A 13th Birthday and a dragon...

It was my gorgeous- now 13- arggh!! year old's birthday last week so I thought I'd show you the card I made for her.

She's mad about dragons, actually anything to do with fantasy or fairy type books so I thought she'd like this one.
The stamp is from a set from Joanna Sheen, there's 3 different dragons in the set and some fab sayings too. The papers are DCWV, once upon a time stack and the colouring was done using derwent coloursoft pencils and blending using sansador.

I've used glitter on the buttons to add a bit of bling to them and highlighted some of the other parts of the card. I love doing this one as its not often that I have the excuse to put quite so much glitter on one card!!

Hope everyone is well,
Gill xx

Vintage and Lace

The challenge over at One Stop Craft Challenge this week is all about Vintage so I came up with this card that I hope will fit the description!

I'm also entering it into the challenge over at a Spoon Full of Sugar as they want a card with lace on this week and the two just seemed to go so well together.

It was a tough one for me as much as I love the vintage style of cards, I don't think I'm a natural at this type at all and it seems 'harder' for me.
Anyway I got it done- eventually! so here it is...

The stamp is a country companion from Sugar Nellie and the papers I chose in the end are K and Co's wild saffron range. The lace, button and pin I got from a local haberdashery and the rub on 'dream' is a kaisercraft.
The flowers are a mixture- prima, papermania and cut out from other paper.

Hope all is well with everyone,
Gill xx

Cute Card Thursday- A sporting Chance

Over at Cute Card Thursday this week, the challenge was to make a card on a sporting theme. I finally went for one of my cute Messy Rabbit stamps from Joanna Sheen as he makes such a fab footballer!

I used some DCWV papers from one of their huge stacks and a papermania scalloped card as the base card. The ribbons and buttons are from my stash.

Hope everyone is well,
Gill xx

Penny Black Challenge- Week 50

Well over at Penny Black Saturday the challenge this week was Buttons!!

That's never a problem for me- I doubt I make many projects without buttons on at the moment- they're a definite obsession of mine!!

This penny black image is called Bibliophile and I've coloured it using watercolours.
The papers and buttons were both from my stash so I'm not really sure on brands this time but the ribbons and brad are from Brenda Pinnick and Dovecraft.

We had a lovely day out today at Delamere Forest with all my rabble and the mad puppy!! These two are of all of my kids together- yep in the distance as they all hate standing for photos since I started scrapping in earnest, apart from my baby Oliver. Okay he doesn't have much choice but he managed a cute smile!!

Managed a few photos and got a couple of nice ones for some future scrapping projects... which is what I'm off to do now- after a bit of blog hopping!

Hope everyone is well,
Gill xx

The Next Level....

There is a new challenge blog being launched over at the Next Level... I've just signed up to become a follower and I can't wait for the first challenge to start!

Why not pop over and have a look for yourselves... here

Gill xx

Stamp Something Challenge

Over at 'Stamp Something' this week, the challenge is a sketch from a DT member, Emily.

I love working with sketches, they really help- paticularly if you're feeling a bit low on mojo that day!

My owls have been coloured using my coloursoft pencils again, I can sit and colour with these for hours. The papers are DCWV, the Green stack, and the little branches and birds have been cut from one of their sheets too.
The flowers are prima and the buttons are from stash.
Thanks for looking!!

Gill xx

A Spoon full of Sugar!

I made this card last night for the challenge over at A spoon full of Sugar blogspot. This week's challenge- 52- was to make a card for a celebration. I chose to make this a birthday card as I have a few coming up this month in our family!

The image is a Penny Black stamp called chicky night. It has been coloured using derwent coloursoft pencils and the background papers are sassafrass lass, including the flowers which were cut out. Lettering was american crafts rub ons and the stitching effect is hand drawn.

Thank you for looking!
Gill xx

My Coco Cat

I thought I'd take a break from the challenge cards tonight and worked on a layout of one of my beautiful siamese rescue cats from Gibraltar. This is Coco, my chocolate point, who when we took her in was covered in fleas, ringworm and goodness knows what else! She was tiny with a very loud meow!!

For the layout I've used a cooredinations background card with papermania scrapbook cat papers. The ribbon down the side was bought from my local craft store and the buttons and lettering are from my stash. The birds are rub on's, Kaisercraft and the detailing is doodled on by hand.

Hope everyone is well, I'm off to watch Greys Anatomy and Bones now!
Take care,
Gill x

One Stop Craft Challenge 29

Wow I've had such a busy week, trying all sorts of new challenge blogs that I've come across. It's been fantastic and forced me to really test myself a bit more than normal.

The challenge over at One Stop Craft Challenge this week was to create something using the colours pink and brown. I love this combination of colours and found a couple of gorgeous papers in my stash from Cloud 9's chocolate chalet collection that matched up.
The card was created by chopping (sob!) two of the sheets which were covered in flowers and making them into embellishments and layering them over the striped background paper. I also cut up swirls and added some rainbow drop sticky flowers to finish off.

