A couple of cards

Happy Christmas folks, well belated at any rate.... Or is it early for next year perhaps?

I do hope you've all had a lovely Christmas - mine was different as I had an unexpected 'gift'..... pneumonia! How fantastic was that then? You're right it was not in the slightest bit fantastic at all! In fact it was sodding vile, I've never coughed so much in my life. I did prove though that I possess some muscles as I pulled some in my side coughing. That made coughing rather difficult - but I'm over the worst now.

So a few photos for you today - here's my gorgeous girl Harry. I love the expression on her face! Any ideas what she's thinking? Well seeing as she was eating I had a camera in her face I'm sure you can guess!

Now a few shots of the card I made for my OM. Yes I know its got a Tilda on but she's hugging! I even cut into a sheet of Magnolia paper! I almost had palpitations, fortunately the other piece had already been cut so that wasn't so traumatic. A bit of lace and a few flowers a la WOC and it was done. Copics for colouring natch ;))

The delightful arty shot!

A close up of the flowers, these were spritzed with some Glimmer mist..... I think you can almost make the glimmer out.....especially if you squint!


Now over at the lovely Julias its WOYWW. Now the 'work', if you could call it that, can't be shared as yet. So I put these babies on there! Now I can put my hand up and say 'I love shoes' especially little babies like these, I mean who wouldn't? And yes I can walk in them. Of course I was chuffed to bits when LK Bennett opened a shop in Meadowhall!

Oh I wubs them I does....

Now seeing as I've not shown you any actual work.... I got talked into showing you the area 'loosely termed' as punch storage.... Otherwise known as the 'space on the cupboard where I pile up some punches'. Notice the use of the word 'some' ;)) That's all I'm saying!

Pop over to Julias and check out the real desks, who know you might see some actual work!

~cough cough~

~cough cough cough~ I'm a poorly bunny here at CM towers folks! I've got lurgy pretty bad! Well before I get onto lurgy details let me tell you about the secret I did for my OM. Well last week he had his birthday.... I planned him a secret party! Well it stayed a secret and it was fab! The keeping it secret was so hard! Especially when folks ignore invites not to phone me... or bother to answer RSVPs! But despite all that it was marvellous!

Oh now to bore you with my lurgy, as my Doc puts it I have a touch of pneumonia! Yipes how can you have a touch of bloody pneumonia? Anyway I'm armed with enough antibiotics to stop an elephant, inhalers and all sorts of malarkey I almost needed a mortgage in the chemist to pay for it. When I croaked 'what?????' the assistant very kindly repeated the amount loudly as she thought I hadn't heard her. I had I was just in a state of bloody shock! When she handed me my sack of drugs several people stepped back as if I was going to give them what I obviously had bad as proved by the sack of expensive medication I had. I'm now waiting for them to kick in....

So enough of my moaning....

While I was blog shopping the other day I came across a blog with a really cute gift holder made from a paper bag. Now me being me I can't remember who's blog it was! Sorry! (natural blonde remember)

So anyway I got a sudden flash of mojo-itis! and I HAD to make one! I knew I had some bags..... well when I eventually found it (turns out I only had one left!) So anyways I dug through my Magnolia papers and stamps and off I went....

So this is the front

After its folded in half this is the middle section

On the right is a pocket where you put your gift - ideally something flattish!

This is the card that slides into the pocket, I attached the gift to the back with DST

I even decorated the back of the bag too!

Now it looks quite a bit but I only had to cut two pieces of 12 x 12 paper, and there's scraps left over too. Naturally I did the colouring with my trusty Copics. Obviously I added a spot of lace, ribbon, die cuts just because I could ;)) I actually rather liked it.... I hope the recipient does and if Royal Mail have done their stuff it should be there!

Over a 7kids college fund challenge blog its 'anything goes' so I think this nicely fits into that one. makes a change for to be able to enter a challenge just for the sake of it ;))

Now a couple of gratuitous chickie pics!

Here's that naughty little monkey Missy Tinker.


Who'd have thought that sweet little baby would chomp a lump out of Mummy's arm first chance she got?

Now I filled their water dish up.... the jusg obviously evoked a lot of attention and needed to be thoroughly investigated!

So ~cough cough~ stay warm folks!

