Crafting for Gold - winners
13/08/2012
All the winners for the Crafting for Gold prizes can be found on our inspiration blog here .
Go and see if you are a winner!
Crafting for Gold - Closing Ceremony
12/08/2012
The last day, all those weeks of preparation and planning and it is almost over. We hope you have enjoyed our Crafting for Gold event. We would like to thank all our design girls for coming up with a super collection of creations and to Sydney and Mollie for helping Ali with the last week, and to Mandy for organising and posting on the Inspiration blog. Last but not least a massive thanks to our sponsors. who have given super prizes every day.
To go out with a bang we have a whacking £25 voucher, from your one and only......................
................that's right £25 , so get yourself over to the Inspiration blog and leave your details here .
What better way to end this event than with a card made by Andrea for the Saddle Stitch Challenge, it is just so PERFECT in so many ways.
Thank you Andrea, this card is amazing.
We did have a little surprise for a certain little girl yesterday.....................
......................her own gold medal, a real GOLD medal for all the fantastic help and support she gave her Auntie Ali.
Look it even has her name on it!!
Our last "thank you" of this ceremony goes to YOU, for all your support and comments. Each day you have come to visit us, leaving a comment if you had time, some of you just passing through and scanning the pics (we all do that!). But you have been there, which is what counts.
Thanks Guys.
Tony, Ali and Team CR
Crafting for Gold - Day 15
11/08/2012
Welcome to our last day of crafting events. Todays event is using bows and is sponsored by Crafts and Me
Hello everyone,
We are a small family Craft business that came about when as a card making family, my daughters and young granddaughters and I that is! Not our men who do not make cards, although my husband has had a go....Could never find the stamps and crafts that we had seen advertised!
So, in the end we decided to start up Crafts and Me, so that we could get the products we wanted not only for us, but to offer to other crafters like you.
We love the different ranges of stamps and crafts that we get from all over the world and we hope you will love them too....
Our aim is to give you the best possible customer service that we can, and to treat our customers just as we would want to be treated ourselves.
So, enjoy looking at our shop and if you cannot find a product you would like, or if you have any suggestions about our shop we would love to hear from you, just email us at
info@craftsandme.co.uk as we are always looking for ways to improve our site.
For a chance to win todays prize go and leave your name on our inspiration Blog here .
Crafts and Me kindly allowed our design girls to use their images, Sydney picked this delightful fairy to colour.
The girls used three ribbons. The striking purple summer breeze ribbon at the bottom of the card, another summer breeze ribbon was used as a backing paper and finally a liitle 6mm grosgrain. Wonderful team work girls.
Sorry it is a quick post but my cars are calling, they need a clean!
Tony x
Crafting for Gold - Day 14
10/08/2012
I am late. late late - sorry everyone. Welcome to day 14 of Crafting for Gold, today the design team girls had to use glitter. Now why is it, I have never used glitter in my life BUT when I look in the mirror there is always a speck twinkling at me!! Always, without fail. Todays sponsors are..................
We are a family owned art stamp company dedicated to providing crafters around the world with whimsical and fun rubber and digital stamp designs. Our exclusive stamps are great for card making, scrapbooking, and many other crafting projects.
We currently have 5 exclusive collections of rubber stamps and 6 exclusive collections of digital stamps! We also have custom rubber stamps and custom digital designs, our Shapeology line of metal cutting dies, and a large selection of paper crafting embellishments for that one stop shopping experience.
All of our rubber stamps are made from deeply etched rubber, mounted on Cling Cushion Foam, and once trimmed, they are ready to use with an acrylic block. And our digital images are 300dpi for optimal print quality and can be resized or rotated to fit your crafting needs. Be sure to check out all the wonderful products in our Whimsy Stamps Collections!
Alis crafting buddy for today was little Mollie. Mollie absolutely loves Ali's glitters, sometimes she emerges from Ali's craft room covered in the stuff. Mollie is the yougest member of Team CR, and is only 3. Lets see what they made together.
WOW that card does use glitter!!! First off I saw Ali and Mollie prowling the warehouse looking for the right ribbon, we all knew when they had found it Mollie gave an almighty cry out. They had picked one of Christmas (don't mention Christmas to me) ribbons here, it is covered in glitter. Rachie kindly tied the bow for them using our glittered velvet bling here for the centre. Off the pair trotted back upstairs. Mollie used the die cutting machine to cut the tag, and Ali used another one of Cebilcas images on top.
