"Festival of Flowers" CJ

I thought I'd share some photos of my lovely flower themed cj which has recently come home after travelling around the country since last July

A HUGE Thank You to all those who took the time and trouble to add their LOs to my book, it's been such a pleasure to open the books and find all the lovely pages you made.

Lovely, isn't it?

I'm so lucky to say it's mine!

Meet Robo-Bunny

This week on the Daring Cardmakers we've got Jo setting the dare and she's asking us to get ready for Easter and make cards featuring a bunny, a chick or even both!

As I was making cards with chicks on a week or two back for Bubbly Funk, I thought I'd have a change and put a bunny on my card.

I found a free downloadable colouring page and used it to make a Robo template. My template actually has flowers on it, but as I was trying to figure out which colours/papers to use to cut the individual flowers I realised that using Primas etc might be more fun.

I had a total disaster mid way through making this. I cut the original bunny shapes in a very pale grey card, then thought it all looked a bit dull so added a light shading of pink. That was fine and I started sticking things down. Then thought more pink would be a good idea. It was not a good idea at all - I ended up with a bunny looking like it had a very very bad skin rash.
I could have cried! I sat for a minute looking at the disaster in front of me, then thought that if I could get the upper layers off and cut some new pieces that I might be able to save it. The top bits did come off without tearing too much and I cut the bunny shapes again, this time in white. I was very restrained with the pink the next time!

I hope you'll join in with the dare this week - it's a great, fun theme that Jo's chosen and I can't wait to see what you all come up with. Just in case you don't already have us in your links list, you can find the DCM HERE


This is another card I've made using the April Flower Kit from Creative Treasures. I can't seem to get a decent photo though - if I succeed I'll change these later.

I've discovered that the flowers and ribbon are a perfect match for the Crate "Blue Hill" papers. I used pieces from the diecut sheet that you get in a Crate Paper pack for the swirly flower stalk and the butterfly.
I do love these flowers, the colours are perfect for Springtime. There's a lovely stamp in the kit too - I don't do much stamping (as you've probably noticed....) but I really want to use this one - thing is, I can't find the little wotsit! I even tidied my desk looking for it the other day lol.

On the Bubbly Funk forum there's been a circle journal doing the rounds since last July - mine arrived home this week, so I'll be sharing photos of the pages soon.

Thanks for popping by, I hope you've enjoyed visiting and will come back often

In the Box

A couple of weeks ago I made a little box using the soon-to-be-released April kit from Bubbly Funk. Today on Bubbly Scrumptious, the shop's own emag/blog I'm sharing the cards I've put in it.
I loved making these, the papers in the kit are so easy to use and the chipboard and ribbons etc work really well with them. I had great fun going through my other stash to find bits that I could also integrate. I think these are going to be a new favourite in my collection.

You can see more photos of these cards, and notes on how I made them on Bubbly Scrunptious and there are loads of other fab projects to explore on there too. Hope you like them.


I've been a tad busy this week and not managed to do much blogging - so still have these last few pages from Izzy's maze book to share: And finally we get to the back cover! Hope you've enjoyed visiting my blog and will come again soon

All About Izzy

I was trying to think of a title for this post when I realised that both these projects have something to do with our niece Izzy, who was 15 last weekend.

She's the one I made the maze book for and I've got more of the pages from that to show today. The other project is a photo frame/board/hanging thingie (technical term lol) I made using stuff from the Bubbly Funk March kit, along with some of my stash.
The stripey and the animal print papers were part of the March kit - I've found it fun to mix the kit stuff in with my own stash - opens out a load of possibilities for all sorts of projects.
The Izzy connection is of course the baby photo - just look at that frilly little bundle - she was like a little doll! Now she's rarely seen out of her riding gear and spends most of her non-school hours at the stables.

I used lots of chipboard and fake chipboard to make this, the photo frame itself is an acetate pocket and the photo is adhered to a tag so a different picture can be inserted for a change.
The non-kit papers are from the Baby Powder collection from Imaginisce.

More pages from Izzy's maze book:



All for now
Have a lovely weekend

Woman

I'm still all of a flutter after yesterday's little excitement, but as it's DCM day I need to come back to earth!

It's Tracie's turn to set the challenge and as over here in the UK it's Mother's Day on Sunday she's asking us to make cards "for Women or featuring Women".
I decided to have a change from using all the gorgeous bright and sunshiney papers I've been using lately and go for something simpler, and hopefully more "classic" whatever that means!

Then on Wednesday our Postie knocked on the door with a little parcel for me - it was my DT goodie bag for the April Flower Kit from Tracy at Creative Treasures - and oh they are soooooo pretty. Seeing them gave me an idea for my DCM card and after I'd made it I thought I'd better check it wasn't too soon to be showing the April flowers!
It was OK - just as well really, as I hadn't got a Plan B!

