Anniversary/Wedding Card

Heaven knows where I got this stamp - it's very odd, rubber that is permanently stuck to an acrylic block. Anyway, I do like it, and it is so quick and easy to colour

I decided to give my beloved sewing machine one last whirl before leaving. The flower is by recollections at Michaels

By the time you read this, I may well be up in the air. Four hefty suitcases are packed, and just look what I have to take back in my hand luggage.......

It's the brand new Cricut machine, the E2. I haven't tried it yet, but it will be fired up as soon as I get home. I hear it cuts like butter - I'll let you know

See you on Wednesday from the other side of the pond

Winner of Pop Up Book....

Firstly, the name that came out of the hat to win the Pop Up book is

LORI (got2Bcrafting)

Congrats Lori, email me with your address and I will get it sent out to you

I have dragged a couple of old stamps out of retirement, this dog is one of the first stamps I ever bought, by Judikins, I found it lurking in a drawer

He makes a wonderful belated birthday card..........lots of layers on this one, he was coloured with Tan, Caramel and Sandstone Promarkers

and while I had the stamp out I made this simple card as well. The label shape was cut with Elegant Edges. I handcut the banner type layer

Don't forget you still have plenty of time to do the Polkadoodles blog hop, scroll down for the links

Chaos reigns here, I buy all this stuff for the grandchildren's birthday and Christmas presents (I am one of those people who think of Christmas all year round), then when it is time to pack it all up, I think 'Why on earth did I buy this', so as usual there are four large, heavy cases, and the usual amount of anxiety about being overweight. I wish there was a magic carpet that would transport us without effort back to the UK, but since there isn't my wish is for no delays tomorrow, and something edible to eat on the plane.

As soon as we get back I am off to London to see Kiki in her very first ballet show. She informs me that she is an autumn leaf and a snowflake, which leaves me with the sinking feeling that I also have to sit through Spring and Summer......

I'll be back with another card tomorrow

Polkadoodles Blog Hop

Polkadoodles has a birthday. We are three! I have been with Nikky on the challenge blog right from the start, and it has been a fun journey. To celebrate we are having a massive blog hop, all you have to do is hop around, using the links provided, and collect a word at each stop, which will eventually make up a sentence. If you leave your name at each stop, there are goodies galore to be won.

The theme of the hop is

MALE

and your first gift, which you will all get, is a great FREE download for Father's Day, which I used to make this card

All the papers and sentiment are from the download. The collar and tie were cut with the Cricut, using the Designers Calender cartridge. I added a pocket and rather a smart hanky, with some doodled stitches

If you started the hop at the very beginning, you will have come here from Polkadoodles

Up for grabs here are a couple of prizes for one lucky winner

a Making Memories suitcase of embellishments - 155 pieces in total, die cuts, buttons, printed blossoms (and the case would look fabulous as an altered project)

PLUS

The very popular Polkadoodles CD All Around and Everywhere, full of great papers and whimsical images, and some Fru Fru ribbons in shades of lilac to dress up your cards

If you don't know how these CD's work, have a look HERE, for a quick video showing what you can expect

Down to the nitty gritty now........

The word you are looking for is

PLEASE

and from here, you need to hop over to my talented teamie LOU for more prizes and another word

The blog hop will run until Sunday 5th June at 12 noon GMT (7.00 AM EST)

If you get lost, or if a link doesn't work (we are all on different time zones), go HERE to get the next link

Good luck, and have fun hopping and with your free download

All of my followers seem to have gone walkabout (Mr Bloggy up to his usual weekend tricks again no doubt). Where have you gone? Wait for me (she said plaintively). How can 2,300 of you sneak off without telling me? Sob......if I find you've all been partying without me, I shall sulk, throw my toys out of my pram, and not talk to any of you for at least a couple of hours......have a great weekend xx

Win a Pop-Up Cards Book

Pop-up cards seem to be all the rage at the moment, Provocraft have bought out two new pop- up card cartridges, and I was sent this book to review.......

