Album commission

This rounded off this week's work. I find these albums quite difficult to make as they don't have the photos yet, I find it much easier to do them as a 'proper' scrapbook as I never really know where to start. It's for a friend's sister's bosses 60th birthday.......and yes, his name is Ian LOL Anyway, this one was collected last night on behalf of the client by her sister........and she liked it :)

I have used a whole load of papers in this book including K & Co, Crate Paper and DCWV (and while I was punching the squares (a la Kathy ;)) I broke my Woodware punch :( The cutting plate has jammed and refuses point blank to move! This was a replacement for the one I broke doing exactly the same, in March. It's the 2" square punch and I find it really strange that two of them have broken in the same way within a couple of months of each other. I've been using the large Woodware punches for years and have never had any trouble with any of the others. Maybe it's just telling me I need more Nesties LOL The train on the front of the book opens to reveal a big blue 60 but my firend took the photos for me and I forgot to ask her to photograph it with the tags out etc. The train is actually a greeting card from Craftwork Cards and is just so cute (thanks Richard and Sue for a brilliant service)

An that, my loves, is it. I have a wedding fayre tomorrow and am supposed to be making place cards and table numbers but I'm finding it a struggle at the mo, keeping my eyes open. I've worked till two every morning this week and I'm tired..........but not complaining (and my work load is getting me out of doing the ironing!)

Take care and thanks for looking.

Wedding invitations

The final part of this order was collected on Thursday and the bride was very pleased with them. Even now I get a little nervous when I'm delivering or having stationery or cards etc, collected. Thankfully I have never had anyone turn round and say they didn't like was they had ordered.......I think I would just cry if they did :) I must say that one of the attractions of working in the wedding field is the lovely people I get to meet and spend time with and to know that couples like your work enough to represent their wedding is one of the greatest feelings in the world :)

I made the day and evening invitations in February and this part of the stationery set, for the wedding next Saturday, included the orders of service, large and small menus, place cards, thank you cards and the seating plan. This was the first time I had used my Nesties on a seating plan and was really pleased with the outcome, as was the bride.

TFL

Christening invitations

These were commissioned by a couple whose wedding invitations I made about four years ago! I was really chuffed as you don't get many repeat orders in the wedding stationery game LOL

and the little bag they were delivered in.

I used the sizzix dress die, Nestabilities and a little silver teddy charm to replace the shoes, which have now been discontinued! They were greatly received anyway :)I did find one supplier who were advertising the shoes on their web site. Unfortunately I am still waiting for a reply to my emails..........which I know arrived as I received automated replies.

This is a real big bug bear of mine, not replying to emails. There is an owner of a well known craft site who is good enough to send me her newsletters every couple of weeks but can't be bothered to answer my emails. I've emailed, used the contact form on her web site, left comments on her blog (which when I've gone back and looked, have been deleted) yet I have posted links etc to her site and generally praised her work at every opportunity. It takes a couple of seconds to say "thanks, got your email, bit busy at the mo, will catch you later!" I always, always answer mine within 24 hours but most of them I answer straight away and I am busy just like everyone else. Grrrrr !Sorry about that, rant over ;)

Wedding, Christening,.....

an album, DT work and two cards sums up what I've done this week which hasn't left me any time for challenges except one which I did last night. I have all the challenges saved in a folder on my desk top so I will do them, just not sure when :)

I had to make a wedding card for DH to take to work this evening and used Kathy's sketch but ~'ve just realised that I didn't use lace, just a punched border! I will just have to make another one now :) I have one to do for a wedding next Saturday.Please excuse the wonky scan, I did it at one oclock this morning and my eyes weren't functioning properly LOL

Materials used are:

papers by K & Co and Papermania

Stamp by Elzybells

All I've coloured this time are the hat band, ribbon on the flowers and the grooms cravat. I used a very dark green fine marker so the card was inkeeping with the colours of the wedding (I know cos I made the seating plan ;))

I shall be back later with more of this weeks work. Wherever you are, enjoy your day, if you have sunshine (as we have) all the better :)

TFL

Baby card

For this card I used the sketch from Sketch and Stash and the challenge from Papertake Weekly which is to use pastel colours.

I love pastels and they lend themselves beautifully to baby and wedding cards, both my favourite card making categories!

I'm doing really well with favourites for this card.......one of my favourite images and some of my favourite papers too:) The image is called Embrace and is (obviously-her stamps stand out a mile) by Penny Black, coloured with Promarkers and Prismas, and the papers are Bella from the MM Kids Collection. The new thing I used this week was the lace across the middle of the card.

