Happy birthday Nicki

Today's card is the last birthday card of the year and it now belongs to my lovely friend Nicki

Nicki was the first person I met and became friends with when I started running my shop, and we have been firm friends since then, so, almost nine years ( which has flown by)

Our friendship started out with a shared love of scrapbooking (crafting is such a wonderful way to bring people together)

Nicki is a beautiful soul and is kind and generous to a fault

 I created this card in a DL size, I used a Prima tag for the main background

The larger flowers are Prima and the small roses are from Wild Orchid crafts, the stamped sentiment is by Stampin' Up, the leaf dies are 'cheap as chips from china' - thanks Jan and Ann xxx,  and all the other die cuts on this card are Nestability dies

Hope you have a lovely day Nicki and get spoiled rotten by Mark and the girls, hopefully see you in the summer - can't wait to give you and the girls squishy hugs xxx

Love and friendship

Tracey

xxx

Last post

I do believe I have finally uploaded the last of my Christmas cards for 2017

This last batch of four completes the collection

This first one is for my lovely friend Paulien in the Netherlands

This next card I made for one of Neil's ex-work colleagues and his partner

This bright and funky card is for Paulien's daughter Ashley

And finally, last, but by no means least is the cute card for a lovely young lady I met a couple of years ago, she came to help me in the shop as part of a work placement scheme

She's a real sweetheart and was such a help in the last few months of me running the shop, she wouldn't mind me saying that she has not had an easy life and yet she was so cheerful and willing to do all she could to make the shop and classes run smoothly for me

So, thankyou Shelley, I hope you and your beautiful boy Daniel have a wonderful christmas and a much happier 2018

And that's it for christmas crafting this year

I was much more organised than I have ever been before ( the benefits of retirement !) but  I have high hopes of being even more efficient next year. My aim is to complete all the card making and handmade gifts by the end of November ( I know there are several of you rolling your eyes as you read this, you all know me so well, but if I don't set a target there is no hope of me getting finished at all !)

I will be back tomorrow with a birthday card I made for a very special friend

Love and high hopes

Tracey

xxx

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

These are the fun cards I made for the kids this year

By 'kids' I mean my three young adults, my grown up niece and Amy's partner Ben

None of whom are children and two of them don't strictly belong to me, never the less I call them "my kids"

 Ben's card

Amy's card

Katie's card

Rob's card

AJ's card

They are all a bit fun and a bit silly and I can't take credit for any of the designs this time. 

The snowmen and various reindeer are all over pinterest, so I took several elements from lots of different designs and came up with these five cuties

Hope you are all having a wonderful day

Love and cute christmas kisses

Tracey

xxx

A little vintage christmas

And we are now on the home run, just a couple more batches of cards to share

I have very much depleted my christmas craft stash this year and have already bought a lovely paper pad in the sales from The Range, with which to make a start on next years cards

On a side note I can't believe how many reductions are already in place. There are lots of bargains to be had in the shops, as, no doubt, the retailers are already preparing for their Easter displays

Again, lots of layering, lots of die cuts, not very mail friendly but, hey ho, that's just the way I roll

I have definitely rekindled my passion for paper and have a few projects planned for the new year.  Who knows, I might even partake in a challenge or two just to keep my momentum and my mojo

I hope whatever you are doing this Christmas Eve, you are doing it with your loved ones, I hope you are warm and well and looking forward to tomorrow

I am sending each and every one of my readers, much love and lots of kind wishes for Christmas and the new year

If you have loved ones that are no longer with us, and you are struggling with the season,  I wish you peace, and the ability to cherish the memories you have

Take good care of yourselves and your loves

I will be back over the next couple of days but I am going to schedule the posts this evening as I am going to limit my online time over the next few days

Merry Christmas

Love and warm wishes

Tracey

xxx

The dark side of Disney

A little departure from the norm this evening with my card design

This next project was a commission for the guy who did some of our decorating to give to his partner for her birthday

Bart commissioned me to make one a couple of years ago, if your memory is good, you might recall me sharing a Tim Burton style card

His partner loves all the evil queens from the Disney movies and her favourite colour is green - et voila

I created lots of layering on this 8in x 8in card, with the images downloaded from the internet

 I had the sequin waste left over from a previous project and the gorgeous black net along the bottom was a gift from my lovely friend Carol many moons ago

I tied all the colours together with some die-cut foliage and a sprinkling of gems

Bart loved the card and was sure his partner Carla would too

It makes me so happy to know I have contributed a little way in helping someone give a personal and thoughtful card to a loved one

This was just a brief interruption to the avalanche of festive makes, a continuance of christmas crafting will resume tomorrow

Love and, dark disney kisses

Tracey

xxx

And Christmas resumes

Good evening

I have another batch of Christmas cards to share with you tonight

I bought a lovely 8" paper pad from the Range last year and these Vintage style papers have been a joy to work with

The Christmas tree stamp is by Stampin' Up and the little wooden reindeer was bought in The Works last year

I seem to have amassed a great deal of DL sized envelopes so tried to use a few up this year

The house die below is an old Spellbinders die, the poinsettias are Marianne, sentiment is Stampin' Up and the trees were made using deckle edged scissors as I didn't have dies small enough for these trees

This next lamppost is a Tim Holtz die, sentiment is once again Stampin' Up

I thought I was almost through sharing all my christmas cards, but checking my camera tonight I still have a fair few to blog. I hope I am not boring everyone with them

I am not sure I will be able to keep this blogging pace up once all the christmas crafts have been shared, but I must admit to having found my crafting mojo lately, so, who knows, maybe next year will be more creative

So, what do you do when you lose your mojo, hit a wall, lack inspiration

Here's 5 ideas to kickstart your creative flow

1. Use the internet for inspiration, join sites that post photos of the crafts you enjoy

I love 

Pinterest

Scrapbook.com

UK Scrappers

2. Connect with other bloggers, create a reading list on your preferred device of creative bloggers whose style makes you want to reach for your supplies

3. Reorganise your crafting space and supplies. Oftentimes, just reacquainting yourself with your bits and bobs is enough to spur you into action, have your favourite colours and styles to hand and make your crafting space comfortable and easy to use

4. Join a class or club. Sharing ideas with your fellow members and taking a course can help you to think outside your creative box, trying new techniques and sharing them with others is inspiration itself. My favourite part of running my classes when I had the shop was "show and tell", I loved it when class members brought in their makes from home and know they inspired me as well as all the other class members

5. If all else fails GO SHOPPING ! Treat yourself to a new piece of equipment, a magazine or a book of ideas. Something as simple and as inexpensive as a beautiful sheet of patterned paper, some pretty ribbon or a new die is often enough to create a little spark of creativity 

Hangin' around the christmas tree ...........

As promised here are the five wall - hangings I made for my friends at work

It was my way of saying thankyou for a lovely year of friendship, support and lots of laughs

This first one is for Sue

I chose colours to match her decor at home

Sue adores green, so I thought I would be safe with this one

The poinsettia is a Marianne die

The ovals are Stampin' Up

Ivy punch is Woodware, as is the small daisy

Small flower is Stampin' Up as are both sheets of the green paper ( stripes and trees)

This next one is for Margaret who likes bright fun colours

Punches as before

Little wooden christmas trees are from a couple of years ago and were bought in The Works

This next one was for my neighbours Mary and Colin

I made this silver snowflake hanging for Gillian at work

Most of the snowflakes were die cuts my lovely friend back in Healing gave me - thanks Trish

And finally this last one was for Janice, who mans the till and has endless patience with me when I try to use it

Another Marianne die for the branches, glitter paper and bauble punch from Stampin' Up

And in case anyone is wondering, the actual circles for the hangings are upcycled from old CD's

The CD's are covered in patterned paper ( I use a Pritt Stick to attach the paper ), once the glue is dry, cut around the CD with your craft knife, then repeat for the back

The holes required for threading the twine/ribbon to hang are made using my trusty Cropodile

I will be back tomorrow with another batch of  Christmas cards 

Love and friendship

Tracey

xxx

Crafting Update

I have not been quite so prolific with my crafting as I used to be, but the upside is now I craft when I want to and not when I have to

I have quite a mixed bag of cards here, dating back to Easter, so please excuse the random selection

A bi-fold, envelope style birthday card

The Easter cards I made, to send to family and friends

All the same but different, same design, different colours

Amy's Easter card was totally different as I wanted to put a bunny on hers

Another birthday card

My lovely dad's fathers day card

And my mum's birthday card, another bi-fold design with fancy edges

Lots of space inside this design for a verse

There have been a couple more too but I did not remember to photograph those ( naughty blogger )

Until next time

xxx

Still here

Hellooooooooo

We are still here, although you would be forgiven for thinking we had fallen off the planet

FIVE months on from my last post, much has happened and not much has happened if you know what I mean

In a nutshell

*      We have been up country to visit family

*       Friends and family have been here to visit us (Mum and Dad, Tony and Carol, Kev and Jackie)

*      We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary

*      Amy and Robbie finished uni

*      All three 'children' are now working

*      Amy has had a tonsillectomy

*      Robbie is learning to drive and has his first car

Some of these events will be blogged in more detail later. I have just finished editing all the photos from the last five months, 700 photos, two hours and three coffees later I have decided there is far too much to wade through in one blog post

And in other news

We had an unexpected little windfall, so bought ourselves this fab little campervan, we have been away in it a couple of times already and are planning our first trip away with the dogs soon

The dogs have had a wonderful time in the woods, on walks and especially on the beach

We have had some gorgeous days out, exploring our stunning county, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes with friends or family and often with the dogs

I gave up trying to cover the grey and have been gradually adding more and more highlights, I am really happy with the results and my hairdresser is fantastic, Paige has the patience of a saint with my stubborn hair

We have also had some amazing days/nights out, we have enjoyed some fantastic gigs this year, local and further afield, found a couple of new festivals, added a few new bands to our playlists and generally broadened our horizons musically ( much more to come on that in future posts )

And yes, I have still been doing a little crafting, much much less than I used to. I toyed with the idea of giving it up and freeing some space by getting rid of all my craft clutter  stuff, but the feeling didn't last long. 

It may take me a little longer to actually get started, but once I have all my pretties out on the table, I remember just how therapeutic it is to have a craft and play session

This is my most recent creation, a card for my lovely friend Sue

I know this is a bit of a 'mixed bag', but you know what it is like to have so much to catch up on that it is difficult to know where to start

A very sensible person once said "just start", once you get going, the fear of the blank page disappears and the rest is much easier, how true this is. Now I have a million ideas running through my head and rather a lot of photos on my hard drive, no excuses then !

Back soon

I promise

xxx

Yoda and Darts

I am not really one for creating themed cards, my preferred cardmaking and scrapbooking style is very girlie, floral, with a touch of shabby chic

But, alas, every now and then girlie doesn't cut it, especially when making cards for very masculine friends and family of the opposite sex

These are a couple of 'themed' cards I made this year

First up Yoda for my lovely son-in-law, Ben

Ben is into all things Star Wars, I have made him 'music' themed cards in the past as he is also massively into his music, but this time round I went for something totally different and very fun to make

All the elements on the card are dies or punches, it was loads of fun trying to get all the shapes to come together

And this second card was for my friends hubby who is massively into his darts, he recently celebrated a milestone birthday

I printed the dart board from a google image and all the other elements were die cuts and punches, the darts themselves were hand cut as I just couldn't find punches to suit the job

Although my 'go to' style is really an explosion of flowers, pearls and all things feminine, I do love to think out of the box and stretch those 'masculine' creative muscles every now and again

Love and macho crafting

Tracey

xxx

7 on Sunday - Happy Valentine's Day

 Happy Valentine's Day !

It's a day of double celebrations here in our house, I always get extra spoiled as it is my birthday too - lucky me

Here is our past week in photos

1. Valentine flowers from my lovely hubby

2. Yummy steak meal out today, total surprise as we hadn't planned on going anywhere,  but the sun was shining and so off we went, called in to the local garden centre on the way home and added a little colour to the garden with some super bright and cheerful primroses

3. Shrove Tuesday brought the obligatory pancakes, it never goes uncelebrated in this house, the variation this year being the addition of blueberries and fresh Cornish Clotted Cream in place of the traditional lemon and sugar topping we normally go for

4. Centre stage is the lovely little Lily - Amy's hamster, we have been looking after her as she couldn't go back to Uni with Amy this last time and we said our goodbyes this week, she fell asleep and didn't wake up bless her. She was such a sweet little thing. She has been buried in the garden and a new little shrub has been planted there in her honour

5. This is how the dogs often sleep, nose to nose - they are so close and protective of each other, all our furbabies get along so well, it really is heartwarming to witness

6. Another little valentine treat from the hubby - my favourite ever chocolates, he also bought me Prosecco to wash them down with - that's why he's a keeper !

7. When we moved home, one of the things I was concerned about was being welcomed by the neighbours, us being foreigners from up country and all that - but I had absolutely no need to concern myself. We only have neighbours on one side and they couldn't be lovelier. Mary and Colin introduced themselves to us over the garden fence when we first moved in and have been so kind and thoughtful from that day on, nothing is too much trouble and they are both so warm and open. Every time I see them they make me laugh. Today Mary came round with a birthday card and these lovely plants for my garden, she has also been saving me seeds and always thinks of me when she sees any bargains I might be interested in, love her to bits already !

This is the card I made Neil for Valentine's day

My husband, my best friend, my soul mate

Love and loving wishes

Tracey

xxx