Happy New Year!

Here's hoping that 2014 brings you happiness... and lots of crafty fun!

See you soon...

Merry Christmas everyone!

What could be better than this cute little Purple Onion Design bunny to wish all my lovely blogland buddies a very merry Christmas.

 

 

I hope you all have loads of wonderful Christmas fun!



Lollypie loveliness

Hi there, I'm here to share another card made using a lovely Lollypie digital image by Maria.

This time I've gone with non-traditional colours for my Christmas card using 'Special Delivery'. I did a little digital paper piecing for the present and coloured the image with Promarkers. I love the versatility of this image as she can be used for both Christmas and birthday cards alike.

Must dash... its the staff do tonight and I need several hours to tackle my crazy hair with the straighteners!

Happy crafting everyone!

Snowflakes glisten!

Hi everyone, we are getting closer and closer to Christmas!
I had quite a shock today when the children at school told me that I had forgotten to change my 'Christmas countdown'... so suddenly I lost another precious day!

Here is a quick and simple card inspired by some current 'snowflake' themed challenges.

I had a happy time making about eight of these cards and getting all inky in the process. I love the look of Distress Inks and Glimmer Mist on water colour paper. The sentiment is from a set I bought years ago and I've lost the original packaging, so if anyone recognises it please let me know and I can add the details.

I'm linking up with:

CAS-ual Fridays CFC123 Let it Snow

Addicted to CAS Challenge #28 Code Word: Snowflakes

The DT cards on both sites are fabulous and so inspiring!

I'll leave you with a few snippets of conversation from the past week, all of which perfectly express why I love working in a Primary School at Christmas.

Nursery Teacher: 'Now where are my Reindeer? Reindeer, all please come to me now'.

Another Nursery Teacher: 'Could you stall for a minute please, one of my icicles has had a little tinkle and needs changing'.

Librarian: 'Now can anyone tell me anything special that has been happening at home because its Christmas?
Child 1 'We put the tree up'
Child 2 'I'm having a bike from Santa'
Child 3 'We've got lights on our tree'
Librarian: 'How lovely, and anything else anyone wants to share?'
Child 4 'My sisters bin grounded miss'

Happy crafting everyone!

Just a little bit posh!

Last Sunday I joined the girls at the Chateau Impney, near Droitwich, to celebrate my friend Jacquie's 50th birthday with an afternoon tea.

 

We had a great time chatting and laughing, and eating far too many delicious sandwiches and lovely cakes.

And here's the card I sent to the birthday girl: a super-sexy Saturated Canary image coloured in Promarkers and pencils. Well, every girl should feel she's got ooooodles of  'Va va vooooom' left when she reaches her half-century!

Happy crafting everyone!

Let's dance!

There's only one thing better than one dancing Santa... and that's two dancing Santas!!!

I love this little Birdie Brown fellah drawn by the super-talented Torico, he's such fun! And because he is a digital stamp I could flip him to create a mirror-image. CUTE!

 

Happy crafting everyone!

 



Happy birthday Logan

I've been very poorly this week with a stomach bug, so its good to finally feel like I'm re-joining the world!

This card was made for my friend Helen's gorgeous little boy Logan. He celebrated his 1st birthday last week and was probably showered with presents and love by his mommy and daddy and older sisters. I'm especially fond of Logan because when his nan brings him to my Rhyme Time session he's just about the only child who doesn't get up and run away when I start to sing!

For some reason I photographed the card before I added a yellow star with a big, glittery die cut '1' in the top left-hand corner. No prizes for recognising that this is one of Mo's lovely images, doesn't she have such a great way of drawing children and animals!




Before going to help hubby with the tree I'll just mention Christine's new Advent Cardmaking video series. I've just enjoyed her first video and am looking forward to counting down to Christmas with her. We are promised a great video every day AND there are prizes/giveaways... so why not take a look!


Happy crafting everyone!

 

There's a Santa loose aboot this hoose!

This isn't the card I was planning to share today, but having spent ages carefully colouring and masking and paper piecing I'm sorry to say that card is an epic fail!
So here instead is a happy dancing Santa from Birdie Brown. For anyone not in the know Torico has decided to close her Etsy shop at the end of November. I love her cute and whimsical style and so had a little spend last week!

 

For some reason I find myself humming the old Maynards Wine Gum Advert tune whenever I see this Santa. As the kids at school would say: 'that's a bit random Miss'. I've discovered that the ad is based on a song called 'There's a moose loose about this hoose'. If you want to hear the original tune AND watch a super cute video of a toy moose in various locations around someone's home click here!

 

Anyhoo, have a lovely weekend, and please wish me luck with my 'epic fail card' as I will try all over again tomorrow!

