Happy Halloween

Well yesterday was spent on a different kind of crafting, it was taken up with pumpkin carving and making pumpkin pies. All the girls are grown up now and away from home, but we, especially Steve, still love to have pumpkin pie. So why waste the pumpkin shell, so it will take pride of place on my doorstep this evening ready for the trick or treaters. Last year there was a knock at the door, and when I opened it there stood a minature pony with a witches hat....lol, then a little girl popped out from behind a post saying trick or treat. It was so funny and so novel, I wonder if they'll be back this year, to bring me a smile. Happy Halloween Everyone xx

Fred's Flowers

I've been meaning to use Fred's Flowers from Fred, She Said for ages, so I decided to use them on the two birthday cards for my step-daughters.



The backing papers are Floral Felicity Papers with matching die-cut swirls and flower. Brown organza ribbon runs down the joint between the two different papers. I printed the fred's flowers on glossy photopaper, they were yellow but I've used Chestnut Brown H2O with a water brush to darken them. Green brads hold the layers together. Made a gift tag greeting using brown card, striped paper and a printed sentiment in brown.




The pink flowers are on the same sheet as the yellow ones, so again on glossy photopaper. The background leaves and flowers are stamped onto light green card and stardust sakura pens were used to colour the detail. The fred's flowers are again attached with gold brads. Mounted onto glossy pink card and then the light green card again. The base card is pink with gold peel-off decorations. The sentiment is printed on pearlised pink paper matted onto the glossy pink and light green card.

The flowers on both cards have been creased down the middle of each petal.

Flowers, Swirls and Colour

A card from nana again for Sarah, my second youngest step-daughter, who's birthday is also in November. The silver holographic card was embossed on my bug using the Divine Swirls folder, I then added the coloured flowers from my craft stash on to the embossed piece and mounted onto pink and green mirror card (sorry the green looks rather blue in the picture). The base card is pink A5. To finish I added a piece of rainbow ribbon and peel-off sentiments coloured pink and green with peel-off pens. The corners have been rounded using a corner punch.

Now, thats the granddaughter cards done, must get on with the daughter cards.

For the Love of Shoes

This card is for my youngest step-daughter, Charlotte, from her nana. Charlotte has, what I can only describe as, an unhealthy obsession for shoes, be they flatty canvas ones to killer heels, and she keeps them all in their boxes.....lol. I have never seen so many pairs of foorwear outside of a shoe shop. So what better theme for a card then shoes or in this case a single shoe. The image was stamped and coloured with stardust sakura pens, for that little bit of sparkle and mounted onto green glitter card and matt silver card. The base card is grey marbled, the two green squares are already embossed with a similar design to the birds and swirls cuttlebug folder, I got this card from the Exeter papercraft show, on one of those stalls where you can fill a box of card for a certain amount of pennies. The shoe topper was attached with foam pads so the card didn't look to flat. Finished off with silver peel-off sentiments.

10th Birthday Card

Well November is just around the corner and it's another very busy month for me for birthdays. This card is for my neice who'll be 10 on the 1st. I usually stick to character theme cards for her, but I can't keep up these days with Hannah Montana, High School Musical etc...lol. So I've gone for something I hope a 10 year old will like. The image is stamped and coloured using H2O's with little bit of stardust sakura pens for highlighting, then mounted onto purple and pink mirror card with a multi-coloured peel-off border. The base card is A5 and from Kanban, which has little purple/lilac flowers and dotty swirls printed on it, I've again highlighted some of the detail with a stardust sakura pen. To finish the card off I've used two felt butterflies from my craft stash, the sentiment is peel-offs coloured purple and the number 10 has been cut with my bug using the Hippie Chick alphabet on purple mirror card.

Saturday Challenge # 4

This is my entry for the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge.

This weeks challenge was a sketch by Donna a member of the SCSC DT. I loved this sketch and I think I'll be using this design again.

I've stuck to the christmas theme for this challenge. It's rather sparkly using glitter and mirror card. The patterned backing paper is from Dovecraft's Christmas Blues collection. The main image snowflake is stamped and silver and blue colouring has been added by using silver metallic and blue stardust sakura pens. I punched a snowflake border to one side using the Fiskars Snowflake border punch. For the wavy silver line I used one of the square wavy nestabilities, and then trimmed three sides straight. To finish I used some blue text ribbon and a silver snowflake to the corner, with a white snowflake eyelet and blue square gem.