Let me show you the card first, which was inspired by the book. You are given templates for all the shapes, but I decided to use the daisy from the Walk in my Garden cartridge, I cut six, all at 3" in white, then coloured the centres with a buttercup Promarker

For the inside of the card, I folded four flowers in half, then glued the right side of one, to the left side of another, and so on, until they were all glued together, then I used tape to stick the flower to the card, on the fold.............

I got the idea from this book

Pop-Up Cards

by

Jo Mathieson

published in the UK by New Holland Publishers

which is full of really imaginative ways to make fun pop-ups

As well as basic instructions, there are 19 cards to make, with clear step by step photos for each one

I liked this idea, the outside of the card looks like a wardrobe and on the inside she has made this cute pop-up with ties hanging from clothes hangers

So, if you want to explore the possibility of making some 3D cards, I have this book to giveaway, just leave a comment under this post, I will draw a winner on Sunday, 29th

And the Winners Are..........

Drum Roll..................................

Nati Tristan

and

Brigit (blog Brigit Scraps)

Congrats to you both. You will get a Promarker blending set of your choice. Please email me with your name, address and telephone number (the courier service needs a phone number for delivery), and let me know which set you would like.

All those who hoped to win - there will be another Promarker giveaway next month, and lots more giveaways on here in the meantime

I meant to post a card, oops, I am running so late today, note to self: get up earlier.........

Black and White......

It's been a while since I made a black and white card, always a favourite of mine. This one is really simple, the papers are anonymous ones that have been hanging around for ages. I cut the circles for the flower with the George cartridge and the Cricut expression, and roughed the edges up a little with sandpaper. The leaves were handcut

I will be picking the winners for the Promarkers later today - pop back tomorrow to see if you won

I see that the President of the USA is visiting the UK over the next couple of days. Apparently he has an entourage of 400 with him. 400? Good grief. These include a few chefs apparently. Chefs? Do they not think that he will be fed in Buckingham Palace? There's me, I manage to cross the Atlantic regularly with an entourage of one - my chief luggage lugger Mike. I have been known to do the journey with no entourage at all, just me and the inevitably overweight luggage. Now if I had my way, in a perfect world, I would have my personal hairdresser, a make up artist, my ladies maid, a couple of chefs........until the world is perfect, I will just have to rely on smiling sweetly at the nearest available bloke 'would you mind terribly just giving me a hand with this suitcase....careful, it's a bit heavy'.

Talking of cases - yes, it's that time again, the packing, the anxious lifting of cases to assess the weight, the agony when you can't fit it all in. I always take ridiculous choices of clothes back with me as well, flushed and warmed by the hot Florida sun, I tend to forget that in the UK I rarely, if ever, wear shorts, we don't have a pool so I really don't need ten swimsuits, I probably will never wear the stuff until it is time to pack it all back into the poor old suitcase to lug it back to Florida again. Life is a circle........

See you tomorrow

Polkadoodles Friday

Time for another challenge over on Polkadoodles. This week it's

Anything but a Card

but...............

guess what.................................

I just didn't have time to make a project this week, but hop over HERE to see all the fabulous offerings from the rest of the design team

Here is a Polkadoodles card though, made with the red-hot sellers, the neighbourhood stamps.

These are sets of red rubber stamps of houses, then you get all the little extras like the trees, flowers, the vines to stamp on the walls, little picket fences...... you don't have to bother with masking, or at least I didn't, just stamp away until you get a pretty scene like this.......

I added the trees, grass etc etc, I just love playing with these stamps, coloured with Promarkers in pastel shades. The daisy ribbon seemed to go well, and the large daisy is by Martha Stewart. I thought this would make a good card to send thanking friends for a visit to their home

Next week Polkadoodles are having a blog hop, and Nikky has come up with a really original twist on the usual hop, lots of goodies to be won, so come on over next Friday

Thanks for all the camera information. I saw a beautiful woodpecker today, and so wanted to take a photo. Of course I didn't even have my little nikkon with me, so not much hope of that. We are off to try a few out at a camera shop in Tarpon Springs today. At least we will be able to have a nice Greek salad for lunch. In the meantime, this new and alien trait of researching before I buy is a bit worrying, I hope it doesn't spill over into other aspects of shopping. Life is really too short to worry about which store has the cheapest baked beans!

