Delicious Doodles - Make your own buttons

EEEEEKKKK - ok that was my first thought!  

We have reorganised the teams into just one team over at DD - all fine and dandy up until that.  I had looked at this challenge and thought "Phew, at least I dont need to try that one!" ... hee hee.  Then I realised that, with the shuffle around, I did indeed need to "try that one!"  

Terri (boss lady) is very cool and wonderful with us all and had already said that we could do the ones we wanted to etc.  BUT I thought I should just get on with it and have a go - remember this mindset from the sketch challenge? (and I ended up loving the card I made that time!).  

Hmmm, said I (not unlike Pooh Bear in fact)....I will google it.  "Cut out shape, punch out two or four holes, cover with glossy accents".....NO (said I) there must be more to it than that!  NO, there really isnt!  How funny...all that fuss and procrastination for nothing!

OK - have been quite busy at work, so coloured the image using inkscape (always feel I am cheating a bit doing this!).

AND - take a peek at these beauties.......

I just won them in a facebook competition - a lovely lady does classes locally to me and was offering these as a prize for sharing her page!

I have to say, that we are all watching our weight - but we really couldnt say no...so we had the top three (one for each of us) and we gave our friends the bottom three!

Sorry for the little distraction there .... back to business....if you would like to join in with our challenge this week (and get some digis if you win) then pop on over to Delicious Doodles Challenges (in the sidebar).

Thanks for stopping by today

Rx

New bit on my blog!

I have just added a "books" page to my blog - see, at the top? 

Just thought I would let you know....please feel free to comment here, if you have anything to add re diairies!

Rx

Few Commission Cards - New Home, 18th and birthday

Is it just me, or is it really scary doing commission cards?  Well, you can see what this one was for!  I chatted to the lady who wanted it made and found an image of a plain house.  I then inkscaped it to within an inch of its life!  Hee hee - I made a row of them and then set to work with adding a filter to the middle house to give it an interesting finish.  Little bit of glitter and a doily later and the card was finished.  Gave it to the lady who had ordered it on Friday and she was really pleased with it.  Phew!

 Second card was from my son - "I dont really want to send another shop card to my friends now you can make them!"  Hee hee!  I suspected this might have been so that he didnt have to stand there and choose one..so of course, I made him sit with me and choose an image.  I used glossy accents on the icing and put some little bugle beads on there for good measure.  He really liked the finished result...phew number two!

Birthday - For Fun Challenges...
Birthday Card with cake - One stop craft challenge....
Birthdays - Tellens Place....
Happy Birthday - If the Shoe fits...
Happy Birthday - card makin mamas....
Add shine - Paper Play Challenges....

This was commissioned for Cat who is turning 18.  Her birthday party theme is "dress to impress" so I thought I would use this as a basis for the card.  This card has been fiddled with sooooo much!  The trusty ecraft cut out the bodice and letters etc.  Then it was fiddling to make a skirt.  Initially I planned to use pleated paper...but then started playing with a little piece of crepe paper...and then I found some purple silk netting stuff...and then the teeny weeny heart diamonds .... it all came together in the end.  Phew number 3.  Actually, make that half a phew...the lady who ordered is hasnt seen it yet!

Make your own embellishment - Simon Says Stamps....
Make your own embellishment - Fab n Funky....
Dont be square - Pixie Dust Studios...
Sparkle Glitter and Bling - Dutchdare Card challenges....
Putting on the glitz - papertake weekly....
Use a die-cut - Digital Tuesday...
Use felt or fabric (the dress overskirt) - Belli Challenge
Special Birthday - Pollycrafts .....
For someone special - Ooh la la creations.....

Well, thanks for sharing in my 2.5 phews today!  Hope you have had a great day too!

Rx

Delicious Doodles - Bling it on!

Phew - am absolutely exhausted.  We run a book award in Havering and we had the voting day yesterday!  Just in case you are interested (if not just skip along down to the next bit!), we had three events!  We did the KS3 award in the morning....that's the secondary school children (12 years +) and they had a shortlist of 10 books to consider.  All of the books in the award are already prize winners so the award is called "Best of the Best" - or BOB to us!  The winner of this award was Malice by Chris Wooding.  Some of the schools had prepared presentations and we showed them and also had a quiz.  The hilight for me was having the truely fabby Sam Enthoven come and talk to the kids at both the morning and afternoon events.  He was so funny and the kids just loved him.  He has written three books so far, but he does want to go for world domination so there are more to come!  His books are very scary!

In the afternoon, we had the KS2 award event - similar to the morning, presentations, quiz and Sam but with younger kids - aged between 9-11.  The winner of this award was Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Rodrick Returns.  Very funny books and no one was surprised by this one!

THEN>>>> in the evening, we had the adult event.  The adults only had 5 books to consider as we decided to focus on just the really big awards - for the children we use every award we know about and this gives us an initial list of about 60-70 for each one - 150 ish books to read between April and August as we get the list down to 10 for each!  I didnt read the adult books - time etc - but found out that we needed to do a presentation on one of the books (adults are much more shy than kids when it comes to this sort of thing!) - so about 10 days to read the book and get the presentation done!  I only get to read just before bed and kept falling asleep!  Finished the book at 12.05 AM on the morning of the event!  I decided the day before that I wouldnt talk at the event (I host the other two during the day and am quite bubbly and energetic so knew I would be flagging by then) so I just did a powerpoint presentation and that worked really well.

  The winner of the adult award was Wolf Hall - brilliant book that I didnt get through but am going to go on and finish now that I have seen the presentation!

Ho Hum - sorry for the diversion!

OK IF YOU SKIPPED THE BIT ABOVE>>>>THIS IS WHERE THE CRAFTING BEGINS AGAIN!

Delicious Doodles Challenge this week is to show your bling, glitter, glamour, shine etc....

I just couldnt get a good pic of all that bling!  Its a bag!  In case you hadnt guessed!

Well, gotta go to work in a minute - am running a meeting about our book festival...never stops!

Please pop over to Delicious Doodles Challenges (link in my sidebar...just seen the time and I am late!) and join in the fun with us!

Rx

Aud Sentiments - Whateva!

For this challenge we have Kenny K as our sponsor. If you haven't seen their digis you need to go and check them out! They are amazing and super fun!  We were so lucky to get to play with some of their images.  I already had quite a few of them so this was fabby for me!

For this challenge we want to see some of those trendy sayings that we are always hearing our kids say.  

I made some background paper quickly in inkscape - was really very quick and easy!  Had to be....I did it!

So - the pic above shows the little box thing - and then I made lots of notecards to go in the box - cards are all 5 x 5 so I had to work out how to make the box and the measurements from scratch.  Ended up piling the cards and envelopes up and measuring how tall the pile was!

I took the little aquare of background paper and used it in different ways on the cards - so they looked the same, but different!

 

Phew - and thats the lot!

I really cant wait to see what sentiments everyone comes up with - think it will be really funny!

SO - pop on over to Aud Sentiments and check out the rest of the team's work - loving it all!  

Rx

Valentines in the Gedalovitch Household

SECOND POST TODAY - PLEASE SCROLL DOWN AND CHECK OUT THE OTHER ONE IF YOU HAVE TIME!

I have decided that I will try and decorate our mantelplace for high days and holidays.  I made a banner for Christmas and that is safely packed away with the other decs.  

So here is the valentine's banner!  Needed to do it fairly quickly so it isnt very intricate!

This is my painting!  OK Tesco had the canvasses reduced price so I thought I would grab a couple for Josh and I to play with!

So - the big hearts are Tony and I, with the medium heart between us  being Josh!  The green hearts are mothers and the purple hearts brothers.  The silver hearts are the dads, who have passed.  Three other hearts are friends (we have more than 3 friends, but decided to have a group heart for each of us!) and the other silver heart is Josh's wife to be!!!  So funny! It was Josh's idea to add hearts for friends and his wife to be!  He is 10 so I am guessing it will be a while yet before we find out who that heart is for!

PROUD MUM ALERT!  

Yep, the one above is the one Josh did!  He detests doing crafty stuff - really hates it!  But we chatted about it and I kept telling him that he couldnt "do it wrong" which was his big fear!  And this is what he created - the big heart is dad, medium heart is me and little heart right in the middle is him! When he had finished he said it "wasnt too painful"!!

