An Explanation and an Award!

Hi everyone.  As some of you may have noticed I haven't been posting as regularly as I used to nor have I been able to visit everyone's blogs as much as I would like to!  There is a valid reason for this and as some of you have been asking how I am I thought it was maybe about time that I let you know what is going on with me!

Basically for some time now I have been struggling due to having a poorly back.  I have had a 'naughty' back ever since childhood as I have a twisted spine.  Over the years my spine has become more twisted and this in turn has caused all sorts of other stuff - most of which I cannot even begin to spell the terminology let alone pronounce!!  Anyway without boring you all rigid it has meant that for the past few months in particular I have been in a lot of pain in my back, neck and leg which means I cannot sit for any length of time - hence me not doing much blogging or crafting!

Tomorrow I am off into hospital - (just for the day) to have a procedure done on my back which may or may not help, so if you can all keep your fingers crossed for me I'll be VERY grateful!!  It'll then depend on the outcome of this procedure as to whether anything more will need to be done.

Anyway enough of all that.........................has anyone been watching Dancing On Ice on ITV?  I just love this programme and tonight it is the final so you can all guess what I'll be doing tonight!!  I cannot make up my mind if I would like Sam or Laura to win - does anyone else have a preference?

I am so thrilled to have received a blog award from my friend Jo.  Thanks so much Jo - I cannot say just how much I appreciate receiving these awards!!

Now apparently I need to tell you 7 things about myself and pass it onto 7 people so here goes-

1) As you now all know I have got a 'naughty' back!

2) I absolutely adore milk chocolate but can't eat it so much now due to being allergic to dairy products although I think some may be called for this week!!

3) I'm allergic to fur so we have no pets.

4) My favourite colour is lilac.

5) I'm a natural blond but last year I got fed up with my hair colour and so went first a plummy/red colour then to a bright red and lastly to a brown with reddy undertones before going back to blond again!  It's amazing just how different you look with such a drastic change of hair colour!!

6) I probably have the biggest collection of jeans than anybody.  As far as I'm concerned you cannot have too many pairs of them!

7) I love all things Vampire especially the Twilight films and books and The Vampire Diaries!

Right now for the REALLY hard bit of passing this onto just 7 people-

Sharon - The Little Stamper
Tracy - Craftnut Designs
Sandra - Stamping For Pleasure
Louise - Just Love To Stamp
Mustavcoffee - Crafty Musings
Sarah - Sarah Wright Designs
Lisa - The Craft Garden

Hope eveyone is enjoying their weekend.

Shaped Card

Morning everyone.  Today I thought I'd share a card with you that I made using the Grand Nestabilities Labels One die and the Grand Calibur machine. (I must say that I am soooooooo pleased that I went ahead and bought the Grand Calibur!!  The only drawback is that it doesn't take thick dies but as I don't tend to use these very much anyway it isn't really a drawback for me.)

For this card I used the largest Labels One Grand die and then folded it in half to achieve my base card.  I was then able to emboss the top two thirds of the card using the Cuttlebug's Daisy Pattern folder by opening the card out flat and positioning the folder exactly where I wanted it and running it through the Grand Calibur - you just cannot do this with the Cuttlbug machine as it is too small.

Next I stamped a piece of teal bazzill cardstock using one of my flourish stamps (Fancy Flourishes) then used that same size Labels One die to cut it. I trimmed it down and stuck it to the base of the card and used one of the shaped bits (left over from die-cutting the panel) for the top of the card. 

The wording was stamped with black ink (taken from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet).  The girl is by Wild Rose Studio (Ava with Present) and was stamped with black Memento and coloured with Copics.

All materials used came from The Glitter Pot including the Grand Calibur.  Hope you like it!!

Springtime

Hi everyone.  Today the sun is shining and the spring flowers are peeping through the ground so I thought I'd share a spring like card with you today which I'd like to enter into the Anything For Spring Challenge over at the Belles 'n' Whistles Challenge blog.

There are some lovely bright pink tulips out near us at the moment so I took these as inspiration for my colour theme of pink and green.  The background paper is by Best Creations which came from The Craft Barn - as too did everything else that I used on this card apart from the flower punches.

