Penny Valentine...

Made this card for my boss to give to his better half, Jayne, for Valentines Day. He wanted two black kittens on the front and that was the only spec he gave me, so what else could I possibly use other than my old faithful Penny Black stamps? I just love them so.

Stamped the background with black onto white basecard with my two most favourite clear hearts stamps (are you sick of looking at these yet?) and then stamped the cats onto watercolour card, coloured with watercolours and then added a cut out heart and a ribbon with 'buckle' and some adhesive pearl gems. I then added a typed sentiment from the dictionary about 'love'. Another order done... hope he likes it???

I am going to enter this one into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge too... as it is 'SOMETHING SWEET!

P.S. He loved it!!! And can't wait to give her the card in just over two weeks. He's all loved up, bless him!!!

Valentine POP-UP

This is the Valentine card I have created for this week's challenge over at the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge blog. The idea this week was to make a one-off, original pop-up card made especially for the challenge. So... the image as shown above is my card front. The red hearts that are stuck on the front are all different levels, i.e. stuck on with DSSS, foam pads and double thickness foam pads so that they are all staggered at different levels. The background I stamped myself with two different heart stamps. The sentiment was copied and typed up from a dictionary and the ribbon was attached to finish off the card.

And this is the inside of the card... A simple pop up made with red thick paper to which my messages have been added and hearts have been stamped along the outside edges.

Hope you like my card and wish me luck in the challenge... you've still time to have a go yourself. Go for it and good luck, if you enter. If you don't want to take part, it's worth paying the blog a visit as they have some truly inspirational and fantastic cards! You can click on my link of other places I like to visit and it will take you straight there, but if you liked my cards, please visit again soon. Thanks

Crazy for Challenges

I have just been visiting the Crazy 4 Challenges blog and they have a 'pretty in pink' challenge so I would like to enter this one into the challenge (as I love it so much).

Kitty Kat Love

Lianne is off to a friends birthday party tonight and asked me to make her a card so I used my whipper snapper cat stamp which I water coloured. I mounted the whole thing onto lilac base card and mounted the image and numbers onto black card. I then cut a strip of lilac to match the base card and used my doily punch to cut along one edge, and then added a polka dot ribbon. The numbers came from Tesco. The base card was stamped with my large heart stamp and a lilac ink.

Flowers for You

Made this for my friend Sharon, who celebrated her birthday yesterday. I dug out some of my old favourite penny black stamps that were put away a while ago to make room for my new stamps, every so often I have a swap around so that it feels like I'm using new stamps again. I do like this one and can't remember the last time I used it. I stamped the background with a large heart in lilac to match the base card and mounted everything onto black mirri card and added a patterned ribbon (although it made me cry to cut it up) to finish.

I have entered this card into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge too, wish me luck?

Birthday Girl

This is pre-printed base card and the pop-out die cuts came with it so it was a bit of a no-brainer. I just added the giant petaloo flower, the sentiment and the little flowers to the side. Job done!

I Love You

Again, another view of the forever friends heart stamp. This time I stamped it onto water colour paper and coloured it with promarkers. I then stamped three hearts and pushed a brad through each of them. I then mounted them to the image with foam pads and added the image to the base card. I then stuck down the glittered letters to read 'I love you' and added a 'love' brad to the 'o'. Hope you like it.

Be Mine

Getting in the mood for Valentine's Day, I decided to make this card with my favourite forever friends stamp. The back ground has been stamped with heart and 'be mine' stamps in black and the image, once coloured with my promarkers, was mounted onto magenta mirri card. The larger hearts were stamped onto the same magenta mirri card with stayzon and cut out. I then added the ribbon, which was recycled from one of my jumpers. Matches perfectly. Hope you're all getting ready and excited about Valentines Day as I am and hope you all get loads of goodies.

Good Luck Claire

My friend Claire, is going into hospital on the 27th January for an operation. Her daughter came round this morning and we had a little crafting session. She's only a little bit older than Lewis, but she loves getting crafty with card making and altogether, she made four cards.

I made this one for Claire. It's dead simple but I think the background paper works really well the base card stock colour and the ribbon. The good luck stamp was a gift from Sarn's sister, Sharon and it works really well with the scalloped circles, because of the edging around the sentiment.

Congratulations!

I'm an Aunty Fae again!!! Michelle and Craig gave birth to their first child last night, a little boy named Karl, 7lbs, 14ozs. Congratulations Michelle and Karl and congratulations to Steve's sister Susan for becoming a Grandmother for the first time.

I've had this image in my pile for ages and finally decided to do something with it last night, to make this card for the new family. White base card with blue swirls designer paper mounted onto black and then mounted the image itself onto black as well. Added a ribbon, some glitter and a few sentiments to finish.

BRRRilliant

Look at this AMAZING photograph of frozen Britain. Personally, I think it's BRRRilliant!!!! Let's hope that the warmer weather starts coming our way soon so that we can thaw out...

Monochrome Bear

This lovely little card was made with my new Forever Friends stamp that I bought from the Glitter Pot (www.theglitterpot.com) and some monochrome background paper from Tina Fallon (www.tinaandco.com). The large black flower was purchased recently from ebay and they are made by Petaloo. I have added a sentiment and white dots using a white gel pen to the petals. Added the ribbon and mounted the image onto black card stock. Drew some faux stitching and the edges and SIMPLES. Hope you like it?

Snow Days

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Water Your Soul

I made this card for the box using my Lavinia stamps and 'pesto' Adirondack ink. The base card was embossed with my BigShot and Sizzix embossing plates. I then mounted both the image and the sentiment onto back cardstock and added some glitter and the ribbon.

A simple one to keep in the box.

Cupcake Explosion

I absolutely LURVE this card. Definitely my most favourite one that I have made so far this year. I love the bold colours. I drew the cupcake freehand and then mounted it onto black card and cut round leaving a small, thin border. I then added foam pads to the back and mounted it onto pink square scalloped cardstock and then again onto black. I stamped the base card with a candle stamp from a birthday set I have and then stamped the sentiment. When I mounted the cupcake onto black card I then coloured it with cinnamon, blossom and pastel blue promarkers and then added the Glossy Accents to the cake part of the image and then added little sprinkles while the gloss was still wet. Yummy!

Faerie Dreams

I recently purchased this fairy stamp from a seller on ebay so I don't know who makes it but I really liked it (and it was cheap). I stamped the image with Lightning Black 'Brilliance' ink and then cut the image out with my circle spellbinder. I then stamped around the edge with the same ink, using my Lavinia leaves stamp that came with my tree. The basecard was stamped with flowers from a set that I believe was Hero Arts. The flowers and ribbons were then added to co-ordinate the colours. In case you were wondering, the blue flowers co-ordinate with the blue dots on the brown ribbon, although the blue doesn't really show up true on the picture.

Gorgeoussssss

Oh my god, I love this card (even if I do say so myself). Again, I used the main stamped image from a stamp set that was offered as a freebie in Card Making and Papercraft magazine. The background paper was also a freebie. I mounted the image onto white scalloped circle card and then layed it onto pink scalloped circle card. I then added the flowers in co-ordinating colours (the blue flower on brown cardstock in the middle of the flowers was actually a mounted BAUBLE that was on a christmas card that I removed and recycled as it was perfect on this card). Puppy was coloured with cinnamon, ice grey 1, pastel blue and blossom promarkers. The sentiment is something that I copy and typed from the dictionary.

Kitty Kandy

This card was made using some freebie stamps from Card Making and Papercraft magazine. The base card was stamped with the little teddy bear and another stamp that I had lying around from a flower collection (I then added glitter to the flowers).

The main image was coloured with Ice Grey 1, Forest Green, Bright Yellow and Blossom promarkers and doily punched. I then punched out a scalloped circle and coloured it with the same ink used for stamping the background and then stamped the sentiment and cut it out to decoupage. I then added the ribbon and flowers.

Time for Cocoa

I made this card for one of my work colleagues. I can't remember her name (hah, only joking). It's her birthday soon and I wanted to make a card that all the girls in the office could sign.

The letters have been done using a technigue I saw demonstrated at Alexandra Palace, where they stamp each letter with the same image as the main and then colour it and cover with glossy accents. I then used foam pads to decoupage them on the right. I stamped the image and coloured with (ruby, cinnamon, pastel blue and lime green) promarkers and then decoupaged the jacket, glove and cup. Added a ribbon and flowers to finish.

You don't bring me flowers

Oh wow, I love snow days.... I'm on a roll with my crafting. Here's the first of many. I bought this stamp from www.theglitterpot.com as they have a 50% off sale on certain stamps and I love Forever Friends stamps.

This card was originally intended to be a Valentine's card, but I didn't think it was special enough for my hubby so I added the birthday sentiment at the top. I mounted the image onto red mirri card and coloured it with my promarkers (cinnamon, ruby and amethyst). I border punched the bottom with my Martha Stewart Doily punch and the basecard is stamped with my Rhonna Farrer clear stamp. I then added the raffia and the flowers to finish. The parcel and his hands have been decoupaged.

New Year Waffle

Can't believe that the Christmas period went by so fast. Back to work for me tomorrow and Lianne is back at school too, Lewis is overjoyed as he has an extra day off as his school has an inset day tomorrow.

We have all had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to what the new year brings for us. It can't get much worse as 2009 wasn't a particularly good time for any of us. My husband, Steve, nearly died after having had 60% of his lung removed. Myself and the children have all been terribly ill with one bout of flu after the other for each of us. Rarely giving us time to get over the first illness before another hitting us. Swine flu, Chest Infections and various other infections. Let's hope that a new year will give us enough respite to build up a few immunities ha ha ha.

Steve has already gone back to work (finally), after having 10 months off to recover. He is doing a gradual return, one day the first week, two days the second week, three days the third week and so on until he is back on a full week. He's doing okay, despite the first day back being a snow day and although he was supposed to finish at 6pm he didn't get home until 10pm due to the terrible weather conditions and traffic delays.

And finally... I would like to introduce to you to the latest member of our family...HARLEY. He is an eighteen month old Border Collie. Full of beans and definitely a handful. Watching Harley play football in the garden with Lewis is like watching two hyperactive children wear themselves out!!! Definitely worth watching though as they are both loopy.

Lavender Flourishes

Another card using the same techniques as before on my first card of 2010. The Autumn Leaves stamp was stamped with my Metallic Pink Encore Stamp Pad onto the base cardstock. Then I cut out a piece of lilac cardstock for layering which I edged with Stayzon and cut a border with my new Martha Stewart Doily Border Punch. I then used my nestabilities to cut out the Forever Friends image which I coloured with Cinnamon, Forest Green and Ruby ProMarker pens. I then added some ribbon, a sentiment and some lilac flowers with gemstones to one side of the scalloped circle and added some glitter to the image. Hope you like it. It's not as busy as the previous card and much more simple, I think that's why I like it so much. I suppose I could have used a similar layout with a wedding cake stamped image and it would have looked just as nice.

Make a Wish

My first card of 2010. I made this card using my Autumn Leaves clear stamp by Rhonna Farrer on the base cardstock and then edged it with my new Martha Stewart Doily Border Punch. I stamped a Forever Friends stamp with Adirondack and then coloured it with Ice Grey 1, Blossom and Spice ProMarker pens. Before matting and layering the scalloped shapes and the Forever Friends bear I added glitter to the Autumn Leaves flourishes. Then I added all the layers and the lettering which was cut out on my BigShot with Cerise MirriCard. It's a bit busy for me, but Lianne liked it so I have included it on my blog for all to see. Hope you like it.

Welcome 2010...

Happy New Year everyone. Hope that 2010 offers you all that you wish for and so much more.