Kathryn and the many bears ....

Kathryn and her presents

... today Kathryn and five of her best friends went to our local Build-a-Bear to celebrate her birthday.  Jonathan took them all over while I stayed at home and got the Party food ready.  I kept it very simple - sandwiches, sausage rolls, cakes and sweets.  I'm absolutely positive that it's been a fun day for all the families :))  The girls were so excited and had such a fun time and they ate just about everything I put out for them. 



Kathryn's Party lunch

Hopefully I'll be able to post a picture of Kathryn, her friends and all the bears tomorrow - at the moment they are still on Jonathan's camera. 

I know I'm biased; but I think Jonathan is an excellent photographer.  He's been taking photos for years, joined a camera club a couple of years ago and is improving all the time.  If you would like, visit Jonathan's Flickr photostream and see what you think.

Kath's Card

I'm going to show one card this evening which I made for my friend Kath.  She also loves making cards, so I had to make something really special for her.   Kath is very stylish and loves all things black and white - so it was actually very easy to come up with something suitable.  I used card and toppers from a kit made by Kanban (bought from QVC, but no longer in stock).  I do think that Kanban make the most wonderful foiled and embossed card.  I did a matching envelope - but completely forgot to take a photo.

I see that I have another follower and more comments have been added.  I do appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and I hope you find it entertaining and interesting.  I really enjoy looking at the stats section in blogger - that's my geekyness coming out.  I am so pleased to see that I have readers in the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany and the UK - thanks everyone.  Anyway, it's late, I'm tired (all those little girls can take it out of you) - so I'll be back tomorrow.

Today's the day ....

... and Kathryn is 9 years old.  The time has simply flown by.  Kathryn woke up this morning and said that she'd wait until her Daddy came home before opening her presents and cards.  But her face when she saw the little pile was a picture.  She immediately changed her mind and we spent a very happy half hour opening all the bits.  And now I can show you the card I made for her.  Kathryn was delighted and couldn't stop smiling.

This card was so far out of my comfort zone that I wasn't at all sure it was going to work.  But I think it does.  It's the first time I've tried using a brayer.  It wasn't entirely successful, but for a first attempt I'm quite pleased. 

Most of the stamps used came from Waltzing Mouse Stamps.  The solid circular stamp in the Teeny-trees set was perfect for the moon.  The stars and gothic arch window came from the Midnight Feast set and the owl from Halloween Party set.  Kathryn's name is also from Waltzing Mouse, but the Happy Birthday greeting is from a Dawn Bibby set.  The garden trellis was made from a Martha Stewart punch. 

Kathryn is a big Dr Who fan and desparately wants to be the Doctor's companion, so I really wanted to do something to celebrate this fact.  I decided to incorporate the Tardis and put a picture of Kathryn in to show that she's the new companion!! 

The whole picture was mounted on some brilliant blue holographic card - to show only a very thin border and then mounted onto a silver A5 card. 

And that's all for now, as I've got to get ready for Scouts - meeting starts in about an hour.  Will be back soon.  Thanks for reading.



The celebrations begin ...

... today!!  It's Kathryn's 9th birthday tomorrow, but work means that Jonathan won't be here to celebrate with Kathryn.  So tonight we took Kathryn out to dinner.  Kathryn decided that she'd like to go to Nando's - so we had a lovely evening there.  Kathryn will be getting her card (you'll get to see it tomorrow) and presents tomorrow when her Daddy gets home.

Yesterday I showed you Kathryn's invitations.  So today it's back to my cards.  I was asked to make a special card for Matty (my friend's son).  She wanted a large card and was keen for it to feature Matty's favourite computer character, so I found an image of Yoshi on a motorbike which I thought was suitable.  I wanted to make it a bit more grown up, so I decided to use my Waltzingmouse Stamps called Free Spirit - boys.  I opted for the funky circles and used a lovely orange ink to pick out the orange on Yoshi.  I added Matty's age and a personal greeting.  And the card was certainly large - A4 - one of the biggest I've made, but I enjoyed it.  I did a matching insert with smaller images of Yoshi in the corners, but left it blank for a personal message.


And this evening, I've been getting my son to teach me how to add a signature to my blog.  I think it's nice to have a more personal look.  I like what I've come up with.  What do you think?

Not so wonderful now ....

