Bearly Mine Sale Reminder

 The 50% Closing Down sale continues at Bearly Mine Designs:

You can save until the 31st December on all digital sets at Bearly Mine. Please show your support by having a visit and purchasing your favourite sets.It's such a shame too. Hopefully the EU will one day be able to determine between micro digital businesses and huge mega corporations.

December Challenge at Bearly Mine

Welcome to the very last challenge for Bearly Mine Challenges. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Bearly Mine is closing their door because of new EU ruling starting 1st January. Our challenge for December is Christmas Decoration or Ornament (no cards.) So let's see some gorgeous Christmas project entered in our challenge this month! Here is what I made, pinecone ornaments:

I saw this video by Mari Hop and thought I would give it a go using Bearly Mine digital papers from the Christmas Traditions 2 pack. Here's what I did:

Supplies to make ONE pinecone:

Styrofoam Egg (I used 80 mm eggs but next time I will use smaller ones)
2 x A4 or Letter sized sheets of designer paper, 2 different designs that coordinate.
Paper trimmer
Tacky Glue
Stuff to decorate the top of you egg
Ribbon to hang egg
Long Eye pin and large jump ring for hanging.

Directions for this larger size pinecone:

-Take your designer paper of choice and I cut them into 1 1/4" inch pieces. Keep the pile of each design separate. (In fact for my large size eggs next time I'll be making the squares 1 1/2" or most likely 1 3/4")
-One one of the square pieces, take two of the corners and fold them in halfway to about a 45 degree angle so there is a point on one side and the regular square on the other. Do this to all of the little squares.
-Start at the narrow end of the styrofoam egg, use 4 of the folded in squares in one pattern and line up the points to cover the bottom of the egg, glue them on with tacky glue, if it's a good one you shoudn't have to hold them in place too long.
-Then using the other pattern, glue 4 more on the square end on the paper piece only and glue it on making sure the pointed bit goes INBETWEEN the first row.
-Continue doing this all the way up the egg to the top.Using my sizes it will take between 36 to 40 pieces in each of the two paper designs.

How to hang:

-Before I added my flowers and bows to the top of my pinecone, I took a long eye pin for making jewellry, added a large jump ring to the eye and pushed it into the top through the paper and styrofoam. It went in quite easily. I took it out again, added tacky glue to the length of the eye pin and pushed it back into the pinecone for added strength.
-I added ribbon through the jump ring and knotted. Then I went about adding flowers and string bows to the top of my pinecones. You could add leaves, flowers, artificial pine boughs, gems, pearls, foam, die cuts, etc.

Of course if you cannot understand my directions, the Mari Hop video will help you out alot so check it out. These ornaments are easy to make and also are very light. They won't fall off the tree because they are too heavy...lol. The pinecones are also fab children's projects great for school, boy scouts, church groups, etc. You could cut up all the little squares in advance out of anything, even newspaper, craft paper or printer paper. My next one if going to be out of old book pages with lots of cream lace!

Hope you enjoyed...and also hope you join us for this month's challenge at Bearly Mine Challenges!

Happy Christmas Crafting!
Dorothy

Bearly Mine Sale Starts Today

 The 50% Closing Down sale starts TODAY at Bearly Mine Designs:

I regret to inform you that Bearly Mine Designs will be closing their doors on December 31st. New European VAT laws are causing the closure of many small digital businesses here in the UK and all over Europe. If you sell digital goods to a European customer, you HAVE TO charge them the customer's country's VAT (sales tax) rate and each country is different. This is extremely difficult to do as there is no shop program that can do this yet. So Bearly Mine Designs is a victim of these new rules. Thing is, even if your digital selling website is outside the European Union, you still have to charge European customers their VAT rate on top of their purchase..even if your online store is in China, USA, Canada, Brazil, etc. Don't know how that is going to happen but that's what the EU is saying. The first thing I thought when I heard about this new law/rule is, "How can they enforce this outside of the EU?" I still do not know but my hope is that it's a disaster and they cancel this requirement so more small businesses selling digital goods do not disappear from the web like this.

