Sweet News, Blog Candy Winner & Chubby Fairies.

I've lots to tell you, but I'll try and keep it short rather than my usual long and waffling posts!
Firstly, thank you so much for all your lovely comments on yesterdays Sugar Nellie blog hop. I was more than a little nervous never having done a hop before but I think it all worked out splendidly and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.
Secondly, Gayle is running a competition to find some new Sweeties for the Sugar Bowl. The rules of entry are very, very simple. You need to be a Sugar addict, own several Sugar Nellie stamps (available to buy Here ) and most importantly enjoy using them. You must have an active blog, be it a new blog, or an older one, no age discrimination at the Sugar Bowl! And lastly you will need the time to make one card per fortnight, comment on Sugar Bowl entries and submit the occasional sketch.
Now I know how many talented crafters there are out in blogland, I visit your blogs! So pop over HERE and get your entries in, I'll be checking up on you all!
Thirdly, I totally forgot to post my blog candy winner. I think it was with all the excitement yesterday.
The boy did his job and picked a slip out of the jar, and so the winner is:

Congratulations Christine (aka Nana Seaside's) if you can email me and I will get your stamps posted off to you.
Lastly, if you're still awake, a card. Now if you're a regular visitor you'll know I don't care much for these particular stamps, but then I found these and I am in lurrrrrve!

Every time I open the packet to take one out they start singing to me, and they all sound just like the walrus of love himself Barry White. That's how much I love them!
I'm not sure what they are called apart from kit 7, but I call them Chubby Baby Fairies and I do love them - did I say that already?
So you know the image is a hAnglar, DP is Memory Box, a few pearls and a punched flower. I kept it simple as she is a rather Chubby stamp and there wasn't much room left on the card.
I guess it's turned out to be a long post again blah blah blah.
Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave.
Love Elaine xx

Sugar Nellie "A Recipe for all Seasons" Blog Hop.

Good morning everyone and welcome to my little contribution to the Sugar Nellie "A Recipe for all Seasons" Blog Hop. If you arrived here from Denas blog then you're on the right path.
So, I flicked through my recipe book and decided to pick one of Lilians beautiful recipes, which is also the current challenge on the Sugar Bowl. I wanted to show you that they can be used for any occasion and any season. Now I'm no Nigella or Delia in the kitchen, so I picked a nice and easy recipe. When you first bake a cake you start off with a plain victoria sponge, then you can add your own flavourings, fillings and toppings as you fancy. This recipe is no different. A beautiful and simple recipe that you can add your own toppings to, as plain or as fancy as you choose.
Lets start by gathering the ingredients. You will need:
1 card blank.
1 sheet Bazzill cardstock.
2 sheets of designer paper, I chose Basic Greys Eskimo Kisses.
1 suitable sentiment.
1 Prima poinsettia flower.
1 pearl brad.
A pinch of glitter (to taste) and lastly
1 sprinkling of love, always makes my cakes that bit sweeter.

Method:
Start in the kitchen (craft room), make sure all the work surfaces are clean, turn on the oven to heat up (turn on my laptop and go on the Sugar Bowl blog) and find the recipe (challenge) I want to bake.
Next, turn on the radio (Ipod) and spend a lovely hour creating a cake I hope everyone will enjoy, all the while singing very loudly and very badly!
I don't have a very sweet tooth (unless it's the Scottish calorie free sugar) and I prefer my cakes to be plain and simple, so there's only a little icing on top.
Cooking time is approximately 1 hour excluding preparation (stamping and colouring the image).
If your not sure if the cake is ready or not, I advise walking away for a little while, make a coffee, tidy up the kitchen and more often than not when you go back and peek in the oven you'll see the cake doesn't require any more baking!

I hope you've enjoyed my culinary lesson, and I hope you like my cake.
Your next stop along the blog hop is to the lovely Janiels blog. This is Janiels last project on the DT, so I hope you'll all wish her a fond farewell and good luck in her new ventures.

Thank you for looking and for any comments you may leave.
Love Elaine xx

Blog Candy, Hubbys Birthday Card and Waffle

ETA THIS CANDY HAS NOW CLOSED.
This post will stay at the top, so please scroll down for any new posts.
It's going to be a long one, so grab a cuppa or even take a nap first! Feel free to scroll down and miss out the waffle, I won't be offended.
Darling hubby flew off this morning to sunny Spain, to spend some time with his sister, her hubby and two little ones. So peace reigns supreme in our household. Just me, the boy and two cats. Feels kinda quiet already! I think Hal is looking forward to a Dad free week. Phil was off work last week too, and Phil being related to Bagpuss has the philosophy of "I'm up so everyone's up", hence he was waking Hal up each morning. I, on the other hand, have a different outlook on life. My view is that Hal has a lifetime ahead of him when he'll have to get out of bed in the morning (as opposed to 2pm!) to go to work, so I leave him to snooze. Plus when he's asleep he's no trouble whatsoever!

I have made cards this week but couldn't post them until after the occasions.
I'll just show one today, don't want to shock you all by showing two in one day!

I'm sure you all know by now that I just don't do men's cards. But I needed a card for my hubby so out came this little guy by Mo Manning. I adore the look on his face,he's having a right old tantrum! The verse inside is an old Penny Black stamp that says "It's your birthday whether you like it or not". I know it's a strange image to use on hubby's card, but he loved it. Image available Here, DP is my all time favourite Cosmo Cricket Early Bird. Toby's been coloured with Di's as always. No embellies whatsoever!!
So hubby asked if I would be doing a blog candy in honour of his birthday? I think he's feeling left out.
Believe me, he's never left out. My bestest buddy Gayle sent hubby the most amazing chocolate brownies in the world. She really knows the way to my hubbys heart, it's a direct link through his stomach.
Now I can take or leave chocolate, cakes, biscuits etc I'd rather have a bag of crisps anyday. But I tell you no lies, those brownies are surely the work of the devil, they are so yummy. Hubby was definitely NOT for sharing them around.
I'm waffling again, back to the candy.
Anyone fancy some new rubber from Scotlands finest rubber stamp company?
My little candy is 4 New Christmas Mangas from Sugar Nellie plus whatever else I find in the meantime.
Candy is open to UK residents only, just leave me a comment after this post saying you want to join in the candy. It will close at 8am on Saturday 4th September.
Have you read todays post on the Sugar Nellie Blog? They're having a blog hop next Saturday so I'm looking forward to seeing that.
I hope I've not sent everyone to sleep?
Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave.
Love Elaine xx

Flying Visit!

I'm on a flying visit, I've got a pile of jobs to get done before I crawl into bed tonight!
I just wanted to say that my Sugar Nellie blog candy ends tomorrow morning at 8am. The boy will do his usual job of drawing a name from the hat/jar/bin etc, but I know it will after lunchtime as he doesn't get out of bed before then!
Have you all been over to the Sugar Nellie Blog? Karen has a fab candy on offer, 4 new Manga Christmas stamps and 1 new Mary Hall Christmas stamp but of course, you've got to be in it to win it!
Tomorrow morning sees the Sugar Nellie "Recipe for all seasons" blog hop, it all kicks off at 9am bst, and I hope you'll all join in the blog hop, especially as I'm a guest.
Don't tell anyone but I've never done a blog hop before! My other snippet of good news, and I know some of you know this already and thank you for your good wishes, is I'm now a member of the Sugar Nellie DT. You can probably imagine how excited, thrilled, delighted and honoured I was to be asked by Karen (and terrified too!) and I am very much looking forward to it, and I hope you will like what I have to offer.
I have had a sneaky peak at some of the new artwork, ready to be made into rubber stamps for release later in the year, and it is absolutely amazing! I can't wait to get my inky mitts on it.
Right, I'm off to get the rest of my jobs done, and hopefully I will see you all tomorrow.
Love Elaine xx

It's too quiet!

Blimey it's quiet in my house. I really miss my hubby and I can't wait for him to come home on Monday. Does that make me sad, mad or downright insane?
Of course by Monday evening when I've emptied his suitcase and sorted through all his dirty washing I'll be trying to remember why I missed him in the first place!
But the upside to no hubby is I've had much less washing and ironing - until he comes home of course - less cleaning and less cooking, which mean more playtime yay!
Unfortunately I can't show these cards just now, but here's one I made last week to send to my buddy Gayle for her wedding anniversary.

The image is of course a LOTV, a really useful one I think, I've used it for birthdays and thank you cards as well as anniversaries, I just stamp a different sentiment on the envelope.
DP is one of my favourite pads, Basic Grey Wisteria, I just wish I hadn't used the really dark purple one, far too dark in my opinion. A few pearls and nowt else.
I probably won't have the time to do any commenting tomorrow as I'm going to see my friend Linda after work, which also means I'll no doubt be feeling fragile on Thursday!

Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave.
Love Elaine xx

Sugar Bowl Challenge 42

Yep it's Thursday and I'm back with another sweet  Sugar Bowl Challenge. The sketch for this challenge has been provided by the very lovely Lilian and it's a beautiful sketch , the option is pearls - one of my favourite embellishments - so I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge, thank you Lils!

We've another amazing prize - as always - to offer the lucky winner, 4 new Country Cousins for Christmas stamps, letraset markers and a new snowflake embosssing folder and die. We do have the best prizes around!

For my card I rotated the sketch again, I think I always end up rotating the sketch! Because I wanted to use this particular stamp. Yes, it's another one that's never seen any ink, I buy them and hoard them lovingly away! She's a very pretty little girl called Elise from the Home Grown range and available Here, the DP is from Memory Box available from Quixotic Paperie, the flower is made with a woodware punch and Nellie Snellen punch. She's been coloured with the usual DI's, and there's a liberal sprinkling of pearls added to the Martha Stewart punched border. Voila, done!
(I have been to the doctors about my suspected case of "lackofembellishmentitis" and he says there's no cure, so it looks like it will be with me for a while. I'm defintely liking the less-is-more thing.)

All the details are on the Challenge Blog and I hope you'll pay a visit to all the other sweeties.
Before I go I have some rather exciting news, Gayle (aka Sugar Mama) will be holding a little competition to add some new sweeties to our little family. All details on how to enter will be posted on the blog next week, so keep checking back!
Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave.
Love Elaine xx

My First Christmas Card......

......and probably my last! I'm sure I will make some more Christmas cards, but I never make half as many as I actually need. I always start with the best of intentions but simply run out of time.

The stamp is from Elzybells, sadly the business is closing, so if you're looking for a bargain there's a sale on with a massive 50% off. The DP is from the Spiceberry pack from Memory Box available from Elaine at Quixotic Paperie.  I've used the darker Kraft cardstock on this card for a change. The flower is a Prima, I've coloured with DI's as usual and I paper pieced her dress because I didn't like the colour I'd painted it. Her wings are very glittery, not that you can see it with my photo taking skills!

Right, I'm off to get ready for bed. We've had a jam packed weekend and I'm absolutely shattered!
Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave.
Love Elaine xx