Bling Alert!!! (put your shades on!)

Happy Sunday!

How are you all? Are you having a fab weekend making cards/crafty bits. I hope so!

Today's card is for the Corrosive Challenge Blog. The theme was to make something using a flag or something related to your country. Well, I went for a flag. Now this idea SO didn't work out how I planned. It is bling at its best!!!! I really don't like it, but unfortunately didn't have time to make anything else so had to go with it. I am sure to get no comments on this one lol, not nice ones anyway!!

To make the card I printed out a flag and mounted it onto red glitter card. I then embossed a piece of white card through my embossing folder and added the word 'queen' in red. I then threaded a little crown embellishment through some red ribbon and wrapped this around the embossed section. I mounted this onto a piece of blue card. I then cut out a crown and added some gems. Finally I added the words 'for the day' and a silver arrow for even more bling lol. Oh dear!!

I've been really bad at putting my little recipes up for my cards lately, sorry! Here's the one for this card.

Dies: Sizzix 'Easy Peasy' alphabet, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder, 'Swiss Dots', Sizzix Dingbats #1, Diva w/crown
Paper: Bazzill cardstock, red and silver glitter card from stash
Accessories: Crown, stick on gems from Mei Flower

Well, I'm shooting off now. Don't forget to hop on over to the Corrosive Challenge Blog for this week's challenge, they have weekly prizes and Janet sets some fab challenges too! I would love to see what you guys come up with for this one. I found it really hard this week

Have fun and good luck!

Going Retro

Hi guys

How's your weekend going? It's been really muggy here all day and we finally have a thunderstorm and lightning which should clear the air.

I am not at home today but I had five minutes to do a quick posting of a card I made the other day. I thought I would try and go a bit retro! I needed to make my cousin's other half a card for his 40th birthday but I wanted something a bit more colourful, rather than the browns/greens/blues for men's cards that I normally use.

I also wanted to use some string and this simple card is what I came up with. I cut out two pieces of paper, rounding the right hand edges. I then cut out a star from a piece of DP and mounted it onto a black circle. I tied some string around the top layer and added the white circle which had been matted onto black. I added the '40th' sticker. Having stuck down the bottom rectangle I pop dotted the top one to allow for the string and then added the star.

Don't forget to enter the Corrosive Challenge competition today. The theme is for a folded card this week. I really enjoyed moving away from the traditional square/rectangle card. It was fun. Head on over there now, there's still time to join in!

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday :o)

A bit of yellow to brighten your day!

Hello there :o)

I hope you're all having a good day. This is a very quick posting from me today. My little one went to her friend's party the other day so we picked her up this bag for her friend who is really into High School Musical. For a bit of fun I thought I would make a card to go with the bag. (I couldn't get the image any bigger but I'm sure you get the drift from this!)

I wanted to follow the theme of the bag so used yellow and red. Using a black base card I cut out a yellow rectangle which I stuck onto the black card. I then cut out various shapes in red and stuck them randomly onto the card. I cut out the letters 'H', 'S' & 'M' and the number '8' to match the lettering on the bag. The alphabet set is called 'In My Heart' so each letter has hearts cut out of it. I stuck red card on the back of each letter so that they showed through on the front. Finally to give it a bit of a lift I used my Sakura glitter gel pen on each of the red shapes.

If you are interested in the detail of it just drop me an e-mail and I can let you know the specific products I used.

Because it's based on Disney it's not a card that I would sell but I thought it would be a great quick card if you used different colours and swopped the letters 'HSM' for the person's name or something.

I hope I'm not breaching any copyright by posting this one! Does anyone know how that all works in the blogging world??

Enjoy the rest of your day :o)

Mr & Mrs :o)

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today is Corrosive Challenge day, so hop on over to their blog and join in on the fun. Each week there is a different challenge and the opportunity to win a prize :o) This week it's a vintage scrapbook and some ribbon.

The challenge was to make a folded card. I don't often do folded cards so I had to put my thinking hat on for this one! I thought I would play around with an idea for a 'Mr & Mrs' card.

By the way, do any of you watch that over in the UK? It used to be shown over here when I was very little, many many years ago. They are now running it with celebrity couples. Basically the husbands and wives have to answer questions about each other and the winners get money to give to charity. It always sets off a few giggles in our house because we all play it together. Natasha usually comments on what she thinks and then we both say what we would have answered. Generally we are right, so no arguments so far lol. For those of you that have watched it you may identify with me when I say once you hear the tune you can't stop humming it. This card became quite annoying after a while lol.

Ok, so onto my card. I scored a sheet of 12 x 12 card into 3 sections then cut off the top of the folded card to make the angled top. I then cut out two strips of the background paper and adhered these to either side of the middle. I cut out the word 'Mr & Mrs' and stuck this on the centre panel.

