Is it Spring or Christmas?!

Hello all! I've got 2 contrasting cards to show you today, well I guess they're both cute, but they reflect totally different seasons! One is another Christmas card, aren't I doing well this year?!! I'm kind of trying to make one every 1-2 weeks, not sure how long it will last but I'm actually really enjoying making them at the moment. Usually by the end of the year, I'm so fed up with them, they kinda get simpler and simpler and quicker and quicker!!! Oooh, was also really pleased as was in top 3 for 2 challenges last week! :0)

On a personal level, Mum starts her chemo on Friday. It's a strange situation. We are SO pleased she is starting her chemo what with all the delays etc but we have now been told, they think she is doing well enough to have chemo via infusion as well as tablets. Again, we are really pleased, as obviously the stronger dose she can have the better, but there are so many more side effects with the infusion that we are very apprehensive. Also personally it's a concern over how much care she will need especially considering that my CFS seems to be flaring up again. Ah well, guess it's a suck it and see situation. We are so very grateful she is having chemo so I'm not grumbling, it's fear of the unknown I suppose.

Well anyway, onto these cards I was on about!!....

First up is my very first Magnolia card- I finally succumbed!!! So I coloured her with my trusty watercolour pencils and used Lyra pencils for shading underneath her. I sponged some Tea dye ink around her. The papers are by Websters Pages and Crate Paper. The sentiment is by Waltzing Mouse, again sponged with ink. I distressed all the papers and sentiment using the Tim Holtz distresser. The Poinsettia is one I made again- I love how realistic they look. I was going to buy some ready made but it's much more satisfying to make your own so I'd heartily recommend the die. The swirl is Sizzix.

I'd like to enter this into:

CCEE Stampers- Christmas card

Paperplay Challenges- distressing

Crafty Catz- pearls and swirls

Papercutz- use 3 patterned papers

DCD Christmas Challenge- Tilda & flowers

Secret Crafter- Christmas in Spring

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Magnolia, Waltzing Mouse); Watercolour pencils; Lyra pencils; Papers (Websters Pages & Crate Paper); Assorted cardstock; Poinsettia die (Magnolia); Gold beads (Art Institute); Pearls (Prima); Swirl (Sizzix); Distressing tool; Button

My next card is this gorgeous Bessie Lulu stamp from Stamping Bella. I think these Lulus are adorable! I coloured her with watercolour pencils and paper pieced her dress and added some shading to that as well. The grass is Lyra pencils and I added a soft outline with a grey copic. I doubled stamped some of the flowers to give more of a pop to them and lots of lovely Stickles. I machine stitched around the edge of the card and added stitching to all of the buttons. The sentiment is by Elzybells, the heart was a freebie from an old crafting mag. I love the unusual button in the top left hand corner- I got that at a local indoor market I went to the other week. The sketch is an old Mojo Monday one for inspiration.

I'd like to enter this into:

ABC Challenge- quilting/sewing

Crafty Creations- in stitches

Simon Says Stamp- Mother's Day

Stamp Something- Spring

Papertake Weekly- it's a Mum thing

Allsorts- for a special lady

Here is a closer look! I love her long lashes!

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stamping Bella, Elzybells); Watercolour pencils; Lyra pencils; Copics; Papers (My Mind's Eye); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Stickles; Ribbon; Buttons; Heart; Sewing machine

Have a great week! xx

Which one's your favourite?

Hi everyone! How's your weekend been? We've had gorgeous weather here, maybe Spring has finally Sprung? I hope so! Hubbie is working today and Mum is packing to go home so I have kept myself busy doing what I love best!!! I've got 3 really different cards to show you today. I hope you like them- which one's your favourite?

First up is a card my sis asked me to make for my bro's 40th birthday this week. She chose this Stampendous Changito Monkey stamp. I immediately thought I'd use these great papers by Sugar Lily called Digital World- very apt! I coloured in the image with Lyra pencils. I would never usually use a colour combo like this- I rarely use yellow- but I really like how this turned out, it's funky! (if I do say so myself!!!) I used my new star nesties to create an embelly. The "email me" sentiment was on one of the sheets of paper and I printed out the "40 today" on my PC.

