Well.. What a lovely surprise!

I have been honoured with a Blog Award!  My first award, How very exciting!

I have received the Liebster award from Carol whose blog truly is an inspiration to me, her work is stunning and her parchment is a dream!  Thank you so much Carol.. I am thrilled by the award!

Now.. there are rules to follow when you get this award (which is all very new to me) and they are as follows..... (copied and pasted from Carols Blog...)


I must pass on the award to five other people, who's blogs have inspired me, It also needs to be someone who has less than 200 followers.

Put a comment on their blog, so that they know about it.

Link back to the person who gave me the award and thank them.

Post the award on my blog.

So. who are my 5?  Hmmm, the key is the less than 200 followers....  so over my coffee I have been looking at the blogs that instantly jumped to mind.... (sadly some of them are just wayyyyyy too talented and popular to fit the criteria! LOL)  But.. my five are....

Angela....  http://owl-lady-crafting.blogspot.com/

Lou P ......   http://l00pyscraftcreations.blogspot.com/

Sue.......   http://sue-hickey.blogspot.com/

Stella.....  http://bellacraftycards.blogspot.com/

and finally, a new blog....  which I am sure will beat the 200 fairly quickly, but at the moment qualifies!    Tis slightly cheating... but, I have seen behind the scenes on her Facebook page, and the artwork and cards produced cannot fail to inspire...  so my final award goes to...

Kelly.....  http://inkedpaws.blogspot.com/


All of these blogs have filled me with ideas, and have registered high on my envy chart due to the quality of work and sheer yummyness they contain!

Right... off to pass on the news.....   hugs all  and thank you to Carol again!
xxxxx

Bit of an Arty Experiment

which worked!!!   Well.. I think it did!! :-)

Hello.. sorry I have not blogged for ages, been busy and well.. busy!!  But I went to a party last weekend, and there must be something in the dishwasher chemicals my friend uses, cos I felt rather fragile the next day...  Must have been the chemicals.. can't have been the wine now can it!!!

Anyway..  I wanted to craft, but my brain was full of cotton wool and I had no inspiration at all... so I decided to play with all my new "Messy Stuff" and see what happened.....  and this did....

(long post.. hope you are comfy!!)

Right.. I took a sheet of A4 card stock, and I randomly spritzed it with misting sprays etc....

The cat helped.....

Then I randomly stamped all over it....

Then I stuck a stamped sheet of ATCs on the back.. which I wrote on AND numbered, so I couldn't cheat and not make the full set!

And cut them all out........

Then I was a Very Big and Very Brave Girlie.....  and I dived into my Crafty Stuff.. and... Shock Horror.. I Used Some of it... It was a shock to the system.. but I have now recovered!!!  Here are my 9 totally random background Artified ATCs

I am sooooooo chuffed with them......  so I made them a new ATC Book to live in  (nearly finished.. promise, but I did tell you it was a long blog!!!)

Outside cover......

Inside cover...

 Inserts.... (I have fallen totally in love with Washi Tape!!)

Assembled....

 and finally all decorated....

Phew!  You will be please to know.. thats all!   Good job I don't blog very often if they are this length!!!

Right.. off I toodles..  Got some more Arty Type stuff to do to so I can fill my new book!!!
Happy Crafting all, and if you stayed with me to the end.. Gold Star to you!!! (and please leave me a comment...  makes me feel like I have friends then! LOL! x)
xxxxx

Glitter and Bling Blog Hop

Well hello again.....  if you are part of the hop.. you should have come to me from............ Linda
If you didn't... why not jump back to The Wonderful Gills blog, and hop all the way round in the Bling we have created!

Hmmm  Glitter and Bling eh... well, allow me to introduce you to the New Me!!!

This is all so new and WOW to me.. I love making cards, but I "had" a style.  Neat, tidy, precise, straight lines, balanced blah blah blah... a bit predictable! :-)  Then a while ago I joined Facebook, and then as I met more and more people, I joined Groups on Facebook......  Last year I joined a couple of amazing groups, with amazing people (and now good friends)  and I looked at their cards.....  Mindblowing!

