Bah! Humbug! Day ... Apertures

A very quick post from me today as I'm off to work shortly.  This week at Bah! Humbug! sees us using apertures on our cards.  Something I don't do as often as I should as they can be quite effective.  I decided to make my aperture a mouse sized one and create a mouse hole on the front of my card using part of a nestie circle.

I tried to make the front look like wall and skirting board. I suppose if the proportions were as in real life the skirting board would be far bigger, but I think it works okay as it is.  The little sign was printed on the computer and the holly was made using a punch.

On the inside the image from a stamp set by Joanna Sheen was coloured using Promarkers with a touch of Sakura white glaze pen and some glitter.  The sentiment is from the same stamp set.

My card is also for the challenges at...

• Fab's Big Christmas Challenge - curls (will be on my next creation) or pictures (on this one)
• Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes
• Christmas Sparkles - Predominantly red and green

Have a great weekend everyone.  I'm working most of it, but have a whole week off to look forward to. Yeah!

Ann xxx

A very quick calender...

Whoops, I've been in Poundland again!  They have these really cool perspect frames in all different sizes supposed to be for photos, but basically you could frame anything in them.  The plastic is bent over at the bottom so you can stand them on a desk.  They are really easy to use as basically it's just a case of slipping your work in between the plastic layers and whatever you slide in can be changed really easily.

I bought a couple of small ones and have made a little House Mouse calender for March.  I've used a birthday image as for one thing it's my daughter's birthday in March and also I thought I hadn't got a Spring themed stamp. I've now found one, but I'll be able to use that for April so no worries.

Materials used...

• plastic frame from Poundland
• monthly calender found by Google and changed a little using Serif Craft Artist - also added some images for special events in the month
• House Mouse stamp
• pink/lilac reversable card
• border die by Cuttlebug
• Promarkers
• pink organza ribbon

Challenges...

• House Mouse and Friends Challenge - use your favourite stamp (sorry guys this isn't my all time favourite - I just couldn't choose - love them all!) 

Ann xxx

House Mouse Valentine Present...

Phew just made it in time even though Poundland let me down this morning by not opening till after I started work and closing before I finished.  Sheesh did they not realise how important it was that I got my mitts on a PINK sticky note pad to replace the yellow?  Ah well yellow will have to do as I want to give this to my daughter tomorrow as a little Valentine gift plus this is the last day for the House Mouse and Friends Challenge of Hearts and I don't want to miss entering that!  It's one of my favourite challenges.

A little while ago I saw these great sticky note sets at Poundland or one of the many other similar shops.  I just knew they would be great to play around with and make that little bit more special.  I know you could do the same thing (with a lot of measuring and a ton of patience) with card, but these sets are a really nice finish and being plain black mock leather they are easy to transform.

To create the top I used one of the new House Mouse stamp sets from Joanna Sheen coloured it with Promarkers and then mat and layered it on to black card.  I decided to attach a layer of acetate over the top using brads.  I thought that as it would be in use all the time it would protect the image from getting dirty.

On the inside I used the calender that was already in the pack but cut it down and matted it on to pink card and after colouring and cutting out the little meece with the paperclip I tucked in behind the calender a little.  I also added some glittery black peel off numbers for the year.

As I said at the beginning of the post I would have loved to have been able to add pink sticky notes rather than the yellow.  Laura is a pink fanatic.  They will have to do for now though and in case you're wondering yes I am daft enough to try to stamp the pointing Maxwell on every sheet.  I lost the will to live about half way down the stack!  

After a massive search I found some paper clips that I knew I'd saved for scrapbooking somewhere and couldn't believe my luck that some of them were not only pink, but heart shaped too.  Don't you just love it when things go right for once.

My sticky note holder gift was also made with the following challenges in mind...

• Sir Stampalot - All Creatures Great and Small
• Promarker Challenge - Let there be love
• Simon Says Challenge Blog - Anything but a card

Thank you for looking everyone and for the wonderfully kind comments.  I love reading them.  It really makes my day.

Love and hugs

Ann xxx

It's that mouse again!...

This House Mouse guy seems to be appearing everywhere this week.  This time he's got himself into a snowglobe I picked up at our local Home Bargains store.  I really like this globe as it's flat backed and has a huge magnet on so that you can stick it on the fridge, etc.  It was nice and easy to open and has a much neater finish than the last globe I used.

My globe is going to make it's way on to my Mum's fridge this afternoon when I go on to do her tea, but it's also for the challenges at...

• Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog - Christmas Animals (wow Cynthia can you believe I entered on your very first day?)
• Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Anything for Christmas but not a card.
• Ooh La La Creations - Here comes Santa CLAWS (lol)
• One Stop Craft Challenge - Christmas Cuties

Hope this snow melts soon.  My Graphicus goodies are still being held at the Post Office and our milk and bread supplies are running dangerously low.  I'm not sure which of those things is worrying me most!  Probably the Graphicus box as they are like gold dust to get hold off.

Take care everyone.

Ann xxx 

Bah! Humbug!...

I'm sorry, but the snow I like is glittered and on Christmas cards.  The real stuff is also okay for the occasional country walk, sledging and building snowmen, but on no account should it fall when people need to get to work or even worse know that they have a huge parcel from Graphicus stranded at the Post Office and there is no way they can get their hands on it.  Eeek!

Anyway grumble over and on to more fun things such as this totally cute House Mouse stamp from one of the sets on the Joanna Sheen website.  How cute is he?  I love him to meeces!

I missed the last challenge at the House Mouse and Friends Challenge blog and was determined not to miss this one which is all about the 'envelope'.  To compensate for missing out last time I did a card to match the envelope.  Actually not sure which came first - a bit like the chicken and the egg query really.

The envelope was stamped with the mouse and then using another stamp set in my collection I stamped the ground and the snowballs using a bit of masking and a pen to join things up.  I coloured the image using Promarkers.  I was a bit unsure as to how they would blend on the envelope paper and I must admit I put an protective piece inside the envelope just incase the ink went through, but it all seemed to work fine. The snowflakes are one of the really tiny corner stamps by Clarity bought at a show years ago and were stamped in Versefine Sepia.  I added the address to the photo only - I don't really know Maxwell's address!

My card is a really simple one with the mouse image mounted on a fab die cut by Nellie Snellen and then matted on some of my favourite wording paper by DCWV.  Organza ribbon, die cut tags and corner peel offs have been added for a touch of oomph.

My card and envelope set is perfect for the following challenges...

• House Mouse and Friends Challenge Blog - Envelope Art
• Crazy 4 Challenges - Script (background paper)
• Promarker Challenge - Old and New (new is House Mouse stamp - old is DCWV paper and snowflake corner stamp)

Well, I'm off for a walk in the snow.  I must be mad, but I do think that it will be really beautiful on the pastures near us and am hoping to take some good snowy day photos.  Also hoping that Pasture's Lodge is open too as I think on a cold day their lasagne, garlic bread and chips meal would go down very nicely accompanied by a glass (or two) of red wine.

Have a good day all and keep warm and safe.

Ann xxx

Keeping busy...

A very special aunt of mine died this weekend so as you can imagine everyone has been really upset. I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm feeling low I find that crafting takes my mind off things and helps enormously.

Last week Joanna Sheen added some gorgeous House Mouse canvas bags to her online shop.  I couldn't resist and at the time of ordering I thought I might as well throw the matching stamp set into the basket too.  I was thinking that I might be able to do a bag charm or something like that to make the bag extra special.

Well somebody has stolen my shrink plastic or it could be that it's just been put in a safe place somewhere.  I haven't checked the fridge yet, but I've looked in most other places and have not tracked it down.  However, during the search I found some plastic badges that I bought ages ago from WH Smiths so I decided to use one of those to make an addition to my new bag.

The mouse was stamped on to a nestie circle along with the matching sentiment.  I coloured the image with Promarkers and touched up the edges with brown chalk to give a softer effect.  Then I mounted the circle on a scalloped red nestie and sprayed with Crafter's Companion glitter before putting inside the badge holder.  My daughter suggested the addition of the brown ribbon.

Hope you like it and if you see my shrink plastic anywhere around please let me know!!

Ann xxx

Haunted House Mouse...

Meet Mudpie, one of the many House Mouse stamps I won in the House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge birthday celebrations.  I still can't believe how lucky I was.  Sigh so many gorgeous stamps!  I chose Mudpie from the amazing selection of stamps at House-Mouse Designs.  I knew he would be useful to use if the challenge was one that I hadn't got a specific stamp for and sure enough he came in very handy for the Halloween challenge theme, which started yesterday.

I decided to create a scene card using acetate.  I've done loads of these cards now and they are great fun to make.  My tutorial on how to create this style of card can be found here.  The house and ghosts are part of a clipart set I bought at PC Crafter last year.  As you can see in the picture I printed the house several times and decoupaged it onto black glitter card.  The smoke and the fence were too fine to cut out so I used Stickles to create the smoke and broken cocktail sticks to recreate the fence.  I rather like the rustic effect and am not at all annoyed that after spending ages fiddling around my Cuttlebug fence die arrived in the post.  Ah well maybe use that next time!

Check out Mudpie's half inch square goodie bag!  Oh my I must be mad cutting out and folding up such a tiny version, but hey you can't go trick of treating with nothing to put your stash in.  After folding the bag I panicked about how I was going to add the handles and then had a light bulb moment and filled the bag with Pinflair glue and pushed the handles into the glue.  In the words of the famous meercat 'Simples!'

The bat was not so simples - make mental note draw bat before folding and glueing next time.

Well after all that I think my card is also perfect for the challenges at...

• Crazy for Challenges - Halloween
• Raise the bar - Orange, black and purple
• Stamp Something - use a digi image (house and ghosts are digis)
• Ooh la la Creations - Scary Stuff
• Paper Playtime - Halloween

Have a fab week everyone.

Ann xxx

PS:  Yeah guess what ....
This card got the Top Three award at Raise the Bar - wow what an honour?

Happy Birthday House Mouse Challenge...

The House Mouse Challenge has been around for two whole years and they are celebrating with an anniversary blog hop and a fantastic sketch challenge to mark the event.  I chose to use my House Mouse ballerina stamp which my daughter bought me.  How cute is that mouse?  The papers are some that have been in my stash for years.  I think the patterned ones were in a huge bundle by Papermania and the plain card is by DCWV.  

My card is also for the challenges at...

• Crafty Creations - Music and Dance
• Practical Scrappers - Use those buttons (I know the button I've used is not an obvious one, but the flower in the middle of the punched flower is a button.  I had to break the back off it - honest!)
• Crafty Ann's - Monochrome

 Enjoy the rest of your day everyone.  I'm off to try out some of my new craft stash.

Last Two Christmas Cards...

Phew I was really cutting it fine this year - so glad I have finished and next year I am going to be far more organised.  Hopefully running the Bah! Humbug! Christmas challenge site will help - I certainly hope so.  If you haven't had a look at that yet please do.  We've got 25 followers already - I'm so giddy with the excitement.  It's going to be so much fun.

This is the House Mouse stamp that Laura bought me to make Christmas cards for her to give to special people.  I love the stamp - it's so cute, but oh my did it take some time to colour!?  Each of the beads needed hightlighting and then just when I thought I'd finished I'd find a bit of mouse that I'd missed.  Great fun especially when you're in a hurry!

I used Promarkers to colour the images and then matted and layed on to my papers.  I really don't know who the papers are by as they were sent to me by a blogging friend and I've used them so often.  Thank you Elaine if you see this - I just love these papers - the colours are scrummy.
Both my cards fit the challenges at...

• Crafty Calender Challenges - Winter Sparkle (not sure how much it shows in photo, but mice are standing in layer of sparkly snow)

• SophistiCat Challenge - Christmas
• House Mouse - Winter Wishes

Now entering the following challenge is a little cheeky - well more that a bit, but I have missed out on the last two challenges at Rainbow Lady's Challenge blog so I'm hoping I can get away with this...

Cynthia's current challenge is to use an image of a stag or other large animal on your card!  Hmmmmm mice - well House Mice are very big news in the stamping world and size is only relative after all.  If you were knee high to a grass hopper a mouse could seem huge.
Hmmmmmmm will I get away with that?  Is Christmas hysteria setting in big time - I think it maybe!

Have a good day everyone.
Ann xxx

Happy Birthday Gran...

It's Grandma's birthday on Thursday and Laura wanted me to make a card with one of the gorgeous House Mouse Stamps she bought me for my birthday way back in June. It just had to be the perfume spraying mouse stamp as Grandma has always been a perfume addict and of course there had to be pink on it as Laura is crazy about pink.

The sketch I used is from this week's Mojo Monday challenge with a flower added instead of a star. Talking of flowers isn't this one gorgeous? It's from a tin full of beauties that was one of the presents Irene bought me for my birthday. The pearl brads were also part of my present. Thank you Irene - I loved everything in the birthday bag.

My card is also for the 'Birthday' themed challenges at Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps ( a new challenge - do check it out and their fabulous stamps) and the One Stop Craft Challenge.

Also, I have wanted to join in the challenges at House Mouse for so long and for ages I had no stamps and then no time, but yes I think I can sneak in an entry this week. Their theme is 'Movies' and my chosen movie to accompany my image is 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer'.

I don't think my little mouse is a murderer, but you never know I could add an evil glint to the eyes. Check out the DT creations at House Mouse they are absolutely gorgeous. The 'Sleepless in Seattle' card just made me chuckle so much.

Have a good day everyone - I'm off to Wath Market - wonder what amazing bargains will be there this week.