My Beautiful Blog

CRAFT SALE!  Yes, these are the stamp sets that I am selling off.  Some have been lightly used, but most are still untouched.  The inkpads are brand new, still in their plastic wrappers.  If you are interested in any of the items, please send me an email at psealey@blueyonder.co.uk with details of  what you'd like, and I'll let you know a complete price including postage.  Payment by Paypal only please, but wait for my email!

INKPADS by COLOUR

• Brocade Blue
• Apricot Appeal
• Not Quite Navy
• Taken with Teal SOLD
• Chocolate Chip SOLD
• More Mustard
• Lovely Lilac
• Really Rust
• Bravo Burgundy
• Pale Plum
• Almost Amethyst
• Elegant Eggplant
• Always Artichoke
• Rose Red
• Handsome Hunter
• Yoyo Yellow ALL INKPADS £3.00 EACH

SU STAMP SETS

• Cheer and Wishes (pg 62) £10.00
• Bloomin with Beauty (pg 45)   £18.00
• Love you Much (pg 26)   £17.00
• A Good Egg (pg 25)   £15.00
• Garden Whimsy (pg 42)     £18.00
• In the Stars (set in FRENCH not English!) pg 55  £17.00
• Tags for All (pg 19)    £25.00
• A Rose is a Rose (pg 44)   £28.00
• Live your Dream (pg 37)     £22.00
• Old Fashioned Christmas (pg 21)    £20.00
• Fun and Fast Notes (Pg 34)   £25.00
• Seeing Spots (pg 59)     £ 9.00
• Whimsical Wings (pg 12)   £10.95
• A Flower for all Seasons (pg 46)     £  8.00
• Wonderful Words (pg 65)   £13.00

TOOLS

• Stamp a ma Jig (pg 90)     £ 8.00

I'll update the list as and when any of the items are sold.

Happy Friday!xx

A Christmas card today!  I used up a really old Basic Grey rub on for the main sentiment, American Crafts papers and lots of lovely Making Memories pieces.

I'm loving using up some older stuff from my stash as it justifies me adding new things, lol!  I just managed to snap a photo of this before the light faded, and it's only 3.40!  Winter is here:(

Oh, and is there anyone in the UK who reads that might be interested in purchasing some Stampin' Up! sets from me at a little discount?  I think I went a little bit mad ordering everything under the sun and have now realised I'll never use some of them!  Let me know if you might be interested, I didn't want to list them all here if no one was:)

Have a great afternoon!xx

Ooh, I didn't mean not to blog for days, time just ran away from me!

I've been busy crafting and have lots to share, so you should see something from me everyday from now on.

I made this card for Rebecca's birthday, which isn't until January.  It feels great to be ahead!

I've also done all my Christmas shopping!  Can you believe that, I mean, it's still November, lol!  Our first trip out was a complete disaster.  I don't think anyone was really in the mood for it, and it only took a few words from someone (who'll remain nameless!), to start us all off bickering.  We only ended up being in the shopping centre for 20 minutes and bought zilch before coming back home and not speaking to each other!! 

We'd all made up by the next day though and decided to try again. Much more successful!  We started by having brunch in a restaurant (because a full up belly is essential before shopping!), and then went into all the fab shops at Westfield.  I do love that place, even though I end up over spending! 

So, just Christmas food left to plan now, which I'll start sorting out at the weekend, which is also when the tree will go up.  I can't wait!!

Well, need to go and finish clearing up. Have a great evening!xx 

I had a bit of a spree in Hobbycraft at the weekend (I know, I know, I'm not supposed to be spending!), and picked up this adorable set of fairy stamps.  They're so pretty, and I haven't stopped stamping them onto everything since I got them.

Here are two of the cards I made:-

 
 
 
 I had fun colouring them in with ink and have got better at shading parts (I think!).  I also had fun stickling everything, I really love that stuff!

My craft area looks like an absolute pigsty at the moment as I decided to sort out all my buttons and chipboard.  Looking at the amount I have you could definitely tell they're two of my fetishes, lol!  I really think it's time to stop stroking everything and get them used up!

No more news here, so I'm off.  Have a great day all!xx

EDITED TO ADD: The top card is for the CUTE CARD THURSDAY challenge, to make a card for teens. 

Morning everyone!  I've got a Christmas Journal to share with you today.  Yes, I FINALLY got around to scrapping all my pictures from last Xmas.

I decided that the large journal I started before last Christmas was just too big, and it was to much of a task to get it all finished, so I've gone for a smaller tag version.  Much more manageable!

There is a photo to go on the last page, but unfortunately, my printer ran out of ink, just when I'd nearly finished too, lol!  I inked all of my pieces to give them a vintagey look and ended up smothered in brown ink.  I really must remember to put on old clothes when I'm stamping.  Ink and sleeves don't go!!

I put together a couple of kits containing all of the things I used to make the album HERE.  It will make putting a Christmas journal together really easy!  I also made another desk calendar, as the last one sold quickly, this will be the last one in that style though as I've used up all that paper:)

I hope Tuesday is being good for you, I'm off to put away my shopping and get on with some more crafting. Bye!xx 

People in my family always seem to appreciate calendars at Christmas, so I decided to make my own as gifts this year.

I used a variety of circle punches to cut out the patterned paper, then layered them and distressed the edges.  It was also the perfect piece to use the SU Forest Friends set on.  I love these little characters!  I'm very happy with how they turned out and have reserved two for family and put another one in MY FOLKSY SHOP .

I had intended to continue working on a Christmas project today, but as Mark kept me up half the night, and no, not for anything good, but because of his god awful snoring, I only grabbed about half an hour of sleep and have been good for absolutely nothing today!!

Any cures anyone has found for snoring (not including me finding a new partner, lol), please please pass them on, I'm desperate, lol!

Typically, it's Rebecca's parents evening at school today, so I will spending a couple of hours shortly queuing up to speak to various teachers and I am definitely in no mood for it!  As lovely as it is to find out how she's doing, I do detest having to stand around for ages in a stuffy, stinky school hall (ALL school halls have that peculiar smell, don't they?), just to speak to a teacher for a minute or two!

Ah well, best be off and get ready.  Hope you're all having a better Thursdayxx
 

Here are the new additions to my FOLKSY SHOP that I was working on yesterday.  I've made some of these sheets for friends who have asked, and thought it would be fun to pop some in the shop too!

They're great for adding to cards or your scrapbook projects, and it saves you having to buy the inks and stamps yourself.  I'll see how these ones go before deciding if I should add other designs.  I have quite a collection of stamps now, so many in fact, they'll need their own house soon! 

I've lots of other exciting projects planned, and am going to whizz off now to start another one.  I hope you all have a great Tuesdayxx 

I've been having a really lazy day today!  It's cold outside, so I decided to stay wrapped up indoors with a huge heap of magazines by my side, sorting out all the new recipes I want to try.  Honestly, there are so many there just aren't enough days in the week to make them all, or enough mouths to eat them, lol!

I did make these delicious dishes in the week though.  A real time saver, as you save some from the first meal to make the second.  Great on those days when you want something nice but don't want to make much effort.

Tarragon Chicken

Ingredients

• 6 chicken breasts
• 8 rashers streaky bacon, chopped
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 bulb fennel, sliced
• 200ml white wine
• 500ml chicken stock
• 4tbsp half fat creme fraiche
• small bunch of tarragon, chopped

Heat the oil in a pan and add the chicken breasts.  Fry for around 4-5 minutes on each side until golden.  Remove from the pan and add the streaky bacon.  Fry until golden and crispy.  Add the onion and fennel and cook for a further 5 minutes.  Return the chicken to the pan and pour in the white wine and chicken stock.  Simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.  Remove from the heat and add the creme fraiche and tarragon.  Reserve 2 of the chicken breasts and 250ml of the sauce for the next days dinner, then serve the remainder with vegetables and potatoes.

Chicken Pie

Ingredients

• reserved chicken breasts and sauce from TARRAGON CHICKEN recipe
• 200g cabbage, shredded
• 150g frozen sweetcorn or peas
• 25g parmesan, grated
• 1 sheet of ready rolled puff pastry

Chop the chicken breasts into bite sized pieces and place in a large pan with the sauce, cabbage and sweetcorn/peas.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Add the mixture to a deep dish, then top with the sheet of puff pastry and sprinkle this with the grated parmesan.  Cut a small slit in the middle of the pastry to let the air escape.  Bake in a 190C oven for 30 minutes, or until the pastry is puffed and golden.

We really enjoyed both these dishes, hope you do too!

Back to the mag stack now!xx 

Morning all!  A card and a layout to share with you today.  Yep, I finally scrapbooked, lol!  I found these pictures of Rebecca on my memory card and realised I hadn't scrapped them yet.

For this card, I stamped the vase image from the SU Fun and Fast Notes set, first on one piece of patterned paper, then again on a different one.  I cut out some of the little flowers and layered then on with dimensionals, so it looks like a decoupage piece.  I think this might be my new favourite things to do with stamps (although I think that about every new thing I try!).  I will be adding some gems to the centre of all the small flowers, but ran out of glue dots!

 

Finally my new bank card turned up, so at least I can go into shops without wads of cash in my pocket now!  I had completely forgotten how annoying it is to have to queue up inside the bank all the time to get money out, so spoilt are we with cash machines and cashback, lol! 

My new phone arrived too, so I'm busy playing around with all the features, like texting my tweets to Twitter, and probably will still be messing around with it for the next hour or so, when I'll no doubt get bored, lol!  I can recieve tweets as text messages too, so it will make keeping up with my friends easier:)

I hope you all have a wonderful Bonfire Night!  I shall be watching the fireworks from my windowsxx
 

Another card to share today.  I seem to be going through a flower and butterfly phase at the moment, everything I do seems to have either or both on them!

I made these butterflies with the SU Flight of the Butterfly set and the matching butterfly punch.  It's great to be able to stamp and then just punch out your designs after.  What a shame they can't do that for all the stamps, although I guess we'd need an awful lot of punches then, lol!

I'm running out of storage space for stash now, and have been really eager to make lots of cards to use some of it up.  Now though, I'm running out of space to keep all the cards!  It's a bit of a vicious circle really, lol.  Hopefully, sales will pick up at FOLKSY and I might sell some, only one item has found a new home at the moment, which is a bit disheartening.  Either that, or we need to move!

Yesterday, Rebecca left for her school trip to Butlins.  They have a whole week of activities there, most of which are learning based, but they have use of all the facilities and evening entertainment too.  She rang me yesterday evening to say she'd arrived safely and was looking forward to dinner, rofl - that's Rebecca for you!  

Anyway, off to do a bit more creating:)  Have a lovely Tuesday, and I hope the weather is a bit brighter where you are.  Rainy and cold here.xx