About Me

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Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
I have been crafting since May 2008, when in desperation to find an unusual birthday card for my Mum, I gave up looking in the shops and decided to have a go at making my own. I soon realised that crafting is addictive and I haven't brought a card since. In 2011 I completed my certificate in papercrafting as a result of the work I did as part of the course I started entering challenges on line and in magazines. I applied for design teams and also started making samples for Ooh La La Creations for their shows on Create and Craft. I have now completed my Diploma in professional crafting and most recently been runner up in the Papercrafter of the Year 2013 a competition run by Papercraft essentials magazine, I don't have a particular style I like to use elements from lots of styles and techniques, although I do love all things vintage. In 2014 I started to move more towards scrapbooking to take care of the huge family archive of photographs that were stored in my attic. I have continued cardmaking and Scrapbooking through 2015 and 2016 but have also become interested in off the page projects. I hope to be able focus on these in the future.

Thursday 30 January 2014

A digi and a die at Through the Purple Haze

This weeks challenge at through the Purple Haze asks us to combine two of my favourite card making elements digi stamps and die cuts. I took their title literally and used one digi and one die to create my card.


The digi is Nicolosia Venice City Girl from Lacy Sunshine she was coloured using both Spectrum Noirs and Pro-markers with just a touch of Sakura glaze pens.

Hair - Pro markers - Cocoa, Henna, Spice and Maroon
Skin Pro Markers Ivory, Vanilla, Satin, Blush
Lips - Spectrum Noir CR9
Dress Spectrum Noir - GB4, GB5, GB7 JG1, JG2, JG5
I added glaze pen in green and gold to the mask and her necklace.

Having coloured her I fussy ct round her and then rubbed the edges with a graphite stick to cover teh white. I used two papers from the Debbi Moore Gltter Girls Deco Glamour Bookatrix CD and mounted these onto gold and black mirror card.

The die cut is a Tattered Lace die and I used black mirror card adding green feathers, and gold pearls from my stash. The green pearls are actually white ones coloured using Spetrum Noir JG5 and teh ribbons were coloured to match teh dress using SPectrum Noir JG5 and GB7.

I finished the card off by using the 'waste' from the die cut to make the corner flourishes and the black flowers in the feathers in Nicolosia's hair.

I am entering this into the following challenges.
http://throughthepurplehazechallenges.blogspot.co.uk  - A digi and a Die
http://incywincydesigns.blogspot.co.uk - Ribbons and Pearls
http://www.4craftychicks.blogspot.co.uk - Anything goes
http://4kraftygirlzchallenges.blogspot.co.uk - Anything Goes

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Christmas at Fab n Funky

Hello everybody, Well it's Wednesday so it means a new challenge over at Fab nFunky Challenges

We had a fantastic response to our last 'All About The Words' challenge. The winners can be found there. 


Now, without further ado let me introduce our challenge for this week - 

Christmas

In an attempt to be better prepared this year, we’ve decided to have a Christmas card challenge every month.  So I hope you’ve not packed away all those Christmas goodies as we can't wait to see what you all create.

Our wonderful sponsor this week is




Here is my card using their Holly and Rosehip Wreath digi 


I coloured the image using coloured pencils, I started by colouring the holly leaves with a papermania metallic pencil. I then used a lighter green for the rose leaves and the hips were coloured an orange red colour and highlighted with a Sakura shimmer pen. I used a really light pink for the blossoms and then finished off by colouring the rose hips with a Sakura glaze pen in Christmas red to give a gloss finish.

I fussy cut the wreath and coloured the white edges with a gold metallic pencil. Then teamed it with some KaiserCraft Christmas papers that I had left over from all my Christmas crafting.

Wednesday 22 January 2014

All About the Words at Fab n Funky

Hello well another Wednesday it's another challenge at Fab n Funky 

Last week we had some amazing entries for our Recipe challenge, congratulations to our Winner and TOP 3.
Thank you all so much for participating in the challenges each week, it is because of you that we have reached our 200th challenge this week.

This Challenge is 

 'ALL ABOUT THE WORDS' 


We would like to see some words on your project, they can be a simple sentiment or the main focus of your project.

We have two sponsors this week so double the chance of getting a great prize!


Who are giving 5 images to the winner

and 

who are also giving 5 images

I used Dance, Love, Sing Live from Stampart by Kathryne


I kept the design really simple and printed off this pretty backing paper from the music and dreams CD from their recent Anniversary Collection. I mounted this onto black mirror card and then  I used Tattered Lace dies to cut the oval frame, the flowers and the tiny butterflies from teh left over black mirror card. I added a Pearl Swirl, and pearl centres to the flowers.

I am entering this into the following challenge
http://throughthepurplehazechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - pick your favourite colour I chose Pink 

Monday 20 January 2014

Cards for Men over at Ooh La La

Hello everyone,

Firstly thanks to everyone who entered our easel card challenge last time we have been treated to some gorgeous designs. You can the the winners  at http://ooh-la-la-creationschallenges.blogspot.co.uk/

This time the challenge is to come up with a Card for a Man. My dad's birthday is in March so I decided to make his card a bit earlier than usual and use it for the challenge.


I chose the image from the pyramage folder on the Boys to Men CD you can get this at a disculnted price from http://www.ooh-la-la-creations.com/Pages/SALE.aspx at the moment.

