Back To Being Busy!!

Hi everyone.  Just thought I'd pop on to let you know that I am not ignoring everybody - am just busy trying to get a few commitments done!!  I'll see if I can get some cards loaded up very soon!

Meanwhile my thanks to everyone who has left such lovely comments under The Blog Hop post - even though I know you're only commenting because of the candy it has been so nice to read such lovely things!  Talking of which if you are here for The Blog Hop, just scroll down a bit!!

I have heard from Nicola who has said she would like the Colouring Techniques DVD so just bear with me and I'll get this sent out to you in the next few days.  (I've promised myself that I am not leaving the house until I've done my project!! Lol!!)

By the way I have just got to tell you this as Mum and I have set a new personal record!!  Every year we hit the January sales within a few days after Christmas and always come back laden with bargains which we have great delight in showing each other.  (Even though we go together we don't always see what the other has bought at the time.)  Well this year we couldn't wait to hit the shops (as normal) but at the end of 3 hours we had had enough - which is MOST unlike us!!  (Although I think that both of us are starting to hate the crowds more and more.)  And here comes the personal record bit.......................................we came home with nothing!!  Neither of us!!!!!

And The Winner Is...............

For those of you who have stopped by here as part of The Stamp Man's blog hop simply scroll down for the Blog Hop Post.

***********

Well I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas!!  I thoroughly enjoyed myself!!  I especially liked the fact of having a few days off although I now have to get back to creating!!

Talking of creating my thanks to everyone who entered the card competition.  I thoroughly enjoyed receiving your entries.

Yesterday I allocated each of the cards a number and then used a Random Number Generator to pick a winner!  And the winner is the creator of this lovely card that you see here - Nicola Armstrong!! 

Well done Nicola!!  I'm sure you will all agree that she did a marvellous job with this card.

I have contacted Nicola direct as I know that due to the festivities not everyone is able to visit regularly.  I'll let you know which DVD she picks - Basics and Beyond, Colouring Techniques or Shrink Plastic!

The Stamp Man's Blog Hop, Candy and Award Event

Welcome to The Stamp Man's first Blog Hop, Candy and Award Event!!  This event is going to be running from today until midnight 3rd January 2010.  To find out more about it I suggest you visit http://thestampmanuk.blogspot.com/ where you will find out all about this unique event!  There is all sorts of candy up for grabs along with awards too!!

The candy that I need to tell you about is the choice of one of my new DVD's!! To be in with a chance of winning one of these DVD's (Basics and Beyond, Colouring Techniques or Shrink Plastic) you will need to leave a comment on ALL of the blogs in the blog hop including this one.

For those of you who already know about the blog hop you should have arrived here from Avril's Blog. If you haven't then I suggest you go to The Stamp Man's blog which is your starting point and start blog hopping from there following the links provided.

The letter you need from me is

 U

and now the next blog you need to visit is Teri's Blog.

Once you have visited all the blogs and got all the letters, you will need to email The Stamp Man at thestampman@btconnect.com with your answer to go into the draw to win one of the prizes mentioned throughout the blog hop.

As part of the blog hop we are all posting up what we think is our best project for 2009 but to be honest I really don't know what mine is so I am just posting up this card (which you might have already seen!) as this was made using my favourite colour of lilac along with my Funky Flowers stamp sheet!!

Do you fancy playing along and posting up your best project of the year on your own blogs?  If you do then please visit The Stamp Man's blog and post a link within a comment so we can all see your best project of the year.  You too can then claim The Stamp Man Award that you see on my sidebar!!

Wooh Hooooohhh!!!! It's Christmaaaaaasssss!!!!

I just had to come on and do a quick post to thank everyone for my gifts which I have now opened.  I won't embarrass anyone by mentioning names - but you all know who you are!!  I have had such a lovely build up to Christmas with receiving your beautiful handmade cards along with some surprise gifts - and now that I have had chance to open the presents I just want to thank each and everyone of you who took the time and trouble to either enter my Christmas Card Competition or who sent/gave me a present. THANK YOU ALL SOOOOOOOO MUCH!!

