Rudolf day for March

Here I am with a couple of cards for Rudolf Day. The first is an inkylicious tree in a snowy landscape. The embossing folder is from Sheena Douglass, which I picked up in the sales last year.

My second card has a Digi from Teri Sherman's Delicious Doodles, coloured with Be Creative alcohol markers.

I used the same embossing folder. Now you may notice there are no sentiments on these. I want to use quite a small stamp and I have temporarily mislaid it, so rather than searching for it, I'll add the sentiment later!
Do pop over to Scrappy Mo's blog and take a look at the DT cards. There is lots of inspiration! I am going to try and make several cards for April's Rudolf day as I haven't made as many as I had made this time last year.
We have a ridiculous arrangement for our Easter holidays from school, in that I have good Friday and Easter Monday off, back to school for 4 days then two weeks off. The down side of this is we will have two extra days to do before the summer holiday, so don't finish until 26th July, and on top of that I am only off for one week when Meg is here.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments

A wreath for Christmas

I have been playing with my Be Creative alcohol based markers and a Digi stamp from Delicious Doodles. I love colouring Teri's images, and there is nothing better to colour with than these markers!

 After colouring the image I went round the edge with the Scarlet pen and then mounted onto a 6x6 card. I added a few spots of glitter and then put glossy accents onto the berries...

 Here is a close up. The colouring was done with just nine pens (43, 46, 48, 49, 3, 13, 131, 146 and 182)
When I turned it over to put the glue on I just had to take a photo of the reverse side - sometimes they are just as beautiful as the front! Be Creative products will be at the NEC on stand F15 from tomorrow!

I am entering this into the current challenge at Allsorts where the theme is Christmas. It would be ideal for the current theme at Stamping sensations where there is a wonderful prize on offer - shame I am on the DT, lol!
Thanks for looking!

Male Birthdays

 Lots of people struggle when it comes to ideas for male birthdays, especially teenagers. In times of need I will often opt for digi images, and Mo Manning has quite a few, especially if you are looking for a computer or gaming theme. With this one I began by stamping a panel of white stamping card with a twinchie stamp from Inkylicious in Kaleidacolor Creole Spice. I dusted over using the same ink pad and my ink dusters. I trimmed this and attached it to the base card, popping a turquoise stick on nail head at each corner.
I sprayed a snippet of card using blue and purple dylusions. When it was dry, I ran it through the cuttlebug inside a birthday themed embossing folder, before rubbing over some treasure brass to highlight the embossing. The sentiment is from Little Claire and was also stamped on a snippet. I made both of these cards a while ago. This first one was made for Meg's godmother's godson (Meg's godbrother?), who is also off to University in Sheffield.

 Here is another male card for you.This time I found some snippets of black card, and paper pieced the Woodware clear singles Sneakers stamp, using a white gelly roll pen on the laces and eyelets. I used ice grey 1 and pastel blue promarkers to shade around the stamp and a little ivory to add some shape to the sneakers. This stamp is great for paper piecing and for girls or boys from about 12 upwards - So versatile!
As I used snippets on both, I am off to Miss Di's snippet playground with them. I will be behind the bike sheds where the chocklit is, hoping the tag game is finished and no one else gets a tail pinned on them. Poor Mrs A! Hope Miss Di is feeling a bit better and her back is behaving itself.  Thanks for looking!

A couple of snowmen with snippets

 Here are my cards for this month's Rudolf Day and this week's Snippet playground. Both feature a digi which I think was a freebie from Cuddly Buddly ages ago. Not sure it is still available. I coloured it using promakers. I found some snippets of Christmas papers and trimmed them into a square. I then added some stitching and dots with gelly roll pens. Unfortunately, I managed to get three red dots on the side of my hand (I am left handed and always smudging things!) which I transferred to a random place on the base card, hence the random dots everywhere! IRL the colours match way better than in this photo!

