Wednesday 9 November 2011

Sorry!


I can't believe it's been nearly a month since my last post and also nearly a month since I last switched on my laptop - but I do love my IPad!

I have been making things, and I've been spending lots of pennies, mainly on Crafters Companion products - have become quite obsessed with their products, but they are so good and such good value, it's difficult not to.

One of the CC things I bought (well, several) was the Snowman products, all of them, CD's and stamps, they are fab, so fab in fact that I had to use them to make something really special.  So armed with a tutorial that Sara Davies did on the CC forum during birthday week, I made 24 individual slider boxes and then stuck them all together and created this.  I've wanted to do one of these for ages but until I saw the tutorial (using the ultimate pro) I didn't know how to make the slider boxes, but they are soo easy, it was great.  All of the papers used on the advent calendar are from CC as well, and of course the gorgeous snowmen stamps, and to top it off, I used my CC Spectrum Noirs to colour the images.



I have so much more to show you, but I will have to save that for another day - hopefully not so long next time!  I'm going to enter this card into the Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge, which this month is 'Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow'.

Friday 14 October 2011

No Card today

Well, so far this week I've made nothing, not a bean - not even finished colouring in Humphrey, so I've nothing new to show, so I thought I'd put up the photos of my Exeter stash:






I spent soooo much money, but I had a lovely day and made a snowman out of the strangest clay I've ever played with (called jumping clay and you can find it here).  I even got to meet and talk to Stephanie Weightman at the end of the day, she was so lovely to talk to and very kindly let me have my photo taken with her.


Anyway, hopefully I will be able to get in a crafty weekend and will have some bits and pieces to show you soon (must get out those inks - forgot I'd bought them!).

Friday 7 October 2011

World Cardmaking Day

Sorry for being a bad blogger - did try and post this via my IPad, but will have to investigate better how to get it to work as some of the buttons don't seem to like the IPad (hey ho).

I am really loving Crafters Companion products at the moment and this latest card is a case in point, the image and papers are from their The Snowman CD, the sparkle on the snowman (if you can see it) is from the spray and sparkle iridescent and the sentiment is one of the snowman stamps.  I turned it into an easel card so that it will stand up (and stand out) on the craft table I'm sharing at my friend Alison's charity breakfast tomorrow.

Anyway, short blog post today - hope you like the card and I'm entering this into the Crafters Companion World Cardmakers Day challenge.

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Gilding Flakes

Well, when I went to Exeter last week I bought some gilding flakes and glue and skootchy sponge - I've wanted to have a go with these for ages, and I really wasn't disappointed, they are FABULOUS!!!

Very short post as I want to go and watch some telly, the stamps are Inkadinkadoo with simple matting & layering - hope you like & back soon (off to catch Holby City).


Sunday 25 September 2011

Oops!

OMG, I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last post, I'm so sorry (though not sure who I'm apologising to).  I got a new IPad and have been busy playing on that and neglected to switch on my laptop and download anything from my camera - so much so that I've missed entering two blog challenges that I had actually made a card for, the third challenge (yes I made a card that went across three challenges) is still open, so I would like to enter this card into the Crafters Companion monthly challenge which is Christmas Wishes, and as I have a full set of the new Christmas Humphreys (Woop! Woop!), together with the CDs I thought it would be the ideal time to use them.

I used Crafters Companion water colour card to colour the image (this stuff is brilliant), and I have to say, I am now a convert to rock-a-blocks, I originally thought they were a gimmick and an excuse to get you to spend money - I was sooooo wrong, THEY ARE AMAZING!  All of the papers used on this card are from the CD, even the border across the middle.  Really pleased with how this card turned out and will be using Humphrey for so many more Christmas cards (well, until my snowman delivery from Crafters Companion arrives - I don't work for them, honest, but I sure wish I did!!).

I also went to Exeter Westpoint on Friday and spent soooo much money, had a great time with my friend Alison, and got to meet Stephanie Weightman, who was so lovely, and didn't make me feel stupid for asking for my picture taken with her - I will post this soon (though I feel fat and frumpy next to her, she is amazingly pretty).

Anyway, I hope you like my card, and I will try and return more often, as I have lots to show you, and plenty of pictures from Westpoint.

