In The Shadows... By Hels

Goodly Morning Snazzyfans and a very happy day to you all!  This month we have been playing with the delicious Chalk Studio papers from My Minds Eye.  These papers are double sided (always a hit!) and the colours are right up my alley!   As well as the papers we have also had some fabby sentiments from Kaiser Craft and the one I have used on this creation is one of my faves!

I have altered an old shadowbox that had been languishing on the "things to alter heap" for way too long.  Starting by painting the frame with Pitch Black Dabber (applied with Cut & Dry foam) and once dried, I sanded it back to show some of the wood again.  Next I used Walnut Stain Distress Ink and blended it right over the top. I love the aged rustic finish this technique achieves.

I added some of the papers into the centre of the shadow box and distressed the edges, again using Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  I stamped the sentiment from the Confidence stamp set using Jet Black Archival ink and popped this onto 3d foam.  I cut a load of flowers from the other papers in the set and made 5 roses, attaching these, along with some leaves and spikey flowers to the inside of the shadow box using 3d glue and then adding some little metal embellies for decorations.  And there you have it.  A relatively quick creation that will most definitely be gracing the wall of the Room of Stash!

Thanks for looking, please do remember to check out the Snazzy website and scroll back through the rest of this months posts to see the amazing creations my teamies have made!  TTFN

Snazzys DT project 2 by Astrid

Hello everyone, welcome, lovely to see you here and as most of you will know, this month we are featuring the Enjoy Everyone paper kit by MME. We are also using some Kaisercraft clear stamps. 

Well this is my final project for Snazzys and before anything else I want to thank you for all your visits and support!! The sentiment on the cover of this project is what I wish  for all of you!!

This time decided to make a shaped card.
I started by cutting two Tim Holtz cabinet cards both out of Kraftcard and also four out of my chosen letters paper.
I inked around all the edges of my paper with Black Soot Distress Ink and then started to decorate the inside of the card first.

I cut two panels from Manila card stock to fit the inside of the cabinet cards and and cut the bottom edge with one of my Tim Holtz on the edge dies. I then created a background by doing some wrinkle free distress with Gathered Twigs, Vintage Photo and Antique Linen Distress Inks. I did some background stamping with various of the Kaisercraft Texture clear stamps and a script stamp from my stash.I distressed the edges and sponged Walnut Stain DI around. Here you can just see a little corner of the Manila card stock with the background.

Below you can see the right side finished.

As you can see I cut a piece of black card-stock for this side. For the other side I took one of the label stickers in the paper collection I stamped and embossed my chosen sentiment in Wow Vanilla White embossing powder for both sides.

Finally I embellished with some die cut leaves and flowers, some curly ribbon etc. and added some high lights with Treasure Gold in White Fire

I created a little spine for my card out of black card stock, scoring 1/4" scorelines down the center to leave room for my embellishments and to ensure the card could still be folded close.

I then cut two lengths of ribbon and glued them to the outside of my card and then adhered my second two die cut bits of papers over them. I inked around the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink again and decorated the front with another couple of stickers  from the paper collection, the label one was again embossed with the Wow white embossing powder. The little dove sticker I just gave a little eye with a black pen to bring it out a bit more.

Well that's it. Hope you like my shaped card, it's going to a friend who is going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment and I hope it will cheer her up a bit.

Thank you again and I hope to see you elsewhere in Blogland. Don't forget to come back on Monday for Hels's post!

Snazzys DT project #1 by Astrid

Hello and welcome lovely Snazzy visitors! Well, today is somewhat of a bitter-sweet day, as this will be my one but last project for this design team. Like Gillian and Lesley, life has pulled me in different directions.....

But without further ado, today I'm showing my first project for this week using the fab Chalk Studio/MME - Enjoy Everyone paper kit and the clear stamps from Kaisercraft we have been featuring this month.

