Merry Christmas.

Just a quickie to say a very Happy Christmas to everyone who visits my blog. I've had a busy couple of weeks, but will be back in force in 2009!

Take care...

As promised....

Here are a few cards that I've been making whilst not doing alot of 'owt else.. well, one has to find something to do with their time when the Doc says 'stay warm and take it easy!'. Don't you agree?

This card was made using the FF Stickers, they are just great for quick cards. I remembered the other day I have about 30 cards or so I need to make, so this set has to be quick... I made quite alot the same as this, just different colours. The glitter card is from Craftime - and let me tell you it is AMAZING! The glitter doesn't come off, it's fantastic to glue and it is just sooooo sparkly! Backing papers are Dovecraft I think.

This dark is quite a rich green and didn't photograph all that well, although I'm sure you get the idea.Again, the glitter baubles are craftime. Flowers are Doodlebug and papers are HOTP.

I decided to delve into the drawers and pull out some of last years Papermania Christmas papers for this card. The topper tree is Dovecraft, again from last year. Ribbon is Doodlebug.

Cute doggies.. now there's a suprise! This was a quicky quicky card, using PM papers again from last year. The dogs are a stamp and thought it perfect for me with having three dogs! Image has been coloured with Whispers Strokes pens and then shaded with water.

I love this outline sticker.. it's Anita's and is actually silver! I combined it with the black and silver papers from Papermania. This one fits the Challenge over on Papertake Weekly. This is the brief -

This weeks challenge is to use one colour! You can use shades of the same colour and small accents of other colours if you like! The team have done some gorgeous examples for your inspiration!

This one fits in with the PTW challenge too - shades of red. The papers are DCWV and the flower is Doodlebug. I hope you like it.

This next card I made to go with the Challenge on Cute Card Thursday

Here was the brief -

.Challenge 40

Punches

This week we like you to dust off your punches (not die cuts!) and use them on your cards, you can either punch some borders or corners or use punched out shapes on your cards.

I couldn't resist using the snowflake punch and Dovecraft papers on this card. The stamp was coloured with Whispers pens and waterbrush. The punches I have used are the snowflake and the circle punch. Funnily enough it also fits in with the template challenge on HERE at Friday Sketchers. It's a lovely Sketch that I've used a few times.

Using this template again, I made up this card..

The stamp is a High Hopes stamp, and this was its first outing! Again, for this one, I used punches to create the flower in the top left and the greeting at the bottom. Papers are DCWV.

This card is my favourite this year. I used Dovecraft papers from the Traditional pack. The stamp is Whippersnapper and the cradle at the front is layered up and mounted in front of the main square. Coloured with Whispers pens and water again. I added some sparkles into the sky for the stars.

AND FINALLY....

I have managed to get done my challenge for this week's Forever Friends challenge blog.

The challenge this week is for a card using a Christmas Carol theme.. mine was Deck the Halls..

Hope you have a great Christmas if I don't get back on here before then! Paul is off from tomorrow, and we have quite a few things we need to be getting done... I'm waiting in today for my order from Amazon arriving.. like it should've yesterday!

Have a good 'un..

Sorry I've been AWOL

Finally, I'm feeling a bit better this morning. I've managed to have a good nights sleep and can definately say I'm a little more 'with it'.. I was going to say normal, but I've never been that.. haha.

I started feeling a little ropey last weekend, just a bit full of cold, and this week has been hellish! It's gone straight down onto my chest, leaving me with a chronic cough, feeling very very tired and completely drained of energy.. outta puff, even going from one room to the next.. ! Blimey I felt crap.

At least last night I was only rattling on my chest, not major coughing fits and sneezing, so I did manage to sleep a little easier!

I've got lots of cards to show you later on, I've been plodding on with cards for Christmas amongst other secret things, so can at least upload something when I get them photographed..

See ya later!

Happy new year.. fancy a bit of cake?

No.. I've not lost the plot.. lol.. That's the title of the new challenge over on the Lili of the Valley Challenge Blog this week. There are some lovely cards by the Design Team again, go over and take a look.

Here's my take on this weeks theme.

I used the lovely DCWV Christmas glitter pad to add that little bit of sparkle. The die cut was LOTV and I added 3D gloss to his eyes for a bit of sparkle. The numbers are Papermania.

Now before I forget, I know I've not shown this cake on here..

Quite ingenious eh? It's a Christmas cake that's been stamped with a High Hopes Christmas image.. how do you do that you're asking??

Well.. if you use food colouring instead of inks, (a bit of trial and error with the 'how much to use'), you can stamp on the cake. You need to make sure that the stamp is a clean, never been used before stamp so it's food compatible. You can also colour with the food colouring too..

Anyone fancy a slice?? Well check out the blog HERE for a better look.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree.....

How very very pretty you are!

