Forgotten Friday

It's time for the Forgotten Friday challenge again - actually it is Saturday now and I'm really not at all sure what happened to Friday.  I've been trying to have a bit of a tidy up and sort out in my craft room which is a fairly regular occurence and never makes much impression on the chaos.  During this I came across a box with lots of die cuts and so on which I'd done whilst demonstrating the Big Shot back in April so I fished around and found all the necessary bits of this owl (as you can see he has lots of pieces) and decided he would fit the bill for the challenge this week. Background paper is from my stash and the border was cut with a Martha Stewart punch - the owl is popped onto a Marianne die cut and the sentiment was punched with Stampin Up punches.

Magnus

Yesterday evening I went along to the last of three workshops to finish this bear.  The first session was spent mainly in carefully cutting out all the pieces and starting to put them together then it was some 'homework' before the next session to get the various components tacked and stitched  ready for the second week where we concenrated on stuffing the head and getting the features looking good as this is a very important consideration when making bears (or any toys presumably). Each person somehow managed to get a different 'look'.  Last night we added some of the stuffing, then it was time to fix all the cotter joints before finally piling in the rest of the stuffing and stitching up the gaps.Anyone who has been following my blog might remember that I've made a few bears starting with  a jointed one one of about 4" high, then moving onto a couple of slightly larger ones.  This one is the largest one I've made (hence his name) and he sits about 30cm tall - 12" in old money (taller when standing obviously).  When it came to colour there was plenty of choice from blonde, golden brown, milk chocolate and so on but I'd always fancied having a black teddy so that was my choice; very difficult to see when it came to the stitching in artificial light but on the other hand I reckon that this colour maybe hides a multitude of sins if the odd stitch wasn't as neat as it should be!!  I'm going to knit him a scarf of his own but for the moment I loaned him one of mine for the photograph.

Make My Monday week 18

A new month of challenges on Make My Monday and this time the theme is autumn with an added twist this first week to use a resist technique.  I've used a piece of Tim Holtz kraft resist paper for the background and sponged with two colours of distress ink to show up the resist effect on the swirls. The text  and the little acorns are from a stamp set by Stampin Up. The large leaves were cut using a Spellbinders leaf die, sponged with the same distress inks for the autumnal colour - fired brick and spiced marmalade with a touch of butterscotch.

Bah Humbug week 39

The theme this week on the Bah Humbug challenge is Nativity and I turned to the Polkadoodles Magical Winter Cd for an image and backing paper to use.  The image was printed three times and cut to make the decoupage layers. I added a Nestabilities label which has been embossed with a snowflake design and sanded - the greeting is a computer one punched with a small oval punch.

CD Sunday Challenge - Nature

The challenge on CD Sunday this week is 'Nature's Wonders' and I've chosen to use The Essence of Nature CD from Artylicious (Chocolate Baroque).  I printed off an insert and a tag.  I used the darker half of the insert as backing paper and overprinted with a stamp from their Floral Bouquet set which matches the design on the tag.  The flowers were cut from the faded out side of the insert using a Sizzix tattered flowers die - they were overprinted with a text stamp and edges sponged with ink.

A Gem of a challenge

There is a cute free digi stamp to download at Pink Gem Designs - a little snowman with a warming cup of soup. They also have a challenge blog called Pink Gem and their challenge this week is 'with love at Christmas' to include at least one heart in the design.  As a thank you for the freebie I decided to make a card for their challenge using the snowman which I cut out with a circle die and then mounted onto a heart cut out in Tim Holtz whitewash coredinations card, sanded to show up the snowflake embossing (cuttlebug folder). Background paper is some which has been in my stash for ages and the greeting was printed on the computer, punched out and popped onto a smaller heart.  Some glittery snowflakes were added also (Marianne die).
There are lots of lovely stamps and other goodies at on Pink Gem so well worth a look.