Ketto cuteness!

A very quick post this morning as it's a Christmas shopping day today for myself and hubby.

I just wanted to share these little thank you cards that I made earlier in the week for my sweet sister-in-law.

These lovely little Ketto images come courtesy of my sweet blog friend Beth. I've been saving them for a special project and it was great to finally get colouring and cutting as they are so much fun.

Sadly this is the last of that sweet 'Poppet' paper, except for a teeny, tiny scrap. Do I use that last piece on a card or sleep with it under my pillow?

The sentiments are from Hero Arts and the other stamps are Hero Arts Raindrops background stamp, that sweet Kelly Panacci clear design set that I love and a fabulous Stampin' Up set! There's oodles of glitter and sparkle on each card, but it doesn't quite show up in the photographs... you'll just have to trust me on that one!

I love the sweet long-legged fairy on my first card, so am going to enter her for Flutterby Wednesday Challenge #84 over at Danni's Dreams. If you haven't discovered this cute site it is worth a look as there is always plenty going on there, including challenges and tutorials.

We have had some very high winds across the UK over the last few days.

How does my daft cat deal with this? He goes and climbs the tallest tree in our garden!

Thankfully my hubby was able to encourage him to come down.

It's official, cats are odd!

A quick hello!

Hi folks, just a very quick post as this is supposed to be study time. I am working on my Institute of Customer Services (ICS) passport and log today so must not spend too much time blogging!

Here is a little birthday card that I made over the weekend, but didn't have time to post.

This is for my friend Sue. If anyone 'deserves a day sprinkled with fun' it is sweet Sue as she has had a really rough deal over the last few years. However, I am pleased to report that she has a lovely new man in her life now, and I am sure he is going to spoil her rotten on her special day!

The main image is another adorable Ketto stamp. This one is Maisy's little friend Kenya. I coloured her with watercolour pencils and added some Diamond Stickles to the flowers (not showing up at all in either of these pictures). I am not 100% happy with the layout of this card, and have to admit that the ribbon rather saves the day!

I picked autumn colours to fit with two challenges: Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge theme this week is 'Autumn Colours' while Stamp Something is running a 'brown plus something' challenge.

I am delighted to have fall shades putting in an appearance again as the trees around my house look amazing at the moment and are filling my mind with golds, greens and yellows. Being a professional gardener my hubby is a big tree fan and so he took me tree spotting and leaf peeping at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on Sunday. We had a lovely time, and although I will never learn all those Latin names I did enjoy seeing all the trees in their autumn finery.

I really must get back to studying now, even though I really I want to play with that just delivered bargain stamp set that I bought from eBay.

Happy crafting everyone!

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!