Special Thanks

Sunday and the end of July already, where is the time going?

Another card that I quickly whipped up before I left home to share today. I used the same Craftwork Card kit as yesterday and started off with a 4x4 kraft card blank and added a background mat in navy to both the background paper and the topper. I made a navy organza bow and added that to the topper which I stuck on the card with foam tape (got to use some up). I added a few gems to add a little bling and added some wink of Stella to the trees on the topper, however some of the ink blobbed out and despite wiping it off left a mark. A left over butterfly to the rescue, which I actually thought made the card look better, a definite happy accident.

I've had a lovely day today (although I probably should have worn sun cream judging by how red my face is). I met up with 15 other bunny mad women at the home of a plant historian and bunny rescuer to learn about which plants we can forage for to feed our bunnies and which are definite no-nos. we spend the whole time either out in the garden or in the hedgerows looking for plants. I learnt so much and it's amazing how many different plants there are in a hedgerow when you really start looking. We were spolit with fabulous food and as you can see we had company.

There are 6 rabbits that have free range in the garden, the rest have large "chalets" that they live in in bonded groups and take turns to roam in a large enclosed area.

You might just spot a tiny white and orange bunny in the bottom left corner. This gorgeous bunny was kept in a tiny cage for 9 years before he was rescued and his owners hadn't even realised that he was blind. He has a tendency to fall over and be unable to right himself but he's now enjoying his retirement wandering around the garden, nibbling whatever he fancies and was lapping up the attention today, tooth purring whilst having head rubs. 

He's one of over thirty bunnies that have now found their forever home here. I was fortunate enough to be the recipient of someone's kindness this week and so was able to "pay it forwards" and make a donation towards their hefty vet bills. Thank you for allowing me to do that x 

With love

Well, I'm safely tucked up in my premier inn in Peterborough after a 3 hour drive, not driven that far for ages! Hubby insisted on checking my car tyre pressures, oil and windscreen fluid before he left for work, bless him. I had a moment of panic when I got here, when couldn't find create and craft on the telly in my room, but eventually found it on channel 36. Phew. Should Hubby worry that I'm away from home with crafting telly, free wifi and a credit card?!

Today's card is one of two that I quickly made last night so that I had something to blog over the weekend. I used a Craftwork Card kit that had been untouched since I bought it, I think it's called something like Enchanted Woodlands. The paper pad is 8x8 and I cut out the owl and leaves from the bottom right hand corner. I then trimmed the paper down keeping the printed leaves to fit on a 6x6 kraft card blank, with a white mat under it. There is a bit of the square of paper missing, but it's hidden behind the owl etc, which I stuck on with some of my ample supply of 1mm foam tape to give some dimension. The kraft card sentiment was knocking about in my box of rejected die cuts, and I think it's a tonic die. I added some bling to two of the corners and a gem to add the dot to the i.

I think that took longer to blog than it did to make!

I was hoping to catch up on some of your blogs and comment on them, but the drive has left my shoulder and neck sore, so another early night it is. Hope you're all having a fab weekend, I will visit you soon I promise. I love seeing all the wonderful things you've been creating and catching up on your news.

Oldie Friday

It's Friday and so it's time to join Erika to share an oldie. Today's oldie is a Christmas card that I made with paper nation/jolly nation decoupage and matching papers about 10 years ago now. Very simple, just like me! Right, bed calls x

With Sympathy

Yay, it's Thursday. I took today off work to catch up on myself after yesterday's fun as I'm off to Peterborough at the weekend. Just one day of work to go and then a week off. Double Yay! Don't worry, I'm not joining a shopping telly craft channel, although I did consider ram raiding the warehouse (I am joking, honest). My trip is all mad bunny woman related and I'll fill you in with the details whilst whiling away the time in my hotel room. 

