Busy, busy, busy!........

Hello everyone, hope you're all having a great weekend, despite the weather. We've just had a torrential downpour....it was amazing! Don't know where all this rain is coming from, but I wish it would push off to some other country, and leave us alone for a few weeks!

Because I'm busy catching up on blog posts and DT work today, this is just a very short blog, to 'whet your appetite' for our new challenge blog launching tomorrow at 9am.

http://twinchie-twinchiehotmaillive.blogspot.co.uk/

This blog is solely for 'TWINCHIES'.....2" x 2" squares of gorgeousness!....nothing less....nothing more!

We do hope you'll come along, 'follow' the blog, and join in our great challenges.

Tomorrow, I'll be showing you my creations for the TWINCHIE blog, and also for 

http://thecupboardtrilogychallenges.blogspot.co.uk/

and

http://cardsgalorechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/

The Design Teams on all of the blogs have been very busy, creating some amazing projects for you to find inspiration from, so don't forget to check back tomorrow xx

Until then, here is a little twinchie, which I might use as a baby card 'topper', over the next week or two 

Hope you like it

xx

Over and out!.......

Evening all, hope you're all ok, and not getting too wet. I've got a smug little smile on me mush, 'cos it's been a fab day down here today. lol.

This is my last post from Devon....home tomorrow. I absolutely LOVE going on holiday, but I LOVE going home again, just as well, I suppose.

 I have a busy few weeks ahead of me now, with wedding stationery to finish for my great-niece, loads of orders to catch up on, and stocking up my boxes for quite a few craft fairs, as well as my DT work.

However, first I want to show you my bargain from this week.....10 huge, empty ice-cream boxes for 10 pence each. Ooooooooo, how much crafty stuff can I get in these babies?!

 Watch this space, and I'll keep you updated on what I make/fill them with.

I've also been beachcombing for driftwood.....I know what I'm going to make with these pieces of wood, and I'll show you when I'm finished x

It was my wonderful son Nick's birthday last week, he was born on the longest day (21st June).....interestingly my other son Adam was born on the shortest day (21st December) three and a half years later.   I made Nick a very quick footie card, (England were still in the running at the time).....Adam made him a card too, as he does for all of us....I love Adams cards, they're always last minute, and daft!....but good.  Might show you some more another night x

Nick and Adam in their Jubilee regalia. (Adam's card for Nick)

My quick footie card. Wish I'd lined up the sentiment better, but I was rushing as usual x

Nick & his wife Emma, and Adam.

(2 thorns and a beautiful rose! )

Well that's all for tonight folks, sorry it's been a long post. xx

Have a good Friday xx

It's almost 'TWINCHIE' time.......whoohoo!

Hello everyone, hope you've all had a good day, and managed to squeeze in a bit of crafting.

We've had a nice day here, and it was even warmer than we expected....although at this time of year it should be scorching!.......Never mind, we're tough, and Finn couldn't care less what the weather does.

Todays post is 2 'twinchies' made for when we were going to launch the new 'SHOW US YOUR TWINCHIES' challenge blog last month. Because of tech problems with blogger, we were forced to postpone until 1st of July.....but that's only THREE days away now....whoohoo!

If you're reading my blog for the first time, and not sure what TWINCHIES are, they're 2" x 2" pieces of art......Any medium is suitable, any theme, any colour, etc.etc.

Why not pop over to the blog, and register your interest by becoming a follower @

 http://twinchie-twinchiehotmaillive.blogspot.co.uk/

Our first challenge will be announced on Sunday 1st July.

This twinchie was inked, stamped with Versamark and embossed with Cosmic Shimmer embossing powder. I then coloured parts of it with Promarkers, and added a bit of glitter

The second one was printed off the computer and triple embossed to give the effect of a 'tile'. I did the same technique on the words.

Hope you like them.....

See you all tomorrrow night x

Please leave a comment if you've enjoyed looking.

Well, baby cards don't all have to be pink or blue!.....

FOUR DAYS TO GO..........!!