I stamped my main image (Watering) onto smooth white Copic card with black Memento ink and coloured using Copics. The wording (from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet) was stamped with brown ink and the whole card was misted with a pearl glimmer spray.

I'm afraid that I forgot to make a note of what Copic colours I used but here is a closer look at the panel for you. I kept the colouring quite soft for this and as you can see she has got a pink tulip behind her!!

As I've already mentioned all the stamps and materials used here came from The Craft Barn and right now The Barn are getting lots of new yummy products in including the Tatty Button stamps and some of the Polka Doodles range too!!  And the new glitter card they are now stocking is just gorgeous! This card doesn't shed its glitter and comes in so many wonderful colours so if any of you are in the vicinity you might like to stop by and check out all the new yummyness for yourselves!!

Spring Flowers

Well it seems that spring is just around the corner so I thought I'd share this card with you today.

All the stamps on this card are by Denami Design (from Stamp Addicts).  Flowers were coloured using Polycolor Pencils - also from Stamp Addicts.

Have a great weekend everyone.

The Stamp Man Curls 'n' Swirls Challenge

Hi everyone.  Today is the start of a brand new challenge over on The Stamp Man's Challenge Blog and this time around we would like to see entries incorporating Curls 'n' Swirls!  I've got to admit that this is right up my street as I love all the swirly elements and stamps that are around at the moment!

This is a book that I did earlier this year to store some of my Nesties in using both my Funky Flowers (Aspects of Design No.56) and my Fancy Flourishes (Aspects of Design No.58) un-mounted stamp sheets along with the Cuttlebug Stylized Flower embossing folder which is just full of swirly bits! (All available from The Stamp Man.) As you can see I punched out some extra swirls too in order to embellish it further.

For the main flower panel I built up an arrangement of flowers, leaves and swirly bits using some of the elements from the Funky Flowers stamp sheet and then watercoloured them using Sakura Stardust pens which gives them such a delicate look as well as adding some gorgeous shimmer!  Then using a light blue chalk inkpad I stamped one of the flourishes (from the Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet) around the flowers then used a silver inkpad and Stardust embossing powder around the edges of the panel.

For the inside of the book I cut up some magnetic sheets and stuck them either side of some square bits of mountboard. To separate the pages of the magnetic sheets I added some sheets of plasma and stuck pieces of DP on the bottom of the plasma to make pockets.  I then bound it altogether using the Bind It All machine.

Then as you can see I photocopied part of the front of the matching Nestabilities leaflet and popped it into the pocket.

Hope you like it and that you will play along with the Curls 'n' Swirls Challenge. Don't forget to hop on over to The Stamp Man's Challenge blog to see all the other gorgeous creations that the rest of the DT have made!

Have a great weekend everyone!

(NB The magnetic sheets and Sakura Stardust pens are not listed on The Stamp Man's website but they can be purchased from The Stamp Man's bricks and mortar shop/unit.) 

Playful Pepper

Hi guys.  Today I thought I'd share a card with you that I made for a very good friend of mine.

I stamped and embossed the background using that lovely Scrolling Along Penny Black stamp again. (See told you this was one of my favourite stamps!!)  The happy birthday is also a PB stamp too and the dog (Pepper) came from a Helz Cuppleditch clear stamp set.

It's been a while now so can't remember whose DP I used but it did come from The Glitter Pot as too did the clear stamp set and PB stamps.  For some interest I used my Floral Lace MS edging punch and the EK Success swirl punch.

I stamped Pepper with black Memento ink and coloured him with Copic markers, die-cut him with my Deckled Rectangles Nesties and added faux stitching with a white opaque pen.  The flowers are Prima and the pearls are from my stash.

As this card was for a special friend I went ahead and decorated the inside of it too using those Deckled Rectangles Nesties again along with that same flourish punch and another MS punch Doily Lace Trim (from The Craft Barn).  The wording stamp is by Penny Black and is such a lovely sentiment.

Here's a closer look at Pepper and the bee.  Hopefully you can make out that I stamped that Scrolling Along stamp around Pepper with Versamark Dazzle to add some soft decoration around him.

I hope you like it!!

I'd like to enter this card into Sir Stampalots All Creatures Great and Small Challenge as with Pepper being after the bee it seems quite apt!

