Molly Bloom is in the pink .................

This is a 60th birthday card for my friend Catharine.  The actual card was cut with a Go Create die as was the background paper which is from an October Afternoon pad.

I used 'Molly  Sitting' (rubber stamps are now available from our friend Jean at  3D Jean  which I coloured in with prisma pencils blended with Sansador - I normally use copics - but I quite enjoyed using Andrea's new pencils, similar to using watercolour pencils. 

 I added 7mm fuschia satin and 12mm white cotton lace, plus 30mm pink/white roses, 10mm rosebuds and 15mm pink/white pretty blossoms, all from Ribbon Girl.  I watched Bev's video on how to fix flowers and have decanted my crafters pick glue into a small screw top jar - much easier to get some out with a pokey tool than try to squeeze it out of the tube.  The green leaves were punched with my Martha Stewart punches.

Molly and Haggis ......

Our 2 year old Westie Haggis was a little star when we tied red, white and blue ribbons to his harness for his pre-wedding walk and he was as good as gold while we were glued to the television for the big day - wasn't her dress gorgeous? and they looked so happy ......

I had great fun inking up my new Ballerina Molly Molly Blooms stamp which I coloured with Copics - if you like Molly Blooms we've just added a whole lot more of them to the Ribbon Girl shop.   I added a wide celery-green silk ribbon to go with the green in the October Afternoon pink and green background paper, then a silver coloured charm (ballet shoes) tied on with candy pink Divine Twine - all from Ribbon Girl.  The sweetheart blossom and the ornate silver corner is from Wild Orchid and the swirl is cut with a Magnolia Doohickey die

I added stardust stickles to her dress and hair ribbon.

The inside of the card was decorated to compliment the front and I managed to squeeze just a little bit more stardust stickles on and another Magnolia doohickey swirl.  The happy birthday sentiment is from Lili of the Valley and the pink stick on gems are from http://www.3djean.co.uk/

Sparkly Diecut Christmas Bauble Card

 For something completely different to a traditional red/green Christmas theme, this simple card features a diecut bauble cut from patterned paper to which I added lashings of Stardust Stickles glitter-glue.  The bauble was stuck onto another diecut shape (nestabilities) which I embossed with a cuttlebug mat then glittered with stickles. 

While the background paper of white snowflakes on a pink background was very pretty, I thought it could do with a bit more sparkle and I embellished it with blue stick on rhinestones  in the centre of each of the snowflakes.  To finish the card, I added 9mm wide pink and white spotted organza ribbon and some leaves from satin cut out holly ribbon. Ribbon, Holly Leaves and Stickles all from here   I'm entering this card into the Caardvarks challenge 'holiday die cuts'

(Apologies for the quality of the photographs - this card was photographed in very poor light)

Magnolia with Beads and Sparkle

This is my entry for the Just Magnolia challenge blog - a card featuring a Magnolia stamped image with the option of added beads. I coloured the image with copics to match the 25mm Jade satin ribbon and lilac shades to tone with the plain card and the Martha Stewart punched border.

I added lots of Stardust Stickles and also some stick on jade colour gems.  I adapted two vintage style white hat pina by adding other beads, a stick on jade gem and some glitter -  a very effective way of using up beads from stash while producing a couple of very pretty pins!

Penguins, an igloo and a christmas tree ....

Here is my card for LOTV Challenge 69 - the picture is a diecut embellished with oodles of stickles. (note, I'm getting so much practice with this stickles stuff that I don't put my fingers in the wet stuff as much as I used to)  I used mitten weather Cosmo Cricket paper with stick on pearls from 3djean, turquoise card and mulberry flowers which I tweaked with turquoise stickles from stash because they were actually blue and I needed aqua or turquoise.  The turquoise twill stripe ribbon and the very narrow white ric rac is from the Ribbon Girl.  It took me ages to do and I couldnt find the gizmo for punching holes to allow a ribbon to be threaded, so improvised with more stick on pearls!  The photo is not very good because it is very very grey here - see the photo I took at 2 in the afternoon today - yes folks, that is your actual white stuff in my back garden, not at the top of a mountain (at the top of a hill, yes, but I don't live that high up)!!! I'm off to find my woollies, gloves and boots - it's only mid-October and I'm so glad my helpful hubby cut the grass yesterday!

