Mrs J's Creations

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #34 - Basic Grey

2009-06-03T13:30:00.003+01:00

Happy Wednesday everyone! I hope you are all well? I must say that I've missed posting my Be Inspired challenges the last few weeks, and apologies if you stopped by expecting to see them, but as I mentioned previously life has been a little upside down recently! Anyway, normal service has just about been resumed and so without further ado here is this weeks Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired card - Cuttlebug and Basic Grey.

I made this card for the lovely Mr J who's birthday was on Monday. I used some Core'dinations Whitewash card for the 6x6 card base then layered on some silver mirri board and Basic Grey Offbeat papers. The frame was cut using an old Sizzix die, first using some more Whitewash card then some of the Offbeat paper. I embossed the outer frame with the Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes folder and gently sanded it to show the gorgeous orange core. The cool silver letters where from a local bargain store and the little alpha stickers are My Little Shoebox, and the glitter heart is Melissa Frances. The little 'studs' on the middle band are actually the leftover bits of the silver B's - a perfect finishing touch don't you think! Oh, and not forgetting a bit of faux stitching with a black pen!

I hope you'll be inspired to join in this weeks challenge as I'm sure all of you out there have some scraps of Basic Grey squirreled away somewhere in your stash! We'd love to see your creations so make sure you link them up to the Cuttlebug Challenge blog where you can also check out the gorgeous creations from the other DT girls

I'm back!

2009-05-31T22:00:00.001+01:00

Hi there everyone! Apologies for my recent little extended leave of absence from blogging! Unfortunately my Stepfather suddenly passed away a couple of weeks ago so life has been a little bit upside down for a while, but things are returning to normal now and I have some 'sweet' cards to share with you. These were made using the Sweet Stuff shaped card set from The Cutting Cafe - Regina really hit the mark with these beauties, I love how they have turned out, they are so cute!

Here is the full set of 5 shaped cards which I made using just one 12x12 sheet of Imaginisce Blue Raspberry Ripple double sided paper, along with some plain Papermania card stock for the card base. I left the embellishments quite simple - Melissa Frances rub-ons, Papermania blue adhesive rhinestones and glitter brads, paper ribbon and flowers from stash.

Cupcake.

Lollipop.

Popsicle.

Cake on a stand.

Ice cream cone.
I love how these have turned out! They've made for such a cute set of cards that I think will get lots of use some how! You can buy the complete set of 5 shaped cards and matching envelopes for $6.99 or if there's just one in particular that catches your eye they can be bought individually for $1.99 each. So make sure you head on over to the Cutting Cafe and check them out!

Thanks for stopping by, and hopefully now I will be getting back into the swing of things and back to regular blogging!

Cuttlebug Altered Frame

2009-05-14T11:45:00.001+01:00

This weeks challenge over at Cuttlebug Challenges is 'anything but a card'! The sponsors are Create and Treasure Publishing who very generously provided the design team with some gorgeous board books to alter. Unfortunately mine didn't make it to the UK from America, or to be more precise, only the envelope arrived, so I couldn't join in the fun this week which I was very disappointed about :o( The DT have done an amazing job in transforming their books so make sure you pop along to Cuttlebug Challenges to see what they have done.

Anyway, so that I didn't miss out altogether on this challenge I thought I would share with you a frame that I altered a few months back that I hadn't posted about. This was created for Ready, Set Create E-zine and is my first offical published item (hence the wait before I could post it here), yeah!!!

I'd bought this frame which was pretty enough in it's own right, but you know us creative types, we can't leave things alone and have to alter them a little!

I traced around the heart shape onto some chipboard which fortunately enough was just the right size to be 'bugged'! I used the gorgeous Textile folder and embossed each piece differently, one completely embossed and the other two just partially.

I then used the wax crayon resist technique to colour the pieces, using a brown wax crayon then cream acrylic paint to cover. This was then gently sanded once the paint was dry.

I then simply adhered the chipboard hearts to the fronts of the frames and decorated using some American Crafts Greenhouse felt flowers and button, hemp, pins and Swarovski crystals from my stash. And here's the transformed item.

A little different now and a whole lot prettier I think!

It's amazing how with some very basic materials and a little imagination you can completely transform a rather plain item into something quite beautiful!

I hope you'll be inspired to join in this weeks challenge - anything but a card, so any plain and dull items you have lying around, get your thinking caps on and see what you can do to them! Don't forget that there are the most fabulous prizes up for grabs this month at Cuttlebug Challenges. If you participate in any (or all) of the challenges on the Cuttlebug Challenge blog during the month of May, you will be entered into the drawing for either one of these prizes:

An Epson Artisan 700 All-In-One Printer plus three months' supply of ink cartridges
A Cricut Expression with an additional cartridge (along with the two that is already included with the machine!) plus a caddy from Scrapcessories.

WOW, How amazing is that?!?! Winners will be announced on June 1st so you have the rest of the month to participate. Just be sure to add a link to your project for each challenge you complete onto the Mr. Linky widget in the appropriate challenge post. The more you participate the more chances you have to win! I sure wish I could take part in this!

So, get creating, post your entries and good luck!!!

The gift of friendship

2009-05-08T17:16:00.007+01:00

I can't believe it's Friday already! So glad though as I'm looking forward to a lovely relaxing weekend with Mr J and Daisy, with nothing planned except maybe a bottle of Champagne as Mr J and I are celebrating 15 years together (ahhh, sweet memories!).

So, just a quick post to share with you my Inspirational Card Sketch for this week. I'm getting marginally better at posting these before the deadline, lol! Another gorgeous sketch from Dawn and beautiful creations from the DT as always, so here is my interpretation.

A rather soft and feminine card for change but I really like how it turned out! I am seriously loving these new papers from Papermania, they are the Blueberry Hill collection and are the prettiest blues, pinks whites and creams, crammed full of gorgeous roses! Beautiful! I used my Nesties labels 4 (and I think I'm getting the hang of them now in terms of the embossing, lol!) Here is a closer view of the bow and flower.

The blue and cream card is from my stash (and matches the paper rather well don't you think!), ribbon from Hobbycraft where I also picked up the fab glittery leaf, the flowers are from Dunelm (bargain - £1.49 for a Hydrangea bloom full of petals!), crystals are also Papermania and the rub-on is Melissa Frances.

Well, I think that covers everything! Just need to link this post then I'm done. Just time to take Daisy for a walk before Chinese Take-away for dinner - yum!

Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a lovely weekend!

Cuttlebug Challenge Be Inspired # 30 - Weddings

2009-05-06T13:30:00.002+01:00

Well, I know I usually express disbelief each week at how quickly the weeks are flying by, but it's true! I can't believe we're already into May and that the amazing Cuttlebug Challenge Spa weekend has been and gone! Ans wow, what an amazing weekend it was! I can't wait for the next one, lol!

Anyway, on to business and this weeks Be Inspired challenge is all about weddings, summer being the season of weddings! We have been sponsored by the wonderful Creative Cuts and More who stock the most amazing range of die-cuts, and who have very generously offered 15% off all orders from their store for one week starting today. I chose to go with the wedding gown. Here is what I did with it along with a card I made to match.

As soon as I saw this I knew I wanted to play with my Fusible Fibres again! This time with the gorgeous Cuttlebug Textile EB folder. Here it is in a little more detail, I hope you can see how much it shimmers.

If you haven't seen these fibres before check out this post. They are the easiest thing to use with stunning results don't you think?! I completely covered my box with the embossed fibres, side flaps included, and to decorate added some lace trim from my stash, Kaisercraft crystals and narrow cream ribbon, also from my stash. Here is the back view of the box.

Pretty similar to the front but I left the tails of the ribbon long to trail down the back.

I know that these favour boxes are usually used on the tables at a wedding reception but I think that these would make the cutest gift boxes too! Especially for a romantic groom to give to his bride, with some jewellery in! To complement the box I also made a card using the gorgeous Lola Rose bride image from Pink Petticoat (but unfortunately I don't think this image is available anymore).

The dresses match perfectly! And I think this photograph has managed to capture the shimmer quite well!

Card Details; Card stock from stash, Stardream paper printed with Pink Petticoat Boudoir flourish in Oatmeal, Fusible Fibres, Satin ribbon from Hobbycraft, flower and pins from stash, Kaisercraft rhinestones, sentiment printed from computer, Fiskars Effervescence border punch.

So, now it's your turn - we'd love to see your beautiful creations for a wedding! Check out the Cuttlebug Challenge blog (if you haven't already) for loads of inspiration from the rest of the DT, there are going to be some stunners there I'm sure! And don't forget the AMAZING prize that's on offer this month.

Grand Prizes for the month of MAY - we will be giving out an Epson Artisan 700 All-in-One Printer with 3 month supply of ink Cartridges. To win all you have to do is participate in any of the Challenges all month long to be entered in the drawing. Prizes will be awarded June 1st. The more you participate the more chances you have to win! The runner up will receive a Cricut Expression, with 1 extra cartridge in addition to the 2 that come with Cricut Expression, and a caddy from Scrapcessories. Participate in any of the Challenges all month long to be entered in the drawing.

WOW, I wish I could be included, tee hee!!! Such amazing prizes! So, what are you waiting for? Get busy creating with your Cuttlebug and who knows, you could be the lucky one! Good luck!

Blog Candy Winner!

2009-05-05T17:30:00.002+01:00

And the winner of my Bath time Spa Blog Candy is......

....drum roll please....

...drawn by random.org is # 99 jinxi ~ aka angi. Congratulations Angi! Please e-mail me your address (my e-mail address is on my profile page) and I can get your prize sent off to you a.s.a.p.!

Well, it certainly sounded as though you all thoroughly enjoyed the first annual Cuttlebug Challenge Spa Retreat weekend! I definitely did! I'd just like to take this opportunity to say a HUGE thank you to all of you - to those that took the time to visit my blog and leave such lovely comments, to those of you who already followed my blog and to those who became new subscribers! I wish I could send you all a little thank you gift but I don't think Mr J would be too happy about that, lol!!! I thoroughly enjoyed reading your lovely comments and especially hearing how much you were all enjoying yourselves with the blog hop and challenges! I know I certainly had a blast visiting the blogs of all of those that took part in the different challenges - such great talent out there and it's a blessing to know that we have inspired so many of you! I can't wait to see who have won the prizes!

Anyway, after the wonderful events of the Spa weekend I just thought I'd leave you with a couple of photographs that I took on Sunday. We visited our local bluebell wood and this is the sight that greeted us -

Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful! I do love this time of year when everything is in blossom and bloom and I always have to see the bluebells at their best! Even Daisy enjoyed herself too!

So, that's it for today but I do hope that you'll stop by tomorrow as it will be time for this weeks Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired challenge, and hopefully you'll all be inspired to take part too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cuttlebug Challenges Spa Weekend - Bath Gift Set

2009-05-02T23:00:00.000+01:00

Hello again! Thanks for stopping by my blog on this fantastic Cuttblebug Challenges Spa Weekend! I'm going to show you an idea for a beautiful bath gift set that would make a fantastic pampering gift for someone special.

To start with I bought some pampering products that in particular had very little detail on the bottles (but still smelt gorgeous!), and set about making them into beautiful gifts with the help of my Cuttlebug! I went hybrid with this project using the gorgeous August paper collection from Marks Paper Company as I felt these had a real 'spa' feel to them and really suited this sort of project. Oh, and of course I used Cuttlebug embossing folders to beautify these otherwise plain bottles and jars. I used both the Cuttlebug Textile and Swiss Dots embossing folders here. Here is the complete basket.

I picked up the bamboo basket from a bargain store and thought this was again a perfect fit for a spa theme! I decided on the papers I wanted to use and printed these off on slightly textured paper and card (I used the beautiful Accent papers and card available here). Then it was a case of setting to and decorating the jars and bottles.

For the bottles I made a belly band using the Bonus Paper 1 (actually from the Old Fashioned Kit), embossed this with the Textile folder, cut it to size and fastened it around the bottle. I then wrapped some hemp around on top of this. I used the Scalloped Brown Frame for the centre panel and embossed this with the Swiss Dots. The centre panel is the Ice Cream Cone paper and I just added my titles before I printed it. The flowers are fussy cut from the Snap Dragon paper with a little green Papermania adhesive pearl in the middle.

I kept the jars a little plainer as there was less area to 'play' with! The soaps already came in a little box so I just printed and embossed some of the brown paper and covered the existing box. I removed the acetate lid and simply tied some hemp around the soaps. Oh, and a little flower and pearl for decoration!

For the body brush and flannels I added some removable adhesive to some paper, laid on some cotton twill tape then ran this through the printer so that it came out printed with the Wildflowers design. Simple but effective don't you think?!

A pampering session wouldn't be relaxing with interruptions so I made a door hanger to be hung on the bathroom door! The flourish is the Sizzix Decorative Accents #10 and the stickers are MM tiny alpha's. I also decorated 3 glass votives to hold tealights or candles by simply wrapping some hemp around, securing with tape and adding fussy cut flowers and adhesive pearls. The accessories for ultimate relaxation!

The bamboo box was also simply decorated with a strip of textile embossed paper that was edged with the Fiskars Effervescence border punch, brown velvet ribbon (although it looks more like suede in real life) from Hobbycraft, hemp and a green label from the August digital kit.

And finally to complete the set I made a matching birthday card!

I hope that this has given you the inspiration to create your own spa gift set for someone special. Or for yourself even, as you are very special too! It's so easy to take the plainest of bottles, jars and accessories and transform them into real luxury items that will make someone feel very pampered and spoilt!

CUttlebug Challenge Spa - Nestibilities Fabric Flowers

2009-05-01T17:00:00.002+01:00

FOR MY BLOG HOP POST CONTAINING MY FAVOURITE FLOWER PLEASE SEE HERE

Over on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog there is a post from Allison, Christine and Nathalia showing how you can create your own beautiful flowers from fabric. They have made some absolutely stunning creations that I can't wait to try out myself! I thought I would share with you one of my recent discoveries, making fabric flowers using Nestibilities!

With the new dies that have recently come out you already have your own flower shape straight away. Here I have used the new Blossom dies. Did you know that you can cut felt with your Nesties? And did you know that you can also cut denim?!

Cutting felt is simplicity itself running it through your die cutting machine as if you were using paper or card. You get a perfect cut every time. You can see an example of Nestie felt flowers here. Now denim is a little bit tougher to cut but I found that adding an extra shim of thin card gave that little extra pressure to cut through it. Of course this will vary depending again on which machine you are using so it will be just a case of trial and error.

This shows my piece of denim after I have cut it and you can see that in some places it hasn't made a clean cut. By simply pulling the cut line apart or even using a small pair of sharp scissors, it easily comes apart.

For denim I think that this really adds to the effect, giving some slightly frayed edges. So, by simply now layering these together you have some beautiful flowers - how easy is that!

Here is what I made using my new blooms!

I was inspired by Eva's card that you can see over on the Cuttlebug Challenge blog. The card base comes from this idea, however for mine I changed the measurements to make mine slightly bigger. I've made this card for a young teenager and I think it works perfectly! I also cut some denim for the flower pot and hand stitched the edges with some pale pink embroidery floss.

The base of the card was made from Core'dinations whitewash card and the border was embossed with swiss dots, sanded to reveal the core, edged with the Fiskars Apron Lace border punch and finished with a pink gingham ribbon from my stash. The sentiment is a Melissa Frances rub-on and a gingham punched butterfly with Papermania adhesive shimmer dots to finish.

I simply added buttons to the flower centres which were stitched in place to hold the layers together. The green felt leaves are cut from Sizzix flower, petals and centre die.

This shows the pull out section of the card.

I'm so happy with the results I've achieved here. Hopefully you can see how easy it is to create your own flowers with a little imagination and some fabric! Who knows what you can create! I'd love you to let me know what you do create though!

I hope you're enjoying our Spa event and blog hop! I know I've had lots of fun creating my goodies for it. And there's still loads more to see! Wow! So keeping checking back there regularly and I'll also have a couple more things to share with you over the weekend.

Happy hopping!

Cuttlebug Challenge, Relax, Rejuvenate, Be Inspired!

2009-05-01T13:00:00.007+01:00

Hi there and welcome to my blog which you have hopefully arrived at from Allison's blog, on your way through the Cuttlebug Challenge Spa Blog Hop! I hope you're having fun and feeling nice and relaxed, enjoying all the beautiful flowers and relaxation tips on your travels!

Talking of relaxing and rejuvenating I have a few favourite ways I like to relax and unwind. Card making is obviously one of them which I especially enjoy when Mr J is in the 'craft' room with me doing his oil painting, with a nice relaxing CD playing in the background! Another way is that I also love to take my little dog Daisy out on a walk with Mr J, especially to some of the gorgeous woodland that we have in this little corner of the UK. But for me the ultimate is definitely a trip to my favourite day spa where I can completely switch off, be pampered and spoilt, and come away feeling like a new person! Ahhhhhhhh, heaven!

So, onto the reason you are here, my flower. There are so many flowers that I love but my absolute favourite flower has to be FREESIAS.

I just love their delicate blooms and I adore their beautiful sweet fragrance. Freesias are named after the German physician Friedrich Heinrich Theodor Freese and they are said to symbolize innocence and friendship. Just imagine a beautiful vase of Freesias next to your bath tub, with some candles, for the ultimate addition to a fragrant, relaxing bath! Heaven!

By now I'm sure you've realised what you need to do to complete the blog hop and be in with a chance of winning some beautiful prizes from our sponsors! And not forgetting that some of the Cuttlebug Challenge Design Team girls are also offering up their own 'Spa' Candy as a treat too, that you will find as you visit their blogs! And that includes me! I'd love you to subscribe or sign up to follow my blog (if you haven't already that is) and also leave me a comment telling me what your favourite flower is, then on Monday 4th May I will use random org to select one lucky winner who will win this little package (that I will send anywhere in the world). The winner will be announced here and also on the Cuttlebug Challenge blog on Tuesday. So, my little spa treat is this -

A goodie bag containing a Wild Freesia highly fragranced candle, a Lush English Countryside Bath Ballistic (complete with real petals!) and a Lush Amandopondo Bubble Bath Bar, all decorated and packaged by myself!

So, now that you have my flower FREESIA to add to your list it's on to the next blog which is Nathalia's. Don't worry, it's not a race, you have all weekend to collect your flowers, and once you have all 30 flowers collected list them in an e-mail along with their relevant blog owners name, and send them in to the address on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog. Good luck!

Before I go though I just want to say I hope you're enjoying yourself! Remember there is so much more going on over the weekend at Cuttlebug Challenge Blog so keep checking back regularly. I'd also love it if you would pop back here over the weekend as I will also have some little bits of inspiration to share with you!

Thanks for stopping by and have fun!

More exciting news!

2009-04-30T16:50:00.001+01:00

This post will stay here at the top until 1st May, please scroll down for new posts. Thank you!

The Cuttlebug First Annual Spa Retreat!

How exciting does this sound?!?! I know I'm very excited to be taking part in it! There is going to be so much going on that weekend with amongst other things a blog hop, lots of great prizes up for grabs (yes, you read correctly, including Cuttlebugs!), a celebrity guest appearance, and tons of inspiration! So make a note in your diary for Friday 1st of May for a full weekend of Relaxing, Rejuvenating and Creating, and I hope we see you there!

For all the latest details of the weekend keep checking back at Cuttlebug Challenges and grab yourself the Spa blinkie from my sidebar to add to your blog too!

I'm a little bit earlier this week!

2009-04-30T10:39:00.005+01:00

Woohoo!!! I managed to get a card made for this weeks Inspirational Card Sketches Challenge #14, well before the deadline! Things are looking up, lol! And at last my mojo seems to be well and truly returned and is raring to go, phew!

So, it was another great sketch this week from Dawn and here is what I came up with - be warned you might need some sunglasses for this one!!!

The papers are from this months card kit from Sarah's cards, I love these! So bright and sunny, they are Pebbles Inc Merrily papers. Everything on the card apart from the Papermania pearls and blue rhinestones are from the kit and the gorgeous cupcake and sentiment are fab printable stamps from The Cutting Cafe. I also used my Nesties Labels 4 for the white panel (gorgeous!). Here is a close up of the cupcake to show the dimension to it.

This paper piecing technique was used by the lovely Danni, one of my fellow Cuttlebug Challenge DT members, and she explains it perfectly here. It works perfectly for this cupcake with just a little bit of Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing to enhance it further! I'm really pleased with how this has turned out and Dawn's great sketches always allow for you to add that little bit extra to your card that finishes it off perfectly!

Well, I'm going to head off now as I have a few bits and pieces to see to ahead of the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot first annual Spa event. I can't believe it's just about here already! Things kick off tomorrow at 8:00 am EST, 1:00pm GMT with a fab blog hop with tonnes of great prizes, then it's a weekend packed full of wonderful inspiration and more amazing prizes to be won! So, clear your diary and make sure you don't miss it, it's going to be so much fun!!!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #29 Mother's Day Cards

2009-04-29T08:00:00.001+01:00

Good morning all and welcome to another Wednesday Cuttlebug Challenge Be Inspired post! Wow, I can't believe we're up to number 29 already! Just where do the weeks go?! Anyway, on to my card for this week, oh, and envelope too! This week we have been sponspored by My Grafico and the DT were given the cute Shopping Boutique digi stamps to work with to create a Mother's Day card and co-ordinating envelope. (Apologies for the quality of the photograph but the weather was dire when I took the picture!)

I decided to use the cute pair of boots in the set and printed them out onto some Bo Bunny Alissa paper, fussy cut around them, mounted them onto 3D foam pads and diamond glazed them. I also used the reverse of the paper to create a central panel for my card which I embossed with the little hearts folder from the Cuttlebug Love Language cut and emboss set, and trimmed the edges using my Fiskars Apron Lace punch. In a little more detail...

I cut and embossed the white panel with the Nestabilities Blossom die after I had printed the sentiment onto it. I love this, it's from The Cutting Cafe All about Mom set. You'll hopefully be able to see in the above photograph that I also embossed the 2 outer edges of my card blank with the little flowers from the With Love border set, which I then highlighted the centres with little dots of Stickles. They look so pretty in real life! Of course a card for Mum would not be complete without beautiful blooms and a beautiful bow!

Onto the co-ordinating envelope and I simply replicated the central panels and the little boots (but didn't mount these with 3D foam pads this time).

And as a final finishing touch I embossed the back flap of the envelope with the With Love border folder.

I really enjoyed making a matching envelope for this challenge and loved the impact that it had seeing both the card and the envelope together, I think I'll be doing this more often now! So I hope you'll feel inspired to join us this week and create your own card for Mum with a matching envelope too! I know Mother's Day has been and gone here in the UK but with a little careful planning and a choice sentiment (like the one above), I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something! Make sure you check out the gorgeous creations that the other DT girls have come up with, they are all stunning and will provide you with bags of inspiration! There is a prize of a set of digital stamps up for grabs from My Grafico so have a go, you might be lucky!

And just another reminder that there are only 2 days to go to the start of the Cuttlebug Challenge first annual Spa event. I do hope you'll be joining us!

My first Basic Grey Challenge

2009-04-28T14:44:00.005+01:00

I've often stopped by the Basic Grey Challenge blog and admired the lovely work created by the very talented DT there, but never actually got round to taking part. Well, I've just spent the past hour 'pottering' and this is what I've come up with for this weeks sketch challenge (with just a little inspiration taken from DT Kim's card ;o)).

This covers one of the many male birthday cards (urgh!!!) I need in May, a rather tongue in cheek little number for a dear friend (but don't tell Mr S that if you're reading this Lesley, and act surprised when he opens it, lol!!!). Apart from BG Arcahic papers I've also used one of the new Chunky Praise Phrases from The Cutting Cafe which I printed onto the BG paper then cut around and mounted onto foam pads. I also added part of the phrase to the 'image' panel. I hope the humour will be appreciated here!!!

Details; Bazzill card stock, BG Archaic papers, Fiskars Effervescence punch, Doodlebug simply sweet beetle black rub-ons, buttons from stash, Nestabilities Labels One

Anyway, before I go, first of all thanks for stopping by! And secondly I'll just leave this little reminder for you to check out!

By the skin of my teeth, again!!!

2009-04-27T17:57:00.005+01:00

Okay, so I'm cutting it fine again! Just in time (I hope!) for this weeks Inspirational Card Sketches challenge #13, and here is my card.

Not the best of pictures but the weather is dire here at the moment! Such a grey, miserable, wet day, yuck!! Hope it's better where you are! I really enjoyed this card once I got into the flow of it! I was trying out one of my new toys, can you guess what it is? The following picture might help you!

Yeah, I got me some Nesties!!! And I love them!!! Here I've used the new Blossom die, isn't is gorgeous?! It cuts felt perfectly to make these gorgeous flowers! Oh I can see I'm going to have lots of fun with these! I also used my Sizzix Decorative Accents #10 to cut the brown felt flourishes. The colour inspiration came from this weeks Colour Create challenge, orange, green and brown, which I think I've managed rather well don't you, lol, but I didn't quite manage to make it a masculine card!

Details; Card stock Papermania, DP Scenic Route Market Street, corrugated card from the bin, Dew Drop chalk ink Jumbo Java, felt from The Range, American Crafts Buttons, MM tiny alpha stickers, embroidery floss from stash, Swarovski Fireopal crystals.

I seem to be on a bit of a roll creatively at the moment, but unfortunately I can't share it all with you just yet! But hopefully this means my mojo might be back from it's long leave of absence! Oh I hope so as I've really missed it!

Anyway, before I go, I'd just like to remind you that this weekend sees the first annual Spa weekend at Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot so I do hope you'll be joining us! The fun starts this Friday at 8.00 am EST, 1.00 pm GMT with a blog hop, then the weekend will be packed full of inspiration, relaxation and loads of great prizes to be won (over $1000 worth including Cuttlebugs and folders, a printer and a Cricut Expression!). So check your diaries and make sure you join us, it's going to be so much fun!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #28

2009-04-22T13:00:00.000+01:00

And this weeks Cuttlebug Challenge is Cuttlebug and Home Sweet Home, sponsored by the very lovely Marks Papers Company.

Hmmm, home sweet home, there are lots of ways to go with that one so I decided to do a home makeover! Here is the finished result...

I have to say that these papers are absolutely gorgeous! I actually used the Old Fashioned Courtship digital kit that you can download here. Excellent value for money, $4, which equates to approx £2.80 and you get so much! I printed my papers out on Alabaster Accent paper (available here), which has a slight texture to it, and the results were stunning! So, to start with, this is how the bird house looked. I think this is the most garish and frightening (for the birds) bird house that I have ever come across but for £3 from Asda, I saw it had potential!

So, it was a very simple process of printing off the papers, cutting to size, adhering using Mod Podge and of course a little Cuttlebugging! I used the gorgeous little hearts folder from the Love Language cut and emboss set, to emboss the bottom plain red section. I used my new Fiskars Apron Lace punch (that I was so thrilled to get my hands on!) to add a bit of interest to the edges, a Melissa Frances rub-on and glitter heart, and flowers, string and buttons from my stash to finish. I didn't go overboard on the embellishments as I didn't want to overshadow the papers. I must admit that it was a bit of a rush job to get this finished and I wasn't too sure about it at first but then Mr J saw it and commented that he thought it looked good, so I was happy then!

As always, we would love to see your creations for this challenge and this week one lucky winner will receive a paper pack from Marks Paper Company. So, check out the gorgeous and inspiring creations that the DT have come up with, then get your thinking cap on and get creating!

Thanks for stopping by but before I go I'd just like to remind you about the upcoming Spa Weekend at Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot, running Friday 1st to Sunday 3rd May. It's going to be such a fab weekend of creativity, inspiration, relaxation and rejuvenation, I can't wait! I hope you've put the date in your diary! The weekend kicks off at 8.00am EST (1.00pm GMT), Friday 1st May with a fun blog hop, then there is a full weekend of events. To see full details and a list of the fantastic prizes up for grabs please go here. There are lots of gorgeous spa goodies to be won along with a Cuttlebug machine and folders to be won every day, an Epson printer and a Cricut Expression machine!!! How brilliant is that?!?!

So, help us spread the word and I hope I see you there!

Just in time...

2009-04-20T22:54:00.004+01:00

...to enter this card into this weeks Inspirational Card Sketches challenge #12! Another gorgeous sketch from Dawn and this is my interpretation.

I flipped the sketch 90 degrees. All of the papers are Pink Petticoat and the image is from the Chandelier brush set from scrapNfonts. I've had this for some time and not got round to using it before now, but so glad I've used it here as I love the result! I printed it onto white card and cut it using my Sizzix ornate frame #2. The sentiment I added myself on the computer. All finished off with some large red crystals from Sarah's Cards, black organza ribbon and black crystals from Hobbycraft, and flowers from my stash.

I gave this card to the lovely Mr J tonight, just because he deserved it!

An elegant monogramed stationery set

2009-04-19T12:56:00.004+01:00

Today I have another Cutting Cafe creation to share with you. This time I decided to create a monogrammed stationery set for my Stepmum, Margaret. Using the Stationery box set and the Monogram printable stamps set here is what I came up with, an elegant box containing 6 note cards and matching envelopes

The box was simplicity itself to make by simply printing the template directly onto the card and cutting and folding were directed. To decorate it I simply cut out some panels of DP slightly smaller than the box dimensions and adhered these to the top and sides of the lid.

This photograph shows the lid removed and the cards and envelopes inside. I simply embellished the lid and the cards with the monogram printed onto the same card, some grey satin ribbon and adhesive pearls. I made the note cards to the American quarter fold size cards, which are slightly shorter and wider than the UK A6 cards, which meant I could then make the matching envelopes using the template in the stationery set along with the envelope liner.

How elegant do these look?!

I made 3 cards in each of the 2 designs of paper, 1 set with the framed monogram and the other with the circle monogram.

I'm really thrilled with how this turned out and I think my Stepmum will be too! Regina's templates are just so easy to use that it means making a simple gift like this can be put together in no time at all with such elegant and personalised results! If you want the opportunity to try something like this yourself make sure you rush on over to The Cutting Cafe as there is the most amazing offer on there at the moment. Regina has just released a brand new set, All about Mom huge printable stamp set, which features 41 different images (which does contain 'Mum' for those of us here in the UK) and if you purchase that before midnight (PST) on Tuesday April 21st 2009, you can choose another 2 sets absolutely free! Yes, you read right, another 2 sets for free! How great is that?! So head on over there straight away and grab yourself some great kits to play with!

