Merry Christmas.

Just a quickie to say a very Happy Christmas to everyone who visits my blog. I've had a busy couple of weeks, but will be back in force in 2009!

Take care...

As promised....

Here are a few cards that I've been making whilst not doing alot of 'owt else.. well, one has to find something to do with their time when the Doc says 'stay warm and take it easy!'. Don't you agree?

This card was made using the FF Stickers, they are just great for quick cards. I remembered the other day I have about 30 cards or so I need to make, so this set has to be quick... I made quite alot the same as this, just different colours. The glitter card is from Craftime - and let me tell you it is AMAZING! The glitter doesn't come off, it's fantastic to glue and it is just sooooo sparkly! Backing papers are Dovecraft I think.

This dark is quite a rich green and didn't photograph all that well, although I'm sure you get the idea.Again, the glitter baubles are craftime. Flowers are Doodlebug and papers are HOTP.

I decided to delve into the drawers and pull out some of last years Papermania Christmas papers for this card. The topper tree is Dovecraft, again from last year. Ribbon is Doodlebug.

Cute doggies.. now there's a suprise! This was a quicky quicky card, using PM papers again from last year. The dogs are a stamp and thought it perfect for me with having three dogs! Image has been coloured with Whispers Strokes pens and then shaded with water.

I love this outline sticker.. it's Anita's and is actually silver! I combined it with the black and silver papers from Papermania. This one fits the Challenge over on Papertake Weekly. This is the brief -

This weeks challenge is to use one colour! You can use shades of the same colour and small accents of other colours if you like! The team have done some gorgeous examples for your inspiration!

This one fits in with the PTW challenge too - shades of red. The papers are DCWV and the flower is Doodlebug. I hope you like it.

This next card I made to go with the Challenge on Cute Card Thursday

Here was the brief -

.Challenge 40

Punches

This week we like you to dust off your punches (not die cuts!) and use them on your cards, you can either punch some borders or corners or use punched out shapes on your cards.

I couldn't resist using the snowflake punch and Dovecraft papers on this card. The stamp was coloured with Whispers pens and waterbrush. The punches I have used are the snowflake and the circle punch. Funnily enough it also fits in with the template challenge on HERE at Friday Sketchers. It's a lovely Sketch that I've used a few times.

Using this template again, I made up this card..

The stamp is a High Hopes stamp, and this was its first outing! Again, for this one, I used punches to create the flower in the top left and the greeting at the bottom. Papers are DCWV.

This card is my favourite this year. I used Dovecraft papers from the Traditional pack. The stamp is Whippersnapper and the cradle at the front is layered up and mounted in front of the main square. Coloured with Whispers pens and water again. I added some sparkles into the sky for the stars.

AND FINALLY....

I have managed to get done my challenge for this week's Forever Friends challenge blog.

The challenge this week is for a card using a Christmas Carol theme.. mine was Deck the Halls..

Hope you have a great Christmas if I don't get back on here before then! Paul is off from tomorrow, and we have quite a few things we need to be getting done... I'm waiting in today for my order from Amazon arriving.. like it should've yesterday!

Have a good 'un..

Sorry I've been AWOL

Finally, I'm feeling a bit better this morning. I've managed to have a good nights sleep and can definately say I'm a little more 'with it'.. I was going to say normal, but I've never been that.. haha.

I started feeling a little ropey last weekend, just a bit full of cold, and this week has been hellish! It's gone straight down onto my chest, leaving me with a chronic cough, feeling very very tired and completely drained of energy.. outta puff, even going from one room to the next.. ! Blimey I felt crap.

At least last night I was only rattling on my chest, not major coughing fits and sneezing, so I did manage to sleep a little easier!

I've got lots of cards to show you later on, I've been plodding on with cards for Christmas amongst other secret things, so can at least upload something when I get them photographed..

See ya later!

Happy new year.. fancy a bit of cake?

No.. I've not lost the plot.. lol.. That's the title of the new challenge over on the Lili of the Valley Challenge Blog this week. There are some lovely cards by the Design Team again, go over and take a look.

Here's my take on this weeks theme.

I used the lovely DCWV Christmas glitter pad to add that little bit of sparkle. The die cut was LOTV and I added 3D gloss to his eyes for a bit of sparkle. The numbers are Papermania.

Now before I forget, I know I've not shown this cake on here..

Quite ingenious eh? It's a Christmas cake that's been stamped with a High Hopes Christmas image.. how do you do that you're asking??

Well.. if you use food colouring instead of inks, (a bit of trial and error with the 'how much to use'), you can stamp on the cake. You need to make sure that the stamp is a clean, never been used before stamp so it's food compatible. You can also colour with the food colouring too..

Anyone fancy a slice?? Well check out the blog HERE for a better look.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree.....

How very very pretty you are!

We put ours up at the weekend, and Martina decided she wanted to have a go at some long exposure photography.. so here we go!

This is one of our baubles.. playing with the macro lens. Not bad for her first try eh?

Getting arty with the tree.. a 6 second exposure combined with a zoom in effect on the lens whilst taking the photograph. This photo didn't turn out too bad at all really.. first time for her trying this technique. We also tried doing some light trails, but light trails are light trails, so I'm not sharing those..

Merry Christmas everyone.. lol..

Sod it, Sod it, Sod it!!!!

My Photoshop 7 has a fault.. need to reinstall it.. .can't find my disk.. looked to upgrade to CS3.. need a new computer to run it... still can't find my disk...

Anybody got one they don't want anymore?? lol..

Sod it! And I soooo need it.. I'm busy!

I'm still here...

Hi everyone..

This is just a very quick post as I'm supposed to be working this morning.

I've been really busy lately - not going to knock it though! I thought coming up to Christmas that things would have quietened down a little, but things keep coming up. I've got a couple of really big things happening in the New Year - I'll share when I get the go ahead. It's soooo exciting I can hardly wait!

I am also busy making my cards to send off.. Last week saw my 100th parcel going off to our Soldiers out in the Sandy Place - thank you to every single one of you who have given parcels and messages of good will. So this week it's my family's turn for my attention. It will be the first time everyone has a handmade card - usually by now I've given up and bought them!

My demonstrations have finished now. I'm having a few weeks off and then all ready for going again in January! I will miss them though. I really love demonstrating - even if some of my ladies are a bit cheeky! (yes Miss Cheeky from Ali craft.. you know who you are! lol). We have a bit of a laugh at my demo's, which is lovely, so thank you all for making 2008 a fantastic year!

Who knows what 2009 will bring.. but I hope it's full of life, love and laughter!

I will be back with more posts shortly, I just need to get the photos sorted for my blog.

Awwww... take a peek..

For the Forever Friends advent calendar..a different project every day!

Awwww... take a peek..

For the Forever Friends advent calendar..a different project every day!

Two awards .. thank you so much..

I have been honoured this week by recieving two awards from two lovely bloggers..

So firstly, I would like to thank Erin who gave me this beautiful Butterfly award

Now all I need to do is...

1. Pick 10 people to pass this award to
2. Contact them to let them know that you have chosen their blog for this award
3. Link the person who gave this award to you

And this lovely second award comes from Jane.

This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships!These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

I'll be back later to list who I've chosen.. (7.25 in the morning with no coffee makes me unable to string two words together! ) lol.

23 days to go...

.... and I finally made a start on some christmas cards! Not sure what I think of them yet, so they're up on my shelf to see if I like them in the morning!!

I'll show this one first. The background paper is my own from further down my blog (a freebie for you all). The topper was printed and came from a download kit, but can't remember where from.

This next card was based on this sketch by Kathy B.

And here's my take on it...

The papers and image are downloads, printed onto linen paper. The poinsettia are part of the blog candy that I won a few weeks ago.

This is another sketch that I used. This one was a Di Hickman..

