A fun birthday card

I was watching some Christmas crafting on the television over the weekend and it gave me a bit of a push to go and make a card. I coloured in a couple of Christmas images and then decided I'd rather make a birthday card for my grandson instead as it's not that far away.  I searched through my box of stamped images and came across this fun one. Although he will be 17, knowing his sense of humour he will appreciate this.

The image is a freebie from Doodle Pantry and has been coloured with Promarkers. All the papers are from a freebie set from Funky Hand.

Card for Katie

Another family birthday, this time my great niece who is 4 today.


I discovered these lovely square doilies just last week, they're so pretty.

Image sent to me by a MSE friend and coloured with Promarkers.
Pink Petticoat papers printed on computer.
Doily from Ebay.
Sentiment from Craftwork Cards layered onto an oval cut with a die from Nellie Snellen ovals set.
Adhesive pearls from stash.

I'd like to enter this card into:
Challenge #96 - People at Robyn's Fetish.
Challenge #24 - Spots and/or Stripes at Divas by Design.
Challenge #9 - Polkadots, Stripes or Both at Polka Doodles
Birthday Challenge at The Poodles Parlour

Family birthdays

I have two family birthdays coming up within the next ten days, and as my daughter is visiting later this week I needed to get them finished as they are for her and my grandson.

This one is for Deborah:


House Mouse image coloured with Promarkers, doily and flowers from Joanna Sheen, papers, card and brad from stash, sentiment from Craftwork Cards.

I'd like to enter Deborah's card into the following challenge:
Robyn's Fetish Challenge #94 - Square Cards

And this one is for Jack who will be 9:


Some kind person from MSE sent me the image (I apologise for not remembering who it was) which I've coloured with Promarkers. I used my new ultra fine nibs for the first time and was well impressed! Papers I printed on the computer, buttons salvaged from an old shirt, sentiment from Craftwork Cards.

I'm entering Jack's card into Flying Fresian's "Card For A Male" challenge over at MSE (thanks for the nudge Padster!).

And last week it was the birthday of my dear friend who has been so kind and caring over the last few months and this is the card I made for her:


House Mouse image coloured with Promarkers, ultrafine glitter for the bubbles, papers printed on computer, flowers from Joanna Sheen, brad from stash, sentiment from Craftwork Cards.

I would like to enter this last card into the following challenge:
The Crafty Pad #157 - The Letter "B" and my B is for Beach!

And I've just realised that all three cards are based on the same design! Oh dear, I really need to get my mojo back properly and start using some different layouts.

Birthday cards

I was such a lucky lady to receive some lovely hand crafted birthday cards from my card making friends, despite me being absent from the card making (and forum) scene for many months.

These are from (L-R, top-bottom):

Mad Frog; Rainmac; Marg; AliB123


and these are from:

Flying Fresian; Padster; and non-MSE friends Angie and Linda from NZ.


They are all lovely and how Angie has the patience to cut out all that tricky decoupage (no die cut decoupage for her!) I'll never know!

Thank you again everyone, I really appreciate it.

I've just treated myself to some Promarker Fine Nibs just in time to colour an image I'm thinking of for my soon to be 9 year old grandson whose birthday it is later this month. I was wondering how I was going to get into those tricky little places when I discovered them so hopefully they'll work as well as I hope.

Long time no post!

Well, I haven't been on here for quite some time! Personal circumstances meant I haven't done any cardmaking for many months but hopefully I'll get back into it now.

First off is a card for d-i-l Tracy's birthday today.


(Looks like I might need to brush up on my photography skills LOL! I've got to do it myself now!)

Tracy's a Tatty Teddy fan and I found this stamp amongst my stash, I think it was a freebie with Creativity magazine some time ago. Image cut out with one of the Nesties Labels, coloured with Promarkers, papers are Pink Petticoat, doily and flowers were from Joanna Sheen, sentiment from Craftwork Cards, ribbon and brad from stash.

I'll come back soon with the lovely birthday cards I received from MSE friends.

Easter Card

This is an Easter card I made for a dear friend.


The image was a gorgeous freebie sent with a recent order from Craftwork Cards, which I coloured with Promarkers and mounted onto a scalloped circle cut with Nesties from some pearlised card I had in my stash. The paper is from Monti's Dragonfly Scrap Kit. The flowers were from Rainmac who sent me some for my birthday (thank you Sarah). Adhesive pearls from stash.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Delicious Doodles #22 - Anything Goes
Craft Your Days Away #18 - Easter
Little Claire #5 - Animals
Easy Craft Project #36 - Easter
The Corrosive Challenge #113 - Animals
Dream Valley #5 - Easter
Creative Cowgirls Happy Easter/Spring/Mothers Day
Sparkles Forum #10 - Anything goes

Anniversary Card

Here's a card I've made for my dearest and oldest friend's wedding anniversary next week.