Details; Card stock Papermania, DP Laura Ashley Traditonal, satin ribbon Hobbycraft, Papermania adhesive pearls in Gun metal

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #27

2009-04-15T08:30:00.002+01:00

Boy, the weeks are just flying by don't you think?! We're onto another Wednesday, so that's another Be Inspired challenge for Cuttlebug Challenges and this week the challenge is Cuttlebug and Numbers. Here's what I came up with.

It took a little while to come up with this as I'm struggling a little to find the inspiration at the moment, but thankfully I got there in the end! My first thoughts with this challenge were to do a card, as I have a 40th birthday to make for next month and then it's my eldest brother's 50th birthday in July, but they just didn't happen! You know how it is sometimes! Anyway, after rattling my brain around for a while and thinking what numbers were significant, inspiration struck with phone numbers! So I dug around and found this Paperchase address book and set too to transform it.

I think Shannon's great Kraft/black/white clean and simple challenge must have been at the back of my mind when I got my materials together for this! I first of all printed some Pink Petticoat black polka dots onto some kraft card and cut this to size, rounding the corners in the process. The white section is Core'dinations embossed with Swiss Dots. The plain chipboard numbers from my stash were stuck to some Black Magic Core'dinations that had a Kraft coloured core, cut out, run through the Swiss Dots folder, then the dots gently sanded to reveal the core before finally being stuck in place on the cover. Finishing touches are MM black felt alpha, MM tiny alpha stickers, Papermania flowers and felt trim, button, string and ribbons from stash. In a little more detail...

All in all I was very pleased with how this turned out considering my mojo has gone A.W.O.L.! If anybody sees it on their travels will they please send it back my way! Thank you!

So, now it's your turn to see what you can come up with Cuttlebug and numbers! We'd love to see what you create and don't forget that there is a lovely prize for the winner from Elles Studio, a great set of calendars.

Hurry on over to the Cutting Cafe this Easter weekend...

2009-04-11T19:40:00.003+01:00

... there is a fantastic offer on - The Cutting Cafe is having a 2 for the price of 1, so for every set you purchase, you can choose another set of equal or lessor value for free. How great is that?! So rush on over there as this special will be good until midnight Tuesday the 14th of April. Go on, treat yourself this Easter, you know you want to!!!

My first 'official' Cutting Cafe Creation!

2009-04-09T17:00:00.001+01:00

Good afternoon everyone! Hope you're having a nice day? It's quite a blustery and wet one here today so I'm glad I'm nice and warm inside!

Well, as I mentioned back on Sunday I have been invited to join the amazingly talented design team over at The Cutting Cafe (woo-hoo!), so I couldn't wait to get started on a project! So, here it is, my first official Cutting Cafe DT contribution!

This is a wedding card that I have made for a wedding we have been invited to in a couple of weeks time. As soon as I saw the printable Calendars I thought this would be such a sweet and personal thing to do, putting the date on the card! I also wanted to try something a little different by doing a circular card too.

I was even inspired enough to dig out and set up the sewing machine! I'm really pleased with how this has come together and see me using the calendars a lot more in the future!

So, thanks for stopping by and I'd just like to say many thanks for the lovely comments left about my new DT position!

Details; White card stock from stash, DP Laura Ashley Traditional, Lace from Hobbycraft, Adhesive Pearls and crystals, and White flowers Papermania, Green flowers from Sarah's Cards, X-Cut butterfly punches, White Glitter paper Kanban, Melissa Frances Frame, MM tiny alpha and white Glitter Alpha, Cutting Cafe Square Calendar and Circular shaped card

Cuttlebug Challenge Be Inspired #26, Cuttlebug and Vellum

2009-04-08T13:30:00.002+01:00

Happy Wednesday everyone, and Happy Easter wishes for this weekend!

This week for the Cuttlebug Challenge Be Inspired #26 we are focusing on Cuttlebug, Vellum and Easter. I think that the Cuttlebug embossing folders and vellum are a match made in heaven and, to be honest, this is something I don't play with as often as I should! But I think I will be now! Here is what I created for this weeks challenge.

A sweet little treat box and Easter card for my Niece.

The Maya Road Treasure box I managed to pick up for half price at my LSS. It had a frosted acetate window in it which I thought would be perfect to replace with some embossed vellum. I carefully set to and removed it and used this as a pattern to cut my Papermania pink vellum. Thankfully the window was just a little narrower than the Cuttlebug Bloom Dots embossing folder so it worked out as a perfect fit! To decorate the box I first of all painted it inside and out with some white acrylic paint. I then measured the lid and sides of the box and cut out some white Windsor paper to size, to cover 3 sides and the inside and outside of the lid. The side panels I embossed using my Swiss Dots folder and stuck to the sides of the box. For the lid I cut the cover into 4 pieces, diagonally at the corners, marked in the centre line across the middle of each piece, lined it up in the dotted border embossing folder from the With Love set, and embossed each piece. It was easy to then just match the pieces up and stick to the top of the box. The embossed vellum was then stuck to the inside of the lid and the inside cover (left plain), stuck over this.

Then I set too decorating it. The pink bobble trim and pink flowers were from a card kit from Sarah's Cards, the cute bunny rabbit from Hobbycraft and the pink alpha, white flowers and pink sparkle adhesive gems are Papermania.

I just love the soft look and texture of the embossed vellum!

The inside of the box was just filled with some pink shredded paper from Hobbycraft and filled with some mini eggs. The idea being that when the eggs have been finished my niece will have a cute box to display in her very pink and girly bedroom!

And here's the cute mini card to match! The card was again from my card kit as mentioned above with Doodlebug Mini Simply Sweet rub-ons in Bubblegum. The window in the card was cut using my scallop square punch and I embossed around the edges of this with the dotted border folder.

I really enjoyed making this cute set and it was great to emboss the vellum too. So, make sure you check out what the other girls have created for the challenge over at Cuttlebug Challenges and I can't wait to see your take on Cuttlebug, Easter and Vellum!

Exciting news....

2009-04-05T20:06:00.002+01:00

...I've been chosen to join the design team over at The Cutting Cafe, woo-hoo! I received a lovely e-mail from Regina this afternoon telling me the exciting news! If you haven't been over to The Cutting Cafe before head on over there and check out the wonderful downloadable printable stamps and cutting files on offer. They're all fantastic so I can't wait to get stuck into them!

Cuttlebug Challenges Spotlight Sunday

2009-04-05T08:47:00.000+01:00

Good morning! Hope you're having a lovely weekend? The sun is still shining here so I'm feeling very happy!

I just wanted to share with you my Spotlight Sunday post over at Cuttlebug Challenges. I was inspired by the fact that spring has definitely sprung and I wanted to pretty up my kitchen window sill, so I gave a few items a 'Cuttlebug Makeover!'

It definitely looks a lot prettier now when it comes to washing the pots, lol! I'm really pleased with these turned out so if you check out my post here at Cuttlebug Challenges you'll see how quickly, easily and cost effectively I was able to do it! Hope this inspires you too to use your Cuttlebug for creative things other than just card making!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

A couple of cards to share and some awards

2009-04-04T18:00:00.001+01:00

Hope you're enjoying your weekend and also enjoying glorious weather as we have been today? It certainly feels like spring has well and truly sprung!

I have a couple of cards to share with you today. The first is my entry for this weeks Inspirational Card Sketches challenge, #10. It took me a little while to pull this card together and it's ended up nothing like I had planned it to be, but I'm very pleased with the result!

I used one of my Craftwork Cards clear card bases again, I'm loving using these! Instead of putting some paper inside the card I actually painted the inside of the card with first, some white acrylic paint and then brushed over this with some pale pink. Taking a lead from the lovely Terrie Bailey, who is the Queen of all things layered and textured, I used a strip of black lace from my local haberdashery store. The half journal panel is Bo Bunny, Alissa, with a Melissa Frances rub-on and black organza ribbon bow finished with pins, again from my local haberdashery store (where would I be without that place, lol!). The bird and bird cage are a Doodlebat from ScrapNfonts, DB Ladybird, which I just fussy cut around and mounted onto 3D foam. And finally to finish some blooms from Sarah's Cards and a black crystal from Hobbycraft.

The next card and matching envelope were made for my Stepmum for Mother's Day, 2 weeks ago. As you can see it's a little bright but I love it! The card base was made from card from my stash, embossed with the Cuttlebug 'with love' border folder and topped with half a scalloped white card that was embossed using the little hearts folder from the Love Language set. The gorgeous paper is Sassafrass Picadilly which was fussy cut and layered for a little dimension.

I embellished it with Swarovski hot fix flat back crystals, white satin ribbon from my stash, a Melissa Frances frame, MM tiny alpha stickers and MM Gold glitter stickers .

It was a nice change to make an envelope to match too!

In other news I was very excited to learn earlier this week that I had won a Scor-Pal, just how happy was I?!?! I had left a comment over at The Cutting Cafe the previous week and was amazed that my name was randomly picked, woo-hoo!!! Thank you so much Regina and Diana from Scor-Pal!

I have over recent weeks been awarded some lovely awards from some very lovely people. Thank you so much ladies for thinking of me for these, I really appreciate it!

The first one is from my dear friend Lesley over at Lesley's Creations.

The second is from my fellow DT member over at Cuttlebug Challenges, Meda.

And the final one is from the sweet Beth, over at Nana's Memories.

Thank you, thank you and thank you again lades! I am very flattered and honoured that you have all thought of me! I know these all come with rules and I'm supposed to pass them on to a certain number of other blogs that I find creative and inspiring but I'm finding it impossible to narrow that down as I find every single blog I visit is creative and inspiring in it's own way! So I'm going award the first award to Martha, who is one very talented and creative card maker over in Holland, the second one to Eveline, who's also over in Holland and is also very, very talented, and the final one goes to the uber creative and talented Terrie B, who is a star!

Anyway, that's me done for today! It's my turn this weekend to post the Creatively Yours Spotlight Sunday over at Cuttlebug Challenges so I hope you'll stop by to see what I've been up too!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #25, Intersite Challenge

2009-04-01T10:31:00.003+01:00

Wednesday's just seem to come around so quickly each week! Maybe that's because I look forward so much to showing you my latest Be Inspired creation for Cuttlebug Challenges! And this week is extra exciting as it's an Intersite challenge with SheetLoad!

...SheetLoad is owned by Alicia, the creator of Shortcuts. If you have not seen SheetLoad I suggest you run not walk to SheetLoad and download your free copy.What is SheetLoad? Quite simply if you are a busy crafter, shortcuts helps you create tons of cards base on a scheme and few sheets...

The design team got to play with the ShortCuts clear and frosted card bases, which was so much fun! As part of the Intersite challenge we had a sketch to work from and the super talented DT over at ShortCuts will also be taking part so I'm looking forward to seeing what they came up with too.

Okay, onto business! This is the sketch we had to work from...

and here is what I came up with.

This was the first card that I created using the frosted card base. I used my Swiss Dots folder on the actual card base along with the sentiment from the 'With Love' border folder. To make the sentiment stand out a little more I filled in the de-bossed side with my white Sakura Souffle pen. The papers used are by Bo-Bunny and are from the gorgeous Alissa range. I cut a piece from the Twirls paper which I adhered inside the card (unfortunately you can't see that too clearly on the photo), along with a piece cut for the front using my Sizzix Bigz frame, Ornate #2. The image used is taken from the Cut Out sheet and framed with a chipboard frame from my stash. Instead of a second piece of DP as the sketch suggests, I used a gorgeous satin bow and pins, again from my stash and finished it with some chipboard flowers from The Range, coloured with my Whispers pens, some black Papermania adhesive crystals, faux stiching and MM tiny alpha stickers.

So pleased with how this turned out I decided to play some more (as you've probably gathered I sometimes get a bit carried away with these fab challenges!). This time I used one of the clear card bases, but again embossed it with the Swiss Dots and to highlight these I 'coloured' the dots in using my Sakura Souffle pen, a little time consuming but the results are worth the effort I think! Again using the Bo Bunny Alissa papers I cut a piece of the Twirl paper for the inside of the card and half of the gorgeous journaling block from the Cut Outs piece. More chipboard flowers from the Range which were this time painted with white acrylic paint and covered with white glitter (a freebie from a magazine). I then used black teardrop crystals and round crystals from Hobbycraft, MM white glitter alpha, Melissa Frances Rub-ons and ribbon and pins from my stash.

I must admit I really enjoyed working with this sketch and the gorgeous ShortCut acrylic bases. I hope you will feel inspired to take part in this weeks challenge too. Don't worry if you don't have any of the clear bases, we would just love to see your interpretation of the sketch, of course incorporating Cuttlebug, and you never know you could end up winning some of these fab products yourself! And if you haven't already, head on over to the Cuttlebug Challenge blog to see the gorgeous creations that the other super talented DT girls have come up with!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your week!

Did I say I don't do Cute and Cuddly?

2009-03-31T13:52:00.007+01:00

Okay, so in this post I said that I didn't do cute and cuddly. I really believed that I didn't do cute and cuddly too! So when the current Tag You're It challenge asked for cute and cuddly I immediately thought "nah, I'll give that one a miss"! But then I thought about it. And then I played. And then I found that I could actually produce something that passed for cute and cuddly! As if that wasn't bad enough though I'd actually enjoyed the whole process! Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against cute and cuddly, I'd just never done it before! So following the success of the cute doggy tags I'd produced I decided to play some more...

...and some more,

until I had this set of 3 cute and cuddly tags...

with 3 matching cute and cuddly tag cards!

I think that must be my quota of cute and cuddly for the year now!!! But then again...!

Oh, by the way, I tracked down the dingbat that I used to create these. It's Country Cuties and you can find it here at Dafont.com, and best of all it's free!

Materials; for these cards and tags, the same as the previous doggy cards and tags. Additionally for the chick card Cuttlebug Spring Floral die for the flowers, Papermania card for the flowers.

I'll be 'owl' right soon!!!

2009-03-30T17:49:00.003+01:00

So sorry about the lame title but I just couldn't resist! This is obviously going to be an owl heavy post so let me begin!

I managed to get a couple of sketch challenge cards completed this weekend (yeah, I'm on a roll at last!), this first one being for Card Patterns, challenge #8. I decided to use my DB Woodsy Doodlebat from ScrapNfont again (quick, this is on sale for only $2 until 6th April), as I just adore this cute owl!

I printed him out onto various BG Offbeat papers then paper pieced him together, Cute huh?! I inked the edges using a brown chalk ink then mounted him onto a white circle of card that had been Cuttlebugged using Swiss Dots. American Crafts buttons for his eyes and the trim, along with some hemp from Hobbycraft, all layered onto more BG Offbeat paper and Papermania brown card.

MM tiny alpha stickers for the (corny) sentiment and I think this all works a 'tweet'! (sorry!)

My next card is for the Inspirational Card Sketches, challenge #9. This one was made using one of my 'Clear Delights' square acetate card blanks from Craftwork cards - love these! I'm sorry I can't tell you what the patterned paper is as it was included in this month's card kit from Sarah's Cards, and unfortunately there's no info on what it is. It's very sweet and colourful though! Of course the Woodsy owl features again, this time sat on a branch printed from the same doodlebat!

I love how his tummy looks - I carefully cut out the scallops from one of the papers in my kit and carefully pieced it together, a touch fiddly but worth the effort! The leaves (for the eagle-eyed amongst you) are again BG Offbeat, cut using the leaf on the Cuttlebug Asterisks die. Buttons from Hobbycraft and faux stitching using my brown Whispers pen and pink Sakura Souffle pen (around the owl's body) just to finish things off.

