Sunday 25 April 2010

A bit of Fantasy does you good

It's Sunday morning and it's raining, how rude! I had a day of washing planned and now my plans are in tatters. I'll just have to craft instead.  Not that I really want to you understand, but I'm now forced to do it by circumstances, lol.

All is quiet here with Sammy and Colin still snoring in bed, and I've put a film on the tv.  Lot's of snow and arty shots and as you would guess the two leading characters are falling in love.  What a surprise eh?

Talking of tv I have a question for you.  Now, I am a lover of fantasy (as in fairies and dragons and not the other) and I'm really enjoying Legend of the Seeker at the moment.  I could just imagine myself as Kalan the Mother Confessor or Cara in her fabulous leather suit, not that sort of leather suit, although it is sort of sexy.  They are both beautiful strong women who kick arse, and Kalan gets to kiss the Seeker.  Well I cirtainly wouldn't say no that, he's got quite a bod on him and he's not that bad looking either.  Well we can all dream can't we?  Getting back to the question, what tv/film/book character would you like to be and why?

Here is my card for week 16 Polka Doodles challenge. The theme this week is to make a card/project using monotone colours.  I chose blue, no great surprise there really as blues and purples are my favoured colours.  I used one of the Nikky's Fairy Flutterby clear stamps with my denim blue Adirondack inpad. I then pulled the ink from the image with a damp brush to colour it.  It's a nice quick and effective way adding  interest to your stamped image without going mad with colour.  The backing papers are from the new cd All Around and Everywhere and Paper Boutique.  The new cd is fabulous with so much on it.  It really is a must have if you like animals/nature, cakes, flowers (plus so much more) and a more modern feel to your papercrafting.  There really is everything you need on Nikky's cd's, backing papers galore, stacking flowers, stampies, embellies, you name it it's on there.
 
Here are some pics of my samples for the tv launch of All Around and Everywhere.
And these last pics are of cards I've made with Kajed Designs new digital bundles which will shortly be on A Card 4 U's website, so keep an eye out for them.
Take care all, Dee.

Monday 19 April 2010

Busy as a b..........................................

                               



I don't know whats happened to the formatting, but it's gone haywire and I can't get anything back to where I want it.  Me confoozled!

Cripes is it Monday already? I've been that busy the days are going past in a blurr of double-sided tape and paper.  I've been busy with Magazine projects and samples for Nikky over at Polka Doodles.  There is a show on Fri 23rd 10am on create and craft sky 671 or freeview 36.  It's the launch of the new CD so the design team have been busy beavering away to get the samples made.  Nikky has packed this cd with oodles of gorge stuff and I've had a hard job trying to choose just what to use.  I did make a project that kind of grew, the problem is now I've got to get it up to Yorkshire, but out of the many boxes I have stashed round the house, is there one just the right size? Is there hell.

This week is going to be just as busy with more mag stuff and a couple of samples for someone else that has a show next week on create and craft.

I made a few samples with the new Flutterby Fairies stamps from Polka Doodles. I didn't have as much time as I would have liked but these are what I came up with. These are very versatile stamps as the wings are seperate butterflies.

This first one I coloured in with Copic pens.  I know everyone is Promarker crazy, but I like my Copics.



I watercoloured this one in with Sakura Satrdust pens. I love the gentle sparkle they give when watered down. 
 

 
And this last one I used conventional watercolours.
Time to get back to work now.

Saturday 10 April 2010

Woopee, I've made the front cover again.

Yippiddy yip aye eee.  The set of cards I made with the Blond Moments products (available from Art From The Heart) are on the front cover of the May edition of Making Cards.  It really doesn't matter how many times you get front cover, it's still really exciting and I'm chuffed to bits.

Week 14's DT card for Polka Doodles blog was to make a wedding card.  I must confess I was very pushed for time so it had to be a quick one.  It's made with papers from the Love and Cherish CD, and I have printed the top paper onto iridescent sparkling white inkjet paper, and the the remaining bits are printed onto vellum.
 
I've highlighted the daisys and the heart by embossing the back of the main image with a medium sized ball tool.
 
And here is the new addition to my MIL's family.  Meet Muffin the 8 week old Bichon Frise, he is rather sweet and very cuddly.  Sammy was beside himself when we got round there last night.  He's always very excited when we are round there, but yesterday he just couldn't believe his eyes.  He spent the first 10 mins prodding muffin with his nose and crying at him in a bid to get him to play.  After Muffin growling at him in that really cute puppy growl that you just can't take seriously, he decided he had to investigate this new tan noisy animal that was bothering him.  Complete chaos after that, they were playing and chasing after each other and much giggling was had by all.  Sammy really was in his element and couldn't believe his luck.  Toby (MIL's other Bichon) was not so impressed and stayed out of the way of the noisy pair.  I tried to get a picture of the pair playing, but they were just moving too fast, lol
 
And just so baggins doesn't feel left out here is her royal purryness all snuggled up in my dressing gown.
 
