Stylish Blog Award

The lovely Kacee (Mc.Vic) over at You Had Me At Scrap has given me this Stylish Blogger award, and the sweetheart Celeste at Touched by a Butterfly generously awarded it to all her followers.  I'm honored and thank you both. 
I hope you'll pop over to check out their blogs and leave them some love. 

Upon receiving this award I must thank the person (s) and link it back to their blog, inform all the new recipients of their award, and share 8 things about myself. Pass it on to 8 individuals (blogs) that I recently discovered. This is always a great way to find new inspiration so be sure to check them out!

Here are my 8 things....

1 I'm barely 5' tall. 

2 I was flat footed as a child

3 I took up Karate in my early thirties and became 1/2" taller - I swear, it cured the flat footedness, short-term at least lol.

4 I gave up Karate to become a Jehovah's Witness

5 I'm blind in one eye..from birth, people tell me I should lack depth perception.

6 Now I know I can tell the difference when you creators do your fantastic jobs colouring...but I’ve realised I can use this as an excuse when I get my shading wrong...see, always a silver lining lol.

7 I've kept all kinds of animals, from reptiles to rats to house rabbits to dogs and so many more.

8 I'd fill my home with animals if not kept on a tight rein

and an added extra

9 I'm going to regret telling all this later. 


An this is who I'd like to pass the award onto. 

http://thelazymac.blogspot.com

http://patty-inkitup.blogspot.com

http://chocolatecraftsandbearsohmy.blogspot.com
http://judyscraftymoments.blogspot.com
http://beccysplace.blogspot.com
http://designsbydj.blogspot.com
http://taylordconcepts.blogspot.com/
http://debby4000.blogspot.com/

Pay It Forward

I joined in with this great game through Dorcas's Blog here, and these is the rules folks.

I promise to send a handmade gift to the first five people to comment on this post. The catch is, and there is always a catch, you have to post this and send a handmade gift to five people.

It has to be a gift handmade, or home-made by you personally, and sent to five other people during 2011.

If you'd like to join in the fun, then be the first to post a comment and something handmade, or home-made, will be coming your way at some point this year.

Isn't that cool?

So lets see what we can do.

Come and play along. 

I Love You in Red and Gold

This is the Anniversary Card I've made for my husband...and it's a smidgen more lovey dovey than he's used to getting from me. To be honest I think it is pure cupboard love as he has just bought me a new camera and given me the money to get some more Die's and Embossing Folders.....you can understand me getting a little carried away can't you lol. Sadly, having to wait for the battery to charge so this taken with my old one. 

I went all goldie again with this one, with a deep pinky red for the matting...both glitter card stock. The peel off stickers were coloured with Promarker in Hot Pink...which matched the 'red' perfectly. 

This is another variation on a Tri Fold Shutter card and called a Double Display Card. I saw it on Paola's Blog Paola's Paper Haven where she has a template to make one. 

I made mine using a full A4 Sheet of card and folded up it nicely fits into a DL envelope. I also turned it kind of inside out to others I'd seen made...just to be different lol. This is fully open, and below folded ready for the envelope. 

The card stock is called Alchemy Glitter card and is smooth and glossy as the glitter is embedded. It catches the light so prettily and I passed a fair bit of time just watching it...simple things eh lol. 

My Receipe...

Card Stock - Craft Creations Alchemy Glitter Card

Peel off Stickers - Craft Creations & imaginations

ScrapBook Stickers - Craft Creations

Colourants - Promarkers

I'd Like to enter the following challenges :-

Bunny Zoe's Crafts ... Love is in the Air

Lexi's Creations ... Say it With Love

Woodware USA Clear Stamps ... Hearts

Scrap Creations ... Love is in the Air

Paper Pretties ... Unique Fold

Stampavie and More ... Sparkling

Southern Girls Challenge ... Totally Loved Up

Alphabet Challenge ... Keys

Crafty Emma's ... No Designer Papers

Marks Finest Papers .... Use Hearts

The Secret Crafter ... With Love

The Crafty Pad ... Something New (cardstock and scrapbook stickers)

Gingerloft Challenge... Celebration

One Stitch at A Time ... Anything New (cardstock and stickers)

Creative Inspirations ... Celebrate

One Stop Craft ... Card For A Male

My Candy Winners

As you can see I had my sweet little grandson draw the Candy winners for me...of course I gave him prizes for his hard work too, an art set and some chocolate. And out of the (rather stylish plastic mixing LOL) bowl for my first Candy is .........................

 Jenn Zeeb. 

For my second lot of Candy...my 100 followers we have............

 Christi 

Congrats girls.

I'll be contacting you to get your snail mail address's so I can get your Candy right off to you. 

Wonderful Blog Make-over Celebration Candy

It's the make-over that's wonderful, and the celebration candy, although not exactly wonderful, is pretty nice, I think...anyway it's a load of stuff I like. Group photo is pretty bad, but theres a list too.

A little extra added when I reached 50 followers.

You can enter up until midnight 15th January, and I'll draw it 16th January, and happy to post anywhere. I've added a second draw (second lot of candy) for reaching 100 followers....and an additional half dozen peel off stickers to my first candy. 

My make-over was by the lovely Laura from over at Creation Faeries. Check out her wonderful creations, and her great tutorials.  She's offering a Free Make-over Candy at the moment, you won't want to miss that. I have to say it was a fantastic experience....not quite sure how it was from Laura's side....but I did warn her how much hand holding I'd need lol. I publicly thank you Laura, for giving me the blog I didn't dare to dream of. 

The Candy List.

3 x A4 dufex decoupage, female themed

3 x ditto, male themed.

6 x dufex baby boy toppers (identical, for decoupaging if wish)

A4 sheet of pretty oriental ladies toppers (Kanban)

A4 sheet of die cut flowers

2 sets of domed alphabet stickers 

3d stickers, baby girl themed

3d stickers, female themed

2 x Joanna Sheene unmounted stamp set female themed

 2 x ditto male themed 

6 x various peel off stickers.

100 FOLLOWERS CANDY DRAW

The Candy List 

6 x various dufex decoupage

6 x dufex topper, identical for decoupage if wish.

A4 sheet of oriental ladies toppers (Kaban)

A4 sheet of die cut flowers

Sheet of plain alphabet rub ons

2 x sheets baby 3d stickers

3d sentiment sticker sheet

6 x various themed peel off stickers

2 x Joanna Sheene unmounted stamp sets

2 x Jayne Netley Mayhew unmounted stamp sets.

If you've never seen dufex, they are hand engraved images....bling factor entirely on their own. I'll probably add more bits as I go along, but as I'm not sponsored it's coming out of my own pocket.  

How to win my candy:-

(1) You just have to be, or become a follower.

 If you'd like another chance

(2) Take my badge or blinkie

I've re-installed them, and they work now (newbie error lol)

For another chance

(3) Post my candy with a link to me on your sidebar.

You will have automatic entry for the 100 followers candy. 

Leave me a comment making sure I have details to contact you, you don't need to have a blog, just leave me your email address. Mark in your comment either 1,2 or 3..depending on what you did. 

If I managed to do this as instructed by Dorcas, this post will stay on top 

Sweet Candy From Sweet Escape.

Who can't get enough of Candy then, if you're like me pop over to Sweet Escape and check out the sugary sweet 200 followers candy. 

Challenge Me A Challenge

There is still a couple of days to enter for my two candy stashes which you'll find here....or click on link in my sidebar. If you are already a follower, you only have to leave a comment on the candy post - what could be easier....though extra entries are available.

The last time I covered a notebook, it was with Winnie-the-Pooh wrapping paper. That was about 12 years or so ago, a little into my Pooh obsession, I was 40 when I 'discovered' the dear little fella lol. I've covered this for the challenge on DZ Doodles and this lovely young lady was a freebie to go along with it...you can still get her here for a few days more I think. 

I rarely use gold, it's my usual practice to colour gold stickers with acetate pens, but liked the idea of it for this. I edged everything around with my new gold pro-marker pen (now you know why I went gold all of a sudden don't you lol); and also stencilled a few inspirational words on my backing paper. I considered giving my image a nice gold belt but was afraid of throwing her too far back into the eighties lol.

I coloured my paper lace and the edges of the flowers with a gold shimmer ink pad. The poor rose at the centre looks sadly squashed from the scanner, I know, but  rest assured it popped back up again once released.

As I was making a notebook to keep track of my challenges (upgrade on the reporters notebook), I decided to put brown in with the pink, to keep in line with my blog make over. 

Receipe..

Image ..DZ Doodles Challenge

Paper Lace .. Ace Catalogue

Colourants .. Promarkers

Rose .. Ebay

Ribbons, and daily type flower .. Stash.

Flowered paper .. 12 x 12 stash

Card stocks .. stash 

Stickers .. Craft Creations & Imag-e-nation

Striped paper .. Basic Grey 12 x 12

Notebook ... Wilko's 

I'd like to enter the following challenges ..

