Winter Birthday

Hello there ...

Thanks ever so much for your comments and advice following my last posting ... You guys are the best!  I am so glad that you can still access my blog now I have changed the settings ... hopefully these awful spammers will back off ...

Well it's freezing here ... The shops are full of Christmas shoppers and lots of people are braving the weather to decorate the outside of their houses with pretty lights and ribbons ... sometimes you can see a bit of a competition going on between neighbours ... who has the best display! No matter ... it does look pretty and cosy seeing the lights ...

I had to make a birthday card for my friend yesterday ... having taken ages to get into making Christmas cards all year for Jingle Belles ... I am now struggling to switch to birthday cards! I am still thinking glitter and lilac and grey ... I pondered for the longest time about this card ... fiddling with this and that ... In the end I just had to go with the glitter, the greys and the fishtails again and hope it would work ... 

What do you think?

The felt flower is cut with a Sizzix die and I find it works much easier with felt than paper ... it kind of rolls better

I'm wondering if you can see that I put little dots of liquid pearls on the tulle ... it looks so pretty IRL ... one of those things that started of as a mistake but became a nice idea

My friend like me loves all things animal print ... so I bought her a lovely top in animal print that perfectly matches paper from Basic Grey (Little black dress) ... which I used to make a matching necklace for her

I took them round this morning and she was absolutely delighted! It's such a nice feeling when you make someone smile ...

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday ... Thanks so much for stopping by .... I'll be visiting your blogs later today to see how you are and your lovely creations that always make me smile

Till soon

~ Ros ~

More Tags and Spam

Good morning everyone ...

It's frosty and cold here in the UK ... the temperatures have dropped to below freezing these past few nights ...

I am still working like crazy to get things done before I head off to Lincoln ... Seems the more cards and tags I make ... the more I need!

I finished my last week at the Thursday Club last night and all my overseas packages have been mailed ... The Royal Mail made a fortune from me I can tell you!

Today I am going to have lunch with my GF's and exchange Christmas gifts ... just in case I don't get the chance again this year ... I am praying that the Pennines will be passable in the next few weeks ...

Here are some more of my tags for this year 

I think these would look good on the gifts for the men 

I am also cutting and stitching stuff to take and make whilst I am away ... I will be on my own for a few days whilst my Aunt is in the hospital so I need something to keep me occupied.

Before I go ... I have been getting hundreds of Spam comments lately ... all from the same place ... I have changed my setting to try and stop this so would you please let me know if you have any problems  either viewing my blog or leaving comments ... I really don't want to have to use word verification unless I have to.

Thanks so much ...

Have a lovely day ... keep safe

~ Ros ~

Holiday Greenery

Hi there ...

We have a lovely inspiration photo for you at Papercraft Star this week ...

Isn't this gorgeous?

The challenge this week is "Holiday Greenery" 

I used some pretty digital papers and a sentiment stamp from Pink Petticoat along with a PaperMania holly stamp from the Home For Christmas Urban stamp set to make a more CAS card

I love these digital sentiments and the paper went perfectly with that pretty trim ... a gift from Kirsty

The holly was stamped onto some Core'dinations card stock which I hand cut then glittered before adding some bright red liquid pearls

You know I liked this so much that I actually did a few of them ...

I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the team have come up with ... why not hop over to the blog and take a look too? You may just be inspired to share your holiday greenery projects with us too ...

Have a beautiful day

~ Ros ~

Christmas Easel

Good morning to you ...

The rain is still falling in the UK ... It was estimated that a month's rain fell yesterday alone ... causing more misery for so many people and freezing temperatures are now being forecast ...

Nature can be incredibly beautiful ... but also a force to be reckoned with...

I hope you are ready for a new challenge at City Crafter where we have the lovely Linda hosting for us ... Linda is asking that we make a Christmas easel card ... Simple right?

This week we have LeAnne as our Guest Designer ... a very worthy winner from week 127 ... Please pop over and leave her some love ..

I chose to use the soft grey paper from Astrid ... I did warn you that you would be seeing this paper and colour combination again ... Not traditional I know but colours I really love together

The lilac coloured paper is from my supplies ... just from a pad of rainbow papers bought at a £1 store to which I added glitter before I adhered it to the card

The lovely ribbon is from The ribbon Girl .. pearls and crystal from my supplies

The sentiment is a WaltzingMouse stamp ... embossed with silver embossing powder and the star was cut on my big shot using a sizzix die

I do hope you can join us this week ... I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with ... 

Have yourselves a wonderful day wherever you are

Thanks for stopping by 

~ Ros ~

Floods, Firemen and Tags

Hi there ...

I hope you are having a good weekend ... 

I know lots of people in the South West of the UK are really having a bad time with the floods and high winds ... 

My thoughts are with them all ... The idea of being flooded out is awful and with only weeks to Christmas and a bad winter being forecast ... Well, I can only thank God that my family and friends are safe ... The emergency services particularly the Firemen have their work cut out!

Talking of Firemen ... Here's something that gave my husband a laugh 

I have always had a penchant for men in uniform ... maybe that stems from the fact that a few of my family are Royal Navy people ... Anyway, I answered a knock at my door a couple of days ago to find a stunningly handsome young fireman standing there ... Talk about being dumbstruck! Now I don't know about where you live ... but here we are fortunate to have the Fire Brigade come to check that we have fire alarms installed, that they work ... and in the event that you are silly enough not to have at least one ... they will install one for you free of charge. 

We have 2 alarms ... one upstairs and one downstairs ... my handsome young man came and checked both of them but just as he was about to take some details ... my name ... phone number  ... The fire engine sounded an alarm to say they had an emergency and had to go ... 

I was therefore surprised (but smiling) when the same guy came back the next evening to take details ... 

I said to my husband .. "Isn't life unfair ... why didn't that guy knock on my door 40 years ago to check out my equipment?" ... My hubby laughed and said "Well at least he came to see you twice..." "Yes ... I said ... "That's called rubbing my nose in it!" 

Ok ... onto a little creativity ... I've finally made a start on a few Christmas tags ...

I did all the wording on my computer and cut the tags on the Big shot

The paper is by Papermania 

I'm getting panicky now ... only a week till I leave for Lincoln and all the mail going abroad has to be bought, packed and sent before I go .... not to mention the Christmas shopping ... Like I said ... our forecast is to expect the worst winter in 100 years!! Sheesh! I could be in Lincoln till 2013!

Better get going ...

Enjoy your sunday ...

~ Ros ~

Happy Thanksgiving ...

To all my sweet friends ... I am so thankful for your friendships... your sharing and your caring ... have a beautiful day!

A lady I worked with many years ago asked me to make a card for her daughters' upcoming wedding ... The brief was 'traditional' ... verse not too sloppy .. That was it. But she did let me know that the wedding colours are ivory and red ...

I hope this will suffice ... 

I apologise for the photos ... we are experiencing high winds, dull skies and rain ... not perfect for photographing indoors ...

This is the box I made to accommodate the card

My card stock was printed first with Pink Petticoat digital paper from the Old Fashioned Girl collection which I slightly altered to get more of an ivory blend

The card itself is in pure white with a hint of Ivory and a single red rose

I cut a frame and embossed it then layered it onto pearlescent ivory paper before using foam pads to adhere it to the card - The frame has a scattering of perfect pearls in silver which contrast with the pearls in the little spray and on the lace

I cut the tag from the same pearlescent paper and stamped and embossed a sentiment from a WM stamp set "Text It"... 

The verse

I had a slight problem with the ribbon fraying ... so a little tip for you if you too encounter this problem ... if you hold the ribbon edge above a flame ... a candle, match or even better a lighter ... it will seal the edge. It's a bit like when you make flowers over a flame ... but be very careful you don't hold it too close or it will curl like the flowers and you want it just to seal and not curl.

Ok ... I have a group to prepare for so I'll leave you to enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner ... but before I do I just want to say Thank You to my lovely blog friend keren ... We spent a few hours together yesterday and her company was just what I needed ...

Till soon

~ Ros ~