I'm gonna be quick because the dogs have been waiting impatiently for me to take them out all night but I've been waiting for the snow to stop. It's not stopped for the last couple of hours and it's that really horrible wet stuff and I know I'll be soaked through and freezing by the time I come back...can you blame me for putting it off???!!

Anywho, here's another beauty of Gaynor's...Balloon Ruby. I love her pixie face...I just want to pinch her cheeks lol (something my Aunty Millie used to do to us when we were kids). The colours Gaynor used are lovely together.

You can see she paper pieced her dress. That's something that I never do but I think I'm going to give it a try.

Here is my effort for tonight. I spent a lot of time trying to turn a piece of lace into a flower and failed miserably. I love the crochet flowers that are popping up...especially the ones make of linen thread opposed to wool. They look more elegant and classy. I opted for big button with a piece of twine tied in a bow. The border is punched from my new MS punch I got on Saturday at Craft World....love it!!

I {heart} Daydreaming Ruby

I used one of the sentiments from the Fairy Sentiment set.

A pungent odour has just wafted my way so I better get these hounds outside before they leave me a present!!!

Thanks for stopping by.

Catch ya later x

Snow way...

I would have thought Mother Nature was all snowed out by now...uh nope! Woke up this morning to a light covering of snow everywhere...come one MN...enough is enough but oh no....she has other ideas and it's snowing right now!!! So much for spring :-(

On a happier note I finally made a card...yaaaaaayyyy! I text Annette early on Saturday to see if she fancied a little road trip to our local craft store after I took the dogs out. I don't need to tell you she was up for it so I picked her up and off we went. First stop was Craft at Home but they weren't open...again. From there we went to Ink Spot but didn't see anything we liked so we extended our search to Craft World where if we were clever should have been our first port of call. We FIL with a new paper pad from DCWV called Linen Closet...the colours are patterns are gorgeous and I don't think there are any I don't like. Some are glittered and some plain and I used one of the glittered papers on the card below.

I think it's quite an unusual colour combo but it works. I bought the Martha Stewart ribbon in Michael's the last time I was home...it's a perfect match so I must have known it would come in handy some time :-)

I can never resist glittering Martini Nikki's blouse...a girl can never have too much sparkle! I snuck 2 of the pads in with my Bazzill cs and MS border punch. Annette's birthday is April 10 so I bought it for her...you're probably thinking I just spoiled her surprise but I gave it to her as soon as we got in the car ;-).

I promised another card from Gaynor and here it is...isn't she gorgeous...

I haven't taken an angled picture but you can tell it's been 3D'd


Don't tell the other's but Daydreaming Ruby is my favourite...sshhhhhh. I love the gold in her hair and again there must be at least 4 layers.

I met my friend Jean in town for lunch today and had a good catch up. We picked lottery numbers out of a hat years and years ago and she plays them for the Wednesday draw and I play them for the Saturday draw. I never check the numbers for Wednesday so it was a nice surprise when she told me the other week we won two £10's so we had lunch courtesy of Camelot. I had my usual pate which was yummy. Afterwards we went to a new eyeglass store called Oscar & Fitch...they have the most fabulous frames and I tried on a few before I found THE pair. All the frames are the same price, £65 and you pay £20 for the lenses (they don't do eye tests but you give them your prescription and they do the rest) so you get a really funky pair of specs for £85. I'm due an eye test which I'll book asap and go back and get the frames. If I'm feeling very brave I'll take a picture of me wearing them and post it. We also had a look in French Connection and they have some really pretty things for the summer. I only did a visual shop today so hopefully I'll go back when the weather's a bit better and buy them.

Just noticed the time so I'm off to bed. I plan on getting my website sorted tomorrow and make some more cards. Dogs are at ddc so I can please myself :-)

Catch ya later x

All in a days work.....not!

Ok...so today didn't really go to plan. First I thought I'd had a long lie when I looked at the clock and it said 8:55...until I realised it was really 7:55 so no long lie for me! The rest of the day ran away from me after taking the dogs to CB coming home to tidy then Tesco's for some food. Home to put it all away...put a few loads of wash on the line outside only to find an hour later it's chucking it down and it's wetter than when I put it out!! Dinner to be made and tidy...notice no mention of making a card...now it's ironing so I can spend most of the week in my workroom.

The best bit about this week is that Ryan has signed for Dundee until the rest of the season. He may be going down a division but it means he gets to play first team football. He signed on Thursday and drove up Friday for the game on Saturday against Ross County. They were winning until the last few minutes when RC scored to give them a draw but Ryan was pleased with his performance (he's VERY critical of himself) and so were the management. Fingers crossed he'll get his fitness up and continue to do well. This was only his 2nd game since January so it's onwards and upwards. This interview took place after the game. I'm so proud of him...he's not one for many words lol!

I have a busy day tomorrow but I will post a card....promise!!

Catch ya later x

New Website!

Morning everyone! I've been working really hard on my new website and at times I've wanted to throw my laptop out of the window! I know it's supposed to be easy...click, click, click and it's done but I really do think you need a small bit of techie knowledge behind you because it's taking me so much longer to get things done as I think it should.

I've used one of their templates until I can figure out how to redesign it to match my blog. It's extremely pink and while I love pink this is just a bit too bright! I also started uploading images before I put them into categories so I now have the categories with all the stamps and crystals in them (did I mention I was going to be selling Swarovski crystals?) but I also have all the stamps on my front page which I can't seem to delete and won't be able to until I can call the Support team tomorrow...imagine them having a weekend off when I need them!!!!

I did a dummy order to see if it was working properly and managed to place an order without paying lol so I had to work out how to do that....and to my total astonishment I did it!!! I wouldn't be a very good business woman if I didn't charge for anything. Anywho, you can see it here ... it's up and running so I'm ready for orders....I think!!! I'm too impatient to wait to get the front page sorted so excuse the slight mess ;-)

Right...I want to do my roots this morning then take the dogs to CB for a good run. I also want to make some cards to post so I'm gonna get cracking. I'll be back later to post one of Gaynor's cards.

Catch ya later x

Work of art

Remember I told you Gaynor had made samples for me and they were arriving this week? Well postman Steve rang my doorbell with a box for me and it was my samples. I was so excited I even showed them to Steve lol. Even with his handicap of being a man (as they don't notice detail) couldn't help but be impressed with Gaynor and Ann's cards! See for yourself...

How amazing is this! 3D'd, decoupage...call it what you like but a lot of work went into these samples.

Look at all the layers!

The cutting of these images must have taken hours

Even with my glasses I'm not sure how many layers there are but I think it's 5 or 6!

When I met Gaynor and Ann at Birmingham and they told me they'd make me some samples of course I was delighted...especially after they showed me the Hero Arts ones they did for someone else. Gaynor's business card was pulled from the prize draw box to win the set of 8 Ruby Fairies. I was a bit sceptical when Gaynor said she'd make my samples from theRuby's because the were so intricate but if you look close enough (click on them to enlarge) there are no white bits or tears. It must have taken them hours and a lot of patience to stamp, colour and cut the images out. This is one of 8 samples and I can't wait to show you the others. I'll share more tomorrow.

I said I had something to share with you .... actually I have 2 things. One is that I have asked Gaynor and Ann to be on my design team...not that I have an official one lol...and they have agreed.! I think it's great to show off a different way of using stamps apart from the obvious. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with Nikki & Friends :-)

The 2nd thing is I'm in the process of making my own website!!! Not sure I fully understand what I've let myself in for but I'm up for the challenge. I started it yesterday and hopefully by Monday I'll have it up and running. I am technically challenged when it comes to the nitty gritty ie html etc of computers and programmes but the company I've gone with were recommended to me and I've read some good things about them. I've already used their live help line and Matt was brilliant. I'm sure I'll be using it a lot over the weekend and they might just end up barring me lol. Wish me luck!

My stamps arrived yesterday but sadly not my label gun...I found out this morning it won't be coming until next week so Annette and I have our work cut out for us today...especially with another load of stamps coming this morning! I managed to get all the back orders out late yesterday afternoon....thank you for your patience...and I have another few orders going today and that will be me up to date.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Catch ya later x

New gadget

Did you see my new gadget? Bottom left? I resisted getting this for a while...don't know why really but I decided yesterday was the day and I installed it. It is so much fun! (I know I'm sad lol) I love watching where people are clicking onto my blog from. Uk, Ireland, Canada, USA....and if you click on 'watch in live time' you can see what time they've come on your blog and when they leave, where they've come from..coooooool :-)

I love this card but it doesn't take a very good picture. I tried all sorts of lighting and this was the best of a bad lot. It looks so much nicer IRL. This is a great way of using up all your scraps. These scraps are from MME's Quite Contrary range which you can get from Hayley.

I said in yesterday's post that I was going to challenge myself to use flowers on a card next week...I guess next week came early lol. I made this flower myself with the most gorgeous felt and topped it with a PTI button tied with their Rustic Cream Twine. I got the tiny pink nailheads on my travels...I think I've got 5 or 6 colours and a gazillion of each!

I got confirmation today that my stamps are arriving tomorrow so I sure hope my label gun arrives too. It will make the whole process of labelling the packages a lot quicker. Only thing is Annette and I will probably fight over who gets to use it first lol.

Lots of great things happened today one of which was Gaynor phoning me telling me my samples are in the mail and I should get them tomorrow....I am sooooo excited! I've also got some fab news which I'll share with you tomorrow.

Anywho peeps that's it for tonight...thanks for checking in.

Catch ya later x

To flower or not to flower...

This is one of four cards Karen made for Creative Cardmaking last month. It came out just in time for the Birmingham show and I managed to have a copy on display on my stand. I love the bright colours Karen used ... especially the flowers. I have a love/hate relationship with all these flowers..I love them/they hate me or more like I love them but when I put them on a card they just don't look right. I've got stacks of Prima flowers all in a big box crying out to be used but never see the light of day. I think I'll set myself a challenge for next week...I'm going to use some flowers on a card and post it to see what you think...please be kind :-)

I never made it to my workroom today as I had a lot of running around to do but tomorrow is another day and once I've walked the dogs I'm locking myself away!

Thanks for stopping by.

Catch ya later x

Happy Monday everyone! I had to answer some questions and attach a recent picture of myself for an article I've been asked to do (so excited!) and since the article is coming out in the next couple of months and I only had pictures of myself wearing winter clothes I thought I'd try and take pictures of myself. As I held the camera at arms length I knew my long monkey arms would come in handy one day! Well I snapped snapped and snapped away and I deleted and deleted and deleted. My face would either look too fat, double chinned, shiny...just totally awful. I must have spent a full hour trying to get one. I was inside, outside...I hope my neighbours didn't see me! In the end out of desperation I sent one I'd taken last week with strict instructions to airbrush it to the max lol!

Here are the cards I made at the crop on Saturday. I know I said I made 7 cards...and I did, but I made 3 of 2 and 1 of 1.

When I delivered Craft World's order last week Gaynor showed me the new Basic Grey papers...BIG mistake. OMG...they are gorgeous and here they are! They're from the Kyoshi range and I love 'em :)

I've stitched some left over strips of cs together from the range....


I think this one is my favourite...you know how I love green and this is just yummy...sigh...

I've used another American Art Stamps image here...

Can you tell I only brought one green ribbon to the crop? I'm not sure about it on the stitched card but it's taped in between the layers so I'll leave it. I've another 2 to make so I'm going to change it to something plainer.

I've managed to get a lot done today...mostly by email and phone but I feel I've accomplished a lot. I ordered a label gun this morning to put the labels on the back of the packages. It will be so much quicker and less expensive that printing them on the computer and labelling them by hand.

That's it for today folks. Hope you have a good week.

Catch ya later x

Another weekend gone

What a laugh we had at the crop yesterday. I don't know if Annette forgot to take her medication or took too much but she kept us thoroughly entertained! Although I had seen Annette and Elaine recently we had a lot to catch up with Julie, Chris and Alison. Julie had made some gorgeous Nikki images using fabric. Instead of paper piecing she fabric pieced! Julie is VERY talented with the sewing machine and used to design and make wedding dresses. She used some leftover scraps of silk for Nikki's tops, pants and even Martini Nikki's couch!! She has taken pictures of the cards she made with them yesterday and will email them to me for me to post.

For the make and take we did the magnet board but I changed it for the crop. The girls loved it and we had a great time making the flowers to be turned into magnets. What a hoot the magnets were...I got super strenghth ones and you could barely pull them apart! Also you had to be careful where you put them down as anything magnetic would end up attached. Poor Chris lost one of her flowers and we hunted high and low for it. Elaine eventually found it attached to the bottom of my tin of colouring pencils lol. Here's the finished result...hope you like it.

The pp is from MME from the Tiny Dancer range and is one of my favourites but for some reason they've decided to discontinue it!!! When I heard that I hunted high and low for it but it was sold out everywhere. If anyone knows where I can get some more please let me know.

This is a cute flower. I cut 4 scallop circles from my Nestabilities, punched a hole in the centre of them with my Crop a dile, spritzed them with water and scrunched them up. Then I gently unfolded them, put a brad through and moved the 'petals' around until I was happy with the look. I waited until it was dry before I attached the bottom flower to look like leaves then attached the magnet to the bottom with Glossy Accents.

Another flower

I was only going to make the 3 flowers for the magnets but Annette loves butterflies and loved the ones I made for Nicole's board so I added them as well. I tried to get the colours to match but the blue isn't quite right.

After we finished the m/t we had lunch then I managed to make 7...yes people...7 cards!!!! I think that's the most I've made in one day in a long long LONG time. I'll post them tomorrow.

I've got a busy week ahead. Tomorrow I have to finalize a few orders and get them shipped off. The rest of my stamps are arriving Tues/Wed so I'll need to count and code them...Annette said she would give me a hand which is fantastic.

That's all for today. Hope you've had a good weekend. The sun has been shining here in Glasgow so hopefully spring has arrived!

Catch ya later x

Do do do do do do do do

Did anyone get the number of the bus that hit me lol???!!! I thought the pain of exercise was supposed to lessen the more you did...I think it's getting worse :-(

Where do you do your best thinking? Mine is either walking the dogs or in the shower. When I was in the shower yesterday I was thinking of all the things I had to do and Gaynor popped into my head . Gaynor made the beautiful 3D cards that I posted a few weeks ago and promised samples of the Ruby Fairies stamps she won in the draw. I wondered how she was getting on and if she'd managed any samples. Literally 30 minutes later my phone rings and guess who it is?? Gaynor!!! We must have telepathy or something...she called to tell me that she's done some samples and she'll be posting them next week!!! How spooky was that? (the title of this post is supposed to be the do do do when something eerie happens lol) I cannot wait to see what she's done with them and you can be sure they'll be posted the minute they arrive. Thank you Gaynor :-)

I made three of these cards today. I absolutely love this MME paper I got at the SECC. It's the Quite Contrary Range and it's Mary Mary 'Sweetie Pie' Berry Preserves Paper...bit long winded that! Anywho, you'll know I have a thing about MME and these tones of green...love them!! I really hope Hayley has included this range in her order.

I love these American Artstamps

The sentiments are brilliant!

I was going to use a clear button here as I didn't have one that really coordinated with the paper but thought it looked really plain and and lost against the pp. I ended up cutting a circle with the other side of the pp with my nestabilites and glued it on the back of the button with glossy accents. When it dried I poked the holes through with a needle and threaded the twine through and tied a bow. Love it!

The new metal sheets arrived this morning so I'm now going to crack on with the m & t. If any of the girls that are coming on Saturday are reading this, it will be totally different to the one I posted a couple of days ago. Hope you won't be disappointed!!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day :-)

Catch ya later x

Aching all over

**Warning: There's no eye candy in this post so if you don't want to read check in tomorrow!**

Remind me next time I decide to start exercising not to!! I haven't done anything serious in over a year but decided the other day the muffin top (not the banana pecan kind!) had to go. I love the idea of running but I did enough of that when I was at school and I'd have to wash my hair after. I like the idea of joining a gym but then it takes up so much time. I like the idea of a personal trainer but would cost too much (I'd have to have them at least 3 times a week) so I decided to dust of my trusty 2 kilo ball and my Melt It Off dvd and spend 10 minutes (yes 10 minutes) a day killing myself. You might not think 10 minutes is enough but my body will tell you it's more than enough! I'd hate to think how I'd feel if I did the 30 minuted program lol. The genius behind it is Mitch Gaylord, the US Gold Medal gymnast from 25 years ago. I'm going to keep at it for a week and then gradually add my mini trampoline which is so much fun and the best thing about both exercises is that I don't have to wash my hair after either :-)

