There Are Always Flowers...

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them" ~ Henri Matisse

Good morning everyone!

Hope you're all having a great weekend. Today, I'm sharing my penultimate post before Christmas and then, that's it from me as I'm off to have a good rest because I think I deserve it!!

Today's post is all about those gorgeous Tattered Poinsettias from Tim Holtz. I think you can say that I've definitely had my money's worth out of this die and that is exactly what I personally love about die cutting ~ a die is for life, not just for Christmas. You can use the dies over and over again as they are so versatile, and that's especially why I choose to work with and LOVE Sizzix, as those Bigz dies will cut through almost anything and everything, which is perfect for me as I'm always trying out new and different ideas!! As you've seen from my posts leading up to Christmas, you can use so many different surfaces to die cut from and then, by using texture and various mediums to decorate the surfaces, no two flowers will ever look the same. As always, I really hope you love this tag...

I went for something a little different on this tag and chose a metallic look. The poinsettias themselves are die cut from Grungepaper covered with adhesive foil sheets and then embossed in the Textured Poinsettia Texture Fade embossing folder. Once all the petals were embossed, I applied Alcohol Ink to the surface.

The tag itself is painted with Black Soot Distress Paint, dried and then I added a layer of Brushed Pewter over the top.

To complete the card, I added some rusty wire, an Idea-Ology Word Band and some seam binding that I hand dyed with Brushed Pewter Distress Stain.

So, that's it from me for today...there is cleaning, ironing and Christmas prep to be done...and I think Michael Buble will be serenading me as I do it!! I'll see you all tomorrow with my final post before Christmas but wish me luck with the food shopping/battle that needs to be done before then!!

Bye for now and happy Sunday...Love Emma xxx

Happy Halloween...

Hello friends!!

Today, I'm sharing my very final Halloween project that I've made and all that's left for me to say, is:

Happy Halloween everyone... 

For this tag, I used some more Tim Holtz goodies, of course and I created a Distress Stain background before stamping that gorgeous spiders web from the Halloween Cutouts stamp set. This time I used the Halloween Shadows die from Tim's Alterations line by Sizzix and die cut those awesome little people, the smaller bats and the Trick or Treat message, from Core-dinations card which I sanded back.

I added die cut bats, die cut from Grungepaper, painted with Black Soot Distress Paint and then covered in Rock Candy Distress Glitter. Finally, I used Distress Stains to tie-dye the seam binding which I tied into a bow.

So, as always...thank you so much for stopping by today and if you're out and about tonight, then please be safe and take care.

See you soon and bye for now...love Emma xxx

I Want To Fly Away...

Hi everyone!!

It's time for my share over at The Artistic Stamper Creative Team blog and here's just a little peek at what I've made!! If this has whetted your appetite and you'd like to see the complete piece, then just click HERE!!

Hope you have a wonderful week and I'll be visiting your blogs later today, to see what you've been creating!!

Bye for now and see you soon!

Love Emma xxx

Flying Around In Circles

Good morning everyone!

I hope you're all enjoying your weekend...I'm must admit I think I'm still recovering from a very busy week...and I've been very remiss in not visiting all your blogs as much as I should but at the moment, it seems as if it's all work and no play at Chez Williams', and if something can go wrong it's been going wrong in spectacular style.

Today, sees the start of a brand new challenge over at The Artistic Stamper Creative Team blog and it's all about CIRCLES...

...and here's my interpretation of the challenge ~ I hope you like it!! Also should you need any more inspiration, then just click here and you can see what wonderful ideas the team have come up with.

I decided to get inky on my make and created a tag, blended with Distress Inks and added stamped butterflies to create my circle.

Well, I'd better go, I have magazine commissions to finish, instructions to write and in between time, I might even try and find my life!! lol!!!

Thank you for taking the time to come and visit and see what I've been up to...I really do appreciate all the comments!! I am going to make time today to visit all your blogs and say hello...and I hope you all have a very happy Sunday!!

Tomorrow, I will be back with the start of my shares from the Clarity shows which have been on all weekend. If you haven't managed to catch any of the shows on C&C, I can't wait for you all to see my artwork!!

See you soon and bye for now!!

Love Emma xxx

Pale Little Dandelion

Another flying visit from me, as I'm just finishing off a top secret project and I've been so engrossed in getting it all done, that I totally forgot that I hadn't posted these final samples from the Clarity shows, as promised. So here they are and I really hope you like them.

I think this stamp has to be one of my favourites that I've worked with since joining the Clarity DT. There's something so serene and beautiful about the image and as I've said before with many of my previous Clarity samples...I wanted to keep this card quite clean in it's style, so that stamps spoke for themselves, and you could see the beauty of them.