Of course another corny sentiment, this time made using Doodlebug Mini Simply Sweet Rub-ons - Swimming Pool. I love how the sentiment looks on the acetate, I think the photograph just about shows it up clearly enough!

So, all in all, a satisfying weekend of card making and challenge participation that I've been missing out on for quite some time now! And I'm still on a roll as I have more to share with you tomorrow! So I hope you'll pop back then to see what else I've been up to!

But before I go I just want tell you (again!) to head on over to Cuttlebug Challenges and if you haven't already, take part in the survey there for Provocraft - your chance to tell them your opinion on all things Cuttlebug, which they really want to hear! Also there are now 2 exclusive sneak peeks of future new embossing folders due to be released this summer, and we are only 159 followers away from being able to release another one! Plus fab prizes still to be won for signing up as a follower so please do, if you haven't already! Sorry if I keep repeating myself about this but I'm just so excited about it all!!!

Anyway thanks for taking the time to stop by and read this and I'd love to hear from you so don't be shy about leaving a comment!

Hope you have a great week!

Do you want to see another Cuttlebug sneak peek...?

2009-03-29T21:38:00.002+01:00

....if you do, head straight here, scroll down the post and a snippet of a brand new Cuttlebug border folder will be revealed - just how exciting is that?!?! And, if we can get 1000 followers signed up to the Cuttlebug Challenge blog, there will be another sneak peek of another brand new folder! So, what are you waiting for?! Head on over there and marvel at the gorgeousness of the new border folder and sign up to follow. And if you're already a follower then fab, but tell all your friends and family about us and help us get that other sneak peek!

Thank you!

Tag You're It - Week 51 Cute and Cuddly

2009-03-28T12:01:00.004Z

When I saw this weeks challenge over at Tag You're It at first I didn't think it was for me! I don't really do 'cute and cuddly'! But inspiration suddenly hit me this morning and after a little while pottering in my craft room, this is what I came up with.

I think this should pass for cute and cuddly! And believe it or not he's actually made from a dingbat! I'd remembered that I had on my computer this dingbat called Country Cuties that I'd had for ages and never used (sorry I can't remember where I got it from but it will have been free and probably from dafont). So to make him I first of all printed onto some white cardstock solid Mocha from Pink Petticoat, I then over-printed that with positive Mocha Big Swirls and finally the dog. I did three copies so that I could then cut him out and decoupage him together (again something that I very rarely do, so I'm doing well out of this challenge!). Oh, along with an extra nose and white ears so that I could 3D Gloss his nose (well a healthy dog has just got to have a wet, shiny nose), and his ears I coloured using my Whispers pens. As I pieced him together I sandwiched in a loop of string for the tag loop and a cotton lace collar (from Hobbycraft), then finished him with a button and string (from my stash) and a flower printed from the same dingbat. Very pleased with how this had turned out I decided to play a little more...

...and came up with a matching tag card - two for the price of one! The dog was obviously made in the same way but scaled down considerably, mounted onto a piece of white card that had been Cuttlebugged with the Swiss Dots folder, finished with some more lace and a flower, and MM tiny alpha stickers, which were then all mounted onto a Woodware tag card.

So, all in all, I was very happy doing cute and cuddly for a change, and who knows I may even try it again!

Before I go I just wanted to mention that if you haven't already done the survey over at Cuttlebug Challenges, please spare a couple of minutes and head on over there to take part. It's your opportunity to let Provocraft know just what you think about all things Cuttlebug, and how often do you get the chance to speak to a manufacturer directly like that?! If you do the survey then leave a comment at Cuttlebug Challenges you will be entered into a draw to win some fab prizes. Also, if you haven't already, sign up as a follower to the blog. There are again some great prizes on offer, especially if we get to 1000 followers - that person will be very lucky indeed! And the most exciting thing is that there is an exclusive sneak peak of one of the brand new embossing folders that is coming out this summer. It is looks gorgeous, but don't just take my word for it! Finally, if we can make it 1000 followers Provocraft may well just give us another sneak peak! Oooooh, I can hardly contain myself, lol! So make sure you tell your friends, family, and well, anyone else you can think of, to follow us at Cuttlebug Challenges and have their say to Provocraft!

Have a great weekend!

Cuttlebug Parteeeee!

2009-03-26T16:49:00.002Z

Wow, there is some really exciting news over on the Cuttlebug Challenge blog today! First of all Provocraft wants YOUR help! They want to hear from you by answering some simple questions on a survey - it will take just 2 minutes of your time but gives you the opportunity to let Provocraft know what you think of and want out of the Cuttlebug. You can find the survey here. It's not very often that you get to influence a company like this and let them know what you think so here's your opportunity! Secondly there are some great prizes up for grabs and the best thing is there is an exclusive sneak peak of one of the new embossing folders set to come out this July! IT LOOKS GOOOOOOORGEOUS! But don't just take my word for it, head on over to Cuttlebug Challenges to see for yourself! And whilst you're there did I mention there's a survey you can take part in to let Provocraft know what you think about the Cuttlebug!!!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #24

2009-03-25T09:30:00.001Z

Happy Wednesday everyone! And Wednesday means another Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired, and this week we're up to challenge #24 and the theme is Cuttlebug meets Cupcakes! This week we have very generously been sponsored by Regina Easter at The Cutting Cafe who provided the design team with some gorgeous cupcake digital stamps to play with and I must admit I had lots of fun with these! I came up with 2 projects this week so be warned there are quite a few photographs to follow!

My first project is a card made with the gorgeous acetate flowers from Craftwork Cards.

To make this I first of all embossed the acetate using the Cuttlebug heart folder from the Love Language set. I then paper pieced the cupcake using K&Co Sweet Treats paper and fusible fibres for the icing, and embellished it with Kaisercraft rhinestones 'sprinkles'. I cut a circle of the same double sided paper and adhered that to the inside of the card. MM tiny alphas, ribbon from stash and gorgeous giant pink bling brad from Sarah's Cards to finish.

My second project was a giant cupcake...

a giant cupcake with a secret...

a giant cupcake note card holder with four matching mini note cards!

The actual card holding part was made following this tutorial, using Papermania pink card. The cupcake was printed extra large and again paper pieced together with the K&Co Sweet Treats paper and the gorgeous fusible fibres and of course 'sprinkles' of Kaisercraft rhinestones! The mini cards are 3.5 inches square and embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder. For the sentiments I printed the cupcake sentiments onto white Bazzill card and cut out in 3 inch scallop circles, paper pricking these to add a bit of detail.

The cupcake's were again paper pieced together but this time on a mini scale!

Just how much do these shimmer?!?! And thankfully my camera seems to have picked this up quite well!

Additional materials used, Stickles Christmas Red, flowers and red stones from Sarah's Cards, glittery ric rac from stash.

So, as for the fibres they are soooo easy to use and make for stunning results which I think I am going to get lots of use from (especially at Christmas!). Here is a quick tutorial on how to use them.

You will need a couple of pieces of baking parchment, or even ordinary paper will do, and onto one of these lay out a layer of fibres.

Once you have your desired size and thickness of fibres place the second sheet of parchment (or paper) over the top. Ensure that all of the fibres are covered - you don't want any stray ones melting themselves onto your iron, then gently iron over with a medium heat setting. The amount of heat applied can affect the final colour so keep checking.

It's as easy as that! This gives you a bonded sheet of fibres to now play with.

To make this into icing (frosting) I naturally had to use the Cuttlebug D'vine Swirls EB Folder for extra swirls! I just cut my fibres to size and ran it through as if it was paper or card and ta-da, stunning results!

Thanks for sticking with me through this one! As you've probably gathered I really enjoyed this challenge (not that I don't enjoy the others!) and I hope you will feel inspired to join in too! And for added inspiration make sure you check out the gorgeous creations from the other DT girls, and we can't wait to see what you come up with!

Finally, did you see the fantastic interview with Product Development guru Erik of Provocraft on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot yesterday? If not make sure you check it out for some exciting and exclusive news, and make sure you stop by the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot tomorrow for a SURPRISE Provocraft/Cuttlebug Party!! Exciting things happening!!!

Exciting Cuttlebug Challenge and Provocraft News!

2009-03-24T22:06:00.005Z

Ooooh, exciting news over on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blogspot today - none other than an exclusive interview with Product Development guru Erik of Provocraft! Make sure you head on over there to find out the latest details on product development, new and exciting production lines, as well as the future of the Cuttlebug - all your questions are answered in this exciting interview! Also, look out for an announcement and a SURPRISE Provocraft/Cuttlebug Party beginning there on Thursday March 26th!! You won't want to miss out on any of the fun and giveaways so make sure you follow the blog (if you don't already) so that you're the first to know what's going on!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #23

2009-03-18T08:30:00.003Z

Ooooh, this one foxed me a bit, lol! This weeks Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired is 'Be creative with punches'! Hmmmmm! That got me scratching my head a bit! I have a decent collection of punches that I use only occasionally and usually just for their intended purpose, but after a bit of 'Googling' I discovered that there is lots of wonderful inspiration out there on the World Wide Web, for being creative with punches. Somehow though it just didn't happen for me for a while! Do you ever have those moments? Anyway, starting to panic that I wasn't going to get anything created this is the card I finally came up with.

Now, if you're wondering where punches feature in this it is the roses - made from balloon punches! I remembered seeing a tutorial for these a while back whilst surfing the net but could I find the tutorial when I needed it - not at all! So it was just a case of trial and error but I think they turned out okay.

I must admit that they were a little bit on the fiddly side to make but once I got a couple done they came together quite easily.

They are actually very easy to make so here is a quick tutorial for you. You will need a balloon punch (I used 2 X-cut balloon punches for the two different sizes) or an oval punch will also work, a cocktail stick, some paper (card will be too thick for this) and some narrow double-sided tape or glue. So first of all punch out your balloons - you will need approximately 8 per flower but this will vary if you want the flower smaller or fuller.

Take the first balloon piece and wrap it around the cocktail stick with the base of the balloon always at the base of the flower. This is were I found a small piece of tape or a dab of glue helps, holding it altogether.

Wrap a second balloon piece around this, secure in place and remove from the cocktail stick. For the remaining pieces you need to curl back the top of the balloon using the cocktail stick.

Now it's a case of building up the flower petal by petal. Alternate where you place each balloon piece so that the curled top of the petal covers where the previous petal edges came together so that you get the natural shape of a rose (hope that makes sense!).

Keep adding 'petals' until you have the desired size of rose. This one was made using 8 balloons.

Here is a side view so that you can see the size of the rose.

Obviously the easy option is to buy ready made paper roses but for those occasions when you want something to co-ordinate with a specific project here is your answer!

I hope that all made sense! I can't wait to see what my fellow designers have come up with in their creative ways with punches and I look forward to seeing what you can come up with too! This week challenge is sponsored by the talented Shealynn Benner who creates the most Amazing Camera straps. We will be giving 1 camera strap away next Thursday, but there is a twist this week...we will be asking you, our readers, to vote for a winner by selecting a favorite from our post next Thursday. There will also be a runner up prize of a Sizzix die! So make sure you head on over to Cuttlebug Challenges and dig out those punches!

Materials: Cuttlebug Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Ivory card from stash, K&CO La Boutique paper, Tulle from Hobbycraft, Ribbons Craft Creations, Lace from Buyology, MM White Glitter Alpha coloured with Whispers Pen, Melissa Frances Vintage Frame, X-Cut Balloon punch, Hobbycraft leaf punch, Accent blue paper from Craft Creations.

Tag You're It and Inspirational Card Sketches

2009-03-17T15:15:00.001Z

A couple of tag cards today, both for two different challenges. The first card is for the Tag You're It challenge #49, Time for Tea.

I thought this was a perfect opportunity to use one of my Pink Petticoat teapots that I paper pieced together using the Duck Egg Blue Big Dots (reduced in size slightly!). I embossed the tag card with the Cuttlebug D'vine Swirls which I think works really well for this as it looks a bit like swirling steam in the background! The clock is from ScrapNFonts, the gorgeous new Ladybird Doodlebats, which I printed onto printer transparency and mounted it onto a Papermania white flower. Finished with a little blue ribbon from my stash and MM tiny alpha's I was rather pleased with this one!

My second card is my first ever entry into the fairly new Inspirational Card Sketches. I've been meaning to take part here for a while but just not got round to it but when I saw this weeks sketch I was instantly inspired!

Again, another Woodware tag card with Sassafrass Piccadilly paper - love this paper! This card is for my Nephew's girlfriend who is Polish. You can't see too clearly on the picture but I printed a Polish sentiment directly onto the card - hopefully this just says 'Happy birthday' but there seem to be a lot of words in there! I just hope I'm not about to offend her, lol! Finished with some cotton lace and white buttons from Hobbycraft, Dovecraft Grosgrain ribbon, American Crafts orange buttons, embroidery silk and pins from my stash, and faux brown stitching.

I must stock up on more of these tag cards, I love the versatility of them and this was my last white one.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and don't forget that tomorrow being Wednesday means that it's Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired day so please stop by and see how I was 'creative with a punch'?!?!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired # 22

2009-03-11T13:30:00.003Z

Wow, has it really been a week since my last post? Well, it's actually been a bit longer than that thanks to scheduling! Sorry for my absence this last week but Mr J, Daisy and I had a lovely few days away in Devon. We came back very relaxed but then soon got stressed by the continuing power problems with the laptop, so that was resolved by the purchase of a new one, with just the minor stress of setting it up and getting everything transferred over! I'm nearly completed with it all so I feel as though normal service has just about been resumed! So apologies that I didn't get round to visiting and commenting on your blog if you took part in last weeks Be Inspired challenge, I will certainly be stopping by this week!

So, onto another Cuttlebug Challenge and this week it's 'Glitter'. We have been sponsored by the very lovely people over at Sweet n Sassy Stamps who provided us with some great new 'digi' stamps to play with. So, here is what I came up with.

I used the lovely butterfly digi stamp and decided to print mine onto to a sheet of inkjet transparency. I first re-sized a couple of the butterflies (in Powerpoint, as I'm a bit behind the times and that's what I'm used to playing with, lol!) then printed them onto the 'rough' side of the transparency. I then used Stickles to colour them in on the reverse side of the image as you can see in the following photo.

I used Pink on the outer edges, allowed that to dry slightly then added Cotton Candy in the middle of the wings, allowed that to dry a little before finally adding Frosted Lace to the middle. By adding the glitter to the reverse of the image on the transparency I didn't have to worry about being too neat and once viewed from the right side all of the detail of the wings still shows through beautifully. I love how this turned out!

So, onto the card. I used a 6" square white card from my stash and using my new border embossing folder added the 'with love' sentiment to the bottom corner. To continue the glitter theme I used my Sizzix Ornate Frame #2 and cut it from black glitter paper (Kanban I believe). I also cut a frame out in white card and embossed the middle section with the gorgeous heart Cuttlebug Embossing folder from the Love Language set. I then attached the outer glitter frame and the embossed white middle section (mounted on 3D foam tape) to the middle of the card. I decided to make this card into a Mother's Day card for my lovely M.I.L, as it is Mother's Day here in the UK in a couple of weeks, and she loves it if she receives a card with the very Yorkshire 'Mam' on the sentiment, so this was created with American Crafts Glitter Thickers assisted by MM tiny alphas. I carefully cut around the butterflies and lightly scored either side of the bodies to allow the wings to fold back slightly, then adhered them to the frame and finished them with some gorgeous Kaiser Rhinestones, adding a few to the frame also. Then I finished it all with a lovely glittery ribbon from Sarah's Cards before clearing up all the mess!

