a crafty meme!

This I found on Beans on Toast, and thought that it was good fun!! I had to promise to repost the original post so here it is....

A PRESENT FOR YOU!

The first five people to comment on this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

* I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.

* What I create will be just for you.* It’ll be done this year. (Homemade stuff can take a little while.)

* You have no clue what it’s going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!

* I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.The catch? The catch is that you must repost (i.e. copy the above stuff so that you then offer to make five people stuff!)

Eeeep!

I am so sorry I haven't posted lately - been too busy doing the following.....

.....reading all those fab blogs on One World One Heart - lots of amazing art stuff and other stuff to win - you still have until the 11th February to enter most of them (some go on to the 12th)

.....playing chess with my youngest brother - played four times...lost four times!! Arggghh!

.....watching Scrubs right from the start. Had never seen it before, but youngest brother has introduced me to it - so so so funny.

Will make some cards soon I promise!! Particularly as I am off work this week coming - yaaay!

One World One Heart

Have you heard of One World One Heart? It's a rather large giveaway carnival that is going on and I am taking part through my other blog, so do pop over to see my personal blog to see what I am giving away and then head over to One World One Heart and visit all the other amazing bloggers!!

The event goes on until the 12th February so you have plenty of time to see what is going on out there in the blogiverse!

Cuttlebug Challenge 14

This week's challenge from the Cuttlebug blog is all about using your favourite folder. I don't have all that many folders at the moment, in fact, I have three. The birthday one, the swirls one, and the snow village scene. Yep, that's it!

In any case the challenge was very timely because it's my Dad's 60th birthday next weekend and so this week my favourite folder is the birthday one! ha ha!! I am sure that we all have favourites that change on a weekly basis depending on what's going on. (And don't worry - he is the LAST person in the entire universe to look at this blog!! He may look at my personal one but only if Mum points out something to him!!)

The blues work well here for a masculine card I think and it's a simple card that, even if I say so myself, looks good! (I am definitely embellished challenged as I prefer the simpler cards, so I might try the 2RedBannanas challenge next - a creative ribbon challenge)

P.S. Is it just me but does everyone else want to to type Cuttleblog instead of Cuttlebug blog?!

Pair of cards

Do you remember my earlier post about sending a thousand Valentine's cards to a children's hospital in America? (or rather, to Pat of The Rubber Maid)

Anyway, I have made four each of the following two cards and will be going to the post office this morning to send them on their way!

Eight cards wont make a big dent in number of cards needed, but I am beginning to run out of time as she needs them before the 7th February and I know that post takes some time to travel across the pond!

I had fun colouring in the cupcakes, but I really do need a wider variety of pens (the other cards had more colours) and I need to get myself some copics!! But I have already blown the budget for a while because I bought myself some Nestabilities the other day!!

Flourishes Home Challenge

Well, wouldn't you know it? Inspiration and blog post are like London buses...you get nothing for ages and then two come along at once!

Flourishes has a celebrating home challenge that asks fellow card makers to find inspiration within the home, and there are certainly some lovely cards that are inspired by many items around the home (I love the coffee jar card!!)

I was just thinking on the possibilities of this challenge and looking around my home and not coming up with much when I struck gold!! (or should that be silver?)

I suddenly remembered that my brother (yes that one occupying my spare bedroom, see my other blog!) brought me an absolutely gorgeous purple and silver scarf back from India and I knew what I could do.

The close ups aren't brilliant and as it's nearly my bedtime I don't want to take the photos again, so here is the best of the lot!

I should take more inspiration from what I see around me instead of sitting at my craft desk wondering what on earth I should make!!

Sketch Challenge

And this challenge comes from Purely Stamping who is showing off her very first card sketch in honour of reaching 10,000 hits. In addition to which, she is giving away a Stampin' Up stamp set to one lucky challenger!!

Here is my card... (the scalloped edges along the bottom seem rather small! Perhaps next time I should use one of my new Nestabilities instead of my scissors)

And I just love my little stamped out flower pot full of flowers!!

Congratulations to Purely Stamping on reaching ten thousand hits on her blog!!! You have until the 24th January to try out this sketch and enter it for the blog candy.

Mojo Monday Thankyou

Alright, alright, I know it's not Monday!! But every week, the Mojo Monday blog post a card sketch for us all to experiment with and as there is a new one every Monday I reckon that I have at least a week to play with the Mojo Monday sketch. So, every day is Mojo Monday, ha ha!!

This is the sketch....

And this is my card....

Which also fits in very nicely with the No Time to Stamp thankful challenge, which asks for simple and quick cards. This card may not look that simple, but it didn't actually take long.

I was just pleased, not to mention surprised, that I could stamp those flowers freehand in a straight line!!! This is definitely one that I will making again.

Candy List

Just to let you know....I have finally set up a linky-love-list in my side bar that will list all the fabulous bloggers giving away candy, so as not to keep filling up my blog because some bloggy instinct tells me not to post more than once a day and I should be blogging about my own cards anyway!

Go have a look - it will be constantly updated as and when!

Even more Candy

I just despair of the generosity going on around the world!! ;-) What is the world coming to!

Sally's Creative Corner is having a massive blog candy thingie for two reasons - a wedding anniversary and too many hits on her blog! ha ha

Everything Paper Crafts has a birthday giveaway too - she's only celebrating another 35th
birthday!