For this one, I have used Anita's outline stickers and coloured them in with Whispers brush pens. The flower is a larger version of the others, again from my blog candy.

Another sketch.. another card.. lol

Everything on this card is Papermania. The stickers had a gold outline on that I decided to take off. The other papers were given a dotted border with a white gel pen. I hope you like them..

That's the end of the Sketch cards for now.. they are a great idea to use them if you're having a blank moment or just for making your cards that little bit quicker!

Lovely Frosty the snowman! The darker paper in the bg is Dovecraft, and the other papers etc are all downloads. I think he's the cutest!

Whilst looking through Kathy's blog earlier today (I'll find the link.. ) I came across her very trendy handcut Christmas trees.. I thought they were ace, so I decided to give it a try. What do you think?

All papers are downloads.

Now last but not least - take a look at this fantastic little reindeer! I will have to check where he came from, but he was a freebie 3D printable. Here's the rest of the card.

That's all for now... See you all again soon xx

Great news!

Hi all...

Thank you all for your lovely comments I've been recieving over the last few days.. and I'm glad to see that you have been using the little boxes at the bottom of my posts too... they're a great idea aren't they for people in a hurry!

Firstly, as you can see, I've changed my header upto Christmas.. Merry Christmas to all the folks out there who visit my blog- I appreciate it! I hope you like it. Hehe.

Now then.... a bit of Great news..

I got an email yesterday from Julie over at Inspirational, asking me to be part of the team.. It took me all of a second to say yes. What a silly question lol.. Now I have a purpose for blurfing.. (blog surfing for those who don't know).

So if you have a blog that you think I could feature, leave me a comment and let me know and I'll come visiting. Please remember though, photos need to be really clear.

Boy, I'm going to enjoy this little venture!

Lili's little reindeer..

Aren't these just the cutest? I love these reindeer, so decided to use them for this week's challenge over on the LOTV blog.

The challenge this week is for Glitter and Sparkle! Nothing better for Christmas I say.. so I combined the images with some glammed up papers (backing papers with glitter sparkles on the design) and some Papermania glitter ribbons to match. I also used some glitter card for the layering.

I hope you like it..

Now then, what about the clever bit?? You see the two reindeer on the ends? They were from one stamp! I wanted a reverse image of the one reindeer, so had a play!

• Apply dye ink to your stamp (so it stays wetter slightly longer but not like a pigment ink.)
• Take your rubber brayer and roll it over the inked stamp.
• Roll this onto your cardstock to reverse the image.

How clever is that!!! I got the idea from Lavinia stamps at the Doncaster Show the other week.. a great one if you ask me. The possibilities are endless - and also perfect for creating a shadow!

Have fun ..

Whiff of joy.

Did you know that Whiff of joy are looking for a new DT member?? Well, neither did I until I found the link the other day. Anyway.. here's the card I made with the template for the DT bit.. I hope you like it. I've only just got my first influx of these fantastic stamps.. so this is a first impression with this one!

For the dress, I stamped onto printed paper and layered it up.

Forever Friends Challenge card.

Hi all..

Today, we have a fantastic selection of cards on the FF challenge blog. The challenge this week is a template challenge, and the template was kindly supplied and lovingly created by Nikki.

Here is my entry for the template, but there are others to see on the site.

You can change the template, turn it around, flip it up.. do whatever you'd like as long as we can see the original design..

See you over there!

Oh Happy days!

Well.. I'm more or less recovered now from my 300+ mile driving expedition yesterday. I'm still tired!

I was up at Carlisle doing a demo, which was in fact quite quiet. It had been snowing overnight and although the weather was cold, and I mean like freezing brass knockers!!! - the roads were actually quite good.

Anyway, enough of chatter.. here are a few of the cards I made yesterday.

These cards are quite simple ones, because I had qutie a few young children come over to watch. Still... I did learn all about Sugarcraft - but that's a different story.

Lunch time was great too! Well .. sort of!

