Mixed Medley snowflakes all in a row

It's another one of those bright, frosty winter days here in Buckingham and just for a bonus I'm feeling much better today! I really do appreciate the get well messages you've been leaving for me - thank you.

I've made a fair few Christmas cards this year but another one will always come in handy, so my card for Less is More's one layer All in a Row challenge this week features a line of festive snowflakes. Come and have a look:

This is such a simple card but I love a layout with similar items in a row and it allows the colours to take centre stage. I inked up some of the snowflakes without cleaning the stamp first and that's given some subtle colour variations. (And for anyone that was considering being rude - yes I did do it on purpose!)

The only embellishment I used is a rhinestone, coloured green with a permanent marker, which I placed on the green snowflake nearest the sentiment to draw attention to it. The sentiment is a lovely bold font from the For My Family stamp set that's ideal for personalising your cards, and that beautiful snowflake is from a wonderful hostess set called Mixed Medley which contains all sorts of lovely labels and tags.

• If you'd like to get your hands on any of the hostess sets but would prefer not to host a workshop, it's worth knowing that members of my Stampers 6 club are able to order these exclusive sets as well as enjoying all the other benefits of my club. Click here for more information.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card
Stamps: Mixed Medley, For My Family
Ink: Gumball Green, Tempting Turquoise,  Pacific Point
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Basic Rhinestones, stamp-a-majig
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

I'll leave you with another photo of Tuppence whose mission in life seems to be lying around looking so cute it melts my heart - well that's when she's not loudly demanding roast chicken and personal grooming, or doing the feline equivalent of yelling at the neighbours!

Have a lovely weekend and I'll be back on Monday.

Clean and simple layering

After my senior moment yesterday I'm back to making Christmas cards. The colour challenge at 52CCT this week intrigued me - Cream, Brown and Pink, so here's my take on that using this gorgeous sketch at Case this Sketch:

This is about as layered as I can bring myself to do! I used ribbon, card stock and designer paper to create a background with punched circles for my scallops. A sentiment banner was laid over the top and finished with a fabulous snowflake embellishment.

Here's a close up of that snowflake. It came from the Snowflake Season scrapping kit in the autumn/winter seasonal catalogue which I bought for another project and found there are heaps of fun items left over to use for cards! The centre is decorated with button dies cuts - the Sweet Buttons embosslits die gets a lot of use in my Crafting Square Metre and I do like to stack the buttons and stitch them together with bakers twine.

The sentiment was stamped onto a card strip and embossed, and ribbon tails punched into the end with a square punch. I rather like the dotty Melon Mambo ribbon and Early Espresso combination and I think it does look quite jolly with a bit of extra glitz!

Here's the sketch I've been working from today:

My blogging friend Val has just mentioned that this card will work for Crafty Cardmakers where the challenge is to use more than one punch or die - thanks Val!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: For My Family
Ink: Early Espresso
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Early Espresso, Melon Mambo, Primrose Petals
Other: Melon Mambo dotty grosgrain ribbon, scrap of Floral District designer paper, Snowflake Season scrapping kit, Sweet Buttons embosslits die, Big Shot, Early Espresso bakers twine, 3/4" circle punch
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

What a damp, dark, murky Monday it was yesterday - just the sort of day when your spirits need lifting. Luckily there is my daughter! When she came down to breakfast yesterday she said: "Getting out of bed - three out of ten. Not recommended!" which cheered me up no end. 

See you tomorrow,

Fabulous florets for a male card?

And why not?! I love the size of the leaf in Fabulous Florets and it works perfectly for an autumnal swirl.  Come and have a look:

The leaf is stamped randomly on the diagonal and coloured using my aquapainter and inks - I had such fun with those holly leaves yesterday that I couldn't resist carrying on!

The little punches from the punch packs are great for making little nicks in the side of card stock to hold ribbon or twine in place. On this card, linen thread is wound round the nicks and tied it in a basic knot. I added a popped-up leaf for a bit of interest and swiped the edges of the card stock with my Whisper White craft ink.

The sentiment is a lovely clean one from For My Family - the perfect set for personalising cards. I stamped it in versamark ink first, then straight into the Pumpkin Pie ink and then embossed it with clear embossing powder. By the way, if you're quick, you won't need the versamark if you're stamping with the new style ink pads - the pads still contain water-based dye ink but because you get more ink on the rubber, it stays wet enough to emboss.

I'm entering this card in the CASual Fridays challenge where they're looking for CAS male cards; and it's also for Make My Monday which has started a month of Autumn challenges - this week's is to use kraft and twine.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Fabulous Florets, For My Family
Ink: Gumball Green, Summer Starfruit, Soft Suede, Pumpkin Pie classic inks, Whisper White craft ink
Card stock: Crumb Cake
Other: Versamark, clear embossing powder, heat tool, aquapainter, Itty Bitty punch pack, linen thread, stamp-a-majig
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

On Monday, my husband, my youngest son and I went to a local fireworks display together (yes, that's right, they've been to two this year!) For those that don't know about Bonfire Night, it's an event held every year on the 5th November to celebrate the fact that the Houses of Parliament weren't blown up in 1605. Towns and villages all over Great Britain hold firework displays and although we've all pretty much forgotten why we do this after 400 years, it's a great excuse for communities to get together. It was a lovely, crisp, clear night and we had a great time - although there was a tricky moment halfway through when my husband's booming voice was heard to say: "It's not so bad this year, is it?!" Honestly, I can't take him anywhere!

Three Minute Thursday here tomorrow and I've got a much more feminine card to show you using a set that I'm absolutely head over heels with... See you then,

Decking the halls with CAS holly

What a lot of exciting news there was yesterday! I've managed to calm myself down though and am back to making Christmas cards.

There's a fabulous new sketch over at CAS(e) this sketch and I used it to make a card for the final St Lukes Charity Challenge. Tara, the founder, has worked tirelessly for nearly two years to raise money for the St Lukes hospice but has now made the difficult decision to close the challenge. Do visit the site to applaud her efforts and to join in with her just-for-fun last challenge: 'Make a Christmas card using a traditional festive image'. Come and see what I made:

Holly is one of my favourite traditional festive images and I love the gorgeous red berries against the glossy leaves. I've made my leaves with my oval punch, nibbling round them with my 1/2" circle punch.

Since the holly is the focus of my card I gave it a bit of extra interest by using two colours of card stock and embossing the leaves with my Lattice embossing folder. Real Red brads make lovely, touchable red berries! The beautifully pared back sentiment is a favourite of mine from For My Family.

This is the sketch I was working with today - the fourth one at the challenge. I have loved them all! It's good to hear that DT members on the east coast of the US have all got through the hurricane ok. My heart really does go out to those that weren't so lucky.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card
Stamps: For My Family
Ink: Real Red
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Real Red, Gumball Green, Garden Green
Other: Large oval punch, 1/2" circle punch, Lattice embossing folder, Big Shot, Real Red brads, stamp-a-majig
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593. Check out current special offers here.

Yesterday my husband showed me an email he'd received from a hotel that we've never even stayed at, apologising 'most profusely for the extremely unfortunate situation yesterday evening' and offering a free stay in recompense! "Good grief!" said my husband. "That was quite a night out we had there!" I giggled (but frankly I would've been quite willing to have put up with whatever ghastliness had taken place - we could have done with a nice weekend away!) We've been amusing each other ever since by making up stories about what might have happened.

Have a lovely weekend and I'll see you very soon,

NEWS - and Three Minute Bright Blossoms

BIG NEWS TODAY!!! Get a fabulous FREE FESTIVE PAPER PIERCING PACK when you buy the ornament Keepsakes stamp set and Candlelight designer paper pack (offer available in November only) and, as if that's not enough, you can also get a FREE COLLECTION OF INK PADS with a qualifying order. You'll find all the details when you click here.

Now, if I can just calm down for a minute (!) it's Three Minute Thursday here on my blog, so I have a quick card to show you using Bright Blossoms:

I love how bold and bright these sprigs look when they're coloured as berry branches. This card definitely relies on the stamp-a-majig for quick, accurate placement of images - I have one pretty much attached to me at all times! TIP: I stick a punched label in the middle of my imaging sheet to make it easier to see as I used to lose it all the time!