This is my card
I think this lady is one of my Great Great Grandmothers, I'm lucky enough to have quite a lot of old family photos, and many of them I've been able to put names to during my family history research, this is one I'm not sure about, but comparing it to others I think she's definitely "one of mine". The photo is very faded so I had to PSP it a bit, but I love the very soft lines and the way it just fades away at the edges. Mind you I'd have loved to get a closer look at that dress - and just look at her waist!
The gorgeous Spring coloured flowers and the yellow ribbon are from the Creative Ttreasures April Kit
Lolac velvet ribbon and tiny brads are from my stash
The swirl is from a sheet of rub-ons thatcame in one of the Crate Paper collections - I forget which, sorry!

This is the card I made for MIL, the flowers and ribbon on this one are from the Creative Treasures March kit
I don't have my own mum to make a card for anymore, but she loved seeing the things I made and always encouraged me in whatever crafting I was "into" at the time. Maybe she's still around somewhere cheering me on!

Don't forget to give your mum a hug on Sunday, and don't forget to check out all the lovely cards on the DCM blog either!

And there's more....

I'm a very excited and very happy bunny this morning!

To see why, click HERE

Going for a lie down now while I recover!

If you've found your way over here from Inspirational - then a HUGE welcome from me - I hope you enjoy your visit!

And

Thanks Jo, for nominating me

Oh crikey I'll be "doing a Gwynneth" in a minute!

Chic Chick

Over on Bubbly Scrumptious - which just in case you don't already know (lol) is the blog for the Bubbly Funk online craft shop and stuffed full of ideas and inspiration just like any of your favourite magazines - its my turn to add a little something to the store of projects.

If you popped by last Thursday you may recall the Bella Bella Box (April kit)I'd been making, and that I said that this week I'd share the contents. Well, I've not actually made them yet (ooops!) - because I got diverted again by the March kit instead.
I realised that Easter is coming and that some of the "Small Wonders" in the kit would be perfect to use for Easter cards.

This is my Vintage Chick (vintage chic - get it? hehe) card

and of course it has to be joined by Chippie Chick (or Hippie Chic)


I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist the play on words, I do love a pun even really bad ones like these make me chortle!

I've a feeling I'll be dipping into the March box of tricks quite often in the future as there are lots of those little things that will be useful for all sorts of cards. In fact, I was even inspired to make a Man's card (and you know how I hate making those, don't you?) using a couple of the great die-cuts that I found in there and mixing them in with some of my own stash.

And, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know, there's even another pun to go with it!


I was sooooo busy yesterday that I didn't get to load more pics from the Bloom & Grow Maze book, so here are the first batch of pages.



The wonderfully talented Beckie Dreyer has just relaunched her lovely BumbleberryCrafts forum - and there will be kits to follow soon too. She's got a fab LO tutorial on there all about using the paper you have left over after cutting a circle from it for another page/project. Now this is not a patch on what Beckie's done, but I did use the circle I punched to make the photo holder in the 2nd pic to make the tag on the 3rd pic. Only drawback is that I then had to cut a white circle to cover the tag with - so I now have a white "hole" left over.
hmmm, that didn't really go as planned, did it?

Bloom & Grow Maze Book

I wanted to make something extra to go with what we'd already got for niece Izzy's birthday present - my first thought was to make a notebook, but then the naughty little fairy who lives in my head and likes to see me panicking about getting things finished in time said
"ooooh, it's a long time since you made a maze book. Why don't you make a maze book? You've got a whole day and a bit of one - that's plenty of time even for you.....Go on, make a maze book - look at these lovely papers you've already got sitting on your desk. Wouldn't they make a fab maze book?....Go on, you know you want to...."

The bad fairy won and I started to make a maze book - and finished it only because I won some extra time by taking Izzy's card and prezzie over the day after her birthday - she was way too busy on the actual day to spend time with her doting Auntie!

I still had the whole pack of fab Bloom & Grow papers (My Mind's Eye) out after making my DCM card - I love these papers and they were just perfect for this project

Here's the front cover (click for a closer look)












This is a quick look at the inside

These are the tags tht hide in the secret pockets

Tomorrow I'll add photos of the inner pages.

Hope you like it

Flower Power

I wonder if Spring has actually arrived? We're enjoying some beautifully sunny days here atm so fingers crossed we've seen an end of Winter at long last. I sat out on the patio yesterday planting some seeds and it was even warm enough not to need a sweatshirt or fleece. Lovely!

I've been meaning to put another Crafty Templates card on here for the last few days, but I forgot, so I'll do it now - while I remember.

I love this template, it's my favourite sort of thing - something with lots of dimension and lots of scope to have some fun with.

