The Waiting Game

I'm sitting here waiting for the Postie's van to come.
I've got all the parcels and letters I need to take to the post office ready in a bag, and I've changed out of the usual slobby joggers and into "proper" clothes all ready to head out as soon as he's been.

I know he's on his way and that there are parcels because the "walking" postie has just been, bringing with him Isobel's "Poems to Ponder" CJ, and telling me that my other parcels were too big for him to carry so are coming on the van - he thinks there are THREE more parcels on their way for me.....so how can I possibly go out before they arrive. Excited, you bet! Even though two of them should be stuff I've ordered over the last couple of days and I know what's in them!

Never mind, I've done a little bit of blog-hopping and now I'm going to update my own - and that's three days in a row, I'll have you know :-)
I can now share the things I made for the Bubbly Funk April Kit. Caroline has asked me to concentrate on cards each month, but also to do another project of some kind. The kit was full of fun putdoorsy papers and some great chipboard pieces, plus tags, ribbons, buttons, brads and all manner of other interesting bits and pieces. Subscribers to each kit have exclusive access to the fab new Bubbly Scrumtious Blog so get to see all the projects made by Caroline, Di and myself on there, plus instructions on how we made everything.

Anyway first up is this card made with nephew Adam in mind
And this is the minibook I made using file cards for the pages
I loved this quotation so just had to use it on a card - I do love a good pun....
And lastly, there's this New Home card. For some reason I always struggle with New Home cards, but these chipboard houses are perfect for this job so this won't be the last time I use one, thats for sure.
Most of my things for the May kit are all done and ready now - there's one on-going project I need to do more too before it's ready to share - but guess what? I've already got the JUNE kit in my sticky mitts and take it out every day or so just to stroke and think about what I can make with it....

My hubby is in Copenhagen today. He went really early this morning and the day did not start smoothly because the taxis booked to pick up him and the other guy from their respective houses at 5am to go to the airport didn't turn up! So we had a very early alarm call then 5.15 came and went and no taxi came - so they both ended up having to drive to the airport. Turns out that some twit at the taxi company had booked the cars for 5 in the afternoon instead of 5am. Good job they found out while they still had time to get there under their own steam.

Still no postie and I think I've bored myself now, let alone anyone who reads my witterings so I'll shut up now and see what else I can do while I wait. Daren't get the glue and ink out when I've got "proper" clothes on, I'm so cack-handed that I'm bound to make a mess of myself!

Ah well, thanks for looking - and for all your comments - its great to read them all

Now that's better....

I mucked up Paul's birthday card this morning by not checking that I had the fold of the card facing the right way, so not wanting to ditch the whole thing and have to throw those lovely Boxer papers in the bin) I thought I'd see if I could just twist the design and make it work. Fortunately the lettters and tag came off without too much bother, and I realised that I actually liked it better with the panels lying vertically rather than horizontally. I had to make a new set of letters though as the ones I had were too tall to fit that way round.
I like it much better now, and would be interested in hearing what you think of the new version.

DCM Little Extra & More Sneaky Peeks

Its been a while since I've had the time to do one of the Little Extra challenges, but as a) I needed to get a card done for my BILs birthday and b) I made this template and I think its quite a toughie, I thought I'd better have a bash at it myself!

I'm not totally happy with this card, I think there's something missing so I might get the brads out again and see if a magic brad of two makes me like it better. The other problem - and it's a bigger one, is that I picked it up to do a photo and reaslies I'd stuck everything on the wrong way round! Oooops! Methinks a bit of cutting and mounting on a new card will be necessary. Darn it.

Papers are all from Basic Grey's Boxer paper pad. Mr Robo helped with the letters!
I hope you'll have a go with my template and I hope you have better luck at getting your card made without any mishaps....


So a couple more sneak peeks from the "soon-to-be-available-for-pre-order" Bubbly Funk May kit. Which is as I think I may have mentioned once or twice, Scrummylicious.

ooooh I might post some more pics of that last one another day.....

Thanks for looking, please stop by the comments bit and say "hello" :-)

Little Flowers and Sneak Peeks!

