Quirky Crafts Challenge 16

I'm a bit late putting this on here. It was supposed to go on last weekend! Whoops.

The challenge this week has been set my Julia and is to make a project with a "Masculine Theme"

I made two cards for the challenge. The first one is for a birthday I have coming up next month. I've used a Penny Black Stamp and papers by Hot Off the Press.

The second card I made for my Uncle Don whose birthday was on Wednesday. The papers again are by Hot Of The Press. The bear stamp is by Judith at Stamp Addicts. The rod is a die cut by Go Kreate which I shortened slightly to fit better on the car and I hung a little silver fish charm on the end of the line.

If you'd like to join in with this weeks challenge you can find more details, including what the prize is, here.

Hope to see you there!

Manchester United Card

I was asked to make a card for a 7 year old called Jack who likes football. The trouble with football cards is that you need to know which team they support because if you use the wrong colours that's not good! Anyway I found out that Jack is a Man U fan so a black, white and red theme it was!



I used a set of stamps that my mum gave me a while ago and this is the first time I've used them. They are by a company called onefourzero and are a really good set of stamps if you are into football. The scarf is just plain and I stamped "United" onto it. The T-shirt I stamped onto red card and then stamped a 7 onto it. The shorts I stamped onto white card and then added the red stripes with a Marvey Le Plume pen. The football and the boot at the bottom are also part of the stamp set. The Happy 7th Birthday are all Go Kreate Dies which I used in my Cuttlebug and the ovals were done using Nestabilities in the same machine. The Jack was done using a Quickutz alphabet also in the Cuttlebug.

For the inside I used a Happy Birthday stamp by Papermania and the football borders are from the onefourzero set.

Just a little proud mummy moment to finish off with. My daughter's class have been reading the script for their Christmas Nativity to see who is going to have which part this year. As they are the eldest infant class they all get parts on the stage but they all get to read through the script like at a play reading so the teachers can get a feel for who would be best to do what.

The show is called "Whoops-a-Daisy Angel" and is about a little Angel who is always late and untidy and never gets very special jobs to do like the other Angels. Anyway she ends up getting a very important job to go and tell the shepherds that a special baby has been born and for once she does the job well and she gets three cheers at the end.

Ellie came out of school on Tuesday and told me she has been given the part of Whoops-a-Daisy Angel. She's been given a script so that we can help her practise her lines at home. It is such a cute story. We're so proud of her. I can't wait to see it now!!

Thinking Of All The British Soldiers

THE FINAL INSPECTION

The soldier stood and faced God, Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining, Just as brightly as his brass.

'Step forward now, you soldier, How shall I deal with you ?
Have you always turned the other cheek? To My Church have you been true?'

The soldier squared his shoulders and said, 'No, Lord, I guess I ain't.
Because those of us who carry guns, Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays, And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent, Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny, That wasn't mine to keep....
Though I worked a lot of overtime, When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help, Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me, I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place, Among the people here.
They never wanted me around, Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord, It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much, But if you don't, I'll understand.

There was a silence all around the throne, Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly, For the judgment of his God.

'Step forward now, you soldier, You've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets, You've done your time in Hell


Thinking of all the British soldiers

Thank You Card

I made this thank you card for my Mum. We went over to Bradford yesterday to see her and my Auntie Ann and I took it with us to give to her. We had a really lovely day complete with chocolate cake! Yum. The papers are by Hot Off The Press and the image is of course a Tilda by Magnolia. I embossed part of the backing paper using a Cuttlebug embossing folder in my Cuttlebug. I made some extra flowers using different sized paper punches. I added detail with adhesive gems and a flower charm and pearl brad.

Halloween Treats

I made these little treat bags for Josh and Ellie. We're not going "Happy Halloweening" this year as we've been invited to a Halloween party at a friend's house so I thought I'd make some treat bags just for them.

I have used my favourite Penny Black Halloween stamp which I've coloured with Twinkling H2Os. The circles have been made using Nestablities in my Cuttlebug. The chocolate is all from Thorntons.

I hope the kids like them.

and the best thing is I can enter them into this weeks Penny Black Challenge which is "Halloween" Hooray!

Quirky Crafts Challenge 15

This week Anne has set the Quirky Crafts Challenge. Anne chose to do a recipe challenge. You have to use:
1 Ribbon
2 shades of pink
3 Eyelets

I made two cards for this challenge. The first one I used lots of Cuttlebug embossing folders and lovely Sugar Nellie stamp.
The second one I used some duck paper that I've had since the earliest days of crafting and a gorgeous Penny Black image that someone sent me which I coloured with Twinkling H2Os.