On some of them, there was not a straight line in sight!!!!  Or any symmetric thought at all..... and the colours.....  they were wild.. and they clashed.. and THEY WORKED!!!!  It was all a revelation to me... WOW!!!!

So I started to "experiment"   and I enjoyed it. and feedback was good... so I played more.. and more....  and I bought messy stuff and played even more.....

For Christmas.. my hubby let me loose on Amazon (LOL)  and he bought me a couple of fabulous ATC books and the Wonderful Tim Holtz Companion.... he of the "drop it in a muddy puddle and kick it down the road, if possible getting it run over my a truck" style.....

Bliss!!

Christmas Day, I was a good girl, I sat and read my books (while making huge shopping lists) and I behaved......   Boxing day.. I started to play!

I think I have most of the ink and stuff off my hands now.. and my face, and in my hair.. and ears!  But been having a BLAST!

Anyway.. here is my project for the Blog Hop...   Many moons ago, I made an ATC book in a Mad Moment...  and having recently found it.. I decided to have another play.

I had a note book I had bought, and I decided to "decorate it and make it my 2012 Crafting Diary.   have so much going on.. I need somewhere to put lists of all the Blog Hops, Challanges, ATC swpaps and themes etc.....  so from this....

Via lots of paint, glitter, messy mucky stuff...

To this!

Taa Daa! LOL

Oh.. and this is the original one I made (ages ago!)

Now to trawl through the various groups and piles of paper I have with all the relevant details on.... will be so nice to have them all in one place for a change... bet I "mis-place" the book now! LOL

Happy Blog Hopping!  You are now off to...... Leslie .....
xxx

New Challenge Blog!!

Hello and Happy New Year!
Blatant Plug this blog post! :-)

I have just started a NEW Challenge Design Blog.. with Prizes!!  You can find it here.  Once a month, (I am aiming for the first of the month, but you never know when life will trip me up!!) I will upload some Freebie Papers for you all.... you print these off and make something spectacular, then you upload your project to your blog, and link my DT blog to yours (not this blog.. the one in the link above) and around the 25th of each month, the DT lot choose our favourite and the winner gets to pick a free CD from my site!  Simples as they say.. I hope! :-)

So to start off.. here is my offering for January....  I was soooooo proud of it... till the DT lot sent in their makes... Memo to self.. try harder next month, they are just so clever!!!  Would be great to see as many people join in as possible.. I am a little bit excited about this. fingers crossed it all works!

Looking forward to seeing you over there!  Happy Crafting! xxxx

Poor Messy!!!!

Hello!!!   Quick blog today and apologies for no blogging for ages.... this Christmas stuff seems to be eating into all my time! :-)

Right.. I was DETERMINED to blog this week, becasue... CD Sunday have a smashing prize on offer and I really think I need it....  The theme is Things With Whiskers, and the prize is a smashing CD by
Elegant Inspiration,  it looks fantastic... so I set to making a card!

Well... I think that is where it started to go wrong!!  I have some luvverly Messy Rabbit stamps, and they have been sitting around doing nothing.. plus I have the Messy CD.. Perfect thinks me... Messy has Whiskers.. Yayyyy!

OK....  Printer has decided to print Red again.. Grrr, so scrap the idea for a Messy CD Paper, so I spent ages rummaging through the drawers looking for printed papers.. I know I have loads... somewhere.

Right.. backing papers sorted....  stamp and heat emboss Messy, and his Garden, and his shed etc etc, and colour....  all fine

Assemble card.....  Hmmm

The first die I used to cut Messy in a aperture is quite a fiddly one, and decided not to cut fully (suddenly remember why I haven't used it for ages!!)  Ok.. try to cut all the bits out with a craft knife.. lose temper, throw across the desk and find a slightly smaller die to re-cut!

Re-cut Messy.. waving goodbye to some of my beautifully coloured (if I say so myself) sky line, and start to assemble card...

Taa-Daa... One card!  Look at it.. Hate it, un-assemble it.

Used a decent glue.. so obviously I can't get the damn topper off without ripping it.... Bye Bye more sky!

