A Thank You for my fab classroom assistant...

When I got asked to take on a class full time in September I truly hit the ground running! The room was a shell as the previous teacher had vacated it and with the new teacher falling ill none of the usual preparations had been done. Diane, my classroom assistant, was an absolute star. She prepared all the books and folders, labelled drawers and helped me to get displays up. During the year she has done alsorts of things to make life run smoothly. This card is for her to thank her for all she did now that the other teacher has returned and I have left that class.
Creative Card Crew have 'thank you cards' as their theme so I am entering this card.

Hello

Cupcake Craft have 'green, pink and brown' as their colours and 'animals and flowers' as a theme. I took a look at all the free download kits I have been getting from Summertime Designs and chose these fab papers from her Angel Mother set which include all these colours and flowers. The little dog image is Elzybells and is coloured with prismas and sansodor. The photo does not pick it up but the nose and the little caterpillar have been picked out with glossy accents.

I made the felt flowers with a Sizzix Originals die and some felt from the market- bargain! Chrisma Cardz have 'Tag it!' as their challenge so the greeting has been stamped onto a tiny tag, also cut with my Sizzix.

I followed the lovely sketch at Spoon Full of Sugar. I hope it was ok to take a few liberties with it- I used an oval because it fitted my stamp better and grouped the 3 flowers.

I am going to send this card to my lovely friend Helen with some new home images she needs inside so I made a simple pocket to hold them in the post. When I printed my papers I forgot to put in my special paper so it started printing on out cheapy standard stuff- much pressing of 'cancel' and a few naughty words later I had a little strip of paper which came in handy for decorating the inside!

Inspired by some fab free download papers!

I don't remember where I found the link to this fabulous blog, sorry, but you have to have a look at these fabulous free downloads by Summer Driggs at Summertime Designs, they are just gorgeous and she has provided them all free for personal use- Thank you for sharing these fantastic designs Summer.

I have downloaded lots of sets but was particularly drawn to this Limeade set because they are colours that I would not normally use but look fantastic together on these papers. Now I am no IT expert and my husband gets sick of sorting out things related to cardmaking! But where there's a will there's a way, so I set about trying to work out how to size the quilt paper perfectly for the front of the card- I used Photoshop and changed the image size to 14.5cm and printed! I have to admit I was quite pleased with myself and can just hear him saying 'see you can do it if you just have a go'!

I decided to follow Secret Crafter's Saturday Challenge recipe which was: 3 buttons, 2 design papers and 1 ribbon. I knew I had this black spotty grosgrain ribbon in my stash which was perfect but I thought I would struggle to find suitable buttons. Could not believe my luck when I came across these fab buttons in just the perfect colour in a sample pack from an old goodie bag! I decided to stitch them on because I did not want to see any glue with them being see through- don't tell the family, you can wait an age to have a button sewn on in this house normally!

I used black as a card base so needed to line the inside to give me somewhere to write. I had used 2 design papers on the front so I used a piece of pearlised white paper and stamped the edges to create a border.

Butterfly wings- and a pigeon!

I love this paper so much, and had printed off more than I needed for my last card, so I decided to use it again today. The paper is a free download from Raspberry Road and as Stamp Something had 'bugs, butterflies and other winged somethings' as their theme I started with the gorgeous butterfly paper. The image is a Gorjuss Girl from Sugar Nellie and I think you can just tell from the picture that she is cut out and popped on 3D foam, with her hands and the bird stuck flat.

I rotated the 'X on a sketch' layout from ABC and put it together, using mainly offcuts from the last card along with some ribbon and jewels from my stash.

It is a lovely sunny day here so I took this out to take the photograph. I use a mini tripod and the timer setting on my camera to avoid camera shake, however, a breeze got up as I had set the timer and my first photo was of the easel only!

A card for my Husband.

I am such a last minute merchant sometimes. The only reason I am able to post this card is because I photographed it after I gave it to him this morning! I have been making other cards since I last put one on here too, but they were all for immediate posting or they would have been late! I will try to make similar ones to put up over the next couple of weeks as I was quite pleased with them.

The light blue leather effect cardstock has been stamped with a fish and the sentiment from a CDs set using Versamark to give the tone on tone effect. Love that sentiment- it was why I bought the set! I also sponged darker blue ink around this layer and the oval mat.
The image is Personal Impressions clear and is coloured with Prismas and Sansodor. I had a bit of trouble with the Stazon smudging into the colours when I used the Sansodor which, I think, was caused by the card I stamped on- Any ideas?
The stamp already had some stitching detail on the pockets so I carried this on with faux stitching so I am entering this into Cute Card Thursday as their theme is 'A stitch in time'.
I followed Papertake Weekly's sketch so am making a very late entry into this challenge also!

Told you I was a last minute merchant!!!

I'm back- with a 'sorry' card!

Sorry to have been away from blogging for so long! After my nightmare week I took my son to Wales for half term to stay with Mum and Dad. We had a lovely time, even though the weather was quite changeable and ate far too many ice creams. On getting back I had about a week of being so tired- just about enough energy to crash in front of the TV, but not to craft. When I got my energy back I had to face writing my reports. Because I work part-time it isn't a full set, but nevertheless it still hangs over me until it is done. I finished them on Tuesday and handed them in on Wednesday so I was determined that I would reward myself with a craft day today!I have a confession to make- I missed my cousin's daughter's birthday by absolutely loads; somehow I didn't transfer it to my new calender and only realised when I saw it on Mum's! I was already badly late with it so I thought it would be better to wait until I had time to make a special card rather than run out and buy one.

I had treated myself to some papers when ArtyMiss had a free postage weekend and had also finally got myself some Sugar Nellies so I decided to use my new stash. I followed Colour Create's blush pink,lilac and mossy green colour scheme for this card which worked perfectly for this K and Company paper. They had 'die cuts' as their extra option so I used my large sizzix originals scallop envelope to make a double sentiment- 'sorry' on the flap and 'belated birthday wishes' on the hidden card, using my ever versatile Elzybells clear sentiments set. Embarrassed and grovelling? YES! I embossed everything except the flap with my paisley folder and used a Brilliance pad to pick this up and for the front sentiment.

I am going to send some money in this card so I created a pocket inside using some card from my stash, decorative scissors, a white gel pen and a TINY sliver of paper which I had left from the front! Finally, I punched out a few flowers for the other side. (I want to hand write the message so I wanted to leave it fairly uncluttered.) Dutch Dare have 'decorate the inside of your card' as their theme so I am entering this card.

Edited to add: Oh dear- just went to post this on Dutch Dare and realised I had looked at last week's challenge- DOH!

Outlandish Owls Birthday Card!

When I look at this card it reminds me of the poem 'When I am old I shall wear purple' by Jenny Joseph! I made this card for Saturday Challenge- 'flowers'. I love this wacky paper from Papermania and just had to put it with this fabulous stamp from Pink Cat Studio and colour their hats to match. I made the flower with my Sizzix and some felt.

Cricketing Teddy Birthday Card.

I think this little guy from Personal Impressions clear stamps is so cute! I coloured him with Prismacolor pencils and Sansodor and used glossy accents on the ball and his nose. I followed the sketch at Dutch Dare this week, which is really great to work with. The cricket ball paper is from a Dovecraft Masculine pack, the green is Core'dinations and the blue and navy are from my stash. I'm entering this for Spoon Full of Sugar because they have blue and green as their colour scheme this week. It wasn't looking right when I first assembled the card so I drew on the stitched borders which really helped and added the 3 cricket balls which I cut out of the paper. Cute Card Thursday have 'Something Shiny' as their challenge so I'm entering this because of the gold star brad and the glossy accents. Finally I used a few of the offcuts to decorate the inside.

Elzy Birthday Wishes.

Another of my new Elzys! This is my first go at paper piecing- it is something I have meant to try for ages and was finally prompted to have a go by the BasicGrey Challenge. All the papers on this card are from the 'Eva' paper pad and the little brads are theirs too. The sketch is from A Spoon Full Of Sugar and was a nice simple one to work with. Cute card Thursday have 'Floral Fantasy' as their theme.I sponged ink on the tips of the mulberry paper flowers to tone them in better with the flowers on the papers and give the illusion of more dimension. Both Our Creative Corner and Pink Elephant have 'recycled items' as their theme this week! I can't remember what I rescued the ribbon off but there it was is my box with the bow already in it which is a huge bonus for me because I'm rubbish at bows! Finally I decorated the inside of the card for the Elzybells Challenge- 'Inside out- co-ordinate the inside with the outside'.

Gosh! That's SIX challenges this card covers- I'm really multi-tasking this week to catch up after the Easter holidays!

Elzy Thank You card.

I promised you lots of Elzy cards as I had just got new stamps! I think these two ladies are gorgeous. I think I may be getting better with my Prismas, mind you I was colouring into the wee hours last night! I followed Dawny's fabulous sketch #12 at Papertake Weekly and kept my layout quite plain because I only seem to get myself in a tangle when I try to put on too much! Saturday Challenge #26 was to use stripes. I love the colours in this paper from Partners and based my card on them.

New dog welcome card.

I used sketch #45 from Sketch Saturday for this card. Both stamps come from my new Elzys and I have been dying to ink them up! I coloured the image with my new Prismas and am quite pleased with how the dog came out, less so with the 'sky'! The background paper was a free download but I can't remember where from, sorry. Pink Elephant have a recipe challenge this week- use stamps,embossing and punches. I am entering this card because the little paw print is heat embossed to make it shiny and it has been punched out with a circle punch- a tiny detail, I know, but I didn't want to clutter the card up too much!

Bright citrus birthday.

As soon as I read that Cute Card Thursday had citrus colours as its theme this week I got straight to printing out these free download papers from Papercraft Inspirations. Had a bit of a job deciding which stamp to put with them but I think this Jolly Nation singing girl works well with these funky colours. I have coloured her with my new Prismacolor pencils, Sansodor and paper stumps- I'm still working on my technique with these and am not entirely happy with this yet. I was worried about soaking the cardstock too much and making it look oily but it seems to evaporate so I'm getting braver! I followed sketch #46 at Friday Sketchers which was perfect for this card.