oooh the excitment!

It is not everyday that a crafting girl gets this message in her email box....

"Congratulations Samantha!  You have been randomly selected as a winner in the Spellbinders® Black Friday Giveaway!"

You really could have knocked me over with a feather!  I am sure that many of you already know that Spellbinders are having a giveaway on their blog today.  They are offering one of three sets of four Nesties to several lucky people.  You need to go and see their blog and  put your name down for your chance and believe it or not you still have two more chances as they are doing timed giveaways - go and see for yourself.

I do wonder which set of Nesties will turn up on my doorstep!  It could be any one of the following: the four octagons, the four flowers, or four labels - I will be sure to let you know which set arrives!

Penny Black Challenge

As usual with all the challenges I go for I am a bit late for this one!!  Nevertheless I love the PB stuff and this week there is a rather yummy blog hop going on that everybody should get involved with!
This is my card – the image is (of course) a Penny Black hedgehog!  As you can see I have been having fun with a new snowflake punch that I bought the other day as well as adding white brads that I bought although I think that they may be a little bit too big for this particular card.



Mind you, before I put the brads on, I had taken the photograph below because I thought that I was finished.



I thought that it was finished, but as soon as I saw the photograph I knew that it was missing something – so I added the six white brads – but like I said, they could be a bit smaller.  It’s funny though – for someone who hardly used embellishments at first, I really am using them all the time now – ribbons, brads, punched images, flowers, and that thing that I can NEVER remember the name of……eyelets!!

You have one more day to get involved with this particular Penny Black Challenge – so pull out those stamps and get going!!

It’s another WOYWW

Wednesdays seem to come around pretty fast at the moment!! (only four more Wednesdays until Christmas - oh my!)

So, if you have a workdesk and want to show it off in all it’s glory then just pop over to the Stamping Ground and add your desk to the rest of them!

I would say that this desk is fairly ordinary – full of ribbons, punches and stamps!  You can see that I have been working on three cards – these are fairly special cards because I have sent someone three card kits that make those three cards (as part of a bloggy exchange where we fill a box with five things that relax us!).  I am assuming that this other blogger has not made cards before, so I am making these cards for when she emails me to say “what do I do!?”  (Now I just have to remember not to add these cards to the craft fair that I am attending in a few weeks!)

You see those two edge punches in the photo?  One from SU and one from Martha Stewart – I have been having fun with those because before they arrived I’d never used edge punches – they are fun!! If I am not careful I may end up with a bigger collection of edge punches than I can actually afford!

Copying!

I seem to be copying a few cards lately!  I do hope that people don’t mind – or perhaps that is why they post their cards online – so that uninspired people like me can share in some of that inspiration!!

Anyway, this card I found on Just4Fun2 and I really liked the simplicity of it and so I shamelessly stole it!!  Of course, it goes without saying that if anyone copies any card found online they should not submit the card for competitions or challenges – this is the standard text found on many card blogs and I wholeheartedly agree.

My card….


And one done with purple ribbon, although I think that it doesn’t have quite the same zing as the one above!

Many thanks to Pat who had the idea in the first place! ;-)

Christmas is getting closer

Christmas is most definitely on it’s way!!  I have had one friend ask how many work days it is until Christmas, and another friend threaten to put her Tree up already!!

Of course, there are never quite enough days left for those that like to make handmade gifts or cards!  I made this card today….

You can’t quite see the snowflake embossing on the white base card – how on earth do I take a photo of that – at an angle perhaps?  I quite like this card and it is relatively easy to make so I could easily whip up a batch in an evening.

Clean and Simple

I love the clean and simple cards – they always look good and if you’re clever there is minimal work involved!! ha ha.

I spotted a lovely card over at My Stamping Addiction and so I asked if I could copy it.  This is my attempt – for some reason it doesn’t have quite the same elegance as the lovely card that I saw, but I could improve on it!

For instance, I could probably use something other than sequins for the centre of the flowers, but it was all I could find that was remotely suitable in my craft box.  I also think that my sentiment is both too long and too far down – but hey, this kind of craft means that you can always try, try and try again!

WOYWW

It’s another Wednesday and unfortunately not a good Wednesday for me as I have been to the dentist today – got a filling done and now the tooth is very painful.  But less about me and more about  my workdesk!!  (for more messy desks go and visit Stamping Ground!)

This is a very honest picture of my desk – no pre-tidying or anything – I simply finished three cards (green stamped holly leaves with red buttons for berries!) and then grabbed my camera!  It certainly makes me realise what a clutter I usually end up working in and my actual work space gets smaller and smaller the longer I go before tidying up!!

Anyway, last week a couple of people asked what was in that red basket in the top right hand corner of my desk….this red basket…

Well, it contains various bit and pieces to do with Christmas – you know what I mean – the freebies that we get from magazines…

Or just the off cuts that I think that I might use later (not that I usually do!! ;-)  )

By the way – please could you help someone win £10 to spend?  It might be me, but I am not going to tell you which picture is mine, as I don’t want to prejudice the vote, so you will make someone’s day if not necessarily mine!  Go and visit Something Sweet and vote for your favourite card!

Card Poll

A few weeks ago my first Stampin' Up order arrived from Emma and inside this order there was a challenge to create a card using a very specific set of items that she had sent along with the order! This was both easier and more difficult to do than expected - easier because I didn't have to choose the right colours, shapes, etc, but more difficult because if I went wrong then I was stuck!!

