.....more Christmas Cards...a few for the men?

First of all I'd like to say a big Thank You to Kerry for the Freebie Christmas Tree which I've used to make this very simple card. Thank You Kerry! I started by printing out and painting the christmas trees. I tried putting them on other cards with other images but I thought I'd like the tree to be the main focus of the card. I've added a few red and green papermania adhesive stars to decorate and then stuck it down using foam pads. The strip of dotty paper is doodlebug layered onto some red doodlebug cardstock. I've then printed the sentiment on the pc, again onto co-ordinating doodlebug card and layered this too. I really love this card. I can't beleive how simple it was to make! One of my quickest so far!I got the idea for this card after seeing this card on Tara's Blog! I really love the holly wreath and decided to have a go at making one myself. I've used doodlebug again! Paper & Card! and I've embossed each holly leaf with the swiss dots folder. I wasnt sure what to do with the wreath once I'd made it and one evening I had a flash of inspiration! So I went straight into my craft room and cut out circle from the card and hung a large round sentiment in the style of a hanging bauble!I bought the Papermania Christmas stack a few weeks back in Hobbycraft as i thought the traditional papers would be ideal for some more masculine cards. I've used the free template to cut out the holly leaves and inked all the edges. For the lettering I printed off a few christmassy words and made my own card templates so I can re-create them. I've cut them out using the same paper as the background paper. The font I've used is called Madfont and I downloaded it from DaFont I had the Idea for this next card when I saw the Ribbon Tree stamp in a magazine. I cut out all the different pieces of ribbon and stuck them down and then trimmed them into a tree shape. I added a small star brad to the top of the tree. Then I got stuck! and didnt know what to do with it, so I've kept it simple and a bit manly!

I decided to have a go at making some Christmas Baubles using the Papermania paper pack again. I've cut out the baubles using my nestabilities and finished them with some gold ribbon and a few adhesive stones. I think they have turned out really well. Very simple and easy to make.

More Christmas Cards

Can you see a theme running through my cards yet? Pink Petticoat? Doodlebug? I wanted to keep my cards all fairly similar this year to make it a bit easier on me. Its been far from easy though! Here are a few more.... For this card, I've made the holly leaves using one of the free templates that came with a magazine a month or so ago. I've inked all the edges and scored down the middle of each leaf before adding glamour dust and sticking them down with foam pads. I made a bulk batch of these and they've been really usefull!Another Pink Petticoat card using Lola Rose, combined with Doodlebug Holly Paper which ties in lovely with her christmas jumper!For this one, I thought I'd have a go at stamping up a Magnolia image to use on a Christmas card. I've used Tilda with Flower Boquet and coloured the flowers in red to resemble some kind of poinsettia type flower! I've gone with the same layout as above, using my handmade holly leaves and hand cut scalloped circle, and I wonder why it takes me so long to make my cards!!!The dotty paper is Doodlebug again! and to tie in with this I've used the swiss dots embossing folder. Then just a few adhesive stones to finish!

Whilst playing around with the Pink Petticoat images I decided it would be a good Idea to do something with just the Christmas Puddings, so I cropped them in Paint shop pro and printed off about 50 of them! I used my square punch to cut them all out and I spent a theraputic evening watercolouring them and adding glamour dust. I had a little production line going. I wasnt entirely sure what I was going to do with them once I'd finished so here are a couple of cards that I made.

I think this is my favourite of the two. I've embossed the bottom of the card with the cuttlebug snowflakes folder and sectioned the two parts with a nice piece of red ribbon. I printed the sentiment on the pc and layered onto co-ordinating card.

So many cards...so little time!

I've been asked to have a little stall at my little boys pre-school christmas fair in a couple of weeks time. Its the first time I've ever been asked to do anything like this and I'm a little nervous to be honest. I've been working really hard trying to get as many cards made as possible. Tonight I've got nothing left in me! I'm exhausted! so thought I would take a bit of a break and come and update my blog instead. I've got lots of cards to show you.

