Madcap Manor

 Good morning, my lovelies! I hope you're all looking forward to a great weekend.  I shall be sorting, cleaning and tidying the guest room, because we're having a visitor next week who will be staying overnight.  The trouble is, I have chucked a lot of 'stuff' in that room, so it's going to take a long time..... Once it's done it will be  My Time to Craft Christmas!  (Do you see what I did there?) We have an unusual theme this time - non-Christmas winter cards! New Year, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Divali....  But keep it Clean and Simple. For a very useful list of CAS ideas, check out  this glossary  from the "Less Is More" Challenge blog. I have made a couple of Hannukah cards, using this lovely  Blessed Hannukah  stamp set by Altenew. I stencilled the background with Tumbled Glass distress ink.  The star is silver-embossed, and I used holographic card as my mats.  The sentiment is from an old Paper Smooches stamp set. My second card ...

 Good morning! I hope you're all well.  I have scheduled this post, as when the challenge at  The Holly and Ivy  goes live I will be at Church, arranging flowers to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.  For celebrations we always have a stand by the main door and one by the altar, and smaller arrangements along all the windowsills.  The Flower team are so talented, it will look fabulous! But you're here for our new Challenge! I wanted to make a CAS card using this pretty blue as my 'white space.'  I made a panel slightly smaller than my card base and scored 2 lines on the left and at the bottom, then used my Cropadile to round the top right corners.  The snowflakes are cut with Lawn Fawn's  Stitched Snowflakes  dies from a scrap of rose gold non-shed glitter card from Tonic.   The sentiment is embossed with rose gold, the stamps are from a very old Bo Bunny stamp set, and I rounded the top right corners.  On reflection,...

 Hi! I hope you're all keeping well.  I have slowly been getting back into the swing of things after the past 2 years and now the Toddler Group at my Church is opening on a Tuesday as well as a Wednesday.  I really enjoy it, I missed seeing my friends in real life - Zoom is fine in its way, but it's not the same! Anyway, you're here for our new challenge at The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge and not my wittering!   I coloured and fussy cut a poinsettia stamp by Penny Black twice.  I cut one image in half and added the other on top with foam tape.  The leaves are made with an old Spellbinders Foliage die.  The sentiment is by Taylored Expressions.  Finally I added stickles to the centre of the flower. A clean and simple card suitable for a bloke, I think.  Check out the challenge blog for more inspiration! Thanks for looking and take care! love Mags B x

 Good morning, good people! I hope you're all keeping well. It seems quite a while since Christmas, I have finally got back into the daily routine now that all the decorations have been put away and the dead needles from the Christmas tree have been swept up! However, we can bring back the excitement of Christmas by making cards all year round! Yes, The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge is back! I apologise for the shine in the photo, it's been very grey weather-wise, and the flash on my camera reflected from the embossing on the card.  I used an old stamp from Bo Bunny for the image and the sentiment is by Clearly Besotted.  Everything has been embossed with copper embossing powder, I like how it goes with the vintage style of the image. For some wonderful inspiration check out the challenge blog! It's never too soon to begin making Christmas cards! Thanks for looking and take care. love Mags B x

 Hello! Happy Friday! There's a new Challenge at  My Time to Craft and it's Clean and Simple Christmas. Three quarters of the card should be empty space. I have used a red rubber stamp called Bubble Greetings Jolly  by Taylored Expressions and coloured it with alcohol markers. The yellow 'O' is covered with shimmer pen, and the holly berries are dotted with Glossy Accents, but those are the only embellishments.  I really like this stamp! Go and see what my teamies have made for more CAS inspiration! Thanks for looking, and keep well. love Mags B x

Hello, my lovelies! We have a new challenge at My Time to Craft which is Clean and Simple. I confess I didn't check the instructions carefully enough, I should have stamped my image directly onto the card front. Apologies! Don't do what I did! I used a lovely stamp set from Lawn Fawn called Simply Celebrate. The sentiment came from the same stamp set. I added Spectrum Noir sparkle pen to the candle flames, and two dots of Nuvo drops.  My teamies, who are more careful readers of instructions than I am, have made some gorgeous inspiration for you to check out on the blog!  Thanks for looking, and take care.   love Mags B x.   PS My son, who had a heart operation 2 weeks ago in London, is now back home in Shropshire. He is so much happier being at home with his wife and daughter! He's due to have more tests to monitor how he's reacting to Warfarin, but he's so very glad to be out of hospital! Thanks to all who enquired both here and on Facebook. You ar...