I hope that everyone else is having a wonderful time today. 

My Christmas Card Competition is now closed so I will be back at some point in the next few days to announce the winner so stay tuned!!   Plus of course there is The Stamp Man's Blog Hop to look forward to which begins this Sunday!! But meanwhile enjoy your Christmas time!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Hi guys!!  I just want to wish everyone who stops by my blog a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.  My thanks to everyone who has visited my blog, left me kind comments and also those who have opted to become followers.  It is so nice to know that I am not waffling on to myself!!

I have had such a lovely lead up to Christmas this year - not only have I had presents given to me from companies that I work closely with such as Stamp Addicts, The Craft Barn and The Glitter Pot but I also had a beautiful Christmas bouquet of flowers turn up yesterday from The Stamp Man and of course this year I have had some beautiful handmade Christmas cards coming through my letterbox.  So to everyone who has sent me a card or gift - THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!  It has made this Christmas very special.

Don't forget that The Stamp Man are going to be running something very special on their blog starting from 27th December so if you can do stop by as not only will there be candy on offer but some awards too!!

Before I go this card is one of the designs that I made to send out this year.  I just love this Sarah Kay image she is so sweet!!  She was coloured using copic markers and then combined with SEI background papers - all of which came from The Craft Barn.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Very busy!!

Morning guys!!  I thought this was quite appropriate to load up today as this was what I was doing yesterday with a very good friend of mine!!  (The wrapping presents bit - not the trudging in the snow!!) I don't particularly like wrapping presents as I always end up losing and hunting around for stuff ie, sellotape, scissors, gift tags etc....  As soon as I put them down I swear that they sprout legs and get up and walk and then I spend the next 10 minutes trying to find them again!!  So yesterday I roped in Jenny (my good friend) to help me as bizarrely she like wrapping!!!  So I can now say that all presents are wrapped, labelled, prettied with bows, ribbons etc...and are now under the tree waiting for Christmas Day. (Thank you Jenny!!!)

This particular card I did a little while ago for The Craft Barn using the Mice Elves House Mouse stamp along with the Hero Arts clear stamp set (for the wording and swirly bits).  I thought that the SEI background paper was just so appropriate for this card especially the panel with the trees on it so I cut the mice out and spaced them out a bit so that the mouse with all the presents could be trudging up the slope with them.

Anyway I hope you like it!!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!!!

Ok so I know that it is snowing in other parts of the UK but it just isn't doing it here!!  So to help the snow along I thought I'd post up another snowflake card using my Flitter Flutter Snowflake sheet that of course can be purchased from The Stamp Man.  I love pastel colours and I think that this colour combination of lilac and aqua works quite well for Christmas and the use of vellum gives a nice floaty feel to the card.  Now normally I am not a 'peel off' person but I just couldn't find my sheet of stamps that contain some small Christmas wording so in the end I had to succumb to the use of some small Christmas peel offs instead!!

By the way don't forget that my Christmas Card competition finishes on Christmas Eve so if you have a card that you would like to send in there is still time as today is the last guaranteed posting date for first class mail.

***********

Yesterday I went and braved the Christmas shoppers as I had a couple of bits left to get and I have got to say that although it was rather busy it actually wasn't too bad.  Mind you that could be because I only had to go into about 3 shops to pick up the odd thing - probably if I had a whole list of things to get it would have been a different story!!  The worse thing of course was trying to find somewhere to park!!  Although I was very lucky and did come across a space but there certainly weren't many to be had.

***********

On a totally different note I've got to say that I feel really sorry for Joe McElderry being pipped to the post for Christmas No.1 all because of some internet campaign of trying to make sure that Simon Cowell didn't get the No.1 spot this year.  It seems a really mean thing to do to an 18 year old who is making his debut into the music industry.

