Can You Have Too Many Butterflies?

Happy Sunday everyone. Hasn't it been beautiful again, well unless you're a football fan I guess.

I was sat in the garden while the match was on and knew when to pop inside for a look because I could hear the cheers and the groans echoing around!! In the end there where more groans than cheers and my DH turned it off half way through the second half declaring he had better things to do with his time!!! Things must be bad. He'd sat through the Grand Prix first and I think that was more entertaining. Red Bull gives you wings, just ask Mark Webber!!!

I have lots of half finished projects and some cards that haven't been delivered yet so I thought I'd share another Layout tonight, just to prove to Sarah that I am still scrapbooking.


This one was of my Wisteria this year which was fantastic and smelled heavenly. It's a standard in a pot and is just at nose height. My Mum and Dad always enthused whenever we saw them when we were small and my Sister said it should be called Hysteria instead, hence the title.

I stamped onto the paper again with my new Papermania Hampstead stamps and coloured it with self coloured pro markers. I really like the effect I get with this. The title was printed on the computer and cut out and I also used a Nestie which was inked with the die still in place so that you get that lovely white edge.


The main border was cut with a bendy ruler and I added stitching and gems for interest.

The flower was cut out of some very old Do Crafts paper and then I went and added all those glittery butterflies punched with my new Martha Stewart punch and to my mind spoilt it. Trouble is I used wet glue and I can't get them off now. A great example of adding one thing too many!! Oh well, I thought I'd show you anyway.

Thanks for stopping by and whatever you're doing, have a great week.

You Gotta Have Friends

Happy Wednesday out there in Blogland. I bet there are a few of you celebrating right now after the football this afternoon. I have to admit that yes, I did watch it, even though I was here on my own. Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, that's what I say.

I'm totally in love with the Lily of The Valley stamps at the moment and promised you'd see much more of them. I made this card for a friend I made many years ago during a holiday in Corfu. We've kept in touch by old fashioned snail mail ever since and this was the card I made for her birthday a week or so ago.


I painted the image with distress inks, a new technique for me, but I'm quite pleased with the results. The rest is pretty self explanatory, a bit of cuttlebugging and some freebie backing paper from a Scrapbooking magazine that was just the right colour. The sentiment was from my favourite Dawn Bibby set, she has got so many useful ones that are just the right size for most projects.

The flowers were white so I just touched them with a bit of distress ink to tone them in and added some brads for the centres.

I'm going to enter it into the Simon Says challenge this week, which is Friends. I made the card especially for my friend and this lovely stamp is also of a girl and her best friend.

Thank you as always for stopping by and I hope you are managing to enjoy this glorious weather. We have been having breakfast and tea outside on our lovely new table so have felt very continental, a real luxury in this country. Long may it continue.

With A Little Help From My Friends

Hello lovely Bloggers. How are you enjoying this lovely Summer weather? Isn't it glorious to wake up to clear blue skies every morning.

It's my MIL 70th Birthday today, a day she's been dreading for months but I think she's enjoyed herself and it's not been half as bad as she thought.


I have to thank a few of my wonderful Blogging buddies for the help they've given me directly and indirectly in making her Birthday card. Many months ago Lynda made a beautiful Snowdrop card which I admired and she kindly sent me lots of stamped images which is what I've used for the main image. My MIL's favourite flowers are snowdrops. Lynda also sent me the original card she'd made so I could use it for reference to colour it with promarkers, thanks so much Lynda. I hope you don't mind but I also glossed the flowers as well.


I was then stuck with the layout, which brings me to the very talented Brenda. Last year she made a card and I loved her layout and "borrowed" it for a card I was making at the time and I remembered how I'd liked it so I "borrowed it again. Brenda also puts threads across at jaunty angles which looks great. I used a cuttlebugged background which was lightly inked and a Martha Stewart punch on the pearly paper.

I wanted some flowers to tie in with the snowdrops, roses just didn't work and I was inspired by yet another Blog, Mainly Flowers, which has some stunning punched flower tutorials so my flowers are a direct result of this.

I can't express how blown away I am by the inspiration out there and know I couldn't produce anything like this sort of thing without it so a million thanks to you all.


I also made her a word book, which was all my own work for once. I used Papermainia papers and the new Tim Holtz swirls dies and various flowers with card candy.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the sunshine.

Cake Anyone?

Just a quickie today. I've been on a Wedding theme lately so I thought I'd round it off by sharing the last Wedding cake I decorated back in May.

This lady asked for chocolate and cream with a love heart and crystal spray. She wanted the sitting bride and groom as well and my modelling skills are very limited so I bought these clay dough figures and then added a few personal touches like the grooms tie and the colour of the flowers.


Thanks for stopping by and I hope your weekend is going well so far. The forecast rain has not arrived here so for once we've been lucky with the weather and spent most of the weekend in the garden chopping down a conifer that had grown too large for our fairly small garden. I've now retreated inside for a rest and some gentle crafting!!

All That Blooms

Well, it's Friday again and another week nearly done. Is it me, or do they just go faster and faster?

What's happened to the weather, or was that Summer? We've had a week of solid rain, mist and general gloom and it's soooo cold, I'm back in sweaters again. We had to laugh though, last weekend we bought a lovely little table and two chairs for the patio, somewhere to sit and have coffee on those lovely Summer mornings and our Neighbour said "that's it, you've done it now, it'll do nothing but rain" and that's exactly what's happened. I've just admired our lovely table from the window.

In the last post I shared the Wedding card I'd made for my friend who'd got married over the Bank Holiday. She's works at my daughter's school and the teachers asked me to make an exploding box for them to give her. She's a huge Bradford Bulls Rugby fan and actually got married at the ground so they wanted rugby balls to come out of it.


This is what I came up with. I kept the outside quite plain and just used a textured pearly cream card to decorate it, matted with gold mirricard and added a paper rose on the lid.


All the teachers signed the inside and I printed the rugby balls off the Internet, cut them out and glossed them. The bouquet of roses and leaves hid all the acetate and I let the leaves come up the strips of acetate so that they had a bit of movement too. The roses were made out of a cream textured paper and I just added a hint of brushed corduroy to them. The punched leaves had a swirly stamp added to look like veining.


She is absolutely thrilled with it and has it on her desk and shows anyone who comes by. She's stood it up in the lid so that the roses and balls are on the top of the box and it looks really good, I would never have thought of turning it inside out.


I'm entering it into the Tuesday Taggers challenge this week as their theme is "All That Blooms".

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a great Weekend. I think the forecasters are promising at least a little bit of sunshine!!

Enjoying the weather....

Hello all you lovely Bloggers. I hope you are all well and have enjoyed the beautiful weather we have again been blessed with over the last few days.

I have to apologise yet again for being a Bad Blogger. We have all been on Holiday this week, not literally but no work or school so we've been out and about enjoying ourselves most of the week so it's felt like being on holiday.


We had a lovely day in Knaresborough, which is so local to us but always has a holiday feel and enjoyed a leisurely lunch alfresco at the side of the river. The following day we went to Scarborough. The traffic was a nightmare and the journey took twice as long as it should both ways but it was all worthwhile. We enjoyed the Sealife centre wondering at the alien like jellyfish and the graceful Seahorses. Isn't nature wonderful!! The weather was so beautiful we spent the rest of the day on the beach exploring the rock pools, paddling and eating ice cream. Simple pleasures!!


I made a Wedding card for a friend who got married last weekend and thought it fitted the bill for this week's challenge at Tuesday Taggers which is texture. They are being sponsored by Tanda Stamps so it's definitely worth checking out.


I like the white on white look so tried mixing together two cuttlebugged designs and just added a touch of silver. The heart stamp has been in my box for years and never been inked up. It has no name on so was probably a bargain buy at some time. I silver embossed it and the sentiment, which is from Dawn Bibby.

Thanks for stopping by. I shall try to catch up with all your lovely blogs over the next few days to check out all the inspirational things I've missed out on.

Happy Bank Holiday Monday

What a difference a week makes don't you think. Last weekend we were baking under hot sunshine and this weekend it's been wet, windy and decidedly chilly. Typical Bank Holiday weather really. Still I hope it hasn't stopped you enjoying whatever it is you've been up to.

I thought I'd just share with you a Layout I did last week of the beautiful Tulips we had in the garden this year. The hot weather finished them off so I was glad I photographed them when I did.


I used lots of freebie papers I've accumulated from various magazines and then stamped the bazzill with an Inkadinkadoo beautiful stem and coloured it with promarkers. The title was cut on my Slice and the border was made using my favourite Martha Stewart punch.

Thanks for stopping by and for all the lovely comments you continue to leave. I love reading them. Enjoy your Monday.

Did you enjoy Summer?

Hello out there in lovely Blogland. I hope you enjoyed Summer over the weekend and made the most of it. Wasn't it fantastic. I'm afraid I just took my book outside and sat in the garden for 3 days, no housework done or anything. Hot sunshine was just too good to miss and I'm glad I did as it's raining today so all the housework and other to do jobs have all been done.

The challenge over at Tuesday Taggers this week is It's A Man's World and is sponsored by The Craft Barn. I don't do many male cards, they all tend to be girly, but I have just made one for our friends Son's 6th Birthday so I thought I'd enter it this week.


It was a Lily Of The Valley stamp on a Nestability coloured with pro markers. I layered it with a Scalloped Nestie and stamped the background with the free stamp from Craft Stamper last month.

The number was cut with a Sissix Die.

I'm loving these LOTV stamps at the moment and have been experimenting with the colouring so I'll warn you now, you'll be seeing lots more of them.

Thanks, as always, for stopping by and I hope your week is going well so far.

Happy Birthday

I hope you are all enjoying the first signs of Summer. After a slow start it's been beautiful here this afternoon. Doesn't the sunshine make you feel so much brighter.

May and June are such busy months for birthdays here so I have been fitting in cards in between more fun crafting for the last few weeks and I thought I'd enter this one into the Allsorts challenge which this week is Birthdays in honour of their first Blogaversary.


I've made this one for a friend of my MIL who is celebrating her 70th Birthday next week and has a passion for Orchids. I found the image on the internet and printed it out several times so that I could decoupage it before adding glossy accents.

I've kept the colour scheme quite simple with just a hint of a Martha Stewart punch. The sentiment is from Dawn Bibby.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your week is going well so far.

Beautiful Butterflies

Hi there lovely Bloggers. How's your weekend going. Good I hope.

I am pleased to say that everyone in the Craft Garden is now fit and healthy and normal service has been resumed, thank goodness.

I have just been drooling over the mountain of Tim Holtz goodies that Sir Stampalot are offering for their May challenge, "Blossom and Butterflies". If you are a fan of the master it is definitely worth checking out.


I thought I'd enter the Butterfly Boxes I made both our Mums for Mothers Day. Yes, I know I'm a bit late in showing you these. I saw these wonderful boxes on many of my cyber buddies blogs and they linked back to a wonderful blog, Magic Boxes and when I investigated I was hooked.

These first attempts are not very original I'm afraid. I loved the idea of Butterflies coming out as the box is opened but was learning on the job so I stuck very much to the tutorial given.


The sides were sprayed with a gold Starburst Stain and then edged with Faded Jeans DI and iridescent blue cosmic shimmer applied straight onto the ink to give a lovely shine. The stamps were from the Graphicus Wildflower plate and I used a colourbox pigment ink and clear embossed. Each side was matted with gold mirricard.

The Butterflies were also from Graphicus and painted with Sparkling H20's and the little flowers were from a QVC set. I coloured them and then cut down a petal and glued to give it some shape.


I really enjoyed making them although they took a long time and the Mums were thrilled with them. I loved their faces when they opened them and the butterflies popped out.

I've got lots of ideas now about different themes so I think you'll be seeing them again in a different guise in the near future!!

Thank you for stopping by and for all the lovely comments you have left us. I passed all your good wishes onto Freya. She will definitely be having a belated birthday in the next few weeks, we have a bowling date to keep!!