BasicGrey Challenges - Heather's Sketch

Hello and welcome to another BasicGrey Challenges. I hope those of you in the UK had a lovely half term break with the kiddie winks ? What did you get up to ? We have had a very exciting time in our caravan, a lovely break in Longleat and Poole and we managed to squeeze in a day at home to spend with our lovely friends and their children !

This week on BasicGrey Challenges, our wonderful teamie Heather, has designed an amazing sketch for us to follow.

The DP's are BasicGrey "Olivia". I have also used a small doily from my stash.

The image is by Lili of the Valley and she has been coloured with ProMarkers. I added (not very well mind you !) some liquid pearls for her necklace and (more successfully !) some glossy accents for the glass in the mirror.

The sentiment is from a set of stamps from TPC Studio.

The flowers, lace and pearls are all from my stash.

The rest of the Design Team's take on Heather sketch are fabulous. Please hop over and have a look and leave them some love.

There is a fabulous prize of a $25 shopping spree with Simon Says Stamp for the very lucky winner !

Thank you so much for your visit today and for any comments you may leave. They are always appreciated.

Have a great weekend.

Love 'n' hugs,

Simon Says Challenge - Punch It Out !

Thank you to everyone who joined in with our fabulous and worthwhile challenge last week for the Caring Hearts Card Drive. I am sure that all the cards sent will be much appreciated.



This week, our challenge is "Punch It Out" so we would love to see you all using your punches ! The Design Team this week are showcasing Hero Arts Stamps. Simon Says Stamp sells a huge, huge range of Hero Arts Stamps which come in the most amazing designs.



We are again joined by the amazing Dawny P as our Guest Designer.



The lucky winner will win a $25 shopping spree in the Simon Says Stamp Store !

The stamp I used is by Hero Arts and is called "Antique Background". Its a huge stamp but the great thing about it is that you can use as much or as little of the stamp as you want. The butterflies would be just perfect stamped on their own.

I used a mixture of distress inks for the background and the painting of the butterflies. I stamped the largest butterfly twice and cut it out. I added some Stickles to the wings.

The lace is by Prima.

The punch I used is a Martha Stewart punch called "pinking scallop".

The sentiment is from a clear Hero Arts stamp set called "Share Laughter". I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder.

The rest of the Design Team's card are gorgeous, you must hop over and see them and leave them some love !

We look forward to seeing how you use your punches. If you have any Hero Arts stamps, we would love to see them but you don't have to use them in this challenge we just wanted to show you how fabby they are !

Thank you for your visit and for any comments you may leave. They are really appreciated.

Love 'n' hugs,

Simon Says Challenge - Give Thanks

Here we are again ! Don't the week's fly by ?!

Thank you to everyone who took part in our receipe challenge last week, we hope you had as much fun as we did.

This week, our theme is to Give Thanks (or, Thanksgiving for those who haven't celebrated Thanksgiving yet!) Canadian Thanksgiving was last Monday, but American Thanksgiving is coming up on Nov. 25.

Also, we have been contacted by a lovely and very talented lady, Vera, who is organising a card drive to send Thanksgiving cards to the elderly who live alone or in nursing homes. The Design Team has sent all of their cards to Vera for the CARING HEARTS CARD DRIVE - we would love it if you would too!!!! Vera has also made a gorgeous card for the challenge.

Please support ♥ CARING HEARTS CARD DRIVE ♥, in our effort to collect Thanksgiving & Christmas cards to be sent to the elderly that lives in nursing homes or care center. Going on till November 15, 2010. Details & prizes information can be found HERE.

We are delighted to welcome the super talented Dawny P in the Designer Spotlight :-) Dawny will be joining us on the team for the next 4 weeks :-) I am sure you all know THE Pink Piggywiggy and if you don't ,,, where have you been ?? Welcome aboard Dawny :-)


There is a fantastic prize of a $25 shopping spree in the Simon Says Stamp Store - what a great way to stock up on your early Christmas pressies (for yourself of course ;o) !!).





The DP's are BasicGrey "Capella"

The image and sentiment are from a set of Inkadinkado stamps called "Friendship"

The flowers are all by Hero Arts.

The pearls, lace and flower centres are from my stash.

We hope that you can join in our challenge this week and support Vera in her quest to send the elderly lots and lots of beautiful cards.

Thank you for your visit today.

Guest Designer for A Pocket Full of Posies

Ahhh this is my last card as Guest Designer for A Pocket Full of Posies. Thank you so much ladies for having me on your team for October, I have loved it.