Using my Cricut machine and the Paper Dolls cartridge I cut out 'groom' and 'bride' in silver, white and black as seen. I then pieced them together adding brads for buttons to the groom's suit, a pink hankie for the for his top pocket and sprinkled glitter over the wedding dress. That's it. Quite simple really, but a little time consuming piecing the bits together. I was quite pleased how it turned out. I had been thinking through a slightly different idea where I was going to cut around the clothes by putting them on the folds but it didn't look quite right and I ended up with this.

Hope you like it. Enjoy the rest of your day. It was supposed to be sunny here all day, but it's been a bit overcast, the sun is just starting to come out though, yay! I think we might pop out for a bite to eat now to make the most of it.

I'm hoping to start entering some challenges soon, it's just been a bit busy with one thing or another but I'm getting back on track now finally. I like my weekly inspirational challenges, don't you? ♥

A little bird told me...

Oh my goodness, where has the week gone?! Has it really been nearly a week since I've posted? It's gone 1am here so technically it's actually hitting a week! I'm hyper tonight, I think I've had too much Pepsi Max! I've been making cards this week but I haven't put them on yet so will do them one at a time over the next few days, just to keep you a little interested!!

So have you all had a good week?

I found out this week that I am going to get a free trollbead :o) For those of you that aren't sure what a trollbead is go to http://www.fabletrading.co.uk/. I had put the link in for you, but it's not working properly. Trollbeads are one of my obsessions, that along with cardmaking, vanilla coffee, chocolate .. etc lol. Hmmm, me thinks the least said about that little list the better!

Anyway, at the end of May I entered a competition to design a 'People's Bead'. It wasn't very good. I can't draw to save my life but anyone that entered won a bead! My friend entered too (with a fab design might I add! She *can* draw!) but she thought it had to be in silver. Well me doing it all last minute didn't read that bit so I sent in a design for a glass one lol. It did have a *tiny* bit of silver at the top and bottom but I doubt if that would count! Earlier this week I got an e-mail announcing the winner and saying that everyone gets a bead for entering. Woohoo! I LOVE my trollbeads. I have a birthday coming up in September and I'm hoping to get lots of beautiful little beads then. I'm crossing my fingers and toes for them. If you see anyone I know put in a good word for me, won't you?!!! ;o)

Enough of my nattering, onto a card. Today I thought I would share a quick make card with you. It was fun to do because the little birds are so cute, don't you think?!!!

The paper is by Three Bugs in a Rug and in the range they have die cut shapes to match. This range is called 'Happy Bird-Day', cute :o)

I think if you have the paper in front of you it's pretty self explanatory but basically all I did was stuck a piece of bird paper to the base card which I'd rounded the corners on, popped out the sentiment tag, and stuck it onto the back of the bird paper (it's double sided with polka dots). I rounded off the top corners and pop dotted it to the bird paper. I then added a polka dot strip at the bottom and made a pretend ribbon thingy to thread through the hole on the tag and voila, job done!

Hope you like it. I'll be back soon, promise!

PS. Don't forget to enter the challenge over at Corrosive Challenge Blog. There's a fab prize this week!

Have you been tangoed?!

Hi there

I hope you're all having a great weekend. The weather has been really nice here today so it's been good to get out into the sunshine. We went for a walk by the canal with Lulu and got chatting to a few of our new neighbours along the way. It was lovely. Mind you, Lulu is such a feisty little madam. She is so selective..friendly to some, snappy with others. You never know how she's going to behave. We've been told it's because she is scared since being pinned down by two big dogs so she needs more socialising with people/dogs. That's all very well if they don't mind being yapped/snapped at lol. All tips gratefully received! She's a perfect little puppy other than that. She steals the odd thing, but she hasn't chewed anything up or done anything that you would expect a normal puppy to do, but this is a bit of a problem with her.

I made today's card for the Corrosive Challenge Blog sketch this week. As soon as I saw the sketch I had an idea of what I wanted to do. Do you ever find that happens to you? It's quite rare for me. I tend to mull lots of ideas over, decide what it is I'm going to do and then end up with something totally different lol. This one actually looked like my original idea, yay! I really wanted to use some bright colours now that the weather is cheering up, and found this gorgeous orange paper which kicked off the idea.




Using an embossing folder I embossed two orange strips of card. I overlay a rectangular piece of orange flowery paper. I cut out a small and medium black circle. I pop dotted the small black circle on the top left, adding the number 40 which I had cut in orange as the main colour and then the shadow in white. I pop dotted the medium circle to the bottom right of the card and cut out an orange flower which I finished off with a black and white dotty brad. Don't you just LOVE that brad. I think it is FAB!!! I love all things dotty...no comments please lol. (Ian would say that's because I am dotty!) To finish the card I added a silver glitter topper.

