Beary in love

For today, I have a card to share with you! These last few days (or weeks???) I had lost my card mojo completely.

So yesterday I thought "ok, that's it, today you are going to make a card". I looked at my favourite challenge blogs, I got so much amazing inspiration... still nothing. I would get up. Sit down. Get up again. I had a number of ideas, but I just couldn't put them together.

And suddenly that was it! As if something unlocked my mind, everything started coming together, and finally I had a complete idea. Here's what came up with:

My inspiration have been the following challenges:

- For the colour combo: Lily Pad Cards - Virginia's View #2 with the following inspirational photo:

Aren't those colours gorgeous? I definitely wanted to make something with them!

- For the technique I used: Lawnscaping Challenge #8 - Distress Mania:

Distress Inks are my favourite inks because, as I have said before, they are so versatile and you can use them for so many different techniques. For this card, I used them to watercolour the image and the letters - my favourite technique that substitutes markers... :S

- And finally, for the pun "Very -> Beary": CAS-ual Fridays #41:

I hope you like it! (And that my card mojo is still here when I come back from my business trip this week...)

Hugs,
Anastasia

Supplies:

All dressed up

Good morning!

Finally, I got some inspiration! With the help of Melenia's sketch that I liked very much, Studio Calico's latest kit, and (mainly) my nephew's new photo... and here is the result:

I started experimenting with what I consider "Scrapbooking techniques", aka misting, masking and layering. What I would really, really like to have is a sewing machine... but since I'm not into sewing itself, I resist buying a sewing machine just for scrapbooking... for now!

For the triangle ribbon you see in green, yellow and orange I did the following: I coloured them with mists made with Distress Ink Refills. But the yellow and orange were much more bright than what I wanted, so I misted them again with White Mister Huey's mist and got the more subtle result that I wanted.

For the journaling I made an envelop with Silhouette. Here's the journaling:

THe sketch that was the first source of journaling is the following:

For a chance to win a Creative Scrappers Ebook copy that also includes a sketch by our favourite Melenia, come visit her blog!

Hope you like it!

Hugs,
Anastasia

Supplies:

Cherry Nest - Love card

Hello!

Today I wanted to share with you a card I made for Cherry Nest! Oh yes, I am still part of the design team, along with the super-talented:

- Katerina Laiopoulou
- Roula Fournaraki
- Elina Koutsouradi
- Eleni Tsampazi

You can visit Cherry Nest blog here to see the beautiful creations of the design team with Cherry Nest papers!

So, back to the card... February is, of course, the month of love, so this is the theme of my card ("ΑΓΑΠΗ" means "LOVE" in Greek):

If you like hearts (who doesn't???), there are so many papers with hearts you can choose from! For this card, I used the following papers:




So Valentine's day is a good opportunity to celebrate love... as long as we don't forget about it the rest of the year!

I hope you like it!

Supplies:

Why I {heart} fondue...

... or the story of an inspiration...

But before that, I wanted to take the opportunity and say a big thank you to Puccarina for the amazing gifts she sent me last week! Take a look and you can get jealous (hehehe). Here are her own photos because I really love the ways she has presented the felt cats she made!

She is doing amazing things with the felt, and imagine that she did everything from scratch, even the design! For more photos and information you can visit her blog here.

She also sent me one of my favourite of her cards, which you can find here. And here is the card:

Puccarina, thank you so very much, they are really gorgeous and they are decorating my living room already!! :D



So...

After a week away from my craft room due to a business trip, yesterday I wanted to make a layout. I saw the latest Greek Scrapbookers #26 challenge with the following colour combo and I liked it so much, I wanted to make something.

And then I read the theme... It is about food, and we are asked to scrap either about a recipe, or a photo of ourselves or someone else cooking... oops! problem! My relationship with my kitchen is minimal and I didn't have any photo to scrap!

I was looking at the colours a bit disappointed, thinking that I liked them very much and they were reminding me of something. And then I realised - my living room! (It took me a while, but hey, I was tired from the trip!). It was a pity I couldn't use a picture from my living room, it would be great for the colour combo.

