New blog!

I have set up a new blog, mainly for my Stampin' Up makes. You can find it here ... Pickled Papercrafts

Hop on over and say hi!

Take care x

Exam is done!

Well, I sat my first psychology exam towards my degree with the Open University a few weeks ago. It was a bit of a nasty paper, but I sweated out the 3 hours & 'waffled' about psychology so I just have to hope I answered the questions! All will be revealed at the beginning of August when I get my results.

A few days after that was Father's Day so I frantically made a card for my Dad ...

This uses the lovely Nature Walk stamp set from Stampin' Up! which I have fallen in love with.

In other news, I'm setting up another blog for my Stampin' Up! creations & will put up a link here when it's up & running.

Take care & thanks for stopping by.

Exciting news!

I am now officially an independent Stampin'Up demonstrator!
I have seen their products used in magazine projects and through a friend I was introduced to a lovely lady called Marianne, a Stampin' Up demonstrator. I was hostess for a Stampin' Up party at my house in March where Marianne demonstrated & I've been in love with their products ever since. My wish list from the gorgeous catalogue just keeps growing so I decided to take the plunge & become a demonstrator myself :)

My starter kit arrived last week, so I treated myself to a night off from revision on Saturday to watch BGT & have a play with my new stash. I made a couple of very quick cards ...



This was stamped with marina mist ink using the stamp set Just believe. I was going to tear the white card too but got carried away sticking!



The 'friends' card was stamped with melon mambo & pretty in pink ink using the stamp set Greenhouse Garden. This uses the 2 step stamping method which gives a lovely effect. It's not quite aligned properly, but this will be fixed once I have the stamp-a-ma-jig.

The bird is from one of my favourite stamp sets in the mini catalogue, Nature Walk, stamped with early espresso ink. The greenery & sentiment are stamped with old olive & a real red Stampin' write marker.

I think my blog needs a bit of a makeover & some Stampin' Up links, so 'bare with' as my daughter keeps saying & it will be updated in a few weeks.
Now back to revision. And if you see me posting on here or conducting anything that resembles crafting before 14th June, gimme a slap :)

Take care, & thanks for popping by x

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My new guilty pleasure ...

Ooh, look what's arrived ... a big box full of lovely lovely Stampin' Up goodies ... I'm in heaven!
Back to revision now, more details to follow ;)



Take care x

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Baby baby baby ...

Just a quick post today. The birth of a baby brings so much joy & happiness. And what better way to celebrate than with a handmade card :) One of the mums from school gave birth to a gorgeous little girl recently, so I made 2 cards for her ... one from me and one requested by a friend. And in the same week, a plea for another baby girl card! So here are all three ...

The 2 cards above use products from Craftwork Cards, 'Warren' the rabbit is soooo cute!

This card is made from papers & a topper from the Do crafts goody bag last month, Tatty Teddy is just right for baby cards.

Finally, from the young to the old! My lovely Dad had his birthday the other day & here's the card I made for him ...

This card was stamped with the spot on roller from Stampin' Up. Other stamps used were, I think from Banana Frog & Clarity Stamps.

Right, a frantic 2 weeks for me now ... I sit my level 2 psychology exam with the Open University 2 weeks today. Aaaaaagh!! I haven't sat an exam for ... well, yes let's not even go there! So I'm off now to revise, revise, revise ...

Take care & thanks for stopping by x

Over the hill!!

April was a pretty mad month. The title of this post gives you a smidge of a clue why ... yes, I reached that milestone of a birthday, the big 40!!
Now instead of sobbing into my grey hair I decided to embrace my coming of age with lots of treats & celebrations :)
I had an 80s night out with my lovely friends, a meal out with my fab family & a visit to Blenheim palace in the gorgeous sunshine with hubby & my cherubs :)
And I'm really gonna milk this ... a trip on the London eye had to be postponed, we decided visiting London the same weekend as a big footie match & the marathon was a bad idea so I still have this to look forward to. I've never been to ladies day at Ascott so that's booked up. Oh, & a girly day at a health spa is calling me later in the year. I mean, come on, what's not to like about turning 40??!! :)

Onto crafty things now, an old school friend of mine also turned 40 a few days after me so here's the card I made for her. I'm loving the lace & bakers twine that's so popular at the moment. Or butchers twine, as one of my lovely crafting friends keeps calling it :)

And just to get your taste buds watering, there's a pic of the birthday cake I made for myself. Yes, covered in maltesers & minstrels. Yummy ...

Take care & thanks for popping by x

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Using up the scraps!

Just a short post to show 2 quick cards I've made using some leftover scraps of paper.

Sentiments are from my favourite stamp company, Banana Frog.

Thanks for popping by & take care x

Merry Christmas

OMG ... can't believe that last post worked, how easy was that! So while I'm on a roll here's the Xmas cards I made for my gorgeous kids. My lil man simply loves club penguin. Jess's card is a stamped image from the Greeting Farm coloured in with promarkers. The stamped sentiment is one from a Banana Frog Xmas set.
I also made some very quick & simple gift tags using distress ink & Banana Frog stamps again.

All that remains for me to say is I wish you all a very merry Christmas & a happy & healthy 2011.

Take care & thanks for stopping by.

x

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Fame at last!

Well I didn't quite believe it when I received the letter & freebies, but I've had one of my cards published in a magazine! It was in issue 61 of Papercraft Essentials. Here's a pic of it ...
Now this is a short post as I'm trying out blogging from my phone!

Take care & thanks for stopping by.
x

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Celebrations continued ...

Just a quick post ... I rummaged around & managed to find a pic of the card I made for my sister for passing her degree. Here it is

And I made her birthday card using the adorable "Hiya chick" stamps from Banana Frog

 That's all for now!
Thanks for stopping by & take care xxx

Celebrations!

