Clean Simple (& quite quick!)

Hi, thanks for visiting my blog today. Life seems to get busier and busier even though, in theory, I should have a bit more free time now I've given up my office job! We had lots of visitors at the weekend so we had a big roast lunch and then a yummy tea of scones & jam - I even broke my 'no cake' rule and had one.

Do you like my new profile picture? I had some shots done at the weekend for my website so I thought I should replace my badly lit photo with a new black and white one. I definitely think I look better in black & white!! The photographer took some really nice shots of me with Thomas too - I've included one at the bottom of this post.

Onto my card and I really wanted to get in my craft room and play this evening but I also wanted to watch 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding' too. So I compromised and made a card using this weeks Clean & Simple layout.


The cute little dog is one of Janet's designs and was a freebie with the Craft Stamper magazine. I coloured him with my aqua pens and cut out his flower and replaced it with a punched one. The sentiment is stamped on a Sizzix die cut and the papers are NitWits.

I'll leave you with a picture of me & Thomas.

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A Gem of a Challenge

We have a new challenge for your at a Gem of a Challenge. Sadly this will be my last challenge as part of the Pink Gem Design Team. I have reluctantly decided to step down as work will be taking up more of my time now. It's been fantastic to be part of such a lovely team and I remember feeling so thrilled when Janet contacted me and asked me to join them. Thank you ladies!

For this challenge we would like to see some ribbon and lace on your card.


This is Kaya in Boots and I have coloured her with distress inks / aqua pens and then paper pieced her dress. All the papers are MME Bloom & Grow with the larger flowers being cut from one of the papers.

I had my chipped tooth repaired at the dentist today. Our dentist is lovely and she managed to do the whole thing while Thomas slept on my lap! He had falled asleep on the journey there and then stayed asleep until we left. It now feels like I have a small piece of chewing gum stuck to the inside of my tooth. Luckily we have an NHS dentist otherwise the cost would have probably been 3 times as much!

Have a fantastic weekend.

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Truly Scrumptious Challenge #49

Hi everyone, thanks for visiting my blog today. Unfortunately work seems to be cutting into my crafting time more than I would have liked but hopefully things will soon settle down and I'll get more than a couple of hours a week with my stamps, papers and glue!

We have another challenge for you on the Truly Scrumptious blog and this time we would like you to use Brown, Pink and Green as your main colour theme.

I decided to get ahead of myself and make hubbies Valentines Day card. This Tilda is one of my all time favourites and I've coloured her with a mixture of Promarker aqua pens and distress inks. It is slightly debatable whether the papers are pink! They come from a Paper Mania pink selection pack but they look a bit more red than I would have liked! The brown paper is Cosmo Cricket.


Here is a picture with the tag outside of the pocket.


The border stamp is from Ladybug & Friends. I have only used a tiny bit of green, on the lace of her dress. The string and button are recycled from a clothing tag.

We had a fantastic number of entries for our last challenge and I hope you will be able to join us this time.

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A Gem of a Challenge

Hello, thanks for visiting today. I hope the first week of 2011 has been a good one for you. It was strange not going into the office (very nice though!) and Thomas had his first visit to pre-school so we've had quite an interesting week.

Today is our first Gem of a Challenge for 2011. The challenges are fortnightly now so there are even more chances to join in the fun. This week we are sponsored by Letraset and the winner will receive a fabulous set of Promarkers.


For this challenge Debby has designed a fab sketch for you to use.


Isn't this little fella adorable? He is coloured with Aqua Promarkers and distress inks and the papers are DCWV Linen Closet (again - sorry if you are bored of these by now). The other DT ladies have made some gorgeous cards and we would love you to join in with the challenge.

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First Truly Scrumptious challenge of 2011

Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely Christmas and Santa put some crafty stash in your stocking. My husband and I only buy each other small gifts and this year he bought me a box of Aqua Promarkers which I love. It's great to have more colours to use alongside my distress inks and I find the promarkers blend better than the inks so I think I will slowly start to collect all the colours.

This is the sketch we would like you to follow for our first challenge


And the optional theme is "Dreaming of Summer".

For my card I have used a Wild Rose Studio image called Faye with Flower. I've coloured here with distress inks and Aqua Promarkers and added plenty of glitter to her wings. The papers are by Daisy D's and the sentiment is also from Wild Rose Studio.


It's been lovely to get back into my craft room again after the hustle and bustle of Christmas and I'm looking forward to visiting all my friends' blogs again.

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Nearly ready for Christmas

Hi everyone, long time no see. We've been rushing around trying to get prepared for Christmas and I think we are almost ready. Just a few little bits and pieces to get and then I need to write a long list so I don't forget to pack anything when we go to my parents on Friday.

I've recently finished a project for Papercraft Essentials magazine using this Magnolia stamp so as she was sitting on my desk I inked her up again.


I used Mina's fabulous sketch (flipped on its side) on this weeks Just Magnolia challenge and the papers are from a Papermania pack I bought from Hobbycraft recently. The diamond stickles took on a yellowy tone on the brown card which looks a bit odd but apart from that I'm pleased with how this card has turned out. I'm going to enter it into these challenges:

Just Magnolia - Sketch
Allsorts - Anything goes
Creative Card Crew - Anything goes

I'm not sure if I'll get a change to craft again before the big day so I would like to wish all my blog visitors

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

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A Gem of a Challenge / Truly Scrumptious

Hi everyone. I hope you are keeping warm in your corner of the world. It is still freezing here and the side roads are treacherous. I skidded on my way to work this morning. Luckily there wasn't anything coming the other way at the time as I managed to slide all the way across the road, bounce of the piled up snow and slide back over to the left again. We have more snow forecast for Kent but hopefully it will be very light showers.

I have two cards to show you today as both the challenges I design for have fallen on the same day. The first is for A Gem of a Challenge where we have a fab sketch for you to follow and an optional extra challenge of distressing.


I've used this super cute new stamp from Pink Gem Designs called Andy with Snail. I enjoy making boys cards much more now I have a boy of my own and I know I use these DCWV papers A LOT but they are perfect for a boys card. Andy is coloured with distress inks and the sentiment is also from Pink Gem Designs.

My second card is for our new Truly Scrumptious challenge - the last one of 2010. We have a sketch for your to follow with the optional extra challenge 'frame it' - create a decorative frame around your image.


For this card I have used Kira from Wild Rose Studio. I think she looks like she has a bit of attitude so I chose some funky Basic Grey papers and created a my frame with distress inks and a Stempelglede grunge stamp.

I do hope you can join in on both these challenges and I look forward to visiting your blog soon!

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