Lily of the Valley Snow Challenge.

Hello again everyone! 

I am in a real crafting mood at the minute and stamped lots of images for colouring last night. Certainly cheers me up with it getting so dark so early now.

I wanted to have a go at a few challenges and wanted to try the LOTV challenge- "snow is falling". 

Hope you like it:

I need to get some more realistic looking snow, and i'm not quite happy with the snowy trees. Bit more practice needed there. 

I wish you all a good evening! I'm hoping to go and see Skyfall again tomorrow night. I want my mum to see it and I loved it so much I could easily watch it over and over. (Daniel Craig is always a pleasure to watch ;-) ) 

The wanderer returns!

Hello everyone! Long time no blog again. My health has not been great this year and then we've had my niece poorly on and off, my sister poorly and in and out of hospital and then my auntie having her hip replaced, which had complications, so all in all it's been a pretty tough 6 months. Most of that time I was staying elsewhere to help where I could or too exhausted to craft. But I've missed it so much and been doing bits and bobs when I can, so i've actually got some things to blog! 

I've really wanted to learn to sew more and after seeing so many lovely felted bits on pinterest, I thought i'd have a go. With all the lovely autumn colours about I was inspired to make some felt leaves, to hang from some twigs in a vase, for an autumnal display. (although i've not got the twigs yet! lol).
Here are the leaves I made:

I was chuffed when I managed to do blanket stitch as I could never work out how to do it. I got a few tips from pinterest and off I went.
I do love the colours of autumn and getting the big, woolen, scarves out again! Millie moo loves it as she adores playing with leaves:

I love all the mushrooms around too. 

Right, back to crafting! I have also been spending lovely, relaxing evenings infront of the tv, making these gorgeous little reindeers (From Sew Sweet). 

I made two last year, but wanted to make the whole set to put together as a garland for Christmas. So i'm nearly there! Aren't they so cute!! 

When I don't have much energy, i've also been colouring in some images, to stop myself going out of my mind with boredom. It's so relaxing and is great for making cards a bit quicker. Since getting the distress inks, i've not touched a promarker. I find them so much easier to blend and I feel I have more control over them. I had a lovely few hours the other day making a few Christmas cards:

I adore this new Magnolia stamp. I'm not always that keen on some of the Edwin stamps but this one was a must buy, as was this gorgeous memory box die! I was really pleased to finally find some 6x6 scalloped cards too at a craft section in a garden centre. I find the normal size square cards so limiting. 

This is my favourite Santa stamp. He just has a perfect face and lovely chubby tummy! 

I made this back in June for my auntie after she gave me some money to buy some new magnolia stamps, after she had a good month at work. :

This Tilda image is just adorable and perfect for lots of theme of card. 

I made this for her birthday too. (I call her a busy little bee, as she runs her own pet shipping business and works ridiculously long hours, so this image was perfect for her!)

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A friend of mine recently lost her 10 year old niece to cancer. She is obviously heartbroken and has been going through a really tough time. I decided to arrange a collection between me and some of her friends and our joint friends to get her something nice. I managed to collect over £120, so we got her a willow tree angel, a rose bush called "special child" and the rest we donated to the hospice that looked after her. She was so touched and cried when she found out. I sent this card with her angel and to explain what we had done:

(ignore my little mistake of adding the snail's head over the leaf! ooops!)

I added this sun myself as I felt it needed some sunshine in this pic. I love the background magnolia stamps. You can really build up a scene with them. 

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Well, that's enough from me!! I hope you like the cards i've made and i'll be off having a peek round your blogs. I do pop on when I can but if I'm not well enough to be on here long, I can't always leave messages. 

I hope you are all as well as possible and getting really for the wonderful festive season coming!! woohoo. I adore everything about Christmas and can't wait to get my lights and deccies up! 

Have a nice day everyone xxxxxxxx

and another one!!

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a good day. Had a small bit of sunshine but it's now all grey and threatening to rain again :-( I hope wherever you are things are a lot brighter.

