DCM - All things circular

This week it is Vanessa's turn to set the dare :o)

This week, the title says it all - I want to see lots of circles, you can decide how you use them, whether it be the shape of your card or how you display circular elements within the design and thats it, nice and simple (I hope :-)).

This was rather tricky for me in that I have no circle punches or dies. I racked my brains for what felt like an eternity and then came up with a mini brainwave for this card. I used a tealight holder to get the body and head circles and drew round the end of my glue pen for the snout. The ears, legs and tail were easy peasy :o)

Paper and little bird - Imaginisce
Stamp - Imaginisce
Card - core-dinations
Brown ink pad and also doodles.

A day of highs and lows

I feel quite exhausted today! For the last few days I have had raging toothache in a tooth that I had filled last month. You know the pain I mean? Where you can't decide whether you want to shut your head in a door or lay on the drive and get your hubby to run over it with the car? Throbbing is not the word! I've been taking nurofen and co-codamol and they have not even touched the pain! Bleurgh! Thankfully I had a dental appointment already booked for something else so I begged the dentist to sort this tooth instead. The result was root canal treatment. Turns out the filling I had last month was a deep 'un and irritated the nerve to billy-oh. "Take away the pain" I begged...and bless my lovely dentist - she did! Anyhow whilst sat in the dentist chair squirming (not in pain, but because the noise of the drill makes me squirm, I couldn't feel my tongue and feared I was going to swallow it and also I have this thing where I worry I'm going to bite the dentist's fingers off!) my mobile phone pipes up DEAD loud. My ringtone is not a nice tinkly tune. Nooooo, it is Papa Lazarou from the League of Gentlemen saying "Hello Dave, is that Dave? You're my wife now Dave". I was a bit embarrassed but the dentist & dental nurse thought it was funny. I would have laughed too but I had several hands and dental tools in my mouth. After said root canal torture treatment I checked who had called and it was my mum (who never calls my mobile). Rang her back. No answer. Rang dad's mobile. Turned off. Rang home number no answer. When I got home there was a message on the home phone to say she was on the way to hospital as her GP thought she had a DVT (deep vein thrombosis). Now I don't want to blow my own trumpet (actually I do!) but I actually diagnosed a DVT last night on the phone to my mum when she told me her symptoms. Clearly I am too good for radiography and need to be a doctor. Thankfully they have let her home and she's had heparin injections. She's back tomorrow for a scan and blood results.

So they were the lows BUT there was a high too. Oh yes there was! My kids entered a competition in Borders book shop to win theatre tickets for The Jungle Book show and Abigail WON! Woot woot!. Soooooo (thankfully before dental torture) we had to go to Borders this aft to meet the cast of the show and get presented with the tickets and have photos taken. Eeeeeeh it was fab. For a starters we got there before the cast so the staff at Borders nipped upstairs to Starbucks and got us all a drink (if you want to get round Joz - caramel macchiato does it EVERY time. I would bathe in it given half a chance). Ahhh bliss! The cast arrived in costume and looked ace. The kids were overwhelmed by it all. They were so impressed. The cast and staff at Borders made a real fuss of the kids which was great. Anyhow they posed for many a pic and I took a few albeit crap ones. It's going to be in the local paper in the next couple of days. Sooo on Friday night we're all going to the theatre for free. Really can't wait :o)

Here are a couple of pics (they are a bit kacka because I still don't know how to work my camera properly!)

I thought I'd also share a couple of pics from Sunday when we went to visit my big brother (who turned 40 on Saturday) 'cos I managed to snap a couple of the kids that I rather like.

This is Abigail and my nephew Benjamin who believe it or not is only 6 months old. He looks huge in this pic but then he is going to be a big boy for sure as his mum is 6' and his dad (my brother) is 6'6"
And then there is this one of Maddie the madster who most certainly is mad. Bless her and her cheesy grin. lol
I also have pics to share from Saturday when my good friend Ruth came a visiting with her 2 boys. I'm going to have to do that in a seperate post as my fingers are aching after this mammoth blog post.

Patti Picklicious makes

I've just had an email from Kirsty to say that the very fab Patti Picklicious CD will be available to buy in just over a weeks time. Not long now and I just know you will love it! I still haven't decided which collection I love the mostest. I have lots of paper printed out and ready to play with but this last week has been too busy for me to fit craft time in. That makes me very sad (although I have had some great times with the girls, friends and family soo that was good). I will be having a craftathon later this week to make up for the dry spell.

