Totally Gorjuss 243 - Bling is the Thing.

Good morning everyone. Why does Saturday come around so quickly? I've had another busy week with my knitting and crocheting. I've started another top and I found a cardigan I started in lovely pale yellow Rowan All Seasons Cotton x years ago!! I also managed to get some more squares done for my latest crochet blanket. Next week I have to work full time so I'll get some more done to relieve the boredom.

But you'll probably be wondering where my DT post is. Well if anyone's reading this that is! This week at Totally Gorjuss our theme is "Bling's the Thing."

My card is one of the one's I made for my boss and her Mum for her Aunt's/Sister's Golden Wedding Anniversary. This is the one her Mum chose.

I used :-

Sentiment :- Rubber Stampede.

Embossing Folder :- Couture Creations. (One of my favourite folders.)

Lace :- Ribbon Girl.

Pearls :- Hobby House.

Butterfly :- Stampin' Up!

Flower :- EK Success punches.

I'll catch up later.....I hope! This afternoon after work I'm going to make some lemon curd and lime curd. We're having a sales table after church tomorrow in aid of the windows fund. We've been replacing all the windows and this is for the last of them. As you can imagine they have to be specially made and are quite pricey!

Thanks for looking. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Kat xx

Totally Gorjuss 230 - White on White.

Good morning everyone. I'm a wee bit late this week but I've got my excuse ready! I went into hospital last Sunday afternoon to have an operation on Monday morning. I meant to schedule a post before I went in but we spent the weekend visiting my daughter and when I got home about teatime yesterday I couldn't be bothered. Lazy me!

Anyway here's my card for this weeks challenge at Totally Gorjuss. Our theme this week is "White on White" and we are sponsored by the lovely people at The Ribbon Girl.

Here's what I made. A customer at work asked if I'd make a card for her niece and her husband who are renewing their vows. I made two cards and this is was her favourite. She took the other one too as her sister couldn't find a suitable card either.

I used a favourite weddingy (of course it's a word!) image.

I used :- Image :- LOTV.
Lace :- Ribbon Girl.
Flowers :- Nellie Snellen punches.
Pearls :- Hobby House.
Embossing folder :- Swiss Dots.
Butterflies :- Stampin' Up!

I'd best go and do something relaxing now. I'm trying to catch up on all the tv programmes I recorded while I was in hospital.

Thanks for looking and I'll see you all later.

Kat xx

Totally Gorjuss 224 - Use String.

Good morning everyone. Another week where I haven't achieved very much on the cardmaking front.  I did have an afternoon at the craft group but that involved knitting! I more or less lost my day off on Thursday as it was my day for Messy Church. I had to spend the morning preparing. We were painting on glass jars this month and unfortunately I'm not known for my artistic skills. I managed a rainbow and some flowers. The children enjoyed it so that's all that matters. They went off home with their jars and tealights to light at home.

This week at Totally Gorjusswe'd like you to use string on your card or project. One of the girls at work asked if I'd make a 21st birthday card for one of the young lads who works in the shop when he's not at college. I've used a stamp from one of my favourite stamps sets from Papermania. It's ideal for male cards as it has a good variety of images. Here's what I made.

I matted the image on Real Red from Stampin' Up! The image was stamped with Real Red too as was the sentiment from LOTV. I finished off with some red and white baker's twine from the Ribbon Girl.

I've got a crop after work today so I'll catch up later.

Thanks for looking and I hope you can join us. We're sponsored by the Hobby House this week. One of my absolute favourite places to buy some of my favourite embellishments, pearls and gems.

Kat xx

Totally Gorjuss 219 - Pearls and/or Lace.

Good morning everyone. Hope you are all well. I'm feeling quite chirpy as my internet connection is up and running again. There were a few hiccups along the way but with the help of the "helpline" yesterday I got it sorted out at last. Today I posted back two, yes two, routers. The security details for the first one had somehow got messed up and the second one appeared to be faulty. I say appeared because when the third one arrived yesterday and seemed to be faulty too I had to phone the helpline again! This time the chap on the helpline realised that something that should happen automatically when you switch the router hadn't happened so he talked me through what to do and hurray the offending red light turned green. So maybe the second router wasn't faulty but no-one thought of that!

