Hearts for Daddy

Good Morning Peeps xxx  How are you today ? I think I am feeling a little less stressed.I might be actually seeing a light,albeit a tiny light,at the end of a very long tunnel. Hubby is getting better,I have had a bit of time with my sister and she is going back to Italy tomorrow and I have booked myself a place on a workshop at my favourite craft shop (The Scrapbook Shop) for a bit of 'me time'. Hopefully I will be able to show you what I make later.

As for today, it is time for another Challenge at My Time To Craft Challenge and this week we would love to see your creations that include an EXTRA IMAGE (use more than one image). Here is my little effort which you may think looks familiar.

Some of you will remember the Heart Bunting I made for my Hubby's Birthday,well I used the same papers to make this little card and the hanging mobile hearts with the addition of some Craft card.

Now it is your turn to show us your gorgeous creations at My Time To Craft Challenge and what about joining us on the Design Team - you have until 20th June to put your name down on Mr Linky Thingy - go on you know you want to join the BESTEST DT EVER !
PS.Sorry about the poor quality photos

Wildlife Reserve

Good Morning Folks x I hope you are all keeping well and are not feeling too stressed unlike me ( ... taking a deep breath !!) Today is a special day because it is Tuesday and that means that there is another fab challenge at My Time To Craft Challenge. This week the theme is entitled Wildlife Reserve and we would love to see your super creations.The Design Team have some great samples for you BUT ........
I am sorry that I don't have anything to show you today but as I said yesterday, panic is knocking at my door. I have it bolted and padlocked but you never know. LOL ( Yes I can still laugh )
Before I go, I want to say THANK YOU for your continued support,especially to those we have left me lovely comments and remember, I have candy on offer for you lovely peeps xxx

Give a dog a bone ..........

.......... and he will  __________ (fill in the blank/s) lol
This week at My Time to Craft Challenge the theme is 'Very Funny' - anything that makes you smile or chuckle - and this little dog makes me smile and chuckle : )

He is sweet and I love his cheeky antics. The stamp is called Bonnie Westies and is by Little Claire Designs. I stamped the design on to Neenah card and used a mix of Promarkers and Copics to add minimum colouring here and there. I'm not very good at colouring in animals so don't look too closely.

I wanted to keep the design reasonably simple so I stuck with a limited colour palette of blue and white with a bit of brown. You have noticed the string of bones of course and you will forgive me for using  bunting again - I think I am getting obsessed by it so watch out for more.I drew the bones onto scraps of Bazzill card,cut them out and strung them together with Butchers Twine.The bunting is simply fastened onto the front of the base card.The blue background paper was printed from the Polka Doodles Paper Boutique Vol 3. You can't tell from the photo but it has various doggie related words on it such as bark,growl,and woof. The stamped image has been mounted onto a white scalloped square cut using a nestie, which matches the base scalloped square card.

To complete the design  I added the ..... give a dog a bone ..... sentiment which I made on the computer and cut out with a Spellbinders Shapeability Label Die using a technique I picked up HERE from my team mate Chrissy (Thank-you Chrissy it only took me 3 goes to get it right. lol). Finally,I added tiny black gems to the noses - not sure if they look right but I love added dimension so I just went for it !!!

It would be great if you joined us this week with our challenge over at My Time to Craft Challenge with your Very Funny creations x

Well I'm off now as Hubby has his 6 week review at the hospital today so hoping all goes well - see ya later x
Update - Very happy to say the Doc was pleased with Hubby's progress - everything is healing well and all the signs are good for a full recovery . He is now discharged from that particular hospital and he just needs to continue with the Rehab Programme at Durham. Huge relief x Thanks so much for all your concern and best wishes xxx
I would love to enter the following Challenges :
1.The Paper Players 49 - Anything Goes
2. Make it Monday 39 -Always Anything Goes
3.Ladybug Crafts Ink 39 - Make your own Embellishments

Happy Birthday Bunting

It is my darling husbands birthday tomorrow and he never likes any fuss so what will he make of this :-

Does it look 'girlie' ? In real life the colours are much deeper and quite masculine I think but probably I should have made straight edged hearts and not scalloped. Nevermind,I hope it appeals to his never-to-be shown feminine side LOL

It just so happens that the theme at My Time to Craft Challenge today is Die Cuts so I was able to combine my DT work with making something special for the birthday celebrations. (I have made a few more things to go with the bunting but I can't show you yet - hopefully on another day x)

The Recipe :
Cut scalloped white hearts from card stock
Cut straight edged hearts from patterned paper (in this case Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934)
Adhere patterned hearts to white hearts
Cut lettering in black card stock (I used Tim Holtz Vintage Market Die)
Adhere lettering to centre of hearts
Punch small hole near top of hearts
Use ribbon or Butchers Twine to string hearts together as desired
Display banner as required

I would love to know what you think of my banner so please leave me a comment if you have time x
AND did you see my post yesterday ? A sneak peep at some candy I am putting together for my lovely followers,coming very soon !

