Wow - fab blog candy!!!

Tasha is very generously offering a £50 Glitterpot voucher as candy to celebrate her 26th birthday, which was on Christmas day...Happy Belated Birthday Tasha! Five runners-up will receive a stamp each. To be in with a chance of winning, all you need to do is leave a comment here with your best or worst joke, before the candy closes on January 10th.

Update - Tasha has now added a set of 12 Copic Sketch Markers to the £50 Glitterpot voucher as the main prize!!!

Baby Boy

My Nan has asked me to make a card for a baby boy...he's not due until April 1st...but I thought that I may as well get on with it, while I've got time to play! Despite my Penny Black addiction, I really don't have many suitable stamps for a new baby card...my Nan picked this cute sleeping teddy ('Dream a dream') out of the images I've got with me. Although it's not that clear in the photo, I've decoupaged him in three layers. The backing paper is from the Papermania 'Sweet Nothings' pack, and I've used my 'Swiss Dots' folder on the strip across the centre. The ovals and the scalloped edging were cut using Nesties, and the letters were done using the Cuttlebug 'Olivia' alphabet.

I really hope that they haven't got it wrong...although I do have time to make a baby girl card, should I need to!

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Dawny's Sketch #5

There's another fab sketch for this week's Papertake Weekly challenge, which I've used to make a birthday card - I need to build up my stocks again after giving loads of cards away recently. I've used a Penny Black image (from 'Critter Party'), papers by Papermania ('Sweet Nothings'), 'Spots and Dots' embossing folder, spotty ribbon from Hobbycraft, and a sentiment stamp by Hero Arts (from the 'Cupcakes' clear set).

Sketch Saturday #31

As it's Christmas, we're being given the chance to use any of their 30 sketches to make our card. I've decided to use last week's sketch, as I never got round to using it in the run-up to Christmas. I've used another of the stamps from the new 'Hugs' set by Penny Black as my image, with the sentiment from the 'Critter Party set' and the papers are all from the 'Sugared' paper pack by Basic Grey.

One Stop Craft Challenge #9

The theme of the current challenge is '3 is the magic number'...and they'd like to see things in groups of 3 on our cards. I've used 3 paper flowers layered up (from Poppicrafts) and 3 different patterned papers (by Sandylion and Papermania). I've used one of the stamps from my lovely new clear set of Penny Blacks ('Hugs') as my main image, and the sentiment is from a set by Studio G.

Dutch Dare Challenge #29

I had a lovely afternoon yesterday, playing with some of my new crafty bits and catching up with some of the challenges. This sketch is from the Dutch Dare challenge blog, which I have stretched to fit a square card. My main image is a Forever Friends stamp, the papers are by Papermania ('Sweet Nothings'), and I've used another of my new Cuttlebug embossing folders ('Spots and Dots') on the plain cardstock.

Cute Card Thursday 41

To last us through the Christmas and New Year period, there's an 'Open' theme over on the Cute Card Thursday challenge blog, so I thought I'd have a little play with some of the new crafting goodies I got for Christmas. My first card uses a Rachelle Anne Miller image ('Springtime'), which I've coloured in various shades of blue, green and brown, to match the paisley paper (by Pebbles Inc). I've used a couple of my new Cuttlebug folders ('Perfect Paisley' and 'Forest Branches') on the plain cardstock.

The second card uses one of my favourite Penny Black images ('Gifts for You') on which I've decoupaged the daisy head (I used my fab new Doodlebug craft knife to cut around it rather than scissors...but I think I need to practice a little more , before I try anything more intricate!). The background papers are from the 'Two Scoops' paper pad by Basic Grey, and I've embossed one of them with another of my new embossing folders ('Textile').

I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas...and got some new goodies to play with!

Kath's 'Big Blog Candy Fest'

It's time for give-away number 3 of Kath's 'Big Blog Candy Fest', and she's put together a wonderful package of her 'favourite things' to give to one lucky blogger.

The candy closes at mid-night on Tuesday December 30th, and the draw will take place the following day...so pop over to her fabulous blog and leave a comment here before it's too late!

One final Christmas card

This card was made from a pack of goodies sent out by my lovely friend Pauline to a group of crafting friends for our monthly (ish) challenge. I made the card to give to my Mum, so I've been waiting until I'd given it to her, before putting it on here. The pack contained: 2 6x6 sheets of gorgeous Basic Grey 'Figgy Pudding' double-sided paper (of which 3 of the patterns had to be visible on the finished card); 1 snowflake brad; a length of sparkly ribbon; a piece of pearlised white card; and a small white paper flower.
When I saw the brad, I just knew I had to use this stamp (Penny Black 'Xmouse Ornament!'), so I masked off the snowflake part of the stamp and replaced it with the brad. I've decoupaged the little mouse, although you can't see that very well in the photo. The kit was great fun to use - thank you Pauline! The only thing I added (apart from my stamped images) was a couple more flowers (as I had some of the same style, and I thought the one little flower looked a bit lonely!) and a bit of faux-stitching around the layers of paper.