I just know we will treasure this painting for years to come!  We forgot to sign them, so we are going to do that (and date them) when we are sure they are dry.

Little heart ornament thingies - wanted to make something like this at Christmas but just ran out of time - this year though!  All the hearts were cut using my ecraft - so most of it was really quick - instant gratification!

Something to represent all the animals!  We have two cats (one of whom sat on my canvas and left a bum bump in it, luckily before I had painted it!), two guinea pigs, a rabbit, a lizard, a hamster and some fish!  We borrow the dog over the road for walks sometimes too!

And this is the finished mantlepiece....YAY!

Hope you have a fabby Valentines Day!  

Rx

Shaped Card - Delicious Doodles Cutie Bear!

I needed a card for a little one and knew I wanted to do something with Teri's Baby Bear - so after a little fiddling around and Jin's wonderful tutorials.....here we are!  Really pleased with the way this one came out!  If you would like to have a play around why not pop over to Delicious Doodles and grab this little one - he works wonderfully!

Just a quick one from me today - gotta go and do the shopping (have just done the ironing!), then off down the dump (garden rubbish!) and then an afternoon doing lots of Valentine-type decorations!  

Hope you have a great day too!

Ruthiex

Not crafting - but you might want to read if you renew your breakdown cover with AA

Just thought I would post this quickly.  Have just saved myself over £100 in an 11 minute phonecall!  Ha ha - I sound like one of those dodgy salesmen!


Ok got renewal of AA breakdown cover through on Weds evening.  It was due for renewal yesterday!  So, they happily took the £163.54 out of my account yesterday.  Unfortunately I was working all day yesterday - and into the evening as I had to go and speak at a group...so had no time to check t'internet for deals etc.

Got on there a little while ago to find the same deal (with the AA!) for only £99.  Not very happy methinks!  So I go and check out Green Flag....same deal (no restriction on callouts per year that I could spot, so possibly better!) and its showing at £57.24. 

Went through the phone number on my renewal information and after traversing the various options a little voice came up and said they were dealing with a high number of emergency phonecalls and to call back later - it then cut me off!  So - back to the website and found another number.  Lovely lady answered and said she would transfer me internally - she came back and said they didnt pick up but she could deal with it for me.  SO - explained why I was cancelling and said that I knew it wasnt her that set the prices but that I was cancelling due to finding a cheaper price.  Lovely lady said that the web price was a slightly different package - ie they have fewer callout opportunities - I explained that I hadnt called them out in the last two years, so that didnt really help.  Nice lady appreciated what I said (we were both very civilised!) and said she would sort the cancellation but it would cost £20!  Apparently this was admin because I hadnt cancelled before the renewal date.  I explained re not getting letter until Weds and she checked and said they would refund me in full.

PLEASE if you are with any breakdown companies - check your renewal notice against the web price - the lady told me that she could match the deal on the web for me (but Green Flag was cheaper anyway). 

I get very cross about this sort of thing (same with car insurance etc) - if you stay with the same company you get a higher premium than people who switch each year.  Now how is that right?  Surely its about retaining customers not keep getting new ones.  Green Flag give a "no callout" discount - they will surely get more retention!  I get really fed up when I think of all the people who just renew - my dad always stuck with the same insurance company as they "knew him there"...never mind the fact that they were loading his premium so that they could discount new joiners! 

I just thought it was time to spread this gem of information and encourage people to move car insurance and breakdown cover annually if they want the best deal!  I have spent about 45 mins on this in total - thats from picking up the letter, googling alternatives, talking to nice lady, confirming new cover and paying and posting this blog. £106 for 45 mins "work" sounds good to me!

I hope this helps someone save some pennies - hmmmmm wonder if hobbycraft are still open...I mean, I've just come into some money!!!!

Rx

Quick Make the Cut File

A bit more playing with the ecraft again.  Very funny, designed it cut it, showed it off to my hubby "look look, I did it all myself" ---- hubby "Errmmm, are you meant to be showing that to me?"  Oh bum! 

