MSE Challenge - My Pet Dragon

Made this card for my Godson William for his 6th birthday. 

William truly is a miracle - he was born 11 weeks eaarly back in 2005

After much concern, and lots of love he's now happy 6 year old who loves Star Wars and Lego.  He's a fighter so I've sent him a car with George and his pet dragon on.
The stamp is by elzybells, stripy paper is from the Earth Love Collection at Cosmo Cricket.

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

The art of Crochet?

It's been a long standing ambition of mine to learn to crochet but I keep on trying and getting nowhere.  I rarely see adverts on the tv but spotted one after Christmas for ' The art of Crochet'  It seemed perfect having a dvd with the first edition so I could actually see how it worked rather than have to imagine it from pictures in a mag.  Sadly, everyone else thought it sounded like a good idea too and it was impossible to get hold of.  Mum was put on the case and she tried newsagents across Sheffield to no avail.  And then I struck lucky.
Over on MSE there is a thread called Learning to Crochet and I'd been popping in now again to see if there were any updates on stock availability.  Then a lovely lady on there called magpye offered me her dvd and magazine and promptly sent them off to me.  I've been doing my best ever since to make something impressive but to date have not even mastered casting on neatly enough.  But I'll keep trying!  Nothing beats me in the end!
I made this card to say thank you.  The card blank is pre-printed with gold swirls.  The flower fairy was from 'Lets Make Cards' and the ribbon was from a cracker at Christmas (I'm going to end up on the life of grime at this rate if I don;t learn to start throwing stuff away).  It's not really tied in a bow, I just pushed the ribbon through the hole in the sentimenet but I like the full effect of the 'bow'.  Sometime soon I'm hoping to have crotcheted flowers on my cards.  Some day......

Proud Mum

My son, Tom has taken it upon himself to sell cards in aid of the Haiti earthquake appeal at his school tomorrow.  He's spent yesterday evening and this evening (once he'd finished school and street dance/cross country) making cards and has managed a staggering 31 cards! 

In on the other hand have amade 1.  Pathetic

Here's a linky to his blog so you can have a look at most of his makes - I found 4 more in his box after he'd gone to bed.

I'm really hoping they sell ok as he's put so much work into it. I've told him that in the unlikely event that he doesn't sell them all, to bring them home and I'll hawk them at work and amongst my friends.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Christmas Catch Up part 1 - the cards

Far too busy making things in December to blog them but I like to have my piccies up on blogland so here I go

how many ways can you tie a teabag card?

After making my first teabag crad on Thursday, I've made 2 mote today as am trying to finf the best way of tying them off

The first card - I used a brad and a loop. 

The second, I used ribbon and velcro.  Paper and embellishments from MME Bloom & Grow)

The third I tied the ribbon using the lovely Basic Grey Boxer papers I got from my Granny for Christmas.  This card id for her so it seemed apt.

But which one is best?  There's only one way to find out...........

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FIGHT!!!
or I could ask you lot.  What do you hink?  How do you close yours?

They say it comes in 3s.....

If bad luck comes in 3s and I'm on my 3rd multiple but I was actually talking about my blog posts.  I son;t know you wait a month before posting and then post 3 times in 1 night!


Quick teabag holder card - thanks to CT19720 over on MSE for measurements.
Thanks to Rusty for sending me this gorgous stamp.
Inside there's a bag of twinings traditional English tea and the rhyme:

If I could take your Troubles,

I would toss them in the Sea.
But since I can't, I'm sending you,
My favourite cup of tea.

Paper and brad from stash
Stamp from Rusty coloured in with promarkers
Teabag from the travelodge at Gatwick!

Tweet Tweet

I'm not a birdy person at all - as anyone who's seen me go pale at the sight of a feather will let you know but I really love these little stylised birds from CraftWork Cards..

I made this card to go in the latest parcel sent out to Afghanistan and was very pleased to find that you can colour in the lovely pearlised paper with my promarkers.  You can also colour in their card candy if you have the patience of a saint. I chose to colour in the background and leave the birdie plain.  the card blank is a patterned one from a DCWV stack.

Sis has now confirmed she's got it so I can post it on here.  Even better she says that the minstrels I sent out survived the journey and haven't melt.  In her own words "they are, alas, no more!"

Wedding Cards + MSE Cutoffs Challenge

My box of cards at work ran out of wedding type cards just before I went on holiday so I thought I'd better make some more - I made the white card first but liked it so much I made a variation on the theme.  The pewter card is pearlescent - don;t know if that shows up too well and the die-cuts are by Lily of the Valley. 

I also made an anniversary type card.  Which I thought could also be used for an engagement.

Then another notebook - not so happy with this one - didn't occur to me that if I punched the bottom it would mean that paper would show quite that much - will have to remember to punch before sticking it to the pad next time!

And finally, my MSE challenge card to make a card from off-cuts from other projects.  I hope this counts - most of my cards are from off-cuts anyway - its very rare that I start a new piece of paper off.  Anyhow, I've been cutting any small scraps into squares for a while now as I've been meaning to do a mosaic effect on a scrapbook page.  The letters are off-cuts too in a way as they're cut out on the cuttlebug from a die that has 4 letter per die so you end up cutting out more letters than you actually need. You can see a 'P' and an 'H' came from the wedding cards and notepad above.  I keep them all in a box and was hoping they'd "come in useful" - and they have - although I did have to cut an 'A' and a 'Y' out I was short of those - I'm hoping those 2 letters will count as the die-cut I'm supposed to be using as part of the challenge.

3 cards in one night

Blimey! I've had one of those realisation moments where you know you have a lot of things to do but don't actually realise how much until you write them down.

