Let it Shine

So, my plan for this years Christmas card was that I would come up with a design and do them all the same.  Brilliant idea!
I went to a papercraft show at the Doncaster Domw and saw this amazing glitter and thought I'd make a simple black card with a glittery white snowflake on.  Another good idea.
And then it all went wrong, I ran out of time,  I couldn;t get the glitter to work properly, the black and white paper I'd bought to use on the cards wasn't the same white as the snowflakes. 
So
I only made 2 of this type but have carried on the snowflake theme.
I'd like to enter this collecion for the OAP1945's MSE Challenge - Let it shine - as they're all sparkly.

Sorry these last 2 are sideways - I tried to rotate them but blogger was having none of it and am just too tired to argue tonight!

The Prodigal Daughter

I have been a very bad blogger - months since my last post but I hope you'll accept me back.  I can't promise I'll be any better but I'll have a go.
I made myself a coaster advent calendar but then lost the camera and hung around for days hoping to blog it but finally gave up this morning and took it into work.  Guess what I found this evening!

So here is an amended version that I've made as a gift for a colleague who lurves her holidays.  She keeps a little slip of paper on her desk to countdown the days until her next one.  This is to countdown the last 4 working weeks before her hols.  We count "get-ups".

My little baby is 10

This was a bit of a last-minute card as we were away just before Tom's birthday but I think it's come out quite well - it's loosely based on the brilliant Helen's 9 squarre cards.  Everything football related is strictly 'blue&white' in my son;s eyes so I cut 1 inch scallopped squares in white and 1.25" in blue on my cricut (storybook cartridge).  The puffy stickers were from accessorize.  Ribbon from stash.  Sentiment hand-written.

Yum yum yum  and yes, it did taste as good as it looks!

More bunting

I'm persevering with my attempt to give a homemade gift for everyones birthday this year and have only slipped once so far (but I haven't forgotten that project - they will get it eventually!)

My latest effort was for darling Kitty who is now 2.

The colours hopefully match her bedroom - altho that is based from memory - fingers crossed everyone!

The lettering and animals are cut on my cricut using the zooballoo cartridge.  I couldn't quite decide what to do to the background of the paper but plumped for stamping in the end - mainly because I wasn't convinced that anyone would recognise the 'Y' as a 'Yak'. ;-)

The stars in each corner were a compromise solution as my stoopid crop-a-dile refuses to set eyelets.  I figured they would be less likely to tear over the holes if the sticker was there as a reinforcer and stars were all I had in (very) roughly the right colour.

Kitty's Mum has texted today to say it will go beautifully and she is planning to laminate each pennant so it lasts "forever".

Not quite a wedding towel cake.

I'm going to a wedding on Saturday and didn't really fancy anything on the wedding list so with my normal disregard for whether I actually have time to do it or not, I decided I would make my own gift.  This started off as a very vague idea - it was going to be a towel cake but then I spotted these bargain scrapbooks in Home Bargains (where else) for £3.99 I think but they might have even been £2.99 and I just couldn't resist.

So I decided to make a scrapbook for the couple to use to put their informal photos, etc in.  Again, this remained a vague thought until I had a panic last week and realised I had less than 2 weeks to go.  YIKES!!!! I arranged to go to my friends house for a crafty morning on Sunday and didn't actully do any making but this is the result of some serious planning - helped along by the fact that she has oodles and oodles of beautiful stash to inspire me.  So a big thanks upfront to Emma G for the teeny tiny buttons and the flower punches used on this project.  I'm going to give it with a pack of photo corners and sticky squares to help them along.

The front is coverd with Basic Grey - Blush :Cherish

Pastel pearls to give a bit of a lift

Glossy accents on all the hearts - well it is for a wedding

The button heart is in an aperture - more accurate rendering of the colours here

Inside page showing through the aperture is here....

The wording is cut from the Storybook cartridge on my cricut as is the fram which is cut from a sheet of coredinations jewel.  The backing paper is bazzill dotted swia.  Letter shadowns cut from KI Memories 1821 - Posh Word Play and the letters themselves from some paper from my stash pile.

I made the little flowers from all the offcuts with the middle from a viva pearl pen bought from the craft den.

