Mya's first card

... at the grand old age of 2years 4months and 6days Mya made her first card. She had a great time banging away with a rubber stamp to create the background - there were a few hits and misses there. Then a piece of vellum and card to mount her sentiment on, topped off with a princess glitter picture and some domed stickers to personalise it. Next week we are making a thank you card for a lady who knitted her some dollies clothes and an anniversary card for her mummy and daddy so watch this space. She'll soon be taking over my craft room.

A big thank you to you all

for all the happy memories you have given me. I will treasure the cards, tags and gifts that you took the time to make for me - each one will be kept for ever.

Emmie Louise, Mya Jaye & Grace Ava

When I saw this photo frame in Dunelm Mills last week I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it, so a few hours later and I have the frame I'd envisioned.

I started by working on the frame's insert mount and cut flowers and flourishes from paper in my stash and added photos of my 3 granddaughters and then popped a photo of the kids in the fourth space. The letter L doesn't really have lots of white daisies in it, it has a photo of my granddaughter Emmie Louise in it but you will just have to imagine that for now as you never know when big brother is watching. Although why anyone would want to spend hours tracking down my blogs (and yes I have 3) is beyond me - I have better things to do with my time.

Now to work on the frame. I started by lightly dabbing the boring white frame with my Tim Holtz dabbers using Copper, Silver, Raspberry, Citrus and Pool and then toning it down with Pearl - the colours then matched the tones of the flowers on the mount.

I cut the letters, flowers and flourishes for the frame from copper metal using my Cuttlebug - my latest toy is still my favourite, love my Bugsy - and then ran the flowers and letters through the Bug using the swiss dot embossing folder. I lightly sanded the letters and flowers to 'age them' and add tiny highlights using the TH dabbers again (at last I have got the hang of using them). When the paint was dry I gently molded the flowers to give them a more 3d effect. The letters, flowers and flourishes were glued in place on the frames and crystal stones and flat backed pearls added to highlight.

This is the right hand corner, a tad blurred but thats because I am not a photographer.

Similarly the central embellishment of flowers.

and the left hand corner.

Finally the title for the frame.

It took the complete day but I am really pleased with

it. OH suggests I dont let d-i-ls see it as one will want

to have a go and the other will want me to make

her one - well thats the fun of having such

lovely d-i-ls.

An early birthday present....

what more can any nanna want???? Grace's first official photo shoot and of course a few of Mya, there are lots more but I had to share these with you straight away.

Harley gets a make over.....

....Mya style. He is so patient and just stands there and lets her do whatever she wants. They play together all the time.

Sunday Sketch and Stamp #1

The first challenge has been set on the Sunday Sketch and Stamp blog and the prize is a whole bundle of beautiful ribbons and boxes from Crafty Ribbons (see my sidebar for both these fab blogs). Here is my entry.

Baby Blessing Invites

Invites for Grace's baby blessing were a real delight to make. Starting with plain white cards I added a mat of pink pearlescent paper (Craft Creations) which I had edged (Fiskars punch) and I have used embossing paste in Shiney White (Dreamweavers) to emboss a teddy and rabbit on the bottom. I then added a 2nd card the front of which I had embossed (cuttlebug) and embellished using the words 'tiny blessings' (Cuttlebug) cut from pale green pearlescent paper (Craft Creations). The dots over the 'i' in both words is a tiny pale green crystal (Papi on ebay) and a pink crystal flower added to each end. A few pink metallic peel off dots (Craft Creations) broke up the plain dot pattern. A ribbon and bow was added to the side (Crafty Ribbons) just to complete the front.

Inside the 2nd card I have decoupaged pictures of angel babies with the words 'Heaven Sent'. For this I used a picture I already had but which was blue and yellow and altered the colours using My Craft Studio. A little Glamour Dust (DecoArt) on the wings and halo completed this part of the invite.
Finally for the insert I again used my main image and made a tiled background paper with My Craft Studio. The wording was printed onto the paper and I matted it onto the pale green pearlescent paper, the sides of which I had again punched.

As a finishing touch I added a tiny baby coat on a coat hanger to the front of the envelope using the embossing paste as before. My invitations are complete.