Recipe for retirement

More cards requested by my son and I still have another to do. This one is for one of the staff members who is retiring this year, actually the hubby of the main non teaching assistant who is also retiring in the summer, that card still to do.

For this card I used a LOTV image and thought I'd come up with a recipe for retirement as my son wanted something funny, he particularly likes the drink plenty of fluids point, funny how males think as I was thinking water but then I only drink very occasionally and am affected very quickly with a very small amount of alcohol.

I decided to go for the clean and fresh look a bit picnicy too and as it's for a man keep it clean and simple in design hope he doesn't mind the bow.

The image is coloured with Promarkers and sakura glaze pens too and the papers are all old magazine freebies. Can you see poor bears sunburn, bet that will smart in the shower...lol.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Kaboodle doodles-going in circles
Sentimental Sundays-use colours of native flag
Paperplaytime-red white and blue
Craft your passion-use red on your project
Deconstructed sketch-layout

Just 4 U

Hi all, why is it that teenagers are never happy? My son and his friends just make me laugh as they talk on face book, our computer is in the kitchen and son puts on as he walks in before school and the lot of them don't seem to be happy unless complaining about something. This morning too hot , too muggy never satisfied a couple of days ago it was too cold or too wet maybe they should just start living and not complaining so much!

Rant over.

Today I have a card I made a while ago and never got around to posting, it was a just because I fancied making it and not for anything in particular, so I've had a route around blogland and found a few challenges I can enter. The card is mostly forever friends stuff, the card base and the stamp too. The stamp I printed a couple of times and decoupaged it after colouring with promarkers. The sentiment is hand written in sakura glaze. The ribbon ,flowers and gems are all from my stash.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-
OLLCB- summer flowers
Dream Valley-ribbon
The Crafty Pad-bold and bright or soft pastels
Hooked on crafts -show us your flowers
Kreative stempel friends-dots
Pear tree designs-stamp something
Forever friends-birthday
Colour lab-sand, burgundy and pink
Creative belli-embellishments begining with G-(gems)
The ribbon girl-pink and cream-my ribbon
getting crikey- penned

Edit Blogger strikes again! ( Ding dong ding dong)

no it's not the door bell suppose to make you think weddings!

This post was scheduled as we had guests for lunch and so sorry I never checked or realised it didn't do what it was suppose to and now for some reason it has put it 2 posts back where it should have been, can't think what Blogger is up to.


Well another Sunday and another one stitch at a time challenge, boy these weeks just whizz by don't they. Summer seems to bring the herald of the wedding season and the church bells in our village just seem to be working overtime at at weekend those bell ringers arms must be aching.

Have you guessed the theme this week at OSAAT yet? We are showing off the collab set and the theme is weddings and sympathy. Now now don't be thinking they are the same thing , I know many a man and a few women who would say that after years of marriage they feel the need for sympathy as they wouldn't get as many years for murder but we are treating them as two different event, one a cause for celebration of new lives together and the other as a way of celebrating all the good things of someone who has sadly departed this world.

We were all given a fab image to play with and I received a fab wedding image from which you can get here. I decided to try and go a bit vintagy(not sure that's a real word well actually definitely sure).
I used a shaped die cut that I won as a prize from die cut dreams in deep cream and over-layed with cream vellum stamped with a lace image from the stampman embossed with moonglow moonbeams
powder. I used more vellum to create a heart by dry embossing over a meljen image . I then coloured the hands with promarkers and sakura glaze pens and finished with a gem. I then stuck the hands onto the heart.
I added  cream ribbon to one corner and a gold peel-off 'congratulations' to the opposite corner. I then used a plate stand to make a card stand to hold the card so it will stand upright.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-
Easy craft projects-use the colour gold
Speedy the cats friends-make it sparkle
Totally gorjuss-ribbons and lace
Digi's with attitude! challenges-anything goes
Sweet stampin'-something old , something new (new digi of the hands and one of my first stampman stamps the lace)
Secret crafter saturday challenge-embossing
CES -anything but a square
CYDA-vintage
Prairie fairy fridays-wedding
Rainbow lady-use a digi
Addicted to stamps-wedding

Summer driving.

