A little catch up

 Afternoon blogland

This post is mostly about TTT and her GCSE results, but somewhat about cards!

So if we do the cards first - as that's what I'm guessing most of you are here for.  I made this card - ooooh last year now! - for the daughter of someone I follow on Instagram.  She'd said her daughter would love some birthday cards and asked if anyone would like to send one.  I was one of quite a few carders who said yes and the card then went half the way around the world - to Australia.

I'm planning to get back into regularly making cards soon. Hopefully this is the last 'from the vaults' for now.

Card:

 Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

Saturated Canary - Dressed Up

coloured with my Copics

Rubber stamp:

Catherine Pooler - All Around Wishes

Dies:

Pretty Pink Posh - Scallop Borders 1

Creative Expressions - Double Stitched Squares

Time for Tea - Dream Big

Paper:

First Edition - New Bloom

Anything else:

Flat backed gems

glitter (which I appear to have lost the pot of and can't remember it's name!)

What you can't see from the picture is that the paper has a lovely glitter to it as well, I thought would really complement the glitter I added to the dress.  Wish I could find that damn pot of glitter - it was really pretty!  Currently though it looks like the glitter fairy ate it!!

Now - moving onto to TTT.  Well she did good in her GCSE's - she took 12 subjects / exams in total and got a 9 for Maths, 8 for Computer Science and a raft of 7s for most other subjects.  We'll accept the couple of 6s and gloss over the Religious Studies grade :-)  This means that she will be going to 6th Form at the Grammar she's been at since leaving Primary.  

The trouble we've been having is she wanted to do French and English Language (some of her grade 7s) but school dropped those subjects as financially un-viable to run due to not enough student interest / numbers.  It caused a lot of upset at the time - we even went so far as to look at other 6th Forms and, as we live 45 mins drive from the nearest, a lot of soul searching and serious debate ensued.

When the final list of subjects 'our' 6th Form were going to offer came out, the consensus was that a 45 min to 1hour drive every day to a different town / school just wouldn't work.  The final decision was made when she went to 'our' schools' Induction Day. She could still do Maths and Computer Science (subjects she was never going to compromise on) and tried Psychology and Sociology as 'tasters' instead of French and English Lang.  Luckily she really enjoyed both of those subjects and so the final decision was made! 

She's going to 6th Form in September to study; A level Maths; Computer Science; Psychology and Sociology.

My goodness - those are some subjects to pick! Personally I think she's going to love picking over people's brains - she already tries it with me and her dad!

Onwards and upwards - we are now looking forward to the 6th September with great interest! 

It also feels a bit like I've just written my novel - so I'm going to scoot now and get on with actually making some cards, or some housework, or some washing, or some cooking, or maybe even just relax with music and a book - who knows!

I hope everyone else is doing well - I do hope those of you with kids / grandkids going through the same as our TTT are coming happily out the other side of it.

See you soon,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

Passion for Markers: Week 704 - Embellish it - I do hope it's enough embellishments to qualify?  I'm not so into heavy embellishments anymore, this is about my limit (well generally anyway, unless I feel in a super 'go for it' mood!)

Polkadoodles Challenge: Wk 33 - Anything Goes

Inkspirational Challenges: #297 - Word Prompt : Clothing/Closet.  I hope the sparkly dress qualifies?  No problems if not.

My Time to Craft Challenge Blog: #515 - Die-cuts

Some of my favourite things......

Hello blogland

As it's nearly the end of the month, I thought I'd do my (always late) monthly reminder to all you Facebookers out there that you still have time to enter the challenge on the All Dressed Up Facebook group.

The challenge for August is  'Your Favourite Things' - rules (as always) are very simple - you need to use an All Dressed Up Digital stamp and follow the theme!

Now I went with the idea that this is both using my favourite craft things - digi stamps, copics, stencils and inks - and also the cute image I've used was a girl reading which, other then colouring, is my all-time favourite thing to do.  Even, dare I say it, reading more than colouring sometimes!

