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At CD Sunday this week we are asked to make something with beautiful blue and with something from a CD. Everything apart from the border and the photograph taken in our garden which I added, can be found on the Garden Gals CD by Fee J Designs. I have had this CD for ages but not used it for a few years. The colours seem to change when I took the photograph but it is mainly a blue designs for this girl--there are 8 different girls all with pages of things you can print out.

At Anything but a Card this time you have to use some black on your project. Always great to see what the team has made there and this challenge is no exception. A while ago a friend sent me lots of flower shapes-some were cut from black card and the smaller ones cut from black tissue paper. I used a few on cards but they really needed boxes for the cards and I am not very good at making boxes. So here is what I did. I found a box of gold candles that we had never opened and I stuck one of them in a piece of wood that was in a big box of potpourri-the gold leaves are from there as well. I cut the end off a branch of an old Christmas tree and added some small baubles. The cones I have collected from under a tree in town as I just love them. Then I added gold pen to the ends of the flower petals and made up a couple of flowers using a gold brad in the centre. The hardest part was assembling everything using the glue gun. It would have been suitable for a Halloween Challenge with all the

At The Paper Players they have a lovely sketch to follow. I enjoyed the simplicity of the shapes very much. I turned the sketch sideways. The background is a white card and the backing paper is some I have had for ages. The ribbon I have also had for a few years and knew it would come in handy at some point. I cut the flag from red, patterned card and added a peel-off edge and the sentiment.

I love the sketches at Retro Sketches  they are all little works of art themselves. I am trying to make a few Christmad Cards to avoid the last minute rush that I usually have so this sketch seemed a nice one to use for that. I made both the backing papers in Paint Shop Pro and cut out the  nestabilities circles with my Cuttlebug. Then I added various things to make it look more interesting. The label has gold thread as ties but they don't show up too well This is the wonderful sketch that I followed.

At Crafty Emblies this month the challenge is Under the Sea. Always lovely to join in the challenges there and I was lucky enough to be chosen as the winner last time--thank you. Always wonderful to see all the samples made by the talented team. Here is my make for this month. I used one of the Crafty Emblies ATCS which are so wonderful to work on. I painted it with H20 paints so it has a bit of a sparkle.Then I added a silhouette shape of a mermaid. Next came the exciting bit. I stuck a few of the little CE flowers onto a small stamping block and then used them to stamp a few times on the ATC. I did the same with one of the star shapes from CE as well. Then I stuck on some of the shapes and coloured them with gold, silver and black. I am saving my little three flower shape as I am sure I will be able to use it often in the future.

Over at Artful Times they have a challenge where you are asked to use orange, brown and white. I didn't seem to have anything in those colours so I had to think. Great samples there from Neet and Von so do pop over and have a look and join in with the challenge. Also I followed Von and would like to enter this in the challenge at Twisted Tuesday Challenges where you have to use some orange on anything but a card. I designed a sheet of orange, brown and white card and then printed it out on the back and front of the card.  On one side I printed a template that holds one tea bag packet. You can get two on a sheet of A4 card. All I had to do then was assemble it and add a flower emblie which I coloured with Promarkers The tea bag is nearly all orange as well and smells spicy and delicious. Think I will go and make a cup of it right now.

At Addicted to Stamps and More  this week we are asked to use our markers on a project. A bit dull outside today so the colours don't look as bright as they really are. I made this card for a friend. I used a mixture of Personal Expressions and Kanban stamps by masking the stamp of the lady and using the swirl and clock on top of the masking. The background is a paper by Crafty Individuals  from the Travels in Italy Book 5. I used Promarkers to colour my image and on the page from an old book that I used for a bit of extra backing and for the paper roses. Hope you pop over and see the DT pieces-amazing as always and then join in with your own version.

Greetings to Everyone and a big thank you for all the people who take time to leave comments on my blog. I really appreciate them and the I get inspiration when I visit your blogs. Hope you all enjoyed the decoration Challenge at Out of a Hat last week. There were some amazing decorations. Sorry that you missed the deadline Tracy as your tree ornament was fantastic. You can see it here everyone and there is a link to a video of how to make it. This week sees the end of our October Christmas so let's make it the best yet. The challenge is to make a gift or stocking filler and that means lots and lots of ideas so the hardest part will be where to start. It has been an enjoyable month and the Christmas projects were nice to see amidst the hundreds of Halloween things that I have seen this month though I did enjoy entering some of those as well. Thank you to Florence for thinking up the idea and for posting all the messages for the month on the blog. I made this from an idea I saw on

The challenge a t Moving along with the Times  is to be Inspired by Alice. So many things in the two books to inspire us but to me it always seems that there is a race against time and I think of the white rabbit's watch and how important time was. A friend sent me some stamped Indigo Blue images-thank you Janet-and I have used one of those for my tag. The text is also one of those stamps. I made the background paper in Paint Shop Pro and thought it went well with the theme. I thought it might also fit in well with the Sepia Challenge at My Time to Craft  as I had chosen that colour to make my tag.

