Gloves at the ready!

The dare over at Daring Card Makers is to make a 'shaped' card so this was the perfect time for me to complete a project I had started a couple of weeks ago! This card is also my entry for the 'mens' theme for Papertake Weekly and I'm also going to enter it as a 2nd card for the Dies to Die for blog candy.

just to prove it is a card here is a side on pic. it has a back piece attached so you can stand it up, and also write your message on. Yes it is a real packet of seeds, so a card and pressie in one!

This next card which I love also covers 2 seperate challenges, firstly I used the new sketch from Stamp Something and over at Cute Card Thursdays you have to used 'patterned paper'.

I nipped into the shop to see Kim in regards to the bridesmaid thank-you examples I had done, she said the lady loved them and would like 4 for the bridesmaids and 2 the same but with different wording for the mums, and also 2 for the ushers and 1 for the paige boy, so an order of 9 cards woo hoo..!! This is what I needed to get my cards out there to be seen, who knows this could lead to future orders! I will show you when they are made!

Nothing to show

Sorry nothing to show at the moment, it's not that I can't, I just haven't made anything! Yesterday I went shopping, mainly to the Range to stock up on backing papers, ribbons and anything else that grabbed my fancy! Took mum, dad and Hollie (youngest) along for the ride, Lillie had a play day round her friend Lily's, it's the first time she has been round a friends to play and she didn't come home until nearly 7, I dropped her off just after 9 and they had had a lovely time! It'll be my turn next OMG I can't cope with my 2 let alone another 1!!!

I did have a phone call late yesterday afternoon from the lady at the shop, she had been talking to a lady who is getting married, got onto cards and there is a possibility she would like 6 'thank you' cards for the bridesmaids. So I had to quickly make up some examples to take in this morning. When I got home there is a message on my answerphone to contact her, so I could have an order to do which will be good!
After we dropped the card examples in at the shop we went over to visit my friend, we took the boys birthday presents with us Luke's birthday was a couple of weeks ago and Adam's is in a couple of weeks, but with the distance and to-ing and fro-ing from nursery and school it's not really possibe during school time. It was nice to catch up, she is expecting her 3rd son early August so is blossoming nicely although she is dreading it!! I just wish she hadn't moved so far away, she was renting a house just up the road from ours when her marriage split up last year, but moved to be closer to her new partners family. Never mind, a good excuse for a day out!

I will have something to show tomorrow, I promise!

All go!!

The Tilda & Co challenge this week to 'torn' you have to do a bit of ripping/tearing somewhere on your card. I'm not sure about this, but ended up tearing all elements of the card including the image!! This is for the Sweet Sugar challenge, yeah it's back! The challenge is to make something other than a card using your Sugar Nellie's. So I tried something I've wanted to have a go at for ages, I stamped and coloured the image on shrink wrap plastic, then set about it with my heat gun (which hasn't been out for months!), then made this bag charm to attach it to. It is now hanging on my handbag!!! The image is a little dark in places as I didn't give the ink time to dry before colouring it, that or I stamped it on the wrong side!!The following card is one of my 'basics' that I make for the girls to give their friends if they get invited to any birthday parties. I have the wording saved onto the computer so all I do is change the name accordingly, sometimes add an age and run it through the printer, then make up the bitty people and stick them on the front, job done!!Would you believe that I took Lillie to the party 24 hours early!?! That is typical me! I am almost always late, but the last 3 or 4 times we have had to be somewhere we've been on time or early!! But this was ridiculous, I even had it written on the calendar right, but most of the parties they get invited to are on Saturdays, so merrily got to the hall and there wasn't a sole in sight, we even tried another hall incase we had gotten it wrong, Lillie was insisting it was the right day. Then I thought check the date, the invite said the 25th the parking ticket that we had from shopping earlier said the 24th uh..oh.. wrong day! What I divvy!! The scaffolders were taking the scaffolding down thought it was quite amuzing!! Still she did eventually get to the party and had a lovely time, she won the 'pass the parcel' and then forgot to bring it home so maybe she'll get it back when she goes back to school.

