Pollycraft Christmas

Good morning, it's a bit chilly here this morning, my fingers are like ice, hope it's nicer where you are!
Here is my card for the current Pollycraft challenge which is called Five 'S's' (I think) you have a list of 5 things that you have to have 2 or more of on your creation, these are : snowflakes/spots/sparkle/stripes/swirls. If you manage to use all 5 you can choose a digi image for free, how fab is that, especially as I have done just that!!!!! WooHoo!!! I have glittered the swirls on the trousers, bobble and stitching on the hat, the picture doesn't show this very well unless you enlarge it :0(

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At A Spoon Full of Sugar we are going all christmassy! Yes this week we would like you to make something for christmas, this could be a card, a tag, a gift, anything.
I got out my trusty snowman stamp that I used and loved (and still love) from last year, gave him loads of sparkle, sadly the photo doesn't pick this up, teamed him up with papers from my Anita's classic black and white christmas pad, a few sticky gems and a couple of die-cut snowflakes.

We are sponsored by Belle's 'n' Whistles and Summer has kindly donated 2 super nice stamps for the winner, these are perfect for those halloween projects!
Please as always check out the blog for the rest of the girls examples, and I know I say it every week, but they are outstandingly gorgeous this week!!!

I am also going to enter this card into a few challenges, which are :

1)Lili of the Valley = sketch
2) One Stop Craft = Die-cuts
3) My Time to Craft = Snow Buddies

A couple of cards

Good morning, boy it was panic this morning, we were casualy getting ready for school when I remembered the photographer was going to be there and anyone wanting family group photos had to be there before 9am!! With a quick dash and wet wiped faces for Lillie and Hollie we made it and were about 6th in the queue, and the photo's are pretty good! They will have them taken individually but it's cheaper having them done together lol!! and I don't know if I'm the only one, but they don't get put up anyway!

So onto my first card, this covers 2 challenges,
1) Cute Card Thursday - Buzz Off (yellow and black)
2) Cupcake Crafts - Cute as a Bug.
I am not fully happy with this card, I feel there is something missing maybe some pearls to the right of the image on the black backing, or something in the left top corner, but it's ok until I decide!and this card is using the first outing of my Pollycraft 'winter elves' stamp and I have used the Friday Sketchers sketch for the layout. Well it's off to work for me in a little while, chicken bites, wedges, peas and choc pud with choc sauce is on the menu today!!

Just Magnolia and Secret Crafter combi and a bump!

There is a lovely sketch over at Just Magnolia which I have used for this card. The image is one I received in a swap with my friend Lisa, and as Tilda has love written on her top I went with this as my theme! I've used papers from my Papermania 'love' pad and lace which I got from a shop when we were in Clacton, the sentiment is from my stash.I am also entering this for the Secret Crafter challenge 'one for the girls' and what girl doesn't like a bit of love?

Hollie had her first full day at school on Monday and it was my first chance to pick her up, with me working mum had had to pick her up for me the first couple of weeks as they finished early. Thankfully she came out smiling and had gotten on ok, and she has been all week!

Yesterday I had a phone call letting me know that Lillie and Hollie had had a bump in the playground at lunchtime, and Lillie's face was a bit of a mess, so not to be shocked when I picked her up.

This is what she looks like :-

It looks worse in the flesh! Hollie let slip that Lillie was giving her a piggy back and she tripped with Hollie landing on top of her resulting in a bump of the head for her. Both had ice/cool packs applied, but poor old Lillie I think she missed half of her afternoon lessons but had re-joined them towards the end of the day. She slept fine, and this morning the bump on her head is hardly noticable, her eye is scabbing over and her eye lid was all puffy, but she went off to school ok. Maybe now she'll actually realize we were right when we kept telling her she isn't big or strong enough to carry or piggy back her sister, she's nearly the same size as her!

Charisma Cardz

This weeks Charisma Cardz challenge is 'Getting Sporty'.
I had no idea what I was going to make, I have 1 sporty image that I received in a swap and didn't know what I was going to do with it. Then when I was in Wilkinson's on Saturday I spotted they are selling Create and Craft products, hooray, there in front of me was a die cut topper pack theme or motorcycle racing. I am gobsmacked at just how perfectly this paper matches the image, I tried various embellishments but nothing looked right and I quite like this simple look. With 2 motorbikers in the family and a dad that loves to watch it, this card won't be in my box for too long!!!

I remember way back when, when I was a little girl going all over the place, Brands Hatch, Silverstone, Donnington etc to watch the motorbike racing with mum and dad, we used to love it. My all time favourite was Barry Sheene and have many a photo of him, another was Ron Haslam who's son now races! Oh the good old days!!

Anyway, our prize this week is a DT spot for one week and a collection of Wimsie Doodles digi images (value £10) which have been kindly donated by our very own Carly. The girls have made some fabby examples, please take a look and lets get sporty!