A new cricle journal has just strated over at the Bumbleberry Cafe. In comparison with the mammoth one that finished a couple of months ago this one is a just a minnow.
Not only is it small in the size of the circle, but its small in page size too with a maximum allowance of about 6x6 for the books to be.
Mine is quite a bit smaller than that! I usually make my own books for CJs, but I was browsing the Bubbly Funk shop a few weeks back and saw these totally delicious mini blackboard books and thought they'd be perfect.


The covers are only 12 x 8.5cms and the pages a bit smaller

I've chosen "Funky Flowers" as the theme for my book and I'm hoping that everyone will enjoy making their pages and that in the end I'll have a little book to treasure. The instructions were sinple:

Welcome to my Little Book of Flowers

I’d love you to make a fun and funky double page LO on the theme of Funky Flowers - as long as it’s fun and flowery, then that’s fine by me!

Please decorate and sign in using on one of the chipboard flowers then attach it between your pages.

Thank you for being part of my Circle Journal

I couldn't decide which papers to use to start off my book, so in the end I used 3Bugs on the outside covers, then sei on the opening page, and I couldn't resist a bit Crate's "Twirl" to add an extra little LO. Which is probably the reason I was rushing up to the post box at the last minute on Friday afternoon to make sure it got into the last collection! Its with Hazel now, and I hope she enjoys playing with flowers as much as I do

Today I've done my pages for another CJ, but I'll save that for another day.
Now I can share some sneak peeks at the May Bubbly Funk kit - which is soooooo gorgeous and fun that you'd be mad to miss out when advance subscriptions go on sale during the next couple of days. I had a blast working with this kit and I'm sure it's going to be loved by all those who get their sticky mitts on it.
Here are just a couple of sneakie peeks, I'll show some more tomorrow - you know how it is, when you've got stuff to share, you've got to make the most of it!
Plus, I'm a Rotten Meanie.

Its Really Quite Distressing....

.....not that I've been such a bad blogger the last couple of weeks (although to be fair, I have....been a bad blogger, that is) but that's the theme of Keryn's dare for we Daring Cardmakers this week:

Hi it's Keryn here and it's my turn to Distress you all, or at least your cards with this weeks dare. You can make a card for any season, any holiday, any occaision but you need to use either a fingernail, curled edges, sandpaper, tearing, anything you like really as long as looks like it's had a fair bit or wear and tear

I've gone for what I hope is a Shabby Chic sort of look for this card

I've used papers from Fancy Pants and although they have quite a distressed look about them to start with I gave them a good old rub-down with the files from my Basic Grey file set too.

The frame comes from a fabby set of chipboard bits and pieces available from Bubbly Funk they're aimed mainly at decorating mini books, but just perfect for cards too .
This frame is covered with paper, then has a bit of Krylon pen scribbling and a bit of sanding with that BG kit again. Lots of inking with the Cats Eye charcoal chalk ink to add to the "aged" look. There are some beautiful cards on the DCM blog this week so please pop along to have a look if you've not done so already.
I've been really busy this week making cards and projects ready for the next Bubbly Funk kit which will be available in the middle of May and is one you won't want to miss, it's a real stunner and I've loved working with it. I might be able to put some sneak peeks on here in a week or so.....
Next on my crafting agenda is finishing my little CJ which is due to start its journey today so I need to get a move on with that this morning!
Then I've my pages in another CJ to do and you won't believe what the subject is - CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!! Nice one Karen :0

And then it's more DT stuff - this time its the new Crafty Templates Kit and goodies bag - yummmm!
Oh and a rather nice little bag of ribbons arrived a couple of days ago from Bea at Ribbon Oasis for me to play with.
So even though I've not had much to blog, I really have been crafting away like a mad woman (no rude comments, thank you!) and will share as soon as I can!

Have a wonderful (and distressing!) sunshiney weekend

Thanks for popping by

Paprika!

I've not been around the blogging world much this week, I've not been feeling too well so haven't done much crafting either - I think my crafty mojo was feeling sick too because it was definitely not wanting to play!

We've increased the Antipodean contingent on the Design Team of the DCM this week because Tanya has agreed to join us full time. It's great to have her on board as her work is fab!.
Anyway, I managed a last minute card for this week's DCM dare, which is called

"Hot and Spicy"
This idea is a team effort, it sprang from Lythan's current love of the colour orange and the theme was gradually stretched a bit until this title was settled upon.

