Left Of Center Challenge blog challenge #26 Die cuts sponsored by the stamping chef and Ike's art

I've been cheeky and created two pieces for this challenge...so I'm sneaking in with team A to show you what I did with TSC's 'Bite me'

First off I love this image a LOT and spent ages colouring it... I have tried a lot of new techniques with this piece and absolutely love it!

Ingredients ;

Promarkers - burgundy, crimson, lipstick red, purple , amethyst and lilac, cool grey one, ivory

purple tartan paper from stash

a paper bag! (the inside was this fantastic skull and crossbones motif, so i hacked it down to size)

lace, purple ribbon, 

teal coredinations cardstock, homemade texture place, and a spellbinders impressabilities sheet

spiderweb borders and ribbon border cut on my Scan 'N' cut

black pearl cardstock

7 inch square card blank

I coloured the image, and cut around the edge. this was pre scan n cut so excuse the uneven edge!

I attached this to one edge of the silver diecut frame, so it looked like she was standing by a mirror- being a vampire, she of course, does not leave a reflection!

this i added to a piece of cardstock that i had already made up with homemade texture paste (talcum powder, tacky glue, glitter and mica powder)

behind that is a ribbon border with purple ribbon through it, on top of a purple tartan strip that was matted onto black pearlised cardstock . i put a little strip of lace under this before placing it onto the base which was made by matting a 7 inch square piece of black cardstock with a slightly smaller skull and crossbones 'paper'. before gluing down onto the 8 inch card blank (which i had hacked an inch off each side to make 7 inches) , i tucked half of the spiderweb border underneath on two sides, to create an off the edge style thingy. 

and voila... my first card with bits 'off the edge'!

Thank you also to Mo, who has let me publish this early, I would love to  be considered for a DT position on the punkyougirl challenge blog...i'm fairly new to dark but loving the challenge and doing some creepier stuff!

also entering at the TSC blog for 'anything goes' :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAMARA!!!!! SIMPLY BETTY BIRTHDAY BLOG HOP

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAMARA!

I hope you have a great day, and I was so stoked to be a part of this hop!

The image drawn for us was made by Betty of Simply Betty Stamps, and i think you will agree, utterly awesome!

I made a completely new style of card for this one, I felt like having a play, as I don't often get to do exactly what I want to do!

I also have to admit, I had my new toy to play with (my Scan 'N' Cut) so the digi and cupcakes were cut out using the direct cut feature, the wording, hearts and donuts were  all cut files !

I loved the papers I used as well (A5) diggety dog, but my husband knocked a drink over whilst I was doing this and none survived :( luckily the box was done and on higher ground at this point!!

I coloured the birthday girl using my promarkers and I found the pop up box card tutorial online (I have to admit, I tried a different tutorial and the result ended up in the bin!!)

I placed the digi on a strip of acetate so it wobbled, everything else was stuck to the hidden framework within the pop up box- in the last picture you can see that it folds almost flat for postage!

so all that I can say is happy birthday Tamara, hope you have an awesome day and are spoilt rotten , and we all love you :D

You should have come from :Corinne

you are Here : Rachel

Next in the hop is :

 Christin

 Vicky

 Kerrie-anne

 Lucy

 Floss

 Summer

 Trish

 Katya

 Irene

Vanessa

 Louise

Sheri

 Celina

Michelle

 Emily

 Jill

Kay

 Jackie

 Darcy

Tanja

and

 Veronica

Midway reminder forLeft Of Center Challenge blog Demon Lovers Challenge #25 sponsored by Rick St Dennis

Hello! today I have something very different to show you for the Demon Lovers challenge.....

For this make I decided to make something other than a card, and made this creepy coffin box instead!

Ingredients;

image from Rick St Dennis, our sponsor for this challenge

Dead flowers from Samaflora

polyester lace trim

coffee

Tim Holtz vintage photo ink

double sided pearlised A4 card (2 Sheets)

Skull and crossbones paper from Delicious Darkness (from Teri, the creator of Delicious Doodles images)

Promarkers - cocoa, henna, cinnamon, tan, putty, ivory, satin, cool grey one

Anita's tacky glue

Hot glue gun

I made the coffin box using my Brother Scan 'N' cut and a treat box cut file that I made larger until one half of the box filled an A4 page. I assembled this and using the bottom of the box as a template, cut the skull and crossbones paper to size. 

The image I coloured in sepia tones, and cut down to fit on the top of the coffin - the outsides were antiqued using vintage photo stain on a foundation brush... without having an ink pad, I just patted my dabber topped ink onto a plate until there was plenty of ink to transfer to my brush. I also distressed the coffin using this technique. 

The 'lace' was submerged into a cup of strong coffee for a couple of hours and then left until nearly dry. at this point, I used my heat gun on it, in some places holding it very close so the fibres blackened and melted , leaving ragged holes, and adding to the feel of decay

I attached this around the edge of the coffin lid using a hot glue gun, then glued the image in place, and then arranged and glued the dead flowers made for me specifically or this project , again with my hot glue gun..

If spooky is your thing, I hope you love this!

Smeared ink Bloody Valentine blog hop

Good afternoon (or morning...or evening...all depends on where you are ;) I love scheduled posts... I'm sat writing this on a sunday morning in my old pink dressing gown , and a cup of tea in my hello kitty mug! ....erm, not sure I should have really admitted to that :D

Anyway, over at the Left Of Center Challenge Blog we are joining in the smeared ink Bloody valentine blog hop . Such fun!
The hop should have started HERE : on Terra's blog....  the full hop list is listed over on the LOC blog

Without further ado, this is what I have created...

