Baby Boys are just so darn cute...

Well as a new Grandma I just had to create a couple of baby cards didn't I?  This one was inspired by designer paper from the DCWV Nana's nursery paper stack.  I've only got the small pack so was a little bit restricted by the size I could make the card.

It's quite an unusual colour for babies really, but I think I like it for a baby boy.  I created the washing line using chopped down barbeque skewers and resized the little digi baby grows on Craft Artist before adding the text.

Wouldn't it make a great card for twins - two pink - two blue - or even a mix I think would work really well?

My card is for the following challenges...

• Craft Your Days Away - Monochrome
• Crafty Emma - Inspired by a Movie - Baby (grows) day out!
• Poodles Parlour - Anything Goes 

and here is somebody far cuter than any card...

Introducing Eli Ryan...

How totally adorable is he and clever too as at only a few hours old he realised that it would save him a fortune if he asked Grandma to make him a card ready for Dad's day!  I better get this blog post finished and get into action.

Have a fabulous day full of cuddles.

Ann xxx

Memories...

As my Mum's memory becomes worse and worse I've realised just how important it is to cherish and preserve the photos we have of people and places from years gone by.  I must admit I have been meaning to do something with my Mum's photos for some time and while Boxing Day might seem a strange time to make a start it was actually perfect at our house.  Mum was able to show off how well she can remember things from the past and Laura and I spent a lovely afternoon creating the first two pages of an album about our family. 
The wording was printed onto acetate and then attached to the card cut from the original folders that the photos were in.  I've laid a piece of black over the names as being paranoid you just never know what information should and should not be included on the internet.  
 

The background paper of roses is by DCWV and we both agreed it was perfect for the theme as we wanted to use black and white, but most of my papers were way too trendy.  This one seemed to fit well, especially seeing as my mum loves roses and had some in her bouquet.

We did consider adding some pressed red roses that I remembered were somewhere in my stash, but one of the memories Mum came up with was about her bouquet.  She remember wanting red roses, but was told that they would look black on black and white photos so she plumped for pink instead.  She can't remember opening a Christmas present from five minutes ago, but her Wedding Day is as fresh as ever.

Seems like ages since I entered any challenges so I'm really pleased to be able to link our pages to the challenges at...

• Allsorts Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
• Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog - Anything Goes
• Charismas Cardz Challenges - Pearls and lace
• Rainbow Lady's Challenges - My choice from last year's themes - mine is 'Lest we forget'
• Simon Say's Stamp - Anything Goes

My early New Year resolution is to do much more scrap booking, especially as my daughter loves it so much and we can play together.  As she says in the future she will look at our album and not only remember Gran, but also the fun we had doing the pages.

Enjoy your day whatever you have planned.

Hugs and smiles.

Ann xxx

Bah! Humbug!...

I'm sorry, but the snow I like is glittered and on Christmas cards.  The real stuff is also okay for the occasional country walk, sledging and building snowmen, but on no account should it fall when people need to get to work or even worse know that they have a huge parcel from Graphicus stranded at the Post Office and there is no way they can get their hands on it.  Eeek!

Anyway grumble over and on to more fun things such as this totally cute House Mouse stamp from one of the sets on the Joanna Sheen website.  How cute is he?  I love him to meeces!

I missed the last challenge at the House Mouse and Friends Challenge blog and was determined not to miss this one which is all about the 'envelope'.  To compensate for missing out last time I did a card to match the envelope.  Actually not sure which came first - a bit like the chicken and the egg query really.

The envelope was stamped with the mouse and then using another stamp set in my collection I stamped the ground and the snowballs using a bit of masking and a pen to join things up.  I coloured the image using Promarkers.  I was a bit unsure as to how they would blend on the envelope paper and I must admit I put an protective piece inside the envelope just incase the ink went through, but it all seemed to work fine. The snowflakes are one of the really tiny corner stamps by Clarity bought at a show years ago and were stamped in Versefine Sepia.  I added the address to the photo only - I don't really know Maxwell's address!

