I love to go a-wandering, along the mountain track……………..

…………and as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Val-deri,Val-dera,

Val-deri,

Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,

Val-deri, Val-dera.

My knapsack on my back.

I just thought I’d get you in the right mood to see a few of the photos I took in Switzerland at the weekend when I went to visit my lovely friend Nicki.

This is Nicki with hubby Peter and Tosca Dog.

They made Susan (another friend) and I very, very welcome and took us out and about to show us some of the sights in the beautiful country where they live.

Our first full day (Friday) was spent on a guided tour of the area including stops at the Swiss Army Knife factory and then a visit to the shop at the chocolate factory where Peter’s father was a chocolatier for many years. It’ll come as no surprise to you that I came away with a big bag of chocolate…not all for me I might add…..gifts for the family you understand!

We continued our tour and stopped off in the town of Schwyz where Nicki gave us a bit of a history lesson and pointed out the beautiful painted town hall

that depicted and commemorated the founding of the country and then from here we headed to the shores of lake Lucerne to admire the view and enjoy a cup of coffee.

Our final stop for the day was in Lucerne itself, but first things first…........we had to sort out a bit of a parking problem.

Like all underground car parks there were signs at the entrance with a few parking restrictions.

Nothing over 2 metres in height

No motorbikes
No trailers

And last but not least

No Giraffes!!!

Nicki didn’t actually believe me when I said there was a sign saying no giraffes, so we had to make a point of going back to the entrance to have another look.

Now where were we meant to leave ours while we went sight seeing? Lol!

Now then, back to the reason Nicki had brought us to Lucern.

She wanted to show us the famous Kapellbruecke (Chapel bridge) which is made of wood and dates back to 1333. Sadly last year vandals caused a lot of damage when they set fire to the bridge and some of the 111 17th century paintings were lost. The bridge has now been restored and looks beautiful with all the flower baskets along both sides.

It must take them forever to water all those baskets!

On Saturday Peter drove us up the mountain and we ate and drunk traditional Swiss while taking in the spectacular scenery

and on Sunday we drove out to another lake where we had a picnic breakfast and spent the day enjoying the quite tranquillity and doing some cross stitch before heading back to Nicki’s to pack

for our journey home…..needless to say I didn’t want to leave!

I would have said that my case was lighter going home because on the way out it was full of material for the Kids Company project that Nicki is working on but that would be a lie. If anything it weighed more because of the four big chocolate bars and pack of marzipan that I brought home with me.

Oh well, back to reality now because I have no more planned breaks now until visiting the Christmas market in Reims in December.

Prismacolor First

I’ve just been catching up on a few card orders again and decided to have a play with my new Prismacolor pencils.
I am quite pleased with my first effort but I believe there’s a long way to go before I start to get the lovely effects that most of you seem to get………… still, it’s early days yet and it means I have to spend a lot more time practicing with them……..what a hardship!


For inspiration I’ve used a template from a couple of weeks ago over at Papertake Weekly
Its ages since I’ve had a go at one of these and I really loved this one.







Here’s my card:-


The Penny Black ‘Light the Night’ image has been sitting here for some time now because it was one of many that I stamped when Carolyn of Crafts By Carolyn fame came to visit earlier in the year , bringing some of her rubber stamps with her.

The papers I’ve used are from the Rhapsody collection by 3Bugs in a Rug and I’ve added a bit of Brown doodling around some of the flowers to give them a bit of a lift.

My trusty embossing folders have also been called into play again too, adding a bit of texture to the coordinating Bazzill Basics card stock and the paper flowers.

Better Late Than Never I Suppose

Why are computers so temperamental?

I’ve been having fun and games with mine this week, first I was almost a day and a half with no internet connection and then when it was finally sorted out Blogger wouldn’t let me onto the DCM blog or my own.

Fortunately my card was made for Mel’s challenge this week and I got it on the Daring Cardmakers Blog before it started playing up but I didn’t manage to update my own before things went pear shaped, so here it is now.

Mel’s dare was quite intriguing because she wanted to see lots of sprinkles.

This week we're working with sprinkles. If you'd like to join in and play along then create a card using some teeny weeny dots/spots to represent little sprinkles. You might add a splash of french knots, beads, small sequins or bling, teeny buttons, hand drawn dots, paint splotches or think up something else thats teeny, tiny and sprinkled.
I think my card just about covers that in more ways than one.