I was just about to think about my lunch, when I came to my table and found my Forever Friend teddy.. isn't she just the cutest?

Only kidding - - -

My friend Nikki and her hubby David decided they were coming down on a roadtrip from Scotland, just to see me.. lol.. They had never been to a Range before, so nearly a £100 later, we decided to find somewhere to take a quick lunch.

I asked a member of staff if there was a small restaraunt like in other Ranges, and was told no.. they only had a Burger Bar outside.. so lunch was a coffee, cheeseburgers, chips, and a right old giggle in the mobile dining room - aka their car! Oh the joys.. it was fun though... and it was lovely to catch up and have a giggle.

Here are a couple of other photos from the day. As you can see, Nikki made herself at home..

Quarter of an hour later, I returned to work and Nikki took a journey home.

Enjoy!

Lili of the Valley challenge

This little cat card was made for this week's LOTV challenge. I hope you like it.

The papers and puddytats are all LOTV. The gems are papermania.

Oh my Cuttlebugs!

I've just been having a quick browsy whilst working.. and came across THIS site.. now all the things that you could do whilst cuttlebuggling (is that a word?) is all in one place!

Fantastic!

All change!

As you can probably see, I'm having a bit of a tidy up on my blog!

It's going to be work in progress over the next few days, so I apologise in advance for the rather pale, white look!

What do you think of the header? I reckon I'm going to make it a bit more colourful! lol..

Spooky!

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Mmmm... not usually into doing this, but found it on Kirsty's blog this morning, so thought I'd give it a go... tarot in real life is something I've never dabbled in, I've only ever done a weejy board when I was at school with friends - and that resulted in a dribbly paintpot - but that's another story for another day!

However, this is quite right about changing career... wierd!

Haha.... Thanks Nikki!

I can read it... can you??

Only great minds can read this

This is weird, but interesting!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too .

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Three posts in one day??

Blimey! That must be a good start!

I just wanted to share this little card with you. I've been busy this week with commissions so haven't had a chance to make any cards for myself, but I just had to try this sketch from Kim's blog.

It was such a nice sketch, I couldn't resist.. and as I have a FF demo this weekend in Cumbria, I thought I'd use it for a card to take with me.

I used a cute little sticker which I placed onto white card, and mounted onto red card. The papers are from the Christmas kit and the dimension sticker and heart button just add the little bit of Christmas sparkle.

I hope you like it.

Forever Friends challenge..

I thought I'd just announce the next challenge up on here too.. This week, the theme is Round the Bend - adding circles onto your card.

Here's my entry for this week, but don't just take a look at this.. go over to the blog and have a look at all the fantastic DT offerings.. and also get the chance to be a guest DT for the next two weeks..

Thanks for looking!

Morning sunshine!

This morning sees another mild day apparantly, but snow nearer the end of the week - I hope not, because I'm off to Cumbria this weekend for a demo!!

Never the mind... because the sunrises in the mornings have been so pretty! Take a look - this was Saturday morning before I set off for Birmingham.

So, you never know.. Cumbrian snow scenes by the end of the week? I hope not!

See ya soon x

Morning all!

Crafty morning prep work

I've been busy crafting inside today as it's a bit chilly.. brrr... so I moved in with my kit for tomorrow, just so I could run up a few demo samples. I'm off to Shirly in Birmingham first thing in the morning for Craftime, so I hope I don't bump into the NEC traffic..

Here's what I managed to get done:

The background on this card was created with the mesh from below...

... and the reindeers on this one, match the one below..

And the paper at the bottom of this one was torn, like - you guessed it - below..

This one uses the foam christmas pack, as does this next one...

I used a paper frame on this one, cut the aperture and stamped acetate with permanent pens.. fancy cutting like this one...

I created a little cut topper for this card and used the brilliant glitter papers... the glitter doesn't fall off!

Well, that's it for now... it's the first time I've managed to link from one image to another on a post. . it was fun actually! lol..

See ya later!