LOTV Christmas penguins.

Hi everyone

I'm back with another Christmas card I managed to make on time!

This one was for my Mam and Stepdad:

I bought this cutie and the papers at the GNPE which meant that Mam had seen them both but I didn't really mind that. At least it showed her that I have used some of the mountain of stash that I brought home ha ha!

Close up to show how much glitter I managed to get on lol.

What I used:

LOTV - Merry Christmas penguins stamp

LOTV - Frosty Christmas paper pad

Promarkers and Flexmarkers

WOC cherry blossom

Dienamincs Let it snow dies

Glamour Dust

Lawn Fawn Jessies ABCs for sentiment

I would like to enter my card into

Lili of the Valley Thursday Challenge - Something New (my new stamp and paper pad).

Right well Ive just made a video of the wonderful craft goodies I received for Christmas so I'm off to try and upload it to Youtube and will post it later. I do love seeing what other people get at Christmas time  - the bf calls it being nosey - I call it research for what i need to put on my next shopping list ha ha !!

Hope you re all well - we saw some sun here today (shock of my life!) hope you have had some too.

Hugs

Rach xx

Sweet Christmas cards and Lawn Fawn haul.

A late Merry Christmas to you all!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was spent with the family at my Aunts house who *quoting my 83 year old Gran* had been flapping about the turkey all morning he he he! We all ate far too much but had a wonderful day.

 

Well I just about managed to make enough Christmas cards! I got totally sick after the third one lol so I'm quite pleased to be seeing non-Christmas cards popping up in my blog reader :)

 

I thought I would share a few I made using my new Lawn Fawn stamps and have included a haul video I made of my Lawn Fawn splurge I had a few weeks ago.

 

 

This card was made using Lawn Fawn's Sweet Christmas set. I stamped each Gingerbread person and added the little details such as the bows, buttons and hearts etc. I then coloured them using PMs, cut them out and popped them on some foam pads. the sentiment is also from the set. I then decided some bling was needed and added tiny little gems to each Gingerbread person.

 

 

This took some doing lol as there is only one mini Gingerbread person in the set so it took some lining up. Again coloured with PMs. I added the button details to add interest and coated the sweets in stickles to make them look sugary.

 

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp - Anything Goes

Totally Gorjuss - New (my new Lawn Fawn stamps).

 

This is my haul video of my Lawn Fawn stamps. I am obsessed with the sets that include characters with cute faces!! Lol.

 

 

 

So there you go. I have one more card Id like to share but Ill leave that for another day. Im off out to meet friends as we never get to see each other now we are all grown up with proper full time jobs lol!

 

I kinda went overboard with new stash buying so I might make another video to share all the goodies I have found!

 

Hope you enjoy the rest of the holidays and stay warm and dry where ever you are in the awful weather that is going on at the minute.

 

Hugs,

Rachael xx

 

LIM - OLC In a row

The challenge over at Less is More this week totally inspired me which is really what I need right now! However I was inspired to make more baby cards rather than the Christmas cards I desperately need lol oh well!

 

I used the rattle and sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Plus One set and the heart from their Silly Valentine collection.

 

I had the idea to use a star on the boy card but I don't have any :( an excuse for more stamps me thinks!

 

 

I used the same layout and stamps for a girl version but coloured the heart in a darker pink as when I tried red it just didn't work.

 

 

I also used a stardust pen to colour the little white sections of the rattle and wish I hadn't oh well I'll learn from my mistakes!

 

Sorry the photos arent great it was very difficult with the light and so much white!

 

I would like to enter my card into

Less Is More - OLC In a row

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

 

Right well only two weeks left at school with my Reception class than I will be unemployed as the maternity cover ends :( will defo miss the little monkeys!

 

Hope youre all well and staying safe and warm!

 

Hugs

Rach xx

 

 

Doodlebug Design Haul September 2012

 

Hi everyone!!

Well I've survived my first month of teaching woop woop :) so I decided to treat myself to some new Doodlebug Design Inc goodies from The Glitter Pot that have been recently released.

I LOVE LOVE Doodlebug!!

I literally collect everything they bring out lol!! They are my all time favourite papercrafting company so I went a little mad with this lot lol but decided I might as well after all the hard work Ive put in the last four weeks!

 

Hope you enjoy watching :)

 

 

 

I'll hopefully be back soon with something creative lol!!

Ive enjoyed looking at all your fantastic creations on my Google Reader App!!Sorry for the lack of comments - I must try harder!!

 

Hope youre all well

Hugs

Rachael xx

LIM - OLC Foliage

Hi all!

