Gilli Challenge- Embossing

Today it's my turn to play along with our current challenge- Embossing! I still had Gilli's house on my craft table from the last challenge (that tells you the state of my craft room hee hee) and I got this sweet and simple card idea as soon as I picked it up!

I tried this card idea on a A2 size card (4.25x5.50) but it didn't work at all. Something seemed off and I realized that with the shape of Gilli's house she needed a square card- with rounded corners obviously ;). It worked perfectly!

When using embossing powder it is important to prime your paper first so that you don't have a million little bits of  your embossing powder everywhere to take away from the clean look of the card. I used a little pouch called an embossing buddy and wiped it all over my card. Be warned if you are using coloured cardstock it can leave a white powdery film on your paper so use a gentle touch. This eliminates the static of the paper and releases the embossing powder except where you want it to stay. For my ink I prefer to use Versamark watermark ink in clear. I ink up my stamp and firmly press it to the paper. I then used some detail embossing powder and pour it over my paper. Don't worry about how much you use as you can pour almost all of it back into your container. When you pick up your card the powder should only stay where you have put the ink. I give a light tap to my paper to further release any random bits that may be trying to sneak onto my card. You take your embossing gun to heat the powder and then watch the magic happen! All these years and I still enjoy watching that powder melt lol!

I added a sentiment as this card is intended for someone moving into their new home- it certainly would be a special day! I added a touch of ribbon and then whimsy hit me and I cut out some cloud shapes. I ran it through my Xyron sticker maker to add adhesive then I added white fluff and glitter to my clouds to make it pop out from the white card base. 

To play along with our current challenge click here to go to the House of Gilli blog and join us! You don't have to use a Gilli stamp to qualify and if you win you will get some Gilli goodies of your own! Good luck!

Cheers- Andrea

Playing with copics and skin tones

Time for another Gilli stamps challenge and this one is an easy one for me..Flowers. I tend to use flowers on most of my cards and I own large buckets upon buckets of paper flowers that are just begging to be used.

On this card I tried something different. I am working on one of Suzanne Dean's copic classes at her copic site- Color Me Creative- and in class five we do Hispanic skin tones. This site is filled with classes you can take, lots of fun groups to join and just in general some awesome people to chat with. Back to my colouring of skin tones her class inspired me to do some internet searches for other colour combos for skin tones. I mean- we are all different- why keep using the same copic colours :) 

This is my first attempt outside of my standard colour combinations and while it still needs more work and practice I think it turned out okay. I really enjoyed breaking my routine and thinking of all my friends of different ethnic backgrounds and how much nicer it would be to give them a card with a girl coloured more to match their own skin tones. I am going to keep practicing and have fun trying new colour combos! 

To highlight my sassy Lady Gilli I added a big flower to set a festive air to the card. I then matched my papers to her dress and shoes and of course added some sparkle too. Lady Gilli always needs to sparkle! hee hee. 

I hope you play along with us over at House of Gilli and add flowers to your creations too!

Cheers, Andrea

Gilli White and one other colour challenge

I'm back again today with a card featuring Lady Gilli for the current challenge over at the House of Gilli blog! Our current challenge is to use white and only one other colour on your card. Thankfully we are also allowed to use our skin and hair colours as usual but other than that it must be white and one colour- in my case pink!

I actually coloured Lady Gilli in fully but I wasn't fond of how I coloured the pleats in her dress. I really liked everything else though and I was bummed at the thought of throwing it out and starting over. After a few minutes of sulking (hee hee) I got the idea to just frame her face and make her into a portrait. I think it turned out great and I got to keep the part of the image I really liked my  colouring on. Keep that in mind next time you make a booboo on your card too. Maybe you can salvage part of the image like I did today and take your card into a whole other direction. 

I then wanted the card base to really stand out so I used a Baroque embossing folder to make my white card base pop! I added a frame behind Lady Gilli and decorated it with crystals as I would imagine a ritzy frame would look like on her dresser lol. Some butterflies and a bow finished it off. Voila!

To play along with us at H.O.G. click here to be taken to the challenge blog where you can also see more lovely inspiration from my fellow DT members. 

Cheers! Andrea

Time for another Gilli stamps challenge- let's get Springy!

First let me apologize for my late post today. Things got crazy hectic all of a sudden at my house and taking a picture of my card and posting completely slipped my head. When it rains it pours...and in this case it was literally. Yep it started raining in my living room in my brand new home- the shower in my bedroom apparently leaked and it came through the ceiling. So I hope you can understand why pretty much everything else left my mind lol!!! Thankfully the builder has been called and she will get it fixed and the damage repaired. 