This piece uses 'Demon Lover' by Eiglas of eiglassing.


INGREDIENTS:
Promarkers ; Ivory, cool grey 1-5 
                     a touch of black
                     burgandy crimson and lipstick red
                     cinnamon and cocoa
                     gold pastel yellow and buttercup

Black core'dinations cardstock
gorjuss red damask paper
Free Lace paper from the Crafters Companion Christmas inspirations disk
Black cardstock corners from Stash (a present from my good friend Sam)
self adhesive lace flower tape, coloured burgandy with promarkers
pink food colouring 
vintage photo stain dabber
craft knife
anitas tacky glue
and a sentiment created in microsoft word


I prepared the lace backing using a mister bottle with some pink food colouring in (and a touch of purple mica that was left in the bottle)
I unscrewed the lid on the bottle and depressed the plunger to fill the tube with the food coluring. I then removed this from the bottle, and eased up on the plunger, to drop splats of the food colouring onto the lace paper. some of it I let run, naturally and others I helped along , blowing it with a drinking straw.

the background behind the image was distressed along the edges with my craft knife , and gently inked with my vintage photo dabber

All in all fairly simple really!


so, Happy Valentines day, and hope you are all loved up :)


Rachel x

P.S I would also like to enter this over on the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers challenge blog - A is for Anti-Valentine

The stamping chef- Anything Goes

I peeled myself off my death bed to make this post... I completely forgot to enter 'properly' until reminded this morning, so here goes!
I was the winner of a random give-away over at the Stamping Chef , and I got 'Rockabilly Boom'

Ingredients;

Promarkers

Metallic promarkers

chronology paper pack

madame payrauds paper pack

Sew lovely paper pack

TH cog dies

half pearls

red coredinations cardstock

Chequered Kraft card

White gel pen

Spellbinders edging die

I made this card by firstly trimming the edge off a square 8 inch square card blank, with a spellbinders edging die.
The Image was coloured with promarkers and metallic markers. Im afraid I can't tell you my exact colours this time round as I am so late with my post I can't entirely remember! All i Know is the silver on the bomb is a metallic promarker...
I think everything I did with the card is fairly self explanatory, I kept this one fairly CAS , and then added a little sentiment at the bottom to balance the card.


*crawls back to bed dragging a trail of tissue behind her*

LOC Challenge 24 - Cute Vs Creepy, sponsored by Meljens

Hello everyone! today I have a piece for you using Meljen's sugar skull....

I absolutely love the image I was given to create something with, and I tried to go all out with it. I actually coloured up several of the images with my promarkers then used parts of them to découpage up the first image. 

so as usual, I will give you a peek at my ingredients :

Promarkers in moss, pear, lime, magenta,cerise, pink carnation, marine ,duck egg, cool aqua, indigo, prussian, and bluebell

Metallic Promarker - Gold

half pearls in pink and green 

wide navy ribbon

10 mm black ribon

heart ribbon slider in pearl

turquoise green and purple coredinations cardstock

shimmery blue paper from my stash 

Samaflora blossoms 

Spellbinders Lacey circles and sizzix framelit circles

spellbinders interchangable edging strip dies

an embossing folder I was given recently 

pink mica powder on white paper 

so as already discussed, I coloured and decoupaged the image, and then framed it using a circle framelit and one of the spellbinders lacey circles. to create the background, I coloured a plain white paper with a mica misting spray with a few blossom shaped voids. 

I set it with hairspray..

I matted up the shimmery paper to just under half the size of the pink paper, and ran a small rectangle of coredinations in purple through an embossing folder using my big shot. this was tucked behind the shimmery paper, and overlapping into the pink area. 

to create the detail behind the sugar skull, I layered up an edging strip , a wide and a skinny piece of ribbon , the skinny also had a ribbon slider on it. 

I added another edging strip to the top edge of the card and added six pearls in pink and green.

Rachel

Digi Chooseday 'anything goes'

Good morning /afternoon/evening, wherever you are! Here is my entry to the anything goes challenge over at Polkadoodles!
I'm using the 'Sleepyhead' Digi that was offered recently at a vastly reduced rate to celebrate the opening of their Etsy shop. as soon as I saw it, I KNEW my make would have to have PINK and lots of it!

My digi as ever, was coloured using promarkers, and I added some little heart shaped buttons to above the cup (as loveheart steam)
and layered up. The embossed card base is made using an A4 spellbinders embossing folder, on a piece of pale pink coredinations card, lightly sanded, and on top are some bright flowery and diamond papers (sorry, I cannot remember where they are from, I have so many!)
I did lots of faux stitching on this card, using my fineliner pen and added a doily and a few more buttons...


hope you like it!
Rachel

Samaflora 1000 likes giveaway promotion on facebook WELL worth a look!

Hello there everyone... as my blog is pretty quiet between pieces for the LOC challenge blog , I am going to try and remedy this, although I am not the best writer...I tend to write as i speak, which as sam of samaflora herself could tell you gets pretty interesting at times!

anyway, for you today, I wanted to let you all know about the GIVEAWAY over on Samaflora's facebook page once they reach one THOUSAND likes. and boy oh boy is it a fantastic prize!
the flowers being given away are to the value of £180 alone, and will be given out to one lucky person in a gorgeous decorated flower storage box for the cost of postage only....

These are the flowers that will be given away. all handmade with the utmost skill, and care to detail that samaflora always provides. I may be a little biased here, as I am one of the samaflora team, and have had the chance to be there whilst they are hard at flower production. 

who wouldn't want these to brighten up their creations? 

so why not go and pop over and have a look through her page, and whilst you are there, enter this fantastically generous give-away. I promise, you won't regret it!