Baby Boys are just so darn cute...

Well as a new Grandma I just had to create a couple of baby cards didn't I?  This one was inspired by designer paper from the DCWV Nana's nursery paper stack.  I've only got the small pack so was a little bit restricted by the size I could make the card.

It's quite an unusual colour for babies really, but I think I like it for a baby boy.  I created the washing line using chopped down barbeque skewers and resized the little digi baby grows on Craft Artist before adding the text.

Wouldn't it make a great card for twins - two pink - two blue - or even a mix I think would work really well?

My card is for the following challenges...

• Craft Your Days Away - Monochrome
• Crafty Emma - Inspired by a Movie - Baby (grows) day out!
• Poodles Parlour - Anything Goes 

and here is somebody far cuter than any card...

Introducing Eli Ryan...

How totally adorable is he and clever too as at only a few hours old he realised that it would save him a fortune if he asked Grandma to make him a card ready for Dad's day!  I better get this blog post finished and get into action.

Have a fabulous day full of cuddles.

Ann xxx

Memories...

As my Mum's memory becomes worse and worse I've realised just how important it is to cherish and preserve the photos we have of people and places from years gone by.  I must admit I have been meaning to do something with my Mum's photos for some time and while Boxing Day might seem a strange time to make a start it was actually perfect at our house.  Mum was able to show off how well she can remember things from the past and Laura and I spent a lovely afternoon creating the first two pages of an album about our family. 
The wording was printed onto acetate and then attached to the card cut from the original folders that the photos were in.  I've laid a piece of black over the names as being paranoid you just never know what information should and should not be included on the internet.  
 

The background paper of roses is by DCWV and we both agreed it was perfect for the theme as we wanted to use black and white, but most of my papers were way too trendy.  This one seemed to fit well, especially seeing as my mum loves roses and had some in her bouquet.

We did consider adding some pressed red roses that I remembered were somewhere in my stash, but one of the memories Mum came up with was about her bouquet.  She remember wanting red roses, but was told that they would look black on black and white photos so she plumped for pink instead.  She can't remember opening a Christmas present from five minutes ago, but her Wedding Day is as fresh as ever.

Seems like ages since I entered any challenges so I'm really pleased to be able to link our pages to the challenges at...

• Allsorts Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
• Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
• Charismas Cardz Challenges - Pearls and lace
• Rainbow Lady's Challenges - My choice from last year's themes - mine is 'Lest we forget'
• Simon Say's Stamp - Anything Goes

My early New Year resolution is to do much more scrap booking, especially as my daughter loves it so much and we can play together.  As she says in the future she will look at our album and not only remember Gran, but also the fun we had doing the pages.

Enjoy your day whatever you have planned.

Hugs and smiles.

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug!...

I'm sorry, but the snow I like is glittered and on Christmas cards.  The real stuff is also okay for the occasional country walk, sledging and building snowmen, but on no account should it fall when people need to get to work or even worse know that they have a huge parcel from Graphicus stranded at the Post Office and there is no way they can get their hands on it.  Eeek!

Anyway grumble over and on to more fun things such as this totally cute House Mouse stamp from one of the sets on the Joanna Sheen website.  How cute is he?  I love him to meeces!

I missed the last challenge at the House Mouse and Friends Challenge blog and was determined not to miss this one which is all about the 'envelope'.  To compensate for missing out last time I did a card to match the envelope.  Actually not sure which came first - a bit like the chicken and the egg query really.

The envelope was stamped with the mouse and then using another stamp set in my collection I stamped the ground and the snowballs using a bit of masking and a pen to join things up.  I coloured the image using Promarkers.  I was a bit unsure as to how they would blend on the envelope paper and I must admit I put an protective piece inside the envelope just incase the ink went through, but it all seemed to work fine. The snowflakes are one of the really tiny corner stamps by Clarity bought at a show years ago and were stamped in Versefine Sepia.  I added the address to the photo only - I don't really know Maxwell's address!

My card is a really simple one with the mouse image mounted on a fab die cut by Nellie Snellen and then matted on some of my favourite wording paper by DCWV.  Organza ribbon, die cut tags and corner peel offs have been added for a touch of oomph.

My card and envelope set is perfect for the following challenges...

• House Mouse and Friends Challenge Blog - Envelope Art
• Crazy 4 Challenges - Script (background paper)
• Promarker Challenge - Old and New (new is House Mouse stamp - old is DCWV paper and snowflake corner stamp)

Well, I'm off for a walk in the snow.  I must be mad, but I do think that it will be really beautiful on the pastures near us and am hoping to take some good snowy day photos.  Also hoping that Pasture's Lodge is open too as I think on a cold day their lasagne, garlic bread and chips meal would go down very nicely accompanied by a glass (or two) of red wine.

Have a good day all and keep warm and safe.

