Back to School

Here's a lovely image from Mo's Digital pencil for the Creative Card Crew's 'Back to school' challenge this week, which is sponsored by Simon Says Stamp.

The paper is from Cuddly Buddly and the embossing is from Papermania... I really like this folder.

I used the Promarker which is the predominant shade in mum's dress, for colouring the papers which I used for the framing elements in this card. The ribbon was also coloured with this same pen. The sentiment was made on the computer. The corners are from a square Cuttlebug die, cut diagonally and the tag is also Cuttlebug.

Today we may go out to do a little shopping... I want to get the Tony Ross story 'I want my potty' for my granddaughter... you never know it may just help!

Fussy & Fancy Friday - Back to School.

In the garden

You may have noticed a slight absence of postings in the last few days!

We are a few days into potty training my granddaughter Daisy. They have been staying since last Wednesday and I must admit that the Aqua-vac has been called into service a few times! On the whole she is doing quite well, but sometimes she seems to have a slight aversion to actually sitting on the potty! My daughter is trying to follow the Gina Ford method, but as all children differ enormously, I think that she would be just as well to follow her own instincts!

They will be here until Thursday, as on Wednesday evening my daughter and I are having a treat... we are going to see Les Miserables in Southampton. Grandpops will be doing the babysitting!

Anyway, here we are with my clean & simple offering for our challenge at My Time to Craft this week, which is entitled 'In the garden'.

Allsorts Challenge - Inspiration Park or garden

The stamp is from Penny Black and the sentiment from Stampin' Up.

Poem Inspiration

Morning has broken

Like the first morning

Blackbird has spoken

Like the first bird.

Tuesday Taggers have the challenge to be inspired by a poem this week. This beautiful Unity Stamps image made me think of these lines from a modern hymn. I don't really know what species this bird is, but it is black and it is a bit like a blackbird in silhouette.

The paper is a digi from Bits of Ivory and the sentiment is also from Unity.

Stempeltraume - Card for a man

Alphabet Challenge - Q Quote

Crafty Angels - Something Old,(stamp) Something New (DP)

I like this clean cut style of card.

My daughter and granddaughter have arrived. Tonight Daisy is sleeping in her big girl's bed (she's too big now for the travel cot) and tomorrow potty training is due to begin!!

Wish us luck! I can't remember how I did it with our kids, it was too long ago.

Clean & Simple

I made the discovery this week, that the stamping wheels for Rollagraph and Stampin' Up are identical. Last weekend I bought a Rollagraph wheel in the hope that it would fit my Stampin' Up handle and I was delighted that it did. The stamping on the green section of this card was done with this new Rollagraph script wheel.

I'm afraid that I must be rather vague about the rest of the stuff. I'm not sure where I downloaded this fabby paper from and the sentiment is part of a stamp (I masked the 'so much' part of the stamp) and as it unmounted, I can;t tell what make it is.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. The embossing is from a Papermania folder. It was a real job the tie this ribbon, it was the very last piece of it!

The sketch is from Clean and Simple #104

What's Cookin'?

The recipe this week at Cooking it up with Katie is... make it for a boy, add some check (gingham etc), and add a touch or two of brown or 'Check out that boy in the brown!'

The sponsor this week in the Pixie Dust Studio, who donated the digis for the DT to work with. Don't you just love this cute bear!

The paper is in fact a pink gingham Cuddly Buddly digi, which I turned to sepia in Picasa as I didn't have any DP of a suitable shade. I think it worked quite well.

The embossing is from a Papermania folder, with the border cut with a Martha Stewart punch.

If you zoom in you may see that I paper pieced the boat with a complementary paper (also changed in Picasa). The sentiment is from a Cuddly Buddly rubber stamp.

It's a great recipe this week, so do join in. We'd love to see what you create.

Simon Says Stamp - Paper Piecing

Stampin' for the weekend - Anything goes

Totally Papercrafts - Summer Fun

I'm going to collect my daughter and granddaughter this afternoon, who will be coming to stay until the Bank Holiday, to be joined at the weekend by my son-in-law. Daisy is going to start potty training tomorrow, I wonder why they chose this week to visit!!!

