Sunday is good!

I've treated the family to a freebie day out at Warwick Castle today! It was a special Teacher Taster weekend so I registered and went along. We had a fab time. Apparently they've re-branded themselves "The Ultimate Castle". I have to confess though, I was a little more than shocked when I saw the price increase from last year, plus an additional £7.50 pp if you wanted a tour of the dungeon! What used to be labelled "The Ghost Tower" has now been transformed into "The Princess Tower!" and it's all very pink and girly - not that my boys appreciated it one little bit!!!!! LOL!!

One of my forum buddy's, Lana, set us a weekend challenge with a sketch and after being inspired by a card design I spied on Magnolia-licious challenges blog, I came up with this:

It's a very quick and simple, but very effective design. You start with a sheet of cardstock, 11" x 5.5" plus an additional square of 5.5" - this will be the front of your card. Score the 11" x 5.5" piece at 2.5" and 5.5" and fold as shown below. Then stick the 5.5" square piece onto the folded down portion. You also need some kind of 'anchor' on the base to hold the card up - I used the sentiment as my anchor.

Over at Winter Wonderland we have a sketch this week with the optional addition of a Pantomime theme. I'm afraid I'm not much of a panto person so I just stuck with the sketch. We also have another giveaway from the wonderful Regina of The Cutting Cafe, so if you are needing to make a start, or just add to your Christmas Card stack, get over there, join in the fun and who knows, it could be you who walks away with that fabulous candy!!

Well if you made it in here, I'd like to thank you for passing through and I wish you a pleasant and safe week ahead! :o) xx

Aaah, the weekend is here

The first week back after half term is always quite tiring, but I am soooo glad that it's now Friday evening because I am exhausted!! Partly because I missed 3 precious hours sleep this week, but I'm not complaining because this was the reason why:

OMG, I saw Fleetwood Mac at the NIA in Birmingham!! They were incredibly amazing and I shan't go on and on about it and bore the ass off anyone, but I have to say that it was one of the most momentous occasions of my life! Stevie Nicks is every bit the Goddess and when I grow up I want to be just like her!!
But getting back to reality with a big bump, here's something I made earlier! I loved it but it kind of pales after the previous pics

Thanks for stopping by - hope you enjoy the photies!! :o) xx

It's November!!

One thing we've not had a lot of round these parts lately is rain! Until it happens, you forget how long it's been since the last time, and the truth is, I can't remember! And then this morning it came back... Oh boy, it's coming down in buckets this morning! What a lovely start to November.

This week's theme over at Winter Wonderland is Jingle Bells and I used K&Co. Christmas Cheer papers and a cookie cutter to create this hanging decoration. And it really jingles too - see the little bells at the bottom! They are so sweet, but unfortunately they came in a bag of mixed sized bells and I've used up all the little ones on this banner.

So, if you're still waiting for inspiration to get started on your Christmas Cards, take yourself over to Winter Wonderland and have a look at the fantastic samples the girls have created for you. You might even get lucky and win Joey's amazing blog candy giveaway!!! Good Luck!

Thanks for popping by and have a great week! xx

First day of the hols

Sigh, I was so looking forward to having a lazy ol' lie-in this morning, but DH's alarm went off at 5am and that was it, I never went back to sleep again, so at 5.45am this morning I was downstairs fiddling around with the old Video Recorder. It's been such a long time since we used it that I'd forgotten what it was all about. Years ago when I first got hooked on crafting I used to love doing One Stroke Painting. I bought pretty much all the kits at the time and nothing was sacred - if it didn't move, it got painted!! LOL!! And so just lately I got it into my head that I need to find all the books and get doing it again, but the first thing I needed to do was brush up on the tutorial in the form of VHS tapes of Donna Dewberry showing me "what fun" it is to paint leaves and flowers on everything. The next thing I did was order myself a new set of brushes and I'm chomping at the bit now, excited to get going again!!

So, while I wait for the postie to deliver my new brushes (haw haw.... wonder what month that will be!!!), I decided to play along with the Sugar Bowl challenge. I love this one - I haven't had much time to play in there since I started my new job in September, so this was a great opportunity. There was a sketch by Kathy and here is my take on it

Also, yesterday, I came across a fantastic website for digi fans - The Sketching Stamper! Christine is an amazing artist and has created the most wonderful images. This pointsettia is one of hers which I coloured using Promarker pens. Unfortunately, I had this fabulous idea to put 'water droplets' (glossy accents) on the petals - it looks really good IRL, I promise, but it just doesn't translate well in photo!

Well that's my offering for today. Thanks for stopping by. :o) xx

Back to Blogland!

OMG, what a couple of weeks I've had! I shan't bore you with the details but the long and short of it is that my computer went into a coma! Talk about panic! It's very scary (and very sad!!) how much our lives depend on the smooth running of our computer's! Not only could I not participate in the Winter Wonderland theme last week, I also couldn't upload my pic for the Creatalicious Challenge, nor take part in any other blog challenges. However, that didn't matter as much as the fact that all my planning for the Autumn term is stored on my computer (now backed up onto an external drive - let that be a lesson to you m'lady!!!!) and the hundreds of photo's that I took on holiday this year were still on there waiting to be copied onto an external drive, as well as the many, many digi images I've acquired just lately!! However, after researching lots of would-be fixers (who's general response was "I can't guarantee I can retrieve any of your files but I can take it back to the factory settings for you!"), my lovely friend's husband came forward and offered to take a look at it for me. A couple of days later, he returned to me a virtually brand-new computer, all cleaned up and with extra memory, new hard disk and best of all, he managed to retrieve ALL my files (which are all safely on an external drive now!!!), and charged me £20 for his time! What an absolute darling!!! Mwah!

Creatalicious Challenge #3

So, without further ado, here we go again. First up is the offering I made for the Creatalicious DT challenge. The challenge is to use scraps of paper and make your own flowers. I made this matchbox advent calendar because I wanted to make something practical and I've always loved these whenever I've seen them out there, and they are unbelievably simple to make! The flowers were made by stamping out a free Paper Artsy heart stamp that I was given at the recent Artisan show near Leamington Spa.

Over at Winter Wonderland this week we're having an Open Theme. Our lovely team member and fantabulous graphic wizardess Teri is giving away 3 of her amazing digi images to one lucky person who plays along with us this week, so if you're one of those players, I wish you loads of luck because Teri's images are just so fabulous and easy to work with. Teri very kindly sent all the team a dove that she created especially for us for this week, and here are a couple of the cards that I made with the image - but you really must go over there and see what fantastic creations the other girls have made with it also!

And my final offering for today (so far!!) is my take on this week's Friday Sketcher's sketch. This gorgeous sketch was supplied by Claudia who's work I always adore! I coloured my image using Promarkers and the bg papers are by Papermania.

It feels great to be up and blogging again, and with a whole week of half-term ahead, I'm sure I'll be back before next Sunday! Have a great week and thanks for stopping by on your travels! :o) xx

Promarkers - Recipe and any colours

OMG, it's Monday again and I haven't been anywhere near my blog for a week!! Where does the time go? A little tale for you. This week I have been helping a group of Y3 children to make a poster about bikes. Two of the children in my group sat with blank faces, and when questioned replied "I don't know how to draw a bike". In truth, I've never tried to draw one myself but armed with a bucketload of confidence I helped them draw one step-by-step, figuring that if I start with a triangle frame, the rest will fall into line. It did as it happened, and between us we managed to produce a pretty impressive bicycle, though I say so myself (though my mother always said "Self praise is no recommendation!!!" LOL!). Later that morning I took another child out of the class to help him with the same task. He too sat with a blank face so I immediately picked up on the fact that he probably didn't know how to draw a bike either, so off I went again on my step-by-step explanation. After I'd finished it, he still had the same expression on his face so I asked "Does this help?" and he shook his head. Oh dear - what now? He then looked at me and said "I was going to draw a good bike!!!" ROFL!!!!!

OK, so I shan't be attempting any more bikes. But here's my offering for the current Promarkers challenge. Use any colours you like but you have to follow a recipe which is 3 shapes, 2 papers and 1 ribbon.

Thanks for popping by and have a great week! xx

Promarkers - Cool Aqua and Apricot

Talk about being out of my comfort zone!! Cool Aqua and Apricot? If you sat me down with a box of colours and gave me a month to come up with a new favourite colour combo, never in a million years would I have put these two together. Not because they're not suited, OMG, they go so beautifully together, but they're so far out of my comfort zone that I would never come up with this, which is why I am so delighted to play along with the Promarkers challenges. They make me play with colours I wouldn't normally work with and come up with some pretty striking combo's!

So here's my card for this week - another addition to my Christmas stash - YAY!!!!

In addition, this week's challenge states that you must use a flower on your card - I used two - sorted! :o) The image is another of Inger's amazing free digi downloads. This lady does the most amazing images - this one is called "Waiting for Santa" and I just think she is soooooo adorable! So Thank You Inger for another freebie - they're gorgeous!

Well that's my lot for today - I have a hard evening slogging over assessments ahead of me so I need to keep it brief! Have a great day all and thank you for popping by, and in particular if you've left me some feedback, it's always much appreciated! XX