Sweet Lovehearts

Who remembers eating those fizzy Lovehearts sweets when they were younger??..okay more recently than that then, who am I kidding!!!
It's great fun to read the messages on them, although I daresay the phrases are more up to date now if not a little more highbrow!!!
I've used these retro sweets as inspiration for my card to play along with Less is More this week by using scraps of card and CASual Fridays 'Jest for the Pun of it' challenge

I make most of my card blanks from A4 sheets so occasionally I will have spare rectangles of card, one of which I've used as the panel here, it's been embossed with a Cuttlebug folder that I found on eBay a while ago and the lovehearts are cut using card from my scrap bin using a Quickutz die. The die just cuts a heart shaped sweet, so to make them look like our well known brand I backed them with a circle of the same coloured card after inking around the edges of the heart to match the lettering.

You'll notice I haven't included pictures of my scrap bin.... mainly because its a complete muddle the ceiling lighting is not great in my room in the evening and the photos were too fuzzy..... actually that's probably good then ! Seriously it's just an Ikea storage bin stuffed full of card that isn't organized in any way...you get the picture I'm sure :0)

Isn't it funny how these challenges encourage you to make cards that you'd never think to make otherwise or even need to send in this case!!! It'll get bundled up with others and sent to be sold in aid of St Luke's Hospice and if you wish to do the same pop over to the blog to find out how to go about it :0)

This leads me nicely onto reminding you that tomorrow night sees a new challenge starting at St Luke's Charity Card Challenge so please do look in on Thursday to check out the new theme and prize too :0)

Thanks for popping by today

Jenny X

A Big Birthday!

Hi Everyone...... I know it's the warmest February day for five years here in the UK and I'm in crafting!!! ....Rolo is not impressed!
The reason being , it's my Uncles 65th birthday this weekend and I needed to make a card to send so I looked to blogland for some inspiration.

Well the colours at ColourQ are just gorgeous and could easily be used on a feminine card but I decided they would make a great masculine card in this instance, The Paper Players are asking for Clean and Simple masculine cards this week and I couldn't resist another chance to play again with the die-cuts challenge at Less is More , so that was enough inspiration to make this card....

The 'argyle' pattern is made using my PTI stamp set and the numbers are cut using dienamics dies, the sentiment and 'woodgrain' effect on the numbers are made using the stamp set that goes with the dies.
I made the label tag from an oval die-cut and then knotted 'Oyster' bakers twine onto the metal triangular fastener.

Here are the challenge details

After waking up and creeping round with a dizzy head this morning I was thrilled to see that my splash of pink card won 'Cup of the Week' at the Play Date Cafe... whoo hoo :0)  It was such a last minute make on Tuesday but I'm so glad I found the time to join in.

Right, time to take the terror out for a walk in this lovely warm sunshine.

Thanks for visiting me today and hope your enjoying this summery weather if you're in the UK :0)

Jenny x

A Colour Splash and Candy Winners

Hi Everyone,
 I just had to play along with this weeks Play Date Cafe Colour splash and my crafty morning turned out to be not so crafty, so I've only just finished making my card :0)

This is one of those cards that looks better in real life but you can just about make out the camouflaged people on the newsprint background in the first photo !

The paper dolls are a Dienamics die which I've snipped into groups of four, arranged them and then stamped the Hero Arts newsprint background onto them and slightly inked the edges with Black Soot Distress ink. I stamped the bkgd again onto white card and then used foam dots to stick the dolls over the same piece of bkgd text!
I ran the die through again with black card and snipped off one doll to glue on top of the line up and added a pink heart gem.
A couple of mats and a sentiment, it was finished ..... not sure if they are too well camouflaged now!!!

Does this show them better..... I'm glad it turned out how I imagined it :0)

Now onto my Blog Candy winners and I want to say thanks to all you guys for the lovely comments you left me, I wish I could send you all a little something but I'm afraid three people it has to be and Mr Random .Org shuffled the numbers and came up with....

Ann Y

Kate

and last but not least

Marie

Congratulations ladies :0) 

Please can you email me on jemullens@btinternet.com so I can sort out mailing the candy to you.

It's fun having a giveaway, I'll try not to leave it too long before I have another one next time :0)

Right then, school stuff to organise for the morning not to mention an untidy craftroom , best get cracking then.... thanks for calling by :0)

Jenny x

Birthday Tea!

It's my Mums birthday tomorrow and I'm making a card for her at the eleventh hour.... that's how organised I am this week!!..... so I'm combining the die cuts/punches challenge at Less is More with the tough ColourQ palette just because it is not a combo I would naturally select and my lazy creative brain couldn't think of one itself tonight !.... I'm pleased I persevered with it :0)

I have used the Dienamics 'Always Time For Tea' Die and stamp set for my blue china set and the table cloth is cut using half of a 'wonky square' nestie die, a set I've had for ages and have never really used much but I'm glad they've finally found their place in life.... cutting tablecloth shapes!!!
I've used the canvas impression plate to give the white card some texture and distress inks on the edges of it and the cloth, teapot and cup for extra dimension.

