A few quick cards for Mothers Day

Today I've made a few very quick cards ready to sell at the next couple of craft fairs, they are at the beginning of March so just in time for Mothers Day.

I used mainly Hunkydory products.

A close up of these ...

Unfortunately I didnt have any foiled acetate, so I had to use plain, but this doesn't look very nice so will have to add something more.

 I did try to heat emboss some swirls on a piece, but as this acetate wasn't heat resistant it all bent and moulded into a wharped mess, so was filed away into the bin.

I might try and find my heat resistant acetate and try again, but I was too impatient when making this one and couldn't be bothered hunting in my oh so untidy craft room. I could be in there for days, lol.

 Catch up with you later

Hugs Sue x

An Award

Woo Hoo ! I have just received an award from the lovely Elaine.

Thank you so much for thinking of me.

The idea of the Liebster Blog Award is to spread the love from one small blog (under 200 followers) to other small blogs. This helps to spread knowledge and readership.

To accept the award, you must:

1) Link back to the person who gave it and thank them for thinking of you.

2) Post the award to your blog.

3) Give the award to 5 bloggers (with less than 200 followers) that you appreciate and value.

4) Leave a comment on the blogs of the five people you have chosen to let them know.

 

"Liebster" in German means "dearest", so to carry on the Liebster tradition, I am going to pass the award on to 5 people who's blogs have been an inspiration to me and my crafting. To be honest, passing this on will be difficult as there are so many wonderful small blogs. It will be a challenge to chose only 5. However, as needs must, here are 5 wonderful and inspiring blogs/ bloggers that I would love to pass the Liebster Blog award on to (in no particular order).

The 5 bloggers I would like to award are;

Suzanne@ Suzy-q-crafts

Bente @ Bare Bente

Fiona @ Fionas adventures in crafty land

Julie @ Oh-well

Marja @ Marja's craft site 

All of these ladies are amazing crafters and have inspirational blogs.

Thats all from me for now

  Tatty Bye xx

Love hearts

Good morning all my wonderful crafty friends, I hope the sun is shining for you.

I would like to show you a few things I made for Valentine's Day, but forgot to blog about.

I am going to enter them into this months Joanna Sheen Challenge - Love is in the air.

This first one is a wooden heart, painted with a crackle background with a pretty painted butterfly, over embossed with a hologram embossing powder. Finished with a hand written cute sentiment.

I added 3 small magnets to the back and it now lives on my fridge door. 

The next two are wall hangings, which are layered up on both sides with lots of layered hearts. The pattern paper ruffle, on the top heart, was stamped and tinted on the reverse before using my edgeabilities to cut a fancy edge. They both look good which ever way around they hang.

After taking the photos I added another heart to the largest hearts with the wording 'Be mine', but you'll just have to imagine that. lol.

I really enjoyed making these two little heart hanging baskets, they are both filled with small handmade heart shaped soaps.

I used my nesties again to cut the heart shapes.

The edges of the black and white paper had black soot Distress ink applied to them.

Some paper flowers and roses were used to embellish the pink one. And I added a little glitter to the soaps, to give them a little more sparkle. You know how I love a bit of bling.

I thought that my daughter could give the pink one to my mum on Mothers Day.

I might do a tutorial on these if anyone is interested, they are really quick and easy, but look so cute.

I would like to enter these heart hangers into Scrappy frogs - die cut challenge

Thats it from me for now, catch up with you all soon.

Hugs Sue x

New Paint Fusion transfers

Good evening all. I thought that I would share tonight what I've been up to yesterday as

I probably wont get time to do any blogging or crafting tomorrow as my mum, daughter and I are going to the theatre to see 'Oliver', I'm really looking forward to it.

Yesterday I received my new Paint Fusion goodies and couldn't wait to start playing.

Here's a couple of things I made. Sorry but the photos aren't very good, it was very dull when I took them. 

This was one of the transfers, applied to a mountboard circle. I don't think I did it properly because as I rubbed the paper away alot of the design also rubbed away, mainly around the edge but also 2 large areas in the centre and on the petals. I managed to colour in with Promarkers to hide the blank spaces on the sunflower and inked the edges with Distress inks and embossing powder. Think I disguised it ok.

I used a poppy design transfer on a mountboard tag for my second try. This turned out a bit better, but still had some missed bits on the edges, again disguised with inks and embossing powder. It looked a bit dull so I embossed a few swirls in gold.

Next I decided to make a couple on wall hangings, this first one I did on mountboard hearts, in the usual paint fusion way, painted by hand.

For the second one I used the fusion transfer designs, again they went a bit patchy so I disguised the blank bit with Distress inks and embossed swirls and edges.  

Here a pic of the two together. I can't decide which I like best, I like them both.

Which one do you like best?

Thanks for looking, enjoy the rest of your evening.

Painting coasters - a step by step tutorial

Good morning all, I have been asked a few times how I paint my coasters and do the crackle background, so here's a bit of a tutorial. I'll do my best to explain the simple steps.

I started with an ordinary pack of coasters 

In this pic you can see 2 that I've painted the background and 2 ready and waiting for the crackle treatment.

After sanding the coasters I painted a few coats of my chosen base colour.  Allowing each coat to dry before applying the next. I usually go for a dark or strong colour for the base.

