Sketch Saturday

Doing a bit of blog hopping I came across another great challenge site to have a go at, sketchsaturday. They have a fab DT who have created some great examples, for a bit of inspiration.

I had a few new Bella's arrive this week, here we have Parisabella, don't you just love her! She has been coloured in with Whispers brush markers and matted onto plain card. The background papers are designed by a very talented lady called Summer Driggs who very kindly shares her digital papers for FREE! She has some lovely kits available to download, if your interested this is the blog address: http://summertimedesigns.blogspot.com/. The flowers have been punched using my EK Success punches.

Thanks for visiting, call back again soon.

Kerry's Blog Candy

Kerry, also known as a load of old pickle was celebrating her 10,000 hits by offering some fab blog candy.

Unfortunately, I've had a busy week and wasn't able to get my entry in on time, so I just want to say congratulations to Kerry for her wonderful achievement and carry on making fabulous cards. Also, many congratulatons to Sue (aka Auntysue on docrafts) for her winning card, it is a very worthy winner.

For those who haven't yet visited Kerry's blog, please go take a look, it's well worth it.

A Stitch in time....

This week's Papertake Weekly Challenge is to create a card using faux or real stitching. I have seen this technique used on loads of cards and really liked it, so decided to get my sewing maching out and give it a go using real stitching.

I've used another of the lovely Elzybells stamps for the main image and coloured it in with Marvy Le Plume pens and then layered it onto some lilac card stock. I stuck everything down before attempting to stitch it, and I have to say it is much easier than I thought it would be. I am quite happy with the result.

The background paper is Pink Petticoat with a Studio G sentiment and a couple of crystals to finish.

Another Rubber Romance

I was suffering from a lack of ideas today, so after a bit of blog hopping I got the inspiration for this card from a very talented lady called Dawn Wheeler. (If you haven't visited her blog before, go and take a look, her cards are fabulous.) I took a real shine to the shape and layout of one of her cards, so made this one, my own version of it. Hope you don't mind Dawn!

The papers are by Pink Petticoat and of course, my favourite of the moment, a Rubber Romance stamp. The trousers and hat are paper pieced and the flower and buckle was made using EK Success punches.

I quite like the way it's turned out and hope you like it, and thanks again to Dawn for the inspiration.

Enjoy

I just love these new Rubber Romance stamps. I've used some HOTP papers for the background and as you can see, stamped the image onto the paper to paper piece the cushions. The rest of the image was coloured using my Prismas. The sentiment is one of my favourites from Studio G.

More Celebration!

More cause for celebration today, after the success of our eldest graduating with a 2:1 from Southampton Uni, our youngest daughter just got her 'A' level results and she got three A's, yeah. She will be studying Law at Birmingham Uni starting in September.

I really don't know where we got such a clever pair of daughters from.lol.

Many congratulations Jo and Lauren and good luck for the future.

Thank you so much

Thanks so much to Tara and Lainy for sending me this award. They are both talented people who often leave lovely messages of encouragement on my blog.

The rules of this award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you have nominated.

Please excuse me if you have already been nominated for this award, but I am so often inspired by your creations that I really would like to pass it to you again:

Sarita
Lorraine
Kerry
Deb
Janet
Julie
Ila

There are so many others that I would like to pass this too, so to all the lovely, talented crafters out there, please accept this from me.x

In my thoughts

Just a little card I made using one of my Elybells stamp, they're so sweet and simple. I think she looks suitably ill with her flushed cheeks, lol.

I'm hoping I don't have to send it to anyone though, but it's one to keep in my box just in case.

Brillante Award

A big thank you to Ruth for giving me this award. Many apologies to Ruth for taking so long to put it on my blog, time just seems to running away from me these day.

Thank you again Ruth, much appreciated.

The rules for this award:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs, which is hard as many people already have it.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you've nominated, I am going to nominate:-

Tara, Tracey, and the following people who already have it, but I would like to give it again (sorry if this breaks the rules): Karen, Sonia, Katy, Lainy, Zoe.

Rubber Romance

What a perfect day for playing with my new Rubber Romance stamp. Cold, wet and windy outside, I can't believe it's August. It feels more like November, I almost wanted to put the heating on.

I stamped the image on watercolour card and coloured with Faber Castell pencils. I used katharina's sketch from this week's papertakeweekly challenge. The papers are downloaded from http://digitalfreebies.com/. The sentiment is a stamp I've had for a few years, it's from a company called 'Innie & Outie.

Sorry if the picture is a bit dark, I can't find a bright spot to take photo's on a dark, gloomy day in our old cottage.

Oops, also forgot to say these stamps are huge, you certainly get your money's worth with them.

I've been very naughty!

I've bought these Rubber Romance stamps and I have another 4 on the way, how naughty is that? It's all down to internet shopping, it's just too easy to drop things into the basket and one press of a button and hey presto! they're yours. I haven't mentioned it to o/h yet, I've got a bit of time before the Credit Card statement comes. He'll be glad when the six week holiday is over and I'm back to work where I can't spend. Better go and have a play with them!

I'm Back

Wow, seems like ages since we went away. Thank you to everyone who wished us a good holiday and to everyone who has visited my blog whilst we've been away.

We did have a lovely time and we were mostly lucky with the weather.

The first day (Monday) on the way down to Exmoor we had glorious sunshine, it was beautiful.

Tuesday was not so good, rain on and off, but it didn't deter us from doing some sightseeing, albeit from the car. We had a good look at the moor, the rain and wind made it look very bleak indeed.

Wednesday started off raining, but determined to do some walking (with our new boots) we set off to buy a Kagool for o/h, I'd already got mine. Would you believe it, the sun only came out and it was hot and sunny for the rest of the day, so much so that we even caught the sun and got a bit of a tan, ***'* law I think it's called.

I've added some piccies to show off our beautiful countryside and how lovely our country can be when the sun shines, it couldn't have been any better abroad. The first picture was the view from our hotel bedroom window, stunning, I think you will agree.

I took the picture of the cove as we were walking along the coast road, we were pretty high up at this point. The walk was 6 miles in total and it took us 4 hours to complete, I was absolutely shattered. The hills were almost vertical in some places(or so it seemed). It was worth it though, it was lovely.