I managed to do the faux stitching on the second without mishaps and left it at that, lol! Hope the girls are all okay in the playground. It is a while since my last visit. I will take a big bag of toffees to share. So pleased Parsnip has got over his embarrassment of the rabbit ears!
Do pop over to Sarn's blog and Di's blog to take a look at their fab creations.
Thanks for looking!

Snowy Cottages at Craft a Scene

Good Afternoon! The first Challenge of 2013 for Craft a Scene  is Snowy Cottages, and this month we are being sponsored by my good friend Teri of Delicious Doodles. This little scene is called A Crofter's Winter, and I coloured it with promarkers, adding a few bare twigs with berries on in the foreground (Inkylicious stamp). The base card is stamped with 'Snow Dust' (Penny Black) and dotted with diamond Stickles. To add to the Scottish theme I added a tartan ribbon and a die cut snowflake.
I do hope you will come and make a scene with us this month. Do visit the challenge blog where you will see some amazing scenes from my lovely teamies. Thanks for looking!
P.S. I am very aware that I promised some blog candy for when I reached 200 followers, which was a few weeks ago, but with all the hustle and bustle of the holiday I still haven't done it. I haven't forgotten, and as soon as I have the chance I will sort something out. I promise!

A snippet card and a little announcement

Woohoo! I've managed to get back to the playground at last! I'm here to join in Di's crafty snippets challenge with another baby card for work. I think this is the last baby card for a while! (they must have moved the chair!)

I used a digi from squigglefly, a stamped sunflower(Chocolate Baroque), snippets of papers from kaisercraft and some very old ribbon. As I'm back in the playground I want to show you what I brought back from Rwanda for you... the Zebra were a bit elusive and kept nipping off into the trees, but this guy was very obliging! Now I know Miss Di is probably having a bit of a turn as to where we are going to put him, but we can get out of the tree house really quickly by sliding down his neck!

Now for my news...

 If you are a regular visitor to Craft a Scene you will have seen last weekend that I have joined their DT. I know that many of you who visit here regularly will know that I was delighted when the challenge started, and have loved making little scenes with my stamps to fit their themes. When Nancy asked if I could join the DT I had to say yes, especially after my top 3 spot last month on the theme of trees! Keep a look out for my DT card on the theme 'Majestic Mountains' on 21st October.
Thanks for looking and for all your lovely comments.

Another snippet make

Well, I have managed to get out to play twice in one week! For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it is Di's crafty snippet challenge, where many of us relive our childhood whilst using up our snippet mountains!  I am here with a card for a friend's daughter. I can't believe she is three already! I found this fabulous stripy paper in my snippet box and thought it was perfect for a little girls card. The rosette was made from another snippet, and the ribbon was a scrap barely long enough to go across the card. The image is a digistamp from Mo Manning and I LOVE it! It reminds me of Meg when she was about five. I coloured it with promarkers and finished it with a sentiment from Waltzing Mouse. The flower is a die cut bought in a pack before I had a cuttlebug (yes, that long ago!)

Right, I've found a spacehopper in the shed. If I can only work out how to blow it up with the bicycle pump I'll bounce my way round the playground!

Christening card

Last week I had a request for a Christening card, so yesterday I got busy and had a go at putting one together. I have only ever made 5 Christening cards, and two of those were for members of this same family, so I had to come up with something different! I had a little visit to Once Upon a Stamp last weekend and bought a Marianne Designables cut and embossing folder, and wanted to try it out, so that was my starting point.

After running the folder and linen look card through the cuttlebug I used Spun sugar distress ink to go around the edge. I then stamped some plain white card with one of the Waltzing Mouse gingham stamps and Memento angel pink. I added some flat backed pearls,some faux stitching and an organza bow...

and then thought about the image!
I went to my usual place for lovely baby and children images - Mo Manning and found this beauty.