And then I remembered something else. New Year's Eve, at my place, all the cousins around the coffee table eating fondue! (Yes, we do like informal New Year's Eves....). I looked for the photos and indeed, they were really good for the colour combo. So here is what I prepared:

Looking for a title to explain why I love fondue, I remembered something else - the latest Bird is the word challenge is about the word "Heart". And I do {heart} fondue, because as I explain in the journalling:

1. it's a slow process (or procedure? I always get confused!) and I enjoy both the food and the conversation with friends

2. you can choose from a variety of sauces and each one can cook their meat as much as they want, from rare to almost burnt

3. (and I have to confess the most important of all...) since I don't like cooking, it was a great solution for our New Year's Eve dinner! So the photo is from all of us cooking together ;ο)

I reached to the two Studio Calico kits I got a few weeks ago and mixed them. I have also subscribed to their "Stretch Your Kit" class and this week they have asked us to let our stamps be a tool for helping us place or add journaling on our page. And this is what I did - I used one of the kit stamps to make the three journaling spots.

I hope you like it!

Hugs,
Anastasia

Supplies:

Once Upon A Sketch & Get Creative Part 2

Hello from cold London!

Well, now that I'm writing this post I am in my sweet, warm home, but by the time this post will be published and you will be reading it, I will be in London, which I'm sure is going to be cold! ;o)

Soo... today I want to share with you the card that I made for the second February challenge from Once Upon A Sketch.

If you remember, for the month of February Get Creative and Once Upon A Sketch become sister blogs.... Which means that the creative teams of the two blogs exchange their positions in a matter of saying.

So for February 15, Nadia asks us the following:

Journalling criteria/theme: HOLIDAYS

Have you printed out all those photos from your last holiday or most favourite holiday? We would LOVE to see them and hear all about it. With the theme of holidays for this challenge, we would love to hear about:your favourite holiday of all time or a favourite place you would LOVE to holiday in . Or how about the last holiday you went to?  Maybe you have not traveled yet? Then tell us about your DREAM HOLIDAY. 


Remember that you are allowed to also create a card or altered project based on this sketch and instead of the journalling criteria you need to use a quote. 

You must combine our journalling criteria/theme with this sketch. 

From the start I knew I wanted to make a card for summer holidays, as I love them. As I was surfing the internet to find a quote, I found one which thought would be a good idea. First, because this is just the way I was feeling last summer, and second because it comes from Australia, just like Once Upon A Sketch ;o) So here's my card:

I had so much fun making a summer holiday in plain winter. I got to use my summer stamps and papers and do my favourite paper piecing technique. I followed the paper design to cut it and I put it together in a way to show with a dimension, with the waves and the summer holiday items coming out of it. I also used Black stickles on the flip-flops, which was a nice detail. Unfortunately, this time I don't have close-up photos to share with you, sorry about that!

I hope you like it!

Don't forget to visit both Get Creative and Once Upon A Sketch for amazing inspiration from the DT teams... and equally amazing prizes for the challenge winners.

Hugs,
Anastasia

My three furry kids

Hello!

Finally, I got some inspiration today... slowly, be steadily, finally it came. These last few days I had completely lost my mojo. The last couple of days I had too much work as well, and that was it. But this week I'll be away on a business trip (if the weather allows!), so I thought I should definitely do something this weekend. And here is what I came up with:

So I thought I should make a layout with my cats. The sketch is the following, which I found in Pinterest and caught my eye because it is quite different from what you usually find. Oh yes, I couldn't really get into Pinterest, but this week I got hooked as well!

Because I didn't have much inspiration, I kept changing this and that, adding and taking away photos, cutting and tearing papers... at the end I thought "ok, that is, you've got to have something done and finished today!"

Below a close up photo of the wooden heart that I painted with mist made with Distress Ink Reinker. I also stapled a small piece of ribbon on it:

And because I'm in love with the new My Mind's Eye papers, I thought I should use up the Stella & Rose ones that I have, and which are still my favourite ones...

For the journalling I used a tag that I cut on our last crop with Elvira's die cut. Isn't it cute?

I hope you like it!

Hugs,
Anastasia

Supplies:

Get Creative January "Clean and Simple" card winner

Good morning!

Today we have the winners of all the Get Creative January challenges!

First of all I would like to thank EVERYONE who participated in the challenges, it was really like a big party, what a great way to start the new year!