Yes I know ... long time no post. I'm gonna try really hard to blog a bit more often!

July is always a busy month for celebrations in our family... my Mum & Dad's wedding anniversary is in the middle of July & also, can you believe it, my sister's birthday is on the same day! So after years of always feeling left out (sob, sob, pass the tissues), when me & hubby decided to get married, it had to be in July!
This year though my parents celebrated their Ruby wedding anniversary ... 40 years of married life together. We had a big family meal at TGI Fridays to celebrate. If you've never been there, you should go it was yummmmmmmmy!
Of course such an occasion can't be celebrated without a card so here's the one I made for my Mum & Dad, with of course the obligatory wedding day photo ;-)



My Mum also asked me to make a card for her to give to my Dad. I made a kind of flag/concertina style card which I had seen on the Craftwork Cards website gallery.




We had even further reason to celebrate as my little sister passed her social work degree! Kerry's in her 30s, but she hated school & got out as soon as she could. After bringing up her 2 boys on her own, once they were in secondary school she decided to go back to education. She's worked her butt off to get this qualification & I am so immensely proud of her. Love you lil sis xxx

Thanks for stopping by and take care xxx

My little poppet

My little poppet is of course, my daughter Jess. She's not so little any more though ... why oh why do our kids have to grow up; and so frikkin fast??? She recently had her birthday & is now the grand old age of 11. 11? How did that happen??? Here is my gorgeous girl on her birthday

Isn't she just beautiful, & so grown up. *sigh* She's off to secondary school in September, we had her place confirmed & she got into her 1st choice school with lots of her friends. Phew! We had a girly day out shopping, spending some of the pennies she had for her birthday & we both fell in love with these...

Oh there's no place like home :-) & leading on from that ... Jess has a small part in the upcoming school production of Wizard of Oz so we have lines to learn & songs to practise :-)
We also have reason to celebrate ... after 5 months of being out of work my hubby has just landed a 3 mth contract. Yay! Ok, its only 3 mths but it's a darn sight better than nothing!!
On that cheery note I'll say farewell for now. I'll leave you with a couple of cards I made recently. This was Jess's birthday card made with the Papernation "Disco Diva" decoupage & a Craftwork Cards Fold-a-flower made with vellum.

This one I made for one of Jess's friends

And lastly, my Mum asked me to make a card for her friend's 60th birthday. I used a Hero Arts stamp I've had for a long long time. The background was made with spiced marmalade, mustard seed & antique linen distress ink pads, a swish of gold perfect pearls & a spritz of water!

Thanks for stopping by and take care xxx

Polkadoodles!

I'm not very good at this blogging malarkey am I? Tis 3 months since my last post!!! Humble apologies ... & this is just a very quick one as I want to get outside in that glorious sunshine.
I've made a card for my Dad's birthday next week using the free download available this week from polkadoodles
The polkadoodles challenge this time was to make a card with texture & dimension using the free download. Here's my entry ...


I used stamps to spell out "dad" & raised it with 3d pads. I gave the card some texture by wrapping twine around it & used some cross screw brads to give it a bit more of a masculine 'edge'! Hope you like it.
Enjoy this fabulous weather everyone & take care. xxx

How much stuff ???

Well this month's task was to re-decorate my office & I can safely say we now have mission accomplished! Re-painted ceiling, walls painted green, a new blind & some gorgeous laminate flooring. I am happy happy happy :-)
But for such a tiny room - it's only 5" x 8" - boy can it hold a lot of stuff! It's a bit of a multi tasking room, in that it's the place where I work, study & craft & it also houses all our photos going back to the year dot. I'm still cringeing through the photos which have caused much hilarity for Jess & Jamie seeing mum & dad way back in the day. I've tried to convince Jess that those clothes & hairstyles were soooooo trendy at the time but she's not convinced & thinks we were, in her words "well dodgy"!

Here's some before & after pics of my office

Before ...


After ...


I can't believe how much craft stuff I have ... well ok, maybe I can! I must own a few trees worth of paper!! Look!


And here's my stack of drawers all full of stamps, ink pads, glues, brads, flowers,etc etc etc ...


I want to get back to doing some stamping now though. I saw Tim Holtz on QVC this week & was so inspired. I've found 2 distress ink pads I already have, some adirondack pads, perfect pearls & a sheet of cut & dry foam which I haven't even opened!! And I just know I've got some alcohol inks at the back of a drawer somewhere. Oh yes guys ... I'm gonna get dirty :-)))

Next week is a "keep everything crossed" kinda week for us. We should find out which secondary school Jess will be going to. Secondary ??? OMG how quick does time fly, they grow up so fast. She's also auditioning for a part in the school production of Wizard of Oz, she wants to be either the good or the bad witch so we have lots of practising to do ... give back the ruby slippers my pretty, mwah ha ha!! ... lol

Take care all & thanks for stopping by xxx

40th birthday card

Just a quick post for tonight ... I came up with a few ideas for my friends 40th birthday card request & we went with this one in the end. I used templates for the numbers, quickutz diesel alphabet for the letters, some gorgeous prima flowers which I've had for a long time. The "lots of dots" papers & card candy came from Craftwork Cards.

So long, farewell January

Well I'm glad that's over, I simply detest January with a vengeance ... cold, wet & miserable. Bleuch! But now it's gone AND I've finished all my tax returns! Woop woop!
So now to look forward ... I registered for another OU course, in 'Human genetics & health issues' and the books arrived at the weekend. It looks soooo interesting & I can't wait to get stuck in. I've been asked to make a 40th birthday card by this weekend so I need to get inspired. Results will be posted up here later!
Take care all & keep warm xxx

My FIRST blog!

Let's get this blog rolling with a few pics of some cards I've made in the last few months ...