From today until the 31st December you can save 50% off all digital sets at Bearly Mine. Please show your support by having a visit and purchasing your favourite sets.

Bearly Mine Inspirational Post

I know I know...I'm a day late with my Inspirational Post for Bearly Mine Designs Challenges. I had it all set up to go for TODAY only I'm a day late...UGH. Ah well I'm all posted now right? LOL.

I created this pillow box with handmade bow for a cute christmas wrapping out of the lovely digital creations of Bearly Mine Designs.

I used the Christmas Ice paper kit which you can purchase HERE.

 

This box turned out so cute! I started off with a pillow box template that I downloaded from the Box Template Store.com. I printed it and cut it out from thin cardstock as a template. Then I printed out one of the word Bearly Mine designer papers in ice blue on the same thin card. On A4 sized 100 gsm paper, I printed out a sheet of half pink snowflake and half blue snowflake papers from BM as well. I traced the template on the back of the worded paper, cut it out and folded it all together. I did NOT cut the slot for the tab at first but waited until I folded the box up as I wanted to make sure it lined up properly which was a good thing because the slot and tab to close the box DID NOT line up properly so I marked it lightly with a pencil and cut the slot then sharpened the creases of my folds so the box was sturdy. I also distressed all the edges in Spun Sugar Distress Ink. On the outside of the box, I added silver glitter chevrons and silver gems for a bit of bling.

For the bow, I cut 3/4" strips of the A4 snowflake papers then I looped them and attached them onto a small brad alternating layers. I liked the look of mixing the pink and blue. I distressed these with Spun Sugar as well.In the upper right corner behind the bow you can sort of see the stick pin I made to stick on there.

SUPPLIES USED:
Christmas Ice paper kit - Bearly Mine Designs
Pillow box template - Box Template Store
Silver Glitter Chevron sticker - Paper Cellar (from my stash)
Silver Gems from stash
Distress Ink in Spun Sugar
Long pin and beads from stash

#128 November - Christmas Card Challenge

Hey...it's the 1st of November already! It's time for a new challnge at Bearly Mine Challenges! I hope you will join us this month for our challenge theme "Christmas Cards." You know it's that time again where the closer it gets to Christmas the less time there is for crafting so get those cards done now and join us! Here is my simple Christmas card:

I know it's hard to tell but I coated the backing paper with fine silver glitter and I added chunkier silver glitter to the birds and snow. The letters are also glittery and are from a sticker sheet alphabet I got at Hobbycraft. All 3 papers are printed out from the Bearly Mine Designs Christmas Traditions 2 digital paper set. It sure is ashame you cannot see all the glitter...lol.

Thanks for looking and hope you will join in the challenge!

Happy Crafting!
Dorothy

Bearly Mine Inspiration - Christmas ATCs

Hi everyone! It's the 23rd so it's time for me to show off the wonderful digital papers from Bearly Mine Designs! For this project I made ATCs...little 2.5" x 3.5" pieces of art! I went with a Christmas theme to show off the new holiday papers new out this month:

These little ATCs have a country Christmas feel to them. I started with a few digital papers from the Bearly Mine Designs "Christmas Joy" set.

I distressed the edges with Vintage Photo and Antique Linen Distress Inks. I tore one of them to add another paper layer. I stamped a swirl with Vintage Photo then added 2 Christmas chalkboard sentiments I got off of Pinterest. I also printed out some stars I created in Photoshop. I wanted a textured feel to these so first I spritzed the cards with Tsukineko's Goosebumps Clear Texture Spray. This stuff is pretty cool. It gives a slightly satin clear finish from a spray bottle. You can use it for texturising, or resist techniques. I also spritzed with a little Mr Huey's Opaque White mist which caused the little paint splatters. Across the bottom I made some glittery "snow" and I faux stitched the edges too.

