Blog Candy

More Candy!
Jennifer over at Phoenix Crafts has some amazing blog candy Just pop over and take a look!
It consists of lots of stamped images (including the new Magnolias and Sarah Kay), some Sue Dreamer charms and DCWV ribbon.
To enter the draw please leave a comment on her post and leave a comment and link on your own blog to spread the word.The draw closes at 3pm Sunday, 13th July and the winner will be announced at 5pm that day.

Karen's Blog Candy

Karen's Blog Candy!
Karen over at Karen's Creation is offering some yummy candy including some of her own designed stamped images! She is celebrating going self employed as a designer and crafter and I wish her lots of luck. Please go and check out her blog, you have until 15th July to enter the draw for the candy. Karen's Creation

Cute card Thursday

On Cute Card Thursday we were told........

This week we have another fabulous sponsor, Maggie at Banyan Crafts.

Maggie is donating a pack of gorgeous tear shaped cards with envelopes, there are 20 cards in the pack!

To be in with a chance of winning these next week all you have to do is create a card without using patterned paper.


I have had this angel type stamp for quite some time now but have not used her before. It is from Anita's stamps but does not appear to have a name. I stamped her onto white card with Versafine ink in grey and coloured her using shimmery watercolour paints.
She is layered up onto a piece of peach cardstock which has been embossed using the D'vine Swirls folder from Cuttlebug. This has been layered onto a piece of white card leaving just a small border and finally onto a pale pink card. All layers have had the corners rounded off with a punch.

Race for Life

Our ex Daughter in Law, Emma, is doing the Race for Life somewhere in the Leicestershire area on Sunday so I made a card to wish her well.
I used a cream square card and overlaid it with a piece of lilac paper on which I printed the words 'Put Those Party Shoes Away' on the computer.
On the left I put a piece of purple cardstock which had been through the Cuttlebug with the D'vine Swirls folder.
I used gold peel-offs on a pink die cut square and mounted this with a foam pad on top of some skeleton leaves. A purple star gem completes the card.
The gem, die cut and skeleton leaves are all from Papermania.

Water everywhere!

I haven't blogged for over a week now because of feeling very ill with an allergic reaction to my daughter's kittens. These pictures, though nothing to do with crafting, I wanted to share.

They were taken yesterday morning on Mick's phone camera after a large water pipe burst under the car park at his workplace.The red and silver vehicles in the foreground had been parked next to the silver one on the left of the picture.

These 3 slid a little further as the day went on, not surprising the way the road surface has buckled and given way.These had all been squarely parked. The bikes are still standing despite having been almost covered in water!Our car is the black one on the left after the water had subsided. Security cameras show a wave of water reaching knee high up the side of it as the incident occured. Luckily it was not damaged and Mick drove home in it later.

I've been Tagged.

I've been tagged by Karen who I 'met' through the Bubbly Funk forum.
I have to answer 5 questions about myself and then tag 5 or 6 others by leaving a message on their blog to do the same about themselves.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
I was doing casual work in the creche at the local Leisure Centre. My children were all living at home and my Sister gave birth to her son.

5 Things on my to do list.
Get over this 'kitten' allergy and start to feel normal again.
Catch up on the forums i've neglected this week.
Catch up on the blogs i've neglected this week.
Get all the washing done.
Go shopping for food.

Snacks I enjoy.
Bombay mix.
Chocolate (when i'm in the mood)
Ice cream.
Liquorice.

If I were a Millionaire.
I would buy houses for my children and take a good long holiday in the sun while I thought of how to spend what was left.

Places i've lived.
Leigh ( little village in Staffs)
Checkley (another smaller village in Staffs.)
Penkhull (Stoke on Trent)
Burton on Trent.
Newhall, Stretton, Stapenhill - all parts of Burton on Trent.
Newport (Gwent)

Who i'm tagging.
Lynn, Kaz, Annie, Keren, Janice.

May swaps

I've had my swaps for May back from Lynn today. On the Stamping Mad forum we swap 2 ATCs and 2 Moos each month. I don't post pictures of what i've done until I know these have been received by the other people in the swap. Most people seemed to get theirs yesterday so I think i'm safe in showing now.


The theme for the ATC was Distressed, something i've not tried before and i'm not sure I will again as I think mine look positively miserable. For the background I used my embossed loo roll paper with shimmery watercolour paint. Onto this I layered torn mulberry paper and a scrap of card which I put through the Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes folder. I used card from the Neutrals stack by DCWV and sanded it afterwards to show the white core. A piece of ribbon was held down by a brad which had been sanded.






