My Wonderful Mum x

Karen here.....Eileens daughter. I am so sorry to inform everyone this way but mum passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Friday evening.
She loved crafting and loved her crafting friends. She spoke about you all so fondly. I just wanted you all to know that you meant a lot to her as she did to us. She was so so loved.

If you would like to contact me you can do so via here or email at kaz.murphy@live.co.uk

Keep crafting she will be watching over you all
RIP Mum xxx

Another Christmas Fair tomorrow!!!

It's been so busy these past few weeks preparing for the Christmas Fair tomorrow, and fulfilling orders, that I have not kept my blog up to date. Now I have a Card Party to do next week too so the pressure is still on.
Here is one of my Smiley Snowflake decorations that I hope will sell well. The snowflakes are made from foam and the faces are done with Peachy Keen stamps. Just finished making up some Snowman Soup packs tonight and have now got everything boxed and ready for tomorrow.
I wanted to upload a photo of my A4 Art Deco cards but my batteries in the camera need charging tonight so hopefully I can take the pics tomorrow.

"Who Hoo It's Christmas" well not really but here's a card.

I love this Owl die from GoCreate and decided to make him all white for a gate fold Christmas card. Just added a few snowflakes and some stickles to make him frosty. I have also used him on a brown birthday card for my brother.

My craft table at the recent Christmas Fair

Here are some of my goodies that I made for a Christmas Craft Fair that was held locally. It was my first time selling to the public and I was very nervous, would my prices be too high-too low, would people like my cards etc., On the day I was not nervous but excited and also glad that my daughter was with me. The weather started out really wet and windy but by lunchtime people began to arrive.

Unfortunately my table was down a corridor from the main foyer, in a seperate room which I shared with a lady selling leather handbags and another selling handmade recycled material patchwork pictures. I was tucked around a corner and think that a lot of people looked through the doorway, saw the bags and did not bother to come into the room. So the day wore on, I had a few customers but did not sell very much, however I did learn about other craft fairs that were worth considering for next year. To make matters worse I was told that the middle Saturday of the 3 was always the best one - I only booked a table for 2 Saturdays- guess which one I did not book!!! They have got me down as reserve in case anyone cancels and I do have the last Saturday to look forward to, although that is normally the most quiet one. Oh well, put it down to experience, at least I am not a craft fair virgin anymore,lol. I may have a table at a school Christmas Fair at the end of the month and am told I should do well there, here's hoping.

So busy, no time to blog!

I have been really busy making cards etc., for my Christmas Fair at the end of the month that I have totally neglected my poor little blog! I will take some photos of some of the cards this weekend and post them soon, I promise.

For my daughter who has just got herself a blog!

This is for Karen who first got me interested in scrapbooking and has just got a blog http://kazcrafts.blogspot.com/ Good luck and well done, hope to see some of your scrapbook pages on there soon.

Christmas card for Karel's challenge VOTING NOW!!!

This is a card that I have made without using my Cricut!!! The tree is cut from a template and the silver mirri card has been through the crimper. The other embellishments are some sequins, a star gem, some mesh and a peeloff sentiment. I have entered it in http://karelj.blogspot.com/2009/09/september-challenge-with-pictures.html
If you like it hope you will I hope you will visit Karel's blog and vote, the poll will be from 15th September on the sidebar of her blog. There is still time for you to enter too!

A new challenge and a new card

It's the very first challenge on Sam's blog at http://lily-bootoo.blogspot.com/ and she is giving away a lovely house image to use. The recipe is from the kitchen of Enfys and the challenge is to use the house image, 2 ribbons, 3 flowers and 4 brads.
These step cards are quite easy to make once you know how. To make the card I printed out the house and one of Sam's Christmas Corner images, stamped the bear and cat on the sleigh and the snowman and coloured them using Copics. Then I used the Cuttlebug folder 'Swiss Dots' on white cardstock and did some tearing. The 2 ribbons are along the bottom of the card, the 3 flower are blue and the 4 brads are holding the sentiment. It is a little difficult to see but there is a Christmas tree in one of the windows. I quite like the effect where the sun was shining through my window when I took the photo.

ADDITION: IF you want to make one of hese cards here are a couple of links for you. I found these after I had worked out how to make one!!! Love this blog, be sure to check out what she does and leave her a message on her blog.
http://craftdoc.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2009/03/24/easter-side-step-card/949/
If you just need the diagram here's one.
http://yvonnestamps.typepad.com/Side%20Step%20Card%20Diagram.doc

Birthday card with Anya

I saw this card on Create and Craft TV, and love the folds. This one was for a friend on the Cricut MB who had a birthday this week. I also made the same card in lilac for another friend.

Tri Shutter Christmas card

This is my first Tri Shutter card and was very easy to create. The swirls are the cuttlebug folder Divine Swirls. I have realised that to take a decent photo when using mirri card you need to go outside. This week's challenge on the UK Crafters thread on the Cricut MB was to use swirls so this fits the bill and maybe I can find another challenge for using a cuttelbug folder.

