Butterflies and birds

Hello my crafty friends! How are you doing? Do you have any plans for the weekend? I'm hoping to do some crafting and if the weather is nice I might also do some hiking. We'll see about that.

After a break we are back with a new challenge at Crafty ribbons blog. As usually you have 2 weeks to enter our challenge and be in the draw for a fabulous prize kindly donated by Ali and Tony. We thought we would start with an easy challenge so the theme is "Butterflies and birds + ribbon". I don't know about you, but I love using butterflies on my creations. I just love those little critters. :)

This card will go to one very special lady who is currently fighting cancer. She's a very brave lady and I wish her lots of strenght fighting this nasty illness. I hope this little card will brighten her day.

A while back I received some gorgeous papers and die cuts from a friend of mine (thank you so much girl!) and I used a couple of those on my card. For a change I didn't do any stamping on my creation. The big red flower is handmade and I finally put some of my long forgoten beads to some use - I used them for the center of the big flower. The other flowers are store bought. The dotty ribbon I used on my card is from Crafty ribbons and can be found here.

So, I think this is it for today. I hope you'll come play with us! Have a wonderful day! xx

I would like to enter my card to the following challenges:

Crafty calendar: Bingo (pearls, kraft, flowers)

Allsorts: Roses

Cheery Lynn Designs: Anything goes (CL die used: butterfly)

Inky chicks: Hearts

Marianne's design divas: Anything goes (MD dies used: Anja's leaves 2 - LR0227, Flower fantasy - LR0128, Rectangle - CR1202)
Simon says stamp (Wednesday challenge): Anything goes

Christmas in August

Hey, hey! Hope you had a relaxing weeken and that this week started off good. I did some housework and since the weather was so nice I also did some hiking. Nothing extreme though, just a short walk. I also did some crafting. And I made a Christmas card for a change. September is nearly here and this means December is not far away either so I thought I better start thinking about Christmas. I still have 2 or 3 Christmas cards from last year, but will need to make the rest. I don't mind though. I just LOVE Christmas and everything connected to it. And Christmas cards and decorations are one of my favourite things to make. :)

I actually made this card for a Christmas in August card swap that I participate in. I hope the lady I made this for will like it.

For this card I decided to use a Stempelglede stamp and papers from DCWV - I just love the shades of light and dark blue with a touch of silver. Around the image and also on papers I sprinkled some white embossing powder.

I received those snowflake die-cuts from a friend of mine a while back and I thought they would be perfect for this project. I covered them with glitter glue to add some bling to my card.

The white "dots" are actually glittery brads that I had in my stash and besides those I also used crystals, doilies, sequins and lace to decorate my card.

Have you started working on your Christmas cards yet?

I would like to enter my card to the following challenges:

Live and love crafts: Blue

Papertake weekly: To die for
Little Claire's Designs: Christmas
Die-cut divas: Favourite holiday (Christmas)
Noor design: Christmas
ABC Christmas: Q - quantum leap (I'm using D - die cuts)
Winter Wonderland: Christmas carols/songs (Christmas carol "Angels we have heard on high")
Inky impressions: Christmas in August
Sister Act: Anything goes

Altered Pringles can and a recipe

Hello my crafty friends! How are you doing? Good, I hope. First let me apologize for "teasing you" with that cake in my previous post. That was not my intention. So to make things right I'm sharing the recipe with you (I made some changes to the original recipe and I'm sharing my version). I had to translate the recipe so if there's something you don't understand, just ask. Also, you can find different variations of this dessert online, but for me this one rocks.

(Linda and Pamellia this is especially for you two. ;))

So, here's the recipe ...

PUMPKIN CAKE ROLL

Ingredients:

6 eggs

5 tbsp sugar

1 vanilla sugar (approx. 8 g)

100 g ground pumpkin seeds

1 sour cream (approx. 180 g)

Separate egg whites from the yolks. Mix together 6 egg yolks, sugar and vanilla sugar til it's light and fluffy (usually takes me a couple of minutes). Add pumpkin seeds and slightly mix again. While mixing start adding beaten egg whites with your spoon. Make sure everything is mixed and then pour the mixture on the baking tin (and don't forget to use the baking/wax paper) - mine is approx. 34x27 cm. Bake 10-15 minutes at 180° Celsius. 

When you take the cake out of the oven, turn it on a (slightly) damp kitchen towel, remove the baking/wax paper and roll up the cake. Leave it like that for a minute or two. (This helps to roll the cake once the filling is on and prevents the cake to crack.) After the minute (or two) is up, unroll the cake and spread sour cream all over it. Roll the cake again and wrap it in a tin foil. Leave it like that til it cools.

That's it. Easy, right? (I hope I made it clear - again, if you have any questions, just ask.)

