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

Robotz and blog candy winner.......

First of all, thanks to all of you who took part in the blog hop. I used random.org to pick a number, and the winner of the goodies is

SANDY BAYLES

Congrats, Sandy, email me with your address and your images will be in the mail on Monday

On to today's card. 'what is this?' I hear you say 'has she finally gone nuts?'

No, I broke out my new Robotz cartridge. This is Robot 23 - I never thought I would like a cartridge with no other image on it than robots on it, and don't think this one will get a lot of use, but it certainly makes good cards for boys.

The papers are DCWV Generation tech stack, the metal accents are by Tim Holtz. The lettering is also by DCWV, the inside sentiment reads

FOR ANOTHER GREAT YEAR

The border punch used on the right hand strip is the square binder edge one by EK Success - I am finding this punch great for adding a punch (pun intended) to male cards, where flowers and scallops really don't work

My lighthearted remarks about sinkholes have come home to haunt me. Some neighbours in the next street have had 5 truck loads of concrete poured under their house in the last couple of days to stabilise it. How scary is that.

Off to DD to cheer myself up and take my mind off falling into a black hole at inopportune moments.

See you tomorrow

Alcohol Ink and a bit of tape........

First of all, here's a peek at the first card done for Scrappy-Go-Lucky, click on the link to see the full card on the blog - I had fun using the Cri Kit pens, they are so easy to use, I used the gel and metallic ones on this card.

So here's a finished alcohol ink card. Because the flowers were so flamboyant, I kept the card quite simple, used a kraft card base, inking around the edges with colorbox bronze ink. The border punch is by E K Success, and the green ribbon leaf ribbon was a gift. The sentiment is Stampin Up.

Here's the finished flower as demonstrated on the video below........

Here you go -

I can't tell you the problems I had getting this onto here, I had totally forgotten my Youtube password. What a palaver it is when that happens. I must have typed in every combination of letters and numbers that I have ever used as passwords before they gave up on me and sent me an email suggesting I might like to change my password. So I did, and they sent me another email telling me that my new password was the same as my old one. Life never used to be this complicated.

See you tomorrow

Get Well Card

Hmmm, you can tell that this photo was taken at night, the colours look bleached. I love this little turtle, haven't a clue who makes him, as it was stamped with a borrowed stamp at a crop - thanks Cheryl. I coloured him with copics, and added a few white highlights.

My sewing machine has been dusted off, so real sewing on this one instead of the faux stitching I have been doing for the past four months.

Wouldn't this card be perfect for someone who had just had a hip replacement?
We have been busy sorting out our house insurance today. It's so different in the UK, where you insure basically against fire, theft and accidental damage. Here in Florida, we had to discuss hurricanes, floods and sinkholes. Apparently Pasco county where we live is 'the sinkhole capital of the world'. (I found it rather sad that this was said quite proudly, it doesn't have the same ring as 'Paris, romantic capital of the world' does it?). The possibility of your house suddenly dropping into a large hole is rather fascinating really, would it just suddenly swallow it up, or do you get a warning, like pictures falling off the walls? I do hope you get a warning, I will get anxious everytime I am sitting on the loo otherwise. My whole life will be rushed ' ooh, must just finish this card before the sinkhole opens'. On the other hand, I may just have forgotten all about it by tomorrow.

Just Because - for BBTB2 and a blog hop

Over on Bitten by the Bug 2 this week, Donna asked us to use the bee cut from the sentimentals cartridge - which I don't have, so I dug out my Walk in the garden cartridge and cut this little bee. I added some buttons on the antennae, the wings are vellum. The honey jar was cut from the Just Because Cards cartridge, border punch by Martha, sentiment by studio G

Today sees our monthly blog hop too, what do I have up for grabs? 12 of these images by Lili of the Valley stamps (UK), all ready coloured and ready to pop onto your cards. The images are adorable..................... I used one of them for my wedding card a few days ago
here are some of them close up...............
In addition you get a clear 'bunches of love' stamp from the Daisy and Dandelion series - again from the UK. I will mail worldwide, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post, if someone from the UK wins the draw I will substitute something not available in the UK to send them if they want. I will draw the winner on Thursday evening. (EST)
Now all you have to do is pop over to Joanna's blog, leave a comment there, and follow her link to the next blog. If you prefer, you can start at the beginning on BBTB2

So good luck, happy hopping and don't forget to join in with the challenge if you have a bee cut on one of your cartridges.
If the hop isn't up on the blog, go back later, I am not at all sure that I have the time zones worked out.

To finish for today - a source of great hilarity here yesterday was the Big Lots ad in the Sunday paper. They are advertising a furry tower with three holes in it, stacked one on top of the other, as a 'three cat condo'. So if you have three cats and want them to sleep teetering precariously on top of each other in their own little condo, then run, don't walk to Big Lots. They are selling them at 50% off, I wonder why? Demand not that hot maybe...........

Anyone for poker?