I decided to make a pocket card with several tags and a little envelope to hold a gift card. I made my card in shabby chic style to form a contrast to the bold chalk board stickers and tags that come with this fabulous collection.
Here you can see the inside:

So how did I go about making it?
Well I picked some of the lighter coloured papers, cut them down to size (my card is 6 x 6") so I cut the papers to 5 3/4 by 5 3/4" and toned them down even more by spraying them with several layers of Dylusions White Linen. I then inked around the edges with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink, used various stencils and Weathered Wood Distress Ink, did some background stamping with a Darkroom Door script stamp and some of the Kaisercraft Texture stamps that are all stocked by Snazzys, and finally inked around it all again with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink.

For the outside I matted my chosen paper on Kraftcard and distressed the edges. I added some lace and then stamped one of the sentiments in Versamark and then embossed it in Wow Vanilla White embossing powder onto one of the labels that comes with the collection. I then embellished with a doily, some flowers and bits and pieces from my stash.

For the left inside I created two pockets and made a number of tags and a little money wallet (using a Tim Holtz die) to fit in the pockets:

The tag on the left has a stamped white embossed sentiment onto one of the stickers in the collection, the one on the right was a pre printed label that comes with the collection. Both are mounted on inked Kraftcard. The money wallet was cut from one of the papers which I had inked with Gathered Twigs again to match the Kraftcard.

Here on the right side, just one pocket with a flap. The tag was stamped again in the same way and embossed in white once more and then mounted again on Kraftcard.

For this project I have not made the description too detailed as I think the pictures pretty much speak for them selves and I did not want to bore you. If you have a question, please just email me or leave a comment.

Well, I hope you like my shabby pocket card, I will be back on Thursday with my final project for Snazzys. I wish to thank all of you for your wonderful support over the months!! Your lovely comments have been a joy to read!!

DT Project #1 by Minxy, Featuring:

My Minds Eye Chalk Studio

Hi Stampers, Thanks for baring with me and my delayed project share.

I decided to make a vid to share the album as there were so many elements.

which you can watch right here.

 and here are some pics to boot

I hope you like my very first attempt at a paperbag album, Any questions feel free to leave a comment here or on utube and i'll do my best to help xo And like I said in the vid I will do my best when i've time to get a tutorial done on how you make the album.

Astrid will be here Monday with more MME goodness.

Till next time... Stay Inky

Normal Minxy DT service will resume shortly!

See what happens when former blog boss Gillian leaves.. all hell breaks loose lol

But seriously peeps, Sorry for the lack of a proper blog post today.

I got my project finished last minute and then I was away to london for the Ally Pally show and i've not had 5 minutes to photograph it properly.. So today your getting a quick peek

 It's a paper bag album so requires lots of pics to see it all, which I promice will be on their way either tomorrow or wednesday at the latest.

I managed to nab a quick snap of the bosses standing around drinking coffee b4 the show opened yesterday. The calm b4 the storm as they say!

Right I best get on and get these album photos snapped.. catch ya later, gators

Snazzy's DT project #2 (by Lesley)

Hi everyone,

I hope the week is going well for you all so far and it's not long to the weekend now ;-)!

Well, this is it, my last DT project for the wonderful Snazzy's DT blog and I hope you like the card I have to show you today.  First, however, I forgot to remind you all in my Monday's post that if you leave a comment HERE on Gillian's first post with this kit, you will go into the random draw for a chance to win said fabby kit!

Again I chose to work with the lovely designs on the reverse of the lovely Chalk Studio/MME - Enjoy Everyone papers .......... there's some gorgeous dotty ones too!  I actually liked these papers so much I decided to design this card for a special friend who had a birthday last week so I got two for the price of one so to speak, lol!  Also, in honour of the fabulous Finnabair weekend at Snazzy's a couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a nod towards Anna's style.

I cut a 20 x 20 cm white cardbase, lightly inking the edges with Iced Spruce Distress Ink and adding a little bit of stencilling. I then cut a 19cm square from my chosen paper, heavily distressing the edges with various punches from my collection and a distressing tool and then inking the edges, again with the Iced Spruce.  I adhered this centrally to my cardbase with double sided tape.

I then chose an appropriate sticker from one of the sheets and stuck it to some Kraft card, trimming round it to leave a narrow border.  Next I took a couple of snippets left from my previous project and distressed and inked  the edges.  I embossed a piece of co-ordinating Core'dinations in a folder, sanded it and then added a little Treasure Gold gilding wax.  I also used a thin strip left from one of my used sheets which had a little border on.  I wanted it to look as though this strip came from behind the label but as I'd already stuck it down I cut a couple of little slits in the Kraft card and slotted it through.

