Happy Birthday Linda!

This is a picture of my friend Linda's birthday card. Her birthday is early next week but tomorrow there are a few of us going out for lunch to celebrate. The card was made with My Mind's Eye - Bloom & Grow. It is a lovely collection with flowers, stems and a little damask all in greens and oranges. I cut the flowers from the middle sized pattern and secured them with eyelets. I stamped a small butterfly in green ink. Hope Linda likes her card. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDA!!!

A friend's birthday present

It wasn't until the other day when I made the post below, that I realized I hadn't posted for over a month! Then it sunk in .... I hadn't done any real crafting for over a month either. As well as time flying, I never seem to have any at the moment, temporarily working full time and all. Well this afternoon I had to craft. As well as Mother's Day coming up on Sunday, I have 2 friends' birthdays over the weekend.

Anyway firstly I wanted to blog the scrapbook page I promised to. I bought a workshop as a birthday present for Alison who I'd previously made the canvas for and this is what we did! It was 12 x 12 acetate, a little sewing, we stamped acetate flowers, we used liquid pearls and learnt how to make some shabby flowers. We didn't have enough time to finish on the night, so last night Alison came over and we spent the evening finish off our projects and had an enjoyable evening. Alison used a picture of the hotel on Burgh Island where she was married to Brian last October. I used a bit more of an older picture of my girls who were then 12 and 9 when they were bridesmaids on our wedding day on 27th May 2005. Where does the time go .....? I hope you like them.

Team Kennard Walks the Walk

After battling to lose weight a good friend of mine Andrea Kennard, I met through crafting nearly 4 years ago is beginning another battle: Along with her 16 year old daughter Sophie who is supporting her, she is in the middle of training for The annual Moonwalk. During the last 8 months, Andrea has been strong enough to lose over 5 stone. After caring for her family through 9 years of illness, sadly, Andrea's friend Marion lost her battle with cancer and she is now the inspiration for Andrea doing the Moonwalk. Andrea is still there for the family Marion left behind. Andrea's full story can be read in Chat magazine at the end of April but if you would like to help Andrea reach her goal and help find the cure for cancer, you are welcome to make a donation. Every little helps. Thank you. http://www.justgiving.com/andreaplussophie

My first canvas

I've taken the plunge once again. This is my very first canvas for a very special friend's birthday coming up this weekend. She is an absolute shopaholic so I thought instead of using my many flower stamps, I would dig out my 'style' stamps of shoes and handbags. I am pleased with the result. I have used the colours of her house - chocolate brown and teal blue - so that it won't be hard to decide where she puts it. (Presuming she likes it that much, of course!!!) I used brown staz-on, sea breeze versamagic, aqua shade petal point inks and walnut stain distress ink. I UTEEd the stampbords after inking and stamping and set them on the canvas with silicone adhesive. I embellished the canvas with adhesive pearl cabouchons from http://www.scrappit.com.au/ where you will find every colour under the sun!!! I hope my friend likes it and I thank you for looking and welcome any comments. Denize

Birds, Bees, Butterflies and trees ... all add up to nature

Happy New Year to everyone! Well, it's certainly been a while and I didn't realize just how long! Thanks for coming back. A lot has happened in the last few weeks. Obviously Christmas which was quiet in this house as I was suffering with a chest infection. It didn't ruin our Christmas, I did what I could in the cooking department and my gorgeous husband Daren enjoyed running around for me! It is much appreciated and although still not 100% better, I am up and about and doing stuff again now including some crafting! I managed to make around 90% of my Christmas cards, which I was really pleased with but some of them were posted in the very last post!!!! I am sure they got to their recipients in the end.

A really brilliant thing that happened to me over Christmas is I won a Cricut Expression from my favourite craft shop http://www.scrapbooksisters.co.uk/ in the raffle. When Daren and I went to pick it up, the lovely sisters, Karen and Julie treated me like a VIP and took some photos. It was so lovely, a huge huge thank you to them. It is brilliant to know it was all for charity too. I never usually win anything and was major chufties. I definitely had to have a tidy up and a move around in my craft room to house it! It is now in pride of place and I cannot wait to experiment and play.

The other thing that I was chuffed about was when I was watching the QVC craft day on 21st December, feeling ill, very low, coughing, weazing and enjoying the whole day of craft, they were demonstrating Sakura gel pens. All of a sudden, I saw my Christmas Card I had sent to Dawn Bibby and she was showing that I had used the pens on the card and how lovely they looked. She opened it and read my name out!!! I was shocked, never expected it, but all the same, flattered. It was one of the ones below with the snowy village. I later received a Christmas card from her.

By now, I have done a little bit of crafting and I thought I would share some piccies with you. This is my fourth tissue box and it is for a very special friend. I won't say too much as she may guess it's for her - she hasn't received it yet! It seemed to take me ages to do - I just kept looking at it, and looking at it, trying to gain inspiration. I got all my stamps out and decided on a 'nature' theme. I made some background paper using Distress Inks and gold Tattered Angels. I firstly cut out all the paper for the sides and top of the box and stamped the images in black Stazon. I inked the same distress inks and stamped some different images on 1-inch stampbord again in black Stazon. I used Walnut stain distress ink on the edges of the tissue box and then put all the paper/stampbord together onto the tissue box. I used some black stones for the owl's eyes. All I have to do now is get a new box of tissues to grace the box!

My snowy village

These are two of the types of cards I have been sending out this year. I stamped the snowy village stamp on patterned paper, cut it out carefully and used white gel pen for the snowy areas. When dry I went over it with a glue pen and covered in glamour dust which is gorgeous uber fine glitter (that gets absolutely everywhere!) but gives a lovely finish. Meanwhile I stamped matching coloured snowflakes onto the card and stamped the icicle words Merry Christmas onto the card. Coloured in the words with matching sukura gel pens and did the same for the snowy tops. I put it altogether and voila ... waited for it to dry!!!

A snowy Christmas

I am not sure it's going to be a snowy Christmas, but one thing's for sure - I hope it is!!! I love Christmas, I think all us Mums love Christmas, the shopping, the Santa visit, choosing the right crackers, Turkey, mince pies, the right colour decorations to go on the tree, and all the fine details. And it's just 14 days to go and still I have only made a dozen Christmas cards! Yikes ... best I get a moving. Well, the good news is, I just have a couple of Christmas prezzies yet to get ... phew, now for the wrapping .......!

Here's another card, made with Hels' Stichels snowman.