Eisbärenträume

Birthday Candy on my friends blog

2012-02-03T03:31:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers,

just a quick note to let you know my dear friend Lesley from Grenouillegreetings has a gorgeous candy going to celebrate her birthday (it's a special one!). Head over now to enter and have a chance to win this beautiful loot:

Leave her some love, she deserves it!

A challenged card...

2012-01-30T14:45:00.000-08:00

Can you believe this? Three posts in one day?? I think I should look out for flying pigs tonight *lol*

I have been a bit poorly and couldn't do a lot apart from sitting wrapped in blankets in my little room so I played some. First I changed my blog design which nearly made my hair fall out! It just didn't do what it was supposed to for quite some time until I figured the problem and then it was done in a few minutes. Hope you like the new look!

When this was done I looked for some challenges and I wanted to use an image from Ruth at A passion for Stamps as I had missed doing that.

Mojo Monday provided a nice sketch:

I took a little bit of liberty with the sketch, changing the square image to an oval one to soften the look a bit. With the stripes it would have been a bit too strict, I think.

I coloured the image with Copics Y17, Y15, Y11 and Y00 for the petals and G28, G24 and G21 for the leaves and stems. The blender pen was invaluable again for the highlights and I used BV000 for some blueish shadows. The background was sponged with Spun Sugar Distress Ink after die cutting but with the paper still in the nestie to give a white border. Matted onto pink scalloped oval and popped up on foam pads. Paper is My Minds Eye from the Lime Twist collection and I used some ribbon from my stash. Sentiment is from a Personal impressions set and punched before popping onto foam pads again.

Very simple card, but I am quite pleased how it turned out.

It also fits the following challenges nicely:

The Crazy Challenge - CCH # 104 Flowers

Saturday Challenge # 170 Ribbon

My Mum's Craft Shop Challenge 41 - Flowers

Creative Inspirations Challenge 147 - Anything goes

Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Anything goes

Samples from last Glitterpot Class

2012-01-30T06:01:00.000-08:00

While I was here at my blog to give you the colours for the previous card, I thought I might as well share a few more cards...
I had the pleasure of teaching a class on "Blooming Copics" recently and I haven't shared the pics with you yet. I had a wonderful day with some equally lovely people and I think they enjoyed the day as much as I did.
I went a bit overboard again with my samples (as in, making too many...) but that's me, hard to stop me when I started ;-)

This first one uses the Penny Black image "Pin-striped" and I used YR07,YR04, Y38, Y19, Y17, Y15, Y11 and Y00 as well as the blender pen on the petals. The stamen were done in Y17. Leaves and stems were coloured in YG67, YG63 and YG61 (plus blender).
I gave the hint of a shadow with T2 on the right-hand side of the flowers.
The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set called "Say it all".
I matted my image on red card and punched two slits to thread the ribbon through. The bottom part of the background is green cardstock that was embossed with the CB script folder, the paper on the top part is by Echo Park and called Victoria Gardens - Botanical Ballad. It's a lovely double-sided paper with music score on the other side that I used on some of the other cards as well.

For this card I stamped "Cheerful" by Penny Black and coloured with V17, V15, V12 (petals), Y19, Y11 (center), YG63, YG61(leaves and stem) and the blender. I then cut out the flower and pop it up with silicon glue onto the aforementioned Echo Park paper that I swiped with a bit of Tea Dye distress ink.

I cut a frame from green cardstock that I embossed with a pretty damask CB folder swiped with white ink and added some spotty lilac ribbon before adhering with foam pads.

Sentiment from Hero Arts again.

Now on to some poppies cards... The images are from the Hero Arts set called "Delicate Blossoms" and for this yellow version I used Y17, Y15, Y11, Y00 and the blender for petals, G28, G24 and G21 for stems/leaves and RV000 for the background. Matting in yellow and a die cut Marianne design branch from the same card. Sentiment from Hero Arts again, stamped in pink rather than black this time.

Backing paper (sorry, forgot the make!) was cut with the Nesting Doorplate die by X-cut.

This time I coloured my poppies in blue with B28, B26, B24, B21 and blender, stems in G29, G28, G24 and G21 and the background was dotted in C4, B24 and G24, I used C1 to blend. Green card matt, paper and sentiment as before and some ribbon loops to complement the paper.

Now some red big poppies! I used R89, R37, R35, R32 and R30 for the petals, G28, G24 and G21 for stems and B000 for background and added a bit of faux stitching to the panel before adding it to the red card panel. I heat embossed the Tim Holtz sentiment with white embossing powder and added a couple of pieces of ribbon before glueing everything to the card blank.

For this (last!) one I decoupaged the two largest flower heads but it's hard to see in the picture. You can always click on any picture to see a larger version!

The petals are coloured with R85, R83, R81 and blender, stems are YG65, YG63 and YG61 and background is Y21. Y21 is called buttercup yellow and I love this colour! I matted this panel on pink card and mounted with foam pads after first stamping the narrower image in pink ink in different heights from the top left and bottom right. The sentiment is a Tim Holtz one again.

Hope you like my cards, feel free to leave me a comment!

Copic Numbers for my tulips jar...

2012-01-30T04:30:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers,

as I have seen some of you at least want to know what colours I used to do the tulip jar image in my last post, I thought I'll oblige and give you the details on it.

Right, let's get to it:

I use the blender pen a lot as well as BV00 and BV000 for shadowing on all of it, so I won't mention those separately in every step.
For the leaves I used YG67, YG63 and YG 61.
The yellow tulips were done with Y17, Y15, Y11 and Y00 plus a little Y38 for the darker sections.
For the red tulip uses R59, R29, R27, R24, R22 and R20.
The white/yellow one is done with Y21, Y00.
The light pink one in the bottom left corner uses R81 and a tiny bit of R83.
I've done the lilac ones with V17, V15 and V12.
For the jar screw-top and the shadow on the ground I used C5, C3, C1 and C0 and for the glass BG13, BG11 and BG10.
You might not have noticed in the picture but I used B000 on the upper right background to give a hint of a backdrop as well.

Hope this helps some of you and I'll try to write down colours when I post next times right away!

P.S. Just in case you didn't know, you can always click on any pictures in my posts to see a larger version!

Is it spring already? Is it, is it? Pleaaaase...?

2012-01-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

No? Sure? Oh dear... my card is a little early then.... :-) Hope you don't mind, though.

I made this card for the meet-up earlier this month to showcase a little bit of Copic colouring. I used a couple of Stamp sets by Papertreyink and the coordinating Jar Label die for the sentiment.

The border is also a PTI die. The image was matted onto turquoise and chocolate cardstock.

Background paper is by Prima, matted onto chocolate card and the Organza ribbon is from stash.

I really should get into the habbit of taking picture of the colours I use for colouring in my images... I see that done on several blogs. Is that something you, my readers want? Let me know and if you do I'll make an effort to do it!

Here's a close-up of the focal image:

Hope you like my offering today and please leave me a comment if you do!

First cards for Hobby Art

2012-01-16T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hello there!

Surprised to see me blogging again only two days after my last post? Hehe, I intend to be better at this blog than I used to be. I know I said it before but I really am trying to be a good blogger now!

As I had promised in my last post, I have some pictures for you of cards I made with the gorgeous Hobby Art stamps. The playday had its effect on me and I really enjoyed making these.

So here we go, first up the cards I made with the artwork that I made on the Saturday at Hobby Art after the tutorial by Kim.

This was the first card I made with the faux mother of pearl technique. I used Seedless Preserves Distress ink and on top of acrylic pearly paint and stamped the script background in the same ink. I stamped the Bordered Poppies stamp in Versafine Black and coloured with several Distress Inks before glazing the flower heads with Glossy Accents.

