Christmas menu

Last week my mother asked me to create menus for Christmas evening. Because I have little time lately, I said I wanted to do this if she helped me. I've tried to convince her to start cardmaking many times, but this was the first time she agreed to it. We had a long discussion before we found the right concept. Because our table decoration is mainly black we chose this dark colour combo. The background is made with a cuttlebug embossing folder, then lightly inked and finally some painting with stickles. This glittering is not obvious in the picture, but it's really nice in reality :)

Shopping

Hi there,

As the end of the year is coming closer, I seem to have even less time for crafting. But that doesn't mean I don't think of it. I bought some great new stuff lately and I thought I'd share this with you.

First I spend my birthday money in a great stamping shop in Belgium(http://blog.chriscoudenys.be). It was my first time there and I was amazed how many stamps you can get in such a small place. The shop owner was a very nice lady and gave us lots of tips. It was not easy to choose, but this is what I brought home.

Secondly I went to Pipoos (http://www.pipoos.be/) as I read in their newsletter the loyalty card are worth extra now.

On top of this the Martha Stewart punches were in reduction, which made I only had to pay 6€ for all of this :)

And last but not least I went to Boekenfestijn (http://www.boekenfestijn.com/) last Thursday. I love reading thrillers and I came home with about 10 new books. But a lovely extra is that they also have hobby materials. A difficult choice and I already regret I didn't buy some other stamps, but my budget is limited. And you can't buy everthing, even if it's really cheap.

Birthday Cards

On December 1st I celebrated my birthday. Because 30 is pretty special, we went 4 days to the Christmas market in Germany. I really had a great time with lots of shopping, gluwein and also some cultural activities.
From some members of a stamping group I received these beautiful cards. Thanks a lot Linda, Bea, Christine and Monique!

Lili's Little Fairies Challenge Blog

The Lili's Little Fairies Challenge Blog will continue where Lili of the Valley Challenge finished. The first challenge will be posted on January 5th:

http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/

Creanijn's candy

http://creanijn.blogspot.com/2011/12/creanijn-candy-bij-100-volgers.html

Vicky is giving away great candy when her blog reaches 100 followers. I'm already a fan of Creanijn's sketches for a long time. So don't just go there for the candy, but take some time to check Vicky's cards and layouts!

Sugar Bowl challenge 70

http://sugarbowlblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/challenge-70maria-thereses-sketch.html

I like challenges because you end up with a card you'd never make without the challenge. The Sugar Bowl had a sketch challenge plus the option clean and simple. Not easy with no embellishments or patterned papers, but I've really enjoyed this one!

I'm back: LOTV challenge

http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/10/challenge-118-sketch-by-bev.html


After a break of several months, I finaly created again! I've chosen the sketch from LOTV challenge to get started. As you may know I love sketches (both for cardmaking as scrapbooking). I'm happy with the result, and I think I'll start on another christmas card soon as time's getting shorter to get them all finished.

Penny Black Challenge 175

http://pennybfriendssaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/10/penny-black-saturday-challengeweek-175.html

Having my mojo back, in combination with 2 days off work is really great for my christmas cards. But I think this will be my last one for today as I have running training this evening.

Marianne Design challenge 41

http://mariannedesign.blogspot.com/2011/10/challenge-41-vintage.html



What a challenge: create a vintage christmas card! Not easy I thought, but after some searching around in my stuff I found these gorgeous (but still unused) Martha Steward punches. I think they look quite vintage, so I used these as the starting point. I also found some old looking patterned paper from Daisy D's and I've kept the rest quite simple.
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Vacation photos

I've had a great week in Italy (although I needed some days to get used to the Italian way of life, for example: the traffic is really crazy there). I don't have new cards to show you yet, but I'm trying to get everything in my life into place and hope to find time and my mojo in the near future. For now, I'll just leave you some vacation pictures!

POMPEII

CAPRI

SORRENTO

Vacation!

I'm off to Italy for one week, hopefully there will be more action on my blog afterwards!
Hugs, Annelies

My next 2 cards

Here are my next two cards. These are inspired by a Hero Arts video .
On my first attempt I probably used to much water and the flower was very unclear, so I stamped it on top with black ink.