Saturday 10 September 2011

Catch Up

Well, I've had a lovely day today - I went to an impromptu demo over at Just Tracys, she's just had the new Wild Rose Studio Christmas stamps in and was showing them off brilliantly.  I didn't manage to get everything I wanted as they had already sold out of the snowflakes, but I have got these on order.  I did manage to get one of the gorgeous penguins, some circular sentiments and a lovely snowflake tree.  Tracy was also showing off the lovely WOW embossing powders - have to say they were very aptly named, could also have been called OMG as they are totally amazing they are incredibly fine and emboss to a fab shine.  I also bought some 5x5 card blanks in white and black to replenish my stocks - really must start trying to sell some of my cards, I have made so many and while I do use some up for family and friends, I have loads just waiting to be given, suppose while I think my cards are fab, not sure I handle the rejection of people not buying them well & take it very personally.


Anyway, some more cards to add to the stash ready to sell at some point, these first two are almost like twins and I made them using my new snowflake tree and the sentiment stamp that came with it, on the black on white one, I used the new WOW embossing powder I bought (I've got the snowflake embossing powder on order - that one is sooo lush!).  The white on black I used a white embossing powder from my stash, both of these cards are really simple to make and look fab, just what you need at Christmas when you have so many to make.
These next two are just catching up on some I have made recently - the fall blessings one I'm not entirely happy with, I really liked the idea but I'm not sure it's turned out as well as it could have.  

I took a single leaf stamp and stamped it onto scratch paper twice and cut out, then I put repositionable tape on the back so that I could use them as masks.  Then I drew a circle on the card very faintly with pencil and stamped the leaf using versamark and embossed with gold embossing powder, once this had cooled down I then masked these off and did a couple more leaves and used the same technique until I had the entire circle covered - only it doesn't quite look like a circle.  The leaves were coloured using a shimmering watercolour paint (would like to say it was H2O's but these were the cheapy versions).  The sentiment in the middle is from Waltzingmouse Stamps and I stamped it using the gingerbread colourbox chalk ink.

This last card was made using a lovely digi stamp from Mo's Digital Pencil - her images are just so amazing, I love them all!!  The backing papers are from my Clare Curd Signature range paper pad (still working through those 200 sheets), but I actually managed to alter them slightly.  The green paper with the spots on, was actually originally black and white, but I changed it using my spectrum noir pens, I also used the pens to change the white dots on the brown backing paper to green as well.  I used some of my candi dots in gold in the corners and the circular sentiment is one of my LOTV stamps.  Hope you like

Anyway, that's me caught up a bit with some of the cards I've made recently - Off to Exeter in a couple of weeks for my annual birthday jaunt to the craft show.  Always come back with loads of goodies, ideas and very sore feet, usually soo tired after the show it takes me all weekend to recover (go on Friday).  Hopefully I will be putting in some more posts before then, I really want to ink up my little penguin tomorrow if I get a chance, but with Charlie back at school I've got a weeks worth of School uniform to get washed, dried and ironed before Monday! (no rest for the wicked!).


Sunday 4 September 2011

Happy Christmas

Wow, two posts in one day, this wasn't quite as easy to put together as the other card today, but really it was a fairly straight forward card - I seem to be finding it easier to make cards at the moment and have loads of ideas buzzing around in my head (just hope I can get them down on paper before they disappear again!).

The image for this came from a Kanban set I was given for my birthday last year (nearly round again - how time flies!),  I coloured it with my Spectrum Noirs, cut out with my nesties, simple matting and layering.  The poinsettia is a Marianne Design - I don't think the colours show up too well in the photo.  I did some faux stitching on the base card with a green fine line pen (one of the whispers pens), the sentiment is one of my Lilli of the Valley stamps.

Anyway, another card down ready for Christmas!

Seaside Fun

I had such fun making this card - I decided to just make a card for fun, no occasion or person in mind, no thought to giving it to anyone, just for the fun of it - and it really was fun and kind of made itself in the end.

I had downloaded the papers for the Get Funky challenge ages ago and just left them on my computer, but then whilst blog hopping yesterday, I came across instructions for a tent card and really loved the idea - immediately the paper from the Get Funky challenge came back to my mind and I set to it.  The image in the centre of the card is a digi stamp from the centre of the Simply Cards & Papercrafts magazine - they have these most months and some of the images are just brilliant.  I used a 2 in 1 glue pen and hot foils to create the fins on the fish and I've given the sun a coat of glossy accents.

