Trains and buses

I am so tired, I didn't get to bed early as I was preparing for today, then woke at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep and developed a headache. Then I must have gone off just in time for the alarm to go at 5:40.

I had to go to a meeting but it involved 6 trains and 2 buses and 3 1/2 hours each way! I am shattered so must go to bed, and will try and sort out the blog candy to post at the weekend and the latest tag!

Chocolate card - my favourite kind!

I made this card for a challenge on Crafts by Carolyn. It is a House Mouse stamped image, coloured with coloured pencils, and the sentiment stamp is coloured with Marvy Wet Look pens and embossed, flower from Lakeland, Papermania sticky backed ribbon.

Tagged again!

Thanks Debbee, will sort it out when I am not feeling so tired!

Blog Candy Winner - reveal day!

You may remember that to win blog candy I asked you to guess how many wood backed stamps I had in the 17 A4 Tuff boxes after I sorted them out. I have bought more stamps since that day but they have not been added to the boxes. These photos were taken at the time I published the blog candy guessing game.
I have counted the stamps in each box, see below. The total number of stamps is ......257
I had a long list of guesses on the blog and one sent by private message.

I had 25 guesses varying from 68 to 426, although 2 were discounted as there was a second guess but neither of those guesses won and the first ones wouldn't have been correct either! There is one clear winner who got the closest and it is Nicola with 253! Well done Nicola.

I will put a note on Nicola's blog and see what sort of stash she would like then I will post the photo of the final prize on here.

Also looking at these photos I think I am going to need more boxes to fit all the new stamps in!




Hearts and love 21














Animals 10 stamps













27 sentiments, borders and corners (acrylic one not counted as I said wooden backed only)



















Dolly Mamas + 1 = 5















Seasonal = 15 stamps














House Mouse and babies = 9 stamps















Oriental = 11 stamps

















Christmas 1 = 15 stamps












Birds, fish, insects = 11 stamps
















Flowers 1 = 23 stamps













Flowers 2 = 22 stamps

Garden = 23 stamps

Christmas 2 = 18 stamps = the foam ones don't count.

Vintage = 11 Stamps

Birthdays = 10 stamps

Frogs, fairies, and stuff = 15 stamps

Boxes, basket, shadow, map, torn, = 11 (there are 3 in the box)

More blog candy on site I found.

I was blog hopping when I found this Katharina's Creative Place and if you love Tilda style stamps you will love this giveaway.

Summer challenge card for Crafts by Carolyn

I was too late for the Crafts by Carolyn below, but this one is for a new challenge called Summer.

I stamped one of my new Hero Arts stamps onto Papermania paper, stamped one of a set of 4 Hero Arts butterflies onto yellow card, stamped onto the paper and layered them. I added blue shiny tape from Lakeland (I have to admit it was to cover a smudge of ink), and added blue glitter accents to match the tape.

It was an idea I came up with and was itching to try but not sure I am totally happy with it, what do you think?

Just 2 days to go to enter for a chance to win blog candy, I will have to count those stamps in the boxes to see who is closest and put together a prize!

Here is another stamped card, I stamped some of these images to send in for the stamp swap and it is from clear set by Stampendous Perfectly Clear. I stamped and embossed in pink on pink paper, inked the edges of the card and stamped a greeting with another Stampendous set.















I can see the dogs,
but they can't see me!



















I see the food monster!









Feed me, Feed me, NOW!

Feeling a bit better, new card and dog toy

I am feeling a bit better after my fall and have decided my boot isn't too bad and once polished it will probably not really show. It is possible that the very soft leather will go into a hole there sooner than it would have done. Thank you to all of you who have expressed concern or good wishes. I do have a painful knee but I have had problems with it before so banging it heavily doesn't really help!

Here is a stamped image using one of the new Hero Arts stamps on vellum (well actually tracing paper) coloured with brush markers, attached with eyelets to pearlescent pink card, mounted on a grey card and with matching funky fibres. I stamped Happy Birthday with some green embossing powder but it didn't stamp well.

I am going to enter it in a challenge for a no ink pad card on Crafts By Carolyn forum, I hope I will be forgiven for the Happy Birthday digression!

Today I went to Sainsburys to take back some clothes, and buy some food. I spotted a dog toy that I bought for Alfie. It is a chatter ball and it chats away in a number of different duck voices, deep then babyish, and it says a lot of things and blows raspberries, and barks. It says, you got me now, and come on puppy or something like that.

It has been driving Alfie mad, he wants to kill it but it is hard plastic, so he has taken to barking at it for ages - I was upstairs and I thought we had a burglar with all the noise he was making! He will run after it if you kick it round the room, but he was taking his frustration out on his bed and chewing that!

Some more stamps arrived, but don't worry I am not adding them to the ones for the blog candy competition - that wouldn't be fair!

I will keep them out until afterwards but I have a feeling I need more Tuff boxes........

Oh what a day!

I planned to go to work at 8:45 to miss the worse traffic, and before that go to Lidls the other side of town for something, get chocolate in Asda or Tesco, and pop in the doctors to make an appointment.
However - my hubby dusted the alarm clock yesterday, and accidently set the early alarm. I didn't notice as I had a pair of knickers over the clock so it didn't keep me awake so up I got, got ready, couldn't understand why himself wasn't moving!