My sis has a soft top car and uses any opportunity to pose along with her partner, my sis does it with Audrey Hepburn style the scarf wrapped glamorously around her hair to stay perfect and her partner just poses. It is my sisters car but if the tops down and they are both in the car he has to drive.

This is another card for Peter to try and keep his spirits up, he is starting to feel rough and says he is sleeping 13 hours plus a day and having trouble concentrating on much at all, and this is only the start of the treatment!Hubby is going to see him on Thursday and take the cards his colleagues have signed along with some audio book CD's he has downloaded and a selection of the latest DVD's we have bought, so he has some thing to distract him.

I should explain Peter bought himself a new mini a couple of years ago as he commutes about 40 miles daily to work so a small car was more economical though I don't think it's a soft top and not sure of the colour as hubby couldn't remember so I thought I'd make mine a nice bright and cheerful red. The image is from LOTV and I coloured with promarkers and sakura glaze pens for the silver bits. I added diamond glaze to the body work to get that new freshly waxed shine, have to sat I love the fun fluffy dice and though I'm sure it's geared towards being a male orientated image I think it would be fab for a girl with pink dice and popping a ribbon in teddy's hair.

The papers are all magazine freebies but I love the bright fresh colours so reminds me of driving to the coast on a sunny summers day and hopefully it will invoke some happy sunny memories for Peter too . The button are from a scrapbook set at stitchy stamps which I simply printed and triple embossed with clear powder.the sentiment is from a whimsy set by raindrop echos.

If anyone would like to send him a cheerful card I would be very greatful and I'm sure he would really appreciate it too as he has little family support so will be relying heavily on his friends.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Alota rubber-summer
Craft for all seasons-Summer
Pollycraft-travel/holiday
Fab n funky-summer lovin'
simon says -layout
Papertake weekly-here comes summer
scrap creations -go wild (animals)
paper variety-summer
Ambers craft and stuff-the dog days of summer
wags and whiskers-summertime
catch the bug-red white and blue and ribbon
Our creative corner-your style
Polkadoodles-red white and blue
Stamp something-red white and blue
delicious doodles-cute and cuddly
Craft us crazy-red white and blue/summer
colour Q #90-blues and red
cupcake inspirations-photo inspiration

Another Pete's card drive card

Morning all, well hubby said it is suppose to be a mini heatwave today though don't think anyone has told mother nature in our bit of Blighty.

My first card today (another in the pipeline) is another card I made for Peter who I am having a card drive for. This one is for my son to send. He has started his chemo and radiotherapy and has a gruelling 6 months initial treatment to look forward to so I think I will be making cards every month to send to him to try and keep his spirits up, no get well as this isn't an option. If you want more info or to help click on the card drive link and it will take you to a post with more info.

Peter is a Leeds Rhinos fan hence the colours which I had to look up on the Internet, sorry to any rugby fans if that's not the right spelling for try.

I coloured the fab LOTV image in the rhinos colours and cut a circle around the shape, I've done this a couple of times and am getting quite fond of how it looks.The image is coloured with promarkers and simply stuck to card base.(Not sure what happened to the card stick colour it looks green on this pic and as you can see from the others it really isn't)

 The card is fab , I did a little improvisation as it is a fab card base from Whichcraft in Doncaster, they do loads of different ones which you can find on their website here and its really heavy card. They come all pre-scored and cut and as I didn't fancy sticking paper on it I cheated and used it as a template. Next time I'm in Doncaster which from me isn't far away think I'll pop in and buy more as Paula said a wee while ago she would be getting more styles in store and on line, hubby can't check what I'm spending his hard earned pennies on if I go pay cash and I don't have to wait for the postie either if I visit, though when I have ordered on line from Paula it's always arrived really quickly.