The Stamp Man's First Blog Hop

The Stamp Man are going to be hosting their own Blog Hop, Candy and Awards Event from Sunday 27th December until Sunday 3rd January.  It will all start on The Stamp Man's blog on Sunday 27th December so make sure you head on over there to find out more then.

Meanwhile to help advertise the event we are asking everyone if they could please put this picture on their sidebars as the more people who can participate the better!!

More Snow??

Morning everyone.  Ok so I know that not everyone likes snow and that it is causing chaos around the UK but I must secretly to admit to wanting to see a bit more as we only got a sprinkling of it where we live, so for those of you who don't like it could you please send it my way??!!!

So in the hope of some more of the white stuff I am posting up a snowflake card today that I made using my Flitter Flutter Snowflake sheet although I did cheat and added a Stampendous swirly snowflake stamp too down the left side of the vellum panel.

Hope you like it!!

Wuh Hoo!!!! We Have Snow!!

Well I say snow it is only a very light sprinkling at the moment and looks more like icing sugar!  The sun is now out and no doubt the snow will have disappeared in a couple of hours - still it was very nice to see.  I haven't had chance yet to see the news but I am guessing that other places will have been hit a lot harder than us.  We are very protected here in our little corner of the UK and other places that are only 5 miles from us get a lot more snow than we ever do!!

Anyway I'm sure that you haven't popped by for a weather bulletin!!  So here is another card that I made this year to send out.  (This was the amount of snow I was hoping for!  Lol!!)  The stamps on this card are all by Penny Black and are all a couple of years old.  I don't know if you can still get all of them but both The Glitter Pot and Sir Stampalot have a good supply of Penny Black stamps.  The blue background paper is also a couple of years old and I haven't seen it around this year so I'm guessing that it is now unavailable - shame as I loved this!!  The snowflakes and wording were stamped onto a panel of acetate using StazOn inkpads and then stuck to the card using pieces of double sided tape positioned behind the snowballs.  Hope you like it!!

Craft Stamper Giveaway

Morning guys.  Well no snow to report as yet in our little corner of the UK although I know that they did have snow inland more.  Apparently we are supposed to have snow tonight and tomorrow but I'll believe it when I see it!!

Anyway I thought you might like to know that Craft Stamper are currently running a blog candy giveaway worth £350 so you might like to head on over to their blog and take a look!!  Simply CLICK HERE to go and find out more about it!!

In Anticipation!!

Morning folks!!  Just to prove that I do occasionally use my own Christmas stamps here is one of the cards that I sent out this year using stamps from my snowflake stamp sheet along with some of my favourite stamps.

Unfortunately it isn't often that I just get to make cards for the joy of it and usually I have to stick rigidly to certain stamps or materials but when making my own Christmas cards I can just go with the flow!!  The main (coloured snowflakes) that you see and the white background snowflakes are from my own snowflake stamp sheet. They grey snowflake swirl and the wording are both by Stampendous - not too sure if they are still available as they are a couple of years old!! And of course the large dotty swirls are by Denami - which you will already have seen a lot of on this blog.  I thought I'd be sensible and design a card that didn't need too much colouring in but unfortunately I just had to cut the snowflakes out as it looked so much better and then it looked even better if I layered a smaller snowflake over the larger one so in the end it didn't end up being a quick card after all!  (Nothing new there then!!)

Even though we live in the south east of England they are actually forecasting snow here for the end of the week - although I'll believe it when I see it!!  I'm still keeping everything crossed for snow on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as I have never known it to snow on either of those days and it would absolutely make my Christmas - I think I need to move to Scotland!!

Frost!!

In my last post I was saying that our Christmas tree has a 'frosty feel' to it well now we have got frost for real!!  It seems that the weather here has finally decided to become 'seasonal' and we had quite a hard frost last night - infact the fields and roofs are still covered with it!  Brrrrrrrrr!!

Actually it is really nice to see, as everywhere is sparkling at the moment!

