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