Gorgeous SWALK

Have you seen that the lavely people at Crafters Companion have released smoe new SWALK stamps, and this time there are some really cute boys in there, so of course, I just had to order them!

So, to keep me occupied while I'm waiting, I decided to stamp out this little beauty! I think that these images are so lovely that you don't want to much embellishment to detract from the main image so I have stuck with a simple background, using the papers from the SWALK CD, and I also punched out a couple of flowers from the same paper.

This time I've added a bit of depth on the actual character by decoupaging her head and forearm, which I think has given quite a nice effect.

I think my 'hair colouring technique' is starting to improve a little bit now, as I used to really struggle with this, but luckily a demo that I saw on TV by Polkadoodles Nicky Hall has helped put me on the right track! - still need some practice though I reckon!

I have another couple of SWALK cuties stamped and ready to colour for some birthday thank you cards, so I really need to get on with those......hopefully this means I will have a few more 'Swalky' posts for you later this week.

So many crafty thingsthat I want to do...........and so little time!!!

Bye for now.

Sharon xx

My birthday cards

It was my birthday yesterday and I was very lucky to receive some beautiful hand crafted cards from my family, so I thought I would show them to you.

The first one was made by my sister - a beautiful concertina card with gorgeous fairies on it......

I just love the backing papers and the colur choices of the fairies for this card. I was also lucky enough to receive a new paper trimmer and some lovely earings!

The next card was made by my mum, and is from the beautiful adorables range.....

Another beautiful card I am sure you will agree, and mum has carefully coloured, cut out and decoupaged the cute little mouse! For my present, my wish lift is becomig a reality as I am getting a Grand Calibur which I have ordered today - can't wait for that to arrive and start playing.

My husband and son got me some lovely presents as well, including two new charms for my  Bracelet, some flowers, some perfume a lovely Bouflle book called 'my mum' and my husband is also feeding my 'alcohol' addiction with some of the new Sprectrum Noir pens from Crafters Companion.

Aren't I a lucky girl!!!

I am sure my mum and my sister would love to see some comments about their lovely cards, so don't be shy!!!

Sharon xx

Christmas in July

There are a few 'Christmas in July' challenges around at athe moment, so I thought I would take the opportunity to grab the old Promarkers and get a little bit festive with one of my lovely Popcorn the Bear stamps. These stamps are a good size so they take up a big area of your card and don't really need to much to go with them. In this case I used some papers from the corresponding CD Rom and I couldn't resist throwing a bit of glitter in there, although you can't really see it on this picture.

I have managed to get this loaded up just in time for the I love Promarker challenge (less than 5 hours to go on that one!) and thought I would also throw it in to the Allsorts challenge this week.

Thanks for looking!

Sharon x

Food Glorious Food

The challenge over at Card Making Mamas this week is fodd and drink, so I thought I must make time to enter this challenge for three reasons:

1. I love card making.
2. I am indeed a 'mama'
3. I am very fond of food - in particular cupcakes!!

So, I think my card choice is quite appropriate as it features a lovely cupcake, covered in butter icing, not to mention the cute little House Mice (which, I hasten to add are nothing to do with the food agenda!)

As you can see, I have made an easel card, but I have tried soemthing new as, in addition to the necessary stopper, I have taken some of the little mice and put them so that the stand upright on the card base, which, I hope give a bit more of a 3D scene effect.

Finally, I thought the paper on the base of the card reminded me of a tablecloth (but maybe that's just my strange imagination!)

All has been coloured in with Promarkers this time (I do like to swap around!), and I'm going to enter for the following challenges:

Card Makin Mamas - Food and Drink
Allsorts - Free and Easy

Well, it's a lovely day here in MK today, so I'm going to make the most of the sunshine for a while and hopefully fir in a bit of card making at some point too.

Enjoy your Sunday everyone!

Sharon xx

A little bit of sweetness

Here's a card that I've made using a gorgeous Cuddly Buddly Digi stamp, which I thought I would enter for a couple of challenges this week.

I think this image is just so sweet and I really enjoyed colouring her in with my Copics one evening this week.
The lovely papers and the border all come from the NitWit Posibilities download, and I thought, that, being on the flowery side, they were the perfect match for this particular image.

I'm going to enter this card for three challenges:

Digi's with Attitude- anything Goes
Cuddly Buddly - Add a Charm
Stamp Something Embellished

Super quick post - as I'm about to have my dinner (lovely Indian take away on it's way as we speak!)

Thanks for looking.

Sharon xx

And another Christmas card......

This is my third, and final post of the day, and again the theme is Christmas, but this time I have got one of my lovely Popcorn Images out to play with. I think this one is such a cutie, and it's quite quick to colour as well as there's a lot of snowman, and not too much bear! I have also applied glitter (as you would with snow!) but unfortunately I just couldn't get it to show in the photo. I have also decoupaged Soufle the duck (I wasn't planning to but he didn't come out on the original stamp so I had to do some repair work!

Also, as I already had my embossing sheet out, I have emboseed snowflakes on to some pearlescent paper omce again. And finally, at the risk of being a bit predictable, the lovely papers are from a pack that I got free with a magazine. It's a Kate Knight pad that I had previously stashed away, and I'm so glad that I found it as I love the colours and I am sure I will be using this again.

I'm going to enter this card in to a number of challenges, which are as follows:

Allsorts
Stamp Something
Winter Wonderland
Sketch Saturday
CES Challenge

Thanks for looking once again!

Sharon x

Molly Blooms - at last!

This card has been floating around in my head for quite some time - infact ever since I got the lovely strawberry paper that you see as a freebie in a magazine. Then, the Paperlane started a new challenge, especially for the Molly Blooms stamps and so I thought I really must get on and colour in those images that I originally stamped weeks ago!

I have used Copics to colour in the images again. The wall and the little strawberry girl are separate images so I simply cut out the girl and stuck her on the top! The little buttons are also from Molly Blooms but were part of a free pack of stamps that came with Home Made magazine, a while back.

The subject of the Paperlane challenge is 'anything but a square' which has given me ther perfect opportunity to make this semi circle card - something which I have been wanting to try for ages. I really enjoyed making in and will definitely be making some more cards like this in future. If only I had a Grand Calibur and some giant circle nesties, I will be well away........ahh well, I can but dream!!

Here are the challenges that I'm going to enter this card for today.....

Allsorts - Free and Easy
The Paperlane

Thanks for looking

Sharon x

Winter Wonderland

So today I have a few cards to load up for you, and here's the first one. As you can see, I am having a bit of a 'Pink Gem' weekend for some reason - I think I dug this stamp out when I was digging around for that skateboarding boy yesterday!

The Winter Wonderland challenge this week is 'Give a Lift' which means using dry or heat embossing. So I have used my snowflake embossing sheet on some pearlised paper for this card and I have coloured in the image using my Copic markers. Also, I don't think you can see it, btthere is a bit of glitter thrown in there for good measure.

Here's the challenge that I'm entering in case you want to go and have a look at some of the other lovely cards.......Winter Wonderland

Sharon x

One for the boys.

The card I'm showing today was only just made this afternoon and, no sooner than the glue was dry, it was stuck in an envelope and handed to the recipient. The funny thing was that, I was sitting in the lounge colouring the image while he was there, but, he and my son were so absorbed in the Playstation that they didn't even notice!

This lovely little image is from Pink Gem and I have been dying for an excuse to use it. I have coloured him with Copics and used a variety of papers from an old Do Crafts paper pad, as it's the only boyish paper that I have! I have also paper pieced his baseball hat and shirt using a scrap of striped paper from the same pack.

I thought I would enter this card for two challenges, both of which are entitled 'One for the boys'.

A Gem of a Challenge

Crafters Companion Monthly Challenge

Thanks for looking!

Sharon

My Lovely Blog Award

I think I mentioned a few days ago that I received a blog award from my SIL - Sue, who has a lovely blog of her own, full of crafty things, which you can find here.

So here is the award.......

And now I have to tell you seven things about me......

1) I am left handed (although my teacher's tried to make me right handed when I was young!)
2) I can't wink!
3) I am a big softy for animals - real and fictional - I cried when King Kong fell off of the tower!
4) I have a thing for Vampire romances.
5) I used to design for Papercraft Essentials magazine.
6) I hate milk....I can't drink it, and I can't even touch it....yuk!!
7) I would love to write a novel one day.

Next I have to nominate 7 people to receive this award. I have thought about this long and hard and I decided to nominate some lovely ladies who have really inspired me (and made me jealous with their wonderful talent) during the last few months. Each and everyone of them is sooooo creative and you are in for a treat in you hop on over to their blogs.
Lisa - Wishcraft
Debby4000
Lalkygirl
Donna
Kitty
Lollydolly
Jackie

Thank you Sue and all my lovely nominees for making me smile each day when I look at your blogs.

Sharon x

Second Post of the Day!

My second post of the day......I'm on a roll!

This is a card for my In Law's Golden Wedding Anniversary which is happening later on this week.

I wanted to go for something fairly clean and simple for this and so I opted for the lovely Lily Image from Little Claire's, which I thougt would be just rught for the occassion.

It's been a very long time since I've done any heat embossing, but since I was going for a plain, unadorned image here, I felt it needed a bit of lift so I have embossed the main image and the corner flourishes with gold twinkle powder.

