Lazy Saturday

My rellies have been staying with us for a few days, I don't get to see them very often so it was lovely for me to have them here.
Hubby took one of the days while they were here off work, and by some amazing luck it turned out a beautiful hot day - very surprising as the rain had woken us all up during the night because it was soooo loud! Anyway, the blue skies of the next morning were a very pleasant surprise and we didn't need to think up an alternative plan after all. We went over to Audley End, which is such a great place to visit on a nice day as the gardens are just fab to wander around - I'll sort out some photos to put on here later.

My cousin came over on Saturday and we'd all planned to head out for the day - but the weather was so lovely we decided we couldn't be bothered to make the effort and that a day slobbing out in the garden would be much nicer! I even managed to find enough stuff in the freezer to have a BBQ without needing to go out for a hasty shop.
We weren't totally lazy - the croquet, boules and koosh all came out to play during the day, but generally we did very little. Apart from being by the sea I'm not sure there's a better way to spend a sunshiney day - we're too far away from the sea here, and anyway, my rellies live across the road from the beach when they're at home and don't have a proper garden to sit in there, so being in ours was a treat for them.
I managed to get out of my chair for long enough to take a few photos



back soon with some August Crafty Template cards,
Thanks for looking

Flip-Flop or Swing

It should have been Jo's turn to set the challenge on The Daring Cardmakers this week, but their computers are down so Sue stepped in and challenged us to try making flip (or swing) cards. This is the sort of card with two folds, where the centre piece is cut out and flips, or swings round to give two different "views"
There are loads of templates and tutorials to be found on the net, and Sue has kindly sorted out a few of these to share over on the DCM blog.

I think its fair to say they're not as easy as they look - especially if you start by changing the sizes before you really know what you're doing - would I do that? Yes of course I would, and did I get myself in a right old pickle, yes, I did that too.
One day I will at least make a trial card according to the instructions given instead of going my own sweet way from the start! It would maybe call a halt to the pile of ruined bits of paper and card that I accumulated making this one!

My plan was to use this as a birthday card for niece Emily later this month, but I'm not sure I actually like what I've done, so may think again on that score. Or maybe I can alter this one so that I like it better.
I quite like the idea of the swing card, but I'm not convinced about my effort!

Supplies for this card - Fancy Pants "On a Whimsy"( yes, again lol), Cupcake and lettering are Robo cut, flowers Prima. Rub Ons - Scenic Route (but I won't buy these again, not one word came out right - hence the glitter glue!), Stickles Glitter Glue

As August is always a busy month we've indulged ourselves and invited two Guest Designers onto the Team this month. They are both amazing crafters and we're so lucky to have Paula and Anne-Kristine joining us. If you're looking for new inspiration these two fabulously creative girlies will really wow you with their work. Head over to the DCM blog to find out more, see their first cards and find the links to their wonderful blogs - both are real treats so make yourself a coffee so you can sit and browse to your heart's content!

Once this weekend is over I'm hoping for some blog-hopping time as I'm really missing my web-wanders atm. I'm loving having my family here staying with us, but it does mean less pc time!

Tart Tatin

Or Tart Ta Tin

It's my turn to put something on the Bubbly Funk emag, and this week I've been "tarting up" a little tin.

First I got out the alcohol inks - always a messy thing to do, but a lot of fun too
Then I used bits and pieces from the BF August kit and stuff from my stash to give my tin a whole new look.
More photos and info on how I did this project are HERE


Sorry this is a bit abrupt but we have visitors and we've been out all day - I'm actually supposed to be cooking dinner at this moment but have sneaked in here to do this, Don't tell anyone....

Quickity Quick

Haven't got much time today as we have visitors arriving tomorrow and even though I said "I'm not leaving everything till the last minute" a couple of weeks back, guess what?