So I've crossed a few cards of the 'to-do- list.

First up, a card for a friends Nan - thanks to the MSE girls for their help in giving me some inspiration for this card. You can't get much more inspirational than a page of templates and a picture to copy. There are 2 views of this card as it is supposed to be a shaped card but it seemed a bit wobbly so I've mounted it on a card blank for stability.

Secondly, a baby card for the same friend Her friend is due to have a baby boy whilst I'm on holiday so I said I'd get it ready before I left just in case.

Thirdly, a dinosaur card for my nephew. Guess how old he will be? It's not actually his birthday until September but his mum has to go away for a few months for her job so she'll miss his "official birthday". He's going to be like the queen and have 2 birthdays this year.

Birthday Cards

I've sold a few birthday cards from my box at work so I need to do some topping up.

The purple card uses papermania papers and sentiments.

The other cards are the easiest ones I can make - using a cuttlebug embossed die and pre embossed card blanks.

Mels Card for Baby Elliot

I made this card for the Melissa on the MSE cards forum to celebrate her new addition Elliot. He's gorgeous.

It was also my entry to the most recent challenge over there - thanks to Rainmac for putting me in the draw without seeing my card I didn't want to post it on here until Mel received it.

Checked paper is from papermania, pastel floral is baby bee by crate paper, blue dots is my last scrap from a sheet of DCWV. Semtiment printed from word and layered on a scalloped oval that I received from dragonllew in the latest crafty place stash swap.

Nearly belated........

Bimey 0 just when I thought I was getting on top of this card to-do list I realised that its one of my bestest friends Birthday tomorrow. Phew - I'd have been so cross with mysaelf if I'd missed it.

"&son" and I have spent a lovely evening in our nowhere near complete craft room having a chatter and a "make". Once again, I'm banned from posting his creation as he wants to do it himself. That boy is going to have a lot of blogging to do when he gets around to it.

Mines here - it's very bright and, rather unusually for me, I love it!

Papers are all by 3 bugs in a rug, paper flowers from Calico craft. Bling from poundland.

Blatant Fraud!

This card has caused a bit of a dilemma.........

It's for "&son"'s friends birthday but he didn't quite have time to finish it. He did the stamping and the cutting out but just didn't have time to make it up in a card so I was left with instructions to do it on his behalf "Follow the picture of the one I did for Mr Colclough".

I suppose it's something that happens all the time in the world of art. Damien Hirst used to employ people to paint his dots and that pop art guy ( whose name I can never remember - the 15 mins of fame one ) had loads of people doing the hard work for his art.

I was determined to do it as best I could rather than try and make it look like the work of an 8 year old but then messed it all up. I think his original is better.

And I'd like to thank......

Don't worry, I'm not going to do a Gwinnie Paltrow and burst into sobs (well I might - I've just realised there is no alcohol in the house but thats by-the-by).

"& Son" and I had a mammoth craft session today to get all the thank you cards and gifts for school done as he breaks-up tomorrow.

He's going to post the things he's made on his blog tomorrow so I won't steal his thunder but I did make this card for the lady who looks after him on the school bus. It's my entry to the MSE 'embossed' challenge. I embossed the card rather than papers and covered up the slight edge where the folder didn't meet with the border at top and bottom.

SO don't forget tune in tomorrow to see what "& son made" - I've also got a couple of things to post which I can't show yet as they're gifts to be given tomorrow so I may be able to post them too.

Seasons Greetings!

Apparently some people are organised enough to be doing Christmas cards now - I on the other hand have only just organised my childcare for the school holidays which start on Friday.

The MSE challenge this time was to make a Christmas card so I thought I'd better try and get in the spirit of things.

I've used a papermania card blank, penny black stickeroos for the image and sentiment and couldn't resist a bit of embossing and cutting with the cuttlebug (although you can hardly see the embossing but I know its there). Guess who received her circle frame dies today!?

Merry Christmas!

Louisa

x

Sure and Steadfast

I've made this thank you card for the lovely lady who runs the anchor boys at my son's BB company. He's been promoted to the heady heights of junior now so he's leaving her behind.

The boy on the left is wearing anchor colours, the boy on the right , junior colours and he's supposed to look a bit like Tom - well he has got messy hair!

I love the paper dolls cartidge on the cricut - only a few months until I can borrow it again. The letters were cut out on my cuttlebug - my first attempt at die cut alphas.

Deja Vu

Some of you may think that you've seen this shadow frame before - well you'd be right - I think I posted it for opinions prob on MSE before giving it. I gave it to my friend for her birthday but asked her to return it with some of the things she'd saved from her wedding - didn't seem quite right for me to be choosing what was in there. She returned it with a bag of bits and bobs and this is the final result as is now hanging on her stairs wall.

You may have seen this card before too but in another guise. I made 3 cards and hated them all so they've been sat on my desk ever since. I''m currently picking them apart and trying again. Bit happier second time around but still think there's something missing.

Oh no! Not another pocket card

These poscket cards are "all the rage" over on the MSE cards forum so I thought I'd have a go with a slight twist. I wanted to say thanks to my friend Emma for letting me 'look after' her cricut for her whilst she was on holiday and also for buying me some embossing folders for my cuttlebug whilst she was out there. So I've made a thank you pocket card but instead of putting the inner card in I've done her a few embossed pieces of card and card blanks (as she doesn't have cuttlebug). Papers are basic grey - Infuse;Spice (foreground) and purify (background. Lettters are also basic grey - sugared.

Thanks to Crafts by Carolyn for the template.

The other card is a goodbye card for a colleague who is leaving work to start a phd - one of those tricky male cards but I think its ok. Main paper is Crate Paper; Static-Reaction