A Sporting Life

Over on the Daring Cardmakers Blog this morning we've announced the winner of the gorgeous goodies from Tea House Bridge.  Sadly, I didn't win - but as I wasn't allowed to enter, that was no real surprise, was it?  However, I'll be heading over there to buy some of Zuzana's lovely embellishments pretty soon - especially as thanks to last week's challenge I've had some to play with already.  I think the cotton buttons and some of the gorgeous antique lace will be first to hit the basket....
This week it's my turn to set the challenge and I've been rather self-indulgent, or at least self-interested 

"There are no fewer than 7 family birthdays coming up in May, and 5 of them are "boys".  I always struggle when it comes to making boy/man cards, and I know a lot of you will be just the same.   I thought we could all help each other out by challenging ourselves to make at least one masculine card this week - and to make it a little bit easier we'll go for a Sporting theme:

    The Sportsman
    So, a masculine card with a sporting theme - it can be for any age of "boy" you like - from baby boy to Grandads, just make sure it also has some sort of sport featured too - footie, rugby, fishing, weightlifting, golf, athletics....the whole sporting arena is yours to choose from"

The good thing about sport is that it does give you something to base the dreaded masculine cards around, doesn't it?  The really tough ones are those for those men who don't have something like that to latch on to!

Anyway, as one of our nephews reaches 18 next month, I've made a football themed card for him.  Now personally, I can't stand football and I really don't "get" the way it completely absorbs most of "my" menfolk - and some of the girls too, for that matter.

It's an easel card - I like the way they let you add plenty of "sticky out bits" which makes them a bit different, especially for a special birthday.

I made a template to cut on Craft Robo using some clip-out as a guide then cut all the different layers to build up the little footballer.  The numerals and letters are also cut using Craft Robo templates.  The three small footballs used on the band that keeps the card up are made from images found on the web - I resized the pictures to the right size for a small circle punch before printing them, and used plain card circle layers to make them nice and thick

I've just realised that I've forgotten to add some bootlaces....

Materials:

Bazzill card (beige, white, red, black

Paper from the scraps box for the hair and for the green circle background

All other papers Bo Bunny Weekend Market - I've used a mix of 12x12 and 6x6 sizes

Star brads (white, black, red)

White pen for trims on shirt etc

Tools:

Craft Robo (footballer, Numerals, Name)

Spellbinders plain circles dies, Small circle punch

I hope you'll join in with us this week and get at least one masculine card made and ready to send!

Thanks for popping in, please come again soon!

Catch the Bug

Something's definitely bugging me, but such is life!

Actually the title really refers to a couple of my "makes" for Crafty Templates this month.  The new set went live a few days ago and as usual I'm a bit late blogging my projects - though in my defence,I'm getting better as this is not as late as I've been in other months!

I thought I'd show a couple of cards today and save a third for tomorrow...or another day, anyway ;)!

I used the butterfly template to make this card

I cut the various butterfly pieces 3 times each and layered them up.  For the wings I first curled each one up slightly and only adhered them together at the points - to keep the rest of the wing pieces separate I added a tiny piece of waste card between the layers.

Next in the "Bugs" line up is this Happy Bee.  My original plan was to make more of a regular card, with a Ha-Bee Birthday message, but in the end I thought I'd have a go at making him into a shaped card

I was a bit worried about how his antennae would survive the postal system, so added a grassy background to the bee shape to give a bit more support.

I used some of the lovely fabric in the Crafty Goodies Kit to make the wings, then covered the ends where they are attached to the card with a flower made from the Kesi'Art blooms also in the Goodies Kit

Materials:

From the Crafty Goodies Kit: Most papers, fabric, flowers

Other supplies: MME papers, Seam Binding, Rangers Enamels for the Bee's facial features

Crafty Templates website is HERE

The Crafty Goodies Kit I was working with is HERE

Thanks for visiting

Maze Book Page

I've used the current Sketch File LO to make another page for my little "inspire" book of quotes.  It's a sort of occasional challenge to myself to make the sketches work for something really small.  I don't do ATCs etc, so these 7x7cm square LO are about as small as I go.