Evening everyone from a wet Devon.......Today we went to Clovelly, and oh heck, those cobbles are a killer! Of course I only had little pumps on my feet, with soles as thin as paper, my feet were killing by the time we got back to the top, and I needed Oxygen!    

Finn saw his very first donkey, and think he was surprised that there was an animal bigger than him......He gets lots of attention when we're walking around, and absolutely loves it.

Anyway, enough holiday shizzle, let me show you a card.

Obviously a baby card, but I thought I'd do it in mauve for a change....well, there's no rule to say that baby cards have to be blue or pink, is there?

What do you think....please leave a comment, either good or bad, I don't mind (well, I do of course, but I tell fibs xx)

                                                          Catch you all tomorrow xx

Don't forget to pop over to our new 'Twinchie' blog, which goes 'live' on 1st July. You can become a follower NOW, ready for the very first challenge starting on the 1st.

http://twinchie-twinchiehotmaillive.blogspot.co.uk/

A batch of numbers.....

Hi everyone, hope you've all had a good day, with lots of crafting.....

Got to say I'm having crafting withdrawal symptoms at the moment, it seems so long since I made a card. However, to alleviate these symptons, we had a run to Crafty Devils in Barnstable, this morning. Alan and Finn waited an hour and a half whilst I had a good root around all their goodies......Ooooo, it was like Christmas. Alan treat me to loads of new stash, so I want to go home now to use it all....haha. (only joking)

We're still enjoying our hols and Finn is having a brilliant time, chasing seagulls, dogs, chickens etc :)

Tonight's cards were requested by a customer who said she just wanted cards with a number on and not much else......she is a very 'simple' lady, in the nicest meaning of the word, and didn't want anything fussy. I made a card for every year of age, for female and male, then a few for Wedding Anniversaries too.  she liked them so much, she ordered another full set for a friend, in different colours. 

Although they were boring to make, I couldn't turn down such a big order.

I'm just showing a few out of the batch I made, don't want to bore you all senseless!

 

Okey doke, that's it for tonight, I'm going to mount some stamps that I bought last week....so you see although I can't make cards while I'm on holiday, I can still do things related to craft xx

Catch you all tomorrow x

Not for the 4th of July!.......

Evening everyone form sunny Ilfracombe! (well not now, of course, 'cos it's dark :))....We've had a lovely day,  sun shone almost all day, but it definitely wasn't as warm as you'd expect in June!   We walked miles along 2 different beaches, Finn absolutely loves the water. The ice-cream at the end of the walk was very welcome.....as was the glass of wine when we got home .......!

Anyway just a short post tonight, as it's a bit late......A young girl came up to me last week at a craft fair, and asked for an easel card for her 'mom'......It turned out that 'mom' is one of my regular customers, so the daughter wanted a birthday card for her. She asked for carnations, the American flag, and 'mom'. 
This is what I came up with, and she loved it, thankfully.
The family used to live in the USA and want to move back there, hope they don't though, as I'd lose a great customer!

Anyway, that's all for tonight, hope you've enjoyed looking, if so, please leave a comment.
Catch you all tomorrow x

Even blogging on my holiday.........(!)

Evening everyone, Can you believe I'm on holiday and still blogging?! I have loads of time in the evenings though, so it's not a problem.  

We have Finn with us this week, and not many restaurants would like a (very) large German Shepherd lying under the table, (and we can't leave him in the cottage) so I'm afraid for this holiday Alan will be cooking !!

Sorry that I haven't blogged for so long, it's just been an extremely busy week or so......

Last Friday afternoon I did a very successful school fete, then Saturday and Sunday brought our village Scarecrow Festival. 

Every year I organise the Craft Fair part of the weekend, which I love doing....Bringing crafters of all kinds together is such a pleasure, and I only ask one person per different craft to make it more interesting for the customers....

We all had a very good weekend, sales wise, and I'm happy to say I sold £280 worth of cards....yes £280, the most I've ever sold in such a short space of time.   The only problem now is that I have to replace all the sold cards, but I suppose that's a nice problem...