I would love to enter the following Challenges :
1.Truly Scrumptious 57 - Anything Goes
2.Crafty Catz 83 - Anything Goes
3. Make it Monday 38 - Anything Goes
4. Polka Doodles 20 - Anything but a Card

Toybox Treasures

Over at My Time To Craft Challenge this week the theme is Toybox Treasures and for my DT card I went back to one of my favourite designers for inspiration and made this great shaped design.

Have you guessed who the designer is ?
Here is another image with a few additional props :

Yep ! It is from the creative mind of Nikky Hall at Polka Doodles.I used the Two by Two template from the Paper Boutique volume 3. As I was pressed for time this week (my 'nursing' duties take up a lot of my time I'm afraid )  I utilized the print,cut and create templates. They are brilliant and I would recommend them to anyone.Why not go and have a look.

Here is the back of the card and as you can see it is also printed with a mirror image.

This strange photo shows you the inside of the design which I printed a blue and white spot design (again from the Cd). The sentiment too is PD.I cut it with a scallop Nestie and matted it on to a larger scallop cut from  left over card. I did the same with a small flower punch. You may have noticed that the front design is layered and that the back is flat. I used foam pads to give dimension to the front layers and Glossy Accents to make the windows shiny.
The design lends itself to a few occasions I think - a child's birthday,birth of Twins,Engagement or even a New Home.In this case I settled on the sentiment "Congratulations" (it covers a few of the above) and used a stamp from Waltzing Mouse Stamps cut again with a Spellbinders die. Oh! nearly forgot - I couldn't resist the little bow ; )
I would love to enter the following challenges :-
1.The Fuzzy Wuzzy Challenge 9 - Babies
2.Make it Monday 37 - Anything Goes
3.A Spoonful of Sugar 152 - Anything Goes

I love a scallop or two

Morning Peeps x I hope you are enjoying a good start to this lovely Tuesday and it progresses into a wonderful day for you all x I don't know why I feel happy today but it might have something to do with having my super Hubby home for a whole week !! No more long journeys to the hospital every day and lots more 'us' time - heaven !!
I am also quite happy with my My Time To Craft Challenge DT card this week,especially as my Mojo up and left and only reappeared the other day - phew !! I had serious words with him (it has to be a him to be so naughty !!) Anyway,here is my little effort:

Cream backdrop showing a cream card base isn't the best way to show my design this week,so forgive me for poor photography but this first shot is to show the layers I have used to give depth and dimension.

The challenge this week at MTTCC,as you might have gathered, is Scallops and I have made full use of them by using red and white scallops cut from Bazzill card as my main focus.The cake image was stamped on to Neenah card using a free stamp set from Molly Blooms. It was free with Simply Homemade Magazine a while back.By the way,it is the first time I have used Neenah card and I must say I was very pleased with the quality and performance. I'd definitely give it 10/10.

I deliberately kept the base card plain because I felt there was enough going on with the shaped card and the added banners,hearts,stars and button elements.A patterned background,I felt,would detract from the main design but you decide and tell me what you think.I won't be offended if you don't agree.I used Promarkers to colour in the main image and all the other elements and secured them in place with foam pads.The final touches included adding faux stitching,Glossy Accents and 2 red gems as cherries on the cakes.

I would like to enter this into :
1.Make it Monday - 36 (Anything Goes)
2.Papertake Weekly - Fancy a punch ?

My first twisted easel

I hope you don't mind that I have used another LOTV image to do my DT card for this weeks challenge at My Time To Craft Challenge but because they are so lovely I just can't resist using them. Can you guess the theme just by looking at my card ?

Yep ! You got it right !! A Red and White Challenge. A bit obvious I think especially as I went totally OTT with the colour scheme.

