Love in a Mug

Afternoon everyone!

Are you all looking forward to Valentines Day tomorrow? or are you like me and just looking forward to the reduced chocolates on Wednesday? lol!  It seems that everyone has been bitten by the love bug and as I said on my last card post, I don't do Valentines day, but it seemed a shame not to take part in the challenges and so I thought about it and I realised that I could send my own kind of love to my friends who are up and down the country - better known as my urban family. You know, the kind of friends you can pick up a phone to after months of silence and carry on the conversation as if it were yesterday; the ones you call up to crash on their sofa when you're in town (or missed your train) and most importantly, they are the ones who give you unconditionally love and support when life throws you a curveball.

So, this year, on valentines day - whilst many of you will be sharing a kiss with a loved one or raising a glass of champagne whilst out for a romantic dinner - I'll be at home, raising a my mug of love - a good old cup of tea - and letting it wrap me in it's warm hug as I remember those I love and who love me in return. 

My un-lovie, but sent with lots of love, valentines card:

The rhyme inside reads 'A little cup of friendship, With a bag of tea, When you relax and drink this, Remember it brings love from me'.

The papers are from My Minds Eye - Blink of an Eye. The small roses and lace is from stash and the digi image of the teapot was a freebie from a fabulous little website called Birds Cards.

I would like to enter my alternative valentines card into the following:
Creative Inspirations - Lots of love
Simon Says - Love is in the air
CRAFT - Valentines Day
Fussy and Fancy - With all my heart
Crafty Catz - Valentines

That's it. Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

We'll meet again......

Ok, so I have to admit I haven't paid the greatest amount of attention to the changes google's been making to blogger but I have heard more than one rumour that the follow me app was going to be removed. Looking further into the case it would appear that at the moment it will no longer be supported on blogs which aren't blogger - word press etc.

In order to ensure that all my lovely follows can continue to follow me and I them, no matter which platform they are using, I have installed Mr Linky's new App for followers to sign up to. It's located on my sidebar, below Google's follower app - so feel free to sign up and if you're not on a blogger platform, leave me a comment so I can be sure to change your site to the new feed so I don't miss out on any of your lovely creations.

Until next time. Happy Crafting!

*UPDATE*

Because I think there is a lot of confusion out in Blogland I just wanted to make this very clear - if you have a BLOGSPOT account then ignore this post in so far as signing up on Mr Linky, however ; if you are NOT on Blogspot but wordpress or similar your feed will cease to exist and you will not have my updates and I won't have yours.

Therefore - if you have a wordpress account etc you need to change your follower app and if you currently follow someone with a wordpress account etc you will need to sign up on their new app.

If you only follow people on Blogspot (which is the largest community anyway) then ignore everything and carry on crafting in peace.

Hope this makes it all a bit clearer.

Love is in the air.....

Oh wait, no it's not! lol! But with Valentines round the corner and everyone else I know all loved up and in relationships, all the pink and hearts and gushing of love and what feels like 101 blog challenges on the topic I felt I had to at least show willing.....

So here is my, bare minimum, acknowledgement to the festival of love:

I used the stunning free Saturated Canary Digi image, my first of this range and hopefully not the last, and teamed it up with lots of pastel pinks and my first ever attempt at doing blond hair. I think it turned out ok - what do you think?

The papers are from a 6x6 paper pack that came free with a magazine aaaaaaaages ago (i've lost the front cover so sorry I can't tell you what make it is). Finished it off with some ribbon and beautiful roses from Joanna Sheen and thats about it.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges:

• Crafty Catz - Pink and White
• Allsorts - Free and Easy (entry No 2)
• Oh-la-la!  - Be my Valentine
• The Pink Elephant - Pink
• Everybody Art - Love
• Joanna Sheen - Love is in the air

Thanks for dropping by and Happy Crafting!

Daisy, Daisy.....

Good Morning!

Bare with me this morning as this is a longish post. I'm aware I've been MIA from blogland for about a week and that's due to two things. Firstly, issue's surrounding my unemployment - which I won't go into, but will just say have had me fuming and taking a stance against government. On the other hand, a happier note was this year's Church Wedding Preparation Day. At our church, any couples wishing to get married in the year ahead have to attend a prep day to discuss the realities of the service, their reasons for wanting a church service (if not regular attendees) and various other bits and peices.

It's the 5th year that this has been run and if you're a regular to my blog you'll have seen various cakes and favour boxes I've made in the past. Well this year I decided to do something a little bit different and went with a daisy theme. But who just wants pretty flowers for their favours, it was time to add  sweet twist to the design and I made these:

Using 5p lollies and a Sizzix Daisy Die (the irregular daisy) and a leaf die from a different flower die set I created the daisys. The stands were just printed card which I scored and created a triangle fold with a small slit in the top for the stick to go through.

Having finished with the favours I needed to make the centrepieces, which really needed to be small and so came these:

More daisy's in white, with a couple of yellow daisys up top and some green crysthanamum styled heads to give the whole thing some colour. So when the table was laid, this is what it looked like:

 But you can't have a wedding preparation day without a cake and this year mum created this.....

..... which she was still icing at 11pm on Friday night! lol!  The whole thing was a huge success and I only wish that I had taken before and after shots of the buffet - it's relatively scary what 30 people can munch their way through! lol!

But as mum and I started the endless and thankless task of washing up (as the industrial washing machine had packed up - again!) the heavens opened and the forecasted snow began to decend. So at 3:40pm, just before we finally managed to leave I took a couple of shots of the church with it's white dusting:

Thank goodness we left when we did, for an hour later - after having a cup of tea this is what our back garden looked like:

Nearly 5 inches in total! but sadly it's nearly all gone. Oh well.

So that's about it - I'd like to enter the favours into Allsorts Challenge of Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting!

Be someone, not something

Morning all,

Just a quick card to share with you today for Tiddly Inks colour challenge:

green, yellow, orange, blue

I decided to keep it really clean and simple and make a card that I can use as a 'just a note' type thing for my friends. I decided to use the stunning steampunk range and used Aidan and Priscilla with the victorian chaise from Make it Crafty.

As normal the image is coloured with promarkers - I'm not entirely happy with how her dressed worked out, but I'm missing the middle orange colour in the range so it's quite a jump. The paper is another from my yummy new My Minds Eye Paper pad and I simple layered 3 flowers top and bottom and added gems to the centre to give it a lift.

So that's about it, thanks for dropping by and happy crafting!

My Dad, My Superhero!

Afternoon all,

How are you today? I hope the weather where you are is better than here - we've had it all, torrid downpour, sleet, snow and brilliant sunshine - it's enough to make you feel quite ill. But thankfully I haven't needed to go out today and so I could concentrate on making my dad's birthday card.

I knew back at the start of January that this little image of Mo's was going to make a reapperance on my dad's card - he's just too darn cute! This time I coloured him with my watercolour pencils and mounted him on an oval background which I coloured in using chalk inks and glittering up the edges.

The pattern papers, ribbon and buttons are all new stash that I purchased with my gift voucher for winning Crafty Catz challenge a couple of weeks ago. The papers are from a 6x6 My Minds Eye pad called Blink of an Eye.

This is only the second Trifold card I've ever made and I have to admit I don't know why..... its slightly more time consuming making sure all the pieces of paper are the right size and going in the right direction - but it's so rewarding to make. I think this style may crop up a few more times this year.

I would like to enter this into Creative Inspirations and Simon Say's Challenges of Anything Goes and also into Mo's Challenge of - All My Favourite things; mine being - my dad, awsome digi images, mastering a new style and playing with yummy new stash.

That's everything so thanks for dropping by and looking. Whatever else you get up too - Happy Crafting!

I suddenly fancy a cream tea.....

Afternoon all,

No card for me today, as I've been busy making strawberries.... not the edible kind, but it has left me with a strange craving for a cream tea, lol! You may remember back in september I made some strawberry earings - well one of my christmas presents was the matching braclet and knecklace kits. So I've been busy making strawberries galore and this is the final outcome. 

I love it but at the moment I can't face making up the matching knecklace, as it's just so fiddly - I might cry!

But until then I have this little gem to wear and the other kit is safe and sound waiting for me. Not a lot else to share - I'm busy working on a piece of cross stitch as well at the moment, I only started it....oooooh about 6 years ago *hides in shame* maybe i'll get it finished before easter if I keep forcing myself to do a couple of hours a night?!

Until next time, thanks for popping by and happy crafting!