Thursday's cards

It was when I received my order from Poppicrafts which included these lush pink brads I knew I had to use them for the CPS sketch #99 and I used Imaginisce papers for the butterfly and because of the glitter in the papers I used some glitter pens to doodle round the wings. Below is a close up of the butterfly.

On Papertake Weekly this week is another fab sketch from Dawn, I've used another old Penny Black stamp that I brought a couple of weeks ago. Still have some October Autumn paper left, not sure about the card feel there's something missing, which is why I place a flower on it.

The Dining room's floor has now been ripped up there's a slight problem to be sorted out before we can start the new floor.

Paper Piecing Tilda

It's such a relief to be back in my Craftroom, although room is an exaggeration it's 4ft by 8ft with a workbench that runs the length of the room, it used to be the coal bunker and shed that hubby put a couple of doors on the front. There's just enough room for me and everything is a hand distance away.

So to get back to cardmaking I found these scraps of October Afternoon papers and decided to use them for the paper piecing challenge on Spoonful of Sugar, again with the idea of using A6 card and to make it for normal post so it limited supplies. I hope I'm right in thinking that an A6 card is an A5 folded in half.

The hall flooring has now been removed and we just need to do the same with the dining room and it should all be ready to be screened so the new floor can be laid. The only problem my craftroom overflows slighty in the corner so need to find new home for it before hubby realises.

AWOL

I've finished the Secret Project and have returned all my stash back to my craftroom but my poor joints have said enough and refused to work with out hurting so I've given then a rest and hopefully normal cardmaking resumes today.



Many thanks to Nicole for this award, Nicole's colouring is amazing and she makes brilliant cards, I think she deserves this award more than me and honoured she sent it to me.

Chaos

Yes Chaos is still reigning in the house, am I glad DH had to go to work today, you wouldn't believe the probs with had pulling up tiles, we found so many other problems it took all day to fix them as well as pulling up the tiles. Lucky for me, I just got to watch and put my fingers in my ears when the air turned blue.

Not sure I like the colours on this card but blame the bad lighting in dining room and the poor cat is missing his tail, I had planned to 3d as yet still haven't found it. The sketch is from Sketch Saturday and the papers are scraps so sorry not sure who made them.

Today I have to finish the Secret Project and move back into my Craftroom and hopefully still have time to make a card.

Chilly Sunday

Yesterday wasn't a fun day, it never warmed up and I couldn't get warm, my craft stuff in is split in two places (the weathermen said it would be warming up, well at least the forecast I heard)Hubby decided he had time to start pulling up the tiles in the kitchen to make way for the new flooring. So I feel I'm in a terrible muddle instead of organised chaos and my Secret Project is running late too, extended date is Tuesday when I should be handing it over. I left the best photos till last for the secret project so in theory it should be easy, so lets make a card instead. The Penny Black Saturday challenge is for Pink and Brown, so I grabbed some pink patterned paper and brown card and using another of my new stamps this one cost 50p made this card. Not sure if I'm happy with it, in hindsight I think I would have cut out the gate and not just the basket and hat. I have no idea what the paper is they were scraps but the pinky chocolate flowers are from Poppicrafts.

The Award below comes from Linda in Norway, amazing isn't how the hands of crafts spread across the world. Many Thanks Linda.

The following two awards are from my good friend Karin, thanks. She has a great challenge blog where you follow a sketch and if you want, make two cards one for Christmas and one for Birthdays.

Cute Saturday

Friday sketchers are back with a fabulous sketch from Kristine, another A6 card for the Marie Curie through Do-crafts. I used to make this size all the time but they're really hard to get back too after all the square cards. Over on the Cute Card Thursday Challenge you've to use something new, its a bit of a cheat because this little bear isn't new but he is too me, I brought him the other Saturday at the Art of Craft where people brought they're old craft stuff and someone brought loads of cute stamps which are now in my craftroom and this little chap is one of them and cost me 20p. Its a stampendous stamp and the papers for the card is Daisy Bucket. I had to get a black pen out to alter the bears mouth he looks at you with such disdain I couldn't bear it!

I've also won some stamps Whoo Hoo, although I tried sending a message with my address and the Postmaster has sent it back so need to check what I've done wrong.

So what happened to warming up, I've moved almost all my stuff back into my Craftroom only to have to bring it back out again.

Oh no my vistors counter is broken, hope it gets better soon.

