* :)

Sweet Pea

I am totally in love with these Fancy Pants Sweet Pea papers - they are soooo sweet!

For this layout I used the Emma paper as the background, and it's so pretty I didn't want to cover too much of it up, so I kept the design the the bottom right corner which is quite plain. I layered the photo onto strips of the Noah and and reverse of the Brenna papers, and added a couple of lengths of ribbon and ric rac and some buttons. I finished it off with a few of the die cuts (which are sadly out of stock) - a couple on the photo, and some others layered up to make a larger embellishment.

There are no less than 20 gorgeous paper collections in stock in the webshop and you can find them all HERE.

More Personal Shopper!

Here's another Layout from the HOTP Personal Shopper kits - this time I've used the July 06 kit.

Again, everything on the LO is from the kit, with the exception of the Queen & Co Black Celtic Felt Fusion.

I used 3 of the papers from the Retro designs. For the scalloped circle I used a Marvy punch, then threaded the turquoise grosgrain through the metal book plate and positioned over the top. The "remember" card was attached using this gorgeous little clip, and I attached the plastic tile with black brads and then wrote on it with a permanent marker.

You can find all the Personal Shopper kits, at just £9.50 each HERE.

Personal Shopper

Here's a LO I've created entirely from the November 2006 HOTP Personal Shopper kit - that's the beauty of these kits, they contain absolutely everything you need to create tons of great LOs - and cards too for that matter! Even better, they're on offer at just £9.50 each in the webshop! Find them all HERE.

And don't forget to check out Alix's monthly challenge here - take part and you could win a fab prize!

And also, the fab new bargains Beverley has added to the webshop HERE.

Ta Daa...the monthly challenge starts here!!

Well hello again and welcome to the all new Monthy Challenge on Blog til you Drop!

We have decided to abandon the weekly challenges, and instead run single challenge for the whole month, to give people more time to join in! At the end of the month the DT will choose a winner and they will win...actually that is still under negotiation at CTYD HQ...but trust us...it will be good!! :)

Ok, so the first of these challenges is to *repurpose* something for your crafting. In my examples I've repurposed 2 lots of packaging {a wooden draw that contained small screws and a cotton bud pot} but you can use anything you like or have lying around waiting for a new *purpose*. Its a lot like recyling really :) A few suggestions might be bottle tops, magazine pictures, the ribbon from your Easter egg...you get the idea...

As always you can enter a card, LO, home decor item or ATC...whatever you like really...we try to be pretty inclusive to all crafters here at BTYD. Just e-mail a photo over to Beverley and leave a comment in this post so that we all know to go and check out what you've done! You can also click on the gallery icon at the top of the page and comment on other people's entries too which is fun...

To get you started here are my examples. Firstly a wall hanging {what is it with me and wall art atm!!!} that I've made from a wooden draw that contained small screws. I've painted it, lined each section with off-cuts of paper from the Coffee House collection, and then stamped some stars onto the paper using a wooden star as a stamp. Then I've added some photos, charms and buttons, and some of the amazing felt die-cuts which are available here. For my purposes I've roughed them up a bit by finger painting some paint onto the edges :) *i do love to get messy*

Then I've used my Cropadile to make holes for the sheer ribbon, and added another charm hanging at the bottom. I have to say I'm quite pleased with the end result!

My second example is very simple and uses a cardboard pot covered in stips of ribbon, and then embellished with an assortment of felt and paper flowers to give a fun, funky place to store all sorts of crafting bits and bobs!

Righty ho then, I hope I've given you something to think about...and you'll join in with the new style challenges...and I look forward to seeing all your creations!

the all new monthly challenge...

is coming...but it seems my camera is almost as poorly as my MIL atm...and its just unformatted itself...which means i've lost all my photos!!!

i'm off to take some more...but its pretty dark here now...so please bear with me!!

it will be worth the wait...*promise* :)

A family of girls...

I'm guessing you can tell that i love these Crush pp's by Fancy Pants...in fact i'm thinking Fancy Pants just might be my new favourite manufacturer...*gasps from friends and family*...and apologies to *********!!

For this LO {of my Mum and her 4 sisters} I've used the pp and the die cuts from the Crush collection, a few random buttons i had lounging in my sewing tin, and some white acrylic paint to make the raised dots and the antennae. As you can see i cut around some of the flowers to frame the photo, then layered the butterfly on top with foam pads. Do you like how i've made the body out of buttons? i thought that was quite cute!! lol

I've made some striaght horizontal lines with satin ribbon from the Lucky Dip selection, used my offcuts of pp with a large tag punch to make the title. This punch is a bargain reduced to £5!!! And so useful, as you can then make all your own tags to co-ordinate with all your favourite papers yourself...saving you another fortune on die-cut ones!! Good, huh?

Finally, I've double stamped the title to give it depth, and doodled stitching and journalled in a fine pen.

I hope you like my efforts today...and maybe...just maybe...it will inspire you to go off and make the same thing...or something completely different!! :)

TTFN,
Alix

English Paper Company

I've made these 4 cards from just 2 sheets of English Paper Company 12 x 12 paper (along with a few other bits) and as they're just 13p a sheet - that's a real bargain!

I used the Blue Cornflowers paper and the blue dots (now sold out). I also used the white reverse of the paper for matting.

The sincere thanks and congratulations stamps I used are both by A Muse and are just £1.50 each in the sale. The scalloped shapes were cut using Marvy punches, and I added some ribbon from the Lucky Dip satin selection.
The white flowers are these DCWV cardstock ones and are great as they can be used plain or chalked, inked, painted etc. They look great with button centres too! The chipboard butterfly in the first picture is from this Creative Imaginations pack, and you get loads for your money!

Check out the new products as Beverley has added some more fab bargains!