Here Kitty Kitty....

Woohoo, the November Bubbly Funk kit has just gone into the shop for pre-order.

This one is so lush you really don't want to miss it. There are fab papers and some rather delicious special items in there that will have your creative juices flowing and no mistake. Caroline never tells Di and I what is going to be in the boxes each month so it's always exciting to slice open the tape and get in there as quickly as possible.
This one had me ooohing and ahhing, it's just sooooo pretty!

Anyway, here are some sneak peeks of some things I've made so far

Daring Hallowe'en

Weather report: Cold and Frosty start to the day today

I thought I'd mention that straight away as the weather seems to be dominating things atm - maybe it's just me being hyper-sensitive to the on-set of winter. I really hate that I won't feel warm in the Great Outdoors again for months and months. Maybe I'm feeling hard-done-by because we had such a grotty summer and the days when it was actually warm and bright were few and far between! There's a little bit of me that's still waiting for the Summer so it can't be Winter, can it?

At least the sun is out again today, even if it is freezing! The last of Wednesday eveniing's snow finally disappeared about lunchtime yesterday.

Sorry for the miserable, self-indulgent Waffle there, I'll get on to some crafty stuff now. Friday is, of course Daring Cardmakers Day and we have Rachel setting the challenge:

We couldn't really choose any other theme could we!!!!!

So what we would like to challenge you with today is producing something with a Halloween theme -or anything scary, really - kids love anything with ghosties, skulls and skeletons on, don't they?
So you can make a card or something else this time, maybe a bag, box, lantern or anything at all, as long as it's got a scary theme.

We put all the names of those who made a card for Kathy's Sketch Challenge into a random number picker and the winner is....
Sarah C

Congratulations Sarah, the wonderful 3 Bugs in a Rug Caboodle kit will be on it's way to you from our fab sponsor Creative Treasures very soon.
(Sarah, if you read this can you email me please with your info)

We'd love to see your spooky creations, so leave a message on the DCM blog when you're done so that we can come and see how scared you've made us!

I made this
It's not actually a card, but I thought it would be something you could put in your window as a "Hallowe'en Revellers Welcome Here" sign - though for me I'd probably need to put a great big cross over it to say the opposite, because, yes, I'm a miserable, grouchy wotsit who doesn't find opening the door every five minutes and doling out sweets etc a fun activity. Our curtains will be closed and the doorbell will be ignored tonight.

bah humbug!
I've adapted some free clipart to cut the witches and bats with the Craft Robo - actually I was surprised at how well they cut, I thought they might be a bit too fiddly, especially in these sizes, but they've cut really well. I decided against trying them on thin card though, and just cut them from paper. When the big witch cut so easily I thought I'd risk a diddy one too - when that worked I got brave and went on a bat hunt!

For UK Craft Robo users - just in case you don't already know - there's a Graphtec Crafty Club which as well as having free templates, downloads, tips and techniques to help you get the most out of Mr Robo, you also get a little discount on consumables. I've not seen blades etc, any cheaper in other shops and orders arrive quickly too.

Yesterday I showed a couple of non-card makes from Ribbon Oasis Christmassy goodies so today its back to cards. I absolutely adore this gorgeous sheer green ribbon with sparkly spots and golden highlights. It makes a fab background on its own for the Cuttlebug Tree die-cuts in the top left card, and I love the rich opulent look you get just tieing it round the side of a card and making a simple knot. Then I thought I'd see what happened when I used a strip of coloured paper underneath the ribbon, and I loved the depth of colour and texture I found when I Xyron-ed it over the red paper to make the card at the top left of the photo.
This next one uses some really wide ribbon to make a panel for the centre of the card

The ribbon is so gorgeous that it really doesn't need much else, I just handcut a couple of scalloped borders and added a tag, and a tiny scrap more Ribbon Oasis shiny ribbon

Finally for today, yet another Christmas card (what a surprise!)
This one is using a fab and really adaptable card sketch from Sue over on Just Bex forum.