I wonder if any of you know where I can get this stamp please? I received this image amongst a load stamped for me last year by my blogging buddy Jo and this is my last one :( At 1.30 this morning I was trawling the internet looking for it but everywhere I found it was out of stock. Has it been discontinued? I am prepared to buy it from the US as long as the shipping costs aren't a rip off! Thanks in advance for your help.

Back to the wedding order now. I'm on the downward run on this one so it should all be finished and collected by Tuesday. There is something about this wedding that I have never come across before and that is both the bride's dad and the groom's dad have the same Christian name (spelt the same) and both the bride's mum and the groom's mum share the same Christian name too. The b2b was also saying yesterday that hers and the g2b's birthdays are one day apart too. If that's not fate then I don't know what is :)

TFL

ICS

Sketches #12

Paper and image by Pink Petticoat

Gems are Anita's

Other items used are MS Doily punch and lace from stash

Fresh n fruity

I just love the colours I've used on my card for Kazan's sketch #24

Paper is by My Mind's Eye,

The centre panel was edged with an EK Success punch,

Flowers are Prima,

Brad is Dovecraft

Clip is Papermania

I also used Kazan's DT sketch for another card

Paper is Three Bugs and Sassafras
Not sure where the ribbon is from as it was an off cut
Gems are Anita's

Di Hickman's

Can you tell I'm avoiding work? LOL I'm not really, I'm waiting for some bits to dry. I did have a couple of hours this morning though where I got the urge to make 'ordinary cards' so I thought I would have a little dabble with some challenges :) I started off with Di's Card sketch April #3

Papers used are Baby Bee by Crate, flowers by Prima finished with a gold birthday rub on.

Chocolate, coffee and cream

(Yum) is the challenge for this week on Colour Create and the optional extra is distressing. I'm not very brave when it comes to distressing but I did manage to take an emery board to the edges of my image :)

My card is 8" x 8" and the image is by Jak Heath for La Pashe. I love the sepia images and this one leant itself perfectly to the challenge if you take sepia to mean coffee :) The cream border was cut with one of my MS punches, the card candy is from Craftwork Cards and it was mounted onto dark brown card.

A little bit more of what I've done so far this week apart from wedding stationery (I'm back to the silly o'clock bed times :))

I've used a variety of chipboard letters from Papermania and Doodlebug, more card candy from CC, ribbons from Ribbon Oasis and bits and bobs from my stash as well as another Remember When.. image and one of the Flippin Men sheets. I needed some male birthday cards in a hurry and the letters were on the vast mound which used to be a desk! I'm not very happy with them though! I need to try to squeeze in time to make some more cards in between stationery this weekend as my boxes are now looking a bit desperate.

Back soon, tfl

Hide and Seek

The Daring Cardmaker's dare from last Friday is set by Jozza and she says 'This week the dare is hide and seek. I would like to see a hidden message or element on your cards. For a double dare include both! I tend to make very straightforward cards as a rule so this was a challenge for me but I have to say there are some great tutorials out there if you are stuck for ideas.'

I've been looking at this off cut of paper by Imagination for months now and wondering what I could use it for (I can't remember what I used the first half for :)) but in a sudden flash of inspiration I thought of the DCM dare. I decided to cut the flowers out rather than just use it as a flat piece of paper. The flowers were bunched together in colour groups and took blooming ages cutting them all out. The little white flowers were from an off cut of K & Co borders and the butterfly is from the remains of a pack from Crafty Bitz. The greeting on the tag is a SeeDee stamp from an anniversary set.
These are a few bits I made for a shop in town where I advertise my wedding stationery. They had to go this morning and I finally finished them at 1.30 this morning. They change the colour of the window display once a month and this month it's teal.

Now I'm back to the place cards.............9 down, 63 to go :)

BFN

Stamp Something

The Stamp Something challenge this week is a bit different:

This week we have a fun challenge for you. It's all about shapes. Let's see how many shapes you can fit onto your projects. The minimum number of shapes to qualify is two, but the sky is the limit on the maximum number of shapes you can include

I have, squares, rectangles, circles, the flower shape, the handbag shape (is it a rhombus?) and then we have scallops too :)

Image is PP, papers were free in a mag, sentiment is from Kirsty Wiseman's cd and everything else is from my stash.

TFL

Dare you to...

