Just a Quickie

As I told you last night,I haven't had any time for card making this week but tonight was my evening for Scrapbooking class at Scrapbook Sisters and it was one of my Scrapping friend's birthday this week so a super quick card was needed.

Ok, I know that it's very similar to an earlier post but this time it's in blue. It really was super quick too,I'd stamped and coloured several strips of these flowers last week,they are just so lovely to colour using the copics and if you're stamping one strip,you just might as well stamp a few that way it cuts down on time working out the spaces between each bloom. The greeting is Jane's Script by Woodware and the flowers are also part of the same stamp set which consists mainly of greetings with a few of these lovely simple flowers.I just added a strip of toning paper,a dob of stickles to the centre of the flowers and a few flat backed gems. Took me almost as long to write the card and find an envelope as it did to put the elements together,simple.
Hope to get my coursework finished by the weekend so I'll be back to my happy place,making cards.

Am using this card for the following challenges:-

A Pocket Full Of Posies 1,One for the girls,

Corrosive Challenge 70,Flowers,

Thanks for stopping by,
Julie.x

101 Crafty Blogs

I've had an unfortunate turn of event that mean that my NVQ coursework that I thought I'd still got 6 months to finish have now got to be completed by the end of this month :O Panicking or what!!!! I've spent all evening studying,am getting there but it means that I've had no spare time to craft:(
Thought I'd share some news with you instead,I don't know if any of you have heard of it,I certainly hadn't but I've been included on www.dotcomgiftshop.com/blog/101-craft-blogs I'm listed at 44,wonder how that happened,bit exciting though.
Will try to share some cards with you later in the week,
Thanks for stopping by,
Julie.x

Me,Vintage?

I made this card for my Mother-in-Laws birthday yesterday (hope you had a nice day Mum), Different colouring to my normal choice but I am very pleased with it and will definately use them again.

I'm not sure who the papers are by as I'd thrown the edge strip away without thinking but it was a double sided sheet. My Gorjuss girl was coloured using Copics I shaped her and used a foam pad to sit her on the scrummie,bargain lace from Scrapbook Sisters.



The letters are Sizzix Alphabet Sunset which I double cut and offset to give a two tone effect. The lovely gems in the centre of the flowers are Papermania.




I'm using this card for the following challenges:-

SCF Challenge 9, 3+flowers,

Kardsandklay Blogspot, Free for all

SMC19 challenge, Anything goes,

Challenge up Your Life 23,Vintage,
The Shabby Tea Rooms week 15,cottage comfort,
Stamp Something Challenge,something Vintage with flowers
Thanks for stopping by,
Julie.x

In The Pond

I started making this card a few weeks ago,looked at the calendar today and thought I'd best get it finished as it needs to go in the post tomorrow!

The fish are stamps are from the set Suzy 5 by Marig Rahder I coloured them using Copics.
I used this technique to cut the image so that the fishes tail stayed outside the circle

I would like to link you to the post where I found an amazing technique to colour water but I'm afraid I haven't time to search this evening so I'll just link you to the amazing Blog instead.

The Greeting was a case of masking the letters on 2 stamps to come up with the correct spelling!

This card is for the following challenge:-

Crafty Pad challenge 76,

Thanks for stopping by,

Julie.x

That's Blown It!

Don't know if you've noticed but lately I've been using a light studio that my husband treated me to.Its like a collapsible box that you can Velcro different backings to and has lights that you stand each side to throw the light through the white sides. Well,I've been using it on my kitchen work top,so far so good but when I assembled it the other evening,one light slipped off onto the floor and yes,much to my annoyance,it blew the bulb. DH went off to get me a new bulb but unfortunately didn't realise that the bulb should have been a daylight one :(

So this is what it looks like,not so good as before,need to find another new bulb,it also looks like I need to get my iron out!

This is the card that I made for my Sister-in-Law,I was a bit pleased with this card,it was my first attempt at this repeat stamping even though I showed you a similar one to this earlier in the week.I had to hold on to posting it till after the event.

I'm entering this card for:-

Sweet Stamping Challenge 31, Clean and simple

Thanks for stopping by,

Hope you like my simple little card,

Julie.x

Nellie!

