I've found yet another website to break the bank (I'm such a liar, its really cheap!) and its all Sarah Stressed Stamper's fault cos I loved the background to her blog n tried to find out where it was from... my search led me to Design House Digital and the 'Happier' collection by Deena Rutter which by this point (n for a bargain price of about £3) I just had to buy! Oddly the pages are sold as 12 x 12, which I spose is intended for digital scrapbooking but sure makes for interesting working-how-to-print-out-ing!

Its a bit hard to tell from the pic but this was an triple aperture card that I covered with the Happier paper, I backed the apertures with a dotted design included in the set n I bought the accompanying PNGs which I promptly converted into something "RoboCop" as my mom calls it could cut out... it did say Happy Bird-Day in the bottom right hand corner but *note to self* rub ons come off when u run a hot iron over them... oh well this crafting lark in a learning curve, yeah?

WOYWW 71 - Shiny New Toy!

Ooh, I am a bad WOYWWer! I've actually lost track of how many weeks its been since I took part! But I do have a shiny new toy so I don't think I care!!

And so the great Christmas production line has begun... I visited a demo day at a craft shop in Ketley (Telford) a few weeks back n purchased the Papermania foiling kit which has featured quite highly in my productions so far... I say productions I've managed six so far and I don't think any of those are even in a finished state! Good job I've got no friends, eh?

So anyway, at the risk of incurring the wrath of the WOYWWer's, before I went on my holibobs I... sold... my... Cuttlebug... Eek! I'm sorry, don't shout! In its place I used my antique Argos vouchers n purchased a Sizzix Texture Boutique (quite a bargain by all accounts cos there was a wodge of coredinations card included) and then on my return (cos it was suggested I would need summat to look fwd to!) I raided my penny jar and bought a Craft Robo! And I love it! I am after all a cheapskate at heart and the fact that I can send almost any shape to cut without having to buy cartridges or dies and pander to someone elses designs is like... David Tennant covered in chocolate!

If you don't know what this is all about visit Queen Julia's place n get in the know, pronto! Happy WOYWW!

Lookin up

I came back from my holibobs last week n wham, bam straight back into the back-to-work blues (not helped by the fact that we flew thru wot felt like 1000 miles of cloud before we landed in the pouring rain) so it was even more pleasing than normal when I came to stick this lil beauty together and I did it all the right way round without having checked first!

I used the poppies image from Birds Cards that I've used before, coloured it with promarker and heat embossed it (not that u can tell in this pic) with red glitter embossing powder so it shines and sparkles!  The background is embossed on my new Sizzix texture boutique which I purchased before I went away and I made this card for my aunt who financed it with the Argos vouchers she gave me.... ahem 7 years ago!

Cheeeeese Gromit!

Man, this blogging lark is hard to keep up! So I'll keep it short! I made this amazing cheese bunting from the free graphics from justsomethingImade.com and it also inspired this card which I was very tempted to put on a circle of tin foil but... um didn't in the end! The camera image is from SJ at Lil Musings

Apologies for the poor quality pics n no sniggering at my CD collection!

A Cause For Celebration!

Not only have I finished some cards, I actually remembered to photograph them AND blog about them!

For my niece, this was made from a pre-printed card blank with a digi stamp called flo that I can't remembe’ where I downloaded from, grass cut from my smacking acetate adventures and some flowers made from my homemade stash. The papers I used on Flo are from Funky Hand Colour Me Happy CD

 For my other niece (one year and two weeks exactly between them, lol!) this was made from a free template download from the do-crafts site, the papers are the same as I used on Flo (see above) and the stickers were part of my win from the Trimcraft forum colour challenge

For my mom to give the younger niece, this was made from new Deena Rutter paper (slightly modified), my lovely new paisley stamp from Penny Black slapstick range and my new free sample of WOW embossing powder! Lots of new there!

And finally for my neice and nephew who are due to be christened in a double ceremony at the end of this month, i’m having a bit of a thing with monograms so I created one for each of them and combined them with these sweet lil dresses I got from a card making kit from Home Bargains which I think look like christening gowns and squares of paper i got free with a magazine.