This fortnight, the challenge is "Champagne and Roses" so a celebration card, it can be for any type of celebration.

The lucky winner will win a $10 voucher from The Pixie Cottage !

The DP's are the gorgeous Websters Pages which I have distressed the edges of and I went round them with a gold leaf pen.

The image is "Secretive Tilda" and she has been coloured with ProMarkers.

The flowers are Prima flowers and everything else is from my stash !

The rest of the DT's cards are just amazing, a real inspiration.

We look forward to seeing your celebration cards.

Thank you for your visit and for any comments you may leave.

Take care and have a good week and I hope to be back soon !

Love 'n' hugs,

BasicGrey Blog Candy # 29

Well, here we are again with another fantastic BasicGrey Blog Candy courtesty of Simon Says Stamp !

Just look at these amazing goodies you could win !

So, what do you have to do to win my candy ? Some of you will be used to it by now but for those first timers, here goes :

Well, there are no strict rules and the comments I make below are not compulsory to enter this draw but it would be nice if :

You could give your support to Simon Says Stamp, BasicGrey Challenges and myself by becoming a follower if you are not already. Links to both of these are in my sidebar.

Add my blog candy to your sidebar and please feel free to "take away" my blinkie

Join in with us at BasicGrey Challenges and also Simon Says Stamp's challenge blog, Simon Says Challenge ! You can combine challenges with both of these challenge blogs which is great news ! Links to both of these are in my sidebar and relevant posts.

This blog candy will be open to everyone Worldwide (including all DT members of both challenge blogs) until Sunday 31st October when I shall draw a winner with a random number generator and post a new fabby blog candy for you to enter.

To make it much quicker for me to choose a winner, I am using inlinkz but there is a catch !!!Every fortnight I shall ask you a question and I would like you to answer that question after your name. It will be a one word answer so not difficult.

I would be interested to find out : Best glue you have used ?!

For example, you would type your answer as Jo Nevill (hot glue gun)

Anyone not leaving the answer to my question in inlinkz will have their name deleted to stop spammers and also people only entering for the sake of it (if you know what I mean and I don't wish to be rude in anyway).

I would like to give a huge thank you to both Heidi and Steph of Simon Says Stamp for giving me this fantastic candy again for you to win.

BasicGrey Blog Candy Winner

Here we are again ! Time to announce the lucky winner of my BasicGrey Blog Candy.

The lucky winner is......

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

4 - Glo

Timestamp: 2010-10-17 10:09:10 UTC

Many congratulations !

BasicGrey Challenges - Autumn/Harvest Time

Helllooo and welcome to another BasicGrey Challenges ! It was so lovely to see so many of you play along with us in our last challenge of sparkle.

I would just like to give a little reminder though, we had a lot of entries to the last challenge that unfortunately couldn't qualify for the prize which was kindly sponsored by Simon Says Stamp, the reason being is that so many of you didn't use any BasicGrey products :(, we are a BasicGrey Challenge blog after all and our main rule is that you MUST use at least 1 item from BasicGrey somewhere on your creations to qualify for a prize, so please do try to remember this, as we hate to see so many of you loose out on a chance to win a fab prize :(

Now, onto this week's challenge. This week we want to see an Autumn/Harvest theme.

I tried (well had to) keep it clean and simple this week but do you know, I don't know why I bothered ! The card I made actually took me longer than using an image, colouring it and adding the tons of layers and embellies !!! It just goes to show what an art it is to keep things clean and simple and I hope that one day, I shall master that art ! I just adore those cards you see in Cards Magazine and Embellish Magazine, just stunning.

Anyway, here is the pest that took me all that time !

The DP's are BasicGrey Pyrus which are so yummy.

The stamps are by TPC Studio and are called "Autumn Harvest". The sentiment is also from the same set

The lace is some Prima lace.

The pearls are from my stash.

There is a terrific prize of a $25 shopping spree with Simon Says Stamp for the lucky winner.

We look forward to you joining us this week just please remember to use some BasicGrey !!! Did you know that if you go onto the BasicGrey website you can even get digi papers now ? Check it out !!

Have a great weekend and I hope to be back soon.

Simon Says Challenge - A Recipe

Good morning ! How are you all on this drab October morn ?

Well, I'm missing you all and missing looking at all your blogs. I'm up to my eyes in commissions at the moment which is just fantastic and totally amazing and I'm defo not complaining but it does tend to drag me off the computer which means I don't see you all very often. Never mind, at least I shall be catching up with some of you in person at the NEC in November - can wait !!

Anyway, onto this week's Simon Says Challenge.

Firstly, we would like to welcome a new Design Team Member to the Simon Says Stamp family. I am sure you all know Mandy aka A Sprinkling of Glitter and if by any chance you don't then you should visit her FABULOUS blog !!! WOW !! :-) Welcome Mandy x x :-)

This week we have an EASY NO COOK RECIPE CHALLENGE for you ,,, just the kind we like eh
3 types of embellishments, 2 patterned papers (and a plain colour for layering if you like) and 1 image




The three types of embellishment are : the ribbon, the flowers and bell which are all from my stash.

The two patterned papers are from the Basic Grey collection "Jovial".

The one image is by Penny Black "In a Pear Tree"


There is a fantastic prize of a $25 shopping spree in the Simon Says Stamp Store for the lucky winner.

You must see what the DT have come up with - very inspiring. It is also Jay-Jay's last week with us as a Guest Designer so thank you Jay-Jay for your lovely creations.

Hopefully I will be back with you soon with something to show you !

Thank you for your visit, it was lovely to see you again.

Love 'n' hugs,

Jo xxxxxx

Simon Says Challenge - Halloween !

It's time to get all scary over at Simon Says Challenge ! Our theme this week is Halloween !

The DT are showcasing embossing folders and have some terrific examples for your inspiration. If you have any embossing folders, we would love to see them but it isn't compulsory for this challenge.

There is a fantastic prize of a $25 P&P free shopping spree for the lucky winner with Simon Says Stamp.

The DP's I used are BasicGrey "Eerie".

The Tilda I used is from the Magnolia Halloween collection and she has been coloured with ProMarkers.

I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder "Spiders Webb" I embossed some black card and then covered it with Pearl Perfect Pearls to give it a moonlight appearance.

The ribbon and charm are from my stash.

The letters are from a sheet of Jenni Bowlin letters I bought from Ally Pally.

You can of course buy lots and lots of very spooky items from Simon Says Stamp !

Jay-Jay is joining us again this week as our fabby Guest Designer.

Thank you for your visit and for any comments you may leave. Sorry its a late post again, I'm still having problems with my PC being sooooo slow. I got the Hubs on the case this morning and it seems I have about 50 programs all running at the same time so he has weeded about 49 of them out and hopefully I can be speedy again !!

We look forward to seeing all your spooky and scary creations this week.

Pocket Full of Posies - Guest Designer !

Another sorry for you today - what is wrong with Blogger at the moment or is it just my slow PC ? Enough of tearing my hair out.......

I was absolutely thrilled when Sandie emailed me and asked if I would be October's Guest Designer for Pocket Full of Posies. Thank you so much again, what an honour.

The theme for challenge #8 is Autumn Leaves, we would like to see you using Autumn colours and some kinds of leaf on your project.

The DP's are by Imaginisce and are called "Apple Cider".

The image is a Sugar Nellie/Funky Kits stamp from their Autumn Kit which I adore. She is coloured with ProMarkers.

The leaves are by Prima.

The sentiment and the acorn image are from a TPC Studio clear stamp set called "Autumn Harvest".

The seal is a Cats Life Press stamp.

I have also added some Cinnamon Stickles around the DP's for some sparkle. Just love this colour.

The rest of the DT's projects are just amazing and I feel so honoured to be playing along with them on this challenge. Thank you for having me !

Thank you for your visit today and for any comments you may leave. We look forward to seeing your Autumn projects.

Time to Play !

I had time to play this afternoon, doesn't happen very often so I made the most of it ! It was also World Cardmaking Day yesterday so I wanted to do my bit sometime over the weekend.

I also bought this new Anya set called "Special Autumn" and couldn't wait to have a play and after seeing the challenge over at Anyone for Anya where its a 1-2-3 receipe challenge, what better excuse did I need to get inky ?!

I also followed Paula's great sketch over at Sketch Saturday.

After a little hop, I found these challenges too !

Crafty Calendar Challenge - Autumn Birthdays
Stampin for the Weekend - Autumn Inspiration



The DP's are Cosmo Cricket "Wanted" - oooooh so yummy !

Anya is coloured with ProMarkers.

The sentiment was heat embossed in white embossing powder for a change.

The lace is from my stash.

