Hi! Just need to mention some fab blog candy that Claudia has over at pretty pressings. If you adore the Sarah Kay stamps then this blog candy is for you! Claudia's blog is also very noteworthy. She has some of the most beautiful cards I have seen, in fact they are definitiely eye candy!! Please go and take a peak!

Carried away!

See I told you that I was addicted to my computer and animals, now look what happened!!

I hope Christmas was fab for you all! I certainly had a fab time with my family. Too much food, too much wine and totally festived out!! I had some fab craft presents which i shall no doubt be testing out shortly!! Looking at the tree now it is starting to look a little tired........... to be truthful I wouldn't mind if it went away and left me some space! Still there is new year to look forward to and more partying! I am looking forward to that! Hic!

Thinking ahead to January I have a niece celebrating a birthday and she loves dolphins so I have had to use my Jayne netley-Mayhew cdrom by joanna sheen. Nice and quick and simple!

Another fab award!

I would just like to take a minute to thank the lovely Andria for this award she has been kind enough to give me. It has some rules attached to it which are as follows:

Link to whoever gave you the award (Andria) and pass it on and link to 5 others...... You also have to write down five things that you are addicted to.

Ok here goes:
1. I have to put cardmaking first as this is where I seem to spend most of my time and money! I also like scrapbooking but cardmaking always comes first! I love stamping and have amassed quite a large amount of stash but it really can't get much bigger as we live in a very small house! It's such a great rewarding and engrossing hobby to have and has enabled me to make some great frinds along the way, especially my lovely blogging friends!

2. Facebook. When not cardmaking it seems that really my addiction to facebook is pretty bad! It also goes hand in hand with my blogging and my blogging friends, so actually maybe i should have put number two as my computer!!

3. Cross stitch. I have an equally large stash of cross stitch and my cardmaking is an extension of this. I have made a massive amount of pictures and cards over the years but my only quibble with it is that it takes too long to produce beautiful pieces! I'm quite a slow stitcher.

4. Animals and family!! I am a real animal lover except for snakes and lizards. I think I like life's little furry friends to cuddle! Not that my hubby is covered in fur?????!!

5. Reading!! I absolutely adore reading! Anything and everything!!

I now have to link up to five more lovely bloggers. These are:

1. Tracy

2. Wendy

3. Clare

I have two spaces left! Please take it if you do not already have it! xxx

Merry Christmas

This will probably be my last post before Christmas. So it just remains for me to wish all my lovely blogging friends a very merry Christmas. I hope that you all get what you want for Christmas and I look forward to seeing what you get up to in the new year. xxx

Thankyou

A huge thankyou to Emma for her lovely blog candy that I received today. It was lovely to get this on the day that my family lost our little Cleo. She had to be put to sleep and I'll miss that little ball of fluff. xxxxxx

Lovely Surprises

Well, what a lovely surprise greeted me today! Lots of lovely comments on my cards ( thank you all!!..........) Don't you just love blog land? Finding some lovely comments that really boost your self-esteem are just so rewarding. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment it means so much. Then not content with my lovely comments I was delighted to discover that I have won Emma's blog candy!! What a great day all in all! Have not been sitting on my laurels though! My sister-in-law is a very creative person and paints fab pots which sell like hot cakes. So I felt I had to make something different for her this year and came across an idea on Joey's blog which led me to research how to do it. I know my sis-in-law loves cats and I have some stamps that were very detailed so have stamped some moggies on my candle. At least it will make her wonder how I did it!!

Willow sketchie

Another week has gone, where does the time go? I have been so busy with things that my crafting has had to take a back seat, but then I saw these Sarah Kay stamps while browsing for a stamp pressie for another crafty friend and I just had to buy it!! The detail on these stamps is amazing and of course now I want them all and I want them now!! ( Stamps feet and jumps up and down!!!) I know that this will not be happening though as hubby has never really understood my need to buy yet more stamps!! Haven't I got enough already????!! Bah humbug!! Still I think I deserve another little pressie to myself from Santa as I have been good most of the year!!

Anyway, thanks Sharon for another little willow sketchie which I just had to do. The sketch was very inspiring and I love it so much that I am going to make a few more similar to this as I need to make some birthday cards for an exchange that I take part in with my cross stitch friends. I used my lush H20s to colour the image, hence its vibrancy.

Forever friends challenge

Lacking time this week, I have made a very quick photo frame. The challenge this week over on the Forever friends blog was " Not a card" Well technically speaking this is not a card as it has a stand at the back and the photo can be removed and replaced with a much nicer one!!!

I have used the cute companions christmas cdrom choosing to use the design set and an insert. I have also used one of my favourite forever friends stamps. If hubby is really lucky he may get this for chrstmas from me!!!!! Only kidding I think he knows what I look like by now!

Willow sketchie

This is the willow sketchie for this week and my interpretation of it.
It was quite a challenge this time! Finding suitable images among my stash was tough as most of them are quite large! In the end I used two stamps for the main images and the cute companions stars for the background. I still quite like the finished article!

