September Challenge

For this months challenge go HERE. This post will stay at the top until the challenge closes. For new posts, scroll down..

Win 44 Aquamarker Pens

Here's a chance for one of you to win 44 Aquamarkers from Letraset, including the 20 brand new colours that have just been released.  These are water based pens, the colours can be vibrant, or pastel as in the sample below. You get a water based blender with them, or you can use a brush dipped in water.  

Apply the colour direct from the pen onto watercolour paper, or good quality cartridge paper, or scribble colour onto a craft sheet and pick up with your blender or brush. The good news is that these markers are now available in Michaels in the USA, and you can use a coupon! They have two nibs, a bullet tip and a wedge tip for larger areas. You need to store them horizontally, unlike the ProMarkers which can be stored vertically

I will add the lighthouse stamp I used - a new design stamp from Docrafts in the UK, just used for this project..

You will get:

Set 1: Flame Red, Sepia, Gold Ochre, Straw Yellow, Bamboo, Celery, Fern Green, Aquamarine, Twilight Blue, Royal Purple, Rose Carmine, Lamp Black

Set 2: Sangria, Scarlet, Mahogany, Mocha, Eggshell, Sunburst Yellow, Cream, Frost Blue, Wisteria, Puce, Deco Peach, Cherry Blossom

and 20 BRAND NEW colours:

Plum Blush, Dusky Plum, Saltwater, Vintage Blue, Iceberg, Deep Sapphire, Viridian, Marigold, Pebble Grey, Lagoon, Amazon Haze, Pink Champagne, Vintage Rose, Rusted Red, Carrot, Granite, Bitterwood, Chamois, Oak, Quicksand

2 blender pens

All you have to do is go over to the Letraset blog to see my post, and the videos and posts by Jak, Jessica and Debbie on using these pens, then pop back here to leave your name. Don't forget to look at their posts on the neon markers as well, these are waterbased, so the techniques used will apply to these markers. I am sure you will pick up all sorts of useful tips

 I will mail to anywhere in the world, and will draw a random winner on Thursday 4th October

Good luck!

A Christmas Scene

 I promise this will be the last Christmas card for at least a week! Here's one I made before I left home, using Memory Box dies. The paper is from the SEI Kris Kringle stack (purchased just for this one paper, I love it), the moon is a stamped circle, and the dies were cut in white, then run through the zyron to add glue, then glittered, so in real life it is really sparkly

Overheard in a long queue at a shop yesterday, a woman talking to her friend on the phone saying she had had a bad night. Apparently her five year old woke up at 3AM and demanded to watch a Michael Jackson DVD, so of course she put it on for him (as any insane responsible parent would do - what the little darling wants, the little darling gets........) then he wanted to watch something else (she probably put the  Exorcist or some other suitable little programme on for him), and finally fell asleep at 6 AM. She was MOANING that she felt exhausted. Never mind the poor child, falling asleep at his desk in school. I had to bite my tongue so hard, none of my business of course.......but really, some people have the parenting skills of a wombat, rant over!

At last, the promised Letraset giveaway will be up tomorrow, check in and see

Christmas Cards

Here's a few cards I made for the Craftwork Cards blog, all using their products, including the embossed cardstock and messages. The snowflake flowers and deer are die cuts from their marvellous Christmas ornaments pad. They are all very simple, but I was happy with them........

The laptop has been fixed - it was just clogged up with all sorts of rubbish. 'What a dirty little computer' said the very nice person who was busy cleaning it up. I felt as if I should rush and get a can of pledge and a duster, until I realised she was talking about all the programmes I have accumulated (not X rated, just a lot of unnecessary stuff clogging up the system!) In the meantime, with laptop and hot water restored to good health, the water in our shower suddenly refused to run, so yet another expensive call out to the plumber to replace some part or other - why couldn't it have gone the previous day when we had already paid them $$$ to grace us with their company? But no, life isn't like that, not in this house, this week anyway  

I have a serious amount of stuff to do in my crafty garage, but inspiration is failing. I think I left my mojo behind in the UK, so I am reduced to a bit of thumb twiddling and panic.....

See you tomorrow

Christmas IS coming........