I really love this card, it makes me smile to look at and I shall probably never give it to anyone - I like it too much! & hope you do too

Monday 29 August 2011

It's official - I'm too old for clubbing

Well, had the hen do last night & I couldn't wait to get home - why do they have to play the music so loud that your ears ring and you have to learn to lip read very quickly so that you can hold even a minimal conversation?  Give me a comfy sofa, something good on the telly and a nice cup of coffee any day (cheaper too!), I've also found that years of wearing flat shoes has made it impossible for me to wear heals for any length of time, my toes kept getting so numb I had to keep taking my shoes off.

Anyway, I promised to come back with pictures of the Christmas cards I made on Saturday, so here goes:

This first one was made using some stars that Sharon gave to me, she got them in the B&Q sale after Christmas one year - just goes to show you don't just have to go to craft shops to find things to use on cards, they are all over the place.  The sentiment is from an Inkadinkado set that I've had for ages, which I stamped in versamark and then embossed in white - the only problem with this is that when you emboss onto Kraft cardstock, the card warps more than normal card (don't know whether it has a higher moisture content?), so I ended up having to put it under some heavy books for a few hours to straighten back out before putting the stars on as they are quite dimensional.  I really like this card as it's really simple.





This next card was a copy of one from a magazine, but theirs was a 'thinking of you' card with soft colours, which i didn't have so decided to change it into a Christmas design.  The papers were from a Wild Rose Studio paper pack that I bought last year (I think - may be the year before, time seems to run away with me nowadays!) - the faux cross stitch edges were done with my trustee black fineliner - not sure I've quite got the hang of them, just seem a bit too uneaven for my liking.  The sentiment is another Inkadinkado and I even used some gold peel offs (only have half a ton of them still to use up - don't use them much as it feels too much like cheating to me).








Finally, this card was made using a very old sheet of PSX stickers that I've had for some time (probably 5 years or more!), can you believe I had 5 sheets of these stickers, which I had bought for only one thing on them, so all of the other stickers just stayed on the sheet, still at least I'm making a start on using them now.  You may recognise some of the backing papers used, they are some papermania ones that were out a few years ago, and yes, I'm still trying to use them up!









Anyway, hope you liked these - I've got to go back to work tomorrow, ah well, it's been a lovely week off, felt much longer than a week and I'm sure it will only take a couple of days before it feels like I'd never been away.  Hopefully I will be able to fit crafting in between work and looking after the family, so see you soon.



Saturday 27 August 2011

So much to do, so little time

Well, I may not have been blogging this week, but I have certainly kept myself busy.  I've had a week off work and so have been trying (weather permitting) to do things with family - not that the family want to do things with me, but that's just tough!

On Sunday we took the frisbee onto the moors, and had the obligatory ice cream whilst we were there, on Monday we visited Morwelham Quay - this was where they filmed the Edwardian Farm, and I actually got to go in the house that Ruth lived in for the year (well, she probably didn't but that's where all the filming was done), it's a brilliant place and really well worth the visit if you're down our way.  On Tuesday we went to the Cinema to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes - this was an amazing film! the special effects were stunning!  On Wednesday, we rested as DH had done far too much and was suffering quite badly from the previous days outings.

Thursday DD collected her GCSE module results - these are not the final grades but just the grades she has got for the parts she has sat so far (all very confusing nowadays - why can't they stick with one or two exams for each subject in the final year?)  She did really well and I'm very proud of her (B in Chemistry and C's for her other science subjects).

Also on Thursday, I spent the afternoon making my fancy dress outfit for a hen do I'm going to on Sunday - if you're in town on Sunday evening, I'll be the rather large lady dressed in green and purple satin (I'm going as the mad hatter).  Handy being able to sew when you're my size as the off the peg fancy dress outfits would not have fitted particularly well and if I'd tried to wear one I may well have been arrested for indecent exposure (they are all rather on the short side).

This week has also not been without some card making, and indeed today, on my crafty afternoon with Sharon, I managed to make 3 - YES 3! Christmas cards, but I shall blog those another day.  For today I'll just show you the ones I've made during the week.  The first is an unusual card shape that I copied from a magazine - theirs used a Lilli of the Valley stamp, but as I didn't have this, I used a freebie digi stamp that I've had for a while from Dustin Pike - the image has been coloured with my now trusty Spectrum Noirs and I highlighted the armour with Papermania Hot Foils in silver.  The sentiment is from an old set I got from Elzybells ages ago.

The next card was made using last weeks Sketch Saturday sketch (too late to enter it but never mind).  The image was from a freebie set that came with one of my magazines, not my best colouring, or even my favourite card but then they can't all be.  The only thing I was really happy with is the chevrons down the left side, this was made with one of my background stamps from Walzingmouse, and I think it looks really good (shame about the rest of the card!).



The stamping straight onto backing paper idea came in handy with my last card, which is really simple, but I love the colours.  The image is from a Kanban set, which I stamped onto the backing paper using Adirondack lettuce, I wanted the colours to be muted a bit, I then layered the image onto some peach card and then straight onto a Kraft card blank - simples!



Anyway, I'll be back soon with the Christmas cards I made today - in the meantime, Happy crafting!

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Woo Hoo!

Well, I've had a good few crafty days, with a bit of work thrown in for good measure.  I've been sewing a top, crocheting slippers and I even found time to make this card.

It's a variation on the butterfly card on my earlier post but uses the Martha Stewart button punch instead, I also used a white gel pen to do some faux stitching, which I thought sat quite well with the button theme.  The papers were from the Kate Knight Totally Tropical papers, which were free with the latest copy of Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine.  Another card without a stamped image, think I may need a lie down in a darkened room!

Anyway, this is just a quick post as I need to go and get ready for work again - hey ho....

Monday 15 August 2011

Good Saturday

Well, I had a great afternoon on Saturday, my friend Sharon came over, and we both had a very slow start to crafting as neither of us could decide what we wanted to do.  I got out a huge (and I mean huge) pile of magazines and started to go through them to see if any ideas came up.  Eventually, I found the two cards I've made, I know they're copies of ones in the mag and in some respects are cheating, but I'm really pleased with them, they've helped to get my creative juices flowing and I've got loads of ideas (shame it's now Monday and I've got to go to work!).






This card should have used a scalloped square nestie, but I don't possess one of those, but I do possess a Cricut and so used that with my Accent essentials cartridge to create the scalloped square, the punch is by Martha Stewart, and the papers were a freebie with a magazine (Craftwork Cards Vintage Rose).  The butterflies and the backing paper are highlighted with my stickles glitter glue.








My second card was so simple, with two papers used for the background, one has been punched with my XCut border punch (this is not the one it should have been but I didn't have that).  The light green strips were actually white, and I coloured the paper with my Spectrum noirs.  I cut the flowers with my circle nesties, scrunched and layered up, then put candy dots in the middle.  The leaves are a sizzlets set and the Birthday wishes is from Stampin Up, stamped with Versamark and embossed with gold.


Hope you like them & if I get a chance before the creativity disappears I will try and make some more cards on the same theme, even if I don't I've got next weekend to look forward to & hopefully my other crafty friend Alison will be feeling up to some crafting.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Christmas is coming

Sorry, but you know it's true!

I was over on Tracy's blog the other day and she had made a card using a sketch challenge over at I{heart}2stamp (you can find the link on my 'challenge blogs' bar), well I went and had a look and thought it looked like a brilliant sketch - more so due to the fact that I already had an image coloured and ready to go, which I thought would sit well with the sketch.

The card took no time to make, hence, two days in a row I've managed to post something! (see miracles do happen!).

Okay, some deets for you, the stamp is one I've had for donkeys years (a proper, old fashioned, wood mounted one!) by Personal Impressions.  I coloured it with my spectrum noir pens (1 and 11 for the berries,  43 and 51 for the leaves, 91 and 92 for the branch and 163 for the outline), inked the edge with my Tim Holtz distress inkpad, Tea Dye, and then for good measure I used my glossy accents to make the berries really stand out.  The papers are all from a Trimcraft pad I got going cheap after Christmas last year.  The ribbon I got from Exeter a couple of years ago - see there is a good reason for buying and hoarding all that stuff, I do use it eventually.

Anyway, hope you like and maybe I'll even be back soon with some more (no promises though!)