I coloured her with promarkers using fine tips (What a wonderful invention those are!) because this circle is less than 2 inches across. The sentiment and name (Irish apparently and pronounced ee-ma) were computer generated and coloured with more spun sugar DI. The tags are spellbinders dies - fancy tags 1 and Grommet tags. It is rather pink for me, but I think it works.
Well, I'm going to take a break for a few days. Meg and I are off to visit a lovely friend, and hopefully get some fresh air and see some Scottish wildlife. Thanks for looking!

Age cards

I have been busy this week working on a few orders.My First card is for a colleague's son who turns twenty-one next weekend. He is a mechanic, so I went for a cogs and tools look. All of the images on this card were free clip art from the net, as was the font.

 The tools are novelty buttons that I've had in my stash for years.
My next card is for a lovely student I have in my class two days a week. She will turn Eighteen on Friday. For this one I used a computer generated number and then a Waltzing Mouse stamp for the fancy circle.

The roses and leaves were made with Marrianne dies, the border was made with my new Martha Stewart Doily lace punch (I wore out the old one) and the circles were cut with nesties. I used the Victoriana embossing folder on this one.
One of our lunchtime supervisors is fifty at the end of next week, so this next one is for her.

I cut out some numbers and used B&J soothing sunset, my ink dusters and a Fun Stamps paisley stamp to decorate them. The flowers and leaves were punches and the background was embossed with a paisley cuttlebug embossing folder, and the background paper is some I had printed out from an Artylicious cd, and just used a corner of it. The sentiment is a Waltzing mouse stamp. 

Finally I have a card for which I pieced together a selection of scraps and finished off with a little scene using Hobby art Scene it Tuscany stamps and coloured with Distress inks. I was rather pleased that you can't tell the backing paper was in five pieces and the corrugated card covers a big jagged gap!

The more I look at it the more I think I made a bit of a faux pas, as there is only one glass and two bottles of wine partially drunk! Apart from the first one I made all of these from scraps and snippets, so they are all eligible to be entered into Jules's Crafty Snippet Challenge.

Last minute creativeness!

In a bid to enjoy my last day of holiday till 23rd December, I've done quite a bit today. I watched a couple of hours of Sheena whilst marking some books, (Love the new lakes stamps), finished some planning, tidied my desk a little, made a Carrot cake to take to work tomorrow and made a couple of cards for work mates birthdays next week, oh and did a roast dinner too.

Sheena did a sky using these colours of distress inks this morning, so I thought I'd have a go and used some Lavinia seed heads instead of trees. There is quite a bit of glitter on this one, but you can't really see it in the photo.
My second card is very different, with a Bugaboo digital image coloured with promarkers and used some scraps of papers that have been hanging around on my desk for ages. As it used scraps I'm entering this into Jules's crafty snippet challenge.

The flowers and leaves were also punched from snippets. Well, I'd better go. Thanks for looking! 

A couple of Birthdays

I'm nipping on here very quickly to show you a couple of Birthday cards which have now reached their destinations. The first is for my lovely friend and colleague, Jenny. We have been working together in the same class since September, but have known each other for years, and she certainly doesn't look fifty! The image is from Bugaboo and has been coloured with promarkers.

My next card is for my dear friend Lynne, and I know she has received it and her Birthday was yesterday.

It is a stepper card featuring a Sheena stamp with sentiments from Hobby Art (The landscape..) and Waltzing Mouse (With love). The main image was watercoloured with distress inks. I used 3 different nesties label dies and a Martha Stewart punch. I rather like this colour combo. Reminded me of heather moorland so perfect for this scene.
Thanks for looking!
Before I go I need to let you know I'll be offering some blog candy very soon as today is also my third bloggerversary. I will put a post up at the weekend although you might have to wait until I've been to Doncaster to see goodies!

Stamptacular snippets!

Hi There! I am getting to be such an infrequent blogger these days. However, half term, Doncaster stamp magic (23/10) and the 4th Stampalot Ultimate rubber stamping Demo day (29/10) are all coming up, so I'm looking forward to finding lots and lots of inspiration!
Anyway, here is my first offering for today...