I was so excited to use some of my new stamps that i've made another card already! I'm on a roll. I decided to use an 8x8 card as i've only got 3x3 and I feel really restricted with that size. I'll have to hunt down some 4x4 as I think that will suit me better. 

I have adored these two stamps for ages, so when auntie gave me some crafty spending money, I knew I had to get them. The magnolia paper is just too cute as well! I hope you like it. 

Magnolia and distress inks go so well together. It really relaxes me sitting there colouring/painting them.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

TOMIC- anything goes

I'm going round to mums to stay tomorrow night and to watch the football. COME ON ENGLAND!! I have to get excited about something football wise as I am a very unhappy Spurs fan right now, after they have got rid of Harry :-(  I do wish we could keep a manager for a good long spell to get some stability with the team and squad, but obviously it wasn't working between Levy and Rednapp. (sorry to non football fans who have phased out by now! lol)

I hope Ireland manage a miracle tonight and do over the Spanish, but unlikely. At least the Irish fans always look like they are having a great time.

Right, i'm off to make a quick thank you card for my auntie to take with me tomo, as she lives with my mum (as does my nanny-it's a full house!).

Thank you for any comments left, they are really appreciated as sometimes I feel that only other crafters really "get" card making. xxxxxxx

I've actually made a card!!

I know it's a shocker! lol I had to make a few cards for some birthdays this month, but have only finished this one so far. It's for my lovely 12 yr old cousin and was a good excuse to use some of my coloured images. I hope she likes it! 

(I need to re-adjust that bow to make it sit nicer)

I was so excited to get my glitterpot order with lots of yummy magnolia stamps. I will make my auntie a thank you card with some of them now.

It's lucky I'm a football fan and i'm loving having 2 games a day as it's keeping me sane while i've felt so nauseous and wiped out this week. I will go and colour some more of my new images this evening, while the next match is on.

I hope you are all having a good week and have been some of the lucky few to have sun today. I've not had much and we are expecting lots more rain on the weekend :-( Really getting me down as my house can be quite dark being north facing, so I pray we will soon have some summer.
Lots of love and enjoy your evenings xxx

I {HEART} DISTRESS INKS!

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had a good week. What crappy weather we've been having. I really do hope we have some much needed sunshine soon.
It's been the wettest drought I've ever known. People in Africa who really suffer, would dream of our "drought" !!


I've had Emily all this week as it's been half term. Her poor mum misses her so much but she says as long as Emily is happy she doesn't mind. So we've been doing some colouring again and I've taught her how to use distress inks. We are now both in love with them! I love how delicate you can make the colours and just how easy they are to blend (once you have the right card!).

I feel like i'm really getting to grips with them and have really enjoyed sitting there creating little pieces of art work. I hope you like! (no cards yet, as my craft desk is piled with clothes and allsorts and needs a major tidy up!)

(This one needs some shadow added under the mushroom.)

I need to finish this one off with the black shadows as it really adds depth to them. 

I just adore these stamps! They are always a pleasure to colour. 

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Now here are my Emily's efforts and I only showed her such a small bit before she went for it. She loves them. I was very proud of her and love how she even says that she is proud of herself when she does one well. Bless her. 

Hasn't she done so well. I really love that she has a love for crafts too and I know it'll be something we can share all our lives. 

I am ridiculously excited tonight as my auntie has had an amazing month at work (running her own pet shipping business) and she rang me and said she was giving my sis and I £100 each, so of course I went right onto the Glitterpot website and spent that in less than 10 mins!! lmao. I can't wait to get even more gorgeous magnolias and the doo hickey fence die that i've wanted for ages! It's actually scary how quickly that amount of money can be spent! Although as I'm too poorly to have a normal social life, I think it's so worth it as crafting is my therapy and something I can do (unless i'm having a relapse). maybe the NHS should prescribe craft vouchers!! lol

I've sent Emily home as I am wiped out so am going to have a relaxing, quiet weekend and will do some more colouring. I wish you all a happy weekend and hope you get some crafting time too. Lots of love xxxxx

Happy Jubilee weekend everyone!! I hope you are all having a nice time so far and will grab some jubilee craft bargains! lol

Well.... my crafty mojo has finally come back and i've started to have a practise with colouring with distress inks, now that I have the right water colour card and stazon. I am loving using them but certainly need some practise.

