Winter Tales

Forgive me blogland for I have sinned - it has been 3 months since my last post!!  Thank you to my followers who have not unfollowed my blog - its so boring I almost unfollowed too.  I promise to try and be better.

I have been fairly crafty over the last couple of months but have been very silly and forgotten to take photo's of some of my creations :(  I made a lovely velvet pouch with felt flowers for a handmade secret santa gift which was handed out on Saturday - no piccie and I am gutted - might have to ask my work colleague if she can take a pitcture of it for me!  It was my first ever stitched make and I was very proud of it.  Will just have to make one for myself now!

On the card making front I have made these:

 This card was made for my OH uncle for his birthday and I have used Stampin 'Up stamps on this one and coloured the buttons (at the bottom of the card) with promarkers to tie in with the colours used for stamping.

This was made for my OH's 39th Birthday - will have to be a cheeky one next year!  This was created using my Cricut and the Indie Art cartridge.

I made this during a craft/chinese night with the girls from work.  Images are from Polka Doodles Fairy Flutterfly stamps.  The backing papers I have had for years!  I am on a mission to use up all my scraps that I have lying around.  I currently have a 19litre really useful box full of scraps but yet I cut a fresh piece of A4 card or print off another sheet of paper!! Doh - when will I learn!

We are currently having a fair bit of snow fall - 19 inches at the last count:

The schools have been off all week and it was announced that they would stay closed for the rest of this week as there is another 20com of snow forecast for overnight tonight.  I quite like the snow and it has been great getting a lie in and not having to brave the weather to take the kids to school....however..... I have been waiting for a couple of craft purchases and the postie's can't get through to deliver my goodies :(

I ordered these from the Polka doodles website and cannot wait for them to arrive :( - so snow snow go away, I want my craft stuff so I can play!!  Nikky did a fab demonstration with these on her PD show which aired on C&C on the 26th November.  Not that I will be able to recreate her lovely creation with promarkers and the house stamps but I will try......

I was also lucky enough to have one of my card samples shown on the same show :) It was sooo exciting seeing one of my cards on telly!  I hope to see more soon!!

On a christmas note and because of all the snow and being stuck indoors I made my first card for Christmas 2010

The image is a Digi Stamp from Digi Stamp Boutique and the papers I have had for ever!!  Again I have coloured the button using promarkers.  Well I think that is enough for now - hope to be posting again soon. Hope I have not bored you too much!  TTFN Vxx

Exciting News!

Oh dear it appears to have been a really long time since I blogged - oops.  To be fair I have had an excuse!!  My exciting news is that Nikky Hall from Polka Doodles asked me to be a sample maker for her new templates!  And very pleased I was too.  So that was all a bit of a whirlwind as she sent me eight templates to make cards for her upcoming show at Harrogate on 11th and 12th September (some of which are currently on display at http://www.polkadoodles.com/  I have had so much fun playing with the templates and coming up with alternative desgins - so thanks to Nikky for giving me the opportunity :)

My other exciting news is that I got offered a job at my local Paper Mill Shop.  Not sure if its a good idea as I think I will have my money spent before I earn it.  I think I am going to be in heaven working in a craft shop :) I start there soon and really am very excited about it.

 I have two apologies to make.  One to Debbie and the other to Teri Louise.  These 2 lovely ladies were kind enough to award me lovely blog awards and as yet I have done nothing with them.  Sorry!!  I am currently perusing other blogs to pass on the compliment you kindly gave me and hope to post soon.  The school holidays have also curtailed my blogging and crafting acitvities, but now that the schools are back I hope to rectify this.

On the card front the only one I have made (other than the 10 cards for Polka Doodles) is this one:

The stamps are from PaperArtsy and have been sitting in my cupboard waiting to be used!  Quite pleased with the results but maybe over did the background slightly!  I really love the flowers and they come with a handy die to match!! :)

Well that's about it for now.  Hope to get back into the swing of things soon and get those blog awards sorted.  Take care Vxx

Something New

Woo hoo I got a card made today!!  I have an excuse to sit down and craft!!  Honestly.  For some unexplained reason my leg hurts - just beside my knee - the more I walk around the worse it gets, so I have self medicated some rest!  But rather than sit idle I got out my craft stuff and made this card:

The theme for the Funky Hand July challenge was a creation for 'something new'.  I don't know why this popped into my head as I do not know anyone that is starting a new job, other than me going back to work in January :( - however I thought that it is always good to have these kind of cards handy - just in case!

All the papers are from Funky Hand - Funky Daze.  As you can see I have cut 4 sqaures to from the basis of the background and used Banana Frog Stamps to create the faux stitching around each of the panels.  I downloaded the four leaf clover template from the internet and printed it onto the Funky Hand paper twice, cut around and inked the edges.  I placed the two four leaf clovers directly on top of each other, securing the bottom one flat to the card.  The second was just glued in the middle and curled at the edges to add dimenstion.  I used a white sakura gel pen to add detail to the clover.

