AYLI - People or animals

 Hello friends. I hope that you are having a good week. The weather here in Dorset has been damp and warm which has been perfect for putting fertiliser on the paddocks. Not so perfect are the wet muddy dogs that take ages drying after our walks!! 

Today is the start of the fortnightly challenge at

which is People or Animals

I am never very happy with my efforts colouring hair and skin to generally go for animals as fur is much more forgiving if I make a boo boo!!

I used an old image (Squirrel with bee) from our sponsor Lee Holland Art and coloured with Promarkers. I also tried my hand at stencilling again. In real life the ink is much brighter in shades of green and peach which went quite well.

Thank you for your visit. See you Saturday xx

Feathers, Fur or Scales?

 Good Morning peeps. Well what a scorcher it has been here in the UK. Thank goodness it's cooled down a bit, I was panicking that my HRT patch might slide down my leg and out of my sandal while I was in Aldi!! 😄 Our poor animals weren't very impressed either. Martin was hosing down the ponies on Monday while I was in an air conditioned office (small mercies!!) and Bowie and Bumble just didn't know what to do with themselves. Anyway, it's passed and, lets be honest, us Brits do love to chat about the weather!!

I have a furry squirrel to share with you today. It's my  AYLI DT inspiration for you.

Our theme is Feathers, fur or scales? I am not a big fan of the former. I think I might have mentioned before that my Grandma used to let her budgies fly free around her living room. They used to scare the life out of me so feathers is definitely out. Scales.....Yuk!! So something warm and furry suits me just fine. I love my Sprollies' silky ears and there is nothing quite like the smell and feel of the velvet muzzle of a horse. I have never been in close proximity to a squirrel but I imagine that tail is soft and furry!! The cute image was from our Sponsor, Lee Holland Illustrations, and I coloured him with my Promarkers. The ombre pad jumped into my basket while I was wandering around in The Range looking for something else!!

That's all for today. 

See you soon xx

Add aTag

 Hello lovely people of blogland. I hope that you had an enjoyable weekend and are fully refreshed for the week ahead and whatever it may bring.

I had such an enjoyable time colouring the little fellow I am sharing with you today. He is Pig with Butterfly by Lee Holland who is kindly sponsoring our latest challenge at

Tags are the order of the day and I decided to make a tag shaped card blank using a nesting set from Crafters Companion which actually doesn't appear to be available any more.

The blank was cut in kraft card and then I used the smaller dies to make a lovely layered topper. I love to use chocolate brown with pink and while rummaging in my stash found some gorgeous brown glittered card that, if memory serves me, came with plain and embossed dots too in ten different colours. I am sure it came from Create and Craft many years ago...hmmm...must hunt out the other colours they must be somewhere!! Anyway, I digress, the little piggy was coloured with Promarkers and I found some complimentary ribbons and pearls to made an embellishment bundle. It won't stand up because it's top heavy but never mind, it looks so pretty and once I add the insert it should balance. 

I hope you will play along.

Have a good day xx

Simple Starts

 Hello you lovely people. I hope this new week finds you well and happy. 

It's my pleasure to be hosting the first challenge of 2022 over at

and we are breaking you in gently with a SIMPLE START, which basically means we are looking for a Clean and Simple card featuring a cute image of your choice.

Here is my inspiration for you using a really cute digi image from our sponsor.

I coloured this little cutie with my Promarkers and the Thank You was simply typed. It looked a bit flat so I added some creamy pearls and then mounted the coloured image on a snippet of some similarly coloured card that I had used to die cut a circle, previously. Much better!!

If, like me, you are hoping to be a little more crafty in 2022, I hope you will pop over to the challenge blog and join in. 

