Maiden Dare

This week the girls over at Daring Cardmakers have decided it’s about time I earned my place on the design team so they have let me loose with my maiden dare. I had to think long and hard on this one but I hope I’ve come up with something you can all play along with.

It’s all in the Game

Tiddlywinks, playing cards, dominos, jig saw pieces…….the list goes on and I’m sure that most of us have a drawer somewhere that has the odd one or two of these lying around in.
Well now’s your chance to use them because I dare you to make a card using some of those pieces.

Oh and no, you don’t need to throw a double six to start to start the game.

My first card was something that I’ve always wanted to have a go at….Domino Art.

The first thing you need to do is create a rough surface so that the ink or paint will stick to the domino. I was impatient and did this by giving it a quick rub with some sandpaper but apparently you can achieve the same results by soaking them in bleach overnight.

Once this was done I gave the four domino’s a couple of coats of Cream Acrylic paint and once dry I stamped over the top using Blake StazOn and an Anita’s flower stamp. Finally the image was painted with Twinkling H2o’s before being giving three coats of UTEE and edged with a Gold metallic marker.
Tres Jolie papers enhanced it with a touch of Cuttlebug Script embossing and brads, ribbon and a glass bead complete the card.

The second was using some chipboard jig-saw pieces, which were inked with Dried Marigold and Antique Linen Distress Ink from Ranger.

I then stamped the Sunflower with Black StazOn and painted with Twinkling H2o’s. I love this Rubber Stampede stamp, not only because of the lovely the image but because it was such a bargain. I snapped it up of £1 at a fund raising event for the Canal Boat Project

The Jig-saw pieces were layered onto a card with papers from My Mind’s Eye, Tres Jolie collection and finished off with a stamped greeting and some eyelets and ribbons from my stash.

Blogg Award & DCM Little Extra

While I was away in Norway Judy over at Monts Mama Mia very kindly gave me a ‘You Make My Day’ award, how nice is that?


Thanks so much Judy, you've made my day too!

Now I’m supposed to pass it on to my 10 favourite bloggers which is no easy feat especially with so many talented people out there. Not only that, most of the people who really inspire me have already been given the award so I’ve decided to take the easy way out. If I have ever left a message on you blog it’s because I love what you’re doing and your work inspires me, so if you fall into that category then consider yourself given the ‘You Make My Day’ award from me.

And now on to this weeks Little Extra over at the Daring Cardmakers and it’s a very simple one……make an Easter card.

Nothing very taxing for this card, just some layering using one of my favourite Crate paper collections, ‘Birdie’ along with some brads, Prima’s, ribbons and Stickles glitter glue.

Hi Honey……..I’m Home & DCM's Teen Spirit

Did you miss me?

I went off last Thursday for a few days fun in the snow to Norway and what a fabby time I had. Only trouble was I came home with more than I bargained for…..a bad attack of sinusitis and a mild chest infection. It didn’t stop me enjoying my break though and I’ve now been to the doctors and the antibiotics are beginning to kick in so I’m feeling a bit better now.

We landed in Torp (southern Norway) and made a little detour up to Oslo so we could see the Viking Ships that had been excavated and rebuilt over 900 years later.

It was absolutely amazing to see all that wood carving so well preserved and so worth the extra hour and a half on our original three hour journey to Gol where we were staying.
This was our Hotel and the view from our room.

Saturday was spent at a wild life park up in the mountains somewhere. I totally forgot to make a note of the names of the places we went to but will find out from John who is the guy who invited us out there.

I came nose to none with my first Moose which made my weekend especially as this was one I the animals we failed to see while visiting Canada a few years ago.

We also saw some Lynx and Wolves among other things but no Bears….they were all sleeping…..wise decision when you see how much snow there was up there!

Sunday was another exciting day because we visited the highest inhabited village in Norway to do a bit of Skidooing……Ooooo this was fun……and cold…….but fun!

Then there was just time for a quick look around Gol itself and a spot of shopping before facing the long journey back to the airport on Monday. All in all it was a great weekend only slightly spoiled but the flight being delayed due to the storms over here.

Anyway, after all the excitement of the weekend and being ill for a few days after I finally managed to make my card for our Daring Cardmakers
Friday Challenge.

Now, this week it's Rachel's first time to set the dare;"Well I thought we have had plenty of flowers and hearts and girly things so I would like some cards with some teen spirit please."

My card was a very quick one I’m afraid.
It’s using papers from the DCWV ‘All dressed Up’ stack.

The handbag, shoes and coat hanger are QuickKutz dies. The Alphabet is Sizzix ‘Hunky Dory’ and the dress was cut from a template that was in a magazine a little while ago and layered with 3d foam (sorry, can’t remember which mag.)

I've got a stitch

I was a little late with my card for our launch today of the Daring Cardmakers mid week Little Extra so I’ve just put it straight on my blog.

The wonderful Mel has done a fabby little tutorial about adding some stitching to our cards and the dare today is to do just that….make a card with some stitching on.

I didn’t think I was going to get time to do a card this week because I’ve been rushing around finishing orders and trying to get straight and tidy before flying out to Norway on Friday for a short break, but as luck would have it, one of the cards I had made was just crying out for a spot of stitching so I’ve just sneaked in under the fence!

You see that I’ve just added some simple running stitch around the edge of the 70 and I think it definitely helps it to stand out from the card.

Thanks for the tutorial Mel……what a star!

I Am Woman

There’s another great dare over at the Daring Cardmakers blog and it’s the lovely Lythan’s turn to challenge us this week.

As its coming up to Mothers day in the UK here’s a chance to make a card that celebrates women and girls. So I’d like to see a card with at least one feminine image on it. And that's it for rules really.

Apart from this one.

And it is sneaky.

No Tildas, Sugar Nellies or Bellas please. I love them all. But there are loads of great challenges out there using them so for this challenge you can give them a well earned rest!

The No Tilda’s rule wasn’t such a problem for me because apart from the few images that I stamped when Lythan came over to play a few weeks ago, I don’t have any. What I did have though is a lovely set of clear stamps that I brought at Ally Pally last year. Unfortunately I’ve lost the packaging and now have no idea who they are made by but the set consisted of a ladies head and shoulders, a bag, a shoe, some scroll things and a couple of greetings.

My card was inspired by a project in this months Craft Stamper magazine where they used Alcohol Inks to make a background on glossy card and then stamp the image onto it and cut parts of it out and stick them over the top of another image.

The components used were:-

Cream Card Blank – Craft Creations
Patterned Papers – Sarabook’s Emerald Pad – Hot Off The Press
Green Textured Card – DCWV Neutrals
Letter Background Rubber Stamp – Penny Black
Lady Rubber Stamp and Greeting - Unknown
Inks – Black StazOn
Alcohol Inks – Oregano & Stream – Adirondack
Textile Texture Embossing Folder - Cuttlebug
Ribbon and Brads – My Stash

Cross Stitch Update

Well, there’s not really been that much stitching going on the week if I’m honest but I did manage to finish the SOLAK squares that I was working on.

This is Pearl; she was the WIP last week.

SquidwardMr. Krabs

I’ll be off later to check out the database to see what other quilts are in progress and sign up to stitch a few more squares.

There were only a few stitches added to the Tigers that I’m working on so it’s really not worth showing you the progress or should I say the lack of it!

The good new and something that I’m quite excited about is that my good friends Sharon, Nicki and myself are planning a rather special project of our own. I can’t say too much because the person it’s intended for reads my blog occasionally but what I will say is that we are all absolutely thrilled to be doing something for this person and I’m really looking forward to getting started on it. Once my break to Norway is out of the way I’ll get down to some real planning as I need to chart this myself from scratch.

Watch this space and I’ll add a few sneaky glimpses of the stitching as it progresses and then do a big unveiling once the project is finished and delivered.

A Recipe for Mother's Day

The mid week Little Extra from the Daring Cardmakers
team this week is to make a Mother’s Day card with a recipe that consists of two buttons, one ribbon and a ‘spoonful’ of flowers.

I made two cards for this but neither turned out quite how I had hoped.

The first is using Basic Grey - Stella Ruby and Hot Off The Press - Earth Tones Creative Pack papers. I started by cutting the Stella Ruby paper into 4cm squares, inking all the edges and mounting them onto a piece of plain Dark Green paper. This in turn was mounted onto a card that had been covered with Green patterned paper.

This card has seven flowers in all so I think that should equate to a 'bigish' spoonful don't you?
They were cut in various ways, some on Roberta Robo and others using my punches. The larger flower was put together with a Dunelm bloom and fastened with a large brad. The smaller flowers were glued and a small button was added the centres.

The card was finished off with a sheer Green ribbon bow.



The second card is a bit of a cheat because I've used three buttons, not two.


The Brown papers are from the Hot off the Press Earth Tones Cardmaker’s Creative Pack again and the Blue is from the Hopscotch Designer Mat Pad by K & Co.

I was beginning to get withdrawal symptoms from not having used my tapestry stamps for a little while and I couldn't hold out any longer so you’ll notice that I’ve added some scrolls and flowers to two corners of the card and connected them together using some faux stitching.

When is a milk bottle not a milk bottle?