So before I go and find a duster (I believe there are such things in existence.....), and that big purple and green thing which sucks up the dirt, etc etc I thought I'd pop in here to show the card I made yesterday. It was a rush order from Hubby's office and is a bit bigger than the cards I usually make being A5, or whatever that is in "card" size-speak. My fave size to work with is a 14cm sq, but as it turned out this card was the perfect size to fit 4 chipboard letters on!

The Monthly Challenges that up till now have appeared on the Bubbly Scrumptious emag now have a blog all of their own to star on. There will be a prize every month too - you can find the blog HERE
The August challenge is Monograms - you can use them in any way you like.
I'm going to link this card to the blog - though I'm not convinced you can use FOUR letters for challenge to use a MONOgram. I'm sure Joanne will have something to say about all that....lol lol lol

Before I head off I just want to say a big Thank You for all your lovely comments about my card for Friday's dcm Bejewelled fare - I'll get around all the blogs soon, but its been a bit of a hectic weekend and I've not had much computer time for one reason or another. I'll catch up - eventually!
Right, I really really must do some H****w**k now. Hope your week is off to a sunny and bright start.

Bejewelled Bliss!

Apparently, not only is Lythan addicted to paper but she's also addicted to the Bejewelled Blitz game on Facebook - where, I might add her score is pretty high!
Actually I'll admit to sharing the paper addiction and also to getting quite close to having a little addiction to that particular game myself now, probably due to the Great Enabler Herself.

Anyway, the upshot is that this week's dare over on The Daring Cardmakers is to "Bling up" your cards with lots of Bejewelled gems and sparkle. We all deserve a little bit of sparkle in our lives, don't we?

I was trying to figure out what to do for this challenge and browsing through the new goodies that had arrived from Charmed earlier this week when my eye was caught by one of the designs on the "cards" sheet of my lovely new "On a Whimsy" papers (Fancy Pants)

Can you tell which one it was?

Anyway, with this in mind, plus the notion of having another play with those fab little flowers from the Cosmo Cricket blog that I showed on here the other day here's the card I came up with

I used the plainer sides of the papers, except for the dotty one. Managed to find a way to use my new flower border punch (how come last week I had NO Martha Stewart punches and now I seem to have three?) in here too. Oh I dooooo love these little flowers, I did a bit of experimenting with sizes to make the scroll of flowers for this card. I think even the teeny ones are still too thick for most cards -you'd really need to use a box or one of those DVD mailing packets to send this through the mail.
Then again, boxed cards look wonderful, don't they, and I think you could send a boxed card like this with a "fat" stamp on so it wouldn't cost any more than most of the bumpy cards we make....

The black gems are from Kaiser - I thought I'd mucked the whole thing up adding these but once I'd added the black Melissa Francis sentiment sticker (thanks to Jo for the tip about how good these are, mwah, mwha) and the 3 Bugs flower rub-ons the black bits seemed to balance out better.
Ribbon is from Ribbon Oasis and conveniently covers up a bad paper choice, phew!
Coloured gems are 2 different sizes from the Anita's gem wheels.

There are lots of lovely sparkly creations on our BLOG this week, so please pop by to see them. Hopefully there'll be lots of links appearing soon on the comments thread saying where we can see lots more Bejewelled and Glitzy Dazzlers.

Bubbly Boys

The new Bubbly Funk kit comes out tomorrow and this past week I've started using my DT version. The kit is called "His and Hers" and has a mix of papers and embellishments to suit both masculine and more feminine projects.


I thought I'd make it harder for myself and start off by making some "boy" themed cards. My friend's son is 11 during August, so this was a good opportunity to get his card made now rather than be faffing about the day it needs to go in the post. I made this really easy card with paper from the kit and a few bits from my stash


There;s some shrink plastic in this months kit. I do actually have plenty of my own already, but there's something about getting it in a kit that makes me actually want to use it!