DZ Doodles Challenge - Something for your Desk

Sweet Stop Challenge - Sketch

The Secret Crafters Saturday Challenge - Tons of Texture

Creative Cowgirls Challenge - Something new (gold promarker)

PollyCraft Challenge - New things (gold Promarker)  Not used for a while (Gold Stickers)

Stamping Scrapping Challenge Central  - Flower Power

Sassy Studio Design - Use something 1yr or older (papers, card, big flower, ribbons)

Fairy Tale Challenge - Flowers

In Praise of Digital Papers.

I just love Digital Papers, and one of the reasons why is that you can print them out to any size you want...which means I can have any of my lovely papers scaled down for my ATC's. These papers are freebies - can't beat that for price now can you - from Colour Throwdown, to go with their challenge this week. My image is a freebie that I had a few months ago, one of Baby Buds, isn't she the cutest, she's called Snow Drop....but as you can see I've coloured her up somewhat for a snow drop.

 I'd seen this sketch on someone's blog and was hoping to enter it in the challenge...I forgot to take the name, so if you know who it belongs to can you let me know. Sadly, I'm too late for the ATC challenge I was going to put this in, but it will be going off to someone as a swap this month. 

A little close up. The dotty background I saw demo'd by Dana on Dana's Inspirations and you can see her great tutorial here. I couldn't wait to give it a try when I saw it. 

Receipe...

Digi DP's - Colour Throwdown

Image - Baby Bud

Colourants - Promarkers

Pearl Pins - made by my own fair hands.

other bling and ribbon - stash

My Challenges :-

Colour Throwdown -  always artichoke, baja breeze, cameo coral

Crafty Sentiments - Anything but a Card

Creative Cowgirls Challenge - Something New (papers)

Cup Cake Challenge - Something New (papers)

Pile It On Challenge - Cute Children

Polly Craft Challenge - New Things (papers)

Top Tip Tuesday - Anything Goes

The Twenties goes Funky

Although I've already shown a funky fold card, this is in fact the first one I made. It was a die cut pyramage kit, given to me as a gift and came with an A5 matching card. Not being in the mood for plain old A5 cards I cut it up and used it as the background. The first matting layer, which looks white, is a lovely matt Silver cardstock. As the colour challenge is Black, Silver and White, I added the white bow, roses, pearl trim and button...don't you just love fancy buttons. There are one or two of the tiniest, tiny clear gems dotted about. I've only a few of these and using them very miserly. The sentiment tag came with the card and simply says Just for You.....so an Any Occasion card - can never have too many of those lying about can you. 

 The usual really awful photograph so you have a vague idea of it standing up.

 ....and some close ups of the fancy bits

My simplest ever receipe..

Roses & mini gems - Craft Creations

Stickers - Imag-e-nation

The rest - Stash

Just a few challenges :-

Craft Your Passion ...Tie One On

Paper Playtime ... Black, Silver and White

Stamp Fairy Challenge...Layers and Buttons

Stamping Scrapping Central ... Flower Power

By The Cute and Girly ... Bling it On

Ooh La La Creations ... Bling it on

Inky Impressions ... Ribbons and Pearls

Lollipop Crafts ... Fancy Fold

Flourishes Challenge... Flowers

Fab 'n' Funky... Anything Goes

A Dream of a Life

Made my card for a Retro Challenge at Mo's Digital (amongst others). I chose the 60's and thought this image perfect, this is me exactly, reading and dreaming. My family often referred to me at 'The Dream' and I can tell you they meant it as no compliment lol. I was always reading, even while walking along the road, and once walked into a lamp-post....and no! it didn't cure me lol.

This is a Funky Fold Card, not my first exactly, just not shown the others yet. Photo (not a good one again), in it's upstanding state below. I found a tutorial to make this fold through another blog, you can find it at Sweet Designs By Cheryl here. It's super easy to follow and at the moment my favourite fold. 

 I've had this DP for a long time and been dying to use it, it seemed perfect for a funky fold card lol. Added some strips of transparent sticker (from one of my new scrapbook sets) along the borders, and edged all around the card with promarker again.

 I layed up the image after being inspired by Debby at A scrapjourney, you can find her great blog here. In a way it took away some of the 'colouring stress' I often feel. I knew I had two goes at getting it right, made it more enjoyable. I'm definitely going to use this technique again. 

A close up of the image

Hope you can see the layering in this one.

To embellish I cut out lots of the funky ovals from the paper, dampened them and gave them a good scrumble....very theraputic. When dried I layered them and fastened them with a brad - as the flower centre. The brads are really, I mean really old. I funked them up a little with a Sakura glaze pen. I'm going to drag out all my old boring brads and give them a make over too. Added a few more brads  about the card and to finish a greeting from another sheet of my new scrapbook stickers.