WOYWW

Last week you may have noticed that I was showing off my new acquisition... my ATG gun. It does, however, take up a lot of space and I was saying to Julia that I could so with a sky hook to get it out of the way.... well I found one. I slip the handle through the metal struts of my craft light and it just kinda hangs there!

I love it and have found that the adhesive is REALLY sticky. If I don't get the positioning right first time... well I have to start again!

On my glass mat are a few things I was working on yesterday. I use the word 'working' in the loosest sense. I was actually playing around!

I bought the Penny Black slapstick flower stamp at the weekend. I think I'll get quite a bit of mileage out of that. The robin was another weekend purchase, and the other bird I bought last week at a craft shop which is relocating soon.

I made the flowers after seeing a tutorial on someone's blog. The deep red one was made with a PDF which I downloaded, but it is coloured, so if ever I want red flowers I'm fine. Does anyone know how to alter a PDF? The others were made with Nellie Snellen punches. You can just see another thing which I bought recently, without which I think I would have found it almost impossible to make the flowers.... My heat glue gun.

There's also part of a rosette flower and a little cover I made for a Post it stack.

DO hop over to Julia's and join in the WOYWW fun. (Link on my sidebar)

Have a Happy Day!

Daring Cardmakers

It's funny how the title of a challenge can set you thinking... at Daring Cardmakers this week, the subject is entitled 'Material girl'. I immediately thought of this pocket stamp and the denim free download paper from the Canon Scrapbook site.

So the stamp was stamped onto the denim paper. I made the 501 tag on the computer, the hearts were any small stamps I could find in my stash and here it is! The main image stamp and the sentiment are from Unity.

I'm trying to keep away from adding too much to my cards, I'm not sure if this enough, but I didn't care for the other odds and ends I tried.

Handbags

A local craft shop is relocating and had a few items on sale which they don't want to take to the new premises. This Create & Craft stamp was one such item. As I'm really rather fond of shoes and bags, my resistance level was comparable to a gnat and so here it is.

The challenge from My Time to Craft this week is Handbags, I suppose I could have included the little bag I made for One Stop Cards and Crafts' Challenge this week, but I wanted to try out my new stamp.

The paper is Cuddly Buddly, the image was coloured with Copics and the sentiment was made on the computer.

I bought some things from the craft shop in Bury St Edmunds at the weekend when visiting my son and daughter-in-law, so I fancy having a play with some of that lot too.

Watch this space!

Blog award

I just arrived home from a weekend at my son's in Bury St Edmunds to look on my blog and see that Sylvie in Gibraltar had sent me this lovely award. I really appreciate her kindness to think of me and if you paid her blog a visit, I think that you'd be really glad you did, as she makes really fabulous cards.

In turn I need to name three things that I like about myself and then pass this award on to 7 other bloggers, both difficult! The choice of recipients is huge as there are so many wonderful friends to choose from.

I may have to think about the three things for a while, but here are the seven!

Val

Lorraine

Cherie

Anne

Julia

Diane

Wipso

Thank you all so much for your visits and the wonderful comments which you leave on my blog.

NOT a card!

The challenge of Not a Card at One Stop Cards and Crafts this week has been set by the exceedingly talented Sharon. You will be AMAZED by the contribution she has produced this time, I can hardly believe that it's made from paper/card. You really must take a look, they seeing is believing, but even looking at it, it's hard to believe what she has achieved.

My 'Not a Card' is this little bag, which would be great for popping a gift card or cheque into.

I printed a sheet of Pink Petticoat 'Flourish' paper onto a piece of thinnish card and then printed the reverse side with the bag template.

After cutting out the components, it was easy to assemble and I added the black edging by punching a strip of black paper with my Stampin' Up border punch and then partially snipping it to make it fit around the curves.

The fastening is made with a make it yourself Papermania Brad. The ribbon was coloured with Copics and the flap is secured with a Velcro circular fastening.

I think it's quite sweet!

I tried again!

Some days ago I coloured and glazed these boots, but couldn't work out how to put them on a card. Having just done my previous card, I thought I'd use a similar technique for this one, so I masked off the card and sponged and stamped the middle section, then added the boots and a sentiment. I quite like it!