I don't really have many stamps and those I do have are generally quite small, but I do love this big foam teddy stamp and together with the lovely blue/green shades of some of the papers in the kit a baby card was crying out to be made
You'll get a whole chipboard chunky alphabet in the kit this month - in fact I think there are two of each letter, plus the "negative" that the letter comes out of.

You can find out all about the kit by visiting the Bubbly Funk SHOP and see my projects and loads more on the shop blog Bubbly Scrumptious {HERE}

I'm not getting on very well with my "to-do! list for today. DCM tomorrow and not the merest glimmer of a plan. So I must go and see if sitting at my craft desk helps kick-start some ideas!

Thanks for visiting

Playing with Paper

Looking around my favourite crafty websites and blogs yesterday I came across a great video tutorial on the Cosmo blog, showing how to make some really fab little flowers.
As I'm waiting for some glitter glue to dry on another project it seemed a waste of time not to have a try at making some of these flowers.

Please bear in mind that these are the first three I've made and I know the "leaves" are really rough, but what do you think? cute aren't they?

I'm quite chuffed at how they turned out. Not sure what I'll do with them, mind you! They are a bit bulky to put on anything except boxed cards, but would look good on top of a box, or as a trim for a special gift I think.
I might have a little play and see if I can adapt the idea to make really mini ones too.

That's it, all for now - just wanted to share these straight away lol

Rainy Days and Mondays.....

yuk!
Not only rainy but a Monday too - and boy was it hard work waking up this morning. I think it might be an intravenous coffee day today.
Lots to do but struggling to find the inclination to start on any of it, so writing a bit on the blog seems a good way to put it off for a little while longer,

Is it just me, or is Blogland a very quiet place just now - maybe everyone is on their summer holidays - now is when I'm feeling a bit left out by having already had our "big" holiday back in January/February!
Might just indulge myself and post a little reminder of our Cuban trip, hang on a minute.....

ahhh that's better!

Right, now a bit of a catch up
Last week's Rosie-dee challenge was part of their "Occasions" theme for July, with the subject of "Babies". I made my very first "twinchies" which are of course, 2x2" squares.
I dug out one of my fave QK dies and made these:

Coincidentally, one of OH's cousins was expecting her new baby to arrive about the same time as this challenge was going on - so I got one of those "2 birds with one stone" moments when I made the squares into a new baby card


My last task as their Guest designer was to make a Sympathy card - often the hardest cards of all to make. Usually we only make them when we need to send one, so it was a bit different to make one without that emotional thing going on.

I used one of the papers from Dream Street's Nancy collection for the backing paper, and also a sheet from the DCWV Luxury pad, on which I've used my new Fiskars border punch.
There's some lovely cotton lace from Charmed Cards and Crafts, and some lovely peachy-pink ricrac along the lower edge, which may have come in an old Self-addressed kit. I dug out the box which is stuffed full of wired flowers and lurks, largely unused at the back of a cupboard to find this tiny mulberry rosebud.
The Nesties oval looks a bit unfinished to me, but I'm too scared to add any doodling to it. Actually that's a fib because I did add some to the first version and it looked such a mess that I had to cut another oval to stick on the top!

Well, that's me all out of waffle, so maybe I'll just have to go and do something from the "to-do" list..... If you read this, please leave a message, I'm feeling really lonely here in Blogspace and need to know I'm not the only one around! lol
Thanks for visiting

Feeling Edgy - and a Robo "How to"

Another sunny start to the day here - but then yesterday started like that too - and then it was a case of sunshine and showers all day long. Fortunately, for once it started the showery bit before I'd put my washing out to dry - unlike one day last week when I ended up wetter than the washing had ever been while trying to rescue it from a torrential downpour.
Oh the joys of a British Summer!

Friday is, as usual, Daring Cardmakers Day and we have a lovely new dare to play with:

This week we have a dare called:
On The Edge

We'd love to see you making use of all sorts of border treatments; scallops, trims, pleats, or anything else which makes the edges of your papers and cards look special. You could use Border Punches, Die Cutters, Lace, Fancy Trims and that's just for starters - let your imagination live right on the edge this week - or maybe even go right over the edge!