I think the butterflies look so pretty and delicate like this so I'm really pleased I tried this technique! I hope you'll feel inspired to get the glitter out and join us too at the gorgeous new look Cuttlebug Challenges blog, and 10, yes 10 lucky winners will each win a set of digi stamps from Sweet n Sassy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #21

2009-03-04T13:30:00.001Z

Well, can you believe it's March already? I know I certainly can't! And another Wednesday to boot so it's time again for Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired, and this week is #21 - Watercolours. I must admit this was a tough one for me and pushed me well outside of my comfort zone but, hey, that's what challenges are all about! So without further ado here is my card and if you'd like to stick with me I'll take you through how I created it.

Now for a lot of you, water colouring will involve colouring a stamped image but as I don't usually stamp this was a no go for me! Also, in the 'Mr & Mrs J' household it's Mr J who is the artist, and although he did offer to help me out on this one, that would have been cheating, lol! He did agree to loan me the use of his watercolours and paper though, so that was a start! I decided to use the gorgeous embossing folder from the Cuttlebug Forever Friends set and after cutting a piece of watercolour paper to size I then embossed it. The next bit was the difficult bit - being brave enough to dip the paintbrush into water, then into some paint and then actually put it onto the paper! After a few deep breaths I went for it and I must admit I was very pleasantly surprised by the results! It was literally just a case of brushing the paint onto the paper and washing it out with the water and as I was working quite 'lightly' with the colours and depth it meant it was quite forgiving and I could gradually build up the colour. So, pleased with the colouring I then got a bit clever, and to 'bleed' some of the colour out around the flower heads I sprinkled on some grains of rock salt, yes, you read right, salt! This has to be done whilst the paint is still wet as it draws the paint up into the salt and just softens the appearance on the paper. Leave the salt on the paper for a few minutes then just shake it off. Hopefully you can see the result a little more clearly in the next picture.

Whilst doing the painting I also painted another piece of paper but made the colours a bit more intense, so that I could use it as a mat to layer the embossed image onto. I was pleased with how it was all looking but just felt it looked a little flat though, so to give it a bit of sparkle I edged the mat with some Stickles and also picked out the raised embossing with Stickles too. I then used Papermania purple adhesive pearls to pick out the design and cut the sentiment (from the Forever Friends folder) out of some spare water coloured paper and again 'Stickled' it. This was all then mounted onto a lilac Stardream card base and I felt that was all it needed! A very simple design but full of the 'wow' factor from the painting I think! It's the usual case that the photograph doesn't quite do the card justice, but hopefully you can see clearly enough how it's turned out! I must admit I really enjoyed making this card and I think I will be trying this technique out again! So, if you've never tried water colouring before, be brave - you never know what 'masterpiece' you might be able to create! And as usual we would love to see what you come up with over at Cuttlebug Challenges, so make sure you pop on over there and also check out the stunning creations that the other talented DT girls have come up with.

Have fun!

Vintage style altered box

2009-03-01T11:30:00.004Z

Having created my beautiful acrylic album about my Mum, something I will treasure forever, I needed something to be able to store it in safely. My first visit to Hobbycraft to check out their paper mache boxes was disappointing as they only had very large boxes that the album would have rattled around in. However, on a return visit I thought I would check again, just in case they'd got some more in, and lo and behold they had. This usually never happens! The only problem was that this time I didn't have the album with me to check the size so I just had to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best! I needn't have worried as you can see...

How perfect a fit is this?! To decorate the box I painted the inside with cream acrylic paint and on the outside I covered it with pieces cut from the old paperback book I'd used for the album, and stuck these on with PVA glue. I then inked the edges with brown chalk ink.

A bit of lace to edge the lid, along with some gorgeous American Crafts ric-rac velvet ribbon.

And finally, following the theme of the album, a photograph, a flourish, plenty of buttons and some paper roses.

I'm so happy with how this all turned out and so pleased that I have such a beautiful keepsake to treasure forever.

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #20

2009-02-25T09:00:00.002Z

Wednesday again so it's Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #20 and this week there is an extra special guest DT, Valerie Salmon. Valerie is the name behind the Got Sketch? blog and as an extra special prize this week she is offering up a free download from Got Sketch? to the very lucky winner, chosen by herself! So, as Valerie is our guest, this weeks challenge is of course a sketch! A stunner it is too!

And here is my interpretation.

I still seem to be in my black, white and red phase at the moment as this card shows! I used a 6" square black card for my base, cut a 5 1/2" square of white card from my stash and scalloped 2 of the sides using my corner rounder punch (with the guides removed). This was then embossed with my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots EB folder. I then cut a smaller piece of white card that I embossed with the Houndstooth folder and then brayered with some black ink. The flourish is cut from Kanban black glitter paper using my new Sizzix Bigz Decorative Accent #10 die (gorgeous!) and the butterfly is actually 2 hearts! I cut 2 medium Sizzix Tipsy Hearts from red Core'dinations card which I then embossed with the Cuttlebug Textile EB folder. I then sanded this to reveal the paler core but didn't feel that this had enough oomph (if you know what I mean) against such a dramatic background. The answer was to go over the embossing with my glue pen and then cover this with black glitter - I love how it looks now! The 'antennae' are just pearl tipped pins, dipped into PVA glue and covered with more black glitter and the body is black adhesive crystals from Hobbycraft. Final finishing touches are black cotton lace and red velvet ribbon, also from my stash, tiny Papermania adhesive crystals, MM tiny alpha and MM red glitter alpha.

I love this sketch so think I will be getting a lot if use from it! Hope you like it too, if so we'd love to see your interpretation over at Cuttlebug Challenges. If you haven't already, make sure you head over there to also see the gorgeous creations that the other very talented DT girls have come up with.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your week!

Creatively Yours - Embossed Acrylic Tri-Fold Album

2009-02-22T13:30:00.002Z

Hope you're enjoying your weekend and taking it nice and easy? We're currently enjoying some beautiful spring like weather here in the UK so we're making the most of it today - taking Daisy out for a lovely long walk then setting too tidying the garden. A task that is quite overdue due to the fact that my fingers are definitely not green! The only time they're that colour is if I'm painting, lol!

Today I am sharing with you pictures of an embossed acrylic tri-fold album that I have just made. If you head on over to Cuttlebug Challenges, for this weeks Creatively Yours Spotlight Sunday, there you will find a full tutorial on how I went about creating it, which hopefully you will find interesting and inspiring and you may even pick up a few tips along the way too!

I was very happy with how this album turned out, especially the sort of vintage feel to it. I also managed to make it from purely 'stash' items and makes, so that was an added bonus!

Enjoy what's left of your weekend, wherever you are in the world! And make sure you stop by Cuttlebug Challenges this Wednesday as we have a guest DT - Valerie Salmon, of Got Sketch? fame as well as being a Creative Team member for Scrapbooks etc and Fiskars. We are all very excited as Valerie has provided us with a gorgeous sketch to work from and there is a fab prize up for grabs for one very luck person! So, see you there on the 25th of February! Best get on and finish my card!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #19

2009-02-18T13:30:00.005Z

Okay, so it's another Wednesday so that means another Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired Challenge, which this week is to emboss acetate or acrylic. I so love this challenge! I had just received in the post these gorgeous acetate flowers from Craftwork Cards so I immediately put them to good use and created this cute card!

The acetate flowers (which are approx 5.5" in diameter) came with one hole punched in them so I added another one in each with my Crop-A-Dile so that I could then join them to make a card. I embossed each flower with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder - this looks so effective on acetate I think, then I tied the two pieces together with some hemp, and then set to decorating it.

The owl and tree branch are another Doodlebat from ScrapNfont, this time Woodsy. I printed the owl out onto different scraps of BG Offbeat papers and then paper pieced him together and inked the edges. The branch was coloured brown and then printed onto white card then carefully cut out. There were leaves with it as part of the doodlebat but instead of fiddling about cutting them out I used the little leaves that are on the Cuttlebug Spring Floral die, as they were just the perfect size, and again used BG Offbeat paper. American Crafts buttons finished off the eyes and I added 'Have a Hoot' using MM mini alpha stickers. Oh, I also cut a circle of paper and inked the edges, that I added to the inside of the card.

All in all another card I absolutely love! I think I'll be making quite a few more of these! I must say that I am so loving being part of the Cuttlebug Challenges Design team, not only for the fact that I am working with a group of amazingly talented girls, but also because the challenges are really inspiring me and pushing me, and making me try out many new techniques! I hope it's inspiring you too! If so make sure you take part this week as this is one fun challenge!

I hope you'll also stop by Cuttlebug Challenges on Sunday as I will be posting a tutorial there that I hope you will also all enjoy!

Card Patterns Sketch #1

2009-02-13T15:39:00.005Z

Whilst blog hopping the other day I came across a new card sketch challenge site called Card Patterns, so I just had to check it out and have a go! Hopefully I'll just be in time to enter this weeks challenge posting this! Loved the sketch they have for their first challenge - does anybody else have times like this when a sketch just really works for them and then others it's a no-go?! Well this one really worked for me so I made 2 cards and both of them were the dreaded male cards!

Very happy with the results here and think I will definitely be using this one many times again!

Details; Card 1, White and red card from stash, American Craft pp, Adornit mini alpha stickers, MM glitter alpha, brads, ribbon and bitton from stash, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots EB folder, Sizzix frame and star dies, Big Shot.

Card 2; Kraft card from Hobbycraft, Papermania pp, brads and other card from stash, MM mini alpha stickers, Other alpha from local budget store, Blue peel off borders from Hobbycraft, Blue Whispers pen for doodling, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, Sizzix Funky frame #2 die, Big Shot.

Looking forward to their next sketch on Saturday!

Cuttlebug Be Inspired 18

2009-02-11T13:30:00.001Z

Happy Wednesday to you all! It's that time of the week again for another Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired Challenge and this week's is so much fun as your challenge (should you choose to accept it, lol), is to make a shaped card (that obviously incorporates using your Cuttlebug products!) So here is my card...

I love how this turned out! When I saw that the challenge was to make a shaped card I didn't even need to think twice about what I was going to make! For those of you who have seen this post it'll be no surprise to see that I finally made the little girls dress! The template for this was actually created using a 'doodlebat' called 'Sweet Baby Clothes' from ScrapNfonts, and I used Powerpoint to create and play with this (just because that is what I'm used to using!). This is the letter W increased to 448pts, printed onto plain white card and cut to create my template. I decided to increase the length of the dress as I felt this was better proportionally.

I used a 6 inch square card for my base, ensuring that the crease of the card was at the top for the shoulders. I used pale pink core'dinations card which I cut to shape and embossed with the Cuttlebug Blooming Dots Embossing folder. The frills and collar were cut from matching card and embossed with Swiss Dots and then a few finishing touches were added. The small flowers are cut from the Cuttlebug Spring Floral die, crochet flowers for buttons, a bit of hand stitching and a pretty bow were the final touches. I hope I've explained everything clearly there. I'm afraid I'm having to rush finishing this post as the power on my laptop is playing up big time and I want to get this posted in time! So any questions please feel free to leave me a comment. Hope you're inspired to have a go at making your own shaped card and if you do please let us see it at Cuttlebug Challenges.

Tag You're It and 2 Sketches 4 You

2009-02-10T17:30:00.003Z

2 cards to share with you today and both are challenge entries. My first is another of my tag cards for the Tag You're It challenge. This week is a sketch to follow, which I really enjoyed. I went bright with this one so you've been warned!

Details; Woodware white tag card, BG Offbeat pp's, Buttons and black & white ribbons from stash, American Crafts velvet ric-rac ribbon, Doodlebug rub-ons, Sakura black gel pen, black adhesive crystals Hobbycraft.

My next card is a fun little card for this weeks challenge at 2 Sketches 4 You, Laura's sketch #19. This morning I treated myself to the Cuttlebug man and woman sign dies - so cute - so had to put them to use straight away! Just looking at the picture sorry about the quality, will try and get a better one tomorrow! Just loving the Kraft and white look at the moment!

Details; Ribbon and Kraft card Hobbycraft, white card from stash, MM mini alpha stickers, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots EB folder and Man and Woman sign dies, pins from local haberdashery store.

Thanks for stopping by and for all the lovely comments you've been leaving me - I really appreciate them. And please stop by tomorrow as I'll be posting my latest card for the Cuttlebug Challenges Blogspot - it's a cutie!

Cuttlebug Challenges Sketch Saturday

2009-02-07T13:46:00.003Z

Just a quick post to show the card that I created for this weekends Sketch Saturday at Cuttlebug Challenges. The lovely Aymee has created a gorgeous sketch to work from and this is what I came up with. The image of the dress I have had on my computer for quite some time now but had not been inspired to use it (despite how absolutely gorgeous it is!), but as soon as I saw Aymee's sketch I knew exactly what I was going to do! I love it when that happens!

I haven't added a sentiment to the card as I didn't really have any alpha's or rub-ons that I thought would look right, so I might add one later. Then again I don't really think it needs one! I think this would actually make for a lovely wedding card don't you?

Anyway, if you have a few spare minutes this weekend head on over to Cuttlebug Challenges and see if you can be inspired - I'm sure you will be!

Details: Card from stash, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder, lace and ribbon from Hobbycraft, pins from local haberdashery store, Image from A Print A Day

You're never too old...

2009-02-05T14:10:00.006Z

...to build a snowman!!!

Look what I made this morning, with a little help from my friends! Nothing crafty but quite creative! I had just the best time this morning whilst out with my friends walking the dogs - you wouldn't have guessed it would you, lol! We probably looked a strange sight though - 5 women ranging in age from 41 to 65+, with 3 dogs, having snowball fights and building a snowman (well, officially she's a snow-woman - you might just be able to make out her pert boobies underneath the scarf, lol!!) And of course the dogs had fun too. If you can see in this picture here is Daisy doing her version of a snow angel! She loved it!

Don't know how long this will last but we're meeting again this afternoon for a repeat of the fun! And as one little 10 year old boy told me this morning "my Dad told me to go and make the most of it - it'll be another 20 years before we have snow again like this"! Couldn't have put it better myself!!!

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #17

2009-02-04T13:30:00.000Z

Phew! What an amazing Luv Bug Weekend over at Cuttlebug Challenges! I hope you all took part and enjoyed yourselves as much as we all did! And thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments, especially those about my tutorial - I really appreciated them! Don't forget we'd love to see anything that you were inspired to make from all of the fab tutorials!

So, onto the matter in hand, this weeks Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired #17 - to make a love card/project. Well I must admit I'm a bit done with Valentines day cards (I think Mr J is going to get about 5 this year, all from me I hasten to add, lol!), so I decided to go with a little project I've been meaning to do for the last 10 years! A mini 'love' album from my wedding day. I had picked up a few months back an acrylic scalloped heart album and decided to use that, and I must admit I love the result! I apologise at this point about the pixelated wedding photographs - Mr J didn't really like the idea of sharing our wedding photographs with the world wide web so we came up with a compromise for me to be able to share this project! Hope you don't mind! So here it is....

