Monday Giveaway - Funky Hand

Leave a comment on this post to be in with a chance to win the fabulous

Colour Me Happy CD

by

Funky Hand

I will mail to anywhere in the world

Here is a screen shot of a wordbook page - yes, you can print out your own wordbooks in any of the 23 paper designs in the 12 colour collections

a screenshot of one of the paper collections....................

and you also have 35 digi stamps that are so easy to resize....................

So here's my Funky Hand card.
As you know, I love scallop edge cards, but they can be tricky, you can't take a pattern paper to the edge because of the scallops. So I put the card in the printer, and printed the whole thing with one of the patterns from the 'contented coffee' paper collection on the CD ............
then I printed out a plain paper from the collection onto a sheet of white cardstock (I use georgia pacific from walmart), and reinserted it so that my birdcage was printed onto the printed side (I resized the birdcage with just a couple of clicks)
Then I printed out a sheet of gingham, reprinted the birdcage onto it, and cut out just the cat, which I attached to the main image with foam pads. The remaining strip of gingham was used as a border which I punched with the swiss cheese punch by EK Success, and backed with brown cardstock.
The bird is another digi stamp, I coloured him with Promarkers




a bit of bling around the cat's neck, and a cute sentiment, and I was done



See you tomorrow for my Polkadoodles giveaway

Giveaway Week

Please don't leave your name for the draw on this post, go to the post for the day

Time for some blog candy! I have reached the heady number of 1,500 followers to my blog, and another 900 subscribe by email, so time to say thank you to you all for all the encouragement, friendship and inspiration that you give me. All you have to do is leave a comment under the post FOR each day this week, STARTING TOMORROW, MONDAY 16TH AUGUST, to be in with a chance of winning that day's prize.

New followers names will go in as well, so if you have just stumbled across me.......welcome

If you subscribe by email and want to enter, click on the Going Buggy link at the bottom of your email, it will bring you here, click on comments under the post and leave your name. Be sure to leave enough information for me to contact you if you win.

I have been given some fabulous prizes to giveaway this week. I decided that I would give away a prize a day, that way more of you will win something - spread the happiness a bit more......

I am listing them in the order that I have been associated with the company

Monday - The fabulous new CD Colour Me Happy from Funky Hand

Tuesday - Two wonderful Christmas CD's - Jingle Jangle Christmas and Christmas Templates from Polkadoodles

Wednesday - a copy of Sure-Cuts-A Lot2 from Scrappy-Go-Lucky

Thursday - A set of 12 Promarker pens, and a set of 12 Aquamarkers from Letraset

Friday - a Craft Caddy from QVC

Saturday - a set of 12 Martha Stewart Tinsel glitter - from Me:)

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENT UNDER THE DAILY POST, NOT THIS ONE TO HAVE YOUR NAME ENTERED IN THE DRAW

Shoe Card for Funky Hand and a Sketch from Craftwork Cards

I have been making some samples for Anice, the owner of Funky Hand, using the fabulous Colour Me Happy CD. All the papers and the image were printed from the CD. I printed the shoe onto some spotty paper, punched some holes and threaded with ribbon. The square buttons are a paper from the CD, I just printed them out and cut out individual buttons

Here's another sketch from Craftwork Cards. I was a bit late getting this one in, but do pop over there to see what people have done with this sketch

I did a very literal interpretation of the sketch, papers, butterfly and card candy by Craftwork cards, flowers by Prima. I left off the second butterfly because it made the card look unbalanced

It's been a miserable couple of days weather-wise here in the UK. Lashing rain and quite cold. As I shopped for groceries I noticed that my handbag, slung over my shoulder, seemed really heavy, I was walking like Quasimodo. So when I got home I investigated - one purse, bulging with till receipts, a phone, a paperback book, another paperback book (I like reading....), a phone charger (??? -I have no idea), an iPod, a Nintendo DS both needing recharging , 7 lipsticks, 3 lip gels, 3 bottles of hand sanitizer, a tube of moisturiser, lip salve (as if I need that with all that lipstick), £4.65 in loose change, (mainly pennies that I had thrown in the bottom of the bag), my diary, a notepad and pen, a small umbrella, perfume, two of Kiki's hair slides and a random collection of stuff - bits torn out of newspapers and magazines, a half eaten bar of chocolate and so on. Add the three pairs of sunglasses I had in there, and I am pretty well prepared for anything, in fact I could probably go for a weekend break somewhere and survive quite well with just the contents of my bag. Heck, if I shoved a swimsuit and sarong in there I could go on holiday for a week - at least the sunglasses would come in useful.

Printing on Vellum

This week's challenge on Polkadoodles is printing onto vellum or acetate. I used the peacock from Back to Nature CD and printed onto white vellum, which I then mounted onto a very pale lilac card. It does give a pretty transluscent look which doesn't show up in the photo. The cardstock is gemstone aqua, and the large scallop circle was cut using Lacy Labels cricut cartridge. I double knotted some lilac organza ribbon with some aqua velvet

I used clear shimmerz dots by Papermania to add a bit of shine............they pick up the colour that's underneath them, so useful. I didn't put a sentiment on, as this would do for so many occasions





I am getting ready to have a mega blog candy giveaway here to celebrate having 1,500 followers - crikey, where did you all come from? Anyway, I will be spreading a bit of love next week, so watch this space.

Grandad

Here's another grandparent card that I made for this month's Papercraft Inspirations magazine. I really like the use of corrugated card on this one. The letter stickers are by Making Memories. The star was cut from the George cartridge at 3"

I have a lot to do today, some of it involves boring stuff like sorting out mail, some of it is more exciting like making some cards with Funky Hand's new CD Colour Me Happy. I am not very disciplined, I will throw myself into the cardmaking, and tonight as I climb into bed I will think 'oh bummer, didn't sort out the correspondence again......never mind, I'll do it tomorrow'. Then the whole cycle will start again tomorrow

Beary sweet.....

I found this little acrylic stamp set on sale, I stamped her onto white card, and rounded the edges, then I stamped her again and cut out just her hat, so that it stands above the base card. The papers are by My Minds Eye, and the sentiment button is from Craftwork Cards

I really like using pink and brown together, it's always a lovely combination for any card

Promarkers used:

Bear - sandstone and vanilla and tan

clothes and accents - blossom pink, pale pink and cocktail pink

Punch - lattice arch Martha Stewart

When I went for a coffee yesterday I sat at a table with a very elderly man, and a woman who told me she was his carer. It turned out that he was 93, had alzheimers and was from Poland. He was just lovely, with the kindest blue eyes you ever saw, and although he was very confused about the here and now, he told me in his broken English how he had escaped from the enemy during the war, he remembered it all..............his face was pensive with remembrance and his eyes clouded with memory as he gazed into the past, telling me about climbing a mountain as he escaped, he was shot in his leg, lying there until the British soldiers came along and rescued him. He has lived in England ever since then, and has been married to an English woman for sixty years. As he left, he leaned over and gave me a kiss on my cheek, and I found the whole experience very moving, his memories of sixty five years ago clear and sharp in his mind as if it were yesterday, and yet, yesterday was but a blur. Yet because of him, and tens of thousands like him, I had the freedom to sit in the sunshine enjoying my coffee.....

See you tomorrow

Retirement Card and a 'Chicken' - Wall Decor

Not really a chicken I don't think with those tail feathers - here is another border card from Wall Decor. I cut the fence in taupe as a shadow, then again in white, and coloured the bird with promarkers. I cut 2" away from the right hand side of the card, so that the fence overlapped the front of the card. The sentiment is an old stamp by Darcie.

Be sure to go over to Scrappy-Go-Lucky this week, Mandy is doing a blog hop and giving away four Cricut cartridges - Rock Princess, Winter Frolic, Happy Hauntings and Country Life. Run over there to get a chance to win one of these

Here's another card I made for Scrappy-Go-Lucky this week, using the border feature from the Wall Decor and More cartridge. I cut the books at 2" in three different papers, blue, green, and a tiny floral, then chopped them around to add a bit of variety to the cut. The sentiment reads 'happy retirement' - I thought this cut was perfect for a retirement card, what could be better when you finish work than spending a lazy afternoon curled up with a good book without feeling guilty.

I thought the EK Success border punch had a bookish sort of look, and the metal accents are copper staples used with a fastenator. The lovely papers are from the DCWV Linen Closet stack


Here's a photo of our little birthday girl.......... she looks more like her mum each day!





She loved the Hello Kitty cake I grabbed from M & S (how I wish supermarkets made these great children's cakes when mine were little, when I think of all that angst, and icing spattered kitchens...............)

I have been doing a bit of tidying up on the blog, sorting out the LABELS - so now, if you want to find what I have been doing with a particular cartridge, each card is 'filed' under Cricut cartridge ******** - it should be a lot easier to find what you are looking for

See you tomorrow

Some wingless fairies.....

Here's some samples I made for Polkadoodles show on Create and Craft TV

Nikky is showing her fairy stamps, but I decided to make the girls without their wings, to show how versatile the stamps are - in each set you get the girl and her wings, which double up as a butterfly stamp.

Here's Maggie, my favourite, papers are from the new CD Creative Christmas. I cut the scallop circle using the Lacy Labels Cricut lite cartridge

Promarkers used:

Skin - blush and soft peach

clothes crimson and scarlet, warm grey 3

Hair buttercup and primrose

toadstool vanilla and burgundy

Here's the Gracie image that I coloured in my Promarker video - I perched her on the edge of a aperture. The inside was lined with a paper from All Around and Everywhere. The front was stamped and doodled with a floral stamp from the set

Here's Maxine....... again the papers are from All Around and Everywhere, and I used some corrugated card to cut out some Tim Holtz tattered flowers

Promarkers used:

skin - ivory and blush

clothes - vanilla, caramel, marsh green, pear green

Hair - umber, warm grey 4, warm grey 5

Sentiment - Hero Arts

We have had a lovely but exhausting weekend, Kiki had a lovely birthday, she looked all golden and glowing after her holiday in Portugal. It was great to see all the grandchildren. Max decided he wanted to cook something with me, so I said 'how about gingerbread men'. Off he trotted and came back wearing an apron and chefs hat - it's a serious business cooking with Ma. When they were cooked I sprinkled them with sugar, and he ate the heads off every single man before I found out what he was doing, so later in the day, a plate of headless and sugarless gingerbreads (he'd eaten the sugar too when I wasn't looking, for all I know he licked it off!) was passed around by the little chef . Naturally we ate every crumb and told him they were the yummiest ever......

Two Sneak Peeks......

Firstly here is a sneak peek at one of the two cards I made using the border feature on the Wall Decor cartridge for Scrappy-Go-Lucky - pop over there to see the full cards

and here's a peek at one of the four cards that were a commission for Papercraft Inspirations magazine this month, I was asked to make four cards suitable to give to grandparents

The tiny flowers are 'waste' from a Martha Stewart border punch, and the leaves are a sissix die
the sentiment was computer generated

A short post from me today as we are in London, too busy with the grandchildren to ramble on in my usual fashion

Under the weather....

I bought this cute turtle stamp from Inky Antics at the Orlando stampfest. The inside sentiment reads

'Hope you are soon back on your feet'

The scallop circle was cut using the lacy labels lite cartridge at 5"

I found this scrap of tiny brown bobble ribbon, I have no idea where I got it from, but wish I had some more

Promarkers used

Turtle - blush and soft peach

shell - apple green and pear green

shadow - ice grey 2

bedding and umbrella - caramel, vanilla and pastel pink

Off down to London today, it's Kiki's 6th birthday tomorrow, so there will be lots of spoiling, cake and presents

Serenade Flower

Here's another card I made for Scrappy-Go-Lucky, using the Serenade cartridge. The papers are all anonymous ones that I have had hanging around for ages

Edited to say in reply to Janet: I usually do put the sizes of the cuts on my posts Janet, missed this one, sorry. The base card is 6" square, with rounded corners, the flower pot was cut at 1 3/4", and the flower at 3"

I put some glue in the centre of the flower, and sprinkled it with tiny seed beads

Now that I have my (horrible) passport photo, I need to fill in the forms. Do they have to make it so difficult? There is a twenty four page booklet with instructions on how to fill in the form! Of course, you have to find someone to countersign your form, and endorse the back of your (horrible) photo to say that it is a true likeness. Well, I will be very insulted if anyone says that the (horrible) photo is a true likeness of me. What's more, this counter-signatory person must be an upstanding member of the community (a doctor, teacher, police officer are some examples they give of fine upstanding members of the community). So that rules out grabbing the postman when he delivers the mail. No, it has to be down to my friend Anne, who will never let me forget just how horrible the photo is...........

