Pieces of Quiet for Penny Black Challenge

On the Penny Black challenge this week, they asked for LOTS OF DOTS, so with the help of some WeR Memory Keepers Whiteout Frenzy papers, here's mine.

The adorable little boy is a Slapstick stamp by Penny Black, called Pieces of Quiet, coloured with Copics and Promarkers.

A bit of stitching always helps in my opinion.................

Isn't that the sweetest sentiment?

I stamped him twice, once onto the orange paper, then onto white, which I coloured then cut around the boy, and popped him onto the base image with foam pads.


Thanks to those of you who suggested vinegar for my insect bites, it really works, mind you, I smell like a fish and chip shop...........
See you tomorrow

Anyone for golf?

Okay, so I have been fabric crazy this week, I promise to give them a rest next week.........maybe. Here is another of the fabulous golfers by Loralie, the sentiment was from an acrylic stamp by Studio G for father's day, I just cut off the word Dad. I thought the black doodling and stitching added a bit of contrast to what is a very bright card.

If it's your first time here, see my tutorial on making cards out of fabric.

I have had to put everything to one side for a few days while I got a magazine commission finished, all done and in the mail now, but today there hasn't been a lot of crafting done, just a lot of scratching - we went out with friends for dinner the other evening, to a place on the river. We asked for an outside table, it was a beautiful evening. 'The deer flies are biting' said the server helpfully. We sat outside anyway, and they certainly were biting, nobody else, just me, so I have these great weals all over my legs and the discomfort is driving me mad. I will never look at Bambi in the same way again.............. I have Benadryl, Clarityn, and an aloe cream, if anybody has a magic cure for bites, let me know.

We have been here for six weeks now. You would think that I would be used to the steering wheel being on the 'wrong' side of the car by now. Not a bit of it, every day, I walk confidently to the passenger door, peer in through the window, realize my mistake and slink around to the drivers side. If someone is sitting in the next car in a parking lot, I nonchalantly try to make it look as if I did it on purpose, open the passenger door and deposit my bag on the seat before walking round to the drivers side. They must think I am crazy, I mean, how many women open the door for their handbags. The daft thing is, I will just have got the hang of it when it is time to go back to the UK, and the whole saga will start all over again............the confident walk to the wrong side of the car.

Craftwork Cards Spotlight and an untidy desk........

No cards to show you here today, just teasers - today I am in the spotlight over at Craftwork Cards, you remember I told you that I was on their design team, so I would love it if you would pop over there, and leave a comment if you like the samples I made for them.

I thought I would join in with 'what's on your workdesk wednesday' this week. I was going to leave it until I had a good tidy up, but thought that was a bit daft. I am incredibly messy when I work, this actually looks quite tidy for me. What you don't see here is the floor, I toss stuff on there until I am wading through a sea of paper. The green ribbon bow was for a project I am working on for a magazine, it looked ridiculous, so that's probably gone on the floor as well. My copics and cricut stuff are always very close to hand, although I am changing over to Promarkers (a UK brand) as my copics start to run dry, they are much cheaper. Another thing always to hand is my foam pads, I buy them in Poundland.





I am a punch addict, these are just a tiny sample of all the ones piled up, occasionally I don't put them back properly, and they fall onto the desk with a horrible thud, making me jump out of my skin.............





One thing that is organised is my cardstock, and that's only because I bought these racks from a scrapbook store that was closing down. I worried a bit that the paper wouldn't take the humidity in the summer (they are in the garage, along with the rest of my stuff in Florida). but they seem to keep in pretty good shape.

I sent a little Flip video to Max and Milo wishing them a happy birthday (they both have birthdays this week). So my son did a video for us, supposedly of Milo opening his presents. Of course, when you are only one, crawling around the garden and trying to climb up on the slide is much more fun, so Max (three tomorrow) was ripping open the parcels. 'Do you want to watch Ma wishing you a happy birthday Max?' asked my son, 'No' said Max, very firmly 'Don't want to watch Ma, want to watch Fireman Sam'.
Tell it like it is Max, that's my boy.

A True Friend.............

No apologies for another fabric card today - this is another image from some of the new Loralie fabric I tracked down on Ebay. I turned it into an easel card, added lots of stitching and an Inkadinkadoo sentiment.

If this is your first visit to my blog and you haven't used fabric on cards, scroll down to labels and click on the tutorial.

