This is the same card as yesterday but in my preferred colours, even though I still like yesterday's version, Did I mention the sentiment is by Memory Box? I can't remember and didn't check before starting this post.

Hey we've been having wonderful mild weather over here in the UK and long may it last. I'm really hoping we have a short winter this year, like a month or something. Now that would be amazing.

Sorry this post is really short but I'm about to have a visit from my hairdresser who is going to re-blond my hair for me :). I must put a new pic of me up on this blog as the one that's up now is nearly a year old and I'm sure I've got at least one inch thinner, lol!

Thanks for stopping by....

At last a reindeer card for Christmas

Well I seemed to have skipped Halloween and gone straight to Christmas. I'm now really into making Christmas cards which is just as well as I have a heap load to make.

I adore the Hero Arts 'Winking Reindeer' rubber stamp which is my favourite image at the moment, he's sooo cute. And I also love the simplicity of this card and the fact it didn't take long to make. The sentiment is by Memory box and the strip of Christmas cards is adhesive and by Stampin Up. I love using kraft card too as the colour seems to go with most other colours, particularly red.

I've made this in different colours and I'll show that tomorrow, I'm in two minds which colourway I prefer. I really like paper piecing, where you stamp the image onto another colour, cut out part of the image and stick it on (did I explain that right?). Well the white bit of the reindeer is the bit I'm on about, lol! Not that you see many white reindeers about, if any!

The lovely thing about reindeers is that they are perfect for sticking a tiny red rhinestone on for their nose.

We could use a tiny pinky rhinestone for a certain little cat....

Thanks for stopping by ...

Looking through the window ...

I saw some giant flowers, lol! I made this card using this cool window template. So easy to do. Just hold or temporarily stick the template down, sponge some blue ink for the background and stamp the flowers (Hero Arts) over the top.

I am still trying to re-organise all my craft things and my whole flat and still have a way to go. I really need another room or two :).

I have my new phone (Nokia X6) and although I love it, I am disappointed with the camera. Well, not totally disappointed but it isn't as good as my last camera phone. And I expect with a new phone, it should be much better not worse. Another defect with the phone is that it's not robust and whenever you take a photo, the back falls off!!! It's great for music though, and I've transferred all my music from my PC to my camera as it has 16GB of space on it - amazing! Now I don't have to worry so much if my PC's hard drive fails as at least I've got my music backed up in two places, my Ipod and phone - phew!

I will try and get back to blogging more regularly soon but think over the next couple of weeks things will be a bit patchy as I continue with the big re-organisation (and hopefully sunbathing if our summer returns).

Thanks for stopping by...

Peacock Power

This Peacock is from this Hero Arts set. And the paper and card is from Stampin Up. Love SU products. Their papers and cards all co-ordinate beautifully with their inks and markers. I used the beautiful Taken with Teal colour on the peacock which is the same colour as the Nesties scalloped card. SU are discontinuing Taken with Teal so I'm going to have to stock up before it goes.

Shame the sentiment isn't straight - aaargh! I need gridlines on my acrylic block so I can line it up better.

I used teal coloured gems to accent that sweet peacock's tail feathers and headdress. Wished the scalloped rectangle was larger though. I like using Nestabilities dies but they need to have slightly bigger sizes I think.

Well today will be another day in the sun, yay! A new Italian cafe has opened up down by the river in Taunton. It's called Olio & Farino, it's really cool has lovely food and coffee there. Think I might pay another visit this afternoon and pretend I'm Italian for half an hour :)

Thanks for stopping by ...

Card Lite

I am inspired by Susan Raihala's blog. I love her clean and simple style. She makes some really cool cards. So I thought I'd try out her 'box' cards. She gives a tutorial on how to make them here.

However, I didn't follow the tutorial, I did it a quicker way which is not as professional looking, but I wanted it to look a bit looser (or truthfully I didn't have a lot of time :)). I used a Nestabilities square die and drew around it with a pencil. Then I stamped the bird and sentiments (Hero Arts). Instead of rubbing out the pencil marks, I went over them with a black marker so that I wouldn't get totally straight lines. The 'Hello' should have been stamped a bit lower down as opposed to above the line but never mind, I will do it better next time. I love this style, simple but effective.

Yesterday was our last day of heat for the time being (not too long, I hope!) We've had wonderful warm weather in the high 20's and now we are due for some temps in the low teens :( And that's why I made such a quick card yesterday, so I could spend as much time outside as possible.

The upside of having no sun is that I will spend more time on my cards, yay!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by...

The Magical Garden

I like to think that little fairy/sprites flit around at night, in our gardens, and add a touch of magic and beauty to the flowers.

So that is the inspiration for this card. I found it hard to brayer this card how I wanted it which is why it turned out quite dark in places. My aim is to do it without any lines showing but that is easier said than done. So whenever lines showed up I had to try and cover them up with more ink. And I still haven't managed to stop my moons and suns getting an eclipse around them.

The leaves are by Lavinia Stamps, the Dandelion seed heads are by Hero Arts and I have no idea where I got the fairies from, but they are from years ago when I didn't think I needed to keep a note of where I got them from. Well, I remember I got them from Blockhead Stamps but they don't sell them anymore. The jewelled brads at the bottom of the card are from Stampin Up.

Hope you have some magic in your day, thanks for stopping by ...

Seahorses

Whoa! I adjusted the levels in Photoshop for this picture and it has all gone a bit pear shaped! The colours aren't quite as vibrant as shown but today is a murky day and the original photo was very dark and dingy so I adjusted it a little bit too much! It must be the worse picture I've taken in awhile (ha ha there are plenty more on flickr unfortunately!)

So, for this card, I masked off the edges and smooched some colorbox chalk inks over the middle. And then embossed these seahorse images over the top. I made a few bubbles with Rangers Glossy Accents and poured glitter over. The sentiment is by Hero Arts.

Did you want to see the leopard print broom I was talking about yesterday? Here it is in all its kitsch glory :)
Ok I don't need it... but I want it!

This morning started off good, then went really bad, and then went really good again. What happened? Well my phone alarm went off and then when I went to put in my 4 digit pin to turn it on, my arm had gone dead from sleeping in a weird position. So I didn't put the pin in right, so I did it more than three times wrong and the phone got blocked! Oh no, no, no!!!! It told me I now had to enter my PUK code. My PUK??? What the hell is that? So I had to get onto my computer and google it. Ahhh, my Personal Unblocking Code that can only be got from my network provider. So I had to ring them using my landline phone which costs a fortune while they give me a number of menu options and then keep me on hold for absolutely ages because 'we are too busy to take your call' - huh at 7.15am? I gave up in the end and tried later. I was so happy when finally I got to speak to someone called Singhma who gave me my PUK code and I was reunited with my phone, hurray! He must have a great job reuniting people with their phones as he seemed as happy as I was when my phone worked again. Phew... I am far too dependent on that damm phone!!

Happy Tuesday and thanks for stopping by...

Wildflower beauty

I love Hero Art's new Artists Proofs stamps and this dandelion is from their Wildflowers Garden cling set. I put the ribbon on but it covered the leaf so I altered it slightly by stamping it again, cutting out the leaf and attaching it again but this time higher up. I attached it with a foam pad to lift it up a bit. The dots in the background are stamped with Stampin Up's Whisper White pigment ink which I love because it works well enough on it's own without having to emboss it using white embossing powder. I added Rangers glossy accents to the centre of the flower and it reminds me a bit of a fried egg now!

Well I love the colours of this card because oranges and yellows always cheer me up. Not that I need cheering up because I'm feeling very chirpy.

