Birthday Card with Bling

It is my wonderful friends birthday this weekend, so I thought I would show you the card I have made for her.  Its the big 3-0 for her, so I wanted to make something special

I used my sizzix embossing folders for the background and laid that on shimmer white card.  The sentiment in the middle is printed on the same shimmer card. I added a little bit of sparkle to the ribbon as you can't go wrong with it for a birthday card!

I have entered this card into both the Less is More Challenge and the Reasonable Ribbon Challenge.

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Thank You Sew Much

When I first started going to sewing classes my Sister's Mother In Law, Fiona, kindly gave me her sewing machine to practice on.  However this Christmas my wonderful fiancée has bought me a brand new shiny machine :) So as a thank you I have Fiona a homemade bag and card.

To make the card I found the perfect stamp over at Pink Petticoat, I have to say I love the designs at Pink Petticoat and if you have checked it out yet then you should!

I coloured in the little flowers and thread using my promarkers and attached a little bit of sparkle.  To then sewed the image onto scraps of fabric I found in amongst my scrapbox.  To finish off the card I simply sewed a border round the pink backing card and attached a shear ribbon to give it a bit of a 'grounding'.

I will show you the bag I have made her later in the week as I still have some finishing touches to add.

Once I had finished the card I realised the colours were perfect for the challenge over at Ribbon Girls, so I have added this as an entry.

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A Bit of Bling

Good Afternoon,

A quick post from me today, I have come down with the dreaded winter cold!  I have been surfing the internet in between sleeping and noticed the new Less is More Challenge had been set and this week is a bit of bling.

The card I have decided to enter had been made as part of my batch of xmas cards.  However since I love sparkle I may find myself entering another card once I am feeling better.

Anyway here is today's card, hope you like it and fingers crossed I will be back during the week with something new to show you all.

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge

Hi,

Its the the closing day for the Saturday Challenge over at Secret Crafter.  This weeks challenge was a sketch layout.

It took me a while to decide what I was going to do with this layout, I thought about snowflakes, stockings and xmas presents, but nothing looked quite right.

I then found some wrapping paper with 'Let it Snow' on it, I liked the style of the sentiment so I used that as my basis and just added some coloured squares to compliment the paper.  To finish off the card I stuck on some sparkles and the large snowflake.

There is already some amazing cards entered for the challenge but I will put it on anyway.

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'Get Funky Challenge'

Good Evening,


Over at Get Funky they have set a double whammy of a challenge. This month they have asked us to create:

1, A Christmas project using "Traditional colours" meaning red, green, gold, silver etc not the lilacs or blues etc which are around at the moment
2, A non Christmas card or project using Christmas papers please.

I used the papers from their 'All I Want From Christmas' digital downloads for both projects.

From this range I used Paper Number 5, as I loved the little bauble pattern, to create my Christmas card.

To create the background to the sentiment, I dry embossed it with my Sizzix dots folder and then used a clear embossing powder on the raised dots to make them more prominent.  My sentiment was created using another Sizzix folder and again was clear embossed to give it a glossy finish.

For my non Christmas project I decided to made a gift bag, I used Paper Number 16 from the same range.  Once I had created my paper gift bag, I punched holes in the top and threaded through some cord which my Mum had kindly given me(thanks mum).

Although my gift bag is quite small, it would be the perfect size for a bit of jewellery or some sweeties.

I quite enjoyed this challenge, I thought it would be impossible to create a non-christmas project using Christmas papers but Funky Hand have a really good mix of designs in their sets that they can  be used for anything.

Can't wait to see what everybody else creates for this challenge.

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Ribbon Girl Challenge

Hello everybody,

I have never entered the Ribbon Girl Challenge before, but when I seen the challenge for this week I decided to go for it.

I had this square of cardstock which came as a free gift for months and never got round to using it, but I loved the colour and simplicity of it.  So when I seen the pink and white theme I decided to make use of it.

I thought the striped card was bold enough to be the main focus of the card and I just added a frame and some embellishments from my stash to jazz it up a bit.

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Christmas Stockings

Good Morning,

Another card from me for the 'Silhouette' challenge over at Less is More

I used this image in a different way on another card and decided to try it out in black for a silhouette.  I quite liked the image but decided to add the red bows for a little splash of colour.

The stocking image was made using my Silhouette/CraftRobo Machine and the sentiment was from some stamps that I found in my stash, but unfortunately I cannot remember the name of them.

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Let It Snow

I have created my next card using my Silhouette machine.  I quite like the idea of using unusual colours for Chritmas cards, and snowflakes in black I think is a bit different.

The white card has been embossed using my Sizzix snowflakes folder to add a feeling of depth to the card.

