Congratulations to my Buddy and do you fancy a White Christmas?

 Hi Everyone,

I hope this morning finds everyone bright eyed and bushy tailed, lol!   I can't remember the last time I felt like that first thing in the morning.  I think I must have been about 12 years old ;0).  I'm at my best at night time not in the morning but I'm not grumpy in the morning, I just take a long time to get my head in gear.

Today is the 25th Wedding Anniversary of my lovely friend Judith and her Hubby Terry so I want to send them my congratulations and I hope they are spending a very special time together today.  I can now show you the card I made for them a couple  of weeks ago.

I started with a 21 cm square base card and covered it with a silver mirri slightly smaller square.  I then took another square of white card, slightly smaller still and blended a lovely blue Versamagic ink over one of the beautiful Prima masks I bought recently from Chocolate Baroque.   The main image is a My Sentiments Exactly stamp and one of the first stamps I ever bought.  I used it for the first card I handmade for my OH for our anniversary about 5 years ago so it has a kind of sentimental value to me, lol!  On this occasion I stamped it  onto vellum with Versamark ink and heat embossed with detail silver EP.  I trimmed it and then attached it to the centre of my card placing the adhesive just under the solid square.

I suppose this was a relatively simple card but I wanted something fairly simple in design but elegant as it was for a couple and I was quite happy with the result.  I just hope Judith and Terry like it too when they open it today.  All the best for another 25 years you guys!


AND now I have to tell you about a challenge from Glenda Waterworth (Mrs Chocolate Baroque) or rather Glenda does because I've actually pasted Glenda's own explanation for you.

How would you like the chance to win a £10 voucher to spend on Chocolate Baroque rubber stamps? Or would you prefer a £20 voucher or how about £50? I’ve managed to talk the owners of Chocolate Baroque into sponsoring a little challenge that I’m hosting here on my blog (they’re a pretty nice couple, so they didn’t take much persuading!) and the more people that play, the bigger the prize.

Basically, I will add £1.00 to the value of the gift voucher for each person who submits an entry to the challenge via the link form below. So if we only get five entries, the prize will be £5.00, but if we get 35 entries, the prize will be £35.00. I am setting a maximum prize fund of £50.00, and the winner will be drawn at random, so you have nothing to lose by having a go and a lot to gain by encouraging all your challenge-holic buddies to join in.

The theme is WHITE CHRISTMAS and how you interpret the theme and what kind of artwork you produce is entirely up to you – cards are obviously welcome but feel free to do anything from ATCs to jewellery, canvas to crochet.  As a bonus, any pieces which showcase Chocolate Baroque stamps particularly well will be featured in full on the Chocolate Baroque Design Team blog over Christmas with a link back to your blog.

The closing date is DECEMBER 15TH 2011 and the winner will be chosen at random from the list of entries.

If you want to check it out and/or add your entry click on the logo in my sidebar.  

As always, thank you so much for your visit and especially for leaving any much appreciated comments.

Have a good day all!

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

Still My Baby!

Hello Everyone,

About a week ago it was our lovely daughter's birthday.  I never did get round to doing the big blog post I had threatened you all with following her wedding in May (I sort of got overtaken by less happy family matters but enough of that) but here's a few photos of  what she described as her Perfect Day.

 With her new Hubby (note the broken foot!)

 With her Dad.  I love how happy she looks.

Little Isabella had to get in on the act here.

And now here's the card I made for her birthday.  The photos aren't brilliant as I was late finishing it and had to rush the pics before shooting off up the A1 to deliver it in person.  It would have been much cheaper to post, lol!

I used another of the gorgeous Prima masks which I bought from Chocolate Baroque recently and the sentiment is one of my favourites from CB too.  The lovely main image is from Indigo Blu and called Ella Bella.

I used Versamagic inkpads to blend over the mask to create the background and followed this with some overstamping of a pretty swirly image, again from Chocolate Baroque.  I forgot to make a note of which stamp set it is from but I'm sure it was from one of the recently released ones.  I then stamped Ella Bella using an Onyx Black Versafine inkpad.
 

