Free as the bird

This week we are giving Spring a warm welcome, and what greater way to celebrate the gorgeous bird singing that makes us all notice the change of season?!!!

I have dug deeeeeep into my LLC box (and believe me, that box is filled with yummyness) to find a image to match this week's theme: Birds! 

At the bottom I found an old Riddersholm Design Image and it was just perfect for my card:

"Free as the bird" with papers from Pion Design's "Flower Frame" collection. I have tested to scrap with a few more layers than I normally do, using Kraft behind the colored papers. I think the tone on the paperbag and the birdcage was a perfect match to my "earthy" card.

I found this bird's nest charm in my box too! Gave it a brush of gesso, along with the flowers and the rest of my card. The birdcage is from Maya Road, and I used distress ink on it before I applied some gesso to it.

Hope you all are getting a hint of Spring these days, and if not... it's just around the corner, I'm sure ;)

Hugs & Kisses

Elin

Riddersholm Design - Fleamarket - Fleamarket	Pion Design - Flower Frames 12x12 - Violaceus	Pion Design - Flower Frames 12x12 - Viola	Pion Design - Alma's Sewing Room 12x12 - Borders	LLC Shabby Seam Binding
Lace "Greta Garbo"	Maya Road Vintage Wood Bird Cages	Charm - Bird's Nest	WOC Open Roses, 15mm	Inkssentials Ink Blending Tool
Tim Holtz Paper Distresser Tool	Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pads	Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso

InLinkz.com

Loving Birthday Wishes

Good Eve Everyone,
It's Sandy here; sorry I'm late with today's post. I've been working on the website most of the day. Grrr...technology you can't live with it, you can't live without it! LOL
I'm working on implementing some changes to the international shipping charges that I've been wanting to do some for quite some time. I do apologize for the inconvenience with the website being offline, but I thought I'd try to get this done before Sofiero gets here...

Yes! I ordered Maja's new LIMITED collection as soon as it became available, and it has shipped from Sweden, so it should arrive mid next week or at the end of the week at the latest.

Over to today's card. It's a quickie, but I had fun combining Maja, Pion and Riddersholm:

The beautiful image is from Pion Design's latest collection, Vintage Garden. The middle panel is also from Pion, it's Purple Wallapapers from my favourite collection, Alma's Sewing Room. The borders were cut from the backside of Maja Design's 1922 and the large square is from "Love Conquers All" of the Crea Diem collection, which I'll be getting restock of next week. The gorgeous sentiment is from Riddersholm Design.

 Tried something new today, i.e. "schabbotaging" the satin ribbon with some frantage, as DT Member Louise would have said. :-) Also the bark hearts were fran-taged; I use Aged Rose and Shabby White.

 Thanks for stopping by today. Please visit us again tomorrow to see what our schabottager has come up with for the Birthday theme. :-)

Hugz,
Sandy

Everyone Loves Marilyn, Right?

Morning Crafters,

Hope you all had a good weekend and are ready for another week of inspiration from the LLC DT.  This week we have a photo inspiration from the gorgeous Louise and the photo is made up from items around Louise's house, OMG aren't they yummy, think I need to visit Louise's house for a vacation, I know I'd just love it.

Well my mojo is on a serious vacation and I do hope it returns soon.  As beautiful as Louise's picture is I have struggled to get myself into gear, I really don't know what is wrong with me but I hope it passes soon.  That being said this is what I have come up with. I have used a Stampsmith Stamp of Marilyn Monroe.  Everyone loves Marilyn don't they?  I have taken the turquoise, pink and white from the inspiration photo.  All edges were distressed with the blending tool and black soot distress ink.  You know I think everytime I'm in my craft room I use my blending tool, don't know what I'd do without it, lol.

Papers are from Maja Design Spring Basics 4th May and the turquoise is from Riddersholm called Camille.

Beautiful flowers, see thumbnails below and those gorgeous blackberries and apples.  I have also tied a bow using the lace petite and added one of the new shabby bark hearts to the centre.  The beaded heart was turned pink using my copic marker. All the flowers had a dusting of white gesso, well it's me so of course they would, lol. 

I have also used a Melissa Frances Clay Corner, love these.

Now look at this beauty.  This is one of the Vintage Findings Teardrop Pearl Centres, note to self..... must add more to my next order.  I thought the prima musical note paperclip was perfect for Marilyn and also the Ranger photostrip.

Here's another view of the flower arrangement.

Have a good week everyone.

Hugs Tracy x

Mischievious Mice

Hi Everyone, Tracy here with the start of a new week and a new theme.  This week the team will be focusing on "Fussy and Fancy".  Well I think all my cards are fussy and fancy so just love it and I know you will all love what the team have for you this week, they are all so very talented.

I thought you may have had enough of pink, lol, so today I am using Aqua, just love Aqua, well actually there's loads of colours I like, I think I'm easily pleased.

Forgive my photo's I just couldn't seem to get a good photo that truly reflected the card so you will just have to take my word for it that it is better in real life.

I have coloured up an older image, but one I think is just soooo cute from Lili of the Valley.  The base of the card was created using a Go Kreate Die, just love these.  The gorgeous Aqua Paper is by Riddersholm and is called Camile, and matched the Aqua Poppies and Aqua PomPoms, all links at the bottom of the post as usual.

Oh have you seen the new Apples and Blackberries in store, they are yum, love them, and thought they would go well with my image, just imagine that the cake is apple and blackberry, now I'm feeling hungry, lol.  You can see a close up of them below and don't those Aqua poppies look fab too and all topped off with an Aqua Heart Pin and a dashing of gesso. Sounds like a recipe, hahaha.

