Birthday Smirk

Another card I wanted to get done out of the way, is the one for my eldest daughter (don't think she checks Mum's blog, so hopefully it will be safe enough to post it just now). For some reason I always find it difficult making her cards.

How did the finished card come about? The inspiration for the layout came from two challenges which I am putting the card forward for. The layout came from Sketch Saturday and the recipe ingredients, 3 buttons, 2 designer papers and 1 ribbon came from Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge.

The striped and mini floral paper came from Say it with a Smirk as did the image. The mats are from K&Company's Recycled Remake Berry Pinks paper pad. The flowers were punched from the same mini floral paper and the buttons and ribbon are from my stash.

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Yesterday's card

Got caught up in other things yesterday so didn't manage to post yesterday's card. As usual I am trying to get ahead of myself on the birthday and anniversary front, more so just now as Sarah is arriving on Sunday for a holiday and while she is here we are heading off to Dubai for a few days, with both of us then heading back to Scotland together, before I have to be back here to start back at school on the 1st of September. Just after I get back to Scotland it my father-in-law's birthday.

When I saw this image in a template in Greeting Card Factory, I just knew I had to use it for FIL's card. He will be 92 this year and his amibition is to see his 100th birthday. I have to admit it was quite an easy card to do. Printed off the image and the sentiment and layered them up and popped the layers on a piece of brown cardstock.

No doubt he will have some comment about the words, but I am sure he will see the funny side.

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Summer Fun Challenge

One of the thing that for me is synonymous with summer are BBQ's and suits the theme of Bee Crafty's latest challenge and I had a digital image that would fit the bill. For some reason I thought it was one of Bee Crafty's images but when I went to print it off I discovered that it came from Digistamp Boutique, but I hope that Bee Crafty won't hold it against me!!!!

Although not entering the challenge over at Anyone For Anya I was inspired by their challenge sketch.

Onto the card. The base card, 6 x 6, is made from K&Company's Recycled Remake Ocean Blues cardstock, as are the two rectangular mats. The backmost mat and the photo corners were from Imaginisce's Go For Baroque - Blue Blooded. The image, BBQ Jim, as I said before is from Digistamp Boutique, and was coloured in with my copic pens and the edge of the mat soften with an inkpad from Stampabilities, the color being Royal Blue. Rounded off two corners of the base card and two on one of the rectanglar mats.

The card is for my neighbour's birthday on Sunday. The birthday celebrations are being held early, as his family are here just now but will be leaving to head home to Scotland on Saturday, so Thursday is party time. Thought the image was quite appropriate as there is to be a bbq.

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Cupcake Birthday

Spent the morning buried in my wee crafting corner, working on a card for a couple of challenges. The first challenge is over at Funky Fairy and had to be something girly. Well what could be more girly than pink. The layout came from the second challenge, Sketch and Stash.

One of the rules of the challenge over at Funky Fairy is that you must use a Funky Fairy download. I decided that I would use everything from there, well apart from the brads. The papers and images come from the Cupcake Crazy and Just a Bit ranges. Resized the images and papers to get the components for the layout. For the cupcake decoupage, I cropped and resized one of the cupcake frames to a suitable size and then made three copies. The bottom layer being all three cupcakes, the second layer two cupcakes and the top layer a single cupcake. Apart from the very pale pink mat, all the components were mounted using foam pads.

With all the challenges I enter I try to make a card for someone on my birthday list and this one is no different. This one will soon be winging its way to my great-niece, Abbie.

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Fred, She Said Challenge

I seem to be going challenge mad just now. As the schools are out for the summer I have plenty to sit and play.

I love Fred, She Said designs and regularly drop in to see what is on offer. Her latest design is a freebie, what more could a girl ask for. In return for the download thought I would throw my hat into the ring, or should I say card. The only stipulation being that to enter the challenge you had to use her latest freebie image.

Now down to my card, the base made from K&Company's recycled range - Remake Rose Reds. The image was coloured with copic pens which were then cut out using my trusty 'Bug' and Oval Nestabilities dies. The two mats, scalloped and square came from the same piece of double sided cardstock by Imaginisce, from the Go For Baroque - Ooooh La La!. The fancy string/ribbon was from my stash, it was originally used to tie up a present that I got. Well we crafters find a use for everything!! Finished off the card with some gems and a stamped sentiment.

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Opening Soon!

When : Wednesday 12th August

Where: La-La-Land

Although not open yet, the shop window is tempting us with some sneek previews of what will be on offer from opening day.

By taking a wee peek, leaving a comment on the shop noticeboard and letting your followers know about the new shop you stand a chance of winning some fab candy.

Thanks for popping by.

Will the 31st of July be my lucky day?

I hope the 31st of July will be my lucky day. Why I hear you ask. Well Tracy over at Epiphany Art has some fabulous candy on offer. I do hope I am lucky.

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A Couple of Minutes to Spare? - Help out Incy Wincy

A call for support has gone out from Incy Wincy, as they haven't had a lot of support for their challenges. This week's challenge is an easy one, even I could do it, lol, and it took less than a couple of minutes - answer 3 simple questions and become an Incy Wincy follower.

The prize is the entire Incy Wincy range of digital stamps. You have to have a wee peek to find the answer, which can be found here and here.

Thanks for popping by.

Two Challenges in One

Met up with my crafting buddy, Linda, for tea and scone earlier this week, handing over some goodies I brought back from the UK for her and in return I got a wee pressie too. A wallet of stamped images. Thank you very much Linda.

Maybe some of you don't know it but Linda is one of the Design Team over at Cute Daisy May. By way of a thank you I thought I would use one of the images that Linda had given me in the latest Cute Daisy May challenge. Which one would I use? When I saw the Orange Bush and knew that was it as I had exactly the papers that would go along with it. The papers came from K&company Citronella collection.

