Not everything is black and white

Good morning everyone, hope this day finds you all well and that the weather is not too bad wherever you are in this country at least, I think the rest of the world are having better weather than us at the mo.
The card I have posted today "Not everything is black and white" is actually Navy and White, but the play on words is meant for my dear friend, who you may remember if you read my earlier posts had been diagnosed with breast cancer.  Well after 6 months backwards and forwards with her to hospital for chemo and the hours involved in that (I must say I never knew it took so long) well anyway the outcome was not as we had hoped for and it was decided that they should remove the breast.  Many tears and soul seaching later and trying to convince her it was for the best, she went through with it last Wednesday and is now on the road to recovery from the op.  I am hopefully that she will now start to get better and come to terms with her body, I can only imagine what she must be feeling.  Although I myself have not had any such problems, I tend to be of the type of person that says if you can live without something then do it, but I know it's not that cut and dry for alot of people.  Now we have an anxious wait for the first test results as apparently the lump took up most of the breast so they had to go quite deep to remove it all.  On the plus side she seems to be well in herself and still has her sense of humour, essential I think to help get you through things like this.

Enough of my life at the moment, and on to the card, it's made with my spellbinder dies again (sorry but I do like them)
Border - Persian Accents
Flowers - Sprial Blossom 3 & Bitty Blossoms
Leaves - Foliage S4 & Memory Box Lorelai leaf

Hope you like it, have a good day and thank you for any comments.

Nearly there!!!!!

Hi there to all my lovely followers and a special warm welcome to my new followers and thank you all so much for all your lovely comments.
Just a quick progress update, we are nearly there now finished decorating and started to put everything back in.  It all looks lovely and tidy at the moment, unfortunately it won't stay that way once my craft stuff goes back in - Oh how I wish I had a craft room.  But I'd have to evict one of the off spring to achieve that - don't tempt me lol.
Anyway, hope you are all keeping well, hope the weather is kind to you wherever you are in the world.  It's been raining here again!!! can there be anymore water up there I ask. 
We are doing so well in the Olympics fantastic effort by Team GB already exceeding the total of medals from Beijing, well done to all of them.
Will be back again soon.
Take care of yourselves.

Linda xxx

Hi there

This is just a quick hello and welcome to all my new followers, thank you for stopping by and I hope you like what you see.
I am unable to make any cards at the moment as the area I use namely the dining room is being decorated by hubby, so all crafting goodies have had to be packed away and whips brought out to keep him at it so I can put everything back as soon as possible. 
I hope you are all having a good Olympic summer, I know I am.  It's great to be cheering team GB on isn't it?  They are all doing so well.  The weather has been it's usual unsettled self, although personally I prefer it now it's not quite so hot.
Hope to be back to normal again soon.
Linda xxx

Saying goodbye

Hello and welcome to everyone who has taken the time to stop by, please leave a comment so I know you have visited, it means alot.
My card today is one made for a very dear friend who has decided to leave our little happy band of workers and move to pastures new.
I decided to use the image Pearls in my Hair from http://www.adayfordaisies.com/stamps/ do pop over and have a look sometime, they have lovely images.  Anyway I thought this image would be suitable because she is walking away and because the birds are with her it just seemed right to colour them blue, for bluebirds of happiness.  I did make a mistake after colouring the image with my new promarkers (really beginning to love these now) I decorated the image with the pearls (getting carried away without thinking first as usual) it was only after it had dried that I realised I had not cut the image out (silly me) so then had to draw round the spellbinders frame I wanted to use, before mounting it on another one in a contrasting colour.  I'm not completely happy with it, I'm disappointed with myself for not noticing earlier, I like to do things right all the time that's the trouble. I used the embossing folder by Couture Creations called Walrus & Carpenter, on the pink floral paper. On the blue dotty paper I used Spellbinders Edgeabilities I also used the same edgeabilities die down the spine of the card. Here's a closeup of the image.

Hope you like it and thanks for looking and any comments you leave.
Till next time, Linda xxx

Lillies

Good morning

This is the first card I have made for a while and its for my cousin who has moved to another area.  I thought the Patience Strong poem 'Home' was very appropriate and it's a lovely verse.  The poem and the image are from Joanna Sheen's cd rom 'If Flowers Could Talk' and to a certain extent the idea for the card came from her web-site as well, but they reminded me of the lovely lillies out in my garden at the moment see the pictures above and below.  I placed the topper on the inside of the card measured and cut an appature the same size on the front so that the poem can be seen through the front of the card, then cut the strip of lillies from a second topper and mounted it to the front page so it covered the ones on the topper inside, then used all the spare toppers to cut the lillies out for decoupage and adding additional ones to cover the places where it was joined.  Hope you like it.

I'm off to the hospital in a bit with my friend for her 4th session of Chemo and she has to have a blood transfusion as well today.  I do hope it all goes well.  I must say until I started doing this I had no idea how long these things took.  It's a good 4 1/2 hours for the Chemo and another 2 hours for the blood transfusion.  She was told at yesterdays consultation that the tumor has strunk a bit so fingers crossed it's going to be a positive outcome.  Unfortunately my Uncle has just been diagnosed with bladder cancer and to see a man go downhill so fast in 6 weeks is heart-breaking, and I am afraid the prognosis is not going to be so good for him, but he's seeing another specialist today so lets keep our fingers crossed. 

I would just like to say a warm welcome to all my new followers, I hope you find something you like about my blog, hopefully it will not be all doom and gloom, one day the sun might shine again. 

I wish you all health and happiness in whatever you do and thankyou for popping by today.

Love Linda xxx

I've been trying out my Promarkers

Good afternoon, and what a sunny one it is.  The weather down here in Somerset is certainly welcome after all the rain of late. I hope you are all well. I've just come back after a very relaxing lunch with my friends at the local cider farm, hic, well I just had to try it out as it's that very cider that will be at our harvest home meal at the beginning of September, and a wonderful day that usually turns out to be seeing old friends that we probably haven't seen since this time last year.
Anyway on to my card, if you remember a few weeks back I was trying to decide which make of colouring pens to go for.  Well I decided to opt for Promarkers and will be adding some flexmarkers to these as funds allow.  So today's card will show you I have been practicing with these alot, and this card is the first one I'm prepared to let anyone look at lol. I'm still not 100% happy with it yet, I think I may have to look at the card I am using, I'm finding that this one bleeds a bit, any suggestions would be welcome.  Let me know what you think, am I on the right track colouring wise or should I start over again.

This is a beautiful image from http://www.saturated-canary.myshopify.com/ Krista Smith does some lovely images, go over and take a look if you haven't already, she's always adding new ones.
The papers I have used are from the Papermania dvd Capsule Collection. The dvd's are so useful I find, I hope you like it.  The border die I have used is Spellbinders, the original scallop edge with a new insert piece that was released earlier this year I don't know if they have ever been shown on tv or not.  I got these from http://www.sunrisecrafts.co.uk/ They have some good stuff on this site and free p&p on orders over £10, which let's face it, is not hard to get to is it?








I'm off to watch the tennis now it's Hewitt and Karlovic this afternoon, I'm a bit of a fan of tennis incase you haven't guessed and love it on grass like today at Queen's. Clay is much too messy lol.  I've been typing this so long that match has finished now and we're on to Baghdatis and Gil.

I must say a quick hello to my new followers, and thanks for stopping by and any comments you care to leave.

Love Linda xxx



In a bit of a cream mood

Just want to say hi to everyone and thank you for visiting my blog, sorry there is not much to see at the moment.  Life is just so hectic at times. 
Made these cards today as it is pouring down outside, after such a beautiful day yesterday.  Anyway it gave me a bit of an excuse to craft while watching Nadal and Djokovic playing in the final in Paris (but even that got rained off).  This is the first time I've made all cream before, I'm normally a white person there's something about it that keeps drawing me back.  I have to say though that this does seem to give a softer impression.
I have recently invested in some new embossing folders as well and thought I'd give them a try out at the same time, they give a great base to start from.
That's all for this visit, please feel free to pop by again sometime, thank you for looking and any comments you might care to leave, love and hugs Linda xxx

It's been ages

Hi there to all my new followers, and I must start with an apology. It's been ages since I last posted, things have been a little up in the air lately, what with one of my friends going through a tough time at the moment and another friend recovering from a second knee op, life is a little hectic you might say. Just when I think I might have time to myself I end up ferrying my son about because his car has decided to die. Oh well that's life I suppose. Anyway I did manage to make a card in recognition of what my friend with cancer is going through at the moment, hope you all like it.  It's made with my favourite dies (although I say that each time I use a different die lol) these ones are the Parisian Accents, very delicate dies and they give a lovely lacey feel I think.  This 'Booby Love' image is from http://saturated-canary.myshopify.com/ pop over and take a look at Krista's images if you don't already visit, she is an absolutely amazing artist.
For those of you that may be interested I have taken the plunge and bought some promarkers, quite a nice selection to start with, and I will be adding some flexmarkers in a little while I think, I am having fun playing with them, but not ready to show my results just yet and I will take years of practice before I am ever as good as you lot.  Anyway that's all for this visit, heaven know's when I'll be back again. See you soon I hope. Linda xxx

Sunshine on a rainy day

Hello everyone, I'm in a bit of a sad mood today, I've recently found out that a very dear friend of mine has cancer.  It's at times like this that you have to be positive for the friend but at the same time I'm worried sick about the outcome, it is making me feel sick with worry, so while waiting for a phone call from her this morning to tell me about visiting times at the hospital, I just had to distract myself and make this card, which will be her birthday card.  So I have choosen a bright card with sunny colours on it hopefully to cheer her up a bit, as she is feeling rubbish alot of the time with all the chemo drugs.  I hope you like it, it's spellbinders again I'm afraid, but they are my favourite.

