Little Lollipop's ...

Yesterday my postman brought me some of the delightful Lollipop stamps from Bella Stamps. Oh goodness they are so sweet I had to give them some inky loving and whilst I was doing this I spotted a new to me challenge site - Crazy4Challenges. Would you believe that this weeks challenge is to create a card using a lollipop somewhere on the card, I checked out the DTs work and some of them had used the Lollipop stamps so I went for it. I used this very sweet Gracie Lollipop stamp from Bella Stamps and paper from my newest favourite kit from the Sweet Shoppe called Cupid's Confectionary and my new Martha Stewart edge punch.

Bleurgghhhh - poorly sick :(

Oh dear I have been poorly all week. On Saturday I began a huge sort out of my craft room, I was very ruthless and I mean *very* ruthless. Everything I haven't used in the last couple of months has gone. We put it all in bags and took it to our local tip. There were 4 bags of papers that I had to stand and feed into the paper recycling bins there as well as a stack of cardboard boxes and stacks of unwanted stuff. I have got rid of all my 12 x 12 papers, all gone. If I need to scrap a layout for a magazine I have been buying just the papers I need for it anyway and I never use the old stuff so it's all gone. I have 2 drawers full of Prima flowers from the year spent on their hybrid design team and whilst I didn't want to throw them all, there are so many of them I would never use them in several lifetimes so I have set them all aside to pass onto some friends of mine. Anyway, by Saturday evening it was all gone but I was left with a very untidy room, lots of stash and lots of empty cupboards. On Sunday I started to feel unwell so my Mum had to help me sort and tidy all my remaining stuff and fine new homes for it all. It is lovely to have 'space' and even empty cupboards and duckets that I will happily fill up over the next few months :)

On Monday morning when I woke up I was feeling so poorly with a horrible cold that I had to phone work and say I was sick and I have been here, snuggled in the corner of my sofa with my laptop and my pyjamas on since then. When I have had a spurt of energy I have wandered to the kitchen for food and into my craft room to admire the apce and tidyness of my desk but quickly returned to my corner. This afternoon I decided I was feeling a bit better so I called work and said I would be back tomorrow but I think I may have been counting my chickens before they hatched as my feeling better didn't hang around long.

I do have a couple of cards to share that I made over the weekend using some of my new and very lovely Heather Ellis digital stamps. The papers for the first two cards aer from a digital kit by Kristin Cronin Barrow who sells out of the Sweet Shoppe called Bookworm. They made me think of Cosmo Cricket and I think I'll be using them lots :) The purple card was made using papers from SuzyQ designs at Scrap Orchard, I don't usually work with purple but I just loved those dots and I used my new Martha Stewart heart shaped deep edge punch too.

Hopefully I will be feeling better soon as I have plans in my head for lots of crafting and I have pennies burning a hole in my pocket for all the new CHA goodies that should be appearing in the stores soon. I *need* new stuff from Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon and My Minds Eye ;)

Who is that peeping through my card?

Over at The Daring Cardmakers this weeks challenge is to make a card with a hole in it. I used a digital kit from Sweet Shoppe designs called Blast Off! to make this cute Lil' Alien card and I love to see him peeping through the hole in the front of my card.

Somebirdy Loves You ...

Have you seen Mary Fran's new kit at NitWit Collections? I couldn't resisit it as it is so cute and all my favourite colours too :)

So I spent a little while yesterday using it to make some cards for my friends to pop in the post (or at least I will when my delivery of envelopes arrives!) and they turned out really sweet!

I used my Sakura sparkly pen to add some shimmery glitteryness to the little birdies hats

Some cards ...

The postman finally managed to get through the snow in our street yesterday and brought me my beautiful Papertrey goodies. I love opening up the parcel and laying everything out on my desk to stroke. I even used my lovely new goodies today to make some notecards. They're plain and simple but I think they turned out okay. The photographs aren't so good as I had to take them indoors because of the wind - oh did I tell you? As well as all the snow now we've got winds too :lol:

The stamps were really sweet so I made my cards smaller than usual (I got 4 from an A4 sheet of cardstock), coloured with Promarkers and I used my Stampin Up scalloped circle punch and some leftovers of coloured cardstock

We had a beautiful blue sky this morning when I woke up but have you seen how cold it was. My goodness this winter has just been the worst and it's kind of only just begun, there is another few months to go before we get into Spring! Anyway, as I was sat in the kitchen making cards this morning I could hear a commotion in the street outside. A snowplough! Thankyou Mr Snowplough Driver :) He ploughed down to the bottom of the culdesac which is where we live and then back up to the top of the hill and after him came a little man in a diddy little digger who scooped up the piles of snow and dropped them out of the way on the grass. Yay! so we can get our cars out and are no longer snowed in :)

Icicles ...

