New Stamp Set

I just received the Lawn Fawn 'Grand Greetings' clear stamp set, which I bought from Make The Day Special (an excellent UK stockist of stamps, which I discovered via reading Clair's blog). I had to try out the 'Happy Birthday' stamp right away on a couple of cards:

Supplies: Papermania Kraft A6 Card Blank, Crate Paper Random papers, Farmhouse Chipboard, and a Paper Heart Border Sticker, Bazzill Basics Papers Washi Tape, the Lawn Fawn 'Grand Greetings' Stamp Set, and various Adhesive Gems.

Supplies: A Blue 5" Square Card Blank, Bazzill Basics Paper Dino-Mite 6x6 Papers, Buttons, and Stickers, and the Lawn Fawn 'Grand Greetings' Stamp Set.

See the grey and white striped strip under the button and stickers at the top of the dino card? It's actually a bit of the edging of the sticker sheet. I love it when I put a bit of packaging or negative space to good use!

Do you have any recent stamps you had to use straight away, or can't stop using? I'd love to expand my stamp collection based on good recommendations :-)

P.S. What do you think of my blog's new look? I'm not sure it's perfect, but I if I waited until I had time to make it perfect, it would never get done!

x

Tweet

Adorable Birthday Girl

Hello hello!

Here's a layout I finished today, based on a sketch challenge at the sketchbook365 blog:

Supplies: Crate Paper Paper Heart Chipboards, Cardstock Stickers, and 12x12 Papers, Random Chipboards and 6x6 Papers, Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type 'Cream', Slice Design Cutter with 'Basics' and 'Noteworthy' Design Cards, Number '4' from American Crafts Thickers, White Cotton, Black Pen, Blue Gems. 

This is the sketch (more on the challenge can be seen here):

Close-ups of my layout:

Little Miss was looking quite grown up and elegant the morning of her birthday. She was also very happy - not because of the presents stacked on the table, but because of the balloons that Daddy had bought for her. She loves helium filled balloons! In fact, I showed her this layout today, and she said 'I wish I had those flying balloons right now Mummy.' Next year we'll just buy her some balloons and forget about the other gifts!

On another note, the lovely Abi at Creating Paper Dreams is encouraging us all to try extra hard to leave comments today, and on the first Thursday of each month. So think about saying 'hi', it's always nice to hear from readers! And you can say 'hi' to Abi, or read more about 'Operation Speak Out' here.

Bye for now, x

Tweet

April in Numbers

Welcome back to another month measured in factual figures! If you'd like to see who started this brilliant blogging idea, then see Julie Kirk's information on her blog here, or her post for this month here.

My April in numbers:

6 different dinosaur craft items made with my daughter at the local library craft day. Here's my favourite - a dinosaur theatre:

£8.50 paid to get into Corfe Castle (a National Trust property) on a day out with my daughter. My friend Rosie offered to look after my baby for the day, so that me and little miss could have some quality time together. So, despite the drizzle, we went on an adventure to find treasure and save animals (all pretend!). It was great fun, and my daughter was very happy, until about two minutes after this picture was taken - when she fell into the river! It was shallow, and after a few tears she was fine and going over the stepping stones again:

1pm - the time for an Easter-Egg hunt at the house of one of my daughter's friends. They had great fun running around the garden, but even more fun eating all the treats:

5 T-Shirts spray painted, ripped, and safety-pinned, to turn five crazy girlies into a punk girl band for the day. It was all for my friend Rosie's 30th birthday treat (to see our music video see my earlier post here):

50 nail polishes produced for a sleepover the same weekend. All these nail polishes belonged to one girl. I was quite impressed, but she did admit she bought a few of them over fifteen years ago!:

£2.10 paid for car parking at Swanage - a significant number because I drove my sister and kiddies there, and went to a different car park to start with because it was easier to park in (I only passed my driving test last month). But when I saw the price to park there I decided to be brave, and park in the smaller, cheaper car park! It was fine, I should have more confidence in my parking skills. We had a lovely time on the beach, though the wind was a bit chilly:

280 acres of Country Park to explore at Durlston in Swanage - we had a nice long walk along the cliffs. I love going to this country park, as there's a lighthouse and a castle to see, old quarry caves which were used for smuggling too, wildlife and wildflowers, plus a good sea breeze to blow all your troubles away:

2000 volunteers donated knitted and crocheted items to a Blooming Marvellous garden display which was also at Durlston when we visited. My favourite bit was this pond, complete with newts, frogs, and a garden gnome (for more photos of the garden see their blog here):

2 very sleepy kiddies when we got back home:

And finally, 5 layouts completed for Shimelle's online crop. You can see more about the layouts here, here, here, here and here, if you missed them before!:

Thanks for looking. I had a fabulous April and I hope you did too! 

Now for May, which will include a trip to visit my mum and family in Kent, my Grandparents in Suffolk, and a Gig in Reading. Plus, of course, more scrapbooking and silliness!

Bye for now x

Tweet