Sunday 28 February 2010

Mega Prima candy for 2 lucky people...

...and  there's a big secret being kept too. There is something big coming our way from Prima but all those in the know have been sworn to secrecy, but to keep us happy till we find out more we can enter a special draw for some mega candy worth $100, with 2 winners one from the USW and one international so everyone has a chance , ain't that fab. Pop over to Lorraines for a bit more info and how to enter and be in with a chance, you have to be fast though as the deadline is sunday evening or night not sure on the time so hurry!Here's what you could win!

Friday 26 February 2010

Spring ...where? and missed deadlines

I am so fed up with life messing up my craft time and missing deadlines when I do manage to make a card for a challenge. It's mostly down to sending emails and making telephone calls for school work and organising how Andrew will be sitting his exams next week, him not able to go into school and all that. There seems to be no communication between ny of the teachers even in the same department. Don't get me wrong they are all helpful when I speak to them individually but I am getting so fed up of repeating myself , sending emails of explanation and then having to explain again. I thought teachers were suppose to have some common sense but which part of 'I don't know when Andrew will be back at school as I don't know when he can weight bear as that is up to his consultant and if enough bone has grown to support all the plates and screws he now has in his ankle. When I find out I will let you know'. I have decided I must be speaking a foreign language.
Please understand I'm not getting at teachers in general( sorry if you are one) and I understand it is probably out of concern for Andrew keeping up his studies but it is just getting a little frustrating now.

Enough ranting and apologies too as I am suppose to be posting a card aren't I.

Well this card I made is for my mum in law and had to be posted as she lives in Tenerife and the last card took 2 weeks to get there. Whilst making it I decided to incorporate a few challenges  some of which I know I have missed the deadline for but will mention anyway.

The first was last weeks Charisma challenge which I did the layout from their sketch, definitely one to use again,must find time to scibble it into my inspiration book.

The next was MAWTT, which had a theme of mum, the deadline I have also missed.

Crafty Ho a new challenge blog has a theme of spring, their deadline is today but not sure of the cut off time so I might just scrape in, we'll have to see.

Magical crafts fortnightly challenge also have a theme of for mum, so I might manage one mum challenge after all.

The cute little mouse is a Penny Black of course and their challenge was to use pink,yellow and green and I might be lucky enough to make their deadline as I think but am not 100% sure it's tomorrow.

Quirky cards have a challenge that I can enter this card for( doing better than I thought), it is simply cute so I think this card can count for that challenge.

Digital ink co, have an unusual challenge theme. They would like a card that has a PEACE theme, either your hope for world peace,what gives you peace or what peace means to you. Well I can think of nothing more peaceful than a warm lazy summers afternoon blowing dandilion clocks, preferably not in my garden as I really hate weeding and dandilions are so hard to get out! Hope this counts as I at the mo with all these challenges am begining to feel more positive about life, just got to stop waking up at 4am every morning for no reason.

Lexi's creations have a challenge I can enter too, anything goes, so I can certainly enter that. Lexi also has a treasure hunt on for a free digi, I would like to say thank you to Lexi for my free image and sorry for my dimness you must have felt like it was teeth pulling, but thank you for the image and I really will try and get a card made with it eventually.Why not pop over and play to reasure Lexi that not everyone is as thick as me.

Finally buty by no means least, I have just found another mother's day challenge over at Paperplay, so I will enter that one too.Hope you all have a good day and thankyou for allowing me to share.

Sunday 21 February 2010

Spring for mum

I can't believe its mothers day on the 14th of March and that its only a couple or 3 weeks away, and yet we are still having snow , daffodils are poking up , how confused is mother nature?

Well getting the first of my mothers day cards made and brightening up my desk as I sit looking at it and then at all the snow outside, I know which I prefer. Spring and thats the theme at Stamp something...a touch of spring, and it really is only a touch, if you look outside.

I love promarkers also have a spring theme and a fab layout that I really enjoyed using too, though I've varied where I put the embellishments a little and did move the text as it just didn't look right under the image, hope they don't mind.

ABC have a theme O is for one paper and I just used one background paper so I can enter their challenge too.

