A lovely card from Our Janet

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies, 

Oh what I'd give to be beside the seaside right now, just for the breeze!  Lucy and I popped into Witney yesterday afternoon for a spot of lunch and to get a few bits of shopping, the atmosphere in town centre was lovely with everyone sitting outside cafés enjoying the sun.  We opted to have our lunch inside in the cool air conditioned air. 

I received this lovely card from our Janet yesterday with a little catch up note inside,  it was so lovely to hear from you Janet, I'm so pleased that you made it to Knit & Natter and that you have been out on your scooter.  Your confidence will grow each time you go out on it, I hope you come to enjoy the freedom it gives you.  Thank you so much for the absolutely gorgeous card my lovely XXX

I hope that you all manage to stay cool and enjoy the sunshine,

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx 

My first card for the new sketch

 

Good Morning my lovelies, 

I am sat here with fingers crossed that today isn't as humid as yesterday,  I had a shower to try and cool of yesterday and was hot & sticky again within minutes!  

Today's card is my first attempt at the new sketch,  thankfully this one is a lot easier to work with, you have a lot more options, quite a simple layout too, I used some of my very old My Mind’s Eye papers, inspired by Sonia using some the other day,  I think we all need a memory boost to get us to use the stash we have hidden in cupboards!  

I hope that you all have a good day, 

Love & Hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx

A Brilliant card by Karen

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies

I hope that you all had a lovely relaxed weekend, we were  blessed with some decent weather, yesterday was warm despite it being a cloudy day,   we really didn't do anything much other than pot up the last oc the bedding plants and then decided where to place all the pots.  

Today's absolutely brilliant card is one of our Karen's Serif creations.....

Karen's Description:

Alan had a card exactly like this for his birthday I thought it was brilliant So I have literally copied it using a Serif background I have saved it to refer back to.

The texture of that background is incredible,  it looks like fabric, the colour is perfect too, being a dark shade really makes those white letters pop! 

This would be perfect for the awkward birthdays like teenage boys, men, my girls would find it funny too in fact Lucy's father's day card was similar in style....

Thanks so much for allowing me to share your fantastic card idea Karen, it is brilliant! xxx

I hope that you all have a great start to your week,

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

 

Your Sketch Challenge cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Your TicTacToe Challenge cards 

Sonia

Sonia's Description:

Good luck card for James when he starts his new job.

I used My Mind’s Eye papers. The sentiment is from Stampin Up.

Lovely card for James, the sketch worked perfectly for this card.  Those MME papers are lovely, I have quite a few of their 6x6 paper pads, I've had them years,  thankfully they don't seem to date!! 

Thank you so much for supporting this weeks challenge XXX 

Karen

Karen's Description,:

Here’s a challenge card

It’s for my cousin’s wife She is from New Zealand and it’s her birthday next week She has just received her British citizenship.  The papers are from a serif digikit. 

Now you just couldn't buy a card that personalised,  its perfect, I love all the little details, the cupcake looks like its been stitched!  I just know that when she opens your card her face will light up, it will bring a huge smile!  You absolutely nailed it Karen, thank you so much for supporting the challenge XXX

Maria

Maria's Description:

I Thought I would try for a different colour scheme. Have had this book with brown and cream for years  but hardly used it  . Embossed one piece and stamped the other. Used dies for the rest. 

I'm quite happy with it myself and going to put it away now until Glenn's birthday August. 

Oh Wow Maria, your card is Amazing, I absolutely love the colour palette you have used.  Every element works perfectly from the embossed background piece to the feather embellishment.       Thank you so much for taking part in this weeks challenge my lovely XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description: 

Hi, this is my card for this week’s challenge, probably not quite following the sketch, did my best.

Used more of my cut aparts, and my paper from stamping up with some industrial papers. 

Lilian your card is so lovely,  those 'cut aparts' are such a useful addition to your craft stash,  can I ask which company they are from please?? 

I love how you have mixed the soft, delicate floral image against the industrial  background, they compliment each other perfectly! 

Thank you so much for taking part my lovely   I do hope that some of your pain & discomfort eases soon XXX

Sue

Sue has used a selection of papers from her stash for this Christmas card, I do love the music paper and that pretty wide gold ribbon in the background,  a great idea using that as one of the layers. 