When it’s a birthday card, of course!

Now I know that doesn’t make any sense at all but all will become clear, I promise.
It’s all to do with Today’s dare set by the Daring Cardmakers

This week it's Rhi here to dare you and I'm on a recycling mission. I dare you to look again at the plastic packaging around you and transform it into a brand new card. It could be food packaging, craft packaging or just something plastic that's destined for the bin or recycling. Trim it, die cut it, alcohol ink it, crop-o-dile it, give it a new lease of life then share it via your blog for us all to see. Happy Recycling!

I actually ended up making two cards for this, purely because I didn’t read the dare properly and the first card I made doesn’t clearly show the plastic, which was the whole point of the dare.

So this is in fact my second card. The recycled plastic started out its life as........ yes you've guessed it.........a milk bottle but you would be hard pushed to see that now thanks to a nice covering of alcohol inks and a quick wizz through my Cuttlebug in an embossing folder.

I started off with a plain White card blank which was stamped with VersaMark ink and given a quick dusting of pearl pigments. It doesn’t show up very well in the photo but it’s a pretty Lavender and Blue. The rest of the card is my usual layering with inked edges using K & Co papers and the focal point is the recycled plastic which has been dabbed with alcohol inks and then the moth has been over stamped with Staz-On. The two tags were also cut from the inked plastic using a Whale Of A Punch and then embossed and peel-off butterflies added.

The components were:-

White Card Blank – Craft Creations
Patterned Papers – Wedding Designed Mat Pad – K & Co
Wings Rubber Stamp – Penny Black
Inks – VersaMark, Blue Staz-On & Lavender Color box fluid Chalk
Alcohol Inks --Stream, Wild Plum, Blending Solution & Silver Mixative - Adirondack
Pearl Pigments -Sugar Cool Lustre –Blonde Moments
Ribbon and Peel-Offs - My Stash

This was the original card I made.

I was given a lovely Sanctuary gift set for Christmas and the box had doors on it that had an acetate panel covered in a sheer fabric.

I’ve stamped onto the acetate using a Black Staz-On inkpad and then I turned the panel over and painted directly onto the fabric with Twinkling H2o’s. I stamped a second image onto some of the patterned paper and cut out the individual flower heads, which I stuck over the top. The greeting on the tag was printed on the computer.

The components were:-

White Card Blank – Craft Creations
Patterned Papers – Hopscotch Designed Mat Pad – K & Co
Hydrangea Rubber Stamp – Rubber Stampede
Inks – Black Staz-On
Twinkling H2o’s
Brads & Ribbon - My Stash
Gold metallic pen

I've been in stitches this week

Cross stitches, that is!
I just thought I do a quick update of my stitching this week.
I’ve been concentrating on my squares for Declan’s quilt over at SOLAK but I’ve had real fun and games with it.

I couldn’t find any charts for the Sponge Bob theme he asked for so I ended up drawing and charting them myself. As it goes I don’t think they’ve turned out too bad… that coming for someone who’s never even seen Sponge Bob before so I just hope he can recognize who they are meant to be when he gets them. Lol!

Anyway the work in progress from last week (Sponge Bob) has been finished

and I’ve also finished Patrick Star

and Gary Snail.

I still have a little bit of stitching to do on Pearl so she’s my WIP for this week.

There’s been no progress at all on the big tiger project because all my spare time has been spent on the squares.

The girlies over at SOLAK are really great and a very friendly bunch and thanks to one eagle eyed person I narrowly missed getting a virus on my computer this week.

Someone had joined up as a member emailed us with a link to a site supposedly offering free cross stitch charts but apparently if you clicked on the link the virus wiped your hard drive.
Why do people have to be so nasty and do things like that. I wouldn’t mind but the group is charity based and everyone gives their time and materials out of the goodness of their hearts. These types of people shouldn’t be anywhere near groups like ours and all I hope is that they get their comeuppance for being so nasty.
Rant Over!

That’s it’s for now……more cross stitch news next week!

Oh Sooo Juicy

I’m a bit last posting this today because I’ve been out to lunch. I usually like to get it done in the morning, especially when it’s a ‘dare’ day but better late than never I guess.

Mel, over on the Daring Cardmakers blog wants us to make an ‘Oh Sooo Juicy’ card for this weeks little extra….that means using lemon or orange tones.

I immediately reached for my Blond Moments ‘Spring Fling’ papers and ‘Just Plain Dotty’ rubber stamps which were just perfect for this challenge.



First I covered the card with patterned paper and then stamped two flowers onto the piece that was remaining. The first was stamped in Orange ink and the other in Gold and they were both embossed with clear embossing powder before I cut both of them out.

