Tulips for Letraset

Today I made a simple tulip card for the Letraset blog. Go HERE to see it, leave a comment and on Sunday I will pick a random name from the comments left to win a set of the Winter Limited Edition Promarkers. The winner will be announced on Monday next week, so a nice early Christmas present for someone

There are some great sales on at the Letraset site this week as well, go HERE to see - if you are from the US, change the currency to US $ before you start, then click on special offers - they are selling a lot of sets at 50% off, and it's a good way to start if you don't have the $$ with Christmas coming up to buy loads of markers. Free shipping too if you spend over $30 

So here are my tulips, the card is over on the blog......

and I promised to share with you why I am more hectic, frazzled and tired than usual in my busy life. We decided earlier this year that we would put our Florida house on the market, not an easy decision, but a lot of valid reasons for making that decision. So with a bit of sadness, we put it on the market, expecting it to take months in a sluggish market. 

It was sold in less than a week!

So although it has been sold furnished, obviously there are a lot of belongings that need to be taken back to the UK - clothes and crafts being two of them. So life is a whirlwind of sorting, clearing, packing, filling out customs forms......HELP!

Huge hampers of clothes have gone to a charity supporting homeless people, I have been 'Ebaying' like crazy - where did it all come from?!

Yes, we will come back to Florida, we have many good friends here, although I am going to start nagging them to get their passports in order so that they can come over to see us for a change. End of an era. Sigh. Expect some melancholy from me over the next few days - we leave here in 2 1/2 weeks  

Sweet little fairy

I was totally bored with Christmas cards so decided to break out the pastel Promarkers for this one - a Lili of the Valley image - I used aqua and duckegg for her dress, and used a lot of blender pen to get a very delicate colour

it needed something to finish it so I cut a Memory Box Primula flower and layered it a bit

I have been super busy over the past week, I'll share why with you tomorrow, nothing at all to do with crafting! Be sure to pop in to see me, I will be giving away a set of the Winter Limited Edition ProMarkers to someone

My birthday cards....

A whole week since I posted, that must be a first. A lot has been going on, one of them being my birthday. I thought you would like to see the lovely handmade cards that came my way.....

Made by my friend and neighbour Bev......

and from my crafty group of good friends  - Cheryl

Loretta......

Norma........

Mary........

Bev........

Cheryl S........

and showing the lovely inside.....

From my friend Joan in Port St Lucie.......

and last, but definitely not least, from my best mate Anne, who painted this abstract in ink.........

Thank you all so very much, I appreciate both the cards and you

So I did the Black Friday thing. I found myself in Macy's at about 12.15 AM, looking around, bewildered, in the home department at the jostling crowds. There was a table in front of me with some plain cardboard boxes - just two left. Two women behind me almost pushed me to the floor as they shoved to get these boxes. Well, if they hadn't been so rude they could have had them, but I grabbed one and held on to it. Filthy looks all round. I didn't have a clue what was in the box, a plain cardboard box with no clue on the outside, so I held on to it, working on the assumption that if they had all been sold in 15 minutes, it must be something good..... it was heavy though. So I lugged my box to the linens to look for the sheets I wanted. Oh no, none left in cream, apart from a set held by the man next to me....I watched him like a hawk and when he put them down for a nano second, well they sort of jumped into my arms to join the mystery box. By this time I was getting a bit tired of being pushed and shoved, so wandered over to the register. My mystery box  rang up as a $90 saute pan - I paid $11.99. So the moral of the story is whenever you see an opportunity, grab it with both hands, (or one hand if the other is holding a plain cardboard box....)

See you tomorrow

Craftwork Cards USA

First of all, these was a glitch in the coupon code for the fabulous offer from Letraset to get sets of markers with 50% off - it's now fixed. Go HERE then click on ProMarkers - range sets and enter the coupon BLKFRI2012 and voila, you will have a heap of markers at only $1.47 a marker!