Passion for promarkers have a free colour challenge but want buttons and bows adding. Well buttons I have in abundance as there is the heart button and the 3 daisies are buttons too but I hope they will still let me enter as I only managed one bow but did use 3 different ribbons, does that still count please.

Quixotic have a straight forward challenge this week , create a card for mum so I think a mothers day card will count.

Secret saturday craft challenge are a bit more specific as they want an actual mother's day card so I can enter their challenge too.

Crafty catz have a theme of bear and a charm, well my image includes a bear so I was half way there but the charm was a problem as I have boats, planes, cars, trees but no girly charms ( will have to do something about that when I see some). I had to improvise , so I found this cute butterfly button and got out my glass beads, I think it works ok, does it count as a charm?

Allsorts have a straight forward challenge this time too, they want you to tag it , label it or use a ticket. Well I put my sentiment on a tag so hopefully that will be enough to count for their challenge.

finally but by no means least, Totally Gorjuss have a flower power theme this week. I think I have one or two flowers on my card, daisies on the background and daisy buttons too, hope these count, I know they arent posh prima flowers and the like but they are still flowers.

I can't belive my card covers so many challenges, well as I am supposedly only up here to clean my teeth I suppose I best pop back downstairs and then I can sneek another few mins later to put my pics on the posts and get them published... see you later.

sketch the art and something new

There is a new challenge called Sketch the art and it has a different kind of theme, it asks you to base your card on one of the paintings of a well known artist. Their first theme is Van Goughs Stary night and you can interpret it any way you like.

I decided to experiment with a brayer that I have had in my craft draw for ages so long I can't actually remember buying it and shame on me I have never used it, so I decided this was the time. I thought I would use this silhoette stamp in the forground relating to the black in the painting and then do yellow and blue brayer over white swirls I tried to draw with a white and a clear sakura pen.  I embossed the moon with moon glow moonpearls embossing powder covered with clear and then used the brayer, yellow first then blue. The blue totally obliterated the yellow which I couldn't get a smooth line on and the swirls were horrid!

Back to the drawing board. This time I decided to colour the moon in yellow sakura  covered with the clear sakura and drew dotty swirl patterns and then brayered in blue. I love how the brayer gives such a smooth even finish and decided that even though I had obviously missed bits on the moon it actually made the moon look more realistic. So here's my take on Van Goghs stary night. I thought mounting it on cream pearlised card worked well and the simplicity doesn't distract from the drama of the blue .

The new technique came in useful too as Our Creative corners challenge this week is to try a new technique so I guess I can enter that challenge too.

Saturday 20 February 2010

Sickly sweet pink?

Oh what ever posessed me to do a pink based card, well actually I decided to make a concerted effort to use up bits out of my scrap folder on all my cards until I've reduced it. I'm not saying no new papers but I am trying to use something from my scrap folder each time. Unfortunately after I'd coloured my gorjuss girl I didn't have any purple scraps so that had to be new, which meant I had to find co-ordinating scraps which just really left pink, oranges and yellows I think might have clashed a bit...maybe I should try it????

Well anyway. Over at sugar nellie challenge they have a fab sketch plus you have to use 1 button, 2 brads and 3 flowers. My flowers are off a little spring posie I got from hobby craft last weekend, it was marked up at £2.99 which I didn't think was bad for all those flowers but at the till it got better as it rang up at £1-99, bargin as my sis would say.

The button is quite obviously a button nothing fancy, well it is me . The brads I wasn't sure where I was going to put them until I found these gorgeously shiney purple triangular brads and they were purfect for the triangle corners, well I thought so. Actually in comparison to the fab DT cards mine is actually quite plain but I suppose that just reflects me as I'm not very fussy in style even hough I admire those clever crafters who make such beautiful works of art. I suppose it could also be my excuse for not being clever enough to make those works of art myself, hey ho never mind.
Right off to get some hopping done and maybe a little creating before the boys get up, hubby was up late watching the olympics , which I kept getting disturbed by so must have been exciting and Andrew asked not to be got up early so a little bit more time for me to do my thing undisturbed....hopefully.

