Leaving

no, it's not me that's leaving... but the 2 heli admin girls who work under Graham have been made redundant and are moving to new jobs so he asked me on Wednesday if I'd make a couple of leaving cards for them - nothing like a bit of notice, seeing as he went offshore on Thursday morning.
So because I was pushed for time I kept it very very simple and concentrated on the images. He also wanted large 8x8 cards so that all their colleagues can sign the cards, and I'm not a fan of making great big cards, too much white space to fill!
We spent hours looking for a suitable "leaving" image, or something that would tie in with their job, but I couldn't find anything suitable. So I treated myself to a couple of Kenny K Downloads, Madison Attitude and Miss Thang - another one accidentally landed in my basket because it reminded me of Willow with her iPod, but more of that another day.

 white cardstock from The Papeterie embossed with Swiss Dots cuttlebug folder. brown core'dinations card, Kars bling, Madison Attitude image coloured with promarkers

white cardstock from The Papeterie embossed with Polka Dots cuttlebug folder. brown core'dinations card, Kars bling, Miss Thang image coloured with promarkers


I'd like to enter them into
ABC challenge - T is for Trouble
I ♥ ProMarkers  - no designer papers


If you haven't already entered my candy then you have just 10 more days to enter - and in case you hadn't noticed I have some extra goodies to add to the pot if I get 100 entrants. I have some brand new Me To You tatty teddy goodies from Do-Crafts, so remember to spread the word.


Anyway, am off for a shower and an early night I think...

4 Sleepies

4 sleepies to go - have booked my taxi to take me to the station on Saturday morning, but I haven't packed yet. Might get round to it later this afternoon. Willow has an appt at the hospital this afternoon with her new consultant and I have to pick her up AFTER her school lunch - she got so upset when I last took her out of school for an appt and she missed her school dinner!


I'm back again with another sample from Saturday...

 Image: Sitting Gorjuss Girl from Sugar Nellie, coloured with promarkers 
Papers are Imaginisce, glitter film from Hobbycraft and Adhesive gems are Kars

I did my usual with this card - coloured the image then though "argh, I have nothing to go with it" so in these situations I have 2 options and here's your tip for today....
1. Use black and white papers and this makes your image stand out as the focus or...
2. Colour your own embellishments to match - with promarkers


I'm entering this card into the following challenges..
Papertake Weekly - Sparkly & Bright
Totally Gorjuss - Sparkle
Crafty Catz - Colour challenge

Simply Create, MME I Believe and Hero Arts

I so love this kit from Simply Create, there are just so many ways to use it.
Here's another 2 cards I've made....

For this one, I coloured the Hero Arts - Hanging Trees cling stamp with promarkers and added various clear adhesive stones from Kars, some of which I coloured with Crimson promarker.

The MME I Believe paper, crochet lace, gems, stamp and kraft card are all available from Simply Create.

I used up a lot of wee scraps from the kit with this card, cutting 8 wee squares from all the patterned paper left overs and sticking them onto the card blank made from Bazzill.I then embossed a Hero Arts - Joy to All greeting onto the die cut shape from the MME I Believe kit and attaching with 3d foam tape, quick - easy - and thrifty!!

Passion for Promarkers #18 - Emerald & Marine - Anything But A Card

Hi there, thought we'd have a day off from the puppy mania so I can show you what I've done for this week's challenge at Passion for Promarkers.

To be perfectly honest, when I found out that the colours chosen by the fabulously talented Guest DT's for this month were Emerald & Marine, I thought "UGH" what on earth was I going to do with those colours, PLUS, to take me completely out of my comfort zone Sarah B had added the Anything But A Card to the brief.
BUT I started colouring images with this colour combination and decided I liked them, A LOT.

Anyway, the bit you're probably more interested in is the prize thats up for grabs this week's challenge is sponsored by the Halloween crafts range at Baker Ross/Yellow Moon, and the winner will receive a voucher for £10.00 to spend on anything from the site

 
 They have sponsored us previously and you might remember that I was a bit cheeky and asked if you could use the source code for Extra Special Parents if you placed an order with them. I would really appreciate this. As you may or may not know, Extra Special Parents is the charity that Graham and I started up in 2006. Its a support and signposting forum for parents and carers of children with additional needs. A great many parents, mainly from across the UK, but we have several members worldwide, find our charity to be a lifeline - its not easy being a parent and its even harder when your child has additional needs. Two of my 3 kids have additional needs, my son Scott has Autistic Spectrum Disorder and my daughter Willow was born with Imperforate Anus and we felt the need to talk to other parents who were in the same boat, and so ESP was born. So IF you place an order with Yellow Moon, please consider entering the source code "SSH10729" so that ESP receives the commission on your order - at no extra cost to you.