Finally I spritzed with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist before arranging the flowers and leaves cut with Crealies dies, again from Chocolate Baroque.

Jenna said she loved her card ............ but then she would say that, wouldn't she, lol!

I hope you've all had a good day today.  I'm looking forward to a couple of nice weather days to get my washing basket emptied.  Mind you, that will only add more to the ironing pile, lol!

As always, thank you for taking the time to visit.  I do appreciate it.

Hugs

Lesley  Xx

EDIT  Just a little message to my Twitter friends.  Whilst downloading some photos from my mobile phone last week I installed some updates.  Biiig mistake as it's changed everything round on my  phone and I don't like it :( but the main problem is it's completely deleted Twitter and I can't find it anywhere.  I'm hoping my more technologically minded Son will be able to sort it for me this weekend but until then I'm not ignoring you and I'll be back soon I hope.  Xx

Birthday Card for a Wonderful Friend (& it fits in with my buddy's friendly challenge)

'Morning Everyone,

Yay, it's Friday!  I hope everyone is looking forward to the weekend even if you're not doing anything special.  We're planning a weekend of re-organising 2 of our bedrooms.  They're becoming a bit of a dumping ground for stuff that needs to go back in the loft (like the big pedestal fan that I doubt we'll need again before next summer, lol) and stuff that has nowhere special to live so they need sorting out before it gets out of hand and we end up with nowhere for our Daughter and her family to sleep when they visit, lol!

Anyway, enough waffling and onto the crafting.  This week has seen the birthday of a friend who has become especially dear to me.  Elaine is one of my Craft Stamping Quartet buddies as many of my visitors already know and along with Jo and Judith she has become one of the main 'constants' in my life so making a card incorporating things she likes was such a pleasure to do.  Elaine loves nature and has a huge wild garden with lots of mature trees and I know she loves it in whatever coat it happens to be wearing.  As it's September, I decided to go with an Autumnal look both with the colours I used and also with the leaf embellishments.  Elaine knows one of my favourite things to do is blending inks over masks and as Chocolate Baroque have just started stocking some exceptionally pretty Prima ones which I couldn't resist buying I thought that's where I would start my design.  I followed this with some light overstamping using a stamp from an Inkadinkado set called Autumn Fall which I must have had for at least 2 years and never inked up.  Shame on me because the stamps are really dainty with lovely leafy swirls.

I then blended inks over a sheet of card and cut out the leaves I wanted using a Shapeabilities die set (again in my stash for ages and never used) using the same dies to emboss and then adding some ink highlights.  Another neglected die from my quite substantial collection is the Marianne Creatable doily die,  It's really pretty and I've now managed to use it twice in one week :).  I cut the doily from the same ink blended card and then spritzed this and the leaves with gold Glimmer Mist before stamping the sentiment in the centre of the doily.

 Finally I used a lovely new Crealies die (again from Chocolate Baroque) which consists of separate multi sized petals that you build up to make a flower the size you want.  I used all four petal sizes and cut it from Glassine paper, stamped with the same Inkadinkado stamp but this time in Encore Gold ink and then heated it gently for a few seconds to 'set' the ink into the Glassine.  I shaped all the petals and joined them together with a pearl brad.  I attached the doily with 3D foam pads and the flower and leaves with Pinflair glue.

Now, it just so happens that as I have used a much neglected stamp and two dies to make my card, it fits in with my buddy Judith's friendly weekly challenge called Forgotten Friday so I'm popping over to her lovely blog in a minute to add a link.  I haven't seen her post yet today but there's always something lovely to see so do pay her a visit.  I have to say thanks to Elaine too because I was in such a hurry to get her card in the post (it still ended up being late :( ) I completely forgot to take any pics, lol!  Elaine very kindly emailed some photos over to me first thing so I could do my post.  Thanks Buddy!!!

Well enjoy your weekend everyone whatever you are doing and come visit again soon.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx