Dream Valley Challenge 47 - Christmas

Hiya!

Happy Christmas!!!!

I'm in a lovely festive mood today.... I've been shopping for some Christmas goodies this morning, we baked gingerbread men yesterday and my son is constantly playing with a little penguin that sings "Have yourself a merry little Christmas". It's really cute at the moment but I expect it will wear thin by the end of the day!

Anyway, it's just the sort of day to be starting Dream Valley's month long Christmas challenge!

This is my offering:

I have used my favourite papers that I've bought this Christmas from Papermania. Love 'em! And then added a LOTV die cut square (well, it was, until I cut it into a circle!) - I bought plenty of these in advance to get myself a little ahead for the festive season :-)

And then went a little nuts distressing them all! Quite pleased with the results for such a quick card!

Don't forget to pop over to Dream Valley to join in all the festive fun :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 46 - Non traditional Christmas

Hiya,

Sorry, just a quick post today for Dream Valley cos I'm going Christmas shopping! :-)

Our challenge this time is non-traditional Christmas which I took to mean non-traditional colours so I've put aside my usual red, green and gold and gone for a more wintery blue and white scene:

I did the reflection of the reindeer by stamping onto acetate, lining up with the original and pressing down. The hills were made with distress inks and highlighted with glitter glue.  Hope you like it!

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 45 - Anything Goes!

Hiya!

I'm back with another DT card for Dream Valley! Our challenge this time is the ever-popular:

ANYTHING GOES!

Absolutely anything you like :-) I love this challenge - we always get so many fab entries - can't wait to see them!

I've done an anniversary card using a gorgeous image from LOTV called The Little Things. I love it - it's so sweet :-) I've got these new papers that I was desperate to use (the name escapes me at the moment - sorry!) so I've coloured the image in mostly greys with just a hint of pink. I'm quite pleased with the results :-)

I'm still quite caught up in our last challenge (glitter and bling) so I glittered it to within an inch of its life, and then covered it in hearts cos I was desperate to use my new nesting heart dies too :-)

Hope you like!

Please pop over to Dream Valley and see what the rest of the DT have made - they're gorgeous!

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 44 - Glitter and Bling!

Oooops! Apologies - I forgot to schedule my post for yesterday so this is a little later than it should be! Sorry!

This is of course my latest DT card for Dream Valley and we're looking a for a little bit of Sparkle and Bling to cheer us up now the weather is cold and the nights are drawing in :-)

I've been in a really Christmassy mood so although I had every intention of sitting down and making a cute little girly card, this Christmas card just kind of happened :-)

I bought some Lili of the Valley die cut, pre-coloured images to help give me a bit of a head start on my Christmas cards as, yet again, I didn't make them during the year as I was supposed to!

I love this ribbon.... :-)

And these snowflakes that I covered in sparkle.....

I hope you can join us with your lovely sparkley creations :-) Please pop over to Dream Valley and check out all the gorgeous glittery creations my team mates have made!

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 43 - Halloween

Hiya!

My littl'un, Charlie, and I have had sooo much fun with this weeks challenge at Dream Valley :-) There was no way Charlie was going to leave me in peace to make a card this week so I decided to make my DT offering a little more kid friendly!

Our theme for this challenge is:

HALLOWEEN!

Charlie loves helping me bake and it's been ages since I've made "proper" cakes (since I joined Slimming World three months ago I've lost 1 stone 3 pounds!!!) I took inspiration from some cute little biscuits a friend showed me at The Decorated Cookie.  So these are our spooky googly eyed halloween cakes:

Some close-ups.....

The purple and green icing are coloured ready to roll stuff from Hobbycraft and then we drew the eyes on with writing icing. So simple but very cute :-) Unfortunately, I don't think there'll be any left for Halloween so I might just have to make some more!!! What a shame :-)

Anyway, don't forget to pop over to Dream Valley for the fab spooky creations from the rest of the DT!

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 42 - Go Pink!!!

Hiya!

It's time for a new challenge over at Dream Valley!

This time we'd love you to

Go Pink!!!!

to raise awareness for Breast Cancer.... We want to see just how much pink you can cram into one creation!

I've used a fab image from Saturated Canary called Boobie Love :-) 

Here's a close-up....

Hope you like it!

Don't forget to pop over to Dream Valley to see what the other girls made. Can't wait to see all the entries :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 41 - Celebrations

Hiya!

It's time for another challenge at Dream Valley and this time we want you to share your Celebrations with us :-) What a fab challenge! I love this one :-) It could be a birthday, wedding, anniversary... There's loads to choose from but what could be more of a celebration than a new baby???

Paul's work colleague and his partner have recently welcomed their new little bundle into the world and this is the card I made for them....

The image and sentiment are, of course, LOTV and then I personalised it with a little bit I printed myself.

The papers are from the Tatty Teddy range - gorgeous for little ones :-)

Please pop over to Dream Valley and find out what the rest of the DT are celebrating :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 40 - Something old, something new

Hiya!

I'm back with another DT card for Dream Valley. Our challenge this time is:

Something Old, Something New!

It was my lovely Mom's birthday this week (and, no! She isn't my something old!!!) and this is the card I made for her. A bit different from my usual style but I'm still enjoying the distress inks and inspiration that my good pal Stacey gave me :-)

My "something new" is of course my distress inks and then the gorgeous willow twigs stamp from Inkylicious (currently reduced - go and have a look!). I added a few dots of sparkle which you can see better here:

My "something old" is the "Mum" stamp which is one of papermania's relations stamps. I've had them for ages - so useful.... They've got all the "-in-law" and "step-" bits too which make them even more flexible :-)

Right, I'd better sort out the rest of the kids' school uniforms. George starts back on Wednesday and then Charlie starts nursery next week! He's too small!!! But look at this gorgeous piccie though - he can't wait to start!