Monday 8 August 2011

You may need your sunglasses

I wanted to cover several challenges with one card - big challenge in itself. So I picked the Just Tracys Crafts Challenge, Creative Inspirations Challenge and Sketch Saturday. Well, the creative inspirations challenge was to just use yellow and white (you can use skin and hair colours as well, otherwise that would be just weird!), this was a perfect opportunity for me to use my new Spectrum Noir pens as there is a yellow set - so armed with only 6 pens I set to with this lovely Molly Blooms freebie stamp from a magazine a while ago. Finding yellow backing papers was a bit more difficult, but with a bit of digging I found a DCWV 12x12 pad, Nana's Kitchen, which a lovely yellowy/orange paper with the hearts and flowers, the paper strip across the middle is from some freebie papers, again from a magazine. I used my lovely EK Success border punch to create the flower strips. The sentiment is a LOTV and everything else is from my stash.

I started this card while my lovely friend Alison was round on Saturday - I always have a great time when Alison is over and manage to get loads of ideas, so hopefully I should be able to create more (fingers crossed).

Anyway, I really ought to go and get ready for work - the start of another week, hey ho...

Saturday 6 August 2011

Happy Birthday WWW

Well, according to the news this morning, it is the birthday of the World Wide Web - this day 20 years ago, a very clever man, called Tim Berners-Lee (now Sir) came up with a very clever way of connecting people/computers to the internet. He didn't charge for this invention and gave it to the world for free (I believe he is doing rather well for himself anyway), and it is thanks to him that I am able to produce this blog for the world to see (or the two or three people who look at it anyway).

This card has taken me all week to produce, and considering the image was already coloured and ready to go, that's not very good. I find that the more cards I make, the easier it gets to produce them, but recently I've not done many and so they are more difficult to compose and hence take longer.

The image is one of my favourite, but very old, Tilda's which I've coloured with my Spectrum Noirs (PMs now gathering dust), the papers are various from my stash (one is from Kate Knight, the others are Papermania ones I think). The flowers I made myself and glittered, the lace I've had for years (never throw anything out), the leaf is a Sizzix Sizlets die and the birthday wishes stamp is Stampin Up one.

Anyway, I'm getting ready for my good friend Alison who is coming over to do some crafting for the afternoon - you might like to visit her blog here - she updates much more often than me & even includes recipes (there's a rather good Baileys Cheesecake on there at the mo).

Hope you like, and see you again soon - Oh, I'm entering this in the Magnolia Inspiration challenge this week, which is for round cards.

Sunday 31 July 2011

I Made a card!!!

Well, it's been a while, but I've finally made a card!!! I've been playing with lots of things, not least of which is my wonderful new set of Spectrum Noir pens

(they are soooo gorgeous, I may just have to rob a bank so that I can get the other 96!).

Anyway, today is the last day to enter the Crafters Companion Challenge & as usual I'm cutting it fine, but hey, I work well under pressure. The image is a Greetings Farm stamp - Skater Ian, and he's one of the few 'boys' images I have (funnily enough I bought him with my daughter in mind - she's a huge skating fan - complete with the A&E record to prove it!). I've coloured him with my Speccy's, as they are now affectionately known - you really must get some, they are truly fab, very reasonably priced AND REFILLABLE!!!! The papers are from my stash ass are the candy dots. I used the sketch from Katy's Sketch Challenge over on Docrafts for the layout, and I think it works as I seem to prefer very clean lines on mens cards - well, they don't really want loads of flowers and flourishes do they?

Hope you like it & I'll try and be back a bit more often as I'm going to try and regularly enter challenges (she says hopefully - until life gets in the way).

Thursday 21 July 2011

It's never too early to start thinking about Christmas!


Now I know loads of people are saying that it's too early to think about Christmas cards, but I say - it's never too early, there's so much to do by the time December comes around, any head start I can get is much appreciated.

The inspiration for this card came from Katy's challenge over on Docrafts, and it gave me the chance to get out my lovely bauble stamps from Waltzingmouse which are designed to sit inside the bauble nesties, together with the lovely sentiment, which also came from Waltzingmouse and the snowflake background stamp, which came from Papermania. The background was created by stamping the snowflake background several times in versamark and then covering with perfect pearls so the background has a lovely shimmery finish. The sentiment was also stamped with versamark, but this time covered with detail white embossing powder. I cut out the bauble twice and used a silver glitter embossing powder to give that lovely Christmasy finish - I put silver thread between the two baubles so that no matter how you look at it you get that beautiful sparkly look.

Anyway, hope you like it...

Sunday 10 July 2011

More Crafters Companion






This is becoming a bit of a theme with me (I've made even more than I've posted with Crafters Companion stuff, but time keeps getting away from me!), I do seem to have fallen in love with the style of their stamps and CD's - the quality is amazing and inspiration seems to come very easily when using them.

