Happy Halloween!

I just love this picture and have had it saved for a year to show it!
and here are witch Lillie and spider Hollie dressed in their halloween costumes!Hollie's little outfit has 8 legs but you can't see them in this picture, but they can be seen in the picture below

and this is her hat, which is actually adult size so she has trouble keeping it on her head, so I stapled ribbon to either side and we tie it in a bow under her chin!!we've been up town this afternoon as they had a fancy dress competition, games, crafts etc which was nice, they got to see a lot of school friends whilst they were there, and Hollie had ride on the funfair with her favourite boy from school.!

The curry is cooking away in the slow pot, and Matthew is home early from work, now gone to have a hair cut (jealous that we all had one when we were up town!) then we are off round a few houses 'trick or treating'.

I will leave you with a card I made days ago, this is for the Sketch Saturday challenge. We haven't been home much the past few days what with shopping, meeting mum to choose the girls bikes for christmas and visiting friends so I've not actually crafted for days, same goes for blog hopping to! Doesn't help with the pc playing up a lot either ggggrrrr..........

A couple of challenges

Here are a couple of cards I made yesterday, most of the weeks challenges have been sketches which is great as I love using them.
This is the card I have used for this weeks Friday Sketchers challenge

and the following card is my entry for this weeks Dutch Dare challenge. I've sent this card in the blog candy parcel to Jenny, hope she likes it. I've tried something different and used a flower template to cut the flower from patterened paper, I've curled the petals so the lift off the card slightly.

The gorgeous cards I received ;0)

Here are the pictures of the many gorgeous handmade cards that I was so lucky to receive for my birthday :0)
from the A Spoon Full of Sugar Girls :
Nikki (left) and Debbie (right)Deb (left) and Camilla (right)

Cardmaking and Papercraft girls :

left > right = Caroline, Nikki19, CraftyC, Annies Grannie, PigletKirsty4758, Rhea, JulieH (back), Isobel (front), Loneycrafter, Dawn

Busybee, Sandraspain (back), Darkfairy (front), Sally, CardCrazyGal, Debsydoo and Kerrimiya and I received another today from LAB I'll add a photo later!

A Spoon Full of Sugar -challenge 23

This week our challenge on A Spoon Full of Sugar is 'Sparkle and Bling' yes we want you to get the glitter, gems etc out and give your card a bit of glitz!
I've gone for yet another black and white christmas card using my Serendipity snowman stamp from Joanna Sheen, as I love to add lots of glitter to him, I've actually used 3 colours of 'sparkles' black, silver and grey. I'm really not sure about the flower but needed something big in the top left corner to which I added a variety of black buttons and topped the big one with a clear and sparkly heart button. Blingy gems, ribbon and the words mum and dad to finish. It's a bigger card than I normally make A5 (A4 in half) as my mum thinks I should make bigger cards!

We have a fabulous prize this week which has been kindly donated by Lana from Dotty do Crafts, why not nip over and take a peek and look at the rest of the design teams cards to, lots of sparkles!

This card is also my entry for this weeks Secret Crafter challenge which is to use the sketch provided.

My card also passes for the Stamp Something challenge this week which is 'something for the birds' my snowman is holding a bird house and has a little birdie sitting on his hand.

A fabulous birthday and a winner

I had a fabulous birthday yesterday, which started by opening a huge pile of cards, most of which were handmade from blog and forum friends, thank you all so much, I loved each and every one of them. I will post pictures of them at some point when I have more time, but after a days baking and kids fighting I'm ready to chill out in front of x-factor!!

We dropped Lillie off at school, Hollie off with Grandad (easier for her to have the day off nursery than to arrange picking her up) then we headed for Norwich. First stop the Range, I said before we went in that I didn't want a much and didn't come out with much but I did treat myself to a Crop-a-dile 'Big Bite' was just going to have the Crop-a-dile but Matthew persuaded my to get the Big Bite tut tut!! We then went to Toys 'r' Us and got xmas pressie's for the girls and our nephews. By this time the boot of the car was full (we did buy a 5 basket unit for the kitchen from the Range!). So onto shopping in the city, we had to off load shopping at the car twice! I did pretty well by getting a coat, boots, a couple of tops, dress jewelery and some other bits, but best of all we have nearly finished our christmas shopping!!

