Happy Valentine's Day

Hello ...

Just popping in to wish you all a wonderful Valentine's Day ... 

A little story for you ... 

Some years ago I was in a sad place ... it was a cold February day ... the 13th to be exact ... I was wandering aimlessly around a shopping centre ... All around were signs of Valentines day ... each shop had decorated windows with hearts and flowers ... bright red shone in the gloom and the cold of that day ... I teared up each time I saw a happy couple walking by ... laughing, holding hands ... There were many young people on the streets ... with their whole life ahead of them ... and here was I feeling lonely and unloved ...

From the midst of the crowd a young teenage girl walked up to me ... she handed me an envelope and a chocolate heart wrapped in red foil ... She smiled a sweet smile and disappeared back into the crowd.

I stood for a moment wondering what had just happened ... I looked at the envelope in my hands with the little heart shaped chocolate and opened the envelope ...

It was a pretty Valentine card ... simple in it's design ... but the words written inside said everything I needed to hear ... It simply said "I love You" ... and it was signed "Jesus"

Now I am not an overly religious person ... I have my beliefs ... I try to be a good person ... But what were the chances of that happening to me that day?  I often wonder if that young girl knew the difference she made that day ... It turned things around for me ... 

It reminded me that even in the darkest of days someone somewhere loves you ...

~~~

Look for love in the simplest of things in ... even in the the most unlikely places ... and you will find it ... 

Give out your love and it will return tenfold

Hug your kids... fuss your pets ... smile at someone ... even yourself ... you are loved!

Oh ... and I got these today ...

Happy Valentine's!

~ Ros ~

Poppies for Polly

Good morning!

A new challenge starts today at Papercraft Star ... The challenge is simply "RED"

Well, it is Valentine's Day tomorrow ... not that your project has to be Valentine related ... Mine isn't ... though it does look kind of romantic

It's my sweet SIL Pauline's (Polly) birthday today and she loves poppies ... fortunately my friend Keren gave me some lovely poppy stamps and you saw me use the smaller stamp here ... I was trying it out for this birthday card for Polly

Now you don't usually hear me say this about my own work ... But I really love this card ... 

I love that stamp and I stamped it first onto a lovely free digital ephemera paper which you can find Here and the digital postage stamp I overlaid is from The Graphic Fairy

I coloured the stem and leaves with promarkers then stamped and embossed a few more times onto DP so I could layer the petals a little - then added lots of black liquid pearls

I think Polly will really be pleased with this ...

Our team at Papercraft Star have some more lovely projects to share ... be sure to take a look 

Enjoy your day and thanks so much for visiting me ...

~ Ros ~

You Felt it ...

Hey there ... How are you?

Today I am hosting the new challenge over at City Crafter Challenge Blog ... 

Source

I just love these sweet little felt houses and I love the use of felt on projects ... so that's my challenge to you this week ...

Use Felt on your projects

Simple huh? And my card is quite simple too... made for a friend's wedding anniversary next week ... Once again I have used some of my scraps

I love grey with burgundy and I even use silver thread for the stitching .. you can click the photos to see a little clearer

The centre diamante came from a bouquet that I got for my birthday... it was set inside a rose and was just perfect for this felt flower ... The burlap leaves that you can see I hand cut from a small piece of stiffened burlap I found in my stash

Our Guest Designer this week is our winner from week 142 the talented OriBella ... click the link to visit her pretty blog ...

And we have a terrific sponsor this week ... The lovely Madeleine from 

a wonderful online store based here in the UK ... is offering a £10 gift certificate to the winner! Click on the link and take a look around her lovely site ... I can promise you that in the next few months you will be seeing a lot more of her goods here ... (Shhh! ... you didn't hear it from me)

I hope you'll find the time to join us this week ... Don't forget to take a look at the rest of our team projects for more inspiration

Ok, I'm off with my DH to his hospital appointment this morning ... what a way to spend his birthday! 

Thanks so much for your visit

Till soon, keep safe

~ Ros ~

CAS Birthday

Hello ...

Did you have a good weekend?