And here's a picture of some cupcakes I made as well, still on the cheering up theme.

Your thoughts please

Today I have decided that it is time I got myself some colouring pens, the question is which ones, there are so many different ones on the market at the moment, I really don't know which ones to choose.  Should it be Whispers, Spectrum Noir, Promarkers or others I haven't even heard of.  So I thought the best thing to do is to ask all you lovely crafters who read this to give me your opinion on the ones you use, if you would, and that will help me make up my mind.  I want to be able to blend colours almost seemlessly without any pen strokes visible if that is at all possible and also to be able to shade the colours so that it looks natural and not obviously pen coloured.  Now I know alot of what I want to do will depend on my colouring talent (which may be in doubt) but the theory is that if I start with the best I can get then my amature efforts won't look so bad.  Tell me what you think please, it will help alot.
I will leave you with that thought and look forward to hearing what you think.  Linda xxx

Roses

Just having fun with the spellbinders rose creations and bitty blossoms dies, I just love the way the flowers turn out, this card was made with an embossing plate on the back card, that was then heat embossed with clear embossing powder to make it shine. The card front was folded back with the persian motif die half cut and the other half embossed so that when the front is folded back half the die stays facing forward, bit complicated to explain, I got the idea from Sue Wilson on her www.particraft.blogspot.co.uk/ she is certainly a good source of inspiration.  Anyway after all that it was fairly straightforward to just decorate with a flower arrangement.

Same roses and similar arrangement in another colourway.That's all for now, enjoy looking. It's been another lovely day hear again beautiful sunshine hope it's nice wherever you are. Love Linda xxx

I've just won my first challenge

Today I won my first Challenge held by Teri at http://www.deliciousdoodles.blogspot.co.uk/.  The competition was to name the above image that Teri had just created and my winning name was ..."Friends Forever".  I am so pleased that it was picked and my prize was this digi image she has drawn.
So as soon as it was e-mailed to me I got cracking and put this card together, it's such a lovely image, and it was a beautiful sunny day here today, so I just had to keep with the sunny fresh colours.  The images that Teri has on her blog are lovely and well worth a visit.  I hope you all had a lovely Easter and that the weather wasn't too bad, it has been a mixed bag here, but thankfully more sun than rain.  Thanks to all my lovely new followers and for looking and commenting on my blog, I know there's not much here yet, very little time I'm afraid, but all comments are really appreciated, thank you once again. Lots of love Linda xxx

Wee stamps

I have just visited this ladies blog she is the designer for the wee stamps and she does some fab images, go and take a look, she also has free digi stamps on her blog.  Well worth a visit.  http://www.sylviazet.blogspot.com/

Card No 2

THIS ONE'S NOT PURPLE!!!!!
I must be feeling unwell, just went for a mouch about on different blogs and came across Krista's blog at
http://saturatedcanary.blogspot.co.uk/  wow wow wow, what more can I say that lady can certainly draw, her images are simply amazing, this was a free digi download, but I have since ordered more.
I have just coloured this with colouring pencils as I don't yet have any promarkers or the like and I did try watercolouring but I'm not happy with it (every one else is mind you) I'm just fussy I never think my work is good enough.  The side banner on the card is from spellbinders bordabilities,  one of the best systems ever invented in my opinion, and the flowers are the bitty blossoms from spellbinders so easy to make have a go.  These were made in plain white card then spritzed them with mica spring pearls.  Hope you like it. That's all for now, see you soon. xxx

Card No. 1

Hi there everyone, this is the first card I've posted to my blog.  I made it for my son's girlfriend who will be 21 soon (hope she like's it ).  As you will probably guess by most of the cards I will upload I LOVE purple with a passion and can not seem to make anything that doesn't have the colour included in it somewhere, if anyone knows of a cure please let me know lol.
Another thing you will probably all notice is that I have a grand caliber and just about every card I make usually has something die cut on it somewhere.  Like these spiral flower dies on this card, they are so effective and look lovely when done (well I think so anyway), if you have the opportunity and can have a go at making them go for it you will not be disappointed they are the best thing invented in my opinion.
That's all for now, hopefully be back soon as time allows, hope you like looking at my card projects, if you care to leave any comments they would be very welcome.
Love from Linda xxx

My first time

Welcome to my blog, this is the first time I have ever done anything like this (and will probably be the last).