My news!!

I had a really good end to the year and a really good start to the new year as I found out last month that I was one of nine runners up in the Papercraft Essentials Papercrafter of the Year. I wasn't allowed to say anything until the magazine was published on 22nd December......and then I forgot! I was so busy with Christmas card that it totally slipped my mind.

Anyway, here is the piccies and the work I submitted

and on the day I bought the mag I also bought this months copy of Craft Seller only to open it to find out that some jewellery I made had been published and my entry was chosen as the winner and I've won a beautiful sewing box (I can finally throw the Quality Street tin away LOL)

 I made a key ring and a pair of earrings with some free beads from the front of one of the editions of the mag and I had some other green beads on my desk which were left over from another project, so I decided to make a matching necklace :)


Thanks for looking and I will be back shortly. I've decided to make this post a sticky for a couple of days so you will need to scroll down to see my recent work.

Promarkers

Jules is giving away a set of Promarkers on her blog Always With A Heart, courtesy of Handy Hippo and this is what she says

How do you fancy increasing your stocks of Promarkers?

"Oh, yes please" I hear you cry.

Well .. ..  even better than increasing your stocks .. .. .. how about choosing which colours you would like to add to your Promarker collection?

To celebrate single Promarkers now being available to buy from Handy Hippo you now have the chance to win a fantastic prize .. .. .. ..

20 SINGLE PROMARKERS OF YOUR CHOICE

Back soon when I've done some work :) 

 

Seating plan

This is the seating plan I made for the New Year's Eve Gala dinner on Saturday where the theme was diamonds and tiaras and the colour was black and silver, hence the decoration. The champagne bottles an tiaras were cut from a very sparkly glitter card but the photos haven't picked up the shine.

 I hope you like it, thanks for looking :)

Happy New Year

I just want to wish everyone a very happy and safe evening as we are off out now. Hubs is working and I'm going with him but we are staying over. Number one son and friend are cat sitting and number two daughter is working.

See you all tomorrow with my news :)

My top 9

I realise that I said I would be back with my top five Christmas cards but it has taken me until now (on and off) to choose and can't get down further than nine, so here goes

I hope you like them all. I will edit later to list all the materials used.
TFL, I will be back tomorrow with my news as I would like to see out the old and see in the New Years on a high :)

Passion........

..For Promarkers set the theme of "Celebrations" for their last challenge and as we have birthdays on Christmas day and Boxing day in our family it was easy to fit this challenge in with my last minute makes. I did a few different celebratory cards but am only entering the first one into the challenge as none of the others use Promarkers on them.

My first card is for hubby's nephew who was eight on Christmas day.

Image is Skateboard Ian from the Greeting Farm, paper is by Kanban (freebie) and MME, the rub on letters are Doodlebug and the rest is from my craft cupboard.

 Papers are Sweet Love by First Edition, sentiment stamp is from a set of Kids Quotes by Inkadinkadoo, greeting is from Craftwork Cards, flowers are die cut and premade paper roses and the ribbon is from my craft room.

 The guest book was a last minute commission which came in two days before the wedding!

 Quote is from a set by Stampendous (I just love them) and everything else is from my stock. I found the ribbon (it reads Health, wealth, happiness, fertility, long life) and the tiny silver stick on hearts when I was sorting through a drawer a couple of weeks ago...I don't know how long they had been there but I unearthed other stuff too which will make an appearance over the coming weeks :)

The last card was for my dad who was 75 on Boxing Day.

The big numbers are made using Word as I showed in a tutorial a while ago, I have 'misplaced' my large numbers since I put them somewhere where 'I would know straight away where to look!!' Papers are by MME again.

As well as the Passion For Promarkers challenge I am going to enter my cards in the following challenges

Secret Crafter - Anything Goes

Jules Crafty Snippet challenge #51

Thanks for looking. I have a table plan to make today for one of the Holiday Inn, Doncaster for their New Years Eve dinner tomorrow evening so must crack on. I'm hoping to come back later and show case my five favourite Christmas cards, oh, and I have some really good news to share.

Through the window

The week 50 challenge on the Polka Doodles blog is

The theme for this last challenge of 2011 is:

Through The Window...

and this is what I came up with (this is my first Polka Doodles challenge so please be gentle with me!)

 All the paper elements on the card are magazine freebies but I can't remember if the window etc are from Polka Doodles too as I threw away the strip from the bottom of the page! I did manage a few more cards from the papers though

 Image and sentiment from Pink Petticoat

 Image from Forever Friends, sentiment was generated on my lap top.

 Image from Digi Stamp Boutique and sentiment from Pink Petticoat

Stamped Christmas tree image is from Wild Rose Studios and the die cuts are from a download by Nitwit Collections

I like this set of papers so much that I have been onto the Polka Doodles web site this evening for a nose and was thrilled to see that they can be bought as a download..........guess what I bought :)

Daring Cardmakers

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and that Santa was kind to you and your family. It feels like an eternity since I last updated my blog but I've been so busy that I have just avoided the internet full stop! I get easily distracted so better to leave alone lol Well actually, I have dabbled a little bit but only to buy a couple of bits of crafty sale stuff.......it would be a shame not to when the store owners have spent so much time uploading everything ;)
So now I can finally get the rest of my Christmas/ birthday/ wedding items uploaded and into the challenges I'm not too late for lol
The DCM challengers wanted to see 'Spots and Stripes' for their challenge, of which I have two cards

 

Image The Digi Stamp Boutique
Papers Magazine freebies, but I think the second one is by Polka Doodles


Thanks for looking.

