White with a hint ….

 

Good morning everyone, I can’t believe it’s a whole week since my last post – where on earth does the time go

Thank you all so much for your comments on my cards, they’re very much appreciated

 

We had a lovely weekend in Chester and were lucky with the weather, what a beautiful city. We had a day at Chester Zoo and also went to Liverpool …so three very full days!

 

The weather has been just horrendous since we got back, it’s awful to see all the floods on the news, we are fortunate here to be in an area that doesn’t get affected by it.

 

I hope you’re going to have a go at the challenge over at Lili’s Little Fairies, it’s an interesting one this week   …WHITE WITH A HINT 

You can any use Lili of the Valley image as it’s the colours that are important for this one; you should feature white as your main colour which is harder than you think (especially when you come to photographing it!) I’m looking forward to seeing the entries this week and what you come up with

 

 

Here’s the card that I made;

 

 

 

 

I chose blue as my second colour

I used Snow Cute, I cut him out to remove the background and then stamped a few more images and cut out the flowers. You can’t really see on the picture but the little penguin and the flowers are stuck on with Pin Flair so are raised up. I put a little yellow pearl in the centre of each flower

 

He’s sat on a hill using one of the papers from our Frosty Christmas paper pad – I love these blue and white papers and have used them a lot

 

Hope you like it, it’s hard to leave all that white space and I felt like it needed something else …but maybe sometimes less is more! 

 

 

Have a lovely day

 

Flower Power …

Good morning everyone, I hope you’re going to join in with the challenge over at Lili’s Little Fairies this week, it’s an easy one that anyone can do  …FLOWER POWER! 

You can feature them as embellishments or maybe use your lovely papers  …the only rule is that there must be flowers on there somewhere!

We know how you all love your flowers so we’re expecting some good entries this week

Here’s the card that I made;

It’s quite a simple one for me and I wanted to try and get away from the obvious Wild Orchid Craft flowers for this challenge

I used one of the Lili of the Valley Mini Masterpiece sheets, this cute little image ‘Blossom’ is also available as a stamp

The little flowers were bought at the NEC last year, I only got a couple of packets and they were unbranded  …I wish I‘d bought more or taken a note of where I got them because I love them. I put a blob of liquid pearls in the centres of these but they also look lovely (in fact better) with a little bead or gem

The tag is from the very versatile Sentiment Tags sheet which I use ALL the time, the scalloped border is an EK success punch and the papers are Bo Bunny

The ribbon and button twine are from The Ribbon Girl

…

This will be my last post for a few days as I’m going away to Chester   …without the kids for only the 2nd time in 18 years   …hurray!

Have a lovely weekend all x

Blog Hop Prize Winner ...

Good evening crafters, thank you all so much for your lovely comments on the Lili of the Valley mini hop that we did at the weekend...

I was one of the blogs that had a secret prize and the winner is ...

Annette (Netty)

"this is just GORGEOUS Anne, I love the scene that you've created, and Milly is adorable.
Annette (Netty)"
xx

Well done Netty,  e-mail me with your address and I'll get your prize off to you

Enjoy the rest of your evening everyone

Anne x

Something different….

 

 

Hello everyone, I hope you enjoyed our little blog hop at the weekend, thank you so much for all your lovely comments and we’ll be announcing tomorrow which blogs had the hidden prizes

 

I appreciated all your views on the 2 versions of the card - there were mixed opinions from you on the clouds and butterflies and I think it was probably about half half for each version 

 

I don’t think I’ve ever made a card and not ended up pulling at least 1 bit off that’s been stuck on and end up tearing it. I lay it all out first too before committing to stick but it just never seems to come together until I’ve messed about with it a bit! Those flowers and ribbons hide a multitude of sins lol

 

 

This is a bit different for me, unusually I didn’t have anything anything specific to make so was just playing with some lovely papers and didn’t want to cover them up with an image

It is quite hard to fill all the space when you don’t have a main character  …and again I kept adding and taking away bits, just never quite happy with it

 

 

 

 

 

There seemed to be too much white space around the sentiment so I stamped around the edges with Victorian Velvet distress ink and an inkadinkadoo stamp.

Then the edges were a bit messy so I used 2 different sizes of the labels 1 die and made a frame in a contrasting paper

I might do this again, not sure about the stamping but I do like the effect of the frame

 

Here’s what else I used;

The gorgeous papers are from a Tilda pad

Swirls - Memory Box die

Flowers cut with a Crealies die

Lace from The Ribbon Girl

Sentiment is a Penny Black stamp

Frame and shapes cut with Spellbinders Labels 1

 

 

I appreciate all your feedback so I’d love it if you’d let me know what you think …it’s the first time I’ve done anything like this!

 

 

Have a lovely day everyone

 

 

It’s a bingo challenge ….

 

Good morning everyone, I’m going to meet my friend today who lives in the Lake District. I don’t see as much of her as I’d like, busy lives just seem to get in the way, so we’re going to meet half way and have a nice long lunch and do some shopping. She’s my oldest friend, we were best friends through college and then lived and worked together for a long time until we both got married and she moved away about 15 years ago.

We used to go and stay there a lot when the kids were smaller but as they’ve got older and want to do their own thing on the weekends and holidays the visits have been less frequent. Hopefully now our children are growing up we will see more of each other.

I think it’s certainly easier to keep in touch now with e-mail and Facebook but not necessarily for the better, wasn’t it lovely to get a long newsy handwritten letter through the post?  …I can’t remember the last time I wrote or received one :o(

 

***

 

Onto today's card and over at Lili’s Little Fairies this week we have a nice easy challenge for you  …it’s Embellishment Bingo!

 

 

 

 

I’ve gone for the diagonal ‘flowers/gems/glitter’

I could have used any combination of the lines to be honest as I do love my embellishments!