I have also entered this card into the Less is More Challenge for this week which is 'Silhouette'.

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Silhouette

Good Morning,

I hope you all had a good weekend.  We have a great time celebrating Gemma's 21st.  Just glad I have today off work to fully recover.

This weeks theme over at Less Is More is 'Silhouette'.

I decided to use some stamps and paper from My Minds Eye 'Lost & Found' range.  I think the chandeliers are very grand, so I tried to tone down the rest of the card to they are the main focus.

I am away to get started on more Christmas cards, so I will be back shortly to show them off.

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Happy 21st Birthday

Hello everybody,

Just a quick post from me today, as I am away celebrating.

Today is a special day as it is my future sister in laws 21st Birthday!

So I just want to wish Gemma a very happy birthday, and bring on the celebrations!!!!

Thought I would share the card I made for her with you all

Gemma is not a girly girl like me, so I tried to keep the pink and sparkle to a minimum, but given it is a special birthday a bit of bling is essential.

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Gorjuss Girl - Rose

Over at Cas-ual Fridays it is time for a new challenge.  This week is a sketch challenge.

I decided that is was time to use my Gorjuss Girl stamp that I showed you last week in this post.  

To make my card to used the following:
Gorjuss Girl Stamp - Rose
Promarkers
My Minds Eye - Lost and Found
Martha Stewart Scallop edge stamp
Anita Gems
The navy card was from my own cardstock.
The stamp was from My Minds Eye - Lost and Found also

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More Christmas Cards

I said in my last post that I needed to get cracking with my Christmas cards.  The other week I went on a bit of a shopping spree over at Digi Stamp Boutique.  I purchased a number of Christmas images, but hadn't really done anything with them.  So last night I coloured in some of the images using my promarkers and used them to make a couple of cards.

This card was made using the 'Eddie & Jemima Xmas Kiss' Stamp and some papers from NitWits.

My next card I took inspiration from Jules over at Always with a heart, I loved the colour and layout of her card so I created this card using the freebie from Digi Stamp Boutique.

I have not decided who I am giving this card to yet, but hopefully they like it.

How are you all getting on with your Christmas cards? I hope you are more organised than me.

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Christmas Card

Good Evening,

My lovely friend Kath asked me this week to make a Christmas Card for her Mother in Law. The only things she asked was that is said 'Merry Christmas Grandma' on it and that she liked flowers.

Hmmm a christmas card with flowers on it. Not something I would usually make, but can't let that defeat me, so away I went looking for inspiration.

Thankfully I found the perfect thing over at Pink Petticoat, part of the Christmas Papers on offer to is 'Pointy Poinsettias'.  I decided to do the card in blue, silver and white, as I think the flowers are still quite traditional but the colours make the card look at bit more modern.

I tied the ribbon to try and look like a Christmas Present and attached the sentiment to look like the gift tag.  The sentiment was also from Pink Petticoat and came with the 'Lots of Big Dots' background papers that I purchased.  To add on the 'Grandma', I printed out the sentiment on standard copier paper and typed Grandma into word and played about with the positioning of it until I got to print where I wanted.  I then printed the sentiment and 'Grandma' onto the paper I wanted to use and cut it into a tag shape.  

My snowflakes were part of my stash, but thought it made the card look a bit more Christmassy.  I coloured in some white sparkles with my promarkers to adhere to the snowflakes.

Hopefully both my friend and her mother in law like the card.

I have also decided to enter this card into the challenge over at Really Reasonable Ribbon, the current challenge is 'Clean and Simple Christmas and Ribbon', so hopefully this ticks all the boxes.

Really have to crack on with my own Christmas cards, it seems to be a never ending task and there is always something more important that needs done!

Stencilled Leaves

Good Evening,

I a recent post I showed you all a card to the 'Less is More' challenge under the Leaves theme using my Silhouette machine.  This seemed a fairly popular idea with some of the comments I received so I thought I would make another card using my Silhouette but in a slightly different way.

For this card I cut out a leaf design using plain printer paper and instead of using it as a topper which would be the most common use, I threw away the cut image and used the outline left behind as a stencil.  I place the image over my card and using my ink pads I created my stencilled leaves.

I did dry emboss a line above and below the image, but I am not sure how well this has shown up.

Thanks for reading
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Make Your Own Xmas Bauble Wreath

Good Evening,

Having been inspired by this post I found on Pinterest, I decided to make my own version of this.

Using foam pipe insulation from my local hardware store, I duct taped the ends together to make my wreath base.

I like the idea of using wool to create a different texture in the wreath, so I purchased some Styrofoam balls from Ebay and wrapped them in blue wool and garden twine.  I used adhesive spray to help keep the wool in place.