Talking of photos - take a peek at my sidebar to see the latest photo of Kiki that my son sent me yesterday. Only two weeks now until I see her again

But I'll see you tomorrow......

A couple of cocktail cards......

Here's a couple of cards with a cocktail theme that I made for last months Papercraft Inspirations magazine - on sale now in the USA. Details of how to make them are in the mag............

We are looking for a new camera. Never before have we researched anything so thoroughly, and the more we read, the more confused we get. At the moment a Canon G12 is in the lead, but that could change at any moment when I read another online review that complains of some obscure technical downside. I have visions of going happily to advanced camera courses, learning all about ISO and image stabilization......... The reality is that I will set it to AUTO, and there it will stay. Anyone have any camera preferences?

It was Milo's second birthday yesterday, and Max will be four tomorrow.

Happy Birthday poppets,

Tutorial for Envelope Gift Card

Loads of you wanted to know how I made this envelope gift card..... I made another one very quickly taking photos of the various steps, I hope it is fairly simple......

Measure the envelopes you are going to use, and cut some double sided cardstock 1/2" wider (I forgot to do this, a fine example I give....) and double the height plus 2". I used 5" square envelopes, so cut the cardstock to 5" x 12" (should have been 5 1/2" wide).

score at 2", then at the halfway point, in my example at 5" - it doesn't have to be a square card, you can use a C6 or invitation sized card

Crease your folds with a bone folder

Cut a rectangle of pattern paper for the front (in this case 2" x 3"), round the corners and mark the center point about 3/4" down from the top

Punch a hole and insert an eyelet at the marked point and thread with about 2 feet of ribbon. With half the ribbon running down the back of the panel, fix to the bottom fold of your main card

Seal two, or three envelopes and cut to fit inside the card comfortably - I cut them down to 4"

Apply adhesive to the backs of two of the envelopes and stick another envelope on top, so you end up with a little stack of envelopes, make sure the cut side openings are all facing the same way

A poor photo showing the envelopes stuck together with the openings at the top

Put sticky tape as shown on the top and bottom folds of the main card

Stick the envelope stack to the top half, making sure the open edges are at the top, then bring up the bottom half and stick to the envelopes

I used some ready made tags for quickness, and cut a scrap of the pattern paper to make a gift card pocket for one of them

Thread the tags with ribbons, and insert into the pockets

Wrap the ribbon around and tie in a bow as shown - sorry about the photos, I made this at night and photographed as I went....

Decorate your panel and add a sentiment

Any questions? Leave them in a comment and I will answer them on this post

Linda asked if you can use just one envelope to take a gift card? Yes you could Linda, but the little pockets look cute, I would advise two - one for the gift card, and one with another tag to write your message. If you use three, make the gift card pocket for one, another for your greeting, and write or stamp a verse or sentiment on the third one - you can decorate the tags as much as you want as long as they stay fairly flat, otherwise the card would be too bulky when tied up

Scroll down to enter the Promarker giveaway

Butterflies and Pearls for Polkadoodles

Scroll down to leave a comment to win the Promarkers

I really enjoyed doing this week's challenge card for Polkadoodles. We were asked to choose:

Butterflies or Fairies

Ribbon or Lace

Pearls or Gems

Pink or Turquoise

I chose butterflies, lace, pearls and turquoise

All the papers and the image were printed from the Sundae of Seasons CD, the pearls are Papermania adhesive pearls, the lace is a scrap of white lace that I dipped in tea to make it look vintage. The sentiment is a Stampin Up stamp. Base card by Craftwork Cards

Why don't you have a go and enter the challenge?

I love doing challenges, I often don't have the time, but when I do they kick start a creative gene

My car has developed a personality, every time I lock it up and walk away, it starts loudly protesting, the alarm tooting like crazy, lights flashing. It seems to be saying 'missing you already........' I feel as if I have a demanding toddler instead of a heap of metal.

See you tomorrow

Love and Laughter - WIN some Promarkers

Let's try again - if you have already commented to be in with a chance to win, I'm afraid you are going to have to comment again below this post. The original post has disappeared into some dark blogosphere, never to be seen again I fear.