We finished off our trip at Pedro's for a scrummy mexican meal, before heading back to pick the girls up from mum and dads. We got home totally knackered!

I would like to thank everyone who took part in my blog candy draw, Hollie had just pulled the winning name out of the hat (literally!)

couldn't leave Lillie out so she revealed the winner

Congratulations Jenny I will email you for your details then get them in the post to you asap!

I will finish todays post with a picture of the cards the girls made for me, Lillie's (5) card is on the left and Hollie (3) is on the right. They have made nicer cards, but made these in a hurry before tea, Hollie got a bit carried away with my flowers!! She said "she wanted to make a circle"bless her heart.

My birthday's come early!

A pink card today, this is my entry for the Stamp Something challenge which was to follow a sketch by Katharina, I didn't have an oval greeting or anything to draw around so I could cut an oval so I used a tag instead!and Nikki this is also for you! Yes Nikki (BunnyZoe) my friend and fellow ASFoS design team member has reached an incredible 30,000 hits, well more now, to her blog and is celebrating with some gorgeous pink candy. You don't have to make a pink card to take part, why not go and take a look here

Well I feel like my birthday has come a day early, I hadn't long been home from the school run this morning when the door bell rang, I thought it was the postman, but no, it was a lady with a boquet of flowers from my darling hubbie! He hasn't sent me flowers in about 5 years I think! mainly because for the past 5 or so years we go to Norwich for a day of shopping followed by a mexican at one of our favourite restaurants, so I am not usually home to receive them, so I do let him off, and he does buy me flowers when the urge grabs him to do so! Anyway here I am with my pretty flowers

then about half an hour if that the door bell rings again, and this time it is the postman, he has a couple of birthday cards which have gone on my ever increasing pile which have been coming in for a couple of weeks now, I can't believe how lucky I am; and a big padded envelope, I knew it was from Quick Cards Made Easy because of the sticker on the front, but what could it be? It was my thank you gift for being part of the reader featurethere are 28 12x12 sheets of scrapbook papers and 7 sheets of stickers which are nice and sturdy all from the Karen Foster range. Wow I thought I had already received my gift for this last week! Below is what I received obviously for being on the letters page with one of my cards loads of Anita's peel-off's, stickers and 3d stickers!! How exciting! Now I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get around to using all of these things, so will let my girls have a play with some of them, but I will be adding some bits to my blog candy hurry this finishes midnight tomorrow!

Hark the Herald Angels Sing!

I'm back and I've made a card, and I enjoyed it as the image was an absolute joy to colour! This is my entry into a magazine competition, I won't tell you which one incase my card doesn't come anywhere if it does and I'm one of the lucky winners I'll tell you then Lol.! (some of you that get the mag will already know).
This is also my entry for this weeks Friday Sketchers challenge. The angel charms are ones I've made after seeing the wonderful ones that Marlene had made on her blog. I had all of the components in my jewelery stash so thought I would have a go, they are the perfect addition to the card seeing that the sheet music is 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' and the Whiff of Joy image singing christmas carols of course was a must! a close up of the angels

I must admit I love this card, it's sitting on top of my printer and I keep looking at it Lol.! It's going to be a shame to post it off for the competition, but it has to be done, and as a forum friend used to say "you have to be in it to win it" and the prize is £100 worth of goodies and we all love goodies!

BLOG CANDY ALERTS

Nikki (Tink) is going to send 1 lucky follower of her blog a handmade box of surprise goodies, pop over and see here and if you are not a follower become one then you can join the list!

Rach is offering one lucky person a gorgeous Whiff of Joy stamp donated by Katharina along with some extra lovelies here

and don't forget mine, you still have until the end of Friday to join in, see here

A Spoon Full of Sugar -challenge 22

For this weeks challenge over at A Spoon Full of Sugar we would like you to make a 'Halloween' card or anything else that you would like to make for that matter.
For my card I've used a Tilda image, the paper is a download and the embellisments are 3d stickers that I've had since last year from Pounland. Also pictured are a couple of treat bags/pouches which are made using freebie papers from a magazine and more of the Poundland stickers, inside are lollies (as pictured) and also some halloween sweets shaped like eyeballs, skulls etc!

