Lilac and Lemon - hmm

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! Today I'd like to share my entry for this week's blog challenge over at Passion for ProMarkers - Lovely Lilacs and Lemons. Looking at the challenge title, I may have taken things a bit too literally. We were allowed to add touches of other colours (skin, hair, grass, sky etc) but apart from that you have to stick to the two colours as stated.

Bookatrix Mother's Day card featuring Morehead "Girl" stamp 

This card is actually my sixth attempt at the theme but I didn't like how the others turned out (this is the only completed card) I'm sure I'll be able to salvage some usable elements from the reject pile. I'd always planned on using this Crafter's Companion stamp set Morehead's "Girl" for my mum's card, I'm going to do the matching "Boy" stamp on my mum-in-law's card at some point, but I hadn't thought to use the lemon/lilac combo. Being so restricted reminded me of my early days of ProMarker colouring because I had to use the saturation method to get any tonal difference in the colours, the image is flatter than it would be if I'd used a light, medium and dark yellow or purple but I rather liked the challenge of getting the colour differences in the image just using one colour - I did this all the time before getting the full range of pens. The pansy was made using the Build A Pansy stamp set by DoCrafts, it's about a gazillion years old so I don't think it's still available, and coloured in using Lilac, Lemon and Burnt Sienna Promarkers - this colour combination with the addition of Tan was also used to colour the girl image *forgot to mention the Cool Grey 2 that I used to ground the image - sorry*. The paper lace was made by punching out white card using a Martha Stewart lace punch then colouring it with lemon or lilac ProMarkers. The mum stamp was free with a stamping mag. The lemon and lilac gems were from The Works. The cardstock was from Crafter's Companion or rather from a prize I won from QCME for a card competition but it didn't say what sort of card it is. I used the Glitter Girls Bookatrix embossing board and tool to dry emboss the book shapes which I cut out with scissors.

I've made a matching box to put the card in (mainly because one of my original ideas for this challenge was to make a card featuring just the pansies), I added extra pen on the edges of the paper lace to give it a two tone appearance.

Here are some more photos.

I can't say that this has been the easiest of challenges but it has been very satisfying. I'm rather pleased to have made a card using only 5 different ProMarkers, though I'm not sure I'd stick quite so rigidly to the colour combo next time (I'm sure others will have used the light/medium/dark combo - it's highly likely that lilac and lemon have featured in the seasonal ProMarker selections which I don't own). I hope my mum likes it :)

I shall be working on the "Boy" card this weekend so hopefully I'll have another card to share with you soon. As always if you have any comments or questions then please leave them below or why not click onto my Facebook page and come say hi - I'd like that! Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Storage Solutions for ribbons, baker's twine and crochet lace (plus a few odds and ends)

Hello crafty peeps - welcome to my crafty nook! Hands up all you who'd prefer to spend their crafting pennies and pounds on craft goodies rather than craft storage? Me too! As much as I would like the posh custom made for crafting storage the fact of the matter is that the majority of it is way beyond my price range but with a little imagination and a lot of creative thinking, everyday items can be turned into craft storage.

My first craft storage solution I'd like to share is reusing sweetie jars, this one is an old Quality Street jar but if you go to an old fashion sweetie shop and ask nicely they'll often give you their old jars for free as they have to pay the council to recycle them (I was told this by the owner of a sweet shop when I was making rose buttonholes for all my wedding guests - the jar was the perfect place to store the finished paper roses). Just wash in hot soapy water and leave to dry and they are ready to hold whatever you wish - I've used mine to store my unused baker's twine.

My second idea started life as a peg basket from the pound shop, you can't see in the photos but this basket has a handle with a hook on it and I usually have it suspended from the shelf above my desk. I wanted some new pegs but didn't want to use the basket for them as I'd made one years ago out of a tea towel and coat hanger. I've seen ribbon storage boxes with holes cut out to thread the ribbons through and I thought this peg basket would be great to store my loose ribbons and trims. I've only threaded one side with ribbon so you can see how it originally looked but as I have it suspended above my desk I normally have both sides threaded. It's a great way to store all those short pieces of ribbon without them getting tangled and it's surprisingly roomy.

My final storage solution is actually a jewellery "tree". I was given it last Christmas and although I really liked it I knew I wouldn't use it for jewellery as I like to keep mine in it's original packaging or in a case. Because it was a gift I wanted to keep it and decided that it would be the perfect place to store packets of ribbon, trims, gems and other odds and ends where a hanger opening is build into the packaging - I've even threaded ribbon spools onto cord and hung them from the arms! You'd be amazed at how much you can pack onto something that's not very big, I tend to put 8 -10 items onto each arm and as there are 6 arms I've got my gems and pearls on one and different trims and ribbons on others depending on type and colour.

I hope this post has given you ideas on your own creative storage, if you've found it useful and would like to see more of my storage solutions, please leave a comment and I'll be happy to share more with you. Also if I've sparked some ideas I would love to see them so please leave a link below.

I'm hoping to have a couple of card making sessions in the next few days which I will share once I've made something worth sharing, until then keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx