Divas by Design, Challenge No 4: Die cuts and Punches

Hello again blogworld,

Things are slowly starting to get back to normal now all the festivities are over.  I have a pile of ironing to do, the upstairs needs a hoover and my windows need washing, but am happy to ignore it all to make a card or two - ahh yes normality is restored!

I think I may even have acquired a new follower or two - but you have all disappeared again, so I don't know for sure!  If I have - hello and welcome to my blog.  Hope I don't bend your ears too much with my waffle and I do post about cards sometimes - promise!

Just to prove a point, here is a post about cards.  I know this is getting a bit repetitive, but I can't believe that another two weeks have flown by and it's time again for a new challenge at Divas by Design.  What a wonderful selection of art there was for the theme of anything but a card.  So much variety and invention out there - wow!

This time the challenge is Die cuts and Punches and we are sponsored by Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps.  There is a huge variety of digital stamps over there, something for everyone.

So here is my card, it's the card I made for my daughters' fourth birthday last week.  I had tried a stepper card for a DoCrafts challenge and liked it - once I got past all the measuring and swearing!  So thought I would try it again - don't know that it will be something I do a lot though.

 Close up of the image:

The image is a Stampavie.com Sarah Kay one - Rose's Garden, coloured with my Primas and shaded with chalks.  I used my new Go-Kreate dies to mat and layer the image.  The heart border is a Martha Stewart punch, sentiment and letters from Craftwork Cards, leaves are a die, flower I made using Prisma petals.  The '4' is from a sheet of letters and numbers I had in my stuff.  Papers are from a pack I'm using a lot just now - DoCrafts A5 Tulip linen pack.  Goodness that was long list!  Think I've remembered all of it.

Am really looking forward to seeing what is created this time round.  Thanks for reading to the end of this very long post and I'll go now!

Sarah

Birthday bash

Hello blogland

Well the birthday bash is over for another year - wonder what we will do to top it next year!

I think we must be the luckiest people in the world, after worrying for the last week or so that it was going to carry on raining for Emily's birthday party, we woke to brilliant sunshine which only got brillianter!  Maybe it got a leeetl hot at the peak of the afternoon, but we really couldn't complain it was a smashing day.  I hope our quota of rain was used the year she was born, if you don't remember June 2007 was the beginning of the heavy rain that which then lead to floods in parts of Hull and Louth.

After a lot of hard work behind the scenes from hubby this was the garden bit of our land at 11am:

View from one end of drive:

View from one of the bedroom windows:

We had our full number of party goers by 12.30 and then they partied hard until 4pm - when they all went home very tired but very happy by all reports.

I promised picture of cake and here we go:

Sorry about all the mess in the background, it was a very quick pic in my kitchen before it was taken out to be demolished.  You can see where we had a dry run with the candles!  I also made loads of fairy cakes, but didn't get a proper pic of those.

Here is the party girl with her cakes:

No party dresses for us - I managed to get her to wear a pretty dress for all of 5 mins, then she stripped!  I finally got her into her swim stuff and she wouldn't come out of it!

Here she is with her best friend (I'm sure forever - they are inseparable!):

We have a lovely picture of all the children lined up on the walk-way to her tower, but I'm not sure of the etiquette of putting up pictures of children when I haven't asked their parents if it's OK, so that's one for the family album. 

Hopefully normal card making will resume this week - we only opened the last of the presents this evening and put Grandad onto the train back to Essex this afternoon.

Next big event on the horizon is my birthday at the end of July (not that keen on telling you how old I am, but they do say that life begins then - I'm not so sure!).

I just can't get over how much my life has changed since having Emily, 8 years ago we were going to Drs as things weren't working then there was 3 years of treatment - which culminated in two goes at IVF and then Emily. 

Blooming hard work (sometimes), blooming rewarding (most of the time) and complete life change (always).

Sarah

Emily, if you ever read your mummys' boring blog - 

Happy Birthday sweetheart - hope you had a lovely birthday/holiday and party - I'll always be thankful for you and love you to pieces, Mummy.

My goodness its been awhile!

Hello there blogland,

Bet you thought I'd dropped off the face of the Earth didn't you!  We have had a very busy few days, went away  to Paultons Theme Park in the New Forest, why there I hear you wonder.  It's rather a long trip from where you live in Lincs - isn't it?  Well the answer is that it is Peppa Pig world, and when you have a three year old who was almost four it makes sense - doesn't it?

So we left home on the Sunday spent Mon and Tues in the area then come home on the Weds (her birthday) and we are now straight into arrangements for the birthday bash on Sunday.  I don't do brought cakes, so once I've made the cake I'll take pics and show.