The little tag pulls out to reveal a Friendship Recipe, which I edged in some aged aqua frantage.  The top of the tag is finished off with some seam binding, new pearl cord and pompom trim and finished with a bottlecap metal trinket.  I haven't photographed the pearl cord very well but its quite rigid so will stay where you want it to and it has pearls scattered along the way.  You can just about make out one in the picture below to the right on the tag.

Thanks for stopping by and for any comments that you may leave.

Hugs Tracy x

Time Flies....

Hi Everyone,
Sandy here with something you don’t see very often here on the LLC Blog….A MALE CARD!!!
Yeah I know, shocking isn’t it?! :-)

My dad’s turning 70 in about a week’s time, and I wanted to give him something special, so I asked my mum to find an old photo of him to scan and send me. It was originally in black and white, but I changed it into sepia. I wanted a grungy weathered look and found the perfect papers in Riddersholm Design's Fleamarket Collection (currently 40% off). The balloon tag is from the Huntington Garden sheet with Mini Tags.

The gorgeous wooden clock in the upper right corner is from Prima's set of clocks and tickets - "Craftsman", which I find is the best set for male projects.

This week the DT has been showcasing some of the new charms, and this Clock with Swallow is one of my personal favourites (well I have a lot of favourites LOL). I don't think you can find a more perfect charm for the sentiment "Time Flies"! This was spelled out with the die cut letters from Pion Design, and for the letters on the photo (pappa means dad in Swedish), I used Maja Design's die cut letters.

Oh, and I tried the new glass pebbles (attached with glossy), aren't they cute?!!!

The pebbles are part of Landstoken's new "Vintage Feeling Collection", as are the bottle caps I used for the numbers. Also the metal corner is from Landstoken. Here are some close up pics:


I admit that I'm not such a great fan of making male cards, but this one I actually enjoyed. I hope you like it as well. Thanks for stopping by, and please visit us again tomorrow for something I'm sure will be shabby, but very chic from DT Member Louise.

Hugz, Sandy

Vintage Calendar

Hi Everyone,

Brrrrrrrr. A very cold Tracy here.  It's blooming freezing and the snow just fell out of the sky all day yesterday, adding to what was already there, so I am certainly not looking forward to driving to work this morning.

The team this week start a new theme and it is "Anything but Square".  After seeing so many beautiful calendars in blogland and having never made one before I thought I would challenge myself.  I already had a woodware clipbaord which I bought sometime back, so this was my starting point.

I'm loving the colour combo of blue and cream at the moment, but blue is believe it or not my favourite colour, soo gorgeous and perfect for vintage.

Lots of piccies, and the links to the products used are all listed at the bottom of the page.

Here's a close up of the image which is by Pion Desigs and you can clearly see the gorgeous LLC lace with dalmante's, isn't it beautiful and even more so IRL.

 The string pearls cascading down the right hand side.

Here you can see the crackle paint doing it's stuff and the gorgeous vintage brad on the top left and the the cute little love hanger and a semi circle of the lovely lace doilies.

Here you can see the Family light bulb, just awesome and the gorgeous arrangement of fours all coated in white gesso and one of the new charms, clock with swallow.  Have you checked out all the new charms at the LLC store, wow.

Another floral arrangement with a wooden butterfly coated in distress crackle paint and a Tim Holtz nib added to the centre.

I look forward to reading your comments as always and thanks for popping by.

Hugs Tracy x

For You

Hi Everyone,

I'm back.  It's Tracy here. This week the DT will be inspiring you with Monochromatic projects.  I'll let you into a little secret,  when I joined my very first challenge team and I learnt one of the themes was Monochromatic I wanted to hide under the table, I never thought I would be able to do it, the theme just scared me soooo much and so did white on white.  But now I have to say I love it, and my favourite colours are all the cream and browns, so guess what colours I used today, lol.

I have used papers called Riddersholm Design called Tea Room  and used both sides of  the Riddersholm Fleamarket Notes.  All panels have been stitched.  The image is by Sarah Kay called Noel Joy and I have had her in my collection for a couple of years now and this is her first time meeting ink, OMG how bad is that.

I have coloured her in vintage photo distress ink and cut out the panel with a spellbinders die and layered onto another spellbinders scalloped oval and a spellbinders floral oval, I must have a thing about spellbinders at the moment, lol.  I added some tulle pleat trim , around the floral oval before mounting onto the papers.

Have you seen the beautiful Bark Hearts.  Priced at just 99p and you get four.  Don't they just look fab for Vintage cards and would look fab on Valentine cards too.  I added a Vintage Findings Beaded Centre and some Shabby Seam Binding.  The text, "For You", is from Maja Design It's Christmas Time Die Cut Sheet.  As you can see, it's not just for Christmas.

In the top left I have used a  Gardenia flower coupled with  some gorgeous Kort and Godt Chrysanthemum's and swirled with the 3mm and 8mm string pearls.

The edges were distressed with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and a sprinkling of Snow Tex, here and there.  Told you I loved this stuff, lol.

A close up of  the gorgeous brass butterfly with added pearls and a dusting of snow tex, he he he, it gets everywhere.

The whole image was coloured with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

Oh  I nearly forgot there are two pins tucked away under my bark heart embellishment arrangement, one of the berries pins and one of the vintage brown hat pins, yum.

Lastly I finished off with some cream organza roses and some of the new lovely Cluny Lace with threaded trim.

I hope I have inspired you today and I look forward to reading your comments.  As always click on any of the pictures below which are directly linked to the product in the LLC store.