I'd like to enter this into:

Sweet Stop Sketches

Paper Cutz- anything goes

Simon Says Stamp- Happy Birthday

Papertake Weekly- use 3 of something - 3 papers

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Stampendous); Lyra pencils; Copics; Papers (Sugar Lily); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Button

Next up is my second Christmas card of the year!!!! And I've gone for the same image I used last time- doh!! Anyhow I think this is a slightly different style of card from me in that it is Stamping Bella a bit vintagey! I coloured Snowbunnybella with watercolour and lyra pencils. I then stamped Waltzing Mouse snowflakes around her and inked the edges of the image too. This gorgeous paper is by Cosmo Cricket. The sentiment is also Waltzing Mouse. What do you think of my homemade poinsettia??!!! I LOVE IT!! I'm lovin my work today aren't I???!!! lol. I made this using my new Magnolia die. I inked up the edges of the flowers and put Art Institute beads in the centre. I can't take the credit for the style of this flower which I saw here.

I'd like to enter this into:

Diecut Dreams Christmas Challenge- sketch plus lavender and lace

Crafts 4 Eternity- use fabric, buttons & beads

Charisma Cardz- use die cuts

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stamping Bella; Waltzing Mouse); Watercolour pencils; Lyra pencils; Paper (Cosmo Cricket); Assorted cardstock; Rose corsage ink; Lace; Button; Thread; Beads (Art Institute); Poinsettia & romantic lace dies (Magnolia); Ribbon; Pearls

And last up is a Mother's Day for my wonderful Mum from my sis. She chose this Whipper Snapper stamp which I coloured with copics and lyra pencils. I love these fun tree and birdie papers by Pebbles, I've been waiting to use them and I think this image is perfect! The sentiment and heart were freebies with a mag from ages ago. The green border is from K & Co. Buttons and thread from stash.

I'd like to enter this into:

Sketch Saturday

Stamping For the Weekend- Mother's Day

Stamp Something- something sweet

Crafty Catz- Mother's Day

Alphabet Challenge- trees

Crafty Creations- Mother's Day

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Whipper Snapper); Copics; Lyra pencils; Papers (Pebbles); Assorted cardstock; Sentiment & heart (freebies); Buttons; Thread

Have a fun and busy crafting week! Hope you get to create to your heart's content xxx

Don't touch my craft room....

Hallo everyone! Hope you are all doing good. No cards this week to show you, I've been finishing my craft organizer! This has been in the making (in my head!) for quite a few months now and I've been making notes as to what I wanted to put in here for sooo long. If you're anything like me, you're pretty disorganised and I end up spending time on searching for stuff cos I write things down on scrappy bits of paper rather than doing the fun bit of crafting.

So here is my organizer. I know it's going to be super useful as I've spent so much time thinking about what I need but I hope you will all find some ideas here maybe for doing your own. I'm really pleased with it as I haven't seen anything like it on blogs or You Tube so I hope you will find it interesting.

So basically I wanted my organizer to be 1) practical and 2) reusable ie from year to year. Oh, and purely for vanity's sake, I wanted it to match my colour guide so I've used the same templates but just adapted them!

So here is the front cover. If you click on the pic you can see the sentiment a bit better, it really made me laugh and is totally appropriate for an organizer! The image and sentiment are by Elzybells. I used my website fonts to create a PC generated organizer label cut out with nesties. The organizer is 9 x 10" in size and I used some recycled cardboard to create the covers and bound the whole thing with my Bind-It-All.

As you can see, I divided up my organizer into 7 sections- Calender, Christmas, Ideas, Shopping, Websites, Books and Honey Bootique (ie my website). I created tabs using the PC and then punched them out with my Stampin Up tab punch. This page is the divider for the Calender page and is done using Billboardabella.

The Calender section is where I do my planning for cards, gifts and projects I make during the year (aside from Christmas). As you can see from the template, there is a page for each month of the year. I've created a table containing lists of usual birthdays/events I create for, then a section for a description of what stamps I'm going to use and a check box for whether I've coloured the image and then made the card. This is useful as I often colour a series of images in one go and like to plan ahead what stamps I'm going to use. This way I can easily see what I've done and not done. The table below is a section for additional orders that I need to do or that people have asked me to make during that month. I sell my cards for Macmillan so I have added a "paid" check box so I know I should have the money in my fund.I think this will also be useful from year to year so I can see whether I've used a particular stamp before on a person's card so they don't get the same one twice! The great reusable feature of this is that the tables are held in place by photo corners so each year, I can easily take the old ones out and print out a new table which is saved on my PC.

The next section is Christmas. I used Snowbunnybella for this divider. Pretty self explanatory really- this is for any Christmas makes!

As you can see, this is similar to my Calender section in that I have the names already typed out ready for details to be added.

I have a separate page for Christmas card orders as I usually get a few! Note again, I have the paid check box.

And one for Christmas gifts. "Prep" stands for any preparation that needs doing as I often make things in stages.

The third section is for Ideas and I've used Daydreamabella and a sentiment from Elzybells. This section just contains some page protectors. Here I will file any ideas I have for projects I want to make in the future- I always have lots of things I'd like to make!!

And next we have the Shopping section with the Shopabellas. This section has two functions really- a place to file details of essential stock items and "wish list" items to be stored in page protectors.

I have some templates for storing the details of the essential items. This is items that I regularly need to buy that I use a regular stockist for ie because of price/quality of that item. Normally I can't remember where I bought something! I have filled out a couple of examples for you.

Next up is the Website section with Clickabella on the divider. Self explanatory really- page protectors to file websites I like that I come across in my surfing. I normally end up bookmarking everything on my PC before I have really checked something out so this will help with that.

Next up is the Books section as decorated by Bookwormabella. Again this just contains page protectors. I am a big sucker for reading and buying craft books so this will help me easily store anything that takes my fancy.

Last up is the Honey Bootique section ie my website. Recognise the image??!!! lol. This again contains page protectors for notes of stuff I need to do on my website or useful things like what fonts I've used, colours etc.

And finally this is the back cover. I love this cute crafting image by Elzybells.

I really hope you've seen something useful and maybe can think of adaptions you can make to your own organizer. Do le me know if you do, I'd love to see it!

Here are a couple of challenges I'd like to enter into:

Papertake Weekly- use 3 of something (buttons)

Sassy Studio Designs- use something recycled (cardboard on covers)

Craft Your Passion- anything goes

Cutie Sunday- your fav colour combo- anything with pink!!

Crafty Pad- buttons

Secret Crafter- something for a female featuring flowers (for me!)

Have a great week! Thanks for stopping by xxx

Cupcake anyone...?

Hi folks! How's it going? We're having glorious sunshine here in Essex at the moment! Things are going well here. My Mum's procedure went well. She's come home with another stent in (boo) but they removed the drain! Yay! She is even thinking of going home in the next week or so which will be a bit wierd as she's been living here for 4 months now!!!!!

So I've got a bit of a long post today. I've made 3 cards and a bookmark for you to view. I'm also doing alot of work on my next Bind-It-All project which is a craft organiser. I can't wait to share it with you as I think it'll be super useful and I haven't seen that anyone has done anything similar.

Onto my first card.....

First up today is an old fav Stamping Bella stamp- Cupcakeabella. My Mum has asked me to make a card for one of her friend's birthdays who is a bit partial to cakes so I thought this would be perfect! I coloured her with a mixture of watercolour pencils and lyra pencils and paper pieced her dress. The gorgeous papers are by Heidi Grace Designs. The sentiment stamp is Hero Arts from their cupcake set. Do please click on the image to see it in more detail, for some reason it looks a bit dark in this photo.

