Magpie Day - We have postcards!

It's our last post for this month and it's a Magpie Day!

Q: What is a Magpie Day?
A: Whatever takes our fancy!

We've introduced Magpie Days for the occasional spare date in our calendar. Our DTMs suggest a topic and play with that theme. Today we thought it would be fun to feature POSTCARDS!

Here's what our talented team came up with...

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Chris

My postcard is called 'A postcard from Paris' and makes use of Tim's new French flight Framelits dies with stamps. There's a kewl map of Liege cut from one of the new 'Come away with me' papers from Graphic 45 too. On the serious side, the postcard journey starts in Liege (Belgium) and ends in Paris and is commemorative of the centenary of WWI. You can find exactly what's been used and how HERE.

Doreen

Hello, I have made a vintage postcard  from a wife to her husband who is away at war.

More details from my blog here. xxx

Sue B

My Postcard is from the North Pole, posted by Santa to a child that has been very good all year.

A step by step is over on my Blog.


Trace

 and here is the back :

I love all things vintage and love playing with the new papers, so this vintage style postcard from Paris was created using mostly collaged elements x For all the details please hop here .

Alison

Making a postcard means I can get out one of my first ever stamp purchases... the Tim Holtz PostCard label.  It's still one of my favourites - I don't know why I don't use it more!  For more details of my melancholy message, take a trip over to Words and Pictures.

Gabrielle

My son starts Secondary school in September and so my postcard is themed with him in mind! Lots of my most favourite Wendy Vecchi stamps were used - in fact I think there are 23 stamped images in total! For more on how I made this, please pop over to my blog!

Jennie

I rather indulged myself with an old favourite stamp which I hadn't used in a while to create this vintage postcard.  There are more details on my blog here.

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We hope you've enjoyed peeking at our postcards. If you have some time, do please hop around to see the details and share some love with the DT Members who work SO hard to create our projects for you to see.

We'll be back on Monday with a brand new challenge for you and more lovely projects to share from our team.

Thanks to you all for your support and all the lovely comments this month, have a fabulous weekend!

Chris and the team. xxx

Dreaming of angels

I'm here today with an additonal post and I decided on a wall hanging, made for a friend...

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Chris

I love wall hangings and a friend of mine loves angels so this was made with her in mind. Using discarded corrugated cardboard, grunge paste and inks, it was fun to make. Details can be found HERE.

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We have less than four days to go but that's still plenty of time to enter! 

This is NOT our last post of the month, we have a MAGPIE DAY planned for Friday and we think you'll LOVE IT! We hope you'll join us then for some more creative ideas.

Chris and the team xxx

Cec is all steamed up!!

Our post today presents a fabulous steampunk project from the well known and very talented Cec Wintonyk. Many of you will know Cec not just from her own blog but from Frilly and Funkie and Sugar Creek Hollow...

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Cec

My name is Cec Wintonyk of CW Card Creations and I am honoured to have been asked to be a Guest Designer at Country View Challenges. I have been doing one craft or another since I was small, thanks to my very creative Mother. My obsession with paper really took off 5 years ago when I started to blog about the cards I was making. Since then I have been on a number of design teams and my work has been more focused on vintage or shabby chic. Recently I have started to incorporate more mixed media into my creations.

I live outside Toronto, Canada and my husband of 39 years supports my crafting - quite literally since I have been retired from the accounting profession since 2009.   We have one daughter, also very creative who is married and has blessed us with two grandchildren ages 5 and 8.

For my Word Play project, I have created this frilly steampunk card.

The background was white card stock that I inked with Pumice Stone, Frayed Burlap and Black Soot Distress Inks, stenciled with a harlequin stencil and then distressed with my scissors.  The text was computer generated and inked with the same colours as the background.

The vintage clock piece was cut from Tim Holtz Grunge Paper and coloured with a Copic marker.   The steampunk lady was stamped with Jet Black Archival Ink.  I fussy cut her before I outlined her gears with a sparkly black gel pen and coloured her face with Copic markers.  The hand is a digital image that was fussy cut and coloured with Copic markers and some Fired Brick and Aged Mahogany Distress Ink.  The balloon and the corset are also digital images that were both fussy cut and coloured with Fired Brick and Aged Mahogany Distress Ink.  I added some black gems to the corset along with a skirt of tulle and organza.

Other embellishments are gears and a metal arrow that I coloured with a black Copic marker, a washer and a black button.  The flower is made from paper-backed metal tape used in the heating and air conditioning industry.  It was cut using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and textured with an embossing stylus.  Black acrylic paint was applied to it and immediately wiped off leaving paint in the depressions.  Once it was dry the highlights were inked with Cranberry Alcohol Ink and a black gem was added for a centre.

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Such a stunning card Cec and the one, simple word shouts out, this is beautiful - thank you!

We are on the downhill slope now folks so a polite reminder to start finishing your projects and getting them entered as soon as you can. The closing deadline is 11.55 pm on the 31st.

I'll be here on Wednesday with the final project on our theme but it won't be the final post as we have a nice surprise for you on Friday >;o)

Have fun everyone. >:o)

Chris and the team xxx

Doreen's been tagged...

Doreen is sharing her second DT make with us today to highlight how useful masks can be in creating beautiful scenes for our projects...

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Doreen

Hello to you all, for my second project  I am back with a tag using distress inks and some masking. One of my favorite techniques is masking off moons and suns,you can get lots of different effects by directing the light where you want it to shine..

You can get more details from my blog.

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A beautiful tag Doreen and a fabulous example of the masking technique - thank you!

Projects entered do not have to be lavish or complicated they can be clean and simple (CAS), monochromatic, whatever you want them to be. The winner is selected at random (using random.org) so EVERYONE has a chance of winning. When we choose our Top 3 and DT Member's Special Mention badge winners we are looking at how well you have interpreted our theme and how original and creatively you have used your materials.

We have a special T3 guest on Monday with an equally special project to share with you - please don't miss it!

Have a wonderful, crafty weekend! >:o)

Chris and the team xxx

Trace is at the heart of it today...

We don't think that anyone can fail to recognise our talented Trace's inimitable style. Today she's at the heart of it all with her second DT make...

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Trace

For my second word play piece I made a hanging piece with words connected to affairs of the heart. I created the heart and added to a distressed background and used chit chat stickers to add lots of words. For all the details please pop across to inkypinkycraft.

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A beautiful and sentimental project Trace, it demonstrates our theme so well too - thank you!

Tomorrow sees us into the final week of our challenge so please prepare to finish your projects and think about getting them entered. We'll be back on Saturday with a gorgeous project from Doreen.

Have fun! >;o)

Chris and the team xxx

Sue C's a material girl...

Sue has brought a material element to her project today by using fabric on her tag - and what a tag!!

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Sue C

For my second piece this month I've used fabric as my starting point on a jumbo sized tag. Fabric brings another element of texture to your project and is a great surface to work on. For all the details hop over to my Stamping Sue Style.

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Beautifully designed with stunning colour work, this is gorgeous Sue, thank you!

Whatever your favourite genre, whatever textures and media you like to work with, you can combine it all with our theme this month!

Our next post is a project from Trace on Thursday, we hope to see you then. Have a fab day!

Chris and the team xxx

Sue B has been driven up the wall!

Yes, our post title describes what Sue is up to with her project today but what a fabulous idea and such a stunning result!

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Sue B

Wall Art is fun to do and I used some chip board for this creation, the sentiment is computer generated, the delicious flower is made from vellum and my Key is altered with paints. More info on how I put this together over on my Blog.

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How fabulous is this? Such a kewl idea and a brilliant example of our theme - a gorgeous project Sue, thank you!

How are you all doing? We hope we're giving you lots of good ideas - yes? If so, we'd like to see them please - there's still plenty of time to enter.

Our next post is on Tuesday and it's a wowser of a project from Sue C! Don't miss it! Enjoy your Sunday. >:o)

Chris and the team xxx

Sandy is on the road...

We're midway through the month and what better to inspire you than a guest post? Today we're joined by the very talented S@ndy Diller, one of our Top 3 guests. S@ndy is kindly sharing her project with us despite being on a road trip and what a project to share!

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S@ndy

Hi, S@ndy here and I am so happy to be with you today to share my "Word Play" project.  I'm happily retired and spend my time traveling and crafting, not necessarily in that order.  I am so lucky to be doing both at the moment. As you read this, I am somewhere in Alaska seeing the sights.  I'm sure there will be many more pages to come on this trip. 

The quote I used is one by Charles Kuralt, an American journalist.  Although I am not finding it true on my current trip - I got a chuckle out of it and wanted to use it.  He said: 

"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything".