This card was made for a friend to give to her daughter for her 5th birthday, sorry for stating the obvious since the card says 'Star 5' on it (Doh!). I used one of the Popcorn kids stamps for the front and the humphrey conga elephants on the inside - seemed appropriate to have them partying on the inside. The stars are a combination of a Sizzix paddle punch and a tiny Xcut star punch - they did mean cutting into my two favourite sheets of paper, but hey, it's no good unless you use it, is it? (did still bring a tear to my eyes though!).

The card is 5x5 when closed and I made a box envelope to store it using my Envelobox maker for the Ultimate Pro, this is an amazing bit of kit, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Anyway, hope you like it - really must try and post more often, but in between working, cooking, cleaning etc, etc, I'm surprised I even manage to make cards at all!

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Popcorn


I made this card at the weekend using the Sketch Saturday challenge sketch. The image I'd stamped and coloured last week with no idea what I was going to do with it, I love the Sketch Saturday sketches, they always give you something wonderful and it gets the creative juices flowing.

Not only did I use a popcorn stamp, all the papers were from the Popcorn kids CD too - really falling in love with all the Crafters Companion products, but then I did get a whole load of them with some money I was given recently, so kind of have to make use of them to justify having spent so much. Anyway, I have to say I can highly recommend them if you are looking for another crafty purchase, they have just brought out a CD and set of stamps of The Snowman - haven't got these yet, but they have to be on the wish list!

I'm trying to get back into blogging after having a bit of a break (sorry about that, some horrible stuff going on at the moment that I can't talk about on here at the moment). Crafting is my release but sometimes the mojo disappears just when you need it the most, well mine does anyway.

Hope you like the card and I'll try and make it a more regular occurrence!

Saturday 25 June 2011

I Love Humphrey


When Humphrey was released I had just been given some money to spend on whatever I wanted - no contest really, I bought all of the stamps and the CD, and for someone who hates decoupage, I have been having a great time cutting out and layering up these lovely images.

This one with the strawberries is so lovely I just had to have a play, now this was a quick play and probably not one of my best cards, but I have found out that what I like and what everyone else likes is not always the same thing, so I hope you all like it. I've just added some ribbon, used some freebie paper from a My Minds Eye stack from a magazine and used a Strawberry stamp that I just happened to have lying around. The bow on the ribbon I made using my bowmaker on the Ultimate Pro from crafters companion (love that bit of kit, especially with the new boxer and enveloper boards).

Anyway, I wanted to get this card online quickly as it fits in with the Just Tracy's Challenge this month, which is strawberries and cream, and the challenge is about to close (skin of my teeth time - thought it had already closed, note to self, be more organised next month!).

Sunday 29 May 2011

Dandelion Clock


Wow, two days in a row - thought I'd better start making up for the drought of posts that there has been recently.

I was very kindly sent some 'lovely fence' die cuts from a lovely lady called Teresa over on the docrafts forum, so I started to think how I should use them. As they are made by Magnolia, I thought they would probably be best used with the Tilda's I have (not that I have that many) and the dandelion clock tilda seemed like a good idea. As I was going to cut her out I realised that I would lose most of the clocks, so I thought I'd replace them with butterflies, for which I used my Martha Stewart butterfly punch on some vellum. The only vellum I had was a pale green so needed to be coloured. I was watching Create and Craft this morning and they were using gel pens to water colour and I wondered whether this would work with my Sakura gelly roll glitter pens - well I can tell you now it does, however the vellum curls up when you put water on it, so I had to use my tweezers and heat gun to dry it out and it then uncurls again (anyone remember the little bits of plastic that you used to put on your hand to tell what mood you were in and it would curl and uncurl with the heat of your hand - well it's something like that), anyway the butterflies are lovely and sparkly purple in real life. My sentiment is from Lili of the Valley - love them!

The card is a papermania Kraft card (5x7), the purple backing paper is from one of the papermania capsule collections - tim holtz distress inks have been used on the doily, fence and sentiment. The other paper used in front of the doily is from a freebie pad of 'the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady' papers which came with an issue of Cardmaking and Papercraft, which I've been trying to use for ages - only part of one piece, but it's a start.

Hope you like, I'm trying to get my crafting mojo kick started again as it's been a bit thin on the ground of late.

