A Happy Day in autumn

I've been having a leafy old time of it with the fabulous Wonderfall and Gently Falling sets this week and using them in a variety of ways - even as a Christmas tree! Sometimes though, it's a good plan to play a straight wicket (well that's what my sons tell me anyway... I wouldn't know a straight wicket if it whacked me over the head!) and playing it straight is what I did with today's card - come and see:

Oh I do love an autumnal palette! This card uses some beautiful greens and rusts for the simple stamped border using the leaves and acorn from the Wonderfall set. Stampin' Up's new-style ink pads work so well with these solid-style stamps - you get a really clean impression.

The inspiration for this card was one of those walks on a bright autumn day where the leaves are piled up by the sides of a tree-lined lane, ready to shuffle through. What better sentiment to use than this one from Happy Day, highlighted with one of the really large, glittery rhinestones?! Can you resist scampering through those leaves?!

I designed this card for one of my Stampers 6 groups, tucking it into their parcels along with a special handmade gift which I'll look forward to showing you next week. (By the way, if you're interested in joining my club, you can find out all about it by clicking here.)

I see that the cue word at CASology this week is Autumn so I shall link my happy autumn day card up with the lovely ladies over there - now that will be a gallery and a half!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wonderfall, Happy Day
Ink: Summer Starfruit, Garden Green, Raspberry Ripple, Pumpkin Pie
Card stock: Very Vanilla
Other: Large Rhinestone basic jewels, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


I went into town with my youngest son yesterday evening to get him kitted out with some colder weather clothes. We had to wait to cross the road into the shopping centre while an ancient Citroen 2CV creaked past. "I thought we were going to be there all evening!" I remarked as we crossed. "It wasn't exactly Formula One," agreed my son. "But we can't all be Usain Bolt!" And in case you're wondering, my youngest is exactly like his older brother - complaining bitterly about having to go and buy clothes but ending up really enjoying choosing garments, putting different colours and styles together, trying things on and preening like a peacock!

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

A Wonderfall three minutes of crafting!

Sometimes you can only squeeze in three minutes of crafting but if you're anything like me three minutes is better than nothing! Three minutes is definitely enough to make a card though... come and see my offering for Three Minute Thursday today:

I must say I dithered over the Wonderfall stamp set for ages but, oh my goodness, have I fallen for it now! Here I've used the large leaf as a background for the sentiment, added a couple of candy dots and curved the bottom edges of the card.

Here's a close up of that gorgeous leaf - all the leaves and the acorn in this set have fabulous stylised patterns on them. The sentiment is from Four You.

The colour inspiration today came from Dynamic Duos where the challenge is to use Crumb Cake and Black.

There's an optional extra to use heat embossing and actually it would have been nice to emboss the sentiment on my card. Too late though - although this card literally took one minute to make, I'd already used up my spare two minutes stroking that lovely Wonderfall set and whispering blandishments in its ear!

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wonderfall, Four You
Ink: Crumb Cake classic ink, black stazon
Card stock: Crumb Cake
Other: Candy dots, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


It looks as if our cat Tuppence is on the mend! She's such an old lady that I always fear the worst when she's not well (although I suspect the brave meows and tremulous purring are all part of an act designed to get me to part with titbits of steak for her dinner!)

Of course a cat needs her sleep after reading such educational books - history, languages, Shakespeare er... the Ikea catalogue! And I see she's fallen asleep while reading the property section! Surely she's not thinking of leaving home? She must have heard about the salmon fillets that Princess next door gets!

See you tomorrow,

Is it a leaf? Or is it a tree?!

I had a lovely lady round to craft with me recently and while she was stamping with my Gently Falling stamp set, I was reminded that sometimes leaves make great trees! That's where the inspiration for today's little card came from - come and see:

This little dotty leaf comes from the Wonderfall set and makes sweet little trees in this naive-style landscape.

I stamped them in lovely autumn colours - Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry - on a roughly masked and sponged background.

The flowing sentiment is from the hostess set Express Yourself. I stamped it onto a scored strip of card stock trimmed into ribbon tails on one side using a square punch and into a curve on the other side using a 1/2" circle punch. A candy dot fits nicely in the curve - oh I do love a candy dot!

The layout I was working from today is from CAS(E) this Sketch, where the sketches are always so inspiring, and I'll also be linking up to Make My Monday where the theme this week is 'Flowers or Trees'.

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wonderfall, Express Yourself
Ink: Pool Party, Old Olive, Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, Early Espresso
Card stock: Very Vanilla, Whisper White
Other: Candy dots, corner rounder, 1" square and 1/2" circle punches, Simply Scored, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


My poor pusscat is not feeling so well at the moment and I am feeding her special titbits to try to build her up a bit. I got a small sardine for her the other day which seemed quite pongy when I took it out of its wrapper. "Let me have a look," said my husband who is my fish correspondent, having worked part-time at a fishmonger while he was at uni. "There's nothing wrong with that!" he declared, having investigated the sardine. "That's a perfectly healthy fish that is!" Which reminded me of a certain Monty Python sketch about a parrot...


Monty Python - Dead Parrot Sketch by beautifulcynic

See you tomorrow,

A Wonderfall autumn thank you

It's not been easy joining in with my favourite challenges just lately due to life throwing a few surprises our way but when I saw Arielle's sketch over at Retro Sketches I had an idea that I had to try out. I had the CASual Fridays 'Fall colours with a leaf' challenge in my head too. Come and see:

I loved the split front of the sketch and decided to flip it and use it for this autumnal card using the wonderful Wonderfall set. (Sorry, but there's something about the name Wonderfall that makes it obligatory to put the adjective 'wonderful' with it!)

Just look at those fabulous stylised leaves and that cute acorn, all tied up with linen thread!

I used a combination of smooth and textured card stock for the split panel, piercing along the split edges for added detail. The sentiment is stamped on the card front itself using a stamp-a-majig to make sure it was exactly where I wanted it.

This is the fabulous sketch I was working from:

Here's what you'll need to make this card
Stamps: Wonderfall, Express Yourself
Ink: Cajun Craze, Pumpkin Pie,Gumball Green, Early Espresso
Card stock: Naturals Ivory, Cajun Craze smooth and core'dinations
Other: Markers, Linen thread, Essentials piercing pack, stamp-a-majig

You can order from my online shop any time, day or night, but if you have any queries, or prefer to speak to me, I'm always happy to help. You can contact me by email or phone on 01280 820593.

And as a special thank you for shopping with me, you'll get a free gift and a handmade card when you place your first online order with me during September.


I feel this is an appropriate ending for today's post:

Leaves.