For the background I stamped the single poppy stem from the Poppies Scene-it set all over randomly (in Dusty Concord DI) and sponged some more on the edges and the flower heads.

My main panel was wrapped with ribbons and matted onto lilac pearlescent card before mounting the whole thing onto a purple card blank.

Here is a close up of the poppies:

After lusting over the colours that Jane had used I had a go myself with those same colours, here is the result:

I really like the pop of the colours in contrast to the black card blank. I used Iced Spruce, Evergreen Bough and Scattered Straw on the image, mounted onto yellow-orange cardstock and tied some black embroidery floss around before mounting onto the card. Simple, but I love this one!

Next up was my attempt to use some Copics with the faux mother of pearl technique...

I used Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey and Mustard Seed on the background, stamped the poppies and leaves with Memento ink and coloured with Copics. I stamped the large flower heads again on some spare card and coloured them in with Copics before fussy cutting and glueing them in place. I am not quite sure if they just pop more that way or if it looks a little weird with the stark highlights on the soft backdrop...?

I matted onto red and copper metallic card before mounting onto a square cream card base that I had embossed with a square frame. The sentiment is from the Scene-it Sentiments set.

Jenny also let me have a go at the new Roses and Lilies sets and here is what I made with them:

I really fancied colouring on Kraft card again after not having done that for a while and thought these images would be nice for that. Here I used the large Lilies image and coloured it in with pencils before cutting it out with a Nestie shape and making a light green matt for it. I matted the background paper (SU) onto the same cardstock and used some yellow gingham (Papermania) for the panels behind the foam popped image. Some small pearls to add interest and sentiment from the Friends set by Hobby Arts. Not entirely happy with how that turned out as I added it after the rest of the card was finished and it didn't come out properly, but I think I can just about get away with it.

This one is the large Rose image, again stamped onto Kraft card and coloured with pencils. I went for a bit of a vintage look on this and used some lace I got from my late grandmother to frame the image. I cut it out with a Nestie oval and glued the lace behind as well as adding a bow made from it to the bottom.

For the backing paper I used more Kraft card and a large piece of lace that I layered over and airbrushed onto the card with Light Walnut Copic. When you remove the lace afterwards you get this lovely soft image of the lace. I lightly distressed the edges to add to the effect and mounted the whole thing onto a black card base.

For my last card I used the same image again but this time used Copics to colour, cutting out with a Nestie circle die and mounting with a yellow scalloped circle. Background paper is that yellow gingham again, layered onto pink card before mounting on to a white square card base. Sentiment is from the Friends set again.

Hope you like my offering for today, I'll be back with more cards soon, promise!

Exciting news!

2012-01-14T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

Another quick post from me again, haven't got anything to show you today (but some cards are waiting to be photographed in better light so should be posting again soon!), but as the news are out elsewhere I thought I'd shout it out here as well ;-)
I am very honoured to say I have been invited to be a part of the lovely Jenny Mayes' Design Team for Hobby Art! I have met Jenny a few times in the Glitterpot and she is such a lovely lady! Last weekend she had arranged a little crafty play day and I was very happy to be invited. It turned out to be a very enjoyable and inspirational day and I got to meet some more extremely talented ladies as well as see Jenny and the wonderful Jane Gill again. Kim Reygate showed us a great technique to make faux mother of Pearl backgrounds, I probably put on two pounds just by looking at the food that Jenny had put on the table and
all that talent around me made my mojo just do somersaults as I couldn't stop creating afterwards *lol*
I'll try to get some pics done of my creations from the play day and my frantic creating time after as soon as my family gives me more than five minutes to catch up on my blogging.

ANYWAY.... I am sooo pleased! I already own a few of the Hobby Arts sets and admired most of them before and now I can't wait to get to play with all the new sets as well! Woohoo :-)

Give away!

2012-01-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie from me: Ruth on A Passion for Stamps has a great giveaway going at the moment:

You can win these Promarkers plus 5 of her fab digi images!

Pop over to her blog HERE and follow the simple steps to be in with a chance to win.

Good Luck!

At long last

2011-12-05T05:52:00.000-08:00

Hello there,

I am sorry that I have been absent again for so long. Despite my best intentions I never seem to get round to do the blogging.
Last Saturday was my last class at the Glitterpot for this year (although if you want to attend one of my classes, the January and February ones are up on the website now and you can book now, some are already filling fast!) and I really enjoyed the day with some lovely ladies! I went a bit mad on the sample front but decided to just go with it and prepare the packs so everyone could do any (although not all) card out of the bits provided. It was quite interesting to see which ones people chose to do!
The class was a colouring with Copics one with a focus on nature and landscape. So without further palaver, here are my samples. For the "landscape" part of the session I made these cards:

For these ones I used a couple of Hobbyart sets (Scene it toppers and Flypast) and Echo Park paper "Sweet Stripes" as well as Personal Impressions Sentiment stamps.
Other materials used: White and coloured/textured cardstock, Vellum, buttons from stash( I think they are Basic Grey) a Spellbinders Label die and of course Copics! I stamped onto Craftwork Cards Premium Digital Paper with Memento ink, Sentiments stamped in Versafine in black and sepia and I distressed the edges of the paper and labels with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

For the "nature" part I used a lovely crocus stamp set by Imagination Crafts.

As you can see, I went a bit overboard, just couldn't stop using these *lol*
Apart from the stamp set which includes the sentiments and single crocus image as well as the large tile image I used white and coloured, glittered and textured cardstock, Echo Park "Yellow Damask" paper, some ribbon & ricrac, vellum, clear gemstones and again ink, paper and Copic pens as above. The decorative edge on the first card was achieved by using a label punch repeatedly on the edge of the paper to create the border.

That's it for now, hope you like my cards and thanks if you decide to leave a comment!

A great give-away!

2011-10-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

I have been soooo busy with my life in general and my crafting (for classes) in particular, that blogging has been on the back-burner for a while. Hope you haven't forgotten me and deserted?!

Anyway, I have a fab give-away to announce that the lovely and generous Ruth of A Passion for Stamps is doing. You have until the 5th November to enter to win 5 digis of your choice from Ruths great selection and the rules are very simple:

a) be a follower of A Passion for Stamps (EXISTING or NEW!!)
b) post the pic above in your sidebar with a link to the blog
c) leave a comment on the post (on A Passion for Stamps ) saying why you'd like to win the 5 digis

Go here to enter: Digi give-away

Good luck!

I also have tons of cards and a couple of other projects to share. As I said I have been very busy... But for now, I'll leave you to this give-away and share with you later!

A quick birthday card

2011-08-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were invited to the 40th birthday picnic for a friend/co-worker of his. I didn't have time to do a card before so had to do it yesterday morning before heading out which left me about an hour. I basically created with what was on my desk and am quite pleased with the outcome. Thankfully she liked it, too. Phew!

Papers, cardstock, ink, stamps and the single pearl are all SU, die for the panel on the side and the single flower and the grass (upper, fussy-cut) are by PTI, seam binding from stash.

Thanks for dropping in again and hope you like tonights offering. I am off to prepare tonights class.

Holiday pics - tune out if you like!

2011-08-22T05:35:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

as I said before, you can now ~~endure~~ enjoy some pics from my recent holiday to Portugal. We had a wonderful time and the kids were mostly good as gold. We spent the holiday together with my in-laws and my brother-in-law with his little family, everyone enjoyed it a lot!
Now without much further ado, some impressions:

My boys on the beach, aren't they sweet?

