A Sympathy Card

Hi guys

I thought seeing as i hadnt shared anything in a while due to personal stuff i would share this with you!! i was asked to make 2 sympathy cards for a poor chap who passed away recently and i find them very very hard to do!!

I always think that the clean and simple route is the best? what do you think???

This card was made using the stampin up stamp set and is lovely,

here is the quote close up, isnt is beautiful and so approproate

I did make this about 2 weeks ago and havent shared it as yet so thought it would be nice to make a crafty post lol,

I have made another card yesterday for an order also so i will share that soon,

Its been chaos here but i am hoping to get back to all things crafty next week lol as im soooo behind with my dt work, but thankfully the lovely gals in charge have been good to me lol,

 

Long time no see - long post alert

 

 Hi guys

I know i havent posted about our latest challenge at Creative craft challenges but i am away in chester on a training week for my new business, i havent had the time and have only been able to pop on now to let you know im busy lol,

Our new challenge at Creative craft challenges is a fab easy one and its all about ......

ANYTHING GOES

I have made a card for this but its not loaded on hubbies lappy and again time being of essence here and the dodgy wifi connection not sure if ill get it on lol,

_

Anyone that may no me knows i come from a nhs background and have always been employed, but my new business is a managerial commercial cleaning franchise business, hubby will be coming in with me eventually(seeing as he paid for the most part of it lol) and it will be a joint venture but for a 3-5 years i will be taking care of business as they say lol, hubby has his own 1 man band ltd company which is very succesful so i need to be bringing lots of pennies in gross net for him to give in contracting lol

to say im nervous would be an under estimation lol im terrified, being employed basically meant i was always told what to do, i felt safe knwoing anything that went wrong would fall to someone else!!!!

Not any more, i will be managing/delegating and actually cleaning for now, but before christmas will have staff to pay and train up, im cacking myself lol

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We have had a chaotic day today and only got in from 9.30 this morn at 7.30pm tonight as we had a full days practical with the buffers and carpet cleaners, stripers etc etc, then we went to do an actual office clean,

so i called and got us some beautiful sauvignon blanc to celebrate and as i type we are chilling in our hotel room drinking every last drop lol,

we shall be back at head office by 9.30 in the morning ready for day 4 of training,

then by monday morning at home i need to prep our home for the office i need to organise, then by week on monday i shall be meeting my first customer and getting to work!!!

our first contract is near derby county pride park football club so will be fun in bad traffic lol,

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We have ordered our new van a vauxhall vivaro sportiva which i am part exing my zafira for (thats very sad as i love my zafira, we had to get a crew cab van so kids an me could use in the week, it has been chose special though with the spec we want so we dont get it till nvember, And today ive given dublcheck my deets so they can make my business cards and id cards, then when the van comes it will get liveried with my name all over lol, its soooo odd to me as i have always been told what to do and been happy with that lol,

 

anyway sorry for the long post but im sure you have gathered by now that im excited and frightened to death at the same time and wanted to get it out of me lol

anyway off i go to finish my sauvignon an get ready for bed for tomorrows new day lol

hugs and my apologies for the droning on lol

 

 

Top ten tools

I got a cool idea from KAREN to list your top 10 fave tools!!!

i thought that id join in and have a go lol, now my list may be a tad boring but the tools i have chosen are absolute musts for me,

 

Firstly i chose a bone folder, these are brill tools and cheap enough,

My tweezers lol, these arent crafty tweezers but ones that cost me about 39p a few years ago, i cant get on with actual craft tweezers but these cheapos are fab lol

My fiskars paper trimmer, the only thing that id whinge about with these is the blades dont stay strong for long, but i save old blades and use them when i want the distressed edges as it does the trick perfectly,

 

My bind it all, now i dont use it very often but i wouldnt be without it, its fabulous, i have the first blue one ive no idea if the pink one is different or not lol,

 

 

Then comes my version 1 cuttlebug, its a must for a crafter, i love using the embossing folders as there are sooo many and not just the

My stampin un and martha stewart punches are amazing, i do get other brands as well, my SU ones are my faves and better quality,

A decent pair of scissors is a must, i have lots of scissors fo different things, i have these kinds from fiskars, some small sharp pointy ones for intricate stuff,  and then my messy ones for using with umount etc,

 

My pokey tool is very important at my desk and use it for alsorts of things

ALL my stamps lol i know these next to arent striclty tools but i love them so i have to have them in my top ten lol. LOTV are probably my fave stamps at the moment

And last but not least my promarkers, i have pretty much the whole set now and love them, im not amazing with them but i try hard and im still learning

 

  Why dont you join in and then leave a link on karens and mine if you have time so peeps can have a nosey???

hugs x



YAY we are back !!!!!

