MAN'S BEST FRIEND

Oh my goodness what a terrible blog buddy I am.

MONDAY when I last posted on here!!! Argghh! Must try and do better this week but you know how it is - life (work) have a nasty habit of taking over!

Anyway I have the house to myself shortly so hope to get my head down for some serious crafting. The eldest teen is at work until this afternoon and Mr Dazzle and our daughter are off to football. She's playing and he's coaching and they both LOVE it! Sadly, my enjoyment falls elsewhere and that suits them fine as the team tends to lose if I go! It's going to be bitterly cold for them as it's another of those mornings when you need the ice-pick out just to clear the windscreen! Love the crispness and blue sky though.

Anyway here's a card I've made for the challenge over at CASology where the theme is brown. Immediately a male card springs to mind and I adore the pre-coloured Vintage Boys Art Pad from LOTV so I've set it on a Kraft card with a little smidgen of DP from one of my amazing TK Maxx bargain paper pads, a couple of candy dots from Stampin Up some glossy accents to the cute pooch and a great birthday sentiment from Clearly Besotted. Think I may skip the recipe now!

That's all for now but I hope to have something else to post later if I can find my mojo!

DOUBLE POST TIME

Happy Monday friends

Another speedy post from me today ... first day back at work after half term so always a bit crazy!

Need to re-charge my batteries for tomorrow so don't think I'll be crafting tonight unless it's just a little glance in my sparkly cupboard - just to make sure everything is in order! You know what I mean!!!

So I'm combining a couple of cards I made yesterday but didn't get round to posting.

The first one is another Merry Christmas penguin and checking back I think I'm on a roll - that's 5 Christmas cards back to back! Whoopie! Not enough though! I couldn't wait to have another play with my penguin stamp set from Clearly Besotted as Stephanie is sponsoring this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge it seemed a good idea to use him. I'm also entering my card at A Gem of a Challenge where the theme this week is Christmas Is Coming.

I've seen some embossing paste on a few blogs and think it looks amazing although I don't have any and don't know how to use it so I've used my snowflake embossing folder then blinged it up with some glamour dust and hope it creates a similar effect.


Card Recipe:

Image & Sentiment: Clearly Besotted
Papers: Pink Petticoat
Cuttlebug embossing folder, MFT Die-namics party banners, Mini Candy dots and gems from my stash.
I've added stickles to his bob-hat which look a bit pink on the photo but they're not really plus some glossy accents to his feet and beak.





Next up is my entry to this month's Uniko Studio Challenge where the theme is Autumn foliage with a photo for inspiration:



To be honest I kept forgetting about this one as I was so intrigued with all the new Christmas release products. It's actually been quite difficult to produce this card and revert back to the Autumn shades having had a taste of the glamour, magic and sparkles of Christmastime!

For some reason these colours tend to make me feel sad - don't know why but I decided a Sympathy card would be good with this foilage blowing around in the breeze.

Card Recipe:

Image: Natural Treasures from Uniko Studio
Sentiment: Pink Petticoat
Twine and pearl gems from my stash

So that's all from me for today but looking forward to seeing what you've all been up to over the day.
See you soon

TOO CUTE PENGUIN!

Back again as promised and this time another Christmas card to add to my mini stash - going to have to work hard!

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Freshly Made Sketches
Dynamic Duos
Pixies Crafty Snippet Playground


Card Recipe:

Image & Sentiment: Cute Penguin Stamp Set from Clearly Besotted
Snowflake: Uniko Studio
Button, gem and metallic cord from my stash
A few sprinklings of glamour dust added to highlight areas too

   
That's all for now folks! Enjoy your Sunday and thanks for stopping by.

A BREAK FROM TRADITION

Morning all, just a couple of quick posts from me today and first up is my combined entry for CAS(E) This Sketch and the Colour Q Challenges.

If you read my post yesterday you'll realise my newest stamp set is the snowflakes from Uniko Studio and with them still on my desk plus the need to boost my Christmas cards in time for you know what I decided to break from traditional Christmas colours and use modern coloured snowflakes. And as it's Christmas I've added a strip of dazzling silver glitter card so hope that can pass for the basic grey colour.

Looks like another wet day so guess I may get chance for a bit more play later.

Back with another post in a moment.


Card Recipe:

Image: Snowflakes from Uniko Studio
Sentiment: Clearly Besotted
Candy Dots: Stampin Up
Pearls from The Hobby House


   

BLACK ON BLACK - TAKE 2

So here's my other card which started out as a Less is More Challenge card but I'm also going to drop it in at Simon Says Stamp (Anything Goes) and CASology (Black).

Having spent a heck of a time on my first one this was completed quite quickly - I like them both so decided to enter them both.

Right off for tea and catch up with Strictly - catch you all tomorrow.  Enjoy your evening.




Card Recipe:

Image: Marianne Creatables Christmas Tree Die,
Beautiful fairy light embellishments from my Crafty American Auntie
with some black metallic cord from my stash to string the lights together
Sentiment: Clearly Besotted Stamped then embossed with Gold embossing powder

   

BLACK ON BLACK

Saturday already and hardly got any crafting done this week despite it being half term but I guess that bathroom shopping had to be done!

Anyway I do love Saturdays as I usually get chance to play with lots of challenges, whether I actually submit an entry to all of them is a different matter though! Often they end up in the bin!

