Whilst I am here i may as well do my LOC DT application....

This I also don't *nervously bites fingernails* 

I'm not too good at talking about myself, but I will try my best!

My name is Rachel, I am 26 and live in the rural countryside county of rutland ( the smallest county in England , near leicestershire) with my husband, Two small children who are aged 4 and two , and a very faddy, neurotic cat called Perdi pops, who was an unexpected and unofficial rescue in June of this year.

I have always been interested in art and have dabbled in lots of mediums over the years, but I started papercrafting in may of this year, falling in at the deep end as I wanted an original and specific card for my mothers birthday. As it was a Gorjuss themed card, i couldn't buy one online due to their TOU/angel policies. So therefore i had to make one. I used the gorjuss Ruby in a swing image, and my first promarkers were ourchased to do that image. I now have around half the full set and i am still collecting.

I still dont really have a signature style as I like to try everything. I will quite happily craft using cutesey images, and as i sell some of my work i will work with whatever my customers request, but my personal favourites are fantasy, steampunk and skeletal images.

I love using glitter and because I work closely with samaflora and have a spot on their DT I use their flowers wherever possible in my work ( and not only for that reason, i just happen to absolutely love the flowers sam produces)

I also don't really like having my photo taken, so here is a shameless selfie... 

This card is one of my recent makes and although a fairly quick card, happens to be a favourite, It used a sImply betty image that she provided free as a 700 likes promotion :)

This card is another favourite, using a Tiddly inks image- Dragon Friend, this is Merida without the dragon , and is a 6x6 card. It utilises the spellbinders floral ovals dies, samaflora blossoms and roses, another spellbinders edging strip and a paper from the park life collection ( if anyone knows where I can still get these it would be appreciated!)

The inside of the card is in matching papers, with the edging strip and bow echoes there too :)

And finally my LOC card, using skully Santa from delicious doodles- i made this card for one of their challenges which was inspired by a movie... I of course chose Hogfather. The full post on the challenge can be found on my blog, but I will repost the image here for your perusal also.

I am loving learning everything about papercrafting and acknowledge I have a fair way to go yet, but thank you for reading :)

Rachel xx

Simply Betty Stamps-December fan page challenge using Betty Boom

Hello, this is my second attempt to upload this post, i hope my blogger app does not eat it this time round!

This is my entry for the December fan page challenge over on the Simply Betty Stamps fan page: apologies for the slightly crummy picture but i have no access to the computer right at this second!

The recipe for this challenge was as follows;

Glitter ( as much or as little as you would like)

The colours red, black and white/cream

And of course the fantastic image provided which was my choice out of the three available :)

 For this creation I decided i wanted to make an easel card, and unlike previous times, i left the width of the card stay the same( this card was created with a sheet of white A4 cardstock) 

I did however trim the length down once I had folded the card to make it a little shorter once I had worked out where I was placing the matted image, and the 'stopper'.

I covered the front panel s with a bright red paper, the picture may not show it clearly, but the area under the ice white sparkle pointsettia is embossed using a graduated Dots Mbossabilities folder used in my Spellbinders Grand Calibur machine!

I then set to work with my image, and chose to use the following colours- 

Cocoa, Henna , cinnamon, and a touch of tan on the hair, lipstick and berry reds for the poinsettia, and gold for the eyeshadow ( i did use two other colours on the eyeshadow but I forgot to write down what i used!! Oops....

Cinnamon, tan, and putty skintones with a touch of antique pink on the cheeks, with berry red lips

And a ruby, berry and lipstick red dress. The tights were done in the same red tones with an addition of black, cool grey 5,4,3 for the alternate stripes, and also the corset. The present box was coloured in purple, amethyst, and lavender- im not sure it is really the best blend as I always find purples one of the most difficult promarker colour blends to colour. 

The bow was in the reds and holly green as were the shoes, which also had a little gold bell on...all outlined in cool grey 1 to make the image pop from the white cardstock

So that is the image.

I matted the image on top of an anitas 6x6 paper from the classic christmas black paper pad, then onto a papermania gold glitter paper, which i cut so that there was only a small border peeking out as it tends to overwhelm and overtake projects.

I then finally mounted them onto a piece of black sparkly holographic card to give some extra shine. I finished it off with three large red half pearls in the top corner and some silvery pinky grey ones in the bottom corner, facing the opposite direction , and a bow utilising red and gold ribbon, and a little ceramic teddybear holding a sugarcane ( it is christmas after all,) 

I placed the image to the right of the page as id been told off for favouring the left in all my projects, and i fancied a change anyway ....maybe ;) and placed a handmade samaflora poinsettia to the other side, to echo the one placed in betty boom's hair. 

The sentiment supplied with the image became the stopper for the easel card, which i heat embossed with a silver glitter, then decided was too plain and ran through my bigshot in my most festive embossing folder . i raised it all up on double sided foam pads, and voila, fini!

Sorry to waffle, I am trying to make my posts a little more in depth as i havent really been explaining myself until now! 

Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think, i always love to hear from anyone happening upon my (very) humble blog!