The leaves are Prima and the little flowers I picked up from Ally Pally (somewhere !!).

The 1-2-3 receipe is 1 image, 2 DP's and 3 embellies, flowers, leaves and pearls.

I hope you found time to have a play this weekend too.

Thank you so much for your visit and for any comments you may leave, they always mean so much.

Hugs to you all and see you again soon,

BasicGrey Blog Candy # 28

Well, here we are again with another fantastic BasicGrey Blog Candy courtesty of Simon Says Stamp !

Just look at these amazing goodies you could win !

So, what do you have to do to win my candy ? Some of you will be used to it by now but for those first timers, here goes :

Well, there are no strict rules and the comments I make below are not compulsory to enter this draw but it would be nice if :

You could give your support to Simon Says Stamp, BasicGrey Challenges and myself by becoming a follower if you are not already. Links to both of these are in my sidebar.

Add my blog candy to your sidebar and please feel free to "take away" my blinkie

Join in with us at BasicGrey Challenges and also Simon Says Stamp's challenge blog, Simon Says Challenge ! You can combine challenges with both of these challenge blogs which is great news ! Links to both of these are in my sidebar and relevant posts.

This blog candy will be open to everyone Worldwide (including all DT members of both challenge blogs) until Saturday 16th October when I shall draw a winner with a random number generator and post a new fabby blog candy for you to enter.

To make it much quicker for me to choose a winner, I am using inlinkz but there is a catch !!!Every fortnight I shall ask you a question and I would like you to answer that question after your name. It will be a one word answer so not difficult.

I would be interested to find out : Autumn colours or Christmas colours ?

For example, you would type your answer as Jo Nevill (Autumn Colours)

Anyone not leaving the answer to my question in inlinkz will have their name deleted to stop spammers and also people only entering for the sake of it (if you know what I mean and I don't wish to be rude in anyway).

I would like to give a huge thank you to both Heidi and Steph of Simon Says Stamp for giving me this fantastic candy again for you to win.

Winner - Blog Candy # 27

I'm sorry for the delay in drawing my blog candy. Blogger has been playing me up everytime I've had the chance to do the draw but now he has decided to play ball !

The winner of my BasicGrey Blog candy is ......

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers: 42 - Yvonne Russell

Timestamp: 2010-10-03 14:57:21 UTC

Many congratulations Yvonne. Good luck next time everyone !

Hugs,

Jo xx

BasicGrey Challenges - Sparkle and New Design Team Members

Phew, what a week it has been, full of surprises, puzzles and very busy as usual. Still, its lovely to see the sunshine this morning after Thursday and Friday were such washouts, that always makes us feel chirpier !

Well, not only do we have a new challenge for you over at BasicGrey Challenges today but we also have four new Design Team Members ! Hop over to the Challenge Blog to meet them and have a look at their fantastic cards for this challenge. Would also be lovely if you could leave them a comment to make them feel at home !

Our challenge is SPARKLE so we want to see as much bling as you can muster on one creation (or two if you like !!).

There is a terrific prize of a $25 shopping spree with our sponsor, Simon Says Stamp !



As I used a Lili of the Valley stamp, I followed Bev's sketch over at the Lili of the Valley Challenge Blog for this card so I can also enter their challenge for the first time ever !

I am also entering these challenges :

Charisma Cardz - Christmas

Creative Inspirations - Christmas

Everybody-Art Challenge - Friends

The DP's I used are the new BasicGrey Christmas papers, Jovial. I was a bit unsure about them at first after using Wassail and Eskimo Kisses but I have grown to love them as they work so well together and have a vintage feel about them.

The image is from Lili of the Valley and I picked this up at Ally Pally (well, I had to fight for it at Ally Pally is the more appropriate wording !!). The lovely, super talented Jacqui was there demo-ing for all her worth and if you didn't know already, her cards are just stunning. I studied her colouring closely for this card as its actually quite intricate and I was bit unsure when it was in black and white as to which bits were which !!! The colouring has been done with ProMarkers.

I also added oodles of glamour mist to parts of the image and for a snow effect.

The sentiment is by Waltzingmouse Stamps.

The lace and buttons are from my stash.

The gorgeous, sparkly foliage in the corner is Antique Mistletoe (Raspberry) by Prima and I fixed a brown bow and some raffia to it.

We look forward to seeing all your sparkly creations and hope you can come along and play !

Thank you so much for your visit and for any comments you leave.

Have a great Saturday whatever you are doing !