Blop Hop Winners!

First off, thank you to all who hopped along with us during our August New Release Blog Hop.

We've got a couple winners to congratulate..

Susan, you won first place... your pick of 4 Character Cafe Digi Stamps!

Julie E, you won our second place prize of 2 Character Cafe Digi Stamps of your choice!

E-mails have been sent to you both, but if you haven't gotten anything as of yet, please feel free to contact us... cyberspace is funny that way sometimes!

Once again, we appreciate all of your support and hope you enjoyed all the inspiration our DT had to offer as well as our new images.

Don't forget to check out this weeks' WIW challenge (a sketch!) & have some fun! See you Friday!

Happy Crafting,
Kendra :)

WIW - Sketcherific!

Hi all, it's that time of the week again, however, this is a sad week for one of our DT Members, Sara. It was her turn to host the challenge this week, however, sadly, there has been a death in her family. We are sending our thoughts and prayers out to her {hugs}...

In her absence, Kelly and I decided to take over and do something we have never done before! A sketch.... ohhhhh daunting and a little bit scary, however, WE DID IT!!!!

Our sketch for you..........


And without further ado, our sample....


A close up of Sierra Golfer, an image that our website members will be receiving via an e-mail blast shortly and she'll be available for purchase in the store soon too. We hope you enjoy!


We used Sierra Golfer from The Character Cafe (yet to be released), coloured with watercolours, on Bazzil cardstock, with DSP paper and button from my stash, the sentiment from Gina K, Spellbinder die, and Offray ribbon.

Alrighty then, should be easy peasy! Use our sketch for inspiration and wow us :) We'll have a draw (through random org) at the end of the week (next Wed am before the new WIW post) to see who will win 2 Character Cafe images of their choice and a chance to be a Guest Designer with us for Feature Friday.
If you're uploading to a gallery (ie splitcoast stampers) please use TCCWIW so we can find you easily.

That's it... hope you have fun and join us :)

Happy crafting,
Kendra & Kelly

TCC August New Release Blog Hop! The End...

Hey there, if you're just checking in here and you haven't been hopping along with us, you should most definitely go to the START and collect all the goodies and inspiration along the way!

If you have been hopping along and you've arrived from Tesa's Blog, then you are in the right spot, the END of the blog hop.

Hopefully, you've gotten the 30% discount code written down somewhere safe, you've collected the freebie and gathered up some inspiration along the way. We've asked you to become a follower of our blog and/or our website and if you've signed up to become a member of our website, we'll be sending you a message with another freebie next week to say thank you!

The discount code is valid until August 25th and we'll be announcing our winners on Tuesday night (before our next Work It Wednesday Challenge).

Don't forget when posting here on the blog to let us know if you've posted about the Hop somewhere so we can add an extra ballot to the cat tree for you!

WORK IT WEDNESDAY TUTORIAL - ALTERED BOX AND OUR NEXT CHALLENGE!

Hey, we had some players last week and that means we have a winner too! I did the draw by random org, however, I can't seem to figure out how to get that gadget to show the number that was generated. The number between 1 and 3 that came up was 2 and that means that Piali won our challenge for last week. Piali, you can choose any 2 Character Cafe images that you wish to have. Also, we'd like for you to consider being a guest designer with us next week, August 28th. I'll be e-mailing you with more details :) Thanks to everyone who stopped by, commented and especially those who played along with us! Now on to this weeks challenge...


Good morning and welcome to the Work It Wednesday Character Cafe Tutorial Spot. Today, its me, Elaine from My Creative Corner and I am going to show you how I have altered a simple box :)

Firstly, choose/find an empty box that you think is suitable for altering. I have used a small box that a phone charger came in.

I then opened out the box so that I could use it as a template to cut my pieces of card stock to cover the box using double sided tape to fix into place.

Next I fixed my chosen card stock to cover the box and cut a rectangular scalloped nestie from White Linen Card for the top of my box and attached with double sided tape.

On a piece of smooth white card, I printed out Ziggy Bee (available from the Character Cafe Shop...here) which I then coloured using my Promarkers.

He was then cut out and stickles glitter added to his wings, and then left to dry thoroughly.

While your image is drying, take a piece of ribbon long enough to go around the middle of your box... I fixed mine using double sided tape and then to the center added a matching flower and I also stamped a sentiment onto my rectangular topper.

Once Ziggy was dry I fixed foam pads to the back and then positioned him on the lid of the box.

This is my finished box!

Now onto the challenge... this weeks challenge is to : ALTER SOMETHING! It doesn't have to be a box, it can be anything you can find to alter into something useful!! I am really looking forward to seeing your creations as are the rest of the Design Team :) Please leave a link to your creation in the comments, I can't wait to pop by to look!

