A little Tilda time!

I didn't expect to feel well enough to make a card today. Yesterday morning I just had to head home early as I was soooo poorly. I'd finally succumbed to the latest bug to hit the community where I work. Everyone has been going down with it since the weekend and yesterday it was my turn.
When my hubby came in from work he was very surprised to see me in my PJ's and dressing gown! I explained that I was feeling unwell. He wanted to know how ill I was and asked a crucial question - 'have you made a card today?' I said no, I had felt too ill. 'My goodness, you haven't made a card... do I need to get an ambulance?'
HA HA, he's such a funny guy (not) !!!!!

Today I decided that I would get up and try a little gentle card making as I was feeling a bit better and anyway, it was TILDA time!
I always enjoy seeing Tilda images and Tilda cards, but have never bought any Tilda stamps.
I love this sweet 'Tilda with flowers' image (thanks again Lynne) and knew it would be perfect for a card for my lovely Mom-in-law. Her birthday isn't until mid October but, well, I just felt 'Tilda -ry' today!

The sun peeked out briefly as I was taking the photographs, but I am sorry that they are still a bit dark.
I used watercolour pencils to colour Tilda, so I couldn't get all those fabulous shadows and accents that all you Copic and Promarker Divas can achieve. However, she looks OK and is actually much brighter than she appears here. The cardstock is Bazzils and the sentiment is from Hero Arts. I added some pretty daisy vellum, oodles of gel pen, Diamond Stickles and a tiny pearl for extra 'ooooh'!

Now here are two pictures that I couldn't resist sharing....

Isn't my little niece adorable? This picture was taken about 6 weeks ago and has been greeting me on my computer desktop every day since then. I snapped a more up to date picture when I went to my sister-in-laws a few Sundays ago, but this picture remains a favourite.
...and, never one to be outdone, Custard wishes it to be known that he is cute too!

This was taken at bedtime two nights ago. Custard is quite a bright cat; understands when we tell him 'bed' and heads upstairs. We did try to teach him 'basket' but this caused some confusion as it is a bit too similar to the other 'B' word he understands, which is 'biscuit'!

Happy crafting everyone!

Saying thankyou!

I really am a lucky girl as I have received some lovely gifts over the last few days!

Firstly, a very big thank you to the lovely Lynne for the stamped images she sent so that I could road test a few before making a purchase. As if this wasn't kindness enough they arrived in this beautiful little wallet! Lynne's colouring of that cute little Tilda image is breathtaking and the wallet is so beautifully made.

Lynne is such a sweetie, and a very talented card maker... she is also something of a dare devil as you will see if you take a look at her post for yesterday!

My next 'thank you' is for the adorable Paula as she has sent me a 'Me-Me' blog award!

Thank you Paula, that is so kind of you!

After accepting this award the recipient has to share seven secrets and then pass the award to seven people of their choice. I hope that Paula won't mind if I take a few days to 'chew' on that one before awarding my 'magnificent seven' and sharing my seven deadly sins/secrets!

I was hoping to feature a photograph of a truly beautiful necklace that Lauren sent me after I admired it on her blog a little while ago. However, there isn't much sunshine around today and the pictures that I took do not do her gorgeous jewellery credit. I will re-shoot it in better light and include it in a later post. Lauren is planning to start her own Etsy shop. I think she will be very successful as this necklace is beautiful and her artwork is outstanding.

My final 'thank you' is for my Mom's friend Pat. Yesterday at Mom and Dad's Golden Wedding 'Friends' Party, Pat gave me a HUGE tub of pigment ink stamps! I just had to make her a card to express my gratitude! My parents will be celebrating all week long as it is my Mom's birthday tomorrow, and then it is the big 'Family' party next Sunday. Lot's more fun to be had!

Mom's friend Pat has three cats, so I know she will love this image from Eat Cake Graphics (thanks Lynne - I love it!). The little fish bones are from a wonderful Allnight Media set of cat stamps that I love. I stamped the black card with paw prints from the same collection in Versamark and clear embossed. However, they just don't show up as the light is so poor today. The big flower stamp is also an old and much loved stamp friend and it's from The English Stamp Company.

