GRENOUILLE GREETINGS

A Little Birthday Candy!

2012-02-14T15:00:00.000Z

I've had to repost the candy in order to make it stick to the top of my blog and I've taken a more spreadout photo of what is on offer.

As I have just had a big birthday, and to welcome new followers (Hi There!) and existing ones and anyone else who happens to drop by from time to time, I thought it was time for a little candy. The pack contains some pretty Prima papers - 20 6x6 sheets, stamps, about 3 metres of ribbon, flowers, baby pacifiers and some pre-printed Paper Pizzaz vellum sentiments.
To win all you need to do is

post one of the pictures on your side bar with a link back to this post; and
leave me a comment below with a link back to your blog.

If you enjoy my creations and would like to become a follower, I would love to see you but following me isn't required.

Candy closes on 14 February at which time I will draw a winner and share the candy love. I will post world-wide.

Teddy Bo et al

2012-02-13T16:02:00.000Z

I do seem to be motivated to enter lots of challenges at the moment. I need to make a few love-themed cards and with all the love challenges that are around for Valentines day, there are so many to gain inspiration from.Today I am entering challenges at:

Teddy Bo 25 Love is in the Air

Simon Says Love is in the Air

Paper Play 6 Love Letters

My Mum's Craft Shop It must be love

Creative Inspirations 149 Lots of love

Paper Sundaes 107 Sundae Bar - Blue, cream, distress and/or pearls

Sketch n Stash Sketch

This is actually an anniversary card. I coloured this lovely TeddyBoBea 001, which you can find here in the Bits n Bobs store, with Copics and Promarkers and used the fab sketch at Sketch N Stash. My papers are old Stampin Up. I bought them too long ago to even contemplate and I can't remember using any of them before so they are new too! I also dug out one of my old Sizzix dies for the little hearts in the foreground and my new Marianne dies for the larger heart in the background. I have additionally used a new Martha Stewart picket fence punch and a never-before-used Stampin Up sentiment.

Don't forget that my candy ends tomorrow and I shall announce the winner on Thursday.

Butterfly Caller

2012-02-10T11:48:00.000Z

One of the very first digi stamp sets I bought are of beautiful ladies/fairies with butterflies. They have never been used. Shame on me!     I think this one is called Butterfly Caller and I'm convinced she is a Sketching Stamper image drawn by Chris Dark but I don't know if it is still available having failed to find her on line.
I am trying to improve my watercolouring. It sure needs the practice and I coloured this beauty in a mix of distress inks and Letraset Aquamarkers.
Sadly I cut off a lot of the butterflies from the original image. I wanted to use my oval nesties as I intended to follow the sketch at Crafty Emma's. In the end I got a bit carried away and the sketch is no longer really visible.  I added some additional butterflies from my vast selection of unused stash to meet Crafty Emma's requirement of "Give me Wings". Some of these are precut stickers and some were border stickers from which I punched the butterflies.

The papers are brand new Londonderry by Prima. Aren't they gorgeous. Although I do wish they would make them a little bit smaller because they just don't fit any of my card blanks and it takes me ages shaving off the very edge of each side of the page in an attempt not to lose too much of the border detail and to keep the central square still centred. I've matted using DCWV and added an SU sentiment punched with SU punches.
The challenges I am entering are:

CES - "Give me Wings" (and an optional sketch with which I started but got kind of carried away!)

Charisma Cardz - "Things with Wings"

Crafts and Me "Use a New Image "(which doesn't have to be newly owned just firt time used)

Papertake Weekly "Anything goes"

For the one I love

2012-02-08T11:42:00.000Z

I want to say a GREAT BIG WELCOME TO MY NEW FOLLOWERS. It's great to see you!

I chose the absolutely knock-out "Ragged Romeo" image by the uber talented Mo Manning (found here) for hubby's Valentine's card and coloured my image with Copics and Promarkers.I love the vintagey feel of these cuties and whereas I don't normally make vintage style cards - this is an attempt at one! Papers (which you can hardly see anymore) are by Brenda Walton for K&Co.

My image is cut with Nestie dies. I added a Hero Arts lacey heart stamp and used new Marianne dies for the second heart. There are two dies, one cuts out the heart and one cuts out (badly I have to say - and I did try it twice) the fretwork pattern on top. I overstamped it with a vintage graphics stamp - the origins of which I'm unsure. It's not very visible but it did just tone down some of the crispness of the pink against the burgunday DCWV card. I threaded an organza ribbon through some holes I had made in the backing papers (aka the lovely Jules) and then promptly covered up the effect (duh!) with my LOTV sentiment. A Making Memories "Adore" rivet thingy is another addition. Three little buttons and a bow with seeded pearls were added just in case my card didn't have sufficient embellishment! I'm entering it into the following challenges:

Mo's Digital Pencil - 120 Anything goes

Cute Card Thursday - 202 Buttons and bows

Charisma Cardz - 4 Vintage

One Stop - 168 For the one I love

Sweet Stampin - The one I love

Deep Ocean 18 Love You

Truly Scrumptious 73 Love and Hearts
Tuesday Throwdown 84 Be my Valentine

Fab and Funky colour schemes

2012-02-06T12:46:00.000Z

I wanted to try some painting with Distress Inks. I still need more practice. My purple bled into this sweet hAnglar's hand (thank heaven for embellishments!) and I was covered in ink by the end.
I love the colour combo which came about more by default than by design because having spent hours and hours trying to tidy the Craft Croft over a period of days (and only partially succeeding) the last paper pack I found under the pile on my desk was by Cloud 9 and having flipped through it I rather liked the tartan against the purple leaf paper.
The flowers are a mix of Recollections and Prima I think. All the leaves are cut with a variety of Marianne dies and I added some ribbons and Craftworks candy. The hAnglar is from a set I bought over a year ago - none of which have seen ink until now.

There is also a little panel of Basic Grey Kioshi. I used an Autumn Leaves ticket and the "friend to friend" is by SU and mounted on a Nestie die cut. The pansy border punch is by Martha and all of the matting is DCWV from the Brights stack I think.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

Crafts and Me 69 Time to Brighten up your day (with bright colours)

My Mum's Craft Shop 42 Fab and Funky - I'm hoping my bright colour scheme qualifies as funky - Certainly I can't imagine wearing an ensemble of orange and purple unless I was going to a 70s party!

Just Magnolia and hAnglar 142 Anything goes with the option of a valentine. This isn't a valentine but it was made with love!

Is it crowded in here?

2012-02-01T13:09:00.000Z

Hello! I was trying to find a challenge to make a card and ended up finding quite a few and decided to go for them all so I am entering into:
House Mouse - 112 "more than 2 hearts" (they are on my MS border punch)
Simon Says "animal antics"
Hanna and Friends 129 "pink and grey"
Stamptacular 149 "diamonds or pearls" or both in my case
Winter Wonderland "swirls and pearls"- and
Sketch Saturday with their wicked "sketch"

Here is my recipe:

image: House Mouse coloured in Copics and Promarkers

heart border: Martha Stewart

sentiment: Hero Arts cut with Stampin Up punch

daisy chain punched strips: EK Success

papers: DP is Recollections; matted with K&Co and DCWV

pearl swirls and gems in centre of daisies from my stash

Don't forget to enter my little candy above this post!

I'm, supposed to be working so I'd better dash!

Miss Anya

2012-01-30T18:51:00.002Z

If I've managed the technology there should be some candy above this post if you'd like to enter!

I got me a new Memory Box Die at the Stitch and Craft fair when I went with best matey Julie. Okay - actually I got four of them! They were bought with birthday money from my lovely hubby after a bit of negotiation. At first he said I could have £10. "But I have to pay Julie for the entrance fee which is nearly £7.00 and I need lunch money too", I said. "Well then you have £3 for lunch!", said Tom. But he relented and actually gave me £100. It was my 50th birthday after all!

I used this Memory Box Die flourish (behind my image). I thought, when I bought it, that it would be perfect for making supremely elegant CAS cards but as it turns out, I've used it to replace the inner horizontal stripe on this sketch which I've shortened to match. I've made a cutie birthday card for my friend's daughter using one of the Miss Anya Love images you can find here, coloured in Copics. She is part of my very old stash! My papers came from my scraps drawer. I cut the flowers with my EK Success Retro flower punch, added some MS punched and stamped folliage and actually lined them up down the left hand side so as not to obscure my sentiment stamp. A flourish of Marianne die leaves added a bit of balance on the other side of the card. Hopefully you can still see the sketch.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Sketch n Stash - 80 "free choice" of any of their past sketches from the catalogue;
ABC - "H is for Happy Birthday"
Colour Create - 88 "pink and green"
Kaboodle Doodle 104 "It's all about girls"
Charisma Cardz 3 "Pretty in pink"

Leanne Ellis - All is not lost

2012-01-26T10:21:00.000Z

How lovely that I have gained some new followers recently. WELCOME!
I love this Sugar Nellie Stamp by artist Leanne Ellis called "All is Not Lost"

I coloured her in Copics and used some of my lovely K&Co papers from the Julianne range. Some of these have pre-cut decorative edges. I teamed her with a Marianne leafy flourish die cut and some roses from my stash. I wish I had put more of the leaf flourish behind the image. Next time...

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

Creative Inspirations 147 "Anything goes";

My Mum's Craft shop 41 "Flowers"; and

Simon Says "Anything goes"

Pop back tomorrow - I'll have some belated birthday candy!

"Ewwwww" I hear you shout!

2012-01-24T18:39:00.001Z

I made and posted this gift box back in September. I also needed a card to accompany it and here it is. It will make a great valentine's set don't you think? I actually bought hubby a gift that I thought was a tiny decorative tea kettle - hence the tea related theme. My mate then told me that what I had actually bought wasn't a tea kettle at all but a wine pot! Oh well - hubby generally prefers wine over tea.

I cut my card shape with my Cricut, added some Laura Ashley DP to match the teapot "china" pattern and some pretty Prima flowers to tie in with the rose motif on the tea pot gift box. My Teddybobea_tags_002 is part of a threesome and can be found here. I coloured it with Promarkers and Copics and there is a Stampin Up sentiment and border stamp punched out with an SU punch on the back.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Teddy Bo 24 "anything goes" - THEY'VE GOT BIRTHDAY CANDY - see my sidebar!
Crafty Creations 153 "Valentine"
Cupcake 176 "all you need is love"
Creative card crew 2 "seeing red" (I hope there is enough red to meet this challenge)

I sliced the side off my finger yesterday and nealy fainted away from the pain. Hubby rescued me where I was slumped on the bathroom floor with my arm up still tryng to bleed only into the sink! I wasn't even crafting at the time. I was cutting temporary business cards and my finger was hanging over the edge of my ruler when I went through it with the new blade on my craft knife. I found the cut off part on my top when I was lying on the bed recovering from my faint! "Ewwww" I hear you all shout; too much information! Anyway, having finally caught up with my blogging I'm now finding it very hard to type. I'm a touch typist. My fingers know where the letters are on the keypad but my eyes actually don't and at least six of my letters have been rubbed off the keys so I'm struggling to work out whats what without being able to use my fingers in the proper position!

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday

2012-01-22T23:50:00.000Z

To Me!
50 I am! It's hard to believe! On the inside I'm still only 30!
When I was making my tissue box cover last week I came across another Saturated Canary image I had "forgotten" (just right for the challenge at Truly Scrumptious this week). This little darling is Zorana, A Dancing Gypsy and you can find her here at Saturated Canary who want us to use our "Dies and punches". I am also entering my card into Cute Card Thursday where the theme is "music and dance".

I've used Sizzix papers with DCWV matting. My image is coloured in Copics - I was a bit intimidated by her hair especially given that I decided she needed to have black hair with blue highlights but I'm quite pleased with it. The sentiment is SU and I used an SU punch for it, two MS border punches for the central horizontal lacey panels and Nesties for the image itself. I cut the buttons with a button punch and glazed them. The swirls and flowers, bow and brad are from my stash and there is a little Craftworks candy and some ribbon too.
Hope to see you soon! Hugs, Lesley

Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall. All you have to do is...

2012-01-17T15:53:00.000Z

SNEEZE!

Hello Friends! I have no idea where the first half of January went to. The plans I had made for being a better blogger have gone no where so far but I did spend 12 days in Crete with our eldest daughter and since I have been home, I have managed to deal with all of the post-trip laundry (did we really wear all of those clothes!) and keep the house work up to date. I also managed to make this project for hubby (I know it's very girly) who has Man Flu.

Krista Smith at Saturated Canary has a call out for guest spots on her DT. I very rarely apply for DTs because I am so often too busy to make the commitment but I have fallen in love with Krista's work and I would love to make a brief appearance on her team.

I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would make a tissue box cover but I have seen some delightful examples around and hubby is always complaining that I hoard boxes which I never use.

Most of my papers are Stampin Up, the matting is DCWV from the Bright Stack but there are two panels of Basic Grey and some odds and ends from my snippets drawers. I suspect the flowers are all Prima and the remaining embellishments are from my stash. All images are coloured with Copics and Promarkers.

I wanted to have a box that would be suitable for all times of the year so it can be positioned with the right face forward but I didn't want anything too season specific because the other sides would still be visible. I dragged my curtain from the bedroom window across my chest of drawers for a bit of staging for this shot. This is from where my colour inspiration came.

This image is called "Let it Rain" - I thought she was representative of Springtime - and you can find her here. I used some pearls to represent rain and the added umbrella embellishment is Cricut cut. The box lid looks wonky in this shot but I think that's just my photography. It is straight.

This little cutie is called "Bella Bunting" and she is actually a rubber stamp by Krista for Sugar Nellie. You can find her at Funky Kits. I added a Tim Holtz ticket sentiment and some dragon flies and flowers to add to the summery feel. I am entering this 'face' into the "Something New" challenge at Basic Grey. All of my images have never seen ink before.

"Windy Day" can be found here. She is representing Autumn (although it's obviously one of those really warm Autumn days because she isn't wearing much clothing). I added a couple of hand cut kites.

This little lady is wearing lots of layers and I thought she would be good for Winter. She is called "Pink Punkette" and you can find her here. My snowflakes are cut with some MS punches and I have added some bling from my embellishment drawers.

I am entering this 'face' into the "Baby it's cold outside" challenge at Kaboodle Doodles

And this is the top of the box!

I am entering my project into the challenges at

Papertake Weekly use any or all from "buttons, bows, bling and blooms"

Creative Inspirations - 145 "Swirls and pearls" (the swirl is on the top and pearls on "Let it Rain"

Crafty Creations - "Something New" (all of the images)

My Mum's Craft Shop - "Here come the girls"

I know I said I would be round to visit you all in January but as I now have a big job just come in, it may take a little longer. Hope to see you soon though!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000Z

Happy New Year to one and all! I'm hoping that 2012 brings an economic up-turn, vastly improved lives for those living under oppressive regimes and a lessening of the amount of civil unrest in the world. When I watch the news these days, it is so often sad and bewildering. Why do we humans do such terrible things to each other? I think everyone should take up card crafting. It's such a passive calming hobby. It produces pretty things that give the maker a sense of satisfaction and (hopefully) the recipient a sense of feeling loved or appreciated. I'm sure that if more people made cards and got involved in our friendly on-line crafting community, there would be more beauty and less violence in this world of ours!

I'm starting this year with a foursome of "anything goes" challenges for Crafts and Me, Simon Says, Creative Inspirations and Charisma Cardz.
I have used one of the beautiful Crafts and Me girlies, coloured in Copics on a background of Prima Pixie Glen DP with some DCWV texted paper, two MS butterfly punches and three tiny buttons. My girlie has soft pink lips which I glazed and my camera flash has taken away the colour in the photo.
I really enjoyed making this card which has been stamped with one of my very first sentiment stamps reading"you're so special". Unfortunately, I don't know the make.

HAVE A WONDERFUL YEAR!
Hugs, Lesley

Mo's DP2 is Sweet Stampin with My Mum's Craft Shop and Sketch Saturday

2011-12-21T16:42:00.000Z

Thank you to all of you who gave me some tips on my Picassa issue last week. I do soooo appreciate it! I hope to be able to show my appreciation by visting more of you early in the New Year. In the meantime, I think I'm just about ready for Christmas having just about succeeded in being ready for hubby's birthday which was also this week!
This is the card I made for him which I am entering into the following challenges:
Mo's DP2 - The fabric of our lives
My Mum's Craft Shop - Anything goes
Sweet Stampin - sparkle and bling
Sketch Saturday - Sketch

I used this absolutely fabulous Mo Manning image called Queen of Hearts. You can find it here.
I coloured her with Copics but then used Spica sparkly pens on top of her clothing to give the magnificent sparkle. Her monocle, the gems on her crown and her heart topped staff have been glazed for extra shine.

The playing card Queen of Hearts in the background is a Sizzix embossing folder. The DP with the hearts and other suits is by Stampin Up and the flourished purple strip is Paparmania. I used some netty fabric over ribbons from stash and the heart on the circular sentiment is also fabric. It was lilac but I coloured it with my Copic pen. A little card candy topped with red pearls adds extra bling.

Mo's Digital Pencil Thank you with Stampalot and Tuesday Throwdown

2011-12-14T00:32:00.000Z

The Challenge at to Mo's DP2 Challenge this week is banners or tags. I used this absolute cutie image called "Patience" which you can find here to make a card for my lovely neighbour who is "someone special" in keeping with the challenge at Tuesday Throwdown. She is always looking out for my cat. The image would undoubtedly look even better had I coloured the cat in two tones but then it wouldn't have looked like my own fur baby seen here.

