Feel Better Soon!

I made this card for a friend of mine but could also send it to myself as I've come down with an awful bug. We had a bit of a scare a couple of days ago when Mum took a tumble and I had to ring for an ambulance, they really are fabulous men and women. One of the chaps was the same medic that came out when Mum had her heart attack and he had also been out to my Dad too. He noticed the changes to the kitchen and hoped he wouldn't be around to see the next phase .. .. Anyway, Mum is glued back together, literally, but he said that if the bug I'd got was the one his family have had, then it's rotten and will take a while to get over. I am dosed up with Lemsips, Nurofen and hot toddies - so mostly don't care anyway!!!!

My card is a sweet LOTV stamped image coloured with my Copics then cut out with a circle Nestie. The mat is a Nellie's Choice fancy circle cut from green textured card and the paper is another magazine freebie piece. I decorated with a snip of cotton lace, pretty flowers, punched leaves and a smattering of pearls.

Charisma Cardz have an anything goes theme, as does Creative Inspirations, so I'll enter with them.

Thank you for your New Year Wishes, when I am feeling a bit better I will get around to visiting everyone. I do hope that 2012 is a good year for us all and although there may be many changes ahead, I am keeping positive that they will be changes for the better.

So, to all my dear friends and followers, I raise a glass to say

Happy New Year!

The potting shed

I am so looking forward to spring .. .. I've had enough of cold, wet and windy weather and hope that in just another month I can start sowing seeds in the conservatory. Mind you, now that I have a garden shed I'll have to check and see if there have been any winter visitors sheltering from the weather! I've coloured my LOTV image with Copics - and did you know that there are 12 new Sketch shades coming out in 2012? I have updated my chart and printed out a new one ready to colour in, although with plenty of gaps still in it, I'll not be rushing to get all the new colours straight away. The two new green shades, G43 and G46 will be top of the list along with E84 and E89 as they will go perfectly with the existing shades I already have. If you would like a copy of my blank chart just email me and I will send it to you - it prints out on 1 page of A4 in landscape and is an excel file.

Back to my card. The papers are more magazine freebies, I think they are by Nit Wits, and I have matted with coral textured card. I've inked all my edges with brown chalk ink then decorated with Marianne diecut pieces and a bow tied with seam binding tape. The old WOJ text is stamped with brown Momento and seemed the perfect addition to this cute little micey nice scene.

The Dutch Dare card challenge is for favourite things: mine are LOTV stamps, dicuts and gems - it's not often that I create a card without one or more of my favourite things on it. Today I managed to persuade my hubby and son to bring down some more craft boxes from the loft so I will have to unpack and find homes for more stamps and embellishments .. .. .. it will be good to have things organised and to hand, but might take me a while longer yet!

Happy New Year!

Our challenge this week on Cute Card Thursday is to create a New Year project. I left it until the last minute to create my DT card, and then couldn't decide on a cute stamp to go with my one and only New Year text stamp, it's from a Serendipity Cling set I've had for years but rarely use. I wanted to heat emboss the text but my powders are still up in the loft .. .. .. so I had to make do with stamping in brown Momento ink instead. The colours aren't quite right as I had to take the picture last night on the kitchen worktop with the flash - the leaves are cut from a textured cream cardstock and the flower from a textured caramel coloured card so both are darker in real life.

My card base is a C6 thick kraft and I've inked the edges with a brown chalk ink to tie it in to the stamping. The embellishment is cut from Marianne dies then layered up with a piece of wide striped ribbon, an antique metal flower and a big pearl - simples!

I used Marianne Creatables dies LR0122 (poinsettia leaves) and LR0128 (flower).

Do stop by the CCT blog and take a look at the rest of the team's fabulous creations, and read about our sponsor and prize for this week.

The For Fun challenge is for something new so I'll enter my card with them too.

Sweet Wishes

at last a quiet day! and a chance to get out my Copic pens and indulge in a little colour therapy. I treated myself to a couple of the cute LOTV mice stamps and together with pieces of freebie magazine papers I've put this card together.

The floral embellishment is a mix of Marianne diecuts with touches of sparkle gems and glitter for the icing sugar. The green card is a textured piece of Coredinations in my stash, and hopefully the ribbon isn't too pink to tie it all together.

I've coloured the mice with E30 and E31 plus a touch of pink R20. The jam is R20, 21 and 22 while the cake and icing sugar is E50, 51 and 53. The icing sugar box is E000, E40 and E81 plus YG11 - I tend to use the pens a little like paint and blend as I go, as long as they are nice and juicy that is. I wanted to bring a green into the picture so used it for the jam jar along with the clear blender to make it paler in the middle of the pot. My shadows are warm greys for the bottom and cool greys at the top around the box and sieve.