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Good morning, at A Spoon Full of Sugar we have a fabby sketch for you which has been designed by Nikki. Now at first I saw all of the different elements/layers and thought aarrghhh.... but once I got my papers out and started arranging them onto my card I began to like it more and more. I've gone autumnal with my colours again, I've used old and new papers from my stash, flowers are ones I purchased from Dunelms ages ago and dismantled the rest is also from my stash. I've used the sister sentiment as my girls both have birthdays in the not so distant future so one can send it to the other lol!!!!Our sponsor this week is Silly Monkey Crafts and Bryony has kindly donated a CC Designs Autumn Trevor stamp for the lucky winner.
Please check him out on the blog, and drop by to let the girls know how fabulous their cards are to!

I am also entering my card for the My Time To Craft challenge which is called 'autumn fest'!

Charisma Cardz -flower power

As the title says we are going 'flower power' crazy over at Charisma Cardz. We would like to see flowers as the main feature of you work, you can make anything and add anything you like!
I've gone for one of my fave makes, yes a bag-a-lope, I just love this black,white and pink colour combo the pink really stands out!

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Our challenge this week at A Spoon Full of Sugar is 'fall/autumn'.
Lucky for me I received a Papermania inspirations-earth tones pad in my paper parcel from Craft Superstore, this is full of scrummy autumnal coloured papers. I have used one as a background and another I have cut around the leaves which I think gives the feel of leave that have just fallen. Again I've used my Sarah Kay stamp which you may have guessed is a firm favourite of mine, it just colours so lovely.

We are proud to be sponsored by The Pixie Cottage and Michelle has donated 2 super sweet stamps for our lucky winner. Please pop over to the blog to take a look, and of course to see the gorgeous work from the rest of the girls.

I would like to enter my card into the Lili of the Valley colour challenge which is green/brown/orange.

Harvest at Jimmy's, James Martin and some cards!

Yesterday hubby and I went to Harvest at Jimmy's, for those of you who don't know of Jimmy Doherty and his rare breeds pig farm you can see all the info here http://www.jimmysfarm.com/ . My main reason for wanting to go was because my favourite chef James Martin http://www.jamesmartinchef.co.uk/pcc.asp?xpath=&xpathid=&lang=eng . We arrived about an hour early so weren't too far back in the queue. Gates opened at 11am and we headed straight to where the food demonstrations were, got our timetable of events and went from there. So a hog roast roll later and we were at the Farmhouse kitchen tent sat on a bale of straw, with 3/4 hour to wait for the first demo!! After seeing how small the area was it was a done decision that this was our spot for the day! I felt sorry for hubby having to sit there but he went for a burger and a walk just for a break, as for me I sat on that bale of straw for 6 hours solid, my poor bum!!!!

Jimmy (left) kicked things off by introducing Paul Kelly (right) a bronze turkey breeder, he's in the guinness book of records twice, as the fastest turkey plucker and the fastest turkey carver!!!

after the demo of how to cook, carve and make a leftovers recipe, Jimmy asked if anyone would like a turkey! I got chosen along with 3 others to go up on stage! Then we were told that Paul did great turkey impressions, OMG that's what we had to do, and frisky turkeys too, both male and female!!!! Talk about embarrassing, lets just say Jimmy asked if I was married and told hubby he was a lucky fella! Then the audience got to cheer for the best, and I must admit I got the biggest cheer by far!!! So that's the turkey sorted for christmas all we need to get are the veggies etc nice one, thanks guys!! We also each received a signed book from Jimmy and Paul.
another demo we had was from Galton Blackiston who is a chef from our neck of the woods, I've seen him on the tele and not really liked him, but he wasn't too bad. another demo was from James Wong (Grow your own Drugs) he made a bath bomb and a cream for excma (sp?) I felt a bit sorry for him as they seemed a bit disorganized when it came to him, but he admitted that he is used to filming in front of 1 camera and 1 sound man and not a big crowd bless him.
During the sitting and waiting around (on my bale) we spotted the arrival of James M so I nicked off round the side of the stage along with a couple of others and called him over to sign my books, bless him in total he signed my 2 books, my lanyard, my Cadogan & James bag (which I got from his deli in June) and his new book which I purchased after his 2nd performance. I think he looked the best I have seen him, mmmm....... yummy...!!!we had dems from a local Master Chef runner up and a chef who runs one of Jamie Oliver's 'Fifteen' restaurants.
Gennaro Contaldo was hilarious, he came on with sunglasses on and started to do a strip, all the time there was banter from him and James, it was sooo... funny!

James with his famous spun sugar! a piccie of me and my fantasy husband lol!

and last one, phwooaarrr......!!!!!!

Right now onto some cards which I've not had time to put on here.