This is the page using the April Sketch

While I had these pretty papers out, I thought I'd just do a collage picture for the facing page - this was fun and didn't take long because all the paper elements are really simple - did I hear you say "childish"? hehe - and just cut free-hand with a pair of scissors - except for the butterflies which are made with a tiny punch

I used:

MME 6x6 pad Follow Your Heart "Be Harpy"

Pastel Buttons, Baker's Twine (Creative Treasures)

Flat-backed pearls and gems

Trees, flowers and tiny bird cut freehand from scraps

Liquid Pearls

Inks

Quotation is pc generated

It would be great if you'd check out The Sketch File blog and make something to share with us.  Keryn, Jackie, Carol and I try really hard to make things that will inspire our fellow crafters and it makes us sad when we don't see many people joining in - so why not pop over to see the sketch and all the things made with it over the last few weeks - there's still time to join in and share your own crafting with us this month too.

Thanks for visiting

Tagged!

Happy St George's Day to all who have the Good St George as their Patron Saint - that's not just the English, but plenty of other Countries, Cities, Groups etc too:

To quote from Wikipedia:

"Many Patronages of Saint George exist around the world, including: Georgia, England, Egypt, Bulgaria, Aragon, Catalonia, Romania, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia, as well as the cities of Genoa, Amersfoort, Beirut, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg, Kumanovo, Ljubljana, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Rio de Janeiro, Lod, Lviv, Barcelona, Moscow, Tamworth and the Maltese island of Gozo, as well as of the Scout Movement^"

That lot would make quite a World Party if we all made the effort, wouldn't it? hehe 

 

I'm late again posting my DCM offering - and feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself too as this week it's a special challenge over on the Daring Cardmakers, not only is it Gez's first time setting the challenge, but we have a fab prize to give away too.  We're celebrating the opening of our own Zuzana's lovely new shop - more of that in a minute 

Hi, this week it's Gez here.
I am delighted to be your hostess this week, it's my first time so I am super excited and looking forward to seeing everyone's creations.
Tag You're It!
I would like to see a tag on your cards: large tags, small tags, focal point or embellishment - It's completely up to you how you chose to incorporate a tag into your design.

  

 I thought I'd make some pockets to put my tags in and whilst I was fairly pleased with that element, the rest turned out a bit of a dog's dinner - despite being pulled apart and put back together again for a second attempt.  I think I should have just kept to a plain white background and I may even go for a third try yet!

Hey ho, you can't win them all, can you? 

Zuzana's new online shop is:

link to shop

Zuzana has filled her shop with a wonderful treasury of pretty temptations and it would be wonderful if you'd go and check it out to see what she has to offer.  Joining in with our challenge this week will give you a chance of winning this selection of the unusual buttons and other goodies you can find there

Pop over to our BLOG to find out more about how that little lot could be yours!

Zuzana kindly sent each of the DCM designers a lovely package of goodies to use on this week's cards so it's a great way to see more of them.

On the photo above you can see some of the cotton buttons (the small pink, large white, and small white and pink ones) Zuzana sells - these aren't buttons in the regular sense as they have no holes, but they are soooo pretty, there's also the gorgeous turquoise "flower" and that pretty pink birdy - I added a bit of Stickles to mine.

Apart from the pretties from Tea House Bridge I used:

MME papers: "All Dolled Up" and "Fiddlesticks"

Various punches to make the flower, 

Various flat blooms and wired roses, Seam binding,

Spellbinders Dies

Do visit the Daring Cardmakers' blog to see some wonderful cards and to find out more about this week's challenger

Thanks for looking

Hats Off to You!

I love hats - my OH is always careful to grab my arm and steer me quickly through the hat department in John Lewis's - what a spoilsport!  For some reason he does the same thing in the bag section too!  Funny though, how pace slows as soon as we get into the "technology" department.....ahhh yes, it's all different then, isn't it?

Anyway, this week's Daring Cardmakers' challenge was set by lovely Zuzana and it's all about - did you guess? HATS!

Hi, this week is Zuzana here.

 With the more warm and sunshine weather I came up with idea to open  

The Hat Boutique

I would like to see a hat on your cards: straw, cowboy, top-hat, vintage, wedding, winter, baseball cap ...

It's completely up to you what colour and kind you prefer :0) 

We are really looking forward to seeing your creations. 
So get ready and let's start with crafting.

