Candy!!!

Have a look at the great candy from Stampin Fluffnstuff:

Prima Springtime 6x6 Paper Stack

Rose Petal Seam Binding

Flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts
Lili of the Valley Stamp

Hurry up! It closes at 12.30pm GMT, on Saturday 23 April

Wizard

Apologies for the lack of posting - life has been busy, or busier than usual, I should say :-)  I did get to do a tiny bit of crafting in between bottles and nappies - a gift box for a newborn girl, which hopefully I will be able to post soon (as soon as I get the time to take a picture, edit it, etc, that is!), and a couple of cards for upcoming OLL challenges, but I hardly had any time to check out or comment on other blogs :-(

I've been meaning to use this digital image, Alfonzo, from Little Musings for ages - I think it is cute and ideal for a boy's birthday card. I finally got the chance last week when I needed a birthday card for my friend's 9 year old son. The image was coloured with Letraset Promarkers. I also used a digital star paper for the background, and wooden stars as embellishments; added some 3D gloss finish for dimension and a computer generated sentiment. Simple.

Onto some challenges:

Simon Says - Card for a child

Fussy and Fancy - Card for a child

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - One for the boys

Paper Sundaes - Childhood memories

Ladybug Crafts ink - Celebration

Totally Stampalicious - Anything goes

Easter: challenge #77 at Ooh La la

I love the vibrant colours in these papers! They are from the All Dressed Up and Floral Extravaganza CDs from Ooh La la Creations; both image and sentiment are free digis (by Hobby Paleis), coloured with Letraset Promarkers.
Why don't you join us this fortnight with your Easter creation - a card, an altered item, a gift box..? The challenge (#77) is open til Sunday 17th April and there are great images and papers to be won!

Other challenges:

Bee Crafty - Easter

Spoonful of sugar - Easter

Sweet Stamps - Easter

Paper Cutz - Easter

Craft Us Crazy - Happy Easter

Stamp Something - Digital image

Make it Colourful - Bright colouring

Mami Doodles - Punch or die cut

Catch the Bug - Anything goes

Edited to say that the Easter lamb image belongs to Little Miss Muffet - my apologies for the confusion.

A quick Mother's Day card

...for my mum, who is coming to spend the weekend with us. She does not like fuss so it is a real clean and simple card: a flowery embossed background, a ribbon and some mulberry tissue.

Since there are many Mother's Day challenges I take the opportunity and enter a couple:
Crafts your Days away, Pear Tree Designs, One Stitch at a Time -  Mother's Day
My time to craft - Mum is the word
Cupcake crafts - Flowers for mum
Woodware USA - Clean and Simple

Have a good one!

Heart pendant

I was telling you the other day that I'd won Heloise's giveaway and I was thrilled! Well, I was even more excited when her package arrived on Friday. Check this out:

Heloise wrapped this beautiful fabric pendant with handmade paper and a collage tag - all so stunning!

I can't wait to wear it!

Thanks Heloise! x

Monochrome

Good evening!
My card today is for a blog-friend, who celebrates her birthday this weekend.
It is very purple, so it enters 2 monochromatic challenges: Cupcake Crafts and Ladybug Crafts Ink.
Other challenges:
Pear Tree Designs - Happy Birthday
Passion for Promarkers - In the Garden
Crafty Creations - In stitches
The ABC challenge - Q is for Quilting/sewing
Crafts and Me - Anythign goes

I coloured the image with 6 different shades of purple (Letraset Promarkers); the backing "quilt" is from the Capsule Collection (Docrafts); gems, candy and ribbon from my own stash.

Lucky me!

If you, like me, are into fabrics and altered items, you should defenitely check out Heloise's blog. This lady makes some cool stuff!!! Her 2011 project is to make a notebook per week -  with recycled material, felt, linen, paper, etc. Truly amazing creations! But there's more - she also makes brooches and all sort of jewellery.
And why am I lucky? I hear you saying... well, only recently Heloise had a giveaway and I won one of her pieces!!! The Irish luck on St Patrick's Day ;-) I can't tell you how eagerly I am waiting for the postman every day! :-)
Don't forget to go and have a look at Heloise's beautiful work.

OLL challenge #76: Mother's Day

Good morning
This fortnight over at Ooh La la we are celebrating Mother's Day.

For my easel card I used this beautiful floral topper and backing papers from the Silhouette CD. Purple gems, card candy and flower from my stash; Diamond Stickles; Nellie's oval frame; the sentiment was computer generated.

Check the OLL DT for more ideas!

Onto some challenges now:
Nadia's Challenge - Flowers
Crafty Catz - Mother's Day
Die Cut Dreams - Mother's Day
Crafty Creations - Mother's Day
Stampin' for the weekend - For Mum
Crafts your Days away - For Mum
Easy Craft Projects - For Mum
Bee Crafty - Spring Florals

Have a nice week!

St Patrick's Card

Only a few days to St Patrick's. My son is off school for the whole week, believe it or not! [Sigh] Seriously, I got the wrong profession ;-)  Two years ago we went into town to see the St Patrick's Parade but we only got to see a bit of it - between crowds of people, a tired child and the cold weather we called it a day 1 hour later. This year, with a 3 month old baby I don't think we will be going.
Anyhow, here's a quick card I made to mark the occasion. Not that I will be sending it to anyone, to be honest, but it has to be done, right? The card is my usual CAS style, just the way I like it ;-) The digital sentiment is from Meljen's Designs and the image from WMS, coloured with Letraset Promarkers.

There are many related challenges at the moment and my card enters only a few:
Penny's Paper Crafts - Going for the Green
DYSU - Just green it!
Sassy Studio - Green
CES Challenge - St Patrick/ good luck
Scrappy Frogs - Good luck
Easy Craft Projects - Green
Corrosive Challenge - Going green
Paper Cutz - St Patrick's
Making it with Meslyn - Lucky St Patrick
The Shabby Tea Room - The luck of the Irish

Earthling Birthday Card

Here's a birthday card for my partner's nephew. The boy is big into martial arts but I have made so many cards with this theme for him over the last couple of years that I thought I would try something different. He is turning 8 - you don't think the alien/robot theme is too childish for him, do you? Honest opinions, please :-)

All the backing papers are digis from Papercrafts Inspirations, and so is the alien; sentiment created in MS Office Word; circle Nestabilities.
I am entering the card into the following challenges:
Top Tip Tuesday - Birthday
Creative Craft World - Card for a male
FairyTale - Children
Stamping Vacation - No flowers
Creative Card Crew - No flowers
Simon Says - ANything goes
Send a Smile 4 kids - Anything goes
Paper Playtime - Anything goes

On the fussy side...

Good afternoon
I just finished 2 birthday cards. These two cards are a bit on the fussy side for me. Fussy is not usually my style or preference, but I decided to give it a go, for a change. I love the papers (from PaperCrafts Inspirations) and the cute images, so in general I am not unhappy with the final cards. They are for friends of my son, twin girls, who turn 6 this weekend. I hope you like them.

Onto some challenges:

Night Shift Stamp - Stars

Craft your Passion - Anything goes

Alphabet challenge - R is for Ribbon

4 Crafty Chicks - Stitching

Card Making Mamas - Something green

Aly's Sunday - Anything goes

Card Cupids - Anything goes

Digis with Attitude - Anything goes

Catch the Bug - Anything goes

Stylish Blogger Award

My dear friend Wendy nominated me for the Stylish Blogger Award. Thanks Wends, what an honour!!

These are the rules:
1 - Make a post linking back to the person who gave you the award (Wendy)

2 - Share 7 random things about yourself (my life is reeeeeaaaally boring, seriously, you don't want to know!)
3 – Award 7 recently discovered bloggers with this award (Since I am discovering new amazing blogs every day I would not know where to start so I will let you help yourself :-))
4 – Let them know so that they can pass on the recognition

OLL challenge #75: A card for a man

Good morning and welcome to another OLL challenge!

This fortnight we are looking for Man cards.

I don't know you, but masculine cards are my least favourite type of cards - it is always such a challenge to find the right image or embellishments or colours - not too girly, not too colourful, not too fussy. But this time I used one of OLL CDs and I am happy with the result.

Blue base card; backing paper and topper from the Watercolour Memories CD; the birthday sentiment is a Hero Arts stamp; ther rest from my stash.

If you, like me, struggle to come up with ideas for man's cards, have a look at the OLL site for more inspiration and great designs!

Onto some challenges:
Crafty Ann - Birthday card
Fun with Shapes and More - Happy Birthday
Creative Craft World - For a male
Stamp Something - Use a digi
Kraftin'Kimmie - Twine or floss
Paper Sundaes - Stripes

Have a nice week!

Newborn baby girl card (OLL #74)

Pink, Pink and more pink is the theme for challenge #74 over at Ooh La la this fortnight.

My card is for a newborn baby girl, and therefore as pink as it can be! For it I used several pink papers from the Silhoutte Magic and Fleur d'Imagination CDs; the adorable newborn baby image I am afraid I can't remember where I got it from, my apologies to its creator; the sentiment is Raindrop Echo Designs; ribbon and buttons from my own stash. I also used my new XCut Running Stitch border punch and the Cuttelbug polka dot embossing folder. I hope you like it.

Onto some challenges:
Challenge up your Life - Monochrome
Stampavie and more - Monochrome
Phindy's Place - Monochrome
Stampin'B's - Monochromatic card
Stamping for the weekend - Monochrome
Totally PaperCrafts - Do it with Digis
Do you stack up - Polka dots
Sugar Creek Hollow - Buttons and bows
Crazy 4 Challenges - Die cuts
Paper Crafting Journey - Anything goes
Digi Doodles - Anything goes

Have a nice and productive week!

Man card

A man card, this time for a golf player.

I decided to use the leftovers of the backing paper I used for this other man card; Papermania´s For him Golf stamps and Fourth Dimension stamp (golf ball); the buttons I made mysef with different shades of green Fymo; green and blue cardstock, blue felt and ribbon from my stash; Nestabilites; faux stitching.

Some challenges:
Inspirational Card Sketches - Sketch 102
Top Tip Tuesday - All stitched up
Colour Throwdown - Light green, dark green and blue
Creative Belli - Felt/Fabric
Fab'n'Funky - Make your own (buttons)
Creative Inspirations - Plain and simple

Thanks for looking!

Little Claire's card

Little Claire Designs have a new set of digital images for sale and their first challenge here. They are also offering this gorgeous digital "Lydia goes shopping" as a freebie - isn't she cute? I liked it so much that I had to use it straight away. So here's my card.

The backing paper is from Daisy & Dandelion by Docrafts, the stamp is Born to Shop by Docrafts; the velvet flower, gems, photo corners and lace from own stash; Nestabilities die cut label; digital image coloured with Letraset Promarkers.

And here are some challenges:
Mojo Monday - Sketch 178
Craft your passion - Use Pink
Creative inspirations - Distress
Paper Sundaes - Flower, lace, distress and pink
Stamps+Fun=Creativity - Anything goes
Digital Tuesday - Die cuts
Little Claire's - Anything goes

For my Valentine :-)

My Valentine and I are not the romantic type, if you know what I mean, so the kind of card we exchange on 14th February usually has a humourous feel.
For this years card I searched for the thickest cardboard I could find; I roughed/distressed the edges and included 2 hearts, red and kraft cardstock, faux stitching, and a pair of digital boxers from Whimsie Doodles; the sentiment is stamped with GStudio alpha stamps; red gem from my own stash.
Not everyone's idea of romanticism, but as said, it works for us ;-)

Some challenges:

Crafty Sentiments - Valentine/Love

Creative Cowgirls - Love is in the air/Valentine

Creative Craft World - Love card

The Pink Elephant - Be my Valentine

Aud Sentiments - Valentine Sentiment

Digital Tuesday - From the heart

Everybody Art - Valentine

PaperTake Weekly - Have a heart

PaperPlay time - Cupid or hearts

Crafty Catz - Valentine/love

Stamp Something - For your Valentine

Whoopsi Daisy - Give us your Heart

Our Creative Corner - Cut it out

Ooh La la Challenge #73: For Someone Special

Challenge #73 over at Ooh La la this fortnight is about that Someone Special.
For this black and white card I used papers from the Femme Fatale CD and a vintage digital image from TLC Creations, all matted with black cardstock; XCut border punch; black gems from Papermania; black satin ribbon from my own stash.

Hope you like my card.
Don't forget to check the OLL challenge blog for more great creations!

Onto some challenges:
City Crafters - All you need is Love/heart
Riley and Co - A heart challenge
Try it on Tuesday - Feel the Luuuurve!
Penny's paper crafter - Hearts a Flutter
Simon Says Stamps - Love is in the air
Tanda Stamps - Share the love
Tellen's Place - Hearty hearts
Fussy and Fancy - Valentines with no red or pink
Mami Doodles - The magic of Love
Polka Doodles - With hearts

Hope you all have a nice productive week ;-)

Man card

I am always stuck for ideas for man cards. This time I got inspiration from a card I recently saw on the net (I am afraid I didn't take note of the creator at the time) and am quite pleased with it.
All the bits - photo corner, ribbons and the backing paper, are leftovers from my own stash. The sentiment, which I adore, is from Raindrop Echo designs; the image of the vintage watch that I printed on the paper is a freebie (not labelled); Nestabilities Labels One; papers distressed with Tim Holtz Distress Inks.

Onto some challenges:

Creative Stamp Friends - Shapes

Karber Weekly - Use something old (the vintage watch digi stamp)

Paper Playtime - Digi Anything goes

Sarah Hurley - Die cuts

Stamp Something - Use a digi

StampARTic - Clean and simple

Aly's Sunday Challenge - For the guys

A fun Sketch

Here's a colourful birthday card for a good friend of mine, I hope you like it:

I used the sketch for this week's Mojo Monday; the cute cupcake backing paper is a download from Papercrafts (Teatime Treats Cupcake), the cupcake stamps are from Docrafts, coloured with Letraset Promarkers, Stickles and 3D embossing fluid; Circle embossing folder; sentiment from Inkadinkado; ribbon, ink and coloured papers from my own stash.

Some Challenges:
Mojo Monday - Sketch 176
Tuesday Throwdown - Stitching
PaperPlay - Stamp it out
Polka Doodles - Party Time
Drunken Stampers - Birthday bash
Scrappy Frogs - Hey Cupcake
The Paper Players - Anything goes
I love Promarkers - Anything goes
Craft Us crazy - Anything goes

It's nearly the weekend, have fun!