This one is too late for the Papertake Weekly challenge but thought I'd show it anyway

This one is for the Sugar Bowl challenge, a lovely sketch and the colours pink & brown Next is my card for the Sketch Saturday challengeand last but not least is my card for Kellie's sketch challenge

JOANNE X

Charisma Cardz -patchwork

Good morning, our challenge at Charisma Cardz this week is 'patchwork'.
Did I have fun doing this? To make my patchwork background I cut 16 individual squares from 4 different papers, then instead of sticking them on one by one which would have been so tedious I attempted to make a panel by attaching a strip of 4 squares accross the top with double sided tape. I did that with all 4 strips (needn't have done the middle as it's covered!) I then stuck the four strips together along the ends if that makes sense!? Finally stuck it to the front of my card blank. The image is a Sarah Kay which I coloured a few days ago and I simply finished off with a few flowers with bead centres and a 'with love' greeting which I stamped in gold.We are sponsored by Squiggle Stamps who have donated a fab halloween themed prize for the winner.

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Apologies for this being late, tried to catch up before I went to work but my pc decided to freeze so had to give it up as a bad job! Work is going well, the ladies I work with are really nice which makes things a whole lot easier! and Lillie and Hollie went to school as good as gold and both enjoyed their first days back, phew such a relief!!

Right onto this weeks A Spoon Full of Sugar challenge and we have a fabulous sketch which has been designed by Michelle.and here is my card (sorry for the awful piccie, just couldn't get the light right). I've used an image that Linda kindly gave me, new papers from my Papermania easter pad and a shaker sticker and buttons from my stash.We are sponsored by Bunny Zoe Crafts and Nikki has donated a Basic Grey 6x6 eskimo kisses paper pad and 6 christmas charms for the winner, go take a look on the blog to see how lovely they are and to see the gorgeous DT cards.

First Day!

My baby girl is all grown up! Today is Hollie's first day at BIG school bless her she's really been looking forward to it. She was a good girl getting ready as was Lillie, but when I asked if I could do her hair she wouldn't let me as she had done it, I only wanted to tidy it up a little! In the end we did it and had time for a few piccie's in the garden, just as we had on Lillie's first day.
Here's my baby in her school uniform

a sweet little close up! and a piccie with her sister! (they are not always this loving towards each other!!!)They both went off with no trouble at all which is such a relief. Hollie only does until lunchtime this week and next week they introduce lunch and lunchtime play and then get picked up, then from the next week it's all day!

I wish I were picking her up to see how she got on, but mum is doing it and I will just have to wait until I pick her up, as today is a FIRST DAY FOR ME TO!! Yes I am going back to work for the first time in over 6 1/2 years oooooo...... I don't know whether to be excited or worried lol!! I'm working in a different schools canteen as a catering assistant, setting up, serving up and washing up! Perfect job with the school holidays etc just means I now only get holidays when the girls do and my crafting time has been cut down by over 11 hours per week OMG what am I going to do???................................. (think of the money!!!).

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Quick post from me this morning, I'm dashing off to take Hollie to a birthday party!
Our challenge this week at Chairsma Cardz is called 'swirls and curls'. I have used a Bella image and papers from another new Papermania pad this time the easter themes pad! The swirls are the backing paper and wire, the curls are the girly on the lefts hair!!!To see the rest of the DT creations and info on our sponsor and prize please check out the blog.

I would like to use my todays card as my entry for the Truly Scrumptious challenge which is a sketch and the theme of 'indian summer', I think my card has a nice summery feel.

Have a great day.

A few more cards

My first card and my fave of todays post is for the Just Christmas and Birthday challenge, for which we have a really lovely sketch to follow. The papers I have used are from my new Papermania spring life pad (part of a paper bundle from Craft Superstore very good value it is to!)Next is my card which covers 3 challenges.
1) Dutch Dare = the sketch.
2) Pollycraft = furry friends.
3) My Time to Craft = on the farm.
Again new papers from the above mentioned paper bundle, this time the PM secret garden pad! Image is one I received a long while ago from Becky I think!
and finally my card for the Sketch and Stash challenge, which is a fab sketch which I haven't done justice, I really don't like this card it just doesn't look right, but when I made it yesterday I wasn't in the mood for colouring images so went for my 3d Poundland stickers which have been sitting neglected in my cupboard since last year, maybe even the year before!!

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This week at A Spoon Full of Sugar we are asking for you to get 'Distressing'. Now this is a word that when I see it on challenges I tend to worry about, as you can see the only distressing I've done is a fair bit of tearing around the edges of my papers, which are all from my Papermania sweet nothings pad! Our prize this week is a $10.00 gift certificate kindly donated by Wendy, to spend at her Digital Delights online store.
Please pop on over to the blog to see a lot better examples of 'distressing'!!!

My card also covers a few more challenges, (I'm going to have to start doing lots of combining now I'll be a working woman as from next week!) challenges as follows :
1) Just Magnolia = ribbons and bows.
2) Friday Sketchers = the sketch I followed.
3) Secret Crafter = flights of fancy (wings).