Lovely Lollypie!

Hi everyone, today I'm sharing a super simple card to showcase my favourite image from Maria's adorable Lollypie collection. She is called 'Special Delivery'.

Isn't she a cutie? I love the sweet simplicity of this digi so decided to keep everything fairly CAS. I think the DPs are from Bittersweet by Basic Grey

 

Just go here to find Maria's sweet stamps, and to see what my far more talented Teamies have created with some of the other images available. Trust me, we are talking serious talent from those ladies.

 

Happy crafting everyone!

Beautiful Hannah hanging out with two weird old women!

My best friend's daughter is 21 today! I know it's a cliche, but it really does seem like only yesterday that she was born.

I CASEd this card and gave the cute Saturated Canary image red hair as Hannah is a red head - only to discover that she is currently blonde!

Isn't she a beauty! And check out that lovely cake - shame the bling hasn't photographed that well.

Here's Hannah flanked by two strange women: that's Mom (Jacquie) on the left and 'Auntie' Jo (me) on the right, at her birthday party yesterday.

 

Believe it or not I'm linking this card to the LIM Challenge to Use Designer Paper in a CAS Way.  It certainly was my intention for this to be a CAS card but it just got a little less CAS as it progressed.

 

So happy birthday darling girl, love you loads. Happy crafting everyone!

The diet starts here!

I wanna be in that LBD at Christmas time!

 

I need a 'sentiment/saying/punch line' for the inside of the card and so would love to hear your ideas and witticisms please.

BTW, this super adorable image is by Torico and it is available from her Etsy Shop until the end of November.

Happy 'humpday' everyone!

My first canvas!

Hi everyone, I hope you are having a good weekend so far!
Everything is very lazy here today as we both feel the need for some serious down time after a busy week.

 

I made this little canvas last weekend, but didn't get time to photograph it until today. I bought the canvas from Dunelm for 99p. I bought some acrylic paints at the same time and have to say that I am delighted at how good they are for the price!

The image is a cute 'Bestie' by Sheri Baldy, coloured with Promarkers and then slathered in Stickles. I created the background by painting several layers of fushia pink acrylic paint onto the canvas and then stamping white paint with a very old stamp that I use on alot of my cards. The texture is amazing IRL and looks as if the canvas has been 'iced' rather than painted.

 

Happy crafting everyone!

She'll make a beautiful bride.

My lovely friend Alex just got engaged, so guess who made a card?

As you can see I left everything pretty simple, just added some glitter and Diamond Glaze plus two little gems in her hair... just like Alex wears!

I love this image from Saturated Canary and was delighted to get an opportunity to use it.
Challenge #192 at I {heart} Promarkers is an Anything goes week so I'm going to link up and play along.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Introducing Lollypie!

Since joining the lovely Maria's DT I've been having a blast with her range of Lollypie digis.

This card uses 'Special delivery'. She usually sits on a present but I snipped the gift away so that she could sit in the cut-out instead.

 

 My second project is a very simple doorhanger and uses the adorable 'Nerdy'.  Isn't she a cutie?

 

I coloured her with Promarkers and then used pencils. I got all inky with the background and didn't worry if I went over the image a little bit as I like the effect. The hanger was made by stretching the round-ended rectangle shape that you'll find in Microsoft word. A little cutting with my Cuttlebug and it was job done.

 

BTW, if you head over to Maria's Blog before November 1st you'll find she has a Lollypie giveaway going on.

 

Have a happy day everyone!

Pink!

Hurray, the half-term holiday has begun and I'm planning on only leaving my craft space to eat and sleep!

I noticed that the current challenge over at I {heart} Promarkers is for pink hair. I'd already decided that this little cutie would have a funky look so decided that pink would be perfect. This digi was a freebie from somewhere but I can't remember where. If anyone can help I'll edit and add the details later.

The Promarker DT girls have done an amazing job, and their colouring skills once again leave me open-mouthed in wonder! How I wish I could colour like they do, I think those ladies have magic ink in their Promarkers.

Hope you all have a great weekend, happy crafting everyone!

I have news...

The lovely Maria (aka Lollyrot) asked me to join her DT and I had to think for about a nano-second before replying 'YES PLEASE!'

Her adorable new range of digital stamps called Lollypie are super cute, and great fun to work with!
Maria is having a giveaway at the moment. To enter all you have to do is leave a comment telling her your TOP 3 favorite digi stamps from the new collection.  The lucky winner will get 2 digi stamps! Just make sure to comment before November 1st.

Happy crafting everyone!

The big 12!