Vasco da Gama tower, Lisbon expo

Riding the hill train in Lisbon

The big and little kids...

my little family

Posing for mum

Go-carting in front of the Ozeanarium in Lisbon

one of the many beautiful flowers we saw

Obidos - beautiful old city where you can walk all around the city wall

Hubby playing for the camera, but he really is afraid of heights... *lol*

Streetview in Obidos

One of the many azulejos you find in Portugal - this is the entrance gate into Obidos

Magnificent old till in a shop in Obidos

My gorgeous boy :-)

little old me in the sunset...

Both my gorgeous ones again

Three generations of pool-jumpers in matching trunks

*Lol * you're still here? Well done! Thanks for looking and I promise I'll post a card later today!

Hello again... have you missed me?

2011-08-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

sorry I have been missing again and I feel terrible for letting the blogging slip again, but life has a funny way of getting in the way with children, husband, extended family and friends as well as mundane things like houshold chores and work demanding my attention.

I am happy to say I have still been able to craft here and there but not much picture taking and therefore no blogging was possible.

I am very lucky to be on the DT for Ruth of A Passion for Stamps because not only is she very talented but she is also very kind and understanding when I don't get to create with her lovely new images.

I had a little bit of time today to do some pleasure crafting and had a play with one of her new images - "Sweet Pea". It's gorgeous and I was itching to try it out. I also have seen some people playing with the "disappearing lines" technique and gave it a go with this image. I printed with the opacity of the lines down to 20% and coloured with Copics and coloured pencils.

I am quite happy with result and want to investigate this effect some more soon. I traced the shape of the PTI Mat Stack 3 die around the image and cut it out with scissors fussy cutting the buds to the side. The Sentiment is also by PTI and I created a faux mat around the panel by placing the die onto the lavender mat and tracing with a Versamark pen and brushing over with gold Perfect Pearls. The shimmer is glorious in real life but doesn't really show in the picture I am afraid. This was an addaptation of the current Make it Monday on Nichole Heady's blog, they do it with glitter instead of Perfect Pearls but I hope this qualifies as well.
I drew the lines on the side and top with the Versamark Pen as well, mounted the panel with foam pads for dimension and adhered to a card blank.

The card is actually only 10,5 x 10,5cm small as I was in the mood for a small notecard.

I am entering my card in the following challenges:
Make it Monday no.50 - Anything goes
Addicted to Stamps challenge no. 10 - Anything goes

Hope you like this card and I shall be back with some (more like loads!) of pictures of my recent holiday to Portugal. I got some fab pictures of my boys and some rather unfortunate ones of myself which helped me make my mind up about joining a slimming group next week! I will deliberate over wether to show you these or not *lol*

Workshop cards

2011-06-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

many thanks for your kind comments on my accident(s)! I am due to go to the doctors today to have a check-up on my head. Hope all is ok.
And my evening out with hubby was wonderful. We ate at a really nice restaurant that's not too far away called "The ginger fox". Their food is outstanding. We shared two starters of Tempura cuttlefish with cucumber and a soy/chili/coriander dressing and beefsteak carpaccio with marinated beetroot and horseradish sauce. I think I could just work my way through their starters and would always be happy. Mains were duck breast on crushed new potatoes, peas, samphire and black pudding for hubby and rib eye steak with garlic and paprika butter served with dripping chips and chargrilled strips of courgette. Yum! Hubby finished with a cheeseboard but I refrained from a pudding as I was feeling quite satisfied with what I had. A lovely chilean Pinot Noir washed everything down nicely.

Enough of this mouthwatering description, on to some cards.

One of my first workshops in the Glitterpot was an all-day Copic Introduction for Beginners. I chose to work on some Hero Arts flowers from a cling stamp set and a Penny Black wooden stamp. It gives people more options colour-wise, is quicker than more complex images and results can easily be made into quick cards.

Saying that, only one person in the class actually made a card during the workshop, everyone else was perfectly content on just colouring all day. I really enjoyed this class and hope my attendees had fun, too.

Here are the samples I had made up, showcasing how o create matching backgrounds as well as the colouring with Copics. The first one is clear embossed, the next two were stamped and outlined with markers. On the last card I used some masking to create a focal frame.

I'd love to know what you think!

P.S. Sorry for the picture quality recently, I took the pics next to a window for some daylight and got rather more of it than I bargained for *lol* Hope you can still see everything well enough!

Do things really come in threes?

2011-06-11T00:59:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers!

I really hope things come in threes, because that should mean I am through with some bad stuff for now!

About 3 weeks ago I fell down the stairs and got a rather large bruise on my behind as well as two smaller ones on my back and arm to show for it. The a few days ago I accidently bit very hard onto a fork and one of my front teeth crumbled a bit. Thankfully it only felt weird for a couple of days and now it's only a little chip that's come off (although I suspect the tooth is more fragile now...).

Well and now, on Thursday afternoon I had an accident in the bathroom. I hit the top of my head with the door handle while coming up from crouching and our door handles are kind of square with sharp corners. Ouch! I cursed a bit but thought not that much of it until I felt blood pouring out. As I couldn't see anything on top of my head I asked a friend from round the corner to look at it and she nearly gagged (but she is not good with blood and wounds to be honest *lol*). She pursuaded a very reluctant me to go to hospital where I was told it was good I had come in because it needed to be glued. So there, here I am now hoping, that's it for a while. Hate the thought of not being able to properly wash my hair for 4-5 days, only water, no shampoo. And brushing is hard, too as I have to avoid that area.

But enough now with the self-pity. I have some more stuff to show you later today from my classes and maybe I'll show you my husbands birthday card and gift wrapping as well. He turned 39 yesterday and we had a nice but uneventful day. And since he doesn't read my blog I can tell you, he's going to be taken out for a nice meal tonight. I told him, I am going on a Girls Night Out, but my girlfriend is coming to babysit, not pick me up ;-)

Glitterpot demo day cards - part 2

2011-06-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

today I am sharing the rest of the cards I made for the May demo days. These were all done with floral Penny Black stamps and Copics. I even snuck in a crochet flower I did out of some Basic Grey (I think) fibres I had lying around and made a couple of Easel cards, including my first circular one. Not much else to say about them, any questions, just ask :-)
And here we are:

Again, click on any image to see a larger version.

Glitterpot demo day cards

2011-06-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers!

I know I have been rather quiet for a long while but that doesn't mean I haven't been making anything. Quite to the contrary actually. I have been making lots of samples for the Glitterpot demo days and for classes and thought I really ought to share a few of them with you all.
As there are so many I'll group them and share them bit by bit. Today I'm gonna show you a few Tilda cards I have made for the Spring Spectacular Demo Days in the Glitterpot on the last May weekend. I really enjoyed demonstrating and have just confirmed I'll be doing it again in September!
And here are my cards:

Click on any image to enlarge them.
I haven't done Tilda cards for ages before this as I had gone off them for a while, but doing these reminded me again of how great they are to colour. I have been using Happy Spring Tilda, Running Tilda, King Tilda and Castle Window. I used a masking technique to get Tilda to look out of the window. All imagesa re coloured with Copics and on the purpley one I used Copics (and DST plus glitter) to make the backing paper. On the last one I used a Copic refill to dye the seam binding ribbon to match the card.
The castle shape was cut by hand from grey cardstock and I sponged on Pumice Stone Distress Ink over a Post-it note mask to get the stone effect, enhanced by a bit of fine black pen. I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory but if you have any questions, as always, feel free to ask!

Bye for now, need to cook the kids dinner...

Bad, bad blogger - again!

2011-05-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

I have been a bad blogger again and didn't post for over a month! I won't bore you with too much reasoning why, my life just has been (and still is) pretty busy. My workshops at home are going well and need prep work done and same with workshops for the Glitterpot. Just been there today for the first day of the Spring Spectacular demoing and it was fun. I am really enjoying working there but it means something had to give and rather than my family life I decided the blog could wait. I hope my readers understand.