Today I have been to work. School was closed for the children but open for any staff who could get there so this morning I set off to walk even though it was -9! There was about 15 staff members who had walked or got a bus in, out of more than 60 and it was freezing cold once I got there too. Anyway it was all made worthwhile when I spotted the icicles out of my classroom window. Oh My Goodness I have NEVER seen icicles like these before and there were hundreds of them.

I started taking some photographs and then I realised I should be measuring them as they were so long. I hunted out our metre measuring stick and reaching up as far as I could - and taking the photograph with my other hand - I measured it and it was LONGER than a metre!

Then I spotted the ground underneath and I haven't seen this before either, kind of like a pile of hundreds or perfectly smooth ice pebles, all different sizes and completely welded to each other.

This weather, whilst it has brought utter chaos to our part of the country and has been the most magical of places has certainlt shown us the beauty of nature.

More Snow ...

There is even more of the white stuff in my corner of the world today. It snowed quite a bit through yesterday and I took these photographs of the hill beside my house during the rush hour. Normally there would be cars backed right down the hill queuing to get up into and through the village but as you can see there was no queue last night.

This morning I went out in the back garden in my pyjamas with my ruler to measure the snow and nearly lost it! There is just over 11 inches of snow out there so consequently school is shut. It's higher up through the village from where we live and because it's a special school the kids come from all over our county in mini buses so no school today.

I've done a spot of work (Jane if your're reading this!) and then I did some crafty work for Sweet Shoppe Designs and now Haggis and I are curled up on the sofa watching my favourite ever film - The Day After Tomorrow :)

It's A Snow Day ...

I had a really hard time getting home after school yesterday and with all the snow that we had last night before bed I was kind of thinking school might be closed today and it is. I was out in the garden at 7:30 this morning with my ruler and we now have over 9 inches of snow on the grass. We've tried to walk into the village centre to buy some bread and other goodies but gave up after 20 minutes and came back home again. It still looks nice though :)

Mermaid Sparkle ...

Ooh I LOVE this stamp from All That Scraps :)

I had to go back to work today after the Christmas holidays so crafting has been limited to weekends only again until half term. I've got some magazine work to finish so that is going to take up a bit of my crafting time but I am waiting on two parcels of stamps from America so hopefully I shall get some time to play for 'me' soon :)

I got an award ...

My lovely, and extremely talented friend Jane has given me a blog award. She said very nice things about me on her blog and I really want to say lovely things about her too but can't think of the right way of saying things that don't make me sound gushing and over the top. However, just to say that Jane is an extremely talented cardmaker and papercrafter, generous, loving and kind. She makes me giggle, enables my addiction to spending money on craft products and is a wonderful friend to have.


Now, I have to pass on my award to some other creative friends. I'd like to pass it on to Jean, Gail and Nat.
Jean is so lovely, puts up with my grumblings at crops when I stick things in the wrong place, colour in with the wrong colour etc. because I am talking too much and she also supports me in my quest to fill my life with sparklyness by selling lovely shimmeryness in her shop :) She also makes delicious food and fills up my tummy.
Gail is super talented, can always think of much more interesting things to do with paper than I can and makes me laugh - Tim Holtz also loves her and not everyone can say that now can they!!
Nat makes the most gorgeous cards, she has an addiction to KI Memories products and makes cute stuff :)

It's A New Year ...

My favourite type of weather greeted me when I opened my curtains this morning - more snow! So of course we had to pull our welly boots on and go for a little mooch along the street. First though I went into the garden with my ruler to measure - 4 inches, that's a lot for where we live. Halfway down the street I realised that our garden is quite sheltered and in reality we had about 6 inches of snow. Even better :) Haggis found it more difficult though as he only has short legs and 6 inches of thick snow is quite an obstacle when you are only about a foot tall :lol:

Today I have posted a mini tutorial over at Sweet Shoppe Designs to create this card, check it out in the forums here