Best wishes....

Good morning all,

Hope you are all well and staying warm and dry with this ridiculous weather! It is a good excuse though to batten down the hatches and stay nice and cosy warm in the craft room :o))

Today's card is another digi image from Saturated Canary which I think is called Springtime. I've been practising my shading after watching a few more tutorials, and this was one of my practise ones. But I really liked it so I made it into a card.

 

I really like the colours on this one, I used Spectrum Noir pens for the dress to get this soft turquoise shade and Promarkers for the rest. 

 

The card is a 6x6 Kanban fancy edged plain white card and the backing papers are a mixture from the Papermania Spots and Stripes range and some that were free with a craft mag. The mint green ribbon is from the same Papermania range as are the little buttons underneath the bows.

 

 

The bows are just from my stash and the turquoise card is from a Kraft-Core pad.

I think she looks all sweet and innocent, on the outside lol. I'm sure that reminds you all of someone, I know it does me!

 

Anyway, that's all from me today, I think Jude is back with you tomorrow. So thanks for stopping by.

 

See you soon

Jen

xx



Wish Tag...

Good morning all,

Hope you are well today and getting to do something crafty. I have cards on the agenda later, that is if I can get the ideas in my head to actually get down on paper this week! I might have mentioned once or twice that I'm struggling with Mr mojo at the minute :-( I keep having all these ideas for projects but when it comes to putting them together I don't seem to be getting very far lol. Which actually brings me on very nicely to the reason for today's tag.

I was wondering around blogland for some inspiration the other day when I got to the Sunday Stamper page (we Lurrrrves Hels - lol) anyway I thought just for a change I might have a try. Well the theme this week is Wish, so I thought and thought and thought a bit more and eventually decided I'd try a tag.

I've never done one before so I thought what the heck I'll give it a go, and if it went terribly wrong I just wouldn't enter it lol. But I kinda quite like it :-)


 I've used a large white tag which I coloured with green and blue metallic inks. I then used an assortment of Joanna Sheen and Papermania stamps to do the background and the bird and sentiment. I thought the words went really well with the Wish theme.

 I distressed everything down a bit with some distress inks and edged the tag with some metallic rub ons.

I added an antiqued brass grommet to the hole and some pale gold ribbon, then used a few flowers to finish it off.

For a first attempt I'm quite happy with this, what do you think?

I'm entering this in to Sunday Stamper - Week 242 - Wish

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon.

Jen
xx

First DT card

Today sees my first card posted as part of the DT at Anything Goes Challenge blog. 
The theme was Monochrome so I decided to choose an all blue layout.

 

 

The image is a Saturated Canary digi called Jules.

 

This flower is actually pale blue but my rubbish photography doesn't really show it off well.

 

 

I love the sentiment!  It just seems to fit so well with the character.  You feel she really is one of a kind - lol.

 

 
Hope you like my card.  Why not take a look at what the rest of the team have come up with.  There are some seriously gorgeous designs.

TTFN Jude x

 

Birthday cards

Good morning,

Hope you have all had a great weekend. As Jude said yesterday it's been a birthday weekend for us. With two family birthdays this weekend, there's been a lot of cards, presents and cakes around, three of my favourite things! lol.

Today I thought I'd show you some of the cards for my grandson Cody.

 It's been great having them over for the weekend, just far too short. Although the old eardrums don't think so lol.

All the cards are very simple but they are made with a lot of love.

Hope you like them, thanks for stopping by.

See you soon
J
xx

More birthday wishes

Monday again!  I swear my weekends just disappear.  Do you feel like you go to bed Friday and wake up on Monday??  Or is that just me lol?

Anyway I have another of the birthday cards I made for Cody to share with you.

The owl was a template downloaded from tinterweb.  I made a cardboard template so I can reproduce it as many times as I like.

I think he's sweet.  What do you think?

Tomorrow I will post my first DT card for the Craft Den Team.  Hope you'll come back to take a look.  If you do please leave me a comment.  I'd love to know what others think of my creations.

TTFN  Jude x

Happy Birthday Cody

Today my great nephew is 7 years old.  It doesn't seem 2 minutes since he was born!
He is visiting with Jen this weekend along with his younger brother, Bailey and mum, Vicky.  They live in Runcorn so we don't see them as often as we would like but that makes their visits more special.

Anyway I thought over this week I would share his birthday cards with you.  They were all made from the same Bo Bunny pad - On the Go - but are very different.  Today's card is definitely for little boys - all cars and trains.  My daughter claimed this one.

I used a large stencil to trace the letters on to card then cut them from patterned papers.  These are attached with silicone glue for a little dimension.  The train and car are cut from another sheet.

I forgot to take a picture but the inside is decorated with a matching journaling block to write the sentiment on.  

Well that's all from me for now.  I'm hoping the weather stays a bit warmer as it's melting the snow quite nicely.  I like to see snow but not when it's a few days old and more like ice.

TTFN Jude x

A bit of colouring.....

has been on the agenda for me this week. I've not been able to get much crafting done the last few days, but I did manage to spend an hour colouring a digi stamp. I wanted to see which looked better, colouring by hand with my Promarkers and Spectrum Noir pens or doing in on the computer using photo editing software.

Can you tell which one's which???

I know it's easy, the one in pink was coloured with pens lol, my digital colouring needs as much work as my pen colouring! rofl. But I definitely enjoyed colouring the one with pens more. The computer programme is fine, but you don't have as much control with the shading etc. as I would like.
Although it can be edited and printed time and time again! so for a quick make it's ideal. I think the therapy from colouring it for half an hour though is much more useful. Lol.



Now I've just got to decide what to do with them, I can see a couple of really girly cards on the agenda this weekend. What are you going to be up to? hope it's something crafty lol.

Anyway have a great weekend, thanks for stopping by.

See you soon

J
xx

Good morning Friday....

......been waiting all week for you to turn up ;)

I have had another hectic week at work.  Had to go to London again on Wednesday and I've been so tired in the evenings that I have done NO crafting all week!! Jen has had to take pity on me and cover my posts as I've had no time and little inclination to make anything. However as Jen was out last night I've had to pull my self together and get something written. I didn't have time to make anything so I've pulled out a card I made earlier :)

This is for my niece who's 22 today. It is a Hunkydory image decoupaged on to some pale yellow card. The pink and silver squares were cut with a Tonic die and stamped with a sentiment from my stash.

A few blingy flowers finished it off quite nicely. A simple card but such girly colours and it has shoes on - she will love it!! (I hope - lol)

 

Enjoy the rest of your Friday. Are you planning anything exciting for the weekend?
TTFN Jude x

Butterflies and flowers....

back in my comfort zone lol.

Good morning, hope you are all well today, and this horrid weather isn't causing you all too many problems. A slight cheer went up in my house this week when I braved taking the car out in the snow and ice ;-) and made it back it one piece lol. I am very brave - ROFL. I know everyone else just gets on with it, but I'm a complete wimp about snow and ice. I never used to be, but after a VERY minor accident a few years ago, I just don't like it anymore, so I wish it would all just go away now, and spring would hurry up and get here!

That's what today's card is about. Wishing spring here with flowers and a butterfly lol.

 I started with some Docrafts Papermania paper from the Linen Capsule collection, and punched out a butterfly. I then punched the butterfly again from Kraft card to layer them. I backed the paper with Kraft card and after inking all the edges I mounted this on to a cream 5x5 card blank.

Then I added some of the little wooden flowers that I picked up in The Range and inked the edges of those too.

I faffed for a bit and finally ended up with three in a row lol. I used scraps of Kraft card for the stems. I stamped a greeting on to Kraft card with a cocoa Memento ink pad and added this with foam pads to the top.

I finished the card with some Cosmic Shimmer dark bronze PVA glue dots on the butterfly and flowers.

That's all from me today, thanks for stopping by, see you all soon.

J
xx

A simple card today....

Good morning,

It's just a simple card from me today, as I said yesterday my mojo seems to be on holiday lol, so I'm not getting many things completed at the minute. It may be something to do with job hunting ;-( but needs must and all that, it really is more important that I find a new job just now rather than spending my free time getting my cards just right lol.

 

So today's card is a simple ready made topper that I got free from Craftsuprint. I'm not a huge lover of clowns, I think they can sometimes look a bit creepy lol, but I think this one looks nice and friendly. Anyway, I teamed it with some co-ordinating blue and orange papers and a blue ribbon, and mounted it on an 8x8 fancy shaped card blank. Then I just stamped a simple sentiment in blue ink and punched it out with a round punch.

Like I said, really simple, but I still quite like it.

Hope your crafting is going better than mine just now lol. Thanks for stopping by, see you soon.

J
xx

Boobielove....

Good morning all,

I hope you have had a wonderfully crafty weekend. I've been playing, trying different things, taking them apart again lol and then ended up making just a single card! Mr mojo seems to have done a bit of a runner at the minute so nothing seems to be working lol, but I am quite happy with how this card turned out.

Isn't she gorgeous? It's Boobielove, a digi stamp from Saturated Canary, which is currently free - yay. I think she has been done to support the breast cancer campaign.

 My colouring doesn't do her justice but I do think she's lovely.

 I've coloured her using promarkers and then mounted her on to a pale lilac card. I cut a border down one side using a Tonic Studios border punch. I found some co-ordinating papers in my stash from an old Docrafts Capsule Collection and teamed these with lilac centura pearl card for a mat.

I added some pink ribbon across the centre and a small scalloped edge, (which was the piece cut off from using the border punch!)
I then added a bow using the same pink ribbon, and found two heart shaped buttons that matched. I tied these with purple twine and stuck them on with silicone glue.

I stamped the sentiment with magenta Archival ink and added this to the bottom. The flowers were made using the papers from the background and punched out with two different sizes of daisy punch. I then just layered them up with silicone glue and added a purple gem to the centres.

I hope you like her as much as I do :-)

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow

J

xx

Hunkydory stash

I've bought quite a few kits from Hunkydory in the past few months but have done little with them. Today I pulled them out and put together a simple birthday card.

I stopped myself from going overboard with embellishments and I think it is quite effective.

I really should sort through the rest of my stash and start using things up before I buy anymore, although I have made a rather large purchase this week.  I took delivery on Thursday of the 2013 new releases from Spellbinders ;) There are 10 sets totalling 58 dies and they are seriously gorgeous.  I have spent quite a bit of time just cutting scraps and playing with configurations.  I'll show you some later in the week.

Hope you are all safe and snug out of the snow.  Not sure if I'll get in to the office but if not I can work from home so there are no excuses!

TTFN Jude x

Honey

Meet the latest member of my digi stamp collection "Honey". She is a Saturated Canary download coloured with pastel pencils.

I haven't decided what to do with her yet but I've enjoyed an hours colouring in and cutting out lol.

You'll have to excuse my terrible photography though. Well a girl can't be good at everything rofl.

TTFN Jude x

100th Post....

Wow, I can't believe we have got here already. 100 posts on this little blog, I know to some that's not a lot but as we only started this less than 3 months ago, I think that's really good lol. Mind you I always knew we could talk a lot ;-)

Today's card was an experiment with stamps and inks. It's OK but not one of my favourites, although I do really like the phrase.





I started off with the phrase and printed it onto some white card, I then die cut this in to a tag and aged it with some distress inks. I then didn't know what to do with it, so after much faffing and changing my mind I ended up mounting it on to a piece of white card which I stamped with a few different images from the Papermania Urban Stamps range.

