Cool Mojo Colours ....

.... Good afternoon - I hope you're all having a super day.  I've been busy this morning doing some housework - not a lot, just enough to make sure the place looks okay!!  I finally got into my craft room just after lunch and I've made a card for a couple of challenges:

• Mojo Monday - MOJO249 - a really lovely sketch
• Do You Stack Up? - DYSU80 - lovely cool, soft colours

I think it was the colours from this week's DYSU challenge that gave me the idea of making a new baby card.  Then when I saw the sketch and decided to use pink and blue on the background, I had to make it a card for twins!!  I don't know when I'll use this card, but it'll go into my stash for now.

Stamps: Stampin' Up! - Bundle of Love
Inks: Memento - Grey Flannel
Spellbinders: Fleur de Lis Rectangles (S4-317) #3, Nested Lacey Pennants (S5-029)
Accessories:  Martha Stewart Punch; Staedtler Aquarell Watercolour pencils; Joanna Sheen Gingham Papers; Card from stash

I found this lovely gingham paper in my stash and decided to use that to make the background and, in order to use all the colours in the DYSU challenge, I used pink and blue - thus twins!  I stamped the pram onto white card and coloured it with watercolour pencils, the babies faces are coloured with Promarkers.  I added a simple sentiment and finished off with some faux stitching on the panel.

Edited:  Just realised that I forgot to include the challenge graphics - my brain must have been asleep this afternoon - sorry folks - here they are:

That's all for now folks!!  We're off out to dinner tonight - meeting up with Jonathan and all his colleagues from work - should be lots of fun!!  See you soon.

We have heat ....

....  yippee!!!!  The engineer arrived this morning - bang on time - had a look at my boiler and told me the fan was the problem.  He's made a temporary fix and we now have heat - the house is currently 18°C - about 3°C warmer than yesterday.  I feel so much better :)  He's coming back tomorrow to replace the fan and that should hold the boiler for another few months!!

And I have a card to share with you - made for this week's Less is More - LIM42 - where the theme is to use silhouettes in your card design.  Chrissie and Mandi have provided a definition for silhouette as follows:

n:  A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior with the silhouetted object usually being black

I've made another card for my Christmas collection - I still have quite a few to make, so I'm using challenge themes to help me with designs.  The image I've used is from Joanna Sheen's wonderful CD - Dancing with Shadows - where all the images are silhouettes - so I may have another card to share before the end of the week!!

The hardest thing about this card was find the right shade of card to make the mat.  I cut out the largest Fleur de Lis Square and then cut out a section in the middle to make it the right size for the image.  Finally, I added this really simple sentiment - it's what Christmas is really all about!

Image:  From Joanna Sheen - Dancing With Shadows CD (which doesn't look to be available anymore)
Spellbinders:  Fleur de Lis Squares (S4-318) #4
Accessories:  Card and stamp from stash

It started out so bright this morning, but is now really grey and dull, and there's fog creeping in.  I don't want the fog to hang around.  It's been playing havoc with flights from Heathrow.  We're flying on Wednesday, so I'm hoping that a strong wind blows up and clears all the fog away :)  I'm off to sort out clothes and bits for our trip.  See you later!!

Let's hear it for the boys .....

... and the theme for this month's challenge at St Luke's Charity Card challenge is - masculine cards!  What fun!  Now, I know that some people find it hard to make cards for guys - so this is the perfect opportunity to have a play!  I like making masculine style cards - and I usually make them for my teenage son, Ben, so my cards are usually grungy, modern teen type cards.  Ben lives with his Dad so I try to send him a card each week to keep in touch and let him know that I love him.

I decided to do something different - so I found my Joanna Sheen Victorian CDs and had a look through the images and found this super image and coordinating papers too.  I printed the images and the plaid paper onto some satin finish photo paper; the shadow dog paper was printed onto plain paper for a softer look.  The layout of my card is based on an old sketch (see below) which I found at Sketch N Stash - I think it's perfect for this card.  The sentiment label has been attached with dimensional tape and I added a little straw boater - just because it's so cute!  I'd send this to my Opah (Dutch for Grandad) if he was still with us, but this is going to Tara for the next sale.

Image & Papers: Joanna Sheen Victorian Animals CD
Sentiment:  Dawn Bibby from a QVC set that I purchased years ago!

We have a super prize for the winner of October's challenge - donated by Craftie Charlie.  Such a lot of lovely goodies - good luck!

For more inspirational masculine cards - please check out the DT blogs :

Lynne Atkinson

Tara Cardwell

Anne Forrest 

Jenny Mullens

Don't forget if you can spare your card you can send it to St Luke's Hospice to go into the next sale that Tara organises.  For full details check the side bar here.



And before I go - did you know that today is NATIONAL CARD MAKING DAY!! As if I needed an excuse to play in my craft room!!   Actually, I'm going to my local craft shop to a Promarker class - should be great fun!  See you later.

CR84FN23 ...

.... and so another week zooms past!!  And here we are again, time for this week's CR84FN colour challenge.  Mona has come up with a really elegant and feminine set of colours this week - light pink, black and cream.  Just gorgeous!