I did my first post over on the Craftwork Cards US design team today, it's a brand new team, and I would really love it if you could pop over there and click to follow the team, maybe leave a comment? Here's the card I made, details over there

Scroll down to yesterdays post to see full details of the prices of the ProMarker sets, then call Santa!

The winner is...............and a GREAT offer

Here's the post you have all been waiting for. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to leave your names, but using random.org, the lucky winner is

TERRY MORROW (tmorrowstreasures blog)

Huge congrats Terry, email me with your details, I need full address and telephone number




Before the rest of you start sobbing into your coffee, Letraset have come up with a fantastic offer just for you. From today until the 25th november, they are giving you a coupon code giving you 50% off their range sets of Promarkers - that works out to an amazing $1.45 a pen AND you get free organizers with your set and free worldwide shipping

The sets are

The full set of 148 colours RRP $415.97 with coupon code $207.98

Promarker 92 colour set RRP $268.26 with coupon code $134.13

Promarker 56 colour set RRP $163.30 with coupon code $81.65

(I have put the dollar amounts in, as UK peeps will see the cost on the website)

Go HERE then click on Promarkers in the sidebar and scroll to range sets
The coupon will ONLY work for the range sets, not other products

Enter BLKFRI2012 in the coupon box at checkout 

You may want to take Santa over there with you....... and those of you in the USA who are waiting for Black Friday, well, this must be the best deal out there. Happy shopping!

More Gingerbread

First of all, the winner of the Colour Therapy CD from Polkadoodles this week is

MizMaryAnn

Congratulations, email me with your address and it will be on it's way to you

Today, I have a copy of Picknix to give away - a great CD rom from Polkadoodles, with some fabulous papers and lots of digi elements. The three collections on the CD are fabulous and you get over 300 elements, perfect if you are into hybrid crafting, or simply (like me) want to point the mouse and print

All comments under this post will go in the draw, and the winner will be announced next Sunday

For today's cards, I used Gingerbread Twist, and all the images were printed out already coloured - I wanted great results quickly!

Would you believe that this next card is simply a sheet of printed out paper from the collection? The flowers, button and twine are all just printed, don't they look dimensional and 'real'?. I added some coarse Frantage glitter to the flower centers, and a sentiment from Craftwork Cards

I loved all the gingerbread sentiments on the CD, and somehow this one just melted my heart...........I think this one will go to my sweet Kiki. There is quite a lot of glitter on this, but of course you can't see it in the photo....

The Promarker givaway ends tonight, the winner will be announced tomorrow, be sure to drop by because I have some fantastic, amazing, woo hoo news to give you about Promarkers - bring Santa with you when you come over.

See you tomorrow x 

Envelope Album Tutorial

I thought a video was the best way to go with this, enjoy!

Envelope Year Book

This has been a labour of love, an envelope book which I have made for each of my sons families - I thought I would give them on Christmas Day after lunch, when everyone is full of food and wine and the children are hopefully playing with their new toys.........

I decided to print out photos that they have sent me, or have posted on Facebook. The book is made from office size envelopes (I will do a photo tutorial next week, just didn't have time before doing this picture heavy post.........

because the envelopes are open at the sides, that leaves lots of spaces to put tags

here's what the spine looks like, because of the way it's constructed, it is quite flexible with plenty of 'give' to allow for all the bulk of the decorated pages....

This one is for Edward, so full of photos of Max and Milo taken at various times of the year.....

I used some of the pull out tags to hold decorated pages with more photos....

Can you see on the page below, that I added extra space by extending the pattern paper covering the previous page then folding it over and creasing into a Z shape. The scallop blue piece on the right hand side also lifts up to show another photo.......

Not a good photo, but I wanted to show you the effect of the two decorated pages, and a tag pulled out to continue the story...

and because I had a lot of photos of their holiday, the flap on the right hand side is doubled, so there are four more photos when you lift the flap.....