Hayley tried to help me put my shopping buttons on my shopping page today and we did a brilliant job. We managed to get the price centered underneath the name of the image and even got the shopping button centered underneath the price. Only thing we couldn't manage was to make it work lol. When we clicked on the button nothing happened and after an hour I decided to wave the white flag and send an sos to Heather who originally did it for me. I'm sure Hayley and I would have got it eventually but I'd already taken up so much of her time and I knew she still had to put all her stock away after her very first show at the weekend. I've fired off an email to Heather so fingers crossed she'll get in touch soon. She said she'd talk me through it over the phone (she's in the States) so I hope she's not too busy. Thanks Hayley for your help today :-)

My stamps were supposed to arrive tomorrow but I got a call from the manufacturer around 6 tonight saying I won't be getting them until Friday now. I'm gutted because I didn't want to be one of these people that promised something and that didn't deliver though I know it's outwith my control. So anyone waiting for their stamps I'm really sorry and I'll get them out asap. Hopefully they'll come in the morning and I can post them in the afternoon.

I re-ordered the metal plates with holes for the make and take on Saturday and they'll be here tomorrow so I'll be busy redesigning the magnet board I made for Nicole...she loved hers btw...and cutting all the pieces. I've picked a gorgeous My Mind's Eye paper and SU! ribbon for it. Dogs will be at DDC so I'll have peace to get everything done.

I'm going to head into my workroom now and try and conjure up some creation to post tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by.

Catch ya later x

Make and Take

We have our regular crop on Saturday and I can't wait. When I say regular, we do our own thing ie: scrapbooking or cardmaking and I always do a make and take. When I first started the crop just over a year ago the m & t's were pretty basic though at the time I thought they were fabulous lol. But since I started doing the workshops (where we do 3 pretty involved projects) alternate months the m & t's have become mini projects and this m & t is no exception. I don't normally show the projects in advance but I was super excited when I finished it.

I saw this project on Chic' n Scratch Live! This is a fantastic site where I've got a few of my ideas from and then altered to suit what I was doing. It's a magnetic note board. I went to my local DIY store and B & Q but couldn't find the pieces of metal sheets I needed but managed to find them on ebay. Unfortunately I forgot to ask them to cut holes in them so had to improvise by sewing magnets into the ribbon. In the Chic' n Scratch video she punches the holes with her Crop a dile but I think my metal is thicker than hers and even though it's only 1mm thick, either I'm a weakling or she's super woman! I didn't want to break my Crop a dile so have ordered more with holes.

I had made some extra acetate butterflies (see tutorial below) and decided they would make fab magnets. I wanted to make a little note for her so stamped my little ladybug that Karen gave me and coloured him with my Prisma pencils...added the sentiment, mounted it on purple cardstock and voila!
I glossed up his wings with Glossy Accents and added a Swarovski crystal to the centre of the flower.

I made a few of the butterflies in different colours...this one is pink and purple. The make and take won't be exactly like this so I haven't spoiled it completely girls!

This one is for Nicole. I pick up her in the mornings and take her to the train for work so I'm going to give it to her then...I hope she likes it.

My workroom is calling me so I'll say goodnight.

Catch ya later x

Stampin' Up! fun

When we were at the Stampin' Up! stand at the SECC Annette and I were invited by Emma Crockett (a SU demonstrator) to an event held at the Pond Hotel on Saturday. When we arrived we got our ticket stamped...I spied a cupcake so asked for that and Annette got a .... can't remember!... and found a seat at one of the tables with 6 other girls. There were lots of demonstrations and we got to make 3 projects.

The first was this card using my favourite colour from SU! Old Olive cs and a new stamp set to be released April 1st called My Sweet Pea. To say Annette and I fell in love (not to sound too dramatic lol) with this set was an understatement! SU! have a knack of putting colours together that you wouldn't even think to in a million years. Here we've got Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Tempting Turquoise and I think Pink Passion. There's also Chocolate Chip ink for the bird.

This is an almost 6 x 6 scrapbook page which could easily be a card for those of us that haven't succumbed to the dark side!! I love this set :-)

And our final project was this voucher card holder. I love the Bashful Blue and Old Olive together. Did I tell you I love this set lol??? So that's one stamp set and three very different projects. I can't wait for this set to be released...only 16 sleeps to go! I was writing my wish list as we went along but ended up crossing half of it off when I got home when I realised I had most of it.