I thought that this little card was perfect for The Secret Crafters Saturday Challenge #51 as the theme is 'Animal Antics'. Can you guess who the huffy kitty might be???

Anyone who has ever been owned by a cat will know that this is just 'oh-so-typical' cat behaviour!

Happy crafting everyone!

A two Challenge kinda day!

I am constantly in awe of you girls that can effortlessly combine multiple challenges to create beautiful cards!
Two challenges in one card is my limit... any more than that and I have to move Custard the cat along the sofa so that I can lie down for a while.


Card Patterns Challenge #33 features this lovely little sketch, so I decided to combine it with Challenge 50# over at The Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge: 'One for the Girls'.

I first spotted this beautiful stamp several weeks ago over at Beth's blog Inkyfingersrule. As you know I am a big fan of Beth's cards. I was blown blown away by this fabulous card that she made for a Sketch Challenge.

I hope that Beth doesn't mind that I have taken inspiration from her use of black as a background to create my card. I wanted something dramatic for this image, which is one of the stamps from the beautiful Grace Girls collection from Doodlefactory/Starvingartistamps.

I coloured the image using the wonderful Mr Holtz's Distress Inks and my trusty watercolour pencils. A little clear embossing powder and my heatgun worked a little magic and made the image beautifully glossy!

The sentiment stamps are from Hero Arts and the circles are from my much loved Kelly Pannaci set. I am pleased to say that the paper (Black tie) is from some scraps left over from a previous project - so guess who feels ever so slightly pleased with herself right now!

The other stamps in the Grace Girls collection are equally beautiful, so don't be surprised to see them all appearing over the next few weeks.

Happy crafting everyone!

Make a child smile challenge

The lovely Nikki from Sealed with a Stamp has decided to celebrate her one year 'blogiversary' with a very special challenge. Nikki is asking everyone to make a card for a child who is poorly. This challenge is running until October 16th when Nikki plans to randomly draw a winner. There is some rather lovely candy on offer too!
I began my career as a Children's Librarian and used to read to children in some of the local hospitals. This was a wonderful, though sometimes challenging experience. I have some amazing memories of these brave children so felt extra inspired to play along with Nikki's challenge.
One of my favourite stories as a child was the wonderful Danish children's poem 'Wynken, Blynken and Nod'. Sadly, my copy of this beautiful little book disappeared years ago during a house move. However, I couldn't believe my luck when I discovered a digi-stamp image of Wynken, Blynken and Nod over at the fabulous Mo's Digital Pencil!
I have a little project planned for my adorable niece with this image, but first I decided to use it to make my card for Nikki's challenge.



I am sending this card, along with the poem, to a very special little girl called Mollie.
I read about Mollie on the Post Pals website. She has a very rare condition called Fetal Warfarin Syndrome, which was caused because her mom was prescribed the drug Warfarin during early pregnancy.
I hope that this little card and poem will make Mollie smile.

Bunny-Zoe candy!

I'll be back later to share some cards, but first I just wanted to tell everyone about a blog candy offer over at Bunny-Zoe's...

Nikki's blog has now received over 150,000 hits. Being the generous girl that she is, Nikki wants to share a little candy with her blog friends. The winner of her blog candy will receive a £25 voucher to spend on goodies in her store Bunny Zoe's Crafts. She ships worldwide so everyone can enter. Nikki has a great selection of cute stamps and other crafty loveliness in her store which is just sooo tempting!

You might also like to take a look at Nikki's cute blog as she has a little extra something for her readers too!

It's the weekend at last!

It might be the weekend but I haven't had time for cardmaking today as there have been lots of chores to do and birthday gifts to buy. However, I thought I'd just take time to share a little card I made last week.

I know that I should stop making Maisy cards, but she is so very cute and slightly addictive!