Simples!

Just Us Girls - Wild, wild West

Simplicity

I have just discovered another challenge blog entitled Simplicity. Loving 'Clean & Simple' I was drawn to the name of the blog immediately.

The challenge is to create a scene on one layer of cardstock, with few or no embellishments.

I have to admit that this card is not my idea. I cased a card from Heather, who has made a fabulous card for the challenge, describing how she did it (otherwise I wouldn't have had a clue).

This is nowhere near as beautiful as Heather's but I think that it will be a technique that I will try again, maybe with some slightly more suitable stamps.
You certainly get very inky fingers... at least I did!

I've just added this second one, in which I used a different tree stamp.

I think I prefer the broader band of colour, not sure about the images. Which do you prefer?

More ways with Die cuts - Tutorial

Here is a card with fancy corners... except they're not corners, they're actually squares from the Spellbinders Fleur De Lis set.

This is how I set about changing them

I die-cut out the small square from a piece of white card.
Then I cut it in half diagonally.This leaves little bits sticking out which were part of the inner trellis.So I trimmed these off leaving a smooth line.Finally, I coloured it with a Promarker to match the layering on my card and added a little Glamour Dust before attaching it to the card.
The image is LOTV and all the diecuts are Spellbinders.

They look quite dramatic don't they!

Stamp Something - Fairy Tale Somethings!

Charisma Cardz - Die Cuts

Little Red Wagon - Make an altered item

Inky Fingers

I thought I would have a play with some Shimmer Mists today. I'm not really sure what I'm doing or even of there is a right and a wrong way of working with this medium, anyway this is the result of my latest play.

I used a variety of shades, I think there was copper, gold and red here. When dry, I overprinted with a Script stamp in Stazon ink and the used part of the sheet for the die-cut flowers.

I didn't have a sentiment stamp with a small enough font or in a suitable script, so I made this one on the computer.

The flowers are Marianne's, the leaves Papermania and the embossing Cuttlebug.

Cards & Things - Sketch

Charisma Cardz - Die Cuts

Colour Create

I was looking at an online advertisement for some craft shop or other and saw this stamp for sale. I had bought this one at a craft fair in Suffolk the last time I went to visit my son (we're going again this weekend, I wonder if there'll be any more craft fairs around?). It was half price!! Until today I'd never used it, and so that was all the encouragement I needed to dig it out!

I coloured the hearts with Promarkers and the added a thin wash of Perfect Pearls in a similar shade. I used the same Promarkers to colour the card I used for layering. It matches the free downloaded paper from the Canon Scrapbook site really well.

Colour Create's challenge is Ivory, Duck-egg plus one other colour, I've got a sort of coppery sandy colour.

ABC's Challenge this week is Blue... this could be an iffy one for this card... is duck-egg, blue or green? For this challenge, I'll say it's blue!

Crafts and Me - Petals and Pearls (both very small... zoom in and you'll see them))

One salutary lesson I learned was to keep inked stamps away from card components... I had the topper all ready to put on the card, when it dropped onto the uncleaned stamp, face side down of course. Whah, whah! I had to make a whole new one... stamping, colouring, die-cutting layering... the lot!

Hey Ho! But I quite like the end result!

WOYWW

Here is my desk this morning.

The observant among you will spot immediately that I have succumbed to peer pressure and now residing on my desk is the giant of a glue gun which I have been gazing at on many desks over the past weeks. When I heard that it was was on such a special offer at Viking, I thought I'd better get one before the offer ended, even though I have a drawer full of its baby cousins. I'm sure all will get used up in the end.

There are various remnants of cardmaking on the desk and one card in mid-make.

I have also given in to offers on Promarkers so now I have a choice... Copic or Pro... whichever colour seems right!

Here is my stock of Spellbinders and various other skinny dies, all neatly packed away in CD cases. I find this a really easy way to store them, with an albeit tatty label on the edge of the case letting me know where to find things.

Have a great day and do visit Julia (link on my sidebar) to take a look at what's going on on workdesks around the world!

Cherry Ripe!

