Dream Valley Challenges - My very first DT card!

Hiya!

This is my very first DT card for Dream Valley Challenges - woohoo! How exciting :-)

Our very first challenge is a nice easy one to start us all off gently - Anything goes!

I took it as an opportunity to get out all my favourite things:

Beautiful Tilda, coloured with my lovely promarkers and a nice bit of sparkle :-) The papers are Pink Parfait from Forever Friends. Then of course there's my nesties for the circle. A bit of ribbon from my stash and then some flowers, gems and pearls. 

I cut the sparkley butterfly from some Henbury Lane papers and then added some sparkley swirls in glitter glue.

I really hope you can join us for our first ever challenge! There are fab prizes up for grabs:

1st prize is a £10 voucher to spend at Lili of the Valley

 2nd prize is Fashionista and Dude Simply Sassy set



and 3rd prize is Windswept Simply Sassy


How I wish I could enter!!! :-)

Love 'n' hugs,



Ooooh, a circle card.... gotta try that!

So on a recent trip around blogland I saw some beautiful circle cards on Melly and Clare's blogs.... I definitely had to have a go at that! Never done it before though so I found this fab tutorial at AddINKtive Designs and had a go. I have to say, I'm quite pleased with the results. The image is Cupcake from Squiggle Stamps and has been coloured with promarkers. The papers are Daisy and Dandelion Picnic Patch and the sentiment is a freebie stamp from a Docrafts mag. It's all done with my nesties and then I added some punched flowers (plum flower, woodware) with brads for centres. Ta-da! A piece of cake (groan.....)!

Challenges:

Creative Inspirations - Stripes

Simon Says Stamp - Coffee and Cream

Sarah Hurley - Round cards

Paper Play - Let's get sentimental
Ladybug Crafts Ink - 3 flowers, 2 DPs, 1 image

Right, time to go and cook the tea! See you again soon.

Love 'n' hugs,

Little monsters.....

 Another quick post I'm afraid because I reeeeaaaaallllly want to make the most of this sunshine and take the boys to the park :-)

This is for George's birthday on Saturday from his brothers. The image is another cute digi from the Peepos range by Erica Martyn. I coloured them with my promarkers and then used Just Chillin papers from Making Memories. The sentiment is the one that came with Monster Boy from Squiggle Stamps. I used my nesties (and a bit of free-hand cutting) for the ovals and Quickutz nesting stars. The embossing folder is mini polka dots by papermania and then some new gems from ebay. A bit of doodling and hey presto! :-)

Challenges:

Totally Gorjuss - Check it out

Passion for Promarkers - One for the Boys

The ABC Challenge - O is for Ovals

PaperPlay - Let's get sentimental

Have a lovely day!

Love 'n' hugs,

Some exciting news.... and an award!

Woohoo! I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that the very kind and talented Melly has asked me (yes, little old me!) to be on the design team for her fab new challenge blog, Dream Valley Challenges!

It's launch takes place this very Sunday and is going to have some fabulously exciting challenges every fortnight. Can't wait!

Oooooh! How exciting! I hope you can all join us :-)

I've also been awarded this fab award from Melly and Donna! Thankyou sooo much!

The conditions of this Award are . . .

1. Make a post linking back to the person who gave you the award!

2. Share 7 random things about yourself

3. Award 7 recently discovered bloggers with this award

4. Contact these bloggers and tell them they've won the award.

Sooooo, 7 random things.....

• I've now had no hot water for 3 days - but it's ok cos I had a shower at my Mom's - Thanks, Mom!
• My fave colour is red.
• I've just been given an allotment - woohoo!
• I'm going to start a gardening blog too - oo-er!
• I spend so much time crafting these days, I had to give up watching soaps :-)
• I only drink decaff tea
• I could live on toast - yum!

And 7 recently discovered bloggers:

Do I need to restrict it to 7??? I'm going to rebel and give it to all my new teamies at Dream Valley Challenges - we're going to have sooo much fun! :-)

Carole

Carrie

Fiona

Jack

Jennie

Kendra

Khristen

Lin

Lynne

Mags

Mary

Sandra

Sarah

Susie

Phew! Have a fab day!

Love 'n' hugs,

Some spring colours....

Just a quick post today because hopefully the plumber will be here any minute now to fix my naughty boiler! Had no hot water now for 2 days!!! :-(

This is for Paul's Mum's birthday. I've used my fave forever friends stamp, coloured with promarkers and paper pieced the pressie. The papers are Wild Rose Studio - just the thing for encouraging Spring! The Mum stamp is one of papermania's relations clear stamps. The ribbon and pearls are from my stash and the flowers were bought for my birthday last year - I'm surprised I've still got some left!

I followed a sketch from Sketch Saturday and I'm also entering this into the challenges at Whoopsi Daisy (Someone Special) and A Spoon Full of Sugar (Birthday Wishes).

Have a fab day!

Love 'n' hugs,



A simple waterfall card....

