Wedding bells..

Finally.. I managed to get onto the laptop to upload a project for you. I'm sorry for the lax amount of postings, but as you (probably) know, I've been having a few computer issues of late.. and this laptop just hates me feels like being temperamental most of the time!

But hey ho...

I really needed to get onto the computer tonight too.. more importantly so I could have a trudge through my 2011 blog posts and find one that I'd love to enter into the Top Tip Tuesday DT call.. and it needed to be done for tomorrow! Maybe I'll be lucky and be able to share my tutorials and videos with more lovely crafters. We'll have to just wait and see! I also needed to get on here to upload a project as I haven't managed it since Saturday!

The card today is one that I've created with the lovely John Byers stamps. I've teamed it up with the colours that I love and different textures to add a bit of luxury.

I've used die cut lettering to add the wording. I've cut two layers and stuck them together. You can see them in more detail here..

This was quite a popular card at my demo on Saturday. Oh yes... my demo! I was at the Range in Doncaster. And what a lovely set of folks came to say hello.. I really appreciate all the folks that come along, sit for a while and join in our play times.. it was all great fun, new faces and old, and I'd like to say THANK YOU  to each and every one of you who made it the perfect day! And the emails I received in my inbox were all very appreciated.

Well.. that's it for me.. I hope you check back tomorrow for another project that I've been creating for you.

Right on time...

Hopefully anyway!

I'm scheduling this post, mainly because I don't want to forget to post now that I've got this other laptop up and running.. but more importantly, because I'm working today and wanted this to post before I went.

Hopefully that made sense! Here's the glimpse of the card I showed you yesterday.

As you can see from the picture, I've used the other new range that Docrafts bought out in May.. the Tulip range of paper products by Andrea Jayne.. these are too cute!

I've stamped the image a couple of times, and cut out the sofa (or is it chaise longue?) again and layered them to give a bit of depth.

I kept the colours very soft so that they matched the papers.. finished with a few flowers stuck here and there, and voila!

Right.. must make a move now.. hopefully this publishes on time.. More tomorrow!

Tatty Teddy

I absolutely love this range of papercraft products... the Tatty Teddy range from Docrafts.

I have been out and about demonstrating them for the past few weeks, and they just fly off the shelf. He is obviously one very popular little bear! In fact.. to be honest, my older daughter has lots of these little bears, and his friends! Tomorrow, I'm up at the Range in Doncaster from 10 until 4, so if you're passing, why not come along and have a look at the samples I'm showing?

Today, I've got two cards to show you with some of the Tatty products that are on sale in Docrafts stockists. This one is the female version. 

I have used dusky pinks for matting and layering, and kept the design quite simple. I wanted a nice, clean finish to the card so used a couple of embossing folders for the background.

Here's the teddy in more detail

The teddy itself was just a topper from one of the paper packs and I cut him down into a circle and layered him onto a pink scallop circle.

This one if the male version -

This time, I've used the fab Kraft cardstock (love this stuff!) and matted and layered onto blue card to match teddy's nose. I stamped the image, then used a blender pen to pull out some of the grey. To keep the colours together throughout the card, I've then watercoloured some brown ink around.

There he is in a bit more detail. I think he looks lovely.. All the stamps and images are so clear, they are an absolute joy to use. I hope you're enjoying the products too.

Now, for a sneeky peeky of tomorrows project..

Until then... happy crafting!

Yep... the girl can dance!

Sometimes, when you do something, a while after you often forget about it.. that's what has happened to some old recordings I had on the camcorder... so thought I'd share one on here with you. It's been really nice looking at all the videos.. some of the dogs, planes and other things..

This is a video of my youngest, when she was doing Ballroom dancing a few years ago. This is her showdance that she did for her exams. And I must say, I was a very proud mummy when she got her medals and certificates too!

Enjoy!

problems..

I've just come on to say sorry for the lack of updates and cards on my blog.

My laptop was collected yesterday for repair.. so I'm borrowing my daughters laptop until my spare one is up and running again... it's doing some sort of disk check or something, and the battery is no good, and the charger is a bit floppy in the charging hole so it just drops out. There's no wonder I bought a new one!