At Penny Black's Challenge this week, everyone is feeling a little 'Fruity', and so my mind immediately went to this stamp which I found after a rummage through a big box of stamps at the Farnborough Show some time ago. Isn't it dreadful that I don't really know if it was this year or last, the time flies by so quickly.

I used the sketch from Card Patterns #77, but added a sentiment... I couldn't help it honest!

The spoon and the cherries were glazed with Anita's 3D Gloss and a drop of dew in the form of a tiny gem was added to each Papermania punched and embossed leaf.

The background paper is from Fred She Said!

We're off to another cricket match this evening, I'm just getting rid of my stiff shoulder following our last visit. I hope it doesn't get too cold tonight!

Sparkle and Shine & Glitter & Glitz

The Creative Card Crew's Sparkle and Shine Challenge this week is sponsored by the Digi Shack and the DT was fortunate to have some images to work with. Don't you just love this dog?
He has a shiny nose and mug (Anita's 3D Gloss) and twinkly slippers (Glamour Dust). I paper pieced his dressing gown using the Cuddly Buddly digi paper and made the sentiment on the computer. The die cutting is Spellbinders.

Allsorts Challenge Blog - Paper Piecing

At My Time to Craft this week, the challenge is entitled Glitter and Glitz. I decided to make a Christmas card using a stamp from Imaginations. I heat embossed it in silver, coloured it with Copics and then added a liberal amount of Glamour Dust. The embossing is from a Papermania embossing folder. I coloured the white ribbon with Copics to match the free downloaded paper from Fred She Said.

This year has been the first year that I have made any Christmas cards so much in advance. It has given me the opportunity to use some of the many stamps I have acquired over time, as by the time December arrives, things are usually a little more frantic and I have little time for things like heat embossing and careful colouring!!

Do join in with either or both of these challenges, We'd love to see your creations!

A Spoonful of Sugar - Christmas in August

A couple of challenges

On Saturday we left home at about 9.30am and headed for the Rose Bowl, to watch the finals of the T20 Cricket competition. Hampshire had reached the semi-final stage, but weren't really expected to get much further. They played the first match against Essex...and won and so went into the final. The weather could have been kinder, we had to get under the umbrella several times and the second match couldn't be completed because of rain. They have a complicated method entitled Duckwoth/Lewis for working out the winner in a situation like this, which gave Somerset the lead over Nottingham and so they became our opponents for the final match.

At about 11.15pm under the floodlights, the match ended with a tied score, but as we had lost one fewer wicket...we won! Wonderful! It was a very long day, and since then I've had a sore back and a stiff shoulder. Oh dear, what it is to be getting old! It was fun whilst it lasted.

Anyway here are a couple of cards I made today.

The first one is for Bah Humbug! Angels or Fairies!

Corrosive Challenge - Faux Techniques (stitching)

2 Sisters - Stitching (Faux)

Everybody Art- Check it out

Stamp Something - Fairy Tale Somethings

The image is Anita's and the sentiment, Hero Arts.

As you might image with one look at this card, it's for the sketch from the Clean & Simple Challenge.

The stamp is Unity and the sentiment Hero Arts, stamped with Stampin' Up Mellow Moss ink.

Christmas in Summer

Yesterday a package arrived with a couple of new crafty bits... some snowflake dies from Marianne's Creatables and a Christmas sentiment embossing folder from Crafts Too. I thought I would put the two together and this is what I came up with.

The white card is pearlised and has a lovely sheen to it, showing off the definition of the embossing really well. I used my Cuttlebug random Dots folder to emboss the backing paper to tie in with the sentiment.

I love simple!

Stampavie and More - Christmas in Summer

Commission Cards

As we were driving to our daughter's in Bath yesterday, I received a phone call requesting a couple of cards. The lady was most specific about what she wanted on the cards and so it was a good job that I had some paper and a pencil to hand to jot everything down.

The first one was for an anniversary and she wanted

a) the couple's names

b) the date

c) the fact it was 20years

d) a mention of it being the 'China' anniversary and

e) she wanted a bride and groom silhouette.

She also wanted a money gift wallet to match.

The second card was for a lady who was retiring from work in a bakery and once more the information was quite precise.

