Belated Birthday.....

Can Mahuntington and Mustavcoffee email me with their address

You won!

Here's a card I made with Wall Decor - I had this little sentiment stamp from Stampin Up, and matched the two up. I cut the light fitting at 3", in black, then a gemstone pearly cardstock, then again in a pattern from Que Sera by K & Co - I just cut out the lampshades from that cut to give a bit of contrast.

I used the Martha Stewart round the page punch for the squares, to tell the truth I am not to keen on these punches, I mainly use them for borders. I find the fact that you have to use specific sizes very restrictive. Here, I started off with a 3 1/2" square, and a 5" square before punching

I am still in the Lakes as you read this - this post has been scheduled, if Mr Bloggy doesn't throw a wobbly and mess up my posts. Back tomorrow with tales of my travels

Retirement Card and a 'Chicken' - Wall Decor

Not really a chicken I don't think with those tail feathers - here is another border card from Wall Decor. I cut the fence in taupe as a shadow, then again in white, and coloured the bird with promarkers. I cut 2" away from the right hand side of the card, so that the fence overlapped the front of the card. The sentiment is an old stamp by Darcie.

Be sure to go over to Scrappy-Go-Lucky this week, Mandy is doing a blog hop and giving away four Cricut cartridges - Rock Princess, Winter Frolic, Happy Hauntings and Country Life. Run over there to get a chance to win one of these

Here's another card I made for Scrappy-Go-Lucky this week, using the border feature from the Wall Decor and More cartridge. I cut the books at 2" in three different papers, blue, green, and a tiny floral, then chopped them around to add a bit of variety to the cut. The sentiment reads 'happy retirement' - I thought this cut was perfect for a retirement card, what could be better when you finish work than spending a lazy afternoon curled up with a good book without feeling guilty.

I thought the EK Success border punch had a bookish sort of look, and the metal accents are copper staples used with a fastenator. The lovely papers are from the DCWV Linen Closet stack


Here's a photo of our little birthday girl.......... she looks more like her mum each day!





She loved the Hello Kitty cake I grabbed from M & S (how I wish supermarkets made these great children's cakes when mine were little, when I think of all that angst, and icing spattered kitchens...............)

I have been doing a bit of tidying up on the blog, sorting out the LABELS - so now, if you want to find what I have been doing with a particular cartridge, each card is 'filed' under Cricut cartridge ******** - it should be a lot easier to find what you are looking for

See you tomorrow

Two Sneak Peeks......

Firstly here is a sneak peek at one of the two cards I made using the border feature on the Wall Decor cartridge for Scrappy-Go-Lucky - pop over there to see the full cards

and here's a peek at one of the four cards that were a commission for Papercraft Inspirations magazine this month, I was asked to make four cards suitable to give to grandparents

The tiny flowers are 'waste' from a Martha Stewart border punch, and the leaves are a sissix die
the sentiment was computer generated

A short post from me today as we are in London, too busy with the grandchildren to ramble on in my usual fashion

Place Cards - Wall Decor

Someone on the Crciut message board was having a hard time working out the card feature on the Wall Decor cartridge, and I promised to have a look and see - even though the feature says 'cards', it's clear that these are meant to be placecards. I got quite carried away making a few samples, and next time I have people over for supper, I am going to make some of these, they are so quick.

I cut them using the cartridge, if I was doing them again, I would cut from the gypsy, so that I could eliminate those irritating little score lines

edited to say: with the gypsy, click on hide contour, and the lines you want to leave uncut are identified. The score lines are quite faint, but they are there. I find it very useful when there are layers, all in the same bunch, say a top hat, bow tie and a bow. Eliminate the hat, bow, and just cut the bow tie in black, then repeat the process for the other pieces, so you get the layers in the colours you want without wastage. Does this make sense? There are a number of videos out there on hide contour, made by people who are a lot more clever with the gypsy than me

I thought this first one would be good for a sophisticated dinner party......

and I love this one - wouldn't it make wonderful wedding placecards?
I used scraps of card for this next one, I think I might have to ask a few girlfriends round for lunch just to have an excuse to wow them with one of these...................
All three of the cards were cut at 4", and as I say, are just play-around-samples, so ignore the imperfections

I have given my blog a quick fix, it will have to do until I have a bit of time to play around with backgrounds and so on.
Have a great Sunday, see you tomorrow

Sailing on a choppy sea.....

