My eldest grandsons Birthday as he turns 13 years old......Sunday 14th July 2013

Yes I now feel so old...my eldest grandson, Jamie, is now a teenager. Thanks to my eldest daughter
Steph & hubby Martin I have the most wonderful grandsons a person could ever wish for... I love all
of their little family (even though Martin is not so little & an ideal rugby player). I cant wish for a lovelier daughter and son-in-law.

As Jamie turns 13 & Ben is 91/2 I could not be any prouder of them both. Without going into so much detail they are doing so well at school, with Jamie having to move at the February half term to another local school (as it is where his dad used to go). (Of course I love my step children & their children but my 2 girls are my life).
Steph is almost 32 & Tia is 16, Steph has been my rock through the years, shes the most level headed, wise, common sensed woman I know & has been there for me through divorce from her dad, moving home so many times & everything in between and since.... I really don't know what I would do if I cant see or talk to her on a regular basis.
Anyway, back to Jamie's card. I decided that he needed a "cool kid" card as he is one, so Kenny K's Images are perfect.
I chose the image called "Cool Boarder" (this link will take you direct to the image & from there you can navigate the whole collection of wonderful designs that Kenny K has designed).
A large card was also the main point of Jamie's card being a special year so an A4 was the only option for him.... I did however, cut the width of the card on one edge as I just felt like it. The yellowy dotty embossed paper is from Brazill Basic's collection, the dark blue & red behind the image are from the Hunkydory One For The Boy's collection. The rest of the items are from my own stash & the metallic letters were brought (on the cheap) without the makers name on.
The card base is a white 255gsm card with a hammered effect from a paper mill in the Lake District in Cumbria.
A simple card, I didn't want any fuss on the card & I know Jamie wouldn't like it if I put anything on anyway so why bother.
I hope you like it & to quote Jamie this morning "thank u so much nan for putting all your time and effort that u put in to making my card ;) ". Bless him, I love you Jamie & Ben xxx

DS4J NEW IMAGE RELEASES.............Sunday 14th July 2013

Yes, its Sunday and its New Release time over at  DigiStamp4Joy and as usual, both Margy & Jen
have designed & drawn some beautiful images.
I have decided to use Jen's image of Feeling Flat? on my multi fold card. The card base is one I had brought ages ago & thought I would use them for special cards, then as I realised that they are too fancy for everyday use so now I use them when ever I feel like a special card is perfect for some occasions. Anyway, I printed the image onto super smooth 120gsm card, then coloured with 2 shades of Flexmarkers, Cadet Blue & Celestial Blue for the car & using other colours of Promarkers for the rest of the image. I did use a Sakura Metallic Pen for the road sign pole. The wording on the pole was
just written by a black Letraset fineliner pen.

The challenge blog can be found here, which has all the new releases on to as well as our monthly challenge, of which this month the challenge theme is to Button It Up - Shapely (a shaped card with
one or more buttons on it).

(Im sorry for the lateness of posting this but to be completely honest, Ive had extreme problems getting the photos on to here today!!)


I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Brown Sugar Challenge Blog - Theme - Shades of Blue
http://brownsugarchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/challenge-50-shades-of-blue.html

Blog Candy available...................

Yes, I forgot to post this but Im here now.
There is a fab offer of blog candy being offered over at My Crafty Heart, the blog

Lisa, the blog owner, has this blog candy on offer every Saturday & I don't know why Ive not
seen it before!!!  Anyway, to be in the chance to win this fabulous prize, all you need to do is to
add the link of your own crafty blog. It is only open to crafters & only one entry each week is
permitted. Every entry is checked to make sure you are a crafter too! lol, if you are not then your
entry is not eligible. 

Lisa, the owner, also has an online shop. Please click here: My Crafty Heart shop

Good Luck everyone who enters ;)

Saturday 13th July, a catch up post

Good morning peeps. Again, another hot sultry day here in Burntwood, Staffs. It was way too hot yesterday but I had to get the shopping in & as usual, I couldn't get myself ready & organised early enough to beat the heat. That was all because of being out for most of Thursday visiting my eldest daughter in Lichfield for an hour & half before she unfortunately had to go to work. Tia & I then spent the next few hours just lazing around & shopping at our leisure. I can only get to Lichfield
once a month so I make the most of it. We got home around 1.15pm & of course by then it was so hot.
I've got 3 cards to make today, 2 sweet 16th cards for Tia's friends, one of which is having a belated party this evening, at her home, so I shall be making a belated card for her, the other birthday girl will
be 16 tomorrow, Sunday., so that an be a normal birthday card. The last card, which has also got to be posted on here as a new post, is for the company that I am on the Design Team for. That will be posted on here tomorrow morning at 9am so please pop back then....
Tomorrow morning I will also do a blog post about the card I made yesterday for my eldest grandson.
Jamie will be 13 tomorrow & it fills me with dread that I have a 13 year old grandson, but as with his
younger brother Ben (who will be 10 on New Years Eve. I love them to bits, not forgetting my Stepchildren & their children too,. I have 4 step grandchildren, Cameron will be 11 in August, Alisha is 6, Aisha will be 6 in December, Jessica will be 3 next January, also I have another Stepgrandchild on the way which is due next March (so very early days yet).
Well, I had best get started. Now I've had my postman delivered some new goodies too that I ordered last week, posted 1st class too its taken 5 working days to get here!! I'm not happy with Royal Mail but that's another story.
Be back tomorrow peeps, don't forget the 2 new cards that will be posted on here separately.
Bye for now x ;)

Another DT Card for Quirky Crafts..........