I also chose papers from the Boys to Men CD and used a lovely mat silver paper from my stash for the matting. The greeting is made using a combination of Tattered Lace bunting alphabet dies and Joanna sheen signature bunting dies. I used promarkers to colour the letters blue and red and then stuck these t the scraps of silver paper left over from the matting and layering. To keep with the colour scheme I added bakers twine in red white and blue and two plain blue buttons.




Inside the card I made my own insert by cropping part of the image from the front reducing the opacity and enlarging it to give a 7 and half inch square this was printed for the left side of the card. I then flipped the image and added in the centre of one of the 5x5 inserts from the CD and added this to the left of the card.


Wednesday 15 January 2014

Recipe Challenge at Fab N Funky

Good Morning,

Thanks to everyone who entered our celebration challenge over at Fab n Funky last week pop over to the blog to check if you won.

The challenge this week is to work to a recipe which is

1 Image
2 Buttons
3 Papers

Our sponsor this week is the super Dilly Beans Digi Stamps
Dilly Beans Digi Stamps

with a super prize for the winner.

The Design Team were lucky enough to have some fantastic images from Dilly Beans to play with and here is my card:


I fell in love with this image the first time I saw it and, I used Sakura Glaze pens to colour it which has resulted in an enamel texture to the finished piece. As much as I went for bright colours it would also work really well with Black and White to give a 'Zentangle' type feel to the card.  The papers were freebies from a magazine and were designed by Jennifer Ellory, and finally the buttons were just from my stash. 

Tuesday 14 January 2014

Anything goes over at Through the Purple Haze Challenges

The first challenge of the new year at through the Purple Haze Challenges is Anything Goes. One of my work colleagues left this week, as is teh norm on these occasions I was in charge of the card, however this time I was also asked to make git tags and a gift bag for the bottle of wine that made up part of the gift along with the lovely bracelet we had bought for Lynne.  So here they are the card two tags and a gift bag (the gift bag is a bit of a cheat I only decorated a plain one that I keep in my stash for emergencies but I was only asked to do it the night before!)


The tags were made using journalling tags from the new colour capsule range by Papermania. I die cut the letters from plain white card and stuck these down the centre and added resin roses and a silver fern leaf cut from mirror card using tattered lace dies. 


I added a silver eyelet using my cropodile and added the french navy seam biding to tie it to the top of the bags.

The bag itself was a bit of a cheat I just added some die cut flowers again made using tattered lace dies. I cut the large flowers from plain whit card and coloured them with promarkers, the smaller flowers were cut from centura pearl paper left over from the card. The white spirals are from wild Orchid crafts and the butterfly was also cut from white card and coloured using promarkers.

Finally the card it was a large 8x8 card to ensure we could all sign it inside


I used silver mirror card and centura pearl in ice blue and royal blue. the sentiment is from the My Craft Studio vintage romance CD. All the die cut elements were made using tattered lace dies and the plain white panel at teh bottom was embossed using Coture Creations tied together embossing folder. I finished it iff by adding folded tulle under the flowers and a metal butterfly.

I am happy to report that Lynne loved not only her card and gifts but the way they were packaged. Her comment on seeing the bag and tags was they've got to be one's Alli's made - she knows me too well.

I am entering the project into the following challenges 



Wednesday 8 January 2014

Lets Celebrate at Fab n Funky

Hello it's time for the first DT card for Fab n Funky Challenges for 2014 and the theme for this weeks challenge is Let's Celebrate. We are sponsored by this week by


I used their Friends don't let Friends wine alone 2 stamp which you can purchase here 



I coloured the stamp using spectrum Noir markers. The background was in my stash and I added a large gold 50 to this which I had embossed  one of my work colleagues turns 50 in march so this will be a fun card for her as I have already been asked to make the card from our group to her. I die cut the bunting using Tattered Lace Bunting Alphabet cutting it from black card then sticking it to gold card and trimming each piece individually before adding to the top of the card.

Monday 6 January 2014

Make an Easel card for Ooh La La

Good morning and a Happy New Year. Thank you for all the entries into our winter wonderland challenge. You can find the winners over on the Ooh La La Creations Challenge blog. So onto the first challenge of 2014 and its one of my favourite styles of card we want to see your ....

Easel Cards.
so it can be for any occasion so long as it's an easel card.

I used the Shawn Jenkins collection CD and used the Butterfly Garden design set from the CD. I have to say I absolutely love this CD the artwork is stunning and there is so much variety on there you can create for any occasion using it you can get your copy from the Ooh La La Creations website.

So without further ado here is my card.


It is based on a 6x6 square card blank and I cut the face of the easel using a Lattice Labels Spellbinders die (the largest size). I then used the die as a template to cut one of the backing paper from the folder to fit the centre of the label. I added the image at an angle, then added a basket of flowers to one corner.The basket is made using a Joanna Sheen signature die and the leaves were cut using a tattered lace die. The flowers are from Wild Orchid.

I punched three butterflies from vellum and coloured them using a Promarker in Pastel Pink and added pearl bodies.


The inside of the card was decorated with the basket weave paper from the folder on the CD. This basket weave effect is one of Ooh La La's signature designs and it is wonderful and looks as though you have taken hours weaving strips of paper, when in reality all you do is print it off.

I also used a printed ribbon strip from the CD but I cut slots in it and threaded it with blue ribbon to tie into the colour scheme an added the Happy birthday sentiment also from the CD. 


Before attaching the front easel panel to the base card I covered the base card with the same backing paper as the panel.