Blues (with a touch of red)...

Well we are now in Naples (or Napoli if you prefer), Italy.  We had a fairly rough trip (about 28 hours, 4 hours on watch, 4 hours off) very little sleep and a few minor mishaps, but nothing major.   We arrived here around 1 this afternoon and thought we had better take this opportunity to visit the ruins of Pompeii as it is unlikely we will be here again.  Very interesting and such a huge city, but we were pretty tired, so we probably didn't do it justice.

*****Did you know that voting starts on Wednesday for the Round 2 of the Sweet Pea Stamps Spring stamp off challenge?  You can vote here on Wednesday.  I will post my entry on Chickie Chirps on Wednesday too.  The challenge for Round 2 was Fancy Folds... it should be interesting to see what everyone comes up with!*****

I have a card to share today that I made for the Blues challenge at the Copic Creations blog and the brads, pearls and gems challenge at Little Miss Muffet Challenges.

I have coloured this cute digi image (from Little Miss Muffet stamps) using three different blue shade groupings and a little bit of red for contrast (details below).  I also used Rose's technique for adding a bit of texture to the bunny with the copic colourless blender.  The papers are from October Afternoon and the seam binding is from The Ribbon Girl.  I added Stickles and Glossy accents to the balloons and wrote 'For You' on the tag.  I coloured the green brads I had blue with copic B18.

These are the copics I used:

Have a lovely evening!

Arabella Chickie in Napoli, Italy

PS Tomorrow we head to the island of Elba... think of us pitching around at sea for 11 hours!

Toot toot!

I'm just stopping by to announce some exciting (for me anyway) news!  I just made the design team for April May for Little Miss Muffet Stamps!  Thank you so much for choosing me Barbara and Peggy!

Barbara makes gorgeous digis (like this cow jumping over the moon)... check them out here.

And in other news, I'm on to round two for the Sweet Pea Stampoff.  If you voted for me in round one, thank you very much!  I'm working on my round two entry now... Hopefully I can get it done before the weekend as we are leaving on the boat to go to Italy, so I will be unable to do much crafting for a few days.  Voting for the next round starts March 23.

This was my round one entry:

This is one of the stamps that Angela from In My Quiet Time sent me (thank you Angela!!!).  Isn't this dryad gorgeous?!   The papers are from Bo Bunny and Cosmo Cricket and the ribbon is from The Ribbon Girl.  I have added stickles to the peacock feathers.

These are the copics I used:

AND if that's not enough...  I just found out I won the this blog candy at In Rosie's Book!!!! Wow!  Lucky, lucky me!!!  That just made my day!


Have a lovely day!

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

A sketch and a monster

I had another monster coloured up and ready to go, so I thought I would use him in the Friday Sketchers Sketch Challenge #144 this week.    He also fits as my second entry into the Little Miss Muffet Challenge (to use design paper) and the Mad for Markers challenge (to use brown copics on a male card).

Here is the sketch:

And here is my card:

The monster image is from Little Miss Muffet Stamps.  The papers are from October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket and the seam binding is from The Ribbon Girl.  I distressed the paper edges with Walnut Distress Ink and a knife.  The sentiment is from Pollycraft.   The copics used were E0000 and the E30's range.

Happy Snow Day!

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

90% Monster 10% Angel

Today's card is one of several I made yesterday in a wee fit of industrial card making activity.  It was good to have some mojo back again.  Yes, it's another monster.  I do love monsters!  

I quite like the way it turned out, so I am going to enter it into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp No Cook Recipe Challenge: 2 design papers, 1 image and 3 different types of embellishment

Mad for Markers Challenge Blog: Male cards using brown copics

Little Miss Muffet Challenges: To use design paper

The image is Monster Bubbles from Little Miss Muffet Stamps.   The sentiment is from the Critters and Cogs collection at Pollycraft Designs.  The two design papers are from October Afternoon and My Mind's Eye.  The three types of embellishments I have used are brads, seam binding from The Ribbon Girl (this stuff is so lovely and light) and Googly eyes from my local craft shop.  I also used Glossy Accents, but that is just a given for me.

Copics used:
E51, E31, E33, E35, E37 and E39

Have a lovely Sunday!

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Spring Monster

I know, I know... I was going to take a break from Barbara's monsters for a while, but they are just so versatile!  Here is a card I made for the current challenge at Forgotten Scraps which is spring themed.  I chose Monster Love and coloured him in sepia tones with a touch of red for the flower.  I added googly eyes (of course).

The papers are from October Afternoon (my favourite paper company) and the ribbon is from April Blackbird's stash.  The cute flower button is from Blooming Felt, and the sentiment is a stamp from Amy R's Summer Sentiments (purchased from Funky Kits).  I consider these colours to be spring colours, but maybe that's just me...

These were the copics I used:

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

I dreamed a dream...

This is my last monster card for a little while I think (well maybe..., I do like those monsters : ))  I had a bit of trouble with the colour of this one... I think the orange and the green of the grass was a bit out of my comfort zone.  I went over the orange with 3 or 4 different other colours to tone down the brightness a bit.

The papers are from October Afternoon, Cosmo Cricket and Bo Bunny and the Dream card is from My Mind's Eye.  The sun is made of felt from Blooming Felt and the twine is from The Ribbon Girl.

These are most of the copics I used apart from the ones I used to tone down the orange...

And since the Forgotten Scraps Challenge number 2 still has a few hours to go I figured I may as well enter this card too...

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece

Monster balloons and Turkey

Tonight's blog post is coming to you from Turkey... Kusadasi to be exact.

  

We left Greece at about 7.30 this morning and arrived here in Turkey around lunchtime today.  It was an absolutely beautiful winters day... it felt like spring!  BB and her baby came along with us and he was such a delight all day.  It seems he has sea legs like his Dad and he wasn't bothered by being on the boat at all.  At the moment he just wants to walk, but he can't quite do it by himself, so we all spend a lot of time hunched over holding his hands as he madly dashes around.  He doesn't want to go anywhere slowly... full speed all the way!

Today's card is another one for the Forgotten Scraps Challenge number 2 (Anything goes)...

The monster image is from Little Miss Muffet Designs.   He is coloured with copics and I have added glossy accents to the balloons and over the beads I added to his eyes.  The papers are from October Afternoon and Bo Bunny and I have added Stickles as a frame as well as the stitching.   The ribbon is from The Ribbon Girl.

Here are the copics I used:

Arabella Chickie in Kusadasi, Turkey

Monster Nom Nom!

Have I mentioned how much I love Barbara's Monsters?  Yeah, I think I did already, but they are just so much fun to colour!

Here is my first entry into the Forgotten Scraps Challenge #2 which is Anything Goes and also into this week's Pollycraft Monday challenge (number 79) following the sketch below and the theme of love.  This digital stamp is called Monster Nom Nom.

 Here is my card:

and the close up...

The papers are from Cosmo Cricket and October Afternoon and the lace is from The Ribbon Girl (it was white, I sponged it with Distress Ink... Broken China).  The image is from Little Miss Muffet Designs and I have added googly eyes and glossy accents.

These are the copics I used (plus some W0 and W1 for the horns):

Happy Tuesday!

Arabella Chickie in Lavrio, Greece