Cute

I thought I'd have a great day on the craft front yesterday but instead spent too much time cleaning the print nozzles on that darned printer. So I didn't do too much.

But I did manage to come up with something. Using these two cute bird stamps from Squigglestamps, I made this simple card. I wanted to keep it simple as I wanted to highlight this pretty paper and co-ordinating card from Stampin Up. I also used my Nestabilities circle die and Scallop die to create a frame for the bird to perch on. I might use this as a Mother's Day card, not sure yet. My Mum won't see this anyway as she doesn't have a computer so it won't spoil the surprise. This is very cutesy. I know, I do love cute... I also love dark and edgey too but that doesn't come naturally to me. I'm working on it, especially when I get my Tim Holtz book .

Oh, I had an email yesterday from QVC to say that my Tim Holtz book has been despatched and is on it's way .... hurray! Actually I was expecting it to turn up yesterday but it didn't and I nearly took to my bed in disappointment! Huh! Want to see what I will be getting any time soon? Check this out ...
I'm loving today as it is rainy and dark outside ... my favourite kind of weather when I'm staying indoors trying to be creative. I feel all cosy and happy. If it was gorgeous and sunny I'd want to be outside and then I wouldn't get anything done. Mind you I am looking forward to gorgeous sunny weather, it's been a long cold Winter.

Someone who has a natural way with cute and cosy...

Yesterday I was inspired by Jennifer McGuire's beautiful butterfly card so I thought I would give it a try. Had a few bubbles in the glossy accents unfortunately but I think it adds to the butterfly's pattern :). The butterfly is from Hero Arts Winged Friends digital set, I resized and printed it out. It is coloured with Tim Holtz distress inks Shabby Shutters and Broken China - or green and blue as I sometimes call them!

I love inspirational quotes so I will leave you with one

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen. - Frank Lloyd Wright, 1869-1959

Yay! I find that to be very true...

Swirls and Birds

In anticipation of the arrival of Tim Holtz's book, I decided to try out my distressing ink pads again. I'm not great at blending with these, although others make it look so easy, I haven't quite got the hang of it. So instead of blend we have blotch but never mind. I'm looking forward to getting some Ranger Perfect Pearls to add around the edges but instead I used some gold paste I smeared around instead. I don't think you can see the gold gleam that well in this photo.

I used the tea dye distress pad and stamped with Stampin Up's Baroque stamp, I love those swirls. Then I added the cute birdcage, also from Stampin Up. The tiny little bird on one of the swirls is from Stampendous' new birdcage set. He got a bit smudged when I was intent on blending and not blotching!

I love birdcages, there is something about them. It's not that I want to see birds stuck inside them, just love the shape of the cages, they're so pretty. Expect to see more birdcages on my cards because I have quite a few all from different stamp companies. They are definitely on trend at the moment.

Would you like to see what my work space looks like after I have made just 1 card? Although I am rather untidy, I did tidy up this morning before making a card. My table was clear (ish), and now look at it...

Actually that's not as bad as it sometimes get. If my table is ever really tidy you can bet I'm not doing anything.

I was looking at some Tim Holtz stamps the other day and I came across this lovely quote on one of his stamps... Live in the moment and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.. I really love that, I must try and make it happen

With Flowers

Here is another card made using digital images from Pink Petticoat. This is from the With Flowers set. I like the style of the funky flowers and added some pink gems and white pearls. The paper flowers I added were from Hero Arts.

I'm having printer issues at the moment. Apart from deciding it won't do borderless printing it's also decided it doesn't like the colour yellow. If I try and print something with yellow it will either do pink or nothing - just as well I don't want to print out a picture of bananas... It might be something to do with the fact that I replaced the yellow cartridge with a compatible cartridge and I'm thinking it was obviously a dodgy one. I don't normally have a problem with compatibles but this one is just not doing what it's supposed to.

If the printer doesn't start behaving I might have to replace it with this wireless baby ..... oh I can dream!!!!!

Birdcage

I am loving Pink Petticoat, a British company who sell printable paper designs and digital image stamps to use in card making and papercrafts. This birdcage and bird is from the sweet 'Chirp up' image stamps and the background polka dot card is from the Big Dots, Little Dots range of paper designs. I love that the whole card was done with my PC, apart from the colouring and added bling, oh and the stamped 'hallo' :)

I coloured the image with Faber & Castell colour pencils and also used Derwent's Coloursoft pencil to shade around the image. I would have stippled around the image with ink as it would have been quicker and blended better but didn't have a pale yellow to do it with. It's not easy to see with this photo but I painted some glossy accents over the bird to make him more dimensional and added a dot of Rangers Icicles Stickles to the middle of the bow. The 'hallo' sentiment is by Hero Arts.

