What a wonderful day!

It’s been really beautiful here this morning so I decided that while the wooden garden furniture was dry it might be a good time to clean it all up and store it away in the garden shed for the winter. It breaks my heart to put it away, especially as it’s been warm and sunny today but at least I still have a bench out there to sit and have a cup of coffee on if the opportunity arises.

Needless to say, because I’ve been out in the garden there’s not been much crafting done but I did manage to get the latest Daring Cardmakers challenge card made.

This week they want us to use a frame on our card so I pulled out my Crate Paper, fired up Roberta (Robo) and came up with this little card.






I’ve used:
Cream Hammered Card Blank - Craft Creations
Card Stock - Crate Paper – Cowgirl Collection
Blooms – Prima, Dunelm Mill and Robo’ed flower.
Ink - Staz-On (Black) and Tim Holts Distress Ink (Worn Lipstick)
From Stash – Red diamantes, Beige Gingham ribbon.

Cars, Boats, Trains & Planes................

Ooooo this reminds me of the song ‘Trains and Boats and Planes’ written by Burt Bacharach and sung by Dionne Warwick from wayyyyy back when I was just a little girl but in actual fact it’s the mid week Little Extra’ from the Daring Cardmakers

Cars, Boats, Trains & Planes
is the theme for our Little Extra challenge this week. A good chance to stock up on kids cards and make a few of those poor, unloved "cards for men", maybe? How about "congratulations on Passing your Driving test" or "Got your Wings" for newly qualified pilots? - ok so we may be reaching a bit far with that one, but you never know! Basically, what we'd like you to do is put some transport on your cards this week, how you do it is up to you!


Here’s what I came up with:-



The little sailing boat is an unmounted stamp that I brought on ebay, stamped in Black pigment ink, embossed with clear embossing powder and then painted with watercolour pencils.

I layered the image on Green and White card stock and attached it to the card with eyelets. I've also cut some circles from the same Green card and some patterned paper (sorry, don’t know what that was) which were attached to the card with big white Papermania brads.

The card has been finished off with my usual inking around the edges and you’ll also notice that I’ve attempted to do a bit of doodling but I’m not sure it worked to be honest.

CPS 31 - Special Birthday

I can't beleive that my eldest brother is going to be 60 next week. I think the reason I can't beleive it is because if he's that old then I must be getting older too and I'm in denial. lol.

Anyway, this is the first of three cards I have to make for him and as far as I know he doesn't look at my blog so it's quite safe for me to put this card on here.

I've used template 31 from CPS





The papers are Basic Grey - Hang 10.

The big 'h' & 'b' are rubber stamped on to some Dovecraft Designer Paper from a pack called 'Abstract' using my lovely new (if a little expensive) Big Timber Line Tall Lowercase Letters from Technique Tuesday.
I glued the letters onto thick card, cut round them with a craft knife, then added three layers of UTEE and finished the edges off with a Gold marker pen.

The 60 was done basically the same way but this time it was cut on Roberta (Robo) and while the last layer of UTEE was still molten I added some ultra fine glitter.

DCM / Di Hickman - Charity Begins at Home

Gillian over at the Daring Cardmakers
has dared us to do a bit of Charity shopping this week.

I DARE you to visit your local Charity Shop & make someone else's

TRASH your STASH!

.........and make a GORGEOUS card from what you find.You'll be amazed at the special little treasures you'll find if you only take the time to look with CREATIVE EYES
On Friday I showed you the bits I picked up at my local charity shop…….. the Black lace t-shirt, necklace and broach.

I decided to use another of Di Hickman’s sketches.
for my card.

The fan was part cut on Roberta (Robo), part by hand and I’ve used a direct to paper technique with Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink to colour the pieces.

When that was dry I stamped and embossed a leaf pattern in Gold and then inked around all the edges with a Gold marker.

I glued a panel of Black lace behind each piece and then dismantled the necklace and broach to make the tassel.

The card was stamped with a border stamp from the Stick ‘n’ Stamp, Geisha set, a fern tapestry stamp and I’ve added some of the small Black beads from the necklace.

The greeting was stamped with an alphabet set called LineDot, which came with a Scrap Goods kit.

Di Hickman - September sketch 2

I’ve turned this sketch round to give me a landscape card.



I started off with a cream Linen card and used my tapestry stamps to create a background of leaves and fern.

I used the Cuttlebug ''Script' embossing folder to make three panels which I’ve rubbed with 'Dried Marigold' distress ink and then edged with a Gold marker pen.

The Tulip images were stamped in Black, heat embossed using clear embossing powder and then painted them with Twinkling H2o’s and mounted using 3D foam.