Anyway back to the card, I used the LOTV layout though at first it may not be obvious, my 3 strips that are on the layout are represented by the goal posts for want of a better description as I have no idea what they are called and the word 'try'. It did start out as a clean and simple card which to look at I suppose it might be classed as but for some strange reason I decided I would make a 'crowd' watching the game. I coloured strips of paper in various skin shades promarkers and hole punched so I had loads of wee circles which I then stuck randomly onto strips of double sided tape, I think its quite effective. Hope it cheers Peter up!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-
LOTV-layout
crafts 4 eternity-sports theme
4 crafty chicks-C+S
MAWTT-C+S
Dutch Dare-C+S
Pixie cottage- outdoor fun+/sketch
crafty Emmas store challenge-anything but a square
one stop craft-get well card( I know it doesn't say get well but the guy it's to cheerup has a terminal condition but it has the sam purpose to cheer him up hope thats ok)
Phindy's place-circles

Bon voyage to a favourite teacher

My son has asked for a card for one of his business teachers , who is a favourite of his, as she is leaving at the end of term to go live in Canada where her husband originates from. He asked for a large card and intends taking it for all the class to sign, sound alot but I think theres only 6 or 8 of them in total, A level classes are much better sizes than O'level or whatever they call them these days.

He chose the image and asked for it to be done in Canadian flag colours, not sure if he knew what they were but he soon will. The image he chose was 'fly away' a Sassy stamp from Sugar Nellie, I think she may well be one of my favourites. I coloured her with Promarkers and added hihlights such as her eyes , sparkle on her skirt and buttons with sakura glaze pens.

The papers are stamped with a fab stamp from Rainbow craft studios and its called twirly daisy background. You can see it used more by the DT at Creative craft challenges along with another of their background stamps too. If you like whimsy twee and twirly pop along to their site , you'll love it.

Th ribbon is from my stash and I'm really proud of my cute hand tied bows which I attached with diamond glaze. The flowers are daisy punched from copy paper and the smaller coloured with the same promarker as the girls dress and the flat back pearls are from hobby craft.

The sentiment I had to hand write as my son wanted something I don't have in rubber and he asked me to leave the computer before I could print out a sentiment, I'm on a different computer without a printer, I really will have to get this one linked up (I really mean will have to ask hubby to). I took 3 different pics of the card as I'm not sure about adding a bow to the sentiment and if so what position so please let me know what you think as I do value all your opinions.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:-
The sugar bowl-layout optional summer
Just some lines-spotty dotty
Deep ocean-flowers
The cheerful stamp pad-thinks with wings
Cupcake inspirations-photo
for fun challenges-2 ribbons,2 colours,1 sentiment and 1 image
scrapbook sisters-anything goes
crafty sentiments-monochromatic
crafty purple frog-swirls and pearls(hope my swirly flower stems will count)
Charisma-white plus 1
Crafts and me-stitching (around my sentiment)
RRR-hand written sentiment
stampin for the weekend-my fav things-love sugar nellie sassy girls, and daisies are my all time fav flower.)

A commisioned card

Now most of my commisioned cards are actually for my mum so as I know most of the people she sends card to I actually find it fairly easy to make them as I can relate to the person the card is for. I never realised how hard I would find it making for someone else. Hubby came home and said one of his coloeagues wanted a card for a 21st for a male friend of one of their daughters. I asked if there was anything in particular that had been asked for and was told well he's into rock.

How hard did I find this. I started with an image I recently chose from a prize from the stamping boutique and as I had a DCWV rockstar paper pack figured that would be a good starting point. I chose which paper to use and took inspiration for the card shape from one of the other papers. I tried to keep to similar colours for my image which I coloured using Promarkers and sakura glaze pens , well a rock guitar has to be shiny. I also added dots of glitter glaze to the background and coloured the spotlight in glitter glaze too.

