Bad News

Unfortunately I had the bad news on Thursday night that my Mum had passed away during the early hours of the morning and it has made me very upset.

I am having difficulties dealing with my emotions at the moment. Sometimes I am very down and feel tears pricking, feel very confused and over emotional. I have a lot to process and my relationship with my family was complicated which isn't helping matters.

I have had some marvellous love and support from some very special people. I want to thank each and every one of you. I have a feeling the next couple of weeks are going to be very up and down whilst I deal with it and hope I will be able to get some closure and get back to normal.

2009 has been an awful year for me in many respects but I am hoping I will be able to rise from it all like a phoenix from the ashes.

Crafts U Print Competition

This is the card that I have made using a free printable from Crafts U Print for their competition.

I printed it on glossy photo paper and it is supposed to be red, but it has printed out more like a magenta pink. I quite liked the colouring and decided to use it anyway, but to alter the background papers to non-traditional colours.

The design is printed onto glossy photo paper and the sections are mounted onto 3D foam.

The papers are from a DCWV Christmas stack and the 'ribbon' was cut from one of the papers. The sentiment was already printed on the paper.

There is no way this card is good enough to win in the competition but I didn't want to waste the freebie as it would have been unfair to have selected it for me to use and then not to use it at all.

It's also another Christmas Card off my list and I can enter it into the challenge for Day 227 at 365 Cards which was to depict something in motion on your card. I think the snow in the snowglobe fits that bill :)

Crafty Cardmakers 6th Challenge

It's a new challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers and it's all about Autumn, either the colours or the season itself.

I love Autumn, it is my most favourite season. I love the warmth of the sun on a crisp morning and the beautiful colours of the leaves on the trees. I love walking in the park, wrapped up warm against the chill in the air but with the warm sun shining on your face. I love kicking up the leaves with your feet and looking for conkers and squirrels. Days like these make you glad to be alive an be able to appreciate the beauty all around us.

The starting point for my DT card was a paper piecing pattern I found on a challenge blog called 365 Cards. The challenge for Day 213 is to use the pattern provided to make a traditional carved pumpkin for Halloween but I wanted to make it more like a Harvest festival idea as I don't DO Halloween. I printed the pattern onto thin card and coloured it with various shades of Promarkers from Joanna Sheen adding stripes and lines to create depth and shadows. I used 3D foam pads to raise the design off the backing and also raise the leaf.

The backing papers are from a HOTP Creative Cardmakers pack. The glittered chipboard shapes are from Let's Make Cards and the sentiment is a great digital scrapbooking freebie I picked up recently from Vicki's blog, A Work In Progress

I hope we will see lots of people taking part in our challenge and look forward to seeing your creations.

Forum Card Kit 3

This is the last of the card kits that I had from the forum swap and features the gorgeous Forever Friends bear from Papermania.

The base card is embossed and I highlighted the bottom section with a red chalk. I have added a little clear Sakura glitter pen to accent some of the snowflakes. I cut slits into the border between to thread the ribbon through.

The red card panel was cut and I rounded the corners to follow the contours of the embossed panel in the centre. This whole panel is mounted onto 3D foam. The FF bear, the mistletoe, flower and sentiment were from an elements pack which is already decoupaged glittered and blinged ready for you to stick on your card. The extra red and clear gems were added by Natalie. I added gems to the snowflakes and red ones to the corner panel, with glittered brads in the opposite corner panel to balance the design.

I love this card so much and it will be given to someone who will appreciate it :)

Forum Card Kit 2

This is the second card I made for the Forum Card Kit swap.

Again there were many materials provided, the majority of which were from the Papermania Daisy & Dandelion range.

The decoupage image had 2 full flowers so I used one of them as a decoration on it's own. I used ribbon provided to make a rosette for the centre and pinned it together using a brad.

The card had a deckled edge so I started off covering most of it with the stripy paper and used the ribbon as a border. I punched holes with my Cropodile Big Bite and set the eyelets provided. It looks like a big stalk on the ribbon.

The embossed paper was then added to the card with a spotty panel on the top. The decoupage was laid on the top of these and I added the 3 other brads to help balance the corners which didn't have the flower on them.

Forum Card Kit 1

We've just had a swop on the card forum I am a member of and it was for card kits that had been put together by someone else. I have head dreadful problems with my post this year and the ones that had been sent to me were lost so one of the wonderful ladies Natalie put together another 3 just for me :)

This is the card I made with the first kit and all of the items used were provided for me and you had to use at least some of it in your card. Believe me when I say that there was loads in it.