When I saw the Less is More Challenge this morning I thought 'hmmm...that's not too bad' but it's harder than I thought and this first card took ages with loads of trial and error bits being flung in the rubbish! As it started to take shape I realised it could be combined with some other challenges too so here goes:

Rather than fireworks I decided to try my brand new snowflake stamp set from Uniko studio and I've stamped the background with snowflakes then embossed with black embossing powder, adding diamond gems to the centres for some added sparkle. I've used a sentiment from the same set of stamps and embossed with gold holographic embossing powder. I then stamped some black cardstock with different sizes of the snowflakes and embossed in different colours of embossing powders which I've owned for years but they hardly see the light of day. I've added pink and silver gems from my stash then cut it into a heart shape raised on 3D foam for added definition.

While my card was taking shape I decided this could also tie in with the theme at CAS-ual Fridays, where the theme is 'Embossing' and CASology, where their theme is BLACK. The sketch from Seize the Sketch came in handy too and I've added a sliver of pink design paper and a strip of pink gems from my Crafty American Auntie.

Last but not least Simon Says Stamp have an 'Anything Goes' theme so I'll be dropping it in over there too.

I was loving this black on black so much that I made another one so I'll post that one in a moment too.





      

CONDOLENCES

Happy Tuesday All and sorry if I missed you yesterday but we didn't get back until midnight last night. Great time though ... well mostly but if I have to look at another sink or toilet in a showroom I may have to smash it to bits. Can you believe there are so many shapes and sizes.

On the plus side I think we are almost decided on what we need so no new bedroom this week but hopefully soon it'll be so beautiful and inviting that I won't ever want to leave it - even to craft!!!

After all that shopping excitement we met up with the in-laws for tea then off to Manchester to watch Wicked. I've seen the film of the Wizard of Oz years ago but didn't know anything about the story of Wicked. It was fabulous with some wonderful tunes that I've been humming all day.

So I have only one card to post today because I have spent most of the day having one big sort out. I think someone must have told the local charities that they might be in for a big haul this week as we've ended up with 4 of the charity bags through the door yesterday!

I'm combining 2 challenges today; Dynamic Duos and CAS on Sunday, which is a sketch challenge. I do think gentle lilac/mauve tones look lovely on a sympathy card so I've used a pearlised card base in a lilac tone then embellished my image, which is from Pink Petticoat along with the sentiment, with plum and lilac pearls from The Hobby House. You can just spy the insert too and that's a lilac tone too.

     



That's all for me today so enjoy the rest of your day and I'm off to check out what you've been up to now!

RAIN, RAIN AND MORE ...

So with all the howling winds and torrential rain today what better way to spend the day? - Crafting!

First of all I had a tidy up and clear out and I really DO need to get on with some Christmas cards but none of those today! I've got another of my craft sessions with friends the week after next and we are concentrating on Christmas so hopefully have some to show then.

Bit of a change of plan on my decorating activities this week too ... after much discussion Mr Dazzle and I have decided the room needs rather a major revamp so it's a shopping week instead for bathrooms, tiles and flooring! Unfortunately I can't get quite so excited as I would if it was a full-on crafty shop!

Anyway onto my cards and as it was successful posting one blog with several challenges I'm going to do the same again for speed so first up is my entry to the Less is More Challenge where the requirement is to 'Use Twine or String' - Now this isn't really an issue for me as I use it a lot but I wanted to do something different so I've combined it with the CAS(E) This Sketch Challenge and used it to attach the sentiment banner to my aeroplane. I was a lucky lady a couple of weeks ago as I won a blog hop challenge for Clearly Besotted on Jen's Tiny Blue Butterfly blog and won the Going Places stamp set and this is my first play with it.  Think I may have to put the matching dies on my never-ending wish list as I'm not too great at fuzzy cutting.

I've used several snippets and odds and ends to make this card so I'm going to be heading over to Pixies Crafty Snippet Playground as soon as the gates open! Miss Di has been on a superb break and think she's recovering from the long journey but hope she likes my aeroplane card and might even get her thinking of her next sunny trip.

Card Recipe:

Image & Sentiment: Going Places from Clearly Besotted

Papers: Pink Petticoat snippets

Brad, Twine and gems from my stash

Dies used: MFT Die-Namics party banners & Clearly Besotted New Home set for the clouds

Now onto my second card which is to enter the ColourQ Challenge and I'm going to drop another entry in at Pixies Crafty Snippet Playground as the card also features snippety snips! I've made the card for my friend's son who's birthday falls on Halloween day and I just love the photo inspiration on the ColourQ card so added some circles and a googlie eye! 

I've used the sketch from Sketch Saturday but swapped the star for my one-eyed THINGY!

Card Recipe:

Papers: Free Digi Download from Shelly K (another one I've had ages and never used!) plus Pink Petticoat

Sentiment: Computer Generated

Googlie Eye and buttons from my stash

    

And last but by no means least is a bit of a change of direction for me with this card ... It's a commission I've been asked to make for a friend who's BIL is in the priesthood and celebrating a special occasion later this year. There doesn't seem to be any inspiration out there for this type of card so basically had to 'wing-it'! The die-cut cross was a freebie from the lovely ladies at Dies to Die For which I decided would be perfect for the card and I've used the sketch from this weeks Retro Sketches Challenge but turned it sideways.

Card Recipe:

Die Cut image: Dies to Die For

Sentiment: Computer Generated

Lattice Embossing folder used as the background which was a Pixies Crafty Snippet Challenge win

Gems for a bit of dazzle from my stash

So that's all for me today and I'm off to visit the in-laws tomorrow, bathroom shopping then watching Wicked at the theatre in Manchester so there'll be no crafty time for me! Enjoy the rest of your evening and catch up with you all soon. 

Off to watch some good Sunday night TV.