Sometimes you need a clean and simple sentiment and the For My Family stamp set contains several (happy birthday, merry Christmas and congratulations) as well as every member of the family for personalising your cards. I like the way this one goes nicely with the bold image.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Bright Blossoms, For My Family
Ink: Basic Grey
Card stock: Very Vanilla
Other: Gumball Green and Real Red markers, stamp-a-majig
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK, France, Deutschland, Nederland or Osterreich. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on +44 (0) 1280 820593.

The sprigs in today's card remind me of a gorgeous stencil-style Laura Ashley wallpaper in the room my husband and I used to share when we visited his parents. My in laws had a big ginger cat called Jeeves at that time and I remember once, when I was heavily pregnant with my daughter, Jeeves came and sat on my bump and went off to sleep! I found it very comforting.

See you tomorrow for more crafting fun (and the odd story!)
Hugs,

Zoo Review for a teenage boy

Anyone with a teenage boy in the house will remember that moment when your baby boy came downstairs one morning and had turned into a man... a very hungry man! Honestly, sometimes I think they grow several inches overnight! This card was inspired by my own lovely teenage son:

The images in the Zoo Review set are ideal for males in general but I liked the idea of the giraffe for a suddenly tall teenager.

I've made post-it note masks for all five animals in the set so that I can sponge and stamp a quick background for them all. When I've finished, I just stick the mask to the stamp and pop it back in its case. The oak tree from Lovely as a Tree makes a great wooded background for the giraffe and I extended the grassy area with a River Rock marker.

The original sentiment comes from For My Family...

... which is also a great set for personalising your projects. Here I've used the 'son' stamp from the set, cut out with a square punch and popped up on dimensionals.

There's a 'nephew' in the set too as well as all sorts of other family members - many of which don't grow suddenly overnight!

This one sports a fun banner I made on the computer and printed off.

I have got completely distracted by my fabulous new Zoo Review set. It is the best fun ever and to think I almost didn't get it!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Zoo Review, For My Family
Ink: Soft Suede, Old Olive, Marina Mist, Cajun Craze
Card stock: Naturals White
Other: Markers, paper snips, stamp-a-majig
I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

My lovely teenage son has turned into an eating machine. My daughter summed it up the other day. " "You've only got two moods haven't you?" she said to him. "Hungry and stuffed!" Talking of which I'd better get up to the supermarket! (And for all those who are wondering why I'd be visiting the supermarket at half past midnight, my blog posts are, of course, scheduled!) 

See you tomorrow,

A Perfectly Preserved marriage!

It's all about weddings at the fabulous Less is More challenge today - and we all love a wedding don't we?! I hope you won't groan when you see my card today... there might just be a jar on it!

I promise I DO have other stamps it's just that I haven't got over my Perfectly Preserved stamp set yet! Moving swiftly on - I started by getting some texture going on the background with a mixture of dry and heat embossing before adding a jar of hearts.

I love this jar to bits as you may have noticed! I stamped it on acetate with white stazon before cutting it out (there are coordinating framelit dies to make this easy.) The hearts are cut out of scraps of watercolour paper using my Owl punch (yes really!), and the jar is secured with glue dots behind the label and a little glue behind the outline of the jar.

It's hard to see in the photo but this sentiment and the little label on the jar are embossed in gold,  and I added a few pearls for that luxurious feel.

I was so pleased to see that my card for last week made it to the showcase - thank you for choosing it Chrissie and Mandi!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Perfectly Preserved, En Français, For My Family and Tiny Tags (sentiments)
Ink: White stazon 
Card stock: Very Vanilla, scraps of watercolour paper
Punches: Owl builder punch, Jewellery Tag punch
Other: Versamark, gold and clear embossing powders, heat tool, Big Shot, Stripes embossing folder, white bakers twine, Basic Pearls, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. Click here to view the Retirement Lists - my last order from these will go in at 8pm tomorrow, please don't leave it too late! 

I meant to get my card posted much earlier but my daughter wanted me to go to a local car boot sale with her. It was a glorious day in Buckingham today and there were heaps of stalls to browse. We were looking at a stationery stall when our eyes landed on a herd of small plastic cows arranged amongst the envelopes and packing tape! "And suddenly," said my daughter. "There were cows!" She does make me laugh.

