My photo
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.

Sunday 24 February 2013

OSAAT Challenge #152


It's that time of the week when we post up a new challenge at the One Stitch at a Time Challenge Blog.  This week's challenge #152 is ' Use A Digi' .  So, any digital image is good and we'd love to see what you come up with.  To win the fab prize of all the digital images used by the DT on challenge #150 (so that's easily $20+)  you must use a 'Stitchy' stamp from the store and there are thousands of digital stamps to choose from.  Our sponsor is our own


If you wish to use a non Stitchy stamp your entry must be limited to three only.


  For my card I chose Fairy Flutter by Beary Dust Stamps, isn't she a sweetie. I've used a piece of Prima paper that's been in my stash box for an age, Fairy flutter was coloured with a mix of Promarkers and Copics.  The fancy bird die cuts are by Spellbinders. Lots of fine glitter to finish.

Tuesday 19 February 2013

February Birthdays - Part Three

It's the third part of my February birthdays and this card I've made for  lovely Red Hat chapter member. We call Adele the Countess of Serenity as that is how you feel in her company. She is also known as our Countess of Culture as Adele will, throughout the year, will find us something interesting to do, be it an art exhibition or a visit to the V & A.  This is one of my favouritevisits  as I've been visiting the V & A for well over fifty years, especially their needlework collections.

The card was inspired by two lovely friends, Sarah and Tams. I first saw the sentiment on a beautiful card that Sarah had made for Whimsy Stamps and you can find both sentiment and Sarah's card here. Tams has used one of the other Smile sentiments here on her blog. After seeing the beautiful cards that both these lovely people created, well, no contest, I had to have them.

The background paper is by K&Co that is a couple of years old and I've used the Spellbinders Trellis and Plain and Scallop Squares. You can also see my favourite skeleton leaves from Marianne Designs. The swirl is a new long die from X-Cut.

I would like to enter the following:-


Paper Makeup Stamps - Digi Makeover Challenge 76 
Lexi's Creations - #84 Monochromatic 
Paper Playtime  # 4 Sentiment Stamp
Flonzcraft Challenge #5 - Blues Browns & Beiges 
613 Avenue Create: Challenge #7 Colour

Sunday 17 February 2013

OSAAT Challenge #151

It's time for a new challenge over at the One Stitch At A Time challenge blog.  The theme this week is 'Make It Girly'.  Our sponsor this week is our very own store Stitchy Bear Digital Stamps. You are allowed to enter the challenge as many times as you wish providing your entry has a Stitchy Bear design on it.  For non StitchyBear store designs you may enter three times only.

The lucky winner using a Stitchy Bear design will have the opportunity to win $9 to spend in the store. Non Stitchy Bear entries will be placed into a draw for $3 to purchase something gorgeous from any of the hundreds of images in the store.

For my DT card this week I've used a design from  Kaz Kraft called Framed Cake Stand found here.  I've altered the image colour in my graphics program from black to a very girly raspberry pink.


The gorgeous cake stand says it all for me.

I'd like to enter the following:

Challenges 4 Everybody #14 Anything Goes
Scrappy Frogs Challenge Blog: Use Red or Pink. 
Card Makin Mamas: It's Birthday Time

Monday 11 February 2013

Pass Some Time at Craft My Life

My lovely friend, Elaine, asked me to do a guest spot on her beautiful craft blog called Craft My Life.  I've made a little gift bag that will cost the price of a piece of paper, a small amount of ribbon and a little tag, scissors and a small ball tool..

I found the template here and don't you just love something that's free. I right clicked on the image and selected 'Copy Image'  I then opened a text document (MS Word or Open Office text doc) and right clicked and pasted the image into the document.  I picked up the corner anchors of the image and stretched it as much as would fit on the page. The image was the printed on to the back a piece of Kanban's Mckenzie card stock.  Note: if you would like to make this as big as possible check that your printer can print borderless. The image has quite thick black lines to it making it easy to cut out for little ones.  There are dotted score  lines on the image and this is where you will score with the ball tool.  Fold in on the scored lines and glue. Punch a hole on either side and thread the ribbon through. Decorate with flowers, leaves or a tag. How about using those left over pieces of paper that lurk in your paper stash, just make sure the image will fit by printing it out on a piece of copy paper first as a template.