While traveling through Canada recently I took the time to "capture life's moments" and was inspired by the beautiful pine trees.  I hope you will stop by my blog, My Crafty Life on the Internet,  to read all about how I created this scrapbook page.

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Such a creative expression of our theme this month S@ndy and how apt! This is beautiful, thank you!

We hope this sparks some ideas for you to get busy and enter.

We'll be back on Sunday with a fabulous project from Sue B - cya then!

Chris and the team xxx

Jennie's journalling with her Mother-in-law!

Journalling is a fabulous alternative to scrapping to celebrate and remember family members and events and that is exactly what Jennie is doing today with her gorgeous project...

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Jennie

I love this Maya Angelou quote and thought it would be most appropriate for this rather glamorous photograph of my mother-in-law taken in 1927. I am loving the freedom of creating art journal pages and learnt a lot from creating this page.  There are more details and a step by step on my blog.

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Wow, what a stunning example of journalling AND our theme for this month Jennie, thank you!

We're almost half way through the month so if you've not entered yet it's time for you to think about it. We're seeing some fabulous entries already but we're greedy, we'd like to see lots more! >:o) Don't forget, everyone that enters has a chance of winning the Country View Crafts' £20 shop voucher as our winner is selected at random (using random.org).

Our next post will be on Friday when we have another T3 guest here sharing her creativity. We hope you'll be able to join us. >:o)

Chris and the team xxx

Blog candy winner

Whoop, whoop! We have congratulations to make to our July Pinterest blog candy winner!

Everyone who joined in has been entered and the winner has been drawn at random using random.org. The winner is...

Lori T of Certified Mad Crafter

Well done Lori we'll be in contact with you shortly so that we can send you the candy. >:o)

Thanks to everyone who joined in and to ALL our Pinterest followers.

More tomorrow....

Chris xxx

Gabrielle's journal is.... SENSATIONAL!

Whichever way you look at our next project, it most definitely IS sensational!

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Gabrielle

I really love words and often turn to quotations to act as inspiration and this Oscar Wilde quotation always makes me chuckle! There are stamped images in the background and then very thin layers of paint over the top to make new colours and areas of interest. The images are from Lynne Perrella for PaperArtsy and I love mixing these images up to make new people. I love using individual letter stamps for each word, the act of stamping each one out gives me great pleasure as I watch each word form on the page! There's more detail on my blog.

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Yep, sensational colours, sensational imagery and a sensational project Gabrielle! Thank you!

Whether you like journalling, or another form of crafting, we want to see your creative efforts please. If you've never entered a challenge before it really is simple, just navigate to the main challenge post (HERE) and use the linkie tool to enter.

We'll be back on Wednesday when our wonderfully creative Jennie will be here with her second project for this month. Cya there! >:o)

Chris and the team xxx

Jenny t3

Hi everyone,

Many of you will know our Top 3 guest today as she is a contributing DT member for several of the most popular craft blogs, it is the very talented Buttons herself... Jenny of Pushing the right buttons!

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Pushing The Right Buttons

I've been artistic and crafty all my life, sewing, drawing, stitching, sometimes for pleasure, often out of necessity. As a keen genealogist I needed to find a way of presenting my extensive family history research and discovered the joys of scrapbooking. One thing led to another and card making for friends and family soon took over. A persistent Hels Sheridan encouraged me to start a blog in April 2012, I discovered the world of Distress, and it all grew exponentially from there. As a qualified teacher I have a real passion for sharing techniques and ideas with anyone who'll listen! After all, isn't this about 'sharing the love'?

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I was delighted to have been placed in the Top 3 for the June 2014 challenge and given the opportunity to be a Guest Designer at Country View Challenges for their August theme 'Word Play'. Having seen the standards set by previous guests I knew whatever I created for this theme it would need to be something special.



So this card started with a paste-stencilled background that I made, loved and puzzled over, particularly as this month's challenge theme requires words or phrases to be used. Do you keep it simple and just die cut some letters to put on top? Do you attempt to layer things over the whole lot and risk making it way too busy? Well no, in my case you grab a Bigz die and (with heart in mouth) chop into the middle of it to create a frame for the rest of your design. And as a bonus you are left with the central section for another card/project!

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A stunning project Jenny, and a fabulous example of our theme this month - thank you so much for joining us today.

We're delighted to see the gorgeous projects you've already entered, a fabulous variety of genres and colours - keep them coming folks please! >:o)

We'll be announcing our Pinterest Blog candy winner shortly so please watch for that and we have more on Monday with Gabrielle, see you then.

