Flower soft

This is my first attempt at using the Flower soft my Mum bought me back in August. I'm quite pleased with it but think I need to invest in a few more colours. I layered the Flower soft topper onto silver card before putting it onto a landscape white card. Peel-off corners and wording finished it off.

Twins

I have twin neices who celebrate their 18th birthdays soon. They are totally different to each other and at this age don't need things to be the same but I still wanted to recognise the fact that they are twins so used images from the same Cd for each.

The images are taken from Walk in Wonderland Cd by My Craft Studio.

The first one has the addition of a couple of flowers and glitter glue on the dragonfly wings. The other has a scattering of small flowers and glitter glue on the flower centres. I have printed inserts in a paler shade of each to make them a bit more special.

Same colours, different Club.

After the previous posting I was asked by a friend to make a similar card with a Liverpool theme. Mick was also hinted at by another workmate.

These cards proved a little more difficult as since the Cd was made Liverpool have had a different manager. I had to find an image of the current one and manipulate it using various programmes to fit onto the banknote.





The one for my friend has been left quite plain for her to personalise while the other has had peel-offs added.


The worrying thing is despite my happy ignorance of football I have quite enjoyed making these cards.

Quick card

Mick came in this morning from work and asked if I could make a card for his workmate whose birthday is today!
Anything golfing or football (Man Utd.) would be ok.

This is a variation of the card I did for our son last February using a Cd i've had for ages.

The hardest part was getting the notes to print as there is something built in to the programme which prevents them being printed anything near true size. Once i'd managed that it was easy just to fan them out and attach to the card. A few peel-offs mounted onto white card and gold paper completed it.

First cards of the Year

I've not felt like crafting at all yet this year but made myself do a couple of cards using freebie papers yesterday.
They are from the Making Cards magazine in lovely shades of purple and yellow.
It doesn't show on this picture but the toppers are both made up of several layers mounted up with foam pads. The first one is twisted while the second is straight. I think it's called Pyramage. It's a bit of a cheat really as all I had to do was cut out the toppers and add them to cardstock and backing layers of my choice.

I really must get back into making cards but just don't seem to have any ideas despite having quite a few to make for January birthdays.
I've not even been on the 2 forums which I used to visit several times a day. Sorry folks for the lack of input from me so far this year.

Merry Christmas everyone.

I'll not be doing any more crafting this year so I thought I would use my blog as many others have done to send my Christmas greeting.

Thank you for all the cards we have received, as usual the hand crafted ones take pride of place second only to our family cards.

This picture was taken last year at the end of November in the airport as we left the Dominican Republic after a much needed holiday in the sun.
The tree was decorated with lots of lights, red baubles, drums, lots of gold bows and 'straw' hats. It really did seem strange to see in such hot weather. To all my forum, blogger and facebook friends I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year. I hope 2009 sees you Happy and Healthy.

x x

A bit of rough!

Take your minds out of the gutter right now.
I meant a bit of rough icing on my Christmas cake.
I don't go in for smooth edges and fancy piping on my cake just the good old snow effect with a couple of embellies on top.
The poor angel looks as though she's stuck in a snowdrift.
It looked as though it had snowed in our kitchen by the time I had finished, the icing sugar just seems to fly everywhere.
Maybe it will get cut at Christmas this year, it's usually well into the new year before we touch it.

Thank You

I received this lovely unmounted rubber stamp from Annie this morning. It was blog candy from a few weeks ago which I was fortunate enough to win. The stamp is Oakley in the bathtub, a Whiff of Joy stamp.

I got my versafine out straight away to try it on a scrap of paper. It is a lovely stamp and one i've not come across before, it gives a beautiful crisp image even on cheap copier paper. This photo really does not do it justice at all.
Thank You so much Annie i'm sure i'll find lots of uses for it.

An Award

I've been given this award ( well about a week ago) by my good friend Lynn.

Thank you so much Lynn.

The rules are to give it to five others, who shall give it to five others. You must link to the one you got it from, and also to the ones you give it to and let them know. And there is more ... ... You have to write down five things you are addicted to!

This list of addictions is partly why I have not blogged this before now.

1. Rubber stamps although I don't use them as often as I should.

2. Nice papers, I don't like to use them as much as I should as I can't bear to part with them sometimes.

3. Embellishments- beads, buttons, ribbons etc. etc.

4. The internet, be it forums, blogs or facebook.

5. Liquorice! Once I start with the stuff I can't leave it alone.

I've not included my hubby or family as it goes without saying that I am addicted to them in more ways than they will ever know.

I hope i've not hung onto this award for so long that I don't have anyone new to give it too but here goes.

Karen, Gez, Kathy and Hazel my Bubbly Funk friends and Annie who I have known for a couple of years originally from the Stamping Mad forum but whose blog I now follow with much interest.

This is the real reason why I have not blogged it before as I know so many ladies with super blogs. Please don't be offended if you are not on this list, I'm sure someone else will pass it on to you soon.

Thank You

I've got a big Thank You to say today to a lovely lady named Gez. I know her through the Bubbly Funk forum.
Several weeks ago we did a stamped image swap and she remarked how much her daughter liked a couple of the images I had sent. I stamped out a pile of them for her along with some other cuties and sent them off.

This morning the postman rung the doorbell and gave me a jiffy bag containing a super box of chocs. So a very big Thank You goes out to Gez for her kindness and thoughtfullness.

Will it or won't it?

Will it or won't it get iced before Christmas? The cake was made at the end of November in plenty of time to be decorated. since then it has been fed brandy a couple of times but I only got round to putting on the marzipan today.

I hope it can get iced before the big day, i've got everything ready to do it.

Not many left

As you can see there are not many packages left now for me to open. I'm getting a little bit impatient now and having a good feel at each one. I can't imagine what is in the 25th though, it is such a strange shape almost like a tube of handcream or such but it is so light. I can imagine the person who sent my parcel is chuckling away to themselves if they read this.

This is what I unwrapped today - 2 lengths of beautiful shiny ribbon and a piece of lace ribbon. I want to keep them all to myself but know they will look a lot better on cards than shut away in my box.Thank You whoever sent them to me, I will find out on Christmas day.

All Done (I hope)

Well I think I have finally come to the end of my Christmas card making for this year, it seems to have gone on forever.

I have never been so late in finishing them before, in fact for the last 2 years the bulk of them have been completed by November. Last year it was because we went away mid November and the year before because we moved at the beginning of December and I had to get them out with change of address notes included.

I have just gone through my lists and reckon I have made 124 Christmas cards and at least 9 Birthday cards for December and early January dates. Of these 10 Christmas and 2 Birthday have been commisioned and another 20 Christmas ones have been left with my Hairdresser for him to sell. I'll find out in January how many of those are left.

These are 2 that I made for a friend, I made 3 of them altogether. They are based on the ones I made for our parents and I think I prefer them to the originals. I think the piece along the base adds to them being a bit special.

I have received some beautiful handmade cards from Forum friends on both Bubbly Funk and Stamping Mad and would like to say a big 'Thank You' for all of them.

Toppers on cards

This is how I used some of the toppers I showed in an earlier post.




I really enjoyed using them and managed to sell the A4 card shown in the middle. Most of these seem to have lime green in them, I wonder how that happened!

This is one I made for my daughter, it had to be pink because all her tree decorations are that colour.

Forever Friends

These cards are made using my new set of stamps. It is a set of 3 Forever Friends stamps from the DoCrafts range. They have all been sent to friends or neighbours.

This card uses one of the stamps but was made especially for my grandaughter, Faith. It's in pink, her favourite colour but still looks Christmassy.

The image was stamped with grey versafine ink and then I coloured it with watercolour pencils and layered it onto a piece of silver mirror board embossed with the snowflakes folder by Cuttlebug. It has a touch of glitter glue to give it a bit of sparkle.

Christmas minis

I made these mini cards for my nephews and great niece using stamped images from a swap on Bubbly Funk forum.
I'm afraid i've no idea who sent these as I didn't remember to keep them all seperate.

Does anyone recognise them?

They have all been coloured with watercolour pencils and had a spot of glitter glue applied.

More Goodies

It's been a while since I made a post on here so I thought i'd start off by showing a few more of the lovely goodies from my secret advent parcel.

I'm getting lots of super crafting items, i've not used any of them yet and some have been whisked away by my daughter but i'm enjoying very much finding new things each day.

I'm still only guessing who my sender is but almost found out by accident on saturday as I was wrapping gifts.
I realised the box they came in was just right to hold a gift so took most off the sticky tape off and started to cut my address label away when I realised the box had been used before and the senders address was underneath. Quickly I turned the box over before tearing the label off so i'm still non the wiser.

Secret Advent

As I have done no crafting at all today I thought I would share the contents of my first 3 secret Advent packages from the Bubbly Funk forum.


Day 1 a selection of shiny eyelets in different shapes and sizes.

Day 2 a selection of flowers, some are buttons others are flat.

Day 3 six flowers with sparkly gems in the centres.

Thank You Secret Sender but I still have no idea who are as I was very good and tore off the postage sticker without looking for the P.O. postcode.

Christmas toppers

I started making these toppers a couple of nights ago then had to give up as the bulb went on my lightbox. Not to be outdone I got my Cuttlebug out yesterday and embossed a few more but because the bits on the corners are only part of the design had to leave them out of the backer.
I did the stitching in different metallic threads and backed them with co-ordinating card then layered onto white backers and put organza bows on them, some have tiny jingle bells.

Don't you just love the spotty lime green ribbon, it is from Ribbon Oasis and is my absolute favourite at the moment.

I have to decide how to use these toppers now, the ones with bells will have to be for hand delivered cards as I don't think they will go through the post too well.

Another award.

I have been given another award by the lovely Karen. Do have a look at her blog for some super ideas. This award states that:

This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY- nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.

Deliver this award to bloggers who must choose more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

It is so hard to choose a I only gave out an award such a short time ago and most of the people whose blogs I follow may already have this. If I miss you out this time I am sorry, I love visiting blogs and appreciate all the kind comments left on mine.
This time the awards go to

Jacqui and Jak, who maybe don't know me but I find so many beautiful things on their blogs each time I visit.

Lynn and Billie who always have good ideas on how to do things.

Autumn wildlife.

These cards will have been received by now so I am safe in showing them.

The images on both are once again taken from the Jayne Netley Mayhew Cd.



The squirrel image has been layered onto a rust coloured mat which has in turn been layered onto white cardstock which has been stamped with an oak leaf in brown ink. The same inking was used twice to give a difference in colour.

The little mouse has been layered onto a mat of red card and the white cardstock covered with a backer from the Cd to match the image.

Secret Advent calendar

Over on the Bubbly Funk forum we have done a secret Advent calendar. 18 of us have taken part and wrapped 24 small pressies and 1 larger one and sent them to our recipient to be opened each day during the run up to Christmas.
We were given the name of the person to send our package to but have no idea who ours is from until Christmas day when we open the last gift.

Mine arrived last week and my recipient already has hers. What a lot of lovely packages I have to unwrap.

I just had to have a traditional chocolate one as well of course.

Have you noticed my new signature? It's quite easy to do and if you click on it you will find out where I got it.