My ban has been lifted but should I go??!!

Happy Saturday everyone :-D Hope you're all having a good start to the weekend. The rain came back with a vengeance on Wednesday and it's been off and on ever since...it does not pay to have a white car hmph!

The football/soccer season in Scotland started a couple of weeks ago and so far so good. It will be an interesting season since Rangers (one of the top teams) got demoted to  the 3rd division during the summer. Pre season training was as hard as ever and Ryan could barely walk some days when he came home. Good thing is the knee has healed nicely and apart from the odd ache he's doing well. In case you don't remember I had been banned by him and hubby from going to see him play as he seemed to get bad injuries whenever I was there (2 dislocated shoulders 2 seasons in a row). The other day he came up to me and said I could start going to his games if I wanted to! Well that pleased me to no end but athletes are pretty superstitious and he's no exception so I'm wondering if I should go or not. I'll point out I was NOT at the game last season when he did his cruciate so I guess maybe I'm not the jinx he thought I was!!! Here's a picture of him advertising this season's strip...

I hope and pray and have everything crossed that this will be the year that he gets through the season in one piece :-D

I made a couple of cards for the girls from the hotel who helped organize Nicole and Ben's wedding and this was one of them...

I used Clear Vase Delight and coloured it in with my Copics. The ribbon is the best for tying bows...just the right stiffness without being to rigid

I added lots of Glamour Dust to the blooms and Glossy Accents to the water

I also made them one of the favors I made for the wedding guests....

I can't remember if I've shown these already so apologies if I have. It's a Post It Note cover and I made everything except the PIN pad. There was also a pen (it's kinda coming back to me that I may have shown you but what the heck lol) that was inscribed 'Nicole and Ben said 'I do' 26th May 2012'

Here's all 80 something of them!!

Ok...I'm off to procrastinate whether I go to the game or not...I'll let you know later lol.

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by

Catch ya later x

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to moms in the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia!!

This is the card I made for my mom...

I googled shaped cards and I was stopped in my tracks by a card by Laurie Willison. I've tried to find her blog to share it with you but I couldn't get access so if anyone knows Laurie, please let her know I LOVED her card!

Hopefully by now I'll have a bit of a tan and have read a book or two :-D

Thanks for stopping by

Catch ya later x

Birthday Roll Call

Today is a very busy day for birthdays on my calendar so I'd like to wish my BIL, Pat, Sophie and our very own Ladybug Diane a very happy birthday...hip hip hooray!!! I feel like I'm missing someone out...I'm sure I was making a LOT of cards for today lol.

You've already seen my BIL's, Pat's and Sophie's cards so today I'm going to show you Diane's in the hope that she has already received it :-D You can all pick yourselves up off the floor after reading that lol...yup..had it made and posted on TUESDAY!!!!! What can I say...I'm on fire this week rofl!!

Ready? Here it is...

I printed Bouquet Delight bigger than I normally would as I wanted it to fill the card as much as possible and be the main focal point. This made coloring the flowers a breeze. 

I added Glamour Dust to most of the flower centers and some super duper fabbily lushalicious 4 mm Swarovski silver rimmed AB crystals!!

Here's a close up of the SDFLSSRABC!!! Not very sparkilicious in the pictures but IRL...amazing :-D

I looped 4 layers of twine to make the bow

And there you have it! I must say it does look lovely IRL...the pictures aren't showing it's true beauty lol. Hopefully Diane will testify to that ;-D

I'd like to enter the following challenges:

Aud Sentiments - Anything Goes

Copic Marker Europe - Monochromatic

MAWTT - Gardening or Flowers

Inky Impressions Challenge - Anything Goes

Little Darlings Challenges - Flowers

Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Anything Goes

My friend Elaine came by yesterday to help with the wedding favors and I'm pleased to report all the pearls have been glued and the 80 large rolled roses rolled yaaaayyyy!!!!!! Thanks Elaine :-D Still plenty to do but at least those boxes are ticked.