The sentiment was stamped using a Studio G alphabet stamp and mounted onto card.  This card did not take me long at all.  Good job as my children were getting a bit restless and needed some attention.  Well I am off to sit with my feet up to try and rest this knee.  TTFN Vx

Just Stamps!

It has been such a long time since I blogged and what is even more worrying it has been that long sice I actually got to craft too.  Bahh school holidays :(  However my gran asked me to make a card for her friends Gold Wedding Anniversary so I got my chance!

I really hate making anniversary cards - I never seem to get them right.  It took me 3 attempts and I finally came up with this:

The whole card has been created using stamps only!  No fancy backing paper at all - just a little bit of gold glitter card backing the sentiment!  And this fits in nicely with the Polka Doodles challenge (but sorry don't have any PD stamps :(  YET!!)

I cut a square appeture into a piece of white copy paper and placed it over the base card.  I then used a stamp from Banana Frog Totally Tropical range and stamped randomly through the appeture, to create the frame for the number 50.  I then cut out the number 50 using the doodletype font cricut cartridge and used the appeture and placed it over the card.  (Hope this is making sense!)  I then used a sponge to ink through the '50' onto the paper and again, using the same stamp for the frame, stamped through the appeture with a darker ink.  (I now realise that I should have taken photo's of this process much easier than explaining!) 

The Sentiment was printed out and then using the same set of Banana Frog Stamps, decorated around the sentiment.

The flowers surrounding the frame were stamped and embossed with gold embossing powder, cut out and placed around the frame.

I cannot tell you how pleased I was when I finished this card.  It is more my style than my previous attempt (for a giggle here it is!):

Yes terrible I know :( - Anyway I better go as my little un is looking for some attention as my other 2 are playing on their DS'  take care and I hope to be back soon.  Vxx

School Holidays

Well the school holidays have landed!  Yay at not having to get up early and do the school run.  Boo having even less time to get crafty.  Its great having the kids around though and they love crafting so must get started on their holiday scrap books.

Holiday started with a trip into Edinburgh on the train.  Its a journey I used to take every day before the birth of Lewis (my first kiddie) so did not hold much excitement for me other than the delighted faces of my three kids, who don't get on the train very often.  For oliver (my third kiddie) it was his first ever trip and he was really excited and excited shouts of 'choo choo' echoed through the carriage.

(not sure if OH was aiming for Oliver or my chest!!!)

My kids are fascintated with the trams that are currently being installed in the city so it was a must to go and visit the tram located in Prince's Street.  Still cannot understand the appeal to be honest at its costing a pretty penny too.  But alas there is no point moaning about it now!

Gemma and Lewis were impressed though.

We went for lunch at the Golden Arches (posh name for McDonalds) and then took a lovely walk to Stockbridge via the water of Leith and spotted this:

It gave OH perfect opportunity to try out the new camera.

Other than actually taking the kids out for a lovely day I also had another job to do... yes crafty.. a visit to a fantastic bead shop where I purchased some lovely goodies.  I have been making some stampboard jewellery and needed some findings.  A few beads just happened to pop in there too!!  Oops!!  Must have been browsing for an hour.  Kids were very good though and were helping pick beads for me.  However Gemma got fed up and went to see her dad who took this georgous photo:

She is such a pretty girl (takes the good looks from her Dad)

Will post some photo's of the finished articles (when I finally get round to finishing!!)

We then headed back up to Prince's Street gardens so the kids could have a play at the park and we could have a seat.

However, Oliver decided that he wanted to play on the big slide which required both me and OH to supervise.  Kids had a great time though and gave them an appetite for their Pizza Express!  Yum

Delicious it was too!  After that we headed back up to get the train and had a lovely journey home.

On the crafting front I was commissioned to do some baby cards.  I used the toppers (below) but then forgot to take a picture of the card!! Arg but the other two cards, made for the same set of twins, I did remember to photograph.

Anyway will finish this later OH just calling from London.  TTFN Vx

For the Males

Well a big thank you to team PD for picking my entry as number 2 in the Nursery Rhyme challange.  Its always nice to hear that others like what you are doing as I often look at my creations and think - it will do!  So thanks again.

Spurred on by my 2nd place I have decided to have a go at the male themed card.  Its my Dad's birthday next month so what better person to make a card for than your dad!  So here it is:

All the papers and toppers come from Candy Doodles. 

I have attached the dad toppers with foam pads so that they stand out and have finished the card off with some black raffia and a Happy Birthday dome sticker from PaperMania.  Once again the hard work in this card was done by Nikky in the design for her CD. 

TTFN Vx

Baby Baby

I have been asked to make a card for friends of my parents for the forthcoming addition of twins to their family.  I have a die cut of a baby head but always find it difficult to use them as you either have to create a body or it looks like a floating head on a page - not a good look!  So I have come up with this:

I was inspired by an image from Kirsty Wiseman's Colour Me Crazy cd of a baby all tucked up in a blanket.  So I thought I would recreate this using die cuts!  I am so please with the results and I thought I would share it with you.