I'd like to enter this into:

Simon Says Stamp- 1 image, 2 papers, 3 types of embellies

Alphabet Challenge- use ribbon

Cupcake Challenge- pink polka dots (they're pink & lilac, hope ok!)

Sketch Saturday

My Time To Craft- jewels

Here is a close up of her! Doesn't that cupcake look yummy?!!

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stamping Bella, Hero Arts); Copics; Watercolour pencils; Lyra pencils; Papers (Heidi Grace); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Ribbon (Stampin Up); Pearls (Wild Orchid Crafts?); Buttons (Walmart); Flowers (Prima); Gem (Prima)

Next up is a card for my friend's little girl using this cutie Penny Black teddy. I coloured her with watercolour pencils and lyra pencils. The papers are by My Mind's Eye. The decorative strip is by K&Co. The sentiment is Papertrey Ink.

I'd like to enter this into:

Friday Sketchers

Cute Card Thursday- signs of Spring

Dutch Dare- who's who in the zoo

Stamping for the weekend- spring

Charisma Cardz- four legged friends

Diecut Dreams- Spring garden

ABC Challenge- pink

Crafty stash used: Image (Penny Black); Stamp (Papertrey Ink); Copics; Lyra pencils; Watercolour pencils; Papers (MME); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Decorative strip (K&Co); Buttons; Brads (Woodware); Gem (freebie)

Next up is a card for our friend's 40th birthday using this fab Riley stamp. Riley is coloured with copics and his t-shirt is paper pieced. The sentiment is a Pink Petticoat one punched out with my Stampin Up window punch. The beer glass is a diecut I bought off Ebay ages ago. The little stars are a Die-namic strip which I cut into individual stars to decorate.

I'd like to enter this into:

Create4fun-sketch

Crafty Catz- special birthdays

Stamp Something- use something digi - my sentiment

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Riley); Sentiment (Pink Petticoat); Copics; Papers (Basic Grey); Stars (Die-namics die); Punch (Stampin Up); Beer die-cut (Ebay)

Lastly up is a non-card item!!! I'm doing really well this year for sticking to my crafting aims- one of which is to make some non-card gifts. I made this magnetic bookmark using the iTop Brad Maker I got in the US last year on hols. I was really chuffed with myself as I made the whole thing from scratch and had to figure out how the whole magnet thing was going to work.

I used scraps of papers which is great for using up your scrappy stash and used my sewing machine to add some texture. So I initially made the brad using the brad maker. Here you see my bookmark "at rest" lol....

Here you can now see it open and see the magnet which grips onto the back of the brad. I used one half of a magnet-daddy to do this.

Here you see the bookmark "at work"!! It grips really well to the page and the brad doesn't make the book bulge too much when the book is shut. I like how the flower looks onto the book page.

I'd like to enter this into:

Cutie Sunday- bookmark

I'm going to make more of these for friend's during the year so I will do a tutorial if anyone's interested to show how easy the iTop is to use.

Crafty stash used: iTop brad maker; brad daddies; magnet daddies; flower; paper scraps; assorted cardstock; sewing machine

And lastly some naughty new crafty stash. Really, all this stress is no good for my purse!!!!! Another one of my new crafty "resolutions" was to try some different things/styles so I decided I wanted to do some vintage cards, especially for Christmas. I looked around for some stamps that were really versatile and coordinated with each other and came up with this lot from Waltzing Mouse Stamps. I'm a bit reticent about using them now as it's so out of my comfort zone!!! Doh!!! Does anyone else have that problem? Watch this space!

Thanks so much for taking the time to drop by today- I know it's been a bit of a loooong post! Hope you have a fun week and get to enjoy some of this lovely sunshine we're having at the moment. xxx

Stamping is my therapy!