Now this is where I became unsure of myself the sentiment. I decided to keep with the star theme and cut one from silver card , mirri didn't look right it sort of stuck out like a sherriffs badge so went for matt. I stamped in blue ink and as I couldn't fit 'today' on cut that out separately. I embossed over the top of both with moonglow magic pearls powder and stuck onto the card with sticky pads. I think its ok and looks better from a distance. Just hope she likes it fingers crossed. Will let you know the verdict when hubby takes it in to work.

Edit;- hubby said the lady who ordered it thought it was great and said the boy on the card was just like the guy it was for, so I was really pleased, think hubby may have pocketed the pennies though, but never mind I'll just spend them on the internet.

I would like to enter this card into the folloing challenges:-
cards for men-stars
Kreative stempel friends-birthday
Crafty creations-letit shine
Little darlings-fav colour combo (I love blue and brown together)
I love Promarkers-anything goes
scrapbook sisters-anything goes
sisterhood of crafters-male themed anniversary/birthday

Fly the flag

Another wednesday brings another challenge from Penny's and as many of the team including our illustrious leader is based in the USA they are geering up for July 4th and so our theme this time is Red White and Blue.

Now it doesn't have to be a 4th July celebration card but just that colour scheme.

Another fab sponsor with Robin's Fetish and we were given some fab images to play with so please do check out the other DTY members cards you'll be stunned by what they came up with.

For my card I used the cute teddy and coloured with my promarkers. I decided to have a change and used some red textured card for my base and simply added some matching ribbon and buttons. I think it will make a fab card for one of my nephews.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-
EAC-anything goes
Passion for promarkers-'park life' I think this ted will have fun sailing his boat in the park
Die cut dreams-red white and blue
Speedy cats friends-buttons
Meljen -red white and blue
Rainbow lady-I am sailing
scrappy frog-red
creative inspiration paint-bright colours
daisy doodles-stars and stripe
Happileigh scrappin-bright colours

Creative craft challenges and a new sponsor

Morning peeps and time for a supernew challenge at Creative Craft challenges and lets hope Mr Blogger lets us keep this one and doesn't celete it like many of our others.

On to the challenge well we have a super doozy for you all to get your teeth into this time,

MAKE YOUR OWN BACKING PAPERS.

Wow ... a bit like an open challenge but you have to be inventive too. Now loads of options here, you can stamp your opwn background, you could dry emboss it, you could paint it, you could do a tissue paper and glue sandwich, you could do encaustic so many to choose from the list is endless. Can't wait to see what you all choose to do.

Now onto our sponsors,

firstly we have some odd girl who are giving the lucky winner the chance to use some of their fab digi's for a taste of what you might win pop along here and have a nosey around the store. Some odd girl were also kind enough to let us have our choice of digi to play with.


An extra bonus this time too as Mr Blogger sort of messed up our last challenge, Sandra decided that she would carry over the crafty individuals prize from last time as an extra prize for this time too.

Our next sponsor is our newest sponsor and we are so pleased they have chosen to sponsor our challenge. They are

Rainbow craft Studios are a relatively new British company who make fab acrylic 'twee and twirly' design stamps. They are adding to their collection all the time and have quite a wide choice already. The company is run by two lovely ladies  Angela and Rachel, brought together by the blossoming romance of their 6 year old offspring and the rest as they say is history. If you haven't found them before please pop along and have a nosey well worth it. You can find them here. They also have free P+P on all UK orders so the price you see is what you pay no hidden extras.

Now rainbow craft studios let us have a play with a couple of their images in fact the same stamps that are the prize they have given us for the lucky winner, not one but 2 fab stamps.

The top 1 of the top 3 chosen by Sandra will get a wee goody bag from her.

Now I best tell and show you the things I made only fair .

