Whoa, I feel really surprised and honoured to have recieved this award from Dawn I have seen this award on lots of blogs, but never really expected to get it myself.

You must have a look at Dawn's blog, because her work really is brilliant.

Here are the rules for the award:

(1) The winner can put the logo on her blog.

(2) Link the person you received your award from.

(3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

(4) Put links of those blogs on yours.

(5) Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you've nominated.

Not easy to choose because there are so many talented people out there,

but I'm choosing these fab people, because

I am a regular reader of thier blogs, they are always full of inspiration

and wonderful hand crafted products!

Sian
Leona
Suz
Holly
Inchy
Gill
Pattie

Do wear your awards on your blogs girls!

Do you fancy 40 days of crafting FUN??

Bev will be celebrating her 40th birthday really soon, and she has invited everyone to help her to celebrate the build up to her big day. So to do this she is setting something to participate in for the next 40 days.........Here are just a few of the things that she will be offering

RAKs

Prizes

Challenges

Come and join in the fun on Bevs blog

Sketch Saturday Challenge #5

Here is a very quick card I made for this weeks Sketch Saturday challenge! Also, of coarse it helps with the 'Dusty Stamp' challenge too!

The Pink Project

Well, I have heard today that all the pieces from participants around the globe, have now all arrived with Jo Anne in Pennsylvania, United States. Jo Anne put a call out on her blog a few months ago for contributers to send in hand made creations to her "In the Pink" Collaborative Book Project for 2008. It sounded like fun, so I applied to take part & now I am really excited & can't wait to see the finished book.

I made the little birds mini book above, as my contribution, I inked & stamped them to my hearts content before covering the top bird in 2mm pink swarovski crystals. It took a while to complete but I was really pleased with the finished product.

Jo Anne was pleased as well, because I am honoured that she liked it enough to ask if she can hand carve a stamp from the birds.

Please head on over to Jo Annes to read more about the project & to see more fantastic contributions to the project!

Thanks Jo Anne for allowing me to take part!

WOW awesome blog candy!

To find out about this awesome blog candy stash, pop over to Dana's blog and check it out, you could be the lucky winner, but hopefully it will be me LOL

Aww I have been awarded

I was given this award by the lovely Sheridan-Jade

thanks SJ I'm chuffed to bits with it!

Feeding the ducks!!

I have created this card to fulfil both the Dusty Stamp challenge, set by Gillyflower and the Arty Girlz challenge, which this week is their 40th and the prompt this week is 'Nature'.

Phew how time flies when your having fun, can it really be 40 challenges already?

The Dusty Stamp Challenge

I have been blog hopping again & was pleased to come across Gill's blog she has set herself a challenge, she calls it her Dusty Stamp Challenge & it looks a lot of fun. I think I will join in with the challenge too because stamps are one of my weaknesses, along with patterned paper, ribbon, buttons & textured cardstock.

I have bought so many stamps over the past 2 years that it's quite mad, but I just don't use them enough, in fact some of them as much as I love them I haven't used at all, but I still continue to buy LOL

Anyway, this is THE DUSTY STAMP CHALLENGE and how to play along.
The challenge is to stamp each one of your stamps and stamp sets no matter how old and dusty. then to make a card with each image. It will be fun to see what we all have hiding away (I am also making myself use up my paper scraps too, but you don't have to do that if you don't want to) the main thing is to make use of the old forgotten stamps.

It's too late in the day for me to start now, but I will definately be making my first stamped project tomorrow, I think it's going to take me a long time to even begin to find the bottom of my rubber stamp drawer, but I am determined to do it. I wonder how many stamps I have that I had forgotten that I owned!

How about you, do you know every stamp that you own, do you use all of them all the time?

Check out Gills blog & come to join in the fun too, there are no deadlines, it can all be done at your own pace!

A Scrapbook Page With A Difference

This triple page spread LO was one of the Classes taught by the fab Jane Dean during the recent GoGoGetway Retreat that I attended. I didn't manage to complete it in during the class, in fact I only managed the front page, so I brought it home with me & finished it this afternoon. I still have one photograph to add {I 'm waiting delivery of it} of my daughter in law Sarah to complete the family.