Hope you all have a good day and weekend just in case I don't get to pop back, thanks for visiting.

Spring mischief , unless you're the gardener.

I found this freebie digital stamp on a link on Claudia Pretty Pressings site. She makes some beautiful cards with motivet stamps and they have some fab sketches but you have to use a motivet image, which I don't have well until I found this digi. I'm not really into digi images, don't get me wrong I do use them and have a few of the freebies and some I've won and I think the idea behind the and their versatility cannot be denied, but it's just not the same ar a rubber stamp.

Anyway having this digi means that I can enter the Motivet challenge and its such a beautiful layout. I thought on first looks I wouldn't like it as it had alot on there but I really love the finished card and it is likely to be a layout I use again.

While I was colouring in the cat, I was trying to decide what colours to do the flower, my inital instincts were white as I love daisies and then pink as I decded it looked a bit like the oesteoperium I think thats what they are called I have in my garden (providing they have survived all this cold and snow). Then I saw the mini daffodill flowers coming up in my front garden as I looked through the window and for some reason that made me decide on african marigolds. My colour scheme was set.

I then realised there were a coulpe of challenges on at the moment with the theme of spring or spring colours so I decided I would complete the card with those in mind.

The first being A spoonful of sugar whose theme is springtime, the next YNS want spring colours so hopefully I can enter both of these. There is another spring challenge around but they have their own sketch so thats another spring card to do, it's one way to bring it closer and yesturday was beautiful but very cold but in my kitchen I have some spring flowers and when the sun shone on them and they started to warm up if I closed my eyes with their wonderful scent I could belive it really was spring,

Thursday 18 February 2010

Red daisies

Forever friends just seem to be timeless don't they?
Well I've not added text on this card yet as I've not decided if it will be anniversary  or birthday yet, but I think it might well be more anniversary don't you?

This card again only took me 20 minutes to do and that inculded climbing under my desk for one of the promarkers I dropped , having to move all my paper files at that.

The card actually qualifies for a few challenges and I like that although I do usually start with just one or 2 in mind, the layout and colours, everything else just seems to fall into place, well most of the time anyway.

The first challenge was for the colours of red white and black over at KL stampin n scrappin, which led me to the hearts theme as I love red black and white together they make such a statement and are good for mens cards too.

The hearts led to the forever friends challenge which is hearts suprisingly enough, and I used confetti hearts as I didn't have any heart paper but red and hearts just seemed to define each other.

Using confetti for my background meant I could enter the challenge at Die cuts r us where the challenge is no designer paper.

The layout well thats from the challenge at just cute bears and as I'd used a bear it just seemed perfect.

Finally Totally Gorjuss have a theme of  LOVE and I think my card says that, but it feels so wrong entering their challenge without using a gorjuss girl but when time constraints pinch beggars can't be choosers can they, so I hope they don't mind as much as I do.
Well here's my card, I hate having to take pictures in artifical light when its dark, but spring is coming thank goodness, it will be so much easier to get up in a morning.

Sweet and simple for a boy

I managed 2 cards yesturday in less than an hour, I couldn't belive it, all I can think is I knew exactly what I wanted to do for them and had them already made in my head. I will do 2 separate posts so I don't get confused as I seem to do that quite easily of late, perhaps its all the trying to keep Andrew occupied and in a hapy frame of mind, which I'm managing most of the time. Hopefully my parents will come again for lunch on sunday as it makes the day seem longer and gives Andrew different company, they are coming today so I can take mum shopping and Andrew gets to spend time with his Granddad. Today Andrew is planning on them watching a dvd, as dad brought him the  first of the first 24 series which he was obviously too young to watch it when it was aired but has really got into this series.

Well enough waffle, my first card. Initally this was a card for the challenge at cards for men who wanted a predominantly green card. I decided that I couldn't do everything green so the cream dot paper just breaks it up a little and keeps it looking clean, well thats what I think.

ICS had a lovely simple layout that I rotated but in my minds eye it was just what I needed as it allowed me to keep the lines clean and simple, my kinda card, simple like melol.

