Bunny Card for Daring Cardmakers

The dare on DCM this week is to use a bunny or a chick on your card, so I quickly printed off Regina's funky bunny available as a download from the Cutting Cafe. I printed him first in pink, then again in an easter egg pattern paper from DCWV. The happy easter sentiment is also a printable stamp from the cutting cafe, and the scallop circle was cut with nestabilities.

It had to be an easy card today, as I am in the middle of packing up all my stuff ready to fly back to the US next week. I am not very organised, and have loads to do, at the moment I am just making lists and sitting down to look at them and make another list. I have lists of lists!

Magnolia Stamped Images Giveaway

I have reached the dizzy heights of over 300 of you who follow this blog, so decided to do a giveaway of Magnolia stamped images - the sweet little Tilda beloved of many. If you already follow, your name will go in the hat on Saturday night, if not, and you want to win, click on the follow button.

I made this folder to put the stamped images in, there are loads of Tildas, sitting and standing, and some scene stamps for her to sit on, I also stamped some of the latest Penny Black''s as well, so it's full of images for you to play with. Good luck. The folder is the card folder from the Cutting Cafe - you just download the pattern, and I have used it before for notecards, but got the idea of using it for stamped images from my fabby friend Dawny. The flowers are from Poppicrafts.

Tilda Card For Papertake Weekly and Colour Create

Well I finally managed to combine two challenges, I am not normally organised enough for that. Papertake weekly is a sketch by my mate DawnyP, and Colour Create wanted a colour combination of Navy, Lime and Turquoise (with an added twist of no pattern paper, which I fail miserably. Holding my hands out to be slapped!).

The turquoise Paper is a download from one of my Funky Hand CD's, I can always rely on those to come up with exactly the right paper and colour. Funnily enough, when I looked at the sketch I wasn't sure if I was going to like the card layout, but now that it's done, I love it and will use it again.

Birthday Card for 2 Sketches 4 You

This week's sketch over on the wonderful 2 Sketches challenge is by Laura, here is my offering. I seem to have become addicted to my white peel off sentiments now that I have found them. Papers are by basic grey, and the flower stamp is by Rhonna Farrer for Autumn Leaves. I sewed around the flower panel with my machine and no thread, quite like the look of this.

I messed around with this, added bits of string and stuff, but in the end, I liked it simple.

Blog Candy from Amanda (Scotspanda)

I won ALL this as blog candy from Amanda's blog. It's the first time I have ever won blog candy and I was so excited to get the parcel. Thank you so much Amanda for pulling my name out of the hat, I am going to have such fun playing with this lot (love the stamped images too, haven't got any of them)

Hello Friend - A Personal Challenge

So although I have masses to do, I found these peel offs in a drawer and set myself a challenge to use them. I never use peel offs. Why do I buy them? I also kept setting myself harder and harder challenges as the card evolved, lots of white space, no pattern papers, only black white and red.............obviously I am in some strange masochistic mood today. I spent far too long on it, whatever I did, it looked a bit pants frankly, but this is the end result, and I suppose I met my challenges, now I can get on to the next card which I might actually enjoy making, enough of the hair shirt for one day! The middle little geisha is popped up, and since I am in confession mode, that is only because the little geisha underneath looked such a mess that I had to cover her up. And another thing, why do my photos all look like the leaning tower of Pisa? I need photography lessons as well as peel off lessons.............

On a happier note, I had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday, we went down to my middle son's home and spent the day with them, and my daughter and her boyfriend. Lots of fun and cuddles with Max of course, who was sporting the biggest black eye you have ever seen, he never walks when he can run that boy. He was recently in the garden shed with his daddy, picked up a litre can of gloss paint and dropped it ---- all over their very expensive and newly laid decking. He was so spooked that he ran crying into the house, leaving behind a little trail of gloss paint footprints all over the deck and the cherrywood hardwood floors in the house. He had got over the trauma of it all (although I am not sure his parents have) and couldn't wait to take us to the scene of the crime 'big spill' he kept saying. Hmm, yes Max, BIG big expensive spill.................!

Doodling for Penny Black Challenge

Over on the Penny Black challenge blog, they asked us to doodle, just up my street, I love doodling and sometimes think that all those doodles I did all over my maths book at school, although it never helped me pass my maths exams, was good practice for cardmaking. The papers are 'whiteout nonsense' by We R Memory Keepers. You will notice another scallop card, you are going to see a lot of those, as I bought a huge pack at the NEC, I inked the edges pretty heavily, and added a few swirly thingies from Sandylion. The hedgie was coloured with copics.

