You put the merry in Christmas..................

I totally forgot I had this little stamp until I come across it whilst clearing up the other day - a bit like the fact that when we had a cold spell here in Florida, I rushed out and bought warmer clothes, totally forgetting that I did the same last year and found them when I was clearing out the closet.......................

Back to the card, sweet birdie stamped, paper pieced and coloured with copics, flowers by prima, the black ric-rac is a tape runner thingy that I bought, it didn't work when I bought it, and it doesn't work now, hence the strategic placing of flowers.

I still have all my Christmas cards to write, have given up on the idea of making them all and bought some, then there is still a crafty mess in the garage, the fridge to clean, windows to wash ............as you read this I will probably be in a comatose, exhausted heap on the airplane, making my way back to 'dear old blighty'. (Mike is a bit addicted to old war movies, so I tend to pick up the lingo)
So cheerio America for another three months, thank you all for being your usual warm, friendly and welcoming selves during our stay here.

Funny Christmas.................and a Gypsy solution

I am getting to like the Gypsy now, I wouldn't say I love it, but I am definitely liking it, once you get used to it, it is quite convenient not to have to reach for all the cartridges and overlays whenever you want to make a cut. However, I do find it almost impossible to do without the handbook, it's really difficult to work out what the creative features of each cartridge is, so I tore out the creative features page from each of my handbooks, and took them to staples to be laminated. Then I punched a hole in each sheet and threaded them all in alphabetical order onto a metal key ring - the type you can buy in craft stores

Just having that page handy, will jog my memory of what I can do with the cartridge
Such a quick little card today, I went to visit a friend who belongs to PC Crafters Hug, which produces downloadable images, I loved this one, and so will a friend of mine! I cut the snowman and bag out of a second image and popped them to give a bit of dimension, gave her some bling earrings, added a very lush green velvet ribbon, a bit on inking and I was done - the image was already coloured.
Thanks Bev, I am going to have fun with the stuff you gave me




I hear that the UK are expecting a really cold spell, and some snow, I do hope that doesn't mean the plane can't land on friday morning, I will be digging the old thermals out for sure, and the electric blanket will be the first thing I put on.
Back to the packing...........it's getting very boring, I would much rather sit here 'chatting' to you

Popcorn the Bear

I bought this stamp all the way from the UK with me, and now it is ready to make a return journey and I have only inked it up once, so I better give the poor little bear an airing before he jets off again........

Popcorn the Bear is a UK design, I haven't used them much, but I do like this little fellow peeping out of his christmas wreath

Coloured with copic markers, white highlights by signo white pen, sentiment studio G, papers DCWV and the border punch is of course Martha - double loop, punched twice and layered. The only bling I put on were some tiny dots of red stickles on the berries

The house is a mess, the garage is a mess, the laundry is a mess, I am a mess...........so much to do, so little time, I feel like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, rushing around and not actually getting much done. Take a peek at my sidebar, there is a brand new photo of Monty on there, now you all know why I am anxious to get home, when you look at those little faces.....
See you guys tommorrow, I'm off to do a bit of pointless rushing again.............

Love at Christmas

This little card manages to fit four challenges this week, I don't think I have ever managed that before

House Mouse Challenge - Non traditional Christmas colours

Papertake Weekly - No red or green

Inspirational Card Sketches - I followed the sketch!

Colour Create - Lilac, Aqua, Black and White

The base card is a very pale lilac, the aqua panel was embossed with the sissix snowflakes folder, the star punch is Martha Stewart and all the lettering is making memories. The stamp is from the acrylic Christmas house mouse set. I added pearls for the mistletoe berries, and the black snowflakes are a cuttlebug die

There Can Only Be One Queen .....................

I found this great stamp in the dollar bin at Michaels, and knew straightaway what I was going to do with it, the cat was cut from the Paisley cartridge, all the papers are DCWV. I thought it would make a great card for a cat lover

I added a few white highlights to make her pop..............