Thanks so much Sue for supporting this weeks challenge XXX 

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Thanks once again Ladies, your support means so much ❤️ 

I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday, 

Love & hugs to all,

Sandra xxxx

Sue's

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

First thing today I would like to say to our Lovely friend Gina "You've got this' my lovely 🥰                We are all holding your hand as you navigate this next few months, if you feel lousy and want to moan and complain,  then do just that, there isn't one person in our lovely Blog family that hasn't a trauma or situation that has been made easier by chatting with friends 😘❤

Paul has had an exceptionally busy few weeks, so we are planning to relax out in the garden this weekend rsthet than working in it !! 

Sue has made a lovely Christmas card using our TicTacToe Challenge grid,  it has worked out so well, you must be pleased with it ?!   There are only 27 more Fridays until Christmas so its good to get a head start 🤣😂  I love that you have used Music sheets as a layer,   perfect for the season of Carols.

Thank you so much for taking part Sue and allowing me to show your card today. 

I hope that you all have a great weekend, 

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

A New Sketch for Next week

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

Phew what a scorcher!!  It's been a while since we have been able to say that 🤣😂.   I must say that as I have aged I find the 24°C a bit too much to deal with unless I am sat on the beach on holiday with the sea breeze taking the edge off the heat.  Also we have Air conditioning on holiday which makes a difference to being able to sleep at night.  We have a fan on in our bedroom but my goodness it dries you out.  The downside of this warmer spell is that we will have to turn the Aga off as it makes the kitchen way too hot. 

I thought I would change the Sketch for this coming week as I found the existing one slightly more complicated to make a variety of cards with.  So I wanted one that you could use with any style of card, using anything from papers to stamps or dies. I enjoyed making the three cards that I did but I would struggle to make many more for next week, so I thought that If I was struggling you would be too.   This design is much simpler and remember you can change the circle to any shape you like. 

I hope that you all enjoy the sunshine, 

Love & hugs to all,

Sandra xxx 

A bit of a different Sketch Challenge card

 

Good Morning Ladies,

We were blessed with another glorious day yesterday,  I didn't get out much in the day though as I was suffering with tummy upset, I put it down to stressing a out the scan I had to have yesterday afternoon,  it's a good job Lucy came down to remind to fast for 6 hours beforehand as I had forgotten about that part, with my tummy being  so sore I didn't fancy eating anyway but by 4pm I was regretting not having breakfast, that felt like a long day   lucy took me for my scan,  I was really hoping that the radiographer would give me a hint at what he found,  but no,  he really didn't speak at all other than saying 'Breathe in & hold"  I explained that I was really anxious about the results and was looking forward to a little reassurance!! But it was like he either A) Didnt understand me, B)  was under strict instructions not to say anything!  When I had my previous 5 scans I had the findings explained at the time.  I have to wait atleast a week! 

Creativity wasn't high on my agenda today, I found a book of push out card making elements,  like a kit, i think it was from The Works years ago, I chose a card, pushed out the pieces, then added a couple more elements to give the same look as this weeks Sketch Challenge.

I hope that you all have a good Thursday, 

Love & hugs to all

Sandra xxxxxx 

A Christmas Sketch card

 

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies  

Oh wasn't it lovely to have another day of lovely sunshine.  Lucy wanted to go out for the day, so that's what we did,  we went to a few different shops, not sure where the day went though, we set off mid morning and didn't get home until after 4pm.  Let me tell you I was exhausted,  but we had a lovely day together,  which is worth the pain. 

When I got home I remembered I had nothing for todays blog, so I sat down at my desk and created this Christine card, I used Anna Marie Designs Christmas Jingle papers, the circle die is Bubble Circles from Memory Box.  The little Christmas Sentiment is an Anna Marie Designs wooden sentiment, I edged it with a bit of green ink.  I fussy cut some poinsettias to embellish and added some pretty pearls. 

I hope that you all have a lovely day, 

Love & Hugs, 

Sandra xxx

My first Sketch Challenge card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope that today finds you well, we have reverted back to summer weather for a few days here, which is fantastic 😀    Especially as its bed linen washing day!  

Today I am sharing my first card for our Sketch Challenge, I dug out my Ann Marie Designs paper pads from a good 3 or more years ago and designed a card using the different papers from the collection,  I absolutely love the colours in the Floral Damask collection. 

I hope that you all have a good Tuesday, 

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx

Maria's Fun fold card

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

Yesterday felt a little more like summer, we had a day of warm sunshine and plenty of clouds,  it turned a bit chilly when the sun went in though.  I hope that you all had an enjoyable day, making the most of that glimpse of the Sun.  