Girlie Birthday Card for Daring Cardmakers

Over at Daring Cardmakers this week, they are celebrating women, and the dare was to make a feminine card. I have been itching to try this little image of a Japanese geisha from Craftwork Cards. Her kimono has been brushed with gold perfect pearls, and looks a bit patchy in the photo, but in real life it's lovely and shimmery. She also looks in the photo as if she is a bit bare beneath her robe, but I used pastel pink shimmer for that, which again doesn't show up very well. The embossed frame and sentiment circle came from them as well. I swiped the embossing with a versamark pad then brushed more gold dust onto it. The gold flower is by Papermania

It's Mothering Sunday here in the UK (and in Australia too I think) on sunday, and I will be celebrating it with one of my sons and daughter, so I am looking forward to that this weekend. Happy Mothers Day to everyone.

Candle Birthday Card

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Front of the card...............

I bought a set of these blank candle cards when I was in the NEC. The papers I used and the diecut flowers are all from Craftwork Cards, and were yummy to work with, all that chocolate and pink..... I cut the word birthday using the alphalicious cartridge, at 2" then ran them backwards through the xyron so that they had an even coating of adhesive, sprinkled with Great Impressions sparkling ice glitter, then attached them to the card using silicone glue so that they stand out. I inked the flames of the candles with pale pink, then bronze around the edges (cats eye chalk inks). The brads in the centre of the flowers and on the letters are not brads at all but really clever little domed paper shapes that they make, much cheaper than the real thing and they come in gorgeous colours too.

Last night I spent the evening on a production line - I had offered to help make wedding invitations for a friends daughter, and we all got together to cut and stick. The design is simple, coffee coloured linen texture trifold cards, with one of the gorgeous QK butterflies that you have seen on cards I have made, cut in pearlescent ivory card, with the bottom layer of the butterfly embossed with swiss dots, then three little pale pink pearls dotted down the body. Sounds simple? Well, originally it was going to be a very heavy hammered ivory card, and at 4.15 I decided to cut a few butterflies to get the 'production line' started when we met at 7.30. Would that die cut through the cardstock? No way. I had bought 100 sheets of the stuff as well. I tried every combination I could think of, adding bits of chipboard to the cutting plates, etc. No joy. So at 4.45, I dashed down into town and bought up all the pearlescent card, came home, would it cut? Not really, slightly better, but not perfect, so I fiddled around again with different layers until it cut through. Even then, the little holes in the top layer were stubborn and had to be coaxed out. So we painfully cut, poked, embossed and glued until we had done 75 of the little blighters. Still 25 to go, and another 100 needed for placecards for the table. I saw butterflies in my sleep last night!

Wildcard Cupcake Card

Here is the cupcake card from wildcard, cut at 5 1/2". Since I am always on the lookout for things for Tilda to sit on, it seemed just right to perch her on the top. Some sewing and a bit of glitter and she looks all ready for a birthday party.

I caused great confusion yesterday by posting a St George's Day card on St Patricks day! No, they are not on the same day, St George's day is on the 23rd April, let's say I was flying the flag for England a little early.

St Patricks day here meant that all the pubs locally were festooned with green, white and orange balloons, and there were a lot of young men wearing leprachaun hats weaving rather unsteadily about the town from 10am - goodness knows what they would have been doing by 10pm!

Happy St George's Day

There is a thread over on the Cricut message board for UK crafters, and I set a challenge to make a card using red, white and blue. I spotted this little Tilda waving the Swedish flag, at the NEC and thought she could be waving the flag for England. So here's what I came up with. The papers are by Reminisce, border punch is valentine hearts by Martha Stewart, and she was coloured with copics. The lovely shaped labels that Tilda is mounted on are by Go-Kreate and were cut using my cuttlebug.

Now Tilda stamp collectors may be scratching their heads at the sight of her pigtails. It's true, she started life with bunches of hair, but then I coloured her in, cut her out, and after a lot of work saw that she looked as if she had a bad case of jaundice. By this time, I really couldn't be bothered to start the whole thing over again, so I cut the head off another Tilda and stuck it on. Now you would never have known if I hadn't told you would you? I like to think it shows a imaginative, resourceful side of my nature, but in my heart know that it shows a lazy streak!