Ok, and now to my altered Pringles can. I've been wanting to alter one of these for ages, but I've never gotten around to actually do it. Feels good to finally be able to cross one thing of my "things-to-try" list. :) My cousin is addicted to Pringles (if you ask me he lives of that thing *sigh*) and he was kind enough to save some empty cans for me, when I asked him to. So now I am stocked with those. :)

Anyways, here's how my very first altered Pringles can turned out ...

This thing is pretty darn hard to photograph, but I hope you get the idea what it looks like. As you can see I used a lot of different lace, flowers and pearl string on this project. I also used some flower shaped crystals at the bottom. 

The butterflies are stamped (it's a Rubber stampede stamp), covered with glitter glue and then fussy cut from the cardstock. 

This is what the top of the lid of the box look like. More flowers, pearls and 2 punched butterflies.

Wo much from me today. Have a wonderful day! :) xx

I'd like to enter my project to the following challenges:
Avenue 613: Anything goes

Tuesday throwdown: Texture

Craft heaven: Bingo (lace, flowers, bling)

The corrosive: Utterly feminine

Creative card crew: Lace

Through the purple haze: Flowers

Fab'n'funky: Things with wings

Not just cards: Anything goes

Summer is time for bbq and picnics

Hello my friends. I hope you've been enjoying your weekend. Mine has been good so far. I did some crafting, some baking and earlier today I went to my parents' for bbq.

What does it came to your mind when you think of summer? When I think of summer I think of beach, sea, sun, bbq and picnics. When we have picnics I usually bake something to bring with me - cupcakes, cakes ... Different things. But lately I've been making (not just for picnics) a lot of this cake roll which I absolutely love - and so does everybody else who tried it (even my cousin and he's one of the pickiest people I know). 

There are a couple of reasons I like to make this cake roll so much: 

1. it's veeeeery easy and very quick to make (preparation and baking time together only take about 30 minutes; probably even less)

2. it's gluten free

3. it's delicious - ask anybody ;)

So, with that in mind I went creating a "summertime" card. And this is what I came up with.

I immediately knew that I wanted to use some bright papers and these Authentique ones seemed perfect. And since I did some baking for the bbq later today I also knew that I just had to use this adorable Double cupcake Anya image from TGF. She seemed perfect for my card! :)

She's coloured with Promarkers and Faber Castell pencils. On parts of her dress and her hair accessories I used diamond Stickles. Anya is raised on foam pads to give the card some extra dimension. Embossing was done with Crafts Too embossing folder. All of the ribbons came from Crafty ribbons. The dotty ones are from their new Summer festival collection and the green ribbon I used in the back can be found here. The button I used for the center of my ribbon "flower" is from the knit buttons pack. The other embellishments came from my stash.

So, that's it from me for today. Have a wonderful Sunday (what's left of it) and don't work too hard tomorrow. ;) xx

I'd like to enter my card to the following challenges:
The greeting farm: Summertime
Stamp and create: One for the girls
Papertake weekly: Spots and stripes
Simon says stamp (Wednesday challenge): Food and/or drink
Cute card Thursday: Anything goes
Wags 'n Whiskers: Frame it out
The cutie pie: Cute and girly
The paper nest dolls: Anything goes
Hiding in my craft room: use die cuts

After a break ...

Hello my crafty friends! :)

Oh my goodness, has it really been one month since my last post?! O.o Where did the time go??? Seems to me that days are just flying by. Quite a lot has happened during this month. We went on well deserved vacations to the sea, we did some re-organising at our apartment, I've been experimenting a bit in the kitchen, we went to the "Escape room" for the first time and loved it and on top of that I got some exciting news that I'm going to share with you soon, but not just yet. I know, I'm bad for teasing you like this. He he he. :P

Truth be told I haven't done much crafting this past month. Looks like my mojo needed some time off as well, but luckily it decided to get back and right now I'm working on some projects.

To all my blogging buddies, I'm sorry I haven't visited your blogs lately. I'm playing catch up right now so hopefully I'll get to visit you soon and check what have you been up to.

One of the cards I made recently was for a "Secret crafty swap" that I participated in. We were required to make a celebration themed card and post it to our swap partner along with some crafty goodies. The lady I was sending my swap to informed me that she has already received it so it's safe for me to post the picture of the card on my blog.

I decided to make a card with this beautiful dandelions stamp from Make it crafty. It was my first attempt to also colour up a sky. Do you like it? I have to admit I was quite happy with how it turned out. I coloured the image with Faber Castell pencils and I added glitter glue on dandelion seed heads. As I didn't think those gave enough sparkle to the card I also added some sequins here and there. Papers and embellishments that I used on my card came from my stash. 

So much from me today. See you again soon! :) Have a wonderful day! xx

I'd like to enter my card to the following challenges:

Stamping sensations: Anything goes with a stamp and a die

Craftyhazelnut't patterned paper challenge: Use patterned paper

Craft your passion: Anything goes

Little Miss Muffet: Anything goes

Craft-alnica: Karkoli

Creative inspirations: Flowers

AnMaCreatief: Flowers
The ribbon girl: Everything goes with an image