First I run a brayer over the Blue Sarabooks Sapphire paper and the White card stock to give them a covering of Silver flecks. Next was a shower of little snowflakes, embossed with my Cuttlebug embossing folder and then given a quick swipe with a Silver ink pad and my final sprinkle were the tiny pale Blue seed beads that I’ve used to embellish the little snowflakes.

The large snow flake was stitched in Silver metallic thread using part of a ‘Form a Line’ template and has also been decorated with the seed beads.

I can’t say that I was initially happy with the sentiment that I’ve added, I think it’s a little too large but it’s done now and I don’t intend to change it.
I used my printer, set on photo quality to print directly onto the vellum. While it was still wet I gave it a quick coat of clear embossing powder and hearted it very carefully with a heat gum. Believe me, you have to be very careful as I found to my cost because if you get to close to the surface the heat not only melts the embossing powder but the vellum buckles and melts too.
You'll also notice that I've given the torn edges the embossing treatment before securing it to the card with two Silver snowflake brads.

What's a boy to do.........................

...........................when the weather is so hot and humid?

The answer seems to be just crash out somewhere cool and sleep it off..........see just how contented BoJangles looks.

I wouldn’t mind, but how am I supposed to make my bed when he’s stretched full out across it......talk about make yourself comfortable!

A Year's Free Crafting

I’m not usually one for entering the blog candy draws that I find in my travels around blogland but every once in a while you come across one that you just can’t let pass by.

Shaz, over at the Funky Fairy blog is offering the lucky winner a whole year of free crafting with all their new products and that’s just too good to miss out on. All you have to do is click on the link above, pop over and leave them a message and then keep everything crossed for the draw on Thursday.

I would say good luck but I’m not going to because I want to win. Lol!

Excited Or What..............

I'm taking my Dad and brother out this morning to look for a new TV. I was just on my way out, opened the door and came face to face with my postie.

I'm so excited I just had to drop everything and show you what he brought me



A lovely big box of these





just look at all those gourous colours




I'm suposed to be catching up with my ironing when I get back from taking Dad and Keith out but I get the feeling it may just stay in the basket for another day or too. Lol.

Oh well, I'd bether get going because the sooner I go the sooner I'll be back to play.



Hope you're all having a good day too!

Cor…..what a scorcher!

I’ve just had a really great weekend.

It was Diane, my cousin’s wife’s 36th birthday and we were invited up to Mersea Island to her birthday BBQ. They do this every year….you may recall we managed to get my dad on the bouncy castle at last years event! There was a bouncy castle there again this year too but dad declined joining in the fun, saying it was a little too hot for him to be jumping about on one of them things and headed off to sit in the shadiest spot he could find in the garden. Can’t say I blame him really because it was a scorcher and we’ve all come home a little redder that we went.
I’m covered in big red blotches too but mine weren’t caused by the sun, they are insect bites. I don’t know why it is but I always get such a bad reaction when I’m bitten and nothing seems to stop them itching, still I suppose it’s a small price to pay for the fabby weekend away.
I forgot to say that we stayed at the Mersea Vineyard in a B & B over night, such a lovely area and I brought a bottle of the wine home for Dad and Keith to try, I can’t drink it myself as wine always gives me chronic indigestion.

The fact that I was away over the weekend obviously meant there was no crafting done but it gives me the opportunity to show you the bits I made my friend Nicki’s birthday.

I wanted to do the same sort of thing as I did for Sharon, so I did the peg I brought last Christmas as well as a set of glass slides and a box. Where Sharon’s box was filled with a hand made desk set I decided to fill Nicki’s with crafting goodies, ribbons, flowers, cards and envelopes and a little book about making stitched cards.

Here’s a few piccies for you to see.

This is the peg. The flowers on this and the other bits were cut either with punches or on Roberta Robo and all the papers used were from the Memory Stor (Costco Kit)



The outer case for the glass slides


Inside the case


The glass slides, painted with Twinkling H2o's


Nicki's box



You'll recgonise Nicki's birthday card because it's the one I made for a DCM dare a little while ago.

'Golden oldies' - Looking back

Another busy week has just flown by which was intermingled with a trip to the hairdressers, dentist, doctors and the pictures.

First it was the check up on the apses on my tooth. The good news is that the pain has all but gone….the bad news is that the x-ray showed that there’s still infection around the root of the tooth and if it doesn’t clear up it means I’ll have to have root canal treatment on one of my front teeth. I’m the world’s worst when it comes to dentists……………when I was a child they had to put my on tranquilizers before getting me in the chair. I’m not quite so bad these days and I do go for my regular check-ups but I’m still petrified so any good vibes you can send me would be greatly appreciated.

The visit to the doctors on Tuesday was good though. I have to go in on a regular basis to have my BP monitored and be weighed. I’ve been back on my diet with a vengeance for the last month and I’ve lost 10lb so the doctor was happy and I was over the moon.

On Wednesday I went and had all my hair lopped off in the morning and then I meet up with a friend for lunch and a spot of clothes shopping before going to the pictures. I was hoping to see Mamma Mia but we decided to go and see Prince Caspian instead because it had been out longer. It was quite good but not as good at The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
Hopefully Mamma Mia will be next!

Thursday morning was taken up by the weekly food shop with dad and then I spent the afternoon working on a card order and making my card for the Daring Cardmakers weekly challenge.

It a team dare this week…………..

With so many new things /latest papers/ trendy stuff/ we thought it would be nice to have a look back, and dig out some of our 'old' papers and embellishments and make a card with our 'preloved' treasures. The tendency these days seems to be to get on the 'latest must have' band wagon, but sometimes it’s nice to recognise what we already have- even if it isn't the 'latest' embellishment/paper..........
So with this in mind I had a rummage to the bottom of some of my boxes and came up with a few things that I brought when I first started making cards. I don’t know if this fact influenced the style of my card but for some reason it turned out looking very basic……no idea why.

Anyway, here it is in all its glory!


The papers are Brenda Walton from a K & Co designers pad. The colours are really pretty. The photo doesn’t really pick up the lovely muted shades for Pink and Green so well but they matched the Bazzill card stock perfectly.

I used the very first punch that I brought, a Woodware, Whale of a Punch, to cut the two little tags, to which I added a Gold Peel-Off and then in a moment of weakness I wavered and used my ‘new’ nestability dies to cut the layered circles...........please forgive me.

I used to use shed loads of charms when I first started out but they very rarely see the light of day these days. These three little ones came from Crafts By Carolyn.

Finally the ribbon…………..this came from one of the very first kits I ever purchased from Scrap Goods.

And there you have it, everything used on the card is at least four years old or more, if you don’t count the nestabilities that is and it’s frightening to think it’s been sitting there collecting dust all that time, so thanks girls for making me revisit those boxes and use some of it.

Spot the Difference

It’s Daring Cardmakers day today and oh boy has Rhi come up with a dare that's way too far out my comfort zone.

Hi, it's Rhi here this week to dare you, and it's...Journaling spots. They're used all the time in scrapbooking where it's extra personal to read someone's words and memories in their own hand. Use a journaling spot, be it stamped, premade, hand cut, digital or doodled, to frame your handwritten message on your card.

I’ve never even used hand written journaling spots on the few scrapbook layouts I’ve made so the thought of adding my own hand writing, which isn’t good at the best of time, to the front of a card, simply terrifies me. Could this be a dare too far?

No, of course not.
This may not be one of the best cards I’ve ever made but at least I’ve had a go.


I decided to keep it very simple and went with three little boats; all hand cut from Basic Grey Color Me Silly papers. I’ve added buttons for the port holes and the largest of the boats has an anchor charm attached.
My journaling spot is the largest sail and it reads….You sailed into my life and set anchor in my heart.
The waves have been stamped with ‘Broken China’ Distress ink and Technique Tuesday Whispy Gigs clear stamps and I finished off the card with some doodling and mock stitching.

Cross Stitch for the Kids Company

A few weeks ago I mentioned that my friend Nicki and I had started to cross stitch for a charity called Kids Company and I gave you a glimpse of the first of two bands I was stitching.
Well, I finished the two of them and sent them out to Switzerland for Nicki to incorporate into the cushion she was making for a six month old little boy.

Here’s the result.


I love the way Nicki has made the felt appliqué animals to match the ones in the little arks on the other side.........it really looks great.

We still have a long list of kids to stitch for, so as soon as I had finished doing the stitching for this one I started on another. This time it's for a young girl of 20 so I decided to go with a flower theme.


I think Nicki has done a wonderful job with this one, matching the colours perfectly don’t you think?
You can see the rest of the cushions that Nicki has made here on her web site and believe me they are well worth a look because they are beautiful.

Purr-fect Companion

I had a lovely day yesterday because Lythan came to play.
We last got together at her house back in May so this time she came to me and brought with her the lovely, mega yummy Prismacolour pencils that she recently treated herself to……………………I think they will be going on my shopping list for when I visit Florida in February!

