Help!!!! Please!

I really, really need your help! You know the card I made for my Auntie ... the pink card for Suzanne's blog candy! Well, can I think of anything to put inside it .... NO! Tried looking for verses but none that I've seen seem appropriate. I've looked at breast cancer awareness quotes but do you think there suitable ... does she want to be reminded... oh I just dont know! At this rate gonna leave it blank and just do the "with much love Jill, Andy and Ellie" business. I did find this though ....

May brooks and trees and singing hills

Join in the chorus too,

And every gentle wind that blows

Send happiness to you.

~Irish Blessing

I did think that was nice but is it apt? Any ideas or thoughts would be really appreciated!

A Few Makes For Nursery.

As you probably know I make cards for the nursery that Fae, Beth and Vicki work at for the children's birthdays. Above are the latest batch of cards that I've made. All cards have been made with scrap paper and card leftover from previous projects and images are from RAK's or PIF's ... thought I would get some of those used up too! All images have been coloured with either watercolour pencils or Whisper Markers. Everything else used on cards is from stash.

Think Pink "Breast Cancer Awareness" Blog Candy & Tilda & Co Challenge 40

Suzanne is giving away some gorgeous pink blog candy. She wants to do something special for her blogoversary and 30,000 hits BLOG CANDY. The October "Think Pink" campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness is very close to her heart and I am sure it is the same for many of you too. So when the new "Tilda Think Pink" stamps were released on Saturday she was straight on the site to order 2 Tilda's and a couple of sentiments. She has decided as us girls have been so kind and supportive over the past year that she is going give one of each... a BCA Tilda and sentiment along with lots of pink goodies to make our cards with. No picture at the moment but as soon as the stamps arrive she will post one. She is to keep this open for the whole month of October and she will get her Mum to choose a winner on Friday 31st October at 20.00 hrs. Here is what she would like us to do.. "if you have time can you make a pink card and send it to someone who could do with a little tender loving care. It would be lovely if it was someone who's life has been touched by this terrible disease but it can be anyone who could do with a kind word and a beautiful card to cheer them up. I am sure we all know someone."

Well I definitely do! My Auntie was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and has had surgery and spent the whole summer having Chemotherapy and is now having Radiotherapy. Hopefully things will begin to look up for soon. 2008 most definitely hasn't been a good year for her and her family. So this is the card that I enter into Suzanne's blog candy competition and will be sending to my Auntie to let her know even though we live so many miles away, she's still very much in our thoughts!

I have based this card on the sketch at Tilda & Co Challenge . My first ever entry for this challenge blog. CS ~ pink pearl card, Papermill, DP's and sentiment which reads "faith hope strength" ~ Summer Driggs Awareness, blooms and pearls ~ stash, image ~ coloured with Whisper markers and paper pieced.

Sketch Saturday ~ Sketch ~20

Another fab sketch at Sketch Saturday and another card made for Vicki my best friend. She's definately getting her monies worth out of me at the minute lol!

CS ~ Papermill, DP ~ Shabby Princess, image ~ RAK from Kathy, coloured with Whisper markers, Sakura stardust and glaze pens, hearts ~ cuttlebug die, pearls ~ Crafts Central, raffia ~ Poundland, Stickles added to wings.

Blogoversary Candy

It's my blogoversary in 9 days and to celebrate my first year in blogland I am giving you the chance to win this.....

• 2 brand new mermaid stamps
• 12 watercolour pencils
• 1 pair of pink scissors
• 1 mini glue gun
• 1 pack of 10 glue sticks
• 1 pack 6 plain A5 cards and envelopes
• 32 sheets of holographic card (8 each of silver, gold, red and purple)

I wanted to offer something different to everyone else's offer of blog candy at the moment so I've gone for the more practical side of crafting...i think lol!

Anyway, for you chance to win this all you have to do is to leave a comment below this reply and tell everyone about it. The more comments I get the more I shall add to it!

Please join in!

Entry closes October 22nd at 12 noon and a winner will be announced later that evening!

A Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge 20 & Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge #2

This weeks Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge is to use the colour scheme of pink and green, any shades of these colours are fine.( you can also use face and hair colours). There is the chance of winning a fab stamp of an Alota Bugs By the Fire Stamp which has been very kindly donated by Bryony from Silly Monkey Crafts.

This week's Saturday sketch is from Sue. Use the sketch anyway you like as long as we can still recognise it! No theme or technique again this week so lets see what you create!

This is another card for Laura-Jayne made for Daniel and Aimee to give her (hi Aimee! lol) CS ~ stash, DP's ~Raspberry Road, Annie papers, image ~ Kerry-Jo stamp, coloured with Whisper Markers and blinged with Glamour Dust and Sakura Glaze pens, gems & ribbon ~ stash.

I'm a lucky girl!

Earlier this week I had some lovely things through the post from 2 lovely, generous people! The first envelope to be opened was from Kathy who kindly sent me some WOJ stamped images, as I've not been able to afford any as yet! These gorgeous images came in an adorable card, which has the cutest little girl on.

My next parcel was from my one of my bestest blog buddies, Jill. It contained fab images, every sort of image you could think of, ribbon, blooms (how did she know I need some desperately?) a cute little stamp that reminds me of Rylee, some champagne bottles... not real ones of course lol and a little romper suit sort of thingy topper! All in a gorgeous folder. I have to admit I was really touched.

The photo just doesn't really do the stash justice! Anyway, Jill a few days earlier had sent me all these image too....

So, how lucky am I? Thank you girls, I really appreciate your generousity!

Secret Crafter ~ Challenge #1

Each week Secret Crafter will set a challenge. It may be a sketch, theme, techique or a mixture of anything. At the end of each month all names of people taking part will go into a "hat" and a winner drawn - the more times you play the more chances you have.

Loved this sketch, the hardest part was deciding which image I was gonna use for it! In the end I chose one of my new stamps from Panduro. CS and DP's ~ leftovers from other projects, snowflakes ~ mirri card using Cuttlebug die, sentiment ~ RAK from Jo, image ~ Panduro coloured with Whisper markers and Sakura pens.

Sketch Saturday ~ Sketch #19

This is the first DT week at sketch Saturday and Gill is the first member to host the sketch challenge and to celebrate her upcoming birthday and her first ever DT post, there is a super prize up for grabs this week. One lucky entrant will receive a fabulous stamp from Whiff of Joy which was kindly given to Gill as a gift for her birthday by Katharina.

Using more leftovers I made this card for Fae, Scott and Rylee to give to my neice's husband. CS and DP ~ leftovers, image ~ RAK from Vicki and coloured with watercolour pencils and Whisper markers, leaves ~ Magnolia fall collection coloured with Whispers, sentiment ~ studio G and raffia ~ stash.

Friday Sketchers ~ Sketch #22

Carole from England is hosting this weeks sketch. It's a really easy one for you to try and is excellent for using up bits of ribbon or even strips of paper. There's plenty of room for all your embellishments and your sentiment is sure to fit just about anywhere on the card! Here's the sketch....

and my card...

Wow! I managed a fab boys card! I was panicking a bit about this one. I find boys cards exceptionally hard to make and especially ones with a space theme! So this is my first card for my friends little boy....only 2 more to go! CS ~ leftover from another card, DP ~ another leftover, image ~ another google search and sentiment ~ freebie download from Dottie's world, peel-off ~ stash and stitching courtesy of my little machine. Love this sketch and the way this has turned out and will definately be using it again... thanks Carole!

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................