I survived my first week teaching woop woop! And only one crier so far lol!

Hard work starts next week though as we begin the assessments O-O uh oh!

Anywhoo now I have the weekends off I can check out the LIM challenge a bit quicker and found a bit of time to join in.

Its One Layer Card week with the theme of

foliage.

I'm so thankful for this theme as it finally gave me a kick to try out an idea Ive had for ages for some Christmas cards!!!!

I think Ive seen a similar layout somewhere (forgive me for not remembering) but it used a birthday sentiment and ribbon and other bits but I wanted to keep it as simple as possible as I will be making quite a few of these if I decide I like it!

 I was colouring the leaves a few weeks ago and had the idea to colour them two tone and leave the tips white as if they were covered in snow.

I sprinkled glitter on the tips of the leaves. Not sure if I like it and I didn't take a photo to compare before glitter and after so will need to make another one to decide.

Anyway its a start I suppose!

Right I'm going to try and enjoy some sun and have a bit sit in the yard!

Hope you're all well!

And thanks for all the lovely comments left on recent posts!

Hugs

Rach xx

Stamps - PTI Lovely Leaves, PTI Signature Christmas

Card - stash

Ink - Versafine Oynx Black, Memento Cottage Ivy, Brilliance Coffee Bean.

Promarkers - Forest Green, Apple Green

Other - Glamour Dust, red pen (for berries) 

Forever Friends Monthly - Ribbon

Hello! Yes I am still alive! My mojo is starting to slowly come back and I managed to make a DT card for the Forever Friends Monthly challenge of

Ribbon

and we are sponsored by

who are offering this as a prize:

The very kind girlies over at FF have let me switch teams as I'm gonna be very very busy with my new job (which if this is has posted when scheduled I started yesterday!!).

Anyway this is my card.

I found this cutie in my box of wooden stamps and couldn't even remember when Id last used him/her tut tut!!

Ive only used a little bit of seam binding ribbon which I coloured using a Promarker. I had the intention of using more but I have come to realise that I cant tie a bow to save my life! Lol!

What I used:

Card/Paper - White card blank, PTI Lavender Moon CS, Lucy Cromwell pink 6 x 6.

Stamp - Forever Friends stamp, PTI Communique Curves Sentiments.

Ink - Memento black ink, Promarkers.

Other - MS small monarch butterfly punch, WOC flowers, Ribbon Girl seam binding coloured with PM, tiny pink pearls, Perfect Pearls Mist (on flowers).

So please pop over to the Forever Friends blog to see the wonderful creation by my fabby teamies! Ooh and one entrant will be chosen by the DT as the Forever Friends Favourite who will win $5 to spend in

Right well that's a long post lol! Its my birthday tomorrow woop woop! First birthday Ill have to teach on OMG I am soo grown up lol ha ha! So I might be back soon with a few cards made with some new stash maybe?!?! Lol.

Hope you're all well!

Rachael xx

Papertrey Ink Haul no.2 video eeeeeeeeepa!

Helloooooooo!!

Well I decided at the beginning of the month because my mojo ran off and left me that I would treat myself to some new stamps to see if that would entice it back. And where did I decide to buy them from?!

 

Papertrey Ink of course!!!

 

So its taken aaaaaages to get here - it got stuck in the USA then in customs and then with the bank holiday it was taking forever so I convinced the bf to drive to the depot to go pick it up ha ha!

 

Anyhoo it was like my birthday had come a week early lol (well a week and a half as its the 7th lol) as I opened up all the stamp sets that get wrapped in white tissue paper and stroked them and smelled their delicious good quality acrylic smell (is it just me lol! Please say it isnt!).

 

So I though I'd make another haul video, not to show off just to make everybody aware of the PTI goodness that is available out there! And because I spend a good chunk of my spare time watching other crafters haul videos!

 

So this is it!

Is not a great quality :S a new camera is needed me thinks!

 

 

Thank you very much for watching! I'm off to go find new homes for everything (I feel more stamps will be getting sold!) and hopefully actually make a card!

 

Hope youre all well!

Hugs

 

Rachael xx

Forever Friends Fortnight Challenge

Hello all!

I'm back with another challenge over at Forever Friends and Co and this time we are asking 

Are you brave enough?

Really the theme is Anything Goes but as an added extra we would like you to show us a card that you made a long long time ago.  

For this challenge we are sponsored by Di's Digi Downloads.

Sooo I managed to dig this out of the archives from 2009:

Jeez what was I thinking!!!!!! I have no idea who I gave this to, I just cringe thinking about it!!

Anywhoooo this is my new card for the challenge:

I love the image and papers :) must hunt out some Pink Parfait papers on the tinternet me thinks!!

A side view cos Im rubbish at taking photos of easel cards lol.

Please pop over to the Forever Friends blog to check out the cards that my teamies have shared! And remember you don't have to use a FF image any animal will do.

Hope you're all well

Hugs

Rachael :) xx

LIM - OLC 3

Hellooo!

Well we broke up today eeek! Not that I'm excited for the 6 weeks holiday or anything lol.

Anyhoo I needed a thank you card to give to my teaching assistant to say thanks for all of the help over the last few weeks.

I pulled out my Beautiful Butterflies set and my new pink ink pad and had a bash at the new LIM challenge which is a 'One Layer Card - Recipe 3'

I think the sentiment is a bit dark against the pale pink but when I tried it with a pink sentiment it was just naff.

Ive only used two pearls on each of the smaller butterflies as it looked really unbalanced when I had one in the middle.

The recipient liked it so I suppose that's all that matters lol.

 

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

Less is More - One Layer Card recipe '3'.

A passion for Papertrey - Anything Goes

Right well off to prepare for the INSET day tomorrow!

Before I go I want to say a big thank you for all of the lovely comments on my last few posts and I MUST try harder to comment on all your wonderful creations!

Hugs

Rachael xx

Celebration Candy Winners!

Soooo big drum roll please...

the two winners are.....

Rachel x

AND

Tanya OD!

I bet I couldnt get those two numbers again ha ha!! So ladies if you would email me your choice at

ilostjessie@hotmail.com

and the first person who emails me will get their first choice.

Thanks to everyone for joining in :)

Hugs

Rachael xx

Celebration blog candy ends tonight!!!

Hi everyone!!!

I'm at school today (last two days!!) and just wanted to pop in to say that my celebration blog candy(HERE)ends tonight at 9pm!!

I would love if it you could enter and join me in celebrating :D

Have a good day!

Hugs

Rach xx

Celebration Candy :)

Hi everyone just a quick post to let you all know that my celebration blog candy which can be found HERE ends tomorrow night at 9pm!!

I would love it if you entered!

Hugs

Rachael xx

Graduation - no card just photos :)

Thought I'd drop in to show you some photos of my Graduation Ball and Graduation Ceremony cos I'm just soooo pleased lol.

So first up is Graduation Ball.....

I scrub up pretty well lol. After weeks of shopping and trailing around the North East I eventually had to order this dress off the Internet which I saw in February lol. Major stress that it wasn't going to come!!

Our group.

The whole year.

I graduated on Friday woop! Here is a photo of Gran and I. She cried like four times bless her!

This is me on the way back to my seat after I had picked up my scroll. The cheesy grin is because I didn't fall over ha ha! Major stress about that!

Me and the sister being sooooo mature! You wouldn't think I was a teacher and she a teaching assistant ha ha ha!!

Slightly tired after all the excitement lol. Tom Tom and I.

 And a little bit more awake during our celebration meal on Friday night. I have 25 photos and the two of us and this is the only decent one lol.


So there you have it! More crafty posts soon I promise! Especially as there are only 4 more days of school wooop! lol.

Hope you're all well! I need to do some serious blog commenting!

Oh and my candy HERE ends on Wednesday - up for grabs is a Ribbon Girl voucher and Saturated Canary voucher :)

Hugs
Rachael xx

Forever Friends Fortnight - Christmas in July

Eeeee this is sooooooo late!!!

Here is my DT card for the Forever Friends Fortnight challenge which is

Christmas in July

I really struggled with this one - my mojo is clearly not in the Christmas card mood even though the weather weve been having resembles winter!!!

I used a Forever Friends clear stamp and coloured with the ole PMs and a LOTV sentiment.

Visit the FF challenge blog to join in and see the fab creations by the DT.

Just a quick post from me as I'm off to prepare for school tomorrow as I'm covering Reception kiddiwinks at my final placement school. Ive been sooooo busy with everything hence this card being so late plus I graduated on Friday (will upload photos soon!)!

Happy Crafting Everyone!

Hugs

Rachael xx

 

P.S To join my celebration blog candy to win a voucher for the Ribbon Girl or Saturated Canary click HERE.

Blog candy :)

Hi everyone!

Just a quick post to let you that know that my celebration candy found HERE has been extended for another week as I am going to be very busy in the next week with graduating and supply work that I wont have time to log on and close it so the best solution is to extend the deadline!