Good morning! Welcome to a new Challenge at Dream Valley! I hopt that will cheer up your Monday! Our new theme is Clean and Simple and if you'd like to check what that means, have a look at this Glossary from the "Less is More" blog. Our sponsor this fortnight is LeAnn's World 101 and I used the lovely Princess Alea. (Unfortunately Etsy won't let me link to her shop.) I used a mask and Distress Inks to make a green hillock and a sky background, then I masked the green again and gave the sky a quick spritz with Nuvo Mica Mist in Antique Gold. It gives a subtle sheen, with a few splatters as well. I fussy cut the image and added her to the scene with wet glue, then put Stickles on her tiara and necklace, and Spectrum Noir Sparkle on the embroidery on her dress. The sentiment is from Altenew's Fresh Freesia stamp set. I matted the image on a scrap of pink paper from my stash that matched her pink dress exactly! It's so satisfying when that happe...

Hello, my dearios! I hope you're all looking forward to a good weekend, with plenty of time to craft! We have a new challenge at My Time to Craft which is Clean and Simple. I have used items from the Simon Says Stamp April card kit to make 2 cards to the same layout. I made 2 cards because I used 2 papers to die-cut the wellie boot and just swapped them around! I die-cut the base from white card and coloured in the flowers, then paper-pieced the boots. I added shading with grey alcohol markers to give more definition. Finally I went over the boots with Glossy Accents. My teamies have made some beautiful cards to inspire you, do go and see! Thanks for looking! love Mags B x

I'm so sorry I'm late with this post for My Time to Craft. It's been a frantic day - this morning we set up a room at the Church Hall for our Toddler Groups' Christmas Parties next week, with a special chair for Father Christmas (he visits every year, he is lovely!) and Christmas lights and a glowing Christmas Tree, which took ages to set up because there were no instructions! Then came lunch with a dear friend, and this evening there was Choir Practice. We are singing some beautiful songs this year! Anyway, I'm home now with a glass of white wine and a card to share for the new challenge, which is Clean And Simple with One Layer Only. 'One Layer' means putting your image directly onto your card front, though if you want to work on a separate panel the same size as the card base and glue it onto the base, that's ok. I have made..... A Christmas Card! What a surprise! The lovely flourish Christmas Tree stamp is an old one and I heat embossed ...

Good morning! I hope your weekend is going swingingly! We have a lovely Challenge at My Time to Craft it's Flowers Very topical here in the Northern Hemisphere, where the Spring flowers are beginning to bloom; and also topical, I hope, in the Southern Hemisphere, where you'll be enjoying Autumn flowers! So we would like to see creations where the focal point is a Flower or Flowers. Just using a floral background paper doesn't cut it, I'm afraid!! My Flower is Fresh Freesia by Altenew, and the card was made for a special birthday for a lady at Church who loves freesias. The Flower Team made her a special arrangement, and the freesias smelled wonderful! I heat embossed the outline stamp on watercolour paper using Wow! Gold Pearl Embossing Powder, and Inktense Pencils and a water brush to colour it in. The sentiment on a strip of vellum was also embossed in the same Gold Pearl Embossing Powder; and finally I added some sequins from stash. I like the CAS loo...

Good morning! It's Thursday - I can't believe how fast this week is going! It's also time for another C.R.A.F.T Challenge! This week we'd like you to go Clean and Simple If you're unsure what CAS is, have a look at Less is More which has great explanations and examples. Put simply, it involves lots of 'white space' and no embellishments to cover up mistakes! I think this week's card is the Cleanest and Simplest I've ever made! The lovely image is Daisy Rope from The Stamping Boutique. I coloured it very simply, and gold-embossed a stamp from Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler Then I used a stitched frame die by Mama Elephant to cut it out, and mounted with foam tape onto my card base. The card base has been embossed using a Spellbinders die. The photo is at an angle to show the dimension. We have two ace sponsors this week: Rick St Dennis The Stamping Boutique Go and see what my teamies have made, then try your hand at Clean and...

Hello, my dearios! Firstly, welcome to my new followers! I hope very much that you enjoy this erratic, sometimes crazy blog! xx We had good news this morning: my daughter had a 3-month check-up today and her cancer is still in full remission! She is so lively now, back to what she was like before the Hodgkins' Lymphoma struck. So we opened a bottle of wine this evening to celebrate, and I may possibly be a wee bit tiddly. Please excuse any misprints in my post! On to the card! This was made for my hubby's BFF, who turned 60 at the weekend. I went with a CAS look. The card base is Neenah Desert Storm Kraft card (my Christmas present to me was a subscription to Simon Says Stamp Monthly Card Kits and the card came with one of them.) I rounded the corners with the We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, I do love that bit of kit! The background striped paper is a snippet from the Nitwits Tour of London collection . I embossed a snippet of blue Core'dinations with the Cutt...

Hi, guys! I hope your weekend is going well! Here's another card that has reached its destination, so now I can blog it. I am trying out more of a CAS style, inspired by people like Kristina Werner and Jennifer McGuire . I find CAS tricky, since when you make a mistake you can't just bung an embellishment on top to hide it!! The picture is a bit faded, the light wasn't very good on the rainy day when I took the photo (quite aside from the fact that I am no David Bailey!!) The bird is from an old Hero Arts set Birds and Branches and I used Distress Markers to colour it. The sentiment is from Paper Smooches' Sentiment Sampler . The flower and brad are by Papermania. The papers were loose in my drawer, I can't remember their origin. I used a fiskars 'Bubbles' punch, and the ribbon is from stash. I added Gold Stickles to the bird's crown. I rounded the corners with a We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper - isn't that a wonderful name?! It's i...

Good morning! There's a new challenge over at The Squirrel and the Fox . Thanks to everyone who took part last time for the 'Violet for Hodgkin's Lymphoma' challenge - seeing the lovely cards submitted really cheered my daughter up! She has her last chemo on Wednesday, then a scan just before Christmas, and in January we hear if she's clear of the cancer. So there's not much longer to wait! Now on to the current challenge which is Summer or Winter Our sponsor is Pink Cat Studio who have some great digis for sale, and also lots of activity sheets for children, so with the Christmas holidays coming up you might want to see if there's anything that will keep the little 'uns amused! Check out the page for 'free stuff' too - the paper I used for my card is free at the moment, it's so pretty! I used Promarkers to colour the image, and also to colour the narrow strips of card on either side and which have been Glossy Accented. The bp was ...

Good afternoon, my lovelies! If you're looking for my post for The Squirrel and the Fox please scroll down to the previous post. Ta. Today at Dream Valley Challenges we have a theme that I found - well, challenging! But that's what it's all about, isn't it?! our theme is Clean and Simple Our lovely sponsor this time is Crafty Ribbons - oh my word, their website is full of the most delectable ribbons and lace that you can imagine! You have to go and see!!! Ok, so. Clean and Simple . It's ironic that this kind of card takes me a long time to work out! I chucked three previous versions of this card because the stamping was blurred or there was a ruddy great fingerprint in the middle - oops! The stamps are from a set by Clearly Besotted called You Are . I stamped the solid flower in Dark Peony Color Box Chalk ink, and the centre in Yellow Ochre. I masked the flowers and stamped the rest in memento Tuxedo Black, which I coloured in lightly with pink and yello...

Evening, all! I hope you're all keeping well! I made this card a little while ago for a friend who's having quite a tough time at the moment. She's received it, so now I can blog it! I'm sorry this photo is so naff, the colours are so much brighter irl! The flower is blue and the stem and leaves are green (I masked off sections of the stamp before inking) while the butterfly is yellow and the sentiment is brown. The brown card base is a snippet of Bazzil cardstock. I used a Hero Arts/Sissix stamp and die set called Floral which I got in the summer. It's such a clever idea! I stamped the flower, butterfly and sentiment using Color Box Chalk Ink cats eyes (another purchase that I hadn't used yet!) and then used the matching dies to cut out the images. The blue paper is a snippet, and I used a Fiskars Border punch (I think it's called 'Effervescence') along the top. The ribbon came from Hobbycraft. Finally I drew a double border with a Sakura ...

What a week! It began with a builder coming to look at a cracked gutter. It ended with urgent work to repair rotten timbers in the roof. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! However, my son and his family are on their way to us to stay for the weekend, and there is a delicious chick pea curry simmering on the stove, so all is not lost. And I made a card! While sorting through my old wood stamps I came across this shadow stamp, by Anita's. I stamped it in Olive Versacolor ink and added three brads that came from Lakeland in the days when they still did crafts. The borders are a stripy paper from the snippets box, and the sentiment is by Docrafts. The trickiest bit was cutting the white stamped card to the right size so that it would be balanced! CAS cards often take me just as long as more complicated cards, and I always have to chuck out my first efforts before I get it right! I'm entering The Glitter n Sparkle Challenge who want metal on your submission - the brads are all metal. Tha...

Just a fly-by post today, I'm out with my Dear Daughter for a routine check at the hospital. It will be an Adventure as we'll be going on the bus into deepest Essex! (Well, Epping!) A tiny (4") Christmas card, using a Penny Black stamp and a green Versacolor ink pad, with an added star from Paperchase. The green mat is pearlised but the sheen hasn't really come out in the picture. I made 5 of these - well, it's already May, only 8 months until the Big Day! I'm entering the Challenge at My Time to Craft where the theme is 'Use a Sentiment as the Main Focus.' Ideal for a CAS design, I think! I hope you're all having a good week - only 2 days until the weekend!! Thanks for looking! love Mags B x

A little while ago I was asked by the lovely Shell if I would be Guest Designer at My Time to Craft for April. It took less than a nano-second to say 'yes'! I am incredibly thrilled and honoured to be asked - thank you so much, Shell! Here's my first card. The Challenge is for a CAS card, one layer, no embellishments. Eek! I'm only just getting to grips with CAS, let alone one-layer cards!! But I have this lovely, simple stamp, 'a touch' by Penny Black, which came from Sir Stampalot which I thought would look ok. I stamped it with Stazon and coloured with watercolour pencils (borrowed from my daughter!) and used a waterbrush to blend, and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. The sentiment is also Penny Black. The card blank isn't distressed round the edges, that's just a shadow, thanks to my naff photography skillz! The simplest cards, I find, sometimes take longest, because they require a lot of thought and planning, at least that...

Yes, it's me again! After the shenanigans on Tuesday with the power cut I was looking forward to some quiet crafting time yesterday - and the washing machine decided to die! We've had it for seven years and it's been used daily, so it has served us well - but I was not happy when it flooded my kitchen floor! On the plus side, my kitchen floor is clean and sparkly. On the minus side, I had to haul sopping wett clothes to the bath and get rid of the water the old-fashioned way. Reader, I trampled them. It's a bit like crushing grapes for wine, without the delicious alcoholic result. After that I spent the evening with my Kindle. If any of you like Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy/ Vampires, try Karen Chance's books. Sexy vampires, kick-bottom heroines, and a fair dose of slapstick humour, too! Amazon has an anthology of the first 4 books of the  'Cassie Palmer' series in their Kindle store. The first book in the series is 'Touch the Dark.' But yo...