My card is made using Imaginisce "Snowy Jo" glittery papers and my own Craft Robo template.
The rub-ons are also from the Snowy Jo collection - I'd forgotten I'd bought them!

The Joy of Ribbon!

Still freezing cold here, but at least the sun is shining to cheer things up a bit.

I've remembered that I haven't shown the things I made with the last DT pack of ribbons I received from Ribbon Oasis. Bea has a spectacular range or ribbons and trims in her shop, and if you've not already succombed, then grab yourself a coffee and head over there for a happy hour or two browsing all that's on offer.
I love getting the little DT packs from Bea, you never know what you're going to find in those envelopes and sometimes there are ribbons you might not have gone for ordinarily, but they turn out to be the most inspiring.

This happened to me with this batch when I found this rather wide (about 7cms) ribbon in the pack. It's such a beautiful ribbon, but much wider that n the sort of thing I usually used, but it turned out to be perfect for covering this little lidded box
I made a new lid for an empty cotton buds container as the plastic one wouldn't fit once the box was covered. I used some minty green paper to cover the box and lid - it was the reverse of a patterned paper that's been hanging around unused for ages. Because the ribbon is sheer the soft green shows through and looks really pretty. I added a length of another of the ribbons in the pack to trim the edge of the lid, and to make a little loop to the top.
I'm not sure whether to use this as a gift box or to keep it for myself.

I was experimenting with different techniques for making books a while back, and did this one which is a bit like a loose-leaf folder. Having made the shell, I wasn't sure what to do next, so thought I'd try using my Bind-it-All to make the inner section.
The cream "pages" are actually pockets for holding notes, lists etc. I haven't got round to actually decorating them yet, but I will one day!

I covered the chipboard covers and spine first with a nice thick scrapbooking paper in a cream colour. Next I ran lengths of various gold themed ribbons and trims from my DT pack through the Xyron and adhered them right around the covers.
To tidy up the inside I used another piece of scrapbooking paper which covers the edges of the cover paper and also encases the ends of the ribbon.
The pockets are made from folded pieces of Bazzill, then there's a backing piece of chipboard covered to match the inners of the book. I used the BIA to link all these together then used a strong glue to fix the chipboard piece to the inside back cover of the book.

Ribbons make a lovely textured cover for a book and I think I'll be doing things like this again - there are so many gorgeous ribbons on the Ribbon Oasis webiste and this way you get to use several at a time so you don't need to choose just one!

Christmas Pressies Ideas abound!

I'll show the cards I made with the ribbons in the pack tomorrow.

It's snow joke, this weather

When we were in Buckinghamshire for the weekend a couple of weeks back it was warm and sunny and I was very surprised to see that I'd caught the sun on my face and neck while we were wandering around Bletchley Park (where the Enigma code was cracked). Less than two weeks later last night we glance out of the lounge window to see SNOW falling, and what's more it keeps falling and soon the cars, and gardens have a fairly thick covering, and there's even some on the road.
A lot of it had gone before I braved the garden with the camera, but here are a couple of pics of what was left at about 10am this morning - forgive the rubbish photos, I forgot to change the settings. The snow was actually white, not that interesting blue shade!It's absolutely freezing here this morning, but the sun is out so hopefully things will warm up and thaw out a bit soon.

Yesterday I made this card, it's a commissioned card and will be on it's way to Federico in Italy in time for his first birthday. A good excuse to get out the gorgeous "Baby Powder" papers from Imaginisce - some of these have a light sprinkling of glitter on them, but that doesn't really show up on the photo. I've used the template I made for last week's Daring Cardmakers Little Extra challenge - it works really well for adding a name like this to a card. BTW the draw for the winner has been done and will be announced on the regular DCM Friday dare, I wonder if the winner is you? lol
Some more Christmas cards, this time I've used papers from the Fancy Pants "Happy Holidays" 8x8 pad. There are some lovely designs and colours in this set - several of them aren't too Christmassy and will be great for other cards and projects too. The little trees on these cards are cut from one of the paper designs and glued to cereal-packet chipboard before inking the edges and attaching them to the cards.
I'll add a little click-on-able pic of the paper pad so you can have a closer look if you're tempted!

