Happiness is....

Making cards, being happy, just spending an afternoon with my daughter sitting with her making her card and me mine!

Not much to say today really, still as busy as ever with the schools hols being on, counting down the weeks (3 now!) until she starts school proper.

Hopefully heading out for a day tomorrow, we finally got her to stay asleep past 6am and then not come in and wake us straight away!  We get to 7am now -who, ho!  Of course, when school starts that will all change again and I have to be up at 6 as school (as nursery used to) starts at 8.30am.

So enough waffle - the card I made is:

I used:
Little Claire 'Birdcage' stamp - coloured with my Prismas and highlighted the birdcage with 3d gloss / Glamour Dust (ha,ha, got you bet you thought I was going to say stickles - I'm being a rebel and using something different!).
The papers are all Basic Grey - Porcelain paper pad
Sentiment is from an Inkadinkado set
Flowers are Prima, button from button box.
Card blank is Craftwork Cards.

I'd like to enter this into:
Little Claires - Things with wings
Delightful Challenges - Things with wings

Hope you all are well and happy.

Sarah

Little Claire's Challenge - No 8 Shaped cards

Hi blogworld,

Goodness another long gap between posts!  There is just so much going on at home at the moment that I'm finding it difficult to get time at the computer.  Not finding it difficult to make cards tho!  So when life calms down a bit I think I will post up a few cards.

I did mean to enter this card into Little Claire's Challenge, but looking at the blog I'm not sure if it's closed or not!  I'm going to do this post and a link to the challenge anyway - at least that way they know I'm still thinking about them even if I missed the challenge! I was so chuffed to win the prize last time as well - I'd looked at the stamp at the Lincoln Sincerely Yours fair and thought about buying it but decided to leave that one as I'd got lots of others.  Just as well I did really as I then won it!

So this time it's shaped cards - made this for a friend of mine to give to her Dad for fathers day.  Her parents moved up here awhile ago and brought a beach hut at the same time - she'd asked for either beach hut or trains and I thought this image was great so beach hut it was!  She was rather pleased as well!

I used Little Claire's  Beach Huts, coloured with Prisma Pencils.  The card base is cut using a Go Kreate XL Frame - Frilly No2.  Then matted and layered onto papers from papermania For Him paper pad all cut with the varying sizes of same die.  Sentiment is from Craftwork Cards.

This is a shot of the beach huts down on the front -you can see why she was pleased with the image I think.

So will go see if I can link this, it will be the first time I've tried doing a link in comments.  Fingers crossed it works!

Sarah

Little Claires, Challenge 7 - sparkle

Hello all

Firstly can I say hello and a very big thank you to all you wonderful people out there who have decided that my meanderings and sometimes not very good cards are worth following.  I'm very flattered that so many of you decided to follow boring old me, just hope I don't disappoint!

Well I am getting a bit more regular with my postings aren't I?  Don't get your hopes up though it could all change again!  Just now things are quieter, little one has started going to nursery for two full days, getting her ready for starting school in September (she got into the school that her nursery is attached to by the way, :-) ) as well as her regular morning sessions so I have two full days to do what I like.  Which generally does not include housework!  We also don't have many bookings for the holiday cottage at the moment, so that takes some pressure off me, tho not such good news for the old wages coming in.

I'm blathering on here, and I'm not really sure how many people actually want to read all my meanderings, so I think what I will do in future is put the card details up first and if anyone wants to read the rambles of a getting towards middle age slightly dippy woman, you can do so after the important card stuff!

So I'll do that card stuff now.

This is my entry for Little Claire's challenge, which is sparkle this time.  I haven't gone overboard on the sparkle but kept it subtle.  Maybe some of the LiM style is starting to rub off on my general cardmarking?  I don't know, but the sparkle is there even if understated.

So this is the main pic.

 Some detail shots, in case you can't see the glitter (which is on her bags, earrings, T-shirt and belt buckle) and patterned paper:

 On the embellishments:

 On the sentiment:

The card details are:  Little Claire freebie digi stamp: Lydia goes shopping - coloured with Prisma pencils and glitter.  The paper is from DCWV Glitter Stack, embellishments are K&Co (I think, my habit of chucking packaging again!) and ribbon from stuff.

So my meanderings.  We went swimming today and Sarah being Sarah forgot to take little one's armbands so for the first time ever she went in the pool minus any flotation device.  I thought at first that she would refuse to go in, but we'd gone with her best friend and his mum so she couldn't miss that!  We asked one of the lifeguards if we could borrow a float and got one of those stick things and a square float.  Am so proud of her, she managed to swim with just them - in the leisure and main pool!  Or big girl pool as it's known in our house!  There was a moment of panic just before we left as she tried to drown herself, but she is a brave girl and got over it very quickly.  Was more annoyed at her best friend for laughing at her!

Her reward?  A glass of milk and large slice of chocolate cake in the cafe afterwards.  What a life, eh?

Maybe more cards tomorrow, maybe next week - but probably nothing at the weekend.