With Eldest Niece due to graduate from Uni in a couple of months time, I thought I'd "get ahead with a hat" and make a card featuring a mortarboard.  It was going to be much less complicated than the rather girly one I eventually made, but I'll save that idea for when Eldest Nephew finishes his degree in a couple of years time (if I remember!).

I know mortarboards are usually black, and I did start out by getting out more suitable, more muted coloured supplies, but hey, a small break with tradition and a little flight of fancy is a bit more fun  

So here's what I ended up with

Materials:

All papers from MME "Be Happy" 6x6 pad (from Follow Your Heart collection)

Bazzill aqua card (for sentiment)

Hand-made flower, tassel and scroll

Silver thread, inks

Own template for Mortarboard - please email me if you would like a copy

Tools:

Craft Robo (mortarboard, sentiment)

Zutter corner-rounder

Dies: Spellbinder Persian Accents, Memory Box swirly border

Punches: Punch Bunch flower, EK Success border punch, plain circle punch

 Isn't the swirly Memory Box die lovely?  I cut it twice to form the background for the sentiment, and trimmed each down slightly to fit better.

I made the paper flower using several punched flowers.  The scroll is just a piece of paper inked and rolled up, with a very narrow piece of paper used as a "tie"

 Looking at it now, I think I should have made the mortarboard a couple of cms larger, so I may go back and do that later.

To make the tassel I fringed a small rectangle of paper, added some strong glue to the uncut edge then rolled it up tightly around the end of the cord. 

There's a fab array of hats to see on the DCM BLOG this week, and we'd love it if you'd join in and show us your own Hat-themed cards.

Nothing exciting (or even vaguely interesting happening around here just now, so I'll just say "thanks for visiting" and head off to look at the new DT set of Crafty Templates that arrived yesterday and work out what to make this month.

Have a great weekend

Late!

It's been a busy few days - not much helped by tweaking my back the other day and being in a bit of pain since.  We've been doing more "house-reclamation".  Apart from all the downstairs remodelling work, we discovered that to get the funky new taps to work properly we needed to bring forward another job - fitting a new water-heating system.  So just as I was beginning to clear some of the mess, more mess was made!

This weekend, I am determined to reclaim the dining room - as much as possible, anyway!  Which is why I was crawling around the floor with the Dyson, trying to get at the muck and dust that I've not been able to reach for a couple of months, and during which activity I did something that hurt.

Anyway, it's not too bad (as in, it's been worse....) and I just need to take it easy for a few days.

We've had the "obligatory" Band Holiday trip to the dump, sorted out a bit more of the clutter, had a little shopping trip and now Hubby is busy putting up the bathroom cabinet, loo roll holder, new window blind and a picture in the new cloakroom.  I'm thinking that I might have a bash at doing a small canvas or two to put on the narrower wall in there too.

Enough waffle, I'm late blogging Friday's Daring Cardmakers card for this month's Colour Combo challenge.  Leo chose the colours this time and they are lovely sorbet shades - they make me think of our road trip in Italy a few years ago and all the ice cream and sorbets we indulged ourselves with in the carious towns and cities we visited! yummmmmm

We have loads of family birthdays in May, so it's good to get a bit of a head-start, and these colours seemed perfect for a 21st birthday card for one of our nieces.

This is the inspiration photo Leo had given us to work from:

My favourite MME "Howdy Doody" pad yet again provided the perfect papers for this challenge - so often recently this pad has been the one I've reached for, that I've pretty much used it up - in fact a parcel is at the sorting office right now with replacement pad and 12x12 papers in it - we were out yesterday when they tried to deliver - boohoo!!

Materials:

Papers: MME "Howdy Doody" 6x6 pad

Wired flower on bow, and flat petals used to make the other flowers all from Creative Treasures

2 shades of seam binding and Card Candy also Creative Treasures

Frosted Lace Stickles. Glossy Accents

Bazzill aqua card for numerals

Tools:

Memory Box border die (I cut a 2nd time in lemon, and then cut the flower shapes from it)

Nellie Snellen punch (flower centres)

Spellbinders Labels 18 (I think)

The flowers in the top left corner are all hand made - there's a coiled paper flower, and the other two are made from "flat" Prima petals and some of those tiny stamens you can buy from floristry places

Thanks for dropping in for a visit, I hope you'll come back soon

Happy Easter

Easter Trio

I've made these Easter cards using the lovely "Spring Has Sprung" download collection from the Fabulous Funky Hand.

Materials:

All papers: Funky Hand  "Spring Has Sprung" download

Imaginisce IRocks gems

PC generated sentiment

Tools:

Craft Robo to cut egg shape

scoring board to make ruffle

Memory Box die for outer petals, Tonic punch for inner petals

Materials:

All papers: Funky Hand  "Spring Has Sprung" download

Seam Binding and flattened Card Candy from Creative Treasures

Daisies cut from Funky Hand paper (printed out at different sizes

Tools:

Plain circle punch (medium)

Spellbinders large scalloped circles die set (smallest)

Craft Robo for "Easter"

See, I can be quick and to-the-point when I try!

Thanks for visiting, I hope you have a lovely, peaceful Easter weekend and that the sun shines on you wherever you are :)

April Sketch File

It's the first Tuesday of the month, so time for a new  LO idea for April on The Sketch File Blog - I hope you'll pop over there to see the sketch and the projects we are sharing on the firs of this month's posts.  We like to spread the ideas out a bit, so over the coming weeks there will be more pieces appearing there = so do go back regularly to see what's new!

Being a Last Minute Minnie to start with - and having a visit from the BFoP (Bad Fairy of Procrastination) to contend with didn't help one bit.  BUT I was brave and kicked her out of the house and in the end managed not only to do a page for my resurrected mini album, but a card too!  Wow! are you impressed? hehe

We gave ourselves a present for our Wedding Anniversary in July 2010 of a year's membership of the National Trust - the mini album is supposed to be a record of all the NT places we visited during that year. I'm doing (sort of) ok with the photo pages ( if you call still working on it a quarter of the way through 2012, "doing ok"), but the facing page for each LO is supposed to be more of a journal entry about the place - and I'm really, really behind with those.

For this page we're in Yorkshire visiting Beningborough House during our stay at the gorgeous English Heritage holiday cottage which is part of beautiful Mount Grace Priory.

 I used:

April sketch from The Sketch File Blog

Bazzill card for base page

All papers Bo Bunny Weekend Market 6x6 pad (Charmed Cards and Crafts)

Narrow green organza Ribbon, Blue Brads

EK Success Moroccan Lace border punch

Circle punch

Lettering cut with Craft Robo

This was my first dip into my new Bo Bunny papers - they looked so gorgeous that I bought the 12x12 set as well ooops! At the same time I felt compelled (as you do!) to invest in the Graphic 45 8x8 "Olde Curiosity Shoppe" pad too. It's a lovely "Steampunky" sort of pad with lots of collage effect papers plus lovely vintage designs and great colours - flicking through it was enough to get me cutting and sticking again!

 I used:

April sketch from The Sketch File Blog

All papers; Graphic 45 "Olde Curiosity Shoppe"  8x8 pad

 (Charmed Cards and Crafts)

Narrow brown/cream gingham ribbon

MS border punch

2 x Circle punches

I really enjoyed making this card - I like using papers, and bits of the designs on them collage-style.  It's often more interesting and more personal to build up your own designs using elements from several papers.

I'm thinking I might add a bit more to this card and make it into more of a collage picture - some flowers maybe, and some more ribbon.....maybe some good old steampunk cogs....

Anyway, thanks for visiting, please come back soon

Material Girl

All week I've been meaning to blog this one - it's another of the cards I've made with the latest Funky Hand download "Spring Has Sprung". 

  The designs and colours are so perfectly pretty for this time of year and I know that these papers are going to come in really useful in the future too - the sort of collection you come back to again and again.

They would also be absolutely brilliant for the current Get Funky challenge; "Spring Celebration"......

Here's a little collaged of what you get for the bargain price of £3.19

 

 Next stop is the new challenge from The Daring Cardmakers and this week it's Keilly's turn to do the honours:

Material Girl"

We want to see you using some fabric on your creations - not just a bit of ribbon or lace though - that would be too easy! 

You can add those too, of course, but we'd really like you to be a little more adventurous and try using some fabric as a background, or use it to make your embellishments from.

