My Good News :-)

Well for those of you who have been texting or emailing me (you know who you are) here is my good news ....... I've got a new job!!!!!!!! Ye Ha, after looking for quite a few months as I wanted a job that could work around my OH's shift patterns which still allows me to have sometime with the kids, and obviously making cards. So today at 2:45 pm i went for a job interview, I use that term slightly because as soon as I walked through the office door, the MD of the company asked if I could start there and then, happy days I thought. So I've just finished working at my new job a part time Financial Controller for a Eco-energy company, I'm chuffed to bits. Good holidays, good pay, great hours, work what I want when I want, and if the work load is to much, they are going to buy me a laptop so I can work at home. I know you will be all so happy for me as I am, its been a long time since I've worked and I hated being dependant on state benefits, they are 3 months behind anyway, so I'm now officially EMPLOYED :-)

Lil Deb's blog candy

Here is the link to a wonderful blog candy that Deb is giving away to celebrate 2,000 hits!!!!!!!!! There are some fantastic prizes up for grabs here girls and boys, so go over, leave a comment and a link from your blog onto her's. GOOD LUCK

Teddy Bears

I came across these decoupage teddy bears that I forgot I had, oops and decided to make a few cards with them. The A5 card is for a "New Mom" as I thought that the image of the mummy bear holding the flowers while cuddling the baby bear was so apt for that type of card. I mounted her onto some Karen Forster Pink Patchwork paper that I had, layered onto pastel rainbow paper and then onto a softly embossed paper. Used some pink organza ribbon and tied it into a small bow. To highlight the flowers I used some of my flower soft that I have. On the A6 card I used a "Thinking of You" peel of as the little teddy looks like she is going to write a letter, mounted again onto pastel rainbow paper and then onto yellow card, put 4 brads in the corner and hey presto another one done. Wanted to use a bright card to lift the whole image, I think it worked. Lastly my square card, the teddy in this card reminds me of a granny with her lace frilled nightie on, used some Papercraft 4 You paper 1 sheet 6x6, but the boarder of the end as it was to big for the card and glued in on a bit closer to the image, again some flower soft around the door frame and the flowers at the footstep just finish this card of nicely. Hope you are all having a lovely day, its suppose to rain here later so I'm trying to get all my clothes dried before it comes, speak to you all soon. Karen PS Don't forget about my big news tomorrow (fingers crossed)

Shy little Tilda

Here is another one of my Tilda cards. Coloured in using water coloured pencils and some sakura pens. Mounted onto K&Company Classic K paper. Cut some circles using my cricut, got that idea from my mate Kath, mounted using foam squared (hate those small ones as I can't get the backing off :-() Deckle edged the side of the card using my Fiskars template and mounted a small greeting onto the bottom corner. Love the way these colours work together, there is the blue background in the flowers, hope you can see if from the picture. Got some good news today, but unfortunately I can't tell you until Wednesday at the earliest, so please come back to find out what it is !!!!!!

The same, but different .....

now if that title isn't Irish, well I don't know. Basically yesterday Kelsey and I sat about making cards all day and we set ourselves our very own little challenge. The challenge that we set ourselves was to make as many cards using the same toppers but in different styles. I made 3 A5 cards one gate fold, one with the sides cut out (don't know technical term sorry) and lastly one with a deckled edge. Gold, silver and purple mirror board was used along with some peel offs, colouring pens, and a heart punch. Coloured in some of the images and fixed some pearls to lift the images slightly.

Kelsey made 2 A6 cards using the same toppers, again using some silver and purple mirror board, peel offs a rub on and some pearls (think she copied me on that one LOL). On the silver card she cut a piece of mirror board, stuck it inside the card and then using a Fiskars boarder punch, punched out a boarder. Within the flowers of the boarder she stuck some pearls onto the mirror board, good idea Kelsey !!!!!!. Anyway we had lots of fun doing these cards and Trevor and Joe were outside playing football which meant we had peace from the boys ;-)

Some more Tilda images

On this card I coloured my little Edwin in using colour wash pencils. Wanted this card to be multi purpose, it could be from a son to a mother, a boy to a teacher, a young romeo to a young Juliet ... you get the idea. Anyway, didn't want to take to much away from the image itself, so hence the small ribbon, apoxy sticker (hope that's spelt right) and flowers with the brad in the middle and just to smooth the edges I used my Fiskars corner rounder (yes another subtle comment there LOL).