Our house has been a hive of activity this weekend, people coming and going but it has been productive. As mentioned the scaffolders came and took part of the scaffolding away, they couldn't do it all as there wasn't room on the lorry! The plumber worked all day Sat. and Sun. and has done all that he can until we tile the en-suite, he didn't eat all the time he was here, even turning bacon rolls and chinese (how could he??) but on Sun. we did tempt him with a piece of my jam and cream sponge which he loved and even had a 2nd piece later in the day, bless him!! The electrician came yesterday and fitted the sockets, switches etc but we need a new board so that needs ordering. Matthews mum and dad popped round twice, my mum and dad came round and took the girls for the day yesterday so that Matthew and I could tile the en-suite! It's looking good but we still have a wall to do, then the grouting. Matthew did all of the cutting and I did a lot of the tiling where I could reach to, and I made him suffer the 'Sound of Music' in the background, so lots of singing LOL..!!!!
Doesn't look too bad does it!?!

We have lift off!!

Yippee, it is the launch of the 'A Spoon Full of Sugar' challenge blog today, that I am so lucky to be a part of, it's all very new and exciting!!

Our first challenge is the theme of 'Summer Time' although the weather hasn't been too summery here the past few days! We would love for you to join in and take part and Nikki has kindly donated a new very summery Lola stamp for one lucky entrant which will be picked at random.

Here is my very first Design Team card and funnily enough the first outing for my new Sugar Nellie, Sweet Ebony stamp, isn't she cute?!

So please pop along http://aspoonfullofsugarchallenge.blogspot.com/ join in and have fun, and check out the fabulous cards my other talented friends from the design team have made to!

More challenge cards

This card is for the current 'new home' challenge over at A Time to Craft, the cottage scene is decoupaged, it was my first play with silicone and I liked it, so much quicker than peeling the backs off of sticky pads!! The following card is for the new Daring Card Makers dare/challenge, which is to use beads, could be one, could be many. I threaded beads onto a paperclip and attached this to the left side of the card and also added 3 flower beads to the bottom right corner, these were all from the same necklace, one of many the girls have had and broken! I have also used the My Paper World sketch again. Oh I do love this stamp!
and Finally for tonight this card covers 2 seperate challenges, I used the sketch from Friday Sketchers and over at Stamp Something the challenge is 'faux something' so yep I faux stitched, it was the first time I did the cross stitch but I think it looks kind of ok around the outside.
I've also made my very first Design Team card for A Spoon Full of Sugar but I can't show you that until after the blog goes live on Tuesday. I am very pleased with it, I only hope it will match up to the other girls work. (You can find the link to the blog on the right).

So very excited!!!

I opened up my emails this morning and couldn't believe my luck, still can't, Debbie is setting up a new challenge blog called 'A Spoon Full Of Sugar' for Sugar Nellie fans, here's the link : http://aspoonfullofsugarchallenge.blogspot.com/ and she has asked me to be one of the Design Team Members!!!! I'm not sure why Debbie asked me as the other girls work is far superior to mine, but I'm not complaining, no, no, no! How fabulous, I think everyone knows that I sure do love my Nellies! The blog goes live on Tuesday with the first challenge, I hope to see you there! Did I tell you I was excited??!!??

Today I made this card for the latest challenge over at Cute Card Thursday, Katharina has done a fab sketch to follow
It's funny as I made the following card yesterday and it's a flipped version of Katharina's sketch!! So I guess I could enter both cards!

An envelope to a card!!

I was fascinated when I saw a challenge from Sarah with instructions on how to make a gift bag out of an envelope over on the Just Bex forum. Of course I just had to have a go, the instructions are for use with an A4 envelope but as I didn't have any I used an A5 one instead! Oh boy was I chuffed when it turned out ok, I've actually had it all feld up and ready to decorate for over a week now, so today I took the plunge and decorated it, and this fits in with this weeks Magnolia, Tilda & co challenge to use 'beads'
So this is the before picture, a boring old envelope
and after, quite a sweet little gift bag, if I say so myself!!
Kim has some scrummy candy up for grabs over on her blog, pop over and take a look http://kimfeecrafter.blogspot.com/ it's to help celebrate her birthday!

