Has Summer Ended?

I took Haggis out for his walk this afternoon after being stuck indoors all morning with the rain and the leaves are starting to fall from the trees already! The summer holiday isn't even over yet and it's turning into Autumn? That's just not right.

Anyway the rain this morning inspired me to make another card for Liz's challenge at the Pink Petticoat blog. The challenge is to make a summer inspired card and as you can see I was inspired by the typically English summer weather we have been experiencing here today :)

Pink Petticoat papers, Papertrey twine kraft card and ribbon, Prima buttons and Paperchase jewels - I think I need to encourage my brother to take his girlfriend shopping in Manchester again as they are my personal jewel shoppers :)

Yum Yum Cupcakes ...

Sadly not the edible variety as we are dieting but the paper sort :)

I used Melissa Bennett's latest kit available at the Sweet Shoppe and the sentiment is from the Papertrey cupcake set of stamps.

Short and sweet blog post today as we are out and about enjoying an adventure to London to visit Buckingham Palace! Even better is that we're travelling by train so I don't even need to drive all that way so I shall be enjoying it even more :)

Sparkly Little Tug Boat ...

The result of my sorting and purging earlier in the week I found this gorgeous sparkly braid at the back of one of my ribbon drawers. It's actually the remnants of making a tie back for my bathroom curtain and it looked just like the deep blue sea. So, it needed a boat to sail across it and I had this perfect little tug boat from a Kay Miller kit tucked away on my hard drive.

Little boat image from Kay Miller, Pink Petticoat papers, Hero Arts stamp

Get Well Soon ...

Well, my little doggie is poorly with an infection so he's got penicillin to take and has to wear another silly looking lampshade collar :( So Get Well Soon cards seemed appropriate!

I made a few of these doctor's cases at my crop on Friday night to go in my card box, I've made them before and they seemed to cheer up the poorly people so thought I would make some more. I'm trying to stock up my card box whilst I am still on holiday.

Everything from the 'Ouchies' kit at Nitwit Designs and some Stampin' Up ribbon

A Little Bit Summery 2 ...

Here is another card for Liz's challenge at the Pink Petticoat blog. There is nothing more summery than a big round yellow sun filled with happy sunshine buttons. It looked such a happy card that I made it into a Get Well Soon card

Papers from Pink Petticoat, Autumn Leaves and Basic Grey buttons, Papertrey stamp, twine from garden centre and some pretty hand stitching

Sorting and Tidying ...

I have spent hours this week sorting and tidying and purging my craft room, lots has been sent to the local tip, passed onto friends, my paper recycling bin is full and we took a huge box of paper and card to the church for children's crafts. I really cut back on my ribbons and filled a large basket to give to a friend, stuff I hadn't even looked at during the last 8 months or so. It was amazing what I found that I had forgotten I owned. At least I can craft on my desk now and I can see what I have in my cupboards.

See the city stamp up there ^^ just one of the things I found that I had never used so it got the ink treatment to make this sweet Beep Beep birthday card. My delivery of clear cardblanks came at the weekend and I am really loving using them too.

Woodware roller stamp, digital car (recoloured) by Melissa Bennett Designs, paper from Pink Petticoat and a few doodled clouds :)

Caardvarks Challenge ...

The latest challenge at Caardvarks is to create a card using black, white and hot pink - I love this colour combo.

Papertrey papers and stamp, creative cafe buttons, May Arts ribbon

Cardalicious Challenge ...

I made this card for the challenge over at the Cardalicious blog, to create a friend card using orange, green and pink.

Pink Petticoat papers, Stampin Up and Papertrey ribbon, Papertrey stamp, EK Success heart punch (for the orange paper flower)

A Little Bit Summery ...

Liz over at the Pink Petticoat blog has set a challenge to create a summer inspired card and I made this

Pink Petticoat paper, Basic Grey buttons, Papertrey Ink stamp, twine from garden centre and the corrugated card stuff was recycled from some packaging

CPS Challenge ...

I loved the current sketch at the CPS blog, it's just my 'thing' and as I wanted to play with my favourite Papertrey stamps I went with a love heart theme.

Papers from the Sweet Shoppe, stamps from Papertrey, ink from SU!, Martha Stewart border punch and some twine from the garden centre

Clear Cards ...

I am really enjoying using clear cards as my cardblanks at the moment. For this card I cut down some 12x12 transparencies but I am waiting for an order of clear cardblanks from ShortCuts to arrive. I loved the funky papers from the Sweet Shoppe and added some of my favourite clear and sparkly gems. Each time my brother goes to Manchester I beg him to go to Paperchase to buy me some more to restock my jar :) I think I am addicted to the loopy border punch from Martha Stewart too :)

I think I should have waited to take my photograph until the sun wasn't shining so brightly but I really shouldn't complain as the weather is forecast for rain again today :(

The Frog Prince

The new Quarterly Assortment is in the Sweet Shoppe Designs store now. If you haven't seen it I would really recomend that you pop over. Basically it's a collection of mini kits from each designer at The Sweet Shoppe (so that's 23 kits) for the bargainous price of $3.99 and there is some really gorgeous stuff in there!