Autumn Bear

This is my entry for the Lili of the Valley Thursday Challenge No 68 and also Charismacardz Autumn themed challenge. I stamped the bear and coloured him with loads of copics then  cut a rectangle and matted it onto brown cardstock which was then mounted on a co-ordinating brown/fawn paper from Cosmo Cricket.  I choose orange, mid-brown and willow green 15mm satin ribbons from here and why I don't know, tried to weave them into the pattern you see here and stick them onto the stripey Cosmo Cricket background paper - it took the best part of the morning I spent at the Middlesbrough crop with Jean, Gail and Jan (happy birthday 10/10/10 Jan the chocolate cake was yummy!) and the girls!! 

I finished off the card with plenty of stickles glitter and added some cream and browny/fawny/goldy mulberry paper flowers from here and green leaves and was really pleased with it, because it was just that little bit different.

A warm and cosy bear

This is my entry to the Lili of the Valley Challenge No. 67.  This little bear (James) is all wrapped up with his cosy scarf and hat! 

The image is from Lili of the Valley and I coloured it with copics and used paper from 3djean.  The red and white saddlestitch ribbon, the dark green polka dot buttons and the cherry red Divine Twine are all from Ribbon Girl.  I glittered around the edges of the different elements and also the bear's fur and clothing with stickles and then added some little white flowers.  I stamped the text with green ink on a white background mounted onto some of the leftover green spotted paper

Mel & Matt Wedding Card

My neice Melanie is marrying Matt on 2nd October in Weston Super Mare and I made this card for them.  I chose red because Mel had red ribbon on the wedding invitation she sent us, the hearts were cut on the sizzix with a nestability die and I used plain red card and corrugated white card.

I punched a hole in the top of the smallest heart and threaded a diamante heart charm onto narrow red ribbon so it would hang at the front.  The papers used were plain red card and October Afternoon Seaside red stripe.  I typed a sentiment in red ink on white and mounted it on to a heart shaped red background then stuck it on the inside of the card.  

I enjoyed making the cards on this blog as my shoulder is much less paintful  now we're 4 months on from extensive shoulder surgery, but tomorrow I will be decorating a golden wedding cake (with the absolute minimum of work and absolutley no rolling out of marzipan or fondant icing which I am unable to do at the moment) I hope to show the photographs and list of things used in the next few days.

Snowpeople Card

This gorgeous snowpeople image, the background paper and the shaper are all digital downloads from the clipart fairy.  I resized them in photoshop then printed out an extra snowpeople motif, cut it out and stuck it on with foam pads. 

I embellished the card with butterfly guipure lace and blue May Arts loopy ribbon (both from the Ribbon Girl. ) Then I pulled apart a couple of silk christmas roses, removed the plastic stamens, fastened them back together with a brad, added a self adhesive Prima pearl from 3djean.  and then used a copics pen to draw in stamens.  I then added glue and plenty of glitter!  My glittery side took over and I then glittered every piece of the snowpeople's snow and added the most glittery, sparkly holly leaves, which as usual, I had cut from a spray of artificial decorative holly - never leave me in a room with my scissors if there is a vase of artificial flowers about - they'll soon have bits missing!!  Apologies to the scrapbook shop at Durham for the amount of glitter I left on their carpet ......  the finishing touch to the card was a couple of jade coloured pearlised heart from the Ribbon Girl!

Balloons and Pansies

I had a really nice time on Friday last when I went to my first 'crop' at the Scrapbook Shop in Durham - a nice group of ladies and very tasty pizza!  I had prepared some parts of this card before I went, and actually made it into the finished card when I was there.  The stamp is a Pure Innocence stamp stamped with memento ink and coloured with copics. The papers were cosmo cricket from 3djean . 

The embellishments are pansies I pulled off a spray of silk flowers. I took the central plastic stamens out and replaced it with a brad then stuck on a self adhesive prima pearl, again from 3djean.  I had the spray of heart shaped crystals in my stash. The lace, ribbon and button twine are from Ribbon Girl