Anyway the card I'm showing tonight was an order from a friend of mine, who buys all her cards from me....she doesn't get 'mates rates' though haha!

Hope you like it, if so, would love you to leave a comment. I'll be back tomorrow night....definitely!

Jolly hollies.....:)

Hi everyone, I'm on holiday at the moment, but have my lappy with me, which means I'll definitely be blogging tonight (Saturday)....please pop back later to checkout what I've blogged xx

The answer........

Hiya all, sorry this post is a bit later than usual....I know you're a dying to know the answer to last night's question ....haha. Well I won't keep you in suspense any longer. Joan was almost right when she said wallpaper, but not quite, it's kids bedroom, self adhesive wall frieze ! Every time I go into B&Q I grab a few bits of various designs. I chop it up, stick it on waste card then run it through the die-cutter and boosh, a cute little image which hasn't cost a penny! Mind you, the ladies in B&Q must think I have a 20 bedroomed house and 25 grandchildren....I'm always ready with a little 'fib' if anyone ever asks LOL.

  Anyway, only one card to show you tonight, with my favourite flower of the moment.

Just another simple style, but I did enjoy making this one....what do you think of it??

 

Well, that's it for tonight, hope to see you all tomorrow. I have a school craft fair tomorrow afternoon in the next village from us, so hoping it goes well x

A puzzle for you.....

Evening everyone, and another welcome to my new followers from the past 2 few days. Hope you've all had a good day and managed to get some crafting done.

Just wanted to tell you that I had some very good news tonight......I'm now part of the Design Team on 'The Cupboard Trilogy' challenge blog....whoohoo!  I'll be giving you details soon of how to join in with the challenges.....

 I'm still doing mind-numbingly simple, commercial cards for my craft fairs, and I've got to admit I'll be pleased when I can put away the 'stuff that sells' and get on with something a bit more inky, messy and inspiring!

A few kids cards to show you tonight and this is where the puzzle comes in......do you like the little images and where do you think they came from??? Leave a comment and a guess and I'll tell you tomorrow night.

Well, I did say they were mind-numbingly simple, didn't I??  However, they're always the cards which sell first so I have to do them xx

See you all tomorrow night x

As promised.....

Whoohoo,  Four new followers today, so welcome to the new ladies....hope you enjoy looking at my blog.

As promised, I'm blogging again tonight, gave myself a good talking to last night and I will be posting every day from now on (hopefully)....well, unless I'm not at home, of course.

 Just another couple of quick, easy cards tonight....nothing special, as I haven't time this week to experiment with all my new stamps & inks. That will have to wait until next week when I'm not so busy. I might also have some new 'toys' to play with by then, but you'll have to wait to see what I've bought....oh yeah!

The two cards below were so easy, they could've been made by a 5 yr old!  2 sheets of Forever Friends paper from one of their paper pads.....one sheet has been matted onto card, then the image cut out and decoupaged onto the other sheet, a few added embellishments and wham, bam...done!

 I've made a pile of these as they always sell very well at Craft Fairs.

What do you think??

I'll be back tomorrow, catch you all then xx

Where has the last week gone ??

Hi everyone, I'm so glad to have 5 minutes to write up a quick post, I honestly can't believe almost a week has passed since I've blogged.

I've made dozens of cards over the past few days for my forthcoming Craft Fairs, but I'll tell you more about that later in the week.

Tonight I'm just showing a few very, very simple Wedding Anniversary cards I've made for my stock boxes.

Hope you like them.......

I'll be back tomorrow night....promise xx

Inspirational colours.....

Morning everyone from a very 'cool' Wiltshire......hope you've all had a great Jubilee weekend so far.   

 Our few days have been quite busy, starting off with a lovely Craft Fair on Saturday.....I sold loads of cards and received lots of commissions to do, so a very happy 'me' drove home to start preparations for Jubilee Sunday.

