Patrick's Green

UPDATE 8th of March ---------
Unfortunately, when I posted this message I didn't yet know that Friendship's Garden is closing its doors. This challenge won't be opened and no new challenges will start. You can read our head Garden Girl Becky's farewell message here. On a personal note, I want to thank all of you who have participated in the challenges or commented on my DT cards for Friendship's Garden. It's a shame to see it go, but as Becky says: Nothing lasts Forever. Thank you all.
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Hi Everyone,

Yet another challenge at Friendship's Garden is starting today, the theme is "ST. PATRICK's DAY"! We don't celebrate that in the Netherlands (funny how a lot of holidays aren't really celebrated here, I can assure you we are not all work and no play!), so I decided to go with a Green & Lucky theme. I thought a tag would be just the ticket for a colleague leaving or someone moving away, so that's what I did. Here's the tag:

Materials:
* K&Co Roam Tag Pad, edges distressed with my new TH tool and inked with green ink
* Studio Light Clover image
* Sentiment and horseshoes from Word Clip Art
* Ribbon and gems from my stash

Challenges:
* My Grafico (St Patrick's Day)
* Paper Pretties (Going Green)
* Incy Wincy (Something Old, Something New; Old = All of it, but especially my ribbon and gems, New = My Tim Holtz Distress Tool that I bought on Monday!)
* Creative Mondays (Anything Goes)
* Craft Your Passion (Anything Goes)
* There She Goes (Tag It)
* Stamps & Fun = Creativity (One Bow)
* Catered Crop (Ribbon)
* Paper SUndaes (Green or Good Luck)
* The Hybrid Chick (Lucky & Green)

I hope you can join us once again at Friendship's Garden, hope to see you there!

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Inspirational Birthday

Good morning everybody!

Today I am sharing my card with you for the new Friendship's Garden Challenge. This time around we have a colour challenge with the additional theme of Birthday. It's a really vibrant colour palette for this challenge, it was lovely to start working with such fresh colours again. Have a look on the challenge blog website to see the colour scheme and all the DT girls' makes!

I decided to make a birthday card for a young boy or girl, I was running low on those in my card stash.

The card came together pretty easily, I love the gorgeous orange paper against the green!

Materials:
* Champagne base card
* Echo Park A Walk in the Park DP
* Studio Light Decoupage image
* Border star punch
* My Mind's Eye Bloom & Grow Flower Decoupage pad
*  Eline Vintage Sentiment stamp
* Brad and some paper scraps from my stash

Challenges:
* Paper Cupcakes (Critters)
* Lollipop Crafts (Anything Goes)
* Bunny Zoe (Celebrations)
* Creative Mondays (Anything Goes)
* Incy Wincy (Birthday)
* Crazy Challenge (Use a die or punch)
* Sassy Cheryl (No Embossing)
* Crafty Sentiments (Two different designer papers)
* Ooh La La (Inspiration photo; I've used the orange colour and the flowers)
* Crafty Ann's (Bold & Bright)

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Valentine Sweetie Sleeve & Friendship's Garden Blog Hop

Hi everybody,

In addition to our challenge (with the same theme), we are doing a blog hop at Friendship's Garden people! Our hop is sponsored by Designs on Cloud Nine, we're calling it "ITS A LOVE THING"! You can win a 20 dollar gift certificate to their shop! Awesome, right? PLUS, some of my teamies are having their own little giveaways during the hop, so look out for those extra opportunities to win!

If you're hopping along with us, you should have arrived from Dena's blog, if you want to start the hop, please visit the challenge blog first! Chana is the next stop on this hop, tell her I said hello :)

Before you leave, here's my make. I made a gift sleeve for a box of heart chocolates I will be giving to my hubby. He deserves it, because he always does the photography and photo shopping for this blog AND I forgot to make him a Christmas card last December.....naughty me! We will be having some lovely tapas on Valentine's Day after work and I will take this prezzie along with me. It's a really easy project to do, especially if you have a scoring board.

Materials:
* Design on Cloud Nine Bee Mine images
* Me and My Big Ideas Fashion District Striped DP (which incidentally was a gift from my husband for our first wedding anniversary last year!) & Dovecraft Piece of Cake DP
* Sentiment stamp from Eline Vintage stamp set
* Clear Stickles on the bees' wings
* Brads and border peeloffs from my stash

Challenges: 
* Moving Along with the Times (Have a Heart)
* Little Miss Muffet (Valentine/Love)
* Sassy Studio (Love is in the Air)
* By the Cute and Girly (Love is in the Air)
* ABC (In pairs; my bees and two pairs of brads)
* More than Favours (Love)
* Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge (Love is in the Air)
* Truly Scrumptious (Love & Hearts)
* Ladybug Ink (Loves me, Loves me not)
* Creative Belli (Valentine/Hearts)

Right, that's it from me, hope to see you during the hop and at the challenge (which has a Love Theme as well, plus use at least 3 types of embellishments)!

