Summer has arrived ...

Summer seems to have arrived in my part of the world, the clocks changed on Sunday and I am enjoying the lighter evenings, the fact that we've had wall to wall glorious sunshine for the last 4 days has just made life even sweeter :)

Today I have two cards to share

::credits::

::credits::

Both of these cards were made for the Papertake Weekly Challenges (this weeks and last weeks)

A Girly Get Well Card ...

I love this little bear (technically he is a boy bear but I wanted to use him for a girly get well card so he's had a bit of a sex change!) and I seem to be addicted to making easel cards at the moment.

Stamp - Stamp Fairy

Papers - Sweet Shoppe Designs

Ribbon, lace and Perfect Pearls - Ribbon Girl

This is for the Papertake Weekly Challenge which is sponsored by Stamp Fairy this week

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you all had a marvellous Christmas and New Year. I had a great time but can't believe I had to go back to work already! The first day back after Christmas is always difficult but actually I was so busy that it was hometime before I knew it and now I'm back home snuggling with my little doggie on the sofa and listening to the horrible wind outside that is blowing a gale.

A new year means a new challenge at Papertake Weekly and also a whole new site design at Sweet Shoppe Designs with lots of lovely new kits to choose from :)

This is my card for the anything goes with the option of a new theme (new baby, new house, new stash etc.) challenge and I used a fabulous new kit from Zoe Pearn for my New Baby card

I used:

Papers - One For The Boys digital kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs

Cardstock - Papermania

Glass glitter - 3D Jean

Lace, ricrac and pins - Ribbon Girl

Sentiment - Pink Petticoat

 This card is a didi 4 inches square and instead of making it a box I used one of these fab glassine bags to create a little packet for it to go into. I used another sentiment from Pink Pettocoat (printed onto Safmat) as well as trimming the top with pinking shears and adding a few lengths of lace a ricrac and tying up with a ribbon bow (all from Ribbon Girl). The tiny tag and sentiment stamp is from Papertrey Ink and the safety pin is an ancient Making Memories pin that I've had for years and years

All in all I was really happy with how this turned out, shame the lighting here has been so poor even through the day - very grey and gloomy

I am entering this card into:

Paper Sundaes Challenge - Out with the old, in with the new (I used old sentiment stamp and new papers)

Allsorts Challenge - New Beginnings

Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

Creative Inspirations - Anything Goes

Ribbon Girl Colour Challenge ...

The new colour challenge at the Ribbon Girl blog is red, black and cream as chosen by Vicky.

This is the card and box that I made, it's another tiny 4 inch card

I used:

Digital Papers - Joy To The World by Kristin Cronin Barrow at Sweet Shoppe Designs

German Glass Glitter - 3DJean

Laces, ribbons, pins, Zva crystal swirl and button twine - Ribbon Girl

Sentiment, kraft cardstock and tag die - Papertrey Ink

Distress Ink - Ranger

The challenge is sponsored by Lili Of The Valley and Ribbon Girl so well worth entering

Sparkle, bling and even more sparkle ...

I am entering this super sparkly card into the Cupcake Craft Challenge which is to creat e asparkly card - I think I got that one spot on :)

Papers - Glorious digital kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs

German glass glitter (oh my goodness this stuff is divine!) 3D Jean

Pins, lace, seam binding, twine, sparkly button and a Zva crystal swirl all from Ribbon Girl

Sentiment and tag die from Papertrey Ink

Star die by Sizzix

Baby ...

This week our lovely friend had a sweet baby girl and this is the card that I made for her to celebrate the new arrival.  Those gorgeous papers are from a Krystal Hartley digital kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs that I totally love (I've already made another two cards using the same papers!)

All of the ribbon, buttons, pompom, pins, lace and the crystal swirl are from Ribbon Girl

The dinky little tag dies are from Papertrey

A lot to catch up on ...

Goodness, it is almost a month since I last blogged! Life has been pretty busy here, lots of decisions to be made about my new house but in the 4 weeks since we got the key we've had a new heating system installed throughout, the windows have all been replaced, a few walls have been knocked down, moved and rebuilt to make the kitchen a little larger, the kitchen has been ordered and 3 rooms have been plastered and painted throughout. This weekend my brother put down the flooring in one of the bedrooms and he's there at the moment laying the floor in the other bedroom. Phew, lots of hard work :)

I've had a little time to spend making cards but I gave up on the idea of making all my Christmas cards and have bought some for the regular people and I'm keeping my hand crafted cards for the extra special people.

Amongst all the busy-ness of making the house look fabulous I squeezed in a weekend away with 7 other crafty friends. We completed several projects and this is the card that I taught to the group on the Friday night, it had a coordinating box to go with it but I forgot to take a photograph of that

Paper, sentiment and reindeer image - Pink Petticoat

Twine, ribbon and jinglebell - Ribbon Girl

Star die - Spellbinders

Whilst at the cottage we had a bit of a Molly Bloom fest - I love Molly Bloom stamps which is handy because so does Jane, Gail and Jean so we played swaps with our stamps for a little while and I cane home with several stamped images all ready to colour in

Stamp - Molly Blooms

Papers - Sweet Shoppe Designs

Ribbons and twine - Ribbon Girl

I've made a few of these little giftbags too, the die is a Papertrey Ink die and they are perfect for adding a giftcard or small items such as earrings and jewellery

Papers and font - Sweet Shoppe Designs

Die - Papertrey Ink

Papers, snowman element and wordart - Sweet Shoppe Designs

Ribbon, twine and charm - Ribbon Girl

The kit I used for the gift bag and this card is Fa-La-La by Dani Mogstad at Sweet Shoppe Designs and whilst I was creating these projects I thought I would use it to make a festive header for my blog, I'm hoping we get some snow this holiday time!