Next I cut two pieces of cream card stock and put them through my Cuttlebug using the ‘D’vine Swirls’ and ‘Happy Birthday’ embossing folders. I gave the swirl one a quick swipe over with an Orange chalk ink pad and then layered both pieces onto Orange Bazzill. Then last but not least I added some Yellow and Orange ribbon as I layered all the pieces together and attached the two flowers to the centre with a large Yellow brad.

And there you have it …..an Oh So Juicy ‘slurpable’ (nicked that word from Rhi) card

Is it really Friday again?

I’m sure that someone must be pinching days from the middle of the week because here we are…..Friday again and it’s time for another dare from the Daring Cardmakers

Keryn and Rachel are daring you to make a card in the theme of love and friendship for one of the special people in your life. It could be a valentine’s card, a thank you for a close friend or a way to propose to the man in your life on the 29th February.

Stampin Up are sponsoring this week’s dare and because Keryn and Rachel are both independent demonstrators for them, they have provided all the stamped images, paper, card and embellishments for the design teams cards.

I was lucky enough to receive images from the double stamping set ‘Heartfelt Thanks’ which really suits my style I think.

Hope you like my card.

I think it’s about time I did a little up date on my cross stitching too.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I have just finished stitching an Anchor, Born To Shop kit called People who don’t like cats, which was a 50th birthday present from the lovely Nicki out in Switzerland.

I have to say, it was a bit of a pain to stitch because there were so many half stitches but it's finished now and all have to do is decide on a frame before giving it pride of place on the wall in my craft room.

With that one finished I was looking for another large’ish project to stitch…..…I always like to have one big one on the go and then stitch smaller ones in between. I checked through my work box and came across another Anchor kit, this time from their premier collection, call Siberian Gold.


I won the kit a few years back for being Stitcher of the Month in the World of Cross Stitching magazine, having stitched this picture of my cat Emily from a photo but had just never actually got around to stitching it.


Well, I’ve finally made a start and now I know the reason I kept putting it off. It’s taken me over a week of stitching in the evenings to do this piece and it's only about 2 inches wide.



Think this one may be a Work In Progress for some time to come judging by that, don’t you!

I’ve also been onto the SOLAK site this week and signed up to stitch some squares for a little 5 year old boy who loves Sponge Bob Square Pants and Finding Nemo. I’ve put my name down to do six squares, all Sponge Bob characters.

Here’s where I’m at with the first square.

Another Scrapbook Page.........at last I hear you say!

Why oh why do I struggle so much trying to do pages for my family tree album?
I look at other people’s blogs and they seem to create page after beautiful page with no problem at all but me that just doesn’t happen. The whole process frightens me and what should take two or thee days at the most seems to take me three weeks. I’m totally committed to doing this album though so no matter how long it takes me I will finish it and despite what I’ve just said it really is fun going through all the old photos and finding out about my family’s lives.

These two pages are of my mum’s Aunt Emily and my dad’s Uncle Laurie on their wedding day back in 1927. I may have mentioned this before but it was Great Aunt Em who played matchmaker and introduced mum and dad to each other.


The photos I’ve used are all special but the one at the bottom right of the second page is extra special. It’s of the Hyde family and has my Great Grandparents, My Grandparents and my dad aged just 4 years old. Such a wonderful treasure.


So, what went into these pages other than blood, sweet and tears?

Papers - K & Co 12 x 12 Designer Paper pad
Chipboard – Fancy Pants Flourishes
Evergreen Acrylic paint - Making Memories
Cream Fluid Chalk Ink Pad - Color Box
Mandala Rubber Stamp - Not known
Diamond Glaze - Judikins
Metal & Felt Flowers – Paper Mania
Chipboard Letters, Big Brads & Love & Cherish Plaques – Portafolia Scrapbook kit for Cosco
Lace Flowers – My stash

Love is in the Air

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, the Daring Cardmakers team have set a Mid Week Little Extra to make a card using Black and Red Ribbons.

As I’ve mentioned before, Red isn’t a colour that I use very much but then I remembered that the Basic Grey Pack of papers that I brought before Christmas has some beautiful Red paper.



The components were:-

Papers - BG Scarlet’s Letter
Alphabet stickers - BG Scarlets Letter.
Ribbon - The Little Silver Hat
Diamantes – My Stash
Gold Marker Pen

Here’s another card I had to make this week, it was for a Leap Year Day birthday but I really struggled with it.


It was finally something a friend said that gave me the idea of doing 16 @ 4 and what better papers than Basic Grey’s Colour Me Silly. Do you get the connection? All those frogs……..Leap Year….Yah!!
I hope Scott gets it when he opens his card and doesn’t think it’s silly.