On to my card. My fave Gilli is Cozy Gilli due to my daughters love of their Snuggi's. Yep they both have one and they even bought each other theirs as their mom refused to buy it hee hee! I love seeing them all snuggled in with it watching tv late at night or early Saturday mornings. So in honour of our current colours of Spring challenge that I am hosting my Snuggi has been paper pieced in nice pastel Spring colours. I am also dedicating this card to my crafty BFF Sarah- it is because of her that I have this delicious My Mind's Eye paper- in every different colour pack they came out with in this release hee hee! Also she and I have the best time just flaking out in our cozy clothes watching tv, eating 'healthy' snacks and looking at things we think we should buy on our Ipads. We enable each other to a mad degree! If our hubby's new how much they would probably try to limit how much time we spend together hee hee!!! Not that they could of course ;).

Has this ever happened to you? When I was almost done my card and was cutting out my image with a nestability the unthinkable occurred. My sweet Gilli had a dent in the paper right by her face! Apparently a paper scrap was stuck to the plates of my die cutting machine and totally dented it. AAAaaaHHHHhhh!!! After I sat in my chair spinning around and sweating for a few minutes I cut out a sentiment from the MME paper I used on my creation and used it to cover up the dent. Phew!!! I would love to hear your fave way to cover up mistakes and unplanned 'surprises' on your crafty creations. Please leave me a comment below and don't forget to make a card with Spring colours to play along with House of Gilli. We would love to have you!

Cheers, Andi

I'm back with a Gilli challenge card!

Andrea here! I had a bit of a creative holiday so it has been awhile since I  have shared one of my Gilli creations. I am happy to say I am back after moving into a new house and ready to play along with our challenges here at House of Gilli!

Wini is our current hostess with the mostest and she has asked us to go Green! I dug out my Lil Gilli Girly to make a sweet 4x4 card to match her cute little size. I coloured her up with my copies to match my papers and kept the embellishments to a minimum for 2 good reasons:

-this lovely card is for a gift bag I am putting together for one of my friends and I wanted the focus to be on the image not the bling

-I still can't find most of my stuff in my new crafting space at the new house LOL!!!!!! My lovely friends helped me unpack and now I just have to figure out where they put it all hee hee!

I hope you get a chance to play along with us as well- we would love to have you join us!

Cheers, Andi

Cozy Gilli is keeping warm during the current Winter Gilli challenge..

Popping in here with my Winter Gilli Challenge card. I inked up my fave Cozy Gilli and her snuggly for my inspiration as I just adore being wrapped up in something warm with a hot cuppa tea in one card. I coloured Gilli with my copies and I tried blonde hair for a change from my usual brown hair. I used Y23, YR21 and YR23. Not too bad! I will have to use this colour combo again. 

I hope this helps get your inspiration going for our current challenge. If you don't feel like making a card for that cold icy stuff that floats down from the sky think warm like I did! 

Don't forget to link up your challenge cards over at the House of Gilli challenge blog so that you can have a chance to win some yummy Gilli stamps of your own!

Cheers, Andi

My first Gilli challenge card of 2012

Hello! Happy New Year!

Andi here with my entry for the anything goes challenge. I love making Valentine's day cards and here is the first one I have made for the year so far. I used Lil Gilli Girly for my card and coloured her up with my copies. I used some of my MME valentine's day papers and hearts everywhere! I love using pink and red together and wore it frequently as a colour combo when I was younger. I still remember how upset and depressed I was when I was told you couldn't wear those two colours together as they 'clashed'. I think those rules may have gone out the window as I frequently see that colour combo all the time now! I gave Lil Gilli a blue outfit to help the image 'pop' on the card- I hope you like it!

Don't forget there is still lots of time to play along with our ANYTHING GOES challenge so link up to win some yummy Gilli stamps! You can find all the challenge deets over at the House of Gilli!

Hugs, Andi xo

Gilli stamps challenge- Blue and glittery

Feels like forever and a day since I have posted on my blog sharing one of my crafty creations. I have been so busy enjoying family and friends during this holiday season- I hope you have been too!

I have to share that I did get one big prezzie from the hubby that I really wanted- a vagabond!!! That's right- the electric die cutting machine from Lord Tim of Holtz himself....ahhh bliss! Yep no more turning of the hand in a clockwise manner for me- now just a push of the button and zip my die cuts are done. One happy crafter right here!