Below is the sketch for this weeks challenge.

Charity Card Competition for October

This is my October entry to the charity card competition I take part in monthly. This month we were supplied with some fab new die-cuts by Dianne's Die-Cuts. As you'll see I've created a christmas card, using the die-cuts to make a christmas tree, and decorated with some purple tinsel string and a gem star. The wording was cut in my cuttlebug using the Fancy Pants Alphabet Die Set. This is about as good a picture as I could get due to the heavy use of mirror card and the die-cuts being in glitter card. This month's supported charity is PACT Animal Sanctuary .



You can see other competition entries on Dianne's site , showing plenty of different uses of the shapes, and whilst your there why not check out Dianne's online store, there are some fab die-cuts available.

Another Dufex Decoupage

It's been ages since I've done any Dufex decoupage and I've now done 2 in a week...lol. It's probably the same for nearly every crafter, you start to get so many different things, you forget what you have, then all of a sudden you come across something, and think, "oh, I forgot I had that", well thats whats happened with the dufex stuff, I've plenty of xmas dufex to use too, so watch this space as I'm sure there will be plenty more dufex to come over the next few weeks. This is another card for a crafting forum buddy, who had her birthday yesterday. This time it is flowers. The decoupage has been mounted on to lilac and dark pink mirror card, using my wavy square nestabilities. Finished off with a thin pink ribbon and bow and silver sentiment peel-off.
I use silicon when building up my decoupage, I personally think it gives you more choice on the depth of build on each layer and definition such as slightly curling the edges, as can be seen on the ribbon detail of the decoupage image. This was on the first layer, I first slightly and gently curved the edges using scissors, I then added a thin blob of silicon to the middle then added thicker blobs working out from the centre but not going right to the edge, then when placing down on to the image I just gently pushed down on the centre of the layer. Slightly curling the edges works brilliantly on details such as ribbon, flowers and leaves to give a whole new dimension to the decoupage.

Dufex Decoupage

It's now safe to post this card, I made it for a crafting forum buddy, who's birthday was yesterday. The lady decoupage is a dufex deco sheet. I used my square wavy nestabilities for the matting and finished off with silver peel-off corners & sentiment and a lilac tied ribbon.

Christmas Greetings from Hessle

This is an order of eight christmas cards which I have done every year for the past 4 years for a lady who lives in Hessle. Hessle is just west of Hull and it's most famous landmark is the Hessle Foreshore and Humber Bridge. Last year I managed to go very early in the morning in the snow to get some pictures of the foreshore and bridge, before the snow melted. So I've been looking forward to using these pictures for this year's cards, which actually have snow on. I used the envelope design for five of the cards and landscape A5 for the other three cards.

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #3

This is my card entry for the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #3. The theme this week is 'Blue, White and a little bit of Snowflake'.

I've used the Winter House cuttlebug embossing folder in my bug, highlighting the snow and outlines with a white sakura pen, then mounted onto pearlised white and silver card. The base card is blue with white snowflakes. To finish I've added a silver cord with snowflakes, beads and a bell and a silver peel-off sentiment.

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #2

I found out about this challenge blog when visiting Cards By Helen, thank you Helen.

This is my entry for the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge . The baubles were stamped twice onto cream card using black stazon I then used Twinkling H2O's for the colourings, gold metallic and black stardust sakura pens on some of the detail. Finishing off the baubles with a touch of red and crystal stickles. Attached a green mirror card frame over the baubles and add peel-offs to the corners. The christmas greeting was stamped onto cream card and then mounted onto green mirror card. Two strips of twisted gold ribbon were stuck onto the silver base card then the sentiment and framed baubles were attached using foam pads. The card was finished off with 3 sequin stars.





Below is the sketch for this week's challenge layout.

Altered CD Case Calendar

Well this is what I've been playing with yesterday and finished off this morning. It's an altered CD case made into a 2009 desk calendar. This is not my own idea, it was something I saw on Jak Heath's blog a few months ago, and loved it. I'll show you the pictures first then tell you a little more about it.