Now my Moos are a different thing entirely and I love them. The theme was Pink & Purple.
I brushed the background card with a Brilliance inkpad to give a soft look. I then used my Cuttlebug Paisley die and cut paint charts from Dulux. I layered these by swapping the cut out bits for the contrasting colour. The spaces that were too small to fit the pieces back in were filled with glitter glue but it doesn't show up on the pic.

Given up

I've admitted defeat with this jigsaw puzzle that Mum lent me. It's been out for weeks now and in really good light this morning I tried and failed to get any of the blue pieces in. I'm sick of seeing the case around the place so I gave in and took it all apart. I've only done that with 1 other jigsaw before but this one's really got me beaten. The blues all have a slightly different tone to them but I can't even distinguish between them well enough to do the top edge let alone all the rest of it. I've decided Mum can have it back! She probably won't even attempt it though if I can't manage it.

This is as far as i've managed.

This is what it should look like.

Doiley stamp card

Today i've been trying out my new stamps from Joanna Sheen.

I've done an A5 sized card and layered onto it a piece of blue background paper from Joanna Sheen's Oriental Dreams Cd.

Onto this is layered an oval of white glitter card. The stamps are from Joanna's new Victorian Doiley range and I have used the oval and diamond shapes from the Happiness Oval set. I stamped them with versamark and embossed them in blue onto vellum. Both shapes were cut out and the diamond layered onto the oval. 3 fabric flowers with bead centres were attached with silicon glue.

A stamped sentiment from the same set was embossed in blue onto a piece of the backing paper and layered onto a mat of white glitter card.

New stamps

The postie has just delivered my new stamps from Joanna Sheen. After watching a crafting programme on Tv the other day I just knew I had to order a set of these stamps, they look so delicate on vellum. What are they? They are Joanna's new Victorian Doiley unmounted stamps, the set I have is the Happiness Oval.
Won't have chance to play with them today but hope to find some time tomorow after I have mounted them onto EZ mount and cut them out.
I can highly recommend Joanna's website, these were ordered on Saturday evening and there is no postage to pay! www.joannasheen.com

New Home card

I had an e-mail message yesterday from a friend in Ireland giving me her new address so I just had to make her a card.


This is a lovely stamp and I have used it lots of times. I bought it originally to use when I sent out details of our new address but ended up using a different one. It is Thatched Cottage by Funstamps.
I stamped with grey Versafine onto white card and coloured using polychromos and sansodor. The edge of the card was cut with a deckle edge and then layered onto a sheet from a Dovecraft designer paper pad by Kate Knight.
A vellum greeting sticker was layered onto white card and placed in the corner.

Cute Card Thursday

The challenge this week is to make a Christmas card!! We thought we'd give you a helping hand to get your cards started early this year and we have a fabulous CD of Christmas designs which Wendy of OOh La La Creations has kindly donated as a prize to be given to one randomly chosen winner.
It seems very strange to be making Christmas cards when the weather outside is so warm and sunny but I bought this stamp from Magnolia stamps only a couple of weeks ago so it seemed only right to use it for this challenge.
Tilda with Christmas wreath has been stamped onto an oval of white card using a grey Versafine inkpad. She has been coloured with Polychromos and sansodor. A strip of snowflake paper from Lilli of the Valley has been layered down one side of a pale blue A5 card and the stamped image offset onto this. A peel-off greeting in silver has been added at the bottom. Crystal ultra fine glitter has been added to Tilda's wings, hat and cuffs as well as the centre of all the snowflakes on the backer.

Dad's birthday card

It's my Dad's birthday on 23rd June so I always get his card ready to send along with his Father's Day card.


This is a nice big A5 lightly textured card in a very dark red colour. The map is from the area where my parents live, it was taken from the internet. The image is Car Couple from Paper Nation and has been stamped in grey with a Versafine inkpad and then coloured using Polychromos and sansodor. I stamped the image twice and cut out the second one and raised it using foam pads. The base image is on white card which has been tinted with chalks to soften the colour.
The greeting is a ready made one in gold on cream pearlescent card.
All the elements have been layered onto a gold textured paper leaving a small border.

Not crafting

I've not managed any crafting this weekend as Sallie came to stay and brought Evie and the kittens to show us. They are 2 weeks old now but this is the first time we have seen them, apart from photos.