Saturday 28 May 2011

Birthday girl


I've had this card, made and sat on my desk for the best part of a week but it's taken me this long to take a photo of it and put it online - I am sooo disorganised at the moment!

The image is from the Flower Fairies CD by crafters companion, I've had this sheet printed for ages and decided it was about time I made use of it (could say that about most of my craft stuff, I could make cards for the next 10 years and not actually run out of stuff). All of the papers are also from the same CD and the flowers were also made with the same paper. The sentiment is from Lili of the Valley and a sizzix die for the swirl (if you're looking for this swirl I've cut a few bits off it so it won't look the same), I've used paper pens on the swirl to put the lovely pearly dots on.

Really enjoyed making this card, so not my normal style, but I think it's really pretty anyway. Thought I'd enter this into the Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge - and I'll be able to enter even more soon as I've ordered everything Humphrey and a whole load of Popcorn Bear stuff too (so excited I may just mug the postman next week!).

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Simple Flower


Well, I'm finally back after my extended Easter break (sounds better than I couldn't find the time to blog). I have made a few cards but getting round to photographing them all, onto 'puter and uploaded is a different matter.

Anyway, this particular card was made for the Just Tracy's Blog Challenge, which is into it's second month. The challenge this month was to 'let the sentiment on your project be the focus' - initially I couldn't think of anything, and then I saw the piritez advert, you know the one with the brightly coloured flowers on it? well from then on it was easy. the sentiment is from a set by Inkadinkado which I then cut out using a circle nestie, then I made a template for a flower petal and cut this out 6 times. It was then a simple case of sticking it all down and then doodling around the edges.

I love the way this looks, and hope you do too.

Saturday 7 May 2011

Ribbon Girl Giveaway


There is a fab giveaway over on the Ribbon Girl blog at the moment - you've got to be in it to win it (speaking of which, must do the lottery!), some lovely strawberry themed bits & pieces to be won!

Thursday 21 April 2011

Summer is Here!!!


Wow, the weather is lovely, so warm, fab, but I'm still lilly white! maybe it's because I stay inside and craft, but there are always so many lovely stamps and paper to play with.

Anyway, my latest card is a really unusual one for me, IT DOESN'T USE ANY STAMPS!!! I made a card using the freebie paper on the Get Funky Challenge blog, and having made the card I looked at the rest of the paper and it reminded me of the beach huts you see at some seaside resorts, an idea came to me and I just had to run with it. The roof is made with some brown wrapping paper, the clouds are just printer paper - the beach paper was from a Joanna Sheen CD (Jayne Netley Mayhew first CD). The words were created with my Moxie Alphabet for the Quickutz - I had so much fun making this, I even put silver linings on my clouds! and a few little seagulls in the sky.

As I can only enter one card for the challenge, I would like to enter this instead as I really love it and it's such a complete departure from my normal cards. Hope you like....

Monday 18 April 2011

Black & White Christmas


Yes I know it's properly spring now, but if we don't start the Christmas cards now, by the time we get to December there will be no time, what with the shopping, cooking and decorating needing to be done, so I decided to enter the Die Cut Dreams Christmas Club Challenge this week, which had a colour and sketch challenge - with the colours being Black and White. Boy was this difficult, I so wanted to add some Christmas Red or Green to this, but I resisted!

I also wanted to enter the Crafty Catz challenge this week, which was 'furry friends' and so I dug out this lovely house mouse image - he's one of the smaller one's in the set, but as I wanted to make an A6 card, he fitted perfectly. I did 'colour' him in with grey and black watercolour pencils to give him some additional shading and then just layered him up in line with the Sketch. It was also difficult to find papers without any colour on them, but hey I love a challenge!

I added some texture using a cuttlebug embossing folder and had to add some bling with glitter and gems (the mouse also has some glitter on his hat) - hope that doesn't class as colour?

I'm entering this for the following Challenges:

Just for fun


Well, I don't really know where I will use this card, who it's for or even what occasion but I enjoyed making it and I suppose that's really all that matters when you're making them for fun.

I wanted to enter the second Challenge over on the Just Tracy's Challenge Blog and spent ages thinking about what I could do with the theme 'Rainbow' - I was going to use one of Tracy's lovely new images, but she'd already done that on her example card so I didn't want to be copying something that had already been done. Then I remembered a sheet of paper I've had for probably at least 6 years, which had a rainbow already across it, so I dusted that off and used it as my jumping off point. It struck me that this was very tropical and so I dug out my Kanban birds of paradise set and started to stamp onto the paper. Once they were cut out I needed to think of how to put them together onto a card.