I found this blog a week ago and I just couldn't resist downloading some of the lovely cute images. I am not usually into cute but I do like to enter a good sketch challenge so here is my entry for the Willow Sketchie Challenge this week.  I turned the sketch on its side. The lovely owl is by willow designs as is the text. The flowers are some from Poundland and I sprayed them with gold Cosmic Glimmer Mist then added a jewel to the centre This is the sketch.

Hello Everyone A very Happy Third Week of Out of a Hat Christmas Challenges It all seems to be going very well and my Christmas stocks have made a fine start now. Nice that we had some people joining us again with their beautiful boxes and paper designs. This week sees the turn of  Christmas decorations and as I am into making things from felt I decided I would make some felt snowflakes. These are based on some from kits that my daughter buys to make elaborate Christmas stockings. They always look so lovely. The link for where she gets the kits is here  and I think she has made almost all of them in the last couple of years. My snowflakes aren't as good as the ones on the stockings but I am pleased with them as they glitter with all the sequins and glass beads on them. This is a larger decoration I made but it was hard to take a photograph of it. It is made out of squares 6 each of 2 inch squares and 3 inch squares. Just fold the corners of the squares into the centre and stick the

Yes this week at Addicted to Stamps and More  there is a sketch for us to follow for the challenge I chose a plain white card and the backing papers were both from 'Cardmaking in Easy Steps' magazine issue 2 . The inner Shape I raised up a bit to give it more interest The stamp is one from Crafty Individuals CI-293 and I backed it with some thin card to match the  paper background.. The colouring was done with Promarkers Love simple sketches it means I can add things later when I decided who and what the card is for.

The challenge for this time at Craft Room Challenge is to make something with an Oriental theme. I love this set of stamps that I won in the Craft room blog hop a while ago. They are from Hobby Art. I made a simple pillow box shape in a patterned card I had designed and printed out. Then I stamped some of the images onto the box shape and coloured them. Lastly I made up the box and added a black ribbon and some charms. Not sure what will go inside-maybe some nice scented soap to make the box smell beautiful.

The challenge this time at Show us your Twinchies is Spooky The skull was a free digital image I got online. I coloured it in a strange colour combination which is spoooky looking . The skull is raised from the background though it doesn't look that way on the photograph and then the extra eyes are raised even further.

I usually try to do individual projects for each blog challenge I enter but so many blogs have Autumn Challenges at the moment I decided to make one project to fit in with three blogs challenges I was going to enter this time. The Sweet Stampin' challenge blog wants Autumn Leaves, Anything but a Card  has Halloween or Fall Colours and CD Sunday Challenge  would like Autumn Splendour. I decided to make a triptych though I am not sure if this really is one--it is my version of one. The background paper is from a S.W.A.L.K CD-Papercrafting CD-ROM 2  there are some lovely paper designs and images on the CD and they print out really well. Next I stamped a row of trees and some leaves all in Autumn colours. Not a clue who the stamps are made by as I have them for years-before I joined in Blogland and started to keep the names of who made what. I then cut the picture into three and stuck it on a piece of coloured card and added some more leaves and peel-offs. Lastly I went into the gard

At Artful Times the challenge is fur and feathers. I got this cockerel from here  a couple of weeks ago cause I thought it looked very grand. This was an ideal time to use it and to make Vic a new notepad so that he doesn't keep writing in mine. Great samples from Von, Neet and Sam and the other entries so far. I just made a front cover for a notepad I have had a while and the image was printed onto the cover, the whole front was distressed with Rangers ink, Broken China . I used another little bird stamp along the bottom and some Crafty Emblies shapes to add the letters to spell NOTES. A bit of rick rack at the top for decoration and that's it folks!

At Willow Sketchie Challenge  there is a lovely sketch and the them is also buttons. It is a long time since I did a sketch challenge so I thought I would join in with the is challenge. I hope I have done it right. Beautiful samples by the DT and a nice challenge. The stamps I used are Molly Bloom and I used Promarkers to colour and edge them.

