Make and Cake

Well, as always when you are dreading something, the journey to Olympia was a doddle....I was hopping on and off trains with all the aplomb of a Londoner. Why do I always imagine worse case scenarios?

So here's the Papercraft Inspirations stand that was so beautifully done, all pink and white stripes, like a really trendy cafe.....all the buttons, beads etc for the make and takes are in glass sundae dishes, and the ribbons in sweet jars. Very original and pretty.

Here's Jenny Dixon, the editor helping readers with one of the make and takes

and Angela who had designed them all. You can see the big theatre in the background where Dawn Bibby was doing demos throughout the day..

here she is, with a rather dishy guy from QVC


Make and take in progress.....

here are the card designs...

and a pleased customer with her finished card....

and here is Lisa, who is fairly new to cardmaking and has a real talent for it. She instantly altered the make and take to stamp her own style on it....

Here's her card. Good job Lisa

So perhaps today I will at least know what I am doing, and won't have to keep looking up the instructions on how to make each card! If you are going today, be sure to stop by and say hello, and don't forget your cupcake card entry to be in with a chance to win a prize

Birthday Wishes

Here's the last Sugar Nellie image for a few days. For this one, I cut a label shape (Go-Kreate) in white and ran it through the cuttlebug with the sissix dots folder. Then I cut another label shape in the same size in pink, and cut around that with the next larger sized die to create a frame, which I stuck to the card with foam pads.

I cut the coloured image out, and popped her onto the frame.

The tiny sentiment echoes the shape of the die perfectly, and the flowers were cut using the Posy Patch stamps and dies from Heartfelt Creations (available very soon from Sir Stampalot in the UK)

As you read this I should be safely at Olympia. My kids, knowing how hopeless I am, have given me idiot proof instructions on getting there. There is a general feeling of anxiety/hysteria in the family about the fact that mum is on her own, trying to get from A to B, without the aid of a GPS, a map, or a well trained Sherpa guide to help her navigate the streets of London. I know, I know.....it's quite pathetic really, how did I get this reputation? Oh yes, it may be something to do with my recent adventures in Los Angeles, or the time a friend and I drove for about fifty miles when we were making a 5 minute journey in Orlando.

I will take lots of photos to share with you tomorrow

Baby Boy Card

Here's a card made with the Bambino download from Sugar Nellie - isn't he adorable? I suppose it could be a little girl baby, but somehow it looked like a little boy to me. Coloured with Promarkers, and the papers are by Craftwork Cards. The sweet baby and welcome stamps are by Studio G

I used Ivory, blush, sunkissed pink for the skin, and powder blue and denim blue for the hat

We are on babysitting duty today. As we drove Max and Milo to nursery school, Max asked 'are you going to school now Ma?' 'well no Max' I replied 'grandmas don't go to school'. He thought about this for a bit......'you went to school once didn't you Ma?' long pause........'a long time ago. Christmas was a long time ago wasn't it ? Was that when you went to school?'

Wish me luck in getting to Olympia tomorrow - it involves all sorts of train/tube travel, and with my sense of direction being non-existent, I will probably end up in Oxford. Let's just hope I don't get on Eurostar by mistake and end up in France..........

Colouring Chestnut Hair - and a winner

Firstly, I picked a name out of the hat for the cardmaking book, and the name that jumped out was

Lace Top Designs

Congratulations, email me with your address and I will get it posted

I get a lot of emails asking me about colouring hair, so I have done another quick photo tutorial showing how I do it

This little image is Connie from Sugar Nellie. She is a download, so you get her right onto your computer and can start using her straight away. The label die is by Go-Kreate, grandma sentiment oval is by Craftwork Cards and the roses are by Wild Orchid Crafts

I found this ribbon lurking in my ribbon drawer, it was perfect for this card...

Here are the colours I used for her hair:

Chestnut, Cocoa, Cinnamon and Saffron


Start by colouring the darkest parts of her hair in chestnut - at the parting, around the ribbons, in the shadow of her neck........

until you are happy that you have coloured in the parts that would be darkest.........

then using cocoa, go over the parts you have just coloured, extending the colour outwards a little onto the white.........................

Do the same with the cinnamon pen, going over the area already coloured, and extending it out into the white again.................

Go over the whole of her hair with the saffron pen to blend in all the colours, touch up the roots and ends of the hair if necessary with a dark colour again......

and here she is finished.

For her skin, I used coral around the hairline - it looks really dark when it goes on, but don't panic. Blend over that with sunkissed pink, making her cheeks pink and leaving the centre of her face white, then go over the whole lot with blush

Clothes:

Soft peach, peach and apricot

sandstone, tan and caramel

I hope some of you found this helpful. I was going to do a video, but when I got my brand new flip out of the box for the first time (it was a Christmas present), it didn't work. What is it with me and inanimate objects this week? First the window on the car, then at the weekend, the handle on the car door collapsed, now a brand new video has gone on strike. I think I'll stick to paper, glue and scissors, can't go wrong with those.

Look out for a brand new promarker giveaway on here, starting in a few days time

Sassy Lady

I found these die cut images by Kanban lurking in a drawer - they look very like Loralie fabric ladies, so I couldn't resist them, although I don't normally use pre-printed die cuts. I liked these. The background cardstock is a gorgeous starlight card with a pearly glitter from Craftwork Cards, as is the white scallop square, and the tab, that I folded back and pinned with a flower. I added another cutout flower to her dress with a foam pad, and the border punch is by Martha Stewart

We have had a lovely weekend in Yorkshire, spending time with old friends, lots of good food, wine, and even more laughter. We all have busy schedules, so we got our diaries out, and have fixed up our next two weekends for this year, and were all impressed with our own efficiency.

Are any of you planning on going to the Craft and Stitch show at Olympia (London) this week? If so, I will be helping with the make and takes on the Papercraft Inspirations magazine stand, and would love it if you came up for a chat - don't forget to bring along a cupcake card along, to be in with a chance of winning a bumper prize. I have never done anything like this before, so I need all the support I can get. We will be taking the opportunity to see our family down there, before we head back to the USA, so I am on grandma duty as well this week, it's going to be just a bit busy.

See you tomorrow.....

Polkadoodle friday, and a book review and giveaway......

The challenge this week at Polkadoodles is black, white and one other colour - I chose red, a colour combo I am very fond of on cards.

The digi stamp image of the girl is from the All Around and Everywhere CD from Polkadoodles, I printed her out in black and white all ready to colour in with Promarkers.

The sentiment is a stamp from MFT, and the red and white paper, pleated to look like ribbon is from the Not for Girls CD
Colouring a black outfit is sooooo hard! I had to do it about four times before I was reasonably happy.
If you like a challenge, why not join us this week? Hop over and see what the rest of the design team came up with HERE

I was sent this book to review, a great big chunky book packed full of cardmaking ideas. It is beautifully photographed, and the projects are covered in a step-by-step format. All sorts of techniques are covered - using beads, napkins, heat embossing........and so on. On each page is an idea for a co-ordinating gift wrap. I would say that it is suitable for a beginner/intermediate level crafter rather than an advanced level cardmaker, and it covers the basics very efficiently. If you know anyone who would benefit from this book, I have this copy to give away. Just mention if you would like it in a comment under this post. I will draw a name out of the hat on Monday, and as always will mail worldwide



by Vivienne Bolton

this is a photograph of one of the projects, made with table napkins. I love peonies, so this one caught my eye.......

and here is a gift bag I made using the instructions. Strangely, although the instructions for the cards are very precise and detailed, the instructions for this bag were rather vague and not that easy to understand - I think she was making the point that the size of the bag depended on the size of the paper used. It would have been nice to be given precise instructions for a trial bag, so that you could then adapt the sizing more easily.

Having said that, it's a cute gift bag....... of course I had to adapt it. I made a flap for the front and scalloped that. The bag is closed with a velcro dot.

with a nice gusseted side. This one was made with a 12 x 12 sheet of paper

So there you go. If you would like to try 50 new projects, or know someone who would, leave me a comment to let me know.

We are off to see old friends of ours in Yorkshire this weekend, that is if the car is mended - I drove into a multi storey car park yesterday, pressed the button to wind the window down to take the ticket, wound it back up, and CRASH there was the most almighty bang as the window dropped like a stone into the door. There was a noise of broken glass. Oh dear. I went to pay - it cost me £2.30 and I was only in the car park for 2 minutes! It's now in the garage waiting for new bits, so watch this space

Altered box......

When I was at CHA, I found a company called Heartfelt Creations, who make this fabulous product - spellbinders flower dies (made specially for them) and matching stamps to add detail to your cut flowers. The sample cards on their stand were just gorgeous, (take a look at their website for heaps of inspiration) and I was really excited when they gave me this set called Posy Patch, to play with....

I decided to use the very smallest tiniest die for my first project, and wanted to make something that looked like a hydrangea. I cut the flowers out of white card, and coloured the stamped images with promarkers, I used various shades of blue, pink and aqua to make it look realistic, and coloured the centres with a few strokes of a buttercup marker. I painted the inside and out of a tiny MDF box from Hobbycraft in white, and die cut two scallop circles just bigger than the base and lid from DCWV blue spotty paper.

The base of the flower was a wooden ball with a flat base - also from Hobbycraft, I think you would be able to get something similar from most big craft stores. I coloured the ball quickly with the wedge end of a green promarker before sticking on all the tiny blossoms with a glue gun....
the leaves were handcut....



a little circle of paper finishes off the inside, and a Martha Stewart punched border pretties up the painted box

I really like this finished project, and will be stamping and cutting a LOT more of these flowers, so watch this space..

It's a glorious day here today, cloudless blue sky and sunshine, I hope Spring has sprung

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