Funky Hand Sale!!!

Not long now, ends today

Keepsake card

I had a request for a Christening card for a baby whose 'birth congrats' cards I did in August! I decided to fish out my trusty old Bookatrix board which I haven't used for a long, long time. It was a success as my client loved it!

Short and sweet I'm afraid tonight but there will be more tomorrow as I am having a mammoth card making session tomorrow and no doubt I will be entering a few challenges along the way too :)

Take care my friends and sleep tight. Oh and huge huge to those of you who have had to endure that awful weather from yesterday....I hope everyone is ok. xx

Flippin' men!

Although I have quite a few of these sheets left I tend to forget I have them and don't use them very often. My friend mentioned the other day that it was the 60th birthday this week of the caretaker down at the school I used to work at. I don't usually send him a birthday card but I thought of this image as soon as she mentioned it :)

The image is from the Flipping Men series by Jak Heath and I added a screwdriver and hammer charm because he is into diy in a big way. As soon as anyone mentioned at school that they needed shelves up or whatever he had started the job before they had finished speaking lol

I'm entering this card into the Papertake Weekly challenge as their remit is

So onto this week and as it’s the first one of the month  we have our usual

Anything Goes theme

with the option of adding something dangly  ……

. but remember this is only an option and if you don’t want to dangle then you don’t have to dangle :)

Right, I'm off to do some colouring for a while then I really must do something else in my tip of a work room/studio.

Thanks for looking

Kathy's Waffle Sketch File

December 11, Take 5 The new sketch is now available on the Kathy's Waffle Sketch File blog and true to form it is definitely challenging! I often look at Kathy's sketches and come over all faint lol, then it takes me ages to come up with something worth showing in public. I suppose that is what these challenges are for though....no point whatsoever in doing them if they are easy every month!!
So here we go, the sketch

and my card

I think the papers are by My Mind's Eye but I'm not sure. The lovely little robin is a pre-coloured image from The Twelve Crafters Crafting cd from Funky Hand, the sentiment was done on the computer and the sparkly brad is from my craft box.
Tfl xx

A change....

from me today. I actually got a break from making cards in order to complete another order :)

 A pale blue and crystal funky key ring with some lovely sparkly diamante numbers and a set of wine glass charms

These look so pretty in real life. Instead of using different coloured beads or flowers I opted to make them all the same and just add a different coloured bead in the centre. I'm back to the cards now so I need to get my finger out, otherwise we will be using my Christmas cards next year lol.

Take care and tfl.

We wish you a merry....

Christmas! I think that should read, "Bah Humbug", I'm just about all Christmas'ed out. I seem to have made so many blooming Christmas cards and I still haven't started on the family ones!!! Oh well, not to worry. I made these last week for the school fayre

The papers are all pieces from my "left overs mountain", yes, I have a separate box for Christmas scraps and that doesn't seem to be going down either, lol. I might just go and add these to Jules' Snippets as they definitely fit the challenge.

The makers I recognise are Funky Hand, Pink Petticoat and Papermania. Most of the images are from the new Twelve Crafters Crafting cd from Funky Hand and the top image of Santa and Rudolf are from the very talented Sally-Ann at Digistamp Boutique, everything else is from my stash.

Just a quick reminder, there is still time to take part in my Christmas/Birthday challenge over on the Get Funky blog I have asked for a Christmas AND a non Christmas project this time but there is a slight catch....they both need to be made with Christmas paper. You must use a Funky Hand element on them and Anice has made a lovely freebie paper if you would like to use it.

Right, I must go and do something now although I have been out and tidied my mum's flower shed as she is coming over this morning to do my table centre for Christmas day....and you literally couldn't get through the door. We had just been plonking stuff in there as we came across it and there were two shelving units parked in the doorway. I had to take them out so I could get in to sort it lol

Back later, thanks for looking.

All done!

Finished, packed and collected by my very beautiful (and very happy) bride this morning for her wedding tomorrow......and then they are off to Mexico for a week. How I wish I was going with them - well maybe not on the honeymoon but I could certainly hack some warm sunshine at the mo, I hate winter!!!

 Although the colours on here look like a dark grey, they were actually sage/olive green and ivory and looked really lovely together. The orders of service were just paper versions without a card cover. I did 190 favours, 190 place cards, 100 orders of service and the seating plan. I was still making changes at 8 o'clock last night as people were backing out of the wedding and were being replaced with others!

DH and I are going to York for the day tomorrow and then on Tuesday I still need to make some semblance of order in my little studio/craft room and make a start on our personal Christmas cards. Each year I say that I am going to start in January and make them throughout the year but I never do. I have real difficulty getting my head round doing Christmas before I have been on holiday in August lol.

Right on to do some more posting while I'm watching Beyonce.....by God that girl can sing!

TFL.