Cupcake crafty challenge want to keep it simple with their #78 challenge and as thats what I had in mind with this card its as if the challenge was made just for my card,I know it wasn't.

Papertake weekly wanted us to check- sorry use checks so I can enter their challenge with my squiggly line green and blue checks.

Now I'm getting quite into this stitching but as yet haven't quite cleared enough space on my desk for my sewing machine. I keep looking for one of those little one that use to be advertised for about £20 for doing hems and things as I figure that would be the perfect size for my cluttered desk, well it always looks cluttered ,it just has my pens, glues , tapes, and things I use all the time on.I just don't have alot of spare room and I can't get a bigger desk as the rooms not big enough.Anyway there are 2 challenges this week who would like us to use stitching, the first is Sophisticats and the other is Crafty Creations.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Vintage lady

I don't normally manage to do vintage and I suppose if I'd done some distressing it might look more vintage but I have real difficulty in bringing myself to damage beautiful papers, tearings about the most I can do without feeling guilty. I love this lady stamp ,it's from a set I got a couple of years ago from the stamp man I think it's a non sequitere (sorry about the spelling) set 1920's it also has an elegant ladt on it some fab shoes and other bits great for vintage backgrounds.

The card I used the layout from basic grey and some basic grey papers from the  nook and pantry set along with a paper ribbon, they all work so well together. I must say some of the designs I can't see myself using , so it's lucky there seems to be a design I like on the reverse of those I'm not keen on. The pearls and swirl thing I got from hobby craft when I escaped for a couple of hours last saturday afternoon while the boys watched rugby. I do feel sorry for Andrew as it's a 2 people job to get him out of the house so we don't bang his leg so he hasn't been out since we got back from the hospital. He is feeling so fed up and frustrated again and was quite down. When there has been 2 of us around to be able to get him out and back in the weather has been awful and I don't think taking him out in the cold too long would be good for his foot, as he use to say he could feel the cold in the screws in his left foot so now he has more in his right foot I think he would feel it even more especially when  new nerves will be getting sensitive down there. Pancakes with chocolate cheered him up a bit though last night just hope todays a bit better. Sorry I digress as usual.

Allsorts have an unusual challenge this time, a recipe of 3,2,1, but you get to choose what the 3,2,1 is. I will enter my card with 3 different kinds of embellishments,2 different papers or main colour you can choose and 1 paper ribbon or image again you can choose. I think it's only fair Allsorts have a choice when they gave us  a choice.


Simon says has a new challenge too this morning, to use 3 different embellishments, 2 patterned papers and one image, I can't believe my card ticks all the boxes what luck, so off i go to enter,theres a blog hop too!
Finally I would like to tell you about the DT call Amy of Amy's Paper Romance has out, she is looking for a new DT and the closing date is 20th feb announcements on 22nd, and I will be submitting this card as part of my application for the DT. If you fancy applying here's the link.
What's more Amy has candy too, just look what you could win and there's a fab in store offer.







Anyway I'm off to check out blog land and if time pemits in the next hour do a little crafting before another day begins. Thankyou for ppping by.

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Forget Love!

Well Valentines day over for another year, and I'm sure this will be the sentiment of many ... I know it would be my sister as although she has a partner of many years, though he keeps asking her to cut out the chocolate it falls on deaf ears. I can't see why chocolate is that wonderful, it tastes ok but give me migranes if I eats any amount and one square or continental and I get a headache so I usually take my chocolate with a couple of paracetamol.

Well I've had these sentiments sat on my desk for what seems like forever, I did buy them with my sister in mind but so far have only used one for her. I usually send her an odd card when she's been busy at work or a bit under the weather, I think it's much nicer than a text and she never answers he phone as she's usually out if not working or in bed as she's on night cover. 

Simon says has a theme 'What's love got to do with it?' and I was trying to decide how to interpret this theme, when I saw these sentiments and this one just jumped at me. Well what has love got to do with it when chocolates around, so I am entering that challenge if nothing else it might make the Simon says team smile. Oh and in case you don't fancy joining in there's a fab prize, $25 to spend and a load of fab goodies from CHA too.

