Easter Treat Bag

Thank you to everyone who recommended places for personalised rubber stamps. I finally chose one from eBay and can't wait for it to arrive! It's coming from Malaysia and it has only cost me £7 and that's including p&p!!

On to today's offering. A while ago I was contemplating purchasing a Cricut Expression after seeing some cute little boxes that could be made with one of the cartridges. However, I decided that for the outlay it probably wouldn't be worthwhile. After further investigation, I found that the Big Shot had these Bigz XL dies that make exactly what I was looking for! So, after excellent service from Cutting Edge Crafts, I now have my Big Shot and dies and this is the result!

It was really easy to put together and very sturdy. I'm just not to sure on whether the decoration is complete. I just get the feeling that something is missing, but I don't know what I'm hoping that you lovely people will be able to give me some tips!

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend and thank you for any comments you leave, they are greatly appreciated.

xx :0)

Help!!

I was just wondering whether anyone could point me in the direction of a site where I can purchase a "Handmade by..." stamp?? I'm hoping for something a bit jazzier than just words, and maybe where I could include my blog address. My old stamp is in my maiden name, so I get comments when people look at the back of my cards!

I was gutted as I missed out on the chance to get it done at Elzybells last summer and they looked fantastic!

Any help would be much appreciated!

xx :0)

Holy Cow!

Can you believe that I forgot to make my Line Manager a birthday card for her birthday last week??? She was on leave and I had intended to make one for the week before hand to give to her, but then all that trouble with the agent flared up and it went out of my head completely! Anyway, I wanted to make up for it and had the perfect sentiment!

I used my S-moo-ches set from Elzybells and stamped out the Angel Cow and the sentiment "Holy Cow! I forgot your birthday!) The image was coloured with copics before being cut out with circle nestabilities. I realised afterwards that I should have glittered the wings for extra effect. The base is made up of two blue shades of Bazzill Basics. The lower half has been embossed with the Spots and Dots folder. To break up the space, I cut a strip of the darker shade and some white card before adding some blue satin ribbon and gem stones. To finish off, I added some photo corners.

I really wasn't sure about the card when I made it, but Jon kept saying how great it was. I am still a bit low on confidence and belief. I keep getting ideas, but when it comes to making anything, my mind just goes blank and I get frustrated. I would love to be able to work with patterned papers but I just don't know where to begin. I would be extremely grateful for any tips or advice anyone would give me.

Anyway, thank you for stopping by and for any comments you may leave, they are greatly appreciated.

xx :0)

Mother's Day Cards and Elzybells Challenge 16

I know, shock horror, 2 posts in one day!! As it is Mother's Day, it is only right that I show the cards I have made for my mum and mother-in-law. I decided against making identical cards this year. Thought it would be best if I challenged myself a bit.

This card is for my mum. I have used the gorgeous Elzybells Love You Teds for this card. One of the DT members, Maria Adams gave me the idea after using if for a Mother's Day card during the sneak peeks. It has been coloured in with copics before being mounted onto some pink Core'dinations CS. I'm loving this CS at the moment, it is just as good as Bazzill. The base is using the same CS with a white layer that has been embossed using good ole swiss dots! I have added some pink satin ribbon across the centre. The swirls are coordinating with the same CS. They are cut out using the Sizzix Scribbles Swirls die. "Mum" has been cut using the Girls Are Weird alphabet and the card has been finished off with the usual 3 gemstones.


I'm also hoping that this will qualify for the Elzybells Challenge this fortnight, which is Polka Dots. I know some of the DT have used the swiss dots embossing folder, so I've got my fingers crossed that I can too!!

For Jon's mum's card, I used the cute Forever Friends Family Relations decoupage pack and have mounted the image using 3d foad pads before adhering to a scalloped square nestabilty and adding some Papermania Adhesive Shimmer Dots to the 3 remaining corners. The base is made up of a piece of Papermania Ametheyst Infusion DP whilst the other half of the card has been embossed using the D'vine Swirls folder. I have added 3 more shimmer dots to the top corner.

I hope the photo's look okay. It was difficult to see how they looked when editing them as I had the sun streaming through the window and causing glare on my screen. Apologies if they're not that great.

I hope all you mum's out there are getting well and truly spoilt today! I'm off to see mine shortly with a BIG bunch of flowers and a Mother's Day Pooh Bear!!!

Thank you for stopping by and for any comments you may leave, they are much appreciated.

xx :0)

For the Purr-fect Mum!

My Team Leader, Paul, asked me to make a Mother's Day card for him to give to his wife today. Nothing strange in that you might think, except it was going to be from their cats Skitso and Squeak!! How sweet!

