Happy Birthday Charlene and Christmas at City Crafter

Hello and good morning to you ...

A bit of a long post as today is not only a new challenge at City Crafter, but we are also celebrating our lovely DT member Charlene's Birthday!

Happy Birthday sweet lady!

This card should be waiting for you when you get home ...

I hope you are having a wonderful time and your day is really special

At City Crafter this week we have our lovely Kirsty hosting with a 

Christmas in July challenge

(Make a Christmas card)

Source

So here's my 2nd Christmas card this year!

Quite a simple one using the new digital paper line from Pink Petticoat to cut my stars and the word Joy ...

I tried to keep up with trends here by using vellum, sequins and some wrapped silver thread

My fellow DT members have some more inspiration for you up on the blog and of course we'd love it if you left your birthday wishes for Charlene too ...

I have Ross and Sophia coming to see me today so I'd better get organised

Have a beautiful day ... Be safe

~ Ros ~

Mother Love

Hello...

I've had time to play today ... I saw the  gorgeous colour challenge at

Just Us Girls

I love these colours and though I wasn't sure what I'd end up with I started by making a background using Goosebumps on white CS and sponging inks on top .... It looked like the sea to me ... And here's how it ended up...

I used a plain wooden tag for the base - covered it with paper then sponged over it to blend in with my goosebumps background ... I found all sorts of things to add ... bits from old potpourri... beads and sequins and I used inks to colour my shell and the scraps of muslin

I suddenly imagined dolphins swimming along ... Of course I didn't have any dolphins ... so I thought I'd try making them with Sculpey clay ... Ok, I know they aren't perfect ... but I was having fun ... baking them, painting them, adding mod podge dimensional and finally some little eyes

Simon Says Stamp Blog has a summer challenge ... Not sure if this counts but I'm entering there too

And my friend Chriss told me about the Touch of Nature Challenge at the Mixed Media Card Challenge

I have a lot of clearing up to do and my hands are a funny shade of green ... but it was worth it.

I hope you are having a brilliant day

Till soon

~ Ros ~

Our Beautiful World

Good morning...

It's Sunday and that means a new word prompt at 

Our Beautiful World

Manuela has chosen the prompt and it's Vegetable....

Well much as I love my vegetables ... I neither grow them - save for some potatoes occasionally - and I never think to photograph vegetable either ... So this one got me thinking

Now garlic is a vegetable right? It's something I use a lot ... and as you can see mine has it's own special pot too ...

Perhaps it's because I come from a family where 2 of my Grandparents were French and one was Swiss that I like to flavour food with garlic and herbs ... It's good for you too

I do grow herbs ... and in my vegetable box there are always onions, white and red, carrots which I love roasted and of course potatoes ...

Over the years I have become a much more confident cook ... my husband loves his food and he particularly loves the meals I come up with ... There were many times in my life that money was tight ... even as a child ... and I learned to cook good wholesome food on a budget ... 

This is our local farm shop ... plenty of root vegetables

But it's expensive ... probably because these aren't actually grown on this farm ... I wish I'd taken a photo of the vegetables on display in Spain and Majorca ... half the price and 3 times as big as ours ... And some I have never encountered before ... I think you always 'eat' with your eyes first so my meals and my salads have to be colourful which means lots of different vegetables... And I love beetroot and cauliflower, green beans and peas ... well, I don't think there is anything I don't like when it comes to vegetables

What about you? We'd love it if you shared with us at

Our Beautiful World

Perhaps you can enlighten me as to some of the more exotic vegetables and how you cook them too ...

Wishing you a blessed Sunday

~ Ros ~

Believe

Hello ...

I hope you've had a good week ... We've had some warm weather over here and I certainly can't complain about the summer ... We have the Golf Open Championship on Merseyside so it's always good when the sunshines ... But we did have some storms this morning and lots of rain and the seeds from the trees came down like confetti ... the garden is covered in them.

I've been playing with my new memory box star stencil using modelling past and glitter ... and different background papers ... Now, I don't like to do Christmas themes until much later in the year ... I don't like wishing time away ... Plus I'm not that organised ... but this one just screamed Christmas to me

The paper is by MME Lost and Found ... It just reminded me of a night sky

My talented friend Tracy (I Wanna Build A Memory Blog) recommended that I buy a proper tool for the modelling paste so I bought a set from The Works (I use their Modelling Paste too) and it's made a much better job than my old store card Lol! Thanks Tracy!

I've also been playing with some Sculpey clay and ordered some Shimmerz and paints ... So I hope I'll have something different to show in a few weeks ... It's fun trying new things

I've some desserts baking in the oven and my bread needs to go in soon so I'd better say goodbye for now

Wishing you a lovely weekend ... 

~ Ros ~

Winners and Balloons

Hello and good morning!

I do have a card to share but firstly I am delighted to say that the winner of my prize for the birthday celebrations at 

Our Beautiful World

Is Lesley G ... Congratulations! Your package will be sent to you shortly

A full list of winners is up on the Blog ... Go take a look

Last weekend a friend's husband celebrated his birthday ... another guy card ... not always easy huh?

I decided to use the balloon stamp again ...

I apologise for the poor quality of the photos ... we had one of those days when one minute the sun is blinding ... then suddenly it goes dark and the heavens open! 

However, I hope you can see the sky background which I did with chalks and the PTI cloud die ... really simple but effective

After stamping the balloons I cut out the birthday word and layered it up before putting it back

I used the cardboard from all those cat food boxes for my layering ... Well I have enough of them!

That's it for today my sweet friends...

Have yourselves a lovely day

Be safe

~ Ros ~

Chirpy Chipboard

Hello ...

It's time for a new challenge at City Crafter and this week our challenge has been set by the very talented Anna
The challenge is to use at least one piece of Chipboard on your project ... 

Photo Credit ... Anna

I wonder if like me you have tons of it squirrelled away ... Well it was time to dig it out and make a little something with it 

I used 3 chipboard pieces, a bird, a branch and a border cut in half

For the bird and branch I used distress stains to colours them and for the scalloped borders I just smooched them with a pearlescent Brilliance ink 

There are so many ways to use your chipboard and to colour them ... We're hoping that you will join us at CCCB this week and share your beautiful creations ... Our guest Designer this week is the lovely Robyn ... be sure to check out her project along with those of my fellow DT.

Kirsty is also sponsoring a prize  to our winner this week ... a Maya Road chipboard alphabet package

So get out your chipboard and get creative!

Have a beautiful Day!

~ Ros ~