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Well we've got some exciting news at DCM this week! Welcome to Rachel and Mel who are joining the team, fab to have you here with us!

It's my turn to dare this week...

and the theme is to do with our feathered friends!

(Are you remembering to feed them now it's chilly out)
Robins, love birds, cartoon birds, stamped birds, paper pieced birds,
dingbat birds.Its up to you. I dare you to make a card with a bird or birds on,
it doesn't haveto be a real species, the more weird and wonderful the better!

I love the colours and patterns on the periphery paper pad, I thought this band of brown looked a bit like a branch so I perched my birds on there. I drew round the chipboard birds and cut them out of paper, I was going to use them but... well the excuse is they'd make the card heavy to post, the real reason is theres one of each in the pack and they're adorable.
Supplies: BG Periphery, BG Rubons, Doodlebug Stamp, Magistical Memories Chipboard, Ranger Walnut Ink

As I'd managed to make my first card by tuesday, unheard of for a last minute mini like me, I had another play and came up with something all together brighter in cheery colours. I love these paper designs, funky retro with totally unexpected colours.
Supplies: Cats Life Press stamp, Rubber Soul Paper, Berisfords Ribbon, Rob & Bob Clip, Scallop Scissors, Buttons from stash and doodling.

Cake & Cats

Thanks for your messages of congratulations, I'm still well chuffed! Its been another dreary autumn week so far here, lots of rain or cloud or mist or a combination meaning its getting dark and half three, roll on spring! Lots to do and not a huge amount of time but I've been planning work stuff around Christmas time and think I'm going to manage a nice long break, where I can eat loads and watch films in my PJ's. Stuff like that! A couple of Cake cards to share today.
Both use a Two Peas Dingbat font, DCWV paper and ribbon from Ribbon Oasis, and I can't believe the sparkle actually showed up in the photo. They're painted with pretend H2Os, which come in a little pallette of 10 colours from the works. You can mix them with normal watercolours too for more colours and they're a bargain at £2.99 - up with the artists stuff.

The poor cats are really hating the rain, they seem to want in two seconds after they've been let out and have managed to get themselves soaked in that miniscule amount of time. Then of course they want a cuddle straight away, hmmm nothing like a cuddle with a soggy cat eh. I got a set of stamps recently from Rusty Pickle, the one that made them have to have stamps was a quote...

Dogs have owners.
Cats have staff.

So true!

Card Designer of the Year 2007

I entered this competition earlier in the month and was gobsmaked to come home to a big parcel on friday, Matt just thought I'd been ordering stuff but it was out of the blue for me. So I opened it and I'm a runner up! How exciting is that! Its a comp Practical Publishing do every year and I just thought I'd give it a go. I got a huge box of stuff, lots of it I wouldn't have bought myself but variety is definitely the spice of life!

I've been bouncing off the ceiling for most of the weekend, I'm just so chuffed, and I'm so glad I gave it a go. If you're thinking about entering something go for it, if you don't try you won't know! Here's my prize, and apparently theres books to come too!I have been doing some cardmaking too, but quite frankly I'm finding it hard to stay still right now, it took me ages to get this pic as they were all wobbly. Now I must go as I'm off to see my pal Nic who's doing a craft fair, and I was going to see her yesterday but something came up.

Very big grins here, hope you all have a good weekend :D

Sing a song of sixpence...

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with cold toes. I had to de-ice the car at 5 O'Clock yesterday evening to go to work. It was a shock that it frosted up so quickly after dark. I hope I can manage to get some good photos of ice and frost, I love the patterns it makes.

It's Lythan's turn to dare us all this week and shes got us singing! Yep, the dare is to make a card inspired by a song without using the words on it. Sheesh! It's had me scratching my head for ages but I do love a good challenge. I used Figgy Pudding papers and not much else.... Can you tell what it is yet? (Done in my best Rolf Harris voice)



Here's another Christmas card too, using last years DCWV Christmas pads and a 2peas dingbat font. I coloured it with a mixture of watercolours and pretend H2O's, a shimmery paint set from The Works. £2.99....bargain!

Now if you haven't guessed the Dare song yet.... O Christmas tree! I'm so looking forward to seeing the entries for this one!

Bells and Baubles

Well I think I may just be getting on top of my Christmas cards at last. I challenged myself at the weekend and produced some more. Same format only this time with Pink Petticoat papers. I have completely bored myself silly with this design so its on to something new next...So for the Bells, Bows and Baubles LE today I had a go with some non Christmassy Pink petticoat papers... and came up with this. Simple and cute and lovely and quick! So of course I made half a dozen, only with plain sheer as I've run out of spotty, boohoo. Luckily I put in a rather large ribbon order yesterday though so I should survive.Has anyone else got cold toes or is it just me?

Eeeek!

Yep, I had one of those scary moments when I realised its only about 5 weeks til Christmas, Panic stations! So yesterday I went for it and managed to make 25 Christmas cards, all similar but different, and I'm feeling a lot less stressed out about it now!


All papers are DCWV and all images are pink petticoat watercoloured in. And here's my best crochet work for all those who think I've mastered it, I so haven't lol.

Got to go and find out who's been kicked of Strictly Come Dancing.... bye for now xx

Playing with Paperclips

Fancy improving your vocabulary and helping with world hunger? This is pretty cool!


Thanks for all your encouraging messages about my crochet, I am definitely no pro though, I'll take some pics to prove it but the lights gone already, ahh well. I had a go at the flower and bingo... another cat toy!

I've been playing with paperclip embellishments, great fun, and Staples do packs of a hundred 3 inch paperclips for £2.49... bargain! Simple cards both using Rubber Soul papers. I love the quality, its great to have a lovely heavy paper to play with.
What else... Oh yes! I can share this card now its arrived safely, everyone needs a hug when they're having a tough time, so hugs if youre reading this and thats you.

Papers and frame by the fabulous and very talented Marieke, congratulations on being a covergirl!

Golden Brown

It's Keryn's turn this week to set the dare, and it's to use golden highlights. You know how you go through phases with colours, well gold's not been one of my colours recently so I found this a real challenge. In the end I picked brown to go with the gold and they work really well togetherIt's an olde gold rather than a bright bling one and I like the subtleness of it.

Other exciting news, I've learnt to crochet! I found it really hard only having one needle, not that I would count myself as a knitter since I can only do plain stitch at the moment. So far I have made lots of tangled bits of wool with lumpy bits that the cats love playing with but I've also managed to make a sort of square, okay it looses stitches and gets thinner but its a start. I'm going to try this pattern next and see if I can make a flower!

Piles of Parcels

Thats the theme for this weeks Santa's Little Extra Helper! The pics not 100% true to the colours of the gorgeous Figgy Pudding papers as I had to use the flash. They're great but you only get one of each in the 6x6 pack, making them hard to start using!
I've also been playing with Marieke's gorgeous papers, such Fab colours, I love them. I made this for a pal who's just got her very own place with no flatmates, oh the joys! I remember my first solo flat really well, only your own mess to contend with!
Thanks for looking and keep warm, it's still baltic here and even crocs with socks aren't keeping my toes warm!

Brrrrrr & Cardboard

It snowed here last night don't you know! It was blowing a hooly too, still at least most of the traffic was driving sensibly on the dual carriageway when I went to work last night, and the gritters are out in force too. Actually snow may be exaggerating slightly, it was more like an occasional 5 minute flurry that got blown into the hollows but it was still the first snow of the winter. Matt laughs at me getting excited about snow, it brings out the big kid in me. I had a hot water bottle last night, not that I needed it with the central heating but it was so snuggly.

So, onto cards now. This week is Jo's turn to dare us all, and she wants us to use Corrugated cardboard. Now I'm sure I had loads of this at one time but its disappeared and only left a teeny bit of red behind, so I had a go at Jo's suggestion and tore up cardboard boxes too.

I was going for a naive look with this one, you know like kids draw the sky at the top of a picture and the grass at the bottom with no middle! Elsie fabric for the sky, sizzix hearts, handcut felt & house.


I also learned that not all cardboard boxes are alike! Some are easy to tear and get the crunckled bit but others are stuck together really well. My way round this for the really well glued ones apart is to steam iron them , making the top layer all soggy and easy to peel. I suppose you could just use water and leave it but I had the iron out at the time I was thinking about it! This card uses Cuttlebug Paisley die, scalloped punch, brads, torn cardboard, a little hampton stamp and lots of inking.

Have fun ripping up your cardboard boxes, its great fun!

Autumn Oddness

We're battening down the hatches here for the first big storm of the winter. Its forecast to be gusts up to 80mph from the northwest tomorrow so its gonna be chilly. Still, storms like that are pretty rare over on the east coast of Scotland, On Lewis they were practically weekly. Its been a weird autumn so far, my sweet peas are still flowering when they should all be dead now, heres a pic with the orange leaves of the woods behind... very odd.

Here's my little extra for this week, spot the scallops again, Matt thinks I'm really overdoing them now!

Autumn Leaves snow stamp, Cuttlebug die and English paper Co paper.


And also, I've been tagged by Jo, thank you!

1. If you could have 100.00 worth of scrapbook paper or assorted embellishments, which would you choose?

It would have to be embellishments. I am a complete paper addict but don't always have enough finishing embelly bits so I'd stock up on some gorgeous ones.

2. If you had to choose between using only stamps or rubons, which would you choose?

Stamps every time, you can use them again and again and have them in any colour, plus I could make my own rubbons with the pc if I really needed one!

3. If you knew how to do both awesome cards and layouts but could only do one for a whole year...which would you do?

I'd do cards, and mini books that were pretending to be cards! Is that cheating? I suppose I could wait a year to scrap the wedding pics, which I've finally got back by the way and theres some fantastic ones.

4. Would you rather own a scrapbooking store or have your own scrapping room at home...(can't have both he he he)

I have my own craft room already, how lucky am I! I wouldn't want to run my own shop, the stocking and examples would be fun to do, but I'm a rubbish salesperson. I'd be telling folk they could get their Double sided tape, 4 rolls for a pound, in Poundland... so not to buy mine! But that said, if I could own a shop and have a team of employees to staff it, that would be ace!


5. And last but not least, what is your CURRENT cardmaking or scrapping style....Now this can be tough to nail down!

Hmmm, I'm not really sure. I like playing with lots of different techniques. At the moment I'm really enjoying stamping and getting more confident with my doodling, and I always seem to use patterned paper and I love my scallop scissors. Does any of that constitute a style?

Thanks for a fab tag, I've seen this one everywhere I would have tagged already so if you're reading this and haven't done it yet, youre tagged, leave a message and I'll come and nose at your answers!

A tag and a card

I don't think I shared this card before. It was for a BG contest, using Obscure, funky papers but quite difficult to use. Great fun to make this one, and lots of handcutting too!
Also I've been tagged by Kate! Thank you :)

4 jobs I have had

Dental Nurse a long time ago
Workshop Coordinator of a Social Enterprise
Pizza Chef ahh those student jobs...
Craft Tutor

4 places I have visited
Malmo in Sweeden
Lyon in France
Quite a few places in Greece
Camden in London

4 places I have lived
Rural Wales
Isle of Lewis
The big city of Aberdeen (a metropolis to me!)
Rural Angus

4 faovourite foods
Sushi
Twiglets
Sunday Roast, any of them, we're having chicken today.
Creme eggs

4 places I would rather be
My craft room
On a warm beach
By the fire
Snuggled in bed when there's a storm outside

And I'm going to tag... Lisa, Lynne and Nic, in honour of making friends made on the internet and living to tell the tale!

and CUT!!!

Hooray an escape from Christmas, (is anyone else a bit fed up of crackers, tinsel and excessively wrapped toiletries filling the shelves?) Anyway, this weeks dare is set by Tracie, and it is to use handcutting on a card, any theme too so I get to escape the festive frenzy (not that I don't like it, but Decembers the time for Christmas...grump...mutter...moan...)

This card is totally inspired by, but not using any, Rusy Pickle pirate papers I got at the SECC. Somehow they just didn't work when I put them with the lettering so they're back on the shelf for stroking.

The only thing that isn't handcut is the card blank. I used stamps by Hero Arts and StudioG, Prima flowers, papermania brads, a skull from the same font as I used before about a month ago and doodling.

Penny Black alpha stamps here for the congratulations, whispers colouring pens (I'm sure theres a more grown up name but hey...), doodled borders and Pink Petticoat paper. I didn't feel scared doodling direct onto the PP paper cause I knew I could always print another sheet if I mucked it up! Didn't cut the letters individually this time though.

I quite like handcutting really, I use my alphabet stamps and cut them out more now even if it does take longer than using my dies. Thanks for stopping by my blog, have a crafty day.

Rhi :)