I did some in brown ink and some in black to try and get a contrast, I then inked the edges and aged some of the background with a mixture of inks. I layered this on to a piece of craft card and then put it all on to a cream 5x5 card blank. I found the key in my stash. It was a really bright gold colour, so I toned it down with some brown metallic rub on and a metallic marker.

I finished the card by inking all of the edges and adding the little copper coloured pearl to the tag. Like I said, not one of my favourites, but I did enjoy doing it, and I will do some more, but go a bit easier on the ink next time probably. Lol.

Anyway that's all from me today. Thanks for stopping by and here's to the next 100 posts.

See you all soon.
J
xx

Baby it's cold outside.....

but it's nice and toasty warm in here :-) and that's where I intend to stay until this snow passes lol. I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to driving in the snow I'd rather stay home thank you! and watch all of the wintry weather through the window ;)

It does give me some extra time to play in the craft room though, even though there are a million and one other jobs I could be doing, this is much more fun.

I've managed to make a couple of cards this week. One I'll leave for another day as I'm still not sure about it! but here's one that was so simple to make but I love how clean and simple it is.

 

The flower stalk was cut on my Silhouette from some of the Docrafts green papers collection. The little wooden flower heads I picked up in The Range, a little tray of them with 45 in for £2.99, a bargain lol. Then I added a pearl gem to the centre of each flower head and finished the card off with a sentiment stamped in Bamboo Leaves Memento ink.

 

Hope you like it too.

 

Thanks for stopping by, hope you are all staying cosy warm too.

See you tomorrow.

Thanks

J

xx

 



Beady, Beady, Beady....

That's what I've been up to lately lol. I've been having a go at a few more bits of jewellery, key rings and handbag charms.

 

I do really enjoy making these, and the cats love it when I drop the beads ;-) they have a great time chasing them round the craft room floor lol. Anyway I thought I'd show you a few pieces today.

 

The first is a little key ring with some nice glass and pearl beads.

The next one is a bracelet that I made from some lovely beads that Jude bought me at Christmas. They were from John Lewis and I've just added in a few smaller ones to make the bracelet, but the main beads are gorgeous.







Then there's a little black and white set, very simple but I really like them

And finally a turquoise bracelet that I made earlier this week, but I think I'm going to take this one back apart and add some more colour to it. It's a bit bland for me.

Anyway that's all from me today, thanks for stopping by.

See you tomorrow
J
xx

Wednesday's project

I was in Huddersfield for work yesterday and didn't get chance to do much playing last night.  Instead of a new card I thought I'd show you the canvas I'm working on.

This is a regular artists canvas and I think it's 18 x 12 ins.  I used a paper blocking technique with Prima Botanical collection papers.  The canvas was allowed to dry out for a few days then over painted with antique white acrylic.  I added a few bird cage and birdy stamps and then tried to knock them back with some more paint.  Unfortunately it didn't work too well so it has been put to one side until I think of how to proceed.  This was originally going to have a calendar attached but since I did the Oriental one I don't really need it.  For now it is sitting on my craft table waiting for inspiration to strike.  I told myself I wouldn't do anything else until this was completed, but you just know that isn't going to work ;).

Hope you like it, TTFN Jude xx

How can I......

be excited and terrified all at the same time??
Jen mentioned I'd had some good news over the weekend and it is this that has me all giddy. 
I am joining the DT on the Anything Goes Challenge Blog!
Yes little old me gets to be part of a proper design team - eeeeek! They hold fortnightly challenges and the current one is Buttons and Bows.  Please pop on over, join in the fun and take a look at the fabulous creations from the team.
TTFN Jude x

A weekend's work

Thought I'd share some of the things I've finished off this weekend.
I've stamped and coloured with DIs, played about making more flowers, used one to add to a card I didn't know what to do with and put 3 more on a box I've made to hold cards on my table. I also jazzed up a golden syrup tin to make a pot - also for my craft table.
Hope you like them. TTFN Jude x