I managed to use up all the scraps of paper left over from my boxes I made for cookies and cupcakes (post before last) and came up with this. The cake stand stamp was a freebie from the front of the magazine 'Quick cards made easy' and the sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse. The roses are cut with a Marianne design die and here is one in close up.

The papers are the 6 x 6 pad from Kaiser Craft called the Devonshire collection.

I'm entering this into Jules's craft snippets and Stamptacular Sunday, where the theme is  'You choose!' It would also be very suitable for the Food glorious food theme at Sir Stampalot this month - there are still a couple of weeks left to enter and a great prize on offer!

My second and third offerings are cards requested by colleagues. A baby girl card...

The paper is from Bearly Mine designs and the baby digi is from Squigglefly, coloured with promarkers. I love the fact that this image could be a boy or a girl.

Finally a digi hydrangea from my friend Teri at Delicious Doodles.

again coloured with promarkers. The paper is from an Artylicious CD - Seasons Greetings, but I'm sure you will agree not particularly wintry!

Thanks for looking and I will hopefully get round to visiting you all soon!

A few cards

Well, I've had several requests for cards and had to just get on with them - mojo or no-mojo. I can't say I'm particularly thrilled with any of them, but I'm posting them any way, as I've nothing else at the moment.
The first one is a silver wedding card using Inkylicious stamps and silver embossing.

 

The second card is a Mo Manning Digi called 'I love it!'. I coloured it with promarkers and Used some MME papers behind it.

 

Not sure what happened to his hair - not the colour I wanted it to be!

Next we have a Penny black image, stamped for me by my good friend Jules and coloured with promarkers. I teamed it up with some Pink petticoat papers.

Finally we have some owls (one of my two magnolia stamps). I coloured the owls with promarkers, and did a bit of research on owl eye colour. Did you know that an owl with very dark eyes is normally active at night, an owl with yellow eyes is active during the day, and an owl with orange eyes is active at dawn and dusk? Unfortunately this lot look positively evil now! The papers here are MME also.
Thanks to those of you that wished me well on my course. I have to say I wasn't looking forward to it, but it was surprisingly very good, in that it was focused on the real world and will be useful too!
Well, thanks for looking, and if you see my mojo, please send it back to me pronto!

A couple of teenage cards

The Allsorts challenge this week is for teenager cards, and it falls at just the right time as one of Meg's friends and a friend's son both have a birthday this week. Thought I would include them both.

 The first features a Mo Manning Digi coloured with promarkers and the papers are a free download from Canon creative park. The sentiment is from Creative Expressions. The second card is for one of Meg's friends who has loved pink and girly  for as long as I can remember!

This one used the same sentiment, punched flowers and a stamp from Sugar Nellie called 'Searching', again coloured with promarkers. The papers were a freebie from Tinker and Co.
You will have to forgive me if I don't reach blogland much this week. Steve's Mum is in hospital so we are visiting regularly. This is only her second ever stay in hospital in all her 86 years, and she is finding it very stressful. I've also got parent's evening on Monday and Wednesday after school. No rest for the wicked, eh? 

It's the holidays!!!

Finally we have finished the term, so, as promised here are a few more of my Christmas cards made at the weekend. There seems to be a bit of a colour theme going on!

 This first one features some funky fairies papers, a Marianne poinsettia die and a Martha Stewart punch. What, no stamps?! Well, I'm trying to keep them simple!

 The next two are more using the tipsy trees (woodware) and papers from my Funky hand Dreams Come True cd.

Finally this one uses a Digi image from Digistamp boutique, coloured with promarkers. The paper was a funky fairy one and the paper used for the border is a rich burgundy colour - not dark brown as it looks on the photo!
I'm off to have a nice cuppa and try to tidy my craft table a bit. Thanks for looking!