On to my reason for posting today- it is time for a brand new challenge over at the House of Gilli blog and it is my turn to be the hostess with the mostest. We are challenging you to use the colour BLUE and to make your project SPARKLE! So get out those blue papers and embellishments and pour on the glitter. Everything is better with glitter ;). 

I made a tag for my project today to go onto one of the many wine bottles that get passed around during the holiday season. I rarely drink wine anymore due to acid reflux (ugh) but my friends are still winos so this gift is perfect as we hang out and enjoy each other's company. 

I used some of the new Echo Park paper for my tag and a die shape from Lord Tim of Holtz to get my tag shape. I added some ribbon and die cut out some snowflakes on glitter paper to add lots of bling. For my Gilli stamp I used her home- I love this cute and versatile house stamp! The opposite side of the tag reads 'From our house to yours- May this be a wonderous holiday season'. 

If you would like to win lots of Gilli stamp goodies come on and play with us over at H.O.G. and maybe you will be our next lucky winner!

Cheers! Andi

Cozy Gilli in Red and Gold

I would like to own a red Snuggi. Any colour Snuggi actually. I am frequently chilled and gave up on looking cool long ago in favour of fuzzy clothes and socks. And wearing pj pants and any time of the day if I don't have to go out. I bet some of you are reading this right now in your pj pants- go you! hee hee

The current challenge over at the House of Gilli blog is to add the colours Red and Gold to your card. Well I actually have been a red colouring phase so this was easy for me to be inspired by. I have to first say that when using red copics I ALWAYS use copic Express it paper. I am a heavy handed colourer and it doesn't bleed at all. None. If any colour is outside of the lines it is because I coloured outside of the lines- cause isn't that what makes life fun? ;) 

I used Cozy Gilli and some DCWV paper I had been hoarding but let's face it used both the challenge colours so it was time to let it go. Bye bye gorgeous paper- I will miss you.... Oh wait- it is not like I actually send any of my cards so it can go on my display board for me to look at even more often. Score! ;)

Click here to read the challenge details and to see all of the delicious eye candy the DT has been posting to inspire you. 

If you don't have any Gilli stamps yet you don't need to use them to join us in our challenge but if you want to buy some you can find them at Stamping and Scrapbooking online store here.

Time for me to pour another cup of tea and try to get some relaxing in today. And maybe..just maybe...even get some more crafting done today. 

Cheers, Andrea

Copics used:

Hair- E25, 27, 29, 49

Skin- E000, 00, 11, R01, R20

Mug- Y23, 26, 28, glaze pen, glitter pen

Snuggi- R24, 27, 29 and C5 over the R29 to deepen the shading

Ground- W1, 3, 5

Outline- BG10

Gilli stamps and flourishes- I took the easy way out with this challenge lol!

*Please click on the picture for a closer view*

Today I am sharing my card for our current Gilli stamps challenge hosted by Melanie- flourishes! Now I have to admit I feel like I cheated as I chose paper that had flourishes hee hee. You can see them in the bottom left of the card and also below my sweet flying bird. I am obviously in need of some flourish dies ;). 

I used the lovely Lady Gilli on my card tonight and gave her a satin evening dress to go with my elegant card. I coloured her dress using the following copic colours- BG70, 72, 75, 78. I then added some crystal lacquer I had on hand to give it that satin sheen I just love. I had a satin shirt in the early 90's..it was in style then to be fair...and I just loved the way it felt against my skin and I like to imagine she is also enjoying the smooth silkiness of her evening dress.

My card layout comes from one of my FAVE sketch sites- CPS blog. They are one of my absolute first sites I check whenever I need a sketch- love them! 

Well that's all for me today. I hope this helps to inspire you along with the other DT eye candy we have posted so that you play along with our current challenge over at the House of Gilli challenge blog. We would love for you to join us!!

Cheers, Andi 

Lady Gilli stamp from Gilli Stamps

Papers used- My Mind's Eye Lost and Found- Portabello Road 6x6

Kraft and black cardstock

doily shapes from my friend Anja xo

self adhesive pearls

Tim Holtz distress ink- Old paper

CC Designs Amy R collection- 'Live laugh love' from Love-ly sentiment set

Copics- E0000, 000, 00, 11, 23, 25, 27, 29, 40, 42, 43

BG70, 72, 75, 78

R01, 20

Angel Gilli in Monochromatic style

Today I am sharing a card I made with Angel Gilli to play along with the current monochromatic challenge over at the House of Gilli blog. I have to admit I haven't done many cards in this style so to keep it simple I only used my copics from the E colour family. 