She wanted

a) the lady's name

b) Happy Retirement

c) the date she retired

d) the fact that she had done 25 years service and the date when that occurred

She also wanted a money gift wallet for this person too.

I spent the morning doing these two projects, I only hope they will be satisfactory.

I'm entering them for a couple of challenges.

Charisma Cardz - Easel Card

Alphabet Challenge - P- Punches

Treemendous

The 'Treemendous' challenges from Daring Cardmakers and Cute Card Thursday this week reminded me of this stamp, which I won in a blog challenge quite sometime ago and had almost forgotten about... until today!

The image looks sort of 'oriental', which is why I went with gold and black papers.

I overprinted the image with a crackle stamp in gold and added a little bird on one of the branches. All the stamps used are from the same set from There She Goes Clear Stamps.

Once more I have used Copic coloured organza ribbon. All die cuts are from Nesties.

Clean and Simple

It's taken me ages to realise that this is the kind of card I am happiest making. Having said that I do enjoy messing around with other techniques as well and I think I'll pop another card I made earlier today, where I got really messy, at the bottom of this post, just for contrast.

This card is for two challenges. Clean and Simple from whence I took the sketch, and Cards and Things whose challenge is to use the colours Baja Breeze, Night of Navy and Basic Gray.

The stamp was part of a set given to me for my birthday by the lovely Victoria. Yummy or what!

I simply stamped, cut out, and mounted them on a small square of colour, then added the matching butterflies. A sentiment, also Stampin' Up was all that was need to complete the card!

Here is the other card. I made the background, by spritzing the paper with oodles of Cosmic Shimmer and overprinted the plant silhouettes with Stazon and added the ribbon and flower. (The inks and the flower dies were also birthday presents from the lovely lady who lives in the cupboard with her Cuttlebug.)

I made the sentiment on the computer and cut it out with a Nestie label.

Quite a contrast huh!

One layer card

Over at No Time to Stamp the challenge is to make a card using only the card itself... no additional papers. Embellishments may be added, but that's all.

I began by de-bossing the front of the card with a Nestie rectangle and then I stamped the image from a Prima Marketing clear stamp into the space.

The ribbon treatment is two ribbons, both of which began life white, but I coloured the narrower stripy one with a Copic marker to make it black.

I started to heat emboss thePapermania 'make your own brad' with black embossing powder, but it looked dreadful, so I reheated it and wiped the black off. In fact it left a slightly aged look which I prefer to either the plain silver or the black embossing.

This is another candidate for Really Reasonable Ribbons' Black and White challenge too!

Cooking it Up with Katie & WOYWW

Good morning all you WOYWWers! It took me all week, but I managed to get around to everyone's desks again last week, wow what a journey!

Some people are SO tidy, I think that there must be a tidy gene, which must have been given out when I was at the back of the queue. I don't there were any left for me.

Here are the remnants of yesterday's play. I indulged myself in doing just what I fancied, some of the results of which are in the post below this one. Here there are still about three cards under construction.
I don't have a big yellow tape gun thingy, but I do have a drawer full of glue gliders. I bought these on eBay and get through them at an incredible rate, but they are good value, 20m for 99p (post free because I buy in bulk). They are so much quicker to use than DST. When they're gone I may consider a gun!

If you would like to see other workspaces today, then jump over to Julia's, the link is on my sidebar... and have fun!
Digi Doodles are the sponsors for this week's recipe challenge over at Cooking it Up with Katie, which is where this beautiful image came from for my DT card.

The ingredients for the challenge this week are Flowers, Squares and Pink.

The paper is from Pink Petticoat, the sentiment from Hero Arts and once more I have coloured the ribbon to match the matting paper with a Copic or Promarker pen (can't remember precisely which is was now). My cheap grosgrain ribbon from eBay is certainly getting used quickly, but it works SO well!

If you've never tried a recipe challenge before, today might be a good day, hop on over and take a look.