I made the second card as I thought the first one turned out a bit plain but I think they are both ok.

If you would like to take part in this fortnights challenge you can find more details here.

Hope to see you there.

Leaving Card

When Ellie started back at school in September she had a stand in teacher as her regular teacher was off on sick leave. However the regular teacher has now been given a clean bill of health and is taking over again after half term. Sadly this means that the stand in teacher had her last day on Friday. I made her this card as a leaving card, I also made her an altered After Eight Mints box but I stupidly forgot to photograph it before Ellie took it in to give to her.

The papers for this are all by My Minds Eye. The image is by Woodware and I did paper piecing to colour it except for the puddles which I did with Twinkling H2Os and blue stickles. The flowers I made myself using paper punches of different sizes.

You know (in the crafting world) they say there is no such thing as mistakes only happy accidents? Well this card had a lot of "Happy Accidents" The orange spotty strip was supposed to go underneath the image but I managed to get glue on it and when I tried to rub it off it made a right mess. To disguise it I put the strip over the top instead and then added punched leaves to give it a little bit of something. Also while I was inking the edges of the spotty backing paper I slipped and put a big green smudge down it so I had to cover that with the punched flowers. I still think it's looks ok though and if I don't tell anyone they'll never know! :-)

Shhhhhh!

Foxy Loxy

I made this card for my friend Melissa whose birthday was on Tuesday. I used the gorgeous My Minds Eye papers and rubs on and my adorable little fox stamp by Imaginisce. He's so cute! The circles are Nestabilities used in the Cuttlebug of course. We had Josh's parents evening on Thursday. We didn't get very much out of his teacher but she feels he has settled in well and is doing ok.

We did go and see a presentation on a residential stay they want all the year 7 kids to go on to a centre in Wales. It looks fabulous but we were a bit worried about how Josh would cope with it all. We managed to speak with the guy who is the Director of Student Services at the school and he was great. He was talking about meeting up with all the 20 parents that have kids with special needs and finding out what things they need to be made aware of for each individual child so that their needs will be met while they are away at the centre. (I'd better start making notes now!)

It was all very reassuring and such a nice change to have someone wanting Josh to go and not miss out and genuinely interested in finding out what Josh's needs are so that he can go on the trip rather than being grateful that he's not going so they don't have to deal with a "problem child."

I think if, after we had spoken to him, we'd still said that we were unsure the guy would have kept us there and kept talking until he had managed to convince us to say yes. lol. It really is a whole different attitude to what we've been used to...

...and I love it!

Christmas Is Coming!

Not the best photo in the world as the sun was shining in the wrong direction. I should have taken the photo this morning when the light was better. Ho hum.

I made this card using my Forever Friends Christmas papers and as luck would have it, it qualifies for this week's Forever Friends Challenge.

I used the sheets to make a decoupaged image of the bear and then used the off cuts to make the squares. I think it's turned out really cute.

We had Ellie's parents evening on Wednesday. She got a glowing report and is doing fabulously well. She's only 6 and has a reading age of a 9 year old and a spelling age of 8. Her teacher says that Ellie is always keen and enthusiastic and tries hard at everything. We came away very proud of her. Josh has his parents evening next Thursday, fingers crossed that his is as glowing.

Quirky Crafts Challenge 14

This weeks Quirky Crafts challenge is Halloween or Autumn if you don't celebrate Halloween. I went a bit over board and made quite a few for this one as I love Halloween and my Dad bought me the cat Halloween stamp for Christmas last year and I've been desperate to use it ever since.

I used a cuttlebug embossing folder to make the Halloween circle background which doesn't show up very well in this photo but you can see it better in some of the others.

On this card I used embossing borders on the edges then I used the "Boo to You" embossing folder on some Core'dinations card, cut out the spider circle using a small nestabilities circle then used some sandpaper to take off some of the black to let the purple of the core come through and show up the embossing better.

This little mouse is another Penny Black but my mum gave me this one recently. I think it's so cute.

The "Boo" for this one I originally wanted to do bigger on my Cricut but unfortunately it has decided to stop working altogether now. It did take about 5 hours to warm up but it did come on eventually however it was on for a whole day and although the green light was on under the power button it never sprang into action. My Cricut has officially given up on me. Thank heaven's for my 'Bug it came to the rescue for me and did a little "Boo" instead. You've gotta love that Bug!

If you'd like to join in with this fortnights Quirky Crafts Challenge you can find more details here.

See you there!

Just For You

I am on a mission to use up images that I have been sent by lovely blogging friends. I have such a big stash and because they are images I don't have myself I never think "Oh I'll use that one" I always think of the stamps I already have. So I have all these lovely images sitting in my "Stamped Images box" (old ice cream tub) that I never think to use.

At the moment every time I start to make a card I get out my images tub and have a look through to see what I can use and for this card I chose these adorable Pennyblack Hedgehogs which I teamed up with some free papers from a magazine. It's the new Quirky Crafts challenge tomorrow so please make sure you come back to see what our next challenge is. I'm sure it's one you'll love and everyone can join in with.

Back tomorrow!

Happy Birthday Card

I made this card using free papers from a craft magazine. The image is one I was given by a blogging friend which I've coloured with Twinkling H2Os. I added a small Happy Birthday peel off to the edge of the circle of the stamped image to finish.

My mum and auntie are over visiting today, they nearly didn't come as Ellie is off school with a tummy bug and I wasn't sure if they wanted to run the risk of catching it but they decided they would still come anyway. Ellie seems fine in herself but she keeps having stomach cramps and her numbers twos aren't quite right if you know what I mean?! I'm hoping she will be back to normal tomorrow as it seems a shame for to miss school when she's ok to play but just can't trust her body. Poor little thing, last week she was off school because she was being sick and now it's the other end! I'm wondering if it's part of the same bug or whether she's caught this one after being run down from the sickness one. To top that off everyone except me is full of cold too. I guess it's just that time of year. lol.

5th Birthday Card

My friend asked me if I would make a card for her daughter Evie who is going to be 5 next month. As Evie is having a chocolate party Denise wanted a chocolate themed birthday card for her and couldn't find one in the shops. So I took on the challenge! :-)

I used my Cricut to make the over sized chocolate muffin for Tilda to sit on. I ran the bottom layer of the muffin through a paper ribbler to make the muffin case have some texture to it then layered the top of the muffin over that on foam pads for a 3d effect. The chocolate sweets were also done on the Cricut. I added a flower to the centre of one and for the other I stamped out a Happy Birthday circle stamp then used my Nestabilities circle die to cut round it. I did a scalloped circle layer for it to sit on and then attached it all to the sweet adding a number 5 to the centre.

The swirls are a Sizzix die which I added pearls and flowers to. The letters for "Evie" are by K&Co and the papers are from a scrap booking kit but I can't remember who made them.

For the inside I used the same Tilda but cut her down to just the circle of her head and shoulders. I used the same papers from the scrapbooking kit and added another Cricut sweet to finish it off.

Ellie told me she thinks Evie's card is lovely so I'm pretty sure Evie will too. :-)

Christmas Cards

These are the last two Christmas cards I made while the electricity was off. As I'd used up all the fairies I started using the reindeer and polar bear die cuts from Lili of the Valley instead. The papers are a mixture of Lili Of the Valley and Cricut Christmas papers. Again they are very simple cards as these are for Ellie's class mates.

Poor Ellie is off school today. She started being sick on Saturday night and although she wasn't sick all day Sunday she was sick again this morning at 5.45am. So the poor little mite is snuggled up on the sofa under her fleecy blanket watching DVD's. We'll see how she goes today. Get well soon baby girl.

Quirky Crafts Challenge 13

The Quirky Crafts Challenge is back!!!! This week it's my challenge! How fab is that? So I know you are all going to rush over and join us this week aren't you?!

My Challenge is "Out and About" so there is lots of room for interpretation and I'm sure everyone has got something in their stash that would cover this one. If you would like to join us for the challenge you can find all the details (including a photo of the prize) here.

I thought I would use my new Fishing Bear Die cut for this one. I've had these Fishing papers by Dovecraft for a while now and the bear (who also doubles up as Fairy Bear). The fishing hat, rod, and fish are all part of the new die cut set my mum bought me at the Harrogate craft show a couple of weeks back. I attached the fish to a bit of cotton thread so that he dangles down from the rod.

Papers: Dovecraft

Equipment: Cuttlebug ~ Boo Bear, Fishing Bear and "Happy Birthday" Go Kreate Dies