Just a quickie...

Hello bloggers,


it's a bit late tonight but I feel like I want to share some crafty makes with you before I hit the sheets.
I didn't have the best start to the week with our car going into the garage for a weird noise only to find out it's gonna cost us mega bucks to fix and it's not really an option to keep going regardless. Broken bearings in the gearbox apparently, whatever that means, all I heard was "no holidays for us this year". To top it all off it had to happen now, when my hubs is away for the week and I am home alone with the boys, who got a stinking cold that they seem to be swapping...
So tonight I treated myself to some girly movie watching (The Ugly Truth with Katherine Heigl -love her!- and Gerard Butler) and a Coca Cola on the sofa to unwind. Guilt-free watching as well, as I doubt my husband would have wanted to watch that with me... but it was surprisingly good, even if it was predictable. 


Right, sorry for the diversion, I am back now to crafts *lol* I have quite a few cards I made lately that I haven't had a chance to share yet. I'll make a move on one now and hopefully get to share some more over the next few days.

The gorgeous flowers are called "Scabious" and are by Ruth of A Passion for stamps. I coloured them in Copics and fussy cut them dragging a black pen around the edges to make them pop more. I tied some cream seam binding around the stems into a pretty little bow.
The lattice I diecut from lilac card is from Papertrey ink and I think it's really pretty, my only gripe is that it's made for american card sizes and hard to fit to european ones. I simply glued the lattice to my card base and popped the flowers on with foam pads. The sentiment (PTI) is stamped onto a strip of white card that I cut into a double sided banner and stamped a gingham background (PTI) on the reverse that you can just about spot. Easy peasy card to get me started again. Hope you like it!

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

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!

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.

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*

A day for daisies card

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!

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...

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?

Spring-time!!

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*

A tag for you...

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

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

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...

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!

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 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!