Which Craft?

One of the joys of going to a craft show is that sometimes you come across a company new to you whose display enchants and inspires......this time I just loved all the projects on the Which Craft stand. A Yorkshire craft store, they design and sell a whole range of templates and ready cut and scored cards - like their scalloped step cards, all ready to use, none of that tedious measuring and cutting

I loved this little vintage book box, that opened to show a sweet little accordion mini book inside.....

 

 These little box templates make the cutest gifts, they would be great for wedding favours as well.....

and some of the precut cards - loved this pop up one, and the scalloped rocker in the background......

and here is another clever idea - all the stamps are by Molly Bloom, also available from the shop

 and open............

a ready made scallop edge step card......

and a precut and scored twisted easel card......

and just look what they did with this step card and some Molly Blooms.....apologies for the shadows, show lighting was bright!

 The good news is that they do mail order go HERE to see. I am not sure if they ship internationally

Back to reality now, sigh. I have a few projects I need to be working on, but a lot of kitchen stuff has made it's way upstairs and finding a route to my desk may be difficult, I may need to take a compass and a packed lunch

More NEC Photos.......

Some more photos of the samples at the NEC Hobbycrafts show - I always think samples give great ideas for colouring and card layouts, so I hope you enjoy them........

 a whole wall of the latest Memory Box dies, and I didn't buy one!

So what did I buy? I was quite restrained really, some ready coloured and die cut Mo Manning images for quick cards, some 6 x 6 embossing folders,  three masks and tape, three Clarity tree stamps, my favourite silicone glue,  and a Gelli plate - why I bought this I have no idea except that I had heard it was the latest must-have. It's like a slab of gelatine that you slap acrylic paint onto for different effects. Mmm, now the excitement of the show has receded, I can see this one making it's way to the 'I had to have it but never used it and now I feel guilty' drawer...............

See you tomorrow with the last photos of the show, but don't miss them, they are gorgeous...

The winner, and a trip to the NEC

Firstly, apologies for the delay in posting the winner of the Polkadoodles CD, who is

Daisychain

Congrats, email me with your name and address and I will get your prize in the post

The kitchen and other stuff really have kept me so hectically busy this past week, but I was thrilled to get my latest parcel of design team stuff from Craftwork Cards, gorgeous papers and this trio of little ladies that I coloured to take with me to the craft show at the NEC. They come printed on postcard sized cards, so no messing about with stamping and you have plenty of space to cut around them with label shapes if that suits your design 

Here is the Craftwork Cards booth at the show - you can see Julie answering questions from the crowd.....

and some of the lovely samples, Craftwork Cards stands always look so pretty at the shows...... 

I love these little scottie dog die cuts, I can't wait to do something with them...

then it was time for a coffee and gossip with Nikky Hall and Kath Stewart, boy did we put the world to rights.....

I have lots more photos of samples to show you in the next couple of days.

Now we really don't expect this at the end of March..........

The other 'incident' that set me back a bit last week was a visit to the cinema with my girlfriends. A visit to the loo before the film (why is it always women who do that? Do men have cast iron bladders I wonder?), and my iPhone which was in the back pocket of my jeans fell out - right into the loo. Dead, kaput, nothing on the screen, not even a flicker. So I googled, and the advice was to put it in a bag of rice on a radiator and let it dry out. Much anxious peering into rice bag......still dead. I took it out of the rice after a couple of days (I was a bit obsessed with throwing the rice away, considering where the phone had been) So off I went to get a new phone, luckily my contract was due for renewal anyway. Problem solved. Then Mike helpfully put my phone on to charge - only he charged the old one by mistake.
Yes, you guessed the punch line.....
Old phone is now in perfect working order 

Not much crafting....

There hasn't been a whole lot of crafting going on Chez Nous this week, but I can share with you this card from this month's Papercraft Inspirations Quick Cards magazine. My commission was to make four cards with a theme of 'drinks with friends' and this is one of them. The magazine has a lovely stamp set as the cover giveaway this month, look out for it on the newstands now........

and this is the reason for the lack of crafting, the whole house seems to be in uproar, but now that it's ongoing, I am rather enjoying it and keep stroking my new hob and worktops........

the only bit of colouring I have done is slapping some paint samples onto a wall, whoever thought of those little tester pots is a genius, the colours look so different on the wall compared to the colour charts, and different again when the paint has a couple of coats and is totally dry

Don't forget it's your last chance today to put your name down for the Polkadoodles CD, I will be drawing the winner tomorrow

Any of my UK blog friends going to the Hobbycraft show at the NEC later this week? I will be there on Friday.......  