It's coming, you know!

Christmas, that is.

I really don't want to get caught out this year and still be making Christmas cards right up to the last minute - all that does is make me really cheesed off with the whole thing and I stop enjoying my Christmas crafting. So this year I'm trying really hard to get my cards ready a bit earlier. So far I've made about 30 so not a huge total, but probably loads more than I'd done at this time last year.
I did some classes for the Bubbly Funk Forum's cyber crop recently and that gave me a good prod into getting started on some designs. I've stuck pretty much to that design, using blocks of patterned paper to fill the white space and then adding trees. baubles etc as accents.

Having almost cleared the "to do" list I've had some time over the last few days to make some more - the arrival of the BG Wassail papers into my sticky mitts also encouraged me to get going on the Christmas card campaign.
Here are some of the cards I've made with these fabby papers. The scalloped rectangles are cut with a new Craft Robo template. I've made some scalloped shapes before, but the scallops were quite a bit bigger on those. This time I've made rectangle, square and circle shapes with teeny weeny scalloped edges, I think they're just a litle bit different and make a change from the straight cut shapes I usually use.
The small trees on the righthand card are cut from the Wassail papers which is covered with triangles of all the other designs - perfect for sticking on cereal-packet-chipboard and cutting out to make mini trees!
The other trees are cut with the Cuttlebug cut and emboss die
For the cards below I've used the Craft Robo template I mentioned yesterday.
I enjoyed spending some time at the weekend making this new template. I cut the basic bauble and bow shape as one piece, then cut the parts of the bow seperately to stick on top and add a little bit of dimension to the finished bauble. I made three different decorations to add to the front of the bauble - that way I don't get bored making the same thing every time!
I'll show the ones I've made using other papers next time.

I'm quite pleased with these so I hope you like them too. Let me know what you think, I love to read your comments - let's me know I'm not just talking to myself for a start!

I have to make a baby's 1st birthday card today, so I should stop procrastinating and get on with it, shouldn't I? lol

ok, I'm going.....

Waffling Weekend, Blog Candy pics

For the first time in ages we had a a quiet, nothing-planned weekend. It was bliss. I do love the going-away ones, and the visitors-here ones, but recently they've all come together - add in a few visits from the builder and plumber who like to start at 8.30 on a Saturday morning and I've been missing my weekend long-lie-ins for what seems ages.

I pretty much caught up with the crafty deadlines last week, so that feels good too! I've got a few things to get on with this week though, but it's nice to feel rather more in control that I've done recently. I've even spent some time getting on with making our own Christmas cards. I've not done the photos yet so I'll post some pics when I have - I've been using that lovely BG Wassail that arrived last week, plus some from the Fancy Pants Happy Holidays paper pad - which is a nice mix of funky papers and more grungy ones.
I spent a bit of time on Saturday making a new Craft Robo template and some of the cards use that.

There are a few things I've done recently that I've not shown on here yet - I've not been a verygood blogger recently....
I thought I'd show the little folding album I made for Juliet when she won my Birthday Blog Candy draw. It's made from 3 squares of card, which are folded and stuck together in such a way that it all folds up into a smaller square and is then tied up with a ribbon to keep it froms springing open.

There's room for Juliet to add small photographs and some journalling, and I hope she'll let us see what it looks like when she's completed it.

Papers are Fancy Pants "Aged Florals"

Forever Autumn?

My feelings about Autumn are very mixed - much as I love the colours of Autumn - and those bright blue sky days we often get at this time of the year, what I hate is the rest of it - the darkening, cold mornings, the way the days get shorter and shorter and colder and colder - and I hate the thought of not seeing much of the sun, or even enough light for the next few months. It's not the best time of the year for me and I know many other people suffer the same sort of mood dips at this time of the year. What I'd really like to do is hibernate; I'd like to snuggle in somewhere warm and cosy then sleep till Spring!