Once again I made myself use my scraps to make this card and I have to say that I am quite pleased with the result. I thought that the little Hero Arts sentiment looked a bit lost on it's own, so I added four little kisses to balance things up a bit. The little stamped circles come from that lovely Kelly Pannaci clear set again. I just love how they echo Maisy's little flower! I am sorry that this picture looks so dark, it is much brighter in the flesh!

I also want to share some photographs of Custard that I'd sent by email to Elise. She is the guest designer over at Card Patterns this week so I decided to have a bit of fun!

They do say never work with children and animals...

At first Custard was a little grumpy because I was bothering him during nap time. He had been resting for about 3 hours by this time so I didn't feel too guilty. I also didn't feel too guilty because he had already woken me at 3am that morning!

Custard is a wonderfully good natured cat and so, after a few minutes, he was delighted that I had given him a piece of paper to play with. It is a shame that I couldn't make a video of me trying to stop him eating the paper!

Here he is channelling his inner Fonz...

....and here he is after he decided to do 'super cute!'

I am glad to say that the Sonoma County contingent of Custard's International Fan club seems to have enjoyed the pictures!

I'd also like to congratulate the wonderful Beth as she has been featured as a Trend Alert 'trendsetter' over at a brand new site called Torendi (apparently that's Japanese for trendy!)

You might like to take a look at Beth's blog Inkyfingersrule. If you aren't familiar with her work you are in for a treat. She is super talented and creates fantastic and totally unique cards.
I especially like the way she uses black card, with white stamping, to create really stylish backgrounds.

Torendi looks as if it will be a really exciting online shop, and a great source of inspiration. The girls plan to showcase materials from around the world and to push the paper crafting boundaries a little, so it should be lots of fun!

Well, I must go and feed my lovely husband now so happy crafting everyone, and I hope that you all enjoy the weekend!

Lucy's 30,000 blog visitors giveaway!

The wonderful Lucy is having an amazing giveaway as she celebrates 30,000 visitors to her blog. If you haven't already visited Lucy's blog I'd recommend that you drop by. Lucy is a total sweetheart and her blog is packed with beautiful cards and great inspiration!

Blog award!

Well, how about that, the lovely Linda from Norway has given me a blog award!

Thank you Linda, that's so kind of you.

There are some little rules attached after you receive the award and these are:
To link back to the person who gave you the award, then list five things you like spending your time on. You then get the chance to pass the award to five people who inspire and support your creativity. This can either be through sharing their amazing work or by leaving kind comments on your blog.

So first of all, here are my five favourite ways to spend my time:

1. I am blessed with a kind and caring husband, so just being with him has to be my number one favourite way to spend my time.

2. Spending time with my parents, extended family and my dear friends has to be number two for me.

3. You guessed it: stamping, colouring and playing with paper comes in at number three! I'm also going to add spending time in cardmaking cyberspace as this has become a big part of my life since I started blogging earlier this year.

4. This has to be spending time walking and enjoying the British countryside. It doesn't matter what the weather is doing, I just love to be out in the fresh air wearing my old, comfy walking boots with my hubby by my side!

5. I haven't done much reading recently as I have been so busy with activity number three, but this is one of my great passions. Whether you read for pleasure, for education or for information, reading is a fabulous life skill that continually opens the door to new experiences.

I would like to send this award to the following five people who inspire me with their beautiful creations and their supportive comments on my blog:

Elise

Lynne

Sally

Vicky

Beth

Thanks for being such a great bunch of cyber friends. You are all as kind as you are talented!

Enjoy!

Pink and green Maisy

Just a very quick post with this little card that I made today for my friend Marvellous Mo!

Her daughter has put on a little weight, so guess who is the lucky recipient of some gorgeous, super sexy tops!!!

I always like to say 'thank you' so decided to make a little card. I wanted to set myself a personal challenge and use some of my scraps. I seem to have so many really useful bits of cardstock but am too quick to reach for fresh, new materials each time I make a card. However, sometimes when I do make the effort to use my scraps I end up with a really odd looking card. I decided to find a sketch to help me avoid this happening again.

I found this little beauty over at Card Patterns. It is their Weekly Card Sketch Challenge #32.