My supplies:
Stampers Anonymous (swirl)
Marianne Design Eline's Vintage (sentiment)
October Afternoon (flower)
Aladine 'Texte du Monde' (script)
Distress ink: old paper, peeled paint, barn door, broken china, rusty hinge
Colorbox: frost white
clear embossing powder

Two bird cards

Last monday I was hopping around some blogs and I suddenly wanted to ink my non-cute stamps. I immediately had several ideas, but it took me some time to get from a rough idea to a finished card. These are the first ones. I had the backgrounds in my stash and they were perfect to combine with this lovely stamp (which was still uninked).
My supplies:
Distress inks: Bundled Sage and Scatterd Straw
Stamps: Judi Kins 'Whispy Bamboo'
Marianne Design Eline's Vintage
De Stempelwinkel 'Hummingbird on flower'

Cute Card Thursday Challenge 170

http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/2011/06/challenge-170-sketch-time.html

LOTV challenge 102

http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/2011/06/challenge-102sketch-by-donalda.html

It was quite hot this afternoon, but I thought it was the perfect weather to create my first christmas card this year :)

I've used this great LOTV stamp (Lisa's candy) and Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper pad ( Lisa's candy). It was a while ago since I've used my cuttlebug, so I'm happy I've finally dusted it of. I used it with Spellbinders Labels four and Marianne design Creatables. The sentiment stamp is from a Hero Arts set ( Kat's candy). After I finished it I realised I forget the ribbon from the sketch, but I think the result is ok.

The Sugar Bowl Challenge 62

http://sugarbowlblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/challenge-62-marlenes-sketch.html
For this card I've used a card kit I won on Erica's blog (www.scrapaliciouscards.blogspot.com) during a Simply Sassy bloghop. I love the Sugar Nellie stamp 'Laid back dude', Basic Grey Marjolaine papers and some embellishments. I usualy find it difficult to create cards for males, but it's a great kit for these. I've added some buttons, papers and a Penny Black sentiment stamp.

Baby boy card

I've been such a bad blogger and cardmaker lately :(

This is the only card I created during this last month. It was for a collegue's first grandson (after 2 granddaughters): Mauro.
I scraplifted this idea from a great Dutch cardmaker: http://nancyvandenberg.blogspot.com/

I hope to be back soon with some new cards!

Stamp Something Challenge: Anything Goes

I've been on a holiday to Spain, so it's been a while since my last post. I had a fantastic time there, but back to reality now. I'm entering this card in the Stamp Something Challenge (http://stampchallenges.blogspot.com/ ). I think this is my best Copic coloured image so far. Mostly it ends up darker than intended, but I hope you can clearly see the different shades here :) It was already a bit dark when I took this picture, so sorry for the bad quality.

Sketch Saturday

http://sketchsaturday.blogspot.com/2011/04/week-152-23rd-april-sponsored-by.html

I heard in the news that Belgium is the warmest place of Europe, so the weather is perfect for some crafting outside! Although the little wind makes it difficult sometimes :) I worked with the sketch from Sketch Saturday. I changed it to a rectangle card ('cause postage is double for square cards in Belgium). This also meant I had less space for the 3 embellishements, so I moved them to the corner. I'm quite satisfied with the result, although I think the orange part would have been better a bit bigger.

Scrappfabriken Candy!

http://scrappfabriken.blogspot.com/2011/04//blogcandy.html

Whimsy Stamps Blog Hop

http://whimsystamps.blogspot.com/

Paris: Champs-Elysées

http://creanijn-sketches.blogspot.com/ I'm actually getting to the end of my second scrapbook album ever:) I still have 2 double and 2 single layouts to go :) This layout is about the Champs-Elysées. The name says enough so I didn't add extra journaling. There is not a lot of colour in the pictures, so it was not easy to choose a colour scheme. I've finally choosen yellow-gold cardstock to reflect the glamour, although I have to admit I'm not really impressed with this avenue.

Paris: Jardin des plantes

This layout goes perfect with spring temperatures of the last days:) I've choosen patterned paper with flowers as this layout goes about the botanical garden of Paris, a really nice place to hang out for a couple of hours. I've worked again with a great sketch from Vicky. If you like sketches you should definitely check this great blog: http://creanijn-sketches.blogspot.com/. Something seems to be wrong with my recent posts. If I put an 'enter' to start a new line, blogger doesn't save this. I've found out this is a browser related problem, only with Internet Explorer. As solution they advise to temporarily use another browser, but I really don't know how I should do this. Hopefully this problem will soon be solved, but untill then my posts will look a bit weird :(

Card for a friend

Because the father of a stamping friend passed away last week, I wanted to make a card for her. It's the first time I made a card for this occasion and I hope I don't have to use this stamp much in the future.