This time I used a gate fold card with the stamped image with the little Tilda holding her teddy. Coloured in using souffle pens and some stardust to highlight the wings and the dress. Mounted onto white card and distressed the edges with a red ink pad, mounted this onto yellow card and distressed the edges again. Put 4 small brads into the corners little peel off and there we go, all done! I must admit I love sitting down and colouring in these images as they are soooooo adorable.

Clearing out some old stash

Some more cards that I made for the school fair. Enjoy, Karen

Teacher Card

I have been asked to sell some cards at my daughters school next week, so I've been busy making some easy cards to raise some funds for them. This one I used my cricut Speaking Of School cartridge. Once I had my sizes sorted out it was simple enough to colour along the theme of schooling, also the fact that the kids finish in 5 weeks, thought I better start. Used one of my Edwin stamps and put him sitting onto of a pencil, thought this looked pretty good and a different way to use this stamp. I coloured him in using my Sakura souffle pens as I wanted to see how it turned out, I'm pretty impressed with the colours, what do you think? I never know if you should put a smile on his face or not and if you should colour his skin in? Any advice on these matters would be gratefully appreciated :-)

New scrapbook pages

Well as promised, these are the scrapbook pages that I made while staying at Portrush. I tried out some new techniques for me such as paper waving, using rub ons onto scrapbook pages, and chipboard shapes onto the pages. The papers that I used are Heidi Grace (obviously knowing me)cute cakes for scrap 1, Orchard and Flower papers for scraps 2 - 5 and Frost Boulevard for scrap 6. I also used my rubberstamps that I won from The Secretcrafter Forum challenge to spell out the surnames Galbraith and Monaghan and cut from scrap pieces of paper. I really enjoyed myself when I was making these papers as it gave me and my OH the opportunity to remember our BIG DAY all over again. I used small tabs alongside most of the pictures so in years to come people will know who exactly is in the pictures. Hope you enjoy them xoxo

Kelsey's 1st ever scrapbook pages

When we were away last week, I promised Kelsey that her and I would sit down together and work on some scrapbook pages just for her, well these are her results. I had pictures taken from her 5th & 6th birthday parties and we got to work. On her 5th birthday page she cut out different sized triangles from some Heidi Grace papers that I had (she has learnt all about triangles in school and could name them all with their proper names, but to me a triangle is a triangle:-) With a couple of strips of papers down the sides she wanted to "frame" the pictures as such, lastly she used my Fiskars heart shapes and mounted a heart picture of her cake onto another piece of scrap paper. She wrote around the edges (well mummy did as instructed by her) the words to happy birthday, punched some small hearts out and glued them together to make flowers and finished with flower sequences. Finally she coloured in some stickers that I had with Sakura souffle pens to spell out "5 today, my cake ! and 10.02.02" With the papers that I gave her she did a brilliant page and now I feel more happy letting her play with some more of my "special" papers.

For her 6th birthday scrapbook page she wanted to use something bright as on that birthday we had a magician who came with coloured birds as you can see on some of the pictures. She cut out the pictures using my Fiskars shape cutter again, and wrote around the frames who everybody was in that particular picture. On the right hand side of the page she wanted to "lift" the words so again scraps of papers and layered them up. When she was finished she didn't like the way the papers looked so she took some more of my sakura pens and went around the scalloped edges to try and split them a bit more. I had definitely learnt a lot from Kelsey this week with regards to scrap booking as she gave me a different way to look at things.

Well what do you think? Any comments left I will let Kelsey read them but I cannot tell you how PROUD I am of her and to be honest, I think she is dead chuffed herself by the way they turned out.

Just need to get her pictures developed that she took in Scarborough/York and then she can fly on and make her own school holiday scrapbook, Mummy needs to get her finger out I think

:-O

Just back ......