Hope this is okay with everyone :)

Off to go make a paper mache chrysalis for school lol oh the joys of a reception teacher!!

Hugs

Rach xxx

Celebration Candy!!

Well as promised I'm back with a little blog candy to celebrate

a) passing my final school placement with the highest grade

b) getting a 1st for my dissertation!

and c) graduating University after four years!!

With the large increase in postage costs I decided instead of actual candy I would offer up a gift certificate so the winners can choose their own candy!

So the candy....

Mary from The Ribbon Girl has very very kindly donated a £5 gift voucher for their store!

Thank you so much girls!

AND....

an $8 gift certificate for Saturated Canary :)




So I will pick two winners (randomly) who will then email me their first choice of gist certificate and the first email I receive will get their first choice etc.

Please note that the Ribbon Girl sells actual products rather than digital so you may have to pay postage and packing if you win the Ribbon Girl voucher (just thinking about any international entrants).  

So the rules:

Be a follower (please don't follow just for the candy!)

Put a photgraph of either of the vouchers on the side bar of your blog (if you dont have a blog you can still enter).

Add yourself to Mr Linky below.

This candy will end on

 Wednesday 11th 18th July 2012

at 9pm

Edit - date extended see HERE for explanation.

I know its not a large offering but hope you want to join in and celebrate with me!!

Hugs

Rachael xx

LIM Paper Pieced

Hello!

I'm back with a card I have made for the challenge over at Less is More which is paper piecing.

I immediately thought of one of my favourite Forever Friends stamps.

The card is straight in real life lol its the angle of the photograph.

I pulled some pink flowery paper from my scrap box and stamped the image and cut it out. I forgot how much I love paper piecing! Ive used my last baby feet charm I bought at the GNPE last year - I really need to stock up on some more soon!

I coloured the little bear with my Promarkers and decoupaged his hand for a little dimension.

No idea where this layout came from lol I was in the mood for using some twine!

I'm not sure if I like the sentiment but couldnt for the life of me think of where else it could go :/

Right well I'm off to work this afternoon eugh I seriously don't know why I put myself in to do overtime meh lol!

Happy Crafting!!

Hugs

Rachael xx

Colouring in and new Promarker storage :D

I have my Internet back eeeeeeep!!

And just to rub it in (with my boyfriend) I managed to fix it when the new part arrived - go girl power lol - he was well miffed cos he'd been trying all afternoon he he bless him :P

Anyhooooo lol

Last week I had a good few hours colouring in :) something which I haven't been able to do for months!!

I decided to treat myself to some new digis too and bought 4 cuties from Tiddly Inks and the Grad Girl from Saturated Canary.

 

If I'm playing around colouring a new image I make a list of the colours I have used and stick them in a little note card file for future reference.

And do you know why I had such fun colouring?

Well I think it's because of my new marker storage :D

I decided to treat myself to some proper storage rather than having all of my pens shoved in a box!

Basically its four clear acrylic pen pots found HERE pushed together. There are some fab wooden storage units around (Vickys for instance) but I wanted something a bit smaller that was easier to move around and something that would fit in with the decoration of my living room as that is where my crafty corner is. Plus when my collection grows (shhhhh don't tell bf lol) I can easily buy another pen pot to add on the end :)

I can fit about 12 pens (with a bit of a jiggle) in each compartment and they lie nicely when the pot is turned on its side. As you can see I have used the Letraset End Dots - the only reason I bought them was because my handwriting is terrible and knew that I wouldn't be able to fit the names on white dots otherwise I wouldn't have bothered because they are quite expensive (nearly £4!!) and took far too long to get here.

Anyway I sat and coloured them all in and stuck them on the corresponding pen. I swear I enjoy organising more than crafting sometimes!!! I was in my element lol.

Right well enough waffle I just thought I'd show you my new storage as I know us crafty folk are always interested in others peoples craft rooms/storage etc (or is that just me lol?!?!).

Hope to be back soon now I have my internet back woop woop.

Hope you're all well.

Happy crafting!

Hugs

Rachael xxx

Forever Friends Fortnight - Inspired by USA.

Hi everyone!!

I literally have loads of cards to post as Ive been super creative this week and what has happened....the Internet has died! And its going to take 2 weeks to fix :( I am mega mega bummed :(

Ive only managed to get this posted because I have managed to sneak on the comp whilst at the mothers for Sunday dinner!

Anyhooo...

this fortnight the challenge theme is

"Inspired by USA"

and we are sponsored by

Soooo this is what I made:

I made this very CAS card two weeks ago for my boyfriends sister who has gone to work in USA for 14 weeks at Universal Studios.