The butterflies are Peel-Offs that have been stuck onto acetate and painted with Blonde Moments Sugar Pearl Pigments mixed with a little clear base paint medium.

I've finished the card off by adding some two tone ribbon.

Visit to the charity shop

I had a look on the DCM site this morning to see what the new challenge is for this week and it's entitled Charity Begins at Home, so while I was out this morning I called in at our local Barnardo's.

Unfortunately there didn't seem to be very much in there that I could do anything with because they had emptied most of the shelves and were stocking up with all the 'new' Christmas things......why does this get earlier every year?

Still, after a bit of sorting around I came across a lovely little Black lace t-shirt.

Now if this hadn't been a size '5' I think I would have kept it for myself because it's gorgeous but there's just no way I was going to squeeze my size 22 body into it so sadly I'm going to cut it up......my philosophy being....if I can't have it nobody can!

Mind you, it's going to be hard taking the scissors to it.

I also found a broach and a wooden beaded necklace and all for the incredible price of £2.00, a bargain I thought.

Now for the hard part............all I have to do is think of something to do with it.

Watch this space!

Roberta's at it again!

Well the weekly shop is done and dusted for another week so as I promised myself this morning I’ve been playing with Roberta Robo again.

I’ve still not attempted to design anything myself yet, need to pluck up loads more courage before I attempt that, but I have made a 40th birthday card that I needed with the help of another template from UK Scrappers.
This one was designed by Shirley Young and is a really lovely template.
I’ll most definitely be using again so thanks for making it available to us Shirley.

I have used a bit of artistic licence for my card because I’ve made mine with three layers of flowers, resizing the second layer to make them smaller and adding a third even smaller flower that wasn’t on the original template.

The papers are all Crate Paper, from the Twirl Collection and I’ve also used some buttons from my stash and some Stickles glitter glue.

Wonderful comments

Hi girlies,
I just wanted to say thanks for the lovely comments you've given me over the last few weeks, it certainly is a boost when people like what your doing.

I've really had fun playing with my Craft Robo too but just need to make it clear that I can't honestly take all the credit.

As I've said in the posts before all of the templates have come from the incredibly clever and talented girls on UK Scrappers and a few ding bats and alphas, all I ever do is sit back and watch while Roberta (Robo) does all the cutting and then I just stick it all together. One day when (and if ) I ever get the hang of designing templates for myself I hope to be able to give them something back but the way it's going at the moment I wouldn't hold your breath. lol.

Anyway, on with the day as it's take dad shopping day today , so no crafting until this afternoon.

Thanks again for taking the time to look at my work and a big thanks to UK Scrappers because without then I'd having nothing to show you!

DCM – Golden

The Daring Cardmakers are at it again with yet another mid week challenge and this time they have given us a word to use as inspiration for our cards.
They say:-

You can use the word in any way you like - the word itself doesn't even have to be on the card, for instance you could make a card in golden shades, or maybe inspired by the seasons of Spring or Autumn which both feature lots of golden colours. Or maybe you could make a card to celebrate a Golden Anniversary, and of course Gold is a great colour for Christmas cards.....It's up to you - just go for Gold.

I’ve been playing with my Craft Robo this morning and made my card using a template designed by Erika P over at UK Scrappers, thanks for sharing Erika. I’ve also cut some double layered flowers (seem to be doing a lot of these at the moment) and added them to the card.

All the papers are from My Mind’s Eye, Tres Jolie. I love the texture of this paper, not quite as scrummy as Crate but not far off.

My ‘Golden’ bits are the four tiny brads, four loopy flowers and the edging around various parts of the card.


Here are a couple of other cards made on the Robo, again using templates from UK Scrappers. I can't remember who shared them at the moment but I will update this later. In the mean time a big thank you for sharing them, hopefully one day I'll have learnt enough to be able to share some that I make.

The first is a birthday card for my brother which is very personal to him.
He’s mad about ten pin bowling and always seems to win whenever he plays. If you look closely you’ll see that I printed a score card onto acetate, naturally he’s won and I’v made the bowling ball the same colour as the one he brought back home with him from America a few years ago (wonder if he had to pay for excess luggage?)

The other card was a 70th birthday card for my aunt which again has the layered flowers which are becoming my trademark by the looks of things…….but only because it’s the only thing I know how to do. Lol!

There's a first time for everything!

Yep, there is a first time for everything...........I went to my very first crop yesterday.

It was a charity crop in support of the Make A Wish Foundation and was well worth every penny of the £20 it cost for the ticket. The price even included a fantastic goodie bag full of some wonderful things to play with, including a pile of 12 x 12 papers……not bad err!

