Birthday cake & thank you notes

Hi everyone!

Hope everyone is doing okay!! It's now my second day with the girls at full time school, no visitors and my husband back at work, and very wierd it is too!!!

I have had one 'problem' the last couple of weeks - I discovered the Twilight Saga!!! For anyone out there who hasn't read it - it is very very addictive!!! I've spent the last two weeks reading it whenever I can and am now half way through book 4 (which I only started yesterday morning) and can't wait to finish it!!! (then I can catch up on some sleep!!)

I have done a few 'crafty' things though, altough not any challenges unfortunately. It was my youngest daughter's 5th birthday last week (very scary - how did she get to be so old!!!). We had a party in the garden with 17 of her friends (luckily this was before the flooding started!). I made a butterfly birthday cake for her - thought I'd put a picture on here!! (For some reason the picture keeps rotating itself when I upload it so it looks a bit odd, sorry!)

I also made a batch of butterfly themed thank you notes. The butterfly stamp and sentiment are a Papermania Snag'em stamp duo. These were stamped in black ink then embossed in holographic powder. I coloured them in with twinkling h2o's. The scalloped backings were cut with my nestabilities. The backgrounds were embossed using Sizzix embossing folders in my BigShot.

Well, I can't resist it any longer. I have to go and read a bit more of my book!!!

Back to normal (?) with a Sugar Bowl challenge card!!

Well, things are finally getting back to normal here after a mad few weeks!!

My girls are back to school now. My youngest has been loving her first two weeks and was very excited today to get her first homework!! I wonder how long that will last!!

I finally finished my turning out on Monday night (including a complete turn out of our study / my craft room). What a job that was!!!

Then best of all, yesterday, my husband returned home safely from his three month stint in Afghanistan! Luckily he was delighted about all the stuff I've got rid of since he's been away!!

Hopefully things will settle down here for a while now and I can get back into my crafting!!!

On that note, I have done a card tonight for the current Sugar Bowl challenge. Just in time really, as it is for my daughter's birthday on Sunday!!

I have followed the sketch and used my daughter's favourite colours of yellow and pink. The image is coloured with my Promarkers. There was a 'please include' option to add on handmade flowers. I've used my xCut punches and punched flowers from pink and yellow handmade paper.

The patterned papers and chipboard number 5 are all from Papermania. I coloured the 5 with a magenta promarker and then added glitter glue.

Finally, I just wanted to add a big 'Thank You' to Jenny for the awards she left for me on her blog - Stamps, Pencils and Paper! I will add them on to my blog and pass them on soon. In the meantime, check out Jenny's blog as she has some fab cards!!

Thanks for looking!!!

Virus warning!! - Personal Antivirus - don't install it!!!!

Hi everyone,

I know I've been totally rubbish at blogging recently, but I'm getting the girls to bed so late over the holidays that by the time I get anything done around the house and have my tea it's often 11 o'clock, and then I don't really feel like making cards and blogging!! Only a week left until they're back at school and maybe things will get back to normal.

I did do one card at the weekend for the current Passion for Promarkers challenge. Then I posted it to the recipients and forgot to take a photo of it - oops!!

I just wanted to get on here and warn you all about a virus I got yesterday. I was on the internet and loads of boxes flashed up telling me my computer was infected and I needed to install something called Personal Antivirus. Turns out that this program was the virus!!! I installed it and it told me I had loads of infections about to wreck my computer. Then it asked me for money for the program to fix it!

This is when I stopped and thought this couldn't be right - we already have Norton so I thought this should fix any viruses. I ran a virus scan on Norton and it told me there was nothing wrong, other than our back up being painfully overdue.

I googled "Personal Antivirus" and got to various sites about malware showing screens doing exactly what my computer was doing. Apparantly you can't remove it yourself using add/remove program as it lurks in the background of your computer and keeps reinstalling itself! Also, while you're trying to do anything about it, it keeps flashing up more scary messages which is a sort of self-protection for the virus to stop you getting rid of it!

I backed up our hard drive (very overdue!) then downloaded a program called Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - you can get it free!!! This scanned my system and found 257 infections which it fixed for me.

So far it seems like everything is okay on my computer and nothing has been lost so hopefully I got out of this one alright, but please be warned!!!

Passion for Promarkers challenge

Wow, I can't believe it's a month since I was on here last!! That flashed by so quick! I've been travelling around the country with my girls and it was good fun but tiring. 1,700 miles in a car with a 4 and 6 year old - well, you can imagine what that was like!!

Anyway, I'm now back and unpacked and looking forward to making my cards again. It's taken me a few days to get things sorted out. The weather's been good and the girls want to be out all the time. Can't complain about a bit of good weather though, after our very wet trip down south (including a week in a caravan with baby ducks swimming in the puddles outside, but that's another story.....!!)

Firstly, I'd like to say thanks for all the lovely comments people left on my last few cards while I was away. Much appreciated everyone!!

Now, here is today's card. This is for this week's Passion for Promarkers challenge. The challenge this week was to use the colours Cool Aqua and Pastel Pink and also to follow the sketch given.



I used Nestabilites Blossom dies and Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder.

The background strip is white card embossed with Divine Swirls and then coloured using the new Papermania shimmer chalks.

The spotty paper is Papermania. Ribbon from my stash. The sentiment is from a die cut set by Craftwork Cards which I found in a great card shop while I was in Newton Abbott!!

Thanks for looking!! I hope to be back soon with more cards and to look at everyone's blogs, but in the meantime I'm off to tackle my enormous ironing pile!!!

Sugar Bowl challenge card

My second card for tonight is for this week's Sugar Bowl challenge and is also for my Mum's birthday so I hope she doesn't look at this post!!



I followed the sketch using the lovely Fragile Beauty image coloured with promarkers. There was also a 'please include' to use some sort of sparkle or bling, so I added a pearl brad for my flower (cut with cuttlebug nested dies) and some pink adhesive gems.

Well, I think that's it for now as I still need to finish sorting things out to go away!! Have a good few weeks everyone!!

Thanks for looking!!

Passion for Promarkers challenge

Hi everyone!!

Hope you're enjoying the weekend!! It's the begining of the school holidays here in Scotland and it's been perfect weather for it. I've had a crazy few days getting things ready as I'm taking my girls to visit my parents for a few weeks. Managed a couple of cards though!!!

My first card tonight is for the Passion for Promarkers challenge. I'm loving my promarkers and will miss doing these challenges for a few weeks - will have to take my pens with me and practice my colouring in!!!

Anyway, the challenge this week was to use the colours Moss Green and Poppy and also include something 'tasty'.

I made this card for a friend to give to her Godson. I'd already coloured the image when I saw the 'tasty' inclusion, so I coloured this sparkly cake to go with it!!!

Thanks for looking!!

Sugar Bowl challenge card

Well, this is certainly a last minute entry!! This card is for the current Sugar Bowl sketch challenge and for my sister-in-law's birthday. I followed the sketch and also the card had to include kraft paper or brown and cream colours.

I used some brown paper for the backing which I think is kraft paper (but maybe isn't!!!). Also used lots of brown and cream card from my stash.

The gorjuss girl was coloured with my promarkers. The metal charms were from Mad About Cards I think.

I was very pleased with my bargain enormous silk flowers!! I was in Tesco yesterday and they had some gerbora sprays in their £1 section (to go in some little glass vases they were selling). I bought them in cream, dark pink and black then took them apart when I got home. Bargain!!!

Thanks for looking!!