Valentines from the farm

I've two cards to share with you today. The first is a valentines card and the second is a farm inspired card for my nephew who is a dairy farmer in Devon.

First up we have this super cute mouse from purple Onion Designs who is asking if you'll be his valentines. I would, would you?  I've kept the design pretty clean and simple with just some clear sequins and a charm for decoration.I love sequins but it takes me forever to decide where to the put the shiny little things, do you struggle too??

The mouse is coloured with zig clean color brush markers and the sentiment stamp is from Simon says Stamp.

Did you get anything for Valentines? I got a great card featuring brown bears.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges

Aud Sentiments Challenge - valentines or love theme

CASology - Romance

4crafty chics - charms

And here we are onto my second card of the day. As soon as was humanly possible I bought this set as it's perfect for my family. I come from a farming background, even owning my own rare bred pigs.

We even had a pet hen called Becky. She was bullied by the other hes so she lived in the yard and actually slept with one of the sheepdogs. She was so funny. At 12 noon it was dinnertime for the dogs and Becky thought she was a dog so she would queue up with the dogs and you'd have to feed her then rush down the yard with the dogs food before Becky caught up and tried to eat the dogs food.

 He he he.

I loved making this card. Colouring the cute animals was so much fun and I love how the card came together. I hope you do to.

 The stamp set is by My Favourite things and is called The Whole Herd.  The paper is also from MFT  and is called Tranquil Textures. The animals are coloured with prismacolours.

I decorated the card with my tonic nuvo drops.

I would like to enter my farm card into the following challenges:

Stamping Sensations - Animal magic

Crafty Gals Corner - use your favourite things

Words to craft by  - celebrations - birthday

Crafty Hugs

H xxx

Be your own kind of Beautiful

I love my Stamping Bella stamps. It's a serious addiction that I don't want to be cured of.

Today I have a card I made specifically for the Stamping Bella Challenge.  Later on in the blog post I'll share the photo's from my birthday spa day at Crewe hall from yesterday so if you're here just for the card you don't have to plough through stuff to get to the card.

The image is called Tiny Townie Garden Girl Lily of the Valley and I've coloured her with my zig clean color markers. The patterned papers are by My favorite things and is called Tranquil Textures. I've followed the sketch below and embellished with Tonic Nuvo drops (another addiction)

The other challenge I wish to enter is the Ribbon Girl challenge which an anything goes challenge but you must of course use ribbon. My ribbon running along the bottom of the card.

Now onto yesterday's trip to the spa at Crewe Hall.  We all had a treatment and spent time in the pool and jacuzzi and then after a 3 course lunch we went to look around the hall.

If you ever get a chance to look around the hall I highly advise it as it's so beautiful with some of the most beautiful rooms I've seen anywhere. Here are a few photo's of the hall plus a group photo of myself and my 7 friends/relatives.

Cheers everyone and don't forget to follow me,

Hugs

H xx

Give us a Hug

Here in Lancashire , England its very grey and dismal and tomorrow it's forcasting snow!!

  We can't have snow coz me and my friends are off for a spa day at Crewe Hall.

Hopefully I'll have some photo's of the day to share tomorrow or Monday.

Today I have my Dad's Valentine's card for my Mum to share with you.

I love Purple Onion Design stamps by Stacey Yakula.

 Here I've combined her cute squirrel with some of my new goodies I got from Seven Hill's crafts with the last of my birthday money.

I'll list all of the items used below the photo with links to where I got them.

Here you can find links to all my supplies.

Cinnamon the Squirrel 

Hugs sentiment

Hugs Die Cut

Background stamp

Cinnamon the squirrel is coloured with my Zig clean colour markers and fussy cut out to stand on top of the hugs die cut which is made of 5 layers of die cuts, which are inked with matching inks as the background and around the card edge. Finally it has a layer of spectrum sparkle clear pen and then glossy accents.

I wish to enter it into the following challenges

Seven Hills Crafts colour challenge.

Addicted to CAS - Challenge 104 Pets 

(I did have a squirrel live in my bedroom for 2 days on my parents farm)

Words to craft by - Celebrations (Valentines day)

Thanks for calling by today. I really do appreciate every one that pops by and leaves a message too.

Please feel free to follow me either here, on Pinterest or on Instagram,

H xx 

A new baby is a great reason to smile

One of my best friend's is due to become an auntie in 6 months and wanted me to make a card to congratulate her brother and sister in law on their wonderful news.