Win A Polkadoodles CD

Today I have another card using the new Polkadoodles digi stamps to show you - sorry about the stray bit of cotton that got onto the lens of my camera and which I didn't notice until the light had gone! Coloured with ProMarkers, I decided to make her a bit funky with a trendy hair colour!

I used:

Lime, lime zest, bright green, green for her hair

Skin - blush, coral, soft peach

Jeans - cool grey 1, 2, 3 & 4

Top - spice, cinammon, ginger

Everyone who leaves a comment on this post is in with a chance of winning a Picknix CD rom by Polkadoodles, with masses of papers for you to print, digi stamps, all sorts of goodies for you to play with. To see the CD go HERE
All you have to do is leave your name, I will draw a winner on Wednesday. Good luck! For those of you who can't wait, there is a great offer on at the moment, ALL of Nikky's CD's are on sale for a bargain £9.98, that is only around $14.00 and you get free worldwide shipping as well for orders over £10, so you will just have to throw some ribbon or dewdrops into your cart to take advantage of that. You could pay that for a single stamp, so these packed CD's really are a bargain

The kitchen saga goes on.....and on..... the garage is full of stuff waiting to be installed, we have all the ducks in a row - apart from the door handles which are a bit of a nightmare. I am a bit bored (very low boredom threshold) with all the nitty gritty stuff now, and I am itching to get on to the nice stuff like blinds and accessories. The painter guy came today and said he will be here for two and a half weeks, starting the day after Easter. I bought twelve tester pots of paint - I think we are going to be living in a patchwork world for the next few weeks. 

Polkadoodles Digi Stamps

Thanks to all of you who entered the Flexmarker skintones draw, the winner has been drawn and is:

kathr

 Congrats kathr, email me with your address and I will get your markers in the mail to you. If the prize isn't claimed by Sunday, I will draw another winner from all those who commented on the relevant post.

On to today's card........

Polkadoodles have got the cutest new digital stamps in stock, the beauty of digis is that they are instant gratification - buy, instant download, print, colour.....saves space and money as well! I tried  a while ago to move from wood mount stamps to cling, the problem with that is that I keep losing the cling stamps! They probably get swept up in the hurricane that is my desk while I am working.  These digis are a joy to colour, I'll have another card to show you tomorrow, and a Polkadoodles treat for you as well

Who would have thought that revamping a kitchen would be such hard work. Of course, the fact that I seem paralyzed in the decision making department isn't helping. I am usually very decisive, and know exactly what I want, but I seem to be changing my mind about all the details. We ordered some worktops (countertops), after about three hours of searching in a single store. Later that evening, I was hit with the terrible knowledge that I had made a terrible mistake...I was at the door of the store as it opened, to change my order. I almost took a packed lunch with me. There was a definite lift in the voices of the staff as they finally wished me goodbye. I bet they talked about me after I shut the door - 'I thought she would NEVER leave.......' They even called me later that day to say in a tentative voice 'we are just going to place your order. Is there anything you want to change before we do?........

So today we moved on to the tiles......no, I can't even begin to bore you with that. Tomorrow is another day, yes folks, tomorrow is door handle decision day. Yawn

See you tomorrow if you can bear all the kitchen waffle.....

Getting Krafty.....

It's my turn to post on the blog over at Craftwork Cards today, here's one of the things I did for the post. They make the neatest boxes to hold heavily embellished bulky cards, but I turned this one into a gift box and matching card, it's big enough to hold a pretty piece of jewellery as well as the card.....

the pretty die cut flowers are such fun to work with, I twisted the petals of the top flower and glued them down. I love the subtle aqua patterns......

If you have time for a bit of blog hopping, I would really love it if you could pop over to the Craftwork Cards blog to see what else I created, and leave a comment there, the team does such lovely samples and there is a new post every day, so worth signing up to for a bit of inspiration

Those of you on my email contact list, apologies if you got an email yesterday with a link to another site. It was not from me, someone hacked my personal email and sent out spam messages to all my contacts. Apparently, the email told you that you could sign up to earn $5,000 a week. Now that was definitely not from me, if I knew how to earn that much, I would be sunning myself on a beach in the Caribbean not sending out emails to all and sundry. Passwords have been changed, so hopefully that will put a stop to any more nonsense from idiot spammers

Have a great weekend x 

And the winner is....better late....and another chance to win.....