NOTE:

Okie has a cut file on her blog if you are not sure how to make one http://okieladybugsscrapnmore.blogspot.com/

Bleach technique

I have been trying out some different things this week and thought I would try the bleach technique. First I stamped the rose on pink card and then went over parts of it with a brush. Before I got halfway through the bristles on the brush had dissolved, obviously I was using the wrong type of brush! A cotton bud was the next thing to try and that worked well. The card and the scallopped mat are cuttlebugged with a Fiskars plate. This will be my card front for the September swop on the Cricut MB. AMENDED TO ADD it is better to heat emboss the image to make a ridge to stop the bleach spreading out where you do not want it.

Birthday Card for Rosy

Rosy is 40 today so she deserved a special card. The corset is a cut file for SCAL, it is a bit flimsy to get off the mat but worth the effort. My sister-in-law had recently shortened a prom dress and given me some of the satin that she had cut off so I thought it would be perfect for this dress. The badge is something I designed in Photoshop and it does have a pin on the back so it can be worn. I found a great file to use in photoshop for doing circular text, you just enter your own text and it is all set up for you.

Another Polkadoodle challenge card

I was so pleased that this week's challenge at polkadoodle was to use a flower on a circle card as I love making flowers. This one is made using circles and a bit of folding, I think it is one of the prettiest flowers you can make, the brad in the middle is green with spots although it looks yellow! The butterfly is an MS punch which I stamped and embossed then added tiny beads for the body and stamens for the antennae from my cake decorating stash. The card is from a Cricut cut file designed in Design Studio and the spotted paper is from Polkadoodles.

Anniversary card

I am loving making these aperture cards although this gave me a few problems as the nylon thread would not stick, but I persevered and got there eventually!!! It is for my daughter and son-in-law whose 21st wedding anniversary is this week.

The apertures were cut with nesties, and for the hearts I punched 4 for each, stuck them together sandwiching the thread in between and stickled the edges. For the letters I used George and the Cricut and the tiny weeny bows were made using the 'fork' method.

On the inside of the card the words say 'Love brought you together as husband and wife and gave each of you a best friend for life', 'Happy Anniversary'.

Tortoise Penny Slider Card

The image on the card is by Kate who was kind enough to send me a copy, thanks Kate, check out her blog for her fantastic cards http://www.craftybuggersunite.blogspot.com/
This is the first penny slider card I have made and it was so easy that I will certainly be making more.

This week's Birthday cards

August is a busy time for birthdays! The first two are using the lovely Tara image, free from http://victoriacasestamps.blogspot.com/ , with the second card cut from the Wild Card cartridge. The third card was cut with my paper trimmer and uses the sweet hedgies from Penny Black stamps and papers from Papermania 'The Big One'. These hedgies were very naughty as I left them on my worktop to let the water droplets dry and they jumped down the back! I had to take the worktop off and pull out the drawer units only to find that I could have reached them with my tweezers!!!

Polka Doodle challenge card

This week the http://polkadoodle.blogspot.com/ challenge was to follow the sketch, apart from that we could do what we liked, so to be different I put it on the inside of my card!
The background paper is Polka Doodles dark orange curves, I changed the colour slightly in Photoshop E, and also used it for the butterflies.
The centre scalloped oval and the small scalloped squares were cut with nesties and the MS butterflies are Swiss Dot-ted. What a job it was to get the butterflies to hang the right way round, they kept flitting every which way but I finally got them to behave. I finished with a bit of doodling on the white areas and punch on the top border to finish.

Over the Hill

This is a card for my brother-in-law's 70th. I stretched the tortoise at an angle and cut him and the sign from WIMG. The '70' and the pattern in the shell are stamped with gold ink, there are also some birds in the clouds but they don't show up either! I have an 'Over the Hill' certificate to include in the card too. I feel the card is a bit plain but it is for a man, so!!!

It the men's turn!

Thought I would give the females a rest and work on some masculine cards. Gina aka GRIDDO has a card front swop on the Cricut MB and the theme for September is 'male' so this is my design for it. The background paper was designed by Liz Wagner and the image is from a collection called 'Boys and their toys!!' from http://lily-boosboutique.blogspot.com/ Some of the colouring I did in Photoshop and the trousers are done with a patterened 'brush' from that programme. The remainder was coloured with Copics. A bit of inking around the edges and a sparkly brad for the golf ball to finish.

Sure Cuts A Lot

Wow, I have just bought the update to SCAL and Todd has done it again! Now you can group and ungroup, trace, layer etc., etc., and best of all have more pages. It's so exciting and I can't wait to try it out later today. I think it is well worth the $30 (limited time discounted price), for the upgrade. There are so many wonderful people out there who design and share their SCAL files also so many dingbats and fonts, all for free, that you really should check it out and if you are not sure then download the free trial first - you don't know what you are missing. Here's the link, http://www.craftedge.com/index.html and while you are there check out the forum and all the tutorials and free files you can get from there. Happy Buggin'.