So in honour of the cold I have decided to load up a cold looking card that I did some time ago in shades of blue.  These stamps are all by Denami Design and what I really like about these trees is that they are so quick to colour!  For this card I used a single tree and just stamped it 5 times and staggered them slightly so that they didn't look too rigid then coloured them using the Sakura Stardust pens. The snow mounds at the base of the trees were created with a light blue marker and softened with a water brush. All the stamps that you can see on this card are available from Stamp Addicts.

This afternoon I have been roped in to drive Mum around Bexhill so that she can hand deliver some of her Christmas Cards so I think that I will be wrapping up warm before I set foot outside my front door!

Oh Christmas Tree!!

Today I thought I'd show you a few close up photos of my tree after telling you all about the saga of putting it up yesterday.  The photos that I took of the tree as a whole looked absolute rubbish and didn't do the tree justice at all as it looks far prettier in real life!!  These will give you a taster of what it does look like though.

Here's a close up of the cute little snowman from above.

















This bauble is actually silver with white glittery snowflakes.
















And here's one of our snow balls!
















Another of our cute snowmen.














These snowmen baubles have been going for years and are really fragile!!


So as you can see our tree has quite a frosty feel this year.  As well as all the white and silver that you have seen we do have a few light blue/aqua coloured baubles on the tree too.

How Long Does It Take To Put Up A Christmas Tree??

Hi Guys.  You won't believe this but yesterday it literally took me all day to put up and decorate our Christmas tree!!  This year we went ahead and finally bought a new tree as our old one was well and truly past it.  Last year we had a real one but this year with all the upheaval that is currently going on with our extension we decided to have an artificial one for this year.  So about a week ago we went out and chose a new tree.  Well yesterday when I opened up the box I discovered that you have to assemble this tree branch by branch so that was my first challenge!!  Actually I've got to say that once I'd sorted out all the individual branches it was quite easy to do - it just took a long time spreading them all out as I was going!  My next challenge was putting the lights on it - I always find this the hardest bit as I either have too many lights at the top and run out before I get to the bottom of the tree or I find I haven't got enough lights at the top of the tree and have loads at the bottom so it normally takes a couple of attempts for me to get it just right!!  Anyway about four attempts later the tree finally had it's lights on and then when I stepped back and looked at the tree I realised that this tree required thicker tinsel than what we normally use on our trees so it was then a mad dash to the shops to try and find some thick silver tinsel.  About 90 minutes later I was back home armed with my tinsel and could then begin decorating it.  My final challenge was then threading up some new baubles that we bought last year so that I could actually hang them on the tree which was a really fiddly job!!  Anyway tree is now decorated complete with a couple of presents under it too.  I did take some photos of the tree which I will load up so you can see it but unfortunately the photos that I took don't do the tree justice at all as it is far prettier in real life!!  So with all this tree decorating I just didn't get chance to blog yesterday!

************

As you already know I was at The Glitter Pot on Thursday teaching a couple of classes and I had such a nice day there so a huge thank you to the ladies who were on the classes for making it such a pleasant day.  One of the ladies brought along a card for my competition and also presented me with a present at the end of the day for under my tree!!  I won't embarrass the lady in question by naming her but she knows who she is and once again I send a huge thank you to her as it really made my day.  Whilst I was there I badgered the rest of the ladies on my class too about sending me a card so I'm hoping that they too will enter the competition.  I have had a few cards turn up for this and it has been soooooooo nice opening them up and seeing your wonderful creations!  And just before I departed The Glitter Pot I was presented with another present for under my tree - this time from the owners.  Then when I got home I found a couple of cards waiting for me too so all in all I had a wonderful day and really felt in the Christmas spirit!

A Sneaky Peek!!

Tomorrow I am off to The Glitter Pot where I am teaching all day so here is a little taster of what we will be doing in the afternoon.  This cute little bear is by Penny Johnson and I just LOVE it!!  Both classes are Copic marker based and there are still some spaces left so if anyone lives close enough and fancies forgetting about Christmas for a few hours(as neither of the classes are Christmas based)  then please do come along. It really would be lovely to see you. 