I will definitely be heading over there again next week as the divine Ms. E. aka Elise of mamacowcreations will be the guest designer. She is sweet, funny and seriously talented.
I can't wait to see what she creates. ( I am so proud of you babe!)

I had some fun this morning when I visited a new 'bricks and mortar' cardmaking shop called The Secret Crafter in Halesowen. You probably recognise the name from The Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge. I am soooo grateful to my new, and very talented, blog friend Vicky for telling me about this wonderful little shop. I really enjoyed my visit and got to meet the lovely Wendy and the lovely Tracie.
I also got to play with some very naughty Promarkers - I now know what I want for Christmas. You can check out Wendy's online shop by clicking here. You'll find that it is packed full of goodies. Today I bought some Tim Holtz Distress Inks and a Basic Grey pad - Eva, which you can see used on the card above.

Have a happy day everyone!

Blog Candy for a Cause

Nikki has some amazing candy on offer until 16th October. She is raising money to help a blog friend who is going through some difficult times right now. You can enter the draw by making a small donation and will find all the details over at her blog.

The new guy in town!

There was a new guy in town. They hadn't met before, but she had been dreaming about a cute bad boy for a few days now, and suddenly there he was materialising before her eyes...

His name was Skater Ian and oh, how he made her smile! He had dark, glossy hair, wore a cute grey hat and had the coolest, fastest skateboard.

Oh, those impossibly perfect eyebrows, those rosy cheeks! He just looked so cute in his cool faded denim jeans, black t-shirt and the whitest trainers she had ever seen!
They hung out for a while and they had so much fun, she even took his picture so she could show all her friends just how handsome he was.
Suddenly he said he had to leave... he said some little guy across town was having a birthday and he had to get there fast. Must he go so soon, was it really true?
She took one last lingering look, and then he was gone.

All she has now are the memories of that happy afternoon together, and one little photograph.

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #49

My new little buddy!

I have been looking forward to using this sweet little Greeting Farm guy since he arrived in the post. I'd been thinking of using blues and browns, and when I saw that Samantha at SPCC had chosen SU colours Ballet blue and Soft suede, along with Basic grey for challenge #14, I decided to release him from his packaging and get stamping!

He was such fun to colour and cut out, although his hat changed colour big time when I heat embossed him!

To create the wall background I used some clipart and grunged it up a little with Versacolour. I used a cute, and slightly grungy Prima Clear stamp to add a little motivational graffiti. I've made this card for my friend's son Matthew, so perhaps the graffiti message should read 'Please, for the love of God, just do your homework!'

I added a little scalloped edging and the brown ramp, but otherwise kept it simple and just popped everything up with dimensionals. The colours of the card are much closer to Samantha's palette in real life. We have been enjoying more sunshine today and I don't think my camera can cope!

Well, I'm still not sure that I like 'man' cards but sweet 'teenage boy' cards are fun!

Squiggle candy!

Follow this little link to find out how you could win this amazing selection of goodies from the adorable Squiggle Stamps.

Squiggle Stamps are a newly formed company specialising in cute and whimsical designs.

They have some great little stamps in their online shop, so why not head on over for a look?

Autumn colours.

Someone must have told the trees that it is now officially autumn!
The leaves on the big lime trees outside my house have suddenly begun to turn to gold, orange and brown. I feel so lucky to have these lovely mature trees around my home so I decided to use their gorgeous colours as the inspiration for this little card.


The theme for this week over at the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge is 'Hearts and flowers'. I don't have many heart stamps so decided to use my lovely heart punch to add some little pops of colour to this card. I should stop using that circle Kelly Panacci design for background stamping, but I have to confess that I love it and think that it is a great match with this little Ketto fairy.
I added a Fiskars punch edge to my kraft cardstock and then did a bit of Versacolour distressing.
This looked nice but I wanted more hearts so out came my tiny heart punch to add extra detail to the scalloped edging.

As you may be able to tell from the shadow on this picture we are enjoying some beautiful autumn sunshine. With the weather this good I should be out in my garden, but unfortunately I have a bug of some sort and am feeling grotty. A bit of gentle cardmaking is all I want to do right now.