Sue chose "Forever Autumn" as the theme for our Daring Cardmakers challenge this week:

Forever Autumn
I decided on this one after hearing the Justin Haywood song of the same name playing on the radio. I couldn’t get it out of my mind and kept singing it as I was working.

So now I’m daring you to make a card that depicts Autumn.
It can be an Autumn scene or it can be something completely different but using a palette of Autumn colours……the choice is yours! I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if a few of you are singing along by the time you’ve finished either, I know some of the DT were!

As soon as I saw what Sue had in store for us I knew which papers I wanted to use - they've been sitting in the box for ages and this was the perfect opportunity to make use of them.
The papers are from the Exotic East collection from Imaginisce and are truly lush.
I've used a couple of them for this card, then did plenty of cutting and layering. I felt they looked a bit dull once I'd got them stuck down though - probably because of the brown card blank I'd used, so I grabbed my gold pen and did some doodled outlining. I do tend to get carried away when I start doing this but for once I think I managed to stop before making a doodle too far!

The gorgeous flower brad is MM (I think), but I gave it a hint of a shimmer by dabbing at it with a gold Krylon pen. The ribbon fell, serendipitously from my scraps box just as I was reaching for something else.

Please pop over and see all the beautiful Autumn Inspired cards on the DCM blog, and maybe you'll be inspired to join in - we do love to see where the dares we come up with lead.

Don't forget that the LE sketch this week has a Prize Draw too, which is still open for entering till next Tuesday - so you could combine the LE and the Main dare this week AND be in with winning a prize from Creative Treasures.


I've bought loads and loads of Christmas papers this year because there seem to be lots of must-have collections around this year. One set I've been lusting for is the new BG Wassail papers and now, thanks to Emma of Sassycrafts I finally have them sitting on my desk looking rather delicious.
As I've just caught up with most of my crafty tasks I'm going to try and get some more Christmas cards added to the pile and these are going to come in very handy, I think. Along with the Dream Street ones, the Imaginisce ones, 2 lots of Fancy Pants ones, 2 lots of Lasting Impressions ones.......

Around the World Sketch

The Midweek Little Extra over on the Daring Cardmakers blog has had a bit of a makeover recently and if you visit on Tuesdays you'll usually find one of the Design Team doing their "own thing" on there. It might be some sort of challenge, a tutorial or pretty much anything we fancy really.

I signed up to do this week's LE and decided on a sketch challenge. But I wanted to add an extra dimension to what appeared on the DCM blog, so I asked just a few of my favourite cardmakers if they'd help me out and make a card for my sketch. It was pretty hard deciding who to ask, actually, but in the end I asked fabby designers from the UK, Belgium, Australia and NZ. I'd have loved to ask more people but I had to rein myself in a bit!
Pop over to the DCM blog to see who came out to play - you won't be disappointed.
I'm thrilled at the cards made for the challenge, and I'm hoping that lots of my fellow cardmakers will now be inspired to try the sketch for themselves - maybe the lure of a fabby prize will help toooo..... hah, you'll have to go and look at the blog to find out about that too.

This is the sketch I made:
And this is my card:
The papers are Fancy Pants "Botanicals", Flowers are Prima and the ribbon is from Ribbon Oasis.
The flower edging is made with punched flowers, the centres are cut using the flower centre from the Cuttlebug "flower and pot" - I use this a lot. I've used cereal-packet chipboard covered with paper to make them, then topped them with Glossy Accents.
The chipboard swirl is painted with Cranberry Paint Dabber, then again coated with a layer of GA.
The wording is computer generated, then just mounted onto more paper-covered card layers.

I've another idea for using this sketch - if I can find enough time to make it up.

I'd love it if you'd join in and make a card using my sketch. There's a prize for one lucky winner to be chosen at random in a week's time. You just need to make a card with the sketch then leave a message on the DCM blog to let us know where we can see your card.

All the cards made by "my" little team of designers from around the world, so please go and have a look - and visit their blogs for masses of wonderful papercrafting projects that is sure to inspire you the same as it does me.