With that theme cards could be colour themed, food themed or maybe have just a hint of saucy spiciness

I'd first planned to make something based on a print out of the poster from the film "Some Like it Hot", but I only got as far as printing the picture before Mr Mojo ran off. Eventually I went through some old Self-Addressed kits and found a couple with hot and spicy coloured papers and card. This lot werem't all from the same kit but I think they work together ok. The papers are layered up, I made a couple of faux tags and then cut out a load of flowers and added them at different heights by way of foam tape and bits of cardboard
Paper and card is all from Self Addressed
Brads, eyelets. button, ribbon and fibre from stash.

Please have a go at our chilli challenge - and don't forget to share your creations with us by leaving a message on the DCM Blog

Just Fluttering By

It's DCM day again and before I talk about Jo's challenge for this week, I'd like to say a HUGE Thank You to everyone who joined in with my challenge to leave lots and lots of "white space" on your cards last week. From all the comments on your blogs it certainly sounds as though I'm not the only person to find it really hard to just embellish a little bit of my cards at the moment.

As I've already mentioned this week its Jo's turn to set the challenge.

She says:
I seem to like butterflies at the mo. This week therefore I would like you to put some butterflies on cards. Stitched, felt, shiny, bright, plain, paper pieced, stamped, drawn... you get the idea :) any theme of card but it must have a butterfly somewhere on the card!

It probably sounds mad but I've always struggled with using butterflies, dragonflies and the like to my cards; somehow they just never look right. At the weekend I was playing with some teeny stamps - trying to conquer another of my aaaaaghhhhhhhs, by making some mini cards. I never seem to have a little card to hand for when I just wnat to say "hi", so I was combining that with the diddy stamp sets AND practising leaving more white space and then realised that maybe I could put all that together to make something for Jo's dare.
I came up with this one, which is quite different to most of the stuff I do, but I think I like it.
To get round my "colouring in" problem I stamped directly onto papers from the gorgeous Cosmo Cricket "Honey Pie" 8x8 paper pad. The papers in this pad are just sooooo pretty, with a sort of "faded" feel to them.
The scallop border is handcut - its supposed to be wonky....
Other items used:
Butterflies from a Studio G mini stamp set - Bubbly Funk
Birdy; For Peeps Sake Snag 'Em Stamps - Charmed Cards and Crafts
Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder
Brads & flowers from stash
Sentiment - pc generated

These are some of my mini cards - they're only 9cm sq
Birdy stamp as above
Other stamps are more of the Studio G Clear Stamps from Bubbly Funk
Paper, I think is Basic Grey
Stickles Glitter glue
flowers, brads etc from stash




Thanks for looking - don't forget to check out the DCM blog for more Butterflies....

Dottie and Bubbly

The other day I downloaded one of Lou's "Dottie" images as she's got a challenge going using one on the Charmed Forum. Now I don't usually "do" such things because they are just a little bit too close to stamping for my liking and that usually means they need to be coloured in.
Now, when faced with such things as colouring pencils, felt pens and paints I lose all sense of colour and shading and revert to filling in the outlines much as a 2 year old would.
My first effor duly went in the bin. As did the second.
Today I've gone with a different approach, an altogether sneakier one, but here's what I've made - for the challenge we had to include the Dottie picture, some scalloping, some dry embossing and some buttons. For once I even read the info correctly and managed to get all the elements onto my card.
So why was it sneaky?
Well, I did all the colouring of the Dottie picture using Paint Shop Pro - you surely didn't think I could colour in as neatly as that? hahaha I even did the "designs" on the papers at Dottie's feet and added the "Today I'd like you to think Pink" text using PSP - the idea for the colour scheme came from the Cropodile Dottie is wielding.
I've used the CBug "Distressed Stripes" and "Swiss Dots" folders. the scalloped edge is hand cut, and the holes added with the Cropodile. The rest of the wording was computer generated and the buttons, ribbon and little brad (well you've got to get one in there) are all from my stash.

Next I've got another couple of sneak peeks of things made with the Bubbly Funk April Kit which will soon e winging its way to those lucky enough to subscribe before they sold out.

The stuff you get in the kit is really versatile and I think everyone will enjoy finding ways to use the goodies, and find lots of things in their own stash to use alongside the kit items - I'm getting really excited about the launch of the new subscriber blog too, its going to be a great way to chat about the kits and exchange ideas for using them.
Those pizza boxes will be arriving really soon now, only a few more days to wait.....

Right, I'm off back to my other desk to see if the bits of paper and card have miraculously formed themselves into another card

Thanks for looking

Bubbly Scrumdiddlyumptious

Only a few days more till the first of the new style Bubbly Funk Kit get sent out. I checked the shop this morning and I think they're sold out already!
The new kits have an extra dimension in that access to the brand new and subscriber exclusive Bubbly Scrumptious Blog is included as part of the package.

The Blog is themed like an e-mag, so you will get the Kit project details in the main body of the Blog but there are lots of links and other pages for you explore while you are there, eg. other projects unrelated to the kit, tutorials, recipes, cartoons, word searches to name but a few! This will of course increase in content at the months go on. During the month there will be little extras added to the Blog to keep you going back for more! The password is changed every month to ensure exclusive access to those who purchase that month's Kit.

Kits are sent out around the 15th of every month, but details and pre-orders are available before that, so if you missed out on this one, but would like to get your hands on the May kit (I've got mine already and its fabbylicious....) and be part of this great new idea, you'll need to keep checking the Bubbly Funk Shoppie-Shop and get in there quick with your order.

So, would you like some sneak peeks of what I made with the April Kit?
No?
Well move on now because here they come!
More tomorrow - if I remember!

Thanks for looking

What a Bind (it All)

Well, here it is; my completed first effort with my new Bind it All.



I used several of the papers from the new BG Boxer paper pad and loads of ribbon from Ribbon Oasis. The blossom, bits of chipboard, brads etc were form my stash and the letter "K" is Robo-cut.

This weekend I've also been playing with a few little stamps I've acquired lately. Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know that I don't stamp. However as I'm still trying to practise leaving white space without having a panic attack and the stamps I've been buying are those cute dinky little ones I decided that the two scary things went together quite nicely. However, today I've used some of said stamps to make my DCM card for Friday (yes, I know it's early - its a shock to me to have it ready so soon, I can tell you!), so now I can't put the weekend's cards on my blog, can I?
shot myself in the foot there then as I now have only my book left to show until I go and make something else!
Oh well, never mind. I'll show a couple more photos from Northumberland to fill some space....

These are both taken by hubby on Bamburgh beach. That's not snow on the water, but froth whipped up by the wind. Just before this second one was taken he'd been lying down in the sand dunes taking shelter from a snow and hail storm, my Aunt and I had (wisely) stayed in the car and saw the storm completely obliterating Lindisfarne castle then gradually coming towards us. Half an hour later it was gone the sky was blue and we could even feel the heat of the sun.
We had some crazy weather that weekend!

All for now
Thanks for looking - and for all your lovely messagesxxx

Super Stash Saturday

Wheyhey

I've joined the Bind-it-All club!
After months and months of ummming and ahhhing, ever since Lythan brought hers with her when she, Sue and Anita came over to play last year I finally succombed. It was Emma (aka GetCrafty) at Sassy Crafts fault. She's just given her online shop a facelift and a new name and obviously I had to check it out. And there it was saying "Buy me, Kathy, buy me.....buy me....." And it was such a fabby bargain price that I couldn't refuse, could I? Since orderong it on Thursday I've been watching tutorials on YouTube and generally surfing the net in search of info and ideas - excited? moi? How did you guess?
Anyway I was so excited this morning - I even got up early (well, what passes for early in this house on a Saturday morning) to wait for the postie's arrival. I left a trail of paper and packaging through the house as I tore into the parcel and have already made my first book.
Its so blummin' easy!
Obviously this ones not had any "tarting" up yet but I'm so chuffed that it worked so easily that I had to bung it on here in it's unadorned nakedness!
I think I'm going to keep this one for myself, maybe use it by the phone or on my desk for little notes.
The covers are chipboard squares and quite thick but that was no problem to the Bind it All - going to have to think of a name for it because Bind-it-All is a right faff to type!

BUT, new gadgie wasn't the only thing that arrived this morning. Oh no! There was another parcel too....and in that one were new Cuttlebug folders! Its taken a while but I finally tracked down somewhere that had the elusive Swiss Dots one actually IN STOCK yay! So I ordered that one, plus the Distressed Stripes and the Numbers ones too. Oh Lucky, Happy Me.