Custard is also taking it easy today. He was stung in his mouth by a wasp yesterday and so is feeling a bit sorry for himself. Poor little lad, he was obviously in pain yesterday and was drooling heavily. I was just too poorly to drive so when my hubby got home from work he took Custard to see our wonderful vet, who is called Darran.
Darran said that he has seen lots of wasp and bee stings this week, and he gave Mr C an injection for the pain. I had warned my hubby that Custard was likely to howl and would need to be talked, or sung to, while he was in the car. However, it would appear that he was really quiet all the way there and all the way back.
Mmmmm, does this mean that he is actually howling at my singing when I take him?

Wooohoooo!

Well doesn't my blog look swanky with it's lovely new button!!!

I am so thrilled to have made the Top 5 over at SPCC for this little card!

A big thank you to Samantha! I think she supplied great colours for this challenge.

As part of this Oscar acceptance speech I would also like to thank my wonderful husband, my weird but lovable parents, Custard the cat.......

Great blog candy!

Just a quick 'heads up' to let you know that the inspirational Samantha from SPCC is offering some yummy blog candy over at her personal blog Scrapmaster's Paradise.

Doesn't it look nice, nice, nice?

Feel the fear...

Is the title of that book 'Feel the fear... and do it anyway'?

Well, that fits my post quite nicely as today I have tried to conquer two little cardmaking fears!
First up must be the dreaded 'Man card'. For me this is almost as strange and disturbing a phenomena as 'Man flu'! I find masculine cards difficult and worrisome beasties!

The Hero Arts blog theme last week was cards for guys. As always there was lots of inspiration on offer so I decided to give it a go! However, I didn't get chance to finish my card until this morning as we had an unscheduled hospital trip with my Dad-in-law over the weekend. Poor guy, he is really poorly.

To do battle with my man card I waded right in there with the same background stamping that I had used on my Dawn McVey challenge card. Next came some kraft stamped with big, macho polka dots!

I wanted a theme of text and stars so I decided to conquer fear no. 2 and head over to Two Peas in a Bucket to try out a free Hero Arts digital download that I had spotted last week.

The download process was easy, and although I had a bit of trouble manipulating the image I think I just need practice and another look at Lucy's tutorial.

I printed a text 'stamp' onto some white card stock. Then I ran it through the printer again to add the stars. I inked each star with Broken China and Faded Jeans Distress Inks. Then I added Veracolour inks in brown on the largest star, and brown and lime on the smaller stars. Each star was then embossed with clear powder.

I have to say that I am really pleased with how beautiful they look! Bless you, Tim Holtz!

I think I went a bit OTT with embellishments, but the end result is ok!

By the way, if you want to see a card made by someone who really knows how to handle the new Hero Arts digital kits, just take a look at Sally's lovely travel themed card. Very stylish!

So hurrah for me, I felt the fear and did it anyway!!!

New release blog candy!

If you have yet to discover DoodleFactory Stamps from Starvingartistamps follow this link to their blog for the chance to win some brand new Halloween Stamps!

Love that little vampire!

A fairy in her autumn finery!

It's my Mom's birthday in a couple of weeks time and being a child of this 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' she is a big fan of autumn/fall colours. So when I saw that the adorable Dawn McVey had chosen these beautiful colours for Raspberry Suite Challenge 16# I nearly danced to my craftroom!

I might be taking a bit of a risk sharing this card now, but I don't think that Mom ever drops by my blog. I think that my Dad might look in occasionally, so Dad if you are reading this please don't show Mom... and if you have already got her present, please leave it in the usual place for me to wrap!

The cute little fairy is Maisy by Anise Ketto for Stampingbella. These stamps are like hens teeth over here in the UK so I grabbed this one as soon as I saw it for sale.


I stamped the little fairy in Versacolour ink and then embossed with Chocolate Brown Stamp-n Stuff powder from Stampendous. I wanted the image to match the chocolate brown of the Bazzils cardstock and the Versacolour just wasn't dark enough. I used some Kelly Panacci clear stamps to stamp the brown card, and also the kraft paper as the circles look like the flower in her hand. No prizes for spotting that greeting from Hero Arts!