The rain & clouds certainly didn't deter the tourists in Bourton On The Water,  it was jam packed as we drove through,  can you believe a place that is reliant on Tourism has no places for coaches to park? It causes absolute mayhem as these big coaches packed with tourists just stop randomly on the side of the road for their passengers to alight.  It must be a nightmare for the coach drivers. We saw a coach load of Chinese children,  I'd say around the age of 5 or 6, they looked tiny, it got us thinking about where they were from,  surely parents don't send their little ones overseas without them??  Maybe they were just from a Chinese school, there are lots of things to entertain the little ones in Bourton,  Model Village,  Bird Land, Butterfly Maze and Motor Museum.  

Maria made the fun fold card that I did tutorial for last Saturday, I have no idea what the fold is called though 🤔.  

I love the pretty blue floral paper you have used Maria,  the three panels work beautifully with those lovely floral toppers you have used.   

Thank you so much for having a go at the tutorial, it makes it all worth while.  You have made a beautiful example 😍 XXX

I hope that you all have a good start to your week, 

Love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

Your TicTacToe Cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Are you all having a good weekend so far?, ours has been okay so far, yesterday was mostly spent shopping,  food shopping mostly, then to Hobbycraft to get some balloons for Becca's party today, my goodness what a rip off,  we got a gold foil 3 & 0 and had them filled,  it came to around £20 !!!😲

We have got the BBQ to go to this afternoon for Father's Day and Becca's birthday,  so should be a nice relaxed day for Paul,  although I or think he would rather be in the garden 😉!  Big social gatherings are not his thing! 

Are you all seeing family today? 

Let's see your cards for the TicTacToe Challenge...

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hello , here is my card for this week.

The tic tac toe I’ve used are: 

Flowers, square, stencil.

More ephemera cut outs.

Small Tim Holtz stencil with brushed corduroy ink.

I love your card Lilian,  such a perfect New Home card,  I love the cat in the window and all of those lovely plants, a lit of fussy cutting but definitely worth it. 

These ephemera cut outs you have a lovely,  thank you so much for taking part my lovely XXX 

Karen 

Karen's Description:

I made this this afternoon 

Flower (Daisy B) - Circle - Stencil (Aall & Create)

Glossy Accents on centre of flower and on heart of ScanNcut sentiment 

Note to self Glossy Accents doesn’t work on ScanNCut ink!

Such a great card, sometimes the simplest designs have the bigger impact.  That sentiment font is amazing!  

Thank you so much for taking part Karen XXX 

Maria 

Maria's Description; 

One colour, flowers and embossed sentiment.

Oh Maria that stamped image is so beautiful,  I am so pleased you left that lovely floral image as the main focus of the card, your ribbons are perfectly matched too.   

Thank you so much for taking part my lovely XXX 

Sue

Sue's Description:

My first card for so long. The flower dies are ones I have had for ages, possibly from Temu. I don’t remember where I got the sentiment die from. Love Sue xx

I have seen these dies on Pinterest and really like them, I wonder what make they are, I'll have to do some research!  Lovely to see that you felt like crafting again Sue.

Thank you so much for taking part XXX 

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I hope that you all enjoy the rest of the weekend, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra

xxxxxx

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Wishing our beautiful Becca 

🎈🎉 A Happy 30th Birthday 🎈🎉

Good Saturday Morning Ladies, 

We had a stormy start to the weekend with some thunder & lightning last night,  hopefully its going to clear the air for the weekend.  

I can hardly believe that our Becca is 30 today!!  It barely seems a year or two that she was at ballet lessons at the age of four!   We couldn't be more proud of the amazing, confident & beautiful young Lady that she is today 🥰😍

I have shared the card that I made for her Birthday,  I really enjoyed getting my box of flowers out again,  I haven't used them in a year or two!  Of course I had to make a box to put it in!  I hope that she likes it. 

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend  

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

A new Challenge

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies,

Yay!! It's the weekend, I must confess with Paul's work load being a lot busier than usual  he's had more days in the office,  I honestly thought that yesterday was Friday, I also went out with Becca to get our nails done and then we went with Soph to get something nice for lunch, I really do enjoy spending time with my girls.😍

I thought we'd do a Sketch for our next challenge, they do make deciding on a card layout easier.        Remember you don't have to follow every detail of the above sketch,  it's just a guideline.  The torn notebook edge could just be a torn edge, or a fancy die cut border for example. 