Painting the Town

It's the Daring Cardmaker's 104th weekly dare today - which means it's our 2nd birthday - wow, where does the time go? We've seen loads of cardmaking challenge sites start up since Jane had the brilliant idea to start up the DCM but we're pretty sure we were the first. I remember Jane saying "the scrapbookers do it, so why not cardmakers too?" Why not indeed. The Daring Cardmakers was born. It's wonderful to share our crafting with cardmakers from all over the world and I still love being involved with the DCM, being part of the team is fab and I love visiting all the blogs to see what our DCM darers have been up to each week - it's always soooo inspiring. So Happy Birthday Daring Cardmakers, we're going to celebrate by Painting the Town Red.........well not just red, any colour of paint is fine. Any type of paint, any style of painting - as long as there's paint getting used on the cards thats all tht matters. I hope lots of people will join in and get painty at our party I've made a couple of cards this week both using acrylic paints. For the first one I used some glossy card, splodged some cranberry and white paints on then swished it about with a watery brush. The colour was a bit too deep so I used a wet-wipe to remove lots of the paint, then rubbed a damp cloth over the rest until I got a linen look that I quite liked. The hearts were stamped with undiluted cranberry acrylic paint. The swirls were just done freehand (you can probably tell) on an offcut of the painted card. The second card was the one I made first, it's pretty simple, just a set of Bubbly Funk chipboard stars painted with a metallic silver Paint Dabber and arranged on top of each other. I didn't plan on leaving them just like that - I was going to use wire and beads, or maybe suspend the stars in the window, but in the end I just put some dark blue card behind the aperture and stuck the stars straight onto that. I think there's something missing, so may come back and add something later.
Pretty simple card but I do like the "knobbly" effect of the paint on the stars.
Here's another little Thank You card I needed to make, it's just a diddy 10cm sq The stamps are those cute little ones that I can just about cope with without getting into a !I can't stamp" panic. Papers are scraps of Fancy Pants - Celebrate, I think that were lying on my desk from another project. Birdies extra long B&W legs are one of the fabby Jo Kill's ideas which I snaffled rather than cut out the stamped ones that belong to the birdie! Thanks Jo, you're SUCH a fab inspiration!

A Change in the Weather

Sitting here on a rainy Wednesday, nursing an extra cup of coffee just to warm me up it's hard to believe that on Sunday it was warm enough to be outdoors in short sleeves, This countrys weather is mad.
Here are a few of the photos I took at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire on Sunday afternoon - check out those blue skies!












This is another card made for the August Bubbly Funk Kit, which was filled with K&Co Wild Saffron goodness:

I've been using my tiny eyelet setter and hammer again as you can see!
I really like the effect you get - I even like getting the hammer out instead of Mr Cropodile for a change - there's something therapeutic about bashing things with a hammer.....just not so keen on the racket I make, or the headache I get as aresult!
You can click on the pics for a clser look if you like.


I made these two cards using the same basic plan, the first is an anniversary card for one BiL/SiL set and uses "The Daily Grind" papers from Fancy Pants - I've just discovered that they are doing 8x8 paper pads for some of their ranges so I indulged myself and bought a couple. They may have been doing these for months/years, but I'm not the most up-with-the-news person!

The second version - well ok, it was the first version if you're going to demand accuracy....was to put in with the blog candy I made for Juliet when she came out of the virtual hat to win my Birthday Blog Candy prize. I know it seems ages ago but I had to wait and see who won, and then do the making. Still I know the postie delivered it safely into Juliet's hands yesterday - I hope she likes what I've made and enjoys finishing it off.
I'll post some pics soon
Fancy Pants papers again, this time I've used Aged Florals - those papers are just sooooo pretty,
The little frame is a slidemount and the blooms are Primas

The new Bubbly Funk Kit should go out today I think. I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of it - I loved it and am looking forward to getting some spare time so that I can play with it some more. I've still got loads and loads left even after doing four projects so far, it's a fantastic kit. Last time I checked the shop there were still some left to buy, so if you like chipboard and you like Christmas then you should get your hands on one before they sell out just like all the other monthly kits have done

Thanks for looking, please leave a message to say you called by!