The backing paper has different shades of purples in it and had a grid type design from the top left hand corner. I used this to cover the card blank and used the lines on it to place the ribbon alongside. The stamped image I coloured in with my Promarkers to match, I am really pleased with my shading on this one and think I am getting better at using my pens with practice.

I matted the image onto purple card and then onto the cream shimmer card which was cut with deckled scissors. The sentiment is a metallic purple one that says Happy Birthday (sorry it hasn't scanned in well at all!)

The large velvet flower was included and I cut the cream one from leftover card. The next one was from another sheet of paper. The metal brad is a ribbon brad with a circle of card over and a glittered brad holding it all together.

It was a challenge to use all the items as there were so many and I hope I have done them justice.

Another good thing is that I can enter this in for Day 114's Challenge at 365 Cards which was to make a card where lavender was the dominant colour. That's another old one off the list :)

Promarker Storage

I spent most of Friday evening on making up some storage for my Promarker pens. My friend Lisa, the Promarker Queen had put a post up about how she made hers and I had popped off to the Passion for Promarkers blog and they were giving you the colour chart if you emailed off for it. I spent a lovely couple of hours in front of the telly colouring in the little squares and have realised that I NEED to get 58 pens before I have the full set. I KNOW I have a lot of lovely colours but the completist in me NEEDS the other colours at some point to complete the collection.

Paul had a friend round on Friday so I set to and started making up my DVD's. Problem was, I realised that I didn't have enough space for all the pens. I had bought a DVD stand from Tesco's that had space for 20 DVD's but I hadn't realised that the one from IKEA that other peeps have used is bigger and has space for more shelves. OMG, what a numpty. I was a bit gutted and thought I had wasted my money but then got to thinking about changing the way I used it.

So, I calculated I could get 13 pens to a DVD and could have space for 130 pens. I decided that if I put the greys in a box on the top I could get all the other colours on the stand, but would need to re-do the chart as the one I had coloured in wouldn't fit. Grey isn't a very exciting colour so I'm not too unhappy about them not being on display.

I used a computer program called Xara and made a row of boxes for the colour to go in and this fits on the spine, then there is a row of boxes above that has the colour name in it and this is visible when the pen is removed. I think this is a really neat solution a makes the spines look more uniform.

I then used the pens to colour some scrap card and punched a small flower out. This is attached with UHU glue and gives me a great representation of all the colours and looks pretty too.

I am really pleased with how it turned out in the end. It hasn't taken up a lot of space and will make my colours easier to see and more accessable :)

Featured on Liz Crafts!

Just been going through my inbox and I have been featured on a list of Crafty Blogs in a new section of the site at Liz Crafts which is an online craft store but they have also got a lot more craft links on there and looks like it will get bigger over time. I have actually purchased from this store before as their Stickles glue is only £1.75. They have got loads of bargains on there and card making ideas.

What an honour to be included in something like that, lil ol me !!!

Mojo 107 & 365 Cards Day 124

It's my best friend's birthday on Tuesday and this is the birthday card I have made for her.

I have used sketch 107 from Mojo Monday. I had already printed out the central image which was a freebie digital download from Charmed Cards & Crafts and also the 'friends' text panel which was a freebie download from Hero Arts which I got from Two Peas in a Bucket. The sketch was a perfect combination of the two.

I matted the central sentiment onto a die cut from my Nestabilities. I added little green dots to pull out the colour from the lines on it and mounted onto 3d foam pads. The friends panel I matted onto a scrap of green card. The patterned papers are from the Dovecraft birthday pack. I used a sheet of dark green card for the base and added a big panel of white card to put all the elements together. The final touch was the star gems from Papemania.

This card also fulfils one of the the older 365 Cards challenges for Day 124 which was to use your computer to make a sentiment or use digital images.

Reflex - Clubbin 80's Styleee

Had a fabulous night out last night with my best friend Julie to celebrate her 40th birthday.

We started off the night having a couple of drinks in some bars on Broad Street. I was introduced to flavoured Sambuca. We had a red one which was pomegranate flavour, it was REALLY nice. We also had a green one which was spiced apple but I wasn't so keen on that one. It tasted a bit too much like a mouthwash to me.

We went to Reflex nightclub and it only plays 80's music so we were singing and boogying all night and had a brilliant time. We both love 80's music so much, Depeche Mode is our favourite band and we are going to see them in concert together in December. We even dislike a lot of the same songs and artists. It's quite weird really how similar we are.