My card is a really simple one with the mouse image mounted on a fab die cut by Nellie Snellen and then matted on some of my favourite wording paper by DCWV.  Organza ribbon, die cut tags and corner peel offs have been added for a touch of oomph.

My card and envelope set is perfect for the following challenges...

• House Mouse and Friends Challenge Blog - Envelope Art
• Crazy 4 Challenges - Script (background paper)
• Promarker Challenge - Old and New (new is House Mouse stamp - old is DCWV paper and snowflake corner stamp)

Well, I'm off for a walk in the snow.  I must be mad, but I do think that it will be really beautiful on the pastures near us and am hoping to take some good snowy day photos.  Also hoping that Pasture's Lodge is open too as I think on a cold day their lasagne, garlic bread and chips meal would go down very nicely accompanied by a glass (or two) of red wine.

Have a good day all and keep warm and safe.

Ann xxx

Such a fun day...

I had such a wonderful day yesterday experimenting and playing inbetween watching Sheena Douglas on Create and Craft.  I even had a go at that Faux Paper Sculpting she demoed, but that's still not dry.  I also have a feeling that mine may not be as successful as hers, but you never know so watch this space.

The best part of my crafting day was playing with one of my new Sweet Pea stamps.  I must admit I have been a bit nervous about using them, because I thought they might prove very difficult to colour, but I had a whale of a time with this one.  I used Promarkers for the main part and chalks for the background.  Then (mainly cause I've just bought it and wanting to try it out) I sprayed the whole image with Crafter's Companion Silver sparkle.  Oh my goodness this is lovely stuff!  I am trying very hard not to spray everything and anything that stands still for too long!

The flowers, stamens and leaves are all punched and arranged around the apperture.  It's quite hard to tell in a photo whether the image is stamped on an oval shape or an oval apperture has been cut out of patterned and plain card and then mounted on top.  Sorry for rambling here, but I really want to stress that this is an apperture and to make it I had to figure out how to use the Centre point button on my Cricut machine.  So proud of myself on figuring that out and now I have there will be no stopping me!

My patterned paper is by my favourite company DCWV and I think in my excitement about the apperture I may have used it upside down, but hey who is looking that closely?

My card was made with the following challenges in mind...

• Sweet Pea Stampers - fabulous sketch
• Sir Stampalot Monthly Challenge - Punches (flowers are punched embossed with the floral punches, stamen and leaves also punched)
• Craftalicious Challenge - New (my stamp and glitter spray)
• Stamp Something - Happy Something
• Simon Says Stamp - Shiver me timbers (My pirate name is Stinky Nut Gorilla - sheesh not good !)

Have a great day everyone - I may if feeling brave later show my toilet paper work.  Yikes, it may be nearly dry, but what on earth am I going to create with it?

Ann xxx

Dreamy Fairy...

I have had this gorgeous image for quite some time and I really can't understand why it ended up being unused for so long as the fairy is so delicate and beautiful.  It is actually just one from a sheet of amazing fairies by Valerie Wade at Fairy Song Art Stamps.  I must get into action and use the others on the sheet too.
Other Materials used...

• DCWV paper 
• Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder and tag die
• Nellie Snellen flower punches
• Nestie scalloped circles and plain
• Xcut border die
• organza ribbon and gems from stash

Challenges...

• Flutter By Wednesday -open theme but with a fairy, angel or butterfly
• Fab n Funky - a neglected stamp ( fairies bought last summer and uninked till now!)
• Sketch and Stash - amazing sketch as always
• Sir Stampalot - Fantasy
• Creatalicious Challenges - Flowers and Wings

Hope everyone is having a great day.
Ann xxx

Nora and a butterfly...

Here's the other card I was working on using one of the gorgeous Spring Swiss Pixie stamps from All That Scraps.  I just love this set and how useful is that fence? I can see Tilda sat on there too and a whole host of other cutie characters.

Materials used...

