Funky Hand and Lily-Boo Monthly Challenges

The challenge this month, set by my lovely teamie Allison, is Halloween. Pop over to the blog to see all the DT samples, and you have a whole month to get your card done - with a £20 Funky Hand voucher for the winner ($30)

My card was made using papers from the Funky Seasons CD, with the ghost cut with my cricut using the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge. The BOO letters were cut from Plantin Schoolbook. A little bow, and some googly eyes, and she looks quite sweet all dressed up for the 31st October!
Now for Lily-Boo, the second of our monthly challenges, thanks to everyone for the fantastic response to the first challenge, the winners are on the blog NOW. This month is a sketch by Jane, which I have forgotten to take a photo of, but you can take my word that I turned it on it's side and took a few liberties with.
The little girl is from the download Xmas Corners, I covered the snow with Martha Stewart carrerra marble glitter, it is very coarse, and I loved the effect. The snowflakes are sissix and cuttlebug dies.
If you love challenges, you have a whole month to join in with this one, and again, there is a prize for the winner. If you don't have any Lily Boo images, there is a freebie fairy on there for you to pick up too






THEY'RE BACK!



Yes, the caterpillary thingys that ate up my oleander bushes last year are back. Aren't they horrible? They may not stay long this time, as my oleanders never recovered from their attack, and I don't have any more goodies for them to munch through

Black and Yellow

First a couple of sneeky peeks, you will see the cards tomorrow, the first one is from my challenge card for Funky Hand's monthly challenge

and this one is from my card for Lily-Boos monthly challenge. A new challenge will be posted on both sites tomorrow, I will give you links so that you can all join in the fun.......
I did this card for Cute Card Thursday, where the challenge this week is black and yellow, and Papertake Weekly, where the challenge is black, white, and one other colour, so this fits the bill for both. I found this pack of black and white chipboard pieces from making memories on sale last year - it's one of those packs full of ridiculous sentiments that I for one would never use, even on a scrapbook page. Frolic? Can you imagine a card/scenario that would fit that word? Let's face it, the word is not in most peoples everyday vocabulary 'oh yes, we went for a picnic yesterday and had a lovely frolic in the grass', we all hear that sort of remark every day. Don't we?
I digress (as usual), back to the card, it's made entirely of frolicless chipboard pieces, so the pack wasn't a total waste of money. I added a couple of yellow flowers from Poppicrafts

The gems were from poundland in the UK

That's it for today folks. Anne has gone to her friends in South Carolina now, I have done some housework, and the coast is clear for some serious crafting.................but first I need a large iced caramel latte from dunkin donuts. See you tomorrow

Tartan Rock for Daring Cardmakers

On Daring Cardmakers this week, their dare is to use tartan. I found this tartan paper, and for some reason immediately thought of the guitar from the Indie Art cartridge - maybe it was a subconcious Rod Stewart connection, although I am not a huge fan of the wee Scot.

So I covered the front of the card with the tartan paper (HOTP), and found a scrap of music paper for the centre. The guitar was cut at 4 1/2", once in black with the blackout feature, twice in black without blackout, and a layer in red. I threaded it with red cotton, I haven't a clue how many strings a guitar has, and was not about to break off and google it - so this is an artistic interpretation!

The guitar really looks quite dimensional, I popped each layer up with silicone glue, and in my usual fashion rushed to photograph it before the excess glue was dry and I could peel it away... never mind, you get the picture

I'll be back tomorrow with a couple of sneek peeks...........

Happy Birthday Matey - The Cutting Cafe

Regina Easter has done a really great pirate set over on The Cutting Cafe, I used the happy birthday frame for this one. The image is a download from Dustin Pike called pirate boy - he doesn't look much like a boy to me, so I gave him some designer stubble. That corrugated blue card is coming in handy this week, and you will notice that my beloved easy- to- thread sewing machine is back in action

The grey of the wording looks as if I have been very clever, in fact my black ink cartridge was on the point of running out, but I quite like the shadowy look it gives
Would you believe I have no critter tales to tell you, the frogs have vanished, never to be seen again, and all is quiet on the wildlife front. What a relief!