That's it from me for today. I've got a special card tomorrow so maybe pop back for a looksee.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Catch ya later x

ps This day next month Nicole and Ben will be married...EEK!!!!

TLT - M Pee's Challenge - Birfday

Boy oh boy did I get last week's challenge wrong! And when did I realise? Sunday night!!! I was commenting Diane's post and she was talking about circles, squares and triangles and I thought what the heck is she going on about? Oops...quickly had a look at my card and not a circle, square or triangle in sight lol. That's what you get for either being in a hurry or needing an eye test asap! When I read the challenge list I just saw shapes and thought perfect...I've got a shape and went on my merry way lol. Thankfully M Pee didn't get it right either but then she had an excuse as she'd been unwell. Well that's a lesson learned :-0 Just as well I'm the boss otherwise I'd have to sack myself rofl!!

Thank you to everyone who entered our Shapes - CIRCLES, TRIANGLES AND SQUARES challenge. Congratulations...you all have excellent eyesight lololol. You can see if you're the winner of the overall challenge, winner using an LCI image or a Top 3 over at the Challenge Blog.

So onto today's challenge which comes via our very lovely Mary Poppin's herself aka M Pee (don't ask!) aka Michele! It's great to have M Pee back..we all really missed her...especially her one liners. Oh...did you know it's her birfday real soon?? 

Michele's challenge of Birthday is one of my favorites (yes I did read and re-read to make sure I hadn't missed anything!) and this month I've got quite a few...especially on the 26th!! I think I have 5 that day so I have tried very hard to craft in between everything else to keep my tardiness to a minimum so you've all been warned lol.

I used Watering Can Delight for the birthday card I made for my  co-ordinator extraordinaire Lisa. Her birthday was on Saturday and although the card was made way back last week it only got posted yesterday (did you expect anything less lol?) so I'm hoping it arrives today before she sees my post.

This is what I came up with...

I used my new Basic Grey lush Kissing Booth paper pad...it was SO hard to choose which pp to use. I also used my new Die namics wonky scallop border (sorry Catherine!) and stitched the whole thing together. Using my Copics I colored the image though I brought out my Prisma pencils for the grass as I haven't quite mastered grass with my Copics yet. 

Glamour dust was added to the butterflies and flowers and Glossy Accents to the ladybugs

Yummy rolled roses with Swarovski pearls (yes, THOSE pearls I keep harping on about) added to the centers and leaves from my Flower Trio with a birthday sentiment finish it off.

It's really pretty IRL and I hope you like it Lisa :-D

I'd like to enter the following challenges:

Die Cutting Divas - Pearls, Pins and/or Punches and Diecut (Spellbinders oval, lacy ovals and Die Namics rolled roses)

Digi Makeover Challenge - Birthday

Love to Create - Anything Goes

Make It Monday - Anything Goes

Stamp and Create - Spring

Truly Madly Crafty Challenge - Handmade Flowers

I think I'm going to spend a few hours on the wedding favours. Hopefully it won't be long before they're finished and I can tick another box :-D

Thanks for stopping by today

Catch ya later x

Get well soon Fran

I made a card for my cousin Fran who is in hospital...I kinda want to keep it cuz I LOVE it lol. I think it's the colours...what do you think...

I'm really into turquoise at the moment ... I think the pp is from a Dovecraft pack though not sure what it's called. The rest of the pp has cups and saucers, teapots,cupcakes and flowers on them...ring any bells? I printed Clear Vase Delight onto PTI cs and coloured it in with my Copics. I added Zircon Swarovski crystals to the centre of some of the flowers and Glamour Dust to the rest....they are sparklicious!!!

Not sure why I always colour water with the lightest of blues as water is clear...maybe it's all the maps I used to love colouring in school lol. Anywho, after colouring the water I covered it with Glossy Accents to make it look more real.