Penny Black Saturday Challenge 28

I'm sure by now that you will all have worked out that I am addicted to Penny Black stamps, so although I have SO much to do this weekend (still haven't finished making my Christmas presents...eeek!!!), I just had to make a card for the Penny Black Challenge...especially as it's the last one of the year!
When I saw that the theme this week is 'Multi Fold', I immediately thought of making a diamond fold card, and although I wasn't going to make any more Christmas cards this year, the shape (which reminds me of a cracker) is perfect for a quick Christmas card. I've used the stamp 'Ice Dance, mounted on shapes cut with my trusty Nesties, and have used paper by DCWV (from last year's Christmas stack), and lettering cut with the 'Olivia' alphabet.

This card was really quick and simple to make...if you haven't tried this fold before, there's a fab tutorial here

As I don't need to send any more Christmas cards this year...this one is for all my blogging friends - Merry Christmas everyone!

Beaded Bookmarks

I spent all last weekend making these beaded bookmarks to give as Christmas pressies to some very special crafty friends. I think that most of them have received them now (or at least they should have done!), so I think it's safe to put a photo on here now.


They were really simple (although time-consuming!) to make. I started by threading various colour mixes of seed beads on to lengths of Tiger Tail, fastening each end with a crimp bead. I then added various beads (a mixture of glass, semi-precious, fresh water pearls) and charms, by putting them on head pins, and using split rings to connect them to the ends.

Fab new challenge blog...and some candy to celebrate!

Woo-hoo!!! No more school 'til January!!! I've still got to work this evening...the evening class I teach is having their Christmas concert, and then I've finished work for this year! Yay!

There's a new challenge blog starting in the New Year (on January 5th) called Sketch and Stash where every fortnight, there will be a new sketch to follow, with the additional challenge of using some of our newest stash. The idea being that we no longer hoard our lovely new stuff, only to take it out and lovingly stroke it every now and then, but actually USE it! lol
To celebrate their launch, there's a fab 'Willow with Umbrella' stamp from Whiff of Joy on offer to one lucky blogger. All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning it, is to advertise the new challenge blog on your blog, and leave a comment here, before the draw closes at mid-night on January 3rd.

On the ninth day of Christmas...

Well, here is the last installment of my 'Twelve Days of Christmas' cards...actually I made these a couple of weeks ago, but forgot to photograph them, and was in the process of writing in them this evening when I realised.
Apologies for the photographs...the artificial light has made some of the colours look a bit strange, but I need to get them in the envelopes tonight! lol
Once again, I've used the same layout as the others in this set, but with different papers, which made them really quick to do...these stamps are such fun!

Kath's 'Big Blog Candy Fest'

Kath is on give-away no. 2 of her 'Big Blog Candy Fest', and this time she's got some fab Fiskars goodies up for grabs:

All you have to do, to be in with a chance of winning this fab candy, is to leave a comment here and put a link to the candy on your blog, before midnight this Saturday (20th December).

Penny Black Saturday Challenge 27

Aaarrrggghhh!!!!! I have had such a frustrating day!!!! First of all, there was no water when I got up to have a shower, so I picked up the phone to call Thames Water...and there was no dial tone!!!!! So I called Thames Water, on my mobile, to hear a recorded message telling me that they were 'aware of the fault in my postcode area, and had their engineers working to fix it, and would update the message when they knew more', so then I called 'Talk Talk' to hear another recorded message telling me that they were 'aware of the fault in my postcode area, and had their engineers working to fix it, and aimed to have it repaired in 4 hour'. Aaarrrggghhh!!!
So, as I couldn't wash, or use the internet, I had to craft! Obviously, I couldn't do any of the sketch challenges, as I couldn't go and look at the sketches, but I did remember that the theme for this week's Penny Black Challenge was a 'recipe' - 3 flowers, 2 papers, 1 ribbon. I decided to go 'non-Christmassy' as I've finished all my Christmas cards, and have used 'Rainin' Daisies' as my main image. The papers are by Sandylion, and the flowers are from Poppicrafts.


The water finally came back on at 2pm....2pm!!!!!! But before it did, I'd managed to finish off some beaded gifts for some special crafting buddies (I'll upload the photo when they've received them, as I don't want to spoil the surprise), and make some more bits for my other calendars...but I've still got more to do...and I need to write my Christmas cards too!!!!
Now I have my internet connection back, I might just have to do a little blog-hopping first...

2009 Calendar

Woo-hoo!!! I finally finished one of the calendars I'm making for Christmas presents...it's taken me ages, and I've got three more to do!!!
I bought the blank calendars back in the summer from The Paper Mill Shop, and have been making 'bits' for them most weekends since then...I've nearly finished the others, but won't put those on my blog, as they're very similar to this one. All of the images I've used are by Penny Black, and I've kept the layouts very simple (I had a LOT to do!). The papers are a mixture of different brands...DCWV, Dovecraft, Papermania, Daisy D's, Sandylion, Basic Grey and K&Co...and I've used an assortment of various brads, ribbons, gems and flowers here and there, but I won't bore you with the details, as this post is long enough as it is! lol

Must get cracking with the other three now...

Sketch Saturday #28

As I usually make square cards, I thought I'd give this sketch a go, and make a DL sized card instead. I've used a Penny Black stamp ('Wishes for Kisses') as my main image, papers by Pebbles Inc, a sentiment stamp by Three Bugs in a Rug, ribbon from the £Shop, flowers from Poppicrafts, and Dovecraft glitter snowflake brads.

Did you spot the deliberate mistake???...I've missed off one of the circular elements at the bottom...don't know how I didn't see that 'til now??!!