Creanijn Album Track X

http://creanijn.blogspot.com/ The last page from my album goes about food. The title says in Dutch: Enjoy your meal! It was the first time we booked only breakfast. We had to find a place to eat every evening. Luckily that was not so difficult: there was a great Italian, Indian and Thai. Only once we were disappointed in a British restaurant. The PP are Kaisercraft 'Pennyroyale Collection' and the font is Platin Schoolbook from Cricut. Nothing else on this page except little cards from some restaurants in Cascais. To see all the pages of my Portugal album, you can use this link .

Cute Card Thursday Challenge

http://cutecardthursday.blogspot.com/2011/03/challenge-157-sketch-by-deb.html It's been a while since I entered a challenge, but I thought this sketch was really great, so I had to give it a go. I turned it upside down as this fits better with the direction the girl is looking at. I coloured the image with copics, but I still have a lot to learn. I think shadows are so difficult

Creanijn Album Track IX

http://creanijn.blogspot.com/

Next week will be the last day in my Creanijn Album, but this is actually the last page which I finished. I don't know why I had so much difficulties with this one. I just didn't know where to put the title and journaling. I finally chose to do the journaling on the pictures, so there was plenty space left for the (quite long) title. .
Patterned paper is the double sided Scenic Route 'Sentimental Small Daisies White', title is created with Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and for the journaling I chose Augie font.

Knotsgekke kaartendagen

Yesterday my mom and I went to Knotsgekke Kaartendagen (a craft show in the Netherlands).
I think this edition was less interesting in comparison with other years. There weren't really great actions and there are some things on my wish list that I didn't found. But no worries, I've spend my money on other great stuff as you can see :)

Creanijn Album Track VIII

http://creanijn.blogspot.com/

This week a layout with lots of pictures, just how I like them :) There was still some space left for an entry ticket of the castle and some journaling with a brief summary of the highlights of that day. I absolutely love the striped patterned paper. It's again from Scenic Route: Coral Pink Jade Stripe (2 sides) The elegant title is cut with Cricut Jasmine cartridge.

Jude's Half Term Candy

Check Jude's blog to see how you can enter her amazing half term candy (31-03)
http://crafts-international.blogspot.com

Birthday card for my mum

My supplies: will follow later

Creanijn Album Track VII

It's Monday, so time for the next page of my Creanijn Album Track. If you've seen the other pages too, you may have discovered some themes in my album. Of course Vicky's sketches are the obvious one (http://creanijn.blogspot.com/). Another theme seem to be the use of double sided paper. Maybe it's more expensive, but I really find it so practical. This time I used Scenic Route - Cape Town (both sides from 'Argyle' page). The last theme are my Cricut titles. I used one of my favorite cartridges on this layout: Stone Script. I did the title in different colours tot illustrate the different places we visited.

Katarina's candy

Katarina has amazing candy on her blog:
http://kamadesign.blogspot.com/2011/02/big-celebration-candy.html


Don't forget to Katarina's other blog where you can find everything related to crafting: stamping, scrapbooking, sewing, jewelry, crocheting, etc. : http://craftersguide.blogspot.com

Paris: Montmartre

This weekend I was doing the Sketch Support blog hop and I really felt like some scrapping myself. So afterwards I started working on this layout. I already planned using Creanijn sketch 52. I have lots of pictures printed in function of some sketches, but I hope to also use one of Allison's sketches soon.



My supplies:
PP: American Crafts Sixth Avenue Lincoln
CS
Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge
Spellbinders nestabilities (for the circles)

Creanijn Album Track VI

http://creanijn.blogspot.com/

This is the first page of the only organised excursion we booked. With only 4 other persons, it was almost a private tour :) We saw so many great things that I used 2 pages for the pictures of this day.
I'm actualy having a little problem with the right page. Probably because such a large part is covered with patterned paper and I didn't glue it well enough, it's 'bubbling' a bit when opening the album on this page :(
I don't remember which patterned paper I used here, but the title is cut with Cricut Jasmine cartridge.