Lythan spent the day taking advantage of all my rubber stamps while I did something I wanted to do for a long while but just couldn't bring myself to do.
You'll think me silly when I tell you what it is.

Ever since loosing my little tabby Emily three years ago I've been intending to do a scrapbook with the few photos I have of her (which isn't many) but every time I've sat down to do it for some reason I just couldn't. I know it sounds silly but it always brings back all the sad memories.

Anyway, when I got up this morning I decided that today was the day.
It's only an 8 x 8 page which added to the problem because I’ve only ever done 12 x 12 LO’s before. This was very small and it took me all day to do it in the end, even thought there’s not much on there. The good thing is, I’ve made the start and hopefully the next pages won’t take so long or be so hard to do.


Cardstock - DCWV Neutrals stack
Patterned Papers - Wild Asparagus ‘Always’ and Junkilz ‘Summer Floral’
Chipboard Flourishes and Flowers - Maya Road
Lettering – Sizzlits Nouveau and Sizzix Hunky Dory
Flower Punches
Acrylic Paint Dabber
Glitter Glue
Brown Fine Liner
Broken China Distress Ink

Inspirational Blogland

Yep, it has to be said…….blogland is just fantastic when your crafting mojo has gone AWOL.

I don’t know about you but every so often I set aside a little time to have a good catch up on my crafty friend’s blogs and others that I’ve made a note of to go back to after checking out the cards made for the DCM’s dare each week. There’s a wealth of talent out there and it’s amazing how you remember things you’ve seem, just when you need a little push in the right direction.

A few weeks back I was struggling to think of something to make for my friend Sharon as a birthday present. I already had it in mind to make her a set of three painted glass slides but I wanted to do something else a well. Then I remembered something that I had seen a while back on Simply Sue's blog. Sue had made a lovely little desk set which consisted of a large peg, a pencil holder and some post-it’s……..the perfect solution.

As it happens I brought some pegs when I meet up with Sue and some of the girls from Crafts By Carolyn just before Christmas but I run out of time and didn’t manage to get them done so this was the perfect opportunity to use them.

As it was Sharon’s birthday yesterday it’s safe for me to show you what I managed to do in the end.

These are the glass slides in their holder.


The Hydrangea was stamped onto the back of the glass slides and then painted with Twinkling H2o’s


I then made Sharon’s birthday card……..my first attempt at a flip-flop card……in her favourite colours and with some little Swarovski Crystals added to give it a nice sparkle.
The papers I used for everything were either My Mind’s Eye – Tres Jolie or Crate – Samantha.

Next it was the desk set, as inspired by Sue.




And finally……………..a box to put it all in.

Love’em or Hate’em……………Peel-Off’s, that is!

When I first started making cards most of my goodies came from QVC. Like lots of other people I would find myself avidly watching all the craft and card making slots for some pointers on where to start and inevitable would have ordered two or three things before the show finished. As a beginner to this exciting new world of crafting, the lure of the Peel Off was far too strong to resist because according to the presenters you could produce the most wonderful cards in seconds with this ‘can’t do without’ goodie in your craft box.

Now, I’m not really a lover of peel off’s and don’t use them very often but I honestly can’t say that I hate them either. I brought shed loads when I first started out but now the only ones I occasionally use are the borders and text and at Christmas time Silver snowflakes, all the rest are just sitting gathering dust.

Lythan, over at the Daring Cardmakers has made me blow the dust off them this week with a dare that I thought would have me scratching my head for ages. She says:

You can blame Keryn with her rather lovely cool colours dare last week (great cards all BTW!). I found that I needed to use a peel off and was quite pleased with the results and that got me thinking of a fiendish dare. At least it is for me (Lythan) who is often disparaging of the much maligned shiny sticker. But actually there are some really nice examples of the genre around now. And also people who can do all sorts of gorgeous things with peel off stickers that I would not have thought of. Are you one of them?So go on, rummage around in your craft stash and
Make a card with Peel OffsIf you really truly honestly don't have any peel offs in the house (and remember I know where you live and will be checking personally) then and only then, are you allowed to use another type of sticker in its place. Go on, I dare you!
I decided to have a go with this Silver Poppy design which I’ve never used before.


The peel-off has been stuck onto a sheet of Silver metal foil and then dry embossed from the back, giving a raised appearance on the right side. I then painted the flowers with Twinkling H2o’s.

