A lovely Birthday card from Janet

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

I apologise it's not our usual Saturday post, frustratingly I had a magazine to review but it has gotten misplaced in the move, basically if you put something down its in a box and gone in minutes! 

Our last day today, I am hoping to finish the last bits inside and then help Paul in the garden.  I have curtains to hang, which will be a challenge but fingers crossed I can manage.  I have no strength when putting my arms above my head.  Hopefully we can relax tomorrow 😌 

Today I am sharing the beautiful Vintage Sew3 themed card that Janet made for my birthday,  I absolutely love all of the amazing detail.  Thank you so much my lovely XXX 

I hope that you all enjoy your weekend, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx 

Throwback Festive Friday

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

Well the drama continues in the Riley Household !!!! Lucy has been really poorly all week, cold & Flu symptoms plus really achy body,  then yesterday afternoon Soph mentioned that she had started to feel a bit rough, she was cold all day and felt a bit rough, aftet we came home they both did a Covid test and both of them tested positive!!  I have spent a lot of 1 to 1 time with both of them this week, I tested last night and at the moment I'm negative, thank goodness 😅,  Please me get through this weekend before I get anything that's going to increase my pain 🙏

I felt like I had been robbed and scammed yesterday, I paid out £276 to have our carpets "Professionally Washed" we have 2 carpets down stairs and 4 bedrooms upstairs then the hall and stairs!  He basically had a Rug Doctor  (like the ones you hire from supermarkets"  evidently he didn't pretreat any of the stains on the carpets,  just went straight into washing,  it was hard to tell without walking on the wet carpets how good a job he'd done, however Sue was helping me out again and her car was blocking his exit, she looked at the upstairs carpets and went straight out to him, explaining that he had not removed marks from the carpet in Lucy's bedroom,  he switched off his van and went up and individually treated the stains, it wasn't until after he had gone that I noticed the marks were still on the lounge carpet.!  

I sat outside and had a little cry as I was so frustrated with myself for booking such  cowboy!!

Today's card was from 6 years ago, I had forgotten all about that lovely die set, the doilly around the sentiment is lovely too, 

Here is the description:

I decided to make a Christmas card for my challenge card this week, I have been hoarding this paper for a few weeks now waiting for the 'right' project, once I ran a few ideas through my mind I knew this was the one!

The paper is from SU 'Merry Little Christmas' designer series paper collection, the sentiment is from "Snowflake Sentiments" the border die is 'Swirly Snowflake' thinlits. 

I stamped my sentiment and die cut it using the 'Lots of Labels' dies, I then cut a black label to make it stand out from the background. I die cut the border in Whisper White and added the detail layer in black, I added a piece of the Striped black and white wired ribbon, then a piece of Whisper White ribbon with Silver edge, which I topped with a bow, I trimmed the bow with a black Snowflake that I made shiny by pressing it into Versamark and adding clear Embossing Powder. 

All of this I mounted onto a white base card with a mat of black and Whisper White card. I finished the card with some little black gem stones.

Karen I hope you had a lovely meal out celebrating your retirement xxx

I hope that you all have a great Friday,

Love & hugs to all, 

Sandra xxx

My Birthday card from Lilian

 

Good Thursday Morning Ladies,

Paul came home yesterday speaking of an 'Indian Summer' being on its way, he heard it on the news while driving to work, I got all excited, thinking I'd have some lovely weather to sit out on our new deck next week and I was pleased as Sonia is going away next week so it would have made her week a bit more enjoyable too, however when I checked the 10 day forecast it looked very changeable with lots of cloud and high of 17° !!  Hopefully it will change for the better!  Either way we have plenty to do to keep us busy! 

Carpet cleaners are coming in today, so we have another early start!  Hopefully get the rest of the cleaning finished too! 

Today's card is the stunning Birthday card that Lilian made for me, I absolutely love the dramatic effect of stamping in black, its stunning, it shows more of the detail of the stamp..  i will definitely be having a go at stamping these Tim Holtz stamps in black.  Thank you for such a lovely birthday card and for Inspiring me XXX

I hope that you all have a terrific Thursday, 

Love and hugs, 

Sandra xxx

Pretty Floral card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

How is it Wednesday already??!!!  This week is flying by, I am starting to panic that we won't be ready to hand the house back at the weekend!  I have been every day, we got home at 9.30pm last night, I end  up  just eating and going to bed.          Sue has been over and helped me loads, for which I am incredibly grateful.  

Today's card I really love, its the colours I think, a combination of my favourites, the flowers are made up of 3 layers which don't look as good up close as they do in the photo.  I do love those sentiments that come with the matching die, they seem to sit better on a card, they don't take over the whole card front. 

As I am writing this post I am listening to two different owls that seem to be battling to be heard! 

I hope that you all have a lovely Wednesday, 

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra                                                                        xxxxxx

My Birthday card from Karen

 

Good Morning Ladies,

I hope today finds you as well as possible, gentle hugs to anyone that needs one xxx

I have blood test this morning,  to check that my liver is recovering from the excessive amount of antibiotics,  the problem is I feel that I am starting with another UTI,  so I have no idea how they will treat it. 

Today's card is so beautiful in real life, Karen extended the flower stem perfectly, I love the colours too, the hummingbird is so bright and vibrant, the stamp set is a SU stamp set from a couple years ago.  I absolutely love it Karen, thank you so much ❤️ 

I hope that you all have a pleasant day, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxx

Smooshed Background card

 

Good Monday Morning Ladies,

This weekend just disappeared,  pretty much the only thing I saw was carpet,  walls, windows and cleaning products!!  My fingers are sore!  

Have any of you heard of Nancy Birtwistle?  I started following her on Instagram a while ago, she was a Bake Off winner back in the days of Mary Berry,  now she promotes 'Green Cleaning '  she has some amazing hacks, I used her method to clean the oven and Aga, it was basically Bicarbonate of Soda and water,  but worked a treat!  I have made up her Pure Magic and All purpose cleaner, the cream cleaner removes marks off walls like magic. So pretty much the whole house has been cleaned 'green' !!

Todays card started out with the 'smooshed' background, I think they might be Distress Inks (not Oxide).  I used the Meadow Stamp that I have used on a couple of times recently, this time I stamped it in VersaMark and added White Embossing powder and heat set. I mounted it on pink card to pick out the pick in the picked Raspberry in the background.  I finished with a simple stamped sentiment. 

I hope that you all have a great atart to the week,

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx 

Your lovely Cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

I hope that you are all having a nice relaxing Sunday Morning, we will be up and off the the old house to continue the preparation to hand over next weekend.  We did another full day yesterday,  I got lounge and craft room done, lounge needs carpets doing, craft room had lino, which is a goid thing as there were quite a few glue/foam pad sticky marks!  I have also found a flat backed pearl in every room so far! 🤣😂

No Challenge this week but you have sent me some lovely cards to share, for which I am VERY grateful 😊 XXX

Your Cards 

Sonia

Sonia's Description:

Here's my card..

It’s the Anniversary card I made for Mark. I used the PinkFresh Studio strip dies to create the background. I can’t remember the brand of the nested heart dies, which I inlayed some pretty fabric type paper to. The sentiments from The Stamp Market and the Gummiapan dragonfly.

Love your design Sonia, anniversary cards for men can be so frustrating, it's trying to come up with something new every year, although I could give Paul the same card every year and he probably wouldn't notice!  🤣

Those PinkFresh strip dies are so useful to have in your stash as they are so incredibly versatile.  Thank you so much for sharing your card with us XXX 

Karen

Karen's Description:

Here’s a card I have made for Nicki Not sure she does flowers but know she’ll appreciate the all of the die cut layers The die was in a Die Cutting Essentials magazine and sentiment is Aall & Create.

Such a lovely card Karen,  I really love that combination of colours, that soft orange works so beautifully with the green, now I probably wouldn't have used that die but seeing your design has made me think twice.  The pearls finish the look perfectly.  I'm sure Nicki loved it, thank you so much for sharing it with us. XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Hi, hope your morning is going well.

I decided to try and use up my stack of Stamperia papers in my art journal.

I am hoping to do several two page spreads. The idea for this one came from a lady on Utube.

Not sure if you were expecting anything this weekend or not.

Will post the right hand page next week. Hoping this gives my mojo a jolt to start crafting again.

This set is call vintage library.

Wow Lilian what a gorgeous scene, it's one of those pages that you could look at over and over again and see something new every time.  The imagery is so realistic too.  Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful page with us XXX 

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Thank you so much Ladies, I really do appreciate you ❤️ 

I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday, 

Love and huge hugs to all of you, 

Sandra 

xxxxxx

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies,

A different Saturday blog this week, I did set out to do a magazine review but simply ran out of time doing jobs at other house. 

So I am going to share some of the beautiful views from our bedroom, I hope you don't mind 😊

This photo was taken at 7am, the early morning mist is slowly lifting,  it's so beautiful too watch.

These ones were taken at around 8pm, so many colours in that sky, it's like a painting!   

I can't wait to watch how the changing seasons change the view☺️

I hope that you all have an amazing weekend, 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

A New Challenge

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies,

We are back at Manor Lodge today, moving the last few bits and things like garden pots etc, getting cleaning done ready to hand back. So a full on exhausting day ahead,  more for Paul than myself, Soph is coming help too, which is a real bonus.  

