She's done!

Took me a little bit longer than I thought (almost a whole day more!) but I managed to have her finished and wrapped up for my lovely little goddaughter who came over for lunch today - and here she is - I am proud to introduce you to Jessica:



Now I just need to finish both my Mom and Nan's calendars and make 9 Christmas crackers -what fun!

New challenge

Ok here is my challenge card for lily of thevalley - it makes a nice change for me to do a card in pinks! think I will be giving this one to my Grandma on Christmas Day too.

Have made a few other cards but havent got time to upload them at the moment - need to finish the wrapping and table decorations whilst children are at school - its all go isnt it!

Thanks for looking.

What a busy few weeks!

Sorry I havent blogged for awhile - I helped organise a school Christmas Fayre a week ago, helped out at one last week and had DS1's 9th Birthday yesterday so its all been a bit hectic!

I have actually done a layout though! I know my first in about 3 months!

Thanks Julie for the inspiration at the last crop - as we both said "oval" and then "a planet" at the same time meant this just had to be done using lovely crate papers and some creative colour sprays I treated myself to at Hobbycraft (as you do!). Have also made quite a few cards recently too - might enter one into this http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/. Am off to have a little play today as I need to catch up with craft things for Christmas and my crop on Sunday and as I have a cold I have decided to put my feet up rather than go out and about running around as usual! I will be back soon I promise!

I've done some challenges!

For the first time I have decided to enter two challenges - how exciting are these! both cards are based on sketches and for the first time ever its finally "clicked" with me! I found them fun and easy to do not like scrapbook sketches whereby I seem to spend hours and hours on sketches and then never like the end result as they are never really "me" but these two cards fell straight into place, were quick and fun to do and, most importantly, I love the end results!! Hope you like them too.

Heres the first for

http://trulyscrumptiouschallenges.blogspot.com/2009/11/challenge-20.html

Ok so I know Halloween was three weeks ago but when I saw the sketch with five lines down it I just straight away imagined five spiders hanging down a card - dont know why but there it was and the image just wouldnt go away so it had to be done! plus I also used the new Edwin stamp that I bought about a month ago and still hadnt used!!

Card uses imaginesce Halloween papers, quickutz spiders, making memories ribbon and pumpkin sticker and, of course, the lovely Magnolia stamp! Texture is added by using ribbons and mounting all spiders on 3d foam.

The second is for

http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/2009/11/challenge-41.html and uses some lovely My Minds Eye Colourful Christmas papers and diecuts and the lovely Magnolia Tilda stamp.

I have so enjoyed making these - am off to look for more challenges to enter after little one has been to a friends Wacky Warehouse party this afternoon (wish me luck - Saturday afternoon in a crowded room full of 4 and 5 year olds!!).

Its been a busy few days - not least because Hobbycrafts has been at the NEC - yes I went twice and yes I spent a small fortune! Have been busy playing today not with all new goodies though but trying to catch up with some bits and pieces (such as the thank you cards for B's birthday presents which were received 5 weeks ago! oops, and they still arent finished - double oops!).

Anyway here are the other bits and pieces:

A lovely little boy I know is one soon so this is for him:

Here I just had to have a play with a new magnolia I discovered - Edwin with Mushrooms!!! I so had to have him didnt I!!

Here is the front:

and here is the inside - apologies for poor photograph!

A very quick 50th Wedding Annivesary card - I say quick its still taken me hours to do despite been quite simple - but this uses a new spray I bought yesterday - its a Crafty Notions one and really rather lovely! Rest of card is just cardstock cut from nesties and then sizzixed numbers finished with a bouquet of flowers - as I said very simple - have no idea why it took so long....

And then this is for a workshop I am teaching in a couple of weeks time - its called Tildas Garden:

The Edwin is another option if students want to do a boy instead - but I bet they dont!! tee hee.

Thanks for looking!

Its that book again!

