Venice piccies now added

I've added pictures of Venice to my slideshow now. Unfortunately there was restoration taking place at the Bridge of Sighs so not a good piccy of that. There were some lovely dinky little bars and shops round St Marks Square - such as the 'Florian' which is included. I've had to do 2 separate slideshows, as when I view them in Flickr they're not all on 1 page and even though I tried to include both pages in Blogger setup by separating the pages with a comma IYKWIM, it didn't work. Any ideas anyone? Also is there a way to view the pics in the slideshow at a larger size does anyone know?
Hope you enjoy them ;)

Lake Garda Trip

In an earlier post I mentioned my trip to Lake Garda and said I would post piccies when I'd sorted them. I will post more another time but for now these were taken in Verona. the 'Graffiti' wall is in the passageway leading to Juliet's balcony. Personally I feel it's a shame to deface the walls like this. If people feel the need to leave their mark I wish they'd find a way to do it in an aesthetically pleasing way.
Have managed to set them up in a slideshow ;) but am wondering how I go about sorting out one slideshow for another in the future :-/ oh well I'll worry about that when the time comes lOl

2 ribbons 1 Button

I made a Christmas card for my effort for a little challenge set by the craft group I go to once a month. In case it's not clear there is a black ribbon over the red spotty one :) I love the glitter paper (I say paper but it is quite thick) I've used for the stocking, it really is very glittery - I got mine from QVC but they are from http://www.craftime.com/search-results.html?searchtext=glitter+sheets

Altered book cover for Sunday Stampers challenge

I have a book that's ostensibly for jotting down ideas. I say that 'cos I've only used it a few times - must be a while since I've had an idea LOL. I do get them occasionally! Anyways I decided to jazz the cover up a bit for my offering for the SS challenge over at Hels place There's some fab stuff on her blog so do pay a visit ;) As usual my attempt didn't go without hitch. I started on the front cover and as it had warped I left it under some weighty books. While it was there I decided I wasn't really happy with it so had another go, but I forgot the front cover was still under the books and ended up altering the back cover - heyho. It doesn't really matter though does it! Anyway here is front cover before altering and the back cover after :) My photos are often wonky because of the angle I hold the camera - this is 'cos I'm holding the camera so I don't get my or the camera's shadow on the piccy but if I put the item in a different place the colour isn't so true. That's my excuse anyway! Back to the cover - I cut the butterflies and 'Dream' on my Robo, and the flourish is a Grungeboard element. I've coloured them with Jacquard Lumiere paint. I've used Jennie's dotty background stamp and a text stamp on the background. I've also used a combination of Moon Glow and Crafty Notions shimmer sprays - there may even be a hint of my own concoction a la Tim Holtz ;) - over the background. :)

Christmas Tag for Sunday Stampers

I've made a tag this week; surprise, surprise; for the Sunday Stampers challenge over at Hels. the theme is 'Blue'. I'd intended to make a book using my long neglected BIA but as I've been rather busy this week settled on doing a tag, thinking it would be quick - it's a start towards making Christmas Cards LOL. I would have had time to make a book as it took me hours to do this! It was one of those times - all too often in my case :-{ - when things didn't quite work. I started on this side of the tag and wasn't happy, so turned it over to work on the other side and was even less happy with what I was doing. I've used Jennie's 'Dot's' background and also the 'Houndstooth' on the snowflake. Unfortunately as I coloured over the snowflake after stamping, so it was the same colour as the bauble (it was a bit green before), the houndstooth doesn't show up very well. I've used distress inks for the background and stamped 'Believe' on a grungeboard element ;) I cut the bauble and snowflake on my Robo but it didn't cut very well :( so methinks it may need a new blade! Can I sharpen it do you think or use a shim underneath card when cutting out. Hmm!

Sunday Stampers _ Roses

It's time for SS again over at Hels' blog. Although the theme is 'Roses' I've only managed 1 rose, but I'm sure the Rose Police won't knocking on my door LOL. As I didn't have any rose stamps, well only a small bunch of roses that I didn't want to use, I thought I'd try to make one of the roses that Hels, Linda and Wendy have made recently. Unfortunately I don't have any grungepaper YET! and it was very difficult to make the petals behave well using matt photo paper :-{ I thought it may be a bit better than using printer paper as it has a bit more substance but not as stiff as some other papers. I used Worn Lipstick distress ink to colour the rose lightly and then inked the petals through some netting. The text stamp is unmounted but I can't remember where it was from.

DS is getting married on Tuesday in Llandudno and this card is for him and his bride-to-be :)

Ten Seconds Studio

I bought 2 sheets of the Ten Seconds Studio metal about 2 or 3 years ago :O lol but have only just got round to using it. I didn't get any tools at the time as I do have a little electric tooly thing which I thought I'd use. I did however get DD to buy me one set of tools last Christmas. I bought 4 little photo tins from QVC a while ago and decided to decorate one for a friend - I won't tell you how long ago her birthday was haha. I did consider using paper but decided on alcohol inks and while it was quite nice I kept veering between using it and not using it but doing something else. Anyway after watching a vid on Youtube about using foil - just bog standard cooking foil - it prompted me to use the Ten Seconds metal sheet. I used some textured wallpaper on top of the photo tin and put the metal sheet on top. I've used a flower from one piece of wallpaper and the squares from another. I used Wild Plum alcohol ink on the flower and Stream on the leaves and the squares. I coloured the rest of the tin with Pitch Black but didn't like it so took it off but left a little bit round the edges of the other bits. I started to use the little decorative wheel tool to embellish the flat bits but as it was on a hard surface it didn't work very well so I just used an embossing tool to draw little circles. ;)

Sunday Stampers - King

The SS theme this week over at Hels is 'King' I thought I had a lion stamp as I immediately thought of 'king of the jungle' however it was a stamp with an elephant, rhinoceros and TIGER! So I printed an image of a lion. I've coloured the background of the tag with distress inks then used the Tim Holtz 'Ransom' alphabet masks for the wording at the side of the tag and blended a bit more distress ink over. These masks are such good value I love using them. In the Ransom set you get 89 pieces which includes 2 alphas - upper and lower case, 2 of each number, a small flower and a few punctuation marks. Anyway back to the tag LOL I stamped a little swirly thing at the top of the tag and a few paw prints along the bottom and up the side. The crown is a grungeboard element.

:)