Play Day

Today, I have been having a bit of a play. I haven't been trying to construct cards for challenges, I've just been indulging myself in playing around with whatever whim took my fancy! Having said that, I realised that this first card actually is another candidate for the Bah Humbug's window challenge, so I may just add a link for that. The window in this case was made by stamping the image then cutting it into quarters and mounting it slightly spread apart onto some black paper, a slightly different technique from my previous window card a few posts back.
This next one was made with some freebie downloads, which I acquired this morning. I think it was from My Graffico. The sentiment is Hero Arts.
This last one is a lovely Nostalgia, Papermania stamp, a birthday gift from a wonderful bloggy friend very well known to many of you in the world of WOYWW!

The background is my Friendship Words background stamp from Stampin' Up, which just seemed perfect for the boy and his dog.

All the cards employ ribbons coloured with Copics or Promarkers to match the colours within each card. I seem to have been going a bit mad doing that these days... but it just works SO well!

If you haven't tried it, I can thoroughly recommend the technique to you.

Featured Stamper!

Some time ago I won the challenge at Tuesday Morning Sketches. Not only did I receive a prize of some digi images and get a blinkie for my blog, but I was also chosen to be a featured stamper on their blog... and today's the day!

This is the sketch for this week, and I chose to interpret it as a joy-fold card. I've liked this type of fold from the first time I tried it, and I'm quite pleased with the way this one turned out.
It's also my DT card for the Challenge at My Time to Craft, where the theme is Farm Fever! I hope the sheep hasn't got a fever, she looks quite content to me! The image is from Penny Black, I don't really remember where I got the paper from but it is a digi download. The sentiment, which I wrote on the computer, is only partially attached to the card allowing the front section to tuck in behind it and keep the card closed when required.

I'd love to see you joining in with either or both of these challenges! Go on... it'll be fun!

New Blog!

A new blog is being launched entitled Top Tip Tuesday, where there will be loads of tips available and to start things off there's candy to be had.... some great Magnolia images.

Become a follower and join in the fun!

Sweet Sunday Sketch

This is the sketch from Sweet Sketch Sunday. I love the simplicity, but I'm having trouble getting a decent picture these days. I use the idiot-proof setting on my camera, but I never seem to be able to get the light quite right!

Hey Ho!

This image is a Pure Innocence digi from Heather Ellis. I think they're really cute.

Stampin' Up background stamp, Hero Arts Sentiment and Copic coloured ribbon.

I think that's about it!

I think it's time for a G&T, sadly my husband can't join me this evening as he's had a biopsy on the inside of his mouth and is not allowed alchohol today!! I may have to have his as well! The consultant didn't think that there was anything sinister in his mouth, but took a biopsy just to be on the safe side.

On the Beach

At Penny Black this week, the challenge is entitled 'On the beach'. My first thought was deckchairs and donkeys, but then my mind started to wander towards dunes and grasses and sky... and this card emerged.

It's in my favourite genre Clean & Simple and I have to say that this type of card pleases me most. I coloured the sand and sky with Cats Eyes ink pads and over printed this with my Penny Black 'Inclinations' stamp using Stampin' Up Chocolate Chip ink. I coloured the ribbon with Promarkers to match the outer paper and cut the window with Nesties. The butterfly is from a Marianne's Creatables die. The sentiment from Hobby Art Ltd., is a favourite of mine which hasn't been out of the drawer for a while. I'm glad I came across it again!

Totally Papercrafts have the theme By the Sea for their challenge, so this is for that too!

Bear and friend

A Christmas card for a couple of challenges.

Bah Humbug is asking for a 'Window' and Just Cute Bears require Bear and Me...here are Bronson and Beaker.. so the 'me' is this case is the little robin!

I coloured the image with Copics and made the window using my square Nesties.

I quite like the simplicity!

Pretty in Pink

I love the images of Kiki from Pollycraft (where I was a Pollycraft favourite last week) and this one is no exception. Here she is holding a bunch of very tempting looking cupcakes. It's for a few challenges.

Sweet Stampin - Pretty in Pink

Crazy 4 Challenges - Include a cupcake

Charisma Cardz - Teddy Bear

CAS-Tastic Challenge - Case the DT

Alphabet Challenge - O Oval

All the pink on this card was coloured with Copics... the ribbons and the card trims, which were then twinkled with Glamour Dust.