Ali tied the green ribbon around the card and held it place while Mollie secured it with sellotape. Rachie came and did the matt and layering for them. Finally the bow was stuck in place. A very glittery card girls, well done.
Almost forgot, for a chance to win todays prize and see the fantastic work of the design team you must visit the Inspiration blog. The Inspiration blog can be found here .
We had a very good meeting with the specialist yesterday, all the bandages and padding were removed. I did look away when the dressings were peeled away but I gather everything is healing nicely. Ali has a whacking great bruise on her elbow, she made me take a picture of it, so she could see it! She has to attend physio now to get it moving again. It was so sweet last night she kept looking at her hand and smiling, I asked her what she was doing "I feel like a little girl with a new toy, I have my hand back".
I am sure she will be back soon.
Have a fab weekend everyone and thank you for visiting today.
Tony x
Crafting for Gold - Day 13
09/08/2012
Hello everyone, thought I would be late posting this moning, I did not manage to get it pre- written yesterday. Could not have Mandy (team leader) on my back!! For day 13 Sydney and Ali had to use ribbons - now that would have been difficult for them - which ones to choose I mean!!! Our sponsor for today is.....
based in Peterbrough in the UK it is run by a Husband & Wife team...They stock thousand of fabulous craft goods so please checkout the Sir Stampalot website....
Before we see what the crafting duo come up with today, just a reminder that you have to visit the Inspiration blog and leave your name for a chance to win the prizes. You have to be in it to win it!!! The Inspiration blog can be found here .
An unusual colour combo for Ali, Sydney must have picked this, if my memory serves me right her favourite colour is orange, although that could have been last week!
Even I recognise that little girl, it is Tilda. Cracking job girls I love the simplicity of this design. I gather Dawn from the design team (Hi Dawn) stamped and coloured the image, Sydney used a corner punch to round the corners. The sun flower paper came from a French craft shop that Ali dragged me into last summer. Sydney picked the orange flower buttons here, and then teamed it all up with our Seam Binding ribbon here. The finishing bow was made by Rachie, so another Team CR master piece!!!
We had a wonderful day yesterday in Southampton, Ali manfully tried to shop! We did buy a few things for the house and a super coffee machine for the office, but she just could not face trying any clothes on. The bandages on her arm have become loose, where it is not so swollen and it keeps catching the stitches. It makes me feel faint even thinking about it. But we are due back with the specialist later today so hopefully that will all be sorted, she is really hoping they will allow her to bend her elbow, being at right angles can not be much fun!!!
Till tomorrow
Tony x
Crafting for Gold - Day 12
08/08/2012
Hello everyone and welcome to day 12, todays event is Die Cutting - sounds rather painful to me but the crafting duo of Ali and Sydney seem to know what to do. First off our sponsor for today is
Lili of the Valley is a UK Company which has a simply gorgeous range of unique un-mounted rubber stamps.
There are hundreds of adorable images to choose from including the sweetest girls and boys, fabulous wedding and baby designs and of course an amazing array of Christmas cuties! Added to this are Lili of the Valley's amazing sentiment stamps and sentiment stamp sheets! http://www.liliofthevalley.co.uk/is also packed with hints, tips, tutorials and we also run the popular InspirationsBlog witih new cards and ideas posted daily by our Design Team, so you’ll never be stuck for ideas on what to make with these really cute images
For a chance to win todays prize and those of the prevoius 11 days you must visit our Inspiration blog here . You still have time to enter for the other days prizes. Also have a look at the splendid work of our talented design team.
What did the girls create with Die Cutting I wonder.
Sydney had no problem with the die cutting machine, it spends most of it time on the floor so the children can use it! Sydney used a white and purple gel pen (once again treasures that Ali does not share with the children) to create faux stitching on the flowers. "I like these pens Ali" came from Syd as Ali quickly squirelled them away. Syd then tied the embroidery thread through the purple button, from our button boxes here. The bow was tied by Rachie (thanks) using polka dot ribbon here.
The colours were inspiried by the wonderful image from LOTV coloured by Cebelica. Thank you for sending Ali all these wonderful coloured images, I must say that I came bottom in the class at colouring. Although I do enjoy drawing cartoon characters.
