Papertrey Ink birthday card

Hello everyone, and welcome to Sandee, Ellen and Sara who are new followers this week. I have a spate of birthdays coming up and I made this one for my friend Angie

I took a square of white card and die cut the three butterflies from it before layering it onto some Hawaiian Shores card. I then stamped three different butterflies through the apertures in Fresh Snow ink.

I added a strip of dotty ribbon and tied a bow with an added button

before stamping the sentiment and adding some gems for the butterfly bodies to finish it off. This panel was added to the base card with some foam dots to give a little extra dimension.

We have been having glorious spring weather in Manchester, so the garden furniture has been pulled out and washed in the hope that the sunshine will last. The magnolia tree opposite our house has been particularly magnificent this year

and the spring bulbs have really responded to the sunshine

I hope you are all having a good week and thanks for looking in.

Hugs

Carol x

Cricut / Papertrey Ink Birthday card and Ducks!

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry not to have posted for a week but things have been a bit hectic in my life and crafting has had to take a lower profile. However, we have had a happy event in our household! We have a small pond in our garden that has been visited for a couple of years by a pair of mallard ducks, and this year the female laid eggs and today 10 little ducklings took to the water with their Mum.



click to enlarge



They are so cute and have been strutting round the flower beds, exploring all the nooks and crannies. We've been so excited to see them and just hope all the little cuties make it to fledging time because neighbouring cats and a fox regularly visit our garden. I'll keep you posted on the progress!

Whilst I am here, I'd like to share a card I made for a 50th birthday.

I started by using PTI Background basics Twinkle to create the backing paper in Hawaiian Shores ink. I then used my Cricut to cut the panel from Just Because Cards and the numbers from Plantin Schoolbook. I stamped a couple of banner bits from Banner Builders and over stamped them with words from Big Birthday Wishes, cut them out and attached a bit of card as flag posts, an idea I saw Erin Lincoln use. I decided not to ink any edges on this card because I wanted a cleaner look, and I think I'm going to be using this larger sentiment set again because it is very versatile.

Thanks for looking in.
Hugs
Carol x

Happy Easter

Hello everyone,

Sorry I've been a bit absent this week but it has been very busy and I'm only just surfacing. I wanted to wish you all a very Happy Easter and I hope you have plenty of chocolate goodies to celebrate with. We had friends round for dinner last night and when I went into the garden just before they arrived, I found that the lily of the valley flowers had burst into bloom so I couldn't resist snipping a few for the table.

click to enlarge

Even though they only last a short time, I think they are one of my most favourite flowers and it is such a pleasure to have them in the house.

Have a great day and I'll be back tomorrow to share a card.

Hugs

Carol x

PS Yay! I'm really excited to have won a set of Waltzing Mouse stamps from the blog waltz and even better, I get to choose which set I want!

Thank you card.

Hello everyone and I hope you are having a good weekend. We woke up to glorious sunshine in Manchester so we dropped everything and and decided to spend the morning having a stroll round Dunham Park. The deer are so colourful at this time of year and their antlers are so big as they get ready for the rutting season. The autumn colour is almost here and it was really good to get some fresh air.



The Orangery at Dunham Park

 After my lovely birthday weekend, I had some thank you cards to make and got out a cute Penny Black stamp from 2007 called Greetings, and coloured it with Copic markers. I used some Making Memories card from the Kids Collection and a thank you sentiment from the Penny Black Salutations set.



click to enlarge



I've decided to make some jam and chutneys this autumn as gifts for Christmas, so if any of you have recipes or tips, this novice would be very grateful.

Thanks for looking.
Carol x

More photographs

Hello everyone,

We've been enjoying some much needed sunshine in my corner of Manchester, so although I haven't been crafting so far this week, I thought I would share some more photos from our family competition. You can click on any of the photos to get a larger view.

This beautiful photo of raindrops on a web was taken by John (my lovely husband).

I took this photo at Hampton Court this summer. I just loved the rich patterns and fabric on the dress.

This close up photo of a dandelion seed head was taken by my son, Chris.

A bluebell wood, taken by John at Coughton Hall this summer.

And, finally, this amazing shot was taken by Laura in our garden. So we did have blue skies on at least one day!

Competition photos

Hello everyone,

Just a quick post to share some of the photographs that my family entered into our photo competition on Saturday. You can click on any of the photos for a larger view.

These were from the 'people' section:-

This shot of my youngest son, Nick, was taken by my husband.

This moody shot of the men (2 sons and a husband ) in our family was taken by Laura when were were on holiday in the Lake District.

The next shots were from the Landscape section:-

This beautiful shot of a lake was taken by my eldest son, Chris.

This shot was taken by Laura at Conway in Wales.

I'm very proud of my talented family, and I would recommend Laura's family challenge for a fun evening. We couldn't have our barbecue because of rainy weather, but we shared a meal and then had the slide show. Each of us had a voting paper and we voted for what we thought was the best photo in each section. I made rosettes on my Cricut for each winner and the overall winner received a certificate. Luckily, (and without 'fixing' if you know what I mean) everyone won at least one section.

I'll share some more photos when I can, but I'm off to Shropshire tomorrow for a few days with my lovely daughter.

Thanks for looking.

Carol x

Cricut Sweet Treats gift basket

Hello again,

Summer seems to be here at last (or for the weekend anyway) and I have just been looking around the garden at some of the flowers that are currently blooming. It is such a wonderful time of year and I spent half an hour sitting with a cup of tea listening to the birdsong.

I haven't had much time for crafting this week but I made a little gift box on my cricut with the Sweet Treats cartridge. This is to go with a card for the shop assistant at my favourite craft store who is leaving to take another job.

I think I am going to really enjoy using this cartridge. It has so many yummy cupcakes and ice creams on it but there are also tons of tags and cupcake holders and gift boxes that will make it very versatile.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend in the sunshine.