twas the night before....

As Christmas is fast approaching and having already got one present in the bag, last week I decided to get going with Christmas cards - last year I left it too late and had to do quick printed cards, so out came the bag of recycled Xmas card toppers........

My favourite out of this bunch is the girly girl one, wasn't supposed to turn out like this, I was aiming for silver but found the two embossed squares and knew I had to use them.

teddy bear love

 

simple stacker card onto 5x5 backing paper and left space for a sentiment.

splut-splut

goes the engine as it fires up.

Plane topper came from a (shop) birthday card Andrew received, love the bronze colouring on it.
Darker backing paper is from Hot Off The Press - Soft Nostalgia collection
Lighter backing paper from one of the Nitwits collections
Stamp from Papermania's urban range

Stamped first with a black pigment ink, then over stamped with encore's bronze ink to give it a slightly smudged look, (also rubbed the bronze ink round the paper edges) embellished with peel offs, small metallic studs, a couple of teeny tiny bronze gems, string dipped in cold tea and a green button.

Love the result.

Have entered this card into:

vintage elusions - men & machines/anything goes
crafty mess - distressed/aged

in for a penny....

.... in for a pound.
Following hot on the heels of my first challenge attempt, I decided to have another go......

A cute Chrsitmas card.

Using some of last years chrismas stash from various magazines, and Baby's 1st Christmas digistamp from digistampboutique, coloured in with promarkers - my first attempt at a 'normal' skin tone.

have entered this card in the following challenges:

digi stampboutique - september
fetch-a-sketch 33

Sewing Punk

Playing around doing a steampunkish style card, loved getting messy with the stamps and glue. the backing paper came from Debbi Moore habedashery cd, Clock stamp from PaperMania's Urban range, butterfly stamp from The Loving Life Collection and the Armillary Sphere from KayCee Crafts.
The sewing machine image was from the Graphics Fairy.Embellished with a few metal washers and a hook which made a good question mark.

Having a play with CSS layouts and making my own banners/background so bear with me over the next few days, as I change my mind many, many times.

first ever go at a challenge!

Whilst tidying up 'The Land of Blog' to make it more me friendly ie the Monica in me was straining to be unleashed and bring ORDER to the chaos also known as a completely okay layout and design blog.....

I came across the nutcrafters challenge and decided to have a go.....

(yet more use of ........)

So here goes -

 I've had the Fae image from simplysumara for a little while but hadn't used it and thought it would beperfect for the 'Glitter and Gems' challenge. The backing paper came from Debbi Moores 'Evergreen'cd. The image was glued flat apart from the wings were I used a raised sticky pad under and scrunched up abit to make a more contoured feel. Added a frayed black ribbon, some gems and silver glitter.

My favourite bit of the card is how the glitter makes the wings look even more dimensional - the photo doesn't really pick that up though.

 

entered in nutcrafters  -  Glitter and Gems challenge

A commissioned card for a 60th birthday - happy birthday mum, flowers and a nice verse. Hope this fits the bill ;)

 

 

Luscious Lily stamp from Dimension Stamps, sentiment made in CAP and a bit of chameleon glitter - I say a bit because I dropped the full pot on the floor, my skirt and slippers. Hence we now have a little Fairy glitter trail throughout the house ;)

change of plan for our week off - decided it would be a tad cold at night for camping in Norfolk, lovely days but cold nights.

Today us and the 3 dogs went to Hardwick Hall for a walk round the Estate, its about 15 minutes in the car from our doorstep so we left about 11am so we could nicpic in the Park. We walked from the Park car park, up to the Halls and through the newly revamped StableYards (now a lovely restaurant, gift and plant shop) and continued along Lady Spencer's walk and then back towards the halls and car parks.

    Hardwick Old Hall peeping over the

 treeline as we walked up the estate 

    on the left is Hardwick New Hall and

on the right is the Old Hall

Hardwick Old Hall is the original family home of Bess of Hardwick, she was one of the richest and most remarkable women of Elizabethan England. she had the Hardwick New Hall built later in the 1590s, literally a few hundred yards away.
I think English Heritage owns the Old Hall, you can still go in and have a look around, but you can also see some of the upstairs decorative panels from the outside.

two stags over an upstairs hearth.

 

One day we will go in both halls.

Murtle, my Beagle sticking her tongue out at the ball *g*

 

Spent a lovely couple of hours there and even managed to get some great photos for my Fungi collection. Obsessed much!

no idea what these are but there was a lot of clumps on this tree, and there was a lovely fragrant smell around them.

 

 

 

 

       this one is a Piptoporus betulinus -

 Birch Polypore.

 

 

 



wedding acceptance

Never had to make a card for this occasion, so many images to use but I eventually settled for the swirly frame, did the card in CAP, then embellished it with a butterfly - to tie in with the Invitation which had a small butterfly in the corner

 

used glossy photo paper and layered it onto black cardstock to keep it co-ordinated and simple. The swirly frame came from The Graphic Fairy.

 

 

Another card using one of the preprinted digi stamps, backing papers from Crafts Beautiful to match and used pale pink, almond, lemon and pastel green promarkers to balalnce the flower.

A Happy birthday for a friend at work, something a bit bolder than want I normally do, using Debbi Moore papers.

and a sheet of music paper from a charity bargain buy.

its been ages since I crafted hence the away time from here, had 'a touch of the vapours' as they used to call it in the old days but you don't really want to know about that, I bore myself rigid with it, let alone any one else. Surfice to say hanging on by my fingertips...... only just.

Anyhoo, a birthday card which is also suitable as an open card.

Coloured the pre-printed Daisy & Dandelion digi stamp with matching promarkers.