I layered the inside with some of that thin, handmade papery stuff...will think of the name, any minute.....nope!! 

Oh well, thanks for popping over!

Rx

Ecraft and MTC

Oh wow - so pleased that craftwell have decided to let MTC and SCAL work with the ecraft!  Thanks guys! 

I am working through the tutorials on the yahoo group and thought I would post these two quickly!  If you would like the cutting files just leave me a message.   

The ones above are all different views of my LOVE cupcake wrapper!  Should actually have taken a photo of it with a cupcake in - but I didnt have one - so thought you could add your own flour, sugar and butter to the egg!

And the ones above were my Happy Birthday design.  I just love using MTC with the ecraft - its working really weel and really takes advantage of the mat-less cutting! 

As I said, if you want the MTC file then just leave me a message with your email - happy to share because so many have shared their designs with me!

Rx

Don't eat my chocolate!

Its my day to post over at Delicious Doodles today!  I am going to make a few bags for work friends etc to add a bit of choc for Easter - and this is one of them!

I used Teri's Voodoo lady and just thought she would be perfect for this!  I think Teri's "ladies" are just so gorgeous - stunning!  Why dont I look like this????

Have a great Sunday!  Enjoy whatever you get up to......and don't touch my chocolate!

Rx

Delicious Doodles and Smeared Ink are hopping together!

Wow - this is fun!  Some of the DT of Delicious Doodles and Smeared Ink DT are having a joint blog hop.  I am taking a week off from this one - the images are a little dark for my tastes - although, if you like vintage there are some great new images just released!

Anyway, I am now going to insert the blog hop code into this post and something will happen!!!!

Teri

Anita Marie

Pascale

Allison

Ildiko

Alex

Claire

Terra

Tori

Alison

Kelli

Black Dragon

Lady Brayton

Meredith

Kapree

Lisa
Jane

Oh my word - it did!!! All the links miraculously appeared in my post - how cool is that?

Go on then peeps - dont spend time reading this - hop hop hop!

Rx

Aud Sentiments - Valentines Quote

"Love is in the air, everywhere I look around!"

....now, who is gonna be singing that song all day?  Sorry!

Bet you can't even begin to imagine what the sentiment is for the challenge over at Aud Sentiments!  Oh, you can?  Ahhhhaaaaa, yep you are right - its a corny valentine's quote - the cornier the better! Not sure I quite nailed the corny! 

For this next challenge we are lucky enough to have Inktegrity as our sponsor. They are giving the winner a $10 Gift Certificate to use in their store. 

Here is a little bit about them...

"My name is Joni Wilson, I am the sole designer of Inktegrity's images. Inktegrity was started out of my love for card making; my designs are fun for all ages and can be resized to fit your crafting needs. All of my images are inspired by upcoming holidays, everyday life, and friends' requests. Please visit the store site at: Inktegrity and browse through the different categories. Happy crafting to you, thank you for creating with Inktegrity!"

The DT were given a few images to use, so I chose this cute cupid -  just keep laughing at his socks!

And, of course, I needed to put a bit of a quirky spin on that romantic quote!  

AND (yep another AND) I cant get these bloomin italics off again!

 

AND (!!!!) I just spotted the closing date for the challenge - 15th Feb, so you could (if you ran quickly) avoid posting your special person's card on your blog until the day and STILL get to join in the challenge!

Hope you have a great day and get the chance to join in the fun!

Rx

Gamer Card for a teen boy

This is one of those last minute cards you need!  I did this just before we were going to see the family of the birthday boy!  Hence, its quite plain - but actually, I think he preferred it like that!

Bit of a tale behind this one....you know when you put money in the envelope (to buy a game etc)...well, I was just sealing the one for his sister up (with cash) when I realised I hadn't put anything in his...and the envelope was already sealed....eeeeeek!  If it had just been me, I would have ripped open the envelope and then just used another one...but hubby offered to steam it open, over the kettle.  Off he went and did the deed.  Here's a question...what happens to home-made cards when you expose them to steam?.....Yep - the paper curls and the glue comes unstuck!  EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkk!  

Amazingly, I did salvage it....but let my mistake be your lesson....just use a new envelope!

Thanks for popping by today

Rx