Spooky Birthday

Halloween Birthday Girl

I made this themed card for my Daughter-Inlaw this year as her birthday is 31st October. Unfortunately quite a lot of it is made with retired stock but I wanted to use the old DSP from the 13-15 catalogue because I liked the pattern.  I bought the spider webs to use as doily type backgrounds but didn't get round to using them when they were in the Catalogue so thought I try one on this card.

The materials used are:

Card Stock: Coastal Cabana (retired), Whisper White

DSP: In Colors 13-15 (retired)

Ink: Coastal Cabana (retired), VersaMark

Stamp Sets: Petite Pairs (retired)

Embossing Powder: Clear

Embossing Folders: Sparkle

Framelits: Layering Circles, Lots of Labels

Accessories:Spider Webs (retired)

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Wedding Wonder

Old And New Together

Today it's a wedding card created for my Niece and her now new husband. I CASed it from a video Wendy Krause has on Utube using different colours and ribbon.  Then did the inside slightly different and made a little pouch for the present.  They are now in Orlando for their honeymoon as they are both crazy about Disney.  Hope they have a fantastic time there.

Sorry about the fact a lot of it is retired stock now but I'm sure you could substitute the old for new and make it slightly different.

Unfortunately I missed the inside of the front part of the card and that is where to the left of the sentiment I have placed to small hearts from the Itty Bitty Accents punch set.

The materials used are:

Inks: Card Stock: Pool Party, Whisper White

DSP: In Colors 11-13 (retired)

Ink: Pool Party, VersaMark

Stamp Sets: Floral Phrases

Embossing Powder: Clear

Punches: Itty Bitty Accents (retired), Modern Label (retired)

Framelits: Sweet & Sassy

Thinlits: Flourish

Ribbon: Sycamore Street (retired)

Accessories: Bakers Twine (retired), Basic Rhinestones

PGPapercrafts

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Sunshine Wishes meets a little Flourish

Sunshine Wishes with a Flourish

I enjoyed making this card, tried some block watercoloring and thought it went quite well, teamed this up with the Sunshine Wishes thinlits and a bit of playful backgrounds, then finished with the Happy Birthday.  Felt it needed a little more so gave it a bit of a background using the Flourish thinlits and DSP. Just hope my Aunt liked it.

I'm keeping out of the way at the moment as there are workmen in and I no longer have a kitchen, yippee no cooking for at least 2 weeks, heaven!!!

Hoping to make a good start on my Christmas cards, just waiting for Mr Ups to arrive on Thursday, will do a couple of birthday cards in the mean time, when I'm not out to lunch that is.

The materials used are:

Card Stock: Peekaboo Peach, Watercolor Paper

Card Base: NSU

DSP: 2016 In Colors

Markers: Calypso Coral, Peekaboo Peach, Tangerine Tango

Stamp Sets: Playful Backgrounds, Sunshine Sayings

Embossing Powder:

Embossing Folders:

Punches: Tree Builder, Triple Banner

Thinlits: Flourish, Sunshine Wishes

Ribbon: Burlap

Accessories: Basic Pearls, Clear Block D, sequins (from Watercolor Wonder kit)

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Swirly Scribbles Quick And Easy

Birthday Boy Swirly Scribbles

Well it's been a while again, soooo busy don't know where the time's going but it is!!

I've missed placed the last card for August at the moment, so here's the first for September.  It was made weeks ago for my son who's birthday was on the 3rd. We went to see him for the weekend as he's in the navy and lives in Plymouth. Oops!! I've just realised I should have shown my grand daughters first as hers was the 2nd.  Will do that one next.

Found this card very easy to do and it was really quick as well. Apart from the Happy Birthday it was all done on the bight.  I used my score board for the lines down the left-hand side, but I don't think they show up very well in this photo (sorry).

Getting back to the weekend of his Stuart's birthday, it was a bit of a washout on the Saturday so we went to the Aquarium for a couple of hours in the afternoon and then went to the Lockyer pub for a birthday meal in the evening with his wife's family, followed with a couple of hours playing snooker at their local club.

Just had a lightbulb moment and realised I can use the Stampin Up' colours for the text by going to the HTML view and changing the codes.

The materials used are:

Card Stock: Basic Black, Emerald Envy, Whisper White

Card Base: NSU

DSP: Black Glimmer Paper (retired)

Ink: Emerald Envy

Stamp Sets: Starburst Sayings

Framelits: Layering Circles

Thinlits: Swirly Scribbles, Relationship (NSU)

Accessories: Scoreboard

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Thirty Years, Old & New

Celebrating 30 years of happiness

Been busy lately and now getting behind with my blogging again. I'm now at the end of August instead of up to date with September. Have one more to go for August, so will try and get that one up some time this week.

I'm showing a card I did for friends of ours who have recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. I just fell in love with this stamp set and the Detailed Floral thinlits and new straightaway what I would do with them.

As you can see it's made with all new products from the 16-18 catalogue except for the crochet trim which I must admit I bought years ago and think I've only used once or twice and yes that is the old.I felt when I sent it it was lovely but now I look again I'm not so sure about the trim and feel I should have used something else, but not sure what.

The materials used are:

Card Stock: Emerald Envy, Very Vanilla

Ink: Emerald Envy

Stamp Sets: Teeny Tiny Sentiments, Wild About Flowers

Punches: Classic Label

Thinlits: Detailed Floral

Ribbon: Crochet Trim Victoria (retired)

Accessories: Basic Pearls, Basic Rhinestones

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Circle of Spring meets Butterfly Basics

Friends Mean So Much

Friends are the people we go to every time we want to share something, be it happy or sad.  Some friends are not seen so often as others but we know they are still there for us.

This is a card I made a few weeks ago for one of my friends, I felt summery when I did it so used light and bright colours.  Die cutting the wreath was so easy using the Wonderful Wreath die. I also did the initial stamping of the wreath with VersaMark and gold embossing powder instead of the the usual black, I think it makes it look softer.

Don't forget the Autumn-Winter catalogue comes out in 5 days, and it's got lots of amazing new products.  I'm at the stage of still wanting everything all at once and don't know what to  order first. I think I've got it down and then a light bulb moment and I want to go and change it all again, just too many choices!!!

The materials used are:

Ink: VersaMark

Markers: Crushed Curry, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron, Wild Wasabi

Card stock: So Saffron, Whisper White

Stamps: Butterfly Basics, Circle Of Spring

Embossing powder: Gold

Framelits: Wonderful Wreath

Ribbon: Taffeta So Saffron (retired)

Accessories: Non SU Gems

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Our Little Princess

Just Love the Princess Years

Well it's nearly time for Lily-Mae to put away the princess years but hopefully we'll get a couple more out of her as she has a sister just a year younger than her, even though she's not to much the princess type, she prefers to dig holes, a bit of boxing and generally get up to mischief. Is it just me or do children grow up a lot faster these days 

The card was surprisingly easy to make with the Sliding Star framelits along with the new foam adhesive strips. The only mistake I made was to do it in normal whisper white card stock instead of the thick card.

I took my time getting the Heard from the Heart stamp set and then it retired without me using it that much at the time, but it just seemed the right sentiment for this card so I pulled it out of mothballs along with the Little Princess set and I must admit Lily-Mae loved her card.

The materials used are:

Card Stock: Soft Sky, Thick Whisper White 

Card Base: NSU

Ink: Pink Pirouette, Soft Sky, VersaMark

Markers: Marina Mist, Pool Party, Rose Red, Smoky Slate, So Saffron, Soft Sky, 

Stamp Sets: Little Princess (retired), Heard From The Heart (retired), Perpetual Birthday Calendar, Shooting Star

Embossing Powder: Clear

Embossing Folders: Lucky Stars

Punches: Washi Label (retired)

Framelits: Sliding Star

Accessories: Metallic Enamel Shapes, Wink of Stella

Matting: card base 5 x 7, first mat 4⁵/₈ x 6⁵/_8, second mat 4¹/₂ x 6¹/₂

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Good old Days

Steam was the Dream

Oh for the good ole days, when things seemed cheaper and life was slower, or do we just think that now. I loved the old steam trains and tramcars. (I'm not that old Glasgow was one of the last places to get rid of the tramcars as far as I know) but I loved going on them as a child with my Granny. If she were still with us she would have been turning 102 next week.

I'm never quite sure what to do for men when it comes to cards, so this is what I came up with for a friend of ours who's birthday was yesterday. Just hope he likes trains (especially the steam variety). I love using the new layering framelits, there really great and I've now got them all I think.

The materials used are:

Card Stock: Early expresso, Tangerine Tango

DSP: Naturals (retired)

Ink: Early Expresso, Tangerine Tango

Stamp Sets: Party With Cake, Traveller

Framelits: Large Numbers, Layering Ovals

Accessories: Candy Dots (retired), Wink of Stella

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Keeping it Simple

Banners & Stars

Just back from a great weekend with my younger son in Plymouth.  Love going there and catching up with him and his wife.  They've bought their own house and are now waiting for the exchange date and keys before moving in.  Life is so good for him now, but we miss him loads.

I felt like having a change for this card and decided to use my Bigshot for most of the card and this is what I came up with. I used the stars from the PBC set to create my own dsp and was quite pleased with the result. I teamed this up with basic card stock for the banner and the In Color DSP stack for the star. I also stamped the birthday before doing the embossing on the main part of the card.

The materials used are:

Card Stock: Whisper White, Dapper Denim

DSP: In Colors 16-18

Ink: Dapper Denim

Stamp Sets: Endless Birthday Wishes, Perpetual Birthday Calendar

Embossing Folders: Lucky Stars

Framelits: Banners, Stars

Thinlits: Hello You

Accessories: Basic Rhinestone

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Rose Garden meet Timeless Love

Happy Anniversary 

Hi, we went away for the weekend and as we left I dropped a card of to friends of ours who were celebrating their anniversary on Saturday.  Hope they had a lovely day, whatever they did.

Below is the card I made for them, I'm still trying to use up a lot of old stash so sorry about all the retired products used, I know there is current product that can be just as effective. The card is quite an easy one to make and goes together well.

The materials used are:

Card Stock: Cucumber Crush, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White

Card Base: NSU

DSP: Watercolour Wonder (retired)

Ink: Daffodil Delight, VersaMark

Stamp Sets: Timeless Love

Embossing Powder: Clear

Embossing Folders: Woodgrain

Thinlits: Rose Garden

Ribbon: Taffeta So Saffron (retired)

Accessories: Iced Rhinestones (retired)

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Rose Wonder meets Swirly Bird

Summer Birthdays Are Here

It was a good friend's birthday yesterday which gave us an excuse to go out and have lunch which was lovely. We went to the local garden centre chatted and wandered round looking at everything before heading home. 

We were supposed to do it on Friday but I was waylaid by my husband and ended up spending Friday in Shrewsbury where we met up with friends of ours from Wales, it's a beautiful place, we went for a walk along the river and a dip into town for the shops (oops spent too much).  It was like being on holiday relaxed and carefree with the sun shining down on us all day.

The materials used are:

Ink: Crumb Cake, Peekaboo Peach, Sweet Sugarplum

Card stock: Peekaboo Peach, Sweet Sugarplum, Whisper White

Stamps: Rose Wonder, Swirly Bird

Embossing folders: Brick Wall, Woodgrain

Thinlits: Rose Garden, Swirly Scribbles

DSP: 16-18 In Colors

Accessories: Basic Pearls, Silver Metallic Thread

If you are wondering where I used the woodgrain folder, I embossed the die cut swirls to give them a bit more dimension.

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Birthday Boy

Dino-rrific Greetings

It was our Grandson's birthday yesterday and he is besotted with dinosaurs at the moment so the "No bones about it" stamp set was just the ticket.

I put 3 dinosaurs on the card as he turned 3 this year (where the time's gone, I don't know) 

Doing the hills was something new for me, but in the end I was quite pleased with the results, especially after I gave them a bit of texture.

Hope you liked the card

The materials used are:

Ink: Cajun Craze, Delightful Dijon, Garden Green, Memento Tuxedo Black, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Soft Sky, Soft Suede

Card stock: Pacific Point, Whisper White

Card base: Non SU

Stamps: No Bones About It

Thinlits: Little Letters (retired)

Hill texture created using an old non SU embossing plate.

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Where does time go

Ten Wonderful Years

Last week it was my eldest son's 10th wedding anniversary and I must admit it doesn't seem anywhere near that long, but it was.  They went to Ireland to celebrate and have had a wonderful time with lots of pictures on Facebook where both they and our lovely Grandson look as if they were having the time of their lives. Hope the next 10 years bring them as much happiness as the last.

The card I made was inspired by one I saw on Pinterest created by Anne Britton, so thank you for the inspiration Anne.

The materials used are:

Ink: Real Red

Card stock: Whisper White, Dazzling Diamonds & Red Glimmer, Foil Red (retired)

Stamps: Number of Years

Embossing folders: Softly Falling

Framelits: Large Numbers

Thinlits: Bloomin’ Heart

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

Colour Resist Meets Thumping

Summer Colours

This is a card I made for my Dad's Chiropodist as his appointment was on her birthday this month and as we go every few weeks I thought it would be nice to give her a card from us and wish her a happy day.  She was thrilled with it.

I'm trying to use different colours at the moment, and different techniques, we did this one with my upline Peg a few weeks ago using the flowering flourishes stamp set, I swapped that with the Timeless Textures this time and was quite pleased with the result. I also used the thumping technique in the butterfly to get the speckled effect.

The materials used are:

Ink: So Saffron, VersaMark

Markers: Bermuda Bay

Card stock: So Saffron, Whisper White

Stamps: Papillon Potpourri, Timeless Textures, Watercolor Wishes

Embossing powder: Clear, White

Punches: Bitty Butterfly

Accessories: Basic Rhinetones, Sequin Trim

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x

First Anniversary (doesn't seem five minutes)

Today I'm showing the card I made for my youngest sons first wedding anniversary I needed it to be a quick and simple one as I didn't get time to do it before I went away on holiday and the one I had planned would have taken too long to finish. So I'll save that one for next year and get it done earlier in the year.

I had planned to make their card the day after I got back from America but we had the return from hell (see below). 

The materials used are:

Ink: Pool Party

Card stock: Pool Party, Shimmery White

Card base: NSU (it's a white card based sponged round the edges with Pool Party)

Stamps: Bloomin’ Love, Teeny Tiny Sentiments, Timeless Love

Framelits: Bitty Banners (retired), Hearts A Flutter (retired)

Ribbon: Sycamore Street ¹/₄” (retired)

Accessories: Basic Pearls (NSU), Sequin Trim

Sorry, I’ve not yet placed an order from the new catalogue as all my holidays have come at once and I’ve been away a lot over the last few weeks so there is a lot of retired items used in the making of this card. Will be working with new products soon.

Journey From Hell

We headed for the New Orleans airport at 12:15 midday on the Friday for a 15.13 flight to Houston, when we got there the 12.13 flight passengers were still in the departure lounge and the plane was at the gate (bells should have rung). It left at 15.30. We were boarded onto our flight 4 hours later than we should have been only to wait on the runway for a further hour or so before take off because of the weather. Once in air we were told we were being diverted to College Station (wherever that is) as the weather in Houston was to bad to land and the flight would be a further 30 minutes. We felt we were descending and then a pull back and we were taking off again. The pilot said there was thick fog and he couldn't see to land so we would be carrying on a further 30 minutes to Austin Texas where we would need to refuel before returning to Houston for our connecting flight to Heathrow.

We had already been informed that that flight was also delayed but we would be back in time as they were going to hold it until 22:30.

Once in Austin we waited and waited (the Captain took an ESA dog for a walk twice) while we waited and then at last we were next to be refuelled, after that it was waiting for a slot to take off and also a gate free at Houston. The short version of this part of the story is we were on a plane six and a half hours for a one hour fifteen minute flight. We arrived in Houston at 01:00 Saturday morning instead of 16:30 Friday afternoon.  Needless to say our connecting flight had left at 22:30.

We were told to go to customer services to arrange transfer flight by a very tired and irritable gate attendant, when we got there there was a slight queue that took us just over seven hours to get to the front of (we were both exhausted by this time, and Starbucks had no seats left in their coffee shop as those waiting at the front handed them to those just behind them before going to the counter to get new tickets.  At last we knew we'd be on the 18.20 flight out of Houston Saturday night. But that's not the end, once on the plane all was going fine until they tried to release the jet way and it wouldn't budge.  Yes a further hours delay before take off.  We landed in Heathrow at lunch time on Sunday our time and then had the two hour drive home. What a journey, never want one like that again but everyone involved in the long waits were pleasant and kept their spirits up right to the end.  It's a good way to meet new people and hear great stories.

The holiday it's self was fantastic and we went to lots of lovely cities and did lots of wonderful things including the Grand Ole Opry where I saw my most favourite star at the moment Charles Esten along with daughter who is also a great singer and was debuting with him that night. He sings like a dream. My husband is getting over his fear of heights as we did the Tilt in the John Hancock tower and Willis tower sky walk in Chicago and then the St Louis arch when we got there. If you haven't done them they're a real thrill. We rode the Amtrak from Memphis to Hammond and its slow but great, take something to wrap around your shoulders though it can be chilly.  Our main cities were Chicago, St Louis, Nashville, Memphis, Lafayette and finally New Orleans they are all great places with plenty to do.

Will be back again soon with more cards

Love Annette x