Snow day 2 - well, Ice day really

Another day of school not being open, as the snow from yesterday had formed sheet ice. Several staff had fallen over, so it definitely wasn't safe for the children. So, what to do with my time? Finally I got inspiration and time at the same time! I finished Steve's Dad's Birthday card:

I used papers from my funky hand dreams come true cd, an image from the internet recoloured to match the papers and some scrabble letter stamps (Stamporium).

Next I made another Kokopelli card for a friend's birthday. I used stamp and bond and gilding flakes - this time I used the variegated red flakes (Crafty Notions).

Then I made a birthday card for a workmate who loves Tigers. This used a digi drawn by my talented friend Teri and is available from her blog shop Delicious Doodles. The base card was stamped in Wild honey Distress inks with the Hero arts leaf swirl.

My final two cards feature a Hero Stamp called Starry Night. I brayered the ink onto the stamp to get even coverage, using big and juicy waterfall and hydrangea  The base card was cuttlebugged and then punched down the edge. The edge of the inside of the card was then sponged to match the stamped image.
I also braved taking the car out to see if my route out of Nottingham to the A52 is clear of snow. It was, so Yes, I'm going to try to get to Sir Stampalot's Demo day at Peterborough tomorrow! Thanks for looking!

It's a man's world at Tuesday Taggers

 Our theme this week at Tuesday Taggers is 'It's a Man's World' chosen by our lovely teamie, Bee. We are being sponsored by The Craft Barn. I thought it would be the ideal time to start on my Father's day Cards. This one is for my Dad, who loves Bird Watching. The owls are a digistamp from our very talented teamie, Teri, available from her Digi Shop Delicious Doodles. I coloured it with promarkers (Ivory, tan, sandstone, Satin, Spice, cool grey 1, pastel blue and Cocoa). The background is card stamped with two lovely feather stamps from the A4 Birds Elusive Images plate. As the theme on Dare U 2 Digi Stamp is 'One for the Boys' I'm going to enter it there too. Thanks for looking!
Oh yes, before I go I'll just let you know that Meg arrived home safe and sound yesterday. No sunburn, the sore throat has gone and she is just left with a bunged up nose, so the sunshine and fresh air was good medicine! She had a fantastic time, but was very glad to have a 'proper' shower and climb into her own bed last night!

Happy Birthday to Tueday Taggers!

Tuesday Taggers is one year old this week! We've decided to celebrate with a theme of chocolate and cream (what else?!). We hope you can join in the celebrations by taking part in a huge swap! Pop over to the Tuesday Taggers blog to find out more and get a fab freebie from our talented teamie Teri! Have you checked out her Delicious Doodles shop yet? Thanks for looking!

Holiday? What holiday?

I've been back at work a week, and it feels like about 4! I won't bore you with the details, but it has been ridiculously busy. Tomorrow (actually, later on today!) Meg is singing a solo in this years Science on stage production at the Royal concert Hall in Nottingham, so there have been a couple of rehearsals for that this week too. I'll need the tissues again no doubt - thank goodness it's dark in there! Today was her birthday, so it's safe to post her birthday card now, not that I'd finished it in time to post it on an earlier day!

I was so indecisive and didn't know which image to use, so I used this on the front...

this in the middle...

and this is what it looks like from above. I was going to do step cards and gate folds and all sorts, but it all went wrong.  I was quickly running out of sheets of purple card, so opted for this. The Guitarist image is from Sassy Studios. The young writer is from Digital Pencil Too (Mo Manning) and both are coloured with promarkers.
With the pressure of tomorrow Meg has sensibly opted to wait until next week to celebrate with friends, bless her. Where did the last 13 years go?!

Cakes and Balloons at Tuesday Taggers

In honour of our teamie, Emma's birthday we are celebrating in style with cakes and Balloons at Tuesday Taggers this week. Emma is kindly offering a fabulous Stampin' up!selection of goodies as a prize (wish I could enter!). I've prepared a chocolate orange cupcake coloured with promarkers. The backing papers came from a Funky Fairies kit and the cupcake free digi download can be found here, a creation of the very talented Shaz. Thanks for looking and Happy Birthday Emma!