Di Hickman Sketch July #5

One of my forum buddies has managed to get me a Big Bite Cropodile from the QVC Clearance shop in Warrington for a silly price so I wanted to send her a card to say thankyou.

I used the current sketch from Di Hickman for inspiration but rotated it to make the elements fit.

Would you believe that the patterned paper, the main image and the sentiment are wallpaper? I went to choose some for our dining room last weekend and saw the coffee paper. It is mainly cream squares but every now and again it has a image or sentiment to do with coffee. The PP is a mettallic which has got a lovely sheen to it. Infortunately the scanner just cannot pick it up so you will have to take my word for it.

So tip of the day, go to your local DIY store and look at all the lovely patterned papers you have to choose from. Look at them with a different eye and you may find a way to expand your stash for nothing!

60th Birthday Bookatrix

I have been commissioned to make a card for a 60th birthday for one of my work colleagues. They had seen a bookatrix style one that I had done and asked me to make one like that.



She has a family crest and I was aked to encorporate that into it if I could. They have clubbed together and bought her some crystal champagne flutes which have been engraved with the crest.

I was unable to get a decent sized image so couldn't do what I had intended with it so made a small 'badge' which was covered in Ranger Glossy Accents.

Brads are Papermania, star paper is HOTP and the stamped images were from a swap I did with a forum friend ages ago. I used some glass beads and glamour dust to accent the champagne glasses and the images were coloured with H20's

The box lid I decorated by doing a larger version of the shield part of the crest. I pieced papers together and used satin puffed hearts for the emblems. The box is finished with a gold ribbon around the edge.

Funky Hand Blog Candy

One of my forum buddies Anice is the owner and designer of Funky Hand and designs some wonderful papers and CD's.

She is celebrating their 2nd Birthday and is giving away blog candy HERE.

It only seems like 2 minutes ago that she was starting off, and then her 1st television appearance on Ideal World but she has come a long way now.

Congratulations Anice, I am really pleased for you and your acheivements.

19 years of Love and Happiness

My husband and I are celebrating 19 years of togetherness today.

I met Paul at a Pet Shop Boys concert, two complete strangers who sat next to one another. We swapped phone numbers and phoned one another like mad for about a week. We officially became boyfriend and girlfriend on the 27th July 1989. It seems like a gazillion years ago, but also doen't seem to have been tha long.

Like most relationships we have had our downs, but I am glad to say way more many ups. For the most part life is good and we are a strong unit together. We both have strenths and weaknesses and between us there is not much we can't do. I think a strong relationship is built on compromise and loving the other person more than yourself. we've never had a serious argument although we have differences of opinion on things sometimes :)

I honestly believe that we will be together forever and that is an amazing feeling to know that I am going to grow old with this man who I love so much.

Sorry for the slushiness, better get back to the serious business of making cards.

WBA 40th Birthday card

I had been asked by some work colleagues to make a cards for one of the guys who is turning 40 and it need to be a West Bromwich Albion theme if possible.

There will be about 40 people signing it so I needed to make it quite large, the finished size is just under A4.

I have a template for a smaller square card so I resized it. It took a couplr of attepts to get it right as I tried to hinge it at the top and it wouldn't stand up so in the end I did a concertina fold on the left hand side at the bottom.

The base card was white so I layered strips of navy pearlised paper for the stripes using photo references from the internet for placement. The club badge and advertising are printed off onto photo paper and mounted on 3D foam. The ball is a Sizzix die cut and the 40 was written by hand.

The back of the card was embellished with a number panel I printed and the lettering is chipboard from a QVC TSV.

I didn't have any A4
envelopes and wanted to make it a bit posher anyway so I decided to have a go at making a gussetted bag/envelope for it. I used 2 sheets of 12 x 12" DCWV textured card, laid some more stripes on the top and a WBA badge that I had previously printed to do a different style of card.

I am really pleased with how this came out and Paul just said WOW! Can't get better than that.

Di Hickman July #3

I used the latest sketch from Di Hickman as the layout for this RAK card.

The papers are Kate Knight's a Hink of Pink from Dovecraft and I have also got the chipboard shapes tin to go with it.