Ann xxx

Such a fun day...

I had such a wonderful day yesterday experimenting and playing inbetween watching Sheena Douglas on Create and Craft.  I even had a go at that Faux Paper Sculpting she demoed, but that's still not dry.  I also have a feeling that mine may not be as successful as hers, but you never know so watch this space.

The best part of my crafting day was playing with one of my new Sweet Pea stamps.  I must admit I have been a bit nervous about using them, because I thought they might prove very difficult to colour, but I had a whale of a time with this one.  I used Promarkers for the main part and chalks for the background.  Then (mainly cause I've just bought it and wanting to try it out) I sprayed the whole image with Crafter's Companion Silver sparkle.  Oh my goodness this is lovely stuff!  I am trying very hard not to spray everything and anything that stands still for too long!

The flowers, stamens and leaves are all punched and arranged around the apperture.  It's quite hard to tell in a photo whether the image is stamped on an oval shape or an oval apperture has been cut out of patterned and plain card and then mounted on top.  Sorry for rambling here, but I really want to stress that this is an apperture and to make it I had to figure out how to use the Centre point button on my Cricut machine.  So proud of myself on figuring that out and now I have there will be no stopping me!

My patterned paper is by my favourite company DCWV and I think in my excitement about the apperture I may have used it upside down, but hey who is looking that closely?

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

• Sweet Pea Stampers - fabulous sketch
• Sir Stampalot Monthly Challenge - Punches (flowers are punched embossed with the floral punches, stamen and leaves also punched)
• Craftalicious Challenge - New (my stamp and glitter spray)
• Stamp Something - Happy Something
• Simon Says Stamp - Shiver me timbers (My pirate name is Stinky Nut Gorilla - sheesh not good !)

Have a great day everyone - I may if feeling brave later show my toilet paper work.  Yikes, it may be nearly dry, but what on earth am I going to create with it?

Ann xxx

Dreamy Fairy...

I have had this gorgeous image for quite some time and I really can't understand why it ended up being unused for so long as the fairy is so delicate and beautiful.  It is actually just one from a sheet of amazing fairies by Valerie Wade at Fairy Song Art Stamps.  I must get into action and use the others on the sheet too.
Other Materials used...

• DCWV paper 
• Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder and tag die
• Nellie Snellen flower punches
• Nestie scalloped circles and plain
• Xcut border die
• organza ribbon and gems from stash

Challenges...

• Flutter By Wednesday -open theme but with a fairy, angel or butterfly
• Fab n Funky - a neglected stamp ( fairies bought last summer and uninked till now!)
• Sketch and Stash - amazing sketch as always
• Sir Stampalot - Fantasy
• Creatalicious Challenges - Flowers and Wings

Hope everyone is having a great 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.

Another Easter Card...

Another Easter card using one of the fabulous Pollycraft images I won recently.  How lucky was I?  Just love them.  As well as the cat and the duck being super cute I love the tree on this image, because it lends itself to adding paper flowers or gemstones as I have done on this card.   The image was coloured with Promarkers and the designer paper is from the DCWV Spring stack again.

Challenges...

• Simon Says Stamp - Easter with some glimmer (hope my gemstones have enough glimmer)
• The Sweet Stop Sketch - sketch and something fuzzy (hmmm well cats have fuzzy fur and I go fuzzy when I see a cute image like this one - hope that counts.)
• Incy Wincy Designs - Spring

Short post today as busy getting house ready for very important guest...

Irene from All Occasions Cards, Papers and More  She's staying here and we're visiting the N.E.C. together tomorrow.  Only to look round you understand - we're not buying - lol!!!

Hoppy Easter...

Another Easter card and this time it's for my daughter Shelley, who like me is a real softie when it comes to rabbits.  The image is one of the amazing collection of digi images I was lucky enough to win from Pollycraft.  Oh such a cute collection.  My friends will be seeing a lot of these this Easter.  Love the rabbit and the duck (although not on this card) is just adorable.

The daisy border was punched using another of  the new punches Laura bought me for Mother's Day.  The sentiment is from a collection by Making Memories and the bunny paper is another design from the DCWV Spring stack.

Challenges...

• Pollycraft Monday Challenge - sparkles
• Pile it on - Furry friends
• Promarker Passion - Springtime with an animal
• Digital Tuesday - Springtime
• Sketch Saturday - sketch

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.

Happy Birthday Max...

Yeah Max is 21 (again) - Happy Birthday Max

Hope you have the most wonderful day ever - although I do think next Sunday will be even better - just think of the company you will be in - SQUEAL!!! 

As you may have guessed this is the birthday card I made for my great friend Max.  I know she likes easel cards and I hope she loves this one and the Sugar Nellie stamp I've used to create it.  (I won't say anymore about the stamp just incase she's reading this before opening her presents).

