my latest cards...

The card above is for my parents wedding anniversary in March.
My friend Karen put a link to a site that generates great background designs using different fonts, colours and images, it is called typoGenerator if you would like to try it for yourself. Now, as much as I enjoyed playing about with this program I just had to have a go myself on PSP (paintshop pro), I used lots of layers and came up with this background paper. I love it and it looks so fab that I'm going to make my own backing papers wherever possible now! I hand cut the large hearts and used a punch for the tiny ones, finished with a hand written greeting.
I just found a fab site and this weeks Papertake Weekly Challenge is 'hearts desire' so this will be my entry also.


Well I loved that colour scheme so much that I had to make another card! This is for a friends birthday - not gonna say who cos I don't want to spoil the surprise ;)
I used punched flowers to decorate, used the magnolia gift with flower stamp, then decided I wanted another gift but didn't have a stamp that I could use so I drew the rectangular gift by hand using the magnolia one as inspiration. I think it turned out quite well actually, pity I can't say the same for the wonky photo!...



The following card is for the new arrival in our family, yes I know I made a baby boy card lol, but that was because my hubby's niece said she was having a boy!
Baby (girl) Taylor was born 29.01.08
I have used one of the bunny stamps from Bootiful Stampz these stamps are so versatile!

Pocket gift card

This weeks challenge over at the Arty Girlz blog is 'pockets'. This is my entry.
My friends daughter will be 16 next month, and she will be old enough to play the lottery, No, I'm not endorsing gambling for teenagers, but its summat both my girls wanted to have a go at when they were 16 just because they could. My friend and I never know what to get each others girls for their birthdays so we send money instead, a lot easier than traipsing around the shops buying a top or jeans that they will want to exchange a week later!
So I made this card which houses a lotto ticket and a small envelope for the money.
It is made from denim blue pearlescent card, a silver gel pen, scraps of lilac ribbon & pink and white card and a small envelope that I cut from 200gsm vellum, I added a tiny 'for you' sticker to the envelope so that she will know to take the envelope out from the pocket. Hope you like my card.

BTW, the lotto ticket in the photo is from last saturdays draw and when I looked at it to use it for the photos I realised that we have won £10, yay! (wish it was £10mil tho)

Somebunny to love...

Yay! Sally from Bootiful Stampz has set her first challenge!...
There are NO restrictions as long as one of our Stamps is used.
The challenge for February is to create a Valentines Card.
so here is my entry, I wanted to get away from the normal reds and pinks that are associated with valentines, I knew what I was going to write on the front of the card as soon as I knew what the theme was - that phrase just popped in my head!
I do so love this pot of bunny stamp! its so versatile.
If you would like to take part in this challenge then please click here.
Don't have a bunny stamp? well you can get hold of your own by clicking here.

Tilda & Co challenge #4

Here is my entry for this weeks Tilda & Co challenge. The theme is 'Baby' and as my hubbys niece is about to have her baby boy any day now this challenge couldn't have come at a better time really because i'd forgotten to make a card ready for the new arrival. I used bazzill cardstock and scraps of paper/mulberry paper, added ribbon and then thread more ribbon through a button/flower from which I made a small charm hanger, the tiny feet were given to me by Donna amongst loads of yummy stash goodies which were in an altoid tin christmas swap that we did in Auntys Forum Incidently, Donna also sent me the tilda with baby stamped image because I don't have that particular stamp. Isn't she kind? Thank you Donna xx

Honey! I shrunk Tilda!...

...rather badly too *insert embarrased smilie here*

This weeks Tilda & Co challenge is 'Shiny Silver' and were asked to try & think outside the box,
so I thought about a Tilda mobile phone/bag charm instead of a card, I used silver plated findings and added the little silver flip flops charm so that was the shiny silver bit...now to the magnolia bit, erm, wouldn't it be nice to have Tilda as a charm? I thought.
Erm, well in theory yes, but i'm not happy how it's turned out and that's my fault.
I've had some shrink plastic for aaaaaages and never got round to trying it so thought i'd give it a go for this challenge. I stamped tilda onto it and used my permanent pens to colour it in, so far so good, then I turned on my heat gun...Whoooooooooa! it curled into a little ball... lol!
I managed to uncurl it while it was still warm then gave it another blast of heat and pressed my acrylic block onto it to flatten it, but it looks tatty now and all out of shape :(
I may have another go and see if the next one turns out better and i'll swap the charms if it does.