Now if only I can enter just one challenge this week maybe I can do the craft version of "the treble" that footie fans seem so enamoured with, lol!

WOYWW 66 - Good Job Its not New Year!

Well I had every intention of blogging something this week as I've been so lax lately but as you can see that didn't happen till last night when I was preparing this - I even missed WOYWW last week, altho I did make it around to viewing a fair few. This week (altho the pic was taken Tuesday) I have a visitor in my 'studio'! My best buddy Stace is here working on her pregnancy/baby journal - one of the mini books I made couple of weeks back - and she has had her first experience with the cuttlebug but I'm sorry to report that after the initial wow, she gave up on it pretty quick sayin it was time consuming!

 And as you can see, I tidied up before I took the pic again DOH! but I have replaced the falling down shelving with something more desk based - a bathroom trolley from Asda that I put together upside down so the legs wudn't fall down the gaps at the back of the desk! Its already full tho so I might have to look at getting a second one - at £7.50, I think I can just about fit it in the budget!

Just to answer a few q's from weeks gone by, to TraceyR - no my scissors aren't electric as funky as that would be, its the laptop power lead! To Elizabeth, I followed the tutorial here for the smacking acetate & To Morti - the fairy image is a Lili of the Valley die cut if u've not seen them before u must visit, their images are bootiful!!

Bananas & Rosebuds

So theres quite a lot of birthdays coming up so I've been under orders by my customer (aka my mom) to knuckle down. And voila! We have a 30th birthday with DCWV Mango Frost card, & a Pollycraft digi image and my first application of rosebuds that I got from a car boot... I could really do with some help here, I'm not so sure how to use these things n now I have a ton of em!

I've been looking forward to making this one for my niece, I spent an age finding a decent digi stamp of a monkey (n then ended up making it from scratch anyway) n created this rocker card with the sentiment "Do you get banana milkshake from milking monkeys" which I actually pinched from Jo Kill who in turn credits it to Mitchell & Webb!

Got more to post, so watch this space...

WOYWW 65

I'm not sure whether to thank or cuss u lovely WOYWWers for your many comments on my laden shelves cos as I sat at my desk on that Weds evening I thought "Hmm they are a bit wonky!" only to find, on closer inspection that they were coming apart at the seams! So I quickly cleared everything off and had a lil panic... only to end up turning them upside down and re-hanging them but with less stuff on this time... until I can think of a better solution, at least!

I have to confess, I have very much cheated and this photo is not in fact from this week or even a Wednesday but I cudn't go two weeks without playing along with the wonderful WOYWW so I took a pic of my desk in a get-every-thing-out-on-the-desk moment to keep in reserve!

And the result of this atrocity? An attempt at the Lili Of The Valley sketch challenge for which I - all together now - missed the deadline! Must try harder!

Luvver-ly!

Wahey, my first blog award!

The rules for this award are to thank the sender:
THANKYOU KERYN!
List 3 things that I like about myself:
Oh jeez, thats a toughie... my ankles! um... my creativity n my wit when it doesnt let me down!
and forward to 7 other bloggers:
Well I've only got eight followers! Ooh wait its says nine now, have I got a secret admirer?! But I guess they already like me so I oughta try n make some new friends, lol... So:
SJ, Loraine, Julia, Spyder, Mary Anne, Darcy, Alison


Ok, to business! I've finally completed one of the many mini books that were littering my desk a few weeks back. For my sister in laws birthday, I chopped one of them in half and created an handbag friendly sized brag book, a third full with photos of her oldest daughter leaving two thirds for the twins she is expecting at the end of the year...

 And to complement it, a sunflower easel card, my first attempt at a non-square easel card, to go with it:

I have Loraine (two mentions in one post, my dear!) to thank for this for the stampin' up card we made the other week of which I said looked like a sunflower and she claimed the resemblance wasn't intentional so I decided to make one that was!

WOYWW 63 - Mish Mash!

Come on, thats positively bomb site material!!