We had a wonderful time and have come home with an extremely happy 4 year old, who is now really looking forward to her birthday party.

Here is photographic evidence that she had a wonderful time!

I know, I know, it's George not Peppa - we do have pics of her with Peppa as well but this, I thought, was a lovely pic!

And for those of you with children, I'm going to name drop - we met Justin (aka Mr Tumble)!  He was doing some filming at the park and we have a pic of her with him!  Something to add into the scrapbook, when I finally get round to doing one again!

I will be back with cards next Weds for the Divas by Design DT card, but in the meantime I hope you all have a good weekend (and glorious weather as we are promised) and see you Wednesday.

Think of me on Sunday - hosting a birthday party for 10 three and four year olds, with one 9 year old as well!  Gawd what have I let myself in for!

Sarah

Less is More - Week 19 - One layer

Hello blogland,

I'm back and so soon!  Again though this is just a really quick post to join in with the wonderful ladies at Less is More.  I'm still struggling for time so this week I've just done one card for the challenge but I will be posting two cards.

The brief was:

IN THE FRAME

We would like to see a frame of some sort or something in a frame... we'd like you to be as inventive as you like.

You could doodle, draw, emboss, ink, paint, colour, print, stamp, emboss resist,  mask or any other method you can come up with to get a frame of sorts into your design.

I really didn't have any inspiration with this at all and I'm beginning to wonder with myself with LiM if I'll ever produce a great card the likes of the other entries that I see every week, but I still keep plodding away!  Have I mentioned that I'm stubborn?  Once I start something I really do not like admitting defeat.  So, Mandi and Chrissie, I'm afraid it's not very inventive cards that I'm entering, oh dear!

I'm also playing around with my photo editing software, trying to get a good picture.  Hope the pics come out OK on your screens.

So here is the card I am entering into the challenge:

The image is from Crafty Individuals and the sentiment from TPC Studios - Boho Blooms.  Then all I did was colour the poppies with my Prisma pencils.

This card I'm not entering but thought I'd show it anyway - it's along the lines of the last challenge, but with less stamps used (just two).  I'm not sure that it really fits the bill and I'm not even sure that I like it!  And what would I use it for?!  I'll leave it up to you to see what you think.

I will most likely miss next weeks' challenge as it is my daughters fourth birthday on Wednesday and we are going away for a few days this weekend, when we get back it will be full pelt into arranging her party.  I am really hoping that the weather cheers up.  We've got a water party in the garden planned, and by water I don't mean rain!

So probably see you all in two weeks,
Cheerio

Sarah
P.S. You know I'm always saying these posts are short - can you imagine how long they would be if I let myself go!  I always was very good at the 1,000 word essay at school!

The Sugar Bowl - Challenge 61; Kiki's Sketch

Hello blogland,

Well I never, after all the moaning / excusing I've done about not having time to blog here are two posts in one day!  This will be a short one though as I just realised that the Sugar Bowl challenge finishes tonight (it's a sketch - have I mentioned I love sketches!)  and I had a card to enter, but I'm also doing the dishes, making the other half a cup of tea and getting dinner ready - all whilst keeping an eye on the weather to run out and get my washing in when it starts to rain!  Phew - made myself feel tired just thinking about it!

So straight onto card without any more waffle.

The image is 'Daisy' by Elisabeth Bell and is one of the first Sugar Nellies I ever brought - still love it today although she doesn't get to be inked half as much as she should.  I coloured her with my Prismas - like the hair colour? I thought blog land is desperately lacking in red-heads!  Cut her out with Nesties and popped her onto a Craftwork Cards card blank.  The paper is from a pad called 'Hideaway' - it is absolutely gorgeous!  Then added some Prima flowers and being one not to waste anything used the circle waste from the Nestie to make centres for my flowers.  All the edges were inked with a green pad - hey presto one very pretty thank you card.

Hope you are all well, and thanks for reading my waffle - off now to finish making that cup of tea.

Sarah

Divas by Design, Challenge No 4: Anything but a card

Hello again blogland

An early warning - long post, lots of pictures!  Hope you don't mind.

I am still here, promise ;-) still not blogging much though, got lots to do outside of bloglife.

This post is all about the new challenge at Divas by Design and technically I'm not supposed to be here - this is Team Bs' week - but I thought I'd sneak on.  Do you think anyone noticed?!  We are onto week 4 already, I can't believe how quickly time is passing and how many talented people there are out in blogland.  I go round looking at every one's submissions to the challenge and I'm stunned at the quality!

