Be My Valentine! xoxo

Well I'm back again, perseverance is supposed to pay off and I am determined to improve with crafting skills! Getting into the Valentines mood today after having a lovely Indian takeaway last night. Hubby said I had a choice - meal at a restaurant OR takeaway and £20 craft spends...no contest! I must be going for my record with the number of challenges I want to enter this week too, it seems like love is definately in the air with all the love themed challenges! Here are the ones I was interested in: Bunny Zoe - Love is in the air
Cupcake - Something Red
A spoonful of Sugar - Show some love
Papertake - Hearts
Truly Scrumptious - Sketch
Stamp Man - Hearts
One Stop Challenge - Love
Totally Gorjuss - Love
Stampin for the Weekend - Valentines

Originally I masked the window behind Tilda but then for some reason decided to give some perspective and did Tilda again separately to bring her up on dimensionals. Used flower soft for the flowers, never used it before but my mum gave me some to play with and was pleased with the result. Gave Tilda some red bows for her bunches using embroidery silks and paperpieced her dress.
I also used: Usual Distress and SU inks
Magnolia Romantic window and Be my Valentine Tilda
Magnolia Red roses
Rose buds (given to me by my friend Fleur x)
SU lacey punch and sentiment

Thanks as always for stopping by, your comments make my day! x
Love Nicola xxx

Friendship : 0 )

Hi to all you lovely fellow bloggers out there. I can't believe I'm still keeping to my new years resolution and we are into Feb now! The card I'm putting on tonight is for a couple of challenges : Totally Papercrafts - Friendship and Crafts 4 Eternity - Sketch. When I went on my friend Nicky's blog earlier and saw the image on her card I thought oh no, it's the same as mine! That's because we went to the same coffee craft morning that the lovvely Fleur had and got to play with different stash (thanks so much Fleur! xx) but both stamped out the LOTV image that Chris (another amazing crafter friend) let us use! So all I can say is sorry Nicky, great minds think alike and we both did different things with it!

I feel my colouring is improving and it is the best bit of the card for me.

I curled thin green strips of paper for foliage and left some straight for variety.
I used: Papers - Kaisercraft 'Le Chateau' collection, Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety Sunshine
Magnolia flowers
LOTV 'Love Grows' (thanks Chris x)
SU inks and lacy punch
Tim Holtz Distress inks
Nesties Labels Nine

Thanks for looking and all your wonderful comments x
Love Nicola xxx

Valentine gift bag

Happy February everyone! I know its already the third but I'm always late with everything! Really quick post today, just to show you a little project I have been busy with. It's for a couple of challenges that caught my eye: Paper Sundaes -Valentines
Allsorts - Recycle
I decided to recycle a bodyshop bag I had stuffed in a drawer waiting for just such an occasion.
It's kind of an alternative Valentines gift bag - not OTT on the pink and hearts because I might give it to hubby with a pressie inside (If he's lucky!)

Thanks very much to Fleur for letting me use her new Hearts Tilda - she was great to colour! xx

I curled a little bit of coloured paper to go through the SU button and used thin strips of green paper for the flower foliage. SU and Tim Holtz distress inks used for the Tilda and distressed edges.
Swirly and heart stamps - SU
Sizzix tag die
Magnolia Red Roses

Thanks for stopping by, take care, post again soon
Love and hugs Nicola xxx

Another 3D make!

Good evening to everyone in blogland, I can hardly believe it's nearly the end of January, where did that month just go? I've just finished another 3D project, a box to put little cards in. I got the idea for the box from my Stampin Up friend Bridgette, and just had to do more! The trickiest bit was the curled paper on my flower, it took a couple of attempts. I'm still not totally happy with the band around the box but dont know why so I gave up trying to think of ways to change it in the end. Only had time to finish two cards to put inside but may do more at a later date.
Challenges that inspired me this week are: Crafts 4 Eternity - Recipe Number 3, String, flower, button
Totally Scrumptious - Pink, brown, green

I used: SU Stampin Around-so swirly, flower stamp from Simply said set, sentiment from Circle of Friendship set
blossom nestabilities
papers, cardstock, brad, buttons, and string from stash

Thanks as always for stopping by and for the comments, you're all so lovely
Nicola xxx

Wintery Wishes

Hi, hope you are all ok this evening. I just thought I would catch up on a few blogs and see what everyone has been busy doing before I put my own post on, it is wonderful to chill out and take in the amazing view - such talented creativity! Reading what people have put is great too, its like inviting everyone round to swap stories! Anyway, I am waffling now, so I'll just get on with showing my card for this week.....
The following challenges inspired me:
The Shabby Tea Room - White and/or cream plus one additional colour
The Stamp Man - Distressing (my favourite theme of all time!)
Sir Stamp-a-lot - Winters Tale
(I thought I would give it to my mums friend as it's her birthday next week.)

I used the following:
SU - Swirl stamp from Season of Joy set
Vintage labels stamps
Bird - Touch of Nature set
designer button
Cosmo cricket papers - Early bird Cherry Pie
Garden Variety Sunshine
Magnolia Red Chandelier Garland
Shrink plastic for sentiment tag
Sizzix tag

Thanks for stopping by and for your inspiring comments!
Nicola xxx

New Year Resolutions

Happy New Year to one and all and hope you are well, there are a lot of nasty bugs and colds doing the rounds. I always make new year resolutions and within a week they are all broken but this time I am determined to keep up to a few. There are a few crafting ones, most importantly to complete more projects and post more frequently! Another is to comment more often on my friends blogs. We shall see how long I can keep going! My project this week was making a card and 3D gift set and tied it in with the following challenges:
Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge- card and matching 3D gift
Crafts 4 Eternity sketch
SPCC- colour combo; Rich Razzleberry (purple), Regal Rose (pink), Tempting Turquoise



I used: Cricut embossing folder:-stylized flowers
SU 'Happy moments' sentiment and caged bird stamps
cardstock and ribbon from stash

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look and I love reading your comments, they are what keep me going!
Hugs from Nicola xxx

Christmas is coming!

Hope everyone is staying warm in this REALLY cold weather! Also hope that your christmas preparations are going well, I am ahead with the shopping but behind with the cards -no surprise there then! One christmas card I finished last night and gave out before posting on my blog was for my friend Fleur. My inspiration for it was courtesy of two challenges -
Just Magnolia - Anything goes with Sparkle
Friday Sketchers - sketch
I have got some wonderful christmas stash that I am itching to use and I did manage to use a bit of it on this card. Hooray!

I used:
Magnolia - Tilda on Ornament, ticket - Loving christmas wishes
Papermania designer brads
SU inks and Tim Holtz distress inks

False and real stitches
silver gel pen for lots of sparkle highlights
paper pieced Tildas outfit

Thanks for looking,your comments are so appreciated!
Nicola xxx