Ohh, lookie here! Am I blessed, or what? :o)

Yesterday, I was bowled over to see on Lorraine (Crafty Coo)'s blog that I had won the second in her series of blog candy giveaways! Woohoo!! And she doesn't hang around, that girl... They arrived TODAY!! I am hugely impressed.. You get so much in a pack!! And they're beautiful! Funny how they go perfectly with the 6"x6" pad of 'My Mind's Eye' Bllom & Grow paper I bought from Lorraine's Ebay shop last week! Spooky co-incidence.. it was obviously meant to be! (Take a gander at these beauties in Lorraine's shop.. fab value at £2.99!)

BUT... nayy, I tell you.. that's not all! Have a butcher's at this lovely card that arrived in the package! It's a pity the photo doesn't do it justice, as it's a beautifully decoupaged card.. very professionally done. I am - or wasn't - a big fan of decoupage, but I think I may be a convert, as this really is superb.. as well as darned cute! Thanks very much, Lorraine.. I love it! :o)


Don't forget to check out Lorraine's blog candy.. There are still plenty of chances to join in! :o)

Hugs,

My sheepdogs (for Lean)...

We-ell.. not my sheepdogs, exactly, but they're family, and I love them all the same, and see them often.. Two of them (Abby & Ben) belong to my sister, and the other (Emma) is my mum's, but she and I have an understanding and have deep, meaningful conversations when I see her every Saturday. Me and Emma, that is.. not mum. Although we do, too. Ohh, you KNOW what I mean!!

Emma (above)... Ben (below).. Not pure sheepdog, as you can tell.. Touch of Heinz 57 here..

Now get ready for the 'ahhhh' quotient... This is Abby at 49 days old...

Another one of Em (below)...

Anyone else got border collies? (Or any other kind of dog!) Show us yer pics! Leave a link here to your blog so people can find you. I'll think up some kind of little prize and draw from the links offered in a week... 6.00pm on 11th August.

Birthday card for my Girl..

This is my card this year for Karen, my beautiful daughter. I will be going to visit her this weekend. Not her birthday until later in the month, but she'll be away in Ireland, visiting my brother and his wife, who is doing her PhD at Dublin Uni.

You really wanted to know all that, didn't you? lol ;o)

Any road up, this is not the usual kind of card I make for Karen.. They're usually OTT blingy and uber pretty, but I think she'll like it anyway. It was inspired by a stash accident.. Was tidying up the largest storage facility in my craft room (a.k.a. "The Floor"), and found this flower, haphazardly positioned with a stalk of green leaves, and these papers laying on each other, and I thought, "Ooh!" I thought.. "That looks nice!" So this is a version of how they were!


I have used...

• Smooth white CS from Madaboutcards.com (my favourite basic CS), trimmed to 6" x 6"
• Black Bazzill CS
• Dotty paper from Funky Hand (Salt & Pepper)
• Scraps of damask paper from Basic Grey
• Computer-generated sentiment (Cezanne font)
• Prima flower
• Gorgeous rosebud (from a RAK from Lorraine, Crafty Coo! Mwaaaah!!)
• Green leaves from a garland
• Waxed cotton beading cord
• Stempelglede border from the 'Grunge Collection'
• Dark brown Chalk Eyes & Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink

.. And, finally.. This is the young lady this card was made for... My greatest creative endeavour... (I did have some help, though, and I can't claim credit for the design... lol!!)
Hugs,
Chris xx

Irresistible Blog Candy No. 2!

I have never NOT wanted to post a blog candy notice so much before! I mean, we all have a selfish streak in us somewhere, right? And I definitely do NOT want to share opportunities to win this candy with anyone!! It's just too, too precious.

(sigh) So that's it. I have decided I am NOT going to tell you to go to Sarita's blog before the 15th August to enter. So there.

My first blog candy posting since...

... before my blogging break. Suffice to say, it's been a while. But I couldn't resist the opportunity to be in the running for these little beauties!

This tempting candy is being offered by Leanne to celebrate her move to Dubai, and you can enter (if you must.. sigh) by going to Leanne's blog HERE.

No rush. You have until 1st September.

Getting Funky.. Not for the first time! :o)

Ohhhh, boy, I enjoyed this!! This is my entry for the first 'Get Funky' challenge, and as an ex-Funky Hand DT member, it felt soooo comfortable and warmly familiar.. like coming home and seeing an old friend. What a delight! I'm still smiling. :o)

Anice, Funky Hand's creator, posed the first challenge.. a sketch. Great fun, too! We were allowed to play with it, as long as it still looked something like the sketch at the end. I prefer portrait cards to landscape (they stand up better! lol ;o), so I stood the oval up on end, and other than adding in my (new) signature floral/butterfly motif, I think the pattern is recognisable.

I used two papers from the Funky Little Christmas download, and a flower motif from the Shabby Saturday download. There's a fair amount of distressing and faux stitching goin' on. Hope you like it!

As for the rest, I don't have any oval nesties, so I improvised using MS Autoshapes to get the ovals, and handcut the scallops with fancy-edged scissors. I discovered I liked the slight offsetting of the ovals which left room for the gems.

I have to thank talented and Funky Hand DT member, Ruth, for her inspiration for the letters, as you'll see in her DT sample for the challenge, here >>>>>

Mine are from a Quickutz alphabet. Can't recall which one off-hand, and the craft room is downstairs. If you'd like to know which one, leave me a comment and I'll get off my big lazy backside and go and look! ;o)

The 'happy birthday' is computer-generated in the Cezanne font. Butterfly is Martha Stewart.

I think that's it. For now. Had my fun for the day. Better get on with some housework now. :o(

Enjoy the challenge!! :o)

Hugs,

You are formally invited...

Got your posh frock? Got your heels, bling and a bit o' lippy wouldn't go amiss... Time for the red carpet.. Toot-ter-de-root-ter-der-root!!! (That was trumpets, in case you wondered...)

Big thanks to Leanne for this award. Bless her.. she's just moved to Saudi, and is waiting for her stash to catch up with her. Poor love. Please do pay her a visit and give her something to do! ;o)

The challenge is to pass it on to five people who inspire me. The challenge is narrowing it down to five!! There are so many awesomely talented crafting bloggers .....(I wish they'd invent a more elegant word... blog is far too close to 'bog', if you ask me... tsk!)..... who inspire me on a daily basis, that I hardly know where to begin.

But I will.

In a minute.

You'll see.

Riiiiggghhhttt... Well, I'm going to start by eliminating the ladies I very recently passed an award on to. It would seem fairer to choose some names I haven't chosen since I took my blog-oliday a few months back. Stop jabbering, woman, and geronwithit!! OK, ok..

One of my all-time favourite card-designers is my ex-DT-mate from the Funky Hand team.. KATH. I just love her fresh style, but I wish she wouldn't blog so much, 'cause I can't keep up!! If you have been living under a rock in some desolate and lonely corner of blogland, I suppose there is the outside chance that you may not have come across this lady yet, and her faithful (and very handsome) sidekick, the Budster. In which case, hitail it over there now, and settle in for a long browse. Well worth it, believe me!

I am also going to choose ANICE, the founder and designer behind Funky Hand, because she inspires me enormously, not only for her unique sense of style, but for her business acumen and drive, in spite of dealing with personal health issues. Such a strong, clever woman.

The next lady I am going to choose is OLGA, because her cards are always beautifully designed, and we share a love of the English language. Even though Olga is Russian. Oh, and we both fancy her husband.

Next is EMMA. Her cards are very different from the norm.. and I love 'em. Plus she's the only fellow British crafting blogging lady I know who shares my love of BASEBALL!! (Go, Sox/Cubs/Cards/Giants/Dodgers/Indians... take your pick! lol ;o) The woman has taste, what can I say.

Aaaand finally, AMY SHEFFER, because of her faith, and her willingness to share with others, and - let's face it - her cards are exquisite.

Ladies, that is my line up for some Craftling love today. Please accept my accolade and don't feel any obligation to take it any further. It is just an expression of my bloggy heroine worship, but if you'd like to pass the love on, you are supposed to choose five bloggers who inspire you.

Thanks again, Leanne. I am honoured. :o)

Hugs,

Branching out...

Something a little bit different to my usual style. This has been created for a charity I deal with on a regular basis through my work. They invited me to attend a celebration they are having soon to celebrate their 15th anniversary, but I can't go, sadly, so decided to make them a card instead.


Basically, it's a bare branch stamp (Penny Black, I think), stamped on high white CS in Dark Brown Chalk Eyes, then cut out. I used a birch leaf punch to make leaves out of green DP, which I shaped and embossed.. inked the edges with Versacolor Olive, then glittered with Craft Planet irridescent glitter glue. Each one was stuck individually to the ends of each twig, and where there was room to put a sticky pad between them to create different levels, I have.

By hand, I drew the squiggly square around the card using a fine tip fibre pen, and then stuck the branch down loosely on sticky pads so that it's secure, but has movement. I created the 15 using Wordart, cut them out, inked the edges, glittered the surface and stuck in place.

Computer-generated letters for the name of the charity at the top, and stamped 'Congratulations'. Three square gold brads complete the card.

Not happy with the balance, and feel it needs more, but didn't want to go overboard, as this is for a professional contact. Prettier in real life with the 3D quiver on the leaves. Hope they like it!

Birthday Cards from Ruth, Allison & Lythan..

I promised ages ago to post pictures of the birthday cards I received from Ruth, Allison and Lythan.. three of my former Funky Hand DT-mates, before I resigned from the team through lack of time to be able to perform my DT duties as well as I wanted to.
Designed for several teams, but the Funky Hand team was the first for me, and the best. It was amazing.. I'm sure it still is! Not only from a talent perspective (and there was/is some awesome talent on that team).. but because they were/are a great bunch of gals, and it was a privilege to be one of them.

By co-incidence, I noticed that Anice, the creator of Funky Hand, has launched a new download today called Hearts and Flowers. It's a lovely collection, and the DT have done great things with it. One of my cards is on the DT gallery too! :o)

Any road up, when you get a moment, these are the links to the ladies' blogs who made these treasures here on the left. Well worth a shufti, I promise you!


Ruth (she makes those buttons herself, y'know!)
Allison
Lythan

Thanks, again, girls.. You made my day! :o)






P.S. Not sure why the two pics have displayed in different sizes, but they should be the same! Oh well...

** Long Post Alert ** Long Post Alert**

Sue Daly from across t'other side of 'the Pond' was kind enough to bestow upon me my first award since I started blogging again a little while ago.

They were difficult to keep up with before, and I have to admit I couldn't keep up and took the easy option of inviting visiting bloggers to snaffle the awards if they fancied them, but y'know what? I feel a little extra frisson of excitement that someone has been generous enough to recognise my blog. It has reminded me what it is all about. So.. THANK YOU, Sue!! I will give this the attention it deserves! :o)

I have visited Sue's blog, which is new in Blogland in its current iteration, but already has some lovely designs on it. I greatly look forward to seeing more. To check Sue's work for yourself, have a little clickee HERE.

The conditions of this award are:

I must thank the person who gave me the award, list their blog and link to it... CHECK
I must list ten (10) honest things about myself... CHECK
I must put a copy of The Honest Scrap Logo on my blog... CHECK
I must select at least seven (7) other worthy bloggers & list their links... CHECK
I must notify the bloggers of the award... CHECK

10 Honest Things About Me ……. Boy, this is going to be tough!

1. I was born in Germany, but I am British, und spreche nür ein Bißchen Deutsch! Nicht genug, und ich möchte gern mehr kennen lernen. (I hope that is correct hoch Deutsch! If there are any fluent German-speakers reading this, please leave me a critique!)

2. I have no degree (yet). I am in my fifties now, but would still love to pursue my love of the English language, and gain some credibility when I say, "THAT needs an apostrophe," lol! (Do you get the feeling I'm an art and languages gal? Yep.. can't add two and two, but I can conjugate with the best of 'em!! Hehe!)
Why haven't I done it yet? Well, in my defence, it was nowhere near such a big thing here as it was in the US, especially when I left school, and I thought all I wanted was to be a SAHM, so why bother? When I did start a career, it took off by itself anyway, and I was very successful without the qualifications, but would still love to fill that gap one day.

3. These are in no particular order, by the way, as this one should come first, by rights... I am a Christian. On the ladder of Christians, I must be at the bottom, as I mess up all the time, and am more human than Holy Spirit, but thank goodness for Jesus, because I couldn't make it without Him anyway! I have been a Christian for 17 years, but still very much a work in progress!! A 'practicing' Christian, you might say! lol ~ But contrary to 'the world' who expect such high things from Christians ~ my view is that a Christian is not defined by their behaviour, but by their belief.

4. I wish that everyone would be fair and honest. (I stole that directly from Sue, but it was such a good one, I adopted it for my list, too!)

5. I used to be quite sporty, and hope one day to lose enough weight to be able to get back out on the water/ice rink/tennis court!

6. I am VERY happily single! I went through a sudden switch when I went through a brief and sudden menopause brought on early by chemotherapy in 2002. Prior to that, I was desperately yearning for a fella for years! But for some reason.. can only assume it was a drop in hormones.. that desire went away, and what a relief! Men are lovely, but I couldn't eat a whole one. At least, not any more. Nope, my cat gives me all the affection I need nowadays. (Or am I kidding myself? What do you think, girls?) ;o)

7. Thanks to my dad's career, and my trekking as an adult, I have been blessed to travel quite widely, but my favourite place in the world is across a border, but right here in the UK... the Isle of Mull. The scenery is stunning, and it is still relatively unspoilt, which is lovely, and it has a very special atmosphere. If I ever win the lottery, that's where I would want to see out my days. "My heart is in the highlands, my heart is not here... My heart is in the highlands, a-chasing the deer" - Robert Burns

8. Running out of things to tell you... hmmm... *thinks*.. Love crafting.. (y'think? lol!).. Would love to make a business out of it full-time, but have tried and never been able to make it profitable enough to pay the mortgage! Ach, well. (sigh)

9. I get impatient with people who seem to be constantly whining and negative. I know! I shouldn't get impatient, but I do.. what can I tell ya?! One of the rough edges I am working on! lol ;o) Everybody complains once in a while, but you know those people who are just permanently pessimistic? Actually, it's people who annoy me that I pray for the most, so maybe there's a reason for it! lol

10. I have way too much craft stuff. Another one stolen from Sue. Ditto, girlfriend!!

I would like to pass this award on to:

1. Allison
2. Ruth
3. Brenda
4. Debbie
5. Sarita
6. Terrie B
7. Katie

Phew! Flippin' 'eck! That was quite a marathon! Hope you lasted through!
And if you did.. Thank you for your interest! :o)

Hugs,

Big Mama..

Yes, this is the 'mother' to the ATC 'baby' in the previous post, but I couldn't show it until I was sure Brenda had received it!

If you haven't come across Brenda in the past, I would urge you to do yourselves a favour and visit this talented lady's blog, Floral Fantasies. She has posted a card this evening which took my breath away.. a fairy theme with such a dreamy, ethereal quality.. just beautiful!

There's not much on this card you won't already be familiar with, but the main image is by Rubber Stampede, the script is a Hero Arts stamp, the flourish is Inkadinkado. Fiskars 'Threading Water' border punch and Martha Stewart butterfly punch. Pearls, roses, twine and the greeting was computer-generated in Cezanne font. The only thing slightly 'different' about it is that I gave her a pearl 'beauty spot'! lol ;o)

Brenda, are you watching?

You wanted to see what I would do with the images you sent me! lol.. Well, here's one.. an ATC, using the lovely 'alternative' Rubber Stampede image you generously included in the package..

New look...

Woohoo!! I have tried on HUNDREDS of blog backgrounds in the past 18 mths since I first stepped into Blogland, and never found one I was 100% happy with, but this one is just perfect!! I love it! Don't you?

It is courtesy of Karen, the Background Fairy... So talented and generous. Thank you, Karen!

Roses Roses..

More of the same, really! Sorry to be boring.. I did warn you, you would get fed up with this style before I do! ;o)

For a colleague's 50th birthday coming up soon...

Bazzill cardstock, white panel in the centre Cuttlebugged with the Swiss Dots embossing folder
Roses stamp.. PSX, I think
Butterfly and frame: K&Co Die-Cuts, 'Madeline'
Plus pearls, roses, twine and a pink dew drop

Oh! And here's the baby... an ATC on the same theme... ahhhh...

Aren't crafters lovely people?

My thanks to Brenda, Allison and Chris in Oz who all responded to my appeal for the luscious stamp in the previous post, and I now have an offer of some stamped images, AND a stamp swap!! How cool is that? I couldn't be happier.. except that I have now discovered a myriad more arty collage stamps on Chris' blog gallery that I now HAVE TO HAVE!!!

What's that commandment.. Thou shalt not covet thy fellow crafter's stamps? Phshaw!! I'm coveting! I'm coveting!

(sigh) It's never ending, isn't it? lol ;o)

Cash for Images...

This one to be precise. If you read my earlier post, you'll know I am desperately seeking stamping heaven with this gorgeous creature, but the wretched woman is discontinued. I mean, for goodness' sake, if it ain't broke, why fix it? I'm sure this lovely stamp would just keep selling and selling and selling... don't you agree? Yes, I can see you nodding from here.

Still, the powers that be having their heads in cloud cuckoo land made this daft decision, so I am stuck with having to beg and grovel... and pay cash if I have to. (Well, Paypal anyway.)

Is there anyone out there experiencing a temporary loss of sanity who has a copy of this stamp in good condition and is willing to part with it for some morsels of moolah? Or ~ failing that ~ anyone who would flog me some stamped images? Eh? Pretty please? Eh? Eh?

Does anyone recognise this stamp?

Hi, all.. This gorgeous image was one that I had received in an image swap, ages ago, and I don't recall who it came from. It was cropped for use on this ATC, but I have decided that I NEEEEEED it and would love to track it down.

If you recognise it and you know what it's called or who it's by, please would leave me a comment? I'll send the first person who replies with enough info for me to find it some stamped images from it. (Or if you have it already, I'll send some of my other stamp images.)

Thank you! :o)

UPDATE

Thank you, Brenda, for the info. I have spent hours this afternoon trawling through websites where I thought she might be found... Stamp Francisco, Stampland Chicago, Lost Coast, Third Coast, coast to coast, Split Coast and all points in between, lol!! And then Brenda's message arrived, and with the maker and serial number, I was able to find the name of the stamp through Google... but nowhere that has it available. In desperation, I tried Addicted to Rubber Stamps, and sure enough.. there she was.... discontinued!!! Waaaaahhhhh!! :o(

My last resort is to post a 'Want It Now' post on Ebay, offering cash for the stamp or, failing that, some stamped images.

Fingers crossed.

For all my American visitors..