Madcap Manor

 Good morning! We are back to our normal schedule at  Dream Valley  and our new theme is Embossing.   It can be either kind, whether using an embossing folder or a scoreboard; or using embossing powder and a heat gun. It's a very pretty pattern of butterflied.  I used pearlised pink card for the background, first spraying it lightly with water to make sure it didn't crack.  The butterfly die came from  Love from Lizi  a couple of years ago, and I used some of the circles of card that came out of the die-cut to embellish the top right corner.  I backed the butterfly with vellum to give more definition.  The sentiment is from the  Thoughtful words  die set by Christina Griffiths. Take a look at the Challenge blog for more inspiration and get embossing LIKE A BOSS! (My hubby has just sighed and shaken his head at that awful joke.) Thanks for looking and take care! love Mags B x

  Hi, guys! We have a new Challenge at My Time to Craft which is Get Well Soon.    I love this image from Tiddly Inks Ricky Hanging Around. I have him as a clear stamp which includes the sentiment I used. I stamped one of the cute birds onto the branch, just for fun! The gorgeous background paper is from my stash, and I added a strip to decorate the inside. Check out my teamies' lovely creations and have a go at our Challenge!   Thanks for looking and take care.   love Mags B x

Evening, all! I'm sorry I'm late with this post - I forgot that today is Thursday! I often get the days muddled in the school holidays!! Our latest CRAFTChallenge is Get Well Soon. This cute bear is Poor Luvvy by Digital Delights. I used some old papers from stash. The image is cut with a Memory Box Postage Edge die, and the banner die is from Simon Says Stamp. The Sentiment is by Clearly Besotted. Our sponsor is the fab Digital Delights by Louby Loo. Have a look at the inspiration that my teamies have left on the blog! Now I must put out the rubbish bins ready for tomorrow morning! Thanks for looking! love Mags B x

Hello, my dearios! I hope you're all having a great weekend! Our new Challenge at My Time to Craft! is this fabulous sketch: Simple yet elegant, don't you think? Rather than add an image to the sketch, I stamped a gingham pattern. It has a distressed look (because my stamping was a little heavy-handed in places!) Take a look: Everything except the silver-embossed sentiment by lawn fawn and the tag cut with an old MFT die comes from the Simon Says Stamp March 2018 card kit. I also added some vellum circles under the flowers - the flowers and leaves were coloured with Copics and fussy-cut with a narrow white border and are raised on foam dots and covered with Spectrum Noir Shimmer pen. I finished the card by rounding all the corners with my good old corner chomper and went round the edge with a white gel pen. It shows just enough to give a bit of interest. I am so pleased with this card! It's for a particular friend who's been unwell, and I think she...

Eek! I'm late! Apologies! I really must learn that writing a 'To Do' list is useless if I don't do what's on the list! D'oh! Anyway, our new Challenge at My Time to Craft! is Down on the Farm so we'd like to see Farm animals - horses, pigs, sheep, chickens, cows - or a tractor! I made this Get Well card for a friend undergoing an operation. The cow is purple (and I'll explain why later) and is from Paper Smooches' Chubby Chums stamp set. Such fun images! The flowers and mushrooms and snail are from Lawn Fawn's Gleeful Gardens set. The 'Get Well' is from Sentiment Sampler by Paper Smooches and the 'sooooon' is made with stickers from my stash. So why a Purple Cow? Well, Gelett Burgess wrote this silly poem: I never saw a purple cow I never hope to see one But this I'll tell you anyhow, I'd rather see than be one. Then Carolyn Wells wrote some delicious parodies of well-known poems on the same subject. Tak...

Hi, guys! I hope all is well with you. This Bank Holiday weekend we were visited by our children and both grandchildren, which was lovely! The house is very quiet now..... Time for a new Challenge at Dream Valley which is to make something with More than One Fold. I made an easel card. The adorable image is Springtime by All Dressed Up stamps. So sweet! I added butterflies cut with a die by Joy! Crafts which I can't find to link to, sadly. There are pearls along the butterfly bodies and also in the corners. The stopper is made with strips of card and papers, gold-embossed with a Lawn Fawn Scripty Saying sentiment. The ribbon is from stash. We have two sponsors for this Challenge: Oddball Art and All Dressed Up. My teamies have made some lovely examples to inspire you with interesting folds, do take a look! Thanks for looking! love Mags B x

Good morning! Thursday means a new CRAFT Challenge and this week our theme is Recycling I have done quite a lot of recycling on my card! The fun image is Roosting Chicken by QKR Stampede. Poor love, she looks rather miserable! I admit, I tried to colour her TWICE in 'realistic' colours - browns and creams - but it didn't work. Then I suddenly realised that she was feeling 'blue' and the new colouring worked a treat! Of course this had to be a 'get well' card, and I hope it will cheer up the lady I will send it to! The abstract background is RECYCLED from the box that enclosed a very nice Rioja wine that we had for my hubby's birthday last Friday. It went very well with steak and mushrooms! The red ribbon is RECYCLED from a box of chox that we were given for Christmas, and the holographic blue hearts were die-cut from card RECYCLED from a gift bag. I hope that's enough recycling for the Challenge lol! Our lovely sponsors: Di's D...

Good morning! It's a grey, wet Thursday here in S-E Herts and I am a bit snuffly with a cold! I hope everyone else is doing rather better! Our CRAFT Challenge this week is a technique: make a Tri-fold card (also called a Criss-Cross card) with a tag Here is a tutorial to remind you of the style. And here's mine! And now with the tag insert: The papers are all snippets in patriotic red, white and blue, making a rather British card! There are drops of ice white Pearl Pen on the cute Owl's crown, and the jewels have been covered with Glossy Accents to give a more regal look. There is a teapot charm attached to the blue bakers twine. The sentiment on the tag is by Paper Smooches and I added the word 'soon' underneath using stickers from an old Freckled Fawn kit. The cute tiny clothes' pegs are from stash. Our gorgeous sponsor this week is the fabulous Pink Gem Designs and the image I used is Keep Calm Owl who is so cute! I really enjoyed m...

Hello! I hope everyone is having a good weekend! At My Time to Craft this fortnight we have a Challenge that's become quite important to me recently - Get Well Soon lol!! I used a very cute Lili of the Valley stamp, this is Get Well Bunny which is an older stamp which is newly available again for a limited time!! I used Warm Grey Promarkers to colour the Bunny, I like how it looks against the pink of her bedding! The paper and ribbon are from stash, and the sentiment is from the Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler set. Go and be inspired by my teamies' lovely work, and join in the Challenge! Thanks for looking! love Mags B x

Evening, all! I hope you're all keeping well. I was feeling very sorry for myself last week, as I had a nasty cold: but that was put into perspective when I learned that an older friend from Church had had a fall and broken her hip. She's in hospital, hating the food and bored to tears: she is a very good cook and extremely active, I can only imagine how frustrating it must be! My DT make for the new Dream Valley Challenge is my friend's Get Well card, and first here are the details of the Challenge which is Bingo Select three items from the chart, going horizontally, vertically or diagonally: Our sponsors are: Crafts and Me and The Hobby House For my card I used the line at the bottom of the grid, Flowers, Embossing and Blue I used Centura Pearl card and a freebie embossing folder for the background, and coloured the row of dots with a blue Sakura pen. The flowers are by Wild Orchid Crafts and the sentiment is from an old Whiff of Joy set and is gold...

Hi, guys! I hope you all had a good weekend! Our new Challenge at Dream Valley is Let's Get Krafty - we would like to see you use kraft card or paper on your creation. Our sponsor this fortnight is Imagine That and I used the darling Ladybug Friends to make a get well card. I used Kraft to mat my image and papers. The papers come from a freebie pack - I keep trying to use freebie papers since I have so many, but I've scarcely made a dent in my collection!!! I used a Spellbinders Lacey Square die for the image mat, and a Martha Stewart punch to edge the horizontal paper - then covered most of it up with flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts and leaves cut with a Spellbinders foliage die. The sentiment came with the image. Do buzz across to see my teamies' fab creations and then join in! Remember, though, that now we ask for no more than 9 extra Challenges besides ours!! Thanks for looking, and have a good week! love Mags B x

Sadly, I've had to make Sympathy cards for 2 friends, and Get Well cards for 3 others. All have reached their recipients, so I thought I'd show 2. This uses Clearly Besotted Stamps and Lawn Fawn dye inks. Lawn Fawn's 'Penelope's Blossoms' stamped in Lawn Fawn ink. The banner is silver embossed. Very simple cards - which means careful placement! I drew faint pencil lines in the appropriate places and erased them when the inks were dry. I hope you're all well! roll on the weekend! love Mags B x

Evening, all! if you're looking for my post for 'My Time to Craft' please scroll down to the previous post. I had 2 cards to make today - one for my Dad's 95th birthday on Thursday; and one for my Flower Arranging mentor, who is in hospital - hopefully not for long. I chose an image of a Bonsai from the Woodware Oriental Elements clear Stamp Set for both cards because both recipients will appreciate it. My Dad learned Japanese after he was invalided out of the Army in 1943 and became a translator at the end of the War in the Far East. My mentor and I went to a wonderful demonstration of Japanese Flower Arranging last year. So you can see that both have an interest in Bonsai!! For my Mentor: The image is coloured with Promarkers. The leaves are stickled, and the pot is covered with Glossy Accents. The 'love' symbol is from another Woodware set, Oriental Ladies. I used a Woodware reverse rounder punch on the corners, and pearls from Hobbycraft for some bl...

Hi, guys! I hope you have some lovely things planned for the weekend! Here is a card for a lady who hasn't been feeling well. To my total embarrassment I forgot to note where this lovely digi image came from! I know I used her a year or so ago, but unfortunately Mr Blogger seems to have forgotten about every post before January this year. *shakes fist* Curse you, Mr Blogger! If any of you recognise this beauty, please remind me so that I can give credit where credit is due. Eta: She is Fairy Fae by Delicious Doodles Thanks for reminding me! I coloured her with Spectrum Noirs, and went over the Butterflies with glitter glue. The sentiment is from Whiff of Joy. the ribbon is from stash. The papers are yet another set from my 'magazine freebies' drawer - I think these are just gorgeous! The corners are cut with a Whimsy die, and also glittered. I am entering the Digi Sketch Challenge using the sketch and the theme 'Get Well Soon.' Thanks for looking, and...

Evening, all! How are you keeping? Did you all have a good weekend? We visited my son's family near Shrewsbury, which was so lovely! The sun smiled on us - in fact I am a wee bit bronzed, as we all went for a play on the swings at the local park! One of the best things about having a granddaughter is that it gives you a reason to play and giggle - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! My card is one I made a couple of weeks ago for a friend who was not so fortunate on her holidays, as she injured her wrist. She has received the card, so now I am blogging it. It's another Starburst card. The gold-embossed sun in the corner is a stamp I have had for many years, and there are no details as to where it's from, I'm afraid. The sentiment is by Whiff of Joy, and the banner is a Lawn Fawn 'Bannerific' stamp: I coloured it with Mustard Seed and Wild Honey Distress Inks then added some Crystal Stickles. Super simples! Well, it's time to climb the woo...

Good evening, all! I hope you're all keeping well and that you've seen a bit of sunshine today. Is Spring finally here? Certainly the weeds think so, they are becoming quite vigorous! I've been pulling them up by the handful this last week but it seems to make little difference! But I did stop to make a card. This is for a dear friend of my daughter, she hasn't been well so we are sending her a 'care package' to cheer her up. I used this lovely stamp 'A little bit of magic might help' by Norma Fickel from Whiff of Joy's 'Get Well' set. I coloured her with Promarkers (list below) and went over the potion bottles with Glossy Accents. I distressed the image and the WoJ sentiment with Milled Lavender Distress Ink. The papers are snippets from a Papermania Capsule Collection pad. I now have the Spellbinders' Matting Basics dies A and B which I used to cut out some of the papers. It's very quick! I used an old piece of broderie an...

Good evening, all! I hope you've all seen at least a little bit of sunshine today! Hurry up, Spring, I'm well tired of being cold! This card is for a lovely blogging buddy, Mel . I wanted to something a bit different from usual, and decided on a Gatefold card. I used a scoring board which has grooves marked to show where the folds go - mine is quite old and was made by Kanban. It was so easy to make the base! The papers are by Nitwits, from the 'Grandma's Garden' set, I've had them printed out for ages, but only just got around to using them! The image is by Wild Rose Studios and was a freebie with a magazine, isn't it cute? I've lost my note of the Promarkers I've used :( - sorry! The flowers are made with another paper from the same Nitwits set and were cut with dies by Marianne in two sizes, and there are gems in the centre. The sentiment is by LotV on a Spellbinders label. The ribbon is from stash. Here's the card opened, I deco...

Hi, guys! Is it really Sunday again? This week has flown by, with visitors and a lot of tidying! It's time again for another challenge at The Squirrel and the Fox and this time we have a theme of Fairy Tale or Fantasy Our sponsor is the wonderful Make It Crafty who are offering a $Aus voucher in their fantastic shop! I'm already a fan, and for my card I used my favourite MiC image, she is adorable, and a dream to colour! A good friend who loves mermaids is under the weather, so this was perfect timing for a Get Well card. I used Promarkers (the tiny nibs are an absolute boon for colouring those luscious locks!) and slathered her tail with Stickles. The ribbon is from my stash. The sentiment is Whiff of Joy and the die-cuts are Spellbinders - I cut along her fins so I could flip them on top of the die so they didn't get sut with the rest of the image (does that make sense?) Finally, the starfish were a RAK from my daughter and the papers are by Cosmo Cricket -...

So many people seem to be under the weather at the moment. If any of you lovely people aren't feeling too good I hope you get well soon! This is made with a Spellbinders Parisian Accents die: I cut one blue and one green strip, trimmed the plain bits of card remaining, and swapped the patterns. Then I put a narrow strip of gold ribbon across the middle and stamped the sentiment (which I see is wobbly - oops!). I am determined to play more with my dies! There's a terrific website Card-making-magic and Christina who runs it has posted some amazing video tutorials! Well worth a visit - it's aimed especially at beginners, but there's plenty to learn!! I'm off to pop this card through the door of yet another neighbour, poor man, I hope it cheers him up! Thanks for looking! love Mags B x

Evening, all, I hope you're well. It's been a SCORCHIO! day - summer is here! Hooray! Unfortunately a dear friend is confined indoors recovering from an operation, but I hope this Whiff of Joy image will cheer her up. I used Spectrum Noirs to colour her. I'm a bit annoyed, because when I pulled the lid off the green pen to do the final colouring the whole nib came off and the inner tube went flying across my desk! Splodges all over my papers! Luckily none landed on the image, but I had to cut her out instead of using a Nestie. So I shall be a lot more careful with these pens in future. I'm just glad no ink landed on my background papers, which are from the first Nitwits download I ever bought, eighteen months ago, called 'Cherry Blossom. The flowers are Wild Orchid Crafts and the metal spray is from stash. The gold corners are Whiff of Joy, and so is the sentiment. I put Glossy Accents on the potion bottles. I coloured some white seam binding with Spun Sug...