I've got news!!!

I had another wonderful surprise at the weekend and I’ve been walking around smiling from ear to ear ever since. As you know a couple of weeks ago I was asked to join the team over at Daring Cardmakers to do a two week stint as a guest designer.
Well this week I had an email from Jane and the girls have asked me if I would like to join the team on a permanent basis ….how neat is that!

This weeks dare is to make a card from a template and all the design team have made their cards using the January kit from our sponsor

As you can see, I decided to arrange the wings in such a way that they look like the head of a Tulip flower but in order to achieve this I needed a third wing so I used one as a template to draw around and cut another one for some of the patterned paper.
The only things added that weren’t from Paper Pesto were the cream card blank, snaps in the centre of the flowers and the rubber stamps.


The components were:-

Cream Hammered Card Blank – Craft Creations
Acid Washed Papers – Basic Grey
Patterned Papers - Fancy Pants Botanical – Daisy
Green Card – Bazzill
Ding Bat Foam Stamps – Making Memories
Happy Birthday Stamp – Whispers Words
Inks – Staz-On (Green & Black) Versa Color (Pink)
Pink Snaps – Making Memories

Anyway, on with my day….
The sun is shining here again and although it’s a little chillyI plan to wrap up and get out in the garden to do a bit of clearing up.

I hope the sun’s shining where you are!

What a Beautiful Day

The sun is shining and it’s making me smile.
It’s so lovely not to have any wind or rain and it’s not been too cold either. Then, to make it an even more perfect day I’ve been out shopping with dad and we met up with good friends, Susan & Edd (Hello Sue, I know you read this) for lunch in Pizza Hut so it’s little wonder that I’m smiling.

The card I’ve just made is making me smile too.

It’s a birthday card for another friend who's brother’s birthday later this month. He lives down in Devon with his partner and they keep chickens so what better than some QuickKutz chickens for his card.

I thought I would have a go a little bit of doodling…….not really my thing but Jo over at Daring Cardmakers
has done the most wonderful tutorial for the Mid Week Little Extra, taking you through it step by step so it would be rude not give it a go, wouldn’t it.

As I said, it’s not really my thing but here’s my effort:-



I tried two rows of Jo’s faux stitching, added a line of dots around the edge of the card, decorated the lettering ‘appy’ and finally added some squiggles around the edge of the tag so I hope I didn’t go OTT!
As I said before, the chickens and cockerel were QuickKutz dies that were loaned to me by Lythan and the Happy Birthday was cut on Roberta Robo in a font called Flubber.

The components were:-

Cream Hammered Card Blank – Craft Creations
Patterned Paper – Tres Jolie – My Mind’s Eye
Bazzill card in various colours
Ribbon and Brad from stash
Computer printed tag.

A Caardvark virgin

I’ve just found another crafty challenge blog to visit….yah!!!

I decided to have a go at the card challenge on the Caardvarks blog but I didn’t realise that there would be a new challenge posted today. Needless to say I’m a little late with this but here goes.

The challenge (for last week) was to make a card either using shades of Blue or one featuring something celestial. If you’re really clever I suppose you could try and make a card using both but as I’m not I plumbed for the shades of Blue and came up with this.



The components were:-

Stripy paper - Junkitz Collection Paperz
Plain and Spotted papers – Your guess is as good as mine…..all I know is they came from an old Self Addressed kit many moons ago.
VW Beetle Rubber Stamp – Fun Stamps
Happy Birthday Stamp – Whispers Words
Gold paper clip – Stash
Fibres - Stash

Red & White

Just a quick card from me this morning for the Daring Cardmakers Friday Challenge, which was a follows:


This week's and next week's dare are team dares - and we've decided to go nice and easy on you guys, as the past few dares have been pretty tricky ! This week, we decided on a colour combination for a change. We want you to design a card using only RED AND WHITE on your cards- it doesn't have to be a Valentine themed card - it can be any theme- as long as use incorporate RED and WHITE on it.


Red isn’t a colour that I use very often and having searched through my many drawers I couldn’t find one solitary sheet of red and white paper….would you believe that!
Inevitably, once again I had to fall back on my lovely Tapestry stamps to make a background paper.

The large stamped image is a watercolour effect Lilly from Penny Black, the greeting was done on my computer using the fabby Zapfino Linotype font and the gorgeous Red and White dotty ribbon is from Little Silver Hat. I don’t know if you’ve heard that they are closing…….I’m really going to miss my ribbon kit each month.
The card was finished off with my usual inking around the edges and a spot of Diamond Glaze in the petals of the flower.