Cheerio all

Sarah

Little Claire's Challenge 6 - a sketch

Here I am again with my entry for challenge number 6 at Little Claire's - a sketch.

Oooh, I love sketches!  They seem, for me anyway, to take away a lot of the indecision that I have over the positioning of images and embelishments on the card - but still allow a lot of freedom with regards which image, paper, embelishment.

I'm still very boring tho when it comes to using a sketch, I follow it to the letter - or with very minimal changes.  Can't get my head around being given something to follow and then changing it!  The only change I made to this one is that I turned it into an easel card.

So onto my card, this one is for a friend's father-in-law.  I wasn't sure about what image to use and then suddenly remembered that I could make the card with a Little Claire image and enter it into the challenge.  At least that would be one less card in the box - this time tho it will be two less cards as I also did one for her mother-in-law, but that is with a Lili of the Valley image so that will be going into the LoTV challenge.

Here's my card.  I used Little Claire's 'Oh Man!' stamps for the main image which is coloured with my Prismas (loving these by the way, am using them over my Promarkers - poor promarkers, so neglected!) and also for the shrink plastic embelishment.  The sentiment is a combination of various word sets; the papers are all from Papermania 'Hampstead' pack; image die-cut with a nestie.:

I don't do easel cards very often, partly becuase they are so blooming difficult to photograph.  Apologies for the boring shot, I think tho you get the idea of what an easel card is.  I always seem to be behind the times when it comes to cardmaking, a trend a year ago is new to me!

Hope everyone is enjoying the continued good weather.  We were promised rain over the weekend, it didn't materialise (apart from some tiny spit spots) and we are still waiting now!

Sarah

Little Claire's Challenge 5 - Animals

Arggh, I'm having one of those moments trying to upload this picture!  I'm going to deal with the challenge, then if you want to read my rant you can do it after looking at the card!

The challenge this time at  Little Claire's is animals.  I won a stamp from Little Claire's in the very first challenge I entered on the blog, so I've used that one.  Its a lovely stamp, really easy to colour and I hope I've done it justice.  So the stamp is Little Claire's - Gina and friends, coloured with Promarkers and then the butterflies were lightly glittered (the background is chalked); the paper is from a Brenda Pinnick pad and the flowers are from one of my draws.  The gems are Papermania and the sentiment from Lili of the Valley.

Hope you like.

Now for those of you interested my rant!  I've made it onto a Design Team, Divas by Design - challenges start Weds 4 May, and I've got my card already to go.  Then I wandered around my new team mates blogs and they all have lovely pictures of all their different creations, some with borders, all with their websites on.  So I thought, OK Sarah up your game - you've got to look a bit more professional.  I have been here for the last 45mins trying to get blooming PaintShop Pro to give me a decent pic with a bit of text on.  Can I get the @@@###!!! thing to do it, no I can't!  I've been using Paint just to get the pictures reduced, and I can't get that to put text on my pics either!!  Arrrrggghhhh, I'm getting stressed.

So deep breath, back to the drawing board and try again.

Hope everyone else is having a better day!

Sarah

Little Claire's Challenge 4 - Spring Celebrations

Hello all

This is just going to be a flyer as we are off out to Skegvegas shortly.  Taking little one to have a go on the rides at Bottons.

So here is my card for Little Claire's challenge it is, I hope, Spring colours.  I sort of followed the sketch at Sketch Saturday.  The image is Little Claire's Victoria - coloured with Prismacolor pencils.  The patterned paper - Making Memories, Flutter.  The backing paper, flowers, ribbon from my stock and the sentiment from Craftwork Cards.

See you soon,

Sarah

Little Claire's - Pink and Green

Well aren't I doing well, after having neglected poor bloggy for days I am now overcompensating and am posting loads (for me anyway!). 

This post is really all about Little Claire's challenge No3 - Pink & Green.  I have made a couple of cards with the Blissful stamp, have had it for ages - probably since last year as I know I got it at Harrogate, but I didn't go there last time or the time before - and not inked it up before.  I am going to use it a lot more now, she is such a dream to colour!

Anyway on to cards, it's always the same with me I can't make one card without I have to make another.  I don't know why, it's just how I've always made cards but it does mean I have loads of them! 

So this is my first one, and the one I'm entering into the challenge.  It's slightly back to my old style, but not quite so many flowers as I don't have a lot of green flowers!  Coloured this one with my pencils, apart from her face which is with promarkers.  I don't know about you, but I can't seem to get a skin tone I like from pencils, any tips?  I have to say though that I am well chuffed with the colouring on the hair, I think its the best I've done.  Also no sentiment with it as I wasn't sure where to put it or what to use.

This is the second one is me trying Clean and Simple again, however I haven't quite got the hang of embossing squares with my scoring board.  Maybe I should invest in some Nestie squares, what do you think?  This one is coloured with my promarkers.  I made the big flower, the little ones came from Wild Orchid Crafts, sentiment is from Craftwork Cards and the stamp is from a Basic Grey set.

So this is probably going to be my last post today, as I have to get daughter from nursery soon and then we have a fun packed afternoon at a toddlers group! 

See you soon,

Sarah