Going dotty with Fox and Friends

Over at the St Lukes Charity Challenge this month the challenge is 'Furry Friends'. Tara, who set the blog up, works so hard to raise funds for the St Lukes Hospice - and often under very difficult circumstances -so do lend your support and join in with the fun this month. I have to confess that cute and furry isn't really my style when it comes to cards, but I certainly wasn't going to let that stop me! Come and see what I've made:

I love the little fox from Fox and Friends and I thought he'd look pretty cute popping out of this tea cup from my new Tea Shoppe set! But that isn't what excited me about this card - it's the split panel! I embossed one side with my Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder and left the other side smooth, then I joined the two sides together with post it notes before cutting a shape out of them with one of the Labels framelits.

The aperture is the perfect size for my tea cup of foxy goodness! His paws are circles cut with my cropadile and coloured with a marker and I cut his tail off and arranged it the other way up (it's okay, he assures me he didn't feel a thing!) The little tag is from Tiny Tags and is tied to the cup handle with a piece of white bakers twine - I go through boat loads of this stuff!

With all this dottiness going on, I felt this card should be entered into this week's CASual Fridays 'Sweet Spot' challenge too - my second entry!

While I was all excited about the split panel, I thought I'd make another one for the 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown where the challenge is a white on white festive card - how could I resist?!

Impossible to photograph but SO fun to make! The split panel is landscape this time and I tied bakers twine round each side of the dotty panel where the framelit made an indent before attaching to the card base.

The tree is from Season of Joy and is stamped in versamark then covered with Heat and Stick powder before glittering to prevent the glitter from coming off. Have you tried this? It's brilliant for large areas of glitter! I tied more bakers twine round the tree trunk for a bit of extra texture and added a rhinestone to the top of the tree.

The sentiment banner is rounded on one side (I used my word window punch for this) and ribbon tailed on the other side (a square punch is the easiest way to do this.)

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

FOX IN A CUP CARD

Stamps: Fox and Friends, Tea Shoppe, Tiny Tags

Ink: Cajun Craze, Bashful Blue

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Markers, Basic Rhinestones, white bakers twine, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, Labels framelits, Big shot, jewellery tag punch, cropadile

CHRISTMAS CARD

Stamps: Season of Joy, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Ink: Basic Grey

Card stock: Whisper White

Other: Basic Rhinestones, white bakers twine, Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder, Labels framelits, Big shot, versamark, Heat and Stick powder, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Word Window and Square punches, 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.

Yesterday my daughter, who is in the middle of her GCSEs, came home from her Biology exam and said with a big smile on her face: "And I never did Biology ever again!" My poor love, she has another week to go but is still smiling.

It's Three Minute Thursday here tomorrow and I'll have a very fast male card to show you. Hope to see you then,

Masculine Monday - Fox and Friends birthday

The first thing I'd like to say this morning is thank you! I have been bowled over by all the lovely comments and emails following Saturday's post, and delighted that I have new followers too - thank you all so much! I really do appreciate the encouragement.

Now, I have a masculine card to show you as usual on a Monday morning. A couple of weeks ago my youngest son asked me to make a birthday card for a school friend of his. I knew that the boy is an animal lover and this card was the result of me playing around with some items that were out on my desk.

This wonderful paper from the new Well Worn range reminded me of a brick wall - particularly when placed over a sky sponged in with Bashful Blue ink using my cloud template made of punched circles glued together. I thought it might be fun to have somebody peeking over the top!

The somebody in question is a bewildered looking cat made with the owl stamp from Fox and Friends. Doctoring the beak to make a nose and adding whiskers gives it a feline look! I gave him balloons to hold made from scraps of card stock punched into shape using my 1" circle punch (TIP: Use a post it note to hold the circle in place while punching.) The balloon knots and strings are added with markers and I added shine to the balloons with my white gel pen.

The happy birthday sentiment from Party This Way looked quite graffiti-ish to me so I stamped it on the wall using my stamp-a-majig for position. It's quite a random font so it was quite easy to add Elliott's name in the same style.

