Monday 31 January 2011

Kids birthdays...

Hello blogging friends!
You wanted it, so here it is... the presents/cards I made for the kids birthdays we went to this weekend. As I didn't have much time to take pics between finishing them and taking them out to go so the photos are not that good, but tbh, the actual cards and presents aren't that great either *lol* Remember I didn't have much time, so please don't judge my efforts for these things too harshly!


Well, my youngest, Jacob, was invited to one of his girlfriends (yes, he has several... little heartbreaker *g*) 4th birthday and her mum had said, she was very much into princessy stuff... So I made this little card with SCAL from Papermania Gemstones cardstock and added Stickers and Gemstones.



Then, while I still had the Cricut all fired up, I cut a little princess crown and blinged that up, too. I used the same cardstock as for the card.
I know Logan likes drawing and painting a lot I bought some felt tips and glitter glue pens and made a felt bag with her name and some flowers on it to put it in. The handles are dark blue thick cord and I blanket stitched the sides closed. When that was done I thought it would be a nice base to present the crown on and packaged it up before remembering to take pics... So sorry you can't see it too well.




That was for Saturday, on Sunday my oldest, Paul, was going to one of his longest friends 6th birthday - rock climbing! He loved that!
Hughie loves everything Star Wars and Ben10 and believe it or not, loves being creative. His mum had actually said he was very interested in making his own pop-up cards and so I devised this little card and gift.



I made the card on my computer and then cut out the aliens from a separate piece of card and created a pop-up inside. Then I made a little colouring book with colouring pages of Ben10 and Star Wars images and used my Bind-it-All to hold it together. 

I know it could have done with some more decorating, but time was short...
I packaged it up together with a box of felt tip pens, some card blanks to make pop-ups and 3D foam pads in this little bag so I didn't even need wrapping paper...


The bag was made from a sheet of A3 thick card and I made the handle with a large circle punch. The topper is a Nestie label and a Forever Friends decoupage image I had done ages ago for Creativity magazine and then didn't use. The name was done with Doodlebug rub-on letters.
Well, I hope you are not all abandoning me now and leave the blog disgusted never to return.... I promise the next post will be much nicer ;-)
Ta-ra for now!

Friday 28 January 2011

No card today...

Hello bloggers,


sorry, nothing to look at tonight but I am not feeling too well, cold got to me, and am a bit down (just a little argument with the o/h).
But wanted to keep up my good work on updating my blog regularly and not slip back into old habits. So there you go, poor readers, you are the ones to endure my moans *lol*
I actually did a little crafting today as my boys are going to two kids parties this weekend and I needed to make cards and presents to take. If I feel good enough I'll take pics tomorrow although they are nothing like the stuff I normally show... Imagine, on the one card I didn't stamp, emboss, die-cut or coloured a thing! I designed the outside on my computer, printed it off plus a few extra bits to go inside as pop-ups, that's all... not my usual, is it?
If you don't want to see this, just let me know in the comments and I'll spare you ;-)
Night, night, I am off to bed soon and catch up on some sleep and hopefully get over that d*** cold.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

I have a confession...

Hello bloggers.
This morning I have a confession to make. I am a Gleek. I watch Glee almost religiously. It's on on Monday evenings and I record it as I can't always watch Monday nights.
What I love about it most I guess, is that it makes me laugh, it makes me feel cheery and is lighthearted without being totally superficial. Well, I just watched the latest episode called "Grilled Cheesus" and it started just as I was used to it, very funny. But, without wanting to give anything away to others that still want to watch it without spoilers, it turned into something completely different.
It was still great, but let me tell you, my face is red and blotchy right now and I cried almost for the whole of the show! It's about religion, spirituality and what's sacred in life and although I am not really that religious, that didn't matter. It moved me. Very much.
I guess now I can just expand my earlier statement about Glee to : It makes me laugh AND CRY.

Ok, sorry about this diversion from usual things, I just wanted to get this off my chest. I feel better now and I hope I didn't spoil anything for anyone. On to some cards...

These cards were made for two of my best crafty mates, Julie and Lesley, who came to play earlier this month and whose company makes me happy.
Julie had left a couple of things at mine when she left and I sent them
on to her and took the opportunity to slip in a card for her.

I used the "Studio Style" set by PTI, coloured with Copics and white and red cardstock. The twine ribbon is Pure Poppy by PTI. The little notelet was cut by hand and I made holes with the Crop-o-Dile before snipping them. Some light edging with Antique Linen distress ink and some glossy Accents on the button jar to finish.

Lesley let slip on the day she was here that it was her birthday the week after and because she likes frogs I made her this card:

The frog image was a freebie, but I can't find where from :-( Sorry! He is coloured with Copics and cut with a Spellbinders Label die.
The DP is from my scarp box, the scallops were cut with a PTI border die. The flowers are Primas and punched from a SU punch, buttons are PTI and pearl is from stash.
Sentiment by PTI and I inked the edges with Distress inks in Antique Linen.