We live in a very small village, and our 'Close' of 14 bungalows, is a sort of circle cum horseshoe shape with a lovely ornamental green in the middle, this is a great area for 'getting together' with the residents of  'the close'.   The male contingent erected 3 huge marquees, while the females prepared enough food and drink to feed an army!   We were outside from 12 midday until 3.30 am! (well, some were anyway)  what a great day it was, despite the weather, which turned out quite wet....not under the marquee though, thankfully! It was so good to spend the day with friends, and especially our family Nick & Emma and Adam.  

 Last night was the lighting of the 'Beacon' in the village at 10pm......singing 'God save the Queen' with a glass of bubbly in my hand whilst the beacon was lit was quite 'uplifting' x

Anyway, although there are festivities in the village, we are just taking it easy today and I might even get time to craft!

The card below is the one I made for the COLOUR INSPIRATION challenge at http://cardsgalorechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/    Please pop over and have a look at the Design Team creations and enter the challenge. There is a great prize up for grabs this month.

Hope you like my effort, please leave a comment if you've enjoyed looking x

The pic below was the Colour Inspiration

Sad, and happy memories.......

Evening again, to all my lovely followers, hope you've all had a good week so far, and are now looking forward to the long weekend.

We have been up North this week for a family funeral.......my lovely sister-in-laws mam, Elsie,  died last week, at the grand old age of 101, she was quite a character.  Before we moved to Wiltshire, we had many great family gatherings at our house for various occasions.....My lovely mam and Elsie would have pride of place on their own sofa, sitting whispering, critisising and picking faults with everyone in the room.....they thought we couldn't hear them of course, but it made us laugh all the more....they were like a comedy double act!  I have so many happy memories of those times. My bro & sis-in-law have been married 50 years in September, so I've known Elsie for about 53 years.......RIP, a lovely lady  xx

 

Until tomorrow.......xx

It's 'Twinchie' time........

Evening everyone, hope you've all had a fab day.....This weather is amazing, and my new 'toy', is certainly getting a good 'airing'.....Alan and I have been 'cruising' 3 days this week, and we just happen to tie it in with lunch in a lovely country pub.   Well, as Alan says 'we're only here once and life isn't a rehersal', blah, blah, blah, so who am I to argue when he offers to take me for lunch.

Anyway, inbetween all these trips out, I've been making a few 'Twinchies', as I promised in my last post.

Our new blog,  'Show Us Your Twinchies' goes 'live' on Friday 1st June and we hope lots of you will follow us over the coming weeks......more about the 'launch' later in the week x

It took some serious thinking to get started on the twinchies,  a 2 inch square seems such a small area to do a piece of art, but once I got started, I was fine. (I think)

I know I need better pics than these, will take some more tomorrow x

    
I'm sure they'll get better as I go on, as I know they're quite amateurish at the moment.....Please let me know what you think of them....(honest opinions) xxx  ....until then......

To 'mat' or not to 'mat'......that is the question!

Evening everyone, and a very warm welcome to all my new members.......whoohoo 115 at the last count, this blogging malarkey is great!

Well, I have some exciting news to tell you tonight, our brand new blog is being launched on Friday June 1st.

This will be a challenge blog for TWINCHIES.....and if you haven't a clue what a twinchie is, check back over the weekend  for more details. (I will be making a few to blog over the next couple of days )

I've had a strange week so far..... not much crafting as I've been into college, working quite a bit, so I'm just showing a couple of very quick cards tonight. And when I say quick, I mean very, very quick, less than 5 minutes to be precise!
I need your help deciding whether to 'mat' or not.....both very easy and simple to do, but I like simple now and then :)

I ran the card through the printer,
scored, folded and trimmed to make a 5.5" square.
Stamped the design , coloured the leaves and added 5 red gems......simples!

This one took about 2 minutes longer, just the extra time to mat onto red mirri card.
Can't make up my mind which one I like most. If I'm doing simple, then I think it should be very simple.
What do you think??

An extreme change from my last card, don't you agree?


Hopefully be back tomorrow night with a 'twinchie', but until then, enjoy the sun, I certainly will xx

Back..........eventually!