Onto the card, the base, 6x6, was made from another K&company collection, this time Recycled Remake Grass Greens. The image was coloured in with copic pens, with the background being, for the want of a word, muddied with the lightest of the Warm Grey copic pens. Finishing it with a few flowers with brads for the centres.

Also included it into Secret Crafter's challenge as this week's challenge asked for stripes and dots.

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An Award

My crafting buddy, Linda, here in Bahrain has presented me with The Circle Of Friends award. Thanks very much Linda.

Passing it on to a couple of friends

Liz
Louise
Cazz
Val

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Heartfelt Sympathy

The final card I made today is one of those that most of us hate making, a sympathy one. To make it that wee bit harder it is for a male death. Struggled to think what to do then remembered I had some card blanks that had a cross cut of them. Backed the cross with a bit of pale blue backing paper, which I also used for the sentiment. Outlined the cross with a peel off border and finished it off with a 'celtic' style peel off.

Before that did a quickie card to my daughter as I was sending her some money to pay for some duty free shopping on her next jaunt out to visit us. Used a scrap of backing paper that I used on the Thanks So Much card, that I did earlier today. Finished it off with three flowers held together with a brad and added 4 smaller brads to the corners of the mat.

Thanks for popping by.

Thanks So Much and a Challenge

After having an excellent weekend with our friends in Ruwais over in Abu Dhabi, thought I would sent them a wee card to say thank you.

This week's challenge over at Funky Fairy, and which I have also entered, provided the inspiration. All the papers and images came from one of Funky Fairy's kits - Just a Bit. For the toppers, I reduced them down in size and included the sentiment before printing them off. Decoupaged the two leaves and the pink flower with foam pads. Used my latest purchase to do get the photo corners done, can see it becoming one that will be well used.

Thanks for popping by.

Celebrate and Just To Say

Got a couple of cards done since I got back from my wee jaunt at the weekend. The first one is a birthday card for Judith, brother-in-law's partner. It was another quick one one to make. The backing paper was a free download from Funky Fairy Inspirations and the topper was one of a set of toppers called Mannequin [Pink] from Kanban and finished off with a gold peel-off on a mat using the same pink backing paper. Finished the edge of the card using Fiskars Scalloped Lace Border Punch.

The second card is to let an old school friend know that I am thinking about as she has been in hospital getting a lump removed from her breast. This time I used a few leftover bits from a scrapbook kit that I did a while back and a couple of bits from my stash.

A Wee Jaunt

Fairly jetsetting just now. Thursday saw Billy and I heading off to Abu Dhabi, well to be precise Ruwais, to surprise our friend, Ulla, on her birthday.

Ulla opening her present, Horst looking on.

The drive from Abu Dhabi took longer than the flight from Bahrain to Abu Dhabi. The flight took an hour and the drive was just over two and half hours. This is the hotel that we were staying at, it was lovely and relaxing.

Ulla's husband, Horst, had organised a meal for Thursday night with seafood theme. We started off with Caviar with condiments and toast, have to admit it was the first time I have ever had it, but it was good. That was followed by a selection of canapes, then lobster with mushrooms and a hollandaise sauce and all rounded off with fresh strawberries, balsamic vinegar and black pepper. I can hear you saying strawberries, balsamic vinegar and black pepper, but they do bring out the taste of the strawberries.

The canapes

Met up with Ulla and Horst again yesterday before tackling the long drive back to Abu Dhabi to head back to Bahrain. The only downside of the trip was going through Abu Dhabi airport, it always seems claustrophobic and crowded. The only good thing about last night's trip back to Bahrain was that the flight from Abu Dhabi leave about 25 minutes ahead of schedule, something which is a rarity these days. It meant that we were walking out of the airport in Bahrain when we were scheduled to land.

Jaunt Home

The last two weeks saw us at home in Scotland visiting family. The first few days were spent in Edinburgh visiting Billy's brother. On our first day, Wednesday, we stopped for a bite to eat and seated at the table next to us was Rory Bremner. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera to get a wee snap. Thursday with the sun out we headed into the town centre wandering up the Royal Mile with a wee pit stop in Princes Street Gardens for an ice-cream.

Friday it was bbq time and as per norm back home when you plan a bbq, the weather changes from sunshine to rain. We didn't let the rain put us off and barbecued under a gazebo. Our nephew, Ian and his family came round and we were introduced to the latest member of the Gibb clan, Great-niece Orla. When we arrived on Wednesday were introduce to the latest member of brother-in-law's household, Doughnut.

Orla

Doughnut

Jordan & Abbie

On Saturday we let the train take the strain and headed back up north to spend the last week of our holiday with the rest of the family. Sunday saw another bbq, but this time the sun shone for us.

Thursday was out for lunch, a silver wedding present, at Eat On The Green where the food and service were excellent. Another one to add to our list of favourite restaurants. On our way for lunch we dropped by our local radio station - Waves Radio - based in Peterhead and met Kenny King, who we listen to online on a Friday. We arrived bearing gifts - a prayer mat an a mosque alarm clock which Kenny was tickled pink with. Maybe some day he will use it on air to wake up some of those sleepy listeners.

Trouble with a capital T

Just back from a trip home to Bonnie Scotland, more of which in another posting, with some goodies to play with. Today's playing resulting in a card for my eldest daughter's friend's birthday. When the two of them are out on the town, we call them 'The Trouble Twins'. When I saw the Naughty but Nice papers from the Say it with a Smirk range by Kyla May, I just had to use some of the papers for this card.

I think it is one of the quickest cards I have made recently. For the backing trimmed one of the sheets to fit a 6x6 inch card and for the wee topper cut out one of the squares from another sheet.