What I decided to do (and this didn't work out quite as planned), was to stamp in versamark using one of the bird on a vine images, directly onto a card blank, then clear emboss - I did this so that the whole card was covered, then I got some chalks on to cotton wool and put a rainbow onto the card - I was hoping that the chalk would not go where the embossing was, but it didn't quite work out like that, but it does still add additional texture to the card. I used the flowers to create corners on the card and then realised that I couldn't just put the bird straight onto the card as it would disappear into the background, so I decided to mat it onto some lovely yellow card I had lurking in a draw - I used my Xcut shape cutter to make the oval, which looks a little like a wonky sun.

Like I said, I have no idea where I will ever use this card, but I love it anyway - think I've found my summer!

Monday 11 April 2011

Spring has sprung


Well, I think all this lovely weather has gone to my head, the only cards I seem to make at the moment are ones that require sunglasses to even look at they're so bright. I wanted to combine several challenges with this card and my jumping off point was the challenge over at Get Funky, which was Zing into Spring, where they wanted to see the colours Green, Yellow and Lilac, and of course I used the beautiful floral backing paper that they had as a freebie - I still have half an A4 sheet of this left, and I'm sure it will be making another appearance very shortly.

I used the Sketch from Sketch Saturday for my layout and also wanted to include the Crafty Catz challenge this week, which was to use embossing on your card, I used a lovely cuttlebug folder (couldn't tell you which one as I've thrown away the wrapping & it doesn't have the name printed on it - how silly is that?!) and the yellow card is embossed with a freebie embossing folder I got with one of the recent docrafts magazines.

The image on my card was a freebie on the Bugaboo website (in fact it still is until Friday) - I wonder if there's a blog challenge out there for using freebies, think I might win it this week, until I started writing this I didn't realise how many freebies I'd used - stingy or frugal, you judge!

The image and layer were cut with Nesties, and the border punch is one of the new XCut range. The ribbon and flower gems were from my stash.

Anyway, hope you like the card - try wearing sunglasses to view, sure it will be slightly less painful on the eyes!

I'm entering this for the following challenges:

Thursday 7 April 2011

April Showers


Okay, skin of the teeth time, this card is for a blog challenge, which closes in half an hour!!!

The stamp is from the new range at Just Tracy's and as the challenge was April Showers, this particular image of the ladybird splashing through puddles seemed absolutely perfect - not too sure about the colours, but I wanted it to be bright and summery, and I really feel like it fulfills that.

The papers are from my stash - mostly from the Claire Curd signature range (still working through those 200 sheets!), the flowers were from a seller at the Exeter craft fair last september as were the dewdrops which form the centres of the flowers. My apologies if the photo looks a little dark, it was taken in my dining room, which does not have the best lighting of an evening (even with the light on).

Hope you like, I'm entering this into the Crafty Catz Weekly challenge and I would enter it into the Saturday Sketch Challenge, but I used last week's sketch (did like it though!).

Monday 4 April 2011

Happy mother's day!

Okay, I know this was yesterday, but I wanted to make sure the recipients had their cards before I posted them online (not that either my mum or mil know about my blog, so hopefully would have been safe - just didn't want to take the chance!).

Both the cards were made using images and papers from the Crafters Companion Flower Fairies CD, my mum bought this for me when it first came out so I thought it was about time I made something for her using it. I tried to make both cards different, but use similar elements, think they turned out okay - they were both really pleased anyway.

I found the instructions for the book card here, sorry they are in a foreign language but there is a translation button at the side - not that you will need it, the pictures are fairly self-explanatory, and if I can follow them anyone can, this is the first time I have tried this method as well and I didn't do a dry run first! (really pleased with myself, can you tell?). The other card is a double easel, I just made it with an A5 card base, which I divided down the middle to the centre fold, then I cut back the two pieces so they were square and then scored across them diagonally from the middle to the outer corners, you then treat each side as a standard easel, but you can use a single central piece on the bottom to act as your stop (in my case I used a copy of the Rose Fairy poem from a Cicely Mary Barker book I happen to have).

Mum's card:



























Mother In Law's card: