BBTB2 Blog Hop

Time for another BBTB2 blog hop. This week the team were asked to use the Bless this Nest cut from the Sweethearts cartridge. This is such a cute cut, I can't imagine why I haven't used it before, but that's the beauty of BBTB, you get to use cuts that you would otherwise have overlooked.

All the papers are by Heidi Grace, the scallop borders along the top and bottom were cut using the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. I added a bit of glitter to the heart and top hat

I thought she should have a little bow.................

What am I offering for a prize? This pack of 18 12 x 12 papers and lace cardstock by K I Memories, lovely zingy summer colours for your hot weather projects. I added a pack of Thickers vinyl alphas by American Crafts - love these, you can swipe them with an ink pad to totally coordinate with your project. As always, I will mail to anywhere in the world



What do you have to do? Simply leave a comment on this post, and I will draw a winner using random.org on Thursday evening, so be sure to pop back here on Friday to see if you have won
If you want to start at the beginning of the hop, go to BBTB2 and follow the links
If you want to go on from here, the lovely and talented Jeannie is next on the hop, so go over there to see her lovely nest project, and what is up for grabs and leave her a comment.
My timings might be a bit 'off', my computer still thinks it is in the UK, I am on EST (US) and I think BBTB is set for mountain time or central time, which I don't have a clue how to work out. I am joining the ranks of the senior bewildered, you will just have to pop back later if the hop isn't up and running...........Sorry about that
Good luck, and enjoy the hop

Happy Birthday Fashion Queen....................

I haven't really had a chance to use my Forever Young cartridge much, but I played around a bit today, here's what I came up with - this cartridge is a must if you make cards for girlfriends, full of really stylish cuts. I have experimented a bit, and the figures really do look best cut in black as a silhouette (in my opinion). The figure and layers were cut at 4.5", and the sentiment was cut at 1.5". The happy birthday button is by Craftwork Cards

Whilst I was cutting it, I thought very grumpily 'if I had legs like this I wouldn't have all this trouble finding a swimsuit'. At the risk of making myself bad tempered, I am going to experiment some more with Forever Young over the weekend. I am a bit behind with my visits to other blogs as well, I need to start hopping around a few........ see you there!

Musical Birthday

This card is for a fortieth birthday - a chap who is really into music. Still in my black/red/white period, maybe I will start pulling other colours out next week. I used the music note font from the Hannah Montana cartridge for the sentiment, and the guitar was cut at 2" from the same cartridge - this was one of those bizarre Cricut cuts that crop up from time to time. I set the machine to cut it at 4", and it was HUGE

I added some card candy from Craftwork Cards to dress the guitar up a bit...........
The swimsuit search goes on, how reassuring that so many of you have the same problems. It is a bank holiday weekend here in the US (Memorial Day) and also at home in the UK. So I hope wherever you are that the sun shines for you.

Polkadoodles - Stitching

On Polkadoodles this week, we were asked to use stitching - real or pretend, so right up my street. Out came my trusty Singer. I printed the papers out of the Floral Frenzy collection from the new All Around & Everywhere CD, and hand cut some of the flowers

the sentiment was from the CD as well, all I had to do was cut around the edges. Isn't it nice?

Not much time to chat today, we have a neighbourhood party this afternoon and I have to do some cooking, oh and some shopping for ingredients first, the pantry is bare.........

See you tomorrow

Eastern Inspired Cards

I promised you I would let you see the Eastern/Oriental themed cards I have been working on this week, I really am on a black and red groove at the moment, but it is the perfect colour palette for this type of card. All the cards were made using the Cricut, and Pagoda cartridge, For this first one, the dragon was cut at 3", with a gold mirri shadow, and the fans at 1 3/4". The sentiment is a Studio G

This one has two more fans, with a bronze shadow, the tag was cut at 2.5". I thought this would make an unusual wedding anniversary card - or even a wedding if you like to be different...........


For this one, I cut the bridge, then threaded the stems of the flowers through it. The sentiment is by Craftwork Cards

I am trying to find a couple of new swimsuits. Shouldn't be too hard should it? I mean, I am in Florida at the moment. I just can't find any I like, there are loads of those tankini thingies about, the two piece ones designed for those of us who are past our bikini best. I have a couple, they look fine as long as you don't bend, stretch or do anything foolish like going into the water - then the top sort of inflates around you. So a well fitting swimsuit, without stupid additions like metal buckles that get hot enough to fry an egg on, that's all I am asking for. Why do swimwear manufacturers all put those little swing tags on their garments, they all have some lithe twenty year old beauty modelling it, laughing into the camera as she drapes herself around a palm tree. Do the manufacturers not realise that it is a crushing and devastating blow for women when they struggle into the swimsuit, adjust the straps and metal buckle, then look into the mirror of the changing room to see...............................................NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, where is the lithe body, gleaming smile, the palm tree. Life can be very cruel.

See you tomorrow

Sneak Peeks, a cute baby and what's on my desk...........

Here's a sweet little baby card I made using one of the printed die-cut images from Lili of the valley, the papers are Heidi Grace, and the sentiment is stampin up. The stitching without thread on the yellow strips was an accident, I was sewing away without realising that the bobbin had run out of thread, it looked okay, so I just left it that way

I used embroidery floss to make a bow..........


Here's a sneak peek at two cards I made with the Summer in Paris mini cartridge, they are over on Scrappy Go Lucky's blog today.



I was in a red and black sort of mood.............




I really enjoyed joining in with What's On Your Work Desk Wednesday last week, it was fun going to different blogs and getting a peek at people's crafting space, also reassuring that I am not the only hurricane crafter in the universe. So here's what's on mine today, I have been playing with the Pagoda cricut cartridge, now I have all these dragons and pagodas and haven't a clue what to do with them. I have made some oriental type cards this week, will show you later, but for some reason, the pagoda has me stumped at the moment. Maybe I will have a blinding flash of inspiration,,,,,,,,,,,or maybe not

One thing that is new this week is my very organised nestabilities. I bought some self adhesive magnet strips and put them on the wall, they hold the dies perfectly, although I will have to be careful taking one off, in case the others tumble down behind my table, that would be a disaster, I'd probably never find them again, which says a lot for my housekeeping skills. The silver coloured dies are samples that were sent for me to try by Go-Kreate, they work beautifully and are cheaper than the nesties.

There is no way it could be called a scientific sample, but I was amazed how many of us are left handed judging by yesterday's comments.

Thanks to all of you who said sweet things about the latest baby photos, my boys are very good about sending us lots of photos whilst we are here in the USA, and I love updating my blog, simply because it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling every time I see their little faces over on the sidebar. It's difficult to get a good one of Max though, that child won't stay still for a moment.

See you tomorrow

Shoes and handwriting..............................

This is another image by (I think) Stampendous, which my BBTB teamie Nikky sent me, don't you think these images are clever, I love the way the heel of the shoe is a fork. More of my favourite Making Memories black spotty paper, the pink and black spotty one is DCWV. Base card is a 6" scallop square by Craftwork Cards The punch is one of my new ones by Martha Stewart, I like this one, the tiny punched out daisy 'waste' from the punched out border are very useful to dress up a card

This next card is very simple for me, I do tend to throw a lot of stuff onto my cards, I always like the plain and simple ones just as much, but I don't often put them on the blog as they don't seem to photograph well. The base paper is by Heidi Grace, the letter N is Buck Naked chipboard, and the other letters I.............................WROTE MYSELF.

Now that is something of a miracle, I would love to have fabulous handwriting that I could scrawl across a card in a casual way, and have it looking good, but I don't. I am left handed, and my writing slopes to the left, not very pretty. After a few years of looking at fonts, I seem to be getting more confident though. Maybe one of these days I will be brave enough to write a whole sentiment, not just three little letters

It's a funny thing being left handed, although I can do most things with my right hand as well, apart from writing fluently and eating a boiled egg (I know, that sounds very random). Scissors can be a bit tricky too. Two of my three children are left handed, as was my mother. In her day, she was forced as a child to write with her right hand, and her M's and N's were written upside down, so that they looked like W's and U's for the rest of her life. If you leave a comment today, let us know if you are a lefty, they say creative people often are, it would be interesting to see if there are many of us about.

I have really faffed around today, I had such a list of cards I needed to make, and ended up making none of them, not one, nada, zilch, yet I was sitting there cutting and glueing for ages. How did that happen? It could have something to do with the fact that I was sitting there in bare feet, and a rather large, harmless but very unpleasant cockroach scuttled across the garage floor. It's really hard to make cards with your legs tucked up underneath you I discovered..............

Pieces of Quiet for Penny Black Challenge

On the Penny Black challenge this week, they asked for LOTS OF DOTS, so with the help of some WeR Memory Keepers Whiteout Frenzy papers, here's mine.

The adorable little boy is a Slapstick stamp by Penny Black, called Pieces of Quiet, coloured with Copics and Promarkers.

A bit of stitching always helps in my opinion.................

Isn't that the sweetest sentiment?

I stamped him twice, once onto the orange paper, then onto white, which I coloured then cut around the boy, and popped him onto the base image with foam pads.


Thanks to those of you who suggested vinegar for my insect bites, it really works, mind you, I smell like a fish and chip shop...........
See you tomorrow

Anyone for golf?

Okay, so I have been fabric crazy this week, I promise to give them a rest next week.........maybe. Here is another of the fabulous golfers by Loralie, the sentiment was from an acrylic stamp by Studio G for father's day, I just cut off the word Dad. I thought the black doodling and stitching added a bit of contrast to what is a very bright card.

If it's your first time here, see my tutorial on making cards out of fabric.

I have had to put everything to one side for a few days while I got a magazine commission finished, all done and in the mail now, but today there hasn't been a lot of crafting done, just a lot of scratching - we went out with friends for dinner the other evening, to a place on the river. We asked for an outside table, it was a beautiful evening. 'The deer flies are biting' said the server helpfully. We sat outside anyway, and they certainly were biting, nobody else, just me, so I have these great weals all over my legs and the discomfort is driving me mad. I will never look at Bambi in the same way again.............. I have Benadryl, Clarityn, and an aloe cream, if anybody has a magic cure for bites, let me know.

We have been here for six weeks now. You would think that I would be used to the steering wheel being on the 'wrong' side of the car by now. Not a bit of it, every day, I walk confidently to the passenger door, peer in through the window, realize my mistake and slink around to the drivers side. If someone is sitting in the next car in a parking lot, I nonchalantly try to make it look as if I did it on purpose, open the passenger door and deposit my bag on the seat before walking round to the drivers side. They must think I am crazy, I mean, how many women open the door for their handbags. The daft thing is, I will just have got the hang of it when it is time to go back to the UK, and the whole saga will start all over again............the confident walk to the wrong side of the car.

Craftwork Cards Spotlight and an untidy desk........

No cards to show you here today, just teasers - today I am in the spotlight over at Craftwork Cards, you remember I told you that I was on their design team, so I would love it if you would pop over there, and leave a comment if you like the samples I made for them.

I thought I would join in with 'what's on your workdesk wednesday' this week. I was going to leave it until I had a good tidy up, but thought that was a bit daft. I am incredibly messy when I work, this actually looks quite tidy for me. What you don't see here is the floor, I toss stuff on there until I am wading through a sea of paper. The green ribbon bow was for a project I am working on for a magazine, it looked ridiculous, so that's probably gone on the floor as well. My copics and cricut stuff are always very close to hand, although I am changing over to Promarkers (a UK brand) as my copics start to run dry, they are much cheaper. Another thing always to hand is my foam pads, I buy them in Poundland.





I am a punch addict, these are just a tiny sample of all the ones piled up, occasionally I don't put them back properly, and they fall onto the desk with a horrible thud, making me jump out of my skin.............





One thing that is organised is my cardstock, and that's only because I bought these racks from a scrapbook store that was closing down. I worried a bit that the paper wouldn't take the humidity in the summer (they are in the garage, along with the rest of my stuff in Florida). but they seem to keep in pretty good shape.

I sent a little Flip video to Max and Milo wishing them a happy birthday (they both have birthdays this week). So my son did a video for us, supposedly of Milo opening his presents. Of course, when you are only one, crawling around the garden and trying to climb up on the slide is much more fun, so Max (three tomorrow) was ripping open the parcels. 'Do you want to watch Ma wishing you a happy birthday Max?' asked my son, 'No' said Max, very firmly 'Don't want to watch Ma, want to watch Fireman Sam'.
Tell it like it is Max, that's my boy.

A True Friend.............

No apologies for another fabric card today - this is another image from some of the new Loralie fabric I tracked down on Ebay. I turned it into an easel card, added lots of stitching and an Inkadinkadoo sentiment.

If this is your first visit to my blog and you haven't used fabric on cards, scroll down to labels and click on the tutorial.

Well you won't believe what happened yesterday, yes, at Dunkin Donuts. I was sitting in the sunshine, reading a magazine, two women were at the next table. Up drove a sheriff's car, I thought he had come for the free coffee that the cops are allegedly given. No, he was there by appointment with these two women, sat down and started interviewing them - in a loud voice and in full view of everyone, it was like an episode of Miami Vice. Apparently the husband of one of them had tried to strangle her with the car safety belt on saturday night. So there she was, weeping and showing her bruises (quite nasty they were, well, you didn't think I was going to carry on reading with all that drama going on did you? No, I was pretending to read, but behind my sunglasses my eyes were fixed on the wailing woman). I'm going off that place a bit, I seem to be the only normal person who goes there.

Today is our little Milo's first birthday. Happy birthday sweetheart. xxx

Ready to Rock for BBTB2, and a sneak peek

It was my turn to set the challenge for BBTB this week, and I chose the phrase Ready To Rock from the Hannah Montana cartridge. This cart. is full of images that teen girls (and boys) would consider cool, so perfect for those hard to make teen birthday cards. I chose black and pink, and cut out one of the guitars to finish the card. I dotted a few jet black gems around

All the layers were popped up quite a bit for extra dimension. Be sure to go over to BBTB2 again on wednesday, there is a Cricut cartridge up for grabs!
and here is a peek at a card using the new Summer in Paris cartridge, and Cri-Kit pens, which is on the Scrappy Go Lucky blog today, do me a favour and pop over there to see if you like it.


Would you believe, I had no strange encounters/experiences at all yesterday, everyone I have spoken to seems totally sane. Must be a first.......
See you tomorrow

You're a peach - for Charisma Cardz Challenge

A new challenge for me today, I have never joined in with the Charisma Cardz challenge before, this week the challenge is simply to put something to eat or drink on your card. I thought of my Preserves cricut cartridge and came up with this. Both the sentiment stamps - bought separately, are by Studio G, the papers were from the Cafe stack by DCWV, and the Prima flowers were part of my gift from Eileen. For some reason the colours are a bit off in the photo, the plain cardstock, and the pattern on the peach are a really deep peach colour, not pink - I should have taken the photo out in the open air probably. Never mind.

The layering on this cartridge is really easy, I cut the peach at 4" in brown, then the peach and flower again at 4", they all cut perfectly to scale. I ran the flower through the cuttlebug using the swiss dots folder before popping it on the peach.

Talking about food, if you love good recipes and photos that will make your mouth water, head over to Katie.s blog, Katie pops over here, I followed her link and just love her foodie photos and easy recipes.....

We went to get some new plants yesterday, to replace the ones that were killed in the cold winter they had in Florida. On the way, we made a stop for my daily fix of coffee. A chap came up and asked if he could sit with us (there were no other customers there!). He sat for about twenty minutes, reeling off joke after joke - all about lawyers. We sat there, smiling (we didn't laugh very hard, the jokes weren't very funny). Then as suddenly as he appeared, he stood up, said goodbye, hopped onto a fabulous Harley Davidson bike and roared off. Mike was totally bemused. 'What was all that about?'
I shrugged 'Dunno, something happens like that every day when I come here...........'

If it's Friday, it must be Polkadoodles

Friday again! This week on Polkadoodles, it was my turn to set the challenge, and I chose dimension and texture - easy peasy. The only stipulation is that you use the FREE download over there for your creation. I didn't use it on my card as I was a bit organised for once and made this at the beginning of the week, but take it from me, it's a gorgeous download, and will be perfect for your Father's Day cards

I used papers from the Love and Cherish CD, and fussy cut around one of the rose stems on the paper.

Adding texture is so easy with the cuttlebug - and my sewing machine of course...
and the rose flower was cut out three times and popped on with foam pads for dimension

Scalloped 6 x 6 square card - Craftwork Cards
Rose paper and pink spotty paper - Love and Cherish CD from Polkadoodles
Gems - Recollections from Michaels

I had quite a productive day yesterday at my craft group thursday - look out for some more Preserve cards, and I have been working with the new Summer in Paris cartridge as well. The place where we meet is called an Enrichment Centre
in the grounds of a local hospital. The nearest thing we have in the UK is probably our village halls. I think these centres are meant for 'seniors' a nice politically correct way of saying folk who are getting a bit long in the tooth. I may be wrong on that, but certainly most of the people using it are a bit senior (sadly including myself in this observation). This includes the tap dancing group who were there this afternoon, you have never heard such a din in your life. It sounded as though someone had given a herd of baby elephants some tap shoes. I was dying to take a look, but decided I better not, if they looked as bad as they sounded I might have found it difficult to walk away without that tell-tale-shoulders-shaking-with-mirth thing, and I might have upset someone. I may take a peek next week...............

Apple of my eye, and a sneak peek

Just a quick post today, I am busy working on stuff that I can't share just yet, but I have just received the Preserves cartridge, and this is it's first 'outing'. I found the apple lace background in a pack of papers from Tuesday Morning, the apple was cut at 3", and I added some rather random stitching. You would think a cartridge with just fruit on it would be quite limiting, but I have loads of ideas how I can use this.............watch this space. Mind you, they do have some rather odd fruits that I have never heard of on there. Of course, I could always start making homemade preserves and give them away, beautifully packaged. No, thought about that for a split second, think I'll pass on that idea....

Here's a peek at a card made with Storybook and the Cri-kit pens which will be on the Scrappy-go-Lucky blog today. Now I haven't a clue what time that will appear as the blog is on Australia time. The best I can say is 'thursday'.
It's my craft day today, all packed up and ready to go... see you tomorrow