What also cheers me is seeing the beauty of a dandelion seed head. They are truly magical and although a lot of people dismiss dandelions as weeds, I love them. It's nice to see a bit of beauty growing out of concrete.
What is the aroma I can smell today? Well today Mr or Mrs Patak's Jalfrezi sauce is wafting through my flat and it is a gorgeous smell of warm coconut, mmm, yummy! So really when I say I've done a bit of cooking, I have simply opened the jar and poured it over browned chicken thighs and softened peppers. I think Patak's sauces are the best so far, so I recommend them!

Have a nice day and thanks for stopping by ...

Bird on a branch

Stampin Up's new bird with branch and wing new punch is gorgeous and I love it. I could play with this so much using loads of different colour combinations. I also used SU's Boho Blossoms punch for the flowers and a little bit of crystal accents for the centres. So you might be seeing more of this little bird as I try out more versions. Just a simple card using Nestabilities circle and large scalloped circle to set it off. The 'Hello' is from a clear set by Hero Arts and I must make a note of the names of these sets as I can't remember which one it's from.

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day :)

Fly little bird

I thought I'd try out the Barn door distress ink by Tim Holtz. My favourite colour combo is red, black and white so I thought I'd use that for this card. I think it might be okay to enter this for the black, white and red challenge too over at Inkurable Stampers.

I really love the effect water has on these inks and especially spraying water onto an uninked stamp and then stamping onto the inked page because it gives a lovely bleached out image of the stamp as the water reacts with the ink. Well that's what it's supposed to do, and I have watched the genius Tim Holtz do it and it worked for him. But did it work for me, or did it splash water in big splotches all over the place? The latter of course! And that's why you can see quite a lot of white splotchy bits on the background. Ah well never mind, I think it gives a kinda batik effect.

So then I stamped some flourishes from the Tim Holtz Artful Flight set in both Barn door distress ink and Versacolor over the background. And added the Hero Arts branches (from a set I can't remember the name of!). The bird is also from Artful Flight and what I did was ink around the edges of the stamp and then stamp it on the back of some text I'd typed in Word. The other words I typed in Word also but in different fonts.

Here is a closer look...
Will the little bird escape or will he be captured and caged forever? We will never know.

Have a lovely weekend y'all!

Little Snail and a Challenge

Well it is a coincidence as I made this card yesterday and then this morning saw that Lucy is having another challenge and this time it is stitching on cards. Luckily for me that can include faux stitching which is just as well as I don't have a sewing machine and also can't sew thru card very well.

I did my faux stitching around this large scalloped Nestabilities die with a Sakura gloss pen which gives a nice shine. Talking of shines can you tell I gave this little snail a shimmery trail underneath him with a Sakura Stardust clear pen? I used glossy accents for his shell, I do love glossy accents. Both the snail and flowers are from Hero Arts and the embossed daisies are done with a Sizzix embossing folder.

Oh yesterday was a good day. Thought I had a dentist appt and then half and hour before leaving I rang the dentist to confirm my time and they told me it wasn't until another month - yay!!!

Is it me or do these daffodils look particularly big?


Is it me or does this cat look particularly appealing?

Don't be fooled... she bites!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Sampler Square

I love these stitches and ribbon stamps by Hero Arts. I've had them a long time but lately have got re-aquainted. When I made the background for this card I loved it so much I didn't want to put anything on top of it. But then I thought that cute button flower (my friend Kate bought me) would look sweet with the little Hero Arts daisy flowers around it. And it reminded me of a quilt square. I would love a duvet cover in that pattern, would be so pretty.

I love colourful things for my home. They aren't always easy to find. A lot of high street stores seem to want to force dull and boring colours on us. I've been looking for a nice duvet cover for awhile and a lot of shops seem to be favouring dull washed out colours too much. There is too much beige and grey going on too. I wanted to buy a dustpan and brush the other day and all that was on offer was silver (err that's grey) and champagne (I think they mean BEIGE!). Whatever happened to red, yellow, blue, turquoise etc etc?? Ooooh it's bringing on one of my rants! Bring colour back to the UK please!!!!