On this card, I used one of the corner stamps and coloured the tiny detail with Promarkers. Once again, I let the stamps do the talking and I just thought this would be the most beautiful card for Mother's Day.

So, that's about it from me and my Clarity samples for this month...I hope you've enjoyed them all and you liked the diversity of the stamps that I had to work with. I've loved reading all your comments and it's so nice that this collection has bought me so many new friends and followers.

Hope you all have a wonderful evening.

Bye for now and see you very soon!

Love Emma xxx

"Paris Is Always A Good Idea"

Good morning friends!!

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post and for taking the time to leave them...I always appreciate every single one of them.

So, today is the start of a new month and the start of a new challenge over at The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Blog. The theme of our challenge is TRAVEL and we would love to see all your thoughts and creative ideas...so if you have time and want to join in, pop on over to the blog, link up your challenge piece and you could be the lucky winner!! If you should be stuck for inspiration the Creative Team have come up with some fabulous artwork, which you can see HERE and this is mine...I hope you like it!!

As someone who loves Paris and is fascinated by the Eiffel Tower, then how could I resist making this tag, which features lots of inkiness and stamping. The Eiffel Tower stamp is from, Lord Holtz and everything else that you see is from The Artistic Stamper. I made the flowers using stamp elements from the gorgeous Flower Power stamps, stamped onto Grungepaper, coloured with Distress Ink.

Okey dokey, time for me to head off into the craft room and try and fire up my mojo!!

Hope you all have a lovely day.

See you soon and bye for now!

Love Emma xxx

Lil Primrose

Hope you've all had a lovely start to your weekend.

It's still absolutely freezing here in West London and we've still got plenty of snow on the ground, after another snowfall on Thursday night but the weathermen have said there's warmer weather on the way, so...it looks as if the worst might be over.

But whilst the weather outside is frightful, there's still plenty going on at Chez Williams and I thought I would drop by to say hello and show you something that I made last week ~ I hope you like it!

As you know I absolutely love Kaisercraft products and when a box of goodies arrived from the lovely Chrissy at Merly Impressions, full of some of the latest collections, I was in my element and for just two days, I put aside all my DT duties and indulged in some "me time" and I played with those products. The first of which is this gorgeous Beyond The Page, Tulip Photo Display.

I wanted to keep this piece very fresh and clean looking so, other than a small amount of Peeled Paint, on the Grungepaper leaves and branch, there were no Distress Inks in sight when I made this. I made some enamelled flowers using the Lil Primrose papers and dipped them into UTEE. The white picket fence is painted with PaperArtsy, Fresco Finish Paints and if I'm to be honest, it was actually influenced by Desperate Housewives. I just love the look of those clean white picket fences, with the wisteria growing all around the lane and I thought I would try and emulate that look with this piece.

All items that I used here are from the Lil Primrose Collection available from Merly Impressions.

They also have a fabulous blog full of inspiration and wonderful ideas and is definitely worth a visit.

Okey dokey time for me to fly...have a wonderful, relaxing Saturday night, everyone.

I'll be around to visit all your blogs, asap.

See you soon and bye for now.

Love Emma xxx

Christmas Countdown ~ Day One

Morning everyone!!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!!

Well, here we are...the final countdown, only six days to go until Christmas Day!! My preparation is slowly coming together and after finishing a big magazine project at the weekend, I can now finally relax and think...IT"S CHRISTMAS!!

This week, my adventurous plan is to post every day and have a little Christmas countdown here on the blog!! Lol, hmm, I know...I really don't make life easy for myself and I know that this is a busy time for everyone but I hope you'll be able to pop along to see all my Christmas makes and samples that have been keeping me so busy over the last few months...

...and here's my first share and my favourite ~ I made this over the weekend and I really hope you like it!!

I'd just like to say a big thank you, to the lovely Paula at Which Craft? for these fabulous crackers...as soon as they landed on my doorstep, I was so excited by them because they were something really different to work with and it was so nice to be able to spend a couple of hours doing something for myself, something that was totally ~ me!!!

Once again, and as you can probably see ~ there's a lot of Tim Holtz products going on here, grungepaper, die cuts, tissue tape, etc....etc....etc!! I must admit to get that deer standing proud, all on his own free will, was a real patience tester but it was so worth it in the end!! The designer papers are from My Mind's Eye and the decorative pin, from The Ribbon Girl.

So, that's the first of my Christmas countdown posts...and if all goes to plan, I'll be back tomorrow with another one!

Hope you all have a lovely week.

Bye for now.

Love Emma xxx

Entered in the following challenges:

Charisma Cardz Challenges ~ Last Min Xmas Makes

Let's Face The Music...

Happy Monday, everyone!! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend...but isn't it FRREEZZING out there!! I've finally had to give in to putting the central heating on and breaking out my boots and winter coat!!!