....Digi Stamp is a relatively new Friday challenge blog but brand new to me. I found it last night via Sally-Ann's blog and as I had just printed off one of her downloads to make more Father's Day cards I thought I would enter. The Dare You team try to encourage the use of digi papers too, which I haven't used this time but as I've got hundreds ;) it won't be a problem! So here are three cards I made this morning

I also used the sketch from last week on two of my cards.

I've used an assortment of off cuts such as Crate Paper's Seaweed and Baby Bee, the wave paper is by Creative Imaginations. Ribbons are all from Ribbon Oasis and everything else is from my stash.

It's a man's world!!

It was my turn again to set the challenge for this week on the DewDrop Craftz blog and this is it! Now.. onto this fornights challenge..It's a mans world.. (we'll let them think that anyway..) So what does that mean for the challege?? Mens cards.. or other projects.. something for the men in your lives.. I want to see your 'male' creations over the next fortnight.. as we all find it more difficult to make for them it will be great to see what you guys come up with, especially with Father's Day looming not far round the corner..So root through your stash for those masculine papers, dig through your ribbon for those twills and ropes and see what you can astound your man with. Looking forward to seeing the entries.. and the winner will receive 3 new Pebeo Metal Touch tubes in Gold, Pale Gold and Copper and a full set of 4 Carl Torrosian sophisticated nudes stamps (both Sandrine and Angelique)
The image on the top card is Eric the dinosaur and is another by Sally-Ann which has been turned into a stamp, now for sale in the DewDrop Craftz shop The green paper on the top is one of Kirsty Wiseman's from the Patti cd and the striped paper is from my box of off cuts.

The image on the second card is also from DewDrop and I think he is just so cute. He has been coloured with my trusty PMs. The sentiment circle is from Stamps Away.

We can't wait to see your creations :)

Creative Treasures

Tracey is starting a monthly challenge on the Creative Treasures blog and here is what she has to say Every month will see the start of a new monthly challenge, some months it might be a colour challenge, recipe challenge it might be a photo to take inspirations from. We are going to start with a colour challenge and as this months blooms kit is "Spring Meadows", I'm going to go with this theme, here is your colour inspiration. Closing date with be 30th April and the winner will receive a Monthly Blooms Kit of their choice.

The theme this week on Rosie-Dee's Challenge is blooms so my card fits that one too :)


and here is my card
I'm not sure what the papers are as they came in a card kit last year, but I love the blue and yellow, I think it's almost (dare I say it) summery,if not then it is definitely spring like. The large blooms were picked up from a craft fayre, the blue card is edged with an MS punch and the right hand side of the card was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder. It's the back of the card as I cut a couple of cms off the front. The shadows are cast by the scanner so I'll try to photograph it tomorrow once the camera batteries have recharged.

Back again...

...this time with the card I made for the sketch on Di Hickman's blog last week. I do like Di's sketches but often have to miss out (as with other challenges) when work gets the better of me!

I love using acetate on my cards and don't use it nearly enough so I took the chance with this card. I went looking for a quote or something to use as the feature on the sketch and came across my little DCWV Quote Stack which is starting to look a bit forlorn LOL I cut the front off my card leaving a border of approimately 1cm as I like to attach the acetate to it on the inside so once I've added a paper frill there is not tape showing. The ribbons were from my stash, vellum is by Papermania and is glitter embossed (and absolutely beautiful) the acetate and vellum were punched using my newest MS punch which arrived yesterday :), the flowers were from Crafts U Love and the self adhesive pearls were from my stash. I decided not to add a sentiment to the card so it can be used for any occasion.

Secret Crafter's...

.....Saturday Challenge #27 with a twist! This week's challenge has been set by our lovely DONNA. She has designed a fabulous sketch to follow but with a colour twist of Chocolate Orange with the yummy pic as inspiration! As usual any project but we must be able to recognise the sketch and also using the colours as the main palette.

Papers used are My Mind's Eye one of which has been punched with an MS border punch bought in Michael's in Greenwich Village (I love saying that (even though that's about all I did manage to buy!)) Card Candy is from Craftwork Cards, stamp is by Funstamps and he has been coloured with Promarkers and had his heart and nose Glossy Accented, the ribbon is from my stash and the sentiment was done on the computer.

Relax!

My next card is definitely a 'chill out' card :) and I used sketch #46 from the Sketch Saturday blog.

Papers and image are all by Pink Petticoat She has been coloured with Promarkers and the bubbles are glittered. The diamantes are from my stash.