I am really looking forward to seeing what you all come up with.  It's a great sketch for using pretty papers too. 

I hope that you all have a great Friday, 

Love and hugs to all of you 

Sandra xxx

Another Busy Paper card

 

Good Morning Ladies,

I hope today finds you all as well as can be expected,  gentle hugs to those of you that need one. 😊 

I am waiting for Becca to come and pick me up so that we can go get our pre-wedding nails sorted, I'm not sure wether to get them removed or infilled, I love how they look but they can be frustrating when it comes to picking things up and putting jewellery on, I also worry what having them on is doing to my nails.  I started taking Collagen daily about 5 weeks ago and my nails have never grown as fast, Becca's are only just needing infilled but mine are about half way down my nail, so I think its having a positive effect, although my main reason for taking it was my bones and joints.   After nails she said she will treat me to lunch, which will be lovely.  

She has just got back from London where her and Adam were hosting/preparing dinner for some fancy guests, her Boss was incredibly impressed too,  I am so proud of them both,  she was straight back into work yesterday,  after a busy weekend too, I haven't seen her since the wedding so I am looking forward to catching up. 

Today's card is another card that's perfect for those really busy papers in your stash, I simply die cut a circle from the white layer, then embossed it and popped a circle of the busy paper behind the aperture, I then picked a few colours from the paper to use as embellishments.  This card idea was inspired by a lady called 'stamping with Rachel'.  

I hope you have a good day, 

Love & hugs,

Sandra xxx

Berry Burst is still a favourite 😍

 

Good Wednesday Morning, 

I like Wednesday,  we are over the midweek 'hump' and almost at the weekend !!  Not that we have anything planned, apart from Becca's event on Sunday for her Birthday & fathers day,  thr only sad thing is that both Matt and the girls are working and will miss it, which is sad for both Becca & Paul.

Now talking of Becca's Birthday,  last year she had a bucket list of 30 things to do before turning 30, one of them was a Hot Air Balloon trip, so I booked up for her and the four of them paid for Paul for Father's day,  we booked through Virgin Experiences,  however because Becca's arthritis had a major flare up, mainly her knee and elbow (which is still stuck stiff in bent position,  they are going to try and clear out the joint in surgery, she is just waiting for a date) anyway the combination of the two problems meant she'd really struggle with getting in and out of the basket and she wouldn't enjoy it as much, so it was put on the back burner,  Paul and I had a couple if experience vouchers for a couple of years and they were fine.  I went on to book them for near to her Birthday, before the vouchers were 1 year, just in case, but oh no they were both expired,  the agent told me that they had been redeemed and expired,  I assured him that they hadn't and explained the situation as above, he then came back and told me that one of the vouchers could be extended if I pay £20 but the other one couldn't,  that was it, problem resolved,  I was hopping mad as they were £130 each !!  So I emailed back saying NO the matter isn't resolved,  the vouchers were bought at the same time on the same card for the same experience, how can one be extended and not the other?!   I went to explain that I intended to keep this going until he gave meca reasonable explanation!  Well persistence paid off, he was clearly sick if hearing from me, he went in to explain that he had typed one code in wrong,  after re-entering the right code he saw that I was right and he said that both could be 'refunded ' but the money just goes back into your Virgin experience account, so I can now rebook!!                 The lesson I learnt from this is don't accept the first solution offered in these circumstances,  just keep fighting until you get a satisfactory solution! 

Today's card features Berry Burst card and ink, I layered the base card with Berry Burst card, cut with deckle edged trimmer, stamped a bit of foliage on the background and tried a tip I saw online about leaving your die cuts in the paper they are cut from while you colour them, you can acheive a more varied colour than just using a blending brush on the die cut piece itself, it's like you can start the gentle blending before you get to the flower, I tried it and liked how much more control I had with the depth of colour. 

I matted a little die cut panel onto a piece of Berry Burst card and popped it onto my background, I placed the flower onto the panel and added the tiny 'Hello' sentiment to finish. 

