Lost Treasures Found

Goodness, I've been so busy visiting all my blog friends and chatting I haven't got round to posting a blog in days, that's terrible, I must do better.

I've just discovered that Jill (Mrs Stampman) has just started a blog and has lots of photos of her wonderful creations on it. I have been a customer of the Stampman since they had a tiny shop in Ilkley at the very beginning and I bought my very first rubber stamps and ink pads from them, so the blame for my crafting addiction can firmly be laid at their door!!!! I shall be eternally grateful. Anyway, if you love messy crafting, splodging, spritzing etc, Jill is a master so please give her visit, you will not be disappointed.

While on the subject of my favourite stamps Glenda Waterworth is giving away some of her new fab bird stamps on her design team site, definitely worth a look.

Now a trip down memory lane. Does anyone remember these things?

My Mum has been clearing out her loft and we found these in a box. I was absolutely thrilled, assuming they had been thrown away long ago.

What are they you might ask, they look a bit grotty and strange!!!!

Well, you put a pin in the middle, draw a line at the top and move the numbers round to that line drawing the corresponding shape as you go and you end up with a lovely drawing of a Disney character. These were mine when I was Freya's age and so are quite ancient now, but they still work perfectly and although I've looked many times you can't buy anything half as good today. The new ones are poor imitations of the original as with many things.

As you can see you don't need any artistic talent but the little pictures are perfect.

Does anyone else remember these or have them? I'd be interested to know.

I have now passed mine onto Freya and she has spent ages using them. She likes the mystery of guessing what she is drawing because it doesn't tell you on them what characters they make.

Before I go today I must just say a big thank you to the lovely Sally at Sal-utations for yet another award. I am totally over whelmed by them all at the moment. You are all such lovely people.

Have a lovely day.

A Lovely Award

A quick post tonight to say a big thank you to the lovely Enfys who has given me this much appreciated award.

I am meant to pass it on to 10 other bloggers, but Enfys says it's ok to be lazy and just send it to 5, so here are mine, Kate, Sally, Lynne, Lesley and Kay. I love all your blogs and look forward to your new posts with anticipation.

Happy Crafting!

Flowers, Sun and Doughnuts

I have done lots of crafting in the last few days but if you will indulge me I am going to wallow in my other passion, gardening, for just one day.

Today has been very special because we have been to Harrogate Spring Flower Show. The sun shone and it was perfect. We arrived as the gates opened and so got a good hour to browse before the crowds arrived.

It was Freya's first visit and she did very well, only getting fed up towards home time. She enjoyed the flower arranging. What clever people Flower arrangers are. There were displays based on movies, travel, pub names, eating, just about anything you could think of.

The flower pavilions were packed with every kind of plant you could wish for. I took these photos of the lilies which were just breathtaking and the perfume was amazing as you walked by. Freya and her Dad liked these huge Alliums best.

We looked longingly at all the buildings and gadgets but everything had 4 numbers on the price tag!!!!! Hey maybe we'll win the lottery tonight. These circular garden rooms had us drooling.

The visit was finished off with coffee and hot donoughts and an ice cream for Freya sitting in the sun listening to a great brass band.

I was very restrained and only succumbed to a few purchases, well you can always find room for one more plant, well that's what I tell myself anyway.

Thank you for letting me get plants out of my system. Back to crafting next time I promise.

My First Award

I have a bit of housekeeping to do first before getting down to crafty things.

I have received my very first award from Kate T which is another blogging milestone. Thanks Kate I really appreciate it.

There is also some awesome Blog Candy up for grabs on a wonderful blog, Passion for Crafts which is definitely worth checking out.

Right, all the important things done I have only got one card to share with you tonight. Nice weather equals time in the garden and not so much crafting for me, although I will try and get a bit done tonight.

This card was done using peels offs. I have a whole box of them which only seems to come out when I need a greeting so I tried to use some of the others.

This was a nice modern image and I painted it with H20's which I love, they always seem to give such a rich creamy colour with a lovely lustre.

I used peel offs for the greeting and for the little corner accents and then matted with plain pink card. The backing paper was DCWV from the pocket full of posies stack which matched the peel off flowers perfectly.

From looking at everyone elses lovely cards I think I am a bit too conservative with the layout of mine, I tend to be more adventurous with scrapbooking so my intention is to try some of the sketches out there for card making. I will let you know what happens.