Having loads of different dies,I never usually buy ready made things to use on my cards but I couldn't resist buying a few cards with some little felt animals when I saw them last year in the Sainsburys,reduced down to 50p for a card of 4 animals.

I thought I could use them to make a few cards to help out a friend who is making cards to raise funds for Great Ormand Street Hospital.I haven't had chance to make many yet but as they say,every little helps!
By coincidence,the card fits well with this weeks Allsorts Challenge 57,couldn't have been closer if I'd have actually seen it before the card was made! I added a peel-off greeting and a couple of buttons and there you go,card complete.
Thanks for stopping by on this hot sunny evening,
Oh and A Very Happy Birthday to my Sister-in-Law for today.(I'll show you the card I made for her later in the week)
Thanks again,
Julie.x

Sunday Quickie

Hi,happy Sunday!!! I had several cards that I needed to make over this weekend but unfortunately most I can't show to you yet as the recipients stop by my blog from time to time. I needed to make a really quick card just in case you think that I've lost interest with this blogging lark and stop dropping by! What an easy card it was too,I used a stamp that I bought simply ages ago and hadn't used,it's by Studio G and came in a pack with a few others,think it was only around 99p. I repeat stamped it roughly measuring so that the flowers were evenly spaced.I coloured it with Copics and highlighted the centre of each flower with a little dob of Stickles. I then just cut strips of 2 shades of yellow card and stuck them to the card blank. added 3 of these lovely Papermania flat baked sticky gems that I purchased yesterday from Scrapbooksisters(they have them in several different colours and each card of gems comes in 4 different shades of the colour) the colour pack that I bought is called Sunshine!,That's not bad is it,sunshine for only £1.99 lol!

Am using this card for the following challenges:-

Paper Play Challenges week 24, Something old,

Stamp Something,Something summer,

A Spoonfull of Sugar Challenge 108,Summer,

Tuesday Throwdown 4,Celebrate summer,

Hope you all took the time to spoil your Dads this Fathers day,my Dad was my hero,I miss him everyday.

Thanks for stopping by,

Julie.x

From a Different Angle

Big mistake only photographing this gift bag from the one angle,now that I've looked,it looks like I've made a door hanger!
The gift bag actually had a square base,not that it looks like it here,lol! The trouble was that I generally use my daughter's camera for my blog photos as it takes a much sharper picture than mine. As usual though,she's misplaced her charger and the battery went flat after only one snap but great news,my lovely hubbie has just ordered me up a similar camera so should be good!!!! I'm just a bit excited too. The gift bag was made using the lovely "Poppy Seeds" designer paper pack by K&Co I used my Nestie Trick of placing the cutting pad on only part of the die to cut the handle from the paper using Both a Scalloped circle and my Nesting Circle at the same time,the little semicircle that remained,I used to fold over the top to seal the bag. I hope that if you look at this design you'll be able to get what I mean,I've attached a flower to the flap. I added a lit of bling to the bag,highlighting some of the design with sticky flat backed gems.
I'm entering the following challenges with this:-
Treehouse Thursday Challenge 54, Your Favourite tool.(Couldn't live without my Fiskars cutter/scorer,followed extremely closely by my Cuttlebug.)
Thanks for stopping by,
Julie.x

I Don't Believe It!!!!!

Won't do this again, I wrote out a post last night ready to put on today as I knew I'd be too busy to do it from scratch tonight as I was at my fortnightly Scrapbook class,great class it was too,made a fab mini book which I'll share once I've filled it with photos. Came straight home and entered the post only to find that it has come up with yesterday's date so I'm a tad miffed! So I'm adding a link to the post HERE so that it doesn't get overlooked by my regular blogging buddies.
Hope you check it out,
Julie.x

Deco Swap

On the Scrapbooksister's forum there is an ongoing Deco page swap,if you're unfamiliar with what this is it's where crafters make 6x6 decorative pages in the chosen theme of the person you are going to swap with. My chosen theme for instance is Nursery Rhymes. I've received some real beauties that people have created for me using my subject choice.Pages on Rhymes such as Mary Mary,Baa baa black sheep,Pussy cat pussy cat,Hey Diddle diddle and Incy Wincy Spider.
When I first joined the swap I was a bit addicted and did my swaps within a few days of taking them on but I'm ashamed to say that poor Sue who made the most beautiful spider in a web for me has been waiting absolutely ages for her return swap.



Sue's chosen theme is Poetry so I did her page on my most favourite poem by William Wordsworth. I hope you can tell which it is.

The bit that I'm the most pleased about is the fact that I managed all by myself to download,alter the script and size of print and then print the poem out without calling on one of my family to help me,an amazing achievement for me lol! I've used distress inks on this as I thought that with the fact It was written so long ago that it should look pretty old by now.

I've added this to the reverse of the page along with a little flap where I have written my details

and reason for my choice. I just hope that Sue is as pleased with her page as I was with the one that I received from her all those months ago. Why not give this a go,I'm sure there are people waiting to swap with you.

You can take a look at some of the other pages that people have made on Scrapbook Sisters' Gallery.

Also Here and Here.

Thanks for stopping by,

Julie.x

Family Tree

Last Year I made a little card for a gardening enthusiast which Julie from Scrapbook Sisters asked to add to their blog. I haven't used this idea since but today I had a mad brainwave to make a similar card ready to give the Father-in-Law for next weekend (Hope he doesn't sneak a peek at my blog before then.)

The pot was cut freehand in layers and put together using dimensional pads. I then did a bit of clever inking rubbing various different brown and green ink and chalk eyes so that the card looks more dimensional,took a while to get it right but I'm rather pleased with the results.The trunk for the tree was cut using a palm tree sizzix die and the leaves are also sizzix.I used the computer to print "Family Tree" and the greeting is a peel off.

Gave you a little close up of my cute little snail form Marij Rahders Suzy 2 set of stamps which I think are still available at Scrapbook Sisters shop,he's coloured using Copics and I couldn't resist leaving a little Stickles glittery snail trail.

I'm using this card for the following challenges:-

Crafty Creations Calendar challenge 9 Bugs and Beasties.

Stamp Something's Happy Something Challenge.(Happy Father's day)

Shabby Tea Room, Just for Dad.

Card's for Men, Father's day,

My Time To Craft challenge 95, Xtra Special,

Well I'm going to have to call it a day now, I really wish that the fairies would come to visit my house and do the ironing for me but as there's no chance of that I'll have to say catch you later.

Thanks for stopping by,

Julie.x

Pretty in Pink, Part 2

Yes,as predicted,the shopping trip was a disaster on the new clothes front,came back with 3 new vest tops in 2 colours,exactly the same as most of the others that I already have in my drawers. It is official,I dislike clothes shopping immensely! (I can't say hate as I've taught my children that it's too stronger word and the former is much nicer lol!)Still I did console myself browsing around the haberdashery department in John Lewis and buying some lovely green ribbons.
Did you realise that in J.L.you can buy as little as 10cm of fabric off the roll,fantastic as my daughter only needed enough to line the pocket of her jeans.


You may be forgiven if you think that I have posted last nights card again today,same colours,papers,image BUT new sketch,I actually had these items ready to do a challenge but followed the wrong sketch yesterday,still,I did so enjoy colouring this lovely image again,will pay more attention in the future. These are the challenges that I'm using it for:-
Challenge 36 The Sugar bowl ,Lilian's Sketch.
Stempel Magic,Challenge 12, Flowers,
Alphabet Challenge, F is for flowers.
Definitely no shopping happening tomorrow,really need to get some essential work done. Have a card ready if I do get the chance to post.
Till next time,
thanks for stopping by,
Julie.x

Pretty in Pink

I love the layout of this card I made it following this weeks MTSC 77 Sketch,adapting it to suit my needs. If you haven't tried following a sketch before,I would certainly recommend you give it a go,it makes you try out different layouts and ways of putting cards together. There are loads of challenge blogs around giving you lots of sketches to choose from.


My lovely Sugar Nellie Coffee time stamp has only been inked up and used a couple of times so I thought I'd bring her out to make this card for my eldest Niece. I stamped her using Tuxedo black ink and coloured her using Copics. The flower paper is by Dovecraft and the flowers were made using a selection of flower punches adding self adhesive stones to the centres which I also coloured using Copics.
I'm also entering this card for the following challenges:-
A Spoonfull of Sugar challenge 107 to use flowers,
Tuesday Taggers challenge All that blooms,
I'm off tomorrow and am going to do one of my least favourite things,clothes shopping! I'll probably end up doing what I usually do and come home with only craft goodies! (Well I have to console myself somehow)
See you tomorrow,if I'm not too tired from the shopping,
Thanks for stopping by,
Julie.x

Something Different

Haven't had the chance to make any cards this weekend,life seems to have taken over a bit,with three children there's always someone needing taking here or there,parties to attend,new clothes to be bought,you know what it's like I'm sure. I wanted to check out my blog earlier on this evening though,couldn't be bothered to get out my own laptop so logged on to the family one which was already turned on. Somehow I managed to enter my blog name wrongly and, you know when it comes up with options of names,well someone called Julie who had made a Rainbow Flowered crochet cushion came up, well I just had to check it out.
It was beautiful,a real blast from the past. I used to love crochet,made hundreds of colourful squares making blankets for dolls. The last thing I can remember making was a lemon cot blanket when I was expecting my eldest. On Julia Crosslands blog she had pictures of "Crochet Heart Bunting" with a pattern of how to make it. No guesses as to what I did next!


I crocheted this tiny little heart using embroidery silks as I have loads of it,took me a while to locate a crochet hook and I am a bit out of practice but I think it would be a great little accessory to put on a card,wish I'd seen this before I entered my card for the Shabby Tea Rooms "Card with Heart" challenge this week. The heart is not much bigger than a £2 coin and only took a few minutes to make.(Appologies for the slightly out of focus photo)

Go On,get out those crochet hooks and have a go!!!!!

Catch you later,

Julie.x

Wednesday's Scrapbooking!.

Here I am,keeping my promise of sharing my class layout from my fortnightly class at Scrapbook Sisters one of them anyway as the other is only half ready.


I followed one of Julie's layouts for this though I changed mine a bit as the lovely concertina flowers that she'd used on hers looked a little too heavy when I placed them against the photo of my youngest lovely taken around ten+ years ago. Ahh bless,she's still cute now.I used an assortment of flower punches in place of them instead.I slightly regretted doodling around the edge of my layout but was able to soften the effect by going over the drawn line with my stickles. Baby Face was punched out using "Sunset Alphabet" by sizzix and the papers are by K&Co luckily I managed to get away with using the remnants of last weeks papers for this as we are working from a pad of papers over 3 weeks of classes so there will be plenty of these scrummie delights over for me to use up on card making after my next class.
I will try and share the other page when I get around to finishing it which may be some time knowing me and scrapbooking!
If you've got some time,go and visit the Scrapbook Sister's blog, Gayle Bond has been busy making beautiful boxes,she is so clever!
Thanks for stopping by,
happy crafting,
Julie.x

Crafting Wednesday

It's a lovely sunny day here today,I should,I suppose be making the most of the sunshine but instead I'm doing what I love to do which is make cards, naughty really as I've a some jobs that need doing but I'd seen a few challenges that I fancied doing and as I had an anniversary card to make I thought I'd craft first,do jobs later.

I love this cute image another in set Suzy 6 by Marij Rahder,I stamped it with Momento Tuxedo Black and coloured it using Copics.If anyone knows of a Marij Rahder Challenge blog,let me know as I do seem to use a lot of her images at the mo,lol.
I have added liquid glaze to the heart and the eyes of the Daisies,added heart brads and a heart button that I've had in my stash for ages.I used a Martha Stewart punch on the strip across,punched hearts using a quickutz die.
I've used this card for the following challenges:-
The Shabby Tea Room Week 12, Dear to my Heart.
Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 71.
Sketch Saturday week 105,

Sir Stampalot June Challenge,
I also made it for a challenge that stipulated using 1 button and 1 bow but forgot to make a note of who set the challenge. If anyone knows,please could you tell me!
Thanks for stopping by,I'm off to do some ironing now:(
Scrapbooking tonight though,will let you know what this weeks class held tomorrow!
Happy Crafting,
Julie.x