On bank holiday Monday we took Sammy up the downs to Kingley Vale.  We found a nature trail when we got further into the woods.  I've lived down here since since 1981 and I never knew it was there.  

Mindyou, I haven't been to this particular spot since 1984 on Halloween night and it was pitch dark.  We went up there with the aim of looking for the witches that it's reported dance around on this special night!  Out of the group of us that went up there (now you have to remember we were all scooter riding punks and goths) only 4 of us were brave enough to venture further than the car park.  By the time we got to the woods the 2 men (woosey boys!!!) were very jumpy and refused to go any further.  Honestly, they really are all mouth and no trousers these men, lol.
 
Huh, Colin always teases me because I'm a bit pigion toed when I walk, well here is photographic evidence of Mr PENGUIN FEET!  He will be shown this the next time he starts!
 
I love wood in all shapes and forms, I'm almost obsessive about it in fact.  Colin got a bit fed up of having to stop and wait for me whenevr something caught my eye like this clump of clump knotted roots covered in moss.  It was like a magnet to me, and as I was there I just had to take a pic.
 
And we saw some buzzards, this one was kindy doing a display for us.  I took a couple of pics them grabbed my camcorder and started filming.  Only problem is I don't really know how to use it, LMAO.  I've ended up with the beginning and the end with me saying 'I don't know how to stop the b***** thing', but all the middle bit with the buzzard flying around has gone, I have no idea where but it's definitely not there!  So all I have is a couple of distant shots.  Next time maybe I might have more success.
Take care till next time.

Monday 5 April 2010

Muddy Boots

Hello all, another late post then!  I feel I should be getting an award for never being on time, maybe in the form of a nice little tasteful pin that I could wear with pride, lol.  There's quite a lot of pics in this post so sorry to bore you, grab a cuppa and indulge me just this once. 

On the 15th of March it was my birthday, it was one of the things I was going to tell you about in a previous post, and believe it or not I couldn't remember a thing when I sat down to do it, the post that is! Just goes to show that 'oldtimers' is really setting in now.  No hope for me I feel, it's well and truly here to stay.  Anyway I got mainly money, which I had asked for.  I'm saving for a new graphics tablet and pen and I want a Wancom Intuos4 (soz that's prob not how you spell it). I'm not quite there yet, still need another 90 squid but hopefully soon I'll be digi drawing again.  Colin got me a couple of Lazy Jacks sweatshirts from Guernsey, he'd seen them a while ago and decided that was what he was getting me.  I love them, they are really warm, cozy and comfy.  In fact he bought 2 more for me the last time he was out there too, so now I have 4.  And I got loads of Gower Cottage Brownies big thanks to my cousin Carol and her husband Mark, Kate and Paul.  I've been getting them a box at a time and I still have a box in the brownie bank to come at some point soon.  I'm sorry to say my thighs may never recover from the chocolate overload, but heyho I'll worry about that next month.

And now onto papercrafting.  This is my DT card for this weeks Polkadoodle challenge.  Ruth set the challenge for this week and we had to make a card for her birthday.  I used the Cupcake Treat range from the Paper Boutique Vol 1 CD.  The rest of the team made some fab projects, so pop over and and have a look if you haven't already done so.
And here are cards I've made with the new Garden Delights download bundle that Kate and myself have been working on. They are available from A Card 4 U and offer really good value for money. I only printed out the craft sheets once and I made all these cards.  You could make more with this kit as I've put a couple of elements on the same cards for some.  We decided to go for a nice pretty classic look with this set.  So all you classic image lovers should be happy.  Our next set is more contempory but quite cute.  Hopefully that one won't be too long now.

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and we took Sammy for a lovely walk round Pagham Harbour.  However it was very windy and very soggy and muddy, just look at the state of my bloody boots! They're going to take me ages to get clean.  And the state of my tousers, well I thought I'd had wieghts added to the bottom of them.  We had to disrobe at the front door when we came in.  Sammy loved it though, he's not one of these dog's that doesn't like get his feet wet, he plows straight through all the mud and puddles.  In fact I'm thinking of making an upside down coat to keep his undercarriage clean and dry.  There's still a few teething probs with it to sort out though, As you can imagine being a little boy he does need some access!
That's it for now folks. Keep warm and well xxx