Toile Tidings card

Good Wednesday Morning Ladies ,

Well what a difference a day makes, today I am struggling big time with uti, this one is the worst I've had in a long time pain wise, also the level of blood was terrifying.  My gp prescribed Pivmicillen but said try not to take it for a couple of days,  by 8pm I was proper struggling so I called 111, explained situation and an on call Gp called me and said that the blood was a sign of infection within the bladder,  she thought that it was probably a continuous infection from 3 weeks ago that hadn't been cleared up!  She said that I the level of pain continued to just take the antibiotics, don't wait.  The other conflicting advice was regarding Ibuprofen,  which I haven't taken for years as I was told I couldn't take them, especially when having a Uti, the gp from Surgery said that there isn't any reason I shouldn't take it.  However the out of hours gp said I should not take them as they cause kidney problems!  

I did manage to make a couple of cards to try and keep my mind busy, today's card is one of them.

I used, "Toile Tidings " a paper that I love, I bought it a couple years ago, its such a simple design, it reminds me of the Willow pattern plates my Nan used to have and she used to tell me the story all the time.  I start with a Very Vanilla card base, then add a a layer of Garden Green card (to match the green on the patterned paper).  The last layer was the dsp, I cut it to size and adhered it to the card base.  For embellishment I used another piece of the paper that features a stripe, I cut a piece to make a narrow border,  added to the centre of the card and finished it with a Hot foiled sentiment. 

I hope that you all have a good day,

Love and Big hugs,

Sandra xxx 

Pretty Poinsettia

 

Good Morning Ladies,

Did you all enjoy the lovely sunny day yesterday?  I was home alone for pretty much the whole day so didn't dare try to venture outside,  it would be just my luck to fall and be stuck in the blazing sun for hours!  Paul was hoping to be home early afternoon but his workload is crazy and despite leaving here at 6.30am and getting in after 4.30pm, he grabbed a quite bite to eat and sat straight at his desk until around 6pm, he is in the office all week too.  Nevermind, we are counting down to our holidays! 

It felt very odd making Christmas cards on such a hot day, luckily the fan bought the temperature down a little,  I started by embossing my background,  I then took one of the papers I have been hoarding for a couple of years and die cut a square of it, I did fussy cut a couple of bits that the square would have cut off,  I cut around them and lifted them so they sat on top if the square die and then run it through the die cutting machine.  I adhered the die cut to a larger piece of Real Red card, I added another piece of the dsp to the background in matching colours, I added foam pads to my die cut square and added to the card, I folded a piece of woven ribbon over the die cut flowers, to add the first flourish,  I fussy cut another flower spray Identical to the one below and added foam pads with an added swish of glue to make sure that the ribbon stayed attached.  A tiny sparkle into the centres of the poinsettias.  

I hope that you all have a lovely day,

Love & Hugs to all,

Sandra xxx

 Good Monday Morning Ladies, 

From a very warm & sunny Gloucestershire!  We were so blessed with lovely weather at the weekend too.  

Today's card was a bit of an experiment,  the matching Dsp to the stamps is called 'Nature Prints, which is mostly blue but I wanted a green as the main colour,  so i took a dark green ink and blended it all over the blue and it turned our  that you can  alter the colours.  I Took a 1 1/ 2 inch strip of the green coloured paper and added it to a Mossy Meadow strip of card slightly bigger then added to my embossed card base layer.  I then die cut two square and turned them onto a panel to arrange my focal piece onto, for this I stamped the three largest stanps in Mossy Meadow and die cut them and I arranged them ovet thy die cut square,  I finished with a matching ribbon bow.  The sentiment is in the same set as the foliage, I stamped it and die cut with circle dies.  

I hope that you all enjoy the sun shine today

Love and hugs to all of you, 

Sandra xxxxxx 

Your Challenge cards

 

Good Sunday Morning Ladies, 

Did Saturday even happen?? Im not sure what happened to ours but it seemed we were getting up one minute and going to bed the next!!  I wasn't feeling great so dozed off a couple of times.  I went out with Paul to shops but I didn't have the energy to do anything other than nap in the car, it felt nice to get out of those 4 walls.  I was also very conscious of not infected anyone else!    We have no plans for today, see how we feel and maybe Paul will mow lawns, he has been left with a really frustrating cough, its much worse at night which is frustrating for both of us.  I am hoping I don't get the same, thankfully so far I don't seem to be as congested.

Your Challenge Cards 

Karen 

Karen's Description:

1)   Here’s one of the milestone birthday cards A googled image and added speech bubbles over the top of the original ones from Serif

The background is our club badge

2)  Here’s another (milestone) birthday card and is following on from the Pinterest challenge A design by Mary Irvine for Julie Hickey I created the papers in Serif

Oh Karen your first card is absolutely brilliant,  I love the idea and it couldn't be more perfect, using the club badge as the background was an added touch of genius !! 

Your second card is so pretty, I love the delicate background you created and the colours are so delicate.  

Thank you so much for taking part in the Challenge my lovely XXX 

Lilian 

Lilian's Description:

Here is my card for this week, tried to follow your instructions,but couldn’t get the pop up to work, it kept catching on the embossing back layer.

Have just decorated it with chip board pieces from house of roses.

First of all I'd like to thank you for having a go at the tutorial that I did last weekend,  it really does mean a lot 😊 

Your card is beautiful,  I love how you have decorated it, using the fence along that border strip was such a brilliant idea, everything else ties in perfectly.  I did find the pop-up piece frustrating too, I ended up making three different ones, I also had to keep repositioning them because I needed the flowers perfectly lined up with the vase.  Its so hard to explain clearly in a written tutorial.  You would never guess that you had struggled by looking at your card though.  

