Friday 24 August 2012

An update, and thanks

Hi friends, firstly thanks for all the lovely comments on my last card. I've been pretty ill again and ended up in hospital after being taken to A&E one night last week. They kept me in a couple of days (the first time I've ever been in hospital, but at least there were a couple of hunky doctors!), and when I came home I was very weak and unwell. I've started to feel a bit brighter now so I wanted to come on and say sorry for not having visited many blogs. After the latest card, I was slowly getting round some blogs, a few each day, but I've not really been up to it since I came home - apologies if yours was one I didn't make it as far as. It's all I can do right now to feed myself and do simple basic stuff in the home, and I have to spend a lot of time lying down which doesn't help. Somehow, I will have to master the art of colouring in a horizontal position, ha haa.

Anyway, I read the comments on my card while I was in my hospital bed - it was soooooooooooooooooooo nice to be able to see them and they really made me smile. Thanks so much!

I've got to have some more tests, but you know how long you have to wait for appointments these days, so not sure when I'll know more. In the meantime, I'm taking really good care of myself and although I still don't feel up to crafting, I've been playing the piano when I've felt OK to sit upright instead. Also, I'm hoping to slowly pop along to say Hi and see what you've been up to.

I haven't got any new cards to show, so this is one I did ages and ages ago, just so my blog post isn't just boring text, he hee.






Tuesday 14 August 2012

Guest Designer at Deep Ocean Challenge





Hello blogging friends, it's been a long while since I made a blog post - I have some health problems and haven't been well enough to do any crafting or blogging, I'm afraid. My card today is the first thing I've made in ages! I must say it's been nice to have a tidy work table these last weeks, lol, but having said that it was great to do some crafting again. Can't promise I'll be back any time soon, because apart from some Guest Design commitments, I'm going to wait till the urge to craft returns.

Now, when the lovely Franz asked me if I'd like to have a guest design spot at Deep Ocean Challenge this week, I really couldn't resist - they have such a talented team over there that it was an honour to get to play along with them. The theme for the new challenge is Deep Blue, and I interpreted this as the Deep Blue Sea. So I merged a couple of Make It Crafty Under The Sea images and made an underwater scene. The colouring is done mainly with copics, with a little pencil colouring on top in places.



I used some nice blue green shades of textured card for the background and the mats, and I embossed the paler shade with some dots. The embossing folder is actually snowdrops, but I think they look like bubbles. Some lace trim on one side of the card, and some gem branches, a flower and a bow made from some blue-green gauzy fabric finish it off.


Images used: Mermaid Lola, Mermaid Castle, and Sandy Sea Floor, digi stamps from Make It Crafty.

Here you can see the sparkles I added to the mermaid's tail, which didn't show up in the other photos. I also added some bubbles with a white gel pen after I took the pictures:




I'd like to enter this card in these challenges:
A&T Challenges - Anything Goes
Colour Me Creative (CMC) - Create a Background 
Craft A Scene - Anything in the Great Outdoors
Crafts & Me - Use A Digi
Emerald Faeries Challenge - Bling
Love To Create - Sparkle
Southern Girls - Water Play
The Squirrel & The Fox - The Sea
Totally Gorjuss - Lacy Lacy
Whoopsie Daisy - Anything Goes


I'm looking forward to visiting blogs this week, I won't be able to comment on every card individually, but I do look at all the ones I've missed since I've been offline. I better keep myself supplied with cups of tea and settle in for a long session, he hee.

Have a good week all.