Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Woo Hoo!!

I have finished my brother's album. It's the first scrapbook I've ever done and I'm chuffed to little mint balls with myself :) I've done odd pages before but never a full book! I'm now going to bore you with the rest of the pics ;)


Now I just have his birthday cards to make and he is done LOL I think my mojo may be in the process of deserting me as I'm having a problem thinking what to do for him! I've a couple of urgent commissions too...........I could be gone a while ;)

TFL

Monday, September 29, 2008

Scrappin' Part 2

I've done some more of my brother's album so thought I would add the photos, along with a card update.
First of all I made three more cards for the SOS Appeal and I think that takes our total to 200 but I won't swear to it :)
I used assorted papers, Papermania stickers and a stamped image. The image is one of my favourite Christmas stamps. It's an Anita's stamp and is one of the first Christmas stamps I ever bought and it comes out every year!
I also made a birthday card for DD2 to give to a friend who loves giraffes!!

The image is from Nitwits Take a look at their web site, the digi kits etc are absolutely gorgeous and are downloadable so you don't have to wait to get your grubby little mits on them LOL Flowers are all Prima with a bit of added bling!
Now the scrap pages :)
Again I've used assorted papers, elements and alphas. I bought the journalling stamps last week from Clevercuts and they are just great for the price.
I shall now go do some more scrapping. I haven't got my much more to do so am hoping to finish it today :) All the photos are sorted and in the right protectors, it's just a case of putting the pages together, which is the difficult bit!
Thanks for looking.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Bad blogger

Oh dear, I've been going to update all week and somehow just never got around to it! So what have I been up to? Scrapping, that's what. I'm getting on really well with my brother's album and am pleased with it so far. Please take a look and let me know what you think!


I'm not a very confident or competent scrapper, but I do enjoy it. I've used assorted papers and embellishments and quite a bit of hidden journalling. I've used both single and multiple photos and love doing both however, the album is 8 x 8 and I've found this a bit too small. I had done a couple of 8 x 8 pages before but most of my LOs are 12 x 12 and I didn't realise there would be such a huge difference. I've still got a few pages and some cards to upload but blogger is being an a**e this evening and is slow to load so I will save the others for another day.

Thanks for looking, take care and enjoy the rest of the weekend :)


Sunday, September 21, 2008

Day of rest?

Not blooming likely!! I've got three loads of washing out, I've got all the components of a wedding stationery order made ready to put together this evening (ribbon cut, inserts, covers and reply cards printed and embellishments done), fed the cats, fed the fish, fed me and had a quick blog hop (will have another one later) and now am going out to finish weeding my garden to within an inch of it's life. I have some bulbs to plant and some shrubs to cut back too.

We now have another two loads of washing to do as the tank in the airing cupboard is leaking and all the towels are sopping wet through. We have someone coming out before 5.30 to have a look at it. DH got in from work at stupid o'clock this morning and the washing machine had stopped, luckily it was only the fuse in the plug that had gone so he changed it and that was ok. We had a little man come out on Friday to fix the dishwasher so that is usable once more. Does bad luck come in threes or is it just buses? LOL I hope this is the end of it for a while.

SOS Appeal

I forgot to add the photo of the last batch of cards I sent up to Emma so here it is, it's not a very good photo as it was taken at about 2.30 am when I had finished packing them. Also please excuse the tip behind the cards, I just shoved it all to one side so that I could take the photo before I went to bed!

I must go outside now and take advantage of this fabulous weather we have at the moment. Who knows when we will see it again! LOL

Take care and thanks for looking.

Blog Candy

Hop on over to My Crafty Outlook to see what Hazel has on offer! She is celebrating 20000 hits on her blog..............wow, I wonder if I'll ever get that many :)


There is more candy on offer on Bev's blog Go check them out :)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Happy Birthday to you

Both DH and DD2 celebrated their birthdays last week, September is an expensive month in the Scruff's household!. DH had his on Friday and I finally finished his cards on Thursday evening (as you do!!)Backing papers are a mix of K & Co mat stacks and Love Elsie and all apart from the Love Elsie paper were from my left overs box. It appears to be going down ever so slowly :)


My baby, DD2, was 15 on Sunday! here are her cards :)

She is always telling us that when she gets married she wants a Jordan style wedding *gasp*, the more pink and blingy the better, so I tried to reflect this in her card............and succeeded, she loved it! LOL Oh and as well as loving all things pink and girly, she also loves.......................Spongebob Squarepants!!! I'm hoping it's a passing phase, I can't somehow see me organising a Spongebob wedding :))

This time all papers again were from 'the box' and everything else was from my stash. The photos on both cards are scans of labels from various items of clothing, bedding etc.