There were loads of people invited bit it was a shame as it clashed with a wedding and it ended up being just the 2 of us but we still had a fabulous time. I have only been there once before and I have really enjoyed going both times. My feet are killing me today though with all that dancing :)

It was nice to go out for a change but I think I must be getting old as I'm knackered today .... LOL

Crafty Cardmakers 5th Challenge

It's a new challenge today at Crafty Cardmakers and this is the DT card that I have submitted for the ribbons and fibres challenge.

I love the big decorative trees that people make using layers and layers of ribbon but they use something like 36 yards to cover a cone of polystyrene and that is a waste of yummy ribbon if you ask me.

It did however inspire me to dig out my green ribbons and make a smaller version suitable for a card.

I used a sheet of A4 card as the base and covered the front with a Christmas paper from K & Co.

I made a base for the tree from a triangle of card and basically layered loops of ribbon onto strips of double sided tape in tiers.

The star is a chipboard shape covered with Rangers Glossy Accents and sprinkled with gold glitter.

The plant pot was made from scraps of card. I added another strip of ribbon and a mulberry flower coloured red with a Promarker.

Strips of braided ribbon were added along the top and bottom edges of the card. Small parcels are under the tree courtesy of Papermania vellum stickers and the sentiment is leftover from the La Pashe decoupage sheet I used for the last challenge.

I have to admit layering the ribbon was time consuming but the results are really worth it and would be great for a special card

The use of the braid on the edges has also allowed me to enter this for a challenge at 365 Cards for Day 212 where you were to decorate at least 2 edges of the card with fringe/ribbon/braid.

365 Cards Day 201

My wonderful friend Sarn sent me a card a while ago and it had some stamped images of a new set of shoes she'd had. (Thankyou VERY much sweetheart xxx)

They are bootiful and I have used them to make this card for Day 201's challenge at 365 Cards to include shoes on your card.

Now I have to admit, I can see the beauty in shoes but do not own many pairs like some people I know. The shoes I wore at my wedding are very pretty with embroidered flowers but I don't have a 'fetish' for them like lots of ladies do. I do however think the shoes in the stamped images are a bit gorgeous :)

I selected my papers 1st, (thanks for the tip Lisa) they are freebies from one of the British cardmaking magazines. I then coloured the shoes to match using my Promarkers. I added a little gem to the centre of the bow on the shoes 'cos you've got to have a bit of bling on posh shoes.

The flowers are Primas, I coloured the middle one in with a Promarker a I didn't have one the right colour and I remembered my friend Lisa telling me she colours hers in now to match.

The phrase was also a stamped image and I edges it with one of the pens too. I always wondered what to do with the flat end of a Promarker. I'm learning how to use them more. I think they will become my new obsession and I'll want to buy them all..... mooo ha ha ha (insert evil laugh !)

I have another couple of cards I made on World Card Making Day but I can't show them yet as they are for DT work on Crafty Cardmakers. One will be revealed tomorrow and I have been REALLY organised and made the one for the next challenge in a fortnight. I am not usually this organised......Wonders will never cease !!!

365 Cards Day 209

The challenge for Day 209 at 365 Cards was to use a jungle theme. I immediately decided to use this cheeky monkey digi image from Dustin Pike. It is a fabulous image that he gave away to download for free (click the link on his name and it will take you to the post on his blog)

I have coloured him in with my new Promarkers. I have a much bigger selection of greens now and I am pretty pleased with the results. I even did a pale blue line around the image to make it pop out more like my friend Lisa does. I have a hello of a long way to go to be as good at colouring in as she is but I even did some shading in the fingers, woohoo!

The background paper is a freebie from a magazine. The image has been matted onto scraps of co-ordinating card. The chipboard tag is from a Let's Make Cards pack. Ribbons are from my stash and the leaf brads are by Papermania.

Don't you just love the cheesy grin on this little monkey ? :)

Busy Birthday Week

Sorry for being a bad blogger but I have had the most amazingly busy birthday week, a lot of it involving being taken out :)

Last Friday me and my boss went to Pizza Hut at Star City for a buffet lunch with pizza and salad, it was really nice and the 1st time I had been for the buffet. Brilliant value really. We had a friend over on Friday night and Paul suggested I pop to the chippie for tea. I had a mini fish and chips and boy was that a mistake. I reacted really badly to something and had terrible tummy trouble for the rest of the night. I went to bed at 8.30 as I felt so awful, really cold and shivery and literally all the colour drained from my face when I was on the loo. I a haven't felt so awful in a long time but fortunately felt much better on Saturday morning.

