Clare Curd's Blog Candy

Clare Curd has some wonderful blog candy up for grabs as she's reached 10,000 hits on her blog. I've got a long way to go before I get to 10,000 posts but certainly think it is wonderful to those that have achieved this. I already had her blog in my favourites but have added myself to hers as a follower - such a hard thing to decide to do - not ................ seeing as I bought some of her signature range stamps today!!! Good luck for the next 10,000 or more posts Clare and look forward to seeing your future creations.

Jeannette's Blog Candy

I have come across Jeannette's blog via a friend of a friend's blog Jeannette has some blog candy up for grabs. If you would like to take a look please click here.

Sketch Saturday Challenge Blog #39 - 21/2/09

On Sketch Saturday they have another sketch with I have had a go at. I used a Card Creations Art Deco image and backing paper, strips of distressed backing for the sides and then two blue jazzy buttons and a chipboard piece for the bottom with some ribbon through it.

Cute Card Thursday Challenge Blog 26-2-09 and Charisma Cardz Challenge 26-2-09

On the Cute Card Thursday Challenge Blog Challenge 49 is Animal Magic. On Charisma Cardz Challenge Blog Challenge No 8 is Animals. I thought this card would fit-the-bill for both challenges. The cat image I was given, the backing papers I was given and I used my Purple Cow Cutter freehand to cut the wavy edge and put some flowers from an X-cut punch down the wavy edge, one flat, the other on 3D foam, one flat, the other on £d foam etc to give some dimension. It was all finished off with a stamped MEOW sentiment stamped with purple Versafine, glitter was put in places on the topper and waste from peel-offs were put in the centre of the flowers to make them stand out a bit more. Not sure I’d like a cat with that bow in her fur!!!

Card for an Aunt

I have made this card for an aunt's birthday. I have used my first piece of tapestry card (I have put the link here but if you don't have willpower DON'T look as you will want it!!) that I got from Joanna Sheen's website after entering the Jayne Netley Mayhew competition. I've got it out many many times but put it straight back!!! This time though it has come out and has been used. I have used a backing paper from the Joanna Sheen Country Garden CD, a decoupage from the CD and also a matching insert. The card is finished off with a sentiment and some ribbon.

Commissioned Birthday Card

This is the third card my hairdresser asked me to make for her friend. She wanted a special 80th birthday card for someone into bowling. This time I used the Flippin' Men bowler, aperture card and acetate. I had a few problems trying to get all the sides of the card to match but hopefully I've got there in the end. I used My Craft Studio to use the grass image from Joanna Sheen's Cottage Garden CD and merged it on a page with a distressed-style blue for the sky. I then printed out a distressed green for the background as this can be seen through the card. I'm hoping it will be OK. It will be like the word books - practice makes perfect - I hope!!!!

Commissioned Birthday Card

I was asked by my hairdresser to also make 60th birthday card for her friend. This time the topic was bowling so I used a Papernation/Jollynation decoupage sheet and matching backing paper for this one. The verse I typed up on Word to fit the cut-back side of the card and used some of the items on the decoupage sheet to embellish it.

Commissioned Birthday Card

I was asked by my hairdresser to make a card for a friend of hers. She wanted a special 50th birthday card with a posh car on it. Out came My Craft Studio and this topper, backing paper and insert was made. I even was able to put "50 today" onto the number plate - how cool to have a personalised number plate eh???

Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog - Challenge - Set a Scene

Well, trust me to not be able to finish sticking this together the night of the challenge ending and then not being able to add a post on the Forum thus making it late - sorry Cynthia - I hope to do better next time!!! To Set the Scene I used some Messy Rabbits. I used a house stamp, Messy Rabbit couple stamp, The Heart and Home stamp and the cloud stamp (I used the masking technique but had a mental block and stamped the house with the rabbits on top and what a mess Messy Rabbit was so I had to start again!!!). They are stamped onto a backing paper I designed thanks to Sheena's show on Ideal World at the week-end (ie using cut-n-dry foam and distress ink pads and wipe over the surface and then spritz with water and then dry with a heat gun before stamping on it). I haven't put too much colour on the stamped images as I wanted the backing paper to show through. The other backing paper is from a Joanna Sheen CD - but not sure which one - think when I print out I might need to pencil some details on the back f the paper to say where I got it from. It's all finished off with a sentiment "Especially for You", some Papermania flowers and some fibres.