Supplies needed for the card:

Stamps: Fox and Friends, Party This Way

Ink: Basic Black, Early Espresso, Bashful Blue

Card stock: Whisper White, Scraps for the balloons

Other: Well Worn designer paper, markers, white gel pen, paper snips, stamp-a-majig

I'd be delighted to order any of these supplies for you and I can have them delivered to your address in the UK. I am committed to providing excellent customer service and am always happy to help and advise. Just send me an email or give me a call on 01280 820593. 

I hope you've had a great weekend. We got back from Tynemouth safely, having had a wonderful few days away. I'd only just got the laundry done when it was time to pack another suitcase - this time for my youngest boy who is off today on his school trip to an adventure centre. While I was giving advice about how to fit everything in, I told him we'd miss him while he was away. He agreed cheerfully that it would be pretty dull at home without him then told me kindly that he wouldn't have time to miss us at all as he'd be far too busy doing all the fun activities! I have no doubt that he'll be off this morning without a backward glance but I confess that I'll have an ever so slightly trembly bottom lip...

I hope those of you that celebrate halloween have fun tonight. Can you believe it'll be November tomorrow? Hmmm... I think some Christmas projects are definitely in order this week!

See you soon,

Clean and simple cards for a baby boy

I've had some exciting news! My cousin and his wife are now the proud parents of a gorgeous baby boy! And what a cutie! I'm not able to be on cuddling duty at the moment as they live in Scotland, but I'm sure I'll get a turn when we have our family get-together in the summer! While I'm waiting I thought I'd get straight onto designing a card to welcome the new arrival.

It is so much fun making baby cards! I've come up with three monochome designs - yes I am a true LiMette and the Less is More challenge is never far from my mind! The first card might not have enough white space for their royal LiMnesses...

...or for me now I come to think of it! But I like the stamped gingham mounted onto the embossed card base, which reminds me of one of those lovely soft baby blankets.

The gingham is easy to make with the Solid Stripes background stamp and a stamp-a-majig. I used Bashful Blue and Marina Mist markers on alternate stripes, then turned it round and stamped it again. The embossing folder is exclusive to Stampin' Up and is called Square Lattice.

The next card is my favourite of the batch. I love the dotty label from Baby Blossoms - and how cute is that little babygrow from the hostess set A Slice of Life?! I coloured it with markers and popped it up on the label using dimensionals. The sentiment is from Afterthoughts, another hostess set. Don't forget these sets are free with a £150 order and you get other freebies too! It's certainly worth clubbing together with friends or joining my Stampers 6 club.

The sentiment is a retired sale-a-bration stamp which curves neatly into the frame, and the card base has been half-embossed with the Polka Dots embossing folder.

The Night of Navy grosgrain ribbon grounds the label nicely and ties in with the colour of the sentiment and the accents on the babygrow.

For my final design I masked off a strip and sponged it with bashful Blue ink then stamped it with tiny Marina Mist stars - I used the smallest star from Seeing Stars. I wanted it to look sewn to the card stock so I stamped it with the zigzag stitch stamp I made from the In Stitches wheel (see how I did it here.)

The card topper is made with the giraffe from Fox and Friends. I've drawn a welcoming smile on his little face and given him a dark eye with markers and, because the birth of a baby is quite an occasion, I've given him a posh scarf to wear made from a scrap of Baja Breeze seam binding!

Now, I would normally give details on how to make my cards but I'm aware that you've all got lives to get on with and there are only so many hours in the day! But if you'd like more details, I'm always happy to help and of course I can supply you with everything you need to make the cards. Just send me an email or give me a ring on 01280 820593.

When I was making these cards, my thoughts turned to my own lovely babies. They are quite considerably bigger than they used to be but they're not above giving me a hug sometimes and are very good company indeed!

