Celebrating Mother's Day...

All the ironing - the mess - the worry (the sleepless nights and I don't mean crying babies I mean teenagers coming in wobbling up the stairs crashing into stuff) all forgotten this weekend as Mummies everywhere in the UK get a great big cuddle and thank you.

I'm having tea at my youngest daughter's house this afternoon and taking this card I've made for her to give her boyfriend's mum.  I hope she likes it as no way have I had time to do more than one to give her a choice - infact I still have one to do for Laura to give her Gran.  Sheesh maybe I should start for next year next week!!

The image and floral paper are from Joanna Sheen's CD 'In other words' which a friend has lent me.  Love the gentleness of these floral designs.

Materials used...

• 'In other words' CD by Joanna Sheen
• silver mirri board and lilac card
• vellum with a strange sheen which happened to be the same shade of lilac as the floral paper
• lace, organza ribbon, silver peel offs and pearls from stash

Challenges...

• Rainbow Lady - Mother's Day
• Cute Card Thursday - Celebrations
• Cup Cake Craft Challenge - Flower Power
• Creative Card Crew - Celebrate 

Hope everyone enjoys their Mother's Day celebrations and love to those who are simply remembering their mums.

Bah! Humbug! Day...

Wow Friday and Bah! Humbug! day seems to have come around really fast this week.  Can't believe we're on Challenge 9 already.  Nine cards ready for next Christmas - wow that's more than I usually have done 3 weeks before the event.  This year will definitely be such a breeze.

Okay on to this week's challenge which is...

Combine at least 3 of the themes from our previous 8 challenges!

How fun is that?  I really enjoyed this challenge and managed to get all 8 challenges on one card!!!  Sheesh I could have made this on week one and rested up till now!  Here's the run down on all 8 themes...

1. - recycling - the two buttons are from my Gran's button box and are probably antique.

2. - new stash - well my stamp and designer papers are new in that they haven't been used before.

3. - glitter - on snowman and snow infact everywhere including my clothes, carpet and everywhere else too

4. - baubles - hanging from snowman's arms

5. - holly - in his hat

6. - snowmen - how perfect for the challenge was this stamp? - make unknown but I love him to bits.

7. - trees - designer paper by Dovecraft

8. - stitching - white faux stitching completed using Sakura white glaze pen

Phew think I need a rest now after all that!  I really can't wait to see what our great Bah! Humbug! Loyalty Club members come up with.  They are sure to excell at this.

If you have come across my blog by accident and haven't joined in at Bah! Humbug! before do pop over there and have a look.  It would be great to have some more people joining in too.

Other Challenges...

• Fab's Big Christmas Card Challenge - stamping or stencilling or a triangular shaped card
• One Stop Craft Challenge - Sew Simple
• ABC Christmas Challenge - Frosty

whoops was looking around for a sketch to use and realised that I had completely forgot to mention where I got layout for this card...

Truly Scrumptious - love their sketches and have used them quite often.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone.

Ann xxx

FANtastic...

 

Usually when I've used this fan blade stamp by Dimension Fourth I've stamped it on to vellum and embossed it in white or silver.  Today I decided to try stamping it on to patterned paper.  I just had to dive into that fabulous HOTP paper pad again, that Max gave me in York.  Each and every one of the papers in it are just so gorgeous and easy to use.  I love it Max - if you are reading this - thank you so much!

I used one of the sheets with the patterned border to create the inside of the card and then stamped and embossed the fan blades on to the matching totally patterned sheet. I also stamped a fan blade on to white card to make a template to use to cut the shape of the fan on the front of the card.  Then  I cut out each stamped blade and attached them to the front.

In the photo above you can see the shaped front of the card and below shows the card closed up.

I coloured clear gemstones black using a black Sakura Permapaque pen.  I actually tried a black Promarker first, but that gave more of a sapphire type of black stone.  The sentiment is from a clear sheet of sentiments by Hero Arts.

Challenges...

• SophistiCat Challenge - Flourishes and bling
• Rainbow Lady - Create a fan
• Alphabet Challenge - Stamping

Thanks everyone for looking and for your fantastic comments.  They really do cheer me up each day.

Ann xxx

Melody Springtime Retro...

Last week I had a fantastic surprise when I discovered I was one of the five winners of a digi set of stamps from Paula at Pollycraft. I love Pollycraft stamps and digis so it was just fantastic to win the whole Sweet Dreams Springtime Retro Set.  This card features Melody - isn't she just gorgeous?  There are two other girls in the set and some sentiments and accessories so it's a brilliant buy.

I think I'm going to invest in the Easter Chicks set especially as at Totally Papercrafts you can pick up a 10% off coupon this week as Paula is sponsoring their challenge.

Materials used on my card...

• Pollycraft Sweet Dreams Springtime Retro Set digi stamps
• Kanban papers - paper piecing on image
• Promarkers
• ribbon, pearls, sentiment sticker and tag from stash

Challenges...

• Sketch Saturday - great sketch this week
• ABC Challenge - Paper piecing
• Dare you to digi - Pearls
• Stamp Something - Something girly
• Crazy4Challenges - Paper Piecing

Easter Blog Candy...

Oh how gorgeous is this collection of goodies on offer at Maddy's Mad Imaginations? I love Maddy's work and have been a follower of her blog for quite some time.  If you haven't visited yet do - you won't be disappointed.  However, please don't add your name to the blog candy entries cause that cutie Herbert is mine ( I hope!!!).

I have a perfect spot in my craftroom for him.  Fingers crossed!

Pink Elephant Day - Invite to a Bun Fight...

The theme at The Pink Elephant this week is Party Invites.  My card is a combination of both a tea party invite and a Mother's Day Card.  

My daughter, Shelley, wants to invite Grandma round to her new house for tea around Mother's Day and as she has already asked me to make a card for her to give Gran I decided it might be a good idea to combine the invitation and the Mother's Day card together. 

I was thinking along the lines of how we always used to call tea parties 'bun fights' and that led me to trying to create a card around the theme of a cake stand full of buns.

The base of the cake stand was cut using the Celebrations Cricut cartridge and then I added the layers using strips of the same card.  The buns are from a really cute stamp set by Hero Arts.  I'm disappointed with the card as it's not come out quite like I visualised it, but Gran will love it as it has tons of glitter and bling. 

My card is also for the challenges at...

• My Time to Craft - Just for Mum (or Grandma)
• Totally Papercrafts - Mum
• Pile it on - one colour and neutral
• Die Cut Dreams - No flowers allowed.

Have a great day everyone. 

Totally Stampelicious...

Wow how gorgeous is this collection of goodies on offer at Totally Stampelicious?  Just toooooooo exciting for words.  This is what they say on their blog...

'Well we figured it's about time to offer up a few 'sweets' for our Totally Stampalicious fans! So how does EVERY SINGLE STAMP SET (to date)PLUS a few other fun goodies sound?!?!? '

Sounds fantastic to me - if you feel the same head over to their blog and join in asap.  The draw ends on April 11th.