Well today is Dentist Day, hopefully I won't need anything done, just the checkup.

Thanks for stopping by...

Remastered Poppy

Ha ha my cards are like CD's, there are the original version and then the remastered version. Especially as I didn't make any cards yesterday. I thought I could show this card again but definitely improved from the first time I showed it.

I left off the 'thank you' sentiment and changed the background colours and embossed with blue card with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots embossing folder. Think it looks much better than the last version which really bugged me especially when I over inked the 'thank you'. The poppy is called 'Elegant Poppy' by Hero Arts but it's an old stamp so I don't know whether they sell it anymore.

Check out the goody bag in my side bar - click on that to enter the Craft Barn's offer to win a goody bag worth £30!

I did some cooking this morning, Chicken Biriyani - sounds impressive but all I did was brown some chicken thighs, cut up red and green peppers and added Patak's Biriyani Aromatic Sauce. The smell is heavenly, if it was a hot day today I might just think I was in India.

Oh yesterday the sun was out big time. I actually felt the heat from it and it was just gorgeous. I'm totally addicted to sun worshipping. Apparently we are going to get a hot summer this year - let's bloomin well hope so, I can't wait!

Happy thoughts

Ahh well it is good to send happy thoughts to someone. And I made this card using Hero Arts 'Sending Happy Thoughts' stamp set. Love this little frog, he's so cute. I added glossy accents over his eyes which looks really effective, you might have to click on the card to see it enlarged as I'm not sure if it shows that well. The background flowers are from a Stampin Up jumbo wheel called ... I can't remember ... but it is in the latest catalogue! No it is not called 'I can't remember'! Lol!

I'm at a loss for words this morning so I'm keeping this short. No hang on, here's a quote that I like ...

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Author Unknown

But Greatly Appreciated!

Chocolate overload

Despite all my good intentions I ate too much chocolate over the weekend - how could I resist one of these cute little ducklings by Marks & Spencer? They always do such cute chocolate animals for Easter. Now I'm gonna have to pay for it by being extra good all this week. Well I get cross with myself when my willpower goes out the window.

And I get very cross with myself when I mess up a perfectly good card by looking at it too much and deciding it needs something else doing to it. And then I do the extra thing and end up messing it up. I liked this sweet card with the poppy by Hero Arts but it looked a little boring to me so I added the ladybird and sentiment (also by Hero Arts). Hmmmph! An overinked sentiment is not what I had in mind but that's what I got. Well that'll teach me to leave well alone because really this card started off looking quite sweet but now is overdone. I have to think how to cover up that mistake, if I come up with something that disguises the 'you' it will be a miracle.

Oh well never mind that. Take a look at these beautiful tulips in my kitchen. Admittedly not a good picture but I did it at an angle to try and exclude the washing machine. Can you tell its another dark and dismal morning? It's a bank holiday today, that's why :)

To those in the UK, Happy Bank Holiday! To everyone else Happy Monday!

Lucy's Challenge: Clean and Simple Card

Well I don't know about clean, but it is a simple card. I'm entering this for Lucy's 7th Card Challenge. The cute little rabbit image is from Hero Arts and the paper and sentiment from Stampin Up. Oh and the egg card was made from the new nestabilities egg shapes which are so cute except that this was the only card I made that actually stayed upright!

'Some days, it’s not about passion and courage. It’s not about heroism and drama. It’s not about slaying dragons or conjuring exotic visions... Some days, it's simply about the delicious act of doing simple things, simply.'

Jack Ricchiuto

And yes, I did eat the sugar rabbit after I took the photo. It had a lovely sweet vanilla flavour, yum!

I caught Miaowski looking cute ontop of the bookshelf. She's checking out the street view and has probably seen a fat pigeon walking by...
Thanks for stopping by ...