And then the difficult stuff came... we had to choose the winners! Of the 30 participation in the Clean and Simple card challenge, with so many really amazing participations, it was really difficult to choose only one winner!

But... a decision had to be made, so... for this challenge, the winner is Sophia_Chry with the following card which is simple, with clean lines, clever and very-very happy with an uplifting message (I always fall for uplifting messages!):

And to be sincere, I didn't know which of her cards to choose first! So here are her other two participations that I really liked as well:

Thank you for your participations Sofia, and I wish you enjoy your Guest Designer month at Get Creative in March (I'm sure you will!)

I also wanted to share with you some additional entries that made the choice quite difficult...

Erina

For her simple and clean, yet creative card that bring smiles on the face.


Despoina155

For her elegant card, painted in hand.


Maria Bokari

For her seriously cute card, with nice colours


Katerina

For making this sweet-sweet card from paper scraps!

Thanks everyone for your participations, even if you made my life difficult for a couple of days, hehehe

Hugs,

Anastasia

There's no place like home

Hello!

Today I want to share with you a card I made couple of days ago. It was too difficult to take a decent photo what with the awful weather lately! Well, yesterday was a good opportunity to take photos, but I was away on a crafty day at Aegina island, advancing with the crochet baby blanket no. 2. Thank you girls for the amazing company and our hostess for being so amazingly welcoming... Is it wrong envying her for living in Aegina???

Anyways... back to the card. I managed to make a few photos that are edible today, so here is the card:

I enjoyed so much making this card... and I'm happy with that, I was a bit concerned what with the layouts I was making lately ;o) But I had to use one of my favourite stamps I got lately from Purple Onion and Stephanie Ackerman. Aren't they lovely?

So, the inspiration came from Lily Pad Cards challenge that asks us to use pattern paper. You can get more inspiration by their amazing design team here.

So I used new and old paper pads (one paper pad was so "old" that I cannot find it anymore in the usual online stores... what is their lifecycle really???) and I enjoyed so much doing a lot of paper piecing, one of my favourite techniques. This time I had to cut too many details, but I wanted to try my new EK Success - Cutter Bee Scissors which is supposed to do great job when cutting details.

I'll tell you one thing: It is highly recommended... but keep it out of reach of children! I cut everything I wanted, with details, without destroying or crashing the paper, very quickly... but I also cut a bit my finger without even noticing, this is how well it cuts! Luckily it has a protective cover for when it is not used, so even if you do have children, you can have it with your craft tools ;ο)

The sketch is from Young Crafters Unite #6 latest challenge, asking us this time to use the following sketch:

And some close-ups:

For the cloud I used white flock which, luckily, wasn't as messy as I was afraid. As usual, I used Glossy Accent for the sun.

I hope you like it!

Supplies:

Bird is the word - Remember

Just as I was saying "it's time to make a card", the first order from Studio Calico arrived... Gone was my card mojo, so I sat down and made another layout!

This is the second photo of my nephew. They called us into the small room to see the mother, how she was doing, and then surprise! they brought the little one as well. The expressions on the mother's face were amazing, emotional when she saw all of us around her, afraid when they put the baby on her lap (it's her first baby!), wonder as she was looking at him. How could I not scrap the photo?

I have been ogling Studio Calico products for a while now, but since I wasn't making any layouts, I hadn't ordered anything. As the date of my nephew's birthday was approaching, I thought I might get my scrapbooking mojo and I did my first order. As soon as I saw the papers and the supplies live... and with all the photos that I have... well, I couldn't resist.

The paper with the lines suffered quite a lot. I teared it, threw it water, crinkled it... and then I misted it with white mist because the colour was a bit more intense than what I liked. It was hard to start treating it like this, but once I started, I really enjoyed it, it was almost... therapeutic I could say!

And some close-ups:

Also, the dots after the "Remember" word are from the chipboard letters as well, the leftovers from "o", and the small corners on the photo are the leftovers from the "e"'s.

The layout is for the Bird is the word challenge to use the word "Remember". They also provide the following sketch, which is not required for the challenge, but it has helped me since I'm new to this.

That's all... I hope you like it!

Now that I am a bit more relaxed and have a bit more time, I will start again with the list of the supplies used. Supplies not included in the list are either included in Studio Calico kits, or are from my stash, and it is difficult for me to find links for these: