Long time no blog....and reflections of a decade

Well it's been a busy week or so for me, mostly due to my lovely son turning 10 (I can't believe it - my little baby has been here for a decade!!)

There are four babies due amongst my family and friends over the next few months and so I've been looking at / buying some baby stuff lately. It really takes me back, and sometimes it feels like yesterday since I was pregnant myself....how quickly ten years to can pass you by!

So of course I had to make a card for my son, Joshua, and the recently released Pretty Tough CD from Polkadoodles was just perfect for this.

Joshua was getting an I Pod for his birthday, so I picked a boy with an I Pod for my card, which of course I coloured with Promarkers and matched with some of the lovely backing papers from the same CD. Here's what I came up with.

The funny thing is, a couple of days later I snapped a picture of Joshua with his I Pod, whilst he was building some Lego. Take a look.......

Can you spot the resemblance? He even has the same colour top and jeans on. You would think I planned it, but it's purely coincidence!

Anyhow, thanks for stopping by. Hopefully I will be getting bakc to normal now, so a bit more blogging time to look forward to.

In the meantime, my next challenge is to pick up some knitting needles and see if I can still remember how to knit........watch this space!

Sharon x



Bat out of Hell

I can almost hear you all singing the infamous Meatloaf song!

But what I'm talking about today is a newly released stamp from Stamp Addicts, which I had the pleasure of playing around with in the new year.

Here's the card one of the cards that I made..........

As you can see, the image is stamped and coloured using Promarkers and the background papers came out of my old stash......a Docrafts 6 x6 pad for Men.......not usre if it is still available these days.

For a finishing touch I have added musical note doodling to break up that white edge.

If you like the looks of this stamp, you can find it here

Well that'sall from me today. It was my niece's birthday (happy birthday Kerry) so we are off to a family get together after lunch.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sharon

Double Monkey Business

There are two bits of Monkey business to talk about today! Number one, A DT sample which I made for Stamp Addicts, using their Gorilla stamp set. The gorilla, the palm leaves and the greeting were all part of the set, and I coloured them all in using promarkers.

The leaves are indivdual stamps so I stamped and cut out four of them so that I could make the palm tree. There isn't a tree trunk in the set, but you can make one really easily by doing a bit of 'wobbly' cutting on brown card and adding a bit of black doodling for effect.

I am sure that I will get lots of use out of this set as I know a lot of little monkeys..........which leads me on to monkey number two........the infamous Brion the dog. For those of you who haven't seen my older posts, Brion is a rescue dog that my parents adopted nearly a year ago now.

When they first got  him, he escaped from the garden and, having been dispeared for a few hours, was eventually found down a whole, 50 feet away from my parents house. Since then, there have been a few more 'escape'  incidents resulting in a complete refencing of my parents garden, which we thought had done the trick........until this week.

Can you believe that the little devil chewed though a fence post and pushed his way through the gap, followed by a 2 hour jaunt, whilst my mum and dad were frantically searching for him!

So it looks like there will be another mega fencing session....all in aid of keeping Brion contained. I can't believe that a dog can actually chew his way through a fence post......although I have to admit that he can crush a football in less  than a minute! Talk about jaws of steel and like I said.....definitely a little monkey...........

Sharon x

Entering a few 'Sweet' challenges

Here's a card that I have made for a birthday, using a lovely SWALK Winter Cheer stamp, coupled with some papers and embellisments from the accompanying CD.

The CD contains some lovely embellishment sheets, which is where I took the buckle and the flower from. I was really impressed with how nice they both looked when they were layered up. Even the little tiny button was from the CD and all I needed to do was to gloss it up with a bit of diamond glaze, to make it look real.

I have followed a sketch from the Sweet Stop challenge for this card, and I am also entering in to the Sweet Stampers Glitter challenge (there is some glitter on there, honest!) and the Anything Goes challenge.

Thanks for visiting.

Sharon x

Lisa's waste not Wednesday

During my time on my first Design team with Little Claire's I was lucky enough to make some brand new blogging friends, one of which was the lovely Lisa, aka Wishcraft. Her blog is well worth a visit so pop over here to take a look and I am sure you will not be disappointed.

Lisa is a very talented lady, and mother of two youung boys, so I really don't know how she finds time to make all the lovely cards that she displays on her blog. That said, I am very pleased that she does as I love to see all the great ideas that she comes up with for her cards.

On the subject of ideas, she came up with something thart really appealed to me a couple of weeks ago, and it's what she calls 'Waste not Wedensday'. Basically, each Wedensday she blogs a card that she has made using something that has been 'sitting on the shelf ' so to speak - i.e something that she has had for a while and never got round to using, or not used very much.

I thought that this was a great idea and so, I am going to try to do the same thing (although it might not be every Wednesday!!).

So, in honour of Lisa, here is my Waste not Wednesday item which I have made using papers and decoupage from my Popcorn Platinum CD (previously unused.....shame on me!)

Thank you Lisa for your wonderful idea and I hope you don't mind me tagging on.



Something Botanical

It's been one of those weeks this week with little time for blogging, or crafting for that matter, but luckily I have some cards from the latest Stamp Addicts release up my sleeve, and they are quite a departure from my normal style.

When I was a teenager I had a book called 'The Diary of an Edwardian Lady' which I really loved as it contained some beautiful water colour drawings of plants and animals. The stamps that i have used for today's card really remind me of those botanical drawnigs from all those years ago.