Yellow Moon sell a vast range of craft items for children and adults as well as toys, games and stocking fillers. I've often purchased craft stuff for my kids from there - if only to keep them away from Mum's Stash lol

This week I created a wee stocking or sock gift bag, I used a free Lauren Meader template from Papertrey Ink to create it. 

 

Butterflies stamps from The Crafty Pad, coloured with Emerald, Marine and Cool Aqua promarkers

Paper is from the original colossal pad from Papermania, thick cream cardstock from my local paper mill.

WRMK large eyelets set with the Cropadile 

various ribbons tied to the wire handle

greeting is from the papermania "touch of teal" kit

kars paper lace

pink stone brad is Papirloftet, jump rings and dragonfly charm from stash 

and of course the template is Lauren Meader 

  

 Remember to check out all tha fabulous creations from my fellow DT members and also our guests Sarah and Caroline as this is their last week with us. Its been fabulous working with both of you, your work is stunning

Passion for Promarkers Blog Hop

Welcome to the Passion For ProMarkers' 1st ever blog hop 
If you have arrived here from Caryn's blog then you're right on track, if not then please go to the Passion For ProMarkers blog to start at the beginning. 

Sorry - the Hop is now closed! The winner of the 56 new promarkers will be announced Friday 18th September at Passion for Promarkers and the winner of my card below and 1 new promarker pen will also be announced Friday 18th September here.

We are celebrating the launch of 56 fabulous new ProMarker colours and have a whole set up for grabs as a prize. Yes you read that right - a whole set of the 56 brand new ProMarkers hot off the press. Letraset have generously donated this prize for us to give away to one lucky winner. A special thankyou goes to Simon for helping us out with this and the special deal the DT got on getting  the new markers before they hit the shops.

So what do you need to do for a chance to win?

Starting at the Passion for Promarkers blog  you need to visit all 11 design teams blogs and leave a comment on their post. In addition to the main prize of 56 New ProMarkers, each of the DT are offering a mini-prize for one commenter. So if you leave a comment on this post you will be in with a chance of winning 1 ProMarker. If you leave a comment on all of the 11 DT blogs you have 11 chance of winning.
Once you have left your comment here then you need to hop on over to Denise's blog and then follow her directions from there. 
To make things a little more fun, each of us has a word for you to pick up along the way. Mine is “FOR”.  When  you go back to Passion for Promarkers after you have visited all of the DT you should have an 11 word sentence to add to your final comment.
If you are not sure you are visiting the design team blogs in the right order you can go back to the PFP blog and start from the beginning!

 Here's the card I made using some of the new colours, and remember, after the blog hop closes on Thursday I will be choosing one commenter to win this card plus one brand new colour promarker. 

 

 I used the following new colours: Soft Peach and Peach, Mint Green and Soft Green for her dress, Tan for her skin. I also coloured the paper ribbon and the branches with Mint Green
Here's my customary close-up of Princess Charlotte from Whiff of Joy

  
So now that you've seen some of the new colours in action, and collected your special word, you can pop on over to Denise's blog to see her fabulous card and collect you next word.
Hope you're enjoying the hop as much as we enjoyed putting it together. 
Remember to add a link and a picture of the prize on your sidebar so that as many people as possible know that the blog hop is happening! (Details on PfP Blog)

Birthdays in Ibiza

As some of you already know, I have a dear friend who lives in Ibiza - great for some eh? Anyway, Rachel and I "met" through the Extra Special Parents charity as her son has Diabetes and last year we met for real when we went on holiday to Ibiza. Rachel's birthday was at the end of June, her youngest daughter Emily turned 13 last week and her youngest, Aiden is 8 in a fortnight. So I thought I'd share a couple of the cards I made for them. I have also sent her a wee care parcel of chocolate in the bag that I made for the Cocoa and Cornflower challenge at PfP. I haven't made Aiden's card yet, but I'll share it when I have.

Image: Flower Girl from Sugar Nellie, coloured with promarkers; Ivory & Blush for skin, Blossom & Rose Pink for hair and tights, Lime with Cool Grey 3 shading for dress and tights, Carmine for flowers.

Papers are K&Co Sparkly Sweet, mats and layers cut using oval and scallop oval nesties in the cuttlebug, flowers are Doodebug, Kars paper lace ribbon coloured with Lime promarker, greeting is Daisy & Dandelion and I have used last week's sketch from Sketch Saturday which I rotated.

Image: Sitting from Sugar Nellie, coloured with promarkers (you might recognise this image from some of my tutorials); Ivory & Blush for skin, Sandstone, Cinnamon, Cocoa & Umber for hair, Lilac, Lavender & Amethyst for dress and tights, Meadow & Apple for tights and flower. Highlighted using the sakura white med gel pen.