After the first project there was a prize and the winner got the My Sweet Pea stamp set and Pumpkin Pie ink pad. I couldn't believe it when they flashed up a ladybug on the screen...this was what the stamp was for on our invitation when we arrived. I spied the ladybug but thought it was a strawberry lol!!! Oh well better luck next time.

In between the projects there were demonstrations from 2 of the demonstrators. Emma's was really cool. She made a flower out of a long piece of ribbon and it looked super easy. I'm going to give it a try and hopefully do a tutorial on it.

When it was all finished and I was tidying up one of the girls from our table came up to me asking if I was Kerry. I wasn't sure if I should own up since I didn't know if I was in trouble or not (guilty conscience???) but it turned out she was one of my followers....hmmmm...that sounds almost cultish!!! How small worldish was that?? Anyway, hi Susan...it was lovely meeting you. Don't forget to send me pictures of your Martini Nikki cards!

Looking at the time I think I might just get a card or two in before bed. Thanks for stopping by.

Catch ya later x

Happy Mother's Day....and a tutorial!

Hope all you mother's are having a lovely day and are being spoiled by your kids! It's a beautiful day here in Glasgow so took Rocky and Ruby to Cathkin Braes for a good run. We've only just started going back this weekend after 6 weeks off with Rocky's limp. I shouldn't even be taking him out off the lead just now...the last time we were at the vet's he said another month of lead walks!!!! I thought he was joking but he was deadly serious...does he not know how much energy Rocky has??? I wouldn't do anything to jeapordize my dogs health so I went along with that for about a week or so and since Rocky wasn't limping for the majority of that took the decision to let him run free. LOL...he ran like he'd been locked up in a cage!! There's been no after effects so I'll continue to let him run free but keep an eye on him.

Nicole phoned at 10:30 on her way into work to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. We're all heading there tonight for dinner...chilli...yuuuuummmmyyyy. Ryan text me to wish me when I was at Sadie's and once Steven remembered he wished me as well!! The boys bought me a pedicure from my favourite place The Beauty Store. It is one hour of sheer bliss...can't wait to use it.

Right...enough of that....on to the main event! Please be gentle with me...this is my first ever tutorial and I hope I've done it and explained it well enough for you to understand and have a go yourselves. The girls at the Stampin' Up! stand told me how to do it so this was done from memory. I think I did a not so bad job with the memory since I can't seem to retain much these days except water!! Here we go...

Acetate Butterflies

These are the materials you'll need for this project. You can't see it very well but there is a piece of acetate under the Stazon ink pad. I've used SU! reinkers as they're all I had but I'm sure you can use others.

First stamp your butterfuly image from Flight of the Butterfly onto your acetate using white Stazon. I've put the acetate on a piece of kraft card so you can see it better.

Turn the acetate over so the inked image is facing down and pour glossy accents over the image. I think I used a tiny bit too much here...I wasn't told quantites....but I don't think it affected the final result...just the drying time!


I've used 2 colours of reinkers but you can use as many you like. Drop a couple of drops of each colour onto the Glossy Accents then sprinkle with glitter (don't be shy!!). It looks like a dogs dinner at the moment but I think the colours blended more than I would have liked because of the time it took me to take the picture.

Scrunch up your tissue paper then open up an place over the Glossy Accents gently pressing down. Now this is the hard part...waiting for it to dry. You can either leave it to air dry...this will take HOURS or you can help it along with either your heat tool or do what I did and put it in your hotwater tank cupboard! I actually did this just before I went to bed so when I woke up it was perfectly dried out.

This picture shows what they look like from the front and back so you know what to expect.

Trim away any excess tissue paper and acetate and punch out your butterfly. It took a bit of persuasion for the acetate to go through as it was a bit thicker in parts with the tissue paper but just take your time and go gently.

This is the end result! You can see the folds of the tissue paper and the glitter...gorgeous :-D

And this is the card I made using one of the trailing sentiments from the set.

Another close up of the butterfly. You can do this technique with lots of punches...hearts would be stunning.

