Upgrading! And Image Retirements...

Hello all, how you keeping?

Lovely and damp here - dismal in fact!

Typical Scottish summer really, and to think,it will soon be the longest day! Time for those nights to be drawing in again, sheesh!!

Anyroadup, I am calling in today to let you all know that I have a new, proper web shop for my doodles! Wooo-hoooo!! About blummin' time mind you. Delicious Doodles has been in business for almost four years, and all that time it has been on blogger (free!)

Here is the link if you wanted to take a peek. It's still a work in progress, so please bear with me!

Delicious Doodles Images

I have been thinking about it for ages though. What with changes to blogger and uncertainty over 'following' issues I decided to bite the bullet and get on with the upgrade. Okay, so it's now costing me money per month, but hopefully when I dispose of Payloadz I can save a few quid.

The upgrade does mean however that I can't have as many images in the store. And gradually over the next few weeks I will be removing old images from the blog store too. I will run the both alongside each other for the time being, until folks get used to the other shop being there, but in the end the blogger shop will have to go.

DON'T PANIC though!

I won't be deleting anything just yet - you have time to nip to the shop and get any old images you want.

The first ones to go will be the most unpopular ones.

Namely the 'Rudolf' images, 'Flopsy Bunny' and 'Kitty' ones.

Also the Leprechaun images and some other ones that didn't sell very well.

So if you were interested in any of those mentioned here, then please do pop over and get them soon.

I'll be deleting them at the end of this month.

Right, need to get off here and go do some more new preview images, and make new folders to upload to the new store. See ya soon peeps!

xxxx

A Little bit of Steampunk

Hiya folks!

Long time no see! I've been a bit busy the last few weeks, what with Mother visiting and then trying to figure out how to make a new web store for my images.

But, I do have a make for you.

It is my DT piece for Haunted Design House who's theme this week is:

Emergency Embellishment

 

pick your favourite embellishment, and use ONLY that embellishment on your project.

Hmmmm. that got me thinking!

Well, I am a fan of metal embellies, and I do happen to use those little stick-on nail heads quite a bit, so that is the embellie I chose to use.

In keeping with the metal feel, I chose to go a bit Steampunk for this make, and I designed a new image too!  Here it is -

'Steampunk Mermaid':

She will be in the Delicious Doodles Store on Wednesday.

I kept the card fairly simple.

A black embossed base with gold rub-on smeared round the edges.

The dp is my own design, 'Steampunk Paper' which I fiddled with for the colour in my graphics programme. The original comes in a black and grey colour scheme.

I added a couple of strips of black card embossed with cogs and wheels and smeared in that gold rub-on again. I cut a frame with my spellbinders die, and added some blue paper behind it.

The Steampunk Mermaid image was coloured with my watercolour pencils, scanned back into my compy then printed, fussy cut and layered up with foam pads. Last job was to add my nail-head embellies!

Here is a closer view of the coloured image :

Right, MUST go and sort out this new shop thingy. I'm a bit nervous about it tbh, hope I get it right!

TTFN folks!

xxxx

Some challenges I am entering -

Our Creative Corner - Anything Goes

Crafty Catz - Anything Goes

Simply Steampunk - Frame It

Leather and Lace

Well hellooooooo peeps!

I hope everyone is well and busy crafting? I have been!!

My creation today was made for the HDH DT as part of the Smeared and Smudged DT Throwdown.
The theme (as chosen by us because we won last time) is
'Leather and Lace',
and I jumped at the chance to get in there and make something!!
Loooooove this combo, so coooool. lol. This was me back in the day, well, pvc mainly, couldn't afford real leather apart from the jacket with tassles!! lol

Well, I couldn't resist creating a brand NEW image for this theme, and so here it is sporting the same name as the theme - 

'Leather & Lace':

What do ya think? You like her?? Hee-hee!

I just knew I had to make something that had both REAL leather and actual lace on it, so off I went to ebay land and spent a flipping fortune (me BAD!)