We want snow!

Howdy Bloggettes!

Now let me just explain the title of this post. Yes we do want snow but ONLY over at Totally Gorjuss where I've just done a new challenge. A touch seasonal and topical I suppose ;)) We want snow on your cards. Easy huh? Now you know I set them so they're bound to be easy! I mean if I do complicated ones I couldn't do a card.... So I opted for snowy paper and a couple of snowflake buttons which I acquired in the USA. Now the choice of image.... its a Stampotique stamp. Now I know most of you will associate them with the Daniel Torrente stamps (which are fabulous) but they also do loads of other ones too! This one is part of a range by a talented young lady called Kylie Diorio. So I coloured this little cockatoo and made him into a galah. yes they are pink! A friend of mine has some parrot Christmas cards off me so these are perfect! The papers are by Papermania and this little chap has been Copic'd. I think its Santa's cookie in his beak! Well I know my naughty pair would pinch Santa's cookie if they could! They'd take the risk of him not leaving them any presents just to eat the cookie ;))


So as I've been neglecting you on the parrot photo front I thought I'd treat you to a few! Humour me please, these are my babies!

Now this is Little Tinker, she's having a really close look at Dan's pocket for some reason! I think she was planning to bite the button off if she got the chance! And yes she would!

Harry giving the camera case a very close examination! She's doing a bit better now, not 100% and still having the odd poorly spell but is quite bright and eating very well, but then again caiques are little piggies ;)) As the OM said this nicely shows off her big feet.


Now my little Princess Tinker. (Now this little beast, oh yes don't let this cute little wave fool you!) For the past while all she's wanted to do is eat me! So me getting this close without bleeding is quite an achievement I can tell you. Dan is rather good at catching her mid flight ;)) The OM fair to say is rubbish at intercepting her! He just says she's a sweet baby! Trust me looks can be deceptive ;))

Tinker again. Now these are what we call 'baby wings' in other words a spot of begging! But look at her legs, that's a touch of what we call 'fluffy pants'! Caiques wear 'fluffy pants' when they're in the mood for trouble! And bless you can see her wonky toe!


So there you are my babies!

Oh don't forget Totally Gorjuss either, its sponsored by Meyer Imports this week - their glitter is LUSH!

Ice ice baby!

Hi there Bloggettes - crikey its cold! Now we've been having the odd drip drip as a teeny tiny bit of all that snow is melting. But accompanied with the cold we've got one or two icicles. Look at these ones outside my craft room window! Yipes! They're over 2 feet long. I was going to show you a photo of the ones on the conservatory..... they're only a foot long so I didn't bother ;)) I meant they're titchy little things.


Oh most of that white stuff on the photo should be black as its the road! Its about 6" of packed solid ice. Needless to say our cars are still on the drive for now.

Now a new challenge has happened over at Totally Gorjuss. This week its a nice easy sketch, its easy because I drew it and I only do easy ;)) Oh and this week we're lucky enough to have a super duper Guest Designer, none other that the super talented Rach Jakes! She's made a fantastic card, I couldn't believe my little sketch could look that good! Just to add a cherry to the cake this week we're sponsored by Joanna Sheen. The winner gets a £10 voucher to spend in her shop. Good huh?

So this is the easy sketch....

So here's what I made. yes the glue was still wet when I took the photo! No change there then eh? I discovered if I'm quick I can do it before the embellishments fall off....

Anyway I used one of these sweet little Hanglars, coloured her with Copics, used some Basic Grey Wassail (my LAST sheet as well sob!) Flowers from Wild Orchid and a sentiment from Lili of the Valley.
And there she was done!

Pop over and have a look, the other Gorjussettes have made some beautiful cards. Oh and there's a prize remember, you got to be in it to win it!

Oh no more snow!

Oh my! How much snow are we going to get?! I reckon now we've got almost 2 feet of the dam stuff! I almost fainted when I saw how much more had fallen overnight! Now yes it does look pretty but.... it makes everything so blooming difficult! Even our milkman couldn't make it today. Fortunately we had some in so cuppas were in order ;))

So a few more photos of my snow!

These two are at the bottom of the garden - its almost 3 foot deep there!

The mounds on the right are tree branches weighed down by snow.

More of the weighed down branches, I've knocked the snow off and hopefully the tree, which is around 7 feet tall, will recover without it having to be tied up. Its a favourite for the blackbirds to nest in.

Look at the snowy feeders!


More weighed down branches!

Now while I was out there I knocked as much snow off the trees as I could. Last year we had to cut some branches off which got broken by the weight of it. It must be heavier this year as there's tons more! I also cleared the feeders too. Now Mr Blackbird came and watched me, he didn't even wait for me to go before he came for a feed.

So for this snow I did have to get my wellies out which are longer than The New Boots. I did go out for more milk later on though and my feet were lovely and toasty warm and dry! So here are The Boots! Note those zips folks ;))

Oh while I was out poking snow off you might wonder where the OM was......

Yup here he is 'supervising' from the warmth of the house! he didn't even have the kettle on for when I'd finished either!

Oh my! BRRRRRR!!!

Oh my BRRRRRR!!! Yup we have tons and tons of that nasty white stuff! And from what I've seen on TV so does most of the country too. I suppose compared with some parts of the country our 8" is nothing really.... Well for me though that's 8" too much! Needless to say the OM and me's cars are staying on the drive. Well no choice really I don't think they'd shift an inch! Now I had a very lucky thing yesterday, I went and bought myself a pair of waterproof boots! Yup I managed to buy them BEFORE it snowed. Usually I end up getting them after its gone ready for the next time which doesn't happen ;)) So anyway I have these dinky little fur-lined, zip fronted.... yes I said zip fronted, at which point the Big L asked me when I was getting my shopping trolley as these were clearly 'old lady' boots. Well 'old lady' boots they may be but today my feet were dry and toasty warm.

Now while I was out I took a few photos of 'my' snow - which incidentally is available for anyone who wants it.

Pyracantha buried in snow! We also have an orange berried one, now the birds have eaten all the orange ones first. I wonder if they taste different? But then again one of my neighbours has an orange berried one and the birds haven't touched it.... mine is obviously much tastier ;))

Now yes I will concede the snow looks quite pretty.... but look at it piled up on the top of my bird feeders!

A little look through the wood near us.


And another!

Now a different sort of card for me. Where's the stamped and coloured image I hear you cry? I can't hear you..... I decided to try something really different. I think it kind of works too. Plus it was really really quick and it only used scraps of paper which I'd probably have ended up binning. A little punching a la Martha Stewart and a ribbon et Voilà!

I quite like it.... but its very different from my usual cards.

Now I 'd like to thanks those of you who've been asking after my Harry. Oh she has been a poorly chickie, especially after her new medicine last week. I thought we were going to loose her! She reacted awfully to it. So that went straight in the bin! Well she's perked up a bit since then and is just being sick occasionally. So I took a little video of her getting stuck into her seeds. Oh Tinker appears and she's playing 'kill the evil bell' I'm not sure what the 'evil bell' has ever done to Tinker.... but boy does it pay for it!

So here's Harry bum in air.....

I mean how else would you eat your seeds?

Just for Just magnolia!

Yikes Bloggettes its me - again! I know twice in one week! Now is that a good thing or a bad thing.... hmmmm.... I think I'll leave it at that ;))

Well what have I been doing? I seem to have been really really busy but there doesn't seem to be much done. I had some really good plans too. Well they seemed good in my head at any rate.

I took the OM to Costco today. he came out laughing abut not spending any money. Well seeing as he ran off at the till is a fairly easy answer to that! And he'd slipped all sorts into the trolley too.

Well I've managed to make a card specifically for a challenge! Yipes how did that happen? I can't remember the last one I did just for a challenge, well not including Totally Gorjuss that is.

Over at Just Magnolia the challenge is for white and one colour. So all of a sudden I had this peculiar feeling.... it was my mojo poking me in the ribs! I grabbed hold of him and rushed off this card.

This has to be one of my all time favourite Tildas. So I did her in various shades of grey and used some of last years papers from Craft Creations. I used loads of these in this grey and in red and green too. I used flowers from Wild Orchid, ribbon from Jo-Anns, flourishes, pins from stash (two of which I coloured black) and a doily. Oh a little Stickling too.

The arty shot ;))



And as a special treat (I hope you're sat down) another arty shot!