New Classes at The Glitter Pot and A Card.

Hi everyone.  As some of you already know I have been taking a bit of time off recently from teaching but all being well I will be back teaching at The Glitter Pot next month.  I have added a new page to my blog where you can find out where I'll be teaching and demoing.  Haven't loaded up too much as yet but you can click here to see or simply click on Classes/Demos under my header.  As from now my classes will be limited to a maximum of 6 people at The Glitter Pot which I hope will benefit everyone more so if anyone fancies booking on it'll be great to see you!

Now as some of you may remember near the end of last year I bought the Grand Calibur die-cutting machine.  Haven't really 'played around with it too much yet but here is one of the cards that I did create with it towards the end of last year in order to try it out!  I must say that I was REALLY pleased with the machine as it cut through the two layers (A4 folded in half) really easily and enabled me to make this shaped card using the Grand Labels 1 Nestabilities die.

Now the Grand Calibur only takes thin metal dies but I did find that with a little bit of trial and error that I was able to emboss my Daisy Pattern with it too by using one of my plates from my Cuttlebug along with the Grand Calibur plates.  This means that I am able now able to emboss far bigger panels of cardstock which I was very pleased with!

Anyway back to the card.............I used one of my flourish stamps (Aspects of Design No.58 Fancy Flourishes) for the base panel and used the Daisy Pattern embossing folder for the top panel.  The wording was also from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet.

I stamped Phoebe With Dove onto smooth white cardstock with black Memento ink and coloured her with Copic markers before glittering her wings etc... with Stardust glitter glue.

All these products came from The Glitter Pot.

Copics used:
Skin - E11, E00, E000 and R20
Hair - E35, YR23 and E50
Eyes - BG13 and BG10
Flower - Y00, RV95 and RV91
Dress - C3, C1 and C00
Dress trim, shrug and headband - C7, C5, C3 and Clear Spica
Bow and heart - RV95 and RV91
Wings and fur - BG18, BG13 and BG10
Dove - C7 (beak), C1(feathers) and RV91 (cheeks)

Say It With Flowers

Morning everyone!  Now I know I said that I would show you the rest of Mum's snowflakes but I thought I'd hold onto them for a bit and wait to see if we get any more snow and post them up then so that it is 'seasonal'!!

So instead I've got a flowery card for you today which I thought I'd enter into the Penny Black At Allsorts Say It With Flowers challenge.  I used one of my favourite Penny Black stamps called Clusters and used another favourite PB stamp - Scrolling Along to decorate around my main image and the background panel. 

I stamped the burgundy panel with Moonlight White Brilliance ink and the Mince Flourish stamp by Judikins.  I'm afraid that I can't remember whose the 'Friends Always' stamp is but the 'Birthday Wishes' is a Craftwork Cards Oh My Words! Message.

The flowers were coloured using Coloursoft pencils and then glittered using Stickles.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Celebrations at The Craft Barn

TIME TO CELEBRATE

It's been 3 years since Sandy and Ian took over The Craft Barn and they would like to invite everyone to join in with their celebrations.  This weekend they have some special things going on!!!!

FREE POSTAGE

From 9am Friday 11th through to 9am Tuesday 15th February 2011 it's free postage on all UK and Euro Zone 1 orders  Don't worry if you live elsewhere they haven't forgotten you, if you please an order of £25 or more you will also receive free postage.

BIRTHDAY SPECIALS

Find out more on The Craft Barn's blog

http://thecraftbarnblog.blogspot.com/

Snowflakes

Hi guys.  I hope that you are all well.

As promised here are some more of my Mum's quilled snowflakes that I made some cards up with.  As I mentioned before on a previous post each of the snowflakes are different and although I designed the cards for them to match one another - each of these are slightly different too.  Take a look and you'll see what I mean!

As before I used the Papermania Snowflake folder to emboss a white panel and then decorated the embossed panel using the Winter Trails Inkadinkado stamp set along with a silver inkpad and Stardust embossing powder.  The wording (which came from an old Impressions Obsessions stamp set) was stamped using Brilliance Starlight Black.