Thanks for stopping by!

Work It Wednesday #6 - Glitter it up!

Hello there! Welcome to today's Work It Wednesday where I will share my love of all things GLITTERY!

My name is Colleen and my home on the net is Glitter Ink. My motto in cardmaking is this: "Glitter makes everything better!" So I usually always find some way to incorporate glitter into my cards. Even if it's only a small, minute detail. Just a little added sparkle makes me smile and I just know the card receiver will smile too!

There are endless ways to add sparkle to a card, whether you are using some sort of blinging rhinestones, glitter applied with glue pen, glitter embossing with a versamark ink pad and heat gun, etc. One of my fave, all time favorite, go-to glitter supplies is: STICKLES!!! They come in so many colors!

It would be easy enough to share how to apply glitter to any given image after it has been colored and mounted on a card, so I thought I would share a very different way to "glitterfy" your creations.

You will need: card base, cardstock, image, paper crimper, stickles (for this project a clear/iridescent color is perfect). I am using Crystal Stickles.

Take your large section of cardstock and run it through the paper crimper.

After that is done you will mount that cardstock onto your card base.

Then you will use your stickles to fill in the lines from the paper crimper.

After your glitter lines are all dry you can finish up your card.

Now it's your turn!!! Show us your works of glitter! You can link your creations here or when uploading to online galleries please make sure to use WIW6 as your keyword. I can't wait to see what you come up with! I love looking at sparkly things!

HERE ARE A FEW MORE SAMPLES FROM MY BLOG:

Glittered Flowers (shows you what just a little sparkle can do)

Glittered Ribbon (I just added the tiniest bit of sparkle to the gift)
Glittered Wings (angel wings are always fun to glitterfy!)

Glittery Dress (of course dresses are always fun to add sparkle to!)

THANKS FOR VISITING! HAVE A SPARKLEY DAY!

WIW #5 - Ribbon Play

Character Cafe - Work it Wednesday

Isn’t Ribbon wonderful! Where would be without it!

Hi! My name is Shelley and I am pleased to be part of the Character Café’s DT and it is my turn for Work it Wednesday. I hope you have all been enjoying the tips, techniques and ideas from our previous DT members and have used them on your cards or other projects.

Well today I want to give you some ideas of how to use ribbon on your cards. Some basic stuff and something a little different I hope you find it fun and helpful. We are using ribbon all the time on our projects and I think it finishes a card of nicely. But let’s try something different with the ribbon.

The first thing we are going to do I learnt from The Next Level challenge blog. I joined in one of their challenges and we had to use this technique on our project. So it thanks to them for this great technique. You’re going to love it!

Once you have stamped and coloured your image, measure and mark your card on the reverse of your image and punch four holes in each corner where the lines cross. Choose your ribbon and measure them against the card so they go from one hole to the next hole and add 1 ½ inches onto this length. Then do this for all four sides. The next thing to do is to tie a knot in the middle of each of the measured pieces of ribbon. Starting with one hole, pass the end of the ribbon from front to back and secure in place with tape on the back. Do the same with the other end of the ribbon and the adjacent hole. Now using this same hole, pass through another piece of the ribbon, again from front to back. So now you have two pieces of ribbon going through one hole. Secure in place. Do this now with the other ribbon pieces and the other holes until the ribbon forms a frame around your image and each hole holds two pieces of ribbon.

Next something a little simpler, we are going to have a go at colouring our ribbon. Yes, I did say colouring it. Now this technique needs you to play around and test out ribbons because all ribbons are made from different materials. The ribbon I am using for this technique is a twill ribbon with small flowers on it. I choose a Copic Pen that matched one of the colours in my image I have already coloured and started to colour alternate flowers, as you can see in the picture. All I used was the very tip of the pen because you don’t want to saturate the ribbon material. You can see it covers very well with no bleeding. You need only the tiniest amount of pressure when doing this. I am going to use this ribbon on my card later.

Finally this is just little embellishment idea for your cards using eyelets. Choose where you would like to place two punched holes on your card, as I have done. Then punch and set your eyelets in place. Next thread two strands of ribbon through both holes and tie of into a knot. Trim the ribbon to your desired length. See pictures above. You can leave it like this or you can dangle a tag or another embellishment from the ribbon as I have done on my finished card.

You’re Challenge
Now your challenge this week is to include just one or more of these ideas on your project. I really enjoyed playing with ribbon and am I sure you will too. You will be amazed at what you create. All you need to do is PLAY!
It would be great to see what you do for this challenge. So leave us a comment with a link to your project, which could be your personal blog or your gallery at SCS.

Work It Wednesday – by Shelley at Artful Achievements