I used Recollections papers, a Go-Kreate die to cut out the tag shape and some flowers and a pearl "thingy" from my stash. The sentiment is by SU and is cut with a Stampin Up tiny tag punch.
I am additionally entering my card into the challenge at Stampalot where there is a "bingo card" and I have chosen the bottom row of Punch, Tags, Ribbon although I could also have chosen a left to right diagonal of Punch, Flowers, Pearls.
I tried to pop some candy up on my side bar this week. Blogger said it was full and it wouldn't let me but I could buy more Picassa space. I do hope this post posts and if anyone has any ideas how I can get around the Picassa issue without purchasing more space I'd love to know! I am gradually coming for little visits. Hope to be with YOU soon! Hugs, Lesley

E is for Embossing at ABC for Cute Card Thursday and Sketch Saturday on a Friday!

2011-12-09T12:56:00.000Z

It's my BIL's birthday and as he is a HUGE Starwars fan, I chose this image of Jar Jar Binks which I found in a colouring page websight here. I followed the sketch at Sketch Saturday, coloured my image with Copics several times, cut bits of him out and layered him up with silicone glue. My DP is Basic Grey and I embossed the silver and black panels with a Sizzix (I think) embossing folder. The punched border is a new MS punch which I LOVE and the sentiment is by Lily of the Valley. It's a shame it isn't very visible just how dimensional this guy is. In addition to using several layers, I used my embossing tool on the cut out elements to give more depth to parts of him and in real life he is very 3D.

I definitely think I'm feeling better so I guess my meds are kicking in. I had a reasonably productive day yesterday for the first time in four weeks! Phew!!! I hope to catch up with some Christmas cards at the weekend and maybe get around to doing some blog commentary too but it's my wedding anniversary today and I need a nap just now. Hubby and I plan to decorate the tree when I wake up and then snuggle up for the evening in front of the telly. Then my Mum is coming to stay from Sunday for two weeks so I'm not sure how much time I will have for crafting.
Please forgive me if I don't make it by your blogs for a while longer! I'm sure I'll be with you before Christmas and one of my New Year's Resolutions will definitely be to be a better blogger in 2012!

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Sketch Saturday - 184 "Sketch!"
ABC - "E for Embossing"
Cute Card Thursday - 194 "Anything goes"

Still struggling...still sorry!

2011-12-06T23:39:00.000Z

I don't think I have ever been this bad with my blogging before. I just can't seem to get around to visit my lovely buddies out there and I really am sorry. I am also struggling to deal with Christmas - normally a real favourite time of year for me and I dug out shop bought Christmas cards today to send to most people (shock horror!!!!) because I know I am just not going to have enough home made ones and my mojo has gone walk about.
I have managed to make one more Christmas card - the recipe for which is exactly the same as the one in my last post only using another one of Mo's adorable elves. This one is Little Elf Fin, coloured in Promarkers, and you can find him here. I would like to make some more of these. I like the idea of a bauble image on a bauble and these little cuties are a real delight to colour.

I am entering my card into the following challenges in the hope that a win will boost my deflated spirits.

Papertake Weekly Anything goes with option of something dangly

Colour Create Red white and green

Creative Card Crew Tis the Season

Passion for Promarkers Celebrations (with some fab prizes by the way)

Simon Says Anything Goes and

Kaboodle Doodle Colours of Christmas

On the upside - I might be feeling a little better in myself. No quick fix from the doc but a medicament provided might be having an improving effect - it's hard to tell yet!

No House Elves (like Dobby) but lots of Christmas elves at Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge Blog

2011-11-30T13:29:00.000Z

The challenge at Mo's Digital Pencil this week is for "elves, fairies, snowmen or Santa". Mo has lots of lovely fairy images, a smattering of fabulous Santas and some simply adorable elves to choose from. I chose this one called Little Elf Mim that I found here and made this card which also fits the following challenges:
Hanna and Friends "red and another colour" I chose green
Polka Doodles - "Italian Christmas; ie, red, white and green"
Deep Ocean - "C as (is for)... Christmas"
Stamptacular - "anything Christmas"
Simon Says - "anything goes"
My DP is K&Co. The "MERRY" was cut using a PTI die borrowed from the lovely Alex who also supplied the bakers twine on a little ribbon gift for me (thank you, Alex) and I cut and embossed a bauble top for my elf using my Cricut. The stamped sentiment is by Stampin Up as is the punch I used to cut it out and the holly is the negative space from a corner punch. I used Copics to colour Mim. Her bauble has been glazed and it's top is overlayed with Spica. A little Fabric applique was used for the fur trim on Mim's clothes and she has gems for bells on her shoes.

All of Mo's elves are so cute but I am also a big Dobby fan! I would certainly have been an advocate for S.P.E.W (Hermione Granger's Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare) in the Harry Potter books/films. What a shame I didn't get to meet her. Hubby and I were, however, lucky enough to meet Ron Weasley, Professor Filius Flitwick, Argus Filch (without Mrs Norris, sadly) and Scabior (the new baddie in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). Warwick Davis was particularly charming and hubby and I were delighted that he, along with Rupert Grint and David Bradley agreed to photographs in the airport lounge at Orlando International. They were all on our plane home too and we enjoyed a drink with the delightful and very handsome Nick Moran (Scabior) at the bar on the plane afterwards. Too cool, eh?

Before I go...I know I have been very neglectful in my blogging duties recently and I really do apologise. To be honest, I have been feeling very under the weather in the last month. It wasn't so bad in Florida but since I have been home, it's been much worse. It has taken me a week to make my card! I'm off to the docs tomorrow for some blood test results and I'm hoping for an easy fix! I do hope to catch up with you all soon though. Thank you for stopping by.

CR84FN with Creative Inspirations from Kenny K's Krafty Girlz and Crafty Emma!

2011-11-18T15:44:00.001Z

Wow! Two posts in one day - this is very unlike me but I had a belated birthday card to make for tomorrow so I opted for inspiration from the following challenge blogs:
CR84FN "Photo Inspiration - Pink, black and neutral"

Creative Inspirations "#138 sketch"
CES Challenge "#61 Roses and ribbons"; and
Kenny K "#69 Emboss away".

For my card, which is coloured in Promarkers and Copics, I have used this fab "Movie Star" digi by Kenny K with Prima's Pixie Glen papers and some roses and ribbon from my stash. The making memories eyelets were undoubtedly a mistake given that they are crooked - urrggg! But I do like my new Tulip dimensional fabric paint for the fur trim on the girl's jacket and my old SU stand by sentiment. The pretty embossing folder is by Cuttlebug.

I've got some serious catching up to do with work and mail and I haven't finished unpacking yet but I do hope to catch up with y'all in the next week!

"Ready for Snow" with Mo's Digital Pencil in the Winter Wonderland of a Creatalicious Stamptacular Paper Sundae Cupcake - is as easy as ABC!!!

2011-11-18T09:06:00.003Z

I missed playing along with Mo's Digital Pencil the last two weeks because hubby and I were on holiday in (mostly) warm and sunny Florida but this week I'm back with an absolute beaut of an image more in keeping with our British weather. It's called "Ready for Snow" and you can find it HERE. For me, this image conjurs up a whole story of a little boy (mouse) waking up early and discovering the first snow and putting his jeans and jumper on before going in to his Dad. And his Dad, still in his PJs, patiently making sure that his son is wrapped up snug and warm in his hat and wellies and mittens to go out and play...

I spent a long time colouring my image with my Promarkers and some Copics. My papers are from the Winter Stack by DCWV and I matted them with purple which for some reason appears to look more dark grey in my photo. I assure you it is purple! My sentiment is by Fiskars I think and is teamed with a Marianne snowflake die and a number of MS snowflakes punched out of sparkly card stock and Stickled. The red on my image has been topped with a Spica pen for more sparkle and the bells on the little boy's hat have been glazed for extra shine. The image is so lovely I felt my card didn't need too much in the way of embellishment so I just added a ribbon on a slider and a few pearls.

In addtion to Mo's DP2 Challenge "Winter", I am entering my card in to

Winter Wonderland "Christmas Mouse"

Paper Sundaes "# 95 Digital image"

Stamptacular Sunday "#138 Punch it"

Cupcake Craft "Two's company" (they want to see two images)

Creatalicious "#28 For Christmas and make sure it sparkles"; and

ABC "D is for Dazzle"

Simon Says have a Truly Scrumptious Paperplay with One Stop

2011-11-06T04:15:00.000Z

Too many stamps and too little time!
And yet I can never seem to stop myself from buying more! Does anyone else have this problem?

I have quite a number of Lili of the Valley stamps that have only been inked one time and still more that have never seen ink at all. It must be a crime! And one that I rectified with this make for a dear blog buddy's birthday.
I decided on this very unusual colour combo of chartreuse, aqua and burgundy because that was the colour of my lovely floral paper (by Prima I think) and coloured up LOTV's "Time for a Cuppa" with my Copics and Promarkers. The sentiment is LOTV too and I added some buttons, brads, ribbons and flowers from my stash to give it some dimension.
I always like my tea out of glazed fine bone china and so does this little missy - thanks to my glossy accents!

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Truly Scrumptious have a bingo challenge from which I have chosen the line "brads, flowers, buttons" and Paperplay and Simon Says both want us to use "buttons". One Stop Craft is celebrating it's 3rd Blogaversary with a "3 is a magic number" theme. Happy Birthday One Stop - I hope you like my three brads, 3 ribbon loops and three roses.
Hope all my matey's visiting the NEC this weekend have a wonderful time! So sorry I couldn't make it!

Colour Create with Papertake Weekly and Charisma is as easy as ABC

2011-11-01T13:59:00.000Z

As I was looking through my stamp collection, I came across this little Elisabeth Bell cutie. She is called "Little Nurse" and was produced by Whiff of Joy. Poor little thing had never seen ink! I coloured her with Promarkers and Copics and she is mounted on some K&Co Julienne papers with a Prima flower and two little crochet flowers that my Mum made for me. The leaves are an MS punch. The "Get well soon" tiny sentiment is by Stamps Away. I love these and I should use them more often - they fit really well with my Stampin Up tiny tag punch. The "Just for you" sentiment is by SU and is used in a new Nestie banner.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

it's "anything goes" at Charisma Cardz and Papertake Weekly. The ABC Challenge is "C is for crochet flowers" and the challenge at Colour Create (which I'm stretching I know) is for "burgundy, gold, cream and dimension" - I haven't used any actual gold but my banner, leaves and tag are a goldy colour - I hope that's okay. It's a terrible quality photo for some reason. The flowers on the paper are much more burgundy in real life.

Mo's Digital Pencil - "Any Holiday or Celebration"

2011-10-27T10:00:00.034+01:00

With Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner, the challenge at

Mo's Digital Pencil

this week is "Any Holiday or Celebration".

Sadly this is my last week as Guest Designer but I am oh so grateful to have had the opportunity to showcase my creations alongside such a fabulous and talented team.
With so few Christmas cards in the bag and so many needed, I opted for the Christmas holidays and used "Little Elf Kin" (whom you can find HERE) and came up with this...

I have seen a couple of these break-front cards where the right panel is cut off and then joined back to the left side with flowers or snowflakes mounted on top. I opted to use baubles but I actually cut out the spaces between my baubles in the card blank so the right panel is still attached and only the paper is mounted separately.
I used Crate Paper's "Snow Day" collection for the background left and right. The lilac panel and pointy bauble is Basic Grey and I'm pretty sure that the round baubles are Basic Grey too but my craft croft looks like a bomb went off in it and I can't be sure about the round baubles. I cut them all with my Cricut machine using the "Joys of the Season" cartridge.

Obviously I paper pieced the one under Little Elf Kin and I added silver "hangy bits" (the technical term!) to all of the baubles. This is a picture of the inside of my card. It isn't decorated and it isn't going to be! But it shows that the negative space around the baubles is cut out.
My little cutie is coloured in Copics. I added some pearls to the boots because I didn't have jingle bells small enough and there are pearl berries in the holly on the hat. All my baubles are spritzed with a shimmer mist and the fur has been stickled. A little bit of baker's twine, a Papermania sentiment and one day later I was really pleased with the finished product.

I have two other Little Elves from the set of four Finn, Mim, Pipa and this sweet Kin and if I can find the time and if I can clear some space from my craft desk!!! you might see some more of this type of card from me but it did take me a very long time!

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
ODBD - "at least three different shapes"
Simon Says - "anything goes"
Deep Ocean - "SWEET" (there are images of sweets on my DP in addition to Mo's little elf being incredibly sweet!)
Inky Impressions - "anything goes"

Thank you so much for having me at Mo's Digital Pencil!

Heather Ellis Pure Innocence with Totally Gorjuss Crafts & Me

2011-10-25T05:29:00.000+01:00

So many cards needed for Christmas and so little time. But I managed to make these four with some fabulous Pure Innocence images by Heather Ellis. You can buy at least three of the four here AND they are on sale at only £0.50 each!!! What a bargain!

I used only two sheets of 8x8 Dovecraft "Let it Snow" to make all four cards, mounting on just one sheet of 12x12 DCWV lime green from (I think) the Brights collection. A lot of gutting was involved mind you.
Here are the closeups...

My colouring medium is Copics and I used some sort of flower flock for the fur trim (thank you Alex!) and Stickles for the snow. I added a ribbon, a Marianne snowflake duo, a little Gem (thank you again Alex!) and a Stamps Away sentiment cut with an SU Tiny Tag punch to each card. I made all four in two afternoons which is very fast for me!!!!

Crafts and Me #57 have a colour challenge this week for "blue green & pink" and the first and last of my four makes definitely fit their challenge. The same two cards fit equally well, I think, into the challenge for a "pastel Christmas" at Totally Gorjuss #103.

Mo's Digital Pencil "Favourite Image"

2011-10-20T10:00:00.012+01:00

This week's challenge at Mo's Digital Pencil is "Use your Favourite Mo Manning Image" AND a sentiment.

With so many to choose from - it is very difficult to select just one favourite image of Mo's - I have, however chosen to make a card with one of several new favourite Christmas images of Mo's for my third week as Guest Designer at Mo's Digital Pencil.

This adorable cutie is called "Pammy's Stocking" and you can find her HERE. Aside from the obvious fact that Pammy is a delight to look at, she is going to be one of my favourite Christmas images because it is feasible to leave her nightie and dressing gown white which makes her a quick image to colour on a number of cards.

My papers are: Papermania "A Wonderful Christmas Time" and Cloud 9 "Sparkle". I coloured Pammy with Copics and Promarkers and added some Stickles to her hair ribbon and stocking.
The crochet flowers were made by my lovely Mum. The leaves are stamped and cut using an MS combination punch. The corners are cut with a Marianne Die and the roses, white flowers, pearl brads, red netting and sentiment are all from my stash.
As Pammy was so easy to colour, I made two more cards in a much simpler format using a Papermania sentiment and some additional papers from my DCWV "Christmas Combo" stack.

Come and join in the fun at Mo's and check out the beautiful inspiration from my talented teamies!

I'm kinda busy at the moment so please forgive me AGAIN if I am late with my visits!

Sweet Tilda stirs things up with Sir Stampalot, Crafty Creations and Papertake Weekly for Tuesday Throw Down with my ol' mates at Stamptacular

2011-10-16T14:06:00.001+01:00

Don't you just love Tilda!!!!

I made a birthday card for a lovely friend of ours who is in her late 70s. I wanted to use pink which fit nicely with the Tuesday Throwdown challenge. I coloured Tilda with Copics and Promarkers. My papers are Annalee by Prima - there are only three in accordance with the challenge at Crafty Creations - the floral paper is gutted from the one at the back around the border and there are three shapes in keeping with the challenge at Papertake Weekly. Sir Stampalot have a food theme which is why I chose this image. Tilda is obviously about to mix a batch of cake mix with that big spoon but just in case the subtlety is insufficient for the challenge, I added some food to the inside. I always make an insert for my cards but I almost NEVER decorate the insides. Frankly it takes me way too long to do the outsides but I did add a little pocket for a gift card and some "Cuppycakes" from Prairie Fairy and a coffee cup.

I stupidly did not write down the make of the coffeecup stamp when I filed it.
Finally, my old friends at Stamptacular have an anything goes theme. Hi there! Sorry I wasn't more creative ladies! The sentiment on the front of my card is LOTV and the one on the inside is Penny Black.

I am entering the following challenges:

Sir Stampalot - "food, glorious food"

Papertake Weekly - "get in shape (use 3 different shapes and the card base counts as one)

Crafty Creations - "3 dps, 2 embellishments, 1 image"

Tuesday Throw Down - "think pink"

Stamptacular Sunday - "you choose"

Mo's Digital Pencil "Inspired by song" - Charlie Chaplin

2011-10-13T10:00:00.022+01:00

It's my second week as Guest Designer at Mo's Digital Pencil 2 and I still can't get over my luck! This week the challenge is to be "Inspired by song".

I opted for a song called "Don't Speak" by No Doubt, fronted by Gwen Stefani, using Mo's iconic image of the famous silent film star - Charlie Chaplin and I coloured him with Copics. He is called "The Tramp" and you can find him HERE. I have to confess that I was a bit scared of so much black colour work and, as usual, I've gone a little too light and his suit looks more grey than black but I was pleased with the overall look of my card which was for the birthday of my Dutch friend Jeroen. I wrote the newspaper article and added it as an additional sentiment together with the clapper board. The circular sentiment is by LOTV. The papers are DCWV from a "Music Stack - I love the theatre curtains - and I added a tiny bit of my new Tim Holtz film strip. Here is a close up of the news

With so many songs and so many fabulous images of Mo's to choose from, do come and play. And check out the stunning creations of the fabulous design team at Mo's DP2 - wow - there is so much inspiration!