Here's a closer look at Mum's snowflake for you which she lightly glittered using Silver glitter glue.  As you can see I mounted into some Nestabilities die-cuts - Petite Scalloped Circle and Circle.

Same decorated background for this card - just a different Nestabilities used - Blossom.

A closer look at the snowflake for you.

And another snowflake card - this time with a Labels die-cut.

See what I mean about each of the snowflakes being different!

And another snowflake card with a different Label die-cut.

Quite a lacey looking snowflake this one!

So after doing quite a few of these silver and white snowflake cards I decided to ring the changes a little and introduce my favourite colour of lilac!  I've told Mum that she is to give me this as my Christmas card next year but I'm not sure if she'll take any notice!!

She did a good job with all the different snowflakes didn't she?  This isn't all of them though!!  I did make 3 more up into cards which I'll show you next time plus she has got a box full of snowflakes for me to tackle another time!!

Now back at the beginning of the year I was delighted about being given this lovely award from Sharon and what with one thing and another I hadn't gotten around to accepting it!! (Sorry Sharon!)  Anyway here it is and I am REALLY thrilled to have it as this one is REALLY special as the winners get to qualify for a free digi stamp from Digi's With Attitude!  How cool is that?

In order to qualify for your $5.00 Digi's With Attitude! Gift Certificate you must state 3 things that make you different from everybody else and nominate 5 blogs. Lastly you need to display the Blog Award Badge (above) in your sidebar and link it back to the Digi's With Attitude! Challenge Blog.

So here are my three things-
1. I am right-handed but when using cutlery I eat left-handed.
2. I don't like cheese but LOVE cheese scones, cheese straws and cheesecake.
3. I would love to be able to wolf whistle or to even whistle loudly but I JUST CAN'T DO IT!!

So without further ado I would like to pass this award onto-

Vix - http://vixykins.blogspot.com 
Debbie - http://debbie-thedolphins.blogspot.com
Lou - http://louisemolesworth.blogspot.com
Sally - http://sal-utations.blogspot.com
Brenda - http://stamping-fantasies.blogspot.com

Although to be honest I would have loved to have passed it onto a lot more people!!

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

The Stamp Man's Oriental Challenge

Well it is Friday which means that it is time for another Stamp Man challenge.  This time around we want to see some oriental cards - click here to go to the Challenge Blog and find out all about it as well as see the stunning cards that the rest of the DT have made to inspire you.

As some of you are aware I do have my own range of oriental stamps so this was the ideal time to dust them off and use them!  Normally the first thing that pops into my head when I think of oriental are the colours red, gold and black but I thought that I would steer clear of these and go for pretty colours instead to show that oriental can look great in delicate colours too.

So here is what I finally came up with using my Japanese Plum Blossom set but as you can see I couldn't resist adding some black accents to it!

The background for the card was made using one of the beautiful Starburst Stains called Frosted Forget-Me-Nots which is available to buy on its own or if you have the Icicle Creek Starburst Stain set you'll find it in there too.  I then simply stamped the panels using stamps from the Japanese Plum Blossom sheet and a Stormy Sky Distress inkpad.  As you can see I couldn't resist using my Floral Lace Martha Stewart edging punch on the bottom panel as I thought this went so well with my main image!  The wording was stamped using a black Tombow pen (as this is infact all one stamp), so I just inked up the 'friends' part first and stamped it at the top of the card, cleaned my stamp before inking up the rest of the sentiment and stamping it near the base of the card.  The accent strips of paper were off-cuts from the background that I stamped with the plum blossom branch and a black inkpad before trimming to size and adding to the card.

I stamped the main image using black StazOn and then watercoloured the flowers and branches using Tombow pens and then painted the background with the Frosted Forget-Me-Not stain.

In order to add a touch of gold to the card I then used a glue pen in the centres and stamens of the flowers, allowed the glue to turn clear and then applied gold leaf to it which when it catches the light really lights up.

Anyway I hope you like the card and feel inspired to give The Stamp Man's Oriental Challenge a go!  Good luck!!

A Couple of Challenges!!

Hi everyone.  I have two cards to share with you this time as I thought I'd play along with a couple of challenges before the time is up!

