Valentine Cricut Cards.....

So I showed you Max's Valentine card, here are the cards I made for the other grandchildren - this first one is for Kiki, I used Home Accents for the 'love' cut, and cut it twice, once in pink gemstone core-dinations cardstock, and once in white.....

I embossed the white heart with a heart embossing folder, and realized later that I had glued it with the de-bossed side upwards. Hey ho, it didn't matter....

This next one is for five year old Milo, who is a bit fixated on superheroes at the moment. It's a print and cut from the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge - I added a M for Milo to his vest, and added some glitter to the belt, mask and boots. Now I know that this makes him look a bit camp,  as if he is on his way to a Village People revival gig, and is about to throw his hands up in the air and start singing YMCA, but he needed a bit of bling!

and this one is for Monty, who I took to Disneyland Paris last year, so it seemed the right cut to use......

It is bitterly cold here, and we keep getting snow showers, but it's that wet snow that doesn't stick, so it's not exactly 'snowmaggedon' here, but I am watching out for the first real snowfall, and waiting for the country to grind to a halt, paralysed by an inch of snow - happens every year, how merrily the rest of the world must laugh at our predicament, but it's quite reassuring to know that our weather forecasters aren't the only guys to get it a tiny bit wrong - even I was on the edge of my seat this week waiting for the storm of the century to hit New York, (and of course delighted that it didn't).......but seeing the scientist guys a bit red faced and apologetic is strangely satisfying, and rather welcome, at least we know now that we aren't the only ones with forecasters who seem to make it up as they go along. 

It's a job I quite fancy doing, standing in front of a camera, making those sweeping hand gestures across a map of the world, smiling prettily and cheerfully when I tell you that there is going to be torrential wind and rain and your roof may blow off, then after five minutes of breaking bad news to the nation, I could flash my best Julia Roberts imitation smile and say goodbye....then go and do nice things like shopping and sitting in Starbucks for an hour or two. I would just have to hide, wear dark glasses like a film star in case I'm recognized, when everyone else comes in looking like drowned rats because I had told them it was going to be a lovely dry day......

All day dreams of course, I am about a hundred and fifty years too old for the job - have you noticed, wherever you are in the world, the weather people always have immaculate shiny hair and extra white shiny teeth, and have only recently endured the ordeal of puberty. They never look as if they've been caught in a torrential downpour either, come to think of it - perhaps they know something they aren't telling us...

See you tomorrow x

Grandad

Here's another grandparent card that I made for this month's Papercraft Inspirations magazine. I really like the use of corrugated card on this one. The letter stickers are by Making Memories. The star was cut from the George cartridge at 3"

I have a lot to do today, some of it involves boring stuff like sorting out mail, some of it is more exciting like making some cards with Funky Hand's new CD Colour Me Happy. I am not very disciplined, I will throw myself into the cardmaking, and tonight as I climb into bed I will think 'oh bummer, didn't sort out the correspondence again......never mind, I'll do it tomorrow'. Then the whole cycle will start again tomorrow

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

Serenade Flower

Here's another card I made for Scrappy-Go-Lucky, using the Serenade cartridge. The papers are all anonymous ones that I have had hanging around for ages

Edited to say in reply to Janet: I usually do put the sizes of the cuts on my posts Janet, missed this one, sorry. The base card is 6" square, with rounded corners, the flower pot was cut at 1 3/4", and the flower at 3"

I put some glue in the centre of the flower, and sprinkled it with tiny seed beads

Now that I have my (horrible) passport photo, I need to fill in the forms. Do they have to make it so difficult? There is a twenty four page booklet with instructions on how to fill in the form! Of course, you have to find someone to countersign your form, and endorse the back of your (horrible) photo to say that it is a true likeness. Well, I will be very insulted if anyone says that the (horrible) photo is a true likeness of me. What's more, this counter-signatory person must be an upstanding member of the community (a doctor, teacher, police officer are some examples they give of fine upstanding members of the community). So that rules out grabbing the postman when he delivers the mail. No, it has to be down to my friend Anne, who will never let me forget just how horrible the photo is...........

Under the Weather? - Serenade

Here's a card I made for Scrappy-go-lucky, the rain clouds are cut from the Serenade cartridge, the umbrella is from Everyday Paper Dolls, and the sentiment is by Inky Antics. The tiny cloud paper is from the Baby Boy pack by Craftwork Cards, and I dotted Robins Eye Dew Drops around to look like raindrops

The inside sentiment is a simple

Get Well Soon

Thanks for all the get well wishes you sent, my back seems to be getting better, although I am moving a bit gingerly at the moment

I had a lovely day yesterday, Jeannie, from Maine, who is a regular visitor to my blog, is on vacation in the area with her husband and son. She emailed me to see if there were any craft stores around here, so I arranged to pick her up and drive her around. She experienced the crafty garden centre, and was like a kid in the candy store, then we went to Hobbycraft (that's the only big box craft store in the UK) All this and a pub lunch too. She was astounded at how easily I negotiated the roundabouts, well, yes, that's sort of second nature when you live here. What should have astounded her, if it had not been our first meeting, was the fact that I didn't get lost once. Mind you, I could have driven to London and back really, and Jeannie wouldn't have known that I was lost
It was great to meet you Jeannie, and thanks for the lovely bag of goodies you gave me xx

Serenade Birdcage

Here's one I made for Scrappy Go Lucky, I wanted to use this birdcage from the Serenade cartridge, it reminds me of the new Tim Holtz birdcage die. I used neutral papers - Dill Blossom by SEI, and added just a pop of aqua. The base card and sentiment button are by Craftwork Cards

I knotted a piece of coffee coloured lace with some brown organza


and added strips of aqua pearls to finish

There are two more cards of mine made with the Serenade cartridge over on the Scrappy-go-Lucky blog today, click on the link to take a peek. Mandy has some really informative videos on there as well
I am off to my sister's for the day now, we have a lot of planning to do, she is coming over to the States with me in September for a couple of weeks. We need to plan our shopping routes like a military operation

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

Lace.....Real, Paper and Felt

I was tidying up the picture folder on our desktop computer today (I normally use the laptop) and realise that I never shared these with you. They are part of my very first magazine commission for Papercraft Inspirations magazine, published in September 2008. They asked me to produce some cards and an altered book, all using felt lace, paper lace and real stuff.

This first card is a gatefold that I covered with KI Memories felt lace, which I dotted with jewels. The flower was cut from George on silhouette, and backed with a crunchy real lace. I cut one of the flowers from the felt lace for the centre

This baby card uses paper lace, the sort that comes in 12 x 12 sheets, and I found some adorable broderie anglaise pink gingham lace which I cut out to decorate the card. I found out that tall thin cards don't photograph well, I never use them for magazines now unless they specify tall/thin
Here is the altered book, it was a cheap notebook from the $ bin in Michaels. I looked for one with a plain cover and a black wire, then covered the front in the black spotty paper. It was just like being back at school, they used to make us cover our text books at the start of every term. I found some wide crunchy lace and threaded pink ribbon through it, and added three die cut (george, cricut) flowers, with button centres and lace tails.

It was strange finding these photos, I had forgotten all about my first commission, I think I made them in June 2008. Would I do the same again today for the same commission? Actually, I think I probably would, my brief was to make pretty, fancy, cards and I think these fitted the bill. So there you go, a stroll down memory lane with me today

Winner of CSN Stores Voucher and some 'spares'

The winner of the £60 ($60) CSN Stores gift voucher is

Fiona

Congratulations

Yes, you have won the voucher. Email me with your contact details, tell me what country you are living in, and I will forward them to CSN Stores who will be in touch with you. I hope you find something delectable to buy........you said you needed a treat, well, here it is

Would you believe I am covered in glitter (again) - I have been making some Christmas card samples. It all seems very bizarre, stamping out Christmas images in July.

I have been so busy with these, that I thought I wouldn't have a card to show you today, then I found a folder marked 'spares' with these two cards that I made for challenges last month, and didn't get them posted until they were on to the next challenge

This little miss is a stamp that is back in the USA, I THINK she is by Inky Antics. The papers are by We R Memory Keepers, and the sentiment button is by Craftwork Cards. I ran the blue strip of cardstock through one of those corrugator thingies - I don't know about you, but I can never get them to go through the rollers straight, so my ridges are always wonky

This one was for a Penny Black challenge, again, too late to enter it.
The scallop boders were cut using Plantin schoolbook cartridge on the Cricut


I embossed the pink card with swiss dots
That's it for today, back to work - oh, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.....trudging up to my crafty closet humming festive music and keeping an eye out for Santa as I go......
See you tomorrow

Bold Blooms

Well all my stuff is unpacked and put away, so I was able to make a couple of cards yesterday.

Here's a nice happy start to the week, the tulips were cut from the cricut lite Bloom cartridge at 4", and shadowed in black.................

The sentiment is American Craft Thickers, they are felt letters. Papers are by My Minds Eye, and the card was made from Gemstones card from Jo-ann. I added a few doodly black dots here and there. I really like these lite cartridges, the layering is superb on the three I bought.
So today will see me madly trying to complete a magazine commission, and I have some samples to make as well. I need to get them done so that we can get down to London to see those grandbabies. Mike and I went out to a garden centre, he parked the car whilst I dashed inside. When we got out I looked around and walked confidently to a dark blue car 'where are you going?' he asked. Yes, I had forgotten that our car here is dark green, the blue one is in the USA - my body is here, my mind is still somewhere Mid-Atlantic.

Cool Cat

Here's another cat card, made with the cricut lite Meow cartridge. You cut her perched on the piano keyboard, isn't that cute? I cut at 4", base in black, then the white keys, then the top layer of the face, again in black. The pink background paper is Bazzill embossed spots, it doesn't photograph well.

I gave her a bling collar...........

I had a great time at Stampfest yesterday, I have never been to a craft fair in the USA before. I had lots of basic stuff on my shopping list - bind it all wires, Tim Holtz foam inking pad refills and so on, I was able to get them all, plus quite a few stamp sets which will be getting an inking very soon. I took a video, which I need to upload, and if it is any good will put it on here tomorrow - I thought my UK blog friends would enjoy seeing the booths here. I was very taken by Inky Antics stamps, and a company called Darcey, which I had never heard of, they did the loveliest decorated shadow frames, and some unusual stamps. The Tim Holtz booth had some gorgeous samples - I am not at all into the grungey side of altered art, but these were just downright pretty

So, watch this space, off to do a bit of editing now, see you tomorrow

Hang in there.....................

There are 24 new cricut cartridges, exclusive to Walmart, so of course, I have been haunting Wallys until I found them. I bought this cat one, simply because I rather like the cartoony type cuts. Here's the first card I made after breaking two nails, a pair of scissors and a knife to get the packaging open

The cat and washing line was cut at 4", papers are by We R Memory Keepers, and the sentiment stamp is Studio G.

Still melting here...............we had a thunderstorm this afternoon, I was on the phone to a friend in the UK, when there was a massive clap of thunder and the phone went dead. When I called her back I said 'did you hear that? It was thunder'. 'Oh' she said casually 'I thought your house had been hit by a tornado'. Luckily, it did rain a little and that has cooled the air a bit - coming from the UK, I never, ever thought that I would say that I was pleased to see the rain.
See you tomorrow

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