Seeing spots!

Good Evening All!

Phew I`ve had a very busy weekend.
We have been really busy at work and on friday I was asked to do extra hours. That meant that all my plans to have a good clean up on friday morning, leaving saturday mostly free to craft, went out of the window. I spent most of yesterday catching up with housework and laundry. Today our Christmas work rota begins and guess who had to work 10 til 2. Not my idea of a restful sunday believe me. I think I`ve gone off this working for a living lark...

Anyway, two of the girls at work had birthdays last week so I made them each a card.

 They are both very similar with just subtle differences.
The dotty DP and the images are by Pink Petticoat.
I`ve used my Martha Stewart Doily punch along the bottom . I`ve added some plain paper and also punch it.
Parts of the images have been coloured with watercolour pencils and then glittered with Glamour dust.
On Coleens card I`ve added some contrasting chocolate ribbon with a bow and on Tracey`s I`ve just used ribbon.
The images have been cut out with a circle nestie and then centred on a scalloped circle in the plain paper.

That`s all from me for now. I have a day off on wednesday although I have been told it could change. Whenever it is I shall definately be crafting, fingers crossed.

Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx

I`m back.....again.

Bet you thought I`d been abducted by aliens or something!

Sorry, nothing so exciting. I had a long weekend last week so decided to move my craft room from the loft to the spare bedroom. Although the light up there is great first thing in a morning, now the nights are drawing in it`s dark and cold at the times I need it most. The spare bedroom was my middle daughters until she moved out and I hadn`t realised just how much stuff she`d left behind. Golly that girl can hoard!
I also didn`t realise just how much crafting stuff I had until I had to carry it all down the loft ladders. What I thought would be a a couple of days work turned into nearly a week and it still isn`t sorted properly. I`ve got bits and bobs that need to find a home and I`m not quite sure it`s working in the layout I have yet. Give it time, I`ll probably end up back in the loft. Not yet though, I`m shattered.

In the meantime I have been working ( on and off) on some Halloween goodies for the grandkids.

 
I used empty coffee jars that have a good seal on the lids.
The spider web papers are from Pinkpetticoat Halloween collection cut to size and punched along the top.
I`ve backed the DP onto plain matching paper and punched the tops of these too,
the girls with a Martha Stewart Doily punch and Nathans with a Fiskars punch.
I had great fun with the labels which I made on the computer and cut out with an oval nestie. The beauty of making your own is that you can be as gross as you like to match the sweets in the jars.
In Charlottes I used Eye balls, in Nathans, body parts and Ruby`s I used white chocolate buttons and called them spiders eggs.
All the sweets, creepy crawlies and tinsell are from Poundland and the chocolate buttons I bought in the supermarket.
I hope the kids have as much fun eating them as I did making them, hee hee!

On to my " Tip Of The Day",
Never use what you know is an unstable chair to stand on while cleaning your windows just because you can`t be bothered to get the steps out.
I did! The chair tipped forward,  the back caught me in the midriff and I went over the back head first. I had bruises on my tummy for a fortnight.
It`s a good job it was the inside windows I was cleaning because I would never be able to face the nieghbours again if I`d been outside, hee hee.

Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx

Shabby Tea Room #32

Good Morning All!

Happy wednesday to you.
I had an unexpected day off yesterday. Did I clean out the kitchen cupboards? Clear out the wardrobes? Nah!!!
After a normal mornings housework I got down to some serious crafting. Well what else did you expect???

This is the fabby pic from The Shabby Tea Room  to give us inspiration.
This is my card,

I used cream card for the base.
The DP is by Kameo Cards and is matted onto some chocolate card.
I`ve taken some more of the cream card and run it through the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and matted that onto some chocolate card.
I used my Spellbinders Borderbilities Lace die on chocolate card and added it to my central panel.
The sentiment is from Papertreys Autumn Abundance set inked in chestnut onto cream card and cut with a circle nestie. I made a border with a scalloped circle nestie in chocolate.
The flowers are handmade in autumnal colours.

