What have I been up to....

....while I've been missing from blogland???

Just a few easel cards......

The first was for my son Marc who turned 16 (eek!) on Tuesday :-) I found this digi image from Bugaboo stamps which really isn't too far from what he's actually like :-) and then combined it with a big "16" cut from a freebie background paper from Bearly Mine Designs. The gingham paper is from Crafts Too. Silver swirls, some brads and a charm... ooooh and those lovely letter tile stamps I got on ebay:

Challenges for Marc's "16" card:

Creative Inspirations - Digi Day

Moving along with the times - Anything goes

ABC challenge - T is for Trouble

I tried a similar approach for this 50th birthday card but I wasn't as pleased with the results:

The image is one of Clare Curd's, It's a Man's World clear stamps. The party popper is in the set too :-) The papers are Just Chillin' from Making Memories and the stars are Quickutz nesting stars. A bit of faux stitching to try to make it stand out a bit more but still not enough, methinks...

Challenges for 50th birthday card:

Let's ink it up - Show us your stitching

Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Fun and Games

And then this is for my sister's wedding anniversary this weekend:

An unused Forever Friends stamp until now - naughty, naughty! Stamped the image onto textured card to see what the effect was like and really quite like it :-) The papers are papermania's Summer Bloom. I used the Xcut lacey heart border punch and a sizzix swirl. The sentiment was a stamp I got from ebay - love it!

And just so you can see the glittery bits.....

Challenges for anniversary card:

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Pink, cream and brown

Totally Gorjuss - Bling it on

Wags 'n' Whiskers - Use a die or a punch

Are you fed up of me now???? I hope not cos I'll be back on Sunday with my DT card for the latest Dream Valley Challenge :-)

See you soon!

Love 'n' hugs,

Huge apologies and hugs....

Hiya....

I just wanted to apologise for my lack of posts recently..... The kids have been off school and then there's been Easter and dishwasher hell.... It was supposed to make life easier but so far it's a nightmare! It's finally installed now so I've only got plastering and painting to do.... oh and fix the stair gate, repair my wing mirror and get the leak fixed... Believe it or not, all those things are dishwasher related - you really don't want to know! All in all I'm feeling a little like this:

And whenever I get on the computer to visit your lovely blogs, wierd stuff keeps happening. Different fonts out of nowhere.... different page layouts.... right website but wrong icons..... and then it'll freeze for no apparent reason until I lose my patience! So I've cleared stuff, deleted stuff, defragmented and virus scanned in the hope that all would be better. Let's wait and see!

I have made cards that I need to post on here but of course the camera battery is flat so no chance tonight. I'm going to see how many blogs I can visit before the computer freezes again. If I haven't been to see you yet, I'm on my way! :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Birthday wishes.....

Hiya!

It's not very often I do a card "just because" these days but this is one of those times :-) Yeah! I got to play with all the pretty, girly stuff I've got in my collection.....

Charlie, my 2 year old, did "help" me a little bit so there are extra flowers in the top left corner to cover a little colouring he added (don't look too close!) - at least it matched the colour scheme!

I had a go at cropping my image to try to get rid of the background I always have but I think the picture looks a bit washed out now - what do you think? Maybe I need to spend a bit of time playing with it....

A close up so you can see all the glitter on her wings.....

I used:

Image - Magnolia

Sentiment - Daisy and Dandelion

Promarkers, glitter glue

Nesties

Punches - Xcut lacey heart border, Xcut butterfly, Woodware large daisy, Xcut small daisy

Sizzix decorative swirl #2

Ribbon and pearls - stash

Brush marker for doodling

Challenges:

Just Magnolia - Happy Birthday

A Gem of a Challenge - Pearls and Swirls

Sketch Saturday - Fab sketch

That's all for now. Hoping to spend a little time in my allotment this afternoon.... Thankyou to those of you who have been kind enough to visit and leave me a little comment. It really makes my day :-) Back soon. Have a fab day!

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 5 - Easter

Hiya!

It's time for another challenge over at Dream Valley. This time the challenge is all about Easter and we've been sponsored by Stitchy Bear. The DT were given some fab images to play with. The image I've used is Easter Egg Lillie and you can find her here.

I coloured her with promarkers and layered up the egg to give a more 3D effect. I cut it out with my nesties and sponged ink through the die to give the grass and sky effect. Oodles of glitter glue - can you see it? I never seem to get it across in my piccies very well!!!!