For some extra inspiration - this is the work of Siân, one of our Saddle Stitch Challengers.
Beautiful Siân. I love the torn style paper, I bet that took a lot of skill for it to look that good. Great the way you have matched up the ribbon flowers with the paper leaves.
I do like this, very stylish Siân. The little gem draws your eyes to the ribbon - great work. Thank you Siân for joining in, sorry it has taken a while to share your creations.
I have a wonderful day planned for Ali, I am taking to her favourite shop in Southampton. I just hope she can stay awake long enough!!! She is doing really well, the drugs are causing rather nasty side effects, but she is trying to take that in her stride. The hour or so crafting with Syd is doing her the world of good, although I am rather like a mother hen and start clucking around them when I think Ali has done too much.
Anyway do you think Ali will rise to the occasion and enjoy her shopping trip, she is off her food so I was also hoping I could tempt her appertite back with the offer of a little lunch.
Wish me luck.
Tony
Crafting for Gold - Day 11
07/08/2012
Oh dear this post is all down to me (Tony) I hope I remember everything I have been told!
Welcome to day 11, todays event is decoupage which I have been told is building up a picture using layers. We are sponsored by Which Craft?
Which Craft? UK pride ourselves on creating new and unique Quality Card Blanks
'For Your Inspiration'
( If you are going to spend time creating a special card then we
believe you need a high quality blank canvas as your starting point)
We are known in the Card making industry for using Only the Highest quality Card gauge -
throughout the complete 'For Your Inspiration' Collection - where many of ourcolleagues
use our designs to show case there own beautiful stamps and card making products
Our Designs can be seen on Create & Craft used by many of our Craft colleagues
to also show case there own beautiful stamps and card making products..
Our design team have used some of Which Crafts? wonderful card blanks to make their inspirational cards for you. For a chance to win todays prize you must visit our inspiration blog here .
So do you want to know what Ali is up too? How is she going to continue crafting with one hand?
She has teamed up with the Gold medal winner - the 7 year old Crafter, the one and only SYDNEY!
Syd is going to be Ali's right arm and they are going to craft together. This is their first joint card. Sydney cut and pieced together all the decoupage, while Ali worked out how to fold the card blank! Sydney then used blue chalk to colour the card, she was over the moon doing this, she had never been allowed to use Ali's chalks before. Syd cut the butterflies from the blue ribbon here and added them to create extra depth.
Thank you ribbon here was picked for the base of the card with some matt and layering. Girls I think you are a winning team, with Sydneys cutting skills and Ali's design you are both Gold winners.
I also think the talented challengers that joined our saddle stitch ribbon challenge are also worthy of gold.
Bah humbug Claire this looks like a Christmas card to me! Although I will admit I really like the simple design of it, perfect.
Now this more like it Claire, bright and summery I wonder if I could change the Happy Birthday message to Get well soon and give it to Ali!!!! No? Rather naughty of me.
Thank you Claire for your fantastic cards. See you all tomorrow.
Tony x
Crafting for Gold - Day 10
06/08/2012
Once again welcome to our Crafting for Gold, this is the last of Ali's pre written posts and also the last card she made. She refused to leave the office last wednesday until it had been fully photographed. Only for me then to find a square gold envelope on my desk after she had gone home. She made this card for me.....................
Over to Ali's details of todays sponsor.
Crafty Individuals is an exciting venture into the creative world of arts and crafts for business partners Jean Hardy and Malcolm Noble, who both come from an arts-based background.
Jean Hardy is a practising artist with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, as well as a teaching certificate.
Malcolm Noble is a professional commercial photographer who has been operating in the North East for the last 20 years.
For todays event we are to use buttons on our creations, to see all the design teams creations and to enter for todays prize you have to visit our Inspiration Blog here .
Sometimes you can be so scared that you are unable to put it into words, that is how I felt when I made this card.
Mandy had kindly sent me the image all beatifully coloured, I do adore poppies and wanted to capture their texture and meaning with this card. This could be my last card I ever made, dramatic you may think but an operation on a nerve in ones right arm...........................?
For texture it had to be velvet, soft and so strokeable! Find a huge range of colours here. I added the senitment ribbon with tears streaming down my face, how stupid am I! All the buttons came from one of our Christmas button boxes here.
