Caardvarks Challenge

Caardvarks' challenge this week is black, white and any other colour... I think think mine looks red on the scan, but its actually a deep pinky colour. I just couldn't resist the opportunity of playing with Tilda again (and you might see a bit more of her soon too) I'm determined she will soon have a "friend" but will have to sneak that in when OH isn't looking lol.

My Tilda arrived...

.. on Saturday morning, so superquick delivery! I've had a little play and here she is!

It gave me a chance to use my watercolor pencils, and to try the paper piecing technique which I'd not tried before, great fun! Also made two more, the jeans pocket for my FIL and the bear for a 5 year old on the Post Pals site - didn't think I could get away with using Farmer Tilda on "lads'" cards lol

Confession time!

You know I consider myself an "ex" stamper, having sold all of my stamps a while back (although I have been known to have a play with magazine freebies!)? Shell at Stampstash has some Magnolias in, Farmer Tilda, Dala Tilder and Horse amongst others.... and do you know, while I was taking a look, Farmer Tilda climbed into my basket? She has apparently now made her way out of the basket and into the Postal system so I shall be waiting for the Postman!!

Cardmaking Friends - Sketch Challenge

This is the sketch challenge on Cardmaking Friends this week

and this is my card

We'd really love to get more people joining in the challenges so if you would like to join us, just click on the banner to be taken to the forum - we'd love to have you :-)

Arte y pico award

Yay! I've been tagged by Shirley and received this award!

The "rules" are as follows:-

1) You have to pick 5 blogs who deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material and also contributes to the blogging community no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to the blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award .

4) Award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "arte y pico" blog (linked in my title) so everyone will know the origin of this award. (Cut and paste the info into your blog to make things easier)

Hmm.... now, who to choose.... I've omitted a couple of my favourite blogs as I know they're busy ladies and prefer not to be tagged, but as I've got more than five favourites this is not a problem! So I choose the following (just click on their names to be taken to their blogs)

Jackie's Jewels

Annette's Blog

Challenge Addict

Blue Daisy Crafts

The Creative Corner

Thank you very much Shirley :-) :-)

New home card

Someone at work yesterday asked me if I had a new home card - she hasn't had any cards off me before and I didn't like to say no, so I said I thought I had one at home and knocked this one up last night!

Post Pals

Been having fun this evening making a couple of cards for Post Pals - children's cards are such fun to make :-)

Cardmaking Friends - Sketch Challenge

Here's a card for the sketch challenge on Cardmaking Friends this week

Apart from that I've been doing some cards for Post Pals - if you are not familiar with their work, take the time to click on the blinkie on the right hand side to be taken to their site. There are some truly inspiring stories of some very brave children on there, and you can help raise a smile just by sending a card or letter.

More "naked" cards!

I enjoyed the Daring Cardmakers Challenge so much I made a few more "simple" cards - I've also been pratising using the Framey board I bought quite a while ago and have not really got round to using! (I thought I ought to, I can't afford it at the moment but I'd really like a Cuttlebug, particularly for the embossing - Del is in favour of it but I'm waiting for him to point out I never usually emboss anything anyway!) lol

Daring Cardmakers

Wow! Great challenge this week - here it is:-

"Shrink to Fit

I used to be able to make cards with lots of "white space" around the designs, but lately when I've tried to do this my cards just look sooooo naked!

So this week I'd like you to think small - not small cards, but small spaces of embellishment on regular sized cards.

You are allowed to cover no more than a 5x5cms area of your card with paper or embellishment - the rest of the card must be left plain.

How you use those valuable cms is up to you. So you may choose to split up those cms to use around your card, or use them in a block or a line. It might help to cut a few 5x5cm squares then cut those up to work out good ways of using your allotment. Making your whole card a miniscule 5x5cms is NOT an option!! Lets have no cheating (I know what you lot are like.....),
but because I'm feeling generous, I'm going to let you add a SIMPLE greeting as extra to your 5x5 allowance! :-)"

I have exactly the same problem! In fact I wasn't sure about the Bunny card in the post below for exactly the same reason so I thought I was really going to struggle with this one - but once I got started I really enjoyed it! Here's my challenge card

Normal service (almost) resumed!

Well its been an odd week as I managed to lose my voice on and off for part of it! Not good.... lol. Anyway, I'm just left with a cough now and feeling OK and attempting to get back to normal, not least on the crafting front and blogging front! What with show week last week as well I've watched the poor blog slide down the "Crafty Blogs" listings.. aw........ :-(

I did a couple of "just cos I felt like it cards" on Thursday which I didn't get a chance to blog straight away, so here they are.

I received the Doodlebug paper in a Backing Paper swap on Cardmaking Friends.

Funky Fairys Challenge

The Funky Fairys Challenge this week was to make something tall and skinny, a good challenge as I rarely do tall, thin cards (in fact given my way I'd only make A5 cards lol). The gorgeous paper on this one is from the Funky Fairys Inspiration Blog (and there are more Pink Petticoat owls lol.)

Papertake Sketch challenge

I had yesterday off as holiday and had planned a lovely long cardmaking day - however with not being well I only got two done :-( One was for a sketch challenge for Papertake - however as they put a new challenge up each Monday although I got the card done yesterday (honestly) I didn't get it scanned until today so it looks as if I'm a week late lol. Anyway, here is is. The owl is from Pink Petticoat - they seems to have some lovely (and inexpensive) images coming out on a virtually weekly basis at the moment.

Pinocchio(3)

Well its all over for this year! It went really well and was great fun but very tiring which probably explains why I've got a bad throat/cough and am feeling a bit sorry for myself! Anyway here's a couple of photos of me and Bel in our costumes (I did have a multi-coloured wig to go with my clown costume in the second picture but you'll have to just imagine that!

There was a nice surprise at the end on Saturday, their teacher announced that she had had a phone call in the week from the organisers of the Hastings Music Festival and the Mime group had got the highest marks out of all the mime catagories so they had won a trophy! She presented it to them on stage which was lovely :)

Pinocchio(2)

Its...... OPENING NIGHT! Dress rehearsal went much better last night so am feeling fairly confident about it. The main difficulty is keeping the girls quiet backstage as its a small theatre... the words "don't forget you've got to keep quiet because you can be heard from the audience" mean nothing to a group of over-excited 8 year olds!

Pinocchio!

Well our first dress rehearsal was last night, it was fairly chaotic - as well as being in it (two dances and various bits of general milling about on stage!) I'm a registered Chaperone for the children so when I'm not on stage I'm making sure the girls (all aged about 8 or 9) are in the right costumes, ready to go on in the right places etc. Discovered as well that although the stage is OK in tap shoes its very slippery in jazz shoes! We've got another dress rehearsal tonight and then three performances - a couple of friends from work are coming to the one on Friday night and Del and his Parents, my Brother-in-law, and a couple of other friends are coming on Saturday night. I didn't actually think Bel would be there last night, she was ill all over Easter with a nasty virus (amazing to see her Easter eggs virtually untouched until yesterday!). She's still got a cough but was much better by yesterday evening so she was able to be there :)

Cardmakers United Challenge

The current Cardmakers United Challenge is to make a baby card in non-traditional colours - here's mine, it looks a bit pink in the photo but its brown - honestly!

Funky Fairys Challenge

A little while ago the Funky Fairys Challenge was to used ripped/torn edges, this week its the opposite - here's the challenge:-

OK...not so long ago we had our scissors confiscated, life was tough! ...now you need them for sure! This weeks challenge is to 'Cut up Your Cards' ... literally!!! *.*Anyway you want to, just so long as it's been cut! Oh but...please be careful with those scissors in all the excitement! ^.^

Here's my card :-)

While I was there checking out this week's challenge I found a link to the Funky Fairys Inspiration Blog (which I previously didn't know existed) here with some great papers and other bits to download free. If you didn't already know about it (don't tell me I'm the last to know!) go take a look :-)

Caarvarks Challenge

Yay! I've made cards lol. Here's mine for the Caardvarks Challenge this week which is "Homegrown" - fruit and vegetables. I enjoyed this one, it was certainly different!

Hastings Music Festival

Well I'm not getting a lot of crafting done at the moment which is a bit frustrating, but I take the view its not worth knocking yourself out trying to fit in something which is supposed to be fun... I might get a bit done later or if not, over the weekend, but if I don't bear with me, normal service will hopefully be resumed shortly! Anyway, this is a proud mummy post rather than a crafting post so you'll have to indulge me for a bit! We've spent the afternoon at the Hastings Music Festival where the Dance and Drama Studio that Bel (and I) attend was performing in the "Mime telling a story - all ages" catagory. This one was children only (they range from about 7 to 13 or so) and I hadn't even seen it so I wasn't sure what to expect (Bel's never been one of these children who is always showing off bits at home!) They were actually the only entrants in that catagory but that didn't mean an automatic win (a good thing I think), they had to get at least 85 points for a first place. Well we sat in the balcony at the White Rock Theatre (bearing in mind it is considerably bigger than The Stables theatre where we have our show each year) not knowing quite what to expect - then they were announced.... and it was brilliant! It was entitled "Shipwreck" and showed exactly that, a group getting shipwrecked, ending up on an island and finally trying to hail a passing ship and failing.... very dramatic! I've known some of the children in it since they were 4 or so and I have to say they surprised me, they really were impressive and Bel who has struggled at times at dancing because of the concentration problems linked to her dyslexia was as good as any of them :-) They were followed by a School group also doing a mime in the 10-14 years catagory and I have to say I thought they weren't as good. I think you could tell our group were dancers as well as the choreography was excellent.

Then it was time for the Adjudicator to announce the results, she was extremely complimentary about our group and gave them.... 87 points! A first place with honours! She criticised the school group (in the nicest possible way) that some of their movements (pretending to drink etc) weren't clear which is something she had complimented our group on. They got 84, so no first place for them. All in all a very good day :-)