I am entering my card into the following challenges: My Mum's Craft Shop - "remind you of a song", One Stop Craft - "Anything Goes"; and Sketch Saturday - I rotated and flipped the sketch like this

A bouquet of Poinsettias for Polka Doodles and Crafty Emma

2011-10-10T23:14:00.000+01:00

Hi peeps! I finally made a start on some Christmas cards having been inspired by two fabulous play days - one with best matey Julie on Friday and then Julie and I went to the lovely Alex's for more fun crafting on Saturday. What a fabulous time we had!
Previously I had made only one card and with so many to make, I really needed to come up with a simple design with which I could make multiple cards. I think I finally cracked it after hours of trying all sorts of different things.
I used a new Marianne Design punch and embossing folder for the cream background. It's fabulous! It embosses and die cuts at the same time. I added a Marianne Design poinsettia flower (the centre of which is actually a separate punch because I always struggle to get the Marianne stamens out of the die) and an SU sentiment "Merry" cut with an SU tiny tag punch. I'm not sure of the make of the "Christmas" sentiment but I made one with an SU lable punch and one with a Nestie lable punch and used the SU word window punch for both. On one card I used a piece of pre-printed ribbon.

These cards are not exactly quick to make because they each take several runs through my Big Shot - one for the cream background which also needs to be cut down to size afterwards, one to cut the flowers, one to cut the leaves and another two for the embossing and then the sentiment framing needed cutting and the flowers needed curving and the Merry needed punching but they are simple in design and I can make them and watch TV at the same time! Something I can't do if I'm colouring. I'm planning on doing snowflakes and mistletoe too so watch this space...

I am entering my cards into the challenge at Polka Doodles - who want "handmade flowers" and at CES where the theme is "seeing red".

Mo's DP2 - "Patchwork" my first Guest Designer card

2011-10-06T10:00:00.002+01:00

I am SOOOOO THRILLED to have been invited to be a Guest Designer for October for Mo's Digital Pencil too. I absolutely LURVE Mo's images and the quality of the creations made by the oh so talented design team are out of this world beautiful.
The challenge this week is "Patchwork". I spent an afternoon cutting out sufficient hexagons and little squares to cover my 6 by 6 card blank and then in my excitement to make a card pretty enough to be showcased beside my teamies' cards, I promptly proceeded to cover up most of the patchwork! What a ditz!

Anyway, I glued my hexagons on first and then stamped over them in a very soft white with an Impression Obsession cover-a-card gingham stamp.    I put my little squares through a dotty embossing folder and then used them to fill in between the patchwork hexagons - which don't look like hexagons because I covered them up!    As I STILL haven't worked out how to use my sewing machine, I pierced holes with my "pokey tool" around all the edges and drew on some faux stitches.
I used Mo's "Baby Boy with Straight Hair". He is one of a number of absolutely adorable baby boys and girls and you can find him here.   I coloured him very softly with my Copics.
My plain patchwork is by DCWV and the patterned paper is cut from a Forever Friends stack. I cut it out as a frame and mounted it on top of the patchwork with dimensional stickies.   For embellishment I used a brand new die by Joy Crafts I bought on sale at a recent craft fair and weaved some green and blue ribbon through it. My safety pin is from an MS punch, the little pram and rocking horse in opposing corners are laser cut images by Anne-Marie Klipp and I added rather a lot of ribbon from my stash, cutting out a teddy, 2 hearts and a baby bottle.     The sentiment was a magazine freebie.
Thank you so much to the lovely ladies at DP2 for selecting me to be this month's Guest Designer! Please do visit their blogs - these crafters are Sooooo talented, share some love and come and play along!

And now for something completely different... A prayer for a new home

2011-10-02T11:00:00.010+01:00

I would like to say a great big HI to some new followers! Thank you for joining me! It's lovely to see you!

This card is soooooo out of my comfort zone. My dear cousin has recently moved house. She is not a lady who would go for a cute or fussy card and she is someone who is likely to seek out a local church within a day of moving in so I opted for a very clean and simple look, using a suitable prayer I found on line which I Word processed with enormous difficulty. The problem with using different fonts is that the line spacing goes awry and the only way I know how to fix it is by trial and error; playing with each individual line one by one. It took me hours to get this right but I really like how it looks. My image which just happens to be of bread and wine which I thought was very apt is by Stampin Up. I bought this set a very long time ago and this is the first time I've used it. I think my card would have looked fine with just the prayer and the image on this lovely cream linen card stock, mounted on the burgundy but that was just too clean and simple for my tastes so I added a double ribbon bow and some pearls.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

ODB - who are looking for "scripture, quotes or song" as inspiration and I'm hoping they will do the Christian thing and forgive me if my prayer doesn't quite fit the challenge!

SSC- who are looking for "blessings"; in addition to the more secular

Crafty Creations - who want a CAS card; and

Simon Says - who have an "anything goes theme"

It is very important to me that my cards suit the recipient and this one hopefully certainly fits that bill!

Forgive me for not coming by. I am scheduling this post from a restaurant and my lappy is fast running out of steam so I probably won't have time to visit once it's scheduled. I still don't have internet access myself so I shall have to come back to actually enter the challenges.

I would like to say one final farewell to my sisters at Stamptacular. Thank you for being such a lovely team to work with! Especially Priscilla! My next post will be for my GDT post at Mo's Digital Pencil and I'm still sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited! Hugs, Lesley

Sketch N Stash with Penny Black and Charisma

2011-09-30T14:59:00.000+01:00

It's my niece's (the older one - not the 7 year old) and her husband's first anniversary and I chose to make a card to fit the following challenges

Sketch N Stash - "sketch, and optional 3 DPs and 3 flowers"

Penny Black - "Monochrome"
Charisma Cardz - "Love"

I chose this neglected (but inked once before) image of two cute little meeces at breakfast time, coloured in Copics and Promarkers and I used some equally neglected Stampin Up papers together with a little piece of argyle which I think is a Sizzix paper I found in my scrap drawer. I Word processed the sentiment specifically for my image, framed it and my image with Nestie cuts and added 3 loops of SU ribbon, 3 bought flowers to which I added gems, and a button and bow.

I haven't been able to get onto the internet for the last few days so I'm sorry I haven't been by for a visit. I have had to resort to a visit to Starbucks in order to make this post !

Simon Says Colour Create using My Mum's Creative Inspiration and a Kaboodle

2011-09-27T13:09:00.000+01:00

I've been on a bit of a craft fest this past week - it's one of my busiest times of the year for making cards for family and friends and if I don't get them done now, I know I will be pressed when it comes to making Christmas cards. I can't show most of what I have made yet because I don't want the recipients to see them but here is one I made for the following challenges
Simon Says - "use dies/punches with optional texture"
Colour Create - "lime, aqua and white"
My Mum's Craft Shop - "boys and girls"
Creative Inspirations - "let's celebrate", and
Kaboodle Doodle - "pretty doily".
I've used this previously uninked little cutie from LOTV called "The Little Things", coloured with Copics and Promarkers for an anniversary card.

I used a Nestie square and scalloped square to frame my image and added a Magnolia doily die cut for some extra interest. Was I supposed to have done something extra to the die cut? I did ink around the edges (not that my inking is very visible) but it looks a bit flat to me. My papers are mostly First Edition "Up, up and away". The stripe is from my scraps drawer as is the mulberry paper which has been embossed with a Cuttlebug folder. A further Nestie frames the "Together" sentiment and I've added a little textured ribbon and some pearls.

My best bit is the little boy's hair. I am amazed it came out so well and I'm convinced I shan't be able to replicate it again. I have such trouble with hair colouring!

STAMPTACULAR #130 "Have a Latte Day" - Hot drink inspired! AND SOME NEWS

2011-09-25T11:00:00.011+01:00

I have had the most brilliant time at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge - 26 weeks of making at least one card a week using fabulous images, very often supplied by fabulous sponsors, which perhaps I wouldn't ordinarily have thought to use. Our hostess with the mostess at Stamptacular - the wonderful Priscilla - set challenges that really stretched my creativity and I have so enjoyed being part of the team of lovely talented ladies. I have, however, decided to step down from my DT post and this is my last challenge. Farewell ladies! It's been a real pleasure!

This week our theme is “Have a Latte Day!” and we would like you to create a card or a project that has something to do with a hot drink. It doesn’t have to be coffee. Tea or hot cocoa, would be perfect too. Your options are endless! Be creative! Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing! We are sponsored this week by both The Paper Shelter who are offering a $10 gift certificate and by TeddyBo who are giving away three hot drinks related digis to our lucky winner.

I opted to use this adorable Tea for Two image (which I think is number 006) and I challenged myself in more ways than one: Firstly inspired by Alex a dear friend and oh so talented crafter who made me a teapot gift a couple of years ago (see photo below), I decided to follow her design and then I was really constrained by the size of the tea pot when I went to print my image which is only 8 cm (about 3 inches) wide and it was soooo tiny to colour! Even the lovely Copics I used felt like fat white-board markers in my hand trying to get into the teeny corners of the image. I used an EK success bracket punch to cut out my image and as I made the box to hold a gift for hubby I have used no embellishment.

I found a quote on-line by George Gissings and used it on the back of my pot.

And I just wanted to share the delightful Tea Pot made by Alex that inspired me: Isn't it adorable. I would never have come up with my version had it not been for her!

And now for my news...DRUM ROLL PLEASE......

I am going to be the Guest Designer for October for Mo's Digital Pencil!!! And I'm over the moon with excitement!!!!

A Project ...

2011-09-20T10:32:00.094+01:00

Three weeks ago I made a post about the card I made for our grandson's baptism. It looked like this.
Today I thought I would share some photos of the occasion. Be WARNED... there are lots of photos although I have tried to make some composites.

This is the pretty invitation Emma put together

It is a green scroll topped with a frog on a stick and a ribbon and tag for the recipient. The invitations are all hand delivered and the inside contains the information about the church and the venue for the party. Our daughter had a fairy tale prince theme in green and blue with frogs and crowns for the after Baptism celebration. The baptism took place in Crete where it is usual to make something that the Greeks call Bouboniera. These are "favours" containing sugared almonds. and she chose THE most difficult bouboniera to make!
INGREDIENTS:
A Frog on a stick like the one on the invitation (remove the frog and the raffia bow and discard the stick)
60cm of heavy guage wire
70 cm wide turquoise ribbon
35 cm green organza ribbon
35 cm yellow satin ribbon
35 cm blue cord
50 cm medium turquoise ribbon
4 x 10 cm squares of green netting
4 x 25 cm lengths of blue cord
1 yellow bead
1 little eye charm to ward off evil
4 sugared almonds
and a key ring

REPEAT 240 TIMES AND ALLOW 100 HOURS FOR MAKING!!!

Just in case you didn't get that - Emma spent days cuting the 240 lengths of the wide turquoise ribbon and making the hoops by winding the wire around a candle and I needed to cut 240 lengths each of the thinner turquoise, the green and the yellow ribbons, 960 squares of netting and 1200 pieces of blue cord!!!
Emma made most of the hoops and glued on the frogs and bows in advance of our arrival but Tom wound ribbons around at least 40 of the hoops and I stuck on the same number of frogs and raffia bows.

Cutting ribbons and cord and threading the beads and charms took me two days and I had bandaids on four of my fingers by the end because the cord was cutting into them.

Emma wanted the green and yellow ribbon to have a little loop at the top before tying the cord with the bead and charm on it around. I found a broom handle came in handy for this.

After glueing the ribbons to the hoop, one of the local lads helped us for a while tieing the almonds into the netting.

Then I had to tie them individually to the hoops before adding the final turquoise ribbon with a keyring.

Here are the finished articles all hanging prettily on two trees.

Whilst I was spending 60 hours on Bouboniera for the adults, Emma was busy making Bouboniera for the children. These ones were for girls.

Tom painted some wicker balls on which Emma strung ribbons and we hung from the trees

Emma filled some vases with coloured gravel, netting, candy canes and more sweets.

She bought candle holders for the tables but because the colour of some of the embellishment on them was the wrong blue - she painted them turquoise over the top!!!

She tied 240 ribbons around napkins topped with a punched crown and she had even painted blue and green "gems" on the crowns!!! There were wooden frogs and crowns for added decoration and Emma also made large hoops with a central froggy image festooned with ribbons, you can see them hanging from the trees in the final photos which are taken at the venue which we decorated with fabric and some really spectacular balloons. The entrance also held a stand (made by our son-in-law) for a guest book, and lanterns all decorated by Emma. Here are the final piccies:

Our Grandson with his proud parents (his Daddy is holding him), the Godfather and priest. The baby didn't even cry!!!

The party venue:

Emma looking out of this world beautiful

Tommy and me

Even the wine bottles were customised, courtesy of the photoshopping skills of our son-in-law.

I did warn you that there were a lot of pictures!!!!

Sorry I haven't been visiting recently...now you know why!!!

STAMPTACULAR #129 "Just Sayin"

2011-09-18T11:00:00.016+01:00

This week at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge we are going sentimental with the theme of “Just Sayin’!” and we would like you to create a card or project with some sort of sentiment/words on the front!   Super easy one this week! Once again The Stamping Boutique are offering 5 fabby digis to one lucky winner so do join us!
For my Father-in-Law's 90th birthday I have made him a card shaped like a champagne bottle which is almost real bottle height.   I opted to cut this in four separate bottle-shaped panels out of DCWV card stock two of which are green for the outside and joined together with normal sticky tape on the inside and then the other two are cream for the inside and glued over the top, concealing the tape and giving the panels more stiffness.    I used my Cricut to cut the bottle panels, welding a tag shape with a tall cylinder and a circle at the top of the cylinder.   I cut the "shoulders" of the bottle by hand afterwards.
Before adding my decoration I masked off some highlights on the front and back green panels with a curved shape and then inked all around the outside edges of the mask with a darker distress ink. After removing the masks, I added some extra white highlight with my white pen.   My highlighting is mostly covered up on the front panel but is still visible on the back one.

I wrote some text including his surname "Kollinsky" and printed it onto cream and saffron card stock and then added some gold mirror card for layering before cutting out the whole thing with a Nestie labels die. For our challenge we mustn't forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing so I heat embossed the letter K from an alphabet stamp set with gold embossing powder and added it to the top of the front panel. I've had the set for ever, only used it once and I'm afraid I don't know the make. DCWV paper from the "Rustic Stack" is beneath the labels helping to add strength and join the panels together and has also been cut for the top of the bottles to mimic a champagne cage over a cork. A little extra gold mirror card mimics the foil beneath the cage. Lots of lovely flowers and a few leaf branches finish the embellishment.

I looked up some wine descriptions on line and then made one up of my own for my FIL. His birth year is obviously 1921 and he was born in the Czech Republic (Bohemia) and I have tried to express in flavours how he might like to view his own personality. I realise now, having written this post that my photos are not terribly good quality but it's too late now to correct them. The card is with Papa.

For any wine officionados out there, I have been told that champagne with only 6% alcohol content is not going to get anyone dancing on the tables. 15% would have been more accurate but Papa doesn't know that and neither did I when I was typing my text. In any event - it's probably best that he didn't dance on the tables - his walking frame might have knocked over the glassware!

This post is scheduled as I am out today but I will be entering my card into the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp - who want our project to be "inspired by a song or a film title". I think Alfred Hitchcock made a silent film called Champagne about 100 years ago but actually I was thinking more of Oasis "Champagne Supernova"!
Totally Gorjuss - where the theme is "nothing square about me"; and
Cute Card Thursday have an "anything goes" week

Sketch n Stash with LOTV as a Thank You

2011-09-16T23:15:00.000+01:00

Our friend Anna sells THE most beautiful freshwater pearl jewellery at absolutely stunning prices. Her shop is called "Moody Tom". You can also find her on Facebook. She sells really exquisite necklaces, earrings, bracelets on line and through hostess parties but Hubby and I pop in for a visit a couple of times a year. We always go to buy gifts for others but I also can't help buying things for myself or recommending to Hubby that there is an item (or three) that would make lovely presents for me for Christmas (which is coming!), my birthday or an anniversary, etc. We made a visit just before our recent holiday and in addition to the gifts we went for - true to form - a number of items fell into my personal shopping bag.

Anna even created some jewellery especially for me and sent it on afterwards. My parcel just arrived and I wanted to send a little thank you to her.

This lovely previously uninked LOTV image called "Mirror mirror" seemed just right for the occasion. I coloured my image just a little with Copics and layered her up on some Stampin Up and Recollections papers with my most recently purchased sentiment (also LOTV), using Sketch no 29 at Sketch N Stash.

I gave my little girl a Perfect Pearls necklace, earrings and bracelet and glazed her patent leather shoes

I am entering my card into the chalenge at LOTV. They want us to use "green, red and white".
I am also entering the challenge at Sketch N Stash where we can select any sketch from their library.

Mo's Digital Pencil has Boy Attitude

2011-09-14T22:03:00.000+01:00

Hi peeps! I've just returned from my holiday (not that it was very holiday-like for the most part but more of that another time).
I've been admiring this image called "Dare" by the fantastic Mo Manning ever since I first laid eyes on it and having spotted that there is a challenge for "Boy Attitude" at DP2 which ends this evening I just had to delay the unpacking and the laundry and go shopping at Mo's Digital Pencil Store to buy him and start crafting!

I used my DCWV Mariposa papers, a sentiment which I suspect is Fiskars but cannot be sure, a Tim Holz ticket and a little topper I had kicking around and coloured this gorgeous devil with my Copics.
I also stamped a little compass off the edge of my Go-Kreate tag frame and added a Tim Holtz spinner.
I've just got time to enter the challenge at Mo's and then I really should unpack!