Here's another cut that I found tucked away on the designers calender cartridge, these dice, that I cut at 3", then sketched the lines with white signo pen. The cards are tiny real playing cards that I found in the toy shelves of a dollar store

and the lettering is, of course, making memories, those little things are so very useful
I am a hopeless gambler. Even when we went to Las Vegas I just hung around shoving the odd quarter into a slot machine feeling guilty. I certainly don't have a poker face, if I am playing cards the fact that I get up from the table and dance around waving my arms in the air is a pretty good indication that I have just been dealt a fairly good hand.

Apparently Milo has learnt how to crawl. He went from nought to 20 miles an hour all at once apparently. One minute he was sitting there placidly, the next minute his mum turned her back for 30 seconds and found him in another room eating raw fatty pork from the recycling bin. This is probably just the first little instalment of the ongoing adventures of Milo I fear......

I am still working on the video, well, to be honest, I am still thinking about the video, but so many of you have asked for alcohol inks, it is top of my to-do list

Polkadoodle Friday

Such a simple little card today, the challenge on Polkadoodles this week is monotone (some gorgeous samples over there, made me a bit scared to put mine up there this week, but I was in a rush......). I cheated a bit and couldn't resist some black doodling to echo the black on the birdhouse.

The branch is cricut, winter woodland I think, studio G sentiment and everything else is printed from the new polkadoodles CD

I am trying to do a quick video on alcohol inks/cuttlebug - it may be finished tomorrow, having said that I haven't even started it yet so watch this space

Fairy Flutterbys

These are the new stamps from Polkadoodles - Flutterby Fairies. Introducing you to Maggie.....

The great thing about these is that the wings are a separate stamp, so you get to stamp them as butterflies if you want. I stamped the butterfly onto vellum, added a bit of colour on the back and stuck them on to Maggie with a foam pad...

The sentiment and toadstools are part of the set as well


I did a sort of easel card................



With this one I found a concertina aperture card, and covered the inside pages with pattern paper. I wanted some hot pink lines, they were red on the paper, so I went over them with a pink marker and added some doodling. The flowers on the front are a stamp from the set




Introducing you to Gracie, perched on the edge of the aperture

and here's Maxine....

I added a couple of rows of heart punched paper to decorate the last page, and dotted a few more stamped flowers about

the second 'page' has a border of hot pink ladybirds, another stamp from the set

I hope you like them as much as I do, it's rather nice to see funky fairies I think

I heard from home, Max has chicken pox, my son emailed me to see if he had had it as a child. Do you know, I really couldn't remember. When your children are small, when you bring that tiny precious newborn home, you gaze at them and think 'I will remember every little thing that you do, always'

Then you have another one

and another

and it all sort of gets a bit blurred

So I told him that he had had it, well, he probably did, I do remember his younger sister getting it, so he had plenty of exposure. Time has erased the memory of sitting up all night with fretful sick children.

When James (my firstborn) arrived, I remember going to visit a friend who had just had her third child. We sat there, me looking adoringly at my new baby. She said 'won't it be lovely when they go to school'.
See you tomorrow

Little Boy Card and win a GYPSY competition

Isn't this image adorable? It's by Mo Manning, coloured with copics. The edge punch is by EK Success

These big letters by K & Co were the perfect match for the card and the huge button came from Michaels

Now a bit of news. I have accepted an invite to go on the design team of Scrappy-Go-Lucky, which is an online Australian based store who also have stores in the UK and USA. They specialize in all things Cricut and at the moment have a competition going where you can win a Gypsy, and a place on the design team, so click on the button below to see what it's all about. I have yet to get started, but I have just taken delivery of some Cri-cuts, the most wonderful gel pens to 'draw' with the cricut machine. I am still experimenting, but watch this space........(there are some glittery ones in the set, and you know how I love a bit of bling)




I am still on my voyage of rediscovering the USA, namely getting to grips with the currency. Why are the 5c coins bigger than the 10c ones? Why are the banknotes all green? Most importantly why is a British pound now only worth about $1.50, when last year it was worth $2? On to another topic, why are the staff in nail parlours all from Vietnam or Korea? Is there a huge pedicure and manicure training facility in that country where they can train to do the slapping the legs thing that really hurts, and do hand-strengthening-training for the scrubbing the soles of your feet with a ball of rolled up barbed wire (okay, so I'm a wimp).

Today is one of my very bestest friends birthday, she pops on here occasionally to see what I am up to

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNE XXX

See you tomorrow with some rather lovely little fairy flutterby's.

Cheers

Here's another Cricut card made with a cut from Designer Calendar. I got a bit carried away with this one, I added glossy accents to the glass, then dew drops to look like bubbles, you can just about see them on the spotty paper. I thought the cherry and olive (a strange combination I know, it must be some very sophisticated cocktail that I haven't come across....) looked a bit lonely, so I added a cocktail stick then cut out a little umbrella to decorate that. The sentiment circle is by Craftwork Cards, and the paper is one of my anonymous ones. Spotty paper is by Making Memories

All things considered I am happy with this one, and rather glad I bought the cartridge in that sale.

We had rain all day yesterday, I made a couple of calls to the UK, glorious weather there apparently. Honestly, it happens every time, I leave the white cliffs of Dover behind and as soon as I am gone everyone climbs into their shorts and dust down the barbeque. Here? Well if I had a dollar for everyone who told me that we need the rain, I could buy a season ticket to Dunkin Donuts