Sketch Saturday - 40

Hurrah, it's Saturday - at least it WAS!! Where has it gone? I have a horrid feeling I'm sleeping on the settee tonight as well. DH, bless his boots, I love the bones of him, but when he gets a plan in his head there is nothing that will stand in his way! And this morning he woke up and decided that today we are going to have a new bedroom. Niiiice..... actually, it is nice - gorgeous in fact, but everything that was in my old wardrobe is now piled high on my bed and Lord knows where it's going to go tonight because the new wardrobes are not yet installed. However, I'm comforted by the fact that it's just gone 7pm and I can still hear the sound of his drill.....!!! ;o)

I've had a fab afternoon though. Lovely Lib at Bellaboo made me a cup of coffee while I rifled through what's left of her stock. Very, very sadly she's decided to wrap up the business and is offering all of her remaining stock at 40% off. I thought I had gone a bit mad but was more than pleasantly surprised when she gave me my final total! OMG, loads of lovely new stash for next to nowt!!!! But she wants ALL of it gone, so go and treat yourself to a bargain or two!!

I can hardly believe it - I've done my Saturday Sketch card on a Saturday - I think that's a first for me! I really loved this sketch and here's my take on it

The untrained eye might be surprised to learn that all the papers I used are from Basic Grey's "Wassail" collection - much too gorgeous to save just for Christmas! And the image is, of course one of the beautiful Elisabeth Bell collection from Funky Kits!

I picked the sentiment for personal reasons - I bought these gorgeous embellies a couple of weeks ago and this is the first time I've used them, and this one says "Sweetie" - that was the name of my beautiful, ever-faithful cat, who left home to go and live next door when I brought my youngest son home. After spending years with just me, then along came DH, then Doggie #1, followed by Doggie #2, then Baby #1 then Baby #2, she decided enough was enough and wasn't prepared to stick around and take her chances. And besides the lady next door had a lovely Aspidistra (sp??) that she could do her business in! Reluctantly I allowed "Sweetie Pie" to go and live with her new BFF who was prepared to let her sit on her knee and stroke her 23/24 hours!!! Well, who wouldn't want to go!!! She became a much happier and calmer puss who got 100% TLC which she deserved!

That's your lot for today. Thank You so much for dropping by and have a great weekend - what's left of it! :0) xx

Ismaki Challenge

I had a very happy moment yesterday when I came home to find my Sugar Nellies order on my doormat - just 24 hours after I ordered them! OMGosh, they are just soooooo gorgeous! And I couldn't wait to play with this one which I think is my favourite in the set, so I used on my Ismaki Challenge card this week.

Do you like the flower? I made the back one myself using my nesties - my friend Jenni showed me a link to the site where these are made - soooooooo simple, and yet so effective! Unfortunately, I can't remember what the name of the site was at the moment but next time I post I will have hunted it down and will add the link!

The flower was then built up using a woodware punch leaf, a couple of fern leaves and a prima hydrangea which I dabbed a few drops of glossy accents onto to give the water droplet look.

Well thanks for popping by, and Thank You to all you lovely ladies who take the time to leave me feedback, it's very much appreciated! ;o) xx

Friday Sketch

Argh! I'm having so many problems with my pooter again today that I'm keeping this very short n' sweet! Here's a card I made this morning for Friday Sketchers! If you've got this far, then Thanks for popping in! ;o) xx

Bonus Thursday!!

YAY!! We got snow! LOADS of it - well, it's been around since Monday actually, but last night's lot was extra special because it got us the day off school today - there was so much of it!!! FAB!!! However, as per, it didn't hang around too long and one snowball fight later, most of it had gone!! Still, you won't get any complaints from me because it gave me the opportunity to have a mid-week play and I decided to have a bash at the Cute Card Thursday challenge. I think this was my first go at this one. The theme is Metallica - you have to use something metal on your card. Well, even if it looks as though I haven't, I promise you that the handles and buckles on Tilda's suitcases have been embellished with metallic foils!