In any case, the point of this challenge was so that the Stampers Six group could all enter their card using the identical set in order to try and win a free £10 for our next order. So...my card is now on Emma's blog - Something Sweet - please could you go and have a look at the four cards that were submitted and vote on your favourite!!

I will not tell you which one is mine as I don't think that that is very fair as each card should be judged on merit rather that who made it!!! ;-) Please go and vote though cos you'll help make someone's day, if not necessarily mine!!

Craft Club

Tonight was the first evening of what the local craft club (mostly card making!) and it’s early days yet so I hope that more people eventually turn up!! There were only three of us tonight including Hayley who is running the club.

Still, the fact that there were only two people in attendance meant that we had the time to make something rather special in the form of this gorgeous box and three cards that go inside. I had never made a box before so I was very pleased to be able to try making one!

Now that I’ve made one, I will most certainly make another one!

I also got to make my first shaker card as you can see from the above close up. The other two cards were fairly simple ones, although I did learn a new way of making a ribbon knot – one that I will definitely use again! I am sure that most of you are already familiar with the technique of tying the ribbon around something like a bottle and then cutting the knot apart to make a fairly flat open bow. It was the first that I’d seen this method anyway and I loved it!! (Thanks Hayley!!)

I am also quickly discovering that many card makers are also bloggers!! I got to meet Pam from Pam’s Space – also another regular on WOYWW!!

SANDS Candy

This fabulous candy has been created for a good cause!

If you go to a blog that is rather fabulously named Blue Jelly Too you can find out more about it, but essentially the blogger at Blue Jelly Too (love that name!!) is inviting you to send her some handmade cards or gifts that can be sold to raise money for SANDS – a UK charity that supports families that have been through stillbirth or neonatal death.

And in return for sending saleable crafts  you get entries into this blog raffle!!  So get crafting – you have until the 9th December to help support this charity and possibly win this candy!!

WOYWW

I really have to think about that acronym and almost say it out loud to myself as I type it out – it isn’t one that naturally rolls off the fingers – not yet anyway! (In any case, if you want to see more creative desks this week – go and visit Stamping Ground - and with apologies to Millie's Marvels whom I linked to earlier - it was the wrong blog - sorry - but Millie's Marvels is a good blog nevertheless!!)

So, my desk this Wednesday isn’t as tidy as it was last Wednesday, but I still say that it’s not that bad!

Those deckled rectangle nesties in the corner are part of a lovely birthday present from my brother and his family – I also had three more nesties from them (cos there’s a great company that sells them for a really good price if you buy four!) The other nesties are the small circle, the accompanying scalloped circles, and the small rectangles to go with the deckled ones – I did feel very lucky indeed!

What isn’t on the desk is the stash that I bought at the NEC last week during the hobbycraft fair – I had a great time wandering about and seeing what the offerings were – I really could have spent a fortune, but managed to restrain myself!! ;-)

But what you CAN see on the desk is the remains of this afternoon’s card making as I played with two new sets of stamps that I have – one Penny Black set from the NEC and one from my cardmaking magazine (that’s the purple thing that says “FREE”!!). I also have a bunch of copics out as I have been playing with those and still getting used to the way they blend.

In case you’re wondering what I made – here they are – you can tell that I am rather taken with a snowflake embossing folder that I have as I managed to use it on all three cards! (even if one of the embossed images is actually inside out cos I hadn’t yet worked out which way to put the card in the folder, but I don’t suppose it actually matters!!)

Thank you card

This is no ordinary thank you card! The round die and the round scalloped die are part of the four nestabilities that I got for my birthday!! (what a lucky girl I am)

I was fortunate enough to get my wishes granted and get the small circles, the small scalloped circles, the small rectangles and the small deckled rectangles. However, the lovely people that gave them to me didn’t quite know what this weird metal shapes were supposed to do, so I promised to send them a thank you card using some of them – so there you go, that one goes in the post tomorrow!

WOYWW

I came across this acronym the other day – it stands for What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday and is a bit of a bloggy get together where we all show our messy, tidy, creative and industrious workspaces. Whether we have a dedicated room, the dining table or a corner in the bedroom, this is our opportunity to reveal our creative spaces!

This bloggy exercise is hosted at Stamping Ground where you can find other desks, whether messy or tidy! My desk looks like this today….

Which isn’t actually so very bad as I cleared it up over the weekend and so this evening I had a relatively clear space to work with in order to make a birthday card. What you can’t see is evidence of my utter frustration with my roller glue thingie (the remnants of that fury is in the bin!) While the roller thingie is still going, I think that I will need a new one before too long (any recommendations!?)

Anyway, the card that I made was this one…

…and I like it – it makes me smile!! What I am most pleased with is the yellow balloon – I am practicing with my new copics!!

Stampers Six Club

Hi everybody on this wet and windy and perfectly horrible morning - weather wise that is - everything else is lovely, I am cosy indoors with the cat running around and I have plenty of chocolate left over from yesterday's trick or treaters!

Anyway, the point of this email is that a crafty blogger I met the other day at Hayley's open house is also a Stampin' Up devotee and she is trying to gather enough people to make up a Stampers Six Club.

If you don't know what this is, I will attempt to explain - six people get together (online via the Milly Moo Cards blog!) and commit to spending £25 each month (for six months) on Stampin Up products and what this means that each month there is a "hostess" who gets an extra £15 worth of products and their choice of the level one hostess goodies.

There are other people who could explain this better than me!! In any case - go and have a look at the Milly Moo Cards blog and all will become clear - I have signed up, but we need more people to make up the full six so that we can all benefit!!!