As you can see I managed to emboss the acrylic pages, which was a bit of an effort but well worth it! I have a Big Shot so I'm not sure if these Papermania album pages will fit in the Cuttlebug, sorry :( but in the BS I think I used the platform, cutting plate, EB folder then cutting plate, possibly tab 1 too! . It's hard to get through, so please don't force things (I feel I should add a disclaimer here that I cannot accept the blame for saying this will work and then you break your machine!). I used the Cuttlebug Script folder over sections of each page, then lightly sanded to whiten and highlight the detail a little more. All other details are as follows;

Supplies; Cuttlebug EB folder Script text & Cut and EB Love Language, Papermania Acrylic album and adhesive crystals in salmon, K&Co La Boutique pp and glitter embossed stickers, & Grand Adhesions stickers, rosette flowers handmade with ribbons from Hobbycraft, ribbon roses Hobbycraft, Prima flower, white glitter paper from stash.

Now, I don't want to be teaching you to suck eggs here but the art to a successful acrylic album is planning! Take the time to lay out each page remembering that what you see on one side you will see the back of on the other! A bit of careful planning and placement will create truly beautiful results!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you've enjoyed my project, and I look forward to seeing your love cards/projects over at Cuttlebug Challenges Blogspot!

Tag You're it! Purple tag

2009-02-02T18:01:00.003Z

Just a quick post to share with you the tag card I have made for this weeks Tag You're It challenge (week 43) - a purple tag. Well, actually this is 2 tags for the price of 1!

The flowers and butterflies are actually coloured using alcohol inks, my new favourite technique since the weekend! I did a quick workshop on the basics of using them and I loved it! I made this sample of purple so just had to put it to use straight away!

Materials; Woodware tag card, Cuttlebug Script Text embossing folder, Purple Ink It Up pad, Purple Mirri card Craft Creations cut using Sizzix scalloped tag #2 die, flower and butterfly punches, crystals, pearls and ribbon from stash, MM mini alpha, 'you' cut from white glitter paper with Cuttlebug Love Language folder.

Thanks for stopping by! And I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all of you that stopped by over the weekend and left such lovely comments, I really appreciate them. And I'm so happy to know that I have inspired so many of you with my projects from the Cuttlebug Challenges Luv Bug weekend!

Cuttlebug Challenges Luv Bug Weekend

2009-02-01T17:28:00.002Z

Well, I've had so much fun this weekend being part of the Cuttlebug Challenges Luv Bug Weekend! If you've been taking part in the blog hop and checking out the tutorials I hope you've enjoyed yourself too! Over there at the moment I have my first tutorial showing, so I hope you get some inspiration and tips from it! If you've not seen it yet you can check it out here where I take you through the different steps to decorate a plain paper mache box into this!

Thanks for all the lovely comments you've been leaving over the weekend, I've really enjoyed reading them and knowing that we've inspired you along the way! I'd love to know if any of you are inspired by my heart box - let me know if you come up with your own creation, I'd love to pop by your blog and see it!

Enjoy the rest of the Cuttlebug Challenges Luv Bug weekend - there are still a few more treats in store for you there so keep checking back, and thanks for stopping by my blog too!

Cuttlebug Challenge "Sweets for my Sweet"!

2009-01-30T12:00:00.005Z

Happy Luv Bug weekend! Thank you for coming to my blog as part of Cuttlebug Challenges Luv Bug blog hop. Hope you're having lots of fun along the way as well as getting lots of inspiration! Your word for this blog is "SO". That means that you're now half way through and your next stop is Spike's blog which you can get to by clicking on her name. Before you disappear though here is my 'sweet for my sweet'.

A cute little acetate bag that was quick and easy to make. Here's how I did it.

I cut a piece of 180 mic acetate to 8.5" x 6" and marked it as follows - at 2, 4, 6, 8 inches across and 4 inches down. Cut away the bottom 2" of the final half inch section. Using the back of my cutting blade I then gently scored lines at all the other marks. I then went over these and actually cut up the score lines of the bottom 2" sections. Hope you're still with me here! Using the little heart embossing folder from the Cuttlebug Love Language set I then embossed the acetate, positioning it in the folder so that the bottom 2 inches were sticking out, so that remains clear. Then, using a red permanent ink pen (I used a Sharpie) I carefully coloured in the little hearts - a little time consuming but well worth the effort I think! To assemble I applied some double sided tape to the half inch tab and stuck this to make my box shape, then folded up the base sections, sticking as I went along. I cut a 2" square piece of red card to sit in the bottom of the box (to cover the tape). Gently push the two side sections in to the middle to close your box. To fasten I punched a hole at the top with my crop-o-dile, threaded through some gingham ribbon, looped it over, attached a tag then tied in a bow through the flower, oh, remembering to fill the box with sweets before I did that last step! And here you have sweets for your sweet! I hope that was all clear for you but any queries just let me know and I'll get back to you.

"SO" enjoy, and thank you for taking part in the Cuttlebug Challenges Luv Bug Weekend! I'll be there on Sunday with a tutorial on decorating a Paper Mache box so I hope you stop by and let me know what you think. Throughout the weekend though make sure you keep dropping in there as there is so much going on and lots of fab prizes to be won!

Don't forget if you need a little help with the blog hop phrase go on over to Eva's blog for a little clue!

Brightening my day!

2009-01-29T17:31:00.004Z

A few bright cards to share with you today so you might have to get the shades out, lol! You have been warned!

My first card is for this weeks Tag You're It! challenge - number 42, to make a tag with numbers. I used one of my Woodware tag cards again to make this cute card.

I love these papers that I picked up yesterday, I believe they're Making Memories. I used my Cuttlebug Swiss dots folder on the card, ribbon and black peel-offs from my stash and a combination of alphas; Doodlebug loopy love stickers and simply sweet rub-ons, MM mini alphas. Today is the last day for this weeks challenge so better late than never!

This next card is for this weeks 2 Sketches 4 You, Laura's challenge #18. Great sketch although it took me a little while to get going. This is the second card that I came up with.

My day was definitely in need of brightening and this did the job perfectly! In fact I am dedicating this card to Laura and Kazan, and the outgoing Winter DT as they always manage to lift my spirits with their amazing inspiration and talent - so thank you for brightening my day Ladies!

I love how this card has turned out, so bright (as I forewarned you) and cheerful! Again with the Making Memories paper that I bought yesterday, ribbon and card from my stash, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and some gorgeous chipboard flowers from The Range, that matched the paper perfectly after I coloured them with a variety of chalk inks and Whisper pens. Alphas as above.

I mentioned this was the second card that I made using this weeks sketch. This is the first card...

Completely differenet! A fun 1st birthday card for a neighbour's little boy. Card from stash, Cherry Arte paper, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, wooden car from Hobbycraft, MM mini alphas, American Crafts Thickers, white Sakura Souffle pen.

My final card for today is made using Rae's gorgeous bonus sketch. Loved this one! I think I outdid myself with the brightness on this one though!!!

All card is from my stash, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder (again!), felt, hemp, button and ribbon from Hobbycraft, alphas as previous, felt flower from local budget store, pins from local haberdashery store, Papermania adhesive pearls.

So, I think that's me done for today! I'm certainly feeling a bit brighter now! I'm just going to get myself sorted for all the fun over at Cuttlebug Challenges this weekend, so make sure you check it out and join in. There are some great prizes up for grabs along with some fab tutorials (one of which will be mine - my first ever so wish me luck!) and a fun blog hop.

So, until tomorrow, have fun and thanks for stopping by.

Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired # 16

2009-01-27T16:59:00.008Z

I know I say this every week, but just where do the weeks go??? Another Wednesday, another Cuttlebug Challenges Be Inspired challenge. This week is #16 - to make a distressed card, so without further ado, here is mine...

I had great fun with this one, making it all grungy and, well, distressed! Here's how I did it.

For the square panels I used some HOTP papers I have had in my stash for what seems like forever and a day, but I think work very well for this card. I cut out 4 x 6.5cm squares and embossed them using Cuttlebug embossing folders Script Text and Swiss Dots. I then set about distressing them which was the fun part! I gently sanded the surface of all of the squares with a fine sandpaper to reveal the white paper core, then the brown squares I randomly rubbed over with charcoal coloured chalk ink. I then gently dragged the edge of my scissors around the edge of each square to further distress them, not being worried if they tore in places (after all, that's the effect I was after!). I then positioned and stuck the squares to my card front but making sure I didn't stick them down flat, then it was out with the sewing machine. I think that part is fairly self explanatory!. By making sure that the edges of the squares weren't stuck or sewn down flat I could then run my finger nail around them to raise the edges and ensure they looked distressed enough. Then it was on to the embellishments.

I cut a piece of old corrugated cardboard packaging using Sizzix Frame, Ornate #2 - love how this looks! I embossed a piece of Core'dinations Black Magic card with the Cuttlebug Houndstooth folder then sanded away to reveal the 'magic', (first time I've used this and I love it!) which I then stuck my chipboard alpha pieces to and cut around, then inked the edges. The BG chipboard bracket was embossed with Swiss Dots then chalked randomly with brown and charcoal coloured chalk inks. Then it was just a case of positioning it all and finishing with some MM mini alpha stickers and buttons. I think this look makes for a great male card - this one is for my F.I.L. so I hope he likes it! If you've never 'distressed' before give it a go and head on over to Cuttlebug Challenges to see how 'distressing' (lol) the rest of the DT team have been with their gorgeous creations!

Before I go I just wanted to let you know that if you're stuck for ideas of what to make your loved one this valentines day make sure you regularly check out Cuttlebug Challenges from this Friday, and all throughout the weekend as there is one big, fun event going to be happening there. The 'Luv Bug' Weekend is going to be 3 days of fab, fun projects along with a DT blog hop to inspire you, and loads of amazing prizes up for grabs. Check out all of the details here. As the advert says it's the perfect opportunity for you to fall in love with your bug all over again, not that I imagine you would have fallen out of love with it in the first place! So make sure you plan this weekend carefully so that you don't miss out on all the fun!

Cuttlebug Challenges - Lori's weaving

2009-01-24T12:57:00.002Z

Have you checked out the Cuttlebug Challenges blog today? The lovely Lori has done a fab tutorial on weaving card and then embossing it. I had previously tried this technique, but without embossing, and never actually done anything with the weave I'd made. So what a perfect opportunity to dig it out and make a card with it following Lori's lovely inspiration!

I decided to use my Cuttlebug Birds & Swirls folder to emboss the weave and I think it turned out really effectively. I apologise in advance about the photo as there's quite a bit of glare in on it from the sun but I'm not complaining too much as it's lovely to see the sun here in the UK!!! Anyway, here's my card.

And in a little more detail...

And...

The observant ones amongst you might have noticed that the leaf pin on the bow is missing from this picture. I suddenly remembered I had them and thought it would just finish off the flower!

Details; All card, paper ribbon & pin from stash, American Crafts Greenhouse Felt Flowers, MM Tiny Alphas, MM Shimmer alpha, Dovecraft brads.

Thanks Lori for a really inspiring tutorial! Pop on over to Cuttlebug Challenges and check it out for yourself. Lori has posted some really clear step by step instructions with great photo's and she is very generously offering up the sweetest prize for her favourite card posted using this technique!

Anyway, I'm going to head off now to make dinner for tonight - Braised Steak Au Poivre in Red Wine Sauce (a Delia Recipe). I'm starting it now so that I can have it simmering away in the slow cooker all afternoon, filling the house with the most mouthwatering aromas and giving us something really heartwarming to eat on this frosty day! Mmmm delish! Before I go though I'll just leave you with this picture of the lovely card making kit I have just subscribed to from Sarah's Cards.

It arrived yesterday and believe it or not I've not started anything from it yet! I figured that by subscribing to a monthly kit I would regularly get a little bit of gorgeousness to play with, that all coordinates, without buying too much randomness that I never know what to do with it all, or what to match it up with. Well that's my theory anyway, lol! My aim is to use it all up before the next kit arrives so I'm posting about it here to remind and challenge myself to get on with it! I'll let you know how I get on and hopefully share with you my creations.

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely weekend!

2 Sketches 4 You, Kazan's sketch #18

2009-01-23T16:50:00.009Z

Well, better late than never! I thought I wasn't going to get this weeks 2S4U card done but I got their in the end. I struggled to start this one but then it all started coming together and this is what I ended up with.

Overall, I'm happy with how the card turned out but looking at it I wish now that I'd cut the middle panel a little bit off centre, more towards the right. But hey ho, it's not a disaster, I'll just have to remember to consider these things in the future! You can't see too well on the photo but I used my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder on the white card, obviously just to add a bit of texture!

I seem to be going through a bit of a red, white and black phase at the moment, not sure why but it does look striking don't you think? I think this card could almost pass as a valentines card but as Mr J is going to be receiving plenty already this year I think I'll send this to my S.I.L for her birthday. Not until the end of March but there's nothing like being prepared!

Details: Black and white card from stash, Cherry Arte red paper, Kanban black glitter paper (I think, must check for certain!), ribbon and blooms from stash, Doodlebug Loopy Lou stickers, MM mini alpha's, Dovecraft brad altered with black crystal from Hobbycraft, Papermania clear adhesive crystals.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Cuttlebug Be Inspired #15

2009-01-21T10:26:00.017Z

Well it's Wednesday again, so that means it's time for this weeks Cuttlebug Be Inspired challenge #15 and this week it's a sketch challenge. Not just any sketch though, but a sketch from the very talented designer Becky Fleck (of PageMaps - THE place to go when you're in need of a little inspiration!). And there is a lovely prize up for grabs, a copy of her PageMaps book, so make sure you pop on over and take part!

So, onto the gorgeous sketch

When I saw this I immediately thought of hearts (must be something to do with all the love in the air with Valentine's day being so close!), and this is what I came up with.

The scrummy red card stock I used is Core'dinations Raspberry, which I cut into a DL card. I then cut a white panel of card (from my stash), which I cut 5mm shorter than the DL card size. I rounded the corners then ran it through my Big Shot with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, turning it round, re-aligning it and running it through again to cover the whole panel. I then cut out some hearts using my Sizzix Tipsy hearts die, cutting some from the Core'dinations card and some from acetate (from old packaging). These were then embossed using a variety of Cuttlebug folders - Swiss Dots, Houndstooth, Script Texture, Birds & Swirls and Love Language. Once embossed I then lightly sanded them to reveal the gorgeous pink core, and also sanded the acetate to make the embossing whiter. I then positioned the hearts and stuck them down, making sure I could position the acetate hearts so that I could hide the tape, with the help of the heart buttons (from my stash) strategically placed! The sentiment and 'kiss' are cut from the Core'dinations card using the Cuttlebug Love Language cut and emboss folder. I find using Glue Dots double-sided punch tape an essential when cutting these delicate sentiments as it is so easy to remove the backing paper and adhere them with absolutely no mess at all! Just to finish off the card I cut another panel of white card, the same as for the front, which I put inside the card (without embossing) and used the hugs & kisses sentiment again from the Love Language folder.

So sweet! I just love all the texture and detail on what is essentially quite a simple Valentine's card (to add to the growing collection that the lovely Mr J is going to receive this year, lol!)

So, if you're up for an inspiring challenge this week please head on over to the Cuttlebug Challenge site, where you can check out the amazing designs the other DT girls have come up with and, who knows, you could even win a fantastic PageMaps book!