Flutterby butterflies

The Polkadoodles fairies stamps come in a set, with the girl image, then a butterfly image that you stamp seperately and attach to the girl for her wings. Or you can use them as I have here..........just pretty butterflies

The paper is gorgeous, I printed it from All Around and Everywhere CD, and stamped the butterflies directly onto the paper, then again on white

Promarkers used: denim blue, powder blue and tea green

My passport needs renewing, so I had to go and sit in one of those photo booths to have a new photo taken. The booths have become quite sophisticated. In the past, you perched on the stool, put your money in, and just as you bent down to reach your lipstick out of your handbag.........FLASH, so the first photo is of the top of your head, the flash going off startles you, so you rear up..........FLASH, the second photo is of you looking like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights of a car. Eventually of course I got a photo I was reasonably happy with, the money I have wasted in those booths.

Anyway, the new ones are a lot more user friendly, there is a very bossy female voice telling you what to do. 'Are you ready?' she snaps 'Are you SURE you are ready?' - what is this, can she see that I haven't put fresh lipstick on in case that flash went off again........

Under the Weather? - Serenade

Here's a card I made for Scrappy-go-lucky, the rain clouds are cut from the Serenade cartridge, the umbrella is from Everyday Paper Dolls, and the sentiment is by Inky Antics. The tiny cloud paper is from the Baby Boy pack by Craftwork Cards, and I dotted Robins Eye Dew Drops around to look like raindrops

The inside sentiment is a simple

Get Well Soon

Thanks for all the get well wishes you sent, my back seems to be getting better, although I am moving a bit gingerly at the moment

I had a lovely day yesterday, Jeannie, from Maine, who is a regular visitor to my blog, is on vacation in the area with her husband and son. She emailed me to see if there were any craft stores around here, so I arranged to pick her up and drive her around. She experienced the crafty garden centre, and was like a kid in the candy store, then we went to Hobbycraft (that's the only big box craft store in the UK) All this and a pub lunch too. She was astounded at how easily I negotiated the roundabouts, well, yes, that's sort of second nature when you live here. What should have astounded her, if it had not been our first meeting, was the fact that I didn't get lost once. Mind you, I could have driven to London and back really, and Jeannie wouldn't have known that I was lost
It was great to meet you Jeannie, and thanks for the lovely bag of goodies you gave me xx

Vintage Roses for Craftwork cards......

Time for another sketch challenge over at Craftwork Cards - here's the sketch........

which I followed quite faithfully. The paper is CWC Vintage Rose, I punched the flowers and added card candy to the centres. The leafy branch was cut from the Bloom cricut cartridge at 2"

I inked the edge of the shaped sentiment tile for emphasis. If you like following sketches, be sure to pop over to the blog to get some inspiration and hopefully join in..................

I had to show you this lovely card that came in the mail, it's a thank you card from Shirley (Nannieflash) who won some blog candy - I slipped a few of the Loralie fabric ladies in, and this is what she made with one of them. Thank you so much Shirley

Funky Hand Monthly Challenge

It's the first of the month, so time for this month's Funky Hand challenge, which this month was set by Dolly

She chose

Pockets

I took the challenge literally and printed out some papers from Dreams Come True CD, and resized some of the funky flowers. I just drew the pocket shape onto one of the papers, I got it right on my fourth attempt! The bigger flowers are Tim Holtz tattered flowers Sissix die, and I layered them all up with foam pads. I stitched around the pocket shape, and added some buttons printed from the CD

You have a whole month to take part in the challenge, and the winner gets a £20 ($35) Funky Hand voucher

Anice will be back on Create and Craft TV on the 13th August, so be sure to catch her if you can
I am moving around like an octegenarian today - I have hurt my back, so not much of a spring in my step today. It will be a visit to the osteopath first thing on monday if there isn't a miracle healing overnight.