I've decided to move the details of my Christmas Card competition to the top of my sidebar so that my recent posts are more clearly visible. Fear not the competition is still open - you just need to click on the DVD picture to bring up all the details.  So far I have only had a few cards come through the post and I really would like lots,lots more so please do enter!  Besides at the moment you stand a really good chance of winning!! My aim is to have a room full of beautiful handmade cards so please do join in.

Adorable Doraline

I cannot believe just how quickly today has gone and not just today but the last few days - they just keep disappearing on me!!  Hence me being rather late with today's offering!  Anyway this is a card I made for The Craft Barn's blog but thought I'd pop it on mine as well!!.

This cute little squirrel is by Motivet and apparently  she is called Doraline!  I have stamped her using Brilliance and coloured her with Copics - see I am getting in lots of practise with my Copic pens!!  The background papers are by SEI and these can be purchased from The Craft Barn as well as the Motivet stamps and Copic pens.

Hope you like it!

With a bit of luck there'll be more from me tomorrow if the day doesn't miraculously disappear on me!!

A Blue Christmas!

Oops just didn't get round to posting this up yesterday!!  This was a card that I did for Stamp Addicts's Demo Day back in October using the latest releases by Denami Design.  I kept a cool colour scheme for this one as I wanted the card to feel a bit 'chilly'!!

Yesterday I went round to my Aunt and Uncles and they had got their Christmas Tree up and decorated and after seeing this card (of trees) it has got me in the mood to do ours now!!  However I have got too much on today so maybe tomorrow!

Anyway I hope you like the card.  All the stamps on this card can be purchased from Stamp Addicts.

Christmas Is Coming!!!

Oh how sad am I???  I am starting to get really excited now about Christmas as yesterday I braved the shops and did some more Christmas shopping.  It was lovely hearing all the Christmas songs in the shops and seeing the lights and all the store displays and I even met Father Christmas!! 

What is even nicer is that your Christmas Cards are starting to arrive too and yesterday I received my first card from abroad!!  Please do keep them coming as there is still plenty of time for you to enter the competition and it really is sooooooooooo nice seeing what you have made - I now can't wait for the postman to arrive each day! 

This card is very similar to one that I showed a while ago but with a different Sarah Kay image.  This particular one I designed some while ago for one of my classes at The Craft Barn.  The Sarah Kay image was stamped using Starlite Black Brilliance and coloured using Copics.  The papers are by SEI and are from their Christmas Mint collection.  All products can of course be bought from The Craft Barn.

Silver Greetings

Good morning everyone.  Well although I am not actually making Christmas Cards at the moment I still have a few to show you from what I made earlier in the year.  This particular card was one that I made for Stamp Addicts in October for their Demo Day.  All the stamps that you can see on this card are by Denami Design and can of course be bought from Stamp Addicts.  As you can see I decided to keep this card quite monochrome which (I think!!) looks quite stylish.

*************

Now I have a question which has nothing to do with card making whatsoever!!  It is a little known fact but I absolutely LOVE Take That - always have done!!  Much to the absolute disgust of some of my closest friends!!  Anyway because of this I watched the Children In Need concert thing on the telly that Gary Barlow and Take That organized.  I loved it when Lily Allen started singing Who'd Have Known (which is set to the tune of Take That's Shine) and then Take That came on and started singing Shine in conjunction with Lily singing Who's Have Known.  I have had a quick look on the internet to see if there is an MP3 download of this track with them singing together but so far haven't found one.  Does anyone out there know if there is one available somewhere or if it is going to be released?

Last of Tilda

Morning guys.  First of all my sincere thanks to everyone who responded to my question about storing Nestabilities - after receiving your comments I have decided that magnetic sheets (of some description) are obviously a must and I may see if over the Christmas period I can make some sort of book (using my Bind-It All) machine along with the magnetic sheets.  I'll let you know how I get on!!