Roses on paper have a colour theme of pink ,brown and cream, so as these are the colours I've used even though my cream is just really accents I think I can enter their challenge. It feels good to have managed to squeeze in some crafting, whilst Andrew is set up on play station conquering different civilisations or something like that. Today he plans some school work so I might not be as lucky.

I love promarkers also had a colour theme of pink and brown, and they also had a layout sketch. I must admit I'm not sure I like this layout for the card I've done very much, I think I might have to try it again with more papers but I just didn't want to cover up the lovely pearl card, my own fault really.

Catch the Bug have a theme of 'go for gold' or a card of encouragement, in honour of the olympics. Now I'm not sure my card would go down well with any nutritionalists as a card of encouragement or anyone trying to loose weight but for anyone who has had a broken heart I'm sure it would encourage them to smile again, if only for a minute. Is this pushing the boundries too much or does it mean I really have got a slanted way of looking at life? I'm not sure I want to know the answer. Well here is my card and well done for getting this far, as a reward go get some chocolate!

Monday 15 February 2010

Card inspired by my mum

You'd think with not having had much tome for crafting over the past few weeks I'd be bursting withb ideas but whenit came to it I couldn't get going. I found this magnolia image half coloured and for some reason thought about my mum. Mum loves autumn and all the fab colours autumn brings and she loves pottering in the garden so thats what I decided to theme my card on.

I started to look through my little note book for a sketch and found this one thaat was for Friday sketches though the challenge deadline is well gone , but I thought the layout was quite nice so decided to use it.

Its been a while since I've made a gate fold card and I'm sure I read a challenge for a fancy fold card, I know its not really that fancy but I did intend ll my card layers interlocking which if I'd manageed to ake it work it would have been really fancy but I didn't quite pull that off without damaging the corners and edges so now it's just a gate fold card.

There are quite a couple of challenges for using ribbons, flowers , buttons and bows around so I think I will enter my card for those . The first is Totally Papercrafts #3 who want buttons and bows. I have 3 little bows on my card and 2 buttons, I cut the shanks off the heart and the watering can, oops 3 the bumble bee is a button too, so thats 3 of each, hope thats enough.

Magnolia down under have a buttons bows and flowers challenge and as I also have 3 flowers on my card along with my buttons and bows I can enter their challenge too.

Creative inspirations have a challenge to use left over scraps and all the bits of card and paper are from my scraps folder, there is even an old envelop in there somewhere, so I guess I can enter their challenge, I seem to be on a roll.

Papercutz #28 have a theme card for a teen and I know I said I had my mum in mind when I made this card but I think a teenage girl might like it so I will enter their challenge too and see what they think.

Stamp something want you to stamp something cute and I love my card and certainly think its cute so I will pop over there too and enter their challenge as well.

Cute Daisy May want us to make bright and cheerful things this time and my card is certainly that so thats another, I can't believe I can enter so many.

Finally and by no means least The Pink Elephant just wants ribbons and as I've used 3 different ribbons I think I can enter their challenge too.


Wednesday 10 February 2010

One today!

|Hi all, I am getting such withdrawls from not having time to craft or visit blogland, tryingto keep my son at his studies. He openly admits I don't have to do much but if I'm not there he will get distracted and wander onto face book or games instead of sticking to his work, so what else can I do? he's worked really well today and finished all we set out to do , so while he's settled on the PS3 for 1/2 an hour I had chance to make a quick card mum asked me for for one of her friends grandson's.

I hadf the idea of having a floating ballon and I think it turned out ok, the balloon has '1 today' written on it and the easel card lends itself really well, well I thought so hope my mum likes it. I thought as its for a little one it didn't want to be too fancy just clean easy to see images that he might beable to recognise.

I used a forever frinds stamp and cut the balloon out freehand and extended the string. The acetate i have to admit is from the lid of a box of christmas crackers, waste not want not, and I thought the little flower brads were just so cute, but I've made sure theyre stuck down well... safety first.