So I never thought I'd hear myself describe a waterfall card as simple! This is my second ever waterfall card - the first I made years ago when I first started crafting and didn't seem too hard at the time with a demonstrator sitting there talking me through the whole thing! Any attempt since has turned to mush so I bought this Woodland Folk waterfall kit in the hope that putting these together (there's 4 in the pack for £1.49 - bargain!) would show me how to do my own properly :-)

The background paper is from Wild Rose Studio, I've fixed the mechanism to the card with a couple of brads that I've had forever, and then I added some pearls to the corners (freebies when I bought some others from ebay!). Then I just added a small piece of ribbon to the bottom of the tag.

The instructions for the waterfall weren't the easiest to follow, and there's about 3 different versions in the pack, but by trying to follow all 3 sets at the same time, closing one eye, squinting with the other, and my tongue sticking out I just about made it!

You can see in this piccie that I actually made an extra, unnecessary fold :-( Quite disappointed about that but at least I know better for next time!

And the last piccie....

I'll have a couple more goes with the others in the pack but I'm hoping to attempt my own soon - wish me luck :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

My little boy is getting bigger!

Just a quick post cos I think my other half is feeling neglected :-)

My not-so-little boy, George, is going to be 5 next weekend! Goodness me.... It only feels like we've had him 5 minutes, never mind 5 years! Time really flies....

This Lili of the Valley image was coloured using my promarkers in George's favourite colours. Of course really he should be wearing an Aston Villa kit but I just don't have the colours :-)

The papers are from Crafts Too and I've cut the circles using nesties and the stars using quickutz dies. The letter tiles are a recent acquisition from ebay :-) The top panel is embossed using Sizzix wild dashes Texturz plate.

Only one challenge for this one cos I don't have time to scout around:

Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Special birthday

Gotta go.... Have a fab evening!

Love 'n' hugs,

Still trying new stuff....

I don't know what I've been thinking just lately but I've been trying loads of new stuff and as I've been quite happy with the results (so far!) I thought I'd have another go at clean and simple.... This is my absolute nightmare when it comes to making cards. I'm so rubbish at them... This is the first that I've been mildly happy with but I still want to go mad and pile loads of things onto it :-)

The image is a freebie digi called Vase Full of Love but I got it when I was new to all this stuff and didn't record where I got it from - if anyone can help me out, please let me know! I think this image is perfect for a CAS card.

I've coloured it with my promarkers and a little white gel pen. Then all I've added is a little bit of ribbon from my stash and a stamped sentiment from Clare Curd's clear stamps range. Another first - stamping directly onto the card! Although I have to admit I practised several times first and I didn't apply even pressure across the whole stamp as I'm sure you can tell!

My overall verdict.... It's ok but I think I need a bit more practice! Love the image though - I'll be using it again!

Challenges:
Creative Inspirations - Red, pink and white only (green stems/leaves are allowed!)

PaperPlay Challenges - Hearts and Flowers but not Valentine
Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - A stamped flower

Let me know what you think :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Trying out something new.....

Ok, so I don't "do" digi's and it's been aaaaages since I did any decoupage, but here goes.....

My eldest son, Marc, wanted a card for his girlfriend for Valentine's Day and he wanted something a bit cute :-) This little fella is Pookiechu from the Peepos collection by Erica Martyn. He's a freebie, available here, along with the spotty paper and sentiment. He's pre-coloured although I did colour in the hearts in the top right using my promarkers. They're a freebie from Meljen's designs and I think they're so cute!

As you can see here, I've layered him up but my scissor skills aren't that great - I blame my left-handedness!

I embossed the white layer using the mini polka dot embossing folder from papermania. The gems and ribbon are from my stash, but I have to say, I'm not too keen on the ribbon anymore!

I cut the spotty paper using my nesties and followed a fab sketch from Pollycraft Monday Challenge. Hope you like it! I've also been playing with another digi image but that's for tomorrow! (Oooo, get me! How many days in a row have I posted now?!?)

Challenges:

Whoopsi Daisy - Hearts

Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Sketch and "Love"

Crafty Cardmakers - Hearts

A Spoon Full of Sugar - Show some love

Creative inspirations - Red, pink and white only

Sarah Hurley - Love, Be my valentine

Totally Gorjuss - Love 

See you again soon!

Love 'n' hugs,

Woohoo! It's my blogaversary!

And that must mean we have a winner for my Blogaversary Candy!

 First of all I just want to thank all my followers and pals in blogland for their fabulous support over the last year. I've loved it! You've all given me so much inspiration :-) What a lovely bunch you are!

So I asked my better half, Paul, to draw a name from all those who entered:

(It took me ages to write them all down - I wish I'd figured out that random thingy!)

 And the winner is:

Sally!

Congratulations, Sally!

Please email me with your details so I can send you your goodies.

melsanford@hotmail.co.uk

Have a lovely day!

Love 'n' hugs,

Look! No papers!