Tony here, oh dear I thought about changing Ali's post above, but it was written the evening before her operation and shows how scared and concerned she was. We were still discussing the operation while sat in her hospital room, she was terrified of losing the use of her arm. Ali is NOT allowed to craft or use the computer at the moment, but she painfully excercises her fingers every two hours.
Ali has as per usual bounced back and has already thought of a way to continue joining in with this event, you will just have to pop back tomorrow to see what she is upto.
Tony
Crafting for Gold - Day 9
05/08/2012
Welcome to our Bling event on day 9. We have a very excited little girl who has been counting the days down to Sunday day 9, more about that later but I will let Ali tell you all about todays sponsor.
Digi and rubber stamps from KennyK are a fun and edgy way to add the perfect dose of attitude and style to all of your creations!
The creator, the artist, the man: KennyK is a NYC-born professional illustrator who has brought his funky-but-slick, urban-influenced look to the cardmaking and papercrafts world. His signature style can be seen throughout his various collections of sexy pinup babes, sweet'n sassy girls, cool rockin'dudes, kid’s stuff, retro characters and more at
KennyKDownloads.com.
Please remember you have to go and visit our Inpiration Blog here for the chance to win todays prize, you can still enter for the last 8 days as well. While you are there check out the design team creations they are truly fantastic.
Mandy sent me this Kenny K image to work with, while I was printing it off Sydney said it looked like her. So I gave her my special box of colouring pens and told her to have fun.
Wowee, her colouring was brill so I suggested she made the card as well. We picked the ribbon colours together and I suggested she rounded the corners of the image and card, but she did ALL the crafting herself. I know I maybe slighly bias as I am her auntie but I think this card is amazing.
When I told Syd this was going to be THE card of the day, she asked "Do you think I will get gold?" How sweet, please remember that Syd has only just turned 7.
You may just be able to tell that turquoise is Syds favourite coulor at the moment.
Back to me again (Tony or uncle T), Sydney I think your card is also amazing and I would give you a gold. I know how much you treasure your crafting time with Auntie Ali.
Ali had a bit of a bumpy day yesterday,I think the drugs were scrambling her up, but her appetite has not gone so she must be fine.
What a fantastic day for team GB yetserday, very proud to be British.
Tony
Crafting for Gold - Day 8
04/08/2012
Hello everyone to day 8 of our Crafting for Gold. Once again it is a team effort between me (Tony) and Ali's pre written posts. Ali is doing well, to be honest she is a bit of a pain in the b*m and will not sit still. She has already had me cutting the arms off long sleeved T-shirts so she can get dressed! A fighter that one. Over to Ali's pre op post.
Today the design team had to use stitching real or faux. For todays fab prize given to us by Nitwits check out our Inspiration Blog here.
Nitwit Collections™ designs and sells a unique genre of Digital Scrapbooking Kits, Card Making Supplies, and Hybrid Scrapbooking Supplies! We are a Canadian company with Mary Fran as our designer and LG as our customer service and help desk support guy. Mary Fran has always had a love of fabric and so when she began designing her digital lines, of course they are made to "look" like fabric with texture and depth. With 100's of theme and colour matched Collections available, customers can easily find what they are looking for, for any occasion.
I do not have much confidence in using coloured paper, but when Mandy sent me three sheets of Nitwits I could see my card instantly. Cebilica's little lion image was just perfect to match the papers.
Arrrrr I do like this card. Three layes of Nitwits papers, one for the card and two for mat ad layering. I teamed it up with the soft shades of rosy mauve wire edge taffeta ribbon here. I didn't think it needed much ribbon, just two stripes. Next I raided a purple button box here to find matching ones and used embroidery thread to make the cross stitch. I then stuck in place with hot glue. There was rather a large blank area at the top of the card so I used a gold button with a bow made from embroidery thread to fill it.
Back to me (Tony) I can be very slow sometimes, do you remember that I started to write the friday freebie posts, I could never work out why Ali wanted me too. She confessed this morning that in her heart of hearts she knew she would have to have surgery, nothing else was working. She wanted me to become familiar with the blogging software so the blog would continue in her abscence.
I am sure that image is of Lenny the Lion - anybody remember him - it was a wee while back!
All the best
Tony
my basket