Bling it on!

Happy Wednesday once more.  Phew, it is just sooooo hot round here at the moment.  Thankfully we've had a bit of rain this evening which has brought a welcome cool air and I can breathe again!  I had to sleep with my bedroom window open last night and as a consequence I spent the whole night coughing and coughing so much.  I finally got to sleep about 4ish, and when the alarm went off 2 hours later (grooooan!!!) I discovered I have very little voice left.  Possibly due to all the coughing, or maybe it's a touch of laryngitis - there's 4 of us at school at the moment who are struggling to talk so it could be something going round?

Such a busy couple of days here - I am just dying to sit down and do nothing - absolutely nothing.  However, I can't see that happening for a while yet.  I'm in the process of gathering paint swatches and looking at mags and stuff because we've decided that the whole house needs a good makeover.  I did the dining room last summer but now it's time to think about the rest of the house - it's looking tired and 'lived in' at the moment (bit like meself really!! LOL!)

Right then, over at Midweek Magnolias this week our theme is Bling it On!  We want to see lots of shiny stuff on your projects.  Our very lovely and amzingly talented guest Teresa has created yet another stunner to entice you to join in, as have the rest of the DT who have been grafting away like mad to bring you samples.  Please pop over and say Hello to all of them and marvel at their fabulous talent.

I didn't make a card this week - I made this little pocket book which is just big enough to put ATC's in.  I'm going to give it to a little girl that I support for her to keep her spellings in because I think it might encourage her to look at them more regularly.

 

This is the inside:

That is my lot for today - I can't believe how late I am posting this!  Please do pop over to Midweek Magnolias and take a look at some of the stunning work that the gorgeous girlies have created - you'll be so glad you did!

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good week! :o) xx

Sunday once more

Really quick post from me today because I am trying out my brand new pooter!!  YAY!!!  My 9 year old, Lazarus, passed away at some pooint last evening.  Poor oldLazarus has been brought back to life soooo many times over the last few years that we decided to let him RIP.  I must say, this new model is so much quicker than the old guy!

Any road, I wanted to share this card that I made this morning for my friend's birthday.  I used one of Teri's gorgeous images and coloured her in pencils and am going to show it off in the Delicious Doodles challenge this week, the theme is Diamonds are Forever!  They want to see lots of bling, so I've given them lots of bling! :o)  Here is the card:

I love her golden hair!   Hope you like her.  Thanks for stopping by!  Enjoy the rest of the weekend :o) xx

Summer Breeze.... makes me feel fine

Phew, it's been soooo hot these last few days.  I've got myself a bit of a healthy glow from sitting outside at lunchtimes - a bit of colour always makes you feel better somehow, don't you think?  However, there's a bit of a breeze in the air right now which is extremely welcome!  The only bad thing about this weather though is that I just yearn so badly to be at the beach!  I am craving the smell of sea air and the sound of the waves.  My Sun and Sand Yankee Candle is burning away here and I'm afraid that's about as good as it's going to get for me!

Have you been fortunate enough to see the Olympic torch pass by you this last week?  It didn't come through my town, the nearest to me was Droitwich but I was at work while that was happening so I haven't seen any of it.  My son has however - yesterday he got to hold one.  Not his own though, one of his teachers was lucky to be selected as a torch bearer on Thursday and he took his souvenir into school yesterday.  Apparently it's quite heavy!!

Anyway, onto my card today.  I've made this one for Tilda's Town's second challenge, it's called Water Fun!  Sort of perfect for me as I'm craving the seaside, but while I was colouring it, it just made me pine all the more!

I coloured this with pencils and the scene is one of my own drawings - hope you like it.  It was actually requested by a rubber stamp company 2 years ago with the intention of turning into rubber, but unfortunately it never happened, this is why I've been sitting on it waiting to use it for the last couple of years!  I figure that by now it's not going to actually happen so I'm using my digi version of it instead!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend - hope you're getting lots of sunshine too, and thanks for popping by! :o) xx



Chic and Romantic

Oh I've been a naughty girl - sometimes you just have to though, don't you!  The theme Chic and Romantic was set for Midweek Magnolias for this week and immediately I had this image in my head of what my card was going to be like.  I wanted rich, dark colours with beautiful bright roses and Tilda sitting dreamily in an oval frame wearing a burgundy velvet dress.  However, when the image was stamped out, it wasn't nearly big enough, so do you know what I did?  (I sound like I'm talking to my class now! LOL!!)  I scanned the stamped image and resized it so that it would be BIG - and I LOVE it!!  It's probably not the done thing, but I don't make a habit of it, and it was a means to an end!  And what fun it was to colour something much bigger than normal!  I used my Inktense watercolour pencils for this one, they are much bolder colours and better for a bigger image I think.