Saturday 9 February 2013

Winter White

There's a lovely challenge blog called Vintage Udfordring here  and the contributors and those entering create the most amazing items. One of their contributors, Rebecca has a lovely blog called Paper Primrose and her design team creation inspired me to make something for this month's challenge. Rebecca used a background paper of painted wood and I found this image Called Barn Door 2 on Pinterest and added lots of Marianne Designs and Memory Box die cuts. Sprinkled with glitter and caught in the late afternoon sun has made them sparkle.  You can find lots more free  beautiful photos here at RGB Free Stock Photos.

I'd Like to enter the following:

Vintage Udfordring - #54 Winter White
Brown Sugar Challenge Blog #28 Anything Goes 
Happy Campers Craft Collective #10 Shabby Chic 
Shelly's Images TTT Challenge: Neutral with a Pop of Colour. 
Christmas at Sweet Stampin'  #2 Cold & Frosty
Anything Goes Challenge Blog #85 Monochrome


Wednesday 6 February 2013

February Birthdays Part Two

It's the birthday of one of our Red Hat chapter members this month and I really enjoyed making this card for her .  The background collage of old French millinery adverts I put together from a couple of free digital images I've had for a while from a lovely lady out there in blog land. If anyone recognises them, please let me know so that I can give her some credit for all the beautiful images she posts.

The centre  image is from my brand new set of stamps from Graphic 45's A Ladies' Diary Collection and I love this image. (about right really, being a Red Hatter ) I've inked it up with sepia ink and them clear embossed it to make it stand out. I hate taking photo's indoors, can't wait for better weather. Winter outdoor light is fine for me as long as the wind doesn't blow.



I would like to enter this into the following:





February Birthdays Part One

It's my son's birthday this week and he was born two days before our coinage turned to decimal, who is out there in the UK's blog land still occasionally thinks in old money, I know I do.

I made this for him with a Kanban topper from the Gentleman's Journal kit. The background paper is from Graphic 45 and three Whimsy Stamps tickets. I recently bought the screw head brads from Papermania and love 'em.

Happy Birthday, Si.

I'd like to enter into the following:

Make It Monday - #126 - Anything Goes
Challenges for Everyone #13 - Anything Goes 
Cards Galore Challenge blog - One for the men. 


Sunday 3 February 2013

OSAAT Challenge 149

It's time for a new challenge over at the One Stitch At A Time blog and the theme is ' Not a Square Card' and there is also a Design Team Call.

First of all, if you use one of the hundreds and hundreds of digi Stamps in the Stichty Bear store here on your design, you will be entered in to a prize draw to win $9 to spend in-store.  If you chose to use a non-Stitchy stamp you will be entered into a seperate draw to win a prize of $3 to spend in the store.

Secondly, due to the wonderfully creative Dora standing down due to work commitments and two of the fabulously talented Nataliya and Eva taking some well earned time out, we are looking for another two people to join us on the Design Team for a couple of months.  So, if you would like to join us please email our lovely co-ordinator, choccy.oona@gmail.com with your details. Check out the gorgeous cards on the blog too.

For my card I chose this brilliant image by Kaz Kraftz called Steampunk Watch. i had to take a photo under artificial light and hate doing it as I can never find the right place as most of my lighting is down spots.  However, The background paper is from Graphic 45 and is part of the Kraft Reflections pad. I bought a bag of watch parts a little while ago and used these to decorate. A couple of cogs cut with a Spelbinders die and a ticket die and stamp from Whimsy Stamps to finish.