Here's my first attempt with the Prismacolor

OK here is the much talked about card that I was playing with. Harvey had a party to go to today so I thought that I would combine the technique with a card I actually needed.

Materials Used : Whippersnapper stamp, Prismacolor pencils, Sansodor and Stumps, Rob and Bob paper, Alphalicous cricut, Crystal Glitter Glue, pink sheer ribbon.

Here are a few comments on my first experiences with it.

• I colour very lightly with watercolour pencils so I found it hard to make the colour much more intense, I will have to practise with this.
• I am used to watercolour pencils and the way you can pull the colour around much more
• I didnt use the correct weight cardstock. This was actually quiet smooth card and I think something with little more tooth will work better

That said I am actually quiet pleased with the results.

On a totally different note we had a 10 hour powercut today. Wow! how you miss the electric when it is gone. Lucky we have a gas hob so we could at least boil the water for Caidens bottles and make us cups of tea. I went out and brought sausages and burgers for a bar-be-cue but the coals weren't playing ball and I had to give up that idea and chuck a couple into the frying pa for Harvey who was getting very hungry and starting to sound like a scratched record with his "where is my burger" over and over again! I knew there was a reason I brought a gas hob though, exactly for this reason.

Thats all for now, I'll be back tomorrow and hopefully be able to play a bit more with these pencils. I wont let them beat me, I will fall in love with them!

Cute little pictures

I was finding it hard to see where one blog post started and one finished so I quickly knocked up these cute David Walker borders. These were all made using David Walker fonts and they can be purchased for download from http://twopeasinabucket.com I LOVE David Walker designs and my two favourite cricut carts are Paper Pups and Zooballoo. I am hoping that Cricut get a move on and make some more David Walker Cartridges and I am on a mission for a Cardboard Cats cartridge!

I had a little go at the prismacolor pencils yesterday, it was hard as Caiden didnt really sleep a great deal. I didnt use the right kind of cardstock so I dont think that helped, also I havent actually seen these pencils used or a card in real life so I am even unsure of what it is supposed to look like. I am quiet pleased with my first go despite what I just said. I was wanting to make it as a card before I posted a picture, so bear with me, it will be today.

Postman has been....

It wasnt of course my blackmarket stash, but something I ordered yesterday from www.artsupplies.co.uk I ordered some stumps and Sandsodor which apparently is what I need to use these prismacolor pencils. I am well impressed with the service, ordered yesterday and came today. I would recommend them. If you are going to them for the stumps and sandsodor then I would also point out something that I saw in the catalogue I received today but didnt (ARGH) order. A small metal container which is used for holding these types of solvents and it has a lid so you could use it to keep a small amount of this stuff in to work with instead of poking the stumps into the bottle! I will have to tag one onto another order, but I can see that that not be for a while as I ordered 5 packs of 2 stumps and have been told that will be more than enough.

Now if anyone has a magic spell to send Caiden to sleep coz of course Mummy wants to play but it seems so does he today! Talking of Caiden, he is a little mover. He is now crawling and cruising everywhere! Getting into all sorts of mischief. This morning he crawled out to the hall, to the stairs, standing up holding onto the bottom step and shouting and shouting, I swear he was calling for Harvey to wake up. So I took him up there and plopped him into Harveys bed. Harveys face from deep sleep to waking to his brother pounding his face was a picture, he loves his brother so much, he had a beautiful smile for his little bro.

Housework calling, better get that done and see what I can come up with this afternoon for my play with the pencils, I can not wait!! I am just trying to plan the perfect stamp to show off their colouring abilities. Oh I hope I can do it, I love watercolour pencils and I am quiet pleased with the results I can achieve so I will be disappointed if these dont work for me. But as I tell the ladies on the classes its practise practise practise so I suppose its the same for me with these ones.

Have a wonderful crafting day!

Shopping on the black market

Hmmm if there is a knock on the door in the next week or two it will either be the postman or the customs people coming to take me away for my black market goodies! LOL I wont say much more than..... give me a M - give me a I - give me a C - give me a K ..... you know the rest!! I am soooooooooooo excited. Shame on that little green bug for making me buy from the Black or should I say cricut green market. Lucky for me I have lots of wonderful friends on the web that are only to willing to help a girl in crisis.

Check out my new blog toy

Scroll right down and there is a funky new guestbook with pictures and all. Once you get over the shock of my ugly mug, please take a moment to sign it. As you all know, from my previous entry re the person from Spain (cough cough South Africa) my geography isnt the best and this fantastic tool will help me no end! Even on my little map(top right) there are a few red blobs I have NO CLUE what countries these are.

Right off I go, I am bellaing again :) Boys are napping and I am having fun.....

I've been tagged

Apparently, when reading the comments off my blog this morning, Regina has "tagged" me. This is what happens I need to tell you 7 facts about myself and then tag 7 more people, people whos blogs/work I admire. I am very new to this blogging lark, and I doubt I know 7 bloggers and the ones that I do know would be the same ones that 1/ tagged me 2/ would be tagged my Regina or others. So I will play along, in that I will choose 7 people, but if I know they have been tagged before I wont tag them back.

First for 7 facts.... 7 thats hard, I really am not that interesting LOL
1/ I hate spiders, I am scared of them, I know its silly but thats me
2/ I am a very fussy eater, I am a nightmare to cook for, I even drive myself nuts about it
3/ I wont leave the volume on the TV or radio on an odd number, has to be an even number
4/ I love animals, I have 2 cats Daisy and Poppy, 4 fish Bob, Thomas, Patch and Tres and 1 rabbit Stamper. I desperately want some gineau pigs but wont until the rabbit has gone :(
5/ I have a very dry and sarcastic humour
6/ I worry for England about everything! What people think of me, my kids, my house. ect ect
7/ I love my boys, my husband, my house, my crafting. I never take things for granted I am so lucky to have what I have. Of course its human nature to always strive for more, but if this is all I have right now I am happy :)

For the people I am tagging, I will have to give them some thought as 7 is a lot and I really dont know 7 bloggers!! Will be back later with a list.

Born to shop

This is todays and yesterdays card, it actually took me almost two days to complete what with the boys ect and trying to find "just the right" things. It took me the longest time and turned out the simplest of all the Bella cards?! I used a few items from my Secret Bunny stash, KimF from the Cricut forum was my bunny and I used the ribbons and paper from her beautiful package. Also I did have two flowers (these from SueB's package) that I was going to put on here but do you think I can find them? Nope! and I am NOT using two more when I know these two are floating about the house somewhere.... how mad is that!! I only had them last night, I was about to go upstairs to my craft room when I got distracted, ended up going shopping (just food nothing exciting) and now I can not find them.

Materials Used : Stampin Up! Doodle this set/ Michals $1 set for the born to shop/StampingBella for Main Image/watercolour pencils/aquabrush/black versafine/crystal glitter glue/ paper stack for background paper

Hmmm talking of craft rooms, you know, I have a room upstairs, all set up big craft table ect, but this is what I find myself working on everyday! Its the sideboard in the living room, reason I work there is Caiden naps on the sofa, so I cant go up and leave him so I bring "stuff" down and slowly but surely my front room looks like a craft room... until I say enough is enough, I drag it back upstairs and the whole process starts again.... I have lost count of the times I have vowed to myself that all my craft stuff MUST stay in one room. This brings me onto question of the day... shall I start one of those? seems like a fun idea right now, might end up question of the week as I run low on ideas. OK here it is.

How many rooms have craft stuff in them? and list what and where...

I will start - Living Room - stamps, pencils, card, cuttlebug, ribbons, inkpads Hallway - stamps, inkpads, ribbons, secret bunny package from Kim. Bedroom - up until this morning there was my penny black stamps and SU sets that I got recently, also craft books for bedtime reading Kitchen Yep there are crafty bits all over one of the units in there, mainly stuff that I have taken off Harvey which he stole from my craft room! Downstairs Bathroom OK no stuff but I have stamped the walls!! LOL Upstairs bathroom I believe this is the ONLY craft free room Harveys bedroom I am sure there are loads of stolen craft items in here, he has a passion for double sided tape, sticky pads and stickers!

