Christmas Crackers...

Well it's Bah! Humbug! day again and this week sees us going CRACKERS at Humbug Hall.  LOL, yes our theme is Christmas crackers.  To be truthful this one nearly sent me crackers as I just couldn't believe it, that when I trawled through my vast collection of rubber stamps there was not one stamp with a cracker on!  How strange is that?  
Anyway, all was not lost, it just meant that the grey cells had to do a bit more thinking this week before starting on my card.   With no stamp, stencil or even patterned paper with crackers on I decided that perhaps I should work on the idea of a cracker shaped card with maybe a cutie sitting on top of the cracker.
In the end I made and decorated a cracker shape and attached it to the front of a piece of A5 acetate folded in half.  Then I sat Santa Emma by C. C. Designs on top.  The card will still fit in an C5 envelope, but unfortunately the bobble on the Santa's hat is going to mean yet another large letter size expensive stamp.  I don't know about anyone else, but I can't believe that from April it's going to cost 75p to post a card.  Sheesh, better start saving up now!

Materials used ...

• C.C. Designs digi stamp
• DCWV paper and plain red card
• Heavy weight acetate
• gold border, corner and sentiment peel offs
• gold and white ribbon
• Promarkers combined with paper piecing to colour image
• pompom from kid's craft set trimmed to size (trimmings used to add fluff to edge Santa hat)

Additional Challenges...

• Stamptacular - Anything but square
• My Time to Craft - Spots and Dots

Have a great Friday and weekend everyone and if you have chance do pop over to Bah! Humbug! and take a look at the fab designs by our Guest Designer Carole.  It would be nice if you could leave a 'big hug' over there for Max too as she has had to have an operation on her wrist this week and is banned from using her craft stash for a little while.

Happy Nurse's Day...

to nurses and carers everywhere. 

Just a short post as I'm off to Leeds today shopping with my daughters.  After making the Christmas tag card last week I decided to use the same idea for a card for Laura to celebrate Nurse's day.  The concertina tag made it a great working space to add quotes and I do know that Laura loves some of the ones I've added, especially the one about nurses being angels in comfy shoes.

The stamp is a digi by C.C. Designs and is called Nurse Nora - hmmmmmm reminds of Nitty Nora, the bug explorer, who used to visit schools when I was little.

Here's the other side of the tag... 

Challenge...

• My Time to Craft - Too Cute - C.C. Design stamps are always 'too cute'

Have fun everyone, especially nurses and carers on your special day.

Ann xxx

Nora and a butterfly...

Here's the other card I was working on using one of the gorgeous Spring Swiss Pixie stamps from All That Scraps.  I just love this set and how useful is that fence? I can see Tilda sat on there too and a whole host of other cutie characters.

Materials used...

• C.C. Designs Digi stamps
• sentiment stamp from stash
• Woodware corner punch
• papers and card by Kanban and DCWV (Spring Stack)
• tag die by Spellbinders
• organza ribbon, brads and gems from stash

Challenges...

• Pollycraft Challenge NOW WEEKLY - how great is that? - anything goes 
• Crafty Ann's - for someone special (but I'm not saying who!)
• Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge- How does your garden grow?
• Crafts and Me Challenge - fairy wings (sorry not Sweet Pea stamp - only just discovered the challenge)

Have a great day everyone.

Pink Elephant Day... Nature...

Blue skies - green grass and flowers - well that's what was running through my mind for our theme of 'nature' at The Pink Elephant this week.  Our featured company are All That Scraps which meant using the absolutely gorgeous images from the Spring Swiss Pixie Stamp set that I have been drooling over for ages.  

The stamp I've used today is Hansel, but I was so lucky to also receive Nora and her butterfly to play with too and my card using Nora should be finished by tomorrow so watch this space.  

Papers and card are by Kanban and DCWV (Spring Paper Stack again - my favourite ever!)

As well as being my DT sample for The Pink Elephant my card is also for the following challenges...

• Sweet Sketch Wednesday - oooooooops I haven't got an oval nestie and I was thinking one of the DT used a label nestie - must have been another site - sorry but it's very near the sketch!!
• Fab'n'Funky Challenge - Spring is in the air - gosh my Studio G sentiment stamp matches this challenge spot on!