As you probably know from a while ago, I bought a new laptop a few days before christmas, and it had a little problem with the webcam. Well.. to cut a long story short, it went to the Whatever Happens (PC World repairers!) to be repaired.. haha.. what a joke. It came back worse than before.. the web cam was totally misplaced, and even though they 'hadn't been into the lid of the laptop' it had scratches around the top corners. So.. away it went again.

At this point, it had been away from me for nearly three weeks.. and went back the following day after its return. I waited another two weeks for it, and it came back with the webcam in place... but the whole of the internal section of the lid (near the screen) was hanging off! Oh.. let me tell you I wasn't best pleased when they said it had to go back into the workshop again !

I was well peeved, as I had had it around 2 days in about five weeks! So I refused to send it back and took a trip to PC World. Very patiently ( for me!) I stood and told them all about the saga I'd had, and the lovely manager offered to replace it. So... I came home with a brand new, shiny and in full working order, laptop.

However... now around four weeks later, the laptop doesn't load and keeps freezing.. so off it's gone to India to have the hard drive replaced by Dell.. I obviously didn't take out the extra insurance from PC World (I wonder why...?) and contacted Dell directly. Other than the language barrier.. lol.. their service is second to none.. absolutely fantastic. (We have another Dell in the house and the system completely crashed two years after purchase.. they sorted it out after five hours on the phone at their cost.. brilliant!)

So... that's my update on my lack of photo posting... although I will get my spare laptop up and running later if I can. After all, there are so many challenges out there and I'm missing them at the moment.. lol.

Top five..

I can't quite believe it... I've just been having a quick blog run, and found out I'd made Top Five in the Passion for Promarker challenge...

Can't quite believe it.. Thank you Denise and the girls!

How very true!

I was having a peek at FB earlier on, and came across this, posted by my Sister in Canada. It is so very true, so thought I'd put it on for you all.


Gale Duarte McTiernan = 


There comes a time in life, when you walk away from all the drama and the people that create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad and focus on the good. So love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones that don't. 


Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.  

Simply Gorjuss

Over the weekend, my daughter asked if I could make a birthday card for Monday... and here it is - just a quick, simply layered gorjuss girl.

The papers I used were out of a pack that I've had for a few weeks now.. and I love the dusky look to them. Here are a couple of pictures of the details.

Thanks for looking - I'm busy today making some samples to take with me on Saturday... I'm up at the Range in Doncaster, demonstrating for Docrafts. If you're about, pop in and say HI.. it would be lovely to see you!

xxx

Ha Ha ...

Oh I LOVE this stamp!!!! When I saw it, it just reminded me of Scooby.

My young fella is such a lovely dog, but he does have a tendency to be a bit of a scaredy-cat at times.

Usually, it's when we are walking in the woods and meet up with a little family of Irish Wolfhounds! They are such a lovely group of dogs, three of them - mum, brother and sister, but when they run down to say Hello to ours, Scooby tends to turn into a trembling mush! So funny. Holly has always played with Rodney the Wolfhound, ever since she was able to run off lead, but Scooby? Well.. he's a bit scared! I think his mind is willing but the body definately isn't! lol

So.. as you can see, this just sort of shows him perfectly. Scared of anything that may be deemed a bit strange! And I could just imagine him looking like this if he got hassled by a bee!

I have left some white spots in the fur so it looked like a Springer Spaniel. I want to enter this card into the Promarker challenge, and the theme this week is Animals.

The layout of the card was based on this sketch -

The sketch is from the new Make it Monday Challenge blog, and I've turned it on its side.

Hope you like today's card.. back tomorrow with another!

Sunday already??

Blimey... I don't know where time is going recently - is that a sign of getting old?? I have had a bit of a busy one though, so I'm not going to be too hard on myself for letting my crafting slip a little!

Friday evening I was out doing some photography for someone who was just off to her Leavers Prom.. She looked really lovely, and she also had family there to see her go.. so I took a few shots for them too.

This is one of my favourites of the evening.

Saturday - I had my bi-monthly visit over to Southport to work at the Range. What a lovely set of staff there were yesterday too, and the customers... well.... it is always really great to see my regular visitors, and when they travel from far and wide, it makes it even more special doesn't it. So Thank you to each and every one of you who came along to say Hi.

In the evening, I was planning to have a relatively early night as I was absolutely shattered, but me and hubby started to watch Deja Vu... blinkin' eck.. I've not been hooked (and yet puzzled!) by a film so much for a few years.. I mean, I thought I hadn't got the hang of what Shrek was about.. but Deja Vu?? Well! That's a totally different ball game entirely! lol. Needless to say we were well into this morning before we fell into bed!

Today, I've just been having a nice, relaxing day. Just running a few chores that needed to be done. And this evening, I've sat and made a card that was needed for tomorrow.. and now I'm updating me old blog!

So. That's me. How's about you? What sort of a weekend have you had?

xx

Baby time

Morning folks...

I just had a few finishing touches to put on this card before I could upload it onto here.. sorry for the delay!

I've been making a few baby cards recently, just so I have a selection in my card box, and I am thinking that I quite like this one!! Because I don't know if the recipient will be a girl or a boy, then I kept it to neutral colours of pale green and yellow.

I used this fab sketch HERE for the layout of my card.

A great sketch, eh? Onto the details, and my stamp set was Stampin' Up - one of my favourites with lovely wording, images and elements. Here you can see the little pram and I placed a baby into it. (all bits are separate, and you add 'into' the pram what image you'd like.)

I even decorated the inside of the card to match. I love to do this because it saves having to place a standard insert, looks more elegant and uses up bits and pieces that are left over!

Here's the verse - how cute is that??

I used copics to colour the images {colours available on request} and I'd love to enter it into the Copic Challenge for this week, where the theme is YELLOW.

Just lovely!

Doing a bit of blog hopping this morning, and I came across a link to this video.. Love this song and Josh Groban has such a wonderful voice.

Whatever this song may mean to you.. enjoy!

Yellow

How are we all this fine morning?

I love messing around with ideas and things, and trying to come up with something that I like.. although I don't feel I'm actually quite there yet with this baby card malarky.. but I'm getting close.

Here's my card for you today.

I have come back again to my trusty old stamp of the expectant mum. I love this stamp and have used it a few times for people who haven't had their baby, but are about to leave work, or just to wish them luck.

Now, because I don't know whether the baby is a boy or girl (I don't even know if the parents know..!) I thought I would keep the colours a combination of blues, greens and yellows. The papers are so lovely, and they only get bought out on special occasions too!

I would also love to enter this into the challenge over on the Copic Creations blog too.. the theme this week is YELLOW, where they say it is a colour that is not often used. WHY?? I love yellow. It's a nice, bright, sunny colour that cheers me up... and judging by the comments I got in my Docrafts gallery for the other bright cards I posted the other day, it does you too..

Right.. must get on.. I hope you enjoy your day crafting, cleaning or otherwise!

xx

Such a cutie...

I thought I'd just pop on and share my card with you... I was going to post it tomorrow, but thought seein' as I had a few minutes spare, I would share with you my card for tomorrow... and then upload another tomorrow morning.. lol.

I have been being really good with myself recently - I've made myself a promise that I need to use some of the stamps I have got that have never been inked, and this little cutie-patootie is just one of those very stamps!

Here she is..

Awww... the more I look at her, the more I love her and the others I have in this little collection of four.. I just love the cheeky face. It just reminds me of my girls when they were younger and mastered how to skip.

I didn't really know what colours to do her, although I'd had these papers for quite a while and again, never used them, so I did a bit of a blog trail around my favourite blogs, and the Passion for Promarker Challenge this week was for Red, White and Blue with a charm... so I thought 'I can do that' and there you go.. Voila.. a finished card. I think she looks really nice in her blue and red dress!

And dangling from my bow is this little charm -

Well.. I hope you like it. Don't forget to check back tomorrow to see something a little like this -

Nighty night!

What's on my workdesk?

It's the first ever time I've played along with this, but often been and visited everyones blogs that links to it. (yes.. I love to look at other peoples craft areas!)

So.. here you go.. here's mine!

Oh.. now where to start? Excuse the glare, my desk is right under my window and today is lovely and bright!

From bottom left, there is my XCUT guillotine (Love this!) and next to that my scribble pad. There is also a piece of lace and a rubber stamp sat on this pad. I've got my cutting mat which is always sat on my desk, and a range of different things that I've been making on that - a card, some charms, stamped and coloured image and a decoupage image. Next to the mat, there is my pocket Filofax (very important!) and also my mobile, which is never too far away! I then have my Sky control and my scissors.

On the right, there are my flower punches I used the other day and haven't cleared away, a plastic box with fimo in, a filofax I use for notes and jots, and a mini album in progress!

Along the top, where my writing is, there is a couple of plastic boxes - one with demo items in, the other with samples.. then next to this is my daylight lamp and a pile of coredinations card. Next to this is a box with my scissors and WIP's, then finishing off that section is my little tubs of charms and embellishments, and a drawer set with pens etc in. On top of the drawers is my main filofax (yes.. I am a stationery geek!) which keeps all my ToDo lists and everything else that needs writing down (aka My Life!)

Jotted about are also some acrylic blocks, stapler, ink pads etc..

So.. that's my messy desk.. what does yours look like? (I'm just going to get off and tidy up my desk now..) lol.. but first.. here's a sneak peek of a card I've been working on.

I'll nip back and show you the rest of it tomorrow..

xx

Little feet

Morning all !!

So, yesterday I promised you a little card that went with the Simply Less is More theme for their fifteenth challenge - a One Layer Embossed card. I hope you liked my simple card yesterday.

I do love dry embossing, especially when I'm not using a cuttlebug folder or something like that, and I can get right down into the nitty gritty of a brass stencil and do my embossing MY way.

Today's card has the title Little Feet.. because that's what it is. Take a looksie -

For this card, I opted for another Docrafts stencil from years ago, and did a pair of baby feet. When I did this card, I was just playing around with ideas for a baby card I needed to make for a lovely lady I know who is expecting her baby very soon.

Here's the card in full.

I had found some rocking horse charms in my craft room the other day, so kept the theme on my card to white and silver.

I embossed the frame onto the card and then embossed my footsies into the centre with the wording below.

If you've entered the challenge too, please leave a comment and I'll pop over to your little corner of the world to say HI..

xxx

A quick video tutorial

Just a quick post for you, in addition to the one I put on this morning.

A few days ago, I showed you a white on white card with some dimensional quilled flowers on. I did recieve a few comments to say that some folks were having problems with the Big Shot cutting the XCUT aperture dies. This is also a comment that I got on the Designer section of Docrafts.

So.. without further ado - here's how I cut mine.

Enjoy!

Back to white

Morning folks..

Oh what a night - not sure what was wrong, but I didn't sleep all that well last night.. I was sort of awake from around half two, so decided at 5.30am to get the laptop and talk to my Sis in Canada.. she was just off to bed, so all I can do now is upload a card.. ha ha.

So. What have I got for you today? A clean and simple, one layered embossed card. Is that okay?

This is the theme for this weeks challenge over at the Simply Less is More blog (I love that blog!) and I love the challenge of keeping things nice, simple, fresh and clean-looking. I opted for dry embossing with a brass stencil, but you could go for heat embossing if you'd prefer.

Here you go.. my card for today.

The daisies on my card have always been a firm favourite with me since Docrafts bought out their brass stencils years ago. They always emboss so well, and I love the fact that there are different sizes. I started off by drawing two lines on the back of the card with pencil, and embossing random daisies along the centre and also upto the lines, making sure I didn't go over the edges. I then put the card onto my XCUT score board and embossed two lines, top and bottom.

I finished the card off with the Tiny Tags from Stampin' Up {I haven't used these for aaaaages!!} and a little bow. I even broke out the silver peel offs to add a border to the embossed edge.

I hope you like it.. I do have another to show you tomorrow.. as I couldn't decide between the two designs. So check back soon. xx

This is a bit bright too..

Three posts in one day.. how odd is that? Ha ha..

Anyway, here is the one that I promised you earlier. I did a post earlier today that was for the Passion for Promarker blog challenge "For a teenager" and I said that I had another card for you.

Well.. this is it.

I have used the same papers that I used on my other bright card this morning. But at the time I coloured the images, I didn't know which one I prefered.. so thought I'd finish this one and enter it into the Promarker challenge again. Gosh - they must think I've nothing better to do.. lol..

Here's my little lady in closer up detail. You know.. I think I must have a thing about spotty clothes too!

Here's the bottom part of the card.

I even managed to finish decorating the inside of the card. I know exactly who this card is going to on Friday..   after all, it IS prom season isn't it!?!

Right.. that definately is it from me for today.. back tomorrow with another card or two. xx

Pink and Brown

I'm back again .. this time to show you a card I whizzed up this afternoon.. it was on my To Do list to finish off. I coloured the image last night, so all that was left was to mount it up onto the card and decorate.

I also wanted to get it in today for the Promarker Challenges... I love Promarkers had the theme of Pink and Brown (perfect for this little lady and my lovely new papers!) and Passion for Promarkers has a theme of 'For a Teenager'. Perfect for that again.. so here she is.

To be honest.. I can't say that I'm all that in love with this stamp.. She's smart and casual - just like a teenager would be - but there isn't much to her. I really felt like I needed to doodle a background or something.. but never mind. I'll use her again at some point to see what I think

Here's a close up for you.

Other than sitting colouring today, I have had quite a list of things to get through.. lol.. and I've achieved most of what I needed to (including the cleaning and housework!).

Just going to go and upload the card I promised you now... lol.

It's a bit bright!

Yep. What a sunny card for a Monday morning!!

Actually, this is one of two that I've been working on for a few days.. not really deciding on the colours I wanted to use, but the theme of the card was 'For a Teenager' to go with the Passion for Promarkers Challenge for this week. So, I decided on a couple of images and then looked at my papers. And these zingy citrus-y colours just popped out at me.

And here's the result.

Isn't she the cutest?? I've had these stamps for what seems like ages, and they've never really been inked up. So, as I saw my 'Princess Drama' hanging on my rack, I thought 'Perfect!!' for the teenage theme.

I carried the colours from the papers into my colouring, and I think she looks really pretty..

I hope you like this one. Now.. if that didn't brighten you up on a dreary and drab Monday morning, I don't know what would! lol..

Yippeee... but sod it!

Oh my... my blog - how I love thee!!!

I'm back online eventually after what seemed like ages.. Blogger was having a few problems, and they apparantly uploaded a maintenance file that contained some bugs! How clever... !!

In the process of getting us back online, they did apparantly delete some posts, so I haven't got a clue what is / isn't on here that was before!

I do know, that my White on White card for the Simply Less is More challenge has disappeared.. so here that is again -

This is the card in full and here's a close up of the details.

As you can see, I've embossed the front of the card with the XCUT Aperture die, and then I quilled some flowers and leaves to add detail.

Well.. I'm going to go and back up my blog in full - just in case anything like this happens again.. then I can see what posts I had on here.

Wish me luck.... !

White on white..

Morning folks..

Sorry I took slightly longer to get a card uploaded than I said.. but things have been a bit hectic this week.

Tuesday I had a card workshop to prep for, and that took most of the day to do the sorting, cutting, and packing. Yesterday I thought I ought to do some cleaning and get some bits of shopping done, then rest my footsie as it was getting rather painful, and then last night, I took it easy and made this card.

I wanted to enter it into the Less is More Challenge blog, where the theme this week is White on White.

It started out mainly as a trial for the Docrafts website, where some of the folks on there were saying that the relatively new XCUT frame dies don't work on the Big Shot.. well... actually they do.... as you can see. I've layered up the main panel onto another piece of white, then layered it onto the card. All the panels are raised slightly to give the card more dimension. Here's a couple of closer views.

On this view above, you can see the lettering and the main part of the panel. The panel will cut and emboss at the same time, and also include some pricking holes if you wanted to add some stitching details. My idea of raising it slightly came around because the heart is cut out, but I wanted to sit my flowers inside this section.

And here are my flowers.

I have used a range of the XCUT flower and leaf dies to create some dimension onto the card. But because you cut each section in a strip, you can join them together to create different flowers. The lettering is from the new-ish XCUT alphabet dies that I bought ages ago and never used.

If you like the look of the quilled flowers, then you can see these two  cards that I made for the Docrafts website.

That's it for today - I'll be back with another post for you tomorrow. xx