Happy Birthday Grandma...

Hmmmmmmm when checking out the challenge for my last Guest Designer spot at the Crafter's Companion Challenge I must have been half asleep as I really didn't spot the 'Christmas with a twist' element to the challenge.  Silly me just dived straight into working on the fab sketch to make a card for Laura to send her Gran, who will be 87 in a few weeks time.

As you can see the card is very pink (to suit Laura) and full of flowers (to suit Gran).  The main image is Popcorn the bear of course and is one of the large stamps so another of my 8" x 8" card blanks from QVC came in very handy.  Check out the top right corner!  Oh my - it only took me about 3 hours to do that circle and I know I'm prone to exaggerating, but this time I'm not. Honestly!  Making that special message on the circle involved using my Just Rite stamp set that I bought at the NEC last November.  Hmm took me quite a long time to get round to using it and it may be a great deal longer before it sees the light of day again!  Oh my goodness I was an only child and brought up at a time when John Bull printing sets were a really good Christmas present (saddo), but my eyes were far sharper then and maybe 3 hours didn't seem an excessive amount of time to spend creating two short sentences.

While creating my special personalised circle I discovered a few very useful things to remember when using these kind of stamps... 

•  you need incredibly good eyesight and the patience of a saint to pick the letters up

• decide at the beginning if you want something in the middle otherwise it's almost like having to start all over again.

• try not to let the one letter that is in the right place when you ink up but as soon as you start to stamp decides to move into another word annoy you

• tap the stamp very gently with the ink pad aware of the fact that some of the letters might decide to migrate to the ink pad when you are not looking

• have plenty of spare card on hand cause there is a strong likilyhood that you won't be happy until you've stamped the piece about 30 times.

• under no circumstances drop any letters on a dark carpet - I know this for a fact (guess why?)

• if one of the letters (100% guarantee on this happening) does drop out and you have to replace it - check and double check that you have replaced it the right way up as it is very annoying to attach the circle to card only to realise that the 'U' in Laura is upside down.  (again I know from experience) 

Having said all that I am pleased with the result and Laura was thrilled with the pinkness of it all.

My card is also for the challenges at...

• Stamp Something - something to celebrate (Gran's birthday) 
• Oldie but Goldie - Pink and Girly (all the stamps I've used are over 6 months old)
• The Sisterhood of Crafters - at least 3 flowers
• A Spoon Full of Sugar - Spots and stripes.

Have a great weekend everyone - I'm going to be busy taking out the letters one by one and replacing them in my printing set.  Oh really looking forward to that!

Ann xxx

I'm back...and so is Popcorn...

Two weeks in wonderful Cape Verde - bliss - I will probably bore everyone to death with photos and maybe even some scrapping later, but for now I just want to say...

Anyone wanting to sign my 'Mosquitoes should be an Endangered Species!' petition please leave a comment here!  

Oh so many bites and all in the last three days of the holiday too - such a shame!

Good job I completed my card for my DT spot at Crafter's Companion before I went away.  As it was done in among the packing and shopping for the holiday it had to be quite a quick to make card.  Luckily this month's challenger features yet another superb sketch to use as a starting point.  I also decided to use one of the Popcorn bear Cd's to print off both the decoupage for the central image and the backing paper.  I must admit I really love to do my own stamping and colouring, but sometimes a CD can be just what you need for a quickie card.

How cute is Popcorn with his bag of presents rushing off to the party?  Perfect for a certain little boy I know who is two this weekend.

Well better get back to the huge amount of washing and ironing I have to get done before I go back to work.  I'm sure we didn't take all these clothes.  Maybe someone has sneaked their washing into our cases and just as I finish they will knock on the door wanting their clean clothes! 

Have a fab day everyone - even if it involves work or the dreaded 'h' word.  

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug! - For a Special Friend...

This week at Bah! Humbug! we want everyone to make a special card for their Christmas box.  It's usually these cards that I end up doing at the last minute and really they are the ones that should have more time spent on them.  So what a great idea to do at least one of them as early as July.

My card is not intended for a friend of mine as too many of them check out my blog, but it's for my daughter to send to one of her close friends. 

The image is one of Popcorn the Bear and of course as these images are so large they are perfect for using on 8" x 8" size cards.  Popcorn is coloured using Promarkers and combined with DCWV papers from one of their briliant pads.

As the card is for a special person I've decorated the inside too with the Souffle image stamped and then cut out to add to the corner and computer generated sentiments mounted on Nestie frames.

My card was also made with the following challenges in mind...