Then followed quite a bit of faffing about deciding how I wanted to layer the various bits of card.  Sorry Anna, I'm still over thinking, lol!  Then followed some more faffing while I decided which embellishments I wanted to use (that always takes me forever), how I was going to layer them and where I was going to put them.

Some of the embellishments have touches of Treasure Gold to highlight but I omitted any inky spraying.

I stuck a circle of the designer paper to the bottom of a clear domed 'pebble' which gives a slightly magnified effect before adhering it to the cog.

So, there you have my final project which I thoroughly enjoyed making and which I hope you all enjoyed.  As always don't forget to leave a comment on THIS post if you would like to be in the random draw to win this fab DT kit.

Next week it's Minxy (aka Nicky) taking up the baton so don't forget to drop by and say Hi!

A final thank you and best wishes for the future to Val and Don (aka Snazzy's) and all my lovely teamies.... you are simply the best!

Once again, thank you all for your visits and comments over the past two years and I'll see you out there in crafty blogland soon.

Snazzy's DT project #1 (by Lesley)

Good Morning lovely Snazzy's visitors,

Today I'm showing my first project for this week using the fab Chalk Studio/MME - Enjoy Everyone paper kit and the same clear stamps from Kaisercraft that Gillian worked with last week which you can find here.

Whilst I love the chalk effect designs on these papers I also love the designs on the reverse so I decided to use those for my project and decorated a little set of MDF drawers which I use to store some of my lace collection.



  I began by painting the whole surface of the drawers with black acrylic paint (Frescos Little Black Dress).  I then chose two of the paper designs I wanted to cover the drawers with and cut out all the pieces so that they left a thin black border.  Before attaching with Cosmic Shimmer (dries clear) glue I distressed all edges and inked with Iced Spruce Distress Ink.  I used the same ink to add a bit of stencilling using the Hero Arts stencil from last month's kit.

I then cut out one of the chalk effect frames, stamped a quote from the Smile set of stamps with Versamark and heat embossed with Wow Brilliant White EP (I also used some bracket stamps from an ancient set in my stash) before adhering this to the top of the drawers.  I handcut some circle flowers from scraps of the papers I'd used and punched some leaves from co-ordinating Core'dinations card and arranged these around the frame.

Finally I cut a piece of one of my chosen papers to form a pocket on the back of the drawers and distressed the top edge and inked all the way round.  I stamped a quote from the Confidence set of stamps and heat embossed with the same embossing powder onto one of the sticker labels which I then attached to the pocket piece.  I then adhered this to the drawers with strong double sided tape.  I used this to hold some self-adhesive gems.

On Thursday I will be back with what will be my final DT project for Snazzy's DT.   After several months of shall I/shan't I, by coincidence I have ended up choosing the same month as Gillian to end my time as a member of what has been a wonderful team to work with.  The bosses have always sent us fabulous products to play with and I shall miss the anticipation of wondering what each month's parcel will contain and my teamies have been brilliant.  However, I have had increasing family demands on my time partly because my OH retired earlier this year and somehow seems to think I should spend more time with him, ....... can't imagine why ;D, lol!  As a result I find I have a room full of lovely stash and no time to play with it so I have decided to step down from the DT and have some personal 'play time'.  I would like to thank Val, Don and Gillian for selecting me as one of the original DT members, it's been great.  I'm glad that with the wonders of the internet, blogging, Twitter, etc., we will all stay in touch I am sure and I wish the bosses and all the team all the best for the future.  Gillian I know your hard work with your studies will pay off in the future!

Last but not least I want to thank all you lovely visitors who so kindly take time to leave comments.  Anyone who blogs will know how much they are appreciated and how much encouragement they give.  I'm sure I'll still be seeing you around t'internet on a regular basis but for now.............

NB  At the time of scheduling my posts the Snazzy's webshop is down for maintenance work.  If I get chance to come back and do the links before the post publishes I will but otherwise just about everything I used can be purchased from Snazzy's so just give them a call.