Dies: Sizzix 'Lipstick Love Letter' alphabet, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder, 'Bloom Dots', Sizzix Circles # 2

Paper: Bazzill cardstock, Sandylion orange floral paper (sorry the name was cut off the sheet so I'm not sure of the actual name of it)

Accessories: Topper from stash. (I keep saying I'm going to make a load of these myself. They would be ever so easy to do and you could do loads of different fonts/colours/sizes. I must add them to my to do list. If it's written down it might get done...one day!

I really enjoyed using this sketch and I think it's one I will keep returning to. (Thanks for the inspiration Janet!) It's great having a few templates to hand when you can't quite make your mind up what to make, especially when you're in a rush. So, go on, join in this week with the challenge, this week's prize is a Ketto stamp, and some lovely ribbon. It would be great to see what you guys come up with :o) I don't know if you've seen those little Ketto stamps but they are ADORABLE. I've just had a few arrive that I've yet to play with, sooo cute!

Have a great Sunday! x

Glamour Girl

Hi there

I hope you've all had a good week. We had visitors the first part of the week but I managed to squeeze a card in! It was meant to be quite a quick one but actually with fiddling around with the double lettering it took a bit longer than it should have :o) It's probably just because I'm enjoying playing around with my stuff again.

I'm not sure where the week has gone, time seems to fly when you have people staying. It's been nice having visitors though, it breaks up the routine a bit. Even better when they bring chocolate!!! Now that's my kind of visitor!

In making this card I cut out a raspberry pink square and matted it onto black. Before matting I tied on some dotty ribbon and then added a topper that I picked up from a local stationers. These are great little toppers because in the middle present there is an acetate section which they have filled with sequins. I'm sure you could do something like that for yourself but I'm a bit too lazy, it's much easier just peeling off and sticking! I cut out the phrase 'Glam at 40' using my Sizzix Cattycorner alphabet set, once in black and then in white which I stuck to the card. To finish I added a couple of 'humbugs' from Craftwork Cards in each corner.

Oh, by the way, if you haven't entered the challenge over at Corrosive Challenge Blog yet there's still time. You have until midnight tomorrow to enter. Each week they give away a prize, this week's prize is a stamp set by Gina K - a man set with a bbq, golf bag etc. Go on, enter, you never know, you might win ;o)

Dies: Sizzix 'Catty Corner' alphabet
Paper: Bazzill cardstock
Accessories: Topper from local stationer, ribbon from stash, 'Humbug' legless brads from Craftwork Cards


Hope you like it. Have a good weekend :o)

Hello again!

Hi everyone!

I hope you're all well and still creating amazing designs. Things are improving this end. I finally have a phone line, it went on today...woohoo! (that's odd in itself seeing as the telecom engineers aren't supposed to be out until Monday, but oh boy this girl ain't complainin' lol) The next stage is to get broadband on, which should take about 7-10 days. I have decided to do this posting from my local library rather than even attempt using my little 3g stick. Fingers crossed this will work.

My card making stuff is now all unpacked and I can actually see where things are. I haven't seen it for so long it's like shopping all over again, I keep finding lots of little goodies that I'd forgotten about!! I have missed creating SO much but I just haven't been able to get on line and lost my mojo a bit along the way I think. I've just been designing a couple of cards for the Corrosive Challenge Blog, you must check this site out. It's a fairly new blog and they have had some fab cards sent in already. Janet is so lovely and does some great designs too. This will be the first on line design team that I have been on and as you can imagine I'm VERY excited!!! I feel really lucky to be included in the team for this quarter.

The theme for today's challenge at the Corrosive Challenge Blog is Father's Day. Now, as you all know I find male cards a little more challenging than others so I had to put my thinking cap on for this one :o) I decided to use one of my favourite little Sizzix characters and dress him up with tools. There's something about those little cutters, it's like being a child again cutting out the clothes and sticking them on, I LOVE it!!

I wanted to use a few different papers so decided to use some of my Basic Grey Archaic range. This is a fab range for boys' cards, one of my favourites in fact. I cut out four random squares, yes they are square although they don't look it on line! I wasn't on the wine when I photographed it honest ;o) I just can't seem to get my cards to look straight no matter how I try. I then cut out my wording in olive green and cream using my alphabet set, 'Catty Corner'. I cut out all of the elements for the dress up boy, again using the Basic Grey papers. I pop dotted the man and added a couple of buttons for his dungarees, and some tools; a saw, screwdriver and set square. I love using those little shaped buttons, they're quite hard to get at the moment here though. I hope you like him, it's been so long since I've made cards I had a great time putting him together :o)

I want to thank the lovely ladies for my awards, I haven't forgotten you, but will add them once I'm back on line fully from home rather than try and do all that while I'm in the library! Thank you so much for thinking of me. It's great to know that people are thinking of me even when I'm not able to blog. I really appreciate it x