Chris and the team xxx

Announcing July's winners

Hi everyone,

Thank you to everyone who contributed to our challenge in July - so many fabulous and varied entries - and thanks too to those of you who commented.

Our winner each month is chosen at random (random.org) to ensure that EVERYONE has a chance of winning. We also award blog badges to our Top 3 and a DT Members' Special Mention badge to the project we feel is the most creative and original in depicting our theme of the month. Here are our winners...

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#75 Susan Carol of Faith Words Faith Expressions

Well done Susan, your blog badge and winner's voucher will be with you shortly.

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As Sue C had chosen the topic for the month it fell to her to choose our Top 3 and DTMSM blog badge awards. Here are her choices and what she had to say about them...

There's so many I liked I could have a top 10 at least ! Anyway I have restrained myself and below are my picks :

#10 - Kezzy of KEZZY'S CRAFTY JOURNEY

A beautiful stencilled bag, the attention to detail is stunning and the stencilling is excellent !

#32 - Meggymay of Meggy's Way

The stencilled children on this project really caught my eye, coupled with the fairy I think this is a truly magical piece !

#92 - Julie Lavalette of Juliz Deign Post

This is a truly elegant project, I loved the transformation and the use of the doily stencil is gorgeous !

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#12 - Claire C of CLAIRE'S CRAFTY CREATIONS

I loved all the texture created on this beautiful piece and the gold metallic finish is just stunning !

Congrat's to all our blog badge winners, your badges are on the way.

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All of our winers are invited to guest with us next month to show you a project that they've made on the theme for the month. If you'd like the opportunity then please enter this month's challenge to be in with a chance.

Another post tomorrow, a great guest with a fabulous project - don't miss it!

Chris xxx

Sticky post - Blog candy

Don't forget we're offering Blog Candy if you've signed up to be one of our Pinterest followers. Click HERE to see our original post details and to enter.

This post will remain top of the list until the closing date - August 8th.

Normal blog posts continue below this one.

Chris xxx

Donna's got man's best friend...

Yes, Donna is sharing her love of man's best friend with us today by way of this fabulous tag...

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Donna

I love to make tags and I love to use quotes so thought for my second challenge piece I'd combine the two loves with a third....my love of dogs....

...pop over to my blog to find out the bits and pieces I've used. Donna xx

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Beautiful imagery Donna and such a fabulous example of our theme (as well as a great way to celebrate our love of dogs) - thank you!

We love to see the different interpretations and creative thought processes our guests and teamies have on the same theme. What's your idea? What are you making today? We'd like to see what you make of our theme and the creative spark Alison's topic ignites!

Our next post is on Saturday when we have a guest Top 3 post from the talented Buttons (aka Jenny). We hope to see you then. >:o)

Chris and the team xxx

Any excuse to make an album...

Who needs a reason? Not I! With a passion for creating my own box and album templates I needed no more of an excuse than a series of proverbs and sayings to create this album for Alison's fabulous 'Word play' challenge...

Don't be deceived - this simple looking picture actually unravels to a whole lot more! For those of you that want to see the full folding album, or the what and the how, you'll find a step x step with more pictures HERE.

We hope you're feeling the motivation to join in with us this month.....? Remember to follow our simple rules please and remember that for this challenge, greeting card sentiments do NOT qualify as the challenge topic.

More on Thursday....

Chris xxx

Alison is flying today!

We're on our way with the first of our individual challenges today and as Alison has chosen the theme this month she has the pleasure of leading the way forward...

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Alison

For my second make for the Word Play theme, I started with the Sizzix die of that name - and stuck lots of die-cut chipboard letters to a wooden ticket, adding Distress Paint and Distress Crackle Paint in Rock Candy to create my background.  The new Layered Dragonfly takes pride of place, hovering over the glossy dimensional die-cut advice to Enjoy The Journey!  Come and see how I did it all over at Words and Pictures...

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What a stunning hanging to present this well known saying, it's absolutely beautiful Alison, thank you!

We hope you're busy crafting and getting ready to enter your project for this month. Remember, there is no limit to how many entries you make as long as you follow the rules.

We hope to see you on Tuesday when we'll have another project for you.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Chris and the team xxx

We're into August and a new challenge...

Hello everyone, welcome to August's new challenge!

Regulars amongst you will know that each month one of our amazing Design Team Members chooses our theme. This month it is the turn of Butterfly (aka Alison) and she's chosen a terrific topic, sure to be a hit with many of you, it's...........