If you head over to the DCM BLOG you can see how the Design Team interpreted the challenge and hopefully be inspired to have a go yourself. We'd love as many people as possible to join in - we love to see all the cards you make and its such a wonderful way to share and inspire.

As we'll be celebrating our 16th Wedding Anniversary card at the end of the month I thought I'd use this dare to make a card for hubby. It'll be a change to have it ready ahead of time, instead of doing the last minute panic thing!

I thought I'd add to the edges available to decorate by making a joyfold "card within a card" type thing. I've used a border punch to make the white panel, and my Craft Robo to do the other decorative edges.
I've got "Greetings Card Factory" and "Print Artist" graphics programs on my pc - I don't use them for actually making cards, but they do come in handy for all sorts of stuff - so I've been experimenting using making some Robo templates using GCF.
I used it to make the scalloped edge with the semi circle holes, the joined circles trim for the smaller card on the right side and also the scalloped frame for the pc generated message card.

Supplies: Papers: Doodlebug, Imaginisce, Bazzill red card, Spotty velvet paper, large red button, spotty ribbon (Ribbon Oasis), Anitas gem wheel, Maya Road Rub-ons (Bubbly Funk), Fiskars border punch

The "Hearts" edging trim is another Robo template, I thought I'd tell you how I made it in case you'd like to have a go, I used a preset shape in Paint Shop Pro, but I'm sure there'll be something similar in whatever photo/graphics programme you use.

Here's how to make it:
Use the same heart shape pasted several times, swivvling them round and overlapping them to make a long row.
Go to the Layers menu and click "Merge All"
On the Colours menu, use the "decrease number of colours" to use only 2 colours
Use the Fill tool to fill all the shapes with black
Save as a gif file.
I then use the "Back" button to go back through all the steps until I had the original heart shape remaining, I then copy/pasted a few of the hearts without having them touching each other, decreased the colours as before, filled each heart with black and saved this new version too.
In Craft Robo, open a new page and load both versions, resize them together to the size you need and cut. This way you have the row of joined up hearts, and more hearts of the same size to add on top of some of them for dimension - I used foam pads to add my extra hearts.

Let me know if you have a go with the tutorial - hopefully it makes sense, but it would be nice to know one way or the other!

Thanks for visiting today

Round the Block

For the Bubbly Funk Shop BLOG this week I've been using the July Verbena kit again, and this time I've made a little memo block dodah. A few weeks ago I bought a really boring plain white mini memo block thinking that I might be able to make something with in. In the event, I divided it into three sections and I've used one section to make this: I couldn't decide whether to add a word or a name/monogram on it so in the end I opted to leave it blank - I can always add something later if I change my mind. This was so quick and easy that I'll be making more to stash away for little gifts. I might even make one to sit on my own desk - but maybe that would be just a bit too organised for me..... You can find out how I made this by visiting Bubbly Scrumptious, and see what the various components of the Verbena kit are by clicking HERE
Can I ask a favour? If you head over to see the full project - it makes such a difference to all the designers and contributors when messages are left for us, so please take a minute and please leave a comment on there - thank you.

Here's another shared image that I'm hoping someone will find useful. Click on the little pic to bring up the larger version which you can copy and save to your computer. If you use it, I'd love to see what you make so please come back and let me know.

Hot and Spicy!

I was waiting for the Postie yesterday as Tracy from Creative Treasures was sending me some flowers and other bits and bobs to play with. In the envelope that landed on the doormat were flowers, ribbons, buttons and other lovely treasures from her deliciously bright Hot and Spicy July Flower Kit.

I wanted to play straight away and made a couple of cards so quickly that I shocked myself and had to go for a lie-down......