There were classes that you could take part in and a fantastic raffle with loads of prizes and a top prize of a Craft Robo.
I was lucky enough to win something…..a Daisy D’s Purse and Booklet kit and some 12 x 12 papers to go with it.

Never having been to a crop before I wasn’t sure what to expect and had no idea what I should take but in the end I decided to do another page for my Family Tree album. In actual fact it was a photo that I had already scrapped but I wasn’t happy with it and decided to do it again.









As you can see it’s a layout of my Great, Great Grandmother.

I’ve used some of the Designer papers from the K & Co pad that Lythan gave me for my birthday. It’s just so perfect for my album so expect to see lots more of it in the coming months.
The lettering was cut on my craft Robo and the flowers were cut by hand from one of the sheets of paper that was all covered in glitter (very lush) and then layered using 3D foam. The only other things used were some Stickles glitter glue, a couple of Gold brads and some sheer Cream ruffled ribbon that was part of a kit from The Little Silver Hat.

Lythan was concentrating hard on her two layouts and I’m not even sure she was aware that I had taken this photo.



Later on in the day I did a class where I made this little chipboard book.

Anyway, all in all it was a good day, even if I did forget to take some lunch with me and I can’t wait for the next one!

DCM – In A Word

This weeks challenge is from Rhi over at Daring Cardmakers and she says:-

This week I dare you to use a Word as the main focal point to your card. It can be a name, a greeting or just a word that inspires you. You can use other text but only one word as a main embellishment. So dig out your dictionaries, die cutters, alphabet stamps, rubons or download a funky font and show us what you can do! The design team have come up with some fabulous creations to inspire you.

Well, I think it's safe for me to show this card now because it's for my brothers birthday next week. He's somewhere over the Atlantic at the moment and it's very unlikely he'll be looking at my blog in the next couple of weeks so here goes.

My dad asked me to do a card for him so I decided on a three page booklet type thing and covered all the pages with Tres Jolle papers from My Mind's Eye.

On the inside of the card, which you can't see because silly me forgot to take a photo of that bit, I've used a VersaMark Pad to stamped various cars and then chalked over the top in contrasting colours.

All of the lettering was cut on my Craft Robo and I've finished all the edges in my usual way by inking with distress ink.

DCM Big and Little - CPS 30

This little card covers two challenges, the Daring Cardmakers Little Extra where they say:-
We'd like you to use items in pairs of Big and Little - so you need to have both sizes on your card ie big & little buttons, big & little die cuts, big & little hearts, big & little circles etc The theme of your card can be whatever you like this time, so that's nice of us, isn't it?


And also template 30 from CPS



The flowers (one large & two small) are all made up the same with four different sized flower layers in each all cut on my Craft Robo. I’ve inked all the edged (there’s a surprise!) and finished off the two small ones with a Pink diamante and the larger one with a Green brad.
All the papers I’ve used were the Prima ones that Kathy gave me a while back and the ribbon was from my every growing collection.

STC - 26 & 23

Thanks to the help of Kathy and Godelieve’s links tutorial that she put me on to I think I’ve now got this links thing sussed, so you can expect loads and loads of links from me from now on. lol.

I've been playing catch up again today because yesterday I was feeling a bit down and didn’t really get very much done. The reason I was so sad was that it was 18 years ago that we lost my mum and although it was so long ago I can still remember her last couple of days in such fine detail that it could have actually been yesterday. I can’t believe that it all happened so long ago but time moves on and those 18 years have just flown by.

I’m fine today though and back to my crafting so I decided to catch up on a few cards that I needed to make.
For these two I used templates from STC. and for once I’ve actually managed to do the latest one (26) in the right week!



For this I used
Patterned papers - 12 x 12 HOTP wedding collection (I think)
12 x 12 Pink flowery vellum – also a HOTP collection but not sure which one.
Perfect Pearls
Gold Embossing powder
Cream Tag with computer printed greeting.
Pink feather
Two small Pink Rose buds.
Color Box Fluid Chalk ink pad. You’ll notice that as usual I’ve inked around everything. This seems to be ‘my thing’ at the moment because my cards don’t look finished to me if I don’t ink the edges.

I used template 23 from a few weeks ago for the other card because I seem to have missed that one for some reason.


I’ve used:-

Blue/Grey card
Crate Paper – Hampton Collection
Brown Bazzinks dye inkpad –Used with a Dauber around the sides of the card
Hand drawn Birthday cake
Ribbons and fibres from my stash.

