~ Christmas Cards All Year Round: January challenge ~

I somehow came across this blog and was delighted as my aim this year is to create enough Xmas cards without resort to commercial ones at the end of this year. So this blog came in handy. For January's challenge, one has to create any Xmas card and any 5 Xmas cards gets you in a draw. Well, here are my 5 cards. All these cards were created for challenges on other blogs in the month of January.  

The above 4 cards were stamped using {ippity} Kissmas & Mistletoe set.

Stamped images, 'joy' from Unity Nov store kit and 'bauble' is from Unity's Bright and Merry Winter Wishes. All patterned paper used is from Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses collection.

Glad to say I fulfilled this month's quota of 8 cards. I need to make 8 Xmas cards a month in order to reach the amount needed by December. TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 337 ~

It's Super Sketchy Sunday at 365 Cards  and we have a sponsor, Stamping Boutique, this week. It is an online store that sells digital images. So that means you stand to win prizes from them merely by taking part in any challenges this week. Here's today's sketch: 

Here's my card: 

I printed this little cute gal with a big heart and coloured her using my Promarkers. Patterned papers by MME's Adore collection.

Here's the inside: 

Unfortunately, I don't have sentiments from Stamping Boutique so made use of my own stash. Need I to say which company? ;)

Check back on Tuesday when I have another image from Stamping Boutique to show. TTFN!

~ The Studio: 16th Jan Challenge ~

My first time taking part in a LO challenge on this site. The challenge is to: 

1. Take your alphas and alter them. Maybe you have a font you love but in the wrong colour – well change them! Show us what you can do!
2. Use a symmetrical page design – everything on one side should balance what’s on the other.
3. Use fabric of some kind on your page!

Here's my LO based on the above recipe: 

Made use of a fabric Thickers and outlined them in brown ink and later coloured using Copics. Symmetrical designed: checked! and I used fabric (felt) for the flowers. LO created using Scarlet Lime Jan 10 kit. Stamped images (background words on strips and quote) is from {ippity} Because of You set.

TTFN!

~ Butterfly Crafts: Challenge 26 ~

Catching up on some challenges. This is Butterfly Crafts sketch challenge: 

Here's my LO: 

Broke into my latest Scarlet Lime Jan 10 kit. Paper doily is from my own stash. Sprayed it with glimmer mist. Owl and branch image is from Unity's Jan KOTM set. Photo was taken by school photographer.

TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 332 ~

Today's challenge is 3Rs i.e. Red, Rhinestone & Ric rac. Here's my card:

The red cardstock was embossed with Cuttlebug hearts embossing folder. I placed a rhinestone in the centre of the circle. All stamped images by Unity.

Here's the inside of the card:

Stamped image and sentiment from Unity's Jan KOTM set.

Thanks for dropping by. TTFN!

~ H{ippity} Hop! ~

I'm h{ippity} hopping on my {ippity} blog today! TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 330 ~

It's Super Sketchy Sunday today and here's the sketch:

A rather fun sketch and here's my card:

Didn't deviate much from the sketch. Added a stamped image and sentiment from Unity's Jan KOTM set. Patterned papers by Basic Grey Sugar Rush. (Excuse the shadow made by the poms... weather here's so gloomy that it's hard to take photo in natural light these days).

Here's the inside:

Sentiment from Unity's Jan KOTM set too.

Have a great weekend! TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog ~

Here's a couple of projects that I created for Banana Frog blog. Banana Frog has some lovely large alpha sets that is a joy to use for titles. That was what I concentrated on.

My first project is a mini LO (a 4x6" which fits into the Ikea flipover picture frame). I bought it ages ago and kept it in a cupboard until late last year when suddenly it drawn upon me that I could use it for my scrapping purpose. Every now and then I fill it with new pictures and if I run out of space, I take the old ones out and put them into a 4x6 album (which is easily available in most stores).

The 'snow' came from Budmo Jiggler alpha stamp set. LO created using Scarlet Lime December kit (apart from lace which came from my own stash). The 'much fun' words are from Teen set.

My second project is a Chinese New Year card. This year, CNY falls on Valentine's Day! Being in the UK makes it slightly more difficult to celebrate but I do try to keep to tradition such as having the traditional reunion dinner. Thank goodness I can get most of the stuff from a Chinese supermarket here.

