New Beginnings...

Think I may need quite a few new baby cards this year so it's a good time to make a start on them and enter some of the many challenges featuring 'New Beginnings' at the moment.  It's a really dark day here so my photo is not a very good one - so sorry.

How cute is that hedgie?  I am totally besotted by Penny Black hedgehogs especially when you can buy a whole of host of them on one clear T for Transparent sheet.  My image is coloured with Promarkers and I've used a new Nellie Snellen die to cut the spiky circles.  I've added texture by using two different spotty embossing folders and and silver woven ribbon.  The sentiment and silver teddies are all peel offs.

The layout for the card is from a fab sketch by Arlana at Sweet Sketch Wednesday.  Every week I find such inspiration from her designs.

My card is also for the challenges at...

• Secret Crafter - tons of texture
• Penny Black - New Beginnings
• The Crafty Calender Challenge - New Beginnings
• The Rainbow Lady - It's all new to me (new stamps, new baby and new dies)
• Simon Says Stamp - New Beginnings

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't done the inner for this card yet - eeeeeeeek is that another New Year Resolution hitting the wall.  The one about less craft spending didn't even last the day!

I'm sad to say I'm working long shifts over the next few days so crafting time will be more than limited it will be non existent so I may be able to blog hop, but won't be posting.

Hope everyone is having a fun weekend.

love and hugs

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug! Day is here at last...

Today sees the start of our first challenge of the New Year. How excited are we?

This week we have the theme of Holly - Fairies and Magic, which is a perfect accompaniment to our prize giveaway of a Holly Fairy rubber stamp and matching CD by Crafter's Companion.  I've made two cards for the challenge.  One to show case the Holly Fairy and another very simple card and gift tag.

Both the holly die cut on the card and the holly bauble tag were cut on my Cricut machine using the Joys of the Season cartridge.   The gold berries on the card are my own version of card candy.  I used the smallest circle die in my set of original circle dies by Spellbinders (any small circle or waste from hole punch would do the job) to cut a circle.  Then with the circle die cut face down in the palm of my hand I rolled a round ended pen top on it until a lovely indented circle was made.  Attaching these shaped circles to the holly with Pinflair or silicone glue means that the lovely rounded shape is supported and doesn't get flattened.  On the bauble gift tag I used a gem stone, but I wish I hadn't as really I preferred it plain.

To create the inner I used computer generated text and the waste from the bauble die cut to decorate the page.

My card and bauble tag are also for the challenges at ...

• ABC Christmas Challenge - Anything goes for Christmas
• Anything Goes Challenge - the letter C (for Christmas of course)
• Cupcake Challenge - Predominantly white
• Aud Sentiments Challenge - Only have two words (Merry Christmas)

Card number two uses an image and backing paper from Crafter's Companion CD 4 in the Flower Fairy Friends range.  I printed the image and backing paper on to beautiful white paper with a gold opalescent sheen.  Unfortunately in a photo it looks dire, but in real life is quite effective.  Honestly!
The layout uses the fab sketch from the challenge at Sketch and Stash.  I used holly border punch to create the border across the front of the card and also to fancy up the inner.  Yes, I'm still succeeding in sticking to the plan of doing the inners at the same time as cards.  It nearly drove me mad doing them all last December and I decided that no way did I want to face a marathon like that again.

The inner on this card is in two layers with a plain green base and then the white with gold pearl finish paper printed with a sentiment and then punched to give a holly patterned edge.

My card is also for the following challenges...

• Crafter's Companion - sketch (have wavered slightly as I couldn't find my corner rounder punch)
• Papertake Weekly - Anything goes plus lace (punched lace is allowed)
• Flutter By Wednesday - Anything goes but remember your fairy, angel or butterfly.

Well have a great Friday everyone and I hope we'll see you over at Bah! Humbug! sometime soon.  Check out Max's beautiful card and Carol our Guest Designer for this month has created some wonderful works.  Unfortunately, my friend and team mate, Irene is not well at the moment and has been unable to join in.  If you can spare some hugs for her then I'm sure they would be well received.
Ann xxx

A Stylish Blog Award...

I haven't had an award for such a long time that it was really lovely when I found out that Donna at My Happy Place  had thought of me for this fab award.  Thanks so much Donna.

The requirements for receiving the award are as follows:

1.  Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.