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Hearty Sketch

Good Morning Crafty Friends!

Did you have a good weekend or can't you quite remember anymore? ;) We went out for dinner and saw a movie, something we hadn't done it aaaages! We saw Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I thought was a pretty good film. How dishy is that Daniel Craig, even with the dodgy glasses! :) But I am digressing......

Anyway, it's time for another Challenge at Friendship's Garden, we are providing you with a sketch to work with. This is my card:

I had a bit of a crafty block this week, so I am really happy that I've created anything at all. Nevertheless, I am pretty happy with this card. When I saw the image I kept hearing Tom Jones in my head and thought that would be the perfect sentiment.............................I've just realised I quoted my song wrongly. What a pumpkin.....;) Hope it still counts!

Anyway, I hope you can join us for our SKETCH challenge!


Materials:
* Scalloped white base card
* Hunkydory Cat's Meow Die-Cut
* Echo Park For the Record & Dovecraft Piece of Cake DPs and red paper from my scrap pile, some of the edges smeared with some red ink (I drew the inside heart myself and inked it to match it to the theme on the front of the card)
* Gems from stash
* Computer-generated sentiments

Challenges:
* Crafty Boots (Inspired by a Songtile - What's New Pussycat by Tom Jones)
* Oldie but a Goodie (Have a Heart - All except the cat is more than 6 months old)
* Get Hippity with Ippity (Hearts)
* Corrosive Challenge (I {heart} you)
* Crafty Ribbons (Love is Red & Black)
* Dream Valley (Animals)
* ABC Challenge (Happy Birthday)
* Cutie Pie Challenge (Favourite Song -What's New Pussycat by Tom Jones)
* Stamp, Scrap & Doodle (Have a Heart)
* Crafty Ann's (What's New Pussycat - The cat die-cut)

Before I go, I stumbled across this website today and thought it would be fun to share it with you all. Just to be clear, it's not about the guy, it's about the quotes! If only men would say those things! ;) http://handmaderyangosling.tumblr.com/

Have a good day!

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CAS Baby

Good morning everyone!

Did you all manage to play along with the latest challenge at Friendship's Garden? Well, there's a new challenge starting today, so you might want to add your cards or other projects! The theme this time around is CAS (CLEAN AND SIMPLE). You can use and make anything, except stamping your main image (or using a digi that is not pre-coloured. Now, I do simple, but not clean, so it was mighty hard to make this card and not stick a million different things on or use lots of backing papers! It really felt like the card wasn't finished, but then again, this is CAS....you be the judge:

I made this card for a colleague of mine who just had her first child. There were some complications during the pregnancy, but thankfully both mother and daughter are completely healthy. Since she has quite a modern taste, I think she might like this style of card. We'll shall see!

Materials:
* White Scalloped Base Card
* Studio Light DP (I used a Crafter's Companion embossing board)
* K&Company Dollhouse Alphabet Chipboard
* Spellbinders shape
* Karen Foster Baby Words Rub-on sentiments

Challenges:
* Get Creative (CAS)
* Crafty Boots (New Beginnings)
* Crafty Ribbons (New Beginnings)
* Bling It On (New Beginnings)
* By the Cute & Girly (New Beginnings)
* Craft Your Days Away (New Beginnings)
* Ooh La La (New Beginnings)
* Dream Valley (Anything Goes)
* Unstampabelles (Anything Goes but no Stamps!)
* Papertake Weekly (Die Cute)

Hope you like my card, maybe I'll see all your lovely creations at the Challenge Blog!

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First ATC ever - Friendship's Garden Bonus Week

Hello everyone,

Did you enjoy the New Year's Celebrations? We certainly did, I cooked a great meal, we drank some lovely wine and around 12 there was an absolutely spectacular firework show courtesy of our neighbours. Since we had to stay up for another hour so that we could also ring in the new year with my parent's in law, I was absolutely exhausted on the 1st and we just vegetated on the couch for the day.

But now I'm back in business and here's my first project to share with you! Friendship's Garden is challenging you to make an ATC with a vintage children theme! I had never made an ATC before, so first had to look up what it was, but I think it worked out pretty well. I even managed to rip the paper a little bit!

I hope you can find the time to join us this time around, it's great to see more and more participants in our challenges! Just remember, we don't "do" stamps/digis for the main image, unless they are pre-coloured! For more information, just visit our challenge blog. Hope to see you there!


Materials:
* White base card, cut to ATC size
* Studio Light image
* Marianne Design Paper Pad (Eline's Vintage Blue & Green)
* Scalloped circle punch, smeared with Distress Ink and Clear Stickles
* Vintage Photo Distress Ink, smeared on just about every element
* Studio G sentiment stamp
* Flat-backed pearls from my stash

Challenges:
* Craft Your Passion (Anything Goes + Distressing)
* Heart Song Inspirations (Anything Goes)
* Ooh La La Creations (Anything But a Card)
* Cutie Pie Challenge (Use a Sentiment)
* Let's Craft & Create (Anything Goes)
* Hiding in My Craft Room (Freestyle)
* Robin's Fetish (Anything Goes)
* Pecreativ (Anything Goes)
* The Pink Elephant (Anything Goes)
* Stamp & Create (Vintage)

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Another Christmas Card

Hi all,

Only 10 days until Christmas, can you believe it? It has really snuck up on me this year, we don't even have the tree up, not all cards are on their way and I still have to start baking and cooking for a great idea for a Christmas present (even if I do say myself). If I will have time to take some pictures I will post them. However, now I have another Christmas card to share with you. We at Friendship's Garden are challenging you to make a Christmas card without using stamps! Check out the challenge blog for more details, we'd love to see your makes!

I probably will not be posting much until the New Year, need to get all the pressies shopped and wrapped and focus on the cooking for now. So if I don't see you before then, have a great Christmas and a very happy 2012!


Materials:
* Scalloped white base card
* Marianne Design Scandinavian Christmas DPs
* Studio Light image
* Gems and silver peel offs from stash

Challenges
* Crafting for All Seasons (Christmas)
* Divas by Design (Christmas)
* Joanna Sheen Challenge Blog (Christmas Wishes)
* Little Darlings (Christmas)
* For Fun Challenges (Christmas)
* Papertake Weekly (Christmas)
* Christmas Crafting (Santa Claus is coming to Town)
* Crafty Hazelnut (Traditional Christmas)
* Winter Wonderland (Let it Snow)
* By the Cute and Girly (Let it Snow)

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15 mins of crafting

Good morning everyone,

How have all you lovely followers and visitors been this week? I'd like to thank you all for your lovely comments over the past months and welcome my new followers at the same time :)

I haven't been crafting much this week, as we are in the process of moving house, but some of my earlier cards got picked for different challenges this week, all lovely surprises! I've won a number of digis that I will be using as soon as I have more time to craft in a leisurely fashion, instead of just managing my DT cards by the skin of my teeth while packing stuff in boxes :)

Talking about DTs, it's time for another challenge over at Friendship's Garden! If you've participated in our Autumn and Leaves Challenges, have a look at the blog to see our winner and top 3! This challenge is a little unusual, well, at least I have never come across it. We are challenging you to make a card in under 15 mins! Everybody needs a quick card or two, so a great challenge to ease yourself into making a card without stamps as the main feature :)

This is my card, I unfortunately forgot to set a timer, but it was definitely made under 15 minutes:

My trick to make this card so quickly? Two words: Card sheet. I've used a sheet that included image, DPs and embellishments, only a matter of cutting the elements out and combining them. Saves having to think about what goes well with what. Only added some blue gems and a couple of additional DPs and hey presto! Hope you can play along, we'd love to see your quick makes! Show us how quick you can be :)

Challenges:
* Catch the Bug (Anything Goes)
* Stampavie and More (Anything Goes)
* Southern Girls Challenge (Can You Hear the Music?: Our House by Madness)
* ColourQ (Colour Challenge)
* Heart Song Inspirations (Anything Goes)
* Ellephantastic Challenges (Weather-related)
* Dream Valley (Anything Goes)
* Crafty Catz Challenge (Anything Goes)
* Charisma Cardz Challenge (Cutesy)
* CES (Inspired by a Song or a Film: Our House by Madness)

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Autumnal Colours & Leaves

Good morning everyone!

It's time for another challenge at Friendship's Garden, the theme this time is AUTUMN COLOURS AND LEAVES. We would thus like to see some leaves on your project and you making use of autumnal colours, such as orange, yellow and red. Remember, our challenges focus on projects made WITHOUT stamps. You can however enter any paper craft project. Why don't you give it a try?