Sucess At Last

I hope you have all had the glorious sunshine we have had today, it was so warm we even had our lunch in the garden. A perfect end to a lovely week, although it'll be really hard to get back to normal tomorrow with work and school.

After hours of pondering and then giving up and re pondering after asking for Blog land help my computer whizz of a husband has just solved my comments picture puzzle in about 30 seconds. Don't you just hate it when that happens. He's a star when it comes to sorting out technical things.

I didn't have my comments section on a separate page and now I do the pictures appear as if by magic-Hurray!!!!

My cards tonight are yet more cuttlebug creations. I shall bore you to death with these.

For the first one I inked my folder with the Marvy Blending Blox shades of sunset ink and ran it through the cuttlebug once for a dark impression and then spritzed the ink that was left on the folder with water and embossed again and this was the result, a lovely pale hint of ink.

I stuck pink gems in the middle of the flowers, inked the backing card with a color box peony ink and stamped the wording in the same colour to tie in.

The second one was for my sister's 12th Wedding Anniversary, which is today so I can post it now, although I'm not sure whether she reads my blog or not.

The heart and greeting was swiped after embossing with brilliance ink pearlescent orchid, which I also used to ink the background card to match and I stuck tiny pink gems on the swirls.

The ribbon was from DCWV. By the way, it is stuck on straight although it looks wonky. My polka dots were not quite straight, but this was my 3rd attempt at getting them straight and so they were near enough!!!!

Hope you have a good Monday.

A Little Bit Of Heaven

Today, not only has the sun been shining but we have had a lovely day out in my favouritest place. Perfect.

We have been up to The Lakes, to Ambleside, which is just under 2 hours from here, so not a bad run and one we try to do as often as we can. I just love it up there, the hills, the lakes and the lovely views in every direction. It was not too busy today and the Rhododendrons were just coming into flower and there was blossom everywhere you looked, just beautiful. I took lots of photos, we had a yummy lunch and I had a lovely laze in the sun while Freya and her Dad played football in Borrans Park.

I feel too sleepy after all that fresh air to do much crafting tonight but I did finish some cards yesterday so I thought I'd show you one of those.

I have at last mastered the correct side to ink a Cuttlebug folder thanks to some tips from my blog friends and have done lots of playing about with various colours and inks. This card was made with the colorbox cats eyes browns stack. I just wiped various colours on and got quite a nice combination. It went well with the DCWV glitter stack paper which I cut into strips and used with mirricard. The flowers are from Papermania which are held together with a brad from my craft box.

Colorbox are one of my favorite inks and while browsing tonight I found a lovely blog with some wonderful candy to give away, a huge multicolour ink pad which is totally gorgeous (take a look at the piccy on my sidebar). If you love inks it is definitely worth checking out on Dorothy's blog here.

Blog Candy and More Time Please

Sally H has some lovely Blog Candy up for grabs from Crafty Individuals who make beautiful stamps so check it out and I have to agree wholeheartedly with the Lynne K's comments on her blog about more spare time please. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day at the moment for crafting.

We are all on holiday, though, this week so have had some lovely days out instead. Harewood House has been the favourite so far. This is a regular for us. Freya loves the huge adventure playground and always makes some new friends and we have to visit the birds to say hello to our favourites, mine are the snowy owls, Freya likes the penguins and Dad likes the parrots.

We also had lunch outside so it definitely feels like summer is not far away.

On a crafty front I have managed to finish the layout I was doing of the lovely spring flowers which have been at their best over the holidays.

This one was a bit of a tousle, it didn't go together easily like some of them do, but I am fairly happy with the result now it is finished.

The background paper was Playful Petals from Daisy Bucket and the background circles and distressed flowers were all the Basic Grey Sulty collection. My title was done using Sissix You're My Cupcake Dies.

I made the flowers by cutting out different sized circles, sanding the edges and then inking the edges with whispers chestnut ink. It was a good way of using up all the left over bits of paper I had.

More Cake

Well what lovely people you are and what lovely comments you leave. The Easter cake is yummy and I am sending you all a slice through cyber space!!!!!

Because of the nice things you said and also because I haven't done a scrap of crafting all weekend, too busy finishing the decorating-hurray!!!! pottering in the garden and watching the golf-Good grief, did I actually say that. My hubby was watching it and I sort of got sucked in- I thought I'd show you another cake. Well you did agree it was still crafting.


I did this one last June for a friend of my sister. She told me she wanted daisies, the bridesmaids would be wearing navy and she wanted a bride and groom on the top but apart from that I could do what I wanted. I must admit at first I was a bit freaked by navy for a wedding but I think by adding the bit of silver to the ribbon to lift it, it worked really well with the freshness of the daisies. It was a lovely cake to do. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think the bride was very pleased with it.


It was a lovely wedding, Freya and I went to have a peak as my sister was one of the bridesmaids and it was at the same church where we got married many moons ago so I could get all nostalgic!!!!

Now, before I sign off I need some help. I'm being a bit thick I think but I cannot for the life of me find out how to add your profile pics on the comments you leave me. Everyone I visit has them and I have searched and searched but cannot work it out. I now have brain ache so hope someone can help me. I want to see who is leaving me such nice comments.

A Little Bit of Cake Crafting

I hope everyone had a lovely Good Friday. It's been a really wet day here but we had a surprise visit from some friends who live in Shropshire which was lovely. It made the day really special.

This morning Freya and I decorated the Simnel cake we made yesterday so I thought we'd share that with you. It's still crafting in my eyes. I decorate wedding cakes when asked (one day I'll show you some pictures when I've not done any paper crafting), which helps to fund my craft addiction.

We didn't have enough marzipan to make the traditional apostle balls on the top, too much got eaten by a little person!!!! so we used mini eggs instead which I think looks really cheerful and full of Easter.

Hopefully it'll be saved until Sunday, although one egg has already disappeared. I wonder how many will be left before we actually cut into it? I'll let you know!!

Have a lovely weekend.

Peacocks Galore

Hi there

Thanks for all your lovely comments-the decorating is going well, but STILL not finished. As I've said before we are not fast workers in this house. At the moment we are all high on paint fumes, but at least the weather has kept fine, if a bit breezy so the windows and doors are all open and the smell is slowly disappearing. Maybe by the weekend the new wallpaper will be on!!

I've managed a bit of crafting before falling into bed at night. Both these cards have been made using the Artylicious Peacock Party CD.

I printed the feather toppers onto card and then painted over them with H20's to give them a shimmer.

The black card was mounted onto gold mirricard and a backing paper from the CD and I finished off with black peel off corners and gold organza ribbon.

The pale card used backing paper from another Artylicious CD-I think it was Filligree Fusion- it was one I printed awhile ago and was sitting in my craft box- and green organza ribbon.

I am a lazy crafter and make cards without greetings most times so that they can be used for any occasion and added last minute when I decide to send them.

Well I'm going back to pondering over a layout I'm doing of the spring flowers. It's one of those that is just not working at the moment. Hopefully I'll get it sorted out soon so that I can Blog it!!

Still Decorating!

Hello there. I hope you have had a lovely weekend and the weather has been as good there as it has been here.

We are still decorating but the good news is the wall paper is all off-Hurray!!!, the paintwork is rubbed down and we are ready to start putting things right again. Thank goodness for that. I might actually get some proper crafting time in a few days.

In the meantime I've got another tag to show you using another Crafters Workshop stencil. This one is Mini Windsong and is one of my favourites.

I inked the background with a coarse mesh-like fabric using Dusty Concord and Faded Jeans distress inks which gave a speckled effect. The stencilling was done with Faded Jeans and the flourishes were stamped with Crimson Brilliance ink which I then wiped round all the edges just to soften them.

I stamped the wording on a separate piece of card and cut round it and then stuck a piece of burgundy organza ribbon on top and put it all on the tag at a jaunty angle just to be different.

Well I'm off to indulge in a bar of chocolate my kind Husband bought me, a treat for all our hard work, yes I will share it and I hope those of you just starting the Easter school hols like us have a relaxing time, lets hope the weather holds.

Flower Power

We got up to an absolutely beautiful day here, clear blue skies and warm spring sunshine. You could almost see the flowers opening. I took my mug of tea out and sat in the garden this afternoon and it was bliss to feel warm sun on your face. I hope it was as good where you are.

Well back to crafty things.

I managed another cuttlebugging card, this time using the build a flower embossing folder and dies. I thought just using 3 petals looks a bit like a tulip so I wiped pink brilliance ink over and then used pink gems to create a stalk. The background is sprayed with Amaryllis Burgundy Starburst stain which leaves a lovely gold sheen when it dries and then I stamped a butterfly all over with crimson brilliance ink and used that again for the greeting.

I seem to be a bit cuttlebug obsessed at the minute. I think it must be time for a change!