Parents Golden Wedding Anniversary

I just wanted to share a few photos with you that were taken yesterday whilst we had a gorgeous lunch to celebrate the oldies wedding anniversary. These might help if your a frequent visitor to my blog by putting a face to the name. So firstly we have .....

My parents. Its unusual to get Dad smiling on a photo. I suppose thats where I get it from. If someone points a camera at me (as you'll see shortly) I get self-concious and uncomfortable its unbelievable.

Declan (my nephew) and Eloise (our youngest). My sister's and our kids are really close. As you can see Ellie loves her little cousin!

My DH, Andy and me. See what I mean about my photo lol!

And again with my big sister Chris!

Our girls... Eloise on the left and Fae on the right. How much more unalike could they be!

Eloise, Bethany and Fae. The girls get on really well and are more like sisters than cousins. I think Beth looks on Fae and Ellie as her big sisters!

Scott (our future SIL), Fae's fella, posing! Don't normally get a photo of Scott, he generally says he hates having his photo taken. What do you think lol!

Declan and Rylee ~ he's this big hard 16 yr old lad or supposed to be! He visits Rylee most days and is forever wanting to take him out for a walk!

Bethany, Scott and Ellie ~ Scott thought he was some sort of stud muffin pmsl!

And our grandson Rylee on the way out. He thought it was great cos the wind was blowing in his face and making the leaves dance around his feet!

Cute Card Thursday ~ Challenge 30

Challenge 30

Christmas Animals

This week we would like you to use Christmas themed animals on your cards.

Rylee asked me to make Christmas cards and a little gift for his Nursery Nurses and this is what I came up for him. Card is ... CS ~ stash, DP ~ free download from somewhere, sentiment ~ Shabby Princess Holiday Sampler, image ~ Precious Moments Clipart. I used the same image on the gift tag and added a verse inside....

It's Christmas Eve, time for bed. But not an eye will close.Too much excitement in the air,To let you even doze.
So make a magic potionTo help you fall asleep:Then Santa and his helpersCan down the chimney creep.
Pour this cocoa in a mug,And with hot water mix:Then drop in the magic kiss,And stir with the candy stick!
Add a few marshmallows,And sip it slowly down.Crawl into bed and snuggle in -The 'magic sleep' will come!

I used the same sort of one cup sachets as last time .... Cappucino, Latte, Horlicks, Maltersers, Coffee, Highlights and a teabag but this time added a Chocolate and Hazelnut wafer (got a box of 10 for £1.69 from Aldi all individually wrapped).

Papertake Weekly Challenge ~ Katharina's Sketch #12

This weeks challenge is a fab sketch from Katharina.

Another Christmas card done... well 6 actually, tend to make a batch of 6 each time. CS ~ Crafts Central, DP ~ Kay Miller Arcticantics, image ~ Dinky Dots Eskimo (thanks for help with printing Becky xxx) coloured with Whisper pens and blinged with glamour dust, sentiment ~ Studio G, ribbon ~ was wrapped round card blanks!

Sketch Saturday ~ Sketch #18

This is the sketch for Sketch Saturday's challenge. I found this the most challenging sketch to date. God knows why. I made 3 cards using this sketch, 1 went in the bin and the other 2 I'm not happy with either. Here they are....

First card - CS ~ Papermill, DP ~ freebie download from last year dont remember where, image ~ RAK, sentiment ~ Studio G, jingle bells ~ Poundland, ribbon ~ stash, coloured with Whisper pens and blinged with Glamour Dust.

Second card - CS ~ stash, DP ~ Summer Driggs, image ~ Precious Moments, sentiment ~ Studio G.

Friday Sketchers ~ Sketch #21

This is the sketch from Friday Sketchers...

This week they have a sponsor called "Kort & Hobby Godt AS" its a Norwegian company that produces their own stamps and accessories.They sell retail and wholesale.Most of their products are manufactured exclusively for them.The prize this week is a stamp collection, lace, ribbons, nails, charms and other embellishments.

CS ~ Papermill, DP ~ Pink Petticoat, image ~ RAK, sentiment ~ Studio G clear stamps, coloured with ~ Whisper pens, Snowflake charm ~ Poppicrafts, snowflakes ~ punched from mirri card, glamour dust on wings.

OMFG! I WON....................!

Yeh.....I won! .... I won! {jumping about} ... I'm really excited cos I won the amazing "Peeking Bunny" stamp at Sketch Saturday. I've never won anything before... not even the blasted lottery! I do love the sketches at Sketch Saturday and I'm not just saying that cos I WON! I can't believe it! I love random.org pmsl!