More soon

Apples and Pears

I've got a few pics from Audley End House to share - actually I took loads of photos over the weekend, but I promise not to show them all!
One of my favourite places at Audley End House is the kitchen garden, it's changed a lot since we first visited when it was little more than a large glasshouse and a walled wilderness. Now the garden has been cleared and cultivated and the glasshouse, which is huge, is filled with all sorts of vines and other plants. There are masses of apples, pears and squashes growing, and at the moment they've got fab displays of some of the produce. I loved the way they've displayed all the different varieties of apples and pears they've grown - I could only get a fraction of the display in my photo.



This huge barrow was filled with all sorts of squashes, and in the entrance to the greenhouse there were shelves filled with loads of different shapes, sizes and colours of pumpkins.

There are flowers too, the red of these dahlias was just beautiful in Friday's sunshine






Since we last visited Audley End they've opened a new exhibition - the Service Wing of the house has been renovated and the various areas are now shown more as they would have looked when the house was lived in. They've done a fab job and its a really interesting place to nose around in. I loved the look of this range - I didn't fancy keeping it, or all the copper pots gleaming though! You can check out the pastry room, the various cold stores, the laundry room and all sorts of other interesting areas vital to the smooth running of One's Country House ;-)

Back to some crafting stuff now

Another of the cards I made for the August Bubbly Funk kit which featured lots of the gorgeous K&Co's Wild Saffron range of goodies.
The beautiful colours, and fab embellishments, like the 3D butterflies and the paper ribbon were inspirational.
I really wanted to use a quotation for this card, but I couldn't find one that worked in the way I wanted. So I just made something up!

Blue Skies, Nothing but Blue Skies

What an amazing weekend weather-wise. Seems like it's gone back to normal grey today, but for the last few days we've enjoyed blue skies and even some warmth! Just as well as we had MIL staying with us, so being able to get out and about is a very good thing!

Hopefully there'll be photos once Hubby's sorted them out - he insists on us "shooting raw" so that he can tweak the techie stuff, but as I haven't a clue, it means I can't get at my photos when I use my "proper" camera rather than the one I just use for instant pics of cards etc. We made good use of our English Heritage membership; on Friday we went to Audley End House and yesterday to Wrest Park. I love both of these places, but it's ages since we visited either - and they both looked beautiful in the sunshine this weekend.
On Saturday morning Hubby took his Ma along to the local museum (a couple of hours P&Q for me), then we went out for a pub lunch in one of the local villages. We then did the almost obligatory garden centre visit in the afternoon, and although it was one of those with a craft shop in (well, there's a surprise choice....) all I managed to buy was a small circle punch - and that was to replace the one I'd broken last week. What a failure I am - or maybe its what a failyre the shop was to come up with anything to inspire me.... I'm thinking a browse around my fave online shop might be on the cards (oh, the pun!)

I completely forgot to share the things I made for the August Bubbly Funk Kit and emag so I'm going to rectify that over the next couple of days, while I get my breath back and make some other stuff.
This is a photo frame made from mountboard. I'm not sure the photo I used in the frame works very well, but as usual I was in a hurry and didn't have time to find a more suitable one.
This was a beautiful kit full of delicious, subdued shades, and some beautiful embellishments and accessories - and plenty of chipboard of course as that's Caroline's specialist product.
I made a Craft Robo template for cutting extra flowers to match those on the papers and added the download for that to the Bubbly Scrumptious emag for those who subscribed to the kit to use if they wished.
I used flowers cut with the template on this card too:
I used a DL card, as a starting point then drew swirly butterfly trails of tiny dots with a blue metallic pen all over the base card. I then made the centre panel with papers and card from the kit and added one of those fab 3D butterflies also from the kit.

If you've never tried a Bubbly Funk monthly kit before check them out here

More pics tomorrow