The first card I'm sharing uses the Tokyo Kyoto collection and I love it. The Japanes Patti image is beautiful and prints off on a sheet in a range of sizes.
This next card uses the half sheets collection in black. I love the fact that these come is so many colour ranges! Lots of possibilities :o) Also check out the teeny alphabet letters which are fantastic to use. I love these a lot!!
I used the half sheets again for this card in blue. Love this shade and love this little Patti image.
There will be lots more coming soon. I was a bit limited when I made these by the fact that my ruddy printer ran out of ink. I was dead annoyed but I got another so there will be no stopping me now.

I'll be back later to post pics of my weekend. x

DCM - fish or frog

This week it's Rein who sets the dare. She would like us to put a fish or a frog on our card :o)

I decided I wanted my froggy to be stuck out on acetate to look like he was bouncing over the flower. Could I find my acetate??? Nope! This is the 3rd time in as many weeks that i have tried to find my acetate and it is nowhere to be found :o(

I ended up carving up some packaging from a cuttlebug die although it's a quite a bit thicker than acetate so there is no bounce. It still works and it also lays flat enough for the card to go in an envelope. The card is for a little girl called Ava who used to go to the same childminder as my two. They are going to her birthday party on Sunday.

Papers - Imaginisce
Frog - Cuttlebug die
Core-dinations card
Divine swirls embossing folder
Flowers from stash
Bazzill butterfly border
Papermania alphabet sticker
Doodlebug rub ons

DCM - feeling green

Ooer! It's Friday the 13th - hope nothing bad happens today!!! Incidentally - how superstitious are you? I don't know why I get a wobble when I think of Friday the 13th. It's a load of old codswallop!!! Or is it?? What do you reckon?

Right on to the dare. It's me setting the dare this week and it's a nice easy one...

Feeling green

I want to see green on your cards in any shade you like. For a double dare make a green themed get well card.

See....told you it was an easy one. It had to be done as green is my very very favourite colour :o) Here is my card...

Now I have to say that this card makes me happy. The reason it makes me happy is down to the "green"ness I am certain of it. Green just makes me feel happy so I can't wait to see everyones cards this week :o)

I used papers by Dream Street (Birdie Bits) , core-dinations card, swiss dots embossing folder.

About time!!

Snow!!! YES SNOW!!!

Whoohooooooooo we had some today (and I wasn't even aware it had been forecast). We did get some last week on 1 day but it had melted by the time we came home from work/school so we didn't get to do anything fun. We made up for it today though :o) We got to use the sledges that have been sitting in our garage for 3 years! Thought I would share some pics. I tell you what - my eldest daughter is such a lightweight. After about 10 minutes she was complaining she was cold and wanted to go home! When I was a kid I used to be out in it for hours and when I did go home my legs would be bright red and stinging from the cold. All together now "KIDS TODAY DON'T KNOW THEY'RE BORN!" lol

I will warn you, there may be some pics of my hubby on here (don't tell him - he'll go schitz!) and the hat he is wearing makes him look very "speshal" hahahahaha it keeps him warm though!

Doesn't the lake look pretty?

Speshal hat warning!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

"Mum I'm cold when are we going home???"

Patti Picklicious

Well it's quite exciting chez Jozza as I've had an email from Kirsty Wiseman to say that my copy of the new Patti Picklicious printables CD is on its way to me! Yippee!!! I really can't wait to get my sticky mitts on it. I've had some sneak peeks and Kirsty showed me some cards she has made with it and wowsers! It's so fab :o)
There is a Patti Picklicious blog on which if you become a follower you could win a copy of the CD. Soooo I just have to wait for Mr Postman now and then I can start to play :o)

Scrapping fun

I've spent a few enjoyable hours scrapping this afternoon. The start of the year has been a bit pants chez Joz so I treated myself to some new papers and embellishments to cheer myself up. I've been playing with Sassafrass Lass and Imaginisce this aft :o)
I love the lower photo of Abigail - she looks insane (which she kind of is! lol)
Papers - Sassafrass Lass
Flower - Poppicrafts
Letters - American crafts foam thickers
Papers - Sassafrass lass (I made the tree out of the papers)
Embellishments - Sassafrass Lass
Alphabet stickers - American Crafts foam thickersPaper - Imaginisce
I love you sticker - Bo Bunny
Heart border - Bazzill
Rub ons - Imaginisce
Alphabets - American crafts thickers and Papermania

I really enjoy scrapping. I have some really fab pics of the girls in particular yet I hardly seem to find the time for scrapping. I don't feel that confident with it yet and tend to stick to cards. I'm going to try harder this year to scrap more and improve!

