Mens Birthdays!

Good morning!

Apologies for a lack of post yesterday, the housework monster reared it's ugly head and made me do it!! ha ha! But now I have a clean house so last night I crafted 'till  the wee early hours of the morning, ah happy days...

Anyway, I am just off to town but wanted to share this card with you first, as you saw on Monday I have had Engraved Greeting out so decided to make a couple of "boyish" cards with the brilliant birthday sentiment,

I used an old Mojo sketch again and the colour combo of Old Olive, Night of Navy and a touch of Daffodil Delight with the Square Lattice Embossing folder used on the panels behind for a bit of texture. The background was stamped using Trendy Trees and Circle Circus,

I layered up the "H" and "B" as I always seem to do with this image ;-)

and well, as you know, no card is complete without a bit of ribbon and a button, even on a mans card! I made a know instead of a bow and Voila! a manly ribbon treatment! (I hope) he he!

and finally a bi of stitching to tie in the inside,

O.K. I really have to dash off now!

Thanks as always for dropping by today and I hope you get a chance to get inky today :-D

Stampin' Hugs,

Golf at 70!

Good Morning!

Well, what a lovely day we had yesterday and here's hoping that today is another good one, I am really ready for the summer ;-)

So, I was asked by a friend to make a card for her Dad who had a special birthday coming, she wanted his age nice and big (lol) and he adores golf, so this is what I came up with...

The base was made using Sahara Sand with Not Quite Navy and the In Colour, Poppy Parade, {{a peek ahead, we will be using In Colours at next months techniques class}}

I printed the sentiment from the computer and added punched stars, covering two of them in Crystal Effects

I stamped the background using a couple of stamps from Circle Circus, it seems to be my 'go to' set for male backgrounds, DSP is the FREE set from the level one hostess pack, contact me for details on how you can have it for FREE too,

I have had the golfing buttons in my stash for an age,

As always, I decorated the inside, but left a large enough space to write too :-)

That's all for today. Thanks, as ever, for visiting, I love having you over ;-)

Stampin' Hugs,

A Sketch to Follow

Good Morning to you,

If you have come over here from Simply Stampin Challenges then Welcome! You will know also we have a brilliant sketch to follow, if not then pop over and see what the rest of the DT have made and why not give it a go? This is also the last week to enter for the Prize up for grabs :-)

O.K. this is what I have made to fit the sketch this week, I have changed it up a bit tho ;-)

Card base is crumb cake with real red and night of navy, stamp sets used were Engraved Greetings and Circle Circus, I have re-discovered my love for this set of late especially for men's cards ;-) Sentiment was inked with markers to get the three colours on the image and I stamped the H and B twice to layer them,

Paper Piercing, Square Lattice Embossing folder with the Big Shot and sewing machine also used again, and the Navy button? that's one of the new Big Buttons from the Mini catty ;-)

I even sewed a bit inside to finish

Well, this was made for a friends Dad and she loved it, I just hope he does too!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you will join in with this weeks challenge. Don't forget this is the last chance to win for a while!!

Stampin' Hugs,

Lees is More for Kieron

Hello,

I needed a birthday card today for Josh as he is going on a sleepover for his friends birthday this evening, what with one thing and another it has been left 'till the last minute (again ;-)) So, I thought I would combine this card with the Less is More challenge for Masculine Cards,

I love this stamp set, Engraved Greetings, for both boys and girls cards, it is so versatile but easily overlooked as it tucked right up the back of the catty amongst the papers (page 86, if you want a look)

I started off going to use a combo (from the Colour Coach) of Pear Pizzazz, Not Quite Navy and Peach Parfait, as you can see I changed it up to Crumb Cake to make it more masculine,

the circles are from another way under-used set, Circle Circus, and as you can see here I stamped a few inside, along with a strip of card and some thin taffeta ribbon,

Well, I hope you like, not sure if it is minimal enough to enter but hey ho, it's C&S for me ;-)

Thanks for stopping by today, back soon with another mans card,

Stampin' Hugs,

Mini Scrapbook

Hello,

Here is my first ever attempt at scrap booking, it was made using a 12x12 piece of textured card tied with wide stitched grosgrain ribbon,
here it is folded up :-)


and the first fold out, punches used on this book were Tab, different sizes of circles, boho blossom and scallop border,



Colours used were bashful blue, old olive, chocolate chip and night of navy. These two show the side folded up, this template was given to us at convention last year but I have changed it around quite a bit with the decorations,



and finally the whole lot unfolded, Stamp set used was Circle Circus, additional embellishments include buttons, clips from the clips assortment and metal edge tags,

Well do let me know what you think, remember I am a scrapbook beginner so be gentle! ;-)

Thanks for stopping by and I will be back tomorrow with a sneak peek of next months class, contact me to asap to reserve your place as spaces are very limited,
Stampin' Hugs

A Few More Lavender Sachets

Good Morning to you today,

I hope it's sunny where you are too, the radio this morning said it was going to be the hottest day of the year so far! whoop whoop!! Good job really as I have got to do some gardening today.

Do you remember the lavender sachets I made a while ago? for Mothers Day? Well, one of my friends from Zack's school bought a couple and liked them. So much so that she asked me to make her 5 more. Now I know it's a while ago and she didn't mind waiting but I finally got a chance to make them this weekend. I made 9 in total but totally forgot take photos before I packed and sent them! Doh! So here are the last 4 I made

All packed up and ready to go,

and here are some little close ups, Stamp sets used (clockwise) are Tiny Tags (perfect for this) Live your Dream, Circle Circus (love the colours for this one ;-)) and Circle Circus with Tiny Tags.