The prize this week is a really cute High Hopes stamp called 'First Ride' and has been kindly donated by Bryony from Silly Monkey Crafts.

So what are you waiting for let's see your spooky goulish cards etc and please don't forget to check out the rest of the design teams cards which are fab.

Lacking enthusiasm

I just can't seem to get motivated into making any cards at the moment. My cousin as mentioned in an earlier post had her baby, and instead of making a new personalized card I sent one from my 'already made' box, I did add an insert with a verse and baby's name on it! My other cousin in America had her baby yesterday morning and as yet I've neither made nor found one to send from the 'box'! Today I've been blog hopping seeing what challenges I've not yet done and catching up with friends blogs trying to find the enthusiasm to make some cards, but nothing. I did make 1 card but yet to take a picture of it and don't really like it, I hope this doesn't last long and I'm sure it won't, I have so many gorgeous images here waiting wanting to be coloured, perhaps tomorrow?
I will however show a couple of cards that I made last week
The first one is using one of the christmas Sugar Nellie images and using Nikki (BunnyZoe's) sketch and this one I don't think I like, is just layers of christmas papers, mirri card and coloured card, I didn't want to use an image or topper (my mum thinks it needs a bigger snowman in the centre?) I added the gems to the snowmens hats, the bow and sentiment as I thought it was missing something.

Yesterday whilst the girls amused themselves, Matthew and I moved bedrooms, what a task!! How can we accumilate so much? Easy I don't like throwing things away, that includes clothes that I know I'll never get into again how ever successful'a diet I go on! It seemed like we were staying somewhere else last night, but how ever hard we try it won't stay like it for long we're just not like that, sadly!

My Candy can be found here

No colouring required!

Today I have lacked the enthusiasm needed to make any cards, could it be something to do with a stressful morning with Lillie I wonder? She was awake at 3.45 this morning shouting that she wanted her drink bottle filled up, which woke Hollie who got up and went to the loo but went straight back to sleep afterwards, but Lillie no she has to be a pest calling out for the next hour! Then when it was time to get ready for school she couldn't find both shoes (as she never puts things away) so I made her wear her old ones so she made a fuss all the way to school and went in crying, me horrible mum just waved her off! Told her she would have to put her plimsoles on that were in her p.e. bag, but noticed she came home in the shoes!!!

Anyhow here are a couple of simple cards I made a while ago for forum friends, using the ready coloured images downloadable from SallyAnn . I just matched up the colours of the girls with papers that I had and added a bit of sticky ribbon and a bubble sticker heh presto! Can you believe this? You may remember the 'baby's first christmas' card I made for a challenge a few posts back, I mentioned my cousin was due to have her baby any day, hopefully it would be a boy!!! Well she only went and had a GIRL this morning at 6am how unthoughtful Lol.!! Nah I am so pleased for them that's one of each now and in the order I would've loved to have had my children (had I have been so lucky to have 1 of each!) mind you I think 2 the same sex is cheaper, as they can share so many things, clothes being one of them! Can't wait to see the photo's when my auntie who has been staying with them whilst her mum and dad have been in Australia, gets home at the weekend.


Found some more BLOG CANDY's

Paul is celebrating 15,000 hits to his blog with a fab candy for one lucky person, Paul's cards etc are fab, it's nice to see a man amongst so many of us females! Take a look here

Tracey is celebrating reaches and rapidly sailing past 100 hits to her blog, was 188 when I looked a minute ago! The candy is a surprise as she is not sure what it will be at the minute which I think makes it all the more exciting! See here

Mindy is having her first blog candy and the goodies are scrummy, you can see them here

Don't forget mine to which you can see below

A couple of autumnal cards

There are 2 challenges this week that are asking for autumnal cards, so out came a paper pack that I hardly ever use but were just right for todays cards.
First up is my entry for Whiff of Joy here I have used the 'drinking hot chocolate' image, oh how I love hot chocolate, especially the ones topped with whipped cream, marshmallows and a flake!!! I've actually used the sketch from last weeks challenge again, I like the way the 3 different dp's cross over behind the image.

and the following card is for Cute Card Thursdays, I have used my Sugar Nellie, Sweet Art Ebony 'going for a spin' image for this card, used paper from the same pack as for the card above, added a double ribbon with pretty pearlised button as the centre and finished it off with a bit of organza ribbon.