50th Birthday - Basic Grey Challenge

So I have an order for some 50th birthday cards, she specifically wanted art deco decoupage, not my usual thing at all, although I do like these images, from a CD by Card Creations. The challenge over on the Basic Grey site this week is ' all round', so I reckon this one fits the bill, the card is scalloped, and I cut away half of the front so that the oval image stands out. The papers are from the BG sugared collection, and the 'fabulous' is by Hero Arts. The 50 is thickers by American Crafts.

Penny Black Challenge

Another sketch, this time for the Penny Black challenge this week, I reckon I will be one of the first past the post this week - I just happened to have the image already stamped, coloured and cut out, the flowers were diecuts and the lacy border was just sitting around waiting to be used. I added pale pink liquid pearls to the centres of the flowers, they look like huge blobs in the photo, they are quite dainty in real life - you will have to trust me on this.

Birthday Card for Cute Card Thursday and Daring Cardmakers

Cute Card Thursday are celebrating their first birthday, so here is my birthday card for them, based on the sketch they published this week. I made it so that it would fit Daring Cardmakers dare this week, which was to use 3 papers, at least one ribbon, at least one button, 1 piece of chipboard and one optional embellishment. The papers are by Making Memories, I cheated a bit and used a chipboard button, the extra embellie is the prima flower with a glittery centre. The sweet little girl is a Sugar Nellie stamp that was in my gorgeous box from Dawny.

We are having a quiet weekend here - time for me to catch up with orders and stuff, and play with all my new goodies that I got in the craft fair. Hope you all have a great weekend

Look what DawnyP made for me................

No time for crafting today, I have been to the NEC to the Hobbycraft fair, returned home much poorer but with loads of crafty goodies. I met up with Dawny (Pink Piggy blog) it was so great to meet her and Nicola her gorgeous daughter. Dawny is as much fun and just as lovely in real life as she is on her blog. We agreed, quite late, yesterday that we would do a stamped image swap, so I trotted along with a brown envelope from Poundland stuffed with assorted bits of card stamped with different images. What did Dawny do? Produced this fabulous folder she had made for me, filled with masses of beautifully stamped images, all separated inside with little file folder inserts and beautifully labelled. Hmmm, you won this one hands down then Dawny, no contest. Thank you so much, I love it. The folder is a pattern from the Cutting Cafe The photos aren't great because by the time I staggered home with my loot, the light had gone, but I couldn't wait to post it.

What did I buy? Well, there were some cute Penny Black's on sale, so my vow to stick to unmounted stamps flew right out the window, no excuse not to do the challenges over on the Penny Black challenge blog every week now. I have a stamp for all seasons. Then there were the Magnolias - a whole stand devoted to them, with a bemused Swede in attendance, standing back watching me excitedly demonstrate to the crowd milling around the stand 'look, you can sit her on a ribbon' I burbled 'and if you are buying that one, you must buy this cute toadstool....' Catching the bemused Swede's eye, I said 'Am I on commission?' 'I vill ask my boss' he said looking even more bemused. I stupidly bought large packs of cardstock in the first buying frenzy of the day, and six hours later was regretting my haste, they weighed a ton, which together with the other 2 1/2 tons of stuff, made it all a bit exhausting. So all in all, a very satisfying day.

Card for Thirtieth Birthday

I was asked to make a card for a male, thirty year old, no hobbies or particular interests. Where on earth do you start? I turned to my trusty cricut of course and cut his name and age using opposites attract cartridge, upright and shadow options. Threw on some buttons in lieu of bling, and funnily enough I was quite pleased with the end result.

'What's this' I hear you cry. I was tagged by Donna and have to pull the 6th photo from my computer and put it on here. Believe me, you wouldn't want to see the 6th photo, trust me on this. It was a rather unfortunate photo of me, needing a hairdo rather badly, how it wasn't banished to a digital wasteland at birth I will never know. So here is one of Max, taken last summer when we went to a farm for the day. He was having fun playing peek-a-boo with me in this photo.

Of course, Kiki has to get a mention, here she is with me on her 4th birthday last August. Isn't her dress pretty? It was one of those summer days that start off warm and sunny and deteriorate into a coolish English summers day so I was cold and wearing my daughter-in-law Annies sweater, ah the joys of summer.......................

