Cards with Movement at Cardz 4 Guyz

Today for the latest challenge at Cardz 4 Guyz we would like to see cards with movement. It might be a slider card, or a spinner card, or any kind of kinetic card.

I chose to make a magic window card (and I wouldn't be giving too much away if I were to say that I'm not the only member of the DT to have done so!). The finished card has an uncoloured image:

But pull the tab and - hey presto! - the image is coloured in!!!

The instructions that I used were printed off from an email I received back in 1999 and have been meaning to try ever since.... and they didn't work. So I ended up spending an afternoon watching You Tube videos to try to understand exactly what gets stuck to what, and where it gets stuck. It's worth it, though, for the impressive result, and I'm crossing my fingers that one of my teamies will have provided a link to some easier-to-understand instructions.

The main image stamp is by Crafty Individuals, the cogs and gears are various stamps from my stash and the background card is covered with pieces torn from a sheet of tissue printed with vintage advertisements.

I am sharing this with
Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes 
Use Your Stuff - Heritage  -  because of the vintage balloon image and the vintage advertising paper

Tiny Tots at Ooh La La Creations

Our new challenge is waiting for you at Ooh La La Creations Challenge and the theme is Tiny Tots.

For my card I have used papers from the Shawn Jenkins Collection CD, which is available in the Ooh La La Creations Shop. I love all the cute little creatures in the picture - every time I look at it I find another detail to smile about. The die cuts I have added are cut with the X-cut "Baby icons" set.

A Snippety Halloween

I really wasn't intending to make any more Halloween cards, but the photo challenge at Just Us Girls this week was one I just couldn't resist.

 

Here's my take on it.....

I have no pumpkin die, so I used the smallest die from a Nestabilities Ovals set to cut 5 ovals  and stick them together to form one, with a tiny scrap of green for a stalk. The trailing "vine" is an ivy sprig cut with an old (Marianne, I think)  die and the cat is cut with the Dee's Distinctively Dies set "Retro Cats 2". The tiny pumpkins are confetti that fell out of the packaging of something I bought on ebay recently!

All the die cuts are done with Snippets, so I'm taking this card into Pixie's Snippets Playground with me.

And I'm also playing along with the Spooky challenge at Cuttlebugmania -  although I find black cats cuddly and pumpkins delicious, at this time of year they are both allowed to be spooky.

Winter village

Thee's a recipe challenge this week at Less is More, the recipe being to use Acetate or Vellum. I think it's going to be a very popular one - there are some wonderful cards in the gallery already.

Here's my take on the challenge:

I used a die from the X-cut Village Build-a-Scene set to cut across the front of  a white card. Then I cut straight across the front 1cm from the top and replaced the front of the card with a square of acetate, placing the lower, die cut, area of the card back in position after adding a stamped sentiment. I used a peel off marker pen to colour the windows yellow from behind, and covered the whole of the inside of the card with dark blue paper.

I had planned to add the silver star to the inside of the card, but when I tried it, it looked better on the outside. There's a hint of sparkle to the acetate too - that isn't really meant to be there, I put the acetate down somewhere I'd been using glitter and the static on the surface picked it up, but it looked so pretty I didn't want to wipe it off! I fear it will drop off before Christmas though.

I am also sharing this with Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Use a sentiment

..... had a very shiny nose....

The reindeer stamp I've used on this card is one of my very favourite Christmas stamps. It was a magazine freebie several years ago - it's so sweet without being fussily cute, and lends itself beautifully to colouring.

Today I've stamped and heat-embossed it, and then coloured it in with Promarkers apart from the nose and the robin's breast, which I have made very shiny using Tonertex pen and cold foil, which you can buy from Foil Play.

The printed paper panel is made using the paper left over from a sheet I printed out for this card and the embossed snowflake panel is done using a Darice embossing folder and Core-dinations card. After embossing, I sanded the pattern lightly and then smooshed a glue pad over the top and sprinkled it with white glitter. I can seldom get sparkle to show up in photos, so you will have to take my word for it, it is actually VERY sparkly.

The sentiment is cut with the Tonic die "Sparkle and Shine" - which sums up the sparkly snowflakes and little Rudolph's Very Shiny Nose!

I am sharing this with:

Jingle Belles - While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Embossing, Heat or Dry
CRAFT challenge - Christmas
Allsorts Challenge - Sparkle and Shine  
Winter Wonderland - Frosty or Well Wrapped Up
Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes
Perfectly Created Chaos- Anything Goes

Winter or Spring at Always Use Rubber

Thank you to everyone who joined in with our first challenge at Always Use Rubber. Now it's time for our second challenge, and this time our theme is Winter and/or Spring.

We welcome any style, and any kind of craft, not just cards, but we MUST see some real stamp-and-ink stamping on your work - and NO DIGIS.

This time I have used a lovely Creative Expressions stamp set to make a very Clean and Simple card, because I think CAS has a lovely fresh look about it that fits well with the transition time between winter and spring, which is when the first snowdrops start to peep through.

As well as the snowdrop cluster and a wide range of sentiments, the stamp set includes separate stamps for the flower head, making it perfect for 3D work as you don't need to mask off areas of the stamp, or stamp the whole image again a second time, to get those extra layers to use.

I heat embossed the stamping and then coloured the whole thing in with Wink Of Stella - I hadn't used the green one before and I think it is perfect for the snowdrop foliage. And look, I even managed to get a photo of the lovely sheen the WOS gives!

I would like to share this with
Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
The Flower Challenge - Anything Goes with Florals
Fab'nFunky - Fabulous Flowers
Craft Rocket - Happy Birthday
A bit more time to craft - Anything Goes
Inkspirational - Black and one other colour
 

Recipe: Chicken and coconut noodle broth

This dish started out as a version of laksa but got sort- of sidetracked along the way. It's a lovely, soothing, comfort food  dish, not quite a soup and not quite a bowl of noodles. The quantity I made was intended to serve two but would easily have served 3-4, especially with a few more noodles added.

You will need:

2 chicken breast portions, ideally with skin and bone
1 x 400 ml can coconut milk
1 x 120g can coconut cream
1 tbs chilli jam
2 tbs light soy sauce
juice of 1 lime
130 g medium egg noodles
about a quarter of a head of Chinese leaves, finely sliced

to finish:
10 cm length of cucumber, cut into slim sticks
2 tbs skinned peanuts and/or cashews, toasted lightly in a dry pan (or use bought dry roasted nuts)
a few fried shallot or onion flakes  - most supermarkets sell them for use as salad toppings or you can buy large jars from Asian stores
1 thinly sliced red chilli, seeds removed
6 leaves of mint or basil, finely shredded

Place the chicken in a saucepan  and cover with water. Cover with a lid and cook gently for about 25 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Use a slotted spoon to remove it from the pan, leaving the liquid behind in the pan.

Remove the skin and bones from the chicken - they've flavoured the broth now so they've done their job - and slice the chicken meat into spoonful sized pieces.

Add the coconut cream, coconut milk, chilli jam, soy sauce and lime juice to the broth in the pan, bring to the boil and then add the noodles to cook for the time directed on the pack. A minute before they are due to be ready, toss in the shredded cabbage and mix. When the noodles are cooked, reduce the heat to low and return the chicken to the pan. Heat through, stirring, until the chicken is piping hot.

Divide the meat, cabbage, noodles and liquid between large soup bowls and top each portion with the garnishes as shown.

Eat carefully, preferably while wearing plastic overalls and sitting in the bath if your noodle eating skillz are anything like mine!

I'm  sharing this with Cook Blog Share at Easy Peasy Foodie where this week you will find some great Autumn Comfort Food recipes.