Sorry for the lack of posts!

Hi guys! Just thought I'd better post and let you all know that I haven't left the country! Unfortunately, I have been tied to my computer chair designing for the next disc and so haven't had much chance to play around with paper...boo hoo! I'll do my best to post something in the next couple of days, until then...Happy crafting!

Birthday Boy times two!

What a week! Sorry I've not posted for a while, this week has been hectic! Sunday saw DH manage to slice his finger with an angle grinder, fitted with a sanding disc, whilst grinding the rust from the wheel arches of my Renault! A trip to A&E followed, though they only patched him up with steri-strips in the end. Monday was then spent learning how to do car bodywork! It's amazing what you can turn your hand to when needed, and I have to admit, I was quite surprised with the result!!

I've also been arranging flowers for a friend's wedding in August, another of my many hobbies! On Friday I had a lovely day out in Llandudno with Mum, we had a browse round the shops and spent a bit of cash in the craft shop (of course!). One of my purchases was a Dovecraft 6x6 Paper Pack, called Masculine, so I decided to make a couple of creations using them and one of the images I found at Arthur's Clipart which I coloured using old faithful - Photoshop! I love the way they've turned out, though once again, you'll probably have to excuse the quality of the photos, as I was taking them at 9pm when the light was starting to go...

Raise the Bar Challenge

I seem to be on a roll! I found these stunning images at Arthur's Free Clipart and have been tied to my craft table ever since!! I'd seen the Raise the Bar Challenge this week, which is asking for a specific colour theme of yellow, grey and white - not really colours i would normlly use, but when I found this image, I thought it would be just perfect, so decided to enter!

The only downfall to spending a Sunday crafting is that none of my housework got done, and I am now playing catch up with the washing, have a huge basket of ironing and need to clean the bathroom, kitchen and living room before I even look at a piece of card! So my speed of production will probably have to slow! Happy crafting!

Patterned papers

Hi, back again! I have been a busy bee! As promised, I thought I'd post what I've been up to with my patterned papers...

The vintage car is coloured using my chalks and once again, my adhesive pearls have made an appearance, although this time I coloured them with my acetate markers to match. I'm entering it into the ABC Challenge, which is up to U for Unused Stash, which is my patterned papers, that I've been trying to use since I bought them in Canada on my honeymoon 4 years ago!! Practical Scrappers want patterned papers, so it fits the bill there too!

The next card I made is a complete contrast - I absolutely adore this image and wanted the card to be fun and summery, but thought that the look on her face expressed the message to a tee!

Monochromatic

Just a quick Hi to all the girls who went along to Dianne's Plush Pals Workshop on Saturday, at Crafts4U2Do - hope you had a wonderful day and liked the cards you went away with (though I'm sure you did!) I just wish I lived a bit nearer and I could have come along too!!

So, what's new today? I've been quite productive in my craft room this weekend, and decided to make a card for the Mami Doodles Challenge this week, which is a monochromatic card. I'm really quite pleased with the way this one has turned out, it's a real 'me' card - pink and girly! I love the colour pink, although don't have any pink rooms in my house, no pink car, and not very many pink clothes, but if you asked what my favourite colour was, I think it would have to be pink?!!


The wedding cake is yet another way to use up all those strips of white card left over from cutting A4 sheets, to make square cards, and the strings of pearls between each layer have been hanging around my ribbon bits tin for possibly years! It's amazing what you find when you're just 'playing'. I seem to be going through a phase of using up all the bits and bobs that have been forgotten about and gathering dust on the numerous shelves of stuff, that I'm sure we all hoard! My next venture is to find some co-ordinating papers in my patterned paper drawer and use them, though I have to admit that it's something I'm still learning at yet - I can spend hours shuffling bits of patterned paper around a card blank and still end up with a blank card staring back at me at the end of it!! I'll post back and let you know how I get on!?!

Wall hanger

I have to confess that I pinched this idea after being on my sister's blog, boxercreations. She'd made a wall hanger for the Mami Doodles DT Challenge and so I decided to create my own, using the Plush Pals DVD and a picture of my youngest son - OMG was he cute!! (Not that I'm biased, of course!)

After making it, I discovered that the Paperplay Challenge this week wants "something brown and..." , so it was rather apt. And the challenge over at My Time to Craft is "Tooo cute", which I think it is...

As usual, I had to use polka dot ribbon and my favourite embellishment at the moment is the adhesive pearls, which you will probably be seeing a lot more of! I glittered around the letters on the word 'Joshua' and the stripes on the cat, not to mention my face, table and carpet! Nobody can go near my craft room without coming out sparkling!!

I keep trying to get time to play a bit more, but am spending most of my time designing - it's nice to get out the paper and card and make a mess sometimes..I'm good at that!!

TTFN and happy crafting!

Easel card

I've got the challenge bug!! Whilst browsing this morning, I noticed that Daring Cardmakers and Stamp, Scrap & Doodle both want easel cards for their challenges, so set to work! I came across this lovely cat picture which is a freebie over on Mo Mannings site and decided to use my nesties (and Mum's!) to make a shaped easel card. Green and orange doesn't seem like an obvious colour combination, but it just seemed right once I coloured the cat picture - which is coloured using my chalks! The leaves are from the Sissix flowers, branches & leaves dies and the flowers are an Xcut flower punch. Of course, I had to add a touch of polka dot ribbon in orange. (If you're one of our girls, don't look too closely as we may be making it!)

Challenges I'm entering -
Daring Cardmakers - Easel Does It!
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle challenges - Easel