Connie....

Isn't this image adorable? Her name is Connie, and she is available either as a stamp, or as a download from Sugar Nellie (I used the download)

I let the image speak for itself on this card, and kept it quite simple. Papers are Cottontail, flowers made with card candi, and the tiny sentiment - all by CraftworkCards

Coloured with ProMarkers:

Skin Ivory and blush

Eyes Powder blue

Hair Ivory, buttercup and mustard

Jeans Pastel blue and denim blue

Top Cocktail pink and sunkissed pink

I have been busy making a card for James, my eldest son, who has just landed a new job - congrats James xx. I do love making personalised cards, especially for my nearest and dearest, I don't know that my boys appreciate them as much as their wives do though. The last one I sent to Edward, lovingly crafted and geared to one of his hobbies was totally unsigned, no message, nothing. I had been so busy making the card I forgot about that little detail. 'with love from mum would have been nice' he said 'I am heavily into recycling and saving the planet' I lied 'it's blank so that you can use it again' He didn't believe me of course, they know me so well. I can imagine the conversation between the boys 'the old girls losing it, forgot to sign my birthday card..........'

More pretty flowers....and is Spring in the air?

This one is the one I did for CWC blog last week. The flowers are their die cut blossoms, which I put on a rubber piercing mat and rubbed each petal with an embossing stylus, the petals curl up and crinkle in a very satisfactory way. I put some card candy in the middle and put a trail of glue around that, which I sprinkled with seed beads

the flourish was cut from the Mother's Day cartridge, everything else is from CWCards

Spring must be in the air, we had our first squirrel visitors to our garden yesterday. They have probably been dreaming all winter how they can divebomb my tubs to eat all the budding flowers, what a pain they are. They are very fond of crocus blooms I notice, so they have those as an appetiser, move on to the pansies for a main course, and finish off by gaily digging up daffodils and eating the bulbs. Obviously daffodil bulbs are their version of Ferrero Rocher chocolate. I'm surprised they don't tap on the window and ask me to make them a after-dinner coffee. We bought some stuff called 'squirrel gone' which you scatter liberally around, they are supposed to hate it. Not our squirrels, it makes not a jot of difference, in fact they probably eat that as well, a nice little mid-morning snack, Yummy.

Handmade Flowers....

Over at Polkadoodles today, our challenge was to use three handmade flowers on our card - they can be any sort of flowers - punched, handcut, whatever, just not Primas or ready made.

I printed off papers in a gorgeous neutral colourway from All Around and Everywhere CD and used this on the inside and front of the card. I then folded a flap back on the front and secured it with a foam pad. The black scrolls are from the Mothers Day cartridge, cut on the Cricut.

I put some spotty card candy, available from Polkadoodles down the front.....

I cut the flowers from the George cartridge at different sizes, and spritzed the cuts with some water with perfect pearls mixed in, then crumpled up the flowers (wetting the cuts relaxes the fibres in the cardstock and makes it easier to crumple). They were then layered up with a candy dot and some glitter in the centre. The finished flowers have a lovely splodgy sort of sheen. I didn't put a sentiment on, it will go into my 'any occasion' box.
Talking of altered flowers, here are some more I made - this card is on the Craftwork Cards blog today, pop over if you would like to see it, I would love to know if you like it.


A friend asked me if I would help her put some stuff she no longer wanted onto ebay. So I went round yesterday and helped to sort the stuff out, did a bit of research on price, took the photos, edited them, helped her find her ebay account name (she has only used it once, when I set it up for her and showed her how to use it, about two years ago). All this took quite a time as you can imagine. Eventually we found her user name and password tucked away in an old diary. Time for another cup of tea......all this went on for a whole afternoon, until we were finally ready to go on and list her items. 'Your account is blocked' announced ebay, in big bold red letters. By this time we had, frankly, lost the will to live, but we pressed on. It turns out that she has an outstanding debt from two years ago and she can't possibly use ebay until it is settled.
How much?
£0.01
Yes, she has been cast out into the wilderness for a penny!

Have a great weekend, see you tomorrow

Meet Warren.........

Warren is the latest addition to the Craftwork Cards family (great name for a rabbit!). You get 12 bunny images all different and all ready to colour in a pack - they come ready cut into circles. The papers are called Cottontail, and are beautiful pearlescent shades of pink, blue and grey. You can buy scalloped circles in the same colours - as always, they make coordinating so easy. They have also started a range of cards with these shaped sides - I only have this shape shown here, but now that I have seen them, the others (I think there's a scallop edge, and a diamond shape....) are definitely on my wish list.

I had a go with airbrushing for this little image, added some Martha Stewart borders and one of the new teensy sentiment labels. The tiny flowers were in my stash, not sure who makes them, I have a feeling I got them from Oriental Trading

Promarkers used:

ice grey 1, 2 & 3

pastel pink and blossom

sky blue

leaf green, grass green

For the second card, I used another shaped border card for the base, and one of the precut scallop circles to match the pearly blue paper on the inside of the card. I dotted pastel blue card candy around the edge of the scallops




A lot of you have emailed and asked about card candy. They are little domed pieces of pearlised cardstock which you stick on with foam pads or silicone glue and use instead of brads - much easier, and the colours are gorgeous (much cheaper too). Craftwork Cards now have a USA supplier, look on their site for details. If not, Polkadoodles stock them and do free shipping worldwide.

We have booked our flights back to the US today, I have such a busy schedule before we go, and so much to do life is going to be hectic for a few weeks. Thanks for all the advice on the new phone, I can now make and receive calls, but texting and voicemail are still a step too far. Lots of you seem to play Angry Birds as well, let me tell you (bursting with pride here, how sad) I have three stars on all the levels, and all the golden eggs. Even my kids are impressed - I think I need to get a life.
See you tomorrow

Another Sugar Nellie....

I was asked if I could made a special birthday card for someone. They asked me to make a really elaborate, fancy card and told me her favourite colour was blue. Here's what I came up with.....

The stamp is by Sugar Nellie, coloured with Promarkers. Papers are by Colorbok - I added pearls to the swirls on the paper. Tiny butterflies are Martha Stewart and liquid pearls. A scrap of vintage lace, and some blue lace by Rusty Pickle. Base card and sentiment circle is Craftwork Cards and measures 6 x 6. I used one felt, and two paper flowers, all made with the rolled rose Dinamics die from MFT

I have a brand new fancy phone. My old contract was up, and I renegotiated with my service provider, part of the deal was a smart phone - not an iPhone, but a HTC Desire. I have been fiddling around with it for days. I have wanted a smart phone for ages, I suffered from swipe envy when I saw them being used. So now I have the local weather which pops up - if it's raining outside some cute little windscreen wipers start up - and a lot of apps, most of which I will never use, I know how to access the internet, my address book is ready to go. Just one problem. How do I make a call? I haven't a clue. As for texting......it's all a huge mystery. I feel quite nostalgic for my old phone which was super-easy to use, but there again, I must be thankful for small mercies, I couldn't play angry birds on my old one. I predict quite confidently that one of these days they are going to make a phone which will cook your dinner and wash the floor in between answering your calls for you.

Winners of the Card Competition and a Teacup Card

Do you remember last week when I posted this layout of Kiki, and said that the page layout would make a nice card?

Well I tried it, and here is the result...................

The teacup girl is a Stamping Bella stamp available in the very near future from Scrappy-go-Lucky. The flowers were made by glueing upside-down card candy to a circle of cardstock. My very talented Craftwork Cards teamie Lynda Moreland came up with this idea, such a simple way to make cute little flowers that match your projects exactly
Big thanks to all of you who entered a card in Letraset's competition. The guys over there have been looking at all the gorgeous cards and have come up with their winners, you will all win two blending sets of your choice, plus of course your card will be displayed by Letraset at craft fairs and events all over the UK and elsewhere.

In no particular order:

10. Trish Lucey for her gorgeous manga card
12. Jane for her cute little robot
21. Scrappy Max for her Together Forever LOTV card
22. Peggy T for her Sugar Nellie Joy card
23. Kimberley for her Canadian Way card

Congratulations to all of you. Please send your cards with your name, address, telephone number and email address to

Going Buggy Card Competition
Letraset Ltd
Kingsnorth Ind Est
Wotton Road
Ashford
Kent TN23 GFL

Letraset will be in touch with you to see which sets you have chosen

I should be wearing a daffodil today. Why? It's St David's Day, the patron saint of my homeland Wales. (Thank you Kim for reminding me!) When I was a little girl living in Wales, the children would dress up in national costume on this day, so I went to school dressed in a long black skirt, an apron, white shirt, a woolly shawl and one of those funny tall black hats - google Welsh national costume if you are from another part of the world and curious.
Happy St. David's day to you all...........

See you tomorrow

Cupcakes Galore..........

I have been busy making a few cupcake cards. Why? Well, Papercraft Inspirations magazine have a stand at the Stitch and Craft show at Olympia (London) and they are doing all sorts of yummy cupcake themed make and takes and demos. There is going to be a giant cupcake stand for readers cards, but it may look a bit sad to start with until it fills up, so I have made these to help start it off.

If you are going to Olympia on March 17th - 20th, be sure to take a cupcake card along with you to be in with the chance of winning a prize, put your name and address on the back of the card, and your name will be entered into a draw for a bumper goodie bag and I will see you there, as I am joining the Papercraft Inspirations team for the first two days of the show, be sure to come and say hello.

I used a Polkadoodles stamp for the first card, the choc drops on the cake are covered with glossy accents

the second one has a stamp by Inkadinkadoo, papers are by core-dinations and DCWV






and this last one uses a Cricut cupcake, I think it was from Doodlecharms. The cute saying is from the cupcake set by the Cutting Cafe

What else have I been doing? Well, I have cleared my mail box of 600 emails, so I have done a fair bit of blog hopping this weekend. I have received some blog awards from very kind blog friends, and have totally overlooked putting them on here, I am so sorry. Between CHA and jet lag, then catching up with various projects, I just didn't have the time. But I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate your thinking of me - I appreciate each and every one of you. If it wasn't for you, I would be sitting here every morning burbling away to myself :)



When I was going to CHA, I clicked on one of my own ad's out of curiosity, a company called Vistaprint, and ordered some snazzy colourful business cards for a ridiculously low price, they threw in 500 address labels for free. So I felt pretty organised in LA, doling out professional looking cards to anyone who was daft enough to stop and talk to me.... Well, since then, this company keeps sending me emails, would I like another 250 business cards and return labels - FREE? Well yes, okay then, I got some made up with my US address. Would I like a card holder for my cards - FREE? - okay then, I feel more like someone who knows what they are doing every day with all this stuff. Then the piece de resistance - would I like a T shirt - FREE?



Will I ever wear it? Who knows. I may have some well-meaning stranger coming up to me and giving me advice on how to dress if I do - cute though isn't it?

See you tomorrow

Stashbox Stamp day for Polkadoodles

It was my turn to set the challenge over on Polkadoodles today. We had decided that once a month we are going to have a stashbox stamp challenge - basically, we can use any stamp we like with our Polkadoodles papers and embellishments. To this I added the requirement:

2 ribbons and a charm

So if you love challenges, please please join in

On to the card, I used papers from the Sugar Birdies CD (the flowers were punched from a plain taupe paper printed from the CD as well). The sentiment label is from the Sundae of Seasons CD, and the stamp? You will not have seen this one before, it was a brand new one at CHA, and will very shortly be available from Scrappy-go-Lucky. Isn't she just gorgeous, peeping out of her flowerpot?

My expert fashion advice was called upon today. This is always happening to me - I am browsing the clothes in M & S and someone comes up and begs my advice. This is not because I looked a picture of elegance and good taste, I had dashed out in my housework jeans and an old sweater for some food, but the clothes beckoned irresistibly and I couldn't resist a little browse.

Now what do you say when a sweet grandma accosts you, holding up a garment that nobody over the age of 21 should wear and says 'do you think this would look nice on me?'

Yes, I am well aware that I am, myself, a sweet grandma, but the difference is that I have a cast iron rule when it comes to dress - if you can remember that particular fashion from the first time around, then you are too old to wear it now. Works a treat. It has saved me from buying jumpsuits, mini skirts and harem pants this past season. I hear that the 70's are hot fashion this summer. Well, since I looked hideous in bell bottomed psychedelic prints as a slip of a thing in the 70's, I am not deluded enough to think that I will look any better in them this time around.

You see, it makes sense, and yet these people keep coming up to me and asking me if ridiculous things will suit them. What can you say? I should probably get my mantra, as outlined for you above, printed out, and stand on street corners handing it out to folk as they enter the shop. I could become a one-woman crusade.......

Edited to say that I told her not to buy it - I was very tactful, I didn't say 'don't get it because you are too old and would look ridiculous' although I was tempted. I thought of saying 'it's not really your colour' but then she would have dived towards the shocking pink version. So I said 'well good for you if you are able to show your arms, I would LOVE to wear that, but stopped wearing sleeveless about five years ago' big sigh........ 'oh I don't do sleeveless either she said' waving the scanty top in the air 'I was going to cover it up with a cardigan' 'mmmm, that would spoil the line totally, don't you think?' She agreed, and put it back reluctantly. Last seen making a beeline for the black mini skirt with the big silver buckle on the waist. Some you win...............

See you tomorrow

Scrapbook Layout...........

Something you don't see very often from me, a scrapbook layout. I actually made this one for Kiki's book some time ago, but totally forgot to take it down to London, so it has been hanging around in a drawer for the best part of two years. I found it the other day, and surprisingly - very surprisingly, I am my own worst critic - I still like it. You can see one corner has got a bit bashed in the drawer, but I have flattened it out, and kept it where I can see it so that next time I go to London, hopefully, I will remember to take it with me.

She was four when I took this photo.

I stitched around the gingham piece, then stamped in a lilac ink some flourishes from Autumn Leaves, and dotted a few dewdrops around. The flowers are punched, with buttons in the centre. It must have been before my obsession with threading buttons started, because all the buttons are naked!

Come to think of it, the layout of the page would make a nice card....wheels are turning

Don't forget you have until the end of this week to enter a card into my Promarker colouring competition, scroll down for details. The prize is worth a try....

See you tomorrow

Two cards made yesterday.......

Two of the most gorgeous cards I have put on here for a while, I am sure you will all want step-by-step instructions....................

Go to Poundland and buy some tubes of glitter glue, give some punched flowers and butterflies to a three year old, sit back and wait for the explosion............

These are the cards that Max made for mummy yesterday, of course, the glitter was the star of the show and he applied it rather liberally to everything, including the table and me

I gave him some scalloped scissors, that required a lot of concentration...........of course, as always he was on fireman duty, his obssession with fire emergencies is unabated.....

while his little brother Milo, aged 20 months was much more interested in playing on the nintendo DS with Pops............... is he going to be left-handed like me?



and we went to feed the ducks in the same park that their daddy used to feed the ducks on a sunday afternoon when he was a little boy..........

Max threw a whole crust, which one greedy gander snapped up, and waddled around with it hanging out of his mouth for ages, he obviously thought it was his birthday, never had so much bread in his life, but didn't have a clue what to do with it. In the end, he gave an anguished 'QUACK', the crust fell out of his beak, and was grabbed by another duck, who swam triumphantly away with his prize. Life is hard!

I am working on a tutorial for the pop-up matchbox. See you tommorrow.

In the meantime, you still have plenty of time to make a card for Letraset and be in with a chance of winning two blender sets, a total of 24 ProMarkers. Worth a shot, good luck. Scroll down to see how to enter

Little gift bag and more blending colours....

This week on Polkadoodles challenge, Saskia, who is from Belgium, set the challenge, and of course she chose

Chocolate

So I made this little gift bag, cut from the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More Cricut cartridge at 6", it is just big enough to hold about 6 little choccie as a cheer up present for someone. The papers and tag are from the Back to Nature CD

and here's another example of favourite blending colours with my Promarkers - another Sugar Nellie stamp. I used Bazzill dotted cardstock called 'rope swing' (I love the names they give to their cardstock, it makes them sound so much more appealing than 'tan' or 'brown'
I used some wide raffia netting, and held it in place with a couple of buttons and the stamped panel

Promarkers used:

Pear green and Marsh Green

Sandstone, caramel and tan

Tree trunk cool grey 3, warm grey 4

leaves cinnamon, burnt umber, caramel

hair - vanilla and buttercup

Don't forget to get your Promarkers out and colour a card to win 24 promarkers - details below, and don't forget to link back to this site from your blog please, so that your visitors can see the details for themselves, and you can still win 36 promarkers - all the new blending sets, over on Letraset's blog

More Favourite Colours

I used another Sugar Nellie stamp for this card. Usually I sort out my colours before I start, but this time, I just doodled away, and this is how I ended up with navy blue and bright pink - I like the combo though

ProMarkers used:

China blue and cobalt blue for her coat

Powder blue and denim blue for the jeans

Rose pink and blossom for her scarf and hat

hair ivory, tan and cinnamon

deer sandstone tan and burnt sienna

blush and dusky pink for face
ice grey 2 to shadow, leaf and apple for ground

Border punches Martha Stewart

Nestabilities labels 2

Sentiment Craftwork cards

I am still in a mess with my dripping leak into my craft space. I can't access my Cricut which is a major headache for me as I use it every day, there is stuff all over the floor, I have nowhere to put anything. The leak has stopped, but we dread having another rain storm.........it will all get sorted eventually

We went to see The King's Speech tonight - probably the among the last people in the UK to go and see it. Fabulous film, if you haven't seen it yet, it's worth seeing. What is it about cinema audiences though - why are there always people who laugh loudly, even when something isn't very funny, or even when it is clearly not meant to be funny? Why is popcorn sold in cinemas when it is so noisy to eat? Why is there almost always some sticky gum or something stuck to the arm of your seat? Why, when I have gone to the loo just before the film, do I always want to go again right in the middle of the film, I can wait hours anywhere else, sit me in a cinema seat and after an hour I am crossing my legs. Apart from all that, we had a lovely evening

Don't forget to scroll down for the post to find out how you can win yourself 24 gorgeous Promarkers

Back tomorrow....

Promarker Competition

Two great competitions for you today, read all about mine at the end of this post, then go over to Letraset's blog to see how you can win more Promarkers. Those clever peeps over at Letraset have come up with another bright idea, brand new blending sets, with 12 ProMarkers in each set. The idea is that with every set you get paired colours that will blend and shade perfectly together.

I know that a lot of people are intimidated by alcohol markers and simply don't know which colours they should get to start, and with these sets Letraset have taken the guesswork out of the equation and made it easy.

So for the first competition, all you have to do is pop over to Letraset's blog and see what you have to do to win all three sets of these markers. It's easy, and well worth entering. But that's not all, read on and see how you can win on here as well

I was all set with a neat little colour chart for you of all my favourite blending colours, but in the rainy drippy chaos that is my scrap space at the moment, it got wet and a bit splodgy looking, so I will post it tomorrow.

I did make a couple of cards though with some of my favourite blends

Stamp - Sugar Nellie

Sentiment - Lily of the Valley

Promarkers used:

Blush and soft peach for skin

sandstone tan and caramel for hair

denim blue and powder blue for hat and dress

dusky rose and sunkissed pink for top and tights

cinnamon, warm grey 2, 3, 4 for the rest

and here's another Sugar Nellie stamp, I just love these little girls. This one is called Grace - I coloured this one in really softly, which suits the vintage look of the stamp. I wanted the colours to look sort of faded......

Hair Ivory and Buttercup

Skin Ivory, blush and sunkissed pink

clothes sunkissed pink and dusky rose

large scallop half circle - Cricut and Lacy Labels cartridge

flowers by Prima
sentiment circle by Craftwork Cards
















and here's the next way to win - five of you will win two blending sets each



What do I want you to do? Here's your opportunity to have your work displayed at prestigious international craft events - Letraset want to make up some boards for display at various craft shows, and would like one made up of customers cards, so I want you to make a card for them. It can be any style, any stamp, digi or otherwise, but must be coloured with Promarkers.

You cannot combine your entry with any other challenges.

Put your card on your blog, forum or photoalbum and link it using the linky feature below, you must list the colours used, and if you are one of the winners will have to send your card to Letraset in the UK. In return five of you will get TWO blending sets each - that's 24 markers to add to your stash

we (some of Letraset's staff, and me) will be visiting your blogs to see the cards. The executives from Letraset will pick their five favourite cards.

You have until

10:00 P.M (5:00 P.M EST) on Monday 28th February

that's two whole weeks and two weekends for you to colour away.

Good luck!

Now hop on over to Letraset's blog to enter their giveaway

Winners of the Cricut Stuffed Toy and magazines.......

First of all, today's card. I used a gorgeous taupe card base from Craftwork Cards, it has a lovely pearlescent sheen and was just too gorgeous to cover with a pattern paper, so the card is simple. I used a cuttlebug embossing folder across the bottom to add a bit of texture.

The flourish was cut from Wall Decor and More - I chopped it around a little to fit the card, and added some teensy green gems which were a total pain to glue

The lily is one of Stampendous's brand new big flowers, coloured with Promarkers. I added liquid pearls, black glitter and some more of the irritating little teensy gems to the flower before sticking it on with foam pads

Edited to say in response to a comment, I love liquid pearls. I don't think I have the technique down to a fine art, they sometimes look a bit blobby, but somehow it doesn't matter on the type of stuff I use it on. I like the pale pink, as shown here, the pearl colour and the red at Christmastime.

I also wanted to say thanks to all of you who come on here and haven't been irritated by the new ads, but have been interested enough to take a peek at them. Thanks to you, I will have enough pennies in the coffers to cover the mailing costs of all the blog candy, so it will have made a difference. Thank you :D

So to the winner of Cricky, the big stuffed Cricut that I got at the CHA gala. He is going to live with

BrensDesigns

somewhere in the USA I think - he is going to be the most well-travelled bug in the world. All the way to the UK from LA, now back again to the USA. Congratulations Bren, email me with your address and he will be in the mail to you

The two winners of the Cricut magazines are

Carol Moore

and

Sarah Turner (Not Quite Martha Stewart blog)

Congrats to you as well, email me with your addresses

I have been hearing pitter patter all night - no, not of tiny feet, but of raindrops falling into a bowl on a shelf in my CRAFT CLOSET. Of all the spots in the house that develops a leak, why on earth does it have to be in my special space? We put a washing up bowl underneath to catch the drips, but it was filling so rapidly that I had to set the alarm clock at hourly intervals all night long to empty the dratted bowl. So today sees me just a little bit tired, a little bit grumpy, and a little bit anxious about all my stuff - I have so much, I just can't bear the thought of emptying the cupboard, so have just taken out things most at risk from the water. We are waiting for the insurance assessor to contact us about the repair.
Hey ho, these things happen. I will just put my wellies and raincoat on and get back up there to make a card or two. Has anyone seen my umbrella?

Be sure to check back tomorrow for some Letraset (Promarker) news, and a competition you won't want to miss

Cricut Magazine - 2 Up for Grabs

I picked up a couple of copies of this brand new magazine, devoted to all things Cricut, at CHA. This is the first issue, and the two copies are up for grabs here. If you want one, just leave your name under this post.
I guess you will want to know what I thought of it? Well there were some cute projects in there, but also some projects that had me scratching my head a little (no, a lot if I am totally honest) I was
surprised, for instance that scallop borders were credited to Martha Stewart punches when there is an identical cut on the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. Can you believe they credit Stampin Up for a plain circle punch, when we have good old George to do the job? So I didn't feel that our super machines were used to capacity or showed their versatility in this edition. I would have thought that it was an ideal opportunity to show that the machine makes lots of extra purchases like circle punches redundant.
With some of the scrapbook layouts the instructions were so sparse - literally a list of products used - that you really had to guess which bit had been cut with the Cricut. There was a good mix of cards, scrapbook layouts, a few cake projects and some home decor stuff, so something for everyone. They have also used a wide variety of cartridges, including some of the older ones, which I thought was good. The instructions for the cards were quite detailed although they failed to give you the crucial size of the cut. They also utilised design studio, the gypsy and the imagine machine on a few projects, although this just meant they mentioned DS or gypsy (weld the two shapes together using DS) The projects are beautifully photographed.

Will I subscribe? I am a bit on the fence at the moment, probably not, but would buy it if I saw it in a store. At $15 a copy, I think they need to sharpen the Cricut content and show me cuts and ways of using the cuts that I hadn't dreamed of.

In the meantime, here's your chance to judge for yourself. I will give the names of two winners on Monday when I announce the winner of the fluffy green Cricut, who looks to me as if he is giving me very baleful looks and can't wait to get out of here - scroll down for that post if you haven't already offered to adopt him

Polkadoodle Friday

A fun new challenge on Polkadoodles today, set by our Italian design team member Miria who chose the theme

That' s AMORE

use any film or song with a love theme as your inspiration

I was really short of time for this one, but having been AWOL for a couple of weeks, I delved into my stock of Polkadoodles papers and images printed from the Love and Cherish CD, and came up with this card, inspired by Shania Twain's 'Still the One' - I love that song

I matted everything in black, added some doodling, ribbon and a charm. Quick and easy and I quite like the finished look

Have you made your valentine cards yet? I keep meaning to make one for each of the children, but don't think I will have the time. I am full of good intentions that never quite make it to reality. Mike and I don't really do valentines day - nothing to do with having been married for a long time, we never did, even in the first flush of new romance, so we certainly aren't about to start now. I see magazines with romantic table layouts, complicated ideas for that romantic dinner for two, even articles on what to wear for that romantic date........what a faff! Good luck to you all if you are going down that route....me? I'll be cosying up in my nice warm PJ's over a nice warm craft table with my lovely, but totally unromantic husband for company :) Mind you, I have always been attracted to the idea of finding some little diamond bauble dangling from a giant bunch of red roses. Sigh.

See you tomorrow