Margate ...

I am very lucky in that I live in a lovely place called Margate in the UK.  It is a seaside town, built around the tourist season and all things buckets and spades!  I live a twenty minute walk from the main town and tourist beach, and a ten minute walk to the cliff top and sandy beaches that are a little further away from the commercial beach.

Every day me and my husband find some time together to go for a walk down to the cliff tops, and walk along the beaches, recently in the sunny weather, and over Christmas in the snow.  I am very lucky in that it gives us so much thinking time.

We live close to places like Broadstairs and Whitstable, so quite often we are able to get away for an afternoon, and feel like we are on our holidays!  These little trips out really help with my card making.  Sometimes when I am sat in the workshop, starring at blank paper not quite knowing what to do with it, as soon as I leave the house and arrive by the sea I know exactly what I am going to do with it when I get home!

Happy days indeed!

Thanks for stopping by. See you soon.

Shelly X

A passion for Papertrey: for the boys

This week I have been working on a customer order, its been so fun because there were a variety of requests in there ... 10 female birthday cards, get well soon, my favourite sympathy cards, and lastly, 5 cards suitable for men.  I tend to make blokes birthday cards which end up being particularly uni-sex. And this week has been no different.

A passion for Papertrey this week have been running their challenge,  a birthday card for the boys.  So I have this to share with you today ...

... You know me and my batches ... I ended up making four of these little cards.

They are bright with detail, yet still simple.  And uni-sex!!  Not every girl likes fluffy things and flowers!  Each card has just three colours, a simple sentiment, and a lovely big star.

Did you spot the Papertrey stamp ....  ?? .....

I used it along the bottom to balance out the star ......

Its the little star stamp from the fly away  set that I won from the A passion for Papertrey blog this month, thanks lovely ladies ... I love my new set!

Stamps Papertrey Ink Fly away

Ink: Versa magic chalk ink Midnight blue

Cardstock: recycled paper, pearlescent card base

Other: Navy grosgrain ribbon, sizzix star die

how exciting!

I am just bringing you a short post today to share with you a little happy news. .... I had an e-mail today from a very friendly lady called Angela, who wrote to let me know that she had blogged about some of my work on her blog Woolly Duck.

She showcased a selection of items from Folksy, with the theme of Coffee :)

To see the blog of all manner of other great things, please spend a moment to pop over here.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Love Shelly X

A passion for papertrey 'Sky's the limit' challenge

A passion for papertrey is fast becoming my favourite blog.  I love the variety of interpretations that the girls offer when sharing their designs, I also love that they are such nice people.  Having sent a fair few e-mails back and forward to them this week, they have been so helpful and friendly!  


I haven't really done much in the way of challenges up until last week, but this week a creativity slump has overtaken me, and participating in the challenges is proving to be really useful.


This week the challenge is to use things associated with the sky.  This could have been air balloons, clouds, colours or stars and so on.  I chose to use a discreet image of a bird.  

What I really like about this stamp is that at first glance it is just a tree, but when you start to look at the branches it is covered in tiny little birds!


Firstly, I stamped the tree three times with versa magic chalk inks ... I chose blue and yellowy orange. The yellow is like the sun, and the blue is the sky, and the tree has birds.  Three ways to fulfil the challenge brief!!  I used a more orange colour, and re-stamped over the birdie on the floor, I liked this because it made him stand out just a little more.


The PTI sentiment is from the 'Botanical silhouettes' set, and I stamped it with the chalk ink in 'ocean depth' blue, and then heat embossed it with gossamer blue pearlite powder.  I love what this product does to a section of text, it is just so beautiful- brilliant for Christmas cards too!


Once all that had dried, I distressed the edges a little using some Aspen Mist blue, which is like a grey blue colour, just to tie the two other colours together.  


All in all, they are really simple cards with a simple technique, but I have enjoyed getting an old stamp out (although I cannot remember the brand of it the share with you) and also doing a card that only features stamping.  Often I will add ribbon or paper- lots of paper!! But it has been refreshing to just consider stamping for a while.


I am off now to have a sneak peek at all the other entries .... It really is a great way to read more blogs!


Thanks for calling by


Shelly X

Lawnscaping challenge

This week I have been taking some time out of crafting to visit other blogs. If you read my previous blog post you will know that I have had a slight creative blip over the last week or so, and my work has been all over the place.

On this meander through blog land, I came upon this little site called {Lawn} scaping challenge and I really liked how different it is to the usual style of blog that I follow, and how far out of my comfort zone the crafting examples are!  A challenge indeed.

It is based on the products of the company called Lawn Fawn, who are based in California, and who see their stamps as 'fun and lively': I think their design has a cartoon element to them, and not at all what I usually what I work with, but it has been really refreshing to see a whole new set of design styles and become familiar with another group of crafter's from around the world.  This is an example of the stamps they offer and the bright and colourful style that you can get from using Lawn Fawn stamps .... This card is by one of the Lawn Fawn designers Lynette. (you can view her blog here.)

So I decided to enter the challenge today .... I don't own any of the company stamps, but as the challenge calls for projects that use distressing, I thought I would share two cards I made this week.

  I love them because I used the Papertrey Ink poppies on from the reward set Botanical Silhouettes. Its the only PTI set that I own, and therefore gets a lot of use.  I used my favourite inks for the project .... Versamagic chalk inks.  They are really great because they are so multi-functional. I use them for embossing, distressing, as I did here, or general stamping.  I used the PTI 'with sympathy' sentiment on one the card, and 'with love' from another set on the other, however this set was one of the first that I bought, and the packaging with the brand on is long since gone.

Both the cards were distressed around the edges with ink in 'Sahara Sand' (GD-72), both had black gems as the centres of the poppies, and the sympathy card had some bright red polka dot grosgrain ribbon on.  I like to experiment with sympathy cards, something that I will be blogging about in the near future, and colour is a great way to try something different.  I also like this card because it uses red and green- classic Christmas colours, and sympathy cards around Christmas time can, if done in a subtle way, acknowledge the pain and hardship that will come with the festive holidays.

In terms of the challenge, I kept the distressing to a minimum, and I think that this keeps the simple feel to these two cards, whilst still being interesting and respectful to their purpose.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what you did with distressing challenge, or what projects you have made recently that showcase this technique.  Please feel free to leave your comments or links to your blogs below ... I look forward to seeing them all.

Have a good day everyone, and I'll be back shortly with another challenge that I am starting today!

Shelly X