So, once I got over the cold temperatures that have finally hit us, my weekend was full of deadlines and craft but I managed to meet them all, which at times seemed like an impossible task but I did it and I'm so pleased with the creations I've made!! Can't wait to show you all...

But back to today and I thought it would be nice to share one of the cards that I made for a recent QVC show featuring Perfect Pearls. I hope you like it...

The 3D rose is made out of Grungepaper which I misted from a Mini Mister, with a mixture of Distress Ink Reinker in Victorian Velvet, to which I added some of the Perfect Pearls, topped up with water, given a good shake and then misted over the die cut flower petals.

When the rose is completely dry from the Perfect Pearls mixture, I then made it up and using the Perfect Medium pad, lightly brushed the surface before dusting on some more of the Perfect Pearls mica powder.

Finally, I adhered the grungepaper rose to the background, which I made using a combination of a music score stampand a Tim Holtz flourish stamp. I added some die cut flourishes and leaves and then matted it onto some gorgeous script paper from my crafty stash.

Thank you all for your lovely comments about my magazine projects in Making Cards. I can't tell you what a buzz I had from walking into WHSmith today and seeing it there on the shelves!! Can you tell I'm still just a little excited?!?

hehe

Hope you all have a lovely evening and stay warm!!

See you tomorrow with another post and something I can't wait for you all to see!!

Love Emma

xxx

Creative Expressions Calling Card Challenge

Hi everyone...hope you all had a lovely weekend and you're now refreshed and ready to start another week, that I'm sure will fly by!

I just wanted to pop on because I wondered if everyone had seen that Creative Expressions are holding a Design Team call? I'm sure that all of you know that Creative Expressions is based in Kettering, UK and are a leading manufacturer and distributors of all the latest crafting products. They also do a fabulous range of rubber stamps, including the wonderful new Tatty Button range and designs by Sam Poole.

If you would like to take part in this challenge you can get all the details, if you click, here...but you'd better be quick as the closing date for submissions, is tomorrow at 5:00pm. For all those who are taking part...the challenge is called "Calling Card" and all you need to do is, include an ATC somewhere within your project. The rest is up to your interpretation...if you do decide to enter ~ good luck!

And this is what I've made for the challenge...I hope you like it!

To make this card, you will need:

Rubber Stamps: Joyful Florals, Flutter Florals by Sam Poole for Creative Expressions

8" x 8" Pre-scored white card blank

Tim Holtz Distress Inks: Peeled Paint, Mustard Seed, Fired Brick, Broken China, Wild Honey, Brushed Corduroy

Black Archival Ink Pad

Tim Holtz Grungepaper

Papermania 12"x12" Kraft paper stack

Vintage Ribbon

Decorative Tear Drop Pins

Card Candi ~ Craftwork Cards

Inkssentials ATC Manila Cardstock by Ranger

Red Bazzill Cardstock

Kuretake Millenium Writer Pen

Craft Box Tools

1.  Cover the front of your card blank with a piece of red Bazzill card, cut to 18.5cm square, leaving a narrow border of the white card, all around.

2.  Cut a piece of the Kraft cardstock, 18cm square and distress the edges, with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink, to give an aged look to the card. Adhere to the front of your card, leaving a 0.5cm border of the red Bazzill card.

3.  Using a fine nibbed marker pen, draw a line onto the blank cardstock, creating a border around your matts and layers.

4.  Using a combination of the flowers, leaves, flourish and butterfly stamps from the set, stamp the images onto Grungepaper, using the black Archival Ink pad. At this point, it's entirely up to you, as to which stamps you choose to use, as there are so many beautiful combinations within these sets...you are the creator of your card, so you decide. Once the images are stamped, carefully cut them out and then with your Distress Inks and a blending tool, apply ink to each cut out piece building up the intensity of colour, as you blend. Shape each of the pieces, to give a realistic look to the petals and leaves.

5.  Stamp your quote from the stamp sheet onto the Manila ATC card, using the Archival Ink. Using a paper piercing tool, pierce a border of small holes around the ATC. Add Brushed Corduroy Distress Inks to the edges.

6.  Arrange and attach your your stamped images to the front of the card, using strong adhesive glue. Using 3D foam pads for height, attach your ATC sized, stamped quote, tucking it under some of the petals and leaves. This is your "Calling Card".

TIP: Always arrange your elements and make sure that you are entirely happy with the look of your card, before sticking anything down.

7.  Add a piece of ribbon across the bottom section of your card and tie into a bow. Attach two of the decorative border pins to the bow, tucking the points into the knot, out of harms way.

 8.  Finally, add a piece of Candi to each of the flower centres.

So, I hope you liked my little creation and I hope you have fun joining in with this challenge.

Have a wonderful day and see you all soon!

Love Emma

xxx