The paper is DCWV and was part of the absolutely fabulous DCWV Butterfly pad that Lorraine sent me.  The photo does not show the beauty of this paper/card as it has so much texture as well as glitter.  To add to the glitter I've added gemstones in as many places as possible.  Blow the  'less is more' train of thought it's Max's birthday and the more bling the better.

Well that's my theory anyway!

As well as being for Max's birthday my card is also for the challenges at...

• Crafty Creations - Friends (Max is one of my bestest friends)
• Tanda Teaser - Cute
• ABC Challenge - New ( my stamp is new)
• Fussy and Fancy - Dazzle us (there would be more dazzle if glitter showed up in photos)
• Secret Crafter - Multifold

Happy Valentines Day to everyone and may your day be full of hugs and kisses.

Gingerbread Love...

Today's card is one for my daughter Shelley - I always send both girls a card on Valentine's day and usually some choccies too.

The digi image I've used is from The Stamping Boutique.  Isn't she just the cutest?  Her name is Audrey and she is part of a really fab collection of digi images.  I was so lucky to win at Sweet Sketch Wednesday last week and my prize was to choose five fabulous images.  Wow it was a tough decision as they are all gorgeous.  Think Audrey will be appearing on a lot of my cards over the next few weeks.

To create my card I used the sketch over at Friday Sketchers.  Love this sketch and was amazed to find it led me into using something unheard of!  Scissors!!!  Oh my goodness we all get so used to using our die cutting machines that sometimes we forget that a humble pair of scissors can sometimes be just what we need , especially when you just haven't got the right size oval!

As love is in the air almost everywhere this weekend my card is also for the challenges at...

• Crafty Calender Challenges - love and friendship with hearts
• Tuesday Taggers - Love is all around
• My Time to Craft - Hearts and Kisses
• Simon Says Stamp - What's love got to do with it?
• Daring Card Makers - Have a Heart 
• Rainbow Lady - Wearing Red and hearts.

The thing I absolutely love about digis is the way you can resize them to create inners simply and quickly.  Here's the inner to this card.  It's not very detailed but was done super fast and is I think just that bit more special than a blank page.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Ann xxx

Hoot stepping out...

Nearly forgot to show this Hoot card originally made for the release of the Hoot range of stamps by Joanna Sheen!  How could I do that? 

He's such a cutie holding his party balloons.  The sentiment and parcel are from the same set of stamps - all very useful stuff.  I think the backing paper with Happy Birthday on is by DCWV and the sentiment on the back panel was computer generated.
My card fits fits the challenges at ...

• Creative Card Crew - anything goes!
• Project Tuesday - a side step card. 
• Stamp with fun - little presents

Still in complete chaos here getting ready for Christmas.  Stayed in all day yesterday waiting for a parcel and when did it arrive - 7.30 this morning!!  Poor postman has gone back to depot to recover from seeing this mad woman with hair stuck on end trying to unlock the door half asleep and shouting 'Just a minute' at the top of her voice.
Well if they are going to deliver at such unreasonable hours what can they expect?

Have a great day everyone and hope all your gemstones stay where they have been stuck unlike mine which seem to be sliding all over the place.  That will teach me to buy cheap silicone glue instead of Pinflair. 

Irene I'm sorry when your card finally arrives you may have to reattach the gems!!

Another blue Christmas...

I seem to be using blue a lot this week - Laura will not be happy!

Talking of Laura she has ordered a House Mouse stamp for me that she wants me to make her Christmas cards with. I've no idea which stamp she has chosen, but a package arrived today that looks the right shape and squeeks when shaken so I can't wait to see what it is. She has said it's a tricky one to use so it's to be hope my mojo comes back!

My card for today has one of my all time favourite Pollycraft images on. It's the one I saw being used on friend's blogs last year and first led me to Pollycraft. Even though I have loads of Pollycraft images now I still love this one.

Additional materials:

• DCWV snowflake paper
• dark pearlescent card and plain blue paper
• silver peel offs for sentiment, borders, corner and trims on clothes
• gems and glitter from stash
• Promarkers for colouring + Sakura stardust pen to get spikes on hair and clear stardust for detail on branch

Challenges:

• Pollycraft - Wonderful Christmas Time
• Creative Inspirations - the sketch (which I had to tweak slightly due to size of image and size of snowflake paper)
• SophistiCat Challenges - Snowflakes and Sparkle
• Stamp with fun - Christmas
• A Spoonful of Sugar - Non Traditional Christmas Colours
• Creative Card Crew - Christmas
• Two Red Bananas - Christmas

Thank you for looking and taking the time to leave such great comments.

Sheesh done it again - clicked post before scheduling - oh just pretend it's Wednesday!!

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

Thank you...

