PBSC January - Anything Goes (Optional 'Something New')

It's the first Saturday of the month, so that means it's time for a new Penny Black Saturday Challenge...where the theme is:

'Anything Goes'
or
'Something New'

As usual, we are sponsored by the awesome 1-2-3 Stitch:

Prize - a $20 voucher!

I went with 'New Year' and am sharing the Penny Black calendar that I made for my Mum for Christmas. I buy a couple of the Paper Mill 'Create a Calendar' blanks every year to decorate for gifts...and always use Penny Black images exclusively...as I have so many! 

I make each panel A6 size...so it could easily be recycled on to a card once the calendar is finished, and keep the panels as flat as possible. I find these are also a great opportunity to use up lots of snippets of patterned papers!

I'm also entering this calendar into the following challenges:

• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies - Anything Goes
• Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper - Anything Goes
• Polkadoodles - Anything Goes

For more inspiration from my lovely DT buddies, please pop over to the Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

James - Butterflies

I recently spent a happy afternoon having a good sort through all of my stamps, re-discovering some old favourites, and even managing to find some that I was prepared to part with...they all got donated to the Big C charity, who have a couple of warehouse type shops in Norfolk that sell craft supplies (among a few other things). I always love having a rummage through all of the baskets of goodies...particularly the stamps...when I'm visiting my parents. I love it as you never know what you might find...last time I visited, I had really good luck, and found eight lovely stamps to bring home, including a couple of fab woodmounted Penny Blacks ('Everest Next?' and 'Jonquil'...that one will appear on my blog next Saturday), for the grand total of £1.50 - all of their woodmounted stamps are 'buy one get one free'! Chances are if you seen me mention any of the stamps I've used on my cards as 'charity shop finds', that's where I got them. 

Anyway, today's card features one of the stamps I 're-discovered' in my stash, an old Lili of the Valley stamp called 'James - Butterflies'. I stamped him on to watercolour paper, then coloured him using watercolour pencils. I paired him with papers from a pad that I found at one of the Big C shops...'Addison' by K&Co. I distressed all of the edges, then added some faux stitching using my CutterBee Bug and a black gel pen. The flowers are also very old...from Poppicrafts, and held in place using a BasicGrey brad.

Challenges for this card:

• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies - Anything Goes
• A Bit More Time to Craft - Anything Goes
• A Perfect Time to Craft - Anything Goes
• Cards Galore Encore - Anything Goes
• Crafter's Cafe - Anything Goes
• Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper - Anything Goes
• Gem of a Challenge - Anything Goes
• Simon Says Stamp (Wednesdays) - Anything Goes
• The Sisterhood of Crafters - Patterned Papers

Cheering Critters

I have a birthday card to share today...featuring one of the stamps from the 'Cheering Critters' set by Penny Black. I stamped it on to watercolour paper, then coloured it using watercolour pencils. For the background I used papers from the K & Company 'Addison' pad...a recent charity shop find, completely unused! I distressed the edges a little, then added some faux stitching using my CutterBee Bug and a black gel pen. The sentiment stamp is from a set by Lili of the Valley.

Challenges for this card:

• Creative Knockouts - Anything Goes
• Lil Patch of Crafty Friends - Anything Goes
• Simon Says Stamp (Mondays) - Party Time
• Simon Says Stamp (Wednesdays) - Party Time
• Stamps + Fun = Creativity - Anything Goes