Have fun and thanks for stopping by!

Wonderful news!

2009-01-15T17:53:00.008Z

Wow, what a week last week - plenty of challenges entered and from that an invitation to join a design team! How gob-smacked was I?!?! Following my submission of my all white Cuttlebug card to the Cuttlebug Challenge site the lovely Maggie there has invited me onto their DT! I am so flattered about this and said yes instantly - as with most blogging card makers I think there's a secret desire (or maybe not so secret) to be part of a design team, but I didn't dream that I would get there. I think you can tell how excited I am as reading this back to myself I am seriously waffling!! Oooooh exciting times ahead! The bigger part of the surprise is that I have only been using Cuttlebug stuff for a short time but it is such a great brand to work with and I love the results I get with it, especially the embossing folders. Which leads me nicely on to the first challenge as a DT member - Cuttlebug be Inspired challenge #14 to make a card using your favourite embossing folder. So without further ado here is my card.....

Details: White card stock from stash, brown card - Papermania, BG Offbeat paper, CUTTLEBUG FOREVER FRIENDS CUT & EMBOSS FOLDER, brown velvet ribbon from Hobbycraft, photo corners & blue bobble trim from stash.

I just love how the design of the paper reflects the design of the embossing, they're a perfect match, especially with the white core of the brown card showing through after I lightly sanded it. Definitely my favourite embossing folder at the moment! Some of you might also recognise the sketch I've used for this card as Laura's sketch #17 over at 2S4U.

So head on over to the Cuttlebug Challenge site and be impressed by the talent and inspiration of the other design girls there and don't be scared of taking part - you never know what might happen!!!

2 Sketches 4 You - Laura's sketch #17

2009-01-14T14:16:00.005Z

Well, it's that time of the week again, yes, it's 2 Sketches 4 You. It seems to come around so quickly each week - must be my age! Laura's sketch #17 this week and it took my a while to get started with this one. Came up with one idea and ended up going in a completely different direction and producing something completely different! Just the way it goes sometimes. Anyway, this is the finished card. Please excuse my dirty window in the background but this is usually the best place in the house to get the right light! (I really struggle with this sometimes so any pointers on getting the best photographs/light etc. would be greatly appreciated!).

I used a new Laura Ashley paper for this card, from a pack that I picked up last week. The papers are beautiful, especially the flocked ones - very luxurious and expensive looking! I got the Connemara collection which contained quite a few grey papers which I wouldn't normally think to use but this one I think looks very elegant. I also decorated the inside of the card.

Looking at the photo I think I've got my stickers a bit wonky, oooops! Best use a ruler next time, lol!

Anyway, as I've started listing what I've used to make each card I'd best continue!
Ingredients; Card stock Papermania, Paper Laura Ashley Connemara collection, black glitter paper Kanban (I think), Butterfly Hobbycraft, Papermania self adhesive pearls, MM tiny alpha stickers and American Crafts Roller Rink Glitter Thickers, black satin ribbon from stash.

I don't know whether I'll be able to get as many challenges completed as last week, but I'll see what I can come up with as I enjoyed taking part in them very much!

Thanks for stopping by!

Time for some more challenges!

2009-01-11T14:22:00.006Z

Okay, so the beginning of this year I decided I needed to participate in more challenges. I didn't set this as a resolution, (no, that would be just setting myself up to fail, lol!) but I just decided as I enjoyed taking part in 2 Sketches 4 You so much I should try a few more! So I've already done CPS and Cuttlebug Challenge this week (which I really enjoyed) and decided to do one more. Well two more actually as I think the card I made will work for 2 challenges - Tag You're It - week 40, Let's go stripey, and The Cuttlebug Spot - challenge 12, Male cards. Here's my card.

Love these tag shaped cards, they're so handy to have! Made using a Woodware tag card embossed with the Cuttlebug Houndstooth folder, Papermania paper, card from stash embossed with Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, AC Glitter Thickers, Papermania self adhesive stars, black satin ribbon from stash, star and sentiment cut from Sizzix dies. I think that covers it all! Love the texture on this card from the houndstooth folder. So, hopefully I'm okay entering this for the two challenges - I think I've covered both requirements in one!

I just thought I'd leave you with this photograph I took yesterday whilst out with Mr J walking the dog in the local park. Is this the fattest Robin ever???

Think I might have to use this picture on some of my Christmas cards this year!

Thanks for stopping by and for all the lovely comments I've been receiving, I really appreciate them.

I just couldn't resist.....

2009-01-08T13:02:00.006Z

...making this

to go with this...

Sweet, a little gift tag to match! I'm really chuffed with how these have turned out. Mind you they've proved to be quite time consuming, but worth the effort I think! I just really want to have a go at making one for a baby girl now, then I can really go to town! A cute dress and bootees with lots of lace, felt and pretty pink papers.....anyone just had a baby girl...?!

Now, where I was reporting previously that my mojo had gone a.w.o.l. I think it was just taking a break and preparing itself for 2009, as now that I've started I just can't stop, lol!!! 'In the zone' I thought I would have my first attempt at a CPS card as I really liked the sketch and had just got my mitts on these gorgeous Pink Petticoat 'Just an Old Fashioned Girl' papers. So here is another valentines card for Mr J (he's certainly going to know he's loved this year - but he deserves it!)

I love how striking these papers look and especially love the sentiment. You can't really tell from the photo but I decoupaged the heart.

So, still 'in the zone', I came across the Cuttlebug challenge site and as I'd just recently taken possession of some gorgeous embossing folders I had to play along. Their challenge is to make a simple white card so this is what I came up with (which is dedicated to my dear Mum).

Made with the Friends Forever set, white card and ribbon from my stash, white Papermania adhesive pearls, and the pin is from a local haberdashery store.

Are you still with me?! Finally two last cards to share with you. Not based on anything at all but made last night simply to prove to myself that I could make cards quickly, after the marathon cutting, stitching, doodling session I'd spent producing the baby cards! Oh, and to try out my Swiss Dots folder which is fab!!! (I suppose these could also be considered for the Cuttlebug challenge looking at them!)

Made with Woodware tag cards, felt, lace, buttons, string and ribbon from my stash, Cherry Arte Her Nature paper, American Crafts glitter Thickers, Cuttlebug folder as above (for white Hi sentiment) yellow flower from The Range, green flower from local budget store and pins as above.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and thank you for the lovely comments that you've been leaving me. I really appreciate them all (they make me feel all warm and fuzzy!)

Normal service has been resumed!

2009-01-06T17:19:00.006Z

First of all 'Happy New Year' to you all! Sorry I've been missing a little while and been a bit late in sending these wishes to you but I've been a bit busy with a little thing called Christmas! Which I know was nearly 2 weeks ago now (can you believe it!) but you know how it is.....! Anyway, as my title suggests, everything is pretty much back to normal now, thank goodness! And at last I've got some cards made (I was beginning to think that my mojo was stuck back in 2008!) So it's on with the 2 Sketches 4 You challenges and this week it's Kazan's gorgeous sketch #17. I thought I'd get a little ahead of myself and attempt a valentines card for Mr J.

Not too sure if it's a little too busy in the bottom right hand corner with the pattern, letters, dots and gems!

Anyway, overall I think I'm quite pleased with how it turned out but there's still plenty of time to make another one if I change my mind!

On a roll I then had a go with Peet's bonus sketch, which I really liked, along with her gorgeous card! Here is my take on it (with yes, BG Offbeat again!).

Love the chocolate and duck egg blue colour combo!

Still rolling I then decided to have a go with the current Caardvarks challenge which this time is a sketch. I had a new baby boy card to make for a friend who I used to work with so decided to use that as my theme and this is what I came up with...

Not too sure if I've gone a little too wide of the mark from the original sketch but I couldn't resist making a little romper suit! I used the DB Sweet Baby Clothes Doodlebat from ScrapNfont which I enlarged (considerably!) and I think it's turned out really cute (if I say so myself!). All the elements of the sketch are there so I think I'll just post it and see what they say!

The stitching around the romper suit is hand doodled using my new white Sakura Souffle pen (thank you 2S4Y!) but I hand stitched around the felt pocket and tabs

Aren't the charms just so sweet!

From famine to feast as they say! I was beginning to get a little concerned that I couldn't get back into my card making but, to my relief, it was obviously only a temporary blip! I think my mojo must have been a little hungover after all the festivities!!!! Anyway here's looking forward to a productive year of card making and the resumption of the friends challenges (which I will post about next time). So after all that creating I'd best get on with my other jobs!

Thanks for stopping by!

Merry Christmas to you all!

2008-12-24T15:50:00.002Z

Just a quick post to first of all wish everyone a very Happy Christmas! Hope you all have a wonderfully happy time and that Santa brings everything you've wished for!

Secondly, I've managed to get a card made for 2 Sketches 4 You. Not my most favourite (but then boys/men's cards never are, lol!) and apologies about the quality of the picture but hopefully you get the idea! Good 'ol BG Offbeat again (just loving these papers!).

Well, off to wrap Mr J's pressies now (very last minute this year!). Thanks for stopping by and have a joyous Noel!

My last Christmas card!

2008-12-21T14:14:00.006Z

Hooray, I got my last Christmas card made! All done for another year when you can guarantee I'll be as last minute as this year, despite my best intentions! Anyway, the last card was for Mr J - always a hard one to do but I got there!

I'd seen Christmas wreaths made from punched snowflakes on some cards and really liked the look so did my version but making it into a heart. I think it turned out OK.

And as with my other cards this year it had to have a little jingle bell on it! I think it turned out OK for a man's card, well husband's card, just a little romantic - Mr J was happy with it anyway!

In other news, my card(s) this week made the Fab 5 at 2 Sketches 4 You. Woohoo, I'm a happy bunny!

Well, I can't believe that it's only a few days to Christmas, hope you're all ready? I've nearly finished the few gifts that I'm making so that's a relief! Just the wrapping to get on with. So I'd best get a move on!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

TGI Friday!

2008-12-19T16:52:00.004Z

Well, it's late Friday afternoon and I'm sat here trying to muster up the energy to finish the few Christmas gifts I have been making. Trying, but not getting very far! Not got the enthusiasm at the moment but that will probably kick in when I start stressing that I'm running out of time! At least it's Friday and Mr J should be home in an hour or so, and there's a hearty sausage casserole bubbling away in the slow cooker, and a bottle of Chablis chilling in the fridge, and Mr J breaks for Christmas now, and Daisy is out in the garden yapping her little head off - so all is good really, just lacking in energy! I've had a lovely day too, being beautified by my friend Connie - grey roots covered for a few more weeks, blonde flashes to brighten me up on these dull winter days and a good trim to tidy me up (though Mr J will probably say I've been scalped!) (that's if he notices this time - it took him a whole month to notice last time and I'd gone considerably shorter, lol!). Whilst there another friend, Christine, called round (or rather joined the queue as she was next to be beautified), and Connie treated us to a 'snowball' and a hot mince pie - deeeeeeeeelish!

No more cards to show you since my marathon creative session earlier this week! I've one card left to make and that's for Mr J, so that's the priority for the weekend. His is always the last Christmas card I make each year. He won't let me give my card to him until he has bought mine, which is always the weekend before Christmas, so I'm not too worried that I've not made it yet! I hate making cards for men (even the darling Mr J) but I have an idea bubbling in my mind as to what to make this year, so fingers crossed it works out ok! I'll share it here for you to see if it does! I'll be able to make it tomorrow whilst he is out shopping for mine!

I just thought I would share this festive picture with you though, a Christmas bauble on our tree that I made a couple of years ago (the beaded 'net' not the actual bauble!). My favourite Christmas decoration.

I must admit that I'm not very enthusiastic about Christmas this year (as you probably realised earlier on), since losing my dear Mum back in March. It's going to be a tough one this year but it's making me remember all the amazing Christmases that we had together, such happy memories, which I feel so lucky to have been blessed with, along with the most amazing mother a girl could have asked for. So, for you Mum, I'll get through it!

On a happier note I was given two lovely awards yesterday (well one award given to me twice by two lovely people!) so how honoured did I feel!

First given by Shell over at shell's craft haven and then by Terrie at terriebaileysblog. Thank you so much ladies, it's so very kind of you! I have to share with you 5 things that I'm addicted to so here goes!

1. My laptop - there's hardly a day goes by that it's not switched on!

2. Crafting - in particular cardmaking

3. Beetles - not the horrible insect variety but the ones with 4 wheels! I'm onto my third one now, the first being an old style one (Big Bertha who was bright orange), then one of the new model ones and now I'm so lucky to have my dream car - a black convertible Beetle!

4. Surfing - not the adventurous water type but the far tamer sport of internet surfing and more specifically blog surfing!

5. Mince pies at the moment!

I now have to pass this on so I would like to award it to the lovely Lesley over at Lesley's Creations and Fiona at Marmalade Rose. Please stop by their blogs and say hi as they are two amazingly talented ladies - not into card making like me (though I believe Fiona has been known to make the odd card), but each super creative and amazing crafters with beautiful blogs.

Well, i think I've waffled on for quite a bit now so I'd best head off! I'd just like to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a wonderfully Happy Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year, and to say thank you for dropping by my humble little blog and leaving such amazing comments!

All the best, Sarah x

Feeling a bit Offbeat!

2008-12-17T12:09:00.003Z

Well, I think that this weeks sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You really worked for me! When I first saw it I wasn't too sure about it but once I'd had a dig through my stash (and found the Basic Grey Offbeat papers I treated myself to the other week), the creative juices just started flowing....

and flowing...

and flowing...

and flowing!!!

Don't you just love it when that happens! I'm not sure which is my favourite as I was pleased with how all of them turned out, but the one I am happiest with is the one for my Dad. His cards are usually a nightmare to make (as are all cards for men), but this one just came together no problem or stress! The final card is for my SIL who moved into her new house on Monday, made using a Pink Petticoat image. I couldn't be bothered to get my sewing machine out so I hand stitched quite a bit on some of the cards, but love the results that that gave (a lot neater than if I'd tried using the machine!).

I know I regularly say how much I love the 2S4Y challenges but I really feel that these challenges have helped me take my cards to 'another level' (well, I think so anyway, lol!), with such creative sketches and amazing inspiration from the wonderful design teams. Thank you ladies!

Well, I'll get going now as Mr J is popping home for lunch today so I'd best go and see to the pan of homemade leek and potato soup bubbling away on the hob, mmmmm yum! Then it's an afternoon of finishing off a couple of gifts I have been making followed by making a start on wrapping the presents, which in reality will take me more than an afternoon as (to Mr J's despair) I'm quite particular how I wrap them all up, lol!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Kazan's sketch #15

2008-12-09T16:44:00.006Z

Well, for a change, I'm quick off the mark this week with my 2 Sketches 4 You attempt! Loved the simplicity of Kazan's sketch and inspired by Kristen's tutorial for a nugget box I have made a little gift box.

I love how this has turned out and I hope that the photograph has done it justice! I cut the box out in brown card stock first then covered it with papers that actually came out of an old paperback book, whose pages had yellowed and aged. Even the printed paper! I printed a Pink Petticoat flourish paper in 'Chocolate' onto one of the pages, and I just love the result! A felt flower and leaves, gorgeous gingham ribbon, Swarovski crystals, pins and a couple of glitter butterflies to finish and as you can tell I'm very pleased with the result! On a roll I then made a card to match the box from Heidi's bonus sketch, which I felt really complimented Kazan's sketch.