I used:

Image - Easter Egg Lillie, Stitchy Bear

Promarkers, glitter glue

Papers - Pink Petticoat,Vintage Rose

Letter stickers - Yellow Moon

Sentiment stamp - Daisy and Dandelion

Nesties

Border punch - Leafy lace, Xcut

Gems - stash

Challenges:

Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Easter

Sketch 'n' stash - Fab sketch, new stash: image and papers, neglected stash: letter stickers

A spoon full of sugar - All creatures great and small

Creative inspirations - Easter

CRAFT - Easter

Now, I know I've not been around much this past week. I hope you'll forgive me! It's the Easter hols and my little cherubs are at home so I'm spending a lot of my time at the park keeping them entertained :-) I'm afraid it's likely to be the same next week too, so please bear with me. But I still have cards that need making and they'll all need to go on my blog at some point so do keep your eyes peeled :-)

I've also been keeping my family out of mischief on my allotment..... If you want to see what we've been up to, please pop along and have a look at my allotment blog. Check out the early piccies. Such a change!

Better be off. Things to do! Such a busy girl :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

A little thankyou....

Hiya!

Hope you're all enjoying the gooorgeous weather that I'm enjoying at the moment.... Just a quick post today cos I'm off to the park with my littl'uns again :-)

I'm absolutely rubbish at CAS but I thought I'd have another go:

My pal and Dream Valley teamie Jack recently made me some goooorgeous jewellery - please take a look. It's a stunning set and this card was to say thankyou. I wish I'd done as good a job as Jack did on the jewellery!

A close up of the image....

I used:

Image - From The Range

Promarkers

Ribbon and gem - Stash

Brush marker for faux stitching

Challenges:

The ABC Challenge - R is for Ribbon

Crafty Cardmakers - Recipe: Yellow, ribbon, stitching and gems

PaperPlay - Critters galore (does the bird count?)

CRAFT - Animals/pets (again, I hope the bird counts...)

Saturday Challenge - Our feathered friends (there's definitely a bird there!)

Don't forget there's still time to enter the Things with Wings Challenge over at Dream Valley....

Hope you all have a sunny day!

Love 'n' hugs,

For my little boy....

Hiya!

It's the school holidays so I've had a bit of a leisurely get up this morning (as leisurely as you can when you've got two small children running around getting stuck in places and demanding more toast!) so I've managed to grab a few minutes on the computer to get this card posted.

It was my youngest son, Charlie's 2nd birthday on Monday and this is the card I made for him:



I wish I'd taken a close-up of the circle sentiment - it says "hugs and kisses just for you" and was a fab freebie from Sentiments 4 You. The dragon is a digi called Augustus the Dragon but I've got no idea where I got him from - if anyone could help me out, I'd appreciate it!

I used:

Image - Augustus the Dragon

Circle sentiment - Sentiments 4 You

Text sentiment - Computer generated

Promarkers

Papers - Daisy and Dandelion Picnic Patch

Scalloped cardstock

Nesties

Buttons and ribbon - Stash

Challenges:

Totally Gorjuss - Fab sketch

Whoopsi Daisy - Springtime

Pollycraft - Old/neglected stamp/image

Simon Says Stamp - Spring colours/Easter

Creative inspirations - Punches and/or dies

CRAFT - Animals/pets (does fictional count???)

And then I just wanted to share with you the Easter bonnet I made for George for his Easter Parade yesterday. It took nearly 6 hours! Mainly because I had to sew on most of the pieces because the glue wouldn't stick :-(

The lettuces were made by scrunching and layering circles of tissue paper and the carrots are rolled up tissue paper with frayed green tissue paper attached to the top for leaves. The sign was computer generated and then cut out using nesties labels 8, I think (maybe 7? Need to check!) with ink sponged through the die to look like grass/sky. You can see a few of the little creatures I added but there are ladybirds, snails, dragonflies and butterflies all the way round. And some naughty little rabbits stealing his veggies :-) I loved making it!

 Now I need to go and update my allotment blog too! Getting there.... slowly..... :-)

 

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 4 - Things with Wings

Hiya!

It's time for a fab new challenge over at Dream Valley and this time it's all about Things with Wings :-)

Our sponsor is One Stop Card Crafts with a prize of £10 to spend in their shop - woohoo!

I expect most of you already know it was my birthday this week and I was given oodles of crafty goodies from my gorgeous friends and family - and then I was lucky enough to win some yummy candy from Di's Digi Downloads so I had some fab stuff to choose from for making my Things with Wings card......

I picked this sweet Fairy Doodles image from Buzzcraft (you can just make out the glittery pink hearts on the left-hand side):

...and added LOADS of glitter :-).....

I used:

Image - Fairy Doodles, Buzzcraft

Sentiment - Clare Curd

Papers - Pink Petticoat, Vintage Rose

Promarkers, glitter glue

Butterfly Xcut punch

Xcut Lacey Heart Border Punch (for little glittery hearts)

Sizzix Decorative Swirl #2

Roses and pearls from Di's Digi Downloads candy win

Challenges:

ABC Challenge - R is for Roses

Simon Says Stamp - Domi's sketch

Passion for Promarkers - Bugs

Secret Crafter - Butterflies

Don't forget to pop over to Dream Valley for some gorgeous inspiration from the other DT members. The entries for our other challenges have been FAB! Can't  wait to see what you all make this time :-)

Love 'n' hugs,