Well, an interesting couple of days here - the laptop continues to be stubborn and   

I can't upload, so the Letraset giveaway will have to wait until next week - worth waiting for though. It's going to be repaired tomorrow, so I will be back in business

In the meantime, here's a Christmas card I made before leaving home, the circle card was cut with Wild Card on the Cricut, I cut another card in white and then snipped a random wavy line so that it looks like sauce on the pudding. The mice were made with circles and ovals from the George cartridge, holly leaves from Christmas Cheer. Mice faces are from Peachy Keen

On a Thursday, I go to meet up with my craft group, and always call them before I leave home to see who wants coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Armed with the list, I go to the drive through. I must stop doing that and go inside, the order is always unrecognizable as the one I gave. A large iced caramel latte, a large hot caramel latte and an iced coffee with cream morphed in a mysterious way into three small hot coffees with no cream. Even when I am face to face with them, as soon as I open my mouth a puzzled look of incomprehension crosses their youthful faces. Now I don't have a strong regional accent, I just speak the Queens English! I found myself yesterday trying to speak in a fake American accent just to make myself understood. I am not sure what part of America I originated from, but it sounded like 'a caarmel cwowffee, iced cwowffee with crem, hod caarmel ladde'. No, they didn't understand that either, sigh, back to speaking very very slowly with a 'watch my lips' look on my face.........

Sunshine lovely sunshine.....

Here's another card from a past issue of Papercraft Inspirations magazine, a garden theme this time. I used Memory Box clouds and grass, and some prima flowers with some (naked, tut tut) buttons in the centers. I have a thing about unthreaded buttons, but these little ones were just so tiny only cotton would have gone through the holes, and would hardly be noticed, so I took the easy way out and didn't bother!

Yes, the coffee was lovely, but most of all I am enjoying the lovely warmth of the sun, I know that people who live in Florida year round are longing for cooler days with less humidity, but to me it feels like a blessing on my body, I love hot sunshine! Mind you, it does feel a bit sticky in the garage, which is where I craft. All unpacking is done, I have no excuse, I have a dozen projects that must be done soon. Maybe after I take a little trip to Michaels and JoAnns.............

My daughter in law sent this photo of Monty all dressed in his school uniform ready for his first morning at nursery school. He looks so sweet, and a bit scared as well - it's a big deal for a little boy who was only three in June

I'll be back tomorrow with a Letraset giveaway, be sure to drop by

Hello America

First of all, the winner of the neon markers, drawn from all the comments left on the post on Letraset's blog is:

Joan Murphins

Congratulations Joan, email me your address and your markers will be in the mail 

Here's one I made for this month's edition of Papercraft Inspirations magazine, on sale now in the UK, very soon in the rest of the world. I had to make four quick cards with a chocolate theme, and decided dipped strawberries would be good for one of them....

Here we are back in the USA - number of times security made me open my case to examine Nestability dies - three, number of times I sat next to a snoring guy (not my husband!) - two, number of times I fell asleep when at last I had a chance to do so - zero. So all in all, a pretty average journey really, and an average sort of settling in period as well, the computer sulked about being put on endless conveyor belts, the water heater didn't realise it's summer vacation was over and refused to heat any water.....never mind, I plan a quick trip to Dunkin Donuts tomorrow, that will make everything right

Cupcakes

I used the lovely cupcakes from the Picknix CD by Polkadoodles for this one, don't they look yummy? I love the little label sentiments as well. Nikky has a brand new Christmas CD out  now called Gingerbread Twist, my copy should be arriving soon, so look out for some Christmas ideas, and don't forget, they ship free to anywhere in the world

I have been like a whirling dervish this weekend, finishing off some projects with short deadlines, cleaning the tornado alley that passes for my craft space, packing, cleaning, more packing of stuff I'd forgotten about, more cleaning, oops, nearly forgot my nestabilities, more cleaning........get the picture? I have a relaxing hour in the hairdressers tomorrow, hope I don't snore! 

Feeling lucky?

I have been really really busy this week, doing a lot of stuff that I can't share with you - yet, but I made a card with some  brand new markers from Letraset -  perfect for the fashion for all things neon that's going on in the crafting world at the moment. They are water based AquaMarkers, so fit in with that range. I have the whole set of six new neon pens to give away to someone......

All you have to do is go over to the Letraset blog HERE to see my post on the markers, leave a comment there, and  I will pick a winner from the comments on the Letraset blog under my card,  and post it here on Going Buggy on Tuesday the 18th. No need to come back here today to leave another comment, unless you want to of course, I'll put the kettle on just in case. 

The card over on the Letraset blog is very bright, but just to give you an idea of how soft the colours can look, I coloured this stamp directly onto the rubber with the neon markers, spritzed it with water and stamped onto watercolour paper...very easy to do, and a lovely soft watercolour effect 

Getting Inky

Last week I was messing around with Letraset's Alcohol Inks. Have you ever played with these alcohol inks? You get such great results very quickly for interesting backgrounds, and it's a bit addictive.....

You simply dab the ink onto glossy paper (I used Poundland photo paper), for this first one, I let the inks run, and find their own way around the paper..... 

You get a totally different look if you use foil papers............

