WHERE HAVE ALL THE BABY GIRLS GONE?

Hi Everyone

Happy Saturday!  I hope your weekend has got off to a good start.

Mine has been a day for "happy couples" calling by .. .. which is always exciting.  I love hearing about everyone's wedding plans and get just as excited about everything as the bride (and sometimes the groom) do!  LOL!!

So, what I want to know is why are there only baby boys happening in my life at the moment.  What has happened to the baby girls?

Every newborn baby card request has been male .. .. and I enjoyed adding a new design into the mix this week!

This used:

Image:  Lili of the Valley Digi Image: Bunny Moon

Sentiment:  Computer Generated using font Aracne Condensed and then stamped around with the plain tag from the Lili of the Valley Christmas SentimentsTag Set

Backing Paper:  The Lovely Studio  (was Pink Petticoat)  Gingham

First Edition Dies:  Nesting Doily

Josy Rose: Nail Heads

ProMarkers

Tumble Glass Distress Ink for painting a light background to the image

Glamour Dust

Eyelet and Eyelet setter

Dimension Pads

Ribbon and Cord from my crafty stashbox

and my Trusty Sewing Machine

and that is me for today.

The sky has just gone very dark so time to run like the wind to the washing line.

Catch you again soon folks and have a lovely weekend.

TEENY TINY TUESDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy Tuesday!

I hope you have all had a good day.

Ours started very dull and overcast and then by mid afternoon turned into the most beautiful sunny day .. .. .. until all the flying ants decided to make an appearance!!  If they were white it would have looked like we were having a snow flurry!  I have never seen so many.

Anyway, enough of those .. .. everytime I think of them I start itching LOL!!

I was having a good sort out and putting away leftovers from some finished weddings this morning .. .. and decided that I would use a selection of them to make a teeny tiny card (3.5 inches square for anyone who is new to my blog).

There colours were not all part of the same wedding .. .. but I felt they worked well together .. .. and it also gave me chance to have another play with my Polychromos Pencils.  There aren't many colours in my collection at the moment but I think these colours worked well:

This used:

Image:  Penny Black "3868J" Portraits
Sentiment:  X-Cut Mini Die "With Love"
Polychromos Pencils
My Trusty Sewing Machine
White Gel Pen
Glamour Dust
Ribbon
We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board

I am entering my card into the Penny Black Saturday Challenge where the theme this month is Flowers and also Pixie's Snippets Playground where the lovely Di encourages us to use up our offcuts .. .. well the little silver pieces in my sentiment show you just how small a snippet can be LOL!!!

Catch again soon .. .. I hope!

THANK YOU

Hi Everyone

Happy Wednesday!

Many thanks for all the lovely comments and emails I received on yesterday's post.  You are all so very kind.

Today I am sharing the favourites of my makes which are in the new issue of Quick Cards Made Easy magazine that went on sale yesterday.

It is a super special issue for me because I get to introduce you to "the London Kids" -  regular visitors will already know lots about them .. .. but now you can put faces to them too.

So here we go 

This is my favourite from a commission entitled "Shadowbox Cards" 

and these are the London Kids.  My super handsome Son and his beautiful wife .. .. who kindly gave me permission to use their pictures in the magazine.  They were cut from a photograph which was taken the day after their wedding .. .. just before we drove them to the airport to catch a plane for their honeymoon.  I still drive the car we used and still have bits of confetti trapped in various places (which I refuse to remove LOL!!).  Each piece is a reminder of a super happy and proud day.

My second card is my favourite from a commission entitled Polychromos Pencils.

It was the first time I had used these pencils and I will definitely be using them lots more .. .. .. I love that I can colour on dark card with them!

So that is me for today.

Catch you again soon.

FAB NEWS TUESDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy Tuesday .. .. I hope it is a lovely day full of sunshine for you.

I can't believe that this is my first post for July (although Mr Heart and I did escape for a few days last week)!!  

The month has simply flown by .. .. but judging by the amount of wedding and magazine work that has been completed I'm surprised it isn't August already!

Plus, amongst everything else, more excitement entered the House of Hearts when I had a wonderful invitation from Fiskars asking if I would consider becoming an Ambassador for them.  I certainly didn't need to think about it for very long .. .. I love every Fiskars product I own .. .. and there are a fair few in my collection.

Everything I have ever purchased is still going strong .. .. .. .. .. even my very first small Fiskars guillotine which must be at least 15 years old and has been used nearly every day .. .. ..perhaps it would be of interest in a crafting museum now LOL!!