Hi everyone, I'm just back today from my holidays at the NW200. Had a brilliant week except for our local hero Robert Dunlop dying on Thursday night due to an accident. I was speaking to Robert earlier on Thursday at the pits and he was so excited about racing in the 250cc you can only imagine how sad we all felt when we heard of his sudden death, and I'm not ashamed to say it but I shed more than one tear and cried even more when his eldest son Michael won the 250 race on Saturday, the cheers from the crowds was very emotional to say the least.
Well on a more happier note, I did do some crafting in my little mobile caravan over the week, mostly scrap booking and I hope to have the pictures uploaded tomorrow for all of you to see. I even got Kelsey to do her first 2 scrapbook pages and she was so happy with the outcome that I think she is now addicted as she is talking about doing a scrapbook all about her recent school trip to Scarborough and York.
The weather here has been brilliant, averaging 19c and my little freckles are starting to appear on the face, this is a good sign :-)
Going to bed now as I'm exhausted after 5 hours of washing and ironing that needed to be done, no time for card making today, but tomorrow is a new day.
Come back tomorrow for pictures of my new scrapbook pages and let me know what you think, nite nite for now Karen xoxo

Some Scrapbook Pages

Well after tidying up my photos the other evening, I came across a few photos that I decided to make scrapbook pages with. The 1st is the Def Leppard concert that Trevor and I went to in 2002. This was the 3rd time that Def Leppard had been to Belfast but only the 1st time for me as I was too young or pregnant the other times. Had a BRILLIANT night, couldn't believe how much older they looked, but they could still rock my boat for sure :-)

The 2nd page is the school pictures of my brothers and I when we were at primary school. Don't I look so innocent, a wee angel?

Lastly is Our William, my OH's 1st son and basically he is not allowed to see him by his ex-wife (don't want to go into it here), so when we find his pic in the local paper, we keep it to show him when he gets older. I used my 1st ever tea fold on this page, top right hand side, I think it turned out ok but added a few tear drop gems just to give it a slight lift.

Hope you enjoy, I feel like I'm getting better at this but still not as good as other scrapbook pages that I can find on here. See you all soon Karen xoxo

Cass's 5000 hit Candy

To celebrate 5000 hits, Cass is giving away some great candy. Why not go over and take a look :-)

Michelle's blog candy

Michelle has received over 50,000 hits on her blog, and as a wee treat she is giving some lucky blogger some candy. All you need to do is leave a comment on her blog telling her your favourite colour and post a link from your blog to her's - easy :-)

Busy busy busy

Well, it's been a few days since I last posted a comment on my blog, it's just that I've been so busy working in my garden. Over these last 3 days my OH has arranged a delivery of top soil as our garden has a slight slope, he arranged for (wait for it) 32 Tonne, yes 32 tonne of top soil to be delivered and I haven't been able to get out of our house since Monday as I've been working with him to get it shifted from the front of the house to the back.
Hopefully we will see our driveway again at some stage today, if the rain stays away that is. All I can say is "Thank You God" for keeping the sun out, I don't know what is mud embedded into my skin or is it suntan? Yes I have been showering but I still feel dirty:-(
Might get making more cards tonight as I'm for the NW200 this incoming week - big bikes, leather, speed (stop drooling Karen).

See ya all soon, Karen

My 1st ever Tilda Card

Well here it is, after some serious consideration before purchasing these stamps, I threw head to the wind and went ahead, an investment that's how I'm talking myself around. Anyway here is the first card that I have finished, its Tilda with bird. Isn't she pretty!!!

Firstly I took a pearlescent card and embossed with my new Fiskars hearts textured plate. Next stamped my Tilda with stazon and colour washed with Caran D'Ache pencils (ssh they are my OH's), cut her out on an oval shape, distressed the edges a little, and mounted onto a 2 toned card that I had. Finished off with some ribbon in a double not down the side, rounded the corners, added adhesive gems to the corners.

I decided to go with the bird as a robin as today, although it was 26C here, when I was outside working in the garden I saw a little robin and he sat and watched me hanging out my clothes. Thought he was cute.

I'm really chuffed with the way this card turned out and using the pencils was a lot easier to colour wash, plus it gave me a better colour spectrum to work off. Think these will end up in my drawer tonight :-)

Quilled flower card

Evening everyone, well as this is my OH last night of night shift, I decided to spend a bit of time on my quilling - I haven't done any in ages. So I thought I would try this out. I quilled the flowers first using 2 different colours in 2 different sizes of papers. Next I make some stems and petals from green velum. Found the piece of paper that I used for my backing, cut into 3cm strips and glued either side of the card, then started gluing the quilled velum down. I think it turned out ok plus it was very messy with all the glue, but I loved it. What do you think? Sorry it's not really in focus, I'm a bit tired now :-(