Finally realised I was up half an hour early so I didn't know what to do, thought maybe the traffic is less at this time so se off for work but popped into the garage to get the chocolate, got to have it!

Someone came in the out way and pinched the space I was aiming at so I parked where I thought the car wouldn't be in the way, got out and tripped over a manhole cover flat on my face! So I ended up in tears, buying chocolate and telling the cashier who got someone to get me a chair and fill out a form while they got me water and wet tissues for my knee.

Bet they had a good laugh at the video later on!

Now I realise my boots are damaged, and they were nearly new and my best boots. I am going to be covered in bruises, and my knee is grazed.

Yes I did get to Lidls this evening and got what I wanted, but I wished I had stuck to the plan in the morning!

More cards and free craft magazine

Blog candy comp closing on 20th April.

Here are the last two stamp swap card challenge cards for the PJC forum.

Lilies.

This stamped image from Jay was a big challenge (thanks Jay)! Why does a woman have lilies growing out of her head, is she a bulb I asked myself often!

I painted the lilies with liquid pearls, but added a touch of pink with a brush marker, she had to have greenish hair I felt!
I found a background UM stamp I had a vague recollection of, that seemed perfect, and I had a set of Lakeland flower stamps and one was Lilies.

I mounted the panel onto old gold, then mounted the stamped image with foam pads.

I decided the hammered cream card looked a bit bare, so decided to add some Rubbadabbadoo words, this took several attempts to get right as stamping on hammered card is not easy.

Finally I added the heart embellishment from Deanne - it had to go with this image really!



Baby Boy.

This was a stamped bear holding a heart from Debbee, thanks Debbee.

I coloured him with water colour pencils then went over with water but I am not totally happy with the result. I then glazed him with Debbie Moore Enamel Magic, mounted him on this window card, backed the window with alphabet paper and put a charm in each, added sticky back ric rac, a rub on sentiment and some tiny buttons, and there you are!

Have you all read the free e mag from PJC, it is really good and you don't get much free these days, certainly not craft magazines!
Click on the banner to go download the free mag!

One down two to go!

Here is my first stamp swap challenge card on the PCJ forum. I have this stamp in my collection but haven't used it yet!

This is a Dolly Mama stamped image that I got from Dee, thanks Dee! I coloured her with brush markers and a gold gel pen for the buckle, and added some tiny gem earrings.

I went round the edge of the card with pink ink, and mounted it on a stamped polka dot paper panel. The stamps are from a clear set by Heidi Grace. I finished it off with two black eyelets.

The first attempt at making this card, specifically the eyelet setting resulted in my Cropadile Big Bite breaking, the top cube is still jammed onto the ruined card through the eyelet! It is going back, not sure if I will take a replacement or refund at this stage!

Two more to make and there are the cards I made from the spares to post, will wait until the recipients have had a chance to use them first!

Now I saw a sight today on the rail station, I was on the train for a change due to sick car! There were three young girls wearing short shorts, and sleeveless tops with little sandals! I had my coat and scarf on, jumper and boots, and trousers!

Rattytatty has blog candy up for grabs

Go and take a look, RattyTatty has some gorgeous DoveCraft Laura Ashley goodies for grabs, and you can earn tickets in the draw in various ways! (I made a mistake before, said it was Basic Grey, sorry about that).

Don't forget to have a go at my blog candy guessing game if you haven't already tried - see the post on blog candy.

I seem to have won two more awards, thanks very much to DillyDaydream - the angel, and Silvercustard the "You're a Star" flowers! If any of my blog friends would like an award please consider yourself awarded and add the image to your blog, you are all wonderful!

A quiet day today, as I am not feeling well - had an upset tummy earlier. Yesterday I had loads of post, two parcels of goodies, craft magazines and the stamped images from the PCJ stamp swap I joined. I see that Deekatz who organised it has already made her cards from the stamps she kept.

I spent yesterday evening colouring my three images in with mixed results (well with watercolour crayons, brush markers, and liquid pearls really), I am not good at colouring! I hope to make them into cards and post them on the forum soon! The problem with this is you can't restamp the image if you mess it up, apart from one of the as I have the same stamp! That one ironically turned out fine.

What was in the parcels I hear you say! Well one was from Artymiss and I had forgotten about it and what I ordered so it was a lovely surprise. I got a pack of packs of K&Co 6"x6" papers which are lovely, some twinkle writers, some pots of ink and some Christmas tree charms! Not one stamp!
The other parcel was from Readicut, I placed an order after someone tipped everyone off on a forum that Readicut were offering a pack of papers free that is normally £14.99, you only have to pay postage. No other purchase necessary as there usually is with Readicut offers. Of course I bought a few other things, a stamp lucky dip, a budget stamp set lucky dip (might do for my neice) and a paint lucky dip.

Once I had placed my order and paid I noticed there were two items I hadn't selected added to my order, I emailed Readicut but they weren't able to stop them in time so I have to send them back and the postage will be refunded as well as the items (I hope this will not be as painful as last time).

The pot luck stamp was quite cute, the paint was a pot of dimensional paint in green, but the budget stamp set was a foam cube with snowflakes on each side - I can't see it costing the £1.99 I paid let alone the £3.99 to £12 that Readicut claim it could be worth! So I am sending that back in disgust!