Tilda Card

It's been a while since I last made a Tilda card, so I dug out this image that I have had for a while, and not previously used. Please ignore my messy piece of white cardboard, it's what I put over my craft mat when I am colouring in :D
Also please excuse the darkness on the pics, I did have the flash on, but the light was poor this morning.

I would like to enter this card in to the following challenges please:

• A Gem of a Challenge: Sketch
• A Spoonful of Sugar: At least 2 types of textures {Sequins, Ribbon, textured papers}
• Creative Card Crew: April Showers
• Paper Sundaes: Spring Blossoms {Used yellow flowers which are a spring colour}
• The Crazy Challenge: Just add Flowers {My 2nd entry}
• DYSU: Yellow
  
• Crafty Card Makers: Recipe - Use Yellow as your main colour, Add Ribbon, Use faux/real stitching and add Rhinestones/gems. {Yellow is my main colour, blue ribbon added, real sitching used to tie the sequins together and on the slanted dp and faux stitching used on the sentiment dp, flat back self adhesive pearls used as my gems}
  

Altered Note Book

Good evening everyone.

At the moment my PC is broke :( so I have had to use my OH's PC to upload photos etc. It's really annoying not being able to do this on my own PC, but it looks like this might be the only solution until we can get me a new PC. I do have a laptop, but I really don't like working on it!
So until then, this will have to do!

Anyways, I couldn't find my old notebook that I kept details in, on challenges, so I decided to turn a tatty old note book, that I found stuffed away somewhere, in to a brand spanking new 'Challenges' notebook. I know I do have all the challenges listed in my sidebar, but I like to have something by the side of me whist I actually craft.

You will notice that I don't have a watermark on these images, that is because that is stored in PSP on MY computer lol

Note: I really hope entering this notebook in to the listed challenges are okay, but I couldn't find anything in the rules that said it was for cards only. If not, then that is absolutely fine :)

PS. Please ignore the grubby white card on the photos, that is what I use on top of my craft mat when I am colouring in lol

The before picture. Yucky! As always, click on the images to view in full.

Front.

Back.

Inside. Not the most perfect, but it will do! As you can see I removed the old ribbon marker and made a matching spotty one.

And below a few extra photos, juct click on them to enlarge :)

I would like to enter my altered note book in to the following challenges please:

• Magnolia Stamp Lovers: Use Ribbon
• One Stitch at a Time: 3D
  
• Stamptacular: Buttons, Bling & Blooms {4 white buttons, stickles on sheep's hair and tail, and flowers, prima flowers & 1 wild orchid flower}
• Delightful Challenges: Flowers
• Just Magnolia: Anything Goes with Optional use of buttons {4 buttons & magnolia image}
• The Crafty Pad: Flowers
• One Stop Craft: Spots & Dots {spots on the ribbon}
• Craft Your Passion: Anything Goes
• Pollycraft: Use old or neglected stamp or image {I've had this image in my stash for ages and never used it previously!}
• The Crazy Challenge: Just add flowers
• Papertake: Anything Goes with Optional use of something new {my spotty ribbon was brand spanking new}
• Passion for ProMarkers: Yellow and Pink {The sheep is pink with yellow hair, also pink ribbon, prima flower and wild orchid flower. Yellow prima flower also. ProMarkers used, see recipe below for colours.}
• ABC Challenge: R is for Ribbon
• Allsorts: Blooming Blossoms {2 prima flowers and 1 wild orchid flower}
• Craft Your Days Away: Spots and Stripes {spotted ribbon and striped designer paper}
• Stamp, Scrap & Doodle: Glitz {stickles on sheep's hair and tail}
• Crafts and Me: Glitter {stickles on sheep's hair and tail}

Wow, I didn't realise it was eligable for so many! Hopefully is IS eligable anyways, if not I will have to have a re-think!

Recipe:

• One dirty tatty old notebook
• Striped designer paper is Smirk
• Magnolia sheep and trees images
• Prima flowers
• Wild Orchid flower
  
• Pink spotty ribbon
• White florists ribbon
• To Do {or not to do... that is the question}, Do This ---->, This item belongs to:, and Designed by: Stamps from Basic Grey
  
• White buttons
• Stickles
• Flat back self adhesive Pearls
• Calendar tab
• ProMarkers {Cinnamon, Cool Aqua, Mint Green, Grass, Ivory, Rose Pink, Tulip Yellow and Blush}
  
• White card stock
  

Major BIG Catch Up Part I

I have been meaning to do a post for a while now, but I have just been far too busy, so when a friend wanted to see some makes, I got my ass in to gear and downloaded all the pics from my camera, and here I am!

First up, a buncha cards I made a while back, for my Charity Card blog, with all proceeds going to St. Michael's Hospice in Harrogate.

Baby Girl card, available in different styles. Used BuzzCraft papers and emellishments, pink card stock, stock feathers and gems, 3 fabric flowers and pink brad. Inside and back NOT decorated but can be as per ordered via my Charity blog. £1.50

Flower Card 001 - SOLD

Flower Card 005 - From £1.80 via my Charity blog.

Flower Card 003 - SOLD

Flower Card 006 - From £1.75 via my Charity blog.

Flower Card 004 - From £1.80 via my Charity blog.

Flower Card 002 - From £1.80 via my Charity blog.

Flower Card 007 - From £1.70 via my Charity blog.

Flower Card 008 - SOLD

Flower Card 001 after it was personalised.

Calendars, Stockings and Trees

Well, here are the other items I finished making a few days ago, but I didn't want to post them just incase any of the recipients saw them here first!
All have been sent out now, and most of them got them today, so it should be safe to post them!
As always, click on the images to view in better detail!

I bought the calendar tabs in March or April and since then I was struggling to decide how to use them, at first I thought maybe my son could make Christmas cards with them, then I saw the easel card and the lightbulb went off, perfect for desk calendars!
It wasn't until a few days ago that I saw quite a few other people have made them too!
Great minds think alike huh!

On the left is the first one I made ages ago, it wasn't until I got around to finishing them all off that I added the handmade flower. My son has claimed this one as 'that thing in the middle is cool!'
The middle one, maybe went to my brother and his girlfriend?
The one on the right went to William's teacher.

I think the one on the left went off to the states, and I *think* the middle one went to another Aunt. I know for certain that the one on the right was sent to my Mum.

I think the left one was reserved for my sister-in-law, and i know for certain that the one on the right was sent to my Uncle, and in his words 'they are great!'

Once again I am not 100% sure who got the one on the left, maybe my Aunt.
And the other one is sat on my desk as a spare!

I will post each one individually over the next few days with what goodies I used on each one, otherwise this post would be really huge!

All of the calendars together, laid down flat.
I think the first three on the bottom row are my favourites! But then again, I like the Smirk ones also!

My son was given this at school, to decorate at home. He had a whole week to do it, but we only managed to get it finished on Saturday night.
And here is the end result.....

I'll post the details in later as I have to go and finish off making a very special card right now!

Ooops, almost forgot.....

The tree was put up at the end of November! It is a new tree, (well, we got it in January when the sales were on), as out last tree would have been 12 this year (older than our son!), and was starting to look a bit threadbare. This tree is full of (fake) life and is nice and bushy and has no unsightly gaps between the three sections!
It is not fully decorated yet, but I will post a pic as soon as it is done and there is a little story surrounding the lights!

Birthday Goodies

It was my birthday on Monday (27th), so I thought I would share some of the awesome handmade cards I got!

Since I started making my own cards, it seems all of my family have followed suit!
Which is a great thing, not only does it mean that people get great homemade cards, it means that we are saving money and the environment too!

My awesome Uncle has tonnes of crafting stuff though he tends to stick to PC CD Rom programs to make his cards, which is cool too!

As always click the images to view in full size.

The cards my Uncle made from himself and my Aunt. Thank you!! xxx

My Mum also started off card making using PC CD Roms, maybe a year or so after I started making my own. She has since progressed to making her own using various media and quite recently she has purchased some stamps and inks, though I do not think she has used them yet.
She doesn't often buy kits, as it is more cost effective not to, but she saw a set of kits on QVC and thought one of them would be perfect for my birthday!

The middle one is an awesome Elvis card that my Mum made from her and my Step-Dad. I am a total Elvis fan, so I was very pleased to receive this. It is a découpage card :)
The card on the right is from my little brother, which, I believe was his first time at making his own card! Usually my Mum makes his lol (The same brother who features in the post previous to this.)
The card of the left is from one of my other Aunt's. She started making her own cards 2 or 3 years ago!
Thank you to all!! xxx

Close up of Elvis!

I did get mostly money for my birthday, which I don't mind at all!
After using some of it to buy a subscription to genesreunited.co.uk as I have recently picked up my other newish hobby of family research again, I bought some craft goodies, as I hadn't bough any since about March (ain't I good???) and as there was a sale on, it would have been rude not to ;)

I got; The Big One by Clare Curd (200 sheets of awesome papers), Paper Shapes (which I thought would be great for my son also), Couture Ribbons, 4x different Clangers backing papers, 4x different Looney Tunes backing papers, 2x different Scooby Doo backing papers, 2x Sets of Clangers découpage kits (4 in total), Masking Tape, Oriental Spice, Colossal Strips (only bought them as a tester really, to see if it was nice enough to buy a large pack, and for 50p you can't really complain, and yes, they are quite nice really!), 2x Message Tags, 2x Jolly Nation découpage kits (Movie Star Lady and Movie Star Man), 3D Birthday Stickers, Anita's Calendar Tabs for 2010 (which I plan for my son to make into New Year Cards for family - any tipos on how to use them are most welcomed!), Assorted Craft Wire, White and Clear Beads, See-D's Magical Christmas stamps (£1!!!!), See-D's Personal Labels stamps (£1!!!!), Marie Curie Daffodil Stamp (50p COME ON!), and 2x Vintage Bauble Ribbon Stickers (1 blue, 1 red).

My next purchase will be a paper crimper, as I really want to make some of these cool Crimped Envelope Pocket Cards (Tutorial available here) for maybe next years birthday cards!

Also for my birthday I got this tiny but cute plant! After some research I found that there are several different ones to collect and take care of. You only need to water them (by dipping the bottom into a bowl of water for a few minutes), every four weeks or so. Then when it is fully grown (after 4 - 6 months), you can tranfere it into a bigger pot, though I haven't quite figured out how to get it out of the casing yet, though I have plenty of time to find out still! You can read all about Pet Plants here. The one I have is Xing, which means Happiness and is symbolised by the Finger Plant.

And finally, I seriously need to have a sort out with my craft stuff and the boxes I keep them all in! I have a couple of spare boxes to put my goodies in, I just haven't got around to doing it yet lol
I think I will have a sort out in the next week or so after I have made all of September's birthday cards, which I will be starting very soon!

It's Been a While........

Well, it's certainly been a while since I last posted anything!
And I feel so guilty about it as my new obsession is only FACEBOOK!
So yes, I broke one of my new year's resolutions, which was to blog every day!
I'm bad I know, but this time I promise to blog more often!

Anyways with a bunch of birthdays and Christmas just around the corner, what better time to pick up my blog to showcase my makings!

And as I haven't posted in a while, and some birthdays have been and gone, I best post them here to get up to date!

As always, click the images to enlarge :)

Firstly, it was my brother's 21st birthday in March, and my first attempt at using stamps only to create a card. I stamped 'BROTHER' using letters from a See D's collection. I then embossed it using 'Midnight' from create n craft. I then gentle inked my black inkpad all over the front and around the edge. I glued some blue stock paper to the card before attaching 'BROTHER' ata slight angle and roughly drawing the black border. I then attached a 2 and 1 foam shape along with 10 gem embellishments. Using a craft knife I created two slits for the ribbon to pass by. Finally I used Stickles to create another border, let it dry then wrote ' To a Special' and 'Happy Birthday'.
For the back, I used a foam shape to create the flower on to some card, inked and embossed it, and inked around the edge. Then I stamped 'Hand Stamped By', which unintentionally left a funky-rough edge around it, so I decided to keep that, then I embossed that too. Finally I inked a foam smaller 3 flower stamp, inked the edge and embossed that too before signing my name.

This card was made by my son, for my brother's 21st.
He used some card stock for the main card, with some 'Happy Birthday' backing paper.
He then used a balloon template to create the errr balloon with some red stock paper then inked the edge. He attached some scrap ribbon to create the whole balloon effect. He used a multi 'Happy Birthday' stamp from a See D's collection and used some funky scissors to cut it out before inking the edge. The same applies to the Birthday Cake. He coloured it in with Whispers Brush Pens. He also attached foam numbers then using the Impress Machine and dies he cut out 'STEVEN' before spreading glitter all over the place lol.
He created the inside tag the same way as the two on the front, and the same goes for the tags on the back.

For his birthday I got him an experience day, to go visit a football ground, as I was sending it early and was kinda rushing it, I did not have any wrapping paper in the house, so I dug out an AIRMAIL kit I bought years ago, as I knew it had some plain brown paper in there, plus it was nice and thick and looked good. I jazzed it up a bit with a handmade tag, from said brown paper. I inked the edge with brown ink, cut out STEVEN with my Impress Machine and dies and used a pen to outline the letters, I attached some ribbon top the tag, and used some (christmas) gold curling ribbon to tie it all together as I used flimsy tape on it so the paper could be re-used again!