The Crafty Pad Designs

This time we are sponsored by The Crafty Pad Designs a lovely digi shop - you should go check them out!  So as the title says the theme this time is 'Anything but a card'.  I am primarily a card maker, but I do dabble occasionally in scrapbooking, and this is one of those dabbles.  It's a mini book all about a week in the life of my daughter when she was 16 months old. Doesn't seem possible she is going to be 4 next Wednesday and starting school in September - where does the time go?

Although, I hope, it looks impressive it actually didn't take that long.  Once I'd printed off the pictures and decided on the papers I'd use, I repeated the basic design of the pages all the way through.  I haven't shown every page here, as there would be even more pictures, but I hope I've shown enough to give you a good idea of the book.

Here come the pictures!

The book itself is a Papermania album, I painted the chipboard covers with Anita's paints then cut the title and embellished with Papermania flowers (layered up a few of them) attached them with a brad through the middle.  The image on the inside front cover is from a Joanna Sheen unmounted set called, I think, Mainly Babies, the little frames are from, again I think (I have a real bad habit of chucking packaging!), a Basic Grey set - please set me right if I have that wrong!  Then all I did was use various patterned paper, Craftwork Cards and Prima flowers with a brad in the middle, ribbon and pictures - hey presto one dinky little book!

Hope this has helped if you are in need of any inspiration for the challenge - and look forward to seeing the wonderful work.

Cheerio for now,

Sarah

Less is More - Week 18 colour - Monochrome

Hello all

I nearly didn't do a card for this weeks Less is More - I really got stuck with the monochrome theme just couldn't think of what to do at all. Which is why this is such a late entry - I'm also rather busy at home at the moment there seems to be a sudden glut of cards needed and it's coming up to my daughters fourth birthday so lots going on.  

I have finally come up with two cards.  One is taking inspiration from Chrissie's card  and the other from something I saw in an issue of Craft Stamper.  I have started buying these magazines again after about a 6 year break from them.  They were, I felt, too 'arty' for me at the time, but I'm feeling the need to be able to do something other than patterned papers and stamp an image, colour it in - so thought I'd try again.

Here are my cards:

 This one is using a variety of stamps.  The main image is a Rubber Stampede stamp 'Woman in Repose' (I've had it for years - obviously I must have started out with an idea of using 'arty' stamps!); text is "I AM" script again; sentiment and flourish are both from TPC studio Boho Blooms.  They were stamped using a Color Box Chalk cats eyes stack of pads.

This is the one that was inspired by Chrissie's example.  I masked off the bottom of a Craftwork Cards card blank and sponged on ink from a  Memento London Fog pad.  Then stamped the same script stamp over the top.  The bird is from, I think, an Inkadinkado set - another case of chucking the packaging.  The sentiment I picked up for a pound from the Lincoln Fair I went to recently and is an Anita's stamp. I used the London Fog pad on all the stamps.

I don't know that either of them are very good, it just didn't seem to work this week, but as I've said before I'll keeping trying and maybe one day I'll get the knack!

Sorry for minimal commenting two weeks in a row now,  I will try harder next week - promise!

Sarah

Little Claire's Challenge - No 8 Shaped cards

Hi blogworld,

Goodness another long gap between posts!  There is just so much going on at home at the moment that I'm finding it difficult to get time at the computer.  Not finding it difficult to make cards tho!  So when life calms down a bit I think I will post up a few cards.

I did mean to enter this card into Little Claire's Challenge, but looking at the blog I'm not sure if it's closed or not!  I'm going to do this post and a link to the challenge anyway - at least that way they know I'm still thinking about them even if I missed the challenge! I was so chuffed to win the prize last time as well - I'd looked at the stamp at the Lincoln Sincerely Yours fair and thought about buying it but decided to leave that one as I'd got lots of others.  Just as well I did really as I then won it!

So this time it's shaped cards - made this for a friend of mine to give to her Dad for fathers day.  Her parents moved up here awhile ago and brought a beach hut at the same time - she'd asked for either beach hut or trains and I thought this image was great so beach hut it was!  She was rather pleased as well!

I used Little Claire's  Beach Huts, coloured with Prisma Pencils.  The card base is cut using a Go Kreate XL Frame - Frilly No2.  Then matted and layered onto papers from papermania For Him paper pad all cut with the varying sizes of same die.  Sentiment is from Craftwork Cards.

This is a shot of the beach huts down on the front -you can see why she was pleased with the image I think.