• C.C. Designs Digi stamps
• sentiment stamp from stash
• Woodware corner punch
• papers and card by Kanban and DCWV (Spring Stack)
• tag die by Spellbinders
• organza ribbon, brads and gems from stash

Challenges...

• Pollycraft Challenge NOW WEEKLY - how great is that? - anything goes 
• Crafty Ann's - for someone special (but I'm not saying who!)
• Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge- How does your garden grow?
• Crafts and Me Challenge - fairy wings (sorry not Sweet Pea stamp - only just discovered the challenge)

Have a great day everyone.

Pink Elephant Day... Nature...

Blue skies - green grass and flowers - well that's what was running through my mind for our theme of 'nature' at The Pink Elephant this week.  Our featured company are All That Scraps which meant using the absolutely gorgeous images from the Spring Swiss Pixie Stamp set that I have been drooling over for ages.  

The stamp I've used today is Hansel, but I was so lucky to also receive Nora and her butterfly to play with too and my card using Nora should be finished by tomorrow so watch this space.  

Papers and card are by Kanban and DCWV (Spring Paper Stack again - my favourite ever!)

As well as being my DT sample for The Pink Elephant my card is also for the following challenges...

• Sweet Sketch Wednesday - oooooooops I haven't got an oval nestie and I was thinking one of the DT used a label nestie - must have been another site - sorry but it's very near the sketch!!
• Fab'n'Funky Challenge - Spring is in the air - gosh my Studio G sentiment stamp matches this challenge spot on!

Let's hope we all have a fabulous start to the week and the sun shines plenty so that we see some real spring flowers and no more of that dreaded white stuff.

Another Easter Card...

Another Easter card using one of the fabulous Pollycraft images I won recently.  How lucky was I?  Just love them.  As well as the cat and the duck being super cute I love the tree on this image, because it lends itself to adding paper flowers or gemstones as I have done on this card.   The image was coloured with Promarkers and the designer paper is from the DCWV Spring stack again.

Challenges...

• Simon Says Stamp - Easter with some glimmer (hope my gemstones have enough glimmer)
• The Sweet Stop Sketch - sketch and something fuzzy (hmmm well cats have fuzzy fur and I go fuzzy when I see a cute image like this one - hope that counts.)
• Incy Wincy Designs - Spring

Short post today as busy getting house ready for very important guest...

Irene from All Occasions Cards, Papers and More  She's staying here and we're visiting the N.E.C. together tomorrow.  Only to look round you understand - we're not buying - lol!!!

Hoppy Easter...

Another Easter card and this time it's for my daughter Shelley, who like me is a real softie when it comes to rabbits.  The image is one of the amazing collection of digi images I was lucky enough to win from Pollycraft.  Oh such a cute collection.  My friends will be seeing a lot of these this Easter.  Love the rabbit and the duck (although not on this card) is just adorable.

The daisy border was punched using another of  the new punches Laura bought me for Mother's Day.  The sentiment is from a collection by Making Memories and the bunny paper is another design from the DCWV Spring stack.

Challenges...

• Pollycraft Monday Challenge - sparkles
• Pile it on - Furry friends
• Promarker Passion - Springtime with an animal
• Digital Tuesday - Springtime
• Sketch Saturday - sketch

Pink Elephant - Challenge 54 - Ribbons...

I really can't believe we are on Challenge 54 at The Pink Elephant.  It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that we were planning our first challenges.  This week our theme is ribbon and we are being sponsored by one of my favourite stamp companies - C. C. Designs at All that Scraps.  I love their images and I love the way you can buy many of them in both stamp and digi format.  On my card I've used Leisel and her Wheelbarrow from the Swiss Pixies digital range.  I've filled the barrow with tiny paper flowers that I've had in my stash for ages, but I think the possibilities for this are endless.

Leisel has been coloured with Promarkers and then matted and layered on to blue card and floral paper from the DCWV Spring Stack.

I used this week's amazing sketch at