On the left we have the result of a messy hour or so trying to follow my cousins smacking acetate tutorial - messy but SOOO much fun! I did a whole load of sheets in all the combinations of the colours I own (all four of em, lol) I also experimented with printing onto tracing paper and white glueing (PVA?) the images onto the ink splodges once they'd dried. My images are along a horticultural theme in line with the Daring Cardmakers challenge (think Julia might know summat bout that...?) and I'm really quite chuffed with how they've come out. I'll show u some closer up images, if/when they ever become cards! Not sure how well u can see but most of the rest of the piles consist of a load of cd-roms my cuz lent me and a load of incredibly funky base cards that her mom/my auntie has sent me! They're such a generous lot up there, lol!

Happy WOYWW everyone; ready, set...get nosey!!

p.s. I've added a gallery page which features some of the cards I didnt think were worthy of their own post, so take a peek...

Choose Your Own Sentiment...

What do you make of this then? A friend of mine is goin in for his driving instructor exam this week and he is convinced that he will fail so driving home from work the other day my creative juices started to flow (lets face it, got nothing else to concentrate on, lol) and I realised there were quite a lot of similarities between the words 'congratulations' and 'commiserations' (had to write them down when I got home to be sure) and lo a spinning card was born!

Its meant to be a steering wheel from a Bugatti (which I'm assured is a posh car!) and I had a right palava with the text - always my downfall, sadly - so the letters ended up being vellum ones left over from Chrimble, with a mixture of freebie Papercraft Inspirations letters cos I was running out of certain letters.

As you can just about see, the circle at the back moves round to reveal your choice of sentiment and the prop on the base says "on the result of your test!" (which it belatedly occured to me sounds slightly medical!)

I'm not that happy with it, but it went thru so many redesigns, its amazing it actually ever got made! I added a bit of comedy to the rear to distract from the awfulness - I just hope he likes it!

WOYWW 62 - Mini Book Madness

                                                             Is this better Keryn? Altho u can still see most of my cutting mat so probably not, lol. Who would've thought my butterfly shaped odds n sods tray would attract such attention?! No, its not crocs and theres nowt growing out of it.. except a pile of crap! Um, this weeks lil obsession is mini books, I've been thinking about making one for ages but that was as far as I got until I went to my boyf's over the weekend armed only with my laptop and scraps box and decided to finally try and follow one of the Create 10 lessons that I signed up for. I faffed about a bit n didnt really get anywhere til I opened lesson 10 and decided to have a go at the mini book. My first attempt was awful as I didnt have a ruler or knife but I got the basics down and got my head round the instructions and when I got back to my desk I made the black and white version - which I'm pretty chuffed with but not a clue what I'm gonna do with it! (the paper is all from Clare Curd's signature range, if you're interested) My best friend wants me to make her a pregnancy journal but she stated no dark colours so I started to make another one with some paper from a scrapbooking kit I bought from Home Bargains (the red thing to the left) but I got so far and decided I don't like the colours and I knew I would make a mess if I tried to take it apart so I kind of abandoned it and started again - the paper stood upright at the back of the mat is what I've started cutting out for third time lucky so we'll see if this one survives! Um, have I missed anything? Oh the shrink plastic butterfly wasn't a success, not sure if I need more practice or I just need to be more precise in my cutting but some of the finer detail split so they curled up and got stuck to themselves when I heated it. Really must get some printable plastic... Head over to Queens Julias palace for more WOYWW

Counting Rainbows

So Lili Of The Valley had a 50p sale on their die cuts and as my colouring in pretty much sucks, I thought I'd take advantage... and yep u guessed it, they aint seen the light of day since I opened the envelope! Oh well! I also bought this lil fella cos he's just so darn cute but they sell their stamps unmounted and I don't own ne U-mount  - or in fact even know how to use it! - so after sitting unopened on my shelf for a while I finally took the plunge and tried to spray mount him to various surfaces! ....It didn't really work but along the way I had the bright idea of stamping him onto another potential I'd nabbed for my advertures in Kraft-land, this time the inside of a 100% recycled decaf t-bag box (does that make it 200% recycled now?) and keeping the image to sepia tones. I tried the whole painting with Distress Inks thing but once it dried u could barely see it so I took all the shades of brown out of my pro-markers and kinda made it up as I went along.

