Happy Birthday!!...

... to my Hubby - who turned 40 yesterday - here's the card I made him - quite simple.  I love this card structure - deceptively simple...

So its fairly simple but it took quite a few bits of equipment - the big numbers are cut with the Slice, the panel they sit on is a Nestabilities die, the big 'happy' is a new stamp by Imagine That (love those stamps - they have a great 'christmas' set of the same design), 'happy birthday' is a Hero Arts stamp... I think that's enough for one card!  Oh no, hold on, 'happy' was stamped in silver ink & I brushed Perfect Pearls over the top. yep thats all.
I love/chose the colours for the card because my Hubby has a fondness for shirts that have a blue check pattern! Seriously - I think he might have cornered the market in them! lol

Take care - enjoy the long weekend.

If you squint and look carefully...

... you'd have seen my 'snow' bunting on Create & Craft TV yesterday - obviously Bev (Queen of the Lilypad over at Banana Frog) and her demonstrations on the Banana Frog show were the main attraction but my bunting was there in the background... shown here top right in this dodgy photograph taken of the tv screen (again)

Now that picture's not really doing my bunting any justice at all  ( :o)  ) so here are some much better shots....

What can I say - bunting makes me happy!  I think I'm going to have to make some more in this colour way to go across the fireplace at christmas because it matches last years decorations perfectly! (though not sure how M would feel about that - its 'quite' girlie! lol)

I'm quite impressed that it looks so christmassy considering that when I made it the temperature outside was in the high 80s!!

Tomorrow I'll have several heads on (Worzel Gummage stylee) - I'll be teaching with PaperArtsy products over at Imagine That (which I'm looking forward to) and its also my day over on the Banana Frog Blog....
Sheesh!  Its all in the planning!

Jessica's card

Birth card for a friend's new arrival - I can blog it now she's recieved it.  It has a lot going on and I love how it turned out! (am patting myself on the back.. lol) Its sooo girly and pink, with sparkles (obviously!). I always like to make baby cards special but I wanted this to be extra special because this little lady arrived 8 weeks early and weighed just 3lbs 10oz!!  She's at home and doing well, and I'll be popping round for a cuddle very soon! Big congrats to V&T!

Cards!

I'm really on a roll with this 'no white card blanks' idea! (even if i do say so myself..lol). I'm really enjoying it - it seems to make creating a card much 'easier' - maybe because the background is already dealt with - white seems to need work before anything else gets added. (got to give it colour, or texture or... something...)



The card on right above has used all the die cut machines I had to hand - the cuttlebug and the slice - the Slice is great for creating big letters and numbers. Its a great little machine - compact, lightweight - but I don't use it to its full potential or use a lot of the designs on the cartridges - something I'll have to work on.... time allowing.....

The card above was created using some of the elements from the die cut sheet that comes with the paper packs by Basic Grey..... I'm not normally a big fan of using these because the pieces seem geared up for using on scrapping (a 12x12in?) - so are sometimes a bit 'heavy/big' but I'm quite liking them now - little, often & sparingly seems to be the way to go when using them on a card! (it helps that these cards are all about 12.5cm /14.5cm square. And yes, those are peel-off flowers peeking out from under the paper-flower - again, something I'm coming around to with the same approach - little, often & sparingly! lol

I've also made some others (see what I mean - on a roll!) but can't show those because they haven't been sent'n' recieved yet.

I must have been nice this year and not at all naughty because Santa brought me a 'Slice' die cut machine!!!! Yeay! I had to wait a while for it but that's probably a good thing because if it had arrived at christmas I wouldn't have got anything done because I'd have been too busy playing with it! lol

Its a great little machine! Expect lots more pics using pieces cut using it.....

Sorry about the wierd angle of this photo! And the wierd paper choices - I was just cutting anything I could get my hands on at home (which isn't a lot since I tidied up!)
Look how nice/interesting the cut pieces start to become once they've been fed through the cuttlebug (bottom right and top right pieces), or stamped on - 'button' top left, or hand embellished - '2008'.. oooooh the possibilities...... and while you're looking could I draw your attention to the GORGEOUS dots paper (frame, centre of pic) (from Bazzill I think) - how lovely is that paper!
The machine has its limits - only cuts up to 4inches, and only through thin media (no chipboard) but its really portable, and for anything thicker - there's the Cuttlebug, and anything bigger there's the Cricut or Silhouette.. definitely filling a hole in the die-cut market...
I'm a happy little crafter!! (and for more reasons than just receiving a 'Slice' - more about that tomorrow!!)