The Other Side Of Me

Hello there, fellow bloggers!  I'm sorry, I can't post a card today, but I realise it's over a week since I last posted.  This is because we've been told the farm we live on is going up for sale, which is a bit of a shock, as you can imagine.  We have to move house and find somewhere for our horses, too.  We have a dog, and we're finding it difficult to find somewhere to rent that will take pets.  Unfortunately, buying is not an option.  As you can imagine, with all this going on, I haven't felt much like crafting, but I can promise that normal service will be resumed asap.  Thanks so much, have a great day! Jane xx

Hello everyone, I hope you're having a good week so far. As you know, I spent all day Saturday at a cardmaking workshop.  I'm finally able to show you a couple of cards that we made. We used the Stampin Up! Simply Scrappin set called Tea Time.  Although I've glanced at this set in the catalogue (UK p101) it's not something I'd buy, so it was great fun having the opportunity to work with it.  The colours used are Pink Pirouette, Early Espresso, Pool Party and Lucky Limeade.  Being SU, of course, everything works perfectly together. The way it worked was this:  Both organisers, Jo and Ann, made seven cards each.  They were put out on two tables, with a worksheet telling us how to make each one.  So we could go and collect a card from the table and make it there and then if we wanted to.  But if you decided to make each card in its entirety, you'd only get a few made in the alloted time. SO:  the trick is to take each card, read through the instructions and mak

Good afternoon, everyone!  I've managed to snatch five minutes in a hectic day.  Firstly I must say what a fantastic day I had yesterday at the cardmaking workshop.  I arrived at 10am, left at 3.45 and apart from a brief stop for a gorgeous lunch, did nothing but craft.  It was bliss, and I would like to say a huge thankyou to Anne and Jo for putting it on for us.  It must be a lot of work for them from the planning stage onwards, but I can honestly say I enjoyed every minute of it (and there's another one in April!)  I will be showing you the cards we made as soon as I can. But for today, it gives me great pleasure to be able to enter a card for the LIM challenge .  This week Mandi and Chrissie want us to use punches or die cuts on our cards, but keeping to the clean and simple style.  I can't believe how many entries there are on there already, but I've decided not to look at them until my card is on, so here is my entry: This is another card that came to me in

Hello, dear Blogfriends!  Let me start by saying a big thankyou for all your kind comments regarding the mammogram.  I am delighted to say there is nothing sinister going on, it turns out I have cysts (a lot more than I realised!) which is a major relief.  I have been sick with worry, as you can imagine.  So sick, in fact, I couldn't make it to craft class on Wednesday, which I never miss, so that shows you how bad I've been. I did have a really lovely day on Monday with the local WI who hosted a craft day.  Everybody took along something they were working on (in my case, cross stitch) and we had a wonderful lunch together.  I decided to walk home to burn off some calories! I decided to send the hostess a little thankyou note, so this is what I made: This stamp is from the Fresh Vintage set, and I really love it.  I totally understand that people are using this stamp a lot to go with the Everyday Enchantment paper, and rightly so, as they're designed to go together

I've had one of those conversations with lovely, lovely hubby.  You know the sort: DH: Can you make me a birthday card for work, please? Me: Of course darling, who's it for? DH: (In a voice of doom) A male colleague  (Cue thunder and lightening!) Me: (Swallowing) No problem.  When do you want it by? DH: (Casually) Tomorrow. Me: You're 'avin a larf! But have I let the situation defeat me?  No, I have not!  But I would like to say a huge thankyou to Freshly Made Sketches , for coming up with one of the most wonderful, and inspiring, sketches I've ever seen. This is what they've given us to work with: And this is the card I made using the sketch: I actually made a prototype card first, just using paper, as there was quite a lot of measuring to work out before I put everything together.  The card is 5x7" but then I went into metric for everything else (The joys of going to school in the '70's!) I cut a 7cm x 7cm square in white card

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  I was surprised to find a big box of chocolates and a cake waiting for me in the kitchen when I got up this morning.  We don't officially 'do' valentines, preferring to celebrate our wedding anniversary instead, but this year, I seem to have gone all out on it. This is how my kitchen dresser looks at the moment: I've had a bit of a splurge and put all of my 'love' things together.  It makes me smile to see all of these things together, in red, white, pink and cream.  I did want to make a few more things for my display, but apart from the card heart (hanging down on the left) I really haven't had the time. But I do have a little valentine card to show you: I thoroughly enjoyed making this card.  My sweet little Forever Friends bear had to come out and be coloured in.  The heart behind him is cut with a Nellie Snellen die.  The paper is actually last year's from Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine, but it's stil

Hi all! It's been a bit of a wild and wacky weekend here, which is why I haven't had a chance to pop a card on until today.  It was hard to choose my favourite of the cards we made last week at our craft group, but in the end I've plumped for this one: Every so often a card comes along that you keep on your desk for ages and don't really want to give to anyone, and this is definitely one of those (I am basically a very mean person!) The dsp is the Everyday Enchantment set, which is beautiful.  It's one of those where you want a set to use and a set to gaze at! The cardstock is Lucky Limeade and the little oval is Calypso Coral, which has been put through the oval Textured Impressions EF.  We've added a little lace and stamped the greeting from the Curly Cute set.  Have a look at a close up: The stamped image is from a retired set (you know the one I mean!) which I stamped using my Stamp-a-ma-jig (which may be called a SAMJ from now on, it's a bit of a m