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - 21-2-09

Over at the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge there is a lovely sketch for this weeks' challenge. I thought I'd make my first go at one of their challenges and I have used a Pollycraft Designs 2008 Mortimers Sketchbook Download for this. He's such a cutie even though he forgot someone's birthday!!!

Commissioned Birthday Card

One of my customers wanted a birthday card for her very special sister-in-law who is into cats and kittens. I didn't need much of an excuse to get Joanna Sheen's Jayne Netley Mayhew CD out but I also got some images from the Pamela West CD as well. I decided to have another go at the word book from the Funky Hands Funky Daze CD. This time it was a little easier so hopefully with a bit more practice it will get easier and easier. I hope this is the extra special card that she asked for.

Blog Candy

Over at Elzybells there is some lovely blog candy on offer to celebrate the launch of some new sets of stamps and single stamps. They are really good fun. I like the teapot but I think my favourite has to be the Just Desserts set as those cakes look yummy yummy!!

Kath's Blog Candy

Kath has some FAB blog candy up for grabs. If you would like a chance of winning please click here. You will certainly enjoy looking at Kath's creations.

Carol's Blog Candy

Carol has some lovely blog candy up for grabs. Please click here if you would like to ahve a peek.

Commissioned Birthday Card

One of my customers has had cards made for her brother and sister-in-law and now they order their cards from me via her. This request is for a 70th Birthday card for the lady's husband - extra special as they got married last year. As I'd used the topic of trains in the card from his sister I went for the old-style football and thankfully found these images and the backing paper I used from the Joanna Sheen Victorian Companion CD Set. The only extras I added was some more backing paper, the sentiment mount and some fibres.

Gothic Arches Challenge

I recently subscribed to the Gothic Arches Challenge Blog but haven't had time to participate. I have though made one for the current challenge - Mardi Gras. I have used an image from Joanna Sheen's Fashion Boutique CD, the backing paper is a free one from Glenda from Artylicious/Graphicus (I think), a small piece of holographic card and it was all finished off with some Papermania flowers. I hope to take part more in the future.

Blog Candy

Ali has reached the total of 15,000 posts since November 2008. That's certainly a wonderful achievement in three months. I've certainly got a long way to go to catch up with Ali. If you want a chance of winning the blog candy click here for the rules.

Commissioned Birthday Card

My Mum asked me to make a card for the lady she shares an office with as it is her husband's birthday very soon. I decided I'd make a word book with my Funky Hands Funky Daze CD but chose the man's name WILSON which in hindsight it wasn't the easiest of words to start off as I needed to keep tweaking to get the letters to sit right and on A4 card. I printed the letters off on the computer with 250gsm card but it wasn't heavy enough but as my printer doesn't take heavier I printed it all out again on thick photo paper and cut the letters out and stuck on the first lot of letters. Next time I'll print out on the card and the stick onto heavier card BEFORE cutting out. You live and learn.

I had the remit that the husband likes teddy bears, goes running a lot of the time and he reads and that it must't be slushy as they are not like this. I e-mailed my Mum photos and have asked her to look at it and she thinks it's fine - what a relief!!! Just got to wait and see if her colleague likes it later in the week aftr a friend takes it to my Mum so she can take into work.

For the book I've used the Funky Hands Funky Daze CD, My Craft Studio, Clipart for various images, various lots of decoupage which a friend kindly cut out before Christmas (thank goodness there were a lot of bears in there!!), used up various stickers I had been given, used alphabets I have been given (I have so many but did they have all the letters I wanted - no - so I had to keep looking and came across only two sets that I had all the letters I wanted), jump rings, sticky ribbons, peel-offs and finally fibres to finish the whole thing off.

I hope it is OK.

Blog Candy

Heidi has some wonderful blog candy up for grabs to celebrate 8,500 hits on her blog. I've got a long wait to go before I get there so I have full admiration for anyone who does so. Click here if you would like to see Heidi's generous offer of blog candy.

Commissioned Birthday Card

It is one of my customers brother's 70th birthday so she wanted an extra special card for him. He's into steam trains so I found this gorgeous image on Joanna Sheen Victorian Companion CDs. Again, I have used the layout of a sketch, this time it being Friday Sketchers, and just worked the backing papers and images around the sketch. It's certainly a change for me doing this but it makes it a bit more fun and certainly more of a challenge!! The card again is finished off with a matching insert made in Word with the train image imported into it. The four little accents needed on the card are the ovals from the centre of number 6 on my numbers peel-off sheet.