This is another 1st for me, because working with such 'busy' patterned paper is really taking me out of my comfort zone, but I am pleased with how it turned out!

Mum

This LO of my Mum, covers various challenges. I created it using Ifa's Sketch, Ifa is a member of the ScrapaGoGo Create DT, during the recent GoGoGetaway Retreat, all members were handed out a sketch by each Creat DT member to take away with us. We were challenged to make LO 's using the sketches following certain criteria & upload it to the Clubhouse by 30th June. For each LO completed following the criteria we would earn 5 raffle tickets to go in a prize draw that will take place on 1st July.

The criteria for Ifa's sketch was that it had to contain at least 50%

'October Afternoon' products.

I am pleased to say that mine does!

This LO also fulfills the topic for this weeks Arty Girlz challenge, which is

'Touch of Pink'

Why not head on over to the blog & join in, there is a great prize up for grabs!

To Celebrate my Birthday PIF

I will be sending out prizes to 3 lucky winners in this PIF

To be in with a chance of being one of the winners all you have to do is answer the following question.

1) How many colours of ribbon are in this bundle?

The person who guesses the closest will win a lovely bundle of ribbons, lace, braid & ricrac.

Then everyone that leaves a comment on my blog will be entered into a draw. I will then draw 2 names out of the box for follow up prizes.

This PIF will close on 30th June and the winners will be announced on the 1st July.

So get guessing everyone and good luck!

Birthday PIF

Tomorrow 15th June is my birthday, so in honour of all the fab Cards and RAKs that I have sat here waiting to be opened, I thought it was time that I passed on some yummy stash.

I will add details of the PIF tomorrow, but I will give you a clue ;)
If you love ribbons, lace & braid then you won't want to miss out on the opportunity to get your hands on some of this yummy stash, and there is lots to go around!

Don't forget to check back again tomorrow & tell your friends too!

Self Portrait Fun

This mini book is based on Jane Deans workshop at the GoGo Retreat, sadly, I was not well on the Sunday and stayed in my room, so I was unable to attend the workshop. Real bummer, because although I loved all the classes and teachers, I was looking forward to Janes the most. Anyway, I made this book using products from the workshop kit and JD's instruction sheet for the topper and then adapted my own style for the rest!

The photos are of my 2nd DGS Nathan that he took a couple of weekends ago while self portraiting with my camera. The photos made me laugh so much, that I knew I just had to use them in some way and the spinning topper on this mini book was the perfect solution!

It also fills the criteria for the Arty Girlz challenge #38 which is 'Faces'

Nathan, Nana will put your little book in the post to you. xx

Paint Class

This is the LO that I created during Fiona Beckmans paint class at the

GoGo Getaway Retreat last weekend.

This LO is also my entry for Arty Girlz Challenge #37

Mays DT Cards

These are 3 cards I made using the May ScrapaGoGo Greetings Kit, the top 2 are cards, and the bottom one is a gift tag.

This was such an amazing kit to work with, the papers were completely delicious and wanted to keep them as simple as I could. I used lots of Glossy Accents to enhance areas of the pattern.

I'm Retreating

I will be AWOL for the next 3 days on my ScrapaGoGo Retreat, which is being held in Hertfordshire, at Theobalds Park!

There should have lots to share with you on my return.

Tired Today

I haven't crafted today firstly because I have been very tired for some reason and slept quite a bit, and secondly because Alex went back to University today after his half term break. I always seem to have a lack of motivation on the day he returns to Birmingham *sigh*

So, rather than not blog at all I thought I would show you one a my LOs that I did some time ago, and decided to bring out for another airing :)

The photo is of Thredbo, a small town nestled high up in the Snowy Mountains in NSW Australia.
For this page I used papers by Rusty Pickle from his 'French Market' range. I also used alphabet nad snowflake rub ons directly on to acetate to create the title. I hand made the large snowflake out of mountboard and used a tiny file from a set by Basis Grey, to file in all the tiny spaces to shape it crisply. Buttons and stickles were added to just finish off!