I stamped the flowers and fancy bits using black stazon ink. I then added a touch of colour and sparkle using crystal stickles and placed a pearl bead in the centre of each flower. I've also stamped the base/stand of the CD case and added the stickle detail and pearl beads as before. Thanks to my crafting buddy Sue, she managed to design the little holder for the calander pages so that can easily be changed by slipping them out of the side, I attached the holder to the case using silicon. To finish I added some black velvet ribbon and a little black bow using satin ribbon. I stuck the ribbon using DST and a little silicon but there are many ways how you could attach the ribbon. This is my prototype which i'll be keeping for myself, but I think they look fab and would make gorgeous little christmas presents for family and friends. Please visit Crafters Kitchen which is Jak's blog to see her idea and many more fabulous things she has created, a truly inspirational blog.

Sorry.......

How naughty am I? I've not posted for just over a week. Well things have been a bit on the hectic side and all my planned crafting time was put on hold. We've been busy sorting Steve's mum's house, she'd been staying with us for 2 weeks whilst she had a new kitchen put in, which involved a lot of knocking down and plastering. So not only was the kitchen a state, so was the whole house with dust. So last weekend and beginning of this week was spent on cleaning the house from top to bottom then sorting out the kitchen, with filling the cupboards, tiling, wallpapering and painting. We'll be finishing off the decorating as much as we can this weekend.
Then Wednesday I had the whole day to myself and planned on making cards all day, even went shopping at Tesco's at 7 o'clock in the morning, so that the day wasn't disrupted, then as I left Tesco's I noticed I had 3 missed calls from Steve, I instantly had a bad feeling in my stomache as I knew he'd not of been at work yet. And that bad feeling I was getting was right, when I got hold of Steve, he'd said he'd been in an accident near Manchester on the M62. All the traffic had to brake hard for an accident just ahead, Steve managed to stop in time but the van, two cars and two lorries behind him didn't. Thankfully Steve was unhurt but obviously shaken, and thankfully no one else was too badly hurt. Steve appeared to be more annoyed about his car, as it's only 3 months old from new, but cars can be replaced, our loved ones can't. He's been at home with me and will go back to work on Monday. His insurance company has given him a hire car and his poor car is at a Citreon clinic in Leeds, so we are awaiting for the damage report.

Though I lost Wednesday's planned craft time, I did manage to do some yesterday and I'll get them on here very soon.

So, sorry I've not been about, but as you can see it's not been such a good week.

Thinking of a friend

I've a crafting friend who is going through a difficult time at the moment with her partner being in hospital, so I wanted to send a card wishing him a speedy recovery and and to let them know I'm thinking of them both. I've tried to keep it fairly simple with the sentiment being "You've been on my mind" and put some personal handwritten words inside the card. The flower is from another Penny Wessenauer decoupage sheet, I just love her sheets.

Black & White Cheerleader

It's our niece's 8th birthday tomorrow, (8 going on 18....lol) She's a cheerleader herself and very committed to it, she's won a few individual and team medals including a couple of golds this year at various competitions. So I'm hoping she'll like this card, her favourite colour at the moment is black, so I think the black and white theme was apt. The cheerleader is a silo image and matted onto black card. Finished off with black and white polka dot ribbon and bow.

Moving Card

Back into my cardmaking now, just got a couple of birthdays to go, then I really need to get stuck into the Christmas cards again.


I made this card for Steve's cousin. I used one of Marij Rahder' s Moving Cards sheet. I brought some of these sheets at the show in Exeter, when I was on my holiday. It was pretty easy to assemble, thankfully. I think they are great sheets for a bit of humour.

I just need to decide whether to add a birthday sentiment to the front or just leave it to the verse inside the card, got a few days to think about it.

In Memory of My Dad

It's 2 years today since we lost our dad suddenly. Unfortunately I can't be where my dad rests, so I'd just like to do a little piece on here in memory of my dad.

Remembering you is easy Dad,

I do it every day,

And missing you is something

That will never go away.

All My Love Dad

xxxxx

14th November 1951 - 2nd October 2006

Verse from http://remembrance.liverpoolecho.co.uk/verses/father/