Cards for John, David and Gertie

 Hi all! A few spring Thank You cards to share this evening.  These were for a couple of volunteers in work just to mark their long service.  They've always volunteered in the same team together and I wanted to make them both the same but different, so out came my Lili of the Valley daffodil stamps.  

Allsorts #770 - Spring

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - anything goes 

 Little Red Wagon #745 - stencil power - I've used my cloud stencil on both but it's not a great photo     

And this one is for a lady who has just had an operation on her foot, so this oldie from Helz Cuppleditch was just right for the job.

Layout from MFT Sketch Challenge #687

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!!

Time for tea?

LOL I'd love a cuppa this size, I do have a bit of a tea addiction, even better if it comes with a wee choccie biscuit 😉😋. This little lady was a recent purchase from Stamping Bella - I always struggle to colour pleats but this one turned out OK (not sure why or if I could do it again LOL). My card looks better with darker colours in real life, reckon it's time to get my daylight lamp out!

My Time to Craft #488 - beverages

Addicted to Stamps #436 - make your mark

Word Art Wednesday #557/558 - anything goes 

Cut It Up #258 - it's all about me

We had a milestone birthday during the week ... Miss Molly turned one!  We went down to our local pet shop to buy her a birthday cupcake, unfortunately they didn't have any but could order us a cake for her ... for £20!!! Umm I don't think so!  So she just got extra treats instead.  Here's a few pics of her with a strawberry!  She will eat little bits of yours but she didn't quite know what to make of a whole strawberry to herself ... the daftie ate the tiniest bit and then ended up playing with it in the garden for ages! 

Cactus thanks

 Hi all!  Well we finally got a wee share of summer, lots of sunny sunshine and not a cloud in the sky all week!  A good week to book off work!  Though I have to confess the high 20's are plenty hot enough for me, I definitely couldn't cope with the temps they've been having in the south of England.  Looks like normal service will be resumed tomorrow with heavy thunder showers due and warnings of flooding!  The farmers won't be happy - we were out for a drive during the week and every farmer in the land was either on the road or going full ding getting their crops harvested.  I'm sure they would have been glad of another few dry days!

I got a few images coloured while I was off, and this is one of them - a really old Nellie Snellen stamp.  My heart die is from MFT, though by the time I stuck my image down I'm not entirely sure you would know it's a heart!

Layout from MFT Wednesday Sketch #606

Colour combo from Make The Cards #61 - pink, green, orange, white

Allsorts #688/9 - anything goes 

Miss Molly loved all the sunny weather, and spent most of her time snoozing or playing in the garden.  While we were in our local park I thought I'd take a pic of her to share with you.  Nope, this pup is not interested in the camera, not one decent photo out of the lot of them LOL

An almost Two-fer!

 Hi all!  I've 2 cards this evening to share, kinda the same but different.  These are for a couple of international volunteers in work whose year with us is up now.  Thus the full Irish colour theme and sparkly shamrocks!!!

Last time I was in the craft shop I bought the wrong cardstock and ended up with this linen effect stuff which is impossible to colour with pencils.  I remembered about my watercolour card for the next card, but ran out of time to do a remake on this one.  My green stitched die cut was a remnant from a previous faffing session but turned out to be perfect for this one 😉

I often use this alpha set from MFT to personalise cards but those R's really annoy me!  I almost abandoned putting Barbara's name on it, but I already had Eva's name on hers so just had to go for it!

Word Art Wednesday #509-510 - anything goes 

Simon Says Stamp Monday- fun with stencils (for the grass and clouds on the first card)

Daisy Chain Challenge#56 - Wildlife

Thank U Bear

 Hi all!  Sorry I've been MIA again, I have zero mojo but I have a rake of cards needing made so I need to get the finger out! I'm hoping our good weather will get me going, it has been scorchio here these past few days - we had our highest ever temp in NI yesterday with just over 31 degrees!  We've had no decent rain for ages, we were at a local reservoir last week and it was already well down so we'll be glad of a drop of rain when it arrives. 

Anyway on to my card... I've used this little bear and leaf stamps from Reverse Confetti that I think I've only inked up once before ... Why do we buy stamps that "will be really useful" and then don't even use them?!!!  I added a few die cut 'branches' and then stitched elements  (from Simply Graphic) as I had a scrap of the pink paper left - I love how they add a wee bit of interest to a plain space.

Pixies Snippets Playground - challenge #407

Allsorts #633/4 - feminine / for a lady

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - emboss it (I took the easy option for that one and just heat embossed my sentiment)

Word Art Wednesday #499/500 - anything goes

Summer bees and weddings

Wow, I can hardly believe we're nearly at September already!  Our summer weather has been absolute pants, we could do with another wee blast of sunshine before it gets too late!  Plenty of bees and wasps about though!

I had a version of this card in my head, but of course the bee stamps have buzzed off somewhere.  I ended up using a mix of Paper Smooches and Janes Doodles stamps instead.