They are absolutely beautiful and real bundles of fluff. She has named them Millie, Tillie, Lillie and Billie as she thinks she has the sex of them right, hard to tell at this stage though.

Evie is a very patient and attentive mum and is very protective towards them, especially when either Mick or myself picked one up.

I felt quite sorry for her as all 4 jostled for a teat at feeding time. They climb all over one another and hard luck on the one underneath!

It's lovely to see them all curled up and nuzzling into each other when Evie takes a break from them

Evie managed some time alone to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air out in the garden.

Sallie cooked a meal for us on saturday evening. Evie could smell the chicken cooking and sat by Sallie the whole time.

Daisy Baby Book

I have been working on this book for the past week now so that I can give it to my daughter, Sallie for her birthday next month.

I have taken as my inspiration the Little Kitchen Fairie named 'Oops a Daisy Fairie' and decided to use lots of my daisy stamps and embellishments.

The cover uses my baby wipe backgrounds and I have used far too many items from my stash to name them all but the stamps are:- Tildas from Magnolia, Personal Impressions and Anitas.

The book is held together with knotted organza ribbons and fastened with an organza bow.

These first pages feature a photo of the figurine which sits in my kitchen window and my daughters name.

A Dufex image alongside Tilda with bouquet.

Skeleton leaves, fabric flowers and organza ribbons.

Peel-offs and a stamp by Anita.

Tilda with basket alongside a dufex panel andflowers.

Embossed paper, fabric daisies with stamp by Personal Impressions.



A further photo with lots of tiny daisies and letter stickers.

I have learned a lot whilst making this book, making lots of mistakes along the way but I have had fun using diferent techniques and materials. I'm sure Sallie will love it and treasure it, as it is something special between the two of us.

Cute Card Thursday

On Cute Card Thursday this week we were told.....

This week we are asking you to use patterned paper on your card in honour of our fabulous blog candy donated by Andrea of Kaboodle Doodles. She is offering one lucky winner, chosen at random next week, some fabulous downloads. Pop on over to her website here and check out the gorgeous papers available to download!

Well , yesterday I tidied my craft room/spare bedroom because my daughter is coming tonight for the weekend and bringing Evie and the kittens for us to see for the first time.

When I had made up the bed and cleaned the lure of a clean and tidy workspace was just too big a temptation so I made her birthday card for next month.

It fits in nicely with the theme of this weeks challenge. I bought the cat stamp over a year ago intending to use it for her card last year but as it was her 21st went with something a little more 'special'.

The cards is a nice big A5 size and has a lovely white hammered texture. I layered it with a floral piece from Making Memories pad. The cat stamp is from Anitas and has been stamped with Versafine ink in grey. Only the nose, inner ears and heart have been coloured with watercolour pencils. I cut out a heart shape around it and echoed this with a heart in purple which I slightly offset to give a shadow effect. The peel-off greeting has been put onto the same purple card and decorated with heart brads.

Cute picture.

Just a quick picture sent to me by my daughter, showing a couple of the kittens as she found them when she woke this morning. Mum and babies are all doing well.

Cute Card Thursday.

This week there was no set theme instead we were told to make a card based on a sketch by Katharina, thanks Katharina.

This is my card, it features one of my very first Magnolia stamps, Tilda with basket. I bought 4 of the Tilda stamps last week and this is my first card using one of them.

Tilda was stamped with grey versafine ink and coloured with Polychromos and sansodor, before being matted onto a cream pearlescent oval. The square white card was covered with a dotty paper from the Pastel Designer pack by Paper Mania. This was straight cut at the top and sides but scalloped at the bottom. A piece of organza ribbon was knotted and secured onto this background, before the image was added. A sentiment on pearlescent card finished it off.

The person who has their name drawn this week will get 4 gorgeous Maggie stamps donated by Sally from Bootiful Stampz.

Evie's kittens

Last night I had a very exciting phone call from my daughter, Sallie to let me know that her cat Evie was giving birth. She was under Sallie's bed amongst all the usual clutter.

By the end of the evening she was the proud mummy to 4 lovely kittens. 3 of them are black with touches of white and the 4th and smallest has touches of ginger in her fur like Evie.

I received these pictures from Sal's mobile phone this afternoon, it looks like she managed to get them all into the box which is where Evie was supposed to be for the birth.

Action for ME

Last week Kaz held a coffee morning and raffle for this cause.

Today I have received the lovely handbag charm that I was lucky enough to win in the raffle that was drawn for members of the Bubbly Funk forum.

She also sent a cute little Thank You card.