About Me

My photo
Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom
I have been crafting since May 2008, when in desperation to find an unusual birthday card for my Mum, I gave up looking in the shops and decided to have a go at making my own. I soon realised that crafting is addictive and I haven't brought a card since. In 2011 I completed my certificate in papercrafting as a result of the work I did as part of the course I started entering challenges on line and in magazines. I applied for design teams and also started making samples for Ooh La La Creations for their shows on Create and Craft. I have now completed my Diploma in professional crafting and most recently been runner up in the Papercrafter of the Year 2013 a competition run by Papercraft essentials magazine, I don't have a particular style I like to use elements from lots of styles and techniques, although I do love all things vintage. In 2014 I started to move more towards scrapbooking to take care of the huge family archive of photographs that were stored in my attic. I have continued cardmaking and Scrapbooking through 2015 and 2016 but have also become interested in off the page projects. I hope to be able focus on these in the future.

Monday 31 March 2014

For a Child at Ooh La La Creations.

Good Morning everyone, firstly thank you for all your projects last week for a special lady. there were some cgorgeous makes to find out who the winner is check out the blog at Ooh La La Creations.

This week our challenge is

For a Child 

I chose to use the Ooh La La CD 'Nursery Times' for this one

 you can get a copy from teh Ooh La La Creations Shop 




I used a 6x6 card blank to create a simple easel card. The base was covered using a piece of 'page curl' paper from the CD, I love using these style papers from the Ooh La La CDs as the inside of easel cards. I used another paper to cover the front and back of the card from the same CD.

Keeping with the Purple and Yellow of the backing paper inside the card I cut two clock faces one with roman numerals and one with actual numbers from yellow card and then stuck these onto Purple pearlised card. I cut the hands from the purple card and stuck them to the clock face with brads so that the hands will move,

Having printed out the lines from the nursery rhyme I stuck the larger of the clock faces to the front of the card and set the hands to One o'clock. I then added the image topper and used the lines from the nursery rhyme as a stopper for the easel and added the smaller clock face to the base of the card.

Saturday 29 March 2014

A bit of Bingo at Through the Purple Haze

This weeks challenge at Through the Purple haze centres round the bingo grid below



I chose Flowers bling and purple and her is what I have come up with


The papers and image are from the MCS 6th Anniversary CD Elegant Ladies CD. I changed the colour of one of the papers from pale pink to purple using teh MCS graphics programme. The flowers and leaves are hand cut from a MCS paperstash pad and I shaped them using a ball tool. I added some black gemstone flourishes, and the butterflies are made from Martha Stewart Paper Clay aand dusted with cosmic shimmer mica powder and then glazed with glossy accents.





I used the main background paper inside the card as well and used the digital punch option to add the circle that contains teh sentiment to teh right hand page.

I am entering this card in the following challenges






Wednesday 26 March 2014

Fab and Funky Christmas

Firstly huge thanks to everyone who entered our Masculine challenge last week. There were some fabulous entries and you can find the winners over on the Fab n Funky challenge blog.

This week as it's the last Wednesday in the month the challenge is Christmas so dust off your Christmas supplies and give it a go not only could you win a prize from our fabulous sponsor


You'll also have a least one more card for your Christmas pile this year.

As always the DT were given some great images to work with and I chose Winter Greetings - The Stockings Were Hung as my image to create a card in non traditional Christmas colours. 


I coloured teh stamp using Sakura glaze pens to give a lovely glossy effect and a subtle sparkle to the outer sentiment ring. I then fussy cut around the stockings and removed the white background. The image was then mounted on a pale turquoise paper and the circle cut round before the whole image was mounted on the bright pink paper and then a different turquoise paper. 

A spot of stickles iridescent glitter on the top of the stockings adds sparkle and there you have it a really quick and easy  card to make.


Wednesday 19 March 2014

Boys to Men at Fab n Funky

Good morning and thank you for all your beautiful animal creations for last weeks challenge you can find out if you are a winner over at the blog at Fab n Funky.

This week our challenge is

Boys to Men 
(male themed designs for young or old) 

We are once again sponsored by 


I chose to work with her image called Charlie Fishing.


I used an 8x8 Kraft card base for the design. I coloured Charlie with coloured pencils using a paper stump to blend the colours and adding a layer of glossy accents over the water to give a glossy finish. I cut the image out using an x-cut label die and then matted it onto pale green and deep burgundy card, from American Crafts. 

The papers are from an Ooh La La CD - Yesterday's Memories and these were also mounted onto green and burgundy card. I created a 'Willow Tree' for Charlie to sit under using a Tattered Lace die and green and burgundy card. I also coloured the Gone Fishing sentiment with coloured pencils and mounted it onto scraps of card and added die cut Bulrushes in front. 

I tucked a bit of net bag which once contained fresh tomatoes behind the image.


As a finishing touch I added a fishing bag rod, hat and a feather fly that I made myself from some feathers in my stash. 