I have made many easel cards as they are a favourite of mine but this is the first time I have made a 'twisted' easel.It wasn't difficult but I see that you clever people now do double and triple easels - wow! I might get around to it one day but I will never catch up lol.
Okay here is my recipe :
White Bazzill 6"x6" as the base card
Floral backing paper from Crafters Companion
Red card from stash
White paper from stash
LOTV cute square
LOTV stamped sentiment
Martha Stewart Punch around the Page
Nestie scalloped circle die
2 red gems
3 hand-made flowers (shown on previous tutorial and highlighted in picture below)

It would be great if you joined us at MTTCC this week. Why not pop over to see the fabulous examples the other team members have made for you ? - go on you know you want to xxx

I would be pleased to enter this into :-
1. Paper Cupcakes - Birthday challenge
2.Totally Gorjuss 78 - 3-2-1 
( 3 hand-made flowers,2 punch around the page,1 circle sentiment )

Perfect Pets

Have you got a perfect pet ? We have - our Suzy Cat. She is so cute and no trouble at all, infact she has been good company for me lately although she much prefers Hubby. However, promise not to tell her but I would love a little doggie.One to go for walks with and groom and play ball. I love the idea of this great doggie image from LOTV with his young master - going everywhere together.
Don't you ?

This is my DT card for My Time To Craft Challenge which this week is entitled Perfect Pets. I am not entirely happy with my design this week and if I had the time (and energy) I would re-do it.
I know what's not quite right with it but I'm not telling !

The design started with an 8"x8" white square card base which I covered with a background paper that I made by stamping on a dog image over a distressed design from the Basic Grey basic white paper pack.The dog stamp was part of a free gift with a recent magazine purchase.The LOTV image was stamped onto watercolour card and coloured with watercolour paints. The spot paper is from the Basic Grey Kioshi paper pad and I pulled out the colours from this for my colour scheme for the image and orange glitter card.The circle doily is Marianne and the sentiment is LOTV.
We will be so pleased to see your Perfect Pet designs at MTTCC this week so do come and join us with your perfect pets.

Easter Wishes to You All

I have had a hectic time since last Thursday and it continues but I was able to put a simple card together yesterday for this weeks My Time To Craft Challenge which has the theme of Easter Wishes.

I used this super sweet image from Clearly Vintage and teamed it with a background paper from the Popcorn Bear Cd : Birthday. I printed the image twice and decoupaged one cut out image of the girl and the rabbit onto the other with foam pads to give added dimension.

For a change I have made a gate fold card base made with Yellow Bazzill Dot and I used the same card for the Marianne Creatables fancy corners and the image mat.

The opened card shows the insert that you can create also using the Cd. To complete the design I added a little glitter to the flowers and two butterflies cut from the same background paper and embellished with blue gems.

(A short update : Hubby had his Bypass last Thursday but is still in hospital because he now has an infection and has been really poorly.He is as weak as a kitten. I'm so hoping that today he will have improved as the antibiotics do their job.)

On the Spot

I have made my first card in nearly 3 weeks thanks to this weeks challenge at My Time To Craft. The theme this week is On the Spot so anything that has something to do with spots and dots  - easy peasy !!

For obvious reasons you know that my mojo is rather low just now so I was pleased that I had treated myself to some lovely LOTV images recently. This is one of the cute squares so I didn't have to colour it in and it meant I could make a quick and easy card this week. The spots, regarding the challenge, are on the background paper and also on the dress.

I have teamed the image with a lemon and red colour scheme. The spot background paper is Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety,the lemon base card is Bazzill and the red card is from my stash. To complete the design I have added a white heart shaped doily,a metal heart charm,a die cut flourish from Marianne Creatables, cut from silver mirri card and a red organza bow.

I do hope you will join us at MTTCC this week as it's always lovely to see your fabulous creations.
Love to you all xxx

Nautical

It is difficult for me to craft at this time so I hope you don't mind me showing you a few cards I made last year  (and have already shown on here)  which fit the theme at My Time To Craft Challenge this week.

The papers and images are all taken from Kirsty Wiseman's fabulous Cd, Colour Me Crazy.I really love these images and colours.
The rest of the DT have made some gorgeous samples to inspire you, so please pop along and have a look and I hope you have the time to join our challenge this week.
Hope to see you next week xxx

Added Note :
Just to explain : I'm finding it difficult to craft because I'm tired,I make a 50 mile round, road trip to the hospital each day,get home late and not surprisingly,my head is somewhere else. Sorry x

Mum's the Word

Here is my DT card for the My Time to Craft Challenge which today is entitled Mum's the Word (or in my case Mam's the word ).The design is taken from the super Polka Doodles Paper Boutique I Cd which is probably my favourite PD Cd to-date.

The card is an A4 size and about 10.5" high.The flowers are formed and layered to give dimension. I added double layered MS punched butterflies which I glazed with Glossy Accents and added  letters die cut from TH's Vintage Market ( I might change the Mam to Mum for D in L to send to her Mum if she wants it).