Our October Challenge is in full swing so go over and check out the latest challenge at Bearly Mine Challenges. We would love to have you join us!

Happy Creating!
Dorothy

New Bearly Mine Challenge

It's a new month so that means it's time for a new challenge at Bearly Mine Challenges! Join us for this month's challenge with the theme halloween. I personally don't "do" halloween so I made a card with a basic theme...SPIDERS...lol.

Whatcha think? Not halloween but still a bit scary huh? Well if you live in the UK you will know we get some really big spiders here, I mean creepy, massively huge, long hairy legged suckers. Don't what it is about the UK that breeds big spiders...lol. Anyway, I used the Bearly Mine paper set called Halloween Fantasy. I used 4 different papers and I colourised 2 of them to match in Photoshop. I edged the papers with Distress Ink in Black Soot. I placed these on a black card base. I embellished with black Card Candi, Spellbinder diecuts and a big green glittered spider I got in a pack of 4 from a local 99p Store.

SUPPLY USED:
Bearly Mine papers - Halloween Fantasy
Black Cardstock - Papermill Direct
Spellbinders - Nestabilities Marvelous Squares S4-383
Craftword Card Candi-Metropolis
Green Glitter Spider - from a local 99p Store

My Bearly Mine Inspiration Project

Hello all! As I posted the other day, I am one of the new Design Team gals for Bearly Mine Designs and it's my very first inspiration project using Bearly Mine digital papers. I created a cute little hybrid crafting wedding mini photo folio!

Here is what it looks like inside:

This is sute a cute and quick project to make. I followed a video tutorial by CreationsbyChristie and it uses only one sheet of 12" x 12" cardstock. I used a sheet of textured white card. I took a piece of white ribbon and glued it to the front and back covers. I covered over top the covers with papers I printed from a Bearly Mine Designs paper kit called Summer Floral Delights. I used an edge punch on a 4" x 4" square of the blue pattern to wrap the binding putting that over top a lovely rose print I also printed out eight 2 1/2" x 3 3/4" rectangles of more of the papers to make the photo mats for inside the folio. All the papers were edged in Broken China Distress Ink.

On the cover, I printed out the sentiment I created in Paint Shop Pro to match. Then put that on dimentional foam pads and added some pale blue pearl embellies from my stash. Finally I added these lovely fabric wedding stickers I just bought. They came in a big job lot of stickers I got off of eBay. The album measures 3" x 4" and it was quick and easy to make.

We have a monthly challenge on over at the Bearly Mine Challenge blog, so please check out the current challenge. I sure hope you join us! God bless your today, thank you for having a peek at my blog and, as always...

Happy Crafting!
Dorothy

CHALLENGES ENTERED:

Scribble and Scrap Challenge - Anything Goes
Crafting from the Heart Challenge - Anything Goes
Whoopsi Daisy Challenge - Bling and/or Pearls
Crafty Boots Challenge - Anything Goes
Crafty Cardmakers and more - Ribbon/Lace and Pearls
Inky Chicks Challenge - Anything Goes
Diva by Design Challenge - Anything but a Card
Ruby's Rainbow Challenge - Anything Goes
Crafty Girls Challenge - Anything Goes
Creative Fingers Challenge - Anything Goes
A Creative Romance - Anything Goes

New Design Team Member!

Yep, I did it again! I am now a new member of a Design Team. I am one of the new dsigners for Bearly Mine Designs! I get to work with their absolutely gorgeous digital paper designs and I'm so excited. You can join us on the Bearly Mine Challenge Blog as well to see gorgeous inspiration projects and enter into challenges to win great products too! Keep an eye out tomorrow when I show off an inspirational crafty project using Bearly Mine papers.

I want to also thank everyone at Bearly Mine for choosing me to be a part of the team...they are such a talented group of carfters and designers, I hope I will do you all justice!