Over at magical crafts fortnightly challenge they want projects for children so I will enter my little friend. I really will have to find time to find some more challenges, well next weeks half term maybe I'll get some more time then who knows.

Monday 8 February 2010

Is less more? (+ Andrew update)

I am so unsure about this card, don't get me wrong I really like it, and I have followed the wonderful layout at Totally Gorjuss, and it is so the clean lines I love, but after doing so many cards with layers and embellishments and finding it so hard as it's justso not me I found this so easy , is less more? Is it ok?

The 3d or pop it up is the challenge theme at Kl  stampin n scappin and it works so well with the gorjuss girls as they really do come to life. You can almost reach out and give her a great big hug and I think it works so well on such a clean simple card.


Andrew today had his stitches out and a new pot put on. We got to see his foot for the first time in 3 weels and it's certainly a different shape. It looks straighter but still looks quite swollen , well hopefully its swelling around his ankle and not just the width of his ankle from all the metal work inside. We still haven't seen his xrays yet as his consultant was away in Bristol, but he has 5 new scards on his foot very close to 3 he already had but all look nice and neat. I jokingly said he would soon have a scar all the way around his foot.Next appointment early march and he will hopefully then start to weight bear, so the doctor said, but he didn't actually say pot off and weight bear, may be I'm just being pesimistic as it wasn't a pleasant trip for me as I was everything that was wrong for Andrew, so glad his dad went with me as today I'm just an antagonist to Andrew so I'm staying out of his way till he's chilled out. I don't mind as he and his Dad are watching a recording of the super bowl so I've tidied up, done a few little chores and can now have some craft and computer time.
I love my son to bits but sometimes I could... well thats teenagers and I bet at one time or another all parents get this frustrated with their children, and I do understand his frustration , but for now it's over and got to stay positive.
For those who think I'm rambling if you read this post it might make more sense, thanks for reading.

Saturday 6 February 2010

Days gone by.

This is another card option for my mum to choose from, this one I did for the sketch and theme of childhood memories at moving along with the times. I keep missing entering their challenges so this week I made a point of actually entering. My brother in law is 51 this year so I tried to work on what kind of things might be his childhood memories.


 I got a skate board off my granddad who worked in a sports shop when they first came out I think I would be 6 or 7 so I reckon my brother in law would be about 12 and might well have had a skate board. It's hard to tell as his family are irish descendents and though my sister met him whilst living in London and he had lived there along time , enough to have a proper southern or Londoners accent he never talks much about his younger days so I don't really know that much about him. He and my sis make a perfect pair, as they want to know everything but if you ask them anything you tend to get one word answers and you feel as if you're prying. The only time they get on a roll is if they are telling you about their holidays and how good it was, better than yours and how cheaply they did it. That makes me sound really catty but I don't mean it like that at all.

Well my card, is a wee boy on a skate board and I fond a piece of this fab backing paper lurking in my bits draw,and thoyught it would work really well with the theme.I coloured him with a mix of promarkers and sakura pens. 

The colour scheme is for the Play date cafes challenge this week of dark blue, dark green, brown and dark brown. I know my backing paper isn't quite those colours but it just worked so well, so please forgive me. The ribbon I love, I found that in my stash too, just an odd length but I wish I knew where from as I love the colours and I thought a button was a more suitable man embellishment.

Moving house?

Well not really house but the guys at Sir Stampalot have just moved into new bigger premises at Peterborough, congrats guys and to celebrate there's a blog hop and challenge with fab prizes , and when I say fab ,you really need to see for yourself. Pop over there's a link HERE or via the thingy on the side bar .

Well as I said there's a challenge and the theme is moving, not just moving house ,if you see the fab DT inspirations you can see just how clever they've been. mine well I just did an ordinary move house card, as it meant I got to play with my new flower soft, which although I have had for quite a while have never plucked up the courage to use it, but I think I could easily get addicted as it gives such a wonderful 3d texture to the card, just got to work out what to use it on.


I suppose as it's new I could enter the ABC challenge of N for new, I was wondering what to use and I suppose I don't have to wonder any more, as I've made my project without realising it.