... it has been pouring with rain.   But that didn't stop us.  Kathryn and I went shopping for some ballet and tap shoes - and amazingly we managed to get both in about 10 minutes flat!!  This sort of thing never happens to me.  Normally it takes ages to get things, but today it was easy.  On the drive home - it started to pour and the wind was awful.  Truly I think autumn has arrived. 

It's Kathryn's 9th birthday on Friday and today I've been busy with party preparations. 

Kathryn has decided that the theme is Build-a-Bear/ Dr Who, so I've got plates, mugs, banners, and sundry other items to match the Dr Who bit.  The Build-a-Bear bit involves Jonathan taking Kathryn and five of her friends to the shop on Saturday so they can all make some more bears!! 

Kathryn had a great time designing her own invitations.  Each card was hand drawn and coloured, with a bear and some Dr Who logos included.  Kathryn chose different colours for each of her friends and also rearranged the way the Dr Who logos were displayed on each card. 

I think I can safely say that Kathryn is into making cards too; in fact she has her own supply of crafty bits in a box in her bedroom.  Kathryn also likes to write books and magazines based on the TV series, as well as stories about princesses, etc. 


This evening I've been busy designing Kathryn's birthday card.  Of course, I can't put any details on here until after she's seen it!!  To do otherwise would be cruel ;-) 

Oh yes, I've now got two followers.  Thank you ladies - it's really nice to know that people are reading my blog.  My son loves to check out the stats to see how things are changing and this evening I noted that I've had a reader from Germany too. 

I do hope you enjoy my blog.  I'm really enjoying writing it.  Anyway, that's all for tonight.  I'll be back again tomorrow.

What a wonderful day ...

... the sun is shining.  It's nice and warm.  And I've finished all the ironing - yippee!!  Well for a while at least :)  If someone could invent a truly non iron fabric, they'd be a millionaire overnight.

Sorry for not posting yesterday, I had a bit of a probem with Blogger - couldn't logon for some reason.  Anyway, it's fixed now - so here I am.  Just thought I'd let you know that Ben's Pea & Mint soup was absolutely delicious.  It's a slipperly slope - I think I'm going to have to encourage him and maybe I won't have to cook.  Actually, maybe that won't work - I'll still have to tidy the kitchen.

Anyway, back to cards and the like.  I've done some work on the mini scrapbook about Kathryn - check back for progress. 

This card was made for my father-in-law, Simon.  I sometimes find it hard to come up with designs for men, but this one came together really quickly.  I coloured  the lighthouse image (used Marvy pens) and cut it out using the Spellbinders nesties (Labels 3).  On the backing layer I stamped a rope image (from Waltzingmouse Stamps); an appropriate frame.  The background shipwheel stamp comes from a Stampin' Up set that I got off E-bay.  Finally the greeting comes from a set that I've had for years.

I feel that this card is a bit of a cheat.  I made it for one of Kathryn's friends.  Kathryn and I had been to our local Hobbycraft and she saw the Goth Girl and Disco Diva set (from Kanban).  Kathryn is very much into the "Goth" scene at the moment :)  And she felt that it was perfect for her friend's birthday.  It was dead easy to make, just pop out the girl and use foam pads to mount her onto the backing card.  I did, however, try to make it a little more special by adding ultrafine glitter to the outline of all the swirls.  I also used glossy accents on the belt and the stars.  I did get to do some stamping on the greeting.  Actually I was quite pleased with the end result.

That's all for now.  Kathryn will be home shortly and we have to go shopping for some new ballet and tap shoes.  These children of mine will keep on growing!!!  It gets so expensive!

That's the invitations done ....

... so tomorrow I get to walk around the village and deliver them all by hand.  You know when you've had a good day?  That really nice warm satisfied feeling - well that's me right now.  I'm happy with the invitations I've made and, more importantly, I've been doing homely things too.

I thought it was time to sort out the ironing backlog.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates the job.  But the thing is, I like the feel of freshly ironed clothes.  So unless it's leggings or the like, then I'm afraid I have to iron it.  And there are now only 3 baskets of ironing left (hides head in shame) which I shall do tomorrow.  I've also been shopping for Ben - he's got a food technology class tomorrow and he's going to make a Mint & Pea soup (Gordon Ramsay recipe) which we'll have for tea.  I think I'm going to have to help Ben pack it up to take to school.  However, I'm looking forward to tasting the soup.

Now, the cards I'm going to show today were made for Ben - he was 14 this year, and for Annabel (Kathryn's friend) who was 9. 

Ben's card is A5 and I made it using rainbow shaded card (blue and taupe) to which I added the co-ordinating vellum (both from QVC).  I used a piece of black coredinations paper which was embossed with the cuttlebug stars folder.  I sanded the paper to reveal the blue core and then layered it onto a piece of the blue card.  The topper is a fabric embellishment that I got from a Docrafts kit purchased from QVC sometime ago.  The peeloffs, also Docrafts, were coloured with a blue pen to match the blue core.  I think Ben was pleased with the card.  I wish I had another of the fabric toppers.

Annabel's card is red, red, red!!  Her favourite colour is red, so I decided to base the card on that colour.  Again it's A5 in size.  The vellum backing is a Dawn Bibby design onto which I layer some pink paper from Docrafts.  Once again the image is from Pink Petticoat - a really cute cat.  The dress was coloured on the PC (using paintbox), I added a black rectangle so that I could add a personal greetign.  Then I layered it onto some red metallic card.  I used a Martha Stewart border bunch on the backing paper and finally added lots of flowers and some gems. 

Finally, I'm going to include the last of the invitations that I've made for the Stampin' Up party.  As I said yesterday, I've used the Circle Circus set.  I opted for one design which I stamped in lots of coloured and then clear embossed.  I cut out all the circles (I don't have a punch that fits) and then matted them onto pinked circles (Nesties).  In all cases I used Tim Holtz's distress inks to add colour to the backing circles and to stamp the trio in the corner.

One final thing - I've got a follower!!!  And have now had two comments.   Thank you both - you have no idea how excited I was when I saw that!!  Actually, maybe you do :)   I do hope that you find my blog interesting, and maybe even helpful.  Anyway, it's time to log off now and have a nice cup of coffee.

Invitations ...

... well I've been busy this evening.  I've made the invitations for my Stampin' Up party - the design is not original, I think it's based on one of the sketches I've seen on SCS but I don't know which one.  So I'll say thanks for the idea here.  As the party is for the launch of the new catalogue I decided to use one of my favourite sets - Pocket Silhouettes, with some accents circles from - Circle Circus.  The next set of cards will be based entirely (I think) on Circle Circus.  Anyway, I thought I'd post the designs - would love to have some feedback. 

Well that's all for this evening.  I'm really pleased with what I've done today.  One final thing, I've managed to put pictures of all my cards on my Flickr page - see link on the side bar.  I'm going to do a bit of sorting out tomorrow - but if you want to have a look - I'd love to hear what you have to say.  Good night.

Happy Bunny ...

... that's what I am!!  Just placed my order for Claire's new stamps.  The link will take you directly to her blog where there's a link to her shop.  I am now waiting patiently (or not) for the postman to arrive.

And I've busy in my craftroom this afternoon - blogging really seems to have helped.  Weird!!  Still, I've done some work on the new scrapbook and I've almost finished the invitations for my Stampin' Up party. 

That's all for today - back to the craftroom. 

This is fun ...

... I'm really enjoying this.  The learning curve is not too steep (fortunately) and, more importantly, my creative juices are flowing again.  So much so that yesterday I spent quite a lot of time sorting through various photograph galleries (mine and Jonathan's) to find pictures of Kathryn.  I'm going to make a 6 " x 6" scrapbook, similar to the one I made about Ben.  I've got the pictures together and later this week I'm going to start putting it together.  Check back for progress.

The cards that I'm showing today were made for my Aunty Sue and Annette (one of my oldest friends).

This card was made for Sue.  The backing papers came free with a number of crafting magazines (I get them all!!) and the image is Pink Petticoat again!  I coloured it using Sakura glaze pens and allowed the colours to mix, I the cut it out using a scalloped punch.  The two backing layers were also cut using punches, the middle was embossed with my wonderful Cuttlebug.  I'd recommend it to anyone.  Two great sites for cuttlebug ideas are Ikki's and Cuttlebug Challenge - I haunt both sites :)

The next card was made for Annette.  She's a very special person and I had a great time thinking about the type of card to make for her.  So once again I used a PP image!!  This time it's Lola with a glass of champagne (coloured on the PC) - most appropriate for my girlfriend.  The card base is from Kanban - and I thought it really went with the birthday greeting.  I added a flower made up from a number of flowers (from a variety of companies) and held together with a lovely stripped brad.  Once again the mount was run through my cuttlebug - used the lovely D'vine Swirls folder.