First of all I thought I’d start with a couple of candle and card sets. This first one is made using a Sugar Nellie stamp that I bought a couple of months ago from Funky Kits. I think I only paid £2.50 in the sale for it! What a bargain! I’ve used Doodlebug Winter Asterisks paper together with Doodlebug cardstock. The white background is embossed with the Cuttlebug snowflakes folder and the raised scalloped circle, which is all cut by hand, is embossed with the Swiss Dots folder. I’ve added a few adhesive stones and a sentiment I made on the PC. I really love this set. I think it’s my favourite out of all the ones I’ve made.
Secondly, I decided to make a candle to match my Forever Friends card. I have added small adhesive stones to the centre of the flowers and tied a pink bow around the bottom of the candle. And finally, another Christmassy card and candle. I made this one using Pink Petticoat’s Lola Rose with Christmas Tree. I used the printing direct onto tissue paper technique for this one! I’ve added glamour dust to the trees for an added bit of sparkle! The Christmas tree on the card is stuck on with foam pads to give it a bit more dimension but this is about as far into decoupage as I like to go! I’ve then embossed the top and bottom of the card with the Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder. The cardstock and paper are both Doodlebug and the ribbon is from Ribbon Oasis.

Award Time!

I've been a bit slack on updating my blog lately! I've been so busy making christmas cards! I've received a few awards and just wanted to pop them up on my blog and say thanks to the ladies who have passed them on to me.

First of all Alex has given me the Kreativ Blogger Award

I've already passed this award on, so won't send it again but I think just about all the blogs I visit already have it! If you are reading this and don't have the award, then feel free to take it from me!

Secondly both Vicky and Denise have passed on this award to me

"This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!" Deliver this award to eight blogger's who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

Thank you all so much, I really appreciated the thoughts and am glad you all enjoy my blog!

I'm now off to have a look and see who I can pass the award onto!

Back soon...

Meet George....the dinosaur!

I've had a busy day today. I was asked to make a card for a little boy who is going to be 5 soon and I've spent nearly all day making this card! I have no idea what his favourite characters are or anything so I thought I'd play the safe option and go for Dinosaurs! I did a search on the internet but all I came up with really were the Basic Grey Archaic dinosaurs. I then remembered seeing some cards and toppers made using them in a magazine, which I think Jo Kill did, so I dug out the magazine for some more inspiration.

Rather than go out and spend more money I decided that I would have a go at making my own paper pieced dinosaur. So I got out my trusty doodlebug cardstock and set about making a template. I've kind of copied the Basic Grey one, but have drawn it all freehand. I've inked all the edges, hopefully making it stand out a bit more. I have decided to call him George, don't know why really, he just looks like a George! I think I've fallen in love with him. I'm so pleased with how he's turned out.
I'm not so happy about the rest of the card though. The inspiration stopped at the dinosaur! I used a Shabby Princess paper for the background which is in tones of brown, green and orange. I cut out a few small pieces of card which I've inked and hopefully they look like rocks! I was a bit stuck when it came to the sentiment. I dont have many sentiments stamps and by the time i was ready for it, it was too late to print one off the computer, So I've just coloured some peel offs brown.

I hope you all like him!

A little bit of Christmas!

I spent most of Sunday looking back through old issues of magazines looking for some inspiration for some christmas cards and was so frustrated as I just couldnt find what I was looking for! I didnt know at the time what I was looking for but I didnt find it! I did sit and cut out some snowflakes from one of the free templates that came with a magazine and also some holly leaves.

Here are a couple of the cards I've used my holly leaves and snowflakes on!
I was originally inspired to make this card when I saw the new stamp from Magnolia with the Silent night music background. As I already have a sheet music stamp I thought I'd save myself some money and have a go at using it! I've stamped it onto red doodlebug card in embossing ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. I then took the Guitar playing Edwin and attached him using foam pads. The sentiment is one I've made myself using paint shop pro and Ive cut it out using my nestabilities and then inked the edges. This is also stuck down with foam pads. The stripey paper is from the Papermania set A Wonderful Christmas Time. The spotty paper is a download which I've recoloured from blue to red spots. I am really pleased with this card. Its got to be one of my favourites! I hope you all like it too.