Seein as its a Lili image I thought I'd try n squeeze it in for their challenge... and promptly missed the deadline! Luckily I intended to enter it for the Shabby Tea Room too, hence the inclusion of actual colour as this week is Blue, Cream & Brown (hope it fits!).

WOYWW 61 - I'm baaack!

It seems this WOYWW isn't only a one time deal and if I'm not careful u'll send the boys round so I'm back for a second round! I've taken all ur advice and blatantly cheated, I took this pic last night (Tues) and I ever so slightly staged it by taking the pic before I tidied up - cos lets face it after wud b pointless, really!

So what do we have, well I think I'm getting over my lil lost mojo hissy fit from the previous post. I made a cocktail themed card yday for my cousin, based on one of the quick cards in Papercraft Inspirations (but that had to be mailed today before u ask!) and I downloaded the latest freebie pyramage from Printable Heaven's French advertising collection (love love love old adverts!) which became one of the smallest cards in the world - not too sure how that happened! And then today I made a topiary tree using a small flower punch (again suggested by PI mag) which is frankly pretty damn cool! And on my desk is the most gorgeous of gorgeous marianne butterfly die and the shrink plastic I'm attempting to cut it out of... stay tuned to see if it works!

Get over to Julias Stamping Ground & enjoy your Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday!

Elegance

I think its safe to say I'm suffering from crafters block! Or maybe I'm just lazy... whatever it is, my productivity has dropped thru the floor so I thought I'd better post the last things I did manage to make (over a week ago now!) utilising some free digi stamps from Lena.

Although I protested in an earlier post that I don't know anybody who's really into fashion and handbags and the like, these images just cried out to be made into a girly girl card! Not sure how well you can tell but I made the backing paper too by randomly placing the ladies over a sheet of A4 in photoshop and applying a sepia filter and a light brown background, aiming for a vintage/aged look. The toppers also had the sepia filter treatment and the easel card image is matted onto gold card. I used the sentiment as the catch to hold the easel by putting foam tape under it n I got away with using ribbon by just knotting it instead of stressing over a bow! Not bad, huh? Now all I need to do is rekindle the spark... here mojo...! Come to Jodpea...!

Edit: Quite chuffed with the easel card so think I'll enter it for Daring Cardmakers - Its A Girl Thing

p.s. I did make a card & bag with Loraine and her ladies this morning but they weren't my inspiration so I'm still grumpy! :S

WOYWW 60 - My First Time!

Hello WOYWWers, been reading ur blogs for a few weeks now n finally decided to join in! To be fair, this will prolly be my only entry as I never have time to take/upload a pic n waffle before I go to work so I'm takin advantage of a day off (n slight crafters block) to partake! If you have no idea wot this is all about, pop over to Julias blog n check out the fun!

Well I moved my craft room around about six weeks ago (mostly during the England/Germany game actually!) and finally set myself up a desk n some natural light... oh n started a blog!

So, what do we have? Nothing very exciting as I've been away for a few days n will be away for the next two weekends as well so my 'studio' will be sadly neglected for a while . My trusty laptop, my i'm-quite-proud-of-this ribbon storage (aka a bit of cardboard with holes in it over a coathanger!). Um, shoe rack from Argos hanging (precariously) on the wall as makeshift shelf (my old workspace was a lot deeper than this so it made more sense then!)...um geez, I didnt realise how hard it would be to point everything out! To the right is an easel card I'm playing about with - I'll explain more if its successful, lol and under the main desk is my Cuttlebug and recycling bag! A slight swing to the right shows the incredibly distracting view out my window (or maybe I'm jus nosy!) a plastic tray in the shape of a butterfly that I got from Matalan n holds odds & ends, another easel card that I will blog about at some point, my rapidly cooling cup of coffee and some other finished cards in the same theme as the easel card. On the wall under the window is a Ikea (yes! Ikea!) hanging rack and the bit of red u can see in the bottom corner is my paper storage, one of those expanding files things that doesnt actually close anymore, theres so much in it!! So feel free to ask any questions, I don't think I have anything to hide!

"It wasnt me!"

Not a lot I can say about this lil creation, except I think I'm gettin a bit better at colouring inside the lines! This is another friday freebie from SJ, man I love those images! The background papers are scraps from my stash except the swirls which is a strip of funky hand which I managed to produce before my idiot printer ran out of ink! SO annoying when it stops not-even half way thru an image!! N its always on paper u can't really afford to waste! But anyway thats enough of my inanimate objects vendetta, the alpha stickers r from Papermania, an old set I got out of a 99p bin last summer on holiday (a true crafter never rests, eh? lol) and the other text is from my trusty dymo sticker maker.. it was meant to be for my cousin in law but I've sold it to a guy at work now so I'll have to make another one before August 15th - any comments would be helpful....?

Entering for C.R.A.F.T. challenge - Babies & Children

Me, Oh My!

I think it safe to say I'm a little bit proud of this, so u might wanna get ur mac ready incase I start to gush!!
Firstly, my inspiration; I saw this card entered for a Simon Says Stamp challenge and thought it was a great shape (great design too, but I'm a sucker for shaped cards!) and really wanted to make one so when I opened the link up again later in the day, what was the first thing that popped into my head? Of course, its never far from my mind! (maybe when the Eclipse hype dies down I can push it to the back of my cavernous mind somewhere?) So, anyway, bit of a leap but here we go: utilising the second friday freebie from the incredibly talented SJ printed on to linen grained card (not for any particular reason) and coloured with Promarkers (tried watered down distress inks first but I need more practice with that!).

I've discovered an uncanny knack for getting to the end of colouring an image and then doin summat to ruin it, but this hasn't turned out too bad! I was trying to go for the less is more approach (very unlike me!). The only thing missing is I need summat to make Bella's bracelet look like the diamond it's meant to be, need to have a root thru my stash. The text - obv- is a quote from Twilight, I think its from the scene in her bedroom after the day at the meadow *sigh* (also the quote I have on my desktop at work!) and I typed it up on my poota using 'Be Safe' font which is meant to be the same font they use in the books when they feature a piece of Edwards writing (put Twilight fonts into google, they're everywhere!) and I made a rub on with my dry rub on paper from Crafty Computer Paper. Works better on a busy-ish background cos you can't see the outline so much. Talking of background paper, its from My Minds Eye Quite Contrary stack (free with Cardmaking & Papercraft). So, yeah, the reason I called this post me, oh my is because unless I get very very bored of looking at I very much intend to keep this for my very own self! Yay! (lots of very's there - emphatic, thats me!)

...Then Lets Begin!

Stumbled across a new challenge blog yesterday Something Completely Different, they have a monthly item with a weekly theme and this week the challenge is an "Are You Sitting Comfortably" tag which just about perfectly fits this digi stamp (right) from SJs Little Musings, one of her Friday Freebies.



So I printed the image onto stiff white card and then onto two different sheets from the My Minds Eye stack free with Cardmaking And Papercraft magazine and paper pieced them together (my fave method, lol). I coloured the cat and mug with promarkers then paper pieced the book (can u tell wot its meant to be?)

I covered the the tag shape with more of my recycled envelope and the glued the chair on with silicone glue - a skill I'm still trying to perfect! The text isn't very clear in this pic but its dymo labels "Are you sitting comfortably"

So, entering for Something Completley Different - Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Beach Bum

Back in my poppies post, I said I was intending to use the VW van digi stamp freebie from birds cards and here it is.

Again with the paper piecing and again with Funky Hand paper (think I've got my moneys worth outta this sheet now, lol). Not sure you can tell but its actually an easel card with the van stuck to the upright and real shells glue gunned as the prop. The yellow is glittered flocking powder applied to double sided self adhesive sheet (with a strip behind the vans wheels too), the blue is jus plain paper cut with decorative scissors and the white 'foam' is unheated clear embossing powder. I tried to clear emboss the windows with my versamark pen but that wasn't very sucessful!

Entering this for Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Bold & Bright

Put Ur Behind In The Past

Can't remember where I first saw this design now but I immediately thought it was ace! Racked my brains for an occasion to make it - don't really have any female friends or family with a penchant for underwear (or shoes or handbags as a lot of designs out there are aimed, or maybe its just my disinterest colouring my creativity?) and altho it was suggested the bra and pants version would be good for a guy, I don't really feel comfortable presenting that to any of my male friends! So anyway I decided to err on the side of more masculine pants  - do u know they don't have male models on the M&S website anymore?! How rude! - and then the comedy edge came in when I found this paper in my stash (a freebie download from an old Papercraft Inspirations magazine). I covered the cheeks with pink paper, made the sentiment on Microsoft Word and cut it out with nestabilities. I designed the insert in photoshop, manipulating a clipart washing line and finishing the sentiment off with "...so put all your other birthdays BEHIND you!"

Blues Twos

Two similar cards created today, I was researching kraft card when the post turned up and lo behold I  got a large manilla envelope... two mins later it became my second attempt at creating a kraft backing paper - whaddya think?

The first layout is using my trusty lace - which I have tons of so expect to see lots! - a piece of random blue ribbon I've pilfered from somewhere and then my first (successful) attempt at the grunge rose tutorials that seem to be everywhere but the one I followed was here (how talented is this girl?!). Its not so close to her design cos I don't have a six sided flower punch or die so I improvised with nestabilities and I didnt cut the centre out.. til afterwards when I realised it wouldn't lie flat. It still doesn't lie flat so I'm gonna have to work on the method a bit more! The paper is Funky Hand and the leaves were made from my five sided flower punch, cut up n turned around...

I got the inspiration for the second layout from this card in the practicing creativity gallery. My dandelion is a smidge smaller than hers but then I think my card base is smaller too so it kinda works! I'm pretty chuffed with it actually, it didnt take me long to do at all. I can't remember where I got the stamp from except it was in The Glitter Pot sale! The flowered paper is from Funky Hand Dreams Come True and the ribbon is from an American Crafts bundle.

Intending to enter this second one for Daring Cardmakers - Seeing Silhouettes

Warm Summer Days

What is with me creating work for challenges that I have a month to think about way before the deadline whereas I keep missing week long ones?! Grr @ working for a living!

Well anyway it seemed prudent to combine two or more challenges so in reality I only had a week to make it! The layout is based (loosely) on the sketch at 2sketches4you but I went with the bythecuteandgirly theme of 'Warm Summer Days' which to me almost always means beach (altho I hardly ever get to go to one! Did I mention I live in THE MIDLANDS!). The colours are actually a little more obvious on this pic than they are in real life as the scene is layered from Coredinations whitewash cardstock, torn and slightly sanded to reveal the colour. The ribbon was from a 99p pack from Hootys and the shells etc are beads I got from The Early Learning Centre about two years ago! Oh the backing paper is from the free gift stack from this months Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine; My Minds Eye 'Quite Contrary'.

Ruby Tuesday

(even though its Wednesday, but I did make this yesterday!)

Last week Daring Cardmakers had the theme of ice and snow and the way people use the word ice to describe a diamond/diamond ring popped into my head. I didnt get chance to create anything before the deadline but I still wanted to make the card so when the theme of rubies came up this week, I decided it was an omen!

I cut a base card into a 130mm circle (preserving a small hinge) then cut a 50mm wide ring of silver card. It started off with a patterned paper middle but I changed my mind half way thru and cut this out too. I then found clipart of a gem on the net and copied it onto the back of red card, pressing down with a ballpoint pen to create a crude kind of embossed pattern. The tag is also heat embossed with silver embossing powder (and the bow? tied by my mom cos I suck at them!)

Entering this for:

Daring Cardmakers - Ruby
Shabby Tea Room - Lets Make An Impression

OMG I've won my first challenge!

Yippe! I've won the Funky Hand June challenge and now I feel really sick with excitement! I'll come back n let you know what I buy with my prize (if I can ever choose!) Hurrah!

Its been noted that I probly should've added some more details to this post but I was just that amazed! So here is the link to my post showing the entry! Anice has also sent me a lovely blinkie which I'll post in a min! I think I'll take her advice and get the new papercraft cd, seeing as I've had so much use out of the first one! ...yup, still pretty gobsmacked!