I love the inspiration photos, and that cameo necklace is just fabulous.  The pictures are courtesy of Martha Stewart - her site is always worth a visit!!  As soon as I saw the colours for this week's challenge, I knew who I'd be making the card for.  I have a friend who is the most elegant of women, and she loves black accented with most colours.  So this card is for Kath's birthday - which is at the end of the month, but I'm getting ahead as I'm off on holiday soon (more of that later).

The base card is a lovely pearly cream and it has a subtle pattern on it which, sadly, doesn't show on the photo!!  The backing paper is by Pink Petticoat and comes from a set that I got free with Quick Cards magazine.  The black lace square is in fact a stamp that I got from Joanna Sheen (don't remember the name). I stamped it, using Versamark, onto some vellum and then heat embossed it with a black sparkle powder - it has a fabulous shimmer.  I mounted it onto the largest of the new Spellbinders Fleur de Lis squares - I used a super pale pink textured mirri card.  The cream lace rose was a gift from Kath - it was one she found when going through her mum's old sewing box.  Finally, I added a tiny birthday sentiment - these are from Dawn Bibby; I really like the small peel offs.

Stamps:  Joanna Sheen - Lace Stamp
Spellbinders: Fleur de Lis Squares (S4-318) #4
Paper:  Pink Petticoat - Vintage Rose Collection
Accessories:  Card, ribbon, embossing powder, lace rose, peel offs - all from my stash

I know that the rest of the Design Team have come up with some wonderful cards for this challenge, do drop by and check out their work and don't forget our Guest Designer for the month of April, Silke Ledlow.  

Sue

Andrea

Stephanie

Suzanne

Heather

Mona
Lisa

Silke Ledlow- Guest Designer 

I have a very busy day ahead.  I mentioned earlier about a holiday.  Well, Kathryn and I are going to Mumbai in India.  We are going out to see Jonathan, my husband, who's been out there on business since the middle of February.  As you can imagine, we are both looking forward to seeing Jonathan.  So I've got to sort out the packing, schedule some posts for while I'm away and make sure the house is clean and tidy before we leave.  As I said - BUSY!!

That's all for now - for full details of the challenge check out the CR84FN blog, and I look forward to visiting your blogs and seeing your cards.  Bye for now.  See you tomorrow!

Edited:  Oops!!  In the madness and mayhem of holiday preparations, I mixed my dates - I'm sending birthday greeting to Sue next week :))))  So I'll join the team now in sending Sue Happy Birthday greetings from the UK!!

It's really, really cold ...

... and the sky is really clear.  The stars are so bright tonight, but it's far too cold to sit out and look at the stars!!  I think I'll have to wait for a warmer night :))

My Scouts are such good fun - we played Global Monopoly tonight - the object being to make the most money possible.  My group is small, but they play with enthusiam.  At the end of the evening we asked what they'd learnt - communication, co-operation and determination - were some of the responses.  Did they have fun?  Yes!!  They want to play again - so it was a success on all fronts.

I told the Group how much we raised from the Cake and Card sale last night - £30.00 total - £10.00 to our School Fund and £20.00 to the Scout Group - they were very pleased.  So here are a few more of the cards I made (but which are still in my craftroom).

Peeloffs (from QVC) placed onto a brayered background

Image from Joanna Sheen; greeting free from a magazine - I love this image and have used it many times

Made this image as part of my MCC home work - I added some Stickles glitter to the flower and a greeting - easy card

Another quick and easy card - Image from Pink Petticoat - coloured on the PC, mounted onto card

That's all for this evening - it's time for bed.  I've had such a busy week - and it's going to get even busier now that we're moving towards December!!  Do come back again tomorrow.

Final play for today ...

... I think I'm getting the hang of this blogging lark.  And I find I rather like it.  I've added lots more sites that I like to visit.  I shop at lots of places for my craft gooides, both in real life and on the net.  I enjoy browsing (and buying) from the  Glitter Pot and Inkylicious to name only two.  I am a regular visitor to the Docrafts website and have a gallery of my cards there under the name GemDeb.

I recently completed a small 6 x 6 scrapbook about my darling son Ben (he'd hate me to say that - but he is).  I kept it fairly simple using a variety of pictures from when he was a baby to the most recent (black and white) taken by his dad in February.  The scrapbook was free in a Goody Bag.  To decorate I used a variety of backing papers and some lovely stamps from Waltzing Mouse Stamps - the sets used were Celtic Hertiage, Free Spirit - boy (wonderful funky designs) and Off Beat Backgrounds - they were stamped using Tim Holtz's wonderful distress inks.

Ben - earlier this year





King of the Castle

Learning to be a beach bum!

Oh yes, that sweet little gingerbread stamp on the baby page is another from Waltzing Mouse Stamps - in the Oven Fresh Gingerbread Joy set.  They are so cute and work for all occasions.

That's all for now.  I seem to be enjoying this.  And family harmony was maintained today - the ironing was done (well most of it), I read my daughter another chapter of Little Women at bedtime (great way to spend time with her) and Ben was a grumpy teenager.  Jonathan had a good night out with the camera club.  Anyway, that's all for now.  Back soon.