 Yes, another DT card for the Quirky Crafts Blog Challenge, which is very kindly sponsered by
 BUGABOO STAMPS & DOODLE DRAGON STUDIOS.
This card is my 2nd for this challenge and sadly, will be my last DT project as my position of Guest Designer has come to an end, for now anyway ;(

This "Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow" card is made using the delightful Zebra image from Bugaboo Stamps (the link to the online shop is above)....

For this last card I decided to create an animal on a pole that usually sits on a musical carousel, hence the pink & green striped Zebra hehehehehe...oh, the musical notes and the extra touch of the Gold Metallic mane & tail.
I chose the colours of the zebra from the 2 scraps of paper that I had in a large folder & as it happens they were next to each other!! The "pole" was made from an old plastic bendy straw that I found at the back of my cutlery draw. I cut it down to size as I dont have the cup anymore that this straw is used for so its a bit of Upcycling for me this time lol.
Everything else that I have used in this project are from my own personal stash.
I have used Bugaboo digital stamps for a couple of years now & fully recommend them. Freebies are very often offered too so ideal if you are crafting on a budget this is also available on some other digital stamp websites/pages.
Everything I used for this card is from my own stock..................

Quirky Crafts Challenge Blog new challenge (number 14-theme is a song......Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow)

Wow, what a fabulous day it has been today (Im writing this at 22.25pm on Saturday night)...its been
a very long day! Least of all with my dog running out of my ex's house this morning to get to a couple of other dogs across quite a busy road and ended up with being clipped by a car. Reggie has a graze on his right cheek, a bloodshot left eye (plus a little bump above his eye socket), a small cut on his right paw, bruised tail & back right leg,  He has a course of antibiotics from the vet so hopefully he will recover asap.

Back to the challenge,  over at Quirky Crafts Challenge Blog, challenge number 14 is based around the song title "Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow" written by Tom Paxton but sung by Patsy Biscoe back in the late 1960's (approx. 1969 but I cant guarantee it).

I used the Doodle Dragon images which are one of our sponsors for this challenge as their wild animal images are so right for this theme to go with the song title "Daddy's Taking Us To The Zoo Tomorrow".
I coloured all 3 animals from Doodle Dragon Digi Stamp with a mixture of Promarkers & Graph It pens, cut them out, including the cage (which was coloured with Sakura Silver Metallic pen). I cut out the scalloped oval yellow card with a spellbinder die & the music notes were cut with
Dies to Die For die (I wrote the song title "Daddy's taking us to the Zoo tomorrow" in a Sakura Glitter pen) & the backing paper with paw prints on is from my own stash as is the sentiment..

Even though this is a DT card entry for our blog challenge, I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly Challenge of which the theme is: Anything Goes (with an option to include animals/creatures).
Papertake Blog Challenge, Tuesday 2nd July 2013 (this link is so long that I needed to shorten it)


Bugaboo Monthly Blog Challenge of which the theme is: July Anything Goes
Bugaboo Catch The Bug Challenge Blog  (this link is so long that I needed to shorten it)


Cupcake Craft Challenges of which the theme is: Anything But A Square
Cupcake Craft Challenges

Tammy's Scrapping Corner Challenge of which the theme is: Animals
http://www.tammyscrapincorner.com/2013/07/challenge-70-at-tammy-scrappin-corner.html

One Stop Craft Challenge 233 of which the theme is: Anything goes
http://onestopcraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/challenge-233-anything-goes.html

New Digi Stamp release on ...Sunday 7th July 2013

 Good Morning from a very warm & sunny Burntwood in Staffordshire (UK). Im going to spend quite a bit of time at my craft table today...


Im late in posting this on the DigiStamps4Joy page so Im just posting it on here so you can still access the blog & see all the wonderful Design Team's projects using this gorgeous stamps called "Misteri all dressed up" drawn by the talented artist JenLee...

I printed off Misteri all dressed up, on to 160gsm paper & after colouring her in using my Promarkers I cut it out using one of the "labels 1" die from Spellbinders. My mind was made up before I knew what colour I was going to distress the edges with a Tim Holtz Distress Ink called "Bundled Sage", so the obvious choice to colour Misteri's clothes in was shades of green. I then cut an identical sized label 1 & stuck the coloured image onto that for stability. I decided to make an easel card with a brightly coloured backing paper from a Polkadoodles cd that I own. I added a strip of white 1 inch wide crocheted effect lace topped with a quarter inch green grosgrain ribbon & bow, stuck 3 pink buttons (threaded with pale pink raffia) in the centre & the final touch was the little tag with the same green grosgrain ribbon, handwritten with "The Beauty Of Life is in it's Simplicity" sentiment.


As well as being a post to promote the new release of this beautiful image Im also entering the finished card into the following challenges:

Catch the Bug Challenge Blog where the  theme is titles: July Anything Goes: http://catchthebugblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/july-anything-goes.html

The Ribbon Girl Challenge Blog where the theme is: Add A Bow
http://www.ribbongirls.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/july-card-challenge.html

That Craft Place Challenge Blog where the theme is: Ribbons &/Or Lace
http://thatcraftplaceblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/new-challenge-ribbons-andor-lace.html?m=1