STAMPTACULAR #128 Sketch - Stamp Something for Crafty Emma in Basic Grey

2011-09-11T11:00:00.007+01:00

This week at at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge Priscilla has given us this fabulous sketch to use. You are free to flip it, twist it or turn it any way that works for you AND as long as we can see the original sketch in your finished masterpiece! Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing! Our prize this week is a $20 gift certificate from the fabulous Simon Says Stamp.

I made my card for best matey - Julie's son's 21st birthday. He is a big traditional comic book fan and I chose this Marvel image of The Incredible Hulk which I altered a little from a web-based colouring page here.

I coloured my image in Copics and Promarkers cut it out and then embossed his muscles with an embossing tool to give them more depth and used silicone glue beneath him. I have also popped his head and fist with an extra layer of the same image. My film strip is a die cut from Lakeland plastics. The sentiments within each film frame are Word processed and the "21" is cut with my Cricut. My papers are Basic Grey Green at Heart and the sentiments on the right within the partial nestie cut frames are from a K-oligy sticker that I cut down to fit.

I am entering my card into
Basic Grey's "celebrations" challenge
Stamp Something "anything goes"
Crafty Emma's "Magical or Spooky"

STAMPTACULAR #127 "The Sky's the Limit" with multiple challenges

2011-09-04T11:00:00.077+01:00

It's Sunday again and that means another fabulous challenge at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge where we are sponsored by the brilliant Bunny Zoe's Craft who are offering one lucky winner a lovely $10 gift voucher. This week we are asking you to create anything your heart desires - "The sky's the limit". We want you to be creative though - this isn't an ordinary anything goes challenge. We in the DT have been tasked to be "extremely creative; to do something outside of the box". So I did!!! My card was a real feat of engineering for me. I wanted to make an easel bookatrix card with a difference. I've never used my bookatrix stencil before AND I wanted the easel to be on the inside of the card instead of the outside.
My card is for our Grandson who is being baptised in Crete where he lives with his Mum and Dad.
This is him Just Chillin' in their cafe bar one week after his second birthday. He is wearing clothes for a four year old - he is going to be tall like his mummy!

Baptism's are huge celebrations in Crete and apparently usually take place in the toddler years when a baby is walking. The service is of course religious but the party afterwards is entirely secular and very often themed. Our daughter has chosen a "Fairy Tale Prince" theme in bright greens and blues with frogs and crowns. The candle holders for all of the tables are frogs, there will be crowns hung from the trees, the Baptism favours will be festooned with frogs and crowns and blue and green ribbons as well as the traditional sugared almonds. I'm sure you get the picture.
Emma asked us to come early to Crete to help with making the Baptism favours - these are pronounced "bubinerra" in Greek (bonbonierre in french) and I HAD NO IDEA JUST HOW MUCH WORK IT WOULD BE TO MAKE THEM. But make them I did. I wish I could share them now but I have no way to transfer the photos from my camera to my pc at the moment so I will dedicate a post to them in a couple of weeks time.
In the meantime, I've had to take rather a lot of photos to show the mechanism for card. All patterned papers are DCWV Citrus. The plain card stock is Papermill, some DCWV Citrus card and some K&Co too.
This is the front which, after opening becomes a visible back because it stands up. It's made with a Large Prima flower, a Martha Stewart border punch and Marianne die corner features.

This is the base. The letters were cut with my Cricut and act as the "stop" for the bottom of the easel.

When opening the card, the front panel is attached by a ribbon to the middle section and it automatically pulls the middle section up. Unlike most easel cards my feature panel lays face down inside the card. I decorated the inside of the front a little but it isn't actually visible below the Marianne die corner features when the card is fully opened and as the middle and top panels are attached to eachother the space in between is only partially visible upon opening. I added two felt buttons which act as "stops" for the top of the easel.

As my main focus, I have used my favourite image of all time which is Mo Manning's "Puddle Jumper" and coloured it with Promarkers. Puddle jumper is cut out, embossed from the back and glued down with silicone glue to give it more dimension. Sadly the dimension isn't very visible in this photo.

I made up my own poem for the inside which is word processed. Writing little rhymes for special occasions was something I used to do a lot of 15-25 years ago. The first line is actually taken from an Irish blessing but the rest of it is my own.

The easel section is cut using a bookatrix template where you emboss the shape of the book and then cut around it. I found it very tricky. See how the button's at the top stop the front cover from falling backwards?

Finally, here is the side view.
This card took me two full days to make and quite a lot of wasted card stock as I worked out the engineering and folding mechanisms. Was it worth it? I hope so. It took me 60 hours to make the Baptism favours!!!! But more of that in a later post!

Please come and play with us this week and don't forget to share some love with my fabby teamies who have made all manner of lovely creations!

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Kaboodle Doodle - "Easel done it!"
Passion for Promarkers - "Flexible" (Anything goes)
Flutter by Wednesday - "Celebrate"
Crafty Creations - "Dies and Punches" - I used my Cricut die cutting machine for cutting the ovals of Giannis' name and the word "Blessings". I hope that counts because we are supposed to use three different punches or dies - my other two are the Martha Stewart border punch and the Marianne die corners on the front of my card.
My Mum's Craft Shop - "1-2-3 .... it's as easy as". I used 1 flower, 2 Marianne Corner punches and 3 felt buttons (one as the flower centre and 2 on the inside)
Simon Says - "Anything Goes"
Cute Card Thursday - "A pinch and a punch"
Charisma Cardz - "Anything Goes" and;
Totally Gorjuss - "As you Like It"

STAMPTACULAR #126 Diva-tacular

2011-08-28T11:00:00.037+01:00

This week we are going DIVA-tacular at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge. Come and create a card or a project with a Diva on it, ie, a girl image with attitude and/or style. Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing! We are so lucky to be sponsored this week by Meljen’s Designs who have on offer four digi images and also by TeddyBo who have three digis for one lucky winner.I have used Prima Annalee papers, the leaves are cut with a Sizzix die and the remaining embellishments are all from stash. The image is Willow Dressing Up by Whiff of Joy, coloured in Copics and Prisma pencils. Not such great colouring for some reason - I just couldn't do the folds on her dress. The sentiment is LOTV.
I was inspired in the making of my card by browsing the recent posts of two of my fabby teamies. I borrowed the idea of the punched bracket motif from Tine (I used an EK Success punch and a Nestie for the framing of my image), and the criss cross layout idea I saw on Marianne's blog which also ties in so well with the sketch challenge I am entering. They, together with all of my other lovely team members, have made wonderful projects to inspire you in this week's challenge. Pop on over to Stamptacular Sunday Challenge, share some love, and join in if you can! We'd love to see you!

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Totally Gorjuss - "as you like it"
Sketch Saturday - "sketch
Truly Scrumptious - "rocked up pink" - I took this to mean dressed up in pink
Charisma Cards - "glitter it" - it's hard to see but Willow's jewellery, belt and shoes are sparkly.
Papertake Weekly - "dies to die for" - I used Nesties framing and Sizzix leaves

STAMPTACULAR #125 ABCs

2011-08-21T11:00:00.082+01:00

This week our theme at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge is as easy as ABC, where "A" is for Apricot (or peachy, orangey colours), "B" is for Bling, and "C" is for Cute Critters. In order to be eligible for our prizes from our two sponsors The Paper Shelter (offering a fabby $10 Gift Certificate) and StampFairy (kindly supplying four digi images )you will need to create a card or a project that complies with ALL THREE elements of our theme.
AND DON'T FORGET WE HAVE A DT CALL AT THE MOMENT. GO TO STAMPTACULAR SUNDAY CHALLENGE TO FIND OUT HOW TO APPLY.

I have been admiring this cute dragon critter at The Paper Shelter for ages and I finally got my hands on it. I just know that it is going to become one of my favourites. I printed the image directly onto my Basic Grey Curio DP and also onto white several times so that I could colour him with my Copics and Promarkers and layer him up with silicone glue. My card is for our son-in-law but I saw no reason not to use a cutesy image given that the papers and black mats make for a more masculine card.

For the Bling element, I decorated my cake with pearls and clear "half beads" and added stickles to the the beads and the frosting. I also added some Craftworks candy. The candle and the dragon's hat have been glazed to add more shine and the candle flame is also stickled. It's actually very sparkly for a boys card but I really like it.
I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Basic Grey - "Anything goes"
Sir Stampalot Challenge - "Anything goes"
A Spoonfull of Sugar - "Happy Birthday"
Simon Says Stamp - "Food and Drink"
Crafty Creations - "Red, Orange, Green"

A Papertake Weekly Sketch N Stash with Copic Creations for Crafts and Me

2011-08-17T17:38:00.001+01:00

I had to make a card for a very special cousin who just had a hip operation. The surgery was scheduled and then postponed but now that I know she has finally been through it and survived it, I wanted to send her a card to wish her well on her recovery. I chose this delightful Pure Innocence image called Best Medicine from My Favourite Things and coloured her in Copics. The challenge this week at Copic Creations and at Crafts and Me is to use "blue/greens". Of course my sweet image doesn't really lend herself to colouring flowing folds in fabric and I didn't use more than two pens on her uniform but I am entering anyway. I also used the fabulous "sketch" at Sketch N Stash. I don't think there is any new stash on my card. I have used the image once before. My papers are DCWV Citrus stack - one of my recent favourite purchases. Papertake Weekly have a "bingo" with two set items and one free item. I chose "ribbon, button" and baker's twine from my stash.
Aside from the pretty papers and adorable image, my favourite part of this card is the sentiment. It was a freebie picked out of a bag at Ali Pally when purchasing some necessary stamps (that have never been inked) and I thought it was just perfect for this occasion.
If anyone out there can tell me what I'm doing wrong with my photography or uploading, I would really appreciate it. My posts are nearly always blurred (although this one isn't as bad as the last one). If you click on it to enlarge it though it's as clear as anything so I don't think I have camera shake. Usually my photos are in jpg format at 12 but I could use psd if that would be better. Any ideas?

DT CALL at STAMPTACULAR and Challenge #124 Fancy Folds

2011-08-14T11:00:00.040+01:00

It's been another busy work week for me and I also had my 6 year old niece and 9 year old nephew to stay for a few days - I have no idea how my sister copes with the boundless energy of her children. I'm exhausted, and crafting and commenting took a bit of a back seat for me. This doesn't seem to have been the case for my teamies who have come up with some fabulous creations for our challenge this week at Stamptacular SundayChallenge
where we want to see your "Fancy Folds!". Do visit the site and check out the inspiration.
We want you to create a card or project that is folded in some non-traditional way - not just down the left side or top side of the card. Be creative! More than one fold would be great! In fact, for every fold your card has - your name will be put into this week's draw for our fabulous prizes from The Stamping Boutique (5 digis) and The Doodle Pantry ($10 gift certificate) that many times so please tell us how many folds there are when you post your card. Oh - and don't forget to stamp. After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing!

I took the opportunity to make a retirement card for my hubby who retires from work at the end of the month! I used a cute little crab image from The Doodle Pantry for embellishment, together with a Martha Stewart punched anchor and some seashells and a real starfish alongside Magnolia's Edwin for my main image and made my first step folded card with my first cross over card (in miniature) attached in which to hold a Go Kreate die cut tag. I'm so glad I used the deck chair on my tag (which is possibly by Jolee's Boutique) as it means my card can be used to enter summer and holiday challenges. My papers are all K&Co. I've used an EK Success swirly punch to add some waves and I've coloured in Copics and Promarkers. The sentiments are Word processed. If you click on the photo it is a lot less blurry and you can read on the front of the card it has "No more crabby days" and on the tag it reads "Just relaxing ones".
I do hope we see you this week at Stamptacular where the exciting news this week is that

we have a DT call
and are looking for new talent to join our team.

If you are interested, all the details are on our site here.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Doodle Pantry - who just want us to "use a Doodle Pantry image"
Stamp Something - "Dog Days of Summer"
One Stop - "At the Beach"
Just Magnolia & Hanglar - "Holiday Fun"

STAMPTACULAR # 123 Photo Inspiration with multiple challenges

2011-08-07T11:00:00.006+01:00

Goodness Me - It's Sunday again - I have no idea where my week went but I do know it's time for a new challenge at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge where we have a fabulous photo for you. All you need to do is create a card or project that uses the photo as your inspiration! The possibilities are endless.... Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing!
I’m delighted to say that we are sponsored this week by the fabulous Simon Says Stamp who are offering a $20 Gift Certificate and also there is a choice of two digis from the wonderful Elisabeth Bell for our winner.

I made my first card using Elisabeth Bell's adorable Curly Locks Kiki doing some embroidery. I was aiming for the browns of the birds nests in the inspiration photo and the cream of the candles but I see my card looks more beigey in my post. It's coloured with Copics and Promarkers. The flowers on her apron and hairband are coloured in silver. Papers are Julieanne by K&Co which I mounted on silver mirror board. I glued a brown ribbon on a silver one for the little bow, added some Prima flowers and one of the crochet flowers my lovely Mum made for me topped with a brad and a gem. The leaves are a Martha Stewart branch punch. I added a bit of pink for "pop" and word processed my sentiment which is framed in part of a nestie punch. I was delighted with how this card turned out and I am entering it into the challenge over at Belles & Whistles which is "so Girly", Papertake Weekly for "anything goes", Crafts and Me - also "anything goes" and Stamp Something - "Digi"

For my very first Christmas card this year I made a second card using Letters to Santa also by Elisabeth Bell. This time I followed the sketch over at Sketch and Stash but instead of a circular central image, I made a window with my Cricut through which you can see this cutie posting her letter in her mail box. This image is also coloured with Copics and Promarkers and the DP is K&Co again mounted on mirror card. This time I glued a silver ribbon on a green ribbon to tie in with the red and green accents on the image but I did try to stick to the colour scheme. I also embossed some chandeliers on the top section of my card in keeping with the candle theme. The image and the embossing folder are the only knew items to be used on my card everything else is from stash. I have used two Marianne Die snowflakes and a MS snowflake for embellishments. My sentiment is by Fiskars and the little snow flake stamping is from the same set.
In addition to S&S I am entering this card into the following challenges:
Elisabeth Bell's World - "Christmas in July (or August now of course)"
Paperplay - "Christmas in August"

STAMPTACULAR #122 Friends are Heaven Sent

2011-07-31T11:00:00.006+01:00

For this week' Stamptacular Sunday Challenge we would like you to create a card or project with a friendship theme for your special friend. Tell us who you’ll be sending it to and why he/she is so special to you and be entered twice into this week’s draw for our fabulous prizes of 4 images from Meljen's Designs and the same from Stamp Fairy! Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing.
I had to make my card for best matey Julie of course. If you ask Julie, she will probably tell you that I started her on card crafting and it's true that I used to make Wordprocessed cards with little punched things glued on to them but it was Julie who introduced ME to stamping images and colouring them in and it was Julie who introduced ME to the wealth of craft materials out there and it was Julie who introduced ME to blogging so I can only blame Julie for the massive expense on my fabulous stash and the even more massive expense of having had to build in my attic to store it all (see here) but I am of course HUGELY grateful to her for opening the door to such great pleasure in playing with all my lovely craft toys and for vicariously introducing me to so many craft buddies. We have known each other for 38 years. We went to school together, we corresponded when I left the country. I have the great honour of being God Mother to her youngest daughter but I love her whole family and in recent years I have SO enjoyed shopping and playing together with her in pursuit of our passions for card crafting.
I used this sweet Tilda, coloured in Copics and mounted on one of my frilly nestie-cut frames with new papers from the DCWV Marioposa selection. I stroked them for a long while before actually cutting them up for my card. They are gold foiled and so rich and lush. Four ribbons from my stash all piled one on top of the other, some pretty Prima flowers with MS punched leaves, pearl brads and a swirl of black gems all add to the luxurious feel. My sentiments are both Stampin Up.

I had no choice but to use my finest "ingredients" for this finest of friends!

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Cute Card Thursday with their fabulous "sketch";
Craft Us Crazy "anything goes"; and Crafts and Me "ribbon"

STAMPTACULAR #121 "Hot Pockets" with The Paper Shelter and multiple challenge entries

2011-07-24T09:00:00.001+01:00

When I started my card for this week's
Stamptacular Sunday Challenge
10 days ago - I just couldn't seem to make it work.    I loved the fun image, kindly supplied by The Paper Shelter - our sponsor this week who is offering a $10 gift certificate to our lucky winner but I was seriously foxed by our challenge which is "Hot Pockets".   We want to see a card or project with a pocket in it. You just need to show us where the pocket is and what’s inside! Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing!
I realise there are all sorts of pocket cards. If you need some inspiration - just pop over to our site. But I couldn't get the picture of an actual pocket - like on jeans or a shirt - out of my mind so first of all I took my shorts off, popped them in my printer and scanned them with the idea that I could then print the image onto coloured paper and use it as my background!
But that didn't work - the pocket was pretty visible but there was too much fabric and it wrinkled and the shadows made the printed image look grey and dirty. Frankly - it was pants!
So then I decided to cut out a pocket shape with my Cricut by welding a square to a semicircle. I wanted to enclose a predominantly green tag in the pocket so it had to be large enough to accommodate the tag and when I placed the cut shape on my chosen DP (which is from my DCWV Citrus stack) - it took up almost the whole card and looked flat and ridiculous. It needed some extra dimension so I cut out another rectangle just for the top of the pocket. It still looked flat and huge.
Add stitching, thought I.   Unfortunately, the mini sewing machine I got 6 months ago just for card making remains unused in a corner because I haven't been able to work out how to thread the darn thing so I opted for faux stitching and pricked about 100 holes before doodling the thread (it's deliberately a bit uneven because I wanted it to look like how I might really stitch). Still the card looked like something of nothing with a huge yellow pocket taking up most of the space on the front of my card.
So I worked on the tag for a bit, coloured up my image, cut borders with some different EK Success punches for decoration and mounted it all on a Go-Kreate die-cut tag shape using more of my DCWV Citrus stack.
At the time I didn't know for whom I was making the card and I find it so hard to be creative when I don't have a recipient in mind and whereas I really liked my finished tag, my huge yellow pocket was still screaming out for something.
Finally I cracked it when it became a birthday greeting for the eldest of my nephews who never has any money and this is the finished card.      ...And with the tag visible:

I played with The Paper Shelter image in photoshop for the front of my card, removing the bird and replacing the resulting blank space with duplicates of some of the leaves which I cut, resized and pasted. I only wanted the bird's bill (which I photoshopped back in to the corner) to be just visible to go with my sentiment which is Word processed. Then I added a sentiment (also Word processed) to the tag and decorated the back.

My images are coloured with Copics and Promarkers. A little button just finished off the pocket which looks so much better now it has a picture on it and I added a Papermania ribbon to the tag.

I am absolutely delighted with my finished product and I'm sure that my nephew will like it too!
I am entering my card into the following challenges:
The Paper Shelter - "colour green" - there is a lot of green it's just that the brighter colours outshine it.
Charisma Cards - "sunshine colours"
CES Challenge - "humour/funny"
A Spoon Full of Sugar "create a tag"
Totally Gorjuss - "punch or die"
Creative Card Crew "animal antics" - I still believe that birds are animals too!

Kenny K Blog Hop with Sketch n Stash and a Spoon Full of Sugar from My Mum's Craft Shop

2011-07-18T16:53:00.001+01:00

Kenny K is celebrating it's first year anniversary with a massive blog hop and awesome prizes with an "anything goes" challenge theme. Having played along with the hop and seen so many absolutely gorgeous makes with the new releases, I decided on the fabulous "sketch" at Sketch n Stash for the basis of my card. I used the image instead of the tall thin central strip and I moved the circle to the side so that it wouldn't conceal all of the panel behind it but hopefully the sketch is still visible. My Kenny K image is new, bought especially for this challenge. Isn't she fab! And my papers are relatively new from the Prima Melody pack. I haven't used this combo before but I wanted to use mostly "pink and brown" in keeping with the colour challenge at A Spoon Full of Sugar. I added some gem swirls and three tiny pearls in the bottom left hand corner for the "pearls and swirls" theme at My Mum's Craft Shop.

My Mum left yesterday after a two week stay. We had a lovely time. We went to see War Horse in London on Saturday and then out for meal. It was a great day but she was especially tired aferwards. During her stay, she has been making me little crocheted flowers with some new yarn I purchased. Adding some punched leaves, I have used three of them on this card. Aren't they pretty? My image is coloured with Copics and my sentiment is by Stampin Up.

Stamptacular #120 Animal Antics - Birds are animals too!

2011-07-17T11:00:00.004+01:00

This week at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge we are sponsored by The Stamping Boutique who are offering one lucky winner a choice of 5 digis but in order to win, you will need to enter this week's "Animal Antics" challenge and create a card or project with some sort of animal(s) on it! Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing!
I'm working on the basis that birdies are animals too and boy did I struggle with my card. I very, very rarely make a card unless it is for someone in particular - even my challenge cards are nearly always earmarked for an individual - this one wasn't for someone I had in mind and I just couldn't seem to make it. It's such a cute image (courtesy of the Stamping Boutique) - I loved all the pretty bird houses and think it will make a nice house warming card. I coloured it with Copics and Promarkers and chose this pretty Jack and Jill paper but I just don't think it works.
I hope I have better luck with the card for next week's challenge. That one is also not currently earmarked and I'm already struggling with it. But one thing at a time. My teamies seem to have had no trouble at all this week and there's lots of lovely inspiration on our site. Why not have a go and play along.
I'm entering my card into Paperplay this week who want to see "something with wings"

A Kaboodle of Crafty Cupcakes

2011-07-15T10:44:00.001+01:00

The theme at Crafty Creations this week is "Boyz to Men". They want to see a creation for the "men in our lives". Now as every lady knows out there - a tried and tested hair stylist definitely counts as an important man in our lives (provided he is male of course) and mine has gone missing. Well, not exactly missing, but he has left the salon and I am devastated. He has been cutting and (yes, I admit it) colouring my hair for most of my adult life and he is a genius. He has been there through my marriage, divorce and remarriage. He knows more about me than most of the people I know and whereas he has taken some quite lengthy sabaticals in recent years for family reasons, he has now left the salon and I can't bear to lose touch with him again. So I've made a card to take to the salon this weekend when one of his lovely colleagues is going to cut my hair in the hope that they will forward it to him.
I could not resist playing along with Kaboodle who want us to "use those scissors". I don't think this is quite what they had in mind so I have also cut out a teeny tiny butterfly which is pasted between my Tim Holtz ticket and my newspaper article torn strip. My papers are Prima Reflections with a little Papermania for the paper button and Cricut cut lettering. The top of the DP reads "The greatest Treasures are invisible to the eye but found by the heart". The Cricut didn't cut all the way through the mount under the letters so I had to cut them out with a hand held blade in the end. I added a "mysterious" sticker for extra embellishment.

Cupcake Craft, meanwhile, are celebrating their 150th challenge and have given us the opportunity to choose any of their last 150 challenges. I opted for their number 22 which is "brown plus one" other colour.
The image is one I was pointed to a while ago to which I added scissors and a comb He is coloured in Copics and I have glazed his glasses.
I wrote a faux newspaper article, and added it instead of a central ribbon. You will hopefully be able to read it if you want to if you click on the photo to make it larger. I have redacted my stylists name and salon and location with Photoshop before posting here on the basis that if he wishes to remain invisible then I probably shouldn't display his details on my blog. Some of the text of my article is hiding beneath the image but the brain is a wonderful thing and it is possible to get the gist of it even with some of the words hidden from view.

Simon says Stamp Something - in fact Stampalot of Teddy Bo in Deep Ocean or perhaps a bug suit!

2011-07-14T00:19:00.002+01:00

I am beginning to feel a bit like a broken record in terms of my apologies for failing to visit my buddies. I also feel a bit guilty that I have managed to make some cards but not managed to get around to commenting on your blogs. But I have cards that need to be made.This one is for our grandson who will be 2 this week. When I started picking out all the papers, I had a number of challenges in mind but I have been too slow to enter them . Fortunately, in addition to Stamp Something who want to see "bugs or butterflies", a few easy challenges have come around that I can have a go at, namely:
Deep Ocean - where the challenge is to make a "card", Simon Says Stamp and Sir Stampalot - who both have an "anything goes" theme, and of course I have to enter into Teddy Bo where they want us to use "Teddybea only".

This little Bea looks such a cutie coloured up with Copics and Promarkers in her fun ladybug outfit. I punched all the way down the right hand side of the DPs with my Martha Stewart ladybug punch. All my papers, including the little accent bugs are by Debbie Mumm and I just added some Craftworks candy, a sticky spotty ribbon and bow and a little Stamps Away sentiment on a Stampin Up punched tag.
Teddy Bea's boots and the ladybug on her hand have been glazed for a bit of added dimension which is completely lost in my photo which I now notice is completely blurry around the edges!

STAMPTACULAR #119 Sketch Challenge with

2011-07-10T11:00:00.006+01:00

Once again I am apologising for failing to come and visit so many of my blogbuddies although I did manage to get around to a few of you earlier in the week. My work has thankfully lessened a little but now I have my lovely Mum to stay for a couple of weeks so I'm still quite busy.
Mum and I and best matey went to a Watercolour Class yesterday at The Craft Barn. Fabulous teacher with a lovely personality and a great group of ladies were there too. You'd think therefore that I would have waited until after Saturday to decide to water colour an image for this week's challenge at
STAMPTACULAR SUNDAY CHALLENGE

which is a fabulously easy sketch. I didn't wait, however. I have used this adorable Teddy Bo image 065 called "Sausages", kindly supplied by one of our two sponsors this week and coloured him in proper water colour paints. It's not great but I'm reasonably happy with it and if I try to paint him again another time then at least I shall be able to see the before and after and judge how well I did on my course. I used a variety of design papers. The cutlery pattern is from the Kitchen collection by DCWV, the stripey squares are K&Co and the background and mounts are from my scraps drawer. I just added three cutlery brads and an LOTV sentiment for this card which is for my brother's birthday.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:
Totally Gorjuss - "Summertime"

One Stop - "Summertime"

Sweet Stampin - Cute and Cuddly"

Come and play along with our sketch this week and you have a chance to win 3 digis from Teddy Bo and also a £10 certificate from the second of our fabby sponsors Bunny Zoe's Crafts and make sure you drop by the challenge site to see all of the lovely takes on this fabulous sketch.

STAMPTACULAR #118 Seeing Double with Wild Orchid, Magnolia-licious & Simply Magnolia

2011-07-03T08:00:00.021+01:00

It's been another busy work week for me. Like London busses - nothing comes along for ages and ages and then three come at once. I am soooooo busy work-wise and I'm really sorry that I have been such a bad blogger. I am especially sorry that I have been neglecting my visits to my blog buddies! There have been cards I wanted to make, even cards I needed to make but the only one I managed to make is the one for today's challenge at

STAMPTACULAR SUNDAY CHALLENGE

where we want to be "Seeing Double". For this week's challenge you will create a card or project that has TWO of the SAME thing on it! SAME embellishment, SAME shape, SAME image, etc… Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing!
I decided to use this fabulous Magnolia Twins stamp which I won from the mega talented Maddy at Madimaginations. Thank you again Maddy! I have been saving this stamp for this week's Stamptacular challenge.

I am entering my card into three challenges this week:

Simply Magnolia - where there is an "anything goes" theme
Magnolialicious - with a lovely photo-inspiration - I used the duck-egg blue and pinks on my card, and
Wild Orchid - who want to see "shabby chic friendship"
I'm not quite sure what "shabby chic" is. In terms of decor, I thing the photo inspiration at Magnolialicious is probably shabby chic so I hope I have got it right.
I used K&Co papers with a vintagey, cottagey feel and tattered the edges. My Magnolia twins are coloured in a Copic/Promarker combo. I was pleased with how their dresses turned out. For our Stamptacular "seeing double" challenge this week I used 2 pink Prima flowers, 2 swirls (cut with my Cricut), 2 heartshaped buttons (probably by Dress it Up), 2 large photo corners (using a Marianne die) and 2 gorgeous Wild Orchid roses which I got as part of a present from the special friend who is to be the recipient of this card.
Please do come and play along with us this week where one lucky winner will win a $20 gift certificate from Simon Says Stamp. There is lots of lovely inspiration for you on our challenge site!

STAMPTACULAR #117 Stars & Stripes; a bit of Paper Play with Colour Create and Sketch & Stash

2011-06-26T11:00:00.008+01:00

It's Sunday morning at that means it's time for another challenge at

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge.

For this weeks challenge you will create a card or project that includes both STARS and STRIPES! It can be any colors you choose but we must be able to see stars and stripes! Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing!

I used this fabulous image kindly supplied by The Paper Shelter who are our sponsors this week, offering one lucky winner a $10 gift certificate. I thought this guy was a hoot! I coloured him in Promarkers and Copics using the theme over at Colour Create who want to see "Blue grey and white", using the fabulous sketch at Sketch & Stash. And I'm entering my card into Paper Play whose theme this week is also "Stars and Stripes". I used a new Cuttlebug stars embossing folder on some old Paper Pizzaz grey paper and added some much neglected Stampin Up paper for the stripes. My star embellishments are cut with my Cricut and the sentiment is by TPC Studios.

Why not come and play with us this week and don't forget to check out our Challenge Site to see all of the fab creations of my teamies.

SWEET STAMPIN with Kaboodle at My Mum's Craft Shop

2011-06-25T08:00:00.011+01:00

Gosh I've had a busy work week. So busy that I was almost unable to play along with

Sweet Stampin

this week in my Guest Designer spot where we want to see "Something Old and Something New".
I am a human resources director by trade and having taken professional qualifications a life time ago, I worked full-time in HR for nearly 25 years before establishing my own consultancy. For the last 4 years I have provided services to, amongst others, one particularly special client and I now consider the team I support there to be friends. I made this card for the CEO - who has kept me soooooo busy this week. I saw the sentiment on someone else's card - forgive me, (I can't remember where) several weeks ago and it struck me as just the sort of comment NOT to make in an employment reference response as an alternative to "works well with others". It also struck me as the perfect sentiment to use for the CEO of my special client, who does like a drink or three.
I thought I would create a pretend resumé for him and use the sentiment which I computer generated together with some Stampin Up images of drinks, coloured with copics and then glazed.
Now I have to confess that I have used Photoshop to alter the photo of my card before publishing here. The original card had the MD's name at the top and the names of both his current company and his previous company in the content but as he is my most important client, I have deleted them for the purposes of this post. The DP is Basic Grey "Wander". I liked the masculine feel of it. I wrote an authentic personal profile for the CEO and some employment history which is pretty accurate of course (I am an HR specialist afterall) and popped the word processed version into Photoshop before printing it. This made it a bit blurry which is what I wanted. A bit of tulle behind the images and voila!

I am taking liberties with the theme a little bit here because whereas my Basic Grey paper and tulle is from old stash. The Stampin Up stamps are both old and new. I've not used them before so they are new but I've had them for a year! I really like how my card turned out and I must use them more often.

I am also entering it into

Kaboodle Doodles - for their "Food and/or Drink" theme; and

My Mum's Craft Shop - who want to see "one for the boys".

Before I go, I must say a big thank you to Sweet Stamping for asking me to be their Guest Designer this month. It has been such fun to work with the lovely ladies over there. Why not go and check out how talented they are for yourself and enter the challenge this week. Prairy Fairy, our sponsor for the whole of June, has FIVE digis to give away to one lucky winner and we are additionally sponsored by Bugaboo this week who are giving a way SEVEN digis!

STAMPTACULAR # 116 Fun in the Sun with Deep Ocean and A Spoon Full of Sugar and Paperplay

2011-06-19T11:00:00.074+01:00

Happy Sunday everyone! Time for another challenge at

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge

where the theme this week is "Fun in the Sun". What do you associate with summer, sun and fun? Let your creative skills roam! Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing! This week one lucky winner will receive their choice of 5 digital images from The Stamping Boutique and we are also lucky enough to be sponsored by Teddy Bo who are giving away the winner's choice of 3 digis. A great big THANK YOU to our wonderful sponsors!

I opted to make two cards for this challenge using the same Elizabeth O Dulemba images but with different colour ways. I actually merged two of her images together - the little bucket, spade, sandcastle and starfish are a separate image. Aren't these life guards a hoot!!! The artist is a very talented children's book illustrator who has lots of free images available on her colouring website and a very clear angel policy which does not allow us to sell our cards with which of course I am happy to comply.

The checkerboard DP for this card is by Debbie Mumm and the flowery papers are from a new DCWV Citrus Stack.

The plaid DP on this second card is by Sizzix as is the starry paper and the red DP is Stampin Up.
The design layout (sketch) was inspired by my very special blog buddy Janiel. Thank you Janiel! I know there are always lots of sketches available at various challenge sites but I struggle sometimes and I really liked this one! The images on both cards are coloured in a Copic/Promarker combo. The bikinis are cut with a Sizzix die and the flip flops embellishments are by K&Co. A little Craftworks Candy and some ribbon from my stash adds just a little extra dimension. These cards are for men. The colours are a bit too girly perhaps but hey - I'm a girl!
I found a new challenge site last week with the most amazing header picture. It's called Deep Ocean and for their very first challenge they have an "anything goes" theme but a preference for something to do with the sea so I am entering my cards there in addition to A Spoon Full of Sugar where the theme is "splish splash" and also Paperplay where the challenge is "at the beach".

SWEET STAMPIN with Flutter by Wednesday and Truly Scrumptious

2011-06-18T08:00:00.011+01:00

Goodness what a manic three days I've just had - 8 hours of sleep and 29.5 hours of work in the last 60 hours having not had any for months. Still - the pay will go towards paying off my recent mega craft purchases!AND it's Saturday which means it's SWEET STAMPIN time where I'm oh so proud to be a guest designer this month!
This week our theme is "something with wings". Once again we are sponsored by the fabby Prairie Fairy - our June sponsor who are offering one lucky winner 5 digis! And also by PollyCraft who are also giving a way 5 digis! Pollycraft very kindly supplied us with an image too; "Clover I - believe", a Lilybean fairy. Isn't she cute!!!

I am entering my card into Truly Scrumptious who have a truly scrumptious "sketch" for us to use and also Flutter by Wednesday's "pink orange and green" themed challenge. An unusual colour combination which worked really well with my K&Co Berry Sweet papers and some lovely DCWV mounts. Clover is coloured with Copics today. I added some liquid pearls to her toadstools (I know they are red and not pink, orange or green but toadstools are red in my book - these ones are clearly Fly agaric toadstools. I don't know how I know that - I just do). I need some practice with the pearls - it was quite hard. I also used some new Bakers Twine. I say it's new because I haven't touched any of it but I've actually had it since my birthday in January. I mounted my image and the wonderful LOTV sentiment with my favourite frilly nestie.
I hope you will join in the fun with us this week and pop over to Sweet Stampin to see what my fabby teamies have been up to!
See you tomorrow.