Don't you just love Krista's gorgeous digital images? I find it very hard to resist them, especially when I'm in the mood to colour.
This is Tammy Pie and as you can see she is just perfect to stand alongside that giant paper pieced number twelve. I'm trying to use up some of my older paper pads (and not just hoard them) so I broke out Basic Grey's lovely 'Bittersweet' papers. I printed the numbers and then cut them out... simples.
The weather is horrible right now so I feel a little more card making coming on!

Happy crafting everyone!

A Messy Marilyn!

Hi there Blogland, I'm sorry I've been AWOL again. Work has been super busy, and also my Dad has just had surgery. Hopefully he is on the mend now, but you can't help but worry can you?!!

I nearly decided not to show this card as I'm not loving it very much. Don't be surprised if my next post is titled something like 'a makeover for Marilyn'. There's just too much splodgy stamping.

 

Just a quick query but has anyone else lost all their Blogger follower icons? Mine have all vanished... and its kinda lonely without all your lovely smiling faces to greet me when I log on. Any thoughts you might have would be most welcome.

So have a happy weekend everyone, I hope it brings you lots of crafty fun!

Twinkle, twinkle, little star!

I bought this great stamp from Kraftin' Kimmie a while ago, but didn't get it inked up until yesterday. What was I thinking leaving it sooooooo long??!

Once again my card is very CAS, but that seems to be where my head is these days.

Finally, I hope you won't mind a very proud auntie sharing a picture of her sweet niece all dressed up for her first day at school.

So cute!

Thanks for dropping by, and happy crafting everyone!

Greece is the word... and blog candy results!

Hi there, and guess who's back from a wonderful holiday on the beautiful island of Santorini!

 

Just a quick post to announce that the winner of my blog candy is Karin!
Well done to Karin, and everyone else, who spotted the addition of the stamens to the largest of the three flowers. Karin could you please email me with your postal address so I can get the stamp on its way asap.

I've got lots of washing to do today, but I'm determined to fit in a little card making at some point soon!

Happy crafting everyone.

Spot the difference - candy!

Hi everyone, hope that your week is off to a good start.

I promise not to traumatise you with any further talk of housework following your comments on my previous post!

Today I thought I'd offer this gorgeous Crafty Individuals stamp as candy and just to make things a bit more fun lets have a little 'spot the difference' competition.

Here are two pictures of the same card. Can you spot the small addition to the second card?
Simply leave your answer as a comment and I'll draw a winner from the correct answers in a weeks time.

Happy hunting girlies, and happy crafting too!

The following post contains scenes of housework which some of you may find distressing...

Seriously, there's been too much of this...

 

and this

 

 

and this

...and not enough of this over the last few days!

I decided to put things right and have been having a lovely play with a new stamp (well, new to me) and some pretty papers bought from a lovely craft shop in Cradley, near Dudley.

I saw this pretty dress stamp ages ago, but could never find it for sale anywhere. When the lovely Chrissie shared this gorgeous card on her blog I contacted her for the details... and the rest, as they say, is history! If you're wondering, the stamp is from Inkadinkadoo and the sentiments are from two different sets by Papertrey Ink.

Once again I'm preparing for a charity card sale so will make a few of this design, but in different colours. I'm never quite sure about how to price my own cards so if anyone has any thoughts on this subject I'd be grateful to hear them.

Happy crafting everyone!

Doo Lally Pip!

Isn't Doo Lally Pip such a fun name for a range of stamps???

I bought two sets from Lindsay Mason's super quirky collection and love them both. This is the adorable Gwendoline. What a skill indeed!
I stamped onto watercolour paper and coloured with promarkers. Then I created the background by masking Gwendoline with a post-it note and using my newly purchased stencil TCW template with Distress Inks.

 

Now that I've had a morning of fun I better go and clean the bathroom - boo hiss! I simply must work harder on my housework avoidance strategies.

 

Happy crafting everyone!

It's all in the way that you move through your day!

A pleasant day card making, plus a trip to Merry Hill to buy a copy of Craft Stamper mag, is how I've moved through my day.
I discovered that new The Craft-Room Challenge is 'It's BINGO Time!'

We just pick our favourite three from the Bingo card and take it from there. I went with Flower, Rubber Stamping and Pearls or Gems (Gems in my case).

 

 

As you can tell I really struggled with this little beauty's hair, but otherwise enjoyed making the card because I love Diane Duda's stamps so much. And if you think she's cute take a look at Diane's fabulous blog to see the real thing: what a talented lady!

This card is a bit of a departure from my recent CAS creations, but it felt fun to try something different even if the result is a bit busy. The papers are leftover scraps from other projects and the background stamps and the sentiment are old favourites from Hero Arts.

 

Happy crafting everyone!