For this next one, I sprayed rubbing alcohol (available from Poundland, dollar stores and pharmacy counters) onto the finished piece, it removes the colour and  adds a pleasing starry look to the piece.....

and this one is an explosion of colour, I rather like it as a piece of pop art!

and here's a card made with some finished photo paper. Do you see the crackle finish to the flowers? That happened spontaneously when I used a heat gun to the inked photo paper, no other liquids or expensive crackle paints were used....

We have had a lovely weekend, visiting all our family. I love this photo of Kiki and Monty............

Max and Milo didn't really stay still in one place long enough to have a photo taken, but I did get a shot of their artwork - they decided Pops needed a tattoo, so painted one on his arm (luckily it was water soluble paint)

We baby sat them on Saturday. Three year old Milo wasn't impressed....

Who do you want to read your bedtime story Milo? Me or Pops?

Mummy

Well, Mummy isn't here darling. Me or Pops?

Daddy

Daddy isn't here is he?

I read mine own story said the tiny tyrant, shutting his bedroom door very firmly
All was quiet for about five minutes, then footsteps on the stairs....

BE QUIET, I trying to read!

Peace for another five minutes, then more footsteps, and a little hand slipped into mine 

I can't read anymore, I tired of reading now, will you read me "The Tiger Who Came to Tea" please Ma?

Awww, instant heart melting grandmotherly moment...

See you tomorrow

Clean and Simple

I like the way this turned out - I am not very good at clean and simple cards, always wanting to add just one more flower/button/brad.....the balloons were cut from Create a Critter, first in black for the strings, then in different pattern papers. The window box is a memory box die....

sentiment is one of my favourite studio G dollar stamps, I love the font.....

the first balloon is flat on the card, everything else was popped up.......

We are off to London for the weekend to see all the kids before we do the long haul back to the USA in a few days time. I was putting out my dressing gown (robe) ready to pack, and smiling as I remembered a conversation with Max last time we saw him
I don't like your pink dressing gown Ma, he announced
Don't you? Well pink is for girls really isn't it?
Don't be silly Ma, you're not a girl

Too true Max, so very very true....at what age does diplomacy kick in?

September Challenge - Ho ho ho

Well I suppose we ought to start thinking of Christmas.....so this month, I want you to make a Christmas card in non traditional colours, you can use white as I have, but no red or green

I used a chipboard card base from Craftwork Cards, and built a wreath from punched snowflakes....

This month, thanks to our generous sponsors Letraset, two winners will each get a fine tips set of 5 ProMarkers, all with fine nibs - these convert the ProMarker pens into very fine pens, so you can write sentiments and colour the smallest details with precision - genius! You can choose the set you want, so it will fit into your collection perfectly.....

Only a few rules. The challenge will run until the end of September, one winner will be picked as my favourite card of the month, and another will be a random draw from all the entries. 
They must be new cards made for the challenge, no back linking to old cards on your blog please, and you must link back to Going Buggy in your blog post. 
You can enter as many times as you like, as long as each card is one made just for the challenge
As always, I don't like to see people without blogs being left out, so if you can't put your card into a photo album like Picassa and load it from there, send me an email and I will put it on here for you

Good luck!

by email from Marlene Kiley

From Deborah Siddle by Email

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The Winners are.....

Oh dear me. This job gets harder by the month. I really, really had a very difficult time choosing a favourite from all the lovely girlie entries for this months challenge. Thank you all so much. In the end, I chose this card by

Jenny

a little wardrobe (pink of course), that opens up........

to reveal a little mirror and all sorts of cute things hanging up.....

and the name that came up in the random draw was one of the email entries

Marlene Kiley 

with this cute card.....

Then I did the random draw for the ProMarker Autumn colours set, the number that came up belonged to

Nannapat

Congrats to the three of you, please email me with your address and a telephone number

There will be a new challenge posted tomorrow or later today if I get my act together

Christmas Birdhouse

I thought it was time to have a good look at the TBBM2 cartridge, so I played around with it - my verdict? Well the boxes are very cute, but the ones I tried were so small, difficult to know what you would use them for really. I do love the shape of this little box though and I had fun making it. I thought I would turn it into a little birdhouse............  

the bird tag looks cute with googly eyes....... I tore some white card and glittered it to look like snow along the sides. The sentiment says Merry Christmas. Now I just need to find a gift that's small enough to fit the box - talk about putting the cart before the horse! The box was cut at the maximum size of 6"

and I cut out a little birdhouse for each end of the box. The white sprigs are from the Memory Box bare trees die

I will be picking the winners of the August challenge over the weekend, their names will be here on Sunday, then on Monday we will start the September challenge....hope you all have a great weekend