First day of the hols

Sigh, I was so looking forward to having a lazy ol' lie-in this morning, but DH's alarm went off at 5am and that was it, I never went back to sleep again, so at 5.45am this morning I was downstairs fiddling around with the old Video Recorder. It's been such a long time since we used it that I'd forgotten what it was all about. Years ago when I first got hooked on crafting I used to love doing One Stroke Painting. I bought pretty much all the kits at the time and nothing was sacred - if it didn't move, it got painted!! LOL!! And so just lately I got it into my head that I need to find all the books and get doing it again, but the first thing I needed to do was brush up on the tutorial in the form of VHS tapes of Donna Dewberry showing me "what fun" it is to paint leaves and flowers on everything. The next thing I did was order myself a new set of brushes and I'm chomping at the bit now, excited to get going again!!

So, while I wait for the postie to deliver my new brushes (haw haw.... wonder what month that will be!!!), I decided to play along with the Sugar Bowl challenge. I love this one - I haven't had much time to play in there since I started my new job in September, so this was a great opportunity. There was a sketch by Kathy and here is my take on it

Also, yesterday, I came across a fantastic website for digi fans - The Sketching Stamper! Christine is an amazing artist and has created the most wonderful images. This pointsettia is one of hers which I coloured using Promarker pens. Unfortunately, I had this fabulous idea to put 'water droplets' (glossy accents) on the petals - it looks really good IRL, I promise, but it just doesn't translate well in photo!

Well that's my offering for today. Thanks for stopping by. :o) xx

Back to Blogland!

OMG, what a couple of weeks I've had! I shan't bore you with the details but the long and short of it is that my computer went into a coma! Talk about panic! It's very scary (and very sad!!) how much our lives depend on the smooth running of our computer's! Not only could I not participate in the Winter Wonderland theme last week, I also couldn't upload my pic for the Creatalicious Challenge, nor take part in any other blog challenges. However, that didn't matter as much as the fact that all my planning for the Autumn term is stored on my computer (now backed up onto an external drive - let that be a lesson to you m'lady!!!!) and the hundreds of photo's that I took on holiday this year were still on there waiting to be copied onto an external drive, as well as the many, many digi images I've acquired just lately!! However, after researching lots of would-be fixers (who's general response was "I can't guarantee I can retrieve any of your files but I can take it back to the factory settings for you!"), my lovely friend's husband came forward and offered to take a look at it for me. A couple of days later, he returned to me a virtually brand-new computer, all cleaned up and with extra memory, new hard disk and best of all, he managed to retrieve ALL my files (which are all safely on an external drive now!!!), and charged me £20 for his time! What an absolute darling!!! Mwah!

Creatalicious Challenge #3

So, without further ado, here we go again. First up is the offering I made for the Creatalicious DT challenge. The challenge is to use scraps of paper and make your own flowers. I made this matchbox advent calendar because I wanted to make something practical and I've always loved these whenever I've seen them out there, and they are unbelievably simple to make! The flowers were made by stamping out a free Paper Artsy heart stamp that I was given at the recent Artisan show near Leamington Spa.

Over at Winter Wonderland this week we're having an Open Theme. Our lovely team member and fantabulous graphic wizardess Teri is giving away 3 of her amazing digi images to one lucky person who plays along with us this week, so if you're one of those players, I wish you loads of luck because Teri's images are just so fabulous and easy to work with. Teri very kindly sent all the team a dove that she created especially for us for this week, and here are a couple of the cards that I made with the image - but you really must go over there and see what fantastic creations the other girls have made with it also!

And my final offering for today (so far!!) is my take on this week's Friday Sketcher's sketch. This gorgeous sketch was supplied by Claudia who's work I always adore! I coloured my image using Promarkers and the bg papers are by Papermania.

It feels great to be up and blogging again, and with a whole week of half-term ahead, I'm sure I'll be back before next Sunday! Have a great week and thanks for stopping by on your travels! :o) xx

Promarkers - Recipe and any colours

OMG, it's Monday again and I haven't been anywhere near my blog for a week!! Where does the time go? A little tale for you. This week I have been helping a group of Y3 children to make a poster about bikes. Two of the children in my group sat with blank faces, and when questioned replied "I don't know how to draw a bike". In truth, I've never tried to draw one myself but armed with a bucketload of confidence I helped them draw one step-by-step, figuring that if I start with a triangle frame, the rest will fall into line. It did as it happened, and between us we managed to produce a pretty impressive bicycle, though I say so myself (though my mother always said "Self praise is no recommendation!!!" LOL!). Later that morning I took another child out of the class to help him with the same task. He too sat with a blank face so I immediately picked up on the fact that he probably didn't know how to draw a bike either, so off I went again on my step-by-step explanation. After I'd finished it, he still had the same expression on his face so I asked "Does this help?" and he shook his head. Oh dear - what now? He then looked at me and said "I was going to draw a good bike!!!" ROFL!!!!!

OK, so I shan't be attempting any more bikes. But here's my offering for the current Promarkers challenge. Use any colours you like but you have to follow a recipe which is 3 shapes, 2 papers and 1 ribbon.

Thanks for popping by and have a great week! xx

Promarkers - Cool Aqua and Apricot

Talk about being out of my comfort zone!! Cool Aqua and Apricot? If you sat me down with a box of colours and gave me a month to come up with a new favourite colour combo, never in a million years would I have put these two together. Not because they're not suited, OMG, they go so beautifully together, but they're so far out of my comfort zone that I would never come up with this, which is why I am so delighted to play along with the Promarkers challenges. They make me play with colours I wouldn't normally work with and come up with some pretty striking combo's!

So here's my card for this week - another addition to my Christmas stash - YAY!!!!

In addition, this week's challenge states that you must use a flower on your card - I used two - sorted! :o) The image is another of Inger's amazing free digi downloads. This lady does the most amazing images - this one is called "Waiting for Santa" and I just think she is soooooo adorable! So Thank You Inger for another freebie - they're gorgeous!

Well that's my lot for today - I have a hard evening slogging over assessments ahead of me so I need to keep it brief! Have a great day all and thank you for popping by, and in particular if you've left me some feedback, it's always much appreciated! XX

Promarkers - just in the nick...!

Nothing like being on the 11th hour, is there? It's all happening at once here. One of the best things about my new job is that my youngest son is at the same school so he can now bring friends home from school with him which he was really excited about - 'cept that it's happening pretty much every evening at the moment! And as soon as they get here they're straight onto the computer and the only reason they get off is either to eat, or to let my other son on to do his homework! Having said that, even if I do get to bag a turn, I don't have time to anyway!!! However, things feel a little more settled and routine this week so I'll soon get back into the swing of things.

In the meantime, here is my Promarkers offering for this week. This is for the Polka Dots and any colour theme and I have to get in quick because it's the last day for the challenge!!! Watch this space for a more organised 'Me'!!! YAY!

Thanks for stopping by! :o) xx

What happened???

OK, who nicked Monday and Tuesday??? OMGosh, I have been soooooo busy and have completely lost time! I love my new job so much, but I keep falling asleep within minutes of arriving home!! This is bad practise that I need to nip in the bud so now I daren't allow myself to sit down until everyone's fed!!

Anyway, I've lost so much time I'm on catch up BIG time! First of all, here is my offering for this month's Creatalicious Challenge. The challenge is to make a creation with the colour combo pink or plum,with burgundy and green. Also add some sort of lace,ribbon or fibre etc. and here is my offering:

I found this clock on the Reduced shelf at Tesco for £3 and I thought it would be perfect for this challenge. I could be wrong but I think the paper is Anna Griffin - I've had it for a loooooong time so I'm quite confident that is probably is!! The flowers are all from Becs' own store and they are absolutely gorgeous!!!

Then I was sent this gorguss image from my lovely buddy Lesley so I used it on this card for the same challenge. The paper, lace and flowers are all from Becs' store.

Then over at Winter Wonderland this week we are doing Vintage Christmas. I found this lovely image on a Joanna Sheen CD and thought he was perfect for Vintage!

Oh well, rushing as usual! Hope you're all having a great week! Thanks for stopping by! :o) xx

Winter Wonderland and Friday Sketchers

Boo Hoo! This is officially it - the last day of the summer holiday. Although I've technically gone back to work, the children aren't back until tomorrow and it feels quite weird. My youngest is going back to his last year in first school and that is so scary. In the meantime, my eldest will be doing SATS this year, and that's even scarier!! LOL!

So, here's my final offering for this week. Over at Winter Wonderland we're paying homage to Frosty the Snowman and I found this gorgeous digi image to make my card with

and in fact, digi images are a new phenomenom for me. Thankfully my printer ink seems to like Promarkers so I have been looking around for new images to play with, and I found this, and some more delightful freebies over at Inger's place. Inger is a designer for Panduro and her images and papers are just absolutely amazing, and she makes the most gorgeous projects. If you've not yet discovered her, go take a look for yourself.

I used Inger's image on my card for this week's Friday Sketchers offering. It was a lovely simple sketch to follow and here is my take on it:

And that's all my playtime gone for this weekend now. Time to have a last minute run through to make sure that everyone has everything they need before the bell goes tomorrow morning! Have a fun Sunday and thanks for stopping by! :o) xx