Awwww! My baby!!! :-)

Right, don't forget to pop over to Dream Valley and check out all the other "Something old, something new" inspiration!

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 39 - Steam Punk

Hiya!

Hope you are all well :-)

It's time for another challenge at Dream Valley.  Our challenge this time is:

STEAM PUNK

To be honest I've been dreading this challenge as I really haven't a clue! It's a fair distance from my usual style but I guess that's the point of a challenge, isn't it!

Here is my offering:

The image is called Steampunk Josephine and colouring her was probably the easiest part of this card! I have no steam punk style papers, embossing folders or dies cos it's not really my thing.... and I wasn't going to buy anything that I was unlikely to use again so I called upon my pal Stacey who does some fab demos at my local craft shop and she introduced me to some new techniques using distress inks so I could make my own background instead of buying papers!

I applied a couple of different shades of ink to my base card with sponges, sprinkled it with a little water and left it to dry.....

I then used a text stamp from Inkylicious in the lighter shade of ink.....

And then it was just layering on my other bits and bobs. The clock stamp only cost £1 from hobbycraft, so I didn't mind that. I cut the cog free-hand (yes! Free-hand! It took aaaaages!) from silver card, the gold wire and pearls were from one of the buttonholes from my wedding, and then a few brads and the image.....

Here's a close up of the image.....

Please pop over to Dream Valley and have a look at the beautiful creations the rest of the DT have made. They obviously didn't struggle quite as much as I did! :-)

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 38 - Die cuts and punches

Hiya!

I'm back from a lovely rainy week in a tent for another challenge from Dream Valley and this challenge is all about

Die Cuts and Punches!

I love this challenge :-) A chance to get out my lovely nesties and border punches.....

The image is Love Grows from LOTV - perfect for an anniversary card!

The rest of the DT have produced some beautiful creations so please pop over and have a look!

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 37 - Summer!

Hi, Everyone!

What a perfect day for Dream Valley's new challenge - Summer!!!

I hope you've got the gorgeous weather I'm enjoying at the moment :-) I spent the morning at the park with Paul and the boys, teaching George to ride his bike without stabilisers! He's doing really well.... A bit more practice and he'll be there :-)

Any, my card.....

I've used three stamps from Little Claire's Designs. Here's a close-up....

A bit of ribbon, some punched flowers and butterflies and that's it. A nice, simple, summery card :-)

Right, I'm going to take a nice, cold drink into the garden to watch the boys play.... I love summer!

Love 'n' hugs,

Dream Valley Challenge 36 - Anything but square

Hiya!

Before I go any further I just want to say a big HELLO! to my new followers :-) I'm so chuffed to have you on board and absolutely thrilled to have made it to 100 followers! Woohoo! Thank you so much :-)

I'm back for another Dream Valley challenge. Our challenge this time is for

ANYTHING BUT SQUARE!

I wanted to do something a bit different for this and with the end of the school year approaching I decided to make the thank you cards for George and Charlie's teachers in the shape of apples!

I made a template and used it to cut the actual card and then the patterned paper to stick on top. I made the stalk and leaf the same way and then added some faux stitching with the fine nib of a brush marker

I personalised each card with the teacher's name cut using my sizzix alphabet die set on my big shot and added a bit more faux stitching....

I've only got the pictures of Mrs Mistry's card here at the moment but I hope to upload the others later - possibly while watching the Wimbledon Men's Final (Go, Murray!!!!!) and eating the strawberries we picked on our family outing this morning :-)

Edited to add:

Here is the piccie of the others as promised....

Murray is currently one set up and battling hard for the second - come on, Murray! :-)

Hope you all have a lovely day!!!

Love 'n' hugs,

Christmas in July

Hiya,

My efforts for building my Christmas card supply during the year have not quite materialised as I'd hoped but I have managed to start earlier than previous years (not that I expect to be adding to it for a while - I'm not that organised!) So here is my first Christmas card of the year......

I used one of the gorgeous LOTV die cut squares that I bought in an effort to avoid the last minute rush this year and the sentiment is LOTV too. A nice quick card - the only thing that took any time was waiting for the glitter to dry! :-)

Back again soon!

Love 'n' hugs,

Happy birthday, Nic!

Hiya!

Today is my lovely sister's birthday (Happy birthday, Nic!!!!) so here is the card I made for her:

It's been ages since I coloured a Tilda and I really enjoyed it :-) The sentiment is one of my new ones from LOTV. The papers are some new loose ones I bought from a lovely day out with a pal in the pouring rain last week. You remember all the thunder and lightning and flash flooding??? I was out shopping in it! The lovely man in the shop gave me a zip-lock plastic bag so my papers didn't get wet - bless him!

Right, I'm not feeling very well this afternoon (nothing serious - just a bit bleurgh...) so I'll leave it there....

Love 'n' hugs,

And a bit of cake decorating....

Well this is it!

A week's worth of posts in one sitting and this is my last offering. I promised you something different and here it is:

I'm sure you've heard me talk about my good pal, Yvonne, before. We used to teach Science together.... Then we crafted together.... Then she helped me plan my wedding.... And now we're decorating cakes!

We had such a laugh! We giggled and swirled and splodged and licked our fingers for six hours straight.....

We just wanted a try at some different techniques to see what we could do.... and what we couldn't!

There are some success stories and some... erm... not-so-successful stories! To be fair though, the middle one in the top row was just using up the last of the buttercream in the piping bags!

One of my faves - I just scribbled with some icing.... The scribble was actually a pale blue colour. Tip for next time - add more colour!

Hopefully I'll be back again soon!

Love 'n' hugs,