We put ours up at the weekend, and Martina decided she wanted to have a go at some long exposure photography.. so here we go!

This is one of our baubles.. playing with the macro lens. Not bad for her first try eh?

Getting arty with the tree.. a 6 second exposure combined with a zoom in effect on the lens whilst taking the photograph. This photo didn't turn out too bad at all really.. first time for her trying this technique. We also tried doing some light trails, but light trails are light trails, so I'm not sharing those..

Merry Christmas everyone.. lol..

Sod it, Sod it, Sod it!!!!

My Photoshop 7 has a fault.. need to reinstall it.. .can't find my disk.. looked to upgrade to CS3.. need a new computer to run it... still can't find my disk...

Anybody got one they don't want anymore?? lol..

Sod it! And I soooo need it.. I'm busy!

I'm still here...

Hi everyone..

This is just a very quick post as I'm supposed to be working this morning.

I've been really busy lately - not going to knock it though! I thought coming up to Christmas that things would have quietened down a little, but things keep coming up. I've got a couple of really big things happening in the New Year - I'll share when I get the go ahead. It's soooo exciting I can hardly wait!

I am also busy making my cards to send off.. Last week saw my 100th parcel going off to our Soldiers out in the Sandy Place - thank you to every single one of you who have given parcels and messages of good will. So this week it's my family's turn for my attention. It will be the first time everyone has a handmade card - usually by now I've given up and bought them!

My demonstrations have finished now. I'm having a few weeks off and then all ready for going again in January! I will miss them though. I really love demonstrating - even if some of my ladies are a bit cheeky! (yes Miss Cheeky from Ali craft.. you know who you are! lol). We have a bit of a laugh at my demo's, which is lovely, so thank you all for making 2008 a fantastic year!

Who knows what 2009 will bring.. but I hope it's full of life, love and laughter!

I will be back with more posts shortly, I just need to get the photos sorted for my blog.

Awwww... take a peek..

For the Forever Friends advent calendar..a different project every day!

Awwww... take a peek..

For the Forever Friends advent calendar..a different project every day!

Two awards .. thank you so much..

I have been honoured this week by recieving two awards from two lovely bloggers..

So firstly, I would like to thank Erin who gave me this beautiful Butterfly award

Now all I need to do is...

1. Pick 10 people to pass this award to
2. Contact them to let them know that you have chosen their blog for this award
3. Link the person who gave this award to you

And this lovely second award comes from Jane.

This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships!These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

I'll be back later to list who I've chosen.. (7.25 in the morning with no coffee makes me unable to string two words together! ) lol.

23 days to go...

.... and I finally made a start on some christmas cards! Not sure what I think of them yet, so they're up on my shelf to see if I like them in the morning!!

I'll show this one first. The background paper is my own from further down my blog (a freebie for you all). The topper was printed and came from a download kit, but can't remember where from.

This next card was based on this sketch by Kathy B.

And here's my take on it...

The papers and image are downloads, printed onto linen paper. The poinsettia are part of the blog candy that I won a few weeks ago.

This is another sketch that I used. This one was a Di Hickman..

For this one, I have used Anita's outline stickers and coloured them in with Whispers brush pens. The flower is a larger version of the others, again from my blog candy.

Another sketch.. another card.. lol

Everything on this card is Papermania. The stickers had a gold outline on that I decided to take off. The other papers were given a dotted border with a white gel pen. I hope you like them..

That's the end of the Sketch cards for now.. they are a great idea to use them if you're having a blank moment or just for making your cards that little bit quicker!

Lovely Frosty the snowman! The darker paper in the bg is Dovecraft, and the other papers etc are all downloads. I think he's the cutest!

Whilst looking through Kathy's blog earlier today (I'll find the link.. ) I came across her very trendy handcut Christmas trees.. I thought they were ace, so I decided to give it a try. What do you think?

All papers are downloads.

Now last but not least - take a look at this fantastic little reindeer! I will have to check where he came from, but he was a freebie 3D printable. Here's the rest of the card.

That's all for now... See you all again soon xx

Great news!

Hi all...

Thank you all for your lovely comments I've been recieving over the last few days.. and I'm glad to see that you have been using the little boxes at the bottom of my posts too... they're a great idea aren't they for people in a hurry!

Firstly, as you can see, I've changed my header upto Christmas.. Merry Christmas to all the folks out there who visit my blog- I appreciate it! I hope you like it. Hehe.

Now then.... a bit of Great news..

I got an email yesterday from Julie over at Inspirational, asking me to be part of the team.. It took me all of a second to say yes. What a silly question lol.. Now I have a purpose for blurfing.. (blog surfing for those who don't know).

So if you have a blog that you think I could feature, leave me a comment and let me know and I'll come visiting. Please remember though, photos need to be really clear.

Boy, I'm going to enjoy this little venture!