For the base card I have used some lovely pearlescent card which happens to have a slight golden sheen to it. Unfortunately it doesn't come through in the photo (I'm no David Bailey) but on the real thing it looks really nice and enhances the overall 'goldness'.

Finally I have to mention the lovely nestie - I an always so chuffed when I use these and it comes out of the cuttlebug with all of the loops perfectly cut - It gives me a real buzz for some reason (I know - I am a bit of a saddo!)

Anyway, I don't have any specific challenges to enter this one for, but I thought I would put it in to the Allsorts Anything Goes Challenge, as it represents something quite different to what I would normally do.

Here's where you can find the challenge:

Allsorts Challenge

So that's me finished with the postings for now.

Thanks for dropping by!

Sharon  x

Less is More - One Layer

On the less is more challenge this week the challenge is one layer,which, I have to admit, I have never tried before.

The prospect of stamping directly on to a card blank is a little bit scary to me, but I have to admit I really enjoyed making this card and it saved a lot of time, compared to thinking about matting and layering, matching papers etc.

So, for this card, out came my lovely Humphrey stamps (although this isn't Humphrey obviously!) and my trusty rockablocks which got me through the stamping process without having palpitations!

I coloured this little cutie pie in with my watercolour pencils as these stamps really lend themselves to that particular medium, and had some lovely fun in the process.

I decided that this type of one layer effect would be great for 'notelet' type situations...you know 'thanks for the pressie' etc, so I think I will definitely be doing some more of these in the future.

But in the meantime I'm going to enter this card in to:

Less is More - One Layer Theme - something with legs.

Thanks for looking.

I'll be back with another post in a couple of minutes!

Sharon x

Keeping it Simple

Today I am following the theme of Clean and Simple as required for the I love Promarkers challenge.

This lovely little owl was a freebie that I  downloaded from the Pink Gem blog a couple of days ago, and he is lovely and easy to colour - very theraputic for a Sunday night.

I have used my promarkers here with a frosty theme as I also wanted the card to qualify for the Winter Wonderland challenge which is 'No Red or Green'.

And finally  - Digis with attitude  have an anything goes challenge so I thought I would enter that one too.

So that's me done for today -thanks for looking.

Sharon x

My favourite LOTV and a bunch of challenges

Today I'm loading up a card that I made especially to fit a number of challenges.

There are so many lovely challenges out there this week, that I know I won't have time to do them all, so I have taken inpsirationfrom the Sketch Saturday sketch, lace and ribbons and Summertime, to come up with the design that you see below.

This image is such a cutie - it's from the new LOTV range and I have used hera couple of times already. It reminds me of when I was little as this is exactly what I would have been doing, whilst playing in the back garden. I have a beutiful (well he's beautiful to me anyway!) shabby old teddy that my Grandad gave me for my very first Christmas, and in my younger years I would not be parted from him, so this image really reminds me of that and also of my Grandad who, sadly is no longer with us.

I have coloured the image with my trusty promarkers, and the beautiful papers are a Pink Petticoat set that came with one of the craft mags recently.

I've also made the little flowers using one of the Spellbinders flower die sets. I cut two different sizes, dirstressed them around the edges, cureled the petals and added brads, and I think they have come out quite nicely. I really love all the fabric flowers that you can get, but I am reluctant to use them, as, once they're gone - they're gone as they say - so I can see that getting to be quite expensive. This way - although you have an initial investment, you get to use it over  and over again and really customise your flowers, so I am loving this alternative.

Anyway - on to the challenges. I am entering this card for:

Bearly Mine - Summertime
Card Making Mamas - Summertime
Cute Card Thursday - Lace
Sketch Saturday
CES Challenge - Recipe

On a final note - I just wanted to thank you for all the lovely comments that you have been leaving me. I love reading them all, and I appreciate every one.

Thanks!

Sharon xx

Bugs and Butterflies.....

That's the name of this week's challenge on Stamp Something.

So I have decided to go a bit monochrome for this, using one colour, plus black and here is the result.

These are stamps which are due to be released by Little Claire's and, as you can see, there are butterflies in abundance!

I particularly love the tree stamp as I think it is so clever the way that the butterflies have replaced the leaves.

I have coloured this in with Promarkers as per usual and drawn a little wibbly wobly border using the 'wedge end' of one of the paler shades to add a little bit of dimension.

I am entering this card for the following challenges:

Stamp Something - Bugs or Butterflies

Allsorts - Free and Easy

Thanks for looking once again, and, if you have any comments, I would love to hear from you!

Sharon xx

Whahoooo - I am a winner!

I had a lovely surprise when surfing through my blog list this morning as I had won last week's challenge at the CES Challenge.

Here is my lovely award.