This is made with the Engraved Flowers set which you can find here.

I have stamped all of the flowers on water colour cards and colured them with Derwent pencils before cutting them all out and decoupaging them on to my triple easel card which I made using a BCE template.

The stoppers on the left and right are also made with flowers from the set and the sentiment in the middle is also included.

As you can see, the flowers are quite detailed so I didn't really need to to much in the background and I have just stuck with very traditional red and green card stock sheets.

The Anything Goes challenge is 'Anything Goes' - so I thought I would enter this card - particularly as it is quite a change from what I would normally do.

Thanks for looking.

Sharon x

The life and times of a techno phobe.......

You know when you decide to quicky log on for 10 minutes and do a quick post? Well that was me yesterday..........but it was not to be. My computer thre a wobbler and then began one and a half hours of loading, reloading, going in and out of websites and not having a clue what was going on!

I lost my wireless connection, my antivirus and who knows what else and I have no idea why! Luckily I got a hard drive back up for Christmas so I knew all my precious pictures were safe but it was still a couple of hours of my life that I will never get back!

Anyhoo - the  last time this happened was after I had loaded up Internet 8, so I have avoided doing updates ever since (come to think of it - that may have been part of the problem!!) Once I got started again, I found that there were 15 new updates to upload so I just bit the bullet and got on with them. Another hour later and I am now on Internet 9, which is lovely and my antivirus seems to be back up to scratch.

I am now keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no more nasty log on surprises!

So - whilst I can - I thought I would post a quick card for you all....... and since there seems to have been a bit of a bug in the system, I thought that this one might be appropriate!

This card was made with the surfing bugs set from stamp addicts and some random scrapbook paper that I found in my stash.

I'm going to enter this in to the CES challenge this week which is Anything Goes.

Thanks for looking.......fingers crossed I will be bakc again later this week!!

Sharon x

Gnome Sweet Gnome

Another card from the archives to show again today, this time using the Gnome unmounted Stamp Set from Stamp Addicts.

As you have probably come to expect, there are a variety on Gnome images, plus embellishments and a couple of sentiments in this pack so you have everything that you need to hand to make a variety of cards and get good value for money.

For this card I have used a long card as the base and coloured and mounted various images which I have stamped from the set.......easy!

If you like what you see, you can find this stamp set right here........ Gnome Sweet Gnome

Thanks for looking!

Sharon x

Dreaming of the Sun, Sea and Sand once again....

Now that Christmas and New Year are over, I find myself dreaming of sunshine and sandy beaches and longing for some warmth once again. This time last year, we were getting ready for a big trip to Florida at the end of March and believe me, it came around as quick as a flash! Unfortunately there isn't any tropical holiday to look forward to this year so I will just have to keep my fingers crossed that we get a decent summer that arrives sooner rather than later!

In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to post a card with a little surf and a little sun (particularly after shivering away in my office all day as it is sooooo cold at work at the moment!)

Here's a card that I made a few months back, ready for the release of the Stamp Addicts Surfung bugs set. A strange combination I know, but these guys are really fun and you can make them in to boys or girls which is really handy. This card appeared on one of the Create and Craft shows, so I was really chuffed about that!

This is a really basic stepper card and I have just ripped the bakcing papers to create the Sea and the Beach. The sentiment is also part of the set so really you have everything you need to create a really nice card.

Thanks for stopping by to look once again.

Sharon x

Keeping things simple......

Sometimes it's nice to keep to something clean and simple, and after all those detailed Christmas cards it can be quite nice to make something which isn't quite so involved.

For this card, I have used the Elephant unmounted stamp from Stamp Addicts and coloured her in with promarkers. I then cut her out and mounted her centrally on the inside of my base card which I had previously cut an aperture in, using my nesties. I know that the ellie doesn't look particularly central in this shot but, trust me, she is when you look straight on! as a tip, the easiest way to get your image in the right position it to close the card and then look through the aperture to place the image - almost as if you are trying  to put your hand through the card itself.

As you can see, for the additional embellishment I have punched out lots of daisies in lovely pearescent paper and glued them around the aperture, finishing them off with a little dab of pearl paint.

Hope you like the card and thanks for stopping by to take a look.

Sharon x

I know it's not Christmas anymore but.......



I just wanted to show my last few family cards as I couldn't put them on my blog before Christmas for obvious reasons!!

I really went to town on these last few cards, and, as a result was still finishing one of them off on Christmas Eve......so much for being organised!!

Firstly a card for my sister. This is a pop up. made with some gorgeous Molly Blooms stamps which I actually ordered in 2010, but unfortunately they got lost in the post and didn't arrive in time for Christmas. Luckily though, it meant I had an idea already in my head ofr this year and this is the result. I had a lovely time colouring these ones in, especially all the little quilt patches!

Next - a stepper card for my mum and dad - with more Molly Blooms stamps and a few Christmas trees from my Polka Doodles Magical Winter CD.

This one was for my In Laws and I made it using the same lovely Molly Blooms stamps on an 8 inch card. I used my grand nesties to cut out the aperture and also my Marianne's dies for the embellishments which I sparkled up with some silver glitter spray, and of course the colouring was with my lovely Promarkers.

Well I guess that's another Christmas over and done with!

I just want to wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year and I'm looking forward to another 12 months of blogging and crafting fun!

Sharon x