Not sure if there is a challenge out in blog land that this one would fit. I've not been able to check back too many days as the connections are pretty poor here - but hopefully I can get around to visit some of my followers in the next couple of days.

I found a challenge to enter - Everybody Art has an anything goes theme.

wahaaay!

Another scheduled post .. .. only it didn't .. .. this is the card I made for my eldest grandson. The image is one of my new LOTV stamps, coloured with Copics and then a simple layout again with a scrap of paper from my stash and the wet glue and loose glitter.

To finish things off I've punched out snowflakes and decorated the centres with sparkly gems.

By the Cute and Girly December challenge and the Critter Sketch Challenge both have the theme of let it snow, perfect! And the Papertake Weekly challenge is to share your last Christmas card make in 2011 - yep, this is going to be my last one for this year! I'm packing my stuff away and cleaning house ready for the festivities, although I do have a couple of get well cards to make for friends so maybe I'll leave my pens out for a while longer yet .. .. ..

A little Tweet

Fingers crossed this one appears as it's being scheduled, just in case I don't get a connection as the internet is being iffy again .. .. I ordered several new Christmas Lili of the Valley stamps but just haven't had a chance to play with them all this year. Once the festive season is over I'm determined to get a start on next year and get them inky! I have lots of cute image stamps but not quite so many traditional designs, so these cute little robins didn't need much persuasion to flutter into my basket! I've coloured with Copics and used a LOTV sentiment as well.

It's another simple layout with bits and pieces I can lay my hands on. The patterned paper is a magazine freebie and I've gone mad with the wet glue and loose glitter again, finishing with punched bits and pieces to create my embellishment and sparkly pink gems in the centres of the poinsettia flowers.

The Sweet Stampin' Challenge theme is for sparkling and sweet creations, while Stamptacular Sunday are dreaming of a pink Christmas. All hopefully be able to link up to them later in the day.

Santa's Letter

I have had a hectic weekend getting the last few Christmas cards made and the presents sorted - just need to do a bit of wrapping up now. Most of the food is in except for the fresh salad and veggies to get later in the week. I'll ice the cake this afternoon and sit down and make sure I have all the ingredients for my recipes - I might just be organised after all! I am tired though, very tired, and the ME is certainly causing me some problems. I'd like to help get a few more tiles up in the bathroom and the kitchen, but think things may be on hold now until the new year. Hopefully my hubby will be here towards the end of the week and we can find the box of decorations in the loft so the place can be a little festive after all. As my grandsons will be here on Christmas Day I feel we should make an effort!

Today's card is for my youngest grandson so I've gone with bright colours, although the enhancement on the pc has perhaps made them a little bit too bright! The image is an old stamp from Sugar Nellie and I've used my Copics to colour in. I even made a note of the main shades I used: reds are R24, 27, 29 and 39; greens are G03, 05, 07 and 29; Santa's letter is E0000 and E40; and the browns are E53, 55, 57 and 59. I added BG0000 and BG000 for background shading before going around the image with the wet glue and loose glitter.
It's a simple layout with a scrap of digi paper from Cuddly Buddly (a free download from last year), a Cuddly Buddly sentiment and diecut poinsettias finished off with a couple of red domes.

Paper Sundaes have a celebratory theme and the One Stop Craft blog are looking for some Christmas sparkle - lots of sparkly glitter on my card!

I'll try and catch up with my commenters over the next couple of days, although I get very frustrated with the snail speed the internet runs at down in this part of Cornwall so keep wandering off to do something else while it tries to make a connection!

It's that time of year!

I'll be quick with this one as Blogger and my internet are misbehaving again! Our theme this week on Cute Card Thursday is stripes, and DT card has stripy snowflake paper in the background, plus my snowman has a plaid scarf and that's sort of stripy! I've coloured with my Copic pens then added sparkle with wet glue and glitter - a messy affair to say the least!

Here's the card. The image is from an old Serendipity Cling set that comes out year after year and the text came with the set. The paper is a magazine freebie and I've simply added a selection of punched a diecut snowflake embellishments.

The ABC Challenge blog have F for Frosty as their challenge theme, the Paper Play challenge is simply for Christmas while the Colour Create challenge is to use silver, blue and white. I have backed my image and text with silver card as well as cutting out silver snowflakes.