Let's hope we all have a fabulous start to the week and the sun shines plenty so that we see some real spring flowers and no more of that dreaded white stuff.

Happy Easter...

 

It's all very well being organised for Christmas thanks to our Bah! Humbug! challenge site, but things like Mother's Day and Easter keep creeping up on me!  Anyway with still over a week to go I have started my Easter cards - yeah I might not be meeting myself coming back on the day before the event as I normally am.

This is my card to give Laura.  Hope it's 'pink' enough!  I've used one of my all time favourite stamps by C.C. Designs  at All that scraps.  I'm not sure whether this stamp is still available, but I just love it.  That wheelbarrow is just so useful.  Last time I used the stamp on this card  I filled the barrow with little paper flowers.  This time I used a craft knife to put a slit in the top of the barrow and then used an egg shaped punch to make tiny Easter eggs out of the DCWV backing paper, which is from the Spring Stack.

My Easter card is for the following challenges...

• Truly Scrumptious - my card uses most of their 'truly scrumptious' sketch
• Stampotique - Spring has sprung
• Crazy4Challenges - Spring
• Secret Crafter - Spring has sprung
• Magical Crafts - Spring/Easter theme

Have a great day everyone.  Only 3 more sleeps to N.E.C. - not that I'm excited or anything.  LOL.

Pink Elephant Day...

This week at The Pink Elephant our theme is Spring and we are featuring one of my very favourite stamp companies C.C. Designs at All That Scraps.  Each month brings a new collection of stamps in both digi and rubber format which to me is just fantastic as you can choose which you like best.  The digi stamp I was given to use is Bride Emma from the Sugarplum Spring Kids set and isn't she just so gorgeous?

I must admit I went all round the houses and back again when making this card and did a lot of playing with different effects on her dress - stamped with Versamark and brushed with Perfect Pearls glitter white looked stunning.  

In the end I went for a plain look with just a touch of clear Sakura Stardust, because I wanted to use this fabby spring floral paper by Kanban.

Then of course one thing led to another and the pattern on the paper made me think of little girls being bridesmaids in super pretty dresses so I decided to make a thank you card for a bride to send her bridesmaid.  I don't know anyone who is getting married - Laura has just split up with her long term boyfriend so there is no chance of the card being used by her, but I so enjoyed making it so who cares!

Materials used...

• C.C. Designs Stamp Bride Emma from Sugarplum Spring Kids collection
• Kanban DT paper
• blue/lilac pearlescent card and silver mirri board
• Cuttlebug embossing folder Swiss Dots and scalloped border
• CircleNesties
• Silver peel offs and heart shaped gem from stash
• Promarkers

Additional Challenges...

• The Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge - great sketch - thank you
• My Time to Craft - a card for a kid
• Tanda Teaser - Simply Spring
• Pile it on - Pastel Colours

Have a great day all and do check out The Pink Elephant to see the fab cards created by my team mates.

Pink Elephant - Challenge 54 - Ribbons...

I really can't believe we are on Challenge 54 at The Pink Elephant.  It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that we were planning our first challenges.  This week our theme is ribbon and we are being sponsored by one of my favourite stamp companies - C. C. Designs at All that Scraps.  I love their images and I love the way you can buy many of them in both stamp and digi format.  On my card I've used Leisel and her Wheelbarrow from the Swiss Pixies digital range.  I've filled the barrow with tiny paper flowers that I've had in my stash for ages, but I think the possibilities for this are endless.

Leisel has been coloured with Promarkers and then matted and layered on to blue card and floral paper from the DCWV Spring Stack.

I used this week's amazing sketch at Sweet Sketch Wednesday for the layout of my card and my card is also for the challenges at ...

• Pile it on - Flowers
• C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Digi Colouring

Working till 10 tonight and then a really early start for the next two mornings so I may not be visiting everyone's blogs quite as much this week.  Enjoy your Monday everyone and do remember to visit The Pink Elephant to see what the rest of my friends have created.

