My Baby Returns!!!

My baby has returned safe and sound from her school journey. I have missed her unbelievably but she has had a good time and has returned with just a wee bruise on her knee; which isn't at all bad considering the amount of activities. My mind conjured up broken limps and black eyes throughout the week and each time the phone rang I expected the worst; thank the lord my fears were unfounded. Well almost......

Apparently the holiday didn't start too well as the coach driver was totally incompetent and crashed the coach two miles down the road!! They then had to sit in a church year for FIVE HOURS until another coach was available, or rather another coach driver as they, thank goodness, insisted on another. Eventually they got to the place about 10:30pm totally worn out!

Here is a picture of Amber when setting off.

Amber also accidentally got left behind in a cave and screamed in anguish of the total blackness surrounding her! She said she had never been so scared in her life! The consequences of that is that she now has to have a light on to sleep, but hopefully that will pass in time. Poor little sausage :o(

But she is back, safe and sound and the family is once again complete :o)

Acetate with a Hint of Pink

Crikey, that was a close shave. Well not really a close shave as the deadline has passed and I didn't get my DT card for Dottie's World made in time. It has been a crazy weekend so far and I honestly haven't had any time, so I just TOOK half an hour to quickly make my DT card for Dottie's World, and half an hour is literally how long it has taken me, including taking pictures etc. Must be one of the quickest cards I have ever made so I apologise for any mistakes! Check out Dottie's World for some fabulous cards from the design team.

I love this cat image from the Cat Collection and grabbed the chance to use it today. Here is the challenge from Nicola:

A is for Acetate with a hint of pink!!It can be a whole acetate card,an aperture of acetate,an embellishment as long as Acetate is there some where & as October is Breast Cancer awareness month I'd like to see some pink!!!

My card is acetate folded in half and rimmed with Cotton Pink Stickles (not quite dry so excuse any stray bits). The cat was printed on a sheet of Prima Whisper "Sigh" paper and Cotton Pink Stickles has been applied to the circles. This is double-sided so it looks good from the other side too. I cut the ball out and matted it on a K&Co Wild Saffron Tag. It has a pink acetate flower in the centre with a Basic Grey brad in the middle.

The corner has been cut out from the same sheet of Prima paper and dotted with pearls.

Pop over and join in the challenge :o)

xxx

Love is.....

Love is a lot of things so the scope was open wide in the Sunday Challenge on Dottie's World. The fabulous Juliet set the challenge this week:

'Love is....' a card to tell someone you love them. This could be Anniversary, Christmas, Birthday, Valentines or just to say I Love You to someone special. The only other rules are to use at least one image from the collection AND I would like to see a journalling spot/message on the front of your card."

My card is a single sheet of folded Basic Grey Cupcake "Frosting; as it uses the full sheet is makes for a sturdy card. Acetate window. Imaginisce Baby Powder Fuzzy Jammies paper for the scalloped pieces, which I embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Imaginisce Baby Powder ribbon. Blue crystals from our fantastic value craft accessory boxes. Tim Holtz ink for edges. K&Co Self-Adhesive Baby chipboard - and last but not least a Dottie and George download from the Love & Marriage collection.

Online Class

As promised I have created an online class showing you how to make the pop-up card in my previous post. You can see the class here.


xxx

Dottie goes Geometric!

That is the Sunday challenge today on Dottie's World. The lovely Adele set the challenge this week, and by gum it's a good one!

When I first told my son Jack that I was on the Dottie Design Team, he asked loads of questions about what I needed to do. You can now blame Jack for this week's challenge as this was all his idea...but I have stretched it a little.

Jack suggested that I made a card using triangles but I am going to open up the possibilities and ask you to make creations with bold geometric shapes. This could simply be part of some patterned papers or a fancy shaped card...the choice is yours BUT I want to see some geometric shapes as a main part of your work....no cheating and telling me the brad is a circle!

Well I went geometric mad!! OK so my card does not have Dottie on it, but it does have plenty of dots LOL The Charmed download in this case is the Page Corner Cats image inside the card, these two adorable cats have lots of geometric shapes on them so perfect for this challenge.

This card is going to appear as a class very soon on the main Charmed Cards & Crafts website so keep your eyes peeled.

Materials used:

• Page Corner Cats image from the Cat download collection
• The pop-up card is made from a sheet of pink Bazzill.
• Paper on front of the card is Imaginisce All Kinds of Happy
• Large Cupcake on front is K & Company Just Jinger Cupcake
• Rub-ons inside - Imaginsce All Kind of Happy
• Cupcake Epoxy Brad - Imaginisce All Kinds of Happy
• Geometric Buttons

Thanks for looking xxx

Going Green

I set the challenge on Dottie's World for today and this was it:

Everything today is focused on environmental issues, so lets GO GREEN! Show me how green you can get! But this is a green dish with a few extra ingredients, sprinkle it with three buttons or brads, season with a little ribbon, and finally add that special little "recycled something. Plus of course it must contain at least one Charmed Cards & Crafts download".

So with these requirements in mind I made two cards:

Card 1 is on acetate:

A peek inside:

Requirements:

• DOWNLOAD is Ghost George from the Halloween Collection
• THREE glittery large GREEN BRADS from Imaginisce Hallowhimsy Collection
• GREEN Ribbon is K&Co Margo Felt Ribbon
• The "RECYCLED SOMETHING" is pink Scrabble letters from my daughters' old Scrabble set.
• GREEN double-sided papers from K&Co's Halloween Mat Pad
  

The Rub-ons are also K&Co Halloween, and the Haunted House Journalling piece inside (also green) is from the Imaginisce Hallowhimsy Toe Tags Sheet.

This second card has a green country feel to it, which ties in nicely with the "go green" theme.

Requirements:

• Puddle Love download from the Love & Marriage Collection
• K&Co Brookfield Floral Stripe Embossed GREEN paper AND Basic Grey Mellow Paper Sapid (plain GREEN paper)
• Maya Road GREEN Velvet Rick Rack RIBBON
• TWO GREEN Prima Cavalier BRADS and ONE heart BUTTON
• The "RECYCLED SOMETHING" is a flower I removed from one of the girl's old summer hats.
  

The hearts are from the Cosmo Cricket Hello Sunshine Heart Button Cover sheet.

Please do have a go at this challenge, I really love seeing what you come up with.

Karen xxx

Secondary School

I hated the thought of my sweet girl starting secondary school and now it has happened I hate it even more! We didn't alas get her into the school of our choice (don't know of any who did!) and she isn't faring too weell three weeks into the first term. It is an unbelievable worry!! It is not her ability that is a worry, she has been placed into all the top groups, it is more the interaction with the other girls, so many girls are downright nasty these days!! I am going to be watching her very carefully, any sign of anything untoward and I'll have her out of there quicker than a very quick thing.

Here she is on the morning of her very first day.

Don't you just want them to stay little forever??

Sometimes......

.........when you are feeling low your friends come and lift you right up. Wow, wow wow WOW! Just look what I got from two wonderful friends from my forum.

An beautiful HUGE bouquet of flowers from Petra:

aren't they stunning?

....and an amazing card from Juliet.

Look at the detail and the beautiful stitching!

Thank you so much girls xxxx

I am so lucky to have the best bunch of girls on the forum! :o)

Going for a Song.....

Yep, here is my weekly post. I have become a bad blogger again (oh how easy we fall) but at least I do turn up once a week :o)

This week the challenge on Dottie's World was set by Louise who chose "Going for a song" - "all you have to do is use a line from a song on the front of your card"

I chose Dracula George from the Halloween collection as my subject for both my example cards.

1st Card

2nd card

Halloween Dracula George, K&Co Halloween collection products, Doodlebug Rick Rack, Prima LRibbon, Hot Off The Press Music Brads, Imaginisce Hallloween Brads.

Killing two birds with one stone....

...what a horrible saying "killing two birds with one stone", I apologise to all you vegetarians out there, I didn't really kill two birds. BUT what I did do was combine two tasks into one.

It's been one of those weeks that you are glad to see the back off, a week where I seem to have been flying around like a headless chicken. The only time I had any respite was when I sat down to watch Big Brother (what a disappointing finale). This of course is leading up to my excuse as to why I am late with the Dottie World design team card. I simply haven't had the time! Yesterday was incredibly busy too so I didn't settle down to start making it until 9pm last night, and of course my mojo had gone up and gone so it was a real struggle this week. I think if I had had more time then this card would have ended up in the bin!

Now I have set a new sketch challenge on the Charmed Craft Talk forum and needed an example card for that, so I decided to combine Dottie's World Sunday Challenge with the sketch. The challenge on Dottie's World was set by Nicola and it was a unique and interesting subject:

"AND ALSO......I would like you to make a card or something, which of course is using a download/s from Charmed Cards AND ALSO.....something which can be removed from it,such as a tag,bookmark,notelets"

I decided on a fridge magnet as my "removable part. This was my sketch from my forum (join in please, I would love to see what you come up with):

Members on Charmed Craft Talk wanted the sketch to apply to both cards and LO's so I made a kinda mini LO card. I love the Halloween colours and embellishments, this card shows that they can be used for other occasions, not just Halloween. I think a boy would be very pleased to receive this card.

I used Mummy George from the Halloween collection, plus the broomstick from Flying Witch Dottie. The broomsticks here are 17cm in length so I could almost fly on them myself!

The fridge magnet is in the centre. Here it is on and off (with little Monster Dottie hiding beneath). The wording reads "Happy Birthday .... Have a spooktacular day.... with lots of treats". The writing looks weird here, that's the flash, it's not like that "in real life" (you just can't get the light these days!):

This is a big card measuring 180mm sq so I had to patch up the back to make it the right size. It actually look really really nice inside:

...... and here is the fridge magnet in action:

All other products used here are from the K&Co Halloween collection.

Pop over to Dottie World to join the Sunday Challenge, and Charmed Craft Talk for the sketch challenge :o)