I can't stop using my new Flower Trio die

I'd like to enter my card in the following challenges:

Paper Sundaes - Anything Goes

Robyn's Fetish - Spring

The Hybrid Chick - Spring

House of Gilli - Flowers

iCopic Challenge - Spring Colours

Incy Wincy Designs - Digi's only

Karen's Doodles - Something Spring

Make It Mondays - Anything Goes

Simon Says - Anything Goes

Whoopsie Daisy - Anything Goes

Sadly my Uncle Bob, Frans dad, passed away on Good Friday. He was my Grandpa Tom's (my mom's dad) brother and there was another brother Uncle Herbert who passed just after my grandpa so it's an end of an era. My sister Tracey and I used to go to my Uncle Bob and Aunty Millie's when we were small for sleepovers and treasure hunts. I used to (and still do!) eat really fast and Aunty Millie would always say 'Kerry, slow down you're not catching a train' lol. We had great times and have wonderful memories which will stay with us always.

I hope this card cheers you up a bit Fran...please get better real soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Catch ya later x

2nd Post Today

I've managed to sneak in 10 minutes to take pictures, edit and upload one of the cards here but I'm going to make it quickish ;-D

Decided to colour up a Floral Delight the other day and this is what I came up with...

Wheelbarrow Delight is just so much fun to colour...the hard part is deciding on which colours to use for the flowers. These flowers are perfect for using colours that aren't natural flower colours which brings me back to the FUN part lol.

I don't know about you but I have lots of paper pads that have a distinctive pattern on them which lend themselves more to scrapbooking and are usually the only pages left in my pad.  When I came across this sheet of pp from MME's Miss Caroline paper pad I thought it was a perfect frame for the image.

The large rolled rose flower was a bit stark against the rest of the card so I sponged a bit of coral ink onto the edges of the petals and added Padparadsha Swarovski Crystals to the centre for a bit of bling.

I used another piece of pp from the same pad and cut out the fancy bit to add to the inside of the card.

I'd like to enter the following challenges:

Crafty Catz - Spring is In The Air
Our Craft Lounge - Spring
Patti's Creations - Anything Goes
The Poodles Parlour - Anything Goes
Simply Create Too - Spring
Stampin' for the Weekend - Anything Goes
Sweet n' Sassy Digi Challenge - Spring
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Handmadeflowers

The clocks go forward this weekend...I'm thinking we've picked the wrong weekend to have the hen...I'm sure it will be a late night already without losing an hours sleep hmph!

That's my quick post...I've got to get back to all things 'Hen' lol. Scroll down to my first post of the day if you want to see the before and after of yesterday's facial!

Have a great weekend.

Catch ya later x

Day 6 Reveal - Happy Mother's Day!

Hands up who loved Pam's cards {hand waving furiously!}...Wasn't her Josh card just superb...I loved the scene she created with the buildings in the background and the map. And stop the bus!!! What about those eyelets on her Jess card? For a minute I wasn't sure what Pam was talking about...eyelets..what are they??? LOL...remember those??? Maybe there will be an eyelet revival thanks to Pam...must blow the dust off mine and dig out my Crop a dile...might have to get the oil can out for that lol.

Now onto other matters of the day...

Happy Mother's Day! I know we're a bit strange here in the UK having MD in March when it really should be in May like North America. Father's Day is the same so not sure whose idea it was to have separate MD's??? I guess it gives me a bit of a head start on making my mom her card...could I really make it a double and produce AND send 2 cards EARLY lol???

Wee Sadie has been like a surrogate mom to me since I met her 25 years ago. She started out as my cleaner until I had to put her out to pasture 8 years ago because of arthritis and her eyesight was failing...hubby was always finding one sleeve un-ironed when dressing for work lol. She's now 81 and getting a bit frail. Sadly she had 3 mini strokes the week before Christmas and thankfully only has slight speech problems (she stutters if she gets excited) and numbness in a couple of her fingers. It could have been a lot worse. She's since had another couple of mini strokes but she's not lying down to them though she really should rest more than she does! She's still a firecracker and keeps me on my toes.