I have been making cards all the time though and today I quickly want to share three of them. The first one was made for the Less is more challenge about 4 weeks ago ( I know....!) where the challenge was "Thank you". Never made it in time to take a picture and post it but like it anyway. It's one of Ruth's digis again, her flowers are just lovely!

I coloured the Rhododendron with Copics and stamped the sentiment, then drew the frame with a black pen.

Because I liked this layout I made two more cards with it for my mother and mother in law for mothers day (second Sunday in May):

The text is computer generated, the magnolia and camelia are coloured with Copics again.

Hope to be back with more soon! Thanks for stopping by!

Less is more!

2011-04-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers!
I am SOOOO busy right now, it's crazy! But it's all great stuff!
I got my craft club running and have two classes this week, one was on Monday and the next is tomorrow night. Preparations are all done so it's not too bad but I also got a deadline for my next publication in Creativity! and need to send this off this week as well as my first workshop in the Glitterpot on Saturday.
I am thrilled to be teaching there, but it's daunting to start a new venture. I'll keep you updated on how it goes if you want to know that...
Now on to something more fun than my ramblings... a card for the Less is more challenge. This week it's a one-layer card that focuses on the sentiment. I've been itching to try my hand on one of their challenges, I am very much a LIM girl at heart, maybe sometimes even a little too minimalist. Can't seem to do those beautiful cards with loads of embellishments without it looking silly... maybe I need to try more?
Another thing I've been itching to do is colour the gorgeous crab apple blossom from Ruth of A Passion for Stamps. It's just so nice, but I wasn't sure I could incorporate it into this challenge easily. I first did this card:

But it doesn't really do the image justice and looks a bit cobbled together... so back to the drawing board.

I printed the image with only 50% opacity to lighten it and wanted to overstamp after colouring with Coloursoft pencils. But even at 50% it looked a bit too dark so I had an idea that I am quite pleased with now, although it's strictly speaking not a one-layer card anymore: I cut a sheet of vellum to fit over the card to soften the image and stamped the sentiment (Stampin up, on both cards) on the vellum with Staz-on ink.

I am very happy how it looks and hope it still qualifies for the challenge at Less is more!

The challenge on the Paper Variety blog is flowers, which fits so I am also entering it in this one.

Thanks for looking and even more if you choose to leave a comment!

A day for daisies card

2011-04-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

Hello again ;-)

I want to share a card today that I created a little while ago to send to a blogging friend in the US. I have heard now that it has arrived safely and can share it now.

The lady I was sending it to, Vera, is on the ADFD (a day for daisies) DT and I had been dying to use this beauty for a while, so this was the perfect opportunity. I kept it simple to let the picture speak and think it works really well. Here is a close-up:

I coloured the image with Copics and mounted on to red card. The flowers and leaves were punched with punches courtesy of my dear friend Lesley (I made the card at her house at our last play day) and the sentiment is by PTI. The embossed frame was done with my Scor-pal. Not much more to say really, it's a fairly simple card... Hope you like it!

Spring is in the air!

2011-03-31T15:34:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

have you missed me?? *lol* I have been away to visit my parents and an aunt who celebrated her 80th birthday last week. It was a very busy week for me with lots of travelling, organising etc. but fun, too! I got to see my parents which was lovely and my mum spoilt me rotten. She cooked my favourite foods, took me shopping and eating ice cream!
But now it's time to go back to "work" and show you a couple of cards I did. Spring has come to this part of England, everywhere there are flowers and colours and lovely smells so I couldn't resist to use these images from Ruth's new release of digis.
Tulips being my favourite flower it was easy to decide to go for that one and I love the look of the Hyacinth as well so had to make a card with that one, too.

The paper I used is by Papermania, as is the ribbon. I paperpieced the blossoms witha Basic Grey paper (Eva collection) and shaded with Copics. The rest is coloured with Copics as well. Pearls are by SU and I used a Fiskars punch on the tulip card and a MS punch (butterfly) on the Hyacinth card as well as a scalloped border die by PTI. Sentiments are both by PTI.

I am entering into these challenges:
Totally Gorjuss - Challenge 73: Spring has sprung
Prairie Fairy Friday - Oh so spring
Sew many challenges - Challenge 48: Spring fling
Stamp Something - Spring
Creative Stamp Friends - Spring
Stamps R Us - Celebrate spring
Creative Inspirations Paint - Inspired by Flowers

Really quick birthday set...

2011-03-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hi there bloggers!
Yesterday my little one was invited to a birthday party and although I did get the presents in the morning, I had other things on so I only had about 45 minutes to make a card and wrap the presents.
A bit of a challenge but it worked out fine I think as I made the card in super-speedy 10 minutes and made gift tags to match in a few minutes as well which left me with a good 20 minutes to wrap the presents and grab my kids to head off *lol*

I used the Mat stack one die as well as the By the Numbers die from PTI, the star punches are Fiskars and SU, the large oval is a punch by SU. Papers are Papermania Capsule Collection Blueberry Pie and I used some ribbon from my stash. Stamps are by PTI, Big Birthday wishes and Border and Corners Ovals.

As I said, it was very quick, but not too bad, what do you think?

Angelwoods gorgeous Candy!

2011-03-14T04:08:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

I just stumbled upon this gorgeous blog and not only are there amazing cards to be found, there is also a supersweet candy-give away! You have until the 18th April to enter to be eligible to win one of 3 (yes, not one, three!) lots of candy.
Here are the pics for you to see:

Hop on over to Angelwood to see her blog, you won't regret it!

Late Valentines

2011-03-11T16:04:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers,

no, you are reading right, I am still here and I am posting a valentine project! *lol*
I did this project with my craft club just before Valentines Day and because there were a few that didn't want to go all lovey-dovey, I made the same project in different colours as well. It went down really well with everyone but I completely forgot to take pictures... Have done that now and want to share. Hope you like them!

This is the large envelope bag:

This is the small one:

And the card to go with it:

And the little hanging basket/heart with rolled roses:

And the alternative colours/ theme:

I am off to meet my mateys tomorrow, so it's gonna be a crafty day - yeahh!! ;-)

Easter set

2011-03-02T14:59:00.000-08:00

Hi bloggers,
it's me again. My second post for today shows you some more of Ruth's recent new releases over on A Passion for Stamps.
I couldn't decide which of these sweet images to choose for my easter cards so I made a set and used all of them.

I kept it very simple and just printed them straight onto the card together with a computer generated sentiment and coloured with SU markers and Copics. Just the thing to make a batch of easter cards quickly. Hope you like them.

I am entering them into these challenges:
Crazy challenge - Here comes spring
Wild Orchid Challenge - Anything goes
Incy Wincy Designs - Spring is in the air
Fab'n Funky Challenges - Spring into action

Spring-time!!

2011-03-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers,

Ruth from A Passion for Stamps has got a few new digis out and I couldn't resist this lovely snowdrop image from her spring flowers release. It just is beautiful!

