Crafty C-Word!

Back to what passes for normal after our exciting weekend!
Here are two more cards made with this month's wonderful Crafty Templates and the fab Goodies Kit Leo put together to go with the templates.

"From Our House...." card

This is such a cute template. I couldn't resist using the gingerbread man paper from the Goodies Kit to make it from. I cut out the window shapes and used my Craft Robo to cut the wording to go behind them. I made the door open to add an extra greeting inside, and added a Christmas Wreath made with the Cuttlebug tiny motifs die.
There's lots of Sticles on the snowy bits, but it doesn't show up very well

Funky Christmas Stocking card
I love this stocking shape and I think it will come in really useful nearer You-Know-What!
I thought it would look cute hanging in an aperture, so I covered the back of the stocking with paper too.
The papers are all from the Goodies Kit, as is the button and gold ribbon. The tinselly pompom is from my own stash

Finally for today I spent some time making "Thank You" cards at the weekend, I tried to be good and stick to the same design but to make it less boring to make them I needed I did a few in each colour-way
The papers are various Black Market Paper Society collections, Flowers are my favourite Prima Artful Flowers

Just check out all that white space lol!
I'm practising for when I eventually get started on our own Christmas cards - I like to keep 'em simple and fairly easy to make loads of without losing the will to live.

Thanks for coming by today

Excited, Moi? (Updated)

Last night we went to see Coldplay at Wembley.

We got some TicketMaster vouchers last Christmas and used them to book our tickets - so we've been looking forward to this for a LONG time!
First photo was taken while there was still some daylight, so about 7.30, the crowd in the front half of the arena was already pretty stuffed in

Suitable lighting and giant balloons to accompany the song "Yellow"

Slightly closer view of the stage -we were about as high up as you can get so the people were all pretty teeny! - bat you can actually see the band on here.

Lovers in Japan: complete with lots of pink cherry blossom effects - load and loads of glittery stuff and if you look closely there's a little arrow pointing to Chris Martin dancing through the glitter along the pier twirling a red parasol

Pictures are all click-on-able!

We don't have a proper video camera but hubby took a few mini vids with our baby Canon, I can't work out how to direct link to you-tube to get the video on to here, and I tried uploading via the "add Video" button and three hours later it was still saying "uploading" so I think it wasn't working - so if you'd like to look, then follow this LINK to our little video (Sorry it gets cut off a bit sharply!) - I think you'll be able to tell how close to the top of the stadium we were! Coldplay were FANTASTIC - every bit as good as I was hoping they'd be, and I'm still living in a happy little Coldplay bubble today!

Update! Managed to embed the youtube video into here eventually

It May be Shabby, but it's Still Chic

Over on the Daring Cardmakers this week we have a fab dare set by one of our talented Kiwi DT members. Tanya Leigh loves all things Shabby Chic and decided that this would be the perfect dare for us to play with.

This week it's my turn to set a dare (Tanya Leigh) and I am into Shabby Chic at the moment as thought this would be a great dare. Look through your stash and found all those bits and pieces you can use or even ask your Nana or Grandma for some bits. Old lace, buttons, bling, flowers etc and make a mess and see what you come up with.

It gave a few of us a wobbly moment or two, but actually when you get down to it, it's just as Tanya says, gathering together all those bits and bobs we love to use on our cards along with maybe a few less usual or "found" items then arranging it all in a way that pleases you.

I love making things like this - I think the first thing to throw aout of the window is the thought of actually sending your card through the post, or accepting that you'll need to make a presentation box to put it in - then the sky is the limit and you can just enjoy adding whatever takes your fancy. It's having a clue when to stop that is sometimes the hardest!


I had a vague idea about using fabric on my card this week, but when I delved into my sewing stuff I found some ready cut patchwork pieces I bought when I needed lots of different fabrics to make one of my teddy bear quilts which gave me an idea for a mini patchwork background. The pieces were still too big so I cut them into smaller triangles then glued them onto another piece of fabric before doing some (very) rough zig-zag machining along all the edges. I reckon that using whatever threads were in the machine and just roughly sewing them added to the "Shabby" theme - and I defy anyone to argue with me, so there!

The green background and the purple frame are a couple of papers from the stash I bought from CTM on my birthday visit - honestly, it was a total coincidence that they matched the bits of fabric! They are another of my current fave manufacturer My Minds Eye- these are from the Penny Lane "Maggie May" set

The aperture in the frame is cut with one of the Nesties "Labels One" set and the pearl string was glued on with Glossy Accents - I added a bit of glittery stuff where the GA went a bit "blobby" while I was "encouraging" the beads to stay put!
Once that was all done it was just a case of assembling the flowers and ribbons.
There are Primas, wired roses and rosebuds, some gypsophila type stuff, a couple of fabric roses and a little lily, a couple of lace flowers made by just gathering up some lace and gluing in place, a couple of ribbons and of course a few of those fab coiled paper flowers
This was such a fun card to make, and once I got going it probably took much less time to make that some of the less fussy cards I make- the great thing being that if you go wrong, or a blob of glue makes a mess where it shouldn't, you can just bung something else on to cover it!

Go on, have a go, it's great fun! Check out the Daring Cardmakers BLOG for lots more ideas, the girls have really come up trumps this week and the cards are full of variety and inspiration

Just before I head off and make my Uncle's birthday card (as usual I'm doing my last-minute-minnie act), here's the first of the cards I made for Leo over at Crafty Templates using the fab new September Templates set.
It's a "starting to think about Christmas" sort of set and there are some quirky designs to eas you in gently. I used the cute Winter Jumper design to make a fun Christmas card

I'm not sure if there are any of the Goodies Kits still available to go with this template set, but if there are, then do get your hands on one, because the papers and embellishments that Leo has put together this time is just fab! Find out all you need to know about Crafty templates HERE

Thanks for visiting today, I hope you like what you found here, now I really must stop waffling and make that card....

First "you-know-what" cards

Bubbly Scrumptious Day for me today, and I've made a couple of quick cards this week.
With limited time this week, they needed to be quick too!

Both use the fab September "Colourful Christmas" Kit from Bubbly Funk. It's such a pretty set of papers and goodies, and what's really special about this one is that whilst some of the designs are very seasonal they also have lots of scope for non-Christmas crafting too. I've got an order for a couple of those little standing albums I've been making lately and I think these papers will be perfect for one of them - I'll let you know how I get on.

The first of my cards is so simple it almost hurts!
I've used fibres, Stickles and an eyelet from mu stash, plus a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The rest is from the kit.
Card 2 is a tad more complicated because it's got a hole in it - but that's only tricky because I didn't have the right sized punch

I thought it would be cute to have those snowpeople peeping through the window.
A fine gel pen and some Stickles are the only non-kit stuff on this one

Both would be really easy to adapt to use other bits from the kit. You can see more photos and basic "How-to's" HERE

I've also made the tags to go into the maze book I was making over the last couple of weeks and there are photos of those too. It's still not completely finished though...maybe it never will be! lol

That's all for now, I'm getting through the to-do list, but it's taking a while. DCM day tomorrow and I've not got so much of a hint of an idea yet. Got stuff to finish packing an posting (please please let the posties not go on strike till they all get there.............)

Thanks for coming by - I promise to have a catch up on what everyone is up to really really soon.

Creative treasures and a Birthday Treat!

I've been working with the fabulous new flower kit from Creative Treasures for a couple of weeks now, but haven't blogged any of the things I've made with it yet. There are some I can't show quite yet, but here are a couple of cards that I can share.

The colours this month are a lovely mix of Black, Turquoise, Aqua and Red, with a little bit of Cream in there for good measure. The flowers are gorgeous as ever, and there are also ribbons, buttons, and card candy that all match up perfectly with the flowers. Delicious!

Supplies
C6 Landscape folded Gatefold card
Paper; "Lucky in Love" Black Market Paper Society
Nestabilities Die: Labels One
Ribbon, ball blooms and card candy for flower centre all from Creative Treasures September kit

For this next card I couldn't resist going all romantic!
I absolutely adore this beautiful lace from the CS kit - isn't it just gorgeous? I've already used every scrap of it from my kit. The blooms, and the lovely spotty satin ribbon are also from the kit, as are the little red and black card candy "cups" (for want of a better word) that I've used in the centre of the flower and for the faux brads at the right edge. These little things are fab - you can use them glued straight onto your projects, on a tiny square of foam tape or they are the perfect size to cover those ordinary brass paper fasteners you buy in stationery shops.

