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The challenge at Just for Fun this week to use distressing techniques on a male project. It is appropriate to have 'distress' as a challenge cause it is going to be the last one at JFF :(. I am sure most of us have so looked forward to the challenges there each week since it started up-I know I have and will miss them so much. I have learnt such a lot from the team and the other people who have posted such amazing project ideas. This is a male card but the Good Luck and the Love are aimed at everyone who has made JFF a lovely place to visit. I used Von's brayer tutorial to make the background with distressed inks then distressed the edges with various colours. I even distressed the wooden accents. I am going to pin this card onto my wall so I can think of Just for Fun whenever I look at it. It has been Fun, thank you and I hope to be able to keep in touch with the marvelous people I have met while I have been here.

I have made this card for 3 challenges firstly for the Saturday Sketch Challenge  , always great sketches there, secondly for The Crafty Pad Challenge  where the theme is blue, red and green. The digital image is one from The Crafty Pad. Lastly I will enter it in One Stop Craft Challenges  where it is to create your own background. I made the patterned background from the hat image and made the red, swirl paper as well all in Paint Shop Pro. Not really colours that I would normally put together but the card is very bright and cheerful.

This is the template I made and you can print it any size you like onto some medium strength card. Stick the small flaps to the sides and stick the corners with the square corner underneath the shaped one. Cut-out the shape and score and fold along the dotted lines.  Stick the small flaps to the sides and stick the corner with the square corner underneath the shaped one. That's it really all it needs now is decoration and imagination. I added a packet of chicken cuppa soup to one-I made a label for anyone to use as the packet I had was just plain, and a small happiness book to the other. Lots of ideas of other things to add to more of these type of cards and would love to hear anyone else's ideas. outside inside ouside Any questions about the tutorial just ask and I will try to answer them

I would like to say a big thankyou to everyone who leaves comments on my blog. It is always lovely to hear from everyone and encourages me to try to improve my crafting and my design ideas as well. My apologies are for all of the people who ask a question in their comments and wonder why I never answer them. Well! I would love to answer them but haven't a clue how to send a personal message on a blog?? Please feel free to use any of my ideas in anyway you wish-share them, change them, make them your own-whatever you like. That should answer one question lol. Now if anyone can help me to find the way to send personal comments on blogs I will happily answer anything at all. Love as always Chrissie xx

Two nice challenges at C-R-A-F-T Challenge  it is no designer paper and at Moving Along with the Times  they have a Get Well Soon challenge. I decided that Chicken soup is the best medicine so designed this box card  to be able to put a packet of chicken soup inside. No papers used at all just a couple of images from way back when and a few peel-offs card outside inside

Still things for men at Just for Fun  this week and the challenge was to use something sporty. I searched through my stamps and the stamped images that people have sent to me but the only one I could find was the boy footballers that Von sent to me a long time ago. All men are really small boys at heart and I thought the quote was appropriate for any age so please forgive me if this doesn't seem to be for an adult--it may well be sent to an adult male by me lol. I imagine the older boy is saying the quote to the smaller one as a dad would say to his lad or even his lass if it was my dad lol For everyone who thinks I use loads of stuff that Von has sent to me--you are quite right! I would never have found Just for Fun without her and may even have been stuck in the fluffy rabbit and cute mice type of crafting. Nice to be able to venture into both now and learn so many new things. Great samples as always thanks girls. The netting represents the goal net :)

Vic knows how much I love beach huts so one day last summer he said he was going out into the garden and I said I was doing some crafting. A couple of hours later he said would I like to join him for coffee outside and the first thing I saw was this lovely 'beach hut' :) It was a dingy dark green before and now it is lovely and bright and cheerful. Still full of the essential men's junk inside but I don't see that. Thanks Vic it still looks just as good as the day you painted it for me.

Combined the two challenges as the one at Crafty Pad Designs was something with B and the one at Digital Tuesday   where it is Use your Stash My images are both from Crafty Pad Designs and beach huts are my favourite things. Even our garden shed is painted to look like a beach hut. The white accents were made by my friend Von who has such wonderful ideas. The background paper I made in Paint Shop Pro from the coloured beach hut image. Thank you for challenges it is always lovely to be able to use some of my fabulous digital images. Terrific samples by the teams at both blogs.

I combined two challenges here with the challenge at C-R-A-F-T Challenges this week being Valentines and the Challenge at Moving Along with the Times being Cute Critters. Brilliant samples at both as always.

Well I hadn't read the book that inspired the subject at Dragon's Dream TIO  but it is on my list of books to read now. Nice to have the tag challenges back-thank you. I imagine that a time traveller's wife will sit at home and dream of his homecoming so I used my sad Japanese Lady stamp and surrounded her with the sort of things her husband might be dealing with.

Great samples and entries for the challenge here at Just for Fun . Neet is keeping us on our toes with things for males this month and this week is vintage week. Enjoyed making this for sure -now all I need is a man with a sense of humour to send it too :) The cogs are some that Von sent to me a while ago The backing paper I made from a free download here  where there are lots of interesting background to use The stamp is Personal Impressions-Traditional British Set 1 The quote is my take on an old quote.

I have been asked in the past which make of stamp I used on some of the projects and sometimes they haven't been a bought stamp at all though I do use bought stamps if the challenges ask for those to be used. If you have Paint Shop Pro then you can use any photograph to make a digital stamp image. I have PSP7 and PSPX and Animation Shop was included with PSP 7. I have used it to get rid of the white background on the images and save the pictures in gif form A photograph of me and Vic Our Buddha All of these are our own photographs and the third one in each has no background so can be printed onto any paper at all. To make these images--open your photograph and duplicate it so that you wont spoil the original . Work on the duplicate and resize and crop to a size you want your digi-stamp to be. Adjust the sharpness if required to make the image clearer. Save and duplicate again just in case. On the duplicate go to effects-photo effects black and white. Then go to Adjust-Brightness an

I saw these bags when we went to Poundland a couple of weeks ago and thought I could make something else with them-as you would :) Here is what I made 5 cards and 5 toppers--wasn't keen on one of the toppers so that is in the bin. There was also a large flower left so I made some more things with that and the toppers Still have the bits in the front of the picture left and I am sure they can be used for something-tags or more cut out or die shapes? All these for £1 and few pieces of white card--can't be bad can it?

This week there is a colour challenge for us at C-R-A-F-T Challenge  I loved the colours but didn't seem to have mush that fitted the chart at all. Hope this is ok though the photograph makes the paper look a bit different colour to what it really is. .

This month at Just for Fun it is to be things for meN. Thank goodness I don't have to make many male cards in the course of year cause I always find them a challenge :)--not the men just making things for them lol Thanks Neet for the challenge and Happy First Birthday to JFF My lovely son-in-law has a birthday in April so I made this card for him and for the challenge. He plays the guitar and the banjo so I thought this image would be just right. The sentiment he will like I'm sure cause he always laughs at the daft things I say

At Try It On Tuesday the challenge is to alter something so I went straight to my collection of empty boxes and have used one that had a jar of face cream in it. To add texture, which is part of the challenge, I used silver embossing powder on the whole box and it really shines but has a nice pitted finish as well. Then I added ribbon and the lovely piece of jewelery I won as part of some blog candy. I would also like to enter this at Come and Get It  as the challenge there is anything but a card.