CPS Love Is

I still check out some of the blogs of the SBS 8 even though its defunct. one of them is Kelly 's whos has a challenge to make a Man's Valentines card, the sketch for CPS#98 has been haunting me all week and then suddenly saw Alison wedding card ( which by the way is amazing) and everything fell into place for this card. The papers are BG and I wanted something chunky for the hearts so I cut out several on the cricut and stuck them together, I embossed the top one on two before sticking them.I'm really pleased how it turned out, just need to make a couple more valentine cards to send to my kids, I especially love sending them to their place of work!!!

This award keeps returning back to me isn't it wonderful this time Patsy has sent it to me. Many Thanks Patsy.

The lovely Roz is doing favourite card of the day on her blog and she's featured my Tilda card from Wednesday, what a lovely surprise.

Even more Blog Candy this time from Kim.

I'm trying not to panic but I promised the secret project to be finished by Saturday and I still have about 3 doubles and 1 single layouts to do, moving out of my craftroom didn't help, well thats my excuse.

Purple Charlie

So this should have been a nice quick card, Charlie was really quick and easy to colour and Nikki's Spoonful of Sugar sketch, didn't have lots of layers to think about, so why did this card take so long. Maybe it was the A6 size, I wanted to make some this size for the Marie Curie Do-crafts envies, could it be I was trying to make sure it went through normal post or could it be the colour I used to use this colour all the time, well anyway its finished now and there's still something. Its very dull here too so had a job to photo it and now it looks a bit washed out.

So onto some good news some amazing Blog Candy

Lim

Rach

Michele

I wouldn't mind some of these candys that's for sure.

My candy is building up nicely, some stamps arrived yesterday, Thank you Katharina for the super quick delivery(thats a clue by the way) but suddenly since I mentioned it my vistors button has gone potty does anyone know why!

Daisies

All the challenge blogs are coming back online after the Christmas break and Ismaki is one of them and is celebrating their birthday with some fabulous prizes. So this is another Tilda that had previously not seen any ink and the last of the papers that were left over from the secret project. Hopefully all the sketch is there except the swirl in the corner has become a daisy and the option of snowflakes just wasn't going to happen I refuse point blank to have anything to do with snowflakes until Rudolph day.

Its official my craftroom is too cold and I've had to move some stuff into the dining room, I did say how nice it was to watch the Robin and the pair of Great Tits in the garden and how I could get used to this, I just got the look.

Waffling Tuesday

I found the sketch on Sketch Saturday difficult, not sure if it was the sketch or the paper I had chosen, I fairly please with it but it was struggle. I may have gone a bit too far with the doodled dots, the paper was Daisy Bucket, the butterflies are freebie on creativity card mag ( sorry can't remember is full title but its by Do-crafts) unusual for me to use a freebie cos I don't always find them useful and I give them to Sis for her kids & card club at her school, the corners are a nestability cut in four and not forgetting Tilda who has only recently seen an inkpad.

How do you top being in the Fab 5 or being Card of the week, don't think I managed it this time, Kazan's sketch on 2 sketches4you has a zigzag border and I thought the MS doily punch would work especially with these colours which was left over from the secret project and I was making these daisies for the project too. Once I finished it I realised I missed a bit of the sketch, now thats the second time this week (yesterday I missed the strips of the BG challenge) you just know there's gonna be a third. Not sure whether to enter this for the challenge although the sketch did inspire the card. But if it doesn't work this challenge I could always use it for Papertake Weekly their challenge spots and circles so that would work.

Thanks Karin for cute award not sure on the rules but if you haven't had this one, I'm sending it you.

Thanks Ali for sending me this fabby award, you have to tell about you 5 addictions, now I had this award before but I found what I wrote originally.

1. Cardmaking and Scrapbooking
2. Craft Shopping
3. Blogging
4. Red Wine
5. Love Strictly and X factor, OK so this is so last year just add Dancing on Ice.

This post is getting extremely long but if you're still with me just wanted to mention my vistors counter that I managed to add to my blog January last year, have you seen the amount of vistors, like WOW. I'm watching it carefully cos there's a number coming up that definitely needs celebrating.

Thanks a bunch

Whoooo I'm in the Fab 5 on 2sketches4you, what an honour, glad I didn't have to choose though there always loads of fab cards.

So back to the last Thank you card, this time I've used the sketch on the Basic Grey Challenge, the papers are from Euphoria pack and the words cut out on the cricut.

So the tree is packed away and my front room is looking normal and dust free but it does mean not much was done yesterday in the way of crafting and I didn't get to catch up with my blog list so need to catch up today.

We've woken to a dusting of snow and I mean a dusting of snow, not even enough for a Snowman.