Howdy - Fabric card

I found this great trim in the clearance aisle at Joannes, and snapped some up, I knew straightaway that it would look good on a man card. The cowboy hats were from a remnant of fabric from the same store, I covered the back with a glue stick, stuck them onto cardstock, then cut them out when dry.

I cut the feather thingy off another hat, and popped it on with a foam pad for a bit of dimension. The howdy letters are thickers by American Crafts
Two frogs seem to have taken up residence outside my front door. I don't know if they are frogs or toads, because they are orange in colour. They are probably sitting there waiting for the huge spider to come back, you're wasting your time guys, he's dead!
Have a great weekend

Halloween for Polkadoodles

This week, we could use any image we liked for the Polkadoodle challenge as long as we coloured it in ourselves, rather than using one of the many already coloured images on the CD's. I used the Halloween download (so did quite a few of the others on the design team), that purple background paper is so cute with all the little dangling spiders with the big eyes. If I think spiders are so cute, why did I rush to get a can of lethal spray to dispatch one that was sitting on my doorstep when we arrived home tonight. It was the size of a horse - well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it was big, and is hopefully now very dead, I am too scared to go and see in case it is mad with me and runs into the house.........

Back to the card, all the images, and sentiment are from the download. Polly is coloured with copic markers, the edge of the mat was punched with the famous Martha Stewart drippy goo border punch. Love the way the cat has his little mask and cloak on, all ready to go trick and treating.

To join in and see all the other samples, go to Polkadoodles - Ruth has done two great tutorials on colouring for you this week as well

I have done two commissions for the November issue of Creativity magazine, a new magazine for me, and I had an email asking for a mug shot. The one on the blog wouldn't do, too small (the smaller the better as far as I am concerned). So I got Anne to take a few, she assures me this is a good photo. Good grief, do I really look like this? I look like someone who has escaped from an asylum and is grinning maniacally, and what's the matter with my eyes, are they always that squinty? Why is this image nothing like the image I have in my head? Anyway, as I was under pressure to send it in, this is the one that will be printed (hopefully in postage stamp size) in the next edition. I know you would all rather see the cards, but that will have to wait - for now

When I Count My Blessings I Count You Twice....

Over at the Cutting Cafe, Regina has some great new sets, including this Count Your Blessings circle.

I printed it onto brown cardstock, much too big - it was a mistake, then decided I could turn a mistake into something useful and cut the circle in half to form an arch at the top of the card. The base card is the doily cut from Wildcard, cut at 6" on blackout. All the papers are from the DCWV Indian Summer stack

I cut the flowers out of the paper, then cut the centres out of a couple more and lifted them up with silicone glue. I did this with a couple of the leaves as well
It's a beautiful day here in Florida, so off for a swim, then to do battle in Michaels to exchange a new Cricut cartridge I bought (winter woodland) which turns out to be faulty, none of the images will cut, all I can get is the font

Tree card and a horror story

Isn't this tree gorgeous? It's by Impression Obsession I stamped it in black and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder, then sprinkled with diamond glitter. I stamped three times, onto very pale pink card, cut out the paisley leaves and popped them up with foam pads. The papers are by Making Memories and the lace is some remnant scraps

The black label shape was cut using a Go-Kreate label die, and the sentiment button is from Craftwork Cards
And the horror story? This will have a familiar ring to those of you who read this blog regularly. Yesterday we drove down to St Petersburg to go to the Salvador Dali museum. That done, we drove a bit further to go to a big outlet mall. Much shopping later, we left for home at about 8.00 for a journey that should have taken 1 1/2 hours. We finally made it home at 11.30pm, all the extra time being taken up with driving round, and round, and round and round the complicated road system in Tampa. There is a road system in the UK called spaghetti junction, well the Tampa system should be called knitting wool junction. Nightmare! We sailed past the exit four times, passed the 'Welcome to Tampa' sign numerous times - approaching the city from east, west and south. We even found ourselves driving round the airport, headed for the departure terminal. Anne confessed later that she thought we were going to end up on the runway. Headline news "English women arrested for driving in the path of a 747!" Of course by this time we were reduced to hysterical giggles, and were so thoroughly disorientated we didn't have a clue where we were, the only thing we knew was that we had to head north, that we were hungry and that we needed the loo. (restroom in USAspeak)
We made it back via a slightly unconventional route and headed straight for the wine