I think I've hidden my excitement well, dont you? ROFLMAO!!!!!

Cute Card Thursday ~ Challenge 29

This week the theme for the challenge is.....
Lots of sparkle!
You can add bling, glitter, baubles, stickles, anything that makes your card sparkle!
We have a sweet little Sugar Nellie stamp to give away this week. The very sweetChristmas Honey designed by Elisabeth Bell.

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for the poor photos, clearly there's something wrong with my camera (could be the operator at fault!) So I hope you can see the sparkle on them. Secondly, after blog hopping I find that you lot are making Christmas cards already and have been for months, so I thought it was time I pulled my proverbial finger out and got making! These are the cards I've made for Fae and Scott to give I've done 6 of each design. CS ~ stash, DP ~ Raspberry Road Crystal Skies, Glitter card ~ Home Bargains, bling ~ stash, snowflakes ~ punch and image ~ google search engine (christmas couple sketch), coloured with watercolour pencils. Love how these have turned out and Fae's happy with them too!
These are the ones that I've made for Eloise. I googled "Precious Moments Clipart" and it brings up some fab images, even found a page that you could download the images to colour yourself. Thought I'd saved it to favourites but its not there when I find it I'll post the link. I managed to use all the christmas paper I printed out last year and never used and scrap pieces of card! Again used the glitter card for corners and snowflakes and added stickles to the snowball and snow.

Papertake Weekly Challenge ~ Mellow Yellow!/Children In Need

This weeks challenge is a charity one! Quick Cards made easy magazine are trying to break the record for the worlds biggest handmade card, for BBC Children in Need.You're able to use any products/materials you like but the finished card needs to be yellow!! The preferred size for the card is a standard A6 (approx 4x6 in). All cards will be put together to form a giant Pudsey Bear card!

We'd love to help support this charity and I'd like to ask everyone who joins in with this weeks challenge if they would kindly, like to send their cards in!?Of course you don't have to and you can join in in the usual way but it would be lovely for PTW to be able to send off some cards to add to the total!For each different person who sends a card (or cards!) to me (to send on from PTW!)within the next 2 weeks, I will make a donation of 25p!

Loving this card! CS ~ stash, DP ~ Pink Petticoat, image ~ from fall collection coloured with whisper markers and paper pieced, blooms and bling ~ stash. I don't very often find myself making yellow cards its not really one of my favourite colours, but I'm really pleased with how this has turned out!

Shhhhhh.....Listen!

.....What can you hear? Me, I can hear the whirring of Andy's PC and the clicking of the keys on my laptop as I type! Oh this is bliss lol! Might even listen to the sound of the kettle in a mo cos I'm gagging for a brew.........yes there's that sound!...........Shhhhhh! Peace and quiet! No I've not lost the plot, well not quite anyway, but I'm working on it pmsl! I'm home alone. Andy and Ellie have gone to college, Rylee's gone home and its just me and Peaches the cat. My one day of real freedom.......no having to listen to "Muuuuuum, does this look ok on me?" "why doesn't it look ok, you can't just say it doesn't look ok there's got to be a reason" "Muuuuuuuum, can you give me a spray tan, straighten my hair, give me a lift, etc" or "Jill can you check my college work? "Jill what we having for tea?" or "Mum, can you look after Rylee" "Mum can you pick me up some nappies, wipes, etc" or from Rylee "jhuyaj hofhhiw hoslij" "ta ta ta". So listen to my house while I make a cuppa............... See how nice that sounds! pmsl!

So whilst I've been alone for the past hour I managed to get 2 candles made and a gift sorted. I printed the images out this afternoon while Rylee was asleep so that I was all ready to go once he'd gone home.....

These candles I've done for Carrie (my neice) and Dean (her hubby) for their birthday's next month. If you're a frequent visitor, you'll know I made birthday cards for them using the same images, if you're not a frequent visitor then, hey get with the programme lol! I printed the images out in the usual way and then buffed them up with a dry cloth once they were cooled (tip from Barbara, thanks honey), makes the image all shiny and sort of stands out a bit more, or that could be my imagination!

Oh ffs, just pressed the publish button before I've finished, see what happens when I get too excited!

