Friday Sketchers and 2 awards

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't been posting much of late but I'm intending on doing a whole lotta crafting from now on so stay tuned for regular updates! Today's posting is an entry for Friday Sketchers. The above sketch was set by Carole and is a really fun and simple one to do. Here is my take on it:

I've been itching to use my new Forever Friends stamps I got for Christmas so I made this card for my brother's birthday. I quite like the colouring I've done (if I do say so myself!!) I used watercolour pencils for that really soft look.I used my new rectangle nesties to cut out the design. The papers I used were from Banana Frog and the cardstock is American Crafts. I added a couple of brads from my stash.

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Forever Friends); Cardstock (American Crafts); Paper (Banana Frog); Brads; Nesties; Watercolour pencils

I've received a couple of awards which I hadn't mentioned- sorry ladies, I've not been on planet earth the last couple of months. This award is from Berenice. Thank you so much, Berenice, it's lovely to be appreciated!

This award is from the lovely Louise who always amazes me because she produces SO many amazing cards every week and I always LURVE her papers! Right back atcha ladies! I'm not going to pass these on just yet as I thought I might do some surfing and find some new blogs to add to my ever-extending list.

Digi Stamp Freebies

If you’re anything like I am, you have digi stamp freebies saved all over the place and you can never remember which ones you’ve got. So I’ve decided to set up a list of sites where you can download freebie images. Some of these sites do monthly freebies or just issue them sporadically.

If you know of any I haven’t got listed, feel free to let me know!

Bee Crafty downloads

Charmed Cards and Craft

Cocoa Studio Designs

Crafts Beautiful

Cuddly Buddly

Ellephantastic

Free Digital Stamps

Kenny K

My Graphico

Lost in Paper Scraps

Mel’s Stampz

Mo’s Digital Pencil Too

Paper Smooches Stamps

Pink Petticoat

Pollycraft’s

Princess Elemmiriel’s Gallery

Shery K Designs

Sketching Stamper

Stamp Fairy

Victoria Case Stamps

About me

Hi! My name is Steph and I live in sunny Essex, UK. I’m married to my soulmate who, not only is patient with my crafting, but positively encourages it!! I'm a Stay-At-Home-Mum to our gorgeous little son, Zachary, so I don't have as much time to craft/blog as I would like but I try not to go too long without doing it as I get withdrawal symptoms!!

My favourite thing about crafting is that I love nothing better than sitting down colouring in images, I could do it all day! I've also been very lucky to have been a member of some fantastic Design Teams.

Do leave a comment so I know you've been by and that way I can come and visit you too!

Oh, and I forgot, in case you were wondering... Honey Boo is my hubbie's nickname for me!

Contact me

Personal stuff and new crafty stash

I'm having a bit of a bad day today. As you might have noticed I haven't really crafted properly for quite a while (the presents I'd made a while ago). I haven't been able to craft for practical reasons but also I haven't really felt like crafting because it seems like such a trivial thing to do at a time like this but I have missed it. 

Crafting has helped me so much with regards to my CFS that I think it's been like some kind of therapy so I'm hoping it will help me get through my Dad's illness. So I hope that soon I will be able to do some posts of new crafts I've made once I feel able to get started again. It's just a really difficult time at the moment.

In the meantime as promised here are the pics of my new Christmas presents. Some of which I had picked out, some of which were total surprises from my husband. First off are the lovely Forever Friends stamps. These were a surprise and my husband even said to me "I picked what ones I thought you'd get the most use out of"!!! My hubbie is so great about my crafting.

Next up are some gorgeous Stampington stamps, Penny Black and Changito Monkey (I love that cheeky one!)

Look at this whole range of Laura Ashley stuff. This was all a complete surprise. 12"x12" paper, paper strips, ribbons, stamps, embellishments- all to match! I'm looking forward to using this with my Stampington stamps.

Lovely lovely Stamping Bellas and a couple of fellas! So excited about these as I've been wanting to get some for ages. Stamping Bella was offering free postage to anywhere in the world in November so I thought I'd take advantage.

Some clear stamps as well. Hero Arts cupcakes and more Stampington ones which will be great for ATCs and vintage style cards.

A load of embellishments, ribbons, hot fix crystals etc. Mainly from Poppicrafts.

I've noticed more people have been using gorgeous swirls on their cards and they look so wonderful so I thought I'd take the plunge and get a Sizzix swirl. The punch is the Lazy Days of Summer one which I think will be great for girly and vintage cards.

A whole load of American Crafts cardstock- Pastel, Tropicals and Autumnal. 

And lastly this great book. I know it's not alot different from looking at sketches and card on people's blogs but I liked the idea of having an actual book. It's great and I can highly recommend it. All the samples in it are fab.

More Christmas gifts

Hi everyone! Happy New Year to you all and thanks for all your support since my blog has been up and running! 

Just one last post showing a couple of other gifts I made as part of Christmas presents for family. The top one is a watercolour painting I did for my Dad. I'm just at the end of a watercolour painting class called "Houses and gardens" and this is the last painting I did. I'm quite pleased with it as I think the perspective came out quite well. If you're interested in seeing any of my other watercolours, you can check them out on my gallery on the side bar.
This was a little stocking filler for my Aunt. I made a little felt wallet and filled it with notelets. I can't sew to save my life- I had trouble sewing on the buttons!!- so I mainly used Bondaweb to seal the whole thing together which is a life saver for someone like me!
So here is one of the notelets. The image on the notelet is actually a watercolour painting I did of a Hibiscus which I gave to my Aunt last Christmas! (see my Painting gallery). I simply resized it and printed it out on little notelets. I think it makes quite a sweet little gift.
Finally I must just say thanks to Maddie as I won her fab blog candy earrings and she also sent me a little Calvin! How cute is that?

PS My next post will be lots of photos of all the lovely bits I got for Christmas!! Believe me, it was ALOT! I was very spoilt and I can't wait to show you all! x