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Boz Towers, Essex, United Kingdom
I'm a Red Hat Society member with a love of crafting of all sorts. A very proud mum to four fabulous children and Nan to six gorgeous grandchildren. I started work as a milliner and now have an abiding love of scrapbooking and card making.

The lovely people that drop by ~ thank you.

Wednesday 27 June 2012

Vintage Tag

It's my mother-in-laws birthday in a couple of months time and I've been itching to use some of the vintage and steam-punk bits and pieces I've been stashing away for some time on a card for her.  When I look back at my stash some things have been unused for three or four years so now it's time to bring them out  and have a play.  I was inking and spraying some old pages from a book and liked the look of the flowers I wanted to use.

I chose a tag to go on the front of her card and inked up a Justrite large background stamp to start with in Sepia tones and embossed it with extra fine embossing powder.  I've used a Clarity stamp you can find here and coloured her with Promarkers.  The clock face is from a steam-punk set by Kanban and the ticket die came from Whimsy stamps. Loads of Cosmic Shimmer mist and distress inks too.  The seam binding has been inked and sprayed and I've used some crochet ribbon in copper too.  There's a Marianne die flourish tucked in there as well.  A great time was had by me!


I would like to enter this card into the following challenges on websites that have given me some amazing inspiration:

Vintage udfordring #43  Use a stamp.

Clear It Out Challenge ~ 2 ribbons and Anything goes 

Everybody-Art-Challenge #199 Monochromatic Brown 

Crafty Cardmakers Challenge #71 ~ Make Your Own Flowers

Make It Monday with Cupcake Cards #95 Anything Goes.

Tuesday 26 June 2012

OSAAT Challenge #119 Summer Dresses

 It's time for another challenge over at the One Stitch At A Time challenge blog.  This week our theme is 'Summer Dresses and we are being sponsored by Joanna Sheen with the winner winning a fantastic £10 voucher for her store. 

Who couldn't resist the scrummy crafty items in her store, not me, I've just spent loads this weekend. To win this fab prize the winner will be selected from those entries that use a Stitchy Bear store product on their creation.  You will find hundreds of digital images right HERE to chose from.  Those entries that do not use a stitch Bear store image will be entered into a runner up prize of $3 to spend in the store.

For my card I used a design by Stitchy called Lolitta and you can find her right here.  Can't you just imagine her in the summer, champagne glass in hand, looking cool in the heat.


I've used my Promarkers to colour her dress and added some glitter that's hard to spot in this picture.  I had to take in the very early morning light before I went out.  The background paper is a sheet from First Edition's Sweet Owl pad and the sentiment is a freebie designed by the generous Paulette of Create with TLC.  Thanks, Paulette, it was perfect timing again.  I'm sure there's a mind connection going on between myself and Paulette, I can't think of anything and then one pops up on her blog here that's perfect.




Monday 11 June 2012

Sail Away With Me


At the One Stitch at A Time challenge blog our theme this week for Challenge 117 is for 'The Man in Your Life'.   Our sponsor this week is


who are offering a smashing prize of three Promarkers to the chosen winner who uses a Stitchy Bear Digital Stamp in their design.  Please put the hash sign # after your name when linking your design to the challenge blog.

If you chose to use a non Stitchy Bear digital stamp in your design you will be entered into a runner-up draw for a $3coupon to use at Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps store.


 When selecting the image to use this week I chose this beautiful cameo by Floppy Latte Designs of a sailing boat and it can be found right here.  As I live very close to the river I see many sailing boats along our stretch of the coast and it reminded me of the Thames barges seen recently in the fantastic Jubilee River Pageant.  I was struggling to find the right sentiment for my image and I was watching a tribute to the late Robin Gibb and I wasn't aware that he and his brothers wrote 'Islands in the Stream' sung by Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers. These are some words from that song that I thought fitted perfectly with the image and as a tiny tribute to Robin Gibb.

I've simply used a black card base and mounted the image on to some sea green card from my stash.  I used a Spellbinders Edgeabilities die on a couple of strips of sea green card and added a couple of cardboard hearts.  The image and the sentiment have been dusted over with a blue distress ink to take away the starkness of the white card.

I would like to enter the following:

Creative Inspirations Challenge #116 ~ A Card for a Male 

Sentimental Sundays Challenge #106 ~ For a Special Guy

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge #158 ~ Male Card

Digi Doodle Shop's Challenge #111 ~ Male Card 

Dream Valley Challenge #34 ~ For that Special Guy

Scrappy Frogs Challenge Blog ~ Celebrate Men 

The Crafty Pad #174 ~ Let's Hear It For The Boys 

Creative Card Crew #12 ~ Song Inspired

LEJ Designs #7 ~ Male Projects 

Make It Monday #93 ~ Anything Goes