• Crafter's Companion - the sketch
• No Time to Stamp - Christmas in July
• Creative Card Crew - Die Cuts (the frames for the sentiments on the inside of my card)
• Cricut Cardz Challenge - without my Cricut machine I couldn't have cut the perfect ovals used to mat and layer on the front of this card.  They are way bigger than Nesties.
• Fussy and Fancy - Christmas in July

Have a great weekend everyone and don't forget to check out Bah! Humbug! this week to see the fab designs by my team mates and our guest designer, Debs.

Ann xxx

For my friend...

This is the card I was working on and keeping secret at the beginning of this week.  It's one for my great friend Max and having heard the squeals all the way from Scotland to down here in Yorkshire I know she has received it and it's safe to post on here.

The stamp is from a Popcorn the Bear set by Crafter's Companion.  I really like this set as it has three tiny sentiments that are just the right size to pop in the tag tied to the duck's flower.  Such a cute duck - love it to bits.  

The patterned and plain card I've used is by Kanban.  To add interest I embossed some of the layers using Cuttlebug folders.  The flowers are punched using Woodware punches that have been in my stash since I first began making cards.  

In addition to being a card for a great buddy my card was also made with the following challenges in mind...

• Crafter's Companion - Sketch
• Practical Scrappers - Flowers
• Cutie Sunday - Summer
• Crazy4Challenges - Paper Flowers
• Simon Says Stamp - Friends (must be getting psychic in my old age as that's two weeks running where my card for Wednesday has fit the Simon Says Challenge before I read the challenge - how weird is that?)

Have a fantastic day everyone.  Let's hope this sunshine lasts and lasts.

Happy Birthday Amanda and The Promarker Challenge Blog too...

Oh my goodness I cannot believe it's a whole year since The Promarker Challenges began.  I remember being so excited as I had just started to collect the pens and had made a list of the ones needed for the first challenges.  Sheenie friends may remember me joking on the forum that the 'Apple Green' was an awful colour.  LOL - I was teasing them and also trying to stop it selling out when the pens arrived at Joanna's Sheen's store. 

Oh my - think I have most of the colours now and absolutely love using them.  The theme chosen to celebrate at The Promarker Challenge is a super easy one-Anything Goes!  My trouble is whenever there is such an open theme I struggle to decide what to create.  However, I needed to make a birthday card for my daughter's friend, Amanda so this is what I came up with.  Amanda loves big cards, which is perhaps as well as the Popcorn Bear stamp I've used on this card is enormous!!  I really didn't realise it was so big when I bought it.  I had to cut a 6" oval on my Cricut to stamp on and although I followed a sketch from one of my favourite sketch challenges I couldn't fit some of the detail on.  Hope they will forgive me at Sweet Sketch Wednesday.

The tag and embellishments were cut using Cuttlebug dies and I used the Swiss Dots folder to emboss the purple panels.

Hope everyone is enjoying the lovely long Bank Holiday weekend.  I worked most of the weekend, but now have a few days off to catch up with everything hopefully.

The Pink Elephant Day...

and maybe quite a sad one as after being a DT member since the very beginning of The Pink Elephant I have decided that at the moment I just haven't got enough time to do justice to being on the team.  I'm really sad to go as all the girls on the team are so lovely as well as being ultra talented, but sometimes something has to give.  I've decided that I want to take a break and concentrate on other things - new job - new challenges, etc.

Anyway enough of being slightly morbid and on to this week's challenge which is a colour challenge and as you can see from my card our colour theme is 

'COOL AQUA'.  

Silly me chose a paper to match the cool aqua Promarker pen and then ended up paper piecing Tilda's dress - hmmmmm just the daft sort of thing I'm doing at the moment.  Those hormones have a lot to answer for - I'm gonna swing for the one that turns the heating on full blast in the middle of the night.  That really is no joke!

Materials used...

• Magnolia Tilda in party dress - one of my first Tilda stamps and I still love her
• Swiss Dots cuttlebug folder
• Nesties
• Cuttlebug tag die
• small sentiment for Popcorn the Bear stamp set 
• Aqua patterned paper and pearlescent card from stash

Challenges...

• Creative Inspirations - fabulous sketch - although I did change it slightly
• Tanda Stamps - vivid colour - hmmmmm hope this is vivid enough
• Simon Says Challenge - Things with Wings
• Daring Cardmakers - die cuts - my tag and nestie circles

Have a great start to the week everyone.  I've just returned home from work to find that yet again my scheduled post didn't work - really strange it was okay when I left it, but changed to a draft when my back was turned - weird!!

Ann xxx