Some cards and fat pages

Apologies for not blogging for a few days, I'm back now, feeling a lot brighter after a chat with the dr. (and no I don't have depression, just a bit stuck in a rut!).

Today I decided to get the 'fat book pages' done for the Sugar Nellie swap over on the CM&PC forum, as I have signed up for a flower swap next, thought I had better get this first lot finished first!!

One of these is mine, think it'll have to be the fairy one!!

I have also made a card for the Papertake weekly challenge, which is to use Katherina's sketch, at first I thought I would struggle with it, but after studying the cards already made, I thought lets give it a go, and it was the first time I had used my new 'Sweet Ebony' stamp from Sugar Nellie's (it only arrived this morning!), oh and how much do I love it???...........lots!!!!!
Next up is a card is using Nicola's latest sketch over at My Paperworld, not sure whether I really like the colours, but it's another card for my box! The following card is a 'special' one that I made for my 5 year old daughter Lillie. She had her first ever ballet exam yesterday, so thought I would make her a card! I had to take her for a practise session on Sunday and then yesterday she had to finish school early to be there on time, well an hour early as her teacher said the examiner they had almost always runs early (not yesterday she was running late!!). The front part is the 'good luck' bet you couldn't guess that could you?! Using the My Paperworld sketch again!!The middle has a pocket so a picture of her certificate or medal or whatever they get can go in it as a keepsake, at the moment there is a picture (turned over for my blog) of her and her best friend, also called Lily (but spelt differently!)The last part is obviously the 'well done' lol, we don't know yet how they got on apart from the fact that they all came out smiling, so we can only assume it went well!Well I think that's it, I did get a call from Kim at the shop asking for another personalized baby girl card, but I won't bore you with that as it is the same as the one in the previous post (with the baby tag) just with a different name!

couple of cards

Quick post, I made a couple of cards today, still not really that enthusiatically but there you go. This first card is for the Daring Cardmakers challenge which is 'animalia' it also fits the bill for the 2nd challenge from Stamp Something which is to make a 'thank you' card or gift etc, and I've also used the 2nd sketch from Friday Sketchers so 3 challenges covered with the one card, not bad heh!?! The next card was for a very last minute order, the lady from the childrens shop who has some of my cards to try and sell, rang she had a lady liking a card I had made but wanted the new baby's name put on it, could I possibly do this at such short notice as she wanted it at 9am tomorrow morning. No probs! I was in the middle of making mushroom soup so quickly made the card whilst that was simmering, I forgot that I had put the cheese and broccoli quiche that I had made a bit earlier back in the oven for a 'few more minutes' and remember it just as I finished the card, luckily it was fine, and both the soup and quiche tasted yummy for tea!
Here's the card :

Feeling much better now, still got a slight sore throat and an occassional irritating cough but that's going. Went to the doctors this morning as my foot still hurts (stumbled and landed on one of the 'branches/arms' that the wheels are on on my desk chair at least a couple of months ago), he said he can do 1 thing I have to do 2 others, so he wrote a prescription for anti-inflamitary cream (it was cheaper to buy over the counter by a whopping 11p!!!) I had to get a 'proper' pair of trainers with the cushioning and support uugghh... I don't like proper trainers I prefer the flat ones! After trying on who knows how many pairs I finally bought a pair, relunctantly, but if they are going to help my foot get better then it's worth it, dr also said I need to get a piece of foam and put that in the trainer under the arch of my foot where it hurts, to help cushion it. I haven't done this yet sounds weird but guess it's worth a go. Also have to go back on Monday with a form I have filled out in regards to 'am I depressed', I feel angry/annoyed most of the time, lack enthusiasm in most things, gggrrrrr...... at the kids ALL of the time and I don't want to be like this. So will have to wait and see what he says again on Monday.

Night night

A challenge or 2 or 3 or 4!!