More fish in the bowl

This time the fish are smaller and are from a set I bought a few years ago, in the days when I didn't have a blog and didn't think I needed to remember where I got my stamps from. I think I prefer the version I did yesterday but that's the nice thing about that little fish bowl, you can change it every time. It did occur to me that the plants behind the bowl would show through the bowl but decided not to try and colour them. Sometimes reality isn't always necessary in card making :). All the other stamps apart from the fish and starfish are from Hero Arts.

And so I promised my little fish they would get a bit of a look in on my blog and here they are. They have been misbehaving quite a bit lately what with eating their siblings and all sorts of unmentionable behaviour.
I love their vibrant colours, they are so pretty. Especially that male swordtail with his beautiful long tail. Shame they don't stay still for good photos. Every time I tried getting a good picture, they would swim out of shot.
But luckily this beautiful bright orange one swam into shot so I could capture that gorgeous colour.
Today I'm going to be working on some Easter cards. So hopefully I'll have something to show tomorrow

Mini cards and daffodils

Okay so sometimes mini cards come in very handy when I'm short on time.

I stamped these butterfly images onto the colorued card and then stamped them again on white card and coloured them in. Then I cut out the butterflies and glued their body, but not the wings, ontop of the previously stamped image, thereby giving a 3d effect. It's a simple and effective idea. The butterflies were from the Hero Arts clear set of stamps 'Antique Engravings' and the sentiments both from Stampin Up's 'Happy Moments' set.

Now how about a beautiful image of spring? Here are some gorgeous white daffodils my friend Kate bought me for my birthday. Ahh they are so lush, I love them, thank you Kate!

Some nice thoughts about spring ...

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." Anne Bradstreet

"If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom." Audra Fuveo

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'" Robin Williams

Happy Monday everyone!

Butterflies and flowers

Ooh my photo skills are not too hot, why is that picture looking wonky? I don't know... anyhoo here is a thank you card. I'm going to be making a few of these over the next few days as I have a lot of people to thank for giving me such lovely presents.

The paper, card, flower and leaves are from Stampin-up. I forgot I had some die cut flowers and leaves so I cut these out myself from the printed paper - d'oh! The Butterfly is from Hero Arts 'Antique Engravings' clear set. The sentiment is also from Hero Arts.

Today it is Mother's Day in the UK. We are all going out for lunch soon and I just checked out the menu. It looks so delish!

Spring really is coming!

I'm not really sure why this card appears blurred at the bottom. I've tried to do things to make it clearer but no success. Anyway here is my first spring card to celebrate Spring. We are having sunny days down here in Somerset, Uk, but the air is very chilly and not spring like. But I have seen crocuses in flower so that is a cheerful sign. We had a really cold winter and apparently that means that the daffodils, tulips and crocuses will be more spectacular than normal, yay!

On this card I used two retired rabbit images from Hero Arts. 'Retired' meaning they don't sell them anymore, not that they are too old to work :). Hero Arts are going to be bringing out some new Spring and Easter images out very soon (March 10) - I keep seeing sneaky peaks on their blogs, can't wait to see them. Anyway I love my retired rabbits, they are so cute I will keep them forever.

The circle was made with a Nestabilities die that I embossed with Cuttlebug swirls and Sissix daisies. The 'grassy' bit I punched the edge with a Stampin Up scallop punch. The background paper is also Stampin Up.

I love Stampin Up's papers, they are always gorgeous. Actually I buy them and then love them so much I don't want to cut into them to use them!

I'm excited this week as it is my birthday and I will be half a 100 yrs old!! I have just had a delivery ... I know what it is, and it is from my Mum .... woo hoo I have been given a Big Shot Express!!!!!!!!!!!! My Cuttlebug is gorgeous but my wrists are quite weak so I'm having difficulty using it so I'm having to go electric. I would say a BIG THANK YOU to my Mum but she won't be reading this so I'm gonna ring her any minute.

Check out this little beauty... and the best thing is I will be able to use all my Cuttlebug dies and embossing folders with it



Happy Monday everyone!