Cut around Messy to make an even smaller topper, Thought I would make a frame for this one.. possibly a shaker... no, that went wrong to, so I started to re-cut......blah blah blah....

Anyway....  Without boring you all too much, I got there in the end.... and here it is..............  are you ready??

One Messy Rabbit ATC!!!!  ROFL.. Oh well...Good Intentions and all that!  Ended up cutting Messy out totally.. my beautifully blended sky was consigned to the bin....  Messy lost his carrots... Oh the Trauma!  I managed to salvage a scrap of backing paper (printed from Bryony Bee) to cover the ATC, and that I am afraid is as good as it is going to get!!!!

While I was "on a roll" :-)  I started these two as well.. both with whiskers and CD papers...  but the way my day was going I stopped while I was ahead.. I will finish them later!

Right.. off to enter into the CD Sunday challenge, and then see what disasters I can make with my Christmas Cards!!! 
Have a great day....  If you have snow... I am jealous! LOL
xxxxx

My Favourite Things!

Well Hello!!  Here I am again as part of a Blog Hop... I Love all this Hopping about....  it easily fits into this Hops Subject Matter, which is My Favourite Things!

You should have come to me from Leslie ......  If you didn't... leap back to the start by clicking here to take you to the Wonderful Gills Blog 

Oooooo  Thought me.. easy peasy.... but... It wasn't!  Not by a long shot!  Why was it so difficult... well.. what IS my Favourite, Favourite Thing of all my Favourite Things????

Errrrrrrrrr

Errrrmmmmmmmm

Errrrrrr.. Help! :-)

So I sat and had a good Thinkies about it, and came up with a few... Obviously my friends and Family are my total favourites, but, I had other ideas too... and after much deliberating.. here they are!

While at the NEC last weekend (which is part of My Favourites for starters), My friend, who wasn't even there at the time, twisted my arm soooooooo far behind my back that the only way I could free myself was to purchase a Smash Book!!!   (You know who you are.. and I love you for it!!!!!)

and here it is.......

I love it to bits... but it did cause me problems too... as an ex Librarian.. one Does Not Write In Books!!!  Or take random bits of paper and glue them down!  And the pages are soooooooo beautiful, how could I possibly de-face them??

So... I put on my Big Girl Pants... and I picked up the Glue stick....  and.....

I HAD A BLAST!!!!!

This Smashing Lark is GREAT!!!   Deffo a Favourite Thing.....  and about a Favourite Thing too... here are my completed TWO pages.....  well.. how much do you want from me.. I can't cover every page.. this is gonna take time! LOL

Close ups.....

OK.. it may not seem much to the experienced Smasher.. but to me... I am soooooo Proud of me.. I SMASHED!!!!  Yayyyyy

My next page is all under construction too.. here is a sneakie Peekie.....

There was a double spread with a smashing picture of Old Bikes... Perfect I thought for a page about Matilda-Rose...  who is Very Very high on my Favourite Things list... just waiting to all be Smashed into place a some waffling to be done to fill the gaps!  For those interested.. the loose picture at the top of the page is what Matilda-Rose looks like!

Right... enough Chitter Chatter from me..... Your next Blog Hop is..................  Haidee


HAPPY HOPPING!!!!!!

Debs x

A little R and R needed!

Back from the NEC....  Had a fabulous four days, met so many old and new friends it was wonderful, and I had a blast...  Also managed to sell a few CD's :-) so the good news is... Stand B40 for those of you who can get to BlueWater in February!

A few piccies for you, only managed to take a few as we were a little tied up with customers after the show opened!


Front of the stand and all of the stand, with Camera Shy Worker Bee Hiding! :-)

My darling friends t'shirt... Bless her!

and my totally necessary shopping!!!

Roll on the next one!  Although between now and then I am going to "Practice Standing Up"  Why when I sit at my desk for 350 odd days of the year I think it is a Good Plan to stand up solid for four days I do not know, and I am a little ermmm, shall we say sore at the moment in the back department, so going to practice Standing Up on a regular basis so hopefully I don't hurt so much next time round :-)

Big hugs
xxxxx