As usual I didn't think about the sentiment until last and had to stamp it across two layers...... a quick touch up with a memento pen and I think it looks okay :0)
I'm still deciding how to add the word 'Mum' to it..... I could do with a stamp in a matching font if you're listening Hero Arts!!

Here is the ColourQ palette for this week and I thought I'd enter my card into A Passion for Papertrey as well, seeing as I've used a PTI impression plate and the teapot has stripes on it which are the required elements this time around :0)

I want to Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on my blog candy post, you're all so very encouraging and sweet, not to mention the bestest blog pals ever :0) 

I'll be back Tuesday evening, hopefully with a card and definitely with the winners chosen by random.org :0)

Thanks for looking and see you then x

Jenny x

Blog Candy Time

Hello Everyone,

As promised I have some blog candy to give away to celebrate my first year of blogging and I've made a Thank You card to all of my fabulous blog buddies for making my first year in blogland so enjoyable :0) Your comments always make my day and I do enjoy visiting you all back in the ever growing battle between crafting time, blogging time and family life!!

With it being Valentines week I've choosen three prizes that are stash I LOVE to use, a stamp set each from Lawn Fawn and Paper Smooches and the new Speech Bubble dies from Xcut that I've had some fun with recently :0)

I will also add some extra goodies with each of them before sending and all you have to do is leave a comment on this post before 10pm GMT Mon 20th Feb for a chance to win  .

You do not have to be a follower to enter but I'd be thrilled if you decided to join my blog followers because you like what you see..... oh and it's not restricted to crafters from the UK :0)

Just for a bit of self indulgence I've also put together a montage of 12 of my favourite cards (one from each month) to show you, it was great fun looking back through the archives and seeing how my style has developed and how my photography skills improved with the help of a lightbox!!!

Here's my  Feb 2011 - Jan 2012 favourites collection, although I could have picked more :0)

(Sorry some of these are a little blurry, I had to copy them from my blog)

It's not been a good week for crafting, I find spare time thin on the ground when James is at home which then means my mojo makes a dash for the door too!! He's been keen to be outside with his Go Kart and trailer now the weather has turned a little milder, so we've been in the garden when we can.

We have also been busy visiting York and Warwick Universities for the department open days recently and I'm pleased to say that Hannah has had an offer from Bath Uni which she is over the moon about, she has to continue the hard work now to get the grades needed which I'm confident will happen :0)

I'm also sure Hannah won't mind me telling you that she passed her driving test today as well, so things are on a bit of a roll at the moment for her....lets hope it continues.

Thanks for looking in today and don't forget to say hello for a chance to win :0)

Jenny x

Rainbow Stripes

Good morning.
Another long absence! Not sure why, life just happens like that and this week the kids are off from school and  the calendar is filling up so I'm especially glad the snow is finally thawing, I must admit I've had enough of it now especially when night-time temperatures dip to minus double figures too!!
This weeks challenge at Less is More is to use stripes and it's one layer week too so extra thinking time is required.
My stripes have been inspired by the pretty colours on the photo inspiration at Jay Gees Nook, aren't those pictures just gorgeous... not to mention the pile of washi tape in the centre photo :0)
So with pretty colours and stripes it had to be a rainbow which went perfectly with this sentiment from inkadinkado......

 The cloud and sun are Lawn Fawn stamps and I made the rainbow with part of a clear border stamp that I shaped on an acrylic block. I was able to use my brilliance ink pads for the rainbow, they're some of the first pads I bought but are still nice and juicy!
Well today is my blogs first birthday and I have to say what a fun year it has been, I've met and made lots of crafty blog pals whilst enjoying exploring the clean and simple genre of card making, which has become a more comfortable style for me :0) Now I haven't had a giveaway on my blog for ages so I thought I would mark my first blogversary and going over 200 followers a few weeks back with a little blog candy...... look out for that post later this week :0)
I'm actually writing this on Blogsy whilst waiting at the garage for the car to be checked over, It's been temperamental at starting when the engine is warm which is not a reliable car in my book and with a long journey to do this week it needed checking out!
As for Blogsy, I've been having a play and watching lots of You Tube tutorials and it's a really good app.... just needs some practice that's all. I've managed to do links in this post and insert photos via a Picasa web album, well I hope I have!,  the only couple of downsides for me is you're not able to preview your post on your blog so I can't check photo size etc and the choice of fonts doesn't contain the one I use on blogger but this might be something that's easily resolved with further investigation :0)
Right I'm going to post this now..... here goes and thanks for looking, if you can!
Jenny x

a Burst of Aqua

Good Morning,

I'm writing this post again because the fist one disappeared into the ether ....more on that later!