Feeling more like normal today, just a bit of a snuffly nose and a cough, so thought I would catch up on a few challenges.
First up is 'black and white' over at Magnolia so here's my little pirate curtosy of a swap with Heike (thanks), I used a sketch that I saw on someone's blog but blowed if I can remember who's!2nd is 'lime and lilac' over at Papertake Weekly, I have combined this with the Time to Craft challenge which is to use an image with 'dark hair'3rd and last for today is my card using the very first challenge sketch over at Friday Sketchers (I'll definately be back here on a weekly basis as I love working with sketches)
The extension is coming along nicely, between us we got the whole room, including en-suite and walk in wardrobe plaster boarded. I mixed the adhesive while Matthew cut the board to size then we both 'dotted and dabbed' the mixture to the walls and slapped the boards on, it was a little on the warm side to say the least!! We are waiting on the plumber who is messing us about a bit, get the impression he's not too interested in the job, so may find someone else!

Hollie is doing well going to nursery now which is such a big relief and almost every day I hear a new name so she must be making friends.

Back at last!

Conjunctivitis gone, cold still hanging on!! Thank you Kay and Nicola for your get well wishes :-)Still not feeling much like doing anything much, my card making mojo has really gone on it's hols, because I keep picking bits up, images to colour etc and nothing I just put them back. I have made myself make a couple of cards (not that I needed to as I have quite a stash in my box) for upcoming family birthdays, but they were a real effort!
Also noticed that my blog tunes are playing up, hope you like them I've added quite a few unfortunately my end they are stopping after about 10secs?
So here goes this first card is using Nicola's sketch over at My Paperworld, and you've guessed it it's for my Uncle! This is also my entry into Tracy over at Dies to Die For (http://cuteycrafts.blogspot.com/) blog candy challenge, ooo.... and boy is the prize delicious....... it's to help celebrate the merge of Dies to Die for and First Class Crafts, the challenge is to make a 'male card'

and this one is for sis-in-law. It also qualifies for a couple of challenges and a blog candy entry, over at Cute Card Thursdays the challenge is to use 'gems and jewels', at Time to Craft it's 'ribbons' and Gina (who's blog candy link is it a previous post CardKabin) would like a card made using a stamped image, ribbon, pretty paper and flowers

Other news, Hollie is doing a lot better at Nursery, it's a bit of a struggle to get her motivated in the morning (like me!) but hardly any tears or noise, she's putting her bag and bits where they go, finding her name tag for the register and although she is still going off (freely) with an assistant not a little friend I think she is doing pretty well, thank goodness!

The extension is progressing slowly, pity Matthew can't have a couple of days off to get 'stuck in' but he needs to earn so we can spend Lol...!! and with our few days away coming up in the not so distant future, we're going to need a fair few pennies because places like Woburn and Gullivers are not cheap to visit!

Feeling sorry for myself

Yep I've caught my dear daughter's cold, we have lovely weather all weekend and I get a blinkin cold! To top it off, all day Sunday I felt as if my left eye wasn't opening properly and felt crusty although it looked fine? Then yesterday with left eye ok now, my right eye kept weeping! Hardly slept, the tissue never left my hand and I constantly wiped my eye, only to get up this morning to find my eye red, watery and half closed by an extremely swollen eyelid! I look like I've been punched!! My initial thoughts were conjunctivitis but I thought that was sticky yellow gloop. Couldn't get hold of the dr.s so nipped in the pharmicists near to the school, the chap in there is fab, yep he confirmed it as conjunctivis and has given me drops to put in my eye every 2 hours for 2 days then every 4 hours for the next 3!
I think I actually caught it from Hollie who woke a couple of mornings last week with crusty eyes but we just thought she had wiped her nose then her eye, she never complained and it just went, yep to me!!
Don't feel like doing anything so doubt I'll be back with any cards, maybe tomorrow?

A card and a cake!

