Mamma Mia ...

I celebrated my birthday on Tuesday by going to see the Mamma Mia musical in Newcastle. Oh my goodness it was totally fantastic, missing Colin Firth of course, but the actors were really good and they all great singers. We had good seats, quite far back but dead centre to the stage.

I wanted to share the Christmas presents that Haggis gave to his loved ones before the new year arrives and I put all the Christmas photographs and crafty goodies away for another year. He made (errr... sat on my feet and kept them warm whilst I made) snowglobes for his friends that we got in Home Bargains for only £1 - such bargains :)

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2010 filled with love and laughter xx

They say it's your birthday ...

Happy Birthday to me! It's my birthday today and I am celebrating by spending the day in my pyjamas, eating chocolate and sorting and tidying my craft room. The birthday fairy brought me a new Martha Stewart punch

And the postman brought me a cheque for some magazine work that I did before Christmas so I can go crafty shopping :)

I made a card last night, my box of cards that I keep at work has run down so I am topping it up again and spent a happy little while playing with Cosmo Cricket paper and an old Stampin Up rubber stamp


The paper lace is made with another of the deep edge Matha Stewart punches, I adhered it with my ATG gun along the back of the punched flowers and then filled in the flowers with glitter

Cards and stuff ...

We had a fantastic Christmas and actually we're still having a great time as I'm off school for another week, it's my birthday tomorrow and then we have New Year's Eve to celebrate. Santa Claus was very kind to me this year and brought me oodles of lovely gifts and suprises and my fingers have been itching to start creating again so I made some thank you cards and a couple of birthday cards. It was refreshing to create a non Christmas, non winter card and begin to use some different colours.

Whilst I was hunting for the image for that card on my computer I found a few Christmas things that I hadn't shared. This card is still sitting on my desk because I really liked it and couldn't bring myself to give it to someone else!

I made a couple of these to give away as small gifts - Snowman Poop!

This was the party invitation I made for Haggis's birthday party last week, that sweet little doggie is a stamped image from Little Claire Designs.

Christmas Eve ...

All is calm here and we're ready for Santa to arrive :) I have my last two Christmas cards to share tonight. I used a Hanglar stamp to make a special sparkly card for Mam and Dad, a bit last minute but at least they got one this year :)

I have searched for weeks looking for my holly leaves punch and found it this morning! Just in time to use on at least one card :)

My last card of the season is a cute little reindeer with a sparkly nose and goggly eyes. I used the leftover punched holly leaf and red gemstones from my other card to embellish him.

Haggis is waiting for Santa Claus and spent the majority of the day snoozing on the back of the settee, wrapped up in a blanket watching the snow through the window. Merry Christmas x

Winter Mini Book ...

I loved those photographs that I took of Haggis playing in the snow and from when we went for a walk in the beautiful snowy countryside so decided to make them into a mini album. It's more of a tag book than an album as I've added bits and pieces into it and printed my photographs back to back to create phototags.

My album base is a set of 3 wooden houses from Craftshapes which I covered in a selection of papers from Zoe Pearn's Winter Wonderland kit

I added some of the elements from the kit - journalling block, tree and snowman - that I trimmed and covered the backs of to make tags and I completely covered them in ultrafine white glitter.

I added some KaiserScrapbook rubons that I had left over from another project to the journalling blocks before covering them in the glitter and they work brilliantly and look just like those chipboard elements you can buy to go with some makes of paper. I used my Cropodile to punch holes in all the tags as well as some wooden snowflakes that I painted silver and they got the glitter treatment too.

I turned my photographs into tags by printing them wallet sized (nine to a page), trimming them and glueing them together back to back before punching a hole and adding them into the book. I joined it all together with some ball chain that I pinched from some of my Maya Road chipboard albums and then I added lots more glitter to the edges of all my wooden shapes just in case there wasn't enough and also went a bit mad with my new purchases of the Zva Creative pearl and sparkly swirl and snowflake stickers :lol:

Happy Birthday Haggis!!

Today my baby is one year old. Happy Birthday Haggis :)

He is having a birthday party tomorrow when Jack and Gemma come to visit and today he got a new ball to play with

Snow ...

We have snow! Real, cold, proper white stuff. You'll have to bear with me whilst I get all excited as normally it snows in February, it's really wet and slushy and it's gone before it's started. But this is fantastic stuff. It meant I had to cancel my plans to visit my friend Donna last night as I there was no way I could get my car out of the street but we are having fun playing in it :)

Haggis is having a ball, he loves the snow and this is the first time he's been in snow to really play. Last year just after he came to live with us we had some snow but he was so small that he could walk across the top of it and his paws didn't sink in. I still can't believe he was that small :) Anyway, here he is for our family and friends to see.

First the photograph from when he was a baby - so tiny!

This year however it's completely different - hopefully this little video will work in here!

Spots and dots ...

The current challenge over at Daring Cardmakers is to make a non Christmas, non winter, polka dotted card. I couldn't resist this challenge as polka dots are my favourite :)

I made a get well soon pocket card using products from Sweet Shoppe Designs and Papertrey Ink

Ho Ho Ho!

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas! I love this Santa Claus and his coordinating digi papers and elements from Dani Mogstad at Sweet Shoppe Designs

All Creatures Great And Small ...

... A Moxie Fab World challenge.

I'm a regular visitor to Cath Edvalson's Moxie Fab World Blog, there is always something on there that inspires me. You just have to be careful not to visit late at night or you'll end up crafting until the early hours - like me last night!!