Hello everyone.....I'm back, after a whole week, and can't believe where the time has gone.    Every night I started to blog, and then got side-tracked to other things and before I knew, it was too late.

Anyway, here is a card I made yesterday....it's one of 3 I've made for a customer to choose from. This person bought a few cards off me in March and the people she sent them to contacted me with new orders, so I was very pleased. 

She could not choose between duck-egg blue or pink for this order, so I incorpoated both!

Hope you like it.

I'd like to thanks everyone for the wonderful comments on previous posts......they are always appreciated and I love reading them.

Catch you all tomorrow x

A garden full of mannequins.................

Evening everyone......and what a beautiful evening it is too, for a change. Welcome to my new followers and thanks so much for popping by to see what I've been up to.
I would like to say a huge 'Thank You' to Mimi Dibble and her blog, for featuring me and my last creation.....you can find the article on Mimi's blog
http://thescrapinator5000.weebly.com
  
Well, what a really busy week it's been in my little craft room, 45 cards made so far. Lots of 'batch' cards and a special order for a new customer, which I'm showing you now.  This customer phoned one day, after receiving one of my cards and asked for a special card to be made for a female aquaintance for her 50th birthday.......He gave me a few 'themes' to choose from ...... shoes (she has over 200 pairs apparently), handbags, at least 40, cupcakes etc etc....the list was looooonnnnnng. This lady also has a garden full of mannequins, (!) soooooo here is what I came up with........

I started with an 8" x 8" scalloped card, which a swiped over in 3 directions with Tattered Rose distress inkpad.
I then stamped and heat embossed the background and edges (used loads of embossing powder-Cosmic Shimmer, of course).
The mannequin stamps are from Creative Expressions too (who else?  I love their products! )



 Here is a close-up of one of the embossed corners .
The ribbon is my lovely metallic wired stuff, but it's
running low....eeeeek!
Freshwater pearls are from my jewellery stash.

I decided not to put number 50 on, as it would spoil the 'shabby chic' effect.  I haven't even put Happy Birthday, as I couldn't find a spare inch.... haha

Well, what do you think?    Please leave a comment, I love reading them xxx 

It's Alan's birthday tomorrow so I might be late posting tomorrow night, until then......x

I'm entering this card in the 'DECOUPAGE' challenge at        http://www.craftybloggersnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/

My second tag....

Hi everyone, welcome back to my blog. Only one more follower needed to reach 100, so if you're reading this, and you're not a follower, well maybe you'd be so nice as to join .......please.

Just wanted to show you my second tag before I do something with it, although not sure what.  

I read in a mag that you should always look on your desk after finishing a project as you never know what you'll find.  I always have a clean piece of copier paper on mine, to work on, and when I checked , it was covered in different coloured inks and shapes. This is what I've made this tag with, so it's technically a recycled project.

 All I did was fill in a couple of gaps and cut some leaves and flowers from the 'waste' and voila!  

 

Please let me know what you think of it.

Until tomorrow........

Birds, Butterflies and Cows........

Hi everyone.....Hope you've all had a great weekend, and the weather has been kind to you. It certainly wasn't the washout that we'd been led to believe.

Because it was so nice yesterday, Alan and I had a little run-out in my new car, and actually had the top down....I felt like a celebrity haha. I'll show you a pic at the end of this post.

I've made some 'batch' cards over the past 2 days, for a customer. I never do 2 cards the same, so it was strange making 6 of each one.....but what the customer wants, the customer gets! 

 

The birds were all different colours with matching feathers.....I also varied the sentiment and placement of the branch and leaves.

The cow cards were done as 3 birthday and 3 new home.

The butterflies were all cut with different papers, and I used different dies on 2 of them.

All were made with 'linen' effect base-card, as I have absolutely loads of this. I always seem to use 'hammered' card so thought I'd have a change.

Anyway, below is a pic of my new car.....well, not new, of course, but different. 

It's our Summer toy!

Would love to hear your comments about the cards, hope you've enjoyed looking at my blog,

catch you all tomorrow xx