Minnie Mouse Birthday Card ...

February is a busy month for birthdays in our family and today's card is for little Faye who will be 2 tomorrow, she is having a Minnie Mouse birthday cake so I thought I would make her a Minnie Mouse card to go with it

I made the mouse shape with different nestabilities circle dies, the number 2 is a Papertrey Ink die and the ribbon, ricrac and crystal swirls are from Ribbon Girl

Birthday Wishes ...

This weeks challenge over at Papertake Weekly is create a card for an anything goes challenge with the option of adding a heart. I am still in mini card production world and so I am sharing another one today. 

Those gorgeous papers are by Pion (we have a slight addiction!) and the twine, lace, felt, pins and crystal swirls are from Ribbon Girl. The teeny tiny heart tag is from Papertrey Ink, love those little tags and the big heart and wings are Sizzix

A Birthday Card ...

The final challenge of the year for Papertake Weekly is a sketch and this is my interpretation

I used my newest paper flower die from MFT to make the roses and the leaves are punched from my Mam's MS punch.  Lace, button twine and pompom trim are all from the Ribbon Girl and the sentiment and number stamps are Papertrey. I added a few Kaiser pearls to the centres of the roses and that sparkly/fibery paper stuff was something I picked up from the florists wholesalers last week (not sure what a florist would do with it but I liked it behind the paper roses)

Ribbon Girl Colour Challenge ...

The new colour challenge at the Ribbon Girl blog is red, black and cream as chosen by Vicky.

This is the card and box that I made, it's another tiny 4 inch card

I used:

Digital Papers - Joy To The World by Kristin Cronin Barrow at Sweet Shoppe Designs

German Glass Glitter - 3DJean

Laces, ribbons, pins, Zva crystal swirl and button twine - Ribbon Girl

Sentiment, kraft cardstock and tag die - Papertrey Ink

Distress Ink - Ranger

The challenge is sponsored by Lili Of The Valley and Ribbon Girl so well worth entering

Sparkle, bling and even more sparkle ...

I am entering this super sparkly card into the Cupcake Craft Challenge which is to creat e asparkly card - I think I got that one spot on :)

Papers - Glorious digital kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs

German glass glitter (oh my goodness this stuff is divine!) 3D Jean

Pins, lace, seam binding, twine, sparkly button and a Zva crystal swirl all from Ribbon Girl

Sentiment and tag die from Papertrey Ink

Star die by Sizzix

Baby ...

This week our lovely friend had a sweet baby girl and this is the card that I made for her to celebrate the new arrival.  Those gorgeous papers are from a Krystal Hartley digital kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs that I totally love (I've already made another two cards using the same papers!)

All of the ribbon, buttons, pompom, pins, lace and the crystal swirl are from Ribbon Girl

The dinky little tag dies are from Papertrey

A lot to catch up on ...

Goodness, it is almost a month since I last blogged! Life has been pretty busy here, lots of decisions to be made about my new house but in the 4 weeks since we got the key we've had a new heating system installed throughout, the windows have all been replaced, a few walls have been knocked down, moved and rebuilt to make the kitchen a little larger, the kitchen has been ordered and 3 rooms have been plastered and painted throughout. This weekend my brother put down the flooring in one of the bedrooms and he's there at the moment laying the floor in the other bedroom. Phew, lots of hard work :)

I've had a little time to spend making cards but I gave up on the idea of making all my Christmas cards and have bought some for the regular people and I'm keeping my hand crafted cards for the extra special people.

Amongst all the busy-ness of making the house look fabulous I squeezed in a weekend away with 7 other crafty friends. We completed several projects and this is the card that I taught to the group on the Friday night, it had a coordinating box to go with it but I forgot to take a photograph of that

Paper, sentiment and reindeer image - Pink Petticoat

Twine, ribbon and jinglebell - Ribbon Girl

Star die - Spellbinders

Whilst at the cottage we had a bit of a Molly Bloom fest - I love Molly Bloom stamps which is handy because so does Jane, Gail and Jean so we played swaps with our stamps for a little while and I cane home with several stamped images all ready to colour in

Stamp - Molly Blooms

Papers - Sweet Shoppe Designs

Ribbons and twine - Ribbon Girl

I've made a few of these little giftbags too, the die is a Papertrey Ink die and they are perfect for adding a giftcard or small items such as earrings and jewellery

Papers and font - Sweet Shoppe Designs

Die - Papertrey Ink

Papers, snowman element and wordart - Sweet Shoppe Designs

Ribbon, twine and charm - Ribbon Girl

The kit I used for the gift bag and this card is Fa-La-La by Dani Mogstad at Sweet Shoppe Designs and whilst I was creating these projects I thought I would use it to make a festive header for my blog, I'm hoping we get some snow this holiday time!

Winter Wishes ...

Last week the postman brought us some gorgeous fairy stamps from Sugar Nellie so today I have made a card to enter into the Sugar Bowl Challenge which is a sketch.

Stamp - Titania from Sugar Nellie (coloured with Copics)

Papers - All I Want For Christmas from Echo Park

Sentiment stamp - Papertrey Ink

Ribbon and lace - Ribbon Girl

Cardstock - Papermania

Glitter spray - Spray and Sparkle from Crafters Companion

In the pink ...

I love everything pink so guess how pleased I was that this weeks Just Magnolia/Hanglar challenge was to make a pink card!

Hanglar stamp

Ribbon Girl pins and ribbon

Pink Petticoat sentiment

Papermania (I think) paper and cardstock

Martha Stewart border punch

Papertrey Ink scalloped border die

Spellbinders star border die

Cuttlebug embossing folder

Stickles

Crafters Companion Spray & Sparkle (I have no idea how I've lived without this for so long)

Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge ...

I have joined in with another challenge blog at the Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge Blog, they had a simple sketch this week (challenge number 10) so I felt the need to make a simple card - no patterned paper huh?

I used the Midnight Feast stamps from Waltzingmouse and the dots down there at the bottom (that you can't really see in the picture but look fine in real life) are Papertrey. The black jewels are from 3DJean and the buttons, twine and ribbon are from Ribbon Girl

DCM Challenge ...

The challenge this week over at the DCM challenge blog is to create a card using pearls (June Birthstone) and it certainly was a challenge for me as I'm not really a pearl person - I'm more of a glitter and bling girl :)  Anyway, I was looking through my embellishment draw for anything vaguely pearl-like when I spotted these adhesive Kaisercraft pearls that I'd bought from Jean, then I found some paper doilies and decided to make a flower.  That was really easy - I just scrunched up the doilie a bit and punched a few layers of cream tissue paper with my small scalloped cirlce punch. I joined them together with a pearl brad and scrunched the layers up before covering in several layers of golden Shimmerz Spray

Those pearls - I stuck them all on individually which I found strangely theraputic and I had to add a teeny tiny bit of bling in the form of two strips of sequins down each side of the paper panel. The papers are from a digital kit at Sweet Shoppe Designs and the stamp is from Papertrey Ink

A Different Challenge ...

I'm a regular reader of Lucy's blog and today she posted a challenge that was just perfect for me - to use digital elements on a card. It was made for me and even better was that I just downloaded this rocking digital kit from Sweet Shoppe designs. So I spent a little while this evening fiddling around with bits of paper and prettiness (sorting through my Basic Grey brads and matching them to my Papertrey ribbons) and cutting, sticking and generally enjoying myself and came up with this card - and I LOVE it!

Pretty Flower ...

This card ended up looking nothing like what I had thought it would. I like it though but I couldn't find a space for a sentiment! The papers and flower element are from a new kit by my friend Kay Miller and I got to use my favourite scalloped die and turquoise felt from Papertrey too

Daring Cardmakers Challenge ...