Well you won't believe what happened yesterday, yes, at Dunkin Donuts. I was sitting in the sunshine, reading a magazine, two women were at the next table. Up drove a sheriff's car, I thought he had come for the free coffee that the cops are allegedly given. No, he was there by appointment with these two women, sat down and started interviewing them - in a loud voice and in full view of everyone, it was like an episode of Miami Vice. Apparently the husband of one of them had tried to strangle her with the car safety belt on saturday night. So there she was, weeping and showing her bruises (quite nasty they were, well, you didn't think I was going to carry on reading with all that drama going on did you? No, I was pretending to read, but behind my sunglasses my eyes were fixed on the wailing woman). I'm going off that place a bit, I seem to be the only normal person who goes there.

Today is our little Milo's first birthday. Happy birthday sweetheart. xxx

Ready to Rock for BBTB2, and a sneak peek

It was my turn to set the challenge for BBTB this week, and I chose the phrase Ready To Rock from the Hannah Montana cartridge. This cart. is full of images that teen girls (and boys) would consider cool, so perfect for those hard to make teen birthday cards. I chose black and pink, and cut out one of the guitars to finish the card. I dotted a few jet black gems around

All the layers were popped up quite a bit for extra dimension. Be sure to go over to BBTB2 again on wednesday, there is a Cricut cartridge up for grabs!
and here is a peek at a card using the new Summer in Paris cartridge, and Cri-Kit pens, which is on the Scrappy Go Lucky blog today, do me a favour and pop over there to see if you like it.


Would you believe, I had no strange encounters/experiences at all yesterday, everyone I have spoken to seems totally sane. Must be a first.......
See you tomorrow

You're a peach - for Charisma Cardz Challenge

A new challenge for me today, I have never joined in with the Charisma Cardz challenge before, this week the challenge is simply to put something to eat or drink on your card. I thought of my Preserves cricut cartridge and came up with this. Both the sentiment stamps - bought separately, are by Studio G, the papers were from the Cafe stack by DCWV, and the Prima flowers were part of my gift from Eileen. For some reason the colours are a bit off in the photo, the plain cardstock, and the pattern on the peach are a really deep peach colour, not pink - I should have taken the photo out in the open air probably. Never mind.

The layering on this cartridge is really easy, I cut the peach at 4" in brown, then the peach and flower again at 4", they all cut perfectly to scale. I ran the flower through the cuttlebug using the swiss dots folder before popping it on the peach.

Talking about food, if you love good recipes and photos that will make your mouth water, head over to Katie.s blog, Katie pops over here, I followed her link and just love her foodie photos and easy recipes.....

We went to get some new plants yesterday, to replace the ones that were killed in the cold winter they had in Florida. On the way, we made a stop for my daily fix of coffee. A chap came up and asked if he could sit with us (there were no other customers there!). He sat for about twenty minutes, reeling off joke after joke - all about lawyers. We sat there, smiling (we didn't laugh very hard, the jokes weren't very funny). Then as suddenly as he appeared, he stood up, said goodbye, hopped onto a fabulous Harley Davidson bike and roared off. Mike was totally bemused. 'What was all that about?'
I shrugged 'Dunno, something happens like that every day when I come here...........'

If it's Friday, it must be Polkadoodles

Friday again! This week on Polkadoodles, it was my turn to set the challenge, and I chose dimension and texture - easy peasy. The only stipulation is that you use the FREE download over there for your creation. I didn't use it on my card as I was a bit organised for once and made this at the beginning of the week, but take it from me, it's a gorgeous download, and will be perfect for your Father's Day cards

I used papers from the Love and Cherish CD, and fussy cut around one of the rose stems on the paper.

Adding texture is so easy with the cuttlebug - and my sewing machine of course...
and the rose flower was cut out three times and popped on with foam pads for dimension

Scalloped 6 x 6 square card - Craftwork Cards
Rose paper and pink spotty paper - Love and Cherish CD from Polkadoodles
Gems - Recollections from Michaels

I had quite a productive day yesterday at my craft group thursday - look out for some more Preserve cards, and I have been working with the new Summer in Paris cartridge as well. The place where we meet is called an Enrichment Centre
in the grounds of a local hospital. The nearest thing we have in the UK is probably our village halls. I think these centres are meant for 'seniors' a nice politically correct way of saying folk who are getting a bit long in the tooth. I may be wrong on that, but certainly most of the people using it are a bit senior (sadly including myself in this observation). This includes the tap dancing group who were there this afternoon, you have never heard such a din in your life. It sounded as though someone had given a herd of baby elephants some tap shoes. I was dying to take a look, but decided I better not, if they looked as bad as they sounded I might have found it difficult to walk away without that tell-tale-shoulders-shaking-with-mirth thing, and I might have upset someone. I may take a peek next week...............