I didn't want it to be all photos, so I printed out all the funny little things that the children had said over the year - those little anecdotes that are so easily forgotten as time goes by

Making space for the photos and anecdotes was a challenge, in the next shot, the flap on the left with the soldier was folded over to make a pocket, and I made little tags to fit inside the pocket.....

which when they are pulled out show the photo underneath, and they have photos or sayings on each side.....

So all in all a very busy little book, just how I like them, lots of surprises, things to pull, and things to push! It's still a work in progress, but I hope you've enjoyed looking at it. I will show you James's book when I put together a step by step on how to make them

Sozzled Giraffe!

I love this image from Art Impressions, the sentiment is perfect, because he really does look as if he has been out on the town drinking his vodka valium latte......

Coloured with Promarkers, I used saffron, vanilla, caramel, tan, ginger and spice

My son and daughter in law are having very extensive work done on their house, they have moved out, and the house is literally a building site. One evening they went to see how the work was doing, and two little field mice were running across
the floor of what used to be the kitchen. The next day Lidia took the children to Chessington Zoo. They were watching one of the animal handlers give a talk to the children about rats, complete with live rodents,  when five year old Max shouted out 'we have got rats in my house'
'Are they supposed to be there?' asked the zoo guy, (wondering if they were pets)
'NO' shouted Max 'they are in our kitchen!'
Hysterical laughter from all the other parents there, very slow, deep slide down into her chair by Lidia who tried very hard to pretend she wasn't with Max until everyone had gone!

Another winner and another chance

Thanks to all of you who left a comment for the Colour Therapy DVD by Nikky Hall of Polkadoodles last week. The winner, drawn randomly is

Snappy Scrappy - LeeAnn

Congratulations, email me with your details and I will get your CD in the mail

Now you have a final chance to win one of these CD's. Just leave a comment under this post and I will draw a winner next Sunday. I have played this DVD now, and can't even begin to tell you how fabulous it is. Nikky takes you through all the stages of colouring with alcohol markers, and it is fascinating to watch her work

A bit of a cheat card today as I have been busy with other stuff, here's a card I made for the Letraset blog, but never published it over here. The colouring was done with the Autumn limited edition colours, the stamp set is an acrylic one by Fiskars. The bottle is coated with glossy accents

Anyone else gearing up for the Black Friday sales? I love doing it, but this year I am on a tight leash as the airline has reduced out baggage allowance to one case each, and the cost of taking another one has gone up from $50 to £100. So I think most of my toy shopping this year will be done on Amazon UK, and as for craft stuff, I have enough to stock a decent sized store - but it is so very tempting when they sell Core-dinations cardstock st 5 sheets to the dollar...Oh yes, I need another few of those. And so it goes on.......

See you tomorrow 

Lots of Christmas angels...

I found these sheets of ready coloured die cut images by Lili of the Valley, I bought them last year but only just uncovered them, they are perfect for quick cards. I used 4 1/2" scalloped card bases from Craftwork Cards, and simply folded the front in half and scored to make a quick easel card. 

I really like the LOTV images, so sweet, and this next one is a favourite....

 I added some sprinkles of Frantage embossing powder to add a snowy look, and there is some glitter on there as well. Lots of questions about Frantage, it is a very coarse embossing powder by Stampendous. In the US you can buy it in Jo-Ann's. I rather like the effect of sprinkling, or putting little heaps of it on a project and heating it from underneath so that the powder doesn't fly away... 

They have bought out a range of glitters as well, they can be mixed with the frantage embossing stuff and heated, but here I just used a quickie  glue stick and sprinkled the coarse glitter onto the angel...

Craftwork Cards have a brand new USA design team, and I am going to be doing some projects over there for them. Go HERE to sign up to follow the blog and support all the new designers who are very excited about their new appointment. You will be in with a chance to win a prize of lovely Craftwork Cards products as well if you leave a comment

Our community garage sale was a huge success, although it seemed like a very long day. It started off really cold, but the weather was gorgeous once the sun shone, perfect weather to sit on a camping chair for six hours listening to guys trying to haggle over the cost of a dozen golf balls for a couple of bucks! I sold a lot of crafty stuff so the garage looks a bit tidier and emptier now, although not much - it would take more than a garage sale to make a significant inroad into that lot! 