Thank you so much XXX

Maria

Maria's Description:

I made this swing card for the CC this week. I tried to follow a written tutorial but couldn't understand it so did my own way and thankfully it worked 🤭 not perfect but good enough I think 🤔🤣

Take care. I hope we can do a Watford when you are back as I think everyone is busy before.....

Many hugs 🥰 xx 

It is perfect Maria,  I love the colour combination too,  I think any kind of kinetic card gives the recipient an extra bit of fun, the lacy edged shapes you have used give an extra touch of luxury,  are they your new Hunkydory dies that you won? 

I am looking forward to our next Watford meet up too, we must all check our diaries, we are back from Holiday around the 11th September, so maybe late September ??

Thank you so much for taking part in the Challenge my lovely XXX 

Sue

Sue had some time to herself yesterday so managed to sit and finish a card that she has had on her desk for a few weeks.

The wreath itself is lovely,  so full of foliage, can I ask if its one die, or dies that you layer up??

It makes a perfect aperture card, the decorations are cute too.  Kraft card and dark green are a great combination.  The sentiment is perfect for the card too. 

Thank you so much for sharing your card with us XXX 

******************

I hope that you all have an enjoyable Sunday, 

Love & hugs to all of you, 

Sandra                                                                                 xxxxxx 

A different Mixed Up Saturday

 How true is this?! 

(Thanka Maria xxx)

Good Saturday Morning, 

I hope that you are all ready to have a lovely weekend.  Covid has me beat, its proper affecting my heart, it took me so long to get downstairs yesterday,  I had to do a couple of steps then sit down and get my breath back. I slept on and off most of the morning and early afternoon! I did try and sit and do a tutorial but tiredness caused me to struggle to concentrate so I ended up losing patience and giving up!  

So instead of seeing a tutorial today, I have taken some photos of some of the flowers on our deck, I will admit that growing flowers for pots is as fun to me as making cards, the different pots seem to have a different surprise for me every morning, a new flower or a bud has opened

My Beautiful Dahlias,  I have been looking at some new varieties for next year, I find them so incredibly perfect to look at, so many different colours a shapes that I can't decide which ones to buy.  We will also dig a bed for them rather than having them in pots.  Although i love having them just outside the back door.

This is 'The Fairy' rose, its so pretty and has literally thousands of buds waiting to pop open, its huge and has spread the whole way down the stairs on one side of the deck.

A couple more Dahlias !

If I could recommend anything for you to try next year it would be these Climbing Petunias,  they are gorgeous and have filled the whole tub. There are so many flowers on them, worth every penny.

Not as exciting but I find the darling flowers on the lobelia so fascinating,  thats a mint in front.

No introduction necessary but worth including, pretty bright pink Geranium, this we managed to save from last year.

Our first Zinnia, they have taken ages to flower  I sowed these in February. 

Beautiful daisy's! 

Now I have to say that I was not prepared for how gorgeous this fuschia is, we bought it back in March, it cost £1.50 so we weren't expecting much, but oh my, she's like a perfect little ballerina, with big poofy skirt with layered petticoats underneath, I must have spent 15 minutes sat taking in all the details. 

I tried to capture the chocolate box purple velvet texture of this petunia, so pretty!

This rose is a commemorative rose when we lost our dog Gemma, she was part of our family for 13 years and left a huge hole.  So Paul went out and picked this pretty rose and a large pot to put her ashes in.  She has treated us to a lovey display of roses every year.

A lovely purple clematis.

The first Cosmos flower, I was beginning to think we wouldn't get flowers from them but on closer inspection there are loads of buds waiting to open.

That's it for today,  sorry there's no card tutorial,  I was determined to not let Covid stop me but it clearly had more determination than me!  

I hope that you all have a lovely Saturday, 

Love and hugs to all, 

Sandra  xxx 

Iiitttt's Christmas Challenge time

 

Good Friday Morning Ladies, 

Well, I will definitely be glad to see the back of this week !!  I was laughing with Lucy on Wednesday saying that we were lucky that we were invincible!  I was saying that if anyone would have caught it from Paul it should have been me not Soph!!  I felt unwell on Wednesday but tested negative, this was before lucy and I went out.  Yesterday I was messaging Sonia saying how 'humid/muggy' it was and she disagreed, saying the wind was cooler, I replied saying that I was sweating,  she replied "maybe you have covid", so I took a test and yes I tested positive, 5 days after Paul it got me, by bedtime I did feel rough, I think any flu like symptoms exacerbate your ongoing problems!         I am just hoping I don't get as poorly Paul and Soph did.  Poor Lucy says she's not got a chance,  I did remind her that she had it worse than anyone last October,  she was bedridden for a week bless her, so I said I reckon you have better antibodies! 

Our Next Challenge 

Well we had to start sometime 🤣😂, so for this next week or two our Challenge will be to make Christmas cards, any style, using anything you like, we have all used just about everything to make our Christmas cards over the years.  Maybe if we are posting our Christmas cards we should just use stamps, keep them simple.  I find that hard sometimes,  especially if its a card for special friends, you want to make your cards special too.  Maybe consider batch making your cards, particularly if you have lots to make.  I have you lovely friends to make for, family and our neighbours, so I need to get started. 

So dust off those Christmas stamps, dies and don't forget those embossing folders!! 

I hope that you enjoy the challenge x

Have a lovely Friday, 

Love and hugs to all of you,

Sandra xxx