Thats all for this post, will start another one shortly with some further ramblings...

Some people are so kind!

Postman just knocked. Last week on the cricut forum I was asking about Primsmacolor pencils a lady emailed and said she had a set of 24 that she had never used and did I want them. Yes Please I said, let me pay you, nope she didnt want payment, it was RAK (random act of kindness) from her. How wonderful? Well today the package came, not only did she send the pencils, she sent some beautiful ribbons, prima flowers and a Making Memories mini blossoms and brads. I actually feel like I am welling up, I want to cry, this is such a wonderful thing for this stranger to do. So THANK YOU SUE BUNKLEY from Texas, you made my day!!

(((( HUG to you Sue ))))







Caz

Happy Birthday to me....

OK, its not my birthday for a few weeks yet, BUT a girl has to be organised and I have ordered my brithday pressie :) I will show Darren what he got me when it comes. Anyone guess what it is? I think I have hinted what it is before now.... and if your a member of the Bella yahoo group you'll know as I was Woo Hooing on there earlier. Whoops, theres a clue?! No surprise really.


I just wanted to add, Caiden is being such a good boy for mummy, he is napping now and allowing me to "blog" and stamp for an hour every morning, its fab, its doing wonders for me to take a little me time and not just do the housework whilst Harvey is at nursery.

Have a great day!

Do you try to break away...

From using the same old things? For me its colours, pink and purples are my passion. So I try to break away, only to find myself in a ORANGE HAZE! So it seems my plan on breaking away from the normal stuff isnt really working as I dont use Pink and Purple but it seems I have a third favourite colour which is orange :) Oh well, its such a bright zingy springy colour and makes me happy.



Here is what I am talking about.... another Bella card, this has to be my fav Bella so far... Flowahbella, I think I spelt that right?? I used the amazing David Walker Stylized Flowers embossing folder for the Cuttlebug machine. I used my watercolour pencils and aquabrush to colour the background in red, orange, green and yellow. Mounted onto a orange square card from www.craftworkcards.co.uk and some of the scrumptious ribbon that Candice sent me (and its all gone now BOO HOO - the orange one that is)



For UK readers I wanted to tell you about the white card I used. I used to use Stationery Box card, but as you may or may not know they are no longer. So I was walking down my local town and saw the shop was still open, apparently some of the store were purchased by Partners. So I went in to see what card they had. Ended up buying three packs. One was called THICK CARD and its like white chipboard, this will be fab for making books, that was in a pack of 10 A4 sheets, cant get to the price right now. The other was called COATED CARD Bright White, A4, 50 sheets 200gsm. OK its not the thickest of cards, but its perfect to stamp on. Its super smooth, takes the ink really well, even my versafine dried quickly, lovely and white and takes pencils well. I am impressed and this will be my new card to stamp on. It was £4.99 a pack so not too bad a price.





HINT OF THE DAY : If you dont own a cuttlebug or machine that can do this I hear a sprizt bottle and a rolling pin will do the job, sprizt your card, place inside the embossing folder and roll with rolling pin, I havent tried it but I am told it really does work!

Reginas Blog candy

Reginas blog is like eye candy, but she is giving away some blog candy! So in an effort to win this I am sending a picture of what I made my Mum for Mothers Day. I made this using Hero Arts rubber stamps, Cricut Flowers, ribbons, doodlebug papers and some white stones and dowling for the stems. My Mum had admired my Cricut flowers that I have on show so I knocked these out for her to take to work and leave on her desk.

Sunday ramblings

Had another lovely day at Creative Pastimes today and managed to make a nice pile of cards. I was using Whippersnapper designs and they are rather cute! Met a lady called Samm today, we chat on Cricut website and she dragged her husband along with her. Even though we have never met we managed to have a good natter and her hubby was very patient and just stood there as we chatted all things cricut, crafting and blogs! Only when she went I thought I should have got my camera out and taken a picture of one my cricut sisters!!

Included in this post are two of the 23 cards I made on these two days of fun. More can be seen on my webshots http://community.webshots.com/user/stampzuk click and have a look in the new cards folder.

Enjoy!