 Oooooh! Scarey...! :-)

I haven't tried anything like this before so it was all a bit new and scarey :-) I've taken inspiration from a card on the fabulous Debby's blog which includes lots of white and embossing but no papers (absolutely beautiful - you must check it out!). I really wanted to give it a try - not as good as Debby's by a long stretch but I'm not too unhappy with the outcome!

I've coloured our lovely Tilda here with my promarkers and some glitter glue for sparkle. I cut her out using my nesties and used the (almost compulsory!) lacey leaf border punch from xcut the add a border.

The embossing for the background is victorian fleur from papermania and the smaller piece is mini polka dots from papermania. My lovely Mom bought me the pretty blue fluffy stuff that I've criss-crossed behind the image. The flowers are punched using a woodware plum flower punch and then layered up with some smaller flowers in the middle attached with brads. You can just about make out that I've added sparkle to the brads in this piccie:

Hope you like....

Going to go and put the heating on - I'm freeeeezing! Have a fab day!

Love 'n' hugs,

A new addition to my growing collection!

Hiya!

And a huge HELLO! to all my new followers :-) Thankyou so much!

I was recently lucky enough to win this beautiful stamp, Angelica, from Wags 'n Whiskers! She's so beautiful to colour. I tried to stay away from my usual pink and came up with this:

I'm not sure however if I consider these colours to be neutral enough to enter the N is for neutrals challenge at ABC Challenges - what do you think? Opinions please!

I've coloured her with my promarkers (and a little glitter glue!) and the papers are from Wild Rose Studio. I used my favourite leafy lace border punch from xcut again to give a border to the oval which was cut using my nesties following the out-of-the-box tutorial from Jenny (you can see her out-of-the-boxed wing better in the second piccie, but you can see her shoes above).

 The flowers were punched using a woodware daisy punch and then layered up, adding pearls from my stash to the centres.

Challenges:

Sarah Hurley - Die cuts

Totally Gorjuss - Fab sketch

and maybe... (depending on what you all think!)

The ABC Challenge - N is for neurals

Back soon!

Love 'n' hugs,



My blogaversary candy... A little problem...

Hiya,

Just a quick message..... my linky list for my blogaversary candy has been closed down (with less than 24 hours notice!) as the guy running it now wants to charge for what was a free service when I took it out! I have a list of all the links safe for everyone who entered up until yesterday (I've got yours, Sally!) so you will all still be entered. From now on, I'll just be asking people to leave me a comment on the blogaversary candy post - I'll edit the post to explain. The draw will still take place on Friday - ooooh, how exciting!

Hope this all makes sense!

Love 'n' hugs,

Hearts, flowers and chocolate!

All you need for valentine's day! Ok so I know pink isn't the most traditional colour for a male card but I really like it and I hope my other half does too!

The image and sentiment are from Lili of the Valley - I just had to have them as soon as I saw them! They are coloured with my promarkers and a little glitter glue. The papers are Henbury Lane and I've sanded the edges with a sanding block to soften the look a little and give the pink mist around the edges :-) The flowers are a mix of some I got from Debs and some I bought from the NEC - they're covered in glitter, I don't know how none of my pictures manage to show it! The ribbons and pearls are from my stash.

I've added some little heart shaped gems to the "o"s in the sentiment:

I'm entering this into the following challenges:

Creative Inspirations - Valentine's/Love

Whoopsi Daisy - Any shape but square

Cards for Men - Valentine's/Love

Lili of the Valley - Romance

PaperPlay - Stamp it out

The Secret Crafter - Valentine

I also want to thank the fabulous Mags and Donna for giving me this lovely award:

I've received this award once before so I've already followed all the rules here but I really wanted to say a massive thankyou for thinking of me :-) I'm honoured!

Catch up again soon!
Love 'n' hugs,

Birthday boy....

Hiya, hope you're all well. I'm having the busiest few days that I've had in a while but I still managed to find time to make this:



This is one of my fave LOTV images - perfect for any little boy! I've coloured him with my promarkers (what else?) and used Making memories Just Chillin' papers. The stars have been cut using some Quickutz nesting dies then I made a couple of the smaller ones into buttons using a pokey tool.



The "5" was cut using the Bang! Zoom! alphabet set from sizzix and then the ribbon was cut from inside one of my tops - well it was the right colour! :-)

Challenges:

Moving Along with the Times - Spring
Paperplay - Layer it up
Totally Gorjuss - As YOU like it
The ABC Challenge - N is for nesties

Don't forget to pop over and check out Melly's fab new challenge blog, Dream Valley Challenges... She's looking for some new DT members so if you fancy applying check out this post.

There's also some time left to enter my Blogaversary Candy if you haven't done so already... Go on! Help me celebrate :-)

Have a fab day!

Love 'n' hugs,
Mel xx

New Challenge Blog and DT Call....

Hiya!

Just had to let you all know about a fab new challenge blog, Dream Valley Challenges, starting at the end of February. The super-talented Melly is looking for some new DT members to join her, so if you're interested check out this post for details.

Ooooh! How exciting!

Love 'n' hugs,
Mel xx