House Mouse Autumn Card

I love making autumny cards after the bright colours of summer. I coloured the mouse in with prisma pencils, the papers are all from DCWV's Indian Summer stack, and the leaves were cut from Home Accents

The leaves look a bit frayed in the photo, they are not like that in real life......
We have been coping with a few technical breakdowns here..... I won't bore you with the non-functioning dishwasher, or the memory stick that refused to give up it's pictures to the computer. Let's concentrate on the saga of the garage door................
Anne and I went out (shopping!) one evening, got back home and the remote control for the garage door failed. We didn't have a key, so drove to some neighbours who were already in their PJ's and collected the spare key. The next day, the door wouldn't budge, or opened in a intermittent sort of way. A friend called round to take a look. He tested the remote - nothing, tested the wall switch, nothing................ then he took a look at the sensors and said 'ermmmm, you've put a sack of garbage in front of the sensor'. Voila, fully functional door. Thanks Howard. Truly a double blonde moment I think, we probably shouldn't be allowed out without supervision

Special Birthday Card

Anne asked me to make a special card for a close friend Beth, who has a milestone birthday coming up next week. Now Beth is elegance personified, so I tried to make a card that would complement this, and used these Martha Stewart papers in shades of a bronzey gold and aqua. The letters were cut using the Storybook cartridge at 2 1/2" and dotted with some glittered prima flowers.

Yes, I have finally finished unpacking and was able to get organised to make this card last night. It's quite disorientating because I have forgotten where everything is kept here, so keep rummaging in drawers to find stuff. I had a minor panic when I couldn't find my nestabilities, they had been tucked into a little side pocket of a case and got overlooked. I have doubles of all the heavy items - cricut, cuttlebug etc, but the nesties, embossing folders, cartridges etc do the journey with me. So now, all my stuff is around me, and all I need to do is to get cracking on some cards.........

Polly Polkadoodles

Well I still haven't unpacked all my crafting stuff to get organised - will I ever get it done? Well I will if I can just stop dashing around every shop within a 20 mile radius

So here is a Polkadoodles card that I did for the challenge a couple of weeks ago but never posted on my blog because it was when I was ill. All the papers and images are from the Sugar Birdies CD. Don't forget to pop over to the Polkadoodles blog tomorrow to see all the new challenge cards, there will be tutorials on there for some rather funky stuff as well

Great little sentiment circles, and don't you love that black and whlte polka dot paper
................
I promised an up to date photo of baby Monty, this was taken a week ago, he is 13 weeks now and utterly edible - even more so when he is cuddled up in his towel after his bath
and here is my Kiki, when I am there, nobody else is allowed to do the bathtime routine, and just before I took this photo she said - out of the blue - "I love you Ma" - well I love you too sweetheart, you are my most special little girl

Grandchildren are such a joy!

Here's a baby boy card made with another Pink Gem stamp. I stamped twice, once onto the blue gingham paper and paper pieced the image. The ribbon was bought already ruffled, a nice compromise when you don't want too many lacy frills for a new little man.... The sentiment is a dollar stamp

I do love the baby faces on these stamps
Here I am, back in the USA. I flew out yesterday, my BFF Anne as my companion for two weeks, Mike has very wisely decided to stay in the UK until next month, rather than have two weeks of wall-to-wall shopping and girlie chat.
Before we had even unpacked our (very heavy) cases, we hit the shops, and managed to browse around a total of eight stores, punctuated with visits to Dunkin Donuts for a shot or two of caffeine to keep us going, and a sit down in a nail parlour to rest for a while, whilst having a pedicure - Heaven!
One of the things I had to buy was a Flip video camera, I haven't used it yet, but may well be able to post little tutorial videos on here if I can figure out the technology, it's so cute, only the size of a mobile (cell) phone, and it was on sale.