The base was made using a nestie oval die, cut twice the second piece I cut into sections and I used the Martha Stewart doily lace punch and then layered it all up.  The baby head was cut from white card and coloured using promarkers. 

I have not actually finished the card yet and better get a move on as they are coming into this world on Tuesday.  Just thought I would share this with you.  Vx

Two Little Dickie Birds

This is my entry for the current Polka Doodles Blog challenge:

The theme for this weeks challenge is Nursery Ryhmes.  Again all my original thoughts had been so wonderfully done by the DT members so I came up with the idea of the Two Little Dickie Birds! I thought that I would try and recreate this little ditty by making my birds 'fly away':

I achieved this by creating pull tabs and levers which are attached to the birds.  By moving the 'tweet' tabs up and down, the birds appear and disappear!  I had so much fun making this card!

All of the elements for this card were printed from the Polka Doodles - Not for the Girls cd.  Anyway I have to go as my youngest has just woken from a nap.  If you would like more info on how I made this just leave me a message and I will get back to you!

Tweet Tweet. Vx

Red and Black

Well I have had another eventful week here.  Hubby was away with work again leaving me all on my lonesome with 3 children.  I am actually getting used to him being away now and it means that I can craft in the evening without feeling guilty about it!  However, on Wednesday evening I could really have done with him being at home... the first part of my red and black story:

Part 1 - My daughter had a fall in her bedroom and smacked her face off the end of her bed!  Ouch!!  I was getting my youngest ready for bed when I heard the thud and resulting scream.  I called NHS 24 asking for advice and was told that it would be up to 3 hours before someone would call back.  Ok I though they are busy and they obviously deemed that our case was not urgent.  So I duly waited up with my daughter until 11pm and having waited 3 hours since the bump thought it was now safe to get ready for bed and wait for the call. 

Part 2 - How wrong could I be.... at 11.15pm NHS called back.  "It's common practice that all children with head injuries are sent to hospital to be checked out so can you  please make your way there now...." argh ..... why could they not have told me that 3 hours earlier when all my children were up and dressed?  So I saw Red but somehow managed to keep my cool.

To cut a really long story short, the cavalry arrived so that I could just take my daughter along to the hospital and not have to wake the other 2.  Got home at 2.30am!  She is fine now and enjoying all the attention she is getting whilst showing off her 'stitch'!

Part 3 - Don't know if it was as a result of our experience but my latest card took on a red, black and grey theme!  I have made this card for my in-law's wedding anniversary and anniversary is the theme of the Polka Doodles challenge.  The card had to be modern/retro and this is my take on it:

The grey checked backing paper is taken from Polka Doodles Not for the Girls.  I have punched red and black card stock with a Martha Stewart checkerboard punch as I felt that this complimented the Rennie McIntosh stamp (which was bought from a fab stamp shop in York called Mark Your Mark).  I coloured in the stamped image using promarkers.

I added a bit of dimension to the stamped image by stamping the image again and fixing it onto the original image with foam pads.  The sentiment is a deco font downloaded from dafont and has been embelished with ruby gems!  Wish I had thought of this idea before as it was their Ruby Wedding Anniversary last year!  Oh well only a year out of date.  My in-law's love Rennie McIntosh so I am sure they will be pleased to receive this card.

Well its Saturday evening so I am off to have a pint and a sit down.  Take Care Vx

Brown, Cream and Pink

I would just like to say a big thank you to the Funky Hand Team for picking my card to be in the top 5 of the FH May challenge.  I really enjoyed making the shaped bunny card and it has now been re-homed to a 7 year old girl called Melanie.

June's challenge is to make a creation with the colours Pink, Brown and Cream.  I get so much inspiration from the blog challenges, but this one came at the very unreasonable hour of 2 am one morning!!  I was woken by my husband's snoring (again) and could not get back to sleep and thought that snoring was worse than coffee for keep you awake!  Then 'kazam' my idea for this month's challenge arrived and yes kept me awake for the rest of the night...

All the papers for this card are printed from the 'Now That's Funky' cd.  I made the mug by using shapes from Word, printing them onto FH paper and the cutting them out.  I inked up the edges and pieced it all together, highlighting some area's with a black sakura pen.  I cut 2 oval and scrunched the paper and then directly inked these to form the cookies.  I finished off the cookies with brads for the chocolate chips.  I have used a Martha Stewart Doily Punch on the pink backing paper and embossed the brown paper with a sizzix texture plate.

I swirled some cream paper to make the steam coming from the coffee cup.

I have cut the word 'Relax' with the sizzix pigeon toed die and attached them to a strip of card with chocolate coloured brads.

Well this card is making me long for some cookies - which I luckily have stashed away from my hungry hoards (who are in bed).  So I am off to sneak a few before its time to go to bed myself.  TTFN Vx

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