Happy Easter everyone!

It is our custom in Greece to have a special white candle for the ressurection mass. The children get theirs by their godmother, along with a new pair of shoes, a special kind of Easter brioche and a chocolate.

Ιt is our family habbit the last years, to decorate the candles of our godchildren ourselves, but also make some candles for us, as we are too old to accept candles from our godmothers (My godmother almost agreed to the fact that I am too old for candles, but flatly refuses to stop bringing the chocolate and the brioche)

So here they are:

The next one, the best of all, is mine and is made by my daughter at school especially for her mom. See how lucky I am!

So, have a Happy Easter and do not eat too much!

Καλό Πάσχα!

The original idea of the three painted tags came from dear Dina Wakley. The sketch is from the new challenge blog Once upon a sketch.

On a whim I bought Donna's Salazar Distrezz-it-all tool. I saw a layout she had made with her corrugated paper and how easily she distressed it and I was speechless. So, without thinking twice I visited zutter.com and bought it.

As soon as I layed my hands on the tool, I tested it in common packaging carton and worked miracles.

So, here is the layout that came out.

Ingredients: - Stamps:Prima and Artemio, Paper:BG, Distressing: Claudine Helmuth's acrylics, glimmer mists, gesso and distress inks, Diecuts: Silhouette - the rest from stash.

PS. After I made it, I found out that she had made a similar one sometime ago. It seems that along with her tool she bestowed me with some of her talent and inspiration.

I will play at the following challenges: Get Creative, Scrapbooking in Greece, Let's Ink it up, SSS&S, Anything goes, Our creative corner, Gingerloft challenge, Basic Grey challenges, The secret Crafter, Sugar Creek Hollow

This is a card for my godchild who had her birthday and is officially a teenager from now on.

It is based on a sketch found in the Passion For Promarkers blog, and the image is a free coloring page from the net. For the stripe I used a Martha Stewart border punch, my nestabilities, the embossing folder is the "tracks" from Craft concepts and the red flower is from my stash. The coloring is with Promarkers, but the paper is simple Canson and not so good for coloring. However, the markers are good and the result is acceptable.

By the way, the best paper to use with promarkers is the Copic paper. If anyone has an equal good european paper in mind, I would be more than happy to let me know, as I have to order the paper from the US.

Usually there is no spare time between chores, to be able to just "play". My daughter (an only-child), keeps pestering us to play with her, but most of the times she is simply grounded.

However, in our recent vacation, she managed to persuade her father to let her draw with his bow, and was so happy that he consended, that she even managed to listen to the lesson before the actual game.

I have to admit that she is better than me with the bow, so I confined myself with my camera and let my two archers, play.

The layout is based on a sketch from Nichol Magouirk of Two Peas In a Bucket, which I liked. It is the first time that I follow a sketch of another as well as creating a layout so full. Mine are usually simpler but I found the experiment fascinating.

The papers are all scraps, the flower stamps are Hero Arts, the sentiment is from an unbranded set, while the hearts of the stamped strip and the girl are from Kars and of course I used Promarkers.

Hello bloggers!

After a very relaxing 3-day trip at river Ladonas, I am back home, in a snow-white Athens! It's a miracle all by itself! Although, the snow honored only the Northern suburbs (as usual) , it is a celebration every time it happens!

The bad news are that both me and hubby catched a cold, so here I am with a sore throat and a terrible headache, to show you an older but still undecorated project.

This time I made a book the traditional way - by thread and needle. I think that the technique turned out OK but as I had not bookbinding thread I used common kitchen waxed thread and it is a bit thicker than necessary.

The tiles are craft foam (the one we use for children's crafts) heat stamped and sprayed. The technique is very cool and you can watch a tutorial here.

I used the Vintage Market and the Savannah collections by 7Gypsies, Glimmer Mists and Gaffer tape. Sorry I cannot remember the brand of the stamps - they were bought at a clearance!

So, here it is:

For the sheer joy of it I will play in : Cretalicious Challenges, The Secret Crafter, Anything Goes ans SSS

The challenge was to use some ephemera. Τhe definition for my foreign friends is "A Class of collectible items not originally intended to last for more than a short time, such as tickets, posters, pamphlets, postcards, or labels". For us Greeks is an everyday word, so I can add that it is used for something that does not last. To explain further, it is the origin of the word εφημερίδα [ephemerida = "newspaper"]

So long with linguistics. To the point now. I used a Bingo card by Melissa Frances, which I gessoed and misted. The letters are plain chipboard painted with prismacolors, and then sprayed with glimmer mists as well. As for the ephemera -I don't know if it needs an -s in the end as in Greek this is plural- I used a map, some stamps, a newspaper piece and a piece of Pirate Ethics Code by Rusty Pickle. The metal ring is from my stash and the cutie is my daughter 3 years ago.