 Time seems to be slipping away from me this week. I am late posting the winner of the Flexmarker skin tones, the lucky winner is

Kisatrtle

Congratulations - email me with your address and I will get them mailed to you

The good news is that I have another set of Flexmarker skin tones - skin tones 1 this time. All you have to do is go over to the Letraset blog HERE and see what I did with the inky splodge below, leave a comment there, then pop back here to leave your name. I will draw a winner on Monday

and here's another inky card for today, I inked the cuttlebug folder for this one. The flowers are Tim Holtz tattered florals

We are busy remodelling our kitchen - well, we are not doing the work ourselves, but it's amazing how time consuming it all is, choosing flooring, tiles, appliances. I have lists everywhere, and I am in mega indecisive mode. I must remember to take photos so I can show you

I saw a rare traffic stopping person today. She was youngish, tall, very tall because the heels of her bright orange fur trimmed ankle boots were at least six inches high. To set them off, she wore skin tight flowery leggings, topped off with a short fake fur jacket with lots of bling on it. The make up and earrings matched the rest of the outfit - let's be charitable and say there was plenty of both on show.  Julia Roberts in the opening scenes of Pretty Woman sprang to mind....quite a sight in our sedate little town. I watched open mouthed (together with the rest of the pedestrians and car drivers) as she sashayed down the street. Stopping traffic for all the wrong reasons is probably not a good idea I mused as I ambled after her in my flat boots and cozy camelhair coat. Then she caught her heel in a paving stone, and the spindly little heel snapped in half. I must be very unkind/unfeeling/nasty, but seeing her totter off into the distance on one six inch heel really made my day. A good laugh is so uplifting....

See you tomorrow x 

Birthday Wishes

 Todays card is one I made using some new papers by Authentique that I got from Hobby Lobby before I left the states. The leaves are Sissix dies, and the tiny flowers were punched with the Martha Stewart hydrangea punch. I added a drop of gold liquid pearls to each of the centers

and look what was waiting for me when I got home from London, the very latest Spring/Summer colours, brand new limited edition Promarkers. They will be on sale at the end of this month, and take it from me the colours are gorgeous. Each pack has twelve pens and a free blender. So be sure to look out for them. Just a heads up, there are some of the regular ProMarker pen sets at 50% off on the Letraset site (and free worldwide shipping). A perfect way to build up your collection of colours, go HERE to see.....

Our babysitting duties were a lot of fun, Max and Milo are as lively as a cartload of monkeys, but it's easy to keep them occupied - dig out the PlayDoh and let them get messy........

If all else fails, let them watch TV in their new playroom for thirty minutes....look at their cute little armchairs, they sit there like a couple of old men. All they lack is a glass of whiskey and a cigar!

and if three year old Milo refuses to get dressed, but likes running around in Grandad's sweater, well, what does that matter.....

and it's handy to have Grandad close when you reach a really tricky piece of jigsaw....

Meanwhile, his reaction to being told NO (which happens a lot); he lowers his head and gazes balefully at us, wagging his finger from side to side
'you guys have ruined my day'

Fun fun fun! See you tomorrow x

Easter Bunny Card

Here's a card I made for this month's Papercraft Inspirations magazine - for the quick cards section. On sale now, there are lots of great ideas for Spring cards in the magazine. The rabbit was done with punches, clouds are Memory Box dies..It actually is a little 'dented' - it was made when I was in America, sent across to the UK to the magazines photography studio, then sent back to me. So a well travelled little card....

I found a space on my desk for my beloved Singer sewing machine which I use just for cards, and shipped it across the Atlantic. I love it because it is so easy to thread, takes just seconds to change to a different colour thread. Anyway, I wanted to sew on a card so set it up. Wow, it roared along at a rate of knots. Not quite right, I mused and pondered, and changed the settings a bit. No difference, this machine was on steroids. If there was an Olympics for machines, mine would win the gold without any problem. Finally the penny dropped - it is not dual voltage and is used to running on 120 volts (USA) and I had it plugged in to take 240 volts (UK). Ooops! Apparently you can buy a converter, so I am going to search for one today, in the meantime the machine is unplugged before it sets the house on fire, and my cards will have to remain unstitched!

You still have time to put your name down for the flexmarker set on offer earlier this week, scroll down for the post. I am doing a spot of grandbaby sitting this weekend, so expect some tales if Max and Milo are on top form!