The Life of Brion......

There has been a new arrival in our family who has rocked our world!

My parents sadly lost our two family Laboradors last year, and when they told us that there was to be the patter of little feet in the house, we were relieved to hear that it was infact to be dog paws!

As it turned out, the patter turned out to be an almighty crash with the arrival of Brion, adopted from our local animal shelter - HULA. He is a two year old boxer cross mastiff and he is huuuuuge! On first appearances you could be forgiven for thinking OMG what is that (he is not the prettiest picture in the gallery!) but his personality is something else and we have all been head over heels with him from day one.

Unfortunately it was drama from the get go as, he was picked up on a Saturday and on Sunday morning he got out of the garden and was missing for about 4 hours. My parents and sister were frantically out looking for him (fearing the worst) and friends and neighbours were also out looking as well as the HULA staff who were getting ready to print out 'missing dog' posters.

In the end, he was found by a neighbours' dog, about 20 yards from my mum and dad's house, where another house is being refurbished in Grand Design style. The silly mutt had fallen down a hole and couldn't get out, and also didn't think to bark, even though everyone had been calling him. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he was rescued from the hole none the worst for wear. He just shook himself down and looked at my traumatised parents as if to say 'so what game are we going to play next then??'

As a result of all this, my parents have decided to re-fence the whole boundary of their property..... no small job but worth it to save their sanity! As it turns out, my husband is the lucky winner in terms of who gets to put the fence up, with a bit of help from my dad. This week they have had aches and pains where they didn't even know they had muscles!!

As for Brion......he has settled in to his new life just fine!!

No doubt there will be more Brion antics to look forward to in the future.....

Sharon x

More from the LC new releases

Hi there,

I thought I would show you some of the other cards that I made with the Littel Claire's new releases.

I was lucky enough to have two of my cards shown on the TV show this time around, which was a bit of luck as the presenter didn't show too many of the examples. One was the beach hut card that I showed on my last post and another was a man sleeping under a tree which I did ages ago, so I was really surprised to see it on the show.

Anyway, I hope you like today's pics from the new range. I have now got my hands on a few digi's which I'm going to have a play with whenever I get a chance.......watch this space!

Sharon x

Sneak Peak - Little Claire's new releases

Well I have been waiting some time for this moment as it's time for a new set of releases from Little Claire's and they are being showcased on Create and Craft tomorrow morining (9am I think!)

Once again we have some lovely new sets of Room With a View stamps and I think you will find something to suit everyone in the latest bunch - even those dreaded men!!

So here are three cards that I have made - one from each set. The beach one reminds me of those old fashioned cheeky postcards!

Hope you like the cards and that you can find the time to tune in to the Little Claire's show tomorrow or if, like me, you're going to be at work, remember to hit that record button before you go!

Bye for now.

Sharon x

Oh dear.... no time to craft!!

Oh dear - this last week has been pretty manic,and there has just been no time to craft! Work has been pretty full on, and my husband and I have been emptying out the loft ready for some new insulation to be put in. A job that will really benefit us in the future, but, since we are both hoarders, the loft is a place where we don't venture too often, let alone contemplate emptying it out,

Anyway, I can finally say, we've done it! The job of taking out all the old lagging and the little insulation wood chips that we liberally sprinkled around some years ago proved to be totally back breaking, and running all the stuff up and down the stairs certainly gave us both a workout.

We now have the job of going through all the stuff and deciding what we can bear to part with, before we start loading up the loft again - I think we are going to have to get tough!!

Anyway, after grappling with accounts all dayat work, and physical exercise till about 10pm at night with the loft, I guess you could say I have been away with the fairies.......which brings me back to my card.

This is the marigold fairy from the flower fairies in the garden set. The image is coloured with water colour pencils and the backing papers come from the flower fairies CD. And not forgetting my Stamps by Judith stubby dots stamp which I have used to make the dotty background around the edge of the image.

So that's my card for today.

Just a little note for your diaries as well - there's a Little Claire's show coming up on Create and Craft this Wednesday, so watch out for that one and maybe set your record buttons!!

Happy crafting.

Sharon x

A quick post - one for the boys!

It's not often that I make cards for boys (mostly because they're not too keen on whimsy and cute!), but here's a stamp that I think works quite well. It's from Stamposaurus and is part of a range of stamps featuring 'kids' - the name of the set escapes me but iI' sure it's Urban something.....

Anyway, it's one of those that's relaxing to colour when your little old eyes are a bit tired or, like me, you are cross eyed from working on a computer all day long!!

Hope you like this card - I am sure that I will back with my usual soppy stuff on the next post!

PS - Very excited today as the next set of SWALK are coming out. Have set my Sky plus to record three hours of lovely inspiriation.

PPS - A question for anyone out there. If you get the giant nestablility dies, will they fit through a Cuttlebug????? Any comments on this wouldbe much appreciated!

Thanks for looking.

Sharon x

Freebie over at Little Claire's

Hi All,

For those of you that love to stamp, but don't have the space to store your stash, you will be pleased to know that Little Claire's are now selling Digi Stamps. Even better, if you pop over to their website, you can download a lovely digi stamp for free.

Have a look here for more information:

http://littleclairesdesigns.blogspot.com/2011/02/digital-downloads-from-little-claire.html

It's not often that you get something for free so why not hop on over there and grab one while you can!

Sharon x

Hooray - it's challenge time!!

Well we have finally reachedthe day when the first ever Little Claire's challenge goes out on their lovely blog!

There will be a challenge launched at the beginning of every month, and the lovely Lisa from our DT has got the unenviable job of coordinating it all. So I would like to say thanks very much to Lisa, and I hope that my own followers will pop on over to the Little Claire Blog and have a go at the challenge to be in with the chance of winning a lovely card.

The first challenge is called anything goes, so I have used one of my favourite releases from recent months, which is the lovely Georgia stamp. I have coloured with Copics (as per usual...... note to self - I must start geting out some of my other coluring stuff andstart using it onceagain!!), The background papers are printed from the SWALK series 2 CD rom, and I have a feeling that I will be coming back to these particular papers quite often!

Anyway, I hope you like the card and that you will hop on over to the Little Claire's blog (see my sidebar) and have a look at all the other lovely DT examples -they are a very talented bunch!!

Bye for now!

Sharon xx

Little Claire's February project

Members of the Little Claire's stamp club will no doubt be receiving their February stamps over the coming days, and I am very proud tosay that one of my designs has made it as the main project card. So approx 750 club members will each be receiving a little project pack with the materials to make my card. I am very chuffed about this as you can imagine, and I see on their blog that Steve has made a video to demo how to make my card. How wierd to watch my own card being made by someone else!

Well this is the card in question and I'm really pleased that it got picked. I really love this set of stamps as it includes a mouse holding a flower - perfect for Birthdays, Mothers Day or the occassional 'I'm sorry' type of card. Pop on over to the Little Claire's website and you will be able to see loads of examples from my talented team mates, using these very same stamps.

I will be back on Saturday with my card for the very first Little Claire's blog challange and I look forward to seeing all the lovely entries on the blog.

Bye for now.

Sharon x