Other Supplies:
14cm sq cream card blank
BMPS paper from "Ebony & Alabaster" - I ran a red ink pad over it to cover the white bits and get the red/black background I was after.
Cuttlebug Textile Texture embossing folder
Spellbinders Flourish Accent to make the swirls
Small red brads

Just had to add a cloe-up of the lovely lace!


It was my birthday yesterday, and unbeknown to me Hubby had taken the day off work so we could go out for the day. So not only did I get breakfast in bed, but I got to choose how we spent the day. Bless his heart, he didn't bat an eyelid when I said I'd rather like to go HERE

He armed himself with his car magazine and a pile of CDs and said I could take as long as I liked.....

When it came to paying the call "Paper Addict in the Shop" was heard. I've just looked at the paper stack I came away with and I reckon it must be an inch thick.
Here's just a couple of glimpses of what I bought

Nice, eh? I'd offer to share, but I'm really too greedy for that. hehe

I received lots of lovely, lovely cards and will photograph them soon so that I can pop them on here.

Last for today, it's WOYWW over on Julia's blog so I took a deep breath and aimed the camera

Yes, I know I work in an appalling mess - but look, underneath the chaos there is a certain amount of order:

I'm feeling really bad because not only has my blogging been lax lately, but I've not had any time to go blog-hopping. I'm hoping that the next few days will see things easing up a bit - and then, I promise I'll be visiting lots and lots of blogs to see what all my favourite crafty people have been up to. I'm really looking forward to sitting here with a coffee and having a darned good blog-browsing session!

For now though, back to work for me....
Thanks for visiting

Oh We Do Love to be Beside the Seaside

I've so much on my "Crafty to-do" list that I don't know whether I'm coming or going - I certainly don't know where to start - everything seems to be needed by yesterday. You know the feeling, I'm sure.

Sometimes my Hubby calls me "Kathy Half-Jobs", because I have times when I've made a start on so many things (not just craft stuff) and managed to finish none of them. I think it's because they're all important and I can't decide which should be at the top of the list! I do get there in the end though.

This week on the Daring Cardmakers we're heading to the seaside. Actually I wish I really was heading there, I could use a breath of fresh seaside air atm!

The cards the girls have made are lovely and all so different. It's such a great starting point as there are so many ways to run with the Seaside theme.

Down by the Sea

Over on this side of the world we're coming to the end of the Summer, and on Keryn's side they'll soon be dusting off their buckets, spades and sun-hats.
We don't just enjoy being by the sea in the Summer, it doesn't matter what the season is, the seaside is a great place to be, so this week we'd love you to make cards with any sort of seaside theme.

After a bit of thinking time I realised that there was only one way for me to go. It just had to be beach huts!

One of my favourite days out is to head over to Southwold and have a walk along the prom. It's very wide, and lined with an ice-cream sundae of beautiful beach huts. Every so often one comes up for sale and they cost an absolute fortune!
I think they are fab!
I actually made this Robo template a while back to make my set of houses for a swap, but now it's made a row of beach huts for my card, I couldn't resist photographing it alongside something from my beach hut themed collection!
I sliced a few cms off the long side of a DL card so that the roofs of the huts would stand out above the fold, then cut them in layers of plain card and in the patterned papers. The wording is my own - at least I think it is, but you never really know if it's something you heard and filed away in deepest recesses of your mind, do you?
My greatest regret on this card is that I didn't stop myself adding the black doodling on the beach huts. Why oh why can't I leave well alone?

Supplies: Buttons, beads and papers from stash - no idea who made any of them, sorry

Please visit the DCM BLOG and see the other seaside cards - they are all so lovely - we hope there'll be lots more to see around the Darer's blogs over the coming week (that's a hint for you to join in with us!)

Oh go on then, since you asked so nicely ;) here's another picture of some Southwold beach huts!

Thanks for popping by
Right, now where's that to-do list?

It's Amazing - part 2

Just a quick blog post before I head off to tackle my "to-do" list. Just when I thought I was on top of it, I remembered some other stuff I hadn't actually noted down - maybe I was just conning myself into thinking I didn't have toooooo much on that there list!


