Love is in the Air

This week's challenge at PBSC was to complete the phrase Love Is ....... either on the front or inside the card.

I treated myself to this stamp (Hedgehopper) last month when the new Valentine releases came out from Penny Black.

I try to get lots of use from my stamps and could easily use this for male birthdays by not stamping the string of hearts. 

This is the card that I have made to give to my DH for Valentine's Day

I used paper from Craft Creations Ltd, organza ribbon from my stash and some mini alphabet stamps (think they are Studio G) for the title.  The heart was cut from chipboard using a Sizzlet die, coloured with a red tombow marker pen and then covered with red glitter glue.  The image was watercoloured with Derwent pencils and the hearts were highlighted with glossy accents.

A close up of the image

I am sure he will like it and at least he won't get the sulks because I have given him a shop bought card LOL!!

Sorry for the picture quality - the weather is dire here at the moment for photography.

Anita's January Class

Our January class is usually a Christmas themed layout so that we can use one of our Christmas photographs.  This time we were using Basic Grey Jovial and you can see Anita's class page on her blog Inky Blossom.

I decided to do the layout without the origami tree on it, but I did take some scrap paper with me to have a go at making the tree and it was surprisingly easy.  I used a photograph of Richard opening his stocking presents on Christmas Day.

There was a lot of handcutting involved which I quite enjoy and it was also a layout to go to town with the Stickles.  Thanks Anita for another lovely class.

Twilight Addicts weekend away

I have just returned from a lovely weekend away with some dear friends from the Twilight Addicts social group on UKS.  We had a fab weekend consisting mainly of chattering, eating and a bit of crafting thrown into the mix.  It may surprise some people that we didn't watch any of the movies whilst away!!!

The cupcakes that I had featured earlier on the blog went down really well with everyone and my friend Anita aka The Inky Blossom challenged me before going to get piccies of the girls eating them and to do a layout about them called Love at First Bite.  So with that in mind I took these piccies of everyone filling their faces -

The lovely Lisa who organised our weekend away

Heather

Gemma

Dee (fiddly-dee potatoes!!)

Carin and Jill

And me trying to see if I could fit a whole cupcake in

We had a stowaway smuggled onto our weekend - meet Vern!!

He belongs to Jess and goes everywhere with her so he couldn't resist a weekend away in the Cotswolds (not that he saw much of the Cotswolds but I think he enjoyed all the Pepsi Max and cakes!!)

Here he is with Jess -

We all had our photo taken with Vern over the weekend -

You can see the rest on Jess' blog

And finally a group piccie of us all minus our jackets that do up at the back

I suspect in the next few days more incriminating photographs will be flying around the interweb!!

Dizzy Dots set the weekly challenge on UKS

This week it is my team's turn to set the weekly challenge on UKScrappers.  Whilst we were on our team weekend away back in November we had discussed what to do for a challenge when it was our turn to set one.  One idea suggested was that we all used the same photograph for our layout so it was decided that we would all use the group photograph from the weekend.

The elements for our challenge are -

Use the sketch provided
Use a photograph of a group of people, objects or animals
Use some pink and stitching to feature on the layout

This was the sketch that we used from Page Maps

And this is my take on the sketch

I used Sarah's Cards October kit - Crate Paper 'Restoration', MLS alphabet stickers, Martha Stewart butterfly punch and The Hobby House pearls.

A close up of my stitched element

It has been really interesting to see how all our layouts have differed even though we have all used the same sketch and photograph.

Twilight cupcakes

I wanted to take some home baked goodies on our Twilight Addicts weekend away but wanted to do something new, so volunteered to supply cupcakes.  I found this lovely recipe and they suggested that they would be good for a Halloween or twilight themed party.  The test batch was tested on my DH and other family members - they went down very well and were given a 9 out of 10 nom nom rating.  So I set about making a full batch to share at the weekend

Pre-oven

Just baked

Centres injected with raspberry jam - these have been done as described in the recipe and the only fault that my taste testers could find with the cupcakes was that there should be more jam in the centres.  So for my second batch I actually scooped out a small well in the top of the cake and was able to add a lot more jam and once the icing is added you cannot see the hole in the top of the cake.

Iced (sadly my icing skills are not up to much, I tried to pipe the icing on so that they looked like the ones in the original recipe but they looked disgusting so I resorted to just slathering the topping on with a spatula).  I really wanted to decorate the cakes with a red apple but could not find anything suitable that was edible so had to settle for jelly hearts.  In future and time allowing I could always make some from fondant icing.

Afternoon treat

Going

Going

Gone

They were very yummy but very sweet and sickly, I would be surprised if anyone would eat two of these in one sitting.  I hope the girls like them this weekend.

Penny Black Saturday Challenge Week 136

This week's challenge at PBSC was to use this lovely sketch

I needed to do something quick and easy as this week has been a really manic one so I grabbed a stamped image that had already been watercoloured and matted.   It just so happens to be a Christmas image -  so I now have 6 cards done towards the minimum of 150 that I will be needing.

Papers are from a Dovecraft paper set from a couple of years ago, Martha Stewart snowflake punches and a liberal dose of crystal Stickles.

Right gotta dash as have a class this evening with the lovely Anita M at Cardinal Colours and then tomorrow I am off to the Cotswolds to spend the weekend with some of the Twilight Addicts from UKS.  We are supposed to be spending the weekend crafting but I think we will mainly be watching DVDs, eating cupcakes & chocolate and doing rather a lot of chattering LOL!!!!

Get well soon

My brother has recently had a big op, so I am wishing him a speedy recovery.  This is the card that I made for him using a lovely Cuddly Buddly bear stamp.

I made the easel card using large octagon nestabilities.  The patterned paper is Bo Bunny and from my scraps pile.

A close up of the stamped image