My Minds Eye and Warren

Here's a couple of cards made with the lovely My Minds Eye papers, available from Craftwork Cards. I went with the bicycle theme for the first one, cutting this bike (before gypsy demise) from the Stretch your Imagination cartridge

and for the second one, cute Warren holding a horseshoe, I thought it would be perfect for the 'goodbye and good luck' sentiment I just picked up in the dollar bin at Michaels. I added some stitching and a little leafy branch or two

So my kids continue to have fun at my expense about the Gypsy. I replied to the email ( in yesterdays post) telling them what the gypsy was, how much was invested in it, and how would gadget boy like it if his xbox/ipad etc broke...

So back, quick as a flash came this reply: 

Sorry Mum, I should have shown more empathy. When is the wake? Are you collecting for a suitable floral tribute? I think this one would be nice.........

Deer for BBTB2

Over on BBTB2 this week, we were given these lovely little deer stamps from Technique Tuesday to use, together with the flourish 3 cut from the Stretch Your Imagination cricut cartridge (page 77 of the manual).

I decided to use the negative of the flourish, and backed it with coordinating paper.

the paper flowers have a blob of cream liquid pearls in the middle. If you like a challenge, why not have a go this week? Technique Tuesday is sponsoring the challenge, and if you don't have SYI, you can use any cricut flourish on your card

Cream scalloped card base - Craftwork Cards
Deer stamp set - Technique Tuesday
Beaded button - Crafty bitz
All papers - Dill Blossom by SEI

I hope everyone here in the UK had a lovely Mothering Sunday yesterday. I didn't get to see any of my brood, but had lots of lovely cards, phone calls and flowers. Max was with his Daddy when he called me (from a supermarket), and was very busy with his new passion - waving at himself on the security cameras. 'Come and say hello to Ma' said my son 'lello Ma, I wavin at me'
Which made me think.................have you ever gone out shopping, thinking you look rather smart, nice gear on, hair looking good, then you look up at a security monitor and see this bedraggled creature standing there. It isn't until you scratch your nose or something that you realise the sorry looking sight is YOU. A friend of mine once did a dash to the local mall with her daughter, as they walked along, she saw a woman walking towards her, 'look at her' she whispered to her daughter ' you'd think she would have made a bit of an effort before coming out'.................it wasn't until she practically bumped myopically into the mirror that she realised that the woman was her. 'When did I get so old?' she asked mournfully. Incidentally, she isn't old at all, but a fabulous looking woman in her prime. she just caught herself on a bad mirror day...................... we all have them, unless you are 2 year old Max of course.

Blue Christmas for CDM and a jolly penguin for BBTB

A couple more design team offerings for you today. This first one is for Cute Daisy May, where the challenge is "Blue Christmas". The image is of course CDM, the papers are from last year's DCWV Christmas stack, snowflakes are a cuttlebug die, and the embossing folder is cuttlebug

I put the printed image through the cuttlebug using the snow folder by Kars, I like doing this on snowy images, it makes it look as if the girl is sitting in a snowstorm
Next, the challenge over at Bitten By The Bug this week was to use the penguin from the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. I cut him/her at 4" and decided to spice it up a bit by making the outer layer in a black and white pattern, and added a holly leaf sticker I found hanging around in my stuff. I used the same snow folder as before, snowflakes are a cuttlebug die - never seen a red snowflake? Well, who has ever seen a penguin deckout in houndstooth check :)

That's it for today, more design team stuff tomorrow, boy, have I been busy..........

Remember Pacman?

and the inside, gobbling up some happy birthday balls

Remember pacman? One of the earliest gameboy games, that little yellow ball that used to gobble all the other balls up? It's my son's birthday on friday. He works for one of the big computer games companies so I thought this card would be fun. I cut the circles out with my george cartridge, and the dark grey frame around the edge of the card was done with the stretch your imagination cartridge. I covered the front of the card with a dull silver paper (DCWV) and added some buttons for the 'controls'. I know it looks like a kids card, but he is still a bit of a kid at heart. At least he will know I made it just for him.