Let it Snow

I was fiddling with the camera to try and get a decent picture of this card .. .. and in the end gave up! The close up of Sylvia's new digi Let it Snow image isn't too bad, although the colours are looking a little washed out. I coloured with my Copic pens and finished that part of the card over a week ago, but it has taken me until now to finish putting it all together .. ..

Now this is definitely the wrong colour, the blues are looking rather grey when they are actually quite bright, and the contrast peachy-red is too orange - bu****r! The papers are scraps from my stash and I've added faux stitching around the edge. There's lots of sparkle on this card but as I ran out of Stardust Stickles, I've had to resort to wet glue and loose glitter - now everything in the room sparkles! The embellishment in the corner is created with Nellie's Choice punch and emboss poinsettias layered up over a double white organza bow and little pieces of Marianne diecut fronds and leaves.

It's an anything Christmassy goes challenge on the ABC Christmas blog, and also on the Paper Sundaes blog too. Totally Gorjuss have a Let it Snow challenge, and the Digital Tuesday theme is for a Winter Wonderland.

Now if the glue would just dry I'll have another card to share with you tomorrow, but for now I have tiles to grout .. .. ..

Little Heidi

Hello again! I am back with a card that I finished ages ago but never got around to taking a picture, until this morning. It has been sat in the conservatory freezing behind piles of boxes, but the pile is slowly getting smaller and at last, we have hot water! Another day and the shower will be operational although it will be the new year before the new loo and radiators go in. I've tiled the back wall of the kitchen and started on the side wall, just need to get the trim for around the window and a new windowsill before I can carry on, but hopefully that area will be looking good for Christmas. I've also been doing the grouting in the bathroom and even painted the ceiling .. .. although as the tiles are big I've left sticking them on the wall to someone else. It's a slow job as I don't have a lot of energy to spare, but we are getting there.

My card is another simple design with one of Sylvia's new Wee images, this is Heidi all wrapped up warm against the snowy weather. She is coloured with Copics and I've stamped the greeting then inked the edges with the Nestie still in place to give the look of another layer. The papers are freebies from a magazine (all I could get my hands on at the time) and the snowflakes just punched out of white card. I managed to squeeze out just enough Stardust Stickles to add a little sparkle .. .. will need to add to the shopping list as the spare bottle is still in a box in the loft!

My computer is still playing up and I lost internet for a few days as the modem didn't like being moved on to an extension lead. Now it's back sat on top of the new boiler, hopefully they will be happy together and the electronics won't interfere. I can't scan the list of blogs I follow beyond the past couple of hours so I have no idea what challenges are around at the moment, or who has posted and what. I did see that the Winter Wonderland challenge is 'let it snow' so will enter little Heidi with them.

Not sure when I will be back again as there is still loads to do here. No news yet on our new planning application but there is plenty we can be getting on with now that we have simplified the design. Next on the list is a new garage door that fits snugly and keeps out the wind and rain, but that's a job for someone else to do in the new year so I might get a chance to do a little crafting now and then.

Turkey Dinner

oh my what a hassle it's been to get this simple little card loaded up to share with you - no internet yesterday as we had to disconnect and move things about ready for the new boiler (the phone socket is going to end up in the boiler cupboard unless we move it), then this morning no blogger, and even now it's a slow painful business to type .. ..

I can't get to my craft desk/stash at the moment as it's behind the boxes of boiler and bathroom fittings in the conservatory, so I'm having to make do with just a few bits and pieces I've got here in the living space. I had the pink flowers and green swirls in my bit box and the paper is more from the Papermania pack. Please excuse the wonky picture again, and for some reason my camera wont go into macro mode to take close ups for you. I've coloured with Copics and inked the edges of the card, paper and image to give a slightly vintage feel - I was going to add some Stickles to the santa hat the pup is wearing, but can't get to them, fortunately I'd not put the packet of pink gems away that I picked up recently so was able to add a little bling to the centre of the flowers. It's a simple little C6 card that will do nicely for one of the neighbours that I've not gotten to know yet.

I was too late to add my card to this week's Cute Card Thursday DT collection, and mine is rather simple anyway, do go and check out the fabulous creations the rest of the DT have made. Our theme is to add a number so I've stamped the LOTV little text in the middle of my die-cut star.

The Charisma Cardz challenge is for spots - mine are sparkly ones on the background paper although they don't show up too well in the picture. And can anyone tell me how to link up my card to the Charisma blog .. .. I can't see a linky anywhere.

I'll try to visit a few blogs this evening, internet connection allowing that is, and in between stripping wallpaper in the bathroom!