Her wings are 40, 41, 43

Hair is 29, 35, 37

Face 0000, 000, 00, 11 and 91 for the cheeks

Her dress was colored using E's I hadn't used before so I felt good finally being able to justify buying them tee hee! They were 70, 71, 74, 77. They look almost purple don't you think?

I outlined her in E 50 to give her an angelic glow

What co ours do you think you will use to play along with our monochromatic challenge?

Happy crafting, Andi

'lil Gilli Girly stamp is helping me reuse and recycle!

I really enjoy colouring my Gilli stamps and this uber cute 'lil Gilli girly stamp was the perfect size to help me out with the Recycle challenge we had. 

I had these leftover papers from a card I made that I was going to throw most of them away as they were too small for the card size I typically make. I then had the idea to make a mini card and so my sweet little Gilli stamp works perfectly for when you need a small stamp for a small card. 

I also used this button which I had saved from another project that I was getting rid of. Sometimes my ever present cup of tea spills on my craft area from my cats leaping around and if I have left my cards out...well sometimes tea stained is not the look I am going for so out they go. I have started to take off ribbon, buttons, brads etc to be reused even though it is not like I don't own tons..I just hate throwing out a perfectly good item that could be re-purposed. I am really happy with how my card from scraps turned out and the Fall colours are perfect for this time of year before the snow starts. Which could be any day now lol. 

Anytime you would like to play along with us Gilli girls we would love to have you over at our challenge blog. You could even win some sweet Gilli stamps of your own!

Cheers, Andi

Playing with Gilli and Halloween

Gilli challenge #18 is to use at least 3 of the following colours- purple, orange, green, black and white. I used all of them...Let's face it, my paper from DCWV made it easy. 

The first thing I did was colour up Lady Gilli and give her fun purple hair. I then paper pieced her dress using some paper from Authentique then added glitter to really make it pop and look all shiny- web like. I then grabbed my Martha Steward spooky fence punch to add more dimension to the card. I was pretty lucky though- this page had the fun swirls and house already on it. There really wasn't much else to add or I would have been covering it up. I did add a sentiment from the same DCWV paper pack and then some punched bats. Anja made me buy the punch a bunch tool kit awhile back and I used it for the first time tonight to deboss my bats and make them pop. All right Anja- you were right..I love it hee hee. Last but not least some fun googlie eyes went into the windows of the house to give it some more 'monster' vibe. I found them while cleaning and sorting my crafty crap. It's like Christmas sometimes when I do that- finding all the things I had misplaced and forgotten about hee hee!

I hope you get some crafty time in today and can play along with us over at the Gilli challenge blog. Tune in tomorrow for my first post as part of the Color Me Creative Classroom DT with Suzanne Dean!

My Gilli challenge card- let's emboss!

Last night I was partying hard with the Gilli ladies as we were celebrating Gilli's 1st birthday. Anary was giving away amazing goodies! If you missed it don't worry- there is still lots of birthday fun to be had! If you haven't commented on my Gilli house post click here to see it and leave a comment to win. Hop over to the DT blogs to comment on their Gilli homes to win as well. Lots of prizes to be had!

After the wild party and meeting a girl named Tina who gives me a run for my money at being naughty (Hi Tina!!) I needed to rest up and so Cozy Gilli came out with me to help make my challenge card. Anary sent us all on the DT some of the new Authentique papers from a few different lines- Thanks so much Anary! I used sheets from the Journey Line on my card today. After colouring Gilli with my copics and using my new fave hair colour combo (E25, 33, 50) I paper pieced her Snuggli and then ran it through my swiss dots cuttlebug folder. Sheila at SGD has her copics on sale right now at 25% off- time to stock up!  

As I am sketch challenged I used the CPS sketch to make my card and embossed my side panels as well. I actually also cut out Gilli using my rectangle Nestabilities but I didn't have much luck running it through a second time to emboss it. I always chop off part of the paper. Oh well. At least I was able to trim it down and save it. Otherwise I would have hid the mistake with some fancy flower and ribbon placement hee hee!

I am also entering my Gilli card over at the Twin Touch challenge blog. I want to try those markers!!! 

For more Gilli birthday celebrations and also awesome DT embossed samples to get your inspiration flowing visit the House of Gilli blog today!