Thanks for looking and hope all is well,
Off to do some scrapping now as I've been missing it this week,
Gill xx

Penny Black Challenge- Week 49

Well this is my first time entering this challenge and I loved it!
The challenge was to create a card using a 3...2...1... recipe; 3 flowers, 2 papers and 1 brad- oh and a penny black image of course!
I think I've fulfilled it- the three flowers are from prima, the brad also papermania and the two different papers are the Paper Company Studio, floral stripe and green swirl.
The penny black image is one of my favourites, Flying Stars.
Thanks for looking!
Gill x

Cute Card Thursday- Challenge 60

I made this card tonight for the challenge over at Cute Card Thursday. Their challenge says to make a card using letters or numbers in some way. I decided to make a card for a really good friend of mine who is having a bit of a tough time at the moment so hopefully it will cheer her up!

The card has been made using (yet another!) Sugar Nellie stamp from the new country companions range. The backing papers are DCWV sweet stack and the edging on them has been done using my new EK success border punch which I adore.

Hope everyone is well,
Gill xx

Sugar Bowl Challenge

I made this card for my first online challenge with the Sugar Bowl. The challenge was to use a sketch and include buttons somewhere on the card too so hopefully this will do!
The backing papers used are a mixture of sassafrass lass and Brenda Pinnick designs. The flowers are Prima and the small white one is papermania. The buttons are from Autumn leaves bag o buttons. The stamp is of course a Sugar Nellie design. It is a Leanne Ellis design called True Love- one of my favourites.


Thanks for looking,
Gill xx

Thank Yous and another bit of sugar...

First of all I wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who left comments on my blog yesterday or became a follower, it means an awful lot. I'll be visiting all your blogs in return to have a nosey as I think I've still got an awful lot to learn!

The card I've just added I made last night using one of my favourite sugar nellie stamps. It's from the Leanne Ellis range and is called Wish. The photo here isn't brilliant but she's been coloured using promarkers with a small touch of glamour dust on her wings.
The backing papers are Basic Grey, sugared and blush ranges and the flowers are cut from a sheet of K and Co wild saffron paper. The lace behind the image is from papercrafts 4 u and is made of paper and the rub on is also basic grey.

I had a mooch around my favourite craft shop this afternoon- Crab Apple Crafts in Frodsham. I love this place and could spend hours looking at all the gorgeous paper ranges. I managed to buy a new EK Success border punch which I am now in love with and some more beautiful prima flowers so any cards made tonight will no doubt have scalloped borders and red flowers on!!
My eldest daughter managed to slip a prima owl stamp into my basket too and some Kaiser craft rub ons so I think I miaght claim them to play with too!!
I'm going to try some challenges from this weekend and have found a few to start with so look out for some new cards this weekend.
Have a great evening,
Gill xx

Have a Mice Day

Well the weather here is horrible today, all wind and rain. Our puppy Mia is such a wimp when it rains; she hates going out and backs away from the door while we try and persuade her to go out!

This card was made using a Little Claire design pack. I became a member of her postal club a few months ago which means I get sent a new stamp every month, ideas leaflets and a card pack to make one of the designs up.
All the stamps I've had so far have been gorgeous; elephants, dogs, a teddy and mice and versatile.

I coloured the mice in using a mixture of copics and promarkers and inked using colorbox chalk inks.

I'm off now to play with some brand new scrapbooking goodies that arrived in the post so have a nice night everyone.

Gill x

Blog Candy

Fiona is offerring some fantastic BLOG CANDY over at her blog. Check it out at http://fionajcardsandmore.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-candy-time-this-post-will-remain-at.html

A gorjuss Girl...sshhh!!

This card was made for my best friends birthday this week so I hope she doesn't see it until afterwards.
We don't live near to each other anymore and I so wish we did as I miss her a lot. She's also the person who introduced me to Sugar Nellie stamps and Funky kits who sell them online, so I'm blaming her for my addiction to the gorjuss girl stamps!

The card was made using basic grey blush paper. I cut the tree out and layered it onto the card and stitched both sides of the card using sparkly fibres. The flower is a prima one and the buttons are from Autumn leaves. The girl is coloured using promarkers which I'm slowly learning to love.

Take care,
Gill x

What I did last night....

This layout is of my second daughter Tasha. She's 12 yrs old now (going on 16...) but this photo was taken when she was still a sweet 8 yr old!!
The papers are fancy pants designs and were bought from Indigo Mill- one of my favourite online scrapbooking sites. They were part of the mardi gras April 09 kit, as was the background Bazzill card, the chestnut american crafts embellishments, the lime ribbon and large scrummy buttons.
The paper flowers I cut out from a sheet of the pot pourri paper and the transparent blooms are creative impressions. The orange dots are hero arts card candy and the journalling tags are a bargain 50p for 100 all in lovely vibrant colours.
Lettering is Basic Grey and I've layered it into card squares to make it stand out more.

I'm off now to do some blog hopping as I've discovered some so very talented people out there.
Take care,
Gill x

My first PROPER post!!

Well its taken me a while to try and figure this blogging thing out... my hubbie would be the first to say I'm not very technosavvy. In fact I usually just call him over to stop me throwing the computer around in fustration!
I've finally taken some photos of some of my recent layouts so here goes...

My First Post!