I used a mixture of papers for this one, some are from the Crafty Goodies kit which is available as an add-on to the templates and others are from the Prima "Whisper" collection.
I've added some Cuttlebug flowers - Leo's design has lots of flowers on it, but I wanted to add some extra dimension so Cuttlebugged some from fake chipboard instead. I've used a few Prima flowers too.
You can find out more about Crafty Templates HERE, they are great to use and subscribing gets you a fabulous library of templates so that you'll never be stuck for quirky card ideas.

Next up is a close up of the flower I've made for the card to go with my latest sketch over on my other blog.

You can see the rest of this card, and the sketch I used to make it HERE - have a go at making a card with it if you've got a minute or five - I'd love to see what you make.

All for now, thanks for popping by, please leave a message, I do love to read them....

Ready, Steady Cook!

It's my turn to set the dare over on the Daring Cardmakers this week but don't worry, you don't need to go near the kitchen - well, unless that's where your crafting gets done!
My dare is based on a long-running cookery programme we have here in the UK called "Ready Steady, Cook!" A couple of viewers bring a bag of cookery ingredients to the studio and two top chefs have to make a meal using the contents of those bags - they don't know what will be in the bags beforehand.

For this card-making version I get to choose the ingredients then everyone uses them in their own way.

Here are the ingredients:
3 different papers
At least one piece of chipboard
At least 1 button
At least 1 piece of ribbon
optional: 1 extra item/element of your choice

You're allowed to use whatever paints, pens and inks you like, but otherwise you must stick to the ingredients in the list.
For the Design Team I added a twist to make it more difficult! I sent each of them their own "bag" of ingredients - they weren't allowed to use their own stash!
In their envelope they each found some pieces of paper, a couple of ribbons, a couple of pieces of chipboard and some buttons. They all contained papers from different collections and I did try to match up the ribbons and buttons.
You can see on the DCM blog how they got on - I think they all did brilliantly especially as I really didn't give them much to play with. I made up all the envelopes and sealed them before addressing them, too - so I had no idea which set of ingredients each of them received - if I'd started out trying to suit the stash to the team member I'd probably still be sorting it out today!

Here's my card
It seemed to me that the dare would be easuer for me because I knew what was happening and I was the one choosing the stash. So I decided to make it a bit more difficult and use all the ingredients I'd listed, not just the bare minimum.
The hardest bit was just using three papers, I was just about to stick things down when I realised I'd already cut 4 different designs! Anyway, these papers are from My Minds Eye.
Button and birdie chippie from Bubbly Funk, buttons and tibbon from stash.
My added extra was a lolly stick which I cut in half to hold the birdie and the little placard.

My favourite bit of this card is the tiny flower edging tiles - the flowers on the paper design fitted perfectly into my smallest square punch.

Well, please pop over to the DCM blog and see what the other girls have done this week - I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else does with the recipe - I hope lots of people join in

Beautiful Bella

Caroline of Bubbly Funk produces a fabulous crafting kit every month which always an inspiring and interesting variety of goodies for all sorts of papercrafts. They're never aimed just at one sphere, which means that whether you make cards, do scrapbooking, make albums, boxes, bags or other things, you'll still find these kits a great resource.

The current kit "Small Wonders" is on sale now and will be sent out in a couple of days time. It's a fascinating mix of bits and bobs; paper, card, fibres, flowers and loads of litle embellishments. I love all the little vintage embellishments and there are also lots of baby/little 'uns themed items in there too. You know how sometimes you look at your work and think it could do with an extra little something, but you're not sure what? Well this kit is like having a whole library of little things perfect for just those occasions. At the moment I'm in the middle of using some of the kit to make my Easter cards, and next on the list I'll be making some baby cards.

I'll be sharing those on the Bubbly Scrumptious emag soon, but today I'm going to tempt you (hopefully) with a project using not the March Kit, but the April one!

You'll need to visit Bubbly Scrumptious to find out more but here's a glimpse of what I'm making on the emag today
Right, back to the other desk and on with a bit of cuttin' and stickin' lol

Workaday Crafty Templates

This month's templates from Leo have a work day theme and have been great fun to [lay with.

I had a bit of a panic when our printer decided that it no longer wanted to print in black ink - a problem when you're half-way through printing out the pdf templates. Thankfully Leo came to my rescue and sent the jpgs so that I could change the colour and print them out that way.
This also meant I could give myself some extra work and convert those templates to Robo files and make up the layered cards that way.

Actually although it takes a little while to do, I do quite enjoy doing it and usually love the results of all the layers - plus Robo is a much better, neater cuter-outerer than I am! lol

So, anyway, I couldn't resist using the Builder at Work template this way - it's probably my favourite of the templates Leo sent, makes me smile every time I see it!