Rachel xx

AAAAAND ACTION! inspired by a movie challenge from Delicious Doodles

Well hello on this cold, wet and VERY windy day in the midlands, and today ~I have my take on 'HOGFATHER' By Sir Terry Pratchett in card form, using Skully Santa of Delicious doodles

For the background I used a spellbinders embossing folder teamed with red mirri card , matted on a dull gold card, then I mounted my pro marker coloured image on black glitter card once I had cut around the outline. the bauble has been coloured red and then has black glittery embossing powder on it, and the eyes and bauble have also both been attacked with the bottle of glossy accents :)
colours used in the image are cool grey 1-5 and ruby,cardinal, berry and lipstick reds also almond, blush and oatmeal.
for decoration I cut three little gift boxes from a forever friends die set in black tones and made the words 'HO HO HO' to emulate death in the movie. these were also embossed with the black glitter.
there are also three black Samaflora roses in the top corner of the image to finish it off.
I hope very much that you like !

TSC crafting bunch challenge

This challenge I had real fun on and decided to do something completely different from usual, I had a small square canvas that was too grubby to use for anything else so I thought outside the box!

I started by cutting one of my lovely floral 12x12 papers to cover the entire canvas, and centred the coloured image in the centre. i then really went to town, dragging all my bits and pieces out of the craft cupboard!

I glued the word 'craft' down the left hand side using cork letters, and glued some blue glitter to the right hand corner.. I also added squiggles of pearlescent glue, flat back resins, gems, a cushioned fabric strawberry, a pony bead, a ribbon flower, a mini clothes peg, a paper-clip and two beautiful paper flowers made by Sam of  Samaflora

The image itself I coloured using pro markers and my three flex markers . I also used glossy accents to add an extra dimension on the eyes of the little bunch critters. The word Craft, I used sticky embossing powder to adhere glitter to the word..i think my embossing pen is on the way out though as i had expected it to be more glittery :( on the whole though I was very happy with this project and that was the only minor setback! I hope you like what I did and if you would like one similar you can contact me on my page :)Crafty Little Creations

Rachel

Thanksgiving card challenge for Simply B stamps

Well, here i am finally, after spending all nigt trying to upload and watermark my images, using a laptop that is on its last legs!

The recipe called for feathers so I chose my favourites from a bag of assorted feathers I got a while ago, and made them into a bunch attached together with silicone glue.. the image I coloured solely with promarkers

to create the base of the card I matted red and brown card and on top of that i layered four strips of assorted papers, which i stitched together. I then added a teepee out of crocodile skin effect paper and curled up the entrance and stuck that in place with anitas tacky glue, and adhered the feathers at the top in place of the usual poles. I then placed the image beside it :)

as a final touch i added a die cut butterfly cut from bronze card stock using a Marianne butterfly die

simples :) hope you enjoy it!

simply B stamps 'Betty the fortune teller' challenge

For this challenge I chose some grey slightly corrugated card to make the card base- cutting a circle aperture in the front and then fashioned a base out of the same card for front and back.
I thought the paper backing for the image suited it 100% as it reflected the blue used for the tablecloth.
I coloured the image using pro markers

, with metallic pro marker accents on the earrings of the fortune teller , and glossy accents for the table top, crystal ball and eyes. I raised the image up from the paper and also made sure there was a gap between the paper backing and the crystal ball 'frame'
I glued diamantes on the 'ball', and cut two flourishes for the base. I also added a Halloween tree dress it up button between the two flourishes.
I mounted the sentiment on a luggage label and threaded through blue ribbon with a Tibetan charm .

Hope you like!

good evening everyone! today i bring you a polkadoodles challenge entry!

Good evening, sorry not to have got to you sooner but its been a busy day, finishing up and packaging two cards (including my first non UK order) and creating a third custom card before settling down to finish off my entry for the latest polka-doodles challenge..
I decided to keep this one fairly clean and simple , i often let the image taqlk to me and let me know what sort of card it will lend itself to... and without owning a lot of the fancy christmassy dies I used a kanban background card and scored it into thirds, cutting off a little of the front flap so the image could overhang. on the right flap i placed three glittered die cut snowflakes and used buttons as their centres. I finished up with a piece of ribbon to 'close' the card which was secured with a tiny strip of DST at the back before hand tying a bow. that way the ribbon does not simply fall off when you open it...

I coloured the image using promarkers ( as usual)
cool grey 1,2,4,5 (still missing that three, there will be a party when I finally buy it!)
ivory, gold, pastel yellow, icicle (limited edition colour)
royal blue, azure and sky blue
berry red, red, a touch of black, putty, dusky pink and satin as skin tones,
moss, pear and bright green
shale henna and cinnamon for the angels hair,
antique pink for her lips,
then i also used lipstick red , magenta and aubergine...
sorry for just listing them but I dont like to give all my secrets away.

I'd love your comments on this and I hope you like it!

Rachel x

tiddly Inks Challenge

Trying to start this week on a high note, no sooner had I got the kids out the door off to school and preschool , I was starting colouring and putting cards together. Todays offering from me to you is a card for the latest 'Tiddly inks' challenge which can be found here ...http://tiddlyinkschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/challenge-116-back-to-school.html

I tried to keep my card fairly plain and simple as It went well with the image I chose, 
And I coloured using promarkers- satin,dusky pink, pastel yellow, vanilla, ivory, cool grey 5 4 and 2 ( 
im still missing a 3!) pink carnation, mustard, red, ruby, gold, lilac, orchid, cinnamon,tan,leaf green, lime twist and royal blue.
I hope you like her, but I have to dash...I'm still not sure whether im too late to enter!!!

Hello world :)

I just started this blog to show you my favourite makes and the entries for the competitions I enter...bear with me I'm new to blogging :-D