Ruby Wedding Anniversary

This was so simple to do, but looks quite effective. The base card is one of those big ones, 8 x 6", the birds and heart are a cut from the wedding solutions cartridge with a few blobs of liquid pearls and some gems added. I used the Martha Stewart heart border punch, the black lace is a self adhesive strip by papermania, and the embossed flowers on the right were done with one of the cuttlebug border punches. When I was photographing it I noticed a blob of red liquid pearls right in the centre of the back of the card. Oh bummer, another cover-up job. Anyone who gets one of my cards, probably turns it over and says 'look, she's even put some little hearts on the back................' not realising that under the sweet little hearts lies a messy disaster.

The wording was done using a home-made rub on. Simply type your words, set your printer so that the mirror image option is ON, and print onto the smooth side of a transparency sheet. Let the ink set for a minute, then use as you would any rub-on.

Talking of Martha Stewart, at long last these punches are available in the UK, I am so delighted, although I think I own most of them, but it means that I can now use them on magazine cards (I have to be able to credit a UK supplier for stuff I use). Go to Stamps and Memories - they have them on their website.

Here's to another year of.......................

I found these clear dome stickers by Papermania and thought one would look good as a label inside one of my favourite shoe cuts (wedding solutions cartridge, cut at 4"). Look how perfectly the ribbon matches the paper, pure fluke, if I had searched for days I couldn't have found a better match. Sometimes these things just fall into your lap. The black scrolls are by sandylion, I am almost out of these now, I bought them in the US. Another pack or three is on my shopping list for when I go back across the atlantic. All papers are by DCWV - nana's kids stack and all dressed up stack.

Notecard Gift Box - The Cutting Cafe

This notecard holder is a download from the Cutting Cafe. I managed to get 6 little 5 x 3 1/2" notecards and envelopes inside, I made them simple and for a variety of occasions - thanks, get well, birthday etc. I thought this folder would make a lovely gift for a friend. The flower on the front of the box is simply some graduated circles with the edges scrunched up. The wavy stem is another download from the Cutting Cafe, as is the sentiment circle in the centre of the flower. The folder itself was so easy to do, you just print out onto your coloured cardstock and cut around the lines. The fold lines are clearly marked so it was a doddle, and of course, just yelling out to be decorated with lace, ribbon and a bit of bling.

Friendship and Good Luck

Here's my sneeky peek at one of my cards that's in Papercraft Inspirations magazine this month. The cat stamp is by Inkadinkadoo and the papers are by Bo Bunny. I added some green gems to the flowers on the cat to add some sparkle.

This image is one I downloaded free from the web. Click HERE to go to the site. I kept the card fairly simple so that the image popped. I love those two little girls, they look like an illustration from an old fashioned children's book. Coloured with copic markers, and the papers are by Magnolia.

Lots and lots to do today, I have some magazine cards to think about, some commission cards to make, design team cards to finish, and I need to come up with a design for some wedding invites. I shall probably sit staring blankly at the wall all day, hoping that inspiration hits me. Hey ho...it will all work out - eventually.

Shoes Card

This stamp is the bigger version of the Stamps by Judith stamp that I posted a few days ago - why do I have two versions of the same stamp? Well, they were on sale, and I am always a sucker for a bargain. I thought in view of her very comfortable shopping shoes, that the sentiment stamp was perfect. Colouring done with copics.
My blog has been on 'automatic pilot' for the past few days, as I have been enjoying a weekend in the Lake District, miles away from any computer. I always enjoy going up there, the scenery is stunning, and looks different whatever time of year you visit. It has always been a favourite haunt and inspiration to artists, poets and writers, and you can see why, it must be wonderful to be able to capture such beauty.

Laugh Often

The Bitten By The Bug design team were asked to use this 'Laugh Often' cut from the Beyond Birthdays cartridge. Not my favourite task, I always find these phrases difficult to use. Then I came up with the idea of making a card that would be nice to send to good friends after spending a weekend with them. The border punches are by Martha Stewart, Flowers are by Poppicraft, The sentiment is from the Cafe set by MFT. The phrase was run through the cuttlebug using everybody's favourite, swiss dots. The tiny copper thingy holding the ribbon is a fastenator brad. Click HERE to see how the rest of the design team interpreted the challenge.

Another Dog............................

I seem to be going dog crazy at the moment, but just love this dog. It's one of those huge stamps that take up the whole of the card, I coloured him in copic markers and added glossy accents to his nose. The woof word is a diecut from 'woof the dog' by Go-kreate, and the sentiment is a clear stamp by MFT.