Commissioned Birthday Card

One of my customers wanted a card made for a friend's birthday. The gentleman is into foxes or kingfishers. Last year it was kingfishers so this year it was foxes again.

I decided to make this card as per the sketch on the Cutie Sunday Challenge Blog. It's not how I would have done the card but I am very happy with the outcome. Taking part in challenges is certainly testing me and looking at cards in different ways.

This time I have used Joanna Sheen's Jayne Netley Mayhew CD as the fox on there is gorgeous and I made my own backing paper using the two backing papers that came with the image. The paper that I have torn at the front is from another of Joanna Sheen's CD but I can't for the life of me remember which one!! The torn edge I was going to use Versamark and gold embossing powder as per an idea I got a while ago from Jak aka Crafter's Kitchen. I then noticed I didn't have gold embossing powder so I watercoloured the edge, used a Versamark pen and then clear embossing powder to highlight the torn edge. I have used the fox image and made an insert to go inside as well. Forgot to say a big THANK YOU to Dawn Bibby as well. I watched one of her shows last week or this week (can't remember which as I record the shows and watch several times!!) and she mentioned that if you don't like staples the normal colour to colour them with peel-off pens. I used my brown Dufex pen on the staples that were already in the stapler and am more pleased with being able to colour match the staples to the card so I might use this more. Thanks Dawn.

Thank You card for my friend

When we went to Dorset last week-end my friend and her family kept the week-end free to spend time with us on both the Saturday and Sunday. For this reason I wanted to make an extra special card. My friend's daughter is mad about In the Night Garden so I took photos of some of her toys and made this pop-up card. I made it slightly wrong as the images are poking out but I'm sure the little girl won't mind as she'll love it when she sees a photo of them all on the front as it was her Mum's birthday on the Sunday (please note: I've covered over their faces with white card so they are not showing on my blog) and when she sees her Night Garden friends inside.

For those of you like me who don't know about In the Night Garden the three characters are as follows:

Eee, the Tombliboo (the pink and yellow character on the end)

Igglepiggle (the blue character in the middle)

Upsy Daisy (the character on the end with the funky hair).

What strange names eh. Bring back Scooby Doo who I grew up with and the Teletubbies who my children who grew up with.

Charity Stall - February 2009

Another month is up and as I was off work today I spent time getting my cards ready for my regular stall for charity. My eldest son kindly went there and set the stall up and took some photos for me. This time I am raising funds for the Hillside Animal Sanctuary at West Runton. My Line Manager sponsors a pig there and they had been in touch as they are struggling with the credit crunch - I suppose people are findings things more difficult and therefore cannot afford to donate as often as they would like. I jumped at the chance of trying to raise some funds for them - it might not be much - but if it helps that is all that matters.

Dutch Dare Challenge and Cute Card Thursday Challenge

I had to make a card for my friend's mum and dad for keeping their week-end free last week-end when we were down there. I had images of what I wanted in the card but in the end I was swayed with colours so that it could be included in this week's Dutch Dare Challenge #36 of Greens and Yellows and also the Cute Card Thursday Challenge #48 of the "Signs of Spring".

The card was made using the Artylicious Damask Delights CD, the letters were from Funky Hands Funky Daze CD and the gorgeous flower image was from an Artylicious/Graphicus Flora and Fauna Stamp set. The card was finished off with an insert from the Damask Delights CD, some ribbon flowers and some organza ribbon.

Blog Candy

Suzanne has some lovely blog candy up for grabs to celebrate her 100,000 hit on her blog. Heavens above that is such an achievement. It will take me some time yet to get to 2,000 but I would have been there long ago if my counter hadn't gone wrong but I have certainly got a long way to go for 100,000 hits!!! I shall certainly enter as I'd love to win some flora doodles as I'd love to try them and haven't .....................yet - but then I'd like to win the stamps - but then I'd like to win the decoupage - actually I'd love to win it all and put it towards my charity cards. Fingers crossed eh????

Marie Curie Card Appeal 2009

I had to pop into town this morning so I popped to Colemans and picked up a stash of the plastic bags for the appeal cards to go in. The lady did look at me with such a high pile but I said that this might be my first installment as I hoped to do about 50 or so as this is so close to my heart. Well about two thirds I have made over Christmas/so far in 2009 but a few were cards returned when I swapped over boxes of cards at different places. My eldest son is going down town this afternoon so he's going to drop them down for me and pick up some more envelopes as a few cards or so a week makes all the difference for their cause.