Cards for Marion and Chris

 Hi all, I have a few personalized cards to share, so here's the first two

This one is for a neighbour of Mum. My colour theme was entirely inspired by this sheet of cardstock, so I was quite pleased with myself for getting the colour of my flowers reasonably matched! I did have a time of it getting the sentiment right, the one I settled on was version #4! My stamp is an oldie from Colorado Crafts - coloured with polychromos and a few gold splatters added to the background, along with some gold sequins.

Addicted to Stamps #508 - birthday 

Word Art Wednesday #734/735 - anything goes 

Sweet Stampin' - bright and beautiful 

Snippets Playground #524 - my snippet is my sentiment cut from leftover card from the base

And this one is for my brother-in-law - it turned out to be quite apt as when I sent it we had 6" of snow outside. It was the perfect 'sticky' snow and I don't believe I've ever seen such big tall snowmen everywhere before! Thankfully it only hung around for a few days, quite enough for me! Stamp from MFT. Not entering into any challenges as it's similar to one I saw online, but just uploading it here for my records. 

Blue Sympathy

 Hi all!  Happy first of the month! I can't believe it's May already, though I absolutely LOVE this time of year with all the lovely fresh leaves on the trees and all the hedgerows in bloom.  So much nicer than the dark days of winter.

So I've a wee sympathy card for my stash to share  .  I hadn't quite planned on cutting the flower there but I thought I was scribbling on a scrap piece of card and turned out it wasn't.  Grrr.  Then I got myself tangled up with the layout, chose that corner die , stuck it down, and then wished I hadn't! Ah well, it is what it is, and the flower took soooo long to colour I definitely wasn't going to waste it.

Addicted to Stamps #491 - make your mark

Simon Says Stamp - anything goes

Word Art Wednesday #696 - anything goes 

And here's a wee photo of the fields all around our daily walk, a real sea of yellow dandelions!  

Feel better soon

 Hi all, I'm back!  I've taken a bit of a break from blogging and haven't been making an awful lot of cards, but I'm determined to get back into the swing of things now the darker evenings are here.  

So here's a wee get well card - I couldn't think of what to use for a bloke but came up with this and then the inside reads "hope you're back to full strength soon", I think it works ok 🤪

Image from MFT, coloured with polychromos and popped up on foam pads; clear gloss added to the weights and his tache.

As You Like It - favourite die - my favourite die is usually my latest one (this burlap die) but my most used die is my stitched square set and I use them on 99.9% of my cards, mainly because I'm rubbish at cutting anything straight LOL 

Addicted to CAS #268 - masculine 

We Love Stamping September - colour something 

Leaving card for Ryan

 Hi all. I'm here this windy old evening to share a card for a work mate who has a new job with a company who makes films for the farming community.  I don't think I have any farmer stamps in my stash but figured these critters from an old MFT set would be perfect...

Coloured with polychromos and the pig and chickens popped up on foam pads.  Grass and cloud stencils for the background.

Addicted to Stamps #465 - die +/or stencil

As You Like It - cute or floral.  Looking through my stash I do have quite a few floral stamps, but they're definitely well outnumbered by my cutest ones! 

Allsorts #775 - for the love of animals 

Miss Molly is fast asleep on the sofa as I type here.  So in her usual fashion of looking not one bit comfortable (and very unladylike LOL)....

Silly Seagulls!

 Hi all! I've a few days off now for the Twelfth holidays and treated myself to Friday too, yippee!  Here's hoping the weather wises up a bit, it has been so showery and un-summer like!  Having said that, we had the most terrific thunderstorm on Sunday, I've never heard thunder so loud!  Wee Molly was fine for most of it but one HUGE rumble scared her a bit.

Anyway, here this evening with an old MFT set.  I hadn't intended to add the clouds but got a bit over eager with my blending and needed a cover up 😉. The sentiment is a really old Lili of the Valley postmark set that hasn't seen ink for a while.  Remember the good old days when you went on your holidays and had to send postcards to all your family! I couldn't tell you the last time I got one thanks to Facebook and WhatsApp! 

 

Inspired By  - sea decor

Word Art Wednesday #603/604 - anything goes 

Lots of Thank Yous!

 Hi all!  Sorry I've been in the missing list for a while ... A combination of COVID finally catching up with us (and totally flooring me), a major lack of mojo and a blogging break, and a week's holiday thrown in for good measure!  But in the mix was a wee order for 60 Thank You cards, which I have to confess was a bit of a struggle!  I couldn't face making 60 the same so made 4 batches.  Apologies in advance for the extra long post!!

First up are made with my lovely floral stamps from Penny Black.  I added some pale blending to the background in various colours though it doesn't show in the photo.  Die is an oldie from Gummiapan.  Flowers coloured with polychromos and popped up on foam pads. 

Penny Black Saturday June - anything goes 

Daisy Chain challenge #75 - no designer paper 

Allsorts #733 - blooms, bees or butterflies 

Fab'n Funky #575 - use a sentiment 

Next up uses a real oldie from Neat & Tangled - i always find him difficult to colour which is probably why he doesn't get inked often!  I have a bit of pale stencilling and some splattered orange metallic paint in the background, not sure where the dies are from, possibly Creative-Depot.  

Another Penny Black stamp for this batch, probably the quickest made as there was no faffing about and no fussy cutting! 

And lastly, and 100% inspired by the MFT Design Team! ....

And just to finish, a wee photo of Molly at Waterfoot beach during my week off, as per usual refusing to look at the camera.  And what a week it was ... wall to wall sunshine with neither a coat nor umbrella in sight!!

Last Christmas cards

Yeoooooo!  That's me done with work now till 4 January 😁. Tackled Tesco's this morning 😁 (it was a madhouse even at 9am!).  Presents are all delivered 😁  Just need to sort my hair out in the morning to hide the greys, a bit of Xmas cleaning, give myself a wee manicure and that's me done and ready!!  

These last 2 cards are for a couple of my neighbours - makes a change not to be sitting making Greg's but Dotty Jo's Christmas Kickstart challenge sorted that a couple of months ago 😉  I've used my MFT doggies for both these..

Layout inspired by MFT sketch#573

As You Like It - favourite sentiment - I much prefer Merry or Happy Christmas over Happy Holidays.  I'd love to get a set of "Merry Christmas" stamps just in different fonts and sizes - most of my Xmas sentiments have never seen ink so they're a bit of a waste of money!

Your Next Stamp #174 - pets

This card has turned out to be one of my favourites!  I love how it almost looks like he's trying to catch those falling sweeties!

Christmas Kickstart #57 - anything Christmas

CAS Colours and Sketches #450 - free voice of sketch - I flipped #402

Tuesday Morning Sketches - annual anything goes

Snowy pup

 Hi all!  I'm still Christmas card making, this one's for the post tomorrow so hopefully it makes it on time!  I'm forever making cards for the MFT sketch and then missing the deadline, so I'm posting this now, though I would have preferred it to have already been mailed. Ah well.  

Not cold enough here yet for snow but the weather forecast this evening said there might be a chance of it on Christmas Day, we'll see.  It will be interesting to watch how Molly reacts, our wee Ruby absolutely ADORED it!

MFT Wednesday sketch #572

Pixies Snippets Playground challenge #418 - Di has her AMAZING Christmas draw on the go - if you haven't already entered all you need to do is make a card with some leftovers (I used some snippets to cut my snowflakes) 

Your Next Stamp #174 - pets

Stamping Sensations December - stamp a theme - I've gone for the easy one of Christmas

Christmas and more Christmas

 Hi all!  Happy Sunday!  A cold one for us, our car windscreen was already frozen by 5pm.  I was up bright and early this morning to get my booster vaccine at a walk in clinic in town , thankfully it was dry and bright so I didn't mind the wait at all.  My arm is absolutely aching this evening, but I'm glad to get it done in plenty of time for Christmas. 

I'm in full Christmas card production, making several copies of each so I don't have much to share with you.

MFT Christmas stamps are hard to beat and this sELFie set is a nice easy one to colour while watching telly.  My little blue snowflake was cut from a little snip of blue sparkly card that I was using for my next card and found a home on this one.  

Pixies Snippets Playground challenge#417 - it's a Ruby's Memory challenge so I'd love it if you played along - there are two fabulous sets of prizes up for grabs and all you have to do is use a scrap of paper or card to get into the draw

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - Christmas

Fab'n Funky #541 - Christmas

More MFT critters on this one.  I think I'll cut an additional sentiment in this blue sparkly card so it matches my snowflakes

As You Like It - favourite Christmas embellishments - mine are these oldie snowflake dies that I think came from Paper Smooches and they make their way onto my Christmas cards every year 

Layout from MFT Wednesday sketch #570

Crafty Calendar December - Christmas

And what's Miss Molly up to? We gave her a bit of a carrot thinking she might eat it.  Ha! It was obviously more fun just to shred it over the entire kitchen floor,  but at least it kept her amused for 10 minutes.  And gave me 10 minutes exercise cleaning it all up 😉

More Christmas cards

 Hi All!  I am so behind in my Christmas cards and running out of time, I reckon I might be buying a pack of cards!! But hey ho, Im not going to stress about it.  So I've a couple of cards this evening using my MFT set which is great for CAS cards...

I added some gloss/glitter to their noses and went over their scarves with my glitter pen so it's nice and sparkly. I would have preferred to have used some white glitter card for my die cuts but think I've used it all up.  

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - anything goes

Time Out #201 - I went with the simplicity theme

CAS on Friday #219 - winter

I might go over the red bits in this, it looks Ike it could be darker now I see the pic.

SKetch Saturday #688

Global Design Project #319 - Christmas

Your Next Stamp #173 - sparkle and shine

I treated myself to yesterday off work and managed to make a good dent in my Christmas pressie shopping, no big bargains round Belfast though!  I was so pleased to make it to the art store and buy a new pencil - I just have to share the size of the little stub I'd been using (thank goodness for pencil extenders!)

And what's Miss Molly up to?  We had school again this morning and learned Lie Down and made a start on leash training - much needed as she's a complete maggot when we go out for a walk! 

Double Christmas

Hi all!  Well we survived our first lesson at puppy school today and Molly was (mostly) a good girl and behaved herself.  Chicken is definitely the answer to everything LOL

I can hardly believe we're heading towards the end of November already, surely it's not a year since last Christmas!!!  My card stash is a bit pathetic so I need to crank up production considerably!  

This first one looks far nicer in real life but just wouldn't photograph properly.  My daylight lamp is stashed out of doggy reach and I was too lazy to go get it!

My bear is from MFT - lots of Sparkle added to the white bits of his scarf, hat and pressie.  I used some leftovers for the horizontal stripes.

LAyout from Your Next Stamp #172

As You Like It - dies or stencils - definitely dies for me, I especially LOVE my square dies, it just makes everything easier to assembly knowing they're all straight! 

Christmas Kickstart #56 - Christmas Snippets - I'm delighted to see that lovely Di from Pixies Crafty Workshop is this month's guest elf! 

Couldn't get a decent pic of this one either 😉. For some reason my sentiment looks rubbish here, you'll have to trust me they're better in real life!!  This is another MFT set, the dog is popped up on foam pads. Just remembered I haven't brushed off the excess glitter so doubtless it's all over the kitchen table now. 

Cut it Up #239 - CASE a Project - this is Andrea's beautiful card that inspired me, hers is a gazillion times better than mine!

What's Miss Molly up to?  Settling down for a snooze with a load of her toys - her ears droop when she's tired, sooooo cute!

Guest Designing at Christmas Kickstart

 Hi All!  I'm delighted to be guest designer over at Christmas Kickstart, run by my fabulous blogging buddy Jo!  This month's challenge is ...

Hahaha!  Or if you're not lucky enough to have a Greg 😉 you can ...

I know it's traditional for me to be sitting on Christmas Eve doing my usual panic-make for his nibs so it will be nice to look forward to a wee Bailey's and chilling out instead.  I hope you'll play along - Jo always has some nice goodies up for grabs too!  

So for Greg's card I have used this cutie from MFT along with an oldie die from Lil' Inker that I normally struggle to use.  (The black hearts to the side are actually silver)

New Home

 HI All, yes it's me again already, ans it not even 2 weeks since my last post 🤣. I've had a busy evening trying to get these cards finished for my mum's neighbour and trying to get ready for work tomorrow.  I'm back to my workplace in Belfast for the first time since last February so it will all feel very strange!!  

Anyway on to my cards... This first one was a super easy and super quick one.  The sentiment was from a never-used-newly-discovered set that I won such a long time ago, so I'm glad to get one of them inked!

I also used a new bit of kit on this.  i was very lucky to win a challenge over at Allsorts and got a voucher for Stamp Addicts - normally if I win some ££s I like to try something I wouldn't normally buy, so I treated myself to this Perfect Layers thingy.  I don't have a straight eye in my head so i think it's possibly one of the best tools I've ever used! 

AAA cards #200 - celebrate

Sweet Stampers #60 - stripes +/or dots 

CASology #396 - view - I've always fancied going up in a hot air balloon, the view must be lovely though I'm not so good with heights so maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea after all hahaha

And this second card uses an MFT Christmas set I bought aound this time last year; the sentiment is a real oldie, from one of the first LOTV sets I bought.  I stencilled in the grass and clouds bu could have been a bit more generous with my blue ink!

Retro Rubber Challenge #168 - tic-tac-toe - I used green / trees / punch

Festive Penguins

 Hi all!  Happy Sunday!  And even better followed by a bank holiday tomorrow 😃. Don't know if we'll head out anywhere, we've been busy painting bedroom furniture and having a good clear out in the process. But I actually quite like painting and I LOVE a good tidy out of drawers so I don't mind!  

I have a wee Christmas card this evening, using these oldie MFT penguins which I normally use on birthday cards and rarely Christmas ones!  I triple mounted my sentiment and added lots of gloss and glitter.

I had MFT Wednesday sketch #556 in my head when I was making this but obviously didn't remember it very well and then mostly covered my circles up anyway!

Inspired By IB184 - penguin love

As you like it  - favourite wild animal - I love Penguins, they just make me smile!  They just look so silly when they're walking but so graceful and elegant in the water.