Meerkats everywhere

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all well or nearly there...hugs.

Oh what a relief it is to get up and feel a lovely cooling breeze coming in through the window, sheer bliss to me as I do not do well in hot weather.  I do love the wall to wall blue that we have just now though!

On to my cards for today. I was unable to print any for a while because my card tolerant upstairs printer gave up the ghost, but off I popped to Comet and LO and Behold, there was an Epson printer/scanner/copier for the princely sum of £27.99 including a set of quarter full ink carts! I hasten to add that it was so cheap because it was a discontinued one and the display model, the last in the shop,  so I came home and started playing immediately :o)

I took the photographs at Twycross Zoo a couple of years ago and as you can see, I feathered them in PSP. I get such a lot of satisfaction being able to do that. As usual, I cut and folded the white linen card but this time to A6. I have shown the inside of the first one to illustrate the inside of each card. I added the speech bubbles and text in MS Word using my favourite Papyrus font. I hope you like them :o)

Jackie xx

Not a photograph in sight

Good morning Bloggers, I hope all is as well as it can be with you.

I thought it was time to give you a rest from my photographs so I made a Christmas card yesterday to share with you, I hope you like it :o)

This is the first airing for  the Marianne border, tree and houses dies, when I cut them I didn't expect to use them all on one card LOL. Other dies used are Marianne  poinsettia, Memory Box corner and Spellbinders label. Punches use are Martha Stewart grass edge and SU oval.

I folded white linen card to A5, cut the corner from white pearl card, the label and poinsettia from Bazzill and the rest from white glittercard :o)

Jackie xx

Oink + a peacock

Good morning everyone, I hope all is well with you. Thank you for your kind messages about my BP testing. I certainly would not want to do that again but all went well, if painful at times. With the infernal machine doing it's thing every half hour throughout the 24 hours on such a hot and sultry day/night, I got precious little sleep but hey ho, 'tis done now so it's just a waiting game to see if I need to take tablets to correct the BP. Oh well, worse things happen at sea, so "they" say LOL.

On to my cards for today. I have added a new dimension to them in the form of embossing and I do think it's a worthwile addition, I hope you do too :o)

Meet Oink, Derby's resident water buffalo. He lives in Darley Abbey for those of you who would like to meet him for real. He has been there for many years. Why was he named Oink? Well, he makes an oinking sort of snorting sound and he grew up with pigs as companions! I took this photograph last Sunday :o)

 The peacock can be found finishing visitors meals for them at Blackbrook Zoo, just on the Ashbourne side of Leek.  I took this photograph 4 years ago, must go back there one of these days! The embossing was done in the GC using my latest Crafts Too bamboo embossing folder, accidentally debossed on the first card and embossed on the second one. Sentiments were done in MS Word using Papyrus font :o)

Jackie xx

Good morning Bloggers, I hope all is well with everyone. I'm not a happy bunny this morning, got to go to the hospital early to have a blood pressure monitor fitted then it's work this afternoon, so no playing today. Then I have to go back tomorrow to have it removed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyhow, I digress, so on to my card for today.

This is a photograph I took at Duxford 4 years ago. As is my usual of late, I have feathered the image in PSP11 then opened it in Word and used Wordart for the sentiment.

Must dash now, my appointment is early!  :o)

Jackie xx

back to work today.....

.....but here's part of a set of cards that I made during my week off. I'll show the others later.

Good morning Bloggers, I hope all is well with you and your families, and that you are getting better weather than we are here near Derby.

Anyhow, on to my cards. Three years ago we (my crafty friends and I) went off to Norfolk for a week and whilst there we went over the border into Suffolk to visit beautiful Southwold one day. These are some of the photographs I took there.

I had noticed the number of cards on DC with the Michael Powell beach hut stamps so I decided to dig these out and use them. Not buying the stamps when I have my own images LOL. I printed the photographs onto grey Bazzill and backed them with teal Bazzill, all were cut with Nesties. Other dies used are Memory Box, Marianne and Cheery Lynn.  I hope you like them :o)

Jackie xx

I hope you can put up with more of my photographs

Good morning, welcome to wild, wet and cold. Who would believe that it will soon be June?  Oh well, no use moaning about what cannot be changed so I will just get on with it!

These are just a few of the ladies of Nusantra and I took the photographs in 2007 at Shipley Park, Derbyshire. They are so beautiful and very graceful, I forgot time existed while I was watching them. There had been an absolute deluged overnight and the park was so muddy that the dancers, who perform barefoot,  were dancing muddied up to their ankles and yet still managed to remain so graceful!

As you can see, I have taken the main images out of the photographs and feathered the edges.  I am not too good on captions but I hope these look suitable.  They are all printed straight onto my favourite linen card. I hope you like them :o)

Jackie xx

My week is nearly over already BooHoo + a few orang Utans

Good morning everyone. I cannot believe how quickly my week's holiday is flying by. I have spent two days putting flatpacked stuff together and the air has been quite blue over Borrowash! My old computer dest was huge and took up too much space, so off I went on Wednesday morning to Staples and bought a small desk. Got home and put it together, fine, but taking the old desk apart was a nightmare!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never mind, it's done now and I have a lot more space in here. Being a glutton for punishment, I then went out and bought two bookshelf units and a TV stand and yes, they all had to be put together Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.Why do I start these things?

Anyhow, enough chat, here are my cards for today, As always I really enjoyed making them and learned that I like printing straight on to Bazzill :o)

 All of the photographs are printed onto peach Bazzill, this first one also has a pale peach Bazzill base card which I cut and folded to 6x6

For the other two cards, I cut and folded white linen card to 6x6. The images and mats on them all were cut with nesties and the dies are all Memory Box except the Ivy, which is a Marianne die. I hope you like them :o)
Jackie xx

Passed MOT + Set of 6 mini notecards

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all well and painfree, or getting there...hugs

Well, my 13 year old banger passed it's MOT yesterday with nothing needing to be done Yayyyyy! I now have the rest of the week to do what I like, when I like and if I like, starting with lunch at George's  Tradition in Long Eaton today :o)

On to my cards for today, which is a set of 4x4 notecards which I made just because I wanted too! As you can see, I have been playing with my photographs again, I think I'm addicted to this pastime now LOL.

Once again, I feathered my photographs in PSP11 then printed straight onto the cards. I have shown the inside of one so you can see that each has a small image in the corner. The sentiment was also printed in PSP11 and I used Dauphin font :o)

Jackie xx

Ladybug rescue

Good morning everyone, forgive me while I shout WHOOOOOPEEEEE, I am on holiday from work for a whole week now :o)

This morning I have four cards from one image to share with  you. You have seen this ladybug photograph before but the difference this time is that I have printed it onto Kraftcard.  The problem was that they didn't print in the right place this time so I made them into toppers instead!

For once, I didn't cut and fold my own basecards, these are from Papermania and are about 5.25 square.  Ladybugs cut out with Nesties and matted onto brown and ivory card.  Dies used are Memory box poppies and corner, and Cheery Lyn foliage. I hope you like them :o)

Jackie xx

Sorry, more from my photographs

Good morning everyone, wall to wall sunshine here so far but it is starting to get a bit hazy now. I hope you are all well or getting there...hugs

Since I discovered how to separate bits from my photographs and then feather the edges, I have become addicted. With over 20,000 photographs on my external hard drives I have plenty to go at. So far I have only feathered 51 LOL.

I promise to do other types of cards as well so I don't bore you all to death :o)

Anyhow, here are a few more that I hope you will like.

Like the allium flower, they all have a small copy of the image inside. I used Dauphin font for the sentiments .  My cousin requested some CAS  so they will be going with me to visit her tomorrow in the hopes that she likes them :o)

Jackie xx

It's those poppies again.....

.....I love them :o)

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all enjoying you long BH weekend. I have to work today but that's okay, I get to put my 5 worked BHs together and have an extra week off when I want it :o)

Just one card today so here it is.

Very simple card. I cut and folded white linen card to 5x7. I cut the nestie label with the smallest die from my new Grand Nestie set then added the Memory Box and Marianne diecuts. What could be more simple? :o)

Jackie xx

I've been playing with my photographs.....

..... so I didn't realise how fast the days were speeding by :o)

I have long wanted to print my photographs onto linen card to give a textured look to them but neither of my printers like card and make a mess of them! These are very much and experiment but I am quite pleased with the results. I found some heavy paper rather than card and they print okay so I must pop to PDA in the week and see if I can find some more.

Anyhow, these are the results so far, I hope you like them :o)

 This first one is for my daughter Susan who loves CAS and nothing sloppy

Her birthday is not until Wednesday so don't know yet if she likes it, but knowing Susan, she will love it. I usually test my experiments out on her :o)

 Both Susan's card and this 4x4 mini card are cream linen

These last two are white linen card and I had such a struggle getting the printer to accept them, I had to literally push the card through so I won't be printing onto this again, don't want to rist damaging the priters! All of the photographs were opened in PSP11 and feathered. 

 If I manage to get suitable card/paper at PDA then I will be doing some more of these :o)

Jackie xx

3 cards from another friend's photograph

Good morning Bloggers, yet another grey day but we can't do anything about it so we may as well accept it!

Another Docrafts friend, EvieMae, sent me a photograph to play with and these 3 cards are the result.  Her photograph is the one with Mum (or Dad) turtle with baby on her/his back.

The backing photographs are my own. As you can see on the second and third cards, I have finally got my Memory Box poppy die. Marianne dies on the first card.

I really enjoyed the challenge from Trish (EvieMae) and I am quite pleased with the results :o)

Jackie xx