My Lovely Followers

Tuesday, 24 December 2013

Pinch Me I'm Dreaming with Added Candy

*This post will remain sticky until Christmas, please scroll down for more recent posts.*
Good afternoon all you lovely people, it's the weekend!!  I'm doing the happy happy dance around the house today for many reasons. 

1: After an exhaustingly busy and stressful weekend at work, it's finally the weekend and that means I can craft and relax.

2: Although it's cold it's sunny out and that makes me happy, I went to the post office early today to post out a card and the parcels to my Candy winners and it was lovely :)

3: I had some incredibly fab news this week......but let's start at the beginning to explain that one.

A few weeks back the super lovely Tracy from Dies to Die For put out a DT call on the DTDF FB page and yours truly thought she'd try her luck. DTDF is one of my all time favourite online craft stores, the selection of dies is...well the hint is in the name...to die for lol.  They have such a huge and wonderful selection and in addition to this they sell a gorgeous array of beautiful strokeable paper and more stamps than you can shake your ink at, as well as masses of lovely embellishments and trims.  If this isn't enough, when you get your order you also receive a lovely surprise because Tracy puts a selection of die cuts in with your parcel for you to try out.  

Anyway I love the store and so was just completely on cloud 9 when I picked up an email from Tracy on Monday asking if I'd still like to join the DT...haha, would I ever....I was grinning like the Chesire Cat all day at work, I think they thought I'd finally cracked lol!  So you could say I'm very very happy right now ;)

So to celebrate my fab news and happy mood, I'm offering some Candy.  To link it with the the Dies to Die For  store, it will be a £15 gift voucher to spend there on whatever you like..



..but this Candy draw is going to be a little different to my last.  Instead of using Mr Random, I'm going to do the old fashioned pull names out of a hat...wait for it, there's a good reason.  Instead of having just one chance to win, you can have several and I'll explain how below:


  • For the chance the win you need to be or become a follower of my blog, and link back to this post, either by a post or by putting a pic and link in your side bar, either will do and then leave me a comment below letting me know you've done that.


  • For another chance to win (and this is why I'm drawing names from a hat, cos I can put in your name again, IE 2 pieces of paper with your name on so 2 chances) just like my Facebook page (I know not everyone has FB, but this is an option for an extra chance it doesn't stop you entering). You can click the link at the top left of my blog to take you there. If you do , please add that to the comment you leave so that I know to add your name to the draw again. If you've already liked my page previously, that counts too.


  • For yet another chance to win, become a follower of the Dies to Die For blog you can find the link here. Make sure you tell me you've done it in your comment so that I can add your name to the draw another time. current followers also qualify, just let me know you're already a follower of the blog.


  • Finally for yet 1 more chance, go like the Dies to Die For Facebook page, the link is here and let me know in your comment so you get another draw entry. Again if you've liked it before so are already following, just mention it, that counts too :)
Easy right? That's up to 4 chances to win! But please no Candy grabbers, I will be checking to see that there are no Candy only blogs entering.  This Candy will run up to Christmas eve and I'll do the draw at midnight, so some lucky someone will wake up to an extra gift on Christmas day :)
This post will stay sticky until my Candy is won.

My posting day for DTDF is Tuesday, so look out for a card from me then and I may be back with a card today too if I get my skates on hehe.

Enjoy the rest of your day, hope your weekend is as brill as mine :) xx



Sweet Baby at Dies to Die for

Morning everyone, it's Christmas Eve, are we all excited?!  I am.  The tree went up and is all decorated and when that happens it really starts to feel like Christmas for me, I always have a real one so can't put it up too early, and this year I was ill so even later, but the smell in my front room now is just divine  :)

Anyway, enough ramblings from me, I'm here with my inspirational post for Dies to Die For today.  I thought you would all have enough Christmas going on, so instead of sharing a Christmas card with you I have a new baby card, cos whatever time of year it is babies are happening right?

I didn't have a lot of time, due to all the Christmas prep still to be done, so for once (and this is very rare for me) I didn't use a stamp, to save time on the colouring. Luckily I received these gorgeous Pion papers in my DT box and the beauty is they have an image with them that you can use instead of stamping one (great if you're in a hurry or you don't have a suitable stamp or you don't enjoy colouring etc) Links to products are at the end of the post.


I do apologise for the quality of the photos, the light is awful today and batteries low on the camera and no time to faff lol.   You possibly can't see in this photo but behind the printed flowers at the top and left, there is music, I thought my new La La Lands die would go perfectly with this.  The Whimsy die used to cut the sentiment actually has 2 little slots cut out so that you can slide it on some ribbon, but I didn't have any ribbon that went well enough with this so I popped a couple of small roses on to disguise them.



The inside is finished very simply, with another piece of the paper (I didn't even use the whole of a 12 x 12 sheet for this card)  the printed papers are on the other top corner, and a little wooden rocking horse.

Right I'm off to finish last minute preparations, don't forget my Candy will be drawn at midnight tonight so you still have a few hours to get your entries in, there's actually not many takers so you have a good chance of winning!  Enjoy your Christmas everyone and I'll see you again next week! :) xx






Tuesday, 17 December 2013

Vintage Happily Ever After at Dies to Die for

Happy Tuesday everyone and a big hello to my newest followers, I'm very happy to see you :)  I'm here today with my DT card for Dies to Die for the inspiration blog for the Dies to Die for online craft store 

 I've had the dreaded bug that's been going around this weekend, so instead of doing my Christmas shopping I was stuck at home feeling very sorry for myself, but at least I got to craft when I started to feel a little better.  I'm all Christmased out at the mo when it comes to making cards, so I rummaged through my DT box and found these gorgeous Maja Vintage Autumn Basics papers which totally inspired me to make something monochrome and vintage.  I've added links to the products at the end of the post, except for the papers which aren't currently appearing with the rest of the Vintage Autumn Basics papers, but once the Christmas holiday is over Tracy will re-add them and you'll be able to find them here




I really like how this turned out, I thought it would be ideal as an anniversary card, but you could just as easily use it for a valentine, wedding or engagement card, or just to say 'I love you'. The little banners are just cut from the decorative border on the bottom of the paper, I just decorated with some little spots of liquid pearls and popped them up on some foam. Love that Clock die from Cherry Lyn, see it's useful for so much more than just steampunk cards!



I used one of my all time favourite Tiddly Inks stamps, Happily Ever After', love this, it's so versatile for anything coupley. The papers worked so fabulously together I thought I'd paper piece them, though I should have paid more attention and got more of the roses on her dress instead of the leaves lol.  Paper piecing is great for using up scraps and also helps if you're not too confident with your colouring skills.






Inside you can see the paper I used on her dress, with all the roses this time!

If you prefer more colour, you can always use coloured embellishments, or use the coloured papers from the range (or one of the other Maja Vintage Basics ranges that Tracy stocks, they'd work just as well.

That's it from me today, hope you like it and that Christmas doesn't have you too wiped out and you have time to enjoy some pre-Christmas festivities :) xx