A Spoon Full of Sugar - Challenge 132

Good morning, it's cold and crunchy outside here today, I've had to dig my trainers out the last couple of days to wear doing the school runs as none of my many pairs of boots have any grip lol!!  Take care where you are!

We have a recipe challenge for you this week at A Spoon Full of Sugar and the ingredients needed are : 3 patterned papers + 3 flowers or buttons + 3 gems.

I didn't set out to use ALL of the ingredients but the card was lacking a little something so I ended up using the buttons as well as the flowers!  The image I have used is a freebie from Bodil, I think she's such a pretty little thing and it made a change from making christmas creations!!

We are sponsored by Digital Delights who have donated the following prize 

I would like to enter this card into the Friday Sketchers challenge as I have used their sketch.

Chairsma Cardz - One for the girls

Good morning, it's 'one for the girls' this week at Charisma Cardz, so just make something nice and girlie!

I have used a wonderful Digi Stamp Boutique image, this one is called 'party time Zoe & Flo'.  The gorgeous paper is some that my dear friend Becky sent me for my birthday, I nearly cried when I cut into it, oh and it was double sided to!  I have recycled an M&S chocolate cherry liquer wrapper which I knotted, my mum buys me a box of these every birthday and christmas, they are sooooo delicious!!   

For all prize details which are fab! and to see the gorgeous examples from the rest of the girls please nip on over to the blog for a look!

A Spoon Full of Sugar - Challenge 131

Good morning, we have a new A Spoon Full of Sugar challenge starting today and it's an easy one this week because 'Anything Goes'!

I would've liked to have made anything other than a card but time seems to be getting away from me quite rapidly at the moment, so sadly a card it is!

I have used an old stamp for this card, it makes a change from digi images which I seem to use 95% of the time now!

I am pretty sure this is a Sugar Nellie image called 'hug a mug' but forgive me if I am wrong (as not 100% sure could be WOJ!).

This was an experimental colouring session for me using shades of grey, I was a bit unsure when I was colouring but think it looks ok.

We have a great prize donated by DRS Designs of a $10 gift voucher to be spent in their store. 

I would like to enter my card into the Sugar Bowl challenge, fingers crossed my image is a SN!  The challenge is to use black+white+1 other colour, and to use the sketch which I have turned on it's side!

Snow People

Thought it was about time I shared a card, it's been a while!  This card is for the One Stop Craft challenge which is 'snow people', my snowman is a freebie image from Beccy's Place.  If you've not been to Beccy's blog, head over there right now, you won't be disappointed, there are wonderful free images which Beccy also gives examples of in use but there are wonderful tutorials to.

 

A Spoon Full of Sugar - Challenge 130

Good morning, we have a new challenge at A Spoon Full of Sugar and it is 'distressing' and it was lol!!!  This is a theme I tend to struggle with so went my normal taring route, I tore all papers around the edges and made a rosette style embellie.  The image is one of SJ's Little Musings freebies (who has a buy 1 get 1 free offer on in her digi shop at the moment).

Our sponsor is Black Leaf Studios and one winner will receive a beautiful christmas digi set, to see this nip over to the blog. 

I would like to enter this card for the Top Tip Tuesday challenge which is to use buttons (I've used 2!!).

A glittery christmas

Good morning, woke up to frost outside the girls thought it had been snowing lol!!

The challenge over at Pollycraft this week is 'a glittery christmas' and no sadly I'm not the Joanne that set it, oh how I would love to be on that DT though!!  Christmastime is perfect for lots of glitter, for my card I have used a Pollycraft freebie from a while back, papers and greeting from my Daisy & Dandelion 'a winters tale' pack, sparkly textured card from a Poundland scrapbook pack (excellent value!) and lots of glitter glue!!!!

I would like to enter this card into the Everybody Art challenge as I have used their fab sketch and also into the Secret Crafter challenge which is 'sparkle and shine'.

Pollycraft - doodling!

The challenge theme over at Pollycraft is 'doodling', something I don't do too much of I must admit, well not on my crafty projects, I have many little bits of paper with doodles all over them lol!!

I have used a freebie Pollycraft image from last year, still love it!  My 'doodling' are the lines around the image and each layer and also the greeting which I'm not too sure about! 