Here is the card I imagined in my head:

It's pretty much how I had imagined it as soon as the theme was set so I'm really happy with it.  You really need to get over to see my teamies cards though, they are just amazing - they are such a talented bunch of ladies and you could not wish to be friends with more nicer girls.  If you don't believe me, why not apply to be one of us!  We are having a DT call this week because we want to expand our team.  Please pop over, take a look and if you think this is you, we want to hear from you.

I'm really annoyed with my camera though.  For some reason, this black dot has appeared right in the centre of the lens.  When I had someone look at it I was told that it was probably a tiny fragment that had broken away and had become lodged.  It can't be got out as it's a fixed unit!  Argh!!  So all my photo's lately have this wayward black dot on them.  I try to retouch it out but sometimes it just looks like a smudge.

Anyways, that's my lot for now.  Please pop over to Midweek Magnolias, visit my lovely friends and leave them lots of love - they'll really appreciate it!

Thanks for stopping by and have a good week - and long may this sunshine last (any excuse to get the Pimms out!!! LOL!) xx

Oh my!  I have been given an award by lovely Jenny for my blog.  It's the

I am really honoured to receive this from Jenny, given that she is such a talented crafter herself.  Thank you so much Jenny!

To accept my award, I have to :


1.  Link back to the person who gave it and thank them for thinking of me, so Thank You so much Jenny!  Please pop over to her blog and have a look at her gorgeous creations!

2.  Post the award on your blog.

3.  Give the award to 5 bloggers (with less than 200 followers) that you appreciate.

4.  Leave a comment on the blogs of the 5 people you have chosen to let them know.

It wasn't easy to choose just 5 blogs as there are soooo many very talented crafters out there, but I finally decided to pass this award on to

Carol - my lovely friend of many years who makes THE most amazing altered art pieces.
Laura - Out in the Craft Shed
Teresita - Scrapbooky Mas
Kelly - The Beauty of Paper
Elizabeth - Cardville

Please go and visit these very talented ladies who create beautiful projects.  And thank you once again Jenny, you're a star ;o) xx

Big White Space

Happy Wednesday once more!  This week at Midweek Magnolias we have set a REAL challenge!  Lots of the stunning cards that we see out there have lots of beautiful embellishments and die cuts and flowers galore.  We wondered what it would be like to create a Magnolia card using just the bare essentials and leaving lots of white space!  Phew!  it's so easy to get stuck in a comfort zone, but every now and then it's nice to push the boundaries a little and try something a bit more challenging - and believe me, this was really challenging!  However, here is my card:

In the first instance I applied the text and postmark by running them through my printer.  Sweet little Edwin was stamped directly onto the card (EEEK!!!) and coloured with pencils.  I was a bit naughty with the Union Flags - I don't have any small enough so I scanned a couple onto my pooter and printed them out at the size I needed to make the bunting!  And there you have it really!  Not a lot to see but took surprisingly long to make!!! LOL!!

If you're wondering about the tealights, they are available from Morrisons (3 colours in one pack!) and they smell divine - Vanilla!  I think they're meant to be symbolic of GB, but for me they are perfect Nautical colours so they look fab in my bathroom :o)

Please pop over to the Midweek Magnolias blog and spare a moment of your time to visit my wonderfully talented teamies who have created THE most amazing designs!  It's also Chanelle's week 2 with us and she has absolutely come up trumps once more - she is so talented and on behalf of the team, I would like to say a huge THANK YOU for being our guest for the past 2 weeks.

Thanks for popping by!  Have a great week :o) xx

Sketchy Saturday

Aaah, the weekend again!  I've had my pencils out again, still working on that technique, still loving trying.  I did something I haven't done for a long time this morning and I sat sketching.  I did this little girl:

She isn't 'anyone' - it's just a doodly-type sketch but I decided to call her Lucy because when she is coloured up, I think she looks like every little girl I've ever known who's called Lucy!  Here is the card I made with her:

I thought I'd show 'Lucy' off in the following blog challenges:

Pretty Little Ribbons - Blossoms and Butterflies

Papertake Weekly - Cute, Cute, Cute

Crafty Ribbons Challenge - Flowers

Delicious Doodles - Try something new

The Shabby Tea Room - Pretty as a {Pitcher} (photo colours inspired and use a rose - roses on my bg paper)

Hope you like her!  I'm off to sharpen my pencil now and have another bash!  Have a great weekend, and thanks for stopping by! :o) xx

Midweek Magnolias Monotone

Oh my goodness, where does the time go - I can't believe it's Wednesday again already!  I feel as though I have spent the whole week just running around after everyone else.  I've had no time for me (oh woe!!!), so I haven't had a chance to get my pencils out again.  I did however manage to grab half an hour last night (eeek! lastminute.com!!) to make this card for this week's Midweek Magnolias.  Our theme this week is Monotone - only use shades of one colour (and white is allowed!) so I chose pink.  In fairness, I had already got the dotty paper (Bearly Mine Designs!) stitched to the burgundy (cough... I mean "Dark Pink!! hee!) base, so it was really just a matter of assembling the whole thing before I left to visit my son's new school!

I used one of the images that I shaded at the weekend because I was dying to use one on a card.  Here's the whole thing:

Anyway, that's my lot for the moment.  Please pop over to the blog and see some of the amazing designs that the team have put together.  We're also joined by Chanelle for the next couple of weeks who has created some amazing samples to inspire you to join in.  Please go and say "Hi" to her and leave some love!

Thanks so much for popping by, I hope you like what you see :o)  Have a great week! xx

A New Journey - Pencils (picture heavy!)

Happy Sunday all!  I began a new journey yesterday which has been inspired by lovely Mel who manages to bring her stamped images to life using pencils.  I have sat gazing in admiration at the magic that Mel uses in her images and, like soooo many times before I've sat here thinking "I really want to do that!".  So yesterday I decided to take the plunge.  It's not the easiest thing, for me anyway, but I decided to give it a go and I wanted to show my journey so far in just one weekend.

First up was this:

Hmmm.... As you can see, I definitely didn't get it right first time.  I could see I wasn't going anywhere with this so I gave up and moved on.  This was attempt no. 2:

Again, it's not right, but at least there is a sign (albeit very small!!!) of progress.  So, nothing for it, I sat at the computer, went into Mel's blog and blatantly copied her shading for attempt no 3 (sorry Mel, I hope you don't mind!):

Oooh, definitely signs of improvement here.  Having achieved this (I love her hair!!) I am spurred to have another go, this time on my own (but using the above pic as a guide!):

My first finished one!   OK, there's still a lot of room for improvement, and I didn't have any skin tone pencils so I used Copics for the skin.  This time I've attempted the "No black lines" thing as well, but I haven't quite achieved that, and poor ol' Tilda has the scariest face!!.  But I'm getting more excited and more determined by now so I decided to have a go with a different image (bored with this one now! LOL!)

Now we're getting somewhere.   I'm actually starting to feel like I'm making progress now so time to have a go with another image:

Woohoo!! Now I'm cooking on gas!!! LOL!!  I am really pleased with this one - so much so that I got adventurous and used a 'tan' coloured pencil to enhance the skin tones!  NEXT......

I am definitely enjoying this journey so much!  Up to now I have used Derwent Inktense pencils, which are actually watercolour pencils, (but I've not added water!).  I used the same smooth cardstock that I use for my Copic colouring.  I am pleased with how much progress I've made in just one day (the ironing is NOT getting done!!).  However, lurking in the back of my mind is a feeling that somewhere in the dark murky depths of my craftroom, I am certain that I have some Faber Castell pencils that I've had for years, unsused!  So I ventured up there and went through every drawer until at last I came across a box of 24!  So I took them downstairs and proceeded to sharpen them to a very fine point.  Another bonus was that they are Polychromos which means that they are very soft and blend well (apparently!).  I had a couple of go's on the smooth cardstock but that just didn't work at all - too waxy - so I used plain white cardstock and produced this:

I've got a long way to go before I achieve the level of magic that Mel produces (if I ever do!) but I am so thrilled to have made such a lot of progress in just one weekend using my colour pencils. 

I wanted to blog this because whenever I see fantastic colouring on another crafter's blog, I always like to go back through older posts to look at how far they have come with their colour journey's and it's lovely to see how we all improve.  Hopefully I can look back at this one day and think "OMG, that was shockingly bad!!" LOL!!!

Thanks for stopping by, and please feel free to leave (constructive!!) criticism (or encouraging feedback!).  Thanks ***Mel*** for your inspiration!!

It's May!

Woohoo!  That must mean Summer is just around the corner, eh? LOL!!!  I've never known it so bloomin' cold, wet and windy!  Floods everywhere, and us in the middle of a drought!  Yeah!

Well, I've been at it again - Macaron making!  Pistachio this time:



These one's were filled with pistachio cream and were every bit as delish as the Vanilla one's I made at the weekend!  Mmmm...!!

Here is my card for this week's Midweek Magnolias theme which is May Flowers:

This is my first Criss Cross card - and probably my last!  Too much faffing about with angles for me - I like things kept nice and simple and this just seemed to go on and on and on!  I am however, really pleased with the finished result.  I love Tilda's little bug costume, so as there were lots of flowers this week, I decided to make it a Bee (although it probably looks a little more wasp'ish!!!).

Here's the inside:

Papers are all Websters digi papers and the images were coloured with Copics.  The pull-out card is machine stitched, and there is lace on the crossover, so I am going to enter it into the Totally Tilda and Papertake Weekly Challenges too!



Thank you so much for stopping by, and if you have a moment or two to spare, please give my lovely teamies at Midweek Magnolias a visit too - they've all worked soooo hard to come up with their amazing inspiring samples to motivate you!  Give 'em a little of your love, they'll really appreciate it! 

Have a great week! :o) xx