I got this cup for Eloise to give to Carrie. Its a VW camper cup and coaster.... only saying cos the pictures not really clear. It came in a really crappy cardboard box, that's in the bin now. I wanted to jazz it up a bit so it wasn't your bog standard boring cup. In the top of my wardrobe I've got a bag of goodies. No that those sort of goodies, keep it clean ladies!.......I added a few of those, one cup sachets.... Maltesers, Horlicks, Cappucino, Coffee, hot chocolate and a tea bag. Thought it looked a bit better. Wrapped it in cellophane and added a piece of ribbon and......voila.... a cheap cup, with one cup sachets in..........roflmao (that just for you Becky!)

What A Fab Weekend!

Well my Mojo's been on overdrive this weekend, don't quite know what happened but just couldn't make cards quick enough. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep that did it, I wont go into details, but just say lady problems... roll on the menopause! I suppose it could have something to do with my fab new Magnolia Fall Stamps. I just don't know....

Just love all these cards. I've also started Ellie's Christmas cards too, managed to make 8 of those up to now, but I'll show those later. All the paper and card I used for these cards were from my scrap box, all leftovers from previous projects. All images are coloured with Whisper Markers and paper pieced with background DP's and the bling, ribbon and any other stuff is from my stash.

I was hoping that one of these would fit the PTW challenge, sadly they don't so it looks like its back to the dining table for me! (what a shame lol!)

Just been looking at my blog and noticed that its over a week since I had a session with a candle ... oh you filthy minded devil! It did sound wrong though didn't it? pmsl! Anyway, I think I'm having withdrawal symptoms so I better rectify that! (that sounds wrong too!) ..... Oh sod it I'm going................

For My Parents

This is the card that I shall be giving my parents on their wedding anniversary. I wanted something a little bit special and didn't have a clue what to do... until I visited Carol's amazing blog. On there I saw a gorgeous card that she had made for a Golden Wedding Anniversary. So I mailed her and asked her if she would mind if I used her design to make my parents card. Obviously, she very kindly said yes and so here it is....I used CS ~ stash, DP ~ Pink Petticoat, flourish ~ googled wedding clipart and printed out then using glue pen glittered (not too happy with that part of it, actually doesn't look too bad on her but IRL its not as crisp as I'd like it to be) 50 years ~ printed out and coloured with gold Sakura pen, ribbon and heart brads ~ stash

Thanks so much Carol for allow me to use your design!

Sketch Saturday ~ Sketch #17

Sketch #17... and there's a fab prize up for grabs this week! sponsored by Bootiful Stampz "peeking bunny".

Using this sketch I made another card for my parents golden wedding anniversay. This is the one that Fae, Scott and Rylee will be giving them. CS ~ stash, DP's ~ Pink Petticoat, image ~ Rak, coloured with Whisper Markers and blinged with diamond stickles on the bottom of the dress and veil, Martha Stewart doily punched bits ~ Dawny P's lovely Rak and pearls and ribbon ~ stash.

My Awards!

Becky and Jill have very kindly given me the "One Sweet Blog Award" and Jill has also given me the "Sylvester Award". I would like to say that I truly appreciate these awards and am pleased that my work is inspirational to some of you! It's always nice to be told that your work is fab by others, apart from family and friends who can be at times biased. So now to pass on these awards to others... Well, there are so many blogs that make me smile and two of those blogs belong to the above mentioned, but seeing as Jill already has these awards, as much as I'd love to include her in the list, it'd be a never ending process of sending it too and fro. So Jill, you do make me smile lots, every time I visit your blog and you are one of the sweetest virtual people I've met, you too Becky!

Right, here goes.... Becky I award you the Sylvester Award.... the following people are awarded both awards .....Carol, Carole, Dawny P, Jacqui, Rach, and Vicky.

Cute Card Thursday ~ Challenge 28 and Friday Sketchers Sketch ~#20

Challenge 28 is Food ~ This week we would like to see some food on your card. There is some gorgeous ribbons from Ribbon Oasis to give to one randomly chosen winner.

Kristine from Norway has designed this weeks Friday Sketchers Sketch #20 and this week they have a Norwegian sponsor called 3ndypapir. The winner of Kristine's sketch will receive a complete set of the 2008 summer collection papers.
I've made this card for my parents who will be celebrating their Golden Wedding Anniversary in October. This card is one I've made from one of the girls. CS and bling ~ stash, DP's ~ Pink Petticoat, Lola's Boudiour in gold, image ~ Panduro wedding collection, coloured with Whisper Markers, sentiment ~ Pink Petticoat and flowers ~ HOTP template.

An Award!

Elaine has given me the award on the right, thank you Elaine thats so kind of you. I would like to pass this on to Jill, Becky, Barbara, Kerry and Rach.