STAMPTACULAR # 115 Dads or Grads

2011-06-12T11:00:00.016+01:00

This week at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge we have a choice for you to make a card or project suitable for either "Dads or Grads".
I opted to make a card for middle daughter (pictured here with her Dad) who recently made us so proud when she was awarded a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. Our sponsor this week is the amazing My Favorite Things who have so many gorgeous stamps to choose from and are offering one lucky randomly picked entrant an amazing $25 gift certificate. My Favorite Things stocks, amongst other images, loads of Pure Innocence. Don't you just love those cuties. Sadly I think the Pure Innocence image I picked for my card has now been retired but MFT do have a very similar one on their website.

I used a very simple layout for my card; deciding on Stampin Up papers and a bold red mount. I altered the robes of the image slightly to better mimic the actual dress worn by Laura on the day of her graduation and also extended the girl's hair with my Copics. Two Autum Leaves' tickets, a sentiment by Fiskars, some Craftworks Candy and a little hand made doctorate scroll finish it off.

Sweet Stampin with Lili of the Valley, Cupcake, Crafts & Me

2011-06-11T08:00:00.083+01:00

Yipee it's the weekend and time for my Guest spot at

Sweet Stampin

where the theme this week is "Food Glorious Food" and we are delighted to be sponsored by Bunny Zoe's Crafts who have a £10 voucher to give away alongside our monthly sponsor Prairie Fairy who have another 5 digis for the lucky winner!

I purchased two baking mice LOTV stamps at the Ally Pally craft fair back when ever it was and this is one of them. Isn't it just adorable? And the perfect stamp for our Food Glorious Food challenge this week. So inspired by the giant hearted and oh so talented Vicky who made the most delightful apron card and recipe box set here (you simply must drop by her blog if you get a chance because her work is Delightful), I made my own apron card.

My DP is from a new Kitchen stack by DCWV and I simply cut my apron shape, faux stitched around the edge and coloured up my meeces with Copics and Promarkers. I added two tiny Prairie Fairy cupcakes as a central button at the top of the apron. These come individually but I merged two together. A couple of ribbon ties, some cutlery brads and a little Dress It Up button are the final touches.

The tablecloth is a gingham stamp by Obsession Impression which has been stamped, photographed at an angle and then printed with the LOTV stamped image cut out and layered over it. This gave it a more tabletop aspect than using the original stamped image because of the change in perspective gained from photographing it. It's a shame the photo isn't very good quality. I can't imagine why but hopefully my closeup of the main image is a little better.

I am entering my card into the following challenges:

Crafts & Me who simply want us to "stamp something"

Cupcake Crafts who want to see "things with tails"; and of course

Lili of the Valley who have an "anything goes" theme for their 100th challenge this week.

And now for a bit of news...I don't normally share much about my life on my blog but hubby bought us tickets to see Jonathan Ansell on Thursday evening. To say I was a great fan of his when G4 were runners up in The X Factor in 2004 would be an understatement.

For me, he was the cutest thing on TV since Robert Redford in The Sting! Anyway, we both really enjoyed his concert. G4 broke up unfortunately but he was performing with three other very talented singers, it was a great gig, and we had Meet and Greet VIP tickets so we spent an hour with him before the show. I got an autograph, a brief cuddle and even a kiss and he is still gorgeous!

Punch It Up with Lili of the Valley and Mojo Monday and Papertake Weekly. Alwight?

2011-06-08T00:49:00.000+01:00

I'm so ashamed. I have at least 9 beautiful Lili of the Valley images. Some of them I have owned for over a year and whereas I use the sentiment stamps quite often, none of the image stamps have ever seen my ink.

Papertake Weekly have an "anything goes" theme with an option for all white with just one other colour excluding hair and skin. I've actually gone for the "anything goes" but my card has a lot of white and just two colours with no fur colour and only the teeniest bit of pink for the skin on bunny's cheeks and in his ear.
I have used the "sketch" over at Mojo Monday, reducing the number of scalloped panels to three instead of four and making a square as opposed to a rectangular card, and I am also entering my card into LOTV who want us to "Punch It Up", using dies and punches.

I cut the scallops for my Cuttlebug embossed panels with a new EK Success punch and mounted them on some green card cut with a more lacey scalloped EK Success punch. The image is cut with a Nestie, mounted on a more frilly Nestie. I inked over the embossed panels to make them more pronounced and coloured my image with Copics before adding some ribbon and Craftworks candy.

STAMPTACULAR # 114 "Colour Challenge" with Crafty Emma

2011-06-05T11:00:00.009+01:00

Happy Sunday! It's time for another fun challenge at the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge blog where we have a colour challenge of Black, Bright Pink, Tan, and White.
We have two fantastic sponsors this week: Simon Says Stamp are offering one lucky winner a $20 gift certificate and Elisabeth Bell are giving away the winner's choice of two lovely digis.

I opted for something completely different for me, following this week's "CAS" theme at Crafty Emma's and using a recently purchased Stampin Up set. My card was entirely inspired by Alex (who in turn I believe had been inspired by Joanne) two fabulously talented crafters!
I stamped a second set of blossoms for the image, cut them out and decoupaged them on top. It just gives a little added dimension. The DP is also SU and I used Kraft for "tan", punched with an SU punch!
I have made this card for my sister-in-law to whom I am also giving some theatre tickets as a birthday present.

I decorated the envelope in which the tickets are held in a similar manner to the card and I even stamped and coloured the card envelope too. You can just see it underneath. All colouring is with Copics. The sentiment on the envelope containing the theatre tickets is SU and the sentiment on the card is Paper Tray Ink.
Why not join in with us at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge this week and (remember to STAMP!) - and do come by the challenge blog to see how my talented teamies have interpreted the challenge this week! There's tons of fabulous inspiration!

Sweet Stampin with Charisma

2011-06-04T08:37:00.000+01:00

How chuffed am I?
When I got back from my holiday, I was delighted to receive an invitation from my old buddies at

Sweet Stampin'

asking me to be their Guest Designer for June. Of course I accepted on the spot!!!
This week their challenge is "Playing in the Summer Sun" so, equipped with my new stash, I have created a card using sweet Tilda in her cute-as-a-button sailor suit and coloured her with Copics.
Please do come and play along with the team this week where the monthly sponsor is Prairie Fairy who are giving away an amazing 5 digis and our weekly sponsor is the always adorable Lili of the Valley who have a £10 voucher to give away.

My papers are all new stash from DCWV - the burberry style DP is from The Natural Collection, the sparkly blue DP is from Whimsy and the map is from Trade Winds I think (I'm in a bit of a muddle with all of this new stash!). I punched out an anchor with a newly acquired MS punch and added a few seashells collected from Siesta Key beach last week. There I was in Florida making almost daily trips to Jo-Anne's and Michaels Craft Stores and I suddenly realised that the three mile beach walk I was taking on a regular basis provided a ready supply of natural embellishments. I picked up these three seashells with this little Tilda in mind so it was serendipitous that Sweet Stampin then contacted me to tell me about their theme this week.
I have added an LOTV sentiment and also a little Dress It Up button seagull (yup-also a recent buy in America) which entitles me to enter my card into the challenge at Charisma Cardz who want to see "something that flies".
The ribbons are from my stash.

I'm off to The Craft Barn extravaganza today - perhaps I will see some of you there!
And, if not, I promise, promise, promise, to catch up with all of my blog buddies next week!

Thank you...

2011-06-01T19:48:00.001+01:00

Hi Peeps. Hubby and I arrived home yesterday after spending just over three weeks in Florida. We had a fabulous time. The beach was superb, we were in the sea with 4 manatee 50 feet away at one point. The pool was glorious. The sunshine endless and the craft shopping supreme! The only downer was that we arrived at the airport lounge 10 minutes after Scotty, Lauren and Haley had left it. As big American Idol fans we were disappointed to have only just missed them.
While I was away, a dear friend looked after our fish (Alabama and Vegas) and my best buddy (pictured here).
I made a card to say thank you. It's not one of my best which is a shame because I love this house mouse image which I have coloured with Copics. The problem is that it's very small and looked a bit insignificant in the centre so I added a giant blossom which is now too big. We had a bumpy flight home from Florida and I hate flying so I didn't sleep except for about 20 mins and I'm very jet-lagged and tired today. Hopefully I'll be back on track by the weekend.

The background paper is K&Co, the checked paper is from my scrap drawer and the butterfly paper I stamped myself with a new Impression Obsession purchase. The flowers are Prima, the butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch and the leaves are a Sizzix die. I am entering the card into several challenges as follows:
Flutter by Wednesday - "open"
Stamp Something - "sentimental"
Papertake Weekly - "sketch" (which I rotated and overlapped the layers slightly differently)
My Mum's Craft Shop - "something with wings"
A spoon Full of Sugar - "flower power"; and
Paperplay - "blossoms and blooms"

What with the holiday and all of the Blogger problems in the last few weeks, I have really struggled to keep up with my comments but I hope to be around for a visit soon.

I also need to say a big thank you for a Candy package which arrived from perhaps South Carolina (is that SC?) while I was away. Sadly, the candy did not come with any note and for the life of me I can't remember what it was I entered. I'm sooooo sorry that I can't thank the sender more personally but I am very grateful! If you sent me some lovely papers and ribbons and sparkley things - please let me know so that I can show my appreciation directly!

STAMPTACULAR # 113 Bugs or Boys with a Spoonfull of Sugar, Paperplay and Truly Scrumptious

2011-05-29T11:00:00.009+01:00

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend! It's time for a new challenge at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge and this week we want to see your projects with either "Bugs or Boys" on it. If your card has both bugs AND a boy then your name will be entered twice for our fabulous prizes which are a $10 gift voucher from The Paper Shelter and the winner's choice of 3 digis from Spesch Designer Stamps. Don't forget to stamp - we don't call it STAMPtacular for nothing!
My image, which is obviously a boy bear! came from The Paper Shelter. Isn't he absolutely adorable and of course he is dressed like a bee for the "bug" element. He is coloured in Copics and Promarkers and has little pearls for his antenna.

My papers are all my Stampin Up. The blue and yellow butterflies and the little panel with butterflies and flowers on it are from my stash as are all of the pretty flowers. I used a gorgeous sentiment stamp from LOTV - I just wish it had read Bee-lieve!

I am also entering my card into the challenge at

a Spoonfull of Sugar which is for "Something with Wings"

Paperplay which is for "blossoms and blooms"

Truly Scrumptious where there is an "anything goes" theme and a DT call.

Please join in the fun with us this week and see what the talented crew at Stamptacular has prepared for inspiration.

Crafty Emma's Papertake Weekly Charisma Cardz Challenge

2011-05-27T04:26:00.000+01:00

Crafty Emma's challenge site want to see "at least three embellishments" on our projects this week. My card is pretty much all embellishment as there is no central image. My DP is by Paper Pizzaz to reflect the challenge at Papertake Weekly who want to see "pale pretty pastels". The letters and tags are from the same stack. I am also entering this card into the challenge at Charisma Cardz where the theme is "boy oh boy" I made a card for our friend Alastair who runs his own business fitting bathrooms and kitchens. The main text is all word processed leaving space for stickers and embellishments from a variety of sources.
I apologise for the bad language for those of you of a delicate nature!
I also apologise once again for not coming by very often. I shall explain why next week for anyone who is interested.
Until Sunday... Hugs, Lesley

STAMPTACULAR # 112 BEARnecessities with Paper Play, Simon Says, Creative Inspirations and Flutter By Wednesdays

2011-05-22T11:00:00.034+01:00

Hope you are all having a great weekend so far! This week at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge our theme is "BEARnecessities". Doesn't that make you think of Baloo in the Disney Jungle Book movie? We want to see a card or project that includes at least one BEAR! Doesn’t matter what kind of bear or what the bear’s doing as long as we can see a bear you will have fulfilled this week’s challenge requirements! Oh…and don’t forget to stamp! After all, we don’t call this STAMPtacular for nothing!
We are sponsored by the lovely Bunny Zoe's Crafts who are offering a £10 gift certificate and also by the oh so sweet Teddybo who are giving away a winner's choice of three digis. Huge thanks to both companies!

This is an anniversary card for my sister and her husband using Teddy Bo and Teddy Bea coloured with Copics and Promarkers. My papers are Up Up and Away by Mindy Terasawa at First Addition which I picked up at Ali Paly - I got the last pack they had on the stall and I love them - every page has sparkle and shine. A piece of ribbon and an MS lace punch separate the two triangular DPs. And I've used the lace punch again on the base as the "stay".

I used half a page of another sheet for my base of this easel card and some Basic Grey for the pale green matting - it was a perfect match. The butterfly is an MS punch cut from some Papermania paper I think and the sentiment, stamped directly onto the page, is by LOTV. Julie got them for me for my Birthday back in January and I love them!

And this is the finished card. I am also entering into the following challenges:

Flutter By Wednesdays - who have an optional sketch but an "anything goes" main theme;

Creative Inspirations - where the challenge is for "lace and pearls" (my lace is paper punched and the butterfly has pearls on his body)

PaperPlay Challenges - who have a "Sparkle Galore" theme; and

Simon Says Stamp - who also want to see "Sparkle and Shine".

Please join us with all of your lovely bears at our challenge this week and check out the lovely makes of my teamies. They are stunning and their photography is better than mine. I just can't seem to take good pictures at the moment and I can't blame it on dull days - we've had fabulous weather!

A spoon full of Sugary Crafty Emma's Cupcake with Stampavie and more...

2011-05-19T01:29:00.000+01:00

Some friends are moving to a substantial property in Italy with two studio apartments for holiday rentals and I wanted to welcome them to their new home with a card. I found some photos of their property on their rental website and merged together several shots to watercolour with my Aqua Markers. Whereas the first time I coloured with Aquamarkers I used the pens directly on the paper and then spread them out with the water brush. This time I scribbled the ink on to a tile and then picked it up with a brush to apply to the paper. Don't get too excited by the quality - there is a huge amount of Photoshop involved in the making of my "water colour" picture but I'm very pleased with the result. The garden isn't quite as mature in reality as it is in my picture and the house aspect in relation to the pool is imagined rather than real but I'm sure my friends will appreciate receiving a card which is representative of their home. My papers are K&Co including the "Dream" sentiment. The "Sunshine" sentiment is an LOTV stamp.
The gates were a real wotsit to make. They consist of two Cricut cut brackets (which are actually part of a sign), a Martha Stewart fleur de lis punch and a Stampin Up word window punch. Try as I might, I just couldn't get the railings to be the same size. This was my third attempt and then when I tried to cut them off at the bottom they ripped - hence the ribbon round two of the edges.

As my picture shows a great deal of their pretty garden, I am entering my card into the challenge at Cupcake Crafts which is "in the garden" and as this gorgeous setting will incorporate two holiday rentals, I am also entering into Crafty Emma's Store where the challenge is "holidays". A Spoon Full of Sugar has an "Anything Goes" challenge and the challenge at Stampavie and More is "summer" which fits well with my picture and of course the LOTV sentiment. I'm not sure if there is a requirement to use a certain kind of stamp for Stampavie - I feel there should be but I couldn't see it in the instructions so I apologise if I've made an error by entering there.

STAMPTACULAR # 111 Pink-a-licious

2011-05-15T11:00:00.009+01:00

Our lovely "boss" Priscilla at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge really did challenge me this week with her "Pink-a-licious" theme. Of course I like pink and have often made cards with pink on them but this week we want to see a stamped image on a project that is entirely pink and that was harder than I thought it would be.
This week we are sponsored by The Stamping Boutique who have your choice of FOUR fabulous digis up for grabs.
I decided to make some little tags instead of a card and I used the stamping boutique image from - yup, you guessed it - The Stamping Boutique. OK so I snuck in a little white, some grey at the windows and my flower centres and the lamp part of the lamp post are yellow, and I used a tiny bit of white and pink paper but you have to admit - it is pretty darn pink!

My photo shows the front view of one tag and the back view of another one.
I coloured my image (which I had to crop slightly to fit the tag) with virtually every one of my pink Copic markers. The tag itself is cut using best matey Julie's new dies. Definitely something for my own wish list I think. (PS - Julie tells me the tag die is made by Go Kreate and they are currently in stock at The Craft Barn in the UK) The great thing about tags is that they require very little paper and I'm afraid I have no idea what papers I used because they all came from my scrap draw. A few punched flowers and a bit of ribbon and I figure these pink-a-licious little items will be perfect for sending crafty stash to a couple of lovely blog buddies.

Please drop by my teamies and share some love with them and do come and play with us this week. We would love to see just how pink you can be!

Stamp Something Creative [for the] Card Crew at One Stop for Papertake Weekly

2011-05-14T00:08:00.000+01:00

Well our daughter and Grandson have returned to Crete and I finally found myself able to do some much needed blog commentary just as Blogger went down! Thank goodness it's back! Unfortunately, it is still doing something strange for me because when I comment on someone else's blog, for some reason, Blogger doesn't know that it's me commenting and I have to enter my name and URL EVERY time. If anyone out there knows how to fix that - PLEASE leave me a comment because it's driving me nuts!!! I'm so behind in my commenting and I really need to be able to work more quickly to get round everyone!
I made a card for my brother and his wife's anniversary here in March this year which was a very different style for me but I liked it alot. So I made another similar one for a friend's birthday,
I used pearlescent cream cardstock for the base with pearlescent cream paper for everything else. The flower, which was cut with my blossom nestie, dampened and scrunched, is inked with Brilliance pearlescent ink as is the central mount, and the background to the flower has been run through a Cuttlebug folder and then lightly inked with Distress Inks. An SU sentiment and a sparkly brad add the finishing touch. I like that this make is made from only pearlescent cream card and paper and yet it doesn't look like it.