Wow can you believe its time for CFM to return to blogland.......lol you didnt think we had gone did you !!!!!

nope of course not, we are back after our summer hols with a new and fab challenge for you all,

as appropriate our opening theme is a simple one and were all about oing digital!!!

as there are so many amazing digi companies out thier the world is your oyster lol,

Here is my efforts for you today, we are being sponsored by

THE STAMPING BOUTIQUE

they offer lots of different imaes form whimsical to cute,

i have made a card inspired by the kids going back to school.

i was worried about this card as to how to make it so i hope it has turned out ok lol???

please pop by at Cards for men and check out our new challenge and of course the design team creations, we have some new folks with us and i can t tell you how amazing thier creations are,

 

Id love to enter this card into the following challenges if i may,

1. Pile it on - patterned papers

2. One stitch at a time - for under 18s

3. One stop - no floral embellishments

4. One stop sat challenge - Back to school

5. Crafty creations - Back to school

6. Papertake weekly - Anything goes

7. Dream valley - Something old something new (The paper in the background ive had for about 2 years from kanban and didnt know what to do with it lol, the abc beads and the ribbon are new from  my last craft fayre ) I only bought a short supply of the ribbon and im so annoyed as its gorgeous and i need more of it lol,

 

So i hope you like my creation? please pop by and see us at CFM and check out our challenge,

Now the kids are back at school im trying to catch up with all ym dt duties and if you follow my blog you may have seen ive just been accepted to a new dt for digi garden!!! i cantbelieve i have been blessed with being teken to several design teams, when i started crafting and getting serious in my own blog about 3-4 years ago i dint believe i was ever good enough, so i feel i ought to say a really great big thanks to all who pop by from time to time and have a look at my humble blog, for without you all i wouldnt be anywhere,

I feel honoured to be here and to have followers and folks that spend a few minutes of thier time commenting it really cheers me up to know there are folks there willing to be here,

anyway enough dribble from me lol,

Hugs from mexxxxx

Exciting news !!!!!

The Digi garden recently had a dt call and i thought hmmmm why not, as there images are adorable, so i tried out lol, to be honest once id sent that message i forgot about it as didnt expect to get a reply,

 

well i did get a reply today and I am now  digi garden diva !!!!

how awesome is that, i am sooo excited to be able to showcase these images for them and im sure you will love them too just the same,

 

click on this pic and take a looksie at the fab images

 

I havent made anything yet but watch this space as i am sure to love using these cute images

 

hugs xxx

Ive been a busy bee- see what ive made

Its one of my best friends birthdays on monday and besides making her a card i wanted to make her a little gift too,

she has been a bit down of late so i wanted to give her reason to smile and know how lovely she is,

So i thought id make her a little keepsake book, its only 10cm in diameter but as i went of my own design and measurements lol i wanted to keep it small,

I chose laura ashley papers as i know she likes that stuff, i made up 9 sleeves for the insides and decorated them with a lovely stamped quote, mostly friendship ones with the feel good factor

here it is from a different angle!! what do you think? i used stamping up seam binding ribbon to fasten, 

here is one example of the sleeves, i made all the tags with my punch and layered them all up, used pearl rust brilliance ink to stamp, the quote stamps are from papermakeup stamps and kaisercraft stamps,

i really hope she likes it??

i know its possibly a bit plain inside but didnt want to overdo it lol

 

id like to enter this into the following challenges

 

1. Divas by design - Friendship

2. Cute card thrusday - autumn old (the colours are autumnal and there is gold there)

3. Paperplay - Autumnal tags

4. Fab n funky - Autumnal colours

5. Papertake - Anything goes

6. Pile it on - I spy with P...(peel offs/Pages)

 

Im off for a meal with tha girls tonight and hubby has just phoned to say gonna be hour or so late as stuck on m1 !!!!! bugger, so off to beg mother to keep eye on boys till he can fetch them otherwose im not going out after all lol,

 

For the boys and a dt call

 

I really should have scheduled my post for today but it has been exciting getting the kids ready for school today and last night!!

i thought why not just do it today lol...so here i am

Our new challenge at Creative craft challenges is .........ALL ABOUT THE BOYS so get your masculine papers and embellies out,

 

We have a DT CALL out at the moment as well so please pop over have a nosey, just enter our challenge and pop DT after your name if you are interested.

 

We are being sponsored by stamping dragon designs and i have used one of thier images,

The card isnt one of my best as i hadnt much time or mojo lol but its here for you to see anyway.

This paper ribbon stuff (sorry i havent a clue what its called lol)

was from lidl and you got 2 rolls a pack for 99p, there is about 50 metres on each roll too, its great stuff and i love the texture and the way you can manipulate it easily,

Id like to get back on that horse lol and enter a few challenges,

1, Crafty sentiments - Male cards

2, Cute and girly - Male/boys

3, Secret crafter - Animal antics (a dragon counts as an animal doesnt it???lol)

4, Poodles parlour - Winged things

 

Have ya missed me !!!

Hi guys i back from glamping!!!!

It was a nice week away in bournemouth with some fantastic family friends, the weather was hit and miss but when it was hit it was amazingly hot !!!

we went to the air festival on bournemouth beach and the weather was glorious and folks were in the sea and the kids building sand castles,

 then another day it would be absolutely chucking it down and very windy lol, thankfully we do glamping so we had all we needed to still have a very enjoyable holiday,

This is our tent, its huge lol, there is another complete 2 bedroom section not shown on pic!!!

We had a couple bbq's in the evening with our travel bbqs lol and went out for a couple lovely pub meals,

 the kids had thier games consoles and board games to keep them happy, also bikes and scooters etc so they werent really bored at all,

 

we visited a fabulous farm called farmer palmers farm,

which we have been to before but kyle is older now and he really wanted to go, and it was as fab as we remember, and the boys loved it !!

 

and dan took the boys to a tank museum with the others and me and angela stayed behind chatting and having a cheeky afternoon vino lol,

 

so all in all we had a fabby time,

I havent crafted for fair while with the holidays but im hopin to create later today if hubby lets me lol

so watch this space for something of me today x

DCFC card

Good morning lovely people,

Well wasnt yesterday lovely and warm !!! we went to the park and kyle had swim class,

then we did the shopping lol,

I was asked to make this card for a chap who is an avid dcfc fan,

I used the challenge at Creative craft challenge to base my card on,

Our challenge is monochromatic birthdays

and we are being sponsored by some odd girl, who have the most cute digi images ever !!!

to see the rest of the dt creations pop over to CCC and have a nosey,

Id like to enter my card into the following challenges

1, Cupcake craft - Black and white

2, Lollipop - Anything goes

3, CYDA - Anything goes

sorry for the quick post but i have loads to do today xxx

A lil bit tricky

Wow it seems like forever since i have been able to craft !!!! with the school holidays and our own family get aways i havent sat at my desk for ages !!!!

Thankfully i had kept in front with my dt work but now i need to get back to it lol,

This card im sharing today was made for an order a short while ago, but has not been showcased anywhere, so i am hoping it will still count to the challenges i am going to enter it into?

The order was from my cousin who lives 250 miles away and he wanted a special card made for his fiances birthday, he looked through my facebook album and chose 3 elements of three different cards and wanted them all putting on the card lol, boy way that going to be tricky lol,

he wanted a fold like this one that i did on a card about 3 years ago and couldnt remember exactly how it was done so i changed it slightly and made this fold up from just measuring and folding lol, then he wanted a love heart iris fold, agian a technique ive not done for about a year at least,

then he wanted to have some dark red coloured paper roses on the card too,

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here is the card i made lol, i wasnt 100% sure about it but i sent an email with pic to check it was what he wanted and he said it was perfect so that was one happy customer lol,

The beautiful patterned card is from kanban

This pic shows the fold i did, its not quite the one he wanted but as id forgot how to do that one i made this one up form memory lol,im not sure what the name is for this type of fold but im sure there must be one?? and it stood on its own just fine. it was quite tricky to cut the patterned card to size so there was the same gap all the way around the base,

(im a bit of a symetrical freak and like to get even finishes lol)

 The to be able to fold it i used a deep red seem free ribbon from stamping up as it doesnt crease to much,

and here is the pic of it folded, it was wierd not using an image or my promarkes and even more weird that i couldnt use my stickles lol, but the customer wants what they want hey !!!

Id like to enter this card into the following challenges if i may?

1, La La land - More than one fold

2, Crafty catz - Anthing goes

3, Paperplay - Shaped card

4, Papertake - Anthing goes

5, Joanna sheen - Try something new

I hope you like the card ?? i know its a bit old fashioned but my cousin chose these elements that he wanted on it so thats what i had to do,

happy sunday folks xx

Just a sentiment

Good morning guys, what a week i have had lol, im still not back to normal, and doubt i will be till the kids go back to school lol, my gym attendance has slipped dramatically as i dont have any childcare at the moment lol, and crafty time has become pretty short too, thankfully i made my CCC design team card ages ago to keep in front lol,

Our theme at CCC is to use just a sentiment....so no stamped or digital images please or it wont count, ideally the sentiment is to be the focal point of your creation folks,

here is mine

As my time has been limited alot of my cards lately have been very CAS in design do to time restraints at the moment,

i hope you still like it though???

we are being sponsored by

 And

Im going to enter this card into the following challenges

1- Craft your passions - Anything goes

2- Cute card thrusday - Clean and simple

lets go floral

Hi guys yet again i find im behind with my post, but in my defence ive just come of holiday lol, and still not back to normality yet,

yesterday saw our new challenge go live over at Cardmadfairy digi days and our theme is floral, but remember you have to use digi images to qualify!!!

Here is my card, i kept the design simple and just embossed some pale blue card and added the layered fabric flower,card candy and stickles to the flowers and used some stampin up elastic, not much else there really.

I was in a blue mood not literally lol but fancied a nice blue card for this lol, its 6x6 inch in size and was really quick and easy to make, i left sentiment off then i thought i could use it for any occasion,

Id like to enter this card into a few challenges

1, OCC - Bling bling (gem brad/stickles/silver card candy)

2, Cute card thursday - Clean and simple

3, The poodles parlour - Anything goes



IM BACK !!!!!!!! Long post alert lol

Hi guys have ya missed me lol ????

course ya havent lol,

anyway i got back home late tuesday evening with my family from our holiday in spain,

we had a fab time and i have a ton of washing to show for it lol...

anyway ill share a few holiday snaps with you as i havent crafted for a couple of weeks

the hotel we stayed at here it was called albir playa hotel and spa and was lovely

Within the first hour of arriving whilst i was unpacking, the boys found the goggles and wanted to go in the pool lol, this pic makes me giggle everytime i see it!!!!

 

We went into benidorm for the day as the beach there is supposed to be amazing and it did not disappoint !!! it was stunning sandy beaches and gorgeus blue sea, the sun was shining and it was far toooo hot (if there is such a thing)

i got them a slushy to cool them down lol

 Another piccie from the hotel pool area, not the best one i have but the others i took on my phone lol

On benidorm beach kyle and daddy buried alex to keep him out of trouble lol, he looks quite comfortable though lol, i went round the shops having a nosey as the boys didnt want to,

 here on albir promenade, in the evening it was about 8pm here but still light, the kids had a blast, the beach here is a pebble beach so we went to pick a few pretty pebbles for gifts as the boys wanted to get mama and aunty a pebble lol

Here is kyle in one of his good boy moments...isnt he gorgeous!!!

And alex in the restaurant enjoying another bowl of icecream, he loved it and to be honest it was delicious and full of flavour,

And i suppose i ought to share a pic of myself if i must lol, im the size of a bungalow now with all that food and drink lol, alex took this picture and was chuffed to bits that it turned out good lol,

So there you go, hope there wasnt too many pics for you to look at??

i will hopefully get some crafting done, but im still trying to get on top of lots of jobs ive not done while away and all my cleaning and washing, so im a little behind.

Hugs sandra xxxxx

Christmas !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope my scheduled post has arrived lol, as we speak i should be at school for the end of year assembly, and our headmaster is retiring :-( so we are having a surprise gift giving assembly as well so i shall be busy for a while today.

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Anyway our newest challenge at Cardmadfairy is all about christmas....now i know its only july but for those of us that like to get prepared this could be the nudge you need to get started, ive made 4 or 5 cards so far this year lol but was supposed to make a couple a month lol however i have said that every year lol.

the papers are freebies from my craft mag and the digi is of course a cardmadfairy image

id like to enter this card into a few challenges

1, Paperplay - christmas in july

2, Creative belli - christmas in july

3, Totally gorjuss - christmas

hope to see you there joining in,