Good Elf at Christmas

 

Just had to share these photos of the lovely girls I work with sporting the best Christmas headgear.

 

Dilek with her cat in the hat defying gravity ensemble.

 

 

And Karen with her lovely ears...

 

My contribution?

Fluffy cat ears and a cracker hat!

 

TFL

xxx

Christmas Day 2012

 

Just thought I'd share my Christmas with you.

 

The annual trifle was made using a new bowl from Pampered Chef.

I put the sponge around the edge this time, soaked with a little sherry of course.

The centre was fruit and raspberry jelly, then topped with raspberry blancmange.

 

 

The table was set, sadly only three for dinner this year.

 

Posh prawn cocktails with huge madagascan prawns served in glasses which I bought back from the Don Cesar, St Pete's beach, where we got married.

Wow, that was 12 years ago - amazed I still have the full set.

 

George loved the wrapping paper and kept nestling amongst it.

 

 

So I wrapped him up - sellotape and all!

 

 

not amused?

 

Made us laugh though :)

 

How did your day go?

 

 

Another Christmas Card......

I know I'm late blogging this but.....

Based on a card idea found at the Glitterpot, I made the following:

The card base is a 6x6" linen texture from CWC.

Lynn bought the embossing plate, I'm not sure if it's Tim Holtz? The flower is though.

 

 

I cut two sets, inked each one, pierced a hole in the centre and scrunched it tightly, then unravelled a little and threaded into a gold brad. 

 

I was quite pleased with the effect as the paper was quite heavy and held the shape.

 

The ribbon and bow were from an offcut as was the die-cut snowflakes.

 

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year?

 

Take care

xxx

Lou Collins is offering a fab RAK....

Wow!

Head on over to the lovely Lou's blog to be in with a chance to win this fab selection of goodies.

 

 

Further details to be found here.

 

Thanks :)

 

Scrapology December card challenge - Time to celebrate

This months challenge was set by our DT member Lou Collins who has also offered an amazing prize for the winner....read on!

 

Lou is challenging us to make cards using recycled or natural materials like packaging or dried twigs on a card.

Mine is 6x6" covered with a piece of patterned paper from my stash, I have inked the edged with Tim Holtz distress ink, blue jeans.

The clock face is made from a piece of corrugated cardboard from a packaging box I received lately.
Inked with Vintage photo and Blue jeans. I also added a strip to the bottom of the card wrapped with a piece of ribbon from a Nails inc box (which had beautiful sparkley nails polish in!)

 

The ribbon was tied in a knot.

 

I used another piece of carboard packaging to emboss the inner clock face with a Tim Holtz folder purchased recently. I inked this with Blue Jeans too, then added the hands from the die cut.

I found a die cut of a branch leftover from some christmas cards and placed it underneath and a scrap of string for the other side.

 

The clock face below was cut from the same embossed folder but inked with vintage photo and covered with Crackle paint - also Tim Holtz.

 

I added a sentiment from Lilli of the Valley.

 

Pop on over to Scrapology for details of the challenge, the fab prize on offer is below -

Thanks to  Lou Collins for such a generous stash!

 

Perfect way to spend a birthday...

I was very lucky to be able to spend my birthday this year in Barbados.

It was a big one for me - 50 - which I have to admit I was not looking forward to.

I know it's just a number but when you realise that you are past the half way mark and the fact of your own mortality hits you like a sledgehammer, it's quite a blow!

 

Anyhow, I digress! I wanted to share a truly memorable experience!

 

 

We had spent a fabulous day in the sun around the pool and by the beautiful sea just chilling with a few cocktails. Our evening meal was booked at the fish restaurant, the Dover, and I had the most succulent steak and lobster meal. They had decorated the table with a golden runner and some table confetti and presented me with a bottle of bubbly. How fab was that, could it get any better?

 

 

We had been watching the crabs scurrying around on the sand when Robert said "Oh my god, there's a baby turtle!" At our welcome meeting we had been told they are an endangered species and that if we saw any hatchlings to tell the staff as there is a conservation project who will come and help. So, I stood up to find the restaurant manager but my timing was rubbish as the staff appeared at our table with my dessert sporting a lit candle, singing "Happy Birthday" to me!

 

 

Beautifully decorated plate :)

 

Once they had finished I was able to tell Sophia (the manager) and asked if I could take him (her) to the sea - which I did.

 

 

Of course Robert said he had arranged it - LOL!

 

Evidently when they hatch they head towards the light and as there was no moon that night they came towards the hotel. I saved another just after too as it was about to be attacked by a crab.

We looked along the beach with the staff but couldn't find the nest at that time but it was found later and we watched as the conservation team counted 170+ babies and guided them into the sea.

Its quite sad though that only 1 in 1000 survive, I hope my first hatchling makes it.

 

More to follow..........

 

xxx

 



Happy Birthday Carol

Last Friday was Carol's 40th birthday.

I made her the following card.

 

 

The base is bazzill called London Fog which I cut to make a 15cm card.

The patterned paper is Bo Bunny Vicky B, the pink is the reverse.

 

The image is a Christmas stamp by Penny Black, cut with a spellbinder die.

I coloured the image with Copics then once mounted cut out and added flowers with stickled centres.

 

Hope you had a lovely day!

 

xxx

M is for Monochrome

This month at Scrapology we are fortunate to be scraplifting a fabulous layout by Pam Thorburn.

This is my version.

A sheet of white bazzill is my base. I traced and cut out a scalloped heart using a technique tuesday template the added it at an angle.

I used a memory box die with hearts to create a border edge, then placed it along the bottom edge of the photo (approx 4x4") mounted on white card. A line of white ruched ribbon covered the bottom edge.

Our kit contains a variety of Mulberry flowers which we placed to the top right and bottom left of the photo, trailing off to the corner, along with some white leaves and a feather.

I also added some scrollwork shapes cut with another die and some Marianne double butterflies.

The little ones are from a Martha Stewart punch.

Liquid pearls in white was dotted around the scalloped edge and flat backed pearls added randomly.



This is Pam's layout, her blog can be found here.

 

and our sketch...

 

 

Pop on over to Scrapology for details of the challenge and prize.

 

TFL

xxx

 



More Dilly Beans......

Loving the Dilly Bean images I created the following:

 

Coloured with Copics

 

 

Glossy accents for the eyes.

 

 

More glossy acents.... 

 

And more glossy accents and lots of glitter too!

 

 

Think these images will be featuring a lot more in my card making.

 

Check out the challenge at Scrapology!

 

Thanks for the intro Sue :)

 

 



Dilly Beans - Scrapology November card challenge

This months Scrapology card challenge has been set by Megan at Dilly Beans who creates the most amazing digi images.
The theme is Buttons and Bows.

Here is mine

 

I used a 6x6" Kraft blank from Craftwork Cards and paper from Authentique Christmas range.

The image was coloured with Copics and enhanced with Cosmic Shimmer drawing inks and glossy accents.

 

I added some red ribbon which I "dulled" down a little with an ink pad and some red buttons dressed with black thread.

The stems are a new Memory box die I got on a recent shopping spree with Lynn.

 

Why not pop over to Scrapology to see the DT's cards and enter the challenge.

 

Thanks for looking :)

 

 

And another Penguin

Just a quick post today, this is the last card (so far) in the Penguin set.

 

 

Again I used a brayer a la Barbara Gray and love the way it created shards of light,

 

Not the best photographs but you get the idea :)



More penguins......

The image here was created at the same time as the one in the "pink christmas" post.

This time I used some papers from MME's winter wonderland collection.

 

 

Another Martha Stewart punch was used to create the panel to which I added Turquoise gems.

 

 

I also punched the bottom edge of this card and added a dotty paper behind.

 

 

Loving this stamp, it's very versatile!

 

 

Pink Christmas

More cards made with recent purchases.....

 

Lynn got this stamp at the Glitter Pot en-route to Cardinal Colours crop, we just fell in love with it :)

The card they had on display was coloured in pink so I followed suit.

 

 

Papers are from my stash.

The baubles are cut with a punch and the cap is 1/2 daisy, they are decorated with Candi and punched shapes - the holly is a new Martha Stewart punch.

 

This is the same stamp I used recently by Lili of the Valley that I got at Ally Pally.

This time I created a mask and brayered it using a big'n'juicy inkpad.

 

As it was coated cardstock, colouring was not as easy as the ink just moves around but I was quite happy with the result.

The snow is a white signo gel pen which is fabulous.

 

Thanks for looking, hopefully have more to share soon.

 

xxx



Silly Games - November Scrapology Challenge - C is for Chicken Wire

Our Scrapology challenge this month is chicken wire.

Yes, chicken wire!

Real or faux, I have used real as below.

Our kit contains beautiful papers from My Minds Eye, The Sweetest Thing, Honey collection.

I started with Happiness Cheerful and gutted the centre. Cream puff bazzill was cut to 11" and added to the centre. My chicken wire is approximately 7x10" and was fixed in the first instance with 2 brads at the top. As it was very dimensional and didn't want to sit flat, I added some stitches where I knew it wouldn't show.

 

 

I cut the patterned panel from Perfect Best and added to the wire using foam pads and extra tacky glue. I had already cut out the bee which would have been under the photo panel for use elsewhere.

I also cut the honeycombe from the same sheet and added in the bottom right corner.

I am lucky to have a photo booth app on my phone so I printed my photostrip as below.

It's quite easy to do without too as you can mount small photographs onto white card.

I mounted mine onto Yukon gold bazzill and tucked it under the bee and word strips, covering the hole where I cut the bee from. He was then placed to the top right.

I punched and shaped some 6 petal flowers from chablis bazzill and the leftover Happiness Cheerful and added punched centres and stickles, these were placed in two areas on my page.

The leaves are also a new punch (woodware green) which I tucked in around the flowers.

I wrote and cut out some journalling strips and added them to the panel.

We were away for a weekend and had a mad few minutes taking pictures with the iphone app :)

 

 

The butterflies are a new Martha Stewart punch with stickle bodies.

 

Hop on over to the Scrapology blog to see the beautiful layouts by the DT and the original by the mega talented Lou Collins who we are proud to have on our team for a few months.