Congratulations!!!...

Hello there boys and girls!

Today is a very special day as my DOH's son marries his girlfriend and the mother of his gorgeous baby girl!!!  

My lucky DOH is in Australia as you are reading this to celebrate along with them...I unfortunately could not make it as it's a very expensive trip and it was far more important that he was there than I was!  I do feel a bit bad for him though as he is only able to spend a week over there and so the jet lag is going to hit him full force like a freight train when he returns back home to me :(  It has been five years since he saw his son so I know he's going to love every minute of it!

Obviously, an occasion such as this calls for a card...duh!!!  The invite that we received was in the very stylish colours of black and pearlised white, so that was my jumping off point.  This is how it turned out...

...and a little close up so you can see the pearls :)

It doesn't show very well in the photograph, but the white mat is a beautifully shimmery pearlised white card which makes the whole thing look a bit more elegant than a flat white...I think?!

I really hope that everyone is having a wonderful day and that my DOH is proud as punch and not melting in the heat!  It's 45C + where they are at the moment...slightly different from the single, and in some places minus, temperatures that we have here in the UK just now!!  He's going to get a shock when he comes home!  I also hope that he's having a fantastic time meeting his Granddaughter for the first time...she's 18 months old now and I just know she's going to absolutely adore her silly Grandad!  It's a super special trip and I know all concerned will appreciate it even if it is only a fleeting visit ;)

Thanks for stopping by guys ;)

Supplies
Card:      Paper Mill Direct - White, Black; Pearlised White Card
Stamps:  Waltzingmouse - Big Day Additions, Fancy Flourishes & Scallops & Dots
Ink:         Ranger - Perfect Medium
Other:     WOW! - Bright White e/p; pearls

A little love letter...

Hey, hey!

How are you all?  Enjoying your weekends I hope!  I can feel Mr. Mojo starting to re-appear which has pleased me no end ;)  Although, typically he turned up just before I'm about to go away for a week - I mean, talk about lousy timing!?  

I have made another girly card and I can't for the life of me work out where the girly-ness came from!!?  I think it was the doily and the soft colours from the new Curtain Call Challenge...

See!!?  Girly!  I have no idea who I am going to give this to - I'm pretty sure DOH would appreciate a slightly more masculine Valentine's card than this!!  That said, at least I made a card for a slightly more current event - unlike yesterday's Christmas card!

Despite being completely out of the norm for me, I really enjoyed making this card!  It has a pretty doily, an envelope made from patterned paper, a big pink heart, a SKEWED panel and glitter...it couldn't be any less me!  Maybe Mr. Mojo went visiting someone with the total opposite style to me and brought some inspiration back with him...who knows, but I quite enjoyed it :)

The 'love letter' actually slides out of the envelope...

...I guess you could write a personalised note on the back of it...that might be nice :)

And this is the gorgeous inspiration image from Curtain Call...yummy!!

Thanks so much for stopping by ;)

Supplies
Card:      Paper Mill Direct - White, Pink Sorbet; K&Co - Best Of
Stamps: Hero Arts - Valentines Flourishes
Ink:        Ranger - Perfect Medium; VersaColor - Old Rose
Other:    WOW! - Ebony e/p; Glitz It - Sparkles; Doily

Wedding stationery...finally!...

Hi ya!

WARNING!! I would like to warn you all now that this is a photo-heavy post.  If you are viewing from a mobile device that is not connected to a wi-fi network then it may take about 3 years to load all the images :)

I am here today with a post that is so overdue it's borderline embarrassing/funny!  

Allow me to explain...one of my best friends got married in September 2012 - yes, 2012, and I made her wedding stationery for her.  I had meant to post all about it following the wedding, but then life happened and the blog post never did.  It then got to that point where it was too long after the wedding...you know like when you've been speaking to someone for a while and then it's gone past the point when you can ask their name?!  It felt like that.  Then, I thought I would post it on their first wedding anniversary...nice idea...it works...but no, didn't happen.  So now I'll be honest, I'm out of ideas about when would be the 'right' time to do it so I'm just gonna do it!  Has this whole thing been over-thought...you bet it has!  :)

There's not really much else I can say except that it was a fab day, I was lucky enough to be one of the bridesmaids and the colour scheme the Bride chose was beautiful!  Oh, and I love her dearly, can't forget that part!!  ;)

Here we go...

I have to apologise for the quality of these photo's...I took them on my mobile to email to the Bride-To-Be when I was coming up with ideas for her.  As it happens, after making about a billion wedding invitations, I don't actually have a single one left to take proper photograph of so that's why you're stuck with this!  Just imagine that it's a lovely lime green, less dull than it looks in the photo!  I also ended up heat embossing the floral flourishes on the real thing which I didn't do on this prototype.

Now, the next batch of photographs are from the wedding day and were not taken by me.  I would love to give credit to the photographer, if only I knew his name!  If I manage to obtain that information then I promise to come back and edit this post to give credit where credit's due!

All of the table names were names of coffees as my friend is a MASSIVE coffee addict!!  There was also a slight Art Deco theme running throughout - the font on the invitations and the font used for the rest of the stationery...

Yes, I did HAND WRITE all of the place names!  I quite enjoyed it actually as it's rare that I get to use my calligraphy for anything these days :)  The lines were drawn freehand too to break up the perfect straight lines and to add the 'handmade' feel to them.

I like to be a little bit unconventional...instead of 'easel' style place names, they were more like little cards :)

Table layout

Table plan

Now then...this was the best part of the whole thing for me.  When my friend went to the cake decorator/baker (whatever the proper name for the amazing cake making people is...I don'y know!) she took the invitations with her and the cake was made BASED ON MY INVITATIONS!!  Yep, super humbled at this point, especially when I saw the cake!!  She even put the little blue and white rhinestones in the same place ;)

Cake!!

...more cake?!!

On the left is the post box I made for all the cards to go in

 This is probably one of my favourite photo's of the marquee - how pretty did that look!!?...

I was so proud to have been able to do this for my friend on her special day and bless the Groom, he even thanked me in his speech ;)

So there you go...I've finally done it, it's posted!!!

Thank you for reading my ramblings and checking out my proudest crafting moment to date...I'm hoping there will be many more to come!  ;)


Hope to see you soon ;)

Something a bit different...

Hello, hello, hello!

It's been a few days since I've posted anything, but that doesn't mean I haven't been making anything!  Although, I must admit that despite all the fabulous inspiration from the challenges and my fellow bloggers, Mr. Mojo is still on the missing list...boo to him!  If you see him around anywhere looking like a lost lamb, will you please point him back in my direction - ta!  :)

I am posting today, not a card, but a gift set of notebooks.  I was on Amber's wonderful blog the other day and found this tutorial on how to make your own notebooks.  Now, I know it seems obvious once you've watched the video, but I had never thought that PVA glue would work so well as a binding agent!  So anyway, I thought I'd give it a go.

I was also still on a mission to use some of my hoarded collection of patterned paper so that's exactly what I did...here are the little fellas...

Each notebook has a co-ordinating card as the colour on the inside...if that makes any sense at all?!!!  (It would seem not only has Mr. Mojo done a runner, but so has Mr. Vocabulary!  Apologies peeps!)  For the red plaid notebook and the blue striped notebook, I used the same colour card for the labels as I did for the inside.  The black script notebook has a black card inside, but I though that it needed a lighter grey colour for the label... :)  Those little strips of card on the labels are for the recipient (my little brother) to write on so that he knows what he's using each notebook for.  He's on the hunt at the moment for a house so I thought he might use one for noting down estate agents, mortgage lenders, furniture stores etc.  That way all the information pertaining to each subject is in one place and not on a thousand pieces of paper which I find tend to grow legs and wander off just when you desperately need them!  (Is that just me?)  Another one he could use for sketching and maybe adding fabric samples for his tailoring and I don't know what he'll use the other one for, but I had to make three else it would've upset Mr. OCD, who is still alive and kicking!

Now, I couldn't just present him with three loose notebooks, that wouldn't be very professional would it?!  Just like Amber, I had to make a little box for them all to live in...

The box, as you can see, is made from black card and the wrap is made from a pearlised white card which isn't so obvious.  I used the same script patterned paper that I used for the notebook to make the tag, mounted on black card.  It does have 'Just For You' heat embossed in silver on the back, but I forgot to take a photo of that - whoops!  A bit of silver thread and Bob's your Uncle!

Here's the little rascals trying to escape...

I was quite pleased with how they turned out and I think I may make a little set for my sister too, she's as bad as me for doodling designs (she likes to make jewellery) and losing important information scribbled on scraps of paper!  She's always travelling about so it's difficult to keep track!  I think I'll pick some brighter colours for her ones though, these were chosen as more masculine colours but they don't look as pretty as bright ones would!  :)

As I used die cuts on these notebooks to create the labels, I'm going to enter this into Addicted To CAS's challenge to use...you guessed it...Die Cuts!!  I'm not sure if they qualify for this challenge as it's not a card, scrapbook page etc, but it doesn't get much more CAS than sticking a label on a sheet of patterned paper!  I'm sure someone will let me know if I've broken any rules!  :)

Thanks for stopping by guys ;)

Supplies
Card:      Paper Mill Direct - White, Black, Sky Grey, Ruby Red, Ocean Blue, Pale Turquoise, Primrose
                   Yellow; K&Co - Best Of; White pearlised card
Stamps: Verve - Glad Tidings
Ink:        VersaColor - Silver
Other:    WOW! - Silver Super Fine e/p; Spellbinders - Fancy Tags 3; silver thread
                  

Retro Sketches and a first birthday!...

Hey guys!

How are we all?  Well I hope :)  It's half way through the first week back at work and I hope everyone's coping ok?!  After Christmas, it's quite nice to get back into a routine I think :)  I can't quite believe it's Wednesday already though, that's whoosed by!

I personally am not working this week and so today I decided to be a 'real' housewife and made lemon and poppy seed cakes-yummy!  Now, that's not as much of a treat for DOH as it sounds as I'm wheat intolerant so I, obviously, HAD to wheat free cakes!  He always complains when I feed him anything he knows to be wheat free, but I have noticed that if I don't mention it then he doesn't realise and it's only when he finds out that his beloved wheat is missing that he turns his nose up!  I think sometimes that men are worse than children in that respect!  ;)  Oh well, if he does decide that he doesn't want to eat them then there will be more for me!  He he!  :)

I am here to share a card with you today that is for an ex-blogging friend of mine...that is she no longer blogs, not that she's an ex-friend :)  It's actually for her baby daughter who will be turning one soon...did someone say broody?!  Me?!  Absolutely, yes!  :)  I cannot believe that little Grace is nearly a year old already, it seems like only yesterday Kelly informed me that she was pregnant!  

My card was inspired by two things...the Retro Sketches sketch and by this gorgeous card by my sweet blogging pal at Just Me: C.  She reminded me that I do actually own patterned papers and that they are there to be used, NOT just hoarded!!  Who'd've thunk it?!  (No, that's not a typo - I mean thunk!)  She's also super lovely and writes a very amusing blog full of beautiful cards...you should check it out :)

I really enjoyed making this card despite that fact that it's very un-me!  I don't do so well when it comes to pink and girly, but once I'd chosen the patterned paper it pushed me in the right direction as far as the colour scheme is concerned and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.  I just hope little Grace is too :)  (Ok, so I'm more concerned that her mother likes it, being a fellow card maker :))

I couldn't help adding stitching to this card, again!  I quite like my little balloons :)

Here's the wee sketch I used...

Thank you for stopping by...I'm off to make sure that the cakes aren't poisonous before I let DOH have one when he gets home! ;)  He he!

Supplies
Card:      Paper Mill Direct - White, Pink Sorbet, Primrose Yellow; K&Co - Best Of
Stamps: Bo Bunny - Sentiment Stamps
Ink:        Ranger - Perfect Medium
Other:    WOW! - Ebony e/p; Spellbinders - Circle & Scallop Circle dies; thread; pearls

I made it!...

Good evening boys and girls!

Actually, it's probably still the middle of the day for a lot of you, but it's evening here :)

This is just going to be a quick post today (I can hear the sighs of relief already!) as I am multi-tasking!  We have some friends coming round for dinner in about half an hour and also another friend dropping by just before (hopefully, other my house is going to look like a rush hour railway station!) so I'm just squeezing this post in in between!  Phew!  I didn't want to fail on the one-a-day posting so soon into January; although, with my mojo on the missing list, I can only assume it won't be long :)

This card isn't for any challenge, not that I'm aware of anyway, and is a card for my soon to be sort of daughter-in-law in the sunny land of Australia!  Her birthday is not until the end of the month, but I like to be prepared!  I'm hoping we'll be able to give it to her in person (everything is crossed for that!) but if not, it's ready for the post :)

Here we go...

Right, so there's a bit of calligraphy (kinda wish I'd chosen a different font now, but hindsight is a wonderful thing!) and a bit of multi coloured stamping, some fussy cutting and a few pearls and bam, done!  I hope she likes it because I think it's going to take a while to grow on me?!  Not sure yet...

Thanks as always for stopping by, I'll see y'all again soon ;)

(Still annoyed about the grey background - please sort it out Blogger!!  Thank you!)


Supplies
Card:     Paper Mill Direct - White, Black, Raspberry Pink
Stamps: Waltzingmouse - Fancy Flourishes & Scallops & Dots; Verve - Sunny Days
Ink:        VersaColor - Indigo, Violet, Magenta; SU! - Black; Windsor & Newton - Black Calligraphy Ink
Other:    Pearls

I hope you know...

Hello, hello!

Especially to Jane, my newest follower...thanks for joining me!

Today I am here with a card that is about as soppy as I get...an "anniversary" card for my DOH.  I put the word anniversary in quote marks as we are not married, but we've put up with each other been together for 5 years now and every year I make him a little card which he coo's over for a bit and more often than not puts directly onto the coffee table.  If he could, I think he'd probably bin them after a week or so, but he knows there's no way he'll get away with that!!  ;)  I found all of the cards that I've made for him, and that he has kept (impressed!) in a drawer the other day whilst looking for something else, and to be honest, I think some of them would be best in the bin!!  :)

This card, I think, qualifies for the challenge over at Curtain Call just now which is 'Smitten'.  I know the challenge leans more towards the wintery warm fuzzy feeling, but I think that it's a kind of a lovey-dovey word right?!  Perfect for a declaration of love card me thinks :)

A little close up of the sentiment because it's quite teeny...DOH had to get right under the light to see it properly...bless him...it's his age  ;)

It's a pretty simple card...I drew some hearts and then fussy cut them out.  I did a little crazy stitching pattern with red and white thread to make the heart a bit more interesting...same reason for scrunching up the smaller black heart - you gotta have a bit of dimension on a super simple card  :)  I managed to complete this card, write it AND stuff it into its envelope WITHOUT adding any sort of pearls or sparkles whatsoever.  That may not be a problem for most people, but for me that's no mean feat!!!

So that's me for today, I hope you're all having a lovely Monday and enjoying what is for most people, the first day back at work after Christmas :)

Thanks for stopping by ;)

Supplies
Card:      Paper Mill Direct - White, Black, Bright Red
Stamps: Verve - One Person
Ink:        Ranger - Perfect Medium
Other:    WOW! - Ebony e/p; Craft Concepts - Grunge Dots e/f; Spellbinders - Classic Edges Two; thread

With gratitude...

Hey!

Firstly, thank you everyone for such a warm welcome back!  In all honesty, I wasn't expecting any comments on my posts as I've been out of the loop for a while and thought it might take me a little while to get back into the groove again, but you gals have taken me back with open arms and I love ya for that, thank you!

Anyone noticed a theme running through my posts so far this year?!  I have birthday cards and wedding card to make this month too so I promise they won't all be thank you's!

The WOW! Embossing Powder challenge to use fabric inspired me to delve into my bag of remnants and actually use them for a change!  So yes, I'm back with another fabric based card.

This one is for my little bro, I just hope he likes it :)

As you can see, I used four different fabrics to 'fill' the die cut circular holes.  It's not very obvious from this small photo, but the red fabric in the top right corner is velvet and I defy anyone not to stroke it!  The rings around the velvet circle are popped up on foam adhesive too to give the card a bit of dimension.  I'm pretty sure that I physically CANNOT make a card without foam adhesive!  The sentiment is an NBUS stamp and I was so pleased that it was just the right size to fill the gap on the top left!  I have to admit to not having really planned this card out at all, I just kinda cut a bunch of circles in it and then shoe-horned the design around it - probably not the best technique and it made it a lot more challenging to finish the thing than it should've been...but then that's the whole idea...right?!!  Not something I'm going to be repeating soon if I can at all help it!  :)

I also have another card to show you...this little sausage slipped through the net the other day when I was posting my Christmas cards...not entirely sure how but there you go!?  I can only assume it's my age...I have a big birthday approaching this year (as does DOH actually) and so that must be the explanation!  Enough blabbing, here it is...

This is another one that I made having been inspired by a challenge (Retro Sketches) but sadly missed the deadline due to my international absence.  Not to worry, I enjoyed making it anyway!  I love embossing on tracing paper (I have run out of vellum and found that actually tracing paper behaves in more or less the same way and is cheaper - bonus!) it doesn't seem to lose it's shape as much as cardstock and I like the translucency it creates  :)  A strip of glitter card and some glitter glue on the snowflake made it sparkly enough for Christmas!  :)

Thanks for stopping by ;)

Supplies

Card One:
Card:      Paper Mill Direct - White, Black, Bright Red
Stamps: Paper Smooches - Chit Chat
Ink:        Ranger - Perfect medium
Other:    Spellbinders circle dies; WOW! Ebony e/p; fabric remnants; rhinestones

Card Two:
Card:      Paper Mill direct - White, Black; Papermania - Silver glitter card; tracing paper
Stamps: Papermania - Let It Snow
Ink:        VersaColor - Silver
Other:    WOW! Silver Super Fine e/p; glitter glue; Spellbinders - Create-A-Flake 3

Thank you...again!...

Howdily doodily peoples!

Can you believe it...I have posted three days in a row now!  Woohoo!  I'm hoping to keep it up, but I'm more realistic than to think life won't throw something at me that will get in the way of daily blogging - doh!!  Ah well, make hay while the sun shines and all that :)

I'm back with another thank you card and using the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch again too actually!  This card is also inspired by the challenge over at WOW! Embossing Powder this month which is 'Fabric'.  I'm lucky, my brother's hobby is tailoring...yep, you guessed it, I get all the off cuts!  He he :)  He has recently set up a Pinterest board actually, if you fancy having a snoop then go for it, he's very good and there's quite an amusing photo of him looking mischievous!  :)

Here is what I came up with...

I took three different fabric off cuts and wrapped them around pieces of card...my OCD's will not allow too many frayed edges, I just couldn't cope with that!  I then adhered them to the white panel and added some stitching in silver.  The lines of stitching look a bit skewiff in this picture, they're not in real life...my OCD's would not allow that either!!  I heat embossed this lovely thank you sentiment in WOW! Primary Indigo powder.  I actually overheated it a bit in the middle (I burnt it!!) and it kinda went a slightly pinky colour but I like it - two tone embossing :)  Some pearls and mats and I was done...that makes it sound like it was a quick card but alas no!  I am just glad to be back crafting :)

The challenges:

Thank you for stopping by, as always ;)

Supplies
Card:      Paper Mill Direct - White, Lilac
Stamps: Flourishes - With Gratitude
Ink:        VersaColor - Violet
Other:    WOW! - Indigo e/p; pearls; fabric remnants; silver thread

Thank you...

Hello there!

It's that time of year again - the time for thank you cards!  I have a few to make this year as myself and the DOH were spoiled more than usual so we have a lot to be thankful for :)

I made this thank you card based on the inspiration at CAS(E) This Sketch - luckily it's a long deadline this time so I actually got to join in over the holiday period - woohoo!

Another super versatile sketch from N@Ali...I love the sketches at CAS(E) This Sketch!

Here is my take on it...

I wanted to keep it nice and simple and true to the sketch and I think I managed that which is always a bonus :)  The matting was a happy accident of sorts...I couldn't decide whether to give it an orange mat or a black one so I was holding both colours underneath the main panel and I thought that it actually looked much better with both colours than just having one or the other!  I placed the black underneath the orange-heavy side of the panel and the orange underneath the black-heavy side to balance it out.  I don't know if you can see it very well, but I LOVE this embossing powder!!  It's WOW!'s Halloween Glitter embossing powder and it's mostly black but with gorgeous orange glitter in it and adds a bit of sparkle to an otherwise plain card :)

Thank you for stopping by, I'm hoping to be around a bit more now that I'm back!  You're going to be sick of me!  ;)

Supplies
Card:     Paper Mill Direct - White, Black, Bright Orange
Stamps: Waltzingmouse - Big Day Essentials; Verve - Kind Words
Ink:        Ranger - Perfect Medium; Distress Ink - Spiced Marmalade
Ohter:    WOW! - Halloween glitter e/p; pearls

Hello 2014...I'm back!!...

Hello there boys and girls!!!

It's been such a long time since I had the opportunity to post anything and catch up with all you guys that I think I've forgotten how!!  

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and fabulous New Year celebrations with your friends and families...I certainly did :)

It's nice to be back in the country and back at my desk...I was getting serious withdrawal when I was away!!  I was still sketching card ideas though because I knew there would be the mad Christmas card rush when I got back and I knew that if I left it until I returned home I would have a serious case of 'no-jo' and that would not have been helpful in the slightest!!  Luckily, I managed to get all the Christmas and relevant birthday cards done and sent out before the last post and I was quite pleased with myself :)

I know you're all sick of the sight of Christmas cards, but as I didn't get a chance to post them as I made them (because I was doing my best impression of a headless chicken and the camera was hidden under a pile of who knows what on my desk...poor thing!) you're going to have to suffer a selection of them now!!  Apologies, but I didn't want to miss out!  I promise I will be back tomorrow with a non-Christmas card that I've made :)

These cards were made using inspiration provided by several challenges, however, as some of them were from months ago I can't link them up - c'est la vie!  (See, I even learned some french while I was away!)

Here we go...

This card I made for my Mum to give to my Nan (her Mum!)  You can't really tell, but the panel underneath the sentiment is actually silver :)

The snowflake is suspended and twirls about in the breeze like a real snowflake would :)

...last but not least, the perfect gift for the man (DOH) who has no idea what he wants for Christmas!!

...he has used this already, in fact I think he's more than half way through his 7 pints!!

So there you go!  If you've made it to the end of this post then I love you, even if you only looked at the pictures, that's perfectly acceptable as I don't think I would read my ramblings either!  :)

A great big warm welcome to my new followers...thank you so much for joining me here on my little blog, it was a lovely Christmas present to see you here!!  I'm so glad to be back and crafting  :)

Thank you for stopping by ;)