I made her card on Thursday afternoon as I was seeing her that night. I picked one of my favourite images from the Floral Delight Collection and teamed it up with some very pretty pastel papers I bought from Dunelm Mill (it's a homewares store that has just started selling craft goodies) of all places. I am so disappointed in my photography skills of late ... I really must get my tent out but it ends up with permanent residency on my dining room table and drives hubby mad...because they don't do this card justice at all. The colours are so dreamily soft and lovely. Then there's the wall peeking through hmph! Anywho, enough whinging...here's what I came up with...

Yes another twisted easel card...I told you you would be seeing a few more of these lol. Can you see how lovely these colours are? I had it sitting on the high counter in my kitchen as I do whenever I finish a card. I leave it there and walk past it as I go about my business to see if it needs anything or try and fall in love with it if I'm not all that about it. Well hubby came in Thursday after work and walked right by it...stopped suddenly and walked back to look at it and after a few moments gave it the thumbs up lol. He's not a lover of all the pp I use as he says it detracts from the image so I was really chuffed he like it.

I coloured Watering Can Delight with my Copics...I'm going to have to work on my grass cuz it looks rather pathetic lol. The image actually looks like it's floating in the clouds...must remember not to make them so low!

Back to using Aida for my flowers...this batch is a lovely snowy white.

I hope you have a lovely Mother's Day whatever you are doing. I'll be on my own :-( Steven went back to Milan last Sunday (I'll tell you more about that later), Kilmarnock are playing against Celtic in the Community Cup today and although he's not playing the Manager included him in the squad (more on him later too lol) so he stayed with the team in the hotel last night and after the game will hopefully be celebrating and even if they don't there will be something on for them back at the club's hotel. Nic is working until 6 so I'm going to pick Sadie up this morning and have a coffee somewhere then take her to her friend Katie's for the afternoon. I'll make a bee-line home and hopefully get to craft for few hours before Nic and Ben come over. I think it will be takeaway as my only stipulation on my birthday and Mother's Day is I don't cook!!!

 Thanks for stopping by :-D

Catch ya later x

TGIF!

Boy am I glad this week is over! I was creating but it was a tough one. I even had to miss the first two days of the craft fair at the SECC...that has NEVER happened hmph. Unfortunately I can't show you what I was creating just yet but I do have this little beauty....

Clear Vase Delight is another image I coloured up WITHOUT choosing the pp first doh! I didn't like it when I'd finished...I thought the colours were a bit insipid but when my new MME Miss Caroline Dolled Up paper pad arrived from Hayley it was like they were made for each other :-D

I added Glossy Accents to the vase to make it look like it was filled with water

Now...what do you thunk of this Loopy Bloom??? Isn't it fabulicious! I used some cotton fabric I bought last week when I was out with Nic doing wedding stuff. You have to use Heat & Bond with the fabric so it has a bit of body and doesn't fray when cutting with the die.

I bought the Die-namics Mini Pennant dies from Dies to Die For and used one for a sentiment

You can see the LB sticks out a bit but it's gorjusness makes up for it :-D

I'd like to enter the following challenges:

Clearly Inspired - Anything Goes

Glitter Geeks - Spring is In The Air

Wags 'n Whiskers - Spring Break

CCEE 1210 - Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

SJ Papercrafts - Flowers (Added extra: Include Pink or Red)

My Mum's Craftshop - Spring Colours

The Paper Shelter - Anything Goes

Stampavie and More - Spring/Easter

I've another busy day tomorrow glued to my laptop but hopefully I'll get some time over the weekend to get to the SECC...it's not like I NEED anything right???!!!

Have the best weekend...thanks for stopping by.

Catch ya later x

Sunshine Sunflowers

This is my third attempt at this post today! I don't know if it was my laptop that was playing up or what but if it doesn't work this time I'm giving up lol.

