Cards for My Son

Happy Friday people!

Today, I'm gonna show the cards I have made for my son's birthday, which is tomorrow. I am entering the first card in three challenges - Truly Scrumptious Challenge, which is the sketch I've followed, Lexi's Creations, which is spotted or striped, and Totally Papercrafts Challenge which is also lots of spots.



The image is Archie, a free download from Little Musings - I've used the pre-coloured version, cos as soon as I saw it I knew what papers to use. He reminds me of my son a bit, although my son's more skinny!! I thought the sentiment was perfect for this image - that was downloaded from Pollycraft. I had to adjust the angle of the sentiment, so I hope my entry will count for the sketch.

My second card is not entered into a challenge. I have used a Ben10 download from Crafts Beautiful (image and papers) - Ben is decoupaged, but you can't tell that from my photo. The sentiment again is from Pollycraft.

That's it now - I need to go wrap presents!

See you soon.

Love, Andrea xx

For A Special Daughter

As promised, this is the card I made for my daughter for her birthday. It was a download from the Crafters Companion members website - they have just launched their new range of Beatrix Potter CDs and, if this download is anything to go by, the CDs are probably gorgeous (but I didn't see their launch on Ideal World this week so can't say that for sure!!)


The decoupage is actually on the inside of the card, and the invertage ovals are all on the front panel of the card. The close up of the card shows my fairly poor craft knife work - I hadn't noticed how bad it looked on the actual card!! Oh, nearly forgot to say, the sentiment was actually cut from one of my own birthday cards this year - it was perfect for this card!

Anyway, that's it from me for now - must go and tuck the children into bed - and then make a start on my son's birthday cards - his birthday is on Saturday ... February is an expensive month in our house - three quarters of the household has their birthday in February (lol!)

See you soon!

Love, Andrea xx

Special Sister - Sketch Saturday

Hello and Happy Wednesday Everyone


Well, my daughter's birthday has absolutely flown by, and I think she has had a lovely day. We did manage to do Pizza Hut and the cinema - Eleri and I watched The Princess and The Frog, and Andrew and Richard watched Astro Boy.

I'm going to show you the card I made for Andrew to give to Eleri, and I'm entering it in this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge. and the Digital Tuesday Challenge (my first time for this challenge!).

The image is from Karen's Doodles - isn't this the most adorable little girl - I just love this image. I coloured the image with Promarkers - the only problem is that the ink bled outside the image - would this likely to be caused by the card I used?, 'cos I would really like to be able to use Promarkers with digital images ... any advice would be gratefully received! I managed to hide some of the bleeding around the image by going around it with a blue pen, but I should have done something about the eyes, maybe used a white gel pen. The papers I used are Kay and Co, and I produced the sentiment on the computer.

The photo doesn't show it but there is lots of sparkle on the card - I used a Sakura Stardust Clear pen to add it, and it looks lovely IRL!


We were not home in daylight for me to be able to photograph the card Richard and I gave Eleri - I'll try to show that one tomorrow, so please come back to have a look see!!

I will show you a photo of the birthday cake as promised yesterday - does not look anything special - Eleri just wanted a plain cake with icing and sprinkles on it. The cake mixture did not have any butter in it - instead it has courgette and ground almonds! I am fairly pleased with it - but don't look at the height of the sponges - mine never rise as much as they should - just haven't figured out where I go wrong, although I have realised that the recipe said to use 18cm cake tins and mine are all 20cm - well that's my excuse this time anyway lol!! I think there's a bit too much lemon in it, and it is a bit too sweet for me, but everyone who has tasted it has enjoyed it! The recipe was from my new cook book by Harry Eastwood, all of the cake recipes include some kind of vegetable - sounds weird huh!! - but it is a way of getting the children to eat vegetables they wouldn't normally touch!





And, finally, here are a couple of piccies of my little girl on her birthday! Guess who forgot to take the camera to Pizza Hut (der!!!)













Sorry about the long post! See you again soon, I hope!

Love, Andrea xx

Best Fishes - Charisma Cardz Challenge

Well - both my daughter and son had birthday parties last weekend - so I had to make two male birthday cards. This week, the theme on the Charisma Cardz Challenge Blog is think male.

But, guess what, I forgot to photograph the one card (dagnabbit!!!!) - it was a Ben 10 card made using a free download from Crafts Beautiful - I'll be making a similar one for my son later this week, and hopefully I'll remember to post that one for you to see!

Anyway, the card I'm going to enter for the Charisma Challenge is the card I made for Eleri's friend. But, before you see it, I must apologise for the poor poor photographs. I'm showing two photos in the hope that you can have some idea of what the card looks like - it is far better IRL than in the photos though.

I used blue pearlescent card, which I printed directly onto using a downloaded paper (I'm really sorry, I can't remember where from), and printed the round sentiment (another download from Charmed Cards and Craft) directly onto the card. I printed the same paper onto the acetate - I thought it looked like waves. The image is a Dottie Download Sports George again from Charmed Cards and Craft - already coloured - so useful when I don't feel like colouring but really need to get a card done (LOL!). I stamped fish onto the card, and onto the acetate, and coloured them all with Sakura Stardust pens, so they are all nice and glittery. And that's about it I think - simple but effective me thinks!

My children loved the card, and I hope Eleri's friend did too.

I'll love you and leave you now. My daughter is 5 tomorrow, so I'd best get to bed - she'll probably be awake soon (lol!!). We're taking her to the cinema to see The Princess and the Frog, and then we're going to Pizza Hut!

If I get chance, tomorrow I'll show you the gorgeous cards I made for her (am I allowed to pay compliments for my own cards???). I might just show her birthday cake as well - although it hasn't risen very well - but my cakes never do - instead of butter, the cake has courgette and ground almonds in it!! (The mixture tasted good when I 'licked' the bowl - isn't that the best thing about baking - being able to 'lick' the bowl? - although there wasn't much mixture to 'lick' as I've bought a new silicone bowl scraper which really did get nearly all the mixture out of the bowl - hmm, maybe I won't use it next time I bake a cake (lol!))

Enough of waffling, good night!

Love, Andrea xx

Pink Gem Designs - Candy and New Challenge Blog

Janet at Pink Gem Designs is offering the following candy to celebrate her birthday later this month, and also the launch of the new challenge blog, A Gem of a Challenge, which launched on 8th Feb.

Love, Andrea xx

Grab Your Free Gorgeous Motivet Digi

Have you seen the gorgeous digi image which Motivet are giving away? All you need to do is go take a look, advertise it on your blog, and grab this little sweetie for yourself.
http://motivet.com/blog/?p=1724

Happy Birthday To Me

Woo hoo! It's my birthday today, and I've had a lovely day so far. Hubby and I both took the day off work (although hubby always takes the day off after Super Bowl, but he is insistent that he has taken today off just because it's my birthday - no-one believes him LOL!)

So I have been taken out to lunch today - we had a lovely meal in an Italian restaurant. I had a gorgeous meal - Bruschetta to start, followed by pasta with marinated chicken cooked in a wild mushroom, cream and white wine sauce - oh scrummy! Too full for dessert - and anyway we would not have had time to eat it as we had to leave to get back home in time to collect children from school. The trouble is, the time together just the two of us is not long enough, and the day has gone too fast!

Just getting children to bed now, then I'm hoping to do a bit of crafting with a glass of red wine by my side - a perfect end to the day!

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Love, Andrea xx