Then I had to decide what to make with it, a card, a box, alter something...I decided on a twisted easel card and a napkin fold envelope to match (sort of).

Above is the start of the card base where I created the fold that makes the twist. Then I trimmed the excess off the top to make it a square card. The front piece is made separately as I had layers and lacey bits to hide before adding to the base card. The lace with ribbon is actually some costume trim. To the top of that I stuck some lace trim that has ribbon roses attached, looks much yummier IRL.

The base layer of the front is not real leather sadly. It is actually a sample piece of PVC I got from ebay for a quid (£1). I added some real metal studs to the corners, then smeared silver rub-on stuff over it all in an attempt to make it all look vintage and dusty.

For the bottom of the card I had to buy some leather effect card. I made it look lice a bodice that you lace up. Those are metal eyelets and a REAL leather trim up the sides! I put some spare lace behind it too. The tie-up bit is a boot lace I had spare.

I also bought me a yummy crochet lace flower with beads dangling from it to which I added a backing punched flower. The frame is a spellbinders one, layered with some deep red card to match her hair.

The image was coloured with my watercolour pencils, rescanned and printed for layering up with foam pads.

Below is the finished card:

Then for the envelope.

I used a tutorial from SCS as a basis to make it, using a 12"x12" piece of black bazzil.

Here is stage one with all the folds done:

I smudged silver rub on all over the creases for an aged effect, then started to decorate with some guippuir lace trim I had. This was cut into bits and stuck front and back.

Then I got cutting loads of spellbinders die shapes, did lots of embossing, gluing and smudging then adding studs and gem brads to make little panels for the corner pieces.

And here we have the finished envelope!

But how to keep it together?

A trip to Tesco and a bought belt later (ouch - tenner!!) I had my fastening. The belt needed to be shortened though, so I cut most of it off and punched (well, drilled) new holes. Ta-daaa!! 

 So, here we are with a close-up of the card front, followed by an even closer view of the 'Leather & Lace' image:

A view of the card about to be wrapped in it's envelope:

And finally, a view of the card and envelope together:

Phew, that was a bit photo heavy!! lol. Hope you are still there peeps??

That concludes my efforts for the HDH DT Throwdown entry.

Voting begins on Thursday at midnight, and continues through Friday, so if you like this piece and the other stunning makes from the HDH Team, head over to the S&S forum on ning and get voting for us!!! (pleeeeeaaase!?!?!?)

It only takes a minute to join up, and costs nothing, so go for it folks!

See you there. . .

xxx

Some other challenges I am entering with this make:-

Crafting by Design - Anything Goes

Digi-Stamps4 Joy - Bling on an Easel

Paper Pretties - Fabulous Folds

Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

Stampavie - Lots of Die Cuts

Cheerful Stamp Pad - Gothic Cuties

Make My Monday - Fancy Folds

Oooh La La - Easel Card

Stamp & Create - Use at least One Die Cut

New Images!

Hiya folks!

Thought I would just pop by and blab about a few new images in the

Delicious Doodles Shop

This first one was released last Friday

'Earth Mother':

Isn't she lovely?

Hope you guys like her...

Next is a scenic image of a lovely Castle we have on the West side of Scotland.

This one was used in the movie 'Highlander'.

'A Scottish Castle':

Next up we have two very dark images which you may not want to scroll down to see, so be warned folks - these are NOT for the faint hearted! lol.

'Pile 'o' Bones':

And last but most DEFO not least!

'Hungreeeeee!':

There you are then, told you they were NOT nice!!

Here's hoping my more dark and twisted fans will enjoy those two!

Take care all,

xxxx

A (not so) Mini-Book

Well helloooooooo folks!

How are you all keeping? Hope all is well in your neck of the woods?

We had a rubbish day here yesterday.

Our youngest had to have her pet Hamster put to sleep, so you can understand she was very upset, which of course made Mummy very upset too. Hate to see my babies crying!!

Anyway, I digress.