Christmas Word Books - Brand New Funky Hand

Here's two christmas word books made with brand new downloads from Funky Hand

This first one is one with "Blue Christmas" - you just print out the letters you want, and cut around the pages using your paper trimmer. I used my Bind it All, the little trees are cut from one of the papers, and the hat is from the Cricut Christmas Cheer cartridge

I used swiss dots to give some added texture, and dabbed a zig glue pen on the spots, then sprinkled with glamour dust
The second one is done with the "Tis the Season" download - fabulous traditional Christmas papers here.
I used Christmas Cheer again to cut out the Ho Ho Ho


and added a few jewels for a bit of bling
I always print the back of the page in a co-ordinating print as well, to make double sided paper

It couldn't be easier to use these, order, and they are sent right to your computer ready for you to download and make little books saying whatever you want to say - there are some great examples on the Funky Hand site, hop over and take a look. The amazing thing is that we were all given a free rein as to what we produced, and we all came up with different words. I've had a couple of emails asking me what the price is in USD. It converts to $8.33 per download

Tag Book for Polkadoodles

The challenge on Polkadoodles this week is "Anything but a Card"

I was halfway through making this tag book as a sample for Nikky's Create and Craft TV show three weeks ago, when I was taken ill, so it was easy and very enjoyable to finish what I had started.

The papers and images are all from the Jingle Jangle Christmas CD

The images of Max were taken on a family trip to the Lake District, he would have been about 18 months old then

The tags were bought ready made, I just added the papers and a jump ring to hold them together

I love these letter squares, so versatile. The snowballs were punched and shadowed with grey


I used both sides of the tags, so managed to get quite a few pages done......

I will probably make another one of these if I can gather enough photos of baby Milo, and give them to Edward and Lidia at Christmas time. These photos were perfect for the project though - down to the cute wellies!

Don't forget to join in with this week's challenge, and do take a look over there, the design team have been super creative and have come up with the most fabulous stuff

Nikky is on Create and Craft TV again on Tuesday 15 th September at 9. 00AM - be sure to watch, she will be showcasing a brand new polkadoodles product, some rubber stamps, which complement the papers on the CD

I am off to London today for cuddles with Kiki and Monty, so watch out for some new photos soon............I can be so boring when it comes to my grandchildren

Birthday Cake

While I had my Pooh and friends cartridge out the other day I thought I would have a stab at cutting the birthday cake. It looked a bit flat so I cuttled the top with divine swirls, and inked the edges of the cream card

The little sentiment, which is a clear dome sticker by Papermania reads
"Here's to another year of eating cake everyday"
Now I have a LOT of girlfriends who would think this was the perfect card for them!

The packing continues, which means the whole house is in a state of utter chaos. I escaped down into town for a coffee, and, you've guessed it, my 'friend' who is' under the psychiatrist' asked if he could share my table.....
NO I wanted to scream, I have problems of my own, (luckily not of the psychiatrist variety, just dealing with the coat hangers is enough for me) but of course I smiled weakly and escaped just after he told me in detail about the day centre he attends. Will the same thing be happening in Dunkin Donuts? Wait and see........................................

I have had quite a few enquiries about what type of silicone glue I use, I found a brand called Pinflair which is great, it comes with it's own little syringe, which makes me feel quite surgical as I deftly squirt it on, and is a great consistency. Some of the brands are so stiff you can hardly get it out of the tube. I do find it a great alternative to foam pads when you are layering tiny pieces onto a card. Do a Google search for stockists, I got it online from Craftwork Cards in the UK

More Halloween - Lily Boo and The Cutting Cafe

Here's another halloween card done with the Lily-Boo halloweenies,( don't forget you have a whole month to do the first Lily Boo challenge and pick up the free download) and another sentiment from the Cutting Cafe. I coloured with copics, and there is a fair bit of glitter on there done with the copic glitter pens, but of course it doesn't show

