Swoon

Look at this pretty that arrived in the post from the lovely and very talented TraceyT. I adore the necklace but look at the cute tin it came in, she's one clever lady. Thank you very much.

Gem-tastic

I've gone overload on gems this week, but then a girl can never have enough bling in her life. The flower on this card was made with my Stampin' Up! supplies, Circle of Friendship stamps and the scallop and several circle punches. Then finished off with lots of gems from Paperchase - Jen I blame you for getting me hooked! The leaves are the wings of the bird from the Smoochie Manoochie Summer Doodle set, stamped onto acetate and then glittered.

These cards are made from the Everyday CD set from Crafter's Companion. The design was printed onto printable acetate before being attached to a card. The spine was made using the decorative edge on the Ultimate scoring board from Crafter's Companion, this was also used to make the matching envelopes. The cards were finished off with a Stampin' Up! stamp (Terrific Tags) and off course some gems.

Charleston Chutzpah

What a fabulous weekend I've had. I've been down to visit my friends at All Jazzed Up down in Reading. Thank you to the marvellous Shirley for letting me stay and keeping me fed and watered and to Jean and everyone else, especially Dan And Jessica (our teachers) for a great weekend of Charleston and a little bit of balboa too.

We headed down to Henley Town Hall on Saturday morning to set up and then had classes in 1920's Charleston for the day. It's hard work on the legs but terrific fun. We even managed to learn a whole routine. As the local press were coming to take a photo at lunchtime some of us got dressed up in our evening outfits, which was great as it's really difficult to get decent photos at an evening dance, with the lack of light and everyone moving about. Thanks to Mel for taking charge of my camera, so I could join in the group shot.

As Dave had made such an effort he was most popular for photos and won a prize at night .

Dan looking dapper in his day wear (he was even smarter for the evening), with the ever elegant Miss Jean and dashing Dave.

Pam beautiful in blue - I love that dress.

And of course the stylish and sophisticated Shirls with Dave.

Here's the room at night all dressed up for a Simply Spiffin' Do. Not a great photo but it looked so effective on the night. There were free cocktails served by our great bar tenders, Nick and Amy. The DJ's were amazing too with almost too much great music, thanks to Dan, Brian and Mel.

And roulette too, just for fun. Well done to Tanya for having the highest score and not letting me or Dan win!!

I've included some photos of what we get up to in class, not a lot to see but as my friends often ask me to explain what goes on on my dancing weekends I thought I'd share.

Sunday was equally wonderful with a little balboa and a lot to practise and remember followed by dinner at Jeans. Thank you to Richard as ever for his wonderful cooking and to my pal Jo for letting me help (or hinder) with the veggies!

Not long until the next All Jazzed Up event - roll on March and Bill Borgida and Julie Mertz.

My new friend

This cute little dog is my new friend. He's from the Crafter's Companion Everyday CD. A lot of my on-line friends are giving hybrid scrapping a try but as I don't have the software, the knowledge or the time to learn I thought I'd never get to play. But the CD's I have let me do my own type of hybrid card making. The backing papers are great to print direct to card and then I just print the toppers off and layer them up. So easy but so effective.


The embellishment in the smaller scallop is all done with my Stampin' Up! punches and a stamp from the Circle of Friendship set.

The spotty heart is from a set of chipboard I bought last year in the U.S. The For My Valentine is from a set of word stamps (sentiments by Impression Obsession) that I got from the lovely Wendy at Stamps & Memories. It's a set of clear stamps with lots and I mean lots (96 if I can count!) of individual word stamps so you can make you're own greetings. It's a set they've done especially for the UK market, so we get Mum and Christmas.

Smoochie Manoochie

A little birdie (thank you Tracey) told me about these stamps that are available from craftycarrot and I love them. They are acrylic stamps and in the summer doodle set there are 2 flowers, a heart, grass and the cutest little birdie. I've had great fun playing with these stamps but only one card I can show you as the rest are off to Beautiful Cards. I've stamped onto acetate and then coloured in the image with ultra fine glitter, it looks even better in real life as it glimmers and glistens.

Happy Birthday Fran. Keep an eye out for the postie and sorry it's late xxx

Fun at Farnborough

Farnborough was a great show. It was the first time at this venue, it's been held at Thorpe Park until this year. A massive marquee but once inside it felt pretty cosy although it was a little worrying when the roof rattled due to the wind or the aircraft. Here you can see the Crafter's Companion stand. I got to do the make and take and had a fab 3 days meeting lots of lovely people, nice to see you Lins. I even got to meet 2 ladies (Joan and Linda) that I'd met whilst on a coach tour of Canada. I'm already looking forward to seeing you in April - hope the dates are OK.

Here's my make and take area. Matt just doing a little decoupage - we will convert you to craft!!
Here's the cards we made, a different colour each day, so I knew which day it was. We also made a 3D envelobox to go with it. Thanks to everyone that joined for make and takes and those that bought the Ultimate I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it. All the papers, tags and toppers were printed off the florals CD onto satin paper.

Only 2 more weeks until Manchester!