So that's it...what do you think? It is very easy...it's just the waiting that's the worst part but if you do a few of these the night before like I did you'll have a great time the next day punching them out and making your cards. Hope you enjoyed it.

Catch ya later x

Happy weekend

Hiya folks...I'm still alive but I really don't know where the days are going. I'm going to have to try and locate a class on time management because I ain't so good at it these days. Since I don't have any real reason to get out of bed in the mornings as Steven left school 3 years ago, I find excuses for an extra 5 minutes, then 5 minutes leads to 10 and before I know it, it's almost 9 am and to me that's half the day gone! I also made the fatal mistake this week of not showering before going down the stairs to check mail, emails etc. Then I tidy and vacuum while the dogs are looking at me with pleading eyes to go for their walk. So this week I'm not leaving my bedroom until I've showered and dressed and I'm going to make lists of things I want to do the night before the day I want to do it....did you get that lol???

My Stampin' Up! goodies arrived yesterday...boy that was fast!! I've wanted this stamp set for ages but never bit the bullet. At the SECC if you bought the stamp set you got 20% off the punch so it would have been rude not to! I was running out of twine so got a couple of those (I know there's 3 in the picture but one is for Annette) and another role of my favourite coloured ribbon...Old Olive (I needed lots for next weekends make and take :-D) and finally the Boho flower punch. Another something I'd been swithering about for over a year so decided to put myself out of my misery so I could swither about something else!

I was selling my cards in 4 outlets but decided before Christmas to pull out of two. It was so time consuming especially since I don't seem to know how to make a quick card any more and thought I'd concentrate on the two closest to my home. I didn't have much time to make cards for those coming up to Birmingham so now the show is over and I can see the woods through the trees I started making some cards the other day to build my stock up. This is the first one...Cupcake Ruby. I'm making 3 of each as I go, one for each of the shops and one for my stash/sample box. I didn't have the sentiments when I was making the samples for the trade show so you won't have seen this one. They are a set of 8 for £6.50 which I think is fab value.

I'm going to try and do a tutorial (one of the conditions of having the crafty blog button is to have regular tutorials/tips) today on something I saw at the Stampin' Up! booth and post it tomorrow...depending on how it turns out lol. It won't be on video thank goodness as I don't like hearing my voice...I don't think I sound 100% Canadian anymore which upsets me a bit. If anyone wants to butter me up all you have to ask is if I'm here on holiday lol. So yeah...it will be pictoral (is that the right word??) and hopefully I can do a good enough job.

Hope you have a great weekend...and a great Mother's Day tomorrow. Nicole and Ben have invited us up for dinner tomorrow which will be a first for me :-D

Catch ya later x

Are you sitting down for this????

Guess what I did today? You will NEVAH guess...not in a billion! I hung my wash outside!!!! We have had THE most bee-u-tiful day here in Glasgow...I even went out shopping without a coat. It was so nice not having a straight-jacket on lol.

As I was finishing off the card below last night and noticed my bag of Decopatch goodies staring at me and decided it was time to shake of my altering clipboard nightmare and attempt to cover my 'L'. Trying to remember what Annie told me to do, I gingerly tore (ie ripped!) my gorgeous paper into little pieces and proceeded to paint my glue onto my letter. Can I tell you guys something....EASY PEASY! I had this letter done in about 20 minutes...now I'm not saying it's perfect cuz there might be one or two things I would do slightly differently ie plan where I'm putting the paper first so I don't cut the flower in half but apart from that I'm really happy with the result. By the time I'd glued the second piece on the first was virtually dry and any bubbles that formed dried flat (not like that modge podge stuff!). So that's one letter down 15 to go!!

I made this card using the Stamps by Judith stamp I got from the Stamp Addicts stand at the weekend. Can you guess why I bought it??!!!

I put glossy accents on all the spots and feelers and glittered hers up so she looked a bit more girly. The pp is My Little Shoebox and I bought it because of the ladybugs on the other side. Karen had used a piece on my birthday card last year (something tells me I've not posted it so I will tomorrow) and when I was at her house a couple of weeks ago I ordered it. A little bit spooky but it's called Little Ladies - Jana. Jana was my friend that died a couple of months ago so it seemed fitting I bought some.

That's it for today. Hope the sun is shining wherever you are :-D

Catch ya later x