Just a quick note.

Just a quick note to share with my friends.

My husband is hoping to be able to participate in a charity trek through the Andes next year. To secure a spot on the charity trek he has to pay a £250 deposit & commit to raising a further £3250. While this is all for a good cause helping children in our local area, it is going to take a lot of hard work & fund raising efforts to reach the goal amount. Also, he has to get granted permission from work to participate if he is successful. We are hoping that he will get it due to it being for charity. So this is just a quick note to say if I am not around online so much it is because I am working hard to support him in his fund raising efforts. I have launched a new blog where I will be showcasing handmade cards & gifts for sale to help towards his goal. You will be able to visit it here: http://yumyumcards.blogspot.com

I will keep you all posted when I find out mroe information.

Sunshine Award.

Oh my, what a way to brighten any blogger day! I was passed the Sunshine Award by my blogging friend Nancy. She is such a sweet & talented lady, you can check her blog out here:

http://homesclscrapper.blogspot.com/

These are the rules of the Sunshine Award:

1. Put the Sunshine Award on your blog and/or within your post.

2. Pass the award to 12 other bloggers.

3. Link the nominees within your post.

4. Let them know they received the award by leaving them a comment on their blog.

5. Share the love & link to the person from whom you received the award.

OK so there are so many fabulous blogs out there & awesome blogging friends, but here are my 12 nominees:

1. Operation Write Home http://operationwritehome.org I discovered this organisation in the new year & their blog is a superb source of fun & inspiration. I am passing the sunshine award to them to say well done for all the hard work that they do.

2. Stacey http://ohschwietscrap.blogspot.com/ Stacey scrap mojo has been on vacation since the stork stopped by her place. So I am passing her the award to cheer up her day.

3. Karan http://www.karangerber.blogspot.com/ This ladies sketches inspire me so much. Go check out her sketch & card blogs if you are in need of some beautiful inspiring sketches & examples.

4. Sarah's Cards Ltd http://www.sarahscardsltd.blogspot.com/ This is my favourite UK blog & most definitely my favourite UK online store. Always full of inspiration & great customer service.

5. Mandy http://forscrappingoutloud.blogspot.com This girl is just awesome & deserves a big thank you, she is a friend an inspiration & I am blessed to have her in my scrappy life.

6. Shannon http://enjoyinglifewith4kids.blogspot.com/ A busy military wife & mum like myself, absolutely love how she finds time to scrap!

7. Vanessa http://creatingsensations.blogspot.com/ Another inspiring lady & aspiring blogger, please stop on by & check out her work.

8. Groovy Deb http://ifitsgroovy.blogspot.com/ Groovy Deb & the rest of the girls at if it's groovy, I am proud to be a part of such an inspiring blog & design team.

9. Helen Croft http://scrapalittle.blogspot.com Every scrapper should have Helen's fantastic blog bookmarked in their scrapbook resources. One of my all time favourite sources of blog inspiration!

10. Tarynne http://alltarynne.blogspot.com/ Another sweet & inspiring scrapper I love this ladies awesome cards.

11. Jordannichole http://jellybeansdesign.blogspot.com/ This young lady should be an inspiration to all teen scrappers, stop on by her blog to check out her beautiful work.

12. Stepford Dreams http://stepforddreams.blogspot.com This is one of my favourite non-scrapbook related blogs. I love reading the funny tales of everyday life.

Sketchabilities DT Reveal ~ 30th April

I'm a little late in posting this reveal. But here it is, Karan's beautiful sketch. Please feel free to stop on by http://sketchabilities.blogspot.com/ and play along.

Here is my take on the sketch:

This sketch was perfect for this old photo of my grandparents taken on my wedding day 8 years ago. I love this picture but cropped it down into two smaller photos to lose the cluttered background. I experimented with acrylic paint on the chipboard hearts and behind the title, also inked the photo mats lightly with a brown ink. I love how this page turned out thanks to the perfect sketch I had to work with. I chose my title due to the fact that I cannot imagine my grandparents apart they have been married for over 50 years.

