2016!!!

Hi Bloggers
Okay, so don't faint...  I received a phone call yesterday from an old friend (Hi Claire) who thought she'd get in touch to find out why I hadn't blogged for a while. Maybe she suspected I was dead or something, as it has been a looooooooooong time since we were last in touch, but it was nice to hear I was missed so I thought I'd post something just in case anyone else (who isn't following me on Facebook and Instagram) was wondering the same thing???

So, I know it has been a while since my last post, that was in June 2015.  I went off to Australia to visit my rellies and while I was over there, Michelle (my cousin) announced that she was getting married to her long-time partner Mitch, in November 2015, so I just had to go back again so that I could be one of her bridesmaids.  It was a fantastic event and I was a very lucky girl to get to go over there twice.

Anyway, it is now the beginning of February 2016.  Since November, last year, I have had so much to do, it has been busy, busy, busy - with one thing or another. So I really didn't have much time for blogging. I'd like to show you all the cards I made after my return to England in December, but sadly that would take too long, and quite frankly, if there is anyone out there still following me, to be honest, I wouldn't want to bore you to death. So, for now, I am just going to blog this years' cards.  So here are a few I have made so far this year. Hope you like them, and thank you for your patience.

My good friend, Mike Murphy, has been ordering cards from me for the past 11 years now.  He is a teacher of upper school students, and every year, when term begins, he goes through his register, finds out when everyone's birthdays are, and writes them down for me (as all his students will be turning 18 or 19), he then sends me a copy of the list and I make all of his students and 18th or 19th birthday card.

Generally, they are all 18th birthdays, which is why you'll find there are quite a few in the 18th Birthday tag section.  Here's one I made a couple of weeks ago for his first student on the list.

The Image is from Stamping Bella and all my images are coloured using Copic Ciao markers and sometimes, a little Prismacolour too for added depth.

Another of his orders, was for a young lady, the following day. So I put together this one for her. Mike said she was quite a flamboyant young lady, with a zest for life, so I really liked putting this one together for her.

Another Stamping Bella image (I'm really into Stamping Bella at the moment - got quite a few for Christmas AND I managed to also spend a small fortune on just a few!!! Naughty!!).

Again, coloured with Copic Ciao markers and just used a little Prismacolour pencil, blended with Sansodor for the shading so she didn't look too 'flat' on the plain white background.

Added a few embellishments and a big old '18' on the front and I was really happy with the finished result.

This lovely image by Stamping Bella, happens to be my favourite at the moment. My Beagle, Ruby, bought it for me for Christmas, and I love it. She's just too cute (the image that is, not my dog - although she is rather, if I'm honest!)

Decided to go a bit girlie on this one, and, as you can see, one of the few 19th Birthday cards requested.

Kept it really simple with just a few embellishments and a sentiment, plus of course a '19' in the corner.

This young lady likes the 'old fashioned' way of communicating and Mike says she is always writing letters to overseas PenPals etc, so I thought I would use this image and call it 'Snail Mail'... Cute huh?

I decided to enter THIS card into the Passion for Promarkers Challenge, as this weeks theme is 'Show us your favourites' - well, this little beauty is definitely my favourite stamp at the moment (for the reasons above).  The challenge blog can be found here, if you'd like to enter your own little favourite something.  Good luck!

Anyway, that's all for now, otherwise this is going to be one heck of a long post.  I do have a few more cards to share with you, but I will add those to an additional post.

Hope you like the cards I have shared with you so far, and thank you for taking the time to visit, as always.

Much love