Oh and for extra contrast I decided to take the photo on my nice grey worktop too..... ~whistles~

Not so traditional

Hi there Bloggettes.

Here I am again another week which seems to have vanished in the blink of an eye!

I mean come on who stole it? It doesn't seem two minutes ago that it last week and now its this week.... how did that happen? I know it seems to have past in a blur of flour, eggs and butter-cream! There's been one or two cakes made here this week!

Then there's the foul weather too. We've had a bit of everything almost. Today's has been murky in a cold damp sort of way. But the one thing I want to know is why do people drive round all the time with their bloody fog lights on??? I think I've got third degree burns on my retinas after going on the motorway tonight. I mean it was so foggy you could only see a mile or so....

Anyway enough of my whinging unless you want more?....

OK I take it by the resounding silence you don't ;))

Well a new challenge has just gone live (or whatever you call it) on Totally Gorjuss

This time its for non traditional colours. So I coloured this cute little hAnglar girlie. isn't she sweet? The papers are from the Basic Grey Jovial pad - thank goodness I bought a couple of these pads because I'm loving them lots! The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and ribbon from my small ribbon selection... By that its not a selection of small ribbons but a small selection of ribbons... I mean there's hardly any....~whistles and blushes~

Now seeing as I've used a hAnglar image I thought I'd check their challenge out - and its snowflakes. Now the little panel of paper has snowflakes on so I'm entering this in the Lovely hAnglar Only challenge (or however you exactly spell Hanglar lol)

There' are some Stickles on the flowers and here and there just as a accent.

Et voilà! The arty shot! If you look really really closely, with your nose about an inch from the screen you might just make out the Stickles!

Oh this week the challenge is sponsored by Crafters Companion - as they say you got to be in it to win it!

All traditional

Hiya Bloggettes!

Windy enough for you? Its been blowing a Hooley here! Well frankly I have no idea who this windy Hooley is but flipping heck I pity him with wind like we've had! Last night I was woken up by banging which was the bin being blown against the fence. I did elbow the OM to inform him... actually I was rather hoping he'd go out and move it... While I'm not exactly sure what he grunted at me I think the long and short of was that no he wasn't going outside in the freezing cold, wind and rain to move the bin! Fortunately the wind blew harder and blew the bin further down the garden and I was able to drop back off to sleep. Other wise I would have to go and move the thing. I did leave it this morning for him to pick all the rubbish up...

Now can I have a few good thoughts for my girl Harry? Poor little chickie has a poorly tummy again. We've done the vets again (I reckon we're well up on shares in the place now) and fingers crossed we can get her sorted. It seems though that she gets over one bout of sickness and another is waiting for her almost straight away :(( Poor baby.

Now there's a new challenge over at Totally Gorjuss It a nice easy one too, well they're all easy because I set them and you know my hair colour right? This week its a Christmas theme in traditional colours.

Ta daaahhh!

Is'nt this little bear sweet? He's a Lili of the Valley cutie. Coloured of course with my Copics. The papers are Basic Grey 'Jovial' I LOVE LOVE LOVE these. The poinsettias are by Prima and the spacers are from my stash.

All in all this was a quick (ish) little card to put together.

We 've had quite a few challenges lately over at TG which have been Christmas themed so I'm actually ahead with my cards! That is a first!.

A first!

Brrrr!!! Oh its manky! Absolutely, totally and utterly M A N K Y!!! Its raining, windy, freezing and nearly dark already! AWFUL! Oh I've got the heating on and its still not that warm.... one second..... ahhh! Should be better very soon, I've just turned it up!

Now you may have wondered at my choice of title.... if not why? ;))

Well I got a card order and the conversation went something like this;

'Can you do me a birthday card please?'

'Yes when and who for?'

'Oh its a girl I work with, its in two weeks' ~giggle giggle~

'Why are you laughing???'

~cackle cackle~

I'd now got that odd feeling....

'Well can you include something along one of her hobbies?' 'guffaw guffaw' (what a super under used word!)

'Er.... it depends what it is...'

'Oh it'll be easy for you' ~more cackling~

'Come on then what's the hobby?'

'It's pole dancing'

~thud~ That was my jaw hitting the floor!