I am not surprised he ended up in that industry, he certainly spent enough time practising when he was a kid. One Christmas, he was desperate for a gameboy, which we bought and wrapped, hiding it away in a cupboard. On Christmas morning, he proceeded to astound us with his dexterity and skill. Many years later, he confessed that he had 'found' the parcel (i.e. spent hours looking for the parcel), then carefully opened the packaging and removed his prize. He did this at every opportunity until Christmas day, by which time he was, of course, an expert.

Bare Tree Christmas Card

The challenge that was given to the design team over on Bitten By The Bug this week, was to use the 'bare tree' from the stretch your imagination cartridge as a Christmas card. I cut the tree at 5", and ran it through the cuttlebug using the distressed stripes folder. Inked the edges in blue to give definition as it was going on a white background, and applied icicle stickles. The little blue stars are from a snowflake pack by Martha Stewart, as is the large snowflake on the organza bow. The card itself is pre-embossed snowflakes by DCWV. Click HERE to see the other ideas the rest of the team came up with, as always, there is such a great variety of cards to see.

Just Dropping You A Line - Cricut Card

I have started playing around with the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. They have these great frames on it, so I cut the one with waves to make this card. The fish is from animal kingdom and the sentiments are dollar stamps by Inkadinkadoo. Added a bit of cuttlebug and some dew drops, then just tipped the waves with pearl accents. This is one I like (I am SO critical of my work), as I feel the icy blue makes it look quite watery.

We fly back to the UK from Spain tomorrow, the holiday has been great, we seem to have spent a lot of time weeping with laughter. A keen sense of the ridiculous is needed when you are trying to communicate in a language that you only know 10 words max! So a lot of hand waving, ludicrous face pulling and shouting has been going on - and that´s only the waiters! I won´t even try to tell you about the policeman who pulled us over for ????? (crime unknown as his explanation did not use the words caffe con leche, por favor or muchas gracias)

Stretch Your Imagination Flower

I am still playing around with this cartridge, I have had it for some time and never used it much - until now, I am finding all sorts of stuff I like on it. The flower and pot were cut at 2 1/2" and there is quite a lot of cuttlebug embossing going on there in the background.

After a few days of glorious sunshine, the weather forecast is for heavy rain and flash floods - oh goody, now it will feel like summer in the UK once more.

Wedding/Anniversary Card

So for some reason I fancied making quite an elaborate glitzy sort of card and made this one, which could be used as a wedding or anniversary card. Don't ask me what dragonflies have to do with love and marriage, I don't know, just liked the cut!

I made a base card in white, 5" square and ran it through the cuttlebug using the textile folder. The gold frame was cut from mirri card, also at 5" using the stretch your imagination cartridge, and then I trimmed a sliver from each side of the inside square of gold, before adhering it to the centre of the card. The dragonfly (from doodlecharms) was cut twice from pearl vellum, and the body in white card. Ran the vellum through the cuttlebug, divine swirls folder and swiped an embossing pad over it, then brushed it with gold perfect pearls. I stamped the body with a swirly stamp and again applied perfect pearls. Finally the hearts were cut in white, then gold from the wedding cartridge.

Bicycle Birthday - Stretch Your Imagination

This was going to be a quick little card, but ended up taking me ages. The bicycle is cut from the stretch your imagination cartridge, cut at 4 1/2", I added some stitching and lots of doodling, then added two prima flowers behind the diecut one. All the papers are from DCWV all dressed up stack. This is another card that looks better in real life, the black gets lost in the photo. I really must try and improve my photography skills

Grasshopper Card - Stretch Your Imagination

This week on BBTB Regina asked the design team to use the grasshopper cut from the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. I cut him at 3" and added some googly eyes. The sentiment was computer generated, papers by making memories.

This took me well outside my comfort zone, not only because I really was lost what to do with this little chap, I also hate all things creepy and crawly, and even when he was looking quite cute in his green polka dots and googly eyes, I could not warm to him at all. That's the fun of being on a design team though, I love the way it forces me to think outside the box.

The greeting was done using the Greeting Card Factory software. I bought it in the UK, but it is an American product. I find it really useful for generating sayings. It has a lot of stuff on it, backgrounds, clip art, poems and sentiments for outside and inside the card. You can put your greeting in a circle, wave, right side up etc etc etc, loads of fonts and colours too. So if you make a lot of cards I think it's a good buy, especially as I am not terribly skilled on the computer. Nice and easy does it for me every time!