Thanks for dropping in on my baby card-fest today - I very much appreciate your visits and comments. Yesterday I was overwhelmed by all the birthday wishes you sent me - thank you so much my lovely blogging pals! Tomorrow I'll be back here with Three Minute Thursday, my weekly series of speedy card ideas, and you are more than welcome to join me!

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve - and I'm as ready as I'm going to be...!

Yesterday, I promised to show you my favourite one-layer Christmas card design, so here it is:

I really enjoyed making this! The Merry Christmas and the swirl are stamps from Season of Joy, the stocking is from Gifted and the bird is from Cute by the Inch (I turned him into a robin with a couple of markers!) All I needed to put this together were markers and a stamp-a-majig - oh and a pair of paper snips to cut the stocking out and pop it up on a dimensional strip! Here's a close up:

And of course the card is perfect to just pop in the post with no worries about whether it needs a special stamp! If you're interested in more cards that are flat for posting, look out for my new Mail-friendly Monday series in the new year.

Now, I also promised to show you my youngest son's Christmas card design for his friends:

I adore this little owl and have dressed him in a santa hat before in this card! And look - here he is perched on the edge of the Christmas tree, but still looking completely astonished!

And now, before I close the gate for Christmas...

...the time has come to thank all my lovely customers and readers for visiting me and hope you've enjoyed your time here. I shall be back after Christmas with more thank you cards, birthday cards and also a very special offer... Don't miss it! Until then, I wish you a happy Christmas and all the very best for the new year. Take care,

Christmas card using Fox and Friends

The Fox and Friends stamp set is such a great buy! You get seven individual little creatures which are brilliant for making all sorts of babies' and children's cards and it's easy to split the set to make gifts too (like this). But Fox and Friends isn't just for children's cards and it can be an all the year-round set too - including Christmas! Come and see the Christmas card I've made using the owl from the set:

This owl makes me giggle. He looks as if someone has just goosed him from behind! He's always very sweet but just look at him in that Santa hat! Isn't he ridiculously cute!

You may have noticed that I'm using the sentiment from Contempo Christmas - this is the best Christmas sentiment in the catalogue in my opinion; I love the shape it makes and the combination of fonts is gorgeous. You may also have noticed that I'm using my favourite colour scheme of the moment - neutrals with just a splash of colour.

How to make this card:

• Make a 9cm square card base with Sahara Sand card stock
• Use a Basic Black marker to colour a frame from the Gifted set and stamp it in the centre of the card front. Using a stamp-a-majig makes it easy to be accurate with this!
• Stamp the sentiment from Contempo Christmas in Basic Black ink on a scrap of Very Vanilla card stock. Cut it out with paper snips.
• Load the owl stamp with versamark and Early Espresso and stamp it onto a scrap of Very Vanilla card stock. Use clear embossing powder to heat emboss it - this gives a nice shiny image.
• Make a hat for your owl by cutting one of the points off a Real Red star punched with the large star punch. A 1/4" circle punched from Whisper White card stock makes a bobble for the hat and a snipped strip  provides the trim. Glue these together.
• Cut out a few leaves - I used the two-step bird punch for mine - and a few berries using the 1/8" circle punch.
• Now assemble your card: Glue the leaves to the bottom, left-hand corner of the frame and add the sentiment; make your owl stand on the A of Christmas with a dimensional; pop his hat on using a dimensional for the top of the hat and glue to attach it to the owl's ear. Finish with the berries and add highlights with a white gel pen.

Supplies
Stamps: Fox and Friends, Contempo Christmas (sentiment)
Ink: Basic Black, Early Espresso, versamark
Card stock: Garden Green, Real Red, Sahara Sand, Whisper White, Very Vanilla
Other: Various punches, clear embossing powder

I know that my US readers will be carrying on with their Thanksgiving celebrations this weekend, so I wish you all a very happy time. Here in the UK, we're stoking up our fires against the first snow of the winter and making plans for Christmas. Whatever you have arranged, have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday with more Christmas inspiration. Hope to see you then,