The 'girl' image is from the Kawaii Kokeshi set as well as the 'leave' background. The word 'happy' is from Retro Greeting set and the 'CNY' is from Steelfish Outline set. Patterned paper from Basic Grey Sugar Rush collection.

Check out the Banana Frog blog as there is a call for new designers to join the Design Team. Closing date is 14th February 2010. If you enjoy stamping, go for it! Good luck! TTFN!

~ Saturday Natter! ~

What a day! A great day too! The boys met up with their cousins as both hub's sisters came over. They were in our place in the morning, then went over to MIL's for lunch before re-convening here again in the evening for curry nite. I also had a friend with her family over as well. It was just great to have the adults chatting about while the kids played among themselves. The only kid out was my eldest as he had a birthday sleepover at a friend's place. Boy was he ever so excited. Couldn't stop talking about it all week!

Got another busy day planned tomorrow. Luv the weekends but how I wish it didn't fly so quickly! TTFN!

~ CardPatterns: Sketch 47 ~

Here's the sketch:

Here's my card:

Patterned paper by MME's Adore collection. Stamp image by Unity's Dec store kit.

TTFN!

~ Unity's Friends With Flair ~

Hooray, the weekend is here! As I'm typing this, my boys are home from school and I'm looking forward to the weekend. Got a bunch of relatives in town as well as a curry nite with friends on Saturday! After a dismal week of gloomy weather, nice to chill out with friends and share a good meal!

My January KOTM kit came early (for a change) and I sat down to have a play. Made a tag with some of the stamped images:

Front of the tag.

Back of the tag.

Been tackling some card blog challenges and I did this card based on the sketch at CardPatterns:

This is Dec's store kit. Luv this particular image. Patterned papers by MME's Adore collection.

Finally, I pulled a page out from my Journal Your Christmas album. This is day 12 in December:

Patterned paper by Making Memories Xmas collection (last year's). Made use of Dec's scrapbooking stamp set to use.

This is the back of the page. I stamped the 'glee' image in the background as well as the 'love postage' image.

Thanx for dropping by. Whatever you do, have a great weekend! TTFN!

~ 365 Cards: Day 325 ~

Today's challenge is about chocolate. Making use of chocolate as an inspiration. Now I luv chocolate! My favourite snack and I can easily scoff down a large bar in one go! Not good for the waistline though. Anyway, as simple as the challenge is, I had major difficulty coming up with a design. In the end, I chose to focus on the colours. I luv mint choccie and therefore, my colours were green and brown:

Patterned paper by Basic Grey Sugar Rush. Stamped images from Unity's Dec store kit. Cupcake is from Banana Frog's That Takes the Cake.

Here's the inside:

Stamped sentiment from Unity's Dec store kit.

And taking about chocolate, read with sadness about Cadbury's decision to accept Kraft's £11.9 billion takeover. That is one of my fav choccie brand and I just hope they keep to the same recipe. They have a factory cum tour site in Bournville, which is in my area, and I luv going there, especially to the store to pick up choccies. Let's see what the future holds for Cadbury now.... TTFN!

~ H{ippity} Hop! ~

I'm h{ippity} hopping on my {ippity} blog today! TTFN!

>>> 365 Cards: Day 323 <<<

It's Super Sketchy Sunday today and here's the sketch:

Here's my card:

Patterned paper by Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses (still loads left over). Stamped images from {ippity} Kissmas & Mistletoe set.

Here's the inside of the card:

The inside was stamped using Unity's Joy & Wonder stamp set.

TTFN!

~ Saturday Natter! ~

2 days of rain literally melted the snow! Our delightful snowmen are gone, the road is free from snow and pavement, walkable again! You wouldn't have thought that we had snow at all! This week has been amazing.... so much snow on Wednesday and none by Saturday! Kinda sad to see it go but thankful to go back to normal life again. Yup, our normal routine was severely disrupted with that much snow around!

Saturday nite saw us attending a friend's 40th birthday party. It was held at a function room in a Chinese restaurant. Food was superb and the party was great. They had booked a karaoke room too so there was singing involved and dancing as there was also a dance floor. Who would have thought that Zac was the dance king.... as soon as the music came blasting out, he was off on the dancefloor, gyrating his hips and thoroughly enjoying himself. Hidden talent? Anyway, it was so amusing seeing him.

Too cute for words!

The boys came back with heaps of balloons. Always nice to bring the kids out. TTFN!