Secret Craft challenge

OK everyone, there is a brilliant new forum just opened and every month this lovely lady is giving away free goodies in her challenge. This month it is to design a male theme card and the picture above is what you could win. So could you all enter the forum, some lovely people in there, and you never know, you might win the stamps. I won last months so there is hope for everyone. Karen

Sammi's blog candy

Oh I'm a hunting good tonight!!! Lot's of blog candy to be found and Sammi is giving away some gorgeous stuff for hitting 1,000 hits (wonder if I should do the same?) Anyway her conditions for entering the candy give away are post a card/scrapbook in a French theme, or post a link on your blog to hers, obviously I choose the second option. If you want a laugh go over to the comments and read my comment, tried to write French something which I haven't done in oh let me see ........... I was 16, GCSE's Mr Halliday, could speak it not write it (that's etched in my brain) OMG 18 years - I am getting old :-(

Kitty's blog candy giveaway

Kitty is giving away from blog candy and you have a choice of which stamping bella you would like if you should win. All you have to do is put a note on your blog to say about my blog candy giveaway, put a link from your blog to mine and leave me a message on here that links to your blog!!! The winner will be drawn at random on Wednesday 7th May!! Good luck everyone!!

Susie's 10,000 hit candy

Hi all, Susie over at white ribbon cards is celebrating her 10,000 by offering this wonderful candy to some lucky crafter. All you have to do to enter is, leave a comment on her blog and post a link from your blog to her's - how easy is that? So go ahead over take a look and comment on her blog. Karen

It's Ila's birthday candy blog

On the 6th of May, Ila will be celebrating her birthday and both herself and her daughter Trina are offering Blog Candy on their blogs! There are two different ways to enter this blog candy...
1. Tell Ila what your favorite stamp is and leave a link to it ...so she can view it ...or leave a link to a card that is already made using your favorite stamp. **(You do not have to make a card ...the link can be to a card made by anyone that has used your favorite stamp)**
OR
2. Spread the word about my blog candy on your blog.

I love using this stamp as it was one of the 1st ones I ever bought. On this card I stamped the image using stazon, gave the card a water coloured effect background using my sakura stardust pens, coloured in my fairy girl using both diluted and concentrated stardust. Hope you can see the glitter on some of the flowers. I love using her as you can 3d her, stamp her wings onto velum and then they move. Mostly I love using this stamp as I wish I was this skinny and could get away with wearing a leopard print dress :-)

Anyway why not enter this birthday candy blog and see if you have any better luck than me.

Karen

Beth's 100th post blog candy

Over on Beth's blog to celebrate her 100th post she is giving away some candy. I have entered with this card. I used some of my papercraft 4 you papers and 2 of their rubber stamps, the Hollyhocks and the sentiment saying "The way to know life is to LOVE many things." I thought after today was just a wonderful day and that I got planting more bulbs into my garden that I should go with a flower theme. I water coloured in the Hollyhocks image using my whispers stroke pens, it took me 4 attempts to get it right as I still can't get the water colouring technique right. Rounded the corners of using my fiskars corner edgers (love these scissors as they have 4 different cuts in one pair of scissors BRILLIANT). Layered some soft pink card to co-ordinate with the backing papers and 3d some flower heads. Hope it comes out clear on the picture. My OH has told me that I'm not allowed a new camera as this one is less that a year old, ba humbug!!

Christmas 91 & 92

This is a scrapbook page that I worked on today, found the pictures while tidying up yesterday. In Feb 1992 I left home aged just 17 and it's amazing to see the difference in me over that year just looking at these 2 pictures. The first picture 1991 is my whole family including my 3 brothers. The second picture includes my aunt (who I made the 65 today card for) and my nanny who passed away in 2001.

I'm not to good at the scrap booking, but I like what I've done here, tried to split the page in 2 by using another 12x12 sheet and cut around the flowers to distinguish between the 2 years. The tags beside the pictures open up and tell you who everybody is, plus a wee comment from me.

Hope you like, Karen

Kelsey's home!!

Kelsey arrived home yesterday after her 4 day stay in Scarborough/York with her school. They were suppose to be in at 10.00pm but didn't arrive until 10.40pm - delayed boat. She is knackered and couldn't wait to give everyone their presents. She bought me a lovely dolphin keyring - I'm addicted to key rings :-)

Anyway, the OH is working tonight so I will be able to post some things that I made these past couple of days, a few more cards and some more scrapbook pages.

Have to go now as the ironing needs done :-(

Speak soon

Karen