This mini project was a pain in my backside!
I thought it would be nice for my brother to have as I had sent his birthda pressie early.
I started making it long before his birthday, as I knew it would take forever to make!
The first image shows 'BRO' stamped with stamps from a See D's collection. Image is inked slightly, with a couple of star embellishments and Stickles to highlight some of the lines on the backing paper. Sticky Ribbon attched to the top.
The second image shows a photo of my 'baby' brother, and you can just about see my arm, as I was holding him. This was attached to card, with Stickles used to fill in the white gap, and an inked edge. 4 gem embellishments were added. Sticky Ribbon attached to the top.

The 3rd image shows a plastic 'U R 21' plate embellishment along with some star embellishments and some Stickles applied to several of the dots on the backing paper. Sticky Ribbon attached to the top.
The 4th image shows a cheque holder that I made. 'Happy Birthday' is stamped on to card using a stamp from a See D's Collection. Edge is then inked and bottom is glued on to the inside of the box then using a metal paperclip the cheque is attached. 'Pull Out' is written on to a sticker. Sticky Ribbon is attached at the top.

The 5th image shows an overview where you can see the football shirt that I made from 2 pieces of foam and 2 pieces of card. I drew out the shape on some scrap card, then drew it on to 2 pieces of red foam, cut them out and stuck together (to make it more bulky), then I did the same for the card pieces, but slightly larger. I coloured the card in our team colour. Then added xxx as stitches around the edges, then I wrote his surname, and '21 today'. Added Stickle squiggles.
The 6th image shows the lid and the outer box. I applied the same backing paper to the box. I then inked the top and sides of the card and embossed it with 'Midnight' from create n craft and applied the Sticky ribbon around the top. I drew an 'S' on to some card and embossed that also, before applying it to another embossed circle card.

The 7th image shows the bottom of the box with a small 'Handmade by...' tag, along with the ribbon. I forgot to take a pic of the inside of the lid, but I used black stock paper in it, with a stamped 'Happy Birthday' then I drew tiny stars in gold pen around it.
The 8th image shows the final product with the ribbon and tag. I can't remember if I made the tag or if it's a pre-cut one. I THINK it might be a pre-cut one.
It's a good job I started making it early too, so it had time to be played with, as the lid fit was VERY tight!

My Mother's Day card for this year, and as it is very close to my brother's birthday, I didn't have time to make a new card, so I delved in to my 'previous makes box' and added a few stickers to it, so that I could post it along with my brother's cards.
I have quite a few of these cards, so if anyone wants to buy one, please contact me by leaving me your e-mail address in a comment. (Cards are £3 each, includes P&P) I will e-mail you back details on how to pay. I will post dimensions later.

Goodiesssssssss. I adore getting new goodies! I did get these a while back though when there was a HUGE sale on, and quite a lot of the stuff was only 50p each! Plus I got a buncha Smirk stuff too as I have been dying to get my hands on some since they came out!
Here you can see; two doCrafts magazines with free stickers (25p each!!!!), 3 12x12 funky card -not shown, a pack of 40 mini christmas stamps (for just £5!), Anita's Tacky Glue, 4 pairs of funky scissors (50p each!), 4 packs of Dovecraft Christmas Rose Tinted Shaker embellishments, 5 packs of Christmas backing paper, a wonderful fairy stamp, 2 packs of glue-gun glue, pack of forever friends decoupage card kits, darts and football decoupage card kits, 2x Smirk Ribbon Stickers, 2 Smirk Stamps, 2 Smirk packs of ribbon, Smirk Glitter tags, Smirk embellishment tote and a pack of 12x12 Smirk papers.
Oops almost forgot to mention, all from www.madaboutcards.co.uk and their sister site, craftpoundshop which can be accessed from MAC, you can also purchase items from both places with the same shopping cart.

Finally, a card made by my son for my Uncle, who was in hospital at the time.
He used a green pre-folded card. First he cut a strip of dark green stock paper and glued it in to place then he cut out four petal shapes from different paper stocks, using my hand drawn template. He then attached a dot in the centre of the petals.
Then he used my Impress machine and dies to cut out 'GET WELL SOON' then glued them in to place. Finally he cut out a 'pot' from some stock paper and applied some stickles to give it more definition, then I applied some swirly stickles to the card so it wasn't so plain (he is only 10, he couldn't do that part himself! On the inside, he attached a wallet sized (very recent) school photograph using some easy on, easy off tack, so my Uncle could take it off and put in his wallet later!
My uncle loved the card, and is now recovering well and back at home after 6 weeks in hospital!

I will post recipes for all the projects later, as I will need to rumage in my boxes for some of the items.



*insert siggy here later as it is not working at the moment!*