It is embellished front and back.The Tags can be positioned where preferred or left off altogether.

The inside is decorated with a large matching flower.
I do hope you pop along to MTTCC and join in the challenge this week as it will be great to have your support and see your creations x


A Personal Message
A BIG Thank-You to everyone who has sent their best wishes and kind words for me and my husband. It is wonderful to know that there are such good people in this mad world. Your prayers must be working because he is remarkable well considering everything. The staff at the James Cook Hospital are looking after him really well and hopefully he will get his operation in the next week or two and then be on his way to a full recovery.Love to you all xxx

Ladies Day

My DT card this week for My Time to Craft Challenge is vintage style and the theme is entitled Ladies Day.

The first thing that came to my mind was The Races - Cheltenham and Ascot. Ladies dressed in hats and all dolled up to the nines.Well I haven't included horses but I really liked this scene of Ladies (and Nanny with the children of course ) strolling in the Park in their best gowns and the Pooch groomed and prettied for his stroll too.

Not a brilliant photograph but there is no doubt that my design is monochromatic. I have used white,black and silver.The base card is a white 8"x 8" square card and I have used black Bazzill card for the matting.

I made the Butterfly background paper by stamping and heat embossing in Silver. I can't remember where I got the stamp and I have never used it before but I thought it stamped very well. The white scalloped mat was cut on my Silhouette.The black and white stripe paper is from Papermania Monochromatic Collection as was the Butterfly and flowers. The silver ribbon was from my stash. The image is a Freebie from Clearly Vintage and I added Glamour Dust to the bodice of her dress and a little to her face veil. I made the frame with a Spellbinders Frameabilities in a silver pearlescent card from stash and finally I added a Mother's Day sentiment.

I would love to enter this card into the following challenges :
1.Crafty Creations 110 - Mother's Day
2.Charisma Cardz 11 - To 'Die' for
3.Digi Doodles 51 - Anything Goes
4.Crafty Catz 74 - Mother's Day
5.Stampin' for the weekend 6 - For Mum/Mother's Day
6.CES 28- Inspired by a Song  (Hello Dolly)
7.Ladybug Crafts Ink 20 - Monochromatic
8.Craft Your Days Away 16 - For Mum
9.Cup Cake 134 - Monochromatic
10.Incy Wincy Designs 86 - Embossing
11.Paper Cupcakes - Vintage
12The Shabby Tea Room 54 - Bingo (Die Cut,Embossing,Ribbon)

Home Sweet Home

Ask anybody and they will tell you I am a bit of a home girl. I like everything to do with houses and household things,except maybe the dreaded ironing. Mind you I have that down to a fine art these days and I might tell you my secrets one day if you are good to me - he-he x But getting down to today's business I want to tell you about the challenge at My Time To Craft Challenge. The theme this week is Keys and I came up with this offering :

For me, I thought immediately of houses so no surprise there but there are many ways of incorporating keys into your design and you just have to check out the great samples for inspiration from the DT. As you can see I have kept my design fairly plain and simple,both with the actual image and the colour scheme. I did wonder if it was too plain so I tried some distressing but decided "No,not this time".What do you think ?

Showing optional distressing

I liked it but I didn't go with it in the end.Instead I kept it plain and hoped the simple design would work particularly because I wanted only to high-light the central house. I did this by only colouring that building as the home in question.

Showing the heat embossing

This is a very poor photo but I am including it in the hope of showing that I heat embossed the houses and the sentiment. The embossing powder is the brown shade from Sheen Douglas WOW powders and I must say they are very fine and really good. The stamps are from October Afternoon and I used Kraft Card,Bazzill and Mirri Card. I cut the keys with a Nestie Shapeability Die.

The cards are only 120cm square and I thought perfect for a little New Home card so I made two (anyone moving soon ?).
I would like to enter this card into the following challenges :
1.Paper Sundaes 60 - Keep it Simple
2.Paper Cupcakes - Monochromatic
3.Do You Stack Up 10 - Layers  (my design was lifted with foam pads)
4.One Stop Craft Challenge 122 - Clean and Simple
5.Papertake Weekly  - Trio - Tastic
6.Try it Tuesday - Chocolate Therapy (The colour Brown)

Birthday Wishes

Hope you don't mind but I've added an extra pic :

Good Morning friends x How are you today ? I'm happy today because it's Tuesday and you know what that means don't you ? Yes,you are so right,it's another fabulous challenge at My Time To Craft Challenge and this week the theme is Jewels. Isn't that a great theme ? We would love to see your creations that have anything to do with jewels. I had loads of ideas for this one from a Pirate Chest to a String of Pearls but I am still in 'fairy' mode so this is what I ended up making.