I shall be back on Monday and there'll be lots of excitement here because there'll be a brand new catalogue going live! Whoopee! There'll be heaps to show you so do come and join me for that.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Watercolor Winter woolliness

It's no good, it's freezing! There's only one thing to do this weather... make Christmas cards! Here's one I made using some of my new goodies from the autumn/winter catalogue:

If you like a bit of designer paper on your cards but don't want to invest in whole packs of 12 x 12", then the festival of Prints stack at only £6.25 might be just the thing for you. It contains 48 double-sided sheets of a much smaller size that's perfect for card making (11.4 x 16.5cm) and the designs include a trendy chevron, a gorgeous rustic check and some fabulous Christmassy damasks. I chose this subtle blue print with its suggestion of snow for my card.

I've wanted a stamp set with holly and other winter foliage for ages and the Watercolor Winter set is just right! It's a two step stamping set but this time I chose to stamp only the holly outline and coloured it in with markers for a different look. I used a marker to doodle some wool over one of my branches too...

... and attached these gorgeous mittens to it! They're from the Make a Mitten set which coordinates with the wonderful Nicely Knit wheel I used yesterday. I stamped them in Gumball Green over Marina Mist card stock, which makes a rather stylish mitten - wouldn't mind a pair of these myself! The sentiment is from For My Family - the perfect set for personalising cards to the family.

I'm a day late for Rudolph Day over at Sandra's blog but (panting) I ran all the way Miss!

Here's what you'll need to make today's card
Stamps: Watercolor Winter, Make a Mitten, For My Family
Ink: Gumball Green, Real Red, Early Espresso
Card stock: Whisper White, Marina Mist
Other: Simply Scored, stamp-a-majig, paper snips, markers

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. Click here to view my regularly updated lists of retiring stamps and accessories, some at up to 40% discount - Sunday 30th is the last day to order from Retirement Lists. 

My youngest son likes to wrap himself up in a blanket to watch TV whatever the weather. "Blankets are the best thing ever invented," he said the other day, tucking himself up with one. "Apart from the internet." He paused for a moment before adding: "And toilets!"

It's Three Minute Thursday tomorrow so I'll be back here with a fast card. See you then,

Have yourself a Merry Minis Christmas

Aaaargh! The only problem with making Christmas cards at this time of the year is that you get Christmas songs stuck in your head! Yes, I've been cracking on with my Christmas cards, inspired by Less is More where Mandi and Chrissie are asking us to combine three previous challenges (they're listed handily on the top bar of the blog); and CASology where the cue word this week is White. Come and have a look:

I 've chosen white on white (wk14), embossing (wk15) and Let it Snow (wk 45 for my Less is More themes and of course there's plenty of white going on here for CASology! The basis of the design is a predominantly white panel with lots of texture, mounted on a pristine white card base.

I started by masking off a horizantal strip with post it notes and heat embossing in white then layered on this stripy organza ribbon and some gorgeous Cherry Cobbler bakers twine.  It needed a bit more interest, so I added the line of piercing. The simple rounded sentiment was a perfect fit - it's from For My Family, a sentiment set for personalising cards for all the family - and teacher too!

Those fabulous trees are made with my new Merry Minis stamp set and coordinating punch. The trees were stamped, embossed or glittered and made into tiles by pasting onto a stack of glued-together punched trees. The bling is one of the Basic Rhinestones coloured with a permanent marker.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card
Stamps: Merry Minis, For My Family
Ink: Real Red
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Merry Minis punch pack, Cherry Cobbler bakers twine (coming soon!), organza ribbon, Mat pack and piercer (retiring) Basic Rhinestones, versamark and white embossing powder, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. Click here to view my regularly updated lists of retiring stamps and accessories, some at up to 40% discount. 

Talking of getting songs stuck in your head, guess what we were singing when we visited this lovely location on our holidays? There was no stopping my daughter and I doing our best Vera Lynn impressions at the tops of our voices! "There'll be bluebirds over... the white cliffs of Dover..." I'm afraid the males of the family were terrified that someone might hear us and have us carted away, but we were there pretty early so there was no-one else there. And if you're wondering whether I was blown away, yes I was - but not literally!

