ONLY JOKING

I must admit, I am one of those sad people who likes pretty tissue boxes but don't like the prices of them!  So, I decided to make one of these... It started as flat packed bare MDF which I assembled and added chalk paint and rice papers... now I can buy the cheap ugly tissues for 45p a box and hide them underneath!

I have just completed the next phase in my lounge - needed some artwork for one of the walls and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. Firstly, I must apologise for the poor photos, however, me being me, I had already framed and mounted the pictures before realising I hadn't photographed them! plus it was a lovely sunny day when I took the photos so the reflection was bad! All products used are from Anna Marie Designs and the frames are from Ikea (a gift from my ex!).

I have been decorating my home over the last couple of months and have been on leave the past two weeks and finally managed to get into my craft room last weekend and play. I needed to make a couple of lamps for my lounge and dining room and had two old cider bottles which I decided to recycle.  I was very happy with the end results. Paints and ceramic effect are from Anna Marie Designs and rice papers are Stamperia.  I bought the lights off the internet, although AMD now sells them.

HUGE proud Mummy moment last Thursday - my youngest, Sam, received his GCSE results and passed all eleven including A's in English, Maths and Geography - what an achievement!   Of course, I made him a card which I had seen the talented Pete Hughes of Sizzix demonstrate a few weeks back and was pleased with the end result. I love Pete's clean and simple style.  The two star dies were both from Sizzix, the script sentiment is from Tim Holtz, background ink is Tumbled Glass Distress Ink and the star is painted with Indigo Blue paints and some gilding wax.  Sentiment was computer generated.

Yet again, I have been a bad blogger, however, besides some projects I completed a few weeks back, just wanted to share some exciting news I received.  I think everyone knows how much I love Anna Marie Designs products and projects and I have been chosen to be in Anna Marie's first ever Design Team! So, here are the projects I have made recently using Anna Marie Design products, most of which are Christmas themed.

I saw this stamp set from Indigo Blu and knew I had to have it as I have too many of those friends and family who need to have a slightly naughty but funny card. I made this card for my friend who has the same sense of humour as me!  Very plain and simple and easy to make...I think the sentiment says it all lol!

I recently received a request from a lady to make a baby card in the  style of the large 12" x 6" cards I make with birds on.  I must admit, it had never occurred to me to turn this into a new baby card so added a small nest and all three sizes of the MDF birds representing the parents and baby!   The lady in question liked it so much that she ordered another one from me in pink!

I have been a bad blogger (and crafter) recently, mostly due to family stuff and life in general so sorry.   Here's a card I saw demonstrated a while ago and I loved the simplicity of it so thought I would give it a go.

Here's another clean and simple card - needed something for my brother's birthday and decided this would suit a male card as well as being quite modern. Used a Tim Holtz stamp for the paint effects together with a selection of Distress Oxides which I then applied around the second layer of cardstock and finally added a large bold sentiment from Stamp By Me. These are very quick to make so made a few more for my card box with slightly different colours.

Here are the last of the cards and because I wanted quick ones, I went for my old favourite of the Altenew butterfly with the watercolour effect.  Again, different sentiments were added.

Here are the penultimate cards from last weekend.  This time I used a technique demonstrated a year or so ago which allows you to make two slightly different cards at the same time.  I used a Tattered Lace dragonfly die to stencil through for one card and then used the actual die cut for the second one.  Add different sentiments and you have a few cards made in little or no time at all.

Here are the next set of cards I made.  When I first made the original new home card, I painted the whole sheet of chipboard shapes in one go, that way I only got covered in paint just the once! I used different sized cards and different sentiments - these were from Wonky Tonk and thought they were ideal to go with the quirky houses.

I have now finished photographing all the cards I made last weekend (nearly 30 in total!) so thought I would share how I batchmake.  I showed a card last week with was very simple and quick to make and this is an ideal card to change slightly with colour and wording to enable me to build up a supply of finished cards.  So here we go, there are quite a few of them I'm afraid and more to come!

Today I'm showing another card I made recently which I had seen demonstrated by Lydia of Altenew.  I loved the simplicity of the card but didn't have the stamps in question so improvised and found a heart stamp from Inky Doodles and chose some colours from the Distress Oxides. I found a sentiment which matched the image and heat embossed it onto black card.  Unlike Lydia's card, I didn't want the sentiment placed through the hearts as it blocked out most the image (my hearts must have been a lot smaller!), so placed it underneath.

I really loved using these stamps and dies from Sizzix so here's a few more variations of cards with them...

I had a very productive weekend and managed to complete over thirty cards! So, this is the first - I saw this card demonstrated on TV at the weekend by the very talented Pete Hughes of Sizzix.  I loved the card he made and seeing as I already had the products, I gave it a go and this is the end result...

Today's card is one I made for a friend who has recently moved to London with her family.  It's very clean and simple in design but actually took me a while to make because all the parts of the house had to be primed and handpainted. Greyboard house is from Tando, sentiment is from Wonky Tonk, paints are Dylusions and layering die is from Stamps by Me.