I am entering this into the following challenge
http://throughthepurplehazechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/  Anything goes and this is one is without the bling option 

Monday 17 March 2014

To a Special lady at Ooh La La Creations

Good Morning, Firstly thank you for all your wonderful entries in our Happy Anniversary challenge it was actually my turn to pick the winner and it was a really difficult job I have to tell you. To see if it was you check out the Challenge Blog over at Ooh La La Creations. Whilst you're there why not have a go at our latest Challenge which is .......

To a special Lady 

Having had a dalliance with scrapbooking over the past two challenges I am back to Cards for this one as I needed a card for a dear friends birthday 

I used papers and images from the 'Yesterday's Memories' CD 
You can get your copy from the Ooh La La Creations shop.


One of my favourite things on the Ooh La La CDs is the woven effect paper and I knew I wanted to use it on this card. However because I wanted the soft grey of the American Crafts card I was using to show through I spent around an hour cutting all the little black squares away to leave just the patterned weave. This also had the effect of adding texture to the background of the card. The image is called 'Lady with Roses' and I just know my friend will love the soft pastel tones. I added some tiny pearls to the line of her dress her bow and her earrings, and added three pearls at the top of the image. I matted her onto grey card stock from American Crafts and also matted another piece of patterned paper from the  same design set onto the card to make a further layer. 

The tag is also off the CD and I matted this onto the same grey card stock.

I added a doily, some grey sating ribbon, a pearl flourish - also from the Ooh La La craft shop.

I finished off with three die cut flowers coloured with Promarkers, Vanilla and Blossom. and added pearl centres.

My friend is a very special lady and since we first started writing to each other as pen pals in 1998 she has always been there to share the good and bad times with me. We live on opposite sides of the country and both work so we don't see each other very often, but every time we meet up we just carry on the conversation as if we have not spent months apart.


I am entering this into the following challenge
http://throughthepurplehazechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - Anything goes with optional use that bling

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Animals at Fab n Funky

Good Morning everyone, firstly thank you for all the lovely entries into our Heatstroke challenge, I have to say they were all really 'hot' and warmed up the March evenings looking at them all. To find out if you were our winner please check the blog over at Fab n Funky

This week our theme is.....

Animals (no people allowed)

We have a brand new sponsor for this challenge in the shape of  


They have some wonderful images on their website and don't just provide digi stamps but also cross stitch kits and a range of fine art items also. 

I worked with their image called Wild 3 to make a get well card for my cousin who has recently undergone an operation to remove a brain tumour. He now has a long course of treatment to undergo and we are all hoping and praying he will make a full recovery. 


I coloured the image using coloured pencils, I don't use any particular fancy artists pencils, in fact I have a set of stubby pencils from my local supermarket which cost me under a fiver, from their kids art section. They have quite soft leads so lend themselves to blending and I use a paper stump to this, I will sometimes soak the tip of the stump with alcohol by placing it on the end of one my alcohol blending pens that I use with my Spectrum Noirs or Promarkers, but I usually just use the stump dry. I highlighted the fur by adding random strokes of colour from a metallic copper Jelly roll pen.

The paper is from a my craft studio CD Silhouettes with style. It actually comes up a pale pink on the CD but with a bit of manipulation the colour controls I managed to give it a lovely warm orange colour.  I really like the look of a stamped border on this paper and felt that the wild grasses fitted really well with the Tiger. To add to the background I also die cut two branches from black card and stuck these down before adding the image and the sentiment. 

I used bright orange and black card from American crafts to add some layers behind the background, image and sentiment. 

My cousin loved his card.

Tuesday 11 March 2014

For a dear Sister

This week at Through The Purple Haze Challenges, they are asking that everyone uses digital elements in their crafting, one of the sponsors is Crafts U Print and they are offering a free download if you sign up to their news letter so when I saw this design up for grabs I signed up and hers is a card for my Sister-in-Law's birthday.




The design sheet consists of the base image and two layers of printed decoupage elements but I wanted to add even more dimension so I shrank the image down to fit a 6x6 square card this meant I could get two copies of the sheet onto a A4 page. I actually changed the colour slightly using MCS professional, this gave a more yellow tint to the roses and I also added the 'For a Dear Sister' text and colour matched it to the green of the leaves. I printed two A4 sheets which gave me 4 images and 8 layers of decoupage to play with.

I trimmed around the edge of the main image and then mounted this onto black card and trimmed to leave a thin border. The second image I trimmed to the inner white border, From the 3rd image I took the front of the envelope, the flowers, the butterflies and the bow and from the 4th image I took the flowers, the butterflies and the bow.


I started off by using a large ball tool to shape the 'cushion' I had trimmed from the second sheet and then used glue gel to add this over the main image so that it had a curved appearance. I also added dimension to the envelope by shaping just the front part I had clipped from the third image and using glue gel added it over the envelope image. I added five layers of decoupage to the flowers using the elements trimmed from sheets three and four and the decoupage elements from the sheets and added three layers to the bow and two layers to the butterflies.