I have finished all the word books/wedding albums/exploding boxes etc that I am doing for peeps back in the UK, as I tied the final ribbon it suddenly occured to me that I now have to pack all these things into my already overweight bags as well. Shipping to the UK is so expensive, but I may be forced to go down that route

Mike has just been browsing the local paper, where there is a obituary for a chap who was known to everyone as NASTY. What a nickname to carry through life, it seems almost cruel that it follows him in death (rather funny though, he is obviously a great loss to the human race............), still, nasty or not, someone loved him enough to put it in the paper. The local paper here is a great source of mirth between us every morning, I think my favourite, which I have probably written about before has to be the side by side burial plots that were being offered for sale, in a lovely spot, overlooking a lake. Reason for sale - Divorce!!

Mike's all time favourite was the anguished plea for a lost cat, black and white, looks like a cow

I the meantime, I have my last crafty get together today, so cheerio for now, off to play

Sepia for Daring Cardmakers and another Katies Kisses card

Here's another card made with one of the brand new stamp range called Katies Kisses. I thought this would make a good teen card, hence the sentiment. Lettering and papers by making memories. Flowers by prima. A bit of doodling with a momento fine tip pen, colouring copics. The red panel is embossed with swiss dots, which doesn't show in the photo.

On Daring Cardmakers this week, the dare is 'Say it in Sepia', Lynda asked for a thank you card. This isn't my thing at all, but of course I had to have a go - I can never resist a dare, go over and see the design teams samples though, they are fabulous. This card looks much, much prettier in real life, it's quite sparkly which doesn't show up in the photo.

I inked a cuttlebug script panel with bronze cats eye ink, the stamp was stamped in versamark chocolate, then I swiped the whole panel with stampin up's heat and stick powder and heated until sticky, then I dumped iridescent ice embossing powder over the top and heated again.

You can't really see the effect, but it's a very subtle and evenly glittered panel. The chocolate swirls are chipboard pieces by making memories, and the sentiment is hero arts
It has suddenly dawned on me that we have only just over a week before we fly back home, so today saw me packing the mountain of christmas gifts I have bought, I needed to see if they would all fit into four large suitcases. The simple answer is no, they don't. I had an anguished hour of worrying about it, then the laid-back part of me kicked in, I won't worry about it until we are at the airport. The cases will go on their pre-flight jaunt up to the local supermarket, to be ceremoniously weighed, usually with a crowd of bemused US citizens watching, laughing and offering advice. When my friend Anne left here in October, she had been on a buying frenzy, and in her last few days in the USA, she bought a concrete head - don't ask, it's an artistic thing - not only did she sail through check-in with cases weighing about 20 lbs above the allowance and a concrete head in her hand baggage, she was upgraded! Somehow I feel, no, I KNOW, that this would not happen to me. If I tried to import a concrete head, it would probably fall on the check-in guy's foot and I would be lucky to get a seat out on the wing.

Exploding Box

I have been busy making an exploding box for a commission for the past couple of days.

Here's the lid, I used cuts from A Child's Year for all the external decoration. The letters are DCWV chipboard

I cut tiny figures of children playing to go all around the sides like a frieze..............

Here it is opened, the papers are K & Company

Just one of the tiny pages, I love doing these boxes, it's always a challenge to find embellishments tiny enough to look in scale

The cutting sizes for the boxes are on the blog - look under labels for tutorial for exploding box. I took the photos at night, so they are a bit rubbish, sorry about that, but you get the general idea. The box has been delivered, so I can't re-take them.

BBTB and the Cutting Cafe

It was my turn to choose the challenge over on BBTB this week, and I chose the ribbon frame from the Joys of the Season cartridge, you should just see what the design team have done with this cut, pop over and take a look. I decided on blues and white, and cut an ornament to hang in the frame

added quite a bit of bling to bring it to life.

Over at the Cutting Cafe, Regina has this adorable little owl in a sentiment circle on sale for only 99 cents. Who could resist him? I know I couldn't. I printed it out twice, once onto white card, then again onto the spotty paper, and cut out the outer circle and hat from that. The background is a sissix embossing folder, and the snowflakes are cut with a martha punch

My birthday is turning into a month long fest this year, here are some more cards that I received last week, first from Cheryl, my crafting buddy here in Florida, what a gorgeous card..............

second, from Bev, another of my crafting buddies, I love the way she made the flower out of scalloped circles..............

and last, but definitely not least, from Joan, my pal from Port St Lucie in Florida, who has been quite poorly this month, but the first thing she did when she was well enough was head to her craftroom to make me this card, don't you just love that crunchy lace..............

Thank you all so much xxx

Whilst I am on the subject of friends, I have to make a very sad little post here, longtime readers of this blog may recall that back in the beginning of last year, I met up with a online crafting friend, Eileen, in London. We met on the cricut message board, and she lived just around the corner from my son, so were able to meet for lunch, a very long chat, and lots of laughs. Since then we have emailed each other regularly, and were planning to meet up again in January. You can see the apron card that she made me for my birthday in a post I made last week. I was shocked and deeply saddened to receive an email from her daughter at the weekend telling me that Eileen had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on friday. She was a very talented crafter, devoted to her family, an encouraging friend, and a lovely, lovely person.
My deepest sympathies go to Karen and the family

I will miss her

Katies Kisses Stamps

The owner of the Stamping Studio, a local scrapbook store in Springhill, Florida, has just designed her own range of rubber stamps called Katies Kisses, and I have been making some samples for her. They are red rubber, mounted on cling, and stamp beautifully. Here's a couple of the cards I made, she doesn't have paypal set up on her blog yet, but all the contact and ordering details are on there.

Aren't they cute? I love the way they all have a little signature heart on their cheeks.

Good luck with your new venture Susan

I went shopping with Mike today, and after 20 minutes remembered why I like to shop alone, he is such a MAN when it comes to shops. Imagine the scenario, pull up outside a store, 'what are we looking for' he asks suspiciously. New luggage. Righto, so we march into the store and head for the luggage department, oh look, there is the handbag department, and they have this really cute little bag, which I hang over my shoulder, and look for a mirror to see if it suits me, yes, looks okay, let me just check all the little pockets to see if it has room for all my stuff, hmmm, maybe not. Repeat the procedure with another style, nope, decide against it I'll just look at the first one again to make sure............... , so off we trail to the luggage department again...............right past the sweaters, bad luck Mike. Do you know, there were ten different departments on the way to the luggage department, by which time my dear husband had left, and was sitting forlornly by the door, with that look on his face that men have when they have been forced into a living nightmare. So I finally get to the luggage, the suitcase we wanted was out of stock. Hey ho. 'Never mind' I say cheerfully, 'they are having a delivery on monday'. You should have seen the look of horror on his face, poor chap. I'll leave him at home with his book and footy next time.

Winner of the BBTB blog hop is

SHEILA

(crazy and lovin it blog)

Congrats Sheila, email me with your address and I will get the goodies out to you

Penny Black Saturday Challenge

On Penny Black this week, the challenge was a sketch, the design team samples were just lovely, so I had to join in

Mine is a really simple take on the sketch, I have gone into overdrive with my favourite tartans though

Before you look at the next photo, I have to tell you that it is only in the little creative bubble that I inhabit that I am such a slob, my house is very clean and tidy. However, when I get out there into that garage, stuff gets hurled to the floor, drawers get left open, it is frankly, chaotic. Every couple of days I have a major tidy up, which usually involves finding an element/stamped image/ that I searched for in vain the previous day. New year resolution maybe..........I have a feeling it may last until January 5th before I start hurling again.

Another Month - Two More Challenges......

Time for another Funky Hand challenge, set this time by Kath, who is a bit of a Christmas-a-holic, so of course she had to set this month's task, which is to make a decoration of some sort, do go over and take a look, the team have really pulled all the stops out on this one.

I found this JOY wooden word in the dollar bin at Target, it is covered in bright silver glitter, but I soon put a stop to that and covered the front with papers printed off from the Blue Christmas download

the snowmen were cut from the Snow Friends cricut cartridge, I gave them rosy cheeks, although a snowman shouldn't really be rosy, but it made them look cute
so get your thinking caps on, there is a £20 (about $30) funky Hand gift voucher up for grabs for the entrant that catches Kath's eye. You have until the end of the month to enter, and the only rule is that you use one Funky Hand paper in your design
The first of the month is also the start of the next Lily-Boo challenge, this month it's all about paper piecing. I printed out the image twice, once onto a pattern paper, and cut the tree out of that. It's really a summery digi stamp, but I fancied trying to make it look Christmassy, I think it worked? What do you think?
The base card is a pre-embossed one from DCWV - I was in a hurry as usual, and this saved time.

Again, you have a whole month to enter, it can be any sort of card, just paper piece something on the image. Quite a few new cardmakers come and visit, so a quick explanation about paper piecing, you stamp a base image, then stamp the same image again onto pattern paper, and cut out the bit you want - maybe a child's dress, a flower, you get the picture. Then stick the cut out piece onto your base image. This is a favourite technique of mine, and it cuts down on colouring too!


See you all tomorrow, I am off to clear up after the hurricane that swept through the garage, one of these days I'll take a photo of the mess I make, until you see it, you wouldn't believe it

BBTB Blog Hop Monday

The BBTB cut for the week is the old fashioned phone from the My Kitchen cartridge. I don't have this cartridge, so borrowed it for these cuts. In fact I think I should buy it, even though I don't do recipe books or anything like that, there are some useful cuts on there. I decided on all black and white, apart from the pop of colour in the bow and around the dial. The letter are making memories tiny alphas, 'hi' is DCWV chipboard. The border punch is one of Martha's new ones, punched twice and layered.

So what's all this about a hop? Leave a comment on this post, and on thursday morning I will pick a name from the hat to win a stack of colour box chalk inks, in shades of aqua and blues, some blue rub on alphas, a pack of rain dots, and some making memories metal frames. I will also give you this card, if you would like it. It will come with an envelope, all ready for you to use/give away.

From here, go to Krista's blog, where you will see another fab phone card, and have a chance to win her goodies, follow her link until you have hopped all around my buggy teamies blogs, by which time you will have a very good chance of winning a little something.

A couple of you asked what cartridges I bought over the weekend. I got Paisley, Sweethearts, Pagoda and Everyday Paper Dolls (I really dislike those little dolls, but the paper doll cartridges do have all sorts of useful extras on them.) The one I am most pleased with is Paisley, I will have a lot of fun with that. I do have a couple more on my wish list - Old West, just for the horses, and Serenade, but nothing urgent. Quite honestly, I haven't explored half the cartridges I already own.

Good luck with the blog hop, if you leave a comment, be sure to leave an indentifying name and don't forget to check back on thursday to see if you won.

White Christmas for DCM

On Daring cardmakers this week, the dare is to make a white card, you were allowed a bit of colour on stamps or sentiments, but I set myself the challenge of trying to make a totally white card, and except for a bit of bronze inking to define the edges, managed to do it. The trees were cut from the Christmas Cheer cartridge at 4", 3 and 2". and all the layers were run through the cuttlebug, using the snowflakes and snow folders

I added pearls rather than 'diamonds' as they added to the white look

everything was 'popped' to separate the layers and give it a bit of dimension

and still the gorgeous handmade birthday cards keep coming, this lovely apron is from Eileen, an online friend who has become a 'real life' friend, as she lives just a few miles from one of my sons, so we have been able to meet up....

this lovely card is from Denyze (love that image Den), another blog friend who has turned from virtual into reality, she lives locally to me, so we have been on a couple of crafty shopping outings together..........

and lastly from Jules, a longtime blog friend, who recently became a teamie of mine over on Funky Hand, I love the symmetry of this card, so clever. Thank you all so much x

So the shopping frenzy is over, and believe it or not, I do not have a shopping experience to share with you, unusual I know - that is if you don't count the people in walmart at 5 a.m who had fallen out of bed and gone black friday shopping in their pyjamas. Oh and the horrible grandmother in another store who kept clipping her toddler grandson SO hard around the ear, poor little chap. When he reached over and hit her (which of course was what he was being taught to do), she gave him such a whack. I glared and glared at her, until I remembered that guns are legal here and she looked like the type of woman who probably had a big old gun hidden somewhere in her pyjamas, so I moved to another line pretty fast. Apart from that, it was all quite cheery, and quite good fun

Polkadoodles Christmas....

