Pure Innocence...

Isn't she cute? I'm loving these digi-stamp images from Heather Ellis, who can also be found on Etsy.  At first I was using these the 'old-fashioned' way - printing off the black and white outlines then colouring with Promarkers then cutting out and sticking to my background layer, and hand-writing sentiments as in this card....

Then I decided to have a bit of a play around with them in Paint.NET, making the background transparent and converting to png files so I could layer up onto the digital backing paper before printing.  I've added the sentiment at this stage too.  

Don't worry though, the Promarkers aren't redundant - I've still hand-coloured the images, and I've gone over the red sentiment and other red areas of the design with a red Spica pen just for a subtle hint of glitter.


I think I feel a notelet set coming along....

my kind of recycling

A card I made for a colleague & her husband, on behalf of all of the staff at the library a few weeks ago.  I didn't blog it at the time as I'd saved it directly to the internal memory of my camera then couldn't find the lead to download to my PC!

I still can't decide if I'm happy with it or not, although everyone else loved it.  The stitching is a design from Stitching Cards, modified to fit a square format, with some stick-on gems added for a bit more 'fizz'.


As usual for my 'special' cards I made a matching box too...

with a close-up of the tag to show the detail

And the recycling bit?  The ribbon on the card and box was taken from a friend's bridal bouquet, and the flowers and leaf 'tag' were from the flowers decorating another pal's wedding cake.

Not a card today...

...but a patriotic necklace!

Very simple construction, flags printed off and laminated then cut out and sandwiched in pairs with a ribbon loop and threaded onto  cord that I've tied in a bow at the back of my neck.  Lots of compliments, and no-one else has one!


Also made some mini-bunting to decorate my desk at work (but forgot to take a pic!)  - made some spares for my workmates too!


Lesley x

Gorgeous and girly...

Just a quickie this time to show off  this 'little cutey' Forever Friends card, which is actually 8" square! 

The image is a wall decor sticker from the Forever Friends Pink Parfait range.  These come in a pack of 3 large images, with lots of smaller elements too.  They were originally sold at £3.99 per pack, then Hobbycraft had them for £2.99 and I was tempted...but so glad I waited as they went down to £1.99 per pack!


The backing paper and sentiment sticker are from cheapy scrapbook kits from The Range that cost 99p (bargain!) and I've added some gems and glitter glue to bling things up a bit...

That's it for now, I'm off to finish the 2nd one...

Handbag Mark II...

Well, version 1 went down so well I thought I'd have another go

very similar to the first but I used a linen effect paper (not sure if that was wise, it didn't cut cleanly with the robo) and added a bit of bling. I designed the key myself on the robo  (I know some people still like keys on 18th/21st birthday cards so thought this was a very discreet way to use it!)

Back in my comfort zone...

with a much simpler card, although it is another challenge entry (I know, 2 in 1 day, lol!)...

This one is for the Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Let's have a sing-song where the theme is 'inspired by a song'. I think my entry speaks for itself, no explanation needed, lol! This has been one of my favourite songs for years so thank you to Glee and of course Joe McElderry for bringing it back!

Image is the Lilybean Fairy Clover Butterfly Wishes digistamp from Pollycraft

coloured (badly!) with Promarkers

backing paper 'Ice Cream Curls' from Pink Petticoat

and the little butterfly in the top left is a dimensional sticker from Anita's (strategically placed to hide the black mark left by my printer - silly me coloured and trimmed the image before running back through the printer to add the sentiment!)

Time for tea?

Isn't she a little cutie?

I've finally taken the plunge and bought my first Lili of the Valley stamps - looking back now I can't understand why I waited so long....

And to celebrate I thought it was time I also entered my very first challenge, this one at the Lili of the Valley challenge blog. It's a sketch challenge, and this is also the first time I've worked to a sketch but I'm quite pleased with the result...

 image is 'Tea Party' from Lili of the Valley

stamped with Memento Inkpad onto Clarity Stamps postcard

coloured with Promarkers

Martha Stewart border punch

Nellie's die-cut frame

backing papers from Forever Friends, Papermania Honey and Hugs and a Pink Petticoat download

sentiment from Craftwork Cards and think the flowers are Prima, held together with a Dovecraft brad

Simply baby boys...