A sugar-sweet colour palette (very Spring-like) and I do think lemon and pink go well together especially when we are talking dressy-uppy little girls don't you think ? The whole design started with the Jewelled Crown which I bought over a year ago thinking it was perfect for adding to a card for my Grandaughter. The next thing was this perfect image from Polka Doodles which already had a crown but I was able to mask it to leave a space for the gem crown.She is actually a Christmas Stamp and her name is Fairy Polly. Say Hello to Polly lol

I stamped on to watercolour paper and coloured with watercolour paints again.I actually did 4 images altogether in order to practice,improve and make sure I had something worthwhile in the end. I'm happy to say that I now have 3 decent images all completed and added to a card design (yay!!Hope to show you another time). I added Glamour Dust to the wings and Stickles here and there for that fairy touch.

The DP's are BasicGrey Porcelain (all so pretty),the image is matted on to glitter card,the flowers are Wild Orchid Crafts and the sentiment is Craft Work Cards. I based the design on a sketch at Sweet Stampin Challenge.
I would like to enter this card into the following challenges :
1.Sweet Stampin Challenge - A Sketch
2.Basic Grey 39 - Wings
3.Ladybug Crafts Ink 18 - Spring Colours
4.Stampin for the Weekend 5 - Springtime
5.Crafty Calendar 18 - Spring 
6.Incy Wincy Designs 84 - Pastel Colours 
7.Wags n Whiskers 49 - More than one fold 
8.Papertake Weekly - Lemon Zingy

I picked this Just for You

Isn't this little girl just so cute ?

She is from the Sheena Douglas A little Bit Sketchy stamp set and I think this one is called Busy Doing Nothing. I picked her Just for You and of course for my DT card at My Time to Craft Challenge this week which has the theme of Infants. The theme is very broad and we would love to see your creations that include children or something for children.Come and join us as it would be wonderful to see your crafty makes.

My effort is another easel card but I based the design on the sketch at Phindy's Challenge Blog. As the image is quite large and my card is based on a 6"x6" card. I went with the easel design in order to allow more space for the sentiment. It also gave me the chance to use more of the pretty Pink Petticoat papers called Vintage Rose.

I have mentioned before that I struggle with colouring in images. I've tried Promarkers,Copics,Watercolour Pencils and a mixture of all three. This time I used watercolour paper and watercolour paints and I think I found it a little easier but it's early days and I will see how this works out. (Yesterday I posted a card that I also coloured with watercolour paints but this little cutie was my first attempt ).
I would love to enter this card into the following Challenges :
1.Phindy's Challenge 43- A Sketch
2.DYSU Challenge 8 -Anything Goes
3.Incy Wincy 83 - Spring is in the air
4.One Stop Challenge 120 - Spring Flowers
5.Crazy4Challenges 76 - Use Flowers
6.Sir Stampalot Challenge - March Challenge 
(I hope the yellow hair counts !)

Do you wear a hat ?

I have the grand total of 3 hats. Big brimmed creations that I bought for Weddings but I have never really got used to wearing a hat and although I was happy to 'get dressed up' it is not something that I get the chance to do very often. Anyway I digress. Today the theme at My Time To Craft Challenge is (you have guessed it)  Hats !

I found the image of these gorgeous ladies at Clearly Vintage where Cora posts Copyright Free Images that you can use. She also has a range of vintage stamps that you can purchase. The image has been matted on to a die cut made using a Nestie.

I have used another Laura Ashley paper in a flocked Damask design in  dark grey and salmon.The base card is Bazzill, chosen to coordinate with the DP. I based the design on a Sketch at  Basic Grey Challenge . The other papers are Cosmo Cricket Material Girls and plain Velum.

The finishing touches are lace from Prima ,velvet ric rac from CandC,sentiment from Craftwork Cards and finally a metal charm in the shape of a hand mirror and 3 gems from my stash.

I would like to enter this card into the following Challenges :
1.Basic Grey Challenge 38 -  A Sketch
 Silly ME !! I cant enter BG Challenge even though I used their sketch. I didn't include any of their stuff : (
 Have deleted my entry from their blog. boo hoo !!!
2.Crazy4Challenges 75 - Use Dies ...
3.Incy Wincy Designs 81 - Use punches or Dies
4.A Spoon Full of Sugar 140 - Birthday Wishes