Santa Emma

Hmmmmmm remember the other day when I posted a card with image from C.C. Designs at All That Scraps and I said it had been an expensive trip well this was what tempted me - digital stamp Santa Emma. I just think she is so cute in her Santa suit.

The sketch I've used is this week's challenge at Mojo Monday - every week the sketches there are just so fantastic - I love them.

Additional materials:

• Black card and black glitter card
• nestie circles
• Promarkers
• sentiment stamp (?)
• sparkly stars and gems from stash
• ultra fine glitter

Of course having bought Santa Emma it would have been a crime not to get the parcels for her to sit on wouldn't it? To create this image I sized both Santa Emma and the parcels in Serif before printing the parcels on to dotty patterned paper. Emma and the bows were printed on to white card and then coloured using Promarkers.


Additional materials:

• red card
• organza ribbon (coloured using Promarkers), gems and ultrafine glitter from stash.
• tags cut using Cuttlebug die
• edges scored using Scor-pal

Additional Challenges:

• 2 Red Bananas - Christmas
• Pollycraft - Wonderful Christmas Time
• Stamp with fun - Christmas
• Creative Card Crew - Christmas
• Digital Tuesday - Sparkle and Shine

Have a fantastic weekend everyone - I'm going on a Christmas shopping weekend - yikes think it may be rather busy in Manchester. Not to worry maybe the free bar in the evening will help me to cope.

See you on Monday for The Pink Elephant challenge and thank you so much everyone who has joined in this week showing off their 'favourite colouring medium'. I've been seeing some truly amazing cards. Thank you so much.

Ann xxx

Bah humbug...

I don't really mean that - I love Christmas, but having decided to stay in yesterday and get on with those desperately needed cards why oh why did my inspiration go on walkabout.

By the end of the day I had made only one card - how bad is that? Having said that my recent craze on trying out different soup recipes did take some time up and then there was a bit more craft room sorting to do, but even so!

Anyway the card I did make is another card using that gorgeous Swiss Pixies Nora image by C. C. Designs. I really like the clean lines of these stamps and digis. Oh my - having just popped over there to get the link I've spotted the cutest stamp in the new December range - uh oh - isn't Sugarplums Santa just wow? Very tempting!

Additional materials:

• Blue pearlescent paper and silver mirri board
• blue snowflake paper by DCWV
• Swiss dots cuttlebug folder
• silver snowflake bradlet, gem brad and silver sentiment peel off from stash
• X-cut snowflake punch

Challenges:

• Sketch by Cutie Sunday
• Stamp with Fun - Christmas
• The Cuttlebug Spot - Brrrrrrr Winter
• ABC Challenge - Indigo Blue
• Two Red Bananas - Christmas

Have a great day everyone.

Whoops was supposed to be scheduling this and clicked post by accident - ah well it's been one of those sort of days!!!
Ann xxx

Pink Elephant Day...

I really can't believe Monday is here again and we have a new challenge at The Pink Elephant.

This week is a colour theme and wow it's a super easy one...

Use your favourite colouring medium - how fun is that? For my card I used Promarkers - since buying the new colour range I just can't stop using these pens. I just love them.

I decided to make an acetate card and this may be the last one I ever do as it was just so hard to take a photo of. Some of the shots had a reflection of me on complete with camera - some had the windows etc - oh it was so tricky. I must try to find out how the experts manage as this card is really quite nice in real life (honest) and yet the photo does not do it justice at all.

The image I've used is Swiss Pixies Nora by C.C. Designs and oh my do they do some gorgeous stamps? I hadn't heard of them until my friend Irene won a challenge in the Summer and received a couple of beautiful stamps. Check out her cards here and here. Aren't they just fabulous?

Each month at C. C. Designs there are new designs and the great thing is you can get the images in both rubber and digi versions. I love my rubber, but for us over here in England it can take a long time for stamps to travel over the pond and the postage makes them more expensive too. Buying the digi version solves both those problems.

The fancy border on my card and 'snow' sentiment are all rub ons which were very kindly sent to me as part of some lovely blog candy from Fab at Fab's Big Christmas Card Challenge. Thank you again Fab - I love these rub ons.

Have a great day everyone and hope you are able to join in our challenge at The Pink Elephant this week.

Ann xxx