Well, that's it, I really must get outside,

Have a great day and do pop back tomorrow as I have Fathers Day card we will be making at this months class to share with you,

Hugs Sarah-Jane xx

Su Does Homework!

Hello,
Well thank goodness the rain has stopped and the wind is gone, for now. I am so happy for it to just be cold! lol!

Right, onto how SU! can make homework fun! well, almost.

Here is Zoe with her homework which she had to make-up a fantasy Christmas Cake recipe, and here she is with the front of her recipe book topped with a punched Christmas pudding. All credit to Sarah P for the punch pudding recipe! all details on her blog along with lots of others, she is the queen of Christmas punch art, thanks Sarah :0)

Onto the second piece of home work this weekend which was Zacks, he had to decorate a t-shirt for his Elmers day this Friday. Now, as soon as he said this is what he had to do I knew how to help him make it!! Neil drew the elephant onto the t-shirt and I got out circle circus along with a load of ink pads and said to Zack stamp away, this is what he did....

Well that's it for today, I hope you like my, ooops I mean the kids homework, (lol!)

Back tomorrow,

Hugs Sarah-Jane xx

P.S. I still have 2 spaces left for my Bags and Tags class on Saturday if you want to come along, please email me on sarah-janerae@sky.com for more details.

Annabelle's 5!

I do hope it is better weather wherever you are today than it is here ! it is blowing an absolute gale here, but not raining at the moment, I think that's the first time today! Zack is off to Annabelle's birthday party in about 15 minutes so I thought I would quickly pop on and share the card I have just made for her with you all :0)

Here is the front, as you can see I have made a Z fold card using All in the family and the matching accessories set too, I paper pieced the dress, presents and the gifts using the DSP from the Love Stories simply scrappin' kit,

Here is the whole card spread out, the background is made using Pale Plum ink on Pretty in Pink card and the fantastic Circle Circus stamp set (sooo glad I have finally got this set, be prepared for lots of this one!)

Number 5 is from Schoolbook Serif Numbers punched out using the Tag punches, ***FREE*** with qualifying orders in November and December check out this post for more details,

not sure if you can tell but I put a touch of crystal effects on the presents and balloon and for a change I have made the tags suitable for holding down the 'Z' part of the card, I don't very often do this as I usually forget! but I do like the effect,

Right must dash -don't want to be late,

Hugs Sarah-Jane xx

WOW! WOW! and WOW! again

Good morning to you all today,

I have had the most fantastical (made up word) weekend in Germany at the very first EUROPEAN CONVENTION in Bad Homburg near Frankfurt!!!! I met some amazingly friendly, generous and gorgeous ladies and I have Loads of photos to share with you, don't worry though, I won't show you all 111 today tho! lol!!

The first photo is when we queuing up for registration ~ L-R Nicci, Jules, Karin (my roomie for the first 2 nights *waves*)and Jeannette (my roomie for the last night *waves*) and on the right Bekka and Stevie
I spent lots of time with Jules my SU! mum who was a winner in so many ways, not least as she came 2nd in Demo of the year!!!!!! she also won lots of other awards too,

Well Done Jules :0) **mwah** really proud of you xxx

L-R Jeannette, Jules, Bekka, Natalie, Kim and Nicci.

Thanks to all the ladies I spent time with this weekend, I hope you all had as fab a time as I did and look forward to seeing you next year..................................

..............................IN LONDON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wowee, how exciting is that!!???!!!!

and how would you like to be there to join in all the fun?? Why not sign up as a demo with me?and don't forget SU have got a special offer on for a few more days only (you've only got 'till Friday) to receive a special 10% off the already brilliant value starter kit, and not forgetting my offer to add to this is an extra free set of your choice up to the value of £25, only if you sign with me, for more details follow the link in the side bar or email me and I will be more than happy to help you :0)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Almost finished for today; Guess what? I won a prize this weekend!!!!! on a fab little thing called "Prize Patrol" and *look* what I won!!!! a fantastic stamp set called Winter Post which is a Shelly signature collection set I have had my eye on for a very long while, Shelly did a fab demo with this set and I will be having a little play with this after she inspired us all with her projects,

and here are three of the 4 projects we did on Saturday morning on the make and take part of our convention, using the sets we all had for FREE if you attend!! still thinking about signing up??? drop me a line... you really won't regret it...

Stamp sets used were "Circle Circus" ( I have been soooo excited about getting this set and was really looking forward to playing with it finally) and also a little set from the beginning of the catalogue which, I think, could be easily over looked as it is called "New Years Celebrations" but, look again as it soo versatile, it could be used for so many things - 18th, 21st, 50th.. well, all the milestone birthdays, you get the idea, or how about weddings? anniversaries? or just the fab fireworks can be used as a subtle background? Great set, if you want to look at it more closely see page 16 or if you need it now let me know ;0)

Right I have waffled enough for one day! I will share some more piccies with you tomorrow of the gala evening and some of the fabby 100 of so wonderful swaps I received from English, French and German demos **waves** to all you swappers out there, you are all fantastic xxxx,

Big hugs to everyone, Sarah-Jane xxxxxxx