Lace Bookmark - part one

What a challenge! I very much enjoyed creating this bookmark for the last Art 'n' Soul swap of the year. It was a two part challenge and here is the first part. Viv gave us quite a list of requirements for this one:
"Make a BOOKMARK with a VINTAGE theme AND include LACE somewhere on the project - you can make the actual bookmark from any medium you wish providing it is sturdy enough to be used and adorn it any way you want to as long as it has a vintage/shabby chic theme!"
... and, of course, a bookmark should be relatively flat, should have sort of a reasonable size, .... this time I lost the battle for the flat bit ... the bookmark just evolved and developed and before I realized all these beads appeared (lol)
The base for the bookmark is patterend paper from Kaisercraft sandwiching some white card for sturdiness. I covered the paper with lace whereby the lace scallop defined the width of the bookmark. The centre piece is an image from ArtCult which I printed on canvas (the first time and it worked like a treat). After attaching the image I started to adorn the bookmark with more lace, white cutout lace flowers anhd free-hand stitching ... and then the beads appeared ... luckily because it looked a bit plain beforehand! Petra.

Santa's Little Helper

... is wearing Santa's hat for Vicki's Cheerful Stamp Pad Challenge: Who's Wearing Santa's Hat? I wouldn't mind getting some presents from this little helper (lol)

Supplies:
paper: white card, EchoPark paper - stamp: High Hopes -
nestabilities, embossing folder, punch, ribbon, Stickles

Why not pop over to Vicki's blog enjoying more amazing creations from the DT and join in for this fun challenge, Petra.

Yellow, Red and Brown

What a wonderful colour combination for the Gingersnap Creation Colour challenge, so warm and welcoming! And a perfect opportunity to play with some wax crayons and the iron. As I was not so sure how to go about I found this tutorial. For this technique you need wax paper and unfortunately I have only brown wax paper which would not show the colours so well. So I experimented with greaseproof paper which naturally doesn't give the same result as the papers do not stick together. When opening up the 'crayon sandwich', the melted crayons displayed a nice texture and colour combo
It is even possible to use dies to cut out shapes which I straight away used to create a little card for the colour challenge. I kept the layout relatively simple because I wanted to make the little cut-out leave the focal point
The base for the card is textured off-white card layered with Kraftcard and patterend papers from Jillibean Soup and Crate paper. The stamped word is from Elzybells, the button twine from the Ribbon Girl and the wooden pearls from my stash.
And as I had quite a bit of melted crayon paper I could not resist to make a couple more of these little cards whereby they are very similar but still each one is slightly different
Hope you join us for this wonderful challenge. Hop over to the Gingersnap blog for more fabulous inspiration, Petra.

Who's Wearing Santa's Hat?

... a little sweet and yet so cheeky looking Santa with lots of Chritsmas toys

Supplies:
image: Bugaboo digital stamp - paper: My Mind's Eye, white card -
colouring: colouring pencils and Copics - Stickles, cotton wool, bakers twine, Nestabilities

Come and join us for this fun challenge over at the Cheerful Stamp Pad, Petra.

Thomas the Tank Engine

It was a week full of cakes - little ones and big ones. On those occasions I am never quite sure which I like better ... making cakes or paper crafting. Luckily at times they do complement each other especially when some slightly tricky construction is involved like the chimney of a tank engine ... may I introduce you to Thomas?

(thank you so much to Jane for taking the photo)

... a moist vanilla sponge filled with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream and covered with soft icing ..... have a great Sunday, Petra.

Holiday Ornaments

.. for the Gingersnap Creations Art Exchange. I did enjoy it a lot and it got my right into the Christmas Spirit - creating four Holiday Ornaments in any shape but sized at least 2" x 2", it had to include some stamping and more than one layer. Every ornament is sort of similar but also slightly different. All of them have a decorated front and back. All of them consist of three layers of paper/card for the base. All shapes have been cut with Nestabilities apart from the snowflakes (Marianne Design) and holly (Tim Holtz Alterations).

The patterend base papers are from Kaisercraft edged with Stickles. For the second layer I cut some cardboard which I crackled with dark red/green and cream acrylic paints (Lefranc & Bourgeois) and crackle paint (FolkArt). This created the frame for the stamped Santa Claus images (Tim Holtz). I decorated the ornaments with some bakers twine and a snowflake charm at the bottom. For the top of one ornament I die cut the holly leaves and embellished it with some gems asberries. The gems are covered in red Stickles. For the second ornament the snowflake was cut from patterend Kaisercraft paper for both front and back and glittered the front with Stickles. The finishing touch is a Kanban pearl.
The back is the same for both ornaments: patterend Kaisercraft paper, a stamped sentiment from Elzybells stamped onto patterend Kaisercraft paper.

