Loyal friend

Today's card covers the following 5 challenges :
1) Cute Card Thursday - Texting crazy.
2) Meljen - sketch.
3) Daring Card Makers - It's a girl thing (friend/sister).
4) One Stop Craft - patterns.
5) Dutch Dare - anything goes.

I have made an easel card but instead of square I have gone for A5 size, the image is one from pollycraft, I thought the doggie with the froggie on his head was perfect for a friendship cards! The sentiment is a freebie from Raindropecho and reads : LOYAL : unwavering in devotion to a friend or vow or cause, a firm ally, steadfast.

A date with royalty!!

As mentioned in my previous post yesterday we went to the Sandringham Flower Festival. Hubby won family tickets last week on the local radio, so we thought hell why not let's have a day out, the last time I went was about 9 years ago when my nephew was a baby, he's now 10!
Here is Hollie modelling her wings and new sunglasses!! Lillie and Hollie plus wings!

sitting patiently waiting for Prince Charles and Camilla, on the chairs we had bought them from a charity stall earlier! Notice there are not too many people standing around, that soon changed and became packed!

So here's Charlie boy, think he is shaking hubby's hand and asking him 'if he's looking after all of the ladies' that were standing around him! He shook my hand and saw our 'box on wheels' and said "I see you've got lots of goodies already, you've come very well prepared!".

and Camilla (oh I despise this woman, Diana was my idol!)

and they were followed by Dame Judy Dench.

Sandringham House, we sat on the lawn in front of the house and ate our picnic.

The girls on the entrance steps to the church where the photo's are always taken at christmas!

Hollie proudly showing off the candle that she rolled from bees wax!

All in all a good day out. We took the girls to the cinema to see Toy Story 3 after we left the show, have to take advantage of the orange 2for1 Wednesdays offer don't you!?! Enjoyed the film, it was quite sad towards the end. We ended our day out with a KFC then did our shopping in Tesco's and got home completely shattered 13hrs after we started out!

Chairsma Cardz - something with a tail!

I spent yesterday rubbing shoulders with the Royals at Sandringham!! Well not exactly shoulders, but did shake Charlie boys hand! I can't stand the bloke for what he did to Diana, she was my all time, only fave royal and now she is no longer with us, but it was nice for the girls to see perhaps the future king and the man they had seen in the paper that they got in a goodie bag! Anyway enough of that, will post a couple of piccies of our day out later!

Onto today and we have a new Charisma Cardz challenge, this week we are asking for creations showing 'something with a tail'. We were able to use an image from our sponsor (DSB) and I chose Milly singing carols, as soon as I saw this image I knew I wanted to use it, plus it's one more christmas card made! Papers are from my stash and the ribbon, pom pom, gems and flowers are from a pack I bought months ago, I thought the flowers looked quite effective as snow, they have a nice pearlesent look to them to.Our first sponsor is :

Sally Ann is offering a choice of 10 fabulous digi images as her prize.

Our second sponsor is :

Nikki has very generously donated the 2 stamps shown on the right of the banner as her prize. Nikki also has a HUGE SALE going on, so why not take a look you may bag yourself some bargains!!

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges :

1) Create 4 Fun = use flowers on your project/creation.
2) Dutch Dare = Anything Goes.

I've used more Pollycraft images!!

The challenge theme over at Pollycraft is 'love and marriage' and Paula designed a super cute image to download and used if so desired, of course I couldn't resist!! For my card I have watercoloured the image and used papers from my Papermania -scrumptious pad, an eyelet, ribbon and a heart gem all from my stash. I've used the sketch from Simon Says Stamp which I hope to get entered before the challenge closes!! I would also like to enter this card into the 'fairytales' challenge over at Secret Crafter afterall who doesn't think a wedding is a fairytale?!and my second card has been made following the sketch from Papertake Weekly and the image that I chose as my freebie from Paula (Tales from Pollycraft)

No time for crafting tomorrow, got a busy day ahead, so will see if I can get a couple more cards made this afternoon!! Back on Thursday morning with a new Charisma Cardz challenge.

High Lodge fun

We took the girls to High Lodge on Sunday afternoon, it is a free park about 30-40mins from ours, there are I think it said 40 piecies of play equipment and cycle paths and walks all in the forrest.
Here are the girls on one of the climbing thingies!

and a pair of monkees (legs everywhere lol!!)Hollie enjoying a rest on a tyre whilst waiting for the other two to catch up!

posing with their dad lol!!! This wood carved ape is at the entrance to 'Go Ape' which is for bigger people, you have to pay to play in this part!!

Whilst we were eating our picnic a lady set up some music and encourage people to have a go at hoola hooping, of course the girls had to give it a go!

Here's Hollie it a 'ta da' kind of pose! not quite sure what she was doing but like the piccie anyway!

Lillie in full swing!

and all 3 girls in action!

We said we would go again, and may even be tempted to take the bikes, although I can't actually remember the last time I rode an actual bike other than an excercize one, and that was months ago!!

Pollycraft and Sketch & Stash cards

For my first card I have used the freebie image that Paula (Tales from Pollycraft) emailed as a reward for flashing some of her freebies the other week. This time Paula asked us to use the freebie image and to also 'think green' in return we can choose any 1 digi image from the website, isn't that fab!? I have used the sketch from Friday Sketchers, I just flipped it over!