I am entering it into four challenges:

Stamp Something are celebrating their 3 year blogaversary with an "open" challenge and a hop;

Creative Card Crew want to see "May flowers";

One Stop Craft Challenge have a "birthdays" theme; and

Papertake Weekly want us to "Fancy a punch (or a die)" - my flower is cut with a die.

I made this card in double quick time unlike the makes in my last post which took forever. Sometimes it's really nice to make a quickie!

And hopefully I will now have some time to visit my blog buddies. Please forgive my recent absence!

STAMPTACULAR # 110 sketch with Charisma Cardz

2011-05-08T11:00:00.114+01:00

We have a fabulous "sketch" this week at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge where we are lucky to be sponsored by My Favourite Things who are offering a fabby $25 Gift voucher and also by The Stamp Fairy who are offering one lucky winner 4 digis of their choice.

I decided to make some late Easter Treat boxes for my young neice and nephew whom I wasn't able to see over Easter, using two gorgeous images from The Stamp Fairy.
The boxes are my version of a Three Kings template by Claire I saw here on Split Coast Stampers. The original was too small for my treats so I changed all the dimensions and, because I have two sets of treats for each of the children I dispensed with the Christmas Cracker style middle and simply squooshed the top section into the bottom with the weight of the candy eggs.
Above are the boxes seen from the back and below, from the front. I used stripey DPs which perhaps was a mistake but hopefully you can still discern the sketch - perhaps more on Joseph's where the base card is darker. I transposed the oval shape and added the image to the side of it but the components are all there.

I made each box from one page of 12x12 DCWV card stock. The Cricut-cut letters and the SU punched "ribbon" trim around the centre cut oval were made from the same page.

My DPs are all by Debbie Mumm. The tags on the celophane are of course the Nestie cut out oval turned the other way up. There is an acetate square behind the oval cut out to stop the second layer of treats from tumbling out. I coloured the images with my Copics.

Charisma Cardz have a "no cards allowed" challenge this week so I am also entering my project there.

These are the close-ups of the cute little Stamp Fairy images.
Once again I find myself at a very busy time so if I don't stop by my blog buddies for a while, please forgive me!

Sketch & Stash say Stamp Something Cupcake-like for Sir Stampalot on a Flutter by Wednesday

2011-05-05T19:16:00.001+01:00

I was delighted to win an adorable Magnolia stamp from the lovely Jane in a recent blog hop at Magnolia Down Under. When my stamp arrived I was absolutely thrilled that Jane had additionally included some beautiful flowers and ribbons and also an absolutely gorgeous card which you can see on her blog here. Jane's Lovely Cards is a relatively new find for me and if you don't know her work, I urge you to grab a coffee and sit down for a fabulous stroll through her blog. She is soooooo talented!
I was so taken with the card she sent me that I wanted to have a go at using text as a torn strip like an off-centre ribbon and also punching out the text to use as flowers. Tearing DP is something that absolutely does NOT agree with me so I went one step further and typed up my own text which is a little resume for an artist friend of mine who is the intended recipient of my card.

I used some lush new Stampin Up papers and printed my text directly on to one of the plainer coordinating papers. I inked over it a little to give it a more distressed feel but I couldn't bring myself to roughen up the edges of the main DP on my card to match.

Sketch N Stash have invited us to "pick our own sketch" from their catalogue of past sketches. I chose #52. Stamp Something want to see "wings" and the challenge at Sir Stampalot is "Magical Worlds" whilst Cupcake Craft want to see something "beginning with C".
Here you go, girls, my "C" is CLEAVAGE! (Or if you prefer, you can see Cerulean, Cobalt and Cyan Colous and I used Copics - but I like cleavage better!) My image is of course one of Mo Manning's. As Flutter by Wednesday have an "open" challenge and all they need to see is "wings" I am entering there too. When I saw "Fairy 2" I knew I just had to have her because she looks soooooo much like my artist friend (although admittedly the fairy is considerably more plump!). I coloured her with Copics. There is definitely something wrong with my skin coloured Copics - they are blodging rather than blending on my page but I still like the card.
If you are reading this, Jane, thank you once again for your wonderful candy and for inspiring me to make this card.
Once again, peeps, I apologise for not coming by. I was without my internet for several days and our daughter and grandson are still with us so my crafting and blogging are taking a bit of a back seat!

STAMPTACULAR # 109 Mum's the Word with Sweet Stampin Craft Us Crazy and Charisma Cardz.

2011-05-01T11:00:00.012+01:00

Another Sunday and it's time for another fun challenge at Stamptacular. This week our challenge is "Mums the Word" and we want to see your cards or projects which include the word "Mum/Mom" or "Mother" or any other form of the word.
We are lucky enough to be sponsored by Simon Says Stamp this week who are offering one randomly chosen entrant a $20 gift certificate. Why not come and play along.
I am also entering my card into the following challenges:
Sweet Stampin - Try something new (I made a shaped card and used my Aquamarkers for the first time)
Craft Us Crazy - Mom's and/or Flowers
Charisma Cardz - April Showers/May Flowers (as it's the first of May I have opted for the flowers element)

This card is for my Mum.
I cut a plant pot shape from K&Co paper and added a simple ribbon and bow. My letters are cut using my Cricut from some lilac card and yellow Sizzix papers.
The pansies are a Papermania stamp set made up of a whole pansy, two individual top petals, a winged set of petals, a lower petal, a centre bit and a leaf. I stamped all the component parts on water colour paper, water coloured them with my Letraset Aquamarkers (it's the first time I have used these markers and I need some practice), cut them out, wet them some more, scrunched them up, unfolded them again and layered them up. I won't do that again. It took FOREVER and the colours ran when I was wetting and scrunching so I had to keep painting them again. It certainly gave me green fingers (and hands and wrists...)

My card base is made up of two pieces of card cut in a plant pot shape at the base and the shape of all the flowers and leaves at the top. I scored just where the flower pot stops at the top and glued the two top sections together where all the flowers are and then glued the leaves and flowers on top at the front. Fiddly, fiddly, fiddly and the card doesn't look perfectly neat from the back but I do like all the different layers and the slightly crumpled look of the flowers and leaves.
My teamies have lots of fabby inspiration for you too so why not hop on over to our site share some love!
We have our lovely daughter and adorable grandson staying with us at the moment so my crafting and blogging is taking a back seat for a while. I'll try to drop by occasionally to see you though!

Colour Create a Truly Scrumptious Polka Doodle for The Sugar Bowl and Stampalot!

2011-04-26T17:55:00.000+01:00

The challenge this month at Sir Stampalot is "ladies and fashion". I thought it was perfect for this beautiful image by Leanne Ellis for Sugar Nellie called "All is not lost". The Sugar Bowl has a brilliant sketch which I rotated and I opted to use one "Reflections" and two "Melody" papers by Prima (the brown matting is actually patterned with blue dots) in keeping with Polka Doodles request for "three patterned papers" and the "vintage" theme at Truly Scrumptious. Colour Create want us to use "pink, blue and brown". I didn't use acetate or crackle glaze which were optional.
The beautiful girl is coloured with Copics - for some reason(and it might be the heat in my Craft Croft) my Copics weren't blending very well and if anyone has any ideas why I would be interested to know) and I have decoupaged four of the roses on the image. Three extra paper roses (from stash) and a Martha Stewart punched butterfly provide some additional embellishment. The sentiment "you're so special" is by Hero Arts and was (very riskily for me) stamped straight onto the finished card.

For those of you with Smellovision on your computers, lean in close and have a sniff. My card is scented with roses!
Vintage is not something I usually do but I was very pleased with this finished card and I hope the intended recipient - the sweet daughter of my best friend will like it too!

STAMPTACULAR # 108 "Pile it On" to make a Totally Gorjuss card with Crafty Emma in mind!

2011-04-24T11:00:00.004+01:00

Hello again, Peeps!
Time for another Stamptacular Sunday Challenge and this week our theme is "Pile it On". We want to see at least five layers on your cards or projects. Our sponsor for the whole of April is the magnificent Magnolia-licious who are offering one lucky winner two special Minis, and we have an additional sponsor this week -the equally brilliant Teddy Bo whose prize is three gorgeous digis!

I made two cards for this challenge the first one is for my soon-to-be-7 year old niece. She is very into princesses and pink.

What my card lacks in design style it (hopefully) makes up for in pure pile-it-on factor. In honour of Magnolialicious I have used one of Tilda's windows in which to seat Teddy Bea. It's no mean feat combining a rubber stamp with a digital image but I managed it quite well. I had to print Bea first, print her again onto a mask and then stamp the window over the top of the masked Bea. The trick is in figuring out the right size of the digital image for the rubber image. She is coloured with Copics and Promarkers.

Papers are DCWV from the Luxury stack and Garden Party which is pre-embossed and sparkly. The balloon is a sticker and I cut the number 7 with my Cricut. The carriage is another little stamp by Imaginisce and the hearts are little toppers from Lakeland. The wooden crown embellishment was in a bag of goodies I won from Quixotic Paperie. I primed it, painted it and then used it as a stencil to cut out the DP for a cover. It has plenty of bling and is attached to a broach pin so it can be removed from the card and worn. It is attached to the card with a Post It sticky which hopefully won't tear the sentiment printed underneath when the broach is removed. This is not a classy card I know but I suspect my 7 year old niece will like it.
I am entering this card into this week's Totally Gorjuss challenge - they want us to "Bling it on"!

For my second card, which is for one of my BILs, I opted for a more understated look whilst still keeping to the "Pile it On" theme. Teddy Bo is coloured with Copics and Promarkers again but has two additional decoupaged layers. I used several mounts between the card base and the image - the DP is part of a DCWV Once Upon a Time stack and was perfect for this little cutie. An EK Success journalling border punch topped with a Basic Grey scalloped sticker border adds a little extra embellishment. I didn't want to cover up too much of the DP imagery so I stamped my SU sentiment onto acetate and the scenery is just visible behind it. The final touch was a Dress It Up button fish hook/fly thingy. It's for an older guy so I opted not to use lots of embellishment but it does have 10 layers excluding the base, same as Teddy Bea above!
I am entering this card into this week's challenge at Crafty Emma's Store - they want to see "Spring colours or a Spring image". With these wonderful sunny days we are experiencing in England this Spring - a spot of fishing in a lush green glade with just a light waistcoat and a hat to keep the sun off seems just the ticket!

Don't forget to stop by our Challenge site to see all the lovely makes from my teamies and if you are joining in with our challenge this week (and we do hope you will, don't forget to stamp! We don't call it STAMPtacular for nothing!

PS - for those of you who read my post last Sunday, I am pleased to say that my FIL's op went according to plan and he seems to be recovering nicely!

Simon Says make a new model of C3P0 for Sketch & Stash with a Passion for Promarkers

2011-04-18T22:36:00.000+01:00

This is one of those cards where I loved my idea, loved the main element but I am disappointed with the overall look. It is, however, for my soon to be 9 year old nephew who eats and sleeps Star Wars and who is somewhat less discerning than I when it comes to artistic merit so I'm sure he will like it. I used the fab "sketch" over at Sketch & Stash but made it a tiny more asymetric to suit what I had in mind.

I am also entering this into Simon Says who want to see a “card for a child” and for Passion for Promarkers want us to “make our own embellishment”. I made the circuit board myself (as you can no doubt tell!) by drawing lines and circles and heat embossing with silver.

My main DP is Basic Grey "Wander". This is the first page I have used from the pack – it's great for boys cards. I almost never use metallic card with my creations but this one cried out for it. I ran the gold horizontal panel through my Sizzix machine with a new metal plate effect masking folder by That Special Touch which I bought recently at Ali Pali.
My image is a free digi which I found on a Star Wars colouring page web site here. I Photoshopped out the contents on his tray and added a birthday cake! I coloured his background digitally except for the window views. Outer space and my image were coloured with Promarkers.
The robot has been glazed, except where his innards are showing, to make him shiny. There is a bit of electrical wire on the card instead of ribbon. It looks naff but I liked the idea. The left hand corner is cut with a new Marianne Die and I've added a little silver Craftworks candy to balance the other silver elements.

And here is the finished card from which you can see that C3P0 has been replaced by model HB2U. Inside the card it says Happy Birthday to You just in case my nephew didn’t understand the “joke”

STAMPTACULAR # 107 with Digi Bell, Papertake Weekly, Copic Creations and the Creative Card Crew

2011-04-17T11:00:00.020+01:00

Is it Sunday today already? Where did my week go! Time for another challenge at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge! Once again we are sponsored by Magnolia-licious for the whole of April and we are also lucky enough to be sponsored by Elisabeth Bell this week.
So on to this week's challenge - we want you to create a card or project with one of the ever so precious Magnolia stamps.

I've made two cards:

This is my third week on the DT at Stamptacular and in honour of our April sponsor I have used Tilda for my two previous cards. This week, for my first card, I have chosen an older Magnolia stamp which is neither Tilda nor Edwin but a tree! Half a tree actually. The stamp has foliage on both sides of the trunk but I decided to use only part of it.
My poor father-in-law broke his leg at the end of 2009, just a fraction below his hip. At nearly 90 years of age he has really struggled to get back to the level of fitness he enjoyed before his fall (he was still skiing at 86!!!). Recently the pin the surgeons put in his leg moved and was digging into the bone. Needless to say, he is in a great deal of pain but he is as also terribly worried about the surgery required to fix the problem. No surgery is risk free but at 89 the risks clearly go up.
I made this card to give him on the day of his operation.

I stamped my Magnolia tree twice and cut out some of the branches and leaves, decoupaging them to the final image to give some extra dimension. I must have been mad! I hate cutting out and it was too fiddly to cut really neatly but I do like the finished effect. My tree is coloured with Copics. The sentiment is Word Processed and took five attempts to get right. In order to use different font sizes and styles it is necessary to alter the spacing above and below each line or you end up with great big gaps.
My DP is Curio by Basic Grey - I love these papers. I stamped some tickets (by Autumn Leaves) on Kraft and popped them in a little "envelope" covered with a sticker which is also stamped with just the words from the ticket stamp. The tickets just poke out of the envelope but I have pulled one all the way out so you can see it. I was very pleased with this card. Magnolia-licious are offering another two minis this week for one lucky randomly chosen entrant.

I am also entering this card into Papertake Weekly where the theme is "truly dimensional" and Copic Creations who just want to know what our favourite paper medium is for Copic colouring. Mine is Ryman's colour copy 200gsm light card stock. It comes in white and in cream but the white, for some reason is better.

For my second card I have used the lovely "Pat a Cake" by Elisabeth Bell and I'm also entering this one into the Digi Bell Blog Challenge to use your favourite image. I love all of Elisabeth Bell's work and so they are all favourites. This is a card for our Grandson to give to his Mummy. He is only twenty months old and can't make one himself! I coloured my image with Copics. Unfortunately, I have just run out of the Ryman's card stock I use for my Copics and I had some problems with bleeding so don't look too closely. Papers are Basic Grey Green at Heart, Flowers are Prima and the sentiment is stamped using a variety of different letters cut out from existing stamps! There is a little Papermania ribbon and bow and some brads to add some sparkle. The little boy looks a bit like our Grandson.

Check out the lovely inspiration from my teamies and come and play along with us. In addition to the Magnolia-licious prize, Elisabeth Bell are offering one lucky winner two digi stamps! And don't forget to Stamp. We don't call the challenge STAMPtacula for nothing!

I am entering this card into Creative Card Crew where the theme is "Spring" - the perfect time of the year for playing Pat-a-Cake on the lawn amidst the flowers!

Stamptacular # 106 Girls and Swirls With Kaboodle Doodles and some Creative Inspiration

2011-04-10T11:00:00.010+01:00

It's Sunday and that means another fun challenge at the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge blog where the theme is "Girls and Swirls!". We are lucky enough to be sponsored for the whole of April by the fabby Magnolia-licious who are offering a super prize of two Minis to one lucky winner and we are additionally sponsored by My Favourite Things who are offering a $25 gift certificate this week.

I chose this adorable marching Tilda with a flag for my card and coloured her with Copics and Promarkers. My gorgeous papers are Prima "Analee" and the sentiment is SU. I cut my swirl on my Cricut. I got the measurements wrong and it came out huge but actually I think being super-sized is just right for our challenge.
Do check out the lovely creations from my teamies and then come and play along with us and don't forget to Stamp! We don't call it the STAMPtacular Sunday Challenge for nothing!
I am also entering my card into Kaboodle Doodles who say "Let's Get Girly" and Creative Inspirations who want to see "Punches and Dies". I have used an SU scallop punch at the base of my card and a Nestie around Tilda in addition to my Cricut die-cut swirl.
I've been away twice in the last three weeks so if I am a bit slow stopping by to see my blog buddies, please forgive me!

STAMPTACULAR #105 - "Buttons, Bling & Bloom" with Colour Create and Charisma Cardz

2011-04-03T11:00:00.001+01:00

Hello, hello! This is my first card as a DT Member for the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge where the theme is "Buttons, Bling & Bloom! ". We are lucky enough to be sponsored for the whole of April by the fabby Magnolia-liciousand this week our additonal sponsor is the equally brilliant Simon Says Stamp.
I made this card for a certain fluffy blog buddy to celebrate, not only her birthday, but also packing up her household (including all of her craft things) and moving to a new home. I thought this cute little Tilda was perfect because I felt sure that this might be what Fluff looked like as she was racing out of the old house at the last minute!Are you reading this, Fluff? I do hope you received the card!
My papers are "Floral" by Wild Rose Studio. I have it on good authority that the recipient likes lilac and lemon as a colour combo. Tilda is coloured in Copics and Promarkers. Paper blooms are Prima and the ribbons, buttons and bling are from my stash. The sentiment is a freebie that came with my Craft Stamper Magazine.
Why not come and play at the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge this week.
You might win a prize from one of our generous sponsors! Magnolia-licious are offering two sweet Minis and Simon Says Stamp has a $ 20 gift voucher!
And do stop by to view the lovely creations from my equally lovely teamies! Their details are on my side bar!
I'm also entering my card into Colour Createwho want to see "Pastel colours" and Charisma Cardzwho want to see "Bling and Sparkles". You can't tell the shimmer from the photo but it is there and my gems are big and bold and very "bling".