• Layout from CAS(e) This Sketch #387
• Your Next Stamp #146 - keep decorating ... I love a bit of bling and sparkle
• Simon Says Stamp - anything goes

I hadn't realised this was such a rubbish photo of this special request card, but it's away now anyway.  I kinda got a bit stuck with this one for a few days as it just didn't look right, but then I glued on my heart border and considered it finished, couldn't figure out what else to do to help it anyway!  ;)

• Word Art Wednesday #454-455 - anything goes
• Watercooler Wednesday #286 - all about occasions

Some Thank You cards

Hi All, hope everyone's fit and well.  I've been on the missing list recently as I had a request for 60 thank you cards and not much time to make them! I couldn't face doing them all the same, so I made 5 or 6 of each design... some were remakes of my own, some inspired by others I've seen in blogland and then the rest were 'brand new' creations.  I've been spending most of my evenings colouring and then the next night putting them together, I think I'm officially all Thanked out now! I reckon the purple text one in the bottom corner is my favourite.

I've a couple of days off work now and don't need to venture into the bedroom/office till Wednesday :) Our garden centres are now open so hopefully we'll get a wee visit as our borders are a bit sad looking at the minute.  Hopefully it will be less stressful than Tesco's!

Anyway, here's just a couple of the cards I've made...

For this one I used an oldie LOTV stamp, some snazzy DP and a bit of bling and that was all was needed!

• Layout inspired by Freshly Made Sketches #436
• The Flower Challenge #44 - monochrome
• As You Like it - favourite embellishment - that's an easy one, mine is bling!  I use it on most of my cards as it just gives that wee extra touch and have them in all sorts of colours and sizes! 

And here's a real quickie using an old Penny Black image.  I added some stenciling to the background and clear gloss to the snail's shell.  Unfortunately we have plenty of snails and even more slugs (yeuch) in our garden!  They'll be picking their lips waiting on these new plants coming ;)

• CASology #368 - plant
• Cute Card Thursday #635 - critters
• Word Art Wednesday #440-441 - anything goes

Apologies to all my buddies for my lack of visits, hopefully I'll be round for a wee visit soon, socially distant of course ;)

Workmates Leaving cards

I had a busy evening making cards for a couple of colleagues who are moving on.  Sometimes it's nice just to sit down and colour, there's nothing but bad news on the telly! Between Coronavirus, the environment, Brexit, the economy, wars and hardship, good news stories are few and far between!  It was nice to totally switch off with my biggest issue being how to create waves without adding extra layers ..... I used a wave border die and used the negative side as a template in case you're interested ;)

Now what has a dude on a boat got to do with a good luck card? Well, nothing! Other than Gavin has a beard and smokes!  I dressed him in his football team colours, he might but most likely won't even notice ;)
Images from Jane's Doodles; coloured with polychromos; sparkle added to their shirts and clear gloss to their eyes and the pipe.
I faffed about for ages trying to finish this card, cutting stuff out, throwing them away etc etc and then added the gems and hurrah, that it was all I really needed!

• Tuesday Throwdown #452 - good luck
• Daisy Chain #39 - use dies
• Your Next Stamp #134 - get lucky

For this one I used an oldie LOTV stamp and some gorgeous new dotty DP from The Range.  If I was making this again I would have used a white strip instead of the kraft, it kinda dulled the whole thing down :(

• Layout from Freshly Made Sketches #426
• Allsorts #563 - lots of dots
• Crafty Hazelnut's patterned paper challenge March 2020

Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring challenge

Christmas Elf and a blue bee

I'd an early morning shopping trip to HobbyCraft this morning for the opening of their first store in Northern Ireland.  I turned up about 10 minutes before the store opened and managed to be one of the first 100 customers and got a free goodie bag.  The woman at the front of the queue had been there from silly o'clock, hope she thought her goodies were worth it!   I managed to spend a small fortune and have probably used up my crafty budget for the next few months but I'd expected to come out with my purse a lot lighter than it did.
I got lots of 'essentials' and bought this pack of DP for the sole reason that I reckoned it would suit this MFT elf!

Coloured with polychromos and dog and elf popped up on foam pads.  I need to finish my elf though, I've just noticed that as per usual I haven't coloured his hair.

• Layout from MFT Sketch #461
• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - anything goes
• Fab'n Funky #455 - Christmas

The Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge

This one uses the Honey Bear set from Reverse Confetti and a lovely die cut from my buddy  (thank you Cheryl!) - I thought it kinda looked like a wee fence.  I've stamped a pink tree in the background but it doesn't really show up in my pic.  And seeing as my tree was pink I figured there was no reason why my bee couldn't be blue!  LOL

• CAS Colours and Sketches #345
• Time Out 147 - inspired by words
• Word Art Wednesday #410-411 - anything goes

Some watery cards

We'd a real mad day for weather today, one minute it was streaming sunshine and the next lashing rain!  Poor Rubydoo was in and out like a yoyo, as was my washing!  Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day :)

Anyway, I was very lucky to win some $$ from a recent MFT challenge and this Friends with Fins set was one of the goodies I chose.  Mind you, by the time Customs got the hold of them I probably ended up paying nearly as much as they actually cost.  Grr.  Anyway, I love them, so it doesn't matter.

I've masked off my BG and used this Simon Says Stamp stencil to simulate the water.  My whale is coloured with polychromos and popped up on foam pads.

• Simon Says Stamp Monday - midsummer blues
• Your Next Stamp Fun Friday #120 - thank you
• Layout from CAS(e) This Sketch #335

This one uses a very old Penny Black stamp dated 2005, I'd been hunting for one with water in it and this was the only one I could find.

I die cut a couple of rows of hearts (I think this die is from MFT) and then popped up a couple of the leftover bits.  

• Penny Black Saturday - water
• Layout from Tuesday Morning Sketches #516
• Retro Rubber challenge #117 - anything goes

Summer time

We had a damp, cloudy, frizzy hair type of day today, so I thought I'd go looking for summer in my cards instead ;)

I won this Reverse Confetti ice lolly set ages ago and had no clue what to do with it, so this is it's first outing.  I paperpieced the lolly, added another layer for the central bits and then added some clear gloss and lots of glitter. I didn't quite get the layering order right in my layout so added the little arrow as it just didn't look right.
This card will be to send a few €€ to my newphew and niece for their holidays so I'm sure they'll be more interested in what's inside ;)

• Layout from CAS(e) This Sketch #329
• Pinspirational #242 - pic of ice lollys
• Your Next Stamp Fun Friday #117 - 3 of something (3 x DPs)

And here's my Whipper Snapper birdies again, I think this is maybe one of my favourite stamps ever!  

Coloured with polychromos to match this pretty DP and gloss/glitter added to their wings.  I had a dirty finger incident in the top corner and needed a major cover up but didn't want to add any yellow so just cut my sun from white card; I like how it turned out :)

• Penny Black and More July - summer colours
• Simply Create #151 - use some DP
• Make My Monday #100 - thank you
• Through the Craft Room Door - anything goes

Some Thank You Daffs

We'd a gorgeous sunny morning today, but such cold cold air.  Though I've noticed our first daffodils are out, the tulips are growing nicely and lots of buds in the garden.  Spring is maybe on the way!

So to celebrate I got out this oldie from LOTV.  Coloured with polychromos and clear gloss added to the flowers.  My butterfly is a Gummiapan die.
This card is for one of our students in work who's year is up with us - her name is pronounced Bell-en.  I think there's an accent to go on one of those Es but I need to check which one!

• CASology #330 - bouquet
•  Your Next Stamp Fun Friday #107 - die cuts
• 613 Avenue Create #218 - anything goes, option critter
• Crafty Creations #383 - anything goes
• Word Art Wednesday #372/373 - anything goes

Daily Marker 30 day colouring challenge

Thank You Di!

You probably already know about the Thank You Di hop that Darnell has going on her blog to celebrate Di's 7 years at Pixies Snippets Playground.  Di is such a sweetie that I wanted to say Thank You too!  It's a great challenge and the only requirement is that you use up some of those left over snippets you have lying on your craft table.  And if you're anything like me you'll have plenty!

So this is my card, using my new stamp from Clearly Besotted.  Coloured with polychromos and I've used up the smallest snippet of this lovely navy card that I knew I'd been saving for something! Though I managed to stick neither strip down straight ;)

• Pixies Snippets Playground #345
• Layout from MFT Wednesday Sketch Challenge #422
• Less is More #388 - Navy and yellow
• Stamping Sensations February - all things bright and beautiful

Daily Marker colouring challenge

Thank You Roses

I had a bit of a lazy old day today, and part of it was watching some videos on YouTube about how to colour roses with polychromos.  I'd bought this stamp recently from Clearly Besotted and figured it needed inking.

Of course I decided to colour it in a shade that I don't have any matching DP or card!  My card didn't look 'finished' so I added these little semicircles in the same colour and it seems to have pulled it together a bit.  I also added some sparkle to the roses. Still wouldn't be my favourite card of all time though!

• Get Creative #76 - anything goes
• Cute Card Thursday #564 - what's new (my pencils)
• Crafty Creations #382 - anything goes
• Simon Says Stamp Work it Wednesday December - try something new

Friends and Thanks

Happy Saturday folks!  I've had a busy day doing some spring cleaning and clearing out.  I think everyone else had the same thought as there was a queue into the Recycling Centre for the first time ever!

Anyway, this first card was a special request, thus the odd sentiment!  I've coloured my girls with my polychromo pencils and added a little Gummiapan butterfly die.

• Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - something new (my pencils)
• Word Art Wednesday #368/369 - anything goes

And this one is based on this week's sketch over at Splitcoaststampers.

I've used this oldie from Whiff of Joy, coloured again with my polychromos.

And I've used my favourite technique of splattering the background, love this - so easy and instantly effective.

• Stamp Ink Paper #180 - thank you
• Crafters Castle #13 - anything goes