~The Sketch Pad~ Week 14

Once again it's Monday & that means a new sketch over at ~TheSketchPad~ http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=profiles&u=478379

This weeks sketch is in keeping with my favourite clean & simple style. I used this sketch to make a page for a challenge over at UKScrappers.com who had one of there fabulous cyber crops at the weekend. I must say it was my first time cropping with them & I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I got a lot more done than I expected that is for sure. Here is what I did with it. I used up some scraps & few alphas to create this simple yet fun page.

~New Folded Flower~ Tutorial

I just wanted to share with you a new folded flower i have been working with today. I am not claiming that these flowers are unique but in all my Internet travels around different flower tutorials i don't remember seeing one like these before. They are so easy to make & only take a few minutes. Even my 5 year old made one with a little guidance, so they really are easy.

What you will need to make your flower:

Pencil

Scissors

Double sided tape
Large scrap of patterned paper
Scrap of card stock
Circle punch/Stencil/Something circle to draw round.

STEP 1: Cut out 4 circles from your patterned paper & 1 from your card stock.

STEP 2: Ok here come your series of folds. Put your circle of card stock to one side. Take your 4 patterned paper circles & fold them in half.

STEP 3: Next fold the right side into the middle point of your half circle.

STEP 4: Repeat this action with the left side.

STEP 5: Your 4 circles should now look like the picture above. It is now time to adhere them to your circle of card stock. I find it easier to cut this circle slightly smaller than the other 4.

STEP 6: Your flower is almost finished. Now you can lift the folded flaps upwards for a more 3D effect. Alternatively you can curl the flaps or you can cut down each fold & curl in towards the centre. (See pink flower below). Finish off with a brad, button or something else of your choosing & voila your flower is done.

I hope you have as much fun as i did making these flowers, they are quick & simple & very versatile. I haven't finished playing with the different effects but there are lots of ways they can be curled to change the style to suit your page. My apologies for the dark photographs & the jumbled layout. Thanks for stopping by for a look.

Sketchabilities DT Reveal ~ 15th April

Can you believe we are half way into the month already?! It's the 15th & that means it's time for a new sketch over at http://sketchabilities.blogspot.com. Are you ready for some new inspiration, you will not find this sketch anywhere else. Here is the sketch I created specially for the Sketchabilities team.

The design team have done an awesome job with this sketch, please stop on by & take a look. I am working on scrapping a lot of older pictures at the minute & couldn't decide what to do with the sketch myself but I love how my page turned out. Here is what I did with my sketch:

Any die hard Winnie the Pooh fan will recognise the title as one of Tigger's well used phrases. These pictures were taken of my youngest son in 2005. I'm not sure how old he was when these were taken & must remember in future to put dates on my photos. I'm assuming he was around 8 or 9 months old.

Sweethearts Groovy April Flower Power Challenge!

It's officially April & Easter is almost upon us. The one thing I just love at the beginning of a new month is all the new challenges that start around the forums.

As you all know I have just joined the Sweethearts (Boys Only) team over at If it's groovy & I want to share with you the fabulous challenge for April. Our challenge this month is flower power!

We all know how difficult it can be to add flowers to a boy page. There are a lot of scrappers out there who don't feel like a page is finished until it has flowers added. So the design team have came up with some beautiful examples of how to add flowers to your boy pages without losing the masculine feel.

For my page I used the Fancy Pants Little Sprout line to scrap this baby photo of my youngest son who is now 5. I cut out the flowers from the scraps of patterned paper & fixed them to the page using brads. I curled the leaves to add more depth to the page. I don't use flowers very often & normally would scrap this page without the flowers, I enjoyed making this layout it helped me to think outside the box. I also tried to avoid the pink shades of paper in this line & used a dark brown background cardstock from American Crafts to try & keep the masculine feel.

So if you love to scrap your boys & would like some groovy challenges & groovy inspiration, why not hop on over to http://ifitsgroovy.ning.com & join in the groovy fun.