And the next job for today is to make some invitations for friends to attend a Stampin' Up party I'm having to mark the launch of their new catalogue.  I love visiting the Splitcoaststampers gallery and often see cards made using Stampin' Up products.  I've seen several that I'd like to get; here's hoping they will be in the catalogue.

That's all for now - must get off and be busy!!

Still learning ...

...  so I've decided to really embrace the internet and all it's possibilites.  I'm perfectly happy using the various web exploring tools, but I've only just started with blogging and using a photo website Flickr, but it's all much easier than I first thought.

I did think of adding all my past cards directly to this website and giving various information about them, but there are quite a few and it would just become tedious - to all concerned!!  So instead I'm in the process of adding all my cards to my Flickr account - then if you want to have a quick look (and it'd be nice to get some feedback) you can go to the link.  But I think I will add the cards I've done this year - well most of them - that way I can give supply details, etc. 

So I'll start with the first birthday card of the year for my sister-in-law.  The image comes from a company called Pink Petticoat.  They produce a wonderful selection of digital images and this is Lola in her bath.  I coloured the flower on the computer, cut the image out using my oval nestie and chalked the edge to match the square card.  I added some glitter to the bath foam and glossy accents to the flower once the card was assembled.  The background paper design is also from Pink Petticoat and it's printed directly onto some slightly shimmery paper (don't know the supplier).  The birthday greeting and ribbon came from my stash, but I can't remember the suppliers for either.  I think it's quite a girly card.

Going shopping ....

... well, I will be on Sunday.  That's the day that Claire Brennan, of Waltzing Mouse Stamps launches her new clear stamps.  The link should take you direct to her blog where she's showing some of her "sneak peaks".  I love the Nutcracker image - so festive and so many possiblities.  And the cute little guys are just great. 

Jonathan has just gone to collect our darling girl from school - then we're off to buy her birthday present.  Kathryn will be 9 next week.

This is Kathryn at her 4th birthday - she's wearing my tiara - well actually it's become her play crown!!  And tine goes by so quickly.  I find it hard to believe that she's quite the young lady now.  When we go to music festivals she's a real hippy chick!  This was taken in May - she 8½ here - but so cute.

And I've made cards for most of her birthdays.  Unfortunately, I didn't start taking photos of my early attempts - actually that may be a good thing.  I think one of my first serious attempts at cardmaking was for Kathryn's 5th birthday - and it was appropriately girly!  She loved it - but then she's biased.

Anyway, we're off soon, so I'll be back later.

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.

More experiments ...

.. so today I think I'm going to try and list some of my favourite places to visit.  There are so many talented people out there in "blog-land", and the variety and style of blogs is amazing.  However, I'm going to try and keep things relatively simple for the time being.

It's amazingly easy!!  I've only added four places at the moment (as I should be doing the mundane stuff - you know, ironing!!).  I'm going to try links in the text too, so bear with me.  Places of interest include: Waltzing Mouse Stamps  -  where you can get the most wonderful clear stamps (designed by Claire Brennan - that girl's a genius) and Simplicity - this blog is an inspiration to me, as I love the clean and simple designs (just wish I could do it too).  Now, as time goes on I'll add other sites of interest, but in the interests of family harmony - I'd best finish for now and get on with the ironing.  Hey ho!!

Hello world ....

... I've finally decided to take the plunge and have a go at creating a Blog.  I've been inspired by some really brilliant crafting blogs and thought it was time to give it a go.  It's taken me most of this evening to try and work out the ins and outs of "Blogger", and I not convinced I've managed it. 

For Madeline

I think for my first post I'm going to include a picture of one of my cards.  I made it for my mother-in-law, Madeline, for her birthday in July (so it's quite recent).  I think the elegant lady stamp was so appropraite - she's a stylish lady!

I stamped the image using memento black ink and coloured it with promarkers (which I only discovered this year, but think are fab).  The backing paper was free with from one of the craft magazines; it had just the right feel - feminine, but not too sweet.  I used a Martha Stewart border punch to create the lace border and coloured a white organza ribbon with the promarkers to match the green handbag.  I cut the shapes using the wonderful Spellbinder nesties - mega ovals.  Finally I added some flowers and gems. 

That's all for now as it's rather late (or early, it sort of depends on your point of view) - told you it's taken most of the evening to try and get to grips with blogging!    I shall be back again tomorrow.