Saturday 31 January 2009

Pink Petticoat - Blog Candy

The lovely Liz is giving away some beautiful Martha Stewart ribbons over on Pink Petticoat so I just had to enter. The challenge was to use her background papers and alter them in some way. My card below uses the following:
  • Big Dots Negative in Cranberry
  • Big Dots Negative in Mocha
  • Valentines background paper
  • Pink Ribbon
  • Sakura Stardust Pens
  • Clear Glitter Glue
I opened the papers in Paint and then transferred into MS Powerpoint to make my background paper. I drew my own heart with sentiment on using Powerpoint tools. Once printed I just added a lovely pink bow, pink jewel heart and added glitter highlights around the heart, lines and dots.

And this is how it ended up!!

The glitter effect is really hard to capture on camera but it is there!


What do you think?

xx

Sunday 25 January 2009

Clear Stamp Storage

So it's been a dull rainy Sunday here so what's a girl to do .............. why organise her craft room of course! Now I have been collecting a rather large amount of clear unmounted stamps over the years and have tried a few different storage solutions, none of which were giving me that feeling of control. However over on UK Scrappers Forum I came across the lovely KimmyS who had used blank DVD cases to store hers. I loved the look of it and spent the next few days trying to track down a good deal on bulk purchasing these little babies.

After much searching I ended up getting them from my local Poundland store at £1.00 for 10 and completely cleared them out, lady at the checkout looked at me strangely, probably thought I was setting up a dodgy market stall eh!! I hopped and skipped back home smiling at my lucky find.

So today I made a start, I have tackled only borders, backgrounds and frames so far but am loving the feeling of control it is giving me already. The DVD cases that I have used are standard Single 14mm, do not get the 7mm slimline or double disc cases as this system will not work with those. Here are some shots of how the system works.

I just cut up some plain white paper to 27cm x 18cms and stamped the images using Stazon ink pad onto the right hand side of the paper and this then becomes the sleeve insert for the cover.

The stamps are held in place using strips of high strength double sided tape placed on the plain side of the DVD case.


I've yet to put the labels on the spines though. I have used 14 cases so far, only another 50 to fill up ;o) Once finished they will sit nicely in my Billy CD Tower from Ikea.

Here's to rainy days for organising :o)

Saturday 24 January 2009

Purely Stamping - Card Challenge

Okay this is my first entry into a blog challenge, it's been set by Linda over at Purely Stamping to celebrate her first 10,000 hits...... wow!!!


Clearly my photographic skills need some improvement!! Anyway I used the following:

  • K&Co Dollshouse Papers
  • K&Co Dress/sentiment
  • Pink Flower is from an imitation flower I bought from the pound shop and took apart!
  • Threading Water Punch by Fiskars
Have to say I was very nervous about this as there are some lovely entries that have been submitted by lots of lovely bloggers!

The prize is a stamp set from Stampin Up, I have recently received one of their catalogues and can see myself getting rather hooked ;o)

Tuesday 20 January 2009

Driving Test - He Passed!!

Ooh forgot to update you all, my nephew Jordan passed his driving test first time the other day! Am sooo proud of him. Both he and my niece share my mum's car as she doesn't use it that much, good job too as it is hardly ever on her driveway now that both of them have passed ;o)

Sister's Anniversary

Is in a few days and here's the card I made for her. It's done using cardstock from DCWV, there luxury stack, the sentiment is from a huge K&Co kit that I have had for like ages and I got to use my new Fiskars Threading Water Punch for the border. Think I need a bit of practice with the punch as the edges aren't as neat as I would like them to be. I outlined the sentiment using Sakura Stardust Pen but it doesn't show up that well on camera.

Hope she will like it as it is all the colours of her lounge!

Monday 19 January 2009

Creativity Life - I won some blog candy


I can't believe I was lucky enough to win some blog candy. First time I have entered for one of these. It was on the lovely blog by Becks Fagg of Creativity Life. First saw her on QVC a while ago and really liked her style. I've now got some lovely Core-dinations Cardstock winging it's way to me, cant' wait to get it and play.