Just sharing with you the card that I made for Scrappy-go-Lucky this week, more torn waves from DCWV navy cardstock, and I used the border feature on the Wall Decor cartridge for the boats - I cut them in black for a shadow, then in white, and just coloured the detail in with Promarkers.

The sun is from wildcard, and the sentiment circle is from Craftwork Cards

We have been to a fancy dress birthday luncheon party today, the dress code was the 1940's.......which I found quite hard. I have never seen so many fox stoles in my life - you know, the ones you see in films where the head of the fox is left on, and sort of slung around the shoulders. There was an 'ARP warden' sitting next to me, they kept playing the air raid sirens, and he leapt to his feet each time, blowing his whistle and trying to usher everyone out. It was all great fun, and we had a delicious meal (we were afraid they would serve spam fritters). It was a good job there wasn't a soup course, as there were rather a lot of men wearing RAF handlebar moustaches, I don't think they would have survived a bowl of soup. Me? I wore a vaguely 1940's style dress in the most hideous fabric, it didn't fit very well, and I felt a mess, but the seamed stockings do have a knack of making your legs look quite good, I may adopt these as a new trend

If you look at the top of the sidebar, I have put a poll, I would really appreciate it if you could take time to tick one of the options. I have resisted letting Google put small ads on here - how it works is that if you have ads on your blog, each time your readers click on that ad, you earn a few cents, so it's clickthrough/earn money. I spend quite a lot on postage for various blog candy/mailing stamped images etc, and thought this would help cover those costs. But I want to know what you peeps think first, it's no big deal for me, just an idea, and if most of you hate the idea, I won't go ahead. If there were ads here would you click? Would you still come and see me? Let me know.

On the subject of blogs, my background has gone missing - apparently Shabby Blogs have changed their server, so until I have time to play around and put in a new look for the blog, you will have to put up with boring white........

See you tomorrow

Squares for Craftwork Cards

Here's the sketch for this week's sketch challenge over at Craftwork Cards.

and here's what I came up with. I used Yummy Scrummy mint and chocolate papers
a lot of stitching, some choc punched flowers and aqua card candy. The square birthday sentiment is a new addition to their range, I really like them

and here's is the link to Scrappy Go Lucky's blog if you want to see the whole of this next card that I made with Wall Decor and More Cricut cartridge

I am in London, doing a bit of babysitting (Max and Milo). I won't get to see Kiki and Monty this time unfortunately. Kiki's 'other' grandma and I were chatting the other day, and Eve told me that she was looking after Kiki for the day, and they were going to bake a cake, so she sat Kiki down with a book of cake designs. Our little five year old fell in love with an elaborate flowery cake. 'how old are you grandma?' she asked 'ermmm, about 40' Eve lied

'well when you die grandma, I'm going to bake you this cake. I think that would be a really nice thing to do when you die'

'well perhaps you could make it before I die so that I get to eat it' said Eve

'oh, alright' said our little princess, wandering off into the garden to play

Penny Black Challenge

I just found time to do this week's Penny Black challenge. The textured blue card base is Bazzill, the other papers are from We R Memory Keepers. The sentiment is by MFT, and the 'brads' are card candy by Craftwork Cards

Here is the sketch I followed

I am still experimmenting with the Wall Decor cartridge, here's another one................

I love layering borders, this one is by E K Success, punched in shell, black, and shell again

I have been hampered a bit this week in my cardmaking by the fact that it is just so hot in the garage where all my stuff is, but I have had to get on with it as I have a few deadlines to meet. I come up for air, gasping and in need of a cold shower every ten minutes or so. Makes it rather slow going......
See you tomorrow

Boy Card - Wall Decor

I am having a ball with this cartridge, Wall Decor and More that I got from Scrappy-go-Lucky, not that I have any intention of decorating a wall, but there are some great features on there for cardmaking. One of the things I really like is the border feature, and this is what I used for these trucks, I cut a shadow in black at 2", then cut the trucks in yellow, blue and green and chopped them about.

The wheels are brads that I picked up in Big Lots, I wish I had bought loads of them now, they are so great for adding to this type of cut/stamp.

