A pirate card for a 7 year old

My youngest son has been invited to a fancy dress pirate party next week, and I thought it would be fun to try and make a pirate card for his friend.

Thanks to the lovely Angie, aka Pointofnoreturn, over on MSE, who sent me some really fab images, I have come up with this on the PC using publisher, late last night. I think it is fab, and so do my kids.

We have been out today to buy a costume, so my 6 year old is going to the party dressed as 'Captain Jack Sparrow', who looks equally as gorgeous as Johnny Depp!!

Photos will follow next week, when he is all dressed up ready to go.

My Mothers Day card for a couple of challenges

I have finally got around to making my mum a card for mothers day on the 14th. It has taken me a while to think what to do, so I looked at all my photos of cards and picked out the sketch that I liked the most and used papers and card from my stash to recreate something similar.

I would like to enter it for the card Challenge on MSE that JHB has set, and also for the Allsorts Challenge and Magical Crafts Challenge, which is week is to make a card/gift for Mothers Day - I will be making a matching box to go with this, for her present too.

For this card I have used an ivory square card blank, jade green gemstone card, and plain jade card from my stash. The paper is from My Minds Eye. Everything was cut out on the 'bug' using nestabilities - square, circles and scalloped circle.

The glitter ribbon, pearls and peel off are all from my stash, and I have tried to create a flower that matches the colours of the paper.

Really pleased with it, and hope my mum likes it.

Another card using the same sketch as the one above

I've been meaning to make a card for a friend who has recently lost her mum, and have used the same sketch as the card above, and just altered the colours.


For this card, I have used a daisy embossing folder, gemstone card, and a deep purple textured card. The image I think is from pink petticoat, a long time ago, and has just been coloured using paintshop pro. The ribbon and pearls are from my stash.

Look what the postie bought..

a couple of days ago - my stash swap from Jenny over on Crafty Place.

It is fabbie, and I have been sent a lot of things that I didn't already have so am really pleased with all of it. Thank you so much Jenny xx

Another butterfly card....

I like the simplicity of this card, and the fact it didn't take long to make. OH has been playing with the Craft Robo again, and has done another butterfly. Since the butterfly has so many cut out bits I wasn't sure how to attach it and wondered if I could make it more 3d, so I have added it to the corner of this card using some foam pads, and folded the wings so that it looks like it is about to fly.

I have used the bug to emboss happy birthday on a plain white card, added a stip of 'lemon' ribbon, and some self adhesive gems to the left. I can see myself making some more of these quick and easy cards.

Final blog of the night, to say......

A big thank you to Karen, aka Flourgirl for the fabulous card swap card she sent me for the CP 'Hearts' card swap. It is beautiful - purple is my absolute favourite color too, and hope you liked the one I sent you.

Thankyou card for my birthday presents

I was 'bought up proper'(!), to write thank you cards for birthday and christmas presents, and have instilled this in my kids too, as I think for the sake of a few minutes it is a good thing to do, and who doesn't like to get nice cards/letters in the post?

So I sat and made these last weekend to send to the people who had sent me/given me birthday presents. I was going to do them all the same, but for some people I like to do slightly more special cards, and for others have quick ones that I can make:

These were more complicated to make, but I love the style:








This final one was made for a good friend, and someone who I worked with over 9 years ago. I don't see her as often as i'd like, but she never forgets me for Christmas and birthday presents, and she knows how much I love card making, so this year to my huge delight, she sent me lots of cardmaking goodies through the post. There was packs of card blanks, stamps, papermania toppers and sentiments, embossed transfers, flowers, ribbon and loads of other beautiful things.

I decided to use a bit of everything she had sent me for her thankyou card and this is the result. I'm sure she loved it.

Valentine's Cards and pressie for OH

With Valentines day being 3 days after my birthday, my OH really struggles to buy 2 cards in one week! I got a shop bought birthday card, but he told me that he would make me a valentines card and this is what he made me using the craft robo. I was pretty impressed and love the card, which he has obviously put a lot of thought into:


We have been together forever - 18 years on Christmas eve! The silver letters were made using sticky backed vinyl.

I really struggled to know what to do my OH for valentines day - I had a layout in my head, but couldn't work out how to bring it all together. After lots of fiddling and looking at my peel offs I can up with this:

and was really pleased with the way it came out. The red heart paper is actually wrapping paper, but think it looks pretty good, and the gold squares were some of the self adhesive glitter paper I have had for a while.

