Thank You Trevor!

Well I am as officially bad at making and sending thank you cards as I am at blogging!
This is my thank you to Trevor, my uncle for sending us Marks and Spencers vouchers for Christmas (yes Christmas!).
I decided to keep it simple and used the gorgeous orange papers from Daisy D's Autumn collection. The ribbon is a piece from my scraps that with orange trim, just happens to co-ordinate. The Thank You was printed using my trusty design runner.

So what did we do with the vouchers? Used them to buy Chocolate Melting Middle puddings of course! - don't you just love them ..... the way that hot glossy melted chocolate flows gracefully out of the pudding as you break into the soft dark brown sponge - (just think of Dervla saying that in her beautiful Irish accent - sounds much sexier!).
Off to put the oven on!!!!
Jayne xx

Digi Scrapping

I have been investigating digi scrapping this weekend, no layouts yet, but I just had to share with you that I found a digi website with gorgeous cats. Now anyone that knows me will know that I am a sucker for cats.

Just look at this little cutie!

It is from Weeds and Wildflowers (what a wonderful name) - just check out their shop here. They even have a sweet little blinkieThere is a lot more to do yet and certainly a lot more to learn! But these images were very different to anything else I was finding in other digi stores. I did Kirsty Wiseman's digi classes a few months ago - which were excellent, but I still need some confidence building and I need to change my blog header - so watch this space.
Jayne xx
PS - mum seemed to like the wedding dress!!!

Sneek Peek - The Dress

Just a quick sneek peak at the dress!

Can't show you too much because Andrew isn't allowed to see it yet!

Back From Stitches

Well I just logged on to my blog and I cannot believe how long it has been since I posted! I win the official bad blogger title.

So what have we been up to?

Well the shop has been busy, which is good, but taking up a lot of time.

Andrew and I went to Stitches (Craft, Hobby and Stitch) trade show this week, everyone just calls it Stitches and met a few new supplies and sourced some lovely new products for you!

Including the new Honey Pie range from Cosmo Cricket - perfect for spring!

Check out the range here!
We are still expecting more things to arrive so keep checking back!

Wedding - well the wedding plans are coming on!

DONE

• Venue booked.
• Dress bought - but not sure about it!
• Disco booked.
• Dance floor booked.
• Caterer sorted - but they haven't given us the price yet!
• Photographer sorted (possibly)
• Buying anything with an orange gerbera on.
• Cake organised.

TO DO

• Sort suits for the men
• Florist - again orange gerbera's!
• Decorations for the cake - almost sorted - guess what orange sugar gerbera's.

List to be added to!!!!!

Jayne xx

I've Been Tagged By Sharon

Sharon has tagged me!
The tag rules are:-
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).

4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

This is hard Sharon!!!! Might have to take this one step at a time......

Right 7 facts about me:-
1. The biggie - I am getting married to Andrew on June 21st 2008, and boy did I underestimate the number of things to do, all invitation and other stationary ideas will be gratefully received!
2. I have a gorgeous cat called George who is 17 years old and can actually say a realistic "HELLO".
3. I am addicted to chocolate - the new Aero Bubbles are my current favourite, especially the mint ones.
4. I am a bad blogger - well you knew that already!
5. I don't have enough hours in my day.
6. I love TV - current not to miss programmes are NCIS and all the CSI's, the Bill, occasionally Eastenders! I also find the Hotel Inspector fascinating and I like all the housey type shows e.g. Property Ladder, Location Location and I have been known to watch the QVC craft days!!!!!!
7................ will have to think.

to be continued..........
I don't know 7 bloggers.............

I am a Jiggly Jelly!

I can't believe how long it is since I last posted!
Must do better!

Well I have signed up for the next UKS Cybercrop which starts in two weeks - it is a birthday special crop celebrating 5 years of UKS - wow.

Anyway I am a Jiggly Jelly! So hello to my fellow team mates!
I have just started a mini book of my fantastic trip to Scotland - so I will be back to show you the pictures.

See you soon.
Me xx

Well I'm back in action, did you miss me?!

I spent the last week making 10 ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) for an any ATC swap on UK Scrappers. I chose a flower theme, although a theme wasn't necessary, these are the 3 designs I created.
It was my first attempt at stitching with the sewing machine onto card, I used a rik rak stitch on my Singer, and it was quite effective. The word flower was embossed using my Habico Clear Stamps Typerwriter alphabet font set and embossed using bronze embossing powder. The flower images were then decoupaged onto a Crafty Bitz harlequin background.
I am really looking forward to receiving the 10 cards back, and the inspiration they will give.
Just got 10 cat ones to do now, because I signed up for the cat ATC swap - he, he!!!

TFL
Jayne xx

I have been tagged as a Rockin' Girl Blogger - thanks to Sharon.
Now I just need to be a better blogger.

Will be back soon - honestly .....

Jayne xx

Calender Girl

Well May was my Birthday month, so I thought I would take the opportunity to scrap the month and what I got up to, plus I really wanted to use the calender page from the Urban Lily Urban Cut collection - so here it is!
"May 2007" and the arrows are plain chipboard coloured with red ink.
The journalling is onto plain white paper in Word using Lucida Calligraphy font. The paper blocks were coloured with chalks.
The pictures and the journalling tell the story!!
By the way my birthday was the 21st!!!!
TFL
Jayne x

Daring Cardmakers Challenge - Use Acetate e.t.c

This weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge was from Kel:-

Kel says- Okay, this week I would like you to use some acetate, vellum, plasma or anything else remotely 'see-through' on your card. That's it!

So I made this! I killed two birds with one stone, because it is my Aunts birthday on Sunday and I had already decided to use the decoupage Kimono lady from Paper Nation, but had no plans to use acetate.
So the challenge prompted me to do that!

I printed the Happy Birthday (it is complete but I photographed it at an angle, just to prove it was acetate!!!) with my computer using Algerian font in Word.
I then decoupaged the lady and folded a little cut out fan that comes with her.

That's my card - and I have my Aunts party to go to tomorrow - I hopes she likes it!!
TFL
Jayne xx

Daring Cardmakers - WOW my prizes

The reason I haven't had time to do the Daring Cardmakers challenges for the last couple of weeks is because I have had so many surprises droping through the door!!!
I was picked out from a draw from one of the challenges and ever since I have had lovely packages dropping through the letterbox.
So a huge thank you to Lythan, Gillian (with a package all the way from Australia), Lynne, Rhi and Kathy for this:-
You have made my day (or several days!).
Will be back with this weeks challenge later!

Jayne x

Lots of New Stock, Photography Course and Daring Cardmakers!

Well where has the time gone!
To start I was really chuffed to be picked out of the draw for the week before lasts Daring Cardmakers Challenge and won a prize! If you haven't popped over already then I suggest you do so, it's fantastic motivation to get some cardmaking done!

Second thing is that lots of new stock has arrived - we are busy uploading some fantastic new things and I think we have negiotiated some good deals to pass on to you! So take a look here, but there is much more to come.

And finally I have been attempting my assignments for Cheryl Johnson's photography course, last week was disappointing because we had to take a picture of a silhouette and ideally some sun would have been nice, but what happened? It rained all week!!! So I was disappointed with my attempt.
But I did scrap the self portrait I had to do for the introduction for the course, and here it is:-

More news tomorrow!
Jayne xx

Butterfly Card

This weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge was to make a card incorporting wings - the card could be any colour and for any subject, just as long as wings are included!
So I made a butterfly!! With the help of my Craft Robo of course. My GSD file can be found here plus some brief instructions. Hope they are useful.
For this example I used MAMBI Juniper, double sided paper for the wings - the body is the other side of the paper. The paper was put on green card.
Thank you for the challenge - motivated me to make another Robo template too!!
TFL
Jayne xx

George - Life's a Tea Party!

Well I promised I was going to introduce you to George and the UK Scrappers Cybercrop provided the perfect inspiration.
This was a digi layout using a template from the class - getting ready for a tea party. The template was designed by Katie. It was fantastic to use and she even provided full instructions. So for someone new to digi - she made it non-scary and actually really good fun.
I pinched the paper and embellishments from the freebie kit from Scrap Girls and quite pleased with the result.
Still a lot to learn though!

Watch out for more George stories coming soon!!!

Jayne xx

Tasty Template

Well I survived the Cybercrop, but really struggled to keep up and managed 120 points, well it was my first proper cybercrop - I tried! My team the Spades seem to have done well and look like coming (I will call it close) second to the Clubs, so well done fellow Spades (and sorry I didn't do more), but I really had good fun, (even though there were a few moments of stress and shouting at the computer!!)
I will post more of my class/challenge attempts over the next couple of days.