Anyway enough waffle, it's Saturday so it's time for a new challenge over at Totally Gorjuss. This week we'd like you to use pearls and/or lace. Fantastic! I love pearls and lace so it was no hardship to use both on the same card lol! You'll have to excuse the dodgy photo though!

I used :-
Image and sentiment :- Simply Sketched from Stampin! Up!
Coloured with Rose Red, Garden Green and Basic Black Stampin' Write markers.
Lace :- Ribbon Girl.
Pearls :- Hobby House.

As you can see I've gone for the CAS style again. I think it's perfect for this lovely image. I did some paper piercing round the image. I don't often do this and you can probably see I'm not very good at it.

I'm still using my dodgy old laptop but I have a lovely new laptop sitting here just begging to be used. I ordered it last Thursday directly from Dell and it arrived on Monday. The courier actually brought it to my work as I had left a note on the back door in case he came when I was out! I think I'll need time to work out what I'm doing with it as it has a completely different Windows system on it. And it looks a bit scarey!! To say the least. Took me a bit of fiddling around to find out how to switch it off.

Well I'll see you all later after work. I'd like to cut my working hours this year but Tuesday afternoon is the time I want to ditch. I'll probably have fewer holidays but at least I'll have all these lovely afternoons off!

Thanks for looking and I really appreciate your lovely comments.

Kat xx

Oliver's Four Now

I think I forgot to show you Oliver's birthday card. He was four on Saturday and just to make his day his doggie was two. Guess that makes them twins lol! Oliver had a very busy weekend. he had a birthday party on Saturday morning, one on Saturday afternoon and his own on Sunday afternoon. I think he was a very tired wee boy, full of birthday cake on Sunday night. I got a pic of him on Monday wearing his new dog onesie that he got for his birthday from popular Gran (moi) and Grampa. He loves it and put it on as soon as he got it!

But I digress, here's his birthday card.

I used :-

Image, sentiment and DP :- LOTV. (Image is one of their toppers.)

Card Candy :- Craftwork Cards.

Bakers' Twine :- Ribbon Girl.

Button.

Oliver loves his doggie and he also loves his bike so I thought he'd like this image. He always talks about their young dog as "his Brodie." 

I've still no idea what the challenges are just now, maybe I'll get a few minutes to look around tomorrow. I'm hoping to also show you another card tomorrow that I made for a lovely couple who celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary last week. I also have some cards I made for a colleague and some Christmas cards. I may not have been around online but I haven't been completely idle!

In the meantime thanks to everyone who visits me and takes time to leave me a lovely comment.

Kat xx

Totally Gorjuss 206 - String.

Good morning everyone. I'll have to make this brief as I'm still having connection problems. I'm going to have to phone about this again. Seems such a waste of time after the last time. I've spent ages trying to write this on Friday morning and at last I seem to have found a spot where I can do it. I could get on my blog but when I tried to get to the page where you write a new post it wouldn't load so fingers crossed it's going to work this time. I'm not optimistic about adding a photo though as that seems to be the worst thing to do!!

At Totally Gorjuss this week our theme is "string." Easy isn't it? Even I can manage that! We're sponsored by Heather's Hobbie Haven this week so I hope you can join us.

I used:-
Image and sentiment :- LOTV.
Colouring :- Promarkers.
Bakers' Twine :- Ribbon Girl.
Snowflake :- Martha Stewart punch.
Gems :- Hobby House.
Card Candy :- Craftwork Cards.
Glamour Dust.

Well I'm going to quit while I'm ahead here since I've been faffing about for about an hour and a half trying to write this and my post on the DT blog. I even have a photo on my phone in case I needed to write the posts with my iPad!

I'll be around to see what everyone's up to after work this afternoon.

Thanks for looking and I really appreciate it when you have time to leave me a comment.

Totally Gorjuss 185 - Just Because!

Good morning everyone. Hope the weather's a bit better now for the Bank Holiday weekend. Needless to say I'm not on holiday on Monday :-(  But looking on the bright side I'm off the next Monday as it's a local holiday in my part of Aberdeenshire. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, a bit windy but not too bad! Thursday was my day off and my friend and I went off craft shopping. We only got caught in one hail shower  but it was windy and cold and showery. When I took the dogs out about 5pm it was really wet and even windier. I was soaked right through! I'm sure my jacket was still damp when we went out on Friday morning.

But we don't need to think about holidays or weather at Totally Gorjuss this week. Our challenge is very easy, it's "Just Because." That should give you plenty of scope to use your imagination!

Here's what I came up with this week.

I used :-
Image and DP :- LOTV.
Colouring :- Promarkers.
Sentiment and punches :- Stampin' Up!
Ribbon and Bakers' Twine :- Ribbon Girl.
Pearls :- Hobby House.
Buttons from stash.

I realised when I was colouring this cute image that I'm really bad at colouring!! I think I should stick to things that need little or even no colouring. I think I've made a bit of a mess of this one.

Challenges :-
Passion for Promarkers :- Anything Goes.
Lili's Little Fairies :- Spots and Stripes.
Charisma :- Here comes Summer - must be Summer, he's zooming about in an open top car!
Addicted to Stamps and More :- Anything Goes.

Well I've got work this morning so I'll see you all later.

Thanks for looking and I love to read your comments so please leave me on if you have a minute to spare.

Kat xx

Isn't she sweet?

Good morning everyone. It's time for our weekly challenge at Totally Gorjuss. This week we'd like to see ribbons and pearls on your lovely creations. We're sponsored by The Ribbon Girl and Milk and Coffee this week. That means you have two chances to win this week so I hope you'll be able to join us.

The DT were lucky to be given images to use by Milk and Coffee. I hope you'll pop over to see what my talented teamies have made to inspire you this week.

I've used the lovely Charlotte with Bunny Love Balloon, isn't she pretty?

I used :-
Image :- digi from Milk and Coffee.
Colouring :- Promarkers.
DP :- Forever Friends.
Embossing folder :- Swiss Dots.
Pearls :- Hobby House.
Seam Binding :- Ribbon Girl.
Glamour Dust.

I'm entering the following challenges :-
Freshly Made Sketches :- Sketch.
In the Pink :- Ribbons or ruffles.

Well I'm off to work as usual this morning so I'll catch up later.

Thanks for looking and also for taking the time to leave me a comment.

Kat xx

Do you like Poppies?

I do. I think they're among my favourite flowers. I know that Brenda loves Poppies too so I made this card to celebrate her blogaversary. Hope she likes it!

I used :-
Image :- Penny Black Poppies.
Colouring :- Promarkers.
Embossing folders :- Cuttlebug Swiss Dots and Stampin' Up! Honeycomb.
Twine :- Ribbon Girl.
Pearls :- Hobby House.

I would have added black Stickles to the centre of the Poppies but I've lost them! I've searched everywhere but they've vanished. So I coloured the centres with black Promarker, then added some Glamour Dust and then more black Promarker. I wonder if the reason I've lost my black Stickles is because my table is a bit of a tip or if I've accidentally dropped them in my rubbish bag which has been binned! Suppose I'd best just buy a new bottle.

I used the lovely sketch from Penny Black so I'm entering their challenge. I'm also entering the challenge at Crafty Creations which is flowers or fairies.

Oops I've just noticed the time! I think I'd best go and do my ironing now.

Thanks for looking and I'll catch up with you all tomorrow.

Kat xx

Hat Trick!

Well when I say Hat Trick I mean I've posted three times in three days! Long time since I managed that!

I couldn't resist trying to use one of the great sketches at Retro Sketches. I chose to use sketch no.9.

I made - whisper it - a Christmas card. And yes I do know it's only February. But it's not the first one I've made this year!

Looks like I've managed to take a squint photo!

I used :-
Snowflakes :- Martha Stewart punches.
Sentiment :- Hero Arts.
Bakers' Twine :- Ribbon Girl.
Pearls :- Hobby House.
Snowman embossing folder and Glamour Dust.

