CRICUT MOTHER'S DAY FOR REECE...

No creating anything for challenge or sketch sites this week as i have been very busy doing other projects! :) Hope to be back on track with them very soon, as i really love making the stuff and looking at all your wonderful creations!! So many people and so much gorgeous work, i love it! This old pc has never seen so much activity :) Anyway here is a little something to be going on with!!..... I had a request from Neil a colleague at the office to make a card for his wife from their four month old son Reece, and this is what i came up with! I feel quite chuffed that the very first card she will receive now she is a 'Mummy' is one of mine :)
I used the WIMG cartridge to cut the ladybug at 2 1/2" and the daisies at 1 1/2"and 2" To cut the lettering i used BC at 1" cut from white cardstock and then used Prussian Blue cats eye for the colour, other papers are Basic Grey 'Two Scoops' and 'Periphery'. I also added some Prima flowers and some Swarovski crystals. I am really pleased with how this turned out and i hope Tanya loves her first Mother's Day card!

MUM'S DAY TIMES TWO!!

I thought i would only be making one Mother's Day card this year for my Mother-in-Law, but a colleague at work asked me to make three for him. One for his Mum, one for his Mum-in -Law and one for his baby son who's four months old. Here are the first two and i will be using my Cricut machine to create the card for Reece to give to his Mummy, hopefully i will show you that one tomorrow :)The two stamps used here are Hero Arts and Great Impressions. Basic Grey papers from 6 x 6 pad 'Lilykate' with some bits of plain cardstock from DCWV. Prima flowers, Dovecraft gem brads, Craftwork Cards plasma letter and ribbon and ric-rac from stash.
Neil often orders cards from me and apparently his Mum has saved all of hers on a pinboard, because she can't bare to throw them away! How sweet of her!
Thanks for poppng in today, have a great Friday!!

DCM 'Plastic Fantastic'!

I know some of you have small children wanting to 'help' you with your cardmaking, but i have 'Willow'!! It seems that as soon as i start gathering my supplies, she appears wanting to nosey at what mum is doing! She was on the floor this time, in my empty 'French Twist' kit box, so not really in the way!! She's such a sweetie :)
Here is the card i designed for the current challenge at DCM where Rhi is on a recycling mission, and wants you to use something plastic that would be either thrown away or put in the recycling sack!!! I happened to be eating an Onken biopot as i was reading this new dare and decided that maybe i could use the lid!
Fab papers again from the French Twist kit, luckily i already had the chipboard journaling shapes that go with this kit, and this particular one fitted inside the yoghurt pot lid perfectly! I stamped the DeNami handbag with black Stazon, added a Prima flower and some ribbon and the rub-on is a Donna Downey. The most fiddly part of this card was punching out the tiny black dots for the top of the scallops!! I think i will now look at packaging in a different way, although we do already recycle everything we possibly can.

CPS#52 & CAARDVARKS 'Friendship'

I received my gorgeous 'French Twist' kit on Tuesday morning from Scrummy Stash Cafe all beautifully packaged in candy pink tissue inside the box! I won their 'scraps' challenge and got a £10 voucher to spend, so i decided to get this kit!The fab sketch this week at CPS was the layout for my design, and the challenge at Caardvarks is Friendship, so double whammy here!!
The papers, cardstock and flower are from the kit and of course because the papers are designed by Rhonna Farrer i was able to use my Autumn Leaves Word Flourishes for the sentiment, same designer so perfect match! There is a whole sheet of lovely rub-ons in the kit, i only wish now i had backed my cute little owl with a darker colour!
Ribbon, chipboard and button brad are from my own little stock!!

NEW CHALLENGE BLOG!

Just found this new challenge blog, so thought i would add the link for others to check it out!http://mytimetocraftchallenge.blogspot.com/ The current challenge is 'Lace' i might have a go time permitting!

ARTY GIRLZ #22 'Green'

Most people would be able to name their favourite colour quite easily, but i can honestly say that i don't have a favourite colour, i like lot's of colours and would find it hard to choose which one i like most! However i do have colours that i prefer to use or to wear. Green is not generally a colour i would choose and so the challenge at Arty Girlz this week is perfect as it takes me out of my comfort zone.
All of that aside, i do love green when combined with pink! I stamped the 'Great Impressions' tree using Distress Ink 'Peeled Paint' onto some Basic Grey 'Peapod' cardstock and then added some blossoms with 'Pink Sherbet' paint dabber and a ball embossing tool! I chose a Craftwork Cards plasma letter which has been highlighted also with the paint. The background paper is K&Co and the little scalloped piece is DCWV, a couple of Prima Hydrangeas and some buttons and ribbon from stash :) This card will be given to my Mother-in-Law on Mothers Day :)

SPRING IN YOUR STEP!