Here is my card:

I think it turned out quite nice, the cardstock is so lovely that I decided to show some of it on the front. Hope to see you all joining the challenge!

That's it from me for now, I am off to our new house to start the cleaning :( Oh well, it's for a good cause :) See you later!

Materials:
* Cream and coated base card
* 3D image & additonal images, sentiment, and DPs on the front of the card: Studio Light
* Echo Park For the Record DP
* Scalloped circle punch
* Silver border peeloffs from stash

Challenges:
* Birthday Sundaes (Happy Birthday)
* Celebrate the Occasion (Fall + pumpkin)
* Craft Your Days Away (Autumn/Fall)
* Cupcake Craft (Take a Leaf Out of My Book)
* Paper Cutz (Turning Over a New Leaf)
* Make My Monday (Autumn Leaves)
* Unstampables (Autumn/Fall)
* Lollipop Crafts (Anything Goes)
* Papertake Weekly (Anything Goes)
* Through the Craftroom Door (Fall + Leaves)

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Halloween Tag

Hello all!

Today we have a little in-between challenge for you over at Friendship's garden, we are challenging you to make a HALLOWEEN TAG! Use 1 image, 2 ricrac bits and 3 blingy embellishments, you can interpret that however you want. Just make sure that you don't use a stamp or digi for your main image and you're good to go! Here's my make:

Materials
* K&Co Christmas Cheer Tag Pad
* Image from the Internet (http://vintageholidaycrafts.com has it, among others)
* K&Co Halloween Paper Pad
* White pieces of ricrac from my stash, coloured with a little Vintage Photo Distress ink (love the duo tone it created!)
* Orange gems from my stash

Hope you like my tag, as we aren't celebrating Halloween over here, I am currently using it as a book tag :)

Challenges
* 2 Sisters (Pumpkin Patch)
* Allsorts (Halloween)
* Bearly Mine (Anything but a Card)
* Crafting for All Seasons (Halloween or Halloween colours)
* Divas by Design (Something Spooky)
* Fab 'n Funky (Hubble Bubble Toil and Trouble)
* For Fun (Halloween)
* Hooked on Craft (Something Spooky)
* Little Darlings (Not square)
* Lollypop Crafts (At least 3 embellishments)

See you on Friday with my Card Makin' Mamas DT card, all I can say is that it's fit for a princess ;)

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New Beginnings: Friendship's Garden Bloghop!

Hello everyone,

Yes, it's time for the first Friendship's Garden Challenge to start and we have appropriately chosen "NEW BEGINNINGS" as our first theme! The additional twist is including a window/aperture on your card as well.

Anyone with a new project that falls within that theme can participate. We welcome any type of paper craft, there is a catch however, no stamps! You can stamp your sentiment if you like, but the main image shouldn't be a stamp or digi. There are plenty of great websites around that list free images, or maybe you have some images at home you'd like to use, or photo's, or......well, you get the gist ;)

To make our first challenge as festive and memorable as possible, we are also hosting a BLOGHOP!!! And there's prizes to win as well! We will be giving away a $20 certificate to Designs on Cloud 9 and a $10 gift certificate to Altered Angel! How generous is that! To get the skinny on how you can increase your chances to win these fabulous prizes, check out the post on the main challenge blog!

If all is well, you should have arrived on my blog from Dena Jones' blog. If you get lost, go back to the Friendship's Garden Main Blog to get back on track, the blog hop starts and ends there! The next teamie to visit is Carolyn LaBille, go forth and give her some love :)

On to my project. For this first challenge I've made a baby card, can't get any newer than that now can you? I made it for a colleague of mine who just gave birth to her first child, a girl. I wanted to make a card that wasn't that obviously girly girly, as the mother isn't like that either.

Materials
* White base card
* Studio Light 3D image and sentiment
* First Edition Hideaway DPs
* Ivory ribbon from stash

Challenges
* Craft Your Passion (Anything Goes + Ribbon)

* Crafty Card Makers (Anything Goes)

* The Kraft Journal (Lavish Layers)

* Paper Creations (Black and/or Orange)

* CES Challenge (Totally Gurjuss/Pretty Girls)

* City Crafter (3D)

* Heart Song Inspirations (Anything Goes)

* Jen's Digi Stamps (Let's Hear it For the Girls)

* My Time To Craft (Nursery Necessities)

* Crazy Amigo (Animals)

Hope you like my card, maybe it inspires some of you to join our first challenge and bloghop!

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