A Happy, Happy Birthday Card ...

Oops, almost forgot to share my Papertake Weekly card! I love this card, it's been sat on the shelf above my craft desk for ages because I din't want to put it in the card box

The challenge this week is to use a sketch

I used:

Stamps (Image and sentiment)  - Lili of The Valley (cloured with Copics)

Papers - The Sweetest Thing digital kit by Zoe Pearn at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Dies - Spellbinders

Pom Pom trim and heart pins - Ribbon Girl

Other - distress inks and sewing machine

... and down came a spider

The challenge over at Papertake Weekly this week is to use spooky hues so I made the cute spider card.

I added black dewdrops to his feet to make them look a bit like shoes!

Papers and that cute spider - Jeepers Creepers digi kit

Ribbon and dewdrops - Ribbon Girl

Computer sentiment - Leftovers font

A baby card ...

I made this card for my friend who has a new baby boy, it was perfect for this weeks Papertake Weekly challenge which is to use 3 shapes - I've used a square, rectangle and star shape

Papers and alphabet - Baby Boy by Lliella Designs at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Lace, twine and baby charms - Ribbon Girl

Martha Stewart border punch

Lots of machine sewing and white cardstock

Exciting, exciting news ...

Today I was up bright and early because I was so excited.  A few weeks ago I was asked by Darcy Baldwin who designs for Sweet Shoppe Designs, to work with her to create a set of card and alphabet templates. She loves my doodles that I often put on the edges of my cards so I created two different doodled alphabets and Darcy turned my scribbly doodles in to two sets of fantastic alphabet templates. She also worked her magic and used my cards in the Sweet Shoppe gallery to create 6 card templates.  This is what I saw when I went into the Sweet Shoppe store this morning - my stuff on the front page!

And these are what Darcy created, I am so excited to see my name on them

 I managed to spend some time this week playing with the card templates and a few other Sweet Shoppe goodies

This card is a flat digital card using one of the templates, simply printed and adhered to a card blank ...

(Love Me Some Andrea Templates, Rule The School digital kit, DJB Geordie Girl font)

... and for this card I printed all the layers seperatley and reassembled, adding cardstock, machine stitching, bakers twine and an owl charm

(Love Me Some Andrea templates, Rule The School digital kit, DJB Geordie Girl font, Bakers Twine, owl charm, cardstock)

This is another flat digital card using the templates and doodled alphabet ...

(Love Me Some Andrea templates, Bake Me A Cake digital kit)

... and this is the same template but again printed seperately and layered with cardstock, dimensional foam pads and a ribbon bow

(Love Me Some Andrea templates, Bake Me A Cake digital kit, cardstock, saddlestitch ribbon)

I LOVE what Darcy did with my stuff and they can all be bought here!

Baby Box ...

... No, not a box of babies - how sweet would that be? - but the gift box I made for the friend whose card I showed yesterday. It is becoming a bit of a tradition at the school where I work for me to make a pretty gift box for the presents I give. It started last Christmas with our staff Secret Santa, mine wasn't so secret because everyone guessed that it was from me  hee-hee! and now it's becoming expected - which is nice but something to live up to.

Anyway, this is the box I decorated, it started out life as a yucky floral pastel box but I just changed it by adding papers and embellishments - and sparkle of course :)

 

Papers from this gorgeous digital kit

Ribbon, lace, twine, sparkly button and crystals from Ribbon Girl

Stickles glitter glue

Font from here

Tag die from Papertrey

Baby cards ...

My lovely work colleague left us to have a baby last week and this is the card I made her - I need to make another card now as I had a text from her this moring to say she'd had a baby boy today so I will be getting the blue ribbons out :) This is also my Papertake Weekly challenge for this week which is an anything goes challenge with the option of using something metal on your cards - I use pretty pins and baby charms

Papers are from this pretty digital kit

Ribbon, charms and pins from The Ribbon Girl

Fonts from here

... did you join in with the Ribbon Girl birthday blog hop - there is still time to leave a comment on this post to win a prize :)

Glug Glug Glug ...

I love this little submarine. It's an element from Traci Reed's Rub A Dub digital kit and the paper is fab too! I think I will be using this kit a lot for boy cards

(Papers and submarine from this digital kit, ribbon, crystals and dewdrops from Ribbon Girl)

(Submarine from this digital kit, crystals, dewdrops, twine ande button from Ribbon Girl)

Happy Birthday Hannah ...

It was my friend and fellow pink lover Hannah's birthday last week. I couldn't go to her party so sent her present and card through the post.  I decorated a square gift box to house her birthday gift as well as the coordinating birthday card so that it didn't get squashed whilst in the post. As well as the overload of pinkness the card even had a flamingo on it because Hannah loves flamingo's, it took me a while to track down the perfect pink flamingo but I eventually found it :)

I used papers from this digital kit and the flamingo from this digital kit and of course all the ribbons and lace were from the Ribbon Girl

Pretty Pastels ...

The prompt over at Papertake weekly is pretty pastels so I seized the opportunity to use this beautiful digital kit by Zoe Pearn at Sweet Shoppe Designs.

Hanglar stamp, lace, ribbon and pearl swirl from Ribbon Girl, digital papers from this kit

Dinosaur Rawr...

I love this little dinosaur from Melissa Bennett's Rawr 2.0 digital kit and he was just calling out to be turned into a shaped card. It's ages since I made a digi shape card but I do love them and this one will make a fab boy card. I added the star from the same kit and the little bone charm just seemed to go perfectly.  I added glossy accents to all the green spots to make them super shiny and then I took him out in the garden to have his photograph taken :)