Wednesday 30 June 2010

For a Few Challenges

Happy Hump Day! I've had a day's leave today, and not done any housework (yaaaaay!!!!). I spent ages this morning looking for a present for my sister in law, and still haven't decided what to get :(

But, this afternoon, I managed to make her a card - although I'm not all that happy with it really - not sure why LOL! I do wish I'd used eyelets to feed the ribbon through on the image instead of just cutting a slit.



The BP is Kay and Co, and the image is Demure stamp from Sugar Nellie (coloured with promarkers). I received the lace in a RAK, ribbon from my stash, and the flowers, brads and sentiment stamp are Papermania.

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:

The Sugar Bowl - the sketch I followed
Speedy the Cat's Friends - flowers
Magical Crafts - flowers
Quirky Crafts - ribbons
Creative Craft Challenges - stamp it up

I do have another card to show you - not sure whether to keep it for tomorrow or post it later tonight (LOL!)

Anyway, thanks for popping by and I hope you come back sometime!

Love, Andrea xx

Monday 28 June 2010

Wedding Acceptance

Hello



Firstly - I apologise for the colour of this card - it looks nothing like as yellow IRL, and the colours do all match really!

You would not believe how long it took me to make this card! First of all I made a large flower out of the gorgeous deep purple tissue paper, but thought it did not look right for a special acceptance card - look out for the flower on another card soon though. So then I could not decide what to do. I wanted to use a C6 landscape card and emboss the base card, but of course the Cuttlebug embossing folder I wanted to use is not the right way round to emboss the bottom half of a card, so I had to look for a separate sheet of paper to use. I've seen other people separate their folders, but I was not brave enough to do that - I really have an aversion to 'breaking' things LOL! Then, the folder is not wide enough for this size card. So I had to move the paper across and emboss more than once for the full width - which left a mark where the join was - unfortunately, you can still see the line a bit.

Then, after lots of fiddling, I made the paper flowers out of tissue paper using a daisy punch - each flower has about six layers of tissue paper. I love them - definitely gonna do that again! Didn't have a stamp with Acceptance on it, so had to use peel offs.

I was really pleased with the finished card, but my photo really does not do it justice.

I'm going to enter it in the following challenges:

Freshly Brewed Challenge which is Anything Goes
Allsorts Challenge which is Embossing

Well, that's it from me for now - better wash up before going to bed!

Love, Andrea xx

Sunday 27 June 2010

Andrew's First Trip to Minor Injuries

Well, my son had his first trip to Minor Injuries last night (pretty good for a 9 year old boy huh?). Eleri had her first trip to MIU when she was 2 or 3 (she bit a nasty hole in her tongue when she fell off a little chair at nursery)!

Anyway, we were invited to my brother's barbecue yesterday evening. After eating they got out my nephew's battery powered motorbike, and went down the field with it. I was just popping out with my camera to grab a few photos, to see my two brothers and my Mum laughing their heads off, and Andrew coming limping up the field holding his ribs and his leg!! Apparently, he'd hit the throttle a bit too much, and the bike went off a bit too fast, and he was dragged along behind it - he was still holding the throttle back - think he didn't want to damage the bike by loosing go! He was shaking like a leaf when I got to him, so I got him to sit down for a moment before taking him in to get cleaned up - then I spotted the nasty little gash on his leg, with the skin kind of pushed back a bit (it was only about 2cm across in a kind of triangle shape), (sorry - hope you're not squeamish!!). So I thought I'd better pop him up to the hospital to have it looked at. By now, cos he'd seen the blood (which wasn't too much!), Andrew was really upset - so were my Mum and brothers actually because they'd laughed!!

Anyway, he ended up having 3 stitches, and we've got to pop back to hospital to get it checked for infection later today.

I'm so proud of him - he did get pretty upset when he had to have the local anaesthetic injection - but he's not moaned since - in fact I think he's pretty proud of his injury LOL! I think he can't wait to tell the boys at school he's had a motorbike accident!! And he's very pleased that he's got out of School Sports this week, and swimming lessons - he doesn't enjoy sports and he's been trying to get out of his swimming lessons since he moved up to a different instructor. He's not allowed to do any running around til he's had his stitches out (7-10 days), and he's just said "Having a leg like this is a bit boring!" It's normally a devil of a job getting him to go out to do some running around LOL!

Hope to finish a wedding acceptance card this evening and show you soon, and I have two birthdays this week to make cards for. So, see you soon! Enjoy the rest of your weekend - meant to be very hot here in the UK again today, but it does look like there is a lovely cooling breeze!

Love, Andrea xx

Tuesday 22 June 2010

All Male Cards

I hope you are all having a fabulous week and enjoying the gorgeous sunshine those of you in the UK!

I have four cards to show you today, all male cards! The first card is one I made for my son's friend who is 9 today. I have followed the sketch on Friday Sketchers this week - I just turned it upside down. I have used Gray, a freebie from Little Musings, and coloured him with Promarkers. The papers are Hot Off The Press, which I've had for years - that means I can also enter this card in Lexi's Creations Challenge which is Something Old, and also Paper Play Challenge which is also Something Old. The Cool Dude sentiment is from Pollycrafts, and that is a penny slider, but I don't think you can tell from my photo. I decorated the inside to match but didn't take a photo of that as Andrew had already written in it when I was takng the piccies! I was really pleased with this card, and Riki and his Mum loved it too!



Now to my other cards, and the confession I mentioned in my previous post. I've been struggling to get into the crafting spirit lately, so I was really late making my Father's Day cards - had to make three on Saturday night!!! So, of course I cheated, and used the same sketch I used last week for all three cards. I used Spider Henry from Whiff of Joy for my hubbie's card, and images from Fred She Said for my Dad's and FIL's cards. I made the ticket sentiments on the computer - found a fab ticket shape in my word programme!







Now, to my confession if you're still with me ... My Dad's birthday was on Father's Day and, because I hadn't got my bottom into gear to make the Father's Day cards and his birthday cards in time (not that I craft through my bottom of course LOL!) ... the birthday card I gave my Dad was actually a card I gave him a few years ago, and was in a pile Mum returned to me so that I could recycle them ... I just put in a new insert ... how bad is that???? LOL! I'm not sure if Dad realised as he hadn't opened his cards when I left on Sunday!

Anyway, that's it from me! Hope to be back again soon.

Love, Andrea xx

Sunday 20 June 2010

Summer Colours

Hello - Happy Sunday and Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful Dads in our lives!

I was looking for inspiration to make a card for another friend of Eleri's (yet another birthday party - what a party goer my daughter is turning into LOL!) I found a fabulous sketch on the Karen's Doodles UK Challenge blog, so printed that off to use. Then I realised that challenge was ending so there was no way I would get a card made in time. But I decided to use the sketch anyway, as I had no other ideas. But then, as luck has it, I can enter my card in this week's challenge which is 'In the Summertime'. I've used bright summery colours.



I just love the way this card turned out. The image is Fairy Fun from Karen's Doodles, and I coloured her with Promarkers, and added a bit of sparkle with Copic Spicas. I stamped some little flourishes around the image to stop it looking too plain. The bp is Kay and Co, and I embossed the lemon panel in my cuttlebug. I love the bunting on the card. Finally, I added a punched out flower daisy.

I'm not sure how the card looked when it was opened as Eleri dropped it as she was carrying it into the party and stepped on it - the flower and bunting probably got very scrunched LOL!

I'm also going to enter this card in this week's A Spoonfull of Sugar Challenge which is 'a Sunshine Inspired Card'.

I must go now as I need to be 'housewife' for a while LOL!

My next post will be to show the Father's Day cards I made, and I have a confession to make - so you'll have to come back again to see what I've been up to LOL!!

Love, Andrea xx

Saturday 12 June 2010

Friday Sketchers - Cool Dude

Hello Folks

My card today is one I made for a friend of my son's. He's having a sleepover tonight - and, just typical, Andrew had croop in the night last night so I'm really worried the same will happen tonight, but he was insistent that he still wanted to go. At least his friend lives on the same estate as us, so I can go and fetch Andrew if he has a problem! (Don't think I'm gonna sleep too well tonight though LOL!)



The image is a freebie from SJs Little Musings - I coloured him with promarkers. The papers are Kay and Co, and the sentiment is from Pollycrafts. I have followed the sketch on Friday Sketchers. Was going to see if there were any other challenges I could enter, but I can't be bothered to look too hard now!!

Considering how my mojo is really playing up at the moment (which has meant I've had to buy several cards this year!), I am pretty pleased with this card.

Hope to have Father's Day cards to show you later this week - unless I have to buy them of course (LOL!)

Love, Andrea xx

Thursday 10 June 2010

For My Niece Today

Hello Everyone

The card I'm going to show you today is the card I gave to my niece, Kaylee, who is 2 today - unbelievable how time flies!!

We took Kaylee's present this afternoon - and I've not long ago de-stressed from the visit LOL!! We gave her a Peppa Pig Play Tent and Car - I think she would love playing in it, but I'm not sure how long it will last with her two older and excitable brothers around LOL!! Her older brother (who's nearly 6) was trying to fit the poles into the tent, some of the poles were on the floor and my chldren were treading on them (it's a wonder they didn't break!). When the tent was up, the two boys were rolling around and tipping it on its side, one of the poles came out of place. Luckily, it was then time for us to leave because I needed to get our car home for hubby. Gosh, I don't know how my brother and sister-in-law cope with children who are continually on the go like that!!

Anyway, to my card. I have used the Fairy Fun digi image from Karen's Doodles, and for colouring I used Promarkers, watercolour pencils, and then added a bit of sparkle with Copic Spica glitter pens. The papers are Kay and Co. I made the sentiment on the computer and used my favourite technique of going over the text with a glitter pen. The image and mat has been die cut with a Nellie Snellen die. Unfortunately, none of the sparkle shows in the photo.



I am entering this card in this week's Sketch Saturday challenge, which is the fabulous sketch I used, and also Cupcake Craft challenge, which is Dazzle Us (sorry my dazzle is not showing up!).

Hope you like my card, and I hope to be back again soon.

Love, Andrea xx