My tummy tells me it's lunchtime and I can't understand why the Ravening Hordes haven't mentioned it yet... Enjoy the rest of the week and I'll see you on Monday,

Happy first day of school

It's Three Minute Thursday here today and I'm cheating a bit... the card I've made did take a little bit longer than that, but not much! I've been keen to join in with the fun over at CASology for ages but since I've had to schedule posts way in advance for the holidays it's not been possible until now. The challenge this week is Family which coincides nicely with my youngest son starting 'big school', and since Back to School is the challenge over at CASual Fridays my card fits in well there too! Come and see it:

I love backgrounds like this note-book style paper from the retiring Just Add Cake range. To make this card, I simply cut a square of it, sponged the edges, added the sentiment and decorated with cut-out pencils. (You may think fussy cutting would take a lot of time but there are no fiddly bits on these pencils so they're really quick to do.)

The sentiment is made up from a variety of words in the For My family set, using my stamp-a-majig to line them up. I added a doodled little heart just to let my son know that I love him to bits (as if he didn't already know!)

These pencils are pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen! They're from the From Your Teacher set (which you'll find on the retirement list along with the designer paper) and I've stamped them in three of the latest in-colours - I just can't get enough of these!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: From Your Teacher (retiring), For My Family
Ink: Gumball Green, Summer Starfruit, Midnight Muse (new - and available now!)
Card stock: Whisper White
Other: Real Red marker, stamp-a-majig, paper snips

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and have them delivered straight to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. Click here to view my regularly updated lists of retiring stamps and accessories, some at up to 40% discount.

My son is a tiny bit apprehensive about starting senior school but that's only to be expected - I know he'll be fine and will probably enjoy it enormously. I was slightly concerned about whether he was ready for it when I saw this dodgy-looking shopping list which I asked him to jot down for me as I had my hands full at the time.

You may notice that his spelling of muesli is a bit suspect and that he is keen on Marmite, but wait - what's that item below the Marmite? It took me a moment to realise it's cayenne pepper - isn't that cute?! It reminds me of when my older son was asked to list food for a picnic at primary school and wrote down 'canon bear'. When asked what this was, he fixed his teacher with his huge blue eyes and told her firmly that it was a cheese. It turned out to be Camembert!

See you tomorrow when I'll be reporting more about the Watercolour Wonder crayons!

Mouthwatering for my daughter

I've just come back from my youngest son's school fair. This morning, before we left, I prepared a little 'Something Shiny' for today's Less is More challenge and left it to dry; and now I've turned it into a card... come and have a look:

I've been dying to use this lolly from the Mouthwatering set! Isn't it amazing?! I stamped it twice, once on the card base and again on a scrap of card stock. The second one was given a generous coat of Crystal Effects and left to dry (while I frolicked at the fair!) and I LOVE how glossy it turned out! I cut just the ice bit out with my sharp paper snips before popping it up over the image I'd stamped on the card base.

I made up this mad sentiment out of two stamps from For My Family and the 'delicious' from Creatively Yours' - it's for my own daughter who likes a sentiment to be on the eccentric side! She has been off school revising for her GCSEs and has done much of it in the living room where I work. She's the kind of lovely person who makes everything seem like fun and I have really enjoyed having her there. So this card is for her, to say well done for finishing her exams and for entertaining me at the same time!

Oh and I forgot to mention that I'm still going flourish bonkers from last week! The flourish here is a favourite stamp from the Season of Joy Christmas set that I've used over and over again. I inked it up with Bashful Blue ink and stamped it off on rough paper before stamping it on the card base. The sentiment is finished off with a tiny heart punched with my owl punch.

Here's what you'll need to make today's card:

Stamps: Mouthwatering, Creatively Yours, For My Family, Season of Joy

Ink: Poppy Parade, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Markers, Crystal Effects, Owl punches, paper snips, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these items for you and can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I'm committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to offer help and advice. To place your order, just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593.

You may be wondering whether my son enjoyed the fair today. Well, my view is that these fairs are put on to raise money for the school so here's what we do: we decide how much we'd like to donate and then I sit my son down, hand over the cash and tell him solemnly that it is his responsibility to spend it however he sees fit... He had a ball!

I can't wait to see all the shininess going on in the LiM gallery this week - see you later!