Loving birds

This cute image is from Meljen and I colored it with colored pencils. I stitched with gray embroidery floss the string that the birds strung, added some pearl paint to the dots and applied eye shadow to the borders of the image.

The papers I used are from Jaime, I love them! she has such a good sense of color combinations and I like all her work. I also stitched some gray pearls on the centers of the flowers of the green paper.

I made this card for a friend who is getting married this weekend, I hope the newlywed-to-be like it!

PS: I´m entering this card in Meljen´s Designs DT blog: challenge #1 (I though I was late!!!)

Rosie Luminary

I made this luminary to participate in Michelle Perkett Studio Challenge blog where this week we were challenged to make anything but a card. It´s my first time making one and I loved every second spent in it!

I used Rosie from Michelle Perkett as the main image that I colored with colored pencils and blended with gamsol.  The luminary body was cut with my cricut machine, I found the svg file at Penny Duncan blog. I traced, cut and glued patterned tissue paper on the windows.

I also stamped, colored and cut some roses to place here and there over the tussie paper panels along with the ones on Rosie digi stamp. I also added some rhinestones in the center of the 4 diamons. On the back of the luminary I pierced the boders, stitched lilac embroidery floss and made a bow to make the closing.
Here is a top view

as I said, this one was my first luminary and I´m going to make more for sure, I have lots of ideas already!

Today is Easter Sunday, and in my country we usually have a sweet bread called Rosca de Pascua. It´s a brioche kind of bread, like a sweet roll made out of a yeast dough so it takes a day to make it (or several hours of raising), but it so good it´s worth the time spent making it.

Before baking the bread we decorate it with pastry cream (custard). Once it´s done and cooled we decorate it with cherries and glazed orange cut in thin strips, I only had dry cherries and a tiny piece or glazed orange but I was not disouraged! I made it anyway.... I love this bread, so much that I made a whole batch so now I have leftovers of the uncooked dough on the freezer for later sweet moments... If you want to try it, e-mail me and I´ll gladly send you the recipe.

Toledo, a "must" if you visit Spain

Toledo is a gorgeous city where you can let yourself get lost wandering its norrow stone paved streets if you want to really enjoy it. We have been visiting Toledo three times already and I always want to come back again... If you visit Spain someday, you have to stop by Toledo, you won´t be dissapointed.
We travel to the city yesterday (Thursday), it was an hour far trip, very near Madrid. The day was so sunny, so bright... and so full of people! it was a holiday here in Spain, so that´s why everybody was there... even us.

This is the main door, where you enter the city walls, it´s all made of stone and it´s been there before XVI century when it was reconstructed.

Here you can see the moorish heritage in these gorgeous tiles that decorate the tiny balcony and in the windows of the tower.
With the city walls behind us and after 2 hours of walking we looked for a place where to have lunch

we found a tiny restaurante: La Virgen de la Estrella, it´s in the very entry of the city so you can not miss it, and because the weather was so nice we had lunch outside

the tipical dish in this region of Spain (Castilla la Mancha) is called Migas, it´s made out of crumb bread that is sauteed in olive oil with galic, bacon and spanish sausage, and on top is placed a fried egg. Delicious dish! For desert I had Cuajada, it´s like a plain yogurt that is served with a nice dollop of honey on top. Yummy!!

The cathedral is an amazing piece, where you can spend hours looking at all the details, so beautiful... The streets are so narrow, that in some of them cars can not enter, you can almost touch your neighbour from your balcony if you stretch enough your arms

The city was built on the highest point of the area, then on top of the narrow you are going to find steep streets... Can you see the handrail on the right side of the right picture? I imagine it can be hard to walk though some streets during winter.
And last (but not least!) there is a tipical pastry in Toledo called Mazapan, they are marzipan figurines

we bought a fish marzipan (that my sweethart cut before I took the picture....) with a sweet spaghetti squash filling, another delicious sweet!
And after 2 more hours of walking (after lunch) we came back home making plans to visit Toledo again.
Hope you can visit this lovely city with such amazing history behind, if you do so, please, let me know! I´ll go with you.