The box lid in a little more detail...

and the card...

I didn't stop there though! So pleased with the effect of printing onto the book page I printed off another page and came up with this card where you can actually see the printed text within the pattern.

Not based on any sketch in particular this one, it just 'came together', but all in all I was a happy bunny with my finished items, lol! The only problem is not the most brilliant of photographs, as decent lighting is impossible at the moment! If anybody has any tips on taking decent photo's inside they would greatly be appreciated!

A productive afternoon all told! And you'll be pleased to hear (well, I am) that the Christmas cards are almost finished! Just need to wait for some envelopes to arrive - that was the only bit of bad planning on my part! Hope all you Christmas preparations are going well!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day.

More Pink Petticoat!

2008-12-06T16:02:00.003Z

I just thought I would share these pictures with you of some gifts that I have just made. My Sister-in-law is moving into a new house (fingers crossed!) just before Christmas, so for her Christmas present she has asked for a new duvet set for her new, newly decorated bedroom! She asked specifically for a white duvet set with blue/grey embellishment on it. Out earlier today I hit the jackpot and found a gorgeous one with a lovely silvery grey embroidered flourish design on it, very rich looking! It was an amazing price also (which always helps) so I also got the matching silk 'runner' for the bed and a couple of cushions - she's going to have quite the boudoir, lol! Anyway, just to complete things and as an extra house warming gift I've made her the following.

I made this 'picture' quite some time ago, but with a plain, pale blue background, which I was never really happy with but Sally always admired. So I printed of this gorgeous Pink Petticoat Boudoir (aptly named!) flourish design in 'Putty' (not so glamorous sounding, lol!) and re-made the picture into this new glamorous version! It looks very sophisticated doesn't it! The little dots around the flower heart are actually little Swarovski flat back crystals, just to add even more to the sophistication! (Not a brilliant photo I know but hopefully you get the idea!) To finish things off I just printed the wraps for the candles and edged them with satin ribbon. Purely for decorative purposes but I will obviously be including a little warning label with the candles for those of you with health and safety concerns! I think Sally will be really happy with these so I can't wait to give them to her! So that's another gift I can tick off the list - almost done!

Hope your Christmas preparations are going well! Have a lovely weekend!

2S4Y - Laura's sketch #14

2008-12-05T10:18:00.004Z

Being away some of last week I missed out on doing the 2 Sketches 4 You challenge, and I really missed it! I did manage to use the bonus sketch the beginning of this week and you can see the results of that in my previous post, and I loved Kazan's sketch so I will still make something with that, one day!

Onto Laura's sketch # 14 and this is what I came up with.

I'd been asked to make a card for a French lady, who loves deep red, so I dug around in my stash and pulled some bits together. After struggling for quite a while to then do something with them it was 2S4Y to the rescue! Why I hadn't used their sketch in the first place escapes me but I got their in the end and was very pleased with the result!

So, another week another sketch! I'm loving this challenge as it's really inspiring me to try different things as well as taking the hard work out of staring at a blank piece of card and wondering where to begin!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a lovely weekend! I'm off to try and get my Christmas cards finished - wish me luck!

Pink Petticoat

2008-12-04T19:02:00.006Z

A few days away from blogging and I've quite missed it! And crafting too! My brother came for a visit last week and then I went back 'home', up north, to see my Dad and my dear friends, so I've only just got back into the swing of things! Had a lovely time though, so that makes up for the absence!

I thought I would share with you some of my 'Pink Petticoat' creations. For those of you not familiar with Pink Petticoat, Liz there has some fab papers, images and kits that you can purchase on disc or to download. She is also at the moment, very generously in my opinion, having a great give away on her blog! Liz recently purchased a Making Memories Slice and hasn't got on with it as she had hoped, so she's offering it up as a prize. All you have to do is make a card (or something else if you fancy) using your Pink Petticoat stash, and then link it to the blog. So I thought I'd give it a go. Really, it would be silly to pass up an opportunity like that and it's the perfect chance for me to share with you some of my previous Pink Petticoat makes!

So here's what I made with my recent Big Swirls purchase, a couple of cards for two dear friends, also using the teapots from the Boudoir kit. I chose these colour schemes to match their kitchens! (Sorry about the poor quality of the photo's, poor light as usual!)

I enlarged the teapots and then used some 3D gloss on them so they look a bit more like china!

I was really pleased with the result, especially with the shape of the cards which I based on last weeks bonus sketch by Hanneke, at 2 Sketches 4 You.

Here are a few more Pink Petticoat cards I have made using different kits and images.

The next card was made for my Goddaughter who is in a cheerleading squad, so for this one I adapted one of my Lola images so that she was wearing the uniform that Charlotte wears with of course lovely, sparkly pom poms!

Another time I will share with you some more of my Pink Petticoat makes. Check out the web site if you haven't been there before, it is filled with gorgeous, scrummy creations along with lots of inspiring designs in the gallery.

Kristen's bonus sketch

2008-11-23T15:34:00.008Z

First of all I just wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who left such lovely comments on my previous post. I really appreciate you taking the time to leave such lovely words.

Secondly, it's a bit too late to put onto the 2S4Y site but here is my take on Kristen's lovely bonus sketch for this week.

Out with the felt again! I think I'm getting addicted to using felt in all my cards at the moment, lol! I love this K&Co paper as well, so pretty and feminine. Overall I was pleased with how this one turned out.

And finally I just thought I'd share these pictures with you. Yesterday Mr J, Daisy and I had a lovely walk out to some woods that we'd not visited before and I remembered to take my camera this time. This first picture was taken at the start of our walk.

And by the end, just how dirty are these little legs?!?!

One filthy but happy pooch!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend too!

With Sympathy

2008-11-20T12:56:00.015Z

I've debated whether or not to post this on my blog but I thought I would share it with you.

This is so not the card that I intended or wanted to be making for this weeks 2S4Y but it was the perfect sketch for me to make this card without having to think too hard. My dear friend Christine, who was only last week celebrating the birth of her newest grandson, is today mourning the loss of her mother who tragically lost her battle with cancer last night. My thoughts are with you Christine.

I have only known Christine for the last 18 months but we have struck up a lovely friendship helped along by our shared love of crafting. Mr J and I moved to our current house last year, moving to a completely new part of the country (as we are apt to do every 3 years or so with Mr J's work), and not knowing a soul in the area. In that short time we have met some of the loveliest people who have welcomed us into their lives as well as their homes (often to drink their wine, lol!). The sad part to this story is that in the last 9 months Christine is now the third one of us in this little 'community' to tragically lose their Mother to cancer - Connie's Mum dying in February and my own dear Mum in March. It's obviously times like this that are so difficult to deal with but it is the love and compassion of true friends and loyal family that help to make each day a little easier to bear. I am so grateful for that and feel so lucky to have such special people in my life, not only here but back 'home' also. And I know that Christine will have that support from her family and friends too, along with a gorgeous new grandson in need of lots of loving cuddles.

They say that time heals. It doesn't feel like it sometimes. But it does get a little easier each day. Especially when you have special people in your life who care and who love you.

I miss you so much Mum.

Thank you for letting me share this with you all.

A new baby boy

2008-11-18T10:53:00.010Z

My friend Christine (who I craft with on a Monday afternoon) has just become a grandmother for the 5th time! Her youngest daughter gave birth to a baby boy last Thursday so I had to get busy with a few cards! On a roll with the chocolate card (I'd made in my last post) I followed the design and came up with this congratulations card for Christine and her husband.

I'd forgotten that I had these embossed square frames (from Craftwork Cards), don't know why I hadn't used them as I was really pleased with how they turned out. A few Papermania adhesive pearls and a bit of highlighting with a Sakura white glaze pen, they worked a treat!

Onto a card for the proud new parents and I was stumped for a while with where to start (thinking too hard again!). I eventually took inspiration from the socks and bibs that I'd bought them which were blue and grey and had little stars on them, and came up with this card...

I found the paper in my virtual digi stash (it's from a kit called Pirate Punk by Puuurfect designs and you can find it here), and on a roll from my last 2S4Y card it was out with the felt again - loving it!. American Crafts Pajamas white felt Thickers, a bit of hand stitching, buttons and a bow, et voila!

As for the gift as soon as I saw this idea on Eveline's blog I knew I wanted to do something similar - so cute!

I painted the box with some white acrylic paint and just decorated it simply to match the card.

So sweet!

I just have to show you inside - the socks are sooooooooo tiny!

Thanks for stopping by!

Chocolate!

2008-11-16T13:58:00.008Z

I've been meaning to share this card and gift I made with you for a couple of days now, so sorry for the delay! I had to wait a while to post it anyway as I had to make sure that my friend Lesley received it first rather than spoiling the surprise for her by reading what she was about to receive here!

I decided to have a go at another card challenge and was inspired by this challenge over at caardvarks. Well, really, who could resist a challenge entitled Chocolate! So it was out with the chocolate card and ribbon and this was my creation.

Lesley has been working so hard on her part-time degree course so I thought I would give her a bit of support and encouragement with a card and matching wrapped chocolate bar.

Such a true sentiment! And here is the inside of the card.

Speaking to Lesley a couple of days ago I think it had the desired effect apart from the fact that she doesn't want to open the chocolate as it will spoil the wrapper, lol! Just go for it Lesley!

Thanks for stopping by! Just going to get some chocolate for myself now!

Kazan's sketch #13

2008-11-13T13:37:00.003Z

Well, it's that time of the week again - time for another 2 Sketches 4 You card! I've really enjoyed taking part in these challenges and I would just like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Kazan and Laura for the inspiring sketches they produce each week which have helped me come up with some card designs I don't think I would ever have considered before!

Onto this weeks card and again difficult times getting a decent photo due to the miserable light outside, so I hope this one looks okay!

I was really pleased with how this card turned out in the end. It was one of those were I had an idea of what I wanted to do but it took quite a while to get there! I love how the white felt looks, almost like a layer of fresh snow waiting to be stepped on, lol!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by!

Laura's sketch #12, part 2!

2008-11-08T16:25:00.003Z

I've been quite busy this week with Laura's sketch #12, over at 2 Sketches 4 You! I wanted to make a birthday card for a neighbour's little girl who is Charlie and Lola mad, so I thought the current sketch would work really well for this. This is what I came up with.

And the inside of the card...

I really enjoyed making this card although it took a while for it all to come together in a way that I was pleased with! Yes, I know, too much of a perfectionist for my own good sometimes! I managed to track down a font that seemed to match the Charlie and Lola font, and printed up my own messages on the computer.

It's Lily's birthday on Tuesday so I hope she likes this!

Has bonfire night happened yet?!?!

2008-11-06T18:10:00.003Z

As I sit here in my craft room I just thought I'd share with you the 'company' I have at the moment! This little sweet one is sat on a stool right next to me, with her head in my lap, seeking reassurance and comfort from all the loud bangs still going on outside.

Now I'm not a party pooper but bonfire night was last night. Why these days does it now seem to last for 2 weeks instead of one night? And is it just me or are the fireworks getting louder?! Poor Daisy is going to be a quivering wreck by the beginning of next week, as I'm sure there will be plenty more bangs in the run up to the weekend. She is so spooked by loud noises at the moment she even had a go at Terry Wogan on the radio this morning! Maybe that was just a 'taste' thing though, lol!

The Cosmos Rocks!

2008-11-05T14:33:00.003Z

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I would share my latest mini-album with you so here it is.

A couple of weeks ago Mr J and I were lucky enough to go and see Queen and Paul Rodgers in concert in Cardiff. Through a series of events that I won't bore you with the details (being in the right place at the right time and knowing someone who knows someone) we basically ended up being the first ones to enter the arena and ended right up at the front, right in the middle - whoo hoo! Fortunately we'd taken the camera with us so we ended up with the most amazing photo's of the concert. Well, these just couldn't stay hidden on the laptop so I decided to make up a mini album.

Now obviously I couldn't use any of my pretty floral, pastel papers etc so I had to think quite hard about this. I also had to let myself go quite a bit as I am usually a very precise, perfectionist kind of worker but I knew that I wanted to make this quite 'grungy' and 'dirty' if you get my drift! So it was out with the black and white acrylic paints and a bit of the dry brush technique, to make the backgrounds. I then decided the most appropriate type of embellishments for the pages would be stars, so it was then out with the mirri board, acetate and punches! A bit of silver glitter glue here and a few staples there I soon flew through this (not being quite so precise has it's advantages now I see!). And here is the finished result...

The set list from the show I printed out onto one of the more blurred photos.

Because I had a lot of photo's I wanted to include, but not enough space, I printed out some 'grungy' stars onto OHP transparency and stapled a smaller photo to either side. These I then placed in between my other pages

Just how close were we?!?!

I distressed the edges by running the edge of my steel ruler along the edges of the photographs.

Phwoar!!!!!! (It's okay, Mr J knows how I feel about Paul Rodgers, lol!)

Although he did ask at one point why there were only photo's of Paul Rodgers! Well, you have to start somewhere!

Very clever how they used the video screen to show Freddie Mercury singing Bohemian Rhapsody before they all joined in to make it a more up-to-date version.

This show rocked!

I haven't included every page here but hopefully you get the gist of how it looks! I'm really pleased with how the album turned out in the end, considering it was only my second ever and it was so not my usual style of working! Overall I think it came out quite well!

Thanks for dropping by!

If Friends were Flowers...

2008-11-04T15:38:00.009Z

First things first I want to say a huge 'Thank You' to Kazan at 2 Sketches 4 You for choosing my card last week to feature in the Fab 5! I'm a very happy bunny, lol! And also a warm welcome to the new Winter DT there. A very talented group of ladies has been chosen so I'm really looking forward to seeing their inspiring work over the next 3 months.

So, feeling extra inspired and confident after becoming a Fab 5, I've set too a little earlier than usual this week and created this card for Laura's sketch #12

Another orange card but I wanted something cheerful on this dull day and after finding these papers in my 'digi' stash, it all just sort of fell together! I seem to really be into hybrid cards at the moment, this kit 'Sun Porch' being one from Shabby Princess, but unfortunately not too sure where the word art came from. The great advantage of 'digi stashes' is that they don't take up too much space and cause a mess in my scrap room, lol!

Yesterday I made a start on my Christmas cards and produced this little number.

I'm working on the principle of less is more this Christmas, as last year's cards were very labour intensive with lots of printing, embellishing, 3D glazing etc. so I wanted to make it a little easier for myself this year. (I'd like to point out that these aren't going to be my 'special' cards - they will have a lot more work to them, but for the 'standard' cards I have to send out I'm happy with this!) This was another card that came together really quickly after I spotted the really cute reindeer in Tesco's of all places. He's a wooden decoration, and came in a pack of 12 for £1! Value or what! They also do a pack of pink/purple angels so I might just have to rush back this week and get a pack of those too!

And finally I've been awarded my first blog award from the lovely Lesley of Lesley's Creations.

Thank you so much Lesley! I believe now I have to pass this on to four regular followers of my blog and one from abroad! As I'm fairly new to blogging I'm not really sure if I have any 'regular' followers but over the last two months I have received some lovely comments, so I will choose from them as soon as possible!

Well, that's it for today I think. Tomorrow I'll try and share with you a new mini-album I have just completed, providing I can get some decent photographs of it that is! Until then, thanks for popping by!