Here are a few examples: I need to blend the face colours/shading better but love how it's come out on the clothing.

I adore the new Magnolias! So cute as always. I only have a very limited number of distress ink pads, as they are not cheap, so i'm just practising with the colours I have so far. 

I was excited to see the offer at LOTV and can't wait to get my new stamps. I'd be over the moon if I was one of the lucky ones to get their money refunded! I could then buy more! lol 

I'm having trouble finding some cheese cloth. I thought wild orchid crafts did it but I can't see any. Any suggestions about where to buy some?

Anyway, i'm off to find some bargains! Happy long weekend everyone! 

Where has my crafty side gone?

Hello everyone!! I've missed you all and seeing all your blogs. My ME has decided to knock me sideways for a good 8/9 months now and life seems to be an endless struggle against exhaustion, pain, dizzyness, weakness, nausea, IBS, anxiety etc.. etc... I am again almost always housebound, hardly ever being well enough to go out or do anything. This awful weather isn't helping either as i'm not yet having that extra energy and warmth from the sun (you remember that big yellow thing in the sky we seem to never have!).

Along with all this i've lost all inclination to craft :-( Just the thought of the energy involved tidying my stuff up and getting it into some order is exhausting enough, let alone actually crafting. I really want to try to get that spark going again though, so thought i'd pop back, have a browse round your blogs and try to get some crafting mojo going again. 


I hope you've all been doing ok and keeping well. How depressing is this weather. In the south east here, we are forecast for rain, rain and more rain all week again. I cannot say how desperate I am for some sunshine. 


Thank you to the lovely Sally for emailing and sending me a lovely card. It really means a lot xxxx


Sending you all love and am off for a nosey xxxx

British summer time is finally here!!

Hello everyone! I hope you have been one of the lucky ones to have some sunshine this weekend. Here in the UK we are now into British summer time. I just cannot wait for summer and some long warm days on the beach and the evenings getting lighter. It is 18.16 now and it's still nice and light.
I managed to get out for a family day at a local event hosted by a local radio station, and celebrated my cousin's 1st birthday. I can't find a pic of the card I made :-(
It's exhausted me though and I rebelled against the "losing one hour" by sleeping even longer and didn't wake until 1.30pm!! I'm very achey and worn out, so doing nothing today.

It was my sister's birthday recently so I thought i'd share her card with you, with one of the new Magnolia stamps:

Isn't she just so pretty! I love that lace doily under the cake. 

I'm loving weekend tv still! I want Chico to win the dancing on ice final tonight!! I love the new show "the voice" on BBC1 and then a great start to Britain's got talent. For anyone who watched it wasn't that Welsh boys choir amazing! But my favourites were the last two. It brought tears to my eyes and goosebumps. I will say now I think those two will be in the final (unless Simon gets his way to split them up :-( )  Don't you love the new judges too? David Walliams is so funny and having Simon back makes the show.

I had my niece over with me again this weekend, so we snuggled up together watching the tv. She gave me a fright today though by having a bad nose bleed. Luckily I stayed calm, kept her calm and managed to stop it, but it did worry me a lot. It's horrible seeing anything bad happen to our kids.

Anyway, I'm blabbering on about nothing, so I'll wish you all a good Sunday eve and enjoy whatever you are doing xxxxx

Emily's 12th birthday.

Hello everyone!! I won't bore you with more illness stuff, so i'll just say it's nice to have something to post! My niece has just turned 12 (scary as time goes too quickly!) so I had to made a card. I didn't have money to buy her a prezzie yet so I made her something for her room, until I can treat her to some copics which she wants.

I just adore this stamp and loved colouring her:

It looks more glittery in real life. 

This is what I made her:

I hope you like them! I'm off to have a nosey round your blogs now. Wishing you all a happy weekend xxxxx