Apple of my eye, and a sneak peek

Just a quick post today, I am busy working on stuff that I can't share just yet, but I have just received the Preserves cartridge, and this is it's first 'outing'. I found the apple lace background in a pack of papers from Tuesday Morning, the apple was cut at 3", and I added some rather random stitching. You would think a cartridge with just fruit on it would be quite limiting, but I have loads of ideas how I can use this.............watch this space. Mind you, they do have some rather odd fruits that I have never heard of on there. Of course, I could always start making homemade preserves and give them away, beautifully packaged. No, thought about that for a split second, think I'll pass on that idea....

Here's a peek at a card made with Storybook and the Cri-kit pens which will be on the Scrappy-go-Lucky blog today. Now I haven't a clue what time that will appear as the blog is on Australia time. The best I can say is 'thursday'.
It's my craft day today, all packed up and ready to go... see you tomorrow

Kindness - For Penny Black Challenge

I am trying to join in a few challenges this week, I seem to be so busy a lot of the time, and just can't fit them in, when I do, it's very therapeutic, and fun. This week on Penny Black it's a sketch, of course I forgot to copy the sketch, but that gives you a good excuse to pop over there and join in the fun.

I inked up a set called Flowers and Wishes, that I bought at the craft show at the NEC. Papers are by Heidi Grace, and the sentiment is Stampin Up. I left the background plain apart from a bit of inking, as the fresh colours really popped against the white.

I stamped the images twice, once onto white, then on to the red, and paper pieced the flowers.
Now I make a point of not talking politics on here, this is where I have fun with paper after all, but I must share this with you all..........................

Yesterday afternoon we had a text from one of our kids 'Watch the news'. So we switched on the TV (we are well-brought up parents, who always do what our children tell us).
So we were just in time to see an aerial view of David Cameron's car making it's way from Buckingham Palace to Downing Street. There were two commentators on this event, an excited American male, and a posh English bloke.
Excited American male 'are they there? The cars have stopped'
Posh English bloke 'ermm, no, they have stopped at some traffic lights'
Excited American male 'WHAAAT, you make your new president, I mean Prime Minister stop at lights?'
Posh English bloke 'that's the way we do it over there, no cavalcades or anything like that'
Excited American male 'so while we are waiting, let me see if I have this straight. You have this guy who came in THIRD (insert incredulous voice here), and is a LIBERAL (he sort of spat that word out) call the shots?'
Posh English bloke 'It certainly looks that way'
So the cars eventually negotiated London traffic and arrived at Downing Street, David Cameron got out and made a nice little speech.................................
Posh English bloke 'so the new Prime Minister and his wife enter their new home.........'
'Wait a minute' said excited American male 'isn't that Gordon Brown's home?'
'Was' replied posh English bloke succinctly
'You mean the guy lost his job and his house all in one day?' said excited American male 'he has to get out NOW? Gee, where will he sleep tonight?'
'arrangements will have been made' replied posh English bloke, sounding as if he couldn't care less if GB slept in a cardboard box 'brutal isn't it?' I swear he smirked.
Priceless, I wouldn't have missed that little bit of TV history for the world

See you tomorrow

Summer golf - for Lili of the Valley

On the Lili of the Valley challenge blog this week, the theme is 'here comes summer'. When the mailman arrived yesterday, there was this little parcel of Loralie fabric that I bought on Ebay. I love these golf ladies, and it turned into a really summery looking card.

Papers are from the DCWV Spring Stack, sentiment is by Judikins, I handcut the grass

New visitors to the blog - there is a video tutorial on making cards with fabric, scroll down to labels and take a look

We live in a golf course community here in Florida. Do I golf? Well the honest answer to that is not really. I have all the equipment - clubs, shoes and a lot of cute golf clothes, but getting that stuff together was more fun than learning to play the game. I have only played 9 holes ever, and can't imagine playing 18, I just don't have the passion for it. Best stick to cards I think.