And onto my second creation. This is one I made yesterday and this is the card I was looking for on Sunday but couldnt find! It all started with a sheet of Vellum which I'd torn and decided to use it as a layer of snow. I've taken a sheet of Doodlebug Whimsical Winter Asterisks paper and cut out of it 3 different sized triangles. I have inked all the edges in navy blue ink and then I'ved gone round the edges and also the edge of the vellum with my glue pen and sprinkled Glamour Dust to give them a snowy effect. I have to say that there is glitter everywhere now. I'm sure I will be finding it for months to come! But I love the Glamour Dust. I really wanted something that gave this effect last year but I only had quite a bulky glitter. The snowflakes are stamped onto a pearlescent navy card in white ink and then embossed with clear powder. The snowflake stamp is from another one of my Dovecraft/Studio G 99p stamp sets. I have covered the large blue snowflake I spent ages cutting out, in glamour dust too and then stuck the sentiment, which is another one I have created in paint shop pro, in the centre and mounted it on foam pads. In all, I made about 6 of these last night.

This card was so difficult to photograph! I must have taken about 100 photos last night and yet all it needed to show it off was a little bit of sunshine!

Forever Friends

I've been having a play with my new Forever Friends stamps. I really love them and have spent hours just sitting colouring lots of stamped images in! Here are a couple of cards I've made using them, which I decided to keep quite simple. I wish now that I'd have used my embossing folders on the horizontal strip! next time I will do!

I think this one is my favourite. I really love the lilac and I think the ribbon bow finish it off really well. The stamp is from a 99p set from Studio G (Dovecraft) called Daisy Sentiments. I have lots of these 99p stamp sets they are great!

I've also been asked to make a sympathy card for a man who was a keen motorcycle enthusiast and they wanted some kind of a bike on the card. I've not been asked to do one of these before so it was a bit of a challenge coming up with the idea! I wanted to keep it reasonably simple for fear of it looking too much like a mans birthday card.

I found the image on Google and I edited it in Paint Shop Pro to give it an aged newspaper effect and also a sketchy pencil drawn effect, which is not very clear to see from the picture. I worked from the colours of the image and found a nice sheet of metallic DCWV card in Champagne and combined that with the white card. I've embossed a strip of white card in the cuttlebug script embossing folder and then I've stamped a sentiment in a bronze ink which happens to co-ordinate perfectly. The sentiment stamp is from another set of the Studio G 99p stamps. I like this one!

An Award!

First of all I'd like to say Thanks to Denise for passing this award on to me! Thank You! The rules for passing this award on are
1. The winner may put this award on their blog
2. Put a link to the person who sent this award to you
3. Nominate 5 blogs
4. Put links to their blogs
5. Leave a message for your nominees

So here goes!
1. Kerry
2. Sarah
3. Kerry
4. Jo
5. Barbara

Can anybody help me....please?

I've been told that I should begin to make a list of the bits and pieces that I'd like for christmas. I've seen a punch thats been used on a lot of other blogs and its a spiral notebook punch. I dont know if that's the official name for it but I've been looking everywhere for one and the only one I can find is a Stampin up! punch. I dont really know how Stampin Up works, I've heard the name a lot but dont know how you go about buying any of their products. Here is a piccy of what it looks like. Its so frustrating, I've been searching for ages but can't find anywhere to actually buy one! If anybody has any idea where I could get one from could you please let me know! Thanks.

Happy Hallowe'en!

I love to get in the spirit of Halloween! So here are the two pumpkins I carved yesterday!


A Spider!

and a Vampire! well its supposed to be! it does look more like a vampire in the daylight.
And for my gorgeous little Vampire! How cute is he? I know I am a little biassed cos he's mine!
I told him he was supposed to look scary!


So far we've only had a couple of kids round trick or treating and I have a great big bowl of sweets sat by the front door too! I have been complimented on my pumpkins though which I'm quite pleased about!

I think I will do a little party next year for the kids (adults)!

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!!!

Look what I've got!

My wonderful husband subscribed to Papercraft Inspirations Magazine for me and the subscription offer at the time was this yummy forever friends celebration set. It came in the post yesterday and I can't quite bring myself to take it out of the box! it looks so nice. On top of that are two more Forever Friends stamps I picked up when I went to hobbycraft on Sunday. I only went for a browse and ended up buying these! Its the first time I've seen them in there! This is the first card I made with my new stamp. The inspiration was taken from one of Michelle's cards. I've used my Whispers pens and paintbrush to colour the image, but its not quite right. I just dont seem to be able to get the colour right. Any handy tips for colouring these gorgeous bears would be gratefully received! The only other things I have are my watercolour pencils or ink pads and I dont seem to have the right colours in either.I've used the same colour scheme on this one but tried to go with a slightly different layout. The background card is part of the Bon Bon Trio by Doodlebug, I think its called Sandcastle but it matches the colour of the bear lovely.A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of some more Doodlebug papers, Ribbon and card to use for my Christmas cards. I picked up a set of the 99p stamps by Dovecraft which is what I've used to create these two Christmas Cards. I've added to touch of Glamour Dust to the santa hat to give it a bit of sparkle.