Charisma Cardz - Sympathy

Good morning, hope it's nicer out where you are than it is here, wet and windy is just what we don't want for the school run!!

We have a new challenge over at Charisma Cardz and we are looking for 'sympathy' cards this week.

This was certainly a challenge for me and I left it until the last minute as I wasn't sure what to do.  In the end I found a sympathy verse, which I copied, changed the font to something fancy, printed it out, cut around it with my x-cut border punch and made that my focal point.  The paper is from the Papermania capsule collection 'mono', the whole pad is scrummy and I'm so reluctant to cut into it as there is only 1 sheet of each!!!  I finished off my card with some small white flowers and some kandy kisses, and after all of my worrying I really do like the finished card!

We have 2 lovely sponsors this week :
Soft Pencil have donated a $15 gift voucher to spend on their site.
Pizzazz Aplenty have donated a fantastic 'bling' package (I so want this!!) to see the contents please nip over to the blog.

I would like to enter todays card into the 'anything goes' challenge over at Cute Card Thursday and also into the 4 Crafty Chicks challenge which is themed 'with sympathy'.


My eldest daughter has been chosen as 1 of 10 children to represent the school at the towns rememberence service today.  I'm so proud of my girls, I guess like some of the other parents I can't understand how my children get chosen out of so many, my youngest was 1 of 4 to represent the school a couple of months back, but it's a lovely feeling to know that they must be doing well.

Christmas robins

I think the robin has to be my absolute favourite bird, so cute with the gorgeousness of the red breast.  I was thrilled when I saw the freebie image from Just Inklined a while ago I just adored it, there is a different robin freebie available at the moment called 'rotton robin' he's quite fun!. 

Anyhow onto my card, I would like to enter this into the following 2 challenges

1) Secret Crafter - red and gold (I used green to, hope that's ok!)

2) Sketch Saturday - the sketch, flipped 180degrees!

The flowers are some that I picked up at the weekend from The Range, I think they were £1 a pack, wish I'd gotten some more!!
I think this has to be amongst/if not my favourite christmas cards that I've made so far!!

A Spoon Full of Sugar - Challenge 129

Good morning, time once more for a new challenge at A Spoon Full of Sugar, our theme this week is snow/snowflakes.

I came accross this oh so sweet image of Mickey, Minnie and Donald ages ago and this was the perfect opportunity to use it.  The snowflakes background is part of the image!  They look so happy that it's snowing!!  A simple layout is all that was needed, a couple of gems and a die-cut snowflake and yippee another christmas card made!  Just LOADS more to do!!!

For all prize details and to see the rest of the DT snowflake creations why not nip on over to the blog.

Chairsma Cardz - Love @ Christmas

Good morning, as you can tell from my post title today we are going all christmassy at Charisma Cardz, where we would like to see anything christmas related.  I really don't want to think about christmas, it's going to be here far too soon for my liking!!  We've got sooooo... much messing about with the girls and their upcoming ballet show that I don't know when decorating, shopping, wrapping etc etc is going to happen!!

We had the chance to use images from one of our sponsors (prairie fairy) and I fell in love with the one that I have used, isn't she adorable?! 

We have 2 wonderful sponsors this week :
Simon Says Stamp have donated a $20 gift voucher.     and
Prairie Fairy have donate a choice of 5 digi images (you could have the one that I have used on my card!!)

A Spoon Full of Sugar - Challenge 128

Good morning, we have a great new challenge for you today at A Spoon Full of Sugar and it is titled 'Relish to Embellish' - yes get out those ribbons, gems, buttons, pins etc if you're anything like me mine are rarely put away as they are used so often lol!!

For my card I used a layout that I used a few times last year for my christmas cards and I must say I still love it!  I think originally there was an image where the flower is, but on the day I couldn't muster the urge to colour an image and tried a flower and really liked it.  I'm definately thinking you'll be seeing a few more in this style over the next weeks, quick easy and easily changed by different papers and colour ways, just what I need for that mountain of christmas cards yet to make!!!!  The papers are from a DCWV pack called 'rose tinted christmas'.

 We are sponsored by Blackleaf Studios and Tanvi has very kindly donated the below digi set as this weeks prize for our lucky winner!

The girls as always have created beautiful examples so please be sure to drop by and take a look.