My first card I made using the some odd girl image I was give Robo love well I think that's what it's called. I decided to have a play with the image and make my background paper from part of the image that I messed about with in photoshop. I thought the little heart was just so cute and would make the perfect backdrop for the cute robot. I coloured all in Promarkers and then added a computer printed sentiment. I think it would make a fab anniversary card or even thinking well in advance valentines card or even just because I love you card, fun anyway.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Cupcake craft challenge-layout

I love promarkers-black white and 1 other

Ladybug challenge-use red

scrappy frog-use red

hooked on craft-anything goes

My second card I made with the fab stamps from Rainbow craft studios. Unfortunately I needed a sympathy card so I decided to use them for that but when you see the rest of the DT projects it will only show you the versatility of these fab background stamps. You'll never want to buy flowery paper again.

My card I stamped with versamark and powder embossed with obsidian violet moonglow powder. I simply mounted one on top of the other and added black ribbon and a bow. The card is edged with black promarker. The sentiment is from a set by the darkroom.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

There she goes-use 3 different stamps

Heart song inspiration-use a flower image/or handmade flowers
A spoonful of sugar-ribbon and bows
my time to craft-xtra images
whoopsi daisy-flowers
the crrosive challenge-ribbon and bows
House of gilli-ribbon and bows

The monster mash

Another 'not get well' but cheer you up card (see previous post for full explanation). This one I used a collection of monsters from a collection of designers and some that I'm not actually sure where they came from, but once I coloured them all in with a mix of promarkers and sakura glaze pens, and cut them out I'm sure they will resemble at least one of the teams of workers that will want to send their cheerful wishes. Can't really say get well wishes and not sure what else to call them.

The 'thinking of you I stamped using I think a papermania stamp set of individual letters using brilliance ink and infilled with sakura metallic pens.

Hope it does the trick and raises his spirits if only a little, I'm sure he will enjoy putting names to faces so to speak.

Here is a closer look at my monsters:-

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Alphabet challenge-G for get well (hope this counts as the person its for can't get well but still needs cheering up)
2 sisters-for a guy
Just add ink-add some colouring
For fun challenges-summer fun or bright colours
Paper playtime -z fold card
Here come the boys-myth and magic
MAWTT-song inspired (the monster mash no idea who its by)
Crafty catz-fancy folds
Lollipop -inspired by a song

Anniversary magic

Hi all wow how time just flies by and that must mean another sunday challenge from the One Stitch at a Time team.

This time I suspect as many of us are making summery cards that we will have loads of entries as our challenge is THINGS WITH WINGS. I don't mean that your projects have to have bugs on but they could be birds, planes, fairies, bats (do you think batman would count) well you get the idea.

For my card I got to play with a fab Floppy Latte image which if you want to play with it too you can find here along with lots of other beauties too. The image is so strong it took me a while to decide what I would do with it, I hummed and arred about adding colour to the background like a sunset or dusk but wasn't sure I would do the image justice so in the end I simply went over it with clear sakura glaze pen and added some sparkle to the wings.

I used it to make an anniversary card for some friends and decided to keep to the monochrome with a touch of silver. The flowers are made from punched daisies with liquid pearl centres and the butterfly is 3 peel-offs stuck together for dimension. The sentiment is also a peel-off. I am really pleased at how it turned out, have to say I do love the simple look style.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:-
Simply Create-wings
St Lukes charity challenge-anything that flies
Sarah Hurley-handmade flowers
Paper pretties-single layer card
Stampavie and more-butterflies
One stop craft challenge-stickers
CES-sparkly flowers
Sweet stampin-things with wings
Totally gorjuss-pearls and swirls
Delicious doodles-things a flutter
Phindys place-black and white
The stampman-butterflies and dragonflies

Tender loving care

You will probably tell as you read this that I have sort of muddled up the order that I have put my posts in  but just adds to the fun of confusion.