Don't forget my BLOG CANDY see here
Jill is also celebrating 10,000 hits to her blog with some delicious candy including a Forever Friends stamp, take a look here

Jenny is speeding towards her 10,000 blog hits, and has a lovely bundle of candy up for grabs, she will pick a winner once the counter hits the mark! You can check it out here

Time for some Candy!

At long last I am ready to have my first blog candy! It's kind of celebrating 3 things a belated blogoversary, sailing past 10,000 hits Wow I still can't believe that, thank you so much and my forthcoming birthday next week.
So I've made up a little parcel of goodies which include various different 8x8 sheets of dp, a roll of pink velvet ribbon, a pack of assorted buttons, some of my flower stash and a brand new Sugar Nellie 'Baby Millie' rubber stamp designed by Rachelle Ann Miller.
I will also include a handmade card and maybe some stamped images and other bits and pieces I come accross!

To join in all you have to do is add a link on your blog referring to my candy then come back and leave a comment on this post.

All the names will be put in a box and I will get my youngest daughter Hollie to pick the winner which will be announced sometime on Saturday 25th October (day after my birthday!)

Closing date and time for my candy is Friday 24th October midnight UK time.

Thank you and good luck!

A Spoon Full of Sugar -challenge 21

Challenge 21 is a lovely sketch designed by our team member Lim you can see it here. We have a new sponsor this week, Summer from Roses on paper and Magnolia's too has generously donated a fabulous prize which includes a magnolia stamp! Go take a look in the shop where you will also see the fabulous banner designed using a card that Lim sent them as a thank-you, it looks fab!
Here is the sketch we would like you to follow and my card using one of the disney princess images, put the 'sister' beside the image to fill the space, thinking one of my girls could give it to the other as their birthdays aren't so far away, then my mum tells me my cousins little girl loves disney princess's! Guess I'll be making another!!
Look forward to seeing some wonderful cards and will try to visit as many of you as I can. Please don't forget to check out the rest of the teams cards which are always gorgeous.

Quick cards

I've had a productive day so far which makes a change!
First up and just in time is this beary special atc for My Time to Craft whose challenge is Teddies, the image is a stamp from a craft planet set we originally bought for the girls!!! I've not made an atc for a long while, this will no doubt end up on top of a card somewhere in the future! the following card was very much inspired by one Nikki (Tink) made a while ago which I loved, simple layers of card and pretty papers. I've made this to send to my in-laws as a 'Thinking of you card, as on Thursday my FIL has to go to court for something quite ridiculous, which has been concocted by 2 quite simply put idiots. I just wanted them to know that we will be thinking off them.
and last for today (although I have made more) a card using one of the beautiful flowers I de-headed on Saturday, I tried to match the colours to the flower and when I made it thought maybe a 'symapthy' card although it could be a 'thank-you' or 'best wishes' anything really, and left the sentiment off so I could add it later. However at Jack's party yesterday Kay told me that our friend Leanne was bringing her girls to the party as she didn't want them to miss out, but her mum had passed away the day before so not to talk to her. How sad and very brave I know I couldn't have done it, I desperately wanted to go over and offer my condolences but didn't want to upset her, she did however come and sit near us and talked to me about it a little. Our girls adore each other and played and hugged all the time we were there which was lovely, if only the circumstances for Leanne had've been different. So this card is being sent to her and her family to also let them know we are thinking of them.
and to finish on a happier note, I made another appearance in 'Quick Cards Made Easy' this month (could've posted this ages ago, but forgot!) the article was about 'the last craft items we had bought' funnily enough a few days prior to the request I had been shopping at the Range and had taken a piccie of my stash! What an awful picture I sent in of myself, this was taken on the promenade at Mundsley when Matthew and I went for a stroll after our meal, when we stayed at his mum and dad's bank holiday weekend, it was sooooo..... dark, the camera flash was blinding!

BLOG CANDY
Edna's blog is going to be '1' on the 17th so is celebrating with a wonderful candy, one lucky person will win a £20 voucher to spend at Joanna Sheen's web shop, Wow! Check it out here and congrats Edna.