Now that we are into December I actually WANT to be making Christmas cards - after doing nothing but since July!!  However working within the crafting industry nothing could be that simple and of course within this industry Christmas has been and gone and we are now onto other stuff!!  For instance I am currently working on cards for my next classes at The Glitter Pot which are on the 10th December - being that this is quite close to Christmas and most Christmas cards will have been made by then I am designing cards which are non-Christmassy!!  Once I have fnished those I plan to make a start on my next submission for Craft Stamper which will be for the April issue - so again a non-Christmassy theme for that then!!  See it is a topsy turvy world I live in!

Anyway here is the last of the Tilda cards that I made the other weekend when I was at The Glitter Pot (which is Christmassy).  Tilda was stamped using Graphite Black Brilliance and coloured using Copics, then I lightly rubbed a light blue chalk inkpad around the edges and added some subtle stamping using that same ink.  For the rest of the card I used My Minds Eye background papers which I embellished using the Hero Arts Winter's Butterfly clear stamp set.  I hope you like it!!

We Have Frost!!

Instead of all the horrible wet weather this morning we finally had a proper wintery morning with frost on the rooftops and cars and with the sunshine on the frost it was all glittery and sparkly, just like a proper winter morning should be!!

However my posting today doesn't go with the weather at all but I wanted to show you another of the cards that I made a few weeks ago now for when Jill and I did our live TV show.  For this show we had some packs of vellum so I used my set of Fancy Flourishes to decorate it and then coloured my main image (taken from Funky Frames) to match.  As I'm sure you will remember my stamp sheets can be purchased from either The Stamp Man or The Craft Barn.

Talking of my stamp sheets, Jill is currently offering a giveaway of one of my latest stamp sheets to THREE lucky people!!  Click here to head on over to her blog to find out more!!  Also if you want to do some last minute Christmas shopping Jill is offering free postage on all orders over £10 over on The Stamp Man's online shop.  And talking of free postage The Craft Barn is currently offering free postage on all UK orders until December 21st and free postage on European orders over £15 so now is a great time to order anything that you have had your eye on! (Including my stamp sheets of course!!)

I am going to see if I can get myself a little bit more organised over the next few weeks and wondered if any of you out there have any great ideas on how to store the Nestabilities templates?  These pesky things keep slipping and sliding all over the place and keep mixing themselves up so if anyone has any ideas that they would care to share I'd LOVE to hear them!!

Christmas Card Competition

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED!

This Christmas Card Competition is open to absolutely everybody!!  The prize will be one of my new DVD's (shown above) of your choosing plus a few of the cards that I made for that particular DVD. 

To make this competition fair I have decided that as I receive the cards I will allocate each card a number and then enter these numbers into a random number generator to pick a winner. 

The rules to enter are as follows:-

• 
  
  1. You need to send a Christmas Card that you have made yourself and that contains some form of rubber stamping on it. (Please note. You can send as many cards as you like in order to give yourself more chance of winning as each card will be allocated a number!!!)
  
  
  
• 
  
  2. For those with blogs - please write your blog address within the card as well as your name. (If you are the winner and I find that you have advertised my competition on the sidebar of your blog with a link back to my blog then I will include some extra cards and bits and bobs!)
  
  
  
• 
  
  3. For those without blogs - to advertise my competition please tell any of your stamping friends and family to enter. When sending your card entry, please write your name within the card and if someone  has told you about this competition please write their name also within the card. (If you are the winner I will send you the prize and will also send the person that told you about the competition a few cards and bits and bobs!!)
  
  
  
• 
  
  4. Your entry will need to arrive by Christmas Eve (Dec 24th 2009) to be counted.
  
  
  
• 
  
  5. By entering you are giving me permission to show your card on my blog as I will post the winning card up along with that person's name.
  
  
  
• 
  
  5. To enter simply click here to email me using the title of Christmas Card Competition and I will email an address to send your entry to.
  
  
  

Good luck and I look forward to seeing your cards!! :)