Blog candy galore!

Sharon is celebrating 5000 hits, which have come around really quickly as her blog is so fab. Why not pay her a visit and whilst there check out her generous offer of papers, card, flowers and more .. before 30/11?

Ruby is offering a yummy selection of goodies to celebrate her first 1,000 hits - visit her befroe 30/11 to check it out.

Cathrine is offering a gorgeous Rachelle Anne Miller stamp plus some other goodies if you visit her and leave a comment before 1/12

Joanne is celebrating 2500 hits with the most adorable FF Christmas stamp set giveaway - her candy offer ends 3/12 so now is a good time to check her blog out :-)

Bev is offering a gorgeous WOJ stamp donated by Katharina plus some fabulous "pink Christmas" goodies - her cards are just stunning so i suggest you get over there straight away and say hello.. before 4/12

Ila is offering 2 fab packs of stamps, papers and more if you visit and tell her your favourite Xmas film or song .. by 4/12

Claire is offering a stunning array of candy inclusing stamps, BG papers, images .. the list goes on .. to celebrate a massive 36,000 hits in one year - how impressive is that?? Congratualtions, and I suggest you get over there to cehck her blog out before 14/12

Penny Black Saturday Challenge #25 - No patterned paper

Well it's the weekend already, so time once more for this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Many thanks to everyone who joined in last week ... I tried to get round to visit you all and loved seeing everyone's funky Christmas creations. Don't forget to pop along to the challenge blog to find out who has won the gorgeous Sarah Kay stamps that were on offer as last week's prize.

Without further ado, this week's challenge is no patterned paper - so everyone can continue to stroke their paper stash instead of cutting into it, whist we look forward to seeing all your creations with whatever other forms of decoration your imagination can come up with :-) be sure to pop over to the blog to check out the other DT sample cards - they are a fantastic source of inspiration!

This week we have another gorgeous prize up for grabs .... Tracie has donated a gorgeous embellishment kit from Poppicrafts.

Here is the card I have made: I stamped PB stamp "Fantasy" onto lilac cardstock and embossed using snowflake tinsel embossing powder (white with lots of silver sparkle). I decorated the tree with Papermania translucent gemstones and Cardology white pearls, and matted onto white pearlescent card using my nesties. The sentiment is also stamped and embossed with snowflake tinsel powder, and is from "Make Your Mark" (a one off shop in York). I embossed a piece of lilac pearlescent cardstock with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and then wrapped it with sparkly snowflake ribbon from my stash, which I also used to tie a bow. I finished off with small Cuttlebug snowflakes diecut from white glitter card, decorated with lilac gemstones.

Hope you like it, and have a good weekend.

CCT + all the S's (+ a teaser)

I managed to get a real good evening's crafting in last night, and ended up making three cards which is pretty good going for me. I made two cards that were almost identical, on the theory that as Christmas approaches it doesn't take much longer to make two the same than to just make one....

My first S is this week's Spoon Full of Sugar #27 which is a sketch - this was great to work with, and my first card follows it pretty exactly - the only difference on my second card is the one flower instead of two.

My second S is for this week's ABC Challenge , which is S is for Snow. I just love the little mouse floating to earth on a snowflake, and of course my background paper and flower centre brads are also snowflakes ... overall the whole thing's a bit snowflake mad!!


My third S is for Lili of the Valley Challenge #10 which is Sprinke and Sparkle - well, I decorated the image snowflake and the flowers with Stickles glitter glue; the background paper is very sparkly (much moreso than the photo picks up); and the matted card is holographic tiny circles (tip ladies - it is a recycled Asda tissue box LOL!)

Last but not least my card's colour theme is lilac - which I specicfically chose for this week's Cute Card Thursday #38.

Talking of lilac, the third card I made was my Penny Black Saturday Challenge DT card which I can't publish until tomorrow, but here's a wee teaser (ooh the intrigue!). But just so you don't play Sherlock and get ahead of yourselves, the PB theme is NOT lilac LOL .. you'll have to pop over there tomorrow to find out what it is ;-)



Thanks for looking and have a good weekend.
Main image -Penny Black "Xmouse Ornament" coloured with watercolour pencils and Stickles; sentiment - Stamps Away; paper - Forever Friends "Christmas Glow" (plain lilac) and Carole Wilson Fine Arts (sparkly snowflakes); ribbon - Hobbycraft; flowers - Prima (2 flowers); W H Smith (1 flower); snowflake brads - Dovecraft.