The papers are from a stack by We R Memory Keepers, the cityscape seemed perfect, the sentiment is cut from another paper in the stack, and the little spanner tag was part of the same stack - called Geo-hectic, the papers are great for man stuff

Don't forget you have until friday to enter your name for the Cri-kit pens, and to solve the anagram to win all those cartridges

It is really hot here now (well, I am in Florida), and the whole of our neighbourhood is awash with the Stars and Stripes flying proudly, getting ready for the 4th July I suppose. One of the things that I admire here is the patriotism of Americans. When we go to a 'do' at the clubhouse, we always finish the evening by joining hands and singing 'God Bless America', I know all the words now. I daresay that England is now fluttering with the flag of St George, because of the world cup, ( for those of you who are less than interested in soccer, the World Cup is currently being played in South Africa), but I can't imagine us all joining hands and singing a patriotic song, more's the pity. Perhaps it's because we don't really have any great rousing songs, our national anthem is like a dirge, we could chant Rule Britannia or belt out a couple of choruses of Jerusalem I suppose.
I always thought that Billy Connolly ( a comedian for those of you who have no idea what I am rambling about) had a very good idea when he suggested that we should adopt the theme music from 'The Archers' (a very long running radio show in the UK) as our national anthem. No words necessary, just rum ti tum ti tum ti tum, rum ti tum ti tum tum...............................................
So even though I have no interest in footy at all, I am still waving my flag
COME ON ENGLAND
all together now
rum ti tum ti tum ti tum...................................................

Scrappy-go-lucky International Blog Hop and DCM

Well here I am flying the flag for the United Kingdom. It is still Friday evening for me as I write this, but over in Perth it is Saturday morning - Good morning Australia.

I was asked to come up with a project that represented my part of the globe. After much thought, I decided to use as my inspiration

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

who has ruled our country faithfully for almost sixty years now

For my card I first made a 6" square base card and cut away the front on the diagonal like this.................




Then I drew a crown out from my brand new Cricut cartridge Wall Decor at 4 1/2" on white cardstock with a black glitter Cri-kit pen, then pressed load paper, and cut
The second layer was cut from DCWV glitter paper.
The metallic lines look like very neat doodling, you don't really get the effect in the photo.
I added a very narrow Martha Stewart border to the left edge, stitching it with black thread first.
I added a liberal sprinkling of 'diamonds' to the crown and the whole thing was stuck with foam pads along the line of the cut












the font on this cartridge is beautiful....................




The next card is representing the area of the UK where I have lived for all of my adult life. I was born in Wales, but have lived in the Birmingham area for years. Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK, a large industrial centre, and the home of the English Royal Ballet Company. So this next card represents that.
Again using the Wall decor cartridge I cut the beautiful ballet dancer at 4"
The border scallops are by EK Success and Martha







adding some red gems to the swirls of her skirt really bought the die cut alive. I used silicone glue to glue her to the paper, as this dries in 'blobs' and doesn't flatten, useful for giving delicate cuts dimension







Of course, if I am representing the United Kingdom, I also have to mention my second home, the USA, where we live for about six months every year, have many friends and feel very much at home

So here is my card for America.

Celebrating the 4th July, Independence Day (ironically of course, independence from British rule!), I made this card using Designers Calender. I drew the flag first with my white cri-kit gel pen, then cut, at 4", I realised later that I should have cut the main body of the flag in red and the star in blue, take it as an artistic interpretation. At least it's red white and blue! I was too short of time to make another one.

Happy 4th America, and thank you for making us so welcome

These cards fit nicely into the dare for this week over on Daring Cardmakers, so I am entering this post in for that challenge..........

I am giving away a set of 10 Cri-kit pens of the winners choice, and holder. The winner will be drawn randomly from all those who leave a comment on this post, all my followers will be in automatically, if you comment as well as being a follower, you will have two chances. You have until next friday the 18th June to leave your comment.

The main prize for the blog hop is FOUR of the very latest Cricut cartridges, including Wall Decor that I have used for this post (I love this one)

You need to follow the hop from Scrappy-go-Lucky's site to pick up all the clues, solve the anagram and email the answer to the address on the site

I hope you are enjoying this week of hopping around, as much as the design team are enjoying making the projects to show you

Here is your clue for today

For the final clue, visit Mandy at Scrappy-go-Lucky tomorrow to see what she has done with that gorgeous little fairy she cut out on monday

Good luck