A One Stop, Short and Tweet Stampalot Craft Us Crazy!

2011-03-16T23:37:00.000Z

After my last mahusive post which took me forever because of all the links, this post is going to be Short and Tweet!

I made a relatively "Clean & Simple" card for the challenge at One Stop Craft using the "Be One with Nature" theme at Craft Us Crazy and the colours "Green, Yellow and Blossom Pink" for Stampalot.
My image is a Penny Black which has never seen ink, painted in Distress Inks. The DP is K&Co and the sentiment is by SU. Love these little birdies. I think they are Great Tits (there is a joke in there somewhere but you won't hear it from me!)

Sweet Stampin (with my tongue in my cheek) a Totally Gorjuss Kraftin Kimmie whilst Colour Creating with Sketch N Stash

2011-03-14T19:46:00.004Z

Grab a glass of something that takes your fancy, Peeps, this is gonna be a l-o-n-g one! There is a card at the bottom though if you want to race through.
I have been the lucky and grateful recipient of a couple of awards from a number of blogging buddies and I have been very, very naughty and not posted them! Sorry gals!!!

For this award we need to
1) Decide if you will accept the award, and if you do, create a post on your blog and show the 'Favourite Blog' badge with pride.
2) Link back to the person who gave you the award and let them know if you accept the award or not.
THANK YOU Silvie, Alex and Vicky - I most gratefully accept!
3) Choose 3-5 of your favourite blogs to tag. Add a link to these blogs in your post and give them the good news.
Here goes...Dena, Jacque, Janiel, Kim & Mina

I suspect these uber talented ladies all have awards given to them regularly but they are 5 of my very favourites and I don't think I have chosen them for my awards in the past.

The requirements for this award are as follows:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.
Another great big THANK YOU to Vicki, Abi and Linby
2. Share 8 things about yourself.
• I love Cadbury’s chocolate and McVittie’s Jaffa cakes. I can eat a whole giant bar of the former and the entire packet of the latter without so much as a pause!
• I hate baked beans on the same plate as an egg (but I can eat them separately at different times)
• I am not a fan of social media such as Facebook or Twitter
• However, I am delighted that I was encouraged to start a blog. It’s a completely different social media which has enabled me to “meet” a wealth of wonderful, talented, generous and like minded crafting buddies
• I love my home (especially my craft room – see this post if you want to have a peek)
• I hate the giant spiders that inhabit my home with me and come out en masse in the autumn months)
• I have an adorable husband but he is horribly jealous of my cat
• I love my cat!
3. Forward it to 8 recently discovered bloggers
This is a toughie so I’m going to nominate the following who happen to be all of my fellow newly chosen teamies at Stamptacular Sunday Challenge starting in April
Bron, Jo, Tine, Marianne, Nina, Kristin, Danielle
Hey there ladies!
and last but not least...
Silvie because she was kind enough to give me the Liebster Award and, having looked at her blog, she is deserving of this Stylish Blogger Award!
4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about their award.
Almost Done!

If any body else was kind enough to give me an award recently - please forgive me for not saying thank you here. It is always lovely to receive a commendation!

And now I can finally show my card which I made for one of my American cousins who looks sooooo much like the image I have used and who is always sewing!

I am entering my card into Sweet Stampin who want to see our favourite movie. I have several favourites but I am opting for that old favourite with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan ...
wait for it...

"Seamstress in Seattle"...

Mona the Seamstress is a Kraftin Kimmie where there is an anything goes theme and a "new release" blog hop. The cotton reels and pin cushion are by Clear Dollar Stamps and were part of my "Help for Katie" set as seen on the side bar of Jak Heath's blog here. I have curved them all to give them some dimension and used silicone glue behind them. Totally Gorjuss want to see pearls and lace which worked well with my sewing theme and I placed a little lace either side of my sentiment. I used two real pins but the pins on the image of my pin cushion have pearls.
Colour Create want us to use olive green, cream, black and brown from their photo inspiration. My image and accessories are all coloured with Copics and I pretty much stuck to the colour theme but that pin cushion just HAD to be red and the jeans Mona is sewing looked better with a bit of colour. My DP is K&Co and the mounts are a mix of DCWV and Paper Mill. Lastly I used Sue's fabby sketch at Sketch and Stash. Everything on my card is new except for the Dress it Up buttons on the base of the EK Success punched Trellis.

I must say I was delighted with how she turned out. I hope you like it too!

Simply Less is More when using Creative Inspirations and Polka Doodles for a Papertake Weekly Waltzing Mouse!

2011-03-07T15:27:00.001Z

And now for something completely different... I KNOW that there are some recipients of my cards who don't always appreciate the time and effort that goes into my creations - this is particularly true of my coloured images. I am not a fast crafter and I am certainly not a fast colourist. It can easily take me an hour to decide what to make, an hour to work out the elements I want to use and two to three hours to put it all together - that's a fast card for me. My past attempts at CAS cards have resulted either in something that looks as though no effort was made at all or something where the effort is visible but the results are pants! I so admire some of my blogging buddies - Alex, Jules, Julie, Kerry and Sarita to name but a few who seem to be able to produce classic beautiful elegant creations which err on the clean and simple and wow me to bits and if I don't practice then I figure I shall never be any good at them.
This week Polka Doodles want to see "Flower Power" and Creative Inspirations have the theme "In the Garden" (which I also take to mean flowers). Papertake Weekly have an "Anything Goes" theme with the option of using something old. My sentiment is by Stampin Up, is relatively old and has never seen ink before. Waltzing Mouse have a great "Sketch" and I am entering my first card in the challenge at Less is More who want to see "Pastels".

I used pearlescent card for the base of this Happy Anniversary card and hand embossed an inner square on my Score Pal. More pearlescent card has been run through an embossing folder with love hearts on it and mounted on some DCWV pastel card stock. It looks even more pale in the photo, its actually peach like the flower and ink. My flower is made with pearlescent paper cut with a Nestie's Blossoms die, inked, sprayed and scrunched and the leaves are from an MS punch. It still took me three hours to make which is ridiculous but I reckon I could do it again in an hour and I really like it.
Postscript, I replaced the photo with one where the middle mount at least looks a bit peachy in the bottom left hand corner.

Colour Create Totally Tilda with Just Magnolia and Friday Sketchers

2011-03-06T12:19:00.000Z

Friday Sketchers have a fab "sketch" this week so out came one of my favourite stamps to use with the Just Magnolia challenge which is anything goes (as long as it's Magnolia or hAnglar) with the added option of glitter. I don't think I'm a glittery kind of gal but I did manage to sneak a little bit on the flower on Tilda's hat. There are actually three Magnolia stamps on my card: Tilda, the wall and the apple basket.

Colour Create have a "photo inspiration from which we need to choose three fruit colours". I chose Papaya, Apple and Coconut brown and made a card which works hugely well with the Totally Tilda challenge for "Fruity Tilda". I'm not sure of the maker of my sentiment stamp. I was filing all of my sentiments and got bored three quarters of the way through and this was one of the ones I left out and didn't make a note of the packaging.

My colouring media is Copics throughout and my papers are a mix of DCWV Garden Party, Basic Grey and Sizzix. I glazed my apples to give them some extra shine, added three ribbons and a little apple charm.

Too excited by Stamptacular to do Teddy Bo Justice!

2011-03-05T21:47:00.002Z

I have been invited to be a DT member for Stamptacular from April and I got so over-excited by the news that I made a complete mess of the card I was trying to make and photographed it badly to boot. I do hope the rest of my team don't stop by to see it or they might vote me off!

My dear blogging buddy Janiel made a super card recently (all of her cards are always super of course) in which she framed Tilda on an easel card so that she popped up (Tilda that is - not Janiel) for display. It was lovely and inspired me to work on something similar. So using Bo and Bea from my newly acquired Teddy Bo collection, I thought they would look good hanging from a heart frame for this 1st Anniversary Card. It was a good idea but I did not execute it well. I spent a lot of time colouring my bears with Copics and Promarkers and I was pleased with the result but I put them on the card too close together so my heart had to be quite thin and it would have looked so much better with a more sturdy heart. Also, I should have put more effort into decorating the front panel of my card because the bears looked lonely stuck in the middle of the Papermania DP and now they still look lonely but are boxed in between two strips of DCWV DP. There is more DCWV paper on the base, together with some Craftworks card candy and a Sentiment by Hero Arts.

I do love the images. Teddy Bea has shiny boots (which are not visible sadly) but I'm not really happy with the card so I'm only taking a picture of it open (it's not crooked IRL) and a close up of the Teddies. To top off my troubles I think I might also be too late to enter it into the Teddy Bo challenge who wanted to see "duck-egg blue and brown".

Simon Says Stamp Something Not Just Magnolia but hAnglar too with Polka Doodles

2011-03-02T11:26:00.000Z

I have used the oh so lovely sketch by the oh so lovely Mina at Just Magnolia and hAnglar & stAnglar challenge for this thank you card for some dear friends of ours in Prague. The image is a hAnglar of course, coloured with Copics and Promarkers. Stamp Something wanted us to use flowers, and Polka Doodles required two ribbons and a charm. I am also entering my card into Simon Says who have a recipe challenge for 1 image, 2 DPs and 3 embellishments - I took this to mean 3 different types of embellishments rather than three items.

My ribbons are from stash. The brown ones are actually the thin ribbons that stores put inside the shoulders of ladies clothing to help them stay on a hangar. Needless to say, my clothes fall off their hangars all the time! Flowers are Got Flowers and the papers are DCWV and K&Co. I used a Stampin Up sentiment and a little "Thank You" charm to finish it off. The leaves are cut with a Martha Stewart punch.
I still haven't got around to catching up on all my commentary since my trip a week ago but I promise to pop by soon.

Rotate Sketch & Stash for a Spoon Full of Sugar(y) Copic Creations

2011-02-28T21:29:00.001Z

My cousin Bob has the most delightful golden retriever called Rusty. He also has a birthday coming up. I bought this image from Just Inklined last year specifically to make Bob's birthday card this year. My little cutester is coloured with Copics and I'm entering my card in the Copic Creations challenge which is for "complimentary colours" this week. I cut out the dog's face and paw and curled them with my curling tool, adhering him to the background with silicone glue to give dimension.

A Spoon Full of Sugar want to see "birthday wishes" and I rotated the "sketch" at Sketch & Stash for my layout. I have refrained from using any flowers because the card is, afterall, for a man. The fence is made from woodgrain cardstock kindly donated by best matey Julie, embossed to give it panels, and I have added a teeny bit of flower soft around the bottom edge. Bob has a deck at the back of the house and I think it looks like Rusty is leaning over the deck. My DPs are Basic Grey and the photo corners are cut with a Sizzix die.

Stamp Something Funky

2011-02-24T09:36:00.001Z

Hubby and I just spent a long weekend in Prague on business. We have a small, select network of people who assist us with the business and with the language issues. Tom speaks some Czech as his family was originally from there but he did not grow up speaking Czech at home.We received some gifts from one of our contacts - some of them were in fact Christmas gifts as we had originally planned our trip for December but our flights were cancelled due to the big snow.

One of the gifts, however, was for our grandson. It is a beruška (ladybug). I wanted to send a thank you card and the combination of the gift and the challenge for something funky at Stamp Something resulted in this very simple card. I used an MS punch set for the ladybugs. These are coloured with Copics and each one is backed with a little black semicircle cut with an SU punch so the dots are black. The cardstock and DP are also Stampin Up, together with the sentiment. I made my first nestie flower using a Nestie blossom die and the spray and scrunch method and the central panel is embossed with a Cuttlebug "thankyou" folder.

I think it's pretty funky.

My recent trip and the fact that I have a hectic few days ahead of me means that I am a bit late stopping by my blog buddies but I will catch up soon!

In the meantime, thank you for stopping by. I love to receive your comments - they mean so much to me!

Paperplay on a Cute Card Thursday with TeddyBo for Sketch and Stash

2011-02-17T13:05:00.001Z

I have seen a number of blog buddies using the new TeddyBo images and I just love them. Problem is that with all of the images I already have (many of which have never seen ink!) and those that are on order too, I had to ask myself "do I really need one?"
You bet your sweet furry teddy bear I did!
Having spent some time on their website I narrowed down my selection to 8!!!

This one is TeddyBea. Isn't she adorable?! And very good value too! She is coloured mostly in Copics with just the odd Promarker. Papers are DCWV Garden Party and the ribbon and buckle are from stash. The sentiment is Penny Black stamped onto a dimensional sticker which may or may not be Papermania.
The DCWV panel is pre-sparkled but is not evident in the photo. I used stickles on TeddyBea's wings and pompom and I glazed her wellies and the star. This is the first time I have ever used my Stamps Away grass stamp. I like it a lot but it wasn't such a good idea when it came to adding shine to Teddy's boots as I had to glaze around the grass! All the glistening bits of my card make it suitable for both PaperPlay who want us to "add shine" and Cute Card Thursday who want to see "Shiny happy cards". I just LOVED the "sketch" I used from Sketch and Stash and of course I had to enter into the Teddy Bo challenge where the theme is "in the Pink".

POSTSCRIPT - as the light changed today, I managed to get a photo showing some of the shine, at least on her wellies!

Multiple Challenges for Just the One Valentine

2011-02-15T14:33:00.002Z

I made a Valentine's card recently for my OH. I posted it here. Then I needed a box in which to place my gift to him. I wanted my box to coordinate so I have used all the same papers which are K&Co and kept to Magnolia images coloured in Copics, adding images to only two sides and decorating the lid. There are lots of flowers from various sources, some punched hearts and button hearts and a ribbon wrapped around the lid. Hubby is always complaining that I keep a huge crate stuffed full of what I consider to be good boxes, all of which are empty. He didn't complain when I gave him his valentine's card and gift! The first two images are the side views. It's a dull ol' day today so I apologise for the picture quality!

I am entering my box into the following challenges
Cute Card Thursday - Hearts and flowers
Simon Says Stamp - Anything but a card
Stamp Something - Something for your Valentine
Winter Wonderland - To the one I love
One Stop Craft - Love is in the air
Totally Gorjuss - Love
Cupcake Craft - I ♥ You (incorporating at least one heart)
Kaboodle Doodles - Hearts and flowers

And this is the lid.
I hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day yesterday, shared with someone you love!

Sweet Stampin for Colour Create with Paperplay

2011-02-08T13:18:00.000Z

For this fortnight's challenge at Colour Create there is the option to "use a charm" and a delightful "photo inspiration"; a home decor of soft lemon, green and white. Whereas I don't make a lot of lemon cards, I do love the colour and I'm very pleased with my finished product which I am also entering in to Paperplay who have a "stamp it out" challenge and Sweet Stampin where the challenge is for "Spring flowers". I'm not convinced that my flowers are specific to spring (that green one with the polka dots is clearly a winter flower!!!) but the lemon and green colour scheme shouts Springtime to me and Tilda does have some spring roses on her hat.
Tilda is coloured with Copics and Promarkers and was stamped courtesy of Julie. She always brings her toys when she comes to play and I always spend some time stampin them off! I'm not sure from where the lemon checked DP originated - it looks more lime in the photo than IRL. I found it in my scrap draw but it went so well with the floral paper which is Prima Annalee that I just had to use it.

I made the parasol embellishment myself. The idea just came to me as I was admiring a new set of round nesties and thought I could use the lacey edge with a blossom nestie to make something resembling an umbrella. The pearl tip is a dress pin slipped under the DP. I love it when an idea comes together!
There are two tiny satin umbrella's (cut from a larger ribbon) amongst the flowers. The crocheted flower and stamen are new. The green flower is Prima "Got Flowers" and I think the other one was an e-bay purchase shared from my niece. The leaves are cut using a punch by L-Em.com and the ribbon is from my stash. The sentiment originally had the "happy" and the "birthday" next to eachother so I cut it up in order to use one word over the other and mounted it on an SU leafy stamp just kissed to the paper and an SU scalloped square.

Friday Sketchers Stamp Something for Kaboodle with Mo's Digital Pencil

2011-02-06T19:31:00.001Z

I recently acquired a new photocorner die by Marianne Createables and knew I wanted to use it as soon as I saw the great "sketch" at Friday Sketchers this week. Kaboodle want us to make it "Monochromatic" and it's "Digi Day" at Stamp Something.
Mo's Digital Pencil want to see "Lots of Love - with buttons lace and bows" and just to prove that they are all there here is a closeup.
I opted for a Higher kind of Love with Mo's absolutely delightful "Joy" image of three nuns. Don't they just look like they are full of love?
Yesterday I struggled to colour hair on my new Sugar Nellie stamp. Let me tell you - that was easy peasy lemon squeezy in comparison to trying to colour folds in nuns' habits but I'm pleased with the result especially with the nun on the left. I used Copics to colour my image which is mounted on my latest Nestie. The DP is Stampin Up and the sentiment is Word Processed. Inside the card it actually says "Celebrate your birthday". The sketch called for some embellishment at about the 2 and 8 O'clock positions on the image circle but that just didn't work with the image. So I piled them on the little bit of lace. In my mind, this image is so stunning, the card requires very little embellishment.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!