A really simple and easy card again today. I die cut the io sentiment panel twice once in black and once in grey and offset them slightly (a different grey might have been better as it looks like your eyes are going funny) to give a shadow effect. I mat and layered black and white card on a 6x6 card blank and stuck the panel on. I did consider adding a grey mat, but I didn't think ahead and so had cut the panel out of the side rather than "gutting" it and so ran out of the colour. A few black gems to finish. Apologies if I haven't visited you yet this week, I'm back on my catch up mission! See you tomorrow for an oldie.

Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge

(Apologies for this not appearing at noon today, blogger apparently forgot I'd scheduled this post!)
This week over at Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge blog our theme is "Anything goes."
Our sponsors this week are Lacy Sunshine and Lemon Shortbread who've given us some wonderful prizes. My card today features a beautiful Lacy Sunshine image which I've coloured with Spectrum Noir pencils and die cut out with a spellbinders label. I created a frame using the decorative label die in matt silver mirri and used lili of the valley background paper. The flowers are heartfelt creations arianna blooms which have been stamped in holographic embossing powder on white vellum with a tiny dazzler in the centre. My favourite Sue Wilson Ivy is tucked behind the flowers to give the impression that the fairy is tucked down in the flower beds.

We'd love to see your creations this week.

Another variation on a theme.

Happy Wednesday? It's all downhill from here on in, well, it certainly is on this blog anyway!

I spent a wonderful lunch at Knutsford with Darnell and about 13 other lovely ladies and a very well behaved 2 year old. Darnell is very bit as generous and entertaining as I'd previously heard and it was lovely to meet up with lots of other bloggers and crafters and form new friendships. Thank you Darnell for organising your British tour and introducing us all. I need a nap now to recover!

Today's card is another one that was requested by a colleague, who saw my previous cards in the same style. It's her parent's diamond wedding anniversary tomorrow and she wanted the card in white but with colour behind the panels so it was reminiscent of a church window. I had a play about but it lost the elegance on the card, if I'd changed the panels to grey it would have worked, so instead I used a different type of pearl card behind the panels which reflects differently. Hopefully you can see the effect in the other pics. 

I cursed doing the lettering though. I had a crafters companion "On your" die that I used on the previous wedding card but the "Anniversary" die had been out of stock in the shop and I only remembered to order it online last week. My colleague told me on Monday that she needed the card for Thursday, she probably had told me when she needed it for, but I hadn't remembered. I checked the estimated delivery date for the die. Thursday. Bottom. I had the Britannia upper and lower case alphabet dies so figured I could use those to write the words, and as the font would be different I'd have to do the "on your" bit too. Not too bad, until I remembered that I had to layer the letters up 3 times... I did wonder about using funky foam to get the depth, but had none in white. I thought that using stick it would help to stick them together easily, but hadn't figured on how fiddly peeling the backing off tiny letters would be! I got there in the end though. 

I added some bought AB gem numbers to the front and an insert to finish off with the Memory Box Tiny Wedding couple on the corner.  I dropped it off at work on my way to lunch, so just made the deadline. Remind me to write down when people want cards by in the future will you?

Down with Christmas!

Another quick post tonight as bed calls. This card uses another turkey and accessories from the Hobby Art Quirky Turkey set. Stamped on Sheena's stamping card and coloured with distress reinkers again, with the sign and interchangeable sentiment added before fussy cutting him out. Simon says Stamp stitched rectangle in white card with the fence from the set repeat stamped on it. Hand drawn holly (nothing to do with me sticking the stamped holly on and then moving it and ripping the card slightly and so needing bigger leaves to cover up...) and a few gems to finish. All mounted on a card base that the lovely Rahmat sent me.

Happy Rudolph Day

A very quick post as my neck is playing up so I'm off to be with extra painkillers in a minute. By chance I had a play with Hobby Arts Quirky Turkey set on Saturday which is perfect timing to share on Rudolph Day. 