Wild for You - Daring Cardmakers

On Daring Cardmakers (my favourite challenge blog) this week, the dare is Emerald Green. So I ferret about in my papers and find these jungle papers by Reminisce. The leaves were a 12x12 scrapbook page with the leaves around the outside of the square, I just chopped them off the edges to make a border. The giraffe is an old, favourite stamp of mine, by Rubber Cottage. It still didn't look right, so I started wrapping string around it, I quite like the way it looks a bit like a funky tree trunk. The sentiment is a dollar stamp, and the brads are card candy from Craftwork Cards

I had another jungle stamp that I had borrowed, this time by Judikins, and made a second card with this whilst the supplies were out

We had a great time down on Anna Maria Island at the weekend, the sun shone, the sea was a glorious clear turquoise blue and warm as a bath, the only flaw as far as I was concerned was - sand. A bit of a problem for me, the beach, let's face it, you can't really avoid sand there can you? I seem to be a bit of a sand magnet, and two days later, after numerous showers, the stuff is still falling off me. I could put my grandchildren to play in my shower stall and tell them it's a sand pit!

Lastly, I had a lovely surprise on Friday, a mysterious parcel arrived, full of the most gorgeous scrapping goodies, including Prima flowers, Heidi Swapp stamps, ghost letters and shapes. It was from Eileen, (who bloggers will know as eiyiyi) with a lovely note saying she enjoyed my blog. Isn't that the sweetest thing to do? Thank you so much Eileen, now if you can do me a favour all of you and click on the link to pop over to Eileen's blog Dropped Stitches, to see her lovely stuff, that would be great.

See you tomorrow

Handbag Card for Polkadoodles

This week on Polkadoodles the challenge is blossoms. I chose to make a handbag card with papers printed from the new All Around and Everywhere CD. I cut out some flowers from a sheet of the paper to pop up and decorate the bag, and threaded some beads for the handle

The 'clasp' of the bag has a tiny sentiment sticker on it which doesn't show very well in the photo. Be sure to pop over to see what the rest of the design team have come up with.

I am bleary eyed today, having stayed up half the night to watch the nail biting results of our election back home in the UK. We made sure we had a postal vote before we left for the US. Whatever the final result, I wish the new government wisdom, and a hefty dose of common sense as they try to get our country back on it's feet again.
We are off to get some sand between our toes for a couple of days, driving down to Anna Marie island to see some friends from the UK who are on holiday there.

Butterfly flutterby from Funky Hand

Anice, the designer and owner of Funky Hand has just released this download of some very clear and easy to use images. They have bold outlines, so are really easy to cut out and use in all sorts of ways.

I chose this butterfly because I knew that if I printed the top layer onto acetate, then coloured the back of the wings with copic markers, that it would give this stained glass effect. The borders are Martha pinking shears scallop, the button was punched from the coral pattern paper with a Martha button punch and threaded with string, the sentiment is a clear Studio G, the papers were all printed out from the Dreams Come True CD also by Funky Hand I attached the wings with pinflair glue, they really stand up, and sort of tremble when you move the card.

A quick update on the sinkhole - the cement trucks are still trundling up. How many loads must they have pumped in after all this time? With a bit of luck, they will have put so much cement in that some of it will have overspilled up our road, and made the whole of the neighbourhood a nice solid place to be.
I had a lunch out with girlfriends yesterday, it was lovely, just chatting and catching up. Two of them needed to buy a birthday present so we called in at one of those gift type shops, the ones that always smell gorgeous when you walk in through the door, and are full of very expensive little bits of stuff made out of crystal, and cutsey things that you are tempted to buy until you remember that you have a drawer full of cutsey things that you bought and now don't know what to do with. I have a lot of drawers that serve no purpose at all. Apart from my cutsey things drawer, I have a drawer stuffed full of keys that don't fit any lock that I am aware of, one full of really horrible photos, (the sort where the persons head has been chopped off, or they look as if they have a tree growing out of the top of their head), then there is the make up drawer, full of the most hideous colour lipsticks and eyeshadows you have ever seen.
See you tomorrow

When Life Gives You Lemons................

Here's a card made with an image from the Just Because Cards cartridge. These papers are so summery, I love them. They were tucked away at the back of a shelf in Tuesday Morning (love that store, it's like going to a jumble sale!). I cut out one of the limes from the paper to add to the lemon die cut at the edge of the glass, the whole thing is covered with glossy accents. I cut a few more fruits out as accents, and the sentiment is a Studio G dollar stamp. The border was punched three times, twice in lemon and once in lime, and layered together.

Here's a peek at a card I made for Scrappy Go Lucky, click to see the full card - made with the Just Because cartridge, and some glitter pens

I went to Staples yesterday for some copy paper. At the checkout (the store was empty) the salesperson pricked up her ears when I spoke

"Where y'all from?"

"I'm from the UK" I replied.

