Tom's card.

The recipient of this card loves sausage dogs, so when I saw this image  I thought of him and purchased this image as a digital stamp from  lili of the valley.

Retirement Card

Another Lili of the valley  digital stamp. I think this card would make a great retirement card for a guy.

As always the image  was coloured with Copic markers.

Harry's Card.

Just a quickie card created with a
Lili of the valley digital stamp.

This card is off to a young man who will be celebrating his birthday this  month.
 I printed off the image onto whisper white card stock and coloured  the image with Copic markers and mounted onto some retired DSP

Snow Globe card

The di e used for this snow globe card is another Sue Wilson  die, called snow globe, surprisingly.
Now I have to say I love snow globes but I am not really sure about the ring around what would be a glass ball on the real thing.
 I am planning to make one with out the ring around the globe to see what that looks like.
The image I used for the centre is another Lili of the valley image.  A digital image again.
The beauty of the digital image is that they can be re sized. I  made this one smaller so that it would fit in the snow globe die.

 I  am wishing now,  I had bought the treat cups that go with the snow globe die... I could have really gone to town with this one.   Think I may have order some,, he he ..... Shhhh.. don't tell  hubby.
Again I have used the retire  wheel stamp from S.U  and the white craft ink to creat this black and white background.

Christmas Jumper card

This is another lili of the valley image. It's a digital image  I purchased from the website.
I don't buy many digital stamps, I am always afraid that I will lose all my images if somethhing went wrong with my PC and it's a very old PC,  so the chance of that are very high.

 I thought this was a great image and it  reminded me of my son's reaction to some his Christmas presents over the years.  Not that I have ever bought him a Christmas jumper. The image as always was coloured with Copic markers. The background was created using a wheel stamp and white craft ink.

Wedding Anniversary Card.

Another Lili of the Valley image.  This time I used the rubber stamp version.
I  had actually bought an anniversary card for hubby, but lost it.  
So I went into panic mode and made  him this card on the day. 

I chose the colour scheme of our wedding  for this very simple card. 
I chose  this image simply  because I had a few of the images coloured in already after making my friend Sharon's wedding card. 

Hubby would not have been impressed if he didn't have a card from me.
You'll have to forgive the frayed Cherry cobbler ribbon, I didn't have time to photograph the card before I gave it to him.
The consequences being,  it's had a couple of months to fray.

Toot toot!

This is another of the Lili of the valley images. This one can be found in the men and boys collection on their website.

I love the cute images they produce. This one I think is called Toot toot.

I have coloured the image using Copic markers and mounted it onto  a piece of S.U. DSP.
The sentiment is from  an S.U stamp set called Rev up the fun.

Gone Fishing

So this summer must be the wettest summer on record. I really can't remember a summer as wet as this. It's really getting me down now. It has stopped me doing all the jobs I have wanted to catch up on this holiday.

I shouldn't be surprised really, there is always something to mess to up my plans. Usually it's something involving me injuring myself and being incapacitated for several weeks.

                                 

I guess the wet weather is a good excuse to stay in a craft, and that's exactly what I have been doing.
For these cards,  I purchased digital stamps from

www.liliofthevalley.co.uk  
(Click on the  link to go to the website.)

You can buy the images as rubber stamps as well as in digital form from the website. 
I usually buy the rubber version when I go to craft shows, but I was in  hurry and the craft show isn't until next year and I wanted something I could colour RIGHT NOW,  so I chose digital stamps. 

The plus side to digital stamps is delivery is almost instant and I didn't have to leave the house to get them, saving me time, postal costs and hubby's fuel. lol. 
If you have never tried digital stamps yet, I recommend you give them a go at least once. The bonus to having digital stamps is you can re size the images to fit any card.
The down side to digital stamps is if you don't back up your pc (like Me) and your pc goes kaput,  you've lost your entire collect of images. 

The background for the two cards above were created by sponging three different coloured inks randomly over the card stock until the card was covered and the colour was quite intense, then I over stamped used a seaweed stamp and the darkest ink of my three. 

I used  Stampin' Up s:  Marina Mist,  Night of Navy and tempting turquoise on the top card.... Bashful Blue , Almost Amethyst and Night of Navy inks on the card card in the middle. I over stamped the sponging using the seaweed stamp from the by the tide stamp set.
The last card I used  printed paper in  masculine colours. I won't add the sentiments until I know who the card is going to and what the occasion  is.

Shoveling Snow

 Here is another of those cute Lili of the valley stamps.  

Coloured using Copic Markers.  I think this would make a cute  Christmas card for a guy.

Copper Kettle New Home.

This stamp  was just too cute to pass up. So it went in my shopping basket at the  "Make it Show  at Farnborough last week.
I thought this stamp would be perfect for a "New Home" card.

I didn't want the background to be fussy on this as I feared it would detract from the small mice.

A Fur Baby Bereavement Card.

This card was a very quick card for a very lovely family that had to have their beloved dog put to sleep this week.
It is such a sad thing to have to say goodbye to a pet of any sort, but losing  a dog is especially upsetting. They become family members and you love them as you would a child,  and they love you back unreservedly and unconditionally They seem to know your every thought and understand your mood, if not your every word.  They are not just pets, they are our fur babies.

Sometimes I think it's harder to lose a  good dog than a friend or some relatives. That may sound a little harsh, but for me it's true. I still get very emotional over losing my King Charles Cavalier, who I lost 9 years ago. But I don't get as emotional over the  death of some of my relatives now.
Maybe because I  was closer to my dog than to the relatives that have passed away.

This card was created using a Lili of the valley stamp called  "Man's best friend". It's a gorgeous stamp and I love colouring this image with my copic markers,
The die cut frame is one section of the Madison Square die set by Sue Wilson. I bought the die purely for this section of it. I am not to keen on the other parts of this die set.
The sentiment is from  the "So Sorry" stamp set by Stampin' Up,,, (now retired). I used it with S.U 's whisper white craft ink.
I added an insert  with my condolences on the right of the insert and a very touching poem on the left which is sure to make any dog owner cry.