I'd like to know how to change the colour of the hearts from black to red or pink but I guess that is another thing I have to learn how to do. I have a big Photoshop book I need to wade through. I'm wishing it was spiral bound so it is easy to open and have in front of me while I'm at my computer. If anyone has seen a book like that please let me know.

Also I have an Epson DX7450 printer and if anyone knows how to do borderless printing with that, please let me know how ... it has a borderless option, I click it and it still prints out a white border around my background designs!!! Argh!

Yesterday I watched QVC's card making day and loved watching it. Didn't see it all as I just didn't have time to just sit and watch tv all day. But I taped all the Tim Holtz bits and Sharri Carrol. I was going to be good and not buy anything but I bought the Tim Holtz book 'The Compendium of Curiosities' plus accessories as it looked really helpful. I really want to get into the art of distressing and altering so watch this space for my new creations :)

Thanks for stopping by ...

Polka dot crazy

Here is a card I made using the Hero Arts butterfly stamp from their Cling set of butterflies. I blinged it up using Rangers Icicles stickles, set it on a polka dot Nestie made using Hero Arts rain drop background stamp and layered that onto cardstock embossed with a Daisy Sizzix embossing folder

Talking of polka dots... I'm mad about them, especially red with white dots. I have mugs, jugs, and even a cardigan in that colour. And then decided my small kitchen table needed smartening up. It's old and has been clawed within an inch of it's life by Miaowski. She sits on it a lot so it needs cleaning but that's not easy to do. It's too small for a tablecloth so I thought an oilskin cloth would be a good idea. I saw it on this page from Cath Kidston. My friend Christine said her mother is good at upholstering so would ask her if she would do it for me, and ... Voila! Look at my lovely new table, it's so cute I love it. And so easy to clean too :). Thank you Ruth, you did such a lovely job! And thanks to Nick, Christine's husband who fixed the wobbly leg. And thanks to their lovely children, Ellie and Ethan for being so cute :)

It's that dog again!

I know, I've done this dog before but here are two examples that are different. The first stamp is the original of the dog from Pink Gem Designs which has the hearts and his eyes are closed. The eyelet border I've added is a Stampin Up punch

The second one, I've cut him out without the hearts and added a little black bead to make him look like his eyes are open. I've used Stampin Up's tag punch and silver flower brad.


Less than 24 hours to go to watch the UK's QVC's 24 hour card making day. I'm glad there is a schedule on their site otherwise I'd be having to tape the lot, well I will be taping a lot. I hope I have enough room on the dvd recorder. Sharri Carroll from Hero Arts is going to be on at 7 pm - yippee! I'm so looking forward to watching her do her demo.

Anyone not living in the UK can watch this live via the internet on QVCUK.com at 1:00pm CST (that's 7:00pm in London).

Thanks for stopping by ...

9 Cats

Had more fun with this digital kit. This time I changed all the cat's sizes and colours and put them with this digital sentiment by Squigglefly. I had a lot of white space so used some Stampin Up punched hearts to fill it.

I have a ton of cards I need to make. I'm hoping to get a lot done today. I can't believe Easter is almost a month away and also Mother's day is coming up and then there are quite a few birthday cards to do.

Thanks for stopping by

Talented Cats

I totally love this digital kit by Shelley Castillo. I like to use digital kits and have been waiting for someone to bring out cute cats. I'm only a newbie with digital though, so at the moment I tend to just resize images in Word and then cut them out. Yesterday I learned how to recolour images in Photoshop so I had quite a fun time changing all the little cat's colours. My printer isn't great unfortunately so the colours don't always come out as I would like.

For the background I stamped with Hero Arts rain drops in clear ink and then brayered over with Kaleidacolor Berry Blaze. It would have been better using a sponge with the ink as it would have defined the spots better but I'll do it next time, I was in too much of a hurry.

The sentiment I typed out in Word. I got the idea from a card someone sent me ages ago. Think Miaowski agrees wholeheartedly!


Today it is snowing and cold. I can't wait to feel the warmth of the sun and see pretty daffodils and snowdrops.

Thanks for stopping by ...

It is nice and sunny outside but still cold. So I'm thinking of hot sunny days to come and this is what made me want to make a hot looking card. Using the Silhouette Flowers by Hero Arts I stamped it in clear Versamark ink onto glossy cardstock and then brayered over it with the Kaleidacolor ink pad Desert Sun. I brayered the white card underneath with the same ink and I love the arty look it has.

Now I've always admired the way people finish off their cards with ribbons and threads and buttons etc. But I've never been able to do it well myself. I especially love it when you see thread wound around the card and then threaded through a button.

How on earth do they do that I wonder, it all looks very fiddly and I'm not nimble fingered. Aha, I had a brainwave!! I wound the thread around the card and adhered it to the back. Then I got some more thread and put that through the button and tied a bow. My brainwave? I stuck it with glue to the front of the thread. Is that how other people do it? I don't know but it works so it's fine by me.

Soon my photos should be looking better as I have been following tutorials by Lisa Spangler from Hero Arts on how to improve your photos. I had so much fun playing with Photoshop, the day flew by. I now want to go through all my photos and adjust them all.

Thanks for stopping by ...

Dreamy cats and butterflies

I had planned to try out a new technique on a card and put that up on the blog today. But it went wrong and I haven't had time to do it again. So these are two cards I had made up awhile ago using Hero Art stamps. The oval punches and thank you sentiment were by Stampin Up.

The background for the turquoise card was made using the reverse embossing technique that I was trying to do in a different way last night.

Can you believe what I did last night that made everything go totally wrong? Well I wanted to use masking tape to create a nice white boarder around an image but used double sided tape by mistake!! Nope, it just wasn't going to work. Aaaargh!

It's a rainy day today and Miaowski has been sawing logs all day, it's what she does best!

Sweet Caremelo

I love the new Cuttlebug embossing folders. Here is another one my sister sent me. I think it is so sweet and pretty. Its called 'Caremelo'. I wanted to make a simple card that would show off the embossing so used a very small image, my favourite tiny House Mouse image. Love those mice especially the little ones.

I made the little card using a Nestabilities scallop square and if you want to know the best way to do this you should check out Donna MiKasa's blog as she gives a great tutorial on how to do it. Love Donna's cards and get a lot of inspiration from her.

I'm so excited about all the new products coming out from spring CHA (Craft Hobby Association). Next week, starting at midnight on Monday will be the UK's QVC's 24 hour craft day with the wonderful Sharri Carrol from Hero Arts and Tim Holtz and Anna Griffin as well as many other well known craft people. I'm gonna have to set my dvd recorder to record all night as I think Tim is starting at midnight. Can't wait to see all their demos.

Thanks for stopping by xx

Hoots it's the sweet Westie again!

Awhile ago I bought some lovely tartan paper, I can't remember who makes it. I had it for ages, not sure what I was going to use it for. But since getting this cute westie from Pink Gem Designs, I think it goes really well. I couldn't resist making it a little collar from the paper. I've made another card like this in green but I will show that later as I haven't finished it yet. I'm really liking simple cards that are quick to make.

I was really excited yesterday getting this blog up and running. My day flew by as I was so engrossed trying out new things. My thanks to Kristina from Two Happy Mamas for making this blog look so pretty.

I had such a great day, in fact it wasn't long enough. At one point I wanted to do so many things at once I just didn't know what to do. I wanted to read my book, draw a picture, make more cards, learn all about laying out the blog, learn Photoshop, read all my favourite blogs, read the newspaper, play Spider Solitaire, watch 'The Good Wife', play with Miaowski, and feed my virtual fish in Facebook. Yes that's what I wanted to do, all at the same time ... quite impossible. Why do people get bored?

Polka dots for Lucy's Challenge

I already entered a card for Lucy's Polka dot challenge but decided I'd do another. My favourite colour combo is black, white and a touch of red so this is what I came up with. I also used a Stampin Up scallop punch and some ric rac ribbon bought from ebay.

Oh I nearly forgot ...

And while I'm at it who do you think is going to be the star of this blog ... well of course it is going to be Miaowski. So to get this going here is a picture of the little miscreant, oops, sorry, her royal gorgeousness. And this was her when she was a tiny kitten 4 years ago.

You see those eyes? Almost like she's thinking 'I wanna do something really really bad, how can I get away with it?' Well that pretty much sums up the way she is. Ohhh but I do love her so much, the little devil!

Dreaming of butterflies

Hallo and welcome. It's taken me ages to get round to blogging but as I read so many other people's blogs I thought I'd give it a go.

And to celebrate my first blog post I want to show you a card I made using the new Cuttlebug embossing folder called 'Jules Jewels' or as I said to someone the other day 'Jules Verne' (who is he?? Is he an author or something? The name rings a bell!). Anyway this is my first attempt with it and I'm sorry to see that the picture is not brilliant but that's what you get when you are using the Nokia N96 phone camera. The colour of the pink of the card is much prettier in real life.

My lovely sister sent the embossing folder to me all the way from Australia - I couldn't get it in the UK and then when it arrived I suddenly saw it was available. See, I'm not the most patient of people and when I saw it I had to have it and I just could not wait to get it.

Anyway it is a beautiful embossing folder with butterfly swirls. This was the first thing I came up with. I used the gorgeous sweet Westie dog from Pink Gem Designs and the butterfly punch from Martha Stewart. And the swirly swirls are from the Baroque set from Stampin Up.

I'm planning on making this blog pretty and gorgeous but at the moment it's all a bit plain jane. Which is my middle name ... no not 'plain' but 'Jane'.