Madcap Manor

Good morning! I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas! I spent a morning with the Flower Arranging team decorating the Church - I love flower arranging, though this year the holly we used was very beautiful but had lethal prickles, 'as sharp as any thorn'! Then we had a fun Christingle on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day we sang all my favourite Christmas hymns! My daughter's Young Man came over from Dublin to spend the holiday with us, which has been lovely! And now it's time for another Challenge at The Squirrel and the Fox . our last Challenge for 2013 is everyone's favourite - Anything Goes. Our sponsor is the cute and quirky Sweet'n'Sassy Stamps who will reward one winner with 3 digis from the store! Not bad, eh?! I used this adorable Fenton Frog digi, which comes with the sentiment 'Oh hoppy day!' (lol!) And it isn't a Christmas card!!!!! I printed out Fenton 3 times, then printed him larger and cut out the 'hoppy&#

If you're looking for my DT card for The Squirrel and the Fox please scroll down to the previous post. Ta. Good afternoon, all! It's the last challenge of the year at Dream Valley and our theme is Christmas . You have until January 12th to upload your creation - and it doesn't have to be a card! I did make a card, in fact I've made 24 of this design, using different papers for each one! The papers are all from a Papermania back to Basics Vintage Christmas stock. I used a Spellbinders Bauble die to cut the shape, which is matted onto gold mirri card, and the sentiment was a freebie with a magazine. I embossed it with gold embossing powder. The pearls are from Hobbycraft. Do dash over to Dream Valley to see the fab prizes on offer (I am schduling this, so can't link directly - but there are a lot of amazing prizes from many sponsors!) And have a look at the amazing and varied creations that my talented teamies have made, you will be very impressed! Thanks

Good morning, my lovelies! I hope you're all having a good weekend! I have almost finished my Christmas shopping - yay! But I still have lists and lists of what needs to be done - I bet you do, too! don't worry, we are all totally AWESOME and everything will be sorted on time! In the meantime, why not join in with the latest challenge at The Squirrel and the Fox" ? Our theme is a seasonal one - Christmas or Hanukkah so ideal for encouraging you to make your last seasonal card of the year! Our lovely sponsor is Beary Wishes I used a pre-coloured digi for my card - aren't the colours on the bells gorgeous?! The background papers are papermania Back to Basics Vintage Christmas. The Holly corners are a Whimsy die, thesentiment is by LotV and I gold-embossed it and put it on a nesties scallopped circle die-cut. The wide red ribbon is from stash. The lovely sketch is from Tuesday Morning Sketches This card is going to a friend who does bell-ringing! Do join in wi

Evening, all! As promised, here's another card, which has reached its recipient! I had been watching a lot of videos by Kristina Werner who uses a CAS style, when I made this card, so I went for a CAS look. I love watching videos on Youtube while doing the dreaded ironing! The background is stamped with a Hero Arts/Basic Grey Wood Background cling stamp. I cut it a bit narrower than the card base, which is blue Centura Pearl, and added 3 snippets cut into strip and the ends vandyked. Then I die-cut a circle and added the owl. He's from a Paper Smooches set called Spookalicious The shop I link to, Make the Day Special, has stamps from various American firms that aren't readily available over here. Worth a look, and their service is great - ordered on Monday, here in my hot little hands on Wednesday!!! I used Promarkers to colour in the little fella (and didn't write them down, what a numpty!) then cut him out with a smaller circle die and glued him onto the blue

Hi, guys! How are you all doing? Are you ready for the bloke in the red suit to come down the chimerney? No, nor am I!! As I look around my living room I see one heap of ironing to be done, 3 heaps of presents to be wrapped, 4 heaps of cards to be written - you might say I have heaps of things to do! But on the whole I'd rather be blogging! Actually, I've been making cards, but many can't be blogged yet as they are in the post still. However, the recipient has received this one, so here it is! This is one of the lovely outline flower wood stamps by Penny Black, called 'Whispers.' I stamped in black Stazon on watercolour paper and coloured with watercolour pencils and a waterbrush. The background is dry embossed with an embossing folder - I can't recall which one, sorry! I put narrow strips of blue card down the sides of the flower panel, and mounted it on foam pads. The sentiment is by Penny Black, too.simples! (Though I need to practise my watercolouri

ETA: My heart goes out to everyone affected by the terrible helicopter crash in Glasgow. So sad. Good afternoon, all! We have a very useful challenge at Dream Valley this fortnight - we want to see Anything But a Card . 'And why is this a useful Challenge?' I hear you cry! Well, it's a chance to show off your crafty gift or decor creations! Festive bunting, for instance, or a table decoration, or a candle - anything at all as long as it isn't a card! I have made a folder to hold all my Christmas lists! The instructions are on This youtube video for a File Folder Stationery Set, by a lady named Michelle . This is the front: the papers and Santa topper are from a set by Papermania called 'Noel' which I picked up in a sale last January. The inside shows the pockets at the sides and the bottom. It was very easy to put together, once I'd had a practice run-through without any decorations. I'm going to be making more for some of my friends for

Good morning! There's a new challenge over at The Squirrel and the Fox . Thanks to everyone who took part last time for the 'Violet for Hodgkin's Lymphoma' challenge - seeing the lovely cards submitted really cheered my daughter up! She has her last chemo on Wednesday, then a scan just before Christmas, and in January we hear if she's clear of the cancer. So there's not much longer to wait! Now on to the current challenge which is Summer or Winter Our sponsor is Pink Cat Studio who have some great digis for sale, and also lots of activity sheets for children, so with the Christmas holidays coming up you might want to see if there's anything that will keep the little 'uns amused! Check out the page for 'free stuff' too - the paper I used for my card is free at the moment, it's so pretty! I used Promarkers to colour the image, and also to colour the narrow strips of card on either side and which have been Glossy Accented. The bp was