Forever friends

Just can't get enough of these little bears!

Gosh, where has the week gone! I just seem to be snowed under with work and so little time! Still have managed to get a few cards in and have to say that I have been disapointed with the shop bought cards that have darkened my letter box! I know that's so ungrateful and I should think it wonderful that people send me them but the quality of the cards is shocking and they just seem very bland............Hand crafted cards are just so beautiful and I love them!..........

And another using the same image as I had enjoyed colouring that image again! I really love these forever friends stamps. The detail on them is fantastic!

Here's my attempt at a contemporary Christmas card! I loved colouring this image! The background paper is either funky fairies or Pink petticoat. Not sure which as they both have the same paper!

Still in a brown, chocolate kind of mood I thought I'd make my little brother's birthday card. Am a bit annoyed with myself as I have ended up with some inky finger marks on the inner circle. So I guess folks don't choc and craft!! Oh and my little brother will be celebrating his 37th birthday!! So he's not so little but to me he always will be!

I was inspired by two things today! A willow sketchie ( No 4) and a bag of maltesers!! Yum! Well it is Christmas ( nearly!) I have used my Penny black 12 days of Christmas set, some pink petticoat papers, nestabilities dies ( which are new and worked perfectly in my old red sizzix machine!!) a brad from my stash and some spotty ribbon that was lurking unused in my stash! Thanks to Sharon for the inspiring sketch. I really enjoyed doing this and eating the maltesers!! Just don't make me choose between them!

just a few quick birthday cards

My first Award!

Wow! Thank you so much Wendy for awarding me with this! I haven't been blogging for very long and it's fantastic that you would be kind enough to bestow this on me. Having not been blogging for very long I don't know many blogs to pass this on to but I'll let you know when I have found some worthy recipients! Having said that I would love to pass it back to you!!

This award comes with the following:

This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships!These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

The first person who deserves this award goes to Emma over at http://metalicbutterfly.blogspot.com/

Please check out her blog and her new challenge! Well done Emma!

What a rollercoaster of a day I have had at work! So escaping in to a bit of card making was really good for stress busting! I had a look on the forever friends challenge page and have had a go at this. I guess this is what the sketch was?? It was very difficult to see! Anyway, it inspired me to do a couple of cards for birthdays, which I needed anyway. The blue zig zag one is truest to the sketch and the other one was just playing a round with some scraps. I hate to waste anything and am a terrible hoarder of bits and pieces!

The wedding on Friday was glorious. I had a fabulous time! Unfortunately too much alcoholic indulgence put paid to my creativity for a few days! Still marching onwards with those Christmas cards and have started to play with my penny blacks! I printed out this pink petticoat spotty paper and thought that it would be perfect for the cow! I also saw that the christmas paper was a freebie download courtesy of pink petticoat and added the red card to make it christmassy. I think that these stamps are a real bargain!

Forever Friends: 17th Nov - Round the bend.#comments

Forever friends challenge

Ok! Never done one of these challenges before and have used some funky fairies and pink petticoat downloads. I am not quite sure about it but enjoyed playing with the circles anyway. The best thing was that I used up a load of little scraps that I had!!

Changed my mind and used my forever friends stamps instead and some of that lush ribbon!

Picked up some bits of ribbon to play with today. They were reduced in WHsmith. They were reds and greens and very pretty. I think that they will go really well with some of my Penny B lack stamps. Think I might have to play with them later! I love all these festive colours, don't you? Getting very excited about the wedding on friday. Food, drinks and a day off work!! Yippee! Hopefully back on later with some Christmas card updates!

Last one for tonight! Just messing around with some scraps and feeling a bit dotty!!

A touch of doodling here and Elzybells stamp.

It's those cute little mice again! A touch of recycling here and using up some scraps

Orange blossom CDRom

Housework, who invented that then eh? Bit short on time today and still need to go shopping, so this was a real quickie! I had pronted these papers out already so just matted and layered them and decoupaged the pudding. Hmnnnn feeling very festive now and in the mood fro some more Christmas cards....................blow the housework!

Another Elzybells image and funky fairies free download. The other spotty paper is a cuddly buddly free download. These free downloads are great for experimenting with! Ribbon and brads are from my stash.

Been playing with my Elzybells stamps and a free download from Funky Fairies. I love these crisp images!

Newton bear stickers

Only had a bit of time for a couple of cards tonight and wanted to use the Christmas rounds that I had downloaded from Funky Fairies. I love them! Of course I love Newton bear too! Expect some more from him as I have a whole CD rom of images to play with Yippee!! The Christmas papers are stuff from last year as was the glittery ribbon which I got from Lakeland when they sold off all their craft stuff cheaply! Oh how I miss them for that!

Cute companions stamps and pink petticoat paper. Cute companions CDROM and lots of tlc!

Get well soon

And finally for today some Joanna Sheen cards

Magnolia Moments

Magnolia stamping moments.