My challenge entry this week is a bit different because I am very excited to say that I have been invited to be the guest designer at DCM for the month of May.  The theme for this weeks dare is 'emerald' as it's the birthstone for May. I used the idea of the colour emerald to make a good luck card for a friend and used this kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs as well as Papertrey ribbon and some little pins that I got from the last caft show at Harrogate

Today must be my lucky day as I am also the featured designer at the Sweet Shoppe blog today, I have project post at the Scattered Scarlet blog and it is Friday - my favourite day of the week!

Diamonds are a girls best friend ...

This weeks challenge over at the Daring Cardmakers is to make a diamond inspired card. This was an easy peasy one for me as love my glitter and sparkle and love adding diamonds to my cards

Sweet Shoppe papers, paperchase diamonds, papertrey scalloped die and ribbon and that butterfly that I have coated in glitter is a die from Crafts U Love, I haven't stopped using it since it arrived.

And ... I get extra brownie points as I used up all my scraps off a different project to make the card. Jean and Gail will surely die when they read that as they call me for not keeping anything :lol:

Some cards ...

The postman finally managed to get through the snow in our street yesterday and brought me my beautiful Papertrey goodies. I love opening up the parcel and laying everything out on my desk to stroke. I even used my lovely new goodies today to make some notecards. They're plain and simple but I think they turned out okay. The photographs aren't so good as I had to take them indoors because of the wind - oh did I tell you? As well as all the snow now we've got winds too :lol:

The stamps were really sweet so I made my cards smaller than usual (I got 4 from an A4 sheet of cardstock), coloured with Promarkers and I used my Stampin Up scalloped circle punch and some leftovers of coloured cardstock

We had a beautiful blue sky this morning when I woke up but have you seen how cold it was. My goodness this winter has just been the worst and it's kind of only just begun, there is another few months to go before we get into Spring! Anyway, as I was sat in the kitchen making cards this morning I could hear a commotion in the street outside. A snowplough! Thankyou Mr Snowplough Driver :) He ploughed down to the bottom of the culdesac which is where we live and then back up to the top of the hill and after him came a little man in a diddy little digger who scooped up the piles of snow and dropped them out of the way on the grass. Yay! so we can get our cars out and are no longer snowed in :)

Spots and dots ...

The current challenge over at Daring Cardmakers is to make a non Christmas, non winter, polka dotted card. I couldn't resist this challenge as polka dots are my favourite :)

I made a get well soon pocket card using products from Sweet Shoppe Designs and Papertrey Ink

Flower Power ...

I have another shaped card to share today which started out life as a flower shaped digital element. I resized it to the size of my cards, added some patterned paper, printed a couple of copies out which I chopped up to create layers and then adhered to my card blank. I cut round the shape with a very sharp craft knife and added a tag and some ribbons (Papertrey) and hey presto You have a cheerful Best Wishes card.

That tag is made with a Stampin' Up! punch and it is the most used punch I have, I use it on almost every card I make as it's just the right size for adding a sentiment. Quite often I don't actually add sentiment wording to my cards but if I do I tend to use the tag punch

A Happy Birthday Card ...

I think red might be my favourite colour at the moment, especially Pure Poppy red from Papertrey Ink. It's just a perfect colour - not too bright, not too dark, not too dull or with an orangey hue to it - just generally perfect! And I love the stitched grosgrain ribbon!

I've teamed it with papers from the Sweet Shoppe, my other favourite at the moment - the Martha Stewart Loopy punch - and an old computer font that I used to use a lot and recently rediscovered called Waterfalls

Snail Mail ...

I love this sweet little snail :) He is a digital stamp from DigiStamp Boutique, coloured with my ProMarkers and the papers are all from The Sweet Shoppe. The sentiment element is a stamp from Papertrey Ink with a punched scalloped circle.

He's going off in the post to say thank you to a friend