Linking to a particular card - HELP PLEASE

Is there anyone out there who can tell me how to leave a message on another blog that will take them directly to a specific card rather than just to the latest post on my blog.

Any help will be gratefully received.
Thanks
Sue
x

DCM - Tearing Purple Holes for Christmas

I don’t know about the rest of you but I found this week challenge over at Daring Cardmakers really difficult and challenging.
Actually come to think of it, I guess that’s why it’s called a challenge. Lol.
Here's the brief:-
Well, the time has come for our first Christmas card dare of 2007.But as loads of you have already shown some fab Christmas cards on your blogs, we thought we'd make things a little more Daring, interesting, tricky or downright mean - depending on your point of view!
So, we'd like you to make and show a Christmas card which incorporates the following:
Some Paper Tearing
The colour Purple
AND
It has to have at least one hole somewhere in the design!
......BUT by "hole" we don't just mean the sort of hole you poke a brad through, or the holes you make for/with stitching - or even the hole you make to put an eyelet in - although you can use all those techniques too if you want.
We want you to be a bit/lot more inventive and creative than that, and we think you'll be able to come up with some wonderful ideas for making cards to fit this recipe.

Well after much scratching of my head I eventually managed to come up with something but I’m not sure that the photos show it up very well.

I started by cutting a square aperture in the Lavender card and covering it with paper from the Hot Off The Press, Ultimate Christmas Creative Pack and then gave it a Lavender insert.
Next, I cut five snowflakes from Acetate using my Craft Robo and a template that I downloaded from UK Scrappers – Thanks for sharing Silene.
The largest snowflake I used as a stencil and inked over the top of it onto the insert so that it showed through the aperture. The remaining four were inked with Staz-On and then glued to the front of the card so that they overlap the hole.
I finished the card with some Mauve fibres and the sentiment ‘Let It Snow’ which was cut in my Tag-a-Long using a new Skittle Dee Do Alphabet from Sizzix.


Now I think I know what the answer is going to be to this but it’s got to be worth the try……
Can I use this card for my ‘Little Extra’ too because if you look closely two of the snowflakes are the same but one is larger than the other.

More Templates

Here are a couple of cards using templates from Di Hickman.

For the first card I’ve used Daisy D’s ‘Chasing Butterflies Collection papers. I’m loving these at the moment and definitely need to get my hands on some of the other collections….like I need more paper!

I’ve inked and stamped the Papermania chipboard ‘H’, then covered it with Diamond glaze and mounted it on top of a Dunelm Bloom. I’ve also used some Grosgrain ribbon and printed the greeting on my computer.

For the next template I’ve used DCWV ‘Old World’ stack and Basic Grey ‘Mellow’ papers, along with brads, some White Sakura Soufflé Pen to outline the flowers, Baby Blue Liquid Pearls and a computer printed greeting.

CPS 29

As I had a couple of Anniversary cards to make I decided to do at least one of them using template 29 from over on the CPS blog.



All of the pattern is rubber stamped using my good old Tapestry Stamps and the mats have been edged with Gold marker. The greeting was printed on the computer.


This second card is stamped in the same way but this time I’ve added some punched out flowers. I finished the centres of the flowers with Stickles Glitter Glue and printed the greeting on my computer.

STC 24

I thought I’d have a look at one or two of the templates I’ve missed doing recently and came up with this card from template 24, over at Sketch This Card! .



I’ve used Bazzill for the card base and the patterned papers are from the Crate Paper Samantha Collection. I just love these colours together.
The 6 flowers were cut on my Craft Robo and the edges inked before layering them together and I’ve used the middle bits from the loopy flowers to make the corner petals. Other items used were a Gold marker pen for edging round layers, some Lavender eyelets and a Green Diamante.

It's my Birthday...........

well it was yesterday, anyway!

To be honest I’m still in denial that I could possibly be 51 but by way of cheering myself up I thought I would share with you some of the lovely ‘crafty’ pressies I received from my wonderful friends.
A BIG, BIG thank you to each and every one of you for the amazing handcrafted cards and the beautiful presents, I count myself lucky and so blessed to have friends like you.

CPS 28

My second template today is from CPSand is template 28.





Some more rubber stamping on this one, using my new Penny Black Fuchsia. I love these flower stamps and they look great stamped onto watercolour paper as I’ve done here.
The two faux ribbons are also stamped onto the same paper but this time using some more of my tapestry stamps.
The pink background paper is from my collection. I can’t remember who it’s by but I know it was from a 12 x 12 book so it could be Hot Off The Press, but I can’t be sure.
Finally the card was finished off with some Stickles glitter glue and a computer printed greeting.
I