This is the second of several I have been asked to make for a friend my hubby works with and whom my son spent alot of time with when on work experience a couple of years ago.He has been under the weather so to speak with lots of niggling symptoms that no-one added together until recently and last week was told he has an uncommon form of non hodgkins lymphoma which even when treated with chemo etc has a nasty habit of returning quickly and with greater aggressive resistence and severity. This means that he has effectively been given a time limit on his life and it is likely to be less than a couple of years, which as he is in his early 50's with 2 teenage children makes you think!

PLEASE SEE PREVIOUS POST IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CHEER HIM ALONG.

My hubby has told all the departments that this very gentle man works with that I will make them a card for him, hubby thought it would be nicer to have several smaller cards than 1 large( so there will be more in the pipeline probably over the next few days) as they will brighten his hospital room which by all accounts he will be in a great deal of the time over the next 6 months. My dilema was and is what kind of card do you give to a man to cheer them up when they have this kind of prognosis, I could hardly put 'Get well soon' as this isn't going to happen so for all of them I have and will be using 'thinking of you' as I know his work colleagues and friends will be.

For the first card I have used this super cute dog called Macbeth from funky kits, although have to say I think if I gave him a pom-pom cotton wool tail he would make the cutest rabbit too. I think he looks so cute and caring giving his plant the tender loving protection of a hug as if he has grown something so beautiful from seed for the hazy days of summer.

I decided to go with a clean and simple style , lots of straight lines and sharpe angles and vivid colours for highlights. The image is coloured with promarkers and the plaid papers I printed from the boys to men cd from ooh lalal. The neon green paper is from my stash and the string is unravelled cotton garden twine which I thought appropriate.The sentiment is from a 'the darkroom' set and is stamped in bottle green dye ink and simply mounted on matt gold card.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-
For fun challenges-summer
addicted to stamps-summertime
ECP-colour challenge
Deconstucted sketch-layout
Shellys-boys/men
4 crafty chicks-get well(I know its not get wellas such but hope you understand given the circumstances that its for the same reason)
Allways something creative-early summer
Crazy 4 challenges-use string ,twine or floss
By the cute and girly-in the garden
Timbroscrapmania-in the garden

Just a thought could you help CARD DRIVE?

Just decided to rewrite this post as I had a thought, I know there are always requests for cards to be sent to children with debilitating conditions and I whole heartedly try to send a card to each one though sometimes when there is a time limit I fail, and I also have sent cards to card cupids and pen pals and for the local children's hospice as I think they are all fab and after nursing children know what an affect a card can have even if from a total stranger. 

Here's my plee  please please please would anyone like to make a card and send it to this lovely man who is going to have an arduous time over the coming months in the fight to extend his life by a few months a couple of years at most.

If anyone could see there way to spending a few minutes well maybe a little more to making a card to help keep this lovely mans spirits up as apparently depression is very common with this type of cancer , not surprising really as it is a definite death sentence you can email me and I will send you his first name and my address and we can get the cards passed on to him. I'm sure he would be totally overwhelmed to know that there are many who care enough to send him a card as his personal family life has had more downs than up over the last few years and this must really seem like the last straw to him.

For any who don't regularly read my blog welcome and you can read my original post here or I'll give you a bit more info here. This friend and work colleague of my hubby's in his early 50's and has had many small health issues over the last couple of years all of which have been explained away as individual problems or due to stress (from his family situation). Recently after a full check up he was found to have mantel cell lymphoma stage 4 , you can find loads about it on the web if you want to know more. This man is so quiet and gentle in personality that you can imagine it is a real blow to know the prognosis he has and so this is why I thought the wonderful blogland crafters will help keep his spirits high. I will put a reminder on my sidebar and as I have updates on his condition I will let you know but there is no time limit to sending cards for him or restrictions on how many you can send either just anything to keep his spirits above depression.

