Valentine Cards

Morning all,
I can now post pictures of the Valentine cards I made for my sons' partners.

Two very different commissions, one wanted something cute "'cos I'm cute!" The other wanted something that would suit the tastes of his girlfriend, suffice to say her likes are different to the normal 'lovey' images.
Can you guess which is which? ha ha!

Love and hugs to all those in need of them.

All Creatures Great and Small

Hi peeps,

Thought I'd enter this card for the Fab 'n' Funky challenge of 'All creatures Great and Small'. I actually made this a while back but never posted it and thought it fitted the bill.

The raven is actually made using the words from Poe's famous poem, how brilliant is that! Perfect for a certain lady who happens to be a massive Poe and Raven fan. I also used my cute Joy crafts 'Vintage Flourish Birds' die and  My Mind's Eye 'Lost and Found' papers on this.

Love and hugs to all those in need,
 

Cardmaking with Promarkers

Hi peeps,
Long time no see (I know, my bad!)
I just felt in the mood for some crafting, which is very unlike me recently so I thought I'd celebrate by entering a couple of challenges.

I'm entering this for:
Passion for ProMarkers - Show us your favourites.
Well these fabulous ladies from Artstamps are certainly my faves, I bought loads of these as they are perfect for girlfriend cards (for ladies of my age anyway)
I love ProMarkers Challenge - Anything goes.
I absolutely DO love ProMarkers. Colouring brilliant digis with these is half the joy of cardmaking for me.

I really seem to have lost my mojo for cardmaking since moving up here and it totally died once the Sketch N Stash challenge blog closed.  However, it seems there is a craft club starting up in our little village in March and I've signed up to it. I'm really hoping that joining in with fellow crafters will inspire me to start crafting again as I used to enjoy it so much. I'm also hoping to learn new skills and start scrapbooking properly. Who knows, I may even be able to blog regularly like I once used to.

Love and hugs to all those in need,

You're My Hero!

Morning all,
No, you're not imagining things, I really AM posting a card!!!!
I am so sorry for being such a bad, bad blogger recently (I haven't posted since June1st and even then it wasn't crafting related) I don't really have any excuses other than a lost mojo and feeling very 'down in the dumps'.
Anyway, it was my birthday recently and my lovely hubby bought me a couple of adult colouring books as part of my present, after deciding to colour a couple of images it made me realise how much I'd missed it so here I am...

This card is for my youngest son Gareth, whose birthday is today. Hopefully he'll like it as he's very into super heroes (films and books) and he's also been training very hard recently and developed one heck of a six pack so I thought this would be quite appropriate for him, ha ha!

I'd love to give credit for this brilliant image but (despite scrolling through over 10,000 Spidey images on DeviantArt) I could no longer find the drawing or artist.





This is the original image so if anyone knows who it is by please leave a comment and I'll happily add the artist's name to this post.







Love and hugs to all those in need of them,

Not Crafting

Morning all, I'm still not doing much crafting, real life seems to have intruded a lot lately.
My eldest son, his partner and her 2 youngest children (aged 7 and 9) went home yesterday after spending a few days with us. Alan and I are exhausted, we're not used to children anymore, ours are now 39 and 37 so we're out of the habit of little ones.

We decided last year that we would redo our kitchen this spring, we'd been putting it off since moving in about 4 years ago and it was the final 'big' job to do in our new home. Alan then had the bright idea of starting it just before Christmas instead of waiting, I'm sure you can imagine how lovely our house looked over the holidays!!
I thought I'd share some photos of it now (and one of how it looked when we bought the house) in case any of you were interested in seeing it.

This was the original kitchen before we bought the house (courtesy of the estate agent's brochure)
Do you like the brass wall sockets? and I can't begin to tell you how inconvenient that island was!



 

This is the new kitchen from a similar angle. You can't see it very well but I've now gone back to my ceramic sink again (I hate stainless steel ones!) and my beautiful new cooker.






 

Moving around slightly to the right of the last picture and showing my only wall unit over my drink making area and fridge.
The doors house the larder and airing cupboard.






 

 Moving a bit further around (this is the front of the house)
The large cupboard houses my boiler at the top, the other shelves hold all the big rarely used things like bread makers, toasters, vases, glass bowls etc. so convenient! My freezer is under the work unit.

Finally coming full circle (the glass door on the right leads through to the conservatory) Not a brass socket in sight!