I hope you all have a good 'hump ' day,

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx 

A trick for 'busy' papers

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

Wasn't sure if yesterday was going to be a 'write off' of a day after starting another bout of Uti symptoms on Sunday, the pain was off the scale!  I dosed up on cystitis relief powders and took an antibiotic ( this is what they were prescribed for) I am guessing it was 'Mother Nature's Gift ' that caused the issue,  I am guessing its not an actual uti but a flare up of my Interstitial Cystitis (painful bladder syndrome).  Thankfully the pain had subsided through the night, although I was exhausted with the frequent visits to bathroom that is also a symptom, after Paul got up at 6am I did get back to sleep for an hour or so,  which I was grateful for as I had the worst headache, properly from tiredness as that was my 3rd night of not being able to sleep.  I did call GP for advice but as I write this post I have still not had a call, mind you getting the receptionist to understand that my diagnosis/problems around uti means that no pharmacist can treat my symptoms, the only antibiotic they prescribe is Nitrofarantoin, which is now listed as an allergy on my notes. The pharmacist himself explained it all to me and bless him he called surgery to back me up. 

So my craft desk beckoned, I had no idea what to create, I then saw a post featuring a sketch that used an offcut of paper so I had a play, the paper I have used is very busy, far too fussy to use as a background,  so I took a piece of it and adhered it to a piece of card the same size as a card base, after allowing a little time to dry I ran it through an embossing folder which made the two pieces look like they were meant to be together, 

To embellish this card I tried a couple of different things but settled on some flowers that I fussy cut from the paper I used and a die cut leaf stem.  

Tip:  to eradicate the white edge when fussy cutting take aome ink the same colour family as the item you are fussy cutting a dauber or dry baby wipe and add a touch of ink around the cut edges. 

I joined two sentiments together to create a longer border type sentiment,  getting them lined up was a bit of a trial but cracked it in the end by using a ruler to align them. 

Something a little bit different and a great way to use those fussy papers.

I hope that you all have a good day, 

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra

xxxxxx

Pretty Green & White card

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

As this week ends it will be half way through June, where are these months disappearing to?!  Becca is hosting a BBQ this weekend to celebrate her 30th Birthday and Fathers Day, so that's something to look forward to, its at Bull Burford so we know food will be good.  It will be lovely to catch up with Becca's friends too, we haven't seen some of them for ages.  Next thought is 'What shall I wear' ?? 

Today I am sharing the card I made for my Sister's Wedding,  the colour theme of the wedding was Green & White, so I went with that combination fir the card too.  Quite a simple design, Em isn't a frilly fancy kind of girl so I kept it simple but still pretty. 

TicTacToe:  Shades of one colour/ embossing/ flower

Next card on my list....30th Birthday card !  

I hope that you all have a great week ahead,

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,

We were treated to some lovely sunshine yesterday afternoon which was a welcome bonus.  I hope that you were all treated to some too.  We didn't do anything exciting,  food shopping in the morning and garden jobs in the afternoon, I don't understand why food shopping takes so long, especially as we are quite boring and tend to buy the same things each week!  

I enjoyed making cards using the TicTacToe grid this week as you can see.  Let's have a look and see if you enjoyed it too....

Maria

TicTacToe Categories: 

Bold Sentiment/ Shades of One colour/ Stamping 

Maria made this amazing version of the Book Fold Easel card that I shared with you last Saturday. 

I really love that beautiful paper you have used, it literally looks like you have done a lovely Distress Ink blended background.  That die cut you used for the stopper is lovely too.

Thank you so much for having a go at the tutorial, it makes it so worthwhile. 

Thanks also for taking part in this weeks challenge XXX 

Karen

Karen's Description:

1) Here’s a card for the challenge 

Bold sentiment - Patterned paper (a la Serif) - Shades of one colour.

2)  Here’s a Christmas card 

Bold sentiment - Patterned paper (a la Serif it has Merry Christmas running through it) shades of one colour 

I can’t remember which die company the sentiment is from.

Love this card Karen,  how funny that you and Maria both chose green!

The paper looks like you have created it yourself,  I think your hand drawn border makes the whole card,  that sentiment is lovely,  is that Serif or a stamp?

I really love your Christmas card too,  the sentiment is lovely and works so well with that lovely subtle background 😍 

Thank you so much for taking part in this weeks challenge Karen, particularly as its been  tough week,  sending hugs XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi, here is my page for this week:

I used , flowers/ circles/ stencilling. I used my ephemeral books for the butterfly and flowers. Added a bit of colour with pit pastel pencils. The background is from the stamping up papers.

Oh Lilian what a gorgeous journal page, that SU paper is the perfect background to your flower, at first I thought it was all one paper.  That flower is beautiful,  it has so much detail.  The colours match the butterflies perfectly too. 

Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful card with us for this weeks challenge. XXX

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Thank you so much once again Ladies, I am so grateful that you take part ❤️

Sending love & huge to all,

Sandra

xxxxxx