I do understand that male cards many find hard and to make a card for someone you don't know is hard too along with you can't put get well on it as that is just not going to happen  just adds to the difficulty too, but I'm sure you will all rise to the challenge so to speak. I don't have anything to offer in return just my gratitude and the knowledge that you may be helping a very sick man stay positive and get through the treatments he will be enduring .

If you would like to send a card please just drop me an email and put 'cheerup card' in the subject box.

This is the last of the 3 hubby wanted for his colleague and this is the kind of nurse I really hope won't be on the ward he is on as she is enough to terrify everyone , I can only hope they are all the nice nurses returned from vacation.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Stampinsanity-clean and simple
Southern girls challenge-anything goes
Top tip tuesday-open challenge
Whoopsi daisy-free and easy
creative inspiration-blue,green and 1 other (red)
if the shoe fits-for a man
Alphabet challenge-get well card
catch the bug-it's a mans world

Fab bag for a wee gift

My son didn't know what to get his Dad for father's day as he is the kind of man who if he wants something he goes and buys it.
My son decided under duress to have a walk around Hobby craft with me and he found a book on how to draw weapons and vehicles well must be a boy thing as he decided his dad would love it as he has bought himself a graphics tablet so my son says he will have some thing to practice drawing.

My prize for taking him to hobby craft mum I need a nice gift bag for it can you make one please.
Well I just so happen to have this Simply Sassy tutorial printed out for a cute wee gift bag and although I have already entered the tutorial challenge I think I might enter this bag too.

The tutorial is really easy to follow and I did change the colour scheme to make more masculine and used a sassy boy too The image is coloured with promarkers and the boy can be yours if you visit funky kits. The papers are all from my stash.

I would like to enter my bag into the following challenges:-
Simply Sassy tutorial challenge
Pear tree designs-fathers day
Papertake weekly-Dads and lads
Samual Taylors-male theme fab prize of

Fore!

Morning peeps, have to say I am expecting this morning to be a bit stressful as my son who loves the work at school but hates being bullied and being in his wheelchair all day , has to return after his Exam leave for another 4 weeks before breaking up for summer a week earlier than the rest of the school. He has already been saying for the past 3 days he is dreading it and we agreed he should practice getting up early, mum did son didn't, and yesterday was a struggle for 8:30 when he leaves for school at 8 am. Hopefully I am stressing about nothing and this morning will run like clockwork and have no stress.

Enough of my moaning sorry all not what you want to read especially so early in a morning, well early for me at 5:40am.
Quick update- worry about nothing once my son was up and the rain stopped and the sun tried to shine no stress thank goodness.

My card I share this morning with you I finished last night , another commission for a son who is into golf though apparently doesn't get to play that often, he has quite a lot of freckles so hopefully my colouring will do him justice, not tried freckles before.

I kept the card simple and used this fab Kenny K image which I coloured with my promarkers as usual. The golf ball is just a circle of copy paper which I used my fiskars shapeboss to add dimples to and the flag again is just copy paper coloured with Promarker and peel-offs added.The backing paper is from the boys to men CD I was lucky enough to win from Ooh La La a few weeks ago.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Secret crafter-male card

Crazy 4 challenges-male card

CES- inspired by a movie (for some reason I think of 'the whole 9 yds'

DYSU-birthday

Craft us crazy-fathers day/or masculine colours or theme

Sew many challenges-male/fathers day

Paper play-fathers day/male card

Creative inspiration-fathers day/masculine

kenny K girls-favourite colours (I love teal, not sure if I can use male kenny K images if not let me know and I'll delete my entry)

The papervariety-male

Stampinsanity-male

Little Claires-cards for men

The sweet stop-layout

Sentimental sundays-fathers day/card for a man

creative sketches- colour challenge

Incy wincy-male card/ fathers day

Cupcake challenge#146-boy,oh boy, oh boy

Tag you're it!

Wow Sunday again and another fab challenge from OSAAT. Not quite as many entries but there is sure gonna be alot of celebration and fun this summer by the looks of the fab entries we had.
Pop over to the challenge site here and see if you were a lucky winner.