The papers are really nice, but I don't know what to do with them! I discovered that the pink chipboard flower is the same size as the black ones on the 8" square paper so tried to be a bit arty and overlaid it on the top of the paper. In hindsight I think I could have done with cutting through the paper lower down so the flower would stand out more. I inked along the edges to define the paper and the flower.

The stamps are the 99p sets from Dovecraft. Absolutely amazing value. I cannot believe they are so cheap. The gems are from Papermania. I played about and moved them 3 times until I was happy with them but I am still not sure they are in the right place. Something looks missing on this card, there is a lot of white background.... not right for me LOL

Di Hickman May #3

I don't always have time to do the Di Hickman challenges straight away, but I always do a little sketch and have a little clip on my desk so I can easily reach to them for inspiration for random cards and RAK's etc.

I used this sketch from Di as inspiration for the layout for this card.

Paper is from Dovecraft Retro Floral pack and I used a scrap of black card to mat it onto.

The flowers are Prima's cut in half and the buttons are Papermania. The sentiment is a clear sticker from MAMBI which I got in the sale at Capture the Magic

Naval 60th Birthday

I was asked to make a birthday card by one of my colleagues for a gentleman who had been in the navy.

She obtained a photo of him which is the only one of him in existence from his Naval days. It was in pretty bad state so my wonderful hubby used his Mac to colour in a huge crease, fix the edges and recolour it. I am so pleased with it, he did a fantastic job.


Looking on the internet I found the emblem for a Chief Petty Office which I printed off onto photo paper. I used ribbon from my stash for the spine of the Bookatrix and the gold braid is from Docrafts.

The Navy paper is one I made myself from repeating an image I obtained from the net. This is printed using a 50% transparency setting onto hammered white paper. The sentiments were printed onto pale blue vellum.

The box is embellished using peel offs from Docrafts, papermania and a vellum sentiment.

Denise absolutely loved the card and cand't wait to give it to her friend next week.

Wedding Card & Box

My colleague Christine asked me to make a wedding card for Helen from the office staff she works with.

I used embellishments from various sources for the front. The dress and the heart is Papermania, the velvet feeling tuxedo is from Woolworths, the glitter sticker is from Mambi with an epoxy sticker over the top from LMC. The sentiment sticker at the bottom is from a wedding pack from Poundland.






Inside the card I did a pop out stylee sandwiching burgundy
paper with peel off hearts on it. I also used Docrafts peel offs to add detail to the inside. There is also an extra couple of pages for her colleagues to add their sentiments to it.





The box is decorated using a wedding cake die cut from a Poundland pack. The heart and sentiment are from the Papermania stickers. Peel offs are from my stash.

Chris loved the card and so did Helen.

Wedding Table Plan

My colleague Helen asked me to make her a wedding plan as she couldn't afford to pay the money professional companies were asking. She did her own stationery using Confetti but didn't like their DIY wedding plans.

The finished size is A3 and I used Burgundy and white for the plan throughout.

The heart punck is from Docrafts and the ribbon and bows are from my stash.

The burgundy mats are mounted on 3d foam. I am really pleased with how it turned out, it looks way to professional to be something I did!

Photo Session

At long, long last my photos from the photo shoot I had over a month ago have finally arrived !!

But boy, were they worth the wait.....

This first photo is my favourite as I have such a cheeky grin and look like I am about 24. (I am 36 and don't think I look anything like it in this picture)

Who would believe that an immensely spotty teenager who tried EVERYTHING to get rid of them would turn into someone who had such smooth skin now ? I swear by Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish now !


The second picture is me rolling about on the floor ! I think it is a really nice natural pose and love the playfulness of my heels being kicked up behind me.

I have made a slideshow below of all the photos. I am so glad that I posed with and without my glasses as it has made an amazing difference to my face. I have had some really wonderful comments and it is such a massive confidence boost.

The photos may have cost £200 but they were worth it for that alone.

Football Birthday Card

I was asked to make a birthday card for someone who is a Liverpool FC supporter. I made a card similar to this before and was very pleased with how it turned out so based it on that.