Also took delivery this week of three of the new BG 6x6 paper pads - Boxer, Archaic and Cupcake. I thought the latter would be my favourite, but I think perhaps Boxer might actually win out - the designs are so stylish and the colours rather lush and rich - I used some to do the covers for that book - which is one of the reasons its staying in this house!

More Friendly Plastic
I made a few more little embelishments while I was playing with FP for this week's DCM challenge. I planned to use them for more minimalist cards. Talk about uncooperative - I made two absolute shockers and ended up ripping the FP off the cards and having another bash.
To show you what I mean, the photo on the left shows one of them - what a horrible mess! I'm not going to show you the other one, it was even worse and this one is quite embarrassing enough. At least you'll get a laugh - and know why I keep my doodling to a minimum!

That was Thursday.
Yesterday I had another go and I'm much happier with my second attempts. I quite liked the idea of the square holey frames mounted on foam tape with the FP pieces on the card beneath, so I stuck with that, but changed to a mini DL card and panels of black and white card to display the FP squares.


The FP from the 2nd Disaster-Card was harder to use and I'm not convinced still. But its miles better than the first effort . The colours of the ribbon are a much better match irl than they look on the photoAll for now

Thanks for looking

Just a Teeny Weeny Little Challenge

Wheyhey, another Daring Card Makers Friday has arrived :)
And this time it's my turn to challenge everyone and I've set a fiendish little dare! hehehe

We've a fabby new Guest Designer joining the Design Team this week and not just for 2 weeks, but we've decided we need our GDs to stick around for a whole month so we can all get to know them better, so we'd like you to welcome the very talented Michelle who's been brave enough to join the Design Team for the month of April.

So without further ado, here's my tiny little challenge for this week

Shrink to Fit

I used to be able to make cards with lots of "white space" around the designs, but lately when I've tried to do this my cards just look sooooo naked!

So this week I'd like you to think small - no, not small cards, but small spaces of embellishment on regular sized cards.

You are allowed to cover no more than a 5x5cms area of your card with paper or embellishment - the rest of the card must be left plain.

How you use those valuable cms is up to you. So you may choose to split up those cms to use around your card, or use them in a block or a line.
It might help to cut a few 5x5cm squares then cut those up to work out good ways of using your allotment.
Making your whole card a miniscule 5x5cms is NOT an option!! Lets have no cheating (I know what you lot are like.....), but because I'm feeling generous, I'm going to let you add a SIMPLE greeting as extra to your 5x5 allowance! :-)

Please leave us a message when you've made your card so we can visit your blog and see your creations - we may not always leave a message, but we do visit all the blogs and love to see your creations. Oh and there's stash on offer to those who make a card for this dare too!
Coming up with an idea for a dare is one thing. Coming up with a card that fits the criteria is another thing altogether! I think most of us would agree that the hardest dares to actually do are the the dares we ourselves are come up! Now that sounds plain silly because you'd assume that you must have at least a grain of a plan when you come up with the challenge.
Well, eventually I remembered my hoard of lovely Friendly Plastic, which I love to play with but don't often have the time to get out so the other morning I spent a very happy couple of hours with pretty plastic, beads, jewels, pointy thing and my heatgun.
Just to make sure the 3 pieces I wanted to use were within my self imposed 5x5cms allotment I cut a square of card to sit them on - and then as there was a bit of spare room on it I decided that I could allow myself the luxury of a piece of sparkly narrow ribbon to sit the little FP pieces on.
All that white space is a bit freaky and I think the card (its quite a big14cms square) needed that ribbon - and the big greeting in my new favourite font, Ecolier.
don't forget to check out the DCM blog to see all the wonderful cards that the Team have come up with this week, then please help me with those white spaces and join in our dare!

Crafty Templates April Kit

Taking a break from a rather uncooperative craft project to write this. Maybe when I go back to my desk it'll all come right........or maybe it won't and I'll do something else instead!

I thought I'd share a couple of the photos Hubby took at Brinkburn Priory while we were up in Nortumblerand at Easter. The weather was mad, one moment hailstones, the next a snowstorm and then beautiful sunshine, and sometimes snow and sun at the same time!
As you'll realise both these were taken at pretty much the same spot - I love them both, he's such a clever bunny!