We're looking for entries that focus upon the written word. Your project may be based upon a stamped saying, a proverb, an old adage, a piece of poetry, whatever grabs you. What the challenge is NOT about is sentiments for greetings cards.

As usual, we will be visually serenading you throughout the whole month (every other day in fact) with a view to encouraging, motivating and inspiring you to get out your crafty goodies, make a project (or three) and join in!  >;o)  At the end of the month we will randomly select a winner (using random.org) who will receive the princely prize of a £20 shop voucher from our fabulous sponsor, Country View Crafts.  Alison willl also be choosing her Top 3 favourites and her Special Mention who will all win blog badges and the chance to be a guest DT with us the following month.

Please remember to follow the rules because entries that don't comply cannot be selected as a winner.

Heading up our catwalk of beautiful projects this month is our guest, winner of last month's challenge, Dragonllew (Jenny)...

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Dragonllew (Jenny)

Hi I'm Jenny aka Dragonllew from Bournemouth I'm married to Mark and have 3 gorgeous children who keep me very busy . In my spare time I love to craft and having been crafting for as long as I can remember, for the last few years my passion has been card making. My favourite crafting item has to be my pro markers, I love colouring up stamps with them.

I decided to alter a plain Kraft notebook for this months challenge. Because of the size of the book my normal 6 x 6 papers were too small so I had to dig through my rather old stack of 12 x 12 papers where I found these old Fancy Pants papers which I used to create the base layers. I coloured up my favourite digi stamp at the moment with my beloved pro markers adding some glossy accents to make his glasses pop. I printed the quote directly on to the patterned paper and attached it using a paper clip.

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And now for the projects from our permanent DTM's...

Alison

I've created a simple tag with words at the heart of it.  I started with one of the spare tags I created when I was playing with the Tim Holtz June tag technique.  And if the words are going to take centre stage they deserve a touch of glossy embossing too!

Chris

I had lots of fun creating this shabby word piece. Stamping, die cutting, lots of ink and various techniques all went together to make it. For those of you looking for more details, my step x step is HERE.

Donna

Great theme for a challenge :) Always love to use words and quotes on  things I make.  I had left the first pages of my little moleskine journal clear but decided now was the time to fill them! Seemed like the perfect quote for the opening pages......

....pop over to my blog to see how it evolved. Donna xx 

Doreen

I have decorated a wooden plaque with acrylic paints, I am planning to cover all the door panels in the house with my decorated wooden plaques this is No 4.

You can get full details of how this was made from my Blog.

Gabrielle

I love words, they often act as the springboard for my ideas and so I was thrilled when I saw we had this as a challenge. I took my moleskin journal and roughly drew some houses in pencil and then wrote, by hand, everything home means to me around the houses. Then I coloured the houses in with Portfolio Pastels. I painted the background with watered down paint and revealed some of the writing in areas by wiping them with a baby wipe. I live at number 4 so I stamped a heart on that roof. I love these pages, as much for the personal message in the background as well as for the lovely bright houses in the foreground! There is more detail on my blog.

Jennie

For our wonderful theme this month I have chosen the written word and the lost art of letter writing for the theme of my tag.  After creating my background using Vintage Photo and Evergreen Bough I kept the embellishments quite simple.  There are more details on my blog.

Sue B

I went bright, beautiful and JOFY stamps for my first project. With paints, stencils and embossing paste to the Bg; Yellow is such a joyful colour. My words for this thought provoking statement were all cut using my cricut machine. More details on my Blog.

Sue C

Journalling was never something that I thought I would be interested in. How wrong could I be ! Words are the perfect embellishment for journal pages and for the ones I'm sharing today I've been lucky enough to play with the fab new Colour Bloom sprays ! For the details hop over to my blog .

Trace

I love all things wordy and playing with words always brings to mind my collection of gorgeous wordy stamps, so what better way to play with words than to create a mini album to hold some of my favourite words to live by . For all the details and what's inside please pop across to inkypinkycraft .

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We support and encourage crafting of all genres here from contemporary to vintage, from CAS to shabby chic and grunge, from card making, scrapping, tag art, journalling, altered art and home decor. Our individual posts commence on Sunday and will feature every alternate day throughout the month. We try and bring you DT makes that cover as much of the spectrum as possible - all we'd like now is for you to get crafting and join in!  >:o)

Have a wonderful August!

Chris and the team xxx