Papers are K&Co Sparkly Sweet, ribbon is HOTP, greeting is Daisy & Dandelion, Papermania adhesive stones.

And here are the Gorjuss Girls' close-ups...

Passion for Promarkers - another card

This was the first card I made for this weeks challenge at Passion for Promarkers, but I decided I wanted to do something a bit different for my actual DT card - see yesterday's post.

So this was what I did with Maria's fantastic sketch....

Image: Willow with Baby from Whiff of Joy, coloured with PM's: Cool Aqua and Turquoise for shading on her dress; Pastel Pink and Coral for shading on the baby's shawl; Ivory and Blush for skin; Sandstone, Cinnamon, Cocoa and Umber for Willow's hair; Pastel Yellow, Vanilla and Saffron for the baby's hair

Core'dinations card as a base and as a mat for the image - cut using the Peony nesties in the cuttlebug, I also used a pale peachy pink core'dinations card and embossed it with the congratulations folder in the cuttlebug and sanded.

The papers are Basic Grey - Two scoops shaped with the MS Doily Lace border punch.

I also added Kars paper lace ribbon, coloured with Cool Aqua Promarker, Kanban clear adhesive gems coloured with Pastel Pink PM and the greeting is Daisy & Dandelion

The prize this week is sponsored by Cute Daisy May Digi Stamps who has kindly donated 5 sheets of downloads.

Finally here's Willow's close-up

Experimenting with Kraft

I thought I would experiment with promarkers and kraft card. Obviously, because the kraft is darker, I've had to use something more opaque for the skintones and highlights. I found the SU Kraft cardstock was fine for blending the promarkers - no bleeding. So, this was my first attempt...

Image: Miss Anya Rain by The Greetings Farm, coloured with: light peach prismacolor pencil for the skin tones, promarkers: cinnamon, raw sienna and cocoa for hair; blossom & rose pink for jacket and socks; pastel green and turquoise for skirt and umbrella; rose pink and maroon for boots. (and I've just realised I've forgotten to colour in her buttons! argh) Highlights are done with sakura gelly roll med.

Papers are all Clare Curd's Signature Range - The Big One

Kraft and black cardstock are Stampin' Up

Greeting is Daisy & Dandelion

Kars paper lace ribbon

EK Success retro flower punches to make the flower, Papermania brad for centre, Floral Punchcraft Ash Branch punch.

Miss Anya's close-up....

Happy Birthday Denise

my fellow DT member Denise celebrated her birthday yesterday, and I'm sharing the card I made for her now that I know she received it on time.

Image: Gorjuss Girl set 3 from Sugar Nellie, coloured with promarkers: gold and pumpkin for her dress, blossom, ruby and maroon for her hair, ruby and warm grey 4 for her tights, ivory and blush for her skin and sakura clear stardust for the stars in her hair and in her hand.

Papers are all CCSR The Big One

scallop oval nestie cut mat from core'dinations card in the cuttlebug, other mats are core'dinations card, kars paper lace border, kanban adhesive stones coloured with promarkers, greeting is Daisy & Dandelion

Here's the close-up...

Faith's 2's Group Staff Thank You Cards

Following on from Sunday's post, here are the 6 cards I made over the weekend for the 6 members of staff at Faith's 2's group.

Images: Bear Hug Gorjuss Girl from Set #2 from Sugar Nellie, coloured with promarkers; cool grey 1-4 for each of the girls dresses, boots and tights; Blues: Pastel Blue, Sky Blue & Cyan; Purples: Lavender, Lilac & Amethyst; Pinks: Blossom, Rose Pink & Cerise; Oranges: Apricot, Spice & Terracotta; Yellows: Vanilla, Saffron, Yellow & Sandstone; Greens: Meadow Green, Apple & Grass

Coloured card stock strip and scallop oval nestie mats cut in cuttlebug are all core'dinations card

All papers except on the purple card were freebies from Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine, Purple papers are Papermania. Paper mats are inked with papermania inkpads

Paper lace ribbons are from Kars

And the customary close-ups...

The Sugar Bowl #12 - Lia's Sketch

I love working from sketches, it means I can concentrate on other aspects of the card rather than the layout. And this sketch from Lia at The Sugar Bowl was fantastic to work with. I love all these layers. The added option was blue and green which I've included.

Image: Poise by Leanne Ellis @ Sugar Nellie, coloured with promarkers; saffron for skin, blue pearl, cornflower & china blue for hair, sleeves and flowers, moss and olive green for dress, sleeves and stems, pastel blue to outline

the image is mounted onto kraft card and the edges distressed with the Tim Holtz distressing tool

papers are all K&Co Classic K Bailey, distressed and inked edges with papermania inkpads (except kraft paper at back), flower cut from papers using EK Success retro flower punches and embossed. Papermania brad, Kars paper lace ribbon