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