I'm so excited!

Sad, but true! I'm really excited about going to Derby's new Primark this morning. I'm all ready and chomping at the bit. Just gotta wait for Andy to get ready..... who said women take more time? I've showered, done my hair, make-up and got dressed and hes still faffing in the bathroom! I'd go without him but he has the cash lol!

Didn't loose anything at fat club again! Thats 2 weeks running. But have decided perhaps I'm eating too much bread!

Anyway gonna get my coat on. See ya when I get back!!!!

Edited: Well, I'm back from Primark and it was fab!......But, Andy ended up buying more for him than I had! (that's it he definately has to be banned from Primark, he's getting worse than a woman) I did get what I wanted, which was a pair of pinstriped trousers and some black 3/4 length trouser and as I walked passed a handbag and umbrella fell in my basket lol! Got Rylee a gorgeous pair of black jeans with red stitching and a little black, red and grey sweater.... so cute! Will show him tomorrow after nursery. Oh yes... my trousers we're a size 12! thats 2 dress sizes since joining Weight Watchers aka Fat Club lol! I'm still 2.5lbs away from my 10% but who cares when I can fit in a size 12 again! Ok, in all fairness they are snug at the minute, but the 14 looked and was enormous, well ok then, not enormous but too big. I have until October 4th to shrink into them perfectly though!

Sketch Saturday ~ Sketch #16

Another fabulous sketch from Jo at Sketch Saturday!

CS ~ Papermill, DP ~ Leftovers, images ~ new Magnolia Fall Collection coloured with Whisper Markers and blinged with Glamour Dust, sentiment ~ RAK from Jo.

I made this thank you card for Fae & Scott to say thanks for the lovely Sunday roast they cooked for us last weekend. It was really nice not having to prepare veg and all the other things a Sunday lunch entails. I did still have to wash the pots though! LOL!

Papertake Weekly Challenge ~ Katharina's Sketch #11

This weeks challenge is another of Katharina's sketches!

CS ~ Papermill, DP ~ more leftovers, image ~ google search engine, Martha Stewart Doily Punched bits ~ courtesy of Dawny P, ribbon, pearls and peel off ~ stash and sentiment ~ PC generated and cut out using Nesties.

This was an SOS card for my Mum's Friends daughter. She'd been looking for a card for her Granddaughter's 1st birthday with Winnie the Pooh on and apparently they were a bit boyish. So this is what I came up with.

Unexpected Rylee free day!

I didn't realise Fae had booked the day off work today, so I have an unexpected Rylee free day and am looking forward to the rest of the week too..... the outlaws will have him tomorrow morning whilst I grocery shop, Wednesday morning he's at nursery, Thursday he's spending the day (for the very first time ever) with his other Grandma (Scott's Mum), not sure how thats gonna work out but oh well! Going to take the opportunity to visit Derby's new 3 floor Primark .... heaven!!! And Friday morning he's back at nursery again!!! How lucky am I? So, you'd think I'd have done lots today ..... wrong! I've been shopping for size smaller clothes this morning, came home had lunch and finally got Ellie to give me a full leg and bikini line wax....ouch!!!! I always think its a good idea till she starts doing it and then I remember its not pmsl! But its done now and I'm sat here at my laptop all sticky and with my legs and bits still fizzing! I have got another card to post for this weeks PTW challenge that I made yesterday and which fits brilliantly, but I need to go to my Mum's cos its for her friends, daughters, granddaughter and I forgot to take a photo of it. I just hope she's not collected it yet!

Carol's Fun Sketch #3

Yet another fab sketch from Carol and more goodies for one random winner....

I've made this card for my neice Carrie whose having a 30th birthday next month... God, that makes me sound old, but there's only 9 years between us and the funny thing is theres 9 years between her and my eldest Fae and 9 years between Fae and Carrie's daughter Ebony! Anyway , CS ~ The Works, DP ~ Raspberry Road Designs, Bailly's Room, image ~ google search engine, sentiment ~ done on PC and cut out using Nesties, flowers and bling ~ stash.

Both Carrie and her hubby are mad on VW Camper vans and have a huge collection of bits and bobs. Obviously, not being able to afford the real thing I thought I'd use an image on both cards. Here's the card I made for Dean.....

CS ~ stash, DP ~ leftover from last weeks PTW challenge, image ~ google search engine and embellishments ~ symbols cut from Hippie Chick alpha's on the cuttlebug in leather, turned them over cos I thought they looked better that way round! Layout is loosely based on Friday Sketchers Sketch ~19