The challenge for moving is at stamping fantasies so pop along and have some fun.

All blue?

Well my fingers are at any rate, I have had a fab 2 and a half hours just crafting while my 2 are busy computing and gaming so no interuptions, I do love saturdays when that happens.Whats more i feel I have achieved a great deal as I've made 3 cards, so now got to do 3 different post so they can enter various challenges, but better still I've got achoice of cards now for mum to choose from for my brother in law whose birthday is in a couple of weeks.

Well my first card is the blue one that gave me such inky fingers, good job I made this one last really. I thought I would pop back to my comfort zone and keep it clean and simple, I am getting better with the embellishments but I do like my clean lines.

The layout is for challenge #3 at cards for men,it works so well for me as it's a clean line sketch, so I found it so easy to work with, what does that say about me, no don't answer I don't think it would be good,lol!


The sercret saturday craft challenge have a monochrome theme and as mine is blue and white, I think I have done monochromatic to its extreme, no shades ...hope it still counts.

Well that's it for this one if you want more move on up thepage, see ya later.

Friday 5 February 2010

4 squares , so much stress!

When I saw the sugar bowl sketch I imediately thought I knew what I would do, you know when the light goes on and it just seems so clear, I hope it never happens again. I have been making this card for days, knowing my luck I will have missed the deadline it's taken so long.

I thought the 4 squares on the layout just looked like a window and a stamped image behind them would look great, I have been slowly collecting my sugar nellie stamps but don't have that many yet but I must have tried them all. Each one I stamped I cut a window and some vital part was obscured or missing making the image unrecogniseable. I tried different size windows over different bits of image and nothing looked like I wanted it to.

I changed tack and started with the resy of the card and didn't have any real lace so used basic grey paper lace and then I found this funky flowered paper and thought I would use that and then try again.

I cut images into 4 , what a waste and so heart breaking, I didn't want to copy others I'd seen whilst searching for inspiration and use 4 different head images but how could I make it work?

In desparation I looked at some of my cut up images and picked a few and cut them to an even equal size. They aren't all form the same stamped image so there is some overlap of their content and I'm not sure I am totally happy with it but I think it's passable and as it was starting to make my head hurt when I retire to my craft room for respite after getting and keeping Andrew my son motivated and on track with school work whilst he's off school post surgery , I decided to call it quits and hope for the best.

Right I'm off to upload and get disheartened when I look at all the other no doubt fabulous and ingenious interpretations, but I'll keep on trying.

Thursday 4 February 2010

A red card for a red letter day

I never really know what a red letter day is, I always presume its a happy day not one where you get lots of nasty bills etc.

My card is for a neighbours son who will be 14 I think,maybe 1 I'm never 100% sure of the neighbours kids ages I just know roughly so either way I hope it will be ok. He like my son is games mad and he and my son have spent hours in the summer on hand held games thingies sat in the garden playing against one another, very clever and as my son can't run around playing football I always think its very kind and considerate of him.

With this in mind I thought he might like this wee manga boy, which I coloured mostly red as per the theme over at the pixie cottage. I'm sure when they set the theme of pink or red they had more valentine type cards in mind but I thought it would be good for a boy birthday too. I  just thought I've seen him and his dad go to football matches and come to think of it his team colours are red ,white and black , even better.


The layout was from the craftycatz challenge but I'm not sure when the deadline is , but I did have problems working out what to embellish with as per the layout but I think my button works quite well. Hope he likes it and you do too.