Sunday 18 January 2009

How's a girl to get any work done!!


Now don't get me wrong I just adore my cats, but honestly this one (Morgan) has taken a recent liking to wanting to be sat at my desk when I am!! I can't turf him off coz he is just too cute, but if I could just get him to operate the keyboard!!! A fellow blogger over at All About Eden seems to be having the same problem with furry friends! We are just too soft.

Thursday 15 January 2009

Magazine

This magazine caught my eye in Waitrose today so I bought it. It is the latest Ideal Homes issue. There are some really good storage ideas in there. This alcove solution is just gorgeous, I love the wallpaper they have used!


It also comes with a free CD which has software on it to print the most beautiful lables that come in 3 different shapes and sizes with some lovely prints on them. I am going to use them for labelling some of the stuff in my craft room and on jars in my kitchen. Can't wait to play, will post some piccies when I have done some of them.



(don't know why piccie this way round as is right way up on my pc!)

Anyway it is out now and costs £3.20.

My Nan's Birthday

My lovely nan turned 84 yesterday and all the family went round there for dinner. She lives with my mum (who is her daughter) in a house just 2 mins from mine which is great. My sister also lives a few doors away from them so as you can tell we are a very close knit family.

A couple of cards that I made for her in her favourite colour of lilac. On the card from me there is some glitter stripes at the top which were done using some very fine lilac glitter that I'd forgotten I had! Too much stash!





We all had a lovely dinner then it was cake all round. This was my first attempt at baking using my newly acquired Magimix which my other half got me for Xmas. Think it turned out okay, well everyone's plates were empty.


The recipe came from my fave cake book 'How to be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson'.

With bellies full we all watched while she opened her pressies, sat chatting for a while and watching my mum's ginger cat promptly knock all her cards down! He never gets told off though, oh to be a cat! She had some lovely flowers next to her fireplace so just had to photograph them.

Then it was off back to my house to feed my pussycats, I have 3, Levi, Morgan and Alfie. I made myself a lovely cuppa only to remember that I had left my extra slice of cake at my mums............. biscuits it is then xxx

Sunday 11 January 2009

Fresh Start

I've been in clearing out mode recently and as part of that decided I wanted my blog to be more streamlined. Hence the revert back to a classic template with white background. Unfussy is the theme for me at the moment, it seems to be helping my mind focus that more easily. A blog that inspired me for this look was Stamping for Sanity. It's not as plain as mine she has a fabulous tab system at the top of the page which I love but have no idea how to do. I definitely need to learn more about blog modification.

Another blog layout that I love for it's simplicity is Pink Petticoat, in fact I love everything about this blog, especially her beautiful product designs. Am already building up a collection of them!

Am currently having a bit of crafting time this afternoon, QVC have a 2 hour show on which I am watching in my craft room. So with my new clear mind am off to make some birthday cards for my nan who is going to be 84 this Wednesday but honestly she looks about 10 years younger than that and still glamorous!!

xx

Sunday 4 January 2009

Blogger List dissappeared

Logged on for a little light reading this afternoon only to find my blogger list was completely empty!!! My little heart sank ;o( But then I remembered my 'history' button on firefox and spent the next hour trawling through and revisiting/adding the blog links...... phew!! I think I've managed to capture them all. Have now copied a list of them all to my harddrive incase the blogger gremlins catch me again!

So calm is restored to my blogger land, I can now relax and go make a cup of tea before tackling the task of taking down the decorations. I really am going to label the boxes this year, my poor nephew had a hell of time in the loft with me shouting 'they must be there somewhere, what about that box, oh okay well what about over there then.............' For a 17 year old he was very patient with me. Ooh and he's got his driving test in 9 days, wow that's crept up on us. He's so going to pass ;o)