Singing in the rain...

My Time to Craft had 'Under my umbrella!' as their challenge so I dug out this Woodware clear set that I have not used for ages. I painted the image with a combination of watercolour pencils and pearlised watercolours, taking my colour pallette from the free download papers from Papercraft Inspirations. The layout comes from Friday Sketchers and was great for this card- giving me the perfect opportunity to use the umbrella charm.

Karate Kid!

This card has been made using the sketch at Charisma Cards this week. Cupcake Craft asked us to use either digi papers or images- all the DP for this card are from the lovely free download 'A year to shine' by Summer Driggs. 'Teen Terrors' was the challenge at Cute Card Thursday- I thought this image by Sugar Nellie would work for a teenager and that the star could have silver peel off numbers in it if needed.

"While shepherds washed their socks by night!"...

...as children down the generations have found it hysterical to sing in place of the real words to this traditional hymn!

Allsorts challenged us to make a card inspired by the words of a Christmas carol this week. I had to have this Jolly Nation stamp when I saw it because having been a primary school teacher for 17 years I have fixed more than my fair share of tea towels to shepherds' heads! It was very simply made from some embossed gold Merry Christmas card from my stash and mats cut and embossed with the Labels 8 Nestabilities.

The image has been watercoloured with brushmarkers scribbled onto an acrylic block and painted on.

Having a week away...

Hello folks! Just thought I would put up a quick post to say that I won't be crafting this weekend because we have rented a cottage near Scarborough for half term. The weather so far has been quite showery but we didn't expect fabulous hot sun at the end of October! It is just good to have some family time away. If anyone knows any good craft shops in the area please leave a comment- I may not be crafting but I'm always on the look out for more stash!

My first Christmas card...

I was mulling over the challenges as I went to bed on Saturday night and before I got off to sleep I knew one thing and that was that I was going to dig out my Pink Cat Studio QT Hooty stamps in the morning! I did not set out to make a Christmas card- in fact I was thinking of using the 'get well' image! -but when I started looking for papers I was really drawn to these colours. They are a free download by Summertime Designs called Winter Gifts.
I could not resist using my new nesties- I had the ovals but have just bought the scalloped circles and ovals and the plain circles. I have less time to craft now that I'm working full time but more money to send off for goodies!
ABC have F for Flying as their challenge which is what set me off thinking about QT Hooty. Secret Crafter have 'Dig Deep'- to find an old stamp or image- I got this set for Christmas last year and have used some of the set, but not this image yet, and have not had them out for a while. Just Us Girls have Aqua, red and vintage cream as their colour combo this week. This was what got me searching for papers in my downloads and I loved the crisp look of this set. The DPs have been printed onto a shimmery pearly paper which has not come out in the photo at all and they look much less stark and white in real life!
Getting a photo of this card was a real problem. I finished it on Sunday night and it was too dull to take a picture before work so I ended up taking it to school and nipping outside my classroom to take the photo at lunchtime!

Not blogged in over a month!

I could not believe I have been AWOL for over a month now and not only have I not blogged but I have not been making cards either! There was one card, but I could not put it on my blog because it was a photo card which a colleague had asked me to make for her. Weekends are over in no time now that I am teaching full time and evenings are either taken up with work or I am too tired to make cards. I have resolved to be a better blogger from now on!
It seems ironic that the last card I posted was for my son's friend Jamie and so is this! When I bought this Elzy stamp I thought it may come in handy one day with having a boy (and it was on offer!) but I did not expect to be using it so soon. Jamie has broken his elbow and is in hospital at the moment waiting to find out if it can be set or if it needs operating on so Matthew wanted to send him get well wishes. They are both into playing 'army' at the moment so he chose these free download papers from Summer Driggs called Courage. I paper pieced the t-shirt, trousers and sling and painted the rest using brushmarkers. The Coredinations has been embossed with my new Christmas Stars folder and sanded.

The card is based on the sketch at Papertake Weekly, but I could not fit in the ribbon. Stamp Something have 'brown plus something' as their challenge, where you are allowed to use other colours but brown must be predominant. I have just discovered a new challenge blog called Just Us Girls and they have paper piecing as their challenge so I am entering this card as I have paper pieced his clothes. As these papers are a download I was able to re-scale the papers used for the piecing in Photoshop before printing which is great for getting small enough prints.

Skateboard birthday...

Some of you may have read in my recent posts that I have just changed from working 2 days a week to full time teaching. Because my son has just gone back to school he had a couple of party invitations with very little notice because they were early September birthdays. I managed to find a card in my stash for the first but did not have a card for the second so *Shock, Horror* I decided that we would just have to buy one from Morrisons- well, the choice was dire and I just could not do it!!! So out came my stuff and, after saying I would keep it very simple, I got carried away and was still at it at 11.45pm! Sorry the photo is a bit dark but I took it at about 7am so he could take the card with him to school today!

This card hits loads of challenges, which is a good thing due to my lack of crafting time right now! The layout is from the Spoon Full of Sugar sketch and it was a really nice one for these papers and this card. The papers are from Shabby Princess and are a free download so long as you are not using them to make cards to sell. These papers cover:-
Cupcake Craft- red, white and blue
My time to craft- polka dot party
Our Creative Corner- stars and stripes (with the die cut star from the red paper)
Stamp Something have 'Favourite Stamp' as their challenge- hard one because I love all my stamps but Jolly Nation are some of the first stamps I bought and I still keep coming back to them. I love the simplicity and how they just seem to look like people you know! (They also had an option of die cuts which I hit with the star.) The image is coloured with watercolour pencils and a brush. The ABC challenge this week was 'D is for Die Cuts' so that is the sizzlet star! Last but not least, Allsorts had 'Something for the boys' which I was fine with because having a son I do have the stamps and get lots of practice. I think I will need to build up my stash of boys cards again to avoid more midnight crafting!