I used a plain white card base that I embossed with polka dots (Papermania embossing folder) and then just coloured the images with Copics and decoupaged some of the petals to give it dimension on the card. I raised the panel with foam dots and added some detail with piercing an edge around the panel. The ribbon is from Stampin' up, as is the sentiment.
Here is another view so you can see the dimension a bit better:

As I also wanted to play with my new PTI goodies I thought a little bag with those snowdrops would be nice, so I made this:

I printed the snowdrops and coloured them, then cut out with my new mat stack die. I put another SU stamped sentiment on and adhered it to the front of the Favor-it box (also PTI).
Here is the back, where I used my new blooms dies from PTI:

I am entering this into the following challenges:
Papertake weekly - Anything goes
Paper Romance Challenges - Anything goes
Guylous Inimitability - Anything goes
Fun at Fairy Knoll - Feeling a little green
Little Claires Designs - Anything goes
Sentimental Sundays - Anything goes
Dream Valley Challenge - Anything goes
Woodware USA Clear Stamps - Anything goes
House of Gilli - Use green
One Stop Craft Challenge - Spring flowers

I feel like I am cheating a bit with all these "anything goes" challenges, but what the heck *lol*

Awards, awards :-) number three!

2011-02-28T05:24:00.000-08:00

Hi, it's me again... I didn't get to post the third award yesterday, kids getting in the way *lol* Why can't they live without food and drink and entertainment for a few days, he?? *g*

Well, here we go, this is the lovely award I got from Moni

The rules are similar to the last one, thank the person you got the award from, tell 7 things about yourself (will be hard to think of more stuff...) and pass it to 15 bloggers (OMG, that's a lot!).

7 things about me:

1. I am quite generous, I like to give stuff to people that I think they like just because I love giving... or maybe I just like it when people are happy?

2. I can't stand the taste of banana and I hate the taste of coffee but love the smell.

3. I often start things because I got ideas flooding my brain and then don't finish as something else has come up that I want to try/do.

4. I am bad at keeping secrets unless they are important or I have promised someone to keep it. I will probably tell someone if it's something I just wanted to keep to myself. How stupid, eh?

5. I've got a degree in graphic design and wanted to become an illustrator for children's books...

6. I could happily spend days on days in my craft room just colouring, only to emerge for food, drink and to use the loo/go to sleep!

7. I am devastated (well that's a bit harsh, but I really hate it) that I don't seem to have a proper cardmaking style but flit from one thing to the other without being able to do one style properly.

Now to the really hard part, passing it on to 15 bloggers...

I won't say anything about them apart from "go and check them out" as they are all fab and you won't regret it!

1. Julie

2. Squirrel

3. Ohneilly

4. Christine

5. Jennifer

6. Joey

7. Meahni

8. Carole

9. Sharon

10. Bev

11. Kathleen

12. Ikki

13. Rachel

14. Julie

15. Caz

Awards, awards :-) Number two

2011-02-27T02:55:00.000-08:00

Well, as I said earlier, I have been blessed with more than just one award and the second one came from the lovely Carol of Apples & Pears.

It's this one

and I am really chuffed to be considered "stylish"!

The rules for this award are:

Make a post linking back to the person who gave you the award

Share 7 random things about yourself

Award 7 recently discovered bloggers with this award

Contact these bloggers and tell them they’ve won the award

Well here are 7 completely random things about me:

1. Ever now and again, I have a sudden urge to clean and tidy and go really mad with it, actually moving about everything to get everywhere and throwing out stuff to declutter. And then I accumulate again for ages.... *lol*

2. My favourite food is sushi, but being a proper foodie, you can delight me with almost any kind of food.

3. I can live without chocolate but I can't live without proper bread (and I mean proper like sourdough with crunchy crusts and dense inners. (Told you I am a foodie ;-) )

4. I am a gleek (might have mentioned that before... )

5. I like watching a few other TV programmes and get quite into them, can't miss a thing! Some of my favourites are Silent Witness, Being Human, Dr Who, Misfits...

6. I don't like going outside much, which is hard as I got kids and they need to go out so I force myself to.

7. I had a scrabble evening last night with friends who only live round the corner. It was fab and the best part: our kids had a sleep-over at theirs and I had a lie-in! Lucky me! Got to go and pick them up in a minute...

These are the stylish blogs I'm passing the award on to:

1. Dorcas from Dorcas Designs

2. Vera from L ings happy place

3. Chrissie from Simply one of a kind

4. Mandi from E nchanted Occasions

5. Marlene from Disguised as a Grown-up

6. Nici from C oops cluttered corner

7. Carol from Carols Crafty Corner

I'm off to tell these Ladies about this now. Will be back later with my third award...

Award, awards :-) Number one

2011-02-27T02:12:00.000-08:00

Seems like someone likes me after all *lol* In the past couple of weeks I have received 3 lovely awards from fellow bloggers and I haven't had a chance to blog them yet. So I am going to try catching up a bit now and hope for the best.

The first one I got from my lovely friend Kathleen is this one:

The idea behind this award is to promote little-known blogs to a wider audience.

In accepting this award, I must agree to the following:

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.

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.

Well, I always have trouble choosing only a few blogs as there are so many wonderful places that inspire me and I am sure most of them must have had these awards already. But because I have to get through three today I will keep this short and sweet!

-Lesley from GrenouilleGreetings has become a true friend to me and her blog is always worth a look! She never stops amazing me with her creative imagination and the little details she puts into her artwork!

-I know for sure that Kerry of ALoadOfOldPickle has this award, because Kathleen has awarded her, too, but she is a big inspiration for me, too. Her style is very CAS which I love and I even cased her before... *lol* (and she is a very kind and generous person, too!)

-Julie from CatchMeCrafting is another of those fab bloggers that never cease to amaze me! And she is one of the best crafty friends you can imagine. I am giddy to say that I am going to meet her and Lesley again very soon for a crafty play day!

My crochet flowers...

2011-02-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

Hi bloggers, just a quickie from me, I am off to take the boys out.
Here are the flowers and a head band I crocheted when I was in bed with a virus the other day. I am much better although not completely back to normal.
Excuse the pics of me wearing the headband, these were taken by my 6 year old... I think considering his age they turned out really well! Just the subject is hideous *lol*
Hope you like them!

I am tucked away in bed...

2011-02-19T05:22:00.000-08:00

Hello my lovely bloggers!
I am stuck in bed at the moment with a really nasty stomach virus that my darling husband decided to share with me *Yeurgh* I feel really ill and whenever I try to get up after a few steps I need to sit/lie down again. But hubby got over it quickly in about 2 days so I hope it won't be long.
There is an upside to it, too. Being stuck in bed I got to play around with some crochet hook and yarn and made my first flowers! All thanks to the wonderful Dorcas who posted some of her homemade crochet flowers together with some videos on stitches. Being german I couldn't make heads or tails from the tutorials I'd seen before, although I do know the basics of crochet. Dorcas however posted videos that explain which is which and a list of abbreviations and the differences between english and american stitch names. Now I am all clued up I can't stop making them.
I finished a little head band earlier and will now start to decorate it, if I am pleased with the outcome I will share pictures!

A tag for you...

2011-02-17T06:17:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers!

Whoo, I had a busy week! Last weekend I had the pleasure of hosting my third annual Sale-a-Bration Stampin up party in my house with the lovely Joanne of mainly-flowers blog fame! She is a truly talented crafter and such a nice person to boost. We had a blast doing our make and take and my lovely friends spent enough so I could grab myself some freebies - I love freebies *lol* (who doesn't?)
I also had some crafting-club fun with my ladies where we made envelope-gift-bags and hanging baskets of love and a card to match. Haven't taken pics yet but will, promise!

Today I want to share something I rarely do, a tag. I am a lover of Papertrey ink goods and the Passion for Papertrey blog asked for a tag in their challenge as did Simon says stamp challenge did too, so here I am with my little tag that will soon find it's way onto a card, I'm sure!

Supplies:
Library card stamp - PTI
Sentiment - part image from "Floral frenzy, PTI
Flourish - "Fancy Flourishes", PTI
Felt butterfly- felt in Ocean Tides by PTI, cut with a Cuttlebug die and stamped with "Background Basics:Text", PTI
Kraft and Rustic cream cardstock - PTI
Spotted ribbon - PTI
Antique lace - from my grandmothers stash!
Ink - Versafine Vintage Sepia and TH Distress Inks in Antique Linnen

The little banner was snipped by hand...