Other challenges :-
In the Pink :- Bling and Pink.
Winter Wonderland :- Snowflakes falling all around.

I'm quite pleased with this card! Surprise!! I hope you can see the embossing. It's a lovely folder and the embossing is always lovely and crisp. And I love this sketch. You could add more to it but I like it plain.  I think it's a layout that would be suitable for most occasions. I can see it with flower or butterflies. Perhaps even with more embellishments.

Well this is my day for working all day. It's also my evening for the Guild. Luckily we're never that late so I should be able to see what everyone's been up to in the evening. It's also my husband's birthday so he's getting one of my car cards made using that really useful car set from Papermania. Yesterday was my son-in-law's birthday and he got a car card too. He got a Ferrari card. (same set of stamps) He sells Audis but there aren't any on that set lol!

Thanks for looking and if you have time I love to hear what you think. I really appreciate every comment I get. I know how busy everyone is so it's nice when someone takes the trouble to comment.

Catch you all later.

Kat xx

Totally Gorjuss 172 - Happy.

Good morning everyone, I hope you're all having a good weekend. I'm off to a crop this afternoon after work so I'm hoping to do some blog visiting this evening. 

Time for our latest challenge at Totally Gorjuss where our theme is "Happy." This week we have two sponsors, Ribbon Girl and Saturated Canary so you have two chances to win!

As you can see I'm still making simplish cards. Not quite so CAS this week but still no DP and not a lot of embellishments.

I used :-
Image :- LOTV.
Sentiment :- Hero Arts.
Colouring :- Promarkers and Sakura clear glitter gel pen.
Ribbon :- Ribbon Girl.
Pearls from stash.

Challenges :-
Created with Love :- Things that Fly.
Creative Card Crew :- Birthday.
Lili's Little Fairies :- Butterflies.
Seize the Birthday :- Sketch plus feminine.
Ribbon Girl :- Turqoise/aqua.
Pink Gem :- Add a Bow.

I'm scheduling this post so I hope Mr Blogger is kind to me! My internet connection has been horrendous this evening (Friday) so I'll quit while I'm ahead now and just press publish before it goes off again.

Thanks for looking and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think about my card. It really makes me happy when I get a kind comment or two.

Have a lovely weekend. Catch you later,

Kat xx

Totally Gorjuss 168 - Flowers.

Good morning everyone. How did it get to be the last Saturday of January already? Is it an age thing or has anyone noticed how time passes very quickly?

I hope you're not having too much snow or rain wherever you are. We have been very, very lucky here in coastal Aberdeenshire but I know that even just a wee bit inland there has been a lot of snow and other parts of the country and England too have been badly affected. But now it's raining again so I suppose we're going to have floods again. Can't win can you?

But on a brighter note since it's Saturday it must be time for another challenge at Totally Gorjuss. Our challenge this week is "flowers." Now what could be easier. Most people like flowers and it's very easy to add flowers, or use flowery paper or use a floral image. So we're expecting a lot of entries this week. We have two sponsors this week - Ribbon Girl and Bugaboo Stamps so you have two chances to win! Bugaboo kindly offered all of the DT a digi image to use for this challenge, hope you like mine.

I used :-
Image :- Bugaboo stamps.
Colouring :- Promarkers.
DP :- LOTV.
Corners :- Whimsy.
Pearls :- Hobby House.
Flower and leaves :- Nellie Snell-en.
White gel pen for stitching.

I'm entering the following challenges :-

Pile it on :- Have a Heart.
Created with Love :-Anything Goes.
Creative Inspirations :- Anything Goes plus Flowers.
Passion for Promarkers :- Favourite colour combo.
Charisma :- Hearts and Flowers.
Fussy and Fancy :- Circles.
Stampin for the Weekend :- Girlie.
Ready Teddy Go :- Something new - new image.

After work today I'm going to my first crop this year. I haven't had time to sort out any card making ideas so I'm going to be knitting. I have a hat to knit for my WRI show and it would be good to have it made in plenty of time. It's to be any pattern and any ply so I've decided to do an Aran and I've dug out an old pattern. Well it must be because the needle sizes are the old sizes and the mm sizes are described as new. And apart from that the price is 12pence. Bargain!!