Hope you like them!

Tuesday 25 January 2011

And another one...


Hello, can you believe it, it's me again. Hehe, I've been a bad blogger for so long and now I can't seem to stop posting!
Well, let's see if I can keep this up!
I had a browse around and found some challenges I liked but didn't want to worry too much about fitting loads in one card. So I decided I'd pick one for my card that fitted with the image I wanted to use and the Colour Create Challenge no. 62 of pink, blue, grey and white sounded great.

Apologies for the picture quality, I had really bad light today...
I started with a square card base cut from grey cardstock
The image is called "Star flower girl" and is part of the timeless beauties series by Tammy from A Day for Daisies. I am a big fan of Tammy's work and it's such a pleasure to colour them. I coloured with Copics and embossed a Spellbinders Nestabilities long rectangle underneath to frame my sentiment. I used leftover paper from Basic Grey to mat the image, although you can't see much of it but the colour was just perfect.
To finish I punched some fern leaf shapes with a Woodware punch and used Prima and Papermania flowers and tiny poundshop roses to embellish the left hand upper corner. I am not quite sure if it needs anything else but decided I wouldn't try my luck too much. All those flowers are out of my comfort zone anyway but lately I seem to try out more new things for me *lol*
Hope you like my card and thanks for any comments you want to leave, I love hearing from you!

Friday 21 January 2011

Multi challenge celebration card


Hello bloggers,

can you tell my new years resolution was to be more active on the old blog? Here I am again with a card I just finished this morning. And I have to say, I love it! Ifound a few challenges I liked the look/sound of and decided I challenge myself to incorporate all of them together with an image I have been itching to use. And the result is this card...

What do you think? I REALLY like it and I rarely say that about my cards.
I am entering in the following challenges:

I used one of the adorable images from A Day for Daisies, coloured with Copics, and mainly SU cardstock. The green layer was stamped with Polka Dot Basics by PTI and the sentiment is from PTI as well - Out on a limb sentiments.
Ribbon is from Pebbles and I did some handstitching next to it. The flower is punched from different punches by SU and Woodware.

Thursday 20 January 2011

Pinching...


Hello bloggers!
Last night I shamelessly pinched a card design from the extremely talented Kerry. I just love her style! This one card caught my eye especially and I asked her if I could try my hand on the design.
I didn't have the images she used and my colours are totally different but I did copy the layout basically one-to-one.

It's not nearly as good as Kerry's but I am pleased with the result.
Image is PTI - In bloom, sentiment from SU, both stamped in Hibiscus ink by PTI.
I coloured the flower inners with a white Prisma pencil and the scoring (not very visible on my photo) on the main panel was done on my MS scoreboard.
Copying someone else is really out of my comfort zone, so I am entering this card in the Passion for Papertrey challenge.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

A crafty day...

Hello bloggers!
I had a wonderful day on Saturday with my crafty friends Julie and Lesley and after a quick visit to the Glitterpot we played almost all day in my little room.
I was quite industrious and made 6 cards, can you believe it?! But admittedly, most of the images were already coloured in and waiting to be used!
Three of them use the newest images by Ruth from APassionForStamps and I hope I did them justice!





All images were coloured with Copics and I used Nesties for the mats, ribbon and flowers from stash. All sentiment stamps by PTI.
The next card is for a very dear crafty friend who just moved, hoping she doesn't see it before it arrives *hehe*

The image is from the very talented Mo Manning and coloured with Copics again. I used the very technical help of a saucer to make the card shape and twine from SU to give it a bit of a rustic feel. The scallops were done with punched circles.

This image from the wonderful Tammy at ADayForDaisies was coloured with Copics ages ago and I really wanted to use it, so this is my first christmas card for 2011! The strip of glitter s doe with DST, the scalloped edge is a PTI die and the Twine is from Anthropology. Sentiment is from a Paula Pascale set.


This image was done months ago and I didn't know what to do with it until Saturday... The background is done with Distress inks and I stamped a SU stamp on top. Sentiment is from a Personal impression stamp set. I added some tiny pearls to balance and just matted onto grey-blue card.

Lastly (I am sorry you have to endure these mega-posts after me not posting much for ages!!!) two cards I made with a challenge pack from my SU demo Joanne, who is an amazing card maker (go check out her stuff!).
One was done on Saturday, the other yesterday. Supplies almost all by SU.


Sorry about that slightly unfocused picture, I didn't realise at the time and then couldn't stand the thought of having to set up again...
Well, thanks for staying with me for so long and I hope you like what you saw! Night, night for now!

Saturday 8 January 2011

Happy new year everyone!

Hello bloggers,

just wanted to quickly pop on and wish you all a great start to the new year. I am trying to tidy my craft room at the minute and hope to get a bit of playing in later as well... :-)

HAve a good 2011!!