Just a quickie to post these two, have been wanting to use the images for a while so out came the Promarkers last night and these are the results...

This first one uses an image (think it was a freebie?) from Pollycraft, I'm not sure if he's still available.  My cool aqua Promarker is on its last legs so I inked the edges of the die-cut panel with the aqua colour from a Kaleidacolor Inkpad in 'Caribbean Sea' colourway. Simple matting and layering (love the textured cardstock!) and a few mini buttons to finish it off.

This was also a freebie image, this time from Bodils Scrapperverden and again I've left the matting and layering very simple. The gingham paper has been punched with my new Martha Stewart Doily Lace, then I decided to colour the edge with the PM used in the image. I haven't put a sentiment on this one as I thought it could be used as either a new baby or a 1st birthday card.

That's all for today folks - will have some girlier designs next time...

Inspired by...

...well I hardly think I need say any more - the cute little scottie dog says it all! I bought a pack of the scotties at Harrogate in March with a card for one of my sisters in mind - she's a collector of a certain designer handbag range and my budget doesn't run to the actual thing...

Anyway there I was sat trying to decide what to do for the 50th birthday card I'd been asked to make, with the brief of 'girly' and cast my mind back to the conversation where I'd been told that part of the gift for the birthday girl was a you-know-who bag...

...and voila!

Papers are Pink Petticoat, handbag shape traced from a Craftwork Cards blank then layered with 'panels' cut on the robo. I cut a pocket into the front of the bag to slot the scottie into. The '50' charm was also cut on the robo - I cut 3 layers and stuck them together for strength, and the brad used for the closure was from Dovecraft I think.  Some assorted flowers and thin strips of black vinyl and we're good to go :-)

As has become the habit with my 8 x 8" cards I made a matching box instead of an envelope and I think it turned out pretty well, after completely mis-measuring last night - the 1st attempt wasn't even square lol!

Of course I'm my own worst critic and worried that it wasn't up to scratch but my friend loved it, and I think I'll be making a very similar one for a 21st birthday card she needs too...

Oh yes, and not forgetting my sister's card!

Heaven, I'm in Heaven...

Crafty heaven of course! Bank holidays are definitely bad for my bank balance, lol!  No pics just yet (I've just got home and the light is really poor) but this (extended) weekend I have bought

• 8 x 8 card blanks
• Forever Friends wall decor sets for a bargain £1.99 each - they're a perfect fit for an 8x8 card!
• 2 wonderful DCWV 12x12 cardstock stacks for just £7.99 each
• a Martha Stewart scoreboard
• some self-adhesive wallpaper border stickers (6 sheets in a pack) with diggers and cars etc for only 69p per pack
• a couple of 8 x 8 baby-themed scrapbook kits (10 sheets of paper, stickers and chipboard frames etc) for only 99p each
• oh yes, and a laptop!
• and quite a few other things as well - my friend did ask if I have any room left in my home ;-)

In my defence (as if it were needed between crafters!) I did spend a lot of time at the weekend making some cards for my office to sell at a charity fun day this coming weekend.  I'll hopefully get to take some pics tomorrow before handing them over....

Edited to add - here are the pics of some of the cards, images are Digistamp Boutique (I played around with a couple of them to create the image I wanted for my Fathers Day cards), papers are Zoe Pearn and Nitwit and some of the images are coloured with Promarkers...

and finally...those wallpaper stickers from The Range - once they're snipped up they'll have cost less than 4p per image!

Lisa's special RAK event for her sister

I can't believe how long its been since my last post - how do people manage to find time to blog every day??? Actually if I did more blogging and less reading of other blogs then I might get somewhere, lol!

My card today is for a very special RAK which you can find here.  Lisa's sister is terminally ill with lung cancer and she has asked us to send her sister cards to make her smile, preferably including a frog.  Paula from Pollycraft has very kindly donated a freebie digi image to use.

This was my first effort, I love how the red (which is actually 'hot pink' Promarker) goes with the green.  For once the card came together almost exactly how I'd pictured it in my head...

I designed the sentiment circle myself using wordart - the flower in the centre is cropped from the main image to co-ordinate perfectly. Once I'd scanned the card however I had another look at Lisa's post and saw the request for funny cards and thought I needed a funnier sentiment so eventually came up with this one...