I printed the badge off onto glossy photo paper as I like how much more vibrant it makes the image. This is matted onto red and black card to make the design pop out from the background.

The backing paper is printed onto hammered paper from staples with a 65% transparency setting. The banner is from my stash and the football is a Sizzix diecut.

I have just heard back that Martin's friend loved his card so that is another happy customer :)

One of my bestest friends at work Laura was leaving to have a baby and I knew I would be the one to make her leabving card.

I bought the template for this baby book from Craft Central a couple of months ago. As soon as I saw it I knew it was perfect for her.

As we didn't know the expected sex of the baby I decided I would alternate the blue and pink colours throughout. I am especially pleased with this is it made the individual letters stand out so much better.

There is a slideshow below of the individual pages. I have used papers and embellishments from my stash and they have come from various manufacturers. I basically just gathered together all my baby stuff and just went for it. ! There are papers from Doodlebug, DCWV, magazine freebies and baby kits from Poundland.

Embellishments are as follows

- Epoxy stickers from Paperchase, Poundland, LMC,
- Chipboard from QVC DCWV TSV, wonderful themed drawers set which just happened to have loads of baby stuff, YAY!!
- 3d stickers from Poundland
- Printed embellishments courtesy of printable scrapbooking freebies from the tinterweb.

Printed ribbons were a recent purchase and many, many offcuts were tied to the book rings on the spine.

I spent a long time getting everything together for this project and I am REALLY pleased with how it turned out. Laura means a hell of a lot to me and I wanted to do something very special for her. She absolutely loved it.

Wedding Explosion Box

One of my work colleagues Helen got married yesterday and I made an exploding box for everyone to sign.

I knew what I wanted to make but wasn't sure what the diemensions would be and also whether it would work so I did a trial 'cake' first. The proportions of the cake were wrong so I am glad that I did it.

Each teir of the cake is a cylindrical box which were stuck together with strong glue. The wedding colours were burgundy, cream and gold so I used floral embellishments in those colours and some lovely loopy ribbon that I had. All embellishments are from my stash.

The bride and groom were working on a tight budget for the wedding and loved my cake design so much that they decided to display their actual wedding cake that way too. I was extremely flattered.

All the images for the box are in the slideshow below.

Got some new tickets

Been quite busy lately as have bought tickets to see the Ting Tings in concert on 4th October and have just booked for the F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone next year.

They onky went on sale yesterday and by purchasing them almost a YEAR in advance we have got them for a great price.

Going to go with our best mates for the whole 3 days and we will be going camping too.

really, Really, REALLY excited !!!!!

21st Birthday

I was commissioned by one of my colleagues to make a card for a 21st Birthday.

The young lady in question is very girly and loves all my cards so I used one of my favourite Sizzix dies to make the dress, handbag shoes and gift box. The paper is from an Amethyst Papermania pad. I accented the swirls with a Sakura glitter pen. The embellishments are also Papermania. The swirl at the side is a long Sizzlits die and is cut from self adhesive metallic paper with a texture. It was the first time I have used this die and I am pleased with the results.

The 21 is chipboard from a QVC TSV and the Happy Birthday banner is a 3d embellishment which was a magazine freebie.

I am very pleased with how this turned out and love the swirls :)

Steve's Birthday & Di Hickman Challenge June #1

Paul's Sister Jill has been going out with Steve for a couple of years and he has been a fabulous influence on our nephew CJ. I made this birthday card using a Di Hickman template and we gave it to him at a party on Sunday 29th.

It wasn't his birthday until Monday but I was absolutely gutted when it became apparrent that it was his 40th Birthday and I hadn't encorporated it onto the card. Paul said he knew and was surprised it wasn't on my card - I wish he had told me ! Bloody men !

Anyway the glitter cardstock used on the card is DCWV, the glittered S is from a recent DCWV QVC TSV (Phew) The ribbons are Anita's and one from Little Silver Hat. The black panel is accented with liquid pearls and the card banner is from my stash.

Love this design for a man, got a bit of bling on it but sophisticated at the same time.