I would like to enter todays card into the One Stop Craft challenge which is 'anything goes', congratulations to the challenge blog on their 2nd anniversary!

A very packed few days in Blackpool! - picture overload!!

I spent the afternoon of my birthday packing to go to Blackpool, we left home at 9am last Monday and returned at 3am on Friday morning, after a very very full 4 days!!

Here is a view of the tower from the North Pier with the Central Pier in the background. 

          the girls sitting sitting on the North Pier with the tower behind them.

  that evening we queued for an hour, it was freezing, to have a tour of the illuminations.  This is the illuminated tram that we travelled on.

 Lillie took this photo of us with the lights in the background!

 the following day we went to the waxworks, where the girls tinkled the ivories with Sir Elton!!

                                               I held hands with Peter Andre!!!!!

 Can you see me?

 hubby got James Bond aka Daniel Craig by the short and curlies!

 LOADS more pictures of us with the likes of Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Simon Cowell, Harry Potter, David Beckham, Lewis Hamilton, but didn't think I'd bore you with them all!!!
The following day we had a bit of a mix up, hubby and I had cross words on the carpark lol!!!  I could've sworn my Tesco's vouchers (for the Tower) were in the bag in the car boot, hubby said they were in the bag in the travelodge, he was right, but why couldn't he of mentioned that before we left????  So instead of going to the Tower we went to the zoo!!
Where of course I couldn't resist a picture of our fave meerkats!!  I think this is a pretty good picture considering it was taken through glass!

 this dear little gorilla baby was born in May, so sweet!!

 So on Thursday with said Tesco's vouchers securely in my handbag (mind you they would've been in the car this time as we had packed anyway!) we headed to the Tower! 
Here is hubby dancing with Lillie on the ballroom balcony, with Hollie taking their picture!  He's not brave enough to step on to the actual ballroom floor!!  I asked him if we should take a crash course in ballroom so we could have a waltz etc whilst we were there but he declined!  We did do salsa a while back, but sadly the class ended early and didn't start up again.  I'm determined to learn a bit of ballroom at some point!

 The above picture was taken en route to the lift which took us up the tower, it doesn't take you all the way to the top the highest you go is to 412feet.  This was so funny when we last did it was 8 years ago 11months after going up the Eiffel Tower in Paris, this was like the toy version lol!!! 

 This is the view of the Central Pier, you can just spot the South Pier and rollercoaster of the Pleasure Beach in the far distance.

 The highlight of our break, well mine anyway, was going to see Kyran Bracken's Ice Party we absolutely love watching Dancing on Ice so was very much looking forward to watching the show.  We wouldn't have even gone if it hadn't been for the mess up with the afor mentioned Tesco vouchers, as we found the tourist information office to find out how much the zoo was going to cost and this is where we saw the show advertised!!!!
Here are the girls waiting for the show to begin.

 The girls had their photo taken with Daniel Whiston and Hayley Tamadon this years Dancing on Ice champions, whilst we were waiting to collect it, we spotted Karen Barber, she is a judge on Dancing on Ice but she actually skates in the show, she really is a lovely lady!

 here we are with Daniel Whiston.

here is hubby and the girls with Hayley Tamadon, who is tiny!

and here's me looking awful! with Steven Cousins.  I had spotted a dishy chap on the ice right from the start of the show and when they mentioned Steven Cousins had choreographed the show and was then coming on to skate a solo I was thrilled, I remember having to watch ice skating championships and the winter olympics just to watch him skate when I was a youngest and thinking he was gorgeous!!  Here he was right in front of us!!! 

We asked Karen if he was coming out and she said that she would send him out, telling him that there were people waiting for him.  We waited a while and still no one, so asked a chappy from behind the scenes again if he were coming out, he went to look came back and said that he couldn't find him anywhere!!  After explaining that we couldn't wait much longer as we had a 4 hour journey ahead of us, he looked again and a couple of minutes later Steven appeared!!  coincidence?  I'm guess he wasn't coming out but we made him feel guilty lol!!!!

 you'll be pleased to know that this is the last photo and this is how we all felt for most of the break!!!!! 

 We were up at 6.30am each morning for 7am breakfast as we were told to get there early as it got packed out later on, after saying we would have an early night which never happened, we were to say the least knackered by the time we made it home!!
We went back to work today for a break lol!!!!!