Hello everyone! Hope you're all having a fun week. The last week has been fairly quiet again here so I've managed to make a whole host of cards- well 4 to be precise! My Mum is back in Basingstoke Hospital. She went in yesterday to have her stent in her liver replaced and we found out today that they will be taking her drain from her liver out tomorrow!!!!! This is HUGE news! Mum has had this drain in since November and has been painful and awkward for her. It has also prevented her from getting chemo. This is a really big step to hopefully things starting to move forward. One worry though is that last time she had the stent put in she developed pancreatitis so we are desperately hoping this won't happen again - last time it developed overnight so I hope she will be OK tonight.

Anyway, onto this week's cards...

My first card is for one of my blogging buddies and is using the cutest stamps from Elzybells. Don't you just love the sentiment?! I miss Elzybells!! I've coloured her with copics and used watercolour pencils on her hair. The papers are by MME. Do you see how she has the same designer papers as me??!! lol.

I'd like to enter this into:

Sketch Saturday

Crazy 4 Challenges- use flowers

Sweet Stampin- girly

Crafty Catz- for a friend

Stamptacular Sunday- use a frame

A little close up! I love how she looks in a total crafting frenzy!!

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Elzybells); Copics; Watercolour pencils; Papers (MME); Assorted cardstock; Nesties; Flower (Poppicrafts); Button (Bunny Zoe's ?)

Next up is another card for my brother's birthday- from my Mum. I coloured Riley with copics and paper pieced the couch and cushion. Do you like the room I created? I used copics on the carpet and sponged brown ink for the walls. The sentiment is by Papertrey Ink. Papers are by Papermania.

I'd like to enter this into:

Friday Sketchers

Sentimental Sunday- anything goes & sentiment

Alphabet Challenge- quote or saying

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Riley, Papertrey Ink); Copics; Papers (Papermania); Assorted cardstock

Next up is my first Christmas card of the year!!!!!! I've never made Christmas cards before October before but I was determined to start early this year. I'm dead chuffed with myself. So I used, who else, but Stamping Bella's Snowbunnybella which I got for Christmas. I've coloured her with watercolour pencils and paper pieced her coat and boots. I added Stickles to her and Faux Snow on the ground. The snowflake and stripey paper is by 3 Bugs in a Rug, I can't find where the pink is from. Sentiment is Elzybells.

I'd like to enter this into:

DieCutDreams Christmas club- sketch & pink & blue

Papertake Weekly- anything goes & something old/not used before

Cutie Sunday- your favourite stamp (anything by Stamping Bella!!)

Christmas cards all year round- 3 papers & 3 embellies

Crafty stash used: Stamps (Stamping Bella; Elzybells); Watercolour pencils; Papers (3 Bugs in a Rug); Assorted cardstock; Snowflake die (Sizzix); White snowflakes (The Works); Brads (Woodware); Pearls (Wild Orchid Crafts); Buttons (Walmart); Stickles; Faux snow (Art Institute)

Wooo! Four cards this week! I'm on a roll. I made this in a bit of a hurry today. I've made this for the new tenants in my Dad's shop. We finally have some tenants who have refitted my Dad's shop- it's now a wet fish shop!- and have their opening this week. We thought we'd send them a card to say good luck and congratulations. It will be bittersweet really. Obviously for business reasons, it's good to have tenants (!) and it's nice to have a new business in their instead of it lying empty and neglected but it will be a bit emotional seeing someone else in there with a new sign up. I think my Dad would be proud that we've kept the business running so I'm sure he'll be pleased.

So I've used this Forever Friends image I had and coloured with watercolour pencils. The papers are by My Mind's Eye. The sentiment is Papertrey Ink, the scalloped edge by Die-namics and I've rounded off with a corner punch.

I'd like to enter this into:

Mojo Monday- sketch

Pals Paper Arts- use scallops

Crafty stash used: Stamp (Papertrey Ink); Image (Forever Friends); Watercolour pencils; Papers (MME); Assorted cardstock; Corner punch; Nesties; Scalloped die (Die-namics- MFT); Button (Walmart); Stickles

Thanks for dropping by this week. Have fun! xx