I struggled with a background on this card for ages until I remembered my gorgeous WRMK next level embossing folders. They are amazing and create such a deep emboss. I need them all he he.

So here is the card I came up with.

See I told you the embossing was amazing!!

So let me tell you what I've used.

The elephants are by Favorite Things and are coloured with prismacolor pencils.

The Congratulations die cut is from a Simon says Stamp die and is coloured with distress inks.

The couple's name is stamped using a Lawn Fawn alphabet.

I love how this card has turned out. I really love the clean and simple style and am trying my hardest to do that style justice as there's some amazing CAS cardmakers out there.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges.

Addicted to stamps - love theme

Stamping Sensations - Animal Magic

See you next time 

H xx

#mftstamps  #lawnfawn  #simonsaysstamp

You're Lovely

So how's you're weekend gone? Have you been busy and not had a minute to sit down or have you spent it relaxing and crafting?  I live a ground hog day most days with my days spent either crafting, walking the dogs or just hanging out and cuddling my dogs. I have 3 labrador's who are our children and we couldn't bear to live without a single one of them although they all have their own moments!

Leah is a yellow lab, aged 8 and full pedigree. Next is Ember who is a labrador cross bloodhound. She's black and aged 3. Finally we have the mad baby. He's called Rollo and is a labrador cross springer spaniel. He's only 18 months old and is a beautiful liver colour. But he's a complete nutter and he's really got springy legs as he jumps at the front door and nearly reaches the top!

I'll try and get a photo of them tomorrow but I'm guessing it'll be single shots unless they're all asleep.

So onto the card. Not my usual card but it was my first attempt at using my zig clean color real brush markers that I got for Christmas off my family. I used Arches cold pressed watercolour paper after watching loads of video's to see what is the best paper to use with the zigs. I think this paper works great with the zigs and found it easy to blend the colours. I heat embossed the flowers by Paper smooches in white embossing powder. The sentiment is from the same stamp set and is heat embossed also.

These are the challenges I wish to enter:

Case This Sketch  - using the sketch below

Penny Black Challenge Blog -- Anything Goes

A poorly teddy for The Seven Hills Challenge Blog

I'm trying to build up my stash of cards for friends and family to pick from and include as wide a variety of occasions as poss. And so with that said here is a very poorly teddy from Stamping Bella's stuffies line. I love this range of stuffed animals and have quite a few but obviously not enough. Because we can never have enough can we?

The super cute bear has been coloured with either my polychromos pencils or my prismacolor pencils, I can't remember which. I'm sorry.

The heart border, cut in mirri card, is by Mama Elephant and the Get Well die is by Paper Smooches.

I'm afraid I don't know the make of die used to frame the bear as it came from a friend.

The inside of the hearts of the frame have been coloured with spectrum noir sparkle pen for some added shimmer. The get well is coated with glossy accents and sprinkled with Tonic ultra fine glitter.

I've followed along with the sketch that has been provided by Seven Hills Crafts Blog. I love a good sketch, especially one that leans towards the clean and simple style as I'm not one for adding lots and lots of embellishments and die cuts.  Here's the sketch.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back again with another card but I suppose I shouldn't temp fate should I!??!??!

Craft hugs

H xx

Anything Goes at Through The Craftroom Door

I added this card to my previous post but as I cannot add the same link twice to the challenge so here it is. If you want to read my rambling from my previous post you can find it here. 

There's some lovely cards so worth a nosey lol.

Through the craft room door challenge

Anything goes

A couple of challenge cards

  So since leaving the Crafters Companion Die'sire design team in august last year I've really struggled with my craft mojo. I went from racing along at warp speed producing sample after sample with no breaks to having all the time in the world. No deadlines, no extra work sneaked in etc. Now don't get me wrong I loved my time there but the workload became unreal near the end and I was on the verge of handing my notice. I decided to wait to see how I felt after my spinal surgery. I'd still work during my recovery as like I said I loved my time with them but that decision was taken out of my hands and the email I received to tell me my time was over could have really been written better but such is life.

So here I am no design team work to do, fully recovered from the spinal surgery and slowly getting back into the swing of things. I thought it'd help me if I joined in on some challenges and here are my cards. If you would like any details please just ask me and I'll happily reply.

Stamping Bella Friday challenge

This is the sketch I followed

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Through the craft room door challenge

Anything goes

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 Stamping Bella Friday challenge

This is the sketch I followed

 ..................................................

Through the craft room door challenge

Anything goes 

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Fusion card challenge

I used the sketch and the colour

Crafty Hugs

H xxx