These next 3 cards are made using the sketch from Sketch and Stash and are some of the cards that I made for the girls teachers. I got away lightly with gift giving this year and only gave 2 to Lillie's teachers as they were both leaving, Hollie will be having the same teacher and t.a. when she goes back, so I didn't think pressies were necessary!!

I have used a past Pollycraft freebie image on this and the next card.

and this one I once again can't remember the name of the lady I purchased the image from!! I paperpieced her dress to match the backing, the girls wear blue and white checked dresses for school and I think she looks like Hollie, who is always writing on pieces of paper and in notebooks!

Fun @ Drayton Manor & Cadburys World

We have just recently visited Drayton Manor near Birmingham, the girls had a fab time, and at one point said they liked it more than Lego Land, but hubby and myself had to disagree! It's no where near the size of LL and there weren't the other attractions i.e. shows etc.
Here are the girls in the gateway to Thomas Land which is right at the beginning of the park. This has the smaller rides for younger children, although the roller coaster was pretty fast lol!!! Oh and you may think it looks quiet! This was at the end of the day when the park was emptying!! We timed it wrong and there were coach load after coach load of school children, scouts etcLillie and Hollie meeting the Fat Controller (or whatever he is called now!), later on he did a little song and dance show at the 'station' which we were by chance lucky enough to catch.

and here's Thomas!! We queued up for a train ride but didn't get on Thomas we had a ride on the pink girly one (no idea what she's called!).

Here's daddy and his girls flying around at Jeremy's flying acadamy!

Myself and Hollie managed to get locked up!!

Bet you would never guess that Lillie had just had a raspberry slushy!?!

We stayed in a travelodge and to our surprise the following morning people were absailing down the side of the building, which was 10 floors high!

We finished off our trip with a visit to Cadbury World which was only 20 mins away from where we were staying, it seemed silly to be so close and not go, well that was my excuse anyway!!

Here are the girls posing during part of the tour, this part was the advertising area, recreating some of the past adverts.

Here are the girls tempuring (think that's what it was called) the melted chocolate, they had a splatula and kept turing over and stirring the chocolate to cool it, making it shiny and easier to use, obviously this wasn't going to be eaten!!you could write your name in chocolate, so we did!!

Here are the girls in front of a display where the dog is watching choccie adverts!

We were each given a packet of buttons and a curly wurly when we first started the tour, and later we each got a bar of dairy milk, yumm!!!! We very conveniently ended up in the shop, mind you it wasn't an awful lot cheaper, and we really didn't need chocolate anyway (still have easter eggs!!!).

We had a really nice time, the weather was hit and miss, short sharp showers and then really warm. The only thing that put a bit of a dampener on things was Hollie having a water infection, having to go to the toilet every 15 or so minutes, which was a pain when in a queue for a ride. We asked if there was anything they could give her at a pharmacy but everything they had was for adults. They said the hospital was just up the road, and although they don't have an A&E they did have a couple of locom dr's I could take her to see. Which after thought and consideration we did, we must've been in there over an hour as Matthew and Lillie stayed in the car and almost watched a whole dvd!! We saw the nurse, who then wanted to us to talk to the dr. he gave Hollie a prescription for some medicine which now seems to have worked. Our dr just has to chase up the water sample results as they were being sent away. They said that if it were ear/throat infection they wouldn't bother going further but with a water problem in a small child it could be something else. So best to get it checked out. She says she feels better, and hasn't mentioned having a problem at school, but I've not been there to see how many times she goes to the toilet.

Chairsma Cardz - Anything but square

Good morning, wow I can't believe that I haven't blogged for a week, how slack!! We've been very busy, we had a couple of days at Drayton Manor and then a visit to Cadburys World, I will add piccies soon!!
Right onto this weeks Charisma Cardz challenge and we are asking you to make 'anything but square' projects. I know from my own experience and blog visiting that we all love to make square cards, but it's nice to make something different once in a while.
I thoroughly enjoyed making my card for this challenge, we were very kindly sent images from our sponsor (Whimsy Stamps, Meljen designs) to play with, and I was determined to use all 3 of them. This is my first attempt at a 'stair steps card' and I think it's worked out pretty well!! I printed out the castle bigger than the other 2 images so it could set the backdrop, added a strip of dp and the carriage onto the next step and on the front I added a flowered strip of dp along with the fairy princess mouse and greeting, oh and of course I had to add some sparkles!!! The prize this week has been donated by Whimsy Stamps and is a fabby $15 gift certificate to spend in store!
Please check out the dt cards as they are all totally gorgeous as always!

Have to dash, starting work early today, as we have cleaning and stock taking to do. Can't believe my girls finish another school year tomorrow, where has the time gone? I don't finish until tomorrow!!

Pollycraft -Flash those freebies

Paula has a fab way of giving away a Pollycraft freebie, she wants us to 'flash our freebies' that we have downloaded from her blog, I just Love them all and have several sat in my file which I use regularly.
I thought I would try using several images, for my project I have made both of my girls a colouring book, which is solely Pollycraft images, 15 pages in total (I have several more images but will save them for the next book!!). I also left the image on the front uncoloured so this can be coloured in to!
This is the front of Hollie's bookand a couple of the image pages (the books are A5)
The girls had friends round to play yesterday after school, I printed them a picture off to colour, Hollie chose this one and when she had coloured it in asked if it could be put in her book bless her!
and here is the front of Lillie's book

That's it from me for a few days, enjoy your weekend, lets hope the sun decides to shine again!