Christmas Joy

I do love these stamps from Hero Arts, for this first one I stamped the tall pines background in distress ink, can't remember exactly but think it was Aged Mahogany. Then I stamped the trees, in brown again, onto white cardstock and  sprinkled with Frantage embossing powder which I heated from underneath to melt it.....

this one is pretty much the same, except the shaped card base (which is embossed) from Craftwork Cards, and I think the ink was Stormy Sky - one of the blue distress inks anyway. More Frantage and I was done. Very quick and easy. The Crimbo card box is filling up nicely now....

The good news is that when I was sorting stuff out for my garage sale on Saturday, my missing Stampendous stamp appeared so that made me happy, although I had looked in that drawer twice in my hunt, how did I miss it?

I saw a sweet little dog with it's owners at Dunkin Donuts, she was all golden and fluffy and had ribbons in her hair. They had her in a doggy pushchair, very smart, just like a baby stroller but with a flat bottom for the pampered pooch. I saw someone with one of these on my last visit, I have never seen a doggy stroller in the UK, our dogs are hardy tomboys over there, they walk and run and dig and sniff - I would love to see the faces of the Brits if they saw a dog in a stroller! By the way, this little princess wasn't paralyzed or anything, they released her from her prison stroller and she seemed to trot along very happily. I would really like to know if a lot of people use these for their dogs over here? Or is it just another Dunkin Donuts quirk?

See you tomorrow 

Mistakes.....

I thought I would share this today, for those of you who think that cardmaking comes easily to me......here is the finished card, Stamp by Art Impressions borrowed from my friend Mary (thanks Mary), coloured with ProMarkers, sentiment computer generated. But before I got to this........................... 

I chose pink and green, carefully stitched around, and tried this sentiment, which didn't work at all...................

the sentiment that came with the stamp is this.................

which I found rather strange, and couldn't imagine sending to a friend. 'Here's your card, I haven't given you a present for your birthday because, as the man says, what greater gift than the love of a cat'

So back to the dratted card. I had to cover up the sentiment I didn't like so cut some rather strange corners to cover it up, the more I did, the worse it looked................. 

there really was nothing for it, the coloured image was removed to be used on the card at the top of this post, and the disaster card went where it belonged - in the trash. A couple of hours of my life that I will never get back. Hey ho..

Ah well, we all have our off days... See you tomorrow

Say thank you with chocolate.......

Here are some magazine cards that I can share with you now that they have been published. I was asked to make some 'Thank You' cards with a chocolate theme. They were for the Quick Cards section of Papercraft Inspirations magazine, so had to be quick and easy for the readers to reproduce. Here's what I came up with

The foil wrapper on this one is from a real chocolate bar that I had to eat in the pursuit of authenticity.....the sentiment says 'good friends and chocolate make everything brighter'

and the swirls and squiggles on this one were made with fabric paint

While driving yesterday, I passed a couple of polling stations. Each one had a forest of election banners and signs, and, placed strategically far apart from each other, a bunch of Republican volunteers, and a bunch of Democrats. I felt quite sorry for them, sitting there all day on camping chairs, waving flags and banners at every car. So I waved back to the Republicans, who visibly perked up and waved back giving me a thumbs up......then I waved to the Democrats, who also got a bit excited thinking they had got another vote in the bag. Nobody can say that I wasn't impartial! Whatever the result, I send the new President of the USA
congratulations, and hope that he can lead wisely and peacefully

There is a community garage sale here on Saturday, and we are joining in. How can it be possible that nine years ago we bought a house in Florida without owning so much as a teaspoon, and now we have enough stuff for a garage sale!
Quite a lot of it is craft stuff, which, when I bought it all, probably sent the manager of the local Michaels on a nice holiday in the Bahamas over the years! 

See you tomorrow