The two papers used are from Memory Stor and I’ve added a computer printed greeting and some ribbon from my stash

Got your Number! Little Extra

It’s time again for another ‘Little Extra’ over at the Daring Cardmakers and it’s a nice easy one after all the Christmas stuff they’ve thrown at us over the last couple of weeks.

All we're looking for are Birthday cards with the age of the recipient on them. Your card can be for any age from 1 to a 100 but it must have a number on it !!

Well, it just so happens that I’ve been doing a couple of 18th birthday cards for a friend and they fitted the bill perfectly, so how lucky was that!


Here’s the first card I made-



Card - Craft Creations White card
Papers – Crate – Cowgirl collection
Round Nestabilities Dies
Blooms – Sarah’s Cards
Charms – Crafts By Carolyn
Chipboard Numbers and brads from my stash
Computer Printed Greeting
Brown Marvy Le Plume fine tip pen

And then I made another



This time the papers are from My Minds Eye, Tres Jolie – Bonjour. The ribbon, Primas and brads are all from my stash and the numbers, lettering and the larger flowers were all cut on Roberta Robo.

I've been given an award...yah!

I was so lucky to have been given an award by not one but two people last week, First from the lovely Hazel and then from the equally lovely Jackie

Thanks so much girls….I feel so unworthy.
There are a few little rules attached to it, so here goes……….

1. The winner can put the logo on their website/blog

Which I’ve already done.
2. Put in a link to the person who gave you the award.
That’s taken care of above.
3. Send the award to at least 7 other blogs that inspire you with their layout-creations-themes.
4. Put a link to these sites on your blog
5. Notify the people you nominate for the award.
Now these three rules have proved to be a little difficult because most of the blogs I look at on a regular basis have already been given the award, some more than once. To get round this all I can say is that if I have ever left a message on your blog it’s because I love what you’ve done and have been inspired by it, so please consider yourself as being given the award by me.
I hope that covers it!

Brrrrrr..........Freezing

I’m late getting my card onto the Daring Cardmakers blog this week mainly because I was making it yesterday afternoon while trying to work through the pains in my face….needless to say the card turned out crap and ended up in the bin.

Still, not to be beaten, I salvaged it from the bin this morning and had another go at it and have just added to the DCM blog.

This week it’s Keryn’s turn to set the dare and she’s given us another wintery theme..

In New Zealand at the moment it's winter and cold and dark. No snow here as temperatures don't get that low but still low enough that that's all anyone thinks about and anyone talks about. So this dare should be easy for those in the colder climes of the Southern Hemisphere but in the North it may be a little trickier. Use images, use colour, use embellishments that make you feel cold and remind you of winter.
Here’s what I eventually managed to create:-

Card - Craft Creations White card
Papers – Printed from the Glenda Waterworth ‘Artylicious’ Seasons Greetings CD
Blue Mulberry Paper
Stamps – Fun Stamps ‘Scribble Snowman
Cuttlebug Snowflakes Embossing Folder
Oval Nestabliities Dies
Watercolour Pencils
Liquid Pearls
Pale Blue Diamantes
Stickles Glitter Glue
Silver Marker Pen
Blue Sheer Ribbon
Computer Printed Greeting

I don't want another one like that!

What a week I’ve had, since talking to you last Friday.

First I had to go to se a consultant about the recurring sinusitis that I keep getting which resulted in me having to have a camera put up both sides of my nose and down my throat. Not a particularly nice experience but the good thing is that it showed there’s no bone or polyps blocking it. Now I have to wait for an appointment for a CT scan of my sinus.

Next it was skin tests at my local clinic. I was under the impression that I didn’t have any alleges, other than to housework that is, but the consultant thinks that the irritation to the lining of my nose may be being caused by an allergic reaction to something. So Thursday I went along and sure enough I had three positive reactions to the eleven that she tested me for. …..Tree pollen, flower/grass pollen and dust mites. I was so surprised that the pollens came up positive because I never get any of the runny nose, itchy eyes and sneezing that you usually associate hay favor.

Then, to top off my week nicely I had to make an emergency appointment at the dentist yesterday because the whole right side of my face is aching. The pain is unbelievable and all due to an abscess on one of my upper front teeth so now I’m on antibiotics and praying that that does trick because I’m the biggest baby going when it comes to dentists and dread the though of having to have any treatment on it, especially with it being at the front.

Oh well, keep taking the pain killers!