Good Luck Card

The challenge on Polkadoodles this week is to make a generic card, suitable for male or female. I set myself another challenge with this one, to make a card without pattern paper of any sort. I love the look of 'white space' cards, they are hard for me to make, but I rather like the way this one turned out, simple and plain but it puts the message across I hope

The horse and horseshoes were printed out from the All Around and Everywhere CD from Polkadoodles, I was going to use the front view of the horse, but then thought that if it is a leaving card, maybe for someone leaving an office and going to pastures new, the backside would be more appropriate.

Be sure to visit the Polkadoodles site to hear all about a competition to win a full set of Letraset Aquamarkers, what a great prize.

I spent hours yesterday on the computer trying to book my flight back to the USA in September. Why hours? Well, the computer programme the airline uses is obviously mega sensitive, and must change minute by minute according to how many seats are left on a flight, so you type in your dates, destination ............it should be simple right? Nothing in my life is ever simple. Those prices were going up and down like yo yo's. So you think you have found a deal, BANG, it vanishes before your very eyes. We fly from the nearest airport to our home in the UK to Newark NJ, then catch a flight down to Tampa. Do I want a 7 hour stopover in Newark? I don't think so. Would I like a 35 minute connection time? Well, as we have to clear immigration and customs at Newark, I don't think so..............and so it went on, all day. A little box pops up. 'Would I like to speak to a representative?' That sounded like a good idea, so I said yes. Long wait, then another little box pops up with the accusing message 'You are not in the United States. You cannot speak to our representative'
Well you would have thought that their clever-clogs computer would have figured out that I wasn't in the US by this time.

All sorted now though.....
See you tomorrow

Oh Christmas Tree......

I know, I know, it's still July. Here is one of my first Christmas cards for this year, done with a new Christmas tree stamp from Polkadoodles. I used the snow embossing folder for the card base, and a new cuttlebug frame for around the image.

I stamped the tree twice, once onto a green base, then again onto white. I cut out all the layers on the white image and ran them through my xyron to get a nice even coat of adhesive, then I sprinkled the whole thing with glitter

Edited to answer Hestia's question. The base of the tree is a sage green pattern paper printed from the Christmas templates CD by Polkadoodles. You can see the same paper on the background of the card that I showed you last Friday. The snow folder is by Cuttlebug

I really like this frame, it's big enough to frame a good sized image, and seems to emboss really deeply

I went with my sister to Webb's garden centre yesterday. If you are from North America, I don't think you have garden centres like ours - at least, not in Florida. Some of them have developed into huge places, selling not only plants, pots, trellis and weedkiller etc, which would seem logical for a garden centre, but also furniture (not just for the patio, I mean dressers, console tables and the like), expensive ornaments, even more expensive kitchen equipment and the sort of jams and chutneys that try to fool you into thinking they are homemade by having lids covered with red gingham fabric tied on with a bit of raffia, (adding another 1000% to the cost of a naked jar of chutney from the supermarket). Some of them even sell clothes, aiming for the country tweeds and wellies brigade. Oh yes, they sell animals too, birds, fish and tortoises - another finishing touch for your expensive outdoor space. Different coach companies actually advertise coach trips to some of the bigger and better garden centres, for all I know you can book a weekend break in the place - if you get tempted to book a trip, take your wallet with you. A family of four could have a nutritious dinner at home for the price of a cup of tea and a cake.
For some reason, which again defies logic, a lot of these places have a large craft department, which of course was the reason I was there in the first place. Equally predictable was the fact that after walking through hectacres of garden gnomes, skirting the bird department and bypassing the hot pink wellies, the craft department was totally sold out of the item I went there for in the first place....ah well, the cake was very nice

Serenade Birdcage

Here's one I made for Scrappy Go Lucky, I wanted to use this birdcage from the Serenade cartridge, it reminds me of the new Tim Holtz birdcage die. I used neutral papers - Dill Blossom by SEI, and added just a pop of aqua. The base card and sentiment button are by Craftwork Cards

I knotted a piece of coffee coloured lace with some brown organza


and added strips of aqua pearls to finish

There are two more cards of mine made with the Serenade cartridge over on the Scrappy-go-Lucky blog today, click on the link to take a peek. Mandy has some really informative videos on there as well
I am off to my sister's for the day now, we have a lot of planning to do, she is coming over to the States with me in September for a couple of weeks. We need to plan our shopping routes like a military operation