2.  Share 8 things about yourself.

3.  Forward it to 8 recently discovered bloggers.

4.  Contact those bloggers and tell them about their award.

Okay here goes...

8 things about me

 1. I'm really excited as I've just booked a holiday to Marrakesh and I can't wait to go.

2. Pizza and Lasagne are my favourite foods, but I'm not eating them anymore as I want to be a tad thinner to go on holiday.

3. I made a New Year Resolution to not buy quite so many rubber stamps, but by half past nine I'd put an order in at The Craft Barn.  Well they tempted me with an email about their sale.  I mean what is a girl to do?

4. I notice that Donna is going to see Peter Kaye this month - wish I was as he is soooooooooooooo funny and is definitely my favourite comedian.

5. I'm part of the team at Bah! Humbug! and I can't wait for the start of our new challenges (this coming Friday - don't miss it!)

6. Love watching NCIS, CIS, etc, but unfortunately if watching in bed I tend to fall asleep so I'm never sure who killed who!

7. I love blogging, sharing my ideas and learning so much from visiting my blogging buddies.  It's just great.

8.  My craft corner is still tidy and it's been two whole days now.  Sheesh a miracle!

I would love to pass this award on, but it's so difficult to choose when I have such lovely friends both old and new in Blogland.  So, at this point I'm going to cheat slightly (well big time really) and say if you are visiting my blog and would like this award I'm happy to pass it on to you.  Just leave a comment to say you've snagged it just so I know and can visit your blog to find out those 8 things about you.

Have a fantastic evening what ever you are up to.  I'm intending to open a bottle of red wine to celebrate my award.  Tee hee should have put I love red wine in my list of things about me.

My Crafting Corner...

I just had to add this photo as I'm so proud of my efforts to organise my craft stuff.  I haven't got a whole craft room - sigh - violins playing please, but at least now I have got a TIDY corner!  After what seems like weeks and weeks of trying to find some kind of system for storing stuff I've finally finished.

Now I just need to keep it like this - oh and find somewhere to put my clothes as all the craft stuff is in my wardrobes.  LOL,

Spoil Yourself...

I seem to be having a little craze on Penny Black images at the moment.  This is another card using an image and sentiment stamp from one of the Penny Black T for transparent stamp sets.  The spotty paper is a magazine freebie and I've teamed it with a textured fabric type of paper from my stash. 

The layout of the card came from this week's challenge at Sketch Saturday.  I really love the triangular mat idea and will be using that again in the near future.

I'm keeping up with my resolution of doing the dreaded inners at the same time as my card even if they are very simple ones.

It's probably a good way to use up some of the millions of peel offs that somebody bought over the years.  Who me?  Never!

Other Challenges...

• Passion for Promarkers - Anything Goes (ends tomorrow- 429 entries - oh my!)- image is coloured using Promarkers
• Crazy4 Challenges - Celebrate something
• Simon Says - Time to Party - Celebrate

 Enjoy your day everyone.

* Note added on Tuesday - do not look at the date on my card - some fool is still typing 2010 - sheesh what am I like?

Penny Black Birthday Card...

Oh how lovely to be able to do some crafting again instead of just trying to sort out my craft supplies and bring some order into all my stuff.  It's an impossible task anyway so I really don't know why I even try.

Today I had a little search through my Penny Black stamps and found this cute hedgie that I haven't used before.  Had a little panic midway through this card (as you do) as when it came to cutting the blue mat for the image I hadn't enough blue card left.  Eeek!  There was enough to the oval you can see, but no larger.  Anyway to cut a long story short the image had to be trimmed and a silver peel off butterfly added to replace the one chopped off during the trimming process.  Saved by the skin of my teeth as they say.

The papers are from a magazine and have been teamed with a pale blue pearlescent.  After such a long break from crafting I got a little bit carried away and even did the inner at the same time.  Yikes, that has got to be a first.

Nothing too fancy, but I think it does make the card a little bit more special.  My card was made with the following challenges in mind...

• Sweet Sketch Wednesday - I used their amazing sketch for the base of my card.
• Penny Black Saturday - 3 papers, 1 ribbon and 1 charm

Hope everyone is having a great start to their year.  Thank you for visiting and for all the fantastic comments I receive.  So kind.

Ann xxx