On Saturday night we went to our favourite indian restaurant with Paul's Sister and her new hubby. They had never been there before and really enjoyed the food. Steve drove so I was able to have a few drinkies and I ended up having nearly a whole bottle of Rose. I'm not used to drinking so much any more and I was a bit tipsy, but nice tipsy :)

Sunday we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. We got married on my 30th birthday in Las Vegas so we always celebrate our anniversary just before. We had a lovely meal at home and we lit our candle that we lit during he wedding ceremony. We have still got about another 8 years worth of wax left...... we're making it last.

On Monday, the birthday itself I had loads of handmade cards from my forum buddies. There was lots of oohing and aahing. I had gorgeous cards from my hubby and some lovely pressies. He bought me a new mouse for my computer which lovely and dinky, has lots of configurable buttons, cordless and doesn't speak the same language as Paul's so we don't end up trying to se the same cordless signal (that was so irritating!) he bought me some more Kylie Minogue Sweet Darling perfume as he loves the smell and it had just ran out. He also bought me the last of the Twilight books (I am already reading it, it's got over 700 pages!) I have a £20 voucher to spend at Amazon from Grandad and Uncle Roy and am now the proud owner of the new Promarker colours as he my fantabulous, wonderful, gorgeous scrummy hubby organised the family into putting together to buy me them. How marvellous to get a pressie I REALLY wanted and everyone was really pleased as it made it easy for them too :) I am so accomodating LOL

We went out on Monday night with Paul's Mom and Grandma as they were upset they weren't invited ton Saturday night but we didn't think they would want to go for a curry and it was nice to spend time with Jill and Steve as people we get on with rather than it being a family get together. As I was dropping Mom home the car was making an awful noise and it sounded like the exhaust so we popped in to our friends house and he had a look at it. He said I needed a clip replacing that holds the exhaust together but it wasn't urgent and I could get it done on Saturday. I was having to go to Coventry on Tuesday and Wednesday so needed to be sure the car would be OK.

Tuesday I had college. It was really frustrating as the 1st hour was just sorting out the people who sill couldn't log on t the computers. All last week's was a bit of a washout so I was a bit annoyed that so much of this week's was as well. When people have paid a lot of money for a course you expect to actually get taught something. I hope it is better next week.

On Wednesday the exhaust came apart on the motorway between Birmingham and Coventry and it made so much noise. I sounded like a boy racer and boy was I glad to get it fixed. The lovely man at Kwik Fit only charged £36.95 to replace a pipe and a clip so I was REALLY pleased and was able to drive back to Birmingham safely. I am just so glad that Paul was working with me that day and was with me in the car when it happened as I think I would have pooed my pants.

Thursday Paul woke up feeling really rough with a cold and needed lots of TLC and a home made chilli. I went to bed early to read my book :)

Friday my boss took us out for my birthday and we had a lovely meal at a steakhouse. We all really enjoyed it and it was nice to spend some time outside of work with him and his girlfriend.

So as you can see it has been a busy week, a bit up and down but lots more ups :)

Today is World Card Making day so after watching the F1 Quallies I am looking forward to having a day of crafting and just chilling. Might have to it the heating on today as it has started to get cold and it is so windy. Definitely Autumnul :)

365 Cards Day 206

I have been so very busy over the last week and have had no time to rest let alone make cards.

It is my 38th birthday tomorrow and also our 8th wedding anniversary so we went out last night with my sister in law and her husband. I can't believe they have been married a month and I haven't even put their card on my blog yet!

I made a quick Christmas card on Friday night using the challenge for day 206 at 365 Cards to use things in 3's (except the sentiment)

The backing card is Lets Make Cards blank. I used a green paper from my scraps box and edged it with a little ink and chalk. The vellum is from my Christmas paper stash and I ripped it against a ruler and chalked the ripped edges. The die cut trees are from a QVC kit from Kanban which has loads of different sheets in it. Brilliant value from my friend Helen's shopping trips to the QVC clearance shop in Warrington. I added a third paper in the top corner with a peel off sticker and last but not least 3 pieces of Craftwork Cards card candy on the other 3 corners to balance it out.

Craft Cardmakers Challenge #4

This is the card I have submitted for my DT card for the 4th challenge at Crafty Cardmakers.

We had all been given by the wonderfully generous Imagenation a selection of decoupage from the La Pashe range

I used a decoupage design from La Pashe's Flippin Christmas range.

There was a lot of cutting out (which I love).The designs are well thought out and it is very easy to see the order for making up the layers. There is a lot of humour in them and I just love santa's cheeky bum on the inside of the card.

I used an aperture card specially designed to go with these sheets. You sandwich the acetate between the layers and then stick the front of the image to the window.

It is very easy to line up the back of the image to the front and so unusual to have a double sided 3d image.