OMG I have lost my blogroll!

Stupid me started playing around with my blog layout to get a Chrimbo background ... and even though I saved my previous template, when Irestored it I had lost my blog roll!! So I am going to have to rebuild it over the next few days ... apologies to anyone I normally visit who I don't find again straight away ...if you know I visit and haven't heard from me soon, do please pop by to say hello!!

Congratulations!... and 5 challenges in 1

I made this card on Monday evening, but have had to hang back a little before posting it on my blog, as I had to post it in the postbox first LOL! Hopefully it should arrive at its destination today ... it is a congratulations card for my good friend Sharon who has just landed a new job ... so I hope you are settling in well hun! It's a bit late but I don't know where the last week and a half have gone to ... I think it is Christmas looming LOL!

Whilst I was thinking about what to make for Sharon's card I had a look around, and decided that this week's Sketch Saturday #26 sketch was perfect for the image and papers I had in mind. I took the extra step of decoupaging the daisy that the frog is holding, so that it would also fit this week's Secret Crafter Challenge #8 which is decoupage.

I also noticed that this week's Dutch Dare Challenge #24 is 3 flowers, and thought - yep!! .... It was only afterwards it occurred to me that I had interpreted "3 flowers" as relating to embellishments stuck onto the card ... I totally failed to consider that the image also has a flower on it (or 2 if you count the fact that it is decoupaged LOL!!) Nonetheless I did my best so hope this is acceptable :-)

Fourthly, this week's Lili of the Valley challenge #9 is our four legged friends .... well the froggy is 4 legged and he looks pretty friendly to me :-)

And oops! I almost forgot ... I would also like to enter this card into this week's Arty Girlz Challenge #62, which is favourite colours ... my fave colour for cardmaking seems to be pink, and my fave combo is definitely pink and green (sometimes also with blue or brown) ... so I think this fits the bill for that.

Main image: Penny Black "Jump for Joy" coloured with watercolour pencils, and decoupaged daisy hilighted with a Stickle

Background papers: Imaginisce (much more sparkly than the photo shows)

Flowers: Prima

Sparkly brads: Doodlebug

Peel off sentiment and butterfly gems from my stash.

PTW meets Everybody-Art

Last night I started out to make a card for this week's PTW Challenge, which is a fab sketch by Dawny P. Before I knew it I was in full on Christmas card mode again, bringing out some yummy BasicGrey paper I had squirreled away last year, just so that I could put it with my new Prima Christmas flowers.

Whilst on the subject I thought it would be nice to enter this card into the Everybody Art Challenge #15, whose theme this week is winter ... I would interpret holly and poinsettas as being pretty wintery even though they aren't cold like snow!

I used my Penny Black pussy cat stamp "Holly Jolly", coloured with watercolour pencils and H2O's, decorated with Papermania red gems for the berries, and matted onto dark green glitter card. The background papers are both BasicGrey - "Two Scoops" (green) and "fruitcake" (holly); flowers are from the Prima red Christmas bubble, and ribbon and pearl brads are both by Papermania. The greeting and corner holly sprigs are both E-Z rubons.

Thanks for looking :-)

BasicGrey meets Friday Sketchers in the snow

I always look out particularly for what's going on over at Friday Sketchers and BasicGrey Challenges, and find they are often great to combine. This week the Friday Sketchers #29 is particularly fab as it is multi-layered, and so encouraged me to break out a number of co-ordinating BasicGrey Christmas papers ... so while I was about it I embossed my card greeting in silver so that it could fulfil this week's BasicGrey Challenge #12 which is embossing.

Of course with Christmas looming so fast there are a number of Christmas themed challenges on the go right now, which means I was able to tie this card in to three other challenges, namely

• Papertake Weekly, which is Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
• Cute Card Thursday #37, which is snow and snowflakes
• Rainbow Lady #40, which is snowman

I used: main image - Sugar Nellie snowman kindly given to me by Cathy (I really must buy a ccouple of these stamps!); sentiment - Rubber Soul; papers - BasicGrey "figgy pudding"; white sparkly ricrac and coloured gems by Papermania; snowflake diecuts by Cuttlebug; sparkly white brad by Doodlebug.

Thanks for a lovely award

I was feeling a bit down this morning, so was thrilled to sport that my lovely friend Helen had left me this beautiful elegant award, that has a really fantastic sentiment behind it, which is:



This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight blogger’s who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.



there are so many wonderful blogs out there that i treasure visiting it was almost impossible to pick 8 .. plus I should say that I love many blogs which have already got this award. having said all that I would love to pass this on to

Becky
Beth
Carole
Dawny
Emma
Kath
Natalie
Sharon


Thanks to you all for providing such inspiration on your blogs :-)

Magnolia v Stampavie #3 - Tie that Sketch

This is my first entry for the Magnolia versus Stampavie Challenge and is a bit last minute .... but being as I won one of the blog candy Christmas stamps that launched this challenge I thought it was about time I brought it out to play!

The challenge is a fab sketch which was very easy to work with - here's my attempt. Off to make a few more Christmas cards now :-)

Main image: Sarah Kay "Christmas Magic" - coloured with wartercolour pencils
Sentiment: Penny Black
Paper: couldn't find a name on it
Flowers: Prima Christmas Bubble
Pearls brads; Papermania
Ribbon and lace: from my stash.

Penny Black Saturday Challenge #24 - Funky Christmas

What with Christmas being just around the corner I don't seem to have found much crafting time this week, but still managed to produce my DT card for this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

Thanks to everyone who joined in last week .. it was inspiring to see such a rainbow of monochromatic cards LOL! Don't forget to pop over to the challenge blog to see who won last week's prize.

So ... on to this week's challenge, which has a theme of

Funky Christmas

If you haven't got your Christmas cardmaking hat on yet, now is the perfect time, and we look forward to seeing your creations. To encourage you we have got a totally fab prize this week from our sponsor Crafty Krafts - two rubber stamps:

Rachelle Anne Miller - Gift Tree

Sarah Kay - Christmas Magic

Here is the card I have made: I took my inspiration from some scrumptious Bo Bunny papers I found in my local craft shop - I started from the funky picture of a gift, and that made me think of trying a wardrobe card that was wrapped like a gift. Having done that I then couldn't help but decorate the inside with my new teddy rubber stamp who is carrying gifts ... aww how cute!! I had great fun creating this card and hope you like it !

Image (outside): PB "a wish.."

Image (inside:) PB "aiming to please" coloured with watercolour pencils

Papers: all by Bo Bunny

Snowflakes: Cuttlebug diecuts

Gems: Papermania

Ribbon: Hobbycraft

A Spoon Full of Sugar makes the medicine go down!

My blogging friend Cathy's daughter Ellie is due to go into hospital to have her tonsils removed ... she's not quite 4, bless her, so Cathy has asked if her friends can make her some cards to help keep her entertained while she is recuperating.

Now I have never made any small children's cards to speak of as there are no young kids in my family, so I was a bit unsure what a 4 year old might like ... so I settled on a FF teddy image with flowers which was a gift from my friend Kaz; and I spotted some bright cheeful paper whilst I was out & about at the weekend. I kept the layout fairly simple with sticky ribbon, a flower in one corner, and the word "hi" which I hope is nice and cheerful .. dunno if Ellie can read yet - if so then this is easy for her to understand; if not then it is easy for her mum to explain!

This is a last minute entry into this week's Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge #25 which is a card for a child ... didn't anticipate entering when it was set LOL! I would also like to enter it for this week's One Stop Craft Challenge which is Pretty Petals ... I hope I have covered this one off with both the image and the embellishment!

Main image: Forever Friends - coloured with watercolour pencil and Sakura sparkly pens, matted onto lemon glitter card cut with nestie.
Sentiment: diecut using Cuttlebug cut'n'emboss folder
Paper: BasicGrey "Oh! Baby Girl"
Flowers: WH Smith (yellow), Cardology (white), Prima (orange)
Sparkly brad: Doodlebug
Sticky ribbon: Papermania

Penny Black Saturday Challenge #23 - Monochromatic

Well here we are at Saturday again - this week has really flown by - which of course means it's time for this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge. Thanks once again to everyone who joined in last week - it was brilliant to see so many "different" cards to fulfil the sentiment only challenge. Don't foget to pop over to the blog later to see who has won that fabulous Christmas sentiment stamp.

This week, the theme is Monochromatic - ie shades of one colour. So pick your favourite - any colour you like ... but just the one, mind! (LOL!) We really look forward to seeing your creations.