I used the papers and word art from Kristin Cronin Barrow's kit to make this sweet little card and added the frog stamps by Hero Arts and some coiled wire to make little springs and papertrey ribbon

Lovely Friends ...

Last week when I came home from my holiday I had a whole stack of emails but one inparticular made my heart happy, my lovely lovely friend Kay Miller is getting back into her designing groove and starting up her Design Team again. I am so happy because Kay is just about the nicest person I have come across during my wander around the online crafting community and working for her is a pleasure.

So today she has put a new kit into her store and here is my card using the papers from the kit.

And, my lovely friend Jane showed me a card she had made with a really sweet set of Scotty dogs (just like my Haggis) so of course I had to buy the stamp and use it to make a birthday card for another friend.

Little scamp that Haggis is - he's eaten the 'o' key from my keyboard so now I have 2 gaps where I have to type by pressing down into the rubber cushion as he had already chewed the number 8 key off. I can't stay cross with him for long though!

Haggis ...

This is the card that I made Dad for Fathers day, when I posted it then I said how it looked so much like my Haggis.

And this is the little chap in the garden last week. He's had an operation the week before and had to wear one of those silly looking lampshade collars which he hated but now he's all mended and loving being able to have his ears stick up in the air :) We love him very much and you can't stop cross with him for long when he gets himself in trouble - which he does on a minute by minute basis :lol:
I just wanted to post this for the family and friends who come to visit my blog

A couple more ...

A few more cards made with these sweet Magnolia stamps

Just because I can ...

'Just because I can' seems to have become our phrase for the summer and we are enjoying skipping off for the day to have an adventure, sleeping in until late, staying in our pyjamas until lunchtime (or later if I can manage) and generally having a whole lot of fun 'just because we can'.

At the moment our 'just because we can' adventure has led all of us including Haggis off for a caravan holiday in Norfolk (hopefully sunny Norfolk) beside the sea.

And - just because I can - I've set my blog to publish a few posts whilst I am away having fun.

I recently rediscovered Magnolia stamps and have indulged in a few new ones after selling most of my old ones last year because I wasn't using them.

I love these little charms dangling off my flowers, I bought them from The Hobby House

Love Pink ...

Is it wrong to be in love with a colour so much? I just love Papertrey Ink's Raspberry Fizz cardstock and ribbon and can't stop using it ~ well I have to stop now as I've used all my ribbon up and I'm waiting for new supplies!! Anyway, I used the colour again on this card.

Papers from the Sweet Shoppe again and I used more of those paper flowers that I found in John Lewis last week and some Prima crystal swirls and of course the pink ribbon and cardstock

**A few people have commented on the lack of design team logos on my sidebar, well I have just been snowed under recently with my full time job as well as wanting to spend most of my time with Haggis and my family and I had a great opportunity to do something a bit special but all of this has meant that I resigned from my other teams. It wasn't fair on everyone and me to be struggling with time so sadly I said goodbye to the lovely designers I was working for. But it's true what they say that when one door closes another one opens :)

Sweet Shoppe cards ...

I'm really enjoying being on holiday from work and spending some extra time in my craft room. Today I made a card for the Sweet Shoppe which I love so much (I don't think I'l be able to give this one away) I'm not sure if it's the colours or the patterns but I will certainly be using these papers lots in the future! The card had to have a box as it's so thick with layers and embellishments

I even had time to decorate the inside and I used my favourite huge Hero Art stamps for the greeting

Christmas cards ...

I quite like making and sending Christmas cards but I hate leaving them to the last minute so I usually start making some each month from the summer onwards, it means there is less to do come December.

These two are both very simple and follow the same kind of pattern. I thought the pink one would be my favourite but I love the red and green card so much I think it will become a mass produced one for the family to send. I'm going away for a weekend scrapping and crafting with some friends in November so this might well feature on the weekends plans

2 Sketches 4 You Challenge ...

I love having time through the week to join in with some challenges during the holidays and today I visited 2 Sketches 4 You. I loved the sketch - so easy to work with - and I used my lovely new papers from Sweet Shoppe Designs and my equally lovely Papertrey Ink Everyday Button Bits stamps. I loved the design teams bows and ribbon knots too so I added a lovely fluffy bow :)

Button Bits ...

Have you seen the latest Papertrey Ink stamp set ~ Button Bits? I just love it and was really excited when my set arrived earlier in the week. I had a quick play - and I mean very quick - in between playing with Haggis and sorting some stuff out for our holidays and now I am feeling the need to do lots more playing :)

Enjoying the sunshine ...

I've been spending time outdoors in the sunshine with Haggis this week. The sun doesn't often shine for long here so you have to make the most of it! I have made some cards too though and I have been busy with some crafting projects yo share in the future. These two cards were made with papers from the Sweet Shoppe and I used some sentiment stamps from Papertrey Ink. I love their stamps and ribbon and thanks to my lovely friend Debbie I am buildig up quite a stash :)