And finally a few close-ups for those not already asleep ;-)

I'd like to enter this in the Creative Craft World Challenge - Weddings

May is Perry Birthday month

So my brother-in-law's gift is out of the way and ready to be given on Saturday when we meet up for "CampBrocklebank IV" our annual family camping trip.  My Mum takes her motorhome, my sister's family her caravan and I usually take my tent but the site we have chosen this year doesn't accept them so I'm slumming it in the motorhome.  Then we have a week of horrendous weather and come home.  We've had snow, high-winds, torrential rain, the lot!  But the kids love it and its nice to get everyone together for a week.  My other Sis is popping over from Germany for a little while too and we'll be nearer my Gran (who is still in hospital after her stroke - but definitely on the mend) so I should be able to get over and visit her.

So May is Perry Birthday month because my b-i-l, sister and nepher (all Perrys) have their birthdays within 3 weks of each other.  I'd hoped to make them all a little something but have had to admit defeat with my nephew - he's just gonna have to mae do with a "Woody" dressing up costume.  Let's be honest, he's 5 - he really won;t care what he gets.

Which leaves my sis.  I swore I would not make any more button necklaces after my first attempts - they're just too darn fiddly but both my sisters have been nagging me so I'll probably have to make anothe one before I can unstick my fingers from the superglue and hang up the blunt edge pliers for good.

It's quite hard to tell from the pic but the buttons are muted blues and a silvery grey.  The box is made from a sheet from LLB Venaissance.

and wrapped up

My sisters have also both asked for a ribbon brooch.  I'm still trying to perfect the flowers on these but I think they're getting a bit better.

and here is her card

A beautiful gorjuss girl - my sister is so special I even used a sheet of my Cosmo Cricket "Earth love" for this one.  Rub-ons are by American craft.   Sentiment from Craftword Cards.  The little flowers are off cut's from a corner punch - I must have had them in a little pot on my desk for at least a year - I knew they'd come in handy eventually

Better crack on with the housework now - 11.12pm - is probably not a good time to start tho 

My exciting Sunday afternoon

Wow wasnt it great weather at the weekend ~(if you like that kind of thing) I'm not a big fan of getting hot so whilst everyone else enjoyed barbecues, I sat in my craft room on the shady side of the house (with the window wide open as a nod to the weather)

I spent the afternoon making this pressie for my b-i-l.  His birthday was earlier in the month but I won;t see him until this weekend.  I asked my sis what he would like and she said "sweeets" - so here they are!  The hobby case was from Home Bargains (where else!) and cost £2.99 I think. 

So this is the exciting bit, I found out that my cricut and my cuttlebug will both cut sticky back plastic.  I had a roll with sweeties on to cover the top of my ex-classroom storage unit and I've now found a way to use up the off-cuts.  The letters are cut from the cricut (Opposites attract cart) the sweeties from Celebrations Cart. 

I've covered the inside too

And I've sealed the pretzel bags that the lovely Rusty sent me using Nesties labels. 

Hopefully he'll let me help him eat them - I love those toasted teacakes!

One for the boys

I love this digi stamp from little musings - because it reminds me of my nephews and also a photo I have of my son in a teepee in our garden - ok it was made with a tablecloth and 3 canes but that was good enough for him so it'll do me too.
The card is for my bil - Dad to said nephews.

image by little musings coloured with promarkers (another one coloured in our journey through Europe last month)
matting from stash
sentiment and card candy from Craftwork cards

I'd like to enter it into the following challenges
MSE - B's challenge (spurious I know but it is blue and has boys on it - that's the best I can manage)
Cards for men - Outdoors
DareU2DigiStamp - Anything Goes
StampChallenges - Birthday somethings
Stampin for the weekend - A card for a male

Get Well Soon!

My good pal Rusty from the MSE card forum has been in a great deal of pain recently and has, thankfully I think, been taken into hspital to try and help her a bit.  I've made this card to try and cheer her up using a freebie digi from "Meljens designs".  Life seems to have been throwing her a lot of lemons recently ;-)

The background papers are from basic grey - cupcake, the ribbon, flowers, sentiment and snaps from my stash.  I made my own ribbon slider using a nestie cut oval and some judicious slits with my craft knife.

Whilst I was in the middle of that my Mum called to say my Granny has been taken into hospital with a suspected stroke.  She was due to go on holiday tomorrow poor love  but hopefully they'll be able to get her back on her feet in time for her birthday party in July.
I couldn't resist using my new cricut cartridge - paisley - for this one.  I love Russian dolls - you'll be seeing many more of these on my creations!