Anyway, Thursday is my day on the Bubbly Scrumptious e-mag (blog for the Bubbly Funk online shop), and I've been filling up the pages in the Christmas maze book I made last week. The September Kit from Bubbly Funk is based around the MME "Colourful Christmas" collection and as always Caroline has worked hard to find all sorts of extra bits and pieces to add into the kit and make it such fun to work/play with.

What with a Bank Holiday last Monday and sorting out the house and guest room ready for MIL's visit at the weekend there's not been as much crafting time available as usual. I've managed to do something on all the pages in the book, but tbh some of them need a little bit more work before they are properly finished. I've not done the back cover or made the tags for the hidden pockets either, so this project will run another week!

As you can see from the photo above, it's already getting quite fat! That's why I always make a good 5cms or so gap between the covers with the ribbon that attaches it all together - the book ends up more of a cube shape in the end!

I love having hidden or extra bits to open within my books and this one is no exception - this photo shows a little book inside the book. I'm not very good at planning what's going inside my books - I usually just have a vague theme in mind (some would say I have a vague mind, actually lol), so my books just sort of grow by themselves! That could be why adding little booklets or fold-outs becomes necessary, but they are fun to find inside the pages, I think.
That's my excuse anyway!

You can find the photos of the pages, and info on how I made them and what I used HERE,
I really hope you like it
Right, to work with me....
Thanks for visiting

Charlie's Aunt

That's me!

I've made a couple of cards for my lovely nephew in the last couple of weeks. First up was a congratulations card to say well done, and how proud we were when his GCSE results came through and he got exactly what he wanted for getting on to his A level courses.

I've always thought he was a star, but then I'm very biased lol lol

Letters and star shapes all cut by Mr Robo. I managed to squeeze a teeny bit of ribbon and a glittery star brad - not too girly, though, eh?
The papers are from "The Black Market paper Society" and I've used them again for Charlie's birthday card.
How the blazes did he get to be 17 in a mere blink of an eye?

I hand-cut the numbers, used the Robo for the letters and a Quickutz football die for the, er, footballs! The colour scheme is all based around those of Newcastle Utd. I spent quite a while colour-matching that blue shade to the one on their website. Yes, I really am that sad! As if anyone but me would actually even notice!

Realised as I was finishing it that there was very little space to actually add a greeting, but just managed to get a narrow strip of paper hidden behind the bottoms of the numerals to write the message on! This is what it looks like standing up.

I've a couple more cards to share, but I'll save them for next time.

Off now to make a coffee and try and warm myself up. It's freezing here this morning!

Have a great day

Hello Sunshine!

It's our lovely Rein's turn to set the dare for the Daring Cardmakers this week:

SUNFLOWERS

We love their happy, sunny appearance, somehow seeing them never fails to cheer, does it? So we'd like to see lots and lots of glorious, cheerful sunflowers on your cards.

Poor Rein has had a nasty fall and is very sore and bruised, so hopefully a great big bouquet of sunflowers will cheer her up and bring a smile back to her face.

You'll find some wonderful cards on the blog this week and we'd love to see the cards you make too - so please join in and then leave a message on the blog so that we can see what you've been making.

I love sunflowers. This year I've got quite a lot in my garden - lots of little ones that have several flowers on each stem and also some bigger ones too. There's one near the bottom of the garden which has lots of flower heads, but is very tall and stands well above the other shrubs - it catches the morning sun and catches my eye as soon as I open the curtains. I took a photo from there this morning
Not a great pic - I didn't have a very big lens on the camera and it's really windy so all the flowers are getting blown about a lot!

The photo on my "sunflowers" card is one of hubby's from a year or two back.
I made the sunflowers using Mr Robo and a lovely template from CRAFTY, le Craft Robo
Each sunflower has two layers of petals and they took absolutely AGES to cut, the template must be very intricate - much more so than the ones I make, anyway!
The petals were inked a little bit and tweaked to get some shape.
For the flower centres I punched a circle from a darker yellow card, added a layer of Glossy Accents then sprinkled a few amber coloured beads onto the GA
I really love the way these sunflowers came out - I need to come up with another excuse to make some more!
I hope you like the idea of our sunflowers dare and will join in and make some cards to share with us.
We've a new Guest Designer too this week - you'll find out who it is by popping over to our blog. lol
Thanks for looking

It's Amazing

Such a Bad Blogger I've been this week!