Now this week we are playing Tag! well not quite but I couldn't resit, the challebnge is called tag it and we want to see tags or projects with tags on or made from tags well you get the idea I'm sure.

Fab sponsor yet again the stamping boutique

and the lucky winner gets to choose 5 digi's of there choice and boy will you have a hard time choosing just 5.

Now back to the challenge, this time round I got to choose from Dezinaworld and decided I'd go vintage with one of these adorables which you can find here.
I decided to keep it simple and made a background from a daisy stamp, keyfan and some text, not that you can see much of them but it just softened the cream card. I added liquid pearls and bronze peel-offs to each corner and finished with beige satin ribbon. The image I distressed the edges and really wanted to focus on as it is so lovely and adorable .

I would like to enter this tag into the following challenges:-
Wee memories-anything goes
heart song inspired-anything goes/+ or use free digi
Shelly's images-show us what you got
EAC-distressing

scrunchy birthday

Morning all well it is as I start to write this post anyway, whether it will be when I publish is another matter.

I saw this fab tutorial on Sassy 's blog for scrunched flowers and decided to have a go, and I'm not sure it was meant to be but I did it anyway. Let me explain what I mean. The tutorial suggested you needed 3 different sized punch flowers, I had 2 different but went out and bought a third. I started to punch and all was well until I used one of my original punched the middle size and it broke , I tried all sorts but there is no way I could get it to punch so my flowers re made with large and very small flower punches, but I think they still look ok.

The flowers I randomly coloured with the same colour promarker I used for my sassy image boho chick which is available from funky kits, I know there is bits of white showing but I quite like it as I think it makes it look a bit tatty. They are held together with brads.

The rest of the card is fairly plain though I did use velvet ribbon and a small daisy ribbon for accents and an embossed happy birthday greeting as the card is for my niece from my mum, hope they both like it.


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-

Stamp something-use punches
Totally gorjuss-flower power
4 crafty chicks-handmade flowers
creative craft world-use 3 or more brads
Birthday sundaes-embossing wet or dry
sketch saturday-layout
simply sassy tutorial challenge-use one of the tutorials
passion for promarkers-pink and brown/blue and brown(does deep pink still count?)

Summer? what happened has it been and gone?

I know it's only the beginning of June and we need rain around here but where has summer gone and hail? Good job we can craft and have summer and there are so many summer challenges around too. This card is for one of my nieces and there will be more birthday cards to come as towards the end of June starts our birthday madness season in our family well one of them there's another towards the end of the year.

For this one I used one of my sassy girls that I've not yet inked up and she so reminds me of childhood summer days when we use to go bug hunting as a gang of children all with jam jars in hand, holes punched in the top so the bugs could breathe and fishing nets in hand, a competition to see who could catch most and never touch the wings or they'll die. Then at the end of the fun day all setting them free at once and if we were really lucky having at least a dozen or so butterflies to let go at once such a wonderful sight. Do kids still do things like that?

I decided to go with different colours ( like the huneysuckle I can see from my window) for me for a change just for fun and perhaps as the weather was dull too. The papers are from a kit I got from QVC not sure of the brand , the ribbon is from my stash as is the peel-off. The flowers were white but I coloured to match and thought gazinias would look perfect, well for the yellow/orange flowers the blue just because. The button centres are papermania and the butterfly I made from fantasy film. The image is coloured with promarkers of course.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:-
Auds sentiments-summer
Design dollies-colour challenge
crafts and me-stamp something
Little darlings-summer
The sugar bowl-layout
Creative card crew-wings
pile it on -summer heaven
crafty ho's-summer let the fun begin
cupcake inspirations-photo inspiration
the corrosive challenge-summer colours
creative cowgirls -summer fun
pear tree designs-summer delight
stamp and create-summer
paper pretties-summer

Hope its a good day for you all and thanks for popping by.