We have the most wonderful Design Team - it doesn't matter how tough the challenge seems (and being wonderful doesn't stop us moaning when they are tricky), so please visit the DCM BLOG and see the fab creations on show there this week!

I had a couple of goes with this challenge - Number 1 went in the bin so you won't be seeing that!  The idea was ok, but the execution was pants!  The idea was to make my card just as I usually do, but to substitute fabric for paper wherever possible.  What I didn't think through properly was how difficult it is to make nice straight, even edges with fabric, so it all ended up looking a bit of a dog's breakfast.

On to Plan B then!

Instead of the gingham fabric I'd unearthed from my (large) fabric stash I resorted to paper this time.  My material elements are the flower and the decorative border. 

Does iron-on Vilene go "off"?  The stuff I have is a good few years old and certainly didn't want to stick to the fabric so instead I used some Bondaweb to give the fabric more stability.  It's a beautiful lawn fabric that I've had stashed away for ages (too pretty to cut)

Using dies to cut the petals for the flowers was successful so I thought I'd see if a border die would also work on the fabric - it's a really quite intricate pattern and I was pretty pleased at how well it worked.

Materials:

Papers: MME 6x6 "Howdy Doody" pad from Miss Caroline collection

Fine lawn flowery fabric backed with Bondaweb

Paper flowers and pearl strings from Creative Treasures (I made the pearls into loops for a change)

Jewel brad for flower centre, stick on pale pink pearls

Tools:

Decorative border and corner element both from Spellbinders Moroccan Accents set

Spellbinders Labels 18

Tim Holtz Bigz Flowers die

Craft Robo to cut sentiment

I forgot to add dots to the letter i's so need to do that before I send this one off - it just doesn't look right to me without!

That's it for this time, thanks for visiting.  Hope your weekend is sunny and bright!

Crafty Templates Time

The new set of Crafty Templates have been out for about a week now and I'm late again in posting my DT makes for March.

Some days I feel as though I'm catching up with everything, and then it just all goes wrong again - but I am trying to get back into some sort of routine - just not what you'd call succeeding just yet hehe.  I'll get there eventually though

This month new teamies  Keilly. Trish and Jo have joined Leo and myself at Crafty Templates DT Central - they are fab designers and it's going to be fun to have more crafty teamies to work with. Each month Leo sends us most of the templates she's got ready for that month's set then leaves us to decide which to use and how to use them, so it's always fun to see which templates others choose to work with and what projects they come up with.

 Grassy Banner 

I love the cute  little tulips and they are perfect for Spring, so I've made an Easter card.  The banner comes blank on the template so you can add whatever greeting you want.  I cut the letters using my Craft Robo!   The banner stands away from the card in the middle and is only glued at the ends - it looks fine irl, but a bit  wonky on the photo!

Dig In Cupcake

 

I thought this was really cute - if this cake were real it would be HUGE wouldn't it?  

Kites in the Sky (and the front half of the Bunny)

I've combined two of the March templates to make this card.  The Bunny comes with a back view too and I had planned to make a shaped front-and-back card using him, but then I thought how sweet he'd look holding onto the string of the kite from the Kite and Clouds template

I've added some seam binding in a couple of shades and some small flowers to finish this one off.

Here's a reminder on how to find Crafty Templates and the Crafty Goodies Kits that Leo puts together each month:

Crafty Templates main site

Crafty Templates Blog

Thanks for popping by today, I hope you've enjoyed your visit and will leave a message to say you were here! :-)

Funky Hoppity Hop Hop Hop

Thank you for visiting my blog today, it's great to have you "springing" by!

If you've bounced over from Ruth's blog as part of your Funky Hand Blog Hop journey, then you probably know what it's all about already, but if not, then you can find out what is going on by visiting Anice at
Funky Hand Blog Hop Central HERE

The Blog Hop is all about introducing the fabulous new Funky Hand Download

Spring Has Sprung

It's full-to-bursting with lovely Spring themed papers and the prettiest pastel shades and is available from Sunday 25th March from the website HERE,
but by visiting the blogs on the Hop today, you'll get a sneaky preview of this pretty collection. 

A blog hop is just the PERFECT way to get a really good look of what's in the new download: by visiting the blogs of those Funky Gang members who are joining in with the hop you'll see lots of the colours, papers and sentiments that form this gorgeous download collection

So here's the Spring Has Sprung project I'm sharing today

All of the plains and patterns I've used for this card are from the new collection, the cute sentiment image is one of the sentiments you'll also get with your download and the word "Smile" is cut from another.
I cut the little daisies from one of the papers as they are so pretty I had to find a space for them!

If you're liking what you're seeing as you bounce from blog to blog you'll definitely be interested in the prize Anice is offering for joining in.

There's a free copy of the
Spring Has Sprung download 
up for grabs just for joining in with our blog hop. 

You'll need to travel around the blogs of all the Funky Gang who are taking part in the hop, leaving a comment on every single blog and collecting a letter from each. The hop begins and ends with Anice's BLOG - so if you're not already following all the links from blog to blog, then do head over to Anice's and begin your tour there! 

The letters you'll collect are an anagram and you'll need to solve that to be in with a chance of winning the prize. - but all the info you need is on Anice's blog so I'll stop wittering on and give you your next letter.... just don't forget to leave a comment here and on all the blogs you visit or you won't qualify for entry.
Our blog hop lasts from Saturday 24th March till 9am (UK time) Monday 26th March - you'll be able to add your blog comments and to leave your answer to the anagram right up till 9am (UK time) on Monday morning.

The letter I'm giving you is:

"A"

and your next stop on the Funky Blog Easter Bunny Style Hop is Lou's place

Hope you're having fun and liking what you see
Happy Hopping!

What's in the Box?

This week on the Daring Cardmakers Fran has given us a "proper" old challenge!  It's had a good few of us scratching our heads in "I haven't a clue what to do with this one" fashion.  If you head over and visit our BLOG though, I think you'll agree that our fab team rose admirably to the challenge and made some wonderfully creative projects which we hope will inspire you to put your thinking caps on too!

It goes like this:

A Box of Tricks
I (Fran) would like you to feature a box, or something box-shaped on your projects - it could be a 3D project, decorated box, box shaped embellishments...once you start thinking outside the box (!) you can come up with some fun ideas!

Now I'm sure there are loads of rubber stamps with boxes  of one kind or another, but obviously that's no good to me, so I spent most of the week thinking about types of boxes and how I could make at least one of them work on a card.  I think it was when a lovely package of new Memory Box dies arrived that the thought "Window Box" jumped into my head.

Just to make it harder for myself I thought it might be possible to make the window box part a 3D pop-out.  After faffing about a bit with card and a bone folder (and giving myself a horrible paper cut which brought tears to my eyes and sent me scuttling off to find the tape and wadding to staunch the blood) I came up with this one:

It's quite bulky but I've folded the "box" in such a way that it does actually fold (relatively) flat for posting.

Materials:

All papers MME from "Dolled Up" 6x6 pad (Miss Caroline collection)

Doily motif and tag are also cut from one of the papers

White lace

Turquoise, Pink and White pearls. pearl heart, decal sentiment

Tools:

EK Success border punch

Memory Box dies (Cherry Blossom, Petal Party
Tonic floral punch set  

You can see the box shape better on an angled view

And a close up of the flowers - I mixed up the various die cuts and punches

Yet again I've got behind with my blogging and need to spend some time catching up.

This week I've been busy with Crafty Templates and Funky Hand projects - all which I need to blog in the next few days.

This weekend sees the launch of a new Funky Hand collection and we're having a blog hop to celebrate - and to show off the papers that you get when you download the brand new collection.  They are sooooo pretty, so please pop by Anice's blog to see what's happening over the weekend and join in....I do believe there's going to be a prize on offer....

Right, time for lunch - Hubby's home-working today and once he's decided it's lunch time, then it's lunch time...

Thanks for visiting

Spring Greens

Don't you just love it that the day you have loads of internet-required tasks on your list is the day you wake up, switch on and find....."cannot open page as there is no service..."

I gave them a couple of hours after the "it'll be back by 2pm" they told us, and then rang to find out what was going on. Yes, the fault is fixed, you probably need to reboot the wotsit - do you know where it is?  hmmm, well I know it's on the ledge behind hubby's desk - but I also know that there's a mess of all sorts of gadgets, wires and cables behind there and to be perfectly honest that's as far as my knowledge goes.  Thank you to Nice Man at Virgin Media who kindly and patiently waited while I dragged massive desk away from the wall enough to squeeze behind, then as I described the various "stuff" - finally finding the right one to unplug so he could do the honours from his end. 