Cheers! Andi

Gilli New Release Blog Hop- Gilli has a home!

Welcome to the House of Gilli design team hop! You just came from visiting the House of Gilli blog! Isn’t Gilli’s house a cool place? Now it is my turn to let you into my house!

During this hop leave some love in each place you drop by including this one. One person will be chosen randomly from the comments to win a GC for some Gilli's! So spread the word and come have fun with us!

For my special Gilli home today I coloured it up in what I think of as Cottage colours. I used creams, yellows and blues. My copic colours are - B91, 93, 95, 97, 99..E50, 51, 53..YR20, 21, 23...C0, 2 and of course some glaze and glitter to make my window's shine. I also used some Stampin' Up paper that I received last year and have been hoarding due to it's prettiness. I also used some of my precious SU paper clips and a silver flower. My last touch was some yellow twine to bring more sunshine to Gilli's home. I like to think Gilli would have a warm and welcoming home and I hope I got that across with my colours!

The nice thing is that this hop will last a whole week (09/19-29), so you have time to come for a visit anytime ! We will be waiting! Grab a cuppa tea and hop with me.

Oh I almost forgot…if you would like to have your own “House” read on! This stamp will be sold exclusively from our shop and can be ordered by emailing Anary who is the amazing owner of Gilli stamps. Please email her at gillishop@anary.com. 

You may be wondering...who am I visiting next? Well- grab a refill if you are like me and need one already then pop on over to Ann's blog.

Cheers! Andi

Lady Gilli Easel Card

I am excited to share my second Gilli creation with you all. We were challenged to make a Gilli easel card with flowers. I have to admit I got carried away and totally forgot the flower part. Luckily I still needed to make my 'door stopper' for my easel so I used the Tim Holtz mini paper rosettes die and created the black flower shown here. Really really makes these flowers so fast and easy to create. I added a button from Tessa Ann Designs- one of my guilty pleasures. Notice another one by Lady Gilli herself...she deserved it lol!

I added folds to her dress by using R89 as my darkest colour and marked out where I wanted my folds. From there I worked from dark to light using R85, R83 and R81. I coloured her hair using E25, E29 and E31. This is my newest fave colour combo as I almost always colour brunettes. I have no idea why...probably because it reminds me of chocolate lmbo!!

One of the things I like about the Gilli stamps is that their eyes are just white ovals so that you can make them look in whatever direction you want. One of these days I will do a 'scene' so I can have a few of them looking at each other. If you want to purchase Gilli stamps you can find them at  Stampingscrapping.com and you can see tons of inspiration and challenges over at the House of Gilli blog. The nice thing about their challenges is that you don't need to use a Gilli to win but if you do you get extra chances! So if you don't have a Gilli yet this may be a good way to start your collection.

I am off to teach a class today so I had better get my groove on. Hope you all have a fun productive Wednesday!

Cheers, Andi

My new DT role for Gilli stamps!

I am so excited to share that I am now part of the Gilli stamps design team! I was introduced to them at CHA from my partner in crime Suzanne Dean and I just instantly fell in love with Anary the owner and her whimsical images. I threw myself around kicking and screaming until she agreed to let me play with her stamps hee hee! Seriously- when she emailed me after we met and asked me if I wanted to join I was over the moon! She has some amazing Gilli images that I really enjoy colouring.

Today is my first post over at the House of Gilli challenge blog. If you already have some Gilli stamps and wish to play along pop on over and upload your card featuring the sketch above. I used Fairy 2 Gilli on my card and coloured it with my copics using the new techniques I learned from Suzanne Dean. Let's just say it was like relearning how to colour all over again. This image is my first time using my new mad copic skills and I am happy with how she turned out. I changed the sketch slightly to move the embellishments from below the image panel to have her holding flowers instead. Want to know why??  For those of you who know me whenever I cut out an image, paper piece, creative placement of embellishments, etc. it means that Andrea messed up.

Can you see it?

Look closely at her thighs...yep she has blue thighs. Not.on.purpose.

It seems that when I used an extreme amount of blue ink on her dress that I apparently grabbed some with my skin colour and smeared it all around. Of course I did. And no matter what I tried I couldn't erase it or blend it in. So..she gets a pretty bouquet hee hee!

So pop on over to the House of Gilli blog to see more creations. Feel free to leave a comment on my post today telling Anary how awesome I am. I will pay you..lmbo!!!!

Cheers, Andi