Free Downloads over on Dottie's!!

Check them out...there are some great sentiment circles downloads over on Dottie's World!

I have a bit of a funny day ahead of me today, got lots of crafting that NEEDS to be done, some exciting DT work, continue sorting my craft room, promised Jack a game of scrabble, take my dad to an appointment, kitchen designer appointment......the day is SO broken, goodness knows if I will get anything done. So far I have stripped, washed and dried one lot of bedding, blitzed the kitchen and almost made a card. The kiddies are still in their PJ though!!! Bad, bad mummy!

I am having my breakfast...well a cup of tea....and hopefully going to get this card complete..then I will pop Amelia in the bath and do some therapy witth her..no rest for the wicked!

Lots of crafting to do.....

....and look at the state of my craft room!!!

I have been getting stressed out recently as I am just not getting anything done. The house has come to a stand still and we just haven't the time or energy to get it done. I know building the extension took a big chunk of our finances and I can imagine it will take us years to get the house as we want it....it will be an ongoing job. It hit me the other day as I dropped in at a friend's house and came home envious of her skirting and architrave!!!LOL!

I have been trying to get some crafting done whilst the kiddies are on holiday and it's proving a challenge. Even letting them play on the PC for a while is a nightmare as the little craft room/study is so small...I felt I needed to take another step forward with craft storage so that the children can play alongside me crafting. Everything has been put on hold really until we can afford to install a new kitchen, as hubby is having a few of the old kitchen units for his garage and I am having a few in my craft room together with a lovely 3 metre worktop. But that seems all like pie in the sky at the moment.

Anyway for now hubby has raided the "stuff" in the garage and found me 2 floating shelves that we took down ages ago to have a wall plastered and decided not to put them back up. There is a third one....somewhere! He is an darling, he asked when I would like him to do it...I said NOW!!! So he did! Now ALL I have to do is re-organise my huge mess!!!

Hmmmmm....now what exactly should I put on the shelves?

My First Dottie's World DT card!!!

It's been a bit of a whirlwind really, I was approached by Lou of Dottie's World on Friday and there was no way I could refuse........housework, NVQ, decorating...how can that compare with making Dottie & George cards!! (I'll still have to fit in hubby, kiddies and once September is upon us..a bit of work again!)

I planned to do lots of crafting yesterday but what with Jack being at the hospital with what turned out to be a fractured toe....I was running around with Amelia instead leaving me very little time for crafting. LOL...that's life.

I did manage to make my first card toward the Dottie DT team though. Basic card, fun & simple challenge....a great way to ease me in gently!

This week's Dottie Challenge is MULTI CHALLENGE-CHALLENGE!

This week all you have to do is use one of the Charmed downloads BUT (there's awlays a but isn't there!) you have to combine it with one or more challenges from other challenge blogs! I think it's great to combine challenges and I think it should be encouraged, so there you go, I'm encouraging you!

I decided to combine this with the challenge over on My Time to Craft where the theme is Christmas. For speed I used an image I hade alread printed and coloured in with watercoloured pencils (pre-Prisma days!) So I picked out some bright and fun colours to match the image.

NEWS FLASH, NEWS FLASH!

I can now reveal my first bit of very exciting news.

LOOK HERE!!!!

So, excited, so honoured, SO NERVOUS!!!!!!

Lookie, lookie BLOG CANDY!

On my VERY quick blog travels this morning I noticed Bev's Blog Candy it looks totally scrummy pop along and have a look!

Right, Amelia is "quietly" playing in her room, Hubby and Jack are STILL waiting at hospital..I will attempt another card!!!

Happy, excited Dingle!!!

Over the last couple of days I have had not one but two lots of exciting news...but at the moment I cannot really give any details....I am so excited but rather nervous too!!!!

On top of all this excitement in my poor little brain...hubby has taken Jack down to the hospital!! Jack came home from karate last night complaining that he had hurt his foot during the first session.....but continued to do another 45minute session afterwards!!! We put an ice pack on it and left it 'til this morning to see how it was! Poor Jack is still in such pain and his poor little toe is turning black and blue....so off they went to the hospital leaving Amelia & me at home playing the waiting game. We were in hysterics this morning with Jack hopping around and balancing on one leg like a flamingo.....just as well the karate has taught him a great sense of balance!!

Right, enough of the waffle.....a quick card that had sat half completed on my desk nearly all day yesterday. I know it is VERY similar to the last William card I made but in a vain attempt to get myself organised I am trying to make batches of 2 or 3 similar cards....I am even starting working on my September birthdays this way...LOL...a first for me..I am never ahead of myself.

(shhhh musn't speak too soon!)

William's first outing!

At long last I have found time to use William who I won from Jennie- ideal seeing as I was stuck on making a few cards for male relatives!!! I also used one of the Dream Street papers I won off of Emma.

Here is my first- using this week's challenge over on Tilda & Co Challenges.

As I was adding a few glossy accent touches to the almost finished card..I couldn't resist putting

gel in his hair....I am now thinking of a caption "Mum told me not to use too much gel!"

I love Dottie!!!

I have had SO much fun today making hubby an anniversary card...I couldn't resist using one of the Dottie & George images out of my newest download collection. I made the card with this weeks Dotties World challenge in mind.

The challenge is Aperture....Ribbon & Doodles....Of course it involves using a download from Charmed Cards,then it can be one or more Apertures,one or more ribbons and hand drawn Doodles.
I used a new little a arched window stamp from Paper Artsy and cut around that for my aperture, ribbon-I love this dotty...and erm...as for the doodling...LOL...not my strongest point but I loved the little hearts surrounding the loving couple..I coloured them with a glittery gel pens and attacked them with my glossy accents!

Some of my recent stash!!!

I recieved this stash last week but things were so hectic here I never got around to blogging it. I cannot wait to get started on my Xmas cards. Last Xmas I wasn't even stamping so I am trying to get myself organised by getting some mix and match papers and stamping loads of images...then I can sit down and just colour using all the colour tones within the papers. LOL...that's the idea anyway.

I have treated myself to a few wintery Magnolias, I have Ferdy Snow Frog and the Dottie & George Xmas Download collection .......oh......I must catch up with a few things before I can start though!!

I can't wait to play with the "Naughty and Nice" pack!!!!!

Dottie in the House!

This weeks Cute Card Thursday challenge was to make a card with the theme of "In the House!" I chose Dottie in the bath for this card. Not my usual colours but it has made a nice change. I love working with Dottie...the images are such fun!

A Birthday Sketch!

On my blogging travels yesterday I came across Sketch Saturday where I got the inspirations for the next card on my list!! It's for a friend's Mam, so I am unsure about it..I do hope she likes it!!

This is a great sketch, so many different ideas with this one-thank you.

Christening ABC card!

I am very slowly plodding through my to do list and next on the list was a personalised Christening card......I have loved making this...another excuse to go all girlie!!! I have used this week's challenge over on ABC Challenge where E stands for embellishments. A tricky one as there is such a huge range of embellies to chose from. I used brads, blooms and ribbon on this card.........I stamped and layered the images, coloured with my Prismas of course and highlightened with a little glossy accents and glitter glue.

Playing catch up...again!

Hubby has had a bit of time off work with me and the kiddies and any sense of a routine is completely out of the window. We have been to the zoo, then we were childfree for a few days while the kiddies stayed with their Nanny & Grandad....so we have been looking at kitchens and decorating etc.....so much easier without the kiddies in tow!

I have had a few crafty stash deliveries (shhhh!!) including a few more Tilda's, some Xmas papers and today my papers arrived from the Sassy Crafts Competition...along with another set of nestabilities that I just couldn't resist!!!

I haven't managed much crafting in between everything else going on but here is what I have done!

I did turn that Tilda ATC into a card topper for my friend's birthday.....I didn't really want to part with it but I just ran out of time....again!

...and using the same papers that had been left on my desk...here is the Congratulaions TRIPLETS card I was asked to make...and the excuse for ordering a few more Magnolia stamps!!