Busy, busy, busy

It's all go at the minute but in a good way. At least I'm up to date with my Beautiful Cards commissions now. Which means that although I've been making lots of cards I've only got one to share with you. This is made with my Stampin' Up! supplies, Circle of Friendship, Polka Dots background (becoming a firm favourite), cardstock and inks from the Bold Brights family.

Some more photos from the weekend. Well what was I supposed to do when Anna said "so do something", hence the very me photo!!

Anna looking pretty

The atmospheric mood shot.

A little slice of heaven

That's what a weekend at Anna's is to me, I just love it here. Today it's even more stunning than usual as there's still a covering of crunchy sparkly snow.

There are some more photos to go up but I can't get them to show the right way, so I'll do it when I'm on laptop - driving this MAC can be a bit scarey!!

To welcome me there were the brightest yellow tulips in my room, what a view to wake up to, beautiful flowers and a great vista.

We've even braved to cold and ventured outside for a quick photo shoot and as always there was of course messing about, mainly with Anna trying to get up and down the bank!!


Right, off to make some cards - pure bliss.

And breathe

Phew that was a drive and a half. Manchester to Stroud through floods and snow, but it didn't take me too long. As I pulled up behind Annas car I was able to breathe, relax and look froward to great weekend of paper, glue, wine and the greatest company. Going to visit Anna is one of my favourite things to do.

I've done some crafting this week but I can't share it with you just yet as it's for the make and take on Crafter's Companions stand at the Farnborough show next week, which Im really looking forward to. I've also got homework to do this weekend for Beautiful Cards.

My first week in my new job has been wonderful. I went up last Sunday and got to meet the team in the office on Monday, everybody is lovely and so helpful, I'm really looking forward to working with them.

And last but not least another picture from Sweden. This is the back of Big Pete's t-shirt. At a dance Pete will often disappear to find a local pub and there's a slight difference in his leading (always wonderful) when he comes back, so I often say to him scream if you want to go faster as it's like being on the waltzers! So Jen and the girls had this t-shirt made for him.

Swing Dancing in Sweden

A bit of a belated post, but better late than never. I spent a week over New Year in Stockholm in Sweden, attending the Snowball. It's a swing dance event organised by Kenneth, Helena and our wonderful friends Hasse and Marie (love you both). There was a dance every night and we got to attend four days of Lindy Hop and Balboa classes, which were amazing and gave us all lots to take away and think about. I'm trying to dance with my potatoes Marie!!

Jean, Brian and I also took David Rehms class learning the Dean Collins Shim Sham. It was great fun although I'm not sure my brain can hold that much information. David is a great teacher. All of the teachers were fab, Nick and Sylvia, David and Marie, Johanna and Henricke, Skye (that boy floats when he dances) and Frieda (amazing style).

My leg held out pretty well and I did all my balboa classes and any lindy classes that got a bit much, I watched.

It was lovely meeting up with old friends and making new ones at a truly international event. There were dancers from all over the world, UK, Sweden, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, US, Norway, Finland and many more.

Here's some photos, apologies for the yellow light in the studio photos it was the best I could manage. These first photos were taken during a Charleston variation class. The chap is Michael from Sweden, he's a great lead.

Pam and Shirley, all wrapped up wandering towards the old town.

And here they are, a couple of brolly ladies!!

It's so hard to get a good photo at the evening dances, it's dark and people are dancing, so moving quite fast. I just wanted to include this one to show you the beautiful hall we had the New Year's Dance in and the amount of people that were there.

All the crew (well nearly, Marie had to stay at the dance), so from bottom left, Shirley, Richard, Jean, Nick, Hasse, Ewan, Tanya, Big Pete, Brian, Sue and Pam.

I love this picture of Jean dancing balboa with her son Nick. Keep dancing Nick, you're a great lead.

The girlie's and Nick all dressed up on New Years Eve.

So as you can see I had a marvellous holiday. Thank you to Shirley for being a great roomie, Pam for living on the 2nd floor which just confused Shirley, Brian and Sue, it was great getting to know you both and I look forward to seeing you soon. The Harper clan for their hospitality in Reading and always being on great form, Pete and Tanya for decorating their room for our mini New Years Eve buffet. Jan, Mike and Jane it was great to see you all. Everybody that danced with me - thank you xxx

What a great day

I know I haven't posted any of my Sweden pictures yet, I'll try and do it tomorrow, but I wanted to share with you what I've been up to today. I've been teaching a group of children and adults to scrapbook and it's been a fabulous day. They all did brilliantly and I loved all the work they produced.

Here's the page I put together.


Here's some of the pages that the children and their parents put together. Aren't they wonderful. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance or time to photograph everyone's work, so if you have some photos of your work you want to share, e-mail me or leave me a comment.

We also did a tag book. Here's my example.

Here's the adorable book made by Katy, all about her trip to Lapland. What a super job she did as did everybody else.

We also managed to make a couple of quick cards. A few more pages that were done today.

Last but not least, some pictures of the lovely people who came to play today and the lovely hall we had the use of. All of this would not be possible without Janice, who has organised 12 of these craft events for children and their parents.













So a busy but amazing day. Thanks everybody that came along and to Debbie from Inspire me papers from supplying lots of cardstock and card blanks. You're a star xx