From there on in, it was a simply task of using my glue gun to stick the baubles where I wanted them.

I haven't quite finished the ribbon yet as this one is going to my mum and I want to check what length she wants before I cut it.

If you didn't want to use the wool or twine, it would work just as well with the baubles on there own.

Let me know what you think

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Spots & Stripes

Good Afternoon,

Hope everybody had a good weekend.

In my post yesterday I told you have I had attended a Promarkers class at The Papeterie in Aberdeen.  I came away with some beautiful stamped images and it would have been a shame to waste them, so I have used one to create a card.

Over at The Secret Crafter their weekly challenge this week is 'Spots and Stripes' so ever the economist I decided to try in incorporate my stamped image into this weeks theme to enter the challenge.

Created using:

Dark blue Cardstock

Pink Petticoat 'Stripes' backing paper in Stone

Gorjuss Girls Stamp - 'Bluebirds Proposal'

Promarkers

To create my navy 'spots' in the corner of the image, I simply coloured in some white perals I have in my stash.  I did try and get a photo of  before and after but my camera wouldn't focus properly.

Hopefully you like the card and heres hoping for the competition.

I will be back tomorrow with a different craft.

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ProMarkers Class

Good Morning,

On Saturday afternoon I went along to a Promarkers class at The Papeterie with the wonderful Debbie (Wiccababe).  Check out her blog, I can only dream of being as talented as her at Promarkers.  The class was 2 hours and was focusing on shading and blending.  I can honestly say it was a great help and I had a great time. So a big thank you to Debbie for running the class. Here are my attempts using the new Gorjuss Girls stamps.  

So what do you think?

Since I now have these stunning images don't be surprised if they appear on a new card shortly.

Thanks for reading

x

Leaves

Good Evening,

Hope you are all well, I am just settling down to watch Strictly, but thought I would quickly post my card for the both the current Less is More  and Mel Jen Design challenges.

Over at 'Less is More' the challenge is 'Leaves' and its a 1 layer card. I can honestly say I felt my heart sink a bit when I seen it, as I used my only leaf stamp for last weeks challenge.  As all our crafters know, sometimes we have to think outside the box.  So somehow I had to come up with a card which represents 'Leaves' without adding any additional layers.

At Mel Jen Designs the challenge was 'Orange' so I know I had to somehow incorporate this colour into my card.

Well here it is

So how did I do it? I used the 'Swirls and Curls' digital background paper from Pink Petticoat in Papaya, then cut out the leaf design using my CraftRobo/Silhouette machine, so that you could see the back ground paper behind when folded in half.  To finish it off I added a simply sentiment.  Looking at it now I wish I had dry embossed a border to the card but it is submitted now and serves me right for trying to post quickly before Strictly.  It is a really simple card, but I admit it did take a while to think of.

Well Strictly has started, so enjoy your Saturday night and I will be back tomorrow.

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Christmas Gift Tag

Hi,

Since I have decided to make all my own Christmas presents this year (more on that later), its only seems right that I make my own gift wrap and gift tags too.

This week over at CAS-ual Fridays the challenge this week is CFC28 Create a clean and Simple Tag and over at Hero Arts Challenge the themes were a choice of Holiday Tags and Gift Wrap, Bling It Up! and a Colour Challenge.

Since gift tags seems to be a popular challenge at the moment, I got cracking.

I created my tag using my Silhouette Machine. I cut out the background to the tag in black shimmer card and used gold shimmer card for the top layer (sorry you don't get the full effect of the shimmer in the photo). As I love a bit of sparkle, I glued some gold bling to highlight the tag.

For the Hero Arts Challenge my tag should fall into 2 categories and hopefully it works under the clean and simply requirements.

Will let you know how I get on in the challenges.

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Orange and Red

Good Evening All,

I entered the card below into both the Less is More Challenge and Mel Jen Design Challenge.  Both the themes for these challenges were Orange.  Although we are in Autumn I wanted to do something that was quite cheery and use it as a thank you card.

I used a stamp set that I found in my stash, but cannot remember the name of the collection, although I have a feeling it is heros arts.  I will edit my post if I can remember the name.

I stamped a combination of the flowers and butterflies onto plain white card and to finish it off I added the red ribbon and the sparkly flower.

I hope you like the card and fingers crossed.
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Happy Birthday

It one of my friend's birthday today.  So I thought I would share with you my card for her.

The paper was from My Minds Eye 'Fine and Dandy' range.  The ribbon and button was from my stash.

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Flower Pot Makeover - Decorate your own plant pots

Hi again,

My future MIL brought me some little potted flowers for my kitchen window sill at the weekend.  She did promise me they were easy to look after as I an notorious for killing poor house plants.  The flowers are a beautiful pink colour and almost look like little butterflies.  However they came in the standard plastic terracotta coloured pots.  So me being me, I decided that they needed a bit of a make over.