On the floor by the desk, waiting to be put away was a piece of hot pink card which was the perfect shade to go with the flowers - how lucky was that?
The flowers and both the orange and the pink ribbon used here are from the July Flower Kit. Those teeny weeny miniscule brads are from my stash.

My second card uses some papers from the BG Lemonade paper pad.

The Ricrac, buttons and pins, aswell as the flowers are from Tracy's July kit - the little oval sentiment was also in my DT bag of goodies, as were the diecut flowers - not sure if they are in the actual July kit or just some delish extras that Tracy added!

I love that little oval sentiment - they come on a card sheet of several different birthday messages that just pop out ready to use. The lettering is lovely and a whole lot easier than using rub-ons!. I inked the edges of this one then set it on a Nesties small scalloped oval backing piece.

Pins on cards bother me - probably because I get in a panic about pricked fingers and the like! But I do like to see them and every now and then I take my courage in both hands and use one. The Flower kit includes some lovely long pins this time - I put this one between the two card layers of the sentiment, added some tiny beads from my beady stash, and superglued them on, making sure that no sharp points could be felt.

I still have loads of flowers left of course - Tracy's kits are very generously stuffed with them, and definitely worth exploring - they are a lovely thing to treat yourself to whether you need more flowers or not lol
To make it easy, you can visit Creative Treasures by clicking HERE

Postcard, Twinchies, and a Vintage Share

I'm not sure what's happened to the hot sunshine we were enjoying a few weeks ago - now we're back to sunshine and showers - with more of the showers than I'd like to see. The good thing is that there's less need to water the veggies out in the garden - the bad thing is that it means getting soaked when I go out to cut the latest batch of courgettes - which are growing so quickly and abundantly that we could probably supply Tescos just now.

Rummaging through the "ephemera" drawer to make my Vintage themed postcard for SCD at the weekend I found all manner of old stuff. A few years ago a friend who loves accumulating old stuff had a clear out and sent bags full of vintage stuff out to those who wanted some. In my bag there was paper, tickets, pictures, stamps, lace, buttons, beads and all sorts of stuff dating back through the decades. Most of it I can't bear to use, but I did use some scraps of manuscript and book pages on the postcard - it reminded me of a card I made a couple of years back, also using some of Puss's goodie bag.

To make the flower I glued some of the old book pages on thin card and added some distress inks. After cutting the petal shapes I added more inking. The background is made from more inked paper, plus some ribbon and lace.

Among the treasures Puss sent were some old playing cards. I used one to make this postcard for this week's SCD Turquoise and Chocolate challenge.

There was no way I was going to use the actual playing card though, so I scanned it, then printed it out three times to use to make the background for this card. The swirl is a piece of a larger one that had broken, I used acrylics and inks to get the right colour, then added a tiny bit of turquoise Stickles before giving it a layer of GA. The flowers are Primas. the flower centre is made using turquoise beads dropped into Glossy Accents. The brad looked a bit boring so more Stickles and GA made it look more "at home"

I've been inspired by all the generous people out there who share their images for other crafters to use, so I thought I'd try to join in and share some of the things I have that might be useful to others. My first "share" is the playing card that you can download - I think this one is from the 1920/30s, but don't quote me!

If you click on the small image it should open a larger copy which you can download to your computer. If you do use it, please let me know, I'd love to hear how you made use of it.

I'll add some more Shares soon.

The Rosie-Dee challenge blog has "Babies" as the subject for this month's "Occasions" theme.
I've been looking at all the lovely "Twinchies" that are appearing on some of my fave blogs and itching to have a go. My DT spot gave me a great excuse to play with the 2 x 2" squares - especially as I knew I'd be needing a baby card and could use my twinchies to make it.
These are the twinchies I made, I'll put the finished card on here tomorrow.

Imaginisce papers, QK pram die, Robo-cut letters and tiles. various ribbons and brads from stash.

Gosh, this turned into a bit of an epic - hope you made it through to the end!

Thanks for looking :)