Anyway after a bit of brain teasing and the loan of this fab stamp from my buddy Debbie This is what I made.

Taaa Dahhhhh!

I have to say I rather like her ;)) She did have a frou -frou skirt on. I cut that off as I thought a leotard look was more appropriate for pole dancing. I mean you couldn't pole dance in a big frou-frou could you? It'd cover your head when you went upside down! Which if I were doing it would only be a good thing! Hang on though that would mean my backside was showing though... I digress and I apologise for any nasty images the thought of me pole dancing has given you!

So she's been popped on a nestie and coloured with Copics, flowers a la Wild Orchid Crafts, a few blobs of Stickles, ribbon, lace, punching and pins and she was done.

Oh the arty shot for you fans out there.... there must be one surely?

Can I have a few good wishes for my Harry please? Little chickie is a bit poorly - again! I swear she wants me white haired and bankrupt.

Right off to turn that heating up a bit more I think!

Whoopsi-Daisy blog hop

I'd like to welcome you to the first ever Whoopsidaisy blog hop! We've decided to hold a blog hop to celebrate our return to weekly challenges!

If you've arrived here from the Whoopsi-Daisy blog you're in the right place! As you visit the DT blogs you will be in for a treat! Not only do you get to see the lovely sparkly creations but if you leave a comment you will enter a draw and may the sheet of digis that they've used to create the card they're showing. How cool is that? In addition each one will give you a letter. Now you need to save those letters as they make a phrase. After you've been to all the places on the hop you lastly end up back at Whoopsi-Daisy. Leave a comment that you've completed the hop but DO NOT write the phrase in your comments people ;)) Linnie will do a draw and pick a winner, they email her and they get their choice of 4 sheets of digis. So its a win win situation. Fab huh?

My letter is I

So here is what I've made. Now this little cutie has been made using one of the recent releases - isn't she pretty? She has been coloured with my trusty Copics (what else?)

For extra sparkle I went round the edge of the card with Stickles and did the flowers too.

My arty shot for all you fans ;))

Net - that's me!

So here is a list of all the hop stops - ooo I like that I must remember if for future hops!

Nataliya

Sande

Lilac Anglia

Cec

Rleen

Hippeaud

Linnie

Emma & Susan

Wanda

Sassy Lassy

Heike

Betty

So what are you still doing here? You should be hopping along to Nataliyas!

Sparkle and spiders!

Howdy there Bloggettes, gosh its cold! I think that winter is most definitely well on its way! I've got my fingers crossed that none of that horrid white stuff is coming though. Roll on summer I say. Mind you I'm still waiting for this years summer! Somehow I don't rate the chance of that happening too high..... well a girl can dream can't see?

Well I thought I'd wet your whistles with a couple of cakey pictures this week. As you know (if you don't where have you been?) that its Halloween next week so I made a few Halloween cupcakes. Now check out the spiders! ;)) Don't worry they're chocolate so nice spiders with rather big eyes! the OM thought they were crabs! As I pointed out crabs have 6 legs and these clearly have 8.... men huh?

Now these ones have the most fantastic sprinkles! They're bones! Aren't they super? These came back with me from my recent holiday to America. Why can't we get them easily over here? If anyone sees any fun sprinkles please let me know!

Now while I was blog hopping I came across the Sweet Stampin Challenge. This week it was 'anything but a card'..... now these definitely aren't a card!

Now onto non edible treats!

A new challenge has just launched over at Totally Gorjuss This week we want to see some sparkle on your card. And its sponsored by Crafters Companion too, the winner gets a £10 spend in their on-line store.

So this little chap is a Magnolia snowman from last year. I think he's one of my favourites and super easy to colour, oh and super quick too.

Now he's had some Stickles on his snowflake which strangely enough doesn't show too well even with my class act photography..... You can see the Stickles round the edge though! And more surprisingly it was dry! Yes I think that's a first for me photographing a dry card.

This little guy with his die cut borders also fits in a new (to me) challenge blog I came across called Mark's Finest Papers, so I entered him in that too.

Oh and for a treat an arty shot!

Now I decided to take these in the conservatory..... I still had to contort myself into some bizarre stances. Trouble is this time the neighbours could see me! They probably thought I was doing some bizarre exercises or that I was waiting for the men in white coats to call....