I knew right away which stamp I was going to use. It just had to be the gorgeous X-Large Love by Penny Black! I've had that stamp a while, but it's never been inked, so this was the purr-fect opportunity (excuse the pun)!

He's been stamped and watercoloured before being cut out using oval nestabilities. I've used the fab Mojo Monday #76 sketch again for this card. The base is a white square card which has been covered with 2 pieces of Core-dinations cardstock. The centre strip has been embossed with the heart embossing folder before the ribbon has been wrapped round. I made the bow using my new bow shaper. The sentiment is from Woodware and it has been finished off with the usual gemstones.

I really hope Kimberley likes it!

Thanks for stopping by and for any comments you may leave, they are much appreciated.

xx :0)

Pretty in Pink!!

Not sure why but I've been adamant today that it's Friday and that tomorrow is the weekend!! It's going to be disappointing tomorrow when my alarm goes off at 5:50am!

Anyway, I've two cards to show you today. Both have been requests from colleagues/friends.

For the first one, the only brief I had was it had to be pink and girly. I immediately thought of Tilda with Rose from the Pink Collection. She has been stamped and coloured in with Copics before being mounted onto pink cs. I added some stickles glitter glue to her wings, but I don't think it shows up in the photo. The base is two shades of Core-dinations cardstock. The lighter shade has been partially embossed with the swiss dots folder. I have then used some pink satin ribbon and a heart slider to hide the divide. The sentiment is from Woodware and has been cute out using my new tag nestabilities. The "25 Today" has been cut out using the Girls are Weird alphabet font.

What do you think, is it pink and girly enough??

For the second card, I decided to use an old Friday Sketchers sketch. I don't participate in this challenge, but I had seen it used on a number of blogs and made a mental note to try it out. I used my new Penny Black Gift's For You stamp which has been watercoloured and cut out using oval nestabilities. The base is pink cs with a section of DB Polka Dot paper. The second section is pearlised card that has again been embossed using the swiss dots folder. More pink satin ribbon has been used to hide the joins. The flowers are Prima and the brads are from my stash. It has been finished off with a Craftwork Cards sentiment.

I have been really low in confidence the last week or so on everything, not just my cards. I think that incident at work has affected me more than I've realised. I was not happy at all last night when trying to make a card and even contemplated giving up card making altogether! My confidence isn't the greatest at the best of times. I'm always being told off for not having enough faith in myself when everyone else does, but it does just seem to be even worse than normal at the moment.

Anyway, thank you for stopping by and for any comments you may leave, they really are appreciated.

xx :0)

Some Cards!

I finally have some cards to show you after a bit of a break! Don't know what happened there, lost my mojo a little bit, but it's coming back again after a rest.

The first card was a quick one I made using a die cut I picked up at the NEC on Friday. I was asked to make a card for a colleague to give to his wife for Mother's Day. The only guidance I was given was that it should have some flowers. I have to admit that I don't own much on the "floral" line, so when I saw these I knew I had to have them!

The die cut has been mounted to some peach cs. The base is is made up with some white cs embossed using the D'vine Swirls folder and layered onto the same peach cs and finished off with some gemstones in the corners. The image has been added using 3d foam pads. The sentiment was part of the set. I know it's a bit of a cheat, I just hope my colleague likes it.

The second card was made for a very good friends birthday. Lyn is like a second mum to me and I wanted to do something nice. The image is one of my Forever Friends stamps that has been coloured with Copics. The base is two different shades of pink cs with the lightest having been punched with the MS Doily border punch. The flowers are Prima and have been added with some brads. The sentiment is from my Woodware set and has been finished off again with gemstones.

I hope you like them. I have a couple more to make that people have asked for at work as well as my mum and mum-in-laws' Mother's Day cards to make so looks like I'm going to be a busy bee for the next few days!

I apologise for not having been round every one's blogs recently, I will try to catch up once I've got all these cards made.

Thank you for stopping by and for any comments you may leave, they are greatly appreciated.

xx :0)

NEC Stash!

Thank you to everyone who left me such lovely comments after my bad day at work. I know it wasn't a personal attack on me but, for some reason that day, it just really got to me. It left me shaken for a good 24 hours after the event.

I didn't however let it spoil out my fab day at the NEC on Friday!! We travelled in style by going 1st class (tickets booked way in advance so we could get cheaper tickets!)! It seemed bigger this year but that was because they'd opened the divide between the Hobbycraft show and the Stitch and Sew Show. I went armed with a list of things that I wanted but, as always, ended up getting items that weren't included! I did spend a lot of money but in my defence, I have been saving up really hard since before Christmas and Jon was there encouraging me to spend it! He was a sweetheart too and bought me some bits as a belated Valentine's pressie.