Well I've got the pumpkins to carve this afternoon so hopefully I'll post some pictures of them tomorrow! I had to get Adam a new costume as his cute spider one is way too small for him, so a trip to Tescos got us a very cute vampire outfit! He's going to look so cute, so what that it in mind I've decided to go with a Vampire pumpking and a Spider!

Bad Blogger

I thought I'd better come on and post something seeing as my last post was 2 weeks ago now! I seem to have had a down couple of weeks which all started on my 30th Birthday! how depressing! I'm old now. I haven't made any cards for a couple of weeks apart from one for my friends little girl. She is going to be 2 soon and loves Fifi. It was such a hard card to make. My mojo is missing, so if anybody finds it, give me a shout!

The floral paper is part of a DCWV scrapbook stack and the yellow card is bazzill. I've added glamour dust to some of the flowers, Fifi and the number 2. This is the first time I've used my Glamour Dust and I'm really pleased with the effect. Although it's not one of my best cards, I'm sure Sophie will love it.

I would like to thank Erin for passing on two awards to meI will have a look around later to see who I can pass this onto and catch up on some blogs at the same time!

I have received this award before and have passed it on already, but I'm very happy to have received it again and will proudly display it here. Thanks again Erin!

I'm looking forward to Halloween next week. I seem to be the only person I know that loves Halloween and now I have my little boy to dress up. This year I've bought him a spooky spider costume. I'm not sure I'm actually going to get him to wear it but I'll have a good try and see if I can get some photos. I bought 2 pumpkins yesterday for carving. I think I'll have a go at a spider this year and maybe a funny face too. Last year I did a ghost which turned out quite well for my first go! I really love all the Halloween images and stamps out there at the moment and would love some, but just wouldnt know who to give them to once I'd made them!

Well I suppose I'd better get on with all my jobs for the day! I'll be back soon and hopefully I'll find my mojo and get some more cards made!

A Few Christmas Cards

Well a couple of weeks ago I decided to make a start on a few Christmas Cards. I saw a card on the docrafts forum using the christmas pudding stamp and I thought I've got that stamp! so I went into my craft room and had a rummage and I found it and thought I'd have a go seeing as I've never used it before! I stamped the image and coloured with my watercolour pencils and then used embossing powder to add a bit of sparkle. They are each mounted onto foam pads and layered onto white card which has been embossed with the cuttlebug snowflakes folder. Using the same image as I've used on a candle rencently, I made this card for a lady to give to her Mum. I've used my whispers pens to colour it in and again I've used some embossing powder to give it a bit of sparkle. I cut the centre out and have embossed some lines round the edge and have then emobssed with the snowflakes folder. The sentiment was printed directly onto the card before any cutting/embossing! It took a few goes to get it in the right place though!
This is my first card using one of the Pink Petticoat christmas images. I've been looking forward to making one since I bought the kit back in the summer. I've coloured her in to match the paper in two tones of green and red. I've decoupaged the tree for a bit of extra dimension and added some embossing powder too. The paper is Jolly Doodles by Doodlebug. I can't get enough of Doodlebug when it comes to Christmas! I love it! I have the Snowy Doodles set too which I used a lot last year. All the red card is Doodlebug Crisscross too so they co-ordinate perfectly.
This is another Pink Petticoat image, and again I've decoupaged the shopping bags for a bit of extra dimension. The holly paper is by Doodlebug. I printed the sentiment directly onto the card. And for this one, I've recoloured the paper in paint shop pro as I have it in the blues but everywhere was out of stock already in the red and green! It took me a while but I got there in the end! This is a layout I used last year too.
And finally, I decided to have a go at this card after seeing a preview of Kath's card on her blog recently. I haven't got a holly punch so I just drew a leaf and made a template of my own. I cut out the leaves from doodlebug card and scored a line down the centre. I then glittered the edges and stuck down with foam pads. The berries are punched from a sheet of adhesive glitter card. The Holly paper is again from Doodlebug!