To say I'm pleased with the end result is the understatement of the century, I absolutely LOVE it!
We moved the washing machine and tumble dryer into the conservatory and made a small utility area out there with matching units. We now have masses of cupboard space (I even have a whole empty one at the moment)
Alan did the majority of the work himself we just had a plasterer, plumber and electrician in for the skilled jobs. I'm so proud of him as I think he's made a wonderful job of it.

Mo's Challenge

Morning all, long time no see!
I've been away for ages, purely due to having no mojo at all, I can't remember when I last spent time in my craft room playing.
I've been feeling very low so far this year and have really just wanted to escape into books, although there isn't any reason why I should be blue. I'm back today because I wanted to enter Mo's DP2 challenge with this card.
It was commissioned by one of my friends for a 17th birthday and I thought it would fit the bill for the optional challenge of 'For Teenz Only'  My friend's gift to her great niece was a set of driving lessons, hence the design.

I do hope that my missing mojo will soon return and that I'll be back with loads of ideas and enthusiasm for crafting again. I am still visiting my favourite blogs (although naughtily I haven't always left comments)
Love and hugs to all who are in need of them.

Glasses!

Evening all, just a quick post from me as I wanted to enter a card into the current Outlaw A La Mode challenge of 'Summer'

I just love these 'girls' from Art Impressions and have quite a few of their stamp sets, so perfect for my friends' cards these days as we are all now quite 'mature' Ahem!!
I thought that this colour palette and image fitted the summer theme quite well.

I haven't been about too much as we are still in the depths of having (lots of) electrical and plumbing jobs done, plastering walls, painting and fitting flooring in the kitchen prior to putting in the new units and cooker etc. All this plus going down with colds and hacking coughs, don't you just love winter (NOT!)

I've actually made a start on some cards for next christmas too -I know, don't faint! Every year I say that I'll start early on making xmas cards and I never do, so I'm trying really hard this year, 8 made so far, hopefully more to come.
Now I just need to enter them into some xmas challenges and that will be 2 birds with the proverbial one stone.

Now that I've made a start with this challenge I'm hoping I'll be able to get back into the swing again and revisit my blogging and crafting pals very soon.

Sketch N Stash #154

 

Morning all, well where did that year go???
A huge THANK YOU to all of our sponsors at Sketch N Stash for their continuing support this year.
For our final challenge of the year we have another 2 sponsors again,
firstly Delicious Doodles are offering a lucky winner 4 images of their choice

This lovely company is closing after 31st December so we wish Teri luck in whatever path she chooses next.

Our second sponsor is another of our regulars, the wonderful Ooh La La Creations who are offering a second winner a CD of their choice from their store.

For my card I have used Delicious Doodles gorgeous 'Holly & Rosehip Wreath' image, coloured with Promarkers. The papers are from Papermania, the dies are Memory Box and Spellbinders and the sentiment is from Crafty Bitz.

Sadly this will be the final challenge for Sketch N Stash and as I have been a DT member from the start I know I shall miss being part of this lovely team, but all good things come to an end.
Thank you to all of our SNS participants and sponsors for their support.

It just remains for me to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a very happy and healthy 2015

Blanche Fussy Cutting

Afternoon all, I'm here with another card today.
I purchased this image ages ago but had never got around to colouring it up until now. I love Mo Manning's digis and especially her 'Blanche' ones.
She is coloured with my Promarkers as usual and I've added some Stickles Stardust for lots of sparkle, although it isn't showing up too well in the photo I'm afraid.
I'm having such fun playing now that the pressure of making my xmas cards is over and I'm actually managing to join in with some challenges for a change too.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:
Tuesday Morning Sketches
Passion for ProMarkers - I've gone for Punches, Glitter, Blooms
Cute Card Thursday - Sparkle

I'll be back tomorrow morning with my regular DT card for Sketch N Stash, so see you then.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend

Morning all, here's another little card made to celebrate finishing my christmas cards.
I have long admired the beautiful Aurora Wings digis but had resisted temptation until a couple of days ago. My willpower gave out and I purchased 2 images from them, I'm pretty sure it won't be my last visit!
This gorgeous image is called 'Pearls' (although as I stickled them 'diamonds' is probably a more apt name for the card) it was coloured, as usual, with my Promarkers and then I fancy cut the image and layered it onto a Spellbinders die-cut.
Unfortunately neither the sparkle nor the vibrant colours show up too well here so it actually does look better in real life, although judging from the mess I made of her hair I definitely need to sign up for a colouring class as my christmas present from hubby.