Just a quick post - I have just applied to be a part of the fabulous Buzz and Bloom design team - wish me luck! Anyway here is hoping that they come over to my little space to view the dinosaur book I created earlier this year:

page one

pages two and three

pages four and five

pages six and seven

pages eight and nine

the last page

thanks for looking!

Phew end of week!

Just a quick card that I made for a lady who is 80 this weekend - I know its a bit masculine but I only have the Edwin celebrating and didnt think that the papers were masculine until after I had made it! still I am sure she will love it:

Birthday Cake!

Just a quick post as we are still celebrating Little Ones fifth birthday for yesterday - here are the pictures of the cake I made him - I am rather pleased with the final result particularly as I havent baked a cake in years! All the children at his party yesterday were well impressed too.

Up early

2am in fact! couldnt sleep and had lots of thoughts running through my mind - not so good ones either so in the end I got up at about 5am and finished off this little card:

Thanks for looking!

Promarker Day!!

Ooooohhhh have had a lovely day today spending this morning at a Promarker class at Stampeezee in Coventry.

Here are a couple of the images I coloured in: This is peachy Tilda - I have coloured the peaches in red though so that they look like apples.

This boy is my little Oliver - I am really pleased how I have managed to capture his beautiful red locks:

Am really pleased with the techniques learnt today so guess what I will be doing tonight! Thank goodness my workshop packs are all packed up and ready for tomorrows class!

Ok this is it!

This will now be my little space out there on the big world wide web - if you do want to see any of my old ramblings please go to:

http://nicolagrice.spaces.live.com/

Hello there

Its no good - have been using my website blog and my live spaces blogs for ages now but have never really got to grips with them so I am returning to good old blogspot. I so wanted to write some funky code and backgrounds to make my blog stand out from the crowd but lets face it I just dont have the time and energy so I am back on here for ease of use!

Lately I have been working on:

All photos taken by Morag - her photography skills are soooo much better than mine. The cards are all for a "Cards for Christmas" workshop I am running on Wednesday 30th Sept and Tuesday 6th October - for more details see http://www.whathousework.co.uk/

Cards are made using some lovely Stampin Up! stamps and papers.

Here is the flyer for the workshop (told you Morag was good didnt I!)

I have also just become addicted to Promarkers - its the new Hobbycrafts fault (you know, the one thats opened up just up the road from me - yes honestly! I can walk there if necessary!) anyway they were selling four packs of five pens for £4.50 so I thought I would try a pack - I got them home and immediately loved them so that I had to go back that same day and buy another two packs - I then left it a few days before I went back for the fourth pack - I didnt want to seem too keen did I! Anyway since then I have bought a few more online and on Tuesday I am going to a Promarker class at Stampeezee in Coventry! Am so excited - watch this space for what I create!!

Long time no blog as usual!

Lots going on over the past few weeks - have been busy enjoying spending time with my two boys before they both headed off to school fulltime last Monday. Have also been busy making a few things although they havent been photographed yet. Here is a layout I will be teaching at our next crop on 20th September 2009:

honestly I thought when both children went to school fulltime I would have time to catch up on all these little jobs however its now my fourth day and I still havent managed to put the duster around let alone do nice bloggy things! Lets hope that that changes soon.....

Lots going on!

As usual its been busy, busy, busy here - have finally managed to grab a few mins (well ok all of this morning!) to edit a few pictures I have taken. Here are my new creations during July:

So had to scrap this funny picture of B receiving his new Nintendo - he still cant say that word properly now and its been a year now!

Love this layout - still needs a bit more bling though if you ask me - might have to remedy that this week.

A layout with me on! see I really do exist!!

Fairly basic layout yet again - there seems to be theme with these last four layouts but still I have been concentrating more on cards and workshop classes lately and have had limited time to scrap - however there is still a lot to be said about quick and simple layouts isnt there - its very satisfying to get them completed quickly occasionally. Lets not talk about another layout I have been working on for a few days now......