So, the card I made:

Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

All Dressed Up - Little Bookworm

coloured with my Copics

Rubber stamp:

Ahh, not sure - it was in a bargain bin at a craft show

Stencil:

My Favorite Things (still with theme!) - Wonky Dots

Anything else:

Distress Inks

blending brush

And that's it folks - a short list of my favourite things! Please do come join me and my Teamies if you Facebook.  If you don't there's always the All Dressed Up Blog and challenges over there.

See you soon,

Sarah

Gem of a Craft Challenge: Week 17 - Anything Goes

Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends: #212 - Anything Goes

Krafty Chicks Challenge: #678 - All Occasions

Finally sharing

Hello blogland

It's all ridiculously quiet here at the moment.  We are getting ever closer to TTT's big GCSE moment, which she seems to be facing by spending longer and longer in bed! It was close to 2pm before we saw her yesterday!  Other than that, we are plodding on with life, and, to be honest, I'm almost counting down until she starts 6th Form (or whatever) so we get some sort of routine back.  I've not done my regular weights or aerobics for weeks and boy can I tell!

Anyways, while I was thinking of TTT I realised, that though I shared her Prom pictures, I never actually shared her birthday cards.  As regular readers of my waffle will know I make her two cards for birthdays and Christmases - there's only the three of us and it always seems a little sad that she has one lonely card from family for her birthday. So she gets two!

This is the one that I gave to him indoors to give to her.  The other one I'll share another day when I've not managed to make anything new, again! 

Supplies used:

Digital image:

Mo's Digital Pencil - Eliza

coloured with my Copics

Rubber stamps:

'Daughter' from a very old 'relatives' set for which I no longer have the packaging, but I think was Do-crafts

Kaiser Craft - 'Today' (it's a longer sentiment I used just the 'today' from it)

Woodware - Word Fragments by Jane Gill

Autumn Leaves - Swirls v.2

Dies:

un-branded stitched rectangle set

Anything Else:

American Crafts - Thickers (for the 16)

She really liked the dress on this image - and said the card was 'OK' - I'm told that if you could buy this dress she would.  But maybe not in this colour!

So I'm off again now, got sourdough cooking and it's about time to take it out the oven.

See you soon,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

Passion for Markers: Week 703 - Let's Celebrate

Krafty Chicks Challenge: #677 - CAS week

Di's Digi Stamps Challenge: Use a digital element (the stamp)

I love ProMarkers Challenge: #541 - Anything Goes / Lavender and Lace (well I had the Lavender but not the lace!) As you can see I love markers but I moved away from ProMarkers many years ago and am a total Copic addict! Glad to see a marker colouring challenge opening up to the markers I use. :-)

  

Just keeping my hand in...

Hello blogland,

Keeping my hand in both in respect of blogging and colouring! I feel a bit like I've neglected both recently. Hoping to find some time to myself to colour soon, and then get back into blogging regularly.

Still on summer holidays here, got a trip to Lincoln on Tuesday, nothing else planned for a few days after though, so maybe will find time in the next week or so.  Starting to count down to GCSE day -  11 days and counting! Then final decisions on if it's 6th Form at TTTs' Grammar or another route.

So card - this one was going to have been for an ADU challenge, but it didn't work out.  Mostly because I accidentally used a retired image! Not so good when you're trying to encourage people to join in a challenge, eh!

So sharing it now for no reason other than fun!

Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

All Dressed Up - So cool

coloured with my Copics

Rubber stamp:

taylored expressions - simple strips: friendship

Dies:

un-branded stitched rectangle

taylored expressions - simple strips: asymmetrical

Julie Hickey - You're a star die set

Paper:

Basic Grey - Hey, luscious

Anything else:

glitter

sequins

That's about it really, really looking forward to Summer happening at some point! Probably not going to be until September and school's back, now is it! :-)

See you soon,

Sarah

Challenges/s:

Passion for Markers: Week 702: Dies and/or punches

As You Like It Challenge: Favourite 2 Colour Combo - Black and red is one of my favourite colour combos

Polkadoodles Challenge: Wk 31 - Anything Goes

Where'd the sun go?