Hello Friends and Followers Here I am back in the swing of things after a glorious few days away just chilling out and getting lots of fresh air. Out of Hat Creations Christmas is going really well with so many wonderful card entries for last week's challenge. Great to have you join in and share your ideas.  This week it is Christmas packaging with lots of suggestion given in the challenge post-thanks Florence, hope you will all join us in the challenge and have fun along the way. Do visit Janet's,   Sandra's and Florence's blogs to see what they have made for this challenge and say hello to them as they love to hear from you. I was hoping to have perfected my entry and written a tutorial to share with you by the time the challenge came around but, sadly, I still haven't got it quite as I want it. I made three but a bit like Goldilocks, the hole at the centre of one was too big, the next one too small and the third one----too big again-not like Goldilocks :(. By t

Well they do say third time lucky and after throwing my first two attempts today in the bin I finally made a card for the Clean and Simple challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More . I always find this type of card difficult to make but like scrapbooking I am learning here at ATSAM Wonderful samples as always for inspiration. Made a simple topper with a round splodge in grey and then cut-out a swirl with a Marianne designs die. I added a lilac paper to the back of the cut-out space then stuck the swirl onto the edge of my topper. The card is half patterned with a Cuttlebug Folder and then I just added a jewel to finish it all off. I had to take a picture quickly before I distressed the raised bits and added a flower or even two. I haven't really added anything else--not yet.

At Craft-room Challenge this time we are asked to 'alter it' which was great as I have had this notepad for ages but didn't put it up cause cupcakes just aren't us lol. This is my finished notepad after altering it This is how it started out--a bargain at 49p I stripped it down to basic for starters Then I raided my paper bits box and stuck bits all over the cardboard with a liberal coating of PVA coated on top When it had completely dried I trimmed the edges, stamped randomly with some beautiful Crafty Individuals flower stamps and drew a line around the edge with a felt tip pen. Then the pencil holder was stuck back on and the notepad.  A circle with a pattern that I had printed onto acetate was fastened with brads to finished it all off. Much more me I think.

Anything goes this week at Show us your Twinchies  and at the Crafty Mess Challenge blog so I thought I would add this to both as I do like both of these challenge blogs and try to enter in the challenges there. Always great samples for inspiration at both. This is a Twinchie and I  did the background with alcohol inks. First I added a few drops of gold, raisin and cranberry then swirled them together with a paint brush. The stamp set I used is one from Hobby Art -Oriental I stamped the tree and kettle straight onto the twinchie but did the lady on separate card and coloured her with Promarkers. Lined around the edge with a felt tip then added a shiny peel-off which hasn't photograph well as it is black and silver.

At Addicted to Stamps and More the theme this week is Halloween and as I have just got back from a short holiday I thought I would just make a tag and be sure to get my entry in on time. Fantastic samples from the DT as always. I used the shapes of the house and the bird on the wrong side to distressed the shape of them onto the tag.Then I coloured the shapes and stuck them the other way around. Edged the tag with a Promarker and made the sentiment with some small alphas. The ribbon is tatty by design to make it look more in keeping with Halloween.

At Addicted to Stamps and More  the scrapbook challenge this time is Autumn. Just love the colours of Autumn and found just the right paper to use in a book of papers I have had for ages. It is called The Bumper Book of Paper and is by Crafthouse Press. The next thing was to go through some of our photographs for suitable pictures and add a few bits and bobs. The AUTUMN and the journalling I printed onto white card and edged with a Promarker. I'm still not too confident about scrapbooking but I am filling a few pages thanks to ATSAM :)

Hello Friends and Followers-hope you have had a really good week. Great to see people's decorations on their bottle and jars last week at Out of a Hat Creations This week sees the start of our Christmas in October which was thought up by Florence and she will be doing all the posting and organising for October-thank you Florence.  Sing your favourite Christmas song as inspiration and get ready for a fun month of challenges. Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingles all the way la la la la--yep that worked. This weeks challenge it is to make a card or tag to ease us gently into the rest of the month. Hope you will join in with us and have fun along the way. I used a medallion stamp by Hobby Art Surrey that I have had for a long time Stamped it 3 times then coloured the layers with Promarkers. Added a bit of glitter then layered them up. I made a tag as well but decided it would make a nice card so I used it for that.. Another Hobby Art stamp but this time I embossed it and coloured the b