The backing paper if from the MCS CD 'Shabby Sweet' and this was mounted onto black card and trimmed to cover the base of the twisted easel I had made. I used more layers of decoupage for the easel stopper along with some spare butterflies. To finish I coated the 'cameo' on the envelope with glossy accents and added some mini pearls. I also added mini pearls in pink to the lace pattern on the envelope and two pearls to the greeting. I picked out some of the flowers with glossy accents to give them a sheen.

I realised that the card would not fit in a standard envelope so I made a little box.


Using cream card and I added a decorated panel to the lid with the same backing paper, and what was left of the decoupage elements, and some pearl swirls.


So here is the finished card and box.

I am entering this card into the following challenges
http://throughthepurplehazechallenges.blogspot.co.uk/ - use digital elements
http://trimmiescraftchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - mother/female


Wednesday 5 March 2014

Heat Stroke at Fab n Funky

Hello, Firstly thank you to everyone who entered our Christmas Challenge last week. There were as always some gorgeous cards. To see if you are a winner check out the blog at Fab n Funky Challenges..

Our theme this week is ....

Heat Stroke
That can be Summer themed, or hot colours We are sponsored this week by


The sponsor images were snapped up by the team Funky girls for this one as it was their turn this week, and you can see their fabulous designs over on the blog. I decided because although a team Fab girl myself I still wanted to join in with this Funky challenge so I used an image called Lizzie from Stamp Art by Kathryne, which I already had in my stash.


I decided to use paper piecing on the card and went for a central stepper card fold. I used My Craft Studio to print a piece of card with the yellow and blue spotted papers and the stripy paper into 3 of the four quadrants of a piece of white A4 card leaving the fourth quadrant plain white. I then sized the image to fit one of the quadrants and used the copy and past function to place an image into each of the four quadrants and then used the card that I had already printed and ran it through the computer a second time 

I was then able to fussy cut the parts of the image from each of the three on the patterned sections of the card. I coloured Lizzie and her towel using Promarkers, 
Skin - Ivory, Satin Dusky pink 
Hair - Spice, Honeycomb and Cinnamon 
Towel - Sky Blue, Cyan, Yellow, Sunflower Bright Orange and Honeycomb

Once Coloured I added the patterned sections of card to the parasol and her bikini and then fussy cut the whole image and mounted her on a die cut circle. I used yellow card mounted on black to give the effect of the sun and then used the patterned papers I used in the paper piecing mounted on black card to mat and layer on the card blank.

I added two computer generated sentiments to finish.

I am entering this card into the following challenge 

Monday 3 March 2014

Happy Anniversary at Ooh La La

Good Morning and firstly thank you for all your wonderful entries into the Fashionista challenge as always you can find the winners by going over to http://ooh-la-la-creationschallenges.blogspot.co.uk/. This time it is my turn to choose a theme and as the challenge runs for a fortnight and encompasses what would have been my Mum and Dad's Wedding Anniversary, I have chosen ....

Happy Anniversary

I lost my Mum in 2009 and so don't get to make an anniversary card for both of them any more so I decided that I would again do a scrapbook page of photographs from their wedding and their golden wedding. 

 

I used a plain linen card as the base and chose papers from Yesterday's memories the flowers in the golden vases and from the Sean Jenkins collection the swirl patterned paper, you can buy both these CDs here.


When Mum passed away Dad gave me an old box full of photos including their original wedding album and my favourite picture from that is one of them cutting the cake because it just shows how much in love they were and why they were married for fifty eight years at the time of Mum's passing, I used that as the main focus of the first page and printed off two smaller images also of them cutting the cake. I wanted to try hidden Journalling for this project so used a deep cream card stock which I embossed and then added black pearls to, As a child my  Mum showed me a piece of icing she had saved from her wedding cake I can remember with perfect clarity that it was cream rather than white and had a lovely lattice design piped into it and black pearls studding the edges - quite trendsetting for 1951 when it was made. I don't know what happened to that piece of icing but I can still see it so clearly, which is why I spent hours colouring white pearls with a black marker pen for this project. I stuck the embossed panel down on three sides and was then able to slot the journalling card inside with a tassel to remove it to be read.


I wanted a golden theme as it is after all about their golden wedding anniversary but I also happen to know my Mum carried gold coloured roses on her wedding day so it fitted wonderfully especially as the bouquet is on the table in front of their Wedding cake in this picture. I used a real mix of flowers some were made from heavy weight papers that had been spritzed with twinkling H2O in gold, some from white card that were coloured using various shaded of Golden Brown from the Spectrum Noir range, I also used the same pens to colour some organza flowers in my stash, and added some metal flowers which I got from a wonderful beading site. I added black rhinestone swirls from Ooh La La and these can be bought here.


For the title of the page I cut letters from gold card stock and stuck it on black card before giving it a spritz with the twinkling H2Os. I added two pictures of Mum and Dad cutting their Golden Wedding cake and they look just as much in love as they did fifty years earlier. I made a frame from Martha Stewart paper clay which I coloured using gilding wax and I used this to frame the date. More flowers and swirls of rhinestones were added to finish off. 

It was a wonderful night and Mum and Dad loved it surrounded by family and friends.