Good morning blogland,

Late again, and for two posts this time! I think I can't have set the 'publish on' button right - I really must check my work more thoroughly and not do things in a rush next time!

This means this post and the last are posts without waffles - even though I've been on a holiday since last we spoke. Nothing fancy - just a weeks jaunt to County Durham and Yorkshire but I did have pictures to share. That will have to wait.

Back to what should have been happening in this post.

Hello everyone!

This is my second post for today and this time it's for the new challenge over at Crafty Calendar Challenge. We have a very easy theme for the busy month of August and that is 'Anything Goes', a lovely prize from Hetty Clare of two digital images and wonderful inspiration from my Teamies. 

So summer is a season of festivals is it - if so where'd the summer go?! We took TTT to only her second ever concert at the end of June, a George Ezra concert - it was a lovely friendly, family event but my goodness it was cold and it rained! Set the tone for the rest of the summer I think! 

Anyway that random piece of information helps with the card I've made - I thought of all those best of friends (young and old) heading off to festivals and outside concerts thinking they're going to have a wonderful time in wonderful weather and then - bam! - it rains and is terrible British weather!

My card:

Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

Hetty Clare - Festival Girls

coloured using Copics / scene created using stencils and inks

Rubber stamp:

Neat and Tangled - Together

Dies:

unb-branded stitched rectangle set

Neat and Tangled - Together die set

Anything else:

Polkadoodles - Creative stencils: Grass Lawn and Great Outdoors

Distress Ink

blending brushes

I do hope you have a chance to pop over to the challenge, my Teamies have made some wonderful inspiration and it's a fab prize on offer.

See you again soon,

Sarah

Challenge/s:

Fab 'n' Funky Challenges: #578 - Summer Fun

Polkadoodles Challenge: Wk 30 - Anything Goes

Inkspirational Challenge: #295 - Use Stencils

As You See It Challenge: #304 - The Thing I love most about Summer is: Generally it's warm (not this year in the UK) and lots of music concerts / festivials.

Cardz 4 Galz: #204 Something Beginning with 'P' - Prosecco Cocktails!

Inspiring.....

Good morning blogland,

Late again, and for two posts this time! I think I can't have set the 'publish on' button right - I really must check my work more thoroughly and not do things in a rush next time!

This means this post and the next are posts without waffles - even though I've been on a holiday since last we spoke. Nothing fancy - just a weeks jaunt to County Durham and Yorkshire but I did have pictures to share. That will have to wait.

Back to what should have been happening in this post.

Hello campers!

This is my inspiration post for the new challenge that started (insert correct date here!) yesteday - Saturday 5th - over at Sweet Stampin' for this fortnight the challenge theme is 'Based on a book/film/song'.  Please remember we are, at heart, a stamping challenge so there does need to be some stamping on your project (rubber or digital) but your project doesn't need to be a card.

This is my inspiration card:

Supplies used:

Digital stamp:

Saturated Canary - My Song

coloured with Copics

Dies:

un-branded stitched rectangle die set

Pretty Pink Posh - scallops

Anything else:

DCWV - Text Prints: the paper stack

(extremely old paper pad set)

My inspiration is from Elton Johns' Your song (link in case you're not familiar with it).  I know the song is more of a romantic one - but the sentiment on the digi was perfect - and I would imagine, if you're sending a birthday card to someone, you are happy to have them in this world!

Gotta go - another post to fix.

Sarah

Challenge/s:

Passion for Markers: Week 701 - Favourite Colour Combo : Weeeelll - although I'm a bit random with colours sometimes - there are a few combos I tend to return to time and again.  I've used one here - red and black (OK with a hint of blue thrown in!) Seriously though - red and black make for a striking contrast and it is a colour combo I use a lot.

Krafty Chicks Challenge: #675 - Week 1: Stamp Act

Gem of a Challenge: Wk 16 - Anything Goes

Happy Little Stampers: August Birthday Challenge

Seize the Birthday: #266 - Birthdays or Themed 'Inspired by a book '.  It's just Birthdays for me, my card is music, not book, inspired.