Penny Black Saturday - Romance

It's a romantic theme this week and Anice from Funky Hand is sponsoring the challenge providing 2 winners with the new Huge Funky Love download. It's such a lush download and is fast becoming one of my favourites. I decided to use it for my card for this challenge.
Papers - Funky Hand - Huge Funky Love
Letters - thickers
Image - Penny Black (from Kath in an image swap) coloured with watercolour paints
Card - Core-dinations
Border punch - Martha Stewart
Wire & button - from stash

Tagged!

I've been tagged by the lovely Amanda (Scotspanda) and being a shockingly bad blogger of late I've only just got round to doing it. Oops.

You need to pick the 6th photo in the 6th folder in your pictures. Here is mine...
It's little Ratti with his pouches full of food being manhandled by Maddie! Bless him.

I've seen this tag on quite a few blogs so I won't name people to tag. If you haven't had this one yet - consider yourself tagged. xxx

DCM - Oriental splendour

The real title of this should be "Jozza doesn't do oriental!" which is why I am almost 11 hours late posting my DT card this week. I literally have nothing oriental in my stash (or so I thought). Lythan reminded me that there was an oriental image in an image swap that the Funky Hand DT have done. Hmm I'd forgotten about that! I think it was Enfys that sent it to me so thank En you saved the day!

Whilst rooting around my stash I found some paper in my DCWV Rock Star stack that would be semi ok to use and then the piece de resistance was the oriental ATC paper I found lurking in the darkest depths of one of my craft drawers. That is left over from when I helped my mum make an oriental card for one of her friends a couple of years ago. Sooooo I did manage to cobble together a card in the end, even if it did involve blood sweat and tears - phew!

Oops I forgot to say that the challenge is set by Sue this week who wants an oriental themed card that doesn't use the colours red or black!

Paper - DCWV - rock star
Image - from Enfys - I think it was personal impressions
ATC paper - don't know it was my mum's
Flowers - prima
Brad from stash

2 sketches 4 you - Kazan's sketch 19

It's a great sketch this week over on 2 sketches and I was inspired by my new DCWV The Sweet stack. My card is very plain and simple and was made very quickly but sometimes these seem to turn out the best don't they?
Paper - DCWV - The Sweet Stack
Ribbon - from stash
Brown card - core-dinations
Border punch - Martha Stewart
Stickers - DCWV

Sketches by Tamara - card sketch #81

It's been ages since I've joined in with the sketches by Tamara challenge so I have made an effort to play this week.
I used K&Company sweet talk papers and embellishments for this card.

Huge Funky Love!

The latest CD release from Funky Hand (Funky Daze) has been a huge success and is now sold out until more stock comes in mid February. However, Anice has just released a new download "Huge Funky Love" which is a love themed download featuring pinks and browns and containing everything you need to make wordbooks of your choice. I adore this kit and I thought I would show what I have made with it so far. It is so versatile. The big letters are great fro scrapping and you don't just have to make word books. You can make great cards with it too. Check out The Funky Hand website and see what the rest of the DT have made.

Ooh look at this candy!

My fellow Funky Hand DT mate carol is giving away some mega stunning blog candy. I actually am only posting this cos I have to to win it so please don't go check it out cos it's mine all mine! (I wish) hehehe
Go have a looksie here to enter.

PBSC - circle card

I'm trying to get back into the swing of crafting today. I managed a card for the PBSC but I've put all my bits away again as I found it a struggle. I seem to have lost my mojo again this last week. Hey ho!

I used one of the fab stickeroos that I won on a previous Penny Black challenge :o)

I don't have any nestabilities so i drew round a jug to get the circle and then hand drew the flower on pink card and sanded the edges. My kids will like this card as it's pink!

Card - core-dinations
Image - Penny Black stickeroo
Border punch - Martha Stewart
Patterned paper - Smirk