I guess they are used to dealing with such ineptitude!

Bad thing number 2 for yesterday was the discovery that the glass splash-backs arrived and didn't fit!  We know the templates fitted perfectly because we were called in to the kitchen by the guy who made them to see how it would look when the glass was in. The glass is exactly right against the templates he made, so how the blazes don't they fit?  Bemused.

Today the UK Rep for the manufacturers of the doors and drawer fronts has been to see for himself the problem with those!  Last time I did the Swiss a dis-service by saying they came from Switzerland - I apologise! - it's the Austrians who mucked up!  The whole lot are to be replaced, which is good, but means more delay.

Through it all our Kitchen designers have been absolutely fab and I can't fault the way they have dealt with it all - none of the problems have been down to them - all the work they have done is first rate and their attention to detail is brilliant - their handling of the project and determination to make sure it is all perfect in the end has kept us sane!

Tomorrow we have the plumbers here to fit the new water heating system.  I think it's called a "mega-flow" system and will hopefully mean that it won't take five minutes to get hot water from the various taps, and that the new taps in the kitchen will produce more than the dribble they do atm!

I can't quite believe we're getting towards the end of March already as we've been living in Building Work Limbo since a week into 2012.....it will be lovely when it's finished......

So yesterday's internet hiccup means I'm sharing my own challenge for Get Funky's Funky Fifteenth on the 16th and also my card for the new Daring Cardmakers Challenge too.

For Get Funky, I chose a "Spring Celebrations" theme; It could be something for Mothers' Day, or Easter, or it could simply be a celebration of Spring itself, and any sort of project goes - so if you want to make an Easter basket, or an Easter Bonnet, or a scrapbook page showing off the daffodils in your garden then it's all okay!  Just make sure you use at least one Funky Hand product on whatever you make.  It's amazing and not a little irritating when people don't read that one little rule!  It's especially annoying when they share such gorgeous creations, but rule themselves out of being chosen as our winner because they've not complied....such a shame!

I think my own Celebration of Spring project may end up as a little wall hanging, or maybe as a page in a mini book, rather than as the card it is atm!

Visit the Get Funky Blog to find out how to join in with us this month - and maybe win our prize of a free download of your choice.  There's also instructions on how to get hold of this month's Funky Freebie.  I've added more about how I made this card and instructions on how to make the paper frill

Materials:

Funky Hand CD Craft the Year Away - I've used papers from the Marching On and April Fool collections

Matching shades of Seam Binding to make a layered bow

Organza flower with pearl centre

Lemon Ice Stickles

It's actually one of the Spring Celebrations that Samm has chosen to base her "Lucky Green" challenge for the Daring Cardmakers around this week too

It's Samm here and this weeks' challenge is

'Lucky Green'

Yes, St Patrick's day is on its way, so I challenge you to make a card using the main colour as green and feature 'luck' somewhere on your card. It's one of those colours we hardly ever get to use so I hope it gets you all digging around in your crafty stash and creating frantically!

Looking through my Funky Hand downloads and CDs for the right stuff to use for the project above was very timely as the "Marching On" set I got the pale green background paper for the Get Funky card from is all about shades of green with a bit of deep turquoise/aqua in the mix.  Just the ticket and meant I didn't need to go searching through my stash - I could just "Print...and Go" hehe

 I'm not entirely happy with this and it might undergo a bit of a facelift before it actually gets used - I think it might be better on a white background for starters.

Materials:

All papers: Funky Hand CD Craft the Year Away - "Marching On" collection

Good Luck banner and the 3 leaf clover motif are created from images also found on the  Craft the Year Away CD

Green ruffled edge ribbon from Creative Treasures (there's a special offer on Prima flowers atm )

Ice Stickles

Tools:

Craft Robo to cut the banner, letters and shamrock shapes

I hope you'll head over to our BLOG as the cards look stunning again this week. 

Thanks for looking today and for putting up with my waffle at the start - sometimes you just have to have a good old rant don't you? - but I do seem to be on a bit of a ranting roll lately!  I will try to make my next post rant-free :)

Have a great weekend