For some reason Fridays always seem to be a good time to get involved with a Christmas card.  Finally I'm able to join in with a challenge I've followed for a little while.  It's at Lesley Croghan's blog called Always Playing With Paper where she gives us a new sketch each week.  This is the latest one: After a great deal of planning with regard to size and dimension, this is my card entry: I've had this stamp for quite a while now.  She was packaged as a birthday stamp, but she suits Christmas so well.  The colours, cardstock and dsp are all SU.  The Chocolate Chip piece has been embossed with a snowflake embossing folder and then punched along the bottom with a scallop punch.  I had a dither with placement of the sentiment as I didn't want to cover the robin up, he's so sweet.  The card base is only C6 and it's made it a really sweet little card, like a little package, you almost want to use it as a cover for a bag of sweets or something. But st

Hello blog friends!  Is it still freezing where you are?  It's really cold here and we still have some snow, but hubby hasn't had any problems driving to work, which means I'll be able to get to craft group tonight, thank goodness.  Is it wrong to be so excited about something like that?! So let me tell you what happened last week.  Over on the Little Claire Designs blog, they've showcased their latest stamp release, and very nice they are too, all very 'summer in the garden' (something I think we're all looking forward to!) All you had to do was leave a comment on the stamp of the day to be in with a chance of being picked to win the stamp.  And guess what?  I won!  There were 61 comments on the day I was picked, so I was thrilled, as you can imagine. The moment the stamp arrived, I inked it up and had a play, then yesterday made what I am sure will be the first of many cards with this beautiful stamp: When I get a new stamp I stamp it into my sketch bo

Hello everyone, I hope you're managing to keep warm.  Most of our snow has melted, but it froze over night and now it's lethal out there.  Good excuse to stay indoors, if you ask me! I subscribe to Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine, and it's very good (very shabby chic oriented).  There was a wonderful set of free stamps and paper in this month's issue, so I decided to get busy.  Here's what I've made: The base is actually Chocolate Chip (SU) but the papers are all from HOTP.  This isn't my style of card making any more, as it's just basically cutting and sticking, but I was really pleased with how these turned out. I have stamped the birds nest, though, also in CC.   The stamps are lovely, I'll definitely be using them again. Here's another one: The bird house image is part of the stamp set and is very sweet.  I've made a list of birthdays from now until the end of April and have 13 to make so these will come in very handy.  I am no

I have actually made a couple of Christmas cards, but this is the first chance I've had to post one on here.  I have found a couple of challenge blogs to keep me motivated throughout the year. The first one is the ABC Christmas Challenge .  They set a new challenge every two weeks, so by the end of the year I'll have quite a batch of cards ready for various people. The challenge this time round is to use Bears and some other things beginning with B.  So here's my card: I've used this cute James the Bear image from LOTV.  I didn't use him at all for the Christmas just gone, so it's been nice to have him out and about!  I think he really suits pale colours like lilac and blue, so this is the first time I've done him in traditional Christmas colours, and I think I've pulled it off because it goes so well with the backing paper.  The other 'B's I've used are 'bling' for his hat, which I've glittered, and 'buttons' as you ca

Oh boy, I hope I haven't over-egged this yesterday, and you're all disappointed with what you see! I was asked to make a card for a friend's mum, who is 81.  Because she is an Alzheimer's sufferer, she never knows how old she is, so my friend asked me to put her age on it.  The chances of finding a card in the shops with 81 on are slim, aren't they? So here's the card: I need to make it clear that I'm not saying the card itself is in any way exceptional. The bit that brought tears to my eyes is the stamped image: As I said yesterday, being told that you're not in the least bit artistic, makes it all the more thrilling when you produce something like this. This is from the truly awesome stamp set called Simply Soft, and it's beautiful.  I stamped the stem and outer part of the leaves in Wild Wasabi, then got the stamp that has the 'inner' of the petals.  I inked it in Rose Red first and stamped it onto my Stamp-a-ma-jig, as when I did i

Hello all! Hope you're well and not too cold.  Thankfully we haven't had any snow yet.  I think because it was so bad last year all my horsey friends are dreading it, but so far, it's just really cold, which I can live with (indoors, hot choc, card making, you get the idea!) And so it's time for today's card. Do you remember a couple of week's ago I splashed out and bought my first Martha Stewart punch?  This was my first go with it, to make the heart shaped border along the bottom. I have a thing about apertures so thoroughly enjoyed making this.  The card base is Cherry Cobbler. I stamped my letter stamp on the top sheet, which is Very Vanilla, then cut the heart shape out.  I drew inside it onto the CC base, so I could see where I had to stamp.  The floral stamp is actually heart shaped anyway (from Penny Black) which I stamped in gold ink and heat embossed with gold ep.  I added CC polka dot ribbon around the top sheet, then stuck it down.  To finish I s