My mojo seems to gone off course a bit the past few days, but I have just managed to put the following card together, using one of my latest batch of Sugar Nellie's
We've got Matthew's daughter here this weekend, it's her birthday on the 9th so yesterday we took her shopping to get some new clothes (as she never turns up with anything that fits properly, it's either too big or too small!), we really haven't got room for any more writing sets, games etc so thought this was a good idea. She can take most of them home as she's got a couple of holidays coming up and we'll keep a few here so we know she has got something decent if we go out anywhere. She goes back tonight so we thought she could have her things today, I made a cake (nothing spectacular) when I did my cake order this morning, it's got icing and sprinkles so the kids will love it, you can't really see from the picture but along with the hundreds and thousands there are some little candy animals, ducks, pigs etc we will add some candles at tea time.
Matthew has started putting the hallway partition up, so our bedroom has now shrunk!! I so can't wait for the new room/s to be ready, still can't find a duvet set I like, and until I do I can't work out my colour scheme. When we first moved in I knew every colour of every room, this one is proving more difficult, but my en-suite is beige/sand, we ordered the tiles yesterday, boy were they pricey and we picked the cheaper ones!! Matthew has just got back from delivering the cakes and going to pick up a new mobile phone, he bent over at work and would you believe dropped his mobile phone out of his overrall pocket into a sewer poo-ey!!! The phone no longer works but luckily his sim card is still ok so he hasn't lost all of his numbers!

Kitty is offering fab blog candy part of which is the choice of 4 Bella stamps, this is to celebrate her 20,000 hits http://kittyskrafty.blogspot.com/
and
Michelle is also offering fab 'purple' blog candy to celebrate her 40,000 hits http://cardgrotto.blogspot.com/
and
Gina is offering (once again!) fab blog candy to celebrate her 10,000 hits http://cardkabin.blogspot.com/
So why not pop over and take a look, and leave them a comment while you are there, congratulations girls!

A not so happy card

My sister texted me yesterday to say that she had seen my friend in town and that her stepdad had died at the weekend, (don't know why she didn't txt me?), he had been suffering from cancer for quite some time and it was just a waiting game really. So today I made this sympathy card and popped it in the post to her mum, again I used sketch 8 from My Paper World, how I love that sketch!!!
and that's it no more cards! I just couldn't drum up the enthusiasm, I coloured an image and started another and no matter how many different papers I layed out nothing seemed to work.

Matthew is suffering from withdrawal symptoms, he was upset last night as the chap who lent him the forklift asked if he could have it back, so he has just had to load 'Linda' up and take her back!! I just don't know what he is going to do, any excuse and he had to use 'her' round the yard Lol...!!!!!
Hollie got into school ok this morning, put away her book bag, hung up her coat, self registered fine then as I tried to get her to do something like colour a picture she started to cling again, luckily I didn't have to stay many minutes as one of the other mums was staying to help and asked her if she would like to go with her which she did.
We picked Lillie up and went over to mum and dad's, Lillie wanted to do her flower arrangement for the church festival, my Aunite is one of the organizers, and mum has done a window for years, I think Lillie did an arrangement last year to. With mum's guidance her arrangement was done in minutes unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, but it looks nice, it's all done in rows, with greenery at the back then yellow roses, greenery, pink carnations, greenery, red roses, greenery then green carnations to finish. Perhaps she has inherited the flower arranging genes!!!

No Nellie's today Lol..!!

A day with no Sugar Nellie cards how about that?! Not really been in a productive mood today, although I have spent most of my time at my desk (nothing new there!). The first card I am showing was made yesterday using another of the fab Tilda images on the scalloped circles, I just love this card!

The following card I have made again using sketch 8 from My Paperworld which I have used over and over and will continue to because it's so easy and looks so good. I have made this for my Auntie who has just come back from visiting my cousin in America, I asked her if she saw any Prima etc flowers and brads could she get me some as they would be cheaper than buying them here! Well she couldn't find any flowers boo...hoo... but did bring me some foam ones, all sizes with leaves (a couple used on the above Tilda card) and lots of brads. She won't let me pay for them, so I am going to bake her one of my cakes tomorrow, (I know she likes the coffee ones) to go with the card! This is also going to be my card for this weeks Cute Card Thursdays challenge which is to make a card etc with the 'In the Garden' theme