There is another fantastic prize up for grabs this week - the following Penny Black Stamp from our sponsor Sir Stampalot.

All the DT have worked really hard this week to create a fabulous rainbow of ideas .. hope you will pop over to the challenge blog to have a peek. Here is mine....

Image: Penny Black "Let It Snow", stamped and embossed with snowflake glitter embossing powder.
Background papers: The Paper Company Studio
Die cut and embossed snowflakes all using Cuttlebug folders and dies
Ribbon, gems and sparkly brad from my stash.

Sketch Saturday #24 - friend's birthday card

I was struggling a little bit with loss of mojo tonight, but I needed to make a card for my good friend Clare's birthday. After a lot of faffing around and cutting up and discarding bits of paper, I finally settled on using my yummy new Imaginisce double sided papers in such a way as to fulfil this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge, which was a great one to work with - I rotated it 90 degrees to the right.

Main image: Penny Black "Crossing Bridges!"
Sentiment: Penny Black "To You" (partially masked)Papers: Imaginisce
Flowers: making Memories & Prima
Sparkly gems: Papermania
Sparkly brads; Doodlebug sugar coated (blue) and Making Memories (pink).

Sketch & Sparkle for my 100th post

Wow! Here I am already at 100 posts ... that has really crept up on me! I was so busy watching my hit counter so I could give a way my 5,000 hits candy, I almost overlooked this milestone. I'm already looking forward to the next 100 posts as I'm well addicted to blogging by now LOL!

Anyway .. onto this evening's card (which I made yesterday evening, but of course had no light to photograph it by). My starting point as so often was a sketch, which immediately put me in mind of making a Christmas card (though of course most things make me think about Christmas cards right now !!) I also started thinking about multi-challenge possibilities, and believe I have managed to tie this one in to 5, as follows:

1. Friday Sketchers #27 - I really had fun with this fab sketch.



2. BasicGrey #10 is glitter: well, my Christmas cards do have a natural tendency to be glittery, and this card certainly delivers on that score. My large diecut snowflake and small centre snowflake are both cut from glitter card; I have decorated the snowflake with a Doodlebug sugar coated brad and glitter yarn fibres; I have used white sparkly lace from Hobbycraft, and put a few Stickle highlights on the snowballs. The BasicGrey element is the base paper which is from the "Dasher" collection.


3. This week's High Hopes Challenge#7 is Sparklemania - which I hope I've already explained above!!

4. Whilst visiting my new fellow DT member Domi's blog I discovered a new challenge called Everybody-Art, where this week's theme is brown and blue. I have done my best to reflect this in the 2 papers and the way I have watercoloured the image.

5. Last but not least, I found that this week's Cuttlebug Challenge #7 is to emboss a diecut. I think this card technically fulfils that challenge rather than the real spirit of it, as I have cut and embossed the large snowflake using the new Cuttlebug cut'n'emboss combo. I must admit I'm a little disappointed with the embossing aspect of this duo, as the embossing lines don't match up terribly well with the diecut outline, but nonetheless it does give the snowflake a bit of dimension.

Image: Sugar Nellie snowman gifted by Cathy, watercoloured with Marvey brushstroke pens
Papers: Basic Grey "Dasher" (base layer) and other paper unnamed from split stack at local craft shop
Brads: sparkly Doodlebug "sugar coated, and Dovecraft snowflake
Lace: Hobbycraft
Sparkly fibres : Cardology
Pearl gems: Create & Craft

... We have a winner!

I would just like to give big hugs and thanks to everyone who has joined in my 5,000 hits blog candy party ... both existing blogging friends and new. I have been thrilled to visit all your blogs to peek at your cards, and now the time has come to make the draw.

So without further ado, I have drawn a number at random using random.org/, and it came out as follows:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

11

Timestamp: 2008-11-10 18:27:28 UTC

Number 11 is Domi - congratulations!! Please email me your name & address details and I will get the candy into the post for you.

Hugs

I've been tagged - twice!

Well ... I've been tagged by both Helen & Angel4031 ... I did this a little while ago but I think this tagging is different info so I'll have another go.