It's Laura's last day tomorrow at the Care Home she has been working at for the past year. The other nurses and manager have been really good to her and she wanted a special 'Thank you' card to give them.

I'm hoping this 8" x 8" card will be special enough. Although I must admit to being a bit worried as there is no pink in it! What was I thinking of? There will be trouble!

Materials used:

• paper and card from 'All dressed up' stack by DCWV
• plain black card and black glitter card
• oval scalloped nestie
• floral stamp by Magenta (only part of stamp has been used - this stamp is just so useful)
  
• Pearlex paints - metallic and pastel set
  
• Anita's glitter border stickers
• ribbon coloured using Promarker pen
• gold peel off sentiment from stash

Challenges:

• Sketch Saturday - I used the basic elements of the sketch, but I did miss some of the features as a punched border would not have worked with my patterned border.
  
• Cuttlebug Challenge - Give Thanks
• Simon Says - Give Thanks
• The Pink Elephant - Be Thankful
  

Thank you for looking and have a great day everyone.

So Many Scallops...

As Laura and all the other nurses at the Care Home she works at are being made redundant she has asked me to make her a few cards with 'Good Luck' and if possible a nursing theme. This is the first of a batch of three and I must make one for Laura too or I will be in big trouble.

Luckily both the girl this card is for and Laura have got new jobs so my card is also one to say 'Congratulations'.

The cardbase is a large scalloped edged white circle folded in half. Then it has straight edged smaller circles matted over the top. To echo the dotty DCWV paper I added gems to the scalloped edge.

The image was stamped on to an oval shape and then matted on to a scalloped oval.

Materials used:

• Woodware clear stamp set
• DCWV paper
• dard blue card
• Promarkers
• tag cut using cuttlebug die
• gems, peel off sentiment and organza ribbon from stash
• oval nesties

Challenges:

• Creative Card Crew - ribbons and gems
• My Time to Craft - So many scallops!
• Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps - tags

Just realised that not very long ago one of the sample cards I made for Joanna Sheen using one of the Lofty Celebrations rubber stamp sets had a similar layout and papers to my nurse card.
I really love these large scalloped circles that can be folded in half to form a card. I have tried to cut them on my Cricut, but it doesn't work the scallops become too large. The ones I've used so far have been bought in a set at Whichcraft in Doncaster. I have seen some gorgeous Magnolia themed cards on show there using these circles.

oooooooooooooooooooooooh only two more sleeps now to the NEC - don't think I will be able to sleep tonight I am so excited.

Have a great day everyone.

Ann xxx

Birthday Celebrations...

As promised here is Tony's other birthday card. This was made using the same stamp set by Inkadinkado, but this time I chose to stamp the images of skulls and crosses. These were stamped on to core'rdinations card stock and then sanded to give a really grungy look.

The background paper with stars and guitars is from the Rock Star stack by DCWV.

My card is also for the challenge at the One Stop Craft Challenge where they are celebrating their blogersary and have the theme of 'celebrations' as their challenge this week.

You're a hoot...

Three Wise Owls in an old elm tree - well okay perhaps only two wise ones!

If it were me and my friends being the owls I think the upside down dippy one might be me, but then again it might be Max! You never know - oh my goodness she will kill me when she reads this!

Materials used:

• gold mirri card and plain brown card
• stamp set 'Upside Down Hoot' by Joanna Sheen
• leafy tree background from Hoot backing paper pad also by Joanna Sheen
• patterned paper DCWV
• brads and peel offs from stash

I think my card is also ideal for the very first challenge at Crafty Calendar Challenges where the theme for this month is Autumn.

Happy Birthday Gran...

It's Grandma's birthday on Thursday and Laura wanted me to make a card with one of the gorgeous House Mouse Stamps she bought me for my birthday way back in June. It just had to be the perfume spraying mouse stamp as Grandma has always been a perfume addict and of course there had to be pink on it as Laura is crazy about pink.

The sketch I used is from this week's Mojo Monday challenge with a flower added instead of a star. Talking of flowers isn't this one gorgeous? It's from a tin full of beauties that was one of the presents Irene bought me for my birthday. The pearl brads were also part of my present. Thank you Irene - I loved everything in the birthday bag.

My card is also for the 'Birthday' themed challenges at Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps ( a new challenge - do check it out and their fabulous stamps) and the One Stop Craft Challenge.

Also, I have wanted to join in the challenges at House Mouse for so long and for ages I had no stamps and then no time, but yes I think I can sneak in an entry this week. Their theme is 'Movies' and my chosen movie to accompany my image is 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer'.

I don't think my little mouse is a murderer, but you never know I could add an evil glint to the eyes. Check out the DT creations at House Mouse they are absolutely gorgeous. The 'Sleepless in Seattle' card just made me chuckle so much.

Have a good day everyone - I'm off to Wath Market - wonder what amazing bargains will be there this week.