Lovely to have your company, as always. See you soon xx

Some Challenges

Crafty Catz #577 - Anything Goes +/- CAS

I Love Promarkers #501 - Anything Goes +/- Get Well

Crafty Calendar - Anything Goes

Snippets playground #419

The bear essentials...Cutie Pie

 Hello friends. I hope you had an enjoyable weekend. We were gifted wall to wall sunshine so made the most of it by taking a quick visit to West Bay on Saturday. We got there early and managed a peaceful thirty minutes on the beach, just sitting and people watching!! It was all about the four legged family members yesterday. An early morning ride followed by a session trimming the dogs with the horse clippers (UK friends...think Specsavers with the Farmer shearing the sheep!!), they look so much better for it!! It was so hot in the afternoon that we hosed down the ponies. On returning to his paddock Wills promptly got down and rolled in the mud!! 

If you've got this far I am actually here to invite you to the new Cutie Pie Challenge.

The Bear Essentials...a cute card with a bear on it...simple!!

Another challenge sponsored by Lee Holland, not used one of those images for yonks and find two consecutive Dt pieces by the same sponsor!! This little cutie was coloured with Spectrum Noir markers to match the bright and cheery paper, that I think is First Edition. The banner is from a retired Clearly Besotted set that I stamped and heat embossed. 

Thank you for stopping by and listening to my jabbering...I will leave you with a couple of snaps of the sea, what a beautiful colour too.

See you later in the week xx

Birthday Wishes

 Hello all. Hope you are well this Friday and looking forward to the weekend. 

 I have a cute squirrel to share with you today. He and his bunch of balloons is available here and his creator is the sponsor of the new challenge at

You know by now that it's always Anything Goes and your image must be hand coloured...easy!!

The original plan was to just showcase the image and balance it with the fabulous "Birthday" but it just didn't look right, boy oh boy did I panic..."what if I can't find the exact colours among my obscene amount of paper pads?" As if!! All is well though as I found just the thing in an old Echo Park A Boy's Life pad and it looked so much better. 

I have looked in awe at you clever colourists who manage to make balloons look see through so was determined to have a jolly good go. Imagine my delight when I realised that I had achieved a reasonable attempt, I really should have more confidence at my age!!

Thank you for calling, it's still a delight to see comments, they are much appreciated.

See you soon xx 

 

Feature a Creature!!

 Hello to you all. Back to the grindsstone for me today after a lovely week at home. 

What better way to kick off the week than with a cute Christmas card for our lovely new challenge at

it's a good one too...Feature a Creature...here's mine...a gorgeous piggy!!

I found the perfect paper in my stash (it's from Craftwork Cards) and coloured the image (from our Sponsor)  with Promarkers. I chopped the doily in half as I didn't want to cover up the pudding paper too much. I was a bit unsure but I actually think it works. I added stickles galore and layered the die cut sentiment from Creative Expressions.

Thank you for your visit and messages of encouragement. It means a lot, during these still uncertain times, that the crafty community continues to support each other with our comments and visits.

See you when I do!! Take Care everyone xx

Winter layers with The Cutie Pies

It's all about layering up at

I have layered my cardstock and my sweet little bunny rabbit is wearing a lovely layer too!!

Cute huh?!!

My Hubby, being 55 years old, recently had an invitation for a Colonoscopy as part of the new NHS initiative to catch any bowel cancer in it's early stages...bear with, there is a point to this tale!! He is very good about things like this ( me working in the NHS also helps!!) so we duly toddled off to Dorset County Hospital for this procedure, which was normal. While he was there I took myself off to The Range and, my word, I had a ball and bought half a dozen christmas paper pads, one of which I used here!!

 I love the unusual black background and it goes perfectly with the little tree light embellishments that were in my stash. The circular sentiment is from a very old LOTV set which is sadly starting to perish, I managed to pull a couple apart when I was taking them off the backing :0(  I heat embossed the stamped sentiment with white powder for a bit more texture.

So, that is me for today. I hope you will join us with your cute image and it doesn't actually have to be a Christmas card, winter will be just as welcome, as long as it's as cute as can be of course!!

I hope you have a good week. See you soon xx

Some challenges

Crafty Catz #347 - Anything goes +/- Christmas

Crimbo Crackers #171 - Anything Christmas Goes
Moving along with the times #84 - Winter Animals
Animal Friends Challenge #68 - Winter