So it's Happy Birthday to Less is More, one year ago Chrissie and Mandi launched the blog with a colour challenge and 52 weeks later we are of course back to a colour week and this time the requirement is

AQUA

..... not a colour I've used much but I found three shades of aqua in my versamagic chalk inks and decided to use the small solid flower burst stamp from Hero Arts, to make this card

I wanted to try the 'off the edge' style of stamping on a raised panel so I used removable tape to place the white panel on my card base and then stamped my design. 

By matting the panel on aqua coloured Bazzil I could then cover the white space that appears when you stamp on two different levels of card but the image still flows across the the blue border even though the centre piece is raised on foam tape.

I added a sentiment and some pearls but felt afterwards that it looked a little empty.... wondering if it was to do with the positioning of the stamps of pearls?

I had a comment from Tara on the original post (sorry that got deleted as well!) pointing out that maybe the top three pearls break the natural triangle of the stamped elements and I'm tending to agree with that but I will also agree that I should leave it be....... call it artistic license :0)  Lol 

Right now to the missing post!!! 

I think I managed to delete it accidently in Blog Press which is another app I'm trying on my iPad in an attempt to find a way to post to this blog on the device..... I seem to be failing at the moment and the computer is winning hands down but I will not give up that easily, the sticking point is putting decent pictures in the post and editing published posts so we'll have to call it a working progress at the moment!!

I had better get this linked up again to Less is More.... I have to say I love looking at all the thumbnails on colour challenge weeks, they look so pretty :0)

Thanks for stopping by today... especially if it's for a second time! Lol

Jenny X

My kind of Valentine

Good Morning, well we have woken up to a good covering of snow this morning and being the first up I had to take a couple of photos and mess around with them on my new iPad !
We'll go out later and make a snowman although I prefer it left untouched!
I'm also here to share a card I made a couple of weeks ago when I was playing around with my new speech bubble dies, I had a go at making my own embossing folder using thick card to see how well it works and made this card which is more my style of un-fussy valentines :0)

 It's a case of trial and error with the thickness of the card pieces and trying it through the big shot but I'm quite pleased with the soft edges on the embossing, here's a closer view

 If you're familiar with the film 'Ghost' you'll recognise the sentiment straight away..... You can tell I'm not a slushy romantic ....eh? if anything is said between hubby and I, this will be it :0)
I'm entering this card into this weeks challenge at CASual Fridays which is to make a card inspired by a movie and mine is obviously 'Ghost'..... thanks Karen for reminding me :0)

Here are a couple of photos of the homemade embossing folder

 They are a thick cardboard base and two layers of regular card stock but as I said its trial and error really depending on your supplies, a cool way to make you own custom designs though :0)
I'm having a go at posting this on the blogsy app from my iPad which is proving more time consuming than turning the computer on at the moment but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. Does anyone else use this app to post from an iPad??
Hannah is out having a driving lesson which is great as she'll be learning how to handle the snow on the smaller roads, something I have never been taught so I usually stay put when there's snow on the ground or walk it! Needless to say the mutt loves and runs around like a mad thing biting mouthfuls of the stuff, it must be hard work for him though as its quite deep in places and comes up to his tummy!
Hope your enjoying the snow rather than it causing you hassle, I think most the country has had some so keep warm and enjoy the rest of the weekend..... Let's hope it goes by tomorrow :0)
Thanks for your visit today
Jenny x

Love and Lace at St Luke's

Good Morning,

Another month and another challenge over at St Luke's Charity Card Challenge..... with February being the month of luuuurve, we are having

Love & Lace

as the theme so please make a romantic card for a wedding, anniversary, valentines or birthday and don't forget to add some lace.... real or stamped!!!

I dug deep and found the inner romantic in me and made this 4" sq card....  I admit I did have to look quite hard ! Lol

WARNING : Hope you like red coz there's a lot in these photos!!

The little faux heart pomander is made from two heart die cuts with a strip of lace trim sandwiched between which I've gathered as I stuck it down. The circular stitching is actually white gel pen and I've used a die-cut circle as a template to draw around so it's neat :0)

Red is a nightmare colour to photograph but these are the best of the bunch..... it's a lovely rich deep red in real life,  not a pink/red hybrid!!!!

The prize for February is a set of three stamps from La Blanche and has been kindly donated by Sasha from Sasha's Inspirations who is also guest designing with us this month :0)

I've had a busy couple of days running errands and sorting out the computer problems mixed with appointments and acting as a driving instructor for Hannah, so it's nice to know I have a couple of days to do what I want to do now.

 Hopefully I'll grab some time for a bit of blog hopping and catching up with you all..... we are still down to one computer so I'm having to share with Hannah and A level studies take priority although Yahoo messenger seems to be open constantly too !!

So do pop over to St Luke's Charity Card Challenge to see all the design teams inspiration cards and visit them too........ go on why don't you let your romantic side have some crafty fun and join us this month :0)

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my ColourQ card, I was chuffed to make it into the courtiers again this week, and thanks for your visit today :0)

Jenny X

I'm also submitting this card to these challenges

One Stop Craft Challenge - Faux or real stitching

Allsorts Challenge Blog - one or more hearts