I posted off another box of cards to Emma yesterday for the Forces Appeal My mum brought over 35 cards and I made another 41 and just ran out of inspiration! I sent 121 last week (cos I can't count :)) which totalled 19 and meant to make the number up to 200.............and forgot. After the parcel was posted I came back into my craft room to do some more work and the final three cards were still on my desk. What a muppet!! I will post them on though the next time I go to the PO.

And that is it for now. I'm waiting for the nice repair man to come and fix the dishwasher, washing up in the sink sucks..........but then again, so does life in general at the moment.

Take care and enjoy your day.

TFL

Saturday, September 13, 2008

BOGOF (buy 1 get 1 free)

I used two challenges for this card yesterday,. the first being the DCM Dare and the second, the lovely sketch from Renee at Page Plans
It's me (Kathy) setting you a little challenge this time. One of the things I love about our dares is that although we all start with the same brief, the cards we produce are all so different.
So for my dare I'd like to see what happens when our starting point is the same quotation:
"Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best". Henry Van Dyke
I'd like you to use this quotation somewhere on your card It doesn't have to be on the front, or even need to be immediately visible. You could perhaps print it on vellum, add it on a tag, put it inside the card, or chop it up and use all the words "ransom note" style. I've chosen this quotation because I think we sometimes need reminding that everyone is special in their own way, and everyone, without exception has a talent to bring to the world - we should all value our own talents and those of other people more than we do.

I really enjoyed this one, so much so that I made two, thanks Kathy. Paper is Sizzix, frills are Doodlebug and the rest is from my stash.

I decided to make this one into a tag card. I added the ribbon and then mounted the tag onto navy sparkly card. I made a vellum pocket and edged it with (the dreaded) peel offs and added the sentiment.

I'm still making cards for the forces! I sent 120 last Monday, some of which were from my stock box and some were made specially. My mum came over on Thursday and she had made another 35, and I have 29 on my dest ready to have inserts in them. I have stamped and coloured some images ready to use as toppers as I want to get to the 200 mark. If you can help at all, there is a link to Emma's blog (Elf Creations) in my sidebar You don't need to make hundreds, just one card will help the appeal :)

I have to make DD's birthday cards today as it's her birthday tomorrow and it's still not done!

I need to do a stock take this week and I am dreading it! I thought that by making all these cards for the SOS Appeal it would make things a little easier as I've used quite a bit of stuff. Not a chance!!! If I'm not around for a few days it's because I am still counting card blanks LOL I must still have hundreds!

I will photograph all my SOS cards later and add them. Don't know how much later though as we are going out for a Chinese for tea for the two birthday babes in our house this week.

TFL X

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

CBC challenge!

I've just been having a quick scoot around Crafts by Carolyn's forum and answered a poll about what attracts people to challenges. I then felt really guilty that I haven't joined in with a challenge for ages as I haven't had the time so I made a quick card. The challenge was set by Carolyn and this is her brief "so a nice simple idea - but the design can be as complicated as you like.... You must only use stamps and inks to create your card - no patterned paper is allowed."

I used some lovely clear stamps from Pixie Dust (the link is on my side bar) and a Doodlebug pigmant ink pad in Bumble Bee yellow. The sunflower is a new stamp from Papermania stamped with the same ink, cut out and finished off with an oversized brad. I know it should be brown but I only had three black ones which came with a kit ages ago.

Now I must make DH's and DD's birthday cards. It's hubby's day tomorrow and DD's on Sunday!!!

Blog Candy

.......just take a look at the blog candy on Scrap Bitz blog, it is absolutely lovely :) Suzanne's work is lovely too!

Dewdrop Craftz

Good morning bloggers, after all the rain last night it's a lovely day so far in our little corner of the world :)
I 'spoke' to Nikki from Dewdrop Carftz last night and she is happy for me to show the cards I've made so far for the release of the new stamp, so here they are!
I stamped the image three times onto white card and once onto patterned paper and decoupaged him. I don't know if you can tell from the picture but I cut a couple of very thin strips of paper and wound them round his thumb as a bandage :)

On the next card I just used him flat.

I cut his apron from gingham paper but it didn't look right so I coloured it with one of my Promarkers. The paper is from a 6x6 Dovecraft paper pack, the ribbons are from Ribbon Oasis as usual and the hammer charm is from my stash.

I also made this card yesterday and forgot to add it with the others!This is definitely one of my best selling cards :)

I made the next two cards last week to say 'hi' to blogging buds and didn't want to show them before they were received but neither has acknowledged receiving them so I'll show them anyway!

Papers used are from K & Co, Brenda Pinnick, Pink Petticoat and Basic Grey and the lettering is Wingo Zingo alphabet by Sizzix.

I haven't come across the Sketch Saturday blog before but my circle cards fit their challenge :)

Well I think that little lot has brought me up to date so I will see you soon :)

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

DCM Little Extra

"Well, as you know Tuesday is the day we have our new look Little Extra dare and this week the team have let me (Sue) loose to do my own thing, so I thought I’d ‘attempt’ to do a little tutorial for you….please be gentle with me!" (It's her birthday today :))

Check out Sue's fabulous tutorial on all the different dry embossing methods.......Well done Sue! My card uses two of the methods from the tutorial. One being hand embossing using a light box and the other is using an embossing folder.

Paper is K & Co, flowers are Prima and the ribbon is from Ribbon Oasis I'm not sure what make the stencil is as I've had it for ages. Once I'd embossed it I just swiped over it with a pale pink chalk ink pad.

I've also completed some of my samples for Nikki from Dewdrop Craftz and have a sneaky peek for you :)The stamp will be released on 1st October and £1 from the sale of each stamp will be going to the Macmillan nurses who do the most amazing work and certainly looked after my grandmother well during her last few months.

That's it for now, I need to scrap...........it's my brother's birthday in four weeks and I have done precisely two pages in his album!!!!

Take care and TFL

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Thank you...........

....cards are disappearing fast from my stock box, there are some very grateful people out there! Here's one I made last night inbetween trying to get ready for the open day at a local hotel today.The image is Penny Black 'Uplifting Occasions and I've used Promarkers and Sakura Stardust pens to colour it. I only have four Promarkers so far but have never thought of using them to colour images..........I use them for labelling cds *duh*. I thought I would give them a try as I've seen a couple of people mention that they are using them now, and the Sakura Stardust, I just love :)


I can also now show the seating plan etc that I did this week as the couple got married yesterday.
The tables were all names after horses and had a photograph of Mick Fitzgerald as the background.
The gift bag was for a little girl who was on the invitation as 'Bump'. She's 10 months old now, I couldn't believe that I had been working for these people all that time!
That's it for tonight folks, I'm bushed.
Thanks for looking.


Saturday, September 06, 2008

Cards for the forces

I came across Emma's blog yesterday ( how, I can't remember ) but it instantly struck a chord with me as my dad spent 28 years in the RAF................and yes, I changed school 15 times !!!! Any how, here is Emma's message

After the wonderful response to our Christmas cards for the troops plea and after much discussion with Tina, Sarah and everyone else we have decided to offer some blog candy for this very worthy cause...As some of you have already started making your Christmas cards...do you fancy making a spare one for the Troops in Iraq or Afghanistan? All you need to do is make an extra one...leave it blank inside so a member of our fantastic Forces can send it home to a loved one.Everyone that sends a card to me to forward on to SOS will have their name put into a draw for a huge bag of ribbons from craftyribbons.co.uk. Send two cards and you get your name in twice!If you would like your name putting in the draw then drop me an e-mail and I'll tell you where to send them.All cards need to be received by the beginning of October.So girls...start spreading the word and lets give our boys and girls some Christmas cheer.

So peeps, if you can help please do, not only will it please Emma but our boys and girls overseas will be chuffed too! You can visit Emma's blog for the details. Oh and I almost forgot, she is very kindly offering blog candy too :)

Thanks for reading.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Baby cards and more!

I'm back and challenging!!! I've done the baby cards and started the thank you cards and I have really enjoyed being able to incorporate templates and challenges into my work, so here goes.......the first one up is a Page Plans sketchand here is the first of my baby cards

I think that the striped paper is Papermania but not 100% sure. I do know though that the green paper is from a Funky Hand cd. The charms are from my stash and the nappy (diaper) is hand cut.

The next template is from Di Hickman's blog. It is so long since I've had the time to take part in Di's challenge!

and the final challenge for now is the DCM Dare for today (it's ages since I've done this one too) and this is what's required We're having one of our wonderful Lucky Dips this week, because Anice has very generously offered a prize of a free set of "Shabby Saturday" downloads - all you need to do to have a chance of winning this fantastic prize is to join in with this dare, then come back and let us know where we can see your card. Everyone who joins in has an equal chance of winning, all the names go into the DCM "Virtual Hat" and a name is drawn at random - what more incentive do you need? hehehe

The papers are again from The Funky One cd, not sure where the ribbon is from but the flowers are from Papermania and Dunelm and are held together with a Doodlebug Sugar Coated brad.
The rest of the cards are baby cards
The papers on these two cards are from the packaging in the new Sweet Nothings acetates by Papermania, resourceful or what!?! Die cuts are Quickutz and Cuttlebug.



Paper on this one is Under The Boardwalk from Daisy Bucket and the stamp is by Anita's and is one of the first stamp I ever bought and I still love it.
Now for my favourite bit...................adding inserts and packaging the cards *yawn!*
Take care.