Now as some of you already know my Mum loves to do quilling but she never actually does anything with the pieces she makes up.  Ages ago I did promise her that I would have a go at making some cards up for her if she quilled some snowflakes.  I had no idea that she would then go absolutely beserk and quill an enormous amount!!!  I ended up making 9 cards for her using her quilled snowflakes - each of them based on the same layout but all slightly different.  I will show you the rest of them next week as all the snowflakes that she quilled were individual and no two were the same. (She did actually quill a whole lot more than 9 so I have some more cards to do for her when time allows.)  I thought it might be fun though to enter our shared card into the current Sir Stampalot challenge - A Winters Tale.

So without further ado here's the card I've chosen to submit for this challenge!  I created the background using the Papermania snowflake embossing folder along with an Inkadinkado Winter Trails stamp set, Silver inkpad and Stardust embossing powder.  The 'winter' wording came from a rather old Impression Obsession wording stamp set.

Here's a closer look at Mum's marvellous snowflake that she did out of strips of white paper.  As you can see I simply stuck the snowflake onto nestabilities die-cuts before sticking it to the main card.

Onto the second card and I would like to enter this into the Penny Black at Allsorts challenge - All You Need Is Love.  Ok I realise that this isn't a traditional lovey dovey stamp but it is VERY sweet and they do look as if they are almost kissing so I think this counts - lol!!  This particular stamp is called Hedgy Gift which I coloured using Copic markers.  The flourishes and wording came from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet and the lacey edging was done with the Doily Lace Martha Stewart punch.

Here's a closer look at the colouring for you.  Can't remember the colours off-hand that I used but I'll see if I can find my notes and edit this later for you!

I'll be back on Friday with The Stamp Man's latest challenge so hopefully see you then!

A Mammoth Post!!

Hi guys!  I cannot believe how quick the time has flown past since Christmas and also that this is my first post for 2011!!  Oops!!  Have you missed me????

To make up for being absent for so long this is going to be quite a long post so I hope you are comfortable!  I'm afraid that I never did get around to loading up all those Christmas cards that I made last year so I have saved them and will load them up later on this year once we all start thinking about Christmas again.

Today I thought I'd share a 'special' card with you that I made last year for my Mum's birthday using the adorable 'Sisters' stamp by Belles'n'Whistles.  When I see this stamp it reminds me of stories that Mum has told me about her and her big sister so I thought it quite appropriate!  The card itself is quite large at 20x20cm so I was able to fit quite a bit onto it!  The pretty background paper was from the Kioshi collection by Basic Grey.  The wording stamps are from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet apart from the letters spelling out 'MUM' which came from a clear Hero Arts stamp sheet.  The lovely delicate flourish stamp that I've used around the main card and the Sisters panel is one of my favourite flourish stamps of all time by Penny Black called Scrolling Along.

As you can see I chose to add some interest to the main card using two Martha Stewart punches - Garden Trellis and Doily Lace Trim along with some Prima flowers from the E Line range, some pearl sprays from my own stash, punched out daisies, self-adhesive pearls, brads and spacers.

I stamped my main image using black Versafine ink onto watercolour card and used Distress inkpads to colour in my image,to stamp my wording with and the Scrolling Along flourish.  Lots of Diamond and Platinum glitter glue was then added to the card to make it sparkle!

As this was a special card for a 'special Mum' I chose to decorate the inside of the card too.  This is a picture of the whole of the inside of the card before I wrote in it.  As you can see I used the same papers as for the front of the card as well as some light green Bazzill card and used my Labels Nine Nestabilities dies for my centre panels.

Here's a closer look at the left side of the inner card.  You can see that I decorated the plain green panel by stamping it with the Scrolling Along stamp using a pale green inkpad and then used a darker green inkpad to stamp it again along the top and bottom.  I used another of my Martha Stewart punches - Floral Vine to provide some decoration along with some punched out squares, self-adhesive pearls and nailheads and of course lots of glitter glue!

I stamped the Belles 'n' Whistles Tea Time stamp into the Labels Nine die-cut and watercoloured the image using Distress inkpads.  Then I popped the corresponding Nestabilities back over the die cut and used my blending tool  along with a Bundled Sage Distress inkpad to softly ink around the edges of the die cut.