To my shock horror in my enormous stash I dont actually have very many red, white and blue embellishments so decided some little punched stars and butterflies and a few stickled roses would be a good idea. I printed the large image from the Forever Friends CD and inserted the text before I printed it.

So there you have it! Hop on over to the Forever Friends Challenge blog now to see what my fantastic teamies have made! And remember you don't have to use a FF bear to join n - any animal will do!

Well I would like to say that I will see you soon but I dont hold out much hope in getting the Internet back very quickly :(

I have cards to share and blog candy to post so I hope it isnt too long!

Sorry for the lack of commenting but I cant even get Internet on my phone when in the house grrrrr!!!

Hope youre all well and will catch up when I can!

Hugs

Rachael

xx

LIM Flourish and some more good news!

Back already! Whats going on I hear you say lol!

Well when I saw that the theme over at Less is More was a one layer card using a flourish I just had to join in so this is what I came up with:

I used a white 4 by 4 card blank and stamped a Creative Expressions flourish stamp just off the edge of the card blank and stuck some silver gems at the end of the curves but you can't really see them in the silly photograph!

I then used a PTI sentiment which I think quite suits the flourish.

And there you have it! A simple Less is More one layer card!

Thanks for the inspiration Chrissy and Mandi!!

Sooooo onto the news....well...

I can now say that

I am a qualified Primary Teacher!!!!!!!

Eeeeeek!

I had my last day of University today and we all got everything signed off and I only went and got a blooming FIRST for my dissertation!!!! Double eeeek!!! I am absolutely over the moon it got a first as its the first 1st Ive ever had and just proves that I put a lot of hard work into the biggest assignment we've were given.

Eeeesh! I can't believe four years have gone sooo fast!!!

I am thinking some candy to celebrate may be in order!!! He he!!

Anyway hope you're all well and thanks for the lovely comments left on my last post.

They truly make me smile :D

Hugs

Rachael xxx

Forever Friends Fortnight - Anything Goes

Yes I am alive!! I will explain my absence later in this post first of all it's time for another challenge over at

Forever Friends Fortnight Challenge

and the theme is

Anything Goes

And this is my card:

We are sponsored by Stitchy Bears and were given some cute images to play with and I chose the two adorable owls.

I didn't set out for it to be pink and brown, its not a colour combo I usually go for but I kinda like it!

What I used:

5x5 card blank

Stitchy Bears digi - Mr and Mrs Owl

Sweet Owls papers and flowers

Gens and buttons from stash

Computer generated sentiment.

I would like to enter my card into

Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes

Please hop on over to the Forever Friends blog to see what all my teamies have made.

And remember you don't need to use a Forever Friends bear any animal will do!!

So.....my absence....

well I probably mentioned before that I have been on final school placement for my University course and I basically took on the role of the class teacher so had to do a lot of lesson planning, assessing, recording as well as the actual fun part - the teaching! Well......all the time spent planning and not making any cards clearly paid off because.....I only went and passed with the highest grade possible!!!

Woop woop!! I am soo proud of myself lol.

I find out the rest of my grades including the dreaded dissertation today so fingers crossed that goes well too!!

Right I'll stop rambling and go get ready - I have to get the flipping bus because my car didnt pass its MOT :(

I have to keep reminding myself that I need to leave an hour earlier than I normally do!!!

Hope youre all well!

Sorry for the total lack of commenting - Ill try catch up as soon as I can!!

Hugs

Rachael xx

Forever Friends Fortnight Challenge - Two Images

Hellooo!!

I am still alive even though I havent posted for weeks!!

Thanks for sticking with me girles :)

I have actually managed to make a card for the new Fortnight Challenge over at Forever Friends sponsored by Di's Digi Downloads.

This fortnight the challenge is

Two Images

Its a pretty simple card as I'm surviving on little sleep at the mo so didnt have much mojo to create anything fussy or fancy.

What I used:

6x6 white card blank

Forever Friends image

Pink Petticoat heart papers

LOTV sentiment stamp

WOC flowers

Hop on over to Forever Friends Challenge now to check out what my fab teamies made :)

And remember as long as you use an animal you can join us!

Ooooo and we are having a huge DT call!! We are looking for some fabby crafters to join either the fortnight or monthly teams. For more details check it out HERE.

AND we also have some blog candy HERE.

So Im off to do yet more planning! I would soooooo rather be crafting!!

Hope youre all well.

Sorry for the total lack of comments - I am checking out your fab creations on my 10 minute breaks but have no time for commenting!!

Hugs 

Rachael xx