I am really chuffed as I have never made a top five before, let alone been a winner, so I would like to say thank you very much to the lovely CES design team for picking me - it has really put a big smile on my face!

Hugs

Sharon xx

The hedgehog with the hankie returns

Hi all,

Here's another card that I made recently using the Little Claire's July Club set. This time I have cut an aperture in the card with my nesties and I have stamped the flowers on the insude so that they show through.

The hedgie is stamped and decoupaged on to the front of the card and the paper is from one of my CD's (one of the Popcorn Christmas ones I think), but I thought it looked kind of 'grassy'!

I had my watercolour pencils out again for this card which I think has made quite a nice effect, but I really should have taken the photo against a darker background as it is all looking a bit wishy washy. Unfortunately the card is gone now, so I'm afraid this one will have to do!

Thanks for looking.

Sharon x

A bit of ribbon and Bob's your uncle!

This week's challenge at Passion for Promarkers is 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon'. 'Great' - I thought, 'nice and easy'..........that is until I tried to find said yellow ribbon. After hunting through my boxes of ribbon sotred in all different ways (if there is a way to store ribbon neatly and in a fashion that it can be seen, then it clearly eludes me!) - I finally came across some bright yellow ribbon with white polka dots which surely must fit the bill!

So I have made a card for the challenge uisng a lovely shopping digi stamp from Little Claire's and I am going to enter this card for 4 challenges.

Here's the card:

I have gone for some quite bright colours for the image here (not sure if they are a little too bright!) Also, a new departure for me with Promarkers is using the blender pen, to create the highlights and I think this has actually worked quite well. I came across someone doing it on a U Tube video with COPICs as I recall. She provided me with a moment of enlightenment as she basically said to be very light with the blender and then wait a few minutes to see what happens as it will carry on bleaching after you have taken the pen away. Then you can always go in again to remove more ink if you need too. I think this is the key as, previously I have used the pen to get the fade out that I want, and then of course, it must have carried on fading over the next few minutes. You live and learn don't you!

So, after that little pearl of wisdom (which probably everyone else had already figured out except me!), here are the challenges that I'm entering:
Allsorts Challenge - Free and Easy
Stamp Something  - Stamp Something Digi
Passion for Promarkers - Tie a Yellow Ribbon
Papertake - Anything Goes

Well that's me done today, expect to say that my lovely SIL gave me a blog award yesterday - what a lovely surprise! I will be back soon to pass it on to some other lovely blogs that inspire me.

'Till then - have a nice evening everyone.

Sharon x

Allsorts Free and Easy Challenge

Just a quick post today to enter a card for the Allsorts Free and Easy challenge.

The image is a lovely Lily of the Valley bear which must have been released a good couple of years ago now. I love him because of all the scruffy bits around the edge of his fur, and he has such a cute little face too!

Anyway - the challenge can be found  here if you fancy entering it, and it's open till Friday.

It's worth popping over there just for a look though as there are some gorgeous DT samples there, not to mention loads of entries from talented Crafters.

Thanks for looking.

Sharon x

Little Claire's July Club Stamp

I can't believe that we're into July already - the month when the kids will have completed another year at school and I will have the joy of being another month older (and definitely more in to the mid forties zone - yuk!!!) Luckily we seem to be enjoying a bit if Summer weather here in MK at the moment and it is forecast to be the same for the rest of the week. I love a bit of sunshine and the opportunity to wear T hirts and flipflops (which doesn't happen very often as I am a bit of a cold body!) - so long may the good weather continue!

Anyway, enough of the general waffle and time to reveal the July Club Stamps from Little Claire's. This time it's a real cutie, and it fits right in with that lovely summer weather we're having........

The set consists of the hedgehog, with his cute little Hankie hat, the sentiment stamp and  the flower bed which you can see in the background. I 've actually stampped the backgorund twice in a row on this example so you can see that it's really good for repeat stamping as it's not obvious that you have used the same stamp in a repeat fashion.

For this example I've dragged out the watercolour paper and pencils for a change, and I quite like the soft effect  on these delicate little stamps.

I hope you like this sample - I will have another one to show you another day.

In the meantime, I'm going to enter this card for the CES challenge this week, which is Woodland Creatures. You can find the challenge here:

http://ceschallenges.blogspot.com/2011/07/challenge-43-woodland-creatures.html

And a couple of other challenges too:

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Here comes' the Summer  http://thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/

Catch the Bug - Bugaboo - Anything Goes   http://catchthebugblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/julyanything-goes-challenge.html



If you fancy this stamp, or any other of the Little Claire lovelies, you can find them at their website, here:

http://www.littleclaire.co.uk/index.asp?category=2

Thanks for looking, and I hope you all have an enjoyable Sunny Sunday.

Sharon x