So I'll catch you up later when I get home.

Have a good weekend whatever you've got planned and stay warm in this cold weather.

Thanks for looking and I'd love to hear what you think of my card.

It's a Tree Thing!

I seem to be doing a lot of trees for my Christmas cards this year. I've done quite a few dry embossed trees but today I have two heat embossed ones. I rarely ever use my heat gun these days but I thought this would be a change.

I bought some lovely Inkylicious stamps at the SECC a couple of weeks ago and this is the first time I've used them. One of the things Inkylicious suggest is using the same stamp to make a border for your card so I tried that. Not sure if I've been very successful though!

I used :-

Image and sentiment :- Inkylicious.

Silver embossing powder, ribbon and Liquid Pearls.

The pearls weren't totally successful. Initially they were fine but somehow I managed to smudge some of them. I should have sat the card somewhere safe as soon as I added the pearls!

I used the same lovely image and sentiment to make another card. This time I embossed in gold and added some red gems from the Hobby House and gorgeous red ribbon from the Ribbon Girl. Have you ever bought ribbon from the Ribbon Girl? They have beautiful ribbons and other lovely embellishments and their service is amazingly quick.

That's 63 cards now, well 64 really as I made another one last night that I'm not showing just yet.

Thanks for looking and thanks to the kind people who leave me lovely comments on my poor efforts. I'll catch up later after work. Have a good day even if it is Monday!

Penny Black 189 Pearls and Lace.

This week I thought I'd try to enter the challenge at Penny Black earlier than the last minute. I've kept the card quite simple to show off the lovely lace and pearls.

I used :-

Image :- Penny Black.

DP :- First Edition.

Colouring :- Promarkers.

Lace, pearls, Glamour Dust and Sakura glitter gel pen.

I'm entering the following challenges :-

Penny Black :- Pearls and Lace.
Gem of a Challenge :- Sketch.
Ribbon Girl :- Pink, brown and cream.
ABC :- Jazz it up. Lots of bling and glitter.


I meant to post this on Sunday evening but it was too late! I've been at work all day so I just feel like doing a bit of catching up now. Maybe even some knitting for a change.

Thanks for looking and I think I'll go and check out the entries over at the Totally Gorjuss where we'd like to see some lace on your cards or projects this week. How easy is that? I'm hoping to see lots of you over there this week.

Sweet Baby Boy.

Good morning everyone. Hope the weather conditions are better here today. Tuesday wasn't that cold but the rain on Monday had made everything so slippy that I could hardly walk the dogs. Thats the disadvantage of living in the country, the snow turns icy where cars have been and then it can take ages to get rid of the ice!

Here's the card I made for one of the girls at work who is delighted to be a granny to a gorgeous baby boy.It was nice to make something that wasn't a Christmas card. I feel as if I've been making Christmas cards for ever. Actually I checked back and I made the first one in January!

I love this image from Pink Gem, that baby is so cute!

This is my day off and I might nip to the garden centre to get some of those liqueur chocolates with cherries that Mhairi wants in her stocking. Apart from that I think I've got everything I need and if not.......tough!!

Catch you all later.

You Might Need Sunglasses!

This is another one of my quick Christmas cards.  Quicker than the last one anyway as I settled on the second colour of inkpad that I tried. It's a bit bright but I like it!

I used :-

Image :- Penny Black, stamped using a Vivid inkpad in Raspberry.

Card candi, ribbon and I found a piece of Core'dinations card in just the right shade.

I love this image. It stamps really well and looks great embossed in silver too.



I'm going to enter the following challenges :-

Ribbon Girl :- Pink & White.
Allsorts :- One Layer Card.

I should have had Poppy's birthday card but I took it to work to show the girls and posted it to her. I used a Penny Black image, "Heart to Heart" - a little Thelwell type pony talking to a bird perched on the handle of a pail, really cute. Poppy loves horses. Think Oliver does too!! There's a riding school just a few minutes walk from their house and they like to look at the horses. They're too young for lessons but they can have a shot for a couple of pounds.

Thanks for looking and also for any kind comments you might leave.