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.