I'm entering this into the following challenges:
Aurora Wings Challenge - 'All that Glitters'
I Love Promarkers - Anything Goes

Forget Me Not

Afternoon all, just popped in to show you my latest card.
At last I've finished those pesky christmas cards for this year and about to make a start on next year's (yeah, I know incredible ain't I?) but thought I'd have a bit of a play first.
This card uses another of Rick St Dennis digis. Now I love all of his stuff but his vintage style images are my favourites, especially his ladies in hats range. This little beauty is called 'Forget Me Nots' and I really enjoyed colouring her up with my Promarkers.
I've made another couple of cards as well which I'm hoping to show you over the next couple of days.

I'm entering this into the following challenges:
I Love Promarkers
Simon Says Stamp
Divas by Design 

Sketch N Stash #153

Morning all, here I am, all present and correct for this fortnight's Sketch N Stash challenge where we are being sponsored by another TWO companies.

The first is Rick St Dennis and he is offering one winner 2 digi images.

Our second sponsor is Live and Love Crafts who are once again offering our winner a £10 voucher to spend in their store.

For my card I used Rick's 'Frenemies' image, isn't it just fabulous? I love his digis!
The papers are a mix of DCWV and Joanna Sheen, the dies are Nestabilities, the sentiment is computer generated and the embellishments are from my stash

Please pop over to the blog and check out my teamies cards, we'd love it if you could join in with us too.

 

Sketch N Stash #152

Morning all, time for another sketch from us here at Sketch N Stash where this time we are being sponsored by:

A Day For Daisies

 and

 Crafty Devils

I have used A Day For Daisies 'Vintage Slip' image for my card  it was coloured with Promarkers and I designed the rest of it in 'Serif Craft Artist 2' to match our sketch.
I really need to find time to read up on this software package as I love using it but don't know how to do half the things properly. Why is it that I seemed to have masses more time when I was working than I do now I'm retired?

I hope you can make time to join in with us and take a look at the gorgeous creations from our DT on the challenge blog.

Sketch N Stash #151

Morning all, Sketch N Stash is back again for another challenge using sketches from our archive.
I think I may have taken a few liberties with this one, I moved the corners slightly and did away with one of the embellishments and the sentiment (I'll add that when I need to use the card) but hopefully you can still see the original sketch.

We have two sponsors again this fortnight and they are:

Sparkle N Sprinkle who are offering one winner 4 images of their choice and

Crafty Individuals and they are donating another gorgeous prize from their store to a second winner.

I used the gorgeous 'Pansy Ring' image from Sparkle N Sprinkle for my card, together with HOTP papers and Die-Namic corner and Spellbinder rectangle dies.

We'd love you to join in with us (and maybe win one of these prizes)
Pop over to the challenge blog and just take a look at the inspiration offered by our gorgeous DT cards.

 

Teenage Birthdays

Morning all, I thought I'd pop in and share a card that I made for a family birthday. Francesca is 14 and a really 'girly' girl so I thought this image from Mo Manning was just perfect for her birthday, it's called 'Roxy'
I really don't know how I'd survive making teenage cards if it wasn't for Mo's fabulous images, she captures this awkward age so well.

I've coloured this with Promarkers and also used the MS butterfly punch and Spellbinders ornate square die, together with lots of sparkle.

At the present time I'm busy trying to get some xmas cards made. Now, those of you who know me will realise what a big deal this is as I HATE making xmas cards, but this year I don't want to have my normal mad rush a week before the day!
I thought I'd try a modern, CAS style this year. We'll see how that goes as I'm not always successful at CAS despite loving the look of everyone else's cards. I'm using some more Mo Manning images for them so I'll pop them on to share once I've completed them.

Sketch N Stash # 150

Morning all, this fortnight's Sketch N Stash challenge card is also my birthday card for my youngest son (who is an avid reader and tea drinker)
I've slightly changed a couple of things from the original sketch but hopefully you can still see the inspiration.

We are being sponsored by Stitchy Bears once again and I have used their 'cgc postcard 2' image on my card.
Take a trip over to the blog to check out my teamies fabulous creations and our winners and Top 3 from the last challenge.

I'm sorry I haven't been around much but I picked up a cold and cough which have just laid me flat, I can't shift this cough at all. Hopefully I'll be back as soon as I feel normal again.