The other day I showed a sneak peek of a Crafty Templates DT project I'd just finished. Leo's templates this month have a rather celebratory theme with lots of Baby and Wedding templates to play with.
I used the cute baby bootees template and instead of a card I made a little album. I've not decorated the pages yet though.
I "borrowed" the idea for the free-cut scalloped edge from the wonderful Lythan
who used the technique on one of her fabby cards recently. The papers, "love" stamp, ribbon, chipboard and most of the other embellishments are in the Crafty Templates April Goodie Kit

Next up is a card made with the Wedding Cake template. Leo suggests using this one for a shaped card, but being contrary (or just plain awkward) I decided to use it on a card blank instead. I fancied making a soft "Regency Stripe" look background for the cake so I used a custom-made an inkpad with a couple of shades of cats eye reinkers, then cut thin strips of one of the BG "Sultry" papers in the Goodie Kit and stuck them on the inked card to make a rather random "wallpaper" background.
The cake itself was given the Cuttlebug embossing treatment, then I gently inked over the raised bits. The swags are cut from more of the kit papers, decorated with tiny flowers, a bit of glitter bling and tiny dots of Liquid Pearls. I made the decoration for the top of the cake with silk petals, paper flower and ribbon from the Goodies Kit.

Just thinking that I might add some extra bling, just not sure where.....
I'll have more Crafty Templates stuff to share soon - well as soon as I've made it, that is!

If you've not had a look at Leo's wonderful templates and goodie kits - well you're really missing out on a fabby resource. Maybe you don't "do" shaped cards - well nor did I till Leo asked me to use them, and I was really aprehensive about it - but I'm thrilled at the new dimension using the templates has given me - so if you're dithering, well just give them a try, they aren't just for cards, you'll find all sorts of ways to use them in your crafting.

So what was my exciting news?
For the last year Bubbly Funk have been selling the most fabby kits designed by Caroline (owner of Bubbly Funk) and Di Oliver - who has been making the most wonderful projects to use with the kits. Well, now changes are afoot and not only are the kits changing focus a bit, but there's an exciting new idea that Caroline has come up with to coincide with each new kit, just for subscribers to have access to.
The especially exciting bit for me is that a couple of weeks before Easter Caroline asked me to join Di and herself as part of the new Design Team for the new set-up. I know this all sounds a bit vague, but all will become clear over the next couple of weeks as Caroline announces exactly what the new Subscriber Benefits are.....so watch this space
I'm really excited about being part of the DT. I love doing Design Team work and I'm really lucky because those I'm invloved with are all so different from each other and bring their own special challenges for me.
This is GOOD - it keeps me on my toes and keeps crafting interesting and most of all FUN!

Bring it on!

Jet-lagged?

Gosh, I do struggle when the clocks go forward and we lose that hours sleep - been feeling "jet-lagged" ever since! Sunday wasn't so bad because we always get a lie-in anyway, but then Monday comes.....
Thank you for your messages about my last post - it was lovely to read them - and to know that I'm not the only "Seasider in Exile" who misses being within shouting distance of the sea!

I'm back to "making stuff" now....
I got all those Christening card orders done and dusted and off to the various customers.
This is the one I haven't shown on here yet

















......and the box I made to go with the one I showed the other day.








Here's what popped through my letterbox just as we were leaving for our Easter trip, so I've had to wait till now to play with it!

It's the new and very beautiful Goodies Kit to go with the April Crafty Templates set.
I'm busy working on DT stuff using the new templates and the lovely Goodies Kit at the moment and as always Leo has put together something gorgeous with endless possibilities for crafty uses. The Template Set is available on the Crafty Templates website along with the Goodies Kit but numbers are limited so if you want some new "pretties" to play with then don't leave it too long to order this one up....

This is just a little sneakie-peekie of something I've made with the new Templates and the Goodie Kit. Can you guess what it is yet? hehehe
If I manage to get a better photo I'll post the whole thing tomorrow.

For the last few weeks I've been keeping a piece of exciting news (well, I'm excited, anyway!) secret - see, I can keep my mouth shut when I have to! Anyway, I could tell you what it is now, but I'm not going to - I'll save it for a day longer, I think.......

Thanks for looking