I also did this for this panel too which I then wrote in afterwards.  The wording used on these inner pages of the card came from my Fancy Flourishes stamp sheet.

I'd like to enter this card into the current Belles 'n' Whistles challenge Anything But Winter.

So are you still with me?  I did warn you that it was going to be a loooooooong post!!  I did make a box for this card to go in which I decorated too but I never got around to taking a photo of it.

I hope you liked this card - Mum did!  I'll try and do another post soon!!  Meanwhile a Happy New Year to you all.

The Stamp Man's 2nd Annual Blog Awards Event

Hi everyone and welcome to The Stamp Man's 2nd Annual Blog Awards Event!!  We do hope that you will all join in with us as this is open to everybody. We had such a lovely response to this event last year that we thought it would be fun to do it again. 

We would love it if you would enter what you consider to be your best crafting project of the year over on The Stamp Man's Challenge Blog via the Inlinkz button, then take this award blinkie and pop it onto your blog for entering the challenge and post the event blinkie (above) with your best crafting project on your own blog. 

Plus today is the start of The Stamp Man's Blog Hop which begins over on The Stamp Man's blog. Now if you are already hopping along then you should have got here via Lisa and the letter that you need from me is R. 

Don't forget to collect all your letters as you hop along and then rearrange the letters and email your answer to: thestampman@btconnect.com by 9pm (GMT) on Thursday 13th January 2011. Please put 'bloghop answer' as the title.  You will need to leave a comment on ALL of the blogs in the blog hop to be eligible to win a prize! (Details of the prizes are listed on The Stamp Man's blog.) 

Now I had a hard time choosing my best project as I don't think I've got one this year but in the end I decided to go with this one, which is the Mother's Day card that I made for my Mum this year. The picture above shows one side of the concertina card and the picture below shows the other side.  The stamps featured on this are from my own stamp range - Aspects of Design No.56 Funky Flowers and Aspects of Design No.58 Fancy Flourishes. (The middle panel under 'Mum' lifts up and this is where I wrote my message.)

Now this is probably a little confusing as there is lots to remember for the blog hop and awards event!! So here is a run down of what you need to do to be eligible for one of the fabulous prizes:

• Join in the actual challenge on The Challenge Blog with your best/favourite projected linked with Inlinkz
• Follow your way around the blog hop collecting all the letters you will find on each blog. Write these down then work out the answer when the hop is finished.
• Leave a comment on ALL the blogs you visit in the blog hop
• Post our event blinkie onto your blogs or a post about the event with your best/favourite project
• Take your award blinkie with pride
• Email the answer to: thestampman@btconnect.com by 9pm (GMT) on Thursday 13th January 2011. Please put bloghop answer as the title

Lastly you need to now hop on over to Sarah

Good luck!

The Stamp Man's Blog Hop

Hi everyone.  I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and got everything that you wanted!

I just wanted to let you all know that The Stamp Man are going to be running a blog hop this Friday where you will be in with a chance of winning some super prizes!  Please feel free to take this piccie to let all your friends know about the event.  More details will be announced on Friday!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Hi everyone!  I just want to take the opportunity to wish everyone who stops by a very Merry Christmas and to thank all of you who have become followers and an extra special thank you to those of you who have left me comments this past year - I do so enjoy reading them!

So sorry that I haven't been blogging as much recently - I'll try to do better next year!!  I've still got loads of Christmas cards to show you so you may find that I post a few of them up over the next couple of weeks!

This particular card was one that I made for The Craft Barn's September Extravaganza using one of the fantastic Gorjuss Girls stamps!  The background around the stamp was created using a Katzelcraft flourish stamp and a Stampendous snowflake and for the background of the card I used the Papermania Snowflake embossing folder along with that same flourish stamp.  The snowflake embellishments are a mixture of a Woodware snowflake punch, a Martha Stewart Glacial Snowflake punch and a Marianne Design Creatables die.

The image as you've probably already guessed was coloured using Copic markers and the background around her was done using my Watercolour Resist technique with the markers. (See the December issue of Craft Stamper!)  All products used on this card came from The Craft Barn.

Have a great Christmas everyone and once again thank you for following my blog and leaving me wonderful comments - I truly appreciate all your support.