Anyway had a chance to complete this weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge. This weeks challenge was to follow a template - and well here is mine!
I had a bit of a greeny turquoise phase today! The card was covered in green paper and then I tore a co-ordinating patterened paper and placed on the bottom section.
The orange is fake ribbon, it's actually paper made to look like grosgrain - well thought I would give it a go.
The butterfly is cut from some scraps of Crafty Bitz scrapbooking paper and the frame is a slide mount covered with the patterned paper, the blue ribbon behind is real!
The message is a stamp on some covered cardstock.

TFL and thank you for the template.
Jayne xx

Busy. busy, busy! and now a Cybercrop!

Well just when you thought life couldn't get any busier - they start the cybercrop on UKScrappers! This year is Alice in Wonderland themed - I will post my tea party recipe cards tomorrow - but today ....

I made this!

This was for class 7 by Maria.

We had to use scraps. I used three co-ordinating scraps of Crafty Bitz 12" x 12" paper. I didn't want to waste the flowers so cut them to frame the photo.

The George lettering was cut using the Craft Robo and mounted onto scrap squares put on card.

A little paw charm finishes off the page!

So back to the Cybercrop - speak to you tomorrow - need to do the Daring Cardmakers challenge to!!!!!

I Am Still Around

Just busy at the moment uploading lots of new stock for the shop!!! Lots of papers from Daisy D's, We R Memory Keepers and the stunning Urban Lily - with a few die-cuts, chipboard and ribbons thrown in!

I forgot to show you my little decoupage ATC - it's an Easter Bonnet made for the pre-cybercrop challenge on UK Scrappers!

Sent off my recipe cards today too for the Spades Teaparty Titbit recipe card swap - so I am earger to see what comes back and I hope they like mine - I will post the pictures when the swaps are over.

Will be back soon - need more hours in the day!

Jayne xx

Portugal Calling!

My challenge for yesterday was to make a card for my mum to give to her portuguese next door neighbour for her 80th birthday. Well I was a little bit stuck for a portuguese theme (with only a suggestion of a Cockrell!) and so posted a message on UK Scrappers for advice! I had already decided there was going to be a flower and so one idea was to make a pot in Portuguese flag colours and another was to say Happy Birthday in Portuguese - so guess what - I did both and here it is!TTFN
Jayne xx

Water Lily and Thank You Jo!

Well I know I say it every week but this was sooo hard! This weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge was to create a card inspired by a work of art!! i just wasn't sure what to do. I used the links on the Daring Cardmakers website for inspiration and went down the impressionism route and Monet's Water Lily collection stood out, mainly because I had some beautiful lilies in my pond last summer and this is a photo of one of them.
I thought I would be brave and try something different and so using the photo I sketched my own lily, I coloured it in using a combination of paints and chalks with an added teeny weeny bit of gold glitter pen in the centre.

The lily "painting" was on hammered card which I then mounted onto some torn green paper. The card was finished with a band of sheer ribbon.

I am really not sure about the result - but it's something different! But I am definitely no Monet!!!

Sticking with Daring Cardmakers - last weeks challenge was to create a card using only one colour and below was Jo's - she didn't seem to be entirely happy with it, even though it looked absolutely gorgeous - so I made a comment on her blog saying "You can send it to me if you don't want it - he he!!!!"

Well look what arrived in the post yesterday morning!!!!



I liked it on the computer screen but in reality it is even more beautiful, Jo your attention to detail is amazing, you cannot see all the layering in the picture or feel the different textures of the paper, flowers, ribbon, brads, and button and my favourite touch has got to be the cheeky smiling faces on the butterflies! Thank you Jo you really made my day - it is a fabulous card and I am really chuffed that you sent it to me.




Anyway I am off now to recover from a day in the garden and to possibly eat some chocolate! What a glorious day though I hope it's like it again tomorrow.

All the best.
Jayne xx

I've Got the Blues!!

I've got the blues!! - well no I haven't, how could I with the gorgeous sunny day we have had today - the blues refers to my card for this weeks Daring Cardmakers challenge. The idea was to make a card, any card BUT we were only allowed to use one colour!!!
Gosh, yet again this was hard!!!!
My theme (eventually) was blue, mainly because I had some blue AMM rick rack I wanted to use.
The card is a small Kanban blue pearlescent card, I put a dark blue mat on top and then using, yes my Robi I cut out my pretend "Prima" flowers - I will put the GSD file on the website here. The file is to print on 13cm x 9cm paper, because that is the size of the metallic blue paper I had - its from a pack of scraps I picked up from Hobbycraft a couple of years ago.
The sentiment "A message for you" is a See D stamp from my limited personal rubber stamp range - and yes, it was stamped with blue ink!
So I think that's it - thanks for looking once again.
Jayne xx