Thanks for a fabulous party!

When I went over to Northern Ireland recently, I had a great time enjoying the beautiful scenery (like the beautiful coastline at Portstewart in the photo) and catching up with all my relatives that live there. It has to be said that one or two ice cream sundaes were eaten at Morelli's too... but more of that another time!

One of the most special evenings was spent with my lovely cousin Sarah (from Little Snippets) who had asked me to do a Stampin' Up party for her. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with such a lovely group of ladies and we all had great fun (despite the fact I was still speaking like a dalek at this stage - or maybe because of it!) Today, I thought I'd show you the card I designed for everyone to make:

I can't tell you how much I love having a cousin who's as dotty about crafting as I am! And naturally I wanted to show her all my favourite things - like this gorgeous, soft Naturals Ivory card stock, made into a card base and stamped with a subtle French Foliage background.

Sarah adores ribbon and I knew she'd love to see the wide striped grosgrain ribbon as well as all Stampin' Up's exclusive embossing folders and dies. Have you noticed how the flower centre made with one of the Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack flowers coordinates perfectly with the flower centre from the Bigz L Fun Flowers die? I love how Stampin' Up designs everything to coordinate!

Sincere Salutations has to be one of my most-used stamp sets - it contains eight sentiments that'll cover almost every occasion and you can change them about, stamp the words in different colours and add other words to them using your stamp-a-majig too!

Here's a close-up of the stamped background and that scrumptious ribbon, which is part of this month's fabulous free gift - click the photo at the top of my blog for details!

Supplies needed for this card:

Stamps: French Foliage, Sincere Salutations

Ink: Sahara Sand, Old Olive

Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Very Vanilla, Old Olive, Sahara Sand, Rich Razzleberry

Other: Rich Razzleberry wide striped ribbon, Little Leaves Sizzlits die, Fun Flowers Bigz L die, Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack, eyelet border punch, gold brad

You can buy any of these supplies from me and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593 and I'll be happy to help.

I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who left me encouraging comments yesterday. I was SO frustrated but it's no good flouncing about in our house because everyone just takes it in their stride! The conversation would go something like this: "Mum, why are you hanging upside down on the bannisters?" "I'm being a cross old bat!" "Oh I see! D'you mind taking me to Charlotte's house now?"

Thank you for spending time with me today and I'll hope to see you tomorrow.