"Oh" she said, losing interest " I thought you were from overseas"

It reminded me of a bizarre conversation I had last time I was here, in Dunkin Donuts (a lot of surreal conversations can be traced back to that place). I was asked by two cops sitting at the next table where I was from. "the UK". The conversation then meandered in a strange fashion around the assassination of the last Tsar of Russia, this one cop seemed to know an awful lot about it, the other cop and I listened in fascination as he gave us his theories on the matter. This went on for about 15 minutes.

"Well, gotta go" he eventually said "nice talking to you - never met anybody from the Ukraine before"

BBTB2 - Leaf cut

This week, the challenge over on BBTB2 was to use the leaf cut from the Life is a beach cartridge. The flowers were the shift flower from George, layered up and with a gemstone in the centre. I didn't have a clear idea where I was going with this cut at all, until I saw my pal Kath's gorgeous flowerpot for Get Funky, and it reminded me of how much I love making these little cards.

The papers are all by C Gibson, for a tutorial on making flowerpot cards go to Splitcoast Stampers/resources

I always put a little folded piece of cardstock on the back of these cards, to act as a little stand. It means they will stand on their own, otherwise you have to prop them up.

Here is the insert, I made it a get well card. Lots of hospitals don't allow flowers on the wards now, so I think a little handcrafted pot of blooms would cheer up the patient. Be sure to go over to BBTB2 to see what the other designers came up with, and as this is an open challenge, you can join in with any leaf cut, from any cartridge.
No time for my daily ramblings today, I have errands to run, people to see, busy busy busy.
See you tomorrow

Sneak Peek.....

Oops, this photo is supposed to be at the bottom of the post. Never mind. Here is our little easy rider, Monty. I am not the only one who thinks he is gorgeous, he has been snapped up by a big London kids model agency. He has already done a shoot for the Littlewoods catalogue (a bit like JC Penny's catalogue for those of you in the US), and we heard today that he has been chosen to do the shoot for the Boden catalogue/advertising campaign. So those of you in the UK who get those catalogues, do look out for our little munchkin. He looks as if he is not at all sure what to make of his first bike ride though.

Here's a peek at some of the cards that I made for Creativity magazine, on sale in the UK now. The difficult thing about making cards for a commission is that you often have to use supplies that you wouldn't normally use - like these diecut decoupage figures for male cards. When I had scratched my head a bit and started work, I was actually pleased with the way they turned out.

I like the sentiment I came up with for the cricketer.............

and I was pleased with the layout of this card............

I thought the red and lime green popped on this one. What do you think? All the products used are available from Docrafts

So how was scrapbooking day for you? As predicted, I completed only three cards in seven hours! Unfortunately the air conditioning in the store wasn't working, and I honestly thought I would melt - it was a VERY hot day! I had to keep reminding myself that three weeks ago I couldn't wait to feel the warmth of the sun

Get Funky Challenge

The first of the month always sees the new challenge over on Get Funky. It was my turn to set the challenge this month, and I chose the theme

Shaped Cards

The team have come up with some brilliant ideas, pop over there and take a look. Try your hand at the challenge too, the winner gets a £20 (about $30) Funky Hand voucher.

I cut the base card (doily cut, Wild Card cartridge) at 5.5" in grey, and printed the papers out from the Blue Magic collection on the Dreams Come True CD. The flowers are just torn circles of paper, inked with brilliance ink which gives a pretty sheen. The dragonfly is a new digi stamp download from Funky Hand, I cut once in paper, and once in acetate, then just cut the wings of the acetate image out and popped it onto the base with pinflair glue to give it a lift. The photo looks slightly wonky, sorry about that.

It's a very simple little card, but I rather like it, I left it with no sentiment as it is one of those cards that could be used for multiple occasions.
Today is National Scrapbook Day. Are you doing anything?
I am going to an all day crop with some friends and spent the whole evening last night trying to make sense of what to take. I never get it right when I go to these things. Within minutes of getting there, I am saying 'has anybody got a blue button/red ribbon/black brad'. The only redeeming thing is that I always have stuff that other people have forgotten. So I am going prepared, with about 10 projects in mind. No bets on how many I will get done, my guess is about 2 1/2!

They are STILL pouring concrete underneath the house in the next street. How big was that sinkhole? Has it got a brother lurking under our house? Will I ever sleep at night again? Will I ever take a shower without having a HUGE towel to grab just in case I have to be rescued, dripping wet and starkers from out of a big hole? Why do people always tell you about hurricanes but never about sinkholes until the next street starts falling into one? I think I don't need answers, I need a sense-of-perspective transplant :)
Happy scrapbook day