Again the frog's head in the centre is cropped from the main image (and to save making the card all over again I just stuck the new sentiment on top of the old one!)

The backing paper is a pink petticoat download which I only bought last night (how's that for speed?), printed at half size, and everything else is coloured with Promarkers.  Now I'm just wondering whether to add googly eyes if I can find them amongst all of my clutter lovely stash....

Off to colour in some more frogs while watching the footie now x

Hang In There...

After all of the 'big card' fuss last weekend, I've been able to get back to something that's a bit more 'me'. What do you think?

The image is a freebie digi-stamp from Sassy Cheryl's over at Paper Craft Planet - here's a close up version

He's coloured with Promarkers (of course!), as is the cardstock used for matting, and the card candy - the perfect way to get an exact colour match.  The pink backing paper was in my goody bag from Craftwork Cards. Finished off with a computer-generated sentiment (printed directly on to the card before assembly).

Just a quick update on that wedding card though - I managed to make a box and a matching insert for the card just in time to take it to our tea-party! I wasn't entirely happy with the box but was told that I was being over-fussy and everyone else loved it...

I don't do big cards...

...so could someone please explain how I came to make an A4 size card???

I offered to make a wedding card as one of my colleagues is getting married on Saturday and we've clubbed together for her gift.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, until I realised that I know very little about this person's tastes,  not to mention the rest of my colleagues...

I decided to steer away from the lovely cute Lili of the Valley image I bought at Harrogate and had a picture in my head of an 8 x 8 inch square card with a 3D tiered wedding cake in ivory with red accents as the bride is wearing a red dress with full-length ivory coat.  Took the prototype in to show my colleagues the other day and got the impression they didn't approve of the colour scheme - eek!

Lots of hours later I ended up with this - the only thing it has in common with my original concept is the tiered cake

I finished it after midnight last night, then dragged myself off to bed knowing that I wasn't really happy with it.  So this morning I pulled it to bits!  This is version 2 - very little difference except the cake is now lower on the card and the springy wires connecting the hearts are gold coloured instead of silver.

I'm as happy as I'm going to get with it now so I think its time to make the box - I've got about 4 hours, lol!

For a large card it was incredibly cheap to make - the cardstock is from my bargain buy at Harrogate - pearlised A3 card folded in half to make the base card then decorated with a Rollagraph stamp wheel using Versamark and mica powder ( Harrogate spending spree again!). The cake tiers use Martha Stewart punches (yes, Harrogate!) with a bit of glitter and a few gems. The cake stand uses a couple of Fiskars punches - the curved sides were done using an oval punch. The glittered hearts were also punched from the same cardstock as everything else then run upside down through my mini Xyron before adding glitter.  And last but not least, the sentiment panel was created with my Craft Robo Lite - I love the gel-pen drawing function. Incidentally, the ivory cardstock used for matting and layering, and some of the cake elements is just the same cardstock but coloured with an ivory promarker!

On the subject of weddings I had to chuckle at this post last night by Kerry over at A Load of Old Pickle. Why do we volunteer ourselves for these things, lol?  I made my friend's wedding invitations last year, apparently I'd offered while under the influence of far too much wine (which I blamed on the shock of her finally getting hitched after 10 years together!).  I couldn't help but be struck by the similarities to Kerry's invitations, especially the insides

Can I just point out though - I didn't want the peel-off there  - that was a last minute addition when the bride's father thought a wedding invitation should feature wedding bells (even though it wasn't a church wedding...)

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone is enjoying their eggs and other Easter goodies :-)

Just a quick visit to share this card with you - not strictly an Easter card but it could've been...

I love this design, one of a set of cutting files for my Craft Robo, bought from My Scrap Chick.  Unfortunately, although it doesn't really show in this pic I had a bit of a disaster with the good old pinflair glue , put a bit too close to the edge when sticking it all together - if you look closely at the middle 'tuft' on the chick's head you might be able to see it. But, as any good crafter knows, there's always a way round - et voila (!) version 2...

...with a hastily designed and cut sentiment!

I managed to squeeze a bit of Promarker action in there too - instead of faffing about cutting the eyes and beak out of different pieces of card I cut them in yellow with the main piece and then coloured them in - genius, even if I do say so myself!

Off to do more tidying now :-(