I used the pointed nestabilities for the sentiment circles, they look sort of spooky on a halloween card
I am wondering when to start doing the big craft-pack-up ready for my trip. Too soon, and I sit chewing my nails in frustration, too late and I inevitably forget something in my haste. I have a lot of the basic equipment I use a lot, doubled up - 2 cricut machines, 2 cuttlebugs, etc etc, but of course I have to take all my embossing folders, cricut cartridges etc. I have great hopes for a new bit of kit that provocraft are bringing out called the Gypsy (go here to see what it's all about). In the meantime, I think this calls for a list - there is something so satisfying about lists, that feeling of satisfaction when you put ticks by the side of completed tasks........

Present Card - for BBTB

Over on Bitten by the Bug this week, we were asked to use the present icon from Pooh and Friends cartridge. I used these yummy papers from Craftwork Cards, which made short work of the project

I pleated a narrow strip of the paper into accordian folds, and added one of their chocolate button sentiments
I am busy now getting ready for my 3 month trip to the USA. One of the jobs I do before I go is to put away summer clothes and get out the winter gear, so that when I get back just before Christmas I am not faced with the prospect of T shirts sitting there in sub zero temperatures.
questions.....
How come I have sweaters older than my children, when I distinctly remember throwing them out last winter. Are they like homing pigeons? Do they creep back from Oxfam under cover of darkness?
Why is it that cheap plastic coathangers are conducting their own breeding programme right there in my wardrobe? How come for every 2 that go in, at least 10 come out?

Sunflowers for Daring Cardmakers

Those girls over at Daring Cardmakers certainly know how to set a dare - I love doing their challenges because they almost always make me think outside the box. This week the dare is "Sunflowers"

Plain and simple? Yes, except that after I had dug out some yummy Lime Rickey papers by basic grey, and was set to go, I realised that I had lent my 'walk in my garden' Cricut cartridge to my niece. That has a lovely sunflower on it. So I dug out my life's a beach cartridge and there was ...............a SUN. So what could be better, a sunflower made from the sun. I cut a whole sheet then layered them with silicone glue.....

cut some circles from 'george' for the centre, and sprinkled with dew drops by Robin's Nest

The letter stickers are Alphaminis by papermania
Hope everyone has a great weekend

Halloween - The Cutting Cafe and Lily-Boo

This cute halloween set is going on sale this weekend over at Lily-Boo's boutique, and Regina Easter has loads of great halloween sentiments, including this useful background, all ready to download over on the Cutting Cafe site.

The girl was coloured with copic markers, and the edges of the cards inked with Martha Stewart orange ink. I am going back to the US just at the right time, I have only a tiny bit of my favourite gingham ribbon left

I do love making halloween cards, all that purple, orange and black really appeals to me. The spiders web was cut with the cricut from Paper Dolls at 2"
Far more beautiful than any card I could make, here is my latest picture of Milo with his mummy. Click on the photo to see his beautiful blue eyes. He is 15 weeks old now, and such a sweet little boy, all smiles and contentment. I won't see him now until Christmas, my, he will change in that time. Thank goodness for webcams

Another Pink Gem Stamp Card

Here's another cute Pink Gem stamp image (thanks again Denyze). The embossed background is a card base by papermania - it looks as if the card is red, but I popped it onto a piece of red card to photograph it. The wonky stitching is faux - just ran the card through my machine minus the thread and joined up the dots. Can't wait to get back to my self-threading machine in the US

I stamped onto gingham paper and paper pieced it. There is something about little girls and gingham that always appeals to me..........
I have been incredibly busy with magazine stuff, and am also not running quite on top speed yet, so forgive me if I haven't visited your blog for a while, I promise to do better this week
We went down to London yesterday to see Max and Milo, Max is a whirlwind child, on the go all the time, whilst his little brother (aged 15 weeks) is so chilled, he just lies there in his little chair, beaming every time anyone looks at him, and quietly cooing and burbling away to himself.