Anyway, I received a fabby box of goodies to see what I could create with them and this is my very first offering which uses a lovely word punch  .. .. ..

This used:

My lovely Fiskars Intricate Shape Love Punch
Backing Papers:  First Edition Papers "New Leaf"
Sentiment:  Pink Petticoat (but sadly no longer available)
Ribbon and Iridescent Cord
Charm
Glamour Dust
My Trusty Sewing Machine

The punch, as regular visitors will know, is right up my street .. .. it is as if Fiskars know me already! LOL!!

Taking my photographs for posting I had a little brainwave for my next wedding fayre.  Lots of "love words" punched and sprinkled across my tables.

So there we go.  I hope you like my first Fiskars offering.

Catch you again soon.

THURSDAY ALREADY

Hi Everyone

Happy Thursday!

So come on .. .. admit it .. .. who stole the week!?!?  

I can't believe tomorrow is Friday already!

No playtime this week at all for me .. .. just tasks to cross off a very long list of missions .. .. and as quick as I cross them off I replace them with something else.

But I can share some of my makes from the new Quick Cards Made Easy magazine which is now on the shelves.

I worked on a few projects and these were my favourites from each set

This first one was for a "Stamp With Us" Commission where I choose to work with watercolour paints.

This second card was for a technique commission called "Ways with Embellishments" and this was my favourite from that set:

and lastly I got to work with this month's Cover Gift .. .. a fabby fairy and sentiment stamp alongside a lovely paper collection. I could have gone on and on using this gift .. .. I loved it.

So there we are a few hearts for you to find .... that should keep you busy for a little while.

In the meantime it is "back to it" for me.

No peace for the wicked!!!

SUNDAY SNIPPETS

Hi Everyone

Happy Sunday!

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Shock horror .. .. I have had time to play with my snippets .. .. and not only that .. .. I have made a Christmas card with them!!! Yay!!  Another one in that very hungry box!  

My little app on my pad is saying it is only 182 sleeps until Christmas .. .. they are going to fly by!!

I has been so long since I made a snippet card I bet you all thought I had run out of them .. .. .. ..  as if.

So here we go

and as always on a Sunday I am super lazy and do not list my ingredients, but if anyone has any questions then please just ask away and I will do my best to answer.

So now I am going to wander over .. .. with my head hung in shame .. .. to Pixie's Snippets Playground.  

Plus .. .. shock horror this creation falls nicely on Rudolph Day (the 25th of each month) so I fall right for entering the Rudolph Day Challenge

I can't remember the last time I had chance to take part in either challenge so I am feeling quite chuffed today!

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my first attempts at using the Brother Scan N Cut .. .. early days but I am getting on OK with it.  Lots still to try but it is fun learning.  I am sure it does far more than I can imagine. 

I had to laugh some of the suggestions as to what I might do with all the extra time I am accumulating .. ..but you can rest assured it won't be any "unnecessary housework".  I will more than likely enjoy being able to say "yes" to more happy couples!  I hate it when I have to turn people away

OK then .. .. off to link up and I will catch you all again soon hopefully.

Enjoy the rest of the day.

WHAT A GOOD MOVE

Hi Everyone

Happy Thursday!

Well me and my new purchase have been getting well acquainted today .. .. .. just look what we churned out between us for the next wedding I am working on:

A lovely collection of mats .. .. and the thing I am most excited about .. .. those tiny rectangles with my logo on.

These go onto the back of all my wedding work  -  colour co-ordinated depending on the wedding colours.

.. .. and these go on the backs of my teeny tiny creations and any other cards I am not able to print directly onto

Not much waste there at all!!!   Perhaps I should add a row of hearts along the bottom next time to fill that gap  LOL!!

So there we go - I can already say after just 24 hours that I don't know why I didn't get one sooner. I love it already!  Those little logo rectangles cut in under 3 minutes a sheet .. .. and I am sure you can imagine how long it has been taking me to cut them using a die!!!

I promise not to keep showing you posts of what I have cut .. .. .. I am just sooooo excited!!! LOL!!

Have a great rest of the evening.

IT HAS ARRIVED

Hi Everyone

It is definitely a "happy Wednesday".

My special delivery arrived today at around 4.00pm .. .. woo hoo!!  I received quite a bit of feedback telling me I won't regret my purchase .. .. thank you for that it made me feel much better.

I opened everything up, rang my Mum to say it had arrived and then took myself out into the garden to sit and read all the instructions that came with it.

So many bits of paper and so many languages LOL!!

Eventually I managed to convince myself that the first cut will go straight through the card of my choice and the cutting mat!!  But I set myself a goal that by bedtime tonight I want to have cut a square from a piece of card

All on my little lonesome I set everything up and got myself connected WIFI wise etc .. .. not bad for someone who is a bit of a technophobe.

8.00pm and look what I managed

I decided a square was far too boring and if I was going to have a hole cut in my mat I would rather it was a heart LOL!!

Even if I only ever use it for cutting rectangles and hearts you won't believe how much time that is going to save me .. .. but of course I want to do far more than that with it.

On the back of most of my wedding work I stick a little rectangle with my name, logo and website address.  Currently I print these and then cut them out using Spellbinders dies and my faithful Cuttlebug machine . .. but as I am sure you can imagine it means me turning that handle 100's of times .. .. just for one wedding! 

I feel certain once I know how to use it properly I am going to be able to reclaim loads of time . .. . you wouldn't believe how much time I spend turning that Cuttlebug handle.

Hope my brain lets me sleep tonight LOL!!

I wonder what my next achievement with it is going to be?

Catch you again soon .. .. ..

MAKE AMAZING CARDS

Hi Everyone

Happy Tuesday!

Wowsers!!!  That was a very hot spell of weather we just experienced wasn't it? .. .. it is a little bit cooler today though .. .. a little more bearable!  Could this be our Summer?!!?!??!

Isn't it lovely to have all the windows open, to be able to smell all that fresh air and hear the birds tweeting away.

Certainly the weekend was a bit too hot for any major gardening activity but we have got the hanging baskets planted up and put into position and a few weeds were collected .. .. not enough but every little helps!  

Quite an eventful few days though with more wedding work arriving on the scene, Father's Day to celebrate .. .. .. and I also took the plunge (after dilly dallying for months and months) and invested some of my hard earned cash into a Brother Scan N Cut machine.. .. .. please tell me I won't regret it!

I have had notification that it is on its way!!

The first major decision will be .. .. .. where am I going to put it when it arrives?  I have a feeling it is going to need quite a big footprint.  Eeeekkk!  Mr Heart did suggest that I might need to get rid of some of the stuff I already have .. .. but how can I when I use it all?!!!  Cheeky chap!!  I suppose if absolutely necessary then the iron and ironing board could go LOL!!

Today is a major card chopping and wallet construction day here in the House of Hearts with no chance of a Teeny Tiny card creeping into the proceedings .. .. but I can share some pictures of a few of the creations I made for a new magazine that is just out called "Make Amazing Cards".  It is one of those lovely bundle packs where you get stamps, design papers, embossing folders, decoupage papers along with matching sentiments and toppers  .. .. just great for grabbing and creating something without having to turn your stash upside down to find things that match.

So here we go, these first two projects were part of a 10 Ideas with the "Love is in the Air" Collection

and this last card is one of a pair of stepper cards

.. .. .. so a little bit of  heart searching there for you.

Many thanks for all the lovely comments that were left on my last post with the pop up box card.  My friend does still have it out on display .. .. and I get the feeling it won't be being put away anytime soon. Bless!!!

MUCH LOVE

Hi Everyone

Another awful day in London :-(

What torture it must have been for those poor people trapped in their burning homes.

I certainly hope that some of those people searching for their missing loved ones manage to find them and they are safe and well.

Well for me it would seem it is going to take far more than a day to get the House of Hearts back in order .. .. so no chance to make anything new to post .. .. but I do have a special project I can share that was made for a special friend we went to stay with a few days ago.

This used:

Backing Papers:  Dovecraft "Sweet Paris"
Sentiment:  Lili of the Valley "For You" Circular Sentiments
Spellbinders Scalloped Pop Up Box Die
MFT Stitched Flowers Die Set
Sizzix Die:  659436 Garden Green
Memory Box Dies:  "98261" Kaleidoscope Butterfly and "98262" Moonlight Butterfly
Distress Ink Pads:  Worn Lipstick and Peeled Paint
Pins, Pearls and Buttons

She was struggling to take it down once her birthday was over .. .. .. I wonder if she has managed to do it yet?  LOL!!

So you see some of me having to work extra hard these last few days is because I have been gadding about!   

My new year resolution of playing as hard as I work is still going strong!

TEENY TINY TUESDAY

Hi Everyone

Happy Tuesday!

I hope all is well with everyone.

My life has been full of weddings, magazine work and admin chores .. .. but things are now (if I dare say it) settling down a little.