Using a ball of garden twine I wrapped the twine round the pots, using adhesive spray to keep it in place and just kept wrapping them until they are completely covered, really simple if not a bit messy with the adhesive spray.  However I still felt that they needed something more.  So I have a rummage through my stash and found pink ribbon that was the exact same colour as the flowers, Perfect! I simply attached the ribbon in the same way as the twine.

I decided to finish at this point since the colours are quite bright, but you could easily add some bows, die cut butterflies, tags with the name of the plants or herbs on them or anything else that takes your fancy.

You will notice in the last photo that my basil plant also got the same makeover treatment just with a different colour ribbon. I think the more subtle colours of the green really sets off the hot pink! (I know my basil looks a bit bare, but I was cooking thai food over the weekend so my little plant got a bit of a haircut.)

Before

After

All in all I think it took me about half an hour to do all 3 pots, so it was definitely a quick and cheap way to jazz up my pots and add a splash of colour to my kitchen,

Hope you like them too.  Feel free to add any comments if you have any suggestions on how I could make them any cuter.

Speak Soon
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Get Funky Challenge

Since I love all the different designs at Funky Hand I decided on join in on their Get Funky Challenge.  The theme was Autumn and you have to use 1 item of Funky Hand in your design.  Since all my stuff didn't really scream 'Autumn' I used their monthly freebie.  To make the card, I used some green and orange card from my cardstock and added on the Funky Hand freebie paper.  I found my pumpkins and acorn as a digital stamp at Whimsy And Stars Studio.  I then coloured them in using my promarkers and adhered them to the card.  To finish off the card I attached a simple birthday sentiment.

The closing date for entries is the 14th November, so fingers crossed!
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Handy Hippo Giveaway!

Over at the wonderful Jules Always With a Heart blog, Handy Hippo are doing an amazing giveaway.  So if you want the chance to win, head over to her blog and check out how to enter.

Here is what they are giving away

Wow, what a stash!

Good Luck Everybody!
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My First Attempt At Knitting!

Well I have managed to survive one whole week in Blogland! So far I have enjoyed the blogging experience, so I may hang around a bit longer.

Since it has been my week of 'firsts' I thought I would show you my first attempt at knitting Eeeeek!  My Grandmother many years ago did attempt to show me how to knit, but I was absolutely useless.  But never one to give up, I have decided 20 years on to give it another go.

I bought myself one of the knitting magazines that was giving away balls of wool and needles with it.  Opened it up at page 2 where the basic instructions were and proceeded to spend approximately 30mins trying to do a slip knot.  At this point I was beginning to think my Grandmother was right to give up on me!  However found that I could do a row of casting on no problems.  Proceeded onto the knit stitch and again no real issues there.  Feeling quite cocky at this point and was beginning to get into the belief that I was actually a natural knitter and the knitting world had been  missing my presence for years.  Well you know what they say 'pride comes before a fall'  Next was the 'Purl Stitch' Oh My Goodness, how difficult did I find that.  I told my Mum I was struggling with it and she looked at me as if I was daft and replied 'it is just the Knit Stitch in reverse'  Arrrgghhhhh

So I admit I gave up at this point and the needles and wool were stashed away in a box.

However after a couple of weeks that never say die attitude came back and I dug back out the needles.  And with a lot of youtube vidoes I finally manged to do a Purl Stitch.  Wooooo Hoooo.

So here is my feeble attempt at knitting, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I am not going to give up, I am going to manage to knit a chunky scarf by Christmas and the knitting bug is going to catch me, I can just feel it.

Cannot quite believe I have shown you these photos but if any of you out there have any knitting advice for this novice I would really appreciate it.

x

Papertake Weekly Challenge

I have decided to enter this card into the Papertake Weekly Challenge. The theme is 'Anything Goes (Plus A Bit of Bling If You Want :)'

Well never one to shy away from a bit of sparkle I created this Christmas Card.  I embossed the top matting layer using a embossing folder from Sizzix, then I added my stamp, my blingy tree, ribbon and some small sparkles to complete the card.

 Fingers Crossed
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'Less is More' Week 40

Good afternoon everybody,

My second week joining in the "Less if More" challenge.  Have to say I found it more challenging than last week and practically had to restrain myself from adding any extra embellishments to the card.

The theme this week was 'Red & Orange', since we are in the last month of Autumn I decided to use my leaf design with my Martha Stewart Stamp Around the Page.  As you can see from the pictures below I used this to create a leaf background and them added a simple sentiment.

Hope you like the card.

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