Todays card was made purely so that I could use up that little piece of background,  it was a DO blend that I stamped a background stamp over in VersaMark and heat set, the photo doesn't do it justice it is so pretty in real life, it would make a lovely book mark, had I punched a home and added some ribbon or thread through. 

Maria's Idea Challenge 

Maria had a lovely idea for a challenge over in our chat group. 

It was a 'Freestyle' Challenge,  so you could make a card using your favourite product or technique,  or maybe try something new or just share something that you have made.

As always I look forward to seeing wht you create, this one is fun as I have no idea what to expect when I open your messages!! 

Thanks Maria for a lovely idea XXX

Lilian I hope that your back is a little easier today my lovely so that you can sit and enjoy some crafting time XXX

Sending my love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxx

Throwback Thursday

 

Good Morning Ladies,

I would like to start by wishing Our Lovely Sonia & Mark a Happy Anniversary xxx

From a very wet and wild Gloucestershire!  My goodness have we had some rain!!  So much so that we actually had a duck in our garden, well it may have been a goose,  its looked black but when light caught its feathers they looked a gorgeous deep  dark blue/green.  It appeared early on Monday morning,  was still there lunch time, we thought it had gone but when Becca came round in the evening with Benji she found it under a tree at bottom of garden, we asked landlord if it was a regular visitor, but it wasn't,  we think it may have sheltered ftom the big storm on Sunday evening,  we had a good search round but it had clearly flown away. 

The river Thames at Castle Eaton was even higher yesterday,  so no crops will survive in those adjacent fields!  

Today's card is a Throwback to 2016, 7 years ago!!!! I made it for this Sketch Challenge......

Here is Description:

YouYou could use a doilly in the centre of your card, I decided to use Creative Expressions Melbourne Die, which I used to cut some Centura Pearl card, for a little extra shimmer on my card.  The decorative papers are (as I am sure you will all know by now ) Trimcraft Floral Pavilion papers, I need to re stock, the reverse of this pretty floral paper is the pink dotty card, so it all worked really well together.  I used CE pierced flags to pop my sentiment on. The sweet little roses are Wild Orchid Crafts! could use a doilly in the centre of your card, I decided to use Creative Expressions Melbourne Die, which I used to cut some Centura Pearl card, for a little extra shimmer on my card.  The decorative papers are (as I am sure you will all know by now ) Trimcraft Floral Pavilion papers, I need to re stock, the reverse of this pretty floral paper is the pink dotty card, so it all worked really well together.  I used CE pierced flags to pop my sentiment on. The sweet little roses are Wild Orchid Crafts!

I hope that you all have a brighter day, 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra                                                                     xxxxxx

Pretty Meadow card

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

I hope today finds you well, I really wish the sun would return, I have a mountain of washing to get through but it has rained everyday since Sunday, we had to go back to the old house today and the fields either side of the river are under water again, they must have had more rain than we did.

I had my hearing aids fitted yesterday afternoon,  I found it very overwhelming if I'm honest, a combination of hormones and having to face up to the fact that I have hearing loss, after she put them in it became evident how bad my hearing is, it is mostly the tinnitus thats causing most of the issue, the hearing aids to help with that but they have an little background noise of their own, its a feint crackle, apparently I will get used to it. 

Today's card is one I made before we went on holiday,  I REALLY love this background,  I used a fine tip glue pot to add Brusho powder to watercolour paper, I then lightly spritzed with water, it turned out better than I hoped  

I wanted as much of the background to show through,  so I stamped a meadow stamp in VersaMark,  added gold embossing powder and heat set. I mounted onto a black mat and then onto a coordinating card base.

I hope that you all have a lovely day,

Janet I hope that you enjoyed K & N, I feel for you with blood tests, they aren't pleasant,  sending hugs 

 XXX 

Karen, I hope you enjoyed lunch with your friend,  I can't wait to see your outfit xxx

Maria Wisdom teeth pain is miserable,  I hope you get sorted soon XXX 

Love & Hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxx

Pretty Agapanthus

 

Good Morning Ladies, 

We are in, it took until after midnight to get the furniture in, Paul, Matt & Lucy were completely exhausted, we also missed all takeaways, so Paul had a banana and some crisps,  Lucy had some chocolate cereal,  soph wasn't hungry anymore,  I found a pack of salted caramel flips so I shared those with Paul on our way here, so everyone's tummys were rumbling this morning,  I had explained to paul where everything was before we went to sleep but of course he didn't remember!  So we had takeaway for tea last night!  I hope soph doesn't regret having Pizza!! 

Today's card is a simple stamped design using Hero Arts Agapanthus stamp, I used 2 shades of purple ink, I inked the centre of the stamp with the lighter shade and then tapped the darker shade around the edges and use a blending brush to lightly blend the two colours together, I spritzed lightly with water and stamped my image, I ended up doing two layers onto watercolour card, I used the same method for the leaf. The sentiment was one of my pre stamped and die cut sentiments,  so quick when you are batch making cards.  For the final touch I added a tiny matching gem to the centre of the flower.

I hope you all have a great day, 

Love and hugs to all,

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx 

Happy Monday Morning

 

Good Monday morning Ladies,

Just a quicky from me today as I am too exhausted to even think what to write, I feel like next time we move I'll pay for removals as its just too much for 1, 2 or 3 adults,  I was pretty useless as usual,  all I could do was pack, clean and make tea and bacon sandwiches!!  

Today's card was inspired by one Lilian made a few weeks ago, its a Stampin Up die, the name escapes me though, I used So Saffron Ink and cardstock, I finished the card with a label die cut and a few sparkly gems. 

I hope that you all have an amazing start to your week,

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra                                                                    xxxxxx 

Your Shaped Card Challenge projects

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies,

Well day 1 went ok, not as much moved as Paul hoped, mostly because matt couldn't make it, Lucy was an absolute Star though.  I couldn't even pick my legs up last night, I was packing from 8am to after 9pm.  Thank heavens for painkillers, although I am warey of what I take while my liver is fragile.

Sophie had a better day yesterday,  she managed some scrambled egg at lunchtime and noodles and chicken broth for tea, we went to pharmacist and he explained that they don't recommend things like immodium anymore in cases where there could be bacteria as you could be preventing the bacteria from exiting your body, so he suggested rehydration drinks and light diet, he thinks it was possibly the change in diet, I think that they forgot about not having ice in drinks and they used taps to clean their teeth too.  So that could be the cause.

 Your Challenge Projects 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Here is my card for this week

Old spellbinders fancy ovals, indigo blue stamp and stencil. I used thin wash of luscious powders mixed with water then stencilled with peeled paint oxide ink. Stamp is also coloured with luscious powders. 

Sorry the base is a bit uneven, just could not get it to lie flat.

Oh Lilian what a gorgeous card, those Grand Oval dies used to be my favourite dies, I love how you have used them to make an Easel card, such a brilliant idea.

Thank you so much for taking part my lovely XXX 

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Thank you Sue for choosing this last challenge,  there have been so lovely cards over the past 2 weeks.  XXX 

I hope that you all have a lovely Sunday, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra 

xxxxxx

Sonia 

Sonia's Description:

A box card I made for my Mum to give my Dad on their Golden Wedding Anniversary. The Star dies are from Memory Box and the bottle and glasses from Crafters Companion. The ‘with love’ die is from Spellbinders and stamped sentiment from Creative Expressions (an old Sue Wilson stamp set I think)

WoW Sonia what a stunning 'pop up box" Those star die cuts are gorgeous and really make the card.  Your mum must have been blown away when she saw it,  your Dad too when he opened it. 

Thank you so much for sharing it XXX

Mixed Up Saturday

 

Good Saturday Morning Ladies 

We have the busiest weekend ahead,  we are moving all the big furniture over to the new house,  so we will officially move in on Sunday!  I don't feel anywhere near ready to be honest, Im sure it will all come together though.  

What have you all got planned for this weekend?  

Gina's New Home Card

Gina has shared this gorgeous New Home card I believe its made using Sizzix dies.  I love how you have framed the focal piece with embossing,  I looks amazing Gina.  I never think of making matching envelopes,  I should as it makes such a difference. 

Thank you so much for sharing your amazing cards with us Gina XXX

Diecutting Essentials Issue 107

This month's issue of Diecutting Essentials is very festive,  there are a lot of 'Snowglobe' themed Christmas cards about this year,  the Creative Stamping Magazine has Snowglobe stamps too.

Sarah shares some lovely ideas for shaker cards using the free dies,  shaker domes and stamps.

I really love the look of these cards, they are made by adhering glitter card behind the die cut panels.  I will definitely be having a go at some of these cards.

Nicky shares some amazing ideas for some very inventive shaker cards using the 'Super Shaker' set.

I do enjoy these techniques for getting more out of your existing stash, this one shows you how to use dies you already have to create Shadow Box cards, they look amazing don't they?! 

Some great home decor ideas using the free gifts. 

This feature shares ideas for using your dies to create embossed detail on your cards.

Finally Teresa takes us through the 'Letterpress' technique, some of these cards look great, not sure how successful it would be in reality though, any of you tried this technique?

A pretty good issue, the free gifts are very usable and there are some great techniques. 

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I hope that you all have a lovely weekend,

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra 

xxxxxx