Allsorts DT call and fab sketch

I don't know if I'm too late for the DT call over at Allsorts but they have a fab layout sketch. I decided to make a card for our son's godmother whose birthday it is late this month, I can put it up on my blog as I doubt she even knows what blog land is as though she would no doubt love it her hubby isn't very into technology so the last time we visited she was managing with a connection that she had broke the connection on so it was a bit hit and miss. They wee suppose to be getting it fixed but as they are both early retired and have the means they are constantly gadding off somewhere with a better climate, or entertaining guests so never seem to have time to sort it out.
Anyway Pat loves the ballet, and to say I have known her probably nearly 20 years I only learnt of this passion last year. I know that she wanted to be a ballerina when little and apart from her height she has the build, but people of our age as children lots of us wanted to be ballerinas and did ballet lessons, I know I did ballet and tap, and often got into trouble for practicing tap on mums freshly polished tiled kitchen floor as I left silver lines all over it, and I loved tottering around on point. With Pat's love of ballet in mind I thought this stamp would be perfect.
 I colored her a pink tou-tou and the early mornings and artificial light don't show the sickles highlights very well. I continued the pink theme through the papers with pale pink , cream and pink and embossed pink. I finished it off with a bit more sparkle. I know Pat loves pink as on one of the cruises they went on she has a Princess wall plaque in her kitchen and it's pink- proper girly unlike me!

Well as I said Allsorts have a DT call so good look to them finding the right poeple to fit in with their style and team and here's hoping Pat will like her card.

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Sophisticat DT call

Over at Sophisticat they are looking for some more DT members to join their jolly happy bunch. Mandy ( A sprinkling of glitter) recently joined them and they have decided the more the merrier so are looking to add  to their numbers.
 The term is for 13 weeks so if you want to have a chance of joining their team pop over to Lisa's blog here and check out the deets, as I wouldn't want to tell you wrong and scuppa your chances.

You have to as I understand it submit a stamped image completed card topper in either pink,blue and cream, or pink, green and cream. You can add bling, glitter ,flourishes etc but you can't combine with a challenge. Then you put it on a post and link it back to the DT call. How easy is that? So easy I no doubt will get something wrong as per....

Well I had a real bad time trying to decide which stamp to use, let alone which colour scheme, so I thought make one in each colour scheme and let the girls at sophisticatz have a choice.

My first, I used a Sequitere stamp I think thats the name , I got it in a set from the stamp man all art deco 1920's stuff and I adore this stamp. I tried really hard to keep to the colour scheme but my creams took liberties with the hair colour , but I suppose yellow is an extension of cream. I will list the colours of the promarkers I used below. I used pearl plum embossing powder on the corner swirl thingies and cream roses which I got from JTF a couple of years ago and never used, aren't I naughty. I put aceteate over the image which I laid over the image I mounted on more cream card ( which to my dismay did allow the promarkers to bleed a little), just gives a little dimension. I added sakura clear glaze over her eyes, lips and pearls. All ready to pop on a card.

The promarkers I used :-
pale green
soft green
pale pink
cerise
buttermilk
tulip yellow
ivory
blush

My 2nd choice I used the other colour scheme, pink, blue and cream. This one I used my new Edwin stamp and thought it would be different to use pinks to colour a boys image. This one I mounted and layered simply just using an x-cut corner punch on the blue card and round corner punch on the cream crds. The ballon I coloured with sakura glaze as I love the glossy finish just like a real balloon the rest I used promarkers , again I'll list them and just highlighted his eyes ,buttons and shoe rubbers with clear glaze again.  Hope you like them and I quite enjoyed the challenge. I must admit its something I do, make toppers as they are always handy for a quick card and I often think it's the nicest bit of making a card. Thanks for a fab challenge and good luck in finding your new DT members.

The promarkers I used :-
ivory
blush
buttercup
tulip yellow
denim blue
blender
duck egg blue
dusky rose
antique pink
powder blue
arctic blue

I used the blender to take some colour off his turn-ups as if they are the inside of jeans I hope it worked. 

Monday 1 February 2010

DT call and the chance of candy too.

Amy of Amy's Paper Romance is looking for DT members for her new DT team. Wouldn't it be great to be there from the beginning of something new. The term will run from when Amy picks to the 15th June and she will make the announcement on the 22nd february , you have until 2oth to submit your email application. Pop over to Amy's to find out just what you have to do and there is the chance of some candy too.

Pretty pressings special limited WOJ candy

Over at pretty pressings Claudia has some very special candy. Not only do you have the chancer to get your hands on the new more mature Oakley but there is the chance to win a limited edition Willow shopping well thats how I read it, maybe you should pop over and check it out yourself, but here's a little look to send you on your way.