Just for Mum

The polka doodles challenge last week was to make a card for mum, using the colours blue and peach/orange.  I was not going to enter this challenge as I thought its not my mum's birthday!  However, cards are not just for birthdays are they?! 

My mum has been great over the last 6 months - more so than usual.  My grandad was diagnosed with cancer late last year and since then my mum has been his rock.  She has been there with him every step of the way, no matter how hard it has been, and this has allowed him to remain at home and die peacefully in his bed, just they way he wanted it (early on Thursday morning).  I cannot even begin to imagine how hard this has been for her, but to let her know how wonderful she is I have made this card:

The papers, flowers and butterflies have come from candy doodles.  I have used the Martha Stewart punch to decorate the co-ordinating paper and have cut the word 'mum' using a cricut - doodletype font.  The paper flowers have been stamped with a swirl from Banana Frog - super dreamy and inked round the edges.

I have also cut an extra butterfly and used foam pads to add dimension.

I have added the sentiment 'Thinking of You' - Stamping Up

I don't tell my mum often enough how great I think she is - it is very easy to forget how much she does for the family without a thought for herself.  I am very proud of the way she has coped and hope this card can go some way to letting her know this.

Take Care Vxx

Getting Into Shape

I have decided that my healthy lifestyle starts now!  Not only have I been power walking (as started for the Race for Life) I have decided that I need to take a serious look at my diet, as a Boost for a mid morning snack at 326 calories not good.  So watch this space - I am going to get into shape and loose the 3 stone I put on with baby number 3!!

Talking of getting into shape (tenious I know) this months challenge over at Funky Hand is to create a shaped card and not the standard square or rectangle.  It has taken me a while to decide what I was going to do as all my favourite ideas were so brilliantly done by the design team.  So eventually I decided on this cute little bunny:

The template is from Colour My World and has been sitting in my craft cupboard since I bought them (probably 2 years ago) after a class at the Paper Mill.  What better than to decorate this cute little character for this challenge.  All the papers are taken from Now That's Funky.  Pretty simple to construct, however very time consuming to cut out all the pieces, ink round the edges, put on faux stitching and then assemble.... easy really....

To finish off the card I made some paper flowers by cutting swirls into patterned paper and twisting them.  Voila some pretty flowers

One of my son's freinds is turning 7 soon so I think this would make a lovely birthday card (don't worry it is a girl!)  Anyway it's late so I better get off to bed before its time to get up again.  TTFN Vx

Happy Anniversary

Well I cannot quite believe that this is our 8th Wedding Anniversary.  Its scary to think that we have been married this long and even scarier the fact that we have been together for 18 years!  I remember the day I jumped on him at the students union with the very corney line 'you are looking lonely' - but hey it worked!  To mark the occassion I have made this card:

After I posted this I realised that I have very dirty windows (hence the greyish colour below the heart!) I really must clean them!  The idea for this card came from the Banana Frog Blog.  Julie Kirk, one of the DT members had kindly shown how to do a technique similar to screen printing.  This was my take on her fabby idea.

So what special things have we planned.... a big fat zero..  Hubby is off to Ireland for a week with work (boo hoo) but in his defence he did say that he would not have gone if I had thrown a hissy fit and stamped my feet. I was supposed to be going to meet him over in Ireland for the weekend but alas no baby sitters could be found (well non willing to have all 3 of my ankle biters).  So anniversary has kind of been put on hold until we can bribe someone to have the kids.  Never mind :-(

Well that's it for tonight need to get a move on as I have a couple of cards to make for next week. Bye for now Vx

Happy Birthday Polka Doodles

Well just as the title suggests it is Polka Doodles 1st Birthday.  Congratulations!  I really do love PD goodies as you can probably tell with the number of blog competitions I enter using their products.  In honour of their birthday they were giving away a free paper download and this was to be used on the card for this weeks blog competition and was to be a card for dad.  I would like to say a big thank you for these papers as I absolutely love them.  I hope I have done them justice:

Sorry about the ironing board - hubby was doing his shirts!! lol

The challenge was to include some texture - so I have used some sizzix texture plates on some pearlescent card which I have stamped the words 'cheers to you' (Stampin Up).  I have included a little surprise to add some dimension... 

The 'Dad' lettering was cut using the doodletype font on the Cricut.  As per usual all backing papers are from Polka Doodles.

Well I would just like to wish PD lots of success in the future - keep the CD's coming.. please.

Take care Vxx

Long Time......

It feels like it has been ages since I last blogged - oh it is......  Well I have been busy .. honest!  On the 9th of May I am proud to say that I ran (aherm jogged - ok walked most of) 5k Race for Life.  Lots of fun it was too especially as I ordered some Gower Brownies for when we finished... yummy.  I managed to raise £115 for cancer research and hope to do the run again next year and improve on my time of 45 minutes (no land speed records were reached sorry!).  Sorry there are no pictures but I really did not want to traumatise you by showing me in my jogging gear - believe me when I say its not a pretty sight.

On the card making front here are my latest creations..

Actually I have to admit - I can't take responsibility for these masterpieces.  My children made these for children who spend a lot of their life in hospital.  Its a charity called Post Pals and they have a website postpals.co.uk so if you have some spare time and want to cheer someone up this is a really worth cause.  Having a daughter who spent some time in hospital after a heart operation I know how difficult it is for the children and their families, so please at least have a look at the website (rant over!)

Right on to my crafty efforts.. but how can I follow the kids creations.. arggh.  I have a few crafty friends that have been very kind to me recently.  To thank them I made some Crafter's Survival Packs. The pack contained tea (to get the creative juices flowing), coffee and chocolate (to keep up the momentum if you were on a roll) and wine (if everything goes wrong and needed to drown your sorrows).  I included a couple of crafty things too.  They seemed to be appreciated!

I have decided that I am going to try my hand at a craft fair.  Spoke to my friend Debbie about it (her stuff is so much better than mine at least people might look at my stuff when they are buying hers!) we just need to get a good stock level.  I have decided to try my hand at some toppers..

I used a swirl from the Cricut home decor cartridge, cut a triangle from some card and then embossed lines to make it look like a wafer.  Here it is on a pillow box with choccies..

Unfortunately this was as far as I got on the topper front.. think I need to make more if I am going to cover the cost of the table... lol

Right now on to some cards. 

This was made as a thank you for one of my craft friends mentioned above.  I have used banana frog stamps and a daisy punch topped with a self adhesive gem.  The following card was made using some digi stamps that I recently purchased.  I am enjoying working with promarkers at the moment but need lots more practice.

Well that's it for now.  Will post again soon!!  Vx