The House Mouse image has been coloured with Promarkers, with pencil used for the leaves. The DP is from Summer Driggs Golden Sunshine collection printed onto my new Centural Pearl Snow White paper. Flowers, brad and Card Candy from stash.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Papertake Weekly Anything Goes with option of Something New (Centura Pearl paper)
DoYouStackUp #14 - Follow That Yellow Brick Road
CharismaCardz #14 - Wedding/Anniversary
PaperPlay #14 - Critters Galore
Shelly's Images Scrappy's Birthday Bash - Use Scrappy's favourite things - I've used flowers and faux stitching (on DP)
Claudia & Co #79 - Monochromatic
Lexi's Creations #37 - Monochromatic

Daniel's birthday card

It's grandson Daniel's 12th birthday in a few days and he is still mini-car mad, I made his first mini-car card when he was 8 and I really struggled to find a suitable image this time so I went for a cartoon. This is what I came up with:

I found the image on Google Images and matted it onto black card. The DPs are from a freebie set I found some time ago but can't remember from where. The letters for his name were part of the same set.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Creative Card Crew For a Child
One Stop Craft #125 - Spots and Dots
CES (Crafty Emma's) #30 - Children
Card Ideas Spotty Dotty

Great nephew's card

Wow, I actually made a card! LOL! No real pressure as this particular birthday is still a few weeks away but I actually decided I wanted to go and make a card!


(If you wish to perfect the art of photographing a card skewiff, please don't hesitate to ask, I'm quite good at it LOL!)

The image was sent to me by Kelly (KMS on MSE) with my birthday card recently. Thanks so much Kelly, I really love this image, it's so cute. I've coloured it with Promarkers, Cool Grey 1 for the bath as it reminded me of the old zinc bath we had to bring into the kitchen every Sunday when I was a child (showing my age there!!). Duck Egg Blue for the line around the bath, Satin for the baby and Ivory on the wings and bubbles plus some glitter.

The papers are all from Pink Petticoat and the small dotty paper has been punched with my MS Scallop Dot edge punch. The Happy Birthday ribbon I found in The Factory Shop last week.

Once I'd finished I realised that Euan will be 4, perhaps this image is a bit too babyish for a 4 year old - never mind, at least it's blue for a boy!

Does it look finished? Not sure if it needs anything in the corners? Maybe a circle with 4 in it or his name? Would love some suggestions.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Charisma Cardz #9 - Four Legged Friends
Meljens Designs #48 - U R Such An Animal
Dutch Dare #102 - Who's Who In The Zoo
Paper Sundaes #59 - Stripes
Lollipop Crafts #29 - Critters
Craft Your Passion #48 - Anything Goes
Alys Sunday Challenge Anything Goes

Anniversary card

I've not been in the right frame of mind for making cards for a while but it was my daughter and son-in-law's wedding anniversary recently and I thought I really should make the effort, but I did leave it rather late and ended up doing this in a hurry to get it in the post. Knowing Deborah liked Me to You bears, or Tatty Teddy as they were originally called and how I still think of them, I took the easy option of finding a coloured image on the internet to use as a topper rather than colouring one in myself.


The paper is from Pink Petticoat and I tried to match the blue to the colour of the teddy's nose, it wasn't quite right and I think the ribbon is a closer match. I was lucky enough to have a couple of flowers that were a pretty good match to the bow on the champagne bottle and the blue gem flower in the middle is something I've had in my stash for years!

I'm not sure now that the trellis punch was the right one to use on the orange card, it just doesn't say "romance" does it! And I'm not even sure if I like the colour combo now! I cheated with the sentiment too, rather than print one on the computer I used a peel-off which I coloured with a blue permanent pen, same for the three little flowers which I used as there was quite a lot of space to fill up! I think I should have put a bit of sparkle on the champagne glasses too!

I think it's fair to say I'm not 100% happy with this effort, which you've probably gathered by now!

I've just missed my great niece's 3rd birthday and sent a belated bought one (hangs head in shame!) so I really must get my botty in gear as I have quite a few birthdays coming up including three other great nieces/nephew.

Birthday cards

At last I've got around to blogging the lovely cards I had from cyber friends for my birthday last week. Here are the 16 hand made cards I received:


From left to right, top row: Karen Cooke, Flourgirl, KMS26, bottom row: Scatty Jan, Addams and some lovely images from KMS26, thanks so much Kelly:


Top row: Marg, Mad Frog, middle row: CT19720, Padster, bottom row: Jowri, Linda in New Zealand:


Top row: OAP1945, Soma, middle row: Dragonllew, Alib123, bottom row: Rainmac, and some very cute cupcake stamps which Rainmac sent. There were also some beautiful flowers in a box inside her card. Thank you so much Sarah:


I feel so lucky to have received so many lovely cards, thank you all so much.