So will go see if I can link this, it will be the first time I've tried doing a link in comments.  Fingers crossed it works!

Sarah

Sorry no cards....

Pics instead! Also an explanation of why minimal blogging took place.  I just couldn't find the time to blog on top of all the other things I had going on.

We had my father-in-law staying at the end of last week, into the first half of this week.  Here he and Emily were busy planting runner beans in the garden - it's the one of the very few veggies I can get her to eat and I think a lot of that comes from them being planted with Grandad!

She is looking oh so interested in seeds being planted.  She did get a bit more enthusiastic than this!

The weather for the Bank Holiday Monday just gone was dreadful here, it just rained constantly so they didn't get all the beans planted.  Emily and her daddy will be out doing that tomorrow.

The day after Grandad left, Emily and I met up with some friends at a kids play area, then yesterday the weather was just amazing - so hot and sunny!  One of last years' birthday presents made it's first appearance this year.

Good job we've got 3/4 of an acre of land, eh!  Can you imagine trying to get something like this into a pocket hanky size garden!  These are also decent pics of Emily, as soon as she saw this come out she stripped!

Then today we met up with a friend and went swimming, all the children had a wonderful time.

The weekend will be busy as well, then normal service will be resumed next week as Nursery is back.

I hope everyone else had the same good weather we have been enjoying, and that you all enjoy your weekends.

Cheerio

Sarah

Less is More - Week 17 recipe - Pick a square

I'm just scraping in here with my Less is More entry.  Have had a very busy week, crafty and non-crafty but managed to snaffle 1/2 hour last night to do these cards.

Over to Mandi and Chrissie:

For our challenge this week we have a multiple choice.... well sort of ... you can choose which of the 5 SQUARES from our plan you wish to use to place the image of your card, leaving the rest as PURE WHITE SPACE!

The image may overflow the area slightly if necessary  and the sentiment, should you choose to use one, may extend outside the area also, but it should be obvious exactly which area of the card you have chosen to fill.

" We will allow a rectangle, but, following the strict guidelines as the squares "

I'm sure that as I'm so late everyone has seen the plan, so I won't try and preach to the converted.  Just say here are my cards - I would've loved to try one card for each square but time won!

Bottom left - I can't decide if this one should've been coloured in or not.  What do you all think?

 Image is from the Stamp Barn, I couldn't find a name on the packet and the word is from a TPC Studio set -Boho Blooms

Top Left

  Image from Inkadinkado - Lanterns; sentiment from Lili of the Valley.


Top right

As you can see I made two for this one, the difference being the positioning of the words.  I think I prefer the first of the two as the words seem to sit better with the image.  Stamps are both from Creative Expressions - Vintage Aviation.  Then I drew round a Nestie and coloured what I hope looks like the setting sun with my Prisma pencils.  I say hope, as when I showed this one to hubby he thought it was another balloon behind the first! 

I should also apologise to all and say I just haven't had time to get round and comment on anyone's entry this week - its the first time since I joined the challenge that I failed and is purely down to lack of time.  I will rectify it with next weeks' entry as Nursery is back and I will have more time to myself!

I hope everyone is having as glorious a few days as we are here in sunny Lincs and looking forward to the weekend.

Cheerio all

Sarah

PS I had a wonderful time at the Lincoln Sincerely Yours papercraft fair and made a fair few 'arty' stamp purchases!  My LiM stamp box is starting to look healthier, didn't make it to the Stampin Up stall tho - hovered on the edges but it was too busy to get in there.  Shame, as I would've liked to see what was on offer.

Divas by Design, Challenge No 3: Florals

Hello fellow bloggers,

Another two weeks have flown by and it's time for the third challenge over at Divas by Design.  Can't believe over 300 people entered the last challenge and the quality of the cards was amazing.  Well done everyone.

This time the sponsor for this challenge is a Divas teamie - Jacqui - over at The Poodles Digi Doodles.  You should really go check it out, some very cute images to be had.

So here is my card.  I thought I'd do something I haven't done very often, a bit of distressing.  Normally I treat my papers with the respect they deserve but this image for some reason, and don't ask me why, just spoke of distressing and inking.  Hope you like.

The image is Sugar Nellie: Leanne Ellis - All is not lost, coloured with Prisma pencils and then inked round the edge with a Tim Holtz Distress Ink pad. 
The papers are K&Co - Classic K McKenna.  
The big flower I made and the smaller ones and lace are from Wild Orchid Crafts.  
The swirls are a Marianne Creatables die. 
Sentiment is Lili of the Valley.