Look what I got today!

Wooohooooo! My lovely friend Sally who runs Auntys Forum has now started producing her own stamps! and wow what a great design they are too, all her own designs, the bunny is becoming a bit of a trade mark of our dear Aunty Sally. You can see the full range of Bootiful Stampz in her store, aptly named Auntys Store. These are selling like hot cakes so if the ones you'd like have sold out, please bookmark the site so you can grab your favourite as soon as its back in stock, and theres more new designs to come too!
Sally very kindly sent me the 'pot of bunny' stamp, it's soooooo cute as i'm sure you'll agree.
I couldn't wait to try it out and have made this card which will fit in perfectly with this weeks Arty Girlz challenge!!! yay!

Tilda & Co's 'number' challenge

I also made this card tonight, i'll keep this for my friends little girl, Amelia, who will be 7 this year, altho not til June!!! I've never made a birthday card this early before lol.
Also, as luck would have it lol Tilda & Co have set this weeks magnolia challenge to use a number or numbers on your work, how about that for a coincidence eh?!! ;)

Arty Girlz 'Red' Challenge

I made a few cards earlier tonight because a) I couldn't get on the pc because my daughter needed it, and b) I wanted to colour in some Tilda images! yay!

So thought i'd make a card using red as the prominent colour so that I could take part in this weeks Arty Girlz challenge

here it is, hope you like it ...

Blog header designed for you

Lots of people are blogging, and most make their own title headers, indeed, many of my friends have displayed their handywork on their page.
My friend Emma mentioned that she didn't know where to start to make her own blog header, so I took a look at her blog and made her one using her own crafting work as inspiration and to make it personal for her.
I'm sure that there must be other bloggers out there that would like a new header for their blogs too.
If you are one of those bloggers, and you'd like me to help design you a blog header too, then please email me using either the button in the left sidebar or the link at the bottom of this post, let me know a rough idea what you are looking for and i'll do the rest.

Once your header is made I will send it to you by email, where you can save it to your pc and transfer it to your blog.

The size of your blog header will be approximately 648 x 170 pixels, and will usually be sent as a GIF
(a different size/format will sometimes be made based on what your requirements are)


Watermarks... Please ensure that you have the correct photo editing software to enable you to add a watermark to your work, the watermarks WILL NOT work with Windows Paint.



IMPORTANT! please read...
Blog backgrounds are made based on a 1024 x 768 screen resolution, which is the most popular monitor setting. If you use a different resolution or screen size, I still might be able to design for you but please let me know BEFORE I start work on your design, thank you.



Please email me to place an order, Thank you.



CLICK HERE to see Siggi Shop's Terms & Conditions, please read before placing an order. By commissioning Siggi-Shop, you agree to be bound by those terms and conditions.

I hope to be able to work with you soon!.................... Jo xx

Creating Mayhems challenge

Over on Auntys Forum we have set up some teams (I'm a member of Tracey's Treasures) Each month one of the teams will get to set the monthly challenge that everyone else can take part in. The challenges started this month and was set by Jane's team, Creating Mayhem...

"Create a project in Monochrome, meaning black & white only but with one added colour as an embellishment (this can be a button, ribbon, flower or anything else used as an embellishment) this extra colour, is to depict Winter. Your project can be a scrapbook LO, bookmark, card, box or anything else that you wish to make, but it must be in a shape other than square."

My challenge entry is shown above (because I dunno how to add pics beneath my posts yet!)

A rectangular card with a hand cut snowman, my winter colour is orange because a snowmans nose has to be a carrot for it to be a real snowman!

Ok, so i've done it!

To all my friends on Auntys Forum who said 'Go on Jo, get yourself a blog'... well this is kinda for you...to stop nagging me! lol. I may need a poke with Storms poking broom from time to time though if I don't post as often as you hardened bloggers ;)

I'll add you all to this blog as soon as I can figure out how to do it.

While on the subject of Auntys...if anyone would like to join this fantastic forum which is the most special place on the web as far as its members are concerned then please click on the banner above, not only will you be given a warm welcome, but you can take part in all sorts of crafty activities including Card making, Scrapbooking, Jewellery making, Cross stitching, Topper swaps, Inchie swaps, ATC swaps, Fat Page swaps, Domino swaps, Circle Journals, even crafty Bingo! SO what are you waiting for eh?! You know you wanna...