Coloured with distress reinkers. Stitched rectangle by Simon Says Stamp and speech bubble from an X cut set. Sentiments from the Quirky Turkey stamp set.

Two for the price of one

Happy Sunday! Can you believe I completely forgot to blog on Friday? After a tiring week I was focused on getting my scheduled post for Saturday sorted and Hubby was wanting help with something and so it fell out of my brain. I was tucked up in bed by 8.30 on Friday, although I did stay awake long enough to watch the second episode of Corrie. I totally did not see that plot line coming!

I sat down yesterday to have a play with some new Imagination Craft stamps as they'd had a fab offer recently with the decoupage stamps at just £2 each. I may have bought several...

I used the birdhouse stamp on the above 6x6 card and stamped on Sheena's stamping card in versafine and then coloured it with distress reinkers.

I cut out the image and mounted it with foam tape (well, I've got to use it up somehow) on the card blank. I then drew two frames with a black fine liner pen, crossing them over in places and colouring in the overlaps with a pale aqua spectrum sparkle pen. Then, well, I got a bit carried away and drawing on inspiration from the image added leaves, squiggles and dots, again using a green spectrum sparkle pen for the leaves.

I also coloured the decoupage stamp hanging basket in the same way and doodled the border, only this time rather than the swirls I added some tiny dots of pink stickles as well as adding some to the centre of the flowers.

Sweet Stampin' Challenge

Happy Saturday! Are you as glad as I am that it's the weekend? It feels like it's been a very long week with all the hot weather, hopefully it will remain cooler for the next few days.
I have another secret that I've been keeping from you, but I can now reveal that I'm delighted to have been asked to join the design team over at the Sweet Stampin' challenge blog
Our sponsor this week is All Dressed Up who have generous given the DT two fabulous images to use for our theme this week of "Outdoors".
I've chosen to use their sweet "Summer Fayre" digi stamp which I printed with my laser printer and then coloured with my copics to coordinate with the Lucy Cromwell paper pad. I die cut the image using spellbinders labels 1 and cut a pink cardstock mat with decorative labels 1 to go behind it. I used the same pink card on a 6x6 scalloped card blank and added the banner paper from the pad as the background. I also cut a banner of coordinating paper from the pad and layered this up behind the image. I used some paper flowers from my stash along with a green die cut of Sue Wilson's ivy in the corner to balance the card and I sneaked in a bit of faux stitching to finish.

We'd love you to visit the Sweet Stampin' challenge blog to see the wonderful inspiration the rest of the design team have come up with and of course we'd love to see your "outdoor" stamped makes.

Sending lots of good wishes

Are we all still here? No one's completely melted then? I have no idea how those of you in foreign parts cope with the heat. You have my upmost respect and hopefully air con! 

A super quick card today as despite my day off yesterday (including a lie in til 10.30) I'm still shattered, still only tomorrow to go.

The sentiment panel is an io die which I cut in matt gold mirri card, then backed with pink card and mounted on an A6 card blank with 1mm foam tape.  A couple of gems to dot the i's (nothing to do with the fact that I lost the dots, honest) and a couple of butterflies that were left over from the zig zag 60th birthday card I made recently, and job done.

Speaking of foam tape, as I was running low, I ordered some from eBay for about £12. I think it might keep me going for a bit, what do you think?

Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog

I've got some exciting news to share with you. I'm thrilled to have been asked to join the design team over at Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog

One of our sponsors this week is for our theme "Christmas in July" is

 The Stamping Boutique

And they have generously donated a prize of two digi images of the winners choice. They also have their own challenge blog  that you might want to check out.

I've used this beautiful image by them to create my card. I printed off the digi stamp on my laser printer and then very simply coloured it using my Copics in the E colour family to tie it in with the kraft card base. I added papers from a pad by lili of the valley and die cut some snowflakes with various dies to add to the card. The sentiment is by craftwork cards and I felt the silver foiling on craft card was perfect girl this card. A little faux stitching to bring it all together and then I had fun adding flowersoft polar white to the fur trim of her clothes and using my quickie glue pen added glamour dust to the starry sky and snow.

Why not join us over at Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog to see the other great prize from StarStampz, and let's see if mind over matter (making cold, frosty Christmas cards in this heatwave) works!

I am officially a puddle...

They weren't kidding when they said that it would be the hottest day of the year, were they? By this evening my car was showing 38 degrees! The bunnies have had frozen water bottles in their run and wet towels draped over the step they like to sit under, but they seem to coping just about. Bramble seems worst affected so I wet her ears and back to help cool her down although she wasn't very impressed by it!

A very quick card tonight as I was determined to make one, but have very little energy. All the bits were from the die cut bit boxes apart from the blue background which I trimmed to fit the A6 card blank. I added some foam tape behind the pink circle to add some dimension. I didn't trust myself to stamp a sentiment so I hand wrote one instead. 

I'm planning on being in bed within the next hour, there's nothing on the telly and lying flat sounds very appealing! Hope you've all managed to stay cool today, and as I've been telling all my patients today, make sure you drink plenty of water!

Smile!

Is anyone else in a big puddle of meltedness? Waaaaay too hot here and warmer weather to come tomorrow. This is bad a) because my uniform is thick polycotton which gets very sticky and b) the lock on the window in the bedroom has broken and so won't open. On the bright side I took my "civvies" with me to work and so changed into a thin skirt and t-shirt for the drive home, the fan in the bedroom is pretty quiet and has a timer function and the bunnies seem to be coping well with the heat. Bramble's fully recovered from her dental and is her usual adorable self. 

I called in at one of the supermarkets on the way home to get a few bits, I left a bottle with few mouthfuls of squash on the seat rather than keep it in my handbag when I went in. I downed what was left when I got back in the car 15 minutes later, honestly it was hotter than the coffee I had for breakfast! Totally looking forward to my day off on Wednesday. I think an early night might be on the cards again, I don't do heat well.

Another card that I made yesterday to share with you. The cat is from Katzelkraft and was die cut with a tattered lace pin dot circle die. I figured he looked like he was checking that he still had teeth and googly eyes finished him off perfectly. The sentiment from clearly besotted was stamped on the banner die cut and it was all mounted on a piece of striped paper from a Docrafts pad. We'll just gloss over the slightly wonky happy birthday stamped on the stripe. I hope you can all find a cooling breeze tonight x

This is the last one, honest!

I promise this is the last of the crazy birds and pixie powder backgrounds for now.

A6 card blank with a banner made with of pixie powders and the clarity clouds stencil. Sentiments by clearly besotted, a crazy bird with glossy accent eyes and doodled borders. Stuck together with 1mm foam tape.

It's been a beautiful sunny day here, I've spent the day crafting (only managed 3 cards though!) with the kitchen door open and watching the bunnies snooze in the sunshine. I hope it doesn't get any hotter though, my work uniform isn't designed for hot weather - too much synthetic fabric.

Hope you've all enjoyed a relaxing weekend and that you have a good week x

Deja vu again!

.

Hope you're all having a good weekend. Spent most of the day cleaning hence being able to photograph this card on top of the cooker, rather than only being able to see one ring on the hob!

Sorry to bore you with another 60 zig zag card, but another colleague saw the other one and requested the same! I mixed it up a little by using different papers, these were 6x6 freebies with a craft magazine some time ago. I added some sparkle to them with s quickie glue pen and some glamour dust (the remains of which are making my astilbe sparkle in the garden! I actually used a peel off for the happy birthday, in fact I used two as I layered them on top of each other to add more impact. I added the banner sentiments further down the card as I discovered that it can make them just too tall to fit in a DL envelope (the other card had some emergency surgery when I realised that!)

I'm still catching up with my commenting, I'm half way through Friday's posts now. I love seeing what wonderful things you have been making and sharing in your lives. Right, bed calls and then crafting day tomorrow.

Oldie Friday

Definitely thank goodness it's Friday! Bramble spent the day at the vets having her teeth rasped under anaesthetic as they had developed some nasty spurs that were making her uncomfortable. She's back home and appears to have recovered well. I think she'd been getting extra cuddles at the vets as she's so dinky and is easy to handle.
As it's Friday it's time to link up with the lovely Erika and share an oldie. Today's oldie is an anniversary card that I made for my Aunt a couple of years ago. It was my first ever white on white card! I think all the dies used were Sue Wilson ones and the sentiment was a Kaisercraft I think. I know I used centura pearl card and PVA pearl drops to go round the edges.
I'm still trying to catch up on the commenting, but it will have to wIt until tomorrow as an early night is on the cards. Just got to watch the second of tonight's episodes of Corrie. Hubby reckons that the mystery one night stand that Leanne had was with Ken Barlow! My money is on Robert. Time will tell... Hope you all have a great weekend planned, Mum is visiting for a couple of hours tomorrow and I need to do some housework, but I've told Hubby he can go off and play in a river again on Sunday which sneakily leaves me with a full day to craft!

Under the weather

Hopefully none of you are feeling under the weather? If you are I hope you feel better soon.

Today's card was a request from work for a colleague who is poorly at the moment.

I used the Clearly Besotted "Under the weather" stamp set and stamped out four of the characters and due to my stash die fussy cut them out rather than purchasing the dies.  I coloured them in flat colours with my copics rather than spend time shading them and stamped one of the sentiments from the set on a 6" square card base. I die cut out the large square with tattered essential square dies and also smaller squares of turquoise and white card. I mounted the largest square on 1mm foam tape to add a little dimension. I was going to have the squares lined up in the quarters of the blue card, but couldn't be bothered to measure them out and so I embraced the jaunty angles! I'd been getting withdrawal symptoms from faux stitching and so out came the fine liner pen. I stuck the characters on with 1mm foam tape to add a little more dimension.

Right, a commenting I will go! See you over at Erika's tomorrow for an oldie (but possibly not goodie).

Spot the difference!

No, you're not seeing things. It is a different card, honest. Still not caught up on my commenting, but did have a lovely lie in this morning.

One of the bosses at work saw the congratulations card I'd made and asked me to one for a wedding.

I used the Tonic Radiant Roselily die set again with iridescent gold dust card and paper. As before I used the Tonic congratulations die and as the words "on your wedding day" had been requested I used crafters companion "on your" and "wedding day" dies and cut them all 3 times out of white card and then out of the iridescent card and layered them up to give more definition. Finally I added gem in each of the flowers to add a little bling.

Over at Crafty Cardmakers the challenge is to bling it up, now as far as I'm concerned a wedding isn't a wedding without bling and so I'd like to enter this card in their challenge. 

Graduation

Yay, it's Tuesday which means that tomorrow is my day off! I do love only working 4 days a week, not so keen on the effect on my bank balance though, but it does mean that I only ever have to cope with two days at work before a break.

Are you bored of pixie powder backgrounds and crazy birds yet? Today's card uses the left over bit of background from yesterday's card. I think I'd sprinkled a couple of colours of the pixie dust on top of the star stencil and spritzed it with water and then placed a sheet of card on top and rubbed it down, meaning that the stars remained white, but some of the water pooled around them. I think I've got 10 colours of pixie powders, they do have a label on them showing the colours, but I've found a few extra colours in some of them than are shown on the label. I'll try and do some swatches to show you.

I stamped the scroll and hat from the crazy things set and die cut them with the matching dies. I coloured the hat with a dark blue/grey copic marker so that the black stamped details were still visible. The sentiment is from a TPC set called, unsurprisingly, Graduation and the star is from that set too. As usual a bit of doodling to finish off.

Now, I have to ask you all a favour, will you all just sit on your hands for a bit? I'm still trying to catch up on commenting and you are all just being far too creative and posting too often! I'm determined to catch up though. Hope you all have a great evening x

Thinking of you, again!

Yay, Monday is done and dusted, well, washed would be a better description. Why is it you always step out of your car into a puddle?
Hubby informs me that the size of gold they found is technically known as fly sh**e, or fly poo if ladies are present (notice that I didn't qualify as a lady), apparently I have to kill you if I tell you where they went prospecting, sorry.
Those crazy birds are still going strong, as are my pixie powder backgrounds. This one was made with a star stencil and was a happy accident how it turned out. I trimmed a bit off the A5 background to fit on the 6" square card base and doodled a border on both. The sentiment was still on my desk from yesterday and so I stamped that and job done! There's no sewing bee to watch tonight, boooo! Hopefully though now that the sport has finished Corrie will be back on at its usual times. (Coronation Street is my guilty pleasure, even if it does drive hubby mad. He can never understand why they don't just come clean about their affair/secret love child/drink problem etc, I keep telling him that there'd be no plot if they did that!) Hope you all have a relaxing evening x
I'm going to enter this card over at Moving along with the times who want to see "no designer papers" this time. 

Thinking of you

Hope you've all had a good weekend, it goes far too quickly. Hubby spent the day gold panning for Lancashire gold with his mate (they found 3 tiny specks!) so I decided to find the floor in the lounge and locate the printer in the spare room. 5 hours later, and I can confirm that I have an oatmeal rug and I managed to print out the digi stamp I needed.

I even tidied up the kitchen table and so made this card out of bits that I found. The background was the rejected one from yesterday's card made with pixie powders, hopefully you can see the mica shimmer in the second picture. I glued this onto a 5x7 card blank and stamped the sentiment from Crazy Talk underneath. The snail and gnome are from MFT You Gnome me set and had been coloured with copics and die cut with matching dies. The toadstools are I *think* from Clearly Besotted's Woodland kisses set. The die cut clouds (no idea about the die maker) were added and I doodled on them to tie them in with the doodled border.

Crazy bird

Hmm, that post title probably describes me perfectly! Is anyone else relieved that it's the weekend? I'm already looking forward to my week off work in August so that I can have a good rest. I'll blame the medication for making me so sleepy.
Despite having an afternoon nap I managed to get some crafting done. I'd decoupaged a layer of lots of pages from Hunkydory Little Books and layered them up and put them on mirri mats but had then abandoned them. I spent an hour gluing them into some 5x7 card blanks and will add some glossy accents or glitter to them later to finish them off and add to my card box.
I also die cut some of my Crazy Birds (after spending 30 mins looking for the dies) and made today's card.
I made a load of pixie powder backgrounds last week and had used a clarity cloud stencil on this one. I used a trimming of the background and doodled a border around it and stuck it on a 5x7 card base and then doodled around the card. I stamped two sentiments from the Crazy Talk stamp set up the side of the rectangle as I thought that the font and doodling worked well together. I added the crazy bird to finish it off. I would have used foam tape to add a little dimension, but um, I can't find it in the crafting chaos!
I'd like to enter this card over at Naughty or Nice where the challenge is anything goes. Right, I'm off to move the empty fish tank, metal detector, 2 boxes, TV unit, chair and computer screen to find the desktop PC and printer so that I can print something to play with. I can tell Hubbys living here full time now! Have a great weekend, will see you all soon (I'm up to Thursday on my commenting now..).

Oldie Friday

Definitely glad it's Friday! I'm so looking forward to a lie in tomorrow, it seems to have been a really tiring week. Lots of good stuff, just exhausting. I hope your week has been better and that you have fun things planned for the weekend.
As it's Friday it's time to link up with the lovely Erika to share on old crafty make. 

I'm pretty sure that I CASEd this card from the lili of the valley inspiration blog. The faux stitching is still going strong! 

Apologies if I haven't commented on your blog yet this week, I'm slowly catching up and am determined to be back on top of things by Monday. Have a great evening and a brilliant weekend X

The undecided peacock...

There's a peacock that lives on my route into work, and I often see him perched on the garage roof or garden wall in the mornings. He inspired this card. 

I'd made some backgrounds using pixie powders and thought that one of them matched his colours quite well. I die cut the peacock three times out of the background (it was a free die with one of the craft magazines a while back) and snipped the tails off two of them to add to the original to give him a fuller tail. I die cut a frame out of matt gold card using Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangles and also cut a rectangles to fill the frame out of another pixie powder background. Once glued in place I added a black gem for his eye and black AB gems to his tail. It still looked unfinished and so I doodled a border (shamelessly stolen from Lynne in N.I) I still feel that something is missing from it, but I haven't a clue what, it may be one the ends up in the recyling pile! Hopefully the close ups give you some idea of the shimmer.

Happy 60th

One of my colleagues requested I make a 60th birthday card for her friend after she saw the other zig zag card that I made.

I used the tattered lace die set again to cut out the card and the banners and mat and layer panels. I mentioned last time that the short mats on the longer panels annoyed me and so I decided to measure up and make some longer ones. As you can see, I gave up on that idea! Getting the slope in the right direction and the patterned papers the right way up was too taxing. I used a Joanna Sheen Happy Birthday die and cut it twice in gold and pink, to give it a drop shadow. I bought the diamanté numbers at the craft show and as they were in clear gems added clear gems to the butterflies. I added a little glitter to the flowers on the patterened paper to finish. Of course I decided to do this after I'd made the card...

Thank you for your suggestions about the sleeping, I shall look into them all. I managed to have a bit of  a lie in today. I woke up early, but took some more strong painkillers and managed to get back to sleep. I mentioned yesterday that I was joining in with the 30 day colouring challenge over at thedailymarker.com (apologies for the lack of fancy links, I can't seem to do them in the blogger app). Well, I managed Day 1, I stamped out some crazy birds and their accessories and coloured them in with my Spectrum Noir pencils and blending solution. I've added a bit of glossy accents and left it to dry overnight. I'm going to colour in the rest of them later tonight. 

Merry Christmas

This card is made with the final die set in the Create and Craft Couture Christmas collection for this year. Again, very simple, I die cut the main die out of matt silver card and die cut the seperate leaf dies out of matt gold card. I stuck the silver die cut on the 6" card blank and layered the gold over the silver leaf areas. A few gems and job done.

Another early night for me, despite going to bed at 8, I didn't fall asleep until 9.30 and was wide awake at 3am with thoughts racing in my head. I do wish brains came with an off switch at times, although some would say you'd be unable to tell the difference in my case! It's my day off tomorrow, so hopefully I'll manage a bit of a lie and can then catch up on the final of the sewing bee and last night's Corrie. I need to tidy up the kitchen table before I can do any more crafting, but I'm aiming to get a bit of colouring done tonight for the 30 day colouring challenge. Have a great evening x

Christmas wreath

Happy 4th July to all our American friends! As it's the height of summer, I've got another Christmas card to share. I used the Create and Craft Couture Celebrate Christmas dies again, but this time used the Christmas wreath set. I die cut it first in matt silver card and then die cut the ribbon areas with matt gold card and paper pieced them. I took care when siticking the wreath to the 6inch square base card not to get glue on the back of the holly leaves and lifted them up for a little dimension, squirting a syringe of glue gel under the leaves to prevent them getting squashed flat. I finished it off with some gold gems to represent the berries. Another simple card. 

Apologies if I haven't visited you recently, we were out all day yesterday and an early night is on the cards. I will catch up with you all though this week. I love seeing what wonderful creations you have made and catching up with how you are doing. Lots of love to you all x