The following post contains scenes of housework which some of you may find distressing...

Seriously, there's been too much of this...

 

and this

 

 

and this

...and not enough of this over the last few days!

I decided to put things right and have been having a lovely play with a new stamp (well, new to me) and some pretty papers bought from a lovely craft shop in Cradley, near Dudley.

I saw this pretty dress stamp ages ago, but could never find it for sale anywhere. When the lovely Chrissie shared this gorgeous card on her blog I contacted her for the details... and the rest, as they say, is history! If you're wondering, the stamp is from Inkadinkadoo and the sentiments are from two different sets by Papertrey Ink.

Once again I'm preparing for a charity card sale so will make a few of this design, but in different colours. I'm never quite sure about how to price my own cards so if anyone has any thoughts on this subject I'd be grateful to hear them.

Happy crafting everyone!

A relaxing weekend!

A quiet weekend of sleeping late, making cards and generally 'vegging-out' was needed following a week full of ups and downs.

A definite high point of the week was the completion of the library. The kids love it, and the staff all seem to say 'wow' when they come through the doors. Lot's of hard work, but totally worth it!

 

Here's one of the cards that I've made this weekend. I love this gorgeous image from Paperbag Studios called 'Laugh'. I masked the middle section of the card and sponged with Distress inks. I stamped with Hero Arts 'Heart Flourish' and finished with a Papertrey Ink sentiment.

  

I made a few other cards, covered myself in ink and shook the stresses and strains of the week away. Isn't card making just sooooo relaxing!

 

Happy crafting everyone!

Less is more... unless it's turquoise!

 

For Week #104 the LIM girls have on offer a sweet little sketch drawn by Jen.

 

The instructions are very simple:

 

Make sure that the card stays in this orientation so that the band remains in the horizontal plane, in the lower part of the card and that it takes up no more than 1/3rd of the height of the cardbase.

 

 

With this in mind I'm not quite sure how my 'band' crept a little up the card - I think it happened during the masking process! The sweet stamp is from Art Journey and is called 'Gorgeous Kids', and the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I needed to do plenty of masking with this one, which I do enjoy but find tricky. I added some scoring to give added definition to the panel.

 

I have a real passion for turquoise (did you guess???) and so found myself swooooooning at the colour of the newly arrived library shelves.

Here's Mark, our lovely Caretaker beginning the assembly job. I can't wait to see the finished result, and neither can the kids as they've been pressing their noses against the glass panel in the door all day!

 Happy crafting everyone!

 

 

Dude, you rock!

Ok, I confess... occasionally I CASE a card. There, I've said it: I've finally come clean!
In truth I really don't do this very often, and if I ever do CASE someone else's work I don't show it on my Blog. However, I'm breaking this rule to share a card that I made over the weekend, inspired by the current theme at Less is More.

This fabulous original from the amazing Godelieve etched itself into my brain when I saw it a while ago. I wanted to make a card for my friend Rob's birthday and so needed a masculine look. No matter how hard I tried I kept coming back to the image that I had in my head of Godelieve's card, and so this was the result!  As you can see it is 'totally inspired' by the original, with the addition of a balloon, and a sentiment from Papertrey Ink.

Finally, here's a little funny moment from school today:

One of the children had written a story about time travelling back to the Tudor Period. It was an excellent piece, with lots of authentic language and images, only spoilt slightly by the fact that at the end of a hard days toil the servants sat down and shared a hearty meal of Pepperoni Pizza.

Happy crafting everyone!

Blue and green - LIM

We've all heard the old adage 'blue and green should never be seen... '.
Whoever came up with this phrase obviously never got inky with Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Peeled Paint and Shabby Shutters!

Apologies that this LIM entry is very similar to my previous card, but sometimes you get an idea in your head and want to develop it further!

The circles are from a Kelly Panacci Clear Stamp set called 360 degrees. I love the different circles in the set and have to hide it from myself to prevent the same images appearing on all my cards.