I am entering this in the following challenges:
Simon says stamp and show - Show a tag
Simon says stamp - Create your own embellishment
A Passion for Papertrey - Tag you're it!

Hope you like my little tag and hope to see you soon again on my little blog!

2nd Mo Manning card for teenager

2011-02-11T10:57:00.000-08:00

Back again... ;-)

For this card I matted the image (Copics again) onto dark blue cardstock and added the rounded tap punch out (SU) which was stamped with a star and sentiment by PTI. The light blue card was embossed with a Fiskars embossing plate (music notes) and edged with Faded Jeans Distress Ink. The base of the card was stamped with a music note stamp from Impression Obsession in Not quite Navy ink by SU and edged with Faded Jeans again. I wrapped a bit of twine around a corner to finish.

I am entering this into these challenges:

Bearly Mine - #3 - For Men or Boys

Delightful Challenges - Get Punchy

Samuel Taylors - Copic Chic/Promarker Gal

Craft Your Passion - #44 - Anything Goes

One Stitch At A Time - #48 - Do It With A Digi

Catch The Bug - Anything Goes

Copic Creations - #43 - We're Cool

Little Claire's Designs - #1 - Anything Goes

Stampin' With The Dragon - #19 - Anything Goes

Fuzzy Wuzzy - #6 - Birthday Wishes

Hope you like them and as always, thank you if you choose to leave a comment!

Just noticed I didn't keep it that brief actually... sorry ;-)

Edit: Oops, didn't realise you had to use animals as the subject for Fuzzy Wuzzy... it would help to read those posts properly, wouldn't it?

Teenage Boys Cards curtsey of Mo Manning

2011-02-11T10:50:00.000-08:00

Hi bloggers,

my little one has been very poorly yesterday and gave his bug to me, so I keep this brief as I have a blazing headache...
I had to make 2 birthday cards for teenage boys, one a keen gamer and the other for a music lover, Mo's digital pencil had the perfect images and as I had them coloured ages ago (I mean months, not weeks!) it was very quick work as well!

I used a Basic Grey paper for the background and mounted the cut out image (which was coloured with Copics) with foam pads to give a bit of depth. The sentiment is by PTI and stamped onto white card that I distressed with Antique Linen Distress Inks. The border on the side was cut by hand with a homemade template. I pricked holes and added faux stitching as well as distressing again with Distress Inks in Antique Linen.

I am entering this in these challenges:

Bearly Mine - #3 - For Men or Boys

Samuel Taylors - Copic Chic/Promarker Gal

Craft Your Passion - #44 - Anything Goes

One Stitch At A Time - #48 - Do It With A Digi

Catch The Bug - Anything Goes

Little Claire's Designs - #1 - Anything Goes

Stampin' With The Dragon - #19 - Anything Goes

Fuzzy Wuzzy - #6 - Birthday Wishes

As I can't post both cards into the same challenge if it's in the same post, I'll repost the second card in a minute....

Papertrey Ink festivities...

2011-02-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers,

you might have noticed that I am a bit of a PTI nut *lol*

Well, they are celebrating their 4th anniversary and there are some contests, and those prizes are just to die for!!! Anyway, I thought I'd join in the fun and hope I might be picked for a prize. Wouldn't that be just fabulous?
Anyway, here goes...
Make it Monday cards, requiring the use of several sentiments from different sets to make a card, I made these two:

My pictures still don't come up too great but it'll have to do as both my kids are home ill and I simply don't have the time for long set ups etc.

Update: I have retaken the pictures and they look a bit better now...

Today there is also a challenge to use buttons in a "new" way. Well, it's not that new what I did but it is for me, as I never did it before.

The colours on this look wrong on the pic, they are Ripe Avocado and Melon Berry in real life, but light/camera are not playing nicely...

Update: I have retaken this picture as well and it is a bit better but the ribbon still looks like two different colours?

Hope you like?

Thank god for brains!

2011-02-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers,

I finally managed to get five minutes to think about why my computer wouldn't get the pics of my camera and it dawned on me to try a different cable, as I couldn't think of anything else that could be faulty/checked everything else. So, hubby gave me - grudgingly- the cable from his external hard drive and voila! It was the cable! Thank god, that's easily and cheaply put right!
So, without much further ado, here are the baby shower gifts, the card and the nappy cake I cooked up last minute (do I ever do anything NOT last minute?). Again, sorry for the bad pics, it isn't that easy for me to take pics in bad light... (Excuses, excuses I hear you say!)

First off, the nappy cake. I did remember to take pics before wrapping it in cellophane, but it looks much better in real life than on the pictures - you just need to believe that ;-)

The roses are rolled socks and I put some baby wash, bath & lotion on the top tier.

Next, I made favour bags for all the guests and they looked like that:

They were made from envelopes I had lying around... Inside I put some chocolates and a couple of handmade gifts. One was a little mini album with cute windows/flaps/tabs and the other a phone charm made with shrink plastic.

It's hard to see but it's a tiny tea pot made with a PTI die and stamp.

And lastly I made a card for the hostess with a wonderful image by Mo Manning, sorry for the image quality (or lack of... I really should learn how to take better pictures!). She was coloured with Copics and the text was stamped with a PTI alphabet set and coloured as well.

Thanks for popping by and hope to see you here soon again!

I'm still here...

2011-02-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers,

I have got a few pics to share with you of baby shower things I made last week, but unfortunately my camera is playing up a bit and I can't connect it to my laptop at the moment. I will try again tomorrow to hopefully show the nappy cake and shower favours as well as card I made.
Hope you'll come to have a peep!

Kids birthdays...

2011-01-31T03:53:00.000-08:00

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!

No card today...

2011-01-28T12:25:00.000-08:00

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.

I have a confession...

2011-01-26T02:05:00.000-08:00

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!

And another one...

2011-01-25T11:58:00.001-08:00

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!

Love is all you need...

2011-01-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers,

I am back with a challenge card featuring the beautiful image "Hug" by Ruth from A Passion for Stamps.

I cut the image out -after colouring with Copics- with Spellbinders circle dies and matted on pink card. The sentiment is computer generated and printed onto white card, matted with pink again. I used SU punches for the sentiment and mat.

Papers are Basic Grey - Eva collection (Duchesse and Courtier) and the flowers were given to me by my lovely friend Julie, aren't they gorgeous? It was really hard to use them actually, I tend to hoard beautiful things rather than use it... The leaves were done with a Woodware punch.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Crafty Cardmakers - Floral

Wild Orchid Challenges - Sentimental

My Grafico - Anything goes

Cute Card Thursday - 123 recipe (1 image, 2 papers, 3 flowers)

Dutch Dare - Sketch

Basic Grey Challenges - Flowers

Hope you like my offering today and thank you if you choose to leave a comment, always appreciated!

Multi challenge celebration card

2011-01-21T03:55:00.000-08:00

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:

Simon says stamp and show - Polka dots

Digital Tuesday Challenge - tropical warmth

Sweet Sketch Wednesday - sketch 85

Creative Inspiration - Celebrate

Truly Scrumptious - Pink, Brown and Green

Delightful Sketches - Celebration

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.

Pinching...

2011-01-20T14:47:00.000-08:00

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.

A crafty day...

2011-01-18T15:08:00.000-08:00

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!

Happy new year everyone!

2011-01-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

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!!

I know, I know...

2010-12-28T14:29:00.000-08:00

I am a bad, bad blogger. Just can't get myself to be organised enough to do everything I need AND blog. Sorry!!