I made the fatal mistake of colouring my image before matching it with pp or cs and as I don't 'do' blue very much (I'm more a turquoise blue kinda girl) I didn't have a lot to choose from. This is my MIL's Mother's Day card which I am proud to say is made and winging it's way to Ireland as I type.... 1 1/2 weeks EARLY...go Kerry go Kerry lololol!!!

I'd been itching to colour up Sunflower Delight from the new Floral Delight release so got to work and this is the final result....

This was definitely a grower but by the time I got it in the mail I pretty much liked it. Remember when I was looking for burlap (hessian) not so long ago? Well I got finally got some...DLS came to the rescue and got some from Fabricland for me. I had to use Heat and Bond to keep it edges from fraying and I'm really pleased with the way that part turned out.

I'm way behind...story of my life these days so I'll just say...

Thanks for stopping by :-D

Catch ya later x

Wedding Invitation

Happy weekend everyone! I've been asked by a few people about Nic and Ben's wedding invitations and now that they've been sent out I can show you. The picture doesn't do it justice...I can't tell you how many days it's taken me to get this mediocre picture but you can get the idea. Nic wanted something quite simple and elegant and I made two samples but this is the one they chose...

I used Craft Creations Hi-5 Pearl Cryogen White cs and paper for the insert. It has a very subtle sparkle to it and is perfect for wedding stationery. Because I knew I'd be making quite a few I needed to keep it as simple as possible and it was ... until I added the pearls! After cutting out the card I ran it through my Cuttlebug with my favourite swirly embossing folder. I had bought the Cheerylynn heart dies from The Frantic Stamper though not thinking I'd be using them for the invitations. I made 90+ invitations so that meant the dies had to go through the Cuttlebug 90 times or more which means my right arm has now got quite a nice definition lol. Then the little inside bits had to get poked out, the hearts layered with foam squares then the 30 flat back pearls glued on individually...that's 2700 pearls people!!!! Unfortunatley I've heard that some of the pearls had fallen off when they arrived at their destination (my mom's invite was pearl-less and the envelope torn so there wasn't any left for her to glue back :-( ) although I used plenty of glue. I think it's when the PO ran them through their machines, the glue 'gave' and the pearls became loose. Then there was tying 90+ bows!!! Don't even get me started on those lol. Anyway they're done and that's another box ticked :-D Now I have to get to work on the place cards...thankfully the hotel is doing the menus and the seating plan.

The pesky pearls!

I made a wedding card the other week using Bouquet Delight from the Floral Delight release and as today's post is wedding themed thought I'd show it to you...

Julie made a gorgeous frame card for the Floral Delight release and I wanted to make one too so after a few practise runs I think I managed a not too bad effort lol. I printed Bouquet Delight and coloured it in with my Copics adding Fuschia Swarovski Crystals and glitter to the flowers for a bit of bling. It was looking a bit bare so I added more crystals to the corners and made a 'flower' out of fushia sheer ruffle ribbon and glued 2mm crystals to a button for the centre.

I tied a thin piece of fuschia ribbon from my stash and glued it to the stems

So there you have it ... the wedding invitations and a wedding card.

I'd like to enter the following challenges:

ATC's & Cards With Attitude - Anything Goes

Clearly Inspired - Anything Goes

Crafts 4 Eternity - Digital

Cupcake Craftroom - Spring Bouquet
S J Papercrafts - Flowers and include pink or red

I've a few deadlines looming so I'd best crack on. Thanks for visiting today, hope you have a great weekend.

Catch ya later x

Tuesday without the LT!

This is a pre-post which I've done plenty of times before but it would be just my luck it wouldn't work while I'm out of the country!

I think this has to be my favourite card so far using Floral Delights...not sure if it's the colours or the Aida or what??

I got this embossing folder in the bargain bin at Craft World and think its perfect with the FD's

Hope you're having a good week.

Catch ya later x