I decided I had better take part in the DT Throwdown Challenge being held on the Smeared and Smudged forum, seeing as I am part of the Haunted Design House DT. I hadn't made anything for the past couple of challenges, so I ought to really. It seemed like a reasonable theme this time, as it is MINI-BOOKS.

It needed to be more than five pages long, and less than 4 inches in size. Easy-peasy I thought to myself. Ha-ha! Many, many, MANY more than five pages later I got the job finished!! Took me over a week with all the fiddly little bits!

Anyhows, be warned folks - LOADS of photos coming up!!! This is the finished article:

A fake leather look to the covers, with copper highlights.

The following pictures are a step-by-step montage thingy of how I made the book.

First of all I printed loads of little dp patterns for the page backgrounds. Then I cut loads of die shapes to resemble frames and stuck them on silver mirri. I cut round the die shape to remove the excess mirri, then cut all the centres out to make the frames. I smeared copper coloured rub-on stuff over the black card, which brought out the embossed bits of the die cuts.

Then it was a case of assembling the little pictures. So I printed off all the images I wanted to use. These are all from my own shop, Delicious Doodles. I had coloured them in previously with my watercolour pencils, and scanned them into the compy ready for resizing before print. 

Then I had to work out how to get all the pages held together. I had to make them two at a time with a gully down the middle for the glueing together. Each pair of pages had to have a larger gully than the last to cope with the frames which are popped up on foam pads. Then I stuck all the papers onto each page, and smeared silver rub-on over the edges.

Then came the covers.

I took a sheet of red mica textured paper and turned it over as the back of it is a perfect leather look when painted black! Plus the red comes through a wee bit too which adds to the allure!

After that while the paint was drying I cut a couple of shapes to take the text for the titles, plus an extra one for that wee image there above. I cut an extra shape too so I could split in half and use for the ends of the clasp. I used the dotty edge of a border die for the embossed bits on the clap. Lots more copper rub-on later, with dried paint and it was ready to assemble!

Below are three montages of all the pages with the images on.

Like I said, they are all from my Delicious Doodles Shop, drawn, coloured and printed by myself. The papers are there too, as are the tiny corner images on the text pages.

The text font is called 'Metal Macabre'. I got that from a search on the web. Free download!!

Now, ordinarily I would link up all the images I have used, but there are far too many here it would take me all day!! A couple of the ones here are NOT available in the shop, as they were done just as a bit of art - the Vincent Price, Escher Eye and Christopher Lee ones. Didn't want to step on anyones copyright toes there.

Each of the pages has had some embellishments added in the corners too. Pearls, gems, nail heads tiny flowers made by me with gem centres. Please forgive the finger and thumb shots. I couldn't keep the book from closing itself up while photographing them!

OK, so this last shot is of the finished book and it's covers.

After painting the mica paper I added it to some card for strength. Loads of copper and silver rub-on, some more die cutting and glueing. Attaching the clasp/text plaques and then cutting the ends off some copper brads to stick on the dies the job was done!

So folks, this is where I direct you to the Haunted Design House Blog to go see my other minions mates makes for the throwdown - some awesome stuff, honest!!!

Voting will start on the Smeared and Smudged Group on Thursday, but only for ONE DAY!!

Please, please head over and VOTE FOR HDH!!

Sorry, but you need to sign up to get in and see all the DT projects that get posted there, but it is FREE and doesn't take a minute!!

There, hope you enjoyed your wee visit here!

Loved having you over, hope you return sometime peeps!

xxxx

Some challenges I am also entering -
(ooops, meant to do this last night but forgot. Too tired!)

Bearly Mine - Anything Goes
Craft Room Challenge - Books
Party Time Tuesday - Anything BUT a Card
Sweet Stamps - More than One Image
Card Mania - Die-cuts or Punches
Craft Bloggers Network - Anything Goes
Sprinkle N Sparkle - Use a Digital Image
Stamp and Create - Use at least One Die Cut