Penguin Love

This card uses the image Penguin Love by Pollycraft, I think it's a lovely image to use for a Christmas card for a couple, and I just had to get this snowy paper from Pink Petticoat after seeing it on a fellow crafter's blog.


Image from Pollycraft, coloured with Promarkers and I've also used Ultra Fine Crystal Glitter.
DP is from the Fairy Lights collection at Pink Petticoat.
White card strip has been embossed with my Cuttlebug using Snowflakes folder and has been glittered with Ultra Fine Crystal Glitter.
Dark blue pearlescent card for mats from stash.
Card Candy coloured with Promarkers.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Pixie Dust Studio #52 - Let It Snow using white and non-traditional colours
Delightful Challenges Embossing - dry or wet
Crafts and Me #19 - Moody Blues

What not to do with glitter and an embossing folder

I was having a play with an embossing folder my friend loaned me. She'd made a rather stunning card and I wanted to do my take on it. I found some rather nice pearlised card which had a golden shimmer to it and a scrap of lovely gold glitter card which was just big enough for a mat. I embossed the card, put it to one side and decided to do a second one.

For the second one I didn't have any more of the gold shimmery pearlised card so had to use a slightly different coloured one, embossed it and then realised that I'd turned the embossing folder over and debossed it instead. Not to worry, it still looked fine.

I thought one of the debossed baubles would look nice glittered to make it stand out and then added the same glitter around the edge of the mat as I didn't have any more of the nice gold glitter card. I put the card together then had my doubts as to whether I should have left the glitter off, but not to worry, not my best card but it's not too bad and not everyone wants a cute Christmas card:


Then I turned my attention to the one I'd done the right way round and was embossed. Why not glitter the bauble on that one I thought. WRONG! I used a Quickie Glue Pen to go around the outline of the bauble, sprinkled glitter on, knocked off the excess and what have you? Something that looks like a 3 year old did at playschool! What a waste of my piece of gorgeous gold glitter card and the beautiful pearlised card with the golden shimmer. I don't remember where I got either from and what I've got in my stash isn't nearly such nice colours!


Lesson learned. Don't glitter anything embossed, just stick to glittering debossed stuff! Oh well, I'm sure I can find someone to send it to, or I may just bin it as I couldn't bear to think anyone was saying "A child could do better than this!"

Fat Cat Fred

I particularly wanted to blog this card because I have to thank two more lovely cyber friends from MSE who went to a lot of trouble to help me out when my computer skills were sorely tested recently with a page of digi images. I had no idea how to extract the individual images from the page and Margaret (Marg) and Angie (Point of No Return) came to my rescue. Thank you so much girls, I really love these images and wouldn't have been able to use them without your help.

My first attempt using Fat Cat Fred turned out like this and I'm hoping to find time to get around to using some more of them soon:


Card blank is by Papermania. Paul asked me if I'd cut it myself (as if LOL!!!) but I do see his point, considering these are die cut blanks there do seem to be a couple of wobbles on the scallops.
Image is from a sheet of downloadable freebies from Papercraft Essentials which I've coloured with Promarkers and glittered the brandy sauce on the pudding (or custard if that's your preference!). Sentiments also came from the same sheet.
Backing paper is a freebie but not sure where I got that from, I've also glittered the brandy sauce on those puddings.
Gold ribbon from stash and scalloped circles cut with Nesties.

I was going to send this card to my cat loving friend who, by her own admission is a little on the large size. I'm sure she wont take offence at the sentiment but I would probably worry that she would. I might send it to my DS and d-i-l as they both used to cook for us when we had the restaurant so that would be more appropriate!

Bad Blogger!

Ooooh, I've been such a bad blogger lately. Some of you will know my personal circumstances and life is a bit difficult here at the moment. I'm going to try and catch up with my blog but to start off with I really must acknowledge two cards which I have recently received from my lovely card making cyber friends on MSE.

Firstly Flourgirl sent me this lovely wallet card full of stamped images "to make me smile":


Thank you so much Karen, you must have remembered I like pink and yes, I did smile. Lots of very cute images which will most certainly be used. Karen makes beautiful cards and very clever crafty makes which you can see on her blog here.

I also received this lovely card from Padster:


Isn't she a cutie? Thank you Debbie. Again Debbie makes lovely cards and gorgeous crafty makes which you can see here.

Many thanks to both of you who took time to make and send me these lovely cards and their good wishes and hugs.

Happy Birthday/Anniversary

This is a card I made for hubby Paul. It was for the first anniversary of his bone marrow transplant. When they receive their transplants, the hospital tells the patients that date becomes their 'official birthday' as it symbolises a second chance of life. It's a date you don't forget and we're so thankful that he's been given this opportunity by an unknown donor. I could have done this with autumn colours as I also had papers in that colourway, but I chose green to symbolise Spring as I always think of that time of year when life begins again in the garden.


The papers and topper were a Nancy Watt freebie in a recent magazine.
Ribbon from QVC.
Card Candy coloured with Promarkers.
Sentiment printed on computer, cut with Nesties and chalked.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
The Stamp Man #8 - Cards for Men
Totally Papercrafts #39 - Stick a number on it
One Stitch At A Time #36 - Any Celebration
Lexi's Creations #25 - Happy Birthday
Cards For Men #22 - Anything Goes (as long as it's male)
Top Tip Tuesday #7 - Anything Goes
I Did It Creations #26 - Surprise Me

Blog Award

I have been given this fabulous blog award from the lovely Angie (Pointofnoreturn on MSE). Thank you so much, I'm honoured to display it on my blog.

I'd like to pass it on to

Soma (A Sense of Uma)
Addams
Alee81
Jowri
Jazabelle

Snowy in pink

Another card made with Penny Black's Snowy, this time she's dressed in pink.


DP is from DCWV Christmas scrapbook pad.
Pink glitter card from stash.
Pink spotty ribbon from stash.
Image is Penny Black's Snowy coloured with Promarkers and glittered with pink Ultra Fine glitter, snow is Ultra Fine Crystal glitter. Oval cut with Nellie Snellen multiframe oval die.
Flowers from stash and glittered with Ultra Fine Crystal glitter.
Pink spotty button is from Papermania.
Card Candy coloured with Promarkers and glittered with Ultra Fine Crystal glitter.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Charisma Cardz #39 - Christmas Crafting
Totally Papercrafts #36 - The Great Outdoors
Stamp 'n Doodle Anything Goes
Sew Many Challenges Anything Goes
Stamp Scrap and Doodle Saturday Open
Paper Sundaes #38 - Something from your stash
Incy Wincy #62 - Sparkly Glitter
Pollycraft Monday #64 - Anything Goes
A Spoon Full of Sugar #124 - Sparkle and Shine
I Love Promarkers #35 - Think Pink

Snowy dressed in blue

I adore this Penny Black image of Snowy and have dressed him in blue for this card.


Recipe:
DP is one I found saved on my computer and printed it off myself.
Image - Penny Black Snowy coloured with Promarkers and glittered with Ultra Fine Crystal glitter.
Large oval cut with Nellie Snellen's multi-frame oval die, small oval cut with Nesties, edges coloured with Promarker and glittered.
'Snowflakes' rub-on is from Dovecraft's Winter Wonderland range.
Blue pearlescent card from stash, Cuttlebugged with Swiss Dots folder.
Snowflakes cut from white glitter card from stash with a Cuttlebug die.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
Sew Many Challenges #28 - Santa's on his way
Christmas Inspirations #7 - Stamps
A Spoonful of Sugar #123 - Spots and Stripes

Molly's Christmas card

Katie over at MSE recently made a Christmas card where the image was made using Snowpersons font. I love this card and think it's a super idea so I hope she doesn't mind me taking inspiration from it.

I thought it would be nice to make my youngest grandaughter, age 7, a card with her name on so this is how it turned out. I think maybe I should have made the font bigger but will know for next time!


I have used:
DP is from a DCWV Christmas scrapbook pad I bought last year.
Font is Snowpersons and I've coloured it with Promarkers and added Ultra Fine Crystal glitter to the tops of the letters and a bit of sparkle on the letters themselves.
Pink card for mat is from a pack bought at Lidl.
White card for scalloped circle from stash, cut with Nesties and stamped with a Happy Christmas sentiment with pink pigment ink and embossed with Supersparkle embossing powder. The scallops have been edged with Ultra Fine Crystal glitter.
Snowflakes cut with my Cuttlebug from pink and white glitter card from stash, stars from same snowflake die with the pink glitter card.

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
ABC Christmas Challenge T is for Tree
Charisma Cardz #38 - Anything Goes
Delightful Sketches Make It Sparkle
Totally Gorjuss #49 - Christmas
The Crafty Pad #90 - Christmas Sparkle
One Stitch At A Time #32 - Anything Goes
The Crazy Challenge No Ribbon or Buttons
Incy Wincy #61 - I Wonder What It Can Be - Anything Goes