I have some other projects on the go that I will hopefully have finished before the weekend.

Just as an aside I have decided to do a weekly " Helpful Personal Tips" spot. I will explain...
I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person but I do do some really stupid things. I have lost count of the times I have greeted my OH with the immortal words " Oh Alan I did a really stupid thing today"
So often in fact that now he just gives me THAT look and shakes his head. Most are things that anyone with an ounce of common sense just wouldn`t do but some are down right dangerous. All will be revealed.
I`ll start with a daft one. Todays " Tip of the day"...
Never clean the toilet whilst wearing a waterfall cardigan!

See what I mean?

Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx

Curtain Call #52

Good Morning All.

And a happy monday to you. I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and it didn`t fly by too fast.

Todays card is for the challenge over at Stacey`s Curtain Call 
We were given this piccy to work from and with these gorgeous colours how could I not join in.

Here is my take on it,

Unfortunately I have absolutely nothing in my paper collection that comes near enough to Bermuda Bay and when I tried to alter what I do have on the computer, my printer decided that it doesn`t like printing blue.
So I`ve had to use a paler version from Papermania Summer Bloom collection that has photographed even lighter. Ho Hum...

The orange Damask is by Pink Petticoat Lola`s Boudiour ( now retired I think), matted onto chocolate brown card.
The blue panel is by Papermania matted onto white card and punched along the top and bottom to give it a bit of an edge.
I`ve added some chocolate ribbon and a bow and a handmade flower with a brad from American Crafts.
The sentiment is by Flourishes, stamped in black and cut with a circle nestie.

Even though I`m disappointed with the Bermuda Bay panel, I`m still rather pleased with the end result.

Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx

Seasons Greetings

Hello Every One.

I hope your weekend has been creative and fruitful.

I just have no idea where the time goes lately. For some reason I never seem to have enough of it. I was, however, determined to get down to some crafting today and have achieved a bit. Not as much as I would have liked but the day isn`t over yet.

My card for today is inspired by this colour swatch from Picture Perfect Creations 

By the way I got Card Of The Week for my Autumn Splendour card at PPC. Thank you girls!!!

This is the card I made,

I used a dark green for my card base.
I ran some lighter green card through the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.
I added some ribbon which IRL is very close to razzleberry onto the lighter green before matting it onto the base card.
My image is by Inkadinkadoo and is stamped in clear ink and heat embossed in Moon Glow two toned EP.
The photo doesn`t do it justice at all but it is Razzleberry / Plum depending on which way the light catches it.
It is also a near perfect match for the ribbon but it has photographed slightly lighter.
Just to finish off I`ve added my trade mark bow

Right thats it from me. We`re having a late sunday roast today and it`s almost time to put the Yorkshire puds in.
Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx

A joint challenge

Good Morning All!

Thank goodness friday is here at last and I might find some time over the weekend to get down to some creative therapy. A quick post today as I`m flying about like a mad thing.

Todays card is a joint challenge. I`ve combined the colour swatch from  Curtain Call # 51

With the sketch from  Our Creative Corner

 This is the card I came up with,

 I used some blue dotty paper that I manipulated on the computer to get as near to Marina Mist as I could,
matted onto black card.
I stamped my image, from My Minds Eye in Versa Colour Cyan. Matted that onto some yellow card.
I used some kraft card which I punch along one edge and cut slightly bigger than my image panel to form a border.
I`ve added some yellow ribbon and a bow.
The sentiment is by Flourishes and is also stamped in Cyan.

Thats all I`ve got time for today. Sorry if I`ve not got around to leaving comments on your blogs but I`ll put that right as soon as I can.
Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx 

Autumn Birthday

Hello Everyone!

And a happy tuesday to you all.

I have an apology to make. I got so carried away at being back on my blog that I forgot to thank you all for the lovely comments and support you left me regarding my Mum. I really do appreciate each and everyone of you so I`d like to put it right.   Thank You!

Right, back to normality. It will be Alan`s sister Christines birthday at the end of the month so I thought I`d make her a suitable autumnal card.

   
I`ve used the brand new papers from Pink Petticoat 
called Autumn Blossoms. The colour range is amazing and I`m sure will be used all year round and not just for autumn.

For the top panel I`ve used Hydrangeas in Tangerine.
The bottom panel is first placed onto a piece of orange card leaving a very narrow border along the top edge.
This isn`t my idea but one I " borrowed" from Sharon Johnson 
and I love it. I could be using it quite alot in the future.
I made my own sentiment on the computer as I wanted to put Christines name on it and I`ve cut it out with a nestie labels 4 die.
My trademark bow is in bright orange to finish it off .

Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx

AWOL

Good Morning All!

At last I`m back after being MIA for the past week or so. It`s been a topsy turvy sort of week for me. As you know Mum was very ill for a time but the good news is that, hopefully, she is being discharged from the hospital today. I seem to have spent most of last week on the phone sorting things out with various family members and keeping up to date with Mums progress. The doctors still don`t what caused the allergy but she`s over it now. The only problem with that is that now we have to keep a very close eye on her in case it happens again. For now though I`m very relieved.

On to my lastest post.
 This is the inspiration for this weeks Challenge at the Play Date Cafe 

We are to use Green and Melon instead of the usual Christmas Red.
Ofcourse, as usual I have no Melon so I`ve used Versa Color Orchid instead.
As this weeks challenge is sponsered by one of my favourite UK stamp companies, Elusive Images, I`ve used their products on my card.

The green DP is from the Artylicious  Seasons Greetings CD.
I`ve matted that onto some pink card.
The stamped image is a beautiful floral swirl Christmas tree from the Deck the Halls stamp set from EI, stamped in versa colour orchid and heat embossed.
I`ve added a ribbon and bow.
The sentiment is from Creative Expressions and is also stamped in orchid and heat embossed., then punched with a tag punch.

Well thats all from me for today. Hopefully I`ll be able to get into the swing of things again and have some more posts during the week.
Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx

Autumn Spendour

Good Morning All!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, mine was mad. I think I`ll be glad to get to work for a rest. More about that later.
I`m posting one card today that, hopefully, fits three challenges.
They are,  Picture Perfect Creations.

Which has this as our inspiration  

 Our Creative Corner

Who have given us this colour combo  

And  Curtain Call Colour Challenge #50

Who gave us this fabulous piccy and colour combo  

As all three used Cajun Craze, Mustard and similar Greens  I decided to combine them with this card.

One thing I have realised since starting to join in with these challenges is that alot of them use Stampin` up colours. I don`t have any Stampin` up products whatsoever so I downloaded a SU colour chart and printed it off which helps me to find the closest colours I have to the ones stipulated. 

I used my favourite Flourishes Gerbera Daisy stamp mainly because it`s so versatile. I mean you get Gerberas in almost any colour under the sun can`t you?
I coloured the flowers with Promarkers Mustard and honeycomb, and the stems with Promarkers Pear Green.
I used ivory card stock for the base card and matted and layered my version of Cajun Craze, a slightly milky coffee instead of Early Espresso and Kraft, after puching along the bottom edge of each.
I`ve added an Olive ribbon and bow to finish. 
Once it was all put together I realised I maybe should have done some scoring along the top to give it a bit of definition but, as they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Well my weekend was quite an eventful one, for all the wrong reasons. Mum was rushed into hospital again on Saturday. She has Anyphylaxia ( probably wrong spelling) which you probably know is a severe allergic reaction usually to bee stings, nuts or latex. Having reached the ripe old age of 77 without ever having been allergic to anything it is a complete mystery as to what has caused this but she is very poorly. Apart from a severe rash she has swollen lips and throat which was a great worry. The hospital was fantastic though and the nursing staff were wonderful. At the moment she is still in hosptal and having tests and medication so it`s just a case of waiting.

Thanks for popping in...Lynne xxx