After adding a Fiskars punched border I felt that some further embellishment was needed. I was so happy to find that little yellow foam flower hiding in my stash!

I really love this little stamp, so don't be surprised to see her popping up again VERY soon!

The only question is will she be wearing pink and green, or turquoise and lilac?

Ladies, place your bets now....!

Love birds!

I had been thinking about using pink and green on a card, but wasn't sure which other colour to bring in. How very kind of Samantha at SPCC to give me a helping hand and suggest Yo Yo Yellow!

As I don't have any Stampin' Up inks/papers I had to use a mixture of Versacolour inks and watercolour pencils to get as close as possible to her lovely colour pallete.


This little card is for my sister-in-law and her husband as they will be celebrating their Wedding Anniversay later this month. Thankfully my sister-in-law seems to be making a slow, but steady recovery and is now back home with her husband and beautiful baby daughter.

As I had enjoyed using those little Pink Petticoat bird images on my last card I decided to use some of the others from the download package. This cute little couple seemed perfect for an anniversary card.

Once again I lifted those teeny tiny wings on dimensionals, and also raised the little heart and added lots of Sparkles!

I didn't have any cardstock of the right colour so I applied Versacolour 'Orchid Pink' with my favourite blending tool (a dried out Wetwipe!!!). Then I stamped with that beautiful Hero Arts Design Block to give additional texture. Some spotty ribbon and Hero Arts pearls in black seemed to finish things off nicely!

I also added some faux stitching with my fabulous new gel pen. A few days ago I ordered some Uni-ball Signo broad gel pens from Cult Pens. They arrived today and are simply wonderful! They flow nicely and don't leave any gaps. I am officially in gel pen heaven!

I managed to get over to see Jacquie and the kids yesterday. I had such a great time, and even got to meet Hannah's lovely boyfriend Ryan. He is such a gentle and intelligent young man, who obviously cares alot about Hannah.
Matthew was really pleased to see me, and while I appreciated this I had a hunch it was something to do with the rather lovely carrot cake that was served at lunch! Jacquie's husband is currently away working in Beijing. Anthony isn't a big fan of cakes and cookies so whenever he is away his family go feral and load up on sweet things!

So tweet!

I have been wanting to do a birdy card for a while now, and when I saw that The Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge was 'Flights of fancy' I just had to play along!

I had lot's of fun with this sweet little girl from Pink Petticoat. Their downloadable images are a helpful alternative to buying, and then storing, clear or rubber stamps. There's always a great selection of images in the boutique section and shopping with them is really easy.

As you can see I am still in my turquoise and lilac phase!

I cut the printed image to size and allowed it to dry thoroughly so that I could colour it with Versacolour ink. I lifted her little wing on a dimensional and then went to work with clear stickles. The 'Merci' stamp is from a Hero Arts Clear Design set which has a whole variety of thank you messages. I wanted it to appear as if the little cage was hanging from the sentiment. The ribbon is from my stash and the beautiful swirls are from an Autumn Leaves clear stamp 'Double Scroll' by Rhonna Farrer. I haven't decided what to put inside, but I expect to go with something like: 'thanks for being so tweet!'

If anyone read my blog entry from yesterday they may be wondering how things went with the Mystery midnight snail...

Well for me I guess it has a satisfactory conclusion, but it's a somewhat hollow victory.
I was ready for war! I had my arsenal of snail murdering chemicals (and a plan to keep Custard the cat out of the lounge) and I was ready to do battle with this monstrous intruder!!!

As my hubby moved the big sofa in readiness to lay our deadly trap he discovered a small, rubbery slug lying dead by the tiny hole in the skirting board where the radiator pipe comes into the lounge. The slug looked so forlorn that I couldn't believe he had ever had the energy to cruise around decorating the rug with that silvery trail of slime. I felt such a bully and gently wrapped him in some tissue before placing him in the bin.

Am I a big softy or what?