I coloured the centres of the circles using a water pen. This pen was on loan from my Mom, but today I went and bought her a replacement as I know that I'll be using it again and again!
The sentiment is by Papertrey ink and I added some scored lines and tiny gems to finish the card.

All very simple, but hey, 'less is more'!

I best go and organise our evening meal so that it's ready before the Olympics evening programme begins. I am so impressed by all of the sportsmen and women taking part in these games. Team GB has performed brilliantly and it breaks my heart when someone apologises for not winning gold. Most of us aren't even fit enough to run for the bus and so feel nothing but admiration and pride at their achievement.

Happy crafting everyone!

Beautiful Butterflies...

It's a sketch challenge this week over at Less is More, and what a lovely simple sketch it is too! This one really got all the LIMettes' creative juices flowing, and as always Chrissie and Mandi came up with some beautiful and inspirational work to get us in the mood.

I played around with a few different ideas for the challenge, but finally settled on this...

I love the butterflies on the Hero Arts Clear Design set: Birds and Butterflies. This was the first Clear Design set that I bought and it remains one of my most favourite. Just the perfect stamp for making the 'happy' card that I had in mind. I hope the girls over at The Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge agree that there's nothing more cheery than a cloud of bright butterflies as it's a Bright and Cheery challenge this week.

I coloured with Distress Inks and used a water pen for the first time. I need to practise, but it certainly gives a nice effect. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I'll just add that those tiny splodges of ink aren't so obvious IRL - what is it about the computer screen that magnifies all your little errors and mistakes???

This card is for my darling 'big' goddaughter. Sarah is 30 tomorrow, which I find both wonderful and unbelievable!

I'm away to the postbox now, so happy crafting everyone!

Sweet Simplicity - day 2

Hi everyone, I hope that your week has got off to a good start!

Two more CAS cards with the same basic design...

I'm not sure about this first card. While I like the Distress ink colour (Scattered straw), I'm not sure if that Hero Arts cupcake is too heavy. I leveled things up with some scoring as it looked a little lopsided.

Out of the two I think I prefer the second card. I like the simplicity of that gorgeous Papertrey ink stamp (Round and round - limited edition) and the colour of the centre (Shabby Shutters).

I'll be back again tomorrow to share a few more of my experiments....

Sweet simplicity

As you can see I'm still keeping it clean and simple... and am surprised by how much I am loving it!

I spent a few hours last weekend stamping several variations on the same basic idea. I wanted to make some cards to sell or give as gifts. Keeping to a very basic design helped me create a large quantity of cards very quickly.
I used my Cuttlebug to make a template and then used different shades of Distress Ink for the circle effect. I used the Penny Black's 'Hello Gorgeous' and stamped the background with some of the smaller stamps from the set, while the template was still in place. Finally, I stamped the main image in Versafine, removed the template and added the sentiment. I added some scoring for balance and interest.
I'll be back throughout the week to share some of the other cards that I made in this batch. Happy crafting everyone, and I hope you all have a relaxing and fun weekend.

Just saying hello....

...to all my lovely blogging buddies!

I can't believe that it has taken so long for me to get my head into gear and start card making and blogging again. A big thank you to everyone who emailed or left a comment to check up on me - you are all so kind.

It's been a very difficult few months health wise, but with the love and support of my hubby and my wonderful parents I am beginning to make progress. It's also been a difficult time because of the loss of one of my dearest friends. My beautiful, funny and wise friend Shell lost her battle with Ovarian cancer last month. Here she is at my wedding in 2004, dressed in her customary turquoise. Shell was just 38 years old, and words cannot express how much we are all going to miss her.

I'm going to try and pick up my blogging again, but please be patient with me if my posts are a wee bit infrequent or if I don't manage to comment as often as I'd want to.
Big hugs to you all, and if you want to spend five minutes reflecting on the life of someone that you've loved but who is no longer with you then please listen to this Frank Turner song. The best tribute that we can ever pay someone is to live our lives to the full and keep them in our hearts forever.