The Voices in my Head also has some blog candy for you!

Anyway, go and see what they have to offer. (Now - I am telling you!)

Valentines Cards

How do you fancy doing something rather amazing?

Pat at The Rubber Maid is involved with a project called Cards 4 Kids where children at her local hospital are given cards either by the staff at the hospital or to send out themselves.

For this coming Valentine's Day Pat has been asked to provide a lot of Valentines cards, however Pat has decided to make 1000! I am sure that I could never make a thousand cards, indeed, I don't think that I would ever make that many during my lifetime even though the Christmas cards do mount up rather!!

If you go and visit Pat's blog you will see that she needs cards that are not signed inside, just lots of beautiful handmade cards that can be distributed to the kids. Even if we all just make ten or even five then that will go a long way to helping pat.

Oh, the original post about this challenge can be found here, although there is plenty more information about the 1000 card project elsewhere on The Rubber Maid - get cracking!! ;-)

White Cuttlebug Challenge

This week's challenge from the Cuttlebug blog is a difficult one!! A simple white card is probably one of the hardest cards to make, if only because we are so drawn to colours and want to pep up our cards a bit with a dash of colour here, a splosh of glitter there and a twirl of ribbon just there!
Anyway, as I have recently bought some cuttlebug embossing folders, I though that I was up for this challenge, so here you have it, a white birthday card. (it's not totally white, but then I think that it is close enough as I couldn't quite cope with a completely white card, although I adore the card by Robin on the cuttlebug blog!)

Finally managed to upload the photograph! Don't forget to go and have a look at the other white cards in the challenge as they are just fabulous!

Obviously it's the Happy Birthday embossing folder, but I also used sizzix's big flower daisies die and the nestabilities (by the way, don't forget the spellbinders MASSIVE giveaway!)

Swedish Blog Candy!!

I got notice of this blog candy today and so I duly clicked on the link to send me over....to a Swedish blog...and all the posts are in Swedish!!

I had a moments concern that I wouldn't be able to understand cos I speak foga Swedish! (very little, that is!!) So, you can understand my relief that the blog candy post is actually in English!

So, if you hop over to Genom Mina Ogen (Through my Eyes), you may be able to win....

So, what are you waiting for, you can win some craft stuff and pick up a few words of Swedish at the same time!!

(interestingly enough, it's the first time I've had the opportunity to use the google blog translate button - it works, but with a few strange words!! Words that still make sense, like... favoritlayouter or liiiiiten dent, ha ha!! Sorry, Ewonne, I didn't mean to poke fun!)

A card!!

Woohoo, believe it or not, I actually made a card tonight!

I needed a thinking of you card, and so I rummaged around to find a sketch that I thought I could work with and came across the Card Positioning Systems (CPS!) where the following sketch is currently running....

I turned the sketch to the side and worked with it that way, and came up with this.....

Perhaps it's me, but I am not so taken with this card. But then I find that the more I work on a card the less I like the end product because I have been fiddling about with it for so long. I am, however, pleased with the stamping that I did because I usually stamp in black and colour in, but this time I stamped using different colours and using the See-Ds morsels (the spring time collection) and I am particularly fond of the border that I managed to create!! When I look at the card now, I actually think that it would have been better without the sentiment at the bottom, but hey - you live and learn!

Alphabet Candy

Kath is having another blog candy (an alphabet version!) over at her blog, which is aptly named Kath's Blog!!

Rach is also having a New Years giveaway (not an alphabet version ha ha!) and you can find that one over at Papercrafts By Rach!

I should also point out out that the Spellbinders folk are having a fabulous giveaway too - you have the opportunity to win some of the new dies that they are producing this year - definitely NOT one to miss!!

P.S. I keep publishing this post only to find a few more giveaways!!! I think that I am going to have to set up a sidebar with all the giveaways going on otherwise I am just going to fill up this blog with other people's giveaways and that's definitely NOT the point, ;-)

Millie's Magical Moments is celebrating Millie's 26th birthday with some blog candy. (Happy Birthday!)

Stamps, Paper, Scissors and Donkey Smiles (great name!!) is having a Valentines giveaway, so you should have no excuse for not making any valentines this year.

Stamp away the day is giving away a Framed Friends stamp set.

Scrap Creations has a valentines stamp set.

Pink Gem Designs are also hosting a giveaway to celebrate their January releases.

Starving Artistamps is another company that is giving away stuff because they are bringing out new products!

Scrap, Stamp and be Merry is ALSO giving away stuff - truly, us craft people need never buy anything except to spend all our time hunting down generous folk like this!!

And now I am off to bed, perhaps I will actually make a card tomorrow!?

Challenges

As I am still away from my craft room, all the recent challenges are stacking up!!!

But that leads me to think...how do I choose which challenge to do? Indeed, with all the various challenges out there how do YOU choose which challenge to do?

If I attempted to do all the ones that I could find I am sure that I would not have any spare time left at all!! So, I need to pick and choose my challenges carefully, but at the same time not just pick the ones that I can do with without stretching myself and learning new skills for my card making.

What's the best way to pick one? Can anyone tell me!?

By the way, I have a post on my other blog about One World One Heart - do go and read if you are curious!!