For the remaining two ornaments I took a slightly different approach using vintage images and having the stamping only on the back ... hope this counts (lol)
The patterend papers are from JillibeanSoup, Kaisercraft and BasicGrey. Some of the little stars on the base layer in the front and the back are glittered with silver Stickles. The image of the two rather sweet coral singers is from The Graphic Addict, it is slightly raised with foam pads to give it some more depth. The ornament is decorated with organza ribbon, two little jingle bells, a snowflake and a glittered pearl. The stamps for the sentiment on the back is from Artistic Outpost, the stars from 7Gypsies.
This ornament evolved around an image from the Graphics Fairy ... I wanted to use it for a long time and it seemed to be perfect for this occasion. The design principle and supplies for this ornament are the same as for the previous one apart from using just Stickled pearls, some woollen lace and a little bell for decoration.
Hope everybody likes them and I cannot wait to see what everybody else created. Petra.

Late Halloween Postcard

Late with posting here on my blog but hopefully not too late arriving at Chriss' doorstep ... for the Kindred Spirit Postcard swap. Chriss wanted to see bats on the postcard
The base for this postcard is again a watercolour-paper postcard which is brilliant when using lots of paint or ink ... lots of inking for the background with Distress inks ranging from scattered straw to fired brick and lots of stamping with Archival and Memento ink (stamps: Artistic Outpost, Elzybells). Hope there are enough bats on the postcard ... Petra.

All Pink

I love pink but nevertheless this challenge from Craft Artwork was more than a challenge: to create a tag in pink. It took me a whole week to create something I am sort of happy with. I am not quite sure why ... maybe because we are supposed to use only pink (do you know how many different shades of pink there are?)? maybe because the weather is not bright and pink but rather dark and damp? I created several backgrounds with paper, paint, ink, ... and destroyed them. I cut and glued numerous images and destroyed them and in the end settled for something quite different to the initial - more subtle -plan (lol)
The tag is relatively small, the shape a nestabilities label. For the background I painted several layers of gesso, crackle and acrylic paint in various shades of pink trying to create some depth for the background. I stamped some script (Paperbag Studios) onto one half of the tag.
For the fhe focal point I created a little heart cut from some pink card and covered with beads of various shapes, sizes and shades of pink. More embellishments are ribbon with sequin hearts, pink glitter around the beaded heart and lots of varied ribbons and gauze for the top of the tag. Petra.

also linked to:
Let's Get Shabby challenge #29
Happy Daze November Challenge - An Explosion of Colour

Christmas Tree

My first Christmas Tree ... this year .... made of paper ... not in my house yet ... there are still a few weeks to go (lol). The tree is for the current Cheerful Stamp Pad challenge: Trees

Supplies:
paper beads with October Afternoon papers - papers for card: October Afternoon -
bling, lace and ribbon from mys stash

The Christmas Tree was assembled with paper beads which I created according the same principle as described in one of my previous post - except: I cut the paper into rectangular shapes and not triangles and then rolled the paper.

Pop over to Vicki's challenge, for more brilliant tree samples and show us your tree! Petra.

Cinderella Goes to the Ball

.. in her new ballroom dress

My first attempt of a Cinderella Birthday cake and just in case you would like to know how I made it:
The Cinderella doll was given to me by the Dad of the little lady who has birthday this weekend. I first considered buying a specific doll baking tin but as I wanted to fill the cake with jam and Buttercream I decided it would maybe be better to bake individual round cakes (8", vanilla sponge) and then do a bit of sculpting. Not really being into Barbie/Cinderella dolls myself I was really surprised to find that her legs are so extremely long! It took three sponges, some jam and Vanilla buttercream and a double layer of soft icing to match sort of the height between her feet and waist - just amazing - but I didn't want to take the legs off ... I heart it could be difficult to assemble them again (lol)
So once the cakes were ready for decorating a friend of mine came to give a helping hand in wrapping up the legs in cling film to stabilise the doll and to avoid her getting too messy and to cut the necessary hole in the middle of the sponges. After this I sculpted the cake, filled it and decorated the cake - which is always one of the best parts of the process.
The little princess and her family and friends will have to eat a lot of cake and I hope she likes it! Have a great weekend, Petra.

On The Farm ...

.... farm fresh carrots ... 50c a bundle
... with Jillibeansoup papers, Stampotique and Waltzing Mouse stamp, a carrot image from a children's colouring page, some printing, punching, colouring with colouring pencils and distressing.

Hope over to the Gingersnap Creations blog for the latest Chestnut Theme Challenge: Farm Fresh. You will see lots of fantastic DT samples and have the chance to join us! Petra.

A Sketch and Some Cutting

This card was inspired by a sketch from the Quixotic Paperie and the challenge to use dies and punches for the ABC challenge by the Der/Die/Das Blog von Bawion
I started by covering an A6 card with Kaisercraft paper which I have had for a long time but strangely never used. For the top and bottom strip I built up layers of punched patterned paper (Martha Stewart and Stampin'Up), ribbon and little pearls (both from Kaisercraft). The rectangular shape in the sketch is represented by a stamped and embossed Waltzing Mouse baking label which I cut with Nestabilities - it is one of those stamps which have been designed to go perfectly with one of the Nestabilities labels! Instead of one round shape I created various layers with a patterned doilie, patterend paper, a Kaisercraft die-cut and an adorable image from MadebyJanet. To complete it I added some little pearls. Petra.
also linked to: Stamptacular Sunday