Here's my card:
I've used a mixture of my own stash, and things from the Crafty Goodies Kit for this one. Mostly cut in plain paper and card, I've used lots of inking to get the effect I wanted on the stone and the distressed look to the builder's clothing. The plastic hammer has been lurking in my stash for years - I think it was in a pack of Dress-It-Up buttons - I found it while I was looking for some Quickutz tool cuts, I've still not found those, but maybe this was a better discovery anyway.

As ever Leo's made some fab stuff for her Crafty Templates collection, and as always they are great for adapting to your own style and purpose. I think that's what I like best about using them - they give you the shapes, and an idea on how you can use them, but in the end it's up to you to put your own slant on them.

I'll put another card from this collection on here tomorrow. You can find out more, and subscribe to Crafty Templates HERE (the website has just had a facelift and looks great!) and there's also lots more Crafty Template info and ideas to inspire on the BLOG.

This next card is another one made to go with my current sketch over on my other blog.
I've used Fancy Pants "Daydream" papers for this one. The swirl was drawn in PSP and cut on the Robo. The flower is layered up using motifs from the papers plus a couple of Prima flowers. The lettering and flowers on the message tab are rub-ons.
This is one of those cards that seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'm not really convinced about now. I thought adding some glitter to the swirl might help but it just looked a mess so I scraped it off before it dried lol I added a coat of Glossy Accents instead which looked better but I'm still not happy about it all. I think maybe it's the swirl that I don't like. hey ho, you can't win 'em all.

You can see the sketch HERE - why don't you have a go? I'm sure you'll do something much better than this disappointing effort!

Just Patchy

This week on the Daring Cardmakers blog, Jane challenges us to think "Patchwork" and make our cards inspired by that theme. My card was inspired by one of my all-time favourite childrens' books "Elmer" by David McKee. I decided that the easiest way would be to cut my elephant with the Robo. I found some free clipart on the web, then tweaked it in PSP to make the trunk the right shape for holding a bunch of flowers. Knowing that the elephant would be very colourful and that it would be tricky to show the details like the legs and ear I decided to cut the elephant in a couple of layers and make the ear seperately, extending it to make a tab for slotting into the upper layer. I've used my tiny square punch to make all the patches and cut them from SEI Doodley-Doo Girl papers. Some of the flowers were also cut from these papers, others are Primas. To add to the patchwork theme I added some doodled "tacking" stitches to all the squares. The letters are rub-ons You can see the rest of the DT's cards HERE, and on the personal blogs too. We're looking forward to seeing what everyone does for this dare - maybe you'll take the chance to use up those scraps we're all guilty of saving "just in case"..... or maybe not! Anyway, if you do make a card for this dare, please pop back to the DCM blog and leave a message so we can come and see your cards.

A Flowery Project

Well, yes, I know it's not exactly unusual to find flowery projects on this blog, but I think this one is a little bit different.
The March kit from Bubbly Funk is called "Small Wonders" and contains not only of the lovely papers and card you'd expect, but is stuffed full of all manner of little bits and bobs useful in all sorts of projects. Among them I found some printed tags, little journalling pieces, printed words and phrases, and lots of picture embellishments too.
I spent a happy few minutes sorting them into categories - reminded me of the hours I spent playing with my Grandma's button box when I was little! I rather liked the little pile of card flowers I ended up with and thought they had quite a vintage feel. I used to have an old biscuit tin which was full of old birthday cards - there were some my Grandma and my mum had recieved as children as well as mine in there and I loved looking through them. Sadly, I have no idea where that tin went - I suspect it was thrown out during a house move, which is such a shame.
Anyway, the flowers reminded me of those old cards so I thought I'd try and make something with a bit of a vintage feel, but without looking too "musty" iykwim!

Here's the card I ended up with
I was really pleased at the way the pinks, yellows and orange colours all went together, I wasn't sure they'd work so well when I started out, but I think I got away with it!

You can see more of this project and all the other fab projects made by the team on the Bubbly Scrumptious BLOG, and you can preorder the March kit HERE

We'd all love to hear what you think of the blog, so if you do visit, please leave a comment there so we know you called by!

Before I forget (again) I was going to show the card I made for one of my cousins' birthday. I'm "blessed" with male relatives who are dreadfully difficult to make cards for, but over the last few years this cousin has developed an interest in the (boring) game of cricket - so at last, something to latch onto!


I made the cricket ball template in Paint Shop Pro and converted it to cut with Mr Robo. The letters are also Robo cut - I should have made the white mats a bit bigger though. The papers are Crate and I sneaked a bit of ribbon in there too.

Don't forget to check out the new sketch over on the Sketch File blog - it's a nice easy one this time!