Bit late really to be uploading a new card, but i had my club this evening and don't usually get in until around 10.15, but i thought i would pop it on before i go to bed!
The challenge this week over at Papertake is ''Spring in your Step' to make a card or other item with a spring theme!

I had two unused (naughty me!!) stamp sets from Heidi Grace Designs just itching to be inked! so i decided i would use one set to create my 'spring' card, which i managed to finish at class while the girls were busy making leaf cards! The card is 5 x 7, paper is HOTP and i've used four of the six stamps in the set inked up with Adirondack ink in 'Lettuce'. The letters are from a set called 'Good Alphabet' (?) by Hero Arts stamped onto white card and then punched out with a 5/8" Woodware punch. I inked all the edges with Colorbox cats eye in 'Yellow Citrus'
I love it when all the trees and bushes start to burst forth with their new growth, and all the birds are busy building their nests! Roll on Spring i can hardly wait :)

PAPERTAKE WEEKLY 'Stripes'

I've been wanting to try this one all week! but only just managing to squeeze in at the last minute again, if i spent much less time looking at all the other blogs and more time actually making stuff!!! but i bet most of us are guilty of this and with so many creative people out there, it would be a shame to miss all the wonderful things that everyone makes :)

The challenge set at Papertake, was 'simply stripes' to use stripes on your project. Well... i wanted to use some more of my 'Two Scoops' paper, but was slightly miffed by none of the papers having what i would call a definite stripe to them, then i noticed the cover of my 6 x 6 pad had lovely stripes on it! so i've used the cover to create my card :-)
From the remainder of the cover i cut out the scalloped oval, using my Marvy giga punch and onto this i edged it with Ranger paint dabber in 'Aqua' and stamped the Hero Arts bird also with the paint. The little heart, is from my Cricut scraps box and i stamped this with a greeting from HOTP and Colorbox cats eye in Prussian Blue. I've also used a Prima flower, gem brad from Dovecraft and some ribbon from my stash. My motto is, use every last little bit of your Basic Grey....you know you want to!!!!!

CAARDVARKS & CPS#51

I really must try to photo my cards when it's daylight outside!! This is much brighter than it looks, but i did'nt take the picture until about 5pm, so hence the outcome! I have combined again with this design by using sketch#51 over at CPS and the current challenge at Caardvarks for an Anniversary card

I am pleased to say that i managed to use up some more bits and bobs on this card, that i have saved for a while :) just in case they would come in handy! Both the hearts were cut on my Cricut about 10 months ago, as i had been cutting stuff for another project and whilst the paper was 'in' i just used up what what left by cutting any old shapes from the remainder! I have a plastic box that i use after a cutting session, and into this i place anything that may be useful in the future!
I inked one heart with Colorbox Dk Brown and the other was painted with my 'Pink Sherbet' paint dabber. When this was dry i stamped onto it with a Whispers lacy background stamp, again in the Dk Brown. I also used the paint dabber on the tiny Prima's so they match the heart. Papers and swirl stamp are HOTP, the trim is from my local haberdashery and bling from stash.

ARTY GIRLZ#21 & SKETCH BY BEATE#35

I have been mixing things up a little bit today! This design uses the sketch from Beate and also fits in with the current challenge over at Arty Girlz to use any kind of stamping on your creation.
I am still trying to create some 'man' cards and for this one i decided to go for the Achromatic look, as this seems to be perfect for cards for men.

I dug out some of my old Basic Grey 'Black Tie' papers to use here to keep in with my theme, and this fab sketch made it real easy to complete my design. The leaf stamp is from a set of three by Hero Arts and i used Ranger Archival 'Jet Black' onto my white cardstock. A couple of square brads, a sentiment from HOTP and a little bit of ribbon from stash complete the design. I really like this sketch and will be utilizing it again on some more of my cards :)

SKETCH THIS#41 supervised by willow!!

Here is my design for Sketch This #41. Just managed to squeeze in again before they give us a fab new sketch to inspire us!
I am trying to work on some designs that are suitable for men, other than those that depict sports or beer glasses or motorbikes and cars!, the men that i make cards for are not into sports, although they do enjoy a glass of something now & then :) and i don't actually have any stamps that would fit the bill anyway!
This is an A6 card covered with Making Memories 'Avenue' collection papers, onto which i've placed the tree images stamped with Stazon onto white card. The stamp is a Judikins cube (mini)
and for this card i have used three of the four images, with a Letraset Rub-Down for the sentiment.
Our cats are often inquisitive when i sit down to start card making, and Willow sat watching me as i made this earlier this evening. As i was trimming the paper down, her paw kept reaching for the bits wiggling about!!