On Polkadoodles this week, we were asked to use three different papers, and the Polkadoodles stamps. I didn't have a lot of time, because of this wedding scrapbook I have been working on, so I ferreted around and found a couple of scraps of my favourite papers from the Jingle Jangle CD, I stamped the snowflakes in red on a white base card, then stamped the tree onto a scrap of aqua and dotted some jewels about, plus a lot of doodling..........

I hope all my USA friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It is black friday here today, the day when there are huge sales on in all the shops, so I have been shopping since 5a.m. this morning - I know, crazy, but I have now finished my Christmas shopping and feel very smug. I have some lovely new cashmere sweaters to cozy up in when I get home, and five new cricut cartridges to play with. I also have a pile of cricut cartridges sitting here (lots and lots of them) that I bought as a favour for various online friends back in the UK, so they need to be parcelled up and sent off. I was only too happy to help, we just don't get the bargains at home especially as far as craft items go.

Time for a nap, all this shopping has been exhausting...........

Wedding Layout, my birthday cards and a deal for you....

First of all, a very special birthday wish, for a very special lady and friend, Anice, the owner of Funky Hand is having a birthday today, and boy, is she celebrating, read on to the end of the post to see how......................................

Another layout today, I am rattling on with the pages. This one is one of my favourites , the music notes are a cuttlebug die, and the sentiment is cut from the Plantin cartridge at 2.5" with the italic feature, the grey letters are american craft thickers, I like using a mixture of fonts and styles on scrapbook pages and cards

This is the first time I have used the welding feature on the gypsy, to fuse the letters together, and it worked! Here's a peek at the handmade cards I got for my birthday, first one made by Bev, my neighbour here in Florida,

Second from Kath, my good friend and teammate on Funky Hand and Polkadoodles



From Ruth, my teamie and friend on Funky Hand and Polkadoodles. Ruth leads an incredibly busy life and always manages to help others, send cards etc.............that funky hand team is the greatest!




From Carol, my friend and neighbour here in the USA

and from Allison, teamie and another pal from Funky Hand - it's her birthday this month as well, happy birthday Allison. Over at Funky Towers, november is a busy month for us, we have a lot of birthday girls in the house

Thank you all so much, I love them all, I know that there are a few more in the mail that are making the hop across the Atlantic, so will post them on here when they arrive.

How about this for a fantastic deal - Anice, the owner and designer of the Funky Hand CD's is 41 today - happy birthday Anice, and to celebrate, she is giving a 41% discount on anything in her store. Shipping is free to anywhere in the world, so and grab yourself a bargain, use the coupon code 41TODAY to get the discount

A Very Special Card................

Ta da..............fanfare...............this is the card that Kiki, my sweet little granddaughter who was five in August made for my birthday, which was yesterday. She did it all by herself, and even though I know that I am quite ridiculous when it comes to my grandchildren, I have to say that this is a fantastic effort for such a little girl. I think mummy helped draw the heart on the cake, Kiki was responsible for the other decoration (which I am sure is a strawberry)

Thank you Kiki, you are my most special little girl and I love my card

After the realization dawned on me that I have only three weeks to do a 20 page 12 x 12 wedding album, I have been working at full speed on it for the past couple of days. This page shows Lucy, the bride with her sister Nicola. I had all sorts of photos of the girls which were not really that good, so I chopped them into 1 1/2" squares and mounted them onto a strip of white card, which I stitched in pink. I added flowers (Martha Stewart wedding confetti from Michaels) to the sprays of the rectangle of pattern paper, and added another hand doodled spray in the bottom left corner of the plain pink card. The sentiment is chipboard alphas from DCWV. It looks quite pretty I think........

It has been so long since I had time to do any scrapbooking, that it took me a while to get into it again, then I remembered that I just treat it as a giant card, and that helps me get the proportions right most of the time
Did I have a nice birthday? Lovely! I went out for lunch with friends, and out to dinner, so I am rolling around with enough ballast in me to float a cruise ship. I also had some very yummy gift certificates, Michaels and Macy's - how well my friends know me :)

Joy - Christmas Polar Bear

This is a repeat of my polar bear card from last year, but this time I used icy blue instead of red for the scarf and sentiment. I cut the bear, from Joys of the Season, at 3" - he cuts BIG, and did a black shadow, then ran the whole lot through the cuttlebug. I freehand cut the snow drifts, in white and icy blue. The sentiment is a sudio G wood backed $ stamp

I have given myself a couple of days off this weekend, but have been spending time getting to know my gypsy, and do you know what? I am beginning to like this little machine. It's really useful not having to search for cartridges and overlays, and of course you can mix and match different cartridges on the same mat. I still have a lot to learn, and my cuts are just my usual straightforward ones, but at least I am managing to do those quite swiftly now. Apart from that, I suddenly realised that I have a 20 page wedding scrapbook to do before christmas day, so I am awash with cream papers and bling!

Mitten Book

I found this mitten chipboard book in the dollar bin at Michaels, what a bargain! I covered it in an American Crafts paper that already had a striped border on it, so that did for the cuff. The letter stickers are also from a AC pad, and I cut out tiny images of the children from those index prints that you get when you get photos developed

Here's a couple of pages from the inside, love those photos of Kiki playing in the snow last winter- the only snow she has ever seen in her 5 years living in London! Yes, I know I put a flower among the snowflakes on this page, but with these tiny books I go for making the pages look pretty and busy rather than telling a story. This little book will be James and Annie's christmas card this year.
It also fits in nicely with the challenge over on colour create this week, red, white and green.

Girlie Card for Polkadoodles

So Nikky, the boss lady over on Polkadoodles, who likes to set a fiendish challenge, asked us to make a girlie card using only the Just for Men CD. Ha, it was easy Nikky, I used the very pretty blue papers and sentiment, added a martha punch border and a bit of ribbon. The flowers are cut from the George cartridge on my cricut

I doodled on them in white, then covered them in glossy accents so they look like black patent leather, oops, missed a bit
I went to the post office yesterday, to mail some parcels and cards to the UK. Normally a visit there is quite an uplifting experience when lovely chatty helpful Jim serves me, but he was not there, so a chap I had never seen before served me. The parcels were no problem, the cards were another matter. "What's in these" he enquired, shaking the envelopes suspiciously, as if he suspected I might have a terrorist or two hidden away in there. "Cards" I replied meekly. "CARDS!" he yelled "HEY BUDDY (or Buster, or Hank or whatever his sidekick was called) LOOK AT THESE, THEY'RE CARDS, KINDA BULKY" "YEAH" yelled Buddy/buster/whatever - "SQUARE TOO, EXTRA FOR THOSE. TRY THE SLOT". I don't know why they were yelling, they were standing right next to each other. So my sweet mailman friend, the one with the phobia about square, bulky envelopes, tried determinedly to shove the envelopes through a little slot thingy, beloved of postal services the world over. Of course, they wouldn't fit. "EXTRA CHARGES" he yelled in a satisfied tone. I pointed out that the envelopes would not actually be going through a slot until they reached the UK, by which time it would be the Royal Mail's problem. "Rules are rules" he shrugged. Yes, and foam pads on handmade cards are foam pads.............................

Funky Hand Christmas and another doorway

Anice has bought out some sweet little digi images over at Funky Hand, the mittens were resized, which I am immensely proud about, out of all proportion to the achievement really, but it's the first time I have ever managed to do this, but Jules, a teamie on the Funky Hand gave me step by step, idiotproof directions, and it worked. Yeah! High five Jules! The papers are from Tis the Season, this year's christmas download. Little letter stickers by Making Memories

I have been fiddling around with the Art Impressions doors and windows stamps again. I printed the brick paper off the Polkadoodles Not for Girls CD. All the little elements are cut out and popped up
the sentiment, stamped inside the little open door says 'it's your birthday - indulge!'
For some reason, these little stamps fascinate me, although they are not really my style. When I have time I have a couple of ideas about what I can do with them......

Talking of time, I have finished my commission, written the text, and they are in the mail. Time to play.........