Anyway, enough talking, let me show you what I got!

A lot of the Penny Black stamps I got were reduced so were a real bargain! I found it really hard not to purchase the labels 1 & 2 nestabilities as I currently have them on order. I'm just waiting for two of the new dies to come in from America before they get shipped out. There were also a couple of items that I couldn't get as they had sold out before I arrived, so now have to wait until they are back in stock online.

I apologise for the poor quality photos, I don't know what happened there!

Thanks for stopping by and any comments you may leave, they are very much appreciated.

xx :0)

Bad Day At The Office

I had a bad day at work today which has left me kind of deflated and knocked my confidence. Just before I was due to leave I took a call from an agent who wasn't happy with some news I had emailed. He basically got nasty with me and tried to bully me into going against rules and EU Regulations. I managed to keep my composure on the phone, but the minute I rang off I just burst into tears. I don't like confrontation and just freeze. I just kept repeating that whilst I appreciated his predicament, I could not go against scheme rules. I'm just lucky that my boss is so supportive.

I'm just a bit down about it all now as I take everything to heart and find it very hard to forget about these things. Jon just keeps telling me to think about the Hobbycraft show at the NEC on Friday which I have been looking forward to for weeks. I wish it was Thursday now and that I didn't have work tomorrow.

Thanks for listening. I hope to have some cards for you soon.

xx :0)

Maria's Blog Candy

Maria's got some amazing blog candy on offer to celebrate her blogoversary and birthday. it includes some of the cute Dandelion and Daisy stamps. Why don't you pop on over, before 16th March, and check it out!

xx :0)

Mojo Monday #76

I loved this weeks Mojo Monday sketch and couldn't wait to have a go, but my card has sort of deviated from it slightly. I hope that's okay and that it's still eligible.

I've made this Get Well Soon card for someone who's been feeling slightly under the weather. I used the cute Boo Boo Bear from Whipper Snapper Designs and coloured him with Copics and mounting onto dark purple bazzill basics cs. The base is simply to pieces of purple bazzill layered onto a white card blank. The middle strip has been embossed with the D'vine Swirls folder, mounted on bazzill cs. I have then wrapped some satin ribbon round the middle before adding a bow. The finishing touches are the obligatory gemstones!

The centre strip ended up being too long as the sentiment was meant to be along the bottom!! Also, the square panels are larger than stated, but I was worried there would be too much white showing. I just hope the changes are acceptable as I really love this card.

Jon loved the card that I had hidden in his bag, said it was really sweet! I was so worried that he wouldn't find it so was happy when he rang me last night! I have to admit that I've not got as much crafting done as I would've liked in his absence. I've been doing little jobs when I get home from work that have been eating into my time, but I wouldn't be able to concentrate knowing they needed doing.

Thanks for stopping by and your comments, they are greatly appreciated.

xx :0)

CCT 49 - Animal Magic

This weeks challenge over at Cute Card Thursday is Animal Magic. All you need to do is include an animal somewhere on your card.

This challenge came at the right time as I've been making a card for my husband Jon who's off to Wolverhampton for a few days on a course. I wanted to make him a card that I could sneak into his holdall to find when he reaches the hotel. (I hope he doesn't decide to take a quick peek on my blog!). I've used the fab S-moo-ches set by Elzybells! This was part of their Valentine's release but can be used throughout the year. The image has been stamped and coloured with copics before being mounted onto blue bazzill cs. The base is made up of the same blue cs and white cs that has been embossed using the swiss dots folder. I've added some pale blue ribbon and a heart ribbon slider before mounting to a white card blank. The sentiment is also part of this set. I've finished off with 3 heart gemstones. I included the sentiment "I love ya, that's no bull" on the inside.

I hope he likes it. We're not apart that often so I know I'm going to miss him like crazy. He'll be gone two nights and that will feel like forever. At least I won't feel guilty for spending ages in my craft room or blog hopping!!

Hope everyone has had another enjoyable weekend and thank you for any comments you may leave, they are greatly appreciated.

xx :0)

Steph's Blog Candy

Steph has some amazing blog candy on offer whilst she is away! She has 3 sets of Promarkers to give away! All you have to do is leave a comment on her post and then put a link on your blog. The draw will be made once Steph has returned from Florida (I'm not jealous.....honest!!!)

Talking of Blog Candy, I see that I've passed 10,000 hits, so will have to see what I can do for you lovely people!! It may be a couple of weeks as I'm off to the NEC on Friday 13th March and want to see what I can find!

xx :0)