Baby boy card and dessert

A baby boy card made for a friend who is going to be dad for the first time in a couple of months. I didn´t decided yet what to give him along with the card, something for the new born baby... something for the new parents... I don´t know yet...
The image is from Dawn Moore, she has so many cute images in her blog, you should go and check them. I colored the giraffe with colored pencils and blended them with gamsol. The papers are digital papers from Jaime Choi that I printed out on cardstock. I stamped the word BEBE (baby in spanish) with rubber stamps from Image Tree with black ink. And finaly the ribbon and button are from my stash.

For us Christians today is Holy Thursday and here in Spain it´s a holiday, as it is tomorrow (Holy Friday), so today I had MIL to share lunch with us. Besides the main meal I prepared a simple and sweet dessert. I thought I could share it with you too:

I started with a puffy pastry I bought at the supermarket, I rolled it out a bit on a flowered surface to make it thinner and larger, and I baked it for about 10 min at 400 F until it was golden brown. Meanwhile I prepared a 4 serving vainilla pudding with half the amount of milk called for and put it in the fridge to cool. Once the pastry was cooled I placed it on a serving plate and cut some fresh strawberries, canned peaches and pineaple (drain all the liquid while baking the pastry). Then I took out of the fridge the vainilla pudding and mixed in 2 greek plain yogurts until smooth and creamy. I put the cream on top of the pastry and decorated it with the fruits. Voilá! back to the fridge until dessert time. Such a simple dessert with so many good compliments, hope you can try it and if you do let me know how it was for you!  It´s a nice dessert because you can change the fruits and the flavor of the pudding as you like and a very easy one to do as well.

Michelle Perkett Studio Challenge blog: Challenge #22

This is my entry to Michelle Perkett Studio Challenge blog, this time we have a scketch to follow:

I used Tutti Frutti stamp from Michelle Perkett that I colored with colored pencils and blended with gamsol (thanks Lynne!!! I love it!!). I hope you can see the resemblance of the scketch in my card! The card is simple, but I did so many changes to folllow the scketch until I was pleased with its final look.... The coral behind the mermaid is a from Fred She Said stamp and I colored also with colored pencils blended with gamsol.
On one of my trials to follow the scketch I tried two different kinds of glitter glue on a scrap of black paper, it´s amazing how different they look on withe paper.... so I decided to apply this one because it gives a bue-green-ish color on black background. There is also a bit of glitter over the mermaid´ pearls and on her tail. The sentiment is handwritten with white gel pen.

This week I hope to be able to do some crafts, I really need it but I can not find the time these days... Hope I can make it this week. I just realize I have 27 followers, thanks so much!! have a great day!

Easter!

Easter is around the corner... where did the time go?????

I made this card to send it to my DD for easter along with some candy I broght her on my trip to UK last week. It´s such a beautiful image... I know she will love this bunny and I´m sure it will steal a smile from her sweet little face.

The overlycute image is from Michelle Perkett, colored with my so loved colored pencils. The patterned paper is from Ginger. I stitched the patterned paper with black embroidery floss and added some glass beads on the bottom line of stitches. Some of these glass beads I glued them on the centers of all the flowers. The yellow flowers were cut with the cricut machine and the purple tiny ones were made with a paper puncher. I added some sparkling by gluing some blue and purple glitter on the blue and purple dots of the patterned paper.

I´m entering this card to participate in Michelle Perkett Studio Challenge blog were we are to use flowers and stitches, and I´m also participating in I love digi Challenge blog were we have to do something for easter.

Last week I was in Cambridge, UK. I went to attend a scientific meeting for 3 days. It was a really nice experience in every sense: the meeting was not a large one so it was easy to have good talks with people of great renown in my field, and share a scientific talk over a pint was something I never done before and I´m so glad I did! sleep in a very old room, and of course the city is amazing, with all that history behind.
I got the chance to visit the college and labs were people made the most important scientific discoveries all there at Cambridge: Isaac Newton developed his Laws of Motion (among so many great discoveries he made!), J. J. Thompson discovered the Electron, James Clerc Maxwell formulated the Unification of Electromagnetism, Watson and Crick developed the Structure of DNA, Charles Darwing formulated the Evolution and Natural Selection Theory... and so on... and so on... I´m so glad I had the chance to make this trip, so full of different emotions and wonder.
I´m posting some pictures to share with you, first Isaac Newton and the house in Trinity College where he was living

the Cavendish Laboratory plates

the amazing Kings College Chapel

the inside of the Eagle pub, where Watson and Crick anounced their 3dimensional DNA model

Spring!