Thanks to Letraset for this month's generous giveaway, open to all my followers. TWO of you will win a blending set of your choice, see the colours available below, and start dreaming of which you would like to win. There are twelve markers in each set, plus a blender, all colours especially chosen to complement each other and make shading a breeze

All you have to do is pop over HERE to see Letraset's fabulous new look blog, then come back here to tell me what you would like to see on the Letraset blog. Be sure to leave enough information for me to identify you if you win. If you have a blog, please link to this post.

The post will stay open until Tuesday 24th May at noon GMT (7 AM EST)

Here's a Lili of the Valley card, coloured with Promarkers of course. All the scallop label shapes and heart border were cut with the Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge

Well what a hoo-ha and furore in Blogland. People seemed to be getting quite demented over on the Blogger help site, the whole system was crashed for about 20 hours. I don't think they could have got more upset if they had heard that their granny was dead..........lighten up folks, it's not the end of the world. So apart from the inconvenience of having to do this post over again, and the inconvenience for you folks having to comment again, all is well. I must admit, I would be slightly more than peeved if it happens again..............

I have been busy, very busy with a magazine commission. Sometimes the inspiration flows, sometimes it doesn't. I had the ideas in my head alright, the problem was that when I tried to execute them, they just didn't work. I think I threw about twenty cards into the trash before I was finally totally happy. I sat for hours waiting for a stroke of genius, a dash of brilliance, until a little bit of mediocrity would have been welcome. Then after all this angst, I suddenly saw the light, and voila, there they were. Cardmaking is a funny old hobby sometimes

See you tomorrow

Blogger Problems

Hi everyone. Blogger has been down for almost 24 hours, now it has been restored, but the post and comments with the Promarker giveaway has disappeared into thin air. So frustrating! However, they say that they will be restoring missing posts over the next few hours, so I will wait a day before reposting. Sorry to all those of you who have emailed me, and popped over numerous times today. Hopefully all will be well by tomorrow.

Envelope Gift Card Holder

Here's a cute idea. I have no idea who originally thought of this, I got the instructions from my craft group, and altered them until I got this.......

A pretty folder made from a single sheet of double sided paper...........

I decorated it with a cut out flower and a sissix die cut leaf..........

undo the ribbons.................

and on the inside you have pockets each holding a tag cut from the Tags Bags Boxes Cricut cartridge, I altered them in the Gypsy so that they were exactly the right size for the envelopes..............

the pockets are made from sealed envelopes that you cut down to size...........

I made a little pocket for one of the tags, which will hold the gift card. The other two tags will hold a sentiment and a hand written message

If enough of you want it, I can do a quick photo tutorial later in the week. Not today though, we are off to Anna Marie Island for a couple of days, to visit friends from the UK who are holidaying there, so a couple of craft free sandy days ahead. I'll be back on Wednesday.

The winner is....... and some tweet cards

Hi everyone - Happy Mothers Day to those of you in the USA and anywhere that's celebrating mum's today

Thanks to all of you who joined in with the Royal Wedding street party blog hop - I used

random.org to pick a winner, and the hopper out of the hat is

Sharon in Arizona

Congrats Sharon, email me with your address, and I will get your package in the post

Here are a couple more cards from last month's Papercraft Inspirations magazine. My commission was to make four cards with a bird theme, for the 'quick cards' section of the magazine. Don't forget that every month you can go HERE to download all the fabulous free papers that are in the magazine each month. Lots of giveaways and competitions on there as well, sign up for a email newsletter to give you all the latest news

This first card used Tim Holtz papers, and I can't tell you what a job I had to find that white feather - I could only find dyed feathers. No, I didn't have to capture a dove, I found a white feather boa in Poundland!

This next one used papers and toppers printed out from the Back to Nature Polkadoodles CD

It seems strange to have everyone wishing me 'happy mother's day' here in the USA, because I have already had mothers day once this year, it is celebrated in March or April at home in the UK. I am trying to educate my kids so that they recognize my immense talents as a mother twice in one year, but for some reason they are reluctant to start what seems to me a very sensible new tradition. The general reaction is 'don't push your luck Mum'.

See you tomorrow