Get well wishes to anyone else who needs them - I'm hoping I won't have to make any more get well cards for a long while.

WOYWW Compare and contrast

I had very good intentions last week (don't we all) and took my WOYWW pics but then never got time to blog them.  So this week I had a cunning plan.  I was forced offline for a couple of days due to a fault on my modem and decided to make good use of my time yesterday evening by tidying my desk so I could do a compare and contrast from one week to the next.  Sadly, I forgot that I needed to finish off some invitations today so you can't actually tell the difference.  Hey-ho - I know it was tidy yesterday and that's got to be worth something

Last Wednesday

This Wednesday

So on my desk today I have some (finally)  completed invitations for my Granny's 85th birthday party.  This is my first batch of invitations (and possibly my last) and I've learnt a lot of lessons on the way.

Lesson 1 - don't get stranded in Germany due to the Icelandic volcanic ash thus severely reducing the amount of time you have available.

Lesson 2 - Plan.  Even if you are short of time it's worth the effort - I think I was finally happy with my design around invitation 25 (of 27).

Lesson 3 - If you accept help from a 9year old boy, you will not have straight edges.  Get over it, it's not that important.

Lesson 4 - don't trust glue runners that you bought from a euro shop. 

Lesson 5 - it's worth saving those little pieces of paper - most of the matting on the invites is from off-cuts.

Anyway. they're done now - teabag cards because it's an afternoon tea party

The teapot stamp is from craftwork cards, the cakes cut from sweet treats cricut cartridge and all those teapots have been coloured in hand.

Better dash - I have envelopes to address, a birthday card (that's already late) to make, a get-well card to make, a house to tidy and a presentation to write before I go to bed. 

Completed Layout from Craft Den Scrapbooking Class

Before going on holiday I managed to make it to the Thursday night scrapbook class at the craft den.  I'd love to make the classes more often but struggle with childcare. 
Lynne came up with this design for us to work with.  If we'd have been at school I would have been in the remedial class, struggling with the pearl pens, messing up paper, etc etc but thanks to Lynne I came away with a nealy fnished page. (and a template for that lovely concertina butterfly.  The background paper is plain - we made the pattern using a doily and some tim holtz distress inks.  Will be trying that again just as soon as my inks arrive from the US.
I completed it today and it now has pride of place on my mantelpiece.  The only extra I've added is the heading - because I chickened out of journalling again.  It's taken from a Cosmo Cricket Strip-tease from the Gretl range.

The picture is of my darling boy aged about 3 and he's actually trying to catch a bubble.  I loved the Martha Stewart punch so much that I've asked my friend to buy me one from America.  The pearls on the swirls are made with a Viva Pearl Pen which would have been my favouritest thing n the workd if I hadn't just taken delivery of my cricut expression.

The trickiest type of card......

..........a card for a fellow card maker.

I've been down to visit my Granny over Easter.  It was lovely, we took her out for a couple of day trips, ate too much chocolate, lost &son for 45 minutes on Aldburgh beach (ok that wasn't fun - I was nearly frantic - he's decided to go and have a look around a classic car show whilst I turned my back to help Granny on to the prom with her 'walker').
Granny had proudly displayed the Mothers Day Card I'd made for my Mum to give to her and a card made by my Aunt for Mothers Day.  My Aunt is very talented but you know how sometimes, you can appreciate someones work but it's just not to your taste.
Like a fool, I offered to make a card for Granny to give t my Aunt on her upcoming birthday - I thought it would save her a trip to the shops but as soon as I got home I realised the enormity of the task ahead - Anyhow, I've tried to keep it true to my style and I'm sure she'll think it's very simple and won;t be able to tell that I've spent a whole evening fretting over it as it looks like it was thrown together.  Hey-ho, life's too short.

spotty paper - Crate Paper

Stamped image from Crafty Place Stash Swap,

Lettering - Bloom (Sizzix Sizzlets)

While I'm hear, I'll just quickly post the pics of some Easter baskets I made for the girls at work.  How cute are those bunnies.  Thanks Mr Cricut!

Ooh and some very exciting news, well I think so, I've just agreed to purchase my very own expression machine from a lady on ukscrappers.  Technically it's 3rd hand because she bought it from the marketplace herself but it comes with 10 cartridges.  I'd have only been able to afford 3 for the same money new. 