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve used one of the die cut sheets, they are so quick and easy. I like to colour with my Copics and Promarkers but it just takes soooo long to do just one image I can’t always be bothered or don’t have the time

 

These die cut sheets will be gone soon, the new Mini Masterpiece designs are replacing them (and they are fabulous!) so if you do like them you need to get some while we still have them as we won’t be ordering any more (and remember postage is free at the moment on them)

 

 

Here’s what I’ve used;

Core’dinations card and K & Co paper and distressed the edges, the banner is a Doo Hickey die with letters cut from Cuttlebug dies

The circles are a Nellies die which is one of my favourites

Ribbon and large gems are from the Ribbon Girl, flowers Wild Orchid Crafts , and the glitter I use is Glamour Dust

The small gems on a strip are K & Co, they were expensive but I like them  …the other cheaper ones I have are spaced further apart and you can see too much of the clear adhesive strip in between the stones which I don’t like very much

The greetings are from the Lili of the Valley Greetings Postmarks set, these are designed to stamp with the postmark and the outer circle but they do make nice little circular sentiments if you want something a bit smaller and you get absolutely loads on the sheet for £12.50. I cut these out with a Spellbinders circle die

 

 

Good luck with the challenge and as always thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 

Look who’s back ….

 

 

Good morning crafters, this cute little Lili of the Valley stamp was discontinued a while back  …but we’ve had so many requests for it that we’ve brought him out of retirement!

 

He’s called Baby's First Christmas and you can find him on the website here

 

 

 

 

You can just picture him racing around the house all excited on his first Christmas morning, in his Santa hat with his new toys lol

.

I’ve used some patterned papers from the Classic Christmas pad and the greeting is from the Christmas Handwritten Phrases set.

The holly leaves were cut with a Tim Holtz die, the flowers are Asters from Wild Orchid Crafts and the gemstones are Dovecraft

I coloured him in with Copic markers and then cut him out – he’s mounted on Spellbinders oval and lacey oval dies.

.

Don’t forget also that Lili of the Valley have got FREE shipping at the moment on all orders that don’t contain the paper pads

(this is simply because they are just too heavy to include in the offer, it costs about £23 to send the set of 6 overseas!!)

.

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave me a comment, I love to hear from you

 

 

Have a lovely day

 

 

Black Magic ….

Good morning all, the challenge over at Lili’s Little Fairies this week is BLACK MAGIC

It was a bit of a tricky one for me, you have to use some black on your card and it’s not a colour I would normally use very much.

I love these little penguins, definitely one of my favourites from this year’s Christmas images. You can get this this either in a stamp or in a Mini Masterpiece sheet

There’s a real mixture of snowflake shapes here, I’ve used a Martha Stewart punch and a Marianne die for the bigger ones. The white one is cut out of glitter card and the yellow one I embossed after cutting. The little ones and the border are a Martha Stewart punch around the page set

Looking at the card on here now I don't like that bow at all so I think I'll take that off and maybe add another snowflake or 2! I do lay things out to make sure I like them before I stick but I nearly always then remove something and end up tearing the paper or even ruining the whole card because I'm not happy with one little bit of it. :o(

Thanks for stopping by and make you pop back because I’ll have some candy shortly

Have a lovely day

Jess’s 18th …

 

 

Hello crafters, I just realised that I told you all about my daughter’s 18th birthday celebrations and then never showed you the card I made her.

I dug out one of my hAnglar stamps (what, not Lili of the Valley I hear you cry!!) and made a large card.

She’s not a very girlie girl and wouldn’t appreciate lots of fluff and flowers so I kept it simple

 

 

 

 

I cut out the numbers on my Cricut and did a shadow to back them with, all the papers are My Minds Eye  and the shapes on the inside were cut with Spellbinders grand nestabilities (big scalloped circles)

The flowers are done with my EK success retro flower punches (love this shape!) and then I put a gem in the centre of each one

I’m slowly building up a collection of hAnglar stamps, they’re lovely but so hard to get hold of and the Company seem to have stopped making them.

 

  

 

 

 

I’m going next door now to see my friend  …it’s Tuesday and that means it’s wine night woohoo

 

Have a lovely evening everyone and thanks for stopping by

 

 

Trimming The Tree ....

Hi everyone, hope you've had a lovely weekend.

We've been lucky with the weather and it's been sunny here hooray so I've been tidying up my garden.

I think it's the first year ever that I haven't bought bedding plants, the weather has been so awful that I've had no inclination to to any gardening at all this Summer (nothing at all to do with the fact that I spend every spare second I have crafting!!)

My brown bin was full to bursting and the garden still looks like a wilderness, it was really ready for some cutting back but I know if I don't do it now then it will probably not get done and then I'll have a massive job come Spring (been there, done that!!)

By the way, does anyone know if you are supposed to cut back Hellebores? The leaves are all tatty and eaten away but I don't want to kill them, they were lovely last Winter and full of flowers.

Manny loves it when I'm in the garden, he's in there wherever I'm working ...sniffing and pinching things and generally making a nuisance of himself lol

*****

This is a card I made for the showroom at work, I'm still working on the colouring but getting better slowly - It's not something you can master overnight and I am a bit impatient!

The image is Trimming The Tree, isn't it cute, I love the little dog sat watching them with his Santa hat on

The sentiment is one of the new Grunge Christmas Messages  ...these are FABULOUS ...and I think you all agree because we've sold out of them TWICE!!

If you didn't manage to get them don't worry we have more on order

Right that's all from me, I'm going to sit in the garden and read my book for a while and make the most of this lovely evening.

Enjoy your evening whatever you're doing and as always thanks very much for stopping by