Sweet fairy!

I was recently lucky enough to receive a voucher for the Secret Crafter. After the silly little happy dance that traditionally accompanies opening a voucher, I went spending!

Look at the cute Pergamano Fairy that fluttered her sweet wings into my basket... plus some lovely Basic Grey papers AND cute daisy buttons.

All perfect for my Mom's Mothers Day card!

Hope you're all having a good week. I am sooooooooo missing the hour that has been stolen by British Summer time.

Happy crafting everyone!

March Card Chain Challenge reveal!

It was great to find time to take part in Deborah's Card Chain Challenge again this month.

For anyone who hasn't discovered this fun challenge it's a real win-win experience: not only do you make and send a card, but you also receive one from your 'sender' in the chain!

I sent this card to Jenny...

and was lucky enough to receive this gorgeous creation from the lovely Betty . Look at that lovely butterfly and Betty's beautiful stamping.Betty is such a sweetheart and I really enjoyed getting to know her a little by email. She was also very generous in sending some lovely goodies along with her sweet card. Thank you Betty!

It's very nearly sign-up time for Deborah's April challenge, so why not give it a go!

Thank you...

Hi everyone, long time no blog!

Just a quick post to share a little card that I made to thank my SIL for the invitation to my sweet niece's christening. Here she is eating 'whotsits' in the sunshine! I couldn't resist paper piecing that cute A Muse church. I bought this stamp ages ago to use on wedding invitations so it was good to get it inked up again after all this time!

The pretty paper is a tiny scrap from my stash... I never throw anything away, no matter how small! No prizes for spotting that gorgeous Ali Edwards font. The inside reads 'We accept!'

Sorry to rush off but I'm suffering from vertigo today and can't sit up for too long.

Happy crafting everyone!

Butterfly Blog Hop!

Another fabulous day of blue skies and sunshine here in Birmingham, UK!
It's a little too soon to expect to see butterflies in my garden, so what a treat to discover so many today over at Eva's Butterfly Linky Party!

As you can see I couldn't resist another outing with that Basic Grey Butterfly Clear Stamp. This time I went for spring colours from a My Little Shoebox paper called 'All of a Flutter - Social Butterfly'. I love those ladybirds! The dots background stamp and the sentiment are both from Hero Arts.This blurry picture is supposed to show the dimension... looks better on my previous post if you want a closer and in focus view!

Well, how appropriate that Basic Grey Challenge #39 should be 'Wings' - thank you!

And the Do You Stack Up Challenge is Layers.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone, and don't forget to flutter over to Eva's to check out the Hop!

Beautiful butterfly!

I'm a little bit nervous about sharing this card as it isn't my usual style at all!

Isn't that butterfly stamp a beauty?

It's a Basic Grey clear stamp and having seen the fabulously talented Peet use it, I knew I wanted to give it a try. The dimension is added with a second set of wings cut slightly smaller than the first. I stamped on kraft card with Versamark and embossed in white. I love the look of kraft and white with that pretty Stampin' Up paper.

The smaller sentiment is from Technique Tuesday and it says 'if nothing ever changed there would be no butterflies'. As I'm experiencing change right now, and feel the need to adopt a more positive attitude, this one hits the spot. The 'Live, laugh, love' stamp is from Kaisercraft.

I quite like the simplicity of the layout and will try it again. With a few changes I think this design has potential as a Mother's day card, especially as my Mom loves butterflies... so don't be surprised to see that butterfly popping up again wearing different colours.

I'm going to enter this card for

P is for Pearls at the ABC Challenge.

Challenge#5 - Things with wings at PCJ.

Samuel Taylor's monthly Challenge - Butterflies

Crafty Purple Frog Challenges - Fly away with us

and Simon Says Stamp - Anything goes

Thanks for dropping by, hope your weekend is full of fun and crafting!

Sunny and bright!

It's a beautiful day - so sunny and bright!

This little card is to wish my MIL and FIL a very happy wedding anniversary.

They love dancing, so what a great excuse to break out one of my favourite stamps. These cuties are the Rockability couple from The Secret Crafter.

I was feeling inspired by the sunshine when I made this card... can you tell???

I'm entering this card for the following challenges:

If the shoe fits: Scrap It FF#69 - picture inspiration challenge

Cute Card Thursday - Signs of Spring

Moving along with the times - Anniversary cards

And now I'm going to walk to the supermarket in the sunshine!

Happy crafting everyone.

A Red Letter Day

It's World Book Day 2011!

A Red Letter day on this librarian's calendar... and what a lovely, busy day at work full of book giving, book sharing and fun.

This sweet image from A Day for Daisies sums up the magic of books and reading for me.

I'm currently reading One Day by David Nicholls. I've only just started it but I'm loving this warm and witty read.

So come on Bloggers: what are you reading, or is there a book you'd like to recommend?

Has a book changed your life? Is there a book that you read over and over again?

What did you read as a child? What do you read with your children?

What's your guilty reading pleasure?

Please indulge this book lover and leave a sweet biblio-comment......

Happy reading everyone!

WOYWW...?

There's a real hint of spring about today! The Snowdrops in my garden are nodding their sweet heads in the breeze, the sun is shining and I am knee deep in cat hair as Mr C. begins to molt!

With the morning's work of scrubbing and mopping finished I could get crafty, but here was the dilemma: I had to create a scary, scary MAN CARD!!! I really struggle with making masculine cards and have to admit to buying more than I've made.

It's Wednesday, so I thought I'd share a quick view of my desk at an early stage in the proceedings...

... a few minutes with the printer, plus some cute digital images from Mo's Pencil and thankfully everything fell into place. I'm still on my kraft card kick and couldn't resist giving Mo's sweet Bronte a vintage colouring book look. The checked 'paper' is from Pink Petticoat, printed onto kraft.
I wanted to make the little Cuttlebug tags look like dog discs, but haven't quite pulled it off.

They should be more metallic, so I'll look around and see what I can use to achieve this. However, I need to be pretty quick as this card has to be posted to France in time for my cousin John's birthday.

Making the discs made me think of a funny story told to me by a former colleague. The family decided to get a dog. They called the newly arrived puppy 'Snoopy'. Snoopy needed a disc for his collar so my colleague went to get one engraved. He fitted it to the dog's collar and everyone admired the result until someone noticed that 'Snoopy' had been re-christened 'Snoppy'. And needless to say the new name stuck!

I really like these images of Bronte and plan to use them again for my SIL's husband's card later in the year. Bronte bears an uncanny resemblance to their sweet (and slightly rotund) dog, Alfie.

Anyhoo, I'm now heading to Julia's to take a little nose around Blogland over on WOYWW.

Happy Crafting everyone!