You also get a themed sheet for the inside of the card and this has 4 separate sentiments on it, so that's 3 extra freebies once you have finished your card:)

I finished off the card by using some red and green chalk and a cotton wool ball to add a bit of colour to the front. I also used some Papermania peel offs and some clear holly stickers from the Forever Friends range.

I really enjoyed making this card. It is the first time I have used any La Pashe products but it won't be the last as they make such special cards.

The fourth challenge at Crafty Cardmakers is to use decoupage or dimension, you don't need to use La Pashe products to enter so I hope we will see lots of entries.

Happy Birthday Boss!

I needed to make a birthday card for my boss and although I've only been working for him for 2 months I've pretty much sussed him out.

My Forum and Facebook buddy, the very talented Louise has recently started designing digi characters. I loved this footballer and originally my nephew came into mind as he is football crazy. He however does seem to have developed a love for street dance so footie seems to have taken a backseat now.

I was racking my brain of what type of card to make and I suddenly thought of this little character. I raced home last night and downloaded it from Louise's blog at Wheezy Weasle Creations . I have to say I was impressed with how quickly the email came with the download link. Fantastic service Louise and she takes Paypal too.

The boss is keen on his football and does the dream team and all that. I decided to use the company logo for the t-shirt as I can see he would like to have his own team...... I coloured it in using mainly Promarkers but he has ginger hair (gone darker as he gets older though) I have limited colours in he Promarkers so I had to use Marvy Le Plumes for the hair. You can really tell the difference in the colouring. I am REALLY hoping the birthday fairy has got the 56 new colours, I've given Paul a few hints and even a link to Joanna Sheen's website....LOL

I made a sidestep card as it looks really dramatic and this is the first of my handmade cards Andrew has seen. I used peel offs from Papermania for the sentiment, a Doodlebug cake sticker, a football from a patterned paper and Papermania Scrabble letters as he plays Scrabble on Facebook all the time.

Andrew really loved my card and I was really pleased. It gives me so much pleasure when I see people open a card I have made for them and they really like it. It's a feeling that just never gets old.

A double bonus as well is that I can submit this to satisfy an older 365 Cards challenge for day 182 which was to feature a sports ball on your card.

365 Cards Day 185

This is the last card I can show you right now that I made on Saturday. The other one is for the next challenge at Crafty Cardmakers which is on the 21st September so you'll have to wait for that one I'm afraid.....

The challenge for 365 Cards Day 185 was to make a card using 3 different shades of blue.

The main basis of this card was the Cuttlebug embossing folder. When I visited my very good friend Carol she had this folder and I'd never seen it before. I had an idea to amalgamate a dark blue and white image together and add stickles glitter to the embossed dots to make it look like snowflakes falling from the sky.

I went one step further by using glitter paper for the snow on the ground, adding some ink to the houses to help define them and a snowman. I matted the dark blue panel onto a pale blue paper with silver snowflakes on it as the white glitter card just blended into the white card blank and didn't look right. The corded trim is an ice blue and has a silver thread running through it which I have also matched up using a silver peel off sentiment from Papermania.

I am really pleased with how this turned out and have a few more images so can replicate it again.

365 Cards Day 183

365 Cards day 183 was a sketch by Pam.

I have used some of my new Basic Grey Lemonade papers. I love the little print and the contrast of the dotty paper. I added a little glitter pen to the red dots on the ditzy print.

When I made the card on Saturday I thought the papers didn't pop as much as I had expected so I added a little outline to the paper tails and also to the edges of the patterned paper and I am a lot happier with the definition now. I didn't have my trusty almost dry inkpad with me, that would have been perfect but a bit too late when you've stuck it all down to the card......

The flowers are Flora Doodles from Joanna Sheen and a Prima daisy. The centre is a Craftwork Cards candy dot and the sentiment is a Papermania peel off sticker.

365 Cards Day 132

The challenge on 365 Cards day 132 was to make a card inspired by a photo they provided. It was of a birthday cake but the colours were VERY pale, just not me !!

I made this card using paper from the Lime Rickey pad by Basic Grey, please notice it is LIME green, my most hated colour but I LOVE how bright this card is.

The cake and the lettering are from another of the Poundland themed scrapbooks. I bought them because they had glittered chipboard die cuts and epoxy stickers, the scrapbooks were just a sheer bonus as they have loads of useable sheets. The lettering was part of a page and I cut the letters out individually and popped them onto 3d foam.

It is Uncle Roy's birthday tomorrow and I will be giving this card to him. He won't appreciate the time it took to do the letters though :( but I am really pleased with how it turned out and that is all that matters.