Blog Candy!!!!!

Hi all I'm so sorry I haven't been around this week. I thought I'd get to post on here every day with me having a week off but I got so engrossed in Designing the new Christmas download collection I've ended up with hardly a minute to spare. It'll be worth it though because they're looking fab - even if I do say so myself.
I have some great design team news, pop over to Dottie's World to find out. Before you go let me tell you about my blog candy. As most of you probably know My Curvy Card design was bought off me by WS designs some time ago, to be made into proper templates. It's all been very exciting, there's even going to be a demo on Create and Craft (not sure when though)

Anyhow this brings me to the blog candy. As the original designer I got four free complementary templates and I'm giving two of them away.
If you would like to win one of my templates just leave a comment to this post and I'll draw two names out of a hat in two weeks time.
Good luck. xxx

Card for Patsy

I almost forgot to show you this card. I made it for my lovely blogging pal Patsy last week. She gave birth to the most beautiful daughter on 9th of May (the same day as my Holly's birthday!) and I just had to include the picture she gave me.

Here it is.
Isn't she gorgeous! Welcom baby Eleanor.xxxxxxxx
Congratulations Patsy!

Curvy Card News

Hi all, I bet you'd wondered where I've been. Well now I have two jobs I'm pretty busy most of the time so I've not been able to blog quite as much, but it's half term now so I have a week to try to get back on track, yippeeeeeee!!!!!

The news on the Curvy Card front is that the new impoved template has finally been launched and is now available for purchase from WS Designs.

Here are tho two cards I through together (literally!) for their advertisements. The Papers are all from WS Designs too.

Dottie's World Challenge

Good evening all, I hope you've all had a lovely Monday. Mine's been busy, I'm shattered!

I just wanted to show you the card I made for Sunday's challenge on Dottie's World.

Nicola set the challenge this week, it's called 'double up' we have to use two differnt Charmed Download images in the same card.

Well I've been playing with digital backgrounds so I decided to make a hybrid card, here it is...

I used Chick Dottie and two Dilly Dangles for the challenge. I'm really quite happy with the results.

DCM - Animalia

Yay! I've done a DCM challenge!!!!!They've been few and far between lately. Here's the brief.....
Hi everyone, it's my turn (Mel) to set the dare this week :)
I've based my dare on the book by Graeme Base called 'Animalia' (just because that book happened to be sitting near my desk when I realised it was my turn for the dare this week).
So, all you have to do is create a card featuring an animal. I hope you all enjoy having a play with this dare, don't forget to come back and let us know where we can see the cards you make - because we do love to see all the wonderful cards you makeI used the balancing cat from the Cat download collection. I cut it out and layered it on some K&Co Mira papers (my fave).
When I designed this cat I planned for it to balance on a brad and hold onto one with it's tail so I was relieved when it all came together as planned.
TFL

New Collection

Well what a week it's been, what with the launch of Dottie's world and finishing the new download collection AND going to work, I haven't known whether I've been coming or going.

Anyhow, if you haven't visited Dotties world recently you won't know about the new collection........cats! It's all been very exciting, you see this collection has been designed in quite a different style to Dottie and George and I'm hoping it will appeal to an even wider audience. The idea with some (not all) of the cats is that they interact with elements of your cards and layouts. thiese love cats are designed to sit nicely on top of anything square or rectangular.

And this one is designed to act as a hook for anything you want to hang.

I think you'll be seeing quite a bit more of the new cats on my blog over the next couple of weeks. If you'd like to see even more Dottie, George or Cat creations, tutorials, challenges or customer cards be sure to visit Dottie's World.

More News,

Some of you will remember my Curvy Card design. Well it was bought by WS Designs the Tempting Templates Store, to be made into a template. I recently recieved the new, improved prototype and let me tell you, it's way better now. Their fabulous designers managed to get rid of those silly hinges that it had before but kept it looking and opening just the same. I've made some example cards for their advertising and it should all be launched real soon.

Dottie's World Challenge - Bits N' Pieces

How exciting! A brand new challenge for Sundays. Over at Dottie's world the challenge has now been set. You have to use paper piecing on any Dottie or George image and match it to part of your card's background. There's a paper piecing tutorial on there for anyone who's never tried it before.

Here's my example card.

I finally got around to using my Once Upon A Time Matt Stack for this one. I just love the design on the papers, they're so oldy worldy.

Di Hickman Sketch

What a beautiful day! Good morning everybody, hopefully you're all out enjoying the spring sunshine and won't read this until much later on.


Today I have my card made using the new DiHickman sketch for inspiration.


Here it is....

'Naughty Dottie' has been raiding the chocolate cupboard! Just look at the mess she's got into! She's trying to look innocent but I'm not fooled, are you?

CCT Challenge- Gems and Jewels

I'm loving the challenges over at Cute Card Thursday. This week they challenged us to use jewels and/or gems on a card. Here's what I came up with...

Before you think to yourself "Ah that's neat paper piecing and colouring" let me tell you, the image was all coloured in before it was printed out! Well, I was in a rush! Once printed out I layered it onto some doodled scalloped paper then onto the card base.

I added acrylic dew drops for bubbles, gems for earings and pearl brads just for a bit of bling!

New Blog!!!!

There's not much on there yet but if you like the Charmed Downloads or even if you want some inspiration, tips, techniques and tutorials it's the place to be!
Over at Dottie's world there will also be; a weekly Dottie/George challenge and a Dottie/George creation of the week day (Thursdays). It's up and running now- it's very new though so bare with me.

SSC - Shaped Card

Gosh I can hardly believe it! Two challenges- two blog posts- two days in a row! I don't know what's happening to me!

Todays challenge is from the Scrummy Stash Cafe blog. they challenged us to make a shaped card. I'm not quite sure if I'll get away with this as it's just the front that's shaped. Any how, here it is, Police Officer George from the George at Work collection.

I've used my Prisma Colour Pencils again, this time I went for a more textured look by drawing black and blue outlines before blending it all together with Sensador.

This view shows the inside of the card. I decided to make it a thank you card. You never know when you might need to thank a kindly police officer. Not too soon I hope.
And last but not least, a detail close up, just because I like close ups.

CCT Challenge & New Collection!

Good afternoon,

I'm very excited today because I've finished the latest George Collection and it's just gone live. This is my favourite George collection, I can tell i'm going to have lots and lots of fun with it, I hope you do too. It's called 'George at Work', if you'd like to view the collection along with lots of customer card examples in the gallery - click the blinkie on the top right of the screen.

Speaking of George at work, I've just used him for the first time for the Cute Card Thursday challenge; This week, a nice easy theme, anything to do with gardens. Could be people gardening, having fun in the garden, a garden scene or perhaps some little animals you might find in the garden.
Make it cute and have loads of fun!

What could be more fitting than Gardening George?

I'm really pleased with this card because it proves that you can use flowers on men's cards, after all, men like flowers too! Especially gardeners.
I used my Prisma Colour pencils to colour him in and I made those mini garden tools myself, it's amazing what you can do with a little wire and some rolled up paper.

Di Hickman/ Split Coast Stampers

Hi all,I haven't been blogging much lately, I've just been soooo busy! I forced myself to get something done today though and here's the resultThe Challenge at SSC was to use ruffles so I made a paper ruffle to add to the side. I used the sketch from Di Hickman to give me the layout idea -which, of course I turned on it's side - It's the rebel in me!!!

The image is from the Dottie at work collection and it's my first attempt at using my Prisma Colour Pencils, I know it doesn't show them off very well but give me time.

Do You like my new look blog? It took me ages to put my fave blogs back up but I got there in the end, I just have all the other bits and bobs to put back on now. I've removed my music because I read a thread on a forum about what people most dislike about peoples blogs and nearly everyone said music - So it's gone!

I got quite excited today because the June Issue of Crafts Beatiful arrived through my door and I've got a double page feature in ther this month and some 'Ask the designer' tips in the free book. Yippee!

I'm so sorry I haven't been visiting blogs for a while, I really need to catch up.