I have been following the weather reports and seeing the snowfall on the east coast of the USA ... My, what a lot of snow you've had ... I do hope you are all safe and warm ... We are expecting some bad weather conditions too ... Right now it's very cold ... snow is on the way ... I am hoping that I will be able to travel to Lincoln next weekend ... we'll just have to see

Tomorrow is my husbands birthday ... He also has an appointment at the eye hospital so we will no doubt be there for hours ... Still, I am taking him to dinner in the evening so that should make up for it ...

I made 2 cards for him ... one from me and one from my son ... I can only show you one as the other is part of an upcoming DT project ... This is just a clean and simple card

This is a new stamp from PTI but I used different cardstock and it's not as clear as I would have hoped

neither are my photos ... 

I'm not sure that the scoring even shows up ...

I have no idea where the paper is from ... It was just a 6x6 piece I've had for ages and double sided which was great for this ...

I really like the CAS look ... though I sometimes find it more difficult ... I'm always tempted to add more

I hope you enjoy the rest of your day ... I'll be back tomorrow - I'm hosting the new challenge at City Crafter this week ...

Keep safe

~ Ros ~

Cats Dogs & Hearts

Happy Friday!

You'd think that now I am retired from going out to work Friday's wouldn't matter ... but old habits die hard as they say ... I still love Friday - knowing that the weekend is just around the corner ...

I became a single mum when Mikey was just 8 years old ... Friday was the last day of work ... when I would collect my wage packet and look forward to 2 whole days with my son ... School was forgotten once the homework was done and every Saturday Mikey and I would take a train ride to spend the day looking around the shops ... having lunch together which was usually pizza and a coke float for Mikey.

In the evening we would cuddle together on the settee and watch his chosen video with a bowl of crisps ... some sweets and soft drinks ... Doesn't sound very health food wise ... but it was only on a Saturday.

Those days have long gone ... but the memories will always remain ....

Last night my Thursday group got to assemble some Valentine cards ... Funny thing ... because I have quite a few men in the group I did one of the cards quite girlie

Pink digital papers by Jen Allyson  and a pretty heart from Iralamija shop

... and two others that were more neutral

Thanks to the Cameo

Would you believe that the guys first choice was the pink one? Lol!

Though they all loved the cats and dogs and lots of cards were made ... not all looked like mine but they did have the same elements ... just placed upside down or in a more artistic way ...

They also decorated all the envelopes ... something like this

The main things was that they were all happy ... they lost another of their friends which initially made them very sad ... but they are resilient and lots of their cards were made with their lost friend in mind ...

I wanted to mention about the sentiment font on my cards ... a  freebie from The Graphics Fairy ... there are a few to download and they are really lovely ... thanks Karen!

Have a wonderful Friday and I hope your weekend is a good one

Till soon

~ Ros ~

Just us Girls

Hello ...

How are you this Thursday morning? 

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments ... It's always nice to know that I'm not the only one who has a creative melt down from time to time ... I have some pretty projects to share with you in the next few weeks ... probably my reason for coming to a halt ... I've just been working non stop ...

Today I have a card that I made for the challenge at Just us Girls ... It's a sketch challenge this week

I loved the sketch and hoped it may get my mojo working again 

You know the crazy thing is ... I LOVE fish tail banners ... I'm sure you can tell that as you see me use them a lot Lol! But could I get them to look right on my card? Heck No! I fidldled and faffed about and even left my card over night ... Eventually I gave in went with what looked best for me ... ribbon for the 'tails' instead of paper

Once again I am using up my scraps ... That lovely poppy is a stamp from my friend Keren and I was trying it out for a card I will share next week ... I couldn't waste it so I stamped it a couple more times   on a scrap of paper and paper pieced it ... then cut out a few of the petals and used pop dots to add a little dimension ...

I keep meaning to get some black embossing powder - so far I haven't but my black ink pad works well with clear embossing powder ... and some liquid pearls just finishes it off

Tonight is Thursday Club ... I promised the group that they can make Valentine cards ... I'll share my samples with you tomorrow if I have any energy left!

Have a beautiful day

~ Ros ~