Not really sure where to start.....

.....so here is as good a place as any! I've had quite a productive card making week this week. I've spent quite a lot of time looking through my Stampin Up catalogue, not that I can afford to buy anything, but it doesnt cost to dream! And that led me to spend a lot of time over at Splitcoast Stampers. I've tried a couple of new techniques, for me anyway, and I'm actually really pleased with the results, which makes a refreshing change.

First of all I've made a criss-cross card. I've also made a little stand for the card as I think it looks better when its all together. I'm really happy with this card and was suprised at how easy they are to make and how effective they look. This is the first time I've ever used these papers, they are part of a making memories set I got when I was in America in 2007!

Whilst I had the papers out, I thought I'd make more use of them with another Edwin image and this time I've tried the joy-fold card. This is a great layout, and one I'm sure I'm going to use a lot more. Its quite hard to get a clear picture of how the card opens, but basically the Edwin image opens to the right and then the red panel opens up to the left. It's like a card within a card.I saw a card on SCS which really inspired me. It basically had a stamped tree/leaves image in a circle with a sentiment and that was the main feature of the card. Immediately I thought that I could re-create something similar using the magnolia stamp I got in the Christmas sale, and here it is! This was my first attempt, using a pink and black colour combination which I really like. The sentiment is from a 99p Studio G set.And here is another attempt, only this time I've printed the sentiment from the pc before stamping and cutting out the squares with my nestabilities. I really wish I had some more sentiment stamps, they are at the top of my wish list but the pc ones will do for now, it can be a bit of a pain having to print them off though. I love this colour combination of dark brown and a sage green. To colour the images all I've used is my Whispers pens and a blending pen.

And again, but this time in burnt orange and dark brown, lovely!

These cards were so simple to make and yet they are some of my favourites so far. I think I'll be using these colour combinations on a lot of my cards from now on. Also on the last three cards I decided that instead of making my usual A6 card which opens from the side that i'd flip them to a tent fold. I've made a few more in different colours, so I have a whole set of them, but these were just a few of my favourites, I didnt want to bore you with all of them!

As I said I've had a very productive week and there are even more cards that I'd like to share with you, but I'll save some for another day. I didnt realise until I started blogging them, quite how many I'd made.

I'm on a Roll this week!

As the title indicates, I've had a pretty good card making week this week. I've made quite a few by my standards! First of all though I want to share with you my new ribbon/embellishment organiser! Its a rotating carousel, which has five layers which contain a total of 60!!! round plastic storage pots! Its fab. I saw it in a shop a couple of weeks ago but they had all sold out so I've had it on order since then. The moment I saw it I thought it would be perfect for storing some of my ribbons. It only cost £12.99, a real bargain!And here is one of the pots containing some ribbon! I've actually got about 10 metres of ribbon into one of the pots.

So to start with a few cards, here are a couple of the more masculine cards I've made this week.

I stamped and coloured a few of my new Edwin stamps to co-ordinate with these Laura Ashley papers. The layout just came to me in a flash of inspiration, which doesnt happen very often! and although at the time I wasn't all that happy with it, now I really quite like it. The sentiment is from Craftwork Cards and has been inked with green ink. Edwin is mounted on foam pads.I bought Harry the Fireman a few months back and this is the first card I've made with him. He is of course one of Kerry's fabulous stamps which you can buy from Spiral Whisper. I've used my trusty Stampin Up spiral punch again! The background paper is part of a DCWV stack but I thought it ties in quite well with the fireman image as it looks kind of watery to me! This card didnt go quite as I'd planned it either, but again I like the result so that can only be a good thing! I love this Camper Van stamp, I have the mini one too! The paper is again from a DCWV stack and i thought it looked quite retro and this is what led this card! I cut some circles using my nestabilities and then embossed them with my cuttlebug circles folder. The two circles are joined using an eyelet, but i've hidden it by tying ribbon through it! The stars are just punched card which I've put some holes in and drawn a line between, hopefully making them resemble buttons. That was the aim anyway!And finally, my lovely guitar playing Edwin. I coloured him in ages ago and he's been sitting in my stamped images box ever since, poor thing. So I decided to do the decent thing and put him on a card. The papers I believe are from the Basic Grey Archaic collection. The brown strip across the card is actually stitched leather! One of my good friends gave me what must be about a 5 metre length of it in a bundle of things she'd collected for me. Another quite simple card, but I really like this one too! I like it when I make cards that I'm actually pleased with. Too often I'm not happy with the end result so it makes a nice change.

Sorry about the quality of the last two pictures, the light has not been great here today!

I think I'll come back tomorrow and post some more cards as I've made more than I thought!

Playing with my new Toys! and I've been Tagged....

Hi All, hope you all had a great weekend! I'm hoping that this promise of heavy snow is going to come! I love the snow. I think its about time that we got knee deep in snow! I want to build a snowman with my little boy! I dont really ever remember having deep snow. The weather seems to bypass us here in Northampton. Well this weekend has been a busy one for me. On Saturday, I decided to pop into my local hobbycraft for a look around but nothing really took my fancy, so instead we took a trip over to the Coleman Warehouse in Rushden, by far the best craft shop in Northamptonshire! Anyway upon arrival we noticed that the car park was heaving! I've never seen it so busy before but we ventured on in anyway. Note to self...the last Saturday of the month is demo day, Avoid! I did however get some goodies, some Basic Grey and K & Company papers.

This morning I was in spring clean mode, and decided that my craft room could do with a tidy up, well I've been through every box and every drawer and have thrown away so much stuff. Nothing of any use, but just little scraps of paper that I think will come in handy one day and boxes that I think are too pretty to throw away but just end up sitting on the shelf gathering dust. After spending all afternoon tidying, I thought I'd have a go with some of my new goodies. I sat and coloured lots of stamped images last night and here are a few cards I've made using them.
First up is my favourite! I love these papers, Archaic by Basic Grey. I've had this Sugar Nellie stamp for a good few months now and I think this is actually the first card I've ever used him on! I've also used my new Spiral punch and Tab Punch from Stampin Up! They are fab. I love them so much!
I've inked up one of my new Magnolia Stamps, Edwin with Oar, that I got in the sale from The Glitter Pot. In all I think I have about 11 new Magnolia stamps over Christmas. I love them all and I still want more! I've been trying to talk my hubby into joining the Magnolia Stamp Club for me, but I think its going to take a bit of convincing. I've also tried talking him into buying me some Copic Markers. I'm not great at colouring images and at the moment I use my Whispers pens and some acetate and I paint them. I find it can be quite time consuming and I'm not always happy with the result. I've seen a few sets of the Copics at a really great price, but we just dont have the funds at the moment. I think I've become totally obsessed with them! I need to get selling a few more cards!

I've also been Tagged by Julie. The rules are that you have to go to your Picture Folder and choose the 6th Folder and then the 6th Picture!

This is my little fella Adam. It was taken on the August Bank Holiday weekend. We took our caravan to a little site in Warwickshire with a group of friends. It was a lovely sunny weekend but the ground was absolutely soaked due to all the wet weather we'd had previously. The kids all played in their welly boots all weekend and the fun game was to push the water carriers around the site! They were empty ones though. I dont think he'd manage it if it were full, but we will get him trained eventually! This is one of the best sites we've been to in a while. The toilets and showers were not very good, but it did have its own tea room which sold cream teas and home made cakes, yummy! The site also had acess to the oxford canal which we took a few walks along. It was really lovely!

Some Awards and Blog Candy Alerts oh and some cards! Finally!

First of all thanks to Chrissie for passing on the Encouraged Award. I will try and get round to passing it on asap! I'm really struggling to get back into the swing of things since Christmas. I think I overdid it making cards for the Christmas Fair, so I decided to give myself a few weeks off, only that few weeks has been about 4 now! Also my craft room is combined with my utility room and its can get a bit chilly out there at this time of year. I've spent most of today trying to catch up on other people's blogs...the problem is I follow so many and its taking a lot longer than I anticipated, and the list seems to be getting longer by the day!
Katy is offering some very yummy blog candy. To be in with a chance of winning check out her blog and leave a comment linking from your blog. Julie is also offering blog candy as she has had 40,000 hits to her blog! Congratulations. This closes tomorrow (Thursday 22nd January) so you need to be quick if you want to enter!

Here are my first two cards of 2009! The first one is one I was asked to make for a lady who loves Mamma Mia! I didnt know what to do for this card really other than to use a picture or poster image. I've kept the card quite simple. I've used my brand new Stampin Up Scallop Punch which is brilliant! Before I used to cut all my scallopped edges by hand which was quite time consuming! I've used a couple of silk flowers and some papermania adhesive stones to finish. The sentiment is computer generated.This card was a bit of last minute card! I was asked to make it with only a day's notice! I had the idea in mind when I was asked to make it so it was quite a quick card, for me! I do tend to spend a bit too much time on one card! I've used the idea of cutting the numbers out of patterened paper a few times now and I really like the end result. I've used my scallopped border punch again here with some more adhesive stones.

I had a phone call from a lady today who took one of my flyers at the pre-school christmas fair, and she has asked me to make a card and candle gift set which I'm really pleased about. I think I'm finally getting back into the swing of things! Hopefully I can keep on track with all the blogs now and keep mine updated too!