A quick birthday card

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!

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?

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*