There have been a few late night stints needed but I do believe I am back on track again!!

Tomorrow will be a "re-claim the house" day and put everything back in it's rightful place .. .. but this evening I just "needed" to have a quick play because my fingers were super itchy .. .. and what better to scratch them than a teeny, tiny 3.5 inch make.

 This used:

Image and Sentiment:  Penny Black "30-424" Just for You
Backing Paper:  Pink Petticoat
My Trusty Sewing Machine
ProMarkers
Ribbon
We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board

So that is me for today .. .. or should I say "tonight".  

Hopefully I will be around for a little while now before the next round of weddings take hold!

TYPICAL BANK HOLIDAY WEATHER

Hi Everyone

Well what has happened to all that lovely sunshine?

It was lovely yesterday until late afternoon and then it all went downhill and today we have rain.

Oh well .. .. it is good crafting weather .. .. which is a good thing because I have lots I want to do.

Today I thought I would share some work I did for the latest issue of Quick Cards Made Easy which should be on the shelves now.

I worked on two technique commissions.  The first was using Perfect Pearls which was something I hadn't used before and this was my favourite from that collection.

and the second was a Double Partial die cutting commission.  I really enjoyed this technique and can't wait to try it out again with some of the dies and stamps in my collection:

 So that is me.

A mountain of things I need to do today so I had better get my skates on!

Enjoy your day everyone!

PENNY BLACK SATURDAY CHALLENGE

Hi Everyone

I hope your bank holiday weekend has got off to a good start - certainly a mixed bag of weather here - but nice enough for my "happy couple" all being well.  No major rain showers .. .. yet!!!

One of the things I miss most when I am busy on the wedding front is playing with my Penny Black stamps .. .. so today I decided I would indulge in a Penny Black session and see what the theme is this month over at the Penny Black Saturday Challenge.

Well a bit of a struggle for me this one .. .. Wedding, Anniversary and all things Love .. .. LOL!!!

But here is what I came up with:

This used:

Image:  Penny Black "1587K" So Glad to Catch You!
Sentiment:  Computer Generated using font "Aracne Condensed Regular"
Backing Papers:  Nitwit "Everlasting Collection"
Nestabilities Dies: Circles and Scalloped Circles
Josy Rose:  Nail Heads
ProMarkers
Glossy Accents
My Trusty Sewing Machine
Metallic Twine from my crafty stash box

and that is it.

Having a crafty session with my lovely Sis today (YAY!!!) and then and Indian takeaway together ... .. happy times!!!

Catch you again soon.

SENDING LOVE

Hi Everyone

As I am sure you will all have guessed by my lack of absence in blogland .. .. things have been VERY BUSY in the House of Hearts .. .. especially on the wedding front .. .. .. and although there is still plenty to be doing, things are starting to calm down to a more "just plain busy" pace of life.

One of my "happy couples" will get married this Saturday and I am just hoping this lovely weather will last for them. They are one of four weddings I have been working on over the last few weeks and now they have all left the building I need to empty all of their boxes ready for filling with supplies for new "happy couples".

This now means I can turn my attention to some of the general orders I need to get crossed of my crafty do list .. .. as well as make a stack of cards we need for family and friends!

But before I started on those, I made this card whilst thinking of all those people who have been affected by the awful happenings this week in Manchester.  I can't even imagine what injuries some of those poor people have encountered.  So much hurt, pain and worry .. .. and so many lives changed forever in a nanosecond.

I don't know about you but when the radio alarm goes off in the morning or I switch the TV on I just dread what the news is going to reveal.

What a scary world we live in at the moment!

Anyway, here we go:

 This used:

Image:  Stampendous Clear Stamp Set "SSC1111" Agapanthus Thank You
Sentiment:  Stampendous Clear Stamp Set "SSC139" Love Messages
Backing Papers:  Pink Petticoat
Martha Stewart Edge Punch:  Traditional Scallop
X-Cut: Butterfly Punch (very old and no longer available)
WOW! Embossing Powder:  Metallic Platinum
Stampendous Frantage:  Shabby Pink Embossing Enamel
Josy Rose:  Nail Heads
My Trusty Sewing Machine
Ribbon from my crafty stash box

and that is it!

Before I go I would just like to say a very sincere thank you for all the lovely comments and emails I received following my last post when I told you about my Son's album release.  It has been a very exciting time for him (and us), which has seen him being asked to do magazine interviews and even hearing his music played on the radio.  Thankfully there are still some nice things happening in the world.

Catch you again soon.