Just having one of those times when there's more to do than there is time to do it - you'll all know what I mean, I'm sure.

Anyway, one of the things I've been doing is starting a new project with the September Bubbly Funk Kit (it's in the shop now and it's lush!), and as it's Thursday the first part of it is up on Bubbly Scrumptious as of about 5 minutes ago.

Although Maze Books are one of my most favourite kinds of mini book, and I've made loads of them - some are listed in the Labels section in the sidebar, I've never made one specifically for BubScrump, This gorgeous "Colourful Christmas" Kit is just perfect for a maze book project so that's what I'm making and sharing over the next couple of weeks.


Despite the name this collection isn't so overtly “Christmassy” that you can’t use them for other occasions or projects, so even if you don’t want a Christmas or Winter themed little book, you can still use this kit to make a cute and clever little book for whatever purpose you want.

This week I'm showing how I made my basic book and covers and hopefully by next time, I'll have finished decorating the inside and can share that too - I need to make my mind up as to what to put in there first though! lol



You can find the first part of this project HERE, I hope you'll join in and have a go at making one of these Maze Books, they're really not difficult but they are rather addictive and once you've made one, you won't be able to stop!

Apologies for the poor photos one of the bulbs blew in our little photo studio and replacements haven't arrived yet. plus I took them before the Stickles and Glossy Accents had dried so those bits look a bit murky!

Anyway, thanks for visiting, Please leave a message if you can, it's so lovely to read them and to see where you all come from :)

Give 'em an Inch.....

What with holidays, house-moving, poorly people and poorly computers and goodness knows what else we're a rather depleted DT over on the Daring Cardmakers this week - but that hasn't stopped Our Sue from issuing another of her Very Scary Dares!

This week it’s my turn (Sue) to dare you and I was having a bit of trouble finding a challenge that would stretch the imagination and get those creative juices flowing.
The idea for Inchies came to me when I was chatting to a friend about people taking liberties and she uttered the old saying, “give them an inch and they take a mile”……..Ahh. Inchies I thought!!
"Inchies" are 1 inch (or 2.5cm) squares of card, inked, painted, papered and decorated in any way you like, they are often made to a theme then swapped with others in a group rather like ATCs are.
So my dare this week is to make inchies and put just five of them on your card.
There’s no set theme, colour or shape, I’m just intrigued to see how many different ways you can arrange the five tiny squares.

I've only ever made one set of inchies - that was a while ago for a swap on one of my favourite forums. I enjoyed making them and they do make lovely embellishments for cards. They can be as simple or as intricate as you want - there are some amazing teeny tiny pieces of artwork out there, if you google on "inchies" you're sure to find some fabulous examples.

I went down the "simple" route!
I decided I wasn't keen on the birthday card I'd already made for Emily (the flip-flop/swing card from a couple of weeks back) so I made this one instead.

The inchies may have been simple byt the spring (pardon the pun) flowers were not - they took ages to put together. This was not helped by my going a bit bonkers and deciding that they should still look good from the other side! Sometimes I do wonder about my sanity.....

Anyway, Primas and other blooms are layered up with Cuttlebug ones and the occasional punched flower too. Glittery buttons, blobs of Glitter Glue and little gems are used for the centres of the flowers and they are attached to the card with tiny springs made by winding coloured wire tightly around a cocktail stick.

I made the inchies from card, covered them with different MME "Pretty Please" papers, inked the edges then drew a line on the card so that I could align them properly (I couldn't really get away with my usual slapdash for this design lol). I used little Primas on the inchies, then applied Glossy Accents and Stickles to get some more interesting effects.
Here is what the back of the card looks like

The letters are stickers that come in the "Pretty Please" collection pack, stuck on to more Cuttlebug flowers
I can't say I'm particularity pleased with my inchies for this challenge but time ran out before I could have another bash! If you want to seem some really fabulous ones, head over to the DCM BLOG and see what the others have been doing - they are just wonderful!

That's it for today, it's a Bank Holiday this weekend, we've nothing planned but fingers crossed the weather in nice and we can get out in the garden.

Back soon probably with the cards I've made to say "well done" to my nephew and niece, who got their GCSE results yesterday and did really well.
(Proud Auntie Moment!)

thanks for visiting, have a great weekend,