Yay! I've got the cricut again

I'm so obsessed with cricut's now - not far enough having saved enough money now to buy my own but luckily I have a good friend who was willing to let me look after hers whilst she is on holiday.  I really wanted to borrow it for cutting out the numbers and letters for the cards below - it's so time consuming to cut them out by hand.
One of my best friends asked me to make these months ago but I've run pretty close to the wire - they're for her Grandad's 90th birthday next week - one from her and one from her Mum.  The brief was simple - hers had to have 90 and Grandad on.  The other should have 90 on it too, preferably with Dad and maybe with some kind of musical theme.

So here they are

Background paper  Bella Boulevard - Sweet Celebration

Shapes cut from 'Sweet Treats' Cricut cartridge (5 inch) using coredinations cardstock.

Alphas by Pink Paislee

Card Candy

Letters and numbers cut from stash leftover paper using cricut 'Winter Woodland) 3 inch numbers and 2.5 inch letters.

Front background coredinations embossed with Cuttlebug 'happy birthday'

Manuscript paper - from stash - left over from my GCSE music (circa 1990)

The music is 'happy birthday - badly done by hand

Balloons by Jolees

And the winner is.....(Drumroll please)

I'm delighted to confirm that "&son" and I completed our sport relief mile in a respectable time and with relatively respectable levels of gasping for air from me as I crossed the finish line.

Before.........

And After .........

In total we raised over £425 and this blog candy alone brought in £30+ so a huge thanks to all of you who took part whether by donating or spreading the word (or both)
I collated the donations and comments as follows
1. Donor1
2. Tiny Pablo
3. Donor 2
4. Donor 3
5. Happy Days
6. Donor 4
7. Marg
8. Rainmac
9. Ucca
10. Ali
11. Aneha
12. Winged
13. Dragonllew
14. Donor 5
15. Rusty
16. Sarah
17. Rosa
18. Fata
19. Artydoll
20. Glittermum

And then left it up to random.org

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1

Max: 20

Result: 5

Powered by RANDOM.ORG

So the lucky winner is Happy Days!
 
Drop me an email to louisadawn at googlemail.com and let me know your address.  I'll post as soon as I can.
 
Thanks everyone for taking part.
Louisa

REMINDER - My Blog Candy Closes tomorrow!

Hello all - its the big race tomorrow.  YIKES!

And my blog candy will close tomorrow evening too.

I've done my last training session and finally managed to do 1 mile in training on a treadmill - 10 mins 38 secs and to give you an idea of just how hard I found it, after finishing and walking slowly for 1 minute to 'cool down' my heart rate was still 166 bpm!

Please remember - you'll be entered into the draw whether you sponsor us or not - I know a lot of you will probably be supporting other people too so don't be shy.
If you donate online I receive an email advising me so you don't have to mention it if you'd rather not in your comment.

And a huge thanks to everyone who has supported us so far 'Team Dawn' currently has £366 of pledges/donations.

100th Post! Anyone for candy?

I'm not the worlds most prolific blogger so this is something of a milestone for me.

To celebrate I have some blog candy on offer - tell all your friends - the more the merrier

There are 6 sheets of MME papers - 3 from bloom & grow and 3 from wild asparagus

3 sheets of wild asapargus die-cuts

7 co-ordinating flowers

Some glue dots

A sheet of DCWV sentiments

A pack of coordinating snaps

Ooh yes - and the most important thing - a pair of Sports Relief socks!

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is create a link from your blog to mine to tell all your friends about it and leave a comment below this post.

My son and I are running the sports relief mile next Sunday.  I'm fairly confident this will be the first time I've run a mile since Primary School (if I've ever done it before at all). 

We would really appreciate it if you would consider sponsoring us via our 'just giving' page here.  Anyone who is kind enought to sponsor us will be entered into the draw twice (including you kind ladies who have already done so)

I'll do the draw next Sunday evening after the race

Button Necklaces

 I've finally knuckled down and got those button necklaces completed - one for my cousins 18th which wa sSaturday and one for my Mum for Mothers Day

Aimee's card and necklace

Background Paper - Basic Grey Blush
Numbers cut from coredinations gemstones
Ribbon and charm from stash

I made the gift box as well using my costco paper

Mum's necklace was made more for the colours she already has in her wardrobe

Again the paper for the box was from Costco

And her Mothers day card -

background paper Crate Paper Blue Sky

Letters cut from coredinations gemstones and embossed with daisies on the cuttlebug.

Ribbon and card candy flower from stash