A Boy's 3D Card

Hello again - I'll get this second card in quick tonight, please see below for my earlier post.

This is the card I made for my son's birthday - an easel card. The images are all from Digistamp Boutique, Out of This World! - I used the pre-coloured version as I was doing this very last minute and needed something quick LOL! The background is embossed with a Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder (funny how they have two different folders called Snowflakes!). I gently rubbed over it with a silver ink pad - I think this makes a perfect outerspace background.

The rocket is hanging on a strip of acetate, so it bounces and moves. The little space monster and the alien are just standing on a folded piece of card. The base is cut from the brown card you find in the middle of a roll of wrapping paper - so there's a bit of re-using/recycling here - good on ya Andrea!!! I created the sentiment on the computer and die cut it with a labels nestie (maybe I should have put it at the top of the card though!)





I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown - 3D
Easy Craft Projects - Something for the boys

That's it - I really am going now!

Love, Andrea xx

Made My Own Embellishments ... but I missed the challenge

Hello Everyone

Well, today's plans have gone out the window - yesterday, we had a lovely walk (well, Andrew cycled, and Eleri scootered!) and we were planning to do it again this morning, but its bloomin' well raining. So I thought I would post a blog before getting the hoover out instead. We're going to the cinema to watch Tangled this afternoon.

This is the twisted easel card I made for Eleri's birthday. I've seen some gorgeous twisted easel cards around blogland, but I think mine needed a bit more in the corner of the base.



I've used an image called Maisy with Teddy from Di's Digi Downloads, coloured with Promarkers. I've die cut the mat with my Nellie Snellen die, and used an X-Cut border punch. The flowers are a new die I bought with some of my birthday money - they are smaller than I was expecting but I do like them, and am looking forward to making some handmade paper flowers using these dies, not just layering them up like I've done here.

I found a fab tutorial blog where I saw the idea of the birthday cake. The tutorial had candles with the cake, but I just did not have time to go to that much detail last week - I really want to give that a go sometime though. Here's a close-up of my cake embellishment (I was hoping to enter the Simon Says Stamp challenge - make your own embellishment - but I missed it - ah well!)



Eleri has always said she likes to have a badge on her card, so I made a badge as well. Just punched a couple of circles of card and glued them together, then covered with DP, added some punched flowers, and some peel offs saying Eleri is 6, and added a brooch pin at the back. Unfortunately I was a bit heavy handed with the glitter spray. Here's a close-up of the badge.



I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Totally Papercrafts - Do it with digi
One Stop Craft Challenge - Birthday card with a cake on it
Digital Tuesday - Punches
Crazy 4 Challenges - Use a die cut
Top Tip Tuesday - Bling it on
Sketch and Stash - I followed the sketch but rotated it. I'm not sure if my entry will count though because I've changed the shape of the mat - apologies if you have to delete my entry

That's it for now - need to get on with some housework.

Love, Andrea xx

Party Bags

Hellooooooooooo again - second post today. I was going to attempt to schedule this post, but want to enter some challenges and wasn't sure whether that would work with links to challenges, so gave up on that idea.

These are the party bags I made for Eleri's party last Saturday. I got the idea for these from Monica. Mine are obviously not as beautiful as Monica's but the girls loved them (so do I actually LOL!).



These were very easy to make. I used a full A4 size sheet of card - which was printed on both sides using Cute Companions CD. I bought the ribbon from a local wool shop - unfortunately it frays very easily so may not have been the best to use in this project really.

I helped the girls to make bracelets and keyrings during the party - and the bracelet peeking out of this bag is the one Eleri made - these wooden beads make such pretty projects. Eleri did not manage to make her keyring on the day as she lost one of her letter beads (the keyrings had their names on them out of letter beads), so we will be making Eleri's later this week. Will show you when its done.

Do you see that lolly in the bag also? I made those for Eleri to take for her classmates on her birthday, and also for all the party guests we've had over the weekend. They are cake pops - cooked chocolate cake, crumbled up and mixed with a fudge icing until its just gooey enough to be able to mould into balls, put onto lolly sticks, dipped in melted chocolate and then sprinkles. They went down a storm - the children were raving about them to their Mums, so I had a few queries from Mums about what they were. The teachers loved them too! I found this idea on the internet (just google cake pops), and there are even books on them - some people go to so much effort making all sorts of different shapes. Don't think I could go into that much detail, but I might have a go again sometime!

Here's another photo of the cake pops.



I would like to enter the following challenges with this party bag:

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Not a card
One Stitch At a Time - Anything but square
Fussy and Fancy Challenge - Sweet treats
Kaboodle Doodles - Break tradition (I've broken my tradition of buying plastic party bags ha ha!!!)

Well, I did promise myself an early night, so I must go now. May be able to post another project tomorrow.

Love, Andrea xx

Embossing S.O.S.

Hello Peoples

Well, here's the first photo of what I've been up to over the last couple of weeks. This is the card I gave my husband for Valentine's Day.



The image is one of the High Hopes stamps I won in candy a couple of weeks ago - I've coloured him with Promarkers. I've used a Cuttlebug folder for embossing the hearts background, and I rubbed over it with a red ink pad to add a bit of extra colour. The red heart is a die cut, which I wanted to have a crackle effect. I triple heat embossed it and then (can you believe it????) I put it in the freezer - I'm sure I remember being told once that it would crack. I don't know if I was dreaming about this LOL, or if I didn't leave it in the freezer long enough but it didn't crack - I bent the heart gently in different directions to make it crack. Then I rubbed over it with a gold ink pad. Not quite the effect I was after but it'll do! And it's not bloomin' well showing very well in the photo - sorry.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge - S.O.S. - For SomeOne Special (my husband - he's got to be special to put up with me LOL!)
2 Sisters Challenge - Embossing - my background embossing, and the triple embossing on the heart
Creative Inspirations Challenge - Distressing - trying to crackle the heart

That's it for now I think.

I've had a fairly lazy day today - done a load of washing, popped into work this morning to send some e-mails that wouldn't go on Friday as the system was down, caught up with my ironing, and dyed my hair this afternoon (I can go out in the wind again now LOL!). Not sure what we'll be doing tomorrow (hoping to have a bit of a lie in!).

See you soon.

Love, Andrea xx

Today's Party Went Much More Smoothly!

Hello Again Peoples

Please see my post below to read about my daughter's birthday party yesterday.

Thankfully, Andrew's party today went much more smoothly (thank goodness LOL!). The day didn't start too well though because Richard had a hangover (serves him right - don't think he can remember much of last night at all! He doesn't remember calling for food on his way home, but he found the evidence on the chair this morning (sesame seeds from his burger bun!). He'd told me he hoped to be home about 10.30 last night, but I think it was about 12.30 when he finally rolled in.

Anyway, I think Andrew has had a good birthday - he had three friends round to play this afternoon - they were quite boisterous at times! But they wanted to go to the park to play football - Richard took them - they got very muddy (oopsie!). My niece came to play with Eleri, and they wanted to go to the park too so my brother took them. So I had some time at home alone in the middle of a boy's birthday party - didn't expect that LOL! Then it was back home for food - I was worried about that as two of the boys are very very fussy eaters, but they all ate their fill. I even had a fab compliment from one of them - he told me my little cakes were even better than his nain's cakes and he said she makes good cakes (he made my day!).

We managed to light the candles on both birthday cakes today (poor Eleri didn't get chance yesterday - you'll know why if you read my post about her party!)

And the boys went back outside to play football and running games in the garden just before it was home time. So, all in all, the boys were much easier - mind you that might be because of their age 9 and 10 - and they were so polite when asking for drinks and thanking me for their food etc.

Maybe I'll be able to post some photos tomorrow. Just checking to see whether there are any challenges I can enter at the moment.

Half term this week, so I'm not working in the days, but have meetings to attend and take notes at on Wednesday and Thursday evenings - think they are going to be busy.

See you soon.

Love, Andrea xx

Oh My Gosh ... Never Again!!

Hello People

Sorry I've been MIA! It was Eleri's birthday on Thursday - my baby was 6!, and it's Andrew's birthday tomorrow - he'll be 10 - time is flying by so fast! So I've been frantically making preparations, a couple of nights I was up til about 1 in the morning. So I have a few things to show you over the next few days, but not had chance to load photos onto the computer yet.

Eleri had a little party today - four of her friends from school came to our house - never again!!! We made bracelets and keyrings to start with, but then Eleri got upset because I wouldn't let her open one of her presents to play with - so that was one wail that seemed to go on for ages. Pass the parcel went well. Then they were going to play one of the Just Dance games on the wii and Eleri and one of her friends had a little disagreement over one of the remote controls (how that could happen when there were four players and four remotes I don't know LOL!), so they both got upset! Then it was time for food, and that was going well until another of the little girls was sick (aaarrrgghh!!). Poor little thing, she hadn't eaten very much so I'm pretty sure it wasn't my food - we think she's got the bug which has been going around school for the past few days. So we didn't get chance to light the candles for Eleri's birthday cake because, by the time I'd cleaned the little girl up and got her in some clean clothes and then cleaned the floor, it was time for everyone to leave. Whew, what an afternoon! (don't think I want one like that again though LOL!)

Never mind, we'll be doing it again tomorrow for Andrew, so we'll be blowing two lots of candles out tomorrow I think. The boys are 9/10 so it should be easier tomorrow, plus Richard will be home to help this time! I have threatened to go out and leave Richard to cope with the boys tomorrow, especially as he's b******ed off out for a drink tonight (ha, ha, ha!!!) Couldn't do that to him really though!

Look out for some photos of what I've been up to soon!

Love, Andrea xx

Its My Birthday ... and I'll cry if I want to!

No, I don't really want to cry! It's my birthday, and I have the day off work - it's a gorgeous sunny day, and I'm off out to lunch with my hubby shortly. What more do I want - nothing really!

Yes, three out of four of us in our household have birthdays in February, all within a fortnight!

The children and I have been to the dentist today, but that was OK, no problems except Andrew needs to stop sucking his thumb as it is stopping some of his front teeth from coming through. The dentist has given us some good tips to try, so we'll start putting them into practice tonight!

My husband said yesterday (! late as ever!) that he didn't know what to get me for my birthday. I told him that the portable hard drive we had to get for the computer can be my present, just buy me a box of chocolates or something, because we can't afford anything else really. So, he went off to buy himself a golf game for the Wii instead - there's male logic for you LOL! But then he didn't even wrap the chocolates up for me, though they are scrummy chocolates - he says he's saving the environment (ha ha!!)

I've had some birthday money, and I'm thinking of buying a Hougie board and some flower dies with some of it, and then see if I can buy something nice to wear - a little shopping trip at the weekend I think!

Eleri has drawn me a lovely picture and made me a card (but she's put my age on the card so I don't think I'll show you that one LOL!)



Isn't the picture gorgeous? - I love the way she has put a heart on the roof, and made an iron gate, and even cut inside the ropes of the hot air balloon!! So bright and cheerful too.

Now I'll show you the invites I made for Eleri's birthday party. Just layers of card die cut with my Nellie Snellen die - and I have printed the invitation on a layer on the back - that looks really nice, but I can't show it as it has info that I don't want people to see and I can't work out how to blank it out. Never mind.



That's probably enough from me for now - hope to see you soon. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my special day. Hope you have a good day too.

Love, Andrea xx

Happy Mail

Hello People and Happy Wednesday.

I got home to two lots of happy mail today :)

I won Debby's High Hopes blog candy on Monday, and I received the stamps today - yippee!! Thank you so much Debby.

AND I have received my copy of the March issue of Crafts Beautiful magazine today, and a letter I sent to them with a picture of the teddy in a bag I made for my niece for Christmas (see below) has been printed on the letters page - woohoo!!



So I'm a happy bunny this evening!

Love, Andrea xx