Things I love
1. My nestabilities .. what did I ever do before they were invented?
2. Reading ... currently reading "Dark Fire" by C.J. Sansom ... it's brilliant!
3. Watching "Strictly Come Dancing" - I would soooo love to go on that programme!
4. Keeping in touch with friends
5. My husband and family - couldn't do without 'em!

Things I hate
1. Freezing cold weather like we've recently been having
2. Getting soaking wet on the journey to work (another common occurrence all summer long!!)
3. Telephone queueing systems that keep you hanging on indefinitely with appalling muzak
4. Telephone cold callers who invariably call just as you're eating a meal
5. Published documents (eg. newspapers) with spelling and grammatical errors (eats, shoots and leaves anyone?? LOL!)

Music on my ipod
I don't own an ipod and rarely listen to music, but when I do it tends to be
1. Duffy
2. Coldplay
3. Oasis

...er, that's about it

Favourite Food/drink
1. A nice cup of tea ....
2. My husband's chicken curry
3. Most pasta dishes
4. Raspberry pavlova (yes I have a very sweet tooth!)
5. Icecream ... esp. chocolate!

Looking around I see that most people have been tagged recently .. so instead of nominating 5 I will jsut say that if you are reading this and haven't been tagged within the past 6 weeks, consider yourself tagged!

You're invited to my blog candy party!

Update 10/11/08 - this blog candy draw is now closed - thanks very much to everyone who has entered. I have picked a winner Monday evening 10/11 - see my post "We have a winner ..."

Hugs

Pauline x

I'm really excited as I have reached my first 5,000 hits on my blog - so I thought I would throw a li'l blog candy party to celebrate and thank everyone for visiting. I wanted my candy to reflect the whole idea of a party and celebration, so here's what I've got to offer:

• One Penny Black Transparent stamp set - "Party Critters"
• One Forever Friends 6" x 6" paper pack - "Party Time"
• Three tiny pots of Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder - Pink Blush Lustre, Arctic Lake and Emerald Green Lustre
• One pack of Papermania adhesive gemstones in transparent
• One Stickle in "Stardust".

I hope you will like the idea of getting your hands on this little lot .... if you do, I need you to show me some party spirit to join in! I will leave this candy open until midnight GMT on Sunday 9th November, and will make a random draw the following day. In order to take part, here's what I need you to do:

1. Make a card with the theme celebrate! You can interpret this any way you want, and for any celebratory occasion eg. birthday, Christmas, anniversary, wedding .... I really look forward to seeing your creations.
2. Post the card on your blog, with a link to this post. If you like my blog and would also like to add it to your blog roll, then that would also make me incredibly happy.
3. Leave a comment on this post, with a direct link back to the post on your blog so that I can visit.
4. If you don't have a blog, please just leave me a comment as above (so I can include you in my random number generated draw) and email me a pic of your card - I will put them into a slideshow.

Hope you will be able to join in and I look forward to seeing you :-)

Fab "celebrate" cards sent to me by non-blogging friends:

Samantha

Bunny

Penny Black Saturday Challenge #22 - Sentiment Only

I would like to start by saying how overwhelmed and excited I am to be asked to join the Penny Black Saturday Challenge DT - it is a group of fantastic ladies with brilliant cardmaking talents, so it's a lot to live up to ... so many thanks to Tracie for inviting me. Hope you will pop over to the challenge blog and look at all the other fab card made by the DT for this week.

I would also love to thank everyone who joined in last week's challenge - it was great fun and very inspiring going round looking at everyone's fab creations; and also lovely to see your welcoming messages.

So ... down to business with this week's challenge, which is ....

Sentiment Only

We would like you to use a Penny Black sentiment stamp on your project, with no images allowed - either Penny Black or any other make. The good news is that this gives you opportunity to really go to town with any other form of decoration such as papers, ribbons, embellishments, stitching, die cuts etc.... we really look forward to seeing your creations.

We have a really great prize on offer this week .... Tracie is donating this gorgeous PB sentiment stamp which is perfect for all those Christmas cards!

So here is my card ....

I used: PB stamp ".. Be My Friend" embossed with silver detail powder; papers from my stash (most didn't have a make printed on them); lilac pearlescent card embossed with Cuttlebug "Perfectly Paisley" embossing folder; cream lace from Hobbycraft; Prima & WH Smith flowers; Papermania green pearl brad; buttons, narrow ribbon and metallic dragonfly brads from my stash. I also tried a bit of faux stitching on the papers to add a bit of interest.