Once the paint was completely dry, I brushed over a coat of watered down PVA glue. Now this has to start to dry, but not dry out fully, before painting the next colour. A thinner coat provides thinner crackles, but dries faster so you need to get your next paint layer on quickly.

Then I painted over the semi dry pva with my chosen top colour. (Usually I use a light colour, white or cream) Try to do this fairly quickly and dont work the paintbrush over the paint too much.

As this top layer dries you will see the crackles begin to appear, I love this bit its like magic. ( Well they do say small things amuse small minds. lol) 

Here's a pic of the 4 coasters with the backgrounds all painted.

The coasters were then painted using Paint Fusion techniques and products.  

I used Distress inks wiped across the coaster to give a slightly more aged effect and then embossed the edges with gold embossing powder.

Each one then has about 3 to 4 layers of varnish applied, again letting each coat dry before applying the next.

So there you have it!

 Hope that helps with the PVA crackle background.

Getting ready for Craft Fairs ...

Well Hello everyone, I'm finally back crafting and blogging. Its been so long since I've updated my blog, I've forgotten how.

Thought I had better make a start on some stock ready for the start of the craft fair season. My first one this year is the beginning of Feb and is actually a food and craft market and its on every month.

I decided that I would make a few Valentine gifts to get in the mood.

I have a few new designs and a couple of new items altogether, would love a bit of feedback.

First up, some tealight cards.

I used silver and pinky tones of paper and card as the tealights are pink and rose scented. I wrapped each one with a strip of co ordinating paper.

For the next one I used papers from a Papermania pad with red and gold card.

I decorated these tealights with some little Penny Black hedgie stamps, sooo cute.

For these next 2, I made little boxes and decorated them with card cut using Nestibilities.

Again the tealights were decorated with the adorable Hedgie stamps and strips of card around them.

Heres another box of tealights, but I just realised that I haven't decorated them.

Nevermind, here's a different angle of the box, which shows the decoration a bit better.

So, What do you think?

Do you think people might buy them and also how much should I charge?

Not too bothered anyway, I really enjoyed making them and can always give them to family and friends. Think I may make some more in different colours in time for Mother's Day.

Challenges I'm entering:
CES challenge - Anything but a card 

Its nice to be back and hopefully will be able to find some time to go check out some blogs and catch up with you all. Although I seem to have lost all my favourite blogs, that I was following. Must be blogger up to his old tricks again.

Tatty bye for now

Goodnight and God Bless

Sue x

A quick update

Well hello all you lovely crafty peeps, long time no see, well speak, well you know what I mean.

Just a quick update on whats been happening over the last few months. As you may remember I have been looking after my brother who was diagnosed with the big 'C' in June of this year. I am heartbroken to tell you that he lost his battle last month and died at home surrounded by all his family.

I still havent gotten round to doing much card making and blogging, but am hoping perhaps in the New Year I can start getting back to normal and maybe crafting and blogging again.

But for now, I'll just wish everyone an early Merry Christmas and all the best for a bright New Year.

Bye for now

Hugs Sue xx

ABC challenge Blog hop

Over at ABC we have decided to extend our Birthday blog hop for another week. That gives anyone who hasn't  joined in yet, time to do so. If you start at the ABC challenge you'll find all the details and the blog hop order there. We have some amazing sponsor prizes on offer and all you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is leave a comment on all the blog hop participants. Easy!!!

Happy Birthday !! ABC challenge

Good morning everyone!
  Well, it's The ABC Challenge Birthday!!! And to celebrate we are having a massive blog hop,along with this weeks challenge, with lots of fabulous prizes up for grabs!!
The Hop will run for nearly 2 weeks and end at 6pm GMT Monday 18 July! So, you have plenty of time to join in the fun!!

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABC CHALLENGE!!!

Both Design Teams, A and B will be joining in with the challenge and Blog Hop along with a few previous Design team members. We have lots of fantastic sponsors for our hop who are offering loads of amazing prizes. To qualify for a prize, you must visit and leave a comment on all Hop members blog posts.

 You should have come here from the very talented Karli's blog, if not or if you get lost along the way...Just head on back to The ABC Challenge and see who's next!!

We are also having a DT call, you can find all the details on the ABC challenge blog


Good Luck to all !!

On to this weeks challenge

Y is for Yesterday - use a favourite image from the past, or a previous ABC challenge or even a vintage theme, its that easy.!!

For my card, I decided to use two images, both digis. The first is Fairy Tree House from Make it Crafty. I coloured with Copics and used Distress inks to create the sky. 

The other image comes from a sheet containing four beautiful images by Whoopsi Daisy, again I coloured with Copics and added a little Stardust Stickles to her wings for a glittery effect..

I used flowers from Wild Orchid

and a sentiment from Lili of the Valley, tinted with a little Distress Ink and some more Stardust Stickles.

 Your next stop on our Blog Hop is the wonderfully talented Lols.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

Sentimental Sunday - Anything goes

Whoopsi daisy - Hot hot hot (summery scene ?)

Make it Colourful - Category 5 entry

Scrappy Frogs - Summer flowers

Papertake Weekly - Anything goes

Flutterby Wednesday - Open challenge

Crafts and me - Favourite image

Stampavie and more - More than 3 layers

Thanks for looking !!

Hugs Sue xx