>>> Unity's Friends with Flair <<<

What a week this has been! All I can say, I'm TGIF!!! Always looking forward to the weekend these days.

The cold snap has left me a wee bit creative as I couldn't be bothered to go out unless it's necessary. So I created a LO using Dec scrapbooking stamp kit.

This LO was also created for Butterfly Craft blog as I'm the guest designer this month. Patterned papers are from My Mind's Eye which came with Unity's Nov scrapbooking kit.

I also created two cards. One I did for a challenge:

This card was based on a sketch by CardPatterns. Patterned papers by Pink Paislee Cupid collection. Stamp set is from Lollipop Tree You & Me.

The next card is for a friend's 40th birthday:

Stamp set is from Dec KOTM. As this card is for a man, hence the 'male-ish' colours.

Thanks for dropping by. I've got a 40th birthday party to attend tomorrow... will be fun. TTFN!

>>> More Snow Again! <<<

Just as I thought the roads were getting better, it started to snow again and loads of it! This morning, the ground was recovered, even more thickly than before and the school run became a nitemare. The boys woke up too late to walk to school so we had to go by car. What a struggle it was. The roads around the school was so thickly covered with snow that cars struggled to get on it. Not surprisingly, it caused a jam. I didn't bother and parked on the main road and walked in instead.

The Infant School decided to end early so I picked Zac after work and went for Oliver. His school was still carrying on but I just couldn't face coming back at 3.30pm to pick him up ... this would mean making 2 trips and I just didn't fancy driving on the road. It was snowing all day too! Quite a number of parents were picking up their kids as well from the Junior School too. (our Infant & Junior schools are operated independently from each other and this can sometimes cause problems if the two Heads don't coordinate with each other).

The boys went back and played with the snow in our garden. This time, the snow was suitable for building snowman and they did:

Initially they both started together but halfway they fought and smashed the snow up! So I had to send them in separate areas to build their own snowmen instead! Typical!!!

Oliver deep in concentration

Finally, his effort was rewarded! An impressive snowman, created entirely by him.

The wee one rolling his snowman base.

His li'l snowman!

We never had that much snow before and this year, it has gone on longer than expected, a week! As much as I like snow, I'm getting fed-up of it now. Novelty has worn off. A lot of stuff has been severely disrupted. Even the bin men saw fit not to pick up the rubbish today!!!  (And they only come once a week). Anyway, I took advantage and took photos of anything snowy. Here's a couple of random images of the snow.

Snow on the branches.

A ball lying on the ground in the garden. That's how much snow we have had so far!

Not sure when this arctic condition ends but I guess you just have to endure as best as possible. Looking forward to the weekend! TTFN!

>>> Mojo Monday: Week 121 <<<

Here's a sketch from Mojo Monday:

Here's my card:

Patterned paper by Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses. Stamped images from {ippity} Kissmass & Mistletoe stamp set.

Here's the inside:

Kinda like adding stamped images on the inside.

TTFN!

>>> CardPatterns: Sketch 46 <<<

Here's a sketch from CardPatterns:

Here's my card:

Patterned paper by Pink Paislee Cupid collection. Stamped image from Unity's Lollipop Tree You & Me stamp set and coloured using Promarkers. I turned the sketch to suit my design.

TTFN!

>>> Caardvarks: Jan challenge1 <<<

Had some time on my hands so joined in some challenges on some card blogs. Here's Caardvarks sketch challenge:

Here's  my card:

I turned the sketch to suit my design. Patterned paper by Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses. Stamped images from {ippity} stamps.

Here's the inside of the card:

Stamped sentiment and background images from Unity's Bright and Merry Winter Wishes.

You may be wondering why I'm doing Xmas cards now but I ran out of Xmas cards last Xmas and had to resort to buying commercial ones. So this year, I've calculated how many cards I need and it seems I need to make at least 8 Xmas cards a month in order to meet my needs for this year's Xmas. Let's see how it goes... TTFN!

>>> 365 Cards: Day 318 <<<

Today's challenge is entitled 'Home Sweet Home'. As the name implies, this requires an image of a house on the card. Using In Style image, I came up with this:

Patterned paper from Pink Paislee Cupid and Bella Blvd Honey, I'm Home collections. I cut a hole in the birdhouse and attach a little birdie, sticking its head out. The bird image is also from In Style as well. Sentiment is from Unity.

Thanks for dropping by. TTFN!