I have been one busy bee all of december! And I did sooo much I want to show and half of it I didn't even have a chance to take a picture of! Am I b**ed or what? *lol*

But firstly I want to show you what I did before when I was missing in action.

Well, the result of it anyway, the stall I had on the christmas fair. Tell me what you think...

Now, without any info at all, because it is late, I am tired and just can't face typing all the supplies etc. But if you see something you like and want to know more, please just ask and I'll happily help.

This birthday card is for a dear friend whose birthday is tomorrow but as she has no internet at the moment I think it's safe to show it :-)

Sorry about the quality of most of the pictures, I took them in a hurry as they were for a special "occasion" that I don't dare talk about yet :-) Hopefully I can talk/write about it soon...

Right, I am off now, watch a little telly (Overboard is on, with Goldie Hawn, love that movie!) and then bed. Night night bloggers!

Two cards...

2010-12-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

Hello again,

it didn't quite happen to post again the next day but here are a couple of cards I did recently...

I had a christmas fair and it took a bit of my time. Maybe I can share a few pics of the fair with you soon.

This first card is made with a lovely Hanglar stamp coloured with Copic markers. The background was stamped with SU frost white fluid ink onto white card and coloured with Distress inks afterwards. Unfortunately I can't remember where I got the stamp from, it's an unmounted red rubber I bought from the US but can't remember the name, sorry!

The scalloped border is cut from Core'dinations with a PTI die. The mat is also Core'dinations and the ribbon is adhesive backed ribbon from Martha Stewart Crafts. Sentiment is from the PTI set "Signature Greetings" from Dawn McVey.

This next card is rather simple and I took inspiration from a card I saw on a blog a little while ago. Unfortunately I can't remember which one it was, if you know, please let me know so I can give credit! I cut the nativity scene on my cricut and I stamped a greeting on white card and stuck it to the front. The stamp is from the PTI set "A wreath for all seasons" and I drew lines to anchor it on the card.

I hope you like my offerings today and come back soon for more!

New wintery look...

2010-11-30T15:29:00.000-08:00

Hello bloggers, yes, I know I hardly ever show my face here anymore.. *hangsheadinshame*

It's sooo busy in my house you wouldn't believe! But I like it that way if I am honest. Keeps me on my toes and I get more done... but I have neglected my blog as I figured it was less important than my "real life", hope that doesn't offend anyone *lol*

Anyway, I hope to be back more now and to start off right I changed the look of my blog to something a bit seasonal. Quite like it but can't figure out how to fit the header exactly... It'll have to do like that for now.

Hope to be back tomorrow with a card or two, for now I am off to bed to nurse my cold!

Want to win Promarkers? How about all of them?

2010-11-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

Going buggy is giving away these beauties:

For a chance to win the entire range of Promarkers enter here before the 14th Nov.

An update on my laptop or why I love Apple!

2010-10-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

just a quick update on my computer probs. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

I have been to my local Apple store today to go to my Genius Bar appointment. A nice chap looked at my laptop and confirmed that the HD was dead. I was really crestfallen as I haven't got the money for a new one, but guess what, Apple are being nice to me! I was told that my model had had a few issues with HDs and therefore they'd replace the Hd for free. And even better, they don't do the 80GB ones anymore so I get a 160GB HD for free. And because the cover around the keyboard was a little broken (apparently a design fault) they'll replace that as well! Wahey!! That's what I call customer service! (Just so you know, my laptop is a few years old by now and lasted very well until now, I wouldn't have even considered that I get anything for free apart from the consultation at the Genius Bar!)

Now the only slight sour taste about the whole thing is that I might be computerless for up to two weeks. I already feel like I lost a limb and it's only been a couple of days! Miss not being able to cut on my Cricut the most...

Hope to be able to post normally from my own comp soon!

Out of action... of sorts

2010-10-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

I can't share any pictures at the moment because my dear laptop died on me! I am currently using my hubby's computer as often as I can, but he has to work on it, so I only get limited use. Emails are fine, as I can get and send (text) emails with my iPhone.
How come we get so dependent on those silly computers? I feel like I've lost an arm or something like that!

One side effect of being without a computer is that I actually get a bit of crafting done because I am not that distracted, but unfortunately it also means I cannot print or use my Cricut/SCAL which is very frustrating. Back to basics I guess...

I'll see that I get pics done of everything I do while offline so I can share when I am back again.

Hope to be back soon!

Bit of old stuff...

2010-10-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

here's me trtying to be a better blogger and post something more often!

Today I thought I'd share my Copic storage caddy that I made myself from foam board. It's not superneat but it works very well for me.

Here is a side view, where you can see that I angled the whole thing a bit so all the colours are easily visible.

I am quite proud of this solution as I really wanted one of those cute cubicle things that you sometimes see in american crafters homes. But they were too expensive when you count in p&p and this cost me about £4 and took about an hour to do.

On to something I did in August for my new niece Helena. She is such a sweet baby and I wanted to make her something special, so I tried my hands at sewing a quilt... a small one as my sewing isn't that great.

As you can see, it's not perfect, but it's cute enough and I was happy with the outcome! The back is in the same stripy material as the surround btw.

Awards galore!

2010-09-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

Hello again from me today...

I know, I don't blog for ages and then I have so much I can't fit it in one post *lol*

While I was a bad blogger, some lovely friends of mine gave me these awards... 3 lovely awards from 4 even lovelier ladies!

Sarpreet from World of Sarpreet and Kathleen from Ko

okaburra Crafts have both given me this one - Thank you so much, both of you:

The rules of accepting this award are:
1.Thank the person who gave it to you - check
2. Put the award on your blog - check (albeit late...)
3. List three things about yourself - see below - check
4. Post a picture you love - see below - check
5. Tag 5 other people for the award - see below - check

Well, here we go, three things about me:

- I love to cook and bake and am not too bad at doing it either!

- I loathe to diet, so to loose a bit of weight I started running. Am not great at it, nowhere near the marathon running my hubby does, but I am keeping it up at least once a week. Not lost much weight so far though *lol*

- I am a bit of a hoarder, I buy loads of stash and can't use it, because I am "saving" it, no idea what for but that's it. But I have learned to organize myself a bit better and do use my stuff a bit more now.

On to a fav picture:

It's a shot of my sweet boys from last summer. I just think they look so lovely in this shot and the friendship they share comes across.

The award has to be passed on to 5 people, I did not check if they got it before (probably) but I hope they still like it, check out their blogs, they are all fantastic!

1. Julie - one of my bestest crafty mates

2. Lesley - a very talented and generous lady who I have had the pleasure of meeting a few times, feels like a friend to me but not sure if I rank as one to her yet ;-)

3. another Julie - extremely talented and a source of inspiration

4. Gina - another talented lady that I like to visit...

5. Eileen - a never ending well of information and inspiration

On to the next award (oh, I'm feeling all awarded out already - note to self: if you ever get another award, post about it right away!!*gg*)

The sweet Jules from xX Jules Craft Blog Xx has given me this award

I have to pass this on to seven people, so I make this quick, they are all wonderful blogs, so go check them out! Again, no idea if you got the award, forgive me if you do!

1. Sharon

2. Kathleen

3. Tara

4. Laura

5. Tab

6. Nicola

7. Marlene

Last but not least, award number three which I got from the wonderful Sharon:

Ok, I need to post seven things (oh no, I am not that interesting... you'll be bored) about myself :

1. I like a slice of fresh german bread with butter and ham more than any chocolate

2. One of my pet hates is people who park inconsiderately, I know it's silly but it drives me up the wall

3. I have a secret stash of gummi bears and other sweets (mainly chewy/jelly stuff) hidden in my craft room

4. I've never watched a single show on craft telly, I watched a few minutes at a friends once and think it's horrid

5. I love trying out new thing and can't stick to one style either

6. My favourite thing to listen to when I craft is Harry Potter books read by Stephen Fry... love his voice!

7. I'd love to live off my crafting hobby but my inability to sell myself/my makes probably means I won't ever be able to

No on to more fabulous bloggers that deserve this award. I should pass it on to seven peope but think all those fabulous crafters out there deserve it! And as I can't think of a way to go round and give it to everyone, I am chickening out and give it to all my followers! If you want it, grab it!

Thanks and I hope you stop by again!

Forgot to post...

2010-09-29T05:46:00.000-07:00

about the mini blog candy I was giving away earlier! As there was only really one entrant that was a no-brainer, but I still wanted to announce that Kathleen has won it and already got the prize and spent it as far as I know *lol* Congrats, belated Kathleen, glad you took part (would have felt totally unloved otherwise...)!

Two challenge card

2010-09-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers, long time no see... sorry about my continued absences, I just have a lot going on in my day to day life and didn't get around to blogging. I missed it thou!

I have received a couple of awards - thanks ladies, it's so nice of you to think of little old me! I'll post proper when I have a little more time, hopefully not too long from now.

I only want to share a card quickly that I made last week but haven't posted.

I am using not one but two of Ruth's new images, I think they go so well together! I coloured with Copics and the background is made with Impressabilities and ink sponged over the raised parts. The sentiment is computer generated and matted onto punched circles and a cricut-cut double-ended tag. The charm and ribbon are from my stash.

I want to enter it to these challenges:

Totally Paper Crafts challenge 32: charming - use of a charm

Allsorts Challenge Week 68: New Beginnings - as I have the theme of a new day tht starts with coffee and chocs I hope it counts!

That's it from me for today, hope to see you again, soon!

N.B. Oops, just realised I waited too long to post this and the charm challenge is closed already - doh!

Fab Penny Black Blog-Candy

2010-08-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Kathy from The Daily Marker is giving away a gorgeous Penny Black Blog Candy and I so want to win them! They are the cutest little Halloween stamps and I especially love that Frankenstein monster!

Head over there now to have a little peep at it and to enter for your own chance to win. It's worthwhile subscribing to her blog as well, I have been a follower for a while and her blog is just gorgeous!

Hunt for the perfect bits and pieces...

2010-08-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

This past year me and my hubby had a lot of work done to our home to upgrade the living standard and make the whole house a bit more "ours". One area that we are really pleased with is our living room. We had our carpet ripped out and replaced with this lovely wooden flooring:

It makes the whole room look so much lighter and elegant! Well, one little problem remained, our living room is an open plan one that incorporates the dining room at the other end and we are still looking for the perfect dining room furniture to bring it up to the rest of the room. What we have at the moment is mainly ikea and it's ok, but we are still looking around for the perfect ones! So if you see anything really cool, that works with this lovely stripy floor (it's a mix of different wood types by the way!) please let me know!

Now to something really cool:

I was approached by a lovely lady from CSN stores and given the opportunity to give away a $40 gift certificate for their online stores. This is mainly for my blog visitors based in the US and Canada (sorry to the others!) and if you want a chance to get your hands on them, please post about this giveway on your blog and direct your readers here and leave a comment! I will announce the winner on the 6th September (my oldest sons 6th birthday!) and will pass your details on to Jess from CSN who'll sort your certificate for you! Good luck everyone!

A quick birthday card

2010-08-08T02:51:00.000-07:00

Hello, me again,

I forgot a birthday card I did for a friend of my hubby from work. She seems to really like my cards I make for her and I hope this one was to her liking as well.

It came together rather quickly with almost all stash from SU. Only the ribbon is East of India Company and the border punch is by Fiskars. I used Lovely Lilac and Soft Suede as well as Naturals Ivory for the base and image panel.

A crafty day out...

2010-08-08T02:04:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

sorry, I didn't post as promised last night, but here are some more projects that I did on a crafty day out last month. I went to see my (very) crafty friends Lesley and Julie and we spent the day together chatting, stamping, colouring, cutting and enjoying ourselves. Thanks to both of you, you are the best!!

I was quite productive on the day and managed to make 5 cards! I swear it's my friends mojo that rubs off! Have you checked out their blogs? Fabulous stuff!

Anyway, without much further ado, here are my cards, hope you like them!

Image and sentiment by PTI, punches by SU, Ribbon from haberdashery shop, Brilliance Ink white and Versafine black.

Image by Sarah Kay - coloured with Distress inks, sentiment PTI, background stamp from Impression Obsession (borrowed from Lesley), brad by Papermania, flower handmade from punched flowers and a silk flower (from Lesley - thanks!), border punch by SU.

Image and sentiment by PTI, papers by Basic Grey and Papermania, stamped on with Fiskars stamp, label by Spellbinders with Word window punch from SU and Papermania stick-on gems, Ink by SU (stamped off Rose Red).

Image is a stamp from Lesley that I don't know the make of, sorry, sentiment by PTI, background stamped with PTI stamps, ribbon from stash, MS border punch, Versafine and SU inks as well as white marker pen for lines.

Hero Arts stamp set and ribbon from Lesley, Versafine black ink, sentiment still to be added...

Thanks for stopping by!

Multi challenge card

2010-08-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

Hello, me again,

I said, I was going to post several things tonight, didn't I? Well, I have another card with one of Ruth's images, honeysuckle this time.

I saw an image of honeysuckle where the flowers were actually hot pink and yellow and I loved it, so that's why I coloured them like this with my copics. I followed a sketch again, this time from ICSketches and used stitching, faux on the panel and real on the ribbon. The white background is embossed with a CB folder.

I am entering this in these challenges:

A Passion for Papertrey - Forever friends (sorry, only used sentiment and PTI cardstock)

ICSketches - sketch

Papertake weekly - bright and white

Basic Grey - Stitching

Papersundaes - Stitching

the craftypad - ribbons and flowers (I hope the flower image counts!)

Hope you like it!

I have some more cards to share, but will do that tomorrow I think, need some sleepy time now! Bye bye bloggers!

Basic Grey

Purple Iris!

2010-08-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

Hi, it's me again,

Ruth has designed some lovely new flowers for A Passion for stamps again this month and this iris is my favourite. I used the sketch on Truly S

crumptious challenge blog to make this card, the image is coloured with Copics and the background is airbrushed. Sentiment is PTI again, papers are Papermania Capsule Collection.

I enter this card into the following challenges:

truly scrumptious - sketch (optional oldie stamp, obviously didn't do that...)

creative inspirations - anything goes

Cute card thursday - whateva

Hope you like this card, I think I am in love with that iris... so gorgeous! Thanks for looking and any comments you want to leave!

A Man's card!

2010-08-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Hello bloggers,

yes, I know, I have been missing again... sorry! But my household is just beyond busy! Two little monsters, ehm, boys, I mean, and it's school holidays! Anyway, I have been busy in my craft room as well and have some cards to show you. Will keep my drivel short as I have several posts going up tonight and need to catch up on that beauty s

leep *lol*

Well, here is a male card I did with one of the new images by Ruth from A Passion for Stamps, a little sailboat, great for those tricky male cards!

I used the sketch from friday sketchers, coloured with Prisma pencils and distressed with some Wild Honey TH ink, the design on the corners is stamped with that ink as well. Sentiment is PTI, charm from stash.

I enter this card into these challenges:

card for men challenge _ off on an adventure

totally papercrafts challenge - by the sea

friday sketchers challenge - sketch

Hope you like my card, and thanks if you decide to leave a comment!