How I wish it was true!!! yesterday we had some little snow and today everything was frozen.... spring looks so far away to me.... but we had a wonderful sunny day today! (maybe spring is not so far away)
Michelle Perkett Studio Challenge Blog challenged us to do something that contain:

3 Design Papers

3 Flowers

3 Buttons or brads

Use a springtime theme

And this is my first version of it. I wanted (really wanted) to use this image again, and also wanted (really wanted) to use these Summer Driggs digital papers again. So, this morning I happily started my card: I first colored the image with colored pencils and some eye shadow (I like how make up looks on paper not only on my eyes!!), and I even get out of my box a little bit and shadowed her hair with olive green pencil.

Then I turned on my cricut machine and cut some flowers, leaves and a swirl, each on a different patterned paper with the idea to check two points of the challenge in one motion. I crumpled three flowers and glued a button to each.

And finally put all together on the card. I like the result a lot, took several pictures of it to post them and when my sweetheart came back home I proudly showed it to him: TA DAAAAA!!!!
I told him the challenge I followed and he instantly (but sweetly) said it´s beautiful but doesn´t look springy at all...
and I looked at the card again and.... and.... it´s completely BROWN!!! not springy....
anyway because I like it a lot I´m submitting this card to participate at  Crafty Creation Challenge #58: create your own flowers.

Then I made another one

and this time looks lot more springy, right? Pinks... yellows.... greens.... yep... spring colors.... I colored the image (again) with colored pencils and eye shadow. I used three scraps of papers I had for a looong time and lukily they match pretty well.

And for the flowers I used some fabric dollar store ones I bought some time ago and stitched some buttons to them with green embroidery floss.

I hope this one counts to participate at the challenge!

I´ve been so absent from my crafty world and from my blogger friends these past days... sorry to you all! but I had a lot of work to do.... tomorrow I´m traveling to a scientific meeting in the UK for a few days. On one hand  it is exciting because I´m going to show part of my work and it´s very important for my career; but on the other hand I won´t be able to do any craft until next weekend... and I already feel the unbalance... I´ll see all next Friday, have a great week!

Cute mothers day card

Cute Daisy May has so many cute fairies that it´s hard to decide... I chose this one to participate at Cute Daisy May Challenge blog where we were challenged to make a card for Mothers day.

 

I colored the picture with colored pencils and added some rhinestones to the centers of the flowers, cut out the image and place it on the card with foam tape. The papers are digital papers from Summer Driggs and the sentiment is from Bird´s cards.

Two cards, three challenges

Dream on... dream until your dream comes true... (beautiful Aerosmith old song)

I love this image from Softpencil, it´s so sweet. I colored the image with chalks and colored pencils, added some gold glitter glue dots and clear dew drops

This card I made it to participate in Aly´s Sunday Challenge and Challenge #57 at Crafty Creations Challenge blog.

A cup of tea shared with mom is one of life´s little pleasures...

this image is from Shirley´s 2 girls and I colored with colored pencils and blended with vaseline. I stitched around the patterned papers with embroidery floss and some glass beads, and placed the image with dimensional tape.

I followed the sketch given at I Love Digi Challenge blog where the theme is to make a card for mum.
In both cards I used Summer Driggs digi papers that I printed out on cardstock.

Girls can be pirates too!

It´s been a long week, with too much work and so little time for crafting.... but this weekend I made two cards and finished a craft I started a few days ago.

I made another girly dragon to participate at Doodle Dragon Studios Challenge blog were I wanted to show that girls can be pirates too

I printed two dragons (one of them flipped horizontally) and colored them with colored pencils. The paper boat is made by folding a sheet of last year´s phone directory, I doodled the waves over an old book page that I sponged with aquamarine acrilic paint and glued it all on a base of cardboard.

 

I made the flag with a scrap of black paper and I doodled a skull and crossbones with a white gel pen.

I love how it turned out, it can be used as a table decoration for a pirate party!
The other two cards I´ll show them tomorrow once I´ve taken pictures of them with daylight.

I got another award!

this one was given to me by the so talented Elizabeth of Softpencil. Thank you so much!!