Sugar Bowl

There's a new challenge blog for Sugar Nellies called The Sugar Bowl and if you're addicted to their stamps you will probably know all about it. The first challenge is a sketch from Tiets and I'm also addicted to sketches too. I still have quite a bit of this Daisy Bucket paper, I love these bright, cheerful colours and I'm still making Thank you cards, the image is suppose to have a letter box too but it would be the wrong shape for the sketch (writing about it now I could have flipped the sketch) so I masked it off.

An innocent remark from BIL over the New Year has made us realise that in 5 weeks its my parents Golden Wedding for some strange reason the family thought it was in the summer so we could celebrate with BBQ now we're having a rethink.

Back Home

I'm back at home now and can make cards again cos Sis has been cracking the whip to get the secret project done. By the way if you're near the Art of Craft, North Camp, Farnborough their Sale started today and you can also take any craft stuff you want to sale too, I think 10% goes to charity but don't quote me on that. All I know one lady had loads of stamps and some very old Penny Blacks which some of them are in my Craftroom but they could have possibly all gone now. My Penny Black Challenge card isn't one of them but a brand new one that I couldn't resist and just right for another Thank you card, only 3 to go. The challenge this week is for embossing, I thought I had the folder with thank you words but it must have been in my imagination so I'll just stick with the swiss dots, patterned paper is BG and sentiment is stampin' up. All helped with nestabilities and a bit of doodling.

Look another Award this time from Debbie, personally she deserves it straight back in triplicate cos she creates amazing cards, which are a joy to look at.

Resolutions

Before I get to my resolutions, first the card is for Everybody art challenge which was for a New Year card but it will also work for the Spoonful of Sugar Challenge as its still running. Somewhere in a safe space is the clock hands stamps and if you happen to know where please let me know, I had to settle with drawing them in and to start with I didn't like the colours I used on Edwin but it seem to come together when I put the 2009 which I cut from a cricut cartridge.

Now I hope you all are having a good 2009 so far, we had an amazing time and unfortunately I do believe there may still be evidence of this on my sisters's camera! I'm still at Sis's cursing her PC cos its really slow.

Now for the resolutions;

My first is to try out of a DT, I have been asked but worry that if my joints play up I won't be able to keep deadlines and don't wish to let anyone down. Now when I had flu I managed almost to still make a card, so I reckon if I get on one or maybe two I should be able to manage. I not bothered if I don't make one there is so much talent out there.

My second is to use Damon now if you don't know who Damon is he is actually my sewing machine but I've called him after a boy in Omen ( which seeing as some of the filming was done in the Cathedral of my town is a very apt name) I have problems with Damon running away with the stitching but again this is probably my fault because I don't feel the pedal with my bad foot so I going to practise using my left foot and hope I can sew straight!

Last one and more serious than the first two I must lose weight because it creeping up instead of creeping down.

Just want to wish all our Friends in Tossa de Mar well, they had an awful storm on boxing day the worst one since 1950 and there has been a lot of damage, thankfully no lives were lost in Tossa.

2009

A

Happy

New

Year

I probably suffering from a headache this morning after celebrating the new year at Wings at Farnborough. So you can guess this is a scheduled post and has I enjoyed checking out my fave Christmas Cards, I thought I would do the same for cards of 2008 so below are some of my favourites. It was a lovely feeling to find a lot of cards I'm proud to have made ( there was also quite a few of "did I really make that") Lets hope at the end of this year I will feel the same about 2009 cards.

I forecast an expensive year with Sugar Nellies new designers and Elizabeth Bell offering her designs to a couple more stamp companies.

Shabby Chic

Suddenly had a thought that these Thank you cards I'm suppose to be making might not all be for women and that maybe I should make them more masculine, so when I checked out CPS#97 it was ideal for these shabby circle like flowers. The papers again BG and I've used the new stamps I brought yesterday, they're Hero Arts clear design Thank you word set.

And when I saw Laura's sketch for 2sketches4you, I knew these type of flowers would work with this sketch too. Then it got a bit spooky because I checked out my blogs and saw that Bev had used this flower and made a little tutorial how they're made, great minds think alike. Mind you Bev has a Tim Holtz distressing tool thingy and I used my scissors blade, definitely need to put one of them on my list.

So Hubby wasn't working yesterday and asked me whether there was anywhere I would like to go has I had been stuck at home while he worked. What a silly thing to ask so thats a trip to The Glitter Pot and all you online shoppers were keeping them very busy and I had no trouble spending a lot of money but its no fun with hubby reminding me there's no room in my room for anything more.

Look what Tracey has sent me, many thanks, I believe I've already had this award so I sending to everyone who hasn't had it yet.

Tonight we're off to Wings to celebrate The New Year, we had an excellent time last year although this year I shall be good and not find myself on You Tube again.