My Receipe...

Image - Mo's Digital Pencil (between)

DP - Basic Grey

Card stock - Scrapbook sheet from stash

Stickers - Scrapbook stickers from Craft Creations.

Colourants - Promarkers

Brads - Old Stash

I'd like to enter this in the following challenges:-

DP2 Challenge ... Go Retro

2Sisters Challenge... Getting Girly

Allsorts Challenge ... Fancy Fold

Basic Grey Challenges ... Dots and Spots

Sweet Stampin Challenge ... Try Something New (layering image)

Delicious Doodles Challenge ... Try Something New (ditto)

Rainbow Lady's Challenge ... It's All New to Me (ditto)

Woodward USA Clear Stamps ... Use something New (Scrapbook Stickers)

The Creative Cottage Challenge ... Something New (ditto)

Sassy Studio Designs ... New (ditto)

Moving Along With The Times ... Old Stash (brads), New Stash (Stickers)

Our Daily Bread Challenge...Something Old (Brads) Something New (Stickers)

Stamp Something... Use a Digi

Catch The Bug Challenge ... Anything Goes

Craft Your Days Away Challenge ... Anything Goes

100 Followers Candy.

I'd always intended putting more candy on my blog if I hit 100 followers....excepting that to be way, way into the future lol. However, thanks to the Feline Playful Give a comment, get a comment Blog Hop, I'm there already, well and truly over a hundred...ain't life grand eh!!

So as a little thank you to my new followers, and old followers alike, I'm going to put this candy as a second draw, so if you've already signed up for my Blog Candy you are automatically going back in the pot. It will be pretty much the same bundle of goodies, some dufex, toppers, die cuts, stickers and four unmounted stamp sets. Of the stickers ...there will be half a doz or so peel off's - either Holiday themed (got in a multi pack and don't use myself); or if like me you don't celebrate the holidays half a doz stickers on various themes. I've also added half a doz stickers to my original candy draw. 

If you haven't already entered, you still have until the 15th to do so. 

A Frog Hopping Get Well

Boy this sooo clashes with my blog!!!

I've made this card for a friend who has been in hospital a week and they still can't find what's wrong with him. They have gone from suspected meningitis to just plain baffled - not sure which option is more scary. Anyway, this is a nice bright card to cheer him up. I don't very often make cards for males (never quite know what to do) and was inspired by this image from Digi Doodle shop - and all the stuff I've seen popping around the blogs playing the Feline Playful, give a comment, get a comment game .....great fun. Thanks for the inspiration new friends. 

I used some of my favourite Meadow papers from Craft Creations, I'd got the blue and just recently treated myself to them in the green and the pink..... and also my favourite bee buttons. I coloured my ribbon, the flower and the card edges with promarkers. The Card stock I've had for a few years, it's either banana, or else straw card. I can't claim the sentiment to be my own...because I'm sure it's a pun that's in everyone's head lol. 

Yes, I know I'm supposed to leave some white, for highlights, but I just can't seem to stop myself filling the whole lot in. I have to go back and look at the tutorials again and practice don't I. A close up pic below. 

My Receipe...

Image - Digi Doodle Shops Best

DPs - Meadow Range from Craft Creations

Card stock's & embellies - stash

Colourants - Promarkers

Sketch - By Sheila (Nannieflash) for Cards For Men

I'd like to enter the following challenges -

The Secret Crafter ... Buttons and Bows

Cards For Men ... Sketch

Craft Your Passion ... Anything Goes

Cooking it Up With Katie...Button me a Ribbon Animal

Delightful Sketches ... Buttons

Digi Doodle Shops Best ... Buttons

Moving Along With the Times ... Old Stash & New Stash

Paper Crafting Journey ... Use a Digi

Stamping 'B's Challenge ... An old Favourite and something new

Cute Card Thursday ... Use Old Stash

Do You Stack Up ... Buttons

Adding To Blog Candy

I said I'd try to add a little to the blog candy and I thought reaching 50 followers would be the perfect time to do so. Here are another couple of Joanna Sheen Stamp sets. 

Erika's Mega, Huge, Enormous Candy

This is just the teeniest, tiniest sample of Erika's Candy over at Taylord Concepts. As there is so much there will be more than one winner, it's to be drawn on 10th Jan. Pop over to Erika's blog for a chance to win some mouth watering candy. 

Fantastic Candy from Melissa

Now you just know you want this, plus loads of accessories, don't you just. In fact I'm sure you need it. Pop over to Melissa at Creating from the Heart and follow the rules for a couple of chances to win. Her fantastic projects alone are well worth the blog hop.