The latest challenge is to create a card with a lil' festive critter on it and I just couldn't resist making a little mouse card as I love the poem 'Twas The Night Before Christmas'. What made my night of crafting even better was discovering this gem of a festive kit in the Sweet Shoppe store (Santa Season by Melissa Bennett) No mouse in there though to go with the stockings to be hung with care in hopes that Saint Nicholas will soon be there so I had to go searching for a lil' mouse. Sweet Shoppe came good again and I found this sweet little mouse in this kit. I chopped off her tale (not with a carving knife like in the nursery rhyme but with my scissors!) and replaced it with a knotted length of Papertrey twine. I added a pretty paper trim with my most favourite Martha Stewart border punch to finish it off

Family Book ...

This is my family mini book that I had published in Scrapbook Inspirations magazine last month. The papers are by Cosmo Cricket - totally love everything they make - and the little people are a stamp set from Stampin Up complete with a little doggy just like my Haggis :)

My Favourite Christmas Kit Ever ...

Last year I bought a digital kit from Mary Fran over at NitWit Designs and it is my most used and best loved set of Christmas papers ever. I just love the colours and the images of santa and snowmen and how they all go perfectly with glitter and ribbon :) I used it for this card, you can't tell from the photograph very well but I added sparkling glitter to the fur of his hat and the pompom as well as covering the letters of Hannah's name so that is glitters and sparkles.

I'm back...

Two consecutive weekends away and a problem with my camera means I haven't shared anything for a while but I'm back to normal now.

Today's card uses Zoe Pearn's latest Christmas kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs. I'm not normally a purple person but I just loved these papers - they go so well with glitter!

Last weekend I spent the afternoon creating my first ever gingerbread house. We had a table top sale at school on Thursday to raise money for the Children's Foundation and this was one of the raffle prizes

Big Bows ...

I love adding ribbon bows to my cards and you couldn't get much bigger than this bow! All the papers are from Melissa Bennett's Freezin Season at Sweet Shoppe Designs, I love the colours.

A Quick Gift ...

Whilst I was playing at the weekend I 'found' this plastic bauble in my 'I'll buy that because one day I might use it' cupboard) I bet you all have one of those cupboards!! Anyway, it took hardly any time at all to fill it with pink smarties and make a few tags and add a length of pretty ribbon. I think it will make a lovely little gift for someone who loves pink as much as me!

credits here

November already???

Can you believe that it's November already? EEeeeee I am so excited as it's *almost* that magic time of the year again! The big 'C' word is topical in our house at the moment and I have been busy making a few Christmas cards, starting a few lists and I have even bought my first Christmas present!

I love this Cosmo Cricket paper, it kind of fell into my basket when I was shopping at the weekend and as soon as I got it home I used it for my CPS card for this week. I also bought some distress inks to colour my stamped images as recomended by my lovely friend Jane - I think I need more practice with the inks :)

Hot pink, white and aqua ...

I love the colour combination of hot pink, aqua and white. For the last few months I have been debating what colours to decorate my bedroom with but now that I have made this card my mind is made up. I have quite a bright, sunny room so I think these colours will work really well :) I have used that Sweetness kit from the Sweet Shoppe again, it's one of my favourites

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside ...

We're away for a few days at the seaside - hoping it doesn't rain too much - but I wanted to share this last card that I made with the Lil Spooks collection of digital stamps at Sweet Shoppe Designs. Even though I am not a halloween person these stamps were seriously sweet and I couldn't resist them :)

A bit pink ...

I managed to complete my card for the Friday Sketchers challenge in time this week and have used all my favourites together for this card - I love pink, I love flowers, I love Hanglar stamps. The sketch was great to use, I'll be using this one again :) Papers are from the Sweet Shoppe from a kit called Sweetness - quite a fitting name for such a pink card!

Another CPS sketch ...

I love being on holiday from work. So yesterday I just scraped in with last weeks CPS sketch and today I have already completed the new sketch and even photographed it! I am on a roll :)

For this card I used another of Lauren Grier's new digital stamps, this time one of the owl stamps from her Woo Says The Owl collection as well as these gorgeous papers from Sweet Shoppe Designs and my ProMarkers to colour the stamp (I had a delivery this week of all the new colours of Promarkers so now I have more colour choices but a storage nightmare!!)

Ooooh - New Stamps...

Ooooooh I am very excited because not only have I managed to complete a card for the CPS challenge in time I have also been playing with some NEW digital stamps.

Lauren Grier has released four new sets of digital stamps over at Sweet Shoppe Designs and I have been playing with her Lil Spooks set to make my CPS card this week.

Digital stamp - Lauren Grier, Papers - Zoe Pearn both from Sweet Shoppe Designs

Ribbon - May Arts, Ink - Colorbox

Images coloured with ProMarkers

I also had time to have a little play making this spooky treat bag

Digital stamp - Lauren Grier, Papers and embellishment - Dani Mogstad both from Sweet Shoppe Designs

Ink - Colorbox, Ribbon - May Arts, Punch - Stampin Up

Image coloured with ProMarkers

Here is a peek of the stamps that Lauren has released today - they all have 20% off them this weekend too!

Roar....

I love cute little monsters, they make perfect cards for little boys. This card opens up to reveal a pocket for adding a gift card or banknote and I think the little monster looks like he's saying hello!

I used a digital kit from the Sweet Shop called Monstrosity, I'll be using this for lots of little boy cards I think :)