BEATE'S WEEKENDER #34

I used the fab sketch that Beate created for us for the layout for my design on this card, and although the colours look quite pretty together, i'm not completely satisfied with the end result :(

I love all the goodies that Ranger bring to us crafters, and i'm sure without some of them we would be lost, however i used the Crackle Accents for the very first time on this card(the flower!) and maybe i'm being fussy but the result is not what i expected! Maybe if someone reading this could explain to me the correct way to use it, i would achieve better results ?

The flower is called 'Ruffled Bloom' by Stampendous and i absolutely love it and have not used it nearly enough since i bought it, but i'm sure we all say that about our stamps!! All papers are 'Two Scoops by Basic Grey, other than the pink which is DCWV. Rub-ons are Autumn Leaves and HOTP as is the large brad, ribbon from stash and a little bit of doodling! :)

ARTY GIRLZ #20 FRAMES!

I hoped to have time to take part in the challenge for this week, and i've managed to scoot in at the last minute almost!! I had an idea of how i wanted it to look and it's turned out a bit different to my initial thoughts.. but hey it's second nature to us girls to change our minds sometimes :)

I started by covering a large slide mount with the red paper so that i could use this as a frame for my image, which is stamped with Stazon. I then mounted this onto the patterned paper, creating a larger frame for my chipboard letters, these were originally pink and blue so i inked them up with black Stazon(i do have black chipboard letters but they were too big for this project!)

The image is from a cube stamp by Just for Fun and is called 'Femme'. I do like these cube stamps, they seem like good value for money and getting four images in one block is smaller to store as well!! All papers are Basic Grey 'Scarlet's Letter', the 'blingy' brads are from Dovecraft, and ribbon from stash. Hope you like it Girlz :)

M is for MONOGRAMS!

Tomorrow, my wonderful husband will be fifty one! (he doesn't look his age, he's wearing very well!!)
I made this card for him just a short while ago, i always seem to leave family till the last minute as i can never decide quite how to make their cards. I find it more challenging designing for someone close to me, because i guess i want it to be just right.
Samm has set a challenge over at Scrummy Stash Cafe to create something with large letters, and although these aren't particularly large, i think they will fit the bill, hopefully! :)

Papers and letters here are Basic Grey from the 'Perhaps' collection pack, the rub-ons are Minimarks accents book one from American Crafts, the little bird is a Hero Arts stamp. Chipboard frame and gold eyelets are from stash and i've used Colorbox charcoal cats eye to 'rough' it up a bit!! Hope he likes it :)

CARD CLUB PICTURES FROM LAST NIGHT!

I thought i would share with you a couple of pictures from last night! I host a little card making club every other Tuesday at a local church hall. We are into our fourth year now!! and some of them have supported me from the start, so i wanted use this as a way of saying a Great Big Thank You to them all :)
When i started this club, it was much bigger and in a different location, but as time has moved on some of the 'girls' have other commitments and interests and it has wittled down to a handful (7 there last night!) but as long as they are still enjoying making the cards and can still put up with me :) then i will continue.
I have never set any 'rules' or boundaries, basically i make the samples, take loads of supplies and equipment and they either make their cards using the samples as inspiration or they make whatever takes their fancy on the night!

If anyone reading this lives in the Bedford area and fancies coming along(even just to have a 'nose' then just e-mail me using the link on the right side of the page!! I have space for about 3 more at the moment!!
The lovely ladies you see in the pictures, in no particular order are :-Margaret, Heather, Julia, Sue(supermum to 5 boys which she kept quiet for ages!!!) Sandra, Lynne and Sue.
******THANKS GIRLS****** X X X

WEEKEND SKETCH CHALLENGE #33

I think i am with the majority when i say that i find it quite difficult to make cards for the male species!! Mind you, as they say men come from Mars, maybe we should be making cards with 'little green men' on them instead!! :)
The great sketch that Beate has given us this weekend was the basis for my design, which i think lends itself particularly well to a card for a male!

The card is cut from a piece of A4 to the folded size of 81/4 x 41/4 and i've covered it with papers from HOTP Earth's Palette stack. The pocket watch stamp is by Rubbadubbado and this has been inked with Colorbox chalk Dk Brown. The frame is from the same company, but is a large set of four squares, so a fair bit of masking was needed to get the desired effect! I used a stipple brush and some 'Hazelnut' Adirondack to tone down the white cardstock before stamping, and also on the tiny tag at the bottom. The sentiment is HOTP with some star brads and a piece of beige ribbon to complete the design.