Well Thanks for popping in, and I hope you're warm and cosy where you are! :o)

Sketch Saturday

Happy February! OMGosh, where did January go??? Horrid week for me - I had to have a trip to the dentist earlier in the week and I was meant to have some root canal treatment followed by a crown, but I stressed soooo much that I bottled out in the end and just had the thing out. Not sure if it was the right thing to do, in hindsight, but at least the pain I've been having since Christmas Day (tut!!) has now gone. And at least it was a back tooth so nobody can tell ('cept me, of course!!!).

Anyway, get over to Tag, You're It! where we're giving away a set of fantabulous Purple Onion stamps, very generously donated by the lovely Michele! These are wicked stamps to use, and one lucky tagger will be the owner of these fab stamps by the end of this week!!!

Also this week I've joined in with the Saturday Sketchers again - I'm becoming a real sketch addict and I can't wait for Saturdays to come so I can play along. The DT have some wonderful inspirational cards and the sketches are always fab! So, without further ado, here is my take on this week's sketch:

This is one of my own stamps that I made using Imagepac - it was one of those photo's that you just can't plan. My son was sitting outside on the patio and was deep in thought about something. I called his name and he looked up and I snapped it at that moment. The actual photo is one of my most favourites of him and I just had to make a stamp of it!

Well, have a great week ahead and keep your fingers crossed for that HUGE snowfall we've been promised!! I know mine are! Thanks for popping in! :o) xx

Catch up Time!

Happy Sunday Blogland! It's been a busy ol' week with one thing or another. I even got to make a couple of cards this week - only thing is, I haven't had time to photograph them so I've actually missed the deadline for at least one challenge I played along with - what the heck, it was fun to do and it was a great sketch! This card is from Sketch Saturday's challenge no. 34

And so I went on and made one for this week's challenge too, which I did manage to photograph and upload in time! Many years ago I used to have a real thing about Clarisse Cliff designs and I would paint just about everything with these designs - plates, plant pots, cups - I even painted a mural on a bedroom wall once. Recently I picked up my pen again and made some drawings for a set of rubber stamps that I made using the Imagepac kit, and this is a card I made using one of those stamps:

Twinkling H20's are perfect for colouring these because of their bright vibrant colours, but I added some glossy accents to parts of the image to highlight some detail and I noticed that cracks had formed when it dried. Obviously H20's and glossy accents are not compatible with one another! Grrrr....

And finally I also made a card for this week's Ismaki challenge - I always love sketch blogs but for some reason keep managing to miss them, so I have promised myself I am going to be much more active with sketch challenges this year (along with everything else I've promised myself!!!)

Before I wish you a happy week to follow I'll leave you with this thought - my 7 year old son asked me, in all seriousness, this week "Do you think Henry VIII had so many wives because he liked collecting gold rings?" LOL!!

Have a great week and Thanks for popping in! ;o) xx

Inspirational Sketch Challenge

Dawn wrote:

"I'm starting up Inspirational Card Sketches in order to share my inspiration with you.
First and farmost there will be no compensation at this time.I'm looking for 6 designers who love creating cards.
Your term will be 4 months. Term is from Feb-May 2009
If you would love or like to be on a Card Sketch Design Team this call is for you.
Every Tuesday I will send you a card sketch one week in advance for you to work on. You however as a DT member will have to get your creations to me no later then Monday at 12:00pm (noon) Central Standard Time.
You will also get to embellish your cards however you want. My sketches are for your inspiration only. And to help others get ideas on how to use these sketches.
To start this call off I want you to make a card using this sketch below. Then I want you to
post it on your blog along with this call and leave me a direct link to your blog post in the comment section here."

So, without further ado, here are my offerings for this challenge:

This is such a lovely, simple sketch that I wanted to keep my cards as simple and uncluttered as possible. However, I did also do this card which is a bit more fussy but it was in line with my latest 'thing' about trying to stamp direct to card and not use decorative backing papers. I loved how it came out IRL but no matter how many photo's I took of it, none of them really do it many favours, I feel, but I'll show it off anyway!! LOL! Most of my sketch offerings have previously been shown on my other blog but who knows, I could be showing off many more on here during 2009?

Thanks for popping in, and good luck to all the other 'sketchers' who have submitted their own take on the sketch! ;o) x