To go with the card I made this box with a few chocolates in, which I got free from work, so was very money saving!

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I last blogged. Real life has yet again got in the way of my crafting/card making, and I am about to put that right by adding some of my recent makes, and beautiful handmade birthday cards that I received from the lovely ladies over on the cardmaking thread on MSE.


I can't express how touched I was to receive these card, considering I have never met any of them in person. The first two were from Rainmac and Flourgirl. who also sent me a gorgeous paper pad and chocolate:

and these two were from Choccy and Marg:

Had a really crafty cardmaking weekend...

and have loved it.

On Thursday I made another glittery butterfly card as a thank you to Jessica Rabbit over on MSE for the loan of one of her Card Making CDs.

Then on Friday night I made 12 of the cards in my previous post - black and white butterfly ones with the organza ribbon. Last night I made my OH a valentine card, and box, to put a small gift in for next weekend, (can't put them on my blog yet as he looks on it, so will post pictures next weekend) and today I have made these 2 cards with a heart theme, and I am so happy with the way they have come out, even my OH is impressed!

This green card has been made with some swirly paper which has been matted onto silver card. All the hearts are peel-offs, and the ribbon and flowers used are from my stash. I'd like to enter this card into this weeks Papertake Weekly Challenge which is entitled 'Love Actually'.

This card has been made from decorative tissue paper, matted with gold card, and gold peel-offs, and again the ribbon and flowers were from my stash. I'd like to enter this one into this weeks CRAFT Challenge whose theme is valentine or love.

Birthday cards for my first paying order...

I took my cards to work the other day and my colleague had a look through my cards, and decided she wanted a mixture of two of them. So I got a bit of a production line going on Friday night and made 12 the exactly the same. Really pleased with how they have come out, but it took a while to work out how to get the bows just right. Hope she likes them, and it will be good to get some money for doing something I love doing!


The money will go towards buying some more nestabilities.

Tonights card makes..

Finally had a chance to make some cards. Going back a few posts, I said that I would make a card out of whatever my OH made using the Craft Robo.

I've had this white card, with a butterfly half cut out on it for a while, and didn't really know what to do with it - I love matting and layering, but just couldn't work out how this would fit into this card. The butterfly design is really cool, because the wings fold up as the body is attached to the card, so it has a 3d affect to it, so I just needed some inspiration as to make it into a fab card!

I was also limited to the colours to be used as the card is white and the body black, so have had to go with these colours. I've added a bit of silver sparkle in the form of glitter film on the back behind the butterfly, and even if I do say so myself I love this card, and can see me trying to do some along the same lines, but using other colours:

The card is A5 size, and to finish the card off I have made a 'Happy Birthday' topper with a peel off, and at the bottom I have put a silver strip of glitter film, and a strip of black using a fiskars boarder punch, which I have stuck onto the top, so the glitter shows through.

My sons birthday party invites

Jack decided a while ago, that for his birthday he wanted a bowling party, so I have managed to get a fab deal on a bowling party at a local David Lloyd centre, where I pay one price and everything except the cake is included - a game of bowling, food, party host and party bags so I am really happy and in the long run it will save me loads of money.

OH based this card on the football one he did the other week, and we have just added a bowling ball, and bowling ally. Everything was cut out on the craft robo. Jack thinks it is fab!

Well, I didn't manage to get around to making any cards yesterday, but did have a huge sort out of my crafty area in the lounge to try and find somewhere to put my new storage boxes full of card that I bought on Saturday.

I was only using the large wicker basket at the bottom of the photo, but having to squeeze in 12 extra boxes, meant that I have had to find a temporary storage solution. My OH, is currently finishing off his workshop in the garden, and once it is done, I can take over the computer desk, shelving and floorspace that is currently home to his electronic bits and pieces, so this is my temporary solution:

OK, it doesn't look very pretty, but it will do for the time being, and is part of a unit we have for the